It had been a trap in two ways then. If she’d simply gone to Robane’s house, hadn’t taken the precaution of checking first, she would have vanished in the explosion with him. Since she had checked, they’d set this thing of theirs on her. It would keep her inside her psi barrier where she couldn’t try to keep track of what they were doing now, and it was intended to force her into behavior which would reveal to them who she was as an individual and where she was. If they knew that, they could use some very ordinary method to dispose of her.
They would assume she was somewhere in Melna Park, though they couldn’t be sure of it. There were no psis like the one whose thought-impression she had studied in the area at present; but he and others might be on their way there now. Before they arrived, she had to be free of their animal—they were making use of its specialized psionic ability to keep in contact with selected prey as men long ago had learned to turn the sharper senses of the dog to their own advantage.
And, very simply, she had to be free of it before she became too sleepy to hold it off any longer with the barrier.
Some months before, she had encountered a telepathic alien creature which had attempted to kill her with a bolt of psi energy and had, in fact, very nearly succeeded. She had got rid of that one readily enough, almost frightened it to death, by drenching its mind with thoughts of pure, black hate. Perhaps the method would be equally effective with the baboonlike thing, though the glimpse she’d had of it suggested it was a far more formidable animal all around and one that would not be at all easy to discourage. Besides, discouraging it shouldn’t be enough this time—the probable result would be that she would find it put on her trail again on another occasion, and rather soon. But shaking it off temporarily at least would give her the opportunity to prepare a better defense against both it and its masters. If she couldn’t think of another solution, she should make the attempt.
Ten minutes later, she hadn’t thought of anything better to do. The Cloudsplitter was drifting up a wide valley into the higher ranges of the park; a touch of chill was in the breeze and there were fewer tourists around. At the moment, she could see only two or three other aircars ahead.
Telzey assembled the hate pattern carefully—not too difficult to do; she was coldly afraid, and fear could be twisted into anger and focused in hatred on those who caused it. She let the feeling build up until she was trembling with it, holding it aimed like a gun, then opened the bubble.
Almost instantly, seeing the gray shape plunging at her through the nothing-space of psi, small pig-eyes glaring red above the gaping jaws, she knew that on this psi-beast it wasn’t going to work. The hate-thought had found no entry point; she wasn’t touching it. But she held the thought as the shape rushed up, snapped the bubble shut before it reached her—immediately found herself slewing the Cloudsplitter around in a sharp turn to the left as if to avoid a physical collision. There was a sound behind her, a deep, bubbling howl, which chilled her to the heart.
Glancing around, she saw it for an instant, twenty feet back of the car—no mind-image, but a thick, powerful animal body, plunging head downward, stretched out as if it were diving, through the air of Melna Park. Then it vanished.
It wasn’t really a telepath, she thought—that was why she hadn’t been able to touch it. It had a psi-sense through which it could trace out the minds of prospective victims, draw “close” to them; and it had the psi-ability to flick itself through space and appear beside them when it knew by the mind-contact where they were. For the kill it needed only physical weapons: the strength of its massive body, its great teeth and the broad flat nails of the reaching paw-hands which had seemed only feet from her when the bubble shut them from view. If she hadn’t swerved sideways in that instant, the thing would have crashed down into the car, and torn the life out of her moments later.
A kind of dullness settled on her now, composed partly of increasing fatigue and partly of a puzzled wonder that she really seemed able to do nothing to get away from this thing. It was some minutes before she could push the feeling aside and get her thoughts arranged again into some kind of order.
In one way, her experiment with the animal might have immediately increased the danger. Its dip through space seemed to have confused it momentarily; at any rate, it had lost too much contact with her to materialize near her again, though she didn’t doubt it was still very close mentally. There were moments when she thought she could feel its presence beyond the barrier. But the danger lay in the fact that it might have seen her, or at least the car, in that instant. She didn’t think it was intelligent enough to communicate such discoveries to its masters; but the masters, from what she had seen of them, could be quite capable of scanning the mind of such a creature. She had to count on the possibility that they would obtain an adequate description of her through that method at any time now.
Though they might, Telzey thought, actually not care at this point whether they had a description of her or not. She would have to keep out of sight until she was sure about that. But the way the matter had been handled showed this was not a new situation to them. Other psis had been caught in the same trap and died in it. If they felt they could trust their animal to conclude the matter—and perhaps they could—the details of the end might be of no great interest to them.
It all hinged just now, in any case, on whether she could escape from the animal. It probably was not even a very intelligent animal; a species with its abilities and strength would not need much mental equipment to get along in its world. But she was caught in a game which was being played by the animal’s rules, not hers; and so far she had found no way to get around them.
Some time past the middle of the afternoon, she edged the Cloudsplitter down into a cluster of thickets on sloping ground, brushing the vegetation aside until the car was completely concealed. She shut off its engines and climbed out, stood swaying a little unsteadily for a moment, before she turned and pushed her way out of the thickets again.
