Mind Brothers 1: The Mind Brothers

by Peter Heath

  “Welcome back to the living,” a throaty feminine voice said.

  He turned his head slowly in the direction of the door. She had splendid legs, brown eyes, and a sense of humor. He decided he’d like to get to know her better, and in order to do so tried to sit up.

  It was a dizzying process. By the time he’d made it, her soft arms were around him, the delicious smell of her hair was saturating his senses, and he let himself be lifted gently toward the edge of the bed. Together they managed the long climb from the horizontal to the vertical, and, when he was finished sitting up, he found her ivory neck so invitingly close that he had to kiss it.

  “Hey. You aren’t supposed to feel good enough to do things like that,” the nurse breathed against his ear. She extracted herself slowly.

  “I’m welcoming myself home,” said Jason with a smile which told her enough to make a slow blush spread across her high-cheekboned face. Together they laughed, and the nurse let her imagination roam over the strong, tanned body of the man whom she had known so intimately but chastely over the past few days. The thought excited her, so she changed the subject.

  “Do you know where you are?” she asked.

  “ ’Fraid so. Spent some time here testing weapons systems for the Navy five years ago. The Navy Hospital. Pearl Harbor. But what in Hell’s name am I doing here?” Jason let the suspicions that had been forming dominate his thoughts for the moment.

  “Well, you’ve been in a very sound sleep—or what we call a deep coma—for the past two weeks.”

  He let the information sink in. “All right,” he said, “great. Then maybe you can tell me why a colonel in the U.S. Air Force is being kept in a Navy facility instead of an Air Force boneyard!”

  “That, sir, you’ll have to ask someone else.” She winked at him as if it were a children’s game and they were both in on the secret. Starr gave up for the moment. She was a very pretty girl. He decided to say something silly.

  “Tell you what—when I find out, you and I can whisper it to each other in the dark,” he said.

  “Hmmm—that might be very interesting,” she chuckled. “But it doesn’t have to be in the dark. I’ve been changing your sheets, pajamas and bedpans for the last fourteen days!”

  She squeezed his arm playfully.

  “Well, you should’ve changed my character while you were at it—apparently the government doesn’t trust it any more,” he said.

  “People can make mistakes.” The nurse turned at the door and their eyes met briefly.

  “I’ll vote for that,” said Jason, sinking back and closing his eyes.

  * * *

  Chapter †

  FOUR

  THE TWO TENNIS PLAYERS looked across the net at each other. One was smiling, the other glaring, while the audience—one former movie queen, slightly old, with super-size sunglasses, one lacquer-blonde mistress of several film producers and one teenaged Lolita—tried hard not to laugh.

  The day was hot and smog-ridden. The sinewy club pro, the man whose twenty-five thousand dollars a year depended on his ability to beat and teach out-of-shape amateurs, was angry. He was being beaten and beaten badly.

  The man across from him, the one with the wheat-colored hair and the muscle-dancing tanned body, had taken the pro’s game apart piece by piece. Now he was brilliantly slamming them all back with sheer animal enjoyment. The pro knew he was good and hated him for it. The pro had once been the national men’s singles champion, and to lose to an amateur was hard. To lose in front of women was even harder.

  Now, with a grunt of anger, the pro served. The next point was match point, and he gave the ball everything he had. He raced to cut off the expected weak return at the net. It was the standard tactic; it worked with good amateurs and better professionals. But it only worked when the return was easy to handle. The pro was only in his second stride when the ball whizzed by his ear with a faint humming sound. It dropped precisely on top of the back-court line. The game was over.

  The pro threw his racket down in disgust and turned to look at the winner.

  “Where did you learn your tennis, buddy?” he demanded.

  “Not at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club,” said Jason. “Couldn’t afford it when I was a kid.”

  “Neither could I,” the pro agreed. He picked up his racket and walked toward Jason with his hand out.

