Chapter III

Dan hadn't been stopped and didn't expect to be. He wasn't a criminal, but until the hospital released him, he was technically a mental case. But Crander would hardly be anxious to report to the police that a patient was missing--not until he had tried everything else.

Merrol took the elevator. It was a bright new apartment building, which conferred some social status and not much else on those living in it.

Miss Jerrems opened the door. "Come in," she said, looking around furtively as he slipped past her.

He sat down gingerly, watching her scurry about. He tried to protest, but nothing he said had any effect on her aggressive hospitality. She thrust a cup of watery coffee in his hand and placed a tray of breakfast rolls beside him.

She sat facing him. Their knees almost touched--it was a narrow room. "I came home at once," she said, not very successful in her attempt to control her excitement. "I told them I was upset and, after my long years of service, they didn't question me. I tore my dress and told them you had done it. I said that you ran up toward the top of the building."

He appreciated her motives, but thought she shouldn't have tried so hard to convince them. Now they had reason to think he was violent.

"Until today, I've been devoted to Doctor Crander," she said sternly.

He recalled the first look on her face in the doctor's office--and the one after she had seen him. In seconds, her whole attitude had changed. Why?

"I heard what he told you." She hissed the word--"Lies."

Dan stared at her skeptically. "They didn't do what he said?"

"Oh, the facts were straight enough," she said bitterly. "It was the reasons he concealed. They thought you didn't have a chance, so they did all sorts of strange things they never tried on anyone else. You were an experiment, that's all--but you surprised them."

The hospital was looking for the wrong mental case. They had one working for them and didn't know it. He didn't doubt that she was right--about his being an experiment--but her observations were wrong. It was due entirely to their unorthodox procedures that he was alive.

She looked him over carefully and he knew that the halves of his face didn't match by a ridiculous margin, that one shoulder was heavier than the other, that his hair was in three colors. Even in repose and fully clothed, so that some of the discrepancies of his physique were hidden, he was hardly presentable.

"When I saw you standing there today, I realized what they had done to you and my loyalty to the institution and the doctor vanished," she said earnestly. "And the psychotherapy isn't to help you, it's to make sure you won't protest over what they've done. That's why I had to get you away. They've ruined you and now _you_ must ruin _them_."

He had half-suspected it would come to this--but he hadn't been sure. "I don't want to ruin them," he said slowly. "I'd rather be alive, even as an experiment. And if you're thinking of a malpractice suit, you saw the files. I couldn't win against that."

"I ought to know about the files--I worked on them." Her eyes sparkled and her voice lowered. "What if the evidence is missing?"

* * * * *

He sat back. With her co-operation, the vital parts of the file could vanish and, with that gone, he could collect a staggering amount from the institution. He had only to appear and no jury or panels of experts would decide against him. Is that what she had planned so swiftly in the director's office--that she would share the money with him? Somehow, he couldn't believe money meant that much to her. "I can't permit it," he said. "In spite of everything, I feel obligated."

She flung herself across the narrow space. "I expected you to be noble," she sobbed. "One look at you, and I knew I had met the loneliest person in the world."

Like called to like, at least for her, and that explained why she had grimaced when she had first seen him. It was her counterpart of the receptionist's reaction. It explained, too, why she was willing to turn against the doctor she had previously adored. As for the money, she didn't want it for herself, but as bait for him--and he'd have to take her with it.

She had guessed wrong on all counts. He would have thrust her away, but it would have been too cruel. He tried to comfort her, and she dried her eyes on his shoulder. "Darling," she sniffled. "I've never yielded to any man, but if it will help you...."

She pressed close and he couldn't get away without breaking through the thin walls of the cramped apartment. He had never known a female form could be shaped around so many bones. "These things take time," he said, though they didn't. "Let's not rush into anything we'll regret." He seemed to arouse the motherly instinct in some women, if only in the future tense.

Presently, she sat up, blowing her nose and looking ardently at him through tear-rimmed eyes. "You can stay here. You've no place else to go, and they'll be looking for you."

"Well," he said--but it was true. He shouldn't be wandering on the streets.

He slept that night on a sink that converted to a bed. It would have been more comfortable unconverted.

* * * * *

He crept out in the morning before she was awake. He paused outside to scribble a note, principally to throw her off his track. You never could tell with so unstable a person. Implicated in his escape, she might nevertheless report to the hospital. He shoved the note under the door and left quickly and quietly.

