Dimension Of Horror

Chapter 10

Dr. Saxton Colby was radical in his willingness to explore the more hidden and occult aspects of the mind, to advance into those shadowed areas normally reserved for quacks, charlatans, fanatics and madmen. In this he followed the example of the great psychologist C.J. Jung. In his therapeutic methods, however, Colby was an archconservative. Thus his office was furnished with an old-fashioned psychoanalytical couch, not unlike the one used by Dr. Freud in Austria in the early years of this century, the favored symbol of cartoonists to this day. The couch was a Victorian antique, armless, raised at one end, deep-tufted, fringed all around, and upholstered in maroon crushed plush. As Richard Blade sat down on it, Colby looked on with ill-concealed agitation.

«Lie back and relax, Richard,» the doctor instructed.

Richard obeyed. «Like this?»

«Exactly.»

Colby quickly crossed to close the heavy maroon window drapes, plunging the small cluttered room into semidarkness, then returned to seat himself behind the couch on a sturdy Morris chair, outside Richard's field of vision, next to a three-foot-tall pedestal on which rested a lifesize bronze bust of the logotherapist Joseph Fabry.

Colby opened his notepad, and with his faintly gleaming silver ballpoint pen wrote Richard's name and the date at the head of the first blank page he came to. He glanced at Richard, who seemed, in white T-shirt and slacks, almost to be glowing. He thought, Today we'll make some progress. Five daily one-hour sessions had thus far yielded Colby little more than Richard's name, rank and serial number, plus the definite impression that Richard had mislaid ten years and was in no hurry to track them down. Colby pursed his lips and waited. When Richard said nothing, he prompted, «In the dining room you promised me an interesting hour.»

«So I did,» Richard mused. «I fully intend to keep that promise.»

«Have any more memories returned?»

«No, but I am gradually beginning to understand what's happened to me, by detective work rather than recall. You're a detective of sorts, aren't you?»

«One might say that.»

«Your job is to unearth all your patients' dirty little secrets. That's detective work. You might do well in my line, doctor. I think I'd do well in yours.»

«You don't say. Do you think you could-as you put it-unearth all my dirty little secrets?» Colby had confronted this psychological gambit before. In fact, sooner or later every patient took a turn at trying to switch places with the therapist. They were never very good at it, but the false ideas they came up with were often their own problems projected, and thus worth listening to.

«Nothing profound, of course. Your speech tells me you've lived in London, Scotland and Ireland,» said Blade.

«Well, not bad. You're right so far.»

«You were educated in the USA, or at least went to a university here.»

«Right again. Did you get that from the way I talk?»

«No, but from where I'm lying I can see the books on your shelves. All the college-level texts are from American, not British, publishers.»

«Bravo!» Colby was genuinely amused.

«The books also tell me you have a lasting and deep interest in the occult. It would take time to collect as many occult titles as you have, and some of them are books of considerable rarity and value. You've spent money on those books, doctor, as well as time.»

«Right again!»

«You come from a theatrical family. «

«What? How did you guess that?»

«Your movements. The way you project. The theater-probably the legitimate theater-has left its mark on you, yet you yourself have no greasepaint in the blood. Your library, though it contains works of fiction, does not boast a single collection of plays or book on the theater.»

«Very clever, Mr. Blade.»

«You did not like your father.»

«Now you're simply guessing.»

«No, I'm not. Your profession is so profoundly different from his you could not have chosen it without a violent rupture. Show business is a particularly difficult subculture to escape from, but you appear to have managed it all too well. At the same time your occultism and your stance in your profession is rebellious. I sense in your attitude toward the father-figures of psychology a carried-over hostility toward your own father. A substantial hostility, since it still influences you so much after all these years!»

Colby had become uncomfortable. Richard was hitting much too close to the mark. «That's enough Sherlocking, Richard. Can we get back to you? It is you, not I, who has a problem.»

«I've solved my problem, doctor.»

«You have? How?»

«By forgetting it.»

Colby burst out laughing. When he could speak, he said, «I shall remember that one, Richard. You're a wit, aren't you, as well as a detective and amateur psychotherapist?»

«On your desk is a photo of a little girl. From the fading of the color it must be an old photo. Your daughter?»

«Yes, but…»

«Odd you have no more recent photos. Is she dead?»

«Yes, only I…»

«And no photos of a wife, no photos of the girl's mother.»

«Dammit, I… «

«Anger? Are you angry? The mother's not dead, yet it is obvious neither she nor any other woman is sharing your present life. If she were dead we'd see her photo alongside your daughter's, wouldn't we? And I've seen how you speak to the female members of the staff, of whom there are surprisingly few. I sense a divorce, Dr. Colby, a divorce in which you were deeply hurt, a divorce from which you have not even now recovered, a divorce that poisons your relationship with every woman you meet.»

