The Link

by Richard Matheson

  The three women reach a deserted area below the stage, among various engines and machinery used for theatre purposes: heating, lighting, trap doors, etc. “Looking for a quiet place to hold a séance, they discovered it in a deserted spot below the stage.”

  CUT TO the three women sitting in a corner of the huge area, their Windsor chairs around a small table, the only sound the soft thudding of the machinery.

  “The first night they sat,” says Robert’s voice, “Feda came through.”

  We see the table rocking, one of its legs tapping out letters of the alphabet. Gladys Leonard watches apprehensively as her two friends speak out and write the letters down.

  Gradually, we hear the VOICE of Feda, a young woman, saying, “I have been watching over Gladys since she was born, waiting for her to develop her psychic powers so that I could put her in a trance and give messages through her.”

  CUT TO Gladys Leonard, older, sitting, now in trance, speaking in a voice dissimilar to hers, saying, “Something big and terrible is going to happen to the world. Feda must help many people through you.”

  “Six weeks after that message was given through Gladys Leonard, World War One began,” says Robert’s voice.

  CUT TO Lenore Piper leaving her house and walking along the street. “No one,” says Robert’s voice, “not even Eusapia Palladino, ever subjected herself so patiently to investigation as did Mrs. Piper. The most elaborate of precautions arranged by such men as William James and Richard Hodgson were taken to guard against outside information influencing her mediumship.”

  We see a man in a dark suit following Mrs. Piper at a distance. “Private detectives were assigned to follow her,” says Robert’s voice.

  CUT TO sitters announcing themselves and being admitted to Mrs. Piper’s home. “Sitters showed up anonymously or used false names,” says Robert’s voice.

  CUT TO Mrs. Piper sitting with a group of people. “She endured endless pain inflicted by investigators to make sure she wasn’t faking trance,” says Robert’s voice. “From needles—” Mrs. Piper jars from trance as WILLIAM JAMES plunges a needle into her right hand.

  Cut. Another sitting. RICHARD HODGSON holds a small bottle to her nostrils, startling her from trance. “—ammonia—” Robert says.

  Cut. Another sitting. William James applies a lighted match to her forearm with equally shocking results. “—lighted matches—” Robert says.

  CUT. Another sitting. Richard Hodgson tickles her nostrils with a feather. “—feathers—” Robert says.

  CUT. Another sitting. William James pinches the entranced Mrs. Piper on the arm. “And pinches,” Robert finishes.

  CUT. Another sitting. “As the years passed by, however,” Robert says, “skeptic after skeptic had to admit that Mrs. Piper got her information by other means than through the physical senses; that, indeed, her ESP was genuine.”

  Mrs. Piper, in trance, speaks in a voice of her control Dr. Phinuit, to a MR. RICH. “A child is here,” she says. “A blood relative. A sister. She is with you constantly. She has much influence over you.”

  “I never had a sister,” says Mr. Rich firmly.

  “I know that you were never told of it,” says Phinuit through Mrs. Piper. “The birth was premature. The child died. Born some years before you were. Go and ask your aunts to prove it.”

  CUT TO Mr. Rich speaking to an aunt, looking dazed, Robert’s voice saying, “On questioning one of his aunts, the sitter, a Mr. Rich, learned that there had been a premature child that died—a girl. He had never been informed of the event; they saw no reason to. Proving that the information could not possibly have been received by Mrs. Piper through telepathy.”

  Three more sittings seen in brief, Robert’s voice narrating.

  “Mrs. Gibbins was told that one of her daughters was suffering that day from severe back pains. This information—which proved to be correct—was completely unknown to the sitter.”

  CUT. “Professor William James was told—ostensibly by the spirit of a departed aunt—about the condition of health of two distant family members of which Professor James knew nothing at the time. The truth of this information was corroborated afterward by letter.”

  CUT. “At another sitting, at which Mrs. James and Professor James’ brother Robertson were present, Mrs. Piper told them that ‘Aunt Kate’ had died that morning between two and half past.”

