Read Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07 Online

Authors: Bridge of Ashes

Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07 (20 page)

BOOK: Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07
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"Unless I am right about the continued
personality assumption."

 
          
 
"Alec! Condorcet, da Vinci and anyone
else he might have been play-acting—they are all dead. Surely you are not
suggesting something like spiritualism?"

 
          
 
"No, sir. We know even less about the
nature of time than we do about telepathy. I was wondering whether, frustrated
in his efforts to reach across space, he has succeeded in driving his mind back
through time and actually reaching those individuals whose identities he has
assumed."

 
          
 
Dr. Chalmers sighed.

 
          
 
"As in paranoia," he said, "and
as in those attempted age-regressions to other lives which amateur hypnotists
occasionally write books about, one significant feature is that everybody wants
to be important. No one identifies himself as a skid-row bum, a serf, a common
laborer. It is invariably a king, a queen, a general, a great scientist,
philosopher, prophet. Does that strike you as peculiar?"

 
          
 
"Not really. It simply strikes me as
irrelevant to Dennis' case. Granting the ability to penetrate time, those are
the sorts of minds to which one would be most attracted. They were certainly
the most interesting. If I would reach back, they are the ones I would attempt
to scan."

 
          
 
"All right. This is not getting us
anywhere. You say you got through to him earlier, and he is indeed convinced
that he is da Vinci."

 
          
 
"Yes."

 
          
 
"Whatever the source of this new
identification, it is motivating him to do things he has never attempted
before. It is therefore a good thing. Let him retain his delusion. We must
capitalize on it as fully as possible."

 
          
 
"Even if he is not really Dennis
Guise?"

 
          
 
"Look, he answers to Dennis Guise now and
he acts the way he believes Dennis Guise should act. He is suddenly showing
high intelligence and the beginnings of remarkable skills. If, in his heart of
hearts, he chooses to believe he is Leonardo da Vinci pulling a fast one on a
world of twenty-first-century clods, what difference does it make, so long as
he behaves in an acceptable fashion in all other ways? We all have our pet
daydreams and fun delusions. There are certain areas where therapy ceases to be
therapeutic and simply becomes meddling. Leave him with his daydream. Teach the
outer man to behave in an acceptable fashion in society."

 
          
 
"But it is more than a daydream!"

 
          
 
"Alec! Hands off!"

 
          
 
"He is my patient."

 
          
 
"And I am your boss, here to make sure
you do a proper job. I do not see a proper job as involving your proceeding
along lines dictated by so tenuous a matter as this telepathy through time
notion. We must act on the basis of knowledge, not guesswork. We do possess
knowledge of paranoia, and have for a long time. Some forms are quite harmless.
Leave him with that part and work on the rest. You will probably notice that as
he gains more experience, becomes surer of himself, that part will simply fade
away."

 
          
 
"You do not give me much choice."

 
          
 
"No, I do not."

 
          
 
"Okay, I will do as you say."

 
          
 
"... And keep me posted, informally as
well as through channels."

 
          
 
Alec nodded, turned to go.

 
          
 
"One thing more ..." Dr. Chalmers
said.

 
          
 
"Yes?"

 
          
 
"I would appreciate your keeping that
notion about time to yourself, at least for now."

 
          
 
"Why?"

 
          
 
"Supposing there is something to it? Just
supposing, of course. It would take a lot of substantiation, a lot of research.
Premature publicity would be the worst thing."

 
          
 
"I understand."

 
          
 
"Good."

 
          
 
Alec went out, returned to his own quarters,
stretched out on his bed to think. After a time, he slept.

 
          
 
The following day, Alec decided to leave
Dennis alone with his studies and his painting, dropping by only at mealtimes.
Dennis was not particularly communicative at breakfast or at lunch. Over
dinner, however, he grew more animated, leaning forward, fixing him with his
gaze.

 
          
 
"This—telepathic ability," he began.
"It is a strange and wondrous thing."

 
          
 
"I thought that you said you were not
going to fool with it for a while."

 
          
 
"That was yesterday. I said that I would
not experiment with it for a time. Very well. Time has passed. I grew
curious."

 
          
 
Alec made a small noise with his lips and
shook his head.

 
          
 
"You could be making a serious mistake
..." he began.

