Don't Look Now and Other Stories

  He turned away, craggy, imperturbable, suggesting a benevolent bird of prey.

  I didn't go into Thirlwall. I walked out across the sand dunes to the sea. There was nothing calm about it today. Turbulent and gray, it sank into troughs before breaking on the shingle with a roar. Miles away along the beach a group of U.S. Air Corps cadets were practicing bugle calls. The shrill notes, the discordant sounds, drove towards me down the wind. For no reason at all the half-forgotten lines of a Negro spiritual kept repeating themselves over and over in my mind.

  "He has the whole world in his hands,

  He has the whole world in his hands..."

  The demonstration was repeated, with varying programs, every three days during the weeks that followed. Mac and I took it in turn at the controls. I soon grew accustomed to this, and the bizarre sessions became a matter of routine.

  It was, as Mac had said, less painful when the child was present. Her father would bring her to the lab and leave her with us, Ken already in position and under control. The child would sit in a chair beside him, also with a microphone above her head to record her speech. She was told that Ken was asleep. Then, in her turn, she would receive the signal from Charon, and a different series of numbers from Ken's, after which she would be under control. The program was different when the two were working together. Charon would take Ken back in time, to a period when he was the same age as Niki, saying, "You are seven years old. Niki has come to play with you. She is your friend," and a similar message would be given to the child, "Ken has come to play with you. He is a boy of your age."

  The two would then chat together, without interruption from Charon, with the quite fantastic result--this had been built up during the past months, I gathered--that the pair were now close friends "in time," hiding nothing from each other, playing imaginary games, exchanging ideas. Niki, backward and morose when conscious, was lively and gay under control. The taped conversations were checked after each session, to record the increasingly closer rapport between the two, and to act as guide for further programs. Ken, when conscious, looked upon Niki as Janus's backward child, a sad little object of no interest. He was totally ignorant of what happened when under control. I was not so sure about Niki. Intuition seemed to draw her to him. She would hang about him, if given the chance.

  I asked Robbie what the Janus parents felt about the sessions.

  "They'd do anything for Mac," he told me, "and they believe it may help Niki. The other twin was normal, you see."

  "Do they realize about Ken?"

  "That he's going to die?" replied Robbie. "They've been told, but I doubt if they understand. Who would, looking at him now?"

  We were at the bar, and from where we stood we could see Ken and Mac engaged in a game of ping-pong in the room beyond.

  Early in December we had a scare. A letter came from the Ministry asking how the Saxmere experiments were going, and could they send someone down to have a look round? We had a consultation, the upshot of which was that I undertook to go up to London to choke them off. By this time I was wholeheartedly behind Mac in all he was doing, and during my brief stay in town I succeeded in satisfying the authorities in question that a visit at this moment would be premature, but we hoped to have something to show them before Christmas. Their interest, of course, lay in Charon 2's potentialities for blast; they knew nothing of Mac's intended project.

  When I returned, alighting at Saxmere station in a very different mood from that of three months past, the Morris was waiting for me, but without Ken's cheerful face at the wheel. Janus had replaced him. He was never a talkative bloke, and he answered my question with a shrug.

  "Ken's got a cold," he said. "Robbie's keeping him in bed as a precaution."

  I went straight to the boy's room on arrival. He looked a bit flushed, but was in his usual spirits, full of protests against Robbie.

  "There's absolutely nothing the matter," he said. "I got wet feet stalking a bird down in the marsh."

  I sat with him awhile, joking about London and the Ministry, then went to report to Mac.

  "Ken has some fever," he said at once. "Robbie's done a blood test. It's not too good." He paused. "This could be it."

  I felt suddenly chilled. After a moment I told him about London. He nodded briefly.

  "Whatever happens," he said, "we can't have them here now."

  I found Robbie in the lab, busy with slides and a microscope. He was preoccupied, and hadn't much time for me.

  "It's too soon to say yet," he said. "Another forty-eight hours should show one way or the other. There's an infection in the right lung. With leukemia that could be fatal. Go and keep Ken amused."

