The Lost Perception (12 page)

Would a trip there perhaps provide an opportunity to zylph the secrets hidden behind that dense brow which remained perpetually within the fortress of a rault suppressor?

Boldly, he struck out for the cottage.

He had to peer into a number of windows before he located the superintendent—slumped in a massive wing chair, eyes closed and jowls spread out upon his chest. On the table were a silver ice bucket, from which protruded the neck of an unstoppered wine bottle, and an energized rault suppressor. Beside the latter was a rault caster, its function revealed by the glowing green light below the dial.

Sight of a suppressor and caster in operation at the same time puzzled Gregson—until he surmised that a smaller field of rault could be generated within a larger field of projected stygumness, like a light bulb shining in darkness. That arrangement would allow Lanier to zylph things in his immediate area, while preventing rault-borne impressions from escaping through the greater sphere of metadarkness.

He tried two more windows before he found one unlocked. Snoring sounds led him to Lanier’s study, but he hesitated in the hallway. It was apparent that the superintendent’s sleep, induced most likely by a full bottle of wine, was profound indeed.

Gregson turned off his suppressor and, as anticipated, discovered that the greater field of the room’s suppressor still prevented him from zylphing. But, approaching Lanier, he started when a flood of rault enveloped his glial receptors. Instantly he was zylphing everything in the superintendent’s immediate vicinity.

He drew back into the stygumness, but not before he had verified the man’s drunkenness. The rault-borne impressions were unmistakable—the chemical wrongness of alcohol in his system, deadening his brain cells, stifling his glial sensitivity.

Then Gregson pushed back into the inner field of rault. He turned aside the torrential flood of transsensory impressions that assailed him from each prominent and microscopically insignificant feature within the sphere. He directed his attention instead to the superintendent’s mind, trying for the first time to detect unconscious thought.

And, vaguely, he began to sense major attitudes—an expectation of power, a thirst for strength. Now the abstract concepts were becoming more zylphable. The imperium of which he dreamed seemed to have been promised by the oligarchy. He appeared to have been assured supreme authority over all of France, perhaps the entire continent.

It all added up to a single concept that seemed to be emblazoned smugly, boastfully across the superintendent’s mind—a concept that hinted of a conspiracy so bold, so vast that it defied convenient description.

And, as though he had sensed it somehow from the other’s unconscious thoughts, Gregson realized his own presence at Versailles had been required so that, while being instructed in hyperperception, he could be won over tactfully to the power-complex persuasions of the bureau. And Karen’s principal function was that of a seductress who was to help pervert his sense of values.

Lanier abruptly shook himself awake and, in the return of awareness to the befuddled mind, Gregson zylphed the great concentration of perceptive power, the advanced faculty of hypersensitivity.

He reached out for the superintendent, having sensed beforehand that Lanier’s first impulse would be to turn off the rault suppressor and let staff members zylph the wrongness in the cottage.

But Lanier eluded him, having likewise sensed Gregson’s move. In trying to snatch up the suppressor, however, the superintendent succeeded only in knocking it off the table.

Somehow, Gregson managed to get an arm around the huge man’s neck from behind.

But Lanier’s heel came back in a vicious thrust at his groin and as he folded over in pain the superintendent reached for the massive ice bucket. Befuddled as he was by the wine, he staggered and Gregson, seizing the silver bucket first, brought it hard down on the man’s head.

Then, as the superintendent collapsed, Gregson snatched the rault caster from the table and twisted its dial until the green pilot light went out, depriving Lanier of his superior hypervision.

As Gregson sifted back through the last rault-limned impressions he had received, he realized he had zylphed the man’s fatal concussion. Even now the other lay lifeless on the carpet.

Among other impressions he had zylphed during the struggle, were the keys in Lanier’s pocket, one of which would fit the ignition lock on the high-powered car outside the cottage.

And the car would be his means of reaching VJO Ground Control Headquarters in Paris, where an inordinately boastful Madame Carnot might unwittingly contribute to his knowledge of the Security Bureau conspiracy.

