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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30063 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ _The barn turned out to be a spaceship in disguise, and
+ that was only the beginning. Before his strange adventure
+ ended, young Paul Asher found himself going around in
+ circles--very peculiar circles indeed!_
+
+
+        DOUBLE TAKE
+
+     By Richard Wilson
+
+ Illustrated by Paul Orban
+
+
+_Paul Asher, 27, men's furnishings buyer, leaned back and let the cloth
+band be fastened across his chest, just under his armpits. He adjusted
+his heavy spectacles, closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deeply, and
+was off._
+
+The semi-darkness was dispelled as he shot out of a tunnel into dazzling
+sunlight. The high-powered vehicle he was driving purred smoothly as it
+took the long, rising curve. The road climbed steadily toward the
+mountaintop city ahead. He looked around to satisfy himself that he was
+alone in the car.
+
+He wasn't.
+
+The girl was a pretty one. He'd seen her somewhere before, he thought.
+She was looking insolently at him, her wide red mouth in a half smile.
+Her dark hair stirred in the breeze coming through the window, next to
+her, which was open just a slit.
+
+She said: "Just keep going, Sweetheart, as fast as you can." And she
+patted the oversized pocketbook that lay in her lap.
+
+He pressed down on the accelerator and the car responded with a flow of
+power. The countryside fell away from the road on either side. Far below
+he could see a river, winding broadly to the far-off sea. The summer day
+sent its heat-shimmers across the miniature landscape.
+
+The road curved again. Theirs was the only car he had seen since he'd
+come out of the tunnel. But now, far ahead, he saw another. It was
+standing at the side of the road, next to a gate that came down in the
+manner of one at a railroad crossing. But he knew by its black and white
+diagonals and by the little sentry hut half hidden behind the other car
+that it marked the frontier. A man with a rifle on his shoulder stood
+there. They drew up to it fast, but his foot automatically eased up on
+the floorboard pedal until the girl spoke sharply.
+
+"Right through it, Sweetheart."
+
+In the rear-view mirror he saw her leaning forward, her face tense.
+
+In a moment it would be time to stop, if he were going to.
+
+_Paul Asher hesitated a moment. Then he too leaned forward, the band
+pressing into his chest. He was breathing heavily. There was an almost
+inaudible click._
+
+He trod on the accelerator. He had a glimpse of the guard unslinging his
+rifle from his shoulder and of another man running toward the parked car
+as his vehicle smashed into the flimsy gate and sent it, cracked and
+splintered, to the side of the road. He fought the slight wrench of the
+wheel and sped on. He thought he heard a shot.
+
+"Nice work," the girl said. She seemed to be appraising him as she
+looked at him. "My name, incidentally, is Naomi."
+
+"Hello," he heard himself saying as he whipped the car around a curve
+that hid the frontier behind a hill. "You seem to know who I am."
+
+"That I do," she said.
+
+"Then why don't you call me by my name, instead of 'Sweetheart'?"
+
+"That's because I like you, Sweetheart." She was looking out the rear
+window. "Now just step on the gas, because we've got company."
+
+The car that had been parked near the sentry hut was whipping into view
+around the curve. It was lighter than his, but it was fast, too. He
+stepped on it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now the road had become narrow and twisting. The grade was steep but the
+surface was good. Abruptly, it entered a forest.
+
+The girl said: "Two more curves. Then you'll see a field and a barn. Off
+the road and into the barn, fast."
+
+He took the curves with rubber screaming and almost without braking sent
+the car bumping across the field and into the barn. It was bigger than
+it had seemed from the outside. As he brought the car to a lurching halt
+the barn door closed.
+
+Where he had expected to see stalls and milking machines and hay he saw
+an expanse of metal floor and monstrous machinery. The barn door which
+had been a rickety wooden slab from the outside was a gleaming sheet of
+metal from the inside. It glided silently shut and left no joint or seam
+to show where there had been an opening.
+
+"Out," said Naomi.
