The Link

by Richard Matheson

  Later that night, he has the dream again.

  It is the most horrible it has ever been. It seems to go on and on, his raging, demented mother dragging him along the hallway, too powerful for him to resist, screaming at him as she hurls him brutally into her bedroom, slams the door and locks him in.

  He wakes up, soaked to the skin. Quietly, he rises and walks unevenly into the bathroom, removes his wet pajama top and pats at his body with a towel, staring at his pale, drawn reflection in the mirror.

  They are having breakfast in the hotel dining room when a couple at an adjoining table speaks to them.

  The man introduces himself as Mikail Vitroslava, Professor of Philosophy and his wife as Lydia. They heard the four speaking English and were curious about them.

  Peter introduces the group to Professor and Mrs. Vitroslava and a few pleasantries are exchanged.

  After the couple has departed, Teddie says, grimly, “It begins already.” When they ask him what he means, he counters by asking them if they really think their meeting with the Vitroslavas (if that’s their name) was accidental. What else? asks Robert.

  When Teddie tells them that “quite obviously” the two are government employees sent to spy on them, their reaction is negative. Do spies call attention to their presence by introducing themselves? asks Peter. Why not? replied Teddie. What better way to allay suspicions?

  They do not accept his misgiving. The farthest Peter will go toward giving credence to it is to say that he’ll ask Ludmilla.

  Teddie makes a scornful noise. “You think she’d tell you even if she knew?” he asks.

  “You’re becoming paranoid, Teddie,” Peter says grumpily.

  “Becoming?” Teddie says; he sounds insulted. “I have been a card-carrying paranoid for many years and it has rarely led me astray.”

  Their visit that morning is to the Institute of Normal Physiology where they meet the brilliant scientist-parapsychologist Victor Adamenko. He is, in some ways, like a Russian counterpart of Bellenger—soft-spoken, earnest, totally sincere. He is a man of medium height with handsome, unSlavic features, dark eyed, dark haired, well-groomed.

  He has coffee and cognac brought and raises his cup in a toast. “To the success of your visit,” he says. “You have helped us by giving us outlets for the exchange of information and, for that, on behalf of my colleagues, I thank you.”

  He will take them, that afternoon, to the apartment of Boris Ermolaev whose powers, “as is well known”, have made him one of the greatest psychics in “the entire world”—certainly the Soviet “answer” to Jan de Vries.

  Peter says the prospect is “exhilarating” to them all, then asks, on Cathy’s behalf, if it is possible for them to see Professor Kirlian at some point in their visit. Adamenko looks doubtful. “I don’t believe he sees visitors anymore,” he says. “However, I will ask.”

  He begins to speak about the questions raised by Kirlian photography. If it is, as the Soviets believe, an energy field being photographed, of what is that field composed. His own theory is “the cold emission of electrons.”

  He goes on to explain his theory of the human body system which he likens to an energy system in which an enormous number of accumulations and transformations of energy are taking place at all times.

  “One might describe the human mechanism as a giant crystal in a state of unsteadiness,” he says.

  The word “crystal” startles Robert for a moment and he has a flashing vision of the cone; he has no idea why.

  “The skin of animals, man and plants feature points that are exits of these ‘zones of conductivity’ as we call them,” Adamenko continues. “A detailed study of these points has revealed that, during emotional excitation, they vary in diameter and often overlap—thus proving that emotions are as much matter as matter itself in that they produce measurable bio-energy.

  “Allow me to demonstrate,” he says.

  He removes, from his coat pocket, what looks like a pencil with a small bulb at its top instead of an eraser.

  “This is my Tobiscope,” he says. “It detects these points on the body which are, as I am sure you know, the so-called acupuncture meridian points.”

  Peter volunteers to be tested and Adamenko rises from behind his desk, explaining that the Tobiscope (or Acupointer as some call it) contains an electronic circuit amplifier operated by three small power cells.

  He places the sharp metal end of the pencil against a spot on Peter’s right ear.

