Fear That Man

Buronto had finished with the chair. There was nothing left of it that could be pounded against the wall. Splinters and scraps of plastic lay over the floor and surrounding tables. The wall was worse for the encounter too. Black Jack Buronto, obviously, would not care if he killed a hundred men. A thousand. He turned to them, plodding through the mounting wreckage. He tossed aside anything that stood in his way, knocking over tables, smashing chairs and lamps and robotenders. He lashed out at Hurkos, struck a blow that sent the small Mue tumbling across another table and crashing to the floor in a cloud of broken glass.

Gnossos stepped up to take a swing at the maddened Buronto, but he was a Natural. It was impossible for him to strike out at a fellow man, no matter how deserving of punishment that fellow man might be. Had Buronto been an animal, the case would have been simpler. But he was not. And a thousand years of sanity made Gnossos check his blow even before he started it. And Buronto delivered a punch that set the poet down hard. As Gnossos and Hurkos struggled to gain their feet, Black Jack heaved a table out of the way and came for Sam.

Patrons were moving out of the doors, hiding behind stable objects, not anxious to get involved but not about to lose out on a good show like this. They waved bottles, hooted, howled, and cheered for Buronto.

And at that moment, the second hypnotic order came to Sam…

A chaos of noise obliterated the lesser noise in the bar. Sam’s eyes glossed. He wobbled for a moment as neither he nor the mysterious hypnotic master was fully in control of his temporal self. Then, determinedly, he set out for the door. Buronto, seeing the move and misjudging it for retreat, snarled and leaped over the fallen furniture, reaching the door first. “Not yet. I hurt you first!”

He reached with great, corded hands for Sam…

And suddenly doubled up as Sam struck him a blow in the stomach that would have crumbled a wall — because a wall would not have given as Buronto’s stomach did. And Buronto’s stomach certainly gave — gave up to Sam’s wrist. Whoever was controlling Sam’s body did not seem to have anything against violence. The giant offed, stumbled, but still managed to clutch Sam’s shoulder. Sam brought a foot up, twisted away, and slammed the foot into Buronto’s gut, sent him to his knees. Then he was past the Unnatural and through the door.

“After him!” Gnossos shouted. “He’s gotten another order!” The two of them ran past the gasping Buronto and outside. But in the dimness of the night, the streets were empty. Sam was a long time gone.

IX

The water, chemicals, and lubricants flowed about him in invisible pipes. No, not invisible. Materially nonexistent. There were tubes of force that clothed the liquids. No cumbersome, unreliable, destructible metal fixtures, only pure, raw force adapted to do a better job. Gurgling, the fluids flowed from one part of the giant mechanism to another, covering the block-by-a-block machine quickly and efficiently. This was the machine that kept the Shield up, however, and he was frightened because it all seemed so flimsy. He knew that forces, bent and shaped, were better than actual material parts that could wear out or fail from structural flaws. Still, all those liquids flowing through nothingness, and all of them vital to the maintenence of the Shield…

Click!

Breadloaf whirled around—

Click!

And around again!

Clicker-click-tick, hmmmmmmm.

The noises bothered him; he interpreted every sound as the beginning of the breakdown. Okay, he had seen it. Now he could leave. He walked to the door, hesitated and looked around. There were other clicks and a muffled clank. He would go insane just listening to it operate, he told himself. Before the horror of a possible breakdown could flood his mind with sewage of ridiculous fears, he stepped into the hall and closed the door behind. Grudgingly, and yet with a profound sense of relief, he went back to his office.

The orders were coming to Sam in a swift series now. Between the accomplishment of one thing and the next order, there were only seconds in which he had control of himself and knew precisely who he was. He could never remember what it was he had done on the last order, and was engulfed by the next before he really had a chance to investigate his surroundings.

Now he was standing in a great chamber full of machines. That made him — or rather his hypnotic master through him — feel uneasy. Machines, machines, machines. Humming, gurgling, sputtering. He had broken in. The street door had not been locked, for hardly anyone locked anything these days. No need to, without crimes being committed. But this floor had been sealed. His last order had been to break in here where things flowed through pipes he could not see and machinery throbbed with an overwhelming purpose. But what had he done before that? And what would he do next?

Then the chaos and the noises came, and he was moving…

When he came out, a package he had been holding under his arm was gone. He had not had time to examine it. He did not know what he had done with it. Or what it had been.

Then the chaos and the noises came, and he was moving…

Breadloaf rubbed his fists in his eyes, pulled open a desk drawer and fumbled in it for anti-snooze tablets. He found a bottle, popped two pills in his mouth, swallowed without benefit of water. Recapping the bottle, he withdrew a second container of tiny nerve pills. He was in the process of swallowing one of these when the door flew open, crashing into its slot with a sharp, ear-shattering crash. There was a man standing there, eyes like vacant, unseeing marbles, his hands flung outward like the hands of a stage magician. The tips of his fingers glowed and vibrated with some hideous power that was immediately a thing to be called evil.

And from the fingernails came darts.

Needles of sleep.

They bit into Breadloaf, spreading their red warmth, pulling him down into a Shieldless darkness that forced but denied him to scream…

When Sam was in control of his body again, the first thing that struck his attention was the man slumped in the chair-seemingly unconscious — behind the desk. His every muscle was taut beneath the surface relaxation, as if the death penalty had been the only alternative to unconsciousness. Secondly, there was the screen. It was to the right of him, and for a moment it had been in a low-key color series of magenta and black. Abruptly, it spewed forth oranges and whites and creams that splashed across the room and grabbed his eyes.

He walked to the screen, stared at it. An indescribable chill swept up and down his spine. It was as if the colors were alive and wanted out.

“What do you want? Who are you?”

The voice startled him, and he leaped, his heart pounding. But it had not been the colors; it had been the man, Sam walked to the massive desk. “My name is Sam. I was—”

“What do you want? Why did you do this to me?”

“Do what?”

“I can’t move, damn you!”

Sam hesitated, looked about the room, sensing a ghost scene of what must have transpired. “I paralyzed you?”

Breadloaf’s thin lips moved, and his eyes revolved like ball bearings in well-oiled grooves. Yet the rest of his body was carved from wood, stiff and immovable. “You and the darts beneath your fingernails. What the hell kind of man are you!”

Sam lifted his hands and looked at them. The nails were discolored as if fine bits of flesh had puffed into ashes beneath them, leaving blackened pits. He rubbed one, but the color was definitely not on the surface.

“What kind of man are you!” Breadloaf roared this time, panic flushing every word, every word cored with fear.

“I don’t know,” Sam said finally. “Is there some way I can help you?”

Breadloaf was breathing heavily. “Yes! Go get help!”

“I can’t do that,” Sam said. He stood on the carpet, shuffling one foot over the other, feeling somewhat the