The Lost Perception (14 page)

She reached the window and stared out upon the ascending slope. “Perhaps an analogy would help you understand about Manuel. Suppose one of your race had lived all his life in a cave. Suppose you brought him out and assisted him in becoming accustomed to sight. In learning to depend upon his eyes, he would forget how to rely on his other senses. If you forced him to return to the cave, he would be much afraid. And his fear of the darkness would be justified. For he would most likely fall into a pit and die.”

Gregson rejected the explanation. It didn’t seem reasonable that just a few years of zylphing would make Manuel afraid of the stygumness in which he had spent all his life.

“What was your ship doing outside the Stygumbra?” he asked.

“For some time we were aware of your world. But we couldn’t enter the stygumbraic cone because our navigational instruments are rault-oriented. Expecting us to bring a craft into metadarkness would be like asking you to fly a hopper into a cave with neither lights nor radar.”

“Yet, despite all that,” Gregson asked dubiously, “you were going to help us?”

“Yes. We didn’t want the same thing to happen to you that happened to us when Valeria came out of the Stygumbra. Our political upheaval was intense. We suffered through many generations of slavery—under the yoke of Valorian tyrants.”

Even more skeptical, Gregson said, “But when you finally sent a mercy party, it was powerless to do anything.”

Andelia cast her eyes downward. “Quite powerless. The expedition was to evaluate the situation, contact your authorities and arrange to set up hypersensitivity adaptation clinics. But our transmitter was destroyed during pod drop. So we had no way of reporting that handfuls of neozylphers all over the world had already risen to power. And everywhere we turned to tell your people what was happening, we were blocked by the Security Bureau.”

Gregson was silent a moment. “When you complete your transmitter, what message will you send back?”

“That if we are going to overcome the bureau and prevent billions from either falling into slavery or dying as they become sensitive to rault, it will be very shortly or not at all. We shall requisition the equipment we need to set up our clinics—and hope that by the time it arrives there will be no opposition to destroy it.”

“How do you intend doing away with that opposition?”

Andelia drew erect and seemed suddenly concerned. “You’re asking more than I know. They haven’t taken me into their confidence on
all
of our plans.”

Or had she merely decided to tell him enough to encourage his trust, but not to reveal anything significant? “Why are there no rault casters around? So I can’t zylph those plans?”

“All the casters are needed for construction of our transmitter—so we can determine whether we are assembling it correctly.”

“Oh, I see,” Gregson tried to appear convinced, realizing he had made a mistake by letting his suspicions become so obvious.

She headed for the stairs, but paused before descending. “Oh, I was supposed to tell you that you are assigned the room immediately above this one for tonight. And Wellford suggests that you get some rest.”

Throughout most of the night, however, Gregson lay awake on his cot, glumly watching the moon set beyond the mist-filmed hills on the west bank of the Rhine.

He drew both frustration and satisfaction from the fact that the powerful rault suppressor aboard the long-range hopper continued to broadcast its field of intense stygumness.

In the total blockage of Chandeen’s hyperradiation, he was unable to zylph anything at all. And, not zylphing, he was powerless to distinguish between truth and deception; to determine whether Kenneth Wellford was a free agent, or was acting under vicious compulsion. Nor could he hope to learn how much time remained before he, too, would be reduced to a helpless puppet.

On the other hand, the same metadarkness shielded his own thoughts and suspicions from the Valorians. And as long as the rault suppressor remained in operation, he was reasonably safe—he hoped.

Nevertheless, he could see no advantage to remaining at the castle. Particularly not when it was imperative for him to get back to Pennsylvania, where he might pick up some trace of Helen and her uncle.

So, in his sanctuary of zylph-forbidding stygumness, he lay there considering and rejecting an endless succession of plans for escape until he finally fell asleep.

The castle was still smothered in its field of artificial stygumness when Gregson and Wellford had breakfast the next morning.

So much his characteristic self did the Englishman seem that, in the reassuring Rhenish sunlight, Gregson found it difficult to believe the man was not an altogether free agent.