If she’d remained sitting in the car, she would have been asleep in minutes. If she stayed on her feet, she might gain another fifteen or twenty minutes to attempt to work out an immediate solution. Then she would have to call the park rangers on the car’s communicator and ask them to get a fix on her and come to her help. Stimulants could keep her awake for another day, perhaps longer. But in doing that, she thought, she would start a chain of events which almost certainly must end in her destruction. If the beast didn’t finish her, the psis would be there to do it. For all she knew, they already were searching the park for her.
To try to keep awake on her own for another fifteen or twenty minutes might be equally fatal, of course. The thing was near! Half a dozen times she’d been on the verge of drifting off to the point where outside reality and the universe of psi seemed blended, had been jolted awake by a growing sense of the psi beast’s presence.
Getting out of the car and on her feet had roused her a little. The cold of the mountain air had a further stimulating effect. She’d come far up into a region of the park which already seemed touched by winter. It was, she thought, at least twenty minutes or so since she’d last seen a tourist car or any other indication of the presence of humanity on the planet.
She stood rubbing her arms with her hands to warm them, looking around. She was above a rounded dip in the mountains between two adjoining ridges. Thin, brown, hip-high grass and straggling trees filled the dip. A narrow, swift stream wound through it. She’d grounded the car three quarters of the way up the western side. The far side was a flat, almost vertical gray rock wall, festooned with yellow cobwebs of withering vines. That half of the dip was still bathed in sunlight coming over the top of the ridge behind her. Her side was in shadow.
She shivered in the chill, shook her head to drive away a new wave of drowsiness. She seemed unable to concentrate on the problem of the psi-beast. Her thoughts shifted to the sun-warmed rocks she had crossed at the top of the ridge as she turned the Cloudsplitter down into the little valley
.
She pictured herself sitting there, warmed by the sun. It was a convincing picture; in imagination she felt the sun on her shoulders and back, the warm rock beneath her, saw the dry, thorny fall growth—
Telzey’s eyes flickered, widened thoughtfully. After a moment, she brought the picture back into her mind.
I’m here, she thought. I’m sitting in the sun. I’m half asleep, nodding, feeling the warmth, forgetting I’m in danger. The wind blows over the rocks and the bushes are rustling all around me.
She opened the psi bubble gently—“I’m here, Bozo!”—closed it.
She stood in the shadow of the western ridge, shivering and chilled, listening. Far above, for a moment, there had been noises as if something plunged heavily about in the thorny growth at the top of the ridge. Then the noises had stopped abruptly.
Telzey’s gaze shifted down into the dip between the ridges, followed the course of the little stream up out of the shadows to a point where it ran between flat sandy banks.
And now I’m here, she thought. Sitting in warm sand, in the sun again, now sheltered from the wind.
The shield opened. For an instant.
“I’m here—”
Looking down from the shaded slope, barrier tight and hard, she saw Bozo the beast appear in Melna Park for the second time that day, half in the stream, half out. Its heavy head swung this way and that; it leaped forward, wheeled, glared about, plunged suddenly out of sight among the trees. For an instant, she heard its odd howling voice, like amplified drunken human laughter, but furious with frustrated eagerness.
Telzey leaned back against the tree behind her, closed her eyes. Drowsiness rolled in immediately. She shook her head, drove it back.
Darkness, she thought. Darkness, black and cold. Black, black all around me—because I’ve fallen asleep, Bozo. Now you can get—
Blackness closed in on her mind like a rush of wind. The bubble-shield slipped open.
“Bozo! I’m HERE!”
In the blackness, Bozo’s image flashed up before her, huge, jaws wide, red eyes blazing, gray arms sweeping out to seize her—
The bubble snapped shut.
Eyes still closed, Telzey swayed against the tree, listening to the echoes of the second explosion she had heard today. This one had been short and sharp, monstrously loud.
She shook her head, opened her eyes, looked across the dip. The cliff face on the eastern side had changed its appearance. A jagged, dark fissure showed in it, beginning at the top, extending halfway down to the valley. Puffs of mineral dust still drifted out of the fissure into the open air.
She had wondered what would happen if around four hundred pounds of solid animal materialized suddenly deep inside solid rock. She’d expected it could be something like this. This time, Bozo hadn’t been able to flick back into nospace again.
“Good-by, Bozo!” she said aloud, across the dip. “I won’t miss you.”
That had been one part of it, she thought. And now the other.
The psi bubble opened again. And now it stayed open—one minute, two minutes, three—as her perceptions spread out, across Melna Park and beyond, searching for impressions of the psi-mind that had laughed at her in hatred and contempt, cursed her with Bozo, long, long hours ago, at Robane’s house.
And there was nothing. Nowhere around here, for many miles about, was anyone thinking of her, giving her any attention at all.
Then you’re too late, she told them. She turned, stumbling a little, her balance not too good at the moment on the rocky ground, and pushed her way back through the bushes to the point where she’d left the Cloudsplitter parked. A minute or so later, she’d lifted the little car above the ridges, swung it around to the south. Its canopy was closed and she was luxuriously soaking in the warmth of its heaters. She wanted to go to sleep very badly now, but there was one thing still to be done. It was almost finished.
