The Devil's Eye ab-4

by Jack McDevitt

  ***

  It was on the whole a depressing hour and I was glad when it was over. Alex had found a couple more who'd seen her, and who'd thought something might be wrong. But nobody had pursued the issue with her. "I talked with Cory again," he said. "And-?" "She bought a new notebook after she got home from Salud Afar." "What happened to the old one?" "Apparently left behind." On the way home, he mentioned that he'd gotten the name of her psychiatrist.

  FOUR

  Trust your instincts, Shiel. In the end, it's all you've got.

  - Nightwalk

  The painful truth about humanity is that the only people who can't be bought are the fanatics. Clement Obermaier was not a fanatic. He was the authorizing psychiatrist in Vicki's case. And when Alex offered to contribute substantially to a fund in which he had an interest, he discovered a way around the ethical dilemma posed by the need to talk about a patient. Alex met him at Cokie's Place, a cabaret in the mountains north of St. Thomas. Afterward, he reconstructed the conversation for me.

  Obermaier apparently thought Alex hoped there'd be a manuscript around somewhere. If there were, it would be worth a considerable sum. "At first," Alex said, "it was pretty obvious he was hoping he could talk to me, collect the contribution, but not tell me anything." "So what did he tell you?" "Somebody did a lineal block on her." "A what ?" "It's a procedure that's used with psychotic patients. Or with those who have extreme emotional problems. It allows the doctors to isolate a memory, or a set of memories, and prevent the patient from acting on them. From even talking about them." "Why would they want to do that?" "It can negate a wish for vengeance, for example. Or prevent stalking. That sort of thing." "So who used it on her? Why would they do it?" "Obermaier has no idea. There's nothing in her medical record." "Which means it was an illegal procedure." "Yes." "Can they estimate when it happened?" "He's pretty sure it was within the last year." "So what you're telling me is that she had some sort of specific memory that was locked away. She couldn't even tell anybody what it was." "That sounds about right." "But the memory was still there." "Yes." "Why wouldn't they-whoever did it-just do a mind wipe?"

  "If we can find them, we'll ask. My guess would be that you can't hide a complete memory abstraction. I mean, the poor woman wouldn't even have been able to find her way home." "Couldn't this guy help her? Other than by removing her memory completely?" "He says he tried. But apparently lineal blocks tend to be permanent." "So he did the extraction because she was having a problem with the lineal block? Do I have that right?" "They did the extraction because she requested it." "Couldn't he have refused?" "He said he saw no recourse except to allow her to proceed." "Why?" "He said that, left to herself, she might have committed suicide." "You think it happened on Salud Afar?" "I don't think there's any doubt." "Are you suggesting maybe she ran into a real werewolf? Something like that?" "I think she found out something she wasn't supposed to know."

  ***

  Two days later, Alex had something he wanted me to watch. "This is from the Nightline Horror Convention," he said. "It took place a few days before Vicki left for Salud Afar. She was among the guests, and this is one of her panels." The hologram blinked on. Four people at a table. Vicki at one end. I could hear an audience behind me. A tall redheaded man sitting beside her held up his hand, and the crowd quieted. "My name's Sax Cherkowski. And I just want to say my latest novel is Fright Night . I'm the moderator of the panel, and I'd like to take a moment to introduce everyone. We'll be talking about how to set mood, which is to say, how to scare the reader." We fast-forwarded through most of the comments until it was Vicki's turn to speak. "It doesn't have to be dark," she said. She used a dazzling smile to demonstrate that all the mummies and vampires were in fun. "It doesn't have to be gloomy. All you need is a hint that you're setting the stage. The wind suddenly becomes audible. "It might be two o'clock in the afternoon in an office building with a thousand people moving around. But if you know what you're doing, you can still arrange things so that every time someone opens a door, your reader will jump."

  The panelists took turns responding to questions from the moderator and the audience. Vicki didn't really talk . She performed . She sparkled. The audience loved her. "Keep in mind," she told them, "that you're not telling a story. You're creating an experience. When those floorboards creak, your reader should hear it. When a log falls in the fireplace, your reader should jump. That means if you write anything that doesn't move the action forward, throw in an adjective you don't need, do anything that doesn't keep things going, you remind the reader that she's in a comfortable chair at home reading a book. When that happens, everything you've worked to accomplish goes away."

  Alex let it run for about twenty minutes. Vicki held the audience in her hand. She got laughs, collected applause, traded quips with the other guests, joked with people in their seats, and was the star of the show. Then he showed me a second panel in which she tried to explain why people love to be scared. She was, if anything, even better. "This next," said Alex, "is a teachers' luncheon. She was the guest speaker." A long table appeared. A tall, rangy man stood at a lectern and introduced her. While he delivered accolades and the applause heated up, she took her place beside him. She thanked everyone for coming, announced that she would be talking about the importance of literacy and the critical role teachers play in the process of enlightening the rest of us, and she proceeded to do so. In a workmanlike, methodical manner. She was good, but the energy, the flash and dazzle, were gone. They listened, and when she'd finished,

  they applauded politely. She was a different woman. Her eyes drifted around the room; her tone wasn't flat, but- Alex shut down the sound. "This one," I said, "was after she got back." He looked into the center of the room, where the hologram had been playing. "Yes. She'd been home six days."

