The Programmed Man Read online

  "I never thought of that," Clender admitted.

  "Li-Hu has one other possibility," Karsh continued. "His saboteurs can't deliver the bomb secret, I'm certain, but they might pass it to another source for delivery."

  "How?" Clender challenged.

  "By smuggling it to an agent on the Draco," Karsh declared. "Suppose Hull -- he's the Draco's captain -- doesn't see it as sabotage, but believes it was an accident? In that case he'd rescue the survivors and bring them aboard. That would give the guilty ones a chance to pass on the information."

  "To a crew member? Are you hinting of a traitor aboard the Draco?"

  "Why so surprised, Clender? We have a detention world full of turncoats." He glanced away musingly. "Doesn't it strike you as strange that the distress signal from the Rigel was beamed to Upi, the Draco's base?"

  "Not necessarily, August. That is the closest base, you know. I'd take it for granted they would beam the signal there."

  "Don't take anything for granted," Karsh warned.

  "It still won't work," Clender denied flatly. "You're forgetting Daniel York."

  "No, I'm not forgetting York, and I know that it won't work, but Li-Hu doesn't know York's on the job. We were just lucky that York was close by when the story broke."

  "Very lucky, August."

  "Regardless of whether Dr. G or Li-Hu initiated the Heraskan overture, we're faced with the same thing," concluded Karsh. "Li-Hu and Dr. G are both after the bomb, and it's our job to prevent either from getting it."

  "Neither will get it," declared Clender.

  "Aside from that, we have a new factor." Karsh rubbed his slender hands together thoughtfully. "The admiral informs me that the N-cruiser Cetus, which was undergoing emergency repairs on one of the rim worlds, has been rushed back into space."

  "For Ophiucus?"

  Karsh nodded. "Possibly it'll reach the Gelhart system -- that's where the incident occurred -- before the Draco. The admiral would prefer that."

  "Because of the N-bomb?"

  "The Draco's captain is an outworlder. One of the Achernar planets," Karsh explained. "As such, they'd prefer he doesn't know too much about the bomb."

  "That would negate Daniel York, August."

  "Exactly, and that worries me. The problem isn't getting there with the most weapons, but getting there with the most know-how. This is a job for Intelligence, not the Navy."

  "Did you explain that to the admiral?"

  "I did, but he's still going to get the Cetus there, if at all possible."

  "I don't see how that changes our problems, at least not for the moment," observed Clender.

  "No, it doesn't," Karsh acceded. "If the Draco arrives there first, I'm confident that Daniel York can handle the situation. But I'm worried about Terle."

  "We'll grab him, August. We have a galaxywide alert."

  "I want more than that," Karsh stated. His eyes came up, cold and hard, riveting on his assistant's face. "I want every key agent on every world to drop whatever he's doing and concentrate on just one man -- Myron Terle. And I want every adult passenger named in Shek's list shadowed -- everyone who left Heraska or the planet Zagar that day. That's an order as of right now."

  "But, August -- "

  "I mean to get Myron Terle, Clender, and I'm going to get him, dead or alive." Abruptly he turned away, nodding dismissal.

  As Clender opened the door, Karsh's voice came softly. "Preferably alive," he said.

  3

  The Programmed Man! The Programmed Man! Where was the Programmed Man? He was moving through the galaxy now! Everything depended on him! Everything, everything, everything...The Programmed Man! His arch enemy...

  A scream strangled in his throat.

  Daniel York awoke.

  He lay on the narrow cabin bunk, catching his breath, feeling the perspiration run and his heart thump as he fought to collect his thoughts. Oh, God, the Programmed Man! Then he heard it, a low, whispering rumble that came through the bulkheads, a vibration that was not quite a vibration. The Draco! He was on the Draco, speeding toward Ophiucus. He remembered then.

  He slumped back, feeling the cabin walls close around him, drawing something of comfort from the distant rumble of powerful nucleonic engines that pushed the Draco faster and faster, pushed it toward that fantastic moment when it would enter hypertime and the universe would collapse, or so it would seem. At that instant stars would disappear, whole galaxies would vanish. The universe would be blotted out. Blackness. Nothing but blackness. It had something to do with twisting the space-time coordinates, but just what, he was never quite certain. Few men were. But it didn't matter. At the end of hypertime he'd see the blue stars of Ophiucus. Somewhere there was the Rigel.

