Earth Cult (15 page)

Frank felt that he ought to object to Chuck Strang's implication and the slur it cast on Helen, but he was rather circumspect in the way he should set about expressing it. He didn't want to rile the man.

Helen folded her arms defiantly and faced the tall sunburnt rancher in the white stetson and silver spurs. ‘Why don't you get it off your chest, Strang, and tell him that this town isn't big enough for the both of you? Then we'll say good night and leave you with the rest of these—'

‘Helen!' said Frank warningly. ‘He's entitled to his religious beliefs.'

‘Is that what they are?' she responded caustically. ‘Looks to me more like grown men trying to whip up enough Dutch courage to form a lynching party.'

Frank groaned inwardly.

‘The trouble is, Strang,' Helen went relentlessly on, ‘we've all seen the same B movie at least a million times. And the plot still stinks.'

‘I think we'll just be on our way,' Frank said, making as if to move into the hotel.

‘I think maybe you won't,' said Chuck Strang, standing in his way. ‘I also think the members of the Faith might like to know we have a real living scientist right here in our midst.' For no reason he pushed Frank hard in the chest.

It was the first indication that this wasn't just plain bravura after all; Chuck Strang wasn't play acting, he was in deadly earnest, and Frank began to get the unwelcome feeling that he would have to do some fast talking or even faster running to extricate himself from what was becoming a tense situation. Helen's diplomatic remark about a lynching party hung in his mind, like a Ku Klux Klan cross burning vividly against a black night sky.

He said, somewhat wearily, ‘You've got it wrong, Strang. I'm not a scientist. I'm a journalist. I write for a science magazine.'

‘You're connected with that thing over on the mountain.'

‘Who told you that?'

‘Mr Cabel.'

Frank stared at him. He almost smiled. ‘The preacher told you that?' he said, bewildered. ‘He doesn't know anything about me.'

‘He knows you right enough. He says you're connected with the Project. He told us all, the night of the storm.'

Frank recalled the meeting that had been held in the square the night the power had failed. But what was all this about Cabel telling the members of the Faith that he was a scientist working on the Project? He'd never met the man, and as far as he knew Cabel didn't even know that somebody called Frank Kersh existed. Unless Stringer had told him. That must be it, Frank guessed, unable to understand how else it could have happened. The hotel manager had taken him for a scientist and passed the word along to Cabel. Nothing else made sense; and yet he was still uneasy. Why should Cabel single him out and think it worth telling the members of the Telluric Faith that he was actively engaged on the Project? He wasn't a threat to them, and there was no earthly reason why Cabel should think him worthy of special attention.

He became aware that the preacher's sermon had ended and that close behind him a silent watching group had formed. The only sound was the soft crackling flare of the torches.

Helen said, ‘This is stupid. Are you going to let us through Strang?'

Chuck Strang said, ‘What's the rush, Helen, can't you wait to get in the sack with this heretic?'

‘My, how your vocabulary has improved. Two months ago you'd have thought heretic was some rare form of cattle disease.' She stood, arms folded, one hip thrust out, in the manner of a schoolteacher having to deal with a particularly dull and recalcitrant pupil.

Frank was beginning to wish he'd kept up with his karate lessons.

Then Chuck Strang said in a low intense voice, ‘You'd better tell your friends, Kersh, that next time the mountain won't be content with only four human sacrifices. That was just a gentle warning. Next time it's going to take all of you, every last one. You think the mountain is a heap of dead rock but that's where you're mistaken. The mountain is part of the living Earth, just as Mr Cabel says, and it's waiting for you, biding its time. Tell them people up there that if they don't clear out the mountain is going to split clean in half and swallow them and their Project whole.'

His eyes had the depth and fixed intensity of a madman's stare. He had gone beyond the point where reasoned argument would have made the slightest difference; Frank knew that anything he might say would never get through that solid, impenetrable wall of fervent religious conviction. Chuck Strang believed in the doctrine Cabel preached: the scales had fallen from his eyes and he was a true and passionate believer in the living reality of the Ultimate Void.

‘Is that the message you want me to pass on to them?' Frank said.

