The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works 1911-1987

by C. L. Moore

  She had turned her hand so that the lens wasn't visible. Breden edged forward slightly. He drew one leg back a little.

  He said, "My wife's having a child soon. I don't want to have him born into a world of atomic warfare. You may be perfectly convinced you're right, but I say you're insane. So—"

  "Unless your son—or daughter—is a moron, he or she will be insane, growing up in this GPC-controlled culture. Wouldn't you rather have your child growing up in a world where he'd have freedom from disease, mental freedom as well, and a life expectancy of two hundred years? Breden, of GPC hadn't choked off the Third World War before it started, medical research would be a thousand years ahead now. Disease would be almost unknown—"

  -

  The voice came from the televisor screen. For a blinding second Breden didn't believe what he heard. Then a glance showed him what his mind could not accept: the face of Margaret, his wife.

  She said, "I'm sorry, darling. It's something I had to do. I stopped arguing with myself a long time ago."

  Breden looked at her. "You're my ... Control? You hypnotized me?"

  "Yes, Joe."

  "And you're in this ... this organization of criminal lunatics?"

  "Yes, Joe. But you'll have to learn more about these—lunatics before you make your decision. They're the only people in the world today who have transcended their barriers. They're limited, of course—it's hard for them to tap power-sources without detection. But in physics, chemistry, medicine, bacteriology, they know things this civilization doesn't."

  His mouth moved stiffly. "Margaret—" he said.

  Her eyes were steady. "For example ... no, I want to tell you this, dear—"

  Ilsa said warningly, "Now?"

  "Yes. Listen, Joe. Medical Biology gave me a clean bill of health. As far as they were concerned, I was perfectly healthy. But our—organization of lunatics—has tests and reagents GPC never heard of. It will be years before it will show enough for Medical Biology to find it, but ... but I—"

  Ilsa sat stiffly, her eyes hard and bright. Breden stood up abruptly. He walked toward the televisor.

  "What is it, Margaret?" he asked.

  "Carcinoma."

  Breden said, "Cancer ... they're lying!"

  "No. They're not lying."

  "This early—it's curable—"

  "Not with today's medical science. No germ or virus research is permitted. You know that. On the Omega future-world, cancer can be cured. But the Freak can't tell us how. The techniques are beyond him. He can't look through a microscope there and tell us how to culture an antibody. The cure must be found here on earth, in our time. I'll be dead, probably, before that, but our child will inherit a propensity for cancer. I'd like to know, before I die, that even carcinomatosis, no matter how virulent, can be cured."

  "Margaret," he said, and stopped. She nodded slowly.

  "There's the child, Joe. And there's the idea that you might have had cancer yourself—or something else that's incurable so far. I'd give you euthanasia if you needed it, you know. So I can't hesitate now. It's because—"

  If she finished, Breden never knew it. The world drowned for him in white silence.

  The whiteness and the silence receded suddenly.

  He was on the jet plane, heading westward, far above the Pacific.

  The ship shot in pursuit of the setting sun. Breden wondered idly how he had spent his time after leaving De Anza. But he did not wonder for long. Memories of a theater, of dinner, floated up from somewhere in his mind.

  He thought: After tonight's stint, my furlough. I'll spend it with Margaret. Maybe I'll get away from those dreams.

  I mustn't let Medical Administration find out about my dreams!

  -

  Ortega said irritably to the televisor, "I'm extremely busy, Ilsa. There's a new development with the Freak. I don't know what to make of it."

  "This won't take long. It's important. Breden's brother, Louis, and a physicist named De Anza—they compared notes today and started asking questions. They're coming up to see me. We can't kill them, you know. It would cause too much uproar. There'd be an investigation. We couldn't cover."

  "We'd have to kill them."

  "Ortega, they'd fit in Omega. Both of them. With a lot of reconditioning—but they're brilliant men, especially Breden's brother. He's a mutant, you know. If there's any other way possible, I think we should avoid killing them."

