The Whole Man (27 page)

Why
… A sense of embarrassment and uncertainty.
1 I guess I felt sorry for him. …?

Be honest with me. lfs It’s bigger than that, isn’t it? You find him attractive, don’t you?

Y-yes …

In fact, you’d like to know him a lot better. And the idea that you might wind up by falling in love with him has crossed your mind, hasn’t it?

You’re a peeping torntom!
But there was no real annoyance in the sentiment; clearly, she found the idea very acceptable.

Howson grinned like a Cheshire cat. He opened his eyes and glanced at Jay.

“Can you spare the time to do a little more work on that machine of yours?” he inquired, and on noting a momentary hesitation, hurried on. “Look, it’s going to get you out of your impasse with Rudi. I agree with you— he’s going places. Given the right opportunity, he could create what amounts to a new channel of artistic expression. It won’t happen overnight; it’ll take time and enough public interest to make resources available so that he can integrate sight, sound, smell, maybe even more complex imagery. What he needs right now, though, is chiefly hope. And I believe I know how we can give him that.”

Rudi!

Howson felt the mind shrink a little and then remember. The healing was progressing well; Howson felt a stir of envy at the healthy normality of Rudi’s bodily functions. He could never have sustained an injury one-tenth as bad as the one the younger man was recovering from.

They had moved Rudi into a private soundproof room, and now they were all here: Jay, Charma and Clara, with a nurse standing by. Howson renewed his approach gently.

Rudi, think of your music.

As though floodgates had opened, a wave of imagined sound poured into Rudi’s aching consciousness. Howson fought to channel and control it. When he had gained the minimal mastery he needed, he signaled to Clara.

The tank—which had taken four men to bring it into the room—lighted up. Clara, a strained look on her face, flashed the controls, and Howson suggested that Rudi open his eyes. He did so; he saw. …

Jay and Charma, of course, could not hear the music that pulsed and raged in Rudi’s mind. But Howson could, and so could Clara, and that was what mattered.

They had spent the week experimenting, improving and training; now the tank’s speed of response was phenomenal, and Jay had improvised new, simpler controls to make the device as versatile and essentially as straightforward as a theremin. And Clara …

Howson had wondered sometimes in the course of the time they had spent together whether it was just that she was a ready subject, or that he was himself a remarkable instructor in telepathy, for she was reading Rudi’s fantastic mental projections, sifting them and extracting their essentials,
and
converting them to visual images, as fast as Rudi himself could think them.

Awed amazement was plain on Rudi’s face as he watched the tank. Jay and Charma, who could not hear the music to which Clara wäs was responding, were almost as startled. And Howson felt purely overjoyed.

Mountains grew in the tank, distorted as if looked at from below, purple-blue and overpowering; mists gathered at their peaiks, and an avalanche thundered into a valley surrounded by white sprays of snow, as a distant and melancholy horn theme dissolved in Rudi’s mind into a cataclysm of orchestral sounds and a hundred unmusical noises. The tank blurred; a wisp of smoke rose from a connection leading to it, and Jay leaped forward with an exclamation.

It was over.

Hoping that the breakdown had not outweighed the pleasure Rudi had shown, Howson turned to the bed. His hope was fulfilled. Rudi was struggling to sit up, his face radiant.

Howson cut across his incoherent babble of thanks with a calming thought. “You don’t need to thank me,” he said with a twisted smile. “I can tell you’re pleased! You were stupid to think of giving up when success was in your grasp, weren’t you?”

“But it wasn’t!” Rudi protested. “If it hadn’t been for you—and Clara, of course … But … but damnation, this isn’t success, if I have to rely on you to help me.”

“Rely on
me?”
Howson was genuinely astonished. “Oh! I suppose you think I was projecting your imagery to Clara!” Succinctly he explained the actual situation. Relief grew plain on Rudi’s face, but soon faded as he turned to Clara.

“Clara, how do you feel about this? You won’t want to act as an interpreter for me indefinitely, for goodness’ sake!”

“I’d like to do it for a while,” she answered shyly. “But it won’t always have to be done this way. Gerry says that the work we two can do together will excite people enough to show them what you’re really after, and let you work with a full orchestra. And you can learn to use this thing yourself; Jay’s made it so simple it only took me a few hours to get the hang of it. And eventually …”

She appealed wordlessly to Howson, who obliged by projecting the future he envisaged for Rudi’s work directly into his mind.

There was a hall—vast, in darkness. At the far end fights lights glowed over music stands, and there was rustling and tuning up to be heard. Stillness was broken by the opening bars of Rudi’s composition. Darkness was interrupted by the creation in a huge counterpart of Jay’s yard-square tank of vivid, fluid, pictorial, corresponding images. The response in the audience could be felt, grew almost tangible, and in turn the brilliance of the imagery fed on the appreciation it evoked.

He finished, and found Rudi with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together on the coverlet. Howson got to his feet and beckoned his companions, and stealthily they crept from the room, leaving Rudi with the vision of his ambition fulfilled.

Later they sat in Jay and Charma’s apartment celebrating their success with wine. “You—you didn’t exaggerate at all, did you, Gerry?” Clara asked timidly when they had toasted him half a dozen times.

“Not much. Oh, slightly, perhaps; I mean, the sort of worldwide acclaim I promised him may take twenty years to come. But it damned well should come; Rudi has a gift as outstanding in its way as yours and mine. I’m sorry, you two,” he added to Jay and Charma. “I didn’t mean to sound conceited.”

Jay shrugged. “I’ll not deny I’d like to have some special talent, as you two have; but hell, it must entail a lot of heartbreak, too. I think I’ll be a success in my own small way, and I doubt if I’ll have the frustrations Rudi or yourselves will undergo.”