  “Sorry I got carried away. You know how it is—people with so much dough dripping out of their pockets that you have to make them look good or you might as well forget about your job,” he said.

  They shook hands, and Jason set about retrieving his balls.

  He was pulling on his sweater when a voice that was a study in provocation said: “That was wild, whatever your name is. I’ll bet you do lots of other wild things, too.”

  Jason pulled the sweater down and opened his eyes. Yes, it was the Lolita, pouting up at him, lips half-open, legs quivering as if they were on a postage-stamp dance floor, eyes traveling up and down his body like searchlights looking for an escaped convict. She was the go-go girl of 1967, and Jason wasn’t interested.

  “Never mind what I do, baby-doll,” he said. “When you grow up to be eighteen and a half and learn how to chew your food properly—then maybe we’ll have a discussion.”

  She pouted her disappointment at him. He ran the gauntlet of sex-hungry glances without a word, through the gate opening on to the drive where his car was parked. He tossed his racket and balls under the tonneau of the Porsche, got in, started the engine . . . and sat.

  It was cooling down, and a little fog was creeping in from the beach towns. It was drink time, woman time, play time. It was time to lie outside on his patio, looking down at the Pacific and listening to Beethoven and rehashing the day’s work at the RAND Corporation. These were the things he had done in the past with the fullest pleasure. And now he wasn’t interested any more.

  Women? What woman wants a man whose reputation has been questioned? Oh, of course, there were the easy girls, but no one who mattered. The one who had mattered—she had promised him she would wait no matter how long he was gone—had suddenly quit her job with RAND. She had left a note for him. It said: “I’m sorry, Jason, it’s no good anymore. Forgive me . . .”

  And then the job. No problems. He had resigned it a week ago. It was the only choice, and he had taken it.

  Scientists and mathematicians are as inbred as a baseball team. They travel a lot, and a word here and a word there from the right sources is all that it takes to put together the facts. Somehow the word was out. Perhaps the CIA had decided to let it out themselves. It was the story of a man suspected of a breach of ethics on a secret project. Nothing specific . . . . nothing proved . . . but there it was. He, Jason Starr, couldn’t be trusted. And in his line of work, trust was a most important factor.

  He was frozen out, and he knew it. They had killed the old life and, with it, the old Jason—the enthusiast for every idea, every project. In his place they had created a brooding man who sat for long hours in his darkened office with the door closed. A man suddenly without friends and without work.

  With a savage jerk he threw the car into first and screamed away from the curb, leaving a trail of smoking rubber. He drove home, going up Sunset Boulevard, passing the evening traffic on curves and straights with equal recklessness until he was alone. He left the car in the driveway and showered and changed clothes hastily. Then he drove more slowly back down toward Beverly Hills and the Sunset Strip.

  He sat, nursing a Scotch, with his back against the leather-tooled wallpaper in the dimmest corner of the Via Veneto watching the young swingers in their nightly performance. The hip little girls with the extra-long hair, sylph-like bodies and pretty, oyster-sized mouths. And their boyfriends with Beatle haircuts, pipestem pants and cool ideas. The action was just getting under way, and he let his eyes flicker over to the golden-haired Circe whose eyes had been playing tricks with him across the circular fireplace for the past half-hour. She smiled invitingly and
Jason winked no thanks.

  Ordinarily he would have gone to her and made a few pleasantly suggestive remarks, and they would have driven up to the house in his black Porsche to spend the night in play and chatter.

  But tonight, as on most of the nights since he had been back into the civilian world, his mind was somewhere else. In his inner world—a world of confusion and memories that didn’t quite seem real. Memories or dreams? He couldn’t remember and yet he knew that he had to try. Perhaps I’m going insane, he thought. Maybe I cracked my head too hard in the crash. Maybe the Air Force is right. Maybe the instruments were unintentional fakes!

  Jason slammed his fist down on the table, knocking over his drink. He ignored it and continued to drink.

