Psychomech (38 page)

And the cat on the pink-hued wall was just like Tiger, and its neck at just the right angle, all twisted, and its pink tongue lolling just as Tiger’s had lolled in death…

Garrison sat up, his flesh tingling. He sensed what was coming but was helpless to avert it.

The cat-figure on the wall suddenly expanded, exploding into three dimensions, bloating out of all proportion and assuming the shape of… a tiger!

A tiger knowing the agony of a twisted, broken neck—but no longer dead. A zombie-tiger, and Garrison to blame for the creature’s misery.

His crime. His guilt. His punishment!

The thing sprang down from the wall and pounced upon him, its yellow eyes blazing, great jaws chomping and slavering. Garrison rolled, kicked, used the beast’s own impetus to propel it out through the mouth of the cavelet and across Psychomech’s inert mass. It landed scrabblingly on all fours, its head lolling awkwardly, and turned to face him. And now, in the pinkish glow of the walls, Garrison counted a dozen more of the beasts; or a dozen pairs of feral eyes at least. And all of them full of pain, hatred and revenge. They slunk as one towards him.

Trapped, he sought desperately for a way out. Teleportation? No, because even if he could find the strength to teleport, it would only suffice to remove him to some other place within this labyrinth of coral, and he knew the great cats would be waiting for him there. Levitation? Out of the question, for the cave’s roof was a solid mass overhead, with nowhere a gap. But—

The tigers sprang at him. They sprang as one, their heads lolling hideously, their lethal claws unsheathed.

Garrison levitated the Machine up off the pink sandy floor and jammed it in the mouth of the cavelet, holding it there while the tigers roared their agonies and heaped their clawing, scratching, biting weight upon it. They were trying to dislodge it and so get at him, and suddenly Garrison was panic-stricken as he realized that his ESP-strength was on the ebb. He was actually straining to hold Psychomech in position. Something was weakening him and making it less easy for him to use this levitation, this skill so recently acquired.

Moreover, the totally surreal aspect of all he perceived was more sharply defined now. Which is to say that for the first time he actually felt out of place in this dimension of fever dreams. Very little of what he experienced seemed real any longer. He still knew and accepted that he lived in dreams and nightmares, yes, but he was also dimly aware that this was not his natural place. In short, he felt that he was suffering a nightmare within a nightmare, a very bad trip in a strange, strange land—which was precisely the easel The LSD in his system had worked not to increase but to define the other-worldliness of his situation. And knowing now beyond any doubt that this was an alien environment, he also knew that his chances for survival here must be small indeed.

Which was why, instinctively, while yet he retained something of his ESP-strength, he reached out with his mind and hurled an SOS into that other plane of existence, that world beyond the borders of his own psyche, that external world where once he had dwelled.

An SOS, a mental cry for help, a telepathic distress signal which someone, somewhere, somehow must hear. Else Garrison were doomed…

12.10 P.M
., and in her steel and concrete cage at the Midhurst kennels Suzy suddenly went insane. Without warning she bounded high, howling like a banshee as she commenced to crash about the interior of her cage. In a matter of moments she had turned from a quiet if pensive animal into a wild thing. Her eyes were red and bulging, her muzzle a scarlet slash bordering foaming fangs; and her screaming… was just that. She screamed like a human being, as she had been heard to scream once before.

In minutes her chest was heaving, her flanks lathered and dripping, and she had collapsed in a corner quivering and whimpering. She seemed spent, as if in her intense madness she had burned all of the energy out of her system– which was exactly the visual effect she had hoped to achieve.

A keeper, attracted by her fit and running to the door of her cage, spoke breathlessly into his walkie-talkie, and in a little while a padded figure came on the scene carrying a hypodermic. Suzy’s behaviour last Wednesday had been noted and this relapse, while not anticipated, was not entirely unexpected. If allowed to continue she might easily do herself permanent injury, for which reason she must now be sedated. But a Doberman pinscher is a Doberman pinscher, not a tiny terrier or perfumed Pekinese with which to take any sort of liberty.

As the bolt on the door of her cage was drawn, so Suzy’s eyes flickered open; she made as if to move and then flopped down again. But when the door was opened she came out of her corner like a black bullet, shot straight between the leather-suited figure’s legs and bowled him over, and was out of the cage in a moment. Then Suzy was away and running, speeding between the lines of kennels and setting all the dogs to yelping and howling.

