Tom O'Bedlam Read online

  “Here. I’ll help you.”

  It was the fat woman, climbing clumsily toward him. Her face was flushed, her eyes were strange. Her clothing was torn in two or three places. “Got my foot stuck somehow,” Tom said. “Give me a hand—here—here—”

  “That’s the man who killed the other one outside the bus, isn’t it?” she said. “Everybody was looking for him. He’s dead, right?”

  “He made the Crossing. I sent him to Luiiliimeli. I can do the Crossings without any help, now.”

  “I think this is the one that’s holding you,” she said. “Here.” She wrenched a huge beam upward and tossed it aside. Tom pulled his leg free and rubbed his shin. She smiled at him. He felt the sadness coming from her, behind the smile.

  He took her hand and said, “Where would you like me to send you?”

  “What?”

  “I can spare you now. I can give you your Crossing.”

  She jerked her hand free of his as if his touch were burning her. “No—please—”

  “No?”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “But this world is lost. There’s nothing left here but pain and grief. I can send you to the Green World, or the Nine Suns, or the Sphere of Light—”

  “It frightens me to think about that. It’s like dying, isn’t it? Or maybe worse.” Her face grew panicky and she knelt and scrabbled around at her feet, grasping at the spike that had dropped from Stidge’s hand. “I’m afraid. To start all over, to face a whole other world—no. No. I’d rather just die. You know?” The strangeness had gone from her eyes. She seemed to have come up out of some long tunnel into the open air. Her voice, which had always seemed to Tom like a little girl’s voice, was a normal voice now. She was still talking. “I’m sick of being me. Carrying around this great awful body. Always afraid. Always crying.” She was fumbling with the stud of the spike, trying to figure out how to use it. She didn’t seem to know how. But then it began to glow and Tom realized she had turned it on after all. She was holding it between her breasts. Her hand was shaking.

  “No,” he said. He couldn’t let her do that. He clamped his hand around her fleshy wrist and sent her to the Fifth Zygerone World.

  As she dropped her body it fell with a terrible crash, landing beside Stidge. But she was smiling. She was smiling, that was the thing. Tom picked up the spike and switched it off and hurled it as far as he could, off into the shrubbery.

  He crouched for a moment, catching his breath, getting his balance. He glanced at the two smiling bodies in front of him, thinking, It was like killing, but I didn’t kill them, no, I just sent them away. Stidge would have killed me and she would have killed herself, and I couldn’t let either of those things happen. So I did what I had to do. That’s all. I did what I had to do. And this is the day of the Crossing, which is the most wonderful day in the history of the world.

  He felt better now. He made his way carefully down from the fallen building. The riot was still going on. More buildings seemed to be burning. He looked straight ahead, through a clearing that had suddenly appeared, and saw the tall woman, the one who had been so kind to him, the doctor, the one who was called Elszabet, just across the way. She was staring at him.

  Tom smiled at her. She seemed to be calling to him, beckoning him. He nodded and went to her.

  8

  “THERE he is,” Elszabet said. “I’ve got to talk to him. Will you wait for me?”

  She turned toward Dan Robinson, toward Dante. But at that moment a bunch of howling, screeching rioters swept through the place where they were standing, and when Elszabet looked again neither one was in sight. She thought she heard Dan’s voice from far away, but she wasn’t sure: the sound was lost in the wind and the screaming of the mob. Well, Tom was the one she wanted now.

  He was standing by himself in front of the ruins of the staff recreation hall. Like a miracle, she thought, seeing him suddenly appear out of the chaos that way. How peaceful he looks, too. Probably he’s been drifting around in all this craziness for hour after hour without even noticing what’s going on.

  “Tom?” she called.

  He sauntered toward her. He seemed in no hurry at all. Looking beyond him, Elszabet saw a couple of figures sprawled on a pile of scattered timbers as though they were asleep. One was April. The other seemed to be the red-haired scratcher who had killed the cult leader on the steps of the bus. They lay motionless, not even stirring.

