The Lost Perception

by Daniel F. Galouye

  Then movement in the central structure of the castle, two floors below, caught his attention and he zylphed Wellford and two Valorians. One, the alien he had retrieved from the field outside Paris, sat on a cot, her head bandaged.

  Suddenly he sensed Wellford had become aware of him and was zylphing in his direction. Just then, however, the hopper’s sphere of stygumness ballooned outward and Gregson could perceive nothing more.

  * * *

  Moments later, anxious steps pounded on the stairs and Wellford, grinning, climbed into view. “Welcome to the ranks of the zylphers. I had no idea you belonged to the club.”

  He had changed but little. The part in his blond hair was askew and his expression, though superficially jaunty, couldn’t conceal the persistent worry that shallowed beneath the surface. Despite his concern, however, he still seemed to be the genial, alert Englishman of two years earlier.

  He approached and seized Gregson’s hand. “I say, I’m sorry about that laser blast last night. Did my best to divert it. But, fortunately, it was a broad beam.”

  When Gregson only stared uncertainly at him, he added, somewhat testily and with a tinge of feigned melodrama, “Oh, come now, Greg. You’ve been misinformed. I haven’t come under the evil influence of the vicious Valorians. I’m not simply a senseless automaton in their hands.”

  “How did you know I’d been told that?”

  “I had a chance to give you a rather good zylphing after we picked you up last night.” He sat on the cot and provided cigarettes for both of them.

  Gregson felt a bit less ill at ease, but not much. “What do you have in the works with the Valorians—a counter conspiracy?”

  “Of sorts. But we do seem to have made some headway last night, wouldn’t you agree?—What with our raid on Paris Ground Control.”

  “Evidently it succeeded.”

  “Completely. We even managed to snatch some of the hornets from their nest for an exhaustive zylphing, besides doing a thorough job on Carnot. And there’s bound to be some confusion when the top of the pyramid is lopped off.”

  “She actually was the top?”

  “One of the first rault sensitives. Incredibly adept at zylphing.”

  “As good as the Valorians?”

  “Oh, of course not. We’re only merely beginning to zylph—even Radcliff. The Valorians have been at it all their lives. And we’re zylphing in almost total stygumness, compared with the rault-rich space where Valeria is.”

  Gregson looked up from his cigarette. “And where’s that?”

  “Closer to the center of the Galaxy. It emerged from the Stygumbra a few thousand years ago. Incidentally, thanks for picking up Andelia. We zylphed her in your car just before we regrouped. And, by the way—she is not a hypnotist. None of the Valorians are.”

  Gregson, however, wasn’t quite ready to be convinced that the aliens represented the other side of the coin. For it might well develop that the choice between the Valorians and the bureau, if fully illuminated, would merely be between the lesser of two evils. And the most invalid evidence of all might be that offered by the aliens themselves or the humans in their cells. Suppose the Valorians were adept at hypnotic compulsion?

  “The bureau went to a lot of trouble to make us believe the Valorians were masters of the suggestive technique, didn’t it?” he said tentatively, and watched for the Englishman’s reaction.

  “Did it! As you know, they even made up one of their lackeys as a heavily sedated alien so they could display him on a stage in London and have him admit to the faculty of hypnotic suggestion. Poor fool, though—he didn’t know he was going to be slain in the interest of a convincing demonstration.”

  Was that what had really happened? Or, Gregson wondered, had the Valorians only persuaded Wellford to believe that version?

  The Englishman shrugged. “It was all well worth their effort, however. At least, everybody was overwhelmingly conditioned to kill Valorians on sight, rather than give them a chance to speak.”

  Was Wellford even now acting under compulsion—biased in such a manner that he could only advance the aliens’ cause? For the present, Gregson decided, he would appear to be convinced of whatever they told him. And his reservations would go undetected as long as they maintained their field of zylph-forbidding stygumness around the castle.

  Abruptly, he recalled the impressions he had received just before being lasered at Madame Carnot’s. “There was a Nuclear Exchange!”

  Wellford shook his head. “No, not an Exchange. Just an attack. The beginning of an attack, rather—on our Valorian establishments. That was the principal purpose of our raid—to nip their offensive in the bud. And we almost did. Only four birds got airborne. Two hit their targets, but we’d already evacuated one. The raid bought us a period of grace, however, in which we were able to evacuate all the others.”

  “For a moment I thought it was ’95 all over again, rather than ’99.”

  “Oh, no. That can never recur. There’s only light nuclear armament left. And all the arsenals belong to the bureau. Since the countries belong to them too, they won’t want to cause any further damage to their properties, as they did in ’95.”

  “You mean the bureau…?”

  “But, of course!” Wellford assured, brushing hair back off his forehead. “That was a master stroke in their strategy. It was the bureau’s finger that squeezed the nuclear trigger four years ago. And for a very practical reason. The Exchange not only reduced national authority to impotence; on top of the Screamie scourge, it also created a vacuum of fear and military incapacity. By stepping into that vacuum, the bureau was able to assume—‘benevolently,’ of course—almost unlimited power.”

