Gordon R Dickson - Sleepwalkers' World

  “And the men I use to punish? The men who send their shadows ahead to kill or injure?” he asked. “Are they by-products, too?”

  “The technique that turns them loose from their bodies may be,” said Rafe. “As for the supernatural—you said you could summon those men whenever you wanted.”

  “As I can,” said Shaitan.

  “Why haven’t you brought some here now, then?”

  Shaitan looked down at Lucas.

  “Your Lucas would be too fast, perhaps,” he murmured.

  “Or perhaps you can’t always summon them when you want them?” Rafe said.

  He was aware out of the corner of his eye of Gaby staring at him. But Shaitan smiled.

  “If I want them,” he said, “they come.”

  “Call them now, then,” said Rafe. “And we’ll hold Lucas in check.”

  “But would you?” Shaitan looked directly into Rafe’s eyes.

  “As long as they don’t attack us,” said Rafe. “You can send them away again once you’ve proved you can bring them here.”

  Shaitan frowned slightly.

  “Why this?” he asked.

  “Because I don’t believe you,” said Rafe. “I think you can summon all you want, but no one’ll come.”

  “You”—the child-face went ugly—“doubt me?”

  “I doubt you,” said Rafe.

  “You fool!” said Shaitan, and his voice had deepened into the bass note it had found once before. “Push me too far and I can forget to worry about this talking wolf of yours!”

  “You don’t want to prove it, then?” Rafe said.

  “No proof’s needed,” said Shaitan. “When I speak, the darkness sends messengers. Are you so blind with your determination not to believe that you’d risk my calling them here now? Remember, I can call them not by ones or twos, but by dozens—even by hundreds. Whatever happened to me, you’d never escape!”

  “I doubt there’s that many dozens to be called, let alone hundreds,” said Rafe. “But as I say, call them. Or admit you can’t.”

  Shaitan’s ugly expression melted once more into the cherubic child-smile of earlier.

  “I’ll oblige you,” he said.

  “Rafe—” Gaby began.

  He put a hand on her arm.

  “Easy,” he said. “Lucas, keep watching,” Rafe himself looked behind him, around the room. It was bright and empty. He turned back to the platform.

  “Where are they?” he asked Shaitan. “Not started yet?”

  The child-face continued to smile, but the smile was fixed.

  “They’re coming,” said Shaitan.

  Rafe looked once more behind him at the empty room and back to the creature on the throne.

  “When?” Rafe asked. “In an hour? This evening? Tomorrow, maybe, or a week from now?”

  “COME!” roared Shaitan, in his full voice, staring out over the heads of Rafe and Gaby into the room beyond. “I order you—COME!”

  Rafe looked, found the room still empty, and faced Shaitan once more. He said nothing, only looked. Slowly, the tension went out of Shaitan’s huge body and his eyes lowered until they met with Rafe’s. For a long second they stared at each other; then Shaitan’s eyes lifted again—this time to stare at the ceiling beams overhead.

  “Father,” he whispered, “have I failed? What have I done?”

  There was no answer, from the beams or from any other part of the room. Shaitan breathed out slowly and looked down at Rafe.

  “I’ve been condemned,” he said emotion-lessly. “You think my failure just now proves you right in your skepticism. But you’re wrong, and you’ll find that out sometime, sometime soon. Only that’s no concern of mine any more. You move into even greater hands than mine now, and nothing matters-only the fact I’ve been denied by my Father.”

  He stopped talking, as if waiting for Rafe to speak. But Rafe only waited.

  “Ask me anything,” Shaitan said. “I’ll answer you now.”

  “Where’s Ab Leesing?” said Rafe.

  “On an island—the same island from which the men came who can send their shadows ahead of them to kill,” said the innocent mouth above the gross body. “The aircraft you came here in is still out behind the house. Take it, and punch out the code word H . . . A . . . V . . . N on the autopilot. The plane will take you there.” His eyes closed wearily. “But nothing will bring you back—nothing, and never.”

  “Where is this Havn?” Rafe asked.