  I took a portable gramophone along to the boy's bedroom. I suppose I put on about a dozen records, and he seemed quite cheerful. Later he dozed off and I sat there, wondering what to do. My mouth felt dry, and I kept swallowing. Something inside me kept saying, "Don't let it happen."

  Conversation at dinner was forced. Mac talked about undergraduate days at Cambridge, while Robbie reminisced over past rugby games--he'd played scrum half for Guy's. I don't think I talked at all. I went along afterwards to say goodnight to Ken, but he was already asleep. Janus was sitting with him. Back in my room I flung myself on my bed and tried to read, but I couldn't concentrate. There was fog at sea, and every few minutes the foghorn boomed from the lighthouse along the coast. There was no other sound.

  Next morning Mac came to my room at a quarter to eight.

  "Ken's worse," he said. "Robbie's going to try a blood transfusion. Janus will assist." Janus was a trained orderly.

  "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

  "Help me get Charons 1 and 3 ready for action," he said. "If Ken doesn't respond, I may decide to put phase one of Operation Styx into effect. Mrs. J. has been warned we may need the child."

  As I finished dressing I kept telling myself that this was the moment we had been training for all through the past two and a half months. It didn't help. I swallowed some coffee and went to the control room. The door to the lab was closed. They had Ken in there, giving him the blood transfusion. Mac and I worked over both Charons, seeing that everything functioned perfectly, and that there could be no hitch when the time came. Programs, tapes, microphones, all were ready. After that it was a matter of standing by until Robbie came through with his report. We got it at about half past twelve.

  "Slight improvement." They had taken him back to his room. We all had something to eat while Janus continued his watch over Ken. Today there was no question of forced conversation. The work on hand was the concern of all. I felt calmer, steadier. The morning's work had knocked me into shape. Mac proposed a game of ping-pong after lunch, and whereas the night before I would have felt aghast at the suggestion, today it seemed the right thing to do. Looking from the window, between games, I saw Niki wandering up and down with Mrs. Janus, a strange, lost-looking little figure, filling a battered doll's pram with sticks and stones. She had been on the premises since ten o'clock.

  At half past four Robbie came into the sports room. I could tell by his face that it was no good. He shook his head when Mac suggested another transfusion. It would be a waste of time, he told us.

  "He's conscious?" asked Mac.

  "Yes," answered Robbie. "I'll bring him through when you're ready."

  Mac and I went back to the control room. Phase two of Operation Styx consisted of bringing the operating table in here, placing it between the three Charons, and connecting up with an oxygen unit alongside. The microphones were already in position. We had done the maneuver often before, in practice runs, but today we beat our fastest time by two minutes.

  "Good work," said Mac.

  The thought struck me that he had been looking forward to this moment for months, perhaps for years. He pressed the button to signal that we were ready, and in less than four minutes Robbie and Janus arrived with Ken on the trolley, and lifted him onto the table. I hardly recognized him. The eyes, usually so luminous, had almost
disappeared into the sunken face. He looked bewildered. Mac quickly attached electrodes, one against each temple and others to his chest and neck, connecting him to Charon 3. Then he bent over the boy.

  "It's all right," he said. "We've got you in the lab to do a few tests. Just relax, and you'll be fine."

  Ken stared up at Mac, and then he smiled. We all knew that this was the last we should see of his conscious self. It was, in fact, goodbye. Mac looked at me, and I put Charon 1 into operation, the voice ringing clear and true. "This is Charon calling... This is Charon calling..." Ken closed his eyes. He was under hypnosis. Robbie stood beside him, finger on pulse. I set the program in motion. We had numbered it X in the files, because it was different from the others.

  "How do you feel, Ken?"

  Even with the microphone close to his lips we could barely hear the answer. "You know damn well how I feel."

  "Where are you, Ken?"

  "I'm in the control room. Robbie's turned the heating off. I've got the idea now. It's to freeze me, like butcher's meat. Ask Robbie to bring back the heat..." There was a long pause, and then he said, "I'm standing by a tunnel. It looks like a tunnel. It could be the wrong end of a telescope, the figures look so small... Tell Robbie to bring back the heat."

