by Robert Reed
wick gave reluctant respect to his intelligence and his education .
Baker was quick-witted . His head was stuffed full of accurate scien-
tific information from diversified fields.
But he refused to be jarred loose from his fixed position that
scientific breakthroughs could come from any source but the Es-
tablished Authority . The possibility that the crackpot fringe could
produce such a break-through panicked him . It had panicked him .
He was fleeing dangerously now through the night, driven by a fear
he did not know was in him .
Inflexibility. This seemed to be the characteristic that marked
Baker and his kind . Defender of the Fixed Position might well have
been his title . With all his might and power, Bill Baker defended the
Fixed Position he had chosen, the Fixed Position behind the wall of
Established Authority .
A blind spot, perhaps? But it seemed more than mere blindness
that kept Baker so hotly defending his Fixed Position . It seemed as
if, somehow, he was aware of its vulnerability and was determined
to fight off any and all attacks, regardless of consequences.
Fenwick didn’t know . He felt as if it was less than hopeless, how-
ever, to attempt to change Bill Baker . Any change would have to be
brought about by Baker himself . And that, at the moment, seemed
far less likely than the well-known snowball in Hades .
Fenwick knew he must have dozed off to sleep with the light still
on in the room and Ellerbee’s unread book opened over his chest .
He did not know what time it was when he awoke . He was aware
only of a suffocating sensation as if some ghostly aura were within
the room, filling it, pressing down upon him. A wailing of agony
THE GREAT GRAY PLAGUE, by Raymond F. Jones | 701
and despair seemed to scratch at his senses although he was certain
there was no audible sound . And a depression clutched at his soul as
if death itself had suddenly walked unseen through the closed door .
Fenwick sat up, shivering in the sudden coolness of the room, but
clammy with sweat over his whole body . He had never experienced
such sensations before in his life . His stomach turned to a hard ball
under the flow of panic that surged through all his nerves.
He forced himself to sit quietly for a moment, trying to release
his fear-tightened muscles . He relaxed the panic in his stomach and
looked slowly about the room . He could recall no stimulus in his
sleep that had produced such a reaction . He hadn’t even been dream-
ing, as far as he could tell . There was no recollection of any sound or
movement within the house or outside .
He was calmer after a moment, but that sensation of death close
at hand would not go away . He would have been unable to describe
it if asked, but it was there. It filled the atmosphere of the room. It
seemed to emanate from—
Fenwick turned his head about . It was almost as if there was
some definite source from which the ghastly sensation was pouring
over him . The walls—the air of the room—
His eyes caught the crystal on the table by the bed .
He could feel the force of death pouring from it .
His first impulse was to pick up the thing and hurl it as far as he
could . Then in saner desperation he leaped from the bed and threw
on his clothes . He grabbed the crystal in his hand and ran out through
the door and down the stairs .
Jim Ellerbee was already there in the living room . He was seated
by the old-fashioned library table, his hand outstretched upon it . In
his hand lay the counterpart of the crystal Fenwick carried .
“Ellerbee!” Fenwick cried . “What’s going on? What in Heaven’s
name is coming out of these things?”
“Baker,” said Ellerbee . “He smashed up on the road somewhere .
He’s out there dying .”
“Can you be sure? Then don’t sit there, man! Let’s get on our
way!”
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Ellerbee shook his head . “He’ll be dead before we can get there .”
“How do you know he cracked up, anyway? Can you read that
out of the crystal?”
Ellerbee nodded . “He kept it in his pocket . It’s close enough to
him to transmit the frantic messages of his dying mind .”
“Then we’ve got to go! No matter if we get there in time or not .”
Ellerbee shook his head again . “Sam is on his way over here .
He’s in touch with Baker . He says he thinks he can talk Baker back .”
“Talk him back? What do you mean by that?”
Ellerbee hesitated . “I’m not sure . In some ways Sam understands
a lot more about these things than I do . He can do things with the
crystals that I don’t understand . If he says he can talk Dr . Baker
back, I think maybe he can .”
“But we can’t depend on that!” Fenwick said frantically . “Can’t
we get on our way in the car and let Sam do what he thinks he can
while we drive? Maybe he can get Baker to hold on until we get him
to a doctor .”
“You don’t understand,” said Ellerbee . “Dr . Baker has gone over
the edge . He’s dying . I know what it’s like . I looked into a dying
mind once before . There is nothing whatever that a doctor can do
after an organism starts dying. It’s a definite process. Once started,
it’s irreversible .”
“Then what does Sam—?”
“Sam thinks he knows how to reverse it .”
