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him go; and it might kill its specimens, too. But its secrecy was destroyed, its mission ended. Now it faced no primitive, struggling village or isolated farm. In late twentieth-century America it faced too many brains and weapons, too much organization& The older detective was speaking again, but in the fullness of his relief Dan was not paying attention enough to understand the words. Then abruptly Dan realized that control had been lifted from him. He jumped to his feet. The older policeman did not react to the movement. He only continued to sit in his chair, still gazing intently at the chair where Dan had been. He was nodding gently now, a mild smile on his lined face. Page 50 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html The big young cop was leaning now against the mantel, and also staring steadily at nothing. "Listen!" Dan grabbed the big one by his sportcoat sleeves. Like trying to move an offensive tackle out of his place. "Snap out of it! Help me! My kids are being murdered in the basement!" The big guy almost toppled from Dan's pulling and shaking, then stuck out a powerful arm and pushed Dan's hands away, meanwhile continuing to gaze off into the distance, where something most entrancing was. Dan spun away and grabbed at the older man, lifted him right up out of his chair with a grip on shirt and arm, shook him limply like some rag-stuffed tackling dummy. But the detective was not provoked into response. When Dan let go he slid to the floor in a collapse with his head down, rump elevated, like a sleeping baby. Almost sobbing now in incoherent rage, Dan turned from one of the detectives to the other, kicking and cursing and slapping at them, to no avail. Then he suddenly thrust a hand inside the bigger detective's jacket, reaching for the holster that he assumed was there. He had guessed right, but his fingers had no more than touched the hardness of a gun-butt before total control was back again, clamping his hands and arms into a statue-like rigidity. Thrown off balance, he toppled to fall beside the other man on the floor. A scream of despair was choked in Dan's throat before it could begin. Then, moving smoothly under total control, Dan's body got to its feet and looked around. It walked to the windows and looked out. The police car still waited beside the street. The world outside was undisturbed and unalarmed. At a rustling of clothing behind him, his body turned. The police were both standing up straight again, casually adjusting rumpled clothes and brushing themselves off. Their eyes were in focus once again on Dan's, but their faces were still in strange repose. "Sorry to have bothered you, sir," the older one said. He gave Dan the abstracted smile of a busy man whose mind has already shifted to some future task. He and his partner began to make their way toward the door. "Wait, officers.'' Control was still willing to let Dan talk, although he could not move. "My children. Save my children." His voice was unrecognizable now, less like his own than was the enemy's impersonation. "Save them, they're still alive, I know it. Down under the house." "That's quite all right, sir. No trouble at all." "Under the house, under& " "Thanks for your co-operation.'' Nodding and smiling, they went out, pulling the front door carefully shut behind them. Before their car pulled away, his body walked to a window from which it could observe the Folletts' house. There was the telltale twitch of curtain. NINE When it let go of Dan again he went straight to the kitchen cabinet in which he kept his small supply of booze. If memory served him right, there should be a fifth of bourbon on the shelf, still about half full. His memory was correct. But no sooner had his arm brought the bottle out than it was stopped by the puppet-strings. The bottle was moved up carefully before his face, and his eyes were made to scrutinize the label thoroughly. "I tell you you'd better let me have this," he muttered savagely to his unseen master. "Better let me have it, if you want me to keep functioning at all." After it had studied the label, and used his nose to sniff the contents, it turned him loose. At once he reached for a shot glass and poured himself a drink and downed it, neat. Ordinarily he never could have taken whisky that way, but right now it tasted like so much tea. Fighting back an urge for the cigarettes that he had given up five years Page 51 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html earlier, Dan brought the bottle and glass along and went to sit at the kitchen table. On the table still lay the pencil and pad of paper that had been used in the morning's sance. "All right," he said quietly, looking down at his hands folded before him. "So you want me to keep functioning, for a while at least. That means you want me to help you in some way.'' He took up the bottle and slowly poured himself another shot. No, only half a shot this time. "Somewhere along the line, in whatever you're planning next, you're going to want my willing co-operation. Or at least things will be easier for you if I can be brought to co-operate. Right?" No answer. He looked at his hand and at the waiting paper, but nothing happened. Dan took a sip from his glass, and sloshed the liquor around inside his cheeks like mouth wash. "There is something I need, too. Maybe we can trade." He paused. "I want my children back, alive and essentially unharmed. For that I'll be willing to cooperate. I'll help you get other people to replace them, if that's what you want." He drank again. He wondered now, with sudden understanding, how often the enemy might have heard this same speech. From Clareson, from Schwartz, the one the farm boys said was crazy. No doubt there had been others. His right thumb gave a little preliminary twitch, and then his hand took the pencil up. It lettered, OFFER TENTATIVELY ACCEPTED. WE WILL NEGOTIATE. His reply was quick: "First, how do I know you can deliver? How do I know they're not already dead down there?" IF THEIR VIABILITY CAN BE DEMONSTRATED, ARE YOU THEN WILLING TO HELP ME COLLECT MORE SPECIMENS? "Yes. Yes." He would promise it anything, and at the same time allow himself no shred of comforting belief in anything it promised him. Clareson and Schwartz and their families, how did they wind up? Dan suddenly recalled the diary, the first time he had thought of it since he had fallen into the controller's grasp. It was dated in the 1850s, which must be about Clareson's time. Dan had only scanned it very briefly, before giving it to Nancy, and now he could remember practically nothing of its contents. Anyway Nancy had it now, and it just might be of some help& GET THE NEWSPAPER. It always neatly penciled in the proper punctuation marks. Dan wondered why it preferred to put its communications down on paper rather than make him talk to himself. Maybe it had tried the latter method on some of its victims only to find it brought their mental collapse on sooner and more certainly. When he came back to the kitchen table with the newspaper it took over his hands with seemingly impatient speed and turned the pages rapidly. It remembered exactly the pages it was looking for. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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