Psychomech (31 page)

And as the months had passed swiftly by, so Jimmy Craig had commenced to work on the beast, ripping out parts which were at best obsolete—at worst downright dangerous!—and replacing them wherever possible with micro-components. And slowly Psychomech grew smaller and more powerful; and gradually the beast assumed, or seemed to assume, something of the shape Garrison believed he best remembered.

Craig was the best possible man for the job, but as he worked so he came across several major ambiguities. All of these he religiously brought to Garrison’s attention in weekly written progress reports and soon Craig, too, was convinced that Wyatt was not the machine’s inventor.

Garrison had at once cautioned Craig on this point. Not only was his work to be kept in strictest secrecy from the outside world, but he must on no account let Wyatt suspect his authority to be in any doubt where the machine was concerned. Craig could only shrug and agree. With the sort of money Garrison was paying him, he would have been a fool to do otherwise.

The machine was a work of genius, of that Craig was not in doubt. The more he studied its complex mechanisms and replaced its defunct parts, the more readily he could see and understand its functions. There were, however, those previously mentioned ambiguities.

As Wyatt had pondered before him, though on a different level, so Craig now pondered those apparently superfluous extensions or appendages of Psychomech, without which the machine would seem to function perfectly well in its primary capacity. Which prompted this obvious question: did these extra components constitute a secondary capacity, or were they merely part of the
real
primary? If the latter, what was that primary function? And these things, too, were reported to Garrison.

The blind man’s interest and excitement had known no bounds. Craig was to carry on with his work, make no mention of any of this to Wyatt, continue replacing and improving whatever could be replaced and improved. He was not to concern himself with primary or secondary functions, merely to ensure that the machine would work as before, but on a higher plane of efficiency and with a greater safety factor.

… Which was when it first occurred to Garrison to ask Craig what had been wrong with Psychomech in the first place. The answer was illuminating indeed. Nothing had been wrong with the machine! It would have worked; there was even evidence to show that it had worked, several times, but with an extremely low safety-margin. Wyatt had been quite right on that score: the original Psychomech would have been invaluable as an experimental model, but not as a fully tested machine for everyday use in a psychiatric clinic. And this way, of course, there were now blueprints. Craig had got everything down on paper, all of it. Why, working from his notes and diagrams, any fool could now build himself a Psychomech.

Of course!

That was what Wyatt had been after: the means—the plans, the technical data—to build more of them, to put them into commercial use, to make a killing. But that was not what Garrison wanted with Psychomech, not at this stage; for something warned him that it might be an extremely dangerous road to travel.

Which was why, in March of the following year and as the horoscope deadline grew steadily closer, when Craig’s work was done and Psychomech was ready, Garrison ordered all of the electronic engineer’s notes and blueprints brought to him so that he could personally burn them.

Psychomech was his and no other’s. His dream, his reality. And the same day, when Wyatt came to see him and furiously protest his action, he told the psychiatrist his plan: that he intended to be the new Psychomech’s first subject, that he himself would ride Psychomech down those weird corridors of the mind to whichever future awaited him. He had expected some opposition, but…

… There was none.

And all the while a spark in his brain grew brighter and brighter, and ever and again he would see before his blind eyes those burning letters and words of Adam Schenk’s horoscope:

‘Machine—RG/TS—Light!’

Garrison’s next two months were in the main given over to deliberation, preparation and planning, but all overshadowed by a sense of impending—
something
. An exhilaration previously unknown to him—a deathly thrill. Oh, he feared Psychomech a little now, certainly, but still he must ride. And while Jimmy Craig checked and re-checked his handiwork on the machine, dry-running the humming, crackling beast hour after hour, day after day, Garrison sat in the study of his own home not many miles away and pondered the strange trails his life had followed to bring him to this junction.

But at last Jimmy Craig completed his checks and reported that Psychomech was go, and from that moment on Garrison moved quickly indeed.

First he set the date with Wyatt (it was to begin on Sunday, 6 June), and signed a cheque to the tune of a quarter-million pounds in the psychiatrist’s favour. This was partly to show good faith and bolster their original agreement, partly to insure his personal safety. His life would be in Wyatt’s hands all the time he was on the machine. There would be a second quarter-million for the psychiatrist when, sound in mind and body—or, as Garrison preferred to think of it, sound in body and especially in mind—he climbed back down from Psychomech.

