Pstalemate Page 11

  "Sure, I can take care of most of this, Mr. Bronson. But for a couple of these neighborhoods, you'd probably get more cooperation by having a white operator do the investigating. You can either arrange that or let me sort of subcontract it."

  It probably wouldn't matter, Harry thought. If anything worthwhile developed, he'd want to see about it himself so that he could check directly by telepathic probing.

  "You handle the whole thing any way that seems best," he decided gratefully, and saw Gordon's brief smile of satisfaction. "How soon do you think you can have something for me?"

  "With any luck, it shouldn't be long." Gordon had been sorting the items into several piles. Now he pointed to the largest one. "That's all pretty much routine—old records and such to check. I usually turn that over to people who specialize in such research; it's faster and cheaper. I'll put several to work at once. You can have their full reports along with a digest and summary from me. Say a couple of days for the first report."

  He began asking for more details on just what Harry wanted, some of which were hard to supply without giving away too much. But he seemed to accept even the most obvious evasions with only a slightly amused look. One area of investigation that had been worrying Harry was dismissed with a casual shrug.

  "Columbia had a research program on these communes a couple of years ago," Gordon said. "Your answers are probably all in that. I'll get a copy of the final paper and send it along to you with my report."

  As he headed home, Harry felt the first relief he'd known since the inevitability of doom had hit him. There was still an incredible amount for him to do in less than two months, of course, but at least the mechanical parts would be taken from him and from Ellen. Now the biggest problem was that he really had no idea of what course he should pursue; so far there had been no hint of a possible cure that left more than a shell of a man after years of shock therapy—and as opposed to that, he could appreciate Bud Coleman's choice of remaining mad.

  He sent out a mental shout for Ellen, not expecting any response. He'd tried it before, but the limit of distance he could span deliberately seemed to be less than a mile. This time, however, he received a faint response; she probably hadn't received his full message, but he was aware that she was returning to him, which was all he cared about. He could fill her in as she neared the apartment.

  Grimes had kept his word. There was an envelope in his box with a hand-hiked map and permission forms to let him into the rest home upstate where his mother had been moved. He memorized the map quickly as he made a fresh pot of coffee, then shoved the papers into his coat pocket

  Coleman's notes still lay on the table, and he turned to them automatically, though he no longer expected much from them. The data were obviously badly out of date, and the elaborate mathematical treatment of Bud's theories offered little hope, however much the work might prove and explain about the history and development of the psi powers among people like him. The years of thought had availed nothing to Bud in the end.

  The last half of Coleman's notebook was devoted to his theory—or perhaps only a body of speculation, since there were indications that Bud had not been fully satisfied with his own work. Harry could not evaluate the gene charts and the tracing of potential fractures between the four-letter dumpings of DNA. But the basic idea seemed to make some sense, and it wasn't too complicated.

  Sometime near the end of the last century there had been the beginning of another mutation among some of the human race. There was nothing too unusual about that; mutations went on all the time, though most were small and often nonviable. It had been discovered fairly recently that disease and many drugs could produce changes in the germ plasm. But this change had been complex, involving more than one gene and with a number of random shifts. As best Harry could understand it, it seemed to take three generations as a general rule before the result was fully stabilized. The resultant mutation was recessive, but that hadn't mattered; those who had the mutation to any usable degree tended automatically to mate with others in a process of mental like calling to mental like. Those who had any of the extrasensory ability from the mutation either found mates from their own kind or remained unattached. Since Coleman's charts seemed to show that there were certain similar areas of possible mutation in most human hereditary material, it was not surprising that many similar mutations should have been produced by the strong mutagen that produced the original change, so that it should have occurred spontaneously to a fair number of human offspring.

  Harry had been surprised at the suggestion of the causative agent. Coleman had traced it to certain volatile hydrocarbons released into the atmosphere from raw petroleum. The time at the end of the last century had seemed wrong for that, since the automobile wasn't in general use early enough. But the encyclopedia confirmed the figures in the notebook. Before the internal-combustion engine, petroleum had been a valuable source of kerosene. Millions of barrels had been distilled, and the lighter and more volatile fractions had been boiled off or burned into the air as waste in the production of fuel for stoves and lamps. The conditions of such distillation had been ideal to produce the hydrocarbons most likely to trigger the mutation.

  Actually, the need for gasoline, composed of the more volatile parts of petroleum, had probably decreased the amount of mutagenic agents now in the air. If the mutation was still going on, it might yield less complete results currently; the change had already taken place, and only time could decide whether it would become the norm for the race or be rejected, along with countless other blind alleys in human evolution.

  Coleman had speculated on whether telepathy was something mankind had possessed originally in rare and uncontrolled manner, then dismissed it as unprovable now, since the race must be contaminated by countless cases of those who had been born with some of the mutation, but not enough to produce useful results.

  It was all a lovely bit of theoretical work, and it might be true. But it had provided no new knowledge on the question of whether there was any way to handle the fact that telepaths—so far as Coleman had discovered—inevitably went mad, and often horribly so. Coleman's notes had yielded no suggestion that the instability might be separated from the basic abilities conferred by the change.

