Tintagel (11 page)

"You're right, of course," Katie told him. "I wouldn't choose someone who couldn't carry the office firmly on his or her shoulders. Christ, the world is falling apart, and the Secretary of State is the one who connects the United States with the rest of the civilized world." She fingered his file. "No, Floyd Matkin I've known for a long time. He was one of my best allies in New York. I just don't understand what happened, or why."

"Was Matkin married?" Lanier asked her.

"No, he wasn't. Divorced, like most of us." She tried to smile, but her eyes betrayed her seriousness.

Lanier turned in his chair, glancing at Christy, who nodded. He frowned slightly. "Well, there has been something on my mind for quite some time now, and I'm not too sure I can verbalize it. But, I believe that something strange is happening, as if the Syndrome itself wasn't bad enough."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you are acquainted with Albertson Randell. Senator Randell."

She raised her eyebrows. "Yes, I am."

She glanced over at Ken Collins, who shrugged his shoulders. And Katie thought,
This one is really out of touch
.…

Lanier fidgeted. "As a Stalker, I rely most upon one's sense of ambience when I go under."

"Ambience?"

"Right. There seems to have been a feeling—an atmosphere, if you will—of romance when I've gone under lately. In the last two important cases I've taken on, a strong sense of yearning had imbued the imagined landscape. This, of course, has a great deal to do with the music itself. But this yearning baffles me.

"What do you mean?"

"People succumb to the Syndrome when things get particularly bad in their lives. The need to escape is with us all. It's a basic defense mechanism. It gets aggravated, as you know, when the Syndrome acts on the music they turn to."

"And?"

"And in these particular instances"—he gestured to Christy for the file—"I had to deal with men of very high importance in our government and industry."

"Well," Katie pointed out, "everyone who goes under is depressed, or at least is supposed to be."

"Most of the time that's true. But these instances involve a woman. Each one of them was desperately in love. And the woman they pursued ultimately killed them, or at least forced them into a situation that killed them." Lanier held the file. "And this has never happened to me before."

He neglected to inform the President of where he had found Senator Randell. He could still smell that river of blood.…

"Now it appears," he continued, "that people in science and industry—normal people actually—are suddenly getting unhappy with their personal circumstances and are simply going under the first chance they get. These are just not the kind of individuals that crack. Jet pilots, airline pilots, for example. They're among the most stable individuals that you could find. Christy says that dozens a
week
are vanishing."

"I don't understand. Is this like suicide? Is the disease getting worse?"

"It's something like suicide, but since most people come out of the Syndrome in a few days, or weeks, they're now more willing to escape from the real world than before, even though the planes of vibrations they materialize on could be as deadly as this one, or worse."

Katie sat in a contemplative mood, sucking on her third cigarette.

Christy handed Lanier another list. "Tell her about these."

Lanier picked them up. "Right. We have a listing here already scheduled for possible missions when my collarbone heals. Look." He gave Katie the list. "Aviation people, from pilots to administrators. Military personnel. And scientists. All of a very high caliber, and most of whom either had low Syndrome ratings or were just regular people living regular lives." He shook his head. "The Syndrome is for neurotics and borderline psychotics. Not these people. It's true that the disease is getting stronger, but Baktropol is supposed to keep the symptoms down, especially in normal people."

Katie Babcock scanned the list. "Ken." She addressed her press secretary. "Let's run a check on these people. Run down some personal facts." She turned back to Lanier. "We can probably run a more thorough investigation on these people than you can. Do you think that there is some kind of connection?"

"It's hard to say. But given the fact that these individuals are going under when they shouldn't, and given that the last two cases I've handled I've lost, I'm beginning to feel as if something is happening that shouldn't."

Katie waved her hands about in the air. "Hell, Fran, this whole damn thing shouldn't be happening! We're lucky to have Stalkers in the first place. Listen, do you know that at this moment in history there are more wars taking place on the earth than at any one time? Everything, and I mean
everything
, is falling apart."