  "We can't afford investigation at this point. Breden must stay at Uranium Pile One."

  Ilsa said, "Well, his Control hypnotized him, and he went back to the island. He's still worried about losing his job. So he won't talk about his dreams. As for the rest, he's forgotten it. It'll have a chance to germinate in his unconscious. Tomorrow he'll remember, at the right time, but by then we'll have him under our wing. It won't be as easy as we expected to convince the man. There's intense rivalry, of course, between Breden and his brother—" She paused. "Wait a minute. I've an idea. I wonder if there isn't some way we could play on that rivalry to push Breden in the right direction?"

  "That isn't the strongest card we hold."

  "He knows his wife has cancer," Ilsa said. "That emotional appeal may turn the trick in itself. Or it may not; I don't know. But we've got to win him to our way of thinking before his furlough's up. When he goes back to the island, he must set off the uranium pile."

  Ortega said nervously, "Ilsa, please do the best you can. I'm on the trail of something completely new with the Freak."

  "You're curing him?"

  "It isn't that. It's ... I'll tell you later, when I've found out more. But—the Freak's mutated talent isn't prescience. It isn't the future he sees."

  Ilsa stared. "Omega isn't our future world?"

  "I don't know what it is," Ortega said. "But I suspect we're going to find out."

  -

  Six hours later Ortega was still working on the mechanism. He didn't know what it was. He followed the Freak's orders. The Freak lay motionless with all his eyes closed, moving a little occasionally in his tank, and sometimes merely resting passive, saying nothing. The rational period was unusually long. It was wearing, however, and twice the Freak, nearly sick with nervous exhaustion, began to cry.

  But the mechanism grew nevertheless.

  This had never happened before. The Freak had described what he saw in Omega—and sometimes what he saw was completely paradoxical—but he had never dictated a blueprint to his father. He seemed to be watching a similar machine being constructed somewhere—on Omega?—and describing its progress, so that Ortega could duplicate it step by step.

  "Power," the Freak said, after a long pause. "Give it power."

  Ortega made a connection and moved a rheostat. The Freak said, "More."

  Presently—"More. Much more."

  Then: "More than that."

  Ortega said, "I don't dare. We're tapping too much as it is. We'll be detected."

  "It takes more. He's trying—"

  Ortega moved the rheostat again. The Freak said, "It's different now. Funny. Savages, they look like. They're chasing a ... it looks like a bison."

  "Savages?"

  "Wait. I've got the machine again. More power. More—he keeps motioning for more."

  Ortega clenched his teeth, and, with an apprehensive upward glance, threw in another switch.

  Suddenly a voice boomed through the room.

  "Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Hello!"

  Ortega said, "I can hear you. Where are you?"

  "Can you hear me? Hello?"

  The Freak muttered, "Shadows are coming. I can't ... no, I can't—"

  "Hello! Your mechanism is incomplete. Or it needs readjustment. I can't get in contact with the rapport mind now—"

  "Shadows. Eating. I want—"

  "—trying to reach you. We can help you. We know some of your problems—we've learned them through your rapport mind—the mutant. We have atomic power—it's controlled, and we want to—"

  "
Shadows coming ... I don't want ... my brain is open ... no, no, I don't want—"

  Sweat showed on Ortega's cheeks. He glanced from the monster to the machine, and back again.

  The voice roared out: "Some adjustment necessary before we can talk—I can't hear you. What's wrong with your rapport mutant? He isn't reaching us."

  "The shadows—"

  "We have atomic power. We can help—"

  "All right now. I can see Omega again. Or ... no ... it isn't—"

  "—atomic power—"

  "WHERE THE EARTH SHOULD BE ... WHITE, WHITE, BLAZING ... LIKE A SUN. IT WAS THE CHAIN REACTION—IT MUST HAVE BEEN—"

  "—help you release atomic power—"

  "—IT WAS THE EARTH ONCE! IT WAS THE EARTH!"

