The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert Read online

  White teeth flashed in the smoke-layered shadows. The busboy turned, weaved his way back through the tables. The murmuring undercurrent of voices in the room damped out. Eric turned toward the stage. A portly man in ebony and chalk-striped coveralls bent over the microphone.

  “Here’s what you’ve been waiting for,” he said. He gestured with his left hand. Spotlights erased a shadow, revealing Colleen Lanai, her hands clasped in front of her. An old-fashioned gown of electric blue to match her eyes sheathed the full curves.

  “Colleen Lanai!”

  Applause washed over the room, subsided. The portly man gestured with his right hand. Other spotlights flared, revealing Pete Serantis in black coveralls, leaning on his cane.

  “Pete Serantis and—”

  He waited for a lesser frenzy of clapping to subside.

  “… The Musikron!”

  A terminal spotlight illuminated a large metallic box behind Pete. The thin man limped around the box, ducked, and disappeared inside. Colleen took the microphone from the announcer, who bowed and stepped off the stage.

  Eric became aware of a pressing mood of urgency in the room. He thought, “For a brief instant we forget our fears, forget the Syndrome, everything except the music and this instant.”

  Colleen held the microphone intimately close to her mouth.

  “We have some more real oldies for you tonight,” she said. An electric pressure of personality pulsed out from her. “Two of these songs we’ve never presented before. First, a trio—‘Terrible Blues’ with the musikron giving you a basic recording by Clarence Williams and the Red Onion Jazz Babies, Pete Serantis adding an entirely new effect; next, ‘Wild Man Blues’ and the trumpet is pure Louis Armstrong; last, ‘Them’s Graveyard Words,’ an old Bessie Smith special.” She bowed almost imperceptibly.

  Music appeared in the room, not definable as to direction. It filled the senses. Colleen began to sing, seemingly without effort. She played her voice like a horn, soaring with the music, ebbing with it, caressing the air with it.

  Eric stared, frozen, with all the rest of the audience.

  She finished the first song. The noise of applause deafened him. He felt pain in his hands, looked down to find himself beating his palms together. He stopped, shook his head, took four deep breaths. Colleen picked up the thread of a new melody. Eric narrowed his eyes, staring at the stage. Impulsively, he put his hands to his ears and felt panic swell as the music remained undiminished. He closed his eyes, caught his breath as he continued to see Colleen, blurred at first, shifting, then in a steady image from a place nearer and to the left.

  A wavering threnody of emotions accompanied the vision. Eric put his hands before his eyes. The image remained. He opened his eyes. The image again blurred, shifted to normal. He searched to one side of Colleen for the position from which he had been seeing her. He decided it could only be from inside the musikron and at the instant of decision discerned the outline of a mirror panel in the face of the metallic box.

  “Through a one-way glass,” he thought. “Through Pete’s eyes.”

  He sat, thinking, while Colleen finished her third number. Pete emerged from the musikron to share the applause. Colleen blew a kiss to the audience.

  “We’ll be back in a little while.”

  She stepped down from the stage, followed by Pete; darkness absorbed them. Waiters moved along the tables. A drink was placed on Eric’s table. He put money in the tray. A blue shadow appeared across from him, slipped into the chair.

  “Tommy told me you were here … the busboy.” She leaned across the table. “You mustn’t let Pete see you. He’s in a rage, a real pet. I’ve never seen anybody that angry.”

  Eric leaned toward her, caught a delicate exhalation of sandalwood perfume. It dizzied him. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “Can you meet me after the show?”

  “I guess I can trust you,” she said. She hesitated, smiling faintly. “You’re the professional type.” Another pause. “And I think I need professional advice.” She slipped out of the chair, stood up. “I have to get back before he suspects I didn’t go to the powder room. I’ll meet you near the freight elevator upstairs.”

  She was gone.

