Eighteen
After looking briefly into Hester's apartment, which still smelled oppressively of cooked flesh and spilled blood despite the fact that all the bodies had been removed, Childermass went upstairs to the Bundys'. He settled down on the sunny Mexican sofa and asked for a neat Scotch. This was brought to him. The time was twenty minutes past nine. For several more minutes Childermass listened to the tape recording which Miles Bundy had made earlier that evening.
It had been longer than a year since Childermass had heard Peter Sandza's voice. He listened with an expression of pained fascination. So near in time, and so elusive. Twice he put down his glass to fondle the stump of his left arm. The other men in the room, embarrassed, stared out the windows or at the tips of their shoes.
"I'll miss the Bundys," Childermass said when the tape had ended. "I was really fond of those dancing fools. We were together in the bad old days, when all there was to MORG was a row of crummy offices in a warehouse across from the Navy yard. Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Did you know that, Richard? Meg and Miles Bundy were among my first recruits."
"I didn't know that, sir," Richard Kanner said. He was the senior executive on hand, chief of Homefolks, MORG's domestic division. "If only they'd called for backup—"
"I can't fault them for taking the action they did. I know they didn't realize they just weren't good enough any more. Time is a thief, and Peter Sandza is inhumanly difficult to trap. You can't believe how good he is until you've actually been up against him. And how many men have survived that interesting experience?"
"Sir, I think we should get out an APB on that blue Cougar."
"Why bother? Peter has had an hour, he's well rid of it by now. We could put their descriptions on the police networks, but that's a long shot. Even if they're picked up we'd be fortunate if we could move fast enough to keep the girl off the front pages: the Bellaver name makes her hot copy."
"He might not have Gillian with him."
"I think he does. Therefore we can be one hundred percent sure where our man is going. Hester said it best: Gillian is on Robin's wavelength. We'll fall back and wait for them at Psi Faculty."
"There's that other problem. How does Nick O'Hanna fit into this?"
"I'm listening," Childermass said, and he winked at a subordinate nearby.
Kanner clasped his hands between his knees.
"Well—obviously Peter went to them looking for help. Because of the weapon, the articles of clothing and the electronic devices which we found in Hester's apartment we can assume that O'Hanna agreed to supply Peter's material needs. Let's also assume he's backed by the full faith and credit of the Langley gang. But they're under edict. They want the boy killed, not liberated by his father."
"How many ways can you skin an old cat, Richard?"
"They plan to double-cross Peter?"
"Why, sure. Leave it to Todfield. Should Peter succeed in taking back his son, they step in at their leisure and do the dirty. But, because we're not going to let Peter anywhere near the boy, not even for old time's sake, it's a losingproposition. Don't be concerned about the Langley gang. Things are working out our way."
Childermass stood and was helped into his suitcoat, then his long black astrakhan.
"Well, he's out there," Childermass said, smiling. "The existential fugitive, holed up with a girl who has been under such a severe strain she could go raving mad at any moment. She has the unpredictable power to destroy him. Even if he survives Gillian Bellaver, Peter's on his last lap. Very nearly a burnt-out case, but does he know it yet? Oh, no, there's still that last stubborn spark of hope. For a long, long time I thought he was enchanted. I really did. I doubted I would face him again long enough to see that ineffable spark die out before my eyes. Leaving nothing. A heap of human wreckage. But it will happen. It's academic now. I'm paid in full and guaranteed. What a hell of a thrill. I'll be having dinner tonight at Twenty-One with friends. After that I'm going to suck on a pair of thousand-dollar tits and Cakewalk on the ceiling of the fanciest suite at the Waldorf. If you need me, Richard, I'll be at Psi Faculty by sunrise. Try not to need me."
"I have to close in five minutes," said the woman in the Port Chester library. "Have you found what you were looking for?"
She smiled at Gillian, who was leafing through a thick reference work entitled Catholic Colleges and Universities in North America. Gillian replied with a tight-lipped shake of her head. She had looked at every page at least twice, and now she was concerned. There were hundreds of photos of campuses in the book, but none of the schools were familiar. Anxiety caused her vision to swim and blur.
"Gail, honey."
Gillian, unused to her new name, glanced guiltily at Peter, who stared calmly back at her from across the table.
"You're sure it was a Catholic college?"