His first move was to buy a hat, which entailed further trouble. The doctors had overcompensated in replacing the missing brain tissue and, in piecing a skull together, had constructed an outsized head on which nothing seemed to fit. By careful shopping, he found something that did fit and, when he'd clapped it on, he happily noted it concealed the tricolor hair ... one item less to attract attention.

He ate and afterward walked to the rocketport. It was a long distance and formerly he might have complained, but now he didn't mind it. The miles seemed to have shrunk to furlongs.

He found the big _Interplanet_ sign and examined the place minutely from the outside. Once he had worked there, technically he still did. Some memories came back, but not many. He needed at least an hour inside to enable him to forget the hospital and its psychotherapy.

Once cleared, he would be free for a while to concentrate on what to do about Erica.

The hospital evidently had yet to call in the police. He was still safe on the streets, but the medicos must have notified _Interplanet_ and all other places at which he might show up. However, the company was too big for everyone to know about him this soon. More likely there would be only a few who could have information on him as yet. The trick was to bypass those individuals who might try to detain him and still get where he wanted.

Normally, he'd go to the front office after an accident. This time, he went to the side gate and when the guard looked at him questioningly, mumbled, "Reporting for duty." Which got him through.

Inside, there were more memories awaiting him. Depending on them, he walked rapidly through hall after hall and finally found the desk he sought. The man behind it looked up. "Are you sure you're in the right place?" he asked.

Merrol would soon know. "Reporting for duty," he stated.

This reply elicited a puzzled expression. "The devil you are. We haven't hired anyone new."

"I'm not new. I've been injured, and this is my first time back. Dan Merrol's my name."

"Okay, where's your slip?"

"Slip?" he asked, stalling. This was something he ought to know about, but didn't.

"Sure, the release from the front office after an injury."

"They said they'd send it down," he replied, holding his breath.

* * * * *

The clerk pawed through the stack. "They don't send nothing down," he growled. "I'll call and find out." His hand reached out and then he relaxed. "No use bothering them, it'll get here tomorrow." He looked up and laughed. "Red tape," he said by way of explanation. "Why should I doubt you? If you said they released you, then they did."

Merrol was glad to see one man who wasn't impressed by office routines. Still, his behavior was a little puzzling.

The man screened on. The communication unit was behind the desk, tilted so he couldn't see it. The volume was low, but Dan could hear the conversation from this end. "Got a case for you. Name is Dan Merrol. I don't know, he's before my time."

The reply was faint and Dan didn't catch it. But the clerk added, "He seems okay. What? Sure he's got a release. Would I send him in?"

He cut the connection and looked up. "Go over to Psych. They'll test you. If you pass, we'll put you back on schedule." He started to turn away and saw Merrol standing there. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know where Psych is."

"I see. We must have moved things since you were here." The man got up and pointed. "Down there and turn left at the second corner. You can't miss."

The examiner was scanning a card as he entered. "Lots of experience," he commented. "We'll pass over the written stuff. That's for kids, to make sure they've studied their lessons. After you've been out this long, you can almost feel a course faster than anyone can figure it."

It was a relief. Merrol didn't know how much theory he remembered, but was sure he could still lift a ship as well as the next man.

The examiner made a notation on the card and tossed it into a machine that snapped it up and clicked furiously over it. "Let's take the biggest thing first, if you're up to it."

"I feel fine." It was not true, but it was the customary answer. Anything else, and he'd be shunted off into a series of meaningless tests, each designed to verify the results of previous tests. An ingenious scheme rigged up by the psych crew in their spare time to see how complicated they could make any given system. Answered straightforwardly, they rushed a man through with a minimum of officiousness.

"Okay, let's take the trip."

He accompanied Dan into a room unlike the others. For one thing, it might have been the control room of a ship. Forward, there was the usual clear view. The stars were there too, in an adaptation of the planetarium. Outside, arranged to give any effect from top acceleration to free fall, were a number of gravity coils. Except for the pilot--and Merrol would play that role--there was a full complement of officers who were invisible.

* * * * *

The tester flicked on a machine. "I'll give you Mars, because that's your usual run. This is a short drive, because you're in a favorable position. Got it?"

Merrol nodded and climbed into the seat, facing the instruments.

"I've turned on the best crew simulators, better than you'd ever actually get. Don't worry about them, just take the data and flit the way you think you should." The tester clamped a mike inches away and adjusted the visio-recorders firmly on his head, where electron beams could sneak in and tap his optic centers. "The first trip after you've been away is rough, but you'll make it."

