Orbit 3 - [Anthology]

Home > Other > Orbit 3 - [Anthology] > Page 21
Orbit 3 - [Anthology] Page 21

by Edited by Damon Night


  Cassius frowned. “Are you sure? What you’re doing touches on realms other than the purely scientific.”

  Kagle sighed. “Metaphysics? I’m only concerned about that as it relates to the people—the clerics—who prate about it and therefore act because of it. I don’t want to be dragged into a lot of messy court trials. Which is exactly what would happen if this work became public. Trials, more trials, publicity and, eventually, other harmful effects, evidences of which you saw in my sister’s behavior. I’m really going to have to do something about her soon.”

  Cassius felt as if he should draw back, flee. But he was oddly unable.

  “About my brother’s body. Where is it?”

  “Ruined, I’m afraid. Gone. The techniques we use are destructive. That’s why there mustn’t be relatives.”

  “What happens to your so-called latent images?”

  “We record them. Five separate tracks which can be projected simultaneously for a viewer. Though viewing is a dull, limited term for the experience.”

  “So a person—knows how it feels to die?”

  “Yes. By violence. The most painful deaths possible. Raises some interesting speculations, doesn’t it? I think you intimated that Wanda was mouthing some of them. Quite apart from the empiric achievement of translating and recording a dying body’s sensory images, the research opened up whole new areas of less tangible results. I only began to think about some of the related questions after the work was well under way. Namely, do people fear the what of death, or do they fear the how and its lesser partner, the when?”

  “For myself,” Cassius said slowly, “I—I’m afraid of the end. The blankness. The finality.”

  “Are you? I assure you there is evidence to the contrary. Death must be a little like sleep. Before you sleep, what is going to happen while you sleep is rationally graspable. The sleep of death is permanent. So you can’t reconcile yourself to it wholly. But you can begin to reconcile yourself to it, if only slightly. While I don’t think you can reconcile yourself to the other part reasonably. To the pain. The anguish. The lifetime of hells in one instant, one instant waiting, always waiting up there ahead. It’s my contention that, because of innumerable variables not present in the sleep aspect, the pain of death can only be known when it happens. And the variables only increase the terror.”

  “The theory won’t hold up,” Cassius said. “Death, the absolute end—that’s the fearful part.”

  “Ah, you assume that because everybody’s always assumed it. I assumed so too. All I can say is, my work has revealed evidence to the contrary. Evidence no open-minded person can deny. Which is why I made you promise not to write a word.”

  Abruptly Cassius felt the thrust of ambition, possibilities, chances like gold. He tried to fix the lines of his face and sound demanding:

  “Look, Kagle. So far all you’ve given me is a lot of talk. If you’ve recorded these so-called latent images, then they ought to be available for someone to see, right?”

  “See is another poor word. Experience would be more correct.”

  “All right, experience, see, view, you name it. But I want it demonstrated.”

  “You have more courage than I thought.”

  “Listen, Kagle, you can’t scare me. What about it?”

  “If you’ll hold to your promise not to write—”

  “I will, yes,” Cassius lied, feeling very foxy and, incidentally, very righteous.

  Weren’t those gas-jet eyes laughing at him all at once again?

  He was puzzled. Kagle was a naive fool. Maybe Cassius only saw laughter in the eyes. The man wasn’t mad, Cassius was positive of that much. Yet his confidence ebbed quickly. He had the feeling he oughtn’t to go through with what he himself had suggested.

  But the copy possibilities—! My God! Staggering.

  “Since you volunteer, Mr. Andrews, let’s step down the hall.” Dr. Kagle rose, smoothing his thin hair. “I’ll show you as little or as much as you find you’re able to stand. This way, please.”

  * * * *

  VIII

  The chamber at the rear of the funeral home had been renovated with theater seats to resemble a private projection room minus the screen. Cassius took a place in the front row center. Dr. Kagle wheeled over a cart on which were mounted several odd-looking instruments. From the instruments dangled fifteen or twenty wires which ended in assorted pads and needles.

  “It’ll take me a few minutes to get you wired up properly,” Dr. Kagle said, snapping a leather cuff around Cassius’s bare left forearm. There was unmistakable pride in his eyes as he worked. “I apologize in advance for the needle pricks, but they’re necessary.”

  Cassius was sweating harder. He was fearful but determined to go through with it. He pointed beyond his boot.

  “What’s that for?”

  “The pedal?” It was corrugated iron, painted red. “Just put your left foot on it. There, perfect. If at any point you want to stop, press down. All five tracks will come to a halt simultaneously. Which people do you want?”

  “I don’t care. Butcher—” Cassius gasped as a needle went home in his thigh. “Butcher Balk? He was the one really responsible for my being here. And Timothy, if that’s possible.”

  “Certainly. I’ll also show you one or two others for the sake of contrast. Are you quite sure you’re up to it, though?”

  “Hell yes,” Cassius said, with more conviction than he felt.

