Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

lie, but Clarke couldn't know it.) 'I mean, how does one know when one has a negative talent? If it was common everyday practice for people to read other people's minds, then I'd be a freak, the odd man out who couldn't do it and couldn't have it done to him. But it isn't common practice and so I had no measure for it. I only knew — or thought — that I had an interest in parapsychology, the metaphysical. Which is why I mistakenly put in for a transfer here. And then you people checked me out for suitability and discovered I kept my mind in a safe.'

Clarke looked puzzled. 'What are you trying to say?'

'I'm not sure myself. I suppose I'm trying to explain why, as the head of E-Branch, I have so much difficulty believing in what we're doing! And when you confront me with the reality of someone like Harry Keogh… Well, I mean, parapsychology is one thing, but this is supernatural!'

Clarke grinned one of his rare grins. 'So you're human after all,' he said. 'Did you think you were alone in your confusion? Why, there's not a man or woman ever worked here who hasn't known the same doubts. If I had a pound for every time I've thought about it — its ambiguities, inconsistencies and head-on contradictions — hell, I'd be rich! What, an outfit as weird as this is? Robots and romantics? Super-science and the supernatural? Telemetry and telepathy? Computerized probability patterns and precognition? Spy-satellites and scryers? Of course you're confused. Who isn't? But that's what it's all about: gadgets and ghosts!'

Wellesley was a little happier. He'd managed to get Clarke on his side for once. And with what he had in mind, that's where he had to have him. 'And teleportation?' he said. 'Was that one of Keogh's talents, too?'

Clarke nodded. 'That's what we'd call it,' he said, 'but it wasn't like that to Harry. He simply used doors no one else knew were there. He'd step in a door here and… come out somewhere else. Just about anywhere else. When I wanted to recruit him in on the Perchorsk business, I went up to Edinburgh to see him. He said OK, he'd take a chance if I would. That is, if he was going up against the unknown, he wanted me to taste a little of it too. And he brought me back here through a thing he calls the Mobius Continuum. It was quite something, but nothing I'd ever want to do again.'

Wellesley sighed again and said: 'I think you're right. If he got his talents back, we'd have to offer him my job. You'd like that, right?'

Clarke shrugged.

'Don't be coy, Darcy,' Wellesley nodded, knowingly. 'It's plain as day. You'd rather have him — or anyone — as your boss than me. But what you don't seem to realize is that I'm all for it! I don't understand you or the people who work here and I don't suppose I ever will. I want out, but I know our Minister Responsible won't let me go until there's someone to replace me. You? No, because that would make it look like they made a mistake replacing you in the first place. But Harry Keogh…'

'Harry's had the best help we can give him,' Clarke said. 'We've hypnotized him, psychoanalysed him, damn near brainwashed him. But it's gone. So what can you do for him?'

'It's more what we can do for him, Darcy.'

'Goon.'

'Last night I had a long talk with the Markham girl up in Edinburgh, and — '

'If there's one part of this that I really hate,' Clarke heatedly cut in, 'it's that we've done this to him!'

' — And she advised me to speak to David Bettley,' Wellesley continued, unperturbed, 'because she's worried about Keogh. Can you understand that? She does have genuine feelings for him. It may be just a job but she is worried about him. Or maybe you think he'd be better off on his own? Well, whichever, she satisfies two needs: one in Keogh, and one in us. The need to know what's on his mind.'

'The tender art of the mindspy!' Clarke snorted.

'So I took her advice and spoke to Bettley. I got him out of bed to answer his telephone. I would have contacted him anyway, about some of his most recent reports and recordings; because in them he's given me cause to believe that Keogh is (a) about to develop some strange new talent, or (b) he's on the point of cracking up. Anyway, in the course of our conversation Bettley mentioned how Keogh first discovered this, er, Mobius thing — ?'

'The Mobius Continuum.'

' — Correct. He'd apparently been on the verge of it but needed a spur. Which came when the East German GREPO found him talking to Mobius in a Leipzig graveyard. That did it, triggered his mathematical genius. He teleported — or used the Continuum — to escape from them. That's why I have his file here: I wanted to check that I had it right. And it's also why I'm double-checking with you.'

'So?'

'The way I see it,' Wellesley continued, 'Keogh's like a computer that's suffered a power failure: the information he requires — and which E-Branch wants to use — is no longer accessible to him. Oh, it's probably still in there but it's jammed in limbo. And so far we haven't been able to shake it loose.'

'What do you propose?'

'Well, I'm still working on it. But the way I see it, if we apply just the right spur… with a bit of luck it could be Leipzig all over again. You see, Keogh has been having some bad dreams lately; and if what you say of him is true — oh, I don't doubt it, but nevertheless if — then any dream awful enough to frighten him must be really bad. But perhaps not quite bad enough, eh?'

'You want to scare him silly?'

'I want to scare him almost to death. So close to death that he escapes into the Mobius Continuum!'

Clarke sat still and silent for long moments, until eventually Wellesley leaned forward and quietly said:

'Well, what do you think?'

'My honest opinion?'

'Of course.'

'I think it stinks. Also, I think that if you plan to fool with Keogh you'd better take out extra insurance. And finally I think that it had better work, because if it doesn't I'm up and gone. When this is finished, no matter how it works out, I won't be able to work with you any longer.'

Wellesley smiled thinly. 'But you do want me out of here, right? And so you won't… hinder me?'

'No, in fact I insist on being part of it. That way I can be sure that if Harry has any breaks coming, he'll get them.'

Wellesley continued to smile. Oh, he'll get his breaks, all right, he thought. Broken all the way through, in fact!

And he was one of only a handful of men in the entire world who could think such things — especially here in E-Branch HQ — and be certain that no one could hear him doing it.

6. Sandra

Sandra Markham was twenty-seven, possessed a beautiful face and figure, and was a neophyte telepath. As yet her talent was a fifty-fifty thing; she had very little control over it; it came and went. But where Harry Keogh was concerned, that might be just as well. Sometimes, in Harry's mind, she'd read things she was sure had no right to be there — or in any sane mind, for that matter.

She and Harry had made love only an hour ago, and afterwards he had at once fallen asleep. Sandra had come to know Harry's habits well enough: he'd stay asleep for three or four hours, which for him would serve as a full night's rest. As for Sandra: she would have to sleep tomorrow, at her own place in Edinburgh, making up the night's deficiency.

Staring right into Harry's pale, relaxed, almost little-boyish face, she saw no sign as yet of the rapid eye movements which would tell her that he was dreaming. So for now she too could relax. It was Harry's dreams which most interested her. That was what she tried to keep telling herself, anyway.

She worked for E-Branch. Sometimes she wished she didn't, but she did. That was how she earned her daily bread (the meat and gravy, too), so she really shouldn't complain. And in fact there hadn't been too much to complain about, until Harry came along. At first he'd been just another job — a new friend to get close to, learn about and try to understand — but then she'd got in deeper. It had 'just happened', and afterwards she'd wanted it