The Long Sleep (6 page)

“But
why?'

“I keep asking myself the same question,” he said. “So far, I can't find an answer to it.” He kissed her again. Then: “Stay close behind me. Once we're out of the house, we can decide what to do. With money, we aren't helpless.”

“Uncle Henry's no villain, though,” she said, still worrying at it.

“Are you sure you
have
an Uncle Henry?”

“Of course! There may be deception here . . . illusions . . . But that's part of the truth. Uncle Henry's real. And so is his Galing Research—and our marriage. I don't understand the faceless man.

That's incredible! And the window . . . But the rest of it isn't a lie, Joel!”

She unsettled him, for he was more ready to accept an entire fraud, no matter how fantastic it might be, rather than have to explain half of one. But in either case, how could you explain a man without a face?

There could be no such thing.

But there was.

In the upstairs corridor they paused, as he had done earlier, to adjust to the darkness. Then they went downstairs, past the den where the voices of the four conspirators seeped through the door too soft to be distinguished word for word.

In the kitchen, he almost fell over a straight-backed chair, caught himself just in time. He opened the back door and stared out at a lawn and trees much like the scene which the hologram had shown them from his upstairs window. The highway and the cars were the only things missing.

“Why show us a fake when the real thing isn't that much different?” he asked.

“Let's hurry,” she said. Her tone, the expression on her face were the first indications he'd had, aside from her word, that she was
really
frightened.

He wondered briefly if her fear was generated by the absurd circumstances in which they found themselves—or whether she knew more about all of this than he did, knew something that especially put her on edge. He had overheard Galing say that she was drugged. But wasn't it possible . . . No. For Christ's sake, he couldn't let himself think a thing like that. It smacked of paranoia. He needed
someone
to trust in the middle of the surreal nightmare, some touch with reality, someone with whom he could make plans.

He took her hand and led her quickly across the lawn toward the trees; in fact, the journey was
too
quick. Although the lawn appeared to be several acres deep they crossed it in only a dozen paces. When they turned and looked back at the mansion, which was surely no more than thirty feet away, it appeared to be distant, shrunken as if a full quarter of a mile lav between them and the kitchen door from which they had just departed.

“Am I crazy?” she asked.

“If you are, it's group insanity,” he said. “How in the
hell
is that done?”

“And why?”

He was bewildered.

He could see that a man, desirous of a lot of land but with a bank account much too small to permit an estate of any size, might want to employ this sort of ruse to give himself the feeling of distance, possessions, wealth. That made sense—even if the science behind it seemed quite impossible. But the rest of it made no damned sense at all . . . Even if such an illusion could be created, surely the cost of it would be higher than the price of the land itself. Furthermore, for Galing to go to the trouble of creating this excellent illusion—and for him to go to the
extra
trouble of using a hologram screen on the bedroom window so that the genuine article could not be seen—

that
was insanity. . .

“What are they trying to
prove?”

She clutched his arm. “Joel, he's here.”

“Who?”

Standing in the shadow of the trees, cloaked in darkness, she shrank back as if pinned in a spot-light. “Back at the house. Uncle Henry.”

Galing stood in the open kitchen doorway, staring hard at the trees.

“He can't see us,” Joel said.

“How do you know he can't hear us?” she whispered. “He's only thirty feet away.”

“Come on,” he said. “We can lose them in the woods.”

VII

The forest had looked deep and cool and serene, but it turned out to be no more extensive than the lawn, no less an illusion than everything that had come before it. In only twenty steps they had crossed the carpet of dry brown leaves, threaded their way through the maples and pines and oaks, left behind the smell of moist earth and green growing foliage and the shatter of insects. Beyond the trees was a sidewalk and a quiet residential street.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Joel said.

Mercury vapor lamps were spaced fifty feet apart on the far side of the street. Dragon-necked, they thrust into the center of the roadway and shed soft light on the neatly painted fronts of middle-class, white frame houses with contrastingly painted shutters. Some porches had swings. Some had no swings. Some had rockers and potted flowers. All the windows were dark, the houses either deserted or the occupants all asleep. The lawn directly across the street contained a white plaster bird-bath, a crystal ball on a plaster pedestal, and six hideous plastic ducks lined up along the walk: modern American bad taste, undeniably American. Some houses had fenced-in lawns; some did not.

Here and there a weeping willow tree bent across a fence and dipped feathery branches over the sidewalk and street. Three cars were parked on the street: two late model fan shuttles and one older vehicle that was scraped and dented and rusting out along the fan skirt. This last one had a double fan system like the first electric hovercars that had been built in the 1980's ten years ago. Or, if Dr.

Harttle had been telling the truth, well over
two hundred
years ago.

Behind them, footsteps sounded in the forest. Twigs snapped. Branches were thrust noisily aside.

He grabbed Allison's hand more tightly and ran for the nearest automobile.

Behind them, Henry Galing shouted, “Wait!”

Joel pulled open the car door. “Get in.”

Allison slid across the seat.

He got behind the wheel and slammed the door. The sound echoed along the quiet street.

The keys were in the ignition.

He knew then that they were never going to get away from Henry Galing and his fun house. He hadn't thought how he would start the shuttle, perhaps he would have had to cross the wires beneath the dashboard . . . But he knew this easy ride was a trap. They were meant to find this shuttle and use it. Nevertheless, he had to go ahead with it.

Twisting the key in the ignition, he stamped the starter. The engine purred. The blades beneath them stuttered, then lifted the car off the pavement.

