The Chromosomal Code, page 19
There was the sound of the phone on the other end ringing, and then Curtis's voice said, “Hello?”
“Don't say my name,” Starkman told her. “I'm going to assume that you recognize my voice and that you know who I am and why you mustn't say my name. I call myself Stanford. Do you understand all that?”
“What. . . I think so.” Her tone was cautious and slightly uncertain.
“I hope so. Before I go any further, were you one of the four revolutionaries they captured and released?”
“No. That was Emilio and Raoul and Ramon and Paulo. Cheryl and Jan got out the back, and I told them that I'd been kidnapped, the same as you. They believed me and let me go.”
“Good. Do you think they're suspicious of you?”
“No. Those idiots? They trust me.”
“Good. I'm going to tell you a little story, and I want you to tell everyone you think might be interested. All right?”
“All right.”
“Good.” He told her briefly what had happened to him, from the firefight at the processing center up through the explanation the Watcher and Watchman had given him, on up to the point where the Watchman agreed to help him hide. He carefully altered every mention of the Watch, referring instead to Imperial spies. He did not see any point in blowing the Watch's cover; the Underground might not take kindly to the presence of a rival organization of that sort. He avoided detailed descriptions of people or places. He did not tell her that he was in New Denver, or anything else that he thought might help her locate him; he was afraid that if he did, the Underground would try to kidnap him again to keep him away from the Rebels.
He did explain exactly what the supposed Imperial spies had told him, and hoped that it would not occur to her to wonder why they hadn't held on to him or killed him. He made no mention of the flashbomb or suicide.
When he had finished there was a moment of silence; then Curtis demanded, “Is that all true? Is that why they're here?”
“So far as I know, yes, it's all true. They showed me those recordings. Of course, I can't be sure that the alien and his flunky didn't fake the whole thing somehow, but for myself, I believe them completely.”
“Damn. I knew you were important, particularly after all the fuss that's going on right now, but I wouldn't have guessed that they came here and took over just to get you.”
“It came as a surprise to me, too,” he remarked sarcastically.
“So why are you calling? Do you want to join our organization?”
“No. You've been compromised, after all, even if they did let the four of them go. I wasn't even sure you were free; I thought that maybe they were lying, and were still holding some of you. For all I know someone's listening in on all your phone conversations, and they'll come and get me if I stay on the line too long and let them trace the call. But I had an idea that I had to tell you, an idea of how I could end this and stop running and hiding.”
He explained his idea of sending the analysis of his DNA to the Empire, and went on, “The problem is that I don't entirely trust those spies. They might not be what they say they are. I want your group to help. I'm going to try and get samples of my blood to as many different factions as I can, and hope that somebody manages to get the information to the Empire before the Rebels stop them. I've already contacted the Imperial spies; now I'm asking you people. Then I'm going to start trying to find any other underground groups that might exist. Will you help?”
“I don't know. I don't like it, giving a secret weapon to another bunch of aliens.”
“What else can we do?”
“I don't know. Fight them ourselves.”
“We can't use a supernova weapon; the only star we can reach would fry us, too. We just haven't got the capability of fighting them.” He remembered the Watchman's assurance that as much alien science and technology as possible was being disseminated to humans, and added, “At least, not yet.”
“I don't like it.”
“That's too damn bad. Look, I have to get off the line; someone will call you back and make the arrangements if you agree.” He hung up.
“Who's going to call them?” Jenny asked as he turned away from the console. She had finished her breakfast and was crossing the room toward him.
“You are, I hope,” he told her. “You heard how I got hold of her; you can do the same. Dr. Janet Curtis, in Capital, works at the Welcome Center. You met her; she was the doctor who examined you and the kids.”
“Oh, her?”
“Yes, her.”
“Do you really think her phone might have been tapped?”
“I don't know.” He looked back at the computer. “Maybe I can check.”
He tapped the sequence of keys that the Watchman had told him would connect him to the central computer itself, then typed in, max, was the last phone call from this console monitored?
His message appeared on the screen, and immediately below it was the single word yes.
“Oh, damn, they'll probably be here any minute then!” He whirled away from the keyboard and stood up. “Jenny, have you got a sealable jar and a sharp knife?”
“Yes, I think so; why?”
“I'm going to take a blood sample and leave it in your refrigerator. I don't have time to find a doctor; they might be here any minute. You give the blood to the Watchman or the Underground or whoever you can.”
“Oh,” she said. Starkman ignored the revulsion on her face and ran for the kitchen.
He had no time for caution, and cut deeper than he had intended. He was trying to wrap a bandage around his bleeding arm when the door of the apartment was smashed in. The jar he had filled was already safely in the refrigerator.
Chapter Thirteen
“What happened?” the doctor asked as he wrapped gauze around Starkman's arm.
Starkman shrugged. “I slipped with a knife. It was an accident.”
“It looks almost like you were trying to slash your wrists.”
“The hell it does! I could do a better job than that; you want to cut the vein lengthwise, not across or at an angle like that. Besides, it's supposed to hurt less if you do it in warm water; if I were going to slash my wrists, I'd have done it in a hot bath.”
