Ti was relieved that, if the beating had to come, they had decided to give it to him before his dose of PBT. Otherwise, without his psionic power, he would have been helpless. He directed his mechanical hands to pummel the man's back, delivering excruciating batterings-though Baker seemed hardly to notice. He wouldn't. His pain centers had been pared to a minimum so that he would experience pain only in its extremes, thereby insuring he would not back out of a fight until it was necessary either to retreat or die. He continued to work on Timothy with an insane, rhythmic movement that made him seem more like an automaton than a human being, raising his flattened hands to slap the mutant's face until blood freely flowed down the misshapen chin.

Baker giggled, high and chillingly. His face was crimson, veins standing out, throbbing, sweat beading on his brow and running down his stubbled cheeks. He grinned fiercely, like a wolf before trapped prey. He was relentless and invincible, and Timothy was certain that the brute meant to kill him.

Still Jon Margle watched, intrigued. His eyes contained a touch of the inhuman mania that infected Baker. It was lacquered over with education and a veneer of civilization-but it was there just the same.

Aware that he had little time left before unconsciousness claimed him, Timothy attacked Baker's face with his steel servos. In moments, the man's bare soft facial flesh had begun to disintegrate beneath the worrying of the robotic prosthos.

There was a long gash down his left cheek, a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp where his right ear had been, a crimson horror where the servos had torn the flap of flesh separating his nostrils. Despite the pain, Baker did not slacken his attack on the mutant. He had flattened his hands automatically at Margle's order, but now they balled into fists as the romp changed into a matter of survival. Timothy hoped for an order from Margle to stop this, but he made no effort to restrain the killer. Margle's nostrils were flared, his eyes wild. He cringed by the door, obviously frightened and entranced at the same time.

And Timothy knew he could hold on to consciousness only a few moments longer. The pain of those blows in stomach and chest came like blocks of concrete tossed by a catapult.

Baker was chanting something, a string of obscenities mouthed in faithful order like a religious chant...

Ti now wished they had given him the PBT first, so that he would not have been aware of the pain. That thought jolted him awake again. d.a.m.n it, they had almost gotten to him so soon! When he began wishing for the drug, his will was snapped and they had won the battle. Furious with himself, he ordered the servos to grasp Baker's neck, to twist and crush the thickly muscled flesh until the man crumpled from a lack of blood to his brain. They locked hard fingers around his neck and applied heavy, though not maximum, pressure.

Baker continued to swing, though he slowly became aware that he was slowing down and that there was pain-very bad pain. He dropped his fists, staggered back, grasped at the servos worrying his neck. He pulled, fear and desperation replacing the s.a.d.i.s.tic frenzy that had occupied his facial features. But hands of flesh were not a match for steel fingers. He dropped to his knees and pitched forward into blackness.

Ti held the hands on him a moment more, then released them lest he kill the man. Without looking up, he directed the servos at the door where Margle had been waiting, hoping to catch the man off guard.

"Nice try," Margle said from behind him, near the bed. "But you better settle down now and let me get on with this."

Ti turned, discouraged, and saw the Brother holding the same ornate throwing knife he had used to cow the mutant days earlier. The moment of hope that had flowered in him now withered and died, rotted down in the depths of him. He turned and went back to the bed, with his servos floating to either side. He weighed the possibility of using the servos to strangle Margle while the Brother injected the PBT, but he saw that the man had used the time of the fight to fill the needle and that he could easily inject it with one hand while maintaining a deadly grip on the knife. He lay down on the bed, turned off the grav-plate system as directed, and accepted the dose of the drug with what dignity he could muster.

Dignity, after all, was about all he had left And even that would be gone soon; he might as well make use of it while it was permitted him.

"Much more reasonable," Margle said, putting the needle away.

The icewater of the drug stung through his veins.

"Enjoy yourself now."

Margle went into the bathroom, returned with a gla.s.s of water, pushed Baker onto his face by using the toe of his boot, and poured the cold fluid over the lackey's face. Baker spluttered, opened his eyes, tried to close them again and recapture blackness when he felt the awful pain in his throat.

"Come on, you great beast," Margle said, an amused expression on his face. "We've got things to do."

Baker rose without protest, cast a glance at Timothy, then followed Margle to the door. The Brother unlocked the portal, let them out, and closed and barred it behind them.

Ti was alone again, with only his dream...

For a while. Then the Other was there.

