The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

Later events had seemed to confirm this. However, from time to time, and consistently in the past twenty years, Frigate had over­come his faults. Had he really attained self-mastery or had he just abandoned a role, ceased to play-act?

Certainly, it had been quite a coincidence that the second person Burton met had written a biography of him. How many biographers of his existed? Ten or twelve? What were the probabilities that one of them would be resurrected only a few meters from him? Twelve in thirty-six billion.

Still, it was within the realm of chance; it was not impossible.

Then Kazz had joined those who’d collected around Burton. Then Alice. Then Lev Ruach.

Today, while Kazz had been helmsman, Burton had stood by him and questioned him. Had Kazz talked to Monat and Frigate during Resurrection Day when Burton had not been around? Did he re­member anything that was suspicious about them?

Kazz had shaken his thickly boned head. “I was with them several times when you were not in sight. But I don’t remember nothing strange about them. That is, Burton-naq, there was nothing stranger than strange. Everything was strange that day.”

“Did you notice the marks on people’s foreheads that day?”

“Yes, a few. That was when the sun was highest.”

“What about Monat and Frigate?”

“I don’t remember seeing any on theirs that day. But then I don’t remember seeing one on you, either. The light had to reflect at a certain angle.”

Burton had taken out of his shoulderbag a pad of bamboo paper, a sharply pointed fish bone, and wooden bottle of ink. He took over the wheel while Kazz drew the marks he saw on the foreheads of the Arcturan and the American. Both were three parallel horizontal lines crossed by three parallel vertical lines juxtaposed to a cross enclosed in a circle. The lines were of even thickness and length except at the ends. Monat’s lines broadened at the right; Frigate’s, at the left.

“What about the sign on my forehead?” Burton had said.

Kazz showed him four wavy parallel horizontal lines next to a symbol like an ampersand (&). Below it was a short, thin, straight horizontal line.

“Mortal’s and Pete’s are remarkably alike,” Burton said.

At Burton’s request, Kazz then drew the symbols on the foreheads of everyone of the crew. Not one resembled any other.

“Do you remember Lev Ruach’s?”

Kazz nodded, and a moment later he handed Burton the drawing. He felt disappointed, though he had no conscious reason to be so. Ruach’s symbol was not at all like his prime suspects’.

Now, walking on the deck, Burton wondered why he had expect­ed it to be similar to the other two. Something tickled the back of his brain, some suspicion he could not scratch. There was a linkage among the three, but it slipped away just as he was about to grasp it.

He had done enough thinking. Now for action.

A white bundle lying against the cabin was the Neanderthal, wrapped in cloths. Guiding himself by the fellow’s snoring, Burton went to him and shook him. Kazz, snorting, woke up at once.

“Time?”

“Time.”

First, though, Kazz had to piss over the railing. Burton lit a fish-oil lantern, and they walked down the gangplank onto the dock. From there they moved slowly onto the plain, their destination an empty hut about two hundred paces away. They missed it, but after circling around, they found it. After they had entered, Burton shut the door. A bundle of logs and shavings had been placed in the stone hearth that evening by Kazz. In a minute, a small fire was blazing. Kazz sat down on a bamboo wickerwork chair near the fire. He coughed as he breathed smoke which had escaped the feeble draught of the chimney.

It was easy to place Kazz into a hypnotic trance. He had been one of Burton’s subjects for years when Burton entertained locals by displaying his powers as a mesmerist.

Now that Burton thought about it, Monal and Frigate had always been present at these times. Had they been nervous then? If they had, they had successfully concealed it.

Burton took Kazz straight back to the time when he had men­tioned to the breakfasting group that Spruce had no mark. Working forward, he took him then to the point where the Neanderthal had gone into Monat’s hut. Here he encountered first resistance.