New Writings in SF 22 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Kenneth Bulmer

  When things start going against the Owner, he changes the rules.

  ‘The rules were last changed some five thousand years ago. Before that it was possible, within the existing laws of the universe—which were not the same as those today—for a planet to tear away from its orbit, to dash like a flaming sword through the Solar System, shattering Mars and Luna with rocks, spouting petroleum down on Earth, and slamming hell on into Venus, stopping its rotation, starting it swirling slowly backwards, a burning hot mass of magma with a chunk of alien rock jammed into its heart and its atmosphere a dust-choked mass of cosmic debris.

  ‘That done, the universe found itself working under the rules of science today. Because it could not have happened under those rules, the scientists said that the eyewitnesses of all humanity five thousand years ago were simply all fools.

  ‘But they were not more fools than we are today. And it did happen. They have discovered the evidence for Velikovsky over and over again—and it does not fit their current mathematics and current astronomies.’

  I began to sweat. I don’t know why, but suddenly I felt definitely uneasy. This man was not a crackpot—I knew who he was. He was not even a theologian. His doctorates were in physics and chemistry and medicine. He had not gotten rich by being stupid. Dr. Desai meant it. And outside that damned window the sky was black and wind must have been howling.

  ‘But what has this to do with this structure? This so-called spaceship?’

  Dr. Desai followed my glance to the window.

  ‘The rules are about to change. You must understand one more truth that the Occident does not like to accept because the first ones to propound it as a doctrine were two of those non-board-owning trouble-makers. That is what Karl Marx and Frederick Engels called the laws of Dialectics. One of which is that change does not come slowly but suddenly. That a pot has heat applied to it but when it comes to a boil, it does so suddenly. That when a rule is about to be changed, when a situation is due for a qualitative change, the need for it accumulates slowly and almost invisibly, but at a certain critical point, it moves with vast speed, suddenly, violently.

  ‘And the time is come for the old laws of the universe to be changed. Mankind has been playing the game and has been playing against the Owner, but has been slowly learning to master the old rules. In doing so, we have changed the atmosphere of the Earth, we have made radioactive every particle on this Earth—a process that began in 1945 and has never ceased. We have altered our own life cycles to benefit us—to the detriment of all other forms of life—and we have begun to fill up space with particles of our planet, landing them on other worlds, setting them up in orbits, and so forth. We are using up the stores of petroleum deposited during the last cataclysm. We are overflowing the lands and invading the seas.

  ‘For those who had eyes to see—and unfortunately that seemed to be me and me alone—the laws of nature were being readied for alteration again. The Owner of the board cannot afford to lose the game, not while he can change the rules. So the rules are being readied for changing.

  ‘Realise that the things we knew to be so only fifty years ago are not so any longer. Nature is a game played by cheating—and the biggest cheat is the Owner of the board.

  ‘We in Guyana learned this with our sweat and blood and our government is still today an absurdity set up by aliens who owned and still own our land. What more natural than that I should be the one to see what is coming? And realise that it is close, very close.’

  I was sweating profusely now, not because the room was hot, but because the room was beginning to rock slightly, and outside a thick rain was dashing against the side of the great metal globe—a rain that was curiously heavy, oily, swirling in iridescent masses that must surely be coating the outside.

  ‘This is not a spaceship or maybe it is,’ Dr. Desai said now, leaning back. ‘I regret that you must perforce remain with us, but the change is coming now—suddenly and violently, and it is raining petroleum from the skies, and the grounds are rising up now to take new conformations to fit the new rules of science. I do not know what they will be, but I think that an alteration of gravity may be among them. There is evidence that before in mankind’s existence gravity was different—recall the huge blocks of stone by which the Incas built castles that modern engineers could not duplicate ?

  ‘We may float on a sea of oil. We may float on an ocean of lava. We may float in space. Or we may sink into the Earth. But my family is safe and I shall ride through to the dawn of the next age of the universe.’

  Dr. Desai dug into the arms of his chair, and I saw that there were safety belts, and I found the ones on mine and we buckled ourselves in. The great globe rocked from side to side and then the oil drops slid away from the bulls’ eye windows and the globe rolled slightly over and I saw the whole of Guyana below us, aboiling and aseething with seas of gleaming sludge, and tossing with flotsam that were jungles and the oceans rushing in where there had been no sea bottoms and sea bottoms coming into view where there had been only oceans and with the heavens ablaze with moving, burning stars, the Guyana spaceship rose high upon the crest of the torn-away atmosphere, and I would never get my damned story into the New York newspapers now.

  <>

  * * * *

  MONITOR

  Sydney J. Bounds

  When the early lunar explorers returned to Earth they were subjected to a rigorous programme of quarantine checks. Nowadays, with the remainder of the series of Apollo lunar-landings, the returning crews are allowed immediate contact with the terrestrial biosphere. When Homo sapiens reaches out to the stars for how long will quarantine checks need to be applied? And—what form will they take?

  * * * *

  Arthur Saxon paused on his way to the death chamber. It was not an official name, but he thought of the outermost satellite that way; perhaps because, no matter how he tried, he could never forget the airless void on the other side of the hull. Living on Starport scared him.

