The Third Gate

27

The medical suite was quiet as Logan entered. The overhead lights were dimmed, and a single nurse sat at the front desk. From somewhere far back in the maze of rooms, the low bleating of instrumentation could be heard.

Ethan Rush came striding around a corner, speaking to an accompanying nurse. He stopped when he saw Logan. “Jeremy. Are you here to speak with Perlmutter? He’s in rather a lot of pain, we’ve had to keep him sedated-” Rush stopped, peered more closely at Logan.

“It’s not about Perlmutter,” Logan said.

Rush turned to the nurse. “I’ll speak with you later.” Then he gestured toward Logan. “Come into my office.”

Rush’s office was a sterile-looking cubicle behind the nurse’s station. He gestured Logan to a chair, poured himself a cup of coffee, took a seat himself. He looked bone tired.

“What’s on your mind, Jeremy?” he asked.

“I know why your wife is here,” Logan replied.

When Rush did not reply, he went on. “She’s trying to contact the ancient dead, isn’t she? She’s trying to channel Narmer.”

Still, Rush said nothing.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Logan continued. “You told me yourself that many people who return from near-death experiences develop newfound psychic abilities. Some of them claim to speak to the dead. You also told me that your wife’s particular gift was retrocognition. Retrocognition. That is, having knowledge of past events and people, beyond any normal understanding or inference.”

He got up and helped himself to coffee. “It’s a very rare form of parapsychology, but it has been documented. In 1901, two female British scholars, Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, were touring Versailles. They began to wander the grounds in search of the Petite Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s chateau. In the process, they encountered strangely dressed figures, including footmen speaking in antique voices and a young woman sitting on a stool, sketching. Moberly and Jourdain experienced a strangely oppressive gloom that did not lift until they abandoned their search and walked away. Later, both women became convinced they had entered telepathically Marie Antoinette’s own memories and visions at that spot-and that the woman sketching had, in fact, been the queen herself. In the years that followed, Moberly and Jourdain conducted extensive research on their experience, which they finally published in 1911 in a book titled An Adventure. I highly recommend it, by the way.”

He sat down again, took a sip of coffee.

Finally, Rush stirred in his chair. “You know Porter Stone’s kitchen-sink approach to his projects: he would rather bring in ten specialists, each with a different discipline, at ten times the cost, than one generalist with almost the same skill set. For him, that almost is the difference between success and failure.” He paused, looked away. “Early on, the big worry was the tomb’s location. Stone was convinced the tomb was here. But the precise spot was unknown, and he had a deadline. Anybody who could help find the site, anybody, was considered.”

Rush shook his head. “Somehow, he found out about the Center, about my wife’s… gift. Don’t ask me how-this is Porter Stone we’re talking about. He approached us. At first I refused point-blank. The Sudd seemed such a desolate, hostile place. I’d have to go along, of course-after all, nobody else could manage her ‘crossings’-and I simply had too much work to consider it. He offered us more money. I still refused-as I think I told you, the Center has plenty of wealthy patrons who have experienced NDEs. Then he offered me the post of expedition doctor, and so much money that it would have been foolhardy to say no. Also”-here for a moment his voice dropped almost to a whisper-“I thought it might be beneficial for Jennifer.”

“Beneficial?” Logan repeated.

“To give her a chance to use her gift in a positive way. Because, Jeremy, I’m not convinced she considers it a gift at all.”

Logan thought back to his meeting with Jennifer Rush, to the private sorrow he’d sensed, to the still-unexplained storm of empathetic emotion he’d felt when he shook her hand. No gift, indeed, he told himself. Years before, he had known a deeply talented telepath. The man had fallen into increasing despondency, ultimately killing himself. Doctors had labeled him mentally deficient, had ascribed the voices in his head to schizophrenia. Logan knew differently. He himself knew the downside of possessing a gift you could not turn off. Now he felt like even more of an ass for the way he’d spoken to Jennifer Rush.

“So at first,” Rush said, breaking Logan’s train of thought, “Jen was brought here simply to get sensations-fleeting pictures or glimpses of past events that might help locate the tomb. But then Fenwick March and Tina Romero managed to pinpoint the site more precisely, and the original reason for her presence became less important. Besides, by that point…” Rush hesitated. “By that point, everything had changed.”

