The Best of Michael Moorcock

by Michael Moorcock

  It was his camp-bed. He was back in his laboratory.

  Seward wasted no time wondering what had happened. He knew more or less. Possibly his encounter with the Vampire had sent him back—the exertion or—of course—the creature had drawn some of his blood. Maybe that was it. He felt the pricking sensation, still. He went to the mirror near the wash-stand. He could just see the little marks in his neck. Further proof that wherever that world was it was as real as the one he was in now.

  He went to the table and picked up his notes, then walked into the other room. In one section was a long bench. On it, in various stages of dismantling, were the machines that he had been working on, the tranquilomats that somehow just didn’t work. He picked up one of the smallest and checked its batteries, its lenses and its sonic agitator. The idea with this one was to use a combination of light and sound to agitate certain dormant cells in the brain. Long since, psychophysicists had realised that mental abnormality had a chemical as well as a mental cause. Just as a patient with a psychosomatic illness produced all the biological symptoms of whatever disease he thought he had, so did chemistry play a part in brain disorders. Whether the change in the brain cells came first or afterwards they weren’t sure. But the fact was that the cells could be agitated and the mind, by a mixture of hypnosis and conditioning, could be made to work normally. But it was a long step from knowing this and being able to use the information in the construction of tranquilomats.

  Seward began to work on the machine. He felt he was on the right track, at least.

  But how long could he keep going before his need for the drug destroyed his will?

  He kept going some five hours before his withdrawal symptoms got the better of him.

  He staggered towards one of the drug-drawers and fumbled out an ampoule of M-A 19. He staggered into his bedroom and reached for the needle on the table.

  He filled the syringe. He filled his veins. He filled his brain with a series of explosions which blew him clean out of his own world into the other.

  Fire flew up his spine. Ignited back-brain, ignited mid-brain, ignited forebrain. Ignited all centres.

  EXPLOSION ALL CENTRES.

  This time the transition was brief. He was standing in the part of the maze where he’d been when he’d left. The Vampire’s corpse was gone. Farlowe had gone, also. He experienced a feeling of acute frustration that he couldn’t continue with his work on KLTM-8—the tranquilomat he’d been modifying when his craving for the M-A 19 took over.

  But there was something to do here, too.

  He left the maze and walked towards the house. It was dawn and very cold. Farlowe’s car was parked there. He noticed the licence number. It seemed different. It now said YOU 009. Maybe he’d mistaken the last digit for a zero last time he’d looked.

  The door was ajar. Farlowe and Martha were standing in the hall.

  They looked surprised when he walked in.

  “I thought the Vampire was peculiar, son,” said Farlowe. “But yours was the best vanishing act I’ve ever seen.”

  “Martha will explain that, too,” Seward said, not looking at her. “Has she told you her theory?”

  “Yes, it sounds feasible.” He spoke slowly, looking at the floor. He looked up. “We got rid of the Vampire. Burned him up. He burns well.”

  “That’s one out of the way, at least,” said Seward. “How many others are there at the fortress?”

  Farlowe shook his head. “Not sure. How many did you see?”

  “The Man Without A Navel, a character called Brother Sebastian who wears a cowl and probably isn’t human either, two pleasant gentlemen called Mr. Morl and Mr. Hand—and a man in fancy dress whose name I don’t know.”

  “There are one or two more,” Farlowe said. “But it’s not their numbers we’ve got to worry about—it’s their power!”

  “I think maybe it’s overrated,” Seward said.

  “You may be right, son.”

  “I’m going to find out.”

  “You still want my car?”

  “Yes. If you want to follow up behind with whatever help you can gather, do that.”

  “I will.” Farlowe glanced at Martha. “What do you think, Martha?”

  “I think he may succeed,” she said. “Good luck, Lee.” She smiled at him in a way that made him want to stay.

  “Right,” said Seward. “I’m going. Hope to see you there.”