  He paused to look out through an observation panel at the hard unwinking specks of colour that were the stars, searching for the sun. It was not hard to find. Even this far out it had the aspect of an arc lamp, small and brilliant but without heat.

  Saxon had one compensation for having been co-opted to Starport Authority. At forty, he was grossly overweight and it was nice not to have to drag mounds of surplus fat around in a one-G environment.

  He continued to an airlock and punched a wall button to summon a cab. A light flashed green and he cycled the lock and went directly through to the cab’s seat. Only one satellite concerned Saxon and the pilot recognised him.

  ‘R. I., Mr. Saxon?’

  He nodded, chins shaking like jelly. The cab broke connection and jetted away.

  Starport lost its fleeting illusion of safety when viewed from outside. It looked fragile and, even a short way off, its city-size dwindled to the aspect of a child’s toy seen against interstellar gulfs. Orbiting beyond Pluto, the original doughnut was obscured by a galaxy of satellites built on to and around it; an orbital city of cylinders and spheres, bristling with antennae and armament.

  The cab jetted through the complex, passing a dockyard where lights blazed over a starship being fitted out, a fusion generator, space-suited construction men building yet another extension. Starport would never be complete. Men were forever changing and enlarging it.

  R. I. loomed across his horizon. Reception Investigation. The death chamber. The outermost satellite was isolated; spy-eyes recorded and relayed every detail that went on inside. In an emergency it was programmed to open to space at an instant’s notice, and no known life form could take that. Saxon felt sick with fear; would the controllers give him time to get clear?

  His pilot matched course and velocity, latched on. Saxon went through the lock to the guardhouse, showed his pass. Two security men checked it as if they’d never seen him before.

  ‘Okay, Mr. Saxon—go ahead.’

  He moved easily in the artificial
half-G. A dossier waited on a desk and Saxon sat down and read it carefully. He’d found it didn’t pay to skip routine. The name on the cover:

  Eric Drummond

  Drummond, astronaut, three weeks returned from the furthest out trip yet, hunting (as men always hunted) planets suitable for colonising. He’d gone alone on a fast one-man scoutship. He had a wife, two children and a sizable fortune waiting for him back on Earth (pilot’s pay mounted astronomically). There were photographs, fingerprints and retina patterns for identification. Medical had cleared him. A note (in red) informed that part of the scoutship’s tape had been destroyed; accidentally Drummond claimed—but it left a gap that only the astronaut could fill. And if it were not an accident... ?

  Saxon pushed the dossier aside and reviewed its content in his mind. He sat back and stared thoughtfully at the viewing screens giving a permanent and recorded scene of what went on inside the inner chamber.

  It was a laboratory. Eric Drummond—alone—sat in a reclining chair, eyes closed, listening to Hoist’s suite The Planets. He appeared relaxed; jockey-sized with nut-brown wrinkled skin, wearing only a pyjama suit.

  Saxon glanced at the wall chronometer, decided there was nothing to wait for. He crossed to the lock and a security man operated it for him. He entered a corridor. At the far end was another lock which opened automatically and he passed through.

  The single room was circular, domed, small for the size of the satellite; a lot of equipment had been built into its double walls. There was a bed and an EEG console. It was warm, discreetly lighted, with continuously cleaned air.

  Drummond rose casually, switching off the music. ‘What now ? They’ve practically taken me apart already.’

  Saxon smiled a fat disarming smile, seated himself in an outsize chair. ‘I’m your night nurse, Eric. Call me Art, if you like. Feeling sleepy?’

  Drummond stared at him, measuring him. ‘No, not yet.’ A pause. ‘You play chess, Art?’

  ‘I can move the pieces around. I’m not good, but I’ll play if you want.’

  The dossier had mentioned that Drummond was a good player, that much of his time aboard the scoutship was spent studying tactics.

  The astronaut set out the pieces. ‘Chess helps me relax, Art. I’ll sleep like a baby afterwards. You take white.’

  Saxon moved a pawn to king four. Drummond countered; for a man who claimed chess helped him relax, he had total concentration and it was not many moves before Saxon was in trouble.

  ‘Check,’ Drummond called.

  Saxon wriggled out of it, knowing his opponent had the edge; knowing too that spy-eyes relayed every move to the control satellite, that experts would be evaluating Drummond’s game.

  Drummond finished it quickly with a trick ending; promoting a pawn and unexpectedly naming it a knight. ‘Mate,’ he said, yawning. ‘Guess I might as well turn in, let you earn your money. What are you testing for?’

  ‘Routine stuff.’

  Smiling, Drummond nodded acceptance and stretched out on the bed.

  Saxon rose, trailing a bunch of wires from the EEG, and taped the electrodes in place on the astronaut’s skull, face and chest, tested out. The ink needle traced an alpha rhythm.

  Drummond’s voice came, uneasy. ‘Brain washing? Sleep deprivation?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’ Saxon put warmth into his voice, reassurance. ‘This gadget is simply an electroencephalograph.

