Psychosphere (18 page)

“You mean he tackled Vicenti after his plane landed, before he went into hospital?”

“While his plane was in the air, Mr. Stone. Distance is nothing to the true telepath, not if he knows his target. He visited Vicenti's mind as I visited Bert Black's. At least I suppose that is how it was. And he then delivered Vicenti a psychic blow, several of them, but not fatal. Vicenti, too, is hospitalized. He should consider himself lucky; if I were Garrison I would have killed him.”

Stone now seemed weary to death. “But you can't be sure that Garrison did it to Vicenti. He might simply have been involved in an accident.”

“But I have been in Carlo Vicenti's mind, too.
He
knows that it was Garrison. He doesn't know how, but he knows it was him.”

“It's all over my head.” Stone seemed genuinely lost. “Maybe I'm not as smart as you think.”

“Oh, but you are,” Gubwa laughed. “You have a very agile mind. You have soaked up every word I've uttered, even as a sponge soaks up water. Your weariness is an act. You must not take me for a fool, Mr. Stone, for I am not. Nor have you led me on, as you assume. I have told you nothing I did not wish you to know.”

Stone wasn't a good loser. “Shit!” he said through clenched teeth. He sat up a little straighter. “Okay, I'll stop pretending. And let's say I believe all you say. Or at least let's say I'm open to suggestion. There are still some things I'd like to know. For one, how did you get onto Garrison in the first place? That is, how did you twig him for…an ESP-master?”

“Two years ago,” Gubwa answered, “a good many strange things occurred, all centered about him. Until then I had not been interested in Garrison, did not know he existed. The world is full of minds; I visit only those I wish to visit. Garrison was of no interest to me. Since then, however, I have discovered all that I now know of him. Which isn't yet enough. But it will be…soon.

“It was then, two years ago, that he regained his sight; then that he returned Vicki Maler to life, cleansed her of her disease, gave her back
her
sight. In other words that was when Garrison first became aware of his power, or gained full control over it. As to how I know it—” again his shrug, “I am a telepath. And every telepath in the world must have felt something of it!”

Gubwa's voice had fallen to a whisper, was filled with awe. “If I believed in God, Mr. Stone, which I do not, then I would have known that God was come down amongst men. Do you know what is meant by the biosphere?”

Stone nodded. “It's what you'll pollute with neutron bombs.”

Again Gubwa chose to ignore the jibe. “Then picture a great meteorite rushing through Earth's atmosphere and causing the most violent storm you could ever imagine. Picture the air and the ocean whipped to a frenzy, the elements enraged. Do you have it? Good! Now take it one step further. Picture a
psychic
biosphere—a Psychosphere, if you wish—in which ESP talent and potential takes the place of life in the biosphere. And picture that Psychosphere torn as by some mental meteor! That was Garrison's coming, his awakening, Mr. Stone. And that explains the paradox: why on the one hand I want him dead, while on the other he must not die.”

Stone looked blank.

“Numismatics, my friend,” said Gubwa. “He is
Fleur de Coin
, the only one in the batch. Where was he minted, by whom? If you were a collector and such a coin came into your hands, wouldn't you ask yourself these questions? Of course you would. And if you checked the metal, discovered that it had been melted down from old stock and re-stamped—”

“A counterfeit!” said Stone.

“Just so,” Gubwa excitedly agreed, “but better than any original, the work of a genius! And what question would you next ask yourself?”

“
Who
made it?”

“Correct!” Gubwa clasped the agent's shoulders in iron hands. “And surely—
how
was it made?”

He looked down, looked deep into Stone's unflinching gaze. “What happened to him two years ago, that gave him powers comparable to those of a god?”

Stone narrowed his eyes, believed for a moment that he had found Gubwa out. “Why don't you ask him?” he said. “Why don't you just get inside his mind and—” He saw his error.

Gubwa's eyes had shot open, were now wide and pink and bulging. “What?” he hissed. “Have you learned nothing? Believed nothing? Man, I would not even
approach
Garrison's mind! I would sooner swim in a pool of piranhas—yes, with the veins of my wrists open and bleeding!”

