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back, we'd have to offer him my job. You'd like that, right?'
Clarke shrugged.
'Don't be coy, Darcy,' Wellesley nodded, knowingly. 'It's plain as day. You'd
rather have him - or anyone - as your boss than me. But what you don't seem to
realize is that I'm all for it! I
don't understand you or the people who work here and I don't suppose I ever
will. I want out, but I know our Minister Responsible won't let me go until
there's someone to replace me.
You? No, because that would make it look like they made a mistake replacing
you in the first place. But Harry Keogh . . .'
'Harry's had the best help we can give him,' Clarke said. 'We've hypnotized
him, psychoanalysed him, damn near brainwashed him. But it's gone. So what can
you do for him?'
'It's more what we can do for him, Darcy.'
'Goon.'
'Last night I had a long talk with the Markham girl up in Edinburgh, and -'
'If there's one part of this that I really hate,' Clarke heatedly cut in,
'it's that we've done this to him!'
' - And she advised me to speak to David Bettley,' Wellesley continued,
unperturbed, 'because she's worried about Keogh. Can you understand that? She
does have genuine feelings for him. It may be just a job but she worried
about him. Or maybe you think he'd be better off on his own? Well, whichever,
she satisfies two needs: one in Keogh, and one in us. The need is to know
what's on his mind.'
'The tender art of the mindspy!' Clarke snorted.
'So I took her advice and spoke to Bettley. I got him out of bed to answer his
telephone. I would have contacted him anyway, about some of his most recent
reports and recordings;
because in them he's given me cause to believe that Keogh is (a) about to
develop some strange new talent, or (b) he's on the point of cracking up.
Anyway, in the course of our conversation Bettley mentioned how Keogh first
discovered this, er, Möbius thing - ?'
'The Möbius Continuum.'
' - Correct. He'd apparently been on the verge of it but needed a spur. Which
came when the East German GREPO found him talking to Möbius in a Leipzig
graveyard. That did it, triggered his mathematical genius. He teleported - or
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used the Continuum - to escape from them. That's why I have his file here: I
wanted to check that I had it right. And it's also why I'm double-checking
with you.'
'So?'
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Gasping his shock
"The way I see it,' Wellesley continued, 'Keogh's like a computer that's
suffered a power failure: the information he requires - and which E-Branch
wants to use - is no longer accessible to him. Oh, it's probably still in
there but it's jammed in limbo. And so far we haven't been able to shake it
loose.'
'What do you propose?'
'Well, I'm still working on it. But the way I see it, if we apply just the
right spur . . . with a bit of luck it could be Leipzig all over again. You
see, Keogh has been having some bad dreams lately; and if what you say of him
is true - oh, I don't doubt it, but nevertheless if -
then any dream awful enough to frighten him must be really bad. But perhaps
not quite bad enough, eh?'
'You want to scare him silly?'
'I want to scare him almost to death. So close to death that he escapes into
the Möbius Continuum!'
Clarke sat still and silent for long moments, until eventually Wellesley
leaned forward and quietly said:
'Well, what do you think?'
'My honest opinion?'
'Of course.'
'I think it stinks. Also, I think that if you plan to fool with Keogh you'd
better take out extra insurance. And finally I think that it had better work,
because if it doesn't I'm up and gone.
When this is finished, no matter how it works out, I won't be able to work
with you any longer.'
Wellesley smiled thinly. 'But you do want me out of here, right? And so you
won't. . . hinder me?'
'No, in fact I insist on being part of it. That way I can be sure that if
Harry has any breaks coming, he'll get them.'
Wellesley continued to smile.
Oh, he'll get his breaks, all right, he thought.
Broken all the way through, in fact!
And he was one of only a handful of men in the entire world who could think
such things - especially here in E-Branch HQ - and be certain that no one
could hear him doing it.
6
Sandra
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Gasping his shock
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Sandra Markham was twenty-seven, possessed a beautiful face and figure, and
was a neophyte telepath. As yet her talent was a fifty-fifty thing; she had
very little control over it; it came and went. But where Harry Keogh was
concerned, that might be just as well. Sometimes, in Harry's mind, she'd read
things she was sure had no right to be there - or in any sane mind, for that
matter.
She and Harry had made love only an hour ago, and afterwards he had at once
fallen asleep. Sandra had come to know Harry's habits well enough: he'd stay
asleep for three or four hours, which for him would serve as a full night's
rest. As for Sandra: she would have to sleep tomorrow, at her own place in
Edinburgh, making up the night's deficiency.
Staring right into Harry's pale, relaxed, almost little-boyish face, she saw
no sign as yet of the rapid eye movements which would tell her that he was
dreaming. So for now she too could relax. It was Harry's dreams which most
interested her. That was what she tried to keep telling herself, anyway.
She worked for E-Branch. Sometimes she wished she didn't, but she did. That
was how she earned her daily bread (the meat and gravy, too), so she really
shouldn't complain. And in fact there hadn't been too much to complain about,
until Harry came along. At first he'd been just another job - a new friend to
get close to, learn about and try to understand - but then she'd got in
deeper. It had 'just happened', and afterwards she'd wanted it to happen
again, and again. Until in a little while he wasn't just a job but more a way
of life, not only 'on her mind', as it were, but under her skin as well. And
finally she'd started to suppose, and still did, that she was in love with
him.
Certainly working on Harry's case (she hated thinking of it like that, but it
was the truth however she dressed it up) had been more interesting than being
a human divining rod on cases the police couldn't solve. That was how E-Branch
used her, usually: to eavesdrop criminal minds - the minds of prisoners in
their cells, too tough for the law to crack - looking for those damning clues
which more orthodox methods couldn't turn up. Which would be satisfying enough
work in itself, if only she didn't actually have to go in there. Because minds
like those were often cesspools, which frequently left her knowing how sewers
smell. And sometimes, especially if it was a brutal murder or rape, the smell
could linger for a long, long time.
Which was probably the reason she'd fallen in love with Harry Keogh. Because
his mind was a field of daisies . . . most of the time. In fact he had the
gentlest mind she'd ever come across: not soft, no way! Not even naive, though
there was something of that in him too, but just ... just gentle. Harry
wouldn't much like hurting anything, or anybody.
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Gasping his shock
With Sandra's looks it would be strange if there had been no men. There had
been men, a few. But her talent wasn't something she could just switch on and
off. Indeed that was its one big drawback: without so much as a by your leave,
it came and went. Tonight a man would wine and dine you, take you home and
kiss your hand on your doorstep, and ask to see you again. And as you were
about to say yes his mind would open like a book and you would see him in
there like some great rutting satyr - and you'd be in there with him. Not all
men, no, but enough.
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