by John Creasey
“Did you tell Palfrey that?”
She didn’t answer.
The Patriarch waved his hand in an imperious gesture which seemed to hint at anger as well as impatience, but above everything there was authority; this man had only to wave his hand, and he was obeyed.
Julia wanted to cry out: “No! I’ll tell you everything.” She wanted to brace herself against the pressure of Boris’s arm. She did neither, but stood silent and unaided. The Patriarch looked down at papers on his desk, and appeared to forget her existence: it was as if she no longer mattered.
The two guards moved. Boris raised his left hand in that casual way. Another door opened. Julia was half pushed through; Boris obviously expected her to resist and was surprised when she did not. She stumbled.
“I am sorry,” Boris said.
“It’s all right.”
“I told you,” he said.
He had meant: “I am sorry about what is going to happen.”
“I know.”
“Julia, please understand this. There are two stages of the—the Suffering. It is used on everyone who comes here but who is not one of us. After the first stage, you must give way. You will have an opportunity, and must take it. The second stage has been known to send men mad.”
Julia did not answer. She felt cold, and little shivers went up and down her spine. There were tremors at her legs and arms, too. The impulse to give way now was almost overwhelming, she was so frightened.
She began: “Boris, please—”
He took no notice.
“Please—”
He raised his hand at another door. It slid open. As it did so, a great wave seemed to rise up in front of her, like the wave she had seen from the deck of the Seafarer. She cowered back, and banged against something hard. She twisted round, screaming:
“Boris!”
He was not there. Behind her there was only a blank wall.
“No!” she gasped. “No!”
She was robbed of all reason and rational thought as she saw a great mountain of green water, filled with millions of iridescent lights. She heard the hissing roar which had come when the wave had struck the ship. She felt the sharp, hard pellets of spray. The wave was so close that it was bound to swallow her up, so close that she had no chance to save herself. With a futile gesture she thrust her hands forward, as if to fend the great wave off. It stopped.
She stood there in shivering terror.
Chapter Fifteen
ORDEAL BY TEMPEST
In the few seconds which followed, there was absolute stillness about Julia. Her mind was so keyed to terror that she could not think, could only feel.
In front of her the sea whirled and tossed, towering above her head yet never coming really close. Great waves seemed to smash into one another in a seething tempest. The wind howled and roared, but did not touch her. It had all the vivid horror of a nightmare – but it had reality, too, hideous reality.
She cowered back against the wall behind her, fought for breath, kept telling herself to think, think, think.
The Patriarch was trying to terrify her into talking, but what about? She couldn’t remember. All this fear, and she could not remember. Think. It would not come back to her mind, but—Boris had told her there would be a respite. There were two stages in – what had he called it? The Suffering. This was the first stage, and the second could drive men mad. Was it all? Would she now get her second chance?
Think.
Boris had vanished; where there had been a passage, there was a wall of steel. How had it happened? It was like some devilish magic.
What a fool she was! A door had slid across the passage behind her; that was all. It had moved silently, like all the doors here. There was no sound.
There was no sound here now.
She stared, transfixed, at the heaving, whirling, silent waves. No, that couldn’t be right. There could be no such fury of movement without sound. It was like a television picture with sound cut off: like looking at a film without a sound track. Remember that. It was like—
It was like the ordeal by light and sound to which Palfrey had subjected her, years ago, in order to test her nerve. Now she remembered that, and became much calmer. This was unreal, a film of some kind.
Sound smashed down and from all sides. The tumultuous waves seemed to come at her from right and left and from in front of her, as well as from above. Those hail-like pellets of spray smacked into her face, her body, her hands and arms and legs, each piece causing agony. The roar of the seas smashed at her again. She felt as if she were being drawn into the water. Desperately she tried to remind herself that it was a picture, the noise was coming out of loud speakers, tuned to deafening volume. She thrust her hands over her ears to try to keep out the sound. It was a picture. Oh, dear God, it was a picture. But the spray, these bullet-like pellets of water which thrashed her – they were real, pain was real, but – it was a picture. Remember, it was—
Water smashed down and engulfed her.
In an awful moment she was floundering helplessly, arms and legs working. She took in a great gulp of water, so noisomely salt that she was sick. With the retching, she swallowed more water. There was the awful noise, the hissing, the water tossing her about, the water in her stomach and in her lungs. One moment it was dark. The next, lights flashed in her eyes, lights which seemed to come from within as well as from outside. She was hurled about until her senses ebbed away, and she was aware only of furious throbbing in her head and ceaseless pressure against her lungs.
She lost consciousness.
When she began to come round, it was pitch dark. On the moment of waking she was filled with a kind of palpitating fear which comes upon one in a nightmare. She lay rigid. Her body felt as if she had been beaten savagely. Every part of her ached so badly that she knew she would cry out in agony if she moved; so, she dare not move.
She remembered what had led to all this.
