No wonder the general froze up, thought Ralph. “It’s impossible,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s impossible.” Spencer gripped the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “You’re the only one who can even try. Only a former watcher can be inserted into the dreamfield. There’s not enough time to prepare anybody who hasn’t been one—and you know we can’t use any of the other watchers, even if, we could convince one to go. They’re useless for daily living, let alone something like this. Face it. You’re the only one.”
Two images rose in his’ mind. Sarah, and—incongruously—the grinning dog named Rin-Tin-Tin. At least he tried, thought Ralph. Or something like that. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”
Chapter 16
“It looks like a rifle.” Ralph hoisted the thing in his hands.
Spencer nodded. “I think they did take the stock from an army carbine. Just to make it a convenient shape to hold and aim.”
The sports-jacketed Beta group technician who had brought the device in a padded cloth bag now glanced nervously at the desk. The general was sipping at a paper cup of water held in a trembling hand. “Is everything all right?” he said. “Has Shadrach here been briefed?”
“Metric,” corrected Spencer absently. He was studying the gunlike device intently. “Show him how to work this thing.”
“Really very simple.” The technician tapped at it with a pencil. The whatsit—you know, the detonator for the psychic bomb—is really a concentrated energy source in itself. Kind of a small bomb to set off the larger bomb. We haven’t been able to figure out yet how the detonator is controlled, except that it’s set off by a relatively small energy pulse. This gun will emit such a pulse—three of them, in fact, so you’ll have that many chances. Get within fifty feet of the detonator, aim the device just like a normal gun, and pull the trigger. That’s all there is to it.
“Except—see these two dials here?” The pencil tapped at two small gauges facing upwards at the gun’s middle. “The one on the left will indicate at what level between the dreamfield and this universe the detonator actually is. We can’t determine this beforehand because the detonator apparently can be transposed independently of the dreamfield and the psychic bomb—probably as a safety measure until the moment of detonation. You must, before firing the pulse at the detonator, adjust the dial on the right—see the little knob here on the side?—to match the reading of the other dial. That will set the pulse at the same level between the field and this universe as the detonator occupies. The pulse has such a narrow ‘reality bandwidth’ that it will miss the detonator entirely if they’re not exactly in the same plane.”
“So what you have to do,” said Spencer, “is find the slithergadee, get within fifty feet, read the dial on the left, set the one on the right to match it, aim and fire. Got it?”
Ralph nodded. All the moisture from his mouth seemed to have travelled to his hands. “What’s this other stuff here?”
“This clips onto your belt,” said the technician, attaching a small rectangular box to Ralph. “It’s just a battery for the gun. Then this cable runs from it and plugs into the stock. Like that. Now you’re all set.”
He cradled the gun in his hands and headed for the door.
“Good luck,” rattled the general’s voice behind him.
On the way to the line shack, with Ralph in the center of the small procession and bearing the gun like some new totem, they passed close to one of the army trucks. He peered into its open back, then halted suddenly on the path. The truck was filled with former watchers, sitting quietly on narrow wooden benches that ran the length of the vehicle. A few had fallen asleep, heads and shoulders slumped against each other, but most wore the vacant, glazed expression of people trying to notice as little as possible of whatever unpleasant experience they were undergoing.
“Come on.” Spencer pulled at Ralph’s elbow. “Don’t waste the little time you got.”
“Just a minute,” said Ralph. He had spotted the two watchers he had been seeking, sitting side by side in the middle of the group. “Hey, Goodell! Kathy!”
The two leaned forward from the bench and looked down the ranks of knees at him, framed in the truck’s rear opening. “Ralph,” said Goodell, smiling weakly. “What are you doing out there?”
“It’s too complicated to explain now.”
“Well,” said Goodell wistfully, “isn’t this something? I guess every good arrangement has to come to an end sometime.”
Beside him, Kathy suddenly jerked upright, as if jolted from sleep. Even her face tensed, the usual slack lines tautening from within. “Is that all you can say?” she shouted at Goodell. “They round us up and cram us into these smelly trucks and all you can say is your crummy good job is over? Is that all?” She swung and connected her small fist with Goodell’s ear. She was still shouting something as Ralph let himself be led away.
“There’s hope for us all,” he muttered, using up the last of his capacity for amazement. Spencer and the Beta technician didn’t seem to hear him.
They passed the saluting guard at the entrance of the line shack and hurried into its cavernous interior. Another technician was up in the control booth, looking around the little glass-enclosed area and comparing it with a booklet he held.
“Hey!” Spencer shouted up at the booth. “Are we ready to go?”
Somehow he had expanded to fill the hole left in the Beta organization by the general’s collapse. Perhaps he had been born to. He turned to Ralph.
“All right, then. Grab a strap.”
Without stopping to think, Ralph stepped into the middle of the space and with his free hand caught one of the loops dangling from the suspended cable. With a shock of recognition, he felt the familiar coldness of the metal contact against his palm.
Spencer turned and raised his hand to signal the control booth, then lowered it. He walked quickly up to Ralph while digging something out of his pocket. Onto Ralph’s arm he buckled something that looked like a wristwatch. “I almost forgot,” he said. “This will tell you how much time you’ve got. When the needle enters the red zone, it’ll be too late—the psychic energy level will have reached the detonation range. If that happens, you’ll probably be consumed by the explosion in a few seconds. So don’t try to cut it thin. Find the slithergadee and set it off as soon as you can.” Spencer started to back away.
“Hey,” said Ralph. “What happens to me when I trigger the detonator? Will I make it back here?”
“We don’t know.” Spencer turned and gestured sharply to the control booth. “We’ll try to get you back—”
There was no time for any more words. The shack faded away and in seconds he was on the dreamfield, the line snaking upwards out of his grasp.
He dropped to his knees, gasping. The dreamfield’s sky had turned yellow, writhing with figures at the edge of perception. A cold wind stiffened the air, though the ground seemed to be shimmering with heat.
The force that had stricken Ralph on his arrival passed, although his stomach remained coiled with nausea. He pushed himself upright with his free hand.
The field’s remembered streets and buildings stretched out in all directions, the mirror images endlessly repeating themselves. All the shadows were burnt away by the yellow light, except one that lay like a dark cross on the streets. That shadow was cast by Muehlenfeldt’s jet, crowded in among the buildings, its enormous wings over their roofs, the cylinders of its engines reflected in the plate glass windows—some silver bird of prey frozen amidst a deserted ant heap.