Robert Silverberg: The Planet Killers

“Unless Karnes decides to take eyeprints of everybody leaving Earth for the next couple of months.”

Hollis shrugged. “If he does that, you’ll be caught. But it would cost him practically his entire budget to do it. Are you worth it?”

“I might be,” Gardner said grimly. “But there’s no use worrying about it now. You can’t get into my eyes to change thines. How much do I owe you?”

“Seventy credits.”

“Don’t be silly. This job is worth at least a thousand, Hollis!”

The old man smiled. “Seventy credits represents my operating expenses. The rest of the fee would be.recompense for skills. In your case, Gardner, the labor is on the house. You’ll need your money, wherever it is you’re going. I haven’t forgotten that I was indebted to you when you walked in last night. Go, now. And remember—your name is now Gregory Stone.”

By noon, Gregory Stone was on line at the branch office of the Bureau of Emigration. He had spent some time locked in a public washroom, studying the papers Hollis had forged while he slept. Gregory Stone was a year older than Roy Gardner, had been born not in Massachusetts but in Maine, and he had worked on a public-owned farm all his life. Hollis had supplied a convincing-looking employment certificate.

All of Roy Gardner’s funds had been deposited in a new account, opened by Gregory Stone and made transferable to the Central Bank of Herschel. Roy Gardner no longer existed. The heavy-set redhaired man who had filled out the application was Gregory Stone.

Gregory Stone slid the papers across to the clerk, a different clerk in a different branch from the one where Gardner had tried to apply the day before. The clerk, smiling as fixedly as the other one had, went through the routine motions in a flurry of hands and elbows. The applicant underwent an uneasy moment as the clerk checked the passport number against a list by his side, but there were no difficulties. A clatter of rubber stamps finally validated the departure permit.

“We wish you success in your ventures, Mr. Stone. Your papers are in order.”

“Thanks,” Gardner-Stone said mechanically.

He wandered away, into the section where flight arrangements were made. The next voyage to Herschel, he learned, would depart in five days. It was a four-stop affair, with Herschel the end of the line. Travel time, six weeks one way. He filled out the form, requesting a single one-way passage, and waited while the robot brains checked to see if there still was room aboard. There was. He was assigned a compartment.

“You have three days to make final payment, Mr. Stone,” the clerk informed him.

“I’ll make it right now,” he said.

He wrote out a check drawn against Gregory Stone’s new bank account, countermarked it with Gregory Stone’s new thumbprint, and handed it across. The check was validated. Five minutes later, Gardner walked out of the building with a set of cleared papers and a paid-in-full ticket to Herschel in his pocket.

The seedlings were coming up. It was a wonderful feeling to stand there, with the full golden light of the sun splashing down, looking at the little greenish-yellow sprouts pushing their heads up. Gardner and Lori had only cultivated enough acreage to support themselves this first year. Later, when there were five or six grown children to help out, they would cultivate all five hundred acres of his land, and perhaps buy more. There was plenty of room. Their nearest neighbor, here on Herschel, was twelve miles to the east

“Smell the air,” Lori said. “Clean, fresh.”

“Like wine.”

“Yes. Like wine.”

Gardner smiled. They had been on Herschel ten months, but it seemed like only a few weeks. He thought back to those hectic last few days on Earth when he was holed up in that hotel, never going out for fear of Karnes, wondering where Lori was, waiting for those five endless days to come to their end.

They had, finally. And, as Gregory Stone, he had boarded the spaceship without incident. They had given him a bunk in the bachelor quarters, but on the third day out he had caught the eye of a handsome young single woman. He flirted with her for nearly half an hour before he identified himself. Lori was red with shame.

That would be a memory to cherish forever, Gardner thought: Lori blushing beet-red from forehead to ankles at the way he had trapped her.

They had formed a solid couple, and there had been a shipboard marriage, and Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Stone had moved into the married peoples’ quarters as soon as a cabin became vacant after the ship’s first stop. And then there had been the day when Herschel hung in the viewplates, all green and gold and blue and brown.

It was a good life, Gardner thought, full of fresh air, hard work, and love. Earth seemed like a bad dream, the interlude on Lurion a worse one. Gardner subscribed to the telex service and scanned every word every day, waiting for the day when he would read of the dreadful disaster that had befallen Lurion of the Betelgeuse system. But the news never came. Had he missed it, Gardner wondered? Or was Kames still having trouble getting his team of five in position?

It wasn’t easy. There had to be five, and they had to synchronize the activation of their generators. And if one of them had an attack of conscience at the critical moment, they would all have to begin again.

Gardner tried to forget about Lurion and what Earth planned to do to it. Earth and Lurion were both very far away, invisible, both of them, in the nightly glory of Herschel’s sky. The only reality that mattered was right here.

Gardner stood with his arm around Lori, looking out over their land. It was midmorning, the sun still not yet at its zenith. The excitement of spring crackled in the air.

A helicopter droned overhead, suddenly.

“Looks like we’re getting company,” Gardner said.

Lori frowned. “I wonder who. We saw the Tompkinses last week, and we’re supposed to go over the hill to the Vreelands on Fourday. So…”

“Maybe it’s a traveling salesman,” Gardner suggested.

The helicopter hovered over an uncultivated clearing and began to descend. It bore, Gardner saw, the Herschel City crest, which meant that it was an official car being used to ferry some visitor out to the Gardner farm. It landed, and a short, stocky, balding man clambered out; then the copter took off again. Within a moment it was only a dot against the cloudless steel-blue sky.

The man began to walk toward the Gardner house. Gardner stiffened. “Good God,” he muttered hoarsely. “It’s Smee! Get the rifle, Lori!”

But before she had a chance to move, the newcomer waved cheerily and called out, “Hello, Lori! Hello, Gardnerl”

“My name is Stone. Who are you?”

Smee laughed. “I can recognize you behind the false face, Gardner. And Lori hasn’t changed at all, except to get prettier.”

Smee had changed, too. He was not the shattered hulk of a man who had come back from Lurion with them. He looked younger, stronger, more vibrant and tough than ever. Gardner felt the chill in his belly begin to sweep upward to his heart. He had never expected to see anyone from the old life again.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Smee asked.

“What do you want with me?” Gardner asked tightly.

“A friendly visit and a little talk,” Smee said. “For old time’s sake.”

“We’ll talk out here. How did you find me?”

Smee grinned. “Seems that Security picked up an old crock name of Hollis. The name mean anything to you?”

“Go on,” Gardner -said. Lori, by his side, clung to him in terror.

“This Hollis used to be a Security medic, it seems. Gone into private practice. There was a tip that he was doing illegal surgery, and a couple of Agents picked him up. Under hypnosis he revealed a few of his recent clients. He told us he had changed you all around and given you the name of Gregory Stone.”