Prisoner of Fire (17 page)

“I did not doubt your ability, children,” said Professor Raeder benignly. “But the result is quite spectacular. To have one’s theories confirmed with such—such precision is most gratifying.”

Hardly knowing what she was doing, Vanessa went on her knees before Professor Raeder.

“Please, please help him! Please do something. I know you can. Please!”

“Do you still think me mad, Vanessa?”

“Yes. No! I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all. Please help him.”

“You think a madman, a person not in possession of his faculties, could develop such a perfect technique?”

She rocked
to and fro, the tears streaming from her eyes. “I don’t know! I don’t know. Please don’t torment me. I know you have great power… Give him back his life. I’ll do anything. Only give him back his life!”

“What a soft cow,” said Janine. Professor Raeder silenced her with a glance.

Then he turned to Vanessa. “Death is an interesting phenomenon,” he observed. “Consider Dr. Badel. His heart has stopped. Shortly, his brain cells, deprived of oxygen will begin the irreversible process of corruption. On the other hand, his beard will continue to grow for several hours, and it will take some time before the micro-organisms in his alimentary canal are affected by the demise of their host. Yes, death is an interesting phenomenon.”

“Please,” moaned Vanessa, “I can’t bear any more. Help him. I’ll do anything you ask, anything at all.”

“A
carte blanche
offer,” observed the Professor. “How gratifying. I hardly required as much… You will do exactly as I say, Vanessa, irrespective of whether you consider me sane or mad?”

“Yes, yes!”

“You will obey me at all times, precisely, and in every detail, knowing that I can use the powers you have seen demonstrated as I choose?”

“Yes. Please, Professor Raeder. I beg you. Help him.”

Professor Raeder yawned, glanced at his watch. “Then remember your promise, Vanessa. Remember also the consequences of breaking it… Alfred, you will find a small black case on the top of my desk. Please bring it to me. I fear I am indulgent enough to be the resurrection and the life. The late Dr. Badel has between fifty and ninety seconds of pseudo-death left. After that, it is likely to be somewhat permanent.” He turned to Dr. Badel’s body and, unmoved by the sightless gaze,
began carefully unbuttoning the dead man’s shirt. Vanessa remained on her knees, frozen, watching with an expression in which horror mingled with hope.

Alfred dutifully brought the black case. Professor Raeder unfastened it sufficiently to extract two heavily insulated lengths of flex, each of which was connected to a box inside the case and had a flat copper disc, the size of a penny, at its terminal. Professor Raeder inspected a small dial, visible through a hole cut into the case, then set an external lever carefully and pressed a stud. There was a very faint whirring sound.

“The cardiac stimulator takes about eight seconds to charge,” he said conversationally to Vanessa. “Ideally, Dr. Badel’s skin should be moist for maximum conductivity. I shall pass the charge into his body here and here.” He indicated spots just below the dead man’s nipples and slightly more central on his body. He gazed at Vanessa with a faintly malicious smile. “Perhaps you would like to touch the areas with your tongue. Or, if you do not feel up to it, I am sure Janine will oblige.”

Dumbly, Vanessa did as she was asked. She was oddly amazed at how warm the flesh still was. She wondered at her own surprise.

“Thank you,” said Professor Raeder. “A splendid mechanism, the heart. So simple, A most brilliantly designed pump. Give it a kick and it stops. Give it another kick and it re-starts. At least, let us hope so.”

He pressed the copper terminals on the flesh that Vanessa had moistened. Roland’s limbs jerked convulsively, his chest heaved, his eyelids fluttered. Professor Raeder lifted the terminals, but the body slumped once more, still lifeless.

“Oh, dear,” said Professor Raeder mildly. “Dr. Badel
seems reluctant to return to us. I shall have to increase the voltage.”

“Hurry, please hurry,” said Vanessa. The phrase ‘irreversible process of corruption’ seemed to be written into her mind in letters of fire.

Again Professor Raeder consulted the dial, adjusted the regulator lever and pressed the charge button.

He looked at Vanessa. “Another eight seconds, my dear… You will keep your promise?”

“I will keep my promise. If he lives.”

“And if he does not live?”

She stood up, eyes blazing. “I will kill you, or I will die trying. I hate you!”