 
          
 
"As it turned out, I was not. I can
control it. It is amazing. I have learned so many things, so quickly, by taking
them from other minds."

 
          
 
"Whose minds?" Alec asked.

 
          
 
Dennis smiled.

 
          
 
"I do not know that it is proper to say.
From yours, for instance, I learned that there is a certain code of courtesy
which precludes wanton browsing among the thoughts of others."

 
          
 
"I see that it impressed you a lot."

 
          
 
Dennis shrugged.

 
          
 
"It works both ways. If it does not apply
to me, why should I observe it myself?"

 
          
 
"You already know the answer to that.
Your status here is that of a patient. I am your therapist. It is a special
situation."

 
          
 
"Then I do not see why I should be
castigated for my actions by those who do not consider me fully responsible for
them."

 
          
 
Alec chuckled.

 
          
 
"Very good," he said. "You are
learning fast. Obviously, things should be revised very soon. In the meantime,
all I can say is that it is just not nice."

 
          
 
Dennis nodded.

 
          
 
"No argument there. I have better uses
for my time than voyeurism. No. I was leading up to a discussion of two things
in which I am currently interested: my own case, and the telepathic function
itself."

 
          
 
“If you have indeed been behaving as you
indicated, then you probably know as much about them both as we do."

 
          
 
"Hardly," he said. "I cannot
plumb the depths of your mind and dredge up all your experience and
skill."

 
          
 
"Oh? Since when? You seemed able to
manage it before."

 
          
 
"When?"

 
          
 
"Let me ask you a question first. Do you
remember anything of other periods of clarity, times when you felt as if you
were someone else?"

 
          
 
"I—I do not think so. Things—like
dreams—sometimes come and go, though. Idle thoughts, occasional disjointed
fragments of something like memory. But I do not really have much to associate
with them. Do you mean that I have been other people, that everything I now
feel and think is just some sort of—overlay? Are you saying that there is
really someone else buried within me and that the person I think I am may be
subject to recall at any time?"

 
          
 
"No, I am not saying that."

 
          
 
"What, then?"

 
          
 
"I do not know, Dennis. You know yourself
better than I do. You appear to be learning things at a fantastic pace—"

 
          
 
"You do not believe that I am really
Dennis Guise," he said.

 
          
 
"Are you?"

 
          
 
"That is a silly question."

 
          
 
"You raised it"

 
          
 
"You think that I am still some sort of
overlay, and that the real Dennis Guise is still buried within me?"

 
          
 
"Dennis, I do not know. You are my
patient. More than anything else, I want to see you fully recovered and
functioning normally in society. It was never my intention to raise these
doubts in your mind. A therapist just naturally tends to speculate, to go over
every possibility, no matter how farfetched. Generally, these things remain
unvoiced. At this point, it seems unfortunate that you are such a good telepath
and that you chose to exercise your ability just when you did."

 
          
 
"Then you are saying that you now feel
you were wrong in this?"

 
          
 
"I am saying it was just one of those
guesses one sometimes makes with very little to go on. Guesses are made and
discarded countless times during a course of therapy. It should not really
concern you."

 
          
 
Dennis took a drink of juice.

 
          
 
"But it does, you know," he said,
after a time. "I am not tremendously fond of the notion that I am keeping
the rightful inhabitant of this body, this brain, from his proper
existence."

 
          
 
"Even if he may never be so fit as
yourself to do so?"

 
          
 
"Even so."

 
          
 
"Beyond the fact that this is all idle
speculation, I fail to see where there is much that you can do about your
tenancy."

 
          
 
"I suppose you are right. It is an
interesting hypothetical situation, however, and coming out of the dark as I so
recently have, matters of an existential nature do hold a certain
fascination."

 
          
 
"I can see that. However, I feel that
this is not the best time to consider them—coming out of the dark as you so
recently have, as you put it."

 
          
 
"I can see why a therapist would feel
that way... • But I may be more stable than you realize."

 
          
 
"Then why are you expressing all these
doubts about yourself? No. I want to give you support right now, not provide a
dissection of your inner landscape. Let all this pass, will you? Concentrate on
perfecting your strengths. After more time has passed, these problems may not
seem as important as they do now."

BOOK: Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07
7.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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