The Mind Masters 01, MIND-POWER
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ROAD INTO
THE
UNKNOWN
Britt St. Vincent was roaring in his gleaming Ferrari 275 GTB along a deserted midnight highway when
he saw the headlights behind him.
Incredulously he watched them gain on him, then suddenly saw the sleek body of a coupe abreast of him,
then passing him.
His brain told him that no car in the world was capable of doing what this car had done- and he knew he
would have to follow it. He would drive into eternity to solve the mystery of this phantom car.
This was Britt's first contact with the power of THE MIND MASTERS . . .
and the last time he could feel safe in calling Ms mind his own. . . .
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THE
MIND
MASTERS
A SIGNET BOOK N
EW AMERICAN LIBRARy
TIMES
MIRROR
copyright © 1974 by All rights reserved
SIGNET TRADEMARK BEG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
RBGISTKRKD TRADEMARK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MAItCA BEGI8TRADA
HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.
SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSICS,
MENTOR, PLUME and MERIDIAN BOOKS
are published by The New American Library, Inc.,
1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019
. first printing, july,
1974
123456789
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1
It
feels good , . .
Britt's consciousness at last verbalizes the sensation which for the past half-hour has been throbbing through his
veins, pumped by the rhythmic thrumming of the V-12 en-gine that is alive next to his outstretched legs. The machine
and its master are alone, satisfied as they roar through the dark night.
Britt lives to drive.
And he's good-very good. The day's practice at River-side Raceway has again shown that. Driving an obsolete
Porsche 917/10, Britt captured fourth fastest qualifying time and will sit among the new snarling factory Porsche 9177
30KL racers on the starting grid for tomorrow's Sunday fea-ture race. According to the orchestration of the
world-dominating Porsche factory team, that qualifying spot was to have been won by Gerhardt Mueller, the team's
new rising star. Britt's furious but well-controlled qualifying laps have upset the factory's plans.
No member of the racing brotherhood knows what com-pels Britt to drive with such mechanical determination, to so
completely merge his mind and body into his machine that the steering column becomes a steel nerve stalk through
which his brain can feel the tires like fingers clawing the pavement, grasping desperately through howling hairpin
curves. And when Britt races, his engine's revs, the pounding of his heart, the hiss of his air-gulping carburetors and
of his flaring nostrils are each sensed and monitored without prejudice by Ms brain, producing a torrent of mental
input that leaves little conscious room for memories...,
Britt
must
drive.
Now, Britt's hands tighten on the steering wheel. The black leather creaks under the strain of his grip as he fights
back a sudden surge of memory from his subconscious. He forces himself to monitor the gauges glowing on the dash.
1
2
Nearly midnight,
he thinks, glancing at the clock whose numbers gleam strangely green in the darkened cockpit of his
Ferrari 275 GTB. The deserted freeway Britt is driving on is too monotonous to command his full conscious attention .
. . memories are stirring. Britt forces himself to concen-trate, squeezing his thoughts back to the pit garage that he has
left just thirty minutes earlier out at Riverside Raceway:
The clutch .
. .
the clutch . , . did I correct for that over-center
response? .
. .
only took up two turns on the cable . . . hope that's enough to see me through tomorrow's race....
Britt's eyes are burning from his need for sleep. The full Saturday's practice just ended has been followed by
tedious hours of final tuning for Sunday's feature race. Britt rubs the back of his hand across his right eye and the
touch starts tear water flowing which cools his fatigue-fevered eyeball. He blinks.
Britt's vision is slightly blurred now as he glances up at the rearview mirror.
CHRIST!
The word explodes silently
in his mind.
The headlights of a lone car are closing in on Mm-fast.
CHP again ... DAMN!
Britt's brain evaluates in an eyeblink his chances of ac-celerating away: the thirty-mile stretch of freeway ahead is
straight and empty ... the California Highway Patrol cruiser can sprint to 130 miles per hour but is no match for the
sustained 160 mph which Britt's blood-red Ferrari can maintain.
Caught again in the infamous Cucamonga speed trap.
A tight, wry grin of resignation flashes unseen in the
blackness across Britt's lips as the Ferrari begins to respond to his brain and his foot and slows slightly. But, now, a
warning signal suddenly flashes from an upper level of Britt's subconscious. His eyes dart again to the mirror:
Wait a
minute , . . that's no CHP unit.
