The Man Who Was Six by F. L. Wallace (thriller novels to read .txt) 📖

the night with me is hungry in the morning."

It was a domestic miracle that amidst all the pressing and fitting, she'd somehow prepared breakfast and he hadn't noticed. It was a simple chore with the automatics, but to him it seemed a proof of her wifely skill.

He wanted to protest, but didn't. Maybe it was the hand she was holding—it seemed to be equipped with a better set of nerves than its predecessor. It tingled at her touch. Sadly, he sat down and looked at his food. Eat? Did he want to eat? Oddly enough, he did.

"How much do you remember of the accident?" She shoved aside her own food and sat watching him.

Not a thing, now that she asked. In fact, there wasn't much he did remember. There had been the chart at his bed-side, with one word scrawled on it—accident—and that was where he'd got the idea. There had been other marks too, but he hadn't been able to decipher them. He nodded and said nothing and she took it as he thought she would.

"It wasn't anybody's fault. The warning devices which were supposed to work didn't," she began. "A Moon ship collided with a Mars liner in the upper atmosphere. The ships broke up in several parts and since they are compartmented and the delay rockets switched on immediately, the separate parts fell rather gently, considering how high they were. Casualties weren't as great as you might think.

"Parts of the two ships fell together, the rest were scattered. There was some interchange of passengers in the wreckage, but since you were found in the control compartment of the Mars liner, they assumed you were the pilot. They never let me see you until yesterday and then it was just a glimpse. I took their word when they said you were Dan Merrol."

At least he knew who or what Dan Merrol was—the pilot of the Mars liner. They had assumed he was the pilot because of where he was found, but he might have been tossed there—impact did strange things.

Dan Merrol was a spaceship pilot and he hadn't included it among his skills. It was strange that she had believed him at all. But now that it was out in the open, he did remember some facts about spaceships. He felt he could manage a takeoff at this instant.

But why hadn't he told her? Shock? Perhaps—but where had those other identities come from—lepidopterist, musician, actor, mathematician and wrestler? And where had he got memories of wives, slender and passionate, petite and wild, casual and complaisant, nagging and insecure?

Erica he didn't remember at all, save from last night, and what was that due to?

"What are you going to do?" he asked, deliberately toying with the last bite of breakfast. It gave him time to think.

"They said they'd identified everyone, living or dead, and I supposed they had. After seeing you, I can believe they made any number of similar mistakes. Dan Merrol may be alive under another name. It will be hard to do, but I must try to find him. Some of the accident victims went to other hospitals, you know, the ones located nearest where they fell."

Even if he was sure, he didn't know whether he could tell her—and he wasn't sure any longer, although he had been. On the physical side of marriage, how could he ask her to share a body she'd have to laugh at? Later, he might tell her, if there was to be a 'later.' He pushed back his chair and looked at her uncertainly.

"Let me call a 'copter," she said. "I hate to see you go."

"Wysocki's theorem," he told her. "The patient has decided to walk." He weaved toward the door and twisted the knob. He turned in time to catch her in his arms.

"I know this is wrong," she said, pressing against him.

It might be wrong, but it was very pleasant, though he did guess her motives. She was a warmhearted girl and couldn't help pitying him. "Don't be so damned considerate," he mumbled.

"You'll have to put me down," she said, averting her eyes. "Otherwise.... You're an intolerable funny man."

He knew it—he could see himself in the mirror. He was something to laugh at when anyone got tired of pretending sympathy. He put her down and stumbled out. He thought he could hear the bed creak as she threw herself on it.

II

Once he got started, walking wasn't hard. His left side swung at a different rate from his right, but that was due to the variation in the length of his thighs and lower legs, and the two rhythms could be reconciled. He swept along, gaining control of his muscles. He became aware that he was whizzing past everyone.

He slowed down—he didn't want to attract attention. It was difficult but he learned to walk at a pedestrian pace. However poorly they'd matched his legs, they'd given him good ones.

Last night, on an impulse, he'd left the hospital and now he had to go back. Had to? Of course. There were too many uncertainties still to be settled. He glanced around. It was still very early in the morning and normal traffic was just beginning. Maybe they hadn't missed him yet, though it was unlikely.

He seemed to know the route well enough and covered the distance in a brief time. He turned in at the building and, scanning the directory, went at once to the proper floor and stopped at the desk.

The receptionist was busy with the drawer of the desk. "Can I help you?" she asked, continuing to peer down.

"The director—Doctor Crander. I don't have an appointment."

"Then the director can't see you." The girl looked up and her firmly polite expression became a grimace of barely suppressed laughter.

Then laughter was swept away. What replaced it he couldn't say, but it didn't seem related to humor. She placed her hand near his but it went astray and got tangled with his fingers. "I just thought of a joke," she murmured. "Please don't think that I consider you at all funny."

