Colin Kapp - The Dark Mind - The Transfinite Man

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The Dark Mind / The Transfinite Man

Colin Kapp, 1965

ONE

Failway Terminal cut across the old sector of the city like an ugly red house-brick thrown by a vandal on

to a Lilliputian town. Almost a square mile of the old town had been obliterated to make room for the

monstrous hundred-storied hulk of architectural impotence which was the Terminal building. Streets and

parks alike ended with a plaintive suddenness short of this monumental reminder that money can buy

anything. Its shadow secured a shroud of almost permanent gloom across the tenements still cringing

between it and the river. Failway Terminal, thought Ivan Dalroi, was a headache from any point of view.

A ground-cab set him down at the main entrance, and he lingered for a while watching the faces of the

trippers and the sensation seekers who flocked to the Terminal in search of the pleasures only Failway

could provide. The sight made him slightly sick. Failway was strictly impartial: the customers got what

they paid for — pleasures simple, exciting, exotic or erotic according to their wishes. The trouble was

that people tended to graduate ...

The girl at the reception desk took his card and scanned it with disfavour.

"You have an appointment?"

"No," said Dalroi. "Only people who expect to live a long time make appointments. I want to speak to

Peter Madden."

"Would you care to state the nature of your business?"

"Right now it hasn't got a name, but unless I get a few good answers I shall probably call it murder."

The girl dialled a number and spoke briefly into an acoustic chamber. Then she turned back to Dalroi.

"Mr. Madden was expecting you to call. He will see you immediately."

Dalroi scowled. Only a selected few knew he was planning a visit to Failway Terminal. Only one other

person knew his purpose. Somebody was guessing, or ... A sudden stab of panic clawed at his vitals and

he rejected it savagely.

Peter Madden was a mild-seeming man with a careful, suave calm born more of rigid self-discipline than

inner content. The man's balance and control was almost perfect, thought Dalroi, but the tell-tale top line

frown betrayed the power and the conflict locked within the skull. Peter Madden was not a man to be

crossed lightly.

"Failway Public Relations at your disposal, Mr. Dalroi. We aim to serve you."

"I doubt it!" said Dalroi. "I'm not exactly increasing the good-will of the establishment."

Madden looked him firmly in the eyes, a slight smile on his lips, and motioned him into a chair. "Knowing

your reputation for trouble, I take it this isn't a social visit?"

"If you were expecting me, you know damn well it isn't. For the record I'll pretend you don't know who I

am or why I'm here." He searched carefully around the room for the concealed microphones he knew

were recording every word he spoke. "I'm a private investigator working on behalf of Baron Cronstadt

and the Cronstadt committee. Four weeks ago three members of the committee visited Failway on a

fact-finding tour. I know they went in because I watched them. They never came out again."

"That's a sweeping statement," said Madden gently. "You don't suppose we lose people in Failway, do

you?"

"I do mean just that."

"It's scarcely policy, Mr. Dalroi. Failway is devoted to offering patrons whatever they choose to seek. If

they came looking for facts, I have no doubt they found them."

"And if they came looking for trouble?" asked Dalroi. "Let's stop fencing, Mr. Madden. The Cronstadt

committee is out to break the Failway monopoly. The fact that three members don't return after a

Failway visit is highly suggestive of a little foul play. I'd be interested to hear your explanation."

Madden laughed quietly. "My dear Dalroi, we're not afraid of the Cronstadt committee, and we've

nothing to hide. There've always been cranks against Failway and there always will be — it's part of the

cross we bear for being in advance of the times. Why should we trouble ourselves with the maunderings

of three old men?"

Dalroi looked up. "Who said they were old?"

Peter Madden spread his hands. "Prohibition is an old man's occupation. Do you mind if I offer you a

little advice, Mr. Dalroi?"

"Call me Ivan," said Dalroi insolently. "It sounds less formal."

Madden controlled himself. "Very well — Ivan. I advise you to drop this case. You've a big reputation as

an investigator. I suggest you wouldn't want to ruin it by starting something you have no hope of finishing."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, simply a prediction."

"Then your crystal ball is tuned in to the wrong channel. I've never yet walked out on a case."

"Not even when the price was right?" Madden watched him closely.

"No," said Dalroi, "not even then. First of all a man has to live with himself. Besides which, I have a

personal score to settle with Failway."

Madden fingered a file of papers on his desk then pushed it aside with a hint of impatience. "I was afraid

of that," he said. "I don't suppose it does any good to repeat that you have no chance at all of

succeeding?"