She thought: is this death?
She was aware of wet clothes, of water splashing about her, cold and slimy. It was as if she was lying in a huge bath, with a few inches of water in it, which splashed against moving sides. She heard the soft lapping of the water, the gentle sounds as it went lazily from side to side.
Then, she became aware of light. It was very dim at first, but unmistakably an easing of the awful blackness. Soon, she was able to make out the water where it splashed against the walls, and fell back.
Gradually, the light brightened.
She ventured to move. Her body still ached, but without the agony she had expected. She moved again. Her arms, legs and face were hot, as if flushed from the flailing of those pellets of spray; it was rather as though she had been burned and her body, especially that part exposed to the water, was stinging terribly.
The light grew still brighter.
Now she could see that she was indeed lying in water, which was only an inch or two deep. She turned her head. Where the waves had built up to the fury of that storm, the sea was calm. She stared at it, as she might from a ship which was low in the water. This was heavy, green sea, with hardly a wave but an ugly swell.
Slowly, she came to realise that the water was escaping. There was none left, only a wet floor. Beyond this room the sea writhed in a fury of violence; that was all.
Then Boris said: “Come, Julia.”
He appeared in front of her. He came forward and helped her first to her knees, then to her feet. She felt too dizzy to stand, and would have fallen but for his support. She leaned on him heavily as they went towards the end of a passage. She did not see him give the casual wave of his hand, but in a moment the two guards appeared. Boris helped her through the narrow doorway, and into the recess where the Patriarch had been.
He was still there.
He looked up, and said: �
�Let her stand by herself.”
She wanted to cry out: “I can’t stand!”
Boris took his arm away. She swayed, trying desperately to save herself, but could not. She fell heavily, banging her right arm and knee. Her whole body was burning, and with this additional pain there was the indignity of helplessness. She gritted her teeth as she tried to get up unaided. Twice she reached her knees; each time, she collapsed.
Boris was behind her; the Patriarch was sitting and staring at her, as if commanding her to get up.
Or did he want her to grovel?
As the thought entered her head, she realised that she was grovelling.
She fought for strength, and managed to get to her feet. The Patriarch did not speak. She swayed first from side to side, then, in a supreme effort to steady herself, swayed to and fro. By some effort of will, she righted herself, and stood in front of the desk, swaying much less than she had.
The Patriarch asked:
“Did you tell Palfrey that you actually saw this silvery vessel rise out of the sea?”
That was the question she had refused to answer, of course; she remembered that vividly now. That had been the cause of her ordeal. She remembered other things; among them, that Boris had almost pleaded with her to give in after the first stage in ‘the Suffering’.
She wondered what Palfrey would want her to do.
She felt as if the floor was giving way beneath her, and lurched forward. It was the same kind of movement she had felt in the other room, and it brought back the horror of that experience. As she flung out her arms to save herself, she realised that she was standing on a section of the floor which rocked wildly. The Patriarch’s desk was quite steady; so was the man himself, as he sat watching her as if willing her to give way.
Slowly, the rocking stopped. Every muscle in Julia’s body ached and burned, and she did not think she could stand any more of this treatment. How could she be sure what Palfrey would want her to do? How could she be sure that the issue on which she had taken her stand was important?
The Patriarch said: “I will ask you once more. Did you tell Palfrey that you saw the silver vessel rise out of the sea?”
She said hoarsely: “No. No, I didn’t.”
From that moment on, she felt that she hated this man, because of what he had done to her, and because he had imposed his will upon her – and because he smiled, now, with insufferable superiority.
“Now tell me what you did tell him,” he ordered.
She obeyed, hating herself all the time, fearful in case she was harming Palfrey and the work he was trying to do; not absolutely sure that she was doing the wrong thing, but fearing it.
When she had finished, the Patriarch said to Boris: “Let her sleep.”
Boris touched her arm. She turned, and went out with him, as in a daze. Once they had stepped through the doorway and the guards were behind them, Boris said:
“You will be all right now.”
Julia did not speak.
“We will go upstairs.”
Boris raised his right arm, and a small doorway opened, to reveal a small lift. There was only just room for them together, and their bodies touched. He seemed oblivious, staring over her head all the time. The lift stopped without any jolt, and Boris stepped out first.
This was another long, narrow passage, with glass walls. As she followed him along it, she glanced to the right, and almost stopped in her tracks. Beyond the glass wall were rows and rows of beds. It was like a huge hospital ward, except that the beds were so close together – four, no five rows of them, with at least thirty beds in each row.
In each, a person was sleeping.
Some were men; some were women. All were wearing the uniform dress which was all she had seen here. Each was lying on his or her back, legs close together, arms by the sides – like an army felled, while standing at attention.
There was not a movement in them.
She could hardly bring herself to turn her head and look in the other direction.
It was utterly fantastic.
