The needle moved, probed ever so slightly, stimulating deep, deep in the soft, fragile tissue ... seeking, probing, recording. A twinge, the barest trace of shock, a sharp series of firing nerve cells, a flicker of light, a picture—Jeff Meyer shifted, his eyelids lowering very slightly, and a muscle in his jaw began twitching involuntarily....
He was floating gently on his back, resting on huge, fluffy, billowing clouds. He didn't know where he was, nor did he care. He just lay still, spinning gently, like a man in free fall, feeling the gentle clouds around him pressing him downward and downward. His eyes were closed tightly—so tightly that no ray of light might leak in. He knew as he floated that whatever happened, he dare not open them.
But then there were sounds around him. He felt his muscles tighten and he clasped his chest with his arms. There werethingsfloating through the air around him, and they were making little sounds: tiny squeaks and groans. He shuddered, suddenly horribly afraid. The noises grew louder and louder, whispering into his ear, laughing at him.
He opened his eyes with a jolt, staring at the long, black, hollow tunnel he was falling through. He was spinning, end over end, faster and faster down the tunnel. He strained to see through the darkness to the bottom, but he couldn't. Then the laughter started. First little, quiet giggles, quite near his ear, but growing louder and louder—unpleasant laughs, chuckles, guffaws. They followed each other, peal upon peal of insane laughter, reverberating from the curved tunnel walls, growing louder and louder, more and more derisive. They were laughing at him—whoever they were—and their laughs rose into screams in his ears. Then to gain silence he was forced to scream out himself. And he clasped his hands to his ears and shut his eyes tight—and abruptly the laughter stopped.Everythingstopped.
He lay tense, listening. No, not everything. There were some sounds. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the bzz-bzz-bzz of a cicada. It sounded sharp in the summer night air. He rolled over, felt the crisp sheets under him, the soft pillow, the rustling of the light blanket. Where?...
And then it came to him, clearly. He was in his room, waiting, waiting and expecting.
Daddy! Quite suddenly, he knew that Daddy had come home. There had been no sound in the dark house; he hadn't even heard the jet-car go into the garage, nor the front door squeak. But he had known, just the same, that Daddy was here. He blinked at the darkness, and little chills of fright ran up his spine. It was so dark, and he didn't like the dark, and he wished Daddy would come up and turn on the light. But Daddy had said ever since Mommy died that he must be a brave little man, even if he was only four....
He lay and shivered. There were other noises: outside the window, in the room—frightening noises. It was all very well to be a brave little man, but Daddy just didn't understand about the dark and the noises. And Daddy didn't understand about how he wanted somebody to hold him close and cuddle him and whisper to him.
And then he heard Daddy's step on the stair and felt him coming nearer. He rolled over and giggled, pretending to be asleep. Not that he'd fool Daddy for a minute. Daddy would already know he was awake. They played the same game night after night. But it was fun to play little games like that with Daddy. He waited, listening until he heard the door open, and the footsteps reach his bed. He heard Daddy's breathing. And then he rolled over and threw the covers off and jumped up like a little white ghost, shouting, "Boo! Did I scare you, Daddy?"
And then Daddy took him up on his shoulders and laughed, and said he was a big white horse come to carry little Jeff on a long journey. So they took the long journey down to the study for milk and cookies, just as they always did when Daddy came home. He knew Daddy didn't want any milk, of course. Daddy never drank milk at night with him. Daddy was much more interested in the funny cards, the cards he had watched Daddy make that day a year ago. Daddy had him run through them over and over and over ... circle, spiral, figure eight, letter B, letter R....It was a letter R, Daddy? But it couldn't have been, I know—oh, you're trying to catch me! Can we play with the marbles now, Daddy? Or the dice tonight? The round-cornered ones—they're much easier, you know.
But Daddy would watch him as he read the cards, wrinkling up his nose and calling out the figure. And he would see Daddy mark down each right one and each wrong one. And then he would feel Daddy almost beaming happiness and satisfaction. And he would wait eagerly for Daddy to get out the dice, because they were so much more fun than the cards.The square-cornered dice, Daddy? Oh, Daddy, they're so much harder. Oh, another game, a new one? Oh, good, Daddy. Teach me a new game with them, please. I'll try very hard to make them come out right.
And then after the new game, Daddy told him a story before bed. It was one of his funny stories, where hetalkedthe story, but put in all the fun and jokes and private things without any words.
It was funny. None of the others, like Mary Ann down the block, could feel their daddies like he could. Sometimes he wondered about it. He would tell Mary Ann about it as a special secret, but she wouldn't believe him. Nobody can hear their daddies without their daddies talking, she said. But he knew better.
