Dead Ringer Read online

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  Dead Ringer

  By LESTER DEL REY

  Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

  _There was nothing, especially on Earth, which could set him free--the truth least of all!_

  Dane Phillips slouched in the window seat, watching the morning crowdson their way to work and carefully avoiding any attempt to read Jordan'sold face as the editor skimmed through the notes. He had learned to makehis tall, bony body seem all loose-jointed relaxation, no matter what hefelt. But the oversized hands in his pockets were clenched so tightlythat the nails were cutting into his palms.

  Every tick of the old-fashioned clock sent a throb racing through hisbrain. Every rustle of the pages seemed to release a fresh shot ofadrenalin into his blood stream. _This time_, his mind was pleading. _Ithas to be right this time...._

  Jordan finished his reading and shoved the folder back. He reached forhis pipe, sighed, and then nodded slowly. "A nice job of researching,Phillips. And it might make a good feature for the Sunday section, atthat."

  It took a second to realize that the words meant acceptance, forPhillips had prepared himself too thoroughly against another failure.Now he felt the tautened muscles release, so quickly that he would havefallen if he hadn't been braced against the seat.

  He groped in his mind, hunting for words, and finding none. There wasonly the hot, sudden flame of unbelieving hope. And then an almostblinding exultation.

  * * * * *

  Jordan didn't seem to notice his silence. The editor made a neat pile ofthe notes, nodding again. "Sure. I like it. We've been short of shockstuff lately and the readers go for it when we can get a fresh angle.But naturally you'd have to leave out all that nonsense on Blanding.Hell, the man's just buried, and his relatives and friends--"

  "But that's the proof!" Phillips stared at the editor, trying topenetrate through the haze of hope that had somehow grown chilled andunreal. His thoughts were abruptly disorganized and out of his control.Only the urgency remained. "It's the key evidence. And we've got to movefast! I don't know how long it takes, but even one more day may be toolate!"

  Jordan nearly dropped the pipe from his lips as he jerked upright topeer sharply at the younger man. "Are you crazy? Do you seriously expectme to get an order to exhume him now? What would it get us, other thanlawsuits? Even if we could get the order without cause--which we can't!"

  Then the pipe did fall as he gaped open-mouthed. "My God, you believeall that stuff. You expected us to publish it _straight_!"

  "No," Dane said thickly. The hope was gone now, as if it had neverexisted, leaving a numb emptiness where nothing mattered. "No, I guess Ididn't really expect anything. But I believe the facts. Why shouldn'tI?"

  He reached for the papers with hands he could hardly control and beganstuffing them back into the folder. All the careful documentation, thefingerprints--smudged, perhaps, in some cases, but still evidence enoughfor anyone but a fool--

  "Phillips?" Jordan said questioningly to himself, and then his voice wastaking on a new edge. "Phillips! Wait a minute, I've got it now! _Dane_Phillips, not _Arthur_! Two years on the _Trib._ Then you turned up onthe _Register_ in Seattle? Phillip Dean, or some such name there."

  "Yeah," Dane agreed. There was no use in denying anything now. "Yeah,Dane Arthur Phillips. So I suppose I'm through here?"

  Jordan nodded again and there was a faint look of fear in hisexpression. "You can pick up your pay on the way out. And make itquick, before I change my mind and call the boys in white!"

  * * * * *

  It could have been worse. It had been worse before. And there was enoughin the pay envelope to buy what he needed--a flash camera, a littlefolding shovel from one of the surplus houses, and a bottle of goodscotch. It would be dark enough for him to taxi out to OakhavenCemetery, where Blanding had been buried.

  It wouldn't change the minds of the fools, of course. Even if he coulddrag back what he might find, without the change being completed, theywouldn't accept the evidence. He'd been crazy to think anything couldchange their minds. And they called _him_ a fanatic! If the facts he'ddug up in ten years of hunting wouldn't convince them, nothing would.And yet he had to see for himself, before it was too late!