She ran down an avenue of cages; but when keepers carrying poles with nooses appeared in a line at the far end she slowed her pace and considered the situation. Behind her—shouting, running men. In front—these keepers, experts who would trap her in a moment. She bounded on to a wheelbarrow’s rim, bunched her muscles and sprang to the wire netting roof of the row of kennels. Fortunately the wire was thick and the gauge fine; it merely gave a little to her weight as she loped above the kennels and sprang to the ground on the far side.

From on high she had seen a tall wire fence curving in a semicircle around the perimeter of the kennel complex, but where the fence ended there had been a reed-fringed lake with a densely wooded area beyond. Keeping low to the ground, Suzy headed for the lake. Her sense of direction tugged her westward and the lake lay to the north. She whined as she^ran, fighting the urge to turn to the west.

That way she would only come up against the tall fence. No, she must cross the lake first. Then change her course westward.

Westward, in answer to Garrison’s call. Its echoes still rang in her head; that desperate cry for help, that beloved voice calling to her out of nowhere.

She would answer that call or die in the attempt…

Last night Willy Koenig had painted the town red. He had drunk beer and schnapps in quantities to shame the most hardened swillers and had visited all levels of establishment from ‘dive’ and ‘bar’ through ‘night-club’ to the most expensive bordello on the Reeperbahn. There, still drinking like some insatiable, alcohol-fuelled engine, he had finally chosen a woman for himself and at 2.30 in the morning had taken her upstairs to bed. Though he remembered little of it, he had paid for her services for the night; and this morning about 9.30 had awakened clear-headed if a little dry in the mouth, which is to say a great deal about Koenig’s iron constitution.

The girl had been delighted to accept him as a client for the rest of the day, since when he had made languid love to her while stoking up on champagne, schnapps, crisp buttered rolls and honey, and coffee enlivened with liberal splashes of Asbach Uralt, the latter a habit acquired from Garrison. The stubble was still on Koenig’s face and he had just decided to wash and shave when, about midday, he suddenly sat bolt upright in the huge and ornate double bed.

‘Willy?’
the voice repeated in his head.
‘Willy—help!’

Koenig’s blood turned to ice and he gave a violent shudder. The voice had been real, crystal clear.

‘Willy?’ the girl queried, touching his shoulder and making him start.

‘Be quiet!’ he snapped, listening intently. There was nothing. He turned to the girl where she lay sprawled and naked on top of the covers. ‘Did you hear… anything?’

She looked puzzled, pouted, shook her head. ‘Nothing. What is there to hear? And why are you so cold? My, but you’re freezing! Here, let me warm you.’

He shrugged her off, swung his legs out of bed and began to dress. ‘Get me a taxi.’

‘But Willy,’ she protested, frowning and biting her lip, ‘you said you wanted me for the day, and you haven’t paid me.’

‘How much was it?’ he absent-mindedly asked. ‘For the day..:’

‘Three hundred Deutsch Marks, Willy, but—’

He took out his wallet and she fell silent. She watched him extract and throw down three fifty Deutsch Mark notes on to the bed. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Half a day.’

‘Ah!’ She took up the money, ‘But that’s not how we play, Willy. You
said
for the day, and so you pay for—’

‘It’s the way / play,’ he told her, heading for the bathroom. ‘Now be a good girl and get me a taxi.’

Under her breath the girl said, ‘Shit!* She bit her lip again, hesitated for a moment, then reached behind the yellow satin headboard of the bed to press a hidden button. There had been men here before who wanted to play the game their way. Karl would convince this crewcut bull otherwise. She shuddered, hating to do it. Karl was a monster. A pity, but… rules are rules.

When Koenig came out of the bathroom Karl was waiting. He was much taller than Koenig, maybe seventy-five inches, with slitted eyes that glinted blue under thin, straight eyebrows. His face was angular and grey with a pale blob of a nose that looked right out of place above a twisted, sneering mouth.

Koenig’s first, almost perfunctory glance took in all of these things, also the fact that Karl was of that sort which likes inflicting pain. Oh, yes, Karl was a mean one—or at least Karl
thought
he was a mean one. But Koenig liked them mean. The meaner the better.

