Psychosphere

by Brian Lumley

  As for Johnnie Fong: he stayed fairly close behind Garrison/Koenig until he was certain of the route, then fell back to a respectful distance and settled down to driving at the motorway’s maximum of seventy miles per hour, which was the speed Garrison/Koenig was doing in the Mercedes. A man who held the law in some respect, Garrison/Koenig—when it suited him.

  But having followed so close on his quarry’s heels from hotel to motorway, Fong had given himself away. Richard Garrison would never have noticed him and neither would Thomas Schroeder, but Willy Koenig had been—still was, even as a facet of Garrison—a different kettle of fish entirely. As his beloved Colonel Schroeder had often used to say of him, Willy had an infinite capacity for thinking bad thoughts before others thought them. Whatever the circumstances, he invariably suspected the worst and prepared for it. And where trouble was concerned he was the most capable of men. Moreover, he was loyal to a fault. These were qualities which had earned him Schroeder’s undying trust and friendship; yes, and Richard Garrison’s too. Through them he had succeeded to a place in Garrison’s Gestalt psyche. And right now they were qualities which made him by far the most worthy Garrison-facet to be at the wheel of the big silver Mercedes.

  For upon spotting Fong’s Jaguar in his rearview mirror, even though he had never seen him before except perhaps in a mental “echo” of one of Garrison’s dreams) it was Garrison/Koenig’s nature to dislike and distrust his motives; also to begin to consider what steps might have to be taken to dislodge the Chinaman—perhaps permanently—from his tail. To this end he pulled in at a lay-by and went to the boot of the car. In there, where he had secreted them away some time ago while accendant, were certain weapons. Now he placed these strategically about his person and closed the boot. As he did so the gray Jaguar sped by, its driver staring straight ahead. Perhaps Garrison Koenig was worrying needlessly.

  But fifteen minutes later the big Mercedes passed a cluster of lorries in another lay-by, and shortly after that the Chinaman was back once more on Garrison/Koenig’s tail; he must have been waiting behind the lorries, waiting for Garrison/Koenig to pass. Very well, it was decided: the Chinaman in the gray Jaguar was a tail, an enemy. Now Garrison/Koenig could put it out of his mind—until later. But he had no doubt that there would be a later.

  What neither Garrison/Koenig nor Johnnie Fong had noticed as yet was the powerful black saloon, almost a hearse in its design, sitting well back behind both of them but gradually drawing closer.

  They would notice it soon enough…

  8:15 A.M., AND CHARON GUBWA WAS TIRED. He had earlier taken a couple of uppers (though he was generally against using drugs of any sort personally, except perhaps as an aid to sex) and was now prepared to take more. Today would be crucial and he knew it. There were vibrations in the Psychosphere which were boiling towards a climax. That he himself would be involved he could not doubt, and certainly Garrison would be part of it. Garrison…or Garrison’s passing.

  For certainly the man must die. If there had ever been any question of that it existed no longer: he must die! And that was a thought which thrilled Gubwa as he had not been thrilled for a long time, and which at one and the same moment frightened him mightily. For he knew now that Garrison was not one but three men, and he further knew that he, Charon Gubwa, would never be safe until Garrison’s multimind was utterly erased.

  As for Phillip Stone and the Maler woman: they still lived. Gubwa had enough on his hands at the moment and they were neither a physical nor a mental threat. Vicki Maler’s mere presence here was something of a threat, of course; but the mind-guards were in place, two to a cell, and the Castle had never been more mentally inaccessible from outside interference. Between Gubwa’s mind and the outside world lay a great mental moat, a vacuum in the Psychosphere impenetrable to any but the most powerful mind. Not a two-edged sword by any means, for knowing the nature of his mind-guards Gubwa could direct his own probes outwards as easily as if the guards did not exist at all.

  But let Garrison discover Gubwa—let him find a thread to lead him here, the smallest suspicious echo in the Psychosphere—and the huge albino had little doubt but that he could send his mind crashing in on the Castle, and that then all would be lost. This made him reluctant even to contact Johnnie Fong, and fearful of Fong’s contacting him, as he sat alone in his Command Center and considered his course of action.