  He picked a cheap hotel at random and checked in under an assumed name.He couldn't go back to his room while there was a chance that Jordanstill might try to turn him in. There wouldn't be time for Sylvia'sdetectives to bother him, probably, but there was the ever-presentdanger that one of the aliens might intercept the message.

  He shivered. He'd been risking that for ten years, yet the likelihoodwas still a horror to him. The uncertainty made it harder to take thanany human-devised torture could be. There was no way of guessing what analien might do to anyone who discovered that all men were nothuman--that some were ... zombies.

  There was the classic syllogism: _All men are mortal; I am a man;therefore, I am mortal._ But not Blanding--or Corporal Harding.

  It was Harding's "death" that had started it all during the fighting onGuadalcanal. A grenade had come flying into the foxhole where Dane andHarding had felt reasonably safe. The concussion had knocked Dane out,possibly saving his life when the enemy thought he was dead. He'd cometo in the daylight to see Harding lying there, mangled and twisted, withhis throat torn. There was blood on Dane's uniform, obviously spatteredfrom the dead man. It hadn't been a mistake or delusion; Harding hadbeen dead.

  It had taken Dane two days of crawling and hiding to get back to hisgroup, too exhausted to report Harding's death. He'd slept for twentyhours. And when he awoke, Harding had been standing beside him, with awhole throat and a fresh uniform, grinning and kidding him for runningoff and leaving a stunned friend behind.

  It was no ringer, but Harding himself, complete to the smallest personalmemories and personality traits.

  * * * * *

  The pressures of war probably saved Dane's sanity while he learned toface the facts. All men are mortal; Harding is not mortal; therefore,Harding is not a man! Nor was Harding alone--Dane found enough evidenceto know there were others.

  The _Tribune_ morgue yielded even more data. A man had faced sevenfiring squads and walked away. Another survived over a dozen attacks byprofessional killers. Fingerprints turned up mysteriously "copied" fromthose of men long dead. Some of the aliens seemed to heal almostinstantly; others took days. Some operated completely alone; some seemedto have joined with others. But they were legion.

  Lack of a clearer pattern of attack made him consider the possibility ofhuman mutation, but such tissue was too wildly different, and theinvasion had begun long before atomics or X-rays. He gave up trying tounderstand their alien motivations. It was enough that they existed insecret, slowly growing in numbers while mankind was unaware of them.

  When his proof was complete and irrefutable, he took it to hiseditor--to be fired, politely but coldly. Other editors were lesspolite. But he went on doggedly trying and failing. What else could hedo? Somehow, he had to find the few people who could recognize facts andwarn them. The aliens would get him, of course, when the story broke,but a warned humanity could cope with them. _Ye shall know the truth,and the truth shall make you free._

  Then he met Sylvia by accident after losing his fifth job--a girl whohad inherited a fortune big enough to spread his message in paid adsacross the country. They were married before he found she washard-headed about her money. She demanded a full explanation for everycent beyond his allowance. In the end, she got the explanation. Andwhile he was trying to cash the check she gave him, she visited Dr.Buehl, to come back with a squad of quiet, refined strong-arm boys whomad
e sure Dane reached Buehl's "rest home" safely.

  Hydrotherapy ... Buehl as the kindly firm father image ... analysis ...hypnosis that stripped every secret from him, including his worstchildhood nightmare.

  His father had committed a violent, bloody suicide after one of the manyquarrels with Dane's mother. Dane had found the body.

  Two nights after the funeral, he had dreamed of his father's face,horror-filled, at the window. He knew now that it was a normalnightmare, caused by being forced to look at the face in the coffin, butthe shock had lasted for years. It had bothered him again, after hisdiscovery of the aliens, until a thorough check had proved without doubtthat his father had been fully human, with a human, if tempestuous,childhood behind him.

  * * * * *

  Dr. Buehl was