Psychosphere (22 page)

Then—several things—culminating in a sheet of flame and a rending explosion that hurled Garrison head over heels, skidding and tumbling until his back and shoulders came up against the rusty bulk of his Machine. And there he lay with reeling head and aching bones
.

But before that tremendous blast…he would never be sure
.

His senses seemed no longer reliable, were dulled from exhaustion and dazed from a succession of shocks. He had
thought
that the great copper rods with their huge electrodes had suddenly swelled up, as from an unbearable power gathering in them; and he had
thought
to see a lashing, streaming incandescence of energy unleashed between those terminals to cojoin and strike down at the naked monster. Then, finally, before the ultimate blast, he had
thought
that the entire body of the creature shuddered and jerked, and that he had smelled the reek of roasting flesh. And then with a shriek of absolute agony the thing had bent upright from the waist, glaring at him with mad golden eyes in a face which he had at once recognized
—

—as his own!

L
ATER
(
HE HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING HOW MUCH LATER
),
G
ARRISON
emerged from delirium to find himself on all fours, clawing uselessly at the rust-scabbed base of the Machine, Psychomech. Suzy was beside him, nuzzling his neck with a nose that was mainly dry, urging him back to his senses with little barks and whinings
.

Of the
MACHINE:
no trace remained. Neither of
MACHINE
nor of monster. No trace—except in Garrison's mind. He remembered the monster's face
, his
face, and knew there must be a meaning. Doubtless he would discover that meaning at quest's end
.

Quest's end. Hah!—that was a laugh. For all Garrison cared it could end right here and now. And yet
—

He set his jaw stubbornly. “Suzy, up, Girl!” His voice was cracked, throat dry. “You're not so heavy.” She scampered aboard the Machine. Then he straightened his shoulders, took hold of a dangling cable, willed the Machine to float free of the ground. It did: one inch, two. But that was sufficient. Walking ahead, he led the Machine out of the valley like a man leading some strange lame prehistoric beast
.

The stars of night were bright above. The gentle slopes of the foothills rose dark ahead…

J
OHNNIE
F
ONG SAT IN HIS GRAY
J
AGUAR IN THE HOTEL CAR PARK AND
watched until the light blinked out in Garrison's first-floor bedroom. The man up there was in fact Garrison/Schroeder, but Fong didn't know that. To the Chinaman he was simply Garrison.

Fong waited a few minutes, left his car and found a public telephone. Moments later Charon Gubwa answered his private telephone in the Castle and was brought up to date. It was late but Gubwa had already slept. Precognition had told him that the oncoming hours would be busy ones.

Having quickly absorbed all of Fong's information, now the albino sent his mind out to Phillip Stone where he kept an eye on the Garrison residence. MR. STONE. GO BACK AND GET YOUR CAR. THEN BRING VICKI MALER TO ME.

Stone, a cigarette dangling from his lips, shielded by his hand in the darkness where he stood beneath trees not far from the house, jerked to attention. Or rather his mind did. He ground out the cigarette with his heel and looked around carefully in the empty darkness.

YOU STILL FIND DIFFICULTY IN BELIEVING, MR. STONE. PERHAPS YOU ARE NOT SO CLEVER AFTER ALL.

“How am I to get her to come with me?” Stone asked in a whisper, finding it too much of an effort to simply think his question. “And where to?”

It was as if he heard a chuckle. YOU ALREADY KNOW THOSE THINGS. YOU WILL REMEMBER THEM AS YOU GO, IMPROVISE AS REQUIRED. SIMPLY OBEY.

“Like shit!” Stone spat out the words—but already he was making his way back towards the spot where his yellow Granada was parked.

At the house it was easy. Stone found his mind whirling as his mouth ran on of its own accord—or of Gubwa's accord—as the simple fact of what he was doing triggered a stream of post-hypnotic commands which could not be denied. He was Phillip Stone from MI6, he told the Maler woman; Richard Garrison was now in the care of the Secret Service; it was believed that a second attempt on his life was in the offing; Garrison had asked that Vicki Maler be picked up and brought to him, for her safety. While Stone's mind might be in utter chaos, his words and actions were under a firmer discipline than ever he himself had mastered; and of course he carried proof of his identity. The woman had no choice but to trust him.

