"Sorry, Mary. Got to use you."
"I'm getting ready to say goodbye... Maybe for good... Do I have to endure this?
Isn't it bad enough for me already?"
"Shhhhh. Gently, dear..."
Barbara stared at Mary, then at Powell. She shook her head slowly. "You're
lying."
"Am I? Look at me." He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face.
Dishonest Abe came to his assistance. His expression was kind, tolerant, amused,
patronizing. "Look at me, Barbara."
"No!" she cried. "Your face is lying. It's... It's hateful! I---" She burst into
tears and sobbed: "Oh go away. Why don't you go away?"
"We're going away, Barbara." Mary said. She came forward, took the girl's arm
and led her to the door.
"There's a Jumper waiting, Mary."
"There's me waiting, Linc. For you. Always. And the Chervils & @kins & Jordans
&&&&&&&---"
"I know. I know. I love you all. Kisses. XXXXXX. Blessings..."
Image of four-leaf clover, rabbits' feet, horseshoes...
Bawdy response of Powell emerging from slok covered with diamonds.
Faint laughter.
Farewell.
He stood in the doorway whistling a crooked, plaintive tune, watching the Jumper
disappear into the steel-blue sky boring north toward Kingston Hospital. He was
exhausted. A little proud of himself for having made the sacrifice. Intensely
ashamed of himself for feeling proud. Clearly melancholic. Should he take a
grain of Potassium Niacate and kick himself up into the manic curve? What the
hell was the use? Look at that great foul city of seventeen and one half million
souls and not one soul for him. Look at---
The first impulse came. A thin trickle of latent energy. He felt it distinctly
and glanced at his watch. Ten-twenty. So soon? So quickly? Good. He'd better get
ready.
He turned into the house and darted up the stairs to his dressing room. The
impulses came pattering... like the preliminary raindrops before a storm. His
psyche began to throb and vibrate as he reached out and absorbed those tiny
streams of latent energy. He changed his clothes, dressed for all weather,
and---
And what? The pattering had become a drizzle, washing over him, filling his
consciousness with ague... with grinding emotional flashes... with---Yes,
nutrient capsules. Hold on to that. Nutrient. Nutrient. Nutrient! He tumbled
down the stairs into the kitchen. Found the plastic bulb, cracked it and
swallowed a dozen capsules.
The energy came in torrents now. From each Esper in the city, a trickle of
latent power that merged and merged into a stream, a river, a swirling sea of
Mass Cathexis directed toward Powell, tuned to Powell. He opened all blocks and
absorbed it all. His nervous system superheterodyned and screamed and a turbine
in his mind whirled faster and faster with a mounting intolerable whine.
He was out of the house, wandering through the streets, blind, deaf, senseless,
immersed in that boiling mass of latent energy... like a ship with sails caught
in the nexus of a typhoon, fighting to convert a whirlpool of wind into the
motive power that would lead to safety... S. Powell fought to absorb that
fearful torrent, to Capitalize that latent energy, to Cathectize and direct it
toward the Demolition of Reich before it was too late, too late, too late, too
late, too late...
16
ABOLISH THE LABYRINTH.
DESTROY THE MAZE.
DELETE THE PUZZLE.
(x o Y³d! Space/d! Time)
DISBAND.
(OPERATIONS, EXPRESSIONS, FACTORS, FRACTIONS, POWERS, EXPONENTS, RADICALS,
IDENTITIES, EQUATIONS, PROGRESSIONS, VARIATIONS, PERMUTATIONS, DETERMINANTS, AND
SOLUTIONS)
EFFACE.
(ELECTRON, PROTON, NEUTRON, MESON AND PHOTON)
ERASE.
(CAYLEY, HENSON, LILLIENTHAL, CHANUTE, LANGLEY, WRIGHT, TURNBUL AND S&ERSON)
EXPUNGE.
(NEBULAE, CLUSTERS, STREAMS, BINARIES, GIANTS, MAIN SEQUENCE, AND WHITE DWARFS)
DISPERSE.
(PISCES, AMPHIBIAN, BIRDS, MAMMALS, AND MAN)
ABOLISH.
DESTROY,
DELETE.
DISBAND.
ERASE ALL EQUATIONS.
INFINITY EQUALS ZERO.
