by Джеффри Лорд
«I see there’s no arguing with you,» Ferguson sighed. «I’ll simply have to get used to a strange woman wandering about, without training or aptitude, meddling here, meddling there, asking all manner of absurd questions.»
«Not at all, not at all,» J assured him. «Mrs. Smythe-Evans will be leaving your domain tonight. So will I.»
«But your friend Blade… «said Ferguson, surprised.
«Richard Blade will be going with us,» J said quietly.
«See here, I… «Ferguson sputtered. «My patient… «
«Your patient must be removed from the neighborhood of the KALI computer,» J said. «Surely you see that. From what little we know about this Ngaa creature, it will probably follow Richard when he leaves, and we must get the Ngaa away from that computer if we hope to prevent it recharging itself at intervals, growing larger and stronger and more dangerous. The Ngaa is no longer a playful nuisance, gentlemen. It has murdered twenty-seven people in a particularly disagreeable fashion. It could kill again at any moment, and we have no defense against it. It could be in this room, listening to every word we say. It could be reading our minds. Yes, I think it likely the creature reads minds. I think it can also project images, make us see things that aren’t there. No, doctor, we must snatch Richard Blade away from here, far away. Even Scotland may be too close.»
«I gather I am being taken off the case,» Ferguson said with ill-concealed resentment.
«At least for the time being,» J replied.
«And who will take my place?»
I said thoughtfully, «There is only one other man at all familiar with the ways of the Ngaa. Dr. Saxton Colby.»
Ferguson sniffed. «Colby? I understood he’d been drummed out of the corps for conduct unbecoming to a savior.»
Lord Leighton chuckled, but J said, «Quite so, old chap, but all the same he’s the man we need. He’s had more experience with the Ngaa than any of us, and he’s had time to think about it. I daresay he’s come to some interesting conclusions.»
Lord Leighton put in, «Hmm, whatever happened to old Colby? Where did he go?»
«I’ve made an educated guess, as it were,» J answered, then he pointed to the telephone on Ferguson’s desk with his pipestem. «If I’m right, that phone should ring any time now.»
«What nonsense,» Ferguson snorted. «That phone won’t… «
The phone rang.
Ferguson snatched it up. «Dr. Ferguson speaking! You want to talk to J?»
He handed over the receiver, muttering softly.
«This is J speaking. You remember me?»
A familiar voice sounded in J’s ear, somewhat distorted but clearly recognizable. «Of course I do, sir. Did you have your agents track me down?»
«No, I didn’t, Dr. Colby,» said J, amused. «Ma Bell-as the Americans call her-found you for me. I thought you’d moved to Berkeley, California because of your daughter, you see. I had our telephone operator call Berkeley information, and there was your name, no doubt, in the Berkeley telephone book.»
Colby had a deep, well-modulated voice that his patients must have found soothing. «So you know about my daughter?»
«Dr. MacMurdo told me the whole story.»
«Then you’re probably doubly glad to be rid of me, knowing I’m not only depraved but a raving lunatic.» Beneath
Colby’s bantering was an undertone of deep, long-nurtured resentment.
«Not at all, doctor. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you’re completely vindicated.»
There was a long silence, then Colby said, «Isn’t it a bit late? I’ve built up a new life for myself here. I couldn’t come back to England and work for you again even if I wanted to, and I’m not sure I do. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, sir, but… «He broke off. He had sounded ungrateful indeed. J thought, I can’t blame him, of course. I would have felt the same way. When Colby continued, it was with a new tone, a tone of suspicion and a dawning apprehension. «This long distance call must be costing you a pretty penny, sir. Perhaps you’d better come to the point. Why did you phone me?»
«I’ve seen your daughter.»
«Jane?»
«Yes.»
«In London?»
«Yes.»
«My daughter is dead, sir. She died a long time ago, here in Berkeley.» The apprehension was open now, a genuine fear.
«I know. Nevertheless I saw her.»