  * * *

  A cold breeze off the bay tugged at Eric’s cape, puffing it out behind him. He leaned against the concrete railing, drawing on a cigarette. The glowing coal flowed an orange wash across his face, flaring, dimming. The tide rip sniggled and babbled; waves lap-lap-lapped at the concrete beneath him. A multi-colored glow in the water to his left winked out as the illumabeams above the Gweduc Room were extinguished. He shivered. Footsteps approached from his left, passed behind him—a man, alone. A muffled whirring sound grew, stopped. Light footsteps ran toward him, stopped at the rail. He smelled her perfume.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I can’t be long. He’s suspicious. Tommy brought me up the freight elevator. He’s waiting.”

  “I’ll be brief. I’ve been thinking. I’m going to talk about travel. I’m going to tell you where you’ve been since you hooked up with Pete in Honolulu.” He turned, leaned sideways against the railing. “You tried your show first in Santa Rosa, California, the sticks; then you went to Piquetberg, Karachi, Reykjavik, Portland, Hollandia, Lawton—finally, Los Angeles. Then you came here.”

  “So you looked up our itinerary.”

  He shook his head. “No.” He hesitated. “Pete’s kept you pretty busy rehearsing, hasn’t he?”

  “This isn’t easy work.”

  “I’m not saying it is.” He turned back to the rail, flipped his cigarette into the darkness, heard it hiss in the water. “How long have you known Pete?”

  “A couple of months more or less. Why?”

  He turned away. “What kind of a fellow is he?”

  She shrugged. “He’s a nice guy. He’s asked me to marry him.”

  Eric swallowed. “Are you going to?”

  She looked out to the dark bay. “That’s why I want your advice. I don’t know … I just don’t know. He put me where I am, right on top of the entertainment heap.” She turned back to Eric. “And he really is an awfully nice guy … when you get under that bitterness.”

  Eric breathed deeply, pressed against the concrete railing. “May I tell you a story?”

  “What about?”

  “This morning you mentioned Dr. Carlos Amanti, the inventor of the teleprobe. Did you know him?”

  “No.”

  “I was one of his students. When he had the breakdown it hit all of us pretty hard, but I was the only one who took up the teleprobe project. I’ve been working at it eight years.”

  She stirred beside him. “What is this teleprobe?”

  “The science writers have poked fun at it; they call it the ‘mind reader.’ It’s not. It’s just a means of interpreting some of the unconscious impulses of the human brain. I suppose some day it may approach mind reading. Right now it’s a rather primitive instrument, sometimes unpredictable. Amanti’s intention was to communicate with the unconscious mind, using interpretation of encephalographic waves. The idea was to amplify them, maintain a discrete separation between types, and translate the type variations according to thought images.”

  She chewed her lower lip. “And you think the musikron would help make a better teleprobe, that it would help fight the Syndrome?”

  “I think more than that.” He looked down at the paving.

  “You’re trying to tell me something without saying it,” she said. “Is it about Pete?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Why’d you give that long recitation of where we’d been? That wasn’t just idle talk. What are you driving at?”

  He looked at her speculatively, weighing her mood. “Hasn’t Pete told you about those places?”

  She put a hand to her mouth, eyes wide, staring. She moaned. “Not the Syndrome … not all of those places, too?”

  “Yes.” It was a flat, final sound.

  She shook her head.
“What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That it could be the musikron causing all of this.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “I could be wrong. But look at how it appears. Amanti was a genius working near the fringe of insanity. He had a psychotic break. Then he helped Pete build a machine. It’s possible that machine picks up the operator’s brain wave patterns, transmits them as a scrambling impulse. The musikron does convert thought into a discernible energy—sound. Why isn’t it just as possible that it funnels a disturbing impulse directly into the unconscious.” He wet his lips with his tongue. “Did you know that I hear those sounds even with my hands over my ears, see you with my eyes covered. Remember my nightmare? My nervous system is responding to a subjective impulse.”

  “Does it do the same thing to everybody?”

  “Probably not. Unless a person was conditioned as I have been by spending years in the aura of a similar machine, these impulses would be censored at the threshold of consciousness. They would be repressed as unbelievable.”

