Brian Lumley - Psychomech 03, page 8
Too late, they saw what Belcher was about. 'It's down there!' he had yelled hoarsely, pointing into the well beyond the safety-rail. 'It's there - and it has to die'
To give them credit, the three techs had tried to stop him. One of them later explained that it had been like trying to stop a raging bull with a red flag! Belcher had picked up and used the ninety-pound drill as a flail, chopping down all three of them - two with shattered ribs - before launching the thing bit-first over the safety-rail and down on top of the inspection portal.
After that it had been time to get out. Those who could crawl did so, dragging those who could not after them away from the rail. Radiation would be minimal outside the electromagnetic field, but heat was something else. And down below ninety pounds of metal had crashed through the portal and were being stripped down to nothing, atom by atom, while the core and flux went as mad as Belcher himself.
As for the maniac: he stood at the rail, clapped his hands to his head and reeled like a drunk, screaming as he staggered to and fro. And even as his eyes fried and the skin cracked open on his face and hands, still he kept on screaming, 'It's down there - down there - down there*.'
Whatever 'it' was, Belcher feared it no longer and would never fear it or anything again, for in the next moment he had vaulted the rail and followed the drill into eternity.
From the door of the control-room Chief Tech Ian Dawson had caught the last of the action. He threw himself back into the padded seat of his swivel chair before the master monitors and took a fearful look at the screens. One look was enough.
Gordon Belcher was no more. Cooked as he plummeted thirty feet through a roaring fountain of heat from the shattered portal - bursting into a sheet of flame in the next split-second and atomized before he could hit bottom - the flux had scarcely noticed him. He had been a tiny foreign body which was now flicked away forever . . . but the pneumatic drill was something else entirely.
In a space which was normally forty per cent vacuum, the massive iron of the drill measured up to an enormous imbalance: its disintegration, however furious, was warping the flux away from its standard symmetrical configuration. A few seconds more and the mighty electromagnetic shield would rupture, the crystal-lined steel walls would buckle and melt like butter, the entire tower and converter would collapse into a seething raw pool of energy. In converter terms, the equivalent of a nuclear meltdown! Microwave radiation would lash outwards at the speed of light; people in the immediate vicinity of the converter complex would cook and others more distant would be burned hideously; PSISAC itself,would be in jeopardy.
And quite apart from death and destruction at PSISAC, there would be horror and havoc across half the county. PSISAC's power lines were independent of the national grid; they fed industry, offices, farms and homes. They powered surgical instruments in operating theatres . . . farm machinery . . . elevators, escalators^ and walkways, lighting and communications in the towns and cities . . . computers . . . railway signals, and traffic control systems . . . life-support systems in hospitals.
There had never been this sort of crisis before at PSISAC, but Chief Tech Dawson was a man of split-second decision and unerring instinct. And he was knowledgeable as his rank demanded in all aspects of mechanical failure, practical and theoretical. If he could shut down the big converter quickly enough he might just save it, but there would still be county-wide chaos until the lesser converters could be cut in to restore power.
Or ... Dawson could take a chance.
He could boost flux density to maximum and pray for rapid, total disintegration of the melting, atom-shedding drill. And that was exactly what he had done, and it had worked.
Minutes later, when flux was back to normal configuration and the injured were out of the way, heat- and radiation-suited techs had lowered crystal sheeting down the well to seal the break in the portal, following which it was a relatively simple matter of a slow, routine shutdown and transfer of Joad. A disaster had been averted, however narrowly.
But on a wider scale . . .
... It was not a coincidence that at the time of the incident - that is to say, at the precise moment when Belcher's insanity reached its peak, about 2:00 p.m. -Richard Stone had thrown himself against the electrified fence at Calm Lawns, but no one would ever have reason to connect the two occurrences.
It would later be noted that Belcher's had not been an isolated case - that the activity of lunatics in asylums all over the world had been at fever-pitch when he died, and that new cases had been reported by the score over the rest of the afternoon - but again no one would find this of any special significance. The problem was after all world-wide. The Gibbering's toll was mounting, and men looked for answers in the wrong directions . . .
