by Fritz Leiber
And yet—the modern world was keyed for change. Wars could, had, come overnight. Sweeping technological changes had been accomplished in a few months. And granting such an immense initial difference as the decision to keep subtronic power a government secret in World II, to make it public property in World I—
Moreover, there was a way of testing. Without pausing to consider, Thorn said, “Remember when we were children? We used to play together. Once we swore an oath of undying friendship.”
Clawly II twisted toward him in the current, which was now taking them up past winking corridor entries.
“You are breaking,” he remarked in surprise. “I never expected a play for sympathy. Yes, of course I remember.”
“And then about two years later,” Thorn plunged on, “when our glider dropped in the lake and I was knocked out, you towed me ashore.”
Clawly II laughed, but the puzzled look around his eyes deepened. “Did you really believe I saved you? It hardly fits with your behavior toward me afterwards. No, as I think you know, I swam ashore. That was the day on which I first realized that I was I, and that everything and everybody else was circumstances.”
Thorn shivered, as much in horror of this changeling beside him as in satisfaction at having checked the date of. the time-split. Then he felt revulsion rising in him, more from the body he occupied than from his own thoughts.
“There isn’t room in the world for even two people with that attitude,” he heard himself challenge bitterly.
“Yes, but there is room for one,” Clawly II replied laughingly. Then he frowned and continued hesitatingly, as if against his better judgment. “Look, why don’t you try the same thing? Your only chance with the Servants is to make yourself useful to them. Remember, they too are just something to be adjusted to.”
For a moment it seemed to Thorn as if Clawly I were striving to look through the eyes of Clawly II. As he tried to gain control of the baffling jumble of emotions this sensation produced, Clawly II took him by the arm and steered them into the slower periphery of the current, then into a dead-current area before the mouth of a short pedestrian corridor.
“No talk from here on,” he warned Thorn. “But remember my advice.”
There were calculatingly-eyed guards inside the corridor mouth, but again a mere “With a person for the Servants” passed them in.
A low, gray door, without numeral or insignia, blocked the end of the corridor. Some yards short of it was a narrow side-door. Clawly II touched something and the side-door opened. Thorn followed him through it. After a few paces down a dim, curving passageway, they came to a large room, but Clawly II stopped them just short of it. Again he touched something. A door slid silently out of the wall behind them, changing the end of the passageway into a dark niche in the room ahead. Signing to Thorn that they were to wait and watch, Clawly II leaned back with a slow speculative smile.
IX.
Black Star, would I were steadfast
as thou art—
John Keats (with an ironic alteration)
It was a notably bare room, smaller and lower-ceilinged than he had expected. It was furnished with ostentatious simplicity, and nothing broke the gray monotony of the walls.
Around the longer side of a kidney-shaped table, eleven men sat on stools. Their gray tunics, though clean, were like those of beggars. They were all old, some bald, some capped with close-cropped white or gray. They all sat very erect.
The first thing that struck Thorn—with surprise, he realized—w. s that the Servants of the People looked in no way malignant, villainous, or evil.
But looking at them a second time, Thorn began to wonder if there was not something worse. A puritanic grimness that knew no humor. A suffocating consciousness of responsibility, as if all the troubles of the world rested on their shoulders alone. A paternal aloofness, as if everyone else were an irresponsible child. A selflessness swollen to such bounds as to become supreme selfishness. An intolerable sense of personal importance that their beggarly clothes and surroundings only emphasized.
But Thorn had barely gleaned this impression, had had no time to survey the faces in detail, except to note that one of two seemed vaguely familiar, when his attention became rivetted on the man who was standing on-the other side of the table, the focus of their converging eyes.
That man was obviously one of them. His manner and general appearance were the same.
But that man was also Conjerly.
He was speaking. “I must return at once. The soporific I inhaled into my other body will wear off shortly, and if the other mind becomes conscious, exchange will be difficult. True, Tempelmar is on guard there and could administer another dose. But that is dangerous. Understand, we will attempt no further exchanges unless it becomes necessary to transmit to you information of vital importance. The process is too risky. There is always the possibility of the mental channels being blocked, and one or both of us being marooned here.”
“You are wise,” observed the midmost of the Servants, apparently their chairman, a tall thin man with wrinkle-puckered lips. “No further exchanges should be necessary. I anticipate no emergencies.”
“And so I take my leave,” Conjerly continued, “assured that the trans-time machine is ready and that the invasion will begin in three days, at the hour agreed. We will prevent the World Executive Committee from taking any significant action until then.”
Thorn leaned forward, half guessing what was coming. Clawly’s hand touched his sleeve.
Conjerly bowed his head, stood there rigid. Two black-uniformed guards appeared and took up positions close to him, one on either side.
For a full half minute nothing happened.
Then a great shiver went through Conjerly. He slumped forward, would have fallen except for the two guards. He hung in their arms, breathing heavily.
When he raised his face, Thorn saw that it had a different expression, was that of a different man. A man who looked dazed and sick.
