Brian Lumley - Psychomech 03, page 4
'No, that won't do,' he said. 'That's not the way to tell it, a very poor start indeed. Let me try it differently.'
'By all means,' it was Richard's turn to shrug. 'Maybe I shouldn't have asked,' you farting old fossil, 'but I mean, well, what's so difficult about understanding The Gibbering? Ask a physician to distinguish between cancer and the common cold, or an astronomer between Mars and Venus, or a geologist between granite and limestone, and they'll -'
'But, that's just it!' Gorvitch cut in, his voice suddenly animated.
Or a priest to distinguish between good and evil. . . !
'In the examples you pose the distinction is quite clear, indeed obvious,' said Gorvitch. 'And similarly, there used to be clearcut definitions and terms of reference for most of the mental illnesses. But - ' he slowed down and became calm again, 'but that all changed with The Gibbering.' His eyes had narrowed, were studying Richard's face, watching and analysing its every slightest movement.
'Do you mind if I pace while we talk?' You stinking shrink! Richard began to plod to and fro across the padded floor of his tiny cell, his hands clasped behind his back.'I mean, it's a bloody good job I don't have claustrophobia too, isn't it?'
Gorvitch laughed, relaxed. If he didn't know better he'd swear his patient wa^s normal. Even knowing better, still Richard Stone was much improved over when he first came in here. Very definitely. And after fifteen months of gibbering this sudden improvement might, just might, make him quite unique - eyes, mind, psyche and all! It already made him far more of a 'celebrity' than Stone himself might ever suspect (or so Gorvitch mistakenly believed).
'But you were saying . . . ?' Richard prompted him. You bald-pated, stunted tittle prick!
As he paced - four paces to, four fro, back and forth, back and forth - Richard kept his hands clamped tightly together, hoping that the whiteness of his knuckles would not show through the tinted wall between. Clamped, yes, for if those hands escaped each other and crept round to his front, they might just leap at Gorvitch, might drag Richard Stone after them, crash him into the partition's electric field. Not that that would be a bad thing in itself; shocked unconscious he would doubtless dream his strange dreams, those dreams which he knew were more than merely nightmare visions conjured of a warped subconsciousness. But on the other hand it would lose him a great deal of ground with Gorvitch, and that was something he did not want. Not at all. Having gained the psychiatrist's confidence, he must now do all he could to maintain and improve their-relationship. And with all of these thoughts rushing through his mind it was hard to concentrate, difficult to focus on what the good Dr Gorvitch was even now telling him:
'. . . madness? That all such disturbances would metamorphose into The Gibbering? Of course not! And yet that was what must ultimately happen. And after two years of gibbering, death - usually from cardiac arrest or a brain haemorrhage during a seizure. Now? We no longer bother to diagnose schizophrenia, melancholia, megalomania, paranoia etcetera as such but simply as the First Phase of a disorder for which there is no known treatment. Not yet. All of them, without exception and however simply they start out, must deteriorate into The Gibbering! Small wonder we've made so little progress! What would be the state of things if doctors of the physical condition were faced with an epidemic where the common cold, mumps, anaemia, flu and ingrown toenails were all symptomatic of an imminent and completely incurable strain of leprosy?'
'Epidemic?' Richard repeated him. 'You mean plague? Really?' He stopped pacing. Their eyes locked again through the tinted plate glass. For a moment the silent two-man tableau held . . . then Gorvitch nodded.
'Since it's highly unlikely you'll be going anywhere, I suppose I can tell you. Plague, yes. It's on the increase. The curve is - ' he shrugged expansively,' - exponential. We don't know where, or if, it will end.'
'And I might have the answer?' / do have it, I do! It's locked somewhere inside me. Only let me out of here, let me track it down. I, Richard Stone, AM the answer - you poor dumb blind stupid bastard!
Again the psychiatrist's nod. 'You might have it, yes.' Oh, God! - let it be so!
'Then how can it serve you to keep me locked up in here?' Answer me that, witchdoctor!
Gorvitch pursed his lips, began to concede, 'There might well be something in what - ' and paused abruptly, frowned, adopted an attitude of careful, concerned listening.
'Yes,' said Richard after a moment, 'I hear them too.'
