Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from _The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction Stories by Alan E. Nourse_ published in 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. The Dark Door 1 It was almost dark when he awoke, and lay on the bed, motionless andtrembling, his heart sinking in the knowledge that he should never haveslept. For almost half a minute, eyes wide with fear, he lay in thesilence of the gloomy room, straining to hear some sound, someindication of their presence. But the only sound was the barely audible hum of his wrist watch and thedismal splatter of raindrops on the cobbled street outside. There was nosound to feed his fear, yet he knew then, without a flicker of doubt, that they were going to kill him. He shook his head, trying to clear the sleep from his brain as he turnedthe idea over and over in his mind. He wondered why he hadn't realizedit before, long before, back when they had first started this horrible, nerve-wracking cat-and-mouse game. The idea just hadn't occurred to him. But he knew the game-playing was over. They wanted to kill him now. Andhe knew that ultimately they _would_ kill him. There was no way for himto escape. He sat up on the edge of the bed, painfully, perspiration standing outon his bare back, and he waited, listening. How could he have slept, exposing himself so helplessly? Every ounce of his energy, all the skilland wit and shrewdness at his command were necessary in this cruel hunt;yet he had taken the incredibly terrible chance of sleeping, of losingconsciousness, leaving himself wide open and helpless against the attackwhich he knew was inevitable. How much had he lost? How close had they come while he slept? Fearfully, he walked to the window, peered out, and felt his musclesrelax a little. The gray, foggy streets were still light. He still had alittle time before the terrible night began. He stumbled across the small, old-fashioned room, sensing that action ofsome sort was desperately needed. The bathroom was tiny; he stared inthe battered, stained reflector unit, shocked at the red-eyedstubble-faced apparition that stared back at him. This is Harry Scott, he thought, thirty-two years old, and in the primeof life, but not the same Harry Scott who started out on a ridiculousquest so many months ago. This Harry Scott was being hunted like ananimal, driven by fear, helpless, and sure to die, unless he could findan escape, somehow. But there were too many of them for him to escape, and they were too clever, and they _knew_ he knew too much. He stepped into the shower-shave unit, trying to relax, to collect hisracing thoughts. Above all, he tried to stay the fear that burnedthrough his mind, driving him to panic and desperation. The memory ofthe last hellish night was too stark to allow relaxation--the growingfear, the silent, desperate hunt through the night; the realization thattheir numbers were increasing; his frantic search for a hiding place inthe New City; and finally his panic-stricken, pell-mell flight down intothe alleys and cobbled streets and crumbling frame buildings of the OldCity. .. . Even more horrible, the friends who had turned on him, whoturned out to be _like_ them. Back in the bedroom, he lay down again, his body still tense. There weresounds in the building, footsteps moving around on the floor overhead, adoor banging somewhere. With every sound, every breath of noise, hismuscles tightened still further, freezing him in fear. His own breathwas shallow and rapid in his ears as he lay, listening, waiting. If only something would happen! He wanted to scream, to bang his headagainst the wall, to run about the room smashing his fist into doors, breaking every piece of furniture. It was the _waiting_, the eternalwaiting, and running, waiting some more, feeling the net drawing tighterand tighter as he waited, feeling the measured, unhurried tread behindhim, always following, coming closer and closer, as though he were amouse on a string, twisting and jerking helplessly. If only they would move, do something he could counter. But he wasn't even sure any more that he could detect them. And theywere so careful never to move into the open. He jumped up feverishly, moved to the window, and peered between theslats of the dusty, old-fashioned blind at the street below. An empty street at first, wet, gloomy. He saw no one. Then he caught theflicker of light in an entry several doors down and across the street, as a dark figure sparked a cigarette to life. Harry felt the chill rundown his back again. Still there, then, still waiting, a hidden figure, always present, always waiting. .. . Harry's eyes scanned the rest of the street rapidly. Two three-wheelersrumbled by, their rubber hissing on the wet pavement. One of themcarried the blue-and-white of the Old City police, but the car didn'tslow up or hesitate as it passed the dark figure in the doorway. Theywould never help me anyway, Harry thought bitterly. He had tried thatbefore, and met with ridicule and threats. There would be no help fromthe police in the Old City. Another figure came around a corner. There was something vaguelyfamiliar about the tall body and broad shoulders as the man walkedacross the wet street, something Harry faintly recognized from somewhereduring the spinning madness of the past few weeks. The man's eyes turned up toward the window for the briefest instant, then returned steadfastly to the street. Oh, they were sly! You couldnever spot them looking at you, never for _sure_, but they were alwaysthere, always nearby. And there was no one he could trust any longer, noone to whom he could turn. Not even George Webber. Swiftly his mind reconsidered that possibility as he watched the figuremove down the street. True, Dr. Webber had started him out on thissearch in the first place. But even Webber would never believe what hehad found. Webber was a scientist, a researcher. What could he do--go to Webber and tell him that there were men alive inthe world who were _not_ men, who were somehow men and something more? Could he walk into Dr. Webber's office in the Hoffman Medical Center, walk through the gleaming bright corridors, past the shining metallicdoors, and tell Dr. Webber that he had found people alive in the worldwho could actually see in four dimensions, live in four dimensions, _think_ in four dimensions? Could he explain to Dr. Webber that he knew this simply because in someway he had sensed them, and traced them, and discovered them; that hehad not one iota of proof, except that he was being followed by them, hunted by them, even now, in a room in the Old City, waiting for them tostrike him down? He shook his head, almost sobbing. That was what was so horrible. Hecouldn't tell Webber, because Webber would be certain that he had gonemad, just like the rest. He couldn't tell anyone, he couldn't doanything. He could just wait, and run, and wait-- It was almost dark now and the creaking of the old board houseintensified the fear that tore at Harry Scott's mind. Tonight was thenight; he was sure of it. Maybe he had been foolish in coming here tothe slum area, where the buildings were relatively unguarded, whereanybody could come and go as he pleased. But the New City had hardlybeen safer, even in the swankiest private chamber in the highestbuilding. They had had agents there, too, hunting him, driving home thebitter lesson of fear they had to teach him. Now he was afraid enough;now they were ready to kill him. Down below he heard a door bang, and he froze, his back against thewall. There were footsteps, quiet voices, barely audible. His whole bodyshook and his eyes slid around to the window. The figure in the doorwaystill waited--but the other figure was not visible. He heard the stepson the stair, ascending slowly, steadily, a tread that paced itself withthe powerful throbbing of his own pulse. Then the telephone screamed out-- Harry gasped. The footsteps were on the floor below, moving steadilyupward. The telephone rang again and again; the shrill jangling filledthe room insistently. He waited until he couldn't wait any longer. Hishand fumbled in a pocket and leveled a tiny, dull-gray metal object atthe door. With the other hand, he took the receiver from the hook. "Harry! Is that you?" His throat was like sandpaper and the words came out in a rasp. "What isit?" "Harry, this is George--George Webber. " His eyes were glued to the door. "All right. What do you want?" "You've got to come talk to us, Harry. We've been waiting for weeks now. You promised us. We've _got_ to talk to you. " Harry still watched the door, but his breath came easier. The footstepsmoved with ridiculous slowness up the stairs, down the hall toward theroom. "What do you want me to do? They've come to kill me. " There was a long pause. "Harry, are you sure?" "Dead sure. " "Can you make a break for it?" Harry blinked. "I could try. But it won't do any good. " "Well, at least try, Harry. Get here to the Hoffman Center. We'll helpyou all we can. " "I'll try. " Harry's words were hardly audible as he set the receiverdown with a trembling hand. The room was silent. The footsteps had stopped. A wave of panic passedup Harry's spine; he crossed the room, threw open the door, stared upand down the hall, unbelieving. The hall was empty. He started down toward the stairs at a dead run, andthen, too late, saw the faint golden glow of a Parkinson Field acrossthe dingy corridor. He gasped in fear, and screamed out once as hestruck it. And then, for seconds stretching into hours, he heard his scream echoingand re-echoing down long, bitter miles of hollow corridor. 2 George Webber leaned back in the soft chair, turning a quizzical glancetoward the younger man across the room. He lit a long black cigar. "Well?" His heavy voice boomed out in the small room. "Now that we'vegot him here, what do you think?" The younger man glanced uncomfortably through the glass wall panel intothe small dark room beyond. In the dimness, he could barely make out thestill form on the bed, grotesque with the electrode-vernier apparatusalready in place at its temples. Dr. Manelli looked away sharply, andleafed through the thick sheaf of chart papers in his hand. "I don't know, " he said dully. "I just don't know what to think. " The other man's laugh seemed to rise from the depths of his huge chest. His heavy face creased into a thousand wrinkles. Dr. Webber was a largeman, his broad shoulders carrying a suggestion of immense power thatmatched the intensity of his dark, wide-set eyes. He watched Dr. Manelli's discomfort grow, saw the younger doctor's ears grow red, andthe almost cruel lines in his face were masked as he laughed stilllouder. "Trouble with you, Frank, you just don't have the courage of yourconvictions. " "Well, I don't see anything so funny about it!" Manelli's eyes wereangry. "The man has a suspicious syndrome--so you've followed him, andspied on him for weeks on end, which isn't exactly highest ethicalpractice in collecting a history. I still can't see how you'rejustified. " Dr. Webber snorted, tossing his cigar down on the desk with disgust. "The man is insane. That's my justification. He's out of touch withreality. He's wandered into a wild, impossible, fantastic dream world. And we've got to get him out of it, because what he knows, what he'strying to hide from us, is so incredibly dangerous that we don't darelet him go. " The big man stared at Manelli, his dark eyes flashing. "Can't you seethat? Or would you rather sit back and let Harry Scott go the way thatPaulus and Wineberg and the others went?" "But to use the Parkinson Field on him--" Dr. Manelli shook his headhopelessly. "He'd offered to come over, George. We didn't need to useit. " "Sure, he offered to come--fine, fine. But supposing he changed his mindon the way? For all we know, he had us figured into his paranoia, too, and never would have come near the Hoffman Center. " Dr. Webber shook his head. "We're not playing a game any more, Frank. Get that straight. I thought it