  “Very well.” Dr. Kagle kept working, presently stood back. “Got you trussed up, eh? Any of the pads chafe too much? Good. I’ll be leaving. The console is in the next room. There’s no need to close your eyes. The lights will dim. Then you won’t see a thing in here. You’ll be—But explanations are inadequate. Remember the pedal, Mr. Andrews. I won’t be offended if you use it.”

  A door chunked shut. Cassius peered through the crisscross of wires padded to his temples. He blinked. His vision was failing.

  No, it was only the dimming of solar sheets across the ceiling. Dimming fast, from pearl to ebony to nothing. Must adjust the boot on the pedal, he thought, in case it’s so harrowing I—

  Blur-and-whine.

  * * * *

  A light bulb way up there. Weak, shaded with a scrap of tin.

  He shifted his head. The rusted springs of the rickety cot squeaked. Suthin needs fixin with the furnace. About this time at night I got to fix the furnace but I can’t remember what it is needs fixing. Suthin’s wrong.

  A slow, labored turn of his head. Difficulty seeing because a film of water was on the eyes. Blinking didn’t help. A monster old metal furnace hulked in a corner of the musty storeroom. He could barely read the name-plate. EUREKA! E-Z Draught No. 22. EUREKA COMFORT WORKS, Eureka, Iowa.

  In his chest he felt the annoying, clotted little pain.

  Ah Momma I can see your face right now. I been havin trouble sleepin lately Momma. Little pains in the middle. I can see you Momma, I can hear you sin gin and playin the piano Momma like you did on Sundays.

  In his throat the breath caught. He lifted himself, blinked the eye-water back. He saw a faded, patched quilt over his chest, hands on top of it, shaking. They were ancient, wrinkled hands with thickened blue veins standing out.

  The Doc don’t make me work so hard these days because of the pains but the furnace needs fixin and I wonder what’s wrong with m—Momma my God I’m dyin that’s what’s wrong.

  He remembered forgotten music,The Old Rugged Cross, with the bass hand beaten out in Sunday-morning rhythm, thrummm, thrummm, thrummm.

  Fearful, he tried to cry aloud for help. He couldn’t make a sound. The clotting pain, a small hurting ball inside him, widened. It troubled and troubled him. Not the pain itself, which wasn’t so bad. Knowing what the pain meant.

  Momma I’m goin to be seein you. I don’t want it to happen like this I—

  The Eureka furnace sank into darkness and sucked all the light after it.

  Blur-and-whine.

  * * * *


  “Brucie? Brucie? Oh God Brucie, don’t!” his wife was screaming.

  Against his palms, under his boots, the pebbled poly of the hotel wall and ledge. On his lips a queer saltiness, blood he’d drawn biting down, getting up the guts to do it.

  The wind was blowing hard. It whistled and smelled of the pollution of Lake Erie. Ten stories below a crowd had collected in the Public Square. For miles he could see the lights of Cleveland, warm whites and yellows.

  They were snares and delusions. The lights were behind doors of understanding, friendship, love, shut to him, shut to him every one—

  “Officer, officer!” his wife screamed. “Don’t let Brucie do it! Go out and get him. The poor children—”

  He jumped.

  The wind tugged at his palms, his cheeks. The lights blurred. His bowels loosened. Vertical rows of lights blurred and became a single strip as he hurtled down. Wind hammered his eardrums. He was falling fast, faster—

  The hit was explosion. Body’s total scream. Coalescing of sensation into one enormous burst of pain—

  PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PA—

  * * * *

  Blur-and-whine.

  Behind the effin glass in the visitor’s gallery the effin newsmen were already talkin on their effin portable visors.

  He ran his tongue over his rough, dry lips. His scalp felt prickly where they’d wiped it bare with that effin aerosol. Under his strapped arms the porcelain chair was cold.

  Somewhere behind, footsteps, as the last effin attendant shuffled out. A door closed.

  The room had a funny smell. It was prolly cause of the green walls, so effin clean an sanitary like a hospital, like a place for killin bugs. Well he wasn’t no bug.

  He bunched his face muscles to show he had guts. One of the effin newsmen, a fairy with ringlets, was watchin him and talkin in the visor. He was sure he saw the effer’s mouth make the words, “Butcher Balk is now sitting in the chair ladies and gentlemen.”

  All at once, without wanting to, he was pulling against the cuffs and leg straps. They hurt. “Oh no, oh no, please Jesus, I—”

  Something whacked softly like a toggle jamming between contacts. Lights dimmed. Eyes?

  Pain was beginning. A stiff, ghastly tickling that instantly doubled, tripled, quadrupled, multiplying, multiplying, a rising blast of dreadful murdering pain—

  PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PA—

  * * * *

  Blur-and-whine.

  “—outa this! You stay out or ge’ killed,” de Diego chanted. “You watch it, Christer, I’m warnin’ you.”

  Tipsy, back and forth, faces in the cheap bar swung. His hands were ineffectual, soft, untrained for struggle. He tried to hold both the right shoulder of de Diego, the left shoulder of Ratface Lats. The three of them straggled, roiling the amphet vapors thick in the bar.

