Breakthrough, p.9
Breakthrough, page 9
Not until I was getting ready for bed that evening did I feel anything one could class as a misgiving at what I was about to do. It was as if all the forces of reason gathered and launched themselves in a final door-die counter-attack. ‘Did I realize what I was doing?’ they seemed to cry. ‘Had I assessed the possible risks involved? Had I, in short, taken leave of my senses?’ Had I? I wondered, and for a moment my resolve faltered. Then like a voice in my ear I seemed to hear old Blake firmly intoning, ‘He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.’ Yes, that was the crux of it; I did desire it. ’Or is it her you desire,’ sneered the voices of reason, already on the retreat. ’Isn’t it just that you fancy bedding down with the delectable Miss Bernstein?’
‘And so what?’ I grunted, but I was still hovering over that one when I climbed into bed and switched out the light.
I lay there in the darkness listening to the ever-present mutter of the distant waterfall and wondered if anything would happen. Where was she now, anyway? Her card had been a rather stark view of some megalithic tomb which, I presumed, she’d been helping to excavate; thus I attempted, without any notable success, to imagine her lying on a camp-bed in a tent. Even the inspired addition of a mosquito net didn’t fill me with much confidence. I changed her blanket for a sleeping bag, stacked a few picks and shovels around and then gave it up as a bad job. For all I knew, my well-meaning attempts to help her get through might simply be a hindrance to her. I sighed; a salmon leapt with a crack like a pistol shot in the pool below; and at that very instant, with a kind of virginal shock, I sensed something had happened. It was as though in the very act of transferring my attention to something outside myself I had dropped the guard I wasn’t even aware of having raised. I felt my heart race and all my muscles involuntarily tensing themselves ready to expel the invader. I breathed deeply, held my breath for a count of twenty and then slowly expelled it. Three times I did this, and gradually I felt the tenseness melting away in little hesitant fits and starts, while in its place a soft drowsiness stole through me until at last I seemed to float suspended, formless as a wraith of summer cloud. And as I hovered there on the very borders of sleep that extraordinary sensation returned, brushing the surface of my consciousness with an uncanny, moth-winged delicacy beyond my power to describe. It was perfectly definite, but at the same time so faint, so ineffably fragile, that any attempt of mine to localize or contain it resulted only in my losing touch with it altogether. Finally, since I found it impossible to remain wholly passive, I contrived to frame an unspoken question—the very abstract of a query—and this I allowed to drift away like a wisp of smoke into the emptiness.
The response was dramatic in its suddenness—an answering sense of affirmation. No sound, no imagined voice, no mental picture, just the pure conviction itself. So I, too, endeavoured to recreate this same sensation, frame it as it were in my own image and release it into the void. The reply was instantaneous and unmistakably joyful; it reached me almost as an impression of soundless cheering borne from some far distant stadium. Gradually it faded and was gone. In aching impatience I waited for some further revelation, but none came. I had been abandoned on the very threshold and had nothing but the sense of almost unutterable yearning to convince me that I had not been deluding myself. Desperately I tried again, willing my phantom communicant to return, but the longed-for response never came, and finally, miserably, I acknowledged my failure and gave up.
I fell asleep at last cradling the image of her in my mind like the comforting toy chosen by a child to watch over its dreams. And what dreams I had! Strange fantasies of quest and struggle, of flight and pursuit; interminable sagas which melted and merged and reformed themselves in a dozen different guises like the drifting mist along the moonlit river bank. It was as though I had become the innocent, ignorant battleground over which the legions of unreason marched and countermarched in the insane manoeuvrings of inconceivable campaigns. Swirled hither and thither I was at one and the same time the pursuer and the pursued; the executioner and the sacrificial victim. Once I even sprang awake, panting and anguished, to find my face wet with tears, though for whom or in what cause they had been shed was beyond my power to recall. Like vapour, the cloudy visions slipped through my groping fingers and were lost even as I strove to recapture them.
