Wine of the Dreamers (3 page)

She frowned. “You quarrel with that?”

“Not at all. But the neat little tests assume that this stability is a permanent state.”

“They do not! The tests and the whole theory admit that in the face of unexpected strain, even the most stable, the most adjusted, can become psychoneurotic in one way or another. My goodness, that’s why I’m employed out there. It’s my job to detect the presence of any change in the face of strain and …”

“Now you’re stating my point. I say that one of your basic assumptions is that there has to be an environmental change to create the strain which results in an alteration of this basic quotient of stability. I say that the assumption is too hasty. I say that there is something further to study. I think the shift from stability to instability can come in the twinkling of an eye and come without reference to any outside stimuli. Forget hereditary weaknesses. Forget the old business about escaping from a life that is unbearable. I say that you can take a perfectly adjusted guy, put him in a situation where his life is satisfying—and boom, he can go off like that. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. Why? Why does it happen? It happened to Bill Kornal. One minute he was okay. The next minute it was as though something … quite
alien
took over his mind. So now we’ve got him out in the car and there’s four month’s work lost.”

“Are we going to go back, Bard, to the old idea of being possessed by devils?”

“Maybe we should. How about the news we listened to? What keeps perpetually messing up mankind? Jokers who go off their rocker when they’ve got every reason not to. No, you people are doing a good, but a limited job. Floating around somewhere is an X factor that you haven’t found yet. Until you do I’m looking at psychology and psychiatry with a limited and dubious acceptance, Sharan.”

There was a whisper of sound. He searched the night sky until he saw, against the stars, the running lights of a jet transport, losing altitude for the Albuquerque landing, the six flame-tongues merged, by the altitude, into a thin orange line.

The breeze stirred her hair. She said slowly, “I should rise up in mighty wrath and smite you hip and thigh, boss. But a still small voice within me says there might be something in what you say. However, if I admit you might be right, I’m also admitting the impossibility of ever isolating this X factor. How can you find something that hits without warning and disappears the same way?”

“Possession by devils,” he said, grinning.

She stood up, slim against the light, more provocative to him in her complete, thoughtful, forgetfulness of self than if she had posed carefully.

“Then,” she said, “the devils are more active lately. Oh, I know that every generation that reaches middle age believes firmly that the world is going to hell. But this time, Bard, even at my tender years, I think they may have something. Our culture seems like a big machine that’s vibrating itself to bits. Parts keep flying off. Parts that are important. Decency, dignity, morality. We’ve all gone impulsive. Anything you want to do is all right, provided your urge is strong enough. It’s a … a …”

“Sociological anarchy?”

“Yes. And there, Mr. Lane, you have my motivation. Now you know why I’m so desperately anxious for you to succeed. I keep feeling that if mankind can find some new
horizons, there’ll be a return to a decent world. Quaint, aren’t I?”

They walked across the lot toward the car. He looked at the night sky, at the stars which seemed closer, more attainable here.

“Elusive devils, aren’t they?”

She caught his wrist as they walked, her nails biting into the flesh with quick strength. “They won’t stay elusive, Bard. They
won’t
.”

“Four years now, that I’ve had my little obsession, Sharan, and they seem as far away as ever.”

“You’ll never give up, Bard.”

“I wonder.”

They had reached the car. Through the rear window, open an inch, came the soft sound of Bill Kornal’s snores.

“It makes me feel ill to have you talk of giving up,” she said in a half-whisper.

He leaned over to put the key in the lock. His shoulder brushed hers.

Without quite knowing how it had happened, he found her in his arms. She stood tightly against him with upturned lips, and with a small, plaintive sound in her throat. He knew that he was bruising her mouth, and could not stop. He knew it was a forgetfulness, a little time stolen from the project, from the endless drain of effort and responsibility. He had expected to find in her all the warmth and passion of any healthy young adult. He was pleased that her intensity matched his own.

“This is no good,” she said.

She stood a little aside, her head bent. He knelt and swept his hand back and forth across the gravel until he found the keys. He straightened up.

