Complete Fiction

by Hal Annas

  Call it another dimension if you wish. But prepare yourself. The gods are coming.”

  Where they came from was not clear. One moment he and the girl were alone and then the gods stood before them. They were like humans in appearance. He tried to count them, failed, felt confused. They were the size of men and they were the size of dolls. The perspective. It was like looking at men and women several blocks away and the same men and women close at hand.

  He heard talk in a strange language, and it, too, was close at hand and a distant echo without a time lag.

  His mind whirled. Unearthly thoughts intruded as if probing and sorting the components of his mental make-up. Some of the thoughts were unpleasant. They seemed to seize upon his sense of reality and shred it and refashion it in a new pattern.

  What appeared to be an aged man stood directly before him. His words were meaningless echoes from beyond evoking pictures and concepts in Driscoll’s mind. He had no trouble translating the concepts and pictures.

  “Doubt is the beginning of wisdom,” said the god. “It is Uncertainty seeking Truth. The Believer closes the door to new knowledge. In every Certainty there is room for Doubt. So long as it remains, Doubt will seek Truth. Cease now to believe in mental limitations bounded by physical science.”

  Driscoll realized it was true that the boundaries of man were his beliefs.

  “Darklings hold the minds of your planet,” the god went on. “They make you believe that war, disease and trouble are man’s lot. In another millennium you might overcome them unaided. But the Darklings have led astray one of us. On this planet walks a god influenced by all the things you call Evil. We have come to find him. The mortal woman with you has been chosen to aid us. You have been chosen to protect her. Your fidelity will determine whether the planet shall be rid of the Darklings.”

  Driscoll had not moved. His mind had stopped whirling and come to a focus. There was a rational explanation for all of this, he believed. He was conscious of the girl at his side, her hand scarcely an inch from his. Out of the corner of an eye he saw the look of intense concentration on her features. She too, he thought, sought an answer.

  “In due course you will learn all things that you need to know,” the god added. “We have entrusted to the woman at your side two objects of great power. They will enable her to locate and recognize the lost god. Guard her well. Should harm befall her, or should you betray her, your life shall be forfeit.”

  There was a pause. Then: “Close your eyes. Count five.”

  Driscoll hesitated. The girl’s hand crept into his. He closed his eyes. When he opened them he was back in her apartment and what had happened seemed a trifle vague as if he had dreamed it.

  “I’ll get you a drink,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

  He needed it more than he dared admit. And as he fingered the vial in his pocket he remembered the warning. He also remembered his orders. Included in them was the information that reliable intelligence about the gods was vital to the United Nations. The security of the planet was at stake. It was hoped that much could be learned by questioning the girl under drugs.

  Driscoll didn’t like it. He liked least of all the role he had to play. He understood the difficulty of obtaining intelligence about beings who could whisk mortals out of their presence at the count of five. But he didn’t want to betray the girl. The warning that it would cost his life was not his sole objection. Of that he was not entirely convinced. His other reason was not well defined, but was connected with his sense of honesty as well as with some deep-rooted drive stirring in his subconscious.

  “Where,” he asked when she returned with the drinks, “are the gods located?”

  “In this building. With the exception of this apartment, they have this entire floor.”

  “How did they convince the authorities?”

  “They convinced some scientists and they in turn convinced the members of the United Nations. I don’t believe they’ve been accepted as gods. But they obviously aren’t ordinary humans, and I think the general idea is to cooperate and study them.”

  “You believe in them?”

  She nodded. “I believe facts. Call them gods or superscientists, it alters nothing. They can do things contrary to natural laws as we understand them. That makes them supernatural.”

  “You communicate with them mentally?”

  She bent forward, parted her thick hair. Close against her scalp was a tiny diadem. “Touch it if you wish,” she said. “But don’t pull it loose.”

  Her hair was like silk to his touch. “Is that how you communicate with them? Through that thing?”

  “I don’t really communicate with them. They communicate with me. I feel a faint prickling under that little crown which, you’ll admit, is a nice piece of jewelry. I obey the thought that comes at that moment.”

  “Then the gods must read your mind?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “Do you think they can read mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then they know I’m getting ready to kidnap you? They know I’ve emptied a vial in your drink and that in another moment you’ll be unconscious.”

  There was a long moment of tense silence. The autumn-brown eyes gazed steadily into his. Then she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know why I switched our drinks. But you’ve drunk only half of yours. Maybe I can get enough coffee into you—” She seized his hand. “Hurry!”

  Confused and with dimming awareness, he followed her to the kitchen. She asked questions: “Where were you to take me? When? And what is to happen there?” And he answered to the best of his ability.

  The coffee helped, but his eyelids became heavier and heavier. A soothing lassitude stole over his body. His muscles refused to obey his commands. He felt her tugging at him as his head sank toward the table.

  HE was in the underground room near the White House, not knowing how he got there, watching, while the girl counted herself down into drugged automatism. She stopped counting at thirteen. She was neither asleep nor awake.

