Дэймон Найт - Orbit 9

She sighed, and the images blurred, fused, separated again. She turned off a tape recorder, but continued to lie still, with her eyes closed. Her thoughts were a chaotic jumble. If she suspected that I was there, she gave no indication. She was afraid to open her eyes. Trying to remember why she had walked along that path so many times after Karl died out there. In the beginning, the hours of training, hours and hours of testing. Then the experiments. Afraid of him. Terribly afraid. He had cleared the world for her, but he might scramble it again. So afraid of him. If she took the capsules and went to bed, it didn’t matter, but now. Afraid to open her eyes. Lenny? Isn’t it time yet? It’s been so long—days, weeks. Snow has fallen, and the summer heat has come and gone. I know the couch is under me, and the room around me, and my finger on the switch to the recorder. I know that. I have to repeat it sometimes, but then I know it. Mustn’t open my eyes now. Not yet. Not until Lenny comes back.

I smelled burning filter and put out the cigarette and drank coffee. What would she see if she opened her eyes now? Was that her madness? A visual distortion, a constant hallucination, a mixture of reality and fantasy that she couldn’t tell apart? She turned her head, faced the back of the couch.

Very slowly I forced her to sit up, and then to open her eyes. It was much harder than making her respond had been before. She kept slipping away from me. It was as if there were so many other impulses that mine was just one of a number, no more powerful than any of the illusory ones that kept holding up images for her to scan and accept, or reject. Finally she opened her eyes, and the room began to move. There was no sequence, no before and after, or cause and effect. Everything was. Winter, with a fire in the fireplace, summer with fans in the windows, company talking gaily, the room empty, children playing with puzzles, a couple copulating on the couch, a man pacing talking angrily… They were all real. I knew we—I had to get out of there, and there was no place to go. I was afraid of the outside world even more than the inside one. I was afraid to move. The couch vanished from behind me. The room was moving again. And I knew it would vanish, and that I would fall, like I had fallen a thousand times, a million times.

“Help me!” I cried to the pacing man, and he continued to pace although the room was certainly fading. And the children played. And the couple made love. And the fans whirred. And the fire burned. And I fell and fell and fell and fell…

I sat in the coffee shop and shook. I was in a sweat, and I couldn’t stop the shaking in my hands. I didn’t dare try to walk out yet. No more! No more. I shook my head and swore, no more. I’d kill her. She had learned what to do, what not to do, and through my stupidity and blundering, I’d kill her.

“Sir? Is anything wrong? Are you all right?”

The waitress. She touched my arm warily, ready to jump back.

“Sir?”

“I… I’m sorry, Miss. Sleeping with my eyes open, I guess. I’m sorry.” She didn’t believe me. Behind her I saw another woman watching. She must have sent the waitress over. I picked up the check, but I was afraid to try to stand up. I waited until the girl turned and walked away, and then I held the top of the table until I knew my legs would hold me.

I had the boy I’d hired relieve me for the rest of the day, and I walked back to my hotel, slowly, feeling like an old man. I started the hour-long walk making myself promises. I would never touch her again, I’d help Lenny find out the truth about her and do whatever could be done to cure her, and to get her and Lenny together. They needed each other, and I had Janet and the children, and the shop. Everything I had driven for was either mine, or within sight by now. Everything. She was a danger to me, nothing else. By the time I got to the hotel I knew the promises were lies. That as long as I could get inside that woman’s head, I would keep right on doing it. And now the thought had hit me that I wanted to be with her physically, just her and me, when I did it next time. It was a relief finally to admit to myself that I wanted to seize her body and mind. And I knew that I wanted everyone else out of her life altogether. Especially Lenny. Everyone who might be a threat, everyone who suspected that there was a mystery to be unraveled. The notebooks would have to be destroyed. If Karl had known, the knowledge must be destroyed. All of it. No one to know but me.

I looked on her then as a gift from God or the Devil, but my gift. From the instant of our first meeting, when the shock of seeing her had rattled me, right through that moment, everything had been driving me toward this realization. I hadn’t wanted to see it before. I had ducked and avoided it. Pretending that she was abhorrent to me, making Janet and Lenny shield me from her, shield her from me. I walked faster and with more purpose. I had too much to do now to waste time. I had to learn exactly how to enter her without the panic she always felt as soon as she knew. And I had to find a way to make her rid herself of Lenny.

I bought a bottle of bourbon, and some cheese and crackers. I had to stay in to plan my campaign, make certain of all the details this time before I touched her. I knew I would have to be more careful than I had been in the past. I didn’t want to destroy her, or to damage her in any way. I might have to hurt her at first, just to show her that she had to obey. That’s what always hurt her, having to fight with her. And no more tranquilizers. Karl had been right. She shouldn’t have drugs, not she. What else had he learned about her? How deep had his control been? The line from Pete’s letter came back to me: “He wound her up each morning…”

The bastard, I thought with hatred. Goddamned bastard.

It was almost five when I got to my room. There was a message from Lenny, to call him at her number. I crumpled up the note and flung it across the room. How much of the notebooks had he been able to get through? How much had he told her about what he had found there? I poured a generous drink and tried to think about Lenny and Karl, and all the time I kept seeing her, a tiny, perfectly formed figure, amazingly large dark eyes, doll-like hands…

She would have called Lenny after my… visit. I cursed myself for clumsiness. I’d have her in an institution if I wasn’t more careful. Had she been able to get back to present after I ran out this time? I realized that that’s how I had always left her, in a panic, or in a faint. What if she, in desperation, jumped out a window, or took an overdose of something? I took a long drink and then placed the call. I was shaking again, this time with fear that she was hurt, really hurt.

Lenny answered. “Oh, Eddie. Can you get Weill tonight? I can get in by ten fifteen in the morning. Can you find out if he can see us then?”

I swallowed hard before I could answer. “Sure. He said to call anytime. Someone will be there. Is that all? I mean when I got the message to call you at… her house, I was afraid something had happened.”

“No. It’s all right. Chris has decided to feed me, that’s all.” There was a false note in his voice. Probably she was nearby, listening. I fought the impulse to go out to her to find out.

“Okay. If I don’t call back, assume that it’s set up.”

“What’s wrong with you? You sound hoarse.”

“Out in the rain. A bug. I’m catching that mysterious ‘it’ that’s always going around. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Take care of yourself. Get a bottle and go to bed.”

“Sure, Lenny.”

I stared at the phone after hanging up. He was suspicious. I could tell from his voice, from the way he hedged when I asked a direct question. Maybe not simply suspicious. Maybe they actually knew by now. Not that he could prove anything. To whom? Janet? A jury? I laughed and poured another drink, this time mixing it with water. “This man, ladies and gentlemen, entered the mind of this woman at will…”