INTERVENTION

by May, Julian; Dikty, Ted

  The displaced Muslims were notably reluctant to put themselves at the mercy of the fanatical Shiite regime in Iran. Most of them were Sunnis, of a more moderate religious persuasion than the Iranians, and they were appalled that the Ayatollah had proclaimed Armageddon to be justified under shari'ah, the traditional Islamic law. Furthermore, the refugees suspected (quite rightly) that they would be required to show loyalty to their new country by fighting in the long-standing war between Iran and Iraq. A few hundred fiery young men accepted the Ayatollah's invitation. The rest of the 1.5 million men, women, and children remained encamped in squalid "receiving centers" in Arabia and the Sinai, subsisting on charity, until China announced its remarkable proposal. When this was approved, the great airlift began early in September. By the end of the year the last of the displaced families were resettled in remote "Lands of Promise" in Xinjiang. Red Crescent and Red Cross inspectors reported that the refugees were made welcome by their coreligionists, the Uigurs, Kirghiz, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, and Kazakhs, who had lived in that part of China from time immemorial; they worked on collective farms in the oases and the irrigated deserts and adapted well—until Central Asia blew up in the course of the Soviet Civil War, and only the Intervention saved the Xinjiang population from becoming cannon fodder in the projected Chinese invasion of Kazakhstan.

  The Intervention also restored Jerusalem to the human race as a city of pilgrimage. Milieu science decontaminated the Holy Land and thousands of the original inhabitants elected to return. However, since the Milieu statutes forbade any form of theocratic government, neither Israel nor Jordan were ever reborn. Palestine became the first territory governed solely by the Human Polity of the Milieu (successor to the United Nations) under mandate of the Simbiari Proctorship and the Galactic Concilium.

  ***

  The rain was torrential on 21 September 1992, the last Monday of the summer, which turned out to be a very memorable day at my bookshop.

  The excitement began when I unpacked a box of paperbacks I had purchased as part of a job lot at an estate sale in Woodstock the previous weekend. The spines visible at the top showed mostly science-fiction and mystery titles dating from the 1950s, and I'd bought three boxes for thirty dollars. I figured I would at least recoup my investment, since I had already spotted a moderately rare collectible, The Green Girl by Jack Williamson. As I sorted through the rest of that box I also uncovered a halfway decent first edition of The Chinese Parrot, a Charlie Chan mystery that I knew would fetch at least fifteen from a Dartmouth physics professor of the same name. I began to whistle cheerily, even though the storm was lashing the streets and the wind roared like a typhoon. There probably wouldn't be a customer all day—but who cared? I could catch up on my sorting.

  Then I reached the very bottom of the box. I saw a soiled manila envelope marked SAVE THIS! ! ! in a pencil scrawl. There was a small book inside. I pried the corroded clasp open, let the envelope's contents slither out onto my worktable, and gasped. There lay Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 4SI, from the limited Ballentine 1953 edition of two hundred copies, signed by the author. The white asbestos binding was spotless.

  With the utmost care, I edged the precious volume onto a sheet of clean wrapping paper and carried it to my office at the rear of the shop. Setting the treasure reverently aside, I sat down at my computer and summoned the current paperback collectors' price guide, my fingers shaking as I tapped the keys. The screen showed the going rate for my rarity. Even in VG condition, it would sell for no less than six thousand dollars. And my copy was mint.

  I chortled and hit the keys again for the Worldwide PB Want List, and a moment later began to scrutinize the small group of well-heeled bibliophiles who presently coveted my nonincendiary little gem: a Texas fantasy foundation; a doctor in Bel Air; a Bradbury completist in Waukegan, Illinois; the Countess of Arundel, a keen collector of dystopias; the Library of the University of Taiwan; and (hottest prospect of all) a certain wealthy horror writer in Bangor, Maine, who had just recently begun to snap up rare Bradburiana. Did I dare to start the bidding at ten thou? Would it be worthwhile to invite the Maine Monstermeister to inspect the book, so that I could try reading his mind to see what the traffic might bear? And to think I'd acquired the thing for a piddling thirty dollars!

  And you should be ashamed of yourself.

