Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07

by Bridge of Ashes

  "Damn!"

  He stirred the mashed beetle into the sand, smoothed it over, glanced at his watch. Perhaps the doctor would have something good to say this time.

  Victoria Guise tended her plants. She watered, misted, cultivated; she plucked off dead leaves, added nutriments, shifted pots from courtyard to patio, win-dowsill to bench, sunlight to shade and vice versa; she fondled them with her thoughts. Blue shorts, white halter, red bandana, leather sandals, hung, clung, wrapped her thin, pepper-haired, five-&nd-a-half-foot, randomly mole-flecked person. Whenever she was particularly troubled the plants received more than usual attention. Green eyes squinted, she sought and dealt with burn, droop, dryness, mold, wither and insect depredation. She was aware that this was a piece of emotional misdirection. Even so, it was generally effective.

  For now, she did not have to shield her thoughts and feelings. Except— It was taking much longer than she had anticipated. The doctor was still in with Dennis, and Dick would probably be returning before much longer. If only— She decided that the impatiens could use a little more light, and the navy petunias still looked thirsty. She returned to the tap.

  As she was pinching back the asparagus fern, a faint, inquiring thought reached her: Is it all right? She felt Dick's presence, sensed the landscape through which he moved, dry, rocky, house up on the hill ahead. He was passing along the small arroyo to the north.

  I do not know, she replied. He is still in there with him.

  Oh.

  She felt him slow his pace, caught a whisper of his feelings.

  It cannot be too much longer, she added.

  I would not think so.

  Several minutes later, she heard a door close inside the house.

  Hurry, she sent suddenly.

  What is it?

  I —I think he is finished.

  All right. A sense of their house, nearer.

  She passed through the gate, closing it behind her, walked around to the south wall. Only marigolds here. They never seemed to need anything special. She inspected them.

  "Mrs. Guise?"—faintly, Dr. Winchell's voice from within the house.

  She paused, studying the flowers. Another moment or so ...

  "Mrs. Guise—Oh!"

  Voices then from the courtyard. Conversation. Dick had returned. She sighed and moved back in that direction.

  Entering, she glanced at her husband and the doctor, who had just seated themselves on the chairs near the geraniums. Dr. Winchell was a young, big man, florid, overweight. His straw-colored hair was already thinning, and he ran his fingers through it several times as they spoke.

  "Mrs. Guise," he said, nodding, and he made as if to rise as she approached.

  She seated herself on the bench across from them, and he eased back into his seat.

  "I was just telling your husband," he said, "that it is simply too early to venture a prognosis, but—"

  Let us have the bad of it straight, Dick interrupted.

  Winchell nodded, glanced at Vicki. She inclined her head slightly, her eyes never leaving his own.

  "All right," he said, declining the opportunity to switch away from the purely verbal. "It is not the most encouraging situation, but you must bear in mind that he is still a child—a very adaptable creature—and the fact that this relocation was to a spot as isolated—"

  "Has he been permanently damaged?" Richard asked.

  "I— It is impossible to answer that at this point. You have only been here a short while and—"

  "How long until you can tell for certain?"

  "Again, I can't answer you—"

  "Is there anything you can tell me?"

  "Richard," Vickie said. "Please ..."

  "It's all right," Winchell said. "Yes, as a matter of fact I can tell you more about what caused it."

  "Go ahead."

  "When I first saw Dennis, you lived over twenty miles from the nearest city—a good safety margin, based on accepted range figures for telepathic phenomena. At that distance, a telepathic child should have been sufficiently removed from the urban thought bombardment that he would remain unaffected. Dennis, however, exhibited all the signs of early reception reaction and retreated into catatonia. Neither of you were undergoing anxieties of the sort which might have induced this. At that time, it was suggested that some physical anomaly of the locale might have enhanced reception, or some nearer habitation be housing a broadcaster of thoughts exceptionally distressful to the child. So we recommended you relocate to an even remoter site and see whether the condition would clear up of its own accord."