And then there were thoughts creeping through his mind, feelings coming from Daddy that were uncomfortable feelings. He sat up suddenly in Daddy's arms and felt the chill pass through him.
"Daddy...."
"Yes, son."
"Why—why are you afraid, Daddy? What are you afraid of?"
And Daddy laughed and looked at him in a strange way and said, "Afraid? What do you mean, afraid?" But the afraidness was still there. Even when he went to bed and Daddy left him again, he could still feel the afraidness....
And then, abruptly, he was swinging into a vast, roaring whirlpool that swung around his head. He felt his body twisting in the blackness, swirling about, carried along without effort. He knew, somehow, that he was Jeff Meyer. And he knew that the needle was there, probing in his mind; he could feel it approach and withdraw. He could feel the twinge of recognition, the almost intangible sudden awareness and realization of a truth.
Then the seeker was gone: the probe finished in that area and moved on to the next. The whirlpool was a tunnel of rushing water, swinging about him, whirling him with lightning speed up ... up ... up; around, then down with a sickening rush. Then up again, as though he were riding the Wall of Death in a circus, around and around ... yet always drawing him in closer ... closer ... closer....
To what?
He knew he was fighting it, twisting with all his strength to fight against the impossible whirlpool which choked and carried him like a feather. He clenched his fists and fought, gritting his teeth, desperate, suddenly horribly afraid, more horribly afraid than he had ever been in his life. Down at the end of the tumultuous whirlpool, something lay—something horrid and ugly, something that had been wiped out of his mind, scoured out and disposed of long, long ago.It was something he dared not face, never again.Suddenly Jeff screamed and tried to force his mind back to that place. He tried desperately to remember, tried to see where the whirlpool was leading him before it was too late—before it killed him!
Something lay down there, waiting for him. It was more hideous than his mind could imagine—something which could kill him. Closer and closer he swept, helpless, his body growing rigid with fear, fighting, blood rushing through his veins. But he couldn't escape that closed, frantic alleyway to death.
Daddy was afraid.The thought screamed through Jeff's mind with the impact of a lightning bolt. It paralyzed his thoughts, tightened his muscles into rigid knots. Daddy was afraid ... afraid ...afraid—so horribly afraid.
The thought swept through him, congealing his blood. He cried out, shaking his head, trying to fight away the seeping stench of deadly fear, trying to clear it out of his mind. His face twisted in agony and his whole body wrenched. Suddenly, he was screaming and pounding his face against the ground. He was alone and his mind was wracked and obsessed by that horrible fear.
He opened his eyes and saw the turf under his head. Dimly, through the pain sweeping through his mind, he saw the grassy meadow on which he lay, completely by himself. The little singing brook was a few feet away. The afternoon sun was high, but the willow tree hung over him, covering him with cool shade. From somewhere a bird was singing.
"Daddy!" The word broke from his lips in a small scream, and he sat bolt upright, his hair tousled, his small, keen-featured eight-year-old face twisted with the pain and fear that tore through his mind. Some corner of his brain, so very remote, told him that he was not eight, that he was a grown man. But he saw his tiny hands, grubby with the dirt of the barnyard and lane through which he had walked in coming here. He had been driven here by the pain and fear and hatred that had been streaming into his mind.
It was Daddy. He knew it was Daddy, and Daddy was afraid. Daddy was running, with the desperation of a hunted animal, running down a corridor, his mind in a frenzy of fear. He was peering back over his shoulder, his breath coming in great gasps as he reached the end of the hall, wrenched vainly at the door and then collapsed against it. And while he sobbed in great gasps, tears of fear and desperation ran down his cheeks.
Jeff saw the door; he felt Daddy's body heaving, heard the furious pulse pounding in his own head. He saw the cold, darkened corridor, and his mind was picked up in the frenzied sweep of his father's thoughts, carried in a rush he could neither understand nor oppose. Stronger than ever before, his thoughts were Daddy's thoughts. He saw through Daddy's eyes; he felt through Daddy's body. In the closest rapport they had ever known, though Jeff lay here on the grassy plot, his body writhed with the pain and fear that Daddy was suffering miles distant.
They're coming, his mind screamed.Trapped, trapped—what can I do?Daddy was racing back up the corridor now, his eye catching an elevator standing open. He ran inside, groped frantically for the switch. He had to get away, had to get down below, somehow get to the street! Oh, God, what a mistake to walk into this place—an office building, of all places, where they could so easily follow him in, cut him off, trap him!
Why had he come? Why? He'd known they were hunting for him, knew they'd been getting closer and closer. But how could he have sensed that this day would bring a panic, that the stock market would take its nosedive this one particular day, putting the finger on him without any question, spotting him, pointing out his exact location to his hunters, beyond shadow of doubt?
