Chapter 3

Frank Corson got what was possibly the greatest shock of his life when he walked into Ward Five and saw William Matson lying in bed. It wasn’t so much that he hadn’t expected it. He had, because he was too firmly locked in reality to believe the man he saw on the Upper East Side could possibly have been the broken-legged Matson. Still, seeing Matson in bed had the effect of bringing unreality into a realm where he had to cope with it. Perhaps, during the trip back to the hospital, he’d been mystically apprised of what lay ahead and wanted subconsciously to avoid it. Perhaps his shock was a cringing away from facing a problem.

At the moment, of course, he didn’t know what the problem was. There was a mystery here, but only that, and his first thought was to report it to higher authority--the business about the two hearts--and have it investigated. With this thought in mind, he walked down the corridor and reached for the knob of the door marked Superintendent.

But quite suddenly he stopped, reversed himself, and went back to Ward Five. He approached Matson’s bed and looked down at him. Matson, empty of expression, stared back, and again Frank Corson sensed rather than saw the emptiness behind the eyes.

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel very--well.”

“It wasn’t a bad break. How would you like to leave the hospital?”

“I would like to leave the--hospital.”

Frank felt an odd, inner frustration. What in the devil was wrong with the man? He sounded like a child just learning the language. Yet there was nothing else to indicate backwardness. He looked pretty much like a self-sufficient, self-contained adult.

“I can sign you out--get you a pair of crutches. By the way, I don’t think the hospital got your home address.”

“My home--address?”

“Yes. The place you live.” There was a pause, and finally Frank realized the man wasn’t going to answer. “Your home, man. Where you live.”

“I’m looking for a--home.”

“Oh, I see. New in town?”

“Yes, new in--town.”

“I have a place,” Frank said, and it seemed to him as though someone else were talking from within him--that he was only a listener. “You can crowd in with me until you get settled somewhere.”

“I can crowd in with--you?”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Fine, I’ll see that you’re signed out. Ever walk on crutches before?”

“I never walked on--crutches.”

“Nothing much to it. You’ll get the knack.”

Frank left the bed and headed toward the office, asking himself as he went, Why in hell did I do that? Then he found the reason--or at least a reason that would suffice.

The discovery of a man with two hearts might be worth something. At least, it would put Frank Corson, unknown intern, into the spotlight for a while. This was pretty vague thinking but it made a kind of sense and Frank settled for it in lieu of trying to analyze the strange compulsion, the odd foreboding deep within him.

Here’s a thing that might do me some good, he told himself. Why not take advantage of it?

Perhaps he was rigidly blocking out the cause of his unrest--that he was more or less dependent upon Rhoda Kane for the luxuries that were involved in seeing her, having a relationship with her. He could neither ask her to dine with him on his level, at some place like Nedick’s, nor could he refuse to go with her to The Forum or the Four Seasons. He could not take her to his miserable furnished room on East 13th Street, nor refuse rendezvous in her Upper East Side apartment.

He was trapped and was thus desperately looking for a way out.

And somehow, grotesquely, there were indications that a man with two hearts might help to provide the answer.

The tape recorder stuck to the bottom of the Taber conference coffeepot had cost Senator Crane a hundred dollars. He had now listened to it four times and was pacing the floor of his office, scowling darkly at the walls. An android! What in hell was an android? What kind of a stupid, impossible thing was this?

In a flash of panic, Crane wondered if it was all a diabolical machination of Brent Taber’s. Maybe Taber knew all about the recorder. Maybe the whole meeting was an elaborate plant to maneuver an earnest, alert senator into making a public fool of himself. Taber was certainly capable of such a thing.

And that was how it had begun to look. Still, that was ridiculous. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force--they were all involved. Only Congress--the true representatives of the people--had been ignored. And, by God, he’d do something about it!