The dwarf nodded his understanding. ‘Mr Wilson comes soon,’ he said. ‘I press a button to call Mr Wilson, and then your fear… fear is over.’
Vale remained in the chair, studying the dwarf, intrigued by him, watched him shuffling across the floor and pressing a red button that was fixed to the wall. The dwarf grinned at him and nodded, then shuffled along to one of the cabinets, pressed his nose to a pane of frosted glass and stared at a naked man. The man appeared to be dead, but the readouts confirmed that he was alive. The dwarf turned away from the cabinet and returned to Vale. He looked curiously at Vale, his eyes large and slightly glazed, then grinned inanely and pointed to a spot just above Vale’s head.
Raising his gaze, Vale saw a circular white canopy. Sunken into the face of the canopy were surgical lamps and convex lenses, surrounding a stereotaxic skullcap and loosely dangling electrodes. Vale studied the canopy. It also housed an X-ray camera. He studied the electrodes and the skullcap, then he looked at the dwarf.
‘Who are you?’
‘I wait here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I work good.’ The dwarf grinned and waved his delicate hands, ‘No need for fear… fear is over soon.’
Vale looked up at the domed ceiling of the room. It seemed to shine with natural light. Feeling unreal, but not at all frightened, he looked back at the dwarf. The pathetic creature was still grinning. His hands clashed with the rest of him. Compared to the crippled legs and the bent, distorted spine, the unusually pale and delicate hands might well have belonged to someone else. The dwarf grinned and nodded repeatedly, pointing excitedly to the nearby doorway. Vale looked up as McKinley walked in, his blue eyes clear and steady.
‘I’m Wilson,’ he said.
‘I thought you were McKinley.’
‘McKinley came to an unfortunate end. I am Wilson. Remember that.’
Wilson looked neat and cool, his shirt and trousers a matching black, outlined against the white of the circular room, a slight smile on his face. Vale remained in his chair, again wondering why he didn’t feel fearful. Then he remembered his belief that he’d been drugged. As if to confirm this, Wilson took a step forward, leaned over Vale, placed his thumb on Vale’s eyelid, pressed the eyelid upward, looked intently into Vale’s eye, then removed his thumb and stepped back.
‘You find this interesting?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Vale said without thinking.
‘And you don’t feel any fear?’
‘I don’t think so,’
‘Well, that’s as it should be.’
Vale glanced around him, at the white walls and naked people in the frosted glass cabinets. He still didn’t feel any fear. Only an academic curiosity.
‘Was I drugged?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t really feel much different.’
‘You are different. The fact that you don’t feel any fear should be enough to confirm it. Think about it, professor. What you’ve just been through would normally have terrified you, but you’re behaving as if untouched by it. Think of what happened on my boat. Think of where you woke up. Think of what you saw as you walked to here and why you’re still not fearful. Of course you were drugged. Otherwise you would be mad. Even now, as you sit there, you’re still drugged, which is why you’re so calm.’
‘What kind of drug is it?’
‘More advanced than any you know. Scientifically and medically, the world you inhabited is antiquated. You will soon find that out.’
Wilson crossed to the glass cabinets and waved languidly at them. ‘Observe,’ he said, ‘the wonders of our science. They will sleep till I waken them.’ Turning around, he looked down at the dwarf, who was grinning and nodding excitedly. Wilson patted the dwarf lightly on the head and then offered a bleak smile. ‘This is Ruediger,’ he said. ‘He has wonderful hands. We removed his hands and gave him metal claws and then we gave his hands back to him. Of course they’re not his old hands. In fact, they’re not flesh and blood. Nevertheless, they are as good as the originals, and the patient is happy.’ He returned to Professor Vale, leaned close to him, stared at him. ‘And you still don’t feel any fear?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t. I don’t think so.’
Wilson smiled and straightened up, then returned to the glass cabinets against the wall and indicated the bodies. ‘They’re all alive,’ he said, ‘though we’re killing them slowly. We want to preserve them for the future, so they’ll have to die gently. We will drain all their blood, then replace the blood with glycerine and dimethylsulfoxide to prevent ice crystals forming in their tissues. Then we’ll wrap them in aluminium foil, place them in cryonic storage chambers , and only resurrect them when we need them.’ Turning away from the cabinets, he walked back across the room, leaned once more over Vale and offered his bleak smile. ‘And you
still feel no fear?’ he asked.