  “Please. Let me.” The voice at his elbow startled him. It was low with a deep baritone timbre. Thinking that it was odd that he hadn’t noticed him before, Jason turned his head. He was looking at a tall man with perfectly chiseled features. Young but completely bald. No, not bald. Hairless was a better description. The top of the skull was extraordinarily smooth, as if the skin had been tailored to it rather than grown. Than he noticed the eyes. They were deep-set and an incredible shade of green—like sea water.

  The fellow was still smiling politely, probably waiting for an apology.

  “Clumsy of me. Sorry,” said Jason, reaching for his napkin. “Here, let me clean it up.” As his arm crossed the table their wrists touched and Jason felt a cool tingle run through his hand. The man’s flesh seemed almost cold, like fog.

  “That is all right . . . you were quite preoccupied, Mr. Starr.” The man used his name as if he had known it all of his life.

  A new sensation announced itself to Jason. It started at the back of his neck and worked its way down.

  “Polite of you to use my name, whoever you are, but I’ll take care of the mess,” he said coldly.

  “You are afraid, Mr. Starr.” The voice was stating a known fact.

  “Look, friend, if you’re with Uncle Sam’s crew of detectives, you’re wasting my time and your energy.” Jason scowled. “Go back to your padded cage and tell the folks how well you sneak into restaurants!”

  “I fear you have mistaken my intentions. However, I do read certain minds, Mr. Starr,” the man replied. A small ironic smile played across his lips.

  “Of course—you and Mandrake the magician. Do you mind explaining the interruption? I was having a splendid time by myself,” said Jason. In spite of his natural caution he was growing more interested in the game being played in the comer of the jet-set bistro.

  “As you wish,” said the hairless young man with the sea-green eyes. “For the past two months you have been trying to recall certain events, Mr. Starr. Events which you find disturbing and which have led you to believe that you may be losing your sanity. You have almost convinced yourself that nothing happened and that you are, indeed, losing your ability to think rationally . . .” The man’s voice was soft and even.

  A numbness had crept over Jason. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I am a friend. I am from what we might call tomorrow.”

  Their eyes met for the first time, and Jason had the uncanny feeling of looking through them, into time, space and the depths of the universe.

  “I wish to explain. But not here.” The man’s hand gestured into the crowded room.

  “Yes,” said Jason. “My car is outside.”

  * * *

  Chapter †

  FIVE

  JASON DROVE past the late-evening pleasure seekers along the Strip, then into Beverly Hills. He turned up Benedict Canyon and they wound their way up through the big estates until they reached Mulholland Drive. He turned left and followed the winding road through the darkness until he found the place where he had parked so many times in the past.

  The whole city of Los Angeles stretched its grid of light below them; the fairy-tale city, the end of the rainbow for five million disappointed hicks. Overhead the dark velvet sky was sprinkled with a lattice of stars, and their cold blue light threw the high-cheekboned face of the man beside him into sharp relief.

  “Now, let’s have the story,” said Jason.

  “It would be easier to show you,” the man said.

  “Yes? Then show me.” He was no longer afraid. He was curious and expectant.

  “You must concentrate on me and through me into . . .” the man said. Jason turned and their eyes met. The man’s eyes were luminous pools of green and he was sinking into their depths, swirling down and down into an ocean of fluctuating light. He was again part of something and he remembered. He listened with his mind.

  Time is a river that twists on itself. Past, present and future are its waters—mixing, separating, and remixing. And fluid of time is life. Life in its billions of forms throughout the universe. When life ceases to exist, time becomes meaningless. We are the protectors of life. Now you will see and understand.

  Images swirled through Jason’s mind. Images that compressed a billion years into a few seconds . . . the swift retelling of a story shared by all mankind.

  The planet was the third and the sun was new, so hot that its envelope of gas glowed white against the blackness of space. The planet was molten, a blob of matter circling without purpose, like a counterweight for the eternal solar clock.

