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Reg turned very pale.
"Possession--" he said.
"Professor--Reg--I believe there was some reason you wanted to see me. What exactly was it?"
"Cambridge! This is... Cambridge!" came the lilting squawk of the station public address system.
Crowds of noisy revellers spewed out on to the platform barking and honking at each other.
"Where's Rodney?" said one, who had clambered with difficulty from the carriage in which the bar was situated. He and his companion looked up and down the platform, totteringly. The large figure of Michael Wenton-Weakes loomed silently past them and out to the exit.
They jostled their way down the side of the train, looking in through the dirty carriage windows. They suddenly saw their missing companion still sitting, trance-like, in his seat in the now almost empty compartment. They banged on the window and hooted at him. For a moment or two he didn't react, and when he did he woke suddenly in a puzzled way as if seeming not to know where he was.
"He's pie-eyed!" his companions bawled happily, bundling themselves on to the train again and bundling Rodney back off.
He stood woozily on the platform and shook his head. Then glancing up he saw through the railings the large bulk of Michael Wenton-Weakes heaving himself and a large heavy bag into a taxi--cab, and he stood for a moment transfixed.
"'Straordinary thing," he said, "that man. Telling me a long story about some kind of shipwreck."
"Har har," gurgled one of his two companions, "get any money off you?"
"What?" said Rodney, puzzled. "No. No, I don't think so. Except it wasn't a shipwreck, more an accident, an explosion--? He seems to think he caused it in some way. Or rather there was an accident, and he caused an explosion trying to put it right and killed everybody. Then he said there was an awful lot of rotting mud for years and years, and then slimy things with legs. It was all a bit peculiar."
"Trust Rodney! Trust Rodney to pick a madman!"
"I think he must have been mad. He suddenly went off on a tangent about some bird. He said the bit about the bird was all nonsense. He wished he could get rid of the bit about the bird. But then he said it would be put right. It would all be put right. For some reason I didn't like it when he said that."
"Should have come along to the bar with us. Terribly funny, we--"
"I also didn't like the way he said goodbye. I didn't like that at all."
CHAPTER
28
"You remember," said Reg, "when you arrived this afternoon I said that times recently had been dull, but for... interesting reasons?"
"I remember it vividly," said Dirk, "it happened a mere ten minutes ago. You were standing exactly there as I recall. Indeed you were wearing the very clothes with which you are currently apparelled, and--"
"Shut up, Dirk," said Richard, "let the poor man talk, will you?"
Dirk made a slight, apologetic bow.
"Quite so," said Reg. "Well, the truth is that for many weeks, months even, I have not used the time machine at all, because I had the oddest feeling that someone or something was trying to make me do it. It started as the very faintest urge, and then it seemed to come at me in stronger and stronger waves. It was extremely disturbing. I had to fight it very hard indeed because it was trying to make me do something I actually wanted to do. I don't think I would have realised that it was something outside of me creating this pressure and not just my own wishes asserting themselves if it wasn't for the fact that I was so wary of allowing myself to do any such thing. As soon as I began to realise that it was something else trying to invade me things got really bad and the furniture began to fly about. Quite damaged my little Georgian writing desk. Look at the marks on the--"
"Is that what you were afraid of last night, upstairs?" asked Richard.
"Oh yes," said Reg in a hushed voice, "most terribly afraid. But it was only that rather nice horse, so that was all right. I expect it just wandered in when I was out getting some powder to cover up my suntan."
"Oh?" said Dirk, "And where did you go for that?" he asked. "I can't think of many chemists that a horse would be likely to visit."
"Oh, there's a planet off in what's known here as the Pleiades where the dust is exactly the right--"
"You went," said Dirk in a whisper, "to another planet? To get face powder?"
"Oh, it's no distance," said Reg cheerfully. "You see, the actual distance between two points in the whole of the spacetime continuum is almost infinitely smaller than the apparent distance between adjacent orbits of an electron. Really, it's a lot less far than the chemist, and there's no waiting about at the till. I never have the right change, do you? Go for the quantum jump is always my preference. Except of course that you then get all the trouble with the telephone. Nothing's ever that easy, is it?"
He looked bothered for a moment.
"I think you may be right in what I think you're thinking, though," he added quietly.
"Which is?"
"That I went through a rather elaborate bit of business to achieve a very small result. Cheering up a little girl, charming, delightful and sad though she was, doesn't seem to be enough explanation for--well, it was a fairly major operation in time-engineering, now that I come to face up to it. There's no doubt that it would have been simpler to compliment her on her dress. Maybe the... ghost--we are talking of a ghost here, aren't we?"
"I think we are, yes," said Dirk slowly.
"A ghost?" said Richard, "Now come on--"
"Wait!" said Dirk, abruptly. "Please continue," he said to Reg.
"It's possible that the... ghost caught me off my guard. I was fighting so strenuously against doing one thing that it easily tripped me into another--"
"And now?"
"Oh, it's gone completely. The ghost left me last night."
"And where, we wonder," said Dirk, turning his gaze on Richard, "did it go?"
"No, please," said Richard, "not this. I'm not even sure I've agreed we're talking about time machines yet, and now suddenly it's ghosts?"
"So
what was it," hissed Dirk, "that got into you to make you climb the wall?"
"Well, you suggested that I was under post-hypnotic suggestion from someone--"
"I did not! I demonstrated the power of post-hypnotic suggestion to you. But I believe that hypnosis and possession work in very, very similar ways. You can be made to do all kinds of absurd things, and will then cheerfully invent the most transparent rationalisations to explain them to yourself. But--you cannot be made to do something that runs against the fundamental grain of your character. You will fight. You will resist!"
Richard remembered then the sense of relief with which he had impulsively replaced the tape in Susan's machine last night. It had been the end of a struggle which he had suddenly won. With the sense of another struggle that he was now losing he sighed and related this to the others.
"Exactly!" exclaimed Dirk. "You wouldn't do it! Now we're getting somewhere! You see, hypnosis works best when the subject has some fundamental sympathy with what he or she is being asked to do. Find the right subject for your task and the hypnosis can take a very, very deep hold indeed. And I believe the same to be true of possession. So. What do we have?
"We have a ghost that wants something done and is looking for the right person to take possession of to do that for him. Professor--"
"Reg--" said Reg.
"Reg--may I ask you something that may be terribly personal? I will understand perfectly if you don't want to answer, but I will just keep pestering you until you do. Just my methods, you see. You said there was something that you found to be a terrible temptation to you. That you wanted to do but would not allow yourself, and that the ghost was trying to make you do? Please. This may be difficult for you, but I think it would be very helpful if you would tell us what it is."
"I will not tell you."
"You must understand how important--"
"I'll show you instead," said Reg.
*
Silhouetted in the gates of St Cedd's stood a large figure carrying a large heavy black nylon bag. The figure was that of Michael Wenton--Weakes, the voice that asked the porter if Professor Chronotis was currently in his room was that of Michael Wenton-Weakes, the ears that heard the porter say he was buggered if he knew because the phone seemed to be on the blink again was that of Michael Wenton-Weakes, but the spirit that gazed out of his eyes was his no longer.
