L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35

by L. Ron Hubbard

  Belgrum swallowed. “How did Dr. Amos die?”

  Urquhart glanced up. His blade-fingers seemed to tremble, or perhaps it was just the flickering gaslight. “By his own hand. Driven mad by the very thing he had discovered—but not, I think, before he had a chance to conceal it somewhere safe. Would it have been better lost for good? Perhaps. But what has been found once can be found again. This dark equation was the product of his mind, and his alone. I don’t think he could bear the idea of someone else claiming credit for his discovery. Wouldn’t you or I have done the same?”

  No, Belgrum thought. He would not. He had danced long enough along the edges of sanity to recognize those kinds of traps.

  “The good doctor gave copies of his book to many of his patients. I am told one of them contained a handwritten inscription. If I can find it, I may have my clue.” Urquhart sighed. “I have laboured hard to trace all those patients and it has not been easy. Dr. Amos’s mind was clearly tormented in those final weeks of life, the equation eating away at his soul like some kind of blight, but his hands were as skilful as ever and he saw a great many cases. I have searched—and continue to search—but the one I am seeking still eludes me.”

  “For what purpose? What do you ask of his patients?”

  “Ask? I don’t need to ask anything of them.”

  Belgrum’s mind was whirling. Men and women, young and old, no pattern or connection other than as patients of this doctor. It somehow seemed a familiar conundrum. “I don’t see the connection in all this.”

  Urquhart fell silent as though savouring the moment. Then he said, “It has come to my attention one such volume resides in the private collection of a certain well-connected gentleman affiliated to the University. My access to this collection is barred, but an acquaintance of the family might fare better. The gentleman’s name—” But Belgrum was already rising from his seat. “If you mean Isobel’s father, then I won’t do it! I promised never to do anything that might lead her father to … to …” the words seemed to sting the back of his throat. “To think any the less of her.”

  Urquhart pointed a bladed finger at him. “She is an arithmos addict and you, sir, are her peddler. I see no sense in denying the truth and pretending otherwise. If she chooses to keep that knowledge from her father, that is her affair, but your connection to her father is valuable to me. We can all profit from this situation. Find this copy of Dark Equations of the Heart. Borrow it, steal it, I care not—but bring it to me.”

  Belgrum was on his feet, unable to contain his anger. “You ask too much of me!”

  “I’m not asking, Mr. Belgrum. Not asking.” His right hand made a swift swirling motion, too fast for the eye to follow. What was left of the stem was diced into pieces. “Bring me this book and you shall have whatever you ask for. Refuse, and I shall take everything that you have from you. Everything.”

  Isobel was waiting for him, sitting primly on a park bench, a flock of expectant sparrows making darting runs between her legs to peck the breadcrumbs she scattered. A morning mist had lingered into midafternoon, the grey sky low and oppressive in the nearly deserted park.

  “We agreed not to be seen together in public,” she reminded him. “What’s so urgent it’s worth the risk?”

  He took her hand in his. She flinched, and he understood her awkwardness but she didn’t withdraw her hand. Desperation had brought him thus far; now it must carry him further. But he had no plan, not even an inkling of one. He was no burglar—and even if he were, he had no idea where to search. The whole quest that Urquhart had sent him on seemed preposterous. Only the thought of those bladed fingers at his throat drove him on. “May I come to your house?”

  His question left Isobel flustered. “What? No! Father would be sure to ask questions! If he found out who you were, about our association I mean, and what I truly believe in … It’s not that I’m ashamed—but the revelation would crush him.”

  “Please, Isobel. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” He took a deep breath, readying the speech he’d practiced a dozen times in his head. “Isobel, there’s something I need to ask you. It’s very important. There’s a book in your father’s collection which I would very much like to see. A book of poems—”

  Isobel tilted her head back as if only really seeing him for the first time. “Poems? You?”

  He blushed. “It’s called Dark Equations of the Heart. A very rare book. A private edition.”

  “And valuable,” Isobel added. “And also something I treasure greatly.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a slim volume.