As for commercial implications, they would be looked into later. Such was Garrison’s excitement now that he could not think beyond his actual ride. The general future would have to wait; his own immediate future could not.

And of course there was Suzy to be taken care of. Garrison had been worried about the bitch for some little time. It was as if she read the change in him, his sudden excitement, as if she knew something strange and vast was in the offing—something she feared.

This showed in her completely uncharacteristic shortness of temper, not only with Terri and Koenig but often with Garrison himself, something previously quite unthinkable. She would be particularly aggressive when Jimmy Craig called, as if she sensed that he was playing a large part in Garrison’s change; and whenever Wyatt came on the scene, which mercifully was only very rarely, why then Suzy must actually be restrained! She openly detested the psychiatrist and had flown at him on three occasions, when only direct and repeated orders from Garrison himself had brought her to heel and saved the man from severe savagings. Nor was her hatred for Terri so well concealed these days, and on more that one occasion she had growled low in her throat at her mistress, baring her teeth at her.

As for her attitude towards Koenig: when he looked into her soft eyes and through them, into the soul behind them—it was as if he gazed in a mirror. He saw all of his own doubts and apprehensions reflected in their liquid depths, and he suspected that Suzy tolerated him because she sensed his empathy.

And yet it was only partly because of the strangeness of Suzy’s behaviour—the irrational angers and foreign attitudes which made her dangerous—that Garrison decided to kennel her during the period of the Psychomech experiments. Wyatt had told him that these would take a few days, perhaps even a week, during which time and depending upon the initial results the blind man would spend up to five or six hours a day on the machine. Very well, since Suzy was no longer to be trusted she must be shut up for that entire week. Plainly it would not be safe to leave her alone with Terri, not with Willy Koenig away at the same time…

This was the first Koenig had heard of his being ‘away’ during the proposed experiments, and when Garrison told him he was taken completely by surprise. More than that, he was very concerned and very worried.

‘Away?’ he had blankly repeated Garrison’s words. ‘You want me to go away while you ride that damned machine? But surely I should be right there with you, if only to make sure nothing goes wrong. And—’

‘No!’ Garrison’s tone had been sharp. ‘No, you should be as far away as possible. It may not even be safe for you to be with me.’

‘Not safe? I don’t follow you.’

‘Not safe for you, nor for Suzy. That’s the other reason I’m putting her in the kennels.’

Koenig had stared hard, shaken his head and shrugged helplessly. ‘You’ve lost me, Richard.’

‘In my first dream,’ Garrison had explained, ‘I dreamed of a bomb. This was the result.’ He lifted his blinkers and showed his blind, uniformly scarlet orbs. ‘In my second dream there was another bomb—but this time it was aimed at you!’

Now Koenig had grown angry. ‘But this is England, Richard, not Northern Ireland—and I’m pretty damned good at looking after myself! Also, you’ve said yourself that your ESP is often vague and misleading. Granted your first dream was partly prophetic, but how can you be so sure that the second wasn’t simply—well, an ordinary dream, a nightmare? And anyway, didn’t Suzy save you in that second dream? Didn’t she drag you from the Machine just as the bomb exploded?’

‘That’s just it,’ Garrison had answered. ‘She
tried
to save me, to drag me from the Machine—but that can’t be allowed to happen. I have to go on, across the lake, into the black castle. I have to find the Black Room. I have to know what’s in there. Can’t you see that?’

Koenig had slowly nodded. ‘So the way you see it, the first dream was partly prevision while the second was pure warning?’

‘Not exactly. Both of them were prevision and warning combined. If I had heeded the first warning I wouldn’t be blind now. That’s why I have to heed the second warning. Look, the second bomb may be sheer symbolism, I don’t know. Symbolic of some danger to you, that is. Well, I don’t want you to be in any sort of danger. And not just because you’re my main man. In my dream your being in danger hindered my quest. That mustn’t happen. Nothing must hinder my quest. That’s why I’m sending you away.’

