"Of course it's right!" Dr. Webber's eyes flashed. "Harry found
something in those statistics. Something about the data, or the case
histories; or something Harry Scott himself dug up opened a door for him
to go through, a door that none of us ever dreamed existed. We don't
know what he found on the other side of that door. Oh, we know what he
_thinks_ he found, all this garbage about people that look normal but
walk through walls when nobody's looking, who think around corners
instead of in straight-line logic. But what he _really_ found there, we
don't have any way of telling. We just know that whatever he _really_
found is something new, something unsuspected; something so dangerous it
can drive an intelligent man into the wildest delusions of paranoid
persecution."
A new light appeared in Dr. Manelli's eyes as he faced the other doctor.
"Wait a minute," he said softly. "The integrator is an _experimental_
instrument, too."
Dr. Webber smiled slyly. "Now you're beginning to think," he said.
"But you'll see only what Scott himself believes. And _he_ thinks his
story is true."
"Then we'll have to break his story."
"_Break_ it?"
"Certainly. For some reason, this delusion of persecution is far safer
for Harry Scott than facing what he really found out. What we've got to
do is to make this delusion _less_ safe than the truth."
The room was silent for a long moment. Manelli looked up, his fingers
trembling. "Let's hear it."
"It's very simple. Up to now, Harry Scott has had _delusions_ of
persecution. But now we're _really_ going to persecute Harry Scott, as
he's never been persecuted before."
3
At first he thought he was at the bottom of a deep well and he lay quite
still, his eyes clamped shut, wondering where he was and how he could
possibly have gotten there. He could feel the dampness and chill of the
stone floor under him, and nearby he heard the damp, insistent drip of
water splashing against stone. He felt his muscles tighten as the
dripping sound forced itself against his senses. Then he opened his
eyes.
His first impulse was to scream out wildly in unreasoning, suffocating
fear. He fought it down, struggling to sit up in the blackness, his
whole mind turned in bitter, hopeless hatred at the ones who had hunted
him for so long, and now had trapped him.
Why?
Why did they torture him? Why not kill him outright, have done with it?
He shuddered, and struggled to his feet, staring about him in horror.
It was not a well, but a small room, circular, with little rivulets of
stale water running down the granite walls. The ceiling closed low over
his head, and the only source of light came from the single doorway
opening into a long, low stone passageway.
Wave after wave of panic rose in Harry's throat. Each time he fought
down the urge to scream, to lie down on the ground and cover his face
with his hands and scream in helpless fear. How could they have known
the horror that lay in his own mind, the horror of darkness, of damp
slimy walls and scurrying rodents, of the clinging, stale humidity of
dungeon passageways? He himself had seldom recalled it, except in his
most hideous dreams, yet he had known such fear as a boy, so many years
ago, and now it was all around him. They had known somehow and _used it
against him_.
Why?
He sank down on the floor, his head in his hands, trying to think
straight, to find some clue in the turmoil bubbling through his mind
that would tell him what had happened.
He had started down the hallway from his room, to find Dr. Webber and
tell him about the other people--
He stopped short, looked up wide-eyed. _Had_ he been going to Dr.
Webber? Had he actually decided to go? Perhaps--yes, perhaps he had,
though Webber would only laugh at such a ridiculous story. But the
not-men who had hunted him would not laugh; to them, it would not be
funny. They knew that it was true. And they knew he knew it was true.
_But why not kill him?_ Why this torture? Why this horrible persecution
that dug into the depths of his own nightmares to haunt him?
His breath came fast and a chilly sweat broke out on his forehead.
_Where_ was he? Was this some long forgotten vault in the depths of the
Old City? Or was this another place, another world, perhaps, that the
not-men, with their impossible powers, had created to torture him?
His eyes sought the end of the hall, saw the turn at the end, saw the
light which seemed to come from the end; and then in an instant he was
running down the damp passageway, his pulse pounding at his temples,
until he could hardly gasp enough breath as he ran. Finally he reached
the turn in the corridor where the light was brighter, and he swung
around to stare at the source of the light, a huge, burning, smoky torch
which hung from the wall.
Even as he looked at it, the torch went out, shutting him into inky
blackness. The only sound at first was the desperation of his own
breath; then he heard little scurrying sounds around his feet, and
screamed involuntarily as something sleek and four-footed jumped at his
chest with snapping jaws.
