by Jack Vance
“As soon as you’re ready, we’ll try encephalographs as a starting point.”
Circumbright was tired. His face, normally pink and cherubic, sagged; filling his pipe, his fingers trembled.
Shorn leaned back in the leather chaise longue, regarded Circumbright with mild curiosity. “Why are you so upset?” Circumbright gave the litter of paper on the workbench a contemptuous flick of the fingers. “It’s the cursed inadequacy of the technique, the instruments. Trying to paint miniatures with a whisk broom, fix a watch with a pipe wrench. There”—he pointed—“encephalograms. Every lobe of your brain. Photographs—by X ray, by planar section, by metabolism triggering. We’ve measured your energy flow so closely that if you tossed me a paper clip I’d find it on paper somewhere.”
“And there’s what?”
“Nothing suggestive. Wavy lines on the encephalograms. Increased oxygen absorption. Pineal tumescence. All gross by-products of whatever is happening.”
Shorn yawned and stretched. “About as we expected.” Circumbright nodded heavily. “As we expected.”
VII
In Laurie's apartment on upper Martinvelt, Shorn and Circumbright sat drinking coffee.
Circumbright was unaccustomedly nervous and consulted his watch at five-minute intervals.
Shorn watched quizzically. “Who are you expecting?" Circumbright glanced quickly, guiltily, around the room. “I suppose there’s no spy-beetle anywhere close.”
“Not according to the detector cell.”
“I’m waiting for the messenger. A man called Luby, from East Shore.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“You’d remember him if you did.”
Laurie said, “I think I hear him now.”
She went to the door, slid it back. Luby came into the room, quiet as a cat. He was a man of forty who looked no more than seventeen. His skin was clear gold, his features chiseled and handsome, his hair a close cap of tight bronze curls. Shorn thought of the Renaissance Italians—Cesare Borgia, Lorenzo Medici.
Circumbright made introductions which Luby acknowledged with a nod of the head and a lambent look; then he took Circumbright aside, muttered in a rapid flow of syllables.
Circumbright raised his eyebrows, asked a question; Luby shook his head, responded impatiently. Circumbright nodded, and without another word Luby left the room, as quietly as he had entered.
“There's a high-level meeting—policy-makers—out at Portinari Gate. We’re wanted.” He rose to his feet, stood indecisively a moment. “I suppose we had better be going.” Shorn went to the door, looked out into the corridor. “Luby moves quietly. Isn’t it unusual to concentrate top minds in a single meeting?”
“Unprecedented. I suppose it’s something important.” Shorn thought a moment. “Perhaps it would be better to say nothing of my new . . . achievements.”
“Very well.”
They flew north through the night, into the foothills, and Lake Paienza spread like a dark blot below, rimmed by the lights of Portinari.
Portinari Gate was a rambling inn six hundred years old, high on a hillside, overlooking lake and town. They dropped to the soft turf in the shadow of great pines, walked to the back entrance.
Circumbright knocked, and they felt a quiet scrutiny.
The door opened, an iron-faced woman with a halo of iron-gray hair stood facing them. “What do you want?”
Circumbright muttered a password; silently she stepped back. Shorn felt her wary scrutiny as he and Laurie entered the room.
A brown-skinned man with black eyes and gold rings in his ears flipped up a hand. “Hello, Circumbright.”
“Hello . . . Thursby, this is Will Shorn, Laurita Chelmsford.”
Shorn inspected the brown man with interest. The Great Thursby, rumored coordinator of the world-wide anti-Telek underground.
There were others in the room, sitting quietly, watchfully. Circumbright nodded to one or two, then took Shorn and Laurie to the side.
“I'm surprised,” he said. “The brains of the entire movement are here.” He shook his head. “Rather ticklish.”
Shorn felt of the detector. “No spy-cells.”
More people gathered, until possibly fifty men and women occupied the room. Among the last to enter was the young-old Luby.
A stocky dark-skinned man rose to his feet. “This meeting is a departure from our previous methods, and I hope it won’t be necessary again for a long time.”