PSISAC, like a good many of the new industrial giants, looked after its employees. With the coming of the new sciences and the implementation of the four- (in some countries three-) day working week, the last of the mighty trade unions of the mid-20th Century had gone into liquidation and men had come to realize that they would nevermore have a 'right' to work. There would no longer be a need to work, but those who were so fortunate would partake of benefits away and beyond anything their fathers had ever known. A majority of people had no hope of ever having a 'regular job', and so saw little sense in training for one. First-class minds - even first-class labour - were therefore hard to find and worth hanging on to.
Two miles from PSISAC's mammoth complex, in a wooded, landscaped area on the banks of the Cherwell, a 'model' village housed those of PSISAC's workers who desired company accommodation. This was where Andrew McClaren had made his home, and here he had lived for the last seven years, since first the place was built. His small, detached bachelor chalet overlooking the river was powered by cheap PSISAC electricity; every appliance, every item of leisure equipment within its walls bore the 'PSF trademark of Phillip Stone Industries. It was not that McClaren was especially loyal, simply that he was a true Scot of the old school. All of his stuff had been purchased on the company's discount system; in the event of breakdowns, repair or replacement was free.
It was alm&st 5:00 p.m., some three hours since the Belcher incident and two since McClaren had been sent home by J. C. Craig. In those two hours, or at any rate since Edward Bragg had at last left him on his own, McClaren had continuously paced the floor of his living-room and considered over and over again the shattering revelations of the day.
For him the first of these had been his attack, the fact that he had fallen victim to The Gibbering. It had started shortly after 9:00 in the morning, a ringing as of tiny silver bells in his ears which would not stop. At first he had thought the bells were real, had actually sought to discover their whereabouts and still their constant tinkling; but by mid-morning the sheer volume of noise in his head had grown so as to shut out all else. It had become a great gonging that no one else could hear, which came to a crescendo and ceased . . . abruptly . . . shortly after 11:00 a.m.
The silence which followed had been almost deafening, but in no way a relief; with it had come a depression of spirit boding of worse things waiting.
Within the space of the next half-hour, McClaren had heard the first insidious snigger - a distant tittering as of secret and evil glee, which came from nowhere to invade his innermost mind - and in just another ten minutes The Gibbering had been upon him in force.
Fleeing his stores accounting office, McClaren had almost collided with a gang of apprentices on their way to lunch. One of them, a lad whose own father had suffered just such an attack less than a month ago and was now hopelessly mad in an asylum, recognized the symptoms and got in touch with his superior; he in turn contacted the medics at First-Aid and they tracked McClaren down.
After a short search, they found him crouched in a corner of the computer components warehouse, whimpering like a chastised puppy and covering his ears with hands that fluttered like trapped butterflies.
The medics had their routines. A certain standing order, the one that said any PSISAC employee suspected of the mind plague must be taken immediately to the office of the Managing Director, seemed to cover McClaren's case.
Craig had been told they were coming. When they arrived he gave the Scot a mild sedative and took him off their hands, ordering them back to their duties at Medical and First-Aid. But first he made it understood that they were not to engage in casual gossip in respect of McClaren; in his case there was to be no speculation, no mention of The Gibbering. Then he had taken his dazed and twitching ward with him into the privacy of the Dome.
Most of this McClaren remembered like a bad dream, but the rest of it was warped as a psychedelic nightmare!
He had been vaguely aware that Craig took him into the Dome's ground-floor garage area, through huge steel doors and into a central chamber - and he dimly remembered how that chamber had seemed like a tunnel cut through the guts of some fantastic machine, where Craig had seated him upon a throne-like chair - but after that there was . . . nothing!
Oh, there had been something, but such a monstrous something that his mind point-blank refused to let him remember. Then, some time later, Craig had led him out of the room of the machine and slowly he had become aware that the horror had passed. The Gibbering was gone from his mind.
