Part 4

The pilot squinted beyond and behind him. "Engines don't sound so good," he muttered. He was unexpectedly docile. "Safety first is the motto of this airline." It was a good rule, but it was questionable whose safety he was referring to.

The pilot was still having unaccountable difficulty with his eyes--there was a marked tendency to cross. "Sure, we'll go back," he said. "Glad you brought it to my attention. But call off your gang, will you, mister?"

Merrol turned around. He was alone. There was no one behind him, though the pilot seemed convinced there was.

He had a partial answer to the pilot's strange reaction. He was a multiple personality and, normally latent, in times of stress the multi-personality became dominant and impressed itself psychologically on the observer. And if the mind received the impression of several men, the eye tried hard to produce evidence that would confirm it.

Not everyone was as successful at self-hypnosis as the pilot, but the temptation toward it was always there. Now that he thought of it, men never had laughed at him. Instead they had been respectful. He apparently had an unsettling effect on those of his own sex he came in contact with--just how powerful it was, he didn't know yet. The complete answer would have to await investigation by trained psychologists.

Women were different. They invariably laughed first--Erica too, in spite of the general sympathy she must have felt for him. In what did the difference lie? That too he would have to determine--later.

The pilot looked at him dizzily, beseechingly. Merrol decided he must be pouring it on, though he felt no different. "Remember, I can get up here in an awful hurry," said Merrol, "so no tricks." The pilot nodded and clung helplessly to the controls. He wouldn't cause any trouble. Merrol raised his arm in a gesture. "Come on, fellows."

As an afterthought, he locked the stewardess in the private compartment and, as he did so, he could feel the plane swing in a wide arc that would take them to the station they had started from. The apathetic dozing passengers didn't even notice.

And then all six of him walked back to his seat and Merrol sat down.

VI

He slid out of the plane while it was still rolling. He didn't want to argue with the passengers, when they found they were on the wrong coast and he was to blame. Nor did he particularly want to explain to the authorities. Later he would have to, but by then he would have powerful interests behind him to smooth over the incident.

It was late and there were no cabs in sight, in air or on surface. He crossed the landing strip into the station and out of it and swept along the dark streets with a loose-jointed stride that made the distance seem less than it was. Presently, he broke into a trot and his speed was encouraging.

A hoppicopter--one of the little surface cars that could rise and fly for a short time to avoid traffic jams--bounced down and rolled alongside. A window slid open and a head popped out. "In a hurry, mister?"

He bobbed his head. "Hospital."

"Jump in and we'll take you. We're not doing anything special--just riding around." The hoppicopter stopped. This was luck--he'd get there faster.

The man in the front seat opened the door and stepped out, flashing a light on him. "Just a check. We don't mind taking you, but we want to be sure we don't pick up some rough character."

The man didn't look so gentle himself--and the light was trained on Dan too long. If they were afraid, he'd have to refuse their offer and go on.

"Hey, Carl," the man with the flash called out puzzledly. "Haven't we seen this guy somewhere before?"

He should have expected something like this and not stopped--but maybe it would have been worse if he hadn't. So far, he had been lucky that no one had spotted him--and now was not the time to be discussing terms with _Interplanet_. He began to edge away.

Carl climbed out of the hoppicopter and circled in the same direction Merrol was inching toward. "I guess I have at that," said Carl slowly. He was a big man. "Can't say where, though."

Merrol breathed more easily. He couldn't make a break for it, but perhaps he wouldn't have to. They might not have seen the broadcast. "I've got to hurry," he said. "I'll go on."

"Don't get sore," said Carl soothingly. "We'll take you. Climb in."

The man with the light was frowning indecisively. "The guy on the broadcast?" he asked sharply.

"Nah," said Carl disgustedly. "That guy--you look at his picture and you have to bust out laughing. Now this fellow here--while he's a long way from handsome--is clearly the executive type, a man you can trust." Carl scrutinized him thoughtfully. Before Merrol could stop him, he reached out and plucked off the hat. "There's only one guy with three-colored hair, though, and you've got it," he said unbelievingly.

Merrol started to back away, but the body of the hoppicopter stopped him.

"Mister, you've sure got some disguise," said the other man in an awed voice. "I could look right at you all day and not tell who it was."

* * * * *

It was no disguise, it was the multi-personality again. No one looked quite the same in real life as in a picture, because the personality was missing. And with him the difference was far more marked. The camera could register his features accurately, but men couldn't, not when he was actually there to inspire trust and respect--and he did arouse those emotions. Added together, these were some of the reasons why he hadn't hitherto been recognized.

"Sorry to have bothered you," he said, pushing between them as they converged on him. "I'm in a hurry."

"Sure, sure," said Carl, apologetically, moving aside.