  Cut to shot of the two of them entering the James’ home to find a telegram waiting for them on the entry table. “When they returned home an hour later, a telegram was waiting for them with this information,” Robert’s voice concludes.

  CUT. Richard Hodgson addressing a group of people. “As Richard Hodgson put it—” says Robert’s voice.

  “After allowing for the widest possible margin for information obtainable under the circumstances by ordinary means—”

  SHOTS of Mrs. Piper in sitting as Hodgson’s address continues. “—for chance coincidence and remarkable guessing, aided by clues given consciously or unconsciously by the sitters, there remains a large residuum of knowledge displayed in Mrs. Piper’s trance states which cannot be accounted for except on the hypothesis that she possesses some supernormal power.”

  CUT TO William James addressing a group. “Professor William James had this to say—” says Robert.

  “If I may be allowed the language of the professional logic shop, a universal proposition can be made untrue by a particular instance.”

  SHOTS of Mrs. Piper in sitting as Professor James’ address continues. “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you must not seek to show that no crows are. It is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.” CAMERA MOVES IN ON Mrs. Piper’s face. “My own white crow,” says Professor James, the famous American psychologist, “is Mrs. Piper.”

  CUT TO Mrs. Leonard sitting in trance with SIR OLIVER LODGE, Robert’s voice narrating.

  “In the fall of 1915, Sir Oliver Lodge, the well-known British physicist, had lost his son to the war. A friend of his arranged a sitting with Mrs. Leonard to find out whether the deceased young lieutenant could be contacted. It was during this group of sittings that the famous Raymond photograph was mentioned.”

  “Does he remember how he looked in the photograph?” Sir Oliver asks. “Was he standing up?” Mrs. Leonard: “No, he doesn’t think so. He was sitting down. It was a mixed lot. Some were standing, some were sitting.”

  Sir Oliver: “Were they soldiers?”

  Robert’s voice breaks in. “Later, the existence of this photograph was discovered and it was sent to Sir Oliver.”

  E.C.U. of 12” X 9” photograph, CAMERA MOVING OVER IT SLOWLY as we hear the voice of Mrs. Leonard in the sitting. Everything she says is verified by the photograph.

  “It wasn’t taken in a photographer’s place. It was out of doors. There are a considerable number of men in the photograph. The front row is sitting, the back row standing. Raymond is sitting down and you can see his walking stick.

  “There is a black background and lines going down. (There are six, conspicuous vertical lines on the roof of the shed in front of which the group is posed.) One of the men behind him is leaning on Raymond’s shoulder, he remembers that somebody wanted to lean on him.” (The photograph shows Raymond’s annoyance at the weight of the leaning hand.)

  “Raymond never mentioned the photograph in any of his letters,” says Robert’s voice. “It was taken 21 days before his death.”

  We see Sir Oliver Lodge as he says, “To my mind, the whole incident is rather exceptionally good as a piece of evidence. Our complete ignorance even of the existence of the photograph, in the first place, and, secondly, the delayed manner in which knowledge of it came to us, so that we were able to make provision for getting the supernormally acquired details definitely noted beforehand seem, to me, to make it a first-class case.”

  Cut back to Robert in his office, finishing his dictation, looking tired; it is late.

  “The experienced investigator W. H. S
alter wrote a study of the two mediums in which he stated—” he reads, almost reluctantly, from a book, CAMERA PULLING UP FROM him. “If, as their sitters would affirm, a communicator with a well-marked personality, unknown during life to the medium, in messages continued year after year, never puts the mental or emotional emphasis wrong, never speaks out of character, it is hard to construct a plausible explanation out of subconscious inference and dramatization on the medium’s part, even if amplified by telepathy from the sitters.”

  CAMERA HAS STOPPED. Robert sits wearily below. He switches off the processor, exhales heavily. Silence. Then he mutters, “Why am I doing this? Why am I going so deeply into the one subject I want to avoid the most? Why?”