  Wellford ground out his cigarette and rose, staring out the window at a sun dropping low over the hills. “You must be famished. I have something prepared below.”

  On the way downstairs he added, “Incidentally, I’ve some delightful news. But there’s someone more deserving than I of being its bearer.”

  “Helen and Bill!” Gregson guessed.

  Wellford paused on the stairs. “No, not your friends. Nor is there anything we can do about them at the moment.”

  “I’d like to try to call the farm again.”

  The other shook his head solicitously. “We’re operating under the strictest communications blackout. The project involved here is most crucial. We can’t jeopardize our chances by having the bureau learn where we are.”

  “What’s the project?”

  “A summons for help to the Valorians. Within a day or two we hope to dispatch our message. Then you may look after Forsythe and his niece.”

  * * *

  In an identical room on the next lower level Gregson was left alone with his meal of synthetics while Wellford went to help out with assembly of the transmitter. After he had finished eating, he searched his pockets for the rault suppressor he had taken from Versailles. But it was gone.

  Lighting a cigarette, he went onto the balcony and leaned upon its stone balustrade, gazing out over a hillside now touched by moonlight. Depressed by his uncertainty, he wondered whether he shouldn’t try to escape before it was too late—before they had a chance to bring him under slavish compulsion.

  Studying the inner and outer ramparts that girded the castle, he located one of the tunnels that led beneath them to the hillside. The place didn’t appear to be guarded at all.

  Then his eyes were attracted by movement at the tunnel’s mouth. There was a man coming through into the inner courtyard—cautiously, crouching. He stepped into the open and moonlight glinted on the linear intensifier of his outthrust laser pistol.

  Other movement, even more stealthy, drew Gregson’s attention to a figure crouching on the rampart above the tunnel exit. In the next instant it launched itself into space and hurtled down upon the armed man.

  Thrashing about on the ground, they flayed at each other and the laser pistol discharged a zipping beam that sliced the tip off one of the chapel’s minarets. Th
en the weapon was knocked from the man’s hand and his guttural voice exploded with German expletives.

  Floodlights suddenly lighted the scene and Valorians and humans alike came running out of the chapel.

  Gregson backed into the shadows of the balcony so they wouldn’t know he was a witness to what was transpiring.

  The intruder was now struggling in the grip of several Valorians. A stout, middle-aged man, he bellowed incessantly at his captors.

  Wellford went up to him, but had to shout several times before he quietened down. Then they spoke in German.

  “What does he say?” one of the Valorians asked after a while.

  “He’s a tugboat skipper who lives close by. He was attracted here by our lights.”

  “He’s not with the bureau?”

  “I’m quite sure he isn’t. We can definitely establish that later, of course.”

  The Valorian who had disarmed the German retrieved the laser pistol and brushed himself off. “I like his spirit. We could use him.”

  “It’s obvious we shan’t be able to let him go,” Wellford offered.

  “Then let’s keep him under guard until we have a chance to persuade him.”

  They hustled the German into the chapel and the floodlights went out, leaving Gregson with an appreciation of the thoroughness with which the castle was guarded.

  “He’ll be all right—as soon as he learns,” said a slight voice behind him.

  Gregson started and turned to face the Valorian woman who stood in the doorway, her slim form outlined by the sparse light in the room.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you,” she apologized. “I’m Andelia.”

  Warily, he went back into the room. “And what will the man down there learn, Andelia?”

  “Most of the things you already know—and much more that you haven’t yet become aware of.”

  Even by Earth standards, she was attractive. The head bandage, sitting almost like a turban above her sleek, olive-complexioned face, imparted an Oriental quality to her appearance.

  “And when we teach him to zylph,” she went on, seating herself at the table, “everything will seem credible and he will no longer doubt us.”

  “You can teach him to zylph?”

  “Quite easily. In just a short while—a few weeks.”

  “You can teach anybody? Everybody?”

  “But of course. That’s what we intended to do when we sent our first expedition, wasn’t it?”

  This time the deception was too bold. Nobody could learn to tolerate the Screamies and become functionally hypersensitive in a few weeks. He could vouch for that himself.

  “You saved my life,” Andelia went on pensively, “and your friend Wellford has told me that I can best express my gratitude by telling you about—Manuel.”

  Gregson was astonished. “You know something about my brother?”

  “He survives and is well. You will zylph him eventually.”

  “How do you know? What happened?”

  “Our ship detected your expedition as it left the Stygumbra. For days your crew had been fully exposed to unobstructed rault. Many had died. Some had gone mad. A few we were able to save.”

  Gregson stared skeptically at the quietly spoken Valorian woman. “If Manuel had survived, he would have insisted on coming back here.”

  “He cannot return. Not until your world is entirely out of the Stygumbra.”

  “Why not?”

  Andelia walked around the table, slowly, carefully—like a woman on a tightrope. At first Gregson was puzzled. Then he understood that a person accustomed to zylphing would not be sure-footed in the absence of rault. She would not know what lay before each next step.

  She reached the window and stared out upon the ascending slope. “Perhaps an analogy would help you understand about Manuel. Suppose one of your race had lived all his life in a cave. Suppose you brought him out and assisted him in becoming accustomed to sight. In learning to depend upon his eyes, he would forget how to rely on his other senses. If you forced him to return to the cave, he would be much afraid. And his fear of the darkness would be justified. For he would most likely fall into a pit and die.”

