Dead Ringer - Lester del Rey

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Dead Ringer by Lester Delray.

There was nothing, especially on earth which could set him free. The truth, least of all.

Dane Phillips slouched in the window seat watching the morning crowds on their way to work and carefully avoiding any attempt to read Jordan's old face as the editor skimmed through the notes.

He had learned to make his tall bony body seem all loose-jointed relaxation no matter what he felt, but the oversized hands in his pockets were clenched so tightly that the nails were cutting into his palms.

Every tick of the old-fashioned clock sent a throb racing through his brain. Every rustle of the pages seemed to release a fresh shot of adrenaline into his bloodstream.

This time, his mind was pleading, it has to be right this time.

Jordan finished his reading and shoved the folder back. He reached for his pipe, side, and then nodded slowly.

A nice job of researching Phillips and it might make a good feature for the Sunday section at that.

It took a second to realize that the words meant acceptance for Phillips had prepared himself too thoroughly against another failure.

Now he felt the taughtened muscles release so quickly that he would have fallen if he hadn't been braced against the seat.

He groped in his mind hunting for words and finding none. There was only the hot sudden flame of unbelieving hope, and then an almost blinding exaltation.

Jordan didn't seem to notice his silence. The editor made a neat pile of the notes nodding again.

Sure, I like it. We've been short of stock stuff lately, and the readers go for it when we can get a fresh angle.

But naturally you'd have to leave out all that nonsense on blending.

Hell, the man's just buried on his relatives and friends. But that's the proof!

Phillips stared at the editor trying to penetrate through the haze of hope that had somehow grown chilled and unreal.

His thoughts were abruptly disorganized and out of his control. Only the urgency remained.

It's the key evidence, and we've got to move fast. I don't know how long it takes, but even one more day may be too late.

Jordan nearly dropped the pipe from his lips as he jerked upright to peer sharply at the younger man.

Are you crazy? Do you seriously expect me to get an order to exume him now?

What would it get us other than lawsuits, even if we could get the order without cause, which we can't?

Then the pipe did fall as he gaped open mouth.

My God, you believe all that stuff. You expected us to publish it straight?

No, said Dane thickly. The hope was gone now, as if it had never existed, leaving a numb emptiness where nothing mattered.

No, I guess I didn't really expect anything, but I believe the facts. Why shouldn't I?

He reached for the papers with hands he could hardly control and began stuffing them back into the folder.

All the careful documentation, the fingerprints, smudged perhaps in some cases, but still evidence enough for anyone but a fool.

Phillips, Jordan said questioningly to himself, and then his voice was talking on a new edge.

Phillips, wait a minute, I've got it now. Dane Phillips, not Arthur. Two years on the trip, then you turned up on the register in Seattle.

Philip Dean, or some such name there.

Yeah, Dane agreed. There was no use in denying anything now. Yeah, Dane Arthur Phillips, so I suppose I'm through here.

Jordan nodded again, and there was a faint look of fear in his expression.

You can pick up your pay on the way out and make it quick before I changed my mind and call the boys in white.

It could have been worse. It had been worse before, and there was enough in the pay envelope to buy what he needed, a flash camera, a little folding shovel from one of the surplus houses and a bottle of good scotch.

It would be dark enough for him to taxi out to Okaven Cemetery where blending had been buried.

It wouldn't change the minds of the fools, of course, even if he could drag back what he might find without the change being completed they wouldn't accept the evidence.

He'd been crazy to think anything could change their minds, and they called him a fanatic.

If the facts he dug up in ten years of hunting wouldn't convince them nothing would, and yet he had to see for himself before it was too late.

He picked a cheap hotel at random and checked in under an assumed name. He couldn't go back to his room while there was a chance that Jordan might still try to turn him in.

There wouldn't be time for Sylvie's detectives to bother him, probably, but there was the ever-present danger that one of the aliens might intercept the message.

He shivered. He'd been risking that for ten years, yet the likelihood was still a horror to him.

The uncertainty made it harder to take than any human devised torture could be. There was no way of guessing what an alien might do to anyone who discovered that all men were not human, that some were zombies.

There was the classic syllogism. All men are mortal. I am man. Therefore I am mortal. But not blending. Or corporal harding. It was Harding's death that had started at all during the fighting on Guadalcanal.

A grenade had come flying into the foxhole where Dane and Harding had felt reasonably safe. The concussion had knocked Dane out, possibly saving his life when the enemy thought he was dead.