I sank back on to my pillow utterly defeated; soul-weary and spent; no longer caring; the absolute personification of surrender. Then it was that she came to me, slipping slim as a salmon along the dark waters of the aether, a quiet shiver in the silence, a presence all around me, a tenderness. And I heard a soundless voice—her voice—whisper inside my head:
—Was it very terrible?
—It is over? panted the ashen ghost of my thought.
—For a while.
—Why did you leave me? Where have you been?
—I’m here with you now.
—I killed someone back there in Rinam. Who was it?
—I don’t know.
—I love you, Rachel.
—Shh…
—I loved you the moment I saw you cry.
—Oh, you mustn’t. You can’t.
—Are you a dream too?
—Perhaps.
—Where have they gone?
—I don’t know.
—Will they come back for me?
—No, I don’t think so.
—Rachel, are you asleep?
—Yes, I’m asleep.
—Do you mind me loving you?
Rachel, do you mind me loving you?
RACHEL!
—I’m still here. It’s all right. But you mustn’t ask that.—Why did you come?
—Something’s happened.
—What is it?
—I’m not sure yet.
—What sort of thing?
—The breakthrough.
—??
—It’s what we’ve been waiting for.
—Who have?
—You and I and Kroton.
—We aren’t alone?
—We’re the past and the future.
—What sort of breakthrough, Rachel?
—I don’t know.
—Is it good or bad?
—It’s nothing. It’s just the breakthrough.
—But we want it to happen, don’t we?
—Yes.
—How do you know it’s happened?
—I just do.
—Why did you come to tell me?
—I had to.
—And if I hadn’t let you?
—You did let me.
—Did I have to?
—I expect so.
—Rachel, why can’t I tell you I love you?
—Because it’s forbidden.
—Who by?
Who by, Rachel?
RACHEL!
—Please don’t ask me. Please.
—I’m not like you, am I?
—Yes, you are.
—Well, why can’t I reach you?
—I don’t know.
—Was it that dream?
—Perhaps.
—Don’t you know?
—That dream was long ago.
—Only four years.
—Longer. Much longer.
—How long?
—Thousands of years.
—Who are we, Rachel?
—The Sky Children.
—What are we?
—Kroton’s dream perhaps. I don’t know.
—Will we ever know?
—Yes.
—Soon?
—Maybe.
—Where are you now, Rachel?
—Asleep in Rabat.
—Rachel. I love you!
She was gone. A ripple in the silence, a quicksilver gleam flickering down the long tideways of the night. Fled was that vision—did I wake or sleep?
TWELVE
‘Since Man Knoweth neither what he is; nor what he has been; nor what he may yet become: then are We all indeed but as Threshed Straws adrift upon the Tides of Time’ Yes, undoubtedly my studies of Elizabethan sermons did something towards helping me to reconcile myself to neither knowing nor understanding anything about anything. Rachel (never again was I to think of her as ‘Miss Bernstein’) had been, and delivered her message, and gone; nor could any SOS messages of mine, however heartfelt, call her back again. I was not even sure that in her conscious mind she would be able to remember having visited me or anything that had passed between us. Might it not prove to be—as those tests had proved to be—something which had transpired beyond her volition and over which she had no personal powers of recall? Yet, I reasoned, since I could recall it easily enough—had in fact done so a hundred times— why not she too? I was impatient to confront her with it and perhaps learn the answers to some of those questions which she had evaded or so pointedly ignored.
My hopes of an early meeting were dashed the very afternoon of my return to Hampton. An enquiry at the Registrar’s office elicited the information that Miss Bernstein would not be returning until the beginning of the following week. Apparently she had picked up some debilitating bug in Malta, and it was this which was responsible. I wondered whether it had also been responsible for her failure to renew our contact and hoped her indisposition was nothing too unpleasant.
