A Borrowed Man Read online

  I had read that, too, and I was about to say I hadn’t when it hit me that the words were really a little bit familiar. I took the book again and had another look. It was print-on-demand; but the cover picture might have been lifted from some publisher’s edition: two planets, the larger one mottled blue and white, the smaller one dark red, scarred, and choked by a snake.

  Colette remarked, “The serpent represents evil, I suppose.”

  I was thinking of a dozen other things, but I nodded. “I don’t suppose you’ve read it.”

  “No. No, Mr. Smithe, I haven’t. The important points are that it was in my father’s safe, the only thing he kept there. And that you’re listed as the author. Look at the title page.”

  I had noticed my name there already, but I checked it again anyhow. It had not been a collaboration or a fix-up of some dead man’s unfinished manuscript. On the back of the title page, the copyright date was thirteen years before I died.

  Sighing, I opened the book at random. “Eridean had called them the sewers, but they were enormously larger and more varied than the term implied, tunnels and cellars and subcellars and worse, far beneath the city. There were animals in them, he knew. Animals, men more hostile and more fell than any beast, and plants that throve without the sun, pale growths that feasted upon the living and the dead. Yet what first Apolean met was none of these, but a woman.”

  Talking mostly to myself, I said, “I remember it now.”

  “Wonderful!”

  I turned back to the copyright page. “They give the original publisher.” I held up the book so Colette could see it. “Pixie Press. It was a small press, just one woman and her husband, with a part-time volunteer who was paid mostly in books. My regular publisher didn’t want it. My agent tried a few others, then gave up and handed it back to me. Handed it back metaphorically, I mean. Pixie published a limited edition of…”

  I stopped to think. “Three hundred and fifty copies. That was it, I’m sure. One hundred signed and boxed, and the rest just hardcovers on acid-proof paper with Zistal dust jackets. This looks like one of those.”

  Colette smiled. “I hope it sold for them.”

  “It did. The entire edition sold out in a good deal less than a year, Jen told me. She was quite happy about it. It was the first time they had ever had a book sell out in under one year.”

  “Now you remember writing it. You must.”

  “I do. It was one of the sideline projects I did now and then. When I was stuck on The Ice-Blue Kiss I’d work on this for a while. At first it was meant to be a short story.”

  Colette smiled and gave the water a little extra splash.

  “It kept growing and growing. I didn’t mind, but sometimes I felt guilty about working on it. I knew it would never make any money.”

  “Was that all you cared about, Mr. Smithe? Making money?”

  I flipped through the pages while my brain took care of the heavy lifting; it was sort of like petting a dog. “Obviously not, since this didn’t.”

  “And so the money’s still in the book, still locked up in there. Money or power, and they’re the same thing at bottom. If you’ve got money you can get power, and if you have power you can get money. Matter is energy and energy is matter. I always put a question or two about that on the final.”

  “The interchange of matter and energy is a pretty big leap from the paltry fact that your father had locked this copy in his safe.”

  “It isn’t just that.” Colette was not smiling.

  “I didn’t think it was. What’s the rest?”

  “I’ve told you a little about my poor brother. About Conrad, Junior.”

  “You’ve told me that he gave you this book. Almost nothing beyond that.”

  “And I told you he was the one who had Father’s safe opened. He went straight to Spice Grove to tell me about it, gave me this book, and went back to New Delphi. I think he must have been murdered that same day.”

  Maybe two or three times in your whole life you feel the chill, and that was one of those times for me. I asked, “Someone killed him?” The minute the words came out, I knew how stupid it must have sounded.

  Colette nodded. “The police told me the killer had gotten him as soon as he stepped into the house. His bag had been opened and searched there on the floor of the reception hall. The rest of the house had been searched, too. In the bedrooms, dresser drawers were pulled out and dumped, and so forth. The policeman told me all about it. Do you want his name? I’ve got his name somewhere.”

  I said, “Not now.”

  “He said they were looking for something, and it seemed as if they hadn’t found it. All the books in Father’s library had been pulled off their shelves and thrown on the floor. Two or three hundred real paper books. It must have been an awful mess.”

  I had gotten on top of the chill by then. “You didn’t see it?”

  “No. The police told me about it. This one policeman did, mostly. Of course I was tempted to tell him about that book you’re holding, but—”

  “It didn’t seem wise. You were probably right.”

  Colette nodded gratefully. “Later I called Bettina Johns; she’s an old school friend and lives near there. She went over and looked at everything, and it sounded just dreadful. She—”

  I interrupted. “How did Bettina Johns get into the house?”

  “The maid ’bot let her in. The ’bots are still there, I think four of them. Anyway she told me about a company called Merciful Maids. They specialize in cleaning up the homes of dead people. Those homes are often disorganized and dirty—this is what they told me.”

  “I understand.”

  “The late owner is ill and unable to take care of things for weeks and weeks before she dies. Often, they said, her friends and relatives steal things, anticipating the owner’s death. All Merciful Maids’ employees are bonded, and there will be half a dozen or so in the house at the same time, one waxing the floors while another cleans up the kitchen and two more dust. One or two more—these are upper-level employees—make an inventory. I hired them to straighten the place up.”

