Wheels Within Wheels

  “I was on the receiving end of the subspace call he was making when he collapsed. You walked up, looked in, and walked away. I knew you were responsible.”

  “So,” he said slowly, glancing between Jo and Easly, “it seems I made two mistakes the other night. Not only did I forget about the psi-shields on those booths, but I walked into the field of the visual pickup. I’m either getting old or I’m getting careless.” He held up the blaster. “Tell me, would you have really used this on the back of my head?”

  Jo tried to nod, but her neck muscles wouldn’t respond. “Without the slightest hesitation.” Her right arm remained extended with her hand a few tantalizing centimeters from the blaster, but she could not reach for it. The arm would not respond! It was as if it no longer belonged to her. She gave up trying and hunted for ways to keep the man talking. Maybe the head nurse would come back.

  “Can you think of a better way to handle a psi-killer?” she added.

  “Is that what you think I am?” he said with an amused leer. “A psi-killer? How quaint!”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “My dear, to compare my capabilities to those of a psi-killer is to compare the transmitting power of a subspace laser to an ancient crystal radio.”

  Right then and there, Jo knew she was dealing with a monstrous ego.

  “What can you do that’s so special?”

  His eyes danced as he looked at her, and suddenly she was–

  –nowhere. Blackness, a total absence of light. Silence, a total absence of sound. A total negation of sensation: she did not soar, she did not float, she did not fall. The blackness had no depth, nor did it press in on her. No dimensions: no time, no depth, no length or width – she couldn’t even call herself a locus. She was nowhere and there was no way out. She began to panic. No reference points. If only she could find something to latch onto, to focus her mind on, she’d be able to hold her sanity. But there was nothing but nothingness. Her panic doubled. Then doubled again. Before too long it would overwhelm her consciousness and she’d be irretrievably insane. She–

  –was back in the hospital, a head floating in the room.

  “Like it?” he asked, still smiling and watching her closely. “That’s my specialty and that’s how you’ll spend the rest of your life. But first, some answers, please. We know this man is a detective – did you hire him?”

  It was a while before Jo could speak. She was totally unnerved. She’d say anything to delay being sent back into nowhere, but right now she couldn’t speak. He waited patiently. Finally:

  “Yes. I hired him years ago to see what he could get on Elson deBloise.” She would lie, but slowly and carefully.

  “Why deBloise?”

  “I represent a number of pro-Charter groups who think the Restructurists are getting too powerful. They want leverage against deBloise.”

  “Ah! Political blackmail!”

  “The name of the game. But we never expected to run into anything like you,” she added, trying to maneuver the conversation back around to what was undoubtedly the man’s favorite subject: himself.

  He bit. “And you never will! Even if you should walk out of this room and live for another thousand years, you will never meet another like Cando Proska! I was ten years old when I first found out I could hurt someone with my mind. I killed a boy that day. The knowledge of what I had done, and could still do, nearly destroyed me then. But no one believed I was responsible.”

  Although his eyes remained fixed in Jo’s direction, he was no longer seeing her. “I never tried to use my power again, never had another contact with psionics until I was eighteen. I was walking through one of the seedier sections of our fair city one night when a young man about my age pointed a blaster in my face and demanded money.” He paused and smiled. “I killed him. It was so simple: I just wished him dead and he dropped to the pavement. Suddenly, I was a different person!”

  His eyes focused on Jo again. He was relishing the telling of his story – he had the power of life and death over anyone he chose, but no one knew it. He could not gloat in public and he desperately craved an audience.

  “I began experimenting. I used the flotsam and jetsam of the city – the zemmelar zombies, the winos, the petty thieves, people no one would miss. I didn’t understand my power then, and I still don’t, but I know what I can do. I can shock a person into brief unconsciousness, or kill him instantaneously. Or” – again a pause, again a smile – “I can throw him into permanent limbo: not only complete deafferentation, as they call it, but complete de-efferentation as well. No neurological impulses can enter or leave the conscious mind. It is the most horrifying experience imaginable. You just had a taste of it and can appreciate how long your sanity would last under those conditions.”

