Anything You Can Do! by Randall Garrett (smart books to read .txt) 📗

"Not quite. The Nipe is not incapable of learning something new; in fact, he is quite good at it, as witness the fact that he has learned many Earth languages. He picked up Russian in less then eight months simply by listening and observing. Like our own race, his undoubtedly evolved many languages during the beginnings of its progress—when there were many tribes, separated and out of communication. It would not surprise me to find that most of those languages have survived and that our distressed astronaut knows them all. A new language would not distress him.

"Nor would strangely-shaped intelligent beings distress him. His race should be aware, by now, that such things exist. But it is very likely that he equates true intelligence with technology, and I do not think he has ever met a race higher than the barbarian level before. Such races were not, of course, human—by his definition. They showed possibilities, perhaps, but they had not evolved far enough. Considering the time span involved, it is not at all unlikely that the Nipe thinks of technology as something that evolves with a race in the same way intelligence does—or the body itself.

"So it would not surprise him to find that the Real People of this system were humanoid in shape. That is something new, and he can absorb it. It does not contradict anything he knows.

"But—! Any truly intelligent being which did not obey the Law and follow the Ritual would be a contradiction in terms. For he has no notion of a Real Person without those characteristics. Without those characteristics, technology is impossible. Since he sees technology all around him, it follows that there must be Real People with those characteristics. Anything else is unthinkable."

"It seems to me that you're building an awfully involved theory out of pretty flimsy stuff," Stanton said.

Yoritomo shook his head. "Not at all. All evidence points to it. Why, do you suppose, does the Nipe conscientiously devour his victims, often risking his own safety to do so? Why do you suppose he never uses any weapons but his own hands to kill with?

"Why? To tell the Real People that he is a gentleman!"

It made perfect sense, Stanton thought. It fitted every known fact, as far as he knew. Still—

"I would think," he said, "that the Nipe would have realized, after ten years, that there is no such race of Real People. He's had access to all our records, and such things. Or does he reject them as lies?"

"Possibly he would, if he could read them. Did I not say he was illiterate?"

"You mean he's learned to speak our languages, but not to read them?"

The scientist smiled broadly. "Your statement is accurate, my friend, but incomplete. It is my opinion that the Nipe is incapable of reading any written language whatever. The concept does not exist in his mind, except vaguely."

"A technological race without a written language? That's impossible!"

"Ah, no. Ask yourself: What need has a race with a perfect memory for written records—at least, in the sense we know them. Certainly not to remember things. All their history and all their technology exists in the collective mind of the race—or, at least, most of it. I dare say that the less important parts of their history has been glossed over and forgotten. One important event in every ten centuries would still give a historian ten thousand events to remember—and history is only a late development in our own society."

"How about communications?" Stanton said, "What did they use before they invented radio?"

"Ah. That is why I hedged when I said he was almost illiterate. There is a possibility that a written symbology did at one time exist, for just that purpose. If so, it has probably survived as a ritualistic form—when an officer is appointed to a post, let's say, he may get a formal paper that says so. They may use symbols to signify rank and so on. They certainly must have a symbology for the calibration of scientific instruments.

"But none of these requires the complexity of a written language. I dare say our use of it is quite baffling to him. And if he thinks of symbols as being unable to convey much information, then he might not be able to learn to read at all. You see?"

"Where's your evidence for that?"

"It is sketchy, I will admit," said Yoritomo. "It is not as solidly based as our other reconstructions of his background. The pattern of his raids indicates, however, that his knowledge of the materials he wants and their locations comes from vocal sources—television advertising, eaves-dropping, and so on. In other words, he cases the joint by ear. If he could understand written information, his job would have been much easier. He could have found the materials more quickly and easily. From this evidence, we are fairly certain that he can't read any Terrestrial writing.

"Add to that the fact that he has never been observed writing down anything himself, and the suspicion dawns that perhaps he knows that symbols can only convey a very small amount of specialized information. Eh?

"As I said, it is not proof."

"No. But the whole thing makes for some very interesting speculation, doesn't it?"

"Very interesting indeed." Yoritomo folded his hands in his lap, smiled seraphically, and looked at the ceiling. "In fact, my friend, we are now so positive of our knowledge of the Nipe's mind that we are prepared to enter into the next phase of our program. Within a very short while, if we are correct, we shall, with your help, arrest the most feared arch-criminal that Earth has ever known." He chuckled, but there was little mirth in it. "I dare say that the public will be extremely happy to hear of his death, and I know that Colonel Mannheim and the rest of us will be glad to know that he will never kill again."

Stanton saw that the fateful day was looming suddenly large in the future. "How soon?"

"Within days." He lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looked into Stanton's face with a mildly bland expression.

"By the way," he said, "did you know that your brother is returning to Earth tomorrow?"

Is this our young man, Dr. Farnsworth?" asked the man in uniform.

"Yes, it is. Colonel Mannheim, I'd like you to meet Mr. Bartholomew Stanton."

"How are you, Mr. Stanton?"

"Fine, Colonel. A little nervous."