  “Do they use ’bots? I’ve been told they have certain disadvantages, but they wouldn’t steal.”

  “I don’t know,” Colette said. “I never asked.”

  “Did they send you the inventory?”

  She nodded. “Now you’ll ask if there was anything missing. There wasn’t. Or if there was, it was something I didn’t know about. Now tell me, please. What do you think we should do?”

  I know that nobody who reads this is going to believe it; but right then was the first time I really and truly understood myself, what I was and what had been done to me, and how unreal all of it had been. I was not the man I thought I was, the one whose name I used—whose name I still use right now, for that matter. I was somebody else, a kid who had been grown from that guy’s DNA and loaded up with his memories, phony memories of things that had never happened to me and never could happen to me. “Implanted” was what they said; but all it really meant was that years and years of dead stuff had been read into me while I lay in a sort of coma.

  I was a kid who had no real memories of his own except the library, dumb memories of sitting on my shelf until the library closed, of moving around a little then, running up and down the stairs, doing push-ups, arm wrestling, eating and talking over dinner with other twenty-first-century people who were just as phony as I was. Of thinking and thinking about Arabella and the day they would discover her, clone her the way I had been cloned, and shelve her in Poetry …

  One by one across the desert

  Until our boots grow too heavy with

  The sands of time.

  I carried the memories of ten thousand decisions big and small, but I had never made a real one. Sitting there, holding—sometimes—Colette’s hand, I knew I did not even know what intercourse was really like. I had touched the hands of a few women. Nothing more than that! Now I kept smelling Colette’s perfume, her perfume and the fres
hness of the cold water our feet splashed. Lovely, flowing water. Clear, cold water that could never, ever, wash away the sands.

  Not that I had accumulated a lot, or that they were apt to fill my boots really soon. We are bound to last a long time, we library people. That is a joke we make, and I have never understood why so many of us laugh at it.

  I had never had a real childhood.

  “What should we do, Mr. Smithe?” Colette repeated.

  I wanted to tell her I did not know, but the words stuck in my throat.

  3

  WHAT WE DID

  “Honestly,” Colette said, “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  I sighed, hating to leave the water and the grass, scared half to death to end the moment. “Surely that’s obvious.”

  “Not to me.” She sounded sincere. “Oh, I’m so glad I checked you out!”

  “We talk to the expert who opened the safe for your brother. But first”—inside I was jumping up and down at having thought of it—“you tell me the other reason you’re so certain Murder on Mars is valuable.” I had laid it down on the bank beside me. When Colette just sat there without saying anything, I picked it up, riffled the pages, and handed it back to her.

  She took it, looking thoughtful. “I could throw it in this creek, couldn’t I? Doing that now might save a lot of trouble.”

  “Suppose they captured you, tortured you? Do they know you have it? They’d never believe you’d thrown it away.”

  “I suppose you’re right. As for their knowing I’ve got it, perhaps they do—or they may just think it’s likely. They must have known somehow that my brother had it, but he didn’t have it when somebody murdered him. They must have thought he had it on his person then—in a pocket or in his traveling bag. But of course it wasn’t there; he’d left it with me. Why do you want to talk to the man who opened the safe?”

  I took a deep breath, really sucking in the air. This was chancy and I knew it. “First, to verify your brother’s assertion that there was nothing else in there—also to get a lead on what the other contents may have been, if there were other contents. Second, because the people who are after the book must have learned about it in some way. There are at least half a dozen ways they might have found out, and maybe more. You may have told them yourself, for example. Or they may have overheard you telling someone else. But—”

  Colette interrupted. “No, they couldn’t! I’ve never told anyone but you.”

  “Good! Your brother may have told someone, and so on. But highest probability—or so it seems to me—is that they learned about it from the locksmith. If so, he must have seen them. In my day, one could call others on many telephones without being seen. Now, screening—well, I suppose it might be possible to fake a face in some way, but you’d have to be very good with screens to do it. Or so I imagine.”

  Colette nodded. “I’ve been using screens since I was a little girl, and I don’t believe I could manage it. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “Besides which, I doubt very much if a simple screen from a stranger would do it. You could explain that we need to know, that your brother is dead now, and so forth. They wouldn’t have that advantage. The locksmith could say, why do you want to know? And he probably would.”

  “They may have bribed him.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “money always works—if it’s enough money. Offered more, he might describe them and his conversation with them. That information might be vital to us.”

  She nodded again. “Knowledge is power, if it’s the right knowledge.”

  After that she screened for our hovercab while I dried her feet—a real blast—with my handkerchief. Then I helped her with her boots and put on my socks and shoes. I kept looking for animals as we made our way back to the clearing where the hovercab had let us out, but I never saw a one.

  After fifteen minutes or so, the hovercab came back. It had a bill on its screen that was a lot larger than it had been when it left. Colette ignored that, got the sim, and for the second time told it to take us to the Taos Towers.