“I’m glad you take it like that,” Howson said thoughtfully. “And … you know, I’ve been giving the matter a little consideration, and I believe I could open up a market for as many of your fluid mobiles as you care to build. They have a certain restful fascination about them. … Suppose I recommended you to my director in chief and interested him in the idea of using them in place of the standard mobiles and tanks of tropical fish we use in the mental wards—especially for autistic children. You wouldn’t think that was demeaning to your art, would you?”

“Good heavens, no!” said Jay, staring. “What do you think I make myself out to be—a second Michelangelo? I’m a glorified interior decorator, is all.”

“And even if he did make himself out to be a genius,” said Charma with mock grimness, “I’d cure him of the delusion quick enough. Thanks a million, Gerry; I’d practically given up hope of any return from these wet fireworks of his.”

Then she looked directly at Howson.

“What about you? What have you got out of all this? It wouldn’t be fair if there wasn’t anything.”

“Me?” Howson chuckled. “I’ve got just about everything. The mere fact that I’ve had it for years without realizing doesn’t make me any less pleased. You see … Well, Rudi, so to speak, has just given his first public performance. I think I might go ahead and give mine.”

He had been looking forward to this moment; indeed, he had had difficulty containing himself so long. He reached out gently with his mind and began to tell a story.

How could he have been so blind? How could he have failed to realize that the solution to his problem was here, under his nose?

He—Gerry Howson—had more power behind his telepathic voice than anyone had ever had, even Ilse Kron-Sstadt. So why should he have to lock himself and his audience away into a catapathic grouping to prevent the outside world from breaking the flow of pleasurable fantasy? All he needed was a degree of concentration about as deep as people achieved of their own accord when they were carried away by brilliant acting or great music.

Moreover, he wasn’t so disillusioned with reality that he needed to hide from it. What he craved wasn’t the exercise of unbridled power, or any of the other unfeasible yearnings which a telepathist had to retreat into fugue to let loose. He wanted acceptance. He wanted to wipe out the legacy of twenty years during which he was
only
a runt with a bum leg, and people judged him entirely on that basis. Put at its simplest, he wanted to make friends with the world that had been hostile to him.

And he could.

He conjured up a simple fantasy, a fairy tale, with sights, sounds, smells, tactile sensations, emotions—all drawn from the vast store of unreal and real memory with which his intimate knowledge of so many minds beside his own had armed him. It was only a trial run, of course. One day there would be something more. But for now, this was enough.

His audience came slowly back to the present, eyes shining, and he knew he had won.

And now?

Maybe a trip around the world to add a knowledge of reality to his knowledge of other people’s dreams and nightmares and imaginings, drawing here a litttle and there a little from the consciousness of Asians, Europeans, Americans, Australasians. … The whole world lay open to him now.

He smiled, and poured himself more wine.

XXX
xxx

As usual the stadium had been packed to capacity. The very rarity of the occasions on which Gerald Howson invited people to hear him “thinking aloud” ensured that all available accommodation went as soon as it was advertised; he never allowed this to conflict with his work at Ulan Bator therapy center. But whenever he got the opportunity, he would notify some city with a suitable arena or hall, and people would travel a thousand miles if they could manage it. In two years he had achieved a reputation on every continent.

Tonight he had coped with his biggest audience yet— almost five thousand. Now they were wistfully filing from the exits, and Howson was receiving—and largely ignoring—the inevitable wave of congratulations from distinguished listeners. As always, he had to keep denying that he was tired after his efforts; perhaps he should explain as a coda to the performance that he did this at least in part to refresh himself after a tough period of work. He never felt so relaxed and happy as after one of these rare public appearances.

Tonight he had skipped from idea to idea, now telling his audience of his work, now telling them the thoughts of a normal happy person, in India, in Venezuela, in Italy, in many other places where he had garnered his material. It had become a virtuoso achievement; often he improvised on the reactions of the members of the audience, leaving those who were lonely and unhappy proud to have been singled out. And always, if there was anyone present laboring under an intolerable problem, he found someone else, generally an influential official, and left the suggestion that something be done to right matters.

Ilse, Ilse! If you had stumbled on this you would not have died so burdened with regret!

“Gerry,” said Pandit Singh softly through the babble of voices. “Gerry, there’s someone here whom you ought to see.”

Hullo, Rudi. I knew you were there. Just give me a chance to get rid of these so-and-so’s!

A silent suggestion that the onlookers should take their leave, and he was free to come and shake Rudi’s hand. Clara was with him, and he greeted her affectionately.

How are you?

Fine! You’ll be seeing a lot of me from now on. I start training as a therapy watchdog at Ulan Bator next month.

Delight!

“Hullo, Gerry,” said Rudi, unaware of this mental exchange. He seemed almost embarrassed. “You were wonderful.”

“I know,” said Howson, smiling. Rudi could hardly recognize him as the same person, so greatly had his new self-assurance transfigured him. “When are you going to join me in show business?”

“I’m giving my first performance in a few weeks. Mainly, I came to invite you and make sure you can be there. If you can’t, I’ll postpone it. I’m determined to have you in on the first night.”

“Congratulations! You may be sure 111 I’ll come—emergencies permitting.”

Rudi glanced sidelong at Pandit Singh. A slight flush colored his cheekbones. “Gerry … I’ve been talking with Dr. Singh here, about you, and I’ve been finding out quite a lot about your—uh—your disability. I don’t know much about either medicine or telepathy, but I seem to have come up with an idea that’s not as foolish as I thought it might be. Ah … as I understand it, the trouble is that some part of your brain which ought to look after the repair and upkeep of your body has been sacrificed to your telepathic organ.”