She had been preparing for bed but now she dressed, quickly packed a small case, gave the servants one or two cursory instructions and allowed Stone to take her to his car. Through all of this he wanted nothing more than to tell her to run, make herself scarce, phone the police—anything but go with him. Instead he smiled concernedly, told her not to worry, held the door for her while she got into his car after dumping her case in the boot.

And in a very short time they were on their way to London…

M
EANWHILE
G
UBWA DARED DO NOTHING
. Word had already reached him of Vicenti's murder and the double-suicide of the Blacks, and he knew
who
was responsible if not quite
how
. But obviously Garrison was still a force to be reckoned with. A terrifying force.

Gubwa had taken a nail-biting chance when he had Stone pick up the girl; with powers such as Garrison commanded things still could have gone wrong. They still could, for which reason Gubwa would not rest easy until she was here, in the Castle, shielded by the mental blackout of his mind-guards. As for them: there were eight of them “on duty” now. Gubwa could take no more chances.

But with Garrison asleep and at a distance (though distance, as the albino had explained to Stone made little or no difference) Gubwa had not been able to resist the opportunity to strike. Success was now well within his reach. The girl would know the source or secret of Garrison's power and she would also know his weaknesses.

Meanwhile, in a dark car park not too far away, Stone would have parked his Granada. He would then have wound down his window and at his signal one of Gubwa's lieutenants would have stepped forward, broken the top off a tiny phial and splashed its contents into the car. A knockout gas, instantaneous, would then have put Stone and the girl to sleep. By now they were on their way to the Castle, and no power in the world could possibly follow their trail here…hopefully. That last because Gubwa knew, or strongly suspected, that Garrison's power was not of this world but of the Psychosphere. But at least every human precaution had been taken.

And for now it was simply a matter of waiting…

R
AMON DE
M
EDICI'S CALL ROUSED
J
OSEPH
M
AESTRO FROM AN UNEASY
sleep. The Big Guy grumbled, switched on his bedside light, snatched the telephone handset from its cradle and checked the caller's identity. “Ramon? Okay, wait.” Maestro turned to the girl in his bed and shook her awake. “You,” he said, “out!”

“What?” she drowsily blinked sleep from her eyes, wrapped too-willing arms around him. He grunted and shrugged her off. She was very young and very beautiful—worthless, to Joseph Maestro.

“Wake up, dummy!” he snapped. “Go clean your teeth.”

“But Joe,” she mumblingly protested, “I already cleaned my—”

“Then take a shower. Just get the hell out of here. I have to speak to somebody. I'll call you when I'm through.”

Grumblingly, she got out of bed, moved in the direction of the bathroom.

“Yeah,” said Maestro into the phone, “what is it? You found Garrison?”

“Right,” came the answer. “His car, anyway. He's not at home so we figure he's with his car.”

“Where?”

“In Leicester.”

Maestro frowned. “Leicester? What the hell is he doing in Leicester? Where in Leicester?”

“We don't know. Have to go up there to get a positive fix.”

“So get on it.”

“Tonight?”

“Right now!” Maestro snapped. “Hey!—we owe this guy. And not just for Vicenti. You ain't telling me you enjoyed last night, are you? Three solid hours in the beautiful company of the filth—and then spat out like so much stale gum? Now get on it. I want Garrison dead!”

“Okay, Joe, you got it. His car's not moving so we figure he's staying over somewhere. I'll go personally, take Carlo's boys with me. They'll enjoy it.”

“Yeah, right,” said Maestro. “That's good. The filth don't know you were there when the Blacks snuffed Carlo and jumped. If they do somehow figure out that Garrison was involved with that, they still won't be able to tie you in with it. You're in the clear. Okay, the job's yours.”

“Right.”

“Don't screw it up.”

“I won't.”

“You're a good guy, Ramon.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

Maestro put down the phone. The glass door of the bathroom was steamed up now and he could hear the
hiss
of the shower. It was hot tonight. He threw back the sheets, stretched and yawned. “Hey, baby? Okay, you can come back to bed.”