+
+As they left the car, a flexible metal arm snaked from one of the smooth
+walls, attached itself to the front bumper of the vehicle, and whisked
+it into a cubicle which opened to receive it and closed behind it.
+
+A power-driven wheelchair sped up to them. Sitting in it was a fat man
+of middle age, with pendulous jowls and a totally bald head. His
+expression was a sardonic scowl.
+
+"You have the plans?" he asked the girl.
+
+"Sweetheart here has them."
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about," the young man said.
+
+"He knows, all right," the girl said. "He pretends to be innocent, but
+that is merely his training. He has them under a sticking plaster on
+the small of his back."
+
+"Remove your coat and shirt," commanded the man in the wheelchair.
+
+At that moment the floor shuddered under their feet, a gong began to
+clang insistently, and the giant machinery, which had been silent,
+throbbed into life.
+
+The man in the wheelchair whirled and was off, shouting commands to men
+who materialized high on the walls in cylindrical turrets which the
+visitor could only think of as battle stations.
+
+"What _is_ this place?" he asked.
+
+He got no answer. Instead the girl grabbed his arm and pulled him off to
+the edge of the gigantic metal room. An opening appeared in the wall and
+she pushed him through it into a room beyond. The entranceway snapped
+shut behind them and when he looked he could see no door. The room also
+was windowless.
+
+Naomi went to a metal table and as she looked down into its surface it
+became a screen. Mirrored in it was the mountainous countryside they had
+driven through to get to the barn--or what had seemed to be a barn from
+the outside. He looked over her shoulder.
+
+They saw as from a height. There was the light car that had chased them
+from the frontier. Standing near it was a man in an officer's uniform
+and another in civilian clothes. They were talking and gesturing. Beside
+the car was a tank. As they watched, its gun fired and the structure
+they were in shuddered, but they heard no sound.
+
+Lumbering up the mountain road were more tanks and a self-propelled gun.
+One of the tanks became enveloped in smoke and flames as they watched.
+After a moment the smoke cleared. The tank was gone; where it had been
+there was a deep crater.
+
+Gradually, the figures in the drama below grew smaller. At the same time
+the vista widened, so that they saw more and more countryside. It
+twisted beneath them and the horizon came giddily into view. A few
+moments later the curvature of the earth could be plainly seen.
+
+Everything fitted together at once. Some of the things, anyway.
+
+"We're in a ship," he said. "Some kind of rocket-ship."
+
+"It's a planet plane," the girl said. "We're safe now."
+
+"Safe from what?" he asked. "What's this all about?"
+
+She smiled enigmatically. "Hafitz could tell you, if he chose. He's the
+boss."
+
+"The man in the wheelchair?"
+
+She nodded and took out a compact. As she added lipstick to her mouth,
+she looked him over, between glances in her mirror.
+
+"You don't look like the spy type. If there is a type."
+
+"I'm not a spy. I don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"The innocent! Go on, take off your coat and shirt. We'll save Hafitz
+some time."
+
+"I'll be glad to, just to prove this is all ridiculous. A case of
+mistaken identity. You've made a mistake, that's what you've done."
+
+He stood there, hesitating.
+
+The girl gave a burst of laughter. Then she said: "All right,
+Sweetheart. I'll turn my back."
+
+She did, and he pulled his shirt out of his trousers. Then he froze.
+Taped to the skin of his back was a flat package.
+
+_Paul Asher made the decision. He bent forward, feeling perspiration in
+the palms of his hands. There was a faint click._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Quickly he ripped the adhesive from his back. There was an instant of
+pain as the plaster came free. He wadded up the sticky package, dropped
+it to the floor and kicked it under the desk.
+
+Then he took off his coat, tie and shirt.
+
+"You can turn around now," he said.
+
+"A more modest spy I've never seen. Okay," she said, "now _you_ turn
+around."
+
+"As you see," he said, "there are no plans--no papers."
+
+"No--not now. But there is a red mark on your back. What is it?"
+
+"Oh," he said. "Oh--that's a birthmark."
+
+She spun him around to face her. Her face was harsh. She slapped his
+cheek. "Where is the sticking plaster? Don't trifle with me."