was a game a couple of years ago, whenwe first started. But it ceased to be a game when men like Paulus andWineberg walked in sane, healthy men, and came out blubbering idiots. That's no game any more. We're onto something big. And, if Harry Scottcan lead us to the core of it, then I can't care too much what happensto Harry Scott. " Dr. Manelli stood up sharply, walked to the window, and looked down overthe bright, clean buildings of the Hoffman Medical Center. Out acrossthe terraced park that surrounded the glassed towers and shining metalof the Center rose the New City, tier upon tier of smooth, functionalarchitecture, a city of dreams built up painfully out of the rubble ofthe older, ruined city. "You could kill him, " the young man said finally. "The psycho-integratorisn't any standard interrogative technique; it's dangerous andtreacherous. You never know for sure just what you're doing when you digdown into a man's brain tissue with those little electrode probes. " "But we can learn the truth about Harry Scott, " Dr. Webber broke in. "Six months ago, Harry Scott was working with us, a quiet, affable, pleasant young fellow, extremely intelligent, intensely co-operative. Hewas just the man we needed to work with us, an engineer who could takeour data and case histories, study them, and subject them to acompletely nonmedical analysis. Oh, we had to have it done--theproblem's been with us for a hundred years now, growing ever since the1950s and 60s--insanity in the population, growing, spreading withoutrhyme or reason, insinuating itself into every nook and cranny of ourcivilized life. " The big man blinked at Manelli. "Harry Scott was the new approach. Wewere too close to the problem. We needed a nonmedical outsider to take alook, to tell us what we were missing. So Harry Scott walked into theproblem, and then abruptly lost contact with us. We finally track himdown and find him gone, out of touch with reality, on the same wretchedroad that all the others went. With Harry, it's paranoia. He's beingpersecuted; he has the whole world against him, but most important--thefactor we don't dare overlook--_he's no longer working on the problem_. " Manelli shifted uneasily. "I suppose that's right. " "Of course it's right!" Dr. Webber's eyes flashed. "Harry foundsomething in those statistics. Something about the data, or the casehistories; or something Harry Scott himself dug up opened a door for himto go through, a door that none of us ever dreamed existed. We don'tknow what he found on the other side of that door. Oh, we know what he_thinks_ he found, all this garbage about people that look normal butwalk through walls when nobody's looking, who think around cornersinstead of in straight-line logic. But what he _really_ found there, wedon't have any way of telling. We just know that whatever he _really_found is something new, something unsuspected; something so dangerous itcan drive an intelligent man into the wildest delusions of paranoidpersecution. " A new light appeared in Dr. Manelli's eyes as he faced the other doctor. "Wait a minute, " he said softly. "The integrator is an _experimental_instrument, too. " Dr. Webber smiled slyly. "Now you're beginning to think, " he said. "But you'll see only what Scott himself believes. And _he_ thinks hisstory is true. " "Then we'll have to break his story. " "_Break_ it?" "Certainly. For some reason, this delusion of persecution is far saferfor Harry Scott than facing what he really found out. What we've got todo is to make this delusion _less_ safe than the truth. " The room was silent for a long moment. Manelli looked up, his fingerstrembling. "Let's hear it. " "It's very simple. Up to now, Harry Scott has had _delusions_ ofpersecution. But now we're _really_ going to persecute Harry Scott, ashe's never been persecuted before. " 3 At first he thought he was at the bottom of a deep well and he lay quitestill, his eyes clamped shut, wondering where he was and how he couldpossibly have gotten there. He could feel the dampness and chill of thestone floor under him, and nearby he heard the damp, insistent drip ofwater splashing against stone. He felt his muscles tighten as thedripping sound forced itself against his senses. Then he opened hiseyes. His first impulse was to scream out wildly in unreasoning, suffocatingfear. He fought it down, struggling to sit up in the blackness, hiswhole mind turned in bitter, hopeless hatred at the ones who had huntedhim for so long, and now had trapped him. Why? Why did they torture him? Why not kill him outright, have done with it?He shuddered, and struggled to his feet, staring about him in horror. It was not a well, but a small room, circular, with little rivulets ofstale water running down the granite walls. The ceiling closed low overhis head, and the only source of light came from the single doorwayopening into a long, low stone passageway. Wave after wave of panic rose in Harry's throat. Each time he foughtdown the urge to scream, to lie down on the ground and cover his facewith his hands and scream in helpless fear. How could they have knownthe horror that lay in his own mind, the horror of darkness, of dampslimy walls and scurrying rodents, of the clinging, stale humidity ofdungeon passageways? He himself had seldom recalled it, except in hismost hideous dreams, yet he had known such fear as a boy, so many yearsago, and now it was all around him. They had known somehow and _used itagainst him_. Why? He sank down on the floor, his head in his hands, trying to thinkstraight, to find some clue in the turmoil bubbling through his mindthat would tell him what had happened. He had started down the hallway from his room, to find Dr. Webber andtell him about the other people-- He stopped short, looked up wide-eyed. _Had_ he been going to Dr. Webber? Had he actually decided to go? Perhaps--yes, perhaps he had, though Webber would only laugh at such a ridiculous story. But thenot-men who had hunted him would not laugh; to them, it would not befunny. They knew that it was true. And they knew he knew it was true. _But why not kill him?