  I looked up with a start. Coming toward me from the front of my shop was Lucille Cartier, followed by another woman. I erected my mental barrier with haste, stepped outside the office and closed the door, and gave the pair a professional smile.

  "Well, hello, Lucille. It's been quite some time."

  "Five months." You'd really take advantage of a poor unsuspecting widow who didn't realize how valuable that book was?

  Don't be ridiculous. The rule is caveat vendor, and I'm as ethical as any other book dealer. "Have you been keeping busy with that new Ph.D. of yours?"

  "Fairly busy." But not nearly as busy as you espèce de canardier!

  "Is there some way I can help you?" And what's that crack supposed to mean?

  For starters you can BUTT OUT of my relationship with Bill Sampson! "I'd like to have you meet my coworker, Dr. Ume Kimura. She's a visiting fellow at Dartmouth from the University of Tokyo, here under the auspices of the Japanese Society for Parapsychology."

  "Enchanté, Dr. Kimura." I abruptly terminated my telepathic colloquy with Lucille, which was straying close to dangerous waters. It was very easy for me to concentrate all my attention on the Oriental newcomer, who really was enchanting. She was older than Lucille, and exquisitely soignée, with a complexion like translucent porcelain and delicately tinted lips. A black wool beret dotted with raindrops was pulled down at a saucy angle above her exceptionally large eyes, which had black feathery lashes and little of the epicanthic fold. She wore a trenchcoat of silvery leather with a wide belt that emphasized her tiny waist, and a high-necked black sweater. Her mind was densely screened in a manner that gave a new dimension to inscrutability.

  Lucille said briskly, "Ume and I are colleagues in a new project that will investigate the psychoenergetic manifestations of creativity—"

  "Working with Denis?" I cut in, raising my eyebrows in exaggerated surprise.

  "Of course working with Denis," Lucille snapped. "We've been associated with the Metapsychic Lab since the beginning of the summer term."

  "I haven't seen him much lately," I said. "He seems to be spending most of his time in Washington since Alma-Ata. Were you and Dr. Kimura able to attend the big congress?"

  "Oh, yes!" exclaimed the delectable Ume, her eyes sparkling and her mind all aglow with a spill of happy reminiscence. "It was a most profound experience—more than three thousand metapsychic researchers, and over a third of them operant in greater or lesser degree! So many interesting papers and discussions! So much warmth and rapport!"

  "So much talking and cautious telepathic chitchat," Lucille said. "So much political pussyfooting."

  "It was a good beginning," Ume insisted. "Next year, in Palo Alto, the Metapsychic Congress will meet for the second time with a much expanded agenda—especially in the matter of education, the training of new operants. That must be our most urgent goal."

  I frowned, remembering the media furor that had greeted the final resolution at Alma-Ata, proposed by Denis and seconded by Tamara and passed by a large majority of the Congress. Both Lucille and Ume picked up on my skepticism.

  "Denis was absolutely right to push through the resolution calling for metapsychic testing of all people," Lucille said. "I can't understand the objections! We have very reliable mental assay techniques now. You'd think that after Armageddon, the necessity of finding and training all potential operants would be obvious."

  "A pity," I said, "that Denis's resolution didn't specify voluntary testing."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," Lucille said. "We have to test everyone. That stands to reason."

  I shrugged. "For an intelligent woman, you're really very naive."

  Ume looked at me w
ith perplexity. "You really believe that this will be a problem in the United States, Mr. Remillard? Such a universal testing program is quite acceptable in Japan, I assure you."

  "It'll be a problem," I said. "A big one. I'd be glad to explain the ins and outs of the independent Yankee psyche to you over lunch, Dr. Kimura. " My mind was still well guarded, but Ume's mental veil thinned then for just an instant, giving me an unexpected glimpse of something very encouraging indeed.

  Her lashes lowered demurely. "That would be delightful. Lucille and I thank you very much."

  So much for my tête-à-tête hopes! I gritted my teeth in frustration—and then had to jack up the strength of my mental shield against the renewed and insidious coercion of Lucille, who was now grinning heartlessly at my discomfiture.