As he gradually recovered and knew that in fact he was still sane and had somehow been saved, McClaren had known intense relief and gratitude. Whatever it was Craig had done to or for him, it had saved his mind. His psyche was intact... for the moment, at least.
McClaren remembered the rest of it vividly, however surrealistically.
Craig had taken him back through the Dome's garage area and via a security door into one of the perimeter boardrooms. There, seated about a long conference table and coming to their feet for a respectful moment as Craig entered, a group of eleven PSISAC employees were convened and waiting. McClaren, still a little unsteady on his feet but believing himself fully in control of his faculties, had been offered a seat and Craig had moved to his own place at the head of the table. There he had paused to converse privately for a few moments with Edward Bragg, the young executive who would later drive McClaren home, before turning and resting his hands upon the polished top of the table.
He had remained standing, ignoring an empty chair and waiting until Bragg was seated, before commencing his address and 'explaining' the purpose of the gathering. From the start, his words had burned themselves indelibly into McClaren's mind.
'Andrew McClaren, yours is a singular honour, for you have been chosen by a Higher Power to close the circle. You are the twelfth! As it was in Galilee, so is it here. As God is my witness, I have my disciples.'
At that, McClaren might have spoken - if only to enquire as to Craig's meaning - but Craig had seen his confusion and quickly continued: 'Be patient, Andy. Look about you. See your friends, these others of PSISAC who embrace the faith. And has not Psychomech saved them, too, and eased their troubled minds?'
As bidden, McClaren looked about the table.
There was a bald-headed technician from Computer Division, who had the seat to the right of a leggy, blowsy blonde from the Pay Office. Seated side by side were twin brothers from the 3-D TV assembly line. A broad-shouldered, blunt-featured man from Security sat close to them, and next to him a blocky supervisor from Repairs and Maintenance. McClaren recognized a flat-chested, shrew-faced spinster from one of the canteens, and a thin, bespectacled micro-electrician from Components. Of the rest one was Edward Bragg, who seemed to be something of Craig's confidant, and the other two were unknown to him.
All of these people sat silently staring at Craig, many of them in attitudes almost of adoration. A sort of fervour was in their eyes; they leaned towards Craig, hanging on his every word. And on the table before each one of them lay an identical headset, looking to all intents and purposes just like the individual hi-fi headphones of portable radios. McClaren noted that while the eyes of the eleven were fixed firmly upon Craig, the hands of most of them toyed almost unconsciously with these innocuous-seeming headsets.
'Let me tell you what this is all about, Andy,' Craig finally continued, leaning forward, his knuckles and thumbs supporting him where they pressed down on the table. 'Let me instruct you, as I have instructed these others. Unfortunately time is limited, for I am informed there are matters I must attend to - the matter of a serious accident, for one - and so I cannot at this time do much more than merely welcome you. I will therefore keep it short. But heed my words well, for one day they will form the first chapter of the new Holy Book!
'In the beginning, I was like other men. I had my prides and passions, my angers and petty jealousies, and to that extent I was a sinner. I considered myself and not my God. But God had placed in my head and my hands a great talent, and He had chosen me one day to become the instrument of His mercy - just as He has now chosen you to be my disciple.'
Craig paused for a moment and smiled, cocking his head enquiringly on one side. 'Does that sound like so much pseudo-religious claptrap, Andy? The hocus-pocus of some weird and esoteric sect? I suppose it must - ' his smile fell away, was replaced by a penetrating stare, ' -but it is not! If you will only listen to me with an open mind, you too shall soon come to know the truth.
'These are bad times, my friends,' (he now addressed the entire table) 'when Evil roams abroad in the world behind his twin masks of peace and plenty. The world is slothful and revels in its sloth, where people have forgotten the old skills and laws and moral codes in favour of the new sciences, idolatry and self-gratification. God Himself has been forsaken! He gave us this Garden of Eden, this land of milk and honey - and how badly have we used it, and how quickly have we forgotten Him!