Of course I sought to discover the source of this vast disturbance in the Psychosphere. I had to; the thing was wild, it lured me. And to find it—why, all I had to do was close my eyes and send my mind blindly out, out…and the very
aura
of Garrison did the rest! I found myself hurled about like a twig in a whirlpool, a leap in the very maelstrom. Enter his mind…?

“I have been on the threshold. It seethes, boils, crashes with energies. I would be a fly caught up in a high-speed fan. And if I survived—
if
, mind you—he would know me, would follow my limping trail home. And knowing me, he
would
destroy me.”

“He didn't destroy Vicenti,” Stone pointed out.

“But he hurt him!” Gubwa was quick to return. “And how then would he deal with me, who stands at the back of it all? Charon Gubwa, the grand engineer of all his trials.”

“You? How?”

“How? But didn't I set those minds in action which now work against him? It was a testing, don't you see? Only it got out of control! I dared not go against Garrison, not personally—dared not try him out—and so I arranged for others to do it for me. Who else do you think put Garrison in the minds of all those oh-so-interested parties if not me? I
can
influence the minds of others, Mr. Stone, don't forget it. Indeed, I am an adept. Haven't I told you I destroyed those monks in Tibet? Ah, but they weren't of Garrison's mettle!

“Still, the wheels I have set in motion must eventually crush him, one way or the other. Or I will crush him, by discovering his secret. But until I know it he must not be crushed.”

Stone slowly nodded his head. “And that's where I come in, right?”

“Correct. Garrison has a weakness, a chink in his armor. The woman Vicki Maler. I believe that she knows his secret. Or if she does not actually know it, then at least the clues to it are buried in her mind. I shall dig them out.”

“Why haven't you already done so? If all you say of your telepathy is true, you—”

NO, NO, NO! Gubwa shouted in Stone's mind, electrifying him afresh. “You still don't understand, do you? Garrison is close to the woman. She is like his child. Resurrected her?—why, one might go so far as to say he
made
her! He is never very far from her mind. And if ever he found me there…”

“And so you can't really tackle her,” said Stone.

“Oh, but I have tried, I have tried. It had seemed to me that recently, within the last six months, Garrison's strength was waning. When chance permitted, I actually found and entered Vicki Maler's mind. There were several such occasions, and I was always lucky. Or perhaps it was not simple luck. Perhaps my ESP told me the best times. But in any case the contact was always brief—never long enough to learn much, no time to be discovered. The last time was only a matter of days ago, while she and Garrison were still in Rhodes—since when he has performed these ‘miracles' we've spoken of, proving that he's as powerful as ever. Or at least powerful enough to constitute a real threat.”

Stone frowned. “So how will you do it? If you can't get at her, how will—”

“I can't ‘get at her' as you have it, while she's out there, beyond these walls. But
in
here there are ways! Here I am the master, and I am not without protection.”

Stone saw it coming. “I'm to bring her here?”

Gubwa smiled, nodded. “Indeed you are.”

“So you really are crazy after all! If what you've told me of Garrison is only half-true—why, he'll mince me!”

“That is a distinct possibility,” Gubwa blandly agreed. “And one to be avoided.” He smiled again.

“And through me he'll find you, and—”

“No,” the other snapped, his smile disappearing in an instant. “He will not find me. If you are discovered your mind will simply self-destruct. It will burn itself out before telling anything about me. Oh, yes, Mr. secret agent Stone—you would die before talking, or before having the facts extracted.”

“—And in any case, I won't do it.”

Gubwa's smile was back, growing wider by the minute. He began to nod his great white head. “Oh, yes, you will.” He took Stone's chair and wheeled it across the floor. Doors hissed open at their approach. “I'm now going to show you my mind laboratory, Mr. Stone. Being as you are a secret agent, you'll be familiar with the term brainwashing. Yes, I'm sure you are. Well, my mind-lab is a veritable laundry. And of course I've already mentioned my expertise in the field of mesmerism? Yes…”

Along the corridor the great albino paused for a moment. “Dear, oh,
dear
, Mr. Stone! Why, I'm really quite surprised at you! Those are not very kind thoughts at all, now are they?”