It was as if the hospital trembled, however minutely. Point zero, zero, zero, one on the Richter Scale. A sort of humming in the walls and floors. A slumbering hive suddenly whirring to life.
'A moment ago, silence,' Gorvitch muttered, shaking his head. 'Now - this! What turns them on, Richard, do you know?'
The inmate shook his head. 'No,' he answered, truthfully. But I know that whatever it is, it turns me on, too. Leave me now, please leave me. Oh, God, go! - before 1 give myself away . . .
'We'll talk again,' said Gorvitch, tapping the cell's code into his wrist-key. 'Tomorrow.' Then the outer door hissed open and he stepped through into the corridor. Tomorrow,' he promised again as the door closed on him.
Alone - barely in time alone - now Richard Stone could relax, give himself over to The Gibbering. Except that he knew he must not do that. Features mobile as a rubber mask, he kneeled before the plate. Commencing a low, frenzied, uninterrupted and incredible stream of meaningless and meaningful obscenities, he turned his shining face to one side and held up his hands palms-forward on a level with his head.
Then he fell forward, chest, face and hands all coming into brief and simultaneous contact with the field.
Thank God! he thought, even through the great vibrating rrrripl of physical agony which tossed him like a doll back from the plate. Thank God for the padding!
Thank God, too, for the merciful all-engulfing blackness. . .
Chapter Three
'Mr Stone?' the hand on his slumped shoulder was gentle but persistent. 'Sir? Sir?'
Finally the anxious voice of Phillip Stone's housekeeper got through to him. He became aware of his surroundings almost as upon awakening, and yet he had not been asleep. He had not been here, no, but neither had he been asleep. He could not remember - not actually remember -sleeping at all since the accident, though he supposed he must have slept. Certainly he looked as if he had had no sleep for ... days. At least, that had been his opinion when last he looked in a mirror. And from the worried look on his housekeeper's face things had not improved much since then, whenever 'then' had been.
'A gentleman to see you, sir,' she said when finally his eyes focussed upon her. 'A doctor, sir - a surgeon. He says it's to do with . . . with Mrs Stone.'
In his time, Stone had suited his name well. Now, for all that the years were catching up with him, he was a crag of a man still. But the rock of his being was old and cracked, and weathering had started to soften its core.
He looked from his housekeeper to the empty glass in his hand, to the empty bottle on the table before him. Then he looked at his study, also empty. Full of his things, yes, but empty. Like his life.
His life. A year and a half ago it had been full. Where the hell had everything gone to?
'Sir?'
'Yes, yes,' he finally answered, surprised to discover that his voice retained some of its former strength. 'What does he want? Papers to be signed? Tell him to leave them.'
'No papers, Mr Stone,' said a new voice, deep, powerful and polished. A speaker's voice, that of an orator or lecturer; not quite right for a surgeon, whose strength should be in his hands. 'It's simply that I have to talk to you, that's all.'
Stone eased himself upright in his deep leather armchair, put down his glass, looked beyond the dumpy figure of his housekeeper to the face of a tall, gaunt man who had followed her into the room. Mrs Wells also looked at him, pursed her lips and said: 'I did ask the gentleman to wait, sir, but -' 'It's all right, Mary,' Stone told her. He pushed himself to his feet. 'Since Mr - er, Dr - ?' 'Likeman,' the stranger obliged. 'Miles Likeman.' Stone nodded. 'Since Dr Likeman has already found his way in, I'll talk to him.'
When she had left the room, taking Likeman's overcoat with her, Stone offered his visitor a seat, opened a new bottle of Scotch and poured drinks. 'You want to talk about my wife,' he ventured at last, nodding. 'You know of course that she died some four months ago, in a traffic accident?'
'Oh, yes, I do,' came the answer. 'I would have come to see you sooner, but it seemed only decent to -' 'I understand,' Stone cut him short. 'Thank you.' 'As it is, today, since I happened to be down this way -1 mean, I know it's off the cuff, that I really should have made an appointment or some such, but. . .'