She came out of the bathroom towelling herself down. He silently admired her breasts, the firm globes of her buttocks. “When you're dry,” he told her, “you can do us both a favor and get your mouth round that.”

She came over to the bed, wrinkled her nose, looked pointedly down on him. “Round what?” she asked without malice.

Maestro grinned. “So work on it,” he said. “Hey!—I should keep a dog and bark myself?”

Whatever forces or currents they are which circulate in or permeate the Psychosphere may never be known, but that Tuesday morning at dawn they roused neither Richard Garrison nor Garrison/Schroeder from sleep but Garrison/Koenig; and it was this third facet of Garrison's multimind which drove the big Mercedes back onto the M1 heading north. As fortune good or bad had it, de Medici and his “boys” arrived seconds too late, just in time to see the silver car making away into the distance. Then it was a case of turning about and driving back to the M1, and of waiting there until their detector indicated that the Mercedes was heading north once more.

As for Johnnie Fong: he stayed fairly close behind Garrison/Koenig until he was certain of the route, then fell back to a respectful distance and settled down to driving at the motorway's maximum of seventy miles per hour, which was the speed Garrison/Koenig was doing in the Mercedes. A man who held the law in some respect, Garrison/Koenig—when it suited him.

But having followed so close on his quarry's heels from hotel to motorway, Fong had given himself away. Richard Garrison would never have noticed him and neither would Thomas Schroeder, but Willy Koenig had been—still was, even as a facet of Garrison—a different kettle of fish entirely. As his beloved Colonel Schroeder had often used to say of him, Willy had an infinite capacity for thinking bad thoughts before others thought them. Whatever the circumstances, he invariably suspected the worst and prepared for it. And where trouble was concerned he was the most capable of men. Moreover, he was loyal to a fault. These were qualities which had earned him Schroeder's undying trust and friendship; yes, and Richard Garrison's too. Through them he had succeeded to a place in Garrison's Gestalt psyche. And right now they were qualities which made him by far the most worthy Garrison-facet to be at the wheel of the big silver Mercedes.

For upon spotting Fong's Jaguar in his rearview mirror, even though he had never seen him before except perhaps in a mental “echo” of one of Garrison's dreams) it was Garrison/Koenig's nature to dislike and distrust his motives; also to begin to consider what steps might have to be taken to dislodge the Chinaman—perhaps permanently—from his tail. To this end he pulled in at a lay-by and went to the boot of the car. In there, where he had secreted them away some time ago while accendant, were certain weapons. Now he placed these strategically about his person and closed the boot. As he did so the gray Jaguar sped by, its driver staring straight ahead. Perhaps Garrison Koenig was worrying needlessly.

But fifteen minutes later the big Mercedes passed a cluster of lorries in another lay-by, and shortly after that the Chinaman was back once more on Garrison/Koenig's tail; he must have been waiting behind the lorries, waiting for Garrison/Koenig to pass. Very well, it was decided: the Chinaman in the gray Jaguar was a tail, an enemy. Now Garrison/Koenig could put it out of his mind—until later. But he had no doubt that there would be a later.

What neither Garrison/Koenig nor Johnnie Fong had noticed as yet was the powerful black saloon, almost a hearse in its design, sitting well back behind both of them but gradually drawing closer.

They would notice it soon enough…

8:15
A.M.
,
AND
C
HARON
G
UBWA WAS TIRED
. He had earlier taken a couple of uppers (though he was generally against using drugs of any sort personally, except perhaps as an aid to sex) and was now prepared to take more. Today would be crucial and he knew it. There were vibrations in the Psychosphere which were boiling towards a climax. That he himself would be involved he could not doubt, and certainly Garrison would be part of it. Garrison…or Garrison's passing.

For certainly the man must die. If there had ever been any question of that it existed no longer: he must die! And that was a thought which thrilled Gubwa as he had not been thrilled for a long time, and which at one and the same moment frightened him mightily. For he knew now that Garrison was not one but three men, and he further knew that he, Charon Gubwa, would never be safe until Garrison's multimind was utterly erased.