  Shaitan answered, still with closed eyelids.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never known.”

  “You know how to get there,” said Gaby suddenly. “How could you know that and not know where it is?”

  “I was told,” said the unseeing face of Shaitan, “in case one day . . . I might try to go there.”

  “But you never did?” she demanded.

  “I would have wanted to come back if I went,” Shaitan said. “But from Havn nothing ever comes back as it was when it went. Nothing ever really leaves there, just as the men who send their shadows ahead never really leave there, in spite of their bodies being sent on missions. You two will never leave it either if you go—and you’ll go. I see that now. Perhaps that’s why my Father turned his face from me.”

  “This Father of yours, is he there?” Rafe asked.

  “There—or somewhere else. It doesn’t matter. If you go to Havn, you’ll meet him,” Shaitan said. The blood was slowly draining from his young face. It was taking on a pale and sickly look, as if life were being sucked from him even while Rafe and Gaby watched.

  “Who is he?” Rafe said. “Your Father?”

  “Who knows?” Shaitan’s voice was weakening. “The Devil, maybe. Maybe a god. Maybe the God of gods if there’s a God powerful above all others. He’s like nothing else. Different . . . from all things. By this shall ye know him . . . that to him nothing matters. There’s nothing he needs, and he wants nothing. What he does, he does for no reason at all. Just as for no reason he let little men roll back the darkness, or acknowledge me as his son. And now again, for no reason, he’s let the darkness return. For no reason he smiled on me. And now, for no reason again, he’s turned his face away, so that someone like you could mock me and overcome me . . . .”

  The last words were almost inaudible.

  “Shaitan!” Rafe shouted the word, and for a moment the closed eyelids flickered open. “Is he from some other world? Is he some sort of nonhuman?”

  Shaitan’s eyes opened all the way. He chuckled faintly, then chuckled again. The chuckle grew to a full-throated laugh.

  “From some other world?” he echoed in a strong voice. “No! No alien! He’s a man from Earth like you and me—a man, a MAN!”

  And he lolled on his throne, thunderously laughing from deep within his huge body.

  “How can he be a man?” cried Gaby. “You said he was a god!” He did not answer her but continued to loll on his throne, laughing at the ceiling. “What’s so funny about it?”

  “Funny?” He choked back his laughter at last and looked down at her, at Rafe and Lucas. “The fun’s in the joke. The joke that’s my joke. And I’m Shaitan—Father or no Father, I am Shaitan! I told you I’d answer your questions—anything you wanted to ask. And I’ve answered.”

  Lucas snarled.

  “Yes, wolfie.” Shaitan looked down at him, child-mouth still stretched in humor. “Bloodthirsty wolfie, who doesn’t know the difference between mere men and women, and Shaitan. Cruel wolfie, who’d just as soon tear the throat out of Shaitan as he would out of any other thing with a throat to tear. Deadly wolfie, without a soul to lose, or a conscience to listen to. You don’t understand my joke either, do you, Lucas?”

  Lucas snarled again. This time more softly. His head had sunk again between his shoulders, and he crouched slightly below the edge of the platform.

  “No, you don’t understand—any more than these two do. But I’m going to explain it to them.” He fastened his eyes on Rafe. “You asked me what you w
anted. Have I told you what you wanted to find out?”

  “You answered,” said Rafe grimly.

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Shaitan chuckled again. “I told you what you asked for because you threatened to turn Lucas loose on me. You threatened to kill Shaitan, and in fear of his life, he told you everything.—Or did he?”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Gaby. She had drawn close to Rafe and Lucas.

  “One thing. One thing that I didn’t tell you.” Abruptly, unbelievably, Shaitan’s huge bulk was upright, standing on his feet. Lucas’s growling rose to a thunder in the room, and Shaitan towered over them all. Now that he stood on the platform, his face was nearly eight feet above theirs. “My name—one of my Father’s names, but I can use it, too. I didn’t remind you about it?”

  “What name’s that?” said Rafe. In spite of himself he tensed, ready for any action from the giant form looming over him.

