Nopalgarth

by Jack Vance

  Burke heaved a weary sigh, but made no move to follow.

  He checked the plans, drawn by Pttdu Apiptix in the Xaxan’s crabbed rendition of English symbols, returned to work. Time was running short. Overhead at all times drifted two, sometimes three or even four nopal, waiting for whatever mysterious signal they needed before settling upon Burke’s neck.

  Margaret presently appeared in the doorway where she stood watching Burke. After a moment she crossed the floor of the workshop, took up Burke’s coffee-pot, looked into it, wrinkled her nose. Taking the pot into one of the lavatories, she cleaned it, filled it with water and made fresh coffee.

  Ralph Tarbert had now appeared; the three drank coffee together. Margaret derived reassurance from Tarbert’s presence and tried to pry information from him. “Ralph, what is a denopalizer? Paul won’t tell me.”

  Tarbert laughed uncomfortably. “A denopalizer? A machine used to denopalize—whatever that is.”

  “Then you don’t know either.”

  “No. Paul is very secretive.”

  “Not for long,” said Burke. “Two more days, all will be made clear. Then the fun begins.”

  Tarbert inspected the rack, the shelves of circuitry behind, the power lead-ins. “At a guess, it’s a piece of communication equipment—but whether for transmitting or receiving, I don’t know.”

  “It frightens me,” said Margaret. “Everytime I look at it something inside me squirms. I hear noises and see weird lights. Things like cans full of fishing-worms.”

  “I have the same sensations,” said Tarbert. “Odd that a piece of machinery could affect a person like that.”

  “Not so very odd,” said Burke.

  Margaret glanced at him sidewise with a curled lip. Detestation all but threatened to swamp her self-control. “You sound absolutely sinister.”

  Burke shrugged, in a manner Margaret thought callous and brutal. “I don’t intend to.” He looked up to the nopal floating above him, something like an enormous Portuguese Man-o’-war. This particular specimen dogged him day and night, eyes staring, spines fluffing and working in a ceaseless hungry quiver. “I’ve got to get back to work. There’s not much time.”

  Tarbert put down his empty cup. Watching his expression, Margaret realized that he, too, was beginning to find Burke intolerable. What had happened to the old Paul Burke, the pleasant relaxed man with the easy good-nature? Margaret wondered about brain-tumors: weren’t they sometimes responsible for sudden changes in personality? She felt a rush of shame: the old Paul Burke was as he always had been; he deserved pity and understanding.

  Tarbert said, “I won’t come tomorrow; I’ll be busy all day.”

  Burke nodded. “Perfectly all right. But Tuesday I’ll be ready, and I’ll need you. You’ll be on hand?”

  Margaret once again could hardly control her revulsion. Burke seemed so feral, so insane! Yes, insane! She certainly should take steps to have him examined, treated—

  “Yes,” said Tarbert, “I’ll be on hand. How about you, Margaret?”

  Margaret opened her mouth to speak, but Burke shook his head curtly. “We’d better do this by ourselves—at least on the first run.”

  “Why?” asked Tarbert curiously. “Is there danger?”

  “No,” said Burke. “Not for either of us. But a third party would complicate matters.”

  “Very well,” said Margaret in a neutral voice. Under other circumstances her feelings would have been hurt; now, she felt nothing. This machine was probably nothing but an aberration, a senseless agglomeration of parts… . But if this were so, would Dr. Tarbert take Burke so seriously? Surely he’d notice any scientific irrationality—and he showed no signs that he had. Perhaps the machine was not a lunatic device after all. But if not, what was its purpose? Why should Burke wish to exclude her at the try-out?

  She strolled away from Burke and Tarbert, slipped into the warehouse. Inconspicuous in a corner was an old door secured by a spring-lock Margaret drew back the bolt, secured it; the door could now be opened from the outside.

  She returned into the workshop. Tarbert was taking his leave; Margaret departed with him.

  She slept very poorly and worked listlessly the next day. Monday evening she telephoned Ralph Tarbert, hoping for reassurance. He was not in, and Margaret spent another uneasy night. Something told her—instinct?—that tomorrow would be a very important day. Eventually she went to sleep, but when she awoke her mind was clouded with uncertainty. She sat dull-eyed over coffee until it was too late to go to work, then telephoned that she was ill.

