But yet it was so damned humiliating — to have a woman suggest that he voluntarily let his own persona go dybbuk. Did she really think he was as worthless as that? Yes. Yes, she did. He scowled. Perhaps, he thought, it was time for him to junk his old-line ideals and try a little craftiness. He could always promise to do as Elena wished, and change his mind afterward. The important thing now was to get at St. John.
He said heavily, “You ask a stiff price.”
“I know. But there’s logic to it. Isn’t there?”
“Yes. Yes.” He paced about, clenching his fists. “All right,” he said. “Damn you, yes! Have your Kravchenko!”
“A deal, then?”
“A deal. Where is Martin St. John?”
“He was taken to Mark Kaufmann’s Manhattan apartment.” Noyes gasped. “I should have known it. But I can’t see him there, Elena! I can’t walk right into Mark’s own house and—”
“Mark went to California yesterday on business,” said Elena. “He won’t be back until tomorrow. His daughter’s still in Europe. There’s no one in his apartment but St. John and the servants looking after him. I’ll take you there now.”
“Let’s go,” he said. She shed her robes with no trace of modesty while he watched, and selected light sprayon garments. They went out. The hopter journey to Manhattan was swift. Noyes felt as though trapped in a dream, with every event converging on a predestined climax with incredible rapidity and ease.
At the door of Kaufmann’s apartment, Elena presented her thumb. The door did not open. She explained, “I don’t have instant-access privileges. The scanner reports that I’m here, and checks to see if there’s any order to bar me. In the absence of a specific order, I can come in.”
“Why all the precaution?”
“Mark sometimes has other women with him,” she said simply, as the door opened. Noyes had never been in Mark Kaufmann’s home before. It was elegant and spacious, with wings of rooms stretching to the sides and straight ahead. A blank-faced, snub-headed robot appeared. Elena said, “We’re here to visit Mr. St. John.”
The robot ushered them into a bedroom of huge size, dark, decked with brocaded draperies rising from projectors at the baseboards along the floor. Tones of green, cerise, and violet played across the ceiling. Sitting propped up in bed was a wearylooking, blue-eyed young man with light yellow hair, sallow skin, a rounded nose, a weak chin. Noyes paused at the doorway.
He realized, numbed, that he was in the presence of Paul Kaufmann.
There was an electric moment of confrontation. The unprepossessing figure in the bed seemed to take on strength and intensity as though it were flowing to him from some inner reserve. The eyes brightened; the head rose; the chin jutted. Above the bed was mounted a solido portrait of Paul Kaufmann in late middle age, an imperious eagle of a man. Despite the total difference in physical appearance, the man in the bed suddenly had that same imperious look.
“Yes?” he said. “Who are you?” The voice was cracked and unfocused; Paul Kaufmann, only hours into his borrowed body, had not yet mastered it.
“My name is Charles Noyes. I believe you already know Elena Volterra.”
“Noyes? Noyes of Roditis Securities?”
“That’s right,” Noyes said. “You know me?”
“It was my business to know the Roditis organization, yes. Well, what are you doing here? How did you get in? Roditis men don’t belong here.”
“I brought him,” said Elena. “He asked to see you, and I owed him a favor.”
“Take him away,” Kaufmann/ St. John snapped. He waved his hand in what was meant as a gesture of dismissal; but his coordination was still poor, and his arm flapped in an awkward overswing that brought it slapping against the headboard.
Elena looked stymied. She did not move. “Away,” came the petulant command. “Out of here. Out of here!
I must rest. I’ve been through a great deal. If you knew what it was like to die, to awaken, to enter a strange body …” His words trickled away into incoherence. The Kaufmann dybbuk seemed exhausted by the effort of speaking. The brilliance and intensity vanished from the eyes as though a switch had been thrown; he was resting, regaining his powers.
Elena said doubtfully, “If he doesn’t want to see you—”
“He’ll give me five minutes,” Noyes told her. “Look, wait outside for me, yes? I won’t be with him long.” She nodded and left the room. Noyes did not pretend to himself that Elena would fail to comprehend what he was about to do. But he doubted that she would expose him. He closed the door carefully behind her.
Kaufmann/ St. John looked harsh and arrogant again. “I order you to leave!”
Approaching the bed, Noyes said quietly, “Just a few minutes. I want to talk. Do you find it very confusing, coming back to the world? You expected to have to fight through to dybbuk, didn’t you? Not to have a body handed to you like this. You know, there was quite a dispute over who was going to be your carnate. Roditis was very anxious to get you. But Santoliquido flimflammed him by finding this empty body. Don’t you agree it might have been more interesting to wake up in Roditis’ skull?”
As he spoke, Noyes steadily drew nearer the bed. Paul Kaufmann glowered at him. The flaccid muscles of his new face strained with the effort to rise and hurl the intruder from his room. But he could not do it.
“If you don’t leave here at once—”
“Can’t we discuss things peacefully?” Noyes asked. His long fingers enfolded the container of the cyclophosphamide-8 capsule. “Here Have a drink of water. Let me tell you about a deal Roditis has in mind. A great profit opportunity.”
He picked up a drinking glass in his left hand, filled it halfway with water, and began to bring the concealed capsule toward it. But it was no use. Those strange washed-out blue eyes moved twitchingly, taking in everything. Noyes realized he could not bring off the sleight-of-hand successfully. Kaufmann/ St. John would guess what he was trying to do and would put up a fight, clumsily, perhaps, but effectively enough to spill the irreplaceable poison or to get the robot servitors into the room.
Noyes could not afford to be subtle. He leaned toward the man in the bed. In a low voice he said. “You’ll be better off in a different carnate form.”
“What do you—” As the lips parted, Noyes shot his hand forward, applied pressure to the lemon-colored box to open it, and sent the deadly capsule into his victim’s mouth. At the same time he pressed two forked fingers of his other hand against Kaufmann/ St. John’s Adam’s apple. The man gulped. The capsule went down.
There was scathing fury in the blue eyes. Kaufmann/ St. John flailed impotently at Noyes with weak, badly coordinated arms. His hands wobbled as if about to fly from their wrists. But the face was a study in malevolence; all the full vitality of Paul Kaufmann was harnessed and hurled forth in a crescendo of frustrated rage and vindictive hostility. Clusters of muscles churned and spasmed beneath the surface of his cheeks. Exposed to that blast of hatred, Noyes recoiled, singed by the fire of this incredible old man.
But then, within the minute, the discorporation began. Noyes watched only the beginning of it. Backing away from the bed, he saw the fire go out, saw the look of puzzlement and anguish appear. Strange internal events were commencing. The floodgates of the ductless glands had opened all at once, pouring forth an impossible mixture of secretions that mingled and reacted violently. The synchrony of heart and lungs was destroyed. The brain itself scorned the messages of its sensory perceptors. Instant by instant, the body of Martin St. John proceeded toward self-destruction.
Noyes fled. Elena caught hold of him in the corridor outside. “Where are you going? What happened?”
“Get a doctor,” Noyes burst out. “He’s sick — some kind of stroke, I don’t know—”