The hell she didn't—and it was the second time within the hour a woman had used that word on him. He wished they'd stop. He took back his hand, the slender one, an exquisite thing that might once have belonged to a musician. Was there an instrument played with one hand? The other one was far larger and clumsier, more suited to mayhem than music. "When can I see the director?"

She blinked at him. "A patient?" She didn't need to look twice to see that he had been one. "The director does occasionally see ex-patients."

He watched her appreciatively as she went inside. The way she walked, you'd think she had a special audience. Presently the door opened and she came back, batting her eyes vigorously.

"You can go in now," she said huskily. Strange, her voice had dropped an octave in less than a minute. "The old boy tried to pretend he was in the middle of a grave emergency."

On his way in, he miscalculated, or she did, and he brushed against her. The touch was pleasant, but not thrilling. That reaction seemed reserved for Erica.

"Glad to see you," said Doctor Crander, behind the desk. He was nervous and harassed for so early in the morning. "The receptionist didn't give me your name. For some reason she seems upset."

She did at that, he thought—probably bewildered by his appearance. The hospital didn't seem to have a calming influence on either her or the doctor. "That's why I came here. I'm not sure who I am. I thought I was Dan Merrol."

Doctor Crander tried to fight his way through the desk. Being a little wider and solider, though not by much, the desk won. He contented himself by wiping his forehead. "Our missing patient," he said, sighing with vast relief. "For a while I had visions of...." He then decided that visions were nothing a medical man should place much faith in.

"Then I am Dan Merrol?"

The doctor came cautiously around the desk this time. "Of course. I didn't expect that you'd come walking in my office—that's why I didn't recognize you immediately." He exhaled peevishly. "Where did you go? We've been searching for you everywhere."

It seemed wiser to Dan not to tell him everything. "It was stuffy inside. I went out for a stroll before the nurse came in."

Crander frowned, his nervousness rapidly disappearing. "Then it was about an hour ago. We didn't think you could walk at all so soon, or we would have kept someone on duty through the night."

They had underestimated him, but he didn't mind. Of course, he didn't know how a patient from the regrowth tanks was supposed to act. The doctor took his pulse. "Seems fine," he said, surprised. "Sit down—please sit down."

Without waiting for him to comply, Crander pushed him into a chair and began hauling out a variety of instruments with which he poked about his bewildered patient.

Finally Crander seemed satisfied. "Excellent," he said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were almost fully recovered. A week ago, we considered removing you from the regrowth tank. Our decision to leave you there an extra week has paid off very, very nicely."

Merrol wasn't as pleased as the doctor appeared to be. "Granted you can identify me as the person who came out of regrowth—but does that mean I'm Dan Merrol? Could there be a mistake?"

Crander eyed him clinically. "We don't ordinarily do this—but it is evident that with you peace of mind is more important than procedure. And you look well enough to stand the physical strain."

He pressed the buzzer and an angular woman in her early forties answered. "Miss Jerrems, the Dan Merrol file."

Miss Jerrems flashed a glance of open adoration at the doctor and before she could reel it in, her gaze swept past Dan, hesitated and returned to him. Her mouth opened and closed like that of a nervous goldfish and she darted from the room.

They see me and flee as fast as they can caper, thought Merrol. It was not wholly true—Crander didn't seem much affected. But he was a doctor and used to it. Furthermore, he probably had room for only one emotion at the moment—relief at the return of his patient.

Miss Jerrems came back, wheeling a large cart. Dan was surprised at the mass of records. Crander noticed his expression and smiled. "You're our prize case, Merrol. I've never heard of anyone else surviving such extensive surgery. Naturally, we have a step-by-step account of everything we did."

He turned to the woman. "You may leave, Miss Jerrems." She went, but the adoration she had showed so openly for her employer seemed to have curdled in the last few moments.

Crander dug into the files and rooted out photographs. "Here are pictures of the wreckage in which you were found—notice that you were strapped in your seat—as you were received into the hospital—at various stages in surgery and finally, some taken from the files of the company for which you worked."

Merrol winced. The photographic sequence was incontrovertible. He had been a handsome fellow.

"Here is other evidence you may not have heard of. It's a recent development, within the last ten years, in fact. It still isn't accepted by most courts—they're always lagging—but to medical men it's the last word."

Merrol studied the patterns of waves and lines and splotches. "What is it?"

"Mass-cell radiographs. One was loaned by your employer. The other was taken just after your last operation. Both were corrected according to standard methods. One cell won't do it, ten yield an uncertain identity—but as few as a hundred cells from any part of the original body, excepting the blood, constitute proof more positive than fingerprints before the surgical exchange of limbs. Don't ask me why—no one knows. But it is true that cells differ from one body to the next, and this test detects the difference."