“Where—? Who?” lie mumbled thickly. The guards began to lead him out. Then his eyes cleared. He seemed to recognize the situation. “Don’t lock me up. Let me explain,” he cried out, his voice racked by a desperate yet hopeless urgency. “My name’s Conjerly. I’m a member of the World Executive Committee.” His face, twisted back over his shoulder, was a white, uncomprehending mask. “Who are you? What do you want out of me? Why am I drugged? What have you done to my body? What are you trying to do to my mind? What—”
The guards dragged him out.
The wrinkle-lipped chairman lowered his eyes. “A distressing occurrence. But, of course, strictly necessary. It is good to think that, when we have things under control in the other world, no such confinements and withholdings of permissible information will have to be practiced—except, of course, in the case of hopeless Recalcitrants.”
The others nodded silently. Then Thorn started, for from beside him came an amused, incredulous snicker—not a polite or pleasant sound, and certainly unexpected.
All eyes were turned in their direction.
Clawly II strode out leisurely.
“What did your laughter signify?” The chairman asked sharply, without preliminaries, a look of displeasure settling on his face. “And who is that you have smuggled into our council, without informing us? Let me tell you, some day you will go too far in your disregard of regulations.”
Clawly II ignored the second question—and the comment. He swaggered up to the table, planted his hands on it, looked them over, and said. “I laughed to think of how sincerely you will voice your distress when you discover all inhabitants of the other world to be hopeless Recalcitrants—and take appropriate measures. Come, face circumstances. You will be forced to destroy most of the inhabitants of the other world, and you know it.”
“We know nothing of the sort,” replied the chairman coldly. “Take care that your impudent and foolish opinions do not make us lose confidence in you. In these critical times your shrewdness and ingenuity are val
uable to us. You are a useful tool, and only imprudent men destroy a tool because its mannerisms annoy them. But if, in your foolhardy opinionatedness you cease to be useful—that is another matter. As regards the misguided inhabitants of the other world, you very well know that our intentions are the best.”
“Of course,” agreed Clawly II, smiling broadly, “but just consider what’s actually going to happen. In three days the trans-time machine will subtronically isolate and annihilate a spatio-temporal patch in this world, setting up stresses which cannot be relieved by any redistribution of material in this world; accordingly the lacuna will find with the corresponding patch from the other world, thereby creating an area common to both worlds. Through this common area your armed forces will pour. They will come as invaders, awakening horror and fear. They will have the element of surprise on their side, but there will inevitably be resistance—organized in desperate haste, but using improvised subtronic weapons. Most important, that resistance will not come, as it would in this world, from a small elite directing an ignorant multitude, but from a people of uniformly high education—a people used to freedom and adverse to submitting to any autocratic government, no matter how well-intentioned. That resistance will not cease until the other world has been destroyed in subtronic battle, or you are forced to destroy it subtronically yourselves and retire through the gap. All that is painfully clear.”
“It is nothing of the sort,” replied the chairman in measured and dispassionate tones. “Our invasion will be well-nigh bloodless, though we must prepare for all eventualities. At the proper moment Conjerly and Tempelmar will seize control of the so-called World Executive Committee, thereby preventing any organized resistance at the fountainhead. The majority of inhabitants of the other world have no technical knowledge of subtronic power and will therefore constitute no danger. Ultimately they will be grateful to us for insuring the safety of their world and protecting them from their irresponsible leaders. It will only be necessary for us to capture and confine all technicians and scientists having a knowledge of subtronic physics. To do this, we must admittedly be ready to take any and all necessary steps, no matter how unpleasant. For our main purpose, of which we never lose sight, is always to keep the knowledge of subtronic power—which now imperils two worlds—in the possession of a small, responsible, and benevolent elite.”
Thorn shivered. The horrible thing was that these Servants actually believed that they were acting for the best, that they had the good of mankind—of two mankinds—at heart.
“Exactly,” said Clawly II, continuing to smile. “The only thing you don’t see, or pretend not to see, is the inevitable consequences of that main purpose. Even now your secrets are gravely endangered. Mind-exchange is putting more and more Recalcitrants and Escapists into the other world. It is only a matter of time before some of them begin to realize that the inhabitants of that world are their potential allies rather than their foes, and join forces with them. Similarly it is only a matter of time until the mind of a subtronic technician is displaced into this world and contacted by the Recalcitrants here—then you will have to fight subtronic wars in two worlds. Your only chance, as I’m glad you recognize in part, is to strike hard and fast, destroy the other world, along with all the Recalcitrants and Escapists who have entered it, then seek out and eliminate all displaced minds in this world. Your weakness is in not admitting this at the start. Everything would be much easier if you would leave out pseudobenevolent intentions and recognize that you are up against an equation in destruction, which you must solve in the only logical way possible—by a general canceling out.”
And he rocked back on his heels a little, again surveying the eleven old faces. It struck Thorn that thus legendary Loki must have mocked the Dawn Gods and flayed their high-sounding pretenses, confident that his cunning and proven usefulness would protect him from their wrath. As for the Servants, their paternalism was unpleasantly apparent in their attitude toward Clawly II. They treated him like a brilliantly mischievous favorite child—always indulged, often threatened, seldom punished.