  Her lips firmed. She shook her head. “I don’t see how all this scientific gobbledy-gook proves the musikron caused the Syndrome.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s the best possibility I’ve seen. That’s why I’m going to ask a favor. Could you get me the circuit diagrams for the musikron? If I could see them I’d be able to tell just what this thing does. Do you know if Pete has plans for it?”

  “There’s some kind of a thick notebook inside the musikron. I think that’s what you mean.”

  “Could you get it?”

  “Maybe, but not tonight … and I wouldn’t dare tell Pete.”

  “Why not tonight?”

  “Pete sleeps with the key to the musikron. He keeps it locked when it’s not in use; so no one will get inside and get a shock. It has to be left on all the time because it takes so long to warm it up. Something about crystals or energy potential or some words like that.”

  “Where’s Pete staying?”

  “There are quarters down there, special apartments.”

  He turned away, breathed the damp salt air, turned back.

  Colleen shivered. “I know it’s not the musikron. I … they—” She was crying.

  He moved closer, put an arm around her shoulders, waiting. He felt her shiver. She leaned against him; the shivering subsided.

  “I’ll get those plans.” She moved her head restlessly. “That’ll prove it isn’t the musikron.”

  “Colleen…” He tightened his arm on her shoulders, feeling a warm urgency within him.

  She moved closer. “Yes.”

  He bent his head. Her lips were warm and soft. She clung to him, pulled away, nestled in his arms.

  “This isn’t right,” she said.

  Again he bent his head. She tipped her head up to meet him. It was a gentle kiss.

  She pulled away slowly, turned her head toward the bay. “It can’t be like this,” she whispered. “So quick—without warning.”

  He put his face in her hair, inhaled. “Like what?”

  “Like you’d found your way home.”

  He swallowed. “My dear.”

  Again their lips met. She pulled away, put a hand to his cheek. “I have to go.”

  “When will I see you?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll tell Pete I have to do some shopping.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you have a laboratory?”

  “At my home in Chalmers Place on the other side of the lake. It’s in the directory.”

  “I’ll come as soon as I can get the diagrams.”

  Again they kissed.

  “I really have to go.”

  He held her tightly.

  “Really.” She pulled away. “Good night”—she hesitated—“Eric.” Shadows flowed in around her.

  He heard the whirring of the elevator, leaned back against the concrete, drawing deep breaths to calm himself.

  Deliberate footsteps approached from his left. A handlight flashed in his face, the dull gleam of a night patrolman’s brassard behind the light. The light moved to the caduceus at his breast.

  “You’re out late, doctor.”

  The light returned to his face, winked off. Eric knew he had been photographed—as a matter of routine.

  “Your lipstick’s smudged,” the patrolman said. He walked away past the elevator dome.

  * * *

  Inside the silent musikron: a thin man, pinched face, hating. Bitter thought: Now wasn’t that a sweet love scene! Pause. The doctor wants something to read? Wry smile. I’ll provide it. He’ll have something to occupy his mind after we’ve gone.

  * * *

  Before going to bed, Eric filed a transgraph to Mrs. Bertz, his secretary, telling her to cancel his appointments for the next day. He snuggled up to the pillow, hugging it. Sleep avoided him. He practiced yoga breathing. His senses remained alert. He slipped out of bed, put on a robe and sandals. He looked at the bedside clock—2:05 A.M., Saturday, May 15, 1999. He thought, Just twenty-five hours ago—nightmare. Now … I don’t know. He smiled. Yes I do; I’m in love. I feel like a college kid.

  He took a deep breath. I’m in love. He closed his eyes and looked at a memory picture of Colleen. Eric, if you only solve this Syndrome, the world is yours. The thoughts skipped a beat. I’m an incipient manic—

  Eric ruminated. If Pete takes that musikron out of Seattle—What then?

  He snapped a finger, went to the vidiphone, called an all-night travel agency. A girl clerk finally agreed to look up the booking dates he wanted—for a special fee. He gave her his billing code, broke the connection and went to the microfilm rack across from the foot of his bed. He ran a finger down the title index, stopped at “Implications of Encephalographic Wave Forms, A Study of the Nine Brain Pulses, by Dr. Carlos Amanti.” He pushed the selector opposite the tape, activated the screen above the rack and returned to his bed, carrying the remote-control unit.