«I’ve studied this matter for many years, sir. Once I thought, as you do, that I saw her, but now I’ve become convinced that what I thought was her was something else, something pretending to be her, not a ghost, but something far more dangerous.»
«I quite agree,» J said.
Suddenly, impulsively, Dr. Colby burst out, «I’ve changed my mind. I am coming to London. I must come!»
«That will not be necessary, Doctor Colby. We would like to come to you, bringing-ah-Jane with us. We will need a room for-er-someone, a room with a lock on the door and, if possible, a fence around the building.»
«I understand perfectly. As it happens, sir, I am still plying my trade. I have a small private sanitarium here in the Berkeley hills, in an old mansion that once functioned as an exclusive ballet school. We have locks on the doors and a high wire-mesh fence. No one has ever left without my permission.»
«Excellent. We’ll hop a jet and see you in a few hours.»
«I’ll meet you at the airport.»
«That will be most kind of you, doctor. And could you bring an ambulance with facilities for restraining an-er-unruly patient?»
«We have such a vehicle.»
«I’ll have Copra House phone you our ETA. Goodbye, Colby, and thank you for forgiving us.»
A moment later J was on the line to Copra House, arranging for the flight.
This done, he turned to Ferguson and said, «I want Richard Blade unconscious until we are in the air, and I mean out cold. Do you understand? If he got rough on the way to the airport, I’m not certain we could handle him.»
The fat man nodded. «He can sleep his way across the Atlantic, if you wish.»
«Make that all the way to California, if you can do it without harming him,» said J.
«He’ll be all right.» Ferguson lurched to his feet and waddled toward the door. «Do you want some tranquilizer for Mrs. Smythe-Evans?»
J stood up with a grunt. «Zoe doesn’t like drugs.»
Ferguson paused in the doorway to pass a wink to Lord Leighton. «Well, well,» chortled the psychiatrist. «So it’s Zoe already, is it? The old rascal hasn’t wasted much time getting on a first-name basis, has he?»
After accepting the bribe, the burly orderly continued to hover around behind her with a worried frown on his face.
«I’ll be all right,» Zoe assured him. «If anything happens I’ll call for you.»
Reluctantly the orderly went out into the hall and left her alone with Richard.
She approached the foot of the bed, barefoot, clad in a hospital gown, with her purse clutched in her hands.
Richard was asleep, breathing gently, lying on his side. He was free to toss and turn if he wanted to; the orderly had told her Ferguson had ordered the restraining straps removed. They were useless against Blade’s appalling strength. All the orderlies and nurses were now armed with tranquilizer pistols. Drugs, it seemed, were the only things that could stop Blade when one of the fits came on.
She halted, gazing uncertainly across the expanse of rumpled blankets at the half-hidden, square-cut face she knew so well. She had watched him sleep many times, long ago.
As she looked at him, year after year fell away into unreality. She had had a husband. Or had she? She had had children. Or had she? She had had-and still had-a home, a comfortable if tasteless cottage in a small English town. Even that had become vague in her mind, dreamlike. Does one remember what one does while sitting in a waiting room? Does one remember the things one does to kill time?
«Richard,» she said softly.
He did not stir.
&nbs
p; She moved to his bedside and stood looking down at him. How many mornings had she stood like this in the quiet cottage in Dorset, listening to the distant booming of the sea? How many times had they played the poetry game, one of them quoting a line from a famous poem, then the other trying to quote another line from the same poem?
She thought of Matthew Arnold’s «Dover Beach.»
«Dick?» she called gently.
He slept on.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember the poem exactly, word for word. Over the years it came back to her. She began, «The sea is calm tonight… «Damn! How did the next line go?
«The tide is full, the moon lies fair upon the straits,» said Richard Blade.
With a startled cry she leaped back, opening her eyes, almost dropping her purse.
Richard was looking up at her, his dark eyes serious but sane. «Good morning, darling,» he said in that cheerful well-spoken light baritone of his.
«Are you… are you all right?» she asked fearfully.
