Doppelgangers by H. F. Heard Page B

the Mole had found that he could not strike directly at Alpha; all the attempts had failed, and with each failure went the increasing risk that one day the Mole himself would be rooted out.
    It was clear that this amazing plan, of which the remodeled man was the tool, had been attempted only because there was no other way through; and, if it were attempted, the only possible thing was to leave the tool free to do as he liked when you had put him in reach of the prize. After a period of great passivity—in the exact sense of that word, the sense of suffering and patient enduring—he had then come out for a small spell into a busy routine life in the kitchen. And now a third phase had opened: he was to call the tune and he need not call it until he decided it was time for the music to begin again. He suddenly felt a great tiredness. He went into the little bunkroom, undressed, and fell asleep at once.
    When he woke, his trained eye saw that nothing had been touched—he had not been able to resist the routine of his old training, as fixed a habit now as a child’s repetition of its nightly prayer, to check up on everything. The way he had thrown his robe over the chair, the place his socks were in, the fold of his garments—he memorized them all automatically, and now, looking over these and a number of other small place-clues, he judged that no one had been in the room since he had fallen asleep. He got up and went into the sitting room. There, too, the disposition of everything, he would have given his word, was unaltered. Yes, he might be observed but he was evidently not to be intruded upon.
    That he was observed was pretty clear, for, by the time he came back from his shower, the bulb over the service lift was shining, and, opening the hatch, he found his breakfast ready for him. He ate it with relish. Alpha certainly had practiced at home—at least for his guests—what he preached abroad. When he had finished, he put the tray into the other hatch as he had been told. As he closed the panel he could just hear a gentle whir; yes, he was certainly being waited upon with instant vigilance. He leaned back in the chair a moment. Then he sat down to wait. He had been taught how to do that and he had plenty to run over in his mind. There were excellent cigarettes, too, in a small glass box on the table beside him. They were of that new synthetic smoking mixture which was so much more fragrant than tobacco, was a true stimulant instead of a narcotic, and which did not hurt even a singer’s throat. He had much to think over and recheck.
    He was just trying to put out all the pieces, to understand the particular place and problem of his late employer, the chef, when a voice which was the very antithesis of that tempestuous bass that had been called “the ground-swell of Mankind’s Tide” said, “Good morning,” just behind his chair. Of course, his watch and his meal and everything but the daylight which never came into this place told him it was morning. He swung round and faced a figure which was certainly as unformidable as the voice. A little fellow in silver gray stood bowing slightly. He was certainly a typical cell of the brain-trust section—one who, because of his excessive cerebrotonia (the standard classification of the day was now used by everyone) must have been picked and conditioned almost from the kindergarten. He was the type which would have worn spectacles had not eye-surgery and exercises made such clumsy hangovers and hangouts an anachronism.
    â€œGood morning,” said the remodeled man.
    â€œAh, what a pleasure to an expert,” was the odd but immediate reply. “That tone, quite wonderful. Not, of course, quite the thing. Privately—though in saying so I am actually speaking against my own science—I can’t help feeling that we shall never get quite the unique thing. After all, a scientist need not cease to be an artist. And