Gregson drove cautiously toward the palace exit. On the seat beside him, the cherry glow of his rault suppressor’s pilot bulb assured that his approach would not be detected hyper-visually, at least. As for his chances of being spotted optically—he could see, through the gatehouse window, that the guards were relaxed.

He coasted until he reached the gate. Then he fed full power to the engine and roared off.

Within minutes, he was tensely negotiating the sweeping turns of the new highway around Mont-Valerien. Ahead, moonlight washed down on gentle slopes, suffusing the mist-enshrouded, ancient American cemetery near Suresnes with a nebulous glow.

Soon he began resenting the presence of the rault suppressor, regretting his resultant inability to zylph back in the direction of Versailles and determine whether Larder’s body had been found.

Relaxing his grip on the wheel, he reviewed the avalanching evidence of the Security Bureau’s conspiracy. First there had been the Versailles Academy’s almost universal preoccupation with power—as so vividly exemplified by the Irish girl Sharon’s bold anticipation of an “elite, ruling group,” supported by a “modern feudal system.” And Karen had verified the bureau’s adherence to the “power” concept, although she had dressed the whole thing up (solely for his benefit?) in euphemistic terms of benevolent, though authoritarian control over all of Earth.

Then Simmons had been slain because his persuasions conflicted with the bureau’s—because he wasn’t “interested in power.” And, finally, Lanier had dreamed of an imperium whose oligarchy was already parceling out satrapies and designating “supreme authorities.”

Sufficient evidence to prove the Security Bureau was actually involved in a scheme to maintain permanent control over all Earth? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But if there were such a pattern of conspiracy, Madame Carnot might have all the details.

Dismissing his concern for the moment at least, Gregson welcomed the opportunity to turn his glial attention on Chandeen, which he could now zylph just around the edge of the Stygum Field. The brilliant hyperradiance filled him with a sense of confidence and…

He started. How
could
he be aware of Chandeen? Wasn’t he shielded from its emanations by the rault suppressor?

Dismayed, he glanced down at the seat. The glow of the instrument’s indicator light was almost out! It was losing power and its projected field of artificial stygumness was collapsing!

Then he cast about for hyperimpressions and was promptly aware of the Security Bureau car bearing down on him from behind. He depressed the fuel injector and the car lurched forward with a burst of acceleration.

Of course they had zylphed him! With his suppressor putting out barely enough stygumness to conceal himself, how could they have missed the hypervisual anomaly of
part of a car
speeding down the highway?

Then he saw what was happening. With the motion of the vehicle, the instrument’s control knob was robbing against the seat and edging gradually towards zero position. He reached out for the suppressor, but stayed his hand on the knob as new, incomprehensible impressions assailed his glial receptors, compelling his attention.

It was a moment before he realized he was zylphing frenzied activity high overhead, on the fringe of the atmosphere. And it was yet another moment before he recognized, in hypersensory detail, the Security Bureau Space Division’s shuttle craft that was descending
in
full free fall and lashing out viciously with its heavy laser weapon.

Target of the attack was something unidentifiable, completely unfamiliar because he had neither zylphed nor seen anything like it before.

The object, in the atmosphere now and finally out of range of the space craft, was decelerating from supermach speed while its outer surface was flaking away, molecule by molecule.

The strange vessel had been slashed by several beams. Inside, structural members were disintegrating (as intended, he sensed) at such a rate that the entire capsule would evaporate shortly after drifting to the ground. And on the impact site, he knew, would be deposited—a Valorian.

Even from this distance, he could perceive the twin hearts, beating now at an enfeebled pace as a result of a head injury sustained during the attack. And he zylphed that the alien was unconscious.

Gregson’s car, negotiating a sharp curve, careened toward the ditch and he restored control just in time to avoid a •smashup. He twisted the suppressor’s dial back on. Its pilot bulb blazed anew and at once he could no longer zylph anything at all.