  -

  Part Two

  The face on the televisor screen was fat and placid. It was also semi-Oriental. Philip Jeng's father had been a Tibetan, and he had probably inherited a touch of Himalayan serenity along with a mind as tortuous as the Cretan labyrinth. He was a big, globular man, whose particular field was logic, though he did not specialize much these days. As a member of the organization, he devoted himself to odd jobs, and to working out the complicated probabilities of the various plans that were suggested. He had a smattering of knowledge in many fields, and now he was talking psychiatry to Ilsa Carter.

  "I got there as fast as I could," he said. "When Ortega didn't answer any visor calls, we figured GPC had detected the hideout. I went there with an expendable member and sent him in. But it wasn't GPC. Things have got completely out of control, Ilsa."

  The woman turned from the screen to glance at the two motionless figures sitting across the room. She said, "Integrate this, Jeng. You got my report on Michael De Anza and Louis Breden?"

  "I got it."

  "They came to my apartment five hours ago. They weren't too suspicious, but they figured something was wrong with Joseph Breden. They'd found out he visited Dr. Springfield, and that Springfield was dead. They want to know all about it. I didn't dare tell them. I fed them the new anaesthetic—you know?—and they're cataleptic. I've been waiting till I could get through to you or Ortega."

  Jeng's small eyes blinked. "All right, Ilsa. I've cointegrated that factor. Bring the two men to Ortega's hideout."

  "But they'll—"

  "It's the nearest. Travel's going to be restricted for a bit. Those Neoculturalists have been talking too loudly. GPC's just banned them. The lid goes on automatically—checking of visas, no interstate commerce without passes—the regular routine. It's been three years since the last embargo of that sort. And it's too bad it had to happen right now. The Neoculturalists are perfectly harmless to GPC, but I suppose the membership was getting too large. If GPC only knew it, those useless groups make fine safety valves for the malcontents."

  "If there's an embargo, I can't transport them under anaesthesia, even to Ortega's."

  "I've just sent you faked identification. Use Plan Sub-Fourteen-Five. Remember?"

  "Oh, the ... all right. But what's happened to Ortega?"

  Jeng said, "I don't know, exactly. I'm trying to smuggle in one of our technicians to find out. But it's going to be difficult. There aren't any near enough. And we can't run risks at this point. Ilsa, when I reached the hideout, I found Ortega hysterical, the Freak in stupor, and some sort of gadget rigged up and talking. It's one-way communication. The man, whoever he is, can talk to us, but we can't talk to him. I think he's talking from Omega."

  "But ... Jeng, what's happened?"

  "As nearly as I could figure out," Jeng said carefully, "Ortega built the machine, though I don't know how, since he's no technician. Probably the Freak dictated it. Then something happened. Ortega had a mental explosion and attacked the Freak."

  "His son?"

  "It's a familiar pattern," Jeng said. "I won't go into subconscious motives. Ortega had a temporary aberration, brought on by strain and shock. I've given him sedatives, but I'm worried about him. He isn't insane, though. It's temporary. Only ... well, the Freak had a shock too, I suppose when his father attacked him. He's gone into some sort of protective stupor. He won't talk or listen or open his eyes. And that mechanism keeps yelling at us—"

  "What does it say?"

  "It wants us to finish the machine. But it can't tell us how. Apparently it's had only fragmentary glimpses of our world, and there aren't enough common denominators. There are words we don't understand—scientific terminology. I gather it's been communicating through the Freak, and now it can't."

  Ilsa said, "It's a new factor. You're in charge now, Jeng, aren't you?"

  "I suppose so," he said. "I'm not a man of action. I just work out things. On paper. But now—well, I'll do the best I can."

  "What about Joseph Breden ... tomorrow?"

  "Oh ... I'll have him picked up. That'll be difficult."

  "Do it through his Control."

  "Good idea. As soon as you get the stuff, bring De Anza and Louis Breden here. The plan's risky, but—"

  "There'll be the guards."

  The fat cheeks quivered as Jeng shook his head.

  "I hope you make it, Ilsa," he said. "We can't afford to lose you, too."