_ Why this torture? Why this horrible persecutionthat dug into the depths of his own nightmares to haunt him? His breath came fast and a chilly sweat broke out on his forehead. _Where_ was he? Was this some long forgotten vault in the depths of theOld City? Or was this another place, another world, perhaps, that thenot-men, with their impossible powers, had created to torture him? His eyes sought the end of the hall, saw the turn at the end, saw thelight which seemed to come from the end; and then in an instant he wasrunning down the damp passageway, his pulse pounding at his temples, until he could hardly gasp enough breath as he ran. Finally he reachedthe turn in the corridor where the light was brighter, and he swungaround to stare at the source of the light, a huge, burning, smoky torchwhich hung from the wall. Even as he looked at it, the torch went out, shutting him into inkyblackness. The only sound at first was the desperation of his ownbreath; then he heard little scurrying sounds around his feet, andscreamed involuntarily as something sleek and four-footed jumped at hischest with snapping jaws. Shuddering, he fought the thing off, his fingers closing on wiry fur ashe caught and squeezed. The thing went limp, and suddenly melted in hishands. He heard it splash as it struck the damp ground at his feet. _What were they doing to his mind?_ He screamed out in horror, and followed the echoes of his own scream ashe ran down the stone corridor, blindly, slipping on the wet stonefloor, falling on his knees into inches of brackish water, scraping backto his feet with an uncontrollable convulsion of fear and loathing, onlyto run more-- The corridor suddenly broke into two and he stopped short. He didn'tknow how far, or how long, he had run, but it suddenly occurred to himthat he was still alive, still safe. Only his mind was under attack, only his mind was afraid, teetering on the edge of control. And thismaze of dungeon tunnels--where could such a thing exist, so perfectlyoutfitted to horrify him, so neatly fitting into his own pattern ofchildhood fears and terrors; from where could such a _very individual_attack on his sanity have sprung? From nowhere except. .. . _Except from his own mind!_ For an instant, he saw a flicker of light, thought he grasped the edgeof a concept previously obscure to him. He stared around him, at themist swirling down the damp, dark corridor, and thought of the rat thathad melted in his hand. Suddenly, his mind was afire, searching throughhis experience with the strange not-men he had learned to detect, tryingto remember everything he had learned and deduced about them before theybegan their brutal persecution. They were men, and they looked like men, but they were different. Theyhad other properties of mind, other capabilities that men did not have. They were not-men. They could exist, and co-exist, two people in oneframe, one person known, realized by all who saw, the other oneconcealed except from those who learned how to look. They could usetheir minds; they could rationalize correctly; they could use theircurious four-dimensional knowledge to bring them to answers nothree-dimensional man could reach. _But they couldn't project into men's minds!_ Carefully, Harry peered down the misty tunnels. They were clever, thesecreatures, and powerful. Since they had discovered that he knew them, they had done their work of fear and terror on his mind skillfully. Butthey were limited, too; they couldn't make things happen that were nottrue--fantasies, illusions. .. . Yes, this dungeon was an illusion. It _had_ to be. He cursed and started down the right-hand corridor, his heart sinking. There was no such place and he knew it. He was walking in a dream, afantasy that had no substance, that could do no more than frighten him, drive him insane; yet he must already have lost his mind to be acceptingsuch an illusion. Why had he delayed? Why hadn't he gone to the Hoffman Center, laid thewhole story before Dr. Webber and Dr. Manelli at the very first, toldthem what he had found? True, they might have thought him insane, butthey wouldn't have put him to torture. They might even have believed himenough to investigate what he told them, and then the cat would havebeen out of the bag. The tale would have been incredible, but at leasthis mind would have been safe. He turned down another corridor and walked suddenly into waist-deepwater, so cold it numbed his legs. He stopped again to force back thetendrils of unreasoning horror that brushed his mind. Nothing couldreally harm him. He would merely wait until his mind finally reached abalance again. There might be no end; it might be a ghastly trap, but hewould wait. Strangely, the mist was becoming greenish in color as it swirled towardhim in the damp vaulted passageway. His eyes began watering a little andthe lining of his nose started to burn. He stopped short, newly alarmed, and stared at the walls, rubbing the tears away to clear his vision. Thegreenish-yellow haze grew thicker, catching his eyes and burning like athousand furies, ripping into his throat until he was choking andcoughing, as though great knives sliced through his lungs. He tried to scream, and started running, blindly. Each gasping breathwas an agony as the blistering gas dug deeper and deeper into his lungs. Reason departed from him; he was screaming incoherently as he stumbledup a stony ramp, crashed into a wall, spun around and smashed blindlyinto another. Then something caught at his shirt. He felt the heavy planks and pounded iron scrollwork of a huge door, andthrew himself upon it, wrenching at the old latch until the door swungopen with a screech of rusty hinges. He fell forward on his face, andthe door swung shut behind him. He lay face down, panting and sobbing in the stillness. Coarse hands grasped his collar, jerking him rudely to his feet, and heopened his eyes. Across the dim, vaulted room he could see the shadowyform