  Richard Guise nodded. "Six times now we've moved. For the same so-called reasons. The kid is thirteen years old. He doesn't talk, he doesn't walk. The nurse still changes his pants and bathes him. Everyone says an institution would be the worst thin g, and I am still able to agree. But we have just moved again and nothing is different."

  "Yes," Winchell said, "his condition has remained virtually unchanged. He is still suffering the effects of that initial trauma."

  "Then the move was of no benefit whatever," Richard said.

  "That is not what I said. Simple relocation could not alter what had already occurred. The purpose of the move was to avoid further exposure to adverse stimuli and to give the child's natural recuperative powers an opportunity to effect his return to some sort of equilibrium. It is apparently too early to see evidence of such recovery—"

  "Or too late," Richard said.

  "—but the move was certainly well advised," Winchell continued. "Just because our study of the few thousand known telepaths has provided certain norms, we should not accept them as gospel—not with a brand-new mutation in human stock. Not this early, not when so much still remains to be learned,"

  "Are you trying to say he was abnormal—even for a telepath—from the very beginning?"

  Winchell nodded.

  "Yes," he replied. "I have tried some recently developed tests, including an experiment in which two other telepaths were involved. I entered Dennis' mind and used his receptive abilities to reach them. The nearer is thirty miles from here, the second forty."

  "Dennis picked up thoughts from forty miles away?"

  "Yes, which explains his initial reception reaction. You were never that far removed from sources of trouble at your previous addresses. Here, though . . . Here, even with a forty-mile range, you have room to spare—plenty of it. His condition appears to be purely functional, and we do have numerous case histories from which to draw encouragement, dating from the days before the mutation was recognized."

  "True, there is that," Richard said. "So ... What do you recommend now?"

  "I think we should have one of the new TP therapists come out and work with him—every day, for a while—to reorient him.'*

  "I've read a bit about those early cases," Vicki said. "Sometimes the trauma was too strong and they never developed personalities of their own.... They just remained schizoid collections of the bits and pieces with which they had been imprinted. Others withdrew from everything and never—"

  "There is no point in dwelling on the worst," Dr. Winchell said. "A good number recovered too, you know. You have already done a beneficial thing in bringing him here. Also, remember that the therapists know a lot more about the condition now than anyone did a generation ago—or even ten years back. Or five. Let's give it a chance. Try to think about the positive aspects. Remember how easily your attitudes, your feelings can be communicated."

  Vicki nodded.

  "Can you recommend a therapist?"

  "Actually, I have several possibles in mind. I will have to check their availability. The best course of treatment would probably involve a therapist who could live in and work with him every day—at least for a while. I will investigate as soon as I get back and let you know—sometime tomorrow."

  "All right," Richard said. "Tell them we have a nice guest room."

  Winchell began to rise.

  "We would like you to stay to dinner," Vicki said

/>   Winchell eased himself back down.

  "I thank you."

  Richard Guise smiled for the first time that day, rose to his feet.

  "What are you drinking?"

  "Scotch and soda."

  He nodded and swung off toward the house.

  "Forty miles . . ." he muttered.

  Lydia Dimanche came to stay at the Guise house, a small, graceful woman with a musical voice and eyes which almost matched the black twists of her hair. They guessed that she might be Polynesian.

  Lydia saw Dennis every day, feeding, channeling, directing, organizing sensory and extrasensory input. When she was not with Dennis she kept to herself, back in her room, down in town, up in the hills. She took her meals with the Guises, but never volunteered information concerning her patient. When asked directly, she normally replied that it was still too early to see clearly, to say anything for certain.

  Months later, when Richard Guise departed on a lengthy business trip, Dennis' condition still seemed unchanged. The daily sessions went on. Vicki spent more and more time with her plants. The few minutes, mornings and afternoons, grew into hours. Evenings, she began reading gardening books; she obtained more plants, had a small greenhouse constructed.

  One morning, Lydia emerged from Dennis' room to find the taller woman leaning against the wall.

  "Victoria," she said, a beginning smile falling toward its opposite.

