Tiger by the tail, p.3
Tiger by the Tail, page 3
The wind stirred through the ruined building, bringing a sifting of damp snow into his face. There was no Mary here. Somehow, he was here, and he was in danger, and there was no warmth nor love here. His mind swept back to reality with a jolt. He hadn’t wanted to come here. It couldn’t have been his will. There was only one other possible answer. He had been put here.
His mind struck the idea, and trembled. Like the fit of a hand in a glove, the thought settled down in his mind, filling a tremendous gap. Yes, that was it, he had been placed here, for some reason. He wasn’t willfully changing from place to place, he was being changed from place to place, against his will and volition. From danger into danger, he was being shifted, like a chessman in some horrible game of death. But no one was touching him, no one was near him—how could these changes be happening? The answer sent a chill through him, and his hand trembled. It was obvious. The changes were happening in his own mind.
He rubbed his stubbled chin. If this were true, then these things weren’t really happening. He hadn’t actually been in the tunnel. There hadn’t actually been a sand-cat. He wasn’t really lying here in a cold, damp comer, with deadly frost creeping up his legs. Angrily he rejected the thought. There was no room for doubt, these things were real, all right. The slashes on his side were real. He knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there had been a sand-cat. He knew it would have killed him if it could have, and if it had, he would have been quite dead.
You can die, and only your own resourcefulness will save you—who had said that? There had been a program, training him, somewhere, for something —something vastly important. His mind groped through the darkness, trying to penetrate the fuzzy uncertainty of his memory. Those words—from a small, red-faced man, and a tall, gaunt man in white—Schiml! Schiml had said those words, Schiml had put him here!
Suddenly he thought he saw the whole thing clearly. He was in danger, he must overcome the danger, he wasn’t supposed to know that it wasn’t really happening! There had been a long training program, with Connover, and Schiml, and all the rest, and now he was on his own. But nothing, nothing could really hurt him, because these things were only figments of his imagination.
He shivered in the coldness. Somehow, he didn’t quite dare to believe that.
Dr. Schiml sat down on the chair and wiped drops of perspiration from his brow. His eyes were bright with excitement as he glanced at the pallid form on the bed, and then back at the red-faced Connover. “He’s taken the first step,” he said hoarsely. “I was sure he would.”
Connover scowled and nodded, his eyes fixed on the panel beside the bed. “Yes, he took the first step all right. He’s figured out the source of his environment. That’s not very much.”
Schiml’s eyes gleamed. “When we first computed the test, you wouldn’t even concede the possibility of that. Now you see that he’s made it. He’ll make the other steps, too.”
Connover whirled angrily on the doctor. “How can he? He just doesn’t have the data! Any fool could deduce that these are subjective mental phenomena he’s facing, under the circumstances. But you’re asking for the impossible if you expect him to go any further along that line of reasoning. He just doesn’t have enough memory of reality to work with.”
“He has Mary, and you, and me,” the doctor snapped. “He knows there’s been a training program, and he knows that he’s being tested. And now he knows that he’s living in the nightmares of his own mind. He’s got to solve the rest.”
Connover snorted. “And that knowledge itself increases his danger a thousand times. He’ll be reckless, overconfident—”
The girl stirred. She had been staring blankly at the man on the bed; her face was drawn and pallid, and her eyes were red. She looked dully at Dr. Schiml. “Connover’s right,” she said. “He has no way of knowing. He may just stand there and let himself—” she broke off with a choked sob.
“Mary, can’t you see? That’s exactly what we’ve got to know. We’ve got to know if the training was valid. He may get reckless, true, but never too reckless. The cat, remember? It hurt him. It really hurt him. He’ll take the next step, all right. He may be hurt first, but he’ll take it.”
The girl’s face flushed angrily. “It may kill him! You’re asking too much, he’s not a superman, he’s just an ordinary, helpless human being like anybody else. He doesn’t have any magical powers.”
The doctor’s face was pale. “That’s right. But he does have some very unmagical powers, powers we’ve been drumming into his mind for the past year. He’ll just have to use them, that’s all. He’ll have to.”