  Mac, who was beside me at the controls, made an adjustment, and we let the program run without sound until it reached a certain point, when it was amplified once more to reach Ken.

  "You are five years old, Ken. Tell us how you feel."

  There was a long pause and then, to my dismay, though I suppose I should have been prepared for it, Ken whimpered, "I don't feel well. I don't want to play."

  Mac pressed a button, and the door at the far end opened. Janus pushed his daughter into the room, then closed the door again. Mac had her under control with her call sign at once, and she did not see Ken on the table. She went and sat down in her chair and closed her eyes.

  "Tell Ken you are here, Niki."

  I saw the child clutch the arms of her chair.

  "Ken's sick," she said. "He's crying. He doesn't want to play."

  The voice of Charon went ruthlessly on.

  "Make Ken talk, Niki."

  "Ken won't talk," said the child. "He's going to say his prayers."

  Ken's voice came faintly through the microphone to the loudspeakers. The words were gabbled, indistinct.

  "Gen'ral Jesus, mekan mild,

  Look'pon little child,

  Pity my simple city,

  Sofa me to come to thee..."

  There was a long pause after this. Neither Ken nor Niki said anything. I kept my hands on the controls, ready to continue the program when Mac nodded. Niki began drumming her feet on the floor. All at once she said, "I shan't go down the tunnel after Ken. It's too dark."

  Robbie, watching his patient, looked up. "He's gone into coma," he said.

  Mac signaled to me to set Charon 1 in motion again.

  "Go after Ken, Niki," said the voice.

  The child protested. "It's black in there," she said. She was nearly crying. She hunched herself in her chair and went through crawling motions. "I don't want to go." she said. "It's too long, and Ken won't wait for me."

  She started to tremble all over. I looked across at Mac. He questioned Robbie with a glance.

  "He won't come out of it," Robbie said. "It may last hours."

  Mac ordered the oxygen apparatus to be put into operation, and Robbie fixed the mask on Ken. Mac went over to Charon 3 and switched on the monitor display screen. He made some adjustments and nodded at me. "I'll take over," he said.

  The child was still crying, but the next command from Charon 1 gave her no respite. "Stay with Ken," it said. "Tell us what happens."

  I hoped Mac knew what he was doing. Suppose the child went into a coma too? Could he bring her back? Hunched in her chair, she was as still as Ken, and about as lifeless. Robbie told me to put blankets round her and feel her pulse. It was faint, but steady. Nothing happened for over an hour. We watched the flickering and erratic signals on the screen, as the electrodes transmitted Ken's weakening brain impulses. Still the child did not speak.

  Later, much later, she stirred, then moved with a strange twisting motion. She crossed her arms over her breast, humping her knees. Her head dropped forward. I wondered if, like Ken, she was engaged in some childish prayer. Then I realized that her position was that of a fetus before birth. Personality had vanished from her face. She looked wizened, old.

  Robbie said, "He's going."

  Mac beckoned me to the controls, and Robbie bent over Ken with fingers on his pulse. The signals on the screen were fainter, and faltering, but suddenly they surged in a strong upward beat, and in the same instant Robbie said, "It's all over. He's dead."

  The signal was rising and falling steadily now. Mac disconnected the electrodes and turned back to watch the screen. There was no break in the rhythm of the signal, as it moved up and down, up and down, like a heartbeat, like a pulse.

  "We've done it!" said Mac. "Oh my God... we've done it!"

  We stood there, the three of us, watching the signal that never for one instant changed its pattern. It seemed to contain, in its confident movement, the whole of life.

  I don't know how long we stayed there--it could have been minutes, hours. At last Robbie said, "What about the child?"

  We had forgotten Niki, just as we had forgotten the quiet, peaceful body that had been Ken. She was still lying in her strange, cramped position, her head bowed to her knees. I went to the controls of Charon 1 to operate the voice, but Mac waved me aside.

