INTERVENTION (21 page)

As they crept upward through scrubby trees the entire Bretton Woods area was visible behind them. "This is neat!" Denis yelled over the racket. "Look down there—it's your hotel!"

Rogi said: I watch little trains go up&down mountain from my window. Sometimes when cloud clamps down on summit trains look like they're heading into sky never to return ... Man who invented train went to state legislature in 1858 asked it to grant charter so he could build railroad. Lawmaker proposed amendment permitting inventor to build railroad to Moon after he finish one up MountWashington.

Laughter. Getting really cold. Glad brought jacket. Glad we can mindspeak can hardly hear WOW whatanoise!

You know about mountainweather? It can change in flash: bright sunshine to freezing cold even now in June. Snow any month. Wind blows hurricanefast on summit ⅓ days year.

Yes I read book school worldclass record MountWashington wind 231 mph! Know also Indians thought mountain home GreatSpirit afraid to climb no wonder.

You hear story ChiefPassaconaway?

?

Lived NewHampshire early colonial times. Great wise leader also famed wonderworking magic allkinds wizard tricks. When Chief Pas-saconaway died legend says wolves pulled body on sled to top MountWashington. There fiery coach carried him away into sky.

Like
flyingsaucer?
Awww...

Lots of other stories. You ever hear Great Carbuncle?

?

Supposed tobe huge shining red jewel hidden mountain worth zillions. Glowing ruby light lures greedy people come search for it. They follow light get trapped terrible storms never able get hold carbuncle. Die. NathanielHawthorne used legend in story.

I'll get book BerlinLibrary this summer ... UncleRogi you don't believe flyingsaucers do you?

Never saw one. But ElmerPeabody man drives tractormower at hotel says he did. Sensible man Elmer. Lots of reputable people say they see UFOs. Funny. NewHampshire seems have awfullot those things confounded UFO plague!

I read two books kindof scary. Onebook man&woman driving FranconiaNotch just west here say they abducted by saucermen. Doctor got story years later by
hypnotizing
people! Saucerman told lady came faraway star meant noharm. Anotherbook guy saw big saucer with redlights over Exeter nearcoast. Went to police. Police saw it too! Also wholebunch other people. What think?

I think ... it may be possible.

Ahh. Littlegreenmen visit Earth but not make official contact? Why they want do such crazything! Why keep secret instead reveal selves rightout to world?

Dearchild
why do we?

***

The little train crawled slowly to the region above timberline, leaving behind gnarled and crouching dwarf trees and passing into a place where carpets of subarctic flowers, pink and white and pale yellow, bloomed in the midst of sedge meadows and a desolation of gray crags. There was still snow in shadowed hollows and the western side of the rocks was encrusted with thick hoarfrost. The summit buildings came into view. They passed a cluster of water tanks and saw a simple painted board:

LIZZIE BOURNE
PERISHED
1855

"She was twenty-three," Rogi said. "Nearly seventy other people have died on this mountain—more than on any other peak in North America. Some died from accidents, some from exposure. The mountain is deceptive, you see. People come up on a beautiful day like this, without a cloud in the sky, and decide to take a little hike. Suddenly clouds of icy fog come racing in and you can't see two feet in front of you. There might be snow or hail or freezing rain with a wind-chill factor way below zero. The worst weather on Earth short of the polar regions happens right here in our own state, on a mountain only sixty-two hundred feet high. I've been up here lots of times—on the cog, driving up the eastern side on the Carriage Road, even hiking up from the hotel. But I never feel quite comfortable. The top of Mount Washington is an eerie place."

The train drew to a halt in front of a drab, barnlike wooden building that the trainman proudly identified as the famous Summit House Hotel. He warned the passengers that they would have only forty-five minutes to explore. The return trip, like the journey up the mountain, would take more than an hour.

A strong, cold wind was blowing and Rogi told Denis to watch his step on the slippery gravel. There was very little snow on the ground, but the windward side of every structure, rock, railing, and guy-cable was thick with dazzling white rime. The giant frost crystals looked like otherworldly marine growth, a crust of twisted tabs and plates and knobs and opaque lenses of ice.

