The Dark Door | Page 9

out onto
the "bridge," and he gasped as he saw the towering canyons of
buildings fall far below, saw the seats tumble end over end, heard the
sounds of screaming blend into the roar of air by his ears.
Then the rift screamed by him with a demoniac whine and he sank back
onto his bench, gasping as the two cloven halves of the strip clanged
back together again.

He stared at the people around him on the strip and they stared back at
him, mildly, unperturbed, and returned to their evening papers as the
strip passed through the first local station on the other side of the
"bridge."
Harry Scott sprang to his feet, moving swiftly across the slower strips
for the exit channels. He noted the station stop vaguely, but his only
thought now was speed, desperate speed, fear-driven speed to put into
action the plan that had suddenly burst in his mind.
He knew that he had reached his limit. He had come to a point beyond
which he couldn't fight alone.
Somehow, Webber had burrowed into his brain, laid his mind open to
attacks of nightmare and madness that he could never hope to fight.
Facing this alone, he would lose his mind. His only hope was to go for
help to the ones he feared only slightly less, the ones who had minds
capable of fighting back for him.
He crossed under the moveable sidewalks and boarded the one going
back into the heart of the city. Somewhere there, he hoped, he would
find the help he needed. Somewhere back in that city were men he had
discovered who were men and something more.
* * * * *
Frank Manelli carefully took the blood pressure of the sleeping figure
on the bed; then turned to the other man. "He'll be dead soon," he
snapped. "Another few minutes now is all it'll take. Just a few more."
"Absurd. There's nothing in these stimuli that can kill him." George
Webber sat tense, his eyes fixed on the pale fluctuating screen near the
head of the bed.
"His own mind can kill him! He's on the run now; you've broken him
loose from his nice safe paranoia. His mind is retreating, running back
to some other delusions. It's escaping to the safety his fantasy people
can afford him, these not-men he thinks about."

"Yes, yes," agreed Dr. Webber, his eyes eager. "Oh, he's on the run
now."
"But what will he do when he finds there aren't any 'not-men' to save
him? What will he do then?"
Webber looked up, frowning and grim. "Then we'll know what he
found behind the dark door that he opened, that's what."
"No, you're wrong! He'll die. He'll find nothing and the shock will kill
him. My God, Webber, you can't tamper with a man's mind like this
and hope to save his life! You're obsessed; you've always been
obsessed by this impossible search for something in our society, some
undiscovered factor to account for the mental illness, the divergent
minds, but you can't kill a man to trace it down!"
"It's too neat," said Webber. "He comes back to tell us the truth, and we
call him insane. We say he's paranoid, throw him in restraint, place him
in an asylum; and we never know what he found. The truth is too
incredible; when we hear it, it must be insanity we're hearing."
The big doctor laughed, jabbing his thumb at the screen. "This isn't
insanity we're seeing. Oh, no, this is the answer we're following. I won't
stop now. I've waited too long for this show."
"Well, I say stop it while he's still alive."
Dr. Webber's eyes were deadly. "Get out, Frank," he said softly. "I'm
not stopping now."
His eyes returned to the screen, to the bobbing figure that the
psycho-integrator traced on the fluorescent background. Twenty years
of search had led him here, and now he knew the end was at hand.

5
It was a wild, nightmarish journey. At every step, Harry's senses

betrayed him: his wrist watch turned into a brilliant blue-green snake
that snapped at his wrist; the air was full of snarling creatures that
threatened him at every step. But he fought them off, knowing that they
would harm him far less than panic would. He had no idea where to
hunt, nor whom to try to reach, but he knew they were there in the New
City, and somehow he knew they would help him, if only he could find
them.
He got off the moving strip as soon as the lights of the center of the city
were clear below, and stepped into the self-operated lift that sped down
to ground level. From the elevator, he moved on to one of the