To Live Again

Chapter 15

It was July now. A season of stifling weather had set in, beyond the capacity of the weather controllers to handle, and many people had fled to cooler climes. Risa remained in New York. The trial of John Roditis had just ended, and now there was a great deal for her to do.

Roditis had been found guilty, of course. Noyes’ recorded testimony had induced the quaestorate to seek a mindpick against him, and the motion had been granted. Roditis’ lawyers had undertaken a delaying action based on the ancient constitutional principle of freedom from self-incrimination; but the legality of the mindpick was firmly established, and Roditis was put to the test. His complicity in the deliberate discorporation of Martin St. John was undeniable after that.

The defense tactics shifted. Now the lawyers asserted that, while Roditis and Noyes had undoubtedly conspired to destroy the St. John body, there was no injured party, since St. John was not his own body’s tenant. The only occupant of the body, the persona of Paul Kaufmann, was legally dead and therefore not capable of suffering discorporation.

It was a fine point, and gave the jurists of the quaestorate considerable exercise. It caused a good deal of embarrassment for Francesco Santoliquido, too, since he was responsible for creating the anomaly of the deliberate dybbuk. In the end, the decision went against Roditis, but the charge was reduced from murder to antisocial actions of the first degree. Which, when Roditis was found guilty, resulted in these sentences:

 Forfeiture of citizenship and Civic privileges.  Mandatory destruction of any recorded Roditis personae on file with the Scheffing Institute.

 Erasure of all present personae carried by Roditis, and their return to the soul bank for redistribution to others.

 Five years of corrective therapy, including, if needed, a total reorientation of personality to remove aggressive impulses.

“He’s finished now,” Mark Kaufmann said to his daughter as the verdicts were announced. “He’ll come out of the therapy a broken man — polite, amiable, lacking in purpose and direction. A pleasant nobody. A nothing. A shell.”

“It seems like such a waste,” said Risa. “All that drive — all that energy thrown away—”

“He was too dangerous to remain as he was, Risa. He had a greatness, I’ll admit, but his ambitions weren’t tempered by the moral sense. He was without a governor.”

“And you? And Uncle Paul?” Kaufmann looked at her sharply. “We have our family traditions. We have our sense of what is honorable. Roditis was a wild beast. Now he’ll be tamed. There’s no comparison between a Roditis and one of us, Risa. None.”

Risa had private reservations about that. She had no wish to anger her father; but it seemed to her that the real difference between the shattered, defeated Roditis and the triumphant Mark Kaufmann was more a matter of luck and diplomacy than of breeding and honor. Roditis had overreached himself, and Mark had destroyed him. But Mark’s methods, though they stopped short at murder, had hardly been gentle.

Roditis disappeared behind the fortress walls of Belle Isle Sanatorium for corrective therapy. No one would ever again see the old John Roditis in public, that man seething with vitality and shrewdness. When Roditis emerged, several years hence, he would still be a wealthy man, but he would be an aimless, smiling ruin, cheerfully acquiescing in the decisions of the courtappointed trustees who managed his financial empire.

A great waste of dynamism, Risa decided. Perhaps, she thought, such a squandering might be in some way avoided.

On the hottest day of that July heat wave, soon after the sentencing of John Roditis, Risa brought her hopter down in the employee lot of the Scheffing Institute building. She parked it deftly and crossed the sweltering strip of ferroconcrete in a hurry. It was three in the afternoon the first shift of technicians was about to leave.

Within the building Risa picked up the first telephone she came to and requested to speak to a certain employee. Moments later, his face appeared on the screen.

He looked baffled. “Hello, Leonards. Remember me?” He was young, pale, good-looking, pinch lines forming between his eyebrows. He moistened his lips. “M-Miss Kaufmann?”

“That’s right, Leonards. Go to the head of the class.” He forced an uneasy smile. “Is there something wrong? Can I be of service?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong, and yes, you can be of service. You’re finished working for the day, aren’t you?”

“Good. My hopter’s parked in Employee Lot D. Meet me there right away and we’ll take a little trip.”

“But—”

“I’ll be waiting, Leonards!” He did not disappoint her. He did not dare. Looking mystified, he entered the hopter, taking his seat beside her as she indicated. The little craft lifted and headed north. Risa said, “You did an excellent job with my transplant, Leonards. Tandy and I are very happy together.”

“That’s good, Miss Kaufmann. Perhaps you could tell me—”

“Where we’re heading? Of course. We’re going uptown. To my apartment.”