One section, a tiny section, of her mind was forming itself into a psionic alarm system. Forevermore, it would remain on guard now against psi-minds of the type which had nearly trapped her for good. At the slightest, most distant indication that minds like that were about, long before she became consciously aware of them, her bubble would close automatically and she would know why.
She felt the process complete itself, reached over and set the Cloudsplitter on the automatic controls which would take it back down through the mountains into the warm southern areas of Melna Park to drift along with the other tourist cars. Later, she thought, she could start wondering about those minds and what might perhaps be done about them. Later—
She slumped back gently in the car seat and was instantly asleep.
1966
FADDIST
He had promised Elaine that he would tend her garden organically. And he kept his word.
Elaine’s half-acre fruit and vegetable garden, Herman Broadbent told himself with a touch of somberness rather unusual in him, had never looked quite so lush, so deep-green-healthy, as it did today. Even the blood orange tree she used to worry about was responding nobly, with fruits and flowers, to the painstaking organic gardening methods in which his wife had schooled him, and formed a fitting centerpiece for the whole garden. It would have made Elaine very happy to see it.
With the edge of his fork, Herman broke a piece from the whipped-cream scone on the plate before him, and transferred it to his mouth. He was a plump, white-haired man, tanned and rosy-cheeked. Holding the morsel on his tongue for a moment, he half closed his eyes, appreciating the delicate combination of flaky pastry and almost ethereal cream, before closing his teeth slowly down on it. Munching, he let his gaze move over the other items on the porch table . . . cinnamon rolls and jam tarts, grouped about a majestic chocolate buttercream cake.
Elaine, Herman Broadbent admitted to himself with a rueful little smile, would not have been happy to see anything like that in her home! When he thought of his wife, as he often did when sitting on the back porch these pleasant summer evenings, Herman would concede only one fault in Elaine. She had been a health food faddist and had tried very hard, throughout their nineteen years of married life, to turn Herman into one.
Herman, a French pastry and whipped cream man by nature, had gone along with her notions, in part because he was fond of Elaine, and in part because she was twice as strong-willed as he was. In time, he became habituated to wheat germ, yeast, desiccated liver, vegetarian beefsteaks, sunflower seeds, royal jelly, squawbush tea, and the long, long roster of nutritious growths, from apricots to zucchini squash, all exuberantly healthful, positively bursting with minerals and vitamins, which Elaine produced with relentless enthusiasm in her organic garden.
He grew used to this diet; but he never entirely forgot the devitalizing, unnatural, overprocessed goodies he had doted on before running into Elaine. Once, in their eighth year of marriage, as Herman recalled it now, he made the mistake of bringing a box of quite plain Vanilla Treats back from the market with him. Elaine had gone absolutely white. Without a word, she emptied the Treats into the garbage can, then wheeled on Herman.
“Are you trying to dig your grave with your teeth, Herman Broadbent?” she cried. “You know you like the wonderful, nutty flavor of homemade Brewer’s Yeast cookies much better than that poisonous trash!”
Herman knew no such thing. But neither did he lapse again—except, on occasion, in his dreams. Nevertheless Elaine remained distrustful. When, in the nineteenth year of their marriage, she was invited to address the annual convention of the Association of Organic Garden Growers in Idaho, she hesitated, torn between delight at the prospect of being among kindred spirits for a whole week and a suspicion that Herman might go berserk in her absence. Finally, she exacted two solemn pledges from him. One, to take faithful care of the garden while she was gone; and the other, not to deviate by so much as a nibble from the list of menus she drew up for him.
Herman promised. Next afternoon, Elaine, having packed her bags and informed the neighbors of the honor awaitin
g her, drove off to the railway station.
Four days later, a telegram arrived from the Association asking why Mrs. Broadbent had not appeared to address them. Herman notified the police, and an investigation was instituted which led to nothing. Somewhere between the railroad station and Idaho, Elaine seemed to have vanished into thin air. In the eight months since that day, no trace of her ever had been reported.
He could say with full honesty, Herman reflected, gazing out on the garden, that he had kept the first of the two pledges. Two hours each afternoon, he toiled away in the garden, removing each intruding sprout of a weed as it appeared, spreading compost heap material about, spading, watering, and in the fullness of time harvesting each crop and shoving it carefully down the garbage disposal unit he’d installed in the kitchen sink. Elaine couldn’t have found a word of fault with the garden’s condition.
The other promise, of course, he hadn’t kept. Not a single healthful, genuinely nourishing bite had he let pass his teeth since waving goodby to Elaine from the front porch. For almost an hour after she left, he had held out while half-buried memories came crowding into his mind . . . hot apple strudels and shortcakes, pecan rolls and tarts . . . everything topped by snowdrifts of icing, by airy clouds of whipped cream. Finally, his mouth watering unbearably, Herman realized that the bakeries would soon be closed. His pledge forgotten, he rushed out. . . .
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 173