A Scatter of Stardust

by E. C. Tubb

  He mixed himself a drink, swallowed it, helped himself to another. Gloria touched his arm.

  “Don’t let it get you, Mark.”

  “I won’t.” He jerked his head toward the group. “Where did you find him? I didn’t think that you went in for weirdies, Gloria.”

  “Sandra brought him.” She took his just emptied glass, refilled it, handed it back. “It’s nothing serious, Mark, you know how she is.”

  “I know.” He gulped half the drink. “Nothing normal is good enough for her. She’s got to feel important, the top of the heap, and so she collects a gang of freaks and poseurs.” He drained the glass. “Can’t she realize that they’re just using her?”

  “She’ll learn, Mark.”

  “Will she?”

  He was bitter, angry, irritable and, he knew, a little jealous. Damn Lefarge for what he was and what he pretended to be. Theatrical makeup and a smooth line of glib, ambiguous conversation, and he had power over all neurotics who found life too tough and hoped to find an easy way to what they wanted. And he used them, taking them for the fools they were.

  “Don’t blame Sandra.” Gloria was concerned. Mark handed her his empty glass.

  “I don’t blame her. It’s just that I’m in love with her.”

  “Then why don’t you do something about it?”

  “Like what? I’ve asked her to marry me. She says to wait. Should I kidnap her? Hypnotize her? Drug her? Damn it, Gloria, I want her more than anything I know, but what’s the good of my wanting her if she doesn’t want me?”

  “You’re the psychologist, Mark. You tell me.” She poured him a drink; it was almost pure gin. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “no woman likes to think that she’s been made a fool of.”

  “So?”

  “So you just telling her that she’s a fool won’t do any good at all. The more she thinks of you the less she’ll want to admit that she’s been wrong.”

  “Elementary psychology,” he sneered, then immediately was sorry. “Forgive me,” he apologized. “You’re right, of course, but what can I do? Join up with that gang of self-deluders? Begin to practice black magic? Make myself over to look like the devil? Hell, Gloria, I can’t do it!”

  “No,” agreed Gloria. “I suppose not.” She glanced to where the group sat, heads close, almost whispering their conversation. Bill was out in the kitchen, probably making coffee. Mark finished his drink. Gloria poured him another. “Lefarge seems to know you,” she said. “Does he?”

  “No.”

  “But — ”

  “It’s just a gimmick,” he said savagely. “A trick. Claim that you remember something the other man doesn’t and you have him at a disadvantage. Either he thinks you’re lying or he doubts his own memory. If there is no point in you lying, then he’ll just doubt his memory.”

  “And Lefarge?”

  “He’s lying. I’ve never seen him before in my life.” He stared at Gloria. “You think that he isn’t?”

  “I don’t know.” She bit her lower lip. “It’s just that before you arrived he announced your arrival and described you exactly. How could he have done that if he’d never seen you?”

  “Sharp ears. You’ve a lift at the end of the passage. He could have heard it stop and made a guess. He knew that I was expected.”

  “But he described you. How could he have done that?”

  “He knows Sandra, doesn’t he?” Mark found himself trembling with rage. “She has a photograph of me, beside her bed.”

  “Mark!”

  “Forget it!” He swallowed his drink. He felt a little giddy. He hadn’t eaten and had been working under stress; the alcohol was taking quick effect.

  *

  Back in the group he found the conversation to be what he expected. He wasn’t surprised. With a man like Lefarge it was the obvious topic. Magic, witchcraft, the uttering of spells and the ritual surrounding the whole, stupid business.

  “We were talking of the meaning of truth,” said Lefarge as Mark re-joined the group. “If we stipulate that truth is the opinion held by the majority, then magic is very real. There are even laws against it. Would there be laws against something which does not exist?”

  “Possible,” said Mark. “The Law’s an ass, remember?”

  “Since the dawn of history people have believed in magic,” pointed out Taylor. “How long have they believed in the other sciences?”