  He began to pace the room. “I bided my time doing bureaucratic drudge work until I could find a way to make my special talents pay off. My patience was rewarded when I found I could help out Elson deBloise by working my little specialty on a troublemaker in a town called Danzer. If you were a native you’d have heard of the man – Junior Finch.”

  Had Proska been watching Jo at that moment, he would have realized that he had struck a nerve. Jo closed her eyes and clamped her teeth down on her lower lip. All fear was suddenly gone, replaced by a mind-numbing cold. But in the center of that coldness burned a small flame, growing ever brighter and hotter. The sensation of an impending explosion was returning, building inexorably.

  “I’ve heard of him,” she managed to gasp after the slightest hesitation. “But I thought the Vanek killed him.”

  “Oh, they did!” Proska said with a laugh. “They said they did and the Vanek never lie. Perhaps you’ll appreciate the story. The man, Finch, was posing a real threat to deBloise’s political career. We came to an agreement: In return for certain financial considerations, I would take Finch out of the picture. I went to Danzer that night, waited for him to leave a little celebration he was having, and then intercepted him in an alley. He had been drinking, yet even in an alcoholic haze he gave me more resistance than all my previous experimental subjects combined. But I succeeded, as I always do. He was little more than a drooling vegetable when I left him, an apparent victim of a very severe case of the horrors. And that was the turning point of my life.”

  Jo was sick and nearly blind with fury at this point, but utterly helpless to do anything. Her voice was almost a sob. “But the knife – the Vanek knife.”

  “Ah!” he said, too enraptured by his own narrative to notice Jo’s tortured expression. “That was the final and perfect touch! One of Finch’s Vanek friends apparently happened on him in the alley and somehow realized what had been done to him – they have much greater depth of perception than pure Terrans. A knife in the heart is a true act of friendship to someone I’ve put into limbo. The death worked out very well for deBloise – his legislation passed with great fanfare and his political future was set. He gave me a little trouble by crediting the Vanek with ending Finch’s interference, but I gave him firsthand experience in the range of my power, and he suddenly became quite agreeable. As an insurance policy, I have proof of his first-degree involvement in Finch’s death ready to go to the Federation ethics committee should anything suspicious happen to me. All in all, my life is quite comfortable nowadays as a result of our arrangement.”

  He moved close to Jo now, his face inches from hers. “But so much for history. My hold over deBloise is weakened if anyone else knows what I know. Therefore, it is my sad duty to see to it that you and your detective friend never know anything again.”

  The room dimmed but did not disappear. Jo was ready for him this time and held on to reality with every fiber of her consciousness. Her mind was being fueled by a most formidable force: hate.

  Proska’s voice seemed to come from far away. “You put up a good defense,” he said with amusement. “The last one to give me this much of a fight was Finch.”

  “Maybe it runs in the family,” Jo heard herself say.
r />   “What do you mean?” His tone was puzzled and the onslaught against her mind slackened ever so slightly. She screamed:

  “JUNIOR FINCH WAS MY FATHER!”

  The emotional bomb that had been building within Jo detonated then, and the force of the explosion coursed along the psionic channel that Proska had opened between them. An awesome thrust: the grief, the anger, the repressed self-pity that had accumulated within Jo since the death of her father had at last found a target. It merged with the fresh rage and fury sparked by Proska’s cold-blooded recounting of the destruction of her father’s mind, and lashed out with one savage, berserk assault.

  Proska reeled backward and slammed his palms over his eyes. His mouth opened to scream but no sound came forth as he toppled to the floor and lay flat on his back, unconscious.

  Jo suddenly was aware of her body again. Her arms, legs, and torso were hers once more, but the legs wouldn’t support her. Her knees buckled and she hit the floor. Consciousness began to slip away, but before it was completely gone, she saw a hooded, blue-skinned head poke inside the door and peer about the room.