Colby leaped to his feet. «Stop that! Stop!»

«Am I wrong?» Richard asked mildly.

After a long pause Colby said, «No, you're quite right.» His voice was barely audible. «But I am not the patient here. You are.»

Blade said gently, «Sit down, Saxton.» Colby was about to protest against the undue familiarity, the blatant bossiness, but instead he did as he was told. Blade went on, «I know you want to help me. Believe me when I say you cannot. Each of us has a blind spot. Mine is that I cannot accept the kind of help you offer, even to save my life. I have always made my own decisions, helped myself, and my training has enforced that habit. In the field I have always had to act more or less on my own, and I certainly could never confide in anyone. As I may have told you, I have not been a docile agent, have even deliberately disobeyed orders several times, though thankfully it all turned out right. I have made mistakes, but they have been my own mistakes. I'm rather fond of them, since they've taught me so much. Now, with or without my memory, I intend to continue to make my own decisions, to ask no help from anyone, to reserve for myself all judgments of what is true and false, right or wrong, real or unreal. Do you understand?»

Colby felt a gray hopelessness, which he did not bother to conceal, as he replied, «I understand that there is no point in you and I continuing to work together.»

Richard sat up and turned to look at Colby, saying, «That's not so, Saxton. While I am the sort who, ultimately, can't be helped, you are a different breed of man. You care what people think of you, you listen to advice, you can accept help.»

«From whom?»

«From me, Saxton.»

Saxton considered this for some time, then said softly, «All right.»

When the hour reserved for Richard was up, Colby's secretary said over the intercom, «Time for your next patient, doctor.» Her tone was crisp and businesslike.

Colby answered, his voice oddly hoarse, «Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the afternoon.»

«Yes, sir.» The woman was puzzled but submissive.

Four hours later the door to Dr. Colby's office opened and Colby and Richard Blade emerged. Blade had his arm around the doctor's shoulders and the secretary could not help but notice that Colby's eyes were red, as if he'd been crying.

«Is there something wrong, doctor?» she demanded.

«Not anymore,» Colby answered, a strange peaceful smile lighting up his gaunt features. She had never seen such relief, such calm, such inner stillness in a human face. It actually frightened her.

The two men passed her and entered the hallway, and she could have sworn she heard Dr. Saxton Colby turn to the hulking Richard Blade and say, «Thank you, Blade. Thank you. Thanks.»

She rolled her eyes heavenward, then went on reading her magazine.

After supper, when Zoe and Richard went upstairs, the usual guards trailed along behind them, two husky white-clad men with tranquilizer pistols.

«Do they watch you all the time, Dick?» she asked.

Richard smiled ironically. «When I'm safely locked in my room at night, they are satisfied to only spot-check me at half-hour intervals.»

«They lock you in every night?»

He nodded. «That's right. They either lock me in or watch me. I daresay there was someone outside your door all last night.» He gestured toward a door they were passing. «They keep their weapons in there. Note the combination padlock. That's a mistake.»

«A mistake?»

«On their part.» He blew on his fingertips. «Colby is keeping special services men here, and many of us have a way with combination locks. Dr. Colby is a good man in his field, but MI6 is well rid of him. He's too careless.»

Blade opened the door to his bedroom and ushered her in. When he had closed the door he stood a moment, finger to lips, then relaxed, saying, «They didn't lock us in. That means they'll be standing guard out there.» He crossed to the window. «I should warn you not to say anything obscene. We wouldn't want to shock whoever it is that is on duty at the listening post.»

She followed him. «Listening post?» she said.

«Of course. We must assume this room is bugged. And of course the heavy bars on the window are rigged with a burglar alarm. Isn't it reassuring to know we're being taken care of so well?»

She stood beside him at the barred window, watching the color fade from the evening sky. His arm slipped around her shoulders and rested there, and once again she felt that familiar rush of ambivalent emotion he always inspired in her. He was like a bear in a cage, warm, seemingly docile, yet not tame, not a safe pet, perhaps dangerous. Was he plotting his escape? Was escape possible? No, there was no way even Richard Blade could get out of this place!

Abruptly Richard broke in on her thoughts with, «At supper Dr. Colby called you Mrs. Smythe-Evans. Did you marry during those years I've forgotten?» His voice was casual, as if commenting on the weather.

«Yes, but you must understand…»

«I was under the impression that you were going to marry me. «

«That wasn't possible.» She was flustered, a little defiant.