As for Phillip Stone and the Maler woman: they still lived. Gubwa had enough on his hands at the moment and they were neither a physical nor a mental threat. Vicki Maler's mere presence here was something of a threat, of course; but the mind-guards were in place, two to a cell, and the Castle had never been more mentally inaccessible from outside interference. Between Gubwa's mind and the outside world lay a great mental moat, a vacuum in the Psychosphere impenetrable to any but the most powerful mind. Not a two-edged sword by any means, for knowing the nature of his mind-guards Gubwa could direct his own probes outwards as easily as if the guards did not exist at all.

But let Garrison discover Gubwa—let him find a thread to lead him here, the smallest suspicious echo in the Psychosphere—and the huge albino had little doubt but that he could send his mind crashing in on the Castle, and that then all would be lost. This made him reluctant even to contact Johnnie Fong, and fearful of Fong's contacting him, as he sat alone in his Command Center and considered his course of action.

Gubwa knew now about Psychomech, almost all there was to know. That it had been a machine dreamed up by Hitler or his scientific aides to create fearless supermen; built in England thirty-odd years later by the Nazi lunatic Otto Krippner, and used by Richard Garrison to rid his mind of elemental fears and boost his ESP-talents to an incredible degree. An experiment which had almost ruptured the Psychosphere itself! Gubwa knew too, all about Schroeder and Koenig; how the sheer ego of the former had bent causality forces in the Psychosphere; how the defensive and destructive abilities of the latter had guided and protected Garrison through to that time when all three minds could meld into one.

But the machine, Psychomech! That wonderful machine!

So Garrison had destroyed the thing. Well, of course he had—so that no man might follow him into the awesome flux of the Psychosphere. He had been jealous of his power. For in those early days he had been to the ESP ether what a black hole is to space and time: a complete disruption of psychic law and order, an insatiable feeder, a dark star of infinite gravity.

And what then? What had brought about the reversal, the decline, the power-failure? Gubwa had considered this and had come to the same conclusion as Garrison himself. A man is after all only a man. He has his span in which to do those things fate decrees. Even a superman's powers are finite, if only because as long as there is time he can never have enough of it to do all he is capable of doing. One cannot outlast time itself. Not even an immortal can do that.

And what if three men—three “facets,” three brightly burning wicks—are feeding on the same fat? How much more rapid the waning of the candle then? Garrison, yes, and Schroeder and Koenig, too, were simply burning themselves out! Garrison's mistake had been in the destruction of Psychomech, by which he might have revitalized himself. But Charon Gubwa would not make that mistake.

If he—
when
he—had Psychomech, he would make of the machine a god! It would stand in his innermost temple, and Gubwa would be High Priest. Yes, and when he hungered his god would feed him, and the Psychosphere would be his to command, and all would be possible, and he would live in power and glory forever! And—

—It seemed incredible, beyond belief, that this future Gubwa envisioned—this dream of infinite, eternal power—should lie in the hands and minds of one small perfectly normal-in-every-way human being. But it did. Not in Garrison, nor in Schroeder or Koenig or Vicki Maler. In a man whose name was Jimmy Craig—James Christopher Craig—the micro-electronic engineer whose skills had prepared Psychomech for Garrison's use. At present J. C. Craig was on the board of one of Garrison's companies, but soon he would work for Gubwa. And he would not have power of refusal. Under the twin pressures—irresistible pressures—of Gubwa's hypno-telepathic and narcotic controls, Craig would soon become little more than a puppet dancing to the albino's tune.

Oh, it would
seem
quite impossible that any man, even the world's greatest electronic genius (and it was doubtful that Craig was that) could remember all of the titan bulk of technical information required for Psychomech's reconstruction. It would
seem
so…but falsely. Under the spell of Charon Gubwa's hypnosis he would remember everything. Would recall the most minute details, and soon Psychomech II would be a reality.

But this time—ah,
this
time!—it would not be any mere man whose mind the machine expanded. It would be a man whose powers were already developed to an extraordinary degree. Charon Gubwa would lay his obese and unnatural body down upon Psychomech's couch, but it would be God himself who stood up!

And this thought also frightened Gubwa (not of being God, for he already considered himself a god of sorts), the thought that his dream, so very close to becoming reality, could be obliterated at a stroke. What if J. C Craig should die?
At a stroke
, an end to Gubwa's dream. What if he were already dead?

