Charisma

by Michael G. Coney

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

A secret research station near the Cornish fishing village of Falcombe has discovered the existence of an apparently infinite series of parallel worlds, each a slightly distorted reflection of our own. It has also developed a technique for investigating these worlds; but the only person who can possibly visit and explore a parallel world is the rare individual whose counterpart has lately died there and whose place he can therefore take - which in turn presages his own death on his version of Earth.

Release date: April 23, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 224

Sample

I left the others in the cabin and stepped through the wide rear door on to the covered afterdeck. The boat was moving easily over the light swell; we were running parallel to the cliffs a quarter of a mile away. The slow waves angled across our course and, humping, spent themselves in a fountain scattering of spray among the jagged black rocks at the cliff base. I judged our position to be halfway between Prospect Cove and Falcombe. As I watched a derelict coastguard hut perched at the cliff-top, I heard another burst of laughter from Mellors in the cabin; the soprano giggle which accompanied it came from his wife.

Copwright was steering from the auxiliary controls in the cabin, and in these waters we could come to little harm—although I intended to take over myself when we reached the Falcombe approaches. I glanced through the window and saw him sitting there relaxed, gin and tonic in one hand and wheel in the other, joining in the conversation while he kept a casual eye on the radar screen and the view through the forward window. I can never bring myself totally to trust a man who drinks gin. His back was to me: beside him sat Jean Longhurst with a martini.

Opposite the couple sat Mellors and his wife. Mellors was telling some anecdote; I couldn’t hear the actual words but it seemed to be affording him some amusement. Frequently he would gesticulate with his glass and once I saw a drop of liquid spill on to his wife’s dress. Dorinda Mellors glanced at her husband sharply, dabbing with a handkerchief while he, unaware, continued his story.

Pablo was standing watching them, among the group but not of them. He, like myself, was in the curious position of knowing the Mellors far better than either Alan Copwright or Jean Longhurst yet being unable to relax fully because the relationship was a business one. I wondered why the Mellors had invited such casual acquaintances along; Alan and Jean had only recently moved into Falcombe and had met the Mellors for the first time last night, at the bar of the Falcombe Hotel.

I turned and watched the sea sliding smoothly away from beneath the hull of the houseyacht. On a table beside me lay the paravane and line: acting on an impulse I threw it overboard and watched as the line tautened when the small finned torpedo took up its station some twenty yards astern and about four feet below the surface. There was a sound from behind as the door opened, then Pablo joined me at the rail.

“Everything all right in there?” I asked.

“The Old Man seems happy enough. I think he’s got his eye on Jean.”

“Christ.”

“It’s all right. He’s subtle. I don’t think Dorinda’s noticed.”

At the present time neither Pablo nor I wanted anything to distract Mellors from the business at hand. A lot depended on the next few days.

Four months ago I was working as a salesman for Pablo who owns a small boatyard at Wixmouth. Last June I heard a whisper that Wallace Mellors, a wealthy hotelier in Falcombe, might be interested in buying a fleet of houseyachts to complement his various other interests in the area. I understood that there would be no problem in obtaining local permission to operate the boats, since Mellors had the Council—indeed, the whole town—in his pocket. It was merely a question of persuading the man that the deal was worth while. I thought I could do this. In the past I have run hotels, operated houseyachts on a charter basis, and written persuasive articles for the yachting journals, so I reckoned I was just the man to get Mellors’ wavelength.

Pablo operates in a small way. He has about a dozen employees and makes a standard fibreglass hull in which he installs a turbine hover unit, then fits out the cabins according to the whim of the customer. The completed article is spacious enough to live on and can cruise at fifty miles per hour in most weather. A deal like this—which we understood might involve at least twelve boats—would provide Pablo with work for the winter and a good profit at the end of it.

So I had visited Mellors, staying at his expense at his own establishment, the Falcombe Hotel. Right from the start we seemed to hit it off, and when I mentioned my experience in the hotel business he became interested. It seemed he had fired his manager and was looking for a replacement. Not only that, but he would be needing someone to look after the houseyachts when they were delivered—by now I had persuaded him that the deal was worth serious consideration.

Briefly, I resigned from Pablo’s payroll and joined the Mellors’ empire. Any guilt feelings I might have had were more than outweighed by my delight in having swung the boat deal and assured Pablo of a fat profit. Pablo accepted the situation philosophically and agreed that my commission would still be payable as the deal was commenced before my resignation. He bore me no ill will. So it seemed that everybody was happy.

