by Greg Bear
What if they just pull the plug on your phone?" Good thought. Okay, give me four hours leeway. I can get into Bishop and call from there if I have to." Is this going to be dangerous, do you think?" I don't know."
What am I sayingyou think it killed Jordan and Henry, don't you? Could it get you, too?" I'm alone. Maybe not. Maybe it takes two. But don't worry about me unless I don't call. Okay?" Larry, somebody already asked about you and I told them where you were." What? That's a stupid-ass thing to do" No, I don't think so. It was a reporter from Sacramento, said he was investigating the Taggart thing and wanted to talk to you about it. He sounded sincere, so I said you were already investigating. He may be at the cabin tomorrow. I thought you might need help." I should be angry, Dot, but I'm not. Maybe you did the smart thing. I'll look for him." But Jesus, Larry, that could put two of you in the cabincould it get you then?" What it?" Don't toy with me. The icebox monster." He chuckled. Good description. I don't know. We'll just have to find out, won't we?" Dorothy was silent on the other end. I'll be okay, Fowler said softly. Castle called. He wants to know where you are." Don't tell him!" Larry, they're worried. You don't have much time. They're" I'll handle it. I have a couple more days. I'll call them if I need to stay longer." I don't believe this is happening. I don't believe you're off chasing ghosts, for Christ's sake." Not ghosts, Fowler said. Dot, I have to do it." Even if you lose your job?"
Psychlone He sighed. Maybe even then. I owe it to Henry." Yeah." I love and cherish. I'll be back." Soon. I miss you." There was the usual awkwardness getting off the line. Then he was alone again. He wiped his shirt off slowly with the napkin. First resolution, he said, is not to talk about it as if it were an intelligent being.
I'm not giving you any breaks, you hear? he shouted. The silence was worse than any answer could have been. He finished the beans and straightened up the kitchen sullenly, wondering who the reporter would be, how he would look upon Fowler's Folly. If anything more happened, it might be good to have another witness besides himself and the chart recorder.
He picked up a copy of Scientific American and began to read. Four hours later, getting ready for bed, he said, And yea verily, the rest of the night was peaceful, unto morning, and the poor man slept soundly." And he did.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
She was describing an event of incredible psychic power, Jacobs said, putting his legs up on the bed as he sat in the hotel room chair. He leaned his head back on his arms and sighed. Arnold, you know as well as I that psychic events are subtle, weak. Yet this goes outside all bounds. And it may involve the dead." Trumbauer shook his head adamantly. The dead do not wield great power." Not the newly dead, no. Nor those of normal character." Franklin, you're talking nonsense. The dead protect us, warn us. They're our friends, usually more than they are in life." If they bother to stick around at all." I see this picture, two crazy old men sitting in a hotel room, talking ridiculous talk. This is what people I know would think. Franklin, what can we do?" I'm only a writer. For a long time, I thought that by keeping my work popular, I could help bring on the age of spiritual awakening. I haven't been very successful. But now we may have an awakening forced upon us. Whatever this event was, it killed many people. An entire town. Important people are bound to be looking into it. And so must we, because we may know something they don't." What?" The names." What will we do with them?" The Army and Navy may help us. If these are real people, deceased or not, there should be records. I'll call in the morning. If they have some connection with Lorobu, we'll go there and find out. There must be records in the town." What now?" I rest, Jacobs said. And call my wife. See how my garden is doing. Also, tomorrow we'll talk with the others, if they'll let us."
Trumbauer shook his head pessimistically. I don't know. Today I talked with Frenk and Tivvor. They said no more. No more bother about it all. They want to think it's over." Do they believe that?" No. Frenk cried. He was ashamed of himselfI know him welland this is just beyond him. He says another such thing will kill him. And he's terrified about that sort of death."
Why?" If this psychlone, as you call it, is evil, it may not just let people die." Jacobs blew out his lips. Trumbauer folded his hands and bent his head. You've never been receptive to the idea of evil beings." Maybe I'm learning, Arnie." It may take those it kills along with it. Perhaps that's how so many names are connected with it." A giant string of spiritual flypaper, winding across the land, Jacobs said.
