The Touch Read online

  She (for there was no way he could call her Two) was five-seven or -eight; her hair was a sooty black, like dusk but deep as space; she had eyes as green as a fine jade, slightly tilted without seeming entirely oriental—perhaps Eurasian—though her skin did seem dusted with saffron, or was it a light olive, or possibly something between the two? “Two,” yes . . .

  She had not set him afire; there hadn’t been anything more than ordinarily sexual; he couldn’t have described her breasts, backside, or legs. Her eyes had been his main focus, or perhaps her small, pretty, shell-like ears? . . . Her straight nose, ample mouth? . . . Her slightly parted lips, showing a flash of gleaming teeth? . . . The brightest of stars shining in the pupils of those deep green eyes?

  So all right: he had been attracted. Sexually? Well, maybe that, too. But wherever she had gone, the sexual excitement had gone with her. Scott felt dismayed, frustrated.

  It was that dream that everyone has known at some time or other, where some object of desire is unattainable, just beyond reach. But no, not sexually, not this time. Scott’s only desire had been to talk to her, discover who she was, what she wanted, and why she was watching him. (Or watching over him?)

  But she was no longer here, and now other eyes were watching him.

  He is Three . . .

  Her words returned to lure Scott on, across the shimmering plain to where the third black dot waited. He sped faster now, finally in control of his motion, and as before the inky speck on the blinding white surface became more distinct. A smallish figure, hunched up. Or so he’d thought. But now he saw that he was wrong. It was a large dog seated there, ears erect, tongue lolling; a dog that now stood up, sniffing at Scott as he came closer.

  And now the surreal nature of the dream surpassed itself, for as Scott approached to within a few feet the creature gave a small whine from deep in its throat and said, Is it you? Are you The One?

  Even dreaming Scott started. The creature’s tongue continued to loll; its muzzle hadn’t moved, not a fraction. Just like the woman’s words, this thing’s thoughts were in Scott’s mind! Its thoughts, yes!

  And: I am not a dog, it said. Or a creature, or a thing. I am a wolf, the son of Wolf . . . well, with something of a dog in me, perhaps, which I got from my mother, but even she was a dog of the wild. So then, that is me. But what of you? Again I ask: are you The One?

  Scott got down on one knee and tried to say out loud, “You won’t bite me?” But the words didn’t come, which wasn’t unusual for him . . . he had rarely been able to speak in his dreams. The words didn’t come, but the thoughts were there, certainly. And:

  If you were a hunter I would bite you if I could, the dog, or wolf, or Three, answered. But you are not here. You are far, far away. I smell you, I sense you, I hear you, as I have for a long time now. But you are not here. Are you The One? My father has told me that one day there might be someone for me as there is for him. He has his Zek, and I have no one.

  Scott sensed loneliness, a longing for companionship, and went down on his other knee, reached out a hand to the animal’s head, stroked the soft fur. You’re alone?

  I am the last of three, Three answered, flinching a little from Scott’s touch. My mother named us One, Two, and Three. But my mother and my brothers are dead and I am alone. I am Three.

  Scott was fascinated. And your father?

  He is not alone. He has his Zek, his One. But he has told me that one day there could be someone for me, my One. I sensed you afar and thought that you were him.

  Scott nodded. I don’t know how, but I think it’s possible, just possible, that I may be your . . . well, your One, yes.

  Three licked his hand. Two thinks so, too.

  Scott jerked back a few inches. Two? The woman, Two?

  Three looked startled. She is the joining one. Didn’t you know that? You have your dart, and I have mine, but she is the one who will bring us all together—if you are my One. If you are The One.

  Scott stood up, thought: This is just a crazy dream!

  No, it is more than a dream, said Three, his fur bristling as he backed away. And I must go. I sense the hunters. They are looking for me. I killed some chickens. Now I must hide! If you are my One—if you are The One—you will find me. He sprang away, vanishing into thin air, and the dazzling white plain was empty except for Scott.