Certainly there was a germ of greatness about this Clawly II. If only he had Clawly’s sane attitude toward life, so that his critical thinking would come to something more than mere sardonic jibing!
One thing was certain, Clawly II’s claim that he wanted to float on the stream of life was a gross understatement. What he really wanted was to dance along a precipice—and this time, apparently, he had taken one heedless step too many.
For the chairman looked at him and said, “The question arises whether your insistence on destruction has not assumed the proportions of a mania. We will at once reconsider your usefulness as a tool.”
Clawly II bowed. He said smoothly, “First it would be well to interview the person I have brought you. You will be pleased when I tell you who he is.” And he motioned to Thorn.
All eyes turned on the niche.
Abruptly, painfully, Thorn woke from his impersonal absorption in the scene unrolling before him. Again it came to him, like a hammer blow, that he was not watching from the safety of a spy-hole, but was himself immediately and fatally involved. Again the urge to escape racked him—with redoubled force, because of the warning that he must now at all costs take back to World I. It was such a simple thing. Just a change of viewpoints. He had seen Conjerly accomplish it. Surely, if he concentrated his mind in the right way, it would be that other Thorn who walked forward to face the Servants and the destiny of that other Thorn’s own making, while he sank back. Surely his need to warn a world would give him sufficient impetus.
But all the time he was walking toward the table. It was his dragging feet that scuffed the gray flooring, his dry throat that swallowed, his cold hands that clenched and unclenched. The eleven old faces wavered, blurred, came clear again, seemed to swell, grow gray and monstrous, become the merciless masks of judges of some fabled underworld, where he must answer for another man’s crimes.
The table stopped his forward progress. He heard Clawly II say, “I am afraid that I am still very useful to you. Here is your chief enemy, brought to book by my efforts alone. He was part of our bag when he raided the local Recalcitrant headquarters last night. He escaped and took to the hills, where I personally recaptured him—the Recalcitrant leader Thorn 37-P-82.”
But the Servants’ reaction could not have been the one Clawly was expecting, for the old faces registered anger and alarm. “Irresponsible child!” the chairman rapped out. “Didn’t you hear what Conjerly reported—that he is certain there has occurred a mind exchange between the Thorns? This man is not the Recalcitrant, but a displaced mind come to spy on us. You have provided him with what he wanted—an opportunity to learn our plans.”
Thorn felt their converging hostility—a palpable force. His mind shrank back from the windows of his eyes, but, chained there, continued to peer through them.
The chairman’s wrinkled hand dropped below the table. He said, “There is only one course of action.” His hand came up, and in it a slim gleaming cone. “To eliminate the displaced mind before a re-exchange can be—”
Thorn was dimly conscious of Clawly II leaping forward. He heard him begin, “No! Wait! Don’t you see—”
But although that was all he heard, he knew what Clawly II was going to say and why he was going to say it. He also knew why Thorn II had been able to exchange with him when Thorn II thought he was trapped and facing death on the rooftop. He knew that the chairman’s action was the very thing that would nullify the chairman’s purpose. At last he had found the sufficient impetus—it was staring at him down the slim, gleaming cone, leering at him even as the chains broke and his mind dropped back from the windows of his eyes into a black, dimensionless pit.
The fear of death.
TO BE CONCLUDED
Second of Two Parts.
A world split three ways can never be peacefully joined—but World II was going to join World I. Hell-World was determined to take over Heaven-World, and not peacefu
lly!
SYNOPSIS
By accident, eight men of the Late Middle Dawn Civilization—the present—obtain possession of the Probability Engine, a super-mechanism located outside space-time. Preserving complete secrecy over the course of centuries, a they use it to split time and actualize various possible futures for mankind, destroying those worlds that seem inferior and allowing only the best to survive.
About thirty years before the story opens, when earthmen discover subtronic power, a basic energy underlying gravity, magnetism, and electricity, the Great Experimenters again interfere with human destiny. They actualize three worlds. In World I, subtronic power is made public property. In World II, it becomes the prized weapon of a ruling elite. In World III, an attempt is made to eradicate the discovery.
After a time they decide that I is the best choice and destroy II and III—they think. Only one Experimenter, the rebel Oktav, guesses the truth—that they have not destroyed the botched worlds, but only cut them adrift from the main-trunk time-stream.
World II, become a totalitarian tyranny bossed by “the Servants of the People,” discovers the existence of the free and utopian World I and builds a transtime machine for purposes of invasion. Two of the Servants, Conjerly and Tempelmar, force mind-exchanges with their duplicates, who are members of the World Executive Committee in World I.
Other infiltrants into World I include Recalcitrants—rebels against the tyranny of the Servants.
Oktav attempts to warn World I of the danger without giving away too much. Posing as a fortuneteller, he makes disturbing hints and prophecies.
Partly under his influence, two, psychologists of World I, Clawly and Thorn, get a line on what is happening and attempt to warn the world of its danger. They fail to impress the World Executive Committee.