Ten From Infinity

P >> Paul W. Fairman >> Ten From Infinity

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Her face was pale and drawn; her smile was as abstract as the mystery on
the lips of the Mona Lisa. She laid a hand on the suitcase.

"We had our first quarrel over it, remember? We went to Puerto Rico for
that week and I wanted to use mine but you said, 'Goddamn it, if you're
ashamed of my suitcase you're ashamed of me, so the hell with it.'"

"I remember."

He sat down beside her, lit a cigarette, and then dropped it on the
floor and stepped on it. They both looked straight ahead.

"Take me with you, Frank."

"That's impossible."

"I know, but take me with you."

"There will be no money. I'll live in a stuffy room somewhere."

"What difference does that make? Take me."

"You have your job. You're on the way up. It would be unthinkable."

"I don't have any job. I quit. I was halfway through a piece of
copy--very important copy--and I got up and walked into Mr. Frankel's
office. I said, 'Mr. Frankel, it's been very nice working for you. I
appreciate all you've done but I'm leaving now. The pencils are all
sharpened on my desk and the next girl can have the new leather-bound
address book in the lower right hand drawer that I bought but never
used! That was a silly thing to say, wasn't it?"

"I suppose so."

"And the way I phrased it. I actually said I'd bought the lower right
hand drawer and hadn't used it--take me with you, Frank."

"Rhoda, I was so wrong in--"

"_I_ was wrong, Frank. I was trying to mold you into my way of life. I
wanted you, but only as a part of my own eager little world. I had money
so I furnished my apartment. I put this here and that there, and hung a
toothbrush over the sink as necessarily functional, and then I decided I
needed a man in the same way and so I picked you.

"But I found out that the man in the bed was the most important part of
it and without him there wasn't anything. Without him I didn't want any
of the other. Now ... I want to be a wife. A wife is a person who goes
where her husband goes and lives where he lives and shares what he has.
You don't barter and trade--this for that--give up this part to get
that. You give up everything and yet it isn't like that at all because
you're really getting everything."

He took out another cigarette.

"Oh, Frank, it's all mixed up and I'm going to cry, I think."

"It's not mixed up at all," he said quietly. He turned to look at her,
half frowning, half smiling. "Now why in the hell couldn't you have
given me a little notice? Twenty minutes to plane time and I've got to
get another reservation."

"I'm sorry, Frank."

"Maybe there isn't a seat."

"Wouldn't that be terrible?"

"Then we'll have to wait over."

"Why don't you go and see?"

Five minutes later they were walking down the west tunnel to gate
twenty-six.

Frank Corson grinned. "Come on, woman, I'm going to take you across
state lines for immoral purposes."

"How wonderful," she breathed.

* * * * *

Brent Taber was human and his triumph had been a thing of satisfaction
to him--but only momentarily. Now it had a slightly sour taste.

Not that he was unhappy. He was content and almost relaxed as he sat in
Doctor Entman's patio and worked on a Scotch and soda.

"A nice night," Entman said.

"Beautiful. Those stars are about ready to fall into our laps."

"Menace out there? It seems unthinkable."

"Doesn't it?"

"The human animal is a strange creature. He's so capable of refusing to
believe what he doesn't want to believe."

"Maybe he's smarter than we think. Maybe there's no point in looking at
a pending disaster from every angle. The what-will-be-will-be attitude
isn't necessarily like that of the ostrich which sticks its head in the
sand."

"Do the people inside really believe?" Entman asked.

"It's pretty difficult to tell. Sometimes I wonder what my own real
feelings are."

"I wasn't completely briefed on how it ended," Entman said delicately.

"I think the phony specifications got through."

"If they did--if things are really as they appear--"

Taber smiled in the darkness. "Are _you_ beginning to doubt, Doctor?"

"Oh, be quiet," Entman said with friendly petulance. "I was going to say
that I was rather proud of those details. If our hostiles out there
follow my specifications, they'll create androids with much smaller
lungs and non-porous skin that will give them no end of trouble when
they start chasing frightened householders down the streets of the
world."

Taber chuckled. "I remember a story about the Japanese Navy. They were
supposed to have built some ships to specifications stolen in England.
When launched, they slid out into the bay and tipped over."

Entman sighed. "I wish I could get some of the data those creatures
used in the construction of the androids."

"You'd like to make one of your own?"

"It would solve the servant problem. Terrible here in Washington."

"Labor unions would holler bloody murder."

"You can't stop progress."

Suddenly Entman got to his feet. He walked to the edge of the patio and
looked upward. Taber saw his face in the light streaming from the living
room--he seemed frightened.

"Brent! It's such a helpless feeling. What do we do?"

Brent Taber got up and went over and stood beside Entman. He, too,
looked up into the velvet night; the beautiful, quiet, impersonal night.

The sinister night.

"We watch the stars," Brent said. "And we wait."

THE END

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TEN FROM INFINITY

Ten men walked Earth--ten men in different cities in the United States.
Each one was the exact replica of the other--from the tips of his
fingers down to the beating of his twin hearts.

Where they came from, they were called androids--synthetic men,
conditioned by their masters to complete their deadly purpose on Earth
as advance agents for an invasion from space.

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specially commissioned to find out their plans and avert the world's
destruction.

The big problem was to figure out a way to appeal to the mindless,
soulless creatures who knew no emotion--pleasure or pain. But every move
he had made so far had ended in failure and time was running out--for
him and everyone on the face of the Earth ...

Published By MONARCH BOOKS, INC.

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