Damon Knight - Beyond the Barrier

Wells put his muscular hands together under his chin. “It’s dangerous enough. Some people have been driven into psy-chosis by it—it’s nothing to fool with, I assure you. Essentially, what it amounts to is a psychic leverage to bring up the material the patient’s mind is holding back. Sometimes, when it does come up, it shocks him so that he goes off into a psychotic state. There are good reasons for loss of memory sometimes, Naismith.”

“I’ll take the chance,” Naismith said. “When are you free?”

“Well now, hold on a minute—I haven’t said I’d take the chance. Really, Naismith, my advice to you is to wait—”

“If you won’t do it, I’ll find another psychiatrist who will.”

Wells looked unhappy. “In this town, that wouldn’t be impossible. Come over, Naismith, and we’ll discuss it anyhow.”

Wells finished arranging the head clamps and stepped back, glancing at the meters on the control unit beside the couch.

“All right?” he asked.

“Get on with it.”

Wells’ brown fingers hesitated on the knob. “You’re sure it’s what you want?”

“I told you my reasons,” Naismith said impatiently. “Come on, let’s get started.”

Wells turned the knob; the machine clicked on, and a low hum was audible. Naismith felt a curious tickling sensation in his skull, and resisted an impulse to reach up and tear off the head clamps.

“In previous sessions,” Wells said, “we’ve taken you back through your hospital days, covered that fairly well, and your college experiences after you got out. Now let’s see if we can bring up a little sharper detail from one of those memories.”

He turned a dial; the tickling sensation grew stronger.

“I direct your attention to your first day in the Air Force Medical Center,” said Wells. “Try to recapture the image of your first waking recollection. The first thing you remember, on waking up….”

Naismith tried to concentrate. He had a vague recollection of whiteness—white sheets, white uniforms….

Watching him, Wells did something at the control unit.

Instantly a vivid scene leaped up in Naismith’s mind, so clear and detailed that it was almost like living it over again.

“Yes?” said Wells alertly. “Describe what you see and hear.”

Naismith clenched his fists involuntarily, then tried to relax.

“Young doctor just came into my room. I can see his face as clearly as yours. About thirty, heavy cheeks, cheerful-looking, but his eyes are shrewd. Looked at my chart, then at me. ‘How are we feeling today?’ Nurse glanced at me and smiled, then went out. Big, pleasant room—green walls, white curtains. I said, ‘Where am I?’” Naismith paused, frowning in surprise. “I didn’t remember anything… not anything. Not even the language—he—” Naismith twisted suddenly on the couch.

“Easy,” said Wells. “Can you tell me his reply?”

Naismith clenched his jaw. “I can now. He said, ‘what language is that, old fellow?’ But I didn’t understand it!”

Naismith rose to one elbow. “He was talking English, and I didn’t understand a word!”

Wells pressed him back, looking worried. “Easy,” he repeated. “We knew you were totally amnesic after the crash.

You had to relearn everything.. Don’t let the vividness of this recollection—”

“But what language was I speaking?” Naismith demanded ferociously. “When I asked him ‘Where am I?’”

Wells looked startled. “Can you repeat the actual sounds?”

“Glenu ash i?” said Naismith after a moment, with closed eyes. Tension was mounting in him; he could not lie still. His jaw muscles were painfully tight, and he could feel his forehead beginning to sweat. “Do you recognize it?”

“I’m no linguist. It isn’t German, or French or Spanish, I’m quite sure. But perhaps Rumanian, or Croatian, something from that general area? Is there any influence of that kind in your background?”

“Not according to the records,” Naismith said tensely. Sweat was streaming down his face; his fists clenched and opened, clenched again. “My parents were both native-born and lived in the Midwest all their lives. Both died in the Omaha dusting, and so did all my other relatives; I was the last one. And I nearly bought it.”

“Let’s pass on,” said Wells. “After this is over, I’ll play that phrase back to Hupka or Leary, and see what they say. Let’s try a little farther back now. Try to compose yourself.”

“All right.” Naismith straightened out on the couch, arms at his sides.

“I direct your attention now,” said Wells carefully, in a strained voice, “to your last memory before waking up in the hospital. The last thing you remember.” He touched the controls again.

Naismith started, as another of those vivid images exploded in his mind. A landscape this time, misty and gray.

“The crash,” he said hoarsely, and licked his lips. “Wreckage all the hell over—smoking…. Bodies—”

“Where are you?” Wells asked, bending nearer.

“About twenty yards from the fuselage,” Naismith said, with an effort. “Buck naked, bleeding…. It’s cold. Bare ground. There’s a body, and I’m bending over to see who it is.

No face, all smashed. Dog tags…. Good Christ!” He sat up abruptly, trembling.

Wells went pale under his tan and switched off the machine.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” Naismith said slowly, fumbling in his mind for the image that was no longer there. “I was reaching for the guy’s dog tags, and then—I don’t know what. A hell of a shock.

Now it’s gone.”

“We’d better call this a session,” said Wells, about to dis-connect the control unit. “Next time—”

“No!” Naismith seized his arm. “We’re close to it now, I can feel it. I’m not going to quit. Turn that thing on.”

“I don’t think it’s wise, Naismith,” said Wells soothingly.

“You’re reacting too strongly; this is powerful stuff, don’t forget.”

“One more try,” said Naismith. “I can take one more, then we’ll pass it till next time.” He held Wells’ eyes with his.

“All right, then,” said Wells reluctantly. “Let’s see….”

Naismith lay back. The hum and the tickling in his skull began again. “I direct your attention,” said Wells, “to your childhood. Any scene from your childhood. Anything that comes to mind.”

Naismith went rigid. Something swam up toward his consciousness, something so dreadful that if he saw it, he would go mad. Then it was gone.

So it had been a flop. Angrily, as he stood on the path outside Wells’ home, Naismith massaged his temples with his fingers. All he had got out of the whole thing was a headache.

He stood in angry indecision for a moment. One by one, his possibilities of action were being cut off. Ever since that first day, in class—

A thought that had been hovering at the back of his mind began to take definite shape. It was true that everything had started there, while he was under the influence of the Hivert Duplicator…. Was it possible that his experiences since then

—the dreams, everything—were due to some alien tampering with that mechanism? Had they planted something in it to exercise a subtle compulsion on his mind?

Once he had asked himself the question, he could not let it alone. He started off down the path toward the tube entrance.

The headache got no better and no worse. It felt as though the clamps Wells had put on his head were still there, and although it was senseless, he could not get rid of the impulse to brush them away.

Going to Wells had been a mistake. All the discomfort, the paraphernalia, the time wasted, and still they had got absolutely nothing from the blank period that ended four years ago. Some few bits of memory from his time in the hospital after the crash—more than they had got previously—then nothing at all.