How could he have known? This was to have been the final test, the test to prove the force he had in his mind—the force which had been destroying and destroying and destroying. And it had emanated from his own mind in some unspeakable way, uncontrolled, unbelieved and misunderstood. It was the force which had brought the hunters to him.
But not now!Oh, please, please, not now—not when he was so close to the answer. Not when he was so close. Slowly, helpless anger seethed through his mind. They had no right to stop him now. In another day, another week, he could have the answer. In another few days he would have corralled this frightening power, controlled it. He knew he could find the answer. He stood on the very brink. But now the hunters had trapped him—
Why, Daddy? Why are they hunting you? Oh, Daddy, Daddy, please, I'm so scared! Please, Daddy, come home. Please don't be so much afraid, Daddy. I'm so frightened....
The elevator gave a lurch. He fell against the door as the car ground to a halt between floors. Frantically, he pounded the button, waited through long eternities as the car sat, silent, motionless. Then his fingers ran hastily along the cracks in the car door, seeking a hold, trying desperately to wrench open the locked door.
He felt them coming, somewhere above him, somewhere below him. Then something tore loose in his mind; some last dam of control broke, and he was screaming his defiance at them, screaming his hatred, his bitterness. They had him, they were going to kill him without trial, shoot him down like a mad dog. He felt them flinch and cower back at the stream of hatred roaring out of his mind, felt them move back. They were afraid of him, but they were determined to kill him.
A sound above!He flattened back against the elevator wall, wrenching at the metal grating with superhuman strength, trying to twist open the metal, to find some way into the shaft below. Someone was coming down from above, down onto the top of the elevator; someone whose mind was filled with fear, but who moved with determination. There was a scraping sound from above, a dull twang of cable striking against cable.
They could be cutting the car loose.
He leaped for the ceiling of the car, stabbing up with his fingers for the little escape doorway. Sheer hatred drove his legs as he jumped and jumped again, until the door flew up. His hand caught the rim, and he dragged his body up. He jerked his shoulders through the small opening, heaving and lunging through to the top of the car.
He looked up. He saw a face, a single face, hanging mistily above him. Dimly he made out the form of a man hanging on the cable twenty feet above. His legs were wrapped around the cables and one hand carried the small, dully gleaming weapon. His mind screamed hatred at the man, and he grabbed at the cables, wrenching them, shaking them like a huge tree. He saw the man slowly moving down, spinning back and forth helplessly as the cables vibrated. But he held on tenaciously, moving closer.
Daddy! Stop him! Daddy, don't let him kill you.
The face came into clearer view: a thin face, an evil one, twisted with fear and pain. The figure moved slowly down the cables, slowly turning, lifting the arm with the weapon, patiently trying to take aim. It was a gaunt face, with high cheekbones, slightly bulging eyes, high flat forehead, graying hair.Remember that face, Jeff. Never forget that face, that face is the face of the man who is butchering your father.Hatred streamed out at the face; he crouched back against the wall of the shaft, wrenching at the cables, trying vainly to shake the killer loose. He had to get him first; he had to stop him.He's so close; he's turning; the gun is raising. I'll never get him—
The face, hovering close, eyes wide—the face of a ghoul—and below the face was the dull, round hole of the gun muzzle, just inches away. A finger tightened. A horrible flash came, straight in the eyes—
Daddy!
The thoughts screamed through his mind: the bitter, naked hatred, the hatred of madness, streaming out in one last searing inferno. Then came a sickening lurch, a lurch of maddened fear and hate. And there was the snuffing out of a light, leaving darkness....
Daddy! No, Daddy. No, I can't feel you any more, Daddy. What have they done to you? Oh, please, Daddy, talk to me. Talk to me. No, no, no. Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy....
Dr. Schiml looked up from the pale, prostrate form after a long time; his forehead was beaded with sweat. The color had drained almost completely from Jeff's face, and his skin had taken a waxy cast. His breathing was so shallow it was hardly audible in the still room, and the panel of flickering lights had become almost completely still.
"We can't go on yet," said Dr. Schiml, his voice hoarse. "We'll have to wait." He turned and walked across the room, trying to keep his eyes away from the prostrate form on the bed; yet everywhere he went, it seemed his eyes caught the idiotic stare in the man's blank eyes. "Well have to wait," he repeated, and his voice was almost a sob.
Paul Conroe moved for the first time, running a hand through his thick gray hair as he glanced up at Schiml. "Some of that came through to me, even now," he said weakly. His face, also, was ashen and his eyes were haunted. "To think that he hated me that much, and to thinkwhyhe hated me—" He shook his head and buried his face in his hands. "I never knew about the old man and the son. I just never knew. If I'd known, I'd never have done it."