..
and whoever it is, he's really moving!
Britt's memory neurons are quickly activated. Electro-chemical impulses leap with nanosecond speed from neuron
to neuron, energizing the protein molecule chains on which the day's events have been stored. Britt's memory bank
search is completed in an instant-results: negative: . . .
no . . . 1 was the last driver to leave the track tonight .
. .
I'm
sure no one else was still there
. . .
so who the hell could that be closing in on me?
Britt's eyes snap ahead. There is no moon. The night's darkness is thick, oppressive. The Ferrari's beams probe
out
3
into the galactic blackness and reveal nothing but rows of gleaming plastic lane reflectors which are sweeping past the
hurtling machine like shooting stars. Britt cannot see the mighty San Gabriel mountains which parallel the freeway
sev-eral miles from its northern flank-but he knows the for-bidding peaks are there, looming in the blackness. He can
feel their presence, like a mammoth burden on his right shoulder as he drives.
Another second has ticked away. Now Britt's eyes again dart up to the rearview mirror:
Where'd he go!?l
The strange pursuing car has disappeared.
Britt's brain knows instantly that he has not passed an off-ramp in at least a mile. A sudden stab of confusion is
instantly superseded by the subtle impact on Britt's senses of a small change in his cockpit environment-a barely
percepti-ble increase in the illumination level. Britt's eyes flick a glance out the right side window in time to see the
headlights and streamlined nose of a sleek coupe pulling abreast of his still-speeding Ferrari.
The phantom car is suddenly pounding along just inches from Britt's machine while his brain races, searching for an
explanation. The experience and logic circuits of his brain tell Britt that there is no vehicle in the world capable of
closing the gap between the cars in only the instant he had glanced at the road ahead.
Britt looks ahead no more. His eyes focus hypnotically on the strange machine, his brain's logic systems are being
short-circuited with perceptual information that does not compute. He stares for several seconds, only subliminally
aware of the leaden numbness that is creeping through his limbs.
OH, GOD!..
.
GOD ... OH, GOD!!!
Britt's brain explodes, staggers, tries to reject, then explain the grinning face it sees glowing ghostly green in the
dash-lights of the strange machine that streaks along menacingly close to his speeding Ferrari.
"Gayle!" Britt cries aloud.
Gayle. Poor dead Gayle.
Before Britt's benumbed brain can react, the phantom car accelerates rapidly away. Quickly, Britt stomps on the
Fer-rari's gas pedal, holding it hard against the firewall. A low moan seeps into the car's cockpit as its engine's six dual
Weber carburetors open wide their throats and inhale deep the damp midnight air. Britt ignores the soaring speed-
4
ometer needle. He would drive into eternity to learn the mystery of the phantom car.
Flashing lane reflectors become a shower of streaking meteors as the two machines bellow through the awful night.
The pursued machine now veers suddenly, wildly skidding toward an exit. Britt follows, his Ferrari's tires shrieking,
shredding chunks of tread as they claw into the concrete curve of the off-ramp. Up deserted small-town streets the
two machines hurtle while street lamps swoop overhead like attacking comets. On and on the machines roar through
the night, the banshee wail of their mechanical hearts ripping the shroud of silence that darkly drapes the quiet streets
of the little town of Ontario. Through the city, leaping over railroad tracks, blasting clouds of sand from the surface of
the narrow, black desert road beyond the town . . . surging, twisting up the foothills . . . heading north, always north-
toward the mountains. And now, looming ever larger, blacker than the starless night through which it thrusts
itself, is Skull Summit.
The realization of where the phantom machine is leading Mm registers with only little impact on Britt's whirling,
busy brain.
- Skull Summit, towering 13,000 feet, is seldom mentioned in southern California, except on maps and by playful
young-sters on Halloween. The massive mountain's stern granite and impossible cliff-clinging roads have
successfully intimi-dated even Los Angeles real estate developers in their land-killing search for recreation properties.
Only a few people live on the mountain in an unnamed village near the peak. The villagers are reportedly quite odd
and have little contact with outsiders. Two anthropologists who had gone to study the villagers just two weeks
before Britt's arrival at Riverside have only today been found crushed in their car at the base of a thousand-foot cliff.
Newspaper reports say that the brakes apparently failed.
JEEZ!!
Britt curses angrily.