  “I may be wrong, Lee,” she said warningly. “It was only an idea.”

  “It’s the best one I’ve heard. Goodbye.”

  He went out of the house and climbed into the car.

  6

  The road was white, the sky was blue, the car was red and the countryside was green. Yet there was less clarity about the scenery than Seward remembered. Perhaps it was because he no longer had the relaxing company of Farlowe, because his mind was working furiously and his emotions at full blast.

  Whoever had designed the set-up on this world had done it well, but had missed certain details. Seward realised that one of the “alien” aspects of the world was that everything was just a little too new. Even Farlowe’s car looked as if it had just been driven off the production line.

  By the early afternoon he was beginning to feel tired and some of his original impetus had flagged. He decided to move in to the side of the road and rest for a short time, stretch his legs. He stopped the car and got out.

  He walked over to the other side of the road. It was on a hillside and he could look down over a wide, shallow valley. A river gleamed in the distance, there were cottages and livestock in the fields. He couldn’t see the horizon. Far away he saw a great bank of reddish-looking clouds that seemed to swirl and seethe like a restless ocean. For all the signs of habitation, the countryside had taken on a desolate quality as if it had been abandoned. He could not believe that there were people living in the cottages and tending the livestock. The whole thing looked like the set for a film. Or a play—a complicated play devised by the Man Without A Navel and his friends—a play in which the fate of a world—possibly two worlds—was at stake.

  How soon would the play resolve itself? he wondered, as he turned back towards the car.

  A woman was standing by the car. She must have come down the hill while he was looking at the valley. She had long, jet-black hair and big, dark eyes. Her skin was tanned dark gold. She had full, extraordinarily sensuous lips. She wore a well-tailored red suit, a black blouse, black shoes and black handbag. She looked rather sheepish. She raised her head to look at him and as she did so a lock of her black hair fell over her eyes. She brushed it back.

  “Hello,” she said. “Am I lucky!”

  “Are you?”

  “I hope so. I didn’t expect to find a car on the road. You haven’t broken down, have you?” She asked this last question anxiously.

  “No,” he said. “I stopped for a rest. How did you get here?”

  She pointed up the hill. “There’s a little track up there—a cattle-track, I suppose. My car skidded and went into a tree. It’s a wreck.”

  “I’ll have a look at it for you.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no point—it’s a write-off. Can you give me a lift?”

  “Where are you going?” he said unwillingly.

  “Well, it’s about sixty miles that way,” she pointed in the direction he was going. “A small town.”

  It wouldn’t take long to drive sixty miles on a road as clear as this with no apparent speed-limit. He scratched his head doubtfully. The woman was a diversion he hadn’t expected and, in a way, resented. But she was very attractive. He couldn’t refuse her. He hadn’t seen any cart-tracks leading off the road. This, as far as he knew, was the only one, but it was possible he hadn’t noticed since he didn’t know this world. Also, he decided, the woman evidently wasn’t involved in the struggle between the fortress people and Farlowe’s friends. She was probably just one of the conditioned, living out her life completely unaware of where she was and why. He migh
t be able to get some information out of her.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “Oh, thanks.” She got in, seeming rather deliberately to show him a lot of leg. He opened his door and slid under the wheel. She sat uncomfortably close to him. He started the engine and moved the car out onto the road again.

  “I’m a stranger here,” he began conversationally. “What about you?”

  “Not me—I’ve lived hereabouts all my life. Where do you come from—stranger?”

  He smiled. “A long way away.”

  “Are they all as good-looking as you?” It was trite, but it worked. He felt flattered.

  “Not any more,” he said. That was true. Maniacs never looked very good. But this wasn’t the way he wanted the conversation to go, however nice the direction. He said: “You’re not very heavily populated around here. I haven’t seen another car, or another person for that matter, since I set off this morning.”

