Mindkiller Read online

  A Canadian Professor escapes suicide only to have his sister disappear without a trace…

  A computer-linked burglar rescues a young woman from the terminal ecstasy of “wire-heading…”

  Two men and one woman search for—and find—the ultimate frontier of experience, in a major new novel by one of today’s most acclaimed science fiction talents.

  Spider Robinson’s

  MINDKILLER

  “Spider Robinson gives you the computerized world of tomorrow…This is a good one!”

  —Robert Sheckley

  “Full of action and suspense…”

  —Publishers Weekly

  An excerpt from this book appeared in Omni magazine under the title, “God Is an Iron.”

  The song “$29,” from the album Blue Valentine (Asylum 6E-162) by Tom Waits,

  is copyright © 1978 by Fifth Floor Music, Inc., ASCAP, and is excerpted by permission of the composer/artist.

  This Berkley book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading, and was printed from new film.

  MINDKILLER

  A Berkley Book /published by arrangement with

  Holt, Rinehart and Winston

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Holt, Rinehart edition /September 1982

  Berkley edition /November 1983

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1982 by Spider Robinson.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  For information address: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

  383 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017.

  ISBN: 0-425-06288-0

  A BERKLEY BOOK ® TM 757,375

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  The name “BERKLEY” and the stylized “B” with design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  This book is dedicated

  to Psyche

  and to Allison.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In writing this novel I have borrowed from the ideas, insights, and observations of many people. In no particular order, they are:

  Dr. Jim Lynch, my oldest friend, who first put me onto brain reward; Larry Niven, whose novella “Death by Ecstasy” is probably the definitive story on the subject; Dr. Jerry Pournelle; Dr. Adam Reed of Rockefeller University; Bob Shaw; Aryeh Routtenberg, whose article in the November 1978 Scientific American was the final spark for the creation of this book; John D. MacDonald; Robert A. Heinlein; and of course Olds and Milner, who started the whole thing by poking electrodes into rat brains at McGill University in the 1950s. None of these gentlemen are to blame for what I have done with their ideas; as I write, only two are even aware that I have borrowed from them.

  Research assistance was given me by Bob Atkinson, Bill Jones, John Bell, George Allanson, and Andrew Gilbert; Bob Atkinson typed more than half the manuscript while my arm was in a cast. Invaluable suggestions were made by my editor, Donald Hutter of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and by my agent, Kirby McCauley. Jeanne, my other leg, read the whole thing in progress, called me back from the blind alleys, and helped me patch the leaks. Heartfelt thanks to them all. Oh, and thanks to the Gunner in Brattleboro for the Atcheson Assault Twelve and to the Sea Breeze Inn in St. Margaret’s Bay for the hospitality.

  Any resemblance between characters in this book and real people, living or dead, is unintentional. A character’s opinions should never necessarily be taken to be those of the author, but I would like at this time to specifically repudiate any derogatory opinions about the city of Halifax expressed by characters hereinafter. It is the nicest city I have ever inhabited. But try persuading a New Yorker of that!

  For those interested in influences, this book was written on a steady diet of Charlie Parker, Jon Hendricks, Frank Zappa, John Lennon, Tom Waits, and the Dixie Dregs.

  —HALIFAX, 1981

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  1

  1994 Halifax Harbor at night is a beautiful sight, and June usually finds the MacDonald Bridge lined with lovers and other appreciators. But in Halifax even June can turn on one with icy claws.

  A thermometer sheltered from the brisk wind would have shown a little below Centigrade zero. Norman Kent had the magnificent scenery all to himself.

  He was aware of the view; it was before his face, and his eyes were not closed. He was aware of the cold too, because occasionally when he worked his face frozen tears would break and fall from his cheeks. Neither meant anything to him. He was even vaguely aware of the sound of steady traffic behind him, successive dopplers like the rhythmic moaning of some wounded giant. They meant nothing to him either. On careful reflection Norman could think of nothing that did mean anything to him, and so he put one leg over the outer rail.

  A voice came out of the night. “Hey, Cap, don’t!”

  He froze for a long moment. Running footsteps approached from the Dartmouth end of the bridge. Norman turned and saw the man coming up fast in the wash of passing headlights, and that decided him. He got the other leg over and stood teetering on the narrow ledge, the wind full in his face. His hat blew off, and insanely he spun around after it and incredibly he caught it, and was caught himself at wrist and forearm by two very strong hands. They dragged him bodily back over the rail again, nearly breaking his arm, and deposited him hard on his back on the pedestrian walkway. His breath left him, and he lay there blinking up at bridge structure and midnight sky for perhaps half a minute.

  He became aware that his unwanted rescuer was sitting beside him, back against the rail and to the wind, breathing heavily. Norman rolled his head, felt cold stone bite his cheek, saw a large man in a shabby coat, silhouetted against a pool of light. From the frosted breath he knew that the large man was shaking his head.

  Norman lifted himself on his elbows and sat beside the other, lifting his collar against the cold. He fumbled out a pack of Players Lights and lit one with a flameless lighter. He held it out to the man, who accepted it silently, and lit another for himself.