"No," said Dalroi. "Win or lose, there isn't enough room for Dalroi and Failway to live together. One of

us is going to have to go."

"At least we reach a point of complete agreement," said Madden quietly.

He stood up to signify that the interview was at an end. Dalroi rose also, puzzled by a curious

undercurrent in the P.R.O.'s manner. Madden showed him out with the usual courtesies and a final

handshake. As their hands clutched, Dalroi became aware that a piece of folded paper was being

pressed into his palm. A glance at Madden's eyes cautioned him to silence. He trapped the paper deftly

beneath his thumb, and set off down the corridor without once looking back.

He was deep in the heart of the old town before he slipped the note carefully into his pocket. Glancing

round to make sure he was not being followed, he entered Mortimer's café-bar and went straight to the

telephone. This was a tactical move. Mortimer saw him enter and nodded to the boy to watch the door.

Dalroi and Mortimer had a mutual pact to protect each other's right to privacy, a remnant of the old

gang-fights of their youth.

The note read:

FAILWAY G2. 12:00 MUST SPEAK. MADDEN.

Dalroi frowned. Failway G.2, was the heavy goods entrance on the river side of the Terminal. It was

situated in the wharfing area in the toughest and most vicious district of the old town. Dalroi knew. He

had spent his youth in the shadows of the brothels and bars around the mouldering wharves. That scar on

his forehead was no accident.

He dropped some coins into the meter and dialled his office. Zdenka, his secretary, answered the phone.

"Dalroi here, Zen. Anything new come in for me?"

"Nothing — unless you count the gas bill."

"File it," said Dalroi. "Under miscellaneous. Look, I want you to get on to our police contacts and see if

you can get information on any unidentified bodies found in this area in the last four weeks. I'm

specifically interested in three, male, in the fifty to sixty-five age group."

"That sounds ominously like the members of the fact-finding party who went into Failway."

"Precisely," said Dalroi. "I'm tempted to wonder if I've been looking for them in the wrong place.

Something's very curious about this whole affair. There's a hell of an undercurrent behind everything."

"Speaking of undercurrents," Zdenka said, "somebody named Dutt was on the phone."

"How long ago?"

"Thirty seconds, perhaps."

"Right!" said Dalroi. "You can go home if you want to. I shall probably be late."

He broke the connection hastily. He knew nobody named Dutt. The message was a prearranged code.

DUTT ... Don't Use The Telephone. It meant that the personal-privacy meter in the office had detected a

wire-tap on the line. His interest in Failway had somebody worried, and that somebody was going to a

great deal of trouble to keep informed of his movements. Things were beginning to warm up.

He left the phone, nodded to Mortimer, then changed his mind about going out of the front entrance and

went through the kitchens at the back. Turning uptown he ignored two ground-cabs and selected a third.

Thus it was he was just re-passing Mortimer's bar in time to see the front blown out by a bomb which

exploded within.

He halted the cab, half inclined to plough into the wreckage to look for Mortimer and the boy, but the

angle of the beams told him the floor had collapsed into the cellar. That made it a job for the fire-service

rescue squad and the police — especially the police. Mortimer's hobby was printing, and the presses

lived in the cellar — so did the plates which produced such highly accurate counterfeit banknotes.

With a sick heart he ordered the cab to drive on. He had no doubt that the bomb had been intended for

himself. Obviously he had been followed from Failway by someone who was not only a master of his

trade but was also prepared to kill and was not particular as to how he did it. That triple qualification

narrowed the field quite a bit. He could not recall more than half a dozen men in the country who could fit

the post — and they were all very expensive.

He began to sense the power and complexity of the web stretched out across the city. Somebody at

Failway was displeased or frightened or both, and Failway never stopped at niceties to remove a thorn

beneath the flesh. It had always been the same — the vast concentration of power scaled down to the

fine operating edge of the professional killer; the knife in the dark, the body in the river — nice

inconspicuous deaths with no witnesses, no convictions and nothing to connect them with Failway save

the tenuous threads of suspicion.

Failway tolerated no opposition. It was ruthless, thorough and invariably fatal to its opponents. Why not,

when it was prepared to spend a million pounds to ensure a man was dead?