The colonel chuckled softly. "I can't say that I blame you. It's not an easy decision to make." He looked at Dr. Farnsworth. "Has Dr. Yoritomo any more information for us?"

Farnsworth shook his head. "No. He admits that his idea is nothing more than a wild hunch. He seems to think that five years of observing the Nipe won't be too much time at all. We may have to act before then."

"I hope not. It would be a terrible waste," said Mannheim. "Mr. Stanton, I know that Dr. Farnsworth has outlined the entire plan to you, and I'm sure you're aware that many things can change in five years. We may have to play by ear long before that. Do you understand what we are doing, and why it must be done this way?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know that you're not to say anything."

"Yes, sir. Don't worry; I can keep my mouth shut."

"We're pretty sure of that," the colonel said with a smile. "Your psychometric tests showed that we were right in picking you. Otherwise, we couldn't have told you. You understand your part in this, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any questions?"

"Yes, sir. What about my brother, Martin? I mean, well, I know what's the matter with him. Aside from the radiation, I mean. Do you think he'll be able to handle his part of the job after—after the operations?"

"If the operations turn out as well as Dr. Farnsworth thinks they will, yes. And, with the therapy we'll give him afterwards, he'll be in fine shape."

"Well." He looked thoughtful. "Five more years. And then I'll have the twin brother that I never really had at all. Somehow, it doesn't really register, I guess."

"Don't worry about it, Mr. Stanton," said Dr. Farnsworth. "We've got a complex enough job ahead of us without your worrying in the bargain. By the way, we'll need your signature here." He handed him a pen and spread the paper on the desk. "In triplicate."

The young man read quickly through the release form. "All nice and legal, huh? Well...." He hesitated for a moment, then bent over and wrote: Bartholomew Stanton in a firm, clear hand.

The tunnel was long and black and the air was stale and thick with the stench of rodents. Stanton stood still, trying to probe the luminescent gloom that the goggles he wore brought to his eyes. The tunnel stretched out before him—on and on. Around him was the smell of viciousness and death. Ahead ...

It goes on to infinity, Stanton thought, ending at last at zero.

"Barbell," said a voice near his ear, "Barhop here. Do you read?" It was the barest whisper, picked up by the antennae in his shoes from the steel rail that ran along the tunnel.

"Read you, Barhop."

"Move out, then. You've got a long stroll to go."

Stanton started walking, keeping his feet near the rail, in case Barhop wanted to call again. As he walked, he could feel the slight motion of the skin-tight, woven elastic suit that he wore rubbing against his skin.

And he could hear the scratching patter of the rats.

Mostly, they stayed away from him, but he could see them hiding in corners and scurrying along the sides of the tunnel. Around him, six rat-like remote-control robots moved with him, shifting their pattern constantly as they patrolled his moving figure.

Far ahead, he knew, other rat robots were stationed, watching and waiting, ready to deactivate the Nipe's detection devices at just the right moment. Behind him, another horde moved forward to turn the devices on again.

It had taken a long time to learn how to shut off those detectors without giving the alarm to the Nipe's instruments.

There were nearly a hundred men in on the operation, operating the robot rats or watching the hidden cameras that spied upon the Nipe. Nearly a hundred. And all of them were safe.

They were outside the tunnel. They were with Stanton only in proxy. They could not die here in this stinking hole, but Stanton could.

There was no help for it. Stanton had to go in person. A full-sized robot proxy would be stronger, although not faster unless Stanton controlled it, than the Nipe. But the Nipe would be able to tell that it was a robot, and he would simply destroy it with one of his weapons. A remote-controlled robot would never get close enough to the Nipe to do any good.

"We do not know," Dr. Yoritomo had said, "whether he would recognize it as a robot or not, but his instruments would show the metal easily enough, and his eyes might be able to see that it was not covered with human skin. The rats are covered with real rat hides; they are small, and he is used to seeing them around. But a human-sized robot? Ah, no. Never."

So Stanton had to go in in person, walking southward, along the miles of blackness that led to the nest of the Nipe.

Overhead was Government City.

He had walked those streets only the night before, and he knew that only a short distance above him was an entirely different world.

Somewhere up there, his brother was waiting after having run the gamut of televised interviews, dinner at one of the best restaurants, and a party afterward. A celebrity. "The greatest detective in the Solar System," they'd called him. Fine stuff, that. Stanton wondered what the asteroids were like. Maybe that would be the place to go after this job was done. Maybe they'd have a place in the asteroids for a hopped-up superman.

Or maybe there'd only be a place here, beneath the streets of Government City for a dead superman.

Not if I can help it, Stanton thought with a grim smile.

The walking seemed to take forever, but, somehow, Stanton didn't mind it. He had a lot to think over. Seeing his brother had been unnerving yesterday, but today he felt as though everything had been all right all along.

His memory still was a long way from being complete, and it probably always would be. He could still scarcely recall any real memories of a boy named Martin Stanton, but—and he smiled at the thought—he knew more about him than his brother did, at that.

It didn't matter. That Martin Stanton was gone. In effect, he had been demolished—what little there had been of him—and a new structure had been built on the old foundation.

And yet, in another