of a man, a big man, with a broad chest and powerful shoulders, aman whose rich voice Harry almost recognized, but whose face was deep inshadow. As Harry wiped the tears from his tortured eyes, he heard theman's voice rumble out at him: "Perhaps you've had enough now to change your mind about telling us thetruth. " Harry stared, not quite comprehending. "The--the truth?" The man's voice was harsh, cutting across the room impatiently. "Thetruth, I said. The problem, you fool, what you saw, what you learned;you know perfectly well what I'm referring to. But we'll swallow no moreof this silly four-dimensional superman tale, so don't bother to startit. " "I--I don't understand you. It's--it's true--" Again he tried to peeracross the room. "Why are you hunting me like this? What are you tryingto do to me?" "We want the truth. We want to know what you saw. " "But--but _you're_ what I saw. You know what I found out. I mean--" Hestopped, his face going white. His hand went to his mouth, and hestared still harder. "Who are you?" he whispered. "The truth!" the man roared. "You'd better be quick, or you'll be backin the corridor. " "_Webber!_" "Your last chance, Harry. " Without warning, Harry was across the room, flying across the desk, crashing into the big man's chest. With a scream of fury he fought, driving his fists into the powerful chest, wrenching at the thick, flailing arms of the startled man. "_It's you!_" he screamed. "It's you that's been torturing me. It's youthat's been hunting me down all this time, not the other people, you andyour crowd of ghouls have been at my throat!" He threw the big man off balance, dropped heavily on him as he fell backto the ground, glared down into the other's angry brown eyes. And then, as though he had never been there at all, the big manvanished, and Harry sat back on the floor, his whole body shaking withfrustrated sobs as his mind twisted in anguish. He had been wrong, completely wrong, ever since he had discovered thenot-men. Because he had thought _they_ had been the ones who hunted andtortured him for so long. And now he knew how far he had been wrong. Forthe face of the shadowy man, the man behind the nightmare he was living, was the face of Dr. George Webber. * * * * * "You're a fool, " said Dr. Manelli sharply, as he turned away from thesleeping figure on the bed to face the older man. "Of all the ridiculousthings, to let him connect you with this!" The young doctor turnedabruptly and sank down in a chair, glowering at Dr. Webber. "You haven'tgotten to first base yet, but you've just given Scott enough evidenceto free himself from integrator control altogether, if he gives it anythought. But I suppose you realize that. " "Nonsense, " Dr. Webber retorted. "He had enough information to do thatwhen we first started. I'm no more worried now than I was then. I'm surehe doesn't know enough about the psycho-integrator to be ablevoluntarily to control the patient-operator relationship to any degree. Oh, no, he's safe enough. But you've missed the whole point of thatlittle interview. " Dr. Webber grinned at Manelli. "I'm afraid I have. It looked to me like useless bravado. " "The persecution, man, the _persecution_! He's shifted his sights!Before that interview, the _not-men_ were torturing him, remember?Because they were afraid he would report his findings to me, of course. But now it's _I_ that's against him. " The grin widened. "You see wherethat leads?" "You're talking almost as though you believed this story about adifferent sort of people among us. " Dr. Webber shrugged. "Perhaps I do. " "Oh, come now, George. " Dr. Webber's eyebrows went up and the grin disappeared from his face. "Harry Scott believes it, Frank. We mustn't forget that, or miss itssignificance. Before Harry started this investigation of his, hewouldn't have paid any attention to such nonsense. But he believes itnow. " "But Harry Scott is insane. You said it yourself. " "Ah, yes, " said Dr. Webber. "Insane. Just like the others who started toget somewhere along those lines of investigation. Try to analyze thegrowing incidence of insanity in the population and you yourself goinsane. You've got to be crazy to be a psychiatrist. It's an old joke, but it isn't very funny any more. And it's too much for coincidence. "And then consider the nature of the insanity--a full-blownparanoia--oh, it's amazing. A cunning organization of men who are_not_-men, a regular fairy story, all straight from Harry Scott's agileyoung mind. But now it's _we_ who are persecuting him, _and he stillbelieves his fairy tale_. " "So?" Dr. Webber's eyes flashed angrily. "It's too neat, Frank. It's clever, and it's powerful, whatever we've run up against. But I think we've gotan ace in the hole. We have Harry Scott. " "And you really think he'll lead us somewhere?" Dr. Webber laughed. "That door I spoke of that Harry peeked through, Ithink he'll go back to it again. I think he's started to open that dooralready. And this time I'm going to follow him through. " 4 It seemed incredible, yet Harry Scott knew he had not been mistaken. Ithad been Dr. Webber's face he had seen, a face no one could forget, anunmistakable face. And that meant that it had been Dr. Webber who hadbeen persecuting him. But why? He had been going to report to Webber when he had run into thatgolden field in the rooming-house hallway. And suddenly things hadchanged. Harry felt a chill reaching to his fingers and toes. Yes, something hadchanged, all right. The attack on him had suddenly become butcherous, cruel, sneaking into his mind somehow to use his most dreaded nightmaresagainst him. There was no telling what new horrors might be waiting forhim. But he knew that he would lose his mind unless he could find anescape. He was on his feet, his heart pounding. He had to get out of here, wherever he was. He had to get back to town, back to the city, back towhere people were. If he could find a place to hide, a place where hecould rest, he could try to think his way out of this ridiculous maze, or