Gordon R. Dickson The Pritcher Mass

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perceptible grain of salt. He would discover his own truths about the Mass, he
decided, for himself and at first hand.
"The thing is," the purely human voice of Ethrya sounded tiny and un-natural,
coming over the earphones of Chaz' suit, "to take it as gently as possible.
Just sit back and let the force of the Mass seep into you, if that's the word.
How do you feel now?"
"Fine," said Chaz.
"Good." She stopped the cage in mid-cable. "I'm ready to go to work now. If
you pick up any feeling from me, or from the Mass-force, speak up. Maybe I can
help you with it or maybe not. But check anyway." "All right," Chaz said.
He sat back in his airsuit. Silence fell. Beside him, Ethrya was equally
silent. He wondered if she was al-ready walking out along the out-stretched
forelimb of her enormous bear. How long would it take her, in her mind, to
walk the light-years of distance from his shoulder to wher-ever she believed
he was pointing?
Chaz tried to put his mind on the Mass; but the female presence of Ethrya
alongside him interfered, in spite of the double wall of airsuiting between
them. His mind went back to Eileen. It had been no hallucina-tion, that voice
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of hers he had heard, on his first day here. He might be open to argument on
other points about the Mass; but on that one he had no doubt. He and Eileen
had been in contact for at least a few sec-onds, thanks to the Mass; and what
had been done once could be done again.
. . . If, that was, he could only get once more into touch with the Mass
itself. A small cold fear stirred inside him. The possibility of
hallucina-tions did not worry him; but Jai had talked of three months or more
of ef-fort before Chaz might learn to work with the Mass. How much time would
they actually be willing to give to learn? Somewhere . . . he be-gan to search
through the attic of his memory . . . he had read something about those who
after six months or so could not learn to work. They were not sent back
to Earth. Like those Ethrya had been talking about, who could not stand up
emotionally or mentally to contact with the Mass, they were kept on as
administrative personnel. But administrative per-sonnel were never allowed up
here on the deck.
The earphones of his suit spoke suddenly. But it was not a call for him. It
was Lebdell Marti, speaking to Ethrya he heard the call only be-cause of the
open channel between the phones of his suit and hers.
"Ethrya? This is Leb. Are you up on the Mass?"
"Hello?" She answered immedi-ately, almost as if she had been wait-ing for the
call, instead of out some-where on the forelimb of her bear. "What is it, Leb?
I'm on the Mass with Chaz Sant. I thought it might help him if I took him out
in part-nership for a try."
Marti did not speak for a long sec-ond.
"I see," he said then. "Well, I'm sorry to interrupt; but some of those
supplies from the ship last week must have gotten stored in the wrong place.
Either that, or they weren't sent. Can you break off and come down to the
office to help me find out which?"
"I'll be right down." There was a faint click in the earphones as Marti broke
contact. The helmet of
Eth-rya's airsuit turned toward Chaz in the cable car. "Sorry, Chaz. You're
going in, too?"
She had already touched the con-trols of the cable car and it was glid-ing
along the silver catenary curve of the cable toward the nearest mast.
"No," said Chaz. "As long as I'm suited up anyway, I think I'll stay up here a
bit and go on trying."
"Whatever you want." The car touched the mast and stopped. She got out.
"Better keep your phones open on the general channel, though. If you should
have another halluci-nation, you want somebody to hear you and get you down."
"Right," he said, and watched her go. The cage she entered slid down the mast
below him to the deck and he saw her shrunken, foreshortened, airsuited figure
go across the deck to the nearest elevator housing.
Left alone, high on the mast, he tongued his phone over to the gen-eral
channel. He heard the hum of its particular carrier wave tone, and felt a
sudden, gentle coolness against the skin inside his right elbow.
For a second, he was merely puzzled and then instinct hit the panic button.
He flipped his phone off the gen-eral channel with his tongue, but the damage
was already done.
Some-thing had already started to take hold of his mind something that was not
the Mass, but a thing sick and chemical.
"Help!" he thought, and for all he knew, shouted inside his airsuit hel-met.
He reached out for aid in all di-rections to the attic of his memory, to his
own talent, to the Mass itself . . . "Eileen! Eileen, help me! They've . . ."
His mind and voice stumbled at the enormity of what someone had done to him.
He felt his con-sciousness begin to twist into night-mare.
"Chaz! Is it you? Are you there?"
"Eileen," he mumbled. "I've been drugged. I'm up on the Mass and they've
drugged me . . ."
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"Oh, Chaz! Hold on. Hold on to contact with me. This time I won't lose you "
"No use," he muttered. She was still talking to him; but her voice was
becoming fainter as the nightmare crowded in. "Starting to drift. Need help.
Need Mass . . ."
He thought longingly, with the little spark of sanity that was still in him,
of the great silent symphony he had heard the first time he had been out here.
Nothing could twist that rush of unconquerable majesty.
Only, he could not find it now. He could not feel it when he needed it . . .
But he could. His feeling for Ei-leen had triggered his demand for contact
with it. After that the thrust of his desperation was sufficient. Far off
through the gibbering craziness that had surrounded him and was carrying him
away, he heard its first notes; the music of the Mass-force. It was coming.
And there was nothing that could stand before it and bar its way. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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