You're being ornery now." No. It's a ridiculous image, but I won't say it's untrue. He held up his hand as Trumbauer started to say more, then reached for the room phone. As he called his wife, Trumbauer lay back on the far bed and closed his eyes to meditate. The morning was clear and cold. Jacobs made his calls to Washington early, found a cooperative clerk, and was promised a return call or letter if he couldn't be reached by phone. Then they went to pick up Miss Unamuno. It was her day off, and she had agreed to accompany them to Lorobuor as close as she could go. Trumbauer's station wagon was well-equipped with water bottles and cans of gas, food rations, and other safety paraphernalia which Jacobs looked over with an approving but humored grin. So much for seeing into the future." The Boy Scout motto outweighs all spiritual faith, is that what you're accusing me of? Trumbauer asked. I never said I had rapport with my car. It could crap out without anyone predicting, and where would I be?" Mr. Trumbauer is a very smart man, Miss Unamuno said defensively, not catching the bantering tone. I know, dear, I know. But we are each, in our own way, old fools, so allow us our mock battles." She flushed, embarrassed, and Jacobs patted her cheek lightly. I love making young women blush, he said. But don't tell my wife." First, Trumbauer said, we go to the hospital and see if any of the others will talk to us. Then to Lorobu." The hospital was a disappointment. Half of the remaining psychics had been discharged, and the other half refused visitors. In the reception area, Trumbauer rubbed his chin and looked at Jacobs. I'm afraid I was right. It was such a shock they don't want to be reminded. I imagine quite a few are looking around for new guides, as it were." Miss Unamuno, here, is our bravest, apparently, Jacobs said. We'll just have to rely on her." As far as she goes, she said grimly. I'm not too happy about it." On to Lorobu, then, Jacobs said. How long a drive is it?" We'll be there by four or four-thirty, Trumbauer said. But I don't know how much good it will do us. They have it sealed off to outsiders."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Fowler stood by the Z, looking under the open hood. He checked the hoses, the belts, and tapped the coolant reservoir. Then he brought the long hood down and got to his knees in the gravel to see how the tires were doing. He crept around the side. His eyes focused on the paint below the door. Jesus H. Christ. The paint and metal along the body's base were pitted and scratched, in some areas almost sandblasted in appearance. He felt the surface with his hand. Above a palm-span, the paint was fine. He got to his feet and looked around helplessly. It wasn't wind damage, it wasn't road damagehe would have noticed while unloading the equipmentand that meant it wasn't covered by his insurance. It had happened some time after he parked the Z in the cabin driveway. He wasn't feeling very well anyway, and the discovery irritated him more than it should have. He returned to the cabin and felt his forehead. He was warm. Jordan Taggart's medicine chest yielded aspirin and a thermometer. He took his temperatureedging 100and popped two pills, swallowing a glass of water after. The bitter aspirin taste made him wince. He decided to take a shower before he got any sickermuch preferring to be clean while he was illand pulled back the shower curtain as he undid the top buttons on his shirt. The shower tub was covered with something. He bent down to get a look and recoiled at the smell, like ammonia mixed with animal dung. The bottom of the tub was marred with thousands of crayonlike strokes of color, each stroke growing fuzz and sending out sympathetic circles of mould. He backed away and took a deep breath from the hall, then stood over the tub, looking at the patterns. He'd taken a shower yesterday afternoon. It wasn't possible all this could have grown since. He went to the kitchen and
