by Frank Lauria
"Self-hypnosis, then," Six challenged. He took a cigar from a gold mesh case.
"Self-hypnosis," Orient said slowly, "is a rote form. The concentration is channeled to one spot. The technique used in Project Judy attempted to enable the mind to find the malfunction in the body and instinctively program the chemistry for its repair."
"Of course there were serums used during the implantation process." Six snipped the tip of his cigar with a thin gold cutter. "You must admit that much."
"Yes," Orient said, "of course."
"No matter." Six dipped his cigar into his glass, then pulled it out and regarded the brandy-soaked tip thoughtfully. "The project is a success and so are you, Doctor. I suppose you’ll be getting a large grant from all this."
"I’m not applying for any," Orient said.
"Oh?" Six lit the cigar with the flame from a small gold Zippo. "I expect that Doctor Ferrari has applied for at least twenty."
"You know Doctor Ferrari?" Orient’s voice was even.
"Met him a few years ago on a university project," Six said. He smiled benignly at Pia. "A fierce fellow for publicity."
Orient didn’t answer. Six’s careless appraisal was accurate. It had been the whole problem during Project Judy. He was momentarily dismayed by Six’s easy dismissal of a man who had challenged all of his values.
"I’m relieved that not all doctors are bounty hunters," Pia said. "Do you plan further research, Owen?"
"Yes." As Orient spoke, the base of his brain tingled warm and he recognized the silky feel of Pia’s vibration stroking his consciousness. He smiled. "I’ve been getting some new ideas on this voyage."
"I hope they’re pleasant projects," Pia’s deep-set eyes watched his face.
"Are you joining Doctor Ferrari at the White House for the award?" Raga asked, her husky voice dissolving the sensual haze around Orient’s thoughts.
Orient looked at her. The small smile on Raga’s pale-pink lips was tentative and indistinct against the smooth glaze of her transparent skin. Only her eyes were clear, streaks of yellow in a marble-white face, glittering with sudden excitement.
He shook his head. "It was Doctor Ferrari’s project."
"Doctor Orient, I’m sure you’ll excuse me," Doctor Six said, beaming at Pia. "But these young ladies need their rest. And it’s closing time at the bar."
"I’m going to stay up and talk to Owen," Pia said. "I want to learn more about this mind-healing business."
Six’s scowl almost reappeared, but the big man was still smiling when he stood up. "As you wish, Pia, but I’m afraid Janice will have to retire. I think you’re looking tired today, dear."
Janice rose immediately. "All right," she said, almost unaware that everyone had turned to look at her. "Good night, everyone." She went to Doctor Six’s side, her legs moving woodenly.
"You see that we’re all under a doctor’s influence here," Raga Six said as she stood up and held out her hand to Orient. The long fingers were cold.
Doctor Six’s smile was gone when he bowed to Orient. "Good night, sir," he rasped. Something in his scowl gave Orient the impression that he was displeased by Raga’s remark. He wondered if Six’s careful attentions to Pia were merely professional.
Pia took his hand. "Do you mind, Owen?" she asked. "I find palms very revealing." Her fingers felt warm against his and the delicious haze settled over his brain once more, kneading his consciousness gently.
"What do you see?" Orient felt the brush of her hair on his wrist as she regarded his hand.
"It’s a very complicated area," she murmured. "Like a city that’s been torn down and rebuilt a hundred times." Her fingertips brushed his palm. "It could be the hand of a soldier or a sculptor." She paused for a moment. "A dreamer or a destroyer." Her voice sounded very close to his ear and the pleasure at the base of his skull was spreading down his spine.
Orient suspended his thought and sent a pleasure-charged vibration to Pia. When it reached her consciousness, she took a sudden breath and her hand tightened on his. She smiled and looked up, releasing his hand. "It’s the most amazing hand I’ve ever seen," she said lightly. "It staggers the imagination. I can’t see a thing."
"No future?"
"Too many futures and too many pasts all squeezed in together. And I can’t keep my mind on your hand for some reason. My concentration keeps getting tickled."
Orient grinned. "Perhaps it’s telepathy."
