though vainly hoping the rain might be over by the time they reached the outside. He said abruptly, on the point of crossing the threshold, “Remember you asked whether I really believed those stories of people disappearing?”
Dan nodded.
“I desperately want not to! But—well, I was assigned to check on Robin Rainshaw, and you’ve heard what his father says about his case. Faced with that kind of thing, how the hell
can
I laugh the stories off?”
“I see what you mean,” Dan admitted. He had precisely the same reaction. Looking toward Redver’s bright-blue car, whose top had gone up automatically at the first spatter of rain, he added, “He said he couldn’t do what his son did because his mind isn’t adaptable enough. Have most of the—ah—disappearers been very young?”
“Some, not all,” Redvers said. He glanced at the sky.“Come on, it’s not raining that hard.” But his shoes squelched in newly deep puddles as he led the way to the car. “Besides, it can’t just be a question of young minds being more flexible. A hell of a lot of youngsters go insane. There hasn’t been anything like it since that crazy outbreak of LSD addiction in the middle sixties. I was a brand-new detective-constable then, and I used to hate bringing those kids in—but what else could you do, when they were drooling and playing with their fingers? That, thank heaven, is over, but I’m not sure this new problem isn’t even worse.”
Seated at the wheel, he made no move to start the car, but sat watching raindrops trickle down the windshield.
“I can’t grapple with things on this scale any longer,” he said suddenly. “I’m forty-one years old, Cross, but I feel
ancient
. I just have this continual sensation that the world is shaking apart, cracking at the crust, and we’re going to drop into a bottomless fissure any moment.”
“We’ve felt that way for more than a generation,” Dan reminded him.
“Oh, hell!
I
know we’re lucky not to have blown ourselves up long ago! But it’s one thing to be scared of what other people may do in the mass—an incompetent government, or a mob led by some hysterical rabblerouser. That’s humanity, and we’re stuck with it. Underneath everything you can’t really think of it as alien, and I believe what’s saved us for so long is the plain undeniable fact that we’re all human beings. Here, though, you’ve got something with no precedent. Alien knowledge, they tell us. Is it?
I
don’t know. But it does change people in subtle ways. You were telling me that this girl Lilith scares you because she cares so little about the risk of going crazy. That’s not ordinary human, Cross. Most people would rather be dead than insane. Am I making sense, or just rambling?”
“I think you’re making a lot of sense,” Dan said. His mouth was very dry.
“And we can’t know”—Redvers had only paused for the answer, not listened to it—“what goes on in these minds that are being changed. Not unless we get involved ourselves. I did. I found you can go so far, and then you have to make a choice: quit cold and seek help to prevent yougoing back, which is what I did, or decide that the rewards you can’t yet understand are going to be worth more than your home, your family, your job.… Ah, let’s go. I have work to do back in town.”
He let the stored steam from earlier into the main cylinder with a faint hiss and seesawed the car out of its parking space. He didn’t say anything else until they were on the road back toward central London. Then, without warning, he said, “That address your—ah—girl friend gave you. It sounded familiar. What was it again?”
Dan had memorized it; to repeat it he didn’t have to consult his memo book. Redvers gave a nod.
“Yes, I place it now. It’s a kind of commune, isn’t it?”
“That’s what Lilith said,” Dan confirmed. “Why do you know about it? Have the people there given you any trouble?”
“Funnily enough,
Dan nodded.
“I desperately want not to! But—well, I was assigned to check on Robin Rainshaw, and you’ve heard what his father says about his case. Faced with that kind of thing, how the hell
can
I laugh the stories off?”
“I see what you mean,” Dan admitted. He had precisely the same reaction. Looking toward Redver’s bright-blue car, whose top had gone up automatically at the first spatter of rain, he added, “He said he couldn’t do what his son did because his mind isn’t adaptable enough. Have most of the—ah—disappearers been very young?”
“Some, not all,” Redvers said. He glanced at the sky.“Come on, it’s not raining that hard.” But his shoes squelched in newly deep puddles as he led the way to the car. “Besides, it can’t just be a question of young minds being more flexible. A hell of a lot of youngsters go insane. There hasn’t been anything like it since that crazy outbreak of LSD addiction in the middle sixties. I was a brand-new detective-constable then, and I used to hate bringing those kids in—but what else could you do, when they were drooling and playing with their fingers? That, thank heaven, is over, but I’m not sure this new problem isn’t even worse.”
Seated at the wheel, he made no move to start the car, but sat watching raindrops trickle down the windshield.
“I can’t grapple with things on this scale any longer,” he said suddenly. “I’m forty-one years old, Cross, but I feel
ancient
. I just have this continual sensation that the world is shaking apart, cracking at the crust, and we’re going to drop into a bottomless fissure any moment.”
“We’ve felt that way for more than a generation,” Dan reminded him.
“Oh, hell!
I
know we’re lucky not to have blown ourselves up long ago! But it’s one thing to be scared of what other people may do in the mass—an incompetent government, or a mob led by some hysterical rabblerouser. That’s humanity, and we’re stuck with it. Underneath everything you can’t really think of it as alien, and I believe what’s saved us for so long is the plain undeniable fact that we’re all human beings. Here, though, you’ve got something with no precedent. Alien knowledge, they tell us. Is it?
I
don’t know. But it does change people in subtle ways. You were telling me that this girl Lilith scares you because she cares so little about the risk of going crazy. That’s not ordinary human, Cross. Most people would rather be dead than insane. Am I making sense, or just rambling?”
“I think you’re making a lot of sense,” Dan said. His mouth was very dry.
“And we can’t know”—Redvers had only paused for the answer, not listened to it—“what goes on in these minds that are being changed. Not unless we get involved ourselves. I did. I found you can go so far, and then you have to make a choice: quit cold and seek help to prevent yougoing back, which is what I did, or decide that the rewards you can’t yet understand are going to be worth more than your home, your family, your job.… Ah, let’s go. I have work to do back in town.”
He let the stored steam from earlier into the main cylinder with a faint hiss and seesawed the car out of its parking space. He didn’t say anything else until they were on the road back toward central London. Then, without warning, he said, “That address your—ah—girl friend gave you. It sounded familiar. What was it again?”
Dan had memorized it; to repeat it he didn’t have to consult his memo book. Redvers gave a nod.
“Yes, I place it now. It’s a kind of commune, isn’t it?”
“That’s what Lilith said,” Dan confirmed. “Why do you know about it? Have the people there given you any trouble?”
“Funnily enough,
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