  Belgrum was dumbfounded. “You have it? You carry it with you?”

  “Always.”

  “May I?”

  A moment’s hesitation, and then she handed him the little book. He ran a finger over the soft leather covers, opening it long enough to see there was an inscription inside but made no attempt to read the spidery scrawl. Knowing what he must do, he raised his eyes to meet Isobel’s gaze. “I am so sorry,” he said, and before there was time for regrets, he stood and sprinted away across the park, the book clutched tightly in his hand.

  Illustration by Vytautas Vasiliauskas

  Sweet child—fear not the darkness in man’s heart. It is but a place where the light of comprehension has yet to shine. Until the child grows into the adult, we can but hope for contentment in our ignorance.

  —Thaddeus A.

  Dark Equations of the Heart

  The gentleman’s club was shrouded in darkness save for one gas lamp burning low and erratically in the foyer. But the door was open. As he entered, Belgrum moved a hand to his breast pocket where the stolen volume of poetry rested. It weighed as heavy as any burden he could ever recall.

  Beyond the foyer, the members’ chamber seemed larger: a dark, echoing space where the scattered armchairs were deep pools of black, like a herd of slumbering creatures. At the far end of the room, the door was open; a faint glimmer spilled out.

  “Come!” Urquhart commanded, though Belgrum could swear he had entered as stealthily as a mouse.

  “I trust you have not disappointed me?” Urquhart sat behind his panelled desk. He drew a desk lamp closer, the fingers of his left hand quivering as he reached for the book Belgrum had laid before him.

  Belgrum began, “Now that our bargain is done—”

  A raised right hand admonished him, no longer sheathed in its glove. While Urquhart turned the pages, Belgrum’s gaze was drawn again to those multifaceted blades tipping the fingers. He marvelled at how they reflected the light. Satisfied, Urquhart drew one bladed finger downwards—a slight, casual movement—and the title page was cut free. He moved it closer to the light. His eyes scanned the inscription a dozen times or more, rather as a thirsty man would scoop water from a clear pool. At last he looked up and handed the book back to Belgrum. “Take it. Return it to your friend.”

  Belgrum blinked in surprise. “I doubt I’ll ever see Isobel again. I’ve betrayed her trust.”

  “Oh, come now. I have no doubt she is waiting for you in the hop-joint at this very moment.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  Urquhart tilted his head to one side as though musing on some thought. “Arithmos addicts have one thing in common. Need. She will be there.”

  Belgrum sighed. “Now that I’ve done what you asked, will you speak to Pietr? Ask him to release me from my contract?”

  Urquhart smiled. “Pietr will trouble you no more.” He glanced over to a darkened corner of the room, to the chair where Pietr sat—so still and quiet in the shadows that Belgrum hadn’t noticed his presence. Pietr stared back at Belgrum with glassy eyes, mouth open in a kind of perpetual look of surprise. A single channel of arterial blood, dark now as it dried, ran from the deep incision to his neck.

  Belgrum stumbled from the room, blundering into armchairs and side tables in his haste to be gone, as a
ll the while Urquhart’s laughter chased him from the building.

  Belgrum ran through darkened city streets, no destination or purpose in mind. His thoughts raced like great wheels clattering inside his head, and each revolution wore down a little more of his sanity, revealing the knot of madness at its core. Shadows in the quiet alleyways made his heart race. It was hard to push the image of those finger-blades from his mind. How easily—and how deeply—they cut.

  Arithmos was everywhere he turned, pressing in on him from all sides. He saw the city with different eyes: its congruent geometries and bisected planes, the golden ratios in the stone facades and windows of shuttered town houses. From an open window the sound of a flute carried on the night air. It wasn’t the tune he heard but the spacing of the notes, an arithmetic progression in its rhythm that built until the notes fluttered together into a single continuous tone and the pressure in his head made Belgrum want to scream.

  And thus, into the emptiness of his brain, a single thought slipped. He came to a sudden halt. Not the book itself, but its owner. That’s what Urquhart had been looking for all along.

