"What are you driving at?"
"I'm looking for a dissociative reaction or a second personality—something, anything, to explain that second level of activity. I don't want to alarm you," he said gently, "but you're only allowed one: one mind, one psi level. The only conclusion I can draw is that you either have two minds or the most unusual single mind in the galaxy."
("He was right the first time.")
I know, but what do we do?
("Play dumb, of course. We wanted to get out of microbiology and into psych—this may be our chance.")
Dalt mulled this over. Finally, "This is all very interesting, Dr. Webst, but quite meaningless as far as my professional life is concerned." That should put the conversation on the track we want.
"That's what I'd like to discuss with you," Webst replied. "If I can get a release from Dr. Hyne, would you be interested in spending some time with my department assisting us with some experiments?"
"Just what kind of experiments?"
Webst came around his desk to stand before Dalt. "I've been trying to find a use for psionics in psychotherapy. We are daily trying to probe the minds of these so-called horrors cases in an effort to find out why they don't respond to conventional therapy. I have no doubt that it's the path of the future—all we need is the right technology and the right psi talents.
"Remember Sally Ragna? The girl who hides in the corner and no known psychotherapy can reach? That's the kind of patient I'm after. We've developed an instrument to magnify psi powers, and right now a man with one per cent of your aptitude is trying to get a look inside her mind." Webst suddenly stiffened and his eyes burned into Dalt. "Right now! Would you come over to Big Blue right now and give it a try? All I want you to do is take a quick look—just go in and out, no more!"
("This is our chance,") Pard urged. ("Take it!") He was obviously anxious to give it a try.
"All right," said Dalt, who had a few reservations lurking in the back of his mind. "Might as well give it a try and see if anything at all can be done."
In Big Blue they seated him before Sally Ragna, who wasn't cringing now, due to heavy sedation. The psi booster Webst had mentioned, a gleaming silver disk, was slung above them.
This is a waste of time, Dalt told Pard.
("I don't think so. I've learned one thing, anyway: That machine of Webst's isn't worth a damn—I'm not getting a bit of boost from it: But I don't think I'll need it. I've made a few probes using the same technique I played with on the liner and I'm meeting with very little resistance. I'm sure I can get in. One thing, though ... I'm going to have to take you with me.") I don't know if I like that.
("It's necessary, I'm afraid. I'll need every ounce of reserve function to stay oriented once I get in there, and I may even have to draw on your meager psi power.")
Dalt hesitated. The thought of confronting madness on its own ground was deeply frightening. His stomach lurched as he replied, Okay, let's do it. But be careful!
("I'm frightened too, friend.")
The thought flashed across Dalt's mind that he had never before considered the possibility of Pard being frightened of anything. Concerned, yes ... but frightened—
The thought disappeared as his view of Sally Ragna and the room around them swirled away and he entered the place where Sally was spending her life:
/countless scintillating pinpoints of light that somehow gave off no illumination poured into treelike shapes/ a sky of violet shot through with crimson flashes that throw shadows in paradoxical directions/an overall dimness that half obscures living fungus forms that crawl and leap and hang from the pointillistic trees/ /moving forward now/
/past a cube of water with schools of fish each made of two opposing tails swimming forever in stasis/mountains crumble to the right/breach-born ahead is a similar range/which disappears as they step off a sudden precipice and float through a dank forest and are surrounded by peering, glowing, unblinking yellow eyes/ /descent/
/to a desert road stretching emptily and limitlessly ahead/and suddenly a town has sprung up around them, its buildings built at impossible angles/a stick man walks up and smiles as his form fills out and then swells, bloats, and ruptures, spewing mounds of writhing maggots upon the ground/the face and body begin to dissolve but the mouth remains, growing larger and nearer/it opens to show its double rows of curved teeth /and growing still larger it moves upon them, enveloping them, closing upon them with a SNAP/
Dalt next found himself on the floor with Webst and a technician bending over him. But it was Pard who awakened him.
("Get up, Steve! Now! We've got to go back in there as soon as possible!")
Dalt rose slowly to his feet and brushed his palms. "I'm all right," he told Webst. "Just slipped out of the chair." And to Pard: You must be kidding!
("I assure you, I am not. That was a jolting experience, and if we don't go back immediately, we'll probably build up a reflex resistance that will keep us out in the future.")
That's fine with me.
("But we can do something for this girl; I'm sure of it.")
Dalt waved Webst and his technician away. I'm going to try again," he muttered, and repositioned himself before the girl. Okay, Pard. I'm trusting you.
/and then they were in a green-fogged bog as ochre hands reached up for them from the rank marsh grasses to try to pull them into the quicksand/
/the sun suddenly appeared overhead but was quickly muffled by the fog/it persisted, however, and slowly the fog began to thin and burn away/
/the land tilted then and the marsh began to drain/the rank grasses began to wither and die in the sun/slowly a green carpet of neatly trimmed grass unrolled about them, covering and smothering the ever-clutching hands/
/a giant, spheroid boulder rolled in from the horizon at dazzling speed and threatened to overrun them until a chasm yawned suddenly before it and swallowed it/
/dark things crept toward them from all sides, trailing dusk behind them, but a high, smooth, safe wall suddenly encircled them and sunlight prevailed/
Dalt was suddenly back in the room again with Sally Ragna, only this time he was seated on the chair instead of the floor.
("We'll leave her in that sanctuary by herself for a few minutes while I get the lay of the land here.")
You made all those changes, then?
("Yes, and it was easier than I thought it would be. I met a lot of resistance at first when I tried to bring the sun out, but once I accomplished that, I seemed to be in full control. There were a couple of attempts to get at her again, but they were easily repulsed.")
What now?
("Now that we've made her comfortable in her sylvan nunnery—which is as unreal as the horror show she's lived in all these years, but completely unthreatening—we'll bring her back to reality.")
Ah, but what is reality?
("Please, Steve. I haven't time for such a sophomoric question. Just go along with me, and for a working definition we'll just say that reality is what trips you up when you walk around with your eyes closed. But no more talk ... now comes the hard part. Up until now we've been seeing what she sees; the task at hand is to reverse that situation. Here goes.")
They were back in again and apparently Pard's benign reconstruction had held—and had been improved upon; the wall had been removed and a smooth grassy sward stretched to the far horizon. Pard set up a bare green panel to the left; three more panels appeared and boxed them in ... a lighted ceiling finished the job. An odd piece of metallic machinery overhung them, and there, just a short distance before them, sat a man with a golden hand and a flamestone slung at his throat, whose dark hair was interrupted by a patch of silver at the crown.
A sudden blurring and they were looking at Sally again. Only this time she was looking back—and smiling. As tears slid down her cheeks, the smile faded and she collapsed into unconsciousness.