He'd come, too, in the daylight to see Harding lying there mangled and twisted with his throat torn. There was blood on Dane's uniform obviously spattered from the dead man.

It hadn't been a mistake or delusion. Harding had been dead. It had taken Dane two days of crawling and hiding to get back to his group.

To exhausted to report Harding's death he'd slept for twenty hours, and when he awoke, Harding had been standing beside him with a whole throat and a fresh uniform, grinning and kidding him for running off and leaving a stunned friend behind.

It was no ringer, but Harding himself, complete to the smallest personal memories and personality traits. The pressures of war probably saved Dane's sanity while he learned to face the facts.

All men are mortal. Harding is not mortal. Therefore, Harding is not a man.

Nor was Harding alone. Dane found enough evidence to know there were others. The Tribune Morg yielded even more data. A man had faced seven firing squads and walked away. Another survived over a dozen attacks by professional killers.

Fingerprints turned up mysteriously, copied from those of men long dead. Some of the aliens seemed to heal almost instantly. Others took days. Some operated completely alone. Some seemed to have joined with others. But they were legion.

Lack of a clearer pattern of attack made him consider the possibility of human mutation, but such tissue was too wildly different and the invasion had begun long before Atomics or X-rays. He gave up trying to understand their alien motivations. It was enough that they existed in secret, slowly growing in numbers while mankind was unaware of them. When his proof was complete and irrefutable he took it to his editor, to be fired politely but coldly.

Other editors were less polite, but he went on doggedly trying and failing. What else could he do? Somehow he had to find the few people who could recognize facts and warn them. The aliens would get him, of course, when the story broke, but a warned humanity could cope with them.

He shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Then he met Sylvia by accident after losing his fifth job. A girl who had inherited a fortune big enough to spread his message in paid ads across the country. They were married before he found she was hard-headed about her money. She demanded a full explanation for every cent beyond his allowance. In the end she got the explanation.

And while he was trying to cash the cheque she gave him she visited Dr. Buell to come back with a squad of quiet refined strong-arm boys who made sure Dane reached Buell's rest home safely.

Hydro-therapy. Buell as the kindly firm father image. Analysis. Hypnosis that stripped every secret from him including his worst childhood nightmare. His father had committed a violent bloody suicide after one of the many quarrels with Dane's mother.

Dane had found the body. Two nights after the funeral he had dreamed of his father's face horror-filled at the window. He knew now that it was a normal nightmare caused by being forced to look at the face in the coffin, but the shock had lasted for years. It had bothered him again after his discovery of the aliens until a thorough check had proved without doubt that his father had been fully human, with a human if tempestuous childhood behind him.

Dr. Buell was delighted. You see Dane? You know it was a nightmare, but you don't really believe it even now. Your father was an alien monster to you. No adult is quite human to a child, and that literal-minded self your subconscious saw him after he died, so there are alien monsters who return from death.

Then you come too from a concussion. Harding is sprawled out unconscious covered with blood, probably your blood since you say he wasn't wounded later. But after seeing your father you can't associate blood with yourself. You see it as a horrible wound on harding. When he turns out to be alive you're still in partial shock with your subconscious dominant, and that has the answer already. There are monsters who come back from the dead. An exaggerated reaction, but nothing really abnormal.

We'll have you out of here in no time. No non-directive psychiatry for Buell, the man beamed paternally juggling as he added what he must have considered the clincher. Anyhow, even zombies can't stand fire, Dane, so you can stop worrying about harding. I checked up on him. He was burned to a crisp in a hotel fire two months ago.

It was logical enough to shake Dane's faith until he came across Milo Blanding's picture in a magazine article on society in St. Louis. According to the item Milo was a cousin of the Blanding's, whose father had vanished in Chile as a young man and who had just rejoined the family. The picture was of harding.

An alien could have gotten away by simply committing suicide and being carried from the rest home, but Dane had to do it the hard way, watching his chance and using commando tactics on a guard who had come to accept him as a harmless nut. In St. Louis he'd used the perloined letter technique to hide, going back to newspaper work and using almost his real name. It had seemed to work too, but he'd been less lucky about harding blending.

The man had been in Europe on some kind of tour until his return only this last week. Dane had seen him just once then, but long enough to be sure it was harding before he died again. This time it was a drunken auto accident that seemed to be none of his fault, but left his body a mangled wreck.

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War had proven that he would never be a brave man and the old fears of darkness and graveyards were still strong in him, but he had to know what the coffin contained now, if it wasn't already too late.

