The Productions of Time

by John Brunner

  He entered Adrian's room with a half-formulated plan to strip off the -- what was the word? -- the triplem from the mattress and perhaps throw the spools of tape out the window where they could be retrieved later. That intention died the moment he set foot inside the door. Already fumes were winding up from the skirting, and the air smelled pungently of burning. The monstrous crackling, just beyond the wall, was immensely loud.

  He ripped the covers from the bed and struggled to raise Ade in the same not-quite fireman's carry he had used to get Delgado to the stairs. Something shorted in room thirteen. The TV set in Ade's room exploded, showering bits of glass from its cathode tube all over the place. Smoke rose from the cable; after a moment, flames followed, jetting from the point in the floor where the cable presumably disappeared.

  Gasping, he carried Ade to the door. Behind him the carpet smoldered and began to flare up, adding the unpleasant stench of burning acetate to the already burdened air. The door of room thirteen was showing blisters as the paint on it lifted from the heat behind.

  He was returning from dumping Ade as he had dumped Delgado -- his original intention of carrying the others down to the hall forestalled -- when the whole upper floor of the new wing trembled under him. Something roared and crashed, and Murray pictured all that immensely heavy equipment in room thirteen plunging down into the auditorium of the theater. No, on to the stage, which was worse, since it had inflammable hangings! Once a fire got a hold down there, he would be separated only by floorboards, joists, and a plaster shell of a ceiling from a real inferno. Frantically he tried to open the next room -- number eleven, Constant's.

  The damned fool had locked his door.

  He spun around, seeking a tool to break it down; he knew he could not charge it with enough force to smash the lock. His eye fell on a heavy wooden chair. With that as a crude hammer, he managed to shatter the panels of the door. Luckily, it was a modern type made of hardboard stretched over a timber frame.

  By the time he had dragged Gerry from room ten, there was no question of the fire having taken hold in the theater. The floor was distinctly hot under him, and smoke was wreathing up everywhere. The door of room thirteen had broken open in flames some time ago, and the carpet was lifting like dry paper. He heard windows shatter with a cascade of tinkling glass and dared not spend even a second in wondering which windows. Smoke billowed around him. The floor shifted a second time and then settled at an acute angle. Or was that an illusion due to his weariness? For the angle seemed to be making a slope against him whichever way he happened to be going.

  "Thank you," he muttered, and realized he had spoken aloud and that there was someone to hear him. Heather, her robe in shreds, was helping him carry Ida. Ida was wax white, wearing a black, filmy nylon nightdress. Funny, one would have thought Ida would wear rather masculine pajamas in view of -- Look out, something must have happened in this room -- perhaps fire attacking from under the floor because the edge of the bedcover --

  Choking, eyes streaming, on feet so painful they had to be forgotten, Murray and Heather somehow cleared the new wing, which was most threatened by the fire. The stairs looked like a set for a modern-dress Hamlet, with corpses littering it --

  "Sam now!" Hand clutching at him. Yes, one more, not in the vulnerable new wing over the hollow blaze of the theater but in the older part of the house and therefore less endangered.

  "All right, all right -- " But that wasn't Heather he was talking to now. A figure in dark clothes, with bright buttons. Someone with a helmet.

  "I told them to send all the fire companies in the neighborhood and the doctors and -- "

  That was Heather. Murray paused, looking around him. Past the limp Dali-dolls on the stairs, men dragging tails of canvas hose, someone shouting orders. He had only one question -- is everyone out of there?

  Heather's voice again. "He got them out. Murray got them out. Yes, they're all safe!"

  Firemen. Hoses. Noise of windows being smashed, not just breaking under the heat. Hope. Help.

  Murray forgot everything. He clutched at the banister of the staircase, missed his hold, saw the huge hall swing through a quarter-circle and felt his right foot tread on air where he had expected solidity. Someone snatched at him as he fell, and caught his shoulder. He looked into a serious, concerned, strange face under a black sloping helmet.

  Fireman.

  Murray fainted.

  XXIII

  Painful as birth, inexorable as the revolutions of the planets, the fragments of Murray Douglas' awareness drifted back from the limitless nowhere into which they had scattered. After be had regained consciousness, he was content to stay as he was, feeling the rough warmth of a blanket around him, the softness of a roll of cloth under his head, and hearing the confusion of noises in which were mingled shouts, the roar of engines, and the crackle of flames.

  Then someone near him said anxiously, "Here he is, Doctor. He -- he just passed out."

  Heather's voice.

  Another voice, gruffer, with a trace of Scots accent, said, "I'm not surprised, young woman! I saw him the other day and I was shocked, really shocked, to see how much older he looked than his chronological age."

  Doctor . . . Dr. Cromarty. The name moved sluggishly to the forefront of Murray's mind, and he forced open his eyes. There was the doctor before him, the collar of a striped pajama jacket showing above the neck of a sweater.

  Murray said, "Are they all right? Did we get them all out?"