Circumbright whispered to Shorn, “That’s Kasselbarg, European Post.”
Kasselbarg swung a slow glance around the room. “We're starting a new phase of the campaign. Our first was organizational; we built a world-wide underground, a communication system, set up a ladder of command. Now—the second stage: preparation for our eventual action . . . which, of course, will constitute the third stage.
“We all know the difficulties under which we work; since we can’t hold up a clear and present danger, our government is not sympathetic to us, and in many cases actively hostile—especially in the persons of suborned police officials. Furthermore, we’re under the compulsion of striking an absolutely decisive blow on our first sally. There won’t be a second chance for us. The Teleks must be”—he paused— “they must be killed. It’s a course toward which we all feel an instinctive revulsion, but any other course bares us to the incalculable power of the Teleks. Now, any questions, any comments?”
Shorn, compelled by a sudden pressure he only dimly understood, rose to his feet. “I don’t want to turn the movement into a debating society—but there’s another course where killing is unnecessary. It erases the need of the decisive blow, it gives us a greater chance of success.”
“Naturally,” said Kasselbarg mildly, “I’d like to hear your plan.”
“No operation, plan it as carefully as you will, can guarantee the death of every Telek. And those who aren’t killed may go crazy in anger and fear; I can picture a hundred million deaths, five hundred million, a billion deaths in the first few seconds after the operation starts—but does not quite succeed.”
Kasselbarg nodded. “The need for a hundred per cent coup is emphatic. The formulation of such a plan will constitute Phase Two, of which I just now spoke. We certainly can’t proceed on any basis other than a ninety-nine percent probability of fulfillment.”
The iron-faced woman spoke. “There are four thousand Teleks, more or less. Here on Earth ten thousand people die every day. Killing the Teleks seems a small price to pay for security against absolute tyranny. It’s either act now, while we have limited freedom of choice, or dedicate the human race to slavery for as long into the future as we can imagine.”
Shorn looked around the faces in the room. Laurie was sympathetic; Circumbright looked away uncomfortably; Thursby frowned thoughtfully; Kasselbarg waited with courteous deference.
“Everything you say is true,” Shorn said. “I would be the most ruthless of us all, if these four thousand deaths did not rob the human race of the most precious gift it possesses. Telekinesis to date has been misused; the Teleks have been remarkable for their selfishness and egotism. But in reacting to the Teleks’s mistakes, we should not make mistakes of our own.”
Thursby said in a cool, clear voice, “What is your concrete proposal, Mr. Shorn?”
“I believe we should dedicate ourselves, not to killing Teleks, but to giving telekinesis to every sane man and woman.”
A small red-haired man sneered. “The ancient fallacy, privilege for the chosen ones—in this case, the sane.”
Shorn smiled. “Better than privilege—of this kind—for the insane. But let me return to my fundamental proposition: that taking telekinesis out of monopoly and broadcasting it is a better solution to the problem than killing Teleks. One way is up, the other down; building versus destruction. In one direction we put mankind at its highest potential for achievement; in the other we have four thousand dead Teleks, if our plan succeeds. Always latent is the possibility of a devastated world.”
Thursby said, “You’re convincing, Mr. Shorn. But aren’t you operating on the unproved premise that universal telekinesis is a possibility? Killing the Teleks seems to be easier than persuading them to share their power; we’ve got to do one or the other.”
Shorn shook his head. “There are at least two methods to create Teleks. The first is slow and a long-range job: that is, duplicating the conditions that produced the first Teleks. The second is much easier, quicker, and, I believe, safer. I have good reason for—” he stopped short. A faint buzzing, a vibration in his pocket.
The detector.
He turned to Luby, who stood by the door. “Turn out the lights! There’s a Telek spy-cell nearby! Out with the lights, or we’re all done for.”
Luby hesitated. Shorn cursed under his breath. Thursby rose to his feet, startled and tense. “What’s going on?”
There was a pounding at the door. “Open up, in the name of the law.”