"Yes. Because of the -chapel."
"Tell me about the chapel again."
"It wasn't like the other buildings." Gillian used her hands descriptively. "The chapel was on a knoll, or a hill, all by itself. Mostly stained glass and—a lot of angles, you know, very futuristic, tent-shaped. The roof angles rose to make crosses and the crosses became three open spires. And everywhere the moon was shining there were long black crosses on the snow. It was really very beautiful."
The librarian nodded. "How long ago did you visit the college?"
"Years and years," Peter said, chuckling.
"I was just a little girl," Gillian explained.
"You have a wonderful memory for places," the librarian said. "Well, we're really getting awfully close to the witching hour around here."
Peter struck his forehead lightly with the heel of his hand. "Am I dumb," he said. He reached across the table and lifted the book, read the date on the cover. "This year's edition."
"Yes, sir, the very latest—"
"But the college is closed. Out of business."
"How do you know that, sir?"
"If it wasn't, then it would be pictured in this book. Do you have an earlier edition? Three or four years back?"
"I don't know. We're constantly updating our reference shelves. The older volume might well be in a carton downstairs awaiting disposal. If you could come back in the morning—"
"There's just no way," Peter said dejectedly. "Gail and I are passing though, and I'm pinched for time. I'm an architect by profession, and I've been commissioned to redesign a college campus in West Virginia. We're touring campuses in the east looking for ideas. Gail remembered this Catholic school, and it sounds like an impressive place. I'd sure like to see it before we head home. Are there many cartons?"
"Quite a few . . ."
"I'll be glad to help you look. It shouldn't take long."
Woodlawn College for Women. Lake Celeste, New York.
When they had a room for the night, Peter located the town on an oil company road map. Lake Celeste was on a state road in the eastern Adirondacks, an area dotted with lakes and medium-sized mountains that supported three ski centers. Population 350. The nearest railroad was thirty-five miles southeast. No airport closer than Glens Falls. There was one way in and one way out, a plowed road which easily could be blockaded.
The surrounding countryside and the campus of what had been Woodlawn College lay under four feet of snow, and more was on the way. Peter had phoned the weather bureau at JFK to get an accurate forecast. Up to eight inches of fresh snow were predicted for Friday night; near blizzard conditions would prevail. Either that made things impossible for him, or it was just what he wanted. He couldn't tell yet. He needed better maps of the Lake Celeste region; government geological survey maps which would show him the location of every building on the campus.
Up to a point Gillian had been helpful, describing the large house in which Robin lived. But when he asked her to Visit again, to go back for a closer look at the inside of the house, she flatly refused. Soon after she wept bitterly; eventually she cried herself to sleep on the double bed in their shared room.
Peter was surprised that Gillian had held up this long. She had to be a mass of raw nerve endings, tormented by each new horror thrust upon her. Gillian's good life had been blasted nearly off the tracks; it ran crazily now, wobbling and screeching into a future that looked like Hell. Yet she had the iron will of those survivors who had walked out of Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, wounded, diminished, but never beaten.
Her reluctance to re-Visit the Woodlawn College house was Robin's fault. Peter guessed that much, but their strange, other-wordly relationship baffled him. Robin had done something to hurt her deeply. Almost overcome by fatigue and tears, Gillian tried to explain: after eighteen months in that place, Robin was very different from the image of the boy Peter still cherished. But her thoughts became disconnected. She rambled about childhood things that mysteriously involved Robin, then she simply cried over what was lost or irretrievable. He understood very little of what she meant to say.
From the bedroom windows of the inn in which they were staying Peter read the illuminated face of the clock in the pre-Revolutionary Congregational church. It was six minutes to eleven. At this early hour the historic village of Mt. Carmel, Connecticut, was utterly still. He hadn't seen a moving car for ten minutes. Mt. Carmel was in the southwest corner of the state, off the main roads and a little too far from New York City to serve as a bedroom community: backwater status had enabled the village to retain most of its Colonial character. Moonlight glistened on polished snow and the tall bare trees that lined the common.
On the bed Gillian breathed huskily and worried in her sleep. She was fully clothed but the room was draughty: Peter threw a blanket over her. There was a smudge of dirt, blending into one eyebrow, which he hadn't noticed before. She had a nail-biting habit. Her hair was a welter on the pillow and she was pathetically pale. But Gillian had an undeniable, visceral impact on him; it wasn't lust, he thought, but foreknowledge of the marvelous woman she could be, given any kind of chance.