Pia’s chiseled features were suddenly solemn with the suppressed excitement of a child opening a Christmas present. "Is it possible, Owen?" she asked in a soft voice.
Orient nodded.
"Is that the kind of research you do?"
"Yes."
"Do you think you could teach me something of your technique?"
"I’ve been wanting to do exactly that," Orient said. "You’re not only receptive, but you have that delightful knack for transmitting. Where did you learn it?"
"Could always do it. Since I was a little girl. But not very often." Pia smiled. "But I like it. How soon can we begin?"
"We’ll need some time and someplace private."
"Just as I hoped." Pia settled back in her chair. "I think I know a place," she said, almost to herself.
"Where?"
"The cabin next to ours is empty. And it’s unlocked, I think," Pia mused, watching him. "Maybe we could go there. Tomorrow afternoon."
"Good," Orient said. He felt a twinge of disappointment, however. "Tomorrow, then." He wondered if his own physical urgency for Pia had magnified his expectation, or if her green eyes were glowing with amusement.
The next morning she was waiting for him when he came up on deck. She was dressed in dancer’s black tights under the hooded fur coat she had borrowed from Raga. When she saw Orient, she came quickly to join him.
"I’m all set," she announced, opening her coat. "This all right?" Her body was firm under the thin, tight-fitting fabric. "Perfect," Orient said. He tried to keep in mind that his objective was the transferral of knowledge. Not making love to Pia.
"Is it better to skip lunch?" Pia asked.
"Much better. We can start right now and work until dinner."
Pia led the way down the stairs to the cabin. It was at the end of a passage on the other side of the ship, next to the cabin she shared with Janice. Doctor Six and Raga had the cabin across from them, Pia explained.
As they moved down the passageway, Orient thought he could feel Pia becoming more wary as she passed Doctor Six’s cabin. She seemed to walk softer, didn’t speak until they were inside the cabin.
"Will this do?" she asked quietly, flicking the light switch.
The room was smaller than Orient’s cabin, but comfortably furnished. The couch was built close to the wall, leaving plenty of floor space.
"Great." Orient picked up an armchair and moved it next to the wall, clearing a large area on the carpet. The only other furniture was a large two-bunk bed built into the other wall. Pia threw her coat on the chair.
"What now, Owen?"
Orient felt the sexual tingle of her presence and repressed his thoughts, shrugging off the sudden desire he felt for her.
"Now you sit down on the floor and learn to breathe," he said.
Orient guided her through the basic phases of physical movement. She responded easily and they began working on controlling the breathing as she went through her exercises. Trying to pinpoint the concentration and open the fences of her mind. Her control and concentration were very good but she had a block to the suspension of her ego. Pia had intuitive talent for taking a basic emotion such as anger, compassion, fear, or sexuality and manipulating its energy. She could sense these emotions in others. She grasped the principles of leverage and control immediately but she found it difficult to send a clear thought image. She would build up her psychic momentum with confidence and then hesitate as she approached release, faltering just at the point of separation from her ego.
Even so, her basic control of breath and concentra
tion made it simple work for her to receive Orient’s thought images.
She became completely absorbed in the technique and quite willing to experiment beyond the limits of her newly acquired concentration.
"Take it easy, "Orient advised finally."We have at least a week."
"A week," Pia leaned back against the couch. "Back to time," she said lazily. Her eyes were clear and her face composed.
They began discussing the technique, talking softly, Pia’s curiosity trying to comprehend the scope of Orient’s work. When the conversation hit on Project Judy, Orient found himself talking about the trouble with Ferrari openly, with no trace of self-consciousness.
"What it amounted to was that Doctor Ferrari claimed complete jurisdiction over my work. He called it certification," Orient explained. "When I disagreed, he broke our agreement and published the results of Project Judy."
"And you left?" Pia seemed surprised.
"That’s right."
"But you’re continuing your work. Actually, you can continue it anywhere. You certainly don’t require certification."
"That’s true," Orient said. "But it’s not always possible, like right now, to catalogue each step to each result. The purpose of research is to enable someone else to build to further discovery."