W
HILE
C
HARON
G
UBWA WORKED ON
S
TONE IN THE MIND-LAB
, Vicki Maler sat by Garrison's bedside in a small whitewashed hospital room in Haslemere, Surrey.

It was an austere place by any standards, but Garrison's private doctor—a much respected man, whose patients were extremely rich and/or very important persons all—liked austerity. To him sparseness was synonymous with cleanliness, and cleanliness was the basic necessity of all good medicine. At the moment Vicki was alone with Garrison, indeed at present he was the only resident patient, but Dr. Jamieson was about somewhere.

The room's window look out under the branches of willows across a close-cropped, fenced garden. Beyond the fence a stream or beck sparkled in early morning sunlight. In fact the place was not a hospital at all in the accepted sense of the word but Jamieson's home. It was very expensive but not at all an easy place to find, and Vicki was satisfied that Garrison was safe here. Safe from what she could not say. From his own waking fears, maybe. From killers—such as the would-be killers who had sabotaged the plane—that remained to be seen.

Until now their personal security had not been a problem to concern her. Safety usually went hand in hand with Garrison; to be with him
was
to be safe. Or had used to be. She looked at him; sedated, he slept. And he needed it. His face was drawn, his forehead lined. His hands twitched occasionally, however faintly, on top of the bedclothes…

V
ICKI HAD ARRIVED AN HOUR EARLIER
. She had been greeted by the doctor and his nurse-assistant, probably his wife. Richard (they had told her) would not be up and about until Monday morning. Since today was Friday, that would give him three more full days and nights of rest, and Dr. Jamieson would ensure that they were three full days.

The police had been on the telephone twice, requesting a statement from Garrison in respect of the bombed plane, but the doctor had put them off. His patient could not be disturbed, he had told them. Garrison was physically and mentally run-down, teetering upon a nervous brink, and the only sure way he could be revitalized was by resting.

There had also been the matter of the contact lenses, which had arrived while Garrison and Vicki were in Rhodes. She did not know what Richard had done to Dr. Jamieson, but the business of her own and Garrison's eyes didn't seem to be at all problematic. He had already fitted Garrison's lenses (in accordance with previous orders, apparently), and upon Vicki's arrival he had worn a pair of tinted spectacles to fit hers. After a few minutes she hadn't even known she was wearing them. Then she had been taken to Richard's room and left there, since when she had simply sat here at his bedside.

Very carefully, she now took one of his hands in hers. His flesh was cool, seemed somehow fragile, almost brittle. A plastic hand. She squeezed it, just to reassure herself. But of what? To confirm that Garrison was real? That she was real? Vicki found herself trembling.
Was
she real?

The fact that she no longer loved Garrison suddenly bloated in her mind like some strange orchid. One minute it was absent, the next it had opened, hybrid and scentless. It was not beautiful, but strangely it was not ugly. It was merely there: a fact, not even a hard one to assimilate. For how can one love a constant threat? The axe that hangs over one's head…the fraying threads of rope by which one hangs from the cliff…the clock relentlessly ticking away one's final hour.

You cannot love that which you don't know. She had once known Garrison, briefly, and through her long illness his remembered beauty had remained with her, buoyed her up; the joy of having had him sustained her to the end. And she had thought that she could have loved him. And she
had
loved—adored him—in the new beginning. Then…the rope had started to fray. The axe had seemed so heavy hanging over her. The ticking of the clock had grown incredibly loud, a roar of sound in her ears.

If Garrison died, she died—and this time she would stay dead. Vicki had been there once. It was a fearful place. She couldn't remember the limbo of it and didn't want to, but she had hated it. She hated the thought of it, the
threat
of it. Garrison was that threat. Him she did not hate, but she was even more certain that she did not love him. And how long before she did hate him, and how shortly after that must he know it?

