Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  “A thrust—toward where?” mused the Floran.

  “No point yet apparent,” thought Burkinshaw.

  “I don’t like the way he gabbles,” said Helman’s mind uneasily. “He’s talking to gain time. Maybe the three of them are trying to push something through that screen. They burned the Drane through it, didn’t they?” He fidgeted in his seat. “I don’t share B’s faith in that screen. Curses on Roka and all the rest of the pioneering crowd—they’ll be the end of us yet!”

  Smiling to himself, Harold continued, “We’ve found out that the game of chess is generally known all over the Empire.”

  “Pshaw!” burst out the harsh-voiced man seated on Burkinshaw’s left. “That’s no coincidence. It spread from a central source as anyone with a modicum of intelligence should have deduced.”

  “Be quiet, Dykstra,” reproved Burkinshaw.

  “Which source?” Harold asked him.

  Dykstra looked peeved as he replied, “Us! We spread it around. What of it?”

  “We had it long before you contacted us,” Harold told him.

  Dykstra opened his mouth, glanced at Burkinshaw, closed his mouth and swallowed hard. Burkinshaw continued to survey the ceiling.

  Harold pursued, “We’ve had it so long that we don’t know how long. The same board, same pieces, same moves, same rules. If you work it out, you’ll find that that involves a very large number of coincidences.”

  They didn’t comment vocally, but he got their reactions.

  Four of the Council were confused.

  “Surprising, but possible,” mused the Floran.

  “What of it, anyway?” inquired Dykstra’s mind.

  “No point yet apparent,” thought Burkinshaw coolly.

  The purple thing’s brain emitted a giggle.

  “Bron,” said Harold. “Walt Bron, Robertus Bron and umpteen other Brons. Your directory of citizens is full of them. My world, likewise, is full of them, always coupled with the other parent’s name, of course, and occasionally spelled Brown, but pronounced the same. We’ve also got Roberts and Walters.” He looked at Helman. “I know four men named Hillman.” He shifted his gaze to the Supreme Lord. “And among our minor musicians is one named Theodore Burkinshaw-May.”

  Burkinshaw removed his stare from the ceiling and concentrated on the wall. “I see where he’s going. Reserve judgment until he arrives.”

  “The vessel which brought us here was named the Fenix, in characters resembling those of our own alphabet,” Harold continued. “And in days long gone by, when we had warships, there was one named the Phoenix. We found your language amazingly easy to learn. Why? Because one-fifth of your vocabulary is identical with ours. Another fifth is composed of perversions of our words. The remainder consists of words which you have changed beyond all recognition or words you’ve acquired from the peoples you’ve conquered. But, basically, your language is ours. Have you had enough coincidences?”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Dykstra loudly. “Impossible!”

  Burkinshaw turned and looked at Dykstra with eyes that were reproving behind their lenses. “Nothing is impossible,” he contradicted mildly. “Continue,” he ordered Harold, while his thoughts ran on, “The pleader is making the inevitable point—too late?

  “So you can see where I’m going,” Harold remarked to him. “Just for one final coincidence, let me say I was stupid enough to misunderstand the imperial title. I thought they called themselves Lords of Terror. A silly mistake.” His voice slowed down. “Their title is a mystic one rooted deep in your past. They call themselves Lords of Terra!”

  “Dear me,” said Dykstra, “isn’t that nice!”

  Ignoring him, Harold spoke to Roka. “You’re awake by now. Last night something clicked in your mind and you found yourself remembering things you didn’t know you’d forgotten. Do you remember what my people call their parent planet?”

  “Terra,” Roka responded promptly. “I reported it to the Supreme Lord this morning. You call yourselves Terrestrials.”

  Dykstra’s heavy face went dark red, and accusations of blasphemy were welling within his mind when Burkinshaw beat him to it.

  “This morning’s revised report of Lieutenant Roka and certain survivors of his crew now lies before the Council.” He indicated the papers on the table. “It has already been analyzed by the police commissioner, Inquisitor Helman and myself. We now believe that the pleader’s assertions are founded in truth and that in discovering KX-724 we have discovered our long-lost point of origin. We have found our mother planet. The Fenix, unknown to any of us, was homeward bound!”

  Half the Council were dumfounded. The purple creature was not; it registered that human rediscoveries were of little consequence to purple things. The Floran thought similarly. Dykstra’s mind was a turmoil of confusion.

  “A difference of three light-years has separated us for two thousand centuries,” Harold told them quietly. “In that tremendous past we’d grown great and venturesome. We sent several convoys of colonists to the nearest system four and a half light-years away. We never knew what happened to them, for then followed the final atomic war which reduced us to wandering tribes sunk lower than savages. We’ve been climbing back ever since. The path of our climb has been very different from yours, for roving particles had done strange things to us. Some of those things died out, some were rooted out, others persisted and made us what we are today.”

