by Jeff Sutton
and among government circles -- was rife. In time, when no answer was forthcoming, Holton Lee and his disciples were forgotten.
Nearly a century later a Navy survey vessel, mapping the Jovian moons, spotted a dome on Ganymede and landed. The story brought back was quickly hushed, at least officially, but the crewmen talked. They told of men, women, and children who read minds, who moved objects through space with no visible power, and who miraculously vanished and reappeared at will.
More unbelievable yet was the story that the colony still was headed by Holton Lee. It was claimed that he'd appeared no older than when he'd left Earth.
Most hush-hush of all was the story of the boy colonist who, with crew connivance, stowed away on the naval vessel and wasn't detected by the officers until the ship was well inside the orbit of Mars.
The youth told his interrogators -- again it was rumor -- that he'd fled the colony because he'd Page 43
been born a normal, with none of the mental capabilities of his companions. As such, he'd felt like an outcast, even though none of the colonists had ever been unkind enough to mention his shortcomings. But he'd wanted to live among people like himself.
It was then that he dropped his bombshell.
"Holton Lee," he told his interrogators, "had discovered the secret of immortality."
The revelation sent shock waves among the high government circles (the lower levels not yet knowing of it). The entire story promptly was classified Ultra Top Secret (UTS). In a short time, a Navy cruiser was dispatched to Ganymede with orders to return Holton Lee for questioning, a move justified by a nebulous connection deemed to exist between Holton Lee's alleged power and national security.
The colony was found abandoned.
During the following decades, the government quietly conducted a methodical search of every possible habitable and not-so-habitable foothold in the solar system. Detector probes were placed around all planets and moons while elaborate scanning systems monitored all space within the orbit of
Pluto. Despite the far-flung vigil, no sign of the colonists was found.
Officially, for the record, Holton Lee and his disciples were declared dead.
Knowledgeable psychologists and psychiatrists who continued to probe the matter usually agreed that the sights reportedly witnessed by the crew of the survey vessel represented a classic example of mass hysteria. The story told by the youthful stowaway was branded as fantasy.
Academic minds were in almost unanimous agreement that the psi powers didn't exist, let alone immortality.
More than three hundred more years were to pass before the invention of the star drive led to the discovery, exploration, and subsequent colonization of the first human outpost beyond the solar system -- a settlement on the single planet Doorn which circled the largest component of the binary Alpha
Centauri.
Nearly two hundred years later Gerald Faust, by then acclaimed (by his press agent) as Earth's greatest hypnotist, stumbled onto a secret that was to terminate his career as a nightclub entertainer and send him among the stars.
The secret came to light after a tipsy patron, under the spell of hypnosis, revealed himself as a telepath. Faust was astounded. While he'd always considered telepathy a hoax, he knew his subject was telling the truth.
His nimble mind told him that the secret somehow was worth money.
While conducting his act in full view of the audience, he obtained his subject's name and occupation -- Jasper Gollard, a salesman -- and implanted the posthypnotic suggestion that Gollard come to his hotel room following the performance.
Gerald Faust was waiting impatiently when Jasper Gollard arrived; it required but a gesture to place the man back into a deep hypnotic trance.
Faust's mind spun. Recalling the legends of Holton Lee and his vanished disciples, he wondered if there might not be some genetic connection. He pushed his questioning in that direction.
The remainder of the story was fantastic.
Holton Lee was alive! So were his disciples! In a state of suspended animation, they were awaiting the time when an advanced technology would enable them to flee to the stars, establish an entirely new and separate branch of the human kind -- that was the gist of Jasper Gollard's words.
His hands trembling, Gerald Faust pressed the inquisition.
Holton Lee and his people, Gollard revealed, had converted a spaceship into a gigantic cryogenic vessel that could sustain life in a suspended state for as long as necessary. The ship had Page 44
been dispatched to a secret destination, where its passengers and crew now slept out the long centuries.
"Where is that place?" demanded Faust.
Jasper Gollard didn't know.
"How will they know when to awaken?"
"They will be awakened," he replied haltingly.
Faust pressed his questions skillfully. Hesitantly, as if fighting the deep hypnotic trance, Jasper Gollard told how certain of Holton Lee's people secretly had been returned to Earth when the colony had been abandoned. Of them, one in each succeeding generation was entrusted with a strange stone which was known to the sensitives as a memory stone. In generations to come, the stone would give a particular bearer the knowledge with which to find and awaken Holton Lee.
He revealed that Holton Lee was not with his disciples, but slept apart in his own cryogenic vessel. Gollard could give no reason for the separate quarters.
"When will his waking time be?" asked Faust edgily.
"When the technology is sufficiently advanced to enable men to go to the stars."
"That technology is nearly two hundred years old," snapped Faust.
"Yes." Gollard nodded reluctantly.
"Then why hasn't he been awakened?"
"The circumstances have to be right."
"What circumstances?"
"I don't know."