The room was still for a long moment. Then Schiml blinked at Conroe, his hands trembling. "So this is the tremendous power, the mutant strain we've been trying to trace for so long."
"This is one of the tremendous powers," Conroe replied wearily. "Jeff probably has all the power that his father had, though it hasn't all matured yet. It's just latent, waiting for the time that the genes demand of his body for fulfillment. Nothing more. And other people have the same powers. Hundreds, thousands of other people. Somewhere, a hundred and fifty years ago, there was a change—a little change in one man or one woman."
He looked up at Schiml, the haunted look still in his large eyes. "Extra-sensory powers—no doubt of it, a true mutant strain, but tied in to a sleeper—a black gene that spells insanity. One became two and two spread to four—extra-sensory power and gene-linked insanity. Always together, growing, insidiously growing like a cancer. And it's eating out the roots of our civilization."
He stood up, walked across the room and stared down at the pallid-faced man in the bed. "This answers so many things, Roger," he said finally. "We knew old Jacob Meyer had a son, of course. We even suspected then that the son might share some of his powers. But this! We never dreamed it. The father and son were practically two people with one mind, in almost perfect mutual rapport. Only the son was so young he couldn't understand what was wrong. All he knew was that he 'felt' Daddy and could tell what Daddy was thinking. Actually, everything that went on in his father's mind—everything—was in his mind too. At least, in the peak of the old man's cycle of insanity—"
Schiml looked up sharply. "Then there's no doubt in your mind that the old man was insane?"
Conroe shook his head. "Oh, no. There was no doubt. He was insane, all right. A psychiatric analysis of his behavior was enough to convince me of that, even if following him and watching him wasn't. He had a regular cycle of elation and depression, so regular it could almost be clocked. He'd even spotted the symptoms of the psychosis himself, back in his college days. But of course he hadn't realized what it was. All he knew was that at certain times he seemed to be surrounded by these peculiar phenomena, which happened rapidly and regularly at those times when he was feeling elated, on top of the world. And at other times he seemed to carry with him an aura of depression. Actually, when he hit the blackest depths of his depressions, he would be bringing about whole waves of suicides and depression—errors and everything else."
Conroe took a deep breath. "We knew all this at the time, of course. What we didn't know was that the old man had been seeking the answer himself, actively seeking it. All we knew was that he was actively the most dangerous man alive on Earth, and that until he was killed he would become more and more dangerous—dangerous enough to shake the very roots of our civilization."
Schiml nodded slowly. "And you're sure that his destructive use of his power was a result directly of the insanity?"
Conroe frowned. "Not quite," he said after a moment. "Actually, you couldn't say that Jacob Meyer 'used' his extra-sensory powers. They weren't, for the most part, the kind of powers he could either control or 'use.' They were the sort of powers that just happened. He had a power, and when he was running high—in a period of elation, when everything was on top of the world—the power functioned. He fairly exuded this power that he carried, and the higher he rose in his elation, the more viciously dangerous the power became."
Conroe stopped, staring at the bed for a long moment. "The hellish thing was that it couldn't possibly be connected up with a human power at all. After all, how can one human being have an overwhelming effect on the progress of a business cycle? He can't, of course, unless he's a dictator, or a tremendously powerful person in some other field. And Jacob Meyer was neither. He was a simple, half-starved statistician with a bunch of ideas that he couldn't even understand himself, much less sell to anyone who could do anything with them. Or how can a man,just by being in the vicinity, tip the balance that topples the stock market into an almost irreparable sag?"
Conroe leaned forward, groping for words. "Jacob Meyer's psychokinesis was not the sort of telekinesis that we saw Jeff turning against me in that room a couple of hours ago. He could probably have managed that, too, if he had hated me enough. But if Jacob Meyer's mind had merely affected physical things—the turn of a card, the fall of the dice, the movement of molecules from one place to another—he would have been a simple problem. We could have isolated him, studied him. But it wasn't that simple."
Paul Conroe sat back, regarding Schiml with large, sad eyes. "It would have been impossible to prove in a court of law. We knew it and the government knew it. That was why they appointed us assassins to deal with him.Because Jacob Meyer's mind affected probabilities.By his very presence, in a period of elation, he upset the normal probabilities of occurrences going on around him. We watched him, Roger. It was incredible. We watched him in the stock market, and we saw the panic start almost the moment he walked in. We saw the buyers suddenly and inexplicably change their minds and start selling instead of buying. We saw what happened in the Bank of the Metropolis that first day we tried for him. He was scared, his mind was driven into a peak of fear and anger; it started a bank run that morning that nearly bankrupted the most powerful financial house on the East Coast! We saw this one little man's personal, individual influence on international diplomacy, on finances, on gambling in Reno, on the thinking and acting of the man on the street. It was incredible, Roger."
