The demolished man (30 page)

Reality has turned into might-have-been, and you have awakened at last... to

nothing."

"We'll go back! We'll try it again!"

"There is no going back. It is ended."

"We'll find a way. There must be a way..."

"There is none. It is ended."

It was ended.

Now... Demolition.

17

They found the two men next morning, far up the island in the gardens

overlooking the old Haarlem Canal. Each had wandered all the night, through

footway and skyway, unconscious of his surroundings, yet both were drawn

inevitably together like two magnetized needles floating on a weed choked pond.

Powell was seated cross-legged on the wet turf, his face shrivelled and

lifeless, his respiration almost gone, his pulse faded. He was clutching Reich

with an iron grip. Reich was curled into a tight foetal ball.

They rushed Powell to his home on Hudson Ramp where the entire Guild Lab team

alternately sweated over him and congratulated themselves on the first

successful Mass Cathexis Measure in the history of the Esper Guild. There was no

hurry for Reich. In due course and with proper procedure, his inert body was

transported to Kingston Hospital for Demolition. There the matter rested for

seven days.

On the eighth day, Powell arose, bathed, dressed, successfully defeated his

nurses in single combat, and left the house. He made one stop at Sucre et Cie,

emerged with a large mysterious parcel and then proceeded to headquarters to

make his personal report to Commissioner Crabbe. On the way up, he poked his

head into Beck's office.

"Hi, Jax."

"Bless (and curses) ings, Linc."

"Curses?"

"Bet fifty they'd keep you in bed till next Wed."

"You lose. Did Mose back us up on the D'Courtney motive?"

"Lock, stock & barrel. Trial took one hour. Reich's going into Demolition now."

"Good. Well, I'd better go up and s-p-e-l-l it out for Crabbe."

"What you got under your arm?"

"Present."

"For me?"

"Not today. Here's thinking at you."

Powell went up to Crabbe's ebony and silver office, knocked, heard the

imperious: "Come!" and entered. Crabbe was properly solicitous, but stiff. The

D'Courtney Case had not improved his relations with Powell. The denouement had

come as an additional blow.

"It was a remarkably complex case, sir," Powell began tactfully. "None of us

could understand it, and none of us are to blame. You see, Commissioner, even

Reich himself was not consciously aware of why he had murdered D'Courtney. The

only one who grasped the case was the Prosecution Computer, and we thought it

was acting kittenish."

"The machine? It understood?"

"Yes, sir. When we ran our final data through the first time, the Computer told

us that the `passion motive' was insufficiently documented. We'd all been

assuming profit motive. So had Reich. Naturally we assumed the Computer was

having kinks, and we insisted on computation based on the profit motive. We were

wrong..."

"And that infernal machine was right?"

"Yes, Commissioner. It was. Reich told himself that he was killing D'Courtney

for financial reasons. That was his psychological camouflage for the real

passion motive. And it couldn't hold up. He offered merger to D'Courtney.

D'Courtney accepted. But Reich was subconsciously compelled to misunderstand the

message. He had to. He had to go on believing he murdered for money."

"Why?"

"Because he couldn't face the real motive..."

"Which was... ?"

"D'Courtney was his father."

"What!" Crabbe stared. "His father? His flesh and blood?"

"Yes, sir. It was all there before us. We just couldn't see it... because Reich

couldn't see it. That estate on Callisto, for instance. The one that Reich used

to decoy Dr. Jordan off the planet. Reich inherited it from his mother who'd

received it from D'Courtney. We all assumed Reich's father had chiseled it out

of D'Courtney and placed it in his wife's name. We were wrong. D'Courtney had

given it to Reich's mother because they were lovers. It was his love-gift to the

mother of his child. Reich was born there. Jackson Beck uncovered all that, once

we had the lead."

Crabbe opened his mouth, then closed it.

"And there were so many other signposts. D'Courtney's suicide drive, produced by

intense guilt sensations of abandonment. He had abandoned his son. It was

tearing him apart. Then, Barbara D'Courtney's deep half-twin image of herself

and Ben Reich; somehow she knew they were half-brother and sister. And Reich's

inability to kill Barbara at Chooka Frood's. He knew it too, deep down in the

unconscious. He wanted to destroy the hateful father who had rejected him, but

he could not bring himself to harm his sister."

"But when did you unearth all this?"

"After the case was closed, sir. When Reich attacked me for setting those

booby-traps."

"He claimed you did. He--- But if you didn't, Powell, who did?"

"Reich himself, sir."

"Reich!"

"Yes, sir. He murdered his father. He discharged his hatred. But his

super-ego... his conscience, could not permit him to go unpunished for such a

horrible crime. Since the police apparently were unable to punish him, his

conscience took over. That was the meaning of Reich's nightmare image... The Man

With No Face."

"The Man With No Face?"

"Yes, Commissioner. It was the symbol of Reich's real relationship to

D'Courtney. The figure had no face because Reich could not accept the truth...

that he had recognized D'Courtney as his father. The figure appeared in his

dreams when he made the decision to kill his father. It never left him. It was

first the threat of punishment for what he contemplated. Then it became the

punishment itself for the murder."

"The booby-traps?"

"Exactly. His conscience had to punish him. But Reich had never admitted to

himself that he murdered because he hated D'Courtney as the father who had

rejected and abandoned him. Therefore, the punishment had to take place on the

unconscious level. Reich set those traps for himself without ever realizing

it... in his sleep, somnambulistically... during the day, in short fugues...

brief departures from conscious reality. The tricks of the mind-mechanism are

fantastic."

"But if Reich himself knew none of this... how did you get at it, Powell?"