  “Watch out Revrun Tim,” one of the whores cried. “He gotta knife.”

  “I tell you you must not take each other’s life,” he shouted, fighting between them, vocal cords nearly raw.

  Something jerked at his left shoulder. Spun him fast. De Diego’s drug-swollen eyes loomed. Silver flashed in his hand.

  “I warn you din I Christer?” was the scream, and suddenly a hole was in him, and tears tasting on his lips.

  The hole widened in his stomach. He could feel de Diego actually wrenching and driving the knife into him, down into his bowels to the bottom, bringing in one unforeseen torrent a dimming of his eyes, and no time even to think a prayer as he tottered, everything blurred beneath pain—

  PAIN PAIN PAIN PA—

  * * * *

  Crash, crash, like a madman Cassius hammered his boot on the pedal, where was it, it must be there,crash, crash.

  Drool was on his lips. His head was thrown back, wrenching, the eyes shut. Wires snapped as he wrenched, his leg going up and down like a mad thing, crash, crash, crash—

  “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  * * * *

  IX

  Limp, drained, Cassius leaned one arm on the ledge of the Aircoupe blister. His left leg hadn’t yet stopped trembling.

  The moon sailed high and round over the Westport slums. A shadow disengaged from the night, leaned close to the little car. For a moment Cassius had trouble recognizing or remembering.

  Then everything washed back. His hands clawed on the blister ledge. He strained up, thrashing at impossible terror all around.

  “There, there, take it easy,” said Kagle. The grip on his arm steadied him. Cassius sank back down in the bucket seat.

  “How did I get out here?”

  “I carried you after I unstrapped you. You fainted. I’m sorry about that last sequence. But you did specifically ask for it. I have a bottle of brandy in my office. It might help. Do you want to go back inside?”

  Cassius buried his face in his hands. “Christ, no. Christ.”

  After several seconds he raised his head again. At last he was gaining control. “Kagle, you’re a goddamn monster, that’s what you are. What you have in there—it— it’s—” He shivered. No one word could encompass it.

  Cynical tolerance tinged Kagle’s lips in the moonlight. “No, Andrews. You’re wrong. It’s only the truth. Death as it really is.”

  Cassius swiped at his moist upper lip. “Who was that first one? That smelly old man?”

  Dr. Kagle looked quite interested. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because—it wasn’t as bad as the rest.”

  “Interesting. I found that to be the case myself. That was old Peckham. He used to be the janitor here. I kept him on to do odd jobs. He was eighty-six and nearly senile when he died in the middle of the night one night, of simple old age.”

  “That was—just an ordinary death?”

  “Yes. Did you find it painful?”

  “A little. Not as bad as—the others. Not nearly as bad.”

  Dr. Kagle went, “Um. After I’d begun my work, it occurred to me to look into at least one natural, quiet death by way of contrast. Peckham’s latent images were quite weak. But they surprised me. I’ve done a couple of similar analyses since. The so-called quiet, ordinary death has a minimum of pain associated with it, but it’s all quite bearable. So you see, Mr. Andrews, I think that what we really fear is the awful pain of a violent end.” Kagle paused. He peered down sharply. “Or don’t you grasp the significance?”

  Hardly hearing, Cassius blurted, “I’ll write about this. Expose this dirty business.”

  “Mr. Andrews, I don’t think you will.”

  “There’s something indecent about—what did you say? Oh. My promise. Well, I lied to you.”

  “I know you did.”

  Cassius stared.

  “But that’s all right, Andrews. I let you lie to make it seem you were putting something over on me. That you were fooling me into permitting you to see the tracks. When Range and his toughs came here right after the court order business, he also threatened me, Mr. Andrews. Arrest. A treason trial. You name it. I appeared to be frightened, pliant. I explained my work. I told him I’d let him judge for himself, and if he thought I was a criminal, I would submit to arrest. I let him sit in the same chair you occupied. And then his men, one at a time. Flange hasn’t bothered me since. That’s why I let you see, Andrews. In a way, you and Flange and Wanda are part of the surprising evidence that’s begun to come in. Evidence that it isn’t the long sleep we fear after all but the how that’s our lash and spur. The unknown, potentially horrible how. There is some reason to fear it if we die in bed, but monumental reason if our death turns out to be violent. As you saw.”

  Cassius’s mind was still slow. It grabbed at phrases: “Flange? He came here? You bastard.”

  Kagle nodded. “Yes. I must say he and his men bore up rather well. So did my sister Wanda. They all endured the tracks to the end.”

  “Trying to say I’m a coward?” Cassius choked. “Trying to say—”

  “Don’t be belligerent,” Kagle cut in gently. “The only r
eason you reacted so violently back inside was because of the intensely personal connection. Your brother was dying, not some stranger. The human body, mind, are surprisingly resilient. The endurance is remarkable.” Kagle seemed sad. “Yet isn’t it strange how men and women don’t know their own strength? Think they must protect themselves? Make themselves safe, secure?”

 

‹ Prev