  Every world has its uneasy places, sites where gruesome killings, real or mythical, have taken place. Where spirits are said to be in command. Where people hear things whispering in the wind. Most of these locations, of course, are the products of people with overactive imaginations. And sometimes they are enhanced by entrepreneurs, interested in attracting tourists. Oh, yes, madame, up there on the hill, when the moon is high, Miller's dead daughter can still be seen. Usually near the large tree right on the eastern edge. She always wears white. If you run a search for such places, a substantial number of them turn up on Salud Afar: haunted buildings, haunted forests, a river with a demonic boatman, another river that is home to the spirit of a young woman drowned trying to reach her lover, a temple in which high priests (supposedly) had lopped off people's heads and where the screams could still be heard at certain times of the year. And there was even a phantom aircraft. My favorite was a laboratory, abandoned centuries ago, which locals claimed had once produced a time machine. Members of the long-dead staff, it was claimed, still showed up on occasion, their earlier selves traveling happily through the ages. "Why?" I asked Alex. "How come there's so much nonsense on this one world? Do those people really buy into this stuff?" Alex had been in a somber frame of mind since the memorial service. Ordinarily he'd have responded with a detailed analysis, attributing the effect perhaps to starless skies, or romantic trends in the literature. But he hadn't recovered his customary good spirits. "I've not been there," he said. "But I doubt the stories have anything to do with the credibility of the inhabitants." "What then?" "I don't know. Maybe we should ask a sociologist." "You have a theory." He nodded. "I can suggest a possibility." "You want to share it?" "Salud Afar, until its revolution thirty years ago, had suffered under six hundred years of authoritarian rule. Worldwide. Think about that. No place to hide. The only escape was off-world, and the government had to okay it before you could leave." His eyes narrowed. "I hate to think what life must have been like." "Six hundred years?" I said. "Under the same family. The Cleevs. It was a place where you had to keep your mouth shut. And you never knew when the Bandahr's thugs were coming through the door." "That was the Cleev family?" "Yes." "What's your point?" "Maybe no
ne. But I suspect, when things get bad like that, when there really are monsters running loose, people tend to invent fantasies they can cope with. It might be an escape mechanism and maybe reassurance at the same time, because they know vampires don't exist. And they aren't nearly as terrible as what they face in real life but don't dare talk about."

  Alex did a round of speaking engagements, contributed a set of Myanamar dishware-three hundred years old-to the Altreskan Centenary Museum, cut the ribbon at a cultural center at Lake Barbar, and attended the inauguration of the newly elected governor of West Sibornia. But he remained bothered by what had happened to Vicki Greene. He began subscribing to news reports and summaries of current events from Salud Afar. Because of the

  distance involved, they were about ten days old when they arrived. When I asked what he was looking for, he told me he'd know it when he saw it. He spent hours in his office, going through everything that came in. He didn't trust Jacob to do it because he couldn't spell out the specifics for the AI. He discovered that Vicki had done an interview show, conducted by a local academic, and managed to get a copy of the show. It was called, as best I remember, Imkah with Johansen. Imkah was apparently a concoction like coffee. And there was Vicki, fresh and alert, the real Vicki, talking about why people love to be frightened, how glorious it feels to hide under the bed while the storm rages outside. "Storms are what we're about," she told Johansen. "Lightning bolts and other things that come out of the night. There's nothing like a good scare. It's even good for your heart." It was the Vicki from the Nightline Horror Convention.

  Alex took me to lunch once a week. Sometimes twice, if we had something to celebrate. He liked celebrations and rarely missed an opportunity. Usually we went to Debra Coyle's. It looks out over the Melony, they keep a fire going, the food is excellent, and the prices are right. Three or four weeks after the memorial, he came down the stairs and hustled me out the door. A few minutes later we were walking into Debra's. It was one of those dreary, cold, rainy days. The sky sagged down into the river, and occasional gusts shook the building. We ordered salads and talked about nothing in particular although I could see there was something on his mind. When he finally got around to it, I wasn't particularly surprised: "Chase," he said, "I'm going to Salud Afar." "Alex, that's crazy." But I think I'd known it was coming. He looked at me and laughed. "We both know why she paid me the money. She was asking me to find out what happened to her. And do something about it." "You're sure you want to do this. That's a long run out there." He was staring through the window at the soggy weather. "I've gone through everything I can find about Salud Afar. There's no indication of an incident of any kind. And certainly nothing about anybody getting killed. But Chase, something happened." They brought a decanter of red wine and poured two glasses. I didn't say anything while he made some sort of nondescript toast. Then he put his glass down, folded his arms on the table, and leaned forward. "It's the least I can do." "It's a long ride." "I know." He stared at me, looking guilty. Actually, I knew him well enough to be sure he wasn't feeling guilty, but was putting on a show. He paid me generously, and I was supposed to be ready when the bugle sounded. "I know it's asking a lot, Chase. Especially on such short notice." He hesitated, and I let him hang. "I could hire a pilot, if you can't manage it." "No," I said. "I'll take you. When are we leaving?" "As soon as we can pack."