+
+Her eyes bored into his. He returned the gaze, then shrugged.
+
+"Under the desk," he said. "I tore it off and kicked it under the desk."
+
+"You are sensible to confess," she said.
+
+She bent down, unwisely.
+
+_Paul Asher felt the familiar tightening in his chest as he leaned
+forward. The click was barely heard._
+
+He raised his hand and brought the edge of it down hard on the back of
+her neck.
+
+She crumpled and fell to the metal floor. He noticed that a smear of her
+freshly-applied lipstick came off on it.
+
+He pushed the unconscious body aside and fished the packet out from
+under the desk. He searched the room for another hiding place.
+
+But it was too late. A section of wall opened and Hafitz, the fat man in
+the wheelchair, sped in.
+
+He wheeled past the young man, looked briefly at the unconscious girl,
+then whisked himself around.
+
+"You will pay for this, my friend," he said. "But first we will have the
+plans for the way-station. Where are they?"
+
+"I don't know anything about any plans and I don't know anything about a
+way-station. I tried to tell the girl: it's all a crazy mistake."
+
+"We will see," said Hafitz. He pressed a button on the arm of his
+wheelchair and two bruisers appeared through the walls, in the abrupt
+way people had of materializing here. Bruisers was the only way they
+could be described. They were human brutes, all muscle and malevolence.
+
+"Take them," said Hafitz, indicating the unconscious girl and the young
+man. "Take them and search them for a small packet. If you do not find
+it, search this room. If you do not find it still, hurt the male animal.
+They persuade well with pain here, I understand. But do not kill him. I
+will be in the communications room."
+
+He sped off, through a wall opening.
+
+One of the bruisers picked up the girl, roughly, and disappeared with
+her. The other grabbed the young man and hauled him off in a third
+direction. The young man hastily snatched up his coat, shirt and tie en
+route.
+
+They ended up in a cell of a room, about seven feet in all directions,
+in which the bruiser stripped him, methodically went through each piece
+of clothing, and then satisfied himself that he didn't have the packet
+anywhere on his body.
+
+The muscle-man then raised a fist.
+
+"Wait," his prospective victim said. He thought back quickly. "Hafitz
+didn't say you could bat me around till you searched the room, too."
+
+The other spoke for the first time. "You say the truth." He put his arm
+down.
+
+The young man watched intently as the bruiser went through the wall of
+the cell-like room.
+
+He dressed fast. By placing his fingers in exactly the same position as
+the other had done, was able to make the wall open for him.
+
+The silver-metal corridor had two directions. He went to the right.
+After many turnings, at each of which he reconnoitered carefully, he
+came to a passageway that was damp. Why it was damp he couldn't tell,
+but there in the wetness were tracks which could have been made by a
+wheelchair.
+
+He followed them, feeling the throb of giant engines underfoot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The wheelchair tracks abruptly made a ninety-degree turn and ended at a
+blank wall. Somewhere beyond it must be the communications room.
+
+He retreated and waited.
+
+In time the wall snapped open and Hafitz sped out. The young man
+retreated into the maze of corridors and hoped chance would be on his
+side. It was. Hafitz went another way.
+
+The young man ran back to the wall and used his fingers on it in the
+combination he had learned. It opened for him.
+
+He closed it behind him and blinked at the huge instrument panel which
+filled almost the entire room.
+
+One of the instruments was a color vision screen, tuned in to a room in
+which there was a mahogany desk, at which was seated a man in uniform.
+Behind him was a map of the United States.
+
+The man in uniform was a major general in the Air Force. An aide, a
+lieutenant colonel, was leaning over the desk. He had a sheaf of papers
+in his hand. The men's conversation was audible.
+
+"Messages have been coming in from all over Europe," the colonel was
+saying. "Here's the way it reconstructs:
+
+"Our agent was en route to the rendezvous when he was intercepted by
+Naomi. That's the only name we have for her. She's a spy. She's worked
+for half a dozen countries and her present employer could be any one of
+them. They were spotted as they crossed the frontier between Italy and
+France. Their car went into a barn and we thought we had them. But the
+barn turned out to be a spaceship in disguise. It took off."
