He was spinning like a top, end over end, as though he had sprung off
a huge, powerful diving board. He rose higher and higher into the air.
Lying tense, Jeff knew that his body was still on the soft bed, yet
he felt his feet rising, his head sinking, as he spun head over heels
through the blackness. And he could feel the tiny probing needle,
seeking, hunting, stimulating....
A siren noise burst in his ears: a shimmering blast of screeching
musical sound that sent cold shivers down his back. Then it leveled
off to an up-and-down whine that gradually became a blat of static in
his ear. Somewhere, out of the uneven grating of the noise, he heard a
voice whispering in his ear, hoarsely. He paused, straining to hear,
trying to catch an occasional word.
He knew that there were no voices outside of his body. He was sure of
that. Yet he heard the sound, deeper in his ear, louder and softer,
then louder again. It whispered to him, carrying a note of deepest
urgency in the soft sibilants. Quite suddenly, it seemed vitally
important to hear what the voice was saying, for the words were clearly
directed at him. He shifted slightly and listened harder, until the
words came through clearly.
And then he gasped, a feeling of panic sweeping through him. He heard
the words and they were nonsense words, sounds without meanings.
Something stirred in his mind, some vague memory of nonsense words,
of a horrible shock. Had there been a shock? But the strange sounds
frightened him, driving fear down through the marrow of his bones.
The whispering sounds were sinister: babbling sounds, sounds of words
that _needed_ meaning and had none--half-words, garbled, twisted,
meaningless.
Cautiously he opened his eyes, peered through the murky blackness to
see the whisperers. His eyes fastened on two shapeless forms, tall,
ghostly, in black robes with hoods drawn up over their faces. The
figures leaned on their sticks and held their heads together. They
babbled nonsense to each other with such fierce earnestness that they
seemed somehow horridly ridiculous. Taking a deep breath, Jeff started
toward the two figures, then stopped short, his heart pounding wildly
in his throat.
Because the moment he had made a move toward them, the figures turned
sharply toward him, and their nonsense voices had suddenly become clear
for the briefest moment. They became clear and unmistakable and heavy
with horrible meaning: "Stay away, Jeff Meyer. Stay away."
He stared about, trembling, trying to place himself, trying to find
some landmark. The hooded figures turned back to each other and began
babbling once again. But now they seemed to be standing before an
archway--a gloomy, gray archway which they seemed to be guarding.
Slowly, slyly, Jeff started to move away from them. But he watched them
from stealthy eyes, and as he moved away the gloom about him cleared,
and things were suddenly brighter. And then there was singing in his
ears, joyous choruses bursting forth in happy song. A great feeling of
relief and complacency settled down upon him like a mantle. He smiled
and breathed deeper and started to roll over.
"_What was that, Jeff? What did we strike?_"
He shook his head violently, a frown creasing his face. "Stay away,"
he muttered. "The old men, they were there." Suddenly he felt himself
twist around until he was facing the hooded figures again, and his feet
were moving him toward them again, involuntarily, inexorably. And then
the nonsense words settled out again, more menacingly, louder this
time than before: "No closer, Jeff Meyer. Stay away--away--away."
"Can't go there," he muttered aloud.
"_Why not, Jeff?_"
"They won't let me. I've got to stay away."
"_What are they guarding, Jeff?_"
"I don't know. I don't know, I tell you. I've got to stay away!"
And then suddenly the singing dissolved into a hideous cacophony of
clashing sounds, a din that nearly deafened him. A huge wave suddenly
swept up around him. It was like a breaker at the ocean's edge,
swirling up, surrounding him, catching him up and hurling him head over
heels down a long, whirling tunnel. Desperately he fought for balance
and finally found his feet under him once again. But then the ground
was moving under him. He ran frantically, until his breath came in
short gasps and his blood pounded in his ears. Then he caught a branch
that swept by near him, and raised himself up as the flooding water
roared underneath him.
The sky around him was clouding over blackly. Far in the distance he
saw a blinding flash of lightning, ripping through the sky, bringing
the bleak, wind-torn landscape into sharp relief in his mind as he
clung to the branch. He heard a flapping of wings as a huge, black
vulture skimmed by. And then the rain began to fall, a cold, soaking
rain that ate through his clothes and soaked his skin. It ran in
torrents into his eyes and ears and mouth.