The Ferrari's steering column is thudding under the ham-merlike impact of Britt's overhand grasping as he
frantically turns the wheel to keep his twisting machine from plunging off the cliff road and into bottomless empty
blackness. That realization of sudden danger sears through Britt's body like a hot flame. The numbness that had
engulfed him far below on the freeway now begins to wear off. Britt's exterior senses and reflexes remain focused
on the dim taillights of the
5
mysterious machine he pursues, while the internal logic sys-tems of his brain resume their struggle to sort the
confusing facts which are emerging from the melting mental numb-ness:
It's impossible . . . I KNOW that . . .
yet I have to know who or what.. . goddam!!
...
I
can't catch up!
Now Britt calls upon all his driving skill, pushes his Fer-rari to the ragged edge of control, but finds himself still
unable to close the strangely constant gap between his car and the fleeing lights.
The road grows suddenly steeper, the switchback Britt is entering becomes sharper-cold sweat bursts through his
forehead pores as he barely makes the corner ...
Where the hell'd she go!?!
The phantom machine screamed around the sharp switch-back just yards ahead of Britt and was out of sight for
only a split second before Britt, too, careened around the curve---but the road ahead is now empty . . . completely
empty . . . dark . . . quiet. The pavement runs straight as far ahead as Britt can see in the white light thrown out by his
Ferrari's Carello quartz-iodine lamps. Britt switches the headlamps off. The blackness rushes in on all sides like a tidal
wave and Britt slows his machine to a crawl. He strains his sight into the darkness, searching for the slightest glow,
the slightest movement of a shadow that would reveal the car he has been chasing.
As Britt's eyes complete their electrochemical shift from cone to rod neural function and adapt to the dark night, he
begins to perceive strange shapes at the roadside. He can actually feel the angular presence of dark, squat cabins that
stand like silent sentries amid the trunks of massive black trees which crowd to the edge of the narrow road.
Britt feels as if he is being watched.
Suddenly-the blackness of the night erupts in a blast of blood-red smears and sight-searing white. Pain stabs
through Britt's head. He tries to stop himself from falling . . . falling into a bottomless black void . . . and shrinking . . .
shrinking to the size of a pebble ... a pinpoint.. . nothing . ..
2
An eon later, a star appears.
It gleams tiny and bright in a sky milk white.
And, now, the cold touch on Britt's shoulder, like the steadying hand of Death.
Britt's eyes are throbbing . . . their focus unclear. An eternity of effort passes in a clock tick while he struggles to
sharpen the image of the star:
It's falling,
his mind uncar-ingly computes.
It's falling onto me...
.
Britt's brain suddenly surges. A cry of alarm echoes through his skull and bursts from his lips even as his hand
rockets upward to intercept the descending hypodermic needle.
"Welllll!" a surprised voice says.
Britt is exhausted by his effort. Sharp pain cracks through his brain mass and produces images of gray octagons in
his internal eye. Britt's arm drops heavily onto the bed on which he is lying.
"Well, well." The voice intones again. "It looks like I won't be needing this after all."
Britt's eyes open again and home in on the source of the sound. In seeming slow-motion response to the direction
of his brain, Britt's vision sensors scan across an expanse of acoustic-tiled ceiling panels and fluorescent lights.
The face is smiling. Smiling down pleasantly. The skull is nearly bald, its fleshy cheeks alive with a ruddy glow
which contrasts with its white tonsure and beard.
He looks like a bald Santa Claus.
The incongruous thought causes Britt's strengthening Self to flash annoyance
at its lower-level consciousness.
"We didn't intend for you to be hurt, Britt." Santa Claus smiles concernedly. "You're just too good a driver-you
al-most overtook your own subconscious back there in the vil-lage."
Britt's mind is trying to make sense of what the strange 6
7
man is saying. Britt raises himself up on his elbow and ignores the throbbing pain in his forehead. "What
happened? Where am I?"
"Here . . . drink this," the older man says. He holds out a glass of water and something else. Two round
white pills gleam in the palm of his strong hand. "They'll help your headache."
Britt looks up from the bed suspiciously. "What is it?" he demands.
A broad grin flashes across the elder man's mouth. "One hundred percent pure Bayer aspirin," he replies with
amuse-ment detectable in his voice.