  -

  When the plastic disks came, she went to the window and looked out. The two killers were across the street, waiting. They would follow her all the way now, their weapons ready. If trouble developed, they would kill. Ilsa, and De Anza and Louis, and then themselves. No one could be left alive to talk. There would be suspicion on the part of GPC, but no certainty, and a subsidiary plan, involving misdirection, would instantly go into operation. But that would all be very risky, and, the way things were going now, the slightest error could, conceivably, spoil everything.

  She examined the two figures sitting rigidly upright in their chairs. Then she moved about the room, straightening, checking. She studied her memory of the apartment as it had looked at the moment the men had been anaesthetized. There must be no false notes. They would waken with no knowledge that time had passed.

  Their watches—that would be awkward. Presently she lifted De Anza's wrist and moved his watch's hands ahead to the correct time, leaving Louis Breden's as it was. Then she went back to her chair, placing the plastic disks in a drawer beside her, and touched a concealed stud. It was a light switch. She flickered it on and off, with regular pauses, several times. This time it was unnecessary to hold her breath. The neutralizing gas, odorless and tasteless, flooded the room.

  The men stirred. Louis, finishing a sentence, said, "—must have made some notes."

  Irrationally she felt panic. She had forgotten what Louis had been talking about five hours ago. She studied her hands, telling herself: It's easy to get out of this one—quite easy. A dozen ways—

  De Anza was looking past her shoulder. Did he see something amiss? Had something changed during the five-hour period? Distract his attention!

  She reached toward the table beside her, changed her mind, looked at Louis, and drew her arm back. It knocked over a flower vase on the table. Water spouted on her slacks.

  The material was waterproof, but chivalry was an old habit. By the time the two men had finished making repairs, De Anza's attention had been successfully distracted, and Louis had begun talking with a clearer antecedent.

  The televisor sounded. On the screen a face began to appear. It was a man everyone in the world had heard of; one of the higher members of GPC. His eyes studied the room.

  "We've received word, Ilsa," he said—and his voice, too, was familiar. "Bring these men. But it must be top secret."

  The screen blanked.

  No one would have spotted the image as a fake, because it wasn't a fake. It was a series of photographed images of the man, taken from televisor shots, arranged in such order that the lip—movement corresponded with the voice. It was the right voice, too, but the sonic vibrations had been rearranged to create these particular words. In the organization's files were dozens of similar rigged visor-messages, re
ady for various emergencies; this particular one fitted Plan Sub-Fourteen-Five.

  And Ilsa saw that De Anza and Louis were impressed.

  She let herself smile. "That does it," she said in a different voice. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't have spoken before this. Against orders."

  De Anza blinked. "But—I don't get it. What's going on? Is GPC—"

  Ilsa took out the identification plastics from the drawer and tossed them across. I'm a police member. You heard him say it was top secret. Well—it is. GPC needs you two men to do some top secret work. Are you willing?"

  Both men nodded automatically. "Of course, but—we're in different fields," Louis said. "Are you sure—"

  "You'll find out," Ilsa said. Her instructions carried her only as far as Ortega's hideout; from there on, it was up to Jeng. She said, "We can go now, if you're ready."

  They got up, rather baffled, but conditioned to obey. The three of them took the dropper to the street. Ilsa hailed a monocab.

  The two killers, she saw, were following, not too closely.

  -

  Eventually she breathed again. They were going to succeed. Under a clump of trees along the country lane she dropped belladonna in the men's eyes—surer than blindfolds—and led them the rest of the way. The camouflaged entrance opened as she neared it. And, underground, she left an expendable neutralizing the belladonna with pilocarpine, and went to find Philip Jeng.

  -

  "Well, I've got them here," she said, when he had emerged to sit with her in one of the cramped rooms, with a cigarette and a mild drink. Quarters were not spacious underground; there was too much danger of detection. The real danger, however, lay in the possibility that GPC might sometime grow suspicious and trace a tapped power leak.