at least try to understand it. He wrenched at the door to the passageway, started through, and smashedface-up against a solid brick wall. He cried out and jumped back from the wall. Blood trickled from hisnose. The door was _walled up_, the mortar dry and hard. Frantically, he glanced around the room. There were no other doors, onlythe row of tiny windows around the ceiling of the room, pale, ghostlysquares of light. He pulled the chair over to the windows, peered out through thecobwebbed openings to the corridor beyond. It was not the same hallway as before, but an old, dirty buildingcorridor, incredibly aged, with bricks sagging away from the walls. Atthe end he could see stairs, and even the faintest hint of sunlightcoming from above. Wildly, he tore at the masonry of the window, chipping away at the soggymortar with his fingers until he could squeeze through the opening. Hefell to the floor of the corridor outside. It was much colder and the silence was no longer so intense. He seemedto feel, rather than hear, the surging power, the rumble of manymachines, the little, almost palpable vibrations from far above him. He started in a dead run down the musty corridor to the stairs and beganto climb them, almost stumbling over himself in his eagerness. After several flights, the brick walls gave way to cleaner plastic, andsuddenly a brightly lighted corridor stretched before him. Panting from the climb, Harry ran down the corridor to the end, wrenchedopen a door, and looked out anxiously. He was almost stunned by the bright light. At first he couldn't orienthimself as he stared down at the metal ramp, the moving strips ofglowing metal carrying the throngs of people, sliding along thethoroughfare before him, unaware of him watching, unaware of any changefrom the usual. The towering buildings before him rose to unbelievableheights, bathed in ever-changing rainbow colors, and he felt his pulsethumping in his temples as he gaped. He was in the New City, of that there was no doubt. This was the part ofthe great metropolis which had been built again since the devastatingwar that had nearly wiped the city from the Earth a decade before. Thesewere the moving streets, the beautiful residential apartments, followingthe modern neo-functional patterns and participational design which hadcompletely altered the pattern of city living. The Old City stillremained, of course--the slums, the tenements, the skid-rows of themetropolis--but this was the teeming heart of the city, a new home formen to live in. And this was the stronghold where the not-men could be found, too. Thethought cut through Harry's mind, sending a tremor up his spine. He hadfound them here; he had uncovered his first clues here, and discoveredthem; and even now his mind was filled with the horrible, paralyzingfear he had felt that first night when he had made the discovery. Yet heknew now that he dared not go back where he had come from. At least he could understand why the not-men might have feared andpersecuted him, but he could not understand the horrible assault thatDr. Webber had unleashed. And somehow he found Dr. Webber's attackinfinitely more frightening. He seemed to be safe here, though, at least for the moment. Quickly he moved down onto the nearest moving sidewalk heading towardthe living section of the New City. He knew where he could go there, where he could lock himself in, a place where he could think, possiblyfind a way to fight off Dr. Webber's attack of nightmares. He settled back on a bench on the moving sidewalk, watching the cityslide past him for several minutes before he noticed the curiousshadow-form which seemed to whisk out of his field of vision every timehe looked. They were following him again! He looked around wildly as the sidewalkmoved swiftly through the cool evening air. Far above, he could see theshimmering, iridescent screen that still stood to protect the New Cityfrom the devastating virus attacks which might again strike down fromthe skies without warning. Far ahead he could see the magnificent"bridge" formed by the sidewalk crossing over to the apartment area, where the thousands who worked in the New City were returning to theirhomes. Someone was still following him. Presently he heard the sound, so close to his ear he jumped, yet sosmall he could hardly identify it as a human voice. "What was it youfound, Harry? What did you discover? Better tell, better tell. " He saw the rift in the moving sidewalk coming, far ahead, a great, gaping rent in the metal fabric of the swiftly moving escalator, as if ahuge blade were slicing it down the middle. Harry's hand went to hismouth, choking back a scream as the hole moved with incredible rapiditydown the center of the strip, swallowing up whole rows of the seats, moving straight toward his own. He glanced in fright over the side just as the sidewalk moved out ontothe "bridge, " and he gasped as he saw the towering canyons of buildingsfall far below, saw the seats tumble end over end, heard the sounds ofscreaming blend into the roar of air by his ears. Then the rift screamed by him with a demoniac whine and he sank backonto his bench, gasping as the two cloven halves of the strip clangedback together again. He stared at the people around him on the strip and they stared back athim, mildly, unperturbed, and returned to their evening papers as thestrip passed through the first local station on the other side of the"bridge. " Harry Scott sprang to his feet, moving swiftly across the slower stripsfor the exit channels. He noted the station stop vaguely, but his onlythought now was speed, desperate speed, fear-driven speed to put intoaction the plan that had suddenly burst in his mind. He knew that he had reached his limit. He had come to a point beyondwhich he couldn't fight alone. Somehow, Webber had burrowed into his brain, laid his mind open toattacks of nightmare and madness that he could never hope to fight. Facing this alone, he would lose his mind. His only hope was to go forhelp to the ones he