To Rescue Tanelorn (27 page)

“He must have guessed, surely,” said Miss Brunner.

“You’d think so. Also, he would have sent some reinforcements here by now. He could have a trap waiting somewhere for us—wants us to relax a little. This landing’s equipped with a Schizomat in a panel in that wall. My father’s crowning achievement, he always thought.”

“And Frank isn’t using it.” Miss Brunner tidied her long red hair.

“I had to leave Mr. Powys behind, I’m afraid.” Dimitri leaned on a wall. “This house certainly is full of colourful surprises, Mr. Cornelius.”

“He’ll be dead by now,” said Jerry.

“What could your brother be planning?” Miss Brunner asked.

“Something funny. He’s got a rich sense of humour. He may have cooked up a new ploy, but it’s not like Frank to be subtle at a time like this. It’s just possible that he’s run away.”

“And all our efforts have been wasted,” she said sourly. “I hope not.”

“Oh, so do I, Miss Brunner.”

He walked along the landing, with them following him. Jerry led them through the quiet house until they reached a point where they looked down, through what was evidently a two-way mirror, into the partitioned hall where the nerve bomb had exploded. Stairs led down alongside the far wall.

“These stairs normally lead to the basement,” Jerry told them. “We might as well go back the way we came now. There’s no obvious danger as far as I can see.”

They began to descend.

“There are steel gates farther down,” he said. “They can shut off any part of the stairs. Remember what I told you: use your guns to wedge them, stop them fully closing.”

“No rifle’s going to stop steel,” Mr. Crookshank said doubtfully.

“True—but the door mechanism’s delicate. It’ll work.”

They passed openings in the walls where the steel gates were housed, but none of them closed.

They reached the ground floor and entered a curiously narrow passage, obviously created by the widening of the hall walls earlier. At the far end Mr. Powys suddenly appeared and came staggering towards them.

“He should be dead!” exclaimed Mr. Smiles, offended.

“It’s haunted! It’s haunted!” moaned Mr. Powys.

Jerry couldn’t work out how he’d got there. Neither could he guess how Mr. Powys had survived the LSD, not to mention everything else.

“It’s haunted! It’s haunted!” Mr. Powys repeated.

Jerry grabbed him. “Mr. Powys! Pull yourself together.”

Mr. Powys gave Jerry an intelligent look that was suddenly sardonic. He raised his thick eyebrows. “Too late for that, I’m afraid, Mr. Cornelius. This house—it’s like a giant head. Do you know what I mean? Or is it
my
skull? If it is, what am I?”

“I know whose bloody head this house is,” Jerry said, shaking him. “I know, you bastard.”

“Mine!”

“No!”

“What’s the matter, Mr. Powys?” Dimitri slid up. “Can I help?”

“It’s haunted. It’s my mind haunted by me, I think. That can’t really be right, Dimitri. You are Dimitri. I’d always thought…It must be my mind haunting me. That must be it. Oh, dear!” He rocked his poor head in his hands.

Dimitri looked at Jerry Cornelius. “What do we do with him?”

“He needs a converter.” Jerry Cornelius smiled at Mr. Powys, raised his gun, and shot him in the eye.

The party stopped.

“It was for the best,” Jerry said. “His brain was already badly damaged, and we couldn’t have him running around.”

“Aren’t you being exceptionally ruthless, Mr. Cornelius?” Mr. Smiles took a very deep breath.

“Oh, now, now, Mr. Smiles.”

They pressed on until they reached a big metal door in the basement. “This is where he should be,” said Jerry. “But I can’t help thinking he’s cooked up a big surprise.” He signaled to the surviving Briton and a couple of Belgians. They saluted smartly.

“Have a go at that door, will you?”

“Any particular method, sir?” asked the Briton.

“No. Just get it down. We’ll be round the comer.”

They retreated while the soldiers got to work affixing things to the door.

There came a loud and unexpectedly violent explosion (obviously far bigger than the soldiers had planned). When the smoke cleared, Jerry saw blood all over the walls, but very little recognizable of the soldiers.

“Great lads,” he laughed. “What a good thing, their thing about orders.” And then they were all stumbling backward as a sub-machine-gun began to bang rapidly from within the room.

Peering through the smoke from behind the cover of a South African, Jerry saw that Frank was in there, apparently alone, with the machine-gun cradled in his arms, firing steadily.