+
+_So I'm their agent, Paul Asher thought. So that's what it's all about.
+I'm a secret agent for the United States, but they didn't tell me
+anything about it. This is real George, this is ... He expected to hear
+a faint click and leaned forward experimentally, but nothing happened.
+He leaned backward. Still nothing._
+
+The colonel was answering a question from the general. "We don't know
+who they are, Sir. They're not from Earth, obviously. And the best
+scientific minds go still further--they're not even from our solar
+system. Whoever they are, it's clear that they don't want us to build a
+way-station in space."
+
+"Those spaceships started buzzing around right after our first Moon
+trip," the general said. "This is the first time they've become really
+troublesome--now that we've got the Moon under control and are ready to
+build the way-station so we can get to Mars."
+
+"That's right, Sir," said the colonel.
+
+"Progress is a wonderful thing," said the general. "Things certainly
+have changed since those early days of strategic atomic bombing and
+guided missile experiments."
+
+"Yes, Sir," said the colonel.
+
+The young man in the communications room of the spaceship let his
+attention wander away from the scene back on Earth and experimented with
+some of the switches and controls. Trial and error led him to one which
+lit up a signal on the desk of the general.
+
+The general flicked it on.
+
+"Yes?" he said. He looked puzzled when he got no picture, just a voice
+saying, "Hello, hello."
+
+"Yes?" he said. "Hello. Speak up, man."
+
+"This is your agent aboard the enemy spaceship," said the young man. "Do
+you read me?"
+
+"Yes," said the general. "We read you. Go ahead."
+
+"I may not have much time. Get a fix on me if you can. And send help."
+
+"What's your position?" the general was reacting well. He was alert and
+all business.
+
+"I don't know. I've been taken prisoner, but I'm temporarily free. There
+isn't much time. Hafitz is bound to be back soon. He seems to be the
+brains of this outfit--this part of the outfit, anyway. Naomi is here,
+too, but I don't know whether she's with them or against them."
+
+"Where are the plans, son?" asked the general.
+
+"They're safe, for the moment. I can't guarantee for how long."
+
+"I'm getting the fix," the colonel said. He was beyond the range of the
+young man's vision screen. "I've got him. He's still within range, but
+accelerating fast. We can intercept if we get up a rocket soon enough."
+
+"Get it up," ordered the general. "Get up a squadron. Scramble the Moon
+patrol and send out reserves from Earth at once."
+
+"Right!" said the colonel.
+
+The young man was so engrossed in the makings of his rescue party that
+he didn't see the wall open up behind him.
+
+There was a squeak of rubber tires and he whirled to see Hafitz, in his
+wheelchair, slamming toward him. The fat man's hand held a weird-looking
+gun.
+
+The young man recoiled. His back pushed against a row of control
+buttons.
+
+_Then everything went white._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paul Asher blinked his eyes, like a man awakening from a vivid dream.
+
+The house lights went on and the manager of the theater came on the
+stage. He stood in front of the blank master screen with its
+checkerboard pattern of smaller screens, on which the several lines of
+action had taken place simultaneously. Paul took off his selectorscope
+spectacles with the earphone attachments.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," the manager said. "I regret very much having to
+announce that this vicarion of the production _Spies from Space_ was
+defective. The multifilm has broken and, because of the complexity of
+the vikie process, it will be impossible to splice it without returning
+it to the laboratory.
+
+"Ushers are at the exits with passes good for any future performance.
+Those of you who prefer can exchange them at the box office for a full
+refund of your admission price."
+
+Paul Asher unstrapped the wired canvas band from across his chest. He
+put the selectorscope spectacles into the pouch on the arm of the seat
+and walked out of the R.K.O. Vicarion into High Street and around the
+corner to where his car was parked.
+
+His roommate at the communapt, MacCloy, was still up when he got there,
+going over some projectos. Mac snapped off the screen and quickly swept
+the slides together and into a case.