"But surely Jacob Meyer wasn't the only one—"
"Oh, there were others, certainly. We've a better idea of that, now, after all these years of study. There were and are thousands and thousands—some like me, some much worse—all carrying some degree of extra-sensory power from that original mutant strain, all with the gene-linked psychosis paired up with it every time. And we've seen our civilization struggling against these thousands just to keep its feet. But Jacob Meyer was the first case of the whole, full-blown change in one man that we'd ever found. He was running wild, his mind was completely insane. And the extra-sensory powers he carried were so firmly enmeshed in the insanity that there was no separating the two. Meyer tipped us off. He set us on the trail, and the trail led to his son after he was dead—"
"Yes, the son. We have the son." Schiml scowled at the shallow-breathing form on the bed. "We should have had him before—years before."
"Of course we should. But the son vanished after his father's death. We never knew why he vanished—until now. But now we know that when we killed his father, we did more than just that. We almost killed our last chance to catch this thing and study it before it was too late. Because when we killed Jeff's father,we killed Jeff Meyer too."
Schiml scowled. "I don't follow. He's still alive."
"Oh, of course he's still alive. But can't you see what happened to him? He was living in his father's mind; he knew everything his father knew—but he didn't understand it. He thought with his father's thoughts, he saw through his father's eyes, because they were mutually and completely telepathic. He felt his father's fear and frustration and bitterness when we trapped him in that office building finally. He lay screaming on the ground on a farm somewhere, but actually he was in his father's mind.
"It was a mad mind, a mind rising to the highest screaming heights of mania, as he waited for me to come down and kill him. And Jeff was surrounded with his father's hatred. He saw my face through his father's eyes, and all he could understand was that his daddy was being butchered and that I was butchering him. When the bullet went into his father's brain and split his skull open, Jeff Meyer felt that too. When his father died, Jeff died too—a part of him, that is. They were one mind and part of that one mind was destroyed."
Conroe paused, his forehead covered with perspiration. The room was silent except for the hoarse breathing of the man on the table. Conroe's face, as he looked down, was that of a ghost.
"No wonder the boy disappeared," he whispered. "He'd been shot through the head. He was almost virtually dead. He must have gone into shock for years after such a trauma, Roger. He must have spent years roaming that farm, cared for by an aunt or uncle or cousin, while he slowly recovered. No wonder we could find no trace. And then, when he did get well, all he knew was that his father had been murdered. He didn't know how; he didn't know why, and he dared never remember the truth. Because, the truth was thathehad been killed. All he dared recognize was my face—a recurrent, nightmarish hallucination, rising out of his dreams, plaguing him on the streets, tormenting him day and night."
"But you were hunting him."
"Oh, yes, we were hunting him. It was inevitable that sooner or later we would come up face to face. But when we did, I received such a horrible mental blow that I couldn't even look to see what he looked like. I could do nothing but scream and run. When he saw me that day in the night club, he took complete leave of his senses. He exploded into hatred and bitterness. And then he resolved to hunt me down and kill me for killing his father."
Conroe spread his hands apologetically. "It seemed good sense to use that hatred and singleness of purpose to draw him here. But it was torture. He followed me with his mind, without even knowing it. It was old Jacob Meyer's face that haunted me everywhere I went. I didn't know why, then, because I didn't know Jeff had been part of that mind. And Jeff didn't know that he carried and broadcast that horror wherever he went."
Conroe leaned back, his body limp in exhaustion. "We needed Jeff so desperately. Yes, we needed him in here, for testing, for this study. It's been a long, tedious job, studying him, observing him, photographing him, learning how much of his father's power he had. And we dared not bring him in here until we were sure it was safe. And now, with what he knows, he is more vitally dangerous than his father ever was. There are hundreds that carry the change, in larger or smaller part, all gene-linked with insanity. And Jeff Meyer is insane as any of the rest of them. But at least there's hope, because we can study him now. Because unless we can somehow separate the function of the insanity from the function of the psychokinesis, we have no choice left, no hope."
Schiml looked up, his eyes wide. "No choice—"
"—but to kill them, every one. To hunt out the strain and wipe it from the face of the Earth so ruthlessly and completely that it can never rise again. And to wipe out with it the first new link in the evolution of Man since the dawn of history."
Slowly Roger Schiml's eyes traveled from Jeff Meyers' form on the bed to Paul Conroe's grave face. "There's no other way?"
"None," said Paul Conroe.
"Jeff," said Dr. Schiml. "Jeff Meyer."