He saw she had not pulled on her safety harness, and he made her latch it in place.

“Hold on,” he said.

As he pulled the car from the curb, he nearly struck Henry Galing who had run out of the forest and was trying to block their escape. The old man shouted something at them but his words were drowned out by the thundering blades. Joel pulled past him and took the shuttle down the deserted street.

The wheel was much too stiff. He could barely handle it. The damned shuttle bobbed and swayed, maneuvered like a tank with one broken tread.

“Be careful!” Allison said.

An intersection loomed ahead.

He made the mistake of trying to corner, and he suddenly found the wheel frozen altogether. He took his foot of the accelerator and discovered that was frozen too. The air speed brakes didn't work. They were completely out of control.

Allison screamed.

The fan shuttle tilted as if the gyros were as worn out as the rest of it, turned on its side and drove Allison down against him as far as her safety harness would permit.

Was this why the keys were in the ignition? Did Galing intend for them to die in the shuttle? If that were the case, what in the name of God had been the purpose of this entire charade?

A building lay directly ahead of them.

They struck the side of it and were pitched away like a scrap of paper in an ocean tide.

This is it, he thought. It's over now.

Galing has won.

The shuttle blades beneath them coughed, stuttered, cut in, cut out . . . The small craft rolled onto the roof with a resounding crash.

Joel was thrown against the steering wheel despite the safety harness, then was jerked upright again as the harness automatically compensated for the impact.

Metal screamed against macadam as they slid down the street, and sparks showered into the night air. An instant later they were brought up hard against the trunk of a willow tree and finally came to a full stop.

Alive.

But what about Allison?

Unconsciousness threatened, but he refused to sink into it. He saw that Allison was slumped against her restraining straps, not moving at all, face pale, mouth slack, eyes closed. He couldn't see any blood, no bruises on her face. She must be fine. Just unconscious. That was all. That had to be all.

He tried to force the door open on his side so that they could escape the wreckage before Galing showed up, but the door had been welded tight by the crash. He struggled with it for a long moment before leaning back in his harness. Calm down. Take it easy. He relaxed, trying to gather his wits, and he listened to the sigh of hot metal cooling down. Fluid dripped out of a ruptured line and hissed as it splashed on hot steel, and he could smell a thin but acrid smoke that rose out of the undercarriage.

Suddenly the door which he had struggled vainly to open was now opened easily, and he was confronted by the faceless man. Dark hair had fallen across the blank countenance. Hanging upside down in the overturned shuttle, supported by the safety harness, Joel had a strange view of the specter, on which made its featureless face seem even more hideous.

“Go away, he said. He closed his eyes, hoping to wake up, though he knew this dream just wouldn't go away.

“You didn't get far,” the specter said.

“You can't talk. You've got no mouth. I won't listen to you talk!” He knew he was slipping into hysteria, but he could not help it.

“I'm the sandman,” the specter said.

Joel opened his eyes.

The faceless man raised a chalky hand. Hundreds of tiny silver needles protruded from the palm in evenly spaced rows. They gleamed.

“No!” Joel said.

“The sandman.”

The specter reached out, touched him.

A cloud of steam hissed out of the undercarriage, whirled through the car, obscuring everything for one brief instant.

“Ill get you,” Joel said. “Ill get all of you.”

The sandman touched him again. The needles were cold and they stung.

At least he now knew that the creature's power was not at all supernatural. Of course, the knowledge did nothing to hearten him—or to save him. He fell asleep again, against his will . . .

VIII

Joel activated half a dozen data transmitters. Turning slightly in his chair he read the life systems reports on experimental subject Sam-3. The display screens brought in nothing but good news: HEARTBEAT: 51 PER MINUTE

RESPIRATION: 8 PER MINUTE

ENCEPHALOGRAPHIC PATTERNS: ALL WITHIN

ACCEPTABLE PERIMETERS

DIGESTION/PRIMARY STOMACH: BALANCE

PERFECTED

DIGESTION/SECONDARY STOMACH: SLIGHT

DEGREE OF ACIDITY. SYSTEMS COPING

He looked through the thick observation window which was placed at eye level in the wall before him, directly above the deck of controls. The pool was only minimally lighted now. The aquamen were just barely visible, quick shadows flickering in the green light.

He picked up his microphone and directed Sam-3 to approach his observation point.

A moment later the aquaman swam into view. He had a quasi-human face, lots of wicked teeth, and he was smiling. Five feet long (one could not say “tall", for that implied that he stood erect; and he never stood erect), with the legs and arms of a man but with the sleekness of a porpoise, Sam-3

was quite a sight. His feet and hands were twice as large as those of a land-bound man, his digits connected by filmy webbing. His neck was marked by six gill slits on each side, spaced close and angled toward his throat from the atrophied flaps of his ears. His eyes were exceptionally large and shielded by transparent lids. He passed the viewpoint and glided away, feet gracefully churning water.

“Get's boring, doesn't it?” Henry Galing asked.

Joel looked at the older man who was in the chair next to his, and he saw why Galing had once given up a fine career in genetic science to run for political office. Wealthy, handsome, dignified, with a confident manner that brooked no debate, he was a father image in whom the voters could place at least psychological confidence. And he wasn't just an image; he
was
extremely capable. He would have done well by those who elected him—if he'd had a chance to assume office before everything fell apart and the continuation of an elected, democratic government was no longer feasible. However, if mankind had lost a statesman it had gained a superior genetic theorist whose talents were now desperately necessary for the many projects at hand.