THERE IS NO---
"---there is no what?" Reich shouted. "There is no what?" He struggled upward,
fighting the bedclothes and the restraining hands. "There is no what?"
"No more nightmares," Duffy Wyg& said.
"Who's that?"
"Me. Duffy."
Reich opened his eyes. He was in a frilly bedroom in a frilly bed with
old-fashioned linen and blankets. Duffy Wyg&, starched and fresh, had her hands
against his shoulders. Once again she tried to thrust him back against the
pillows.
"I'm asleep," Reich said. "I want to wake up."
"You say the nicest things. Lie down and the dream will continue."
Reich fell back. "I was awake," he said somberly. "I was wide awake for the
first time in my life. I heard... I don't know what I heard. Infinity and zero.
Important things. Reality. Then I fell asleep and I'm here."
"Correction," Duffy smiled. "Just for the record. You awoke."
"I'm asleep!" Reich shouted. He sat up. "Have you got a shot? Anything... opium,
hemp, somnar, lethettes... I've got to wake up, Duffy. I've got to get back to
reality."
Duffy bent over him and kissed him hard on the mouth. "How about this? Real?"
"You don't understand. It's all been delusions... hallucinations... everything.
I've got to readjust, reorientate, reorganize... Before it's too late, Duffy.
Before it's too late, too late, too late..."
Duffy threw up her hands. "What the hell's happened to medicine!" she exclaimed.
"First that damned doctor scares you into a faint. Then he swears you're patched
up... and now look at you. Psychotic!" She knelt on the bed and shook a finger
against Reich's nose. "One more word out of you and I call Kingston."
"What? Who?"
"Kingston, as in hospital. Where they send people like you."
"No. Who did you say scared me into a faint?"
"A doctor friend."
"In the square in front of police headquarters?"
"X marks the spot."
"Sure?"
"I was with him, looking for you. Your valet told me about the explosion and I
was worried. We got to the rescue just in time."
"Did you see his face?"
"See it? I've kissed it."
"What's it look like?"
"It's a face. Two eyes. Two lips. Two ears. One nose. Three chins. Listen, Ben,
if this is some more of the awaken-asleep-reality-infinity lyrics... it ain't
commercial."
"And you brought me here?"
"Sure. How could I pass up the opportunity? It's the only way I can get you into
my bed."
Reich grinned. He relaxed and said: "Duffy, you may now kiss me."
"Mr. Reich, you have already been kissed. Or was that when you were still
awake?"
"Forget that. Nightmares. Plain nightmares." Reich burst into laughter. "Why the
hell should I worry about having nightmares? I have the rest of the world in my
hands. I'll take the dreams too. Didn't you once ask to be dragged through the
gutter, Duffy?"
"That was a childish whim. I thought I could meet a better class of people."
"You name the gutter and you can have it, Duffy. Gold gutters... Jewelled
gutters. You want a gutter from here to Mars? You'll have it. You want me to
turn the System into a gutter? I'll do it. Christ! I can turn the Galaxy into a
gutter if you want it." He jabbed his chest with his thumb. "Want to look at
God? Here I am. Go ahead and look."
"Dear man. So modest and so hung-over."
"Drunk? Sure, I'm drunk." Reich thrust his legs out of the bed and stood up,
reeling slightly. Duffy came to him at once and he put his arm around her waist
for support. "Why shouldn't I be drunk? I've licked D'Courtney. I've licked
Powell. I'm forty years old. I've got sixty years of owning the whole world
ahead of me. Yes. Duffy... the whole damned world!" He began walking around the
room with Duffy. It was like a stroll through her ebullient erotic mind. A
peeper decorator had reproduced Duffy's psyche perfectly in the decor.
"How'd you like to start a dynasty with me, Duffy?"
"I wouldn't know about starting dynasties."
"You start with Ben Reich. First you marry him. Then---"
"That's enough. When do I start?"
"Then you have children. Boys. Dozens of boys..."
"Girls. And only three."
"And you watch Ben Reich take over D'Courtney and merge it with Monarch. You
watch the enemies go down... like this!" In full stride, Reich kicked the leg of
a busty vanity table. It toppled and crashed a score of crystal bottles to the
floor.