“So. We truly understand each other. I thought we might. I need you and you need me. Remember that always… Now, have no fear Vanessa. Dr. Badel is about to re-join us.”

“You were not trying!” Vanessa looked at him, her eyes wide.

“On the contrary, I was succeeding. But now let us see to our late companion.”

Once more, Professor Raeder applied the terminals. Again Roland’s limbs jerked, his eyes fluttered and his chest heaved. But this time he continued to breathe when the terminals were removed. His heart continued to beat and he was returned almost instantaneously to full consciousness.

He lay pale and weak in the chair, staring dully about him.

Professor Raeder smiled. “Welcome, as they say, to the land of the living. Please don’t move or exert yourself for a while, Dr. Badel. Your heart—as you must know—needs a little time to adjust. And in order to set your mind—or should I say brain?—at rest, you will be happy to know that you were resuscitated well
within the acceptable limits. There will be no permanent damage.”

“Doc, what did it feel like to be dead?” enquired Quasimodo with malicious interest. “I think I like this game. We could keep on killing you, and the Prof could keep on bringing you back. I wonder how long you would last?”

Roland ignored him. “Professor Raeder, you are a clever and ruthless man, and you have reduced us to the level of puppets. But even you must realise that you cannot evade retribution. Come back to reality. You have demonstrated unprecedented control of telergetic power. Publish an account of your researches and techniques and you will be regarded as the greatest para-psychologist of this century. Leave it at that.”

Vanessa stroked his forehead, held his hand. “Roland, please don’t antagonise him. Please don’t. I can’t bear any more of this.”

Roland sighed. “What did he demand as the price of my life?”

“Absolute obedience. I promised. I will keep the promise as long as you live.”

“You paid too much. I’m not worth it. Also, you should be old enough to know that the devil always cheats on his bargains.”

Professor Raeder laughed. “Pacts with the devil? My dear Dr. Badel, the trauma of death has clearly distorted your perception somewhat. I trust you will regain your sense of proportion after you have rested. Also, if my knowledge of literature and mythology serves me aright, the devil is renowned for keeping his bargains—to the letter… Now, it is my professional opinion—as you know, I also have a degree in medicine—that you should enjoy relaxed rest for several hours. Alfred, dear boy, will assist you to your room, and I will come along
later and give you a mild sedative. The heart is a curious machine, tough yet vulnerable—as is the brain. Interrupt its function, however briefly, and you introduce the possibility of psychosomatic feedback. But I am sure you know all this. So, to bed with you, Dr. Badel. Tomorrow, perhaps, if you feel up to it, as the first man to experience telergetic euthanasia, you may care to give me a subjective account of the experience for the record… Come now, let us help you to your feet. Please enable me to keep my devil’s bargain with Vanessa by not trying to do anything quickly for a time.”

“May I go with him?” asked Vanessa.

“You may, child. But when you have seen that he is comfortable, you will return here. I must explain to you exactly what is needed to accomplish the destruction of Sir Joseph Humboldt.”

When Roland tried to stand up, he realised how weak he was. The psychological trauma that he had experienced was making itself apparent. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He wobbled uncertainly on his legs, like a drunken man, steadied by Alfred and Vanessa.

“You see?” said Professor Raeder. “It has all been just a shade too much for you. But, with a good night’s sleep behind you, you will feel like a new man.” He laughed. “Yes, positively like a new man. À
bientôt,
Dr. Badel.”

Roland tried to say something. But his chest heaved and his heart pounded, and the words would not form. He allowed himself to be helped out of the room by Vanessa and Alfred. He had been dead; and now he was alive once more. But the life to which he had returned seemed like a kind of dying.

W
HEN
V
ANESSA RETURNED
to Professor Raeder, she found that the others had been dismissed. Alfred, who came back with her, was dismissed also.

“I trust Dr. Badel is now resting?”

“He is in bed, Professor Raeder. I don’t know if he is resting.”

“Well, I will attend to him presently. You need have no fear child. I will keep my part of the bargain. Presently, he will be as good as new.”

“How could you do that to him? How could you do a thing like that?” Vanessa was shaking. She tried to stop herself, but she could not.

