Martin licked his lips and turned to Lascal. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get started.”
Lascal nodded. “Miss Neuman and Mr. Albigoni are in the observation room adjacent. We’ve also managed to secure four of the five assistants you asked for.”
“Who?”
“Erwin Smith, David Wilson, Karl Anderson, Margery Underhill.”
“Then let’s bring the group together.”
They walked to the rear of the stage, through another small door and into the hallway leading to the patients’ quarters. Martin recalled the last of the twenty seven people he had investigated and therapied here, a young woman named Sarah Nin; he vividly remembered her Country, a gentle jungle dotted with sprawling mansions all filled with exotic animals. Voyaging through her he had half come to love Sarah Nin, a kind of reverse transference; her interior had been so peaceful, her exterior—large, cowlike, dull normal—so apparently untroubled.
He had often dreamed about Sarah Nin’s Country. He doubted Goldsmith’s would be nearly so simple or pleasant.
Goldsmith was being kept in the patient room Sarah Nin had occupied. Two slender powerful men in longsuits stood outside this door watching them intently as they approached, nodding acknowledgment to Lascal.
“Mr. Albigoni is in there,” the taller of the two men said, pointing to the door across the hall. This was the observation room.
Lascal opened this door and Martin entered.
Albigoni and Carol Neuman sat talking quietly in chairs opposite the main screen. They looked up as the door opened. Carol smiled and stood. Albigoni leaned forward elbows on knees, eyebrows raised expectantly. Martin reached out and shook Carol’s hand.
“We’re almost ready,” she said. “I’ve given our four assistants a refresher course. It’s been a while for them.”
Martin nodded. “Of course. I’d like to talk with them as well.”
“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” Carol said.
“Good. I just…took a brief look at the theater. Everything but the buffer seems to be there, in place.”
“It’s enough,” Carol affirmed. Martin tried to avoid looking at her directly. He felt particularly vulnerable now. His pulse was racing; he took periodic deep breaths and he could not stand still.
“How’s Goldsmith?”
“Fine, when I last spoke to him,” Albigoni said. The instigator of all this seemed calm, a center of peaceful purpose around which Martin saw he would be orbiting, electron to the publisher’s nucleus. Unimportant. Why here at all, then? Everything was ready to go; they might just as well do it without him.
“Let’s see him, then,” Martin said, pulling the third seat into proper position to view the main screen. Lascal sat on a countertop behind them. Carol flipped open her chair arm controls and activated the screen. “Room one, please,” she said.
Goldsmith sat stooped over on the edge of the neatly made bed, book held before him at knee level. Black hair rumpled clothes wrinkled but face serene. Martin studied the face quietly, noting the hooded sleepy eyes strong character lines surrounding nose and mouth steady sweep back and forth of eyes totally concentrating on the book.
“What’s the book?” Martin asked.
“The Qu’ran,” Albigoni said. “A special edition I published fifteen years ago. It was the only book he had with him.”
Martin looked over his shoulder at Lascal. “He’s been reading it all along?”
“Off and on,” Lascal said. “He called it ‘the religion of the slavers.’ Said if he was to be imprisoned he should know the mentality of masters.”
“Moslems made lots of slave raids,” Carol said.
“I know,” Martin said. “But he’s not a Moslem himself, is he? There’s nothing about that in his description.”
“He’s not a Moslem,” Albigoni said. “Doesn’t believe in any formal religion as far as I know. Dabbled in vodoun a few years ago but not seriously. Used to visit a shop in LA for ritual items, more for research than spiritual need, I think.”
Two of the IPR’s patients had been born to the Islamic faith. Their Countries had been difficult and disturbing places, magnificent from a research angle, easily worth ten times the three or four papers he had written on them, but not to Martin’s taste. He had hoped to be able to train Islamic researchers to handle this particular cultural and religious terra, but had not been allowed enough time.
“He seems more at peace than I feel,” Martin said.
“He’s prepared for anything,” Albigoni said. “I could walk in there with a pistol or a hellcrown right now and he would welcome me.”
“Mass murderer as martyr saint,” Carol said. She gave Martin a small conspiratorial smile as if to say The perfect challenge, no?
Martin’s smile back at her was a mere flicker. His stomach was tight as a drum. There was a difference between being Fausted and being Faust. He was about to cross the line.
Goldsmith’s hands were textured like fine leather, fingers loosely gripping the book. Clean. No blood.
Martin stood. “Time to go to work. Carol, let’s meet with the four and plan out the next few days.”
Albigoni looked at him with some surprise.
“We don’t do this all at once, Mr. Albigoni,” Martin said, glad to see something other than calm expectation on his benefactor’s face. “We plan, we prepare, we rehearse. I trust you’ve given us enough time here.”
“As much as you need,” Lascal said.
Martin nodded sharply and took Carol’s arm. “Gentlemen, excuse us.” They left the room together. Martin shook his head dubiously as they walked past the guards down the hall to the support and monitoring room.
“I wish they’d all just leave,” he said.
“They’re paying the tab,” Carol reminded.
“God save us all.”
37
The integration, as well as the development of the various internal and external languages continues throughout an individual’s life, but for the most part the groundwork is fixed at an early age—probably around two years. At this age, the nature of fear undergoes a radical change in many infants. Before this age, infants fear unfamiliar sensations—loud noises, strange faces, and so on. After two years, supplementing these fears and/or replacing them is a fear of lack of sensation, darkness especially. In the dark or in silence, subconscious contents can be projected. The child’s recent grasp of language helps it to understand that these subconscious contents are not perceived by its parents. It begins to sublimate the visual language of the Country of the Mind. It is on its way to becoming a mature individual.
Richard Fettle clasped the slate and thirty pages and walked on unsteady legs up the steps, turning with a jerk as the autobus made an unusual wheel noise against the curb behind him. His nerves were frayed and he could hardly think. He did not remember climbing the rest of the steps when he stood beside the white enameled wrought iron bird cage. He fancied for a moment that the bird was alive blinking at him. He pressed the doorbell and heard chimes within. The day was warming nicely and that was well for he wore only a shortsleeve shirt.