Pstalemate

by Lester Del Rey

  And below him, blacker than the dark of the void, lay the Alien Entity, reaching for him with its sucking dendrite arms, slavering as it tasted ...

  From somewhere, a scream reached him!

  The darkness vanished, leaving him awash in a dull gray cloud. Somewhere in his mind, he groped and strove toward the scream. But the grayness drew tighter against him, wrapping him about in layers of something that lacked all feeling except squeezing tightness.

  He gave up then. It was his own fault. He had sinned. His soul was as tainted as his body, tainted beyond humanity or godhood. Fire had touched him and failed to cleanse him. His taint was too deep, too all-pervading ...

  Something wailed and gibbered!

  The grayness was gone, and he sat in a chair in a room of pallid light and narrow walls. His eyes focused on an empty chair and a clock with frozen hands. His vision was a tunnel ahead of him, and he could not lift or turn.

  Something moved at his feet, but he could not look down. Something breathed harshly.

  Something screamed again, both in his mind and in his ears!

  "Ellen!"

  The cry was a burst of pain from his throat. From somewhere inside himself, he drew an unknown reserve of strength, enough to tear his eyes from the clock and force his neck to move. Hell beyond reckoning laced through him, but his muscles obeyed his will.

  Ellen lay on the floor, her legs twisted under her and her face turned sideways toward him. Her mouth was distorted into a taut grimace of fear, and her eyes were frozen open. Her hands were claws that dug at the rug, with blood oozing from the skin where her efforts had abraided it.

  There was no shield over her mind now. Her thoughts screamed toward him, the horror and fear in them piercing through the muddle of drugs and memory in his brain.

  The strain of watching over his fantasy-horrors had been the final stress beyond her limit. Now her vision of madness was fulfilled. And the real horror was that a tiny spark of the real Ellen knew her madness and desperately reached to him for help.

  He started toward her. The room seemed to swell and spin around him. He was moving again through illusion.

  XV. DELAY

  The driveway of the so-called rest home was in darkness as Dr. Philip Lawson guided his big car away from the gate, but there were lights showing in some of the windows. He pulled into a parking space near the main building and turned toward the old figure on the seat beside him.

  "Were you ever here before, Charley?"

  Grimes put down the papers he had been studying in forlorn hope and shook his head curtly. "No, I depend on regular reports. She couldn't stand me, Phil. I was the Grim Man to her, even before what happened. But I had to have it like this for her. She could never have stood the cure you went through."

  Lawson left him behind and headed across the rich turf and up the walk to the main entrance. There was a woman at the desk whom he'd never met, but he was expected this time. Dr. MacAndrews was waiting for him in the private room toward which she directed him. The man was yawning over a cup of coffee and a clipboard of papers. He waved aside Lawson's apologies for getting him up and held out the papers.

  Strange how that gesture conveyed the respect of one honest physician for another! It had been a long time since Lawson had found anything but contempt from those who had once been his peers, though the imaginary ills he treated had roots deeper than the tumors they could reach. But at least MacAndrews could understand, if not wholly approve.

  There was nothing in the records of Martha Bronson that had not been covered in the report Grimes had received. Her long wait was nearly finished. There was a clearly inoperable growth in her brain, already threatening certain vital areas. But she was somewhat more rational now during the periods when she was permitted to regain consciousness.

  He knew now that his last trip here to threaten her with terrors keyed to her fantasies had been almost pointless; even without his intervention, she could have found few chances to invade the mind of her son. And perhaps it hadn't mattered, after all.

  "Can I see her now, Mac?" he asked.

  MacAndrews nodded reluctantly. "I suppose so, Phil. But she's under heavy sedation. I can bring her out, but ..."

  Lawson checked the papers again for the drug being used, then tapped the bag he had brought. "No problem. I've got something here that will leave her under full analgesia."

  MacAndrews started to protest, then shrugged tiredly. He led the way through the corridors and to the long hall at the rear. Abruptly, he stopped and turned to confront Lawson.

  "How much do you remember?" he asked.

  "Enough to know what it felt like—how good it was at first," Lawson answered. "Nothing more. And you?"

  MacAndrews seemed to strain for something momentarily. Then his face sagged again. "Not even that. I guess I waited too long. If it weren't for you and hints I get from your wife, I'd believe it was all just part of my fantasizing. Oh, hell!"

  "You're better off that way," Lawson assured him. It was the bitter truth, as a thousand nights of useless straining had taught him, before his quest for odd drugs had given him some outlet for his needs.

  MacAndrews nodded vaguely and seemed to dismiss the subject. He lifted a small covering over a spyhole and glanced through it out of habit. Then he opened the door with his key and motioned Lawson through, taking up a post just outside.

  Martha was lying in drugged sleep, her bloated body limp under the sheet. The soft illumination of the room was kind to her, but it could not wholly conceal the ugly ravages of time.

  He stared at her with no particular emotion. She had been his wife once, one who should have been closer than any normal human could conceive. But there had never been any real closeness; she had kept her chilled thoughts to herself, denying him her mind as carefully as she had wanted to deny him his other rights.

