Terrors (41 page)

Frame 2: (Shot inside room) A rocking chair. In the chair is sitting a man identified as Marc
Feinman. Feinman’s sporting cap is pulled down covering his forehead. His eyes are barely visible and seem to have a glazed appearance, but this may be due to the unusual lighting conditions. A mark on his forehead seems to be visible at the edge of the cap, but is insufficiently distinct for verification.

Frame 3: (Shot inside room) Large wooden table holding unusual mechanical apparatus. There
are numerous electrical devices, power units, what appears to be a cooling unit, photoelectric cells, items which appear to be microphones, and two medium-sized metallic cylinders estimated to contain sufficient space for a human brain, along with compact life-support paraphernalia.

Frame 4: (Shot inside room) This was obviously Noyes’s final frame, taken as he headed toward the darkened rear
area of the cabin. The
rough wooden flooring before the camera is clearly visible. From it there seems to rise a curtain or wall of sheer blackness. This is not a black
substance
of any sort, but a curtain or mass of sheer negation. All attempts at analysis by Agency photoanalysts have failed completely.

Elizabeth Akeley and Marc Feinman were located at—of all places—Niagara Falls, New York.
They had booked a honeymoon cottage and were actually located by representatives of the Agency returning in traditional yellow slickers from a romantic cruise on the craft
Maid of the Mist
.

Asked to submit voluntarily to Agency interrogation, Feinman refused. Akeley, at Feinman’s prompting, simply shook her head negatively. “But I’ll tell you what,” Feinman said in a marked New England twang,
“I’ll make out a written statement for you if you’ll settle for that.”

Representatives of the Agency considered this offer unsatisfactory, but having no grounds for holding Feinman or Akeley and being particularly sensitive to criticism of the Agency for alleged intrusion upon the religious freedoms of unorthodox cults, the representatives of the Agency were constrained to accept Feinman’s offer.

The deposition provided by Feinman—and co-sworn by Akeley—represented a vague and rambling narrative of no value. Its concluding paragraph follows.

All we want is to be left alone. We love each other. We’re here now and we’re happy here. What came before is over. That’s somebody else’s concern now. Let them go. Let them see. Let them learn. Vega, Aldebaran, Ophiuchi, the Crab Nebula. Let them
see. Let them learn. Someday we may wish to go back. We will have a way to summon those Ones. When we summon those Ones they will respond.

A final effort by representatives of the Agency was made, in an additional visit to the abandoned shack by the sycamore copse off the Passumpsic-Lyndonville road. A squad of agents wearing regulation black outfits were guided by Vernon Whiteside. An additional
agent remained at the Noyes home to assure noninterference by Ezra Noyes.

Whiteside guided his fellow agents to the sycamore copse. Several agents remarked at the warmth and debilitating feeling they experienced
as they passed through the copse. In addition, an abnormal number of small cadavers—of squirrels, chipmunks, one gray fox, a skunk, and several whippoorwills—were noted, lying beneath
the trees.

The shack contained an aged wooden rocking chair, a battered overstuffed couch, and a large wooden table. Whatever might have previously stood upon the table had been removed.

There was no evidence of the so-called wall or curtain of darkness. The rear of the shack was vacant.

In the months since the incidents above reported, two additional developments have taken place, note of
which is appropriate herein.

First, Marc Feinman and Elizabeth Akeley returned to San Diego in Feinman’s Ferrari Boxer. There, they took up residence at the Pleasant Street location. Feinman vacated the Upas Street apartment; he returned to his work with the computer firm. Inquiries placed with his employers indicate that he appeared, upon returning, to be absent-minded and disoriented, and unexpectedly
to require briefings in computer technology and programming concepts with which he had previously been thoroughly familiar.

Feinman explained this curious lapse by stating that he had experienced a head injury while vacationing in Vermont, and still suffered from occasional lapses of memory. He showed a vivid but rapidly fading scar on his forehead as evidence of the injury. His work performance
quickly returned to its previous high standard. “Marc’s as smart as the brightest prof you ever studied under,” his supervisor stated to the Agency. “But that Vermont trip made some impression on him! He picked up this funny New England twang in his speech, and it just won’t go away.”

