Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  “The fun starts today, or ought to start if my calculations are correct. I could do with your help.”

  “In what way?”

  “You’re going to be mighty useful if I come up against someone who can control his thoughts or shield them entirely. Hatred or animosity aren’t thoughts—they’re emotions of which antagonistic thoughts are born. You Lingans respond to such emotions. You can go on reading the heart long after the mind is closed to me.”

  “I get the point but not the purpose,” confessed Melor.

  “Look,” said Harold patiently, “when I say the fun starts I don’t mean that there’s going to be wholesale violence. We’ve found better ways. It’s possible, for instance, to talk oneself into anything or out of anything provided one says the right things to the right person at the right time. The waving blade hasn’t half the potency of the wagging tongue. And the tongue isn’t messy.” He smiled grimly. “My people have had more than their fill of messy methods. We don’t bother with them these days. We’re grown up.”

  “So?” prompted Melor.

  “So I need you to tell me how I’m doing if, mayhap, I’m working on someone with a closed mind.”

  “That’s easy. I could tell you when hatred, fear or friendliness intensifies or lessens by one degree.”

  “Just what I need,” enthused Harold. “My form of life has its shortcomings as well as its talents, and we don’t let ourselves forget it. Last time some of us forgot it, the forgetters thought themselves a collective form of God. The delusion bred death!”

  His tongue gently explored a back tooth as his gaze went to the transmitter-receiver waiting at one side of the room.

  Nothing happened until midday. The two kept company through the morning, the fugitive expectant and alert, his host uneasy and silently speculative. At noon the television set chimed and Melor switched it on.

  Helman came on the screen. He stared straight at the watching pair in manner suggesting that he saw them as clearly as they saw him. His dark features were surly.

  “This is a personal broadcast for the benefit of the specimen known at Harold Harold-Myra,” Helman enunciated, “or to any citizen illegally maintaining contact with him. Be it known, Harold Harold-Myra, that a summary of all the available data on your world type has been laid before the Council of Action, which Council, after due consideration thereof, has decided that it is to the essential interest of the Empire that your life form be exterminated with the minimum of delay. By midday tomorrow an order will be sent to appropriate war vessels requiring them to vaporize your native planet— unless, in the meantime, you have surrendered yourself and provided new evidence which may persuade the Council of Action to reconsider its decision.”

  Helman stopped, licked his lips. His air was that of one still nursing a severe reprimand.

  He went on, “This notification will be rebroadcast in one hour’s time. Watchers in touch with the fugitive are advised to bring it to his attention as this will be the last warning.” His surliness increased as he finished, “In the event of his prompt surrender, the Council of Action will extend gracious pardon to those who have been harboring this specimen.”

  The screen blanked.

  “Mate in one move,” said Melor glumly. “We told you that it was a waste of time to sit and plot. They get ‘em all, one way or another.

  “It’s check—and your move.”

  “All right then—what’s your move?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’ve still got to wait. If you sit by the chimney long enough, Santa Claus comes down.”

  “In the name of the Blue Sun, who is Santa Claus?” asked Melor peevishly.

  “The man with a million lollies.”

  “Lollies?”

  “Things you lick.”

  “Oh, cosmos!” said Melor. “What madman wants to own a million things to lick? Is this anything to do with your sermon about wagging tongues? If so, were licked!”

  “Forget it,” Harold advised. “I talk in riddles to pass the time.”

  A pain suddenly pulsed in his jawbone. It brought an exclamation from him which stirred the nervous Melor. Putting two fingers into his mouth, Harold unscrewed the crown of a back molar, took it out, put it on the table. A tiny splinter of crystal glittered within the base of the crown. The crystal was fluorescent. Melor gaped at it fascinatedly.

  Swiftly powering the transmitter-receiver, Harold let it warm up. A faint, high-pitched whistle crept into its little phone. He swung the loop slowly while the whistle strengthened, then weakened, finally faded out. Slightly offsetting the loop to bring back the signal, he pressed a stud. The note grew stronger.

  “That side,” he murmured, indicating the face of the loop nearest to the watching Melor.

  Returning the loop to fade-out position, he switched in the transmitter, swung its curved tube antenna until it paralleled the direction faced by the receiver’s loop. Again he offset the loop, and the signal returned. He waited expectantly. In a little while, the signal broke into three short pips then resumed its steady note. He flipped his transmitter switch three times.

  For half an hour the two sat and waited while the whistle maintained itself and gave triple pips at regular intervals. Then, suddenly, it soared up in power and gave one pip.

  Carefully, Harold repeated all the rigmarole with the antenna, this time obtaining a different direction. Three pips came as his reward, and again he switched his transmitter in acknowledgment. Another long wait. Then, slowly, weakly and distantly, a voice crept into his mind.