‘They've got forty-eight hours. Either they leave for good or they stay there – forever.'

‘Amen,' Helen said boredly.

The compound was deserted and there was a strangely subdued air about the place, as if, Frank thought, last night's tremor had shocked them into silence and inactivity. He wondered whether more damage had been caused to the underground installation. In many ways this could be even more dangerous than the flooding of the lower level – weakening the support structures so that a relatively minor
disturbance could block the tunnels and shaft, sealing the men below the ground in a granite tomb.

As he was parking the Toronado Helen remarked on how quiet everything was, adding, ‘Perhaps they've heeded Chuck Strang's warning and cleared out.'

‘I doubt it. Neither Friedmann nor Leach seems to give a hang about what the local people think. Their sole interest is in conducting scientific research; anything else doesn't rate a mention.'

‘Is it really beyond all possible doubt that the experiments are completely harmless? Isn't it just feasible that they've triggered off something in the atmosphere – some kind of weird side-effect the scientists never expected and are totally unaware of?'

Frank meditated for a moment, pressing his fingertips against his closed eyelids. He said, ‘When I arrived in Gypsum I could have answered those questions without a second's hesitation. There was absolutely no shadow of a doubt in my mind. Now I'm not at all sure. After what I've seen and heard these past three days it's pretty obvious that something – I don't know what the hell it is – that something connected with the Deep Hole Project is going seriously wrong.' He turned to look at her. ‘As far as my knowledge of astrophysics goes, Helen, there is no known particle reaching the Earth from outer space that has any kind of adverse effect, either on animals, plants, human beings, the Earth itself. We're being bombarded with literally billions of particles every second of the day and night and as far as we know they either interact with other particles and are absorbed, or else they pass harmlessly through the Earth – through us too – as if we weren't here.'

He thought of the antineutrinos from the galactic centre that Friedmann and his team had detected and it was on the tip of his tongue to add a corollary to his previous statement to the effect that an increase in antineutrinos by a factor of two hundred might just be the one exception to the rule. But he had given his word that he wouldn't reveal the information to anyone until Friedmann and Leach had had time
to discuss it and reach a decision; so he resisted the temptation and said nothing. But he was conscious that time was running out for the Project, and not only because of the threats issued by the Tellurians. The storm was gathering in more ways than the meteorological – he could sense it every where, a dreadful foreboding in the atmosphere that was as tangible as a physical if unseen presence.

They walked across the muddy red compound to the hut which housed Professor Friedmann's office and were about to enter when the door was abruptly wrenched open and they were confronted by Dr Leach. The shock of his grotesque appearance, this small ill-made man framed in the doorway, took Helen aback and she gasped involuntarily.

His thatch of thick black hair and his dark-eyed gaze seemed to add emphasis to his deformed stature, almost as if nature had bestowed these attributes to draw attention to her botched handiwork. He said roughly:

‘What are you doing here, Kersh? I thought we agreed that you'd await our decision.'

‘That's right, we did.' Frank looked down on the dark stunted man in the white lab coat blocking the doorway. ‘I'd like to see Professor Friedmann.'

‘Why?'

‘There are a couple of things I want to discuss with him. Recent events have altered the situation. And I think he ought to know how the people of Gypsum are reacting; there could be trouble.'

Leach studied him for a long moment, his eyes hard and suspicious beneath the single dark bar of his eyebrows. Helen had moved closer to Frank, intimidated by his aggressive manner and physical appearance.

Dr Leach said, ‘You can't see him, it isn't possible.'

‘Is he here?'

‘I've said you can't see him. Isn't that plain enough?'

‘If he's here I insist on seeing him. It's important.' Frank stared into his eyes, meeting his look squarely, refusing to let the man's hostility frighten or get the better of him.

‘What is it you wish to say to him? Tell me and I'll pass the message along.'

‘That won't do.'

‘It will have to do.'

‘Is he underground in the detection chamber?' Frank asked, glancing towards the head of the shaft. ‘If so, I'll wait. I'm not going anywhere.'

‘You're leaving. Right now. Professor Friedmann isn't here, so there's no point in you staying.'