Elizabeth Akeley went into seclusion. Feinman announced that they had been married, and that Elizabeth was, at
least temporarily, abandoning her position as Radiant Mother of the Spiritual Light Church, although remaining a faithful member of the Church. In Feinman’s company she regularly attends Sunday worship services, but seldom speaks.

The second item of note is of questionable relevance and significance, but is included here as a matter of completing the appropriate documentation. Vermont Forestry
Service officers have reported that a new variety of sycamore tree has appeared in the Windham County-Caledonia
County section of the state. The new sycamores are lush and extremely hardy. They seem to generate a peculiarly
warm
atmosphere, and are not congenial to small forest animals. Forestry officers who have investigated report a strange sense of lassitude when standing beneath these trees,
and one officer has apparently been lost while exploring a stand of the trees near the town of Passumpsic.

Forestry Service agents are maintaining a constant watch on the spread of the new variety of sycamores.

One of the most glamorous towns in
Starrett
is called—now don’t be surprised—Hollywood. You’ll remember that there was the first Hollywoodland, later shortened to Hollywood, back on earth. Later came the famous Hollywood-on-the-Moon, where they were able to get such fabulous scenic and lighting effect and where the light gravity made it easy to use heavy equipment.

In time the builders and managers of
Starrett
, that giant tin-can world that plies its wares in the interstellar deeps, deemed it wise to carry on the tradition. Hence,
Starrett’s
own Hollywood-between-the-Stars.

You’ve probably heard about
Starrett
, but just in case you haven’t here’s how that artificial world survives. It’s so big there’s a complete eco-system (and a complete economy!) inside
Starrett’s
massive shell. Thus, as
Starrett
travels from star to star and visits planet after planet, it functions something like a high-tech gypsy camp.

The space-folk who live in
Starrett
buy at this world and sell at that. They sometimes carry passengers between remote solar systems. They provide varied forms of entertainment for the mud-hoppers (a.k.a. rubes) who shuttle up from planetside
for a special treat.

And they produce some of the biggest money-making shows in the known galaxy.

Even if you’re thoroughly familiar with
Starrett
, it’s less than likely
that you’ve ever heard of
Dinganzicht
, another artificial space-habitat that didn’t travel as widely as
Starrett
. Not by a long-shot. In fact,
Dinganzicht
hardly traveled at all, except in the somewhat diffuse astronomical sense.
That is,
Dinganzicht
was associated with the trinary star system Fornax 1382. As Fornax 1382 moved relative to other nearby objects (and, in the ultimate view, as the universe continued to expand)
Dinganzicht
moved along with it. But that doesn’t mean much on the local scale.

Fornax 1382 consisted of 1382 Alpha, a giant red star; 1382 Beta, a green dwarf; and 1382 Gamma, a medium-size, yellowish
main-sequence star not very unlike Sol. These three stars were sometimes known as the cosmic traffic light, or as the sherbet triplets Cherry, Lime, and Lemon.

Dinganzicht
was a large construct. It had been positioned to remain stationary in the gravitational nexus of Cherry, Lime, and Lemon. As the three stellar members of Fornax 1382 wove their complex orbital net around
Dinganzicht, Dinganzichters
could peer out through the viewports of their hollow metallic world and see an endlessly changing light-show. Cherry would rise and Lemon set, or Lemon would rise as Lime set, and so on. The combination of colored sunlights might produce a bright orange effect one day, a lurid chartreuse another, a truly glorious magenta another.

Dinganzicht
was probably the worst place in the universe to live
if you were color-blind. Not because you would suffer any particular harm from living there. Just because you’d miss so damned much natural spectacle.

Considering the number of inhabited worlds in the galaxy—and that number was increasing all the time, by the way—there was a limitless market for the wares peddled by
Starrett
and a number of similar interstellar gypsy camps. The space-folk might
have just kept producing copies of existing productions and selling ’em to new customers, but that would have reduced their art to mere commerce. They insisted on continuing to turn out new productions all the time.