  “It does get boring,” she said. She smiled at him. That and her full body, her musky scent and her closeness, made him breathe more heavily than he would have liked. One thing about this world—the women were considerably less inhibited than on his own. It was a difference in population, perhaps. In an overcrowded world your social behaviour must be more rigid, out of necessity.

  He kept his hands firmly on the wheel and his eyes on the road, convinced that if he didn’t he’d lose control of himself and the car. The result might be a sort of femme fatality. His attraction towards Sally and Martha had not been wholly sexual. Yet he had never before experienced anything like the purely animal attraction which this woman radiated. Maybe, he decided, she didn’t know it. He glanced at her. There again, maybe she did.

  It said a lot for the woman if she could take his mind so completely off his various problems.

  “My name’s Magdalen,” she smiled. “A bit of a mouthful. What’s yours?”

  It was a relief to find someone here who didn’t already know his name. He rejected the unliked Lee and said: “Bill—Bill Ward.”

  “Short and sweet,” she said. “Not like mine.”

  He grunted vaguely, consciously fighting the emotions rising in him. There was a word for them. A simple word—short and sweet—lust. He rather liked it. He’d been somewhat repressed on his home world and had kept a tight censorship on his feelings. Here it was obviously different.

  A little later, he gave in. He stopped the car and kissed her. He was surprised at the ease with which he did it. He forgot about the tranquilomats, about the M-A 19, about the fortress. He forgot about everything except her, and that was maybe why he did what he did.

  It was as if he was drawn into yet another world—a private world where only he and she had any existence. An enclosed world consisting only of their desire and their need to satisfy it. Afterwards he felt gloomy, regretful and guilty. He started the car savagely. He knew he shouldn’t blame her, but he did. He’d wasted time. Minutes were valuable, even seconds. He’d wasted hours.

  Beside him she took a headscarf from her bag and tied it over her hair. “You’re in a hurry.”

  He pressed the accelerator as far down as he could.

  “What’s the problem?” she shouted as the engine thudded noisily.

  “I’ve wasted too much time already. I’ll drop you off wherever it is you want.”

  “Oh, fine. Just one of those things, eh?”

  “I suppose so. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have picked you up in the first place.”

  She laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. It was a mocking laugh and it seemed to punch him in the stomach.

  “Okay,” he said, “okay.”

  He switched on the headlamps as dusk became night. There was no milometer on the dashboard so he didn’t know how far they’d travelled, but he was sure it was more than sixty miles.

  “Where is this town?” he said.

  “Not much further.” Her voice softened. “I’m sorry, Lee. But what is the matter?”

  Something was wrong. He couldn’t place it. He put it down to his own anger.

  “You may not know it,” he said, “but I suspect that nearly all the people living here are being deceived. Do you know the fortress?”

  “You mean that big building on the rock wastes?”

  “That’s it. Well, there’s a group of people there who are duping you and the rest in some way. They want to destroy practically the whole of the human race by a particularly nasty method—and they want me to do it for them.”

  “What’s that?”

  Briefly, he explained.

  Again she laughed. “By the sound of it, you’re a fool to fight this Man Without A Navel and his friends. You ought to throw in your lot with them. You could be top man.”

  “Aren’t you angry?” he said in surprise. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Certainly. I just don’t share your attitude. I don’t understand you turning down a chance when it’s offered. I’d take it. As I said, you could be top man.”

  “I’ve already been top man,” he said, “in a manner of speaking. On my own world. I don’t want that kind of responsibility. All I want to do is save something from the mess I’ve made of civilisation.”

  “You’re a fool, Lee.”

  That was it. She shouldn’t have known him as Lee but as Bill, the name he’d introduced himself by. He stopped the car suddenly and looked at her suspiciously. The truth was dawning on him and it made him feel sick at himself that he could have fallen for her trap.

  “You’re working for him, aren’t you? The Man?”

  “You seem to be exhibiting all the symptoms of persecution mania, Seward. You need a good psychiatrist.” She spoke coolly and reached into her handbag. “I don’t feel safe with you.”