Being Garrison, perhaps he had already seen it coming…

S
HE STAYED WITH
G
ARRISON FOR A FURTHER HALF-HOUR
. Suzy, Garrison's black Doberman pinscher bitch whom Vicki had left waiting patiently in the car, sat still until she had the door half-open, then squeezed out. The dog's tail wagged and she lolled her tongue at her mistress but no amount of persuasion, cajoling or threatening could get her back inside the car again. Angry, Vicki followed Suzy back to the door of the doctor's house. Dr. Jamieson stood upon the step, smiling a little awkwardly, waiting for her to leave.

He was a stocky, moon-faced man in a very old tweed suit. “It's all right, my dear, she can stay,” he reassured Vicki. “Richard said she'd probably be along.”

“Oh!” said Vicki. “Yes, she doesn't like to be too far away from him.”

Suzy wagged her tail, came and licked Vicki's hand. She was aware now that she could stay. But her head kept turning in towards the house; she wanted to be with Garrison.

As Vicki finally drove away, both Jamieson and Suzy came down to the gate at the bottom of the drive to see her off; but as soon as the car cornered out of the leafy lane, Suzy left the doctor's side and ran back to the house. In she went and straight to Garrison's room, where she waited until Jamieson opened the door for her. Then she entered and jumped up on the chair beside her master's bed.

She sat there straight-backed, her head slightly forward, ears erect, eyes fixed firmly upon him where he lay. She watched him intently, listened with twitches of her ears to his steady breathing. Then she settled down a little, gave one small whine, lay back her ears and made herself a little more comfortable.

Jamieson left the door open for her. She would come to him when she was hungry…

G
ARRISON HAD REACHED A JUNCTION IN THE DRIED
-
OUT BED OF THE
stream he followed. Here where it split, the walls which miles back had been mere banks were now cliffs of red stone, rising sharp and sheer for hundreds of feet. The bed of the stream had seemed the easiest trail to follow, but now Garrison shook his head in disgust. It seemed unthinkable that the lie of the land could have changed so swiftly
.

There had been green banks, a little water gurgling below, a gently winding, watery way to follow. Then the grass had become scrub as the banks grew boulder-strewn and steep, and finally the water had petered out. Then Garrison might have left the stream and headed for higher ground, but he had been tired or lazy or both, had failed to make the effort but simply allowed himself to drift on. And the banks had grown even steeper and craggier above a narrowing river gorge, until now at last the way divided, a cleft in the shade of the towering cliffs
.

And now which way to go? Right or left?

Left would be the wizard's way, of course: the left-hand path. That would seem Garrison's natural choice, but
…

The way seemed narrower to the left. He would hate to find the trail narrowed suddenly to an impassible crack in solid rock, and then have to come back all this way. The right-hand path seemed fairly wide; its dusky veil of gloom was parted here and there with shafts of light from above; there should be no baleful magics there to blight his course
.

Suzy crouched closer to his back and whined ominously. Garrison frowned—edged the Machine forward right, then left, and paused—cursed and set Psychomech down upon the cracked bed of the stream. He climbed down from the broad, now rust-tainted back of the Machine, Suzy jumping down beside him. Where its base stood upon hard earth the Machine's metal was actually scabbed with rust, some of it already flaking, and its hard plastic casing was showing cracks. Within, fraying cables were visible behind blistered tubes and blackened piping
.

Garrison grunted. Better to leave the thing here and go forward on foot. Except that that would be like shooting an old horse just because he'd lost a shoe. Garrison grunted again and shook his head. No, it was worse than that and he knew it. A horse with a broken leg…or even a broken back!

But in any case he could not simply leave the Machine behind. No, for it had been there with him in his vision of the future, that agonizing vision of the parched desert glimpsed in the shewstone of the circle of wizards. And so the Machine must go on with him, but along which path? If only he might glimpse the future again, see his way clear ahead
…

“Richard…oh, Richard!”
came the merest whisper of a soft female voice, fast on the heels of his fleeting thought
.