  The bulb on its other end lights up.

  “This is a point of exit here,” Adamenko says, identifying it. “Variation in the brightness of the bulb indicates level of health.”

  He lets them try the device themselves. It does not light up very much for them. He explains this by telling them that, with his knowledge of acupuncture, he knows the points without searching. “Mm-hmm,” says Teddie dubiously.

  The bulb, when it does light up, is a bright on Robert and Cathy’s skin, less so on Teddie’s, rather dim on Peter’s, they now see. If he is conscious of the difference, he does not mention it nor do any of them.

  “Interestingly enough,” says Adamenko, “we had a Chinese acupuncturist prepare a chart of the 700-odd meridian points which they believe exist on the body. Using my Tobiscope, we prepared a similar chart. The correlations between charts went far beyond statistical probability.

  “We have also discovered that laser acupuncture is more effective in healing than the use of electrical charges and eons in advance of the archaic method of inserting metal needles. For instance, when a mild-intensity laser beam is directed at the acupuncture point above the upper lip, it will immediately stop an epileptic seizure.”

  “This Tobiscope of yours could be invaluable to the world,” Peter says.

  Adamenko shrugs. “I have been told that if I sold the secret of it, I could make millions of dollars. But I am not interested. It is for scientific research, not commercial use.”

  “You call healing the people of the world commercial use?” says Teddie.

  At lunch, Teddie makes a point of sitting separately with Ludmilla. Cathy, with Robert and Peter, says, “Is he going to be trouble here too?”

  “I hope not,” Peter says. “It isn’t that I disagree with what he said. It’s that I disagree with his disagreeableness.”

  “We could have a bit more trouble with that,” Robert says, inclining his head toward where Teddie is clearly trying to charm Ludmilla.

  “That we can counter,” Peter says firmly. “If you’ll excuse me.” Picking up his lunch tray, he walks over to the other table and joins Ludmilla and Teddie whose instant scowl makes it clear that he knows what Peter is about.

  Cathy mentions the bulb effect of the Tobiscope on Peter. She wonders if she should say anything, if it means anything serious. Wouldn’t Adamenko have mentioned it if he thought there was something seriously wrong? Robert suggests. I would think so, she agrees.

  His mild reaction to her comment on the brightness of the bulb when it was touching him makes her ask if something is wrong. He confesses that he’s been rather depressed since last night because of another repetition of the dream. “Well, not a repetition exactly,” he says, describing how the dream keeps enlarging more horribly every time he has it now.

  “If we were in England, my beloved,” she says, “I would march you posthaste to my mother’s office. I think you could use some therapy on this.”

  “I suppose,” he says. If he doesn’t come to some kind of resolution on it soon, he may well consider therapy.

  He forces a smile, not wishing to be gloomy in her company. “Well,” he says, “Ermolaev should be fascinating to see.”

  She grips his hand tightly. “I don’t care what anyone says,” she tells him. “I want to be with you at night.”

  Lingeringly, he kisses her palm.

  As they climb what seem like endless flights of steps in the apartment building, Adamenko briefs them about Ermolaev.

  “He has the unusua
l ability to concentrate his energy into a focal point in mid-air and cause objects to be suspended for many seconds,” he says. “I believe that he is capable of creating a magnetic field that defies gravity.”

  Another flight of steps. “Many scientists refuse to accept this,” Adamenko continues, “believing that it violates the basic laws of nature. This, of course, is nonsense. If Ermolaev’s feats contradicted these laws, they could not take place.”

  He gives Teddie a smile.

  “I hope that we may soon be permitted to view your feats as well,” he says.

  “That’s why I’m here,” says Teddie gasping. “Where does this man live, on the roof?”

  Adamenko chuckles at the remark. He is not short-winded in the least.

  BORIS ERMOLAEV admits them to his apartment on the top floor of the building. He is pleased to meet them. They are struck by his behavioral resemblance to de Vries—a highly nervous personality full of theatrical gestures which he uses to underline points he wants to make.