came back with a bottle of disinfectant, a can of cleanser and a scrub brush. He poured the disinfectant freely around the tub and then added cleanser, scrubbing the enamel vigorously. The pine smell effectively masked the corruption, and soon the tub was white and stainless. The stuff seemed to liquefy as it came away, and all of it went smoothly down the drain, just like ordinary dirt. He then showered and washed his hair. When he finished drying himself, he took his temperature again101. Time to get to bed. He was feeling wobbly, though not queasy yetperhaps it was just a cold. After last night he wouldn't be surprised. That kind of a chill could bring anything on. After mixing frozen orange juice and eating a piece of processed cheese, he lay back on the couch and propped a copy of Computer Age on his stomach. I'm no fit ghost-sitter now, he told himself a half-hour later, trying to squeeze back a growing headache. Everything demanded a nap. He rolled over and shut his eyes. Then opened them. What if the reporter arrived? All in good time. Give him the disease, too. Infections for the nosy. On cue, his began to drip and he stuffed a Kleenex into the lower nostril. He was dreaming about a trip to Disneylandhe hadn't been there for six years at leastwhen the cabin door rattled. One leg went over the side of the couch and he lurched unsteadily to his feet. He felt weak. The aspirin had had little effect. Hello, he said, swinging the door open. Pleased to meet you. He craned his neck. The porch was empty. He looked down and saw a few chunks of gravel on the doormat. Making it back to the couch was difficult. He lay on his back, feet flopped over the far arm, trying to make sense of his feverish impressions. I'm still dreaming, he said. Christ, what a headache." The door rattled again. Something tinked against the window glass above the couch. Fowler opened his eyes and sat up on one elbow, parting the curtains. Something gray passed out of view, perhaps a squirrel jumping down from the eaves. Go away." More liquids was the prescription, always more fluids. In the kitchen, he poured another glass of orange juice and wondered how a bourbon slug would taste added to it. I'm not that sick, he decided. He leaned against the refrigerator as he drank the glass down. The acid juice tickled his throat. He sincerely despised all the debilitating symptoms of colds, all the tiny pains and dull aches and vacant drynesses behind the nose, and overwhelming wetness under the nose ... There were no vitamin C tablets in the cabin or he would be dosing himself without caring whether Linus Pauling was right. If there was the barest chance the ascorbic acid made viruses feel half as irritated as they were making him feel, megavitamin therapy was justified. Death and destruction to all the little buggers. He returned to the couch and tried to concentrate on a million tiny metal spears, each one going deep into a virus, rupturing its little protein wall, spiking its delivery tube, splintering its insidious genetic material. Again the door rattled. He decided it was the wind. Again the window glass tinked. He didn't hear it. He was deep asleep, his face flushed and beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, across his chest, and staining the underarms of his shirt. Something brought him sharply upright on the couch a long dream-passage later. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, clearing away the swimming images. There was a knock on the door. He stood up, preparing to be unsteady. But his footing was strong, his fever was gone and he was no longer weak. He checked himself over quickly, wiping his nosewhich was dryswallowing without pain in his throat, focusing his eyes without an answering jab in the front of his head. He was well. Yes? He swung the door open. A tall, black-haired man in a fawn-colored business suit, very natty, smiled at him.
Mr. Fowler? Lawrence Fowler?" Larry, yes. And you're" Samuel Prohaska. I'm a reporter for CBS in Sacramento, local news. I called your wife" Not yet, you haven't." Well, your friend in Los Angeles, and she indicated you were up hereare up herewith the same doubts I have about the case." I don't know if they're the same. You didn't tell the police, did you?" No, sir. Nor did I tell my boss. I'm technically on vacation. But I met Henry Taggart when I was covering a book convention in San Francisco."
Come on in. I'm just getting over somethinga cold, I think. I caught it this afternoon and now it's gone." What? Prohaska smiled, confused. And my Z has been sandblasted in the driveway, so I can suggest you park your car off the gravel if you value the finish."