Mary’s eyes shifted once again to the motionless form on the bed. “How much proof do you need?” she asked softly. “How much more will he have to take before you stop it and bring him back?” The doctor’s eyes drifted warily to Connover, then back to Mary. A little smile crept onto his lips. “Don’t worry,” he said gently, “I’ll stop it soon enough. Just as soon as he’s taken the necessary steps. But not until then.”
“And if he can’t make them?”
She didn’t see his hand tremble as he adjusted the panel light gently. “Don’t worry,” he said again. “He can make them.”
Gradually the numbness crept up Robert Cox’s legs. He lay on the cold, grimy floor of the ruined building, staring into the blackness about him. His realization had brought him great relief; he was breathing more easily now, and he felt his mind relaxing from the strain he had been suffering. He knew, without question, that he was not in the midst of reality—that this cold, hostile place was not real, that it was merely some horrid nightmare dredged from the hidden depths of his own mind, thrust at him for some reason that he could not ponder, but thrust at him as an idiotic, horrible substitute for reality. Deep in his mind something whispered that no harm could really come. The sense of danger which pervaded his mind was false, a figment of the not-real world around him. They were testing him, it was quite obvious, though he couldn’t pierce the murky shield of memory to understand why they were testing him, for what purpose. Still, having realized the unreality, the test must be ended. He couldn’t be fooled any longer. He smiled to himself. Armed with that knowledge, there was no longer any danger. No real danger. Even the wound in his side was imagined, not really there—
And still the cold crept up his legs, insidiously, numbing them, moving higher and higher in his body. He didn’t move. He simply waited. Because with the test all over, they would surely bring him back to reality.
Like an icy microtome blade, something slashed at his brain, swiftly, without warning. He screamed out, and his mind jerked and writhed in agony at the savage blow. He tried to sit upright, and found his muscles numb, paralyzed. Again the blow came, sharper, more in focus, striking with a horrid power that almost split his brain. He screamed again, closing his eyes tight, writhing on the floor. He tensed, steeling himself for another blow, and when it came his whole body jerked as he felt his own mental strength trying to rally like a protecting barrier.
Frantically, he twisted and wriggled the upper part of his body, desperately and unthinkingly trying to stand and run, and toppled over onto his face in the rubble. Again the blow came, grating and screaming into his mind with an unrelenting savagery that baffled and appalled him. Twisting along the floor, he gained the door, peered sickly out into the blackness.
He could barely make out the gray shape of one of the steel monoliths he had seen rumbling down the road a little before. It was resting on the rocky, frozen tundra of the field, standing motionless, the glow of power surrounding it like a ghostly aurora. He knew that the attack came from there, frightening, paralyzing bolts that shook him and sent his mind reeling helplessly, an attack of undreamed-of ferocity. He struggled, trying to erect some sort of mental patchwork against the onslaught. He had been wrong, he could be harmed, the test wasn’t over—but why this horrible, jolting torture? Again and again the jolts came, until he screamed, and writhed, and waited in agonized anticipation of the next, and the next.
Then suddenly he felt his mind sucked down into a pool of velvet-soft warmth, of gentle sweetness, a welter of delightful tenderness. His mind wavered in sweet relief, relaxed to the throbbing, peaceful music that whirled through his mind, sinking easily into the trap—and then, abruptly, another savage blow, out of nowhere, threw him into a curled, agonized heap on the floor. No, no, no, his mind screamed, don’t give up, fight it, and he fought to reinforce a barrier of protection, tried feebly to strike back at the hideous, searing blows. This isn’t real, he thought to himself, this isn’t really happening, this is a ridiculous, impossible nightmare, and it couldn’t possibly hurt him—but it was hurting him, terribly, until he couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t — Another blow came, more caustic, digging sharp, taloned fingers into his brain, wrenching and twisting it beyond endurance.
He was going to die! He knew it, in a horrible flash of realization. Whatever was out there in the field was going to kill him, going to wrench him into a blubbering mass of quivering protoplasm without mind, without life—like the men who had come back on the starship.