Considering the company she'd chosen to keep, he wondered what her chances were of living beyond tomorrow . . .
In a remarkably vivid and ugly transposition Peter saw Hester's blown-apart head on the pillow. He jerked away from the bed and sought the bottle of gin he'd bought immediately after leaving the Port Chester library. He poured a stiff shot, knowing that tonight he could absorb the full fifth and remain very nearly sober. No, he was not going to dwell on Hester. He'd always known it could happen, despite all their precautions. And so they'd killed her. Probably she didn't have an inkling that her life was over, certainly she hadn't suffered, there was no use sniveling about it. Hester didn't need an hour of teeth-chattering soggy remorse in place of a eulogy, that would serve only to make him less effective, reduce critical focus at the worst of times.
Peter drank the gin in his glass in measured sips and forced his thoughts to the problem at hand.
He had taken with him to Hester's the expendable electronics gear, his Python revolver, which he wished he had, and a topcoat and sports jacket which he could easily replace. Most of his clothing, all of the two thousand in cash and the false identification he'd prudently left locked in the trunk of the Cougar. He was now driving a rented Volare Wagon, but he had no intention of driving it as far as Lake Celeste. MORG would have every inch of the town under its control, they'd be picked up in a minute.
Leave Gillian behind? He considered this option again, but he realized he wasn't going to be less conspicuous traveling alone, and she had a talent he might still make use of, the ability to telepathically communicate with Robin.
There was another, emotional factor in his final decision to take Gillian along. He had a poignant feeling of responsibility for her life that overwhelmed common sense; it had started that night at the hospital and was now more powerful than ever. Peter had no doubt that Gillian was strongly attracted to and dependent on him. No, he wasn't going to abandon her. He'd thrown Hester away, but possibly there was something he could still do for this one.
The next time he went to the windows to look at the clock it was ten minutes to two in the morning, and the bottle in his hand was nearly empty.
Peter yawned. He had come up with some workable ideas, a way of using the coming snowstorm to advantage. At the same time he was realistic about the probability of success. He yawned again, nerveless but not yet sleepy. Gillian lay peacefully on the bed. As he turned out the single lamp in the room he wondered if she was all there, or if she had gone wandering. In the bathroom he relieved himself of a good part of the gin he'd drunk, brushed his teeth and went to bed beside Gillian.
As soon as he stretched out she turned over and put a loose arm across him, burrowed close and warm with a long exhalation of pleasure, or a release of deep tension. Peter held her head against his chest, kissed an exposed ear and closed his own eyes.
Shortly before dawn he woke up feeling panicked, certain that, in the course of a dream he couldn't recall, he had died.
In sleep Peter had retained a tentative grip on Gillian, but her back was to him now; she was half in and half out of the blanket, warm enough and still fast asleep. The moon had set but there was outside light in the room, a faint morning sheen. You never died in dreams, he thought. You could suffer but not die. Was it simply the cold weight of Hester on his conscience?
The panic was a momentary thing, lying on his back he breathed it all away. But now that he was clearly awake he was obsessed by something not a part of any dream. A catastrophic event had taken place, a gross insult to his mind—palpable fingers had probed his precious gray matter like a small boy grubbing in earth for night crawlers. He was shocked by the image; he quivered childishly and groaned aloud.
Gillian sat up still immersed in sleep and gave him a puzzled look; then she gasped and scrambled away from him. She fell off the bed and rebounded tall holding her head in her hands, making thin sounds of distress.
"Gillian, it's Peter. Don't yell. Easy, girl. You're all right."
She needed another full minute to get her bearings.
"Bathroom," she mumbled.
He got up and guided her in and closed the door. It was then he realized something was wrong with his left hand. The last two fingers had no feeling. They were inert, dead twigs on the surviving limb. The edge of his palm was numb to the wrist. The very tip of his middle finger also was numb. He had control of only about half of his left hand.
So he'd slept on it wrong. Feeling would return. But even as he tried to assure himself that the condition was temporary he realized the truth. It wasn't a circulatory problem or a pinched nerve.
