_Kidnaped!_
Dr. Pollard finished telling his story to John Majors and said, "The
whole thing jells, John. Everything fits perfectly."
"I don't see it," objected Majors. "How can a man driven into a
psychosis by overwork turn up concocting such a wild-eyed yarn as this
hallucination?"
"Easily. Supposing that Carroll had come upon something basically
unsound. Suppose all the rest had done the same, the other three or
four. The tinkering with the notes is a normal justification for
him--if someone hadn't been tinkering with the notes, the problem might
have been solved long ago.
"Mrs. Bagby called me just before you came in, remember. I've taken
time to inspect all the compiled notes prepared by the typing bureau
from a couple of days before Carroll's illness to the present date.
They're all present. I've also inspected the originals. There are
none missing. Carroll's note must be a psychotic attempt to prove his
sanity."
"How could he prepare such?" wondered Majors.
"Easily. It was done under a psychic block and the patient remembers
only the true--_his_ true--facts of how he found it on the street."
"Then you believe that Carroll was not on that corner on the day he
first saw Sally get hauled into that black sedan?"
"He may not have been there at all. We all knew Sally's habits and that
corner very well. That Carroll returned on the following days is a part
of his justification pattern. The whole thing is very logical. And it
is too bad. I was hoping that Carroll's interest in Sally was a glimmer
of returning interest in life and work."
"The child is half his age," snorted Majors in derision.
"All right. So she's about seventeen. I don't expect any real
attraction to develop--I'd feel much the same way about them if Sally
happened to have been Tommy, the co-op student. All I want is for
Carroll to have an interest in something or somebody. I'd gladly offer
my wife up as an item for his interest because I know that no fixations
would come of it."
Majors scowled. "I couldn't say the same," he observed.
"That's because you do not know Carroll's underlying personality. I do."
"But you admit he's not the same man."
"He isn't--but his sense of loyalty is not changed. So long as he's
that way there's hope for him."
"But what do you intend to do about him?"
Dr. Pollard laughed. "Me? I'm going to admit that maybe he has
something there, but that this thing is problematical. Oh-oh. He's
here," said Pollard, pointing to a winking pilot light above the door.
An instant later his nurse entered and was told to send Mr. Carroll in.
"Can you prove the identity of anything?" demanded Carroll once the
opening greetings and informalities were finished.
"It depends," said Pollard cautiously.
"Well, I have a sheet of paper here that came from that first day when
I saw Sally confronted by the black sedan. Is this valid or is it
false?"
"Since I can show you the original of that report, it must be false,"
replied Pollard. "You see, Jim, regardless of whether you admit it or
not, you've been so close to the Lawson Radiation that you could easily
fake up what might be a quite valid report if you hoped to show some
proof."
"But, good heavens, would I fake a report that I know will be matched
by the original?"
"In your right mind, no. I don't know how much this last couple of
weeks of problem did to sharpen you up, Carroll. But remember that you
were hitting an I.Q. of about seventy after your--accident. A seventy
I.Q. might be that dense and can be that dense.
"And, of course, the subconscious mind, hoping to salve your conscious
mind, might do it. Now that you know it is false, perhaps your
subconscious mind will bring forth something of a more convincing
nature."
"If what I think is true," said Carroll slowly, "the same men who
intercept Sally every day are quite capable of producing as good a
counterfeit as I am!"
"I claim that there are no men in a black sedan."
"Oh?"
"Tell me, Carroll, how do you rationalize the fact of two Sallys?"
"I think there is something to all this that is far deeper than our
five senses will admit," said Carroll flatly. "Some agency is doing all
it can to prevent us from finding out about the Lawson Radiation!"
Pollard scribbled "persecution complex, too," on his scratchpad in a
brand of his own unreadable shorthand. Then he said, "You're convinced
to the contrary?"
"I am."
"Tell you what I'll do," said Pollard. "Since you think this affair is
what you claim, I'm going to give you a chance to prove it. I'm going
to advance Sally into the mailing department and let you take over the
job of delivering those reports yourself. You feel that they might not
be able to pull the wool over your eyes?"
"You know what I think?" said Carroll sharply. "I think that the days
that I joined Sally for her sandwich I took a ride with her in that
car, instead!"
"How do you come to that conclusion?" asked the psychologist,
scribbling on his scratchpad.
"Because every day that I watched I saw her enter the car. Every day I
was with her we saw no car. Could it be mass-hypnosis?"
"It might--but why weren't you hypnotized?"
"I don't know. Why have I got this amnesia?"
"It isn't amnesia anymore," said the psychologist ruefully. "It is now
a definite psychic block against your former line of work, coupled with
self-justified hallucination."
"I hate to puncture that bubble," said Pollard. "But I must. Take that
job and find out for yourself!"
"I will," said James Carroll flatly. "You watch!"
"Good!"
"And I will not be stopping for sandwiches, either!" snapped Carroll.
"Or, I might add, anything else!"
* * * * *
James Carroll tucked the box underneath his arm and set out along the
street. He walked warily, keeping a sharp lookout for the black sedan.
A few hundred feet ahead of him he saw Sally turn into the drug store
for her habitual snack but he suppressed very quickly the impulse to
follow her and talk to her about the job.
He stood on the corner of the square, waiting for traffic. It was a
reasonably long-time light for the crosstown road, and Carroll reached
for a cigarette. His pack was empty, so he crumpled it and tossed it in
the nearby waste-chute and looked about him questingly.
The corner upon which he stood held a cigar store and James Carroll
entered the shop to buy cigarettes. The store was rather full and he
was forced to wait.
And it came to him, then. During that wait it came to his
feebly-groping mind that this was the same sort of pattern that he
had seen before. Was this truth--or reality? He smiled, and as the
storekeeper came towards him, he looked the man in the eye and said:
"When did you split me off?"
There was a look of amazement on the proprietor's face--wonder,
puzzlement and a scowl of slight anger.
"You heard me," said Carroll flatly. "What are you doing to my reports?"
"You're nuts," said the storekeeper.
"Am I?" replied Carroll lightly. "Then I'll tell you why. The Lawson
Radiation comes from a system of interstellar travel, used by some race
out in the Boötes region of the sky. The insoluble dilemma is how to go
out to learn the secret of interstellar travel when I need interstellar
travel to go out and ask the questions--"
The man's face faded, distorted like a cheap oil-clay image under too
warm a light.
The store flowed down, too, and swirled around in a grand melee of
semiplastic matter. The light inside the store darkened and the only
illumination within the rolling, churning store came from a light that
swung back and forth madly in front of the door.
Carroll fell backwards into a cushion of soft-plastic floor which
bounced slightly under him from time to time. A low roaring mutter came
to his ears. The light continued to swing but it was swinging past a
window now and only in one direction.
He opened his eyes wide and faced the man in the seat beside him.
"Well?" he asked.
"It isn't, very," growled the man.
The driver turned, swore in a strange tongue and then turned the car
back. The driver's companion picked up a small phone and spoke rapidly
into it. The car rounded the block, re-passed the corner long enough to
pick up a man dressed as Carroll was.
Halfway down the next block the man got out and took the box of
reports. Then the car drove away and, as it pulled away, Carroll felt
the jab of a needle in his thigh.