The figure on the cot stirred ever so slightly. The eyes slowly closed, then reopened, looking slightly less blank. Jeff's lips parted in an almost inaudible groan, hardly more than a breath.
"Jeff. You've got to hear me a minute. Listen, Jeff, we're trying to help you. Can you hear that? We're trying to help you, Jeff, and we need your help."
The eyes shifted, turned to Schiml's face. They were haunted eyes—eyes that had seen the grave and beyond it.
"Please, Jeff. Listen. We're hunting. We're trying to find a way to help you. You know about your father now, the truth about your father, don't you?"
The eyes wavered, came back, and the head nodded ever so slightly. "I know," came the sighing reply.
"You've got to tell us what to do, Jeff. There are good powers here in your mind, and there are terrible powers, ruinous powers. We've got to find them both, find where they lie, how they work. You must tell us, as we probe—tell us when we strike the good, when we strike the bad. Do you understand, Jeff?"
Again the head nodded. Jeff's jaw tightened a trifle and an expression of infinite fatigue crossed his face. "Go on, Doc."
Dr. Schiml leaned over the proper controls and moved the dial on the microvernier. He moved it again, watching, moving it still again. A fine sweat broke out on his forehead as he worked, and he felt Conroe's soft eyes on him, waiting, hoping....
And then a whimper broke from Jeff's lips, an indefinable sound, helpless and childlike, a little cry of terror. Dr. Schiml looked up, his heart thumping in his throat. Jeff's eyes were wide again, staring lifelessly, and his breath was shallow and thready. Schiml glanced quickly at Conroe, then back, his eyes reflecting the fear and tension in his mind. And as he worked his shoulders slumped forward, prepared for defeat. Because what he was doing was impossible, and he knew it was impossible. But he knew, above all, that it had to succeed.
He was spinning like a top, end over end, as though he had sprung off a huge, powerful diving board. He rose higher and higher into the air. Lying tense, Jeff knew that his body was still on the soft bed, yet he felt his feet rising, his head sinking, as he spun head over heels through the blackness. And he could feel the tiny probing needle, seeking, hunting, stimulating....
A siren noise burst in his ears: a shimmering blast of screeching musical sound that sent cold shivers down his back. Then it leveled off to an up-and-down whine that gradually became a blat of static in his ear. Somewhere, out of the uneven grating of the noise, he heard a voice whispering in his ear, hoarsely. He paused, straining to hear, trying to catch an occasional word.
He knew that there were no voices outside of his body. He was sure of that. Yet he heard the sound, deeper in his ear, louder and softer, then louder again. It whispered to him, carrying a note of deepest urgency in the soft sibilants. Quite suddenly, it seemed vitally important to hear what the voice was saying, for the words were clearly directed at him. He shifted slightly and listened harder, until the words came through clearly.
And then he gasped, a feeling of panic sweeping through him. He heard the words and they were nonsense words, sounds without meanings. Something stirred in his mind, some vague memory of nonsense words, of a horrible shock. Had there been a shock? But the strange sounds frightened him, driving fear down through the marrow of his bones. The whispering sounds were sinister: babbling sounds, sounds of words thatneededmeaning and had none—half-words, garbled, twisted, meaningless.
Cautiously he opened his eyes, peered through the murky blackness to see the whisperers. His eyes fastened on two shapeless forms, tall, ghostly, in black robes with hoods drawn up over their faces. The figures leaned on their sticks and held their heads together. They babbled nonsense to each other with such fierce earnestness that they seemed somehow horridly ridiculous. Taking a deep breath, Jeff started toward the two figures, then stopped short, his heart pounding wildly in his throat.
Because the moment he had made a move toward them, the figures turned sharply toward him, and their nonsense voices had suddenly become clear for the briefest moment. They became clear and unmistakable and heavy with horrible meaning: "Stay away, Jeff Meyer. Stay away."
He stared about, trembling, trying to place himself, trying to find some landmark. The hooded figures turned back to each other and began babbling once again. But now they seemed to be standing before an archway—a gloomy, gray archway which they seemed to be guarding. Slowly, slyly, Jeff started to move away from them. But he watched them from stealthy eyes, and as he moved away the gloom about him cleared, and things were suddenly brighter. And then there was singing in his ears, joyous choruses bursting forth in happy song. A great feeling of relief and complacency settled down upon him like a mantle. He smiled and breathed deeper and started to roll over.
"What was that, Jeff? What did we strike?"
He shook his head violently, a frown creasing his face. "Stay away," he muttered. "The old men, they were there." Suddenly he felt himself twist around until he was facing the hooded figures again, and his feet were moving him toward them again, involuntarily, inexorably. And then the nonsense words settled out again, more menacingly, louder this time than before: "No closer, Jeff Meyer. Stay away—away—away."