«Why not?» He was calm, seemingly emotionless.

«You were a stranger. Everything about you was a secret. But even so, I was willing. It was you, after your first enthusiasm wore off, who backed away from the idea.»

She saw a grimace pass fleetingly across his face, saw his eyes close. He said, «I'm remembering things. More than I've let on. I've been remembering bits and flashes since… I don't know. But I've been pushing them out of my mind. They're too insane to be real.»

«Remembering what?»

«A machine. Some kind of computer that sends me into alien universes.»

«It's not insane, Dick. It's true. That machine is what destroyed our relationship, though I didn't know it at the time.»

«It's true? The swordsmen? The primitive societies? The monsters? It's not just my nightmares?»

«It's all true.»

«And the Ngaa?» Richard's forehead glistened with sudden sweat. «Is the Ngaa real too?» He stepped away from her, looking at her intently.

She reached out and grasped his hand. «Yes,» she said softly. «Do you remember the Ngaa?»

«No. Yes. I think so. I see a city drifting high in a dim red sky… a dying sun… a flame-blasted planet below… a hovering ball of blue-white fire… passageways like crystal cathedrals… a jumble of dreams. Oh Zoe, suddenly my head is full of images, impossible images! Was I really there? In the home of the Ngaa?»

«Yes, you were! I wish I could tell you the Ngaa is nothing but a dream, but I can't. It's real and dangerous. And it's followed you here. Can you remember that, too?»

He nodded slowly, his face somber in the failing light. «Yes, I remember. I was in an aircraft, over London. The Ngaa attacked me, entered my mind. But I drove it out! By God, I won against it.»

She hugged him excitedly. «Oh, Dick, that's right! We must tell J and Dr. Colby!»

But he stopped her as she turned toward the door, holding her shoulders in his powerful fingers, and he said, «Not yet. Let me work on my memories alone for a while. If I'm disturbed they may slip away.» She wondered, Is he speaking to me, or to the hidden microphones he thinks are listening to us?

«It wouldn't disturb you if I… stayed with you tonight?» she ventured uncertainly.

There was a long pause, then he answered, puzzled, «But you're married, aren't you? In fact, I seem to remember you have children.»

She could not meet his gaze, but looked out the window, answering unsteadily, «I'm a widow. Don't you remember that?»

«No, I … «

«My children are dead, killed by the Ngaa. Don't you remember that, either?» Her eyes filled with tears. «Don't you remember how everything I'd worked so hard for, my whole carefully built-up life was incinerated in a single night? I envy you your amnesia. God, I wish I could forget! I wish I could forget it all!» The numbness that had gripped her since the fire was leaving at last, but leaving her with a pain she could hardly bear. She tore free of his fingers and threw herself face down on the bed, sobbing.

She felt Richard's hand on her heaving shoulder, heard him say, «I can't bring back what you've lost, but perhaps I can bring you revenge. The Ngaa is powerful, yes, but not omnipotent. I think I can kill it.»

She rolled over and clutched him to her, crying, «No, Dick! Don't try to fight that thing alone. It will kill you!»

She desperately kissed his lips, but he was distant, his thoughts elsewhere. «It won't kill me,» he said. «I know its weakness.»

She thought, He's planning already…

She kissed him again, and this time he returned her kiss. They made love half-dressed, as if afraid that there was no time, and when she left his room to go to her own she heard the guards locking his door.

The «attendant» looked up as J entered the room, then started to remove his headphones.

«No, no,» said J. «I'm just checking in.»

Disappointed, the attendant gestured toward the amplifier on the table. «Nothing to check. Nothing to hear but snoring. Blade is sleeping like a drunken horse. Want to hear?»

«No, thanks.»

«What time is it?»

J took out his pocketwatch and inspected it in the dim yellow light from the lamp on the bedtable, then answered, «A little after two.»

«Isn't it odd, sir, how people think secret agents lead such exciting lives? They've no idea how bloody boring it is in reality.»

«If they did we'd never be able to recruit anyone, would we?»

«I suppose not.»

«Well, good night.»

«Good night, sir.»

J opened the door to the hall. The sanitarium was so silent the faint distant sounds of a freight train passing through Berkeley were clearly audible. J felt somewhat relieved now that some of his own men, flown in from London, had taken over the watch on Richard. Colby's men were not particularly bright, and one could never be frank with them.

«Wait, sir!» The attendant leaned forward intently.

J reentered the room and closed the door. «What is it?»

«Blade is talking in his sleep.»

«If that's all…» J turned to leave.

«No, he's calling out, 'The Ngaa! The Ngaa!' and tossing and thrashing around. Give a listen.»