He took a gasping breath. Miraculously, he felt another link in the chain fall into place.The star-ship—he had seen it, sometime so long ago. Somewhere back in a remote corner of his mind he could remember the starship which had returned, after so many years, to its home on Earth, a gaunt, beaten hulk of a ship, with the lifeless, trampled men who had started it on its voyage. Men who were alive, but barely alive, men with records of unimaginable horror on their instruments, and nothing but babbling drivel coming from their lips. Men who had gone to the stars, and met alien savagery with which they could not cope; men who had been jolted from their lethargy into naked, screaming madness at the thought of ever, ever going back—
Was this why he was being tested? Was this why he had been trained, subjected to this mind-wrenching, grueling ordeal? Another searing blow struck him, scraping at the feeble strength he had left, benumbing him, driving the picture from his mind. Was this what those men had faced? Was it this that had destroyed them, so infinitely far from their home, so very much alone on some alien world? Or was it something else, something a hundred-fold more horrible? He reeled and screamed, as anger beat through to his consciousness, a certain awareness that, imagination or not, the danger was real, so horribly real that he was falling apart under the onslaught, reaching that limit of his endurance beyond which was certain death.
Coldly, he searched for a weapon, coldly struggled to erect a shield to block the horrible blows— to fight horror with horror, to die fighting if need be. Bitterly, he closed off his mind to hate and fear, dipped into the welter of horror and hatred in his mind, something to match and conquer the monstrosity he was facing. With a howl of rage he sent out searing pictures of everything he knew of savagery, and hellish violence, and diabolical hatred and destruction, matching the alien onslaught blow for blow.
They could try to kill him, he knew they could kill him, and he fought them with all the strength of mental power he could drag from his brain, feeling the balance between his mind and the shrieking horror from the field rise, and sway, like a teeter-totter, back and forth, up and down, until somewhere he heard a scream, fading into silence, a scream of alien fear and hatred and defeat.
And then he sank to the floor in exhaustion, his lips moving feebly as he groaned, “I’ve got to fight them, or they’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me.
The girl’s sobs echoed in the silent room. “Oh, stop it,” she groaned, “stop it, Paul, please—he can’t go on. Oh, it’s horrible—”
“I’ve had about as much as I want to watch,” Connover rasped hoarsely. His face had gone very pale, and he looked ill. “How can you go on with this?”
“It’s not me that’s going on with it.” Dr. Schiml’s voice was quiet. “I’m not concocting these things. All I’m doing is applying tiny stimuli to tiny blocks of neural tissue. Nothing more. The rest comes from his own mind—”
Mary turned to him, fiercely. “How could that be true? How could there be such … such horror in his mind? That isn’t Robert, you know that. Robert’s kind, and fine, and gentle—how could he find such nightmares in his mind?”
“Everyone has nightmares in his mind, Mary. Even you. And everyone has the power of death in his mind.”
“But he’s taken all the steps we planned,” Connover cried. “What more do you expect?”
“Some of the steps,” Schiml corrected angrily. “Connover, do you want to throw all these months of work out the window? Of course he’s come a long way. He’s realized that he’s in danger that can kill him—that was desperately important—and he realizes the reason that he’s being tested, too, though he hasn’t actually rationalized it out in that way. He’s beginning to realize why the starships failed. And he’s realizing that he really must fight for survival. From the evidence he started with, he’s gone a long way—a remarkably long way. Without the training, he wouldn’t have survived the tunnel. But we can’t stop now. He hasn’t even approached the most vital realization of all. He’s too strong, too confident, not desperate enough. I can’t help him, Connover. He’s got to do it himself.”
“But he can’t survive another attack like the last,” Connover snapped. “Training or no training, no man could. You’re deliberately letting him kill himself, Paul. Nobody could survive more of that—”
“He’ll have to. The crews of the starships couldn’t face what they found out there. That’s why they came back—the way they did.”
Connover’s face was working. “Well, I wash my hands of it. I’m telling you to stop now. If that boy dies”—he glared at the tall doctor—“I won t be responsible.”
“But you agreed—”
“Well, I’ve stopped agreeing. It’s going too far.”