  Oh Isobel! You’re the one who holds the key to this mystery.

  And you are the biggest fool of all, he told himself. Because you’ve just handed that key directly to Urquhart.

  She wasn’t in the usual hop-joint. He shook every one of the dozing clients to be sure, asking if they had seen her, knew where she might have gone—but all he got were curses and threats. Of course she wouldn’t be here. He’d betrayed her trust and stolen her precious book, snatched it from her hands and run like a common thief. Why would she want to see him again?

  But she needed her arithmos. If not here, where would she go?

  He searched for nearly an hour. Eventually he found her in a seedy little den down near the river, dank, rundown and dirty. He saw the flicker of fear in her eyes as he entered the room. Stiffly and deliberately, she turned her back to him. Belgrum bought off the madam with the last of Urquhart’s coins so that they had the cramped little room to themselves.

  “Don’t come closer,” she hissed, backing away into a corner. “I thought I could trust you. I thought you were my friend.”

  He held out his hands placatingly. “It’s not safe here, Isobel. You have to leave the city. Get as far away as you can.”

  Her face flushed with anger. “Don’t dare tell me what to do!”

  He seized her arm and she struggled for a moment, but his grip was firm. “I am your friend,” he told her. “Listen to me—” One deep breath and then the truth spilled out—about his meetings with Urquhart, about the dark equations and their treacherous nature—and last of all, how powerfully obsessed Urquhart had become. “He will stop at nothing, Isobel. He means to rediscover this dark equation himself.”

  Isobel shook herself free of his grasp. “If any of that is true—” she pointed a finger at Belgrum, advanced a step and now it was Belgrum who backed up. “If, then it’s already too late. You stole the book from me. Whatever nonsense code may be hidden inside, Urquhart has it now.”

  Belgrum shook his head. “The book doesn’t hold the answer. It never did. It’s only a kind of marker post. One that points to you. That’s the reason you were given it.”

  Isobel laughed harshly. “You think I’m concealing some great mathematical secret from you?”

  “No.” Belgrum reached out gently to finger the scarf at her neck. Isobel flinched.

  “Let me see those scars you keep so well-hidden,” he said.

  She stared at him, frowning. “What have they to do with anything?”

  “Please. It’s important.”

  Something in his expression must have convinced her. After a moment she fumbled with a couple of buttons and pulled her collar down, turning away as though embarrassed. A tracery of thin scars ran from the top of her sternum, branching and spreading across her chest. “And the name of your surgeon? The one who saved your life?”

  “Is this some kind of parlour game, Reuben?” But then she sighed. “All right, all right. When I fell ill with grey-scourge, Father insisted on finding the best surgeon in the city to cut out the growths. They’d taken such a hold that another week or two’s delay and— Well. Let’s just say it was fortunate Father had both money and influence. There were plenty of others less fortunate.” She looked up defiantly into Belgrum’s eyes, seeing that he still wanted his question answered. “The surgeon’s name was Dr. Amos.”

  Belgrum felt the room tilt a little. “Then it all fits,” he mumbled.

  “Reuben, what are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Amos gave you Dark Equations of the Heart as a keepsake, didn’t he? Just as he entrusted his awful discovery to you.”

  “Reuben, I swear he didn’t! Why would he? My only acquaintance with him was out of medical necessity.”

  Belgrum said grimly, “Oh, but you’re wrong. You are the keeper of the equation. Right here.” He placed a finger lightly between her breasts. She slapped his hand away in irritation.

  “Amos needed a way to preserve his secret,” Belgrum continued. “Writing it down, even in coded form, was too dangerous. What if it fell into inexperienced hands? There are probably no more than a dozen highly trained mathematicians in the University who would not be overwhelmed by it. Enough elegance and beauty to engulf the human soul! Doesn’t it make you feel giddy just thinking about it? But Amos couldn’t bear to let the discovery slip away.”