  The huge man in the white smock withdrew the needle. The horse-faced nurse glanced at the younger and more comely nurse who held a second syringe in case it was needed. Two muscular and alert men sat one on either side of Driscoll on the second couch. In a straight chair, nervous and fidgety, and keeping his eyes on the wire-recorder on the table, sat a thin bespectacled man.

  The man on Driscoll’s right looked at the man in the smock. “How about it, Doctor?” he said.

  The doctor lowered his voice. “I advise that you refrain from unnecessary comments,” he said. “You might implant suggestions. Confine yourself to questions. And no talking at all aside from questioning the girl.”

  The man rose from beside Driscoll and stood over the girl. His voice was even and well modulated.

  “Tell us what happened at your apartment,” he said.

  The doctor touched his arm. “Questions,” he said. “Not positive statements.”

  The man nodded. “What happened in your apartment?”

  The girl’s voice was hoarse and a trifle thick. “I tried to revive Mr. Driscoll. Then the thought came that he was suggestible and would obey commands.”

  “Did the thought seem to be stimulated by the diadem?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I began to understand that I must come here and allow you to question me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you might otherwise cease to cooperate with the gods and that would mean the planet was doomed.”

  “You made this concession solely to get cooperation?”

  Again the doctor touched his arm and repeated, “Questions. Phrase them as questions, not statements”

  “Why did you make this concession?” the man corrected.

  “I made no concession,” the girl said. “Neither did the gods. They gave me to understand you are children and must be humored.”

  “What do the gods want on Earth?”
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  “They must find one of their own who has been led astray by the Darklings.”

  “What will happen if they don’t find the lost god?”

  “I don’t know. I gather that it’s a test of power between them and the Darklings. The thought that the Darklings might win gives me a feeling of terror and gloom. I get a vision of chaos, murder, pillage, insanity and unimaginable destruction.”

  “What is your task?”

  “I am to find the lost god. I will receive instructions as to what to do.”

  “How about Mr. Driscoll? Do you feel that he has betrayed you?”

  “No. Neither do the gods. He was bound by his orders. He had to empty the vial in my drink. To do anything less would have been betrayal to his superiors. That proved him trustworthy. But he must not again be bound by orders. He must be free to carry out the task the gods have given him.”

  “And that task is to protect you?” The doctor again placed a hand on his shoulder, but the man shook it off.

  “Yes,” said the girl. “He must prevent my being killed before I find the lost god. After that, what happens to me will cease to be important. He must then return the god to the beings from space.”

  “And you’re in danger?”

  “Yes.”

  “From what?”

  “The Darklings. They may be in this room at this moment” Driscoll felt a prickling along his spine. He glanced about apprehensively. He noted that, with the exception of the doctor and nurses, the others did likewise.

  “Can you tell us anything,” the man went on, “of how you’re going about finding the lost god?”

  “Only this: tomorrow you must have a long-range jet stratoliner ready to fly on a moment’s notice. It must have sufficient fuel to cross the continent with a stop in Death Valley.”

  “But you can’t get into Death Valley. That’s where the spaceship landed. Some sort of field of force keeps planes from coming near.”

  “I know nothing of that. I know only that you must have the jetplane ready.”

  “We’ll check with Sam Millbro. Anything else you can tell us?”

  “Only this: I knew all your questions in advance. I knew what I was supposed to answer. You must cease now. I am in danger. I must recover quickly from the drugs.”

  The two men, who had sat beside Driscoll, looked at each other. The one who had done the questioning turned to the doctor.

  “Can you give her some sort of countershot?”

  The doctor was slow about replying. “Might make her nervous. Best to let the drug wear off of itself.”

  “But she said she was in danger.”

  The doctor put on his bedside manner. “She’s tired. Her fear probably comes from nagging questions and having so many people about her. It’s a plain case of Messiah Complex with a touch of paranoia. I advise that she be confined in an institution and given proper treatment.”

  The man turned to Driscoll. “Take her back to her apartment and stay on guard.”

  The doctor said, “I shall send two nurses. If she suffers hallucinations during the night they will call me.”

  “I don’t think you should do that.”

  “I know what’s best for the patient.”

  The man shrugged, said to Driscoll, “You two must’ve come here in a taxi. My car is parked near. I’ll drop you off at the apartment. And I’ll leave two men downstairs.”

  THE warning seemed to come from a distance and at the same time from the room in which the girl lay sleeping. It hammered inside of Driscoll’s head. But he could not force himself awake.

  He lay on the sofa a few steps away from the bedroom. The deep carpet between him and the door seemed depressed in two places as though an invisible being stood there. The rose light about him shimmered as if sparkling dust had been sprayed into it. The entire room seemed unreal to his sleep-fogged mind.

  Turning sluggishly, as if a great weight restrained him, he felt of the sofa, the silken pillow, of his own clothes, and with great effort forced himself up from the unreal depths, sought to drive back the fog of illusion.

  His mind would not come clear. Inside his head the hammers of alarm bells seemed to throb; the carpet remained depressed; the air shimmered; the unreality became real.