  “The Father . . . the Father of Lies! LUCAS—” bellowed Shaitan suddenly. “Kill now—or I’ll kill you!”

  Both hands outstretched, he plunged down upon the wolf and Rafe and Gaby, all together. Rafe dodged, but one massive hand brushed him, spinning him aside so that his own outflung fingers missed their target.

  The snarls of Lucas mounted the scale of continuous fury. Outside of his field of vision, somewhere, Gaby screamed. Dazedly furious with himself for being knocked aside so easily, Rafe caught his balance, turned back, and literally fell on top of the prone body of Shaitan, chopping the edge of his right hand downward with all his strength.

  * * *

  14

  He felt the whiplash strike of his right hand jar against something that felt more like bone than flesh. As he lifted his arm to strike again, his head cleared and he saw that there was no need for a second blow.

  Shaitan lay without movement, front down, huge shoulders pressing into the carpet, and his head turned on one side, eyes once more closed. The green carpeting under and near his neck was moist, darker than the surrounding material. Lucas stood above the tiny child-head, licking his own moist jaws. Gaby was climbing to her feet, a little unsteadily, one hand pressed against her forehead.

  Rafe, clearheaded himself now, jumped to his feet and stepped to her. Her eyes looked at him uncertainly. She did not seem to know exactly who he might be, or where she was.

  “Here,” he said, gently lifting her hand from her forehead. “Let me see . . .”

  The area she had been touching was still free of any bruise color, but when he probed it lightly with his fingertips, there was a softness, the beginning of a swelling. Instinctively she pulled back from his touch.

  “He must have hit you with one of his hands, too,” said Rafe.

  “I . . . think so,” Gaby said. Her eyes were clearing. She felt the damaged area on her forehead and turned away to a mirror to inspect it. Her hands went from her forehead to her hair, which she smoothed and pushed back. She turned around once more to Rafe.

  “I don’t really remember him hitting me,” she said, and looked down at the massive, still figure. “But he must have, mustn’t he?”

  Rafe nodded. Thoughtfully, he squatted briefly to feel with his middle finger up under the right side of Shaitan’s small jaw, beneath the folded-up fat of the lower neck. There was no pulse.

  He stood up.

  “Why?” asked Gaby. He turned to see her watching him. “What did he mean about the joke of it—about his being the Father of Lies?”

  Rafe shook his head.

  “He was half insane, anyway,” he said. “Maybe he really believed he was something more than human and he’d live again—even if an animal like Lucas killed him.”“

  He shook himself mentally.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  She stared at him, her tanned, gentle face stiffened in shock, still.

  “Go?” she said. “And just leave him like that?”

  “Yes,” Rafe said.

  She looked from him to Lucas. Lucas whined and licked up at her face.

  “You—” she said, “you’re a lot alike. You and Lucas.”

  “You think so?” Rafe said emptily.

  “Yes.” She turned away. Her voice was dead. “All right. Let’s go, then.”

  They went outside, around the house, and into the open meadow where the dark shape of the aircraft they had used before stood sculptured in utter blackness under the stars.

  “You’re going there, then?” Gaby asked, still in that same blind, empty voice, as she and Rafe settled themselves into the two pilot’s seats of the craft, with Lucas behind them.

  “There?”

  “To Havn,” said Gaby.

  “Yes,” said Rafe. “But alone with Lucas. Without you. We’ll drop you off near London.”

  “No,” she said. “You know I’m going, too.”

  “Look—” he began.

  “No,” she said positively. “Let’s not fight about it. I’ll make Lucas help me stay if I have to. But it’s not just that. You said back there that there were all sorts of variations of the power broadcast being used to control people. Maybe you really can shrug off the effects of some of those. But you don’t know what you’ll run into at this Havn, and I do. Or at least I’ve got a better idea of it than you do.”

  Under Rafe’s hands the aircraft leaped once more into the air. Once they were well on their way to a maximum operating altitude, he turned to her in the little light from the instrument panel before them.