  She said, "You're so closely attuned to the social and political implications of operancy, aren't you, Roger? I can't wait to hear your opinions on the subject. But before we go to lunch, let me tell you why we came here today. I mentioned that Ume and I have a creativity project. We're studying persons who seem to be able to exert a metapsychic influence on energy—or even generate energy mentally. Denis said that you apparently experienced such a psychocreative manifestation right after the Edinburgh Demonstration. As I understand it, you inadvertently conjured up some form of radiant energy and melted a small hole in a window."

  "A Kundalini zap," I said.

  "Denis recommended very strongly that we check with you on your experience. I was told that it took place when you were under unusual conditions of stress." All the time she was speaking, the damn girl was skittering slyly all over my mind, giving little prods with some incisive faculty quite different from coercion. I found out later it was an aspect of the redactive function, a primitive mind-ream. As she crept and poked, her telepathy hectored me on my intimate mode: What have you been saying to Bill? WHAT you sneaky undermining ratfink sale mouchard? What did you tell him cafardeur?

  I said, "I was shit-scared when I zapped the window, if you call that stress."

  Ume giggled.

  Lucille said: Tu vieux saolard! Ingrat! Calomniateur! Allez—déballe! Foutu alcoolique!

  I said: Nice to know you haven't completely abandoned your French heritage kiddo but I'm not really an alcoholic you know only an alcohol abuser as an experimental psychologist you should watch those fine distinctions!

  The insults flew like bats out of hell, but her outward cool never wavered. She said, "Roger, we'd like you to participate in a series of simple experiments. An hour a day over the next eight weeks would provide us with ample data to begin with. Now that you've concluded your therapy with Dr. Sampson, we can hope that your creative potential has been somewhat restored. The energy-projecting faculty is extremely rare. You'd be advancing our understanding of psychocreativity greatly by working with us." WHAT HAVE YOU TOLD BILL ABOUT ME?

  "I'll think it over." Nothing he didn't already suspect.

  Suspect? Suspect!

  She was still on the intimate mode, smiling on the outside and raging on the inside, with enough antagonism slopping over now into the general telepathic spectrum for Ume to catch. The Japanese woman blinked in astonishment.

  Lucille said suddenly, "And if you don't mind, we'd also like to take your zapped windowpane for analysis."

  I have to hand it to her: She almost got me. I let out a guffaw at the incongruity of the request ... and at that instant she shot a sharply honed and extremely powerful version of the coercive-redactive thrust right between my eyes. It was a zinger worthy of Denis himself (and I discovered later that he'd taught her the technique), and it rolled me back on my heels. If I hadn't been expecting her to try something, that probe might have turned my mind inside out like a shucked sock. But Lucille hadn't really had a close view of my mental machinery in more than a year, not since the time she'd played Good Sam after the 60 Minutes taping. If I'd cracked, she'd have gotten the whole story—Ghost and all. But I didn't crack.

  I said, "You see? I am feeling much better. Old Sampson's a topnotch shrink. I never really thanked you properly for introducing me to him, Lucille. I owe you. You want my zapped windowpane? You got it! But I think you'd better find another experimental subject for your creativity project—for both our sakes, and maybe for Sampson's, too."

  "That wouldn't help. It's too late!" And then she burst into tears, and turned around and rushed out of the bookshop, slamming the door so violently that the little bell came off its bracket and fell to the floor.

  "Bon dieu de merde," I said.

  Ume and I looked at each other. How much did she know?

  "I know more than I should, perhaps," she whispered, her huge dark eyes sad. "Lucille is my very dear friend, and she has told me that her relationship with Dr. Bill Sampson is faltering badly. She believes that you are somehow responsible. Are you, Mr. Remillard?"

  What Lucille's coercion had failed at, Ume's empathy accomplished. "Yes," I admitted wretchedly.

  "Why?" Ume was calm.

  "I won't explain my motives to you, Dr. Kimura. It was for Lucille's own good. Sampson's, too."

  "They are wrong for each other," she said, averting her gaze. "It was very obvious to all of us. Nevertheless, we did not feel we had the right to meddle in the lives of the two lovers. Lucille knew of the general disapproval of the operant group. It seemed only to strengthen her feeling toward Bill."

  "I know." I went up the middle aisle to the front of the shop, bent and picked up the fallen door-chime, and hung it back in place. The rain was letting up a bit.

