“However, it is very important that you place the Nightshade in the intended’s room evenly and without wrinkles, stretching it out under the bed or somewhere else where it will escape observation. And . . . you must not re–enter the room once you have placed the Deadly Nightshade. Exposure begins once the sheet is spread.”
She shook it like a chenille bedspread and laid it out neatly, placing it very carefully under the bed, once again taking the precaution of laying out newsfax to avoid any later residue of unpleasantness on the floor. She tidied the bed, tucking nicely, the blankets as tight as those on the bunk of a United States Marine. She spread the Deadly Nightshade in a tight, wrinkle–free sheet.
She missed seeing the socks, somehow.
They were on the floor, just peeping out from under the bed, half- under the Deadly Nightshade.
She caught them out of the corner of her eye, just as she pulled the door to behind herself.
Carl’s filthy, filthy socks. A pang of hysteria went through her. He always left them where they fell. She could not understand how she had failed to see them when she had tidied that morning, nor more important, when she had stretched out the Deadly Nightshade. Perhaps the excitement of the night before, and the fervor of now.
She remembered the instructions clearly.
“ . . . you must not re–enter the room once you have placed the Deadly Nightshade. Exposure begins once the sheet is spread . . . ”
Well! She certainly wasn’t going to chance that.
As it was, she would have to invent a reason for coming to bed after he had retired. Perhaps the Midnight Movie on tri–V.
Nor was she going to foul it up as she had with the Animaux Tube. But just the same . . . those stinking socks.
On a level far deeper than any conscious urge to murder Carl, the training of a lifetime, the murmured words of her Mother, and the huge distaste of her Father for litter, sent her to the broom closet.
She re–opened the door, and yes . . . just by holding the broom tightly at the sucker–straws, by keeping her wrist flexed and tight to maintain rigid balanced control, she was able to snag the socks, one by one.
— and withdraw them.
— without entering the room.
— and close the door again.
Madge congratulated herself, once she had slung the stench–filled socks into the dispop. She busied herself in the kitchen, punching out a scrumptious frappé dessert for Carl’s dinner. His last dinner on this Earth. Or anywhere.
Not that he’d notice, the big boob, not that he’d notice.
Nor did she notice the great wrinkle in one end of the Deadly Nightshade. Caused by the prodding of the broom handle.
He was yawning, and it looked like the eroded south forty getting friendly.
“Jeezus, Madge honey, I nearly overslept. Whyn’tcha wake me? I’ll be late for my shift.”
She gawked, stricken. Twice!
“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it, honey. I was enjoyin’ the best sleep of my life, but this here bright, real bright streak of light was in my dreams, y’know? An’ I couldn’t rest easy, y’know. I kept squintin’ and tossin’ and finally hadda get up, cause I mean, Jeezus, it was painful. Piercin’, y’know? So I got up, an’ a lucky thing, too, or I’d’a missed my shift. Whyn’tcha wake me, huh?”
She mumbled a reply, her face hot and her hands constantly at her mouth; she had the urge to clamp down hard with her teeth, to keep from shrieking.
She continued to mumble, punched–out a hurried breakfast, and summarily ushered him off to his expressway.
Then she sank into a chair and had a good, deep cry.
Later, when she was certain she had control of herself, she got out the pamphlet again.
This time there was no mistaking the annoyance in the pamphlet’s voice.
“You failed again. I can tell from your emanations. Very seldom does anyone need two of the methods provided by our Kits . . . you are the first one in nearly eight thousand Kits that has needed all three. We hope you are proud of yourself.”
“His dirty socks,” she began, “I had to get them out. I just couldn’t stand the thought . . . ”
“I do not wish apologies. I want attention! The third method is very simple — even a dunce — ”
“There’s no need to get nasty about it!” she interrupted.
“ — even a dunce cannot fail with it,” the booklet plowed on ruthlessly. “Take out the last article contained in the Kit. The heart–globe. Do not agitate it as it is a sympathetic stimulator of the heartbeat — ”
Then the sound came to Madge, and the knowledge that someone was near. Listening. She flipped the pamphlet closed, but it was too late.
Much too late.
Carl stood at the door. He showed his decaying teeth in a brown smile without humor. “I came back,” he said. “Felt so damn tired ’n beat I just couldn’t go to work . . . ”
She fluttered a little. She could feel the tiny muscles jumping all through her body. Muscles she had never known she had.
“So that’s what’s been goin’ on, huh Madge? I shoulda guessed you’d get up the guts one day soon. I’ll haveta think back an’ see if I can figger out what this Kit included. It’ll be fun. My three was real wowzers, y’know.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending. Had he found her Kit, and had she not noticed?
“I rekcanize the pamphlet,” he explained with a wave of his meaty hand. “I sent for one of them things over three months ago.” His voice altered with incredible swiftness. Now casual and defacing, now harsh and bitter as sump water. “But how’n a hell could I of used it around someone like you . . . you’d of noticed the first lousy little trap that I’d’a set . . . you’d of vacuumed an’ swept an’ pried an’ found it.
