How could it possibly be Terri? She had been right here with him when things started to go wrong. He cursed himself for his mind's illogical processing of data. Perhaps this was her get-out, her escape route from actions she could neither control nor tolerate. Or could it be Terri herself, half-crazy with guilt, perhaps even schizoid? Wyatt remembered thinking to himself that she was taking all of this very well.
He had not noticed the missing milk or sandwiches. It seemed that Psychomech could only help him - and conversely that he could only help the Machine - in a real crisis.īy 5.15 A.M. Also, something of Psychomech's feeding on him: that is to say, he knew that the Machine had somehow drawn on his strength, or that he had applied his strength so as to 'make repairs' in the Machine.ĭraining feeling which came whenever the Machine suffered a power loss and he had been powerless to do anything about it. Now Garrison could only remember the food and drink (though not the actual sensation of eating and drinking), and something of the feeling of well-being which had come afterwards. The desert had been just such a crisis an episode which, like the others before it, had now all but passed into the limbo of lost memories. Not only was there no one there, there were nq signs that anyone had been there. Up and downstairs, the cellar, the attic, all the larger cupboards. And as the machine had followed the stream through the great and rambling V of the deep cleft, so Garrison had once more slept upon its broad back. Not before that time and never since, until now, had Garrison suffered claustrophobia.Īfter that he had climbed aboard the revitafized Machine to ride it out of the desert into a green and beautiful valley, and for some little time - though time as a real concept did not have a great deal of meaning here - he had followed a tinkling stream to where it cut a cleft through a range of high, domed hills. They seemed to weigh on him with the weight of the Universe. But first a wash and a shave, then coffee. By then everything must be under control Garrison dead, all records completely up to date, and Wyatt's own nerves steady once more. Terri would be here in a little over four hours. There were no scraps of food in his mouth, no spilled liquids, and he must certainly have choked if it were attempted. How had he been fed? -that was anybody's guess. Not by Psychomech, no, for the machine's feeding was really recycling and more on the psychical than the physical side. Not only had the control panel been interfered with but Garrison had been fed. The sin itself might be forgotten, but the darkness, the stifling closeness, the Scuttlers in the Shadows - these things he remembered. The cupboard under the stairs, the spiders which he had known inhabited that place, the unknown or forgotten sin (against what or whom he could not say) which had prompted his punishment. He remembered it now, remembered how it frightened him.
DIARIE OSS FREE
But if he was here, and if he knew what was going on, why didn't he just come right on out of the woodwork, free Garrison and make an accusation?Īs a boy he had been shut in. He could be here right now, looking after his master's interests as always. He could have gone to Germany, turned around and flown straight back. Koenig? The German manservant seemed most eligible, Wyatt had to admit. And after that, if he found nothing and no one - which he suspected would be the case, for if there were a human adversary at work here he must be extremely clever and unlikely to let himself be discovered - then Wyatt must simply deny him access to the room of the machine, which he could do easily enough. One sure way to check for outside interference would be, quite simply, to search the house from top to bottom. It was crazy, ridiculous, but it was the only solution. Someone was here, in this very house, right now. Someone, some unknown but very real and physical one, had somehow been in here and turned down the fear-stimulation controls, releasing Garrison from his nightmares. Then, leaving the room, he padlocked the door and pocketed the keys.
DIARIE OSS FULL
Wyatt returned to the machine room, gave Garrison an opiate booster, turned up fear-stimulation to the full and jammed the controls firmly in that position. Which meant that there must be someone else in the house.
0 kommentar(er)