He considered her words. "That's what I understand. As I say, I've been out of touch. I do know about the wars, though."

Ken Collins moved across the sunlight, thinking that Katie had better not tell him too much. He tried to get her attention, but decided to keep it to himself, The President of the United States, though, shouldn't disclose sensitive information to an ordinary citizen.

But then he thought,
Just how ordinary could a person with his talent be
?

The President leaned toward Lanier. "This is strictly confidential, you understand, but it's a lot worse than most people imagine." She looked at him very seriously. "The Premier of the Soviet Union and most of his personal cabinet have gone under. They're pleading for Stalkers and we don't have any to spare, but we
have to spare them
. Don't you see? It's détente. I'd like to help them, but I can't. We have our own problems."
And the only edge
, she thought.

"I wasn't aware of this," Lanier admitted.

"And we are getting reports that most of China is now locked in some kind of civil unrest. It could be a civil war. How Japan keeps going is beyond all of the analysts, but our projections indicate that in six years all of Japan will be deserted."

"Deserted?"

"Either killed in rioting or succumbed to the disease. This business between the Saudis and Japan is a joke. It's all on the surface. Floyd and the ambassadors from both countries were doing a song and dance for the whole world. There's no animosity between them. Both nations are close to economic collapse."

Collins sat on the edge of a chair. "And when the Saudis go, what remaining oil they have goes with them."

"Right," Katie echoed. "And this can't go on. We have all the major research centers trying to find a cure for the disease, and now that Perry Eventide is gone, we don't know if anything beyond Baktropol will cure the symptoms."

"No," Lanier responded. "Baktropol will eventually lose its effectiveness. Everyone who uses it will build up a resistance to it, and there's just so much stimulation the human body can take. What we need is a total cure for the disease."

The gravity of the situation began to weigh heavily on Lanier. This was the room, he realized, where decisions concerning billions of people were made.
In conversations just like this
…

Curiously, Lanier began wondering what kind of fantastic world a President like Abraham Lincoln would have imagined for himself had he suffered from Liu Shan's Syndrome and heard a Chopin nocturne. Or General Grant. How would people have gotten along in the western territories when the only kind of music was folk tunes?

Everyone needed music to some degree. And few people were tolerating the kinds of music that they were now having to settle with: meaningless concertos by Elliott Carter, computerized sound effects by Milton Babbitt, the stylings of Stockhausen. The romantic composers of the nineteenth century were out.

And
, Lanier just then realized,
I'll bet that Tchaikovsky has the Russian Premier in his grasp
.

What music survived was slowly being banned. Radio stations went off the air when only two or three stations per city were actually needed for "news" formats. What else was there? Commercials on television went musicless, jingles forbidden.

Katie crossed her legs, resting her hand on her knee. She flourished a freshly lit cigarette. "But there isn't anything else on Floyd's death you can tell us?"

"No, not a thing. I tried, but the situation was too unreal. The fact that he allowed himself to be tied seemed to indicate to me that he wanted to die. Yet, it was my impression that those orange lights didn't appear until he was firmly bound by that woman, which would have been about the time I came in sight of the farmhouse. Again, that air of romance, that sense of yearning, pervaded everything. She allowed for the whole scenario."

"Who was she?"

"I haven't any idea. I didn't get a glimpse of her face. It doesn't matter. She was a dreamling."

"A what?"

"Oh, that's what we call the people in fantasy worlds. They aren't real to us, but they belong there like furniture to a room. Dreamlings would be like the people you dream about. They aren't real, unlike the Walkers."

"What's a Walker?" She looked at Ken. "This is interesting."

