The Ninth Configuration (10 page)

Outside, the staff car came to a halt by the mansion entrance. Cutshaw emerged from the driver’s side and opened the door for Kane. He said softly, “We’re here, sir.”

Kane was staring ahead through the windshield. He did not move. Cutshaw put his head inside the car and for a moment he glanced at the gash below Kane’s cheekbone. Then he looked up at the colonel’s eyes. They were fixed on some infinite pain in the distance. “We’re here, sir,” he said again. Kane turned his head and looked at Cutshaw, numb, unseeing; then he climbed out of the car slowly and woodenly and walked into the mansion. Groper held the door open for him. He glanced at Kane’s uniform. It was torn and covered with stains. “I see you found him okay, sir,” the adjutant said in what he hoped was a normal tone. Kane walked by him without a word, and took no notice of his brother standing in the clinic doorway. He moved toward the stairs like a man in trance. The psychiatrist saw Cutshaw standing next to him, watching as Kane walked up the stairs and then into his bedroom, where he closed the door. Cutshaw turned and met the psychiatrist’s shattered gaze. “It’s time you understood a few things,” said Hudson Kane. “Come in.” He motioned with his head toward the clinic, then stepped back and made room for Cutshaw to enter. He followed him inside, closed the door, and told him everything.

Cutshaw was stunned. A heaviness fell upon his heart with the weight of a sudden loss of grace.

“You can help him,” the psychiatrist said.

Cutshaw nodded. His face was drained of color. He left the clinic, ascended the stairs and knocked on the door of Kane’s bedroom. There was no answer. He knocked again. He thought he heard a voice from within. It was indistinct. He turned the doorknob and entered. Kane was sitting in a chair near an open window, a khaki-colored blanket drawn up to his chest. He was staring into nothingness. Cutshaw closed the door quietly. Kane did not move. Cutshaw said, “Colonel?”

There was no response.

Cutshaw moved closer. “Colonel Kane, sir?”

“I would like my cocoa now,” said Kane. Again he fell silent for a time.

Cutshaw waited, disturbed. Then Kane said, “I’m cold.”

Cutshaw walked to the window and closed it. Cardboard had been taped over the broken pane. He looked out. The rain had stopped at last and the stars were bright.

“Where’s Gilman?” he heard Kane ask him. He turned. Kane was looking at him, a puzzled look in his eyes.

“He’s downstairs, sir.”

“Is he all right?”

“Yes, sir. He’s fine.”

Cutshaw’s eyes began to well up. He turned away and faced the window.

“Cutshaw.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why won’t you go to the moon?”

“Because I’m afraid,” Cutshaw answered simply.

“Afraid?”

“That’s right, sir.” Cutshaw fought to control the quaver in his voice. He looked up at the sky. “See the stars? So cold? So far away? And so very lonely-oh, so lonely. All that space, just empty space and so … far away from home.” Tears flooded down the astronaut’s cheeks. “I’ve circled round and round this house,” he said huskily, “orbit after orbit. And sometimes I’d wonder what it might be like just never to stop; just to circle alone up there … forever.” Reflected starlight broke against the wetness in Cutshaw’s eyes as the halting words sought their way from his soul. “And then what if I got there-got to the moon-and then couldn’t get back? I know everyone dies; but I’m afraid to die alone-so far from home. And if God’s not alive, that’s really-really alone.”

A police siren wailed. Cutshaw looked through the window and saw a flashing red light floating down the road. It stopped at the sentry gate like a beacon to warn away hope.

“Not … much time,” said Kane. His voice was anxious; labored. “Time.

No more time. But I’ll show you … God … exists.”

“Yes, that’s right, sir.” The patrol car was coming toward the mansion.

“And the others,” said Kane, his eyes shining. “Maybe help. Try to cure … try to cure them. I don’t know. No other way now. Time. No more time. Had to try … try … shock treatment.”

Cutshaw did not move. Then he slowly turned for a silent, scrutinizing look at Kane. He asked, “What was that, sir?”

“Tired.” Kane rested his head against the wing of the chair.

“Tired,” he repeated. He closed his eyes and in a soft, sleepy voice murmured, “One … example.” And said no more.

Cutshaw kept staring at him. “What, sir?”

Kane remained silent. Cutshaw watched him for a time, then walked to the chair. Kane seemed to be asleep.

Cutshaw caught a gleam of something at his neck. He leaned over to examine it more closely and stifled a sob. Kane was wearing Cutshaw’s medal.