  "I want to read him, Lydia. All this time ... I have to see what he is like now "

  "I have to advise against it. I have been controlling him quite strictly, and any intrusive thoughts or feelings might upset the balances I am trying to—"

  "I am not going to broadcast. I just want to look."

  "There is not really that much to see at this point. He will seem as he always has—"

  "I have to see. I insist."

  "You give me no choice," Lydia said, stepping aside. "But I wish you would think about it for a minute before you go in."

  "I have already thought about it."

  Vicki entered the room, moved to the side of the bed. Dennis lay on his side, staring past her at the far wall. His eyes did not move, not even when she passed directly before him.

  She opened her mind and reached, very carefully, toward him.

  Her eyes were dry when she emerged. She walked past Lydia, through the front rooms and out into the courtyard. She seated herself on the bench and stared at the geraniums. She did not move when Lydia came and sat beside her.

  For a long while, neither spoke.

  Then, finally, Vicki said, "It's like giving isometrics to a corpse."

  Lydia shook her head.

  "It only seems that way," she said. "The fact that there are no obvious changes cannot be held as too important right now. At any time during the months to come, the exercises in which we are engaged could suddenly become crucial, making all the difference between stability and continued dysfunction. This is another reason I did not want you to check on him now. Your own morale is an important part of his environment."

  "I had to see," Vicki said.

  "I understand. But please do not do it again."

  "I won't. I do not want to."

  After a time, I do not know about the morale part, though, Vicki indicated. I do not see how I can manage it. I do not know how to change responses, reactions — here, inside. I was afraid of things so much of the time. ... When I was a child it was my sister Eileen. She was not TP; I could read her thoughts of me. Later there were teachers. Then the whole world ... Going to hell in a handbasket ... Then my first husband ... Paul ... Life was a lousy place till I met Dick. I wanted someone like him — older, stronger, who knew how to do all the things I could not do — to keep things safe, together. And he did, too. Before I met him, it always seemed as if the world was on the verge of falling apart all about me. He made the feeling go away — or kept it a good distance off. The same thing, I guess. I had felt there was nothing he could not do, that things would always be good with him. The world would work the way that it should. I would not be hurt. Then — this — happened — with Dennis. Now, I am afraid again. ... It has been growing and growing ever since it happened. I watch the news and I remember only the stories of breakdown, disaster, malfunction, pollution. I read, and I am impressed only by the bad parts of life. . . . Is it the world, or is it me? Or could it be both of us? Now Dick is gone away again and Dennis stays the same. . . . I do not know. I just do not know....

  Lydia put her arm about her shoulders.

  You have looked and seen and you are afraid, she told her. Fear is often a good thing. Despair is not. Fear can increase your awareness, strengthen your will to fight. Despair is withdrawal —

  But what is there to fight? And how do I fight it?

  There is hope for Dennis. I would not persist in my efforts if I did not believe this. I could as easily be working on other cases where the results are more readily apparent. Yet, somewhere along the way, a therapist develops a feeling about a patient, about his chances for recovery. I have such a feeling here. I do not believe that it will be easy, or that it will occur soon. It may even take years, and it will be extremely difficult. But remember, I know him better than anyone else — even yourself — and I feel there is reason for you to have hope. You have had only a brief glimpse of that which is within him. I have seen more. As to your other fears, perhaps it is that there is some correspondence. At some level within yourself, it may be that the fragmentation of his developing personality is analogous to all the things which affected you so strongly until you met Richard. Perhaps Dennis seems the image of a schizoid world. The fact that Richard can do nothing to help him may have stirred up these other matters with the arousal of this anxiety. It is easy to see how Dennis’ condition might symbolize for you the spirit of the times. He is not a single person, but pieces of the many he has touched. And these pieces do not fit together. They clash. Still, he is there, somewhere, fust like humanity. — What is there to fight, and how do you fight it? You hold with the hope, which is not unwarranted. You do not let your fear slide over into despair. You do not withdraw. You feed your fear to the hope. Burn it. Transform it into a patient expectancy.

  You counsel a hard course, Lydia.. ..