  Gubwa knew now about Psychomech, almost all there was to know. That it had been a machine dreamed up by Hitler or his scientific aides to create fearless supermen; built in England thirty-odd years later by the Nazi lunatic Otto Krippner, and used by Richard Garrison to rid his mind of elemental fears and boost his ESP-talents to an incredible degree. An experiment which had almost ruptured the Psychosphere itself! Gubwa knew too, all about Schroeder and Koenig; how the sheer ego of the former had bent causality forces in the Psychosphere; how the defensive and destructive abilities of the latter had guided and protected Garrison through to that time when all three minds could meld into one.

  But the machine, Psychomech! That wonderful machine!

  So Garrison had destroyed the thing. Well, of course he had—so that no man might follow him into the awesome flux of the Psychosphere. He had been jealous of his power. For in those early days he had been to the ESP ether what a black hole is to space and time: a complete disruption of psychic law and order, an insatiable feeder, a dark star of infinite gravity.

  And what then? What had brought about the reversal, the decline, the power-failure? Gubwa had considered this and had come to the same conclusion as Garrison himself. A man is after all only a man. He has his span in which to do those things fate decrees. Even a superman’s powers are finite, if only because as long as there is time he can never have enough of it to do all he is capable of doing. One cannot outlast time itself. Not even an immortal can do that.

  And what if three men—three “facets,” three brightly burning wicks—are feeding on the same fat? How much more rapid the waning of the candle then? Garrison, yes, and Schroeder and Koenig, too, were simply burning themselves out! Garrison’s mistake had been in the destruction of Psychomech, by which he might have revitalized himself. But Charon Gubwa would not make that mistake.

  If he—when he—had Psychomech, he would make of the machine a god! It would stand in his innermost temple, and Gubwa would be High Priest. Yes, and when he hungered his god would feed him, and the Psychosphere would be his to command, and all would be possible, and he would live in power and glory forever! And—

  —It seemed incredible, beyond belief, that this future Gubwa envisioned—this dream of infinite, eternal power—should lie in the hands and minds of one small perfectly normal-in-every-way human being. But it did. Not in Garrison, nor in Schroeder or Koenig or Vicki Maler. In a man whose name was Jimmy Craig—James Christopher Craig—the micro-electronic engineer whose skills had prepared Psychomech for Garrison’s use. At present J. C. Craig was on the board of one of Garrison’s companies, but soon he would work for Gubwa. And he would not have power of refusal. Under the twin pressures—irresistible pressures—of Gubwa’s hypno-telepathic and narcotic controls, Craig would soon become little more than a puppet dancing to the albino’s tune.

  Oh, it would seem quite impossible that any man, even the world’s greatest electronic genius (and it was doubtful that Craig was that) could remember all of the titan bulk of technical information required for Psychomech’s reconstruction. It would seem so…but falsely. Under the spell of Charon Gubwa’s hypnosis he would remember everything. Would recall the most minute details, and soon Psychomech II would be a reality.

  But this time—ah, this time!—it would not be any mere man whose mind the machine expanded. It would be a man whose powers were already developed to an extraordinary degree. Charon Gubwa would lay his obese and unnatural body down upon Psychomech’s couch, but it would be God himself who stood up!

  And this thought also frightened Gubwa (not of being God, for he already considered himself a go
d of sorts), the thought that his dream, so very close to becoming reality, could be obliterated at a stroke. What if J. C Craig should die? At a stroke, an end to Gubwa’s dream. What if he were already dead?

  Well, he was not, for Gubwa had checked up on him as soon as he had his name. No, Craig was alive and well. He worked for Garrison, as a director of MME, Miller Micro-Electronics, to which position Garrison had elevated him following Psychomech’s success. Moreover Gubwa had already issued those orders necessary to bring Craig directly under his control. Within the space of a day, two at most, the man would be on his way here, kidnapped and drugged, to wake up in the Castle and commence work at once upon Psychomech II. And the soldiers Gubwa had assigned to this task were of his best and knew only too well the price of failure.