Cronstadt himself had chosen Dalroi for the job; 'Iron-fist' Cronstadt, the Steel and Paper Baron, a man

of fierce ambitions and bitter, uncompromising drives. Around him he had drawn a committee of helpers

as bizarre and unorthodox as himself: Presley, head of the United Churches Militant Action Group;

Hildebrand, psychologist and intellectual; and the fantastic Doctor Gormalu, whose scientific genius had

first made Failway possible. Also backing Cronstadt was the government-appointed fact-finding group

whose disappearance had given Dalroi his first operating part in the game.

Three streets from the office Dalroi dismissed the cab on a swift impulse. It occurred to him that the

bomb in Mortimer's bar had left him with an unsought advantage. For a few hours at least Failway would

be unable to tell if their murder bid had been successful. That gave him a few hours to locate the killer

who had followed him, and to extract a little vengeance.

He dived into the nearest hotel, went straight through into the cloakroom and locked himself in. Then he

pulled out his utility-wallet and did a hasty make-up job on himself. Under the brush and powder his hair

turned darker and streaked with grey. His face tanned chestnut with the lotion and the supple skin

tautened as the resins dried and contracted. Contact lenses masked the colour of his eyes, and within

twenty minutes the face of Ivan Dalroi aged by thirty years.

He now turned his attention to his clothes. The trousers and shoes were nondescript but his jacket was

obtrusively his own. Not far from the hotel was a third-rate tailor who made his fortune out of the

sartorial necessities of underpaid office workers. Dalroi left his own jacket in a hotel locker, and by the

time he stepped on to the bus he was certain that no one could have recognised the peevish, frustrated

clerk as the grim-eyed private investigator who had so narrowly escaped death at Mortimer's.

He chose the bus-stop before the ruined bar, and walked on to where the knot of spectators pressed the

police cordon. He pushed his way forward until he was jammed against the arm of a policeman

attempting to control the crowd.

"Keep back behind there!"

"What happened?" said Dalroi.

"Explosion," said the policeman. "Now keep moving along there."

"Any survivors?" Dalroi asked.

"No, not a hope. They've got stretchers in there now but the ambulance is a waste of time. Now move

along, if you please!"

Dalroi worked his way slowly through the crowd. There were the usual groups of people who assembled

on such occasions: the housewives complete with shopping, shift workers homing for a late lunch, the

elderly and retired who had no more congenial occupation than to pronounce judgement at an accident

or a hole in the road. Mentally he catalogued the assembly one by one, looking for someone who did not

quite fit. He was certain in his own mind that the bomb-thrower was still on the scene waiting for

confirmation that Dalroi was dead. Finding no positive suspects he moved back to the beginning of the

crowd.

"They say there's three dead bodies in there," Dalroi confided to a fellow onlooker.

"That so? Still, there might have been a lot more in a bar at this time of day."

Dalroi moved on. "They say there's three heads in there," he said to another, "but only two bodies."

"Three?" The man looked up sharply. "How do you know?"

"I was speaking to the fire-chief. He said two waiters and a big blond fellow."

"I wonder why they don't fetch them out?"

"Can't," said Dalroi. "The floor dropped in."

He moved on, spreading an occasional lie, and reckoning on inference and hearsay to spread the false

rumour of his own demise. Then he saw his man. The face was disguised and unfamiliar, but the set of the

shoulders and the soft cat-tread walk struck a chord in his memory. The assassin had turned from the

crowd and was leaving, as though bored with the inactivity of the scene.

Dalroi followed him silently. They turned off the high-street, through the arcade, then right and on to the

Black-water bridge. Halfway across the bridge the assassin paused to light a cigarette. Dalroi paused

also to slip the catch on his automatic pistol. Then the two fell into step.

"Nice try, Michael Neasden," said Dalroi casually.

The other was startled. "What the hell?"

"Keep walking," said Dalroi. "I've got a gun on your spine. This is one funeral you aren't going to miss."

The other considered this in silence for a moment. "What makes you think I'm Michael Neasden?"

"Simple," said Dalroi. "I followed your backside for two years, exercising round a bloody prison yard."

Despite the gun the other faltered in his stride. "Dalroi! But I thought ... "

" ... I was dead. And you thought that because you were just on your way to Failway to collect the fee

for having murdered me. That's one mistake more than you're allowed."

Neasden shot him an agonised glance, then lunged. His fist took Dalroi in the stomach as he sprang for

the parapet, then he vaulted the concrete rail and dived for the river below. A barge passing beneath

saved Dalroi having to fire at a target moving in the water. It saved Dalroi having to fire at all.