  "Before we wake her, we'll see what she has to say," he said.

  He put through the call signal very faintly, so as not to shock her to consciousness too soon. I followed with the voice, which repeated the final program command.

  "Stay with Ken. Tell us what happens."

  At first there was no response. Then slowly she uncoiled, her gestures odd, uncouth. Her arms fell to her side. She began to rock backwards and forwards as though following the motion on the screen. When she spoke her voice was sharp, pitched high.

  "He wants you to let him go," she said, "that's what he wants. Let go... let go... let go..." Still rocking she began to gasp for breath, and, lifting her arms, pummeled the air with her fists.

  "Let go... let go... let go... let go..."

  Robbie said urgently, "Mac, you've got to wake her."

  On the screen the rhythm of the signal had quickened. The child began to choke. Without waiting for Mac, I set the voice in motion.

  "This is Charon speaking... This is Charon speaking... Wake up, Niki."

  The child shuddered, and the suffused color drained from her face. Her breathing became normal. She opened her eyes. She stared at each of us in turn in her usual apathetic way, and proceeded to pick her nose.

  "I want to go to the toilet," she said sullenly.

  Robbie led her from the room. The signal, which had increased its speed during the child's outburst, resumed its steady rise and fall.

  "Why did it alter speed?" I asked.

  "If you hadn't panicked and woken her up, we might have found out," Mac said.

  His voice was harsh, quite unlike himself.

  "Mac," I protested, "that kid was choking to death."

  "No," he said, "no, I don't think so."

  He turned and faced me. "Her movements simulated the shock of birth," he said. "Her gasp for air was the first breath of an infant, struggling for life. Ken, in coma, had gone back to that moment, and Niki was with him."

  I knew by this time that almost anything was possible under hypnosis, but I wasn't convinced.

  "Mac," I said, "Niki's struggle came after Ken was dead, after the new signal appeared on Charon 3. Ken couldn't have gone back to the moment of birth--he was already dead, don't you see?"

  He did not answer at once. "I just don't know," he said at last. "I think we shall have to put her under control again."

  "No," said Robbie. He had ent
ered the lab while we were talking. "That child has had enough. I've sent her home, and told her mother to put her to bed."

  I had never heard him speak with authority before. He looked away from the lighted screen back to the still body on the table. "Doesn't that go for the rest of us?" he said. "Haven't we all had enough? You've proved your point, Mac. I'll celebrate with you tomorrow, but not tonight."

  He was ready to break. So, I think, were we all. We had barely eaten through the day, and when Janus returned he set about getting us a meal. He had taken the news of Ken's death with his usual calm. The child, he told us, had fallen asleep the moment she was put to bed.

  So... it was all over. Reaction, exhaustion, numbness of feeling, all three set in, and I yearned, like Niki, for the total release of sleep.

  Before dragging myself to bed some impulse, stronger than the aching fatigue that overwhelmed me, urged me back to the control room. Everything was as we had left it. Ken's body lay on the table, covered with a blanket. The screen was lighted still, and the signal was pulsing steadily up and down. I waited a moment, then I bent to the tape control, setting it to play back that last outburst from the child. I remembered the rocking head, the hands fighting to be free, and switched it on.

  "He wants you to let him go," said the high-pitched voice, "that's what he wants. Let go... let go... let go..." Then came the gasp for breath, and the words were repeated. "Let go... let go... let go... let go..."

  I switched it off. The words did not make sense. The signal was simply electrical energy, trapped at the actual moment of Ken's death. How could the child have translated this into a cry for freedom, unless...?

  I looked up. Mac was watching me from the doorway. The dog was with him.

  "Cerberus is restless," he said. "He keeps padding backwards and forwards in my room. He won't let me sleep."

  "Mac," I said, "I've played that recording again. There's something wrong."

  He came and stood beside me. "What do you mean, something wrong? The recording doesn't affect the issue. Look at the screen. The signal's steady. The experiment has been a hundred percent successful. We've done what we set out to do. The energy is there."

  "I know it's there," I replied, "but is that all?"