‘Mein Gott!’ Koenig had exploded then, stamping to and fro in the study where they talked and astonishing Garrison with his uncharacteristic outburst. ‘All this on the strength of a verfluchte dream?’

‘More than a dream, Willy!’ Garrison had insisted. ‘Can’t you see it working even now? Think! Do you remember what I said you cried out to me in that dream? “Get off the Machine, Richard,” you cried. You were trying to stop my ride. So was Suzy. And sure enough,
the two of you are trying to stop it right now!
’

‘But—’

‘The hell with buts! I have to ride. I have to know. And what of my pact with your beloved Colonel?’

‘Your pact?’ The German’s jaw had dropped. ‘I had… forgotten!’

‘Oh, no, Willy,’ Garrison shook his head. ‘You hadn’t forgotten! It’s just that the years have changed your perspective, that’s all. Forgotten? Not you. Shit, you think he’s already in me! That’s true, isn’t it? Well he isn’t, and I’m not so bloody sure I want him! But don’t worry, I’m not going to run out on him. At least I’ll give him the chance to make it—if he’s strong enough. But that’s something else I have to find out.’

‘The pact,’ Koenig had softly repeated, nodding his head. ‘Of course.’

And now, knowing he had won, Garrison relaxed. He too nodded. ‘So you see, there’s no other way. I ride. And you, and Suzy—the pair of you keep out of my way.’

‘Yes,’ the German slowly answered, ‘I think I see it now.’ ‘Book a holiday for yourself somewhere in Germany,’

Garrison had ordered then. ‘The Retreat, if you like. Anywhere—but make sure you do it. I’ll want to see the tickets, Willy, and I’ll want to be there to see you off when you board the plane…’

At 10.00 A.M. on Wednesday 2 June Suzy was delivered to the kennels in Midhurst.

The journey was not a long one, little more than half an hour, but the atmosphere in the car was tangibly strained. Suzy was not happy. She whined continuously and licked Garrison’s hand with a frenetic tongue.

For of course the bitch knew where she was going. She had picked it straight out of Garrison’s mind, had confirmed it in Terri’s controlled smugness and in Koenig’s own dissatisfaction; and she did not like being sent away any more than the German liked it.

At the kennels she made a scene, yelping and snarling until Garrison was obliged to enter her into her cage. Then she was docile enough, but as soon as the steel mesh door had closed on her and her master got back into the Mercedes she set up such a howling that he must immediately dismount and command her to be still and good. And as the great silver car drove away Suzy had sat there behind a mesh of steel, her eyes softer and more moist than ever, so that anyone watching her must swear that she was crying.

‘That animal’, said Terri as Koenig turned on to the motorway and headed for Gatwick, ‘is mad and ungovernable. The time will come, Richard, when even you will lose your authority with her.’

Garrison, now seated in the front beside Koenig, inclined his head slightly back and towards her. ‘Suzy is completely sane,’ he told her, his voice flat and even. ‘Saner by far than any six of your so-called “socialite” friends… and she has more sheer brain than any dozen of them! As for loyalty—’ and he had paused.

‘Yes?’ Her voice was slightly haughty, but Garrison sensed a wary probing behind the apparently automatic response.

‘She is very loyal,’ he eventually answered.

Terri sniffed but said no more, and a moment later Koenig broke the awkward silence with: ‘Sir, my plane leaves at 12.45.1 calculate a wait of at least an hour. There really is no need for you and Mrs Garrison to put yourselves out by seeing me on my way.’

‘No trouble, Willy,’ Garrison answered. ‘It’s just that I’ll be happier knowing you’re safely aboard.’

Koenig knew what he meant: that he was to get out of England—quite definitely out—and stay out until this thing was over. Once aboard the plane there would be no turning back. Like Suzy, he was being temporarily banished. Both of them, for their own safety. For the good of Garrison’s dream-quest.

But what of your own safety. Richard?
Koenig silently asked.
What of your good?

He lapsed into a watchful, unhappy silence, but in the back Terri smiled smugly and congratulated herself. First Suzy out of the way, and now Koenig. And on Sunday, just four days away, Richard himself—for the better part of a week!

She thought about it for a while, then let the smile slip from her face and allowed herself an inaudible sigh. If only it were for a year, or even longer. If only it were—