  The Rigel!

  He let his thoughts flow back. He'd been on Korth, the administrative planet of the Zuman system, when his superiors had caught wind of Prince Li-Hu's plan to steal the N-bomb. The source, a double agent high in the Alphan Intelligence apparatus, had known only the bare details. The attempt was to occur in a remote area -- the Ophiucus Sector, he thought. How? When? He hadn't known.

  York stirred restlessly. That agent had been shot. So had others. Apparently Li-Hu's double agents were as effective as their own.

  Assigned to the case immediately, he had concocted a daring plan. Now it was in operation. As a top agent constantly under the scrutiny of enemy agents, he'd made great attempts to mask his own movements. How well he'd succeeded he didn't know. But the plot had grown, blossomed. The Alphans wanted the bomb, the Zumans wanted the bomb, and the vast machinery of the Empire was being used to prevent either from getting it. But massiveness wasn't the answer. In the end it was a deadly game among three men -- August Karsh of the E.I., Prince Li-Hu of the Alphan worlds, Dr. G of the violet sun. No, it boiled down further. The players were Karsh's man, York, Dr. G's man, Myron Terle, and X and X and X. The X's were the saboteurs themselves, desperate men who already had seized one of the Empire's greatest ships. But he couldn't write them off as mere X's, he knew. Each was a trained agent, the best Li-Hu had to offer. He had scant doubt of that.

  Another thought struck him, coming to his mind with numbing force. He wasn't the master of his own fate! That trump was held by the Programmed Man! To beat it, he had to race against time, catch the saboteurs before they could spirit the bomb secret to the white-hot Alphan suns. Dr. G, Li-Hu, August Karsh -- and he was the man in the middle.

  Smiling ruefully, he slipped from the bunk and removed some toilet articles from a small kit he'd brought aboard. Applying a depilatory cream to his face, he washed in a corner basin, eyeing his reflection in the small mirror. Gaunt and strained, with lines of tiredness under his dark eyes, the face looked closer to forty than that of his actual thirty-two years, he reflected. The skin, like that of the captain's, had been seamed from strange suns.

  When he'd dressed, he peered into the kit. He had no doubt that it had been searched, but by amateurs. The small pen that in reality was a gas gun lay in plain sight. Touching a spring button in the lining, he removed a miniature blaster from a concealed compartment and dropped it into his pocket. A few feet away, a door opened into a passageway.

  He wasn't surprised to find a guard standing just outside. The man, a deckhand, he guessed, straightened as he stepped out, one hand automatically falling to the weapon at his side.

  York smiled and said, "Don't shoot. I'm a paying passenger."

  The guard grinned and let his hand dangle awkwardly. "Hope I don't have to, sir."

  "I hope so, too. I really do." York studied him without appearing to do so. The powerful, slope-shouldered body told him that Hull had picked no dub, despite the rather boyish face. The blue eyes, clear and watchful, weren't missing a move. He continued, "As long as we're going to be shipmates for a while, we should know each other's name. I'm Daniel York."

  "Les Osborn, sir." He added, "Deckhand first."

  "Glad to know you, Osborn." York glanced
down the passageway. "Now, if you'll lead me to the wardroom -- "

  "You lead," Osborn said succinctly. "I'll follow." York grinned and started down the corridor.

  A single occupant was browsing through a magazine over breakfast when York entered the wardroom. Around fifty, he had close-cropped gray hair and a thin aquiline nose that appeared out of place in his square face. His skin told of long exposure to space.

  Glancing up, he caught sight of York and rose, extending a hand. "Welcome to the wardroom," he greeted. "You must be our new passenger. I'm Benbow, the ship's medical doctor."

  "Daniel York, a freeloader by courtesy of the Empire's Navy," York returned. He took the proffered hand.

  "Had breakfast?" Benbow asked.

  "Not in several days."