The astronaut hurried from the room, afraid of awakening Kane with his crying. Soon after he had gone, a knife slipped out from underneath the folds of the khaki blanket and thudded to the blood-soaked section of rug beneath the chair. Dark-red blood continued to drip from a corner of the blanket.

Cutshaw walked to the landing. He looked down. Some of the inmates had awakened. They had come out of the dormitory into the hall and were murmuring, huddling in robes and pajamas. Two highway patrolmen came through the door and stood talking quietly to Groper. The adjutant looked grim and he shook his head; then, reluctantly, he led them into the clinic. Cutshaw watched as the clinic door closed. He sat down at the top of the landing. Something was wrong. What was it? Something. He glanced at the door to Kane’s bedroom, frowning. When he turned back, he looked down at his feet and for a moment the substance on his shoe did not register. Then he reached down a finger and touched it. And was suddenly horrified: it was blood. “Oh, my God!” He leaped up and ran back into Kane’s room.

Groper, Christian, Krebs and Hudson Kane stood together in the clinic across from the patrolmen. “Where is he?” the taller patrolman demanded.

“I can’t let you have him,” Kane said crisply. “I’m sorry.”

“Come on, Colonel.”

“You admitted yourself he was provoked.”

“That’s right, but—”

“No, goddammit! He stays!”

The patrolman was weary. “Look, we’re taking him in, sir. Sorry. But we are. And if you won’t produce him, we’ll find him ourselves.” He looked at his partner. “Come on, let’s go, Frank,” he said; and together they started for the door.

The psychiatrist threw his back against the door. “Listen, figure the odds,” he told them coldly. “Every man in this room is a karate expert.”

For a fleeting moment, Krebs looked surprised.

“Go ahead,” Hudson Kane challenged the patrolmen. “You try to take him. And here’s tomorrow morning’s headline: ‘Highway Patrol Guns Down Marines!’ And just a little warning if you try me, boys: you’d better shoot to kill!”

For a moment the patrolmen looked uncertain. The taller one moved toward Kane, stopped abruptly and stared at his partner, then went to the telephone on the desk with a soft, inarticulate expression of disgust. Irritably he jerked the receiver off its cradle, then glared at Kane.

“Can I use your phone?” he growled.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

The patrolman had a change of mind. He hung up the phone. “Can we talk to the other one?” he asked.

“You mean Cutshaw?”

“Yeah; just let us talk to him.”

“You promise no funny stuff?”

“No, sir, no funny stuff,” the patrolman said somberly. “Nothing too funny about quadruple homicide.”

As the group walked out of the clinic, curious inmates pressed in around them.

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Bennish.

“Why the cops?” asked Fairbanks.

“It’s Fell,” said Reno archly. “Five hundred parking tickets outstanding.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” the psychiatrist told them. “Nothing. There’s been a mistake. Now, where’s Cutshaw?” he asked. “Have you seen him?” No one had. “Krebs, check in the dorm,” he ordered. “And Christian, see if he’s up there with—”

“Jesus!” Groper exclaimed. He was staring up over the psychiatrist’s shoulder. Hudson Kane turned to follow his gaze and the suddenness of loss took away his breath. Cutshaw was walking out of the bedroom carrying Vincent Kane in his arms. Silent tears poured down his face. He stopped at the balustrade. “He’s dead,” he wept. “He’s killed himself.” His drowning eyes looked down and embraced the face of the man in his arms. He shook his head. “He gave up his life.”

The pine and spruce trees ringing the mansion flashed with the dappled wings of birds that caught the rays of the April sunset. A Marine Corps staff car entered the deserted courtyard and came to a halt in front of the building. A corporal emerged briskly from the driver’s side and opened the door for his passenger. Cutshaw got out of the car. He wore Marine dress blues and the leaves of a major. It was almost three years after Kane’s death.

Cutshaw breathed deeply and then looked around. The air was sweet. When he glanced at the courtyard a tenderness warmed his face and memories flooded him, whispering voices, echoing, fading. For a moment he closed his eyes. “Simon says … Simon says …” The corporal watched him, wondering, puzzled, as Cutshaw shook his head, with a rueful little smile. Then he opened his eyes and gently instructed the corporal, “Wait here.” Cutshaw walked up to the mansion’s front door. He found it locked. The corporal watched him walking around and testing windows. One was open and Cutshaw climbed inside, disappearing from view.