  He did not realize these abilities until 1967, he tells them.

  We see the incident dramatized, narrated by him.

  He is staying with his parents when the telephone rings and a man he barely knows named Senya tells him that there is a party going on at his house and would Boris like to join them?

  “All right,” Boris answers. Hanging up, he goes down to the street, gets in his car, drives to a building, goes upstairs and presses the doorbell of an apartment.

  A curious Senya admits him. “How did you know where to come?” he asks. “You have never been here before and you hung up before I could tell you where it was.”

  Ermolaev looks at him blankly. It had never, until that moment, occurred to him.

  “The party turned out to be a bore,” his narration continues, “and I was about to leave when Senya came up to me.”

  “Let me show you something,” Senya says.

  With that, he picks up a half open chrysanthemum from a vase, holds it up with both hands, then removes his hands.

  The flower remains hanging in mid-air between his two palms which are inches from it.

  “Keep watching,” he says.

  Soon the flower comes alive and its curled up petals straighten out, opening fully.

  In total awe, Ermolaev compliments him.

  “That is nothing,” says Senya. “You should see what my sister can do.”

  He introduces Ermolaev to her. She is a short, ugly girl. “I will show you,” she tells him with a coquettish smile, “but no other audience.”

  She leads him into a bedroom, shuts the door and stands on a couch. The cushion sinks beneath her weight. She squints her tiny eyes and, after several seconds, the cushion rises under her feet. Then, like a balloon, she rises two feet into the air.

  “It was incredible,” says Ermolaev’s voice. “Yet the only thought that crossed my mind was ‘How ugly she is!’.”

  Back in his apartment, everyone laughing at his Slavic punch line, even Teddie amused by it.

  “For the next two weeks,” Ermolaev says, “I kept seeing Senya—not the sister—trying to pick up a hint or two. I even took him to Goskonzert and they watched him levitate objects. But their only comment was ‘No one will see it past the second row’. Now if he could raise a large wardrobe full of clothes that would be a different story.”

  Again, they laugh. “Then one day—” he goes on.

  We see him sitting at a table in his parents’ apartment with a heavy cigarette box in front of him. Holding his hands above it, he concentrates. DISSOLVES show the passage of time as he tries, his narration saying, “It did not come easily at first.”

  Final cut. “But, then, at last…” says his voice.

  He watches with intense satisfaction as the cigarette box stirs, then, unevenly, rises above the table. “From then on,” he says, “I spent all my spare time developing my power.”

  CUT TO Ermolaev demonstrating to the group.

  He is holding a ping pong ball between his palms. Slowly, he moves his hands apart. The ball remains suspended. He continues to move his hands until each palm is eight inches from the ball. Finally, it drops to the floor.

  They applaud, except for Teddie. Ermolaev picks up a handful of uncooked rice. “Sit quietly now,” he says.

  He concentrates and, in the silence of the room, tosses the handful of rice into the air and jerks up both hands.

  To their amazement, the rice comes together quickly to form a floating ball between his hands.

  “The rice, you see,” he tells them, softly, “has become a miniature planet held together by the gravitational force I am giving it.”

  A few seconds later, the rice ball falls apart and the separate grains scatter onto the floor.

  “Can de Vries do that?” Ermolaev says challengingly. “I would like to meet him to prove who is the better psychic.”

  As they drive Adamenko back to his office, Robert listens, in silence, as Cathy and to a lesser degree Peter enthuses about what they’ve seen. “An incredible demonstration of psycho-kinesis,” Cathy says. Teddie looks bored.

  “And what is your reaction?” Adamenko asks Robert.

  He tries to be polite. “Interesting,” he says.

  “No more?” asks Adamenko.

  Robert hesitates, then opts for honesty. Trying to phrase it as politely as he can, he says that he finds such abilities (in de Vries as well as Ermolaev) only “marginally” interesting in psi. He realizes that telekinesis is an important aspect of psi but wonders about the “parlor trick” aspect of it both men seem to favor.