  Then she turned to me. “All right if we go straight there? In a hovercraft the trip will take two or three hours and it’s getting dark here already.”

  I shrugged. “You’ve checked me out for ten days. May I assume you’ll at least put me up for the night?”

  “Only if you’ll sit with me, sip a little wine while we watch something, and whisper clever compliments. Then be content to sleep in my guest room.”

  I should not have grinned, but I believe I did. “I’ll do them all very willingly indeed.”

  “Fine.” She smiled. “I’ve five rooms and a bath. The lounge and the dining room are open to you. The lounge is the biggest room, and it’s where the couch is. The bathroom’s available whenever you need it as long as I’m not in it, but the kitchen and my bedroom are private property. If you want something to eat, or a glass of milk or something, I’ll bring it. There’s wine and beer and who knows what all under the bar in the lounge. Ginger ale, peanuts, crackers, and so forth. Take any of that stuff you want. Understand? Just stay out of the kitchen and my bedroom. It’s my apartment and those are my rules.”

  “Which I will certainly follow.”

  “You won’t go in the kitchen? Or my bedroom?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You’d better mean that. If I find you in either one, you’ll go back to the library just as fast as I can get you there.”

  Later, in her suite, she said she had expected me to want to see her father’s house in New Delphi as soon as I could.

  I shook my head.

  “I won’t ask why not.”

  “Good.”

  “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

  I told her, “I’ve been trying to compose dozens of clever compliments.”

  She smiled. “Any luck?”

  “No. You’re marvelously beautiful, but I’ve told you that before and there’s nothing clever about it. Every man who sees you must think the same thing. You’re as brave as a lioness, but women don’t like being told how brave they are.”

  “Then why did you tell me?”

  “Because I value honesty above diplomacy.” Putting a finger to my lips, I tiptoed over to her shaping bag, took out the book, and carried it off. When I returned to the lounge, Colette raised her eyebrows. I put my finger to my lips again.

  She nodded, went to the screen, and ordered food. While we ate, she murmured, “Eventually you’re going to have to explain.”

  I figured she was probably right, but I whispered, “No.”

  “Suppose it’s cameras?”

  I shrugged.

  After dinner we watched April and Its Spotted Lilies and Twice Terror. As I told her, I had heard of roundvid but I had never seen those dramas or any others. Twice Terror was working up to its big scene when they came. My watch struck eleven just as her screen flashed VISITOR A-1, and she muttered, “Oh, stars!” I asked what was the matter.

  “The building just let someone in.” She had gotten up and was striding toward the door. “Two someones. It’s supposed to show them on my screen, and turn them away if I don’t approve them.” She tripped the night bolt.

  I asked, “Why didn’t it do that?”

  “It said they were A-1. That means they’re guests I’ve designated who get in automatically, whether I’m here or not.”

  “Then we may assume they are. It may be a pleasant visit.” I was trying to soothe her; she looked frightened and angry.

  “Cob was the only one I ever designated—and he’s dead.”

  I had been expecting a knock, but we did not get one. Colette’s door swung open without a sound, and two men sauntered in. The second shut it behind him. The first, a stocky man in dark clothes, said, “We’re not going to tell you who we are or who we represent. The less you know, the safer you’ll be.”

  I nodded and put my arm around Colette, the first time I had taken the chance.

  She had th
e controller, and she held it up. “One stroke gets the police.”

  The second man took two quick strides toward her and snatched the controller. “I’m sorry, officer,” he told the uniformed sim whose electronically faked image had joined us in the lounge. “My little boy got hold of it. We’ve told him a thousand times that he’s not supposed to play with it.” He pressed a key and the SGPD sim disappeared, uniform, badge, and all.

  “I don’t have a lot of money.” Colette’s voice sounded steady, but I could feel her trembling. “You can have it all if you’ll only go.”

  “You’ve got the book.” That was the second man. He looked younger than the stocky guy, wore a hat, and was a good head taller. “You’ve got it and we want it. Hand it over.”

  “I have several books,” Colette told him. “I’m a teacher. Perhaps you know.”

  The stocky one farted with his mouth.

  “You know the book we mean,” the tall one said. “Give it to me. As soon as you do we’ll go, and you’ll never see us again.”

  I said, “Will someone please tell me what you’re talking about?”

  “Ms. Coldbrook had a brother,” the tall one said; his voice reminded me of a library ’bot about to use its prod. “He stole a book that belongs to us. We want it. Now!” As he spoke, he dropped Colette’s controller into a pocket of his jacket.

  I stood up. “This doesn’t concern me, and it seems to me that it doesn’t concern Colette either.”

  “We know it does,” the stocky one said. He said it like he was telling me the time, but his face said he’d tear the arms off babies.

  The tall one asked, “Just who the fuck are you, anyhow?”

  “Simply an admirer of Ms. Coldbrook’s. This would appear to be a private matter, one in which I have no wish to intrude.”

  Colette’s hand found mine. “Don’t go, Ern! Please don’t!”

  “If you don’t want me to, I won’t.” I tried to make my voice reassuring. “If I can be of any help to you here, just let me know.”