  He bent over her now, slipping the sheet back to inject the exotic drug that would best serve his purpose. Finished, he sat on the foot of the bed to wait for her response.

  All the love of which she was capable had gone to her only son. It had been a possessive love, at that. And Philip Bronson had let the boy mean everything to him, too. Young Harry had been a prodigy, far beyond what could be expected. A link had been established between them, almost as soon as the boy could talk. There seemed to be little clairvoyant power in the young mind—perhaps because the changes in the growing personality came too quickly for easy attunement to the future—but the telepathic ability had been phenomenal. Bronson had dared to hope that the strength and talent of his son were enough to overcome what Coleman had begun to think was the usual fate of their kind.

  Then had come Martha's betrayal of the child in the horror of her attempted immolation, while he was so sunk in the despair of his own foreknown doom that he had nearly failed to realize what she must intend. His return had been too late to save the boy from the shock of being in her mind during that horror—almost too late to save them physically.

  Looking back, Lawson still could not estimate how sane his actions had been then. But within the limits of his tottering reason, he had fought honestly to find a way to save the tortured mind of his son. His first efforts had failed, overcome by the lingering connection that still existed between the boy and Martha. In the end, he'd been forced to block both memory and talent from the young mind, barely succeeding within the time he had. It was only on the last day during which he could trust himself that he had given Harry to Charley Grimes with instructions that should preserve his work. And later, after the grim but dim years of recovery, he had been forced to accept Grimes' decision to keep the boy.

  His hope had been that the suppressed talents would eventually reappear, gradually attaining their full force in a mind grown old and mature enough to handle them safely. It had been a shock to learn that the abilities remained buried. He hadn't believed Coleman's reports until he'd managed to gain entry to the Primates and study his son for himself.

  Lawson sighed, seeing th
e first change in Martha's breathing as the drug took effect. How often must a man robbed of all his powers continue to play god? How many mistakes could he make?

  Could a surgeon let his son go through life without vision because of cataracts that could be removed? The answer had seemed simple, despite the risks, when he had used trickery and hypnotism to remove the blocks he had so carefully built. But now...

  Would that drug never work on this wreck of a woman?

  There were all the notes Harry had made to be read after Grimes had the apartment opened in hopes of finding clues to their current location. Harry had always kept copious notes of his thoughts when doing schoolwork, and the habit had remained. They had revealed nothing of any destination. But they had revealed too much else, though nothing that was clear. Insanity, possession, something about an Alien Entity...

  Drat Hillery and his stupid games. And a double pox on the detective who had let the kids slip out of his watch! Maybe there was nothing that could be done for Harry and Ellen. But he had to try. He had to be there!

  Martha stirred at last. She opened her eyes and stared up at him, muttering thickly, lifting one hand in an ancient sign to ward off evil. He bent closer, trying to catch the words. She was making little sense—something about the Man in White, her symbol for him. He spoke soothingly, calling her name, trying to reassure her.

  Once he could have known surely what he needed. But now he was blind and halt, and he must depend on even such a festering remnant as this. She might still be able to tell him—if she would.

  She caught her breath, and her expression cleared. This time she seemed to feel none of the fear she had screamed at him during their last encounter.

  "I'm dead," she said quietly.

  "I know, Martha," he agreed. He'd decoded some of the fantasies behind her ravings long since. "But they can't let you go yet. Not until they can find the Boy. He must be cleaned of sin, too. You know that, don't you, Martha?"

  She nodded heavily. He'd expected a long session, but she seemed exhausted and almost glad to give in to the right appeal. "He's over the river and through the trees," said slowly. "I can't say more. You'll know. If you're not one of them, you'll know."

  The river must be the Hudson—there weren't many trees in the other direction. That meant New Jersey. And there were two possible places there, if he remembered what Grimes had told him. It had to be one of them.

  He opened the door and nodded at MacAndrews. But Martha suddenly giggled shrilly.

  "Too late," she cried. "The Man in White is too late. Always too late! Too late!"

  XVI. RETURN

  Harry saw the living room couch ahead of him, thickly shrouded with crying shadows. He bent toward it, guarding the weight in his arms from the ropy ooze of the ceiling. The couch retreated as he advanced, seeming to melt at one end and flow to the other.

  He blanked his mind to the screaming that seemed to be coming from his arms and reached far back into his memories, groping across hard gulfs toward something he had known. Then he saw it; from the doorway to the couch was only about eight steps. He took one step, then another, counting carefully. The couch still retreated, but something touched his leg at the eighth step. He hardened his mind and looked again. This time, the couch was in front of him, wriggling about but not moving away.

  He put the thing he carried down carefully, to see that it had been Ellen's body. Her face was twisted, and her arms were threshing wildly, while his own arms felt sore and had red streaks down them. Was that more fantasy, or was it real? He focused his eyes with care and decided that the streaks were real gashes in his skin from her nails and that she really was acting strangely.

  The reality came back to him in a sick flash of sureness.