  WHEN JO NEXT OPENED her eyes, she found herself looking into the face of the night nurse. It took a few heartbeats to orient herself, then she looked across the floor to where she had last seen Proska. He was gone. So was her blaster.

  “Where is he?” she asked, raising herself to a crouching position.

  “Where is who?”

  “That man! The one who was on the floor over there!”

  The nurse smiled. “I’m afraid you might be just a little bit overtired, dear. You should take better care of yourself. You might have been lying on the floor here half the night if Mr. Easly hadn’t buzzed.”

  “Larry!” Jo cried, leaping to her feet.

  Larry Easly lay quietly in bed, his hands folded on his chest, a tired smile on his face.

  “Hi, Jo.”

  Relief and reaction flooded through Jo as she crossed to the side of his bed and grasped both his hands. There were tears on her cheeks… for the second time in seventeen years, she cried. It was a joy to see Larry conscious again, to see life in his eyes and hear his voice. But there was something else… mingling in the relief was a curious, unfamiliar lightness of spirit, as if she had been purged of all doubt and grief and fear. She felt reborn, released from the past.

  Except for Old Pete. That reckoning was still to come.

  “I’ll leave you two alone a minute,” the nurse said, “then he’s got to go to neuro for retesting.” She closed the door behind her.

  “I’m okay, Jo,” Larry said in a faint voice. “Just weak. So weak, it was all I could do to press the buzzer when I came to and saw you lying on the floor.”

  Jo’s head snapped up. “Did you see anyone else on the floor?”

  “No. Who do you mean?”

  “Proska.”

  Larry’s eyes widened. “You know about him?”

  “He was here! He tried to do to me what he did to my father and almost did to you.” She hesitated. “Were you in… limbo all this time?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “But I know what you mean. A Vanek explained to me what Proska could do. No, I was unconscious. I don’t remember a thing between the booth and this room. But where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Something happened when he tried to do whatever it is he does, and we both collapsed. He was on the floor last time I saw him.” She glanced at the wall clock. “And that was two hours ago!”

  “Well, I’ve only been conscious for about a quarter hour and he wasn’t here when I came to.” He tried to lift his head but the effort was too much. “That means he’s free. Jo, we’ve got to get off Jebinose. Proska is the most dangerous man alive! I can’t walk yet, but I’ll go on a stretcher!”

  The nurse returned then. “Time to go. The neuro crew’s waiting for you.”

  “The only place I’m going is deep space!” Larry said with what little vehemence he could muster.

  Ignoring him, the nurse flipped open the top of a small console at the foot of the bed. “You’re going to neuro. Doctor’s orders. Besides, you’re too weak to go anywhere else.” She tapped in a three-digit combination, then closed the console cover.

  The bed began to roll toward the door and Larry looked around helplessly.

  “Jo?”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll wait for you here.” She was not looking at Larry anymore. Her eyes were riveted on a figure standing in the shadows out in the hall.

  When the bed had disappeared down the hallway to the left with the nurse in tow, Jo went and sat in the chair by the window.

  Old Pete entered. Jo’s blaster was in his right hand and he crossed the room and laid it on the night table beside her.

  “You won’t be needing this,” he said.

  “You sure?” Jo’s voice was flat, hard. Her eyes were on the wall.

  “Proska is dead. He will probably be found shortly after sunrise in the park across the street. His hands and feet have been tied to a tree; the top of his skull has been removed and his brain has been smashed at his feet.”

  Jo looked at Old Pete’s face and saw in it a sense of infinite satisfaction. “You?”

  He shook his head. “No. The Vanek. They removed him shortly after he passed out here and then Rmrl came to my hotel room. He returned your blaster and led me out to view their handiwork.”

  “But I thought the Vanek never took any initiative – never acted on their own or anyone’s behalf.”

  “They don’t. Or at least they didn’t until now.” He took a deep breath and shivered. “For beginners, they sure don’t fool around.”

  “How do the Vanek know you?”

