Sound of Terror Page 3

out his hand to touch the control panel, and his arm did notrespond. It was shaking, uncontrollably, and moved off to the right ofwhere he wanted it to go. When he tried to correct, it swung too far tothe left, waving as if it were alive. It hung there before him as in adream, oscillating back and forth.

  He could not control his body, and the realization nurtured the tinyseed of panic that lay heavily in his belly.

  _Dump it...._

  What did that mean? _Dump it ... go home now, baby ... _I had_ atrue ..._

  Decision ... there was a decision he had to make, but he was toofrightened to know what it was.

  He had been born in fear and lived in fear and his body was full of it,quivering to the lover's touch of fear. Falling, darkness, the fear ofdying, the unknown, the unimaginable always lurking just out of thecorner of his eye.

  He wanted to scream and the fear choked it off. His hands were at hissides, limply useless, dangling at the seat. He had to hang on tosomething. His hand found a projection at the side of the seat. Heclutched it desperately.

  He knew he would fall, down, spiraling, weightless, off the cliff as ina dream, off the ladder, the tree, he was a child and his toes weretingling as he stood too near the edge of the cliff, knowing he mightfall.

  He clutched tightly, putting every ounce of his strength into holding onto the lever, the single solid reality in a world of shifting unreality.He was going to fall he was falling I love you I hate you I had a truewife ...

  * * * * *

  There was softness beneath his back, and he moved his hands, feeling thecrispness of sheets. There was a low murmur of voices. He raised hishands to his eyes and the voices stopped. There were heavy bandages onhis eyes.

  "Colonel?" came a questing voice, and Johnny realized it was DoctorLambert. "Awake?"

  "I can't see. Why can't I see?"

  "You'll be all right. It's all right."

  "What happened?"

  "How much do you remember?" asked the voice. "The blast-off?"

  "Yes--yes, I remember that."

  "The orbit? The landing?"

  "No," he said. "Not that."

  "You did it," said the voice. "You made it."

  _This is my day. Once around lightly._

  "Johnny," said the voice. "I don't know just how to say this. We knowwhat was wrong with Ship I, and why it killed Mitch. We know--hell, wedon't even begin to realize what we have at our fingertips now. It's sobig it's impossible to evaluate."

  "What? I don't--"

  "Sound, Johnny, sound. Or rather, vibration. It's something we're justbeginning to learn about. We know a few things; we know you can boilwater with sound if the frequency is high enough. And you can drillmetal with it--and it does things to the human body.

  "There are frequencies of sound which can act directly on human nerves,directly on the human brain. It means that if we know the rightfrequency, we'll be able to produce any state we want in a man, anyemotion. Fear, anguish, anything.

  "When the steering rockets were cut in, the Ship began to vibrate. Itgenerated frequencies so high that ordinary human senses couldn't detectthem. And when your nerves were exposed to those vibrations, it producedfear. Pure and absolute fear. Motor control went, rational processeswent, all the nervous functions of the body went out of control. Yourbody became a giant tuning fork, and the frequency to which it vibratedwas fear.

  "I can't remember--"

  "Sanity went, too, Johnny," said the man softly. "You could not standthat fear and remain sane, so something cut off. That was what happenedto Mitch."

  "How did I get back?"

  "We don't know. The films show your face suddenly going blank. Then youflew. That's all. We hoped you could tell us."

  "No. No--I don't remember--"

  "There was something in you so strong it overrode everything else, eventhe fear. We'd like to know what it is. We'll find out, Johnny, and itwill mean a lot to the human race when we do."

  _This is my day._

  "Is my wife here?"

  There was a cool hand on his forehead. "Yes, Johnny."

  "Well," he said helplessly. "Well, how are you?"

  "I'm fine, Johnny," she whispered, and there was the sound of tears inher voice. "I'm just fine."

  He felt the warm softness of her lips on his.

  _I had a true wife but I left her ... oh, oh, oh._

  And then he came home again.

  END

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ June 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.