Alfred Bester: The Demolished Man

"The Man With No Face does not fill you with fear because he's faceless. You know who he is. You hate him and fear him, but you know who he is."

"You're the peeper. You tell me. "

"There's a limit to my ability, Mr. Reich. I can read your mind no

deeper without help." "What do you mean, help? You're the best E.M.D. I could hire. If..." "You're neither thinking nor meaning that, Mr. Reich. You deliberately

hired a 2nd Class Esper in order to protect yourself in such an emergency. Now you're paying the price of your caution. If you want the screaming to stop, you'll have to consult one of the 1st Class men... Say, Augustus Tate or Gart or Samuel @kins..."

"I'll think about it," Reich muttered and turned to go. As he opened the door, Breen called: "By the way... `We Transport You Into Transports' is the slogan of the D'Courtney Cartel. How does that tie in with the alteration of `bort' to `dort'? Think it over."

"The Man With No Face!"

Without staggering, Reich slammed the door across the path from his mind to Breen and then lurched down the corridor toward his own suite. A wave of savage hatred burst over him. "He's right. It's D'Courtney who's giving me the screams. Not because I'm afraid of him. I'm afraid of myself. Known all along. Known it deep down inside. Known that once I faced it I'd have to kill that D'Courtney bastard. It's no face because it's the face of murder."

Fully dressed and in his wrong mind, Reich stormed out of his apartment and descended to the street where a Monarch Jumper picked him up and carried him in one graceful hop to the giant tower that housed the hundreds of floors and thousands of employees of Monarch's New York Office. Monarch Tower was the central nervous system of an incredibly vast corporation, a pyramid of transportation, communication, heavy industry, manufacture, sales distribution, research, exploration, importation. Monarch Utilities & Resources, Inc. bought and sold, traded and gave, made and destroyed. Its pattern of subsidiaries and holding companies was so complex that it demanded the full-time services of a 2nd Class Esper Accountant to trace the labyrinthine flow of its finances.

Reich entered his office, followed by his chief (Esper 3) secretary

and her staff, bearing the litter of the morning's work. "Dump it and jet," he growled. They deposited the papers and recording crystals on his desk and

departed hastily but without rancor. They were accustomed to his rages. Reich seated himself behind his desk, trembling with a fury that was already goring D'Courtney. Finally he muttered: "I'll give the bastard one more chance."

He unlocked his desk, opened the drawer-safe and withdrew the Executive's Code Book, restricted to the executive heads of the firms listed quadruple A-1-* by Lloyds. He found most of the material he required in the middle pages of the book:

QQBA ........ PARTNERSHIP

RRCB ........ BOTH OUR

SSDC ........ BOTH YOUR

TTED ........ MERGER

UUFE ........ INTERESTS

VVGF ........ INFORMATION

WWHG ........ ACCEPT OFFER

XXJH ........ GENERALLY KNOWN

YYJI ........ SUGGEST

ZZXJ ........ CONFIDENTIAL

AALK ........ EQUAL

BBML ........ CONTRACT

Marking his place in the code book, Reich flipped the v-phone on and said to the image of the interoffice operator: "Get me Code."

The screen dazzled and cut to a smokey room cluttered with books and coils of tape. A bleached man in a faded shirt glanced at the screen, then leaped to attention.

"Yes, Mr. Reich?"

"Morning, Hassop. You look like you need a vacation." Make your

enemies by choice. "Take a week at Spaceland. Monarch expense." "Thank you, Mr. Reich. Thank you very much." "This one's confidential. To Craye D'Courtney. Send..." Reich

consulted the Code Book. "Send YYJI TTED RRCB UUFE AALK QQBA. Get the

answer to me like rockets. Right?" "Right, Mr. Reich. I'll jet." Reich cut off the phone. He jabbed his hand once into the pile of

papers and crystals on his desk, picked up a crystal and dropped it into the play-back. His chief secretary's voice said: "Monarch Gross off two points one one three four per cent. D'Courtney Gross up two point one one three oh per cent..."

"God damn him!" Reich growled. "Out of my pocket into his." He snapped off the play-back and arose in an agony of impatience. It would take hours for the reply to come. His whole life hung on D'Courtney's reply. He left his office and began to roam through the floors and departments of Monarch Tower, pretending the remorseless personal supervision he usually exercised. His Esper secretary unobtrusively accompanied him like a trained dog.

"Trained bitch!" Reich thought. Then aloud: "I'm sorry. Did you peep that?"

"Quite all right, Mr. Reich. I understand."

"Do you? I don't. Damn D'Courtney!"

In Personnel they were testing, checking, and screening the usual mass of job applicants... clerks, craftsmen, specialists, middle bracket executives, top echelon experts. All of the preliminary elimination was done with standardized tests and interviews, and never to the satisfaction of Monarch's Esper Personnel Chief who was stalking through the floor in an icy rage when Reich entered. The fact that Reich's secretary had sent an advance telepathic announcement of the visit made no difference to him.

"I have allotted ten minutes per applicant for my final screening interview," the Chief was snapping to an assistant. "Six per hour, forty-eight per day. Unless my percentage of final rejections drops below thirty-five, I am wasting my time; which means you are wasting Monarch's time. I am not employed by Monarch to screen out the obviously unsuitable. That is your work. See to it." He turned to Reich and nodded pedantically. "Good morning, Mr. Reich."

"Morning. Trouble?"

"Nothing that cannot be handled once this staff understands that Extra Sensory Perception is not a miracle but a skill subject to wage-hour limitations. And what is your decision on Blonn, Mr. Reich?"

Secretary: "He hasn't read your memo yet."

"May I point out, young woman, that unless I am used with maximum efficiency I am wasted. The Blonn memo has been on Mr. Reich's desk for three days."

"Who the hell is Blonn?" Reich asked.

"First, the background, Mr. Reich: There are approximately one hundred thousand (100,000) 3rd Class Espers in the Esper Guild. An Esper 3 can peep the conscious level of a mind---can discover what a subject is thinking at the moment of thought. A 3rd is the lowest class of telepath. Most of Monarch's security positions are held by 3rds. We employ over five

hundred..." "He knows all this. Everybody does. Get to the point, long-wind!" "Permit me, if I may, to arrive at the point in my own way. Next,

there are approximately ten thousand 2nd Class Espers in the Guild," the Personnel Chief continued frostily. "They are experts like myself who can penetrate beneath the conscious level of the mind to the preconscious. Most 2nds are in the professional class... physicians, lawyers, engineers, educators, economists, architects and so on."

"And you all cost a fortune," Reich growled.

"Why not? We have unique service to sell. Monarch appreciates the

fact. Monarch employs over one hundred 2nds at present." "Will you get to the point?" "Finally there are less than a thousand 1st Class Espers in the Guild.

The 1sts are capable of deep peeping, through the conscious and preconscious layers down to the unconscious... the lowest levels of the mind. Primordial basic desires and so forth. These, of course, hold premium positions. Education, specialized medical service... analysts like Tate, Gart, @kins, Moselle... criminologists like Lincoln Powell of the Psychotic Division... Political Analysts, State Negotiators, Special Cabinet Advisors, and so on. Thus far Monarch Utilities has never had occasion to hire a 1st."