There was a huge swimming bath, with diving boards, both high and low, with chairs and tables, with beach umbrellas – and it seemed as if she were looking at some sunlit lido. Men and women were swimming, or bathing, or lazing. Some wore clothes, but everyone in the calm water was naked. The swimmers moved about with supreme ease and confidence; more like porpoises than like human beings. Some were smiling.
Julia realised then as she had before, that all of these people were of the same age. The only ‘old man’ whom she had seen here was the Patriarch.
All this time, she followed Boris.
“First you will sleep,” he declared. “Then you will take the waters.”
She did not want to sleep, the thought of being one among those rows and rows of mummies terrified her.
“Boris,” she protested in a gasping voice, “I don’t want—”
“Julia, you should realise by now that what you want is unimportant. What he wants is the only thing that matters. Now you are going to sleep. You will need a 3 grain injection of hypnotin for the first sleep, 2 grains for the second, and thereafter 1 grain until you are able to induce the sleep yourself. You will suffer no ill-effects. You will simply sink into a coma and remain in that comatose state for a period. You will wake feeling better than you have ever felt in your life.”
She ought to fight against—what did he call it?—hypnotin. But her body burned and ached, her mind was bemused, and she had already known too much of the result of defying the Patriarch, the man whose word was law.
The hatred for him surged up in her.
She thought: If I ever get back I will be able to tell Palfrey the silliest story he’s ever heard—
Silliest?
She giggled.
She was worn out, of course, exhausted, suffering from a nervous condition which could soon lead to hysteria. Perhaps it was as well that they were going to put her to sleep.
She felt a sharp pain in her arm, just above the elbow.
Boris smiled at her, as at a child.
“You will be all right,” he assured her. “You will be much better when you come round, and before long you will like being here.”
He led her to a small recess off the big dormitory, where those mummies ‘slept’. She glanced at them, touched again with horror, but it was not long lived. Boris pointed to a single bed, narrow enough for a bunk in the ‘cabin’ where she had first woken. She got onto it, already feeling tired – and less frightened. She lay down. He bent over her, and pulled one of the lightweight sheets over her, and immediately went away. The light was a soothing pearly glow which did not dazzle or trouble her. She lay, drowsily, recalling all that had happened, but her thoughts were vague and hazy, as if her mind was filled with mist.
Then she thought: What did Boris mean— “before long you will like it here?”
Did he expect her to stay?
That brought her the first moment of real panic since the injection, but she was so drowsy that it soon faded. Her body seemed atrophied, as if she could not stir a muscle, and life was being drained out of her. Then a gentle whisper came to her ears, soft, insidious, repeated over and over again:
“When you wake you will obey the Patriarch. When you wake you will obey the Patriarch. When you wake …”
Chapter Sixteen
LIVING DEATH
“She looks like death,” Dr Ephraim Higgins said to Palfrey. “Her heart is beating so slowly that if she were a normal human being I would say that she would not live the day out. I have seen cases similar in some ways, although none exactly the same. I remember a young woman who had lost her husband and twin children in an accident. She surrendered the will to live. Her life gradually ebbed away. She looked less healthy than this young woman, but apart from t
hat the similarity is most marked.” Higgins stopped, looked at Palfrey across the single bed on which Leah lay, and asked flatly: “Who is she?”
Palfrey said: “We don’t know. Is she normal in all other respects?”
Higgins echoed: “Normal?”
He was a short, very stocky man. His exceptional breadth of shoulder made him look even shorter than his five feet four, and he had a short, thick neck. His chin was like a spade, thrusting downwards aggressively. He had small, buried, periwinkle blue eyes. His iron grey hair, with three crowns, stuck up in several different directions, and was smoothed down only at the front, obviously the result of vigorous, long term brushing. His face was brick red, like that of a man who spent much of his time at sea or on the open moorlands or the high mountains.
“Yes,” Palfrey said. “Normal.”
“Shouldn’t think there’s anything abnormal, except in her condition,” answered Higgins. “Except—”
“What?”
“Perfection isn’t normal.”
“Ah,” said Palfrey.
“Most beautifully proportioned woman I’ve seen for a long time.”
“Physically?”
“Of course. Hands, arms, legs, bosom—” Higgins pulled the sheet right off and continued his clinical assessment. “Look at those fingers, and the nails. Perfect. Help me to make her sit up.” Palfrey did so. “See the fall of those breasts – the contours. Perfect. The colour of the skin, the brown of the nipples. And look – the shape of the lips, nose, eyes—”
“I’ve got the point,” Palfrey said.
“So I should hope.”
“Blemishless, in other words.”
“Yes. That skin – do you know, Palfrey, I haven’t seen skin like it except—”
“Well?”
“One or two Oriental races,” Higgins answered. “Spent a lot of time in the Far East, you know. The occasional truly pure race with no contamination of blood, is still found.”
“Pure?”
“You know what I mean.”