  "You felt that you did have the right to interfere?" Ume asked.

  I turned. "What I did was necessary. Lucille's badly hurt and I'm sorry. But I did have the right to interfere."

  "Tell me only one thing. In your swaying of Bill's feelings—did you lie about Lucille?"

  "No." I dropped my barriers just for an instant so she could see that I had told the truth.

  Slowly, Ume nodded. "Now I understand why she put off so long approaching you about our project, even though Denis was very anxious for us to include you in it. Today she suddenly insisted that we come here. She has been upset about Bill for more than a week. He seems to have ... spoken to her just after our return from Alma-Ata."

  It figured. News about the extraordinary discussions there opened a lot of people's eyes to the seamier potentialities at large in the metapsychic wonderland. There was the hitherto underreported coercive function, for one thing, and the ominous implications of the mental testing program. I'd been doing my own special number on Sampson over a period of some eight months, and the success of my subversion had been signaled when he finally punched me in the nose. Fortunately, it happened outside of office hours. When I broke off my counseling sessions in mid-July Sampson had been fully primed to doubt and fear his operant young fiancée. Alma-Ata had sparked the blowup, and now it looked like my Ghostly mission was nearly accomplished. Shit...

  Ume put a gloved hand on the sleeve of my old tweed jacket. "Please. There is still the project. You will not wish to work with Lucille, but would you consider working with me? The creativity studies are most important. I myself have manifested a modest projection of actinic radiation, as have certain others working in the Soviet Union. But no one has ever channeled psychoenergies in a coherent beam of great strength, as you seem to have done. Let me show you the theoretical correlation between physical and psychic energies presently being postulated by workers at Cambridge and at MIT." Would you open your mind a bit please? Thank you—

  Voilà! The limpid thought-construct flashed to me inside of a split second. It was abstract as all hell and fiendishly complex—but I understood! Her transmission was to ordinary telepathic speech as a Turbo Nissan XX3TT ground-car is to a bicycle. Not that I would be able to explain the concept verbally to anyone else; but I would be able to remember it and project its symbolic content.

  "I'll be damned," I said appreciatively. "Is that one of your new educative techniques? The ones you use in
operant training?"

  "Oh, yes. It is called bilateral transfer. One coordinates the output of the brain hemispheres. I would be happy to teach you this and any of the other preceptive techniques that interested you, if you would only agree to the experiments."

  "I'm tempted." Oh, was I. And working with her in the lab wasn't even the half of it...

  The winsome academic turned up her charm rheostat. I was aware that it was merely another aspect of coercion, her will acting to master mine, but what a difference from Lucille's effort! Ume said, "We would respect your desire for noninvolvement with the operant community, Mr. Remillard. There would be no pressure."

  "Call me Roger."

  "And Lucille will present no problem for you. I shall have a discreet word with Denis. He can assign her to other creativity studies."

  "All right, Dr. Kimura, under those conditions, I agree."

  "Please call me Ume." Her expression was very earnest. "I think we will be able to work together very compatibly, Roger. And now, shall we talk about things further while we share a nice Dutch lunch?"

  ***

  "I hope I won't disappoint you," I whispered. "Once I was rather good at this, but it's been a very long time."

  "I can sense the latent power. It only needs to be reawakened. Sadness and repressed violence have clogged the flow of ambrosial energies."

  "Violence? Ume, I'm the most harmless guy in the world."

  "No, you are not. Your great reservoir of psychocreativity remains sealed up within you, and this puts you in peril, for if these energies are not used in creation, inevitably they destroy. The font of creativity lies within all human souls,• in women, it is very often never channeled to the conscious level, but rather fruits instinctively in childbearing and maternal nurture. A very few men are also creative nurturers. But most—and certain women—must guide their creativity deliberately into the exterior reality by intellectual action. They must build—work. Unchanneled creativity is very dangerous and readily turns to destructiveness. The creation process is painful. One may be strongly tempted to evade it, since its joy is largely postponed until the creation is complete—and then the satisfaction is intense and lasting. Destruction brings pleasure, too, dark and addictive and nonintellectual. For the destroyer, however, process is all; he must continue, lest darkness catch up with him and he come at the end to the hell he has deliberately prepared for himself."