Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (reading like a writer TXT) 📕

corner of an eye. He inquired softly: “What is on this film that you were carrying?”

      “Honest to God … I don’t know.”

      “We shall soon see, in any event. Why did you come to this house today?”

      “I—I was the butler here. Just checking up—”

      Thorn put out a hand and touched him on the arm. “That is a half-truth, and not acceptable. Ah, if screaming will relieve your feelings, pray continue. I feel sure that those who scream down here are never heard outside.”

* * *

      The next time Brandreth’s senses cleared, Thorn was bending over him again, but only speaking very gently, pointing to a frozen image on the screen. “That is the face of Delaunay Seabright, is it not?”

      “I…” Brandreth tried his best to see the screen clearly. He was still slumped in his chair groggy with shock, bathed in a cold sweat. His left arm wouldn’t work and his right felt as if the bones might be about to poke out through his coat sleeve. He didn’t want to know if they really were. “I dunno.” His voice was pitiful. “I never saw Delaunay. Honest to God. Ellison’s the one who hired me.”

      “And Gliddon?”

      “Gliddon was already working for the Seabright’s. I take orders from Gliddon. He passes on what … Ellison wants.” Brandreth drew a deep, shuddering breath. Once he had been seriously afraid of Gliddon. But now he understood more fully what it could mean to be afraid. “Gliddon’s supposed to be dead now. But he’s not.”

      “To be sure,” Thorn said soothingly. “And it was Gliddon who sent you here to get this film?”

      Brandreth nodded. He could feel another faint coming on now, and tried to fight it back. He knew that if he fainted now he was going to be revived. But he didn’t know how.

      “And what were you to do with it?”

      “Destroy it. The film and tape both. Just the ones in the little, hidden safe. Gliddon said there were more in a big wall safe somewhere, the one you blew I guess. But he didn’t care about those. Why these are so important I don’t know. Something big is going on here that I don’t know about … I don’t ask questions. I need help with this arm. Or I’m gonna pass out.”

      “Who helped you with the bombing?”

      “I … do all that on my own. Gliddon just told me to do it.”

      “Not Ellison Seabright?”

      “It was supposed to be what he wanted done. I dunno. I hardly ever talk to Ellison. He’s supposed to be in Santa Fe now. As far as I know, he is.”

      Thorn turned away, to the projector. Brandreth let out a sighing groan. In the next room, Robinson Miller mumbled something but did not wake up. Now the screen darkened, then brightened again with a closeup of Delaunay’s face, talking.

      “This will be Session Thirteen,” Delaunay’s bass voice said, addressing the camera. He was filmed sitting in the laboratory. He was wearing a turtleneck sweater under an expensive sport coat, and looked vastly more competent, somehow, than his half-brother ever did. “Session Thirteen, on the fourth of April. I think we made real progress yesterday, and I hope for more today.”

      Darkness again, and when the scene came back there were two people sitting in the lab. In a soft reclining chair facing Delaunay and what was probably a hidden camera sat a teenaged girl with brown hair, small and slight, demurely dressed. Delaunay was also fully clothed, and it was soon apparent that both participants were likely to remain that way.

      The girl was gazing, dreamily, at a small instrument on Delaunay’s desk that sent a rhythmic, gentle, flashing light into her eyes.

      “—sleep,” Del was intoning gently as the scene started. “Deep sleep. And you will not wake up until I tell you. You will be able to hear me perfectly, and follow my instructions, but you will not awaken until I tell you … Helen? Are you asleep?”

      “Yes,” the girl answered in a calm remote voice. Her eyes were now closed.

      Delaunay brought his hand out from under his desk, where it had perhaps been on a hidden control that served to turn hidden recording devices off and on.

      In Brandreth’s ear Thorn whispered: “Who is the girl?”

      “It must be Helen Seabright. The one who was killed. It looks like her pictures. I never saw her.”

      Thorn stood up straight, emitting a faint sigh.

      “The last time we talked, Helen,” Seabright was now saying, in the voice of a chatty psychiatrist, “you told me that next time you’d tell me why that painting fascinates you so.”

      “I don’t want to talk about that, Uncle Del.” It was a prim, calm voice, the voice of a young lady who knew her mind.

      “But next time is now, Helen,” Seabright prodded gently. When he got no response he tried again. “I’ll make a bargain with you, if you like. How’s this? I’ll leave the painting where you can come and look at it anytime. And in return—what, Helen?” The girl had said something, very low.

      “I said, it was really Annie who liked the painting anyway.”       “Oh yes, of course. But you can like it too.”

      “And Annie’s dead now.”

      “No more Annie. That’s quite right. And do you miss her?”

      Helen frowned.

      Seabright said softly and with great certainty: “Annie was always running away. She had no home, no family, no love. Always and forever on the run. Don’t you think it’s really better that she’s dead?”

      “I don’t miss her, really. She’s really better off … but sometimes…”

      “Yes. All right. Now, as I started to say, Helen, I’ll leave the painting out somewhere, where you can look at it. And in return you, now don’t frown, you don’t have to talk about the painting at all if you don’t want to. Only about some other things, that happened to you when you were … much younger than you are now. How does that kind of bargain sound?”

      The girl was troubled. Frowning, she shook her head, and mumbled something.

      “We don’t necessarily have to go back