  At noon, she tried once more to get in touch with Dr. Tarbert, but none of his associates knew where he could be found.

  Driven by indefinable uneasiness, Margaret backed her car from the garage, drove southeast out Leghorn Road until a quarter-mile ahead she saw the gray blocks of Electrodyne Engineering. Beset by an unreasoning alarm she veered down a side road, accelerated and drove wildly for several miles. Then she pulled to the side of the road, and collected her wits. She was behaving erratically, irrationally. Why on earth all these crazy impulses? And these odd sounds in her head, and the peculiar hallucinations?

  She made a U-turn and drove back to Leghorn Road. At the intersection she hesitated, then gritting her teeth, turned right toward Electrodyne Engineering.

  In the parking lot were Burke’s old black Plymouth convertible and Dr. Tarbert’s Ferrari. Margaret parked, sat a moment or two in the car. There was no sound to be heard, no voices. She gingerly alighted, and now ensued another struggle within herself. Should she make use of the main entrance, walk boldly into the general office? Or should she go around to the back and enter through the warehouse?

  She chose the warehouse, and circled the building.

  The door was as she had left it; she opened it, stepped into the dim interior.

  She crossed the concrete floor, her footsteps seeming to echo in spite of her stealth.

  Halfway to the workshop she paused weakly, like a swimmer in the middle of a lake who is uncertain of making the shore.

  From the workshop came the murmur of voices, then a hoarse cry of anger—Tarbert’s voice. She ran to the door, looked through.

  She was right. Burke was stark staring mad. He had strapped Dr. Tarbert to the bars of his devilish machine; he had fixed heavy contacts to Tarbert’s head. Now he was talking, a smile of devilish cruelty on his face. Margaret could catch only a few of his words over the pounding of the blood in her brain, “—rather less pleasant surroundings, on a planet called Ixax—” “—the nopal, as you’ll see—” “—relax, now, you’ll wake up tauptu—”

  “Let me up from here,” bellowed Tarbert. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it!”

  Burke, white-faced and haggard, gave him no more attention. He twisted a switch. A wavering bluish-violet glare cast flickering lights and shadows around the room. From Tarbert came an unearthly squeal of pain; he stiffened and strained at the straps.

  Margaret watched in horrified fascination. Burke took up a swath of what seemed to be transparent plastic; he threw it over Tarbert’s head and shoulders. An apparent rigidity in its folds distended it, held it up from the tubing behind Tarbert’s head. To the intermittent flash of the crackling light and Tarbert’s awful cries, Burke began working and kneading at the transparent film.

  Margaret recovered her senses. Gher, gher, gher! She looked about for a weapon, a bar of iron, a wrench, anything… . There was nothing in sight. She half-started forth to attack him with her bare hands, thought better of it, and instead darted behind Burke into the office, where there was a telephone. Mercifully it was connected. The tone came instantly. She dialed for the operator. “Police, police,” she croaked. “Get me the police!”

  A gruff masculine voice spoke; Margaret stammered out the address. “There’s a madman here; he’s killing Dr. Tarbert, torturing him!”

  “We’ll send a cruiser over, miss. Electrodyne Engineering, Leghorn Road, right?”

  “Yes. Hurry, hurry
… .” Her voice choked in her throat. She felt a presence behind her; she knew a freezing fear. Slowly, her neck stiff, the vertebrae seeming to grate on each other, she turned her head.

  Burke stood in the doorway. He shook his head sorrowfully, then turned, walked slowly back to where the body of Tarbert lay convulsing, pumping up and down to the flash of the weird lights. He picked up the transparent film, resumed his work—kneading, tugging around Tarbert’s head.

  Margaret’s legs gave way; she staggered against the jamb of the door. Numbly she wondered why Burke had not injured her. He was a maniac; he must have heard her calling for the police… . Far away she heard the wail of a siren, swelling and singing, louder and louder.