It represented the missing link in his picture of the aliens. What happened to them during the period of regrowth?

Did they revert to their natural form? Were they at all conscious while the body reshaped itself into wholeness?

Dane had puzzled over it night after night with no answer. Nor could he figure how they could escape from the grave. Perhaps a man could force his way out of some of the coffins he had inspected, the soil would still be soft and loose in the grave, and the lot of the coffins in the boxes around them were strong in appearance only.

A determined creature that could exist without much air for long enough might make it, but there were other caskets that couldn't be cracked, at least without the aid of outside help.

What happened when a creature that could survive even the poison of in bombing fluids and the draining of all the blood woke up in such a coffin?

Dane's mind skittered from it, as always, and then came back to it reluctantly. There were still accounts of corpses turned up with the nails and hair grown long in the grave.

Could normal tissues stand the current tricks of the morticians to have life enough for such growth? The possibility was absurd.

Those cases had to be aliens, ones who hadn't escaped, even they must die eventually, in such a case, after weeks and months. It took time for hair to grow.

And there were stories of corpses that had apparently fought and twisted in their coffins still. What was it like for an alien then going slowly mad while it waited for true death? How long did madness take?

He shivered again, but went steadily on while the cemetery fence appeared in the distance. He'd seen Blanding's coffin, and the big solid metal casket around it that couldn't be cracked by any amount of effort and strength.

He was sure the creature was still there, unless it had a confederate, but that wouldn't matter, an empty coffin would also be proof.

Dane avoided the main gate, unsure about whether there would be a watchman or not. A hundred feet away there was a tree near the ornamental spikes of the iron fence.

He threw his bag over and began shinning up. It was difficult, but he made it finally dropping onto the soft grass beyond.

There was the trace of the moon at times through the clouds, but it hadn't betrayed him, and there had been no alarm wire along the top of the fence.

He moved from shadow to shadow his hair prickling along the base of his neck, locating the right grave and the darkness was harder than he had expected, even with an occasional brief use of the small flashlight.

But at last he found the marker that was serving until the regular monument could arrive. His hands were sweating so much that it was hard to use the small shovel, but the digging of foxholes had given him experience, and the ground was still soft from the grave digger's work.

He stopped once as the moon came out briefly. Again, they sound and the darkness above left him hovering and sick in the hole, but it must have been only some animal.

He uncovered the top of the casket with hands already blistering. Then he cursed as he realized that catches were near the bottom, making his work even harder.

He reached them at last, fumbling them open. The metal top of the casket seemed to be a dome of solid lead, and he had no room to maneuver, but it began swinging up reluctantly until he could feel the polished wood of the coffin.

Dean reached for the lid with hands he could barely control. Fear was thick in his throat now. What could an alien do to a man who discovered it? Would it be harding there or some monstrous thing still changing? How long did it take a revived monster to go mad when it found no way to escape?

He gripped the shovel in one hand, working at the lid with the other. Now, abruptly, his nerve steadyed as they had done whenever he was in real battle. He swung the lid up and began groping for the camera. His hand went into the silk-lined interior and found nothing. He was too late. Either harding had gotten out somehow before the final ceremony or a confederate had already been there. The coffin was empty.

There were no warning sounds this time, only hands that slipped under his arms and across his mouth, lifting him easily from the grave. A match flared briefly and he was looking into the face of Buel's chief strong arm, man.

Hello, Mr. Phillips. Promise to be quiet and we'll release you, okay? At Dean's sick and nod, he gestured to the others. Let him go, and Tom better get that filled in we don't want any trouble from this.

Surprise came from the grave a moment later. Hey, Burke, there's no corpse here. Burke's words killed and he hopes Dean had it once. So what? Ever hear of a cremation? Lots of people use a regular coffin for the ashes.

He wasn't cremated. Dean told him. You can check up on that. But he knew it was useless. Sure, Mr. Phillips, we'll do that. The tone was one reserved for humoring madmen.

Burke turned, gesturing. Better come along, Mr. Phillips. Your wife and Dr. Buel are waiting at the hotel. The gate was open now, but there was no sign of a watchman. If one worked here, Sylvie's money would have taken care of that, of course.

Dean went along quietly, sitting in the rubble of his hopes while the big car perred through the morning and on down Lindel Boulevard towards the hotel. Once he shivered and Burke dug out a hot, branded coffee.