As he spoke a doubt crossed his mind. Right now he was unable to catalogue his work or shoot his film tape. He wondered if he’d ever find a way to equip his work properly.
They left the cabin and went into the lounge. The red sunset fight slanted through the windows, highlighting Pia’s yellow hair with flaming orange tints. Her skin glowed with a pink freshness.
In spite of his doubts, Orient felt good as he watched her curl in her chair like a leopardess. The experiment had been a success. Despite Pia’s inability to communicate fully, she was days ahead of any of his previous pupils. Perhaps he could alter the technique to make allowance for her sex.
"We’ll go over it again tomorrow if you like," he said.
"Just what I was thinking," Pia smiled. "I’ve been going over the possibilities. They’re endless. Imagine," she pulled the black fur coat closer around her neck, "I can read your thoughts."
Orient was just about to answer when Raga came into the lounge. She saw Pia and came toward them. "Alistar has been looking everywhere for you," she said as she approached. She moved slowly, the reflection of the lowering sky casting soft blue streaks through her silver hair, her hands white and composed against her green velvet dress. "I’m afraid Janice is becoming weaker," she said calmly, when she reached Pia’s chair. She adjusted the wide silver wire belt around her waist. "He wants to move Janice into the empty cabin."
Pia’s face didn’t register any emotion, but her body uncoiled immediately and she stood up. "I’d better see if she needs anything," she said. She walked quickly to the passageway.
Raga sat down in Pia’s chair and smiled. "Of course you understand, Doctor," she said. She took a cigarette from her pocket.
"She suffers from anemia." Raga lit her cigarette and blew out the flame. She sat back in her chair and looked out the window. "Alistar thinks it’s serious."
"Does she need a transfusion?" Orient asked.
"I don’t know, Doctor." The dimming light shaded her pale smile with purple. "Alistar doesn’t discuss procedures with me." She turned her head and looked at him. "Pia is magnificent, don’t you think?"
"Yes," Orient said. He thought he heard the cadence of an accent under her husky voice. The same accent he had detected in her husband’s speech.
"I find her to be the most delightful traveling companion I’ve ever encountered," Raga went on. "Alistar is usually so absorbed with his work. And I need someone with new ideas to distract me."
"Are you from the islands, Raga?" Orient asked. "The Caribbean?"
Raga smiled. "Why, how very clever, Owen. Yes. Martinique. You must be very familiar with the Caribbean."
"A short stay in Haiti."
Raga’s eyes flashed. "Sun worshiper?"
Presto ambled into the lounge. When he saw them he stopped, raised the camera slung on his chest, adjusted the lens and took a photograph. "You get the last one on the roll," he said as he began to rewind his camera.
"Thank heaven for that," Raga exclaimed. "I can’t bear to be photographed this early in the day."
"Tell me," Presto asked, squinting shrewdly at her, "are you the same Raga Six who had the modeling agency in New York?"
"One and the same," she said.
"Is Pia one of your models?"
"Was," Raga corrected. "I’m going to open an agency in Rome and Pia is going to assist me on the business side. Doctor Six will be working in Italy and I want to keep myself busy."
"Then I suppose there’s no sense asking you if we could make a deal for Pia’s time," Presto said casually.
Raga shook her head. "I don’t think you’ll have much luck with Pia," she said. Her smile was remote. "She absolutely hates cameras now."
She looked at Orient, two bright points of light in her yellow eyes flickering with amusement. "Anyway, I think that Pia is more interested in yoga these days," she said evenly.
The dinner bell rang before Orient had a chance to reply.
He didn’t see Pia again until the next evening.
In the morning he prowled about the ship restlessly, waiting for her to appear. At lunch time her table was almost empty. Jack and Alice Crowe joined the Wallets, not disposed that afternoon to eating by themselves. The luncheon conversation was dominated by speculation about Janice’s illness. Especially in the light of the absence of Six and his wife, and Pia. Jack Crowe announced that the ship’s doctor had told him that the girl was very weak. Doctor Six, Raga, and Pia had to stand by constantly in case she needed an emergency transfusion.
