Watson, Ian - Novel 10

by Deathhunter (v1. 1)

  “Not genuine? This is crazy. If I was . . . what you’re suggesting ...”

  “And what’s that? What is it, eh? Come on, put a name to it. Define it.’’

  “Well, some kind of special agent — or conspirator — who’s trying to . . .’’

  “Go on, say it.’’

  “To bring down our present society.’’

  “Yes, and whose agent would that be?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea!”

  “It’s often better that way. You can’t betray anyone. Why did you ask that question about Russia and China? No, that’s a red herring — literally! How about the Church, eh Jim? Put the fear of death into people, and they’ll pray! But who cares about the Church any more? Or is it some really secret group? The Rosicrucians? The Illuminati?

  “Control: that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? Power! Bring this society of ours down in ruins, and you’ll need a goddam dictatorship to replace what we’ve got now! All that we’ve blessedly won after years of stress and fear! And what better way to bring this society down than to infect everyone with the fear of death? The old terror! Only a beast would do that! A devil!”

  Jim stared at the Master, amazed. Resnick was raving. Yet there was a curious self-control to his ravings, which Jim noted with bewilderment. Ordinarily a stutterer shouldn’t be able to rave . . . So this had to be a performance: a show put on for the benefit of someone elsewhere — some imaginary person who would presently hear Jim’s report.

  Meanwhile Resnick was trying to trap Jim into betraying his ‘controllers’, by such wild stabs in the dark. Alice Huron would have done it more subtly and surgically. But Resnick had taken it upon himself, in order to reassert his authority — his own mastership.

  ‘And I thought Nathan was paranoid! Nathan’s the sanest man I ever met. Except for Mike Mullen. And me, I suppose.’

  Resnick was out of control — like an actor who had begun to shout off about his own problems in the middle of a play.

  And he was waggling his hands while he sounded off, as if making signals to Jim. He was crossing himself, genuflecting, twisting his wrists, bending his fingers. It looked like a sort of upright epilepsy. Or else a code known only to initiates. Yes, that was it: a secret code. Unfortunately Jim had no idea what the correct response might be. He couldn’t signal back.

  There was only one possible explanation for Resnick’s behaviour. The awful truth about the red creatures which preyed on souls was suspected — or even known for a fact — by some select group, with whom Resnick had links, and whose creature he was. Yes, a group of individuals somewhere in the hierarchy of the Houses! And they were desperate to suppress that truth, for if it got out, why, the whole society of good death must inevitably go smash. The result could quite conceivably be the extinction of the human race in a new round of sudden violence, civil war, missiles. (Had the doomsday machine ever really been dismantled? Or was it simply in mothballs?)

  Were those people — the Controllers, as Jim now thought of them — prepared to permit any number of souls to go to the crystal hells and purgatories in order to preserve the human race on Earth? The hidden Controllers could, of course, always arrange a surprise death for themselves ... a death such as Norman Harper had died! But subtler, far less public.

  The poet hadn’t been one of those Controllers. He was an innocent. Resnick said so. Resnick hoped to become a Controller if he fielded this crisis. HaWng risen already to Mastership of a House, he had discovered another summit hitherto hidden from view by the peak of the House.

  Puppets . . . and puppeteers ... It might even be that what Weinberger had suggested was true: that the Death creatures could indeed influence the minds of those in power, and consequently the whole structure of society, to provide a smooth supply of peacefully dying souls . . . Perhaps the Death creatures even repaid their minions, their puppets, with paradises after death or with free passage through to the white light — if the creatures could be trusted to keep their word. Or if they could give it in the first place.

  But . . . only a very few people could ever join this privileged elite, and they had to be initiated into it very cautiously.

  The first qualification for membership in the ranks of these secret controllers was to realize that they existed at all. Resnick knew that they existed, and he aspired to be one of them. But, as yet, he didn’t realize that the secret truth they guarded was the very same one that Jim and Weinberger had stumbled on. Or maybe Resnick suspected it, and the suspicion was driving him crazy. That, and the fear that he was being tested for loyalty. Or for something beyond loyalty.