There wasn’t much pain . Not as much as he would have sup-
posed . He felt sure there was terrible damage inside . He could feel
the warmth of blood welling up inside his throat . But the pain was
not there . That was good .
In place of pain, there was a kind of infinite satisfaction and a
growing peace . The ultimate magnitude of this peace, which he
could sense, was so great that it loomed like some blinding glory .
This was death . The commitment and the decision had been
made . But this was better than any alternative . He could not see how
there could have been any question about it .
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He was lying on his back in the wet clay of a bank below the
road . It was raining, softly now, and he rather liked the gentle drop
of it on his face . Somewhere below him the hulk of his wrecked car
lay on its side . He could smell the unpleasant odor of gasoline . But
all of this was less than nothing in importance to him now . Some-
where in the back of his mind was a remnant of memory of what he
had been doing this day . He remembered the name of John Fenwick,
and the memory brought a faint amusement to his bloody lips . There
had been some differences between him and John Fenwick . Those
differences were also less than nothing, now . All differences were
wiped out . He gave himself up to the pleasure of being borne along
on that great current that seemed to be carrying him swiftly to a
quiet place .
After a time, he remembered two other names, also . James Eller-
bee and Sam Atkins . He remembered a cryst
al, and it meant nothing .
He remembered that it was in his pocket and that for some time he
had felt a warmth from it, that was both pleasant and unpleasant . It
was of no importance . He might have reached for it and thrown it
farther from him, but his arm on that side was broken .
He was glad that there was nothing—nothing whatever—that
had any magnitude of importance . Even his family—they were like
fragments of a long-ago dream .
He lay waiting quietly and patiently for the swiftly approaching
destination of ultimate peace . He did not know how long it would
take, but he knew it could not be long, and even the journey was
sweet .
It was while he waited, letting his mind drift, that he became
aware of the intruder . In that moment, the pain boiled up in shriek-
ing agony .
He had thought himself alone . He wanted above all else to be
alone . But there was someone with him . He wasn’t sure how he
knew . He could simply feel the unwanted presence . He strained to
see in the wet darkness . He listened for muted sounds . There was
nothing . Only the presence .
THE GREAT GRAY PLAGUE, by Raymond F. Jones | 704
“Go away!” he whispered hoarsely . “Go away, and leave me
alone—whoever you are .”
“No . Let me take you by the hand, William Baker . I have come to
show you the way back . I have come to lead you back .”
“Leave me alone! Whoever you are, leave me alone!” Baker was
conscious of his own voice screaming in the black night . And it was
not only terror of the unknown presence that made him scream, but
the physical pain of crushed bones and torn flesh was sweeping like
a torrent through him .
“Don’t be afraid of me . You know me . You remember, we met
this afternoon . Sam Atkins . You remember, Dr . Baker?”
“I remember .” Baker’s voice was a painful gasp . “I remember .
Now go away and leave me alone . You can do nothing for me . I
don’t want you to do anything for me .”
Sam Atkins . The crystal . Baker wished he could reach the cursed
thing and hurl it away from him . That must be how Atkins was com-
municating with him . Yes, somehow it was possible . He had found
no trick, no gimmick . Somehow, the miserable things worked .
But what did Sam Atkins want? He had broken in on a moment
that was as private as a dream . There was nothing he could do .
Baker was dying . He knew he was dying . There was no medicine
that could heal the battering his body had taken . He had been slip-
ping away into peace and release of pain . He had no desire to have
it interrupted .
There was no more evidence of Sam Atkins’ presence . It was
there—and Baker wished furiously that Atkins would let his death
be a private thing—but he was not interfering now .
There was the faint suggestion of other presences, too . Baker
thought he could pick them out, Fenwick and Ellerbee . They were
all gathered to watch him die through the crystals . It was unkind of
them to so intrude—but it didn’t really matter very much . He began
drifting pleasantly again .
“William Baker .” The soft voice of Sam Atkins shattered the
peaceable realm once more . “We must do some healing before we
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start back, Dr . Baker . Give me your hand, and come with me, Dr .
Baker, while we touch these tissues and heal their breaks . Stay close
to me and the pain will not be more than you can endure .”
The night remained dark and there was no sound, but Baker’s
body arched and twisted in panic as he fought against invisible hands
that seemed to touch with fleeting, exploratory passes over him.
“I don’t want to be healed,” he whispered . “There is nothing that
can be done . I’m dying . I want to die! Can’t you understand that? I
want to die! I don’t want your help!”