  Gregson rejected the explanation. It didn’t seem reasonable that just a few years of zylphing would make Manuel afraid of the stygumness in which he had spent all his life.

  “What was your ship doing outside the Stygumbra?” he asked.

  “For some time we were aware of your world. But we couldn’t enter the stygumbraic cone because our navigational instruments are rault-oriented. Expecting us to bring a craft into metadarkness would be like asking you to fly a hopper into a cave with neither lights nor radar.”

  “Yet, despite all that,” Gregson asked dubiously, “you were going to help us?”

  “Yes. We didn’t want the same thing to happen to you that happened to us when Valeria came out of the Stygumbra. Our political upheaval was intense. We suffered through many generations of slavery—under the yoke of Valorian tyrants.”

  * * *

  Even more skeptical, Gregson said, “But when you finally sent a mercy party, it was powerless to do anything.”

  Andelia cast her eyes downward. “Quite powerless. The expedition was to evaluate the situation, contact your authorities and arrange to set up hypersensitivity adaptation clinics. But our transmitter was destroyed during pod drop. So we had no way of reporting that handfuls of neozylphers all over the world had already risen to power. And everywhere we turned to tell your people what was happening, we were blocked by the Security Bureau.”

  Gregson was silent a moment. “When you complete your transmitter, what message will you send back?”

  “That if we are going to overcome the bureau and prevent billions from either falling into slavery or dying as they become sensitive to rault, it will be very shortly or not at all. We shall requisition the equipment we need to set up our clinics—and hope that by the time it arrives there will be no opposition to destroy it.”

  “How do you intend doing away with that opposition?”

  Andelia drew erect and seemed suddenly concerned. “You’re asking more than I know. They haven’t taken me into their confidence on all of our plans.”

  Or had she merely decided to tell him enough to encourage his trust, but not to reveal anything significant? “Why are there no rault casters around? So I can’t zylph those plans?”

  “All the casters are needed for construction of our transmitter—so we can determine whether we are assembling it correctly.”

  “Oh, I see,” Gregson tried to appear convinced, realizing he had made a mistake by letting his suspicions become so obvious.

  She headed for the stairs, but paused before descending. “Oh, I was supposed to tell you that you are assigned the room immediately above this one for tonight. And Wellford suggests that you get some rest.”

  Throughout most of the night, however, Gregson lay awake on his cot, glumly watching the moon set beyond the mist-filmed hills on the west bank of the Rhine.

  He drew both frustration and satisfaction from the fact that the powerful rault suppressor aboard the long-range hopper continued to broadcast its field of intense stygumness.

  In the total blockage of Chandeen’s hyperradiation, he was unable to zylph anything at all. And, not zylphing, he was powerless to distinguish between truth and deception; to determine whether Kenneth Wellford was a free agent, or was acting under vicious compulsion. Nor could he hope to learn how much time remained before he, too, would be reduced to a helpless puppet.

  On the other hand, the same metadarkness shielded his own thoughts and suspicions from the Valorians. And as long as the rault suppressor remained in operation, he was reasonably safe—he hoped.

  Nevertheless, he could see no advantage to remaining at the castle. Particularly not when it was imperative for him to get back to Pennsylvania, where he might pick up some trace of Helen and her uncle.

  So, in his sanctuary of zylph-forbidding stygumness, he
lay there considering and rejecting an endless succession of plans for escape until he finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The castle was still smothered in its field of artificial stygumness when Gregson and Wellford had breakfast the next morning.

  So much his characteristic self did the Englishman seem that, in the reassuring Rhenish sunlight, Gregson found it difficult to believe the man was not an altogether free agent.

  “We’re making great headway with the transmitter,” Wellford said, finishing his coffee.

  “Might have had it assembled by now if there hadn’t been that interruption last night Hope it didn’t disturb you.”

  “The German trespasser?” Gregson had thought they would try to conceal the incident Wellford nodded. “Andelia said you had witnessed it. Poor chap. I should imagine it’s rather upsetting—having to cast aside all your ingrained notions about the Valorians,”

  “How is he?”

  “Still wants to put up a fight. But Andelia’s working on him. We have hoped of convincing him shortly.”

  Gregson asked cautiously, “You going to teach him to zylph?”

  “Eventually. When the opportunity presents itself. But we’re much too busy at the moment.”

  “Andelia says the Valorians can bring him through the Screamies into functional hyperperception in only a few weeks.”

  “Three, I understand.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone go through this indoctrination in three weeks?”

  “Why, no. But they have clinics operating at two of their bases.”

  Far enough in that direction, Gregson cautioned himself, lest Wellford sense his suspicion. “How long has SecBu known about the Valorians?”

  “Ever since they pod-dropped their first expedition here in ’96, the year after the Nina blasted off.”

  “How did the bureau find out about them?”

  Wellford lighted a cigarette and leaned back, blowing a dense plume of smoke into the shaft of sunlight that fell across the table.