The Collection (60 page)
"You mean he could really
make people think any-thing he wanted them to?" Caquer asked.
"Not only that, he could
make them do anything he wanted. And by that time, television was in such common
use that one speaker could visibly and directly talk to millions of
people."
"But couldn
'
t
the government have regulated the art?
"
Professor Gordon smiled thinly.
"
How,
when legislators were human, too, and as subject to hypnotism as the people
under them? And then, to complicate things almost hopelessly, came the
invention of the Vargas Wheel.
"
It had been
known, back as far as the Nineteenth Century, that an arrangement of moving
mirrors could throw anyone who watched it into a state of hypnotic submission.
And thought transmission had been experimented with in the Twenty-first
century. It was in the following one that Vargas combined and perfected the two
into the Vargas Wheel. A sort of helmet affair, really, with a revolving wheel
of specially constructed tricky mirrors on top of it."
"
How did it
work, Professor?" asked Caquer.
"The wearer of a Vargas
Wheel helmet had immediate and automatic control over anyone who saw him-directly,
or in a television screen,
"
said Gordon.
"
The mirrors
in the small turning wheel produced instantaneous hypnosis and the
helmet-somehow-brought thoughts of its wearer to bear through the wheel and impressed
upon his subjects any thoughts he wished to transmit.
"
In fact, the
helmet itself-or the wheel-could be set to produce certain fixed illusions
without the necessity of the operator speaking, or even concentrating, on those
points. Or the control could be direct, from his mind."
"Ouch," said Caquer.
"
A
thing like that would-I can certainly see why instructions in making a Vargas
Wheel would be Blackdexed. Suffering Asteroids! A man with one of these
could-"
"Could do almost anything.
Including killing a man and making the manner of his death appear five
different ways to five different observers.
"
Caquer whistled softly.
"And including playing nine-man Morris with soap-box radicals-or they
wouldn't even have to be radicals. They could be ordinary orthodox
citizens."
"
Nine men?
"
Jane Gordon demanded.
"
What's this about nine men, Rod? I
hadn't heard about it.
"
But Rod was already standing up.
"
Haven
'
t
time to explain, Icicle,
"
he said.
"
Tell you
tomorrow, but I must get down to-Wait a minute. Professor, is that all you know
about the Vargas Wheel business?
"
"Absolutely all, my boy. It
just occurred to me as a possibility. There were only five or six of them ever
made, and finally the government got hold of them and destroyed them, one by
one. It cost millions of lives to do it.
"
When they
finally got everything cleaned up, colonization of the planets was starting,
and an international council had been started with control over all governments.
They decided that the whole field of hypnotism was too dangerous, and they made
it a forbidden subject. It took quite a few centuries to wipe out all knowledge
of it, but they succeeded. The proof is that you'd never heard of it."
"
But how about
the beneficial aspects of it," Jane Gordon asked. "Were they lost?
"
"
Of course,
"
said her father. "But the science of medicine had progressed so far by
that time that it wasn't too much of a loss. Today the medicos can cure, by
physical treatment, anything that hypnotism could handle."
Caquer who had halted at the
door, now turned back.
"Professor, do you think it
possible that someone could have rented a Blackdex book from Deem, and learned
all those secrets?" he inquired.
Professor Gordon shrugged.
"
It
'
s
possible," he said. "Deem might have handled occasional Blackdex
books, but he knew better than try to sell or rent any to me. So I wouldn
'
t
have heard of it."
At the station, Lieutenant
Caquer found Lieutenant Borgesen on the verge of apoplexy.
He looked at Caquer.
"
You!
"
he said. And then, plaintively,
"
The world's gone nuts. Listen,
Brager discovered Willem Deem, didn't he? At ten o
'
clock yesterday
morning? And stayed there on guard while Skidder and you and the clearance men
were there?"
"Yes, why?" asked
Caquer.
Borgesen's expression showed how
much he was upset by developments.
"
Nothing, not a
thing, except that Brager was in the emergency hospital yesterday morning, from
nine until after eleven, getting a sprained ankle treated. He couldn't have
been at Deem's. Seven doctors and attendants and nurses swear up and down he
was in the hospital at that time."
Caquer frowned.
"He was limping today, when
he helped me search Deem's shop,
"
he said.
"
What
does Brager say?"
"He says he was there, I
mean at Deem
'
s, and discovered Deem's body. We just happened to
find out otherwise accidentally-if it is otherwise. Rod, I'm going nuts. To
think I had a chance to be fireman on a spacer and took this celestial job.
Have you learned anything new?"
"Maybe. But first I want to
ask you, Borg. About these nine nitwits you picked up. Has anybody tried to
identify-"
"
Them,"
interrupted Borgesen.
"
I
let them go." Caquer
stared at the beefy face of the night lieutenant in utter amazement.
"
Let them
go?" he repeated.
"
You couldn
'
t, legally. Man,
they'd been charged. Without a trial, you couldn't turn them loose."
"
Nuts. I did,
and I'll take the responsibility for it. Look, Rod, they were right, weren't
they?"
"
What?
"
"
Sure. People
ought to be waked up about what
'
s going on over in Sector Two.
Those phonies over there need taking down a peg, and we're the only ones to do
it. This ought to be headquarters for Callisto, right here. Why listen, Rod, a
united Callisto could take over Ganymede.
"
"Borg, was there anything
over the televis tonight? Anybody make a speech you listened to?"
"
Sure, didn't
you hear it? Our friend Skidder. Must have been while you were walking here,
because all the televis turned on automatically-it was a general."
"And-was anything specific
suggested, Borg? About Sector Two, and Ganymede, and that sort of thing?"
