The demolished man (27 page)

"Sorry, Mary. Got to use you."

"I'm getting ready to say goodbye... Maybe for good... Do I have to endure this?

Isn't it bad enough for me already?"

"Shhhhh. Gently, dear..."

Barbara stared at Mary, then at Powell. She shook her head slowly. "You're

lying."

"Am I? Look at me." He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face.

Dishonest Abe came to his assistance. His expression was kind, tolerant, amused,

patronizing. "Look at me, Barbara."

"No!" she cried. "Your face is lying. It's... It's hateful! I---" She burst into

tears and sobbed: "Oh go away. Why don't you go away?"

"We're going away, Barbara." Mary said. She came forward, took the girl's arm

and led her to the door.

"There's a Jumper waiting, Mary."

"There's me waiting, Linc. For you. Always. And the Chervils & @kins & Jordans

&&&&&&&---"

"I know. I know. I love you all. Kisses. XXXXXX. Blessings..."

Image of four-leaf clover, rabbits' feet, horseshoes...

Bawdy response of Powell emerging from slok covered with diamonds.

Faint laughter.

Farewell.

He stood in the doorway whistling a crooked, plaintive tune, watching the Jumper

disappear into the steel-blue sky boring north toward Kingston Hospital. He was

exhausted. A little proud of himself for having made the sacrifice. Intensely

ashamed of himself for feeling proud. Clearly melancholic. Should he take a

grain of Potassium Niacate and kick himself up into the manic curve? What the

hell was the use? Look at that great foul city of seventeen and one half million

souls and not one soul for him. Look at---

The first impulse came. A thin trickle of latent energy. He felt it distinctly

and glanced at his watch. Ten-twenty. So soon? So quickly? Good. He'd better get

ready.

He turned into the house and darted up the stairs to his dressing room. The

impulses came pattering... like the preliminary raindrops before a storm. His

psyche began to throb and vibrate as he reached out and absorbed those tiny

streams of latent energy. He changed his clothes, dressed for all weather,

and---

And what? The pattering had become a drizzle, washing over him, filling his

consciousness with ague... with grinding emotional flashes... with---Yes,

nutrient capsules. Hold on to that. Nutrient. Nutrient. Nutrient! He tumbled

down the stairs into the kitchen. Found the plastic bulb, cracked it and

swallowed a dozen capsules.

The energy came in torrents now. From each Esper in the city, a trickle of

latent power that merged and merged into a stream, a river, a swirling sea of

Mass Cathexis directed toward Powell, tuned to Powell. He opened all blocks and

absorbed it all. His nervous system superheterodyned and screamed and a turbine

in his mind whirled faster and faster with a mounting intolerable whine.

He was out of the house, wandering through the streets, blind, deaf, senseless,

immersed in that boiling mass of latent energy... like a ship with sails caught

in the nexus of a typhoon, fighting to convert a whirlpool of wind into the

motive power that would lead to safety... S. Powell fought to absorb that

fearful torrent, to Capitalize that latent energy, to Cathectize and direct it

toward the Demolition of Reich before it was too late, too late, too late, too

late, too late...

16

ABOLISH THE LABYRINTH.

DESTROY THE MAZE.

DELETE THE PUZZLE.

(x o Y³d! Space/d! Time)

DISBAND.

(OPERATIONS, EXPRESSIONS, FACTORS, FRACTIONS, POWERS, EXPONENTS, RADICALS,

IDENTITIES, EQUATIONS, PROGRESSIONS, VARIATIONS, PERMUTATIONS, DETERMINANTS, AND

SOLUTIONS)

EFFACE.

(ELECTRON, PROTON, NEUTRON, MESON AND PHOTON)

ERASE.

(CAYLEY, HENSON, LILLIENTHAL, CHANUTE, LANGLEY, WRIGHT, TURNBUL AND S&ERSON)

EXPUNGE.

(NEBULAE, CLUSTERS, STREAMS, BINARIES, GIANTS, MAIN SEQUENCE, AND WHITE DWARFS)

DISPERSE.

(PISCES, AMPHIBIAN, BIRDS, MAMMALS, AND MAN)

ABOLISH.

DESTROY,

DELETE.

DISBAND.

ERASE ALL EQUATIONS.