The ice-cold mountain water feels good in Britt's parched, hot mouth. The crystal fluid alone seems to ease his
head-ache. He hands back the glass and touches his forehead- "Ow!"
"You bumped the steering wheel of your car when its front wheels struck a log at the side of the road,
Britt." The man sits down on the foot of Britt's bed. "It's lucky we were expecting you-our villagers down there don't
take too well to strangers, and we couldn't risk telling even them before-hand that we were bringing you up the
mountain."
Now, nothing is making sense to Britt. "Expecting me?! Bringing me up here?" Britt looks quickly around the room,
then back at the man: "Up
where?
Who
are
you?"
"This is Mero Institute, Britt . . . and I am Dr. Bartholo-mew Webster, head of the institute." Dr. Webster folds his
strong, stubby arms across his chest.
Britt's brain is frantically searching for memory traces. A second ticks away forever. Britt shakes his head
and says: "Sorry .. . Mero Institute doesn't ring a bell."
"I would have been worried if it did, Britt," remarks Webster with another flash of amusement in
his eyes. " 'Mero' is an aboriginal word for 'man,' Britt . . . and that's what we do here-we study
man."
Britt stiffens. His muscles coil tightly ... ready.
The bedsprings respond with muffled pops as the older man briskly rises. Hands folded behind his back
and brow wrinkled in thought, Webster walks slowly to the window of the small medical room. Britt's eyes follow the
man's move-ment and feed back information to Britt's subconscious: the room appears to be an examining room.
There is a door five feet beyond the foot of Britt's bed. The only other exit
is the window. Britt takes stock of the fact that he is' dressed and has on his shoes.
Webster stops at the window and stares out into the early black purple of the mountain morning. "It will soon be
dawn, Britt . . . Sunday morning," he says quietly. Some seconds of silence slip away. Webster turns wearily again
toward Britt and stands with his hands still joined behind his back, appearing as if he were about to deliver a lecture:
"We study man here as a
whole,
Britt. We approach the integrated human system from every point of view-
psychology, physiology, sociology . . . our staff is small, but includes some of the world's best minds .. . there's Janick
in sociology . . . Ration in anthropology . . . Wortmann in psychology..."
Wortmann!
The name triggers an immediate response in Britt's memory banks: "Top Psychologist Lost Off Catalina
Island" the headline had read four years earlier in the Los Angeles
Times.
The story has remained prominent in Britt's
upper-level subconscious even though it is part of a past that he struggles constantly to forget.
Webster notes the flash of recognition which has illumi-nated Britt's eyes for an instant.
"You know Wortmann, Britt?"
The young man eases himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and casts a covert glance at the door: it
does not appear to be locked. Now Britt stands up and tests his balance. Webster is watching him intently.
"Yes, I know him-or
knew
him," Britt replies with sus-piciousness and challenge sounding in his voice. "I studied
under him at Stanford back in '63 when I was working on my PhD in physiological psychology." Britt rivets Webster
with a stony stare: "I didn't know that he had been found alive."
"He wasn't, Britt."
Webster made the statement evenly, matter-of-factly. Britt's glinting eyes demand more than riddles.
"Actually, Britt . . . Dr. Wortmann was never really lost at sea. We here at Mero arranged the entire disappearing
act. You see, Britt... what we do here is secret...."
"SssshhiiTTTl" Britt spits the word out with vehemence and disgust. He snaps his body round and slams his
palms down hard on the edge of the washbasin next to where he stands. He glares angrily for an instant into the
chrome-circled drain, then flicks his eyes up to the image
of
Webster
9
which is reflected in the mirror above the basin: "I thought you people said you would let me alone if I kept my mouth
shut
and my brain
out
of psychic research!!!"
Britt whirls round and hurls more angry words at Web-ster: "Well, I've kept my end of the bargain,
haven't
I!?! For
five years now I've not touched a V-meter or a test tube . . . I've
done
nothing but race my carsl I've
said
noth-ing but quote lap times!"
Webster is grinning again ... a strange, wry grin with little amusement in it. "Relax, Britt," he says gently. "This
isn't a government installation. In fact, some of the people now here at Mero are refugees from Pentagon labs similar
to the one you were in ... only most of them got out earlier than you did-and under less tragic
circumstances."
Britt does relax, but only slightly. Webster persists in speaking riddles. Britt leans back against the washbasin,
in-dicating he is willing to listen.
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