Vale glanced around the room to see the smooth, circular wall, the solid geodesic dome that shone brightly above him. Then he studied the cabinets. The frosted glass distorted the naked bodies. The jagged white lines jumped erratically just above them, moving slower each second, indicating that the bodily functions of those still living were gradually running down. Then Vale looked up at Wilson, taking in the cold, intelligent eyes, the tanned, strangely unlined forehead under the shock of white hair.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just told you: I’m Wilson.’
‘Where do you come from?’ Vale asked.
‘You’ll learn that when you need to.’
‘And the bodies in the cabinets?’
‘What about them?’
‘Where do they come from?’
‘From Earth,’ Wilson said. ‘From all over. We picked them up from here and there.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ Vale said.
‘No. You’re still drugged.’
‘What do you want from me?’ Vale asked.
‘I want your brain,’ Wilson said.
Professor Vale felt nothing. He was numbed to rational feelings. He just sat there, staring around the strange room, wondering just where he was. He remembered the triangular steel spikes, rising inexorably, closing above him; recalled sinking through a shimmering white haze, past steel catwalks and ladders. All of that and much more: his long walk along the curving corridor, the large windows, the ocean bed, the great dome that soared above the immense decks and workshops, dwarfing the men in the modules of steel and glass, reverberating with the sounds of ceaseless activity. He was at the bottom of the ocean. This room was part of something enormous. He was possibly in an undersea city, but he couldn’t be sure of that.
‘Put your head back,’ Wilson said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Put your head back. I want to place this skullcap on your head. This won’t take very long.’
Vale did as he was told. Wilson pulled the skullcap down. Vale felt the cold metal against his scalp, and then he felt a slight pressure.
‘You don’t have to shave my head?’
‘No, my dear professor. We’re not as primitive as that. We bypassed all that long ago. This operation is simple.’
Wilson adjusted the skullcap. It tightened around Vale’s head. Raising his eyes, Vale saw a tangle of electrodes dangling down just in front of him. A pair of hands came into view, unusually pale and delicate; the crippled dwarf was leaning over his shoulder to insert the electrodes. Vale didn’t move. He was surprised by his own serenity. He knew that what was happening was a nightmare, but it was happening outside of him. The dwarf inserted the electrodes. There was a faint ringing sound. Vale tried to raise his hands to his head but found them strapped to the armrest. His hands and forearms tingled. The chair’s arms were vibrating. Vale sat there, unable to move a muscle, reconciled to his fate.
‘No fear,’ the dwarf said. ‘Fear is over… No fear in your future.’
Vale couldn’t see the dwarf. Clearly the dwarf was still behind him. Wilson was stand
ing directly in front of him, a bleak smile on his face.
‘In 1932,’ he said, ‘Dr Walter Hess devised the modern technique of electrode implantation, thereby demonstrating that nearly all of man’s functions and emotions can be influenced by stimulation of specific areas of the brain. A state of constant drowsiness can be brought about by the simple electric stimulation of the caudate nucleus, the nucleus reticularis, or the inferior thalamus; conversely, a similar stimulation of the mesencephalic reticular formation will induce instant arousal. Man is thus a machine, to be utilized, controlled, operable by simple laws of give and take, without will of his own. The philosopher’s stone has been shattered. Philosophy itself has become redundant. The mysteries of the human mind, its creativity, its moral imperatives, have been reduced to a set of components that we endlessly play with. Man is not a magical creature – he is merely a container of various impulses. These impulses can be rearranged to a pattern that will change his behaviour.’
Wilson flicked a switch, bathing Vale in blinding light, filling his head with an unusual incandescence and making it vibrate. Though Vale felt himself blinking repeatedly, he could not resist. He understood that what was happening was hideous, yet he still felt no fear. Drifting out of himself, he observed himself succumbing quietly, his head trapped in the stereotaxic skullcap, beyond which there was nothing.