That evening I attended the Faculty meeting and tried once again to see myself as an outrider in the cavalcade of enlightened Higher Education. In this I was even less successful than usual, though I redeemed myself a little when, over the coffee and biscuits, I mentioned to my pro-9i fessor that I had completed my paper on the divines. ’That’s great, Haverill,’ he growled. ‘And would there be anything in it suitable for the Programme, d’ye think?’
This was a reference to his latest brainchild—bringing the selected and dramatized fruits of culture to the parlour screens of the masses. It struck me that John Knox in full spate might well prove a TV sensation, but before I had a chance to develop the idea, he had patted me on the arm and with an injunction to ‘Work it over, Haverill. Work it over,’ zoomed off to inspire someone else.
It was after ten when I quit the gathering, and the sensation of unreality, which I always found intensified by Faculty meetings, persisted as I made my way down the stairs and out into the night. I was depressed by the realization that what I so notably lacked was that vital sense of mission which my colleagues, almost without exception, seemed to exude like B.O. If they were ‘Straws adrift upon the Tides of time’, then they were straws equipped with outboard motors, skimming along in a cheerful hallooing convoy, while I spun and bobbed rudderless in their wake. The only man I had met who seemed in any sense to share—or at least to be capable of appreciating—my own outlook, had been Dumps, and it was with a sudden feeling of warmth that I recalled his words: ’That’s the way it is, I guess. Sit tight and let out a “Rah-rah” from time to time and you’re home and dry.’
I dropped my books and papers into the pannier of my scooter and was about to drag the machine off its stand when, on an impulse, I straightened up and walked across the courtyard to a point where I could look across the valley to Brankfield House.
The first thing that caught my eye was a faint glow of light from the attic windows. I thought of the cup of cocoa and the inevitable, tooth-gritting recapitulation of the latest instalment of ‘X-Planes’ or ‘Stepson and Co.’ that awaited me at my digs, and I set off briskly down the path.
Outside the Parapsychology Department I paused and listened, then, having detected from within a faint murmur of voices, I knocked on the door. A few seconds later I heard footsteps, the click of a key being turned in a lock and then the door opened a reluctant inch or two. ‘Who is it?’ enquired Klorner’s voice.
‘It’s me,’ I said, somewhat taken aback. ‘Mr. Haverill.’
‘Mr. Haverill,’ Klorner announced over his shoulder.
‘Haverill, eh?’ came Dumps’ muffled but assenting tones. ’O.K. Let him in.’
Klorner stood back and held the door open for me. ‘I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something,’ I said, turning my head to where I judged Dumps’ voice had come from.
‘Come along in, Haverill. Good to see you.’
‘Down there,’ said Klorner, indicating a screened-off section of the room and then closing and relocking the door.
I made my way towards the screen, poked my head shyly round it and—‘Good God.!’
Looking back on it I think that muted exclamation must rank among the all-time-great examples of self-control. The figure which confronted me was in the act of raising its hands to its ‘head’ and lifting off an enormous helmet made of some aluminized substance which was, in turn, surmounted by a sort of translucent cube. But the thing which had really knocked me sideways was that I had been convinced, albeit momentarily, that what I had glimpsed flickering in some dim and undetermined fashion deep within the womb of that extraordinary cube had been nothing less than a three-dimensional image of my own face!
‘Well, hi there!’ said Dumps genially, setting down his apparatus on the bench, heaving himself forward, and thrusting out his hand. ‘How goes it?’
I swallowed and was gratified to find that I had retained the use of my voice. ’Fine,’ I said faintly.
‘Had a good vacation?’ he enquired, shaking my hand vigorously.
‘Yes, thanks. I got back this afternoon.’
‘Great. Great.’ He nodded and then called: ’O.K. Pete. Guess that’ll do for today.’
‘I can see you’ve been busy,’ I said, and felt, even as I produced this classic of understatement, that I had regained at least a measure of my self-possession.
’Oh, sure, we’ve been clocking up the overtime right enough. Sleeping right here on the job some nights.’