Within a month of Kane’s death, the center had been deactivated.

Twelve of the inmates were reassigned to other hospitals and clinics as Project Freud was pronounced abandoned; but the rest of those at Center Eighteen seemed suddenly restored to relative normality. As to whether they had simply put aside pretense, or indeed been jolted back to health by the shock of Kane’s death, no one cared to speculate, not even Hudson Kane, who suspected that the Hamlet theory of their illness was probably correct. Yet with one exception-Cutshaw-the psychiatrist wrote up reports that certified each of the men who had returned to normal functioning as “hopelessly incapacitated for future military service” and recommended their general discharge “with honor.” He would not have these men sent back into combat. For Vincent’s sake.

Cutshaw looked around at the vacant main hall. It had not been restored. Great holes still gaped in the plaster walls, and the ceiling was just as Gomez had left it. A warm, sad smile came to Cutshaw’s face. When he looked at the stairs winding up to the landing, his eyes grew melancholy and grave. For several moments he did not move; then he walked to the stairs and climbed slowly to the second floor. At the landing he hesitated, then continued to Kane’s bedroom door and stopped. He removed his cap and for a time stood silently in front of the door, his head bowed. Then a sudden impulse urged him to knock. And he did, very softly and gently, four times. He opened the door and stepped into the room. He stood just beyond the doorway for a moment, remembering, feeling, drinking in. His gaze caught the window and he walked to the place where the chair had been. He looked down for the stain from the puddled blood that had flowed from the great, deep wound in Kane’s stomach. But he saw nothing there. A death had been covered with floor wax and buffed.

Cutshaw felt in his pocket for a crumpled envelope. He took it out. His name was written on the front. Groper had found it atop a bureau in the room on the morning after Kane’s death. The astronaut reached inside the envelope and removed the letter from Kane. He unfolded it gently. It was written on notebook paper; the thin blue lines had almost faded away. The astronaut wondered again at the firmness of the hand that had produced the bold, neat writing, the graceful script which had the flourish of an invitation to a wedding.

“To Captain Cutshaw,” the letter began. “I have given some thought to one of your problems, the one wherein you question why God does not end man’s honest confusion concerning what it is that He expects him to do, by simply appearing to him and telling him in an unequivocal way. What if a man in shining garments appeared tomorrow hovering in the air above a great city and declared to all that he was sent to us by God; and that as a credential of his claim he would perform any miracle that was asked of him? And suppose that he was asked to make the sun do figure eights in the sky for precisely twenty-six minutes, beginning at noon on the following day. And suppose that he accomplished that. Would we believe him? Well, I think that for a while all would believe, all those who saw what he had done. But after a week or so, I fear only those of good will would still believe; all the others would be talking of autosuggestion, mass hysteria, mass hypnosis, coincidence, unknown forces and the like.

It is not what we see in the sky that helps; it is what is in the heart:

a right hope, a good will. I hope this helps you,” the letter read. Then it went on in an everyday tone: “I am taking my life in the hope that my death may provide a shock that has curative value. In any case, you now have your one example. If ever I have injured you, I am sorry. I have been fond of you. I know someday I will see you again.”

He had signed the letter, “Vincent Kane.”

Cutshaw looked up and out the window. A russet glow had set fire to the sky and bathed the wood in lambent glory. Cutshaw stared with awe and wonder.

Cutshaw was on his way to the mansion’s front entrance when his eye caught the door to Kane’s old office. For a moment he hesitated; then he walked to the office, put his hand on the knob and threw the door open with such force that it banged against the wall and shook down plaster from the ceiling. He stared at where the desk had been and said softly, “May I go?”

The corporal was leaning against the car when he heard the crash from within the mansion. He leaped to alertness. Cutshaw walked out the front door and closed it behind him. He came to the car and then turned for one last look. The corporal followed his stare. “Sure heard some stories about this place, sir,” he said.

“Some psychiatrist they had here
—
a killer.”

Cutshaw looked into the man’s eyes and said, “He was a lamb.”

He got into the car. As they passed the old sentry gate, the corporal cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind talking about it, sir …” he began. “I guess everyone asks you this….”

Cutshaw met his gaze in the rear-view mirror. “What?” he prompted gently.

“Well, what’s it really like being up there on the moon, sir? I mean, how does it feel?”

For a moment Cutshaw did not answer. Then he glanced out the side window and smiled. “That depends on who’s with you,” he said. Then he sighed, removed his cap, put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He was soon asleep.