“We’re making great headway with the transmitter,” Wellford said, finishing his coffee.

“Might have had it assembled by now if there hadn’t been that interruption last night Hope it didn’t disturb you.”

“The German trespasser?” Gregson had thought they would try to conceal the incident Wellford nodded. “Andelia said you had witnessed it. Poor chap. I should imagine it’s rather upsetting—having to cast aside all your ingrained notions about the Valorians,”

“How is he?”

“Still wants to put up a fight. But Andelia’s working on him. We have hoped of convincing him shortly.”

Gregson asked cautiously, “You going to teach him to zylph?”

“Eventually. When the opportunity presents itself. But we’re much too busy at the moment.”

“Andelia says the Valorians can bring him through the Screamies into functional hyperperception in only a few weeks.”

“Three, I understand.”

“Have you ever
seen
anyone go through this indoctrination in three weeks?”

“Why, no. But they have clinics operating at two of their bases.”

Far enough in that direction, Gregson cautioned himself, lest Wellford sense his suspicion. “How long has SecBu known about the Valorians?”

“Ever since they pod-dropped their first expedition here in ’96, the year after the
Nina
blasted off.”

“How did the bureau find out about them?”

Wellford lighted a cigarette and leaned back, blowing a dense plume of smoke into the shaft of sunlight that fell across the table.

“The Valorians’ first objective was to reach persons in high authority, heads of state if possible,” he explained. “But almost every official they contacted turned out to be a hyper-perceptive ex-Screamer who belonged to the conspiracy. The Prime Minister of Great Britain was the first to be approached. That was when the bureau learned that its materializing dream of absolute world power had been complicated by the arrival of aliens who wanted to prevent just such a conspiracy.”

“The first Valorian we saw—the corpse in Rome…?”

“He was one of the last to try to get through to established authority. But the President of Italy was also an ex-Screamer who held his office only through design of the bureau.”

Gregson tried not to appear too skeptical. “But certainly there were other ways of getting their message across.”

“Hardly. Years before then, the bureau and its civilian co-conspirators had already begun seizing control of all communications media as a prerequisite to absolute rule over Earth.”

The Englishman rose abruptly. “It’s back to the mines for me if we expect to get that transmitter assembled. Whenever you feel equal to a chore, let me know. You’ll fit in somewhere.”

Gregson said nothing. Evidently they expected to gain his confidence merely on the strength of persuasive argument—until they had an opportunity for more thorough treatment.

At the stairway, Wellford turned and said, “Incidentally, stay close at hand, Greg. We should hate to lose you back to the bureau. You’re quite a significant cog, you know.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Don’t pretend modesty. You’re aware that you’re the only one the bureau’s located who can handle Vega Jumpoff Station. And they must be fairly frantic now over losing you.”

“They’ll eventually manage without me.”

“Granted, But not in time.”

“Not in time for what?”

“Earth is rapidly pulling out of the Stygumbra. Persons are going Screamie by the thousands—all over. The incidence of dawning hyperperceptivity is too great for the new Screamers to be controlled within the framework of the bureau’s isolation institutes. Unless VJO can quickly cast its cloak of artificial stygumness over Earth, things are apt to get out of hand for the bureau.”

Pacing the stone floor, Gregson waited a half hour after the other had left. Then dismay suddenly distilled into determination and he made his way cautiously into the courtyard. He had to know whether everything was as Wellford had convincingly represented it—or whether all was deception, with the Englishman merely serving as an unwitting instrument of Valorian intrigue.

He stood staring at the chapel, where work was under way on the raultronic transmitter.

Everything in the castle, except in the immediate vicinity of the transmitter, was engulfed in artificial stygumness generated by the hopper’s rault suppressor. But the chapel’s working area was hyperilluminated by rault casters.