TWO

Dalroi had no doubt his office was being watched. Any of a hundred windows in the area could be used

to overlook the door to the office block. Fortunately the doorway was common to thirty offices, and he

was confident his disguise would stand up to all but the most prolonged scrutiny.

He entered the building and went straight up the stairs, suddenly aware that the light in his office was still

burning although the hour was late. Through the reeded-glass panel in the corridor he could see the

outline of Zdenka sitting at her desk. A darker figure stood near the door. The atmosphere held the

sweet smell of trouble. He ignored his key and fingered the office doorbell. A moment's hesitation, then

the door was opened by a tall stranger in a black tunic shirt.

"Mr. Dalroi?" asked Dalroi, playing again the frustrated clerk.

"At this time of night? Try again tomorrow."

"But I must see him. You see, my wife has ... "

"Good luck!" said the man. "You're probably better off without her."

But Dalroi pressed into the office, fussily insistent. One look at the half-formed hope on Zdenka's face

told him all he needed to know. The stranger found his revolver, only to watch it spin from his fingers as a

deft blow from Dalroi paralysed his arm. Before the amazement could register Dalroi hit him again and he

fell as though pole-axed.

"I thought you were never going to come," Zdenka said.

"I was delayed. A friend of mine was killed by a bomb and I felt obliged to find out who threw it. When

did this character turn up?"

"Right after you called. I think he was connected with the line-tap on the phone."

"That makes sense," said Dalroi disgustedly. "But they might have had the decency to send a

professional. I wouldn't be surprised if he even carries his identity on him."

He searched the stranger's pockets rapidly. "I thought as much: Failway Internal Security Force.

Probably sent to clean-up the office as soon as they were sure that I was permanently out of the way."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Call Inspector Quentain and tell him I wish to make a charge of armed assault and illegal entry. With the

sort of pressure Quentain's under he won't dare do a thing, but it may give us a few loose ends we can

hook on to Failway."

"You hate Failway, don't you?" Zdenka watched him curiously.

"Hate," said Dalroi bitterly, "doesn't begin to describe the emotion. I was brought up in the shadow of

Failway. If ever a girl went missing we all knew where she'd gone. The building blocked the sunlight from

the streets, their refuse polluted the river, and their methods twisted the life and hope out of the people.

They set a price on every form of human degradation; if you couldn't stand living in a slum you could

always sell yourself to Failway."

"Sounds grim."

"It was not only grim, it was murder. Failway owned most of the property and most of the people down

by the river, and they knew how to put on the pressure. If you had a talent Failway could use, you either

joined them or they broke you."

"They didn't break you."

"No," said Dalroi. "I was one of the few who didn't break. That doesn't mean they didn't try."

"I hadn't realised such a situation could exist."

"Why should you? Nobody's proud of degradation and nobody's going to speak out against it when it

means a certain bullet in the back as a price for indiscretion. But that's not alone among the things that

Failway hushes up. Did you know that once you get on the Failway system proper you quite legally cease

to exist. The Failway process breaks through into what is called an inferior energy level. What that is I

wouldn't pretend to know, but it's not on Earth as we know it, and it's legally, morally and actually

outside of every protection we normally enjoy. Once you're in Failway you belong to them. The fact that

they normally give you a good time and then fetch you back to the Terminal is simply because it pays

them to do it that way."

"But millions of people go there every year. I was there myself for the holidays."

"I know," said Dalroi. "But did you ever see the police files on the people who didn't come back?"

"But they can't just kidnap people."

"Don't be naïve. Failway is a police-state and a law unto itself. It's also big business, and big businesses

have a way of being ruthless with things affecting their interest."

"There's another reason for having your knife in Failway, isn't there?"

Dalroi looked away strangely, only half seeing. Then he nodded dully.

"A girl?"

"Perhaps." Dalroi cleansed the resins from his skin carefully.

"Don't you want to talk about her?"

"I'd sooner not." The sweet spirit drew the colour from his hair.

Zdenka caught sight of his face in the mirror. She had never seen Ivan Dalroi with quite that expression

before.

"Sorry!" said Zdenka. "I didn't mean to pry."

"Don't worry," Dalroi said. "Things like that don't hurt any more. They just leave you numb right through.

It's a kind of emotional anaesthesia. The world's never the same place afterward. Somebody takes the

flowers away. Poetry dies."

"You must love her very much."