«Of course I’m all right. I had a damnable nightmare, that’s all. It was one of those bloody awful things that runs on and on, one disaster after another. It seems you married some silly accountant, and there was a machine in it that kept sending me into one hell after another.» He raised himself on his elbow and smiled. «No use talking about it. Nothing like that could really happen. Could it, Zoe?»
«No, no, nothing like that could happen.»
Blade looked around, frowning with puzzlement. «Where am I? Is this some sort of hospital?»
«Yes. You’ve… you’ve had an accident.» Impulsively she stepped toward him and patted his head.
«What kind of accident?» he demanded.
She tried to think of something plausible, but her mind had gone blank.
«Wait! I think I remember.» His powerful fingers closed on her wrist. «A blue cloud. Fire. Pain. Oh my God, the Ngaa! The Ngaa!» His voice rose to a scream. «Oh my God, it’s getting into my head!»
«Let me go, Dick.» His grip tightened painfully. «Please. Please!»
He did not let go, but screamed wordlessly, thrashing from side to side, his face contorted into a mask of terror, pulling her off her balance. She fell on top of him, sprawling and struggling. «Help!» she screamed. «Help me someone!»
Abruptly he released her and fell back on his pillow, eyes open but blank, face expressionless. She staggered away, half-blinded by her own sudden tears.
«Dick?» she called.
He did not answer, or show in any way that he heard her.
The door burst open and the burly orderly rushed in, tranquilizer gun in hand.
«Is he havin’ another of his fits?» the man asked, taking aim.
«Don’t shoot him. He’s quiet now.» She groped her way into the hall.
Dimly she saw J, Lord Leighton and Dr. Ferguson coming toward her on the run. She threw herself into J’s arms.
«What’s going on here?» asked J.
«He spoke to me,» she sobbed.
«Blade? He spoke to you?» J was astonished.
«He sounded perfectly normal, except that he thought he was back in the time when he and I… «She could not go on.
«What did he say?» Dr. Ferguson broke in.
«He recited a line of poetry, the same line I heard in my hotel room, the night of… the night of the fire.» She was thinking, was it Richard Blade who’d spoken to her just now, or was it someone else?
Chapter 8
Dr. Ferguson waved goodbye with an absurd enthusiasm, standing in front of the hangar in his black plastic raincoat. Lord Leighton, similarly clad, merely hunched his shoulders and glowered like a moody troll. The handshaking and well-wishing was over, and the little scientist was probably already back with his beloved KALI, in mind if not in body.
Then the plane swung around and Ferguson and Leighton were lost to view, though J continued to stare out the porthole-like window into the night. There was nothing to see but an occasional moving point of light as they taxied swiftly but smoothly out onto the field, but J, lost in thought, did not care.
J had been to the United States before, but not since the Fifties, when he and Richard Blade had tracked a defecting agent from New York to San Francisco in cooperation with the CIA, finally catching up with and killing the fellow in a gay bar in the North Beach district.
J smiled, thinking of the CIA euphemism that had appeared in their report on the action. «The operative was terminated with extreme prejudice.» The Yanks were never squeamish about killing, but they were downright Victorian when it came to talking about it.
Some of the CIA men J and Blade had worked with were probably still posted to San Francisco, but J made a mental note not to visit these «old friends.» He did not like the CIA, an organization more or less blueprinted by Kim Philby, a British agent who had turned out to be a Russian spy. In J’s eyes the CIA still bore the triple mark of its birth: it was as ruthless and power hungry as the worst Russian communist, as stuffy and bureacratic as the worst Englishman, and, most annoying of all, as crass and businesslike as the worst Yank, with its network of secretly owned businesses, which included airlines, hotel chains, laboratories, munitions factories and even a few publishing companies in New York.
J had heard the rumors to the effect that the CIA had assassinated the Kennedy brothers to prevent an investigation of the agency’s worldwide billion-dollar clandestine business operations. The general public had laughed at the idea. but J, who knew the CIA better, had not laughed at all. No, J concluded, the less I see of the CIA, the better.