“All right, all right, calm down; it was just a casual remark.”
“I'm sorry; I'm a bit tense. I don't want them thinking I'm suicidal and posting a death watch.”
“I understand.” The doctor smiled; he was a gray-haired old man with a faint accent to his English that Starkman could not place exactly. “I have to admit that it made taking a blood sample pretty easy, having a messy wound like that still open and bleeding.”
“I wanted to bandage it, but they wouldn't wait. I barely had a chance to pick up my bag. I don't know what the big hurry was. They've been looking for me for a couple of days now; how much difference could five minutes make?”
The doctor shrugged, and smiled again. “It's a good thing they brought you right to me; that cut might have been serious if it weren't properly attended to.”
“I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn't listen. Damn stupid zombies.” The doctor's smile blurred, and Starkman realized that his speech was slightly slurred. He felt very tired suddenly, and weak.
“You just rest, Mr. Starkman. They want some tissue samples, as well, and I think they may want to question you, but right now you've lost a good bit of blood, and I think it would be best if you just rested for a while. I'm going to tell them that.” The doctor rose; Starkman noticed how short the man was. He lay back on the cot and shut his eyes as the door closed behind the departing physician.
His arm did not really hurt, any more than it had hurt when he first cut it and filled Jenny's storage jar with almost half a liter of blood. The doctor had put some sort of salve on it before bandaging it.
On the other hand, he remembered very little of his hurried trip from the Saslovs' apartment in New Denver to this holding cell in Capital other than the surging waves of pain caused by the idiot clone who had grabbed his still-bleeding arm and used it to drag him.
Starkman had to admit that it had been effective; he had been in too much agony to put up any resistance at all. He had been unable even to think.
Now he felt a bit better; there was no real pain, just a dull throbbing awareness that all was not well with his left wrist, and a thick, heavy weariness that he knew was from loss of blood. He was able to lie back and consider his situation.
He might well be doomed, and the rest of the human race with him. He had no assurance that either the Watch or the Underground would get any of the blood he had spilled, or that they would be willing to analyze it and transmit the data. He was quite certain that if neither one did, or if they neglected to inform the Rebel government, then the Rebels would test out their new toy on Earth's sun as they left. He himself probably would not live even that long; once they had the information they were after he would be a liability.
He wondered if he would ever know what was to become of him, or of his world.
The doctor returned perhaps twenty minutes later and took scrapings from Starkman's right arm and mouth. He studied those peculiar yellow eyes that had marked Starkman throughout his life, checked the bandage, and tried to be soothing. Starkman, having more or less resigned himself to his fate, allowed himself to be soothed.
The doctor left again, and Starkman fell asleep.
He had no idea how long he slept; when he awoke he still felt weak, but was much more concerned about being ravenously hungry. His arm was not bothering him, which he considered a good sign.
He looked around his cell. It was nearly a cube, three meters on a side – or perhaps the ceiling wasn't quite that high; it was painted white while the walls were beige, which made it appear higher than it actually was. There was no window; light came from a single panel overhead. The door was some solid substance painted to match the walls, and with a small window at eye level, reinforced with hexagonally gridded wire. The furniture consisted of the narrow metal cot and a straight-backed chair the doctor had sat upon. There was no sign of sanitary facilities – and of more immediate interest to Starkman, there was no sign of food or water.
He started to get to his feet, then stopped and fell back to sit on the edge of the bed while a wave of dizziness spent itself.
As the moment of vertigo passed and he prepared again to rise, the doorknob turned and the door swung open.
“Hello, Mr. Starkman,” the blue-clad young man said cheerily. “I saw you were awake, and thought I'd come see if there was anything I could do for you.”
Starkman ignored the implied presence of a hidden camera monitoring his cell; he had half expected that there would be one. “I could use something to eat,” he said.
“Sure, Mr. Starkman, you wait right here, and I'll be right back.” The clone stepped back, closed the door, and was gone.
Five minutes later, after Starkman had paced out the dimensions of the little room and decided that three meters square was just about right, and discovered that he could reach the ceiling easily, so that it could not be over two and a half meters high, the door opened again and the clone entered, balancing a wonderfully full tray.
Starkman made no pretense of politeness; he was hungry, and he was being held against his will, and saw no need for good manners. Besides, he didn't like clones. He stuffed himself with roast beef, peach cobbler, and the contents of an immense pitcher of orange juice, ignoring the young man who stood quietly watching.
When he felt a bit more like himself he sat back and looked at the “alien”; the old quote, “The condemned man ate a hearty meal,” ran through his head, and he wondered whether this would really be his last supper.
At his request, the clone escorted him to a tiny washroom across the hallway, and then back. As he settled down on the cot once again, the man asked, “Anything else, Mr. Starkman?”
“That depends. Where am I?”
“You're in a special section of the Governor's headquarters in Capital.”
“Why am I here? Am I a prisoner?”