"She has golden hair and the artless charm of a child. When she smiles it's like a shaft of sunlight breaking

through a winter's sky."

"Doesn't she love you?"

"No," said Dalroi. "Berina loves Berina, and there's an end to it. That alone I could learn to live with, but

Failway's offered her big money to go as a hostess on Failway Two level I don't think they need her, but

they do have a few old scores to settle with me. They're specialists at hitting where it hurts the most."

"Can't you stop her from going?"

"You can't stop Berina from doing anything. You can only follow and pick up the pieces. For this

particular piece of vandalism I intend to break Failway even if I have to use my bare hands."

"Suppose Failway breaks you instead?"

"I can afford to take the risk," said Dalroi. "If Berina goes, I don't have very much to lose. For me it's

part crusade and part revenge, but for you there's nothing in it but the salary. That's why I don't want you

mixed up in what's to come. There's no point in your getting involved in something which doesn't concern

you."

"But it does concern me since I've got to live in the same world as Failway too. That makes it my fight

just as much as yours. Now tell me what we're going to do."

"You're making a big mistake," said Dalroi. "Our role is making trouble for Failway — fifth column,

sabotage, any sort of random mischief, and the more destructive the better. This is to divert attention

while Cronstadt applies some other measures."

Zdenka scowled. "It's not exactly legal!"

"Not very," said Dalroi, "but legalities aren't going to bother Failway either. I've already had proof of that.

The fact is that Failway's already above the law, so we can't be compromised by having scruples

ourselves. Frankly our only assets are speed and mobility, and if we get caught we can't expect any

mercy from Failway or the police."

"All right, where do I start?"

"This whole business has a bad smell. Do you remember Harry Dever? He was a good journalist before

he took to drink. In the morning I want you to find him and take him down to Passfields, you know the

spot"

Zdenka nodded. "You think he might know something useful about Failway?"

"No," said Dalroi. "I think he might know something vital about the members of the Cronstadt

committee."

"What makes you think that?"

"My dear Zen, tackling Failway is about the only form of legalised suicide still available in this country.

Anybody who declares war on Failway and lives longer than twenty-four hours is either extremely clever,

extremely lucky or just plain immortal. Half of the committee are still living. It might be interesting to find

out why. For the sake of our own lives we can't do that too fast. You'd better call Inspector Quentain

now and ask him to pick up this Failway idiot before he stains the carpet."

Quentain's eyes moved from Dalroi to the prostrate figure and back again. The police inspector's

sardonic smile was almost his only engaging feature.

"Suppose you start explaining," he said slowly, "and make it sound like nothing but the truth."

"So help me!" said Dalroi. "Don't I always? He forced his way into my office, prevented my secretary

from leaving, and when I arrived he pulled a gun on me."

Quentain pulled out a notebook, and rolled the dormant figure over with his foot. "A client of yours?"

"Hell no! He's from Failway Security."

Quentain was suddenly interested. "Then I have no doubt he had a very good reason for doing what he

did. I don't see there is any charge I can bring against him."

"Do me a favour Quent!" said Dalroi. "Aren't I entitled to protection like any other ratepayer?"

The inspector closed the notebook with a snap and replaced it in his pocket.

"Sorry, Dalroi! You'd scarcely expect me to risk my pension trying to make out a case for you versus

Failway. You know which way the world turns."

"Yes," said Dalroi bitterly. "I know. I'd merely hoped that somewhere in the dim, dark recesses of the

local constabulary there was someone with a nostalgia for a quaint old custom called justice."

"Justice? For you? My God, don't make me laugh! I've enough suspicions about you to put you inside for

about five hundred years — only I don't quite have the proof. And you scream for justice! What I don't

see is how you became crazy enough to think you could fight Failway."

"Call it conscience," said Dalroi. "Even policemen get infected with it sometimes."

"Not on my squad they don't."

"Don't tell me," said Dalroi. "I know most of your boys better than I knew my father. There isn't one who

doesn't shed a silent tear before proceeding to beat the hell out of an innocent suspect. I know. I

received the best part of my education in that little room at the back of the local station."

"It's a pity you never saw fit to heed the lesson."

"I learnt the Eleventh Commandment," said Dalroi. "Thou shalt not be caught, regardless. You had

nothing else to teach."

"Maybe, but being in my hair is one thing, and taking up arms against Failway is another. I shall miss you

when you're dead and gone."

"How much is Failway paying you, Quent?"

"You know me better than that, Dalroi."