  Wait! Scott yelled. I don’t know where you are, so how can I find you? And how do you know about “Two”—I mean the woman? And what’s all this about darts?

  He went to move after Three—tried to move physically—and felt himself falling.

  Mouthing incoherently and jerking his arms and legs, which only served to dislodge him from the backseat of the car where he was stretched full length, Scott fell all of fourteen inches onto the rubber mats between the front and rear passenger seats, and so shocked himself awake . . .

  4

  Scott got out of the car, a Mercedes, and found himself in the lane outside his house. Since there was no one else in the vehicle to question or vent his anger upon, he aimed a staggering, halfhearted kick at the door panel and almost fell over. Then, dazed and confused, and failing to note the car’s registration number, he went tottering through his garden to the front door of the house. Somewhere inside a telephone was ringing.

  He entered, let the phone ring, washed out his mouth, and poured himself a drink. Time enough then to answer the persistent clamour of the phone. And:

  “Scott St. John,” he grunted, choking the words out, his throat still dry despite the stinging brandy-and-coke mix he’d fixed for himself. “What is it?”

  “Mr. St. John,” came the answer, “if you should ever want to contact, us, here is our number. You’ll put the call through directory inquiries and ask for Xavier, or your call won’t be answered.” Scott recognized the high-pitched voice as that of the tall man, whose name he still didn’t know.

  “And I suppose you’ll be Xavier?” he said, after copying the number onto a pad.

  “You may suppose whatever you want to suppose,” came the answer. “Though of course Xavier could just as well be a code. But in any case, only the number itself is important. My name is immaterial.”

  “Oh, really?” Scott snapped. “Well, tell me something, Mr. Immaterial: what makes you think I’ll ever want anything more to do with you and your lot?”

  “Well, one never knows,” said the other, and Scott sensed his shrug. “But the way I see it the future could be a complex thing . . . for all of us.” And with that the phone went dead.

  Slamming the phone into its cradle, Scott looked out of the window and saw movement and the gleam of polished bodywork through a gap in the garden hedge. A man with a hat pulled low over his eyes sat at the wheel of the big Mercedes, driving it away. Scott couldn’t make out the driver’s face and in another moment the car had passed from sight.

  Scott went unsteadily into his study, flopped into an easy chair, and finished his drink. And lighting a cigarette he tried to think things through. For the first time in a very long time he remembered the contents of a dream, and a most unusual dream at that, which had probably been prompted by—or had some sort of obscure connection with—his encounter with these peculiar Secret Service types; but in what way connected? Or was it all in his mind, and might he even be losing his mind? Had Kelly’s death caused that much damage? he wondered. It had traumatized him, certainly, but was it worse than he’d thought? And if so, how much worse?

  He felt odd, changed, no doubt about that . . . but crazy?

  Scott shook himself, tried to pull himself together, order his thoughts, think positively. He knew of a way to corroborate at least something of what had happened; which had to be better than nothing, because if some of it was real, then maybe all of it was real. In which case he wasn’t mad at all but involved in something way beyond his current understanding, beyond anything he’d previously experienced.

  Collecting the notepad from his front room, Scott called directory inquiries from his s
tudy and asked for the number on the pad. The operator, a woman, asked him if there was a fault with his telephone—why didn’t he call the number direct? To which he patiently replied that it was a special number and he wanted to speak to Xavier.

  Then he waited for one minute, two, and was just about to hang up when a male voice he didn’t recognize said, “Ah, Mr. Scott St. John! You’re either (a) going to give me a hard time over our treatment of you, or (b) you require us to assist you in some way or other, or (c) you’re simply testing the system. Well then, which is it?”

  Scowling at the phone, Scott said, “How do you know that my solicitor—or perhaps a policeman, or some other respected member of society—isn’t standing beside me right now listening to all of this? How do you know I haven’t arranged to have your number traced?”

  The voice on the line sighed and said, “So then, you are simply testing the system. Well, and now you know it works. As for having the number traced: you’re welcome to try, of course . . . but it won’t get you anywhere. And so, since we’re both of us wasting our time, I bid you good day.” The phone went dead in his hand.