The plane reached the end of the runway, wheeled about, tested its mighty jet engines, then, after a pause, hurtled down the gleaming wet pavement and was airborne.
J took out his tobacco pouch and began filling his pipe, though the sign above the cockpit door still glowed «No Smoking» as well as «Fasten your seat belts.» The plane banked steeply, and J could see, out of the corner of his eye, the pattern of landing lights spread out far below, rendered indistinct by a curtain of mist, then London came into view, glimmering like a heap of red coals spilled out over a vast black hearth.
J tamped down his tobacco.
The plane entered a cloud and London vanished. Drops of moving water appeared on the outer face of the window.
J took out his lighter.
«Do you mind if I smoke?»
Zoe, strapped into the seat next to him, glanced at the still glowing «No Smoking» sign, then shrugged. «Go ahead.»
The aroma of sailor’s rough-cut drifted on the air.
J tilted his seat back to be more comfortable, toying with the idea of going to sleep. He glanced at Zoe. She too had tilted back her seat and her eyes were closed. The lighting was dim.
Richard Blade, he knew, was asleep, strapped into a bunk at the rear of the cabin, under heavy sedation. With Blade was a male nurse and two muscular MI6 men armed with tranquilizer pistols: there were no other passengers on board. Up front rode the crew of three; pilot, copilot and navigator. Though the craft bore the insignia of the Royal Air Force, everyone in it was a member of the Special Branch.
The door under the «No Smoking» sign opened and a tall man in a brown jumpsuit emerged and made his way back along the aisle between the unoccupied seats. It was Captain Ralston, the pilot. When he came to J, he leaned over Zoe and said softly, «Could you come up to the cockpit for a moment, sir?»
J searched the man’s impassive face for some clue as to what might be wrong, but there was nothing there. «Certainly, Captain,» J said, unbuckling his seat belt.
«Trouble?» Zoe asked her eyes fluttering open.
«Nothing serious, madam,» Ralston said.
J climbed over her feet into the aisle with a muttered apology and followed Captain Ralston forward. The cockpit, when they entered it, was lit only by the many-colored lights on the control panel and navigation console. The navigator turned in his seat and said, «Good evening, sir.» He was a slender, dapper fellow with a ne
at Vandyke beard. His name was Bob Hall.
«Good evening, Bob,» J answered. «What’s up?»
Bob hunched over his navigation table, his worried face green in the light from his radar screen. He gestured toward the screen. «A bit of a puzzle, sir. A blip on the radar. Something’s following us.»
J checked the scope. It was true.
Captain Ralston said, «The control tower picked it up, too, and warned us about it, so it can’t be a fault in our equipment.»
«How far away is it?» J asked.
«About two kilometers and closing,» said Bob Hall. «It’s fast, whatever it is, but it seems to be, as far as we can tell, smaller than most aircraft.»
The copilot, Floyd Salas, a small dark wiry man, said, «It could be a ground-to-air homing missile.»
«There’s a cheerful thought,» Hall said. «Trust Salas to look on the bright side.»
«I don’t think it’s a missile,» J said. He sucked on his pipe, but found it had gone out.
«Should we turn back, sir?» Captain Ralston asked.
«No. That’s what the Thing is hoping we’ll do,» J replied.
«The Thing, sir?» the captain said, raising an eyebrow.
«Is there any way we can get a look at it? Direct visual contact?» J asked.
«Not as long as we stay in this overcast,» Ralston answered, glancing at the cockpit windows where nothing was visible but their own darkened and distorted reflections.
«Take her upstairs then,» J commanded.
Captain Ralston sat down in the pilot’s seat and strapped in. J strapped down in a jump seat directly behind him.
Bob Hall informed the control tower of their plans and got a clearance.
The plane began to climb steeply.
Ralston glanced at the altimeter and said, «We should break through any second.»
They waited.
