Dimension Of Horror Part 2

He dragged himself to a sitting position and looked around. The room was empty at the moment, but he harbored dim memories of doctors and nurses coming and going, conversing in low voices so as not to disturb him.

He groped in his pockets for a cigar or one of his well-loved pipes, then realized he had left every form of tobacco back at his office in Copra House. He muttered a curse, remembering his own words. "I understand it won't take very long."

With a sniff of mock self-pity, he stood up and brushed himself off, then slipped on his gray suitcoat, which he had carefully hung over the back of a chair to avoid wrinkling it. After tying his Cambridge tie as neatly as he could without a mirror and generally straightening himself up, he went in search of someone who could tell him what was happening.

After prowling up one door-lined pa.s.sageway and down another, he finally came in sight of Dr. Ferguson, who was coming out of one of the rooms, deep in worried conversation with a burly white-clad orderly.

"Dr. Ferguson!" J called out, breaking into a trot.

The fat little man looked up and smiled without warmth, at the same time dismissing the orderly with a gesture. "Ah, there you are, old man. Before you say another word, I've been instructed to tell you to call Copra House. Your secretary is rather worried about you, I think, though I told her you were . . . "

"Copra House can wait, Ferguson. How is Blade?"

Ferguson's smile wilted slightly. "Come along to the Lounge, there's a good chap." He took J gently by the elbow. "We really must have a chat, you and I."

J shook off the pudgy fingers, but did come along as Ferguson guided him back to the Staff Lounge, seating him on the same couch where he had recently been sleeping.

"Coffee?" the psychiatrist asked.

"No thanks. Just answer my question."

"I think I'll have a cup. It's been a long day." He turned the spigot on the large white percolator and stared with distaste at the unsavory black brew that splashed into his cup.

J growled, "I've had about as much as I can take of your patronizing bedside manner, doctor."

With a sigh Ferguson crossed the room and drew up a chrome and plastic chair in front of the couch, then sat down and sipped his coffee, regarding J with troubled eyes. At last he said, "This was bound to happen, sooner or later."

"What was bound to happen, d.a.m.n you!" J leaned forward.

"The subject does not respond to any of the usual treatments. I've tried to proceed with the customary debriefing under hypnosis, but your Mr. Blade cannot or will not cooperate. As nearly as I can determine, he is suffering from a case of complete amnesia."

"Amnesia? You mean he can't remember what happened to him in the X dimension?"

"If that was all, we'd have nothing to worry about. We've evolved routines to deal with that. No, this is a different kind of problem, a different order of magnitude, you might say."

"You mean he can't remember his name?"

"His name? Why, my dear boy, he can't remember the English language! He can't remember not to wet the bed!"

"But you have drugs. You have Leighton's b.l.o.o.d.y memory machines."

Ferguson sipped and grimaced. "Yes. Quite. We tried them of course. I even had a go at shock therapy."

"Shock therapy? You used shock therapy on Blade?"

"Yes. I gave him a bit of a buzz. Thought it might help, but it didn't." He shrugged fatalistically. "But there must be something . . . " "I'm open to suggestions. My own little bag of tricks is empty. True amnesia is rare, you know, except on the telly and in films. There actually is no treatment of choice for it. Thanks to all the experiments you and Leighton have been doing on this poor chap, this hospital probably knows more about such things than anyone else, but it seems that, as much as we know, it is not enough."

"d.a.m.n you, Ferguson!"

"d.a.m.n me? You're projecting, old man, as we say in therapy. If you must d.a.m.n someone, d.a.m.n yourself. This is all your doing, you know."

"What are you saying? Blade is my friend. If there's a living soul I care about, it's him."

"Really? You've a funny way of showing affection, if you'll pardon my saying so. Downright kinky, to use a layman's expression. But that's how it goes in Her Majesty's Service, doesn't it? England is everything, the individual nothing. If you're angry though, I don't blame you. A useless emotion, anger, but it hits us all now and then. I've a lovely little pill here." He reached for the breast pocket of his flowery s.h.i.+rt. "It'll grow rose-colored gla.s.ses on the inside of your eyes."

J edged away. "No, thanks. I'll be all right."

The psychiatrist took out a plastic bottle filled with white oval capsules. "You know, J, I use these little rascals myself. Perfectly safe, one at a time. And someday, if jolly old England gets a bit much for me, I can swallow a dozen at a gulp and kiss the whole b.l.o.o.d.y mess goodbye." His tone had been growing steadily more bitter, but now his mood changed abruptly and he smiled again, stuffing the bottle back in his s.h.i.+rt pocket. "But if I tell you my troubles, you'll probably send me a bill for listening. I would, if I were in your place. It's your friend Richard Blade we should be talking about"

"I'm glad you finally realized that," J said acidly.

