The Link (42 page)

“As you can see,” she tells them almost in a whisper, “I am not doing so well. No strength in me after the heart attack. I am a shadow of my own self. I cannot find my strength.”

They don’t know what to say they feel so badly for her.

“Ninel has spent too many hours under scientific observation,” her husband says, “wired to monitoring devices to register heart action, brain waves, etcetera. Some of the sessions lasted as long as seven hours during which her heart rate rose as high as two hundred and forty beats per minute, her blood pressure rose alarmingly. In one half hour she has lost as much as two pounds in weight and, after many a difficult session, she suffered lack of coordination, dizziness, and vomiting with much bodily pain and sleeplessness.”

“After four days at the Ostankino television studios, I barely made it home,” Kulagina continues in her feeble voice. “I stayed in bed for weeks, had headaches that would not go away, fainting spells.”

“And for what?” her husband says resentfully. “To show magical tricks?”

“Viktor,” pleads his wife. “What I did was important to science.”

“And you are a victim of science,” he replies in a harsh, pained voice.

He looks at the three who sit hapless, wordless.

“Several times during the telekinetic experiments with Sergeyev,” he says, “Ninel became unconscious. When she took electrical energy from around her and sent it to an object, it drained her completely. And more than once, when electrical force from the surroundings rushed back into her body, usually through an arm, it would leave burn marks on her skin.”

“Still,” says Kulagina, smiling with effort, “I believe that what I have done is important,” she sighs. “Although I wish I could have become a healer. I think I might have if my health was not so poor.”

“If your health was not ruined, you mean,” says her husband.

“Please, Viktor.” She tries to smile and he takes her hand and kisses it quickly. Clearly, he loves her very much, his anger all directed at those who misused her.

“Madame Kulagina,” Peter says. “I think I speak for my colleagues when I say how sorry we are to hear these things. Your work in the field is monumental. You will always have the veneration of parapsychologists all over the world.”

She smiles gratefully. “I feel I should do something you can recollect,” she says.

“You have done more than enough for anyone,” Peter says.

“Well, wait; wait,” she says. She looks around the table, then reaches out and tears off a small square of bread from its basket.

“Ninel, please,” says her husband.

“A small demonstration, nothing tiring,” she assures him.

“It really isn’t necessary,” Peter says, concerned.

“No, no, it is my pleasure,” she tells him.

Despite her husband’s protestations, she puts her right hand above the piece of bread and concentrates. All of them tense as her features begin to tighten. Cathy even closes her eyes for a moment.

After a short while, the piece of bread moves a few inches across the tablecloth.

“Wonderful,” says Peter. “But please—”

He breaks off as she removes her wedding band and puts it on top of the bread. She holds both hands above them, concentrating. Her husband cannot watch but raises his sight line to the ceiling.

After several seconds, the ring and bread move haltingly across the tablecloth until they reach the edge of the table and fall into Kulagina’s lap. She sinks back with a weary sigh. “Well, that will have to do,” she says.

“Wonderful; wonderful,” Peter says, nodding.

“Thank you so much, Madame Kulagina,” Robert adds. “Yes, thank you,” Cathy says.

She smiles. “You do not realize,” she tells them, “but such movement does not usually come so quickly. I think it happened because you were not expecting me to do it yet still believed in me.”

Peter takes her hand impulsively and kisses it. “We believe in you completely,” he says.

Her smile continues for a moment or so, then fades. “What I also want to say—” she begins.

“Ninel, are you sure of this?” her husband warns.

“Yes, yes.” She nods slowly but insistently. “It is something that must be said.”

She draws in a slow, straining breath.

“In Leningrad—” she says.

CUT TO the experiment. The beating heart of a frog is placed in a glass jar. “As is known,” we hear her voice, “a frog’s heart will continue to beat for some hours after being removed from its body.”

Kulagina (looking more vigorous but still less so than in the early film) sits two and a half feet from the jar and concentrates on it.

As she does, we see the cardiogram changing, slowing down.

“I am beginning to slow it down,” she says. She pauses. “Slower.” Pause. “I am beginning to stop it.”

INTERCUT BETWEEN the heart of the frog and Kulagina’s rigid features as she concentrates.

“I am stopping it.” Long pause. The heart beats again. “I cannot stop it. I will try again.” Pause. “I am beginning to slow it down again.” Her features tighten, tighten.

E.C.U. of heart as it stops. “I have stopped it,” says Kulagina, the matter of factness of her tone blood chilling.

Back to the hotel dining room her worn face.

“A Leningrad psychiatrist refused to accept the validity of this experiment,” she says. “He challenged me to try the experiment with him.”

CUT TO Laboratory, Kulagina and the psychiatrist sitting three yards apart, observed by a medical team. Both are attached to separate ECG machines.

Kulagina concentrates, her features hardening, her black eyes staring into nothingness.

The ECG graph of the psychiatrist deviates from normal. Moments pass. His heartbeat gets faster, faster. He begins to look frightened. Moments. Terrified.

BACK TO hotel restaurant, Kulagina’s face. “Dr. Sergeyev said that, if we had continued, he had no doubt that I would have killed the psychiatrist.”

She looks at them in distress. “I am still frightened by this,” she says. “If I could do this so easily, what might not—”

“Dr. Clarke, how nice to see you!” a voice breaks in.

They look around. It is Professor Vitroslava and his wife approaching the table with bright smiles.

The gathering breaks up quickly, the Kulaginas excusing themselves and leaving, their expressions tense.