  “A blue car. A blue car

  Going to the window, he looked down into the street. From his height of ten floors he had a clear view extending several blocks in both directions. He found a score of automobiles on the street, half a dozen of them blue.

  “Stop, step out, get in again,” he thought. He repeated the mental impulse, driving it outward with maximum intensity.

  A car stopped, a human shape get out, looked around, stepped back into the vehicle. It was a blue car.

  Harold crossed the room, disconnected the contactor, and returned to the window. Looking downward, he thought powerfully.

  “I believe I’ve got you. Drive on slowly . . . slowly . . . here you are . . . stop there! The building immediately on your right. Ten floors up”

  He continued to keep watch as the car pulled in by the opposite sidewalk. Two men emerged from it, crossed the road with casual nonchalance, disappeared beneath him. No other cars halted, nobody followed the men into the building.

  A voice reached him strongly, “Are we dragging anything?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “Good!”

  Melor said plaintively, “I know that you’re communicating with someone. Santa Claus, I presume? How you can read each other’s toothache is a mystery to me.”

  “Our throbs are no worse than your wobbles.”

  “You bounce around,” said Melor, “and, according to you, we dither. Some day we’ll come across some other life form which spins around in circles, like a mental dervish. Or even an entity capable of logical reasoning without thought at all; a sort of Bohr-thinker who skips straight from premise to conclusion without covering the intervening distance.” His eyes found the crystal still on the table, noted that it had ceased to glow. “Better plant your key-frequency back in your face before somebody sets it in a ring.”

  Harold smiled, took up the crystal, screwed it back into place. Opening the door, he looked out just as the pair from the car arrived on the landing. He beckoned them in, locked the door behind them, introduced them to the Lingan.

  “This is Melor, a friend from Linga. Melor, meet George Richard-Eve and Burt Ken-Claudette.”

  Melor looked askance at the newcomers’ neat space uniforms and the silver comet insignia glittering on their epaulettes. He commented, “Well, they smell as good as they look bad. You’ll produce a pally Drane next!”

  “Not likely!” Harold assured.

  Burt sat down, s
aid to Harold, “You know the locals by now. Are they crafty enough to have drawn a bead on that transmission and, if so, how long d’you think they’ll give us ? If time’s short, we can beat it in the car and delay matters a little.”

  “They know how I got the stuff, where I got it, and its purpose, and they’re not too dopey to listen out,” Harold replied. “As I guess, I give them half an hour.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Melor put in, “Talk mentally if it suits you better. I don’t mind.”

  “You’re in this,” Harold told him, “so we’ll talk vocally. You’re entitled to listen.” He turned to Burt. “What’s cooking?”

  “There’s fun and games on four out of the five. The fifth proved useless for our purpose: it held nothing but a few time-serving bureaucrats on high pay. But four should do, I reckon.”

  “Go on.”

  “All the appointed ones have gone beyond and the first of them ought to have reached their destinations by now. It’s six days to the nearest system, so they’ve a good margin.” He smoothed his dark hair, looked reminiscent. “Nemo is due to pop off any moment now. That was a tough job! We took forty people off it, but had to scour the place from end to end to find the last pair of them. We got ‘em, though. They’ve been dumped in safety.”

  “Good!”

  “This has been an education,” Burt went on. “Better than going to the zoo. There’s an underground message system on number three, for instance, which has to be seen to be believed. By ‘underground’ they mean ten thousand feet up! How d’you think they do it?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Harold.

  “With birds! Among the minority life forms there is one which is beaked and feathered. They talk with birds. They chirrup and squawk at them, and every bird understands what’s said.”

  “Orniths,” informed Melor. “They came originally from Gronat, the Empire’s eight hundredth conquest. They’re scattered around and there are a few of them here, maybe a dozen or so. When you’ve had time to tour the Empire you’ll find it contains even stranger forms. And the humanoids don’t even dislike them all.”

  “It would seem that the humanoids don’t even like each other much,” Burt commented. “To most of them, a brother from a neighboring planet is a foreigner.”

  “Still in the schoolkid stage,” said Harold. “Rah-rah and all that.”

  Burt nodded and continued, “As you know, we’ve had to move too fast in too little time to put over anything really drastic, but what’s been done ought to be enough to show what could be done—which is all that matters.” A faraway look came into his eyes. “When we triumphantly cast our bread upon the waters we little thought it’d come back—all wet.”

  “So you’ve found confirmation of that?”

  “Plenty,” Burt replied. “Have you?”

  “Any amount of it.” Harold went to the bookshelf, selected a heavy tome titled “The Imperial Elect.” He skimmed through its pages, found an illustration, showed it to Burt. “Look!”

  “Phew!” said Burt.

  “The Budding Cross,” breathed George, looking over Burt’s shoulder. “And the Circle of Infinity!”