“I know you’ve hated me — but Gawd A’mighty, how I’ve hated you! You straighten an’ pick an’ fuss till . . . ” he summed it all up, and ended it all, eleven years of it, “ . . . till a guy can’t even come home an’ enjoy a belch!”
He smiled again . . . this time with dirty mirth. “Your goddam floor’s gonna get filthy today, Madge.” He drew out the long, shiny knife. “Had one of the guys in Steel Molding make this for me . . . a real do–it–yourself.”
Then there was pain and a feeling of incompleteness and she saw the blood begin to drip on the rug that she had kept so immaculate. A great deal of blood, a sea of blood, so much blood.
Madge Rubichek had been a methodical woman . . .
So she could not check the dying statement that came bubbling to her lips:
“There’s . . . a . . . double . . . money . . . back . . . ”
His voice came from far away. “I know,” he said.
Simply put, an adventure. A fable of futurity. A pastiche of men in conflict, in another time, another place, where the strength of the inner man counts for more than the bone and muscle and cartilage of the outer man. A swashbuckler and a fantasy, perhaps, but in the final analysis, when all the geegaws, foofaraws and flummery are cleared away, don’t we all fight our own particular, contemporary, pressing problems in a kind of half–world of thought and phantasmagoric perception like
The Silver Corridor
“We can’t be responsible for death or disfigurement, you know,” reminded the duelsmaster.
He toyed with the company emblem on his ceremonial robe absently, awaiting Marmorth’s answer. Behind him, across the onyx and crystal expanse of the reception chamber, the gaping maw of the silver corridor opened into blackness.
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” snapped Marmorth impatiently. “Has Krane entered his end?” he asked, casting a glance at the dilation- segment leading to the adjoining preparation room. There was fear and apprehension in the look, only thinly hidden.
“Not quite yet,” the duelsmaster told him. “By now he has signed the re
lease, and they are briefing him, as I’m about to brief you, if you’ll kindly sign yours.” He indicated the printed form in the built–in frame and the stylus on the desk.
Marmorth licked his lips, grumbled briefly, and flourished the stylus on the blank line. The duelsmaster glanced quickly at the signature, then pressed the stud on the desk top. The blank slipped out of sight inside the desk. He carefully took the stylus from Marmorth’s unfeeling fingers, placed it in its holder. They waited patiently for a minute. A soft clucking came up through a slot at the side of the desk, and a second later a punched plastic plate dropped into a trough beneath it.
“This is your variation–range card,” explained the duelsmaster, lifting the plate from the basket. “With this we can gauge the extent of your imagination, set up the illusions, send you through the corridor at your own mental pace.”
“I understand perfectly, Duelsman,” snapped Marmorth. “Do you mind getting me in there! I’m freezing in this breechclout!”
“Mr. Marmorth, I realize this is annoying, but we are required both by statute of law and rule of the company to explain thoroughly the entire sequence, before entrance.” He stood up behind the desk, reached into a cabinet that dilated at the approach of his hand.
“Here,” he said, handing Marmorth a wraparound, “put this on till we’ve finished here.”
Marmorth let breath whistle between his teeth in irritation, but donned the robe and sat back down in front of the desk. Marmorth was a man of medium height, hair graying slightly at the temples and forelock, a middle–aged stomach bulge. He had dark, not-quite-piercing eyes, and straight plain features. An undistinguished man at first glance, yet one who had a definite touch of authority and determination about him.
“As you know — ” began the duelsmaster.
“Yes, yes, confound it! I know, I know! Why must you people prolong the agony of this thing?” Marmorth cut him off, rising again.
“Mr. Marmorth,” resumed the duelsmaster patiently but doggedly, “if you don’t settle yourself, we will call this affair off. Do you understand?”
Marmorth chuckled ruefully, deep in his throat. “After the tolls Krane and I laid out? You won’t cancel.”
“We will if you aren’t prepared for combat. It’s for your own survival, Mr. Marmorth. Now, if you’ll be silent a minute, I’ll brief you and you can enter the corridor.”
Marmorth waved his hand negligently, grudging the duelsman his explanation. He stared in boredom at the high crystal ceiling of the reception chamber.
“The corridor, as you know,” went on the duelsman, adding the last phrase with sarcasm, “is a super–sensitive receptor. When you enter it, a billion scanning elements pick up your thoughts, down to the very subconscious, filter them through the banks, correlating them with your variation-range card, and feed back illusions. These illusions are matched with those of your opponent, as checked with his variation– range card. The illusion is always the same for both of you.
“Since you are in the field of the corridor, these are substantial illusions, and they affect you as though they were real. In other words, to illustrate the extreme — you can die at any moment. They are not dreams, I assure you, even though they are not consciously projected. All too often combatants find an illusion so strange they feel it must be unreal. May I caution you, Mr. Marmorth, that is the quickest way to lose an affair. Take everything you see at face value. It is real!”
He paused for a moment, wiping his forehead. He had begun to perspire freely. Marmorth wondered at this, but remained silent.