‘The hypothalamus,’ Wilson continued, ‘is the area of the brain that controls your most basic and primitive needs. By stimulating the appropriate areas of the hypothalamus with submicroelectrodes I can regulate your blood pressure, your heart rate and respiration; your sleep, your appetite, even the diameter of your eye pupils; I can place you in suspended animation or make you work till you drop… Do you understand this?
‘Yes,’ Vale said.
‘Excellent,’ Wilson said. ‘Now the rather simple biocybernetic system into which you are now plugged consists of a fifteen-channel programmable brain stimulator and a normal LINC-8 digital computer with the appropriate interfacing equipment. At the moment, radiopaque materials are being injected into the intracerebral spaces inside your skull to facilitate, by X-ray, the visualization of various parts of your brain. The stereotaxic skullcap, utilizing minute spikes that have already pierced your scalp, is now taking the X-rays from a variety of different angles. At this very moment the stereotaxic apparatus is making geometrical calculations using the X-rays and reference-point grids to give me three-dimensional coordinates for the positioning of the electrodes… You will feel none of this.’
Vale sat quietly in the chair, his eyes closed in surrender. His whole head was vibrating, was glowing and warm, and he felt that he was crouched up in there, his own skull surrounding him. It made him think of the great dome. His own skull was such a dome. It was immense and he was crouched at its center… overwhelmed by the vast, empty darkness.
‘The desired targets have been fixed. I am drilling into your skull. The steel electrodes are as thin as hairs, the micromanipulators are guiding them in, and in a moment you will feel an electric current as light as a feather. You will not feel any pain. You will experience a brief panic. This panic will pass away quickly, after which you’ll feeling nothing… I am taking your brain now.’
Vale sat very still, almost welcoming what was coming. His eyes were closed and he crouched in a darkness lit by tiny flashes of light. His brain’s interior was enormous. He actually thought he could see it. It was an immense, crenellated, dark dome rising up all around him. There was silence. A bass humming. A distant rumbling reverberated. He crouched alone in the wilderness of his mind and saw the holes in the sky. That sky was utterly black. The holes appeared as tunnels of light. The light burned through the curtain of darkness and exploded around him.
Vale shrank within himself, feeling helpless, totally naked, now whipped by a sudden, shocking terror that returned him to childhood. Then he heard his own voice, a strangled sound, hoarse and pitiful, gasping out its anguished plea for release, its final expression of will:
‘Please don’t,’ he whimpered.
It didn’t matter after that. The fear passed and he was calm. The light receded and he saw the dark walls of his captured, chained mind. There was a glowing in the darkness: the light of mindless peace. The walls retreated and dissolved all around him as he opened his eyes. He saw the radiant white room, the grinning dwarf, the glass cabinets, a seamless face staring at him, the cold blue eyes reflecting him.
‘I’m not from ACASS,’ Wilson said. ‘Mr McKinley was from ACASS. Mr McKinley wanted to hire you for his project, but we need you more. We need people everywhere. We have to know what’s going on. We need someone in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, and you are that person. You will do what we tell you, without question, without fear; you will do it because you won’t have a choice, because you’ll feel that you want to. Your will is our will. What we will, you will do. You will live just for service, and that service will be to us – and in performing that service you will experience the most complete satisfaction.’
‘I understand,’ Vale said.
‘Good,’ Wilson said. ‘Understanding is enough. We will now take you back to Miami and deposit you there. You will return to your hotel room and have a sleep and awaken refreshed. You will not go to see McKinley. McKinley is dead. You will continue your vacation as before, as if nothing has happened. You will then return home. As usual, you will go to work. You will renew your contract with USAF, continue your work in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, and then do whatever your head tells to do, without fear or regret. You are not responsible for your actions. Your will is our will. You will do what we tell you to do and through that know contentment. Now stand up, professor.’
Professor Vale stood up. He surveyed the circular room. The white walls and the naked bodies in the cabinets now offered him comfort. When he looked at Mr Wilson, he felt a warm, transcendent peace. The blue eyes of Mr Wilson were his will and he felt a great freedom. The crippled dwarf shuffled toward him, head rolling, hands outstretched; Professor Vale saw the hands, pale and beautiful, waving him forward.