  There were a few hints that the aberration had involved a fear of possession in the early accounts. But the later notes gave no weight to that. The work was of no use in that respect.

  In many ways, Coleman's theories made the case more hopeless. If the madness were only a reaction to the stress of psi, then it might be treated by relieving that stress by drugs until a final adaptation could be made. But if the instability were inherent, a matter of the basic cell makeup, then there was no answer Harry could see. Science wasn't yet able to reshape the human gene patterns, even in much less complex cases of mental retardation. If the pressures that led to madness were due to the fear of possession or were forced to make possession easier for whatever the Alien Entity might be, then any normal answer was hopeless.

  Harry had already decided that his only chance was to treat the madness first, since it had seemed to precede the other menace. If some way through that period could be found, a sane and stable mind might then be able to cope with whatever came later.

  There should be some answer. Find one man who has been through it all and had recovered or been cured somehow. With that background and the ability to enter the mind of a distressed mutant, he should be able to guide the aberrant thoughts from madness back gently to sanity. But that was like the instructions for taming a unicorn—first find the unicorn!

  So far, the only cures were hopeless. They were apparently either like Miss Jamieson, who could be given a superficial semblance of sanity only at the expense of deeper madness, or they were totally lacking now in any of the psi abilities. Tranquilizing drugs produced only a temporary helpful effect. And the harsh therapies that were capable of aging memories and blasting the madness from the mind seemed inevitably to ruin the apparently delicate mental mechani
sm of telepathy. The three cured cases Harry had discovered so far were now convinced that their ability had been only a fantasy. They were completely normal in their powers and attitudes—but they were less than normal in their inner selves. Something inside them was lacking, and their minds were vaguely and miserably aware of the lack. Effectively, they were vegetables now, however well they might do on intelligence tests.

  Harry wondered briefly what his own father must be like after the long course of shock treatments indicated in Coleman's notes. He shuddered and forced his mind away from the thought. For a second, there had been a vague picture in his mind, but it was gone before he could seize it.

  Ellen came in then, asking a few questions only while she probed his memories quickly with his tacit permission.

  "Gordon's wife is nice," she said. "Korean, isn't she?"

  He frowned, trying to remember. He hadn't consciously noted, but now he could barely remember a small, pleasantly smiling woman who had come in with some typed pages while Gordon was going over Harry's material. Ellen had apparently caught the memories he had and dragged out more details than he was consciously aware of. It was one of the tricks of mental impenetration that he was only slowly growing used to.

  Then Ellen nodded and went in to change, accepting his decision to take the trip upstate as she accepted most things. Someday, when her phobias had finally vanished, they would probably have the granddaddy of all battles as she reasserted her equality with him—if they had time enough for that. But until then her mind pictured her as less than a full woman and hence only half human. He led, and she followed. It bothered and distressed him, since he was well aware of the quality of her mind, but he had forced himself to wait patiently, as she forced herself to accept his annoyance with no outward sign.

  There was also the factor of Bud Coleman's assessment of Harry's abilities as ones that offered the only hopes for the mutants. Ellen had accepted that, though Harry could see no reason for it. So far he had managed only to fall apart at every emergency within his mind; his contributions to any solution were exactly nothing.

  "You don't approve of my visiting my mother," he called out to her. "Why come, then?"

  "It'll be a nice drive," she answered. There was the slinky, pleasant feeling of a satin slip sliding over her hips—something no male mind could ever tire of.

  It was a nice drive. The weather was almost unseasonably warm, making the day seem like spring. Yet once beyond the city, there was still the white of the last snow on the country. The trees were dusted, their bare branches turned to fairy things in the light of the sun, and the air had a crispness and flavor that could be appreciated readily by anyone used to the pollution levels of Manhattan. As they moved north, they passed beyond the poisoned winds that blew from the chemical fogs of the New Jersey flats. Harry had deliberately left the Thruway and was on back roads through rolling dairy country.

  Ellen sat close to the opened window, letting the wind whip the scarf around her throat and toss her hair about. And Harry settled into the anodyne of driving, becoming part of the machine around him, smiling to himself now and then as the suspension leveled out some particularly bad bump. It was a period of rest for them, and they needed it badly. For the moment, the dark clouds of the future seemed to retreat beyond their mental horizons.

  Then a particularly vicious thought from one of the houses along the road tore away the peace. Ellen sat up, her face whitening as the jolt triggered her memories. An image came into her mind of a small, twisted man who had been in the library.

  Harry sent a questioning probe, and she opened herself to him.

  He cursed himself for having sent her there. Grimes was right. He had no business letting Ellen do his dirty work!

  The ugly little man had done nothing; he hadn't even tried to get close to her. But his thoughts had been a chaos of utter evil. Unquestionably, he was one of their kind, long since gone mad. But his paranoia was masked by a cunning that made him useful to the flourishing drug business, and he was protected in his insanity. He was safe in his evil—but his mind gibbered and screamed within itself, sensing every hate from the lesser evils he served and fearing the discovery of other mutants. He would have killed Ellen, except for his greater fear of what his masters might do to him.