  “And that’s that,” Scott told himself, replacing the telephone in its cradle but much less furiously, more thoughtfully this time. “I’m not going crazy after all. But all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, that’s only one facet of whatever’s going on here, while my ‘Three’ fixation, and the woman, and the dreams—especially that last one—are something else. But what?”

  Then, realizing that he was talking to himself, which was hardly reassuring, he lit another cigarette and fell silent . . .

  At E-Branch HQ, the precog Ian Goodly reported to Ben Trask in his office. “We’ve had St. John taken home,” he said, frowning and fingering his long chin thoughtfully where he stood before Trask’s desk. “He got, er, more than a trifle upset—in fact, rather aggressive—so we sedated him and called it a day. As for our little chat, interview, or interrogation, call it what you will: I have to say it left me with mixed emotions, and to be frank, more than a little concerned.”

  It was well past noon and Trask was still engaged with his backlog of paperwork, but knowing Goodly as well as he did, and seeing the look on the precog’s face, he put his work aside and invited the other to sit. “All right, so what’s bothering you?”

  “Well, we worked it between the three of us, as per SOPs,” the precog answered. “Each of us in turn framing our questions, while the others listened, probed, did their own things.”

  Trask nodded, said, “Robinson, Garvey, and you. A spotter, a telepath, and a precog, in that order. In short, an excellent team. So what did you get out of him?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” said Goodly, shuffling in his chair, and still frowning. “In fact, I’m not at all sure! It’s possible we might have done better with you in there. What I’m trying to say: while I’m convinced that St. John has something, I haven’t the foggiest idea what it is. And what’s more, I don’t think he knows either! But in retrospect, if you had been in there—”

  “We might have found out that he was pulling the wool over your eyes? Or rather, I might have known if he was lying?”

  Goodly nodded. “But . . . those are big ‘mights.’ ”

  Trask leaned forward, put his elbows on his desk. “Do you want to explain that?” And Goodly continued:

  “Frank Robinson knows—he’s absolutely sure—that I’m right and St. John has some weird tricks up his sleeve, even if he doesn’t yet know about them himself. Paul Garvey questioned him about telepathy: he sprang it on St. John right out of the blue, asked him if he could read his mind. And if you ask Paul he’ll swear that St. John immediately put up shields that were almost as strong as Wamphyri mind-smog. Psychically—or more properly telepathically—he simply disappeared!”

  Trask started behind his desk and almost came to his feet. But Goodly put up his hands reassuringly and said, “No, you can rest easy. He isn’t Wamphyri. Paul reckons that St. John didn’t even know he was doing it; it was a reflex, knee-jerk reaction, entirely instinctive.”

  Trask sat back again, relaxed a little, took a deep breath, and said, “So, what are you saying? And anyway, if St. John can shield himself, what difference would my presence have made?”

  “Well,” said Goodly, “even the best of us have difficulty lying to you!” He offered one of his rare smiles. “We might try occasionally but you usually know. So, if St. John was actually aware of his talent—if he was deliberately hiding behind some sort of mental facade—you would probably have known that, too. And if he wasn’t, then we could be sure that his gift, whatever it is, really is undeveloped, fetal, and that he doesn’t know he has it.”

  Trask nodded. “You mean if I couldn’t read his reaction to any specific question—or if he tried to shield himself before answering—then we’d have reason to suspect he was lying?”

  Goodly shrugged, sighed, said, “Something like that, yes.” And after a moment’s thought: “It can get very difficult, can’t it, Ben?”

  “The work we do?”

  “Knowing the things we know,” the precog replied. “Knowing what’s possible, and that almost everything is, but only rarely knowing what’s coming and never precisely, not even me. I mean, what if St. John has something like poor Darcy Clarke’s thing?”

  “A guardian angel?” Trask shook his head. “You would never have brought him in. He’d have sensed your intentions and given you a very bad time. Oh, I know Paul Garvey can look after himself, but against Scott St. John? Him being a karate black belt and all?”

