Prayers to Broken Stones by Dan Simmons Page A

that he had lost the focus of his power. Then he concentrated and was able to pick out the dull, sexual broodings of Turk out in the garden and the preoccupied fragments of Dr. Whilden’s thoughts as she settled herself into her Mercedes and checked her stockings for runs. The receptionist was reading a novel—
The Plague Dogs.
Bremen read a few lines with her. It frustrated him that her eyes scanned so slowly. His mouth filled with the syrupy taste of her cherry coughdrop.
    Bremen stared intensely at Robby. The boy was breathing asthmatically. His tongue was visible and heavily coated. Stray bits of food remained on his lips and cheeks. Bremen narrowed his probe, strengthened it, focused it like a beam of coherent light.
    Nothing.
    No. Wait. There was—what?—an
absence
of something. There was a hole in the field of mindbabble where Robby’s thoughts should have been. Bremen realized that he was confronting the strongest mindshield he had ever encountered. Even Gail had not been able to concentrate a barrier of that incredible tightness. For a second Bremen was deeply impressed, even shaken, and then he realized the cause of it. Robby’s mind was damaged. Entire segments were probably inactive. With so few senses to rely on and such limited awareness, it was little wonder that the boy’s consciousness—what there was of it—had turned inward. What at first seemed to Bremen to be a powerful mindshield was nothing more than a tight ball of introspection going beyond autism. Robby was truly alone.
    Bremen was still shaken enough to pause a minute and take a few deep breaths. When he resumed, it was with even more care, feeling along the negative boundaries of the mindshield like a man groping along a rough wall in the dark. Somewhere there had to be an opening.
    There was. Not an opening so much as a soft spot—a resilience set amidst the stone. Bremen half-perceived the flutter of underlying thoughts, much as a pedestrian sensesthe movement of trains in a subway under the pavement. He concentrated on building the strength of the probe until he felt his shirt beginning to soak with sweat. His vision and hearing were beginning to dim in the singleminded exertion of his effort. No matter. Once initial contact was made, he would relax and slowly open the channels of sight and sound.
    He felt the shield give a bit, still elastic but sinking slightly under his unrelenting pressure. He concentrated until the veins stood out in his temples. Unknown to himself, he was grimacing, neck muscles knotting with the strain. The shield bent. Bremen’s probe was a solid ram battering a tight, gelatinous doorway. It bent further. He concentrated with enough force to move objects, to pulverize bricks, to halt birds in their flight.
    The shield continued to bend. Bremen leaned forward as into a strong wind. There was only the concentrated force of his will. Suddenly there was a ripping, a rush of warmth, a falling forward. Bremen lost his balance, flailed his arms, opened his mouth to yell.
    His mouth was gone.
    He was falling. Tumbling. He had a distant, confused glimpse of his own body writhing in the grip of an epileptic seizure. Then he was falling again. Falling into silence. Falling into nothing.
    Nothing.
    Bremen was inside. Beyond. Was diving through layers of slow thermals. Colorless pinwheels tumbled in three dimensions. Spheres of black collapsed outward. Blinded him. There were waterfalls of touch, rivulets of scent, a thin line of balance blowing in a silent wind.
    Supported by a thousand hands—touching, exploring, fingers in the mouth, palms along the chest, sliding along the belly, cupping the penis, moving on.
    He was buried. He was underwater. Rising in the blackness. But he could not breathe. His arms began to move. Palms flailed against the viscous current. Up. He was buried in sand. He flailed and kicked. He moved upwards, pulled on by a vacuum that gripped his head in a vise. The substance shifted. Compacted,