They had thought of everything, including a coat to cover his dirt-soiled clothes as they took him up the elevator to where Buel and Sylvie were waiting for him.

She had been crying, obviously, but there were no tears or recriminations when she came over to kiss him. Funny, she must still love him. As he'd learned to his surprise, he loved her, under different circumstances.

So you found me, he asked needlessly of Buel. He was operating on purely automatic habits now, the reaction from the knight and his failure numbing him emotionally. Jordan got in touch with you?

Buel smiled back at him. We knew where you were all along, Dean, but as long as you acted normal, we hoped it might be better than the home. Too bad we couldn't stop you before you got all mixed up in this.

So I suppose I'm committed to your booby-hatch again. Buel nodded, refusing to resent the term. I'm afraid so, Dean, for a while anyhow. You'll find your clothes in that room. Why don't you clean up a little? Take a hot bath, maybe. You'll feel better.

Dean went in, surprised when no guards followed him, but they had thought of everything. What looked like a screen on the window had been recently installed and it was strong enough to prevent his escape.

Blessed are the poor, for they shall be poorly guarded. He was turning on the shower when he heard the sound of voices coming through the door. He left the water running and came back to listen. Sylvia was speaking.

It seemed so logical, so completely rational. It makes him a dangerous person. Buel answered, and there was no false warmth in his voice now.

Sylvia, you've got to admit it to yourself. All the reason and analysis in the world won't convince him he's wrong. This time we'll have to use shock treatment. Burn over those memories. Fade them out. It's the only possible course.

There was a pause, and then a sigh. I suppose you're right.

Dean didn't wait to hear more. He drew back while his mind fought to accept the hideous reality. Shock treatment. The works. If what he knew of psychiatry was correct, enough of it to erase his memories. A part of himself. It wasn't therapy. Buel was considering it couldn't be. It was the answer of an alien that had a human in its hands. One who knew too much.

He might have guessed what better place for an alien than in the guise of a psychiatrist. Where else was there that chance for all the refined modern torture needed to burn out a man's mind?

Dean had spent ten years in fear of being discovered by them, and now Buel had him. Sylvia, he couldn't be sure. Probably she was human. It wouldn't make any difference. There was nothing he could do through her. Either she was part of the game or she really thought him mad.

Dean tried the window again, but it was hopeless. There would be no escape this time. Buel couldn't risk it. The shock treatment, or whatever Buel would use under the name of shock treatment, would begin at once. It would be easy to slip, to use an overdose of something to make sure Dean was killed. Or there were ways of making sure it didn't matter. They could leave him alive, but take his mind away.

In alien hands, human psychiatry could do worse than all the medieval torture chambers. The sickness grew in his stomach as he considered the worst that could happen. Death he could accept if he had to. He could even face the chance of torture by itself as he had accepted the danger while trying to have his facts published.

But to have his mind taken from him must step at a time to watch his personality. His ego rotted away under him and to know that he would wind up as a drooling idiot. He made his decision almost as quickly as he had come to realize what Buel must be. There was a razor in the medicine chest. It was a safety razor, of course, but the blade was sharp, and it would be big enough. There was no time for careful planning. One of the guards might come in at any moment if they thought he was taking too long.

Some fear came back as he leaned over the wash basin, staring at his throat, fingering the suddenly murderous blade. But the pain wouldn't last long. A lot less than there would be under shock treatment and less pain. He'd read enough to feel sure of that.

Twice he braced himself and failed at the last second. His mind flashed out in wild schemes fighting against what it knew had to be done.

The world still had to be warned. If he could escape somehow, if he could still find a way, he couldn't quit no matter how impossible things looked. But he knew better. There was nothing one man could do against the aliens in this world they had taken over.

He'd never had a chance. Man had been chained already by carefully developed ridicule against superstition, by carefully indoctrinated gobbledy guc about insanity, persecution complexes, and all the rest.

For a second day, he even considered the possibility that he was insane, but he knew it was only a blind effort to cling to life. There had been no insanity in him when he groped for evidence in the coffin and found it empty.

He leaned over the washbasin. His eyes focused on his throat and his hand came down and around carrying the razor blade through a lethal semicircle.

Dane Phillips watched fear give place to sickness on his face as the pain lanced through him and the blood spurred. He watched horror creep up to replace the sickness while the bleeding stopped and the gash began closing.

By the time he recognized his expression as the same what he'd seen on his father's face at the window so long ago, the wound was completely healed.

And of Dead Ringer by Lester Del Rey.

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