The Summit House Hotel held no interest for Denis. He wanted to climb the cone-shaped rock mass that marked the absolute high point of the mountain. Then he raced off to see if the weather observatory or the TV and radio transmitter buildings were open to the public. They weren't. As he squinted up at the ice-wrapped antenna tower, the boy projected to Rogi dramatic imaginary pictures of the way this place might look in a howling blizzard with the wind blowing two hundred miles an hour. His mind was charged with exhilaration as they walked to a rocky spur and looked south, down a leg of the great Appalachian Trail, and saw a group of tiny lakes and a hikers' hut more than a thousand feet below.

"Those are the Lakes of the Clouds," Rogi said. "Maybe on one of your later visits we can hike up to them from the Hotel, on the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail."

"Wow! That'd be great." Denis squinted, studying the area immediately below the spur. "What are those piles of rock with yellow paint on top?"

"Cairns marking the trails. You have to watch very carefully for them in some places to keep from getting lost. The trails on this mountain don't look like the woodland paths you're used to—at least not in the high parts. They mostly go over bare rock. That's one of the reasons why Mount Washington can be treacherous."

They went back to the northern area of the summit to see if they could see Berlin. Sure enough, the steam plumes from the paper mills were little tan feathers rising from the Androscoggin Valley. The air was so clear that they could see Umbagog Lake and Bigelow Mountain over in Maine, and the Green Mountains of Vermont to the west, and beyond the White Mountain Resort Hotel was a pimple on the horizon that was really Mount Marcy, 150 miles away in the Adirondacks of New York.

"I see hikers," Denis said, pointing to a line of people toiling up alongside the cog railway line. He instinctively magnified the tiny figures with his farsight and projected the picture into Rogi's mind.

"...eighteen, nineteen, twenty ... twenty-three of them."

"It's a popular place to hike. Over there is the main trail leading to Clay and Jefferson and Adams. There are overnight huts between Mount Adams and Mount Madison, too."

Denis shaded his eyes. He was shivering in the unrelenting wind. The vision of the climbers faded from Rogi's ultrasense. And then the child uttered a gasp of disbelief, and there came a surge of fear from him that made Rogi cry out in concern.

"Denis! What's wrong?"

A trembling, bluish finger pointed at the line of people. They disappeared behind the shoulder of the mountain for a moment as the trail dipped, then came into view again. The mental picture was huge.

"Uncle Rogi, the lady in front. I
hear
her."

"What?"

The boy burst into tears. "I hear her mind. She's like us! Another person like us! Her mind projection is very faint and it doesn't make much sense..."

He dashed the moisture from his eyes and hugged himself as he tried to stop shuddering. Swiftly, Rogi unzipped his down-filled jacket and wrapped Denis in it. He knelt beside the child on sharp stones, feeling no cold, only a gut-churning hope. "Concentrate! Try to share the farspeech with me, Denis. Help me hear what you hear." He put his arms around the boy and closed his eyes.

Oh my God.

She was singing a wordless melody, some classical fragment that Rogi was unable to recognize. A joyful song. Now and then a subvocalization floated above the music like gossamer spider-threads against sunlit air:

Answered ... they answered ... out there ... surely ... the others may doubt but ... answered ...

The clairaudient emanations and her farseen image cut off as the woman followed the trail into another hollow, but his memory would never relinquish that first picture, and whenever he thought of her after she was lost to him, this vision of windblown vitality would always come to mind: a strong-featured face, striking but not conventionally pretty, slightly sunburned across the bridge of the nose; eyes of a blue so pale that they were almost silver; an exultant smile—my God, that smile!—that was the external sign of her mind's rejoicing; strawberry-blond hair escaping from a green woolen watch cap; a body tall, slender, and strong.

Denis was trying to squirm out of his paralyzed arms. "Uncle Rogi—your jacket! You'll freeze!"

He came to himself. The hikers were still out of sight and Denis was looking up at him, face tear-stained and twisted with emotion. Rogi spoke urgently. "That woman. You're certain that the music and farspeech came from her mind?"

"Absolutely certain. She really is another one like us. No—wait! She's not as controlled as we are. Not aware. I don't think she knows what she's doing when she mindspeaks. Perhaps she's never had any other telepaths to speak to. But she
is
like us! Uncle Rogi, we're not all alone..."