Mr. Crookshank got in the path of one of the bursts, making a ludicrous attempt to duck the bullets even as they danced into his chest. Two soldiers collapsed on top of him.

Frank chuckled away as he fired.

“I think he’s gone barmy,” said Mr. Smiles. “This poses a problem, Mr. Cornelius.”

Jerry nodded. “Stop this nonsense, Frank!” he shouted, trying to make his tone firm. “What about a truce?”

“Jerry!

“Jerry!

“Jerry!” sang Frank from the room, firing more sporadically. “What do you want, Jerry? A Time Fix?

“Tempodex is my remedy for everyone. It’ll turn you on lovely, sport—can’t you feel those millions of years just waiting in your spine—waiting to move up into your back-brain—”

The gun stopped altogether and they began to move cautiously forward. Then Frank stooped to pick up an identical, fully loaded weapon. He began emptying it.

“—your mid-brain, your fore-brain—all your many brains, Jerry—when the tempodex starts opening them up?”

“He is in a jolly mood,” said Miss Brunner from somewhere well behind the front line.

Jerry just didn’t feel like doing anything except duck bullets at that moment. He felt very tired. Another couple of mercenaries piled themselves up neatly. They were running out of help, Jerry thought.

“Can’t we throw something at him? Isn’t there any more gas?” Miss Brunner sounded vexed.

“Well, look here, he’s got to run out of bullets sooner or later.” Mr. Smiles believed that if you waited long enough, the right situation always presented itself. A thought struck him, and he turned angrily to the mercenaries. “Why aren’t you retaliating?”

They began retaliating.

Mr. Smiles quickly realized his mistake and shouted: “Stop! We want him alive!”

They stopped.

Frank sang and kept his finger on the trigger.

“He’ll get an overheated barrel if he’s not careful,” said Mr. Smiles, remembering his mythology. “I hope he doesn’t blow himself up.”

Miss Brunner was picking her nose. She discarded the filters. “I don’t care if there is any more gas,” she said. “I’m not having the filthy things up there any longer.”

“Well, look,” said Jerry, “I’ve got one neurade left, but it could kill him, the state he’s in.”

“It wouldn’t do
me
much good now. You might have warned me.” Miss Brunner scanned the floor.

Another mercenary groaned and went down.

The sub-machine-gun stopped. The last bullet ricocheted off the wall. There came the sound of sobbing.

Jerry peered round the corner. Among his guns, Frank sat weeping with his head in his hands.

“He’s all yours.” Jerry walked towards the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Miss Brunner took a step after him.

“I’ve done my bit of group effort, Miss Brunner. Now there’s something else I’ve got to do. Goodbye.”

Jerry went up to the ground floor and found the front door. He still felt nervous and realized that not all Frank’s guards had been accounted for. He opened the door and peered out of the house. There didn’t seem to be anyone about.

Gun still in his hand, he walked down the sloping drive towards the lodge where John ought to be with Catherine.

The lights were out in the lodge, but he didn’t think it strange in the circumstances. He looked down the hill towards the village. All the lights were out there, too. Mr. Smiles had paid someone to fuse the power supply. Jerry found the lodge door open and walked in.

In a corner, a bag of bones gave him a welcoming groan.

“John! Where’s Catherine?”

“I got her here, sir. I—”

“But where is she now? Upstairs?”

“You said after ten, sir. I was here by eleven. Everything went smoothly. She was a weight. I’m dying, sir, I think.”

“What happened?”

“He must have followed me.” John spoke with increasing faintness. “I got her here…Then he came in with a couple of the men. He shot me, sir.”

“And took her back to the house?”

“I’m sorry, sir…”

“So you should be. Did you hear where he was taking her?”

“He—said—putting her—back to—bed, sir…”

Jerry left the lodge and began to run up the drive. It was odd how normal the house looked from the outside. He re-entered it.

On the ground floor he found the lift and discovered that it was still operating. He got in and went up to the sixth. He got out and ran to Catherine’s bedroom. The door was locked. He kicked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. He reached into his top pocket and fished out something that looked like a cigarette. Two thin wires were attached to it, leading to another object the size of a matchbox. He uncoiled the wires. He put the slim object into the keyhole of the door and walked backward a yard or so with the box in his hand.