  He leans over onto his arms, CAMERA HOLDING for a moment, than SHOCK CUTTING TO:

  The outrageous Greenwich Village nightclub act of TEDDIE BERGER, 61, a small but powerful looking German American. The audience howls at his grotesque humor.

  He is in the very epicenter of his madness when his attention is uncontrollably drawn to the face of a woman at a nearby table.

  He tries to avoid what is happening but finally is compelled to tell her that her house is on fire.

  She laughs, thinking it part of his act.

  He tells her that it isn’t, she should call home, her house is on fire.

  She still isn’t sure if he’s kidding or not; the audience still laughs if somewhat tentatively now.

  Teddie explodes. “Damn it, this is not a part of my act!” he rages. “Go to a damn telephone and call your neighbor! Your house is on fire and your children are going to fry in their beds if you don’t save them in the next ten minutes!”

  THREE

  Robert drives to New York City, parks and cabs to the ESPA offices where Cathy greets him warmly; they haven’t seen each other in a while but, clearly, still find one another attractive.

  Peter asks him how the outline is coming; like Cathy, he has read the early pages, likes them, has some notions on revision. Robert tells him that he’s just completed a section on Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Leonard.

  “Good,” says Peter. “Mrs. Piper is a perfect illustration of what I was saying the other day about how difficult psychics have it. Can you visualize a man like William James treating the poor woman so barbarically—sticking needles into her flesh, holding match flames to her skin? Good God!”

  When Cathy presents her customary appraisal of the two mediums—“A prime example of telepathy”—Peter reminds her of information transmitted which nobody knew. “Somebody did,” she counters.

  “Yes!” says Peter, laughing. “But they were dead!”

  “Uh-huh,” says Cathy patiently. She comments, to Robert, that he is now in the section of his outline where, historically, the rise of psychical research was accompanied by a strong decline in Spiritualism which extends to the present.

  “None of us study mediumship per se any more,” she tells him.

  “Maybe that’s a blessing,” he responds.

  She looks at him curiously as Peter tells him why he called Robert. They’d like him to join “the team” at ESPA, at least while he is working on the outline; as long as he desires after that.

  “You seem the perfect sort to us,” Peter says. “A true skeptic opposing both a priori cynicism and naïve gullibility.”

  Robert hesitates, then accepts. Is it because ESPA represents science, not superstition? Because he likes Peter? Or does it have something to do with Cathy?

  Peter and Cathy are pleased by his decision and tell him that they hope he can attend, with them, a year-end convention in San Francisco. “If I’m available,” he says. “That would be very nice. Thank you.”

  “You may rescind your thanks when you discover what your first exposure to our work will be this afternoon,” says Peter. A meeting with Dr. Virgil Westheimer and Professor Elmo Stafford from the Physics department of NYU.

  “Westheimer, the talk show host?” Robert asks.

  “The same,” says Peter.

  “But he hates psi,” Robert says, surprised.

  “Let’s say we don’t anticipate a love fest,” Peter tells him, smiling.

  Three o’clock; a meeting in the ESPA conference room, those present including Robert, Cathy, Peter, Lee Easton and the two guests.

  Westheimer wastes no time in casting down the gauntlet. Does ESPA have “the courage” to allow a “genuine” scientist to observe their work and judge the “truth or falsehood” of their “so-called” research?

  “I like him already,” Robert whispers to Cathy. She swallows her amused reaction, Westheimer noticing.

  “I have my own convictions as you well know,” he continues. “Namely, that the so-called facts you present are the result of credulity, fear or greed causing observations to be misinterpreted.

  “However—” he regards them sternly. “—I am more than willing to let these convictions ride or fall on the unbiased conclusions of Professor Stafford—and will be delighted to recant all past attacks on psi and ESPA if his findings are in your favor.”

  Stafford speaks, a heavy-set man with brush-cut hair, thick-rimmed glasses, tweed jacket and bow tie.

  “I assume,” he tells them, “that the materialistic model of the universe is actual. However, I am more than willing to examine openly any ‘breaks’ in this model caused by so-called psychic incidents.”