  The depressions in the carpet moved. The nap in one of the depressions sprang erect as though a foot had been lifted. Four feet away it depressed again. This repeated twice, thrice as though an invisible person walked. The footsteps stopped before the door behind which the girl slept.

  A gland in Driscoll’s neck throbbed, poured a stimulant into his bloodstream. Slowly but definitely he came awake, despite something which still pressed down and sought to hold him in the foggy depths.

  “The Darklings!”

  The words echoed silently through his mind. They seemed to have no point of origin, but to belong to a former life or to something apart from here and now.

  “Darklings!”

  The single word brought a warning to his heart, caused it to hammer furiously, and the warning raced through his body in the wake of the stimulant that came from the gland.

  With a final mighty effort he shook himself free of the clutching fog and came up from the sofa like a steel spring. In a single leap he was across the room, before the door that led to the sleeping girl. His hands swept the space above the imprints, felt nothing.

  Like a man in a crazy house confused by mirror illusions, he drew back, studied the imprints, tried to orient his thoughts, to separate imagining from reality. He kneeled and felt the impressions. The nap was crushed down precisely as though a person stood there. Nothing was visible directly above.

  Cautiously he rapped on the bedroom door. A moment passed and the knob turned and the dark head of a young nurse appeared.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked anxiously.

  She smiled, said, “You’re lonesome?”

  He swore under his breath. “Is everything all right?” he repeated.

  “I’m all right,” she smiled.

  “Let me look again at the patient and then I’ll leave the door open and come out and sit with you.”

  The nurse withdrew, leaving the door open. He continued staring into the room. Seconds passed before his eyes became adjusted to the shaded light so that he could see the shape of the girl outlined by the silken coverlet. She lay on her right side, facing him, left hand on top the cover, her hair spread in an unmoving flame across the pillow.

  And then he saw, as though from the depths of a dream and at the same time with startling clarity and reality, the imprints march into the room and to the bed.

  It came to him like the first sharp pain from the lancet as the surgeon cuts out a piece of imbedded matter that whatever it was had tricked him into getting the door open.

  He hurried into the room. The nurse turned startled brown eyes on him. Vivi sighed in her sleep. He watched the coverlet sink at one point as though a hand rested there while someone leaned over the bed.

  Indecision lasted but a second. He placed a hand on Vivi’s shoulder, shook.

  “No,” the nurse cried. “She’s taken something. She won’t wake.”

  He glared at the nurse. “Do you see that?” He pointed at the imprint.

  The nurse frowned. “A beautiful young girl in bed asleep. I suppose it does stir something in such robust men as you. But you’d better get out. I’m taking good care of her.”

  “I must take her out of here,” Driscoll said.

  “Don’t be silly,” the nurse replied. “What you need is a sedative. Go outside and I’ll come and keep you company.”

  Driscoll watched the second imprint appear as though a second hand had been placed on the bed to enable whoever or whatever it supported to lean closer. He turned to the nurse to learn if she had seen. She was staring at him.

  “Look!” he said, pointing.

  She glanced at the bed, back at him. “She hasn’t got anything that I haven’t. Go on out. I’ll fix you a drink.”

/>   Driscoll moved to the wall, pressed the light switch, blinked. The nurse blinked and watched him.

  “Something is standing there leaning over her,” he said, pointing at the imprints in the carpet.

  The nurse placed a hand on his arm, smiled, “The doctor would call it wishful fantasies. Come along with nursie and get a nice big drink and she’ll let you lean over her.”

  “Don’t you see those imprints?”

  “Spots in front of your eyes, huh? I’ll call the doctor and he’ll come right away. I have his unlisted number. He thought I might need to call him.”

  “Where’s the other nurse?”

  “Sleeping in the next bedroom. There wasn’t any reason for both of us to stay awake at the same time. I’ll call her and she’ll make coffee.”

  “I must get Miss van Veck out of here.”

  “You mustn’t touch her. And we mustn’t talk in here. You must go outside.”

  Driscoll leaned over the bed, shook Vivi.

  The nurse seized his arm, pulled. “Don’t disturb the patient. If you don’t get out I’ll have to call someone to help me.”

  Ignoring the nurse, Driscoll carefully worked his arms underneath Vivi, lifted, bedclothes and all. The nurse gasped, snatched open the door to the adjoining room, screamed, “He’s attacking the patient! He’s attacking the patient!”

  Carrying Vivi, he went back to the room he had quitted, made certain the imprints were still in the bedroom, and drew the door shut. He placed her gently on the sofa, glanced about, saw no sign of the imprints.

  Both nurses stormed from the bedroom, leaving the door open. Driscoll leaped to close the door, and as he did so he saw the imprints come marching into the room.

  “Don’t you see those things?” he said to the nurses.

  They didn’t even look down. One picked up the telephone while the other bent over Vivi.

  Driscoll pushed the nurse aside, again picked up the sleeping girl, carried her back to the bedroom, closed the door after him. Before he could place her on the bed the younger nurse came in, leaving the door open. The imprints came behind her.

  “Dammit!” Driscoll swore. “If you’d leave the door shut I wouldn’t have to move her again.”