Stroke, Peter thought, more amazed than afraid. The quietest kind of death. A threadlike vessel had ruptured somewhere deep in the right hemisphere or basal ganglia of the brain. The seepage of blood had painlessly destroyed a litde patch of neurons. Result, two fingers dead. There was some chance he would regain the use of those fingers. He knew how fortunate he was: he could function with a hand and a half. He might have been lying there on the bed unable to move or speak. He might have been stricken in a thousand bizarre and crippling ways.
Oh, God, if only it doesn't get worse. Don't let me die a creeping death, he prayed. '
Gillian came out of the bathroom.
Peter, standing by the windows with his left hand in his right, looked at her in awe. It hadn't occurred to him that he might be affected, waking or sleeping, by the immense power that had killed the woman in the hospital. He had no idea of how it worked or why it worked, why some were immune and others susceptible. He wondered if Gillian knew.
"You slept with me," she said.
"Not in the Biblical sense."
"I know that. I should have told you—there's something— well, I think you already know how weird I am. But it's worse than that. Do you know what a poltergeist is?"
"German word meaning 'noisy spirit.' It involves psychokinesis—furniture moving, objects flying around, pictures falling off walls without a hand touching them. I read somewhere that this sort of psychokinetic activity depends on energies generated by the repressed angers or sexual frustration of certain adolescents. There usually seems to be a child around when there's a poltergeist."
Gillian turned on her side and looked at him.
"I can read people, you know? Like a clairvoyant." Peter nodded. "I don't remember much of what they told me at Paragon Institute. They had me on junk to keep me from thinking too much, and—remembering." Her voice quavered. "I was somebody else there, the mousiest little—"
"Gillian, honey."
Her teeth were clenched, but she wouldn't cry.
"I'm sorry. What I'm trying to tell you—when I'm into clairvoyance, having visions, I become some sort of awful generator. Like a poltergeist, but I don't smash dishes. I bleed people out. Kill them. I killed my b-best friend."
"But you're not to blame."
"How can you say that?"
"You're no more guilty than if you'd carried a rare virus around for years, then inadvertently handed it off to a few people who are particularly susceptible."
"For a virus there are antiviruses. The only cure for me
Gillian didn't finish the thought, but her meaning was clear. Peter came to keep her company on the bed.
"Did you hurt your hand?" she asked.
Peter hadn't been aware that he was massaging the unresponsive fingers.
"It's a little sore; nothing to worry about. Gillian, while we were next to each other, asleep or half asleep, did you read me in some way?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell me about it?"
"Not much to tell. I just had an impression of someone . . . who you're very close to."
"Do you mean Hester?"
"No; it was a man. You'd do anything for him—I think you must love him, more than anyone you've ever loved. Even more than Robin. You cried when you had to tell him all about your father. It hurt so bad, talking about those things in your life you've tried to forget."
Peter stared at the windows. The dark diamonds in the curtains were becoming visible as the sky lightened.
"What does he look like?" Peter said, his voice strained.
"He's small. Old. Not much hair. Just a very ordinary looking person. But he wears reflecting sunglasses; you can't see his eyes."
"I've had very few friends in my life, Gillian. I don't know the man you described. You must have dreamed it."
"Dreams and visions are different," she said. "He's real. What happened to your father?"
"I don't know," Peter said remotely. Then, "Yes. I do. It was his heart. I was only about ten. Fathers die. And are buried. And you try not to think very much about them after that."
Peter got up and walked the floor.
"Robin thinks I'm dead. They've convinced him of that. Otherwise he wouldn't have cooperated with them. It'll be a hell of a shock when he—well, that's just one more problem. Getting to Robin: that's all I'm concerned with now. I have to find Robin. Find Robin. Find Robin."
He pounded a wall with his right fist, hard enough to rouse everyone in the inn. Gillian sat up on the bed.
"Peter!"
He turned slowly, fist poised.
"What's the matter?"
"You. You're scaring me."
Peter sat at the foot of the bed. He made no comment about his wall-banging, but he opened and closed his right hand several times, his head bent in concentration.
"I know very little about the human brain. But I think there may be a way of helping you, Gillian."
She shook her head. "I'm harmless when I'm doped. Or, I suppose they could do an operation; plant electrodes in my brain and just—turn me off forever. But I refuse to end up like that. I would rather be dead."