  “It’s mutual,” he said. “Get out of the car.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “I think we’ll go all the way to the fortress together.” She put both hands into her bag. They came out with two things. One was a half bottle of brandy.

  The other was a gun.

  “Evidently my delay tactics weren’t effective enough,” she mocked. “I thought they might not be, so I brought these. Get out, yourself, Seward.”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But that isn’t what the Man wants, is it?”

  She shrugged, waving the gun.

  Trembling with anger at his own gullibility and impotence, he got out. He couldn’t think clearly.

  She got out, too, keeping him covered. “You’re a clever man, Seward. You’ve worked out a lot.”

  “There are others here who know what I know.”

  “What do they know?”

  “They know about the set-up—about the conditioning.”

  She came round the car towards him, shaking her head. Still keeping him covered, she put the brandy bottle down on the seat.

  He went for the gun.

  He acted instinctively, in the knowledge that this was his only chance. He heard the gun go off, but he was forcing her wrist back. He slammed it down on the side of the car. She yelled and dropped it. Then he did what he had never thought he could do. He hit her, a short, sharp jab under the chin. She crumpled.

  He stood over her, trembling. Then he took her headscarf and tied her limp hands behind her. He dragged her up and dumped her in the back of the car. He leaned down and found the gun. He put it in his pocket.

  Then he got into the driving seat, still trembling. He felt something hard under him. It was the brandy bottle. It was what he needed. He unscrewed the cap and took a long drink.

  His brain began to explode even as he reached for the ignition.

  It seemed to crackle and flare like burning timber. He grabbed the door handle. Maybe if he walked around . . .

  He felt his knees buckle as his feet touched the ground. He strained to keep himself upright. He forced himself to move round the car. When he reached the bonnet, the headlamps blared at him, blinded him.

  They be
gan to blink rapidly into his eyes. He tried to raise his hands and cover his eyes. He fell sideways, the light still blinking. He felt nausea sweep up and through him. He saw the car’s licence plate in front of him.

  YOU 099

  YOU 100

  YOU 101

  He put out a hand to touch the plate. It seemed normal. Yet the digits were clocking up like the numbers on an adding machine.

  Again his brain exploded. A slow, leisurely explosion that subsided and brought a delicious feeling of well-being.

  Green clouds like boiled jade, scent of chrysanthemums. Swaying lilies. Bright lines of black and white in front of his eyes. He shut them and opened them again. He was looking up at the blind in his bedroom.

  As soon as he realised he was back, Seward jumped off the bed and made for the bench where he’d left the half-finished tranquilomat. He remembered something, felt for the gun he’d taken off the girl. It wasn’t there.

  But he felt the taste of the brandy in his mouth. Maybe it was as simple as that, he thought. Maybe all he needed to get back was alcohol.

  There was sure to be some alcohol in the lab. He searched through cupboards and drawers until he found some in a jar. He filled a vial and corked it. He took off his shirt and taped the vial under his armpit—that way he might be able to transport it from his world to the other one.

  Then he got down to work.

  Lenses were reassembled, checked. New filters went in and old ones came out. He adjusted the resonators and amplifiers. He was recharging the battery which powered the transistorised circuits, when he sensed the mob outside. He left the little machine on the bench and went to the control board. He flicked three switches down and then, on impulse, flicked them off again. He went back to the bench and unplugged the charger. He took the machine to the window. He drew the blind up.

  It was a smaller mob than usual. Evidently some of them had learned their lesson and were now avoiding the laboratory.

  Far away, behind them, the sun glinted on a calm sea. He opened the window.

  There was one good way of testing his tranquilomat. He rested it on the sill and switched it to ATTRACT. That was the first necessary stage, to hold the mob’s attention. A faint, pleasant humming began to come from the machine. Seward knew that specially shaped and coloured lenses were whirling at the front. The mob looked up towards it, but only those in the centre of the group were held. The others dived away, hiding their eyes.