  That left Ben to deal with. "No," he said. "Not again. Not so soon." "Ben, it's an emergency. And I can't let him go alone." "That's what you always say, Chase. I've been living with this now for a long time. I think at some point you have to decide what you want." "I know." "So what are you going to do?" "I can't walk away from him when he needs me." "You know, Chase, if I thought for a minute this would be the last time, I'd say fine, go ahead, and I'll see you in, what, three months?" We were in his car, riding on River Road. I was supposed to be taking him out to dinner. My treat. His birthday was three days away, but I wasn't going to be there for it. "So what can you tell me? Is it going to be the last time?" I thought about it. I was still thinking when he said, "You don't have to answer. I guess I know."

  FIVE

  The storage area occupied a cramped space above the concert hall. It didn't hold much. A few old instruments, some costumes, some electrical gear. Certainly nothing to be concerned about. Furthermore, it was securely locked and no one could have gotten into it without Janice's knowledge. Therefore, when she started hearing sounds, knockings, sighs, and heavy breathing, coming from behind that locked door, she would have been prudent to get out of the house. To call the police. But then there'd be no story.

  - Love You to Death

  I didn't usually look forward to getting back on board the Belle-Marie . Maybe I was getting old. But it's a bit confining, physically and otherwise. I'd become a city-lights type, I guess. I liked parties and guys. I liked the social side of my job, which kept me running around with Alex, playing Rainbow's public relations maven. I got to meet a lot of interesting people, interesting in that so many of them had serious accomplishments on the record. And also that many of them were passionate about the bits and pieces of our past that had survived, sometimes across thousands of years. Watching them walk through our traveling exhibit, pressing their fingers against a display case, holding the captain's insignia from a vessel that left Earth in the first years of the interstellar age, staring at the laser rifle that misfired while Michael Ungueth was trying to hold back the giant lizard during the evacuation of Maryblinque, listening to their voices drop to a whisper-What other line of work could have matched any of that? Maybe too much had changed. Alex had become driven, and I knew there'd be no peace until he figured out what kind of message Vicki Greene had been trying to send. Nonetheless, this time, I was glad to see the ship again. He was back in the passenger cabin, still making calls to clients while I got ready for departure. When he finally signed off, he buzzed my line, thanked me again, admitted we were probably on a wild-goose chase, but pointed out we were being paid very well. Twenty minutes later, we were on our way.

  When the quantum drive first appeared on the scene four years earlier, replacing the old Armstrong, it had seemed like near-instantaneous transportation. It could cover five light-years in a few minutes. But it was less accurate than the older system, so there was inevitably a long glide time, often a few days, into the target area. This was true regardless of the range of the hyperspace transition. If you arrived, say, twenty-five million klicks out from the space station and tried to jump closer, you might find yourself twice as far away on the other side. It was, at best, an erratic system. I'd always thought of Rimway as being on the edge of the galaxy. But Salud Afar was thirty-one thousand light-years farther out, pretty much in intergalactic space. As we pulled away from Skydeck and began accelerating, I tried to picture going all the way out there on Armstrongs. "I just can't imagine how they did it," I told Alex. "Actually," he said, "they didn't have the Armstrong when people first went to Salud Afar." "What did they have?" "We're talking four thousand years ago, Chase. I'm not sure anybody knows what they had, or how long the flight took. But the Armstrong had only been around a few centuries." We talked about it in the past tense because it was now in the process of being supplanted by the technology the Dellacondans had developed during their war with the Mutes. The quantum drive, which got you around a lot faster.

  Traveling all the way to Salud Afar with a primitive system made no sense to me. "I can understand that explorers might have found the place, but the flight must have taken years. Why would anybody settle out there?" Alex grinned. "Some people like solitude," he said. "Back to Eden." "Something like that. It's apparently a nice place. Oxygen content perfect. It has broad oceans, beautiful views. Gravity's light, a little more than eight-tenths of a gee. So you don't weigh so much. The only thing the place lacked was stars." "So what's the plan when we get there?" "Find out where Vicki Greene went and track her. It shouldn't be hard to pick up her trail." "Alex, she was one person on a world of, what, about two bill
ion?" "But she's well-known. There'll be media stories. Some people will have met her. It should be easy."

  Alex had been collecting the names of Salud Afar's reviewers, book dealers, other horror writers, the president of the Last Gasp Society, anybody who would have had an interest in talking to Vicki. We sent off about a hundred messages letting everybody know we were coming and inviting anyone who'd seen her or worked with her or knew about her to get back to us. When that was done, we made our jump into hyperspace and settled in for a long ride. Alex had always been an easy guy on this kind of mission. There aren't too many people I want to be cooped up with for a month at a crack. But Alex was okay. He could talk about almost anything, he could listen, he had an open mind, he let me pick the entertainment, and he was always good for a laugh. Once under way, he put the Vicki Greene puzzle aside. There was, he said, no point dwelling on it until we got more information.