Terrors (49 page)

I approached the gray rectangle by that peculiar sort of disembodied flight that I had used since leaving my body in my cousin’s house in Old Severnford, and hovered effortlessly above the gray plane. From my first vantage point at the window of the turret room, the plane had looked large, but was still contained within the single, large room. If I had been forced to make an estimate
of its dimensions, I would have described it as three to four yards in width, and as much as forty yards in length.

But as I hovered above it, I realized that it was incredibly larger than I had first estimated. That, or perhaps it was merely my change of perspective that gave it the appearance of great size.

Have you ever played with one of those optical illusions, in which you are asked to
look at two curved rectangles, or sections of arc cut from the perimeter of a circle or torus? One may appear far larger than the other, yet the instructions that come with such games always urge you to measure the rectangles and see that they are exactly the same size.

Maybe something like that is what happened to me. I cannot testify with any degree of certainty.

But I can tell you that, as
I hovered above the gray plane (perhaps I should refer to it, now, as a gray
plain
) it was gigantic. It was miles in width and hundreds of miles in length—or perhaps it was thousands or even millions of miles in each dimension. I felt myself being drawn down toward it, and feared that if I approached too close to it I would be caught in its gravity—or in the tackiness of its surface—and be unable
to escape.

With a huge effort I managed to halt my descent, but already I was so close to the plain that I had lost sight of its termini. Grayness stretched to infinity in all directions. I could turn, and above me I saw only star-studded blackness. Was the turret room open to the Severn sky, I wondered.

Beneath me I thought I saw stirrings in the gray. At this range it was not a smooth and
stationary surface, but seemed textured, as if it were of wet concrete, and tiny specks that at first seemed to be merely part of this texture, could be seen to move. They reminded me of insects caught in the sweet, tacky covering of a roll of old-fashioned fly-paper.

I descended farther, and realized that the moving specks were alive, and in some inexplicable way I realized just what they were:
they were the souls of human beings, trapped in the hold of the gray plain, struggling futilely for their release.

How could such a thing be, I wondered. Whose souls were these? Were they the immortal parts of residents of the Severn Valley, the souls perhaps of local residents who had died, and been trapped here in this bizarre limbo, neither attaining heaven nor being consigned to hell? Had
they been summoned by the shapes tending the titanic machines? And if such was the case, what mad motive had moved these weird scientists to set such a trap?

A sudden fear overcame me, lest I be drawn down into the gray plain and be trapped with the other souls, and I beat my ethereal wings
with all my strength, struggling to rise above that horrid gray surface. For a time the struggle seemed
hopeless, but I persevered to the limits of my strength and beyond, forcing myself as great athletes are said to do, to find and call upon unknown reservoirs of determination. And at last my efforts were rewarded, for I found myself rising with painful slowness above the gray plain.

In time the laboratory, if that is what it was, reappeared around me. The gray plain was reduced to a rectangular
area in the great room. The shadowy figures continued to tend their titanic machines, either unknowing or uncaring of my presence.

I struggled to the window and darted back toward my cousin’s house. Despite the great distance, I could see myself, that is my body, seated before the window in my bedroom. My eyes were hooded, my chin rested on my chest as if I had fallen asleep.

The turret fell
behind me. I passed over the fissure in the Severn Hills, down their lower slopes and the darkling meadows that separated them from Old Severnford. I passed over the modernistic buildings of the Klaus Fuchs Memorial Institute, flashed over the topiary garden that surrounded by cousin’s house, and entered my bedroom.

I was able to circle the room once, gazing down with a peculiar detachment at
the body that had been my residence for so many years, then slipped back into it. I rose, yawned, and climbed into my bed.

In the morning I tried to discuss the matter with my cousin as we motored to the Institute, but I found myself able to speak only in vague and indefinite terms about that which had been so concrete and specific when I experienced it during the night. Once within the confines
of the Institute, even more strangely, I found that my memory of the experience deserted me altogether. I knew only that I had seen and done
something
odd during the night. Twice I fell asleep over my work, which conduct would certainly not help the standing of Myshkin Associates with this, its most valued account.