"What affects you might be described as a rare form of epilepsy—"
"Oh, God," she said listlessly.
"But there's nothing to be afraid of. Many epileptics are learning, through biofeedback training, to cut off potential seizures by regulating their own brain waves. You may be able to fully control your clairvoyance, and the side effects, the storm of magnetic energy that does the damage."
"I can't believe that."
"A handful of people have extraordinary bodies, which they train to perform feats which are literally beyond duplication. Houdini, the escape artist—or those marathon runners who like to go up and down mountains all day. Not too many years ago I was a member of an elite Navy assault team. I trained myself to swim, twelve, fourteen hours a day. I thought that was pretty good, but there was a little guy in my outfit who could outswim me, and do a thousand situps afterward."
"What does all that prove?" Gillian said.
"You're bright and intelligent, not a freak or an idiot-savant, capable of only a single, bizarre mental feat. You and Robin absolutely prove what we've always known, that the mind of man is capable of anything. Mentally, you've split the atom. All you can think of now is the holocaust, the potential tragedy. But your power is basically more useful than the power of the atom, once you've made the effort and acquired the necessary controls. Maybe no one can help you, Gillian. You may have to do it all by yourself. But I think you're tough enough to give it a hell of a try. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't waste my time on you."
He wasn't surprised to see Gillian crying, but the change in her was remarkable; her head was up, face coming clear as a cameo as she turned it toward the dawn windows. She was, just then, as beautiful as ever he'd wished her to be. He watched her come of age and held his breath, afraid that any move on his part, the faintest gesture, might annul the new growth.
"It's just—too much to hope for; I don't dare believe it."
Peter pressed his advantage. "I only said there was a chance, Gillian. But I think it's a damned good chance, for you and for Robin."
"Robin, yes; oh, he needs help! And soon, before he—"
"If you believe that, then try to communicate with him. It's vital."
Gillian sat back and dried up; her eyes were alert.
"I'll try," she said. "You mean now?"
"No. Let's move in closer. We've got some hard traveling to do."
Peter rose and took Gillian by the hand, helping her off the bed. For a long moment she leaned gratefully against him. Then she tensed, but tried to be casual as she stepped away. Now her death-bringing fear was instinctive, but at least she had an alternative to hopelessness. Peter smiled thinly. The middle finger of his left hand, which he tried not to let her see, was numb to the first joint. And the dead fingers had begun to curl toward the palm. The small cerebral vascular accident she had precipitated in his brain was still in progress. He could be detached about his accident, fatalistic. But he worried that the time left would not be enough time.
"I guess you'd like to have a toothbrush," Peter said.
"And a hairbrush. And—these jeans are so raunchy. And if I had about nine thousand pancakes and plates and plates of sausage I could eat every bite!"
"Amen. We ought to be able to find a place over on Route Seven that's serving early breakfast. I'll provide you with a wardrobe when we get to Poughkeepsie."
"Poughkeepsie?" Gillian said, with a humorous perplexed tilt of her head.
Xhe travel agent Peter found near the Vassar College campus was every bit as helpful as Peter hoped she'd be.
"It's the height of the season, and accommodations are very scarce in the Lake Celeste area. How about Vermont? No, forget I said that. Vermont is worse."
"I thought the snowstorm might keep people away from Lake Celeste."
"That'll be over by tomorrow morning; forecast is clear and sunny for the weekend. Let me think. You want to be near Lake Celeste. That limits us to Shadowdown, Great Spirit Mountain or Purviance. Two rooms—impossible. How old's your daughter?"
"Fourteen."
"Would she be embarrassed, sharing with her old man?"
"It's the skiing that counts."
The agent reached for her telephone. "The manager of Shadowdown is a very dear friend, but I'm going to try this once too often." She consulted a rolodex, dialed long distance, whistled through her teeth, studied Peter.
You are a lot of trouble, you know that?" She beamed at him. "Don't worry, I'll get you into Shadowdown. I know how it is. I'm raising two kids alone. You make promises, you break promises. Comes a time when you just can't let them down. Right now skiing with her dad is the most important thing in your daughter's life. You gotta be a hero to your kids once in a while."
After making a couple of purchases, Peter met Gillian in front of the Vassar College library. She looked pleased with herself.