  “That’s ridiculous! How could he have given me something like that without my knowing? Wait—do you think my scars are some kind of clue? An equation in coded form?”

  “No. Too obvious. I think the truth is written on your beating heart. Literally. When you were under his knife, all it would have taken was a hot needle and his dexterity. Tiny little scars etched into the quivering outer layers of heart-muscle: quick-healing, permanent marks you would have known nothing about. He meant you to carry his secret until your death—inaccessible, yet somehow not lost. Only then could he rest easy.”

  “No—”

  “His dedication to you in the book as good as says so, doesn’t it? He thought to put the equation beyond reach, but he hadn’t reckoned with Urquhart’s obsession. Don’t you see? Urquhart has tracked down each patient, butchering them one by one to discover if they carried the dark equation. And so far, none has. All those brutal murders these past months, the so-called ‘Fishmonger’ gutting and filleting his victims. Yet there was no obvious motive, seemingly no pattern to the choice of victim. Except for one thing.”

  Isobel’s eyes were wide. Almost without thinking, she had backed farther into the room. Belgrum pressed on relentlessly. “I’ll wager every single victim was a former patient of Dr. Amos. It’s as though the killer is looking for something, isn’t it? And when he doesn’t find it, he moves on, hunting down individuals one by one. Always searching, never finding.”

  “Until now,” she said. “My god! Where is Urquhart? It is him, isn’t it?”

  “I’m so sorry, Isobel. I think I’ve led him directly to you.”

  “Then what should I do?” she said in a whisper. Her face had become deathly pale.

  “Do you trust me?” She nodded weakly.

  “Then please. Undress, and do exactly as I say.”

  Belgrum crouched by the door to the street, listening to the sounds outside, trying to judge if it was safe for them to leave. All was quiet save for the distant rumble of a laden cart heading for the quay side and two tomcats engaged in a loud disagreement over territory in the alley beyond. He knew they must leave straightaway, but the night was a cold one and filled with too many shadows.

  Without warning, the door slammed inwards, sending him crashing to the floor. Urquhart stood in the doorway. “Excellent!” he said, focusing on Isobel.

  Isobel’s face turned deathly white, but she stood her ground. Urquhart pointed at Belgr
um, a steel blade gleaming at the end of his forefinger. “Stay where you are! Leave me to my work.”

  But Belgrum had no intention of doing that. He struggled to his feet, meaning to put himself between Isobel and Urquhart—but his opponent was quicker. Urquhart rushed into the room, delivering a jab to the throat so hard and vicious that Belgrum wondered if his windpipe had been crushed. He couldn’t breathe; his vision was blurring. If he’d struck me with his right hand, those scalpel fingernails would have ripped my neck apart. But that was little consolation. He felt as though he would never be able to draw air into his protesting lungs again.

  Urquhart advanced, pressing Isobel into the corner, pinning her arms. She struggled, kicking out wildly, hissing like some alley cat.

  Belgrum’s vision was narrowing. The struggling Isobel appeared to be at the end of a dark tunnel, receding by the second. Dimly he saw Urquhart’s hand slash downwards, heard the sound of fabric tearing, and Isobel’s screams. It’s too late, he thought. This is all my fault and I could do nothing to stop it.

  Belgrum was on his knees. Still no breath would come. Where his lungs used to be, there was only a cold, empty place. Perhaps he should let the numbness envelop him and just embrace the darkness.

  Isobel struggled in Urquhart’s grip. He touched the scar on her neck almost reverentially, beginning to trace its curving lines down her body. “Yes,” he whispered. “I think you truly are the one.”

  In a savage motion, he ripped the tattered remains of the dress from her shoulders. Isobel grew silent and ceased her struggling. Now it was Urquhart’s turn to become still.

  “What is this? What trickery?”

  Her bared skin was covered in neat script, the ink barely dry from Belgrum’s hasty work. Equations and symbols marched down her body: eight or more lines in a rambling proof of the impossible.

  Still on his knees, Belgrum took a sudden, convulsive breath and it felt as though life itself flooded back into his body.