  Adamenko nods and says he understands.

  They are quiet until Adamenko has been dropped off at the Institute and Ludmilla at her government building. Leaving them, she says that she will arrange for them to see Bekhetereva in a few days. If they like, they can spend those few days sightseeing in Moscow. Also Dr. Adamenko would, of course, like very much to see Mr. Berger “at work”.

  “Was that really necessary, Rob?” Cathy asks after she is gone.

  “I tried to be polite about it,” he says. “And I didn’t volunteer the information. But I don’t want to lie either. Floating ping pong balls and uncooked rice is no more mind-enlarging than de Vries and his watches.”

  “I tend to agree,” says Peter, “but… well, we’d best be careful what we say. We are guests after all.” He seems to address the remark more to Teddie than to Robert.

  “We have seen two psychics now,” Teddie says, “and both of them are handled by a government booking agency. What the hell are they into here, psi or vaudeville?”

  A tour of Moscow. Robert, Cathy and Peter enjoy it very much. Teddie either looks bored or, seeing soldiers, glowers.

  Cathy and Robert sleep together now.

  A day or two later, they watch Teddie “perform” for Adamenko.

  To their surprise, he is not asked to demonstrate distance perception.

  Instead, Adamenko asks if Teddie can affect a small magnetic probe in a magnetometer located in a vault beneath the building. The vault is shielded by a magnetic shield, an aluminum container, copper shielding and, most powerful, a super-conducting shield.

  “A decaying magnetic field has been set up inside the magnetometer,” says Adamenko. “This provides a background calibration signal which registers as an oscillation on a chart recorder. The system has been running for an hour now in a stable pattern.

  “We would like you, if possible, to see if you can change the output recording.”

  To the added surprise of the group, Teddie does not complain about the test even though he has never taken one like it.

  Lighting a cigar (this casual touch startles but impresses Adamenko) Teddie sits in a chair and concentrates.

  CUT BACK AND FORTH between him and the vault.

  In twenty-five seconds, the middle wave line on the chart disappears entirely for fifteen seconds.

  Then Teddie says, “I can’t hold it any longer.”

 
Adamenko is awed, then stunned as Teddie proceeds to draw a picture of the magnetometer interior, commenting in particular about a gold alloy plate which he had no way of knowing about.

  “It works both ways, you see,” he says to Adamenko.

  As they ride back to the hotel, sans Ludmilla, Peter asks Teddie what he meant by his comment to Adamenko.

  “I meant that he should know that they, too, can be spied upon by this method.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Teddie,” Peter says.

  “Do you know what happened here when Gagarin became the first man to orbit the earth?” Teddie demands. “They ran in the streets with placards that read Hurrah! The Cosmos is Ours!” He bares his teeth. “The cosmos is not theirs,” he adds.

  “It’s not ours either, Teddie,” Robert says. “Stop being so suspicious.”

  SHOCK CUT TO Robert’s room that night as, with incredible swiftness, he is seized and pushed out horizontally, set on his feet and thrust forward.

  His body checks its outward movement and he turns. Once more he finds himself staring at the coil of light behind him, fastened to the back of his head like a luminous garden hose, its other end attached to the brow of his sleeping self.

  This time, the illumination of the hose-like cord lights the face of the him on the bed. Moving closer to it, he can see the sleeping version of himself breathing peacefully, mouth slightly ajar, cheeks a little flushed, hair lifted by the pressure of the pillow.

  He stares at himself with fascination. His sleeping face seems, somehow, pathetic and touching to him with its vacant innocence of expression.

  Now he looks at Cathy sleeping next to his other self. He finds her expression equally fascinating, staring at it fixedly. She stirs in her sleep as though, somehow, aware of his observation.

  Abruptly, then he is turned away and finds himself walking toward the hall door. It is like wading through a moving surf. He staggers uncertainly to the door and reaches for the handle. There is no grip in his hand, it passes through the handle.

  After a moment, he moves forward and glides through the door as though it doesn’t exist.