religion. It was his work for the Foundation which took him to Optima Thule two years ago, and today there are unconfirmed reports that a bizarre experiment — designed by Doctor London to prove some of his theories — has been…'
'Mister Dallen!' Betti Knopp appeared directly in front of him as if by magic, hands on hips, elbows stuck out in the classic posture of exasperation. 'There's something we have to get straight.'
He said, 'Wait a minute — I'm trying to hear what…'
'I won't wait a minute — you're going to hear me out right now!' Betti, who had been almost totally silent for weeks, was transformed into a noise-making machine. 'I don't have to take all this high-and-mighty treatment from you or anybody else.'
'Please let me hear this one item, and then well…'
'If you think you're too important to talk with me why don't you contact the clinic and see if they got somebody more to your taste? Why don't you?'
Dallen got to his feet, tried to placate Betti and only succeeded in attracting the attention of Cona, who added to the noise level by starting to pound on her tray with a dish. He turned and ran upstairs to his bedroom, slammed the door shut behind him and switched on another holovision. The local newscast was still running, but now the subject was hotel closures. He tried to activate the set's ten-minute memory facility and swore silently but fervently as he remembered it needed repair. Tense with frustration, he considered returning to the downstairs set, then came an abrupt shift to a more analytical mode of thought.
It had been established that Karal London was dead, so the big question troubling Dallen related to the strange experiment. Was the fact of its being mentioned at all an indication that there had been a surprising result?
The notion seemed more preposterous than ever — the idea of a deceased scientist reaching out across the light years from Orbitsville and disturbing a material object on Earth — but why were the information media interested? Would anybody connected with the Anima Mundi Foundation have been in a hurry to spread word of a negative result?
And why, he thought in a conflict of emotion, am I standing around here?
There were five cars already parked on the gravel in front of the London place, and among them — inevitably it seemed — was Renard's gold Roliac. The front door of the house was open. Dallen went inside, found the hall deserted, and turned left to walk through the living room and the studio beyond. Afternoon sunlight had transformed the fantastic glass mosaic into a curtain of varicoloured fire. Dallen hurried past it and made his way to the corridor which ran towards the rear of the premises, following a murmur of voices. He reached the chamber housing the experimental apparatus and found the door ajar.
In the dimness beyond were perhaps a dozen people in a rough circle about the case containing the six metal spheres. As his eyes adjusted to the conditions Dallen made out the white-clad figure of Silvia London, with Renard standing next to her. She was slightly stooped and was hugging herself as though trying to ward off coldness. Dallen knew she had been crying. He paused in the doorway, uncertain of his right to enter, until Renard beckoned to him.
Feeling conspicuous, he moved forward a few paces and joined the circle of watchers whose attention was fixed on the first sphere in the row of six. A lengthy silence ensued and he feh a growing disappointment, a sense of anticlimax. It was apparent to him now that the members of the group were still waiting for a sign, for proof that their mentor continued to exist as an entity composed of virtually undetectable particles.
Naivety of that magnitude, he supposed, would in itself be a newsworthy item, and he too was guilty in that respect, otherwise he would still be at home. Or would he? He had discovered that his unconscious mind possessed neither scruples nor pride, so it was quite possible that he had come to the London house quite simply to be seen by Silvia as soon as possible after her husband's death — a tactic his conscious mind could only despise.
Irritated by yet another plunge into self-analysis, Dallen looked for an unobtrusive means of escape from the circle, but even Renard was displaying a kind of reverent absorption in the gleaming sphere and its matrix of sensors. Playing up to Silvia now that Karat is out of the way? The sheer adolescent bitchiness of the thought sparked Dallen's annoyance with himself into full-blown anger.
He turned to walk out — and in the same instant a blue lumitube above the first sphere flickered into life.
It glowed for several seconds, during which the silence in the chamber was like grey glass, then the light faded. The silence was disrupted by near-explosive sighs followed immediately by the clamour of voices. Somebody gave a quavering but triumphant laugh. Dallen continued to stare at the polished sphere while he tried to rebuild his private view of the universe.
If the brief wash of photons from the lumitube meant what it was supposed to mean, Karal London was actually in the same room with him, occupying the same space. The imputation was that, released from his body by death, the physicist had been able to rove out across interstellar space and by some unimaginable means impose his will on the forces of gravity.
The message was that the human personality could survive dissolution of the body, had the potential for immortality.
Dallen felt a stealthy chill move down his spine and he shivered. Could he now believe that the Cona Dallen to whom he had been married also still existed in another kind of space? Or would London's theory have it that the assault on her physical brain had to be equally destructive to a mtndon counterpart? But that implied…
'I'm a victim of philosophical rape,' Renard whispered, appearing at Dallen's side. 'Old Karal has screwed up at least half of my highly expensive education.'
Dallen nodded, his gaze fixed on Silvia who was leaving the chamber amid a knot of men and women, all of whom were speaking to her at once. 'Where's everybody going? Don't they want to wait and see if anything else happens?'
'Nothing more is expected — that was the fifth signal. Didn't Silvia mention that bit? It's all part of Karal's experimental procedure. As well as having a separate target, each volunteer is supposed to send a different number of pulses.' Speaking in a low voice, with none of his customary scoffing vulgarity, Renard explained that the first signal had been detected four hours previously. On receiving it Silvia had notified some officers of the Foundation and, in accordance with an agreed plan, they had sent a tachygram to Karal London's residence in Port Napier, Orbitsville. There had come immediate confirmation that London had just thed. For most workers in the field of the paranormal that would have been sufficient proof of the theory, but London had wanted to go further. The arrival of a predetermined number of signals would, as well as being a powerful argument against a freak equipment malfunction, demonstrate that in his discarnate form he could reproduce familiar human thought patterns. It would also show mat time in mental space was compatible with time in normal space.
'I hate to admit it,' Renard concluded, 'but I owe the good Doctor London an apology.'
'Aren't you a bit late?'
'Not at all.' Renard faced the now empty chamber and spread his arms. 'Karal, you old bugger, you're not as crazy as you look.'
'Very handsome apology,' Dallen said.
'The least I could do, old son — it isn't every day that somebody is obliging enough to the and leave you his wife. Did I mention that Silvia is going to the Big O with me?'
Dallen's heart sledged against his ribs. 'It must have slipped your mind.'
'Beautiful self-control, Carry — you didn't even blink.' Renard's arch of teeth glinted as he peered into Dallen's face. 'The Foundation's main job now is to spread the glad tidings, which means there's no point in Silvia hanging around here when somebody else can keep an eye on the experiment. All the scientific bosses have their headquarters on Orbitsville, so…'
'Will she address them herself?'
'Only as a figurehead — and that's a job she's really cut out for. There'll be some qualified physicists from the Foundation going out to do all the talking, and I'm giving everybody a free trip.' Renard smiled again. 'Just to prove what a genuinely decent person lam.'
'Of course.' Determined not to become involved in any of Renard's private games, Dallen began to leave.
'Wait a minute. Carry.' Renard moved to block the doorway. 'Why don't you go back to Orbitsville with us?
