Psychosphere

by Brian Lumley

  Now Garrison lowered the magazine. Gubwa might have expected the brothers to flinch, attack, almost anything—but they merely stared, their faces strangely blank. Nothing was said, no movement was apparent. For thirty seconds, maybe even a full minute, the oddly frozen tableau held. Then—

  As if they had not interrupted their exit from the hall, the brothers wheeled their trolley away and disappeared round a corner. Garrison watched them go, turned and began to follow the route indicated to the car park. He paused, leaned for a moment against a tiled wall, stood upright—but shakily—and finally continued walking.

  GO AFTER HIM, said Gubwa in Fong’s mind. FOLLOW WHEREVER HE GOES. REPORT WHEN YOU CAN, DAY OR NIGHT. BUT DON’T LOSE HIM.

  “As you wish, Charon,” the Chinaman whispered to no one, walking quickly after Garrison but keeping a good distance between himself and the man’s back.

  AND JOHNNIE, YOU MAY HAVE TO PROTECT HIM. I WANT HIM TO STAY ALIVE—FOR THE MOMENT, ANYWAY.

  “Yes, Charon.”

  Gubwa withdrew and opened his eyes. He was seated at his desk in the Castle’s Command Center, a Gatwick area Ordnance Survey map spread before him. He stared at the map thoughtfully, frowned, folded it carefully and turned in his seat to replace it in its rack.

  His frown grew more severe as he tried to analyze what he had just seen. If it was what he suspected, then Garrison’s strength was indeed incredible. He could of course check it out, could visit the minds of the Black brothers and discover what had been done to them, but that might be dangerous. Garrison could be maintaining a mind-link. That might account for his momentary weakness as he left the arrivals area: it could be the result of his continuing use of ESP following the initial surge when he had done to them whatever he had done.

  No, Gubwa couldn’t risk it. For one thing he did not wish to overtax his own powers, and anyway he had other things to do, other minds to monitor. Phillip Stone’s, for instance…

  STONE’S CAR WAS PARKED ON THE HARD-STANDING OF A LAY-BY where the road climbed to a low hill half a mile to the west of Garrison’s house. Stone sat in the driver’s seat, a pair of binoculars hanging round his neck. He had seen Garrison drive away towards London, had seen a gray Jaguar pick up his tail as he approached the A27, but beyond that he had not been interested. He was simply following instructions. More than that was quite beyond him.

  Oh, he could perform his normal functions, could talk, eat, drink, smoke and answer the calls of nature—anything, providing he did not stray from the mental course directed by Charon Gubwa. The awful thing about it was he knew what he was doing—or what he was not doing. For one thing, he was not protecting Garrison. No, he was waiting on Gubwa’s command to snatch the man’s wife, or mistress, whatever she was.

  For what must have been the fiftieth time, Stone looked at his car telephone. All he had to do was pick it up, get his chief on the other end, put him in the picture. Or he might try digging a tunnel to Australia. An impossibility. He could think about doing it, want desperately to do it, but actually do it? No way. Gubwa had seen to that. A pretty thorough laundering of Stone’s mind (done with an efficiency and speed that would have left the KGB in tears), a mind-block, and just to polish things off nicely a rather comprehensive list of post-hypnotic commands. These things were Gubwa’s legacy to Stone: forming a governor on his mind like the governor on a car’s carburetor or accelerator, limiting his performance. And until Gubwa’s ends were served—until the albino had Vicki Maler to use as he would in the Castle—Stone would simply have to obey.

  QUITE CORRECT, MR. STONE, said a voice in his mind, so clear and close that he jerked his head round, fully expecting to see the hermaphrodite standing there, just outside the open door of the car. NO, NO, said the voice, amused, YOU CAN’T SEE ME, MERELY “HEAR” ME—AND OBEY ME, OF COURSE.

  Stone swallowed hard, took a sip of coffee from the plastic lid of his thermos flask, thought: What now, Gubwa?

  JUST CHECKING. WHEN IT GETS DARK I WANT YOU TO GO TO THE HOUSE. THERE YOU WILL KEEP OUT OF SIGHT AND AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE TO PROTECT THE OCCUPANTS. THERE ARE OTHERS WHO SEEK TO BRING GARRISON DOWN. I CAN’T WATCH EVERYONE AND I DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING, BUT—

  But it only seems that way? Stone’s thoughts were sarcastic.