  “For a long time people believed that the sun went around the Earth. There must have been a hell of a lot of shifting around in space these past few years.”

  “You deride the true science,” said Lorna. The medium closed her eyes as if wanting no part of the conversation.

  “I deride only things worthy of derision.” Mark felt his anger mounting. It was more than a personal anger; fools like this did more harm than they knew. “Now, I suppose, you are going to say that witchcraft is also a thing to respect?”

  Lefarge raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, I know all about the sympathetic magic used to back witchcraft,” snapped Mark. “Natives in Africa being hexed to death, stuff like that. All right, I’ll grant you that it can happen and does. I’ll admit that in cultures which believe in that power that power seems to exist. But not in our culture. Never that.”

  “They burned witches in Lancaster,” reminded Sandra.

  “They burned dogs and hens, too. Were they witches? Fear caused that. Fear and revulsion. Witches!” Mark’s laugh was ugly. “Filthy old women with their ridiculous ceremonies and their disgusting ingredients for their so-called charms. All the hogwash of secret societies: the covens, the adepts, the initiates, all the rest of it. And all the time each has to cover up for the other. Do you get chemists talking of their work in guarded whispers and ambiguous phrases. No. They come out with facts and can prove what they claim. Do witches? Ask and you get a lot of veiled nonsense, a jumble of double-talk and gobbledygook.”

  “Would you give a child a pistol to play with? Would you teach them how to make nitro-glycerine?” Lefarge smiled as he posed the question. He was in full control of himself, the anger Mark had hoped to arouse had recoiled so that he was the one in a temper, not the other man.

  “I expected that,” he said bitterly. “Why don’t you bring out the one about the powers of darkness? Or the dangers of the inexperienced toying with forces they do not understand?”

  “Please, Mark!” Sandra was angry. “That has already been explained. You are only making yourself look foolish.”

  “I am?” He glanced at her, hating the way she looked at Lefarge. He looked at the others and hated them all. Anger burned within him like a flame. “We were talking of witchcraft,” he said deliberately. “And that leads us to spells. Do you believe in the power of a spell?”

  “Naturally,” said Lefarge calmly. “As much as you believe in the healing power of a medical prescription.”

  “You always have an answer, don’t you?” Mark tried not to let his anger dull his intellect. It wasn’t easy. Between himself and Lefarge seemed to exist one of those immediate antagonisms so that, no matter what the man did or said, to Mark it was suspect.

  “Yes,” said Lefarge. He was smiling. “I always have an answer — as you should well know.”

  “Why should I? We are strangers”

  “Not strangers.” The too white, too sharp teeth shone from between the thin lips. “Certainly not strangers.” He leaned forward, his eyes searching Mark’s face. “Tell me, do you still not remember?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Mark blinked, conscious of the effect of too much alcohol taken too quickly, the power of suggestion and the impact of the dark eyes. He shook his head. Lefarge was only a man who tried to make himself impressive by his superficial appearance. The others were what they would always be, dupes for a stronger personality. He looked at the girl beside him. Sandra was so warm, so lovely, so entranced by the posturing fool with his theatrical airs.

/>   And he thought of a way to end that infatuation.

  “You believe in the power of a spell,” he said abruptly to Lefarge. “That and the rest of the nonsense you talk about Very well, I offer you a challenge.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Put your hex on me. When it fails admit yourself for the charlatan you are.”

  “Take it easy, Mark.” Gloria stood behind him. “Let’s not get personal about this.”

  “I’m sorry.” Mark remembered that he was a guest and that Lefarge was another. The common rules of politeness dictated that he restrain his emotions. “But I just want this character to understand.”

  “You leave no doubt as to that.” Lefarge glanced at Sandra; was there triumph in his eyes? “Are you quite certain you know what you propose?”

  “Quite certain. Put up or shut up. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Quite clear.” Lefarge was smiling, and Mark wanted to punch him in the mouth.