His second glance, also deceptively perfunctory, completed the picture. Smartly if a little too sharply dressed in a black polo-neck shirt and black suit, the bouncer leaned with his back to the wall beside the room’s single door. Koenig’s way led through that door…

There was something different about Koenig, Karl decided. He eyed the bulky man up and down, noting that Koenig barely seemed to acknowledge his presence in the room. That was it: the guy was pretending he didn’t exist, as if Karl were some lower species with no interest value whatsoever. Karl nodded grimly to himself. Well, he would know he was here soon enough.

‘You owe the lady money,’ he said at last, his voice a husky whisper. He rubbed a heavily ringed left hand on brass knuckle-dusters where they made his right fist into a club. ‘I think you’d better pay her.’

Koenig zipped up his fly, moved forward. ‘What’s your name, son?’ he asked, his manner casual, almost uncaring.

Whatever else Karl was he wasn’t too bright. Koenig’s question, delivered so innocently, had caught him right off balance. ‘Eh?’ he looked puzzled. ‘My name’s Karl. My job—’

‘Oh, I know what you do,’ said Koenig, ‘but do you enjoy making love?’

‘What?’ Karl’s jaw dropped. For the first time he became truly aware of Koenig’s size, his blocky weight and the effortless strength apparent in the suddenly cat-sure flow of his movements. He was aware too that Koenig was only two paces away and moving closer. ‘Do I enjoy—?’

‘Get out of my way, Karl,’ said Koenig very quietly, ‘while you can still fuck.’

Karl’s face became a vicious mask and he began a lightning movement—but Koenig was already moving. He struck Karl under the heart with his right fist. At the same time his left hand closed like a vice on the other’s right wrist and his left knee came up like a hammer to crunch into his groin. AH of this in a single moment; and in the next, as Karl’s contorted face and open mouth jerked forward, Koenig’s bullet head was there to meet them. Blood and teeth flew and Karl toppled to one side, gagging. Koenig let him gently to the floor and released him, straightened up and quickly ran his fingers through the brush of his disordered crewcut. He grunted and congratulated himself. It had been almost soundless.

The girl,’who had seemed paralysed until now, suddenly snatched breath.

‘If you yell,’ Koenig told her, his voice cold and harsh as a file on glass, I’ll really hurt you. And for the rest of your life you’ll be no good at all for gobbling.’ His eyes were very hard and bright.

She let the air slowly, silently out of her lungs.

Koenig nodded. Tm going now. Be a good girl and don’t make any more fuss. And the next time a customer wants a taxi, you get him one, eh?’ He left the door standing open…

Help was on its way. Garrison knew it. His call was being answered. Faint echoes of other minds had touched his, bolstering him up, saying, ‘Hang on, hang on, we’re coming!’ Other minds, yes, and one of them less—or more?—than human. A warm, loving mind, that one; a worshipful, devoted mind. Humanity?—Garrison did not care. A friend is a friend. Only that friend must be quick or all was lost.

For as Garrison sweated out the siege of tigers he knew that his strength was fast ebbing, that the bulk of the Machine was slipping from where he fought to hold it in the cave’s mouth. And the tigers, as if guided by something more than merely animal instinct, continued to pile their weight upon the Machine’s metal and plastic back, all the while scrabbling to find a gap and break through into Garrison’s cavelet.

‘
Come!’ he cried out with his mind into the Otherworld.

‘
Come quickly—come now— if you’re to save me at all…’ But in sending this telepathic SOS he had further weakened himself, and the gap between the Machine’s tiger-strewn back and the top of the cavelet’s curved mouth visibly widened. Garrison glimpsed yellow eyes in the pink coral glow, and fangs now dripping with a saliva of anticipation. Claws like steel hooks raked at the opening and a massed growling of pain and hatred filled the cave with echoing, rumbling animal thunder…

Racing across country and making a beeline for Wyatt’s estate, Suzy heard Garrison’s second SOS and her great heart gave a wild leap. Garrison was still some miles distant from her, she knew that, but she also knew that he needed her help now.

She came to a halt, leaned her head forward and sniffed. Then she whined and her entire body quivered. Her ears, standing up straight at first, slowly lay down flat upon her head. She too lay down, flopping into the long grass and panting where she lay.