"He could be awakened at any time," reflected Faust. He studied the portly middle-aged man sitting opposite him. "Who has the memory stone now?"
"I...don't know."
"But someone will awaken Holton Lee?"
"Yes."
"Who?" he demanded insistently.
"The person who has the power."
"The power? You mean the stone?"
"No." Jasper Gollard shook his head.
"What do you mean?"
"The person who has the power will be given the stone."
"Then that person hasn't the stone now?"
"Not yet."
"When will he get it?"
"Soon..." Gollard faltered. "Perhaps within a few years."
"What power will that person have?"
Gollard's eyes came up. "A very great gift," he said.
"What kind of a gift?"
Gollard didn't answer.
Faust frowned. "What power has the stone?"
"It will tell its bearer how to find and awaken Holton Lee."
"If that person hasn't the stone, who has?"
"Someone, someone..." Gollard trembled as if fighting against his bonds.
Faust took the time to induce a still deeper trance before asking, "Can you find out who has the stone now?"
"N-no!" Gollard shuddered.
"Do you know where the person is who will receive the stone?"
"On Doorn."
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"The planet Doorn?" Faust was both startled and dismayed.
"Yes, the planet Doorn." Gollard nodded.
"Why there?"
"He was sent there for safety."
"Safety?" asked Faust sharply.
"Others were trying to get the stone."
"Telepaths?"
"Yes, and others."
"For what reason?"
"They hoped to obtain Holton Lee's secret."
"What secret?"
"The secret of immortality," replied Gollard.
Immortality! Faust recoiled. Eternal life! Then the story told by the boy who'd fled from Ganymede had been true! A man needn't die; he could live fore
ver! Small tremors ran through Faust's body as he gazed at the hypnotized man opposite him. Holton Lee slept in a cryogenic crypt with the secret of immortality! That was fantastic, and yet...He fought to bring his emotions under control.
"Why would a person be safer on Doorn?" he demanded.
"He was spirited there secretly and placed in hiding."
"He?"
"None of the stone bearers have been women."
"Any particular reason?"
"No."
"How do you know that person was spirited to Doorn?"
"I...I read it in another telepath's mind."
Faust brooded a moment. "Does he know he's going to get the stone?"
"No, he doesn't know he has the power."
"Why not?"
"His memory cells were blanked out. He won't know that he has the power until after he gets the stone."
"Will that restore his memory?"
"I don't believe so, but the stone will tell him what he has to know."
"How can the stone do that?"
"It's...like the transfer of memory."
"A set of directions, eh?"
"Something like that."
Faust eyed him sharply. "Someone knows who and where he is."
"Yes, the person who will give him the stone."
"So in the meantime he's in hiding, is that right?"
"On Doorn," said Gollard.
"You described the power as a very great gift. What did you mean by that?"
"He would be a sensitive."
"A telepath?"
"Perhaps more."
"More? You mean like the stories they told about Holton Lee's people?"
"Yes."
"You don't really believe all that, do you?"
"Yes, the stories are true."
Looking at him. Faust suddenly knew that they were true. Telepathy, clairvoyance, Page 46
psychokinesis...He tried to control his agitation. The whole thing was like a crazy dream, yet there stood Jasper Gollard, deep in trance, revealing what he believed to be the simple truth.
More, his words substantiated the legends of the past. Immortality! The word range like a bell in Faust's mind. He asked, "Could anyone who got the stone learn its secret...how to find and awaken Holton Lee?"
"The stone will respond only to the person who has the power," answered Gollard.
"So if I got the stone I couldn't discover its secret, is that right?"
Faust eyed him intently.
"You would have to get the secret from the person who has the power."
"Is that possible?"
"All things are possible," answered Jasper Gollard.
Driven by a desperation beyond anything he'd ever known, Faust pressed his questions more vigorously than ever, probing every corner of his hapless victim's mind. At times he backtracked, asking the same questions in different ways; the answers never varied. But one thing he did learn: Knowledge of the stone and the circumstances surrounding it were generally known in the small circle of telepathic families. It was only when "the stone was ready to bear fruit," as Gollard put it, that certain sensitives had conspired to seize it.
Jasper Gollard had been among the greedy, but his gifts had proved too small; he'd managed to obtain only fragments of the necessary information.
Frustrated, he'd turned to drink.
Fate had brought him to Gerald Faust.
Immortality!
Gerald Faust contemplated the story long after his visitor had departed.
Jasper Gollard would never reveal their conversation; would, in fact, never remember it.
Hypnosis had erased it from his mind.
Immortality!
Holton Lee, now living in a suspended state in a strange cryogenic vessel, was the guardian of that secret. If Holton Lee could be found, he could be made to divulge that secret. Hypnosis would ensure that.
Immortality!
The key to Holton Lee was on the far planet Doorn. There a man with a blanked-out mind was to receive a precious stone which in some strange manner would reveal Holton Lee's hiding place. The bearer of the stone would awaken
Holton Lee. His thanks: immortality. That was the bait that Holton Lee had tendered to ensure that someone, some day, would awaken him.