"Can't go there," he muttered aloud.
"Why not, Jeff?"
"They won't let me. I've got to stay away."
"What are they guarding, Jeff?"
"I don't know. I don't know, I tell you. I've got to stay away!"
And then suddenly the singing dissolved into a hideous cacophony of clashing sounds, a din that nearly deafened him. A huge wave suddenly swept up around him. It was like a breaker at the ocean's edge, swirling up, surrounding him, catching him up and hurling him head over heels down a long, whirling tunnel. Desperately he fought for balance and finally found his feet under him once again. But then the ground was moving under him. He ran frantically, until his breath came in short gasps and his blood pounded in his ears. Then he caught a branch that swept by near him, and raised himself up as the flooding water roared underneath him.
The sky around him was clouding over blackly. Far in the distance he saw a blinding flash of lightning, ripping through the sky, bringing the bleak, wind-torn landscape into sharp relief in his mind as he clung to the branch. He heard a flapping of wings as a huge, black vulture skimmed by. And then the rain began to fall, a cold, soaking rain that ate through his clothes and soaked his skin. It ran in torrents into his eyes and ears and mouth.
And then he heard voices all around him. How could there be voices here? For there were no people, no sign of warm-blooded life. But there were voices, pleasant ones. They came from all sides. He could see no one, but he couldfeelthem.
Feel them!He gasped in pure joy, shooting out his mind eagerly, unbelievingly, searching out the sudden feeling of perfect, warmcontacthe had just felt. And then his mind was running from person to person, dozens of persons, and he could feel them all, as clearly, as wondrously as he had ever felt his father—sharply, beautifully.
He cried out, he cried out for joy. Tears of unrelieved happiness rolled down his cheeks as he stretched out his mind and embraced the thoughts of the people he could feel but not see. And he felt his own thoughts being met, being caught and embraced and understood.
"Right here!" he shouted. "Schiml, this is it, don't lose it, man. This is the center. I'm controlling it. You've got it now.Work it, Schiml. Work it for all you've got."
And then he looked at the black, menacing sky around him, and his mind laughed and cried out for the clouds to go away. And there was a wild whirling of clouds and they broke, and the sun was streaming down upon him suddenly. He threw himself from the tree, ran down the hillside. He felt a wonderful, overpowering freedom he had never felt before, his mind free to soar and soar without hindrance. There was nothing now to stand between it and complete understanding of all men. It was a mind which could go wherever he wanted it to go, do whatever he wished.
He ran down toward the bottom of the hill and felt his control growing with every step he took. He knew when he reached the bottom of the hill that the battle would be won, so he ran all the faster.
And then, like some horrible nightmare, the hooded figures loomed up directly in his path, long bony fingers stabbing out at him accusingly. He fell flat on his face at the overpowering warning in the voices that struck him. And he lay at the feet of the figures and sobbed, his whole body shaking with bitter, hopeless sobs. And the dark clouds gathered again. He was too late, too late.
"What are they guarding, Jeff?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I can't break through."
"You've got to, Jeff. You've got to! We've got the extra-sensory center. We've found it, but something is blocking it. Jeff, something is keeping you away. You've got to see what—"
"I can't. Oh, I can't. Please, don't make me!"
"You must, Jeff!"
"No!"
"Go on, Jeff."
He stood up, facing the hood figures, cowering, his whole body trembling. Deep in his mind he could feel the probing needle, moving, slowly moving, forcing him nearer and nearer to the grim figures. Slowly his feet moved, dragging in fear, a paralyzing fear that demanded every ounce of strength he possessed to make his legs function. And the voices, laden with menace, were grating in his ear, "Stay out, stay away. If you want to live, stay away ... away ... away...."
He moved closer and closer to the hooded figures, leaned forward to peer around them toward the gray, ghastly gate they guarded—a gate heavy with mold and rusty iron braces.
And then he reached up and threw back the hood of the first figure, stared at the face it had covered, and burst into a scream.
It was his own face!
He turned and threw back the other hood and peered intently, fighting to see the face before the features blurred out beyond recognition. It was his face, too, unmistakable. With a roar of anger and frustration he reached out, tore away the hoods, ripped them off, one with each hand, and wrenched away the enclosing shrouds.
The figures were skeletons with his face!He struck them and they shattered like thin glass, falling down in pieces at his feet. And he brushed his feet through the debris and turned to press his shoulder against the gate, heaving against it until it swung open, creaking on rusty hinges. It swung open—on the face of madness.
He screamed twice, short, frantic screams, as he tried to hide his eyes from the rotten, writhing horror behind the gate.