He scarcely seemed to believe any of this was happening to him. His posture was rigid; he looked straight ahead, never venturing a glance in her direction. He was terrified of her.

She brought the hopter in for a smooth landing at her home lot. Minutes later, they entered her apartment.

“Take a good look around,” she told him. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Ever been in a place like this before?”

“N-no, Miss Kaufmann.”

“Call me Risa. Why are you so frightened, Leonards? You’re a big, handsome young fellow, aren’t you? A skilled technician, a man with a bright future? Are you married?”

“Yes, Miss Kaufmann.”

“Children?”

“One child. We’re going to have another after my next increment comes through.”

“Fine, Leonards. I’m sure you’re a wonderful family man. And I’m glad to know you’re so virile.” She put her hand to her shoulder, touched a stud. Her light summer clothing fell away in a rustling swirl. She stood before him incandescently nude, and, he gaped at the sudden sight.

He backed away from her, shielding his eyes. “Come here, Leonards,” she said in a husky voice Tandy Cashing had taught her how to use. “You’re not really afraid. You want me, don’t you? Admit it. I’m yours for the taking. The experience of a lifetime. A Kaufmann in your arms. Why run away?”

“Please — I don’t understand—” She swept up against him. She took his hand and put it to her small breasts. Her own hand traveled expertly over his body. Leonards gasped. Leonards moaned. Leonards shook his head and tried to push her away, but the attempt was not a success.

“I want you, Leonards! What’s your first name?”

“Harry.”

“Harry! Harry! Harry! Love me, Harry!” She tugged at him and they toppled to the floor. Her lithe body entwined itself with his. Urgently she awakened his desires and banished his timidity.

“Harry,” she whispered. “Harry!”

He made a sound that was half a protest, half an acceptance. And then, with sudden desperate willingness, he pulled her against him.

He was not very good, Risa concluded. But he was appealingly earnest.

When it was over, she slipped away from him and got nimbly to her feet. He lay still, rumpled and glassy-eyed.

“You’ve just committed an act of rape,” Risa told him. “Your helpless victim was a girl of the highest social position, less than seventeen years old. You’ll get your mind blotted out for a crime like that.”

Leonards came to a sitting position, and the color drained from his face a moment, then returned in a crimson rush. “What are you saying?”

“I’m explaining to you the nature of the trouble you’re in. Forcibly entering my hopter while I was visiting the Scheffing Institute, compelling me to bring you here, disrobing me, inducing me through superior strength to submit to sexual violation — oh, it’s bad, Leonards, it’s very bad!”

“I feel like I’m in a dream,” he whispered. “It’s real enough. I’ll have the quaestors here any minute.”

“Why are you doing this?” She crouched before him, her face close to his. “Would you like to avoid going to trial? Would you like me to forgive you for your audacity in perpetrating this hideous rape?”

“What do you want from me?”

“A favor,” she said harshly. “A small favor, and I’ll forget all about what happened here today, and leave you with your memories of pleasure.”

“What kind of favor?”

“You’ll have to break the rules of the Scheffing Institute,” she said. “But that’s a much smaller crime than raping a girl my age, and if you’re smart and lucky you’ll get away with it. There’s a certain persona I want, Leonards. Get it for me from the files, just borrow it for a little while tomorrow. And transplant it to me. That’s all I ask. I’ll come to the tower, and you’ll handle the transplant, and we’ll call it quits. But we’ll have to move swiftly, because this particular persona recording is due to be destroyed very soon. All right, Leonards? Do we have a deal?”

“Everything’s settled, then,” Mark Kaufmann said. “My uncle’s persona remains in storage indefinitely.”

“Yes,” said Santoliquido. “Which is to say, at least another year or two.”

“Long enough for some of the voltage to bleed out of the dynamo, at any rate. He’ll be less formidable coming back then. If he comes back at all.”

Santoliquido shrugged. “I’ll hold him in storage until a qualified recipient appears, Mark. And with Roditis permanently disqualified, it might be a long, long time. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Fine. See you at my party on Saturday?”

“Of course,” said Santoliquido. “I’ll reach Dominica about noon, I suppose. It’ll be a novelty, going south to the tropics to find cooler weather. My best to Elena, yes?”