The car righted itself and he glanced back to see that his pursuers had gained considerably and were in visual contact now. Just then an intense laser beam speared through the darkness, cutting down a tree on his left.

The concrete ribbon twisted into a series of descending curves, flanked by coppices.

Around the next bend a side road loomed in the glare of his headlights. He thrust down on the brakes. Screeching almost to a halt, he wrenched the vehicle off the highway and around behind a grove of trees, then he switched off his lights.

Seconds later the Security Bureau car sped past.

Guided only by moonglow, he drove on, hopeful that the side road would lead to yet another arterial approach to Paris.

Then something glistened in the moonlight near the ground on his left and he remembered the descending capsule.

Aware that the Guardsmen had undoubtedly zylphed the pod and would eventually be attracted to it, he nevertheless stopped the car and started across the field on foot.

Long ago he had wanted to question a Valorian. But there was the danger that curious special agents would wind up as hypnotized puppets in a conspiratorial cell. Or so the bureau had said.

Continuing on towards the capsule’s impact site, he remembered his encounter with the alien in Manhattan. He had been certain, at the time, that being injected by the hypo had stemmed from his own carelessness and his adversary’s superior agility. But Radcliff had blamed it on suggestive compulsion.

Now he wasn’t so sure. And he intended to find out for himself.

When he reached the spot where the pod had come to rest, he found only the unconscious alien. He carried the Valorian back to the car, disappointed in the realization that he would have to await a less hazardous opportunity for exploring the man’s unconscious thoughts.

The
man’s?
he asked himself suddenly as he placed the Valorian on the back seat.

Briefly, he turned on the dome light and verified his suspicion. Accentuating his prisoner’s feminine form were a Parisian-style blouse and slacks and intensely dark, straight hair that made her complexion appear less olive by contrast.

Concerned over how seriously she might be hurt and not knowing what to do with her, he sent the car lunging off in search of another, safer route to Paris.

It was almost two o’clock when he finally solved the maze of secondary roads west of the city, turned into the
Route de Madrid
and started through the more familiar
Bois de Boulogne.

But what he remembered as a delightful amusement park had been replaced by a huge Screamer isolation institute that reared into the night sky and gleamed in the antiseptic brilliance of its own illumination. Ambulances were converging on the facility along all approaches and it seemed that an inordinate number of persons were going Screamie.

Leaving the
Bois de Boulogne
through its
Maillot
exit, he allowed himself a final, suddenly distrustful glance at the towering building. And he remembered, with alarm now, that the Security Bureau directly supervised
all
the isolation institutes.

In effect, the bureau was able to maintain surveillance over almost everybody who went Screamie. Were the institutes actually
screening stations
—designed to select some of the plague survivors for roles in the conspiracy and to condition others to keep their glial cells perpetually closed?

Sickened, he envisioned a conspiracy that grew on its own strength, ruthlessly brooked no opposition, drew nourishrment from its own insidious objectives, used the advantages of hyperperception to elevate its members to the highest positions of authority in the governmental and economic institutions of all nations, and assassinate anyone in position to reveal the intrigue—as they had assassinated Simmons at Versailles and the woman in Rome’s Central Isolation Institute?

Then he gripped the wheel in sudden distress.
Forsythe
was determined to master the sixth sense! And he was
outside
the conspiracy. Moreover, the bureau knew about him, because that knowledge was engraved on Gregson’s memory cells, which had been exposed to all the Security Bureau zylphers at Versailles. Therefore the conspiracy couldn’t tolerate Forsythe’s independent existence!

Was that why the farm was suddenly abandoned, with no trace of Helen and BUI left behind?

More determined than ever to reach Madame Carnot, Gregson turned into
Avenue Foch,
but had to reduce his speed. The sidewalks and lanes were crowded with haggard Parisians. Numb fear on their faces was starkly illuminated by glaring xenon vapor lights.

And, in frightened anticipation, almost everyone wielded an unsheathed hypodermic syringe.