The drug delusions were still immensely pleasing. Indeed, the sensuality, the richness of color and texture seemed to grow with each dose that was administered to him, to gain depth and believability that sometimes seemed to surpa.s.s real experiences in a world of concrete objects. But a new element had intruded in the pattern that had become so so familiar in such a short time. During both of the psychedelic experiences of the previous day, Ti's second day locked in the bas.e.m.e.nt room of that house, the Other had appeared in the delusions, standing nearby, a ghost, a shadow, the only flimsiness in this vivid world. The Other looked exactly like Ti imagined himself in the dreams, handsome and with full body. He was like a mirror image of the Dream Timothy, a second Dream Timothy whose only purpose seemed to be to watch. There was nothing sinister about him, nothing to raise alarm. Indeed, his presence served only to calm Timothy, to make the delusions more pleasant. familiar in such a short time. During both of the psychedelic experiences of the previous day, Ti's second day locked in the bas.e.m.e.nt room of that house, the Other had appeared in the delusions, standing nearby, a ghost, a shadow, the only flimsiness in this vivid world. The Other looked exactly like Ti imagined himself in the dreams, handsome and with full body. He was like a mirror image of the Dream Timothy, a second Dream Timothy whose only purpose seemed to be to watch. There was nothing sinister about him, nothing to raise alarm. Indeed, his presence served only to calm Timothy, to make the delusions more pleasant.

Both times, Dream Timothy had attempted to speak with the shadow image of himself. And both times the attempt had ended in failure. The ghost had faded, dissolved, evaporated on the warm breezes of that nether-world. Now, during his third appearance, he was closer than before, more solid than before, staring from the riverbank as Ti drifted down it with the naked maidens that always accompanied him on his raft (which had now become a full-sized cabin cruiser with both propeller screw drive and air-cushion speed equipment). Even as the cruiser progressed down the stream, the second Dream Timothy followed, floating along the earth, not walking.

Dream Timothy stood on the deck of his ship, flanked by the nubile women of substantial insubstantiality, leaned on the railing, gripping it. He called to the image of himself that drifted by the sh.o.r.e, asked what the Other wanted.

The image did not answer.

He called again, repeated his question. As he finished speaking, the shadow man raised farther off the bank and sailed outward across the water like a spirit of the dead, his arms outstretched to the more solid Dream Timothy. The specter should have been frightening, but it was not. Somehow, Dream Timothy yearned for the embrace of the supernatural figure, of this shred of unreality in a world so painfully perfect in detail.

The specter drew closer.

Dream Timothy leaned farther over the rail.

And the ghost struck him, pa.s.sed into him...

... And he was awake, back in the cellar room of the Brethren house, lying on the bed. Before him, the table lamp floated free of any table, a great, heavy metal thing. Slowly, cracks began to appear in the metal. The bulb shattered. The shade was flung into a thousand tiny pieces. And the bronze from which the thing was cast began to shred like paper, to peel away in shavings and pile at the foot of the bed. He watched it until it was almost totally destroyed... Then he felt the PBT nether-world encompa.s.s him again. He was sailing down a river with the naked maidens. The world was pleasant, warm, and filled with sensuality. There was absolutely no sign of the specter he had come to think of as the Other. It had pa.s.sed into him-then through him. It had vanished as before. There had been but that one moment of commingling when their bodies had meshed in the same place at the same time. And then he had experienced the delusion of being awake and of shredding a piece of bronze with his psi power. But his psi power was far too limited for such a feat; it could not even have lifted such an object. He stopped thinking of that silliness and returned to the warmth of the girls who awaited him...

... But when he woke again, hours later, the last effects of the PBT washed from his system, he saw the ribbons of shaved bronze lying where they had fallen earlier, and he knew that he had not been dreaming this thing after all...

CHAPTER 9.

That night, of course, was a sleepless one.

He circled that small, cozy cellar chamber a thousand times, his mind so occupied that he little cared that the scenery never changed. His thoughts required so much of his attention that, for short moments, he was even oblivious to the ache of Baker's vicious beating, to the throbbing pain of the cuts on his face and the tender gash in his lower lip. He was preoccupied with the other, that spectral vision from his PBT delusions, and what the thing meant to him. He had reached the conclusion that the other was only a second part of his personality, perhaps a part that had never been given dominance in the real world but which the drug was able to unleash through its workings in his brain.

And for that moment when Dream Timothy and the Other had merged, had become one individual, his psionic abilities had bloomed, flowered into something more than a parlor trick. He longed for morning to arrive, for Jon Margle and the hulking Baker to appear with the next injection. He wanted wanted it now! But not for the illusions, not for the dreams and the feeling of high that had led him into apathy these first three days. He desired it now to go searching for the Other again, to find the ghost image of Dream Timothy, to find some way to make that intermingling of flesh last, to make it permanent. it now! But not for the illusions, not for the dreams and the feeling of high that had led him into apathy these first three days. He desired it now to go searching for the Other again, to find the ghost image of Dream Timothy, to find some way to make that intermingling of flesh last, to make it permanent.