  “That shelf is crammed with stuff,” Harold told them as he replaced the book, “I’ve been going through it like a man in a strange dream.” He came back, sat down. “Anything more to report?”

  “Not much. Jon has stayed on number three. He had a stroke of luck and got at the Lord, a fat personage named Amilcare. Temporarily, His Eminence doesn’t know which shoe is on which foot.”

  Harold opened his mouth to comment, closed it without saying anything. His mental perception perked up, listened intently. Burt and George listened likewise. Melor began to fidget. For the first time, Harold noticed that a fringe of fine hairs lay along the rims of the Lingan’s ears, and that these hairs were now fully extended and quivering.

  “There’s a stink of hostility,” complained Melor uneasily. In his lithe, loose-jointed gait, he went to the window.

  A hubbub lay across the ether, a confused mixture of thoughts from which it was impossible to extract more than odd, disjointed phrases.

  “Line ‘em across that end . . . rumble, rumble . . . yes, take the ground floor . . . rumble, buzz, buzz . . . work upward . . . rumble . . . ten of you . . . look out for . . . rumble . . . they may be . . . “

  “I expect visitors,” remarked George, easily. He joined Melor at the window.

  The others followed, and the four looked down at the street. It was a hive of activity. A dozen cars were drawn across one end, blocking it completely. Another dozen jockeyed for position to block the opposite end. Cars plugged the three side streets in between. Something invisible droned steadily overhead; it sounded like a squadron of helicopters. More than two hundred black-uniformed men were scattered along the sidewalk in little groups.

  “Their bearings must have been rough.” Burt pulled a face at the cohort below. “It got them this section of the street but not the building. I’d be ashamed of such a sloppy job.”

  “It’s good enough,” Harold answered. He filtered the telepathic surge once again. It was entirely human, involuntary and nonreceptive. “We could go down and save them some bother, but I’m a bit curious about those butterfly minds down there. Surely they’d have brought something potent along with them.”

  “Test it,” suggested Burt.

  Dropping their mental shields, the three let their thoughts flow forth bearing a perfect picture of their location. Instantly the hubbub was overwhelmed by an alien mind which imposed itself upon the ether. It was clear, sharp, penetrating, and of remarkable strength.

  “They’re in that building there! Ten floors high! Three of them and a Lingan. They contemplate no resistance!”

  “A Drane!” said Harold.

  It was impossible to locate the creature amid the mass of men and automobiles beneath, neither could he sense its general direction for, having said all it considered essential, it had closed its mind and its powerful impulse was gone.

  “Judging by the throb, there was a Drane down there,” offered Melor belatedly. “Did you hear it? I couldn’t understand what it said.”

  “It got us fixed. It identified your erratic thought-flow and said that a Lingan was with us.”

  “And what are we going to do about it ? Do we stand like sheep and wait to be taken away?”

  “Yes,” Harold informed.

  Melor’s face registered approaching martyrdom, but he offered no further remark.

  There wasn’t an immediate response to the Drane’s revelation. For reasons unknown to the watchers, a short time-lag intervened. It ended when a car roared along the street with a silver-spangled official bawling orders from its side window. As one man, the uniformed clusters made a determined rush for the front entrance of the building.

  It was Melor who opened the door and admitted a police captain and six men. All seven wore the strained expressions of people called upon to deal with things unimaginable, and all seven were armed. Little blasters, similar to the one Harold had found so objectionable, were ready in their hands.

  The captain, a big, burly man, but pale of face, entered the room with his blaster held forward, and gabbled hastily through his prepared speech.

  “Listen to me, you four, before you try any tricks. We’ve reversed the controls on these guns. They stay safe while they’re gripped but go off immediately our hands loosen—and hypnosis causes involuntary relaxation of the muscles which you can’t prevent!” He swallowed hard. “Any clever stunts will do no more than turn this place into a shambles. In addition, there are more men outside, more on every floor, more in the street. You can’t cope with the lot!”

  Smiling amiably, Harold said, “You tempt us to persuade you to toss those toys out of the window, and your pants after them. But we want to talk to the Council of Action and have no time for amusement. Let’s go.”

  The captain didn’t know whether to scowl or look relieved. Cautiously he stoo
d to one side, his gun held level, as the four filed out through the door. The escorts were equally leery. They surrounded the quartet, but not too closely, bearing themselves with the air of men compelled to nurse vipers to their bosoms.

  As they marched along the landing toward the levitators Burt nudged the nearest guard and demanded, “What’s your name?”

  The fellow, a lanky, beetle-browed individual, was startled and apprehensive as he answered, “Walt Bron.”

  “Tut!” said Burt.

  The guard didn’t like that “tut.” His brows came down, his small eyes held a stupefied expression as his mind said to itself, “Why should he want my name? Why pick on me? I ain’t done him any harm. What’s he up to now?”