Perhaps if he went to the fringe of that isolated field, he might zylph the Valorians at a time when they were too intent on what they were doing to notice Ms interest in them. In which case he might learn whether their purpose was benevolent, or whether they were merely vying with the Security Bureau for despotic control over Earth’s population.

Advancing on the chapel, however, he was confronted by an alien who sternly announced, “You may not enter.”

It was evident, then, that there
were
restraints on his freedom, limitations to his supposedly open-armed acceptance.

Yet, as he subsequently strolled indecisively about the castle grounds, his movements were not contested.

He wandered through a tunnel under the inner rampart and was even more perplexed to find himself between the two long-range hoppers with no one challenging him.

Suspecting a trap, he nevertheless entered the craft whose suppressor was blanketing the castle. And a moment later he sent the hopper surging up through the foliage, steering sharply westward as he climbed to transoceanic altitudes. If it
had
been a trap, he had escaped with the bait.

Within three hours he crossed the United States coastline and flew on toward the deepening twilight of dawn. Easing his grip on the controls, he finally acknowledged his inability to bring order out of confusion.

The Valorians, despite his profound mistrust of them, were still nothing more than a defiant question mark. It was, of course, possible that they
were
on a mercy mission. Yet, they might instead be laying a vicious snare which would lead to an oppression even more terrible than that planned by the bureau.

But if those suspicions were valid, the price of verifying them would be immediate enslavement, blind compulsion to serve the aliens.

Grim-faced, he crossed the New Jersey-Pennsylvania line and descended steeply, reducing speed as the hopper plunged into denser ah”.

Coming in low over the ridge east of Forsythe’s farm, he verticaled swiftly down to the bull’s-eye, cut the engine and leaped out.

“Bill!” he shouted. “Helen!”

But Forsythe’s house was somberly quiet, its windows darkened in the early morning light.

Disturbed by the desolate stillness, he stared uncertainly back at the hopper. Then he realized that if he turned off the craft’s rault suppressor he might be able to zylph through the mystery which seemed to enshroud everything.

But a coarse voice shattered the quiet. “Hold it! Don’t move!”

Wielding laserifles, two Guardsmen came out of the barn.

“You Gregson?” one demanded.

“Of course he is,” the other assured. “Who else would vertical down
here
with a rault suppressor on?”

The first approached and ordered, “Turn around.”

As he did so, a hypodermic needle plunged into his neck.

He regained consciousness in the glare of fluorescent lights strung along an acoustical tile ceiling. Shielding his eyes, he sat up on the plastic couch, numb from the aftereffects of the injection.

When finally he brought his vision in focus, he was staring out a window upon a vast concrete apron lined with scores of shuttle craft whose sleek, gleaming noses were pointed toward space. In hangars and around the buildings bordering the strip scurried personnel in the uniforms of the International Guard, the Space Division and the United States Army. Beyond, rugged and bare mountain peaks imparted a harmony of upward striving to the entire scene.

There was a rustling of paper and he turned to see Weldon Radcliff sitting at a polished desk and riffling through a file folder. Plush carpeting stretched like a lawn from wall to mahogany-paneled wall. By the door stood an alert Guardsman, laserifle cradled in his arms. At the head of the couch was another.

Among the articles on the desk was a rault suppressor, its red light aglow. But Gregson suspected that the instrument had only recently been turned off while the Security Bureau director had zylphed his unconscious thoughts.

Radcliff glanced up and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment. You are at Space Division Command Central.”

After a while he stored the folder and the suppressor in a drawer and motioned to the nearer guard. “Bring him over here.”

Gregson was prodded to the chair indicated by Radcliff.

“I trust you don’t consider yourself excessively inconvenienced,” the director said. “But if you were foolish enough to return to Forsythe’s farm, then you have mostly yourself to blame.”

“What do you want with me?”

“We blast off tonight for Vega Jumpoff. I am transferring my top-echelon personnel there. You will be in charge of Maintenance and Station Propulsion.”

He folded his hands on the desk. “I am indebted to you for the wealth of information you supplied. We had been searching for that transmitter. However, it is now something with which we need no longer concern ourselves.”