Behind my back Klorner muttered something that sounded vaguely derogatory, but I might have been mistaken. ‘I called in at the end of last term,’ I said, ‘but you’d gone to Cambridge.’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he agreed. ‘I remember. Betty told me. Frankly, Haverill, my social life has been shot all to hell these last few months.’
It struck me then for the first time how tired he looked. Part of it may have been the effect of the artificial light, but I couldn’t help suspecting that some at least of the shadows would still be there in the morning. ‘You look as if you’re ready for a holiday yourself,’ I told him.
‘I guess you’re right,’ he murmured absently. ‘Maybe I’ll manage to fit something in soon. But it’s tricky right now.’ He gazed at me ruminatively and squeezed his nose. ‘Hell, you can’t stop when you’re halfway up a pole jump, can you?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ I smiled. ‘I’m not the athletic type.’
He grinned. ’That’s what I like about you, Haverill. No goddam respect.’
I started to protest, but he fanned it aside. ‘How about joining me in a beer?’
‘Nothing I’d like better,’ I said, ‘but won’t the pubs be shut?’
‘I’ve got some cans in the icebox back in the apartment. Let’s go crack a couple.’
He peeled off his lab. coat and dropped it on the bench beside the mysterious helmet. Then he picked it up again, took his pipe and matches from the pocket, and flung the garment down a second time. ‘Pete,’ he called, ’one of the fronto-temporal contacts has gone haywire. Can you fix it first thing tomorrow?’
‘All right,’ Klorner agreed without marked enthusiasm.
Dumps caught hold of my arm just above the elbow and steered me towards the door. ’This place gets more like a junk yard every day,’ he grumbled, kicking aside a cable. ‘Goddam wires seem to reproduce themselves. ‘Night, Pete.’ ‘Good night,’ said Klorner, but he didn’t bother to look up. Perhaps he felt the critical aside had been aimed at him.
THIRTEEN
Dumps escorted me across the park to one of the two staff residential blocks. ‘I only moved in last month,’ he said, stabbing a key into the Yale lock. ‘I haven’t had a chance to get the place properly squared off.’
After this I fully expected to step into a jackdaw’s nest, but in fact it was extremely neat and tidy. He waved me towards a Parker-Knoll chair and then disappeared into a kitchenette. ‘You’ll find some cigarettes in that box on the shelf,’ he called. ‘Make yourself at home.’
I helped myself to a cigarette, then sat down and looked about me. Over the mantelshelf was a reproduction of a Chagall, and above the low bookcase which ran all along one side of the room hung a group of three of Blake’s illustrations to Dante. ’They’ve done you proud,’ I said. ‘You should see my place.’
He laughed. ’Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s apartment, Haverill. In this life each man gets his just deserts.’
‘You can say that again. What did it cost you in backsheesh?’
‘Not a cent,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Hell, no, I’m a brain. Rara avis. Don’t you read the tabloids?’
He came back into the room bearing a plywood tray on which were two pewter tankards, several cans of beer and a dish of gherkins. He put this down on the floor between us, then sat down. One mug he handed to me and the other he lifted in front of his nose. ‘Cheers,’ he said.
The beer was so cold it numbed my tongue, but I drank deep and then set my mug down beside me. ‘Now tell me,’ I said, ‘did I really see myself in that helmet thing you were wearing, or was it just a trick of reflection.’
He chuckled. ‘Must have been a reflection I guess.’
I selected a gherkin and crunched it thoughtfully. ‘Miss Aston told me something of what you were up to. It seemed a long haul from E.S.P.’
‘All roads lead to Rome, Haverill.’
‘Which Rome?’ I asked.
Dumps took a long pull at his mug, belched discreetly and then smacked his lips. ‘Boy, you can’t beat ice-cold beer —not nohow.’
‘Which Rome?’ I repeated.
’Try a gherkin,’ said Dumps.
‘I’m already eating one.’
‘You are? They’re Polish. I tried some Israeli ones the other day, but they didn’t seem to have the same kick. And you can’t accuse me of anti-Semitism, Haverill. I’m a Jew.’