  “You have?” he said. “How would you be likely to know what kind of power broadcast could be operating at this Havn island?”

  “I told you I worked with Ab,” she answered. “There’re definite upper and lower limits to the spectrum in which a broadcast like that can lie. There’s a similarity—has to be—in the devices used to produce it. You didn’t need me back there, but I’ll bet you’ll need me at this Havn place.”

  He sat watching the instruments. The craft was climbing with speed. Shortly it reached its best altitude range of forty to sixty thousand feet, and he leveled it off, punching HAVN on the autopilot control-panel.

  The aircraft made a hundred-and-ten-degree turn and headed southwest.

  “We’re in this together,” he said at last, almost to himself. “I suppose it might as well be all the way.”

  He turned from the autopilot—there was nothing more for him to do with the aircraft controls, in any case—and swung his pilot’s seat half around on its gimbals to face her.

  “All right,” he said. “What do you expect we’ll run into at Havn?”

  “A sonar screen around the island, underwater,” Gaby answered. “Radar above. A pulse-laser horizon sweep for anything trying to come in on the surface between sonar and radar.”

  “In other words,” he said, “we can’t get there without being seen.”

  “That’s . . . right.” She caught her lower lip in her teeth.

  He chuckled.

  “And,” he said, “after we get to the island—what’re we likely to run into?”

  “Probably a general variant on the sleep broadcast,” she said eagerly. “Either strong enough to make us completely unconscious or—as on the plane when they took us to that place in the mountains—just strong enough to have a tranquilizing effect. You see, the more special and specific the effect you want from a power broadcast like that, the more power you have to put into your transmission. It isn’t just a matter of setting for a certain frequency and that’s all there is to it. You can’t transmit at all without transmitting over the whole spectrum at once. All you can do is try to get most of your transmitted energy maximized in a certain area by overlaying your primary broadcast with a number—anywhere up to five thousand—of weak, secondary broadcasts that are tuned to cancel out everything but the area you want to affect. Do you follow me?”

  “Not well enough,” Rafe said.

  “Look—” she said. “It’s as if your first broadcast drew a line clear across a piece of paper. Then, you erased ever
y part of the line but just that small area you wanted to affect. Now, the smaller you want that area to be, the more line you have to erase. Eventually the power needed to get a specific effect down fine enough becomes so close in amount to the power of the original broadcast that you’re essentially doubling your power input in order to get a fraction of it out, and the cost becomes prohibitive even with Core Power Taps. That’s why the world accepted the soporific effect in the beginning, along with the power broadcasts. In order to fine the broadcasts down to the point where you wouldn’t put people to sleep, you had to be using up nearly all the power available for broadcast. There was nothing left over to send out. Of course, the technique of broadcasting’s been refined during the last three years. That’s why you and I’ve been running into people who can get more special effects from the broadcast. But there’s a definite limit. That’s why I say we won’t run into more than a single variant.”

  “All right,” he said. “What if they switch from one variant to another on us?”

  “I don’t think they will,” she put in. “I mean, it isn’t easy to switch around. Almost certainly they won’t try to hit us with first one type of effect, then another, so that we have to keep adjusting to resist it. The power that would take would be inconceivable. Almost certainly, they’ll just pick one type of effect and stick with it.”

  She smiled at him.

  “So,” she said, “if we can just get on the island somehow without being seen, we can probably go where we want—or at least you can, and Lucas won’t be affected, anyway—”

  “By the way,” he interrupted, “why not? I’ve always wondered why Lucas is immune.”

  “He isn’t really,” she said. “But what Ab did, as long as he was practically rebuilding Lucas, was install a microminiaturized broadcasting unit right in Lucas’s skull. It broadcasts a signal that doesn’t affect anyone six inches away, but to Lucas’s brain it outshouts anything beamed at him from the inside. Of course, if anyone knew exactly what part of the available spectrum Lucas’s unit was set for, they could cancel it out with an outside broadcast. But nobody knows that—Ab didn’t even tell me—and trying to find it without knowing would be like trying to hit the combination on the lock of a bank vault by luck.”