Crowe turned to Orient, his narrow face pinched with curiosity. "You’re a doctor," he said. "What do you make of it?"
"I know that Doctor Six is in charge," Orient said. "I don’t know any of the history of Janice’s illness."
"You speak Serbo-Croatian," Greta Wallet suggested. "Perhaps you could get the ship’s doctor to give you some definite facts."
Orient smiled. "That would be very unprofessional."
Greta looked at her husband. Wallet said nothing, his face impassive behind his beard and blue-tinted glasses. "I guess it would be like ambulance-chasing," Jack Crowe agreed. "Best just to wait." Orient went out on deck. Outside, the sky was covered with iron gray clouds, and the sea was a cold black. The dark water was calm and there was a stillness about the ship that was emphasized by the steady drumming of the engines. Orient looked at the horizon and saw jutting points of waves that looked tiny in the distance but were large enough to leave distinct outlines against the sky.
The decks were empty of passengers. As Orient went back to his cabin, he wondered how serious Janice’s illness was. When he reached the lower deck he paused for a moment as he half-decided to go to Pia’s cabin and find out if he could be of some assistance. Then he changed his mind and took the passageway to his own room. If Pia needed him, she would call.
He spent the rest of the afternoon reading. As he lay on his bed he felt the motion of the ship deepening. By dinnertime the boat was pitching sluggishly. Orient skipped dinner and continued to read. In a few hours the furniture in the room was creaking ominously with every heave of the boat, and rain lashed against the portholes.
Then he felt Pia.
Her quick caress of silken pleasure at the base of his brain followed by the picture. The prow of the ship shearing through a froth of water. A confusion of movement. As the image receded, his mind savored the quality of the message. It was strangely bitter.
"You going out in this weather, Owen?" Presto said incredulously as Orient started putting on a trench coat.
Orient shrugged. "Just a little rain squall," he said.
It was an underestimation.
The rain was whipping across the water, driven relentlessly by the wind. The b
oat was moving slowly through the high, chopping waves, rolling steeply and shuddering as it met each flat wall of water.
Orient stood in the small circle of light at the edge of the passengers’ deck peering into the darkness. There were long, heavy creaks as the shadowy crates groaned against their cables on the rearing deck.
Pia was waiting across the darkness, on the other side of the long, shifting maze of heavy cargo. He remembered the bitter taste of the image. The forced, decayed quality. A chaos of impressions instead of harmony.
He began moving slowly across the deck.
He crouched between the machinery, feeling for cables and lifting his feet carefully as he inched forward through the shadows. The wind was a high, gusting whine above him and he had to keep his hold on the wet cables to maintain his balance on the slick, rolling deck.
The cargo gave him some protection from the wind and, halfway across, his eyes began to get used to the dim light from the mast high overhead. Then the silken haze stroked his thoughts and he started moving faster as the pleasure intensified and threaded down his spine like a ribbon of liquid satin.
The rain spattered hard against his face and he realized he was clear of the cargo. The prow lifted and Orient saw Pia clinging to the rail, facing directly into the booming onrush of wind-swelled water, the long black coat flowing back from her shoulders.
As he crossed the deck, she turned and ran lightly on her bare feet toward him.
She was naked under the coat and the rain matted her hair and ran down her face; streaking across her breasts and flat belly and trickling down her long thighs. "You heard me," she called out triumphantly. "You heard my call."
"The cabin," Pia’s mouth brushed against his ear. "Come."
He followed her, ducking under cables and over struts; moving through the mass of crates that strained and squeaked as the boat rose and fell in the wind.
Pia went ahead of him on the passengers’ deck. She went into a door and padded down the passageway, her bare feet leaving wet tracks behind her. When she reached her cabin she opened the door. She turned on the small light near one of the beds as Orient entered. Then she opened a drawer, took out two large towels, and held one of them out to him. "Why don’t you dry your hair and go to bed?" she whispered. "I’m going to take a shower." She kissed him and her lips were wet and fresh against his mouth. "And turn out the light," she said softly as she turned to go. "I’m shy."