"
Sure, general
meeting tomorrow morning at ten. In the square. We're all supposed to go; I'll
see you there, won't I?"
"
Yeah,"
said Lieutenant Caquer.
"
I'm afraid you will. I-I got to go,
Borg."
*
* *
Ron CAQUER knew what was wrong
now. Also the last thing he wanted to do was stay around the station listening
to Borgesen talking under the influence of-what seemed to be-a Vargas 'Wheel.
Nothing else, nothing less, could have made police Lieutenant Borgesen talk as
he had just talked. Professor Gordon
'
s guess was getting righter
every minute. Nothing else could have brought about such results.
Caquer walked on blindly through
the Jupiter lighted night, past the building in which his own apartment was. He
did not want to go there either.
The streets of Sector Three City
seemed crowded for so late an hour of the evening. Late? He glanced at his
watch and whistled softly. It was not evening any more. It was two o
'
clock
in the morning, and normally the streets would have been utterly deserted.
But they were not, tonight.
People wandered about, alone or in small groups that walked together in uncanny
silence. Shuffle of feet, but not even the whisper of a voice. Not even
Whispers! Something about those
streets and the people on them made Rod Caquer remember now, his dream of the
night before. Only now he knew that it had not been a ream. Nor had it been
sleepwalking, in the ordinary sense of the word.
He had dressed. He had stolen
out of the building. And the street lights had been out too, and that meant
that employees of the service department had neglected their posts. They, like
others, had been wandering with the crowds.
"Kill-kill-kill-You hate
them . . ."
A shiver ran down Rod Caquer
'
s
spine as he realized the significance of the fact that last night's dream had
been a reality. This was something that dwarfed into insignificance the murder
of a petty book-and-reel shop owner.
This was something which was
gripping a city, something that could upset a world, something that could lead
to unbelievable terror and carnage on a scale that hadn't been known since the
Twenty-fourth Century. This-which had started as a simple murder case!
Up ahead somewhere, Rod Caquer
heard the voice of a nun addressing a crowd. A frenzied voice, shrill with
fanaticism. He hurried his steps to the corner, and walked around it to find
himself in the fringe of a crowd of people pressing around a man speaking from
the top of a flight of steps.
"-and I tell you that
tomorrow is the day. Now we have the Regent himself with us, and it will be
unnecessary to depose him. Men are working all night tonight, preparing. After
the meeting in the square tomorrow morning, we shall-
"
"Hey!
"
Rod
Caquer yelled. The man stopped talking and turned to look at Rod, and the crowd
turned slowly, almost as one man, to stare at him.
"
You're
under-"
Then Caquer saw that this was
but a futile gesture.
It was not because of the man
surging toward him that convinced him of this. He was not afraid of violence.
He would have welcomed it as relief from uncanny terror, welcomed a chance to
lay about him with the flat of his sword.
But standing behind the speaker
was a man in uniform-Brager. And Caquer remembered, then, that Borgesen, now in
charge at the station, was on the other side. How could he arrest the speaker,
when Borgesen, now in charge, would refuse to book him. And what good would it
do to start a riot and cause injury to innocent people-people acting not under
their own volition, but under the insidious influence Professor Gordon had
described to him?
Hand on his sword, he backed
away. No one followed. Like automatons, they turned back to the speaker, who
resumed his harangue, as though never interrupted. Policeman Brager had not
moved, had not even looked in the direction of his superior officer. He alone
of all those there had not turned at Caquer's challenge.
Lieutenant Caquer hurried on in
the direction he had been going when he had heard the speaker. That way would
take him back downtown. He would find a place open where he could use a
visiphone, and call the Sector Coordinator. This was an emergency.
And surely the scope of whoever
had the Vargas Wheel had not yet extended beyond the boundaries of Sector
Three.
He found an all-night
restaurant, open but deserted, the lights on but no waiters on duty, no cashier
behind the counter. He stepped into the visiphone booth and pushed the button
for a long-distance operator. She flashed into sight on the screen almost at
once.
"Sector Coordinator,
Callisto City," Caquer said. "And rush it."
"Sorry, sir. Out of town
service suspended by order of the controller of Utilities, for the
duration." "Duration of what?"
"We are not permitted to
give out information."
Caquer gritted his teeth. Well,
there was
one
someone who might be able to help him. He forced his voice
to remain calm.
"Give me Professor Gordon,
University Apartments," he told the operator.
"
Yes, sir."
But the screen stayed dark,
although the little red button that indicated the buzzer was operating flashed
on and off, for minutes.
"There is no answer,
sir."
Probably Gordon and his daughter
were asleep, too soundly asleep to hear the buzzer. For a moment, Caquer
considered rushing over there. But it was on the other side of town, and of
what help could they be? None, and Professor Gordon was a frail old man, and
ill.
No, he would have to-Again he
pushed a button of the visiphone and a moment later was talking to the man in
charge of the ship hangar.
"Get out that little speed
job of the Police Department,
"
snapped Caquer.
"
Have
it ready and I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Sorry, Lieutenant,"
came the curt reply. "All outgoing power beams shut off, by special
order. Everything
'
s grounded for the emergency."
He might have known it, Caquer
thought. But what about the special investigator coming in from the Coordinator
'
s
office? "Are incoming ships still permitted to land?
"
he
inquired.
"
Permitted to
land, but not to leave again without special order," answered the voice.
"
Thanks,
"
Caquer said. He clicked off the screen and went out into the dawn, outside.
There was a chance, then. The special investigator might be able to help.
But he, Rod Caquer would have to
intercept him, tell him the story and its implications before he could fall,
with the others, under the influence of the Vargas Wheel. Caquer strode rapidly
toward the terminal. Maybe it was too late. Maybe his ship had already landed
and the damage had been done.