“Sorry,” he said.

“We’re both tired, Bard. We’re both scared to death of what General Sachson might do. We were clinging to each other for … comfort. Let’s forget it.”

“Let’s not exactly forget it, Sharan. Let’s shelve it for future action.”

“Please,” she said sharply.

“All right, so I shouldn’t have said that.” He knew that his tone was a shade indignant.

He unlocked the door. She slid under the wheel and across to her side. He chunked the door shut and drove out in a long curve onto the highway, accelerated viciously up to cruising speed. He gave her a quick glance. She was staring straight ahead, her face expressionless in the reflected dash lights. A big jack bounded from the shoulder into the road, startling him. He felt the tiny thud in his wrists as the wheel hit it, heard her sharp intake of breath.

“Just say I was possessed by one of those devils,” he said.

“Probably we both were,” she said. He glanced again and saw her smile. She moved a bit closer to him. “Besides, Bard, I’m a prim kid, I guess.”

“Didn’t taste very prim.”

“That’s what I mean,” she said, enigmatically. “Now be good.”

The gray sedan droned through the night.

TWO

As the grayness in the east began to pale the conference room lighting, Bard and Sharan sat with the other three persons awaiting General Sachson.

Gray, shaggy Colonel Powys, Projects Coordinator, rolled a yellow octagonal pencil against the polished top of the conference table, pressing so hard with his palm that the pencil made an irritating clacking sound as it rolled. Major Leeber, Sachson’s aide, sleek and demurely pompous, nibbled at one edge of his moustache. The lean enlisted stenotype clerk turned a glass ashtray around and around and around.

Bard glanced over at Sharan. She gave him a wan smile. There were bluish shadows around her eyes.

“The general’s very upset about this,” Powys rumbled. His words dropped, like stones, into the pool of silence. There was an accusation behind his tone. The inference was that no one else was upset. Bard Lane restrained the impulse toward sarcasm.

The wall clock had a sweep second hand. Each time the hand made one full revolution, the minute hand jumped one notch with a tiny grating clack. Leeber yawned like a sated cat. He said, in a soft voice, “You’re quite young for all that responsibility, Dr. Inly.”

“Too young, Major?” Sharan asked politely.

“You’re putting words in my mouth, Doctor.”

“Major, I use that prefix for state occasions. I am Miss Inly.”

He smiled at her, sleepy-lidded.

As the sweep second hand touched the hour and the minute hand clacked, the door swung open and General Sachson came in, small blue eyes full of electric crackle, neat heels striking at the rug. He was of minimum stature for Army requirements, with a face like a dried butternut, a man of snap and spit and polish and a score of uniforms tailored by experts.

“Hen
shut!
” Powys brayed. Only Sharan remained seated.

Sachson rounded the corner of the table, flicked his eyes across them in the moment of silence and then sat down, indicating with a chopping gesture of a child’s thin brown hand that they should do the same.

“Meeting to order!” he snapped. “For God’s sake, Sergeant, get the names right this time.”

“Yes sir,” the sergeant said in an utterly uninflected voice.

“Report damage, Dr. Lane. And keep to the point.”

“Kornal broke down the door of the lab where the control panels were being assembled. He was alone in there for an estimated ten minutes. Adamson estimates that Kornal set us back four full months.”

“I assume,” Sachson said in a deceptively mild tone, “that the door was not considered sufficiently important to be guarded.”

“There were two guards. Kornal knocked them down with a piece of pipe. One is all right. The other is in danger. A depressed skull fracture.”

“The military, Dr. Lane, has discovered that the use of a password is not exactly a childish device.”

“Kornal was privileged to secure a pass at any time to enter that lab. He was working long hours.”

Sachson let the silence grow. The sergeant sat with his waiting fingers poised on the stenotype keys. The blue eyes swung slowly around to Sharan Inly.

“As I understand the theory of your work, Dr. Inly, it is your responsibility to anticipate any mental or emotional breakdown, is it not?” Sachson asked. His tone was replete with the mock gallantry which showed his distaste for the involvement of women in such projects as the one at hand.