"Here!" he screamed. "It's here. You're at the right place. This is what you're looking for. Cut it out. Slice it away. Please, I can't stand it any longer."
His feet moved through the horrible gate, into the swarming, loathsome, horror-ridden madness that lay beyond. And he screamed again as he saw the bright flash. He felt the wrenching, sickening lurch that took him and threw him to the ground, down the long, twisting channels of darkness, as the pain struck through his head.
Suddenly there was another blinding flash, and he felt his muscles and his mind crumble into dust. He fell and quivered and lay helplessly, as his mind sifted and drained away into the porous earth beneath him.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Conroe's face. He was tense for a moment, every muscle going into spasm. Then suddenly he relaxed and blinked and stared up at Conroe's face, his eyes filled with wonder.
"I'm sorry, Jeff. I don't know the words to tell you how sorry." There were tears in Conroe's eyes, and Jeff watched them and felt a chill of wonder run down his spine. For Conroe was not using words at all and yet heknewwhat Conroe wanted to say.
Wordlessly he reached up, took the man's hand, pressed it briefly and let it fall on the blanket again. "There aren't those kinds of words," he murmured.
"And you feel all right?"
Jeff blinked, sudden wonder dawning in his eyes. "I—I—I'm alive!" He struggled to sit up, felt the twinge of pain shoot down his spine.
Schiml moved up to the bedside and gently eased him back into the softness of the bed. "Yes," he said happily, "you're alive. And you're well. And there's no irony in calling you a Mercy Man." His eyes gleamed in happy triumph. "You're a whole man, Jeff—the way you were intended to be—for the first time in your life."
The words came to him clearly, yet Jeff knew that not a single word had been audible in the room. "Just like my father," he murmured. "I just felt him, just knew what he was thinking."
Tears were running down Schiml's cheeks, and his face was so infinitely happy that he hardly seemed the same man. He raised a finger, silently pointed to the water glass on the table and looked at Jeff. Jeff turned his eyes to the glass, and it rose half an inch from the table and hung there, glowing slightly in the dim light of the room. Then it gently set back on the stand.
"Control," Jeff said softly. "I have control."
"The power was chained down to something else," Schiml said softly. "You had the extra-sensory power, yes, but it was linked to something that would have prevented you from ever gaining control. A degenerative insanity, part and parcel of the extra-sensory power. You're not alone, Jeff. There are many hundreds like you, in greater or lesser degrees. Conroe is like you, to a very limited extent. And he's been seeking a way to separate the two, for years. That's why you're really a Mercy Man. We knew there were two centers, but we knew no way to separate them. We had to have you to guide us, Jeff. We had to find the center of insanity in your brain to cut it out and deliver you. That's what we've waited twenty years for. And you're free, now. It's gone. And now we have a technique we can use to free a thousand others like you."
Jeff stared at them wonderingly. Sunlight streamed in the window. Across the way, he could see the ward-towers of the Hoffman Medical Center, white and gleaming. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and turned again to the two men standing by the bedside.
"Then it was you who were hunting me," he murmured. "Strange, isn't it. It wasn't me hunting Conroe. It was my father, the ghost of my father still in my mind. The ghost of a madman—" His eyes narrowed and he stared at Schiml closely. "Then there were others who knew too. Blackie knew. She must have been the girl in the night club."
"She was. A little heavy make-up, a little light plastic, those made enough change to deceive you. But she never knew why. Hypnotics can be powerful and they can erase all memory." He paused, smiling at Jeff. "Blackie will be next. We need her so much in the work we have to do, almost as much as we need you. But you've freed Blackie too. She'll be happier than she's ever been since the cloak of bad luck began broadcasting from her mind ten years ago. She'll be happier by far."
Hours later, Jeff woke again in the still room. The men were gone and the shadows were lengthening in the room, and his mind was filled with many thoughts.
"You can go if you want," Paul Conroe had said before they left. "Or you can stay, as you see fit. If you go, we can't stop you. But we beg you to stay. We need you so very much."
There would be others staying, Jeff thought. The Nasty Frenchman would stay—sneering, laughing, hating—aiming at the big money that always lurked in the future, unaware completely of the errand of mercy he was running with his life. And Harpo would stay, and all the others....
And Blackie would stay too. Poor, helpless Blackie—beautiful Blackie, desperate Blackie. For her there was a new lease. And there was no way of telling the person she would be after the new lease was signed for her.
And Conroe would stay, delivered after all these years of the burden he carried.
Wearily, yet happily, Jeff stared at the ceiling. He breathed deeply of the quiet air, his mind filled with a maze of wondering thoughts. He knew that thinking now was useless, that there really wasn't any issue any more.
He knew, as he closed his eyes again, that Jeff Meyer would stay too.
Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.