But time went by and negotiations dragged on, and Pablo and I felt the first twinges of alarm. Mellors didn’t seem to want to sign anything. In order to clinch the deal—Mellors had been quibbling about delivery dates—Pablo diverted eleven boats which had been intended for other customers and brought them round to Falcombe, anchoring them under Mellors’ nose at the rear of the Falcombe Hotel. All this (Pablo implied without saying as much) can be yours at the stroke of a pen. But by this time it was September and the tourist season was over, so it was obviously in Mellors’ interests to delay purchase until next spring.

Meanwhile I was living on board one of the yachts, drawing up the advertising copy and doing the initial organisation towards next season’s chartering of the houseyachts, managing the Falcombe Hotel, and receiving no pay other than free food and drink. My only income was from the occasional yachting article, although Mellors had promised a huge salary from the start of next season, together with participation in the profits of the houseyacht charter business.

So I had to keep on the right side of him, otherwise the last few months would be wasted …

“What are they talking about in there?” I asked.

“The Old Man’s finished talking about himself. That is,” a note of bitterness came into Pablo’s voice, “he’s finished telling them how he’s gone into the charter business and now owns eleven houseyachts. Now he’s trying to get them to talk about the Research Station.”

“He won’t get far. These people from the Station keep pretty quiet.”

“Copwright’s had a few drinks.”

“Why should Mellors be interested in the Station? There’s no chance of his making a quick buck there, is there?”

“It seems the place is built on his land and there was a foul-up about the lease. He hinted, gently, that he could increase the rent whenever he liked, to whatever figure he liked.”

“What’s that got to do with Copwright and Jean?” I asked. “They’re only underlings. Mellors should tackle the boss, what’s his name?”

“Stratton, apparently.”

“Oh …” A flash beneath the water caught my eye. I raised the fishing pistol and thumbed the stud, sending a jolt of current down the line to the paravane. A mackerel leaped clear of the water, glittering silver.

I squeezed the trigger and the pistol recoiled slightly with a report. The mackerel jerked in mid-leap and fell: instead of sinking it flapped on the surface, trailing spray. I engaged the automatic reel and the fish drew closer. I swung it clear of the water and it fell thrashing at our feet.

Pablo bent down and carefully detached the tiny barbed dart from the mackerel’s flank, then I reeled the slender nylon line and attached dart back into the muzzle of the gun. He took the lid from the bucket and dropped the mackerel inside, where its flapping caused the other fish to twitch reflexively. He replaced the lid and grinned at me.

“That’s what I call good shooting. I didn’t realise you felt insecure in the presence of women.”

“Neither did I.” Sometimes Pablo’s swift changes of subject could be baffling, even though I had known him for years.

“The gun is a substitute, of course. No, don’t make excuses. I know.” He regarded me with spurious sympathy in his tired eyes. I knew now what was coming: one of his ancedotes of homespun psychology. “I have the same problem,” he said. “And recently it’s been getting worse. I felt inferior. I couldn’t look a girl in the face. So I bought a camera, a Minolta. F 1.4 lens, automatic this, automatic that, every man’s dream of perfection. But was I satisfied?”

“Were you?”

“No, I wasn’t. It didn’t fulfil my sense of the virile. A child could have operated it—or worse, a woman. It looked effeminate—particularly when I detached the lens from the body, leaving just a hole where the F 1.4 used to be.”

He sighed and watched the sea for a moment. Faint laughter came from inside the cabin: the party was going well. The cliffs glided by. Far astern I saw the white triangle of a small yacht beating towards Falcombe against the offshore breeze.

Pablo continued. “But interchangeable lenses are wonderful things. I went back to the store and bought a 300 mm telephoto—a great long tube—and attached that to the camera body instead. I carried the whole thing with a strap around my neck so that the camera rested somewhere around my midriff with the telephoto lens jutting out in front. Then I walked up and down the seafront at Wixmouth, eyeing the girls.”

“Did it do any good?”

“No,” he said sadly. “They just thought I was some kind of photographer.”

Dick Orchard joined us at the after rail: I had completely forgotten he was aboard. He had that knack of self-effacing quietness which, in the rough game of life, is not always an advantage. Small, grey and elderly, he was a qualified Master Mariner. He had been hired by Pablo to bring the houseyachts round from Wixmouth and was staying on for a while to make sure there were no hitches.

He lifted the lid of the bucket and regarded the fish, then relieved me silently of the fishing pistol and examined it. He looked at me shyly and spoke.

“It might be an idea if you or I took the wheel in a minute, John.” He glanced significantly through the window. Mellors and his wife were on their feet now; Jean Longhurst was getting up. Copwright still sat at the auxiliary wheel but his attention had wandered and he was obviously in no condition to steer. He was watching Jean, his features slack and drowsy.

