Margaret St. Clair Read Free Page A

“Is there anybody else here now?” he asked the animal as he regarded the rock’s black, steep bulk.
    “Lots of sea people. Only one other Split. Here she comes now.”
    A girl was coming toward him. She wore a white dress; her pale hair was loose about he r shoulders; in the moonlight she seemed made of silver.
    “Hello,” she said. “Djuna brought you?”
    “Yes. My name is Sven Erickson.”
    “You’ll help us? My name is Madelaine. The world is at the hinge of time, I think.”
    -
    Dr. Lawrence’s case was the strangest of the three. When it became plain that Madelaine Paxton had disappeared (she did not show up for work at the research station, she was not at her apartment, and her car had been found abandoned at Drake’s Bay), the n a vy assigned an investigator to try to find out what had become of her. This was not because Madelaine’s work had brought her into contact with anything in the least secret —the investigation was routine, part of a general navy policy.
    The investigator, after talking to Madelaine’s friends in the office, had an interview with Dr. Lawrence.
    “I see by her record that you were giving her psychiatric treatment,” the investigator said.
    “Yes. She was suffering from acute amnesia at first. Then she began to he ar voices.”
    “What does that indicate?”
    “Amnesia, when it’s genuine, is usually the result of a serious psychic conflict. As to the voices, I am inclined to think they were nothing more than a projection onto the external world of Miss Paxton’s thoughts.
    “Joan of Arc, for example, claimed to hear voices. Most historians think that she expressed her own sense of her historic mission by speaking of it in this way.”
    “I don’t quite understand you.”
    “Well, if I feel an impulse to steal something, and my super-ego forbids me to, I may say, ‘My conscience told me not to.’ With most people that’s just a way of speaking. But with certain individuals there may actually be an impression of a voice coming f r om outside.” This was not quite what Dr. Lawrence had said to Madelaine herself about the voices; but, since he was fairly certain his office wasn’t bugged, he saw no reason to strain for consistency.
    “Um. You know her car was found abandoned at Drake’s Bay?”
    “So I’ve been informed.”
    “What do you think happened to her? Do you think she has committed suicide?”
    “It’s possible. She didn’t seem suicidal to me the last time I saw her, on the morning of the 26th. She l eft the office saying that she’d remembered what she had to do, which could mean just about anything.”
    “Don’t most suicides leave notes?”
    “Yes. It’s possible that she decided to go swimming, went out too far, and drowned.”
    “No normal person would go swimming in March at Drake’s Bay.”
    “I didn’t say she was normal,” Dr. Lawrence replied, scoring a minor point. “I said I didn’t think she was suicidal the last time I saw her.”
    The investigator moved uneasily in his chair. “But what do you think has ha ppened, Dr. Lawrence? I mean, what’s your best guess?”
    “I think she was on the point of remembering what the conflict was that had caused her amnesia. Perhaps the conflict was too painful for her to handle, and she became amnesiac again. In that case, sh e may have wandered out on the highway, hitched a ride with somebody, and might be anywhere by now.”
    The investigator was silent. Perhaps he was reflecting that the fact that Madelaine’s shoes and stockings had been found in her car made it unlikely that she had walked very far. At last he said, “Well, thank you, Doctor. If you think of anything that might be helpful, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
    “Yes, of course. I’m sorry I wasn’t of more use. Goodbye.”
    On his way home next evening —he lived in San Bruno —Dr. Lawrence stopped at a pay telephone and called a local number. As I said before, he was a man with an unslaked thirst for