The clone shrugged. “I dunno, really. I guess so; they told me not to let you escape, so I guess you're a prisoner.”
“Am I allowed to make a phone call? It's traditional to allow a prisoner one call.” He wanted to check with Jenny and see if his plan had been carried out.
“You mean com somebody? I don't know, Mr. Starkman; they didn't say. They said that I was to make sure you were comfortable, but not to let you out.”
“Well, I won't be comfortable unless I can check with my friends and make sure they're all right.”
The young man looked uncertain.
“Is there any way you could get a phone in here?”
“I don't think so.”
“Is there someone you can check with?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so.”
“Why don't you go ask, then?”
“Okay.” He stepped out, leaned back around the door to say, “Be right back,” and then was gone, leaving Starkman locked in and alone again.
He sat on the cot and stared at the walls.
It seemed rather nasty to have made the cell so utterly plain; there was nothing in it to relieve the boredom of waiting. He spent some time trying to guess where the monitor camera was, and finally decided that it must be concealed behind the light panel, where he couldn't see it; he certainly found no trace of its presence elsewhere.
He tried staring through the little window, but the corridor outside was just as blank as his cell, with beige walls and white ceiling and the blank beige door of the washroom, and nothing else in sight.
The floor was tile of some sort; he counted tiles and found that there were a hundred and forty-four of them, all identical squares of off-white.
Someone had removed his boots some time while he was not fully aware; they were stuffed under the cot, along with his shoulder pack. He hauled them out, feeling slightly faint as he bent over to reach for them. He pulled the boots back on, then began checking the contents of the bag.
The flashbomb was still there, but there was no sign of his old pocket knife or the rattail comb he had had. Someone had apparently searched it and decided that the lighter was harmless. He suspected the searcher had been a clone; who else would have taken the comb and left the bomb?
Or perhaps the searcher had tried the “lighter” and found that it didn't work.
He was still rummaging through his meager belongings, seeing what remained and what was gone, when the door finally opened again. He stood up, expecting either the friendly clone or the elderly doctor.
It was neither; instead he faced a squad of six particularly vicious-looking men. Although he could not be absolutely certain, since most of them were bearded and of about the right age, he did not think any of them were clones; they had too much character in their faces, all of it unpleasant, and were too varied in their appearance. They did wear the blue denim uniforms, but with unfamiliar shoulder-patches.
“Come on, buddy,” one of them said. “Some people want to talk to you.”
Starkman was in no position to argue, and he knew it. He slipped his bag onto his shoulder, expecting one of the party to object to its presence. None did.
It was too late for him to suicide, he realized; they already had his blood. Otherwise, this might have been the ideal moment, as he might never have another chance, and the six thugs were clustered so tightly about him as they moved down the corridor that he could easily have included them all in the flashbomb's explosion.
He was escorted through a series of three guarded security doors; that explained to his satisfaction why half a dozen human toughs were assigned to him now, where a single clone had been adequate to deal with him in his cell, or even in the corridor and washroom outside. Even if he had jumped the poor zombie and made a run for it, he would not have gotten past these doors.
Once out of the detention area he was taken through a maze of corridors, elevators, doorways, and antechambers. The beige walls gave way to white, and signs indicating directions to various numbered rooms began to appear at the intersections of hallways. He glimpsed other people occasionally, always in the process of scurrying out of the way of the advancing phalanx that surrounded him.
Finally he was brought into a large room that he took for a laboratory of some kind; three or four people in white coats stood by various machines, watching him enter. He reached instinctively to adjust his sunglasses, but they were not there; he could not remember whether he had left them in the Saslovs' apartment or lost them somewhere since.
Two of his escort kept a firm but not uncomfortable grip on his shoulders and arms; the other four stepped back out of the way, and he found himself facing the elderly doctor and three video cameras.
“Mr. Starkman,” the doctor said with a polite nod.
“Hello, doctor,” he replied.
“There seems to be some difficulty involving the tissue and blood samples we took from you.”
“There is?”
“Yes, there is.”
“What sort of a problem?”
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that. However, my superiors insist that these samples are not actually your own flesh and blood.”
“That's silly; you took them yourself, with a camera watching the whole thing.”
“Yes, I know. My superiors claim that you somehow managed to substitute someone else's tissue for your own.”
“That's ridiculous! How could I do that?”
“I have no idea; but then, I have no idea how the Galactic Empire can exist, either. I am no longer ready to say that it's flatly impossible. Therefore, we are going to take some more samples, here and now, with several witnesses, both human and mechanical, and in such a way that there can be no doubt at all that the tissue is indeed your own. That means that the tissue must come from a part of you that cannot possibly have been transplanted or transfused or somehow altered.” He gestured toward an operating table. “Lie down.”
Starkman resisted, but the six guards had little trouble in placing him on the table and holding him down.
The doctor, closely watched by three cameras and three other people, then proceeded to use biopsy needles to draw cells from various portions of Starkman's body, from his head to his groin. The operation was virtually painless; the needles, the doctor explained, had built-in anesthetizing devices.