"Yes, but I wondered how you came by such up-to-date information. My declared row with Failway is

yet only a few hours old."

"I read the signs," said Quentain, "and I keep an ear to the ground. Somebody's not very pleased with

you, Dalroi."

"And they're not offering you enough to tempt you, eh?"

"I'm a masochist," Quentain said. "In a curious way I've got used to having you under my skin. Also I

intend that when you go down for the last time I'm the one who'll be responsible."

"Thanks, Quent. It's good to know that there are still a few human beings in the Force."

"It's being so human that keeps me a humble inspector. Look, Dalroi, I'll tell you what I'll do for you. I'll

take this Failway character of yours away and lose him somewhere if you'll promise that when Failway

catches up with you, you won't leave too much blood in my manor. Too much gore in the gutter doesn't

look too well in the records."

"Thanks for nothing," said Dalroi. "And if I want to know the time I'll ask a policeman."

"Anything we can do to get you time will receive our wholehearted attention," said Quentain, reaching for

his hat.

"Oh, and Dalroi ... I don't know what you've got yourself into this time, but I wish you luck. I've a slight

feeling you're going to need it."

Berina's flat was on the far side of the city. Dalroi went there, not sure of what purpose it might serve

since they had both already said all they had to say on the subject of her entering Failway, but influenced

by something of that human irrationality which makes a condemned man react to a more imminent threat

of death. Hope was not to be abandoned before the finite end.

She opened the door to him, dressed in a soft and immaculately white dressing gown, and her hair fell

more gently and more golden on her shoulders than he ever before remembered. Her upturned face held

all the warmth and innocence of a child, yet her lips were possessed of such a measure of thirsting after

life that every expression, every fleeting movement, twisted his soul with longing. If characters have

depths then Berina had a whole world of unknown fascination hidden deep within her.

For Dalroi, the unfelt aching in his arms became the ache to hold her body against his, to pluck up this

young life and blend it with his own agonised passions, to squeeze for himself a little balm to ease the

bitterness in his heart. He put out his arm to draw her to him, but she neither moved nor tried to turn

away. He bent down and kissed the upturned lips, wishing they were hungry, but she neither responded

to nor resented his attempts. He fondled her, but she stood as though unaware, neither consenting nor

objecting to his hands. He would have welcomed even an angry slap in preference to this warm

nothingness. Rejection he could have tolerated, but indifference to this degree he could neither

comprehend nor surmount. Anger with her changed to loathing for himself, and he pushed her away and

felt hot with humiliation.

"So you're really determined to go into Failway?"

"Yes!" She smiled delightedly, and the inflection of her voice made the answer at once a statement of fact

and a mocking taunt. Berina was enjoying her mastery.

"And there's nothing I can say which will make you change your mind?"

"No!" She knew his desiring and his misery, and with a wanton coquettishness she was twisting the knife

in the wound. Had she been obliged to enter Hell for it she could not have thrown away this moment of

triumph.

This Dalroi knew, as surely as he knew that retreat was the only way to maintain his self respect. He had

not courted Berina for six frustrating, tempestuous, heart-rending months without becoming fully familiar

with her malicious, naïve delight in emotional torment. This practise had opened new chapters in his

understanding of himself and of humanity in general, and had given him a feeling for poesy far deeper than

any formal education could bestow. He had set her up as a goddess and worshipped at her feet, but she

had descended of her own volition and as from tomorrow would join the ranks of the professional

courtesans in Failway, for any man to take who merely had the price. The idea cut Dalroi into pieces, and

his hands trembled uncontrollably as his mood alternated between self-pity and hopeless frustration.

For a moment he contemplated forcing her to yield to him, but antipathy at the idea of the warm,

unresponding doll he had just encountered rendered the impulse stillborn; sooner the remembered image

of vibrant, unobtainable life than experience of a dummy made in the likeness of his love and mocking him

by its complete indifference to his actions. To maintain the last strands of his shredding dignity he turned

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TheDarkMind/TheTransfiniteManColinKapp,1965ONEFailwayTerminalcutacrosstheoldsectorofthecitylikeanuglyredhouse-brickthrownbyavandalontoaLilliputiantown.Almostasquaremileoftheoldtownhadbeenobliteratedtomakeroomforthemonstroushundred-storiedhulkofarchitecturalimpotencewhichwastheTerminalbuilding.Street...

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Colin Kapp - The Dark Mind - The Transfinite Man

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