The Santaroga Barrier (31 page)

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Authors: Frank Herbert

BOOK: The Santaroga Barrier

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“It's difficult to become conscious about consciousness,” Dasein muttered.

“Did he say something?” That was the nurse.

“I couldn't make it out.” Piaget.

“Did you smell the Jaspers in there?” The nurse.

“I think he separated the essence out and took it.”

“Oh, my God! What can we do?”

“Wait and pray. Bring me a straight-jacket and the emergency cart.”

A straight jacket?
Dasein wondered.
What an odd request.

He heard running footsteps. How loud they were! A door slammed. More voices. Such a rushing around!

His skin felt as though it were growing dark. Everything was being blotted out.

With an abrupt, jerking sensation, Dasein felt himself shrivel downward into an infant shape kicking, squalling, reaching outward, outward, fingers grasping.

“Give me a hand with him!” That was Piaget.

“What a mess!” Another male voice.

But Dasein already felt himself becoming a mouth, just a mouth. It blew out, out, outâsuch a wind. Surely, the entire world must collapse before this hurricane.

He was a board, rocking. A teeter-totter. Down and upâup and down.

A good run is better than a bad stand,
he thought.

And he was running, runningâbreathless, gasping.

A bench loomed out of swirling clouds. He threw himself down on it, became the benchâanother board. This one dipped down and down into a boiling green sea.

Life in a sea of unconsciousness,
Dasein thought.

It grew darker and darker.

Death,
he thought.
Here's the background against which I can know myself.

The darkness dissolved. He was shooting upward, rebounding into a blinding glare.

Dark shapes moved in the glare.

“His eyes are open.” That was the nurse.

A shadow reduced the glare. “Gilbert?” That was Piaget. “Gilbert, can you hear me? How much Jaspers did you take?”

Dasein tried to speak. His lips refused to obey.

The glare came back.

“We'll just have to guess.” Piaget. “How much did that cheese weigh?”

“Thirty-six pounds.” The nurse.

“The physical breakdown is massive.” Piaget. “Have a respirator standing by.”

“Doctor, what if he â¦” The nurse apparently couldn't complete the statement of her fear.

“I'm â¦ ready.” Piaget.

Ready for what?
Dasein wondered.

By concentrating, he found he could make the glare recede. It resolved momentarily into a tunnel of clarity with Piaget at the far end of it. Dasein lay helplessly staring, unable to move as Piaget advanced on him carrying a boy that fumed and smoked.

Acid,
Dasein thought, interpreting the nurse's words.
If I die, they'll dissolve me and wash me away down a drain. No body, no evidence.

The tunnel collapsed.

The sensation of glare expanded, contracted.

Perhaps, I can no longer be,
Dasein thought.

It grew darker.

Perhaps, I cannot do,
he thought.

Darker yet.

Perhaps, I cannot have,
he thought.

Nothing.

“
I
t was kill or cure,” the yellow god said.

“I wash my hands of you,” said the white god.

“What I offered, you did not want,” the red god accused.

“You make me laugh,” said the black god.

“There is no tree that's you,” the green god said.

“We are going now and only one of us will return,” the gods chorused.

There was a sound of a clearing throat.

“Why don't you have faces?” Dasein asked. “You have color but no faces.”

“What?” It was a rumbling, vibrant voice.

“You're a funny sounding god,” Dasein said. He opened his eyes, looked up into Burdeaux's features, caught a puzzled scowl on the dark face.

“I'm no sort of god at all,” Burdeaux said. “What're you saying, Doctor Gil? You having another nightmare?”

Dasein blinked, tried to move his arms. Nothing happened. He lifted his head, looked down at his body. He was bound tightly in a restraining jacket. There was a stink of disinfectants, of Jaspers and of something repellent and sour in the room. He looked around. It was still the isolation suite. His head fell back to the pillow.

“Why'm I tied down like this?” Dasein whispered.

“What did you say, sir?”

Dasein repeated his question.

“Well, Doctor Gil, we didn't want you to hurt yourself.”

“When â¦ when can I be released?”

“Doctor Larry said to free you as soon as you woke up.”

“I'm â¦ awake.”

“I know that, sir. I was just â¦” He shrugged, began unfastening the bindings on the sleeves of the jacket.

“How long?” Dasein whispered.

“How long you been here like this?”

Dasein nodded.

“Three whole days now, and a little more. It's almost noon.”

The bindings were untied. Burdeaux helped Dasein to a sitting position, unlaced the back, slipped the jacket off.