‘Can I go now?’ Vale asked.
‘We’ll take you back,’ Wilson said.
‘I feel pretty tired,’ Vale said. ‘I think I need a good sleep.’
The dwarf left the room first, his legs jerking mechanically, leading Vale into another white-walled corridor that curved out of view. Wilson followed Vale, moving slowly and carefully. They all went along the corridor, past blank walls, in silence, eventually arriving at a high, narrow door that led into another room.
‘We’ll wait here,’ Wilson said.
The dwarf nodded, shuffled away and stopped in front of a closed door. Vale recognized it as the door of an elevator. The dwarf pressed a button. When Wilson pointed to a chair placed beside the elevator, Vale took the chair without a word.
‘It won’t take long,’ Wilson said.
Vale gazed around the room. It was white and rectangular. One whole wall was a sheet of convex glass that looked out on the ocean bed. Bright lights beamed into the murk, streams of green and silver shimmered, shoals of transparent fish and giant squid and monstrous eels swam back and forth as if in slow motion, colors glinting and merging. It was a scene of unearthly beauty. Vale thought it was wonderful. He saw bulging eyes, bizarre fins and rainbow scales, teeth that gleamed like polished razors in jaws as round and smooth as the rocks. The sand formed extraordinary patterns, tiny stones flashed like diamonds, the rocks alluvial, sensual, starkly shadowed, mysterious, alive with a minute, primordial life that defied description. It was all too much for Vale; he let his gaze cleave to the walls. The walls were white and had a pure, glacial sheen only stained by his shadow. He turned his head to glance behind him. Another window displayed the great dome. Below the dome were canyons of glass, steel and plastic: that materialization of a science beyond normal reckoning. Professor Vale felt close to tears, wanting to never leave this place. He turned again and looked directly at Wilson and knew what h
e must do.
‘You understand?’ Wilson asked.
‘Yes,’ Professor Vale said.
‘Your work will be important. Most valuable. You will always be warmed by that knowledge.’
‘I understand,’ Vale said.
‘Understanding is enough. We will always be with you to guide you. What we need, you will get for us.’
‘I understand,’ Vale said.
The elevator door opened. Wilson motioned with one hand. Vale stood up and felt a great peace as he stepped inside. Wilson fell in behind him. The steel walls shone like glass. The door closed and the elevator descended, dropping smoothly and silently. Vale studied his own reflection, saw his shadow on polished steel; he felt calm and alert and in control, and out of this sprang his pleasure. Wilson offered him a smile. Vale filled up with pride. The doors opened and he followed Wilson out and saw the high, curving walls.
‘This is a wonderful place,’ he said.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ Wilson said.
‘I hope I can come back here some day.’
‘You will,’ Wilson said.
The steel floor was enormous, the dome sweeping up high and overhead. Around the walls, scaling dizzying heights, were the catwalks and ladders. Hidden lights cast long shadows, modules piled upon other modules; there were enormous generators and pumps and miles of crisscrossing pipes. Most of the workers seemed faraway and wore different colored coveralls, moved up and down ladders, crossed the catwalks and balconies, and were silhouetted behind the long windows that glowed orange and blue. All of this was bathed in the white haze. Vale’s shadow was stark. He looked straight ahead, across the immense lower floor, and saw Wilson’s boat on the platform.
‘That’s some boat,’ Vale said.
‘Yes, it is,’ Wilson said.
‘If you meant to impress me, you’ve succeeded.’
‘We always do,’ Wilson said.
They walked across the steel floor, their footsteps ringing with a hollow sound, eventually stopping at the platform that was raised off the floor on hydraulic supports. Vale looked up at the boat and saw the crew hard at work. The domed roof was high above, a monstrous jigsaw of shadow and light, and the large boat seemed small beneath it, isolated in open space. The crewmen working in silence looked vaguely Oriental. The crippled dwarf was at the top of the ramp that ran down to the floor.
GENESIS (Projekt Saucer) Page 19