feared only slightly less, the ones who had mindscapable of fighting back for him. He crossed under the moveable sidewalks and boarded the one going backinto the heart of the city. Somewhere there, he hoped, he would find thehelp he needed. Somewhere back in that city were men he had discoveredwho were men and something more. * * * * * Frank Manelli carefully took the blood pressure of the sleeping figureon the bed; then turned to the other man. "He'll be dead soon, " hesnapped. "Another few minutes now is all it'll take. Just a few more. " "Absurd. There's nothing in these stimuli that can kill him. " GeorgeWebber sat tense, his eyes fixed on the pale fluctuating screen near thehead of the bed. "His own mind can kill him! He's on the run now; you've broken him loosefrom his nice safe paranoia. His mind is retreating, running back tosome other delusions. It's escaping to the safety his fantasy people canafford him, these not-men he thinks about. " "Yes, yes, " agreed Dr. Webber, his eyes eager. "Oh, he's on the runnow. " "But what will he do when he finds there aren't any 'not-men' to savehim? What will he do then?" Webber looked up, frowning and grim. "Then we'll know what he foundbehind the dark door that he opened, that's what. " "No, you're wrong! He'll die. He'll find nothing and the shock willkill him. My God, Webber, you can't tamper with a man's mind like thisand hope to save his life! You're obsessed; you've always been obsessedby this impossible search for something in our society, someundiscovered factor to account for the mental illness, the divergentminds, but you can't kill a man to trace it down!" "It's too neat, " said Webber. "He comes back to tell us the truth, andwe call him insane. We say he's paranoid, throw him in restraint, placehim in an asylum; and we never _know_ what he found. The truth is tooincredible; when we hear it, it must be insanity we're hearing. " The big doctor laughed, jabbing his thumb at the screen. "This isn'tinsanity we're seeing. Oh, no, this is the answer we're following. Iwon't stop now. I've waited too long for this show. " "Well, I say stop it while he's still alive. " Dr. Webber's eyes were deadly. "Get out, Frank, " he said softly. "I'mnot stopping now. " His eyes returned to the screen, to the bobbing figure that thepsycho-integrator traced on the fluorescent background. Twenty years ofsearch had led him here, and now he knew the end was at hand. 5 It was a wild, nightmarish journey. At every step, Harry's sensesbetrayed him: his wrist watch turned into a brilliant blue-green snakethat snapped at his wrist; the air was full of snarling creatures thatthreatened him at every step. But he fought them off, knowing that theywould harm him far less than panic would. He had no idea where to hunt, nor whom to try to reach, but he knew they were there in the New City, and somehow he knew they would help him, if only he could find them. He got off the moving strip as soon as the lights of the center of thecity were clear below, and stepped into the self-operated lift thatsped down to ground level. From the elevator, he moved on to one of thelong, honeycombed concourses, filled with passing shoppers who stared atthe colorful, enticing three-dimensional displays. At one of the intersections ahead, he spotted a visiphone station, anddropped onto the little seat before the screen. There had been a number, if only he could recall it. But as he started to dial, the silveryscreen shattered into a thousand sparkling glass chips, showering thefloor with crystal and sparks. Harry cursed, grabbed the hand instrument, and jangled frantically forthe operator. Before she could answer, the instrument grew warm in hishand, then hot and soft, like wax. Slowly, it melted and ran down hisarm. He bolted out into the stream of people, trying desperately to draw somecomfort from the crowd around him. He felt utterly alone; he _had_ to contact the not-men who were in thecity, warn them, before they spotted him, of the attack he carried withhim. If he were leading his pursuer, he could expect no mercy from theones whose help he sought. He knew the lengths to which they would go toremain undetected in the society around them. Yet he had to find them. In the distance, he saw a figure waiting, back against one of the showwindows. Harry stopped short, ducked into a doorway, and peered outfearfully. Their eyes locked for an instant; then the figure moved on. Harry felt a jolt of horror surge through him. Dr. Webber hunting him inperson! He ducked out of the doorway, turned and ran madly in the oppositedirection, searching for an up escalator he could catch. Behind him heheard shots, heard the angry whine of bullets past his ear. He breathed in great, gasping sobs as he found an almost emptyescalator, and bounded up it four steps at a time. Below, he could seeWebber coming too, his broad shoulders forcing their way relentlesslythrough the mill of people. Panting, Harry reached the top, checked his location against a wall map, and started down the long ramp which led toward the building he hadtried to call. Another shot broke out behind him. The wall alongside powdered away, leaving a gaping hole. On impulse, he leaped into the hole, runningthrough to the rear of the building as the weakened wall swayed andcrumbled into a heap of rubble just as Webber reached the place Harryhad entered. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and raced up the stairs of the buildingto reach a ramp on another level. He turned his eyes toward the tallbuilding at the end of the concourse. There he could hide and relax andtry, somehow, to make a contact. Someone fell into step beside him and took his arm gently but firmly. Harry jerked away, turning terrified eyes to the one who had joined him. "Quiet, " said the man, steering him over toward the edge of theconcourse. "Not a sound. You'll be all right. " Harry felt a tremor pass through his mind, the barest touching of mentalfingertips, a recognition that sent a surge of eager blood through hisheart. He stopped short, facing the man. "I'm being followed, " he gasped. "Youcan't take me anywhere you don't want Webber to follow, or you'll be interrible danger. " The stranger shrugged and smiled briefly. "You're not here. You're in apsycho-integrator. It can hurt you, if you let it. But it can't hurtme. " He stepped up his pace slightly, and in a moment they turnedabruptly into a darkened cul-de-sac. Suddenly, they were moving _through_ the wall of the building into thebrilliantly lit lobby of the tall building. Harry gasped, but thestranger led him without a sound toward the elevator, stepped aboardwith him, and sped upward, the silence broken only by thewhish-whish-whish of the passing floors. Finally they stepped out into aquiet corridor and down through a small office door. A man sat behind the desk in the office, his face quiet, his eyes verywide and dark. He hardly glanced at Harry, but turned his eyes to theother man. "Set?" he asked. "Couldn't miss now. " The man nodded and looked at last at Harry. "You're upset, " he murmured. "What's bothering you?" "Webber, " said Harry hoarsely. "He's following me here. He'll spot you. I tried to warn you before I came, but I couldn't. " The man at the desk smiled. "Webber again, eh? Our old friend Webber. That's all right. Webber's at the end of his tether. There's nothing hecan do to stop us. He's trying to attack with force, and he fails torealize that time and thought are on our side. The time when force wouldhave succeeded against us is long past. But now there are many of us, almost as many as not. " Harry stared shrewdly at the man behind the desk. "Then why are you soafraid of Webber?" he asked. "Afraid?" "You know you are. Long ago you threatened me, if I reported to him. Youwatched me, played with me. Why are you afraid of him?" The man sighed. "Webber is premature. We are stalling for time, that'sall. We wait. We have grown from so very few, back in the 1940s and 50s, but the time for quiet usurpation of power has not quite arrived. Butmen like Webber force our hand, discover us, try to expose us. " Harry Scott's face was white, his hands shaking. "And what do you do tothem?" "We--deal with them. " "And those like me?" The man smiled lopsidedly. "Those like Paulus and Wineberg and therest--they're happy, really, like little children. But one like you isso much more useful. " He pointed almost apologetically to the smallscreen on his desk. Harry looked at it, realization dawning. He watched the huge, broad-shouldered figure moving down the hallway toward the door. "Webber was dangerous to you?" "Unbelievably dangerous. So dangerous we would use any means to traphim. " Suddenly the door burst open and there stood Webber, a triumphantWebber, face flushed, eyes wide, as he stared at the man behind thedesk. The man smiled back and said, "Come on in, George. We've been waitingfor you. " Webber stepped through the door. "Manelli, you fool!" There was a blinding flash as he crossed the threshold. A faint crackleof sound reached Harry's ears; then the world blacked out. .. . * * * * * It might have been minutes, or hours, or days. The man who had beenbehind the desk was leaning over Harry, smiling down at him, gentlybandaging the trephine wounds at his temples. "Gently, " he said, as Harry tried to sit up. "Don't try to move. You'vebeen through a rough time. " Harry peered up at him. "You're--not Dr. Webber. " "No. I'm Dr. Manelli. Dr. Webber's been called away--an accident. He'llbe some time recovering. I'll be taking care of you. " Vaguely, Harry was aware that something was peculiar, something notquite as it should be. The answer slowly dawned on him. "The statistical analysis!" he exclaimed. "I was supposed to get somedata from Dr. Webber about an analysis, something about rising insanityrates. " Dr. Manelli looked blank. "Insanity rates? You must be mistaken. Youwere brought here for an immunity examination, nothing more. But youcan check with Dr. Webber, when he gets back. " 6 George Webber sat in the little room, trembling, listening, his eyeswide in the thick, misty darkness. He knew it would be a matter of timenow. He couldn't run much farther. He hadn't seen them, true. Oh, theyhad been very clever, but they thought they were dealing with a fool, and they weren't. He _knew_ they'd been following him; he'd known it fora long time now. It was just as he had been telling the man downstairs the night before:they were everywhere--your neighbor upstairs, the butcher on the corner, your own son or daughter, maybe even the man you were talkingto--_everywhere_! And of course he had to warn as many people as he possibly could before_they_ caught him, throttled him off, as they had threatened to if hetalked to anyone. If only the people would _listen_ to him when he told them how cleverlyit was all planned, how it would only be a matter of months, maybe onlyweeks or days before the change would happen, and the world would bequietly, silently taken over by the _other_ people, the different peoplewho could walk through walls and think in impossibly complex channels. And no one would know the difference, because business would go on asusual. He shivered, sinking down lower on the bed. If only people would listento him-- It wouldn't be long now. He had heard the stealthy footsteps on thelanding below his room some time ago. This was the night they had chosento make good their threats, to choke off his dangerous voice once andfor all. There were footsteps on the stairs now, growing louder. Wildly he glanced around the room as the steps moved down the halltoward his door. He rushed to the window, threw up the sash andscreamed hoarsely to the silent street below: "Look out! They're here, all around us! They're planning to take over! Look out! Look out!" The door burst open and there were two men moving toward him, grim-faced, dressed in white; tall, strong men with sad faces and strongarms. One was saying, "Better come quietly, mister. No need to wake up thewhole town. "