'Four days only we labour - and many of us not at all -but do we keep a single day of the remaining three for Him? No! We eat of the fat of the land, all of us, in all the lands of His world, but do we make sacrifice unto Him? Do we offer Him Who Provides the merest tithe as witness of His bounty? No! His name is forgotten, His temples are empty. Men have turned their faces away and the churches are boarded up.
'Instead we are grown idolatrous: we worship the merest toys of our slothful existences - bright automobiles, sumptuous homes, our sparkling swimming pools - and worse, the human stars of our 3-Ds, who are become as gods in our eyes. And that is the worst blasphemy of all, for just as God made us in His image, so have we made them gods in His! None of us is wholly innocent - not one - and this has angered Him . . .
'Yes, for the Lord God is a jealous God and almighty -and His wrath is great!' Again Craig paused, looked from face to face about the table, finally returned his gaze to McClaren.
'I was not first chosen. Before me, God found Himself another prophet from among His angels and sent him down to do His will. This angel was given the face and form of a man, and a man's name. That name was Garrison - Richard Garrison - which is a cursed name! But . . . where is this fallen angel Garrison now? Search as you will, you will find no record of him. For he turned upon the Lord and set himself up in defiance of His laws; and he caused an oracle to be built which was his instrument of power, his weapon. I was the one Garrison chose to make his oracle work, and in my ignorance I was guilty of great sin. Mercifully, the Lord my God has taken away all memory of it, I remember only what He desires me to remember. Perhaps greater knowledge of my sin would kill me ...
'However . . . When God saw what Garrison had done or caused to be done He waxed wrathful, and Garrison was struck from the face of the Earth, and his oracl^ with him. And nowhere is his name written, and nowhere are his works evident. He is no more.
'But, as I have said, in His mercy God forgave me; and He came to me in a dream and spoke to me!' Now Craig's eyes were full of glory. His hands trembled on the table and his voice fell to a sigh, a whisper. 'He . . . spoke to me!' The room seemed to hold its breath.
Craig stood up straight, clasped his hands before him, closed his eyes. When he opened them again some of the glory was gone from them, and his voice was back to normal as he continued:
'Twenty years ago, my friends, God spoke to me for the first time - as He has done on countless occasions since. And the essence of His message was this: that I would be His prophet on Earth, and that I would make a Great Work!
'Oh, it was not without precedent, this manifestation of His presence, this visitation, this Command. Had He not instructed Noah in the building of the ark? And for what purpose? I will tell you: so that when he laid down the great waters upon the face of the world and drowned it, some would be spared. And just as Noah was commanded to build his ark, so was I guided in the construction of Psychomech.
'Psychomech the True Oracle . . . through which one day, when He chooses, I shall speak to my God as freely as I speak to you - and not alone in my dreams. But until then I shall use the Machine to preserve you, the Elect, just as Noah used his ark to preserve them he found worthy. Has not God Himself given me signs, and have I not seen the writing on the wall? Did He not send each one of you to me? Yes, He did, else you were struck down! And has not Psychomech made you well and driven out the demons from your minds?
'But you would see signs, you would be convinced. So be it. Look at you, all of you - lepers*. Victims of the Great Mind Plague itself - taken by The Gibbering. But do you shriek in asylums? Are you confined in strait-jackets and padded cells? No! You, Dorothy Ellis, when did you first suffer an attack?'
He pointed to the blonde woman from the Pay Office, who now stood up. Three years and two months ago, Mr Craig,' she answered.
'And since then?'
'Many times,' her answer seemed ritualistic, as if this was nothing new to her.
'Yes,' Craig nodded, 'many times. For you were the first. And are there ill effects?'
'None. Through the will of God, Psychomech preserves!'
'And all of you are the same,' Craig swept the table with his burning eyes. 'When the brains of others collapse and shrivel, you go on, incorruptible. When they gibber and die, you thrive and await the coming and the pleasure of the Lord. What more would you have of signs and portents? And yet perhaps you still have doubts . . .