  Burke stood up. He was panting; his face was drawn and skull-like. Never had Margaret seen so evil a sight. If she had possessed a gun, she would have shot; if her knees had held her, she would have attacked with her hands… . Burke was holding the film bagged around something. Margaret could see nothing within; nevertheless the sack seemed to move and tremble. Her brain gave a lurch; a black blur covered the bag… . She was conscious of Burke stamping upon the bag—a desecration, she realized; the most hideous act of all.

  The police entered; Burke threw a switch on his machine. As Margaret watched numbly the police advanced cautiously upon Burke, who stood waiting, tired and defeated.

  They saw Margaret. “You all right, lady?”

  She nodded, but could not speak. She sank down upon the floor and burst into wild tears. Two policemen carried her to a chair and tried to soothe her. Presently an ambulance arrived. Orderlies carried out the unconscious form of Dr. Tarbert; Burke was taken away in the police cruiser; Margaret rode in another, with a trooper driving behind in Margaret’s own car.

  IX

  BURKE WAS ORDERED to the State Asylum for the Criminally Insane for observation, and there confined in a small white room with a pale blue ceiling. There was tempered glass in the windows and a lattice of steel beyond. The bed was boxed into the floor so that he could not crawl underneath; there was no provision by which he could hang himself: no hooks, brackets, electrical fixtures; even the door-hinges had sloping shoulders from which a cord or improvised rope would slide.

  A small group of psychiatrists examined Burke at length. He found them intelligent but either bluff and windy or vague and tentative, as if they groped through an eternal fog of obfuscation, which might have arisen either from the difficulty of their subject or the falsity of their basic premises. In their turn, the psychiatrists found Burke articulate and polite, though they could not help but resent his air of sad derision as they applied the various tests, charts, drawings, and games by which they hoped to measure the precise degree of his abnormality.

  In the end they failed. Burke’s insanity refused to reveal itself in any objective manner. Nevertheless the psychiatrists concurred in an intuitive diagnosis: “extreme paranoia.” They described him as “deceptively rational, his obsessions craftily veiled.” So craftily veiled indeed was his abnormality (they pointed out) that only trained psychopathologists like themselves could have recognized it. They reported Burke to be listless and withdrawn, with little interest in anything except the condition and whereabouts of his victim, Dr. Ralph Tarbert, whom he made repeated requests to see—requests which, of course, were denied. They required a further period in which to study Burke before making a definite recommendation to the court.

  The days went on and Burke’s paranoia appeared to intensify. The psychiatrist noted symptoms of persecution. Burke gazed wildly around his chamber as if following floating shapes. He refused to eat and grew thin; he feared the dark so strongly that a night light was allowed him. On two occasions he was observed beating at the empty air with his hands.

  Burke was suffering not only mentally but physically. He felt a constant tugging and twisting inside his brain—a sensation similar to his original denopalization, although mercifully less intense. The Xaxans had not warned him of these torments. If they were forced to submit to them once a month, in addition to the brilliant agonies of denopalization, Burke could sympathize with their determination to expunge the nopal from the universe.

  The working at his mind grew ever more violent. He began to fear himself half-crazed in actuality. The psychiatrists propounded solemn questions, inspecting him owlishly, while the nopal riding in and out of the room on their shoulders watched with an almost equal degree of bland wisdom. The staff physician at last ordered sedation, but Burke resisted, fearing sleep. The nopal hung close above, staring into his eyes, the spines fluffing and jerking and spreading, like a chicken bathing in the sand. The physician called orderlies, Burke was grasped, the needle shoved home, and in spite of his furious determination to stay awake, he lapsed into stupor.

  Sixteen hours later he awoke, and lay listlessly gazing at the ceiling. His headache had gone, he felt sodden and stuffy, as if sick with a cold. Recollections came slowly, in reluctant fragments. He raised his eyes, searched the air above his bed. No nopal could be seen—to his intense relief. He sighed, lay back on the pillow.

  The door opened, an orderly wheeled in a cart with a tray of food.

  Burke sat up, looked at the orderly. No nopal. The space over the man’s head was vacant; no baleful orbs stared down across the white-jacketed shoulders.