  Weinberger’s machine and Jim’s apparent complicity in it must seem to Resnick like a cunning test! Out of the blue. And Resnick feared that he would fluff the test. Maybe Alice Huron was one of those secret controllers herself — and Resnick, her protege, was hoping to join her on equal terms . . . Possibly, too, the Controllers competed behind the scenes. For power. Whatever else did people ever compete for? If Resnick failed Alice, she lost ground.

  ‘That’s as may be,’ thought Jim. ‘I’ve no way of knowing. All I can find out is about Death itself. That’s my destiny.’

  Looking disgusted and angry, Resnick slumped into his chair.

  ‘If I was testing him, I would flunk him. That makes him very dangerous to me.’

  Once again, Jim placed his hands firmly on Resnick’s desk — realizing, as he did it, that this was an unfortunate move. It made Jim seem far more important, and knowledgeable, than he really was.

  “I’m going to forget all about this . . . outburst, Noel.’’ No doubt this was inappropriate too. “I’m just a guide, and I have a deal to offer to my client. ’’ Jim patted his pocket. “But first, I must visit the Octagon. So I guess I’ll skip lunch.’’

  “Hmm,” said Resnick, presumably unable to decide whether Jim was declining a non-existent invitation tactfully, or pointedly.

  Once outside the office, Jim doubled back down to the basement. In the midst of his grand gesture of condemning Weinberger’s machine to the scrap heap he had forgotten something essential, though he had remembered to bring the cassette player from the blue room.

  Crawling into the cage for what would be the last time, he disconnected the pheromone dispenser with its few remaining drams of the liquid which had already fooled Death twice. The attendants whom Resnick would send down shortly would have no way of knowing it had ever been part of the cage.

  Jim regretted the loss of the ‘thanatos’ rhythm equipment. However, its absence would be noted, sooner rather than later. Besides, it was too bulky and it required a power source.

  ‘We’ll have to improvise,’ he thought. ‘We’ll manage. Somehow. ’ He had already decided to put out of his mind, as much as was possible, the problem of Resnick, Alice, the Egremont House and the Controllers. That situation was perhaps resolvable if he did as they wanted him to, and executed Weinberger. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that course of action would lead inevitably to his own premature retirement. Keeping the ‘scandal’ under the firm wraps of the House, they could claim that

  Jim had gone insane . . .

  Whereas he felt particularly sane right now. After all, had he not caught a distant glimpse of the existence of hidden Controllers? Likewise he had almost caught a glimpse of the hidden roosting place of Death, beyond the prisons which awaited souls.

  ‘Maybe 1 can’t quite cope with the intrigues . . . but 1 can cope with Death. That’s my adventure.’

  Jim took the elevator back up to his own room, and stowed the player and the corpse sweat dispenser in his valise. The yucca leaves outside the window clustered menacingly, suggesting to him the ripping open of his bag — which reminded him about the unread note in his pocket, which did not need to be slit or steamed to open it. He took it out.

  The note which he was to carry to the Octagon consisted of just four words:

  Give him the thing.

  It was not signed, only init
ialled, though presumably Resnick’s scrawl was unmistakable. The Master’s letters looped childishly in the same way as he himself was given to performing figure-of-eight gyrations of the body. Otherwise, perhaps, his writing would have stuttered into illegibility . . .

  Jim stared at the note, more amused than bemused.

  Give him the thing.

  The note was a blank cheque. It seemed incredible that anyone would hand over a lethal weapon on the basis of such a flimsy hint, even to a guide from the House of Death. Oh, how the note smacked of pre-arrangement — even though Resnick had appeared to be so strongly opposed to Alice’s seemingly spontaneous suggestion. At first.

  Yes, there were Controllers — and apprentice Controllers: those whose loyalty to the system must be tested, at the expense of an occasional client, or guide . . .

  ‘What the hell,’ thought Jim. Whom a gun hit depended on whom it was pointed at. Better to be holding it, than not! Metaphorically, of course. He would never contemplate actually using a gun. Perhaps Nathan would, but Nathan was somewhat risky in that area. Unreliable.

