Michaelmas Read Free Page B

the real Colonel Norwood back to life. But he hasn't done it using any of the techniques and discoveries he's announced over the years. Limberg's career, his public image, everything — it's all reduced simply to something useful as a cover for the type of action he's taken now. It really is all very clear, Domino, if you disregard that balderdash about Norwood's surviving the explosion. Think about it, now."
    He was patient and encouraging. In the same way, he had often led the tongue-tied and confused through hun-dreds of vivacious interviews, making and wrecking policies and careers before huge audiences.
    The reply through the machine was equally patient but without forbearance:
    "Doctor Limberg is a first-rate genius —"
    Michaelmas smiled shyly and mercilessly but did not in-terrupt.
    " — who could not possibly be living a double life. Even given a rate of progress so phenomenal that he could de-velop his overt reputation and still secretly pursue some entirely different line, there are insurmountable practical objections."
    "Oh, yeah? Name some." The sauce hissed ebulliently as it made contact with the beef skillet.
    A few dextrous turns of Michaelmas's fork enveloped the fillet in just properly glutin-ous flavouring, and then he was able to place his dinner on its warmed, waiting dish and bring it to the place he had laid in the dining aspect. He poured a glassful of wine that had been breathing in its wicker server, and sat down to partake of his meal.
    "One," Domino said. "He is a gruff saint, in the manner developed by many world intellectual figures since the communications revolution. The more fiercely he objects to intrusions on his elevated processes of thought and his working methods, the more persistently the news media attempt to discover what he's doing now. One of the stan-dard methods of information tap is to keep careful account of everything shipped to him. You'll recall this is how Science News Service deduced his interest in plasmids from his purchase of olephages. As a direct result, several wise investors in the appropriate manufacturing concerns were rewarded when Limberg made the announcements leading to his earlier prize. Since then, naturally, there are scores of inferential inventories being run on his purchases and wastage. His overt researches account for all of it."
    "One of the inventories being yours." Michaelmas chuckled over his fork. "Go on."
    "Two. All analyses of the genius personality, however it may be masked, show that this sort of individual cannot be other-directed over any significant period of time. You're hypothesizing that this excellent mind has been participating for years in a gross deception upon the world. This cannot be true. If that had been his original purpose, he would have grown away from it and rebelled catastrophically as his cover career began to assume genuine importance and direction.
    You can't oppose a dynamic —and I shouldn't be quoting your own basics back to you," Domino chided, and then went on remorselessly:
    "And exactly so, if he'd been approached recently for the same purpose, he would have refused. He would have died —more meaningfully, he would have undergone any form of emotional or physical pain—rather than submit. The genius mind is inevitably and fluently egocentric. Any attempt to tamper with its plans for itself—well, putting it more con-ventionally, any attempt to tamper with its compulsive career—would be equivalent to a threat of extinction.
    That would be unacceptable."
    Michaelmas was smiling in approval through the march-ing words, and pouring himself another glass of wine. "Quite right. Now let's just assume that Herr Doktor Professor N. Hannes Limberg, life scientist, is a merely smart man, with a good library and access to a service that can supply a technique for making people."
    There was a perceptible pause. With benevolent interest, Michaelmas watched the not quite random pattern of rip-pling lights on the ostensible