  “I met Rmrl seventeen years ago when I was looking into Junior’s death.”

  “Is he the one with the blue spot on his forehead?”

  Old Pete nodded. “He’s the one who delivered the coup de grace on your father and he’s been waiting in silence all those years for the Great Wheel to turn full circle and exact its vengeance on Proska. Your arrival prompted him into action. He was no longer a typical Vanek after his close association with Junior Finch, and when word of your arrival spread among the Vanek–”

  “How did they know who I was?”

  He avoided Jo’s eyes. “They… knew. And Rmrl was determined to prevent the same thing that happened to Junior from happening to you. So he and a few of his friends decided to take Proska out of the picture, permanently. He had to die… there was no other way to handle him.”

  “I hope they catch up to deBloise, too!”

  “They have no quarrel with him.”

  “They should – Proska told me that he went after my father at deBloise’s direction.”

  Old Pete’s voice was a whisper. “Then it’s true!”

  “What…?”

  “It’s true! DeBloise is involved. I’ve had that feeling in my gut for seventeen years and could never prove a thing! That’s why I’ve kept such close surveillance on him all this time!”

  “And what about Proska?”

  “Never knew he existed until this morning when Rmrl told me all about him and showed me his remains.”

  A long silence. When Jo finally broke it, her voice was low but carried a sharp edge.

  “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

  “It’s true.”

  She rose slowly to her feet and faced him. She wanted to believe it. She wanted everything over and done with and settled so she could get on with her life. But there were still too many dark areas concerning the old man.

  She spoke the question that had hovered unasked between them since Old Pete entered the room.

  “Why are you here?”

  “On Jebinose? I came to see if I could help Larry. After all, I’ve been here before and–”

  “Lie! You came here to cover something up – or to make sure it stayed covered. What is it?”

  “Nothing!” He spoke the word without convictio
n, as if he knew he would not be believed.

  “Another lie! The only connection between you and Jebinose is my father – and he’s dead. You’re somehow involved in that and I want to know how!”

  “Never! I’d never do anything to hurt Junior. How can you say that?”

  “The Vanek told me, ‘He will not harm you again.’ Did he mean you?”

  “No! He meant Proska!”

  “Impossible! Proska didn’t even know I existed until tonight. How could he hurt me ‘again’?”

  Old Pete blanched and said nothing.

  Turning to the night table, Jo picked up the blaster and pointed it at the old man’s head.

  “Tell me now or I swear by all I believe in I’ll burn a hole in you! What was your involvement in my father’s death?”

  Her eyes told him that she was not bluffing. She had tasted vengeance tonight and was not going to stop until all accounts were settled. Old Pete began to tremble. He found a seat by the far wall and slowly lowered himself into it. Looking up, he held Jo’s angry glare and spoke in a dry, cracked whisper.

  “Junior Finch isn’t dead and he wasn’t your father.”

  The words lay on the air like dead fish on a stagnant pond. Finally, Jo shook her head as if to clear it.

  “What are you saying?” She was nearly insane with rage. “Do you think you can get yourself out of this by concocting some wild–”

  “It’s true! Junior Finch was completely sterile as a result of the radiation leak that almost killed him when he was eighteen. He didn’t produce a single gamete from then on. The histology report on the genitourinary system in the autopsy reconfirmed this, and I paid an ungodly sum to have that part wiped.”

  Jo’s finger tightened on the blaster trigger. “But you said he isn’t dead! How can you have an autopsy report on a man who isn’t dead?”

  Old Pete held up his hands. He was tired, defeated, and more than a little frightened by what he saw in Jo’s eyes.

  “Just let me continue. When your grandfather found out Junior was sterile, he was crushed. It meant there’d be no Finch beyond Junior to carry IBA into the future. That was important to him. He set great store by family – didn’t start one till late in life, but once he had one, it became the prime focus of his life. Junior was one child, IBA another. He wanted them both to go on forever. Me, I couldn’t care less.”