  I know. I know, too, that you will do it.

  I will — try.. ..

  A cold wind from the mountains came and rustled the geraniums. Vicki leaned back and felt it on her face, her eyes looking past the adobe wall, up to the place where the shadow-clad mountain seemed suddenly poised above them.

  "He is a child of a special time," she said then. "I will learn to wait for him."

  Lydia studied her profile, nodded finally, rose.

  "I wish to be with him again for a time," she said.

  "Yes. Go."

  Vicki sat until night with its stars came above her. At length, she realized it was cold and withdrew.

  Autumn, winter, spring... Summer.

  The evening before, I had had a drink in the bar of La Fonda, the old hotel at the end of the Santa Fe Trail. Now, I regarded the front of the building and waited. Hot up here, atop the row of buildings across San Francisco. I looked past the low screening wall and up the street to my right. All the buildings were low. Very few things in this town over three stories. La Fonda itself is an exception. Adobe, stucco. Varying shades of brown, set off here and there with brick and tile. No problem, getting to this spot before daybreak, coming across rooftops as I had. But now, the sun ... God! It blazed down on the plaza, on my back. Should have worn a long-sleeved shirt. Then I would only be roasting now. This way, I would shortly be a sunburnt corpse or a living lobster. Depending on how things went ... life is more a process of what happens to you while you are waiting for things than it is the collection of things themselves.

  The weapon lay at my feet, a .30/06. It was covered by the dark jacket I had worn last night. I had spent a day with it up in the hills, and even slept with it for several nights running. Yesterday, I had stripped i
t down, cleaned it, oiled it. Now it was loaded, ready. No need to touch it again until it was time to use it. Another might pick it up, fondle it, fool with it, replace it, return to it. Since the bulk of life is waiting, my feelings have always been that one should learn to do it well. The world comes at you through the senses. There is no way to prevent this wholly, short of death, nor should I desire to. It forces a model of itself upon your inner being. So, willing or not, I have it inside me here. Its will is therefore stronger than my own, and I am part of everything it has shown me. Truly, the highest form of activity in which I might engage is its contemplation. But who can be continuously comfortable with ultimates? I would not have minded smoking as I waited, a thing I did in earlier days before I saw how things worked. The other Children of the Earth would say that it is bad for the health and an incidental air pollutant. For me, the air pollution is enough. Too much, actually. Though the world is greater than I am, I know that it can be hurt. I wish to refrain from doing so in as many areas as possible. Even if the results are negligible, I would see them entered into the image of the world within me with an awareness of myself as their agent. This would disturb me at times of waiting and contemplation; that is to say, much of the time. As to its effects on my health, this would trouble me not at all. I do not much care what becomes of me. A man is born, lives, dies. Given infinity, I will be dead as long as anyone else. Unless there is something to reincarnation, as some of them say ... In that case, though, it does not matter either. All that does matter is to build the image and enjoy it, to keep from disturbing its balances, to refrain from harming it.... Or, as I am going to do now, some positive thing to improve it or protect it. That is virtue, the only virtue I can see. If I die bearing with me a better image than would have existed but for my efforts, then I will have passed fulfilled, having rendered the Earth my mother some payment for my keep, some token of gratitude for the time of my existence. As for what becomes of me in the process, let them write: Roderick Leishman. He didn't much care what became of him.

  Two State cars purred up the street and hissed to a halt before the entrance of La Fonda. I leaned forward as a State trooper emerged from the building and went to speak with the drivers. Soon, soon now . . . I’d helped blow two dams during the past year. That makes six for the COE, and two nuclear power plants. The Children have been busy. Today, though, we might accomplish a lot more. Stop the damage before it begins. Wheeler and McCormack, governors of Wyoming and Colorado, here to meet with the governor of New Mexico to discuss large-scale energy projects— large-scale exploitation, pollution, corruption, destruction. I bear them no personal malice, though. Shouldn't have read as much about them as I did. Not all that bad, as individuals. But the Earth is more important Their deaths will mean more than their deaths....