While Dr Likeman talked, Stone checked him over, growing steadily more conscious of his nervous agitation. A doctor? A surgeon? Not at all the sort who should suffer from his nerves. And yet he had a doctor's hands, and certainly he spoke with something of authority, however reluctantly. Maybe a few years more than fifty, about the same age as Stone himself. But why was he here? Whatever his mission was he didn't relish it, that was a sure thing. No, his reticence showed all too clearly in his worried hazel eyes.
Stone waited for him to continue anyway, and only when the pause threatened to stretch itself out indefinitely prompted: Tm not much of a one for protocol, Dr Likeman. As for appointments: I rarely make them and hate having them made for me. In fact, I often wonder how come I've got on so well in the world. In business, I mean. But come to think of it, I believe I do know your name. I've seen it quite recently, I think, on some documents.' He frowned. 'Yes, I remember now. Weren't you the one who did some sort of post-mortem on Vicki? A medical autopsy?'
Likeman saw the change in Stone: his eyes had narrowed, peered at him more keenly now, and his huge frame had seemed to tense, tightening like a steel spring. His speech too, had sharpened, the words coming out hard-edged.
'You were unconscious for four days, Mr Stone,' Likeman said. 'And for another week you were doped-up against your injuries. I was in the middle of a course at the time of the accident, teaching student doctors. I did once have a Harley Street practice, yes, but now I prefer to instruct others. Part of my curriculum covered accidental death. Your wife carried a donor's card and is - was -total-body registered. The course was held at Oxford, in an emergency hospital for obvious reasons. The hospital computer confirmed Mrs Stone's registration - yours, too, incidentally - and further told me that your only other living relative was your son. The law does not. require permission, as you probably know, but I like to get it whenever possible. Getting your son's permission, however, was . . .'
'. . . Out of the question, yes,' Stone nodded. Then he slumped back down into his armchair. 'It's all right, Dr Likeman,' he said after a moment. 'I'm not questioning anyone's ethics. It's just that some of these arrangements we make in cold blood . . . well, I'm sure you know what I mean.' Likeman relaxed a little. 'Of course I do,' he said. 'You must not let yourself believe that my familiarity with death has made me contemptuous of it - or callous. Quite the opposite: I'm one of the proverbial exceptions that prove the rule.'
Stone nodded again. 'Then let's get to it,' he said. 'What do you want, from me? For all your obvious sincerity, you didn't come here simply to commiserate.'
Likeman sighed, blinked once or twice and got his thoughts in order, then leaned forward and took up his drink. 'There are some questions I must ask you,' he said. 'A very odd thing has happened, perhaps several odd things, and your answers may be very important to me. Frankly, since my examination of your wife's body, I have been at something of a loss. Medical science is not exact, Mr Stone, but it does have certain rules. And there are limits beyond which these may not bend. In your wife's case, the rules were not merely bent but broken -1 might even say shattered!'
Stone waited a moment, said, 'I'm sure that's all very dramatic.' He shook his head in bewilderment. ' - Or would be if I understood a single damn word!' Then his voice hardened again. 'Now, look, whatever it is you're trying to say, get it said. Don't drone on!'
'I didn't want to hurt you!' his visitor snapped; and less harshly: 'Can't you see that? What with your son in an asylum, and your wife so recently dead - you've had enough of pain . . .'
Stone recognized genuine concern when he saw it, but he wanted no man's pity. He sat up straighter, an angry retort rising and dying unspoken on his hard lips. Instead, very quietly, he said, 'Why the hell don't you get on with h? Don't worry about hurting me, Likeman. Worry about getting tossed out of here on your neck - unless you start making sense pretty soon!'
'Very well,' the other maintained an even tone, 'I have to know about your wife. I have to know a lot about her.'
"That's a start,' Stone scowled, 'but you already told me that. Now tell me why you need to know about her?'
'Because she was . . . different. She was very different, Mr Stone.' He leaned forward, his firm, strong hands trembling, however slightly, where he lay them on the table between them. 'First, how old was she?' His eyes fixed and held those of the other man.
Stone frowned, shrugged huge shoulders, said, 'You know, I never asked her? But I'd hazard - ' again his shrug,' - oh, forty-five or six. Say, ten or eleven years my junior.' '
'And you were born in . . . ?'
'1948,' said Stone. 'What are you getting at?'