  It seemed to Elszabet that she and Tom were the only two people on the grounds of the Center just now. A sphere of silence appeared to surround them.

  “It’s Miss Elszabet,” Tom said. He was smiling in a weird exalted way. “I was hoping I’d find you, Elszabet. Do you know what’s been happening? This is the time I told you would come. When the Crossing begins to happen. As the Kusereen intended for us, all along.”

  “What did you do to Ed Ferguson?”

  Still the strange smile. “I helped him make the Crossing.”

  “You killed him, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Hey! Hey, you sound angry!”

  “You killed Ed Ferguson? Answer me, Tom.”

  “Killed? No. I guided him so that he would be able to drop his body. That’s all I did. And then I sent him to Sapiil.”

  Elszabet felt a chill spreading along her arms and legs.

  “And April?” she said. “You guided her the same way?”

  “The fat woman, you mean? Yes, she’s gone up there too, just a minute or two ago. And the Indian man. And Stidge there, when he tried to kill me. And I’ve sent a lot of others, all morning long.”

  She stared, not believing, not wanting to believe. “You killed all those people? My God…Nick, April, who else? Tell me, Tom, how many of my patients have you killed so far?”

  “Killed?” He shook his head. “You keep saying killed. No. No, I haven’t killed anybody. I’ve just been sending them, that’s all.”

  “Sending them,” Elszabet repeated in a flat voice.

  “Sending them, yes. This is the day of the Crossing. At first I needed four helpers to do it. And then two. But now the power is very strong in me.”

  Elszabet’s throat was dry and tight. There was a terrible pressure in her chest, a kind of silent shout fighting to escape. Ferguson, she thought. April. Nick Double Rainbow. All dead. And probably most of the others too. Her patients. Everyone she had tried to help. What had he done to them? Where were they now? She had never known such a crushing feeling of helplessness, of emptiness.

  Quietly she said, “You’ve got to stop, Tom.”

  He looked amazed. “Stop? How can I stop? What are you talking about, Elszabet?”

  “You can’t do any more Crossings, Tom. That’s all, you just can’t. I forbid you. I won’t let you. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m responsible for these people—for all the patients here—”

  He appeared not to comprehend. “But don’t you want them to be happy, Elszabet? For the first time in their lives, happy?” That strange ecstatic smile, still. “How can I stop? It’s what I was put on Earth to do.”

  “To kill people?”

  “To heal people,” Tom said. “Same as you. I never killed anyone, not even Stidge. The fat woman, she’s happy now. And Ed. And the Indian. And Stidge, him too. And you…I can make you happy, right now.” He leaned close to her and his smile grew even more intense. “I’ll send you now, Elszabet. Okay? Okay? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Will you let me send you now?”

  “Keep away.”

  “Don’t say that. Here. Give me your hand, Elszabet. I’ll send you to the Green World. I know that’s where you want to be. I know that’s where you could be happy. Not here. There’s nothing for you here. The Green World, Elszabet.”

  He reached for her. She gasped and pulled back from him.

  “Why are you afraid? It’s the Time of the Crossing. I want so much to send you. Because…because…” He hesitated, fumbling for words, looking down at his feet. Co
lor blazed in his cheeks. She saw tears beginning to glisten in his eyes. “I wouldn’t hurt you.” His voice was thick and hesitant. “Not you. Not ever. I wouldn’t hurt anyone, but especially not you. I…” He faltered. “I love you, Elszabet. Let me send you. Please?”

  “But I don’t want—” she started to say, and broke off in mid-sentence as a powerful wave of dizziness and numbness swept over her. She struggled for breath. Something had happened. His words, his tears, the wind, the rain, everything all at once came rushing in on her, sweeping her away. She felt herself swaying, the way so many times she had swayed when an earthquake went rumbling through the ground beneath her, that old familiar sensation of sudden astonishing motion, the world slipping loose from its moorings.

  A great abyss was opening before her, and Tom was inviting her to jump. She caught her breath and stared bewilderedly at him, appalled and tempted, and appalled at how tempted she was.

