The Long Sleep (5 page)

He picked through all the sources of doubt that littered his mind, scrutinized the strange incidents of the last two days, tried to work them together as if they were all shards of a single shattered vase. First: Galing's pathological dislike for him. Second: the rude silence of the servants.

Third: the dust on Harttle's suit and in his hair. Fourth: the dust between Allison's breasts. Also: the dream about the pods and the faceless man, Allison's unbelievably good humor, the
too
ironic and mundane manner in which he'd reputedly sustained his head wound and—

He sat straight up in the chair and continued to stare at the rain beyond the window as if he were afraid to look away from it and, in changing the direction of his gaze, find some unspeakable terror standing close behind him. Reluctantly, cautiously, he examined his head with his fingertips, pressing, massaging, testing . . . Temples first. Nothing there but the throb of his blood. Forehead.

Nothing. The crown of his head. No cut, no bump. The back of his skull. He was not wearing any bandages, and he could feel no scabs or tender bruises.

Now what?

He resisted an urge to call Allison. If he asked her why he had no visible wound after falling off the garage roof, she would have some half-acceptable, half-impossible answer. He preferred, for the moment anyway, to fret about it rather than let himself be mollified by her exceptional beauty. It was time he stopped floating through this scene like a theater customer willing to be temporarily deceived into believing in the reality of the events on the stage. It was time that he started thinking for himself.

While he puzzled over this newest development, he watched the rain, the swaying pine trees, and the low clouds that scudded by close above them. He also watched the sparse traffic on the nearby highway a quarter of a mile to the right, and almost an hour passed before he realized that something was distinctly odd about those distant cars. Twenty minutes after that, he saw what it was: the same vehicles kept passing in their same relative positions, with the same number of seconds between their appearances. Eight different spurts of traffic passed, passed again, re-passed .

. . The entire cycle took only six minutes to repeat itself. Then it began again. He watched it happen three times before he got out of his chair and opened the window.

He reached out and touched the pine trees— which were only inches from the glass.

He touched the tiny cars that sped past.

He touched the highway.

He touched the clouds.

All of these things were back-projected images on a hologram screen which produced an illusion with a high degree of verisimilitude. If he shattered that screen, he knew he would find an automatic projector behind it.

He remembered Harttle making some comment about the Twenty-third Century. Could that really be the case?

But even if it were true, even if he were somehow in a future era, why all this deception?

Closing the window he sat down and tried to imagine why they would attempt to fool him with false windows and fake scenery. Apparently, they had even constructed a fake house . . . It
was
all a stage of sorts, a performance . . . Did that mean that Henry Galing's hatred was also an act? Was the dust a prop, put on Harttle's hair to confuse Joel, sprinkled between Allison's breasts to make the mystery of this place even more inexplicable? It seemed that way, yet . . . That meant they
wanted
him to sense the hollowness of it. They wanted him to pick up on these clues. They wanted him to have doubts and to wonder and to fear them. Was that it? Was Allison—

“Hey, you're cheating on your nap time, Mr. Amslow,” Allison said, pushing open the bedroom door with her hip. She was carrying his dinner tray.

“Watching the rain,” he said.

“Restful, isn't it?”

“No.”

“It isn't?”

“It puzzles me,” he said.

She looked quickly at the window, frowned, stared hard at him. Her nervousness was an act, an obvious performance.
Why? “
Puzzles you?” she asked.

“Never mind.”

“Do you feel all right?” she asked.

“Better than ever.”

“You're sure?”

He forced a smile. “Positive.”

“I've brought your supper.” She grinned again. Her blue eyes seemed as large as half dollars, brighter than ever, as if the beauty of her own smile surprised her. “Your favorite dessert,” she said.

“What's that?”

She put the tray down and lifted the silver lid. “Apple pie with raisins.”

And it figured.

V

Joel waited until he knew that she was asleep before he got out of bed.

For awhile there, when they had finished making love, he had seriously considered forgetting the whole thing. If he were being misled, it was for a good reason. Wasn't it? Had to be. How could Allison be engaged in anything sinister . . . ?

However, when she grew drowsy and slept, leaving him alone with his thoughts, his determination to know the truth returned. He had been acting and reacting as if he were drugged or witless. Now, while the others were not up and about to keep tabs on him, he dressed quickly and quietly, opened the bedroom door, stepped into the dark second floor hallway, closed the door again without waking Allison.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet?

He leaned against the wall for several minutes until his eyes adjusted to the darkness—and until he was certain that Allison was not going to get out of bed and follow him. Treading lightly and cautiously to avoid the loose floorboards under the carpet, he went to the head of the main stairs.

A light burned somewhere below; a weak glow leaked into the downstairs hall and spilled across the first two steps. He could hear voices rising suddenly from the back of the house. Two of them.

Both men. Talking softly but heatedly. Henry and the male servant, Richard?

He went down the stairs to the main hall. Holding the polished mahogany railing, he kept away from the center of each step where the loose boards might sag, squeak, and betray him. He made no noise at all going down.

Originally, he had intended to investigate the ground floor exits to see what landscape they opened onto, and he had wanted to burglarize the drawers of Henry Galing's desk in the book-lined den. But now he would have to know for certain who was up and about and what their conversation might concern. The light and the voices came from the den where the door was ajar, and Joel crept in that direction.