Well, he was not, for Gubwa had checked up on him as soon as he had his name. No, Craig was alive and well. He worked for Garrison, as a director of MME, Miller Micro-Electronics, to which position Garrison had elevated him following Psychomech's success. Moreover Gubwa had already issued those orders necessary to bring Craig directly under his control. Within the space of a day, two at most, the man would be on his way here, kidnapped and drugged, to wake up in the Castle and commence work at once upon Psychomech II. And the soldiers Gubwa had assigned to this task were of his best and knew only too well the price of failure.

Nor were these the only arrangements Gubwa had made. He had twice “visited” Craig and on both occasions, brief though the visits had been, had inserted certain post-hypnotic seeds in the man's mind. And he had found Craig's mind very open to subversion; a talented mind, yes, but one lacking in personal conviction, which could be directed or re-directed by the very smallest of pressures. As to what Gubwa had actually done—what “seeds” he had planted, which would now blossom—that was simple:

He had generated within Craig the need to question Garrison's authority in the matter of Psychomech. Just what
was
this machine which had made Garrison so powerful? Why should Garrison alone benefit from Psychomech, when Craig himself had been so essential in the matter of the machine's reconstruction? Indeed, why should there not be an improved model, over which God-Almighty-Garrison would have no say or sway whatsoever? These were the questions Craig would now begin to ask himself—or which he would believe
he
was asking—and so, slowly but surely, his conversion to Gubwa's cause already had commenced.

But of course Craig was only one problem; there were others of far greater importance. Garrison, for example. What of him? How might his death be engineered without a direct connecting link to Charon Gubwa?

As if the thought itself had causality, Gubwa's telephone purred; and on the other end of the line Johnnie Fong was waiting with what might be the answer to his albino master's problem. “Charon, Garrison is in danger from others!”

“Who? How many?”

“They have the looks of killers—Mafia, I think. Three of them, in a black saloon.”

“Have they seen you?” Gubwa's pink eyes opened wide as his heart picked up speed.

“No, Charon. They are only interested in Garrison.”

Gubwa sighed, relaxed a little, said, “Stay well out of it, Johnnie. Follow, watch, but do not interfere. Where are you now?”

“Still heading north, about an hour from Newcastle. Garrison has stopped to eat. I can see him from here, through the glass of the kiosk. He eats in the open air, at a wooden table in the sunshine. There are many people around him. He seems very tired, hungry. He did not breakfast in Leicester. And Charon—”

“Yes?”

“He has changed again. This
is
Garrison, but it is not the same Garrison. This one knows no fear. There is an arrogance about him, the strength and sureness of a great cat. Even weary, he looks dangerous. I am a master of the martial arts, as you well know, Charon, but even I would be wary with this Garrison now.”

“And rightly so,” said Gubwa. “Oh, this is Garrison, Johnnie, but it is also a man called Willy Koenig. When all is done I will explain—perhaps. But for now you may wish those Cosa Nostra dogs the very best of luck. They pursue a stag whose antlers are steeped in purest poison! Where are the Mafia now?”

“They stand near the exit from this place, which is a petrol station and restaurant. They are in shirtsleeves, leaning on their car. They drink beer.”

“Does Garrison know they are onto him?”

“He appears preoccupied. He does not seem aware of anything.”

“And yet he makes you wary?”

“Yes…yes, you are right, Charon. There is a tension about him. He is tired, but he cannot relax. He even eats quickly. He desires to be on his way.”

But to what?
Gubwa asked himself.
Where does Garrison think he is going? What is he doing?
“Follow,” he repeated. “Where they go, you go. I will not contact you. Contact me when you can.” He put down the telephone…

P
HILLIP
S
TONE HAD NOT BEEN PRESENT AT
V
ICKI
M
ALER'S TELEPATHIC
and hypnotic interrogation. When he had awakened, without a headache on this occasion, he had found himself alone in a room with two single beds, a chair—and a locked steel door. The place was much like a padded cell, with solid walls (metal, he guessed) beneath the padding. The door had a small barred window for observation. He had banged on those bars until they brought him his breakfast; and shortly after that, while he was still eating, the door had been opened again and Vicki Maler thrust inside with him. Food had been left for her, too.