Both Jon Margle and he had overlooked something that should have been considered before the PBT had been given to him. His body was human, yes, but it was nonhuman as well. His brain was obviously somehow special, or he would have had no psi power whatsoever. They should have seen that there was a strong possibility that the drug would not work on him in exactly the same manner it had worked on the tens of thousands of addicts the Brethren had created with it. Now he wondered whether it would have even remotely the same effect. He was beginning to believe that he might not become addicted at all-that it might, instead, free the psionic portion of his mind, develop his talent to the logical extreme, or at least increase it. If it could be permanently brought even to the level it had attained for a short moment this afternoon, he could easily break out of this prison, would no longer have a need to fear any weapon no matter whether it was a throwing knife or a tiny narcodart.

He hoped there would be no beating this time. He wanted to lie down, to be docile, to play the part of the converted user who just wants his junk and his subsequent high and is willing to play along with the opposition to get it.

The night pa.s.sed in eons.

The darkness seemed eternal, deep, and unremitting, as it always does when one is waiting impatiently for morning.

Then the first light shone through the barred window, cresting the ridges and distant peaks of higher mountains, a fluid orange that became crimson, then red, and finally burst across the sky in yellow fingers.

When they finally arrived, some two hours after daybreak, they had Polly London with them. She was disheveled, though still beautiful, and there was a bruise along the lovely line of her right jaw. She fell to her knees on the floor, dazed, gasping for breath like a landed fish.

"You've got a cell partner," Margle said. It was evident that both he and Baker had worked out a little of their s.a.d.i.s.tic nature on her-and that he had sampled the sensuality she was famous for on the senso-film screen.

"Why this?" Ti asked, suddenly miserable. He had been angered by her childlike inability to see evil in the world, but he had not wanted to be a witness to her education in the ways of ugliness.

"She's a bleeding heart," Margle said. "Got very restless about you. Pities you. A little too much pity and restlessness to be trustworthy any longer."

"What are you going to do to her?" Timothy asked, giving her one of his servos to help her get to her feet.

"Addict her," Margle said. "Medium range, like you. Not only will she give up these childish attempts to go to the police, but she'll be a nice little piece of woman to have under one's thumb, don't you think?"

"You're sick," Ti said contemptuously.

"No, no," Margle said. "I'm perfectly healthy. I've never taken junk and never will. It's the two of you who are soon to be addicted, friend."

Margle ordered the girl onto the second bed in the room where he would give her her first dose. When she stood and refused-out of incomprehension of his ruthlessness more than out of bravery-he sighed and ordered Baker to manhandle her onto the mattress. She kicked at the brute's shins and struck him with her small and ineffective hands. She bit his fingers, making him howl in fury. At last he chopped her viciously alongside the neck, and took her weight as she collapsed against him. By the time she had regained her, senses a few moments later, Jon Margle was slipping the PBT needle into her slim brown arm.

Timothy winced as the stuff disappeared from the syringe's gla.s.s tube.

Polly arched her back as the first taste of PBT brought her bad dreams rather than good ones. Ti was glad she had not had to suffer a ma.s.sive dose as he had. She looked miserable, thrashing on the cot, fighting to hold onto her humanity, being sucked deeper and deeper into unreality despite herself. Her eyes glazed, and she slumped against the mattress, lost to the delusions that rose out of her own mind and swallowed her.

As Margle prepared a needle for Timothy, the mutant almost thought of resisting. But the Other was waiting...

"Glad to see you're reasonable now," Margle said.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Cliche," Margle noted. "I really expected more from someone as literate as yourself."

Ti said nothing more, but watched the needle slide into his puncture-marked hip. He felt the drug hit him faster than ever before. That would have worried him if he had not been looking forward to meeting the Other. Now addiction was secondary to what he might be able to achieve through PBT.

"Sweet dreams," Margle said, turning and leaving with the battered Baker, who cast Ti a chilling ugly look that swore a permanent revenge for what had been done to him the previous day.

The door clanged.

The key turned in the lock.

A chain fell in place.

Then quiet.

Then dreams...

This time he was lying in a field where tall, exceedingly colorful flowers sprang out of the ground, grew arms, legs, became flower women. There were reds and yellows, burnt oranges and creams, emeralds and deeply shimmering blues. The petals turned into hair of the same color, and the women came forth, smiling, fragrant, delivered of Mother Earth. But one of the flowers bloomed and was transformed into the Other. Dream Timothy rose from his blossom bed and approached the spectral figure. Closer... closer... the Other seemed to have more solidity now. They touched... and meshed. And the Other was within him. And...