“You mean, she’d made contact with an actual entity from the past,” Logan said.

For a moment, Rush did not respond. Then he nodded, ever so slightly.

Logan felt a thrill course through him. Even he found it both incredibly exciting-and hard to believe. My God, could it really be true? “Does Stone know?” he asked.

Rush nodded again. “Of course.”

“What does he think?”

“It’s like I’ve told you-he’ll do anything, try anything, to get what he wants. And Jen has demonstrated her psychic powers in enough ways that I know he wants to believe.” Rush stared at him. “What about you? What do you think?”

Logan took a deep breath. “I think-no, I know, because I’ve sensed it myself-that certain very strong personalities, life forces if you will, can linger in a place long after the corporeal body has died. The stronger, the more violent, the personality and the will, the longer it will persist-needing only an unusually gifted mind to sense it.”

Rush slowly ran his fingers through his hair. He glanced at Logan, looked away, glanced back. This whole development has him agitated, Logan thought. This isn’t what he expected to happen-at all.

“Who else knows about this?” he asked.

“March and Romero, for sure. One or two others, maybe… then again, maybe not. You know Stone. And this isn’t exactly charted territory.”

“And what does your wife think?”

“She doesn’t like it. It’s foreign and strange and, I think, frightening.”

“Then why go on with it? If she was brought here to help find the tomb, and the tomb might be located any minute-why stay?”

“Porter Stone’s express request,” Rush replied, his voice still lower. “Two reasons, I think. First, we haven’t yet found the tomb-and with his belt-and-suspenders mentality, he’s not going to release a potential asset until he’s certain it’s been located.”

He fell silent.

“That’s one reason,” Logan pressed.

It seemed a long time before Rush finally answered. “Her mission here was altered when we received… certain data.”

“Data?” Logan asked. Rush did not reply-he did not need to.

“You mean the curse,” Logan said. Now he, too, was almost whispering. “What, exactly, has Narmer-or whoever it is-been saying through Jennifer?”

Rush shook his head. “Don’t ask me, please. I’d rather not talk about that.”

Logan thought for a moment. The feeling of excitement, of otherworldliness, hadn’t left him. So the curse is bothering Stone, too. That was the only explanation he could think of for altering Jennifer Rush’s assignment. Stone doesn’t know what he’s going to find when he reaches the tomb. He wants to be as prepared as possible to meet any eventuality-and he’ll accept any help he can get his hands on… even from beyond the grave.

“Would you talk with her, please?” Rush suddenly asked.

For a moment, Logan did not understand. “I’m sorry?”

“Would you speak to Jen about all this-about these, um, crossings she’s been doing, her feelings?”

“Why me?” Logan asked. “I’ve only met her once-and then only briefly.”

“I know. She told me about it.” Rush hesitated. “It sounds funny, but I think she would trust you, might even open up to you. Maybe it’s your unusual line of work; maybe it’s just something in your manner-you made a good impression.” Again he hesitated. “You want to know something, Jeremy? Jen never, ever talks about her NDE. Everyone else won’t shut up about going over, about what they’ve experienced. She never has-not even for data collection sessions at the Center. Oh, we talk about the sensitivity it’s given her, we measure and try to codify her special gifts-but she never speaks of the experience itself. I was wondering if… well, if perhaps there was a way you could get her to share it with you.”

“I’m not sure,” Logan said. “I can try.”

“I wish you would. I just don’t want to push it any further myself.” Rush plucked at his collar. “I put up a brave front, but the fact is, I worry about her. I can’t pretend that things haven’t been a bit strained between us since her accident, but I’ve tried to give her a lot of space. All I can tell you… All I can tell you is that we once had about as close a relationship as two people could have.” He stopped. “We still love each other very much, of course, but she’s had, um, a hard time interacting with the world in the way she used to. And since arriving on site-well, she wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night, trembling, bathed in sweat. When I ask her about it, she just brushes it off as a bad dream. And now, with these crossings Stone is insisting on…” He looked away.

“I’d be happy to do anything I can to help,” Logan said.

For a minute, Rush didn’t look back. Then, with a deep sigh, he met Logan’s gaze, pressed his hand briefly, and gave a mute smile of thanks.