  Then Bill came in with the coffee and the tension was over.

  *

  Mark woke with a headache and a vague sense that something was wrong. He groaned and sat upright, fumbling for his cigarettes, inhaling the acrid smoke and sitting with his head between his hands as he waited for the pain to die.

  It didn’t die. If anything it grew worse until he felt like beating his head against the wall to ease the savage throbbing. He crawled out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, filled the washbowl with cold water and plunged in his head. It helped but not enough. He straightened, water running from head to torso, soaking into his pajama jacket. He stripped off the garment, found aspirin, swallowed a dozen tablets. Blearily he looked at himself in a mirror.

  Mark Conway, thirty-five years old, practicing psychologist and disbeliever in all forms of magic stared back at him.

  And something looked over his shoulder.

  He turned so fast that he almost fell, the pain in his head flaring to a pitch so intense that he clutched at the bowl for support. There was nothing behind him. He turned slowly, staring at every inch of the bathroom. Nothing but what he expected to see. He looked into the mirror again and fought the impression that, as he looked, something ducked down behind him.

  Carefully he began to wash and shave.

  The party last night, he remembered that. He remembered other things, too: Lefarge, Sandra’s infatuation for the man, his own, ridiculous challenge. He paused, the toothbrush half raised, thinking about it. Idly he wondered what Lefarge would do. Go through the motions, he supposed; after all, what had he to lose? Perhaps he had already started. Well, if he had, so what?

  So nothing, except that the impression that he was not alone grew stronger. Twice while dressing he imagined that he saw something in the wardrobe mirror. Three times he spun in a sudden, complete circle, eyes searching for what was not there. On the way to the office he had to make a conscious effort to stop looking over his shoulder. Myra, his receptionist, looked at him strangely as he entered the office.

  “Good morning, Mr. Conway.” She looked at a point just above and beyond his right shoulder, blinked, refocused her eyes.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “Why no, Mr. Conway. Why do you ask?”

  “You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.” He picked up his opened mail, riffled it. “Did you?”

  “Did I what, Mr. Conway?”

  “Did you see anything when I came in? Anything unusual.”

  “Of course not. Nothing at all.”

  He dropped his mail. It was the usual collection of bills, circulars and pathetic letters from people who wanted help but who only wanted it on their terms. He glanced at his watch; the first appointment was about due.

  “Anything wrong, Mr. Conway?”

  He looked at Myra. “Why do you ask that?”

  “No real reason.” Her eyes strayed to a point over his right shoulder. “It’s just that you look a little under the weather.”

  “Hangover.” He rubbed his right eye. Something blurred the comer, as if he were trying to see something just beyond range of his vision. He resisted the impulse to turn. “That and a touch of liver, probably. Forget it.”

  He went into the inner office.

  *

  Mark loved his work. He enjoyed the responsibility, the sense of achievement, the fact that each new case was a challenge to his knowledge and skill. With his hands, his voice, with hypnotism and suggestion, with gentleness and understanding, with drugs, when he had to use them, administered by old Doctor Chandler down the hall, he fought to mend broken minds, restore shattered confidence, to tear down the walls of illusion and fantasy behind which so many of his patients hid themselves from reality.

  His clientele was varied. He had his share of wealthy neurotics who imagined that it was smart to waste their time and him on endless analysis. He suffered them because they paid the bills and because they genuinely imagined they needed help. He gave them the psychological equivalent of the placebos Chandler prescribed for his own hypochondriacs.

  But it was the other cases which made his work worthwhile. The housewife who was on the verge of using the oven for purposes other than cooking. The man who was afraid of his family. The child who wet the bed. The impotent male. The frigid female. The temporary amnesiac. The paranoiac. The manic-depressive. The man who was afraid of voices.

  He sat and looked at Mark with scared, wild eyes. He was sullen, weary, defiant in a semi-shameful way. He expected to be laughed at.

