“Oh, he’ll be transplanted soon, though.”

“To whom?” Kaufmann asked, taken aback. “We have a rare event scheduled to take place here shortly,” said Santoliquido. “The erasure of a dybbuk who’s guilty not only of ejecting his host but of deliberately causing the discorporation of a young woman.”

“The Tandy Cushing case. Yes, of course. Risa’s given me all the details. But what does this have to do with—”

“Once Claude Villefranche has been obliterated, Mark, we’ll be left with the empty but living body of Martin St. John, a young man of good family and decent health. Have you considered the status of a blanked-out body of that sort?”

“Why,” Kaufmann said, “just take out one of St. John’s own recorded personae and imprint it on his own brain. Isn’t that the logical solution?”

“It’s logical, but it won’t work. That’s called an autoimprint, and autoimprints can’t be made. The brain rejects its own abstracted persona. There are complex reasons for this, partly having to do with the technique of the process, partly with the physiology of the autonomic nervous system, partly with the psychology of the persona. I won’t trouble you with the details. But we can’t put Martin St. John’s persona back into Martin St. John’s body. However, there’s nothing stopping us from installing some other persona in that vacant, healthy body—” Mark Kaufmann saw where Santoliquido was leading. The impact of comprehension was swift and violent. “You’ll put Paul in there?”

“Yes,” said Santoliquido smugly. “But that’ll create an instant dybbuk! It’ll be Paul Kaufmann operating Martin St. John’s body!” Kaufmann cried hoarsely.

“True. However, there’s no specific regulation prohibiting such a transplant. We have blank bodies so infrequently that there are no precedents. Paul himself is something of a precedentsetter, too, since his mind is uniquely dynamic and overbearing, and he’s almost certain to turn any host he gets into a dybbuk. With a few possible exceptions, such as Roditis. And yourself. But we have a moral obligation to return Paul’s persona to carnate form. If we give him an orthodox transplant, and a dybbuk results, the quaestors will insist on mandatory erasure again, If we put him into a wholly empty body, though, so that there’s no charge of an unethical takeover of another intelligence, he won’t be breaking any laws. In effect, your uncle will return to the world as an independent entity, truly reborn.”

Kaufmann was staggered by the idea. He saw the complacence in Santoliquido’s face, and knew that the Scheffing administrator had engineered this most cunningly, as a way of immobilizing both Roditis and himself. Handing the disputed persona to a third party, a zero, a blank, neatly cut the ground from under both of them. Roditis could storm and rant, but unless he found some legal flaw in the transfer, he could not oppose it. And Mark, having put up a successful battle to keep Paul out of Roditis’ mind, could not now very well presume to interfere with Santoliquido’s further freedom of action.

It was ironic that Risa had provided Santoliquido with the solution to his dilemma. Very conveniently, she had helped to make a blank body available to him at the critical moment. Zip, zip, and Paul Kaufmann would walk the earth again, not merely as a silent persona, nor even as an unlawful dybbuk that had wrested control from a victimized host, but as a true rebirth, given a body of his own with the blessings of the Scheffing Institute!

“What do you say, Mark?” Santoliquido asked coyly. Shaken, Kaufmann replied, “This is very sudden. It brings up all kinds of complications. What, for example, would be the legal status of this carnate form? Paul’s dead. His estate is going through probate.”

“Legally, the new entity would assume the property and status of Martin St. John,” said Santoliquido. “I’ve already had a ruling on that. He’d be St. John, carrying the Paul Kaufmann persona. Of course, in effect he’d simply be Paul in St. John’s body, but that doesn’t give him any title to Kaufmann status. I assume that you’d accept him into your family circle as Paul and find room for him in your business enterprises, but that’s strictly up to you. You could just as easily let him try to make his way as St. John.

Knowing Paul, I think he’d do all right.”

“Yes,” said Kaufmann hollowly. “I think he would.”

“So what do you say? I’ve saved you from the monstrous threat of a Roditis in your bosom! That’s a relief, eh, Mark? Isn’t it? You look a bit uncertain.”

The initial shock was wearing off. Kaufmann had begun to see past his amazement at Santoliquido’s coup to the deeper implications. Paul would return to life, yes, as shrewd and as energetic as ever, and with the extra benefit of residing in the body of a young man. That posed something of a threat to Mark’s own status as head of the Kaufmann clan.

But no Kaufmann could really accept the reborn Paul as a true Kaufmann. The family would draw upon his reserve of experience and wisdom, but could never accord him full status. At best he’d be a secondary focus of power.

I can handle him, Mark thought. After all, what Santoliquido doesn’t know is that I’ll have Paul’s persona myself. That’ll enable me to cope, in case it comes to a show-down between Paul and me. And I should be able to count on Paul’s support in the struggle against Roditis.

Kaufmann envisioned the possibility of a three-cornered rivalry: himself, the new Paul, and Roditis. But in such a conflict he would invariably emerge on top, since he’d be Mark-plusPaul, and thus at least one notch ahead of Paul alone, and two notches ahead of Roditis.

He said, “Yes. Very clever of you, Frank. I approve. Have you broken the news to Roditis yet?”

“No. I thought I’d wait another day or two, until the transplant has actually been carried out. I’d prefer to present it to him as a fait accompli.”

“That’s probably best,” said Kaufmann. He chuckled. “I imagine Roditis is going to be surprised.”

Chapter 12

Charles Noyes said, “You won’t like this, John. Elena says that they’ve decided not to give Paul Kaufmann to you. They’ve got some dummy body that a dybbuk was removed from, and they’re putting the persona in that.”

He waited fearfully for Roditis to react. They were in the midwestern office of Roditis Securities at Evansville, Indiana, on the top floor of a tower overlooking the river. From the broad windows it was possible to see deep into Kentucky. Noyes had flown, to Evansville that afternoon, after lunch with Elena. This was too important to convey to Roditis by phone.

Roditis seemed strangely calm. He walked past Noyes to the window and peered out into the blaze of light that was the city across the river. Then, turning slowly, he went to the Anton Kozak sonic sculpture that dominated one wall of his office and carefully recalibrated its pitch so that it produced a gentle hum at about fifty cycles. A horizontal component in the sculpture began to oscillate at such a frequency that it blurred and became barely visible.

Quietly Roditis said, “Did she learn this from Santoliquido?”

“Yes. She spent much of last night with him, and he told her. According to Elena, Santoliquido is quite proud of what he’s arranged, because it thwarts both you and Mark in one stroke.”

“What did Mark want done with the persona?”

“Either to be given to him or simply kept in cold storage. Since it obviously couldn’t be given to him, Mark preferred that it go to nobody at all. Santoliquido’s manipulated things so that neither one of you gets what he wanted, and yet neither one of you has any recourse from the decision.”

Roditis, still icily calm, fondled the shining rim of the sonic sculpture. Noyes could not understand his employer’s coolness. The man should be raving and shouting. Was Roditis drugged in some way? Up to the eyebrows in pills? System flooded with a chemosterilant to damp down any response?