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White, the first to see Paul as he entered. The sudden widening of his eyes
made Blunt check his speech. The rest all turned, evenButler and McLeod.
AndKantele gasped. They, all except Blunt, stood like people who witness a
basic violation of the natural laws by which they have lived all their lives.
But Blunt leaned upon the straight silver knob of a new walking stick and
smiled. As perhaps the Athenian pole-marchCallimachus smiled on that day in
late September, twenty-five hundred and forty years previous, on seeing in the
cool bright sunlight between clouds, the dust of his reinforced Greek wings
close in on the Persian horde on the plain of Marathon.
"You're a little early, not too much," he said, looking at Paul. "Kirk here
hasn't quite been softened up enough yet. But come on in myself."
And Paul, walking into the suite, seeing Blunt full and clearly face on for
the first time, saw indeed himself.
Chapter 21
Paul strode into the suite. The eyes of all of them were fixed on him, but
none showed more shattering from the blow than the blue eyes ofKantele . For,
of course, she alone of them all had felt it from the beginning, even though
she would not admit it to herself. It was the reason she had been so drawn to
Paul, and bad denied being drawn so fiercely. Paul had not blamed her then;
and understanding as he did now, he blamed her less. Even for him, as he
stopped, facing Blunt from the distance of a few feet, the experience had its
unnatural elements.
To those standing watching, he knew, it must be worse.For it was not a
physical resemblance that he shared with Walter Blunt. They wereboth tall ,
wide-shouldered, long-boned, with strong facial features. But there the
similarity of the flesh ceased. Their common identity was all the more jolting
to the emotions because it was a matter of nonphysical duplications. They
should not have looked alike. But they did.
It was weirdly as if the same man wore two different costumes and disguises.
The surface appearances were totally different, but identically the same way
of standing, the same balance of movement, the same mannerisms and attitudes,
glowed through the outer shells like the same candle-flame through two
differently ornamented lanterns.
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"You understand," saidBlunt conversationally to Paul, "why I've dodged you
all this time?"
"Of course," said Paul.
At that, Kirk Tyne finally found his voice again. And a note that rang
clearly in it witnessed to the fact that for the first time the World Engineer
was seriously shaken in his convictions.
"What kind of unnatural devil-thing is this, Walt?" he burst out.
"It's a long story," said Blunt. He still leaned on his cane, examining Paul
almost the way a connoisseur might examine a particularly valued work of art
"But that's what I brought you here to hear, Kirk."
Kirk glanced from Paul to Blunt and back, as if magnetically attracted
against his will.
"I don't believe it," he said.
"Neither the world nor I," answered Blunt, without shifting his gaze off
Paul, "will care what you think after tonight, Kirk."
"Satan!" said a voice. Those in the room, including Paul and Blunt, all
looked. It was James Butler, the hotel agent, and he was lifting the gun in
his hand. The blue cross on the end of its barrel centered on Paul, wavered,
and swung over to point at Blunt "Denier of God."
Something black flickered through the air of the room. There was the sound of
a soft impact, andButler staggered and dropped the gun from his suddenly limp
grasp. The polished haft of a leaf-shaped,hiltless knife stood out from the
muscles of the agent's shoulder. McLeod came walking calmly across the room.
He bent to scoop up the gun and tucked it into his waistband, and then taking
hold ofButler 's shoulder with his left hand, he pulled out the knife with his
right. He pulled a self-adjusting pressure bandage from his pocket, put it
around Butler's shoulder to cover the wound, and lifted the crippled arm
across Butler's chest into the grasp of Butler's other arm.
"Hold that," he said.Butler looked at him. The agent had not made a sound.
McLeod went back to his position beyond Blunt.
"Now," asked Kirk, out of a white face, "you sick your hoods on me, and
decent people?"
"You call that fanatic decent?" asked Blunt, nodding at theblackcladButler .
"How decent would he have been if he'd shot me, or Paul? As he would have, if
Burt hadn't stopped him."
"It makes no difference," said Kirk. Before their eyes, with a remarkable
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