INFINITY EQUALS ZERO.

THERE IS NO---

"---there is no what?" Reich shouted. "There is no what?" He struggled upward,

fighting the bedclothes and the restraining hands. "There is no what?"

"No more nightmares," Duffy Wyg& said.

"Who's that?"

"Me. Duffy."

Reich opened his eyes. He was in a frilly bedroom in a frilly bed with

old-fashioned linen and blankets. Duffy Wyg&, starched and fresh, had her hands

against his shoulders. Once again she tried to thrust him back against the

pillows.

"I'm asleep," Reich said. "I want to wake up."

"You say the nicest things. Lie down and the dream will continue."

Reich fell back. "I was awake," he said somberly. "I was wide awake for the

first time in my life. I heard... I don't know what I heard. Infinity and zero.

Important things. Reality. Then I fell asleep and I'm here."

"Correction," Duffy smiled. "Just for the record. You awoke."

"I'm asleep!" Reich shouted. He sat up. "Have you got a shot? Anything... opium,

hemp, somnar, lethettes... I've got to wake up, Duffy. I've got to get back to

reality."

Duffy bent over him and kissed him hard on the mouth. "How about this? Real?"

"You don't understand. It's all been delusions... hallucinations... everything.

I've got to readjust, reorientate, reorganize... Before it's too late, Duffy.

Before it's too late, too late, too late..."

Duffy threw up her hands. "What the hell's happened to medicine!" she exclaimed.

"First that damned doctor scares you into a faint. Then he swears you're patched

up... and now look at you. Psychotic!" She knelt on the bed and shook a finger

against Reich's nose. "One more word out of you and I call Kingston."

"What? Who?"

"Kingston, as in hospital. Where they send people like you."

"No. Who did you say scared me into a faint?"

"A doctor friend."

"In the square in front of police headquarters?"

"X marks the spot."

"Sure?"

"I was with him, looking for you. Your valet told me about the explosion and I

was worried. We got to the rescue just in time."

"Did you see his face?"

"See it? I've kissed it."

"What's it look like?"

"It's a face. Two eyes. Two lips. Two ears. One nose. Three chins. Listen, Ben,

if this is some more of the awaken-asleep-reality-infinity lyrics... it ain't

commercial."

"And you brought me here?"

"Sure. How could I pass up the opportunity? It's the only way I can get you into

my bed."

Reich grinned. He relaxed and said: "Duffy, you may now kiss me."

"Mr. Reich, you have already been kissed. Or was that when you were still

awake?"

"Forget that. Nightmares. Plain nightmares." Reich burst into laughter. "Why the

hell should I worry about having nightmares? I have the rest of the world in my

hands. I'll take the dreams too. Didn't you once ask to be dragged through the

gutter, Duffy?"

"That was a childish whim. I thought I could meet a better class of people."

"You name the gutter and you can have it, Duffy. Gold gutters... Jewelled

gutters. You want a gutter from here to Mars? You'll have it. You want me to

turn the System into a gutter? I'll do it. Christ! I can turn the Galaxy into a

gutter if you want it." He jabbed his chest with his thumb. "Want to look at

God? Here I am. Go ahead and look."

"Dear man. So modest and so hung-over."

"Drunk? Sure, I'm drunk." Reich thrust his legs out of the bed and stood up,

reeling slightly. Duffy came to him at once and he put his arm around her waist

for support. "Why shouldn't I be drunk? I've licked D'Courtney. I've licked

Powell. I'm forty years old. I've got sixty years of owning the whole world

ahead of me. Yes. Duffy... the whole damned world!" He began walking around the

room with Duffy. It was like a stroll through her ebullient erotic mind. A

peeper decorator had reproduced Duffy's psyche perfectly in the decor.

"How'd you like to start a dynasty with me, Duffy?"

"I wouldn't know about starting dynasties."

"You start with Ben Reich. First you marry him. Then---"

"That's enough. When do I start?"

"Then you have children. Boys. Dozens of boys..."

"Girls. And only three."

"And you watch Ben Reich take over D'Courtney and merge it with Monarch. You

watch the enemies go down... like this!" In full stride, Reich kicked the leg of

a busty vanity table. It toppled and crashed a score of crystal bottles to the

floor.