  "Good, join me." He glanced at Osborn. "You can leave Mr. York in my hands," he said.

  "I'll wait outside," Osborn answered uncertainly.

  York grinned. "He doesn't want to lose me."

  "Small chance in a ship this size." Benbow motioned to a seat across from him and sat down, pushing aside the magazine. As if on a signal, a white-jacketed steward appeared.

  "Wally, this is Mr. York," Benbow said casually. "He'll have breakfast. But coffee first, please."

  "We have Vegan steak today." The steward looked at York, his eyes curious. "Steak and eggs?"

  "That will be fine."

  Benbow tapped the magazine he'd been reading. "It has an interesting article on the peculiar architecture of Glover, one of the Pollux planets. Are you interested in architecture by any chance?"

  York recognized the question as a conversation piece to bridge an awkward moment and replied, "Not as an authority, but I'm always interested in seeing strange places."

  "I have the belief that architecture offers one of the best keys to a culture," observed Benbow.

  "I hadn't thought of it that way."

  "Few people do." Benbow slipped easily into a discourse on architecture in general, relating it to streams of culture. He believed that planetary environments often led to odd forms of building, which in turn shaped the cultures of the people who occupied them. "Architecture also reflects the subconscious of a people," he theorized. "In many respects, it is a mirror of the mind."

  "You're not a psychomedician by any chance, are you?"

  "That's my specialty, yes." The doctor paused as the steward returned with York's breakfast. When he withdrew, he continued. "The human mind is the great mystery of the universe, Mr. York. The more we probe it, the more we are baffled."

  "Yet you never cease to probe it," observed York.

  "How can we? It offers new facets every day. And no two minds are alike. No two streams of thought run parallel."

  "Yet motives often are alike," York offered.

  "Are they? I don't believe so. Not when it boils down to the final analysis of what motive is."

  "Is such analysis possible?"

  Benbow shrugged. "Only superficially."

  "What are you trying to diagnose when you have a patient with mental or emotional troubles -- his illness or the cause of his illness?"

  "Both," the doctor responded promptly. "The treatment -- I hesitate to use the word cure -- depends on causation as well as the actual illness present. But actually, it's the causative factor that I find most fascinating."

  "I imagine you have your hands full -- a single doctor on a destroyer." York eyed him quizzically.

  "Not as much as you might think," Benbow answered. "Someday they'll install an automatic pill machine, and I'll be out in the cold."

  "I'm surprised," York said. "I should imagine that the tensions of space -- prolonged living in such a closed environment -- would cause considerable stress."

  "To some extent," admitted Benbow, "but far less than you might expect. The rim crews are selected with great care."

  "Care or conditioning?"

  Benbow smiled. "Both," he admitted.

  As they talked, York found himself liking the doctor. He had a nimble mind that skipped from subject to subject with ease. His lack of curiosity about York's own role told him that the captain had cautioned his officers against quizzing him.

  During a pause, he asked, "You know why we're going to Ophiucus?"

  Benbow brought his eyes up slowly, and York saw the green held flecks of yellow. "I haven't been informed," he blandly stated.

  York told him of the Rigel and of the plot to steal the secret of the N-bomb. "The captain's a bit skeptical on that point," he finished.

  Benbow watched him silently before asking, "Why are you telling me this, Mr. York?"

  "Because I might need your help," he answered.

  "I would have to receive permission from Captain Hull," Benbow retorted flatly.

  York had expected that. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted his E.I. credentials and slid them across the table. Benbow didn't appear surprised. "I had expected something of the sort," he said, pushing them back.

  "Am I that apparent?"

  "Not a bit, but a civilian coming aboard -- just before an emergency run -- "

  "I thought you didn't know the nature of the mission?"

  "When you lift off in a rush a week early? It's the nature of the emergency I didn't know," explained Benbow.

  "Will you help me?" asked York.

  "What kind of help?"

  "Nothing at the moment." York smiled and subsided back in his chair. "When you have nothing to do, you might figure out how three or four men -- perhaps half a dozen at the most -- could take over a cruiser like the Rigel."