  A thought came to Burke; he hunched back down. Slowly he raised his hand, felt the back of his neck. Nothing but his own skin and the bristle of his own hair….

  The orderly stood watching him. Burke seemed quieter, almost normal. The staff psychiatrist, making his rounds, received the same impression. He held a short conversation with Burke, and could not escape the conviction that Burke had returned to normal. He therefore kept a promise he had made a few days earlier and telephoned Margaret Haven, informed her that she might visit Burke during the regular visiting hours.

  That same afternoon Burke was notified that Miss Margaret Haven had come to see him. Burke followed the orderly to the cheerful waiting room, so deceptively like the lobby of a country hotel.

  Margaret ran across the room, seized his two hands. She searched his face, and her own face, wan and thin, lit up with happiness. “Paul! You’re back to normal! I know! I can tell!”

  “Yes,” said Burke, “I’m my own self again.” They sat down. “Where’s Ralph Tarbert?” he asked.

  Margaret’s gaze wavered. “I don’t know. He dropped out of sight as soon as he had left the hospital.” She squeezed Burke’s hands. “I’m not supposed to talk of things like that; the doctor doesn’t want me to excite you.”

  “Considerate of him. How long do they plan to keep me here?”

  “I don’t know. Until they make up their minds about you, I suppose.”

  “Hmph. They can’t keep me here forever, unless they get a formal commitment of some kind….”

  Margaret turned her gaze aside. “As I understand it, the police have washed their hands of the case. Dr. Tarbert has refused to bring charges against you; he insists that you and he were conducting an experiment. The police think he’s just as—” She stopped short.

  Burke laughed shortly. “Just as crazy as I am, eh? Well, Tarbert’s not crazy. It happens that he’s telling the truth.”

  Margaret leaned forward, her face full of doubt and anxiety. “What’s going on, Paul? You’re doing something strange —it’s not just government work, I’m sure of that! And whatever it is, it worries me!”

  Burke sighed. “I don’t know… . Things have changed. Perhaps I was crazy; perhaps I spent a month involved in the strangest conceivable delusion. I’m not sure.”

  Margaret looked away, and said in a low voice, “I’ve been wondering whether I acted correctly in calling the police. I thought you were killing Dr. Tarbert. But now”— she made a small nervous gesture—“now I don’t know.”

  Burke said nothing.

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  Burke grinned wanly, shook his head. “You’d think I was crazy for sure
.”

  “You’re not angry with me?”

  “Of course not.”

  The bell signaling the end of visiting hours rang; Margaret rose to her feet. Burke kissed her, and noticed that her eyes were moist. He patted her shoulder. “Someday I’ll tell you the whole story —perhaps as soon as I’m out of here.”

  “You promise, Paul?”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  The next morning Dr. Kornberg, the institution’s head psychiatrist, looked in on Burke during his routine weekly check. “Well, Mr. Burke,” he asked bluffly, “how are you getting along?”

  “Very well,” said Burke. “In fact I’m wondering when I can be released.”

  The psychiatrist donned the quizzical noncommittal expression with which he met this sort of question. “When we feel that we know what, if anything, is wrong with you. Frankly, Mr. Burke, you’re a puzzling case.”

  “You’re not convinced that I’m normal?”

  “Ha ha! We can’t make snap decisions merely on the basis of impressions! Some of our most disturbed people appear disarmingly normal. I don’t refer to you, of course—although you still exhibit a few rather puzzling symptoms.”

  “Such as?”

  The psychiatrist laughed. “That’s giving away professional secrets. ‘Symptoms’ perhaps is too strong a word.” He considered. “Well, let’s face it man to man. Why do you study yourself in the mirror five minutes at a time?”

  Burke grinned painfully. “Narcissism, I suppose.”

  The psychiatrist shook his head. “I doubt it. Why do you grope at the air over your head? What do you expect to find?”

  Burke rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You apparently caught me at a yoga exercise.”

  “I see.” The psychiatrist hoisted himself to his feet. “Well, well.”

  “Just a minute, doctor,” said Burke. “You don’t believe me, you think me either facetious or craftily evasive; in either case, still paranoid. Let me ask you a question. Do you consider yourself a materialist?”