"After Monarch and D'Courtney become Reich, Incorporated, you watch me eat up

the rest... the small ones... the fleas. Case and Umbrel on Venus. Eaten!" Reich

brought his fist down on a torso-shaped side table and smashed it. "United

Transaction on Mars. Mashed and eaten!" He crushed a delicate chair. "The GCI

Combine on Ganymede, Callisto, and Io... Titan Chemical & Atomics... And then

the smaller lice: the backbiters, the haters, the Guild of Peepers, the

moralists, the patriots... Eaten! Eaten! Eaten!" He pounded his palm against a

marble nude until it toppled from its pedestal and shattered.

"Clever-up, dog," Duffy hung on his neck. "Why waste all that dear violence?

Punch me around a little."

He lifted her in his arms and shook her until she squealed. "And parts of the

world will taste sweet... like you, Duffy; and parts will stink to high heaven

... but I'll gobble them all." He laughed and crushed her against him. "I don't

know much about the God business, but I know what I like. We'll tear it all

down, Duffy, and we'll build it all up to suit us... You and me and the

dynasty."

He carried her to the window, tore away the drapes and kicked open the sashes

with a mighty jangle of smashed glass. Outside, the city was in velvet darkness.

Only the skyways and streets twinkled with lights, and the scarlet eyes of an

occasional Jumper popped up over the jet skyline. The rain had stopped and a

slender moon hung pale in the sky. The night wind came whispering in, cutting

through the cloy of the spilled perfume.

"You out there!" Reich roared. "Can you hear me! All of you... sleeping and

dreaming. You'll dream my dreams from now on! You'll---"

Abruptly he was silent. He relaxed his hold on Duffy and permitted her to slide

to the floor alongside him. He seized the sides of the window and poked his head

far out into the night, twisting his neck to stare up. When he drew his head

back into the room, his face wore a bewildered expression.

"The stars," he mumbled. "Where are the stars?"

"Where are the what?" Duffy wanted to know.

"The stars," Reich repeated. He gestured timidly toward the sky. "The stars.

They're gone."

Duffy looked at him curiously. "The what are gone?"

"The stars!" Reich cried. "Look up at the sky. The stars are gone. The

constellations are gone! The Great Bear... The Little Bear... Cassiopeia...

Draco... Pegasus... They're all gone! There's nothing but the moon! Look!"

"It's the way it always is," Duffy said.

"It is not! Where are the stars?"

"What stars?"

"I don't know their names... Polaris and... Vega... and... How the hell should I

know their names? I'm not an astronomer. What's happened to us? What's happened

to the stars?"

"What are stars?" Duffy asked.

Reich seized her savagely. "Suns... Boiling and blazing with light. Thousands of

them. Billions of them... shining through the night. What the hell's the matter

with you? Don't you understand? There's been a catastrophe in space, the stars

are gone!"

Duffy shook her head. Her face was terrified. "I don't know what you're talking

about, Ben. I don't know what you're talking about."

He shoved her away, turned and ran to the bathroom, and locked himself in. While

he was hurriedly bathing and dressing, Duffy pounded on the door and pleaded

with him. Finally, she broke off, and seconds later he heard her calling

Kingston Hospital, using a guarded voice.

"Let her start explaining about the stars," Reich muttered, halfway between

anger and terror. He finished his toilette and came out into the bedroom.

Duffy cut the phone off hastily and turned to him.

"Ben," she began.

"Wait here for me," he growled. "I'm going to find out."

"Find out about what?"

"About the stars!" he yelled. "The Christ almighty missing stars!"

He flung out of the apartment and rushed down to the street. On the empty

footway, he paused and stared up again. There was the moon. There was one

brilliant red point of light... Mars. There was another... Jupiter. There was

nothing else. Blackness. Blackness. Blackness. I hung over his head, enigmatic,

unrelieved, terrifying. It pressed downward, by some trick of the eye,

oppressive, stifling, deadly.

He began to run, still staring upward. He turned a corner of the footway and

collided with a woman, knocking her flat. He pulled her to her feet.

"You clumsy bastard!" she screamed, adjusting her feathers. Then in an oily

voice: "Lookin' for a good time, pilot?"

Reich held her arm. He pointed up. "Look. The stars are gone. Have you noticed?