  YOU FLATTER ME—Gubwa ignored them—BUT I DON’T WANT THE MALER WOMAN HARMED IN ANY WAY. I’LL BE IN TOUCH. And he withdrew.

  Left on his own, Stone was suddenly cold. The sun wasn’t down yet, the evening was warm, and yet he was cold as…(he grinned mirthlessly) stone cold. It had finally dawned on him that Gubwa could do it. Mad he might or might not be, but he could actually do it. He could conquer the world. He could become Emperor of Earth. He could refashion men in his own image. And here was Phillip Stone—hard-man with fists of steel, secret agent with all the resources of MIs 5 and 6 to back him up—and helpless as a newborn babe.

  He finished his coffee, smoked a cigarette, waited. As night began to fall, he locked the doors of his car and started off towards the house…

  THE LONDON MAFIA SAT IN EXTRAORDINARY MEETING. The Big Guy’s “usual offices” were in a city center office block, on the tenth and top floor. The largest room, overlooking a busy London street, was the venue. There, about a table similar to the one at which another group had recently discussed Richard Garrison, was gathered The Coven, the Cosa Nostra’s thirteen foremost London-based men.

  At the head of the table sat the Big Guy, Joseph Maestro—a bullnecked, scar-nosed, hulking thug whose ugly, swarthy features and blocky frame seemed hugely incongruous with the immaculate cut of his suit—and from there down to the foot of the table sat his lieutenants in descending order of importance. Towards the foot sat Carlo Vicenti, quite clearly showing signs of wear and tear. One sleeve of his jacket hung loose; his arm was bandaged across his chest. One hand was swathed in bandages. His face showed severe bruising.

  The meeting had been in session for a little over half an hour and it was now just after 9:00 P.M. Several minor items had already come up for discussion, clearing the way for the big one, but now it was Garrison’s turn. The Big Guy had started it off and he was now almost through speaking.

  “…So it really would seem that this guy has an unbeatable gambling system. Hey!—not just one system but a system for every game. Now I don’t have to tell you guys what that means…but I will ’cos I know a lot of you can’t see past your fucking noses. If Garrison’s methods get loose—if he lets this big cat out of the bag—in no time at all ten thousand Garrisons will be hitting our tables and machines and clubs. And a high percentage of our backing comes out of those clubs…

  “On the other hand, if he tells us how he does it…well, there’s a lot of clubs still belong to other people, yeah? So, that’s why we’re bringing the guy in. Hey!—and anybody who doubts how good he is only has to ask Mr. Vicenti down there how he lost his personal share in the Ace of Clubs, and I’m sure Carlo will oblige. And not only money, Carlo lost a lot of face. We don’t like that, none of us.

  “What it boils down to is this guy Garrison’s a menace, but when we’ve finished with him and picked his brains a little he’ll be a very thirsty menace—which is fine ’cos we figure to fix him up with a great big drink. Hey!—you think he can drink the river dry? Ha!”

  “When?” Vicenti asked, his tone surly. “When are we bringing him in, Joe?” (Nobody called the Big Guy Joseph.) “See, I have a big interest in this bastard!”

  “Yeah, yeah, we know. Stay cool, Carlo. Like I said before, he’s yours when we’re through with him. But being a democratic organization—and technically this being a hit, which it will be eventually—we need a vote. Ain’t that why we’re all here tonight? Sure! So, let’s see a show of hands that we bring in this Garrison, that we get him to tell us his story, and then that we fit him up with concrete boots.”

  Along with Maestro’s hand, eleven others were swiftly raised, Vicenti’s more slowly and with a deal more effo
rt. They were still in the air when the doors crashed open to admit Joe and Bert Black. Joe carried a levelled automatic, Bert’s arm’s cradled a folded-down Sterling sub-machine-gun.

  “Now get the other arms up!” Joe’s voice was cold.

  “Up!” ordered Bert, the snout of his machine-gun moving to cover the entire meeting. All eyes were on that weapon, and all present knew Bert’s reputation. The muzzle of the Sterling seemed to flare like some single obscene nostril in the face of a mythical beast. Before that beast could snarl they raised their other arms.