“Your handicap,” the duelsmaster resumed, “is that when an illusion is formed from a larger segment of your opponent’s imagination than from yours, he will be more familiar with it, and will be better able to use it against you. The same holds true for you, of course.
“The illusions will strengthen for the combatant who is dominating. In other words, if Krane’s outlook is firmer than yours, he will have a more familiar illusion. If you begin to dominate him, the illusion will change to one that is more of your making.
“Do you understand?”
Marmorth had found himself listening more intently than he had thought he would. Now he had questions.
“Aren’t there any weapons we begin with? I’d always thought we could choose our dueling weapons.”
The duelsmaster shook his head, “No. There will be sufficient weapons in your illusions. Anything else would be superfluous.”
“How can an illusion kill me?”
“You are in the corridor’s field. Through a process of — well, actually, Mr. Marmorth, that is a company secret, and I doubt if it could be explained in lay terms so that you would know any more now than you did before. Just accept that the corridor converts your thought–impressions into tangibles.”
“How long will we be in there?”
“Time is subjective in the corridor. You may be there for an hour or a month or a year. Out here the time will seem as an instant. You will go in, both of you; then, a moment later — one of you will come out.”
Marmorth licked his lips again. “Have there been duels where a stalemate was reached — where both combatants came back?” He was nervous, and the question trembled out.
“We’ve never had one that I can recall,” answered the duelsmaster simply.
“Oh,” said Marmorth quietly, looking down at his hands.
“Are you ready now?” asked the duelsman.
Marmorth nodded silently. He slipped out of the wraparound and laid it across the back of the chair. Together they walked toward the silver corridor. “Remember,” said the duelsmaster, “the combatant who has the strongest convictions will win. That is a constant, and your only real weapon!”
The duelsmaster stepped to the end of the corridor and passed his hand across an area of wall next to its opening.
A light above the opening flashed twice, and he said, “I’ve signalled the duelsman on the other side. Krane has entered the corridor.”
The duelsmaster slipped the variation–range card into a slot in the blank wall, then indicated Marmorth should step into the corridor.
The duelist stepped forward, smoothing the short breechclout against his thighs as he walked.
He took one step, two, three. The perfectly round mouth of the silver corridor gaped before him, black and impenetrable.
He stepped forward once more. His bare foot touched the edge of the metal, and he drew back hesitantly. He looked back over his shoulder at the duelsman. “Couldn’t I — ”
“Step in, Mr. Marmorth,” said the duelsmaster firmly. There was a granite tone in his voice.
Marmorth walked forward into the darkness. It closed over his head and seeped behind his eyes. He felt nothing! Marmorth blinked . . .
Twice. The first time he saw the throne room and the tier-mounted pages, long-stemmed trumpets at their sides. He saw the assembled nobles bowing low before him, their ermine capes sweeping the floor. The floor was rich, inlaid mosaic, the walls dripped color and rich tapestry, the ceiling was high-arched and studded with crystal chandeliers.
The second time he opened them, hoping his senses had cleared, he saw precisely the same thing. Then he saw Krane — High Lord Krane, he somehow knew — in the front ranks.
The garb was different — a tight suit of chain–mail in blued–steel, ornamental decorations across the breastplate, a ruby–hilted sword in a scabbard at the waist, full, flowing cape of blood–red velvet — but the face was no different from the one Marmorth had seen in the Council Chamber, before they had agreed to duel.
The face was thin: a V that swept past a high, white forehead and thick, black brows, past the high cheekbones and needle–thin nose, down to the slash mouth and pointed black beard. A study in coal and chalk.
The man’s hair had been swept back to form a tight knot at the base of his skull. It was th
e knot of the triumphant warrior.
Marmorth’s blood churned at the sight of the despised Krane! If he hadn’t challenged Marmorth’s Theorem in the Council Chamber, with his insufferable slanders, neither of them would be here.
Here!
Marmorth stiffened. He sat more erect. The word swept away his momentary forgetfulness: this was the silver corridor. This was illusion. They were dueling — now, at this instant! He had to kill Krane.
But whose illusion was this? His own, or the dark–bearded scoundrel’s before him? It might be suicide to attempt killing Krane in his own illusion. He would have to wait a bit and gauge what the situation represented in his own mind.
Whatever it was, he seemed to be of higher rank than Krane, who bowed before him.
Almost magically, before he realized the words were emerging from his mouth, he heard himself saying, “Lord Krane, rise!”
The younger man stood up, and the other nobles followed suit, the precedent having been set. By choosing Krane to rise first, Marmorth the King had chosen whom he wanted to speak first in the Star Chamber.
“May it please Your Illustriousness,” boomed Krane, extending his arms in salute, “I have a disposition of the prisoners from Quorth. I should beg Your Eminence’s verdict on my proposal.”
He bowed his head and awaited Marmorth’s reply.
Had there been a tone of mockery in the man’s voice? Marmorth could not be sure. But he did know, now, that it was his own illusion. If Krane was coming to him for disposition, then he must be in the ascendant in this creation.
“What is your proposal, High Lord Krane?” asked Marmorth.