Dasein's back felt raw and sensitive. His muscles reponded as though they belonged to a stranger. This was an entirely new body, Dasein thought.

Burdeaux came up with a white hospital gown, slipped it onto Dasein, tied the back.

“You want the nurse to come rub your back?” he asked. “You've a couple of red places there don't look too good.”

“No â¦ no thanks.”

Dasein moved one of the stranger's arms. A familiar hand came up in front of his face. It was his own hand. How could it be his own hand, he wondered, when the muscles of the arm belonged to a stranger?

“Doctor Larry said no one ever took that much Jaspers ever before all at once,” Burdeaux said. “Jaspers is a good thing, sir, but everybody knows you can get too much.”

“Does â¦ is Jenny â¦”

“She's fine, Doctor Gil. She's been worried sick about you. We all have.”

Dasein moved one of the stranger's legs, then the other until they hung over the edge of the bed. He looked down at his own knees. It was very odd.

“Here, now,” Burdeaux said. “Best you stay in bed.”

“I've â¦ I â¦”

“You want to go to the bathroom? Best I bring you the bedpan.”

“No â¦ I â¦” Dasein shook his head. Abruptly, he realized what was wrong. The body was hungry.

“Hungry,” he said.

“Well, why didn't you say so? Got food right here waiting.”

Burdeaux lifted a bowl, held it in front of Dasein. The rich aroma of Jaspers enveloped him. Dasein reached toward the bowl, but Burdeaux said, “Best let me feed you, Doctor Gil. You don't look too steady.”

Dasein sat patiently, allowed himself to be fed. He could feel strength gathering in the body. It was a bad fit, this body, he decided. It had been draped loosely on his psyche.

It occurred to him to wonder what the body was eatingâin addition to the Jaspers, which surrounded him and pervaded him with its presence. Oatmeal, the tongue said. Jaspers honey and Jaspers cream.

“There's a visitor waiting to see you,” Burdeaux said when the bowl was empty.

“Jenny?”

“No â¦ a Doctor Selador.”

Selador!
The name exploded on Dasein's conscience. Selador had trusted him, depended on him.

Selador had sent a gun through the mails.

“You feel up to seeing him?” Burdeaux asked.

“You â¦ don't mind if I see him?” Dasein asked.

“Mind? Why should I mind, sir?”

Burdeaux's not the
you
I meant
, Dasein thought.

There arose in Dasein then an urge to send Selador away. Such an easy thing to do. Santaroga would insulate him from the Seladors of the world. A simple request to Burdeaux was all it would take.

“I'll â¦ uh, see him,” Dasein said. He looked around the room. “Could you help me into a robe and â¦ is there a chair I could â¦”

“Why don't I put you in a wheelchair, sir? Doctor Larry had one sent up for when you awakened. He didn't want you exerting yourself. You're not to get tired, understand?”

“Yes â¦ yes, I understand. A wheelchair.”

Presently, Dasein's bad-fit body was in the wheelchair. Burdeaux had gone to bring Selador, leaving the chair at the far end of the room from the foyer door. Dasein found himself facing a pair of French doors that opened onto a sundeck.

He felt he had been left alone in a brutally exposed position,
his soul naked, wretched with fear. There was a heavy load on him, he thought. He felt embarrassment at the prospect of meeting Selador, and a special order of fright. Selador saw through pretense and sham. You could wear no mask before Selador. He was the psychoanalysts' psychoanalyst.

Selador will humiliate me,
Dasein thought.
Why did I agree to see him? He will prod me and I will react. My reaction will tell him everything he wants to know about me â¦ about my failure.

Dasein felt then his sanity had been corroded into a pitted shell, a thing of tinsel and fantasy. Selador would stamp upon it with the harsh, jolting dynamics of his aliveness.

The foyer door opened.

Slowly, forcing himself to it, Dasein turned his head toward the door.

Selador stood in the opening, tall, hawk-featured, the dark skin and wildness of India encased in a silver-gray tweed suit, a touch of the same silver at the temples. Dasein had the sudden blurred sensation of having seen this face in another life, the lancet eyes peering from beneath a turban. It had been a turban with a red jewel in it.

Dasein shook his head. Madness.

“Gilbert,” Selador said, striding across the room. “In the name of heaven, what have you done to yourself now?” The precise accents of Oxford hammered each word into Dasein's ears. “They said you were badly burned.”

And thus it starts,
Dasein thought.

“I â¦ my arms and hands,” Dasein said. “And a bit about the face.”

“I arrived only this morning,” Selador said. “We were quite worried about you, you know. No word from you for days.”