And then he heard voices all around him. How could there be voices
here? For there were no people, no sign of warm-blooded life. But there
were voices, pleasant ones. They came from all sides. He could see no
one, but he could _feel_ them.
_Feel them!_ He gasped in pure joy, shooting out his mind eagerly,
unbelievingly, searching out the sudden feeling of perfect, warm
_contact_ he had just felt. And then his mind was running from person
to person, dozens of persons, and he could feel them all, as clearly,
as wondrously as he had ever felt his father--sharply, beautifully.
He cried out, he cried out for joy. Tears of unrelieved happiness
rolled down his cheeks as he stretched out his mind and embraced the
thoughts of the people he could feel but not see. And he felt his own
thoughts being met, being caught and embraced and understood.
"Right here!" he shouted. "Schiml, this is it, don't lose it, man. This
is the center. I'm controlling it. You've got it now. _Work it, Schiml.
Work it for all you've got._"
And then he looked at the black, menacing sky around him, and his mind
laughed and cried out for the clouds to go away. And there was a wild
whirling of clouds and they broke, and the sun was streaming down upon
him suddenly. He threw himself from the tree, ran down the hillside. He
felt a wonderful, overpowering freedom he had never felt before, his
mind free to soar and soar without hindrance. There was nothing now to
stand between it and complete understanding of all men. It was a mind
which could go wherever he wanted it to go, do whatever he wished.
He ran down toward the bottom of the hill and felt his control growing
with every step he took. He knew when he reached the bottom of the hill
that the battle would be won, so he ran all the faster.
And then, like some horrible nightmare, the hooded figures loomed up
directly in his path, long bony fingers stabbing out at him accusingly.
He fell flat on his face at the overpowering warning in the voices that
struck him. And he lay at the feet of the figures and sobbed, his whole
body shaking with bitter, hopeless sobs. And the dark clouds gathered
again. He was too late, too late.
"_What are they guarding, Jeff?_"
"I don't know. I don't know. I can't break through."
"_You've got to, Jeff. You've got to! We've got the extra-sensory
center. We've found it, but something is blocking it. Jeff, something
is keeping you away. You've got to see what--_"
"I can't. Oh, I can't. Please, don't make me!"
"_You must, Jeff!_"
"No!"
"_Go on, Jeff._"
He stood up, facing the hood figures, cowering, his whole body
trembling. Deep in his mind he could feel the probing needle,
moving, slowly moving, forcing him nearer and nearer to the grim
figures. Slowly his feet moved, dragging in fear, a paralyzing fear
that demanded every ounce of strength he possessed to make his legs
function. And the voices, laden with menace, were grating in his ear,
"Stay out, stay away. If you want to live, stay away ... away ...
away...."
He moved closer and closer to the hooded figures, leaned forward to
peer around them toward the gray, ghastly gate they guarded--a gate
heavy with mold and rusty iron braces.
And then he reached up and threw back the hood of the first figure,
stared at the face it had covered, and burst into a scream.
_It was his own face!_
He turned and threw back the other hood and peered intently, fighting
to see the face before the features blurred out beyond recognition. It
was his face, too, unmistakable. With a roar of anger and frustration
he reached out, tore away the hoods, ripped them off, one with each
hand, and wrenched away the enclosing shrouds.
_The figures were skeletons with his face!_ He struck them and they
shattered like thin glass, falling down in pieces at his feet. And he
brushed his feet through the debris and turned to press his shoulder
against the gate, heaving against it until it swung open, creaking on
rusty hinges. It swung open--_on the face of madness_.
He screamed twice, short, frantic screams, as he tried to hide his eyes
from the rotten, writhing horror behind the gate.
"Here!" he screamed. "It's here. You're at the right place. This is
what you're looking for. Cut it out. Slice it away. Please, I can't
stand it any longer."
His feet moved through the horrible gate, into the swarming,
loathsome, horror-ridden madness that lay beyond. And he screamed again
as he saw the bright flash. He felt the wrenching, sickening lurch that
took him and threw him to the ground, down the long, twisting channels
of darkness, as the pain struck through his head.
Suddenly there was another blinding flash, and he felt his muscles and
his mind crumble into dust. He fell and quivered and lay helplessly, as
his mind sifted and drained away into the porous earth beneath him.