  In the act of putting on his glasses to begin his examination, Cromarty blinked rapidly several times. "Yes, Mr. Douglas, the others are all right. Now you just lie still there and let me -- "

  "I don't mean were they burned ?" Murray interrupted. He struggled to get his elbows behind him and force his body off the ground where he was lying. "I mean are they all right ?"

  Cromarty made hushing noises and tried to persuade him to lie flat again. Murray pushed him aside impatiently. "For God's sake!" he exploded. "I'm okay. I only passed out from the smoke and the heat. I -- "

  "Your feet," Heather whispered. He paused, momentarily at a loss; then he realized she was right. The soles of both his feet felt tender. Nonetheless, the pain was bearable, and so it wasn't urgent. What counted was those undead whom he had carried from their beds, pallid and waxy as corpses, victims of whatever evil scheme Delgadc and his accomplices had woven around them.

  "The hell with me," he grunted, and this time succeeded in ridding himself of Cromarty's restraining hands. He scrambled up, the blanket falling in a heap. "I want to know . . ."

  The words trailed away as he took in the scene. He was not the only casualty to have been brought to the grass fringing the drive of Fieldfare House. The headlights of two fire engines and several cars showed him a ghastly rank of bodies, looking like an open-air mortuary. Dark-uniformed men were coming and going everywhere.

  "Get that pump over to the swimming pool!" yelled a high, excited voice, and then, almost cutting off the last word, there was a rending crash behind the house. Murray jerked his head around and saw a fountain of sparks, bright as fireworks, spatter the underside of the pall of stinking smoke now smearing across the sky.

  Whatever the key to this mystery, we won't find it where the fire has taken hold.

  Murray closed his eyes for a few seconds, drawing on every ounce of self-control. When the crash startled him, he had been about to ask a bewildered question. He fought back to it, remembered what it was, and turned to meet Dr. Cromarty's concerned gaze.

  "Ambulances," he said. "Why aren't there any ambulances here?"

  "There's been an accident on the highway," the doctor muttered. "Sixty people hurt in a long-distance bus. But they promised to come as soon as they could."

  "Oh, Jesus ," Murray said with jolting dismay. "Well, then, have you looked these people over yet?"

  "Ah -- " Cromarty wiped his face. "I only got here a moment ago, I'm afraid. The firemen are trained in first aid, of course, and when they assured me there
were no serious burn cases, this young lady insisted I come to examine you because you -- "

  "Delgado?" Murray rapped.

  "They told me he'd had an electric shock," Heather said. "But he's not badly hurt and ought to be all right."

  Relieved, Murray swung back to his earlier demand. "Doctor, what's wrong with these people? They aren't asleep. They're like zombies. They -- hell, don't let me just talk about them! See for yourself!"

  He took the four or five strides needed to bring him level with the nearest of the "undead," and found on the last step that his feet were far worse than he had imagined. He swayed with the stab of pain, and Heather was beside him, putting her arm around to steady him. Cromarty followed, opening his surgical bag one-handed and reaching into it.

  "Here, young woman!" he rapped, offering a large jar of salve and a packet of dressings. "Sit this idiot down on the grass, and put some of that on his burns before he gets dirt in them! I'll clean him up properly later, but at least this will ease the pain."

  Heather silently accepted the medication and helped Murray to sit, then fetched his blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. Her ministrations were quick and gentle; they hardly distracted Murray from his concentration on Cromarty.

  The elderly doctor went down the line of bodies one by one, pausing beside each. Finally he returned to Murray, his face pale and drawn.

  "I don't know what to make of this," he said. "But I'm sure of one thing. When you said they weren't sleeping, you were half right. Those poor folk are in a hypnotic trance."

  "Are you certain?" Murray demanded.

  "Absolutely." Cromarty gave a bashful cough. "My practice here is not the most consuming in the world, and I've been able to keep up an interest in the medical applications of hypnosis. I've used it for many painless deliveries hereabouts, when I could gain the consent of the mother."

  "I thought -- " Heather, pausing in her application of salve to Murray's burns, bit her lip.

  "Yes?"

  "Well . . . Might they not be drugged?"

  "There's one young man who exhibits the symptoms of heroin addiction, if I'm not mistaken," Cromarty said. "But that's not significant. I'd stake my reputation on their being in a trance."

  "Can you get them out of it?" Murray exclaimed.

  The doctor shook his graying head. "If the hypnosis was skillfully done, they will respond only to a particular stimulus."

  "They'll stay like that indefinitely?" Heather cried.

  "Oh no!" Cromarty looked shocked. "Eventually the trance will merge into normal sleep, and they'll wake of their own accord. But -- "

  "Yes?" Murray prompted.

  "But there may have been posthypnotic commands," Cromarty said slowly. "And unless we can find out what they were, the poor folk will carry them out willy-nilly when they wake."

  Murray had seen stage demonstrations of hypnosis often enough to realize the implications of Cromarty's statement. Failure to erase hypnotic commands could lead to behavior that appeared insane.

  Before the doctor could speak again, another car braked sharply at the entrance to the driveway, and a man in police uniform jumped out and held the door for another man in a tweed jacket.

  This man, after brief words with a police officer already present, looked around, recognized Cromarty, and approached him briskly.