"Well, a Walker is a person who has gone under and just coincidentally landed in a world some other individual has envisioned. It's getting to be quite common now that the disease seems to be becoming more virulent and the vanishings are increasing. It's a very unusual situation. Any kind of programmatic music will have a tendency to allow for the creation of the same kind of world. Take Wagner, for example. No Stalker in his right mind would touch something like the
Ring
cycle. Or even something like Rimsky-Korsakov's
Scheherazade
, or Mussorgsky's
Night on Bald Mountain
. The more programmatic the piece, the more powerful its draw. And a good percentage of the people you would encounter in those worlds would actually be people sharing the same illusion. Walkers."

He seems so calm, Katie looked at him, thinking, as if this whole phenomenon was like a Sunday picnic. "This is fascinating, really
."

"And there have been occasions where I've shot dreamlings to see if they might be Walkers."

"Shot?"

"Yes, I use a special British Malachi rapid-fire with anesthetic needles that dissolve and congeal the wound. The victims are put to sleep within an average of a minute or longer. It depends on their level of tolerance. The Walkers will simply fade away and return to the real world with me, but the dreamlings will fall down where they're shot and begin sleeping."

Collins checked his watch with a gesture which they all managed to catch.

"I'll leave my report with you," Lanier concluded. "And you're welcome to the list that Christy has drawn up. If you make any connections, please let me know. I'll be out of it for a few weeks, but I'll be returning to my work as soon as I can. Perhaps by then something positive will develop."

The President shook Lanier's free hand. "Something always does. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Lanier." Then she said, "Fran."

Remarkably informal
, he suddenly thought.
This woman could be a lawyer, yes. But President? There's more to her than what she gives out. Too bad I didn't vote for her
.

Christy snapped her briefcase shut and followed them out the door. Ken Collins escorted them through the hall. Secret Service men, with oxygen-assisted filter-masks kept their eyes on both Lanier and Chris. No one but Collins and the President looked at ease.

Lanier turned and addressed the President. "I appreciate some of the information that you've shared with me. Please, if there's anything I can personally do, don't hesitate to contact me."

His eyes glistened as if they were signaling in some unknown cipher. Katie smiled.
Yes
, she thought,
you do have your secrets
. "I'll do what I can."

As they reached the anteroom, Lanier turned to her. "One thing, if you'll pardon my politics, but I'd keep a close eye on Mr. Randell. I don't think he's well. But then, I'm not an expert in these matters. I just thought I'd mention it."

They considered each other briefly.

"I'll do that. Have a nice flight back, Mr. Lanier."

"Fran."

That smile
. "Yes, Fran. We'll be in touch."

The door to the small exit hall had been opened. It was something like an airlock, and it had been installed when the pollution and aeroplankton had gotten out of hand some time ago. Christy stood beside the door, buttoning on her filter-mask. Through the windows, they could see the chauffeured limousine waiting at the curb.

She assisted Lanier with his own filter-mask.

Inside the airtight limo, Christy asked him, "What next? You didn't seem eager to tell the President about Ellie Estevan, so you must have a few things on your mind."

He slid the mask up onto his forehead, making sure that the chauffeur couldn't overhear them.

"There's a connection here somewhere, since I haven't lost any patients before this. I don't think it would help having the FBI or the National Security Agency mixing in with this, because I'm not too sure where it leads myself."

They sat in silence as the limousine drove up onto the expressway to the airport. A large bank of smog had enveloped the entire eastern seaboard, and Washington never seemed to escape the vagaries of the weather. Especially man-made weather. Much of the pollution was aeroplankton shells ballooning on their cubic millimeters of hydrogen. He hoped that there would be a flight that could make it out of the city. If the aeroplankton was bad, they'd have to wait.

"I think," Lanier said dreamily, settling into the lushness of the car seat cushion, "that I'll take in a movie or two while I'm recovering. And read a few newspapers and magazines."

"Movie magazines?" Christy queried aside. "Scandal sheets?"

"Something like that."

"I thought so."

On the back of the seat before them was a console that contained a stereo wafer playback system and a radio.

On an impulse, Lanier bent over. "Let's see if this thing works."