... He woke again, his mind crystal clear as he laid on his bed in the bas.e.m.e.nt room of the house.

He was aware of thoughts that were not his own. He expanded his mind, realized he was picking up Polly's emanations, was experiencing her dreams as if they were his. She was being thrust through hideous nightmares in which her beautiful face had been disfigured by acid...

He extended his mind further.

He soared into a cl.u.s.ter of thoughts he recognized immediately as Jon Margle's. They shifted about him like colored neon tubes, flashes of amber and rouge and cinnabar, sparklings of silver and great pulsing clouds of muddy brown.

He shifted...

And the next mind was Baker's. It was a vast, unbroken whiteness. Along the rim of the featureless plain were flashes of blood-colored lightning, thoughts of hideous, terrifying savageness. But the orderly, solid white paved over all else.

He let his mind return to the bas.e.m.e.nt room, into his own body once more. He was just in time to hear Polly scream...

She thrashed on the bed and clawed desperately at the sheets as one of her dream phantoms chased her down imaginary corridors. He wished there were something he could do for her, and he was maddened by the thought that, had he had more experience with his developing psi power, he might have been able to reach into her mind and counter the dark visions that plagued her.

Then he thought of the door and what he should have done immediately. He sent his psionic power to it, sent it into the lock to unkey it...

... And the Other pa.s.sed through him, returning him to the world of the PBT delusions and the insubstantial form of Dream Timothy. Again, the meshing had not been complete. He wondered, agonizingly, how long it would require to solidify the uniting of his two parts. He did not want to think about the possibility of that never transpiring. He allowed the illusions to entertain him...

But they had lost something of their color and texture and were little better than a senso-theater show now. Time and again he found himself waking into reality for short moments, listening to Polly thrashing at the demons that tormented her. As he watched her and thought about what they were trying to do to her-and what they had already done by trampling her innocence irretrievably into the bottom of her soul-he wondered if he could kill them. Not as he had killed Klaus Margle and the two gunmen with him that night so long ago-this time, he wondered if he would be able to torture them a little first, if his hatred had grown that bitter...

CHAPTER 10.

Timothy woke before the girl and was forced to lie there, listening to her squeals of terror, her cries for help. When she did wake, she was so exhausted she fell into a sound sleep until it was necessary for him to rouse her when supper arrived. As they ate, they talked, and Timothy was tempted, several times, to reveal the thread of the chance they had: his developing psionic abilities. She needed rea.s.surance, for she was terribly depressed now. But he had no way of knowing if the room were bugged or not, and he wasn't anxious to let the Brethren know they might be destroying themselves rather than him by administering the PBT.

As they were finishing the meal, Polly heard the familiar two sets of footsteps approaching their door. "Margle and that beast?" she asked.

He nodded. "Two doses a day."

Her eyes widened. "But at two a day, you don't have any time to hold onto reality. You're either drugged or sleeping it off."

"That's it," he said. He didn't tell her that he had been eagerly awaiting this dose, wanting a chance to meet the Other again.

She tried to resist Jon Margle, but only earned herself a series of stinging slaps across the face and a more brutal injection than she might otherwise have received.

Timothy was the model of docility, and Margle enjoyed that, smiling at him rather smugly and making the injection a gentle one. Then he turned and was gone, two pair of feet on the floor, the slam of the door, the rattle of the key in the lock. The ritual had, by this time, almost a religious significance.

Polly moaned, but not unpleasantly.

Timothy closed his eye and relaxed. There was a light-headedness, followed by a feeling of floating above the bed without benefit of his mobility system. Then the drug thrust him out of that bas.e.m.e.nt room and into a field of bright flowers...

The Other was waiting. He stood a dozen feet away, his hands in his pockets, eyes staring intensely at Dream Timothy. He was both a welcome and a frightening specter.

The flowers, this time, did not change into women.

They swayed in the soft breeze, the odors of them sweet, almost rotten-sweet as they came to him.

The Other drifted forward.

Dream Timothy did not make any effort to to rush forth to meet him, for he was somehow aware that it was not necessary. The meeting about to transpire, the meshing of two into one, was inevitable. rush forth to meet him, for he was somehow aware that it was not necessary. The meeting about to transpire, the meshing of two into one, was inevitable.

Closer...

"They are trying to do to you what the military tried to do so long ago," the Other said. "Do you understand that?" It was the first time he had spoken.

"I know," Timothy said.

"They're trying to make you helpless again. It's the way of the world. Governments proceed the same way against subjects, man against man. They want to remove every vestige of self-respect from you and instill in you a doubt of your own abilities and a fuzziness of purpose."

"I know."