Ballroom of the Skies by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

of tiny faces under the pads of his fingers. He opened his eyes and looked at the paper in the machine. He began to type and stopped, as horror welled up to the point of nausea. His fingers were bloodied and the little faces were smashed, and he had heard the tiny cries, the rending of tissue. Sweating, he wiped his hands on his thighs as he stood up, knocking the chair over.
    He stood with his back to the machine and tightened his muscles until his shoulders ached. He looked cautiously at his fingertips. The blood was gone. Hallucination, then. A minor madness. He thought it out objectively. Self-preservation, probably. Trying to save the organism from disaster. A glandular revolt against dissolution. Helooked cautiously over his shoulder. The typewriter was sane, normal, familiar.
    He sat down and began to type. His thoughts were fluent. His fingers could hardly keep up. He tore the second sheet out of the machine and read it.
    “And so it is a baseball game and game and never the over of the now and the then and given. Tender and mathew and meatloaf the underside twisteth of the die and the perish now. All ye who enter can frenzied the window savior …”
    The whole page was like that. Gibberish. Insanity. The stream of consciousness of an idiot who remembers words but has lost their meaning.
    He tried again, writing more slowly. It was no good. He found a pencil in the table drawer. He took one of the copy sheets and tried to write. The pencil became too hot to hold. He examined blisters on his hand which faded even as he looked at them. The paper curled into flame, and he slapped it out. A moment later it was unscorched. He could no longer repress a primitive panic. He ran from the office and down the corridor, heart pumping, hands sweaty.
    He did not quiet down until he was on the street. And suddenly he felt like an utter damn fool. Take a break and then go back and get it written. He walked to a small restaurant and sat at the counter and ordered coffee. The waitress was gray and surly with a prono hangover. A tiny radio yipped like a terrier. He listened with half his mind.
    “… and late last night Darwin Branson, retired statesman and political philosopher was committed to Bronx Psychiatric Hos—–” The waitress had flipped the dial as she walked by.
    “Would you mind getting that station back, miss?”
    “Yes, I’d mind. He already gave all the news.”
    She stood braced, ready to blow up completely if he insisted. You couldn’t argue with a prono hangover. He paid for his coffee, left the cup untouched and spent ten minutes on the corner before he could find a cab willing to take the long trip.
    He reached the hospital at noon. He was suspected of being a reporter and the desk tried to bar him. He produced the confidential credentials Darwin had given him. The desk reluctantly put him in contact with the resident doctor assigned to the case.
    The doctor was young, unimaginative, and delighted with the case.
    “Lorin you said? Worked for him, eh? Well, I suppose you can take a look. We’ve been checking him most of the morning. Come on.”
    They had Branson in a private room. A nurse was in attendance. She stood up as they came in. “Respiration is ten now, Doctor. Heart forty-four. Temperature eight-six point six.”
    “Damndest thing I ever saw,” the doctor said in a pleased tone. “Cops brought him in last night. Found him sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. Thought it was a pronie first. We checked him. He was apparently conscious. But no reaction to anything. Couldn’t make the pupil contract. Couldn’t find a single damn reflex.”
    Dake stared at the silent waxy face on the pillow.
    The doctor said, holding out a clipboard, “Just take a look at this chart. This is one that’s going to be written up. Pulse, respiration, temperature—every one heading down in a line so straight it could have been drawn by a ruler. This man is just like a machine running down.”
    “Heart