  All except Carlo Vicenti. He pushed his chair back, made to stand. “You guys nuts?” he yelled. He mistakenly thought that they were here to pre-empt reprisals. “You come busting in here like…shit, you were invited! So you missed your hit, so what? It works out right. We want Garrison alive. We have no grudge with you guys.”

  While he talked Joe and Bert had moved to flank him; they pushed him down in his chair as he struggled to rise. Then, without another word—even as Vicenti continued to rage—Joe Black put away his pistol, took out a cut-throat razor, yanked back the suddenly shrieking man’s head and slit his throat ear to ear.

  Vicenti coughed, choked, made noises. The sounds issued from his gaping wound, not his gaping mouth; and a moment later, along with the sounds, blood in a crimson gush. Bert and Joe stepped back from him. He floundered in his chair, rose, sat, sprayed blood, clawed at his throat. He was drenched scarlet. He flopped facedown on the table, arms flailing. He slid off the table, leaving a spreading pool of blood.

  While Vicenti died the Black brothers moved to the large casement windows. Now every living bulging eye in the room turned from Vicenti’s body to them. The Big Guy and his colleagues were on their feet, arms raised high. Maestro tried to speak but choked on the words.

  “Compliments of Richard Garrison,” said Joe, and for the first time the remaining occupants of the room noticed how vacant the faces of the assassins seemed. “And a warning, in case anyone else wants to try it on. This is to show you what he can do…” And the brothers turned on their heels and hurled themselves headlong through the closed windows, taking weapons, shattered glass and their spent lives with them.

  For a moment no one moved, then there was a concerted rush for the door.

  “Hold it!” Maestro found his voice as cries of horror began to float up from the street below. “Hold it right there. This place will be thick with filth in less time than it takes us to get out. And why should we run, eh? We’re innocent bystanders, ain’t we? If the Blacks want to cool Carlo and then jump, that’s their business. As for us, we all tell the same story, okay?”

  They all began to babble at once but Maestro held up his arms. Quick thinking was his forte. “Listen, for fuck’s sake! We ain’t carrying heaters, are we? The only prints on those guns down there are theirs, the Blacks! All we do is leave Garrison’s name out. The rest of it we tell like we saw it. Shit, how should we know what was going down between Carlo and the brothers, eh?”

  The rest of them looked at each other, nodded, began to relax. “Okay,” Maestro continued, “so get your minds tidied up. Hell, we’ve seen worse than this.”

  As they began to gather into small groups and mull over what they had seen, the Big Guy called over Ramon de Medici and quickly took him to one side. “Ramon,” he kept his voice low, “what you told me earlier—about Carlo being sure it was Garrison beat him up—that was straight-up stuff?”

  “Sure Joe—except it don’t look so silly now, eh?”

  Maestro’s face twitched. “This Garrison, I don’t want him brought in anymore. I don’t want to know anything about him. I just want him dead. I think he’s safer that way.”

  De Medici nodded, “This we can do. We bugged his car while he was out of the country. A big silver Mercedes. Our technical boys can tell us where it is whenever we want to know. And Garrison is usually where the car is.”

  “Okay, as soon as they cut us loose from this mess, get somebody on it. Somebody reliable.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “In fact, you better get the hell out of here now. Go out the back way and over the roof. Don’t let anyone see you. I’ll tell the guys to forget you were here, right?”

  “Right,” Medici nodded, taking his departure.

  Outside, the mechanical whoop, whoop, whoop of police sirens was beginning to fill the air. Fists were already knocking on the external doors of the executive office suite, and authoritative voices demanded entrance.

  A spider-splash of shadow, Ramon de Medici hurried over the dark roofs…

  Chapter 16

  Garrison/Schroeder came off the M1 at Leicester and found a good hotel. He would have driven on but it was past 11:00 P.M. and he was weary to death. It was late for eating but he bribed reception to fix a meal for him; and while he was on about it he ordered an extra steak, raw, for Suzy. He took her supper out to the car and she gratefully wolfed it down. Then, leaving one of the Merc’s windows open a fraction, he told Suzy to go to sleep and returned to the hotel. The bar was still open for residents.

  Halfway through his fourth whisky the weasel-faced receptionist sidled up to him and asked if he would mind eating in his room; there were others here who had been refused food at this late hour. Garrison/Schroeder didn’t mind, gulped down the rest of his drink, made his way to his room and ate his fill. Then, having made himself a coffee, he stretched out on his bed and opened up a magazine he’d picked up at Gatwick Airport.