“Slip round to the front, Dick,” Pablo suggested. “Stand by the main controls and I’ll pass the word inside.” He opened the door and entered the cabin; I saw him speak to Copwright who grinned and stood, trying to look alert. There was a general movement towards the door and soon the whole party with the exception of Dick was standing on the afterdeck, watching the wide wake recede astern. A few gulls, sensing fish, swooped towards us with sad cries.

“Of course,” Mellors was saying in his aggressive tones, “the engine is throttled right back, now.” His arm was lightly around Jean Longhurst’s waist. Next to me, Dorinda Mellors was watching the sea impassively. I looked along the rail at their faces: Dorinda, Wallace Mellors, Jean, Alan Copwright, Pablo. It may have been the time of evening—there’s something about the slow onset of twilight which stimulates the imagination—but I thought I detected an atmosphere of suppressed violence in the sum total of those faces. Individually they were ordinary people watching the sea, but together … I don’t know. A sudden gust of wind blew a mist of spray over us and the moment was gone. I had imagined it. In any case, one is always conscious of an atmosphere of suppressed violence when Mellors is around.

Wallace Mellors is around fifty years old, barrel-chested and black-haired, noisy, opinionated, and very successful. He also possesses a rough charm and is able to project an image of uncomplicated, forthright honesty which, I have sometimes felt, is the secret of his success. I liked him and I felt he liked me—but as I had got to know him better over the weeks, I had become less certain of his trustworthiness. A while back I had been talking to his wife in the bar and the subject of my employment came up. She said: “Have you got anything in writing yet, John?” and from the way she spoke I knew she was warning me, if gently …

“She’ll do well over fifty, flat out. What do you think of that, eh, Alan?”

It was one of Mellors’ unanswerable questions with which he put people on the defensive. Copwright looked at him calmly enough, although slightly unfocused. Copwright wore steel-rimmed spectacles and a beard which sprouted from under his chin, the front of the chin being clean-shaven. This gave him the appearance of an erudite goat. “Pretty good, I reckon, Wal,” he replied.

“But of course you scientists think in terms of the speed of light, eh, Jean?”

“Sometimes.” If Alan Copwright resembled a goat, Jean Longhurst had the look of a horse—or at least, the look of a girl who rode horses, which can be much the same thing.

“Ah, come now, Jean. We all know what goes on at the Station. No need to be so careful. Temporal research, I heard someone say once. Now what’s that, eh? To me it sounds like time travel.” He laughed shortly, almost derisively, but the glance he gave Copwright was searching. “Straight out of H. G. Wells, eh? You ever read Wells, Alan?”

Almost imperceptibly, Alan sighed. His eyes had cleared: the sea breeze on the afterdeck had freshened him up. “God, yes, I’ve read Wells, Wal. The man had quite an imagination, in his day. The War of the Worlds. The First Men on the Moon. It was good stuff, once. Reads a bit slow now, though.”

“The Time Machine …” murmured Mellors, almost to himself. “Now there’s an idea …”

“You can forget it, Wal.” Copwright was amused at the man’s transparent attempts to pump him. “Time travel isn’t possible. You know why, just as well as I do. There are too many paradoxes, like killing your own grandfather, and why aren’t the time travellers from the future with us now, and all that sort of stuff. You’ve got to face it, Wal—the future hasn’t happened yet, and the past is dead and gone. So time travel is out.”

“It would be worth a lot of money just to step, say, a day or two into the future. Think of how you could plan your actions.” Mellors’ expression was faraway; there was greed in his eyes, too.

“You do pretty well already, Mr. Mellors,” laughed Jean, edging away from his light grip of her waist and eventually detaching herself. She walked to the side rail and gazed at the shore. We were reaching the place known as Starfish Bay, a small inlet where a declivity in the cliffs affords a view of the fields, grass, bracken and gorse, rising into the tree-capped distance. Two large trees stood in the hollow just behind the little bay. A few clouds were passing overhead but mainly the sky was pale blue with early evening. In the far distance, however, hung the low blackness of an approaching storm. It would be several hours reaching us.

“Let me put your mind at rest, Wal,” said Copwright suddenly. “It’s true that we’ve investigated the possibility of time travel at the Research Station. It happens to fall within our sphere of operations as a matter of academic interest—but not a thing to waste public money on. We’ve investigated briefly the possibilities of getting around these paradoxes. And we’ve found there’s no way. So we’ve dismissed the subject. It’s finished.” From the way he said this it was apparent he felt Mellors ought to drop the subject too.