Merrol strapped himself in and hoped the other man was right.

The examiner went to the door, turned and grinned. "Watch out for the interplanetary goose," he called and snapped the switch.

Merrol was now in a ship. In the back of his mind there was some doubt of his ability, but it didn't reach as far as his fingers. Rockets vibrated beneath him. Outside, he could see the glazed earth-slick. He touched the power and climbed above the clouds. The sky turned black and there were stars.

He checked position. The tester had given him a setup. The Moon was out of the way and the run to Mars was the shortest on record. If he couldn't handle this, he wasn't a pilot.

The seat jabbed him suddenly. That's what he'd been warned about--he'd been expecting it and still wasn't prepared. The tempathy drugs flooded into him and the needle was withdrawn.

Takeoff and landing were always rehearsed on the pilot's own time. The ends of a voyage were critical and it was essential to have an undistorted reaction. Besides, neither took long.

The time between one planet and the next was long and nothing much happened, so it could be shortened without deleterious effect on the results. Tempathy drugs shortened it, though not completely. Part of a man's consciousness went along at normal speed and the rest, that which counted in jockeying rockets, was enormously telescoped.

It telescoped on Merrol. He couldn't see. Rather, part of him could but, for the other fraction, images passed in front of his eyes too fast for his mind to evaluate. Weeks flipped past in minutes. It was a dream world turned inside out--the roles of consciousness and unconsciousness were reversed.

There was something wrong with the sounds he half-heard. He could get emotions, though he couldn't separate them into sense. There were additional voices that shouldn't be there--the mechanical crew spoke to him giving silent data--but there were other actual voices, fearful or consolatory. He tried to speak, but his vocal cords were preempted.

He was doing it all, speaking, moving the controls, directing the ship between planets. It ought to be easier than takeoff, but it wasn't. He shouldn't be afraid of anything he might find out there--which was nothing--but that didn't alter conditions. He was profoundly disturbed, and he hoped the tester noticed it.

The examiner did spot trouble. He opened the door and reversed the switch. Lights went on, and another needle speared him, counteracting the effects of the tempathy drugs. Slowly the ship disappeared, space along with it, and the room whirled back into view and settled down. Something handed him back his eyes and ears.

"Easy," said the man. "Sit there. You don't have to move. We'll find out what's wrong. It may not be serious at all."

* * * * *

Unhooking the visio-recorder, the tester also swung the mike away. "You were doing fine," he said. "Never saw anything smoother. About here, though, you seemed to be having difficulty. We'll slow it down and see what it was."

He snapped the reels in place and darkened the room. On the screen was the vision-port and, through it, a view of Mars. A fleck of light glittered, grew, became a cloud, a swarm. A swarm?

"God!" said the tester, bewildered. "A billion butterflies! How could you imagine butterflies, twenty million miles from a planet?"

Merrol squirmed--he didn't know either. What was wrong with him to make him dream up butterflies?

The examiner switched the film off and the lights on. "So you missed them--why, I don't know." He fiddled with another machine. "We'll slow down the sound, synchronize the two of them later, but maybe by itself the sound will give us a clue as to what happened."

"What's that?" It came from the sound track, but it was Merrol's voice.

"Those are lepidoptera." Another voice, also his, though of different pitch and timbre--his, because he was the only one there to speak. "I've always dreamed of discovering a new species and at last I have, since these can fly through space. What strange adaptations they have made. Aren't they beautiful?"

He answered. "They won't be when I plow through them. The rockets will fry them."

"Turn aside!" shouted the lepidopterist. "You can't destroy them."

"I'm going to act as if this were not happening," said a cultured voice. "_Bang-bang!_"

"This is upsetting," said a different person. "Since I have no instrument, I'll listen with my memory to a Bach concerto. Unfortunately, it ends in the middle of the third movement, as though it has been sliced through with a knife that separated one note cleanly from the next. Still, it's better to have this than nothing."

"Your computers are awfully slow," said the fifth. "I'll figure out a new course for us."

"Gimme the controls," said the wrestler. "I'll turn the ship, if I hafta do it with my bare hands."

The examiner snapped off the sound and busied himself with things that may have been necessary. "You don't have to sit there," he said after a while. "Wait outside." He glanced down, "Be careful when you move, the control column will fall off. Didn't know it could be broken."

As he got out of the seat, the examiner slapped his back. "Tell you what, fellow--don't wait--go now to the Compensation Board and see about retirement."