  It is pretty much the last sentence they make any sense of as he forges on. “Paradoxically”, he says, “physicists are not over-burdened by this materialistic view since almost everything within their parish is invisible, by and large revealed by indirect means such as meters, charts and inferences. Accordingly, the aim of physicists must be to evaluate quantities vis a vis the physical activity in the human brain allowing plenary specifications of internal experience. All bodies in the universe above absolute zero being characterized by the emission of electromagnetic radiation emitted in the X-band—nine Gigahertz—micro-wave region—”

  Merciful FADE to later and the group staring at Stafford with near comatose removal as he grinds to a hoped-for conclusion, only Westheimer looking pleased.

  “—high signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution,” says Stafford, “not to mention fast response to readouts similar to thermography, the Sclieren system, of course. Electrostatic field measurements being primarily point measurement systems which require time for X-Y high resolution area scan, relationships between the electrical activity of the cerebral cortex and cognitive processes is of prime importance in the area of alpha rhythms which suggest a bio-electric activity in cortical cell dendrites via a network of neural fibers which is to say the thalamocortical projection system.”

  He pauses. In the heavy silence, Robert murmurs, “Can’t argue with that.”

  Peter has to close his eyes and cover his lips with a palm; Cathy clears her throat with sudden violence. Westheimer glares at Robert.

  “I could go on,” says Stafford (probably the understatement of the week), “but what I want to indicate is that relativistic physics and the quantum theory have brought about a radical alteration in Aristotelian logic, Euclidian geometry and Newtonian physics and, since the data of parapsychology appears to fall within this area, I suggest the time has come to verify it.”

  Silence again. “Yes,” says Lee Easton suddenly, realizing that Stafford has finished. He nods, totally at sea. “Of course.”

  CUT TO coffee being poured in Peter’s office, CAMERA PULLING BACK FROM a laughing Robert, Cathy and Peter. “Was he actually saying something?” Cathy asks.

  “There was something going on in there,” says Peter. “What, I’m not exactly sure.”

  They discuss the acceptance of Westheimer’s challenge. Cathy thinks that Easton made a mistake. “I don’t trust Westheimer,” she says. She looks at Robert. “Do you?”

  “No opinion,” he says.

  “Oh, come on, Robert,” she says with a trace of impatience. “You must have some opinion.”

  “I’m a skep
tic, remember?” Robert says.

  His response seems to grate her. He has no convictions whatever? she probes. What about all the subjects he had to research for his book? How could he study so much material and still hold it out at arm’s length? Doesn’t he feel any urge at all to get involved?

  Cathy doesn’t realize that she is treading on Robert’s emotional toes. He tries, politely, to avoid a confrontation. That these phenomena occur is enough for him, he tells her. He doesn’t feel a need to explain them.

  “Things without explanation,” she says.

  He nods.

  “No. I just don’t understand it,” she says. Peter tries to get her off the subject but she persists. “Sooner or later, Robert,” she lectures, “you are going to have to reach a point of commitment.”

  “Like you?” he asks, a betraying edge in his voice.

  “Yes, like me,” she agrees, not understanding.

  “And if your commitment happens to be unjustifiable?” he says.

  “What do you mean?”

  With precise economy, Robert presents the case against psi.

  One: Everything about it contradicts prevailing science, phenomena which defy all laws of causality, time and space.

  Two: Evidence gathered is primarily spontaneous and undependable, a far cry from the disciplined procedures of the lab.

  Three: The bulk of psi can never be tested at all: insights, dreams, unrecorded premonitions. These can neither be repeated nor measured on any known instrument.

  Four: Psychics, tested under lab conditions, turn off more often than not, producing poor or no results.

  Five: The matter of fraud has surfaced even in the lab. Many of the so-called “greats” of psi have resorted to trickery.

  “In brief,” he concludes, “if there is such a thing as psi, it’s evasive and transient, impossible to measure properly, impossible to pin down or to replicate. Even those who’ve worked in the field for years admit they don’t know what it is or how it works.”