  “No,” the precog answered. “I didn’t actually mean Darcy’s guardian angel—not precisely—but something of that sort. It could be of real benefit to us, or real harm if St. John was on the wrong side. Not that I think he is.”

  “So, what do you want to do?” Trask frowned and offered an irritable twitch of his shoulders. “Do you want to bring him in again? Why didn’t you just keep him here in the first place and pursue it further? Why did you let him go?”

  “It was my decision,” said Goodly. “And I’ll tell you why. If St. John’s shields are indeed instinctive—something he has no control over, like Darcy’s guardian angel—then putting him under pressure isn’t going to work: the moment he decides someone is trying to probe him, his talent will switch on and he’ll do a psychic rope trick. But if we can approach him without his knowing . . .”

  “Another bout of covert surveillance?”

  “Yes, in a way.” The precog seemed undecided. “But we’ve already tried that without any positive result. So I was thinking maybe we could put some obstacles in his way and see how he finds his way around them, how his talent helps him to cope with them. But even before that I was thinking maybe I could team up with Anna Marie English—go in tandem with her, as it were—and see if we can learn something that way.”

  “Anna Marie?” Trask raised an eyebrow. “In tandem? You and the ecopath? How do you mean?”

  “It’s what she does,” Goodly answered. “She’s an ecopath, or as you just pointed out, she’s the ecopath. Sui generis: the only one we know of. Mind and body, her condition parallels the state of the Earth itself. If there’s a gas leak from a Russian atomic power station, Anna Marie wilts. If twenty tons of farm slurry leak into some Cornish river, Anna Marie has nightmares about it long before it gets into the newspapers. As the ozone layer thins out, so does her hair. So I was thinking—”

  “Yes, I understand,” Trask cut in. “Working hand in hand, literally, Anna Marie might be able to tell you how St. John’s talent will affect the future. But the whole world’s future—the entire planet? I mean, isn’t that a bit strong? Aren’t you going overboard on this thing? He’s just one man, not an army, Ian! And how much harm can one man do?”

  “How much harm could Harry Keogh have done?” Goodly countered. “Or Boris Dragosani? Or Yulian Bodescu? Or—”

  “Okay, I get the point.” Trask held up a hand, and Goodly continued:

  “A
nd anyway, I wasn’t thinking in terms of how much harm, but more properly how much good.”

  Now Trask narrowed his eyes, nodding knowingly. “Ian, you haven’t told me everything, have you? You’ve talked about Paul Garvey’s and Frank Robinson’s opinions but not your own—not entirely. So now let’s have them.”

  Goodly sighed and said, “Ben, you know there are problems with scrying on the future. You’re well aware that—”

  “That the future’s a devious thing?” Trask beat him to it. “I know I’ve heard you say that often enough, yes. But come on: what did you learn about St. John’s future?”

  Looking very uncomfortable, the precog began to shuffle in his chair again and said, “While Paul and Frank questioned him, doing their thing, I had the opportunity to do mine. I tried to read what was in the cards for him, but all I got was a jumbled set of very vague impressions. He was partly shielded, yes, but his shields were growing stronger all the time. In fact, we were probably initiating all of this resistance—with our questioning, if you see what I mean. Anyway, as for what I saw or felt:

  “I felt a lot of violence, a lot of energy expended, a lot of danger. Indeed, incredible danger. Other than that: well, as I’ve said, it was all very jumbled, didn’t make a lot of sense. There was something horrible in there, I’m fairly sure of that, but don’t ask me what it was because it was completely alien to anything I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t understand it, and now I can’t even remember what it was all about. That’s how different it was.”

  Starting to look bemused, Trask stared hard at the precog. “And you would have kept all this to yourself? I’m sensing that you’d have kept it to yourself! I know you mentioned your ‘concern,’ but now it’s looking much stronger than that, isn’t it? So what is going on here, Ian? More to the point, what’s going on with you?”