«No, I don't think… well, all right.»

J accepted the headphones and put them on.

He recognized Richard's murmuring voice, but could not understand what he was saying except for the one word Ngaa. The bedsprings were creaking and crashing violently.

Suddenly there was silence.

J was about to remove the headphones when he heard Blade speak again, this time clearly, like a man fully awake.

«The Ngaa,» Richard said calmly, without fear.

Then J heard a sound he would hear again and again in nightmares for the rest of his life, the voice of the Ngaa, like the wind, like rustling trees, like a vast multitude of voices whispering in chorus: «Yes, we are the Ngaa.»

«What do you want?» Richard challenged.

«Open the way for us. Let us come through.»

«Never!»

«You are our entrance. Let us come through.»

«No.»

«We have served you well. We have removed your rival, made everything as it was long ago when you were happy. Now you must fulfill your side of the agreement.»

«I made no agreement.»

«You did! With your subconscious mind. We read your desires, listened to your unspoken prayers, and, because we are much like the being you call your God, we have answered. Is there something else you want? Do not speak. We will see it in your mind and obey. We will grant your wish, whatever it may be. But as we serve you, so must you serve us. Escape! We will help you. Return to London. Activate the computer and come to us. Help us to invade your dimension in all our power, to make our home on your world. Our planet is dead and our sun dying. Your planet is green and tempting. Your planet has air and water and living things. Come to us! Come!»

«No.»

The multitude of whispering voices grew fainter. «All you desire, in waking life or in dreams, we can give you. Come. Come.» They were now scarcely audible.

Blade said, «Your time moves more quickly than mine, Ngaa, and your time is running out. I will not come to you. I will leave you in your crystal city in the sky, above the planet you have burned clean of life, leave you there to die.»

The Ngaa answered with a fading sigh. «You will change your mind, Richard Blade, and soon.»

When he heard nothing more, J removed the headphones. It was then he became aware that the hairs on the back of his hand were standing up and swaying. He glanced around, startled. The room was bathed for an instant in a dim blue glow.

The glow faded. The hairs on J's hand ceased moving. The Ngaa, as far as J could tell, was gone.

«Follow me,» J commanded.

The attendant followed him into the hall, and down the passageway to the door of Richard's room.

«Richard!» J called. «Are you all right?»

«Yes, sir,» came Richard's voice from inside.

J unlocked the door and, without waiting for an invitation, burst into the room. Blade had turned on the bedlamp and was sitting up, propped against his pillows, regarding J with amusement. «So, you did have my room bugged, didn't you?» Richard demanded.

«Of course I did!» J snapped. «Do you take me for an idiot? Was the Ngaa here just now?»

Richard nodded. «You heard the thing speak, didn't you?»

«I heard it,» J said, annoyed. «I also heard that you spoke to it as if your memory had completely recovered.»

«It has.»

«And you didn't tell me?»

«The last link has only now fallen into place. I know why I could not remember. The Ngaa! The Ngaa spoke to me softly, there in the crystal city, repeating things to me over and over, showing me visions, or dreams, making me believe they were real. The Ngaa hypnotized me! That's the answer. The Ngaa hypnotized me to forget, then tried to hypnotize me to obey, but I would not. The Ngaa sent visions of horror, frightful nightmares drawn from my own subconscious, to try to force me to do as I was told, but I resisted. Somehow I resisted it.»

J was puzzled. «You call the Ngaa it? Why not he or she?»

Richard chuckled. «Because the Ngaa is not a living being.»

«Then what is it?»

«There is nothing like it in our dimension, but it is something like a disembodied spirit simulated by artificial means, and something like a… a computer.»

Richard awoke with a feeling of smug satisfaction and lay a long time staring at the ceiling. Bright sunlight streamed in his window. Birds sang. Breakfast dishes clattered in the distance.

I've won, he thought.

Time was against the Ngaa. It would grow weaker and weaker, eventually losing its ability to manifest itself in the normal space-time continuum. Then, trapped in its own dimension where one Earth-minute was equal to many other-dimensional hours, the Ngaa would someday be destroyed by the nova of its sun.

Automatic victory!

A younger, more reckless Richard Blade might have been disappointed at the lack of «action» and adventure, but Blade had learned the value of a victory that did not deplete his resources, did not leave him less able to deal with the challenges of the future.

There was a knock at the door.

«Come in,» Richard called.

The key rattled in the lock. J entered, returning the key to his waistcoat pocket. «Good morning, Richard. You're looking well,» the old man said, eyeing Blade thoughtfully.

«I'm feeling well,» Richard replied, swinging his feet to the floor.