He had said it . And the shock of it jolted even him in the depths
of his half-conscious mind . Could a man really want to die?
Yes .
He had forgotten what terror he had left so far behind . He knew
only that he wanted to move forever in the direction of the flowing
peace .
Like probing fingers, Sam Atkins’ mind continued to touch him.
It scanned the broken organs of his body, and, in some kind of de-
tached way, Baker felt that he was accompanying Atkins on that
journey of exploration, even as Sam had asked .
They searched the skeleton and found the splintered bones . They
examined the muscle structure and found the torn and shattered tis-
sue . They searched the dark recesses of his vital organs and came to
injury that Baker knew was hopeless .
“You built this once,” Sam Atkins’ voice whispered . “You can
build it again . The materials are all here . The blood stream is still
moving . The nerve tissue will carry your instructions . I’ll supply the
scaffolding—while you build—”
He remembered . Baker examined the long-untouched record of
when he had done this before . He remembered the construction of
cells, the building of organs, the interconnection of nerve tissue . He
felt an infinite sadness at the present ruin. Yes—he could build again.
Sam Atkins’ face was like that of a dead man . Across the table
from him, Jim Ellerbee and John Fenwick watched silently . Faintly,
between them was the crystal-projected image of Baker’s body .
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Fenwick felt the cold touch of some mysterious unknown prickle
his scalp . Sam Atkins seemed remote and alien, like the practitioner
of ancient and forbidden arts . Fenwick found the question tumbling
over and over in his mind, who is this man? He felt as if the very
life energy of Sam Atkins was somehow flowing out through the
crystal, across space, to the distant broken body of Bill Baker and
was supporting it while Baker’s own feeble energy was consumed
in the rebuilding of his shattered organs .
Though Fenwick and Ellerbee held their own crystals, Sam had
somehow shut them out . They were in faint contact with Baker, but
they could not follow the fierce contact that Sam’s mind held with
him .Ellerbee’s face showed worry and a trace of panic . He hesitantly
reached out to touch the immobile figure of Sam Atkins, who sat
with closed eyes and imperceptible breath . Fenwick sensed disaster .
He arrested the motion of Ellerbee’s hand .
“I think you could kill them both,” he whispered . The life force
of one man, divided between two—it was not sufficient to cope with
unexpected shocks to either, now .
Ellerbee desisted . “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he
said . “I don’t know what Sam’s doing—I don’t know how he’s do-
ing it—”
Fenwick looked sharply at Ellerbee . Ellerbee had discovered the
crystals, so he and Sam said . Yet Sam was able to do things with
them that Ellerbee could not conceive . Fenwick wondered just who
&nbs
p; was responsible for the crystals . And he resolved that some day,
THE GREAT GRAY PLAGUE, by Raymond F. Jones | 707
when and if Baker pulled out of this, he would learn something more
about Sam Atkins .
Time moved beyond midnight and into the early morning hours
of the day, but this meant nothing to William Baker . He was in the
midst of eternity . Because the old pattern was there, and the ancient
memories were clear, his reconstruction moved at a pace that was
limited only by the materials available . When these grew scarce, Sam
Atkins showed him how to break down and utilize other structures
that could be rebuilt leisurely at a later time . There was remembered
joy in the building and, once started, Baker gave only idle wonder to
the question of whether this was more desirable than death . He did
not know . This seemed the right thing to do .
In the presence of Sam Atkins everything he was doing seemed
right, and a lifetime of doubts, and errors, and fears seemed distant
and vague .
But Sam said suddenly, “It is almost finished. Just a little farther
and you’ll have to go the rest of the way alone .”
Terror struck at Baker . He had reached a point where he was
absolutely sure he could not go on alone without Sam’s support-
ing presence . “You tricked me!” Baker cried . “You tricked me! You
didn’t tell me I would have to be reborn alone!”
“Doesn’t every man?” said Sam . “Is there any way to be born,
except alone?”
Slowly, the world closed in about Baker .
Light . Sounds .
Wet . Cold .
The impact of a million idiot minds . The coursing of cosmic-
ray particles . The wrenching of Earth’s magnetic and gravitational
fields. Old and sluggish memories were renewed, memories meant
to be buried for all of his life .
Baker felt as if he were suddenly running down a dark and im-
mense corridor . Behind were all the terrors spawned since the begin-
ning of time . Ahead were a thousand openings of light and safety .
He raced for the nearest and brightest and most familiar .
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“No,” said Sam Atkins . “You cannot go that way again . It is the
way you went before—and it led to this—to a search for death . For
you, it will lead only to the same goal again .”