“But what about the room monitor?” Jo had noticed a vid receptor plate high on the wall opposite the foot of Larry’s bed. “Didn’t anyone see them on the screen?”
“We only monitor the patient’s bed with that,” was the terse reply. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”
Jo nodded absently and returned to the room. She placed the bowl and statue on the night table and pulled a chair up next to the bed. This was where she would spend the night. She was tired, but somehow she doubted she would be able to sleep.
deBloise
ELSON DEBLOISE TAPPED in Proska’s vidphone code and waited. He was calling from a public booth. In all the too-many dreadful years of his association with Proska, this was only the second time he had ever called him, and he was not going to entrust the ensuing conversation to his office phone. After the events of the past few days, there was no telling who might be listening in on that.
He waited for Proska’s face to appear. How he hated and feared that little monster. How he wished he had never oozed into his office that day – was it really seventeen years ago? – and offered to put Finch out of the picture without force or violence. If only he hadn’t –
The screen lit up with Proska’s grim, pinched features.
“Well, well!” the little man said with genuine surprise. “What have we here? An eminent sector representative calling me on my humble vidphone! Such an honor!”
“Never mind the feeble attempts at humor – it doesn’t become you. And there’s nothing humorous behind this call.”
“Well?”
“I’ve got an errand for you,” deBloise said and watched carefully for Proska’s reaction. He was going to cherish this – after seventeen years of catering to the monster’s every whim, at last he had a demand for him.
But Proska remained impassive, only the slightest flicker of his dark-eyed gaze revealing anything untoward in the conversation. He waited in silence until deBloise was forced to go on.
“You failed. The booth was psi-shielded, and a source at the hospital informs me that the investigator you were supposed to eliminate will regain consciousness before morning.”
“Investigator? I thought you told me he was some sort of a reporter.”
“That’s what I thought. That’s what customs thought. His identification was completely phony. I had a few of my contacts check with the Risden Service and they never heard of him. The name he used, however, was legitimate: he is Lawrence Easly, a private investigator who does a lot of work in the business sector.”
“Business? Why would he be checking up on you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t say he was exclusively an industrial spy. Besides, I’ve been aware that I’ve been under some sort of surveillance for a number of years now and perhaps he’s been behind it.”
“But to what end?”
“Very possibly he works for someone with political ambitions who’s preparing for the day when he meets me head-on and wants to store up a little dirt in advance.”
“A potential blackmailer, then.”
“Yes. Competition for you.”
Proska’s smile was not a nice thing to see. “No one could know what I know, could they, Elson? Or if they did know, they couldn’t prove it like I can.”
“That doesn’t matter right now! If I’m exposed… if even a hint of what happened in Danzer should leak out, I’ll be ruined. And that’ll mean the end of your meal ticket. So I expect you to go over to the hospital and finish the job!”
“Dear Elson, how you’ve changed! I remember the horror and revulsion you expressed the first time I demonstrated my little specialty to you. And now you actually want me to use it twice on the same man!”
Proska’s mocking observation stunned deBloise and his mind suddenly leaped back seventeen years to the day a lowly civil servant stood in his office – smaller and more sedate than the one he occupied these days – and told him he could “take care of the problem in Danzer.” DeBloise had summarily dismissed the man, but the memory of his eyes and his expression when be spoke remained with him.
And when Tayes returned from Danzer a few days later with the news that Jeffers had capitulated and that the Vanek Equality Act would be as good as dead once word got out, deBloise knew he had to act immediately if he was to save anything. He contacted the little man and sent him to Danzer.
The next morning, all of Jebinose was shaken by the news that the man who had been pushing the Vanek cause in Danzer was dead. And that the Vanek had confessed – as a group – to his murder. So it was a natural reaction for deBloise to laugh in Proska’s face when he showed up that afternoon demanding “compensation” for his services.
Proska did something to him then… something horrible… a little taste of his “specialty,” as he liked to call it. And then he took him to the oldest, most run-down part of Copia, picked out a besotted derelict, and showed deBloise what happened when Cando Proska loosed the full force of his power on a man. But that wasn’t the end of the show. Next stop was Proska’s dim little flat where deBloise watched in horror as a vid recording showed him telling Proska to put an end to Junior Finch’s meddling in Danzer. He was watching a copy. The original would be released to the public should any mishap, even slightly suspicious, befall Proska.
Cando Proska had been bleeding him ever since. And the thought of what Proska could do to him, politically and personally, had haunted him ever since, waking him in the night sweating, panting, and clawing at the air.
“I never realized then what you intended to do,” he said hoarsely, snapping himself back to the present, “or what you could do.”
“Would it have made any difference?” Proska sneered. “Finch showed the VEA to be a useless political charade. I saw that coming; that’s why I came to you. Because once he succeeded, support for your Vanek Equality Act would have evaporated. And if the VEA went down, so would you! You remember how you looked on that recording – you were ready to do anything. Anything!” His tone suddenly became businesslike. “Speaking of the recording, it now resides on Fed Central, addressed to the Federation ethics committee.”
DeBloise’s face blanched and his voice shook. “Proska, I’d like to–”
“I know what you’d like to do, that’s why the recording is where it is.”
DeBloise struggled for control and finally regained it. After a long pause, he said, “Are you going to finish the job?”
“Certainly. But I need a way to get into the hospital without attracting too much attention. I require a certain proximity, you know.”
“That can be arranged. I’ll have my source at the hospital contact you. I’m leaving for Fed Central tonight. I hope everything is settled before my ship has made its first jump.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
Jo
JO WAS DOZING LIGHTLY in a chair when the new head nurse came in during the changeover to the third shift and startled her to wakefulness.
“Sorry if I surprised you, dear,” she said with a warm smile. “Just making my rounds.”
She was older than most of the other nurses and seemed to have all her moves down to an almost unconscious routine. She checked the vital-signs contacts and gave Larry a long, careful look. Apparently satisfied, she smiled and nodded to Jo, then left.
The door was opened again a few moments later by a middle-aged orderly. He was short, sallow-skinned, and balding. He seemed unduly surprised to see Jo sitting by the bed.
“I’m sorry, miss,” he said in a low voice, “but I’m going to prepare the patient for some final tests and you’ll have to step out for a few minutes.”
Jo shot to her feet and started to reach for her pouch, then changed her mind. “What? Must I?”
“I’m sorry… hospital rules.”
“All right,” she said resignedly, and started for the door, swaying slightly with fatigue.
When she passed behind the orderly, however, her whole demeanor changed. Her ri
ght hand shot into her hip pouch and pulled out a small but very deadly blaster. She had it pointed at the orderly’s head and was squeezing the trigger when his peripheral vision caught the movement. He turned–
–and Jo had no body. At least that was the way it seemed. All tactile and proprioceptive impulses from her extremities and torso had been cut off. She was a head floating in the room. It was a sickening sensation. She could still use all her facial muscles and could move her eyes. Could she speak? She was afraid to try, afraid she’d only be able to scream. And she didn’t want to do that, not in front of this creature.
“Not a fair play at all,” he said mockingly. Jo’s arm was still extended in front of her, the blaster still in her hand. He reached out casually and took it from her grasp. “Why would you want to blow a poor orderly’s head off?”
Jo took a deep breath. At least she thought she did; there was no sensation of her chest expanding. She wasn’t sure she could keep herself from gibbering with fear, but she would try to speak.
“I…” Her throat seemed to be closing; she swallowed and tried again. “I wanted to keep you from finishing what you started the other night.”
Eyes wide, the little man moved closer. “How do you know about that?”
“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 th
e 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.
“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.