[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.She looked around, strangely hesitant, took a long knife from the wall rack and began to cut the cake into thin slices, working with painstaking care.“I don’t understand that part,” she said, in something like her normal tones.“What would be the point of all that mind-control and manipulation?”“Life or death—it’s as simple as that.Our visitor is being hunted by another member of its own race, a killer with a spectrum of senses you and I can’t even visualize, and it had to lie low.For a human fugitive that could mean not moving or making a sound; for the monster we’re talking about it meant not using many of its natural abilities.The problem was that it couldn’t survive without those abilities, so what did it do? How did it get out of the dilemma?”Leila paused in her meticulous slicing of the cake.“By using substitutes.”“Exactly right,” Redpath said, encouraged.For minutes he had been listening to his own voice with growing dismay and wondering if any person who had not been directly involved could ever believe a story of such extravagance.He had set out to soothe and coax Leila into acceptance, then it had seemed to him that his calmness was defeating its own purpose, that it would have been right and appropriate for him to give way to his dread, to howl out to all the world his foreknowledge of the fact that the megadeaths were coming and there was very little time in which to do anything about it.Leila, however, was responding better than he had at first anticipated, and it appeared he was getting his message across to her.“Exactly right,” he repeated.“That’s what the people in that house really are—substitutes, standins, prosthetics.That’s the common factor I was looking for.You can see how they all work together, each one serving in his or her own way and allowing the…the puppet master to remain in hiding.The hunter has no interest in human beings and our activities, even our rare paranormal activities, apparently don’t register with it.And that other thing has been living under the house in Raby Street for years, decades, using human beings the way we use pack animals and discarding them when they become useless.” “Without anybody noticing?”“It tries hard to be inconspicuous—and it’s done a bloody good job over the years considering that we’re as alien to it as it is to us.The concept of the family unit must be completely foreign to it, but it tries to present the outside world with the right sort of picture.They have a singsong in the front parlour every night, and everybody smiles and looks happy, and Miss Connie knits the way an old lady is supposed to, but she doesn’t knit anything in particular.She just knits.I had one night of that, Leila, but the others have been going through it for years, night after night after night…”Redpath paused, momentarily distracted.“Did you ever think of hell as a shabby old room, with rexine armchairs and luncheon meat sandwiches, where you’re not allowed to scream in case you disturb the neighbours?”Leila toyed thoughtfully with the knife.“It’s hard to credit that a group of people could be held and controlled that way against their wills.”“But it’s true, Leila—though I’ve a feeling it isn’t an entirely straightforward or consistent effect.I think you have to get within close range of the beast in the early stages.That’s why Betty York was sent out to bring me to the house any way she could.If you ask me, Albert is the only one who might be awkward at times.I’m nearly sure he…what do they call it in that kids’ TV show?…‘jaunts’ over to the States every now and then just to buy American cigarettes.Possibly he would be the hardest one to control because of the way he can flit about.There’s that business of whipping me off to the house in Gilpinston with him—I’ll bet you that was a nasty little trick of his own.He wanted to…”Redpath hesitated again, frowning.“You were right about the bodies in the bathtub, Leila.That wasn’t in the nightmare, was it? It must have really happened, but why would anybody want to peel dead bodies? There must be something I don’t…” He stopped speaking as a familiar but loathsome sensation manifested itself behind his eyes.There was a slithering coldness in his brain.Inside his head was a worm, a giant worm which had begun to coil and uncoil.“There’s something I still don’t understand.” Leila turned to face him, still casually holding the long knife.“If you were in that house, fully under the thing’s control, how did you break free?”Redpath pressed both hands to his temples and gave her a numb, lop-sided smile.“Can’t you guess? I thought that part was obvious.” He swayed slightly as the disturbance in his mind intensified, and when he spoke again his voice was pitched unnaturally high.“I’ve been wasting time…thought I was safe…I’m needed, you see…it needs me to give warning—just before the bomb comes…the Thrice-born is going to bomb the ship, and he’ll use a big bomb, an area weapon…there’ll be no more England, Leila…perhaps no more Europe…”He made a shuddering intake of breath, staring at Leila as though seeing her for the first time, and fought to control the spasmodic twitching which had developed in the muscles around his mouth.“Here’s what you’ve got to do, Leila.That house in Gilpinston is the bolt-hole, and that’s why it’s so far away.Seconds before the bomb explodes…just before the big bang…the thing, the puppet master, will be taken there by Albert.After the bomb explodes there’ll be complete silence.Scry-silence, I mean.The Thrice-born will wait for a time, listening, but there’ll be complete silence, and he’ll go away again, satisfied.“I’ll probably be dead, too—because the puppet master won’t take the risk of my somehow revealing it’s still alive, but you can prevent all that.You and I working together can prevent all that—by killing the puppet master before the bomb is dropped.The Thrice-born will know what has happened.He’ll scry-sense it and he won’t drop the bomb.At least, I don’t think he will.You’ll help me, won’t you, Leila? Say you’ll help me, for Christ’s sake!”Redpath lurched forward and grabbed Leila by the shoulders, crooking his fingers deep into the soft flesh.She flinched and her lips moved silently as she thrust the knife into him.The pain was a shocking, sickening admixture of every other pain he had known.Retaining his grip on Leila’s shoulders, he looked down at the knife.It had gone through his shirt and penetrated some distance into the gathering of subcutaneous fat just above his belt, but the thrust had been checked at that point.Leila, still gripping the handle of the knife, was locked in a trembling rigidity.“You didn’t mean to do that,” he said gently, almost benignly, taking the blade from her and drawing it clear of his own body.“I frightened you, and you reacted out of fear, and we’re not going to let a minor incident like that affect our plans, are we?”“No, John.” Leila’s voice was virtually inaudible and tears glistened on her cheeks
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]