"I'm not giving up on the poor chap. I'm sure we'll think of something if we sit around and scratch our heads a while. Hmm. Seems to me I recall hearing about a similar case. Wasn't there another one of your men who came back from the X dimensions with much the same symptoms before I started working here?"

J nodded, remembering. "That's right. We were training a fellow named Dexter as a replacement for Blade, but the first time he went through Leighton's b.l.o.o.d.y machine, he came back screaming 'The worm has a thousand heads! The worm has a thousand heads!' The man was definitively bonkers, and remains so to this day. We've got him tucked away in a sanitarium in Scotland."

"I'd like to examine your Mr. Dexter, after I've studied his file." The fat man leaned back reflectively. "Dexter and Blade may follow a common pattern."

J said sharply, "Are you telling me that Blade is going to spend the rest of his life tucked away in some sanitarium?"

"Not necessarily. I have a better chance than the team that worked on Dexter. I have more data. The state of the art in my field has progressed somewhat. No cause for undue pessimism, but on the other hand we shouldn't expect any overnight casting out of unclean spirits. By the by, who was on the team that handled Dexter?"

"Team?" J laughed mirthlessly. "There was no team. In those days the only psychiatrist in England with a security clearance high enough to work with us was a Dr. Saxton Colby. Colby handled the whole matter personally, without consultation with anyone."

Ferguson shook his head, frowning. "Bad show. No help for it now, though. Could I speak to Dr. Colby?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? Why on earth not?"

J s.h.i.+fted uneasily. "We don't know where Colby is. We put him in charge of a testing program for candidates for training for the project, potential replacements for Blade. To make a long unpleasant story short, Colby did not develop any viable replacements, but he did develop a few-ah, personal vices-which required his being taken off the project. Nothing nasty, so far as I can recall, but we sent him back to private practice, carefully wrapped in the Official Secrets Act. As to his present whereabouts I haven't the foggiest notion."

Ferguson burst out laughing, much to J's annoyance. "Do you mean to tell me that after all your paranoid security screening, you ended up with a lunatic for your one and only expert on sanity? Oh that's delightful!"

J said coldly, "Our screening can examine a man's past, but not his future. We don't use crystal b.a.l.l.s, you know."

"You should! You should!" The little psychiatrist sobered with effort. "And, though for some reason I've never been able to fathom, your MI6A is called an 'intelligence service,' you've unleashed this mad scientist, upon an unsuspecting world and now you don't even know where he is. Really, old boy, the mind boggles!"

"If you want to talk to Colby, we'll find him, Doctor Ferguson!"

"Do that! It could be there is a reason why a man sane enough to pa.s.s all your tests should suddenly develop these odd vices immediately after treating this Dexter fellow. We have an expression in our profession: 'Loony germs rub off.' What were these vices anyway, if I may ask?"

"If you must know, he was cultivating a taste for nude orgies."

"My word."

"We heard stories: I sent a man down to check, and there was old Colby, capering in the moonlight out in the woods, naked as the proverbial jaybird, along with a number of likeminded a.s.sociates of both s.e.xes. Well, you know how it is in the service. A little eccentricity is regarded as charming, but anything kinky opens you up to blackmail. The KGB does more than scripture can to keep us on the straight and narrow path, if you see what I mean. We had to let him go."

"Of course. But tell me, exactly how many a.s.sociates of both s.e.xes were there?"

"I don't recall. Around a dozen. What difference does it make?"

"Probably none, but if there were twelve of them, six male and six female, that would make up a witches' coven. Witches are rather fond of-as you put it-capering in the moonlight in the woods, buns in the breeze. I'm told the Old Religion is still very much alive in Scotland."

J glanced at Ferguson suspiciously, thinking, He must be joking. Ferguson, however, was not smiling. J muttered, "I dare say. Scotland never has been truly English."

The psychiatrist waved this remark aside, continuing, "I have another question. This Dexter fellow, was he . . ."

J interrupted, "I've a question myself, Doctor Ferguson. Can I see Blade?"

"Certainly."

"When?"

"Right now, if you wish. In fact, I'd like to see if he shows any sign of recognizing you. If he does, the prognosis could be much more favorable than it is at present." He heaved himself to his feet. "Follow me."

As they entered the corridor, the public address system pinged and began announcing, "Dr. Ferguson wanted in Room Twenty-four. Ferguson to Twenty-four." J noticed an odd note in the voice, a note of subdued panic.

Ferguson frowned and hastened his pace, saying in a puzzled tone, "That's Blade's room."

As they neared Room 24, a burly white-clad orderly emerged from inside, caught sight of Ferguson and J, and broke into a run toward them calling, "Dr. Ferguson! Come quick!" The man was alarmingly pale.

