III
A dim, slender figure swirled dizzily in front of him. He hoped she was a nurse, but he could only see the flowing whiteness of her as she moved to the door. “You can come in, Miss Farrell,” she said.
Miss Farrell came in. She was better known to Talbot as Randy, and close up she was even more breathtaking than when he had first seen her. His vision was steadying a little now.
“Just a few minutes—not longer,” the nurse cautioned.
Randy sat down beside him, touching his face lightly. He could feel the gentle pressure of her fingers through the bandages. “Don’t try to talk,” she said. “I’ll say everything that has to be said. And it won’t take long.”
He blinked in grateful understanding. It wasn’t a wholly satisfactory form of communication, but her nearness soothed him.
“We haven’t found out how that thermal capsule got there,” she said. “We know it was hot, however. It had a temperature of at least a half million degrees, despite its extreme smallness. After you get well enough to talk freely we’ll try to reconstruct what happened.”
He nodded slightly, and the effort sent a wave of pain coursing through him.
“So much for that,” she said. “You’ll get well. There won’t even be scars. You’re lucky. Did you know it?”
He knew it. But he knew also that it wasn’t only luck. Soleri had saved his life at the expense of his own.
Then she said an incredible thing. “All we found of the other poor devil was his lower arm. The card was still clutched in his hand. It was scorched but not burned. I gave it to one of our mathematicians and he has worked out two curves that might fit. The man was everything you said he was—and more. I wish he’d lived.”
Talbot closed his eyes in stunned protest. She was making a mistake, a crazy utterly incomprehensible mistake. He tried to tell her—but there was only a gurgle in his throat.
“Don’t bat your eyes at me,” she said in mock reproof. “It’s true. The lowest empathy index registered is zero point eight. Right? Well, this man was zero point five. The mathematician couldn’t be sure, but he thought it might be even lower.”
She brushed the hair away from her lovely eyes. “Perhaps I should have kept it to myself. No one could possibly have the index the curve indicated. There are limits to human credulity.”
Again he tried to tell her that it was Soleri who had died. Soleri! But the bandages were too tight and his weakness too overwhelming.
But how could she have made such a mistake? True, he’d been wearing the same clothing as Soleri and the dead man had been clutching his employment card. But a woman who had been close to Soleri, who had seen him every day, would surely know—
She leaned over, brushing her lips against his eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I disposed of the remains—and put him on the payroll. Roving assignment, reporting only to you. After six months we can arrange to make it appear that he was killed in an accident.”
His eyes! She’d known Soleri well enough to remember that the dead man’s eyes were dark, not gray. Women were never in error about things like that. He blinked frantically, but she failed to draw the correct conclusion.
“Why six months?” she smiled. “Because I have the company’s interest at heart. Otherwise we’d have to pay the full death benefit. If he’s on the payroll after six months the insurance company must assume the responsibility. His salary will be much less than the death benefit. He’s dead. Nothing we can do will bring him back. We may as well save some money.”
The logic was acceptable, but she had the wrong man. He groaned in frustration and the sound escaped as a muffled protest from his tortured and burned throat.
Instantly the nurse reappeared.
“That’s all, Miss Farrell. He’ll rest better for knowing what happened. But I think you’ve told him enough.”
Randy bent over. “Everything’s all right,” she whispered. “Get well.”
And then the nurse found an unbandaged region on his right shoulder and jabbed him. He ceased to feel or hear anything.
It was that way for the next few days, a dim and shadowy routine which he was vaguely and occasionally aware of. From time to time he felt stronger but the nurse had a needle ready and always used it. They intended to make certain that he did not prematurely exert himself.
Finally a day came when the nurse wasn’t there. It had apparently been decided that he was ready to rejoin the living. He lay motionless on the bed, staring down at his folded arms. His right hand was bandaged; his left was not. He raised both hands to his face. The bandages were fewer, lighter than before.
Sooner or later, he told himself, the bandages would have to come off. Then what? Then the truth would be known to everyone. Still, he wasn’t in an enviable position. He had gone at such an early hour to Soleri’s office that no one had seen him. He had only Soleri’s word as to his honesty of purpose—and Soleri was dead. Randy had made things worse with her silly attempt to hush things up. He was in a serious mess—and had no way of knowing what was going to come out of it.