  Nor were these the only arrangements Gubwa had made. He had twice “visited” Craig and on both occasions, brief though the visits had been, had inserted certain post-hypnotic seeds in the man’s mind. And he had found Craig’s mind very open to subversion; a talented mind, yes, but one lacking in personal conviction, which could be directed or re-directed by the very smallest of pressures. As to what Gubwa had actually done—what “seeds” he had planted, which would now blossom—that was simple:

  He had generated within Craig the need to question Garrison’s authority in the matter of Psychomech. Just what was this machine which had made Garrison so powerful? Why should Garrison alone benefit from Psychomech, when Craig himself had been so essential in the matter of the machine’s reconstruction? Indeed, why should there not be an improved model, over which God-Almighty-Garrison would have no say or sway whatsoever? These were the questions Craig would now begin to ask himself—or which he would believe he was asking—and so, slowly but surely, his conversion to Gubwa’s cause already had commenced.

  But of course Craig was only one problem; there were others of far greater importance. Garrison, for example. What of him? How might his death be engineered without a direct connecting link to Charon Gubwa?

  As if the thought itself had causality, Gubwa’s telephone purred; and on the other end of the line Johnnie Fong was waiting with what might be the answer to his albino master’s problem. “Charon, Garrison is in danger from others!”

  “Who? How many?”

  “They have the looks of killers—Mafia, I think. Three of them, in a black saloon.”

  “Have they seen you?” Gubwa’s pink eyes opened wide as his heart picked up speed.

  “No, Charon. They are only interested in Garrison.”

  Gubwa sighed, relaxed a little, said, “Stay well out of it, Johnnie. Follow, watch, but do not interfere. Where are you now?”

  “Still heading north, about an hour from Newcastle. Garrison has stopped to eat. I can see him from here, through the glass of the kiosk. He eats in the open air, at a wooden table in the sunshine. There are many people around him. He seems very tired, hungry. He did not breakfast in Leicester. And Charon—”

  “Yes?”

  “He has changed again. This is Garrison, but it is not the same Garrison. This one knows no fear. There is an arrogance about him, the strength and sureness of a great cat. Even weary, he looks dangerous. I am a master of the martial arts, as you well know, Charon, but even I would be wary with this Garrison now.”

  “And rightly so,” said Gubwa. “Oh, this is Garrison, Johnnie, but it is also a man called Willy Koenig. When all is done I will explain—perhaps. But for now you may wish those Cosa Nostra dogs the very best of luck. They pursue a stag whose antlers are steeped in purest poison! Where are the Mafia now?”

  “They stand near the exit from this place, which is a petrol station and restaurant. They are in shirtsleeves, leaning on their car. They drink beer.”

  “Does Garrison know they are onto him?”

  “He appears preoccupied. He does not seem aware of anything.”

  “And yet he makes you wary?”

  “Yes…yes, you are right, Charon. There is a tension about him. He is tired, but he cannot relax. He even eats quickly. He desires to be on his way.”

  But to what? Gubwa asked himself. Where does Garrison think he is going? What is he doing? “Follow,” he repeated. “Where they go, you go. I will not contact you. Contact me when you can.” He put down the telephone…

  PHILLIP STONE HAD NOT BEEN PRESENT AT VICKI MALER’S TELEPATHIC and hypnotic interrogation. When he had awakened, without a headache on this occasion, he had found himself alone in a room with two single beds, a chair—and a locked steel door. The place was much like a padded cell, with solid walls (metal, he guessed) beneath the padding. The door had a small barred window for observation. He had banged on those bars until they brought him his breakfast; and shortly after that, while he was still eating, the door had been opened again and Vicki Maler thrust inside with him. Food had been left for her, too.

  Then Stone had explained all, and after initial doubts she accepted him and his assurance that from now on in he would do whatever was in his power to protect her; though that might not be a great deal. Finally, exhausted both mentally and physically, she had gone to sleep on the bed Stone had not used, and he had seated himself close to the door and calculated the odds against him, reckoning his chances and building up his anger. When angry, Stone had the reputation of being a very dangerous man.