The three biggest studios in Hollywood-between-the-Stars were 30th Century-Bioid, Universal-Interdimensional, and Asahi-Kirin-Toyo. Running a distant fourth was an outfit modestly
known as Colossal Galactic Productions, or Colicprods for short. Colicprods was
headed by one Tarquin Armbruster IV,
neé
Isidore Stickplaster, a nervous, balding, cigar-chomping man of middle years, much given to stodgy, old-fashioned dress. For instance, when the current arbiters of Hollywood-between-the-Stars fashion dictated wing-collared shirts and striped cravats, dark jackets, bowlers and
brollies—Tarquin Armbruster could be seen in fluorescent tights and turquoise helmet, a style that had disappeared from the studios and watering-holes of Hollywood hours and hours ago.

It didn’t help Tarquin’s jumpiness any that Colicprods was in bad financial trouble at the moment. The chief-of-production for the studio was a statuesque individual who had been born Pamela Rose Tremayne but who
insisted on being known professionally as Golda Abromowitz. Golda differed from most Starretteers, who were almost unanimously of earth-human ancestry. Golda too was human, but was of Formalhautian origin. She had immigrated to
Starrett
when it was visiting her home world of Formalhaut VI. But you could hardly tell her from a native Starretteer, except that she was seven feet tall and had brilliant
metallic-green skin.

In an era of specialization,
Dinganzicht
was one of the most successful of specialized worlds. There were planets devoted largely or exclusively to agriculture. There were others that concentrated on heavy industry, fine manufacturing, artistic creation, or prayer. (Of the latter, Reverend Jimmy Joe Jeeter—yes, that was the name of the planet, yes, Reverend Jimmy Joe Jeeter—was
the best known example.)

Dinganzicht
specialized in science and technology.

The whole world, with only minimal support systems to provide such necessities as food, was a complex of laboratories, research facilities, and testing grounds. There were a great many independent organizations in
Dinganzicht
, and each of them managed to earn its way by developing useful devices that the
Dinganzichters
could sell to the rest of the galaxy.

There was, for instance, the Edison/Tsiolkovsky Corporation, whose most successful product was the famous rollaway cat impellor. There was the Vieux Carré Cast-Iron Products Company A.g., from whose laboratory had emerged the hypospace drive that permitted
Starrett
and worlds like it to move from star to star in such short periods of time. There was Z. Z.
Zachary and Associates, who had developed the
matter duplicator, that invention that had caused such happiness and plenty—and such bizarre headaches!—for users throughout the galaxy.

And there was Macrotech Associates.

Oy
, was there ever Macrotech Associates!

Macrotech Associates had some of the best minds in
Dinganzicht
—or any other world, for that matter!—at its disposal. Well, and it might
have been simpler in the long run if it hadn’t!

Right at this moment there was a terrible argument going on in Tarquin Armbruster’s office, a modest little room patterned on the onetime private audience chamber of Tarquin’s favorite historical figure, the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary. Tarquin was hosting the meeting himself, lighting a series of fat black cigars imported from La Habana
Otra Vez, pouring little glasses of Puerto Rican rum for himself and his guests, and sweating up a storm despite the carefully controlled temperature and humidity.

Also present were Gort Swiggert, a representative of the studio comptroller’s office, wearing his harlequin outfit of red and black; Golda Abromowitz, swathed as usual in a thick, bushy coverall of synthetic polar bear fur; and Martin
van Buren MacTavish. MacTavish was a screenwriter, just about the best in the industry. He wore a highland kilt, tam o’shanter and sporran. Perched on one hairy knee was his portable word-processor. It was slightly smaller than an immy, and if you don’t know what an immy is you’ve never really played marbles.

Every time Gort Swiggert gave Tarquin Armbruster a bit of financial news the red parallelograms
on his outfit glowed. Armbruster sweated, lit or re-lit a cigar, and gulped rum. The financial picture was lousy.

Golda Abromowitz peered out of her furs and said, “I
know
this picture will be a box office boff. It’ll save Colossal Galactic. But it has to be done right. There’s no other way. We can’t survive putting on shows for the Saturday night blast-in circuit. This has to be top quality.”

Tarquin Armbruster wiped away a freshet of perspiration. “But a horror movie, Golda? A big-budget, risk-it-all-on-one-throw horror movie?”