  ‘It writes out your brain waves and tells us when you’re dreaming.’

  ‘You could watch just as well outside.’

  ‘True.’ Saxon moved back to his chair across the console and settled himself comfortably, his attitude making clear he had no intention of giving any explanation.

  ‘Okay Art, I suppose you know what you’re doing. G’night.’

  ‘Pleasant dreams, Eric.’

  Drummond became drowsy and the pen jiggled irregular slow Waves. As he slept they turned into big slow waves. His eyes remained still, throat muscles tense, heart regular.

  Saxon waited for a dream to start, no longer concentrating on the steadily moving pens; they were watched from outside. He had another job, one that only his unique talent could perform: And as no-one else with his talent had yet been located, it looked as if he might be on Starport some time.

  Starport Authority held every returned starman until he’d been cleared down to the last test men could devise. No-one was allowed through to Earth till it was proved he was harmless. The station was more than a staging post to the stars; it was a barrier between Earth and the unknown. There were many risks; a new germ that could cause plague; an apparently innocuous plant might turn out to be a habit-forming drug. A new idea. Thinking could change out there; values and morals changed. Starport checked ruthlessly for anything which might upset the status quo.

  Arthur Saxon was Earth’s ultimate monitor, the final check on what had come back from the stars. His word could turn Reception Investigation into a death chamber.

  Saxon had the strange ability of sharing other people’s dreams. Not telepathy, not strictly empathy; though possibly related to the last, experts claimed. It was more than just listening in—he became the dreamer, experienced every illogical detail that welled up from the dreamer’s unconscious. Starport Authority had snapped him up as the ultimate monitor; to check the dreams of returned astronauts for deviation from human.

  He glanced at the EEG chart. Drummond’s throat muscles relaxed, rapid eye movements begun. The astronaut was moving into paradoxical sleep. Saxon closed his eyes, waited .. then he was dreaming Drummond’s dream with him.

  He felt a sudden bodily jerk. He was falling, falling endlessly through deep space illumed by flaming suns. The suns were abruptly blotted out as though he were plunging down a well, into darkness. With a splash he hit water and submerged and began to swim, a slow rhythmical breast-stroke. He sank down and down into the depths, experiencing no difficulty in breathing. The deeper he went, the lighter it became. The water had a translucent glassy look and waves surged against him. He had no sensation of gravity; his body floated. Presently he touched bottom, sand and pebbles, and stopped swimming and began walking. Coloured weeds danced in unseen eddies; fish came to investigate him. He moved between fantastic rock shapes, apparently carved, to a coral grotto where a dark cave loomed. The water grew ice-cold and an open shell cut his foot. It stung...

  The dream-scene faded slowly and Saxon opened his eyes and stirred himself in the chair. He studied the EEG charts, now recording normal dreamless sleep. On the bed, Drummond lay still, eyes closed lips parted in a faint smile.

  Saxon decided the dream could be normal and made a note to that effect, his note instantly relayed to the watchers in the control satellite. Normal ? It took fine judgment to decide what was normal in dreams...

  Saxon had previously been employed in a mental hospital, sharing the dreams of patients for the doctors. He’d had a lot of experience and believed he could tell normal from abnormal now. His talent he had been born with; and it came as the biggest shock of his life to learn that other people could not share dreams as he could.

  As a boy he had been fascinated by the simple dreams of dogs and cats. He had learnt to be wary of city traffic when he was in danger of sharing another’s day-dream. He had learnt to shun cities and crowds.

  So ... normal? He began to wonder about a married man returned from a lone voyage—and no sex dream. Perhaps that would follow. Perhaps. Added to the scoutship’s missing tape it built a stronger suspicion in his mind. He made a fresh note, instantly relayed outside.

  The EEG recorded an irregular heart beat. Drummond dreamt and Saxon was traversing a maze.

  The maze baffled him completely at first; until he began to appreciate its spiral form and listened to the voice in his head that told him repeatedly to keep turning to the right to reach the centre. It was important, for a reason he couldn’t grasp, to reach the centre of the maze. The walls had colour yet he could not name that colour. There was no obviou
s source of light and yet he saw. The walls were solid, fashioned from stone slabs, slotted one into another; the space between them narrow so that he brushed against sides, found them hard and unyielding. The roof was low and he was forced to stoop. His back ached. His feet slap-slapped on the bare stone floor, echoing through the labyrinthine corridors, the echo vanishing and reappearing at each turn, multiplying. The spiral seemed to wind tighter. The walls flowed on endlessly...

  The dream dissolved and Saxon blinked and stretched and studied Drummond’s EEG pattern. It seemed normal. But a maze symbol ? He racked his memory but could not recall encountering a dream precisely like this one before. There was an odd, almost ritual quality about it.

  He reported a feeling that something lay hidden in the dream. Rising, he waddled over to the bed and stared down at Drummond. The astronaut slept peacefully. Saxon returned to his chair, looked round the quiet domed room. He thought of the Controller, finger alongside a button that would open the shutters to airless space, and shivered.