  "Impossible," Benbow retorted. "The crew would have to be unconscious."

  York lifted his head slowly. "Perhaps you have a point," he murmured.

  Standing with his back to the helm console, Captain Hull was gazing at the universe through the star window when Doctor Benbow led York to the bridge. Osborn followed doggedly in the rear. Looking at the captain's stocky figure, York realized he was shorter than he had supposed, and broader of shoulder. His hair, more white than gray, was cropped short, giving his head a bullet shape.

  Hull turned. "Good morning," he greeted cordially. "Sleep well?"

  "Fine, and breakfasted even better, thanks to the good doctor," York replied.

  Hull gestured toward the star window. "You've arrived just in time to see the last view of this sector of the universe."

  "I take it that we're near hypertime."

  "Within minutes." Hull nodded.

  "Always a disconcerting experience," the doctor counseled. "Personally, I find it a bit perturbing to see the universe suddenly blotted out before your eyes."

  "No different from turning out the lights," Hull answered.

  "Symbolically it is."

  "Ah, symbols." Hull drew out the words.

  "It's all right as long as you know the lights are coming back on," said York.

  "But how do we know?" The doctor gestured expressively. "Where are we when we're in hypertime? We don't even know."

  Hull interjected, "We're between two points on the clock. That's all the knowledge necessary." He looked at York. "Our good doctor is an imaginative man."

  "Someday the clock will stop," Benbow returned gravely. He glanced at his watch. "If you'll excuse me, it's time for my morning appearance at sick call. Not that I'll have any patients," he added.

  "Thank you for your kindness," York answered.

  "Not at all," Benbow responded. "I enjoyed our talk."

  When Benbow departed, Hull introduced York to Jan Galton, the navigator, and Borstad, a young officer who had the bridge watch. As they chatted, York sensed that his status had taken a definite change, a belief that was strengthened when Hull noticed Osborn hovering near the entrance and promptly dismissed him.

  Galton, a thin, graying man with quick, intelligent eyes, noticed York's glance toward the star window and said, "We're about here." He jabbed a finger in the center of a group of stars
displayed on a video tube on the helm console.

  "Can't tell one from the other," York admitted.

  "That's Blackett." The finger moved to a faint star on the periphery of the tube. Galton continued, "The display's three-dimensional. Actually, this group of stars surrounds us. Blackett, as you know, lies far behind us."

  "O-seven-one-o," Borstad read from their rear.

  Galton glanced at his instruments, then exclaimed, "We're about to draw the curtain, gentlemen!"

  York swung toward the star window, conscious that the captain had moved alongside him. Hull's head barely topped his shoulder. York had watched ships pass into hypertime before, and yet, as the doctor had said, it always struck him as a bit eerie.

  The stars were a glory in the window -- blues, white-blues, reds, yellows -- almost every color conceivable. Except violet. Only one star held that particular sheen, and that star was far away.

  "Ten seconds," intoned Galton, his voice suddenly hushed.

  York fastened his eyes on a particularly brilliant red giant, so that the surrounding star field glowed and danced in the peripheries of his eyes. The stars appeared like little fireflies darting around the rims. The red giant gleamed alone, as if it had cut its own little cave in the sky and from it peered out into the vastness of the universe. One moment the red giant was there, flaming in its hole in the heavens, and then it blinked out. Simultaneously the myriad of lights dancing on the periphery of York's vision vanished, leaving him staring into inutterable blackness. The universe had become a gigantic, bottomless, black cave. The sight left him momentarily giddy.

  Hull mentioned casually, "This is the good time, for now we need neither captain nor navigator." He looked at York, and a smile touched his lips. "We're traveling through an un-universe that requires no human hand. Indeed, no human hand could affect our course until after we reach an appointed time on the clock."

  "Can't you reset the clock?"

  "During hypertime flight? Yes, but it's quite a navigational feat. I can't say that we've ever had occasion to attempt it."

  "Where we set the clock determines how far we go -- that and the direction we are heading when we enter into hypertime," explained Galton. "Right now the clock is set at a few minutes over fourteen hours. That time and our course will bring us into Ophiucus."