As he stood against the wall by the partly opened door, he recognized Henry Galing's deep, officious tones. The other voice was that of a stranger.

“How much longer?” the stranger asked.

“How much longer until what?” Galing asked. He sounded peeved, disdainful.

“Until we stop with this damned 'recover' act,” the stranger said.

“When the program was devised, it was decided he'd stay in bed for five days,” Galing said.

“That leaves three to go.”

“It won't work.”

“We have to try to make it work.”

“Impossible,” the stranger insisted.

Galing sighed. “I suppose you're right. He's become much too inquisitive. He's already discovered that the view from his window is an artificial construction.”

“I've heard,” the stranger said. “That window should have been locked.” He was angry and concerned. He had raised his voice above a murmur, but now he softened it again. “You overlooked an important detail.”

“Nonsense,” Galing said. The stranger didn't press the accusation, and it was clear that the old man had the final word. “If the window had been locked, he'd have picked it open to find out if what he suspected were true or not. You know him. You know how persistent he is.”

“Only too well,” the stranger said.

“And I'm worried about the girl,” Galing said. “Despite the drugs, she seems to be getting suspi-cious about me, the house, the whole deal.”

“Increase her dosage.”

“It isn't that simple,” Galing said. “If we raise her milligram intake, Amslow's going to realize she's hopped up. And that's no good at all.”

It was the stranger's turn to sigh. “Then what in the hell do you suggest?”

“We'll go to the next stage of the program ahead of schedule,” Galing said.

“That might not be wise.”

“It's our only choice,” Galing said. He opened his desk drawer and rustled some papers.

In the pause between their exchanges, Joel leaned away from the wall and peered into the den through the two-inch crack between the door and the jamb. Galing stood behind his desk, leafing through a sheaf of papers, absorbed in his search for something. In the chair beside the desk, slumped as if he were exhausted, sat the faceless man.

VI

Henry Galing said, “You'd better wake Richard and Gina so we can go over this together step by step. We don't want any mistakes. We have enough problems already.”

“Of course, Henry,” the faceless man said. The smooth plane of his face did not even wrinkle as he spoke. He got up, stretched, and started for the door.

With the swiftness of instinct, Joel backstepped to the next door along the corridor and went into the darkened library. He closed the door most of the way but left a narrow crack through which he could observe the hall.

The faceless man walked past without seeing him and went up the stairs even more quietly than Joel had descended them.

Joel hoped no one planned a bed check.

Two minutes later the faceless man returned with Richard and Gina in tow. None of them was particularly excited. They'd have been whooping if they had known that he wasn't tucked in bed with Allison, exhausted from lovemaking. The three of them entered the den and this time they closed the door all the way.

He remained in the library for a few minutes, then returned to the hall and sidled down to the den door. But the heavy oak door was too thick to permit eavesdropping. What were they saying in there? What had they planned for him?
Why?
Well, whatever the hell they were doing, they didn't have his best interest at heart. It hardly mattered whether or not he knew all the details or even the main intent. They were not humanitarians.

Noiselessly, he returned to the second floor bedroom. He found well cut, expensive streetclothes in the closet, and he slipped into them: knitted slacks, a blue silk shirt, a lightweight rayon jacket that had never come off any department store rack.

He sat on the edge of the bed and gently shook Allison's shoulder until she stopped mumbling, opened her eyes, and yawned at him. “What is it? Hmmm?”

“We're going away now,” he said. He tried to remain calm, tried not to consider the possibility that he'd lost his mind.

“Away?” she asked.

“Whisper,” he said.

“Why are we going away?”

Looking at her closely, he fancied that he could see the effects of some drug in the circles around her eyes, although she was otherwise fresh and healthy.

She didn't like the way he was staring at her. “What are you doing? What's wrong?”

“Get dressed while I explain.”

“It's that urgent?”

“Yes. Hurry.”

She did as she was told, although she was obviously confused by his story of sinister plots and faceless men. When he was done, she took both his hands in her hands. “Joel, I think this was a bad dream. Just a nightmare, darling.”

“It's true.”

She touched his face. Her fingers were cool. “You did have a head injury. I don't want you to feel I'm being—”

Her tone precluded his getting angry, for she was only concerned about him, nothing more. “If I fell off the garage roof,” he said, interrupting her to save time, “where's my head wound?”

She was startled by the question.

“Well?”

“I . . . I don't understand.”

He went to the window and opened it. “Come here.” He held her up so she could touch the hologram screen which was now showing a very realistic, three-dimension night scene complete with moon and stars. The traffic on the highway was preceded by headlights.

She was stunned by the revelation. “But what in the world does it
mean?”

“I don't know. But I
do
know we aren't going to find out until we're away from here.”

Clutching his arm, leaning on him for support, she said, “I'm scared, Joel.”

“Me too.”

He kissed her. He was pleased that implicit in her statement was a willingness to do whatever he wished. She had adjusted to the bizarre situation much faster than he had expected she would.

“What now?” she whispered.

“Do you have any money?”

“Quite a bit in my purse.”

“Good enough,” he said. “We may need it when we get away from here. We might be in another country; we might be a long way from home.”