  This was no hallucination. Ellen had gone mad, and he had found her writhing on the floor. He had picked her up to take her to the bedroom, but had somehow turned the wrong way. It didn't matter, he decided; the couch here would serve, since it seemed to be quiet now.

  He sent out a probe toward her. His mind touched a foulness that he had once known from precognition, but the horror that had been foreshadowed for him was only a faint image of this reality.

  Her thoughts boiled at his touch, begging for help and shrieking in fear of him. He heard her scream, felt his own throat contract in a harsh gargling sound, and then his mind ripped itself free from her. It was too much; no sane mind could force itself to plumb the depths of such horror.

  Pithecanthropus slunk through her thoughts, lusting his animal evil and fearing his unknowably gruesome demons. Neanderthaler screamed in superstitious dread as the night fell on him, while his wily mind considered dark things to follow his cannibal feast. Civilized Caligula watched the murder of his kinsmen, trembling but drooling for the throne and the godhood that carried his death.

  Below that lay depths without images or consciousness, reaching back into the slime of primordial retchings.

  Harry wanted to be sick, but his stomach was too taut with shock to convulse.

  This was no paranoia as he had read of it, no schizophrenia he had discovered. It was the basic source of all madness, too dark for name or description. Yet its horror stemmed from the consciousness that still operated within her, crying to him and to herself, touching still the person she had been. Somewhere, the Ellen he loved was mixed into everything else in her mind, and she knew ...

  Great God, how well she knew!

  He dropped beside her, his muscles crawling at the contact with the vessel into which such filth could be poured. Yet he raised one arm and put it around her, hoping that the Ellen-self could feel it and know its message, however much it might also frighten and assault her other reactions. He could only hope; he could not force himself to enter that mind again to know.

  From the shadows of the room, just beyond the edge of his vision, shapes began to slither out. The walls were moving inward, bringing something with them...

  He felt the taste of blood in his mouth as he bit down to control himself. Sweat trickled into his eyes, and he writhed and moaned as he fought. Then the walls were back and normal, and the shapes were gone. He lay panting, straining to hold onto himself.

  He was sure she must have had warning. The brief flash of madness he had felt while preparing himself for his second trip must have been from her mind. That was why she had kept him away from her thoughts and why she had gathered her shield around the knot of her mind. She had realized it was coming, had already felt its first touches. And still she had bent to his will and had tried to control herself to watch over him during his playing at madness with the drugs. She had sat with her fear for him mounting onto her fear for herself and had never used the one claim she had with which to wrench him from his stupid plan! In the end, she had broken. But to the last second, she had fought her battle alone, rather than impose her demands on him!

  Now, when she needed him as no woman had ever needed a man, he was a distorted shell of himself, slackly given over to the control of a chemical that could supply weakling gods to frightened atheists, but which could never provide truth or strength to deal with reality.

  He felt that the drug had not yet begun to weaken, but he could not afford to wait for it to abate, or still longer while he could regain his control. Every second that passed for him was an eon of destruction within her mind. Yet he knew of no antidote or means of ending the hold of the drug on him.

  He pressed himself desperately against Ellen, reaching into his own now-treacherous mind for what he had no other way of finding. He had felt the mind of others who used drugs and had read all that he could find on the subject. But there was no answer in his memories. He had to trust whatever passed for intuition within him, knowing that it was probably untrustworthy now.

  Men could pull themselves free of the influence of alcohol under extreme stress—at least for a brief time. Even the supposedly incurably insane sometimes could meet emergencies with short periods of rational thought. Harry vaguely remembered something abou
t men in mid-trip who could force themselves back to normality when they chose. But no sense of how it was done seemed to have been provided by them.

  He had taken the first step, however. He had recognized that his mind was subject to hallucinations already and had forced himself to deny their control over him. But could he maintain his awareness while he tried to turn his mind to whatever else he must do?

  He fought within himself to force his mind above any level that could be affected by the drug he had taken. He stared at the walls, seeing them still solid and normal. There were dark skitterings at the edge of his consciousness, but they seemed to creep back into nothingness as he worked on them. For the moment he felt wholly himself—but a weakened self, one horribly unsure of how long he could maintain his control.

  He could not think consciously of what he must do. He should be planning his steps in detail, but he knew he dared not think of even the initial move; conscious attention to what he must face would numb his will and send him into shivering fits.

  Coffee! His body sent up a cry for it, while he knew that it could probably do no good. The demand was only an attempt to put off action for a few moments more. Yet habit insisted he fortify himself with the stimulant before any effort could begin.

  He tore himself away from the couch and headed for the kitchen, forcing himself to hold the floor steady before his eyes. He found the pot half full and poured the cold fluid into a cup. He downed it without cream or sugar, then poured another and swallowed it hastily. And finally, hating every step, he turned back to the living room and the writhing figure of Ellen on the couch. He used his belt to fasten her hands clumsily, shoved her toward the wall, and sank beside her.

  His mind plunged into hers. The dampers on her emotions were gone, leaving no control over the wild overreaction of positive feedback. His first touch became a demon invasion, a wanton orgy of rape and torture, a terror beyond tolerance.