  “Please?” he said again.

  There was a roaring in her ears. Make the Crossing? Drop the body? Let him do to her what he had done to Ferguson, to April, to Nick? Give him her hand, let him do his trick, topple at his feet, lie here dead and smiling in the mud?

  No. No. No. No.

  It was crazy. All this talk of other worlds, instantaneous journeys. How could any of it be real? When Tom sent people, they died. He had a power, a deadly one. They died. That must be what happens to them, right? Right? She didn’t want to die. That hadn’t ever been what she wanted. She wanted to live, to flourish, to open, to blossom. She wanted to feel some peace in her soul, just for once in her life. But not to die. Dying wasn’t any kind of answer.

  And yet—and yet—what if what Tom offered wasn’t death at all, but life, new life, a second chance?

  She felt an overwhelming pull, an irresistible temptation—the Green World, that wondrous place of joy and beauty, so vivid, so real. How could it not be real? The Project Starprobe photographs—the smile on Ed Ferguson’s face—that sense of absolute conviction and faith that Tom radiated—

  So why not, why not, why not?

  “All right. I’m not afraid,” she heard herself saying.

  “Then give me your hand. This is the time. I’ll help you make your Crossing now, Elszabet.”

  She nodded. It was like something happening in a dream. Just give him your hand, and let him send you to the Green World. Just yield, and float upward, and go. Yes. Yes. Why not? She thought of Ed Ferguson’s smile. Could there be any doubt? Tom had the power. The sky was breaking open, and all barriers were down. Suddenly she felt the closeness of that silent dark immensity that was interstellar space, just beyond the low heavy clouds, and it was not at all terrifying. Give him your hand, Elszabet. Let him send you. Go. Go. This poor tired world, this poor ruined place: why stay? Everything’s done for. Just say good-bye to the world and go. Look what’s happened to the Center. That was the last sanctuary, and now it’s gone too. You have no one left to care for here any more.

  “You were so very good to me, you know,” Tom was saying. “There wasn’t anyone was ever that good to me before. You took me in, you gave me a place to stay, you talked to me, you listened to me. You listened to me. Everybody thinks I’m crazy, and that’s all right, because most people like to leave a crazy man alone. I was safer that way. But you knew I wasn’t crazy, didn’t you? You know it now. And now I’m going to give you what you want the most. Put your hand in mine. Will you do that, Elszabet?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  She reached her hand toward his waiting hand.

  She heard someone calling her name in a peculiarly desperate way, raggedly punching out the syllables, El Sza Bet, El Sza Bet. The strange hypnotic moment was broken. She pulled her hand back from Tom and looked around. Dan Robinson came trotting up. He appeared exhausted, almost ready to collapse.

  “Dan?” she said.

  He glanced at Tom casually, without interest, almost as though he had not recognized him. To Elszabet he said in a dull toneless voice, “We should have cleared out an hour ago. There’s shooting going on now. They’ve got guns, lasers, God knows what. They’ve all gone nuts since their leader was murdered.”

  “Dan—”

  “Every way out of here is blocked. We’re all going to die.”

  “No,” she said. “There’s still one way out.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She indicated Tom. “The Crossing,” she said. “Tom will send us away from here. To the Green World.”

  Robinson stared.

  “This place is done for,” Elszabet said. “The Center, California, the United States, the whole world. We blew it, Dan. We got in our own way, we tripped flat on our face, we fouled our own nest. Everything’s gone crazy. How long do you think it will be before they start dropping the hot dust again? Or the bombs, maybe, this time? But that’s only going to happen here, on Earth. Out there everything will be different.”

  He was gaping. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely serious, Dan.”

  “Incredible. You think you can go to some other world, just like that?”

  “Ferguson did. April. Nick.”

  “This is completely insane.”

  “You can see the smiles on their faces. It’s pure bliss. I know they’ve gone to the star worlds, Dan.”

  Robinson turned to Tom and studied him in astonishment. Tom was smiling, nodding, beaming.