Prohaska closed the door behind himself and looked at Fowler doubtfully. Fowler brushed back his hair, straightened his sweater, and returned the look. Samif I can call you thatare you willing to stick around through tonight? You may find out what really caused it all. Have the time?" Prohaska nodded. I don't think you have any idea what it was." Probably not, the reporter admitted. Good. Now be skeptical. I'm going to tell you what's happened to me so far, and I want a sane opinion." Prohaska sat down on the couch. First, something to drink? Plenty of orange juicevitamin C, you know. I'm beginning to think Linus
Pauling is right."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tim stared blankly out the window. It was a nice house, with a large room for him. Suzanne, Rick's wife, was nice to him, all blond-haired and slender and dressed in business outfits because she worked as a secretary in the church. Very pleasant. Tim knew he had to get out of there or they would all be dead soon. Even as he built his models or walked with Rick through the new school he would be attending, Tim knew he was a time bomb. Sooner or later, the image of the Lorobu peopleand the otherswould appear and the blood on his hands would glow, and he would be consumed. That night, while Tim lay in bed upstairs, a government psychologist visited the house and told the Townsends about the boy's condition. Rick sat in the easy chair, chin in hand. Suzanne perched on the edge of the couch, her face drawn from a long day at work. The thin, birdlike psychologist walked back and forth on the living-room carpet, his knees making faint cracks, as he described Tim's trauma and what they would have to do to alleviate it. Suzanne glanced up at the ceiling. She wanted to ask if Tim should be sleeping so near the baby, but it was too frightening an idea to voice. Rick didn't half understand what the man was saying. He distrusted psychologists. Suzanne had once had a nervous breakdown and the psychologists had done her no good at all. I don't think you'll have to worry about violent behavior, the man concluded. Not against you or your child, anyway. Again, I commend you for taking Tim in" He's my brother, Rick said. Yes, and he's a very frightened young boy. Remember that." Psychlone It's going to be hard to forget, Rick said.
He has a lot of trauma to overcome, but with your help, I think he can do it. Do you, yourselves, have any problems I might be able to help you with before I go?" Rick shook his head. Tim was sitting up in bed, watching the window. The air in his room was cold. The voices were coming again. The hurt ones, the angry ones, the ones half there. One voice emerged that he could understandGeorgette, his mother. She faded and another replaced her. Tim tried to rub his stained hands on the counterpane. Go away, he said. Please go away." He scrunched his eyes shut. The faces of people from Lorobu flashed in his head like images on a pack of shuffled cards. He twisted his head back and forth, trying to drive out the vision. He couldn't. Behind the faces, rapidly fading, there arose redness, then a purple smoke, something like water ... and for the first time, he saw them....
Eyeless, mouths open.
He screamed. They remained, calling for him, hungry and in pain. His voice was raw and failing by the time Rick and Suzanne and the psychologist came into the room. As Tim writhed on the bed, Rick shouted at the psychologist who stood in the door, doing nothing. There was nothing any of them could do, and Tim knew that.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Celebrating company, Fowler brought out Jordan Taggart's last steak, fried it with onions, and served it with boiled potatoes and two cans of beer. The reporter ate appreciatively and complimented his cooking. You said you met Henry, Fowler said. How? What did you think of him?" I was covering a booksellers convention in San Francisco, Prohaska said after swallowing a piece of steak. We were talking about how the conglomerate bookstores were edging out smaller operations. He was telling me about his problems in the area, with the big outfits in Ohio buying al
l the local chains and running them like rubber stamps. I said I'd like to do a story on it, so he bought me a drink and we talked for several hours. Got quite a story out of it. Ran two three-minute segments in Sacramento. I like books and bookstores, so we met about a month later in San Francisco and visited all the old bookstores around Union Square. He seemed a very intelligent, friendly guy. I invited him and his family to visit mine in Sacramento if they ever came up. But he said he wasn't married. Something of a swinging bachelor, I gathered." He did okay with women." Then, when they died, I covered the basics of the story for my station. But I couldn't believe it had happened the way the police said. Now, you tell me all this about Jordan Taggart looking out for haunts and I'm not so sure he wasn't crazy." Stick around." I intend to. One way or another, it's a story." But it isn't news any more. How do you justify following up old news?" Not all modern journalism is flash-and-go." Sounds like a rare bit of wisdom, Fowler said. He stood and began to clear the table. We're both breaking the law, you know, Prohaska said as he stacked the plates in the sink. He lifted his can of beer. Breaking, entering, stealing." Yes, and I wonder why we haven't been approached yet." Nobody knows you're here. Bishop's pretty far away and things are kind of slow up here. He walked into the living room and looked through the front window. It's going to get slower, too. It's starting to snow. He turned back to the kitchen. You're nuts, you know. Believing ghosts could have killed them." Not directly killed them, Fowler reiterated. Besides, it was Jordan's idea, not mine. I was brought up here to check it out. And there's evidenceof a sort."