It was actually a tiny detonator. He touched the wires to the detonator, and the explosive at the other end burst the lock with a flash.

He pushed at the wrecked door and walked in to find Frank already there.

Frank did not look at all well. In his right hand was a needle gun, twin to Jerry’s. There were only two such guns; their father had had them made and given them one each.

“How did you get away?” Jerry asked Frank.

Frank’s answer was not a direct one. He put his head on one side and stared at Jerry unblinkingly, looking like an old, sick vulture.

“Well, actually I was hoping to get
you,
Jerry. As it was I got all your military friends, though I think I missed some of the others. They’re still wandering about, I think. I’m not sure why I bothered with the shooting—probably just because I enjoyed it. I feel much better now. But if you’d crossed into the room you’d have found that a couple—ha, ha—of my men were on either side of the door waiting for you. I was the bait, the bait to the trap.”

Frank’s head seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into his shoulders as he talked, his whole body screwed up in a neurotic stoop. “You certainly made a good try at getting our sister, didn’t you? Look—I’ve woken the sleeping beauty up.”

Catherine, looking dazed, was propped on pillows.

She smiled when she saw Jerry. It was a sweet smile, but it wasn’t all that confident. Her skin was more than naturally pale, and her dark hair was still tangled.

Jerry’s gun hand rose a trifle, and Frank grinned. “Let’s get ready, then,” he said.

He began to back around the bed in order to get on the other side of Catherine. She was now between them, looking slowly from one to the other, her smile fading very gradually.

Jerry was trembling. “You bastard.”

Frank giggled. “That’s something we all have in common.”

Frank’s junkie’s face was immobile. The only movement in it came when the light caught his bright, beady eyes. Jerry didn’t realize that Frank had pulled the trigger of his gun until he felt the sting in his shoulder. Frank’s hand wasn’t as steady as it had seemed.

Frank didn’t repressure his gun at once. Jerry raised his arm to shoot Frank.

Then Catherine moved. She reached out towards Frank, her fingers clutching at his coat. “Stop it!”

“Shut up,” said Frank. He moved his left hand towards the pressure lever of his needle gun.

Catherine tried to stand up on the bed and fell forward in a kneeling position. Her face was full of wild fear.

“Jerry!” she screamed.

Jerry took a step towards her.

“That needle could work into your heart, Jerry,” smiled Frank.

“So I’ll need a magnet.”

Jerry fired and ran towards the window as a needle grazed his face. He repressured and turned. Frank ducked; Catherine rose, and Jerry’s needle caught her. She collapsed, Jerry repressured and discharged another needle at the same time as Frank. They both missed again.

Jerry began to feel puzzled. This was going on far too long. He jumped towards Frank and grabbed at his body. Frank’s weak fists struck him on the head and back. He punched Frank in the stomach, and Frank groaned. They stepped apart. Jerry felt dizzy; saw Frank grin and wheel.

“You had something in those needles…”

“Find out,” grinned Frank, and he sprang from the room.

Jerry sat himself down on the edge of the bed.

He was riding a black ferris wheel of emotions. His brain and body exploded in a torrent of mingled ecstasy and pain. Regret. Guilt. Relief. Waves of pale light flickered. He fell down a never-ending slope of obsidian rock surrounded by clouds of green, purple, yellow, black. The rock vanished, but he continued to fall. World of phosphorescence drifting like golden spheres into the black night. Green, blue, red explosions. Flickering world of phosphorescent tears falling into timeless, spaceless wastes. World of Guilt. Guilt—guilt—guilt…Another wave flowed up his spine. No-mind, no-body, no-where. Dying waves of light danced out of his eyes and away through the dark world. Everything was dying. Cells, sinews, nerves, synapses—all crumbling. Tears of light, fading, fading. Brilliant rockets streaking into the sky and exploding all together and sending their multicoloured globes of light—balls on an Xmas tree—x-mass—drifting slowly. Black mist swirled across a bleak, horizonless nightscape. Catherine. As he approached her she fell away, fell down like a cardboard dummy. Just before his mind cleared, he thought he saw a creature bending over them both—a creature without a navel, hermaphrodite and sweetly smiling…

He felt weaker as his head cleared, and he realized that some time must have passed. Catherine lay on the bed in much the same position in which he’d seen her earlier. There was a spot of blood on her white dress, over the left breast.