  Maybe the mutants should be cleansed from the race; maybe it was a bad trail for humanity to take. But Harry forced the thought from himself. He could not be sure of all his facts. Even less was he sure of his interpretations of them, in this thirdhand view. And a false analysis of true facts might be worse than a correct interpretation of errors.

  Most of the mutants Harry had found were essentially decent—more so than seemed to be normal for humanity. At least, they were before the stresses of their inner instability drove them mad. And while the psi powers could do great harm, that was true of every development man had ever made, from fire to the chemistry that produced both destructive drugs and saving antibiotics.

  Now the dairy country changed, and they were driving into an area of rich estates. There were no longer bare fenced pastures along the road or fields of stubble where corn had been harvested for the multitudes of silos. Here most of the country seemed fairly well wooded, with the trees thinned and kept carefully, running down to the roadway to hide most of the mansions that sat back in peace and privacy. The few cars were all expensive, except for those that were somehow ostentatiously small and cheap. Many of the properties had hedges, some in shaped evergreens that must require teams of men to maintain.

  Harry slowed, studying the numbers on the mailboxes. Now they were beside a row of hemlocks that grew close together so that no vision could break through them. The hemlocks parted only for a massive wrought-iron gate. Harry spotted the quiet sign and turned in. The gatekeeper was soft-spoken and polite, but very thorough in checking his papers and calling over the telephone in his gate lodge. Then he smiled even more politely and pressed the button that let them through the gate.

  "I've seen the invoices," Ellen confirmed Harry's thoughts. "It costs Uncle Charley more for this than the income he used to send you." She sighed. "Most of it is his own money. I think he must have loved her once."

  There had been a hint of that when Grimes had shown his mother's picture to Harry. But it was no concern of his. His thoughts were tightening against what he might find here.

  Everything went well enough at first. He was checked again in the reception room that might have been the lobby of some unusually fine Swiss inn. Then he was guided by someone named MacAndrews—obviously a doctor, though they called him a counselor—through soft-carpeted hallways toward the most distant wing of the main building.

  There were no uniforms here, except for one military one that must have belonged to a visitor. Harry tried to hold his powers down to make sure that none of the thoughts here impinged on his mind, but enough crept through for him to be aware that the staff-to-patient ratio was very high. Then something dark and slimy seeped into his mind, and he had to fight desperately to hold his outward calm and force the unwelcome images away.

  "Better let me go first," MacAndrews suggested softly. Without waiting for a reply, the doctor moved toward the end of the hall.

  He was barely at one of the doors when a shriek ripped across Harry's mind and was echoed more faintly in his ears. Something caught at him, sucked him into an endless tunnel, then spewed him forth. Clawing terror cut at his entrails, while his mind seemed frozen in a block of dry ice, ice with a dark fire at its core. He staggered, grabbing at the walls for support.

  MacAndrews was back at his side, somehow supporting him. The man was obviously a telepathic blank, but his face was surprisingly understanding.

  "I'm afraid..." he began. Then he didn't bother finishing.

  From somewhere, at a signal Harry hadn't noticed, another man appeared, heading toward the doorway at a quiet trot. MacAndrews began guiding Harry away, toward the reception room.

  A woman was in Harry's mind, screaming and begging
to hide, but clearly to be seen in a mirror over a quilted table. Her face was slack and fat and filled with horror. And then beside her in the mirror was a grotesque and distorted picture of Phil Lawson, threatening her. He saw himself in a child's suit. Ellen seemed to grow before him, distorted, lascivious, evil. Then the picture blotched and ran, foul corpse-decay spilling into symbols of darkness and death.

  Kill the cub that cowls encumber!

  He was on the stairs of a house, with fire spreading from draperies to furniture and running across the carpet, a smell of smoke and kerosene in his nose. He was screaming and trying to climb higher, away from the smoke and heat. But a younger version of the woman in the mirror was clutching his knees, holding him back, urging him to breathe deeply of the smoke to defy the devil, smiling with a horrible desperation. He was trapped in her arms ...

  "Harry!" Ellen's mental voice cut across the picture, driven into his mind by more power than he'd known she possessed.

  He grabbed at her thoughts, pulling stability into himself from her. And abruptly the horror was gone. There were only the steps leading from the reception area toward his car, and Ellen's hand on his arm, guiding him. MacAndrews was moving away, saying some last thing to Ellen that Harry could not catch. Then he was getting into the passenger seat while Ellen started the car, her unfamiliarity with it unimportant as she drew its operation from his mind. The big gate opened for them, and they were back on the road.

  She started to stop at the first bend, but he was beginning to control himself at last. "I'm all right, Ellen."

  He felt her mind examining him, and then a gradual relaxation as she sensed his returning strength. "Do you want to drive, Harry?"

  "No." She was doing as well now as he could, and his hands were still weak from his previous tension. But the shock was past.

  "She was lovely once, even though she always hated me," Ellen said, as the image of the woman in the mirror slid through his mind again fleetingly.