“You destroyed it?”

“Hours ago.”

“What about the people who were there?”

“Wellford and the Valorians? They escaped, unfortunately. All except one. We managed to pick up the Valorian girl. It’s regrettable you didn’t find out where their other bases are now located.”

Somehow Gregson found himself regretting Andelia’s capture. She had seemed so sincere, and helpless. He rose and hunched over the director’s desk.
“Are
the Valorians here to take advantage of us?”

Radcliff gestured impatiently. “Good God, man! Use your head! What else would they be here for?”

“They say they want to help us become hypersensitive.”

“You sound as though you’re acting under Valorian compulsion.”

“Is
there such a thing as Valorian compulsion?”

“I…” Radcliff glanced up in exasperation. “You’ve seen what they can do. You’ve just come from observing Wellford acting like their bootblack.”

Gregson sank back into the chair, aware now of the thoroughness with which the director had zylphed his unconscious thoughts.

Radcliff came around the desk and gripped his shoulder. “You’ve been over on the Valorians’ side and you realize now that there is no easy way through the Screamie barrier. So let’s have a look at the practical side of matters.”

Gregson stared up at him.

“The world is up for grabs,” the other went on. “It’s as simple as that. If the bureau doesn’t do the grabbing, the Valorians will. I think it should be us. After all, we’re human. They’re not. And, we’re offering an end to the Screamies.”

“Will the suppressor on VJO work? Can you stop the Screamies?”

“We’ve already canceled all rault within a radius of ten thousand miles of the station. As soon as we expand the field to twelve thousand miles, we can bring an end to all hyper-sensitivity—if you help us move Vega Jumpoff to a low enough orbit.”

“And then the bureau hierarchy will continue using personalized rault casters so they’ll have the advantage of zylphing whenever they need it. That’s how you intend to perpetuate yourselves in power.” ”

Radcliff thought about it a moment. “I’m afraid so. But you’re considering only secondary matters. However, you’ve already realized the main issue: Unless some group establishes world-wide control and maintains that control as a bulwark against both hyperradiation and the Valorians, then billions of persons will die screaming.”

“The Valorians say we can become completely rault sensitive with no ill effects—in just a few weeks’ time.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Apparently Forsythe’s learning to tolerate hypersensitivity without going Screamie. He’s come through scores of seizures.”

“Good God, man, you can’t generalize from Forsythe’s case! He’s blind. And, as I zylphed from your unconscious, he had often expressed a desire to ‘see those damned lights.’”

Out on the base someone went Screamie, but the inevitable howl of the siren brought an end to his shrill cries.

“Over and above what I have said,” the director went on, ignoring the distraction, “the fact remains that mankind isn’t ready for the sixth sense.”

He permitted himself his first smile. “This is proved both by our economic upheaval and the relative ease with which the early ex-Screamers were able to seize the reins everywhere. But the power grab terminates with the bureau. Otherwise, as more persons emerge as scheming hypersensitives, the struggle for control would become chaotic.”

Gregson was silent a long while. “Suppose I refuse to go along with you.”

“You won’t,” Radcliff assured. “You see, we hold a cudgel. We have Forsythe and his niece. And we know how concerned you are about them.”

Gregson lunged up. But one of the Guardsmen leveled his laserifle. The director only sat there unperturbed, regarding his folded hands.

The desk viewer buzzed and Radcliff energized its screen.

“Colonel Reynolds to see you,
sir,”
said a feminine voice.

“Send him in.”

Reynolds, short and somewhat thin, wore a U.S. Army uniform. Standing there before the desk, he used a wadded handkerchief to dab at his forehead—but it was not warm in the building.

“We have another civilian at the gate telling us the Screamies are actually some kind of new way of—ah, seeing things,” he said.

Radcliff leveled a finger at the officer. “If you’ve forgotten the prescribed procedure, let me remind you that you are to hand him immediately over to the International Guard detail.”