Shorn looked at the windows: the tough vitripane burst out; the windows were wide open. “Quick, out the window!”
Circumbright said in a voice of deadly passion, “Somewhere there’s a traitor-”
A man in black and gold appeared at the window with a heat-gun. “Out the door,” he bellowed. “You can’t get away, the place is surrounded. Move out the door in an orderly fashion; move out the door. You’re all under arrest. Don’t try to break for it; our orders are shoot to kill.”
Circumbright sidled close to Shorn. “Can’t you do something?”
“Not here. Wait till we’re all outside; we don’t want anyone shot.”
Two burly troopers appeared in the doorway, gestured with pistols. “Outside, everybody. Keep your hands up.”
Thursby led the way, his face thoughtful. Shorn followed; behind came the others. They marched into the parking area, now flooded with light from police lamps.
“Stop right there,” barked a new voice.
Thursby halted. Shorn squinted against the searchlight; he saw a dozen men standing in a circle around them.
“This is a catch and no mistake,” muttered Thursby.
“Quiet! No talking.”
“Better search them for weapons,” came another new voice. Shorn recognized the dry phrasing, the overtones of careless contempt. Adlari Dominion.
Two Black and Golds walked through the group, making a quick search.
A mocking voice came from behind the searchlights. “Isn’t that Colonel Thursby, the people’s hero? What’s he doing in this nasty little conspiracy?”
Thursby stared ahead with an immobile face. The red-haired man who had challenged Shorn cried to the unseen voice: “You Telek bootlicker, may the money they pay rot the hands off your wrists!”
“Easy, Walter,” said Circumbright.
Thursby spoke toward the lights. “Are we under arrest?”
There was no answer, only a contemptuous silence.
Thursby repeated in a sharper tone: “Are we under arrest? I want to see your warrant; I want to know what we’re charged with.”
“You’re being taken to headquarters for questioning,” came the reply. “Behave yourselves; if you’ve committed no crime, there’ll be no charge.”
“We’ll never reach headquarters,” Circumbright muttered to Shorn. Shorn nodded grimly, staring into the lights, seeking Dominion. Would he recognize the Cluche Kurgill whom he had invested with Telek power?
The voice called out, “Were you contemplating resistance to arrest? Go ahead. Make it easy on us.”
There was motion in the group, a swaying as if from the wind that moved the tops of the dark pine trees.
The voice said, “Very well, then, march forward, one at a time. You first, Thursby.”
Thursby turned slowly, like a bull, followed the trooper who walked ahead waving a flashlight.
Circumbright muttered to Shorn, “Can’t you do something?”
“Not while Dominion is out there-”
“Silence!”
One by one the group followed Thursby. An air barge loomed ahead, the rear hatch gaping like the mouth of a cave.
“Up the ramp; inside.”
The hold was a bare, metal-walled cargo space. The door clanged shut, and the fifty captives stood in sweating silence.
Thursby’s voice came from near the wall. “A clean sweep. Did they get everybody?”
Circumbright answered in a carefully toneless voice. “So far as I know.”
“This will set the movement back ten years,” said another voice, controlled but tremulous.
“More likely destroy it entirely.”
“But—what can they convict us of? We’re guilty of nothing they can prove.”
Thursby snorted. “We’ll never get to Tran. My guess is gas.”
“Gas?”—a horrified whisper.
“Poison gas pumped through the ventilator. Then out to sea, drop us, and no one’s the wiser. Not even ‘killed while escaping.’ Nothing.”
The aircraft vibrated, rose into the air; under their feet was the soft feeling of air-borne flight.
Shorn called out softly, “Circumbright?”
“Right here.”
“Make a light.”
A paper torch cast a yellow flicker around the hold; faces glowed pale and damp as toad-bellies; eyes glared and reflected in the flare of the torch.
The row of ports was well shuttered, the hand keys were replaced by bolts. Shorn turned his attention to the door. He should be able to break it open. But the problem was new; in a sense this bulging open of a door was a concept several times more advanced than movement of a single object, no matter how large. There was also a psychological deterrent in the fact that the door was locked. What would happen if he attempted to telekinecize and nothing happened? Would he retain his power?
