The Empty Door Read online

Hoping to clear his thoughts, Markman went for a drive. There was no easy access to open road, so a slow cruise through the neighborhood would have to do. He needed to stay close by, anyway.

  Now that he had talked with Parrish, it was easier to think that the break-ins had been a street gang. That meant the biggest worry now was Cassiopia’s trips into the weird zone. So why was there still this nagging feeling of danger from the outside? The faces gazing out of the back of the school bus he was following all looked like little Jimmy Vasal. The little boy who had explored where he should not have, disregarding the danger all around him. Danger had its incentives. The world around seemed to have brightened a touch of its color over the past few days. Markman worried about Cassiopia. She had locked herself away in the well-hidden SCIP lab. The robot was there also. She had insisted it could harm no human and had no understanding of violence, but its size alone would be threatening enough to fend off most common criminals. If the people behind the break-ins somehow found their way to the SCIP lab, they would have to deal with TEL. Markman strongly suspected it would not stand idly by if Cassiopia was in danger.

  Darkness seemed to arrive early. Markman gave up driving nowhere and finally turned back onto the Cassell’s street. He slowed to a crawl, the white light from his high beams scouring the shadowy roadway. There was no sign of anything unusual.

  In the driveway, he pulled off onto the overgrown lawn and circled around to the rear of the house, parking in close behind it. Immediately he went down to the open trunk entrance and listened. Cassiopia was in the lab going over data with the Tel. Without disturbing them, he returned to the living room and sat on the brown, antique couch to sort things out.

  The Tao Chane disciplines he had mastered so well were testing him. What if the worst had befallen her father and he was deceased. What if they ventured into that unknown world only to eventually find his body? How would he comfort her then? What would happen to the volatile environment they would find themselves within? Markman exhaled deeply.

  All things that happen must happen, he thought. There is no death, only withdrawal from the physical plane—and within Tao there is no change, only life. The truths he had so earnestly chosen to live by were of less comfort than usual, and yet they had served him so well in the past.

  “Why are you sitting here all alone?”

  He looked up to see Cassiopia staring inquisitively from the hallway. He smiled faintly, hoping not to give away his volatile mood. “I’m going over some things in my mind. Come and sit down a minute, will you?”

  “What’s going on?” she asked lightly and sat next to him.

  “Listen, from now on, promise me you won’t answer the door for anyone. Don’t even let them know you’re here. And keep the doors locked all the time. The break-ins that happened here and at my place. I spoke to a friend. They were probably done by some local punks who are in jail now, but I can’t kick the feeling that there’s more to it—something we don’t know.”

  Cassiopia paused and looked at him affectionately. Gently, she placed a hand on his shoulder. He was afraid to look her in the eye. A far away stare was locked into his face.

  He regained his composure. “We’re getting pressed for time. We’d better find your father. As soon as things settle down, the university will be wanting answers. They’ll probably bring the police in on this.”

  Cassiopia stared at him thoughtfully “We can repeat the hypnotherapy procedure anytime you feel ready. It’s possible we could learn something about him tonight.”

  “I hope it works.”

  “It’s our best chance, but from the looks of you, I’d say you’re not the best candidate for hypnotic suggestion right now. We’d better wait as long as we can. Maybe you’ll feel better later.”

  “Is this the right thing? I mean you do the self-hypnosis too, and you plan on going with me this time, right?”

  She nodded. “But you’re the dominant personality. I can make a subconscious suggestion to you with much more effectiveness than I can myself. Self-hypnosis is somewhat shallow. You will form the Dreamland environment. I will simply not interfere as a part of it.”

  Markman looked drained. He rubbed his face with one hand. “I’ll meditate. Do you have a candle and maybe some incense around here?”

  She thought for a moment. “As a matter of fact, there is—in the hall cabinet.”

  “It would help.”

  On the top shelf, she found the ceramic incense burner and Wildwood that had been a Christmas gift for her father long ago. In one of the drawers, there was a single aromatic candle. She made sure he was settled in the bedroom and left him.

  Back in the lab, she began sifting through her stacks of computer printouts. Her attention was fixed on a perplexing mystery that had surfaced. There had been some strange data recorded by her monitoring experiments during Markman’s last excursion through the SCIP mirror—things she did not understand at all. She selected a handful of computer printouts and spread them out on every available surface area in the lab. With half a dozen highlighters, she began blocking out categories of data that seemed out of place. It wasn’t that any anomalies had shown up during his passage, quite the contrary. Though the physical properties of the door were far from understood, to her an almost melodic pattern had evolved in the data from previous passages. Of course, it bothered her that they were acquiring this knowledge by experimenting on themselves. But there was no other option available. It reminded her of the early Navy frogmen who had risked great peril to test the limits of decompression time when scuba was first being researched. Many had returned to the surface in great agony, and some had not returned at all.

  She paused to look over a specific data sheet. With each journey into Dreamland, the database had grown broader and more reliable, and the risks, by simple logic, had become greater. The graphs and readouts from the earliest entries made by her father overlaid very nicely with her own records. But one fact remained obtrusively disturbing; her father had never returned from his last exploration.

  Had it not been for her insatiable appetite for nice, orderly data, the strange set of printouts that she now held in her hand might have gone unnoticed forever. There it was though, plain as day—starting at line 87. A nagging, little grouping of zeros and ones that showed there had been activity in the primary mirror after Markman had passed into Dreamland. Since nothing had been interrupting the mirror plane, there should have been only a flat, baseline readout.

  She scanned the data before and after the anomaly once more. No indications of malfunction were suggested anywhere on the sheet, but a ghostlike activity had, nevertheless, distorted the subatomic structure of the mirror plane. It was a peculiar phenomenon that did not easily lend itself to explanation, and it annoyed her.

  One hour before midnight, she finally forced herself to put the puzzle aside. She went to Markman’s room and found him still resting on the bed. He accepted the tiny pill from her with a look of childish despondence and took it without speaking. When he had relaxed, she once again attempted the hypnotherapy that had previously worked so well. But this time Markman’s subconscious was less cooperative. She patiently counted him down into deeper sleep, but at times he would not acknowledge her commands, and other times would not repeat instructions. When she had finished, she commanded him to awaken and sat back to breathe a sigh of relief—hoping the procedure had been successful.

  At midnight, they headed down to the lab. The robot was already waiting at the Drack command station. Cassiopia went busily from station to station, checking the system setup. As she worked, she secretly studied him out of the corner of her eye. He seemed alright. A little too quiet perhaps. When she had satisfied herself that the equipment was ready, she paused and looked at him with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “How would I tell?”

  “Well, at least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “If that ever happens, you should check my pulse.”

  Her voice became
stern. “You and I will go through first to effect the environment. Tel will follow after us.” She turned and picked something up from the floor behind her. “Here’s one for you.” She handed him a well-packed knapsack.

  “God, how much stuff are we taking?”

  “Food and water among other things, just in case. We won’t be staying any longer than usual, but if everything goes as planned, we will travel a good distance.”

  “Starting to sound interesting.“

  Cassiopia answered with an exaggerated smile as she marched up the ramp, Markman following close behind.

  With a few last instructions to Tel, they left reality behind and disappeared into their reflections.

  Chapter 23