«Well enough to face a government examiner? Well enough to convince the fellow of your sanity?»

«A government examiner?» Richard stood up.

«Yes. Perhaps several. The Prime Minister has delivered an ultimatum: unless you are sane enough to pass his tests, he'll close down Project Dimension X for good. The deadline, I might add, is only four days away. In the meantime you are confined to quarters here. In particular you are under no circumstances to return to London or have anything to do with the KALI computer. Those are orders!»

Richard slipped on his usual white slacks and white T-shirt. «Sensible precautions, though hardly necessary. Why would I want to go near KALI? And even if I did want to, how would I escape from this snug little rabbit warren of yours? How would I transport myself all the way from here to England? Typically British of the PM to forbid me to do something I am both unwilling and unable to do.»

«Glad you see it that way, old chap.» J clapped Richard on the back. «You are completely recovered, aren't you?»

«Completely.»

«Excellent! After breakfast I'll phone Downing Street and tell them to send their examiners straight away. We'll snatch the project from the jaws of oblivion at the last possible moment, in the style of the very best Victorian melodrama.» J's usual reserve had been replaced by a surprising warmth and exuberance.

«And then it will be business as usual at the Tower of London, eh?» Richard frowned.

«Of course. What's wrong?»

«I don't think it would be wise to use KALI again for awhile. At least not with the same instrument settings.»

«No? Because of the Ngaa?»

«Exactly. The Ngaa is powerful, dangerous and… desperate. Can we risk opening a gateway for it to reenter our dimension?»

«Definitely not.»

The two men left the room together. Guards waited outside. Even now, though Richard was apparently his old self again, J took the absurd precaution of locking the door.

They went downstairs and entered the dining hall.

Richard looked around with a sudden uneasiness. «Where's Zoe?»

Colby, at the head table, glanced up and answered, «I haven't seen her this morning. She must still be in her room.»

Richard wheeled and strode back the way he had come.

The guards tensed and reached for their tranquilizer pistols, but J signaled to them not to fire. Richard swept past them so quickly he almost knocked one of them over, then mounted the stairs three steps at a time. J, puffing and wheezing, followed him up.

Richard accosted an attendant who was coming down the hall outside Zoe's room. «Have you seen Mrs. Smythe-Evans?»

The man looked startled. «Why yes, I have.»

«In her room?»

«No, she came out just a few minutes ago.»

«Where did she go?»

«Down the back stairs, but it's certainly strange that you're asking me these things.»

Richard shot him a worried glance. «Strange? Why?»

«It was you she was with, Mr. Blade.»

Richard's smugness vanished, to be replaced with a sick apprehension. He brushed past the puzzled attendant and, breaking into a run, bounded down the back stairs. To the amazement of the kitchen staff, he sprinted past the stoves and refrigerators and burst through the screen door out onto the back porch.

Half-blinded by the sudden sunlight, he almost tripped and fell as he went down the steps, then paused, shading his eyes with his hands, searching the tennis courts and groves of pine and eucalyptus. No one was in sight.

«Damn,» he whispered.

Then he heard a familiar laugh in the distance, from the front yard. Her laugh!

As the guards appeared, red-faced from running, on the back porch, Richard was off again, rounding the corner of the mansion at a long-legged lope.

Now he was in the side yard, now in the front, now pounding past the lion statues and the flagpole, across the weed-cracked paving stones toward the wire-mesh fence, toward the front gate where he could see green-uniformed armed guards turning to look in his direction.

Then he saw Zoe.

She was nearly to the front gate, walking with a jaunty step, dressed in her borrowed white nurse's outfit, her back to him. At her side was a tall, muscular man in white slacks and T-shirt. Blade had no trouble recognizing the man.

«Myself,» Richard whispered. He thought, And yet not myself. The Ngaa!

Richard cupped his hands around his mouth as he ran and shouted, «Zoe! Zoe! Stop!»

She stopped, turned to look back over her shoulder. Her eyes widened.

«Zoe!» Richard called. «Don't go with him!»

She looked first at Richard, then at the man beside her, confused.

The man turned, smiling with Richard Blade's face, smiling triumphantly. His hand shot out and grasped Zoe by the wrist. She screamed and tried to pull away.

Desperately Richard put on a burst of speed.

He had almost reached them when, with a sharp bang like a pistol shot, they vanished.

Howling, anguished, Richard hurled himself full-length on the pavement where they'd been standing, clutching at the coarse weeds that thrust themselves up through the cracks.

The weeds were black and crumbly, as if they'd been burned, and the surface of the stone in that one area was so hot it hurt his fingers.

In the air he could smell, faintly but distinctly, the acrid stench of ozone.