"They had the maps. I Xeroxed two copies."
It was a bright cloudless day. The snow was melting, and water ran in freshets in the street. Peter took Gillian's arm as they strolled together. He wore a tweed jacket over a wool turtleneck sweater, and when the sun was shining directly on him he felt a little too warm. He kept his left hand in the jacket pocket. Gillian carried her parka. Her cheeks were reddening in the crisp air. She looked like any other pretty student to him; prettier than most. They were just a part of the crowd on campus, and no one paid much attention to them.
Peter said, "We're booked into a resort called Shadowdown. It's seventeen miles and on the other side of a mountain from Woodlawn College. Our train leaves at one-forty. On Fridays the railroad puts on extra sections for ski buffs. There's always a big local contingent bound for the Adirondacks, including a lot of unattached college kids."
"Will MORG be looking for us up there, Peter?"
"Yes."
"Are we going to disguise ourselves?"
"We'll take on the coloration, of the group. It's much more effective than you might think."
"Something's been nagging me. If they expect you—us—to come, why wouldn't they take Robin somewhere else? Wouldn't that make sense?"
"Moving an individual under guard greatly increases the risk factor. I don't think they're all that worried. If anything, Childer-mass may be over-confident. There's a ski shop a few blocks from here. Do you feel up to walking?"
"I feel fine," Gillian replied.
At the edge of the campus in the shade of a wall she hung back for a moment, bothered, frankly wistful. So close to the reality and routine of classes, friends, weekend dates, she felt just a step out of her proper life. But what a step, Peter thought, and probably the same thought occurred to Gillian: she turned quickly and walked on, the hard sun flash through trees taming her blindly, melting down her eyes.
"Friends of mine," she said, "were going off one deep end after another. Sex, breakdowns. Pressure got to them. I was sorry. But I felt kind of above it all, you know? Insulated. I knew who I was. I knew what I was all about."
"Are you feeling sorry for yourself now?" Peter asked unkindly.
". . . Desperate," Gillian said, just getting it out.
"That's okay," he said, taking her arm again with his workable hand. "That we can use."
In the ski shop Peter spent nearly seven hundred and fifty dollars to outfit them. He bought, in addition to equipment and clothing for the slopes and for après-ski, a dark two-piece snowmobile outfit, a helmet and appropriate boots. They left the store loaded down with gear, wearing Scandinavian sweaters and ski pants. Gillian had pinned up her hair, which she wore under a knit cap. She was also wearing pink-tinted glasses with heavy French frames. Peter doubted that her own mother would have recognized her from more than six feet away.
"Snowmobiles are usually banned from ski areas," Gillian said on the street.
"Shadowdown ought to have quite a few of them for staff use. I'll find what I need."
"Is that how you intend to get to Robin? By snowmobile? Even the new ones make a lot of noise—around seventy-three decibels."
"Under the right snow and wind conditions the sound won't carry fifty feet."
"But you' re taking a terrible chance going out in a blizzard—"
"Gillian, it's the only chance. If things are lousy for me, then they'll be lousy for MORG. Now let's cool the questions. What you don't know can't hurt either of us."
They stopped at a luggage shop and purchased a big shoulder tote for Gillian. Back in the car Peter unwrapped the cassette tape recorder he'd picked up earlier. He put in a blank tape and talked for fifteen minutes about himself, about Robin, about MORG.
Then Gillian took her turn. She spoke haltingly to her parents, broke down, recovered and told them exactly where she could be found.
"But what good is this going to do?" she said, while Peter sealed the cassette in a double thickness of manila envelopes.
"Your family—I mean all of the Bellavers—has tremendous power, Gillian. They have access to all the power there is in Washington. But even with MORG in a predicament they'll have to move quickly along the lines I suggested, in order to protect us."
"Couldn't we just call them and tell—"
"MORG will have a tap on their line. But they won't intercept the mail."
Gillian addressed the envelope to her parents and marked it for special delivery while Peter asked a cop for directions to the Poughkeepsie post office.
When he was back in the car she said, "Why will MORG be in a predicament?"
"There's no clear line of succession; Childermass has always been afraid to put too much power in the hands of his subordinates. Cut off the head and MORG's enemies will devour the body. Then the skeleton should crumble slowly away on the banks of the Potomac."