Gregson found it incredible that
so many
persons were going Screamie. Then he reasoned that the raultburst which had begun on the previous day, pouring through an almost unobstructed rift in the Stygum Field, must have been the fiercest yet.

After having been delayed twice by ambulances, he finally turned off into
Rue de la Serenite.
Here it was a different world—peaceful and quiet, as the name of the street implied.

Braking to a stop alongside the ornamental fence, he surmised the reason for such vivid contrast:

All
the buildings around No. 17 must be part of VJO Ground Control Headquarters. And they must all be within the field of a large rault suppressor. He tested his hypothesis by turning off his own suppressor. He had guessed right, for he could still zylph nothing.

Before he left the car, he stared uncertainly at the unconscious Valorian on the rear seat. Even if he wanted to, though, there was nothing he could do for the woman now.

On the sidewalk, he paused again, studying the steady flow of personnel into the main entrance. There was an aura of imminent happening about the building and he wondered whether it had anything to do with the sudden raultburst from Chandeen.

He joined a group striding anxiously across the courtyard. Then, as he passed a guard at the doorway and headed unchallenged for the helical stairs, he thanked the general air of confused urgency, whatever its explanation, for his uneventful entry.

With the others he mounted the stairway. Most of those arriving had as their destination the second-floor assembly hall, where a gathering audience confronted a still empty stage.

In the glass-partitioned compartments of the third and fourth levels, he noticed that the walls were illuminated with projected maps of various land areas throughout the world.

Predominating were charts representing sections of the United States and Europe.

On the seventh floor, the huge planetary sphere that was to serve as the focal point of VJO Ground Control Operations was in darkness, as was the room itself, with all its electronic equipment and kinescopic screens.

Considering the intense activity throughout most of the building, he was not surprised to find Madame Carnot awake—in her satin-paneled sitting room. Drapes drawn over the French windows obscured their view of the roof garden.

Wearing silk pajamas and a robe, the withered woman sat in her wheelchair before a portable video screen and a compact control board. Each time her crippled fingers touched a button, the scene on the face of the tube shifted from one center of activity in the building to another.

On the table beside her was a rault caster, whose green pilot bulb was now lifeless.

That she had not zylphed his presence in the hallway was further assurance that the caster was not operating.

But as he eased into the room she started to turn around. He lunged forward, seizing the wheelchair and pulling it away from the control board.

Fear erupted among the wrinkles of her face and she tried to rise. But she only fell back and sat there breathing heavily. Then she clasped her robe more securely about her and seemed to draw composure from its warmth. “You are late,
monsieur.
I was expecting you much earlier.”

“You
knew I
left Versailles?”

“I knew you
would
leave. I zylphed as much when you were here two weeks ago. But you do not frighten me. For you see,
monsieur,
you are very close to death.”

Her pale eyes, recessed beneath thin, gray brows, were suddenly animate with amusement over his confounded expression.
“Oui, monsieur
—close to death. All this day I have zylphed its nearness—in this very room. All the forces, all the patterns of matter and time spoke of it and I feared that I was sensing my own end,”

Her smile, though feeble, was mocking. “But eventually I zylphed that it would be a violent, fiery death and I knew I was safe because no violence can befall me here. Then, when you came, I saw that the omens would be satisfied.”

He brushed aside her shallow, obvious attempt at frightening him. “The Security Bureau wants total, permanent world control, doesn’t it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “We do not
want
that. We already
have
it. There is hardly a national government which does not hold its reins of power at the sufferance of the bureau. For,
vraiment,
we have patiently put our own men, our very own zylphers, in charge of those governments everywhere. Just as we long ago began placing our personnel in all positions of economic responsibility.”

Gregson straightened thoughtfully, remembering that ex-Screamers in high office, both public and corporate, had long since become the pattern of society’s practical response to the plague. It had all along been the consensus that those who had survived the Screamies were best qualified to act as caretakers of the world’s governments and economic resources.