  “My wife left me,” Norman said. “Six years this August, and she left me. Six years! Said she married too soon, she had to ‘find herself.’ And the semester’s almost over, I’ve bitched it all up, nothing at all lined up for the summer, and there’s a really good chance I won’t be hired back in September. Old MacLeod with his hoary hints about austerity and sacrifices and a department chairman’s heavy responsibility, he wouldn’t even come right out and tell me! Find herself, for Christ’s stinking sake! Got herself a nineteen-year-old plumbing student, he’s going to help her find herself.” He broke off and smoked for a while. When he could speak again he said, “Perhaps I could have handled either one, but the two together is…it’s only fair to tell you, I’m going to try again, and you can’t stop me forever.”

  The other spoke for the first time. His voice was deep and gravelly and dispassionate. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  Norman turned to stare. “Then why—?” He stopped then, for the knife picked up the oncoming headlights very well.

  “I never meant to stop you, Cap,” the large man said calmly. “Just, uh—heh, heh—hold you up a little.”

  He was not even troubling to keep the knife hidden from the tr
affic. Norman glanced briefly at the oncoming cars; as in a slapstick movie sequence he saw four drivers, one after the other, do the identical single-take and then return their eyes grimly to the road. He yanked his own eyes back to the knife. It was quite large and looked sharp. The large man held it as though he knew how, and all at once it came to Norman that he had cashed a check today, and had two hundred New dollars in twenties in his wallet.

  He let go of his cigarette and the wind took it. He put his gloved left hand palm up on his lap. On it he placed his wallet, his cigarettes, a half-empty pack of joints, and the small lighter. As he peeled the watch from the inside of his wrist he noticed that both hands were shaking badly. Oh, yes, he told himself, that’s right, it is very cold. He added the watch to the pile, worked the right glove off against his hip, and took his pocket change in that hand.

  “On my lap, brother,” the large man directed. “Then go. Back to town or over the side, it’s all the same to me.”

  Norman sighed deeply, and flung everything high and to his right. Nearly all of it went over the rail and into the harbor; a few bills were blown into traffic and toward the other rail.

  The large man sat motionless. His eyes did not follow the loot but remained fixed on Norman, who stared back.

  At last the large man got to his feet. “Cap,” he said, shaking his head again, “you got a lot of hard bark on you.” The knife disappeared. “Sorry I bothered you.” He turned and began walking back toward Dartmouth, hunching against the wind, still smoking Norman’s cigarette.

  “You gutless bastard,” Norman whispered, and wondered who he was talking to.

  Norman Kent was thirty years old. He was one hundred and sixty-five centimeters tall and weighed fifty-five kilograms—although, having been born in America in 1965, he habitually thought of himself as five-five and a hundred and twenty pounds. Despite his actual stature, people usually remembered him as being of average height: there was a solidity to his body and movements. It implied a strength and physical conditioning he had not actually possessed since leaving the United States Army six years before. His face was passable, with wide-set grey eyes, a perfect aquiline nose, and a chin that would have seemed strong if it had not been topped by a mouth a fraction too wide. Overdeveloped folds at each corner of the mouth made it seem, when at rest, to be a faint, smug smile.

  One could have flattered him most by calling him elegant. He had shaved for his suicide. The suit was tasteful enough to befit an assistant professor of English—it was his best suit—and the topcoat was pure quality. At thirty his hairline had not yet receded visibly. He wore his hair moderately long; the wind had whipped it into a fantastic sculpture and kept revising the design. The only nonconformist indulgence he permitted himself was his necktie, which looked like a riot in a paint shop.

  After a time he put his glove back on, got stiffly to his feet, and left the bridge at the Halifax end, stamping his feet to restore circulation. He had not known genuine physical fear in six years, and he had forgotten the exhilaration that comes with survival. It was a twenty-minute walk home, and he savored every step. The smell of the harbor, the seedy waterfront squalor of Hollis Street, the brave, forlorn hookers too frozen to display their wares, the fake stained glass in the front windows of Skipper’s Lounge, the special and inimitable color of leaves backlit by a street light, the clacking sounds of traffic lights and the laboring power plant of Victoria General Hospital—all were brand new again, treasures to be appreciated for the first time. He walked happily, mindless as a child. When he reached his apartment tower on Wellington Street, he was whistling. On the way up in the elevator, he graduated to humming, and by the time he reached his floor he was singing the words too, whereupon he was amused to discover that the tune he had been humming so merrily was the old Tom Lehrer song, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”

  Half the lights were out in the hall, as usual, including the one by his door, but he did not care. He felt preternaturally observant, as though all his organs of perception had been recently fine-tuned and the gain stepped up, and along with this came such a feeling of euphoria that when he reached his apartment door and perceived coming out from under it not the sounds of the tuner, which he had left on, but the soft light of the lamp, which he had not, the implications failed to disturb him in the slightest. Got to be junkies, he thought calmly, Lois is off on the Mountain for the weekend. Ho ho. Ought to go right back downshaft and wake up old Julius, have him phone this in. Yes indeed.