Progress on the problems with the Zeta/Zed System were small or nil. I found myself
wondering if the cause of the system’s failures were not external to the system itself. The old computer slogan, GIGO—Garbage In, Garbage Out—suggested itself to me. But one does well to tread carefully before suggesting such an explanation to the customer. It can be offensive, and can alienate an important executive even if it is true.

I spoke with Alexander Myshkin by telephone. He was disheartened
by my lack of progress on the Zeta/Zed System problem, but urged me to pursue my theory of external sources for the failure of the system. “You’re a diplomat, Park, my boy. You can handle these Brits. Be honest with ’em, be tactful but be firm.”

Following another frustrating day, Karolina Parker and I returned to her house. Once away from the Institute, I was able to recall something of my strange
experience. Karolina suggested that we repair to a local restaurant for dinner rather than return directly home. Astonished to learn that an establishment existed in Old Severnford which Karolina considered worth visiting, I agreed with alacrity.

The restaurant was located in a converted country manor—in another context I would even have termed the venue a chateau. Waiters in formal garb attended
our every whim. The preprandial cocktails which we shared were delicious. Our table was covered with snowy linen; the silver shone, the crystal sparkled, the china was translucently thin and delicate.

The meal itself was superb. A seafood bisque, a crisp salad dressed with a tangy sauce, tiny, tender chops done to perfection and served with delicious mint jelly, baby potatoes and tiny fresh peas.
For dessert a tray of napoleons and petit-fours was passed, and we ended our repast with espresso and brandy.

Our surroundings had been as splendid as our meal. We dined in a hall with vaulting ceilings, ancient stone walls and a flagged floor. A fire blazed in a huge walk-in fireplace, and suits of armor, ancient weapons and battle flags set the establishment’s motif.

A single disquieting note
was sounded when, in the course of my tabletalk with Karolina, I happened to mention the turret. Karolina gestured to me to drop the subject, but I realized that I had already been overheard. The table nearest ours was occupied by a dignified gentleman in dinner clothes, with snowy hair and a white mustache. His companion, a lady of similar years, was decked out in an elaborate gown and rich-appearing
pearls.

The gentleman summoned the waiter, who hustled away and returned with the
maitre d’hotel
in tow. After a hurried conference with the elderly gentleman, the
maitre d’
approached our table and, bending so that his lips were close to my companion’s ear, hastened to deliver a verbal message to her.

Karolina blanched, replied, then nodded reluctantly as the
maitre d’
took his leave.

I had
not fully understood a word of their brief conversation, but I could have sworn that the language in which it was conducted was that strange tongue I had heard in the streets of Severnford, and read from the faulty computer printout at the Fuchs Institute.

In any case, Karolina immediately settled our bill—she would not permit me to spend any money—and hustled us to her automobile. She spoke
not a word
en route
to her house, but spun the car rapidly up the driveway, jumped from her position at the wheel and hastened inside the house, casting a frightened look over her shoulder at the topiary garden.

Once in the main room of her house, Karolina did an extraordinary thing. She stood close to me and reached one hand to my cheek. She moved her hand as if to caress me, but as she did
so I felt a peculiar pricking at my birthmark. Karolina peered into my face while a frown passed over her own, then she stood on her toes to reach my cheek (for I am a tall man and she a woman of average stature) and pressed her lips briefly to the birthmark.

I placed my hands on her shoulders and watched as she drew back from me. She ran her tongue over her lips, and I noticed a tiny drop of
brilliant scarlet which disappeared as her tongue ran over it.

What could this mean, I wondered. But I had no time to inquire, for Karolina made a brusque and perfunctory excuse and started up the stairs, headed for her room, with a succinct suggestion that I proceed to my own.

