"Who?" - читать интересную книгу автора (Budrys Algis)

7

The week was almost over. They were beginning to learn things, but none of them were the slightest help.

Bannister laid the first engineering drawing down on Rogers’ desk. “This is how his head works — we believe. It’s a difficult thing, not being able to get clear X-rays.”

Rogers looked down at the drawing and grunted. Bannister began pointing out specific details, using his pipestem to tap the drawing.

“There’s his eye assembly. He has binocular vision, with servo-motored focusing and tracking. The motors are powered by this miniature pile, in his chest cavity, here. So are the remainder of his artificial components. It’s interesting to note he has a complete selection of filters for his eye lenses. They did him up brown. By the by, he can see by infra-red if he wants to.”

Rogers spat a shred of tobacco off his lower lip. “That’s interesting.”

Bannister said, “Now — right here, on each side of the eyes, are two microphones. Those are his ears. They must have felt it was better design to house both functions in that one central skull opening. It’s directional, but not as effective as God intended. Here’s something else; the shutter that closes that opening is quite tough — armored to protect all those delicate components. The result is he’s deaf when his eyes’re closed. He probably sleeps more restfully for it.”

“When he isn’t faking nightmares, yeah.”

“Or having them.” Bannister shrugged. “Not my department.”

“I wish it wasn’t mine. All right, now what about that other hole?”

“His mouth? Well, there’s a false, immovable jaw over the working one — again, apparently, to protect the mechanism. His true jaws, his saliva ducts and teeth are artificial. His tongue isn’t. The inside of the mouth is plastic-lined. Teflon, probably, or one of its kin. My people’re having a little trouble breaking it down for analysis. But he’s cooperative about letting us gouge out samples.”

Rogers licked his dips. “Okay — fine,” he said brusquely. “But how’s all this hooked into his brain? How does he operate it?”

Bannister shook his head. “I don’t know. He uses it all as if he were born with it, so there’s some sort of connection into his voluntary and autonomic nervous centers. But we don’t yet know exactly how it was done. He’s cooperative, as I said, but I’m not the man to start disassembling any of this — we might not be able to put him back together again. All I know is that somewhere, behind all that machinery, there’s a functioning human brain inside that skull. How the Soviets did it is something else again. You have to remember they’ve been fiddling with this sort of thing a long time.” He laid another sheet atop the first one, paying no attention to the pallor of Rogers’ face.

“Here’s his powerplant. It’s only roughed out in the drawing, but we think it’s just a fairly ordinary pocket pile, something like the SNAP series the Americans worked out for their space program. It’s located where his lungs were, next to the blower that operates his vocal cords and the most ingenious oxygen circulator I’ve ever heard of. The delivered power’s electrical, of course, and it works his arm, his jaws, his audiovisual equipment, and everything else.”

“How well’s the pile shielded?”

Bannister let a measured amount of professional admiration show in his voice. “Well enough so we can get muddy X-rays right around it. There’s some leakage, of course. He’ll die in about fifteen years.”

“Mm.”

“Well, now, man, if they cared whether he lived or died, they’d have supplied us with blueprints.”

“They cared at one time. And fifteen years might be plenty long enough for them, if he isn’t Martino.”

“And if he is Martino?”

“Then, if he is Martino, and they got to him with some of their persuasions, fifteen years might be plenty long enough for them.”

“And if he’s Martino and they didn’t get to him? If he’s the same man he always was, behind his new armor? If he isn’t the Man from Mars? If he’s simply plain Lucas Martino, physicist?”

Rogers shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I’m running out of ideas for quick answers. But we have to find out. Before we’re through, we may have to find out everything he ever did or felt — everyone he talked to, everything he thought.”