"Calm down, d.a.m.nit," Ferguson snapped. "Get a grip on yourself." He slapped the frightened orderly on the back somewhat more roughly than the occasion demanded, then proceeded to the door of Room 24, J close behind him.

A cl.u.s.ter of orderlies and nurses huddled together in the doorway, murmuring in worried voices. Ferguson and J pushed through the crowd into the small, brightly lit room. J noted with relief that Richard Blade was apparently unharmed, strapped down in a bed, staring vacantly into s.p.a.ce.

Ferguson was demanding angrily, "What is all this nonsense, anyway?"

Three of the nurses began speaking at once, trying to explain, a moment before J's gaze fell on the cause of their near-hysteria.

"My G.o.d," J whispered.

A large ma.s.sive white steel dresser lay overturned on its face to the left of the foot of Richard's bed. Above it, near the ceiling, J saw a deep gash in the plaster wall from which pulverized plaster was sifting down in a rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng cascade.

One of the nurses, a disheveled redhead, stepped forward as the others fell silent "I heard a crash in here, sir," she said. "I was in another room down the hall, but I came running. When I entered the dresser was . . . it was . . ."

"Go on, woman," J prompted. "It's all right."

"The dresser was floating slowly through the air, settling gently to the floor where you see it now," she finished.

"Was there anyone in the room?" J demanded "No, sir. Mr. Blade was here of course, but he was strapped down to his bed. There was n.o.body in the hall either until a moment later, when every staff person on this ward showed up."

"She screamed, sir," the burly orderly explained.

"I suppose I did," the nurse admitted apologetically, looking down.

Doctor Ferguson was examining the dresser. He shook his head slowly and let out a low whistle. "This is a heavy piece of furniture. We had to move it when we repainted the room a few months back. As I recall it took four strong men to lift it." He turned his gaze to the gash in the wall. The powdered plaster was no longer falling. "Yet it would appear that someone picked the thing up and threw it across the room, smas.h.i.+ng it against the wall up there. I can't believe it." He faced the nurse. "Did you say you saw it floating slowly through the air?"

"She didn't see nothing like that, did you, luv?" The orderly slipped a protective arm around her waist.

"Yes, I did!" she insisted.

"She's excited, that's all," the orderly said. "She ain't crazy. When she calms down . . . "

"We do have one other witness," Ferguson said thoughtfully. "Your friend Blade, J old boy. Blade saw it all. If there's anyone can confirm or deny her story, it's him."

J stepped forward. "Richard? Can you hear me? If you can, give me some sign."

Blade did not reply, but did appear to be aware that J was speaking to him. At least, his eyes focused on J's face.

J tried again. "You must have seen what happened here just now. Tell me, Richard. Tell me."

Blade's blank eyes remained on J's face, but his features were expressionless.

"Tell me," J repeated.

J stared into Richard's eyes for a long time, waiting for an answer, or at least for some flicker of recognition.

At last, with an angry shrug, J turned away and strode from the room.

In the lounge he found a wall phone, and after securing an outside line, phoned his secretary at Copra House.

"Could you send the Rolls over to the Tower to pick me up?"

"Right away, sir." Her voice was cold, businesslike.

"Then call our man at Heathrow Airport and have him make ready the Lear jet. Tell him to file a flight plan for Inverness."

As he hung up, J silently admitted that he should be sending an agent on this mission, rather than going himself. But, he mused, half-smiling, everything's so nebulous. I need to get a feel for it personally, first-hand, if I've any hope of understanding it.

He went to the elevator, pressed the b.u.t.ton, and waited, listening to the rush as it came down. Abruptly, though he had heard no one approach, he thought he saw, from the corner of his eye, someone standing at his right.

He turned to speak, but there was n.o.body there.

The elevator door slid open. Glancing uneasily around, he stepped inside. As the elevator ascended with a sickening acceleration, he thought bleakly, Are the loony germs rubbing off on me? I could have sworn someone was there!

At fourteen hundred hours, in a light rain, the Lear jet touched down at Inverness Airport. Opening his umbrella, J disembarked and hurried for the hangar, leaving the pilot to tie down and make arrangements. The sanitarium had sent a car-a Rover-and a chauffeur, a big fellow with a pot belly and no hair. J guessed he was an old MI6 man in semi-retirement; former SIS men often had a wary look about the eyes and a body that had once been trained like an athlete's, but had been let go to seed, and this sanitarium functioned largely as a place where used-up agents were put out to pasture.

As they drove inland, cruising swiftly along the glistening wet macadam roadway, J leaned forward and spoke to the back of the man's head.

"Have you been working for the sanitarium long?"

"Long enough, sir."

"Do you like the job?"

"I've no opinion about it, sir."

"No opinion?"