Once attired for repose, I found myself drawn to the comfortable chair which stood before the open window of my chamber.
My eyes adjusted rapidly to the dim illumination of the night sky, and almost at once I found my consciousness focused on the illusion (if it was an illusion) of a face, gazing back at me from its place high in the Severn Hills.

Almost effortlessly I felt my soul take leave of my body. For the second time I flew across the topiary garden, across the village of Old Severnford, across the modernistic
buildings of the Fuchs Institute. The brush-choked earthquake fissure in the Severn foothills passed beneath me and the tower loomed directly ahead.

Strangely enough, it seemed to have changed. Not greatly, of course, and in the pallid light that fell from the English sky it would have been difficult to make out architectural features in any great detail. But the tower looked both
older
and
newer
at the same time.

Hovering motionlessly in my weird ethereal flight, I studied the tower and in particular the turret which surmounted it, and I realized that the architectural
style
had been altered from that of modern, Twentieth Century England, to the form and designs of an earlier age. As I entered the turret through its great illuminated window, I briefly noted the cyclopean machines
and their scurrying attendants, but sped quickly to the gray rectangular plain I had observed the previous night.

I sank toward its surface, bringing myself to a halt just high enough above the plain to make out the struggling souls there imprisoned. They had increased in number from the night before. Further, I was able to distinguish their appearance.

Again, you may wonder at my description.
If a human soul is the immortal and disembodied portion of a sentient being, it would hardly be distinguished by such minutiae as clothing, whiskers, or jewelry. But in some way each soul manifested the
essence
of its owner, whether he or she be soldier or peasant, monarch or cleric, houri or drab.

And the souls which I had seen on my first visit were the souls of modern men and women, while
those I beheld on this, my second visit to the turret, were clearly the souls of people of an earlier age. The men wore side-whiskers and weskits; the women, long dresses and high hair styles and broad hats. No, they did not wear hair or clothing—it was their essences, as of the England of a century ago, that
suggested
as much.

How they had come to the turret and how they had become entrapped
on the great gray plain I could not fathom, but their agony and their despair were manifest. They seemed to reach out psychic arms beseeching me to aid them, but I was unable to do so; I was totally ignorant of any way to alter their condition.

My heart was rent by pity. I flew to the attendants of the cyclopean machines, intending to plead with them to help these poor trapped creatures, but
I was unable to communicate with them in any way. I studied them, hoping to discern some way of reaching them, but without success.

At last, in a state of despair, I began to move toward the great open window. I turned for one last look back, and had the peculiar sense that the attendants of the machines were themselves not human. Instead, they resembled the vague, yellowish creatures I had seen
swimming beneath the surface of the Severn River.

A shudder passed through my very soul, and I sped frantically back
to Old Severnford, back to Karolina Parker’s house, back to my body. I re-entered my body, dragged myself wearily to my bed, and collapsed into sleep.

Again in the morning my recollections of the strange experience were vague and uncertain. By the time I reached my cubicle at
the Institute I was unable either to summon up an image of the night’s activities, or to speak of them to anyone. I did, at one point, catch a glimpse of myself, reflected in the monitor screen of the computer work-station beside my desk. I must have nicked myself shaving, I thought, as a drop of blood had dried just on the blue birthmark on my jaw-line. I wiped it away with a moistened cloth, and
was surprised at the fierceness of the sting that I felt.

Struggling to resolve the problems of the Zeta/Zed System, I had arranged an appointment with the chief engineer of the Fuchs Institute, a burly individual named Nelson MacIvar. When our meeting commenced, I surprised MacIvar by inquiring first as to why the Institute had been situated in so out-of-the-way a place as Old Severnford, and
on the outskirts of the town at that.

MacIvar was blessed with a thick head of bushy red hair, a tangled beard of the same color, save that it was going to gray, and a complexion to match. He tilted his head and, as my employer Alexander Myshkin was sometimes wont to do, answered my question with one of his own.