  Or maybe devilishly reliable!

  Slipping the note back into his pocket, Jim set off for the

  Octagon. He whistled to himself.

  ‘The die is cast,’ he thought. Die? Yes, it all came down to the gamble of dying . . .

  Yet, as he walked, despite his decision to keep his mind clear for other things, he went over his puzzling encounter with Resnick once more.

  What the hell was going on in Egremont? Involving Resnick and Alice and Officer Bekker and Death knows who else?

  If only he could put his finger on the exact source of Resnick’s apparently paranoid fugue ... He almost felt that the source was . . . himself. But that was ridiculous. How could he be blamed for what Resnick said and imagined? The truth of it was that Resnick was about to have a nervous breakdown. Resnick had been riding high, preening himself. Resnick had been looking forward to rewards for his successful rule of the House. Then Norman Harper had been murdered, terrifying him.

  And unfortunately, even though there were checks and balances in any House, the ultimate power of life and death was in Resnick’s hands. Power over everyone, including Jim.

  ‘The ultimate power of Death?* Jim chuckled bitterly to himself. How little Resnick knew. Or any of them. Only Jim and Nathan knew. Only they had chased Death, almost to its home.

  Secret political intrigues were going on, he decided, but there couldn’t really be a group anywhere in the House hierarchy who knew the truth about Death. If such a group existed, and they continued to operate the Houses, it would be too evil for words. Resnick believed that he was being led into temptation — for political gain. So he would deliver himself from the evil of the bait. By any means.

  But other people wouldn’t. Others would listen. Surely. Possibly.

  Jim’s shoes crunched the gravel as he crossed the courtyard to the Octagon; which prompted him to wonder about their staying power over rougher terrain. But he could not really feel the stone chips through the rubber soles, so he supposed that the shoes would serve.

  He checked in at the front desk. The same white-uniformed woman was on duty. Presently he accompanied another messenger up to Bekker’s office.

  “So it’s you again,” said Bekker, in an unwelcoming way.

  Jim slid the envelope across Bekker’s desk.

  “He did send me, this time,” said Jim deviously.

  Bekker removed the note, scanned it in a moment then turned the paper over as though some explanation or endorsement might be written on the back. But no: Bekker was simply placing the sheet of paper face down so that it was indeed a blank sheet. The message no longer existed. He had never seen it.

  Without a word Bekker got up, went to a wall safe and removed a small package which he handed to Jim. Jim weighed it, and dropped it into his pocket.

  Sitting down again, Bekker smiled for the first time.

  “What a beautiful day,” he said. Since his window glass was opaque this seemed a doubly hypocritical remark. “Nice of you to drop by.”

  “But you’re so very busy.”

  “Right. Alas.”

  Bekker smiled again, and Jim departed, to ride the Beadway back to the House like a mugger of old with a murder weapon hidden in his pocket.

  TWENTY

  “. . . So we’ve got to get out of here, Nathan.”

  “I see. You really think the pheromone flask and the hypno-tape will be enough?”

  “They’ll have to be. We aren’t in the butterfly trapping game any longer. It’s just a question of getting our timing right, transferring into our second bodies, then giving chase. But we can’t do that from here any longer — cage or no cage.”

  Leaning to one side, Weinberger dialled a succession of new scenes for the wall screen: a cactus desert, cumulus cloud islands detached from any land beneath, ripe cornfields with not a bird in sight. He ended up with the rolling forests which he had been gazing at when Jim first met him.

  “We used to go hiking when I was younger. I knew the ground north of here up as far as Barnaby. There were forest retreats, with rations kept in them. Used to be. Still will be, I suppose. Of course, the Peace Service know where those all are. But there are other places in the woods and hills. Old mines, fishing cabins, firetowers. I must say I feel a lot stronger, though I don’t know what shape I’m in for hiking. Lying around in bed can’t have helped! Still. . . We are going north, aren’t we?”

  “We’ll take a car, to give us a start. If the battery’s fully charged, we’ll make thirty-five or forty miles before it runs out of juice. Then we’ll hide the car.”