"After Monarch and D'Courtney become Reich, Incorporated, you watch me eat up
the rest... the small ones... the fleas. Case and Umbrel on Venus. Eaten!" Reich
brought his fist down on a torso-shaped side table and smashed it. "United
Transaction on Mars. Mashed and eaten!" He crushed a delicate chair. "The GCI
Combine on Ganymede, Callisto, and Io... Titan Chemical & Atomics... And then
the smaller lice: the backbiters, the haters, the Guild of Peepers, the
moralists, the patriots... Eaten! Eaten! Eaten!" He pounded his palm against a
marble nude until it toppled from its pedestal and shattered.
"Clever-up, dog," Duffy hung on his neck. "Why waste all that dear violence?
Punch me around a little."
He lifted her in his arms and shook her until she squealed. "And parts of the
world will taste sweet... like you, Duffy; and parts will stink to high heaven
... but I'll gobble them all." He laughed and crushed her against him. "I don't
know much about the God business, but I know what I like. We'll tear it all
down, Duffy, and we'll build it all up to suit us... You and me and the
dynasty."
He carried her to the window, tore away the drapes and kicked open the sashes
with a mighty jangle of smashed glass. Outside, the city was in velvet darkness.
Only the skyways and streets twinkled with lights, and the scarlet eyes of an
occasional Jumper popped up over the jet skyline. The rain had stopped and a
slender moon hung pale in the sky. The night wind came whispering in, cutting
through the cloy of the spilled perfume.
"You out there!" Reich roared. "Can you hear me! All of you... sleeping and
dreaming. You'll dream my dreams from now on! You'll---"
Abruptly he was silent. He relaxed his hold on Duffy and permitted her to slide
to the floor alongside him. He seized the sides of the window and poked his head
far out into the night, twisting his neck to stare up. When he drew his head
back into the room, his face wore a bewildered expression.
"The stars," he mumbled. "Where are the stars?"
"Where are the what?" Duffy wanted to know.
"The stars," Reich repeated. He gestured timidly toward the sky. "The stars.
They're gone."
Duffy looked at him curiously. "The what are gone?"
"The stars!" Reich cried. "Look up at the sky. The stars are gone. The
constellations are gone! The Great Bear... The Little Bear... Cassiopeia...
Draco... Pegasus... They're all gone! There's nothing but the moon! Look!"
"It's the way it always is," Duffy said.
"It is not! Where are the stars?"
"What stars?"
"I don't know their names... Polaris and... Vega... and... How the hell should I
know their names? I'm not an astronomer. What's happened to us? What's happened
to the stars?"
"What are stars?" Duffy asked.
Reich seized her savagely. "Suns... Boiling and blazing with light. Thousands of
them. Billions of them... shining through the night. What the hell's the matter
with you? Don't you understand? There's been a catastrophe in space, the stars
are gone!"
Duffy shook her head. Her face was terrified. "I don't know what you're talking
about, Ben. I don't know what you're talking about."
He shoved her away, turned and ran to the bathroom, and locked himself in. While
he was hurriedly bathing and dressing, Duffy pounded on the door and pleaded
with him. Finally, she broke off, and seconds later he heard her calling
Kingston Hospital, using a guarded voice.
"Let her start explaining about the stars," Reich muttered, halfway between
anger and terror. He finished his toilette and came out into the bedroom.
Duffy cut the phone off hastily and turned to him.
"Ben," she began.
"Wait here for me," he growled. "I'm going to find out."
"Find out about what?"
"About the stars!" he yelled. "The Christ almighty missing stars!"
He flung out of the apartment and rushed down to the street. On the empty
footway, he paused and stared up again. There was the moon. There was one
brilliant red point of light... Mars. There was another... Jupiter. There was
nothing else. Blackness. Blackness. Blackness. I hung over his head, enigmatic,
unrelieved, terrifying. It pressed downward, by some trick of the eye,
oppressive, stifling, deadly.
He began to run, still staring upward. He turned a corner of the footway and
collided with a woman, knocking her flat. He pulled her to her feet.
"You clumsy bastard!" she screamed, adjusting her feathers. Then in an oily
voice: "Lookin' for a good time, pilot?"
Reich held her arm. He pointed up. "Look. The stars are gone. Have you noticed?