He got up shakily. He had made up his mind. He must leave the hospital. He knew it was foolish, but that didn’t stop him. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and found to his relief that he could stand. He teetered precariously for an instant and then stood upright.
There was a closet on the opposite side of the room. He wobbled toward it, wrenched the door open. It contained a robe but no clothes. As he braced himself in the doorway he caught sight of his face in the mirror on the back of the door. His brow was gleaming with perspiration and his eyes glittered darkly in the expanse of white. The bandages would have to come off.
It was painful but not as bad as he had thought it might be. He found an edge and pried at the masklike plaster. The bandages came off in one piece. His raw skin burned as air came in contact with it. It stung and burned, but he scarcely noticed the pain.
He stared at his reflection.
Now he knew what Randy had refused to tell him because she didn’t believe it herself. The empathy index of the man she supposed dead was not zero point five. It was much less than that.
It was zero.
And zero was identity.
The face looking back at him was not that of Hal Talbot. It was Evan Soleri. It was Evan Soleri even to the dark eyes and the stubble of black hair that was beginning to grow in on his burned scalp.
Talbot or Soleri, he went back to bed.
He lay very still. His mind raced back, to the scene in the office. He had thought there were two sounds, the strange one slightly before the thermal explosion. But the first had not been a sound at all. He knew that now. It was Evan Soleri’s mental reaction to the approach of death. No one else could have heard it—no one except a man whose empathy index was zero. It was the crisis that had brought out his latent ability. He had responded by recreating himself as the identity of a person a microsecond removed from extinction.
He had done this successfully—but what came next?
He had been thinking of escape. It was no longer possible. As far as his immediate future was concerned he was Evan Soleri. He might be able to prove otherwise. But it could be a dangerous undertaking. They might think he’d had his face surgically altered with the deliberate, prior intention of replacing Soleri.
Besides—well, he had liked Soleri. Without a second’s thought Soleri had given his life for a man he hardly knew. Quite possibly the person who had tossed in the thermal bomb had meant to kill Talbot. But he owed the unknown assassin something for that too.
His face hardened. In his new identity as Soleri he was in the best possible position to track down the assailant. Soleri had been powerful, wealthy, the head of the research department. The place to begin was right here, where it had started. He’d be Soleri.
Talbot-Soleri rang for the nurse. He’d been inactive long enough. He had no very definite plans, but he’d take care of things as they came up. The nurse came in. She stared at him in consternation.
“You are not supposed to sit up,” she said. “And you must have been mad to take those bandages off. Here, I’ll put them back.”
He scowled at her, and she didn’t come near. “Get Miss Farrell,” he said. “Tell her I must see her at once.”
“The doctor gave strict orders that you’re not to be disturbed,” said the nurse hesitantly. She paled as he returned her stare, for there was a dangerous light in his eyes.
“Get her,” he demanded.
When Randy entered the room there was a moment of complete silence. She seemed stunned by his aspect of well-being.
“The miracle of medicine,” he said dryly. “Randy, I want to look over the personnel records of everyone in the department. Please get them and bring them to me here.”
“Everything?” She looked at him in amazement. “You went over the technical staff last week.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he told her. “I’ve got some ideas I want to tie down.” That was true, of course, but mostly he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t slip up on anyone he was supposed to recognize. He’d get by anyway, naturally. He could always claim a slight loss of memory due to shock. But such a claim wouldn’t inspire confidence—and he didn’t want anyone to become suspicious.
“While you’re at it bring the office staff too,” he added. There was one person he’d have to know as much about as possible. Much of it wouldn’t be in any file. But he’d worry about the intangibles later.
Randy plainly thought his request was foolish, but she complied. Soon files were wheeled to his bedside. That was the nice thing about being a big wheel in a big company, and no pun intended. Everything was handy. Even the hospital was inside the plant.
But there were also disadvantages. The company was so big that there was a lot to learn. Still, he had to begin somewhere. Randy undoubtedly thought some of his requests were strange, but she brought what he asked for. Though not eidetic, his memory was good. He began industriously to absorb the information. Names, faces, facts and diagrams settled firmly in his mind.
It was a lengthy, painful process. Sometimes he became confused as to his actual identity. Was he Talbot or Soleri? The thought occurred to him that he might never be able to step out of the character he had consciously as well as unconsciously assumed.
There was no data on what might happen to him. None at all.