Shuddering, he fought the thing off, his fingers closing on wiry fur as
he caught and squeezed. The thing went limp, and suddenly melted in his
hands. He heard it splash as it struck the damp ground at his feet.
_What were they doing to his mind?_
He screamed out in horror, and followed the echoes of his own scream as
he ran down the stone corridor, blindly, slipping on the wet stone
floor, falling on his knees into inches of brackish water, scraping back
to his feet with an uncontrollable convulsion of fear and loathing, only
to run more--
The corridor suddenly broke into two and he stopped short. He didn't
know how far, or how long, he had run, but it suddenly occurred to him
that he was still alive, still safe. Only his mind was under attack,
only his mind was afraid, teetering on the edge of control. And this
maze of dungeon tunnels--where could such a thing exist, so perfectly
outfitted to horrify him, so neatly fitting into his own pattern of
childhood fears and terrors; from where could such a _very individual_
attack on his sanity have sprung? From nowhere except....
_Except from his own mind!_
For an instant, he saw a flicker of light, thought he grasped the edge
of a concept previously obscure to him. He stared around him, at the
mist swirling down the damp, dark corridor, and thought of the rat that
had melted in his hand. Suddenly, his mind was afire, searching through
his experience with the strange not-men he had learned to detect, trying
to remember everything he had learned and deduced about them before they
began their brutal persecution.
They were men, and they looked like men, but they were different. They
had other properties of mind, other capabilities that men did not have.
They were not-men. They could exist, and co-exist, two people in one
frame, one person known, realized by all who saw, the other one
concealed except from those who learned how to look. They could use
their minds; they could rationalize correctly; they could use their
curious four-dimensional knowledge to bring them to answers no
three-dimensional man could reach.
_But they couldn't project into men's minds!_
Carefully, Harry peered down the misty tunnels. They were clever, these
creatures, and powerful. Since they had discovered that he knew them,
they had done their work of fear and terror on his mind skillfully. But
they were limited, too; they couldn't make things happen that were not
true--fantasies, illusions....
Yes, this dungeon was an illusion. It _had_ to be.
He cursed and started down the right-hand corridor, his heart sinking.
There was no such place and he knew it. He was walking in a dream, a
fantasy that had no substance, that could do no more than frighten him,
drive him insane; yet he must already have lost his mind to be accepting
such an illusion.
Why had he delayed? Why hadn't he gone to the Hoffman Center, laid the
whole story before Dr. Webber and Dr. Manelli at the very first, told
them what he had found? True, they might have thought him insane, but
they wouldn't have put him to torture. They might even have believed him
enough to investigate what he told them, and then the cat would have
been out of the bag. The tale would have been incredible, but at least
his mind would have been safe.
He turned down another corridor and walked suddenly into waist-deep
water, so cold it numbed his legs. He stopped again to force back the
tendrils of unreasoning horror that brushed his mind. Nothing could
really harm him. He would merely wait until his mind finally reached a
balance again. There might be no end; it might be a ghastly trap, but he
would wait.
Strangely, the mist was becoming greenish in color as it swirled toward
him in the damp vaulted passageway. His eyes began watering a little and
the lining of his nose started to burn. He stopped short, newly alarmed,
and stared at the walls, rubbing the tears away to clear his vision. The
greenish-yellow haze grew thicker, catching his eyes and burning like a
thousand furies, ripping into his throat until he was choking and
coughing, as though great knives sliced through his lungs.
He tried to scream, and started running, blindly. Each gasping breath
was an agony as the blistering gas dug deeper and deeper into his lungs.
Reason departed from him; he was screaming incoherently as he stumbled
up a stony ramp, crashed into a wall, spun around and smashed blindly
into another. Then something caught at his shirt.
He felt the heavy planks and pounded iron scrollwork of a huge door, and
threw himself upon it, wrenching at the old latch until the door swung
open with a screech of rusty hinges. He fell forward on his face, and
the door swung shut behind him.
He lay face down, panting and sobbing in the stillness.
Coarse hands grasped his collar, jerking him rudely to his feet, and he
opened his eyes. Across the dim, vaulted room he could see the shadowy
form of a man, a big man, with a broad chest and powerful shoulders, a
man whose rich voice Harry almost recognized, but whose face was deep in
shadow. As Harry wiped the tears from his tortured eyes, he heard the
man's voice rumble out at him:
"Perhaps you've had enough now to change your mind about telling us the
truth."