  After a trillion-trillion revolutions, the planet had changed. Its surface had cooled. Its atmosphere had stabilized. Its seas throbbed restlessly against bleak rock shores. A billion years passed. Life emerged from the salt sea, the womb of creation throughout the universe. Life which had shed its gills and grown lungs to adapt to the new green land. Life which had learned to reproduce, multiply and survive.

  After more years than all the grains of sand on all of the world’s seashores had passed and during which life and death were meaningless activities, something was added. One of the life-forms which was perhaps hungrier or smarter picked up a piece of rock and used it to chip away at another rock. He used the second one to kill and kept the first one to make more weapons. He was the first toolmaker. He was the founder.

  Then only a million years passed.

  The face of the planet was covered with fields, gardens, parks, temples, houses and cities. The inhabitants had invented language, law, literature and worship. They also perfected the arts of war. In order to do so they sacrificed much of their science to the exploration of new and more powerful forms of destruction.

  They said they were a peaceful race, and they entertained themselves with books, television and music; they sent rockets to the nearest planets and then to the stars. They produced an abundance for all the life that existed on their planet. But they failed to distribute it equally. They were a kind people, but they had invented atomic weapons.

  Eventually—because war is the product of confusion and anger—war came. It devastated half of their world before the remaining people agreed to end it for the sake of the race’s future. The rebuilding began, a rebuilding that changed the face of the planet into something more in keeping with the destiny of their race. When the rebuilding was complete, they continued to invent, to think, and to change.

  Fifteen thousand years passed.

  Their machines had grown even more complex, capable of tasks which required no supervision. Machines to serve their needs in any way that they desired. Then they invented the first machine which could invent other machines . . . the first machine that thought.

  A thousand more years passed.

  The machines had continued to think until they had invented something that not even their masters comprehended: total awareness of all of their parts. The first step was the redesign of the planet’s interior so that it was used for the generation of pure energy—their power source—endless, infinite; the second step was the remolding of the surface: cities, long empty, were torn down; parks were created . . . playgrounds of mountains, lakes, rivers and clouds . . . until the whole planet was a garden of beauty and knowledge, the product of their master’s instru
ctions.

  But no human walked in the garden, no aircraft hovered over the surface, no one asked to see the stored records of all history. The sun rose and set in endless cycle but its light was wasted on the beautiful, empty garden planet.

  The masters were asleep.

  Sleeping an endless, thoughtless sleep—the genetic record of the whole race compressed into a cube of matter one inch square. There was no need to awaken, no desire to think. The machines had been designed to do it for them.

  But one of the masters had instructed the machine which preserved his identity in a chain of atoms twenty microns long to awaken him. The instructions were secret. When the race had decided to sleep, all who had opposed the decision had been placed aboard a starship to search for a fresh world with new challenges and new dangers. But one who would have gone chose to remain behind. He was curious as to the outcome. He wanted to observe, first-hand, the growth and development of the machines after they were left untended to choose their course of action.

  He was revived after ten thousand years—ten thousand years during which life in a chemical-physical form had ceased to exist on his planet. It was night when he was awakened and his physical body reconstituted inside the machine which supervised the custody of the race. He walked down the perfectly preserved corridors of the Hall of All Knowledge, the place that his race had chosen for their eternal sleep. The air was as sweet and clean as ten million planetary air-filter systems could make it. His feet sank down into fresh-cut grass; a gentle wind stirred his hair. Then he looked up.

  Jason heard and felt his cry of pain and bewilderment as if it were his own.

  The night sky was utterly blank. The moon, the stars and the milky way had disappeared behind an impenetrable veil. A nightingale fluttered across an ancient tower singing its song. He bent down and touched the grass. It was damp with dew but each blade was perfect. It was artificial. So was the wind. And, as the nightingale flew closer, he heard the hum of tiny motors over its perfect music.