  ‘‘Leaving approximately another hundred miles to the border — and over that border, other Houses of Death.”

  “Run by different people, with different political pressures operating on them. Maybe thereMl be less hidden manoeuvring. They’re supposed to be more free and easy up there.”

  ‘‘So is Egremont supposed to be. I’m still an absconding murderer, remember. I killed Cock Robin. I shot the poet laureate.”

  ‘‘We’ll have tracked Death to its lair, by then. We’ll have gone beyond the crystal prisons. We’ll have news. Since Egremont won’t listen, that’s why we ran to them.”

  “Not ran, Jim — walked. Quite slowly. Hoping that they’ll listen to us. Why should they want to?”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  Weinberger sighed. “You don’t really quite believe that yet, do you? Despite what we went through together. Your mind’s still running on two separate tracks. One, what we experienced was real. Two, it was a fantasy. You’re getting out of here for reasons of your own. Involving your own skin.”

  “That’s true too,” admitted Jim. “But even so. You know, they’ll expect me to head back towards Gracchus to hole up in the city. So we’ll be safe heading north.”

  “Safe as Houses. Speaking of safety, I once told you that a hydrogen bomb might be the best defence against Death because it vapourizes people before they know it. Do you remember? I was talking rather wildly.”

  “Indeed you were.”

  “But I’ve thought since, what about all the casualties who die slowly from burns and radiation? My real point is, what can anyone do about Death, if it’s the truth? Which it is. Do they

  retrain all the guides as a guild of assassins — sudden killers gliding through society, picking off this man here and that woman there before he or she ever suspects a thing? In cahoots with the Census Office and the Peace Service? Oh, that would really turn the world upside-down! Though I guess it already has been turned upside- down once in my lifetime, so I suppose anything is possible. Oh, but you’d need a Norman Harper and a half to versify that regime!

  “Death comes from the blue

  It comes to me, it comes to you,

  A rifle bullet from a tower,

  Today, tomorrow, any hour.

  Death doesn’t catch any of you.

  W'e do.” />
  “That’s why we need more information,” said Jim. “We have to trail Death to its lair.”

  “In the woods, in the hills. Well, I don’t suppose we have any choice about it — and I’m glad to hear you convincing yourself.”

  Jim slapped his pocket.

  “If they pick up our trail, we can defend ourselves.”

  “With just six shots left?”

  “We can pretend to. Nobody argues with a gun. By the way, I meant to ask you: how do you best use it? If ‘best* is the right word! I don’t mean how do you pull the trigger — that’s obvious — nor do I intend to! Just —”

  Weinberger thumped his own chest. “A fellow’s heart is over here. And you don’t pull the trigger, Jim. You squeeze it. Or you’ll miss. And don’t forget that there’s a safety catch — or that a gun kicks. Not,” he added sarcastically, “that you’ll be using it.”

  “You’d better believe it. One other thing — hypothetically, you understand? Purely as a matter of interest.”

  “Well?”

  “How would someone go about shooting himseljl Would he hold the gun backwards, like this?” Pointing both hands back towards his heart, Jim mimed.

  “You try that when you’re holding a gun, and you’ll find how easy it isn’t. No way.” Weinberger stuck his index finger into his mouth, then pulled it out with a plop. “That’s how. Pointing upwards, or you’ll just blow the back of your throat out. I think that’s how. Hell, it’s all so long ago.’’

  “In your case, about ten days ago!”

  “I mean all the information about killing. The serials, the soap operas. Look, Jim, this conversation’s getting a little muddleheaded. Either you’re planning on taking to the hills with me — or on shooting me. Not both at once.”

  Jim raised a hand in protest.

  “No, what I’m wondering is: can you ever shoot yourself by surprise — if you do it quickly and impulsively enough?”

  “How do I know? Do you think I want to put it to the test? What I’d say is, that nobody ever commits suicide on impulse. So it’s a fool question. But you’ve got one thing right. Our job’s to stay alive — and we won’t manage it here.”