"He was out cold," Eleanor said in a thin clipped voice. She had pulled on her slacks and sandals and thrown a greatcoat over her shoulders. Her face was colorless; her deep red hair was stringy and vapid. "He can't go through with it in a conscious condition. Get one of the lab doctors in here to black him. And don't try to utilize this. Put him back before you say anything to him. He can't take it now, you understand?"
Moore appeared, shaken and afraid. "There's no harm done. I jumped the gun a little, that's all." He caught hold of Benteley's arm. "Come along. Well get this straightened around right away."
Benteley pulled loose. He retreated from Moore and examined his alien hands and face. "Verrick," his voice said, thin and empty. "Help me."
"We'll fix it up," Verrick said gruffly. "It'll be all right. Here's the doctor now."
Both Verrick and the doctor had hold of him. Herb Moore fluttered a few paces off, afraid to come near Verrick. At the desk Eleanor wearily lit a cigarette and stood smoking, as the doctor inserted the needle in Benteley's arm and squashed the bulb. As darkness dissolved him, he heard Verrick's heavy voice dim and recede.
"You should have killed him or let him alone; not this kind of stuff. You think he's going to forget.this?"
Moore answered something, but Benteley didn't hear. The darkness had become complete, and he was in it.
A long way off Eleanor Stevens was saying, "You know, Reese doesn't really understand what Pellig is. Have you noticed that?"
"He doesn't understand any kind of theory." Moore's voice, sullen and resentful.
"He doesn't have to understand theory. Why should he, when he can hire infinite numbers of bright young men to understand it for him?"
"I suppose you mean me."
"Why are you with Reese? You don't like him. You don't get along with him."
"Verrick has money to invest in my kind of work. If he didn't back it, I'd be out of luck."
"When it's all over, Reese gets the output."
"That's not important. Look, I took MacMillan's papers, all that basic stuff he did on robots. What ever came of that? Just these witless hulks, glorified vacuum cleaners, stoves, dumbwaiters. MacMillan had the wrong idea. All he wanted was something big and strong to lift things, so the unks could lie down and sleep. So there wouldn't be any more unk servants and laborers. MacMillan was pro-unk. He probably bought his classification on the black market."
There was the sound of movement: People stirring, getting up and walking, the clink of a glass.
"Scotch and water," Eleanor said.
There was the sound of sitting down. A man sighed gratefully. "I'm tired. What a night. I'm going to turn in early. A whole day gone to waste."
"It was your fault."
"He'll keep. He'll be there for good old Keith Pellig."
"You're not going to go over the implementation, not in your condition."
Moore's voice was full of outrage. "He's mine, isn't he?"
"He belongs to the world," Eleanor said icily. "You're so wrapped up in your verbal chess-games, you can't see the danger you're putting us in. Every hour that crackpot has gives him a better chance of survival. If you hadn't gone berserk and turned everything on its head to pay off a personal grudge, Cartwright might already be dead."
It was evening.
Benteley stirred. He sat up a little, surprised to find himself strong and clear-headed. The room was in semi-darkness. A single light gleamed, a tiny glowing dot that he identified as Eleanor's cigarette. Moore sat beside her, legs crossed, a whiskey glass in his hand, face moody and remote. Eleanor stood up quickly and turned on a table lamp. "Ted?"
"What time is it?" Benteley demanded.
"Eight-thirty." She came over to the bed, hands in her pockets. "How are you feeling?"
He swung his legs shakily onto the floor. They had wrapped him in a standard nightrobe; his clothes were nowhere in sight. "I'm hungry," he said. Suddenly he clenched his fists and struck wildly at his face.
"It's you," Eleanor said, matter-of-fact.
Benteley's legs wobbled under him as he stood unsteadily. "I'm glad of that. It really happened?"
"It happened." She reached around to find her cigarette. "It'll happen again, too. But next time you'll be prepared. You, and twenty-three other bright young men."
"Where are my clothes?"
"Why?"
"I'm getting out of here."
Moore got up quickly. "You can't walk out; face facts. You discovered what Pellig is—you think Verrick would turn you loose?"
"You're violating the Challenge Convention rules." Benteley found his clothes in a side closet and spread them out on the bed. "You can only send one assassin at a time. This thing of yours is rigged so it looks like one, but—"
"Not so fast," Moore said. "You haven't got it quite doped out."
Benteley unfastened his nightrobe and tossed it away. "This Pellig is nothing but a synthetic."
"Right."
"Pellig is a vehicle. You're going to slam a dozen high-grade minds into it and head it for Batavia. Cartwright will be dead, you'll incinerate the Pellig-thing, and nobodyll know. You'll pay off your minds and send them back to their workbenches. Like me."
Moore was amused. "I wish we could do that. As a matter of fact, we gave it a try. We jammed three personalities into Pellig at once. The results were chaos. Each took off in a different direction."
"Does Pellig have any personality?" Benteley asked, as he dressed. "What happens when all the minds are out?"
"Pellig becomes what we call, vegetable. He doesn't die, but he devolves to a primitive level of existence. The body processes continue; it's a kind of twilight sleep."
"What kept him going last night at the party?"
"A bureaucrat from my lab. A negative type like what you saw; the personality comes across about the same. Pellig is a good medium: not too much distortion or refraction."
Benteley veered away from the memory as he said, "When I was in it, I thought Pellig was there with me."
"I felt the same way," Eleanor agreed calmly. "The first time I tried it I felt as if there was a snake in my slacks. It's an illusion. When did you first feel it?"
"When I looked in the mirror."
"Try not looking in the mirror. How do you think _I_ felt? At least you're a male. It was a little too tough on me; I don't think Moore should try women operators. Too high a shock value."
"You don't jam them in without warning, do you?"
"We've built up a trained crew," Moore said. "Over the last few months we've tried out dozens of people. Most of them crack. A couple of hours and they get a weird sort of claustrophobia. They want to get away from it, like Eleanor says, as if it's something slimy and dirty close to them." He shrugged. "I don't feel that way. I think he's beautiful."
"How many have you got?" Benteley asked.
"We've got a couple dozen who can stand it. Your friend Davis is one. He has the right personality: placid, calm, easy-going."
Benteley tightened. "So this is his new classification. That he beat the Quiz at."
"Everybody goes up a notch for this. Bought off the black market, of course. You're in on it, according to Verrick. It's not as risky as it sounds. If something goes creeper, if they start popping at Pellig, whoever's in there at the moment will be withdrawn."
"So that's the method," Benteley said, half to himself. "Successive."
"Let's see them prove a Challenge violation," Moore said spiritedly. "We've had our legal staff going over all the wherefores and aforesaids. There's nothing they can get us on. The law specifies one assassin at a time, chosen by public Convention. Keith Pellig was chosen by public Convention, and there won't be more than one of him."