Professor Raeder observed her calmly. “Rage. Anger. Frustration. You would like me to die horribly before your very eyes… All perfectly natural. All perfectly natural. I do not blame you… But try—at least try—to see it from my point of view, Vanessa. I am about to rid this country of a tyrant—a despicable tyrant who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. He ordered your death, Vanessa. Do not forget that.”

“A tyrant—a despicable tyrant,” she echoed, meeting Professor Raeder’s gaze. “You give a very accurate description.”

He smiled. “I take your point. There is an old adage about fighting fire with fire, is there not? The difference
between Humboldt and myself is that I do not like the methods I am forced to use: he does… Now, sit down, child. I realise it is late and you must rest. But there are matters we have to discuss. You must understand clearly what I require of you. Soon your ordeal will be over, and you and Dr. Badel will be free to do whatever you wish. It was necessary to stage this little demonstration to convince you that you should co-operate fully with me. In later years, doubtless, you will be glad that you did.”

“In later years,” said Vanessa, “I shall hate myself.”

“So. That is your privilege. But now let us attend to the present. You are a unique paranormal, Vanessa. I have studied your records and I have discovered that you have the greatest receptivity quotient ever tested—at least, in this country. You can receive the telergetic insertions of several paranormals simultaneously. You can handle the input, store it, and release it as required. I have access to the case history Dr. Lindemann has written. His experiments were crude, but the results are phenomenal.”

“I did only what Dr. Lindemann asked me to do,” said Vanessa. “I don’t know anything about telergetic insertions or receptivity quotients.”

“Dear child, there is no reason why you should. Leave all the theorising to me. Sufficient to say that tomorrow evening, with your help, I shall destroy Sir Joseph Humboldt. You will be the transmitter of the impulse, that is all.”

“Why do you need me?” cried Vanessa. “Why must I be involved? Why can’t you kill the Prime Minister like—like you killed Roland?”

Professor Raeder sighed. “My dear, Dr. Badel was in the immediate proximity of my little team. He was unprotected, he was in a stress situation, he was
psychologically vulnerable, he was open to suggestion. He was a sitting duck… Some decades ago, in certain African tribes, the witch-doctor—a man respected and feared by the community—could command someone to die. The command would be carried out—not because the witch-doctor was all-powerful but because the victim believed him to be all-powerful. Such, roughly, was the case with Dr. Badel. He was a student when I was at the height of my professional career. He knows my work and he knows that I am one of the greatest living paranormal psychologists. Apart from Dimitrov in Russia and Dr. Sun in China, I am probably the best… He was already subconsciously conditioned to accept my authority. He believed that I could kill him because he knew that I believed I could kill him. I might even have managed it without the assistance of our young friends. An interesting thought… The acceptance by the educated mind of the witch-doctor motif. I might write a monograph upon it… Still, I digress. You ask why I need you. I will tell you why. Or I will try to tell you why… Do you know anything about gravity, or electro-magnetic radiation or the law of inverse squares?’”

“Professor Raeder, I am seventeen years old and for most of my life I have been nothing but a guinea pig for people like Dr. Lindemann.”

“I see. Lamentable. But surely you understand the term telergy?”

“It is telepathic energy, I think.”

“Yes, it is telepathic energy. A most mysterious entity. Like gravity, its source can be discovered and its effects defined and measured. But one cannot treat a beam of telergy like, for example, a beam of light, and measure its intensity and wave-length. On the other hand, one can focus telergy just as one can use a lens to focus
light… Now, let us consider the analogue of light for a moment. Imagine the headlamp of an ordinary hovercar on a misty night. You can see the beam defined in the mist. What shape is it?”

“Like a great bar,” said Vanessa.

“No, child,” snapped Professor Raeder testily. “It is not like a great bar. Your imagination serves you ill. It is an extended cone. The apex is the source of light, the filament in the lamp, and the diameter of the base of the cone increases in proportion to its distance from the apex. Thus the intensity of the light delivered to the base varies inversely to the distance from the light emitted at source. Do I make myself clear?”

“No. I can’t understand you.”

Professor Raeder gave a deep sigh. “Good grief! We are raising a generation of illiterates… No matter… Let us try again. Let us take a different approach. We will stay with the analogue of light. Suppose I had a powerful searchlight, and suppose on a very clear night, I shone it upon an aircraft high in the sky. Would the beam of light that hit the aircraft be the same width as the beam emitted at source?”