Schiml stared at him for a long moment in disgust. Then he sighed. “If that’s the way it’s going to be”—he glanced helplessly at the girl—“I’ll take full responsibility. But I’ve got to finish.”
“And if he dies?”
Schiml’s eyes were dull. “It’s very simple,” he said. “If he dies, we’ll never have another chance. There’ll never be another starship.”
He couldn’t tell how long he had been unconscious. Groggily, he raised his head, wincing as the pain stabbed through his brain, and blinked at the reflection of himself in the cold, mirror-steel wall. He stared at the reflection, startled to recognize himself. Robert Cox, his black hair muddy and caked, his face scratched in livid, grimy welts, his eyes red with strain and fatigue. With a groan, he rolled over on the polished floor, staring. Hesitantly he rubbed his side; the pain was still there, sharp under his probing fingers, and his head ached violently. But the room—
Then he knew that there had been another change. The room was perfectly enclosed, without a break, or window, or seam. It was a small, low-ceilinged room, with six sides—each side a polished mirror. The ceiling and floor also reflected his image as he struggled to his feet and sniffed the faint, sharp ozone-smell of the room. In the mirrors, a hundred Robert Coxes struggled unsteadily to their feet, blinking stupidly at him and at each other. A hundred haggard, grimy Robert Coxes, from every angle, from behind and above, reflecting and re-reflecting in the brilliant glow of the room.
And then he heard the scream. A long, piercing, agonized scream that reverberated from the walls of the room, nearly splitting his eardrums. It came again, louder, more piercing. Cox involuntarily clapped his fingers to his ears, but the sound came through them, pounding his skull. And then he heard the grinding sound along with the scream, a heavy, pervading grate of heavy-moving machinery, grinding, clanking, squealing in his ears. The scream came again, louder, more urgent, and a maddening whir joined the grating machinery. Cox stood poised in the center of the room, waiting, wary, ready for any sort of attack, his whole body geared to meet anything that came to threaten him. Deep in his mind a weariness was growing, a smoldering anger, at himself for being a party to this constantly altering torture, at Dr. Schiml, and Connover, and anyone else who had a hand in this. What did they want? What conceivable point could there be to these attacks, this horrible instability? Why should he be subjected to such dangers that could kill him so easily? He felt a weakness, a terrible feeling that he couldn’t go on, that he would have to lie down on the floor and be killed, that his limit was approaching, as he stood poised, fists clenched, waiting. How much could a man stand? What were they getting at, what did they want of him? And beyond all else, when were they going to stop it?
The thought broke off abruptly as a creeping chill slid up his spine, and he stared at the mirror opposite his face, almost gagging. He blinked at the image, then pawed at himself, unbelieving. Something was happening to him. Somehow, he wasn’t the same any more—
Another scream cut through the air, a harsh, horrible whine of pain and torture, sending chills up his back as he winced. The image of him was different, somehow, melting and twisting before his eyes as he watched. Fascinated, he saw his hand melting away, twisting and turning into a tentacled slimy mess of writhing worms. He tore his eyes from the image, and glanced down at the hand—and a scream tore from his own throat. His cry echoed and re-echoed, as if every mirror image was screaming too, mocking him. No, he thought, no—it can’t be happening, it cant! The room rumbled about him, with the cracking, grating sound of machinery with sand in its gears, and the screams pierced out again and again. Now the arm was changing, too, twisting like something independently alive—
He had to get out of that room! With a scream of helpless rage he threw himself against the mirror, heard it give a strained twang as he bounced back in a heap on the floor. His mind raced, seeking a way out; his eyes peered about, searching for a door, but there was nothing but mirrors, mirrors doing hideous things to his arm, creeping toward his shoulder. Every time he looked for a door in one wall, he could see nothing but the reflection of another wall, and another. Down on his hands and knees, he crept about the room—four, five, six walls —was it seven and eight? Or was he repeating? He couldn’t tell. Every glance drew his eyes back to the horrible, changing arm, until with superhuman control he reached down, seized the writhing thing with his good hand, and wrenched it away, a twisting, quivering, jellylike mass. And the stump continued to melt and change, and he couldn’t see anything but the mirror.