Thursby was standing with his ear to the ventilator. He turned, nodded. “Here it comes. I can hear the hiss. . . .”
The paper torch was guttering; in darkness Shorn was as helpless as the others. Desperately he plunged his mind at the door; the door burst open, out into the night. Shorn caught it before it fluttered away into the dark air, brought it edgewise back through the door opening.
The wind had blown out the torch; Shorn could only vaguely feel the black bulk of the door. He yelled, to be heard over the roar of the wind rushing past the door, “Stand back, stand back—” He could wait no longer; he felt reality slipping in the darkness; the door was only a vague blot. He concentrated on it, strained his eyes to see, hurled it against the metal hull, stove out a great rent. Air swept through the hold, whisked out any gas that might have entered.
Shorn took himself out the door, rose above the cabin, looked through the sky dome. A dozen Black and Golds sat in the forward compartment looking uneasily back toward the cargo hold whence had come the rending jar. Adlari Dominion was not visible. Luby, the bronze-haired courier with the medallion face, sat statue-quiet in a corner. Luby was to be preserved, thought Shorn. Luby was the traitor.
He had neither time nor inclination for half-measures. He tore a strip off the top of the ship; the troopers and Luby looked up in terror. If they saw him at all, he was a whitefaced demon of the night, riding the wind above them. They were shucked out of the cabin like peas from a pod, flung out into the night, and their cries came thinly back to Shorn over the roar of the wind.
He jumped down into the cabin, cut off the motors, jerked the cylinder of gas away from the ventilation system, then whisked the craft east, toward the Monaghill Mountains.
Clouds fell away from the moon; he saw a field below. Here was as good a spot as any to land and reorganize.
The aircraft settled to the field. Dazed, trembling, buffeted, fifty men and women crept from the hold.
Shorn found Thursby leaning against the hull. Thursby looked at him through the moonlight as a child might watch a unicorn. Shorn grinned. “I know you must be puzzled; Fll tell you all about it as soon as we’re settled. But now-”
Thursby squinted. “It’s h
ardly practical our going home, acting as if nothing had happened. The Black and Golds took photographs; and there’s a number of us that . . . are not unknown to them.”
Circumbright appeared out" of the darkness like a pink and brown owl. “There’ll be a great deal of excitement at the Black and Golds’ headquarters when there’s no news of this hulk.”
“There’ll be a great deal of irritation at Glarietta Pavilion.”
Shorn counted the days on his fingers. “Today is the twenty-third. Nine days to the first of the month.”
“What happens on the first of the month?”
“The First Annual Telekinetic Olympiad, at the new stadium in Swanscomb Valley. In the meantime—there’s an old
mine back of Mount Mathias. The bunkhouses should hold two or three hundred.”
“But there’s only fifty of us-”
“We’ll want others. Two hundred more. Two hundred good people. And to avoid any confusion”—he looked around to find the red-haired man who thought that sanity was no more than a function of individual outlook—“we will equate goodness to will to survive for self, the family group, human culture, and tradition.”
“That’s broad enough,” said Thursby equably, “to suit almost anyone. As a practical standard—?” In the moonlight Shorn saw him cock his eyebrows humorously.
“Practically,” said Shorn, “we’ll pick out people we like.”
VIII
Sunday morning, June 1, was dull and overcast. Mist hung along the banks of the Swanscomb River as it wound in its new looping course down the verdant valley; the trees dripped with clammy condensations.
At eight o’clock a man in rich garments of purple, black, and white dropped from the sky to the rim of the stadium. He glanced up at the overcast, the cloud-wrack broke open like a scum, slid across the sky.
Horizon to horizon the heavens showed pure and serene blue; the sun poured warmth into Swanscomb Valley.
The man looked carefully around the stadium, his black eyes keen, restless. At the far end stood a man in a black and gold police uniform; the Telek brought the man through the air to the rim of the stadium beside him.