  The first page flashed on the screen; room lights dimmed automatically. He read:

  “There is a scale of vibratory impulses spanning and exceeding the human auditory range which consistently produce emotional responses of fear in varying degrees. Certain of these vibratory impulses—loosely grouped under the term sounds—test the extremes of human emotional experience. One may say, within reason, that all emotion is response to stimulation by harmonic movement, by oscillation.

  “Many workers have liked emotions with characteristic encephalographic wave responses: Carter’s work on Zeta waves and love; Reymann on Pi waves and abstract thinking; Poulson on the Theta Wave Index to degrees of sorrow, to name a few.

  “It is the purpose of my work to trace these characteristic responses and point out what I believe to be an entirely new direction for interpretation of—”

  Because of the late hour, Eric had expected drowsiness to overtake his reading, but his senses grew more alert as he read. The words had the familiarity of much re-reading, but they still held stimulation. He recalled a passage toward the end of the book, put the film on motor feed and scanned forward to the section he wanted. He slowed the tape, returned the controls to single-page advance; there it was:

  “While working with severely disturbed patients in the teleprobe, I have found a charged emotional feeling in the atmosphere. Others, unfamiliar with my work, have reported this same experience. This suggests that the characteristic emanations of a disturbed mentality may produce sympathetic reactions upon those within the unshielded field of the teleprobe. Strangely, this disturbed sensation sometimes follows by minutes or even hours the period when the patient was under examination.

  “I am hesitant to suggest a theory based upon this latter phenomenon. There is too much we do not know about the teleprobe—its latency period, for instance. However, it is possible that the combination of teleprobe and disturbed personality broadcasts a field with a depressant effect upon the unconscious functions of persons within that field. Be that as it may, this entire field of teleprobe and
encephalographic wave research carries implications which—”

  With a decisive gesture, Eric snapped off the projector, slipped out of bed and dressed. The bedside clock showed 3:28 A.M., Saturday, May 15, 1999. Never in his life had he felt more alert. He took the steps two at a time down to his basement lab, flipped on all the lights, wheeled out his teleprobe.

  I’m on to something, he thought. This Syndrome problem is too urgent for me to waste time sleeping.

  He stared at his teleprobe, an open framework of shelves, banks of tubes, maze of wiring, relaxing chair in the center with the metal hemisphere of the pickup directly above the chair. He thought, The musikron is rigged for sound projection; that means a secondary resonance circuit of some kind.

  He pulled an unused tape recorder from a rack at the end of his bench, stripped the playback circuit from it. He took the recorder service manual, sketched in the changes he would need, pausing occasionally to figure circuit loads and balances on a slide rule. Presently, not too satisfied with his work, but anxious to get started, he brought out the parts he would need and began cutting and soldering. In two hours he had what he wanted.

  Eric took cutter pliers, went to the teleprobe, snipped away the recorder circuit, pulled it out as a unit. He wheeled the teleprobe cage to the bench and, delicately feeling his way, checking the circuit diagrams as he went, he wired in the playback circuit. From the monitor and audio sides, he took the main leads, fed them back into the first bank of the encephalographic pickup. He put a test power source on the completed circuit and began adding resistance units by eye to balance the impedance. It took more than an hour of testing and cutting, required several units of shielding.

  He stepped back, stared at the machine. He thought, It’s going to oscillate all over the place. How does he balance this monster?

  Eric pulled at his chin, thinking. Well, let’s see what this hybrid does.

  The wall clock above his bench showed 6:45 A.M. He took a deep breath, hooked an overload fuse into a relay power switch, closed the switch. A wire in the pickup circuit blazed to incandescence; the fuse kicked out. Eric opened the switch, picked up a test meter, and returned to the machine. The fault eluded him. He went back to the circuit diagrams.