As the three go up to their rooms, they have to admit that Teddie was probably right about the Vitroslavas. They crop up too often for it to be coincidental, especially on this occasion.

“I wonder if he was also right about the Russians planning to use psi as a weapon against people?” Cathy says uneasily.

“What Kulagina told us seems to hint at that,” Peter says. He winces. “Murder at a distance,” he says.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t leave too,” Robert thinks aloud.

“Leave?” Cathy looks at him in startlement.

“It’s getting kind of heavy,” Robert says.

They discuss it briefly. Robert is outvoted. Peter and Cathy do not deny that a depressing undercurrent is appearing in their observations. Still, there is so much more to see. As scientists, they owe it to their work to see it as long as they are permitted to do so.

“Forearmed, forewarned?” Robert asks.

“I hope to God it never comes to that,” says Cathy.

SHOT OF ALEXAI KRIVOROTOV entering a government hospital. “When word of Krivorotov’s powers came to light, the Georgian Republic Ministry of Health ordered a full probe into the claims made about his healing hands,” says Saransky’s voice.

CUT TO Krivorotov practicing his healing methods on a group of patients. “The commission diagnosed thirty patients with various illnesses,” Saransky’s voice continues. “To prevent the possibility that Krivorotov ‘talked’ his patients back to health by auto-suggestion, they deliberately chose patients who did not speak Georgian or Russian.

“Nonetheless, all showed improvement in their conditions and several were cured.”

CUT TO Kirlian photography (motion picture) of Krivorotov’s right hand. The emanations around the hand are normal, namely very little.

“In a state of rest, it was discovered, the healer’s ultra-violet radiation is normal,” says Saransky’s voice. “During the process of healing however—”

Shock cut to Kirlian shot of the same hand during healing. The radiation is incredible. “—the ultra-violet emissions increase a thousand times,” Saransky’s voice finishes.

CUT TO door as it is opened by a smiling Alexai Krivorotov.

They meet him and his son and sit together with them in the living room of their apartment, the windows of which overlook the Kura River which cuts through the heart of the picturesque town of Tbilisi.

“When my son was nineteen,” says Krivorotov, his words translated by Saransky, “he discovered that he had powers similar to mine.”

CUT TO Viktor with his girlfriend as she complains of a violent headache.

“Well, I don’t know if it will work,” Viktor tells her, “but I’ve seen my father at work.”

Seating her, he puts one hand on her forehead, the other at the back of her head.

The reaction is quick. “It feels as though your hands are burning me,” the girl friend says, amazed.

“In ten minutes, her headache was gone,” says the elder Krivorotov; they are back in the apartment. He smiles. “Of course, my son then discovered that he had the headache; he was, of course, not developed enough to prevent that from happening.”

Robert and Cathy exchange a secret glance, remembering.

“When a person is ill, you see,” Krivorotov Senior says, “the entire organism is weakened. Scientists who have studied us think that we reach the affected part of the body with a high-power bio-electrical current. This current can reverse itself and harm the healer if he is not trained to resist it. Ivanova has said this many times.”

The group hesitates because of Saransky. Then Peter tells Krivorotov of their meeting with Ivanova; Cathy tenses as he does, glancing at Saransky in concern.

“Is she in danger?” Peter asks. Clearly, some of Teddie’s and Robert’s open questioning of the state of psi in Russia has rubbed off on him.

“In danger?” Krivorotov says. He does not seem in the least concerned by Saransky’s presence. “To some extent, I suppose. But they will not touch her because she has so many admirers among important Soviet scientists like Adamenko. They realize, of course, that she is something of a fanatic but dedicated nonetheless—and talented beyond measure.”

Krivorotov Junior seems aware of Saransky’s possible menace if his father is not. “So are there any ailments in your group?” he asks.

They look at each other questioningly. Robert feels inclined to mention Peter’s health but doesn’t want to take the chance of offending Peter.

“What about your arm, Robert?” Cathy asks.

Robert hesitates, then goes along with her suggestion for the sake of cooperating. Briefly, he tells the Krivorotovs of his injury in Vietnam. Krivorotov Senior tells him that his healing method is particularly effective when a patient has limited paralysis and has Robert sit on a straight back chair, begins his work.

The effect is startling. It feels, to Robert, as though discharges of electricity are taking place between the healer’s hands and his body. A distinct sensation of heat becomes apparent to him, then a feeling of heaviness, of becoming dizzy. His head starts to roll as though he has gotten very drunk and he makes faint noises. “My head is whirling,” he mumbles.

Ten minutes later, the treatment ends.

To Robert’s amazement, he finds that he can stretch his left arm all the way.

“You may revert somewhat,” Krivorotov tells him. “It would take a series of treatments to permanently dispose of the problem.”

Robert, sitting dizzily on the chair, nods.

“I became aware of several other factors,” Krivorotov continues. “One is physical: a problem in your right groin area. Keep an eye on that; there is a vulnerability.”

Then he says something which makes Robert stare at him.

“I don’t know if you are aware of it,” he says, “but there is a psychic potential in you I have rarely seen.” He grips Robert’s shoulder. “Nurture it, my friend,” he says. “It could lead to something most important.” He squeezes Robert’s shoulder. “Most important.”

The ride to the hotel after their visit with the Krivorotovs is only partially perceived by Robert. He speaks and responds but most of him is elsewhere.

He does not realize it but Krivorotov’s treatment has done more than partially heal his arm.

It has been in the nature of a Spring thaw melting an ice jam in his psychic system.

Restoring flow.