“Of course.” Kaufmann broke the contact. He smiled, leaned back, touched the tips of his fingers together. All was well at last. Roditis was neutralized, entirely out of the scene. Santoliquido, who had come out of this affair very poorly indeed, was helpless before his wishes. There would be no extra Uncle Paul at liberty to interfere now. Elena, a chastened woman, had settled into something very much like fidelity. Risa, taking on new depth and maturity day by day, had ripened into a fitting Kaufmann heiress, ready to assume new responsibilities in the family empire. And he himself was home free with his uncle’s potent persona well integrated into his awareness, unknown to the rest of the world.

“How do you like that, you old fox? I’ve handled things pretty well, haven’t I, eh?”

—You’ve done well for yourself, Paul replied. But don’t get overconfident. Smugness was Roditis’ undoing. “Don’t worry about me,” Mark replied. “I try to calculate all the angles. And with you in there helping me, we shouldn’t miss very many of them.”

—There’s always the unpredictable. Be on guard for it. “Mark?” It was Risa’s voice, outside. “I’m here, Mark.”

“Come in,” he said. She entered his office. In her sketchy summer wrap she looked crisp and cool, and she carried herself with a no-nonsense selfpossession that he admired greatly. Here was the one person in the world who mattered most to him; and also the one person to whom he might be vulnerable. He had an idea that Risa suspected what he had done with Paul’s persona. She knew Paul’s mannerisms, and of course she knew his own, and she seemed conscious that a fusion had taken place. But after the first day she had ceased to betray any suspicions. Mark had no way of telling what was going on behind the smooth mask of his daughter’s face. Somehow, though, he felt certain that she knew the truth.

“I’m here for a business discussion,” Risa announced. “What kind of business?”

“Preliminary business, really. I’d like to get some idea of the family assets. What we have where, in whose name, what slice of equity in each.”

Kaufmann nodded. “It’s time we went over all that anyway, I suppose. I mean to bring you much more closely into our activities. To groom you for the time when you’re running the show. The world of business genuinely interests you, eh, Risa?”

“You know it does. And now that Roditis is through, we can begin to make a new move, Mark. I’d like to close in on that Latin American electrical empire of his. I’ve been thinking, we could undercut the Roditis trustees by a takeover of the company that makes the transmission pylons, and then—”

“Do you have a cold, Risa?”

“Why?”

“Your voice sounds odd. Deeper. Hoarser.” She shook her head. “That’s just Tandy’s influence, I guess. She must have had a very lush contralto, and she’s trying to pitch my voice down there too. You know how it is, the way a persona influences the host in little ways, certain mannerisms—”

“Yes,” Kaufmann said. “I know.”

“Very well, then. If we can get a grasp on the pylon company, we’ll have Roditis Securities caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and—”

“Between who and whom?”

“Scylla and Charybdis,” she repeated impatiently. “The monster and the whirlpool. Book Twelve of The Odyssey. By Homer.”

“Yes. I know. I didn’t realize you were a student of Homer, Risa.”

“Every civilized person should have a deep knowledge of Homer,” she said. “Has there ever been a greater poet? A man with a more vivid imagination? There are lessons we can learn from him even today.” Risa laughed self-consciously. “Back to the transmission pylons, though. Here’s what I have in mind—”

Mark Kaufmann watched his daughter construct an elaborate holding-company scheme with quick scrawled stokes of stylus against pad. But he paid little attention to her financial theories just now. A sudden implausible notion sent a chill of disbelief through him.

Homer? Holding companies? Transmission pylons? A deeper voice? No, he thought. No, it isn’t possible. She wouldn’t — she couldn’t—

From somewhere far away, Paul Kaufmann’s persona delivered a silent booming laugh. — There’s always the unpredictable, Mark.

Quietly Mark agreed. He peered closely at Risa, seeking for signs, for proof, for confirmation of this strange and frightening fantasy of his. If it were true, a new, invincible force had entered their family, and all plans must be reconsidered. But it could not be true. It could not be true. It could not be true. “There we are,” Risa finished. She shoved the pad toward her father. “What do you say, Mark? How does the plan look to you?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said warily. “But it’s worth considering. If we can use Roditis’ own way of thinking to cut chunks out of his holdings, why not?”

Risa grinned. She pointed to the somber, brooding portrait of Uncle Paul hanging behind her father’s desk. “I think he’d go for the idea. I think the old buccaneer would be very amused by it. Perhaps a little proud of me. Perhaps even a little jealous.”

“He is,” Mark Kaufmann said, and looked beyond his window to see the sky suddenly grow dark with the fury of a summer storm.