The change in her could be seen at once. A certain air of seriousness, of maturity, that he had never perceived before.
The guard closed the door, leaving the two of them alone.
“You look like a sleepwalker,” he said presently.
“I’m awake for the first time in my life. Sit down. I have something to say to you.”
Cautiously, he seated himself at the foot of the bunk.
Joan said, “I have always told everyone, including myself, that the thing that came first with me was my career in TV. But that was a lie, even though it was a lie I convinced myself I believed in. There have been times when I’ve told myself I was in love with one man or another. You, for one. But that wasn’t true either. I threw away my career when I went into the mountains looking for you, and I’ve goofed up every love affair I’ve ever had, one way or another. Time and again, when success in one project or another was almost in my possession, I did some damn fool thing that ruined everything for me. Now I know that the one thing I’ve always feared most, deep down inside, was to succeed, to get the things I thought I wanted. I’ve always thought that people were against me, or that I had bad luck, but my real enemy was me. All my life, whenever I’ve tried to get something, the same demonic figure has stepped into my path and commanded me to halt, the same relentless phantom with my face. Doctor Balkani gave me a knife and let me kill that phantom. She screamed, Percy; she screamed for hours as I slowly cut her to pieces, as I washed myself clean of her. Now she’s dead and if I feel anything for her it’s a kind of loneliness. I’m all alone now that Joan Hiashi is dead.”
“You’re psychotic,” Percy said sharply. “Because of the suffering you underwent; I know: I stayed in contact with you.”
“I’m not insane, Percy. And Balkani is only helping me to find what I’ve always wanted, all that time I pretended I wanted fame and prestige and money and you. He’s given me the courage to see—”
“He’s given you mental and spiritual death. “Oblivion,” Joan said.
“Can’t you see what he’s done to you?”
“Who, God?” Joan asked in a far-away voice. “No, Balkani!”
‘ ‘Doctor Balkani is my friend. If I have an enemy it must be God.”
He grabbed her by the arm, yanked her toward him. “I know what you experienced; don’t you understand? Because of my talent I was there in the water and silence with you—you’re not telling me anything I didn’t go through myself. What I’m telling
you is that—” He broke off, tried to think it out. “You felt love for me; I did also, for you. What wasn’t real about that?’’ He clutched her arm, squeezing fiercely. “Answer me—”
“What do you see,” Joan said, “when you look at me? A little Japanese doll; isn’t that right? I don’t blame you for that. I gave myself to you for a plaything and you played with me. What could be more natural? But I’m more than a doll. I really am tall, Percy; tall as a mountain. I’m tired of hunching down.”
“Nobody is asking you to hunch down.” He tightened his grip on her arm.
“You’re a telepath; you read men’s minds. But you don’t understand them. Doctor Balkani does not read minds, but he understands completely. How do you explain that, Percy X? I know why it is.” She smiled her strange, distant smile. “Balkani has read one mind down to its darkest depths. His own mind. Because he understands himself completely he doesn’t need telepathy to understand others. Don’t be fooled by the fact that he takes drugs; if you saw yourself the way you really are, as he sees himself, you’d need drugs, too, to stand it. You might even kill yourself. Because we are all monsters, Percy. Demons from hell—foul, filthy, perverted and evil.” She spoke these words calmly, without a particle of emotion.
Percy said, “Stop talking like that.”
Carefully, she removed Percy X’s hands from her arm. “From now on I say what I wish. I’ve spoken to you honestly for the first time and you’ve acted as if I were insane; psychotic, as you put it. Okay. I ex-
pected that. I see that in order to be clear I must also be cruel. I’ve been trying to explain, all this time, that I don’t need you any more, Percy. Or anyone else.”
Late at night, after the last customer had left the fortune-telling parlor, Paul Rivers and Ed Newkom opened the crates which had arrived by rocket freight earlier in the day.
“Weapons, eh?” Ed said with satisfaction. “Something to fight our way into Balkani’s—”
“Not exactly,” Paul Rivers said, removing armfuls of plastic-foam padding from the foremost crate.
A robot lay in the crate. And, in the other crate, there would be a second robot. Both based on prototypes which Balkani himself had designed during the war. And now remodeled, Paul Rivers said to himself, to serve my own purposes.
“And what’s this?” Ed demanded. “A high- frequency transmitter?”
“No, a sensory distorter.” This, too, had been one of Balkani’s inventions, dating back to the pre-war Bureau of Psychedelic Research. “We’ll test these items out tonight, to make certain they work. Then contact Percy X and spring him as soon as we can.
Dawn had almost come when Percy X, lying sleepless on his cot in his cell, heard the voice of Paul Rivers speak within his mind.
“Tomorrow, Percy.”
But how? Percy thought.
Quickly and without wasting words, Paul outlined his plan. It impressed Percy X, impressed him very much.
“Now I’m going to bed and try to get a few hours’ sleep,” Paul Rivers telepathed. “And I advise you to do the same. I’ll see you tomorrow, if nothing goes wrong.”
Percy felt the amplified mind of Doctor Rivers switch off, leaving only a last fleeting impression of great weariness.
Sleep. That was easy enough to say, Percy thought, but not so easy to achieve. Something lay in the back of his mind, something which ate away at him without letup, draining away his strength and resolution slowly and steadily. He wondered what it was.
A picture of Balkani’s face rose in Percy X’s mind. The beard. The pipe. The fire-ignited glittering eyes with the dilated pupils. No matter who rules this planet, Percy realized, Balkani will still find a place in the ruling class. . And what about me? he asked himself. What in God’s name is happening back in Tennessee? What are my last Neeg-parts doing? As-uming any are left.
I’ve got to get out of here, he said to himself. If I stay, Balkani will have me the way he had Joan.
Only a matter of time, he realized. And, when that happens, it’ll be foreordained as far as the bale is concerned.
He would not be getting any sleep, not with such thoughts lodged starkly in his mind.
At dawn the garbage truck came crashing and banging down the old highway beside the fjord and halted at the guard station just before the bridge, as it had done so many times over the years. The guards gave it a routine inspection and let it by. The truck
crossed the single-span suspension bridge and made its way, roaring, snorting and wheezing, up the road to the gates of the prison. There it was again inspected and again passed, to park at last behind the prisoners’ mess hall. Two men in white coveralls stepped out, marched over to the garbage shed and disappeared inside. A moment later two guards stepped out into the sunlight and made their way briskly down the hallways that led from the kitchen.
A clank of keys sounded at the lock of Percy X’s door and a voice said, “Routine check. Step outside a minute, will you?” Percy scanned the area tele- pathically. Nobody was anywhere near.
He looked in the direction of the voice. There stood a man in a guard’s uniform. It was Percy X.
For a moment the human Percy X and the robot Percy X gazed at each other; then the human stepped out into the hall, where no TV spy-monitors watched. A moment later the robot Percy X reentered the room and lay down on the cot, while the human Percy X, now dressed in the guard’s uniform, locked the door.