  As recently as the night before, he would have done precisely that, while congratulating himself on being too much of an old soldier to walk unheeding into danger.

  Still singing, he took his keys from his pocket, making a noisy production of it. He was heartened to notice that the security camera over his door was intact, as were the ones at either end of the hall—his antagonists must be idiots. The cameras did not depend on visible light. Let’s see, he thought, the gun is in the bottom left-hand drawer of the desk: one long run and I’m there, claw it open from underneath, kick the legs out from under the bookcase to spoil their aim, and roll behind the corner sofa—it’ll stop bullets. Then try to negotiate.

  A part of his mind was startled to learn that a mild-mannered assistant professor could undertake anything like this so cheerily—it had been a long time—but he was in no wise afraid. It was not fear that made time slow so drastically for him now, but something more like joy. He shucked off topcoat, jacket, tie, and gloves. He unlocked the door, dropped into a sprinter’s crouch so as to convey his head into the room at an unexpected height, and threw the door open—hard, but not so hard that it would rebound into him. He got a good start, clearing the frame just as the door got out of his way, staying low and gaining speed with every step, still singing lustily about poisoning pigeons in the park.

  The room was poorly lit by the lamp, but he saw the desk at once, unrifled, drawers all closed, gun presumably undiscovered. Glance left: no hostiles visible. Glance right: one in deep shadow, very long hair, half hidden by the couch, possibly more in the hall or other rooms. He wanted to study the one he could see for at least another tenth of a second, because both hands were beginning to come up and he wanted to know what was in them, but his subconscious insisted on yanking his gaze back in front of him again. It was very nearly in time, but by the time he saw the Village Voice lying where he had left it on the floor, he was committed to stepping on it. His feet went out from under him and he went airborne. He lowered his head automatically, and even managed to get both hands up in front of him, with the net result that the top of his skull impacted with great force against both fists. He dropped heavily on his face on the carpet.

  Remarkably, he was unstunned. He sprang to his knees at once and yanked the drawer open, expecting at any second to experience some kind of impact. The gun seemed to spring into his hand; he whirled on one knee and located the long-haired one, frozen in an attitude of shock. “Hold it right there,” Norman rapped.

  The other burst into sudden, uproarious, unmistakably feminine laughter.

  Now he was stunned. He lowered the gun involuntarily, then simply let go. It landed unheeded and safely, the safety still locked. He fell off his heels and sat down hard on the carpet.

  “Jesus Christ in rhinestones,” he said hoarsely. “Maddy. What are you doing here?”

  She could not stop laughing. “Don’t…don’t kill me, brother,” she managed, and doubled over.

  He found that he was giggling himself, and it felt very good, so he let it build into deep laughter until he too was doubled over. The aching of his hands and the throbbing of his head were hilarious. The shared laughter went on for a long time, and when it might have stopped she said, “Poisoning pigeons,” and they were off again. It was one of the great laughs.

  At last she came around from behind the couch and sat in front of him, taking both his hands. “Hello, old younger brother,” she said in a Swiss French accent. “It is very good to see you again.”

 
“It is incredibly good to see you,” he responded enthusiastically, and hugged her close.

  Madeleine Kent was four years older than her brother, and a good eight centimeters taller. The resemblance was fairly pronounced: she had his audiotape-colored hair, his perfect nose and perfect teeth, and on her the overwide mouth looked good. But a different character had built on those features; a polite stranger would have called her not elegant but bold. Or possibly daring…but not quite reckless, there was too much wry wisdom in the eyes for that. The facial difference between the siblings was subtle but unmistakable. Norman looked like a man who had been around; Madeleine looked like a woman who had been around and still was. Her voice was deeper than he remembered, a throaty contralto that was quite sexy. Her clothes were impeccable and expensive. Her arms were strong.

  The hug stretched out, and then they both became self-conscious and disengaged. Madeleine smiled uneasily, then got to her feet and stepped back a few paces. She turned away and put both hands on a bookcase.

  “I’m a little bit embarrassed at how good it is to see you,” she said.

  “You speak English like a Swiss,” he said, getting up.

  She started. “Do I? Why, I do.” She made an effort and dropped the accent. “Habit, I guess. An American is not a good thing to be in Switzerland these days.”

  “Why is it that I’m embarrassed too? At how good it is to see you.”

  She pulled a volume at random from the bookcase and appeared to examine it closely. “Why I am embarrassed is that you and I have never been the very best of friends.”

  “Maddy—”

  “Let me say it, no? It’s been ten years. I don’t write many letters. I’ll be honest, in that ten years I might have thought of you ten times. Well, give or take five.”

  He had to smile. “Much the same with me.”

  She turned to face him, and smiled when she saw his smile. But hers was tight, unconvincing. “Now here I am on your doorstep. Past your doorstep, there are four suitcases in your bedroom. I needed a place to be, and it came to me that you are the only close family I have left in all the world, and Norman, I need close family very badly right now. Can I stay here for a while?”