"That's what you're going to do? Kill Childermass?"
"Yes, if it's the last thing I ever do," Peter said.
Gillian blinked several times. She put her head back against the seat, face turned to him. She looked depressed. Peter didn't question her mood. Neither of them spoke for quite a while.
They arrived at the Penn Central terminal across the river from Poughkeepsie fifteen minutes before train time.
Everything that wasn't essential, including the clothes Gillian had been wearing, was left in the rented wagon. Even so Peter found himself burdened.
"Is your hand worse?" Gillian asked. "You haven't been using it."
"About the same."
"I can carry both pairs of skis," she said, and proved it, balancing them on one shoulder. They joined a crowd of about one hundred weekenders on the station platform. It was a young crowd, but there were several family groups; Peter saw three men about his age with half-grown children.
He had explained to Gillian that it would be a good idea if they didn't spend much time together until they were safely in their room at Shadowdown. He anticipated a MORG watch on all the resorts, but with upwards of four thousand skiers arriving in the area for the weekend, it was unlikely MORG could pick Peter or Gillian out of the crowd.
Gillian left him with the skis and strolled along the platform. By the time the train was there she had a boy at her heels, whom she introduced as Cary. Cary was on the chubby side but looked like a lot of fun. Peter smiled benevolently.
Thirty-seven minutes later, as the train pulled into Hudson, New York, Gillian said in his ear, "Dad, this is Francis."
Peter looked up. Francis was tall and wore glasses and braces. He had hair like a caveman. Peter shook his hand and spoke privately to Gillian.
"What happened to Cary?"
"Oh, he's with us. He's—" She waved a hand airily toward the coach behind them. "Do you think I should try for three?" she said, flushed with accomplishment.
"Gail, honey, aren't you overdoing the protective coloration?"
"This is fun. I never picked up boys before."
Peter's protection was a man named Galleher. He had three boys with him who were ten, eleven and twelve years old. They were going to Shadowdown. Galleher was an insurance man. Peter lamented the fact that he'd never owned enough life insurance. Peter and Galleher became fast friends at that instant. Peter won his sons over by letting the two oldest beat him at chess. By four thirty-nine, when the train stopped at Ft. Edward to let off most of the skiers, Peter, Galleher and the boys were inseparable.
The resorts had sent yellow school buses, leased for the weekend, to pick up their guests for the forty-minute trip into the mountains. Peter got aboard one of the two buses going to Shadowdown, Gillian on the other with Cary and Francis.
At Ft. Edward snow was already falling, but lightly; far to the west the setting sun was red and smoky like a fire in a tunnel. By the. time they reached Shadowdown it was dark and ten degrees colder; the snow had quickened to a lash.
Shadowdown consisted of a chalet-style main lodge and three gingerbread wings built one above the other on the mountainside. They were connected by a funicular elevator and two enclosed stairways. There was a slope for night skiing, an outdoor skating rink and a bubble-top pool just behind the lodge. Accommodations for three hundred people ranged from deluxe, with private sauna, to dormitory-style living, which was one reason the Gallehers liked Shadowdown. For food, guests had a choice of a smart intimate restaurant, a cafeteria open twenty-four hours and a beerhall that served authentic German specialities.
Peter and Gillian had been booked into the second tier of rooms on the mountain. Their room was overheated. They had twin beds with blue spreads, dark Weldwood paneling, snow scenes on the walls, and sliding glass doors to a balcony that overlooked the bright pool bubble and the immense sloped roof of the chalet, below. After a minute on the exposed balcony the flying snow, thick as pablum, drove Peter inside.
He sat down on one bed and consulted his left hand. Three fingers gone now, the palm almost without feeling. Bui a greater worry was a numbed spot about the size of a half dollar he'd found on his forearm just below the elbow. He went into the bathroom for a plastic glass, stripped off the paper and poured two ounces of gin from a new bottle he'd bought.
In the bedroom Peter unfolded the Geological Survey maps of the region which Gillian had xeroxed for him. He located Shadowdown, then found what he was looking for. The river was called the Breed. It began as a trickle halfway up Shadowdown Mountain, broadened in the valley below and eventually wound through the middle of Woodlawn College, where, on the eastern boundary of the campus, it had been dammed for a swimming lake. There was a house or a building, unidentified, beside the lake.
