Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/35

 the silence of a shadow flitting down the long hall on the soundproofed side of the building.

The soundproofed side—that's where the screaming people were. I could detect the dim light issuing from beneath the door on my left.

I wasn't afraid. I had Clermer's gun. I edged up to the door, turned the knob slowly. The door opened.

The wide room was bathed in twilight from recessed, indirect fixtures set in the walls. And it was lined with low cribs that looked like beds, yet bore a mocking resemblance to still another place of slumber. Eternal slumber. As I gazed down into the cold countenances of the occupants, the resemblance heightened.

These were not beds. They were coffins. And they contained corpses.

There were no screaming people here; the mouths were closed in thin-lipped lines, the faces were slack, the eyes glazed. I saw a dozen coffin-like cubicles; ten were occupied. I glanced at the faces through a tangle of apparatus overhead; then recognized the mundane instruments and installations used in ordinary Intravenous feeding.

They weren't really dead, but merely sleeping. Or in a coma, rather—for my presence did not awaken them. I gazed into their frozen features, then froze myself. Two faces I recognized, two I knew. "Bittner!" I murmured. "Corelli!"

Yes, Dr. Bittner. And Dr. Corelli. Wagram's own assistants. He'd said they helped him with the screaming people, and yet they were lying here with the others. And the others did not scream.

I was the one who wanted to scream, but I held the gun and I held my purpose and I held my course. I moved towards the door at the far side of the room. Wagram's private quarters must be beyond.

Yes, there was light flooding forth from under this door, too. I approached the panel slowly, cautiously. Gently, I eased the door ajar.

Now I could see into the room ahead. Wagram's private study, as I'd suspected. And I could see the back of his head over the top of the big armchair, see the front of his head as he swivelled and turned, see the look in his eyes as he recognized me, see the slackness of his mouth as he goggled at the gun in my hand.

"That's right," I said, soft- THE SCREAMING PEOPLE