+
+"You're back early," MacCloy said.
+
+"The multifilm broke," Paul told him.
+
+"Oh." Mac seemed abstracted, as he often did, and again Paul wondered
+about this man he knew so casually and who had never confided in him
+about anything--especially about his government job.
+
+"So I missed the ending," Paul said. "I guess it was near the end,
+anyhow. The space patrol was on the way, but the villain, that Hafitz,
+was just about to blast me with his gun and I don't know how I would
+have got out of that."
+
+"I remember that," Mac said. He laughed. "You must have been Positive
+all the way through. Like I was when I saw it. If you'd had any negative
+reactions--if you'd leaned back against the strap instead of
+forward--you'd have been at some other point in the multiplot and I
+wouldn't have recognized that part. Want me to tell you how it ends?"
+
+"Go ahead. Then if I do see it again I'll change the ending somewhere
+along the line with a lean-back."
+
+"Okay. There really wasn't much more. It takes so much film to provide
+all the plot choices that they can't make them very long.
+
+"Well, Hafitz blasts me and misses," Mac went on, "--or blasts _you_ and
+misses, to keep it in your viewpoint. When you jump back, you set off a
+bunch of controls. That was the control room, too, not just the
+communications room. Well, those controls you lean back against take the
+ship out of automatic pilot and send it into some wild acrobatics and
+that's why Hafitz misses. Also it knocks him out of the wheelchair so
+he's helpless and you get his gun. Also you see that the plans are still
+there--right where you put them, stuck to the bottom of his wheelchair."
+
+"So that was it," said Paul.
+
+"Yes," said Mac. "And then you cover Hafitz while he straightens out the
+ship and you rendezvous with the space control and they take you all
+into custody. You get a citation from the government. That's about it.
+Corny, huh?"
+
+"But what about the girl?" Paul asked. "Is she really a spy?"
+
+"Girl? What girl?"
+
+"Naomi, her name was," Paul said. "You couldn't miss her. She was in the
+vikie right at the beginning--that brunette in the fast car."
+
+"But there wasn't any girl, Paul," Mac insisted. "Not when I saw it."
+
+"Of course there was. There had to be--the vikies all start out the same
+way, no matter who sees them."
+
+"It beats me, pal. I know I didn't see her. Maybe you dreamed up the
+dame."
+
+"I don't think so," Paul said. "But of course it's possible." He yawned.
+"I wouldn't mind dreaming of her tonight, at that. Think I'll turn in
+now, Mac. I've got that long trip tomorrow, you know. Up to Canada to
+look over a new line of Marswool sport jackets at the All-Planets
+Showroom."
+
+"Driving or flying?"
+
+"The weather prognosis is zero-zero. I'll drive."
+
+"Good," said Mac.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paul Asher woke up late. He had a confused recollection of a dream.
+Something about a beautiful brunette giving him a backrub.
+
+A look at the chrono sent the dream out of his head and he hurried
+through shaving and dressing.
+
+His car was waiting for him, engine idling, at the curb. He got in,
+tossing his briefcase and topcoat ahead of him to the far side of the
+front seat. His back began to itch, insistently, and he rubbed it
+against the leather upholstery.
+
+Paul adjusted the safety belt around him, and fastened it. Might as well
+do it now, instead of having to fool around with it later. Damn that
+itch, anyway! It was as if something were stuck to his skin--like a
+sticking plaster....
+
+The high-powered vehicle purred smoothly as it took a long, rising
+curve. The road climbed steadily toward the mountaintop city ahead.
+
+The scene was familiar.
+
+The itching of his back spread and became a prickly feeling in the small
+hairs at the nape of his neck.
+
+He knew now that he was not alone in the car. He looked in the rear-view
+mirror.
+
+Naomi.
+
+She was looking at him insolently, her wide red mouth in a half smile.
+
+She said: "Just keep going, Sweetheart, as fast as you can."
+
+
+                                                           ... THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ January
+    1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Double Take, by Richard Wilson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30063 ***