Jack Vance - The Five Gold Bands

"There's also Paddy Blackthorn the great lover," suggested Fay.

"Right," assented Paddy. "There's four of me and a different psychograph for ' em all. So you see, I've three chances in four to confuse the suspicious devils."

"If you do you'll be the first. You can change your fingerprints but you can't change your brain strenuata."

The Shauls had sheared off and leveled the peak of an old volcano to make Aevelye's space-field. When Paddy and Fay brought their boat down they found themselves overlooking a vast panorama of badlands, a chopped and hacked region of red, yellow and green-gray rock.

Directly below, a tremendous rift rent the planet, a chasm miles across and miles deep. Down one side, on a series of ledges, sat the city Aevelye-white buildings pressed against the walls of the gorge, facing out across the awesome valley.

As Almach sank, the light played on wisps of mist hanging in the valley on a level with the rim and the colors were like fantastic music-greens and lavenders, oranges, unbelievable pastels from the reflected and refracted light.

The boat came to rest on Aevelye Field-bare and quiet compared to the fields at Badau and Loristan. Fay shivered. "We can't help but be noticed."

Paddy looked out the dome. "Here they come-the Cossacks!" He patted Fay's shoulder. "The bold front, now, lass."

Four Shaul guards drove up to the ship in a jeep, jumped out. They wore tight sheaths of blue metallic cloth and three carried carbines slung over their shoulders. Their hoods of skin, which they held rigid and stiff, were stained red and painted with indications of rank. The officer, wearing a black star on his hood, climbed up the ladder, rapped smartly on the door.

Paddy opened for him without pumping clear the entrance lock and coughed at the acrid dust that followed the Shaul into the cabin.

The officer was a young man, very terse and exact. He pulled out a pad of printed forms. "Your papers, please."

Fay handed him the ship's license. The officer bent to look.

"Albuquerque Field, Earth." He looked up, turned to Paddy, scrutinized him up and down. "Name, please?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smith."

"Your business here on Shaul?"

"Business and pleasure," Paddy replied jocularly. "We're tourists and journalists at the same time. We've been wanting to make the Big Line, and when we caught the news of the assassination we thought maybe we'd take some pictures around the planet."

The officer said without emotion, "Earthers are not in good reputation around the Five Planets."

Paddy protested, "Ah now, we're just working people and we've our living to make, whether there's births or deaths or war or peace. And if you'd say a good word for us we'd sure appreciate it"

The officer swept the interior of the craft with his eyes. "We don't have too many Earth journalists setting down at Aevelye in these small boats."

"Listen now!" said Paddy eagerly. "Then we're the first? There's been none from the Fax Syndicate-that's our competitor?"

"No," said the officer coolly. "You're the first." He returned to his printed form. "How long do you plan to stay?"

"Oh, maybe a week or until we accomplish our business. Then maybe we'll be on to Loristan or Koto for more."

"Ghouls," said the officer under his breath. He handed them an ink-pad. "Your thumbprints please."

Gingerly they pressed their identities on his sheet.

"Now"-he wrote a moment-"here's a receipt and I'll have to take your power-arm and keys. Your boat is impounded. When you want to leave apply to Room Twelve, Terminal Hall, for a permit."

"Here now," protested Paddy. "Isn't this high-handed? Suppose we want to tour across the planet?"

"Sorry," said the officer. "There's a state of emergency, and we're bound to take precautions until things are normal again."

"Now then," Fay said nervously, "we don't mind a little inconvenience if we get what we want."

The officer was copying information from the ship's papers. At last he looked up, produced a pair of small flat boxes.

"Here are temporary respirators, which will serve until you buy permanent breathers. Now, please, if you will come with me there's a formality required of all Earthers."

"And what's that?" demanded Paddy truculently. "A return to the old closed-space system? I'll have you know I'm a citizen of Earth and Ireland too and-"

"I'm sorry," said the officer. "I merely obey orders, which are to pass all Earthers, no matter how innocent, through the psychograph. If you are not a criminal then you need not worry. If you are, then you will be accorded justice."

"The psychograph is not an instrument for innocent people," said Paddy. "Why, the indignity of it! I'll leave the planet first and spend my money on Loristan."

"Not now," said the officer. "I regret that these are emergency conditions and that certain hardships must be endured. Please follow me."

Paddy shrugged. "As you wish. I'll have you know, however, that I protest bitterly."

The officer did not reply but stood watching as Paddy and Fay donned their respirators. Fay's mouth drooped, her eyes were moist when they fell on Paddy. Paddy moved with sullen deliberation.

The officer gave them seats in the jeep, trundled them to a ramp leading to a hall under the field.

"Into Room B, please."

In Boom B, they found three other Earthers, two angry old women and a sixteen-year-old boy waiting for their psycho-graphs. One by one they were taken into an inner room to emerge a minute or so later.

At last the Shaul nurse beckoned to Fay. "You first, please."

She rose, patted Patty's cheek. "I'm sorry it had to end like this," she said softly and disappeared.

A moment later the attendant motioned for Paddy.

Paddy entered a room, bare except for a desk, a chair and the psychographer. A doctor stood waiting while an orderly in blue metallic military uniform sat by a desk watching a screen with a psychgraph pattern pinned to a board beside it.

The doctor looked at Paddy once, then again searchingly. He turned to the orderly. "This one fits the physical data. The face is different, the hair and eyes are different but of course… Into the chair, please," he said to Paddy.

"Just a minute," said Paddy. "Am I a common criminal then?"

"That's what we are about to find out," the doctor told him quizzically. "In any event this is merely a routine check."

"What's all this?" Paddy motioned to the screen and the psychograph pinned up beside it-a pattern of lines like a weather chart superimposed on a relief map of the Himalayas.

"That, my friend," said the doctor imperturbably, "is the psychic pattern of Patrick Blackthorn-and if I may say so it's the oddest pattern I've ever seen. It's unmistakable.

"There's little chance of doing anyone injustice. Now if you'll take this seat and let me fit these pick-ups on your head…"

"I'll fit 'em," growled Paddy, taking a seat. He jammed the contacts down across his scalp. "Go ahead now and be damned to your bureaucratic nonsense."

The doctor snapped a switch. Paddy felt a slight tingling, a momentary drowsiness.

"That's all," said the doctor, glancing across to the orderly.

"Strange," muttered the orderly. "Come here, doctor…"

The doctor stared curiously at Paddy's pattern, shook his head "Strange."

"What's strange?" asked Paddy.

"Your-ah, pattern. It's hardly typical. You can go. Thank you."

Paddy returned to the anteroom, found Fay pacing the floor nervously. She gave a small squeak. "Paddy!"

The attendant looked up sharply and Paddy's knees wobbled. Fay's eyes grew large and moist. She blushed red. Taking Paddy's arm she pulled him out into the big echoing lobby.

"Paddy," she whispered. "How did you get away? I was waiting with my heart in my mouth, waiting for the shouting and banging-"