  "Morning, Doctor!" he said. "Sorry I'm so late on the scene, but they picked the very devil of a night to have this fire here."

  "When do we get some ambulances?" Cromarty demanded.

  "It took thirteen of the bloody things to clear up after the crash. You know about that? But we passed messages to the various hospitals to send a few along as soon as they've unloaded. What in the world is going on here, anyhow?"

  "I was just about to ask Mr. Douglas the same thing," Cromarty said with a touch of grimness. "Mr. Douglas -- Chief Inspector Wadeward of the County Police."

  "Murray Douglas," the chief inspector nodded. "I heard you were rehearsing with the company here. Saw you in Skeleton a few years ago -- a very fine performance you gave. Well?"

  Murray licked his lips. Heather had finished her work with a professionally knotted bandage around each of his feet, and was sitting back on her heels gazing up curiously, too exhausted to rise.

  "The whole thing is so complicated I hardly know where to begin." Murray hesitated, trying to clear his thoughts.

  "You could begin with the reason why all these people are hypnotized," Cromarty growled.

  "Did you say hypnotized?" Wadeward turned incredulously to glance at the prostrate forms on the grass. "I -- no, give me some background before I start asking questions, for pity's sake!"

  "Well, you know why we were supposed to be here?" Murray suggested.

  "To work up a new play," Wadeward said. "It was in the local paper. Quite a big event, apparently."

  "Except that that was just a cover story," Murray broke in. "What the real reason was, I can't be sure, but I think it had something to do with raising us to a pitch of complete hysteria. And then . . ."

  Triplem.

  Concentrape.

  The experience contracted for.

  No good. At this point his brain started to fill with fog as dense as the smoke now raging skyward like a thundercloud from the inferno at the back of the house.

  "I -- I'd better go over it from the beginning," he muttered.

  With growing astonishment, Cromarty and Wadeward heard about Trois Fois a la Fois , the suicide of Jean-Paul Garrigue, the insanity of Léa Martinez, the attempt by Claudette Myrin to kill her baby daughter. At that point Wadeward was already finding silence impossible.

  "But wasn't something done about this -- this maniac?" he exploded. "You can't just have someone persecuting innocent victims in the name of art, genius or not!"

  "He's so clever you have to experience his treatment to believe it," Murray said. "I don't know how we escaped it. Luck, I guess."

  "No, not luck," Heather said firmly. "You were too tough a proposition for him, Murray."

  "Flattering, but not true." Murray sighed. "Well, from the first evening . . ."

  So Murray told about the tape recorders under the beds, the gadgetry over the stage, in room thirteen, hidden in all the TV sets, Delgado's touchiness on the subject, the unwillingness even of Lester Harkham to pursue the matter after the first day or two, scraps and hints picked up from Valentine's unguarded conversation earlier tonight, about "scanning the rooms" and "basic wipes" and the matter of spiking canned fruit juice and framing Murray into believing he'd been drinking and -- and -- and . . .

  With a sober headshake, Wadeward confessed, "I simply don't know what to make of it. Do you, Doctor? One thing I can do is put out a call for these mysterious 'stewards' on suspicion of trafficking in illegal drugs, and perhaps for procuring for immoral purposes too. Oh! Sorry, young lady," he added to Heather.

  "I think," the girl said in a strained voice, not looking directly at him, "that they'd have made me do what they wanted if Murray hadn't prevented them."

  "But the whole thing's incredible!" Cromarty objected. "To take the most glaring example, Mr. Douglas here thinks patterns of wire on the mattresses were responsible for all these people being hypnotized. But I've made a lifetime hobby of the subject, and to me it sounds absurd!"

  The dogmatic certainty in his tone lay on Murray's mind like a dead weight. He started to argue and decided to save his breath. Everything he had planned to use for evidence was in the wreckage of the new wing; even if a few of the items were later salvaged, what would they amount to in most people's view? Some bits of pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo, better suited to Lester's theory that Delgado was the dupe of charlatans than Murray's own fantastic proposals.

  He put his head in his hands. Alarmed, Cromarty bent to examine him and this time brooked no denial of his intentions. Murray submitted wanly and let his mind go so blank he barely heard Heather's next words.

  "Instead of wild guessing," she was saying to anyone wh
o cared to listen, "why not ask Delgado? His fall down the stairs knocked him silly, but he should have recovered by this time. Valentine and the others have probably gotten away, but Delgado's right over there."

  XXIV

  That jolted Murray from apathy to impatience. If he hadn't been so bemused, he'd have thought of it himself. He had in fact done so, then forgotten the matter of questioning the so-called "playwright" in the immediate need to rescue the other members of the company.

  He was almost frantic by the time Cromarty had checked Delgado over and confirmed that he was only slightly hurt. In Delgado's case -- whatever was true of the rest of the people carried from the house -- paleness was due to simple shock, and the routine administration of first aid had already brought him to before Cromarty reached him. Now he was shivering with terror, his eyes enormous, his skin taut over his teeth so that his lips would not quite meet, and the noise of his repeated swallowing was so loud it could be clearly heard.