‘Okay,' Frank agreed amiably. ‘If the Professor isn't here, where is he? I take it you know how to reach him.'

Leach looked away, his eyes flickering, almost as if he were unsure what to do next. He licked his wide pale lips and a tiny muscle jumped above his left eye.

Helen had apparently overcome her trepidation, for she said, ‘We haven't come all the way up here to be fobbed off with a weak excuse. It's very important that we see Professor Friedmann urgently. If you know where he is it's in everyone's interest that you tell us. We must speak with him.'

Leach seemed to waver momentarily, the same shifting glance of uncertainty appearing in his eyes; then he shook his head defiantly. ‘You'll have to leave. When the Professor returns I'll ask him to call you at your hotel. I'm not asking, I'm telling you to leave, right this minute.'

‘Suppose we don't intend to?' Frank said. He was surprised by a slow beating pulse of anger building up inside. It was the anger of frustration, of meeting threats and blank refusals wherever he went, and it was compounded by the nagging irritation that everyone but him was privy to secrets which if revealed and brought together would make sense of this whole bizarre business. Why was Leach so anxious to prevent him seeing Professor Friedmann? And if the Professor wasn't here, where was he? Leach himself didn't seem sure about anything.

But the small deformed man was sure about one thing. He said in his harsh grating voice, ‘If you don't get off, Kersh, I'm going to have you thrown off. I'll have them strap you and your girlfriend in that fancy red car of yours and roll
you back down the mountain. And don't think I won't do it.'

‘I don't think he wouldn't do it,' Helen said nervelessly.

Frank wished that at moments like these she wouldn't choose to indulge herself in slick verbal repartee. She had an acute mind and a keen intelligence but on occasion he would have preferred it if she kept her mouth shut.

As if to back up his threat Leach had brought his hands out of the pockets of his white coat. They were large and powerful and covered in dark hair, made to seem even more capable of a cruel strength by being so disproportionate to the rest of him.

Frank said quietly, ‘You have a short memory, Dr Leach.'

Leach fixed him with his dark stare. ‘What do you mean by that?'

‘We have an agreement, remember? You gave me certain information which I promised not to reveal. But since then the situation has changed, and if you still refuse to allow me to see Professor Friedmann you leave me no alternative but to break that agreement. I can be back in Chicago by this evening and I'm sure my editor will find space for the story in the next issue.'

Leach reacted with a speed and suddenness that left him unprepared, with no time to avoid the blow which knocked the breath from his body: he went down on his back in the red mud, winded and gasping, and Leach came after him with a single-minded ferocity, snarling with rage and anger.

Frank rolled away, still shocked by the unexpected attack, and only just made it to his feet when Leach came at him again, swinging his large hairy fists with murderous intent. There was a moment – a split-second – when Frank registered the look in the man's eyes, and it reminded him of the glazed expression of madness in Chuck Strang's eyes, the same burning intensity and absolute unwavering purpose. He thought: These people are being driven insane. They're losing contact with reality, living in dreams and haunted by demented visions—

But it wasn't a good time for psychological analysis.

He stepped quickly to one side as Leach lunged at him and by no more than a fraction of time and space avoided another blow to the stomach. Then they were grappling ineffectively in a parody of a brawl, sliding about in the mud, and Frank knew that if Leach managed to get one good swing at him it would all be over. The man's arms and shoulders were powerfully made, compensating for his small stature, and he had the strength of someone in the grip of blind frenzy.

They scuffled about, Frank not releasing his hold, their legs becoming entangled so that they fell and rolled together, Leach struggling to extricate himself. Frank managed to get his fingers round the man's throat, no longer concerned about anything but the act of self-preservation, forgetting everything in the desperate struggle to survive. It was the most basic of all animal instincts, the need to protect oneself from attack, and he gripped the man's throat with every ounce of strength he possessed. But Leach didn't seem to be aware that he was being slowly strangled, even though there were flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth: he lashed out wildly and caught Frank a blow to the temple which seemed to jar his skull and reverberate through his brain and he felt his hand loosening and slipping away, his fingers weak and rubbery as if filled with warm glycerine.