"And that she should be the one," Rogi whispered. "C'est un miracle. Un vrai miracle." Sunny's voice came to him, an echo of a long-ago apology:
Quand le coup de foudre frappe—

The train whistle blew. Once, twice, three times.

"Oh, no!" cried the boy. "We can't just go and leave her!"

Rogi lifted Denis in his arms. "The hikers are coming this way, probably heading for Summit House. They should be here in half an hour. We'll wait for them."

"But the train—"

"Another train will come."

Rogi stumbled over the frosty rocks, drunk with happiness, for the first time realizing what Sunny had been trying to tell him about her love for Don.
When the thunderbolt strikes
... there is no logic, no resisting. And thus the marvel of the woman hiker's telepathic ability was lost in a greater wonder. He scarcely heard Denis say:

"If there's one mind like hers, there must be lots more! All we have to do is figure a way to find them."

Wind sang in the antenna guy-wires and the humped little engine in front of the hotel renewed its hooting. Tourists called to each other and Denis shivered, radiating a fearful exultation that was almost as intense as Rogi's own. Rogi carried the boy up the stairs into the heavily insulated entry of the small hotel. A bearded man in climbing gear held the door open, concern on his face.

"Little fellow's not hurt, is he?"

Rogi set Denis back on his feet, unwrapped him, and said, "All we both need is a bit of warming up."

"Try the dining room," the man suggested. "Nice fire, fantastic view. You can watch the train go down the mountain while you stoke up with hot food and drink. Best thing."

Thanking the man, Rogi led Denis into the Summit House lobby. The boy was recovering fast and he eyed the souvenir counter with interest. "Can I buy a guidebook and some maps? And maybe we better get some Kleenex. My nose is running and so is yours." The small, wan face looked up with a critical frown. "You should comb your hair before she gets here, too."

Rogi burst out laughing. "Mais naturellement! It wouldn't do to look scruffy."

"I—I just want her to like us," Denis protested.

"If she doesn't, we'll try coercion."

"Be serious, Uncle Rogi! What are we going to
say
to her?"

"We'll have to think about that, won't we? But first, let's clean up and then find something to eat."

Hand in hand, they went looking for the men's room.

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD

H
ER NAME WAS
Elaine Donovan Harrington.

She was thirty-one years old and separated from her husband, and she lived in a "little country place" just outside the state capital of Concord, where she edited and published a journal for UFO buffs called
Visitant.
I found out later that she had inherited her strawberry-blond hair—and probably her metapsychic traits—from her late father Cole Donovan, a dynamic real-estate entrepreneur. From her late mother, who was of Boston Brahmin stock, she had a legacy of natural elegance and sufficient old money to support a lifestyle far above any that Remillards of that day and age could even imagine.

Scraping an acquaintance with her was the easiest thing in the world, thanks to Denis.

We waited in ambush at a table in the rustic dining room of Summit House; and when Elaine and her party of trail-weary Aetherians arrived, the boy picked her brains. In retrospect, I am appalled at his redactive expertise, for I realize now that he must have been able to monitor every thought that passed between Elaine and me. But at that time I had nothing but admiration for the child as he trotted up to Elaine all primed with pilfered data from her memory bank and claimed to be a reader of her magazine who had recognized her from her masthead photograph. She was charmed by the precocious, well-spoken lad, and engaged him in conversation on sundry flying-saucerish topics while her friends settled down to order a meal.

At an opportune moment I came up to retrieve my young relative. Denis introduced me, explaining, "My Uncle Rogi—Roger—works at the White Mountain Resort Hotel. Do you know it, Mrs. Harrington? That big old place like a palace down at the western foot of Mount Washington."

"I'm staying there," she said. The corners of her mouth lifted in a little smile. "It's rather a family tradition, the White Mountain Hotel. How do you do, Mr. Remillard?"

I had barricaded my unruly emotions behind the sturdiest mind-screen I could muster; but when that silvery gaze focused on me I might as well have tried to hide behind a shield of cellophane. The rapport was instantaneous and I was unable to utter a word. God only knows what thoughts I projected.