Bard Lane saw Sharan’s pallor increase a bit. “As William Kornal had access to all portions of the project area, General, it is self-evident that he was a double A risk on a psychological basis.”

Sachson’s smile was thin-lipped. “Possibly I am stupid, Dr. Inly. I don’t find things to be as ‘self-evident’ as you seem to think they are.”

“He was given a routine check three days ago, General.”

“Possibly the error, Dr. Inly, is in applying so-called routine methods to special cases. Just what is a routine check?”

“A hypnotic is administered and the employee is asked a series of questions about his work. His answers are compared with the answers he gave on all previous checks. If there is any deviation—any deviation whatsoever—then the more exhaustive special investigation is instigated.”

“You can prove, of course, that Kornal was actually given this routine check?”

Sharan blushed. “Am I to consider that a question, General?”

“Forgive me, Dr. Inly. I am a very blunt man. I have seen post-dated reports before. It merely occurred to me that—–”

“I can back up Dr. Inly on that, if you feel she needs proof,” Bard said in a harsh voice.

The blue eyes flicked over toward Bard. “I prefer, Dr. Lane, to have my questions answered by the person to whom they are directed. It saves confusion in the records of the meeting.” He turned back to Sharan. “Why are not all the tests special rather than routine?”

“They could be, General, if my staff were tripled and if the persons to be tested were relieved of all project duty for a three-day period.”

“That would build up quite an empire for you, Dr. Inly.”

Sharan’s eyes narrowed. “General, I am perfectly willing to answer your questions. I realize that somehow I should have anticipated Kornal’s violent aberration. I do not know how I could have, but I know I should have. I accept that blame. But I do not have to accept innuendos regarding any possible dishonesty on my part, or any desire on my part to make myself more important.”

“Strike that out of the record, Sergeant,” Sachson snapped.

“I would prefer to have it remain in the record,” she said quietly.

Sachson looked down at his small brown hands. He sighed. “If you feel that the record of this meeting is inadequate, you are privileged to write a letter to be attached to all copies that go forward from this headquarters. So long as I conduct these meetings, I shall direct the preparation of the minutes. Is that quite clear?”

“Yes sir,” Powys said quickly, sitting at attention in his chair.

“Sergeant,” Sachson said. “Kindly stop tapping on that thing. This will be off the record. I wish to say that I have had a reasonably successful military career. It has
been successful because I have consistently avoided all those situations where I could have been given responsibility without authority. Now I am faced with just such a situation. For any ranking officer, it is a death trap. I do not like it. I cannot give you orders, Dr. Lane. I can only make suggestions. Each time you fall further behind schedule, it affects my record, my two-oh-one file, my military reputation. You civilians have no way of knowing what that means. You can switch bosses. Things are forgotten, or overlooked. I always answer to the same boss. There are always Siberias to which an officer can be sent.”

“Isn’t this project considerably more important than any one man’s reputation?” Bard asked, hearing Powys’ shocked in-suck of breath.

“That, Dr. Lane,” Sachson said, “is a pretty ethereal point of view. Let me tell you exactly what I think of Project Tempo. On all previous extraterrestrial projects, the armed forces have been in complete control. Civilian specialists have been employed on a civil service basis in a technical and advisory capacity. Our appropriations have been part of general military appropriations. And, I might add, those projects which I was privileged to command were all completed on or ahead of schedule.

“Now, Dr. Lane, you are in command, if I may use that word. You have the authority. I have the responsibility. It is a damnable situation. I know far too little of what is going on up in your hidden valley in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I know that a properly run guard detail, along military lines, would have prevented this … this accident. Now I am making this request of you. As soon as we start talking for the minutes again, you will ask me to detail Major Leeber to the project area in an advisory capacity. Major Leeber will report directly to me on all matters which, in his good judgment, may tend to endanger the promptness of completion of the contract.”

Bard Lane tensed at the threat hidden behind the words. “And if I object?”