  “They made me come,” he said dully. ‘They’ were the magistrate and probation officer of the court to which he’d been taken after screaming abuse in a church. “They said I was to see you.”

  “I understand.” Mark resisted the impulse to turn his head. The blur at the edge of his sight was growing annoying. “Now, how about telling me all about it?”

  It was the old, familiar story. The voices echoing in the ears. The dreams. The mounting sense of fear because of what was happening. The final, desperate appeal to perform the rite of exorcism. The anger and abuse when the priest had refused. Mark had heard it all, in one form or another, many times before.

  “Do you believe that I can help you?”

  “They said you could.” The man was sullen.

  “Do you believe that I can?” Mark radiated friendliness. Unless this poor devil believed in the power of the psychologist then they would be both wasting their time.

  “You’re not a priest,” said the man suddenly. “How can you do anything?”

  “I can exorcise your trouble.”

  “But if you’re not a priest how — ?”

  “They sent you to me,” reminded Mark gently. “Would they have done that if I couldn’t help you?”

  The man reluctantly agreed. The power of Authority had been leveled against him; he had no further defense. A more intelligent man would have argued, hut then, a more intelligent man would have realized that the voices were only the product of his own brain, the “spirits” things of his own imagination.

  It would take a long time and tremendous patience to convince him of that.

  Sandra phoned late in the afternoon. “Mark! Are you all right?”

  “Of course I am.” He relaxed at the sound of her voice. “Darling, will you marry me?”

  “Please, Mark, I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “I’m worried about you.” She did not, he noted, pursue the subject. “Did you have a good night?”

  “I had a hell of a night.” After leaving the party he had consoled himself with a bottle. He heard the catch of her breath and explained himself.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing. No bogeymen, no demons, no visitations. Did you expect anything different?”

  “Are you sure, Mark?” Her voice was strained. “Are you sure that there isn’t something you haven’t told me?”

  “Positive.” He jerked his head in reflex action, the blur at the edge of his sight more pronounced than ever. “Looks as if Lefarge
’s hex, whatever it is, is a washout. Maybe he didn’t use fresh baby fat or couldn’t get any genuine virgin’s blood.”

  “Please, Mark, don’t talk like that.”

  “Why not?” He caught himself about to look over his shoulder. “What have I got to be respectful about? Lefarge’s hocus-pocus doesn’t impress me one little bit. Personally I think the man is a fool.”

  “He could be dangerous, Mark.”

  “Says who?” He was jealous and he knew it. He forced himself to be calm. “Listen, darling, his theatricals may impress some people, but I can see right through them. Results are what count. So far I haven’t seen any and I won’t see any. You can tell your tame wizard that he’s wasting his time.”

  For a moment he thought that he had gone too far and cursed himself for being a fool. Surely he knew enough of the workings of the human mind to avoid causing anger and irritation? Sandra was a mistaken idiot, but that was only a part of her facade. What inner weakness, he wondered, caused her to chase after such a phoney as Lefarge? What did he have, what could he give, that Mark himself lacked?

  “Mark.” He was surprised at the seriousness of her voice. “I want you to apologize to Doctor Lefarge.”

  “You what?”

  “I want you to apologize to him. Please, Mark, do it for me.”

  “You must be insane!” His anger grew as he thought about it. “You must know that I could never do a thing like that.”

  “For me, Mark! Do it for me!”

  “So that I can be proved wrong?” He felt sick as he realized the implications of what she was asking. “Does he mean so much to you? Would you have me crawl to beg his forgiveness? Damn it, Sandra, are you in love with him?”

  The silence grew, lengthened, so that he began to think she had left the phone. Then; “I’m afraid for you, Mark. So afraid.”

  “Answer my question. Are you in love with him?”

  “Take care, darling,” she whispered. “Please take care.”

  Then there was the click and hum of the broken connection. Slowly he replaced the handset. Sandra! In love with that fool!