Robert Silverberg: The Planet Killers

So Karnes could be sure that Gardner would not blab, at least not for a while. Soon, perhaps, the compulsion to speak out would outweigh the bonds of loyalty; but Karnes hoped to have Gardner in custody long before that.

An hour later, Gardner was halfway across the city, making his way through shabby, darkened streets that had not been repaved for generations. This was the poor quarter of the city, where the human refuse came to rest at tide’s end.

The address was something Gardner never had forgotten. The store was where he remembered it to be: the windows were just as dingy, the neons just as noisy, the sidewalk in front just as filthy. Only the old man had changed. He was now even older.

Gardner let himself in and stood by the door. The old man peered at him out of eyes dulled and yellowed by years. “Yes? Repair your shoes?”

Gardner grinned. “You mean you don’t remember me, Hollis?”

“My name isn’t Hollis! Why do you call me… ?” He paused. “Gardner?”

“The same.”

The old man showed brittle stumps of teeth in a broad grin. “You young devil! What brings you around here?” The grin faded immediately. “You aren’t going to turn me in, are you? Not after all these years?”

Gardner shook his head. “Far from it, Hollis. I need a new face and I need a new passport, all in a hurry; overnight, if you can manage it.”

“Are you serious? Have you gotten in trouble?”

“Big trouble,” Gardner confirmed. “I had a quarrel with Karnes over procedures, and resigned my commission. He didn’t move fast enough to grab me while I was in his office, but he’s got the word out now. I’m to be picked up and detained. I know too much.”

The oldster hobbled out from behind his bench and peered up at Gardner. “Come in back,” he said. “I’ll lock up the store. You go straight through, turn right, open the door.”

Gardner did as he was told and found himself in a tiny but well-equipped little office, hidden away in the rear of the shop. He smiled. Security could be troublesome, but a good Security Agent could always use some of his own knowledge to evade capture.

Hollis had been a Security Agent once, and a good one. He had been a plastic surgeon, specializing in disguising Agents for special missions. But he, too, had quarreled with Karnes over procedures, and had resigned from the Corps. Gardner had never known the exact circumstances of the quarrel, though Hollis had let it be known that it was a matter of ethics. Karnes had sent out an order for Hollis’ pickup, but Hollis had slipped through the net, changed his appearance, and set up shop in a dismal part of the city, cobbling for a living but practicing plastic surgery for the benefit of the underworld.

Gardner had stumbled over the old man’s refuge three years before. It was his duty to report Hollis to Karnes but the old man had pleaded desperately and had finally swayed Gardner into forgetting to turn him in.

Now it was time to let Hollis repay that favor.

“They’ve got my passport number on the list,” Gardner said. “It’s a top-priority search. I’ve got to get off Earth fast, or I’ll never get another chance.”

Hollis grinned. “You needn’t worry. I’ll have you fixed so well they’ll never spot you. Overnight, you say?”

“It’s best that way.”

“Too bad. If I had a week, I could fix you so they’d never have a chance. Alter your bone structure, change your whole physique. But I suppose I can do enough tonight to get you through. How do you want to look?”

“The same, only different—get what I mean? I’m not handsome now. I don’t want you to give me a handsome face, but don’t disfigure me either.”

“I could turn you into a godling, you know. No woman would resist you.”

“I’ve got a woman already,” Gardner said. “She likes me pretty much the way I am. See if you can make the alterations without changing the basic character of the face.”

“Hmm. See what I can do.”

Hollis took out a pad and stylus and began to sketch out a face, keeping the sheet away from Gardner’s angle of vision. Gardner fidgeted. Fifteen minutes later, Hollis grunted his satisfaction.

“There. Take a look.”

The face that looked up at the paper bore no resemblance to his own. The nose was flatter, rounder; the lips were wider and fuller. The chin protruded a little in a rugged, not unattractive way.

“It looks all right,” Gardner said.

“I’ll alter the color of your hair, of course, and of your eyes. And you’d better grow a mustache, too. How about identifying scars?”

“I’ve got a slash on my forearm.”

“I’ll cover it with synthoflesh,” Hollis said. “Nobody will tell the difference. The synthoflesh will wither away in about a year. It’ll be gradual. Your lips and chin will return pretty much to what they are now. But the angle of your ears is going to stay different, and the shape of your nose. Unless you find someone who can put you back the way you were.”

“I doubt that I will.”

“All right, then. Lie down on the table. Get your shirt off while I’m preparing the anesthetic.”

Gardner waited, tensely, while the old man bustied busily about, getting things ready. He wondered if it would be painful; he wondered if he would ever get used to a different face looking back at him from mirrors. Then the anesthetic cone descended over his face, and he ceased to wonder.

His next sensation was the sound of Hollis’ voice saying warningly, “Don’t move.”

Gardner opened his eyes. His face ached, his head throbbed.

“Don’t try to talk, either,” Hollis said. “I finished an hour ago, but you’ve got to let things set. Here, take a peek.”

Hollis held a mirror in front of his face. Gardner stared into the glass and saw blue eyes staring back. His eyes had been brown. Brown hair now was orange-red. His nose was different, his chin jutted, his mouth was broader. It was a stranger’s face. Yet, somehow, he knew it was his own.

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” Hollis told him. “I’ve been working on you all night, snipping muscles, beaming you with quickheal, rearranging, grafting synthoflesh. Look at your arm.”

Gardner picked up his arm. The long white scar along the inside of his forearm, a relic of an old sporting accident, was gone. Hollis had matched the old skin perfectly. Even the hair growing on his arm matched. It was all an even red now.

“I’ve treated your follicles so that your head and body hair will grow in red for about a year,” Hollis said. “After that, it’ll gradually return to its old color. You’ll have to figure out some explanation for your neighbors, but you’ve got time to worry about that.” Hollis reached behind him and picked up a sheaf of documents. “By the way here are your papers. Your name is Gregory Stone, now. I faked a complete background for you. Make sure you study it till you’re letter-perfect. I guess it’s safe for you to talk, now. The incisions ought to be healed by this time.”

As cautiously as though made of sand, he rose to a sitting position and looked down at himself. “You’ve made me a lot heavier,” he said.

“There’s twenty pounds of synthoflesh around your middle,” Hollis said. “You’ll absorb it rapidly enough. But just for now it makes quite a difference in your physique.”

“You’re a magician, Hollis!”

“Just a craftsman,” Hollis murmured. “I didn’t do anything to you that any other plastic surgeon couldn’t have done. I simply did it quicker and better, that’s all.”

“When will I be fully healed?”

“Go easy for a day or so. Don’t shave and don’t get into any horseplay. After that, you’ll be fine. And the only way they can identify you is by your retinal index. I can’t change that ~ But nobody’s going to check your index unless you provoke them to. There’s no reason for anyone to suspect you of being Roy Gardner.”