He stopped in front of Dasein, blocking off part of the view of the sundeck.

“I must say you look a fright, Gilbert. There don't appear to be any scars on your face, though.”

Dasein put a hand to his cheek. It was his cheek suddenly, not a stranger's. The skin felt smooth, new.

“There's the damnedest musky smell about this place,” Selador said. “Mind if I open these doors?”

“No â¦ no, go right ahead.”

Dasein found himself wrestling with the feeling that Selador was not Selador. There was a shallowness to the man's speech and mannerisms all out of character with the Selador of Dasein's memory. Had Selador changed in some way?

“Lovely sunny day,” Selador said. “Why don't I wheel you out on this deck for a bit of air. Do you good.”

Panic seized Dasein's throat. That deckâit was a place of menace. He tried to speak, to object. They couldn't go out there. No words came.

Selador took the silence for agreement, wheeled Dasein's chair out the door. There was a slight jolt at the sill and they were on the deck.

Sunlight warmed Dasein's head. A breeze almost devoid of Jaspers washed his skin, cleared his head. He said: “Don't you â¦”

“Doesn't this air feel invigorating?” Selador asked. He stopped at a shallow parapet, the edge of the roof. “There. You can admire the view and I can sit on this ledge.”

Selador sat down, put a hand on the back of Dasein's chair. “I would imagine that ward is wired for sound,” Selador said. “I do not believe they can have listening devices out here, however.”

Dasein gripped the wheels of his chair, afraid it might lurch forward, propel him off the roof. He stared down at a paved parking area, parked cars, lawn, strips of flowers, trees. The sense of Selador's words came to him slowly.

“Wired â¦ for â¦” He turned, met amused inquiry in the dark eyes.

“Obviously, you're not quite yourself yet,” Selador said. “Understandable. You've been through a terrible ordeal. That's obvious. I'll have you out of this place, though, as soon as you're able to travel. Set your mind at rest. You'll be safe in a
normal
hospital at Berkeley before the week's out.”

Dasein's emotions boiled, an arena of dispute.
Safe!
What a reassuring word.
Leave?
He couldn't leave! But he had to leave.
Outside? Go to that hideous place?

“Have you been drugged, Gilbert?” Selador asked. “You appear â¦ so â¦ so â¦”

“I've â¦ I'm all right.”

“Really, you're behaving rather oddly. You haven't asked
me once what we found on the leads you provided.”

“What â¦”

“The source of their petrol proved to be a dud. All quite normal â¦ provided you appreciate their economic motives. Cash deal with an independent producer. The State Department of Agriculture gives their cheese and the other products of their Cooperative a clean bill of health. The real estate board, however, is interested that no one but Santarogans can buy property in the valley. It may be they've violated antidis-criminatory legislation with â¦”

“No,” Dasein said. “They â¦ nothing that obvious.”

“Ah, ha! You speak in the fashion of a man who has discovered the closeted skeleton. Well, Gilbert, what is it?”

Dasein felt he'd been seized by a vampire of duty. It would drain the blood from him. Selador would feed on it. He shook his head from side to side.

“Are you ill, Gilbert? Am I wearying you?”

“No. As long as I take it slowly â¦ Doctor, you must understand, I've â¦”

“Do you have notes, Gilbert? Perhaps I could read your report and â¦”

“No â¦ fire.”

“Oh, yes. The doctor, this Piaget, said something about your truck burning. Everything up in smoke, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, Gilbert, we'll have to get it from your lips. Is there an opening we can use to break these people?”

Dasein thought of the greenhousesâchild labor. He thought of the statistical few Santarogans Jaspers had destroyed. He thought of the narcotic implications in the Jaspers products. It was all thereâdestruction for Santaroga.

“There must be something,” Selador said. “You've lasted much longer than the others. Apparently, you've been given the freedom of the region. I'm sure you must have discovered something.”

Lasted much longer than the others,
Dasein thought. There was naked revelation in the phrase. As though he had participated in them, Dasein saw the discussions which had gone into choosing him for this project. “
Dasein has connections in the valleyâa girl. That may be the edge we need. Certainly,
it gives us reason to hope he'll last longer than the others.
”

It had been something like that, Dasein knew. There was a callousness in it that repelled him.

“Were there more than two?” he asked.

“Two? Two what, Gilbert?”

“Two other investigators â¦ before me?”

“I don't see where that â¦”

“Were there?”

“Well â¦ that's very discerning of you, Gilbert. Yes, there were more than two. Eight or nine, I suspect.”