Algis Budrys - Who?

Azarin scowled. Still, in the end, he would win. He would rip behind that mask, and secrets would come spilling out.

If there is time, he reminded himself. Six weeks, now. Six weeks. How far would the Allieds stretch their patience? How far would the Allieds let Novoya Moskva stretch theirs?

He almost glared at the man. It was his fault this incredible affair had ever taken place. “Tell me, Doctor Martino,” he said, “don’t you wonder why you are here, in one of our hospitals?”

“I assume you got the jump on our rescue teams.”

It was becoming clear to Azarin that this Martino intended to leave him no openings. “Yes,” he smiled, “but would you not expect your Allied government to take better safety precautions? Should they not have had teams close by?”

“I’m afraid I-never thought about it very much.”

So. The man refused to tell him whether the K-Eighty-Eight was normally considered an explosion hazard or not.

“And what have you thought about, Doctor of Science?”

The figure in the bed shrugged. “Nothing much. I’m waiting to get out of here. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? I don’t imagine you’ll be able to keep me very long.”

Now the thing was deliberately trying to get him angry. Azarin did not like being reminded of the wasted weeks. “My dear Doctor of Science, you are free to go almost as soon as you wish.”

“Yes — exactly. Almost.”

So. The thing understood the situation perfectly, and would not yield — no more than its face could break out into fearful sweat.

Azarin realized his own palms were damp.

Abruptly, Azarin stood up. There was no good in pursuing this further. The lines were clearly drawn, the purpose of the talk was accomplished, nothing more could be done, and it was becoming more than he could stand to remain any longer with this monster. “I must go. We will talk again.” Azarin bowed. “Good afternoon, Doctor of Science Martino.”

“Good afternoon, Colonel Azarin.”

Azarin pushed the chair back against the wall and strode out. “I am finished for today,” he growled to the waiting Doctor Kothu, and went back to his office, where he sat drinking tea and frowning at the telephone.

Doctor Kothu came in, examined him, and left. Martino lay back in his bed, thinking.

Azarin was going to be bad, he thought, if he was given the chance to build up his temper over any period of time. He wondered how much longer the ANG would take to get him out of this.

But Martino’s greatest preoccupation, at the moment, was the K-Eighty-Eight. He had already decided what unlikely combination of factors had produced the explosion. Now, as he had been doing for the past several hours, he worked toward a new means of absorbing the terrific heat wastage that the K-Eighty-Eight developed.

He found his thoughts drifting away from it and toward what had happened to him. He raised his new arm and looked at it in fascination before he forced himself off the subject. He flung the arm down on the bed beside him, out of his field of vision, and felt the shock against the mattress.

How long am I going to stay in this place? he thought. Kothu had told him he could be getting out of bed soon. How much good is that going to do me if they keep me on this side of the line indefinitely?

He wondered how much the Soviets knew about the K-Eighty-Eight. Probably just enough so they’d do their best to keep him and pump it out of him. If they hadn’t known anything, they’d never have come after him. If they knew enough to use, again, they wouldn’t have bothered.

He wondered how far the Soviets would go before they were ready to give up. You heard all kinds of stories. Probably the same stories the Soviets heard about the ANG.

He was frightened, he suddenly realized. Frightened by what had happened to him, by what Kothu had done to save him, by the thought of having the Soviets somehow get the K-Eighty-Eight out of him, by the sudden feeling of complete helplessness that came over him.

He wondered if he might be a coward. It was something he had not considered since the age when he learned the difference between physical bravery and courage. The possibility that he might do something irrational out of simple fear was new to him.

He lay in the bed, searching his mind for evidence, pro or con.

It was now two months, and still Azarin did not even know whether the K-Eighty-Eight was a bomb, a death ray, or a new means of sharpening bayonets.

He had had several totally unsatisfactory talks with that thing, Martino, who would not give in. It was all very polite, and it told him nothing. A man — any man — he could have fought. But a blank-faced nothing like some nightmare in the dark forests, that sat in its wheelchair looking like the gods they worshipped in jungle temples, that knew if it waited long enough Azarin would be beaten — that was more than could be tolerated.

Azarin remembered this morning’s call from Novoya Moskva, and suddenly he crashed his fist down upon his desk.

Their best man. They knew he was their best man, they knew he was Anastas Azarin, and yet they talked to him like that’ Clerks talked to him like that!

It was all because they wanted to give Martino back to the Allieds as quickly as they could. If they would give Azarin time, it would be another matter. If Martino did not have to be returned at all, if certain methods could be used, then something might really be done.

Azarin sat behind his desk, searching for the answer. Something must be thought of to satisfy Novoya Moskva — to delay things until, inevitably, a way was found to handle this Martino. But nothing would satisfy Central Headquarters unless they could in turn satisfy the Allieds. And the Allieds would be satisfied with nothing less than Martino.

Azarin’s eyes opened wide. His thick eyebrows rose into perfect semicircles. Then he reached for his telephone and called Doctor Kothu’s number. He sat listening to the telephone ring. He made one, Azarin thought. Perhaps he can make two.

His upper lip drew back from his teeth at the thought that the American, Heywood, was the best choice for the assignment. He would have much preferred to send someone solid — one of his own people, whose capabilities he knew and whose weaknesses he could allow for. But Heywood was the only choice. Probably he would fail sooner or later. But the important thing was that Novoya Moskva would not think so. They were very proud of their foreigners at Central Headquarters, and of the whole overcomplicated and inefficient system that supported them. They had it in their heads that a man could be a traitor to his own people and still not be crippled by the weaknesses that had driven him to treachery. Their repeated failures had done nothing to enlighten them, and for once Azarin was glad of it.

“Medical Doctor Kothu? This is Azarin. If I were to send you a suitable man — a whole man this time — could you do with him what you did with Martino?” He slapped the ends of his fingers against the edge of his desk, listening. “That is correct. A whole man. I wish you to make me a brother for the monster. A twin.”

When he was through speaking to Kothu, Azarin called Novoya Moskva, hunching forward over his desk, his papyros jutting straight out from his hand. His jaw was firmly set, his lower teeth thrust forward past his upper jaw. His lips were stretched. His face lost its wooden blankness. It was a different sort of a grin, this, from the one he usually showed the world. Like his habitual reticent mask, it had been forged in the years since he left his father’s forest. Its lines on his face had been baked in by foreign suns and scoured by the sand of alien deserts. It came to him as easily, now, as the somewhat boyish smile he’d always had. The difference was that Azarin was not aware he possessed this third expression.