Immortality!
It lay as close as the planet Doorn; more exactly, as close as the person with the blanked-out mind. If he found the bearer of the stone, hypnosis would do the rest.
Immortality!
Untold ages to walk the planets while generations came and went, tumbling into time like autumn leaves. Such a man could laugh at kings and emperors and presidents. The future of the human race would be a vast play in which he would hold the lead in every act. To live forever!
The contemplation made him tremble.
Gerald Faust put his agile mind to work. For several weeks he read avidly, gathering every morsel of information possible on the lonely world
that swung around the big yellow sun of the binary Alpha Centauri.
Doorn was, he learned, a planet with but a few dozen towns, a sprinkling of villages, a scattering Page 47
of farms. It was a world that still awaited the benefits of civilization. It held, perhaps, two hundred thousand people;
certainly not much more. If he had to contact every person on the planet, it wouldn't be too much. Not with the stakes as they were.
A current song hit, "Everyone Loves a Carnival," gave Gerald Faust his big inspiration. A carnival, of course! On a lonely farm world like Doorn, not a villager or farmer would miss it.
Men, women, children -- everyone would flock to see it. They would come not once, but again and again. Every single person on Doorn would, in time, pass under his eye!
It took Gerald Faust but a single year to beg, borrow, and yes! steal the money to buy a defunct carnival. Mostly the money was obtained through the clever medium of hypnosis. It required another year and the accumulation of more money to refurbish the carnival and gather the entertainers and roustabouts who were willing to abandon Earth. It took two additional years, more theft, and the hypnosis and bribery of public officials to get the carnival transported across the span of four and a third light-years to the planet Doorn.
It took...
But Gerald Faust would rather forget that. The past was past but the future loomed ever larger
-- a future that went on and on and on, never-
ending. Immortality! That magic word supplied the fuel that drove him, that shaped his thoughts and actions, that powered his hopes.
Landing in New Portland, the capital of Doorn, Faust made ready for his first showing. On a warm spring day, with two suns in the sky, he commenced his search.
New London...
Little Denver...
New Montreal...
Farmers, ranchers, villagers, townsmen all flooded in to see Dr. Faust's Magic Carnival. At each new location Faust stood at the entrance to the sawdust street to scan each new arrival, as if somehow the bearer of the memory stone might differ from the others.
Whom did he seek? A faceless man with no past of his own! The magnitude of his task seemed enormous. At times he raged, at times he despaired, but he never ceased to hope. He had invested nearly five years; another five wouldn't matter. No time was too much. He could only wait, watch, hope.
Little Albuquerque...
New Houston...
New Vancouver...
The carnival rolled over the land.
Gerald Faust vividly remembered the night of the first big storm. On that night he'd taken his first good look at Clement, a widower who'd joined the carnival on Earth, bringing with him his young daughter.
Faust had hired him as a maintenance foreman, chief of the roustabouts and jack-of-all-trades.
He had been pleased to get him, for few skilled men were willing to make the long leap from civilization into the backwash world of the binary Alpha Centauri.
Long hours before the storm had struck he'd seen Clement
's men securing the main tent with additional stakes. Others lashed down loose gear or removed the banners and flimsier signs from along the sawdust street.
Clement caught Faust's quizzical glance and explained, "A big storm's coming."
Faust glanced at the sky; it was clear.
Late that afternoon the clouds rolled in and the wind struck, a driving gale that drove in across the Berthol Hills. The main tent flapped and popped,
billowing out with each gust until Faust was certain it would be carried away.
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But thanks to Clement's foresight, the big tent held.
When the wind finally died, Faust started toward the maintenance foreman's quarters to thank him for his good work. Midway he halted, struck by the thought: How had Clement known about the storm? It had come out of a clear sky, with not so much as a breeze to herald its onslaught.
But Clement had known it was coming! He had spoken with a certainty that precluded all guesswork. How? How? The question pounded at his mind. Jasper Gollard's revelations rushed back, stark and clear. Other sensitives had plotted to seize the memory stone! Could the maintenance man be one such?
Or could he be the carrier of the stone?
The thought shook him. If Clement were a sensitive, he undoubtedly would possess Jasper Gollard's knowledge -- would know that the person with the power was hidden on Doorn. If he were seeking that person, how better could he do it than by joining the carnival? Faust felt a wild hope.
He resumed his stride.
"Nice work," he told Clement. "When you're through, stop by at the trailer for a drink."
"I could use one," replied Clement.
Faust took the precaution of mixing the strong creel drinks beforehand.
To the one prepared for Clement, he added a drug used to tranquilize and muddle the senses.
While waiting, he pondered the questions he would ask.
When the maintenance man arrived, Faust greeted him cordially. Seated comfortably, they discussed everyday problems over their drinks. Soon he saw Clement's expression change. His eyes took on a vacuous look that told Faust the drug was taking effect. His words slurred, Clement blinked sleepily.