  “You actually believe this, Elszabet? He snaps his fingers, and off you go?”

  “Yes.”

  “And even if it’s true? You can just drop everything, run out on all responsibilities, skip off to your Green World? You could do that?”

  “What responsibilities? The Center’s been smashed, Dan. And if we stay here we’re going to get killed in this riot anyway. You said so yourself two minutes ago, remember?”

  He looked at her; he seemed bewildered.

  “I’ve thought it through,” she said. “Even if we could get away from this mob I don’t want to stay here any more. It’s all over for me here. I did my best, Dan. I tried, I honestly tried. But it’s all smashed. Now I want to go away and make a second start somewhere else. Doesn’t that make sense? Tom will send us to the Green World.”

  “Us?”

  “Us, yes. You and me. We’ll go there together. Here, put your hands in his. Just do it, Dan. Go on. Put your hands in his.”

  Robinson stepped back and thrust his hands behind him as if she had tried to pour burning oil on them. His eyes were bright. “For Christ’s sake, Elszabet!”

  “No. For our sakes.”

  “Forget all this nonsense. Look, maybe we can still escape through the forest somehow. Come with me—”

  “You come with me, Dan.”

  Again she reached for him. He pulled farther back. He was shivering, and his skin had taken on an almost yellowish tinge.

  “We don’t have any more time, Elszabet. Come on. The three of us, out the back way down the rhododendron trail—”

  “If that’s what you want to do, Dan, you’d better go.”

  “Not without you.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Go.”

  “I can’t leave you here to die.”

  “I won’t die. But you might, if you don’t get going now. I wish you well, Dan. Maybe I’ll see you again someday. On the Green World.”

  “Elszabet!”

  “You think I’m absolutely crazy, don’t you?”

  He shook his head and scowled, and reached for her as if to drag her off by force into the forest. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. His hands hovered in mid-air and halted there, as though he feared that any direct contact with her might somehow hurl the two of them careening off toward the stars. For a moment he stood frozen in silence. He opened his mouth and no words came out, only a muffled sob. He leaned close and gave her one last look, then turned and darted away between two of the shattered buildings and was lost to her sight.

  “All right, then,” Tom s
aid. “Are you ready to go now, Elszabet?”

  “Yes,” she said. And then she said, “No. No—”

  “But you were ready a moment ago.”

  She waved him back. The roaring in her ears had returned, even louder this time. She peered into the rain swept dimness, trying to see Dan Robinson. But he was gone. “Let me think,” she said. Tom began to say something, and she gestured again, more urgently. “Let me think, Tom.”

  You actually believe this, Dan had said. He snaps his fingers, and off you go?

  I don’t know, Elszabet thought. Do I actually believe it?

  And then Dan had said, You can just drop everything, run out on all responsibilities, skip off to your Green World?

  I’m not sure, she thought. Can I do that? Can I?

  Tom was watching her, saying nothing, letting her think. She stood wavering, lost in doubts.

  Do I believe? Yes, she thought. Yes, because there is no real alternative. I believe because I have to believe.

  And can I shrug off my responsibilities here and go? Yes, my responsibilities here are ended. The Center has been destroyed. My patients are gone. There’s no work left here for me to do.

  She scanned the distance once again for Dan Robinson. It would have been so beautiful, she thought, if he had come with her. The two of them, starting their lives over on the Green World. Learning to live again, learning to love. It would have worked, she thought. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? But instead he had run off into the forest. All right. If that’s what he needs to do, let him do it. He doesn’t understand. His Time hasn’t come, not yet.

  “I think you’re ready now,” Tom said.

  Elszabet nodded. “Let’s both of us go, Tom. You and me together, to the Green World. Wouldn’t that be a fine thing? We’d both be crystallines together, and we’d stroll down to the Summer Palace and we could laugh and talk about this day, all the rain, the mud everywhere, the craziness all around us. Yes? Yes? What do you say? When you send me, send yourself along too. Will you?”

  Tom was silent a long time.