  Since then the hours had passed very slowly. At noon Vicki had awakened a little fresher for her sleep, had asked the guard outside the door for water to wash with and had received it. They had been given more food, left to their own limited devices. And with time on their hands, slowly but surely each had come to know the other’s story almost as intimately as a well-read book. And with a future bleak as theirs appeared to be, literally no future at all, they did not hold back but talked with a frankness amazing to both of them in any other circumstance.

  Long into the afternoon they had talked. Stone told her something of his life, loves and adventures; she in return advised him of her own far different background. She removed her contact lenses to show him the golden glow of her eyes, subdued now and seeming to have that varying brightness seen in a light bulb before the filament exhausts itself. And looking at her—her beautiful elfin features and perfect figure, which even her simple clothes could not completely conceal—Stone felt moved as never before.

  “You know,” he said on impulse, “this might seem sort of ungallant—I mean, I may feel this way because you might be the very last woman I ever get the change to talk to—but…”

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, hell, it doesn’t matter.” He shrugged angrily. “Yes it does matter. Damn it all, I got you into this. I mean I…” His words tapered off.

  “What are you trying to say, Phillip?”

  He sighed. “Just that it hardly seems fair, that’s all.”

  “What doesn’t seem fair?”

  “Your life, mine. Yours because it’s been—” again he shrugged, “rough on you. Mine because—”

  “Yes?” she again prompted him.

  “…Because I had to wait until the end of it to meet you.”

  She managed a wan smile. “That is not ungallant at all. I think it very sweet of you. And I know what you mean. I too feel quite…quite small, I feel that everything is much too big for me, and that I am being swept aside in the rush of things.”

  Stone’s anger—at himself—flooded over. He slammed his fist into the padding of the steel door. “I feel so bloody…useless! So weak!”

  “You, weak?” She shook her head. “No, there’s a great strength in you. It’s being powerless that makes you feel weak. I’m the weak one, and growing weaker. Would you do me a favor?”

  “Is it within my power?”

  “Oh, yes. Simply sit here beside me and put your arms around me. After all, we have only each other. But this is a lot in itself. For such a long time now I have had nothing at all…”

  BY MIDDAY GARRISON/KOENIG WAS IN EDINBURGH, WHICH WAS where his entourage lost him. That was deliberately co
ntrived, and no man better equipped for the task than former Feldwebel (SS-Scharführer) Wilhelm Klinke. All one needs do is jump a couple of red lights (they seem somehow to stay red longer in Princes Street), turn a few corners with one’s foot down and tear headlong into a multi-story car park. Garrison/Koenig did these things, parked the car ready for a rapid takeoff, walked to the open-air concrete balcony and looked down on the city.

  Traffic was heavy. No sign of the gray Jag and black saloon. In a way it would be easier if there were. That way it would be over—one way or the other—that much sooner. He had spotted the saloon along the last couple of miles of Al and had known why it was there. Revenge for Vicenti. It hadn’t excited him; the Koenig facet was of an unflappable breed.

  He waited until the middle-aged, tubby attendant came puffing up the spiralling ramp, red-faced and angry. “An’ what the bleddy hell d’ye think ye’re on, Jimmy?” he asked. “When ah lift the barrier ye pull up tae mah window an’ pay—not come tearin’ straight up here like a cock up a cunt!”

  “I’m a stranger here,” said Garrison/Koenig, letting his German accent come through as strongly as possible. “My apologies. Please accept this for your inconvenience.” He handed over a crisp tenner.

  “Oh! Ah see! Well, noo! Indeed! That’s most kind…”

  “Please don’t mention it. Listen, I wonder if you could do me another favor?” He crackled a second tenner between thumb and forefinger.

  “Oh, aye, certainly. What is it, sir?” The tubby Scot’s face was now wreathed in affable smiles.

  “First you could send someone for a few sandwiches—ham, I think—and perhaps a thermos full of coffee? Oh, yes—and some raw meat, a steak perhaps, for the dog? I’m going to sit up here for an hour or two, maybe take a nap in the car. Also,” (he took out a third tenner), “I would appreciate it if you could keep your eyes open for a gray Jaguar and a big black saloon. The Jag’s driver is a Chinese gentleman. The saloon has three men in it, I think, probably Italians or some such. Mediterraneans, anyway.”