* * * * *
When he opened his eyes, he saw Conroe's face. He was tense for a
moment, every muscle going into spasm. Then suddenly he relaxed and
blinked and stared up at Conroe's face, his eyes filled with wonder.
"I'm sorry, Jeff. I don't know the words to tell you how sorry." There
were tears in Conroe's eyes, and Jeff watched them and felt a chill of
wonder run down his spine. For Conroe was not using words at all and
yet he _knew_ what Conroe wanted to say.
Wordlessly he reached up, took the man's hand, pressed it briefly and
let it fall on the blanket again. "There aren't those kinds of words,"
he murmured.
"And you feel all right?"
Jeff blinked, sudden wonder dawning in his eyes. "I--I--I'm alive!" He
struggled to sit up, felt the twinge of pain shoot down his spine.
Schiml moved up to the bedside and gently eased him back into the
softness of the bed. "Yes," he said happily, "you're alive. And you're
well. And there's no irony in calling you a Mercy Man." His eyes
gleamed in happy triumph. "You're a whole man, Jeff--the way you were
intended to be--for the first time in your life."
The words came to him clearly, yet Jeff knew that not a single word had
been audible in the room. "Just like my father," he murmured. "I just
felt him, just knew what he was thinking."
Tears were running down Schiml's cheeks, and his face was so infinitely
happy that he hardly seemed the same man. He raised a finger, silently
pointed to the water glass on the table and looked at Jeff. Jeff turned
his eyes to the glass, and it rose half an inch from the table and hung
there, glowing slightly in the dim light of the room. Then it gently
set back on the stand.
"Control," Jeff said softly. "I have control."
"The power was chained down to something else," Schiml said softly.
"You had the extra-sensory power, yes, but it was linked to something
that would have prevented you from ever gaining control. A degenerative
insanity, part and parcel of the extra-sensory power. You're not alone,
Jeff. There are many hundreds like you, in greater or lesser degrees.
Conroe is like you, to a very limited extent. And he's been seeking a
way to separate the two, for years. That's why you're really a Mercy
Man. We knew there were two centers, but we knew no way to separate
them. We had to have you to guide us, Jeff. We had to find the center
of insanity in your brain to cut it out and deliver you. That's what
we've waited twenty years for. And you're free, now. It's gone. And now
we have a technique we can use to free a thousand others like you."
Jeff stared at them wonderingly. Sunlight streamed in the window.
Across the way, he could see the ward-towers of the Hoffman Medical
Center, white and gleaming. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and
turned again to the two men standing by the bedside.
"Then it was you who were hunting me," he murmured. "Strange, isn't it.
It wasn't me hunting Conroe. It was my father, the ghost of my father
still in my mind. The ghost of a madman--" His eyes narrowed and he
stared at Schiml closely. "Then there were others who knew too. Blackie
knew. She must have been the girl in the night club."
"She was. A little heavy make-up, a little light plastic, those made
enough change to deceive you. But she never knew why. Hypnotics can be
powerful and they can erase all memory." He paused, smiling at Jeff.
"Blackie will be next. We need her so much in the work we have to do,
almost as much as we need you. But you've freed Blackie too. She'll
be happier than she's ever been since the cloak of bad luck began
broadcasting from her mind ten years ago. She'll be happier by far."
* * * * *
Hours later, Jeff woke again in the still room. The men were gone and
the shadows were lengthening in the room, and his mind was filled with
many thoughts.
"You can go if you want," Paul Conroe had said before they left. "Or
you can stay, as you see fit. If you go, we can't stop you. But we beg
you to stay. We need you so very much."
There would be others staying, Jeff thought. The Nasty Frenchman would
stay--sneering, laughing, hating--aiming at the big money that always
lurked in the future, unaware completely of the errand of mercy he was
running with his life. And Harpo would stay, and all the others....
And Blackie would stay too. Poor, helpless Blackie--beautiful Blackie,
desperate Blackie. For her there was a new lease. And there was no way
of telling the person she would be after the new lease was signed for
her.
And Conroe would stay, delivered after all these years of the burden he
carried.
Wearily, yet happily, Jeff stared at the ceiling. He breathed deeply of
the quiet air, his mind filled with a maze of wondering thoughts. He
knew that thinking now was useless, that there really wasn't any issue
any more.
He knew, as he closed his eyes again, that Jeff Meyer would stay too.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.