“Pity …” Mellors dragged out a Newspocket and scanned the current market prices automatically. Even at sea, with the water mysterious with evening and the gulls mewling among their cliff-top nests, he could not forget the rest of the world. He was still a businessman. I suppose that was one of the secrets of his success but I wondered if it was worth it. The little pocket screen glowed blue in the twilight, the figures flickering. He switched it off and slipped it away, looking satisfied. Apparently his empire had not collapsed.

He pointed in the direction of Starfish Bay. “See that,” he said, addressing himself to me but including, as was his habit, the whole company. “Pretty little bay, that. Quiet and secluded. You hardly ever get anyone there. No roads, you see, just a track from inland. But the best way is to walk right along the cliff from Falcombe.” His face was somehow restful, almost sad, as he showed us another facet of his character—Mellors the Romantic Dreamer. “When I was a kid I used to walk there, and have a swim. The water’s deep and clean; there isn’t a sewage outfall for miles. The view from the cliffs is fantastic … Nobody will ever be able to build along there. It’s public land, protected. Listed as an area of outstanding natural beauty.”

Jean Longhurst was standing in front of me as I regarded the bay. Her hands were squeezed white as she gripped the rail. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Copwright stiffen.

“The other day I happened to be in the Council offices,” continued Mellors musingly. “I may have been checking on the copy of the lease of my land to the Research Station … You knew the Station’s built on my land, didn’t you, Alan? Of course, I’ve told you before. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I found that Falcombe Research Station had acquired some sort of rights over land at Starfish Bay. Funny sort of rights, too … Because it’s public land, you see. It doesn’t belong to any one body. It belongs to all of us, I’d have said. Wouldn’t you say that, John?”

Now he was trying to drag me into some private beef. I said nothing.

He continued. “It seems the Station has recently got exclusive rights to some of that public land. As I see it, they might even be able to fence it off, if they want to. Do you happen to know anything about it, Alan?”

We never knew Alan’s reply, because at that moment something happened so weird, so dreamlike that for an instant I doubted my sanity. But afterwards, looking around, I realised that the others saw it too …

The clouds had passed. In the far distance the stormy blackness was still there, but no nearer. The sky above was almost clear; wispy high cirrus yellow-red in the late sun. I saw the cattle cropping quietly on the green hillsides; further away the smoke from a cottage rose lazily, vertically.

But the two tall trees in Starfish Bay seemed to be caught in the middle of a hurricane as they tossed and sprayed leaves and sparkling wetness, while all around them the air was still and quiet …

There was an exclamation from Copwright, quickly cut off. Jean turned to look at him and something passed between them; the horse-faced girl’s eyes were bright and her lips parted in excitement. Mellors was frowning: Pablo caught my eye. In the expression there was bewilderment and, I think, fear.

Then we all looked back beyond the water where the two trees were swaying and dancing as though brandished by a giant hand …

It was growing dark as we headed up the final reach of the narrow estuary which joins Falcombe harbour with the sea. The water was mottled golden with the reflected lights of the hotels rising up the hillside on our left; the other side was darkness apart from the occasional gleam of a lonely window. Dick steered a slow zigzag course, avoiding from memory the jutting rocks with which the water hereabouts is strewn. He stood in the forward cabin: the rest of us sat drinking in the main saloon. Nobody was saying much.

Soon the estuary widened into the harbour and Dick made straight for the quay; at this time of year most of the boats had been laid up and there was plenty of space. We passed a string of houseyachts moored bow to stern below the Falcombe Hotel. The tide was low and a stretch of ochre mud gleamed between us and the shore. Dim white shapes scuttled about, seagulls having a final scavenge before retiring for the night. The turbine whined louder as Dick increased the lift, then the houseyacht skimmed over the mud and sank to a halt about eight feet from the stone wall of the quay. Dick left the wheel and threw the forward anchor into the mud; beside me, Pablo secured the stern in similar fashion. By midnight there would be ten feet of water under the boat.

Pablo ran out the gangplank, securing it to the boat then walking bouncily across and making the other end fast to a bollard on the quay. I saw Dorinda Mellors eyeing the narrow plank doubtfully, but Pablo was taking no chances of damaging the houseyacht against those ancient stones of the quay—hence the unorthodox mooring procedure.

I think we were all slightly drunk as we picked our way carefully across the dark quay, avoiding mantraps in the guise of lobster pots and scattered nets. Soon we reached Falcombe’s main street; at this time of year the narrow sidewalks were almost deserted. A few store windows were hopefully illuminated; cats squatted in dark doorways. Further on, the street rose up the hillside past the Waterman’s Arms towards the Falcombe Hotel.

Somehow Mellors and I had lagged behind the others. He took my arm. “John,” he said quietly, “it might be worth taking a look at Starfish Bay tomorrow. Why don’t you go for a walk over the cliffs?”

Al. . .