"Well, sir. That was the problem. We couldn't get it by peeping him. He was

hostile and you have to have complete cooperation from a subject to get that

kind of material. It takes months anyway. Also, if Reich recovered from the

series of shocks he'd had, he would be able to readjust, reorient, and become

immune to us. That was dangerous, too, because he was in a position of power to

rock the solar system. He was one of those rare World-Shakers whose compulsions

might have torn down our society and irrevocably committed us to his own

psychotic pattern."

Crabbe nodded.

"He very nearly succeeded. These men appear every so often... links between the

past and the future. If they are permitted to mature... If the link is permitted

to weld... The world finds itself chained to a dreadful tomorrow."

"Then what did you do?"

"We used the Mass Cathexis Measure, sir. It's difficult to explain, but I'll do

my best. Every human being has a psyche composed of latent and capitalized

energy. Latent energy is our reserve... the untapped natural resources of our

mind. Capitalized energy is that latent energy which we call up and put to work.

Most of us use only a small portion of our latent energy."

"I understand."

"When the Esper Guild uses the Mass Cathexis Measure, every Esper opens his

psyche, so to speak, and contributes his latent energy to a pool. One Esper

alone taps this pool and becomes the canal for the latent energy. He captilizes

it and puts it to work. He can accomplish tremendous things... if he can control

it. It's a difficult and dangerous operation. About on a par with jetting to the

moon with a stick of dynamite stuck---er---riding on dynamite sticks..."

Suddenly Crabbe grinned. "I wish I were a peeper," he said. "I'd like to get the

real image in your mind."

"You've got it already, sir." Powell grinned back. A rapport had been

established between them for the first time.

"It was necessary," Powell continued, "to confront Reich with The Man With No

Face. We had to make him see the truth before we could get the truth. Using the

pool of latent energy, I built a common neurotic concept for Reich... the

illusion that he alone in the world was real."

"Why, I've---Is that common?"

"Oh yes, sir. It's one of the run-of-the-mill escape patterns. When life gets

tough, you tend to take refuge in the idea that it's all make-believe... a giant

hoax. Reich had the seeds of that weakness in him already. I simply forced them

and let Reich defeat himself. Life was getting tough for him. I persuaded him to

believe that the universe was a hoax... a puzzle-box. Then I tore it down, layer

by layer. I made him believe that the test was ended. The puzzle was being

dismantled. And I left Reich alone with The Man With No Face. He looked into the

face and saw himself and his father... and we had everything."

Powell picked up his parcel and arose. Crabbe jumped up and escorted him to the

door with a friendly hand on his shoulder.

"You've done a phenomenal job, Powell. Really phenomenal. I can't tell you... It

must be a wonderful thing to be an Esper."

"Wonderful and terrible, sir."

"You must all be very happy."

"Happy?" Powell paused at the door and looked at Crabbe. "Would you be happy to

live your life in a hospital, Commissioner?"

"A hospital?"

"That's where we live... All of us. In the psychiatric ward. Without escape...

without refuge. Be grateful you're not a peeper, sir. Be grateful that you only

see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds,

the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses... Be grateful you rarely see the

frightening truth in people. The world will be a wonderful place when everyone's

a peeper and everyone's adjusted... But until then, be greatful you're blind."

He left headquarters, hired a Jumper and was jetted North toward Kingston

Hospital. He satin the cabin with the parcel on his knees, gazing down at the

magnificent Hudson Valley, whistling a crooked tune. Once he grinned and

muttered: "Wow! That was some line I handed Crabbe. But I had to cement our

relations. Now he'll feel sorry for peepers... and friendly."

Kingston Hospital came into view... acre upon rolling acre of magnificent

landscaping. Solariums, pools, lawns, athletic fields, dormitories, clinics...

all in exquisite neo-classic design. As the Jumper descended, Powell could make

out the figures of patients and attendants... all bronzed, active, laughing,

playmg. He thought of the vigilant measures the Board of Governors was forced to

take to prevent Kingston Hospital from becoming another Spaceland. Too many

fashionable malingerers were already attempting to obtain admission.

Powell checked in at the Visitors Office, found Barbara D'Courtney's location

and started across the grounds. He was weak, but he wanted to leap hedges, vault

gates, run races. He had awakened after seven days' exhaustion with a

question---one question to ask Barbara. He felt exhilarated.

They saw one another at the same moment. Across a broad stretch of lawn flanked

by field-stone terraces and brilliant gardens. She flew toward him, waving, and

he ran toward her. Then as they approached, both were stricken with shyness.

They stopped a few feet apart, not daring to look at each other.

"Hello."

"Hello, Barbara."

"I... Let's get into the shade, shall we?"

They turned toward the terrace wall. Powell glanced at her from the corner of

his eye. She was alive again... alive as he had never seen her before. And her

urchin expression---the expression that he had imagined was a phase of her Deja

Eprouve development was still there. She looked inexpressively mischievous,

high-spirited, fascinating. But she was adult. He did not know her.

"I'm being discharged this evening," Barbara said.

"I know."

"I'm terribly grateful to you for all you've---"

"Please don't say that."

"For all you've done," Barbara continued firmly. They sat down on a stone bench.

She looked at him with grave eyes. "I want to tell you how grateful I am."

"Please, Barbara. You're terrifying me."

"Am I?"

"I knew you so intimately as... well, as a child. Now..."

"Now I'm grown up again."

"Yes."

"You must get to know me better." She smiled graciously. "Shall we say... Tea

tomorrow at five?"

"At five..."

"Informal. Don't dress."

"Listen," Powell said desperately. "I helped dress you more than once. And comb

your hair. And brush your teeth."

She waved her hand airily.

"Your table manners were a caution. You liked fish but you hated lamb. You hit

me in the eye with a chop."

"That was ages ago, Mr. Powell."