The Breed was less than thirty feet wide in places. Probably five or six feet deep at full flood in the late spring, with deeper coves here and there.
Peter dialed for the recorded weather, courtesy of Shadow-down Lodge. The temperature at 6 P.M. was fourteen degrees and falling. Wind northwest at thirty-one miles an hour. There was a heavy snow warning for the twelve-hour period ending at seven Saturday morning. Eight more inches of snow expected on top of the four feet already on the ground.
Peter sipped his gin and thought about the route he would take to Woodlawn.
Counting all the twists and turns in the river, the distance was more than twenty miles. Visibility at all times would be only a few feet. The wind-chill factor might reach forty below. Those were the least of his problems. He didn't know the river. Depending on the weight of the machine he chose, he needed at least six inches of ice at all times. But snow acted as an insulator over ice, and kept the ice from building up from below. Even in the middle of winter he might, without warning, hit a stretch where ice was only a brittle shell. Ice-fishing holes were a possible hazard. A small spring in a cove could produce a breach in the ice. If the river had any kind of current, then the ice would be very dangerous in places.
But there was no other way to do it. If he tried going overland in the blizzard he would quickly be lost even with a compass, or else he'd bog down in drifts as high as his head. With luck and care the frozen Breed River would take him where he wanted to go—if his left arm and hand didn't give out completely. Driving a snowmobile over ice for mile after mile was a chore that required a great deal of strength.
He'd been in the room for fifteen minutes; Gillian hadn't shown up but he wasn't worried about her. He put on a feather-light, down-filled parka and amber-tinted glasses and went out again.
Shadowdown was filled to capacity and the storm had pushed everyone indoors. Already there was a lot of partying going on. Shadowdown's security people were easy to spot. He tried to put MORG out of his mind. Even if they were there, doing their quiet work behind the scenes, checking all registrations, he wouldn't know until it was too late.
Without going to any real trouble Peter discovered four snowmobiles parked in a basement storage area beneath the kitchen; it was accessible by ramp. There were double doors no one had bothered to lock, but he could have picked the lock with a hangnail. The overhead lights were on. Keys were in the ignitions of the snowmobiles. He looked the machines over carefully and found one with a studded track, ideal for running on ice. The two-place snowmobile had a 35-horsepower rotary engine, which was quieter than the customary two-stroke Japanese engine, new wear rods, drive belt and springs. It was fully fueled.
When he returned to the room the door was standing open. Gillian was having open house: Cary, Francis, and a young couple from Hamilton College who were friends of Gary's. After introductions Peter leaned against a wall with folded arms and smiled and said nothing. In about five minutes the other kids left, and he closed the door.
"I had a sandwich already with the boys, do you want to get something to eat? Cary's pre-law at SUNY in New Paltz and Francis is a funny-car freak. Tomorrow they—"
"Gillian, we have work to do."
The reminder was enough to sober her up, and cause an attack of despondency.
"I know."
"I want to leave in an hour," Peter said.
"I don't see how you'll get anywhere. It's a total white-out."
"Try to get in touch with Robin now."
Gillian's eyes flicked down, and up, and across the room, finally lit into him with a remorseful fury. Peter had no trouble standing his ground. His preternaturally calm eye wore her down.
"I'm not sure if—"
"Now."
She turned away helplessly and sagged on the edge of a bed.
"All right."
Peter didn't move. Gillian said, "I think you should be somewhere else. I'm afraid of what might happen if you're in the room."
"Do you go there, or what?"
"No, it isn't like that. Robin can travel anytime, but I have to be asleep or unconscious to Visit. I just try to reach out and find him. Robin says you make a thought-form, and then you throw it. Our minds come together, they interlock." She held up her joined clenched hands. "He's much better at it than I am. But this close to him I think I can do it. If it's quiet and I can concentrate." There was boisterous laughter in the hall outside their door, and Gillian smiled tensely.
"I'll put cotton in my ears," she said.
"There's a building or a large house at the edge of an artificial lake on campus. That may be the house you told me about. If Robin's in the house, I want him to stay there. And I need to know a safe way in."
"Okay."
"I'll have dinner now. I'm not hungry, but I'll need the fuel later. Forty minutes?"
Gillian shrugged.
"If it's going to work, it'll work by then."