Waldo

Waldo felt a normal impulse to cut the man off, but it was overruled by a fascination as to what he would say next. Rambeau continued, ‘Do you know why? Do you? Riddle me that.

‘Why?

Rambeau placed a finger beside his nose and smiled roguishly. ‘Wouldn't you like to know? Wouldn't you give a pretty to know? But I'll tell you!

‘Tell me, then.

Rambeau suddenly looked terrified. ‘Perhaps I shouldn't. Perhaps they are listening. But I will, I will! Listen carefully: Nothing is certain

‘Is that all?' inquired Waldo, now definitely amused by the man's antics

‘"Is that all?" Isn't that enough? Hens will crow and cocks will lay. You are here and I am there. Or maybe not. Nothing is certain. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING is certain! Around and around the little ball goes, and where it stops nobody knows. Only I've learned how to do it.

‘How to do what?

‘How to make the little ball stop where I want it to. Look.' He whipped out a penknife. ‘When you cut yourself, you bleed, don't you? Or do you?' He sliced at the forefinger of his left hand. ‘See?' He held the finger close to the pickup; the cut though deep, was barely discernible and it was bleeding not at all

Capital! thought Waldo. Hysteric vascular control - a perfect clinical case. ‘Anybody can do that,' he said aloud. ‘Show me a hard one.

‘Anybody? Certainly anybody can - if they know how. Try this one.' He jabbed the point of the penknife straight into the palm of his left hand, so that it stuck out the back of his hand. He wiggled the blade in the wound, withdrew it, and displayed the palm. No blood, and the incision was closing rapidly. ‘Do you know why? The knife is only probably there, and I've found the improbability!

Amusing as it had been, Waldo was beginning to be bored by it. ‘Is that all?

‘There is no end to it,' pronounced Rambeau, ‘for nothing is certain any more. Watch this.' He held the knife flat on his palm, then turned his hand over

The knife did not fall, but remained in contact with the underside of his hand

Waldo was suddenly attentive. It might be a trick; it probably was a trick - but it impressed him more, much more, than Rambeau's failure to bleed when cut. One was common to certain types of psychosis; the other should not have happened. He cut in another vicwphonc circuit. ‘Get me Chief Engineer Stevens at North American Power-Air,' he said sharply. ‘At once!

Rambeau paid no attention, but continued to speak of the penknife. ‘It does not know which way is down,' he crooned, ‘for nothing is certain any more. Maybe it will fall - maybe not. I think it will. There - it has. Would you like to see me walk on the ceiling?

‘You called me, Mr Jones?' It was Stevens

Waldo cut his audio circuit to Rambeau. ‘Yes. That jumping jack, Rambeau. Catch him and bring him to me at once. I want to see him.

‘But Mr Jo-

‘Move!' He cut Stevens off, and renewed the audio to Rambeau

‘-uncertainty. Chaos is King, and Magic is loose in the world!' Rambeau looked vaguely at Waldo, brightened, and added, ‘Good day, Mr Jones. Thank you for calling.

The screen went dead

Waldo waited impatiently. The whole thing had been a hoax, he told himself. Rambeau had played a gigantic practical joke. Waldo disliked practical jokes. He put in another call for Stevens and left it in

When Stevens did call back his hair was mussed and his face was red. ‘We had a bad time of it,' he said

‘Did you get him?

‘Rambeau? Yes, finally.

‘Then bring him up.

‘To Freehold? But that's impossible. You don't understand. He's blown his top; he's crazy. They've taken him away to a hospital.

‘You assume too much,' Waldo said icily. ‘I know he's crazy, but I meant what I said. Arrange it. Provide nurses. Sign affidavits. Use bribery. Bring him to me at once. It is necessary.~ ‘You really mean that?

‘I'm not in the habit of jesting.

‘Something to do with your investigations? He's in no shape to be useful to you, I can tell you that.

‘That,' pronounced Waldo, ‘is for me to decide.

‘Well,' said Stevens doubtfully, ‘I'll try.

‘See that you succeed.

Stevens called back thirty minutes later. ‘I can't bring Rambeau.

‘You clumsy incompetent.

Stevens turned red, but held his temper. ‘Never mind the personalities. He's gone. He never got to the hospital.

‘What?

‘That's the crazy part about it. They took him away in a confining stretcher, laced up like a corset. I saw them fasten him in myself. But when they got there he was gone. And the attendants claim the straps weren't even unbuckled.

Waldo started to say, ‘Preposterous,' thought better of it. Stevens went on

‘But that's not the half of it. I'd sure like to talk to him myself. I've been looking around his lab. You know that set of deKalbs that went nuts -. the ones that were hexed?

‘I know to what you refer.

‘Rambeau's got a second set to do the same thing!' Waldo remained silent for several seconds, then said quietly, ‘Dr Stevens-

‘Yes.

‘I want to thank you for your efforts. And will you please have both sets of receptors, the two sets that are misbehaving, sent to Freehold at once?

There was no doubt about it. Once he had seen them with his own eyes, watched the inexplicable squirming of the antennae, applied such tests as suggested themselves to his mind, Waldo was forced to conclude that he was faced with new phenomena, phenomena for which he did not know the rules

If there were rules

For he was honest with himself. If he saw what he thought he saw, then rules were being broken by the new phenomena, rules which he had considered valid, rules to which he had never previously encountered exceptions. He admitted to himself that the original failures of the deKalbs should have been considered just as overwhelmingly upsetting to physical law as the unique behaviour of these two; the difference lay in that one alien phenomenon was spectacular, the other was not

Quite evidently Dr Rambeau had found it so; he had been informed that the doctor had been increasingly neurotic from the first instance of erratic performance of the deKalb receptors

He regretted the loss of Dr Rambeau. Waldo was more impressed by Rambeau crazy than he had ever been by Rambeau sane. Apparently the man had had some modicum of ability after all; he had found out something - more, Waldo admitted, than he himself had been able to find out so far, even though it had driven Rambeau insane

Waldo had no fear that Rambeau's experience, whatever it had been, could unhinge his own reason. His own self-confidence was, perhaps, fully justified. His own mild paranoid tendency was just sufficient to give him defences against an unfriendly world. For him it was healthy, a necessary adjustment to an otherwise intolerable situation, no more pathological than a callous, or an acquired immunity

Otherwise he was probably more able to face disturbing facts with equanimity than ninety-nine per cent of his contemporaries. He had been born to disaster; he had met it and had overcome it, time and again. The very house which surrounded him was testimony to the calm and fearless fashion in which he had defeated a world to which he was not adapted

He exhausted, temporarily, the obvious lines of direct research concerning the strangely twisting metal rods. Rambeau was not available for questioning. Very well, there remained one other man who knew more about it than Waldo did. He would seek him out. He called Stevens again

‘Has there been any word of Dr Rambeau?

‘No word, and no sign. I'm beginning to think the poor old fellow is dead.

‘Perhaps. That witch doctor friend of your assistant - was Schneider his name?