"But he's money!" the man with the flashlight cried in an anguished voice.

"So he is!" said Carl. The vision of money seemed to carry a lot of weight with him. He seemed reluctant to act, but he reached out and swung Merrol around. "We'll take you to _Interplanet_ and then you can go to the hospital. Don't worry, we aren't going to do nothing. It don't _pay_ us to hurt you."

Their original intentions were probably sincere, but now that they thought they'd found money on the street, they weren't willing to let it go. But Merrol was not going to accompany them to _Interplanet_. He jerked away.

"We'll split the reward," said Carl. "Too bad we got to carry him in."

Merrol tried to elude him, but Carl caught his arm in a bone-cracking hold. That is, it ought to have splintered bone. That it didn't was not due to lack of skill, but to the proportions of the arm to which it was applied. The advantage of leverage went to Merrol and he used it. He broke loose and swung the long arm with the large fist and Carl went down.

The man with the light dropped it, climbed on Merrol's back and was pounding away at a nerve. Had he found the nerve, Merrol might have crumpled to the street. He didn't find it, because it wasn't there. The nerve had been surgically rerouted.

Merrol peeled him off and tossed him on top of Carl. He tossed him harder than he meant to and neither man moved.

He climbed into the hoppicopter and rolled it through the dark streets. They had caused him to lose time and for this they would forfeit the use of their 'copter. They could pick it up in the morning, if they felt like claiming it. He got out and hurried into the hospital.

He met others in the corridors--it was a busy place in spite of the lateness--but the first person he recognized was Erica. "Dan!" she said. She didn't use anything scientific, but the hold on him was harder to break than judo. Perhaps because he didn't want to.

Later, he became aware of someone tapping his shoulder. He turned around. "These things can be consummated in the privacy of one's own home," murmured Doctor Crander. "But when a life is at stake, passion should be put aside."

The purely physical elation began to fade. He put Erica down, but uncertainly holding onto her. It was an ambivalent gesture. "Is this what you call an emergency?" he asked sarcastically. He had broken a number of minor laws and nearly his own neck in getting here. He had a right to be angry, though he was not sure how he felt.

The doctor gave him a scandalized look. "Do you think we're unethical? There is such a woman as we described, one of our staff. We do have other donors, but we think you can do more for her. In a fit of despondency, this woman wandered into the extraterrestrial room without the customary protection, hoping to catch something--and she did." Crander frowned. "The only way we altered facts was to use your wife's photo. It was her idea. Furthermore, it is true that a pretty girl gets a better response--and, of course, Erica wanted you back."

When he learned who the patient was, he was satisfied with his decision. After the blood fraction had been administered to Miss Jerrems, even his untrained eyes could see the improvement.

* * * * *

He watched Erica suspiciously as she pattered about in a state of dishabille that did nothing to enhance her beauty but, perversely, made her more exciting. That she had been uncertain as to his identity the last time meant little and he could forgive it. Man and wife were not thereby distinct species, separate to themselves, unattracted or repelled by all others of the opposite sex. For himself, he had only to remember the stewardess.

But it was important to know what her true feelings toward him were. Laughter at the wrong time could be disastrous to a man's ego!

"This time, you know there's no mistake," he said, hoping that irony was some protection. "But are you sure you want me as a husband?"

She stopped fiddling with her hair. She tilted her head and looked at him, at a body that defied the laws of anatomy and the face that belonged on a clown--except that a clown could take his face off. "Are you trying to get rid of me?" She was asking questions, not answering them.

Erica was examining him carefully and he could tell that she, unlike a male, saw each feature distinctly, saw the nose that had belonged to someone else and looked it, the jaw, originally very fine, but with contours that had since melted out of shape.

"I'm not trying to get rid of you," he said. "Maybe you want somebody nicer." He'd have to know before he could stop feeling tormented.

"Nicer?" she echoed. "Do you want me to answer that?"

* * * * *

She came and leaned against him. "A woman ought to have _some_ secrets," she murmured. "But if you have to know, the first time I saw you I laughed, because you are funny. And after that, well, I saw traces of the nicest features of nearly every man I ever had a crush on. That was just the physical side."

She rested her head on his shoulder. "I didn't believe you actually were Dan. I didn't pay attention to a thing you said."

"But if you didn't believe...."

"Just what you're thinking," she answered. "I couldn't help it. You're the most exciting challenge a woman can have. Even if she doesn't know why, as I didn't then, it's still there--half a dozen men, and all of them in one monogamous package."

Now that she put it that way, he could see why she hadn't been able to resist. He could see that there were few women who could. He glanced at a framed photograph of the handsome pre-accident Dan Merrol that stood on the bureau. He thought, _Poor sucker!_