'So you'd say your wife was maybe forty-five years old?'
'I already did say so!'
Dr Likeman sat back, pursed his lips for a moment, said: 'She was born in 1947. She was a year older than you.'
Stone snorted. 'Rubbish!' he said. 'That would make her thirty-seven when I married her, twenty years ago. Thirty-seven? She was like a young girl. I used to look at her and feel like an old man! You must have made some sort of -'
'No, no mistake, Mr Stone. A copy of her birth certificate is in the new Central Registry in Koln.'
'Birth certificate?' Stone's brow darkened. 'Koln? Who gave you the right to -'
'I had to! I had to corroborate the data from the hospital computer. It was linked to Medcen in London, but Medcen might have incorrect information. It was the computer first told me she was born in '47; the source was her passport.'
'Passport? That makes about as much sense to me as "ration book"!' Stone snorted again. 'Passports went out nine, ten years ago. It's a free world now, Dr Likeman! No borders any more. Didn't anybody tell you?'
'But she had a passport in 1992,' said Likeman, unruffled, 'when she made herself a donor. So ... like you, I just couldn't believe she was fifty-seven years old. Hers wasn't the corpse - you'll forgive me - of an old woman. Not when I first saw it, anyway ..."
Silence fell in the room. Stone gulped at his drink; but he was interested now. 'What are you saying?' he asked. 'What are you getting at? She didn't look old when you first saw her? What's that supposed to mean?'
His visitor held up a hand. Til get to that in a minute. Please be patient. You see, I have to have answers for all my questions before I can formulate any sort of explanation.'
Stone gritted his teeth. 'So get on with it,' he said.
'About her blindness - ' Likeman began.
'Her whatT Stone was incredulous.
The doctor looked at him in surprise. 'Her blindness, Mr Stone. How long had she been blind?'
Vicki, blind? Icy feet tiptoed on Phillip Stone's spine. He heard again Vicki's voice, echoing in the back of his mind:
7 remember being blind
'But she wasn't blind!' he said, and saw Likeman's eyebrows go up. Suddenly the doctor was looking at him as if he were a madman; and just as suddenly, Stone felt unsure of himself. 'She . . . she wasn't,' he said again. 'She wasn't blind, and I'm not crazy. But I'm not so sure about you!'
'Mr Stone, I-'
'Is that it? Are you some sort of madman?' Stone whispered, slowly uncoiling from his chair, stepping carefully round the table, looming huge. 'You know what it sounds like to me, Dr Likeman, or whoever you are? It sounds to me like you're gibbering!'
As Stone's hands reached down to grip the lapels on his jacket, Likeman shrank into his chair and closed his eyes. He was prepared to believe without demonstration that Stone was as strong as he looked. As for his mental state: the doctor wasn't sure he was fit to make comment on that any more. And he could well understand Stone's doubts about him!
As Stone breathed Scotch into his face, Likeman said, 'Please, Mr Stone, do nothing rash.' The authority Stone had at first noted was absent now. Likeman's voice shook.
Stone drew him upright, drew him close, held him limp as a damp rag, hanging from his hands. At last, carefully, the doctor opened his eyes. 'I don't think either one of us is mad, Mr Stone. There has to be some other explanation. Maybe a mistake. But the corpse I examined was certainly that of a woman who had been blind for a great many years.'
Stone lowered him to the chair, reluctantly released him. 'Are you saying it might not have been Vicki after all?'
'I'm not sure what I'm saying,' Likeman sat still, waiting for Stone to uncoil. Finally he did, began to pace the floor.
'What do you remember of the accident?' Likeman quietly asked.
'I last saw my wife,' Stone muttered,' - saw half of my wife - hanging out of what was left of our car. One of her eyes had been knocked out and was hanging on her cheeJc . . .'
Likeman nodded. "The body of the woman I examined had been severed at the waist. One eye was loose, the right one. I know a lot about eyes, Mr Stone. They were my speciality when I was first starting out. Eyes and their diseases. This woman had been blind. Quite definitely. The optical nerves were completely eaten away. By disease.'
Stone stopped pacing, shuddered violently, involuntarily, then flopped heavily into his chair and topped up their drinks. 'Go on,' he said.
