Then there came a day when a delegation from the ship-passengers waited on him. The Planetary President of Maninea headed it; he was accompanied by the Minister of State of Kholar, the Chairman of the Lower House Committee, the Speaker of the Senate, the Minister of Commerce, and others. It was a stately delegation, though now and again muscles twitched in what should have been composed features.
"Mr. Bedell!" said the Planetary President. "The municipal authorities tell me that some scientists believe you know what has caused the monstrous state of affairs in which we find ourselves."
"Together with the Astrophysical Institute," said Bedell mildly, "I've offered some suggestions. We're trying to get experimental evidence for certain ideas. There are a number of things that seem to support the opinion we hold. But it isn't yet proved."
There was a pause. The Planetary President said firmly, "Suppose you tell us, Mr. Bedell! Decisive action must be taken, and soon! Where did that other ship and its company of impostors come from?"
"Where did we come from?" asked Bedell matter-of-factly.
"No hocus-pocus!" rasped the Minister of Commerce. "We're in no mood to be trifled with! Answer the question!"
"There's some resemblance between the two ship's companies," insisted Bedell, "so the question's relevant. We come from Kholar. But more certainly we come from ten days ago and the marriage of our parents. We come from the voyages of the early explorers of space. We come from events more surely than from places. I'm here because by accident I got passage on the Corianis. You are here from a longer but certain series of events. Do you understand? If you want to know where the other ship comes from, I have to name events rather than places!"
"This is nonsense!" fumed the Minister of Commerce.
"It's the fact…"
"Answer the question!" commanded the Planetary President, ominously. "Where did the impostors come from? How have they deceived the police? I warn you that there can be no more delay! These frauds must be unmasked, and at once…"
"The evidence-what there is-" said Bedell angrily, "points to this ship as the abnormal, and you as the impostors! It's very probable that this is the ship which doesn't belong here!"
Anger bubbled over. These were practical men who'd been unable to do anything practical. They were half-mad with nerve-strain and frustration and bewilderment. Every man of them faced the possibility that an impostor might take his name and place and identity, and acquire with them his destiny and all his achievements. It was intolerable even to fear such a thing. These men wanted an answer that would give them something violent and satisfying to do.
"Damned nonsense!" raged the Minister of Commerce. "We know what we've got to do. Let's get it over with!"
And Bedell suddenly roared at them. He astonished himself. But he was no longer the mild and diffident and self-conscious person that previous events had made of him. Recent events had made it necessary for him to act in a new fashion.
"Idiots!" he roared. "Idiots! Your doubles on the other Corianis think the same way you do! Half an hour ago- not having a me to annoy beforehand-they tried to rush the police between these two ships, to get inside here and every man kill his own counterpart! The police gassed them down! That's what you'll try! And the police will gas you down! Try to reach that other ship to do murder! Try it!"
He glared at them and stamped from the room. Kathy followed him. Outside, he turned to glare at her because he thought she was one of the delegation. But he nodded when he recognized her.
"I had to shout at them*" he said morosely. "They aren't actually idiots. They're desperate. They're ready to kill to settle who they are, and who their families will welcome, and who their children will call father. Damn them! They've gotten so worked up that they're willing to commit suicide to get things back to normal! The men at the Astrophysical Institute have worked with me, and that's what has to be done. And there's no danger to it at all! But how can a man argue with men half-crazy with worry? Damn this business!"
XI
As a matter-of-fact precaution, the police of Maninea removed the signal-rockets from both Corianis during the forenoon of the next day. The signal-rockets carried fission bombs. The police also mounted guns that could be used if either Corianis took off without authority. The occupants of both ships visibly teetered on the edge of crackups. It was simple reason to disarm them as far as possible, after a mass attempt by the men of one ship to invade the other. The authorities of Maninea, withholding authority from the Planetary President because there were two of him, behaved with conspicuous sanity.
But sanity did not make matters easier for anybody. There were rumblings and mutterings everywhere. Science could not explain how duplicate ships and duplicate persons had come into being; so the man on the street either tried to think for himself-without much success-or else accepted the most dramatic explanation suggested by anybody else.
The most alarming suggestion was, of course, that protean, monstrous creatures from far-away worlds of horror, able to assume the forms of men, had come to Maninea to pass as humans and practise their grisly amusements with humans as victims and subjects.
An ill-advised humorist presented himself in a small city a hundred miles from the capital. As a practical joke, he pretended to have been a passenger on the Corianis.
To increase the effect of his jest, he was so unwise as to pretend an ill-concealed appetite for human flesh. To bring his practical joke to its peak, he put what appeared to be bloodstains on his linen where he could pretend to be unaware of them. He saw the horror and the terror he inspired. He was enormously amused. In fact, he was in a visiphone booth, hilariously telling a distant friend about the joke he'd played on the simple yokels, when he found them congregating about the booth.
He opened the door and, chortling, made terrifying noises.
They tore him to pieces.
A child was missed by its mother half a thousand miles from the spaceport. She screamed that the monsters from space had taken it. A mob formed and went surging here and there looking for somebody to kill. Fortunately, they found nobody.
A horror-broadcast impresario misguidedly took advantage of the public absorption in monsters. He produced a broadcast play dealing with the invasion of a planet by creatures which could take the forms of men, at will. The production simulated a newscast, but it was fiction. It was announced as such, and three times during its presentation the audience was reminded that it was make-believe. But the audience saw characters in the drama- of perfectly human aspect-let themselves relax and flow into horrible, shapeless slugs, which crawled over and devoured other members of the dramatis personae. It was not a good play, but its audience panicked because it had the form of a news broadcast. Citizens armed themselves desperately. They overwhelmed the police with demands for instruction and protection. Many sober-sided, civilized men fled with their families to the wilds.