  That magazine—an airline throwaway full of advertising, duty-free offers and such, plus a couple of articles to occupy the passenger during his flight—was the principal reason he was here. He had picked it up off a table at the airport, used it for a shield to hide his face while he waited for Joe and Bert Black; but before then, as he had idly skipped through its pages…

  Garrison/Schroeder’s knowledge of the paranormal—not his experience of it, which was another thing entirely—was second to none. As Thomas Schroeder he had always been interested in parapsychology, especially in the nebulous region of prophetic dreaming. How such dreams worked he did not know, but he did know that he was here today as Garrison/Schroeder because they worked. It had been just such a prophetic dream which had helped convince Richard Garrison to accept his offer, his pact, and finally to become the host body and mind to his mind. Yes, his very reincarnation could be traced back to just such a dream.

  And now…now there was this. This simple photograph in a magazine. Monochrome, not especially interesting, even dull. Dull, too, the text—boastful product of the British Energy Commission—but when Garrison/Schroeder’s eyes had first glimpsed the full-page spread, then the paper had seemed illumined with some magical inner light.

  The picture showed a valley, a dam, and in the background a range of great gaunt hills. The legend below said that this would be the biggest boost to the grid since the opening of the atomic power station at Dounreay. It also said that the dam, close to Glen O’Dunkillie, was due to go into production on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, and that the Minister for Energy would be there for the opening ceremony. But Garrison/Schroeder had already determined to be there sooner, by tomorrow at the latest. His reason was simple:

  This was that same valley and dam, the self-same wild hills that Garrison had seen in his dream. The Schroeder-facet had engineered that dream, had been “awake” while the Garrison-facet “slept” and had promoted the sleeping facet to probe the future—had even loaned his own natural, not inconsiderable ESP-talent to facilitate that probe—and of course he had shared the dream, he, too, had seen that part of their joint future.

  Elements of that dream flickered once more like scenes from an old silent movie through the inner recesses of Garrison/Schroeder’s mind. He saw the storm and the lightning, the six sprouting arcs of shining, steaming water, and felt the dampness in the air and spray in his face—and all superimposed over the photograph on the printed page. And down in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, t
he bleak gables of an old house in the pines where once…where once had reared a golden dome!

  In Xanadu did Garrison a stately pleasure-dome decree…

  A pleasure-dome? Unlikely, unless “pleasure” represented the fulfillment of the ultimate dream, not really Garrison’s this time but Schroeder’s own: his lifelong dream of immortality. And hadn’t that been the very purpose of Garrison’s dream-quest? To seek out and seduce the Goddess of Immortality? Well then, the quest might soon be at an end. Garrison/Schroeder could sleep this night knowing that in the morning, no matter which facet took ascendence upon awakening—be it himself, Garrison/Koenig, or just Garrison—his journey would be completed. And that somewhere ahead, in a valley close by Glen O’Dunkillie, destiny waited.

  For now he could simply sleep and dream his own dreams, except that he somehow knew they would no longer be filled with terrors. Or rather the One Great Terror: Richard Garrison’s death, by natural causes or design, which must of course signal his own, Willy Koenig’s, Vicki Maler’s, yes, and Suzy’s death too.

  Vicki…Poor child; he thought of contacting her before sleeping, of finding and touching her mind, just to see if all was well, but—

  The battery was leaking its energy into the great boundless Psychosphere. Energy which could not for now be replaced. Another good reason to sleep.

  Garrison/Schroeder undressed, put out the light and got into bed…

  GARRISON’S QUEST MEANWHILE CONTINUED. He, too, sought the valley of the dome, but subconsciously, in a world which was grown more real to him now than any waking world.

  Since that terrifying episode in the cave of the Other—the interrogation of the girl-wraith and her escape, aided by the one who wore the Cloak of Secrecy—Garrison had come far. He had skirted great green oceans, millpond calm, because he dared not cross them. Not with the Machine to weigh him down. The weariness was on him continually, and every furlong of the way seemed a mile. Even Suzy was weary—Suzy of the boundless energy—and spent a great deal of her time curled behind him, adding her weight to the general burden; but he would leave neither dog nor Machine behind. He must go on and they must go with him.