  “What are you?” inquired the member next to Roka.

  “Humanity metamorphosed,” Burkinshaw answered for him.

  “In the awful struggle for life on new and hostile worlds, you, too, sank,” Harold continued. “But you climbed again, and once more reached for the stars. Naturally, you sought the nearest system one and a half light-years away, for you had forgotten the location of your home which was spoken of only in ancient legends. We were three light-years farther away than your nearest neighboring system. Logically, you picked that—and went away from us. You sank again, climbed again, went on again, and you never came back until you’d built a mighty Empire on the rim of which we waited, and changed, and changed.”

  Now they were all staring at him fascinatedly. Even Dykstra was silent, his mind full of the mighty argosy across the ages. Half of it was school-book stuff to him, but not when presented in this new light.

  “Those of you who are of the Brotherhood of the Budding Cross know that this is true—that you have completed the circle and reached the Seat of Sol.” He made a swift and peculiar sign. Two of his audience responded automatically.

  “It’s of little use,” Burt’s thought came over strongly. “They’re too factual”

  “Wait!”

  The Council was silent a long time, and eventually the Floran said, “All this is very touching—but how touching will it be when they take over our Empire?” To which its mind added, “And we Florans swap one master for another. I am against it. Better the devil you lnow than the devil you don’t”

  Resting his thin arms on the table, Burkinshaw Three blinked apologetically at the Terrans and spoke smoothly. “If they knew what we know, the Empire’s sentimentalists might be against your destruction. However, the fabric of our cosmic edifice cannot be sustained by anything so soft as sentiment. Moreover, the prodigal sons have no intention of presenting this fatted calf to their long-lost fathers. Your removal from the scheme of things appears to me as necessary as ever—perhaps even more necessary—and that it will be patricide makes no difference to the fact.” His thin, ascetic face held an ingratiating wish to please, “I feel sure that you understand our position. Have you anything more to say?”

  “No luck,” whispered Melor. “The hatred has gone—to be replaced by fear.”

  Harold grimaced, said to the Supreme Lord, “Yes, I’d like to say that you can blast Terra out of existence, and its system along with it, but it’ll do you no good.”

  “We are not under the delusion that it will do us any good,” declared Burkinshaw. “Nor would we sancti
on so drastic an act for such a purpose.” He removed his pince-nez, screwed up his eyes as he looked at his listeners. “The motive is more reasonable and more urgent—it is to prevent harm.”

  “It won’t do that, either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re too late.”

  “I feared you’d say that.” Burkinshaw leaned back in his seat, tapped his glasses on a thumbnail. “If he can’t satisfy me that his claim is well-based, I shall advance the hour!” Then he said, “You’ll have to prove that.”

  “There’s trouble on four out of the five other planets in this system. You’ve just had news of it. Nothing serious, merely some absenteeism, sabotage, demonstrations, but no violence. It’s trouble all the same— and it could be worse.”

  “There’s always trouble on one planet or another,” put in Helman sourly. “When you’re nursing four thousand of them, you get used to unrest.”

  “You overlook the significance of coincidences, I fear. Normal troubles pop up here and there, haphazardly. These have come together. They’ve kept an appointment in time!”

  “We’ll deal with them,” Helman snapped.

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Harold evenly. “You’ll also deal with an uproar in the next system when you get news of it soon. You’ll deal with four planets simultaneously, or forty planets—simultaneously. But four hundred planets—simultaneously—and then four thousand! Somewhere is the number that’ll prove too much for even the best of organizations.”

  “It’s not possible,” Helman asserted stubbornly. “Only two dozen of you Terrans got here. Roka told us that. You took over his ship, substituted two dozen Terrestrials for part of his crew, impressed false memories on his and the others’ minds causing them to suspect nothing until their true memories suddenly returned.” He scowled. The pulse in his forehead was beating visibly. “Very clever of you. Very, very clever. But twenty-four aren’t enough.”

  “We know it. Irrespective of relative powers, some numbers are needed to deal with numbers.” Harold’s sharp-eyed gaze went from Helman to Burkinshaw. “If you people are no more and no less human than you were two hundred thousand years ago—and I think that your expansive path has kept you much the same—I’d say that your bureaucrats still live in water-tight compartments. So long as supposedly missing ships fail to observe the officially prescribed rigmarole for reporting, it’s taken that they’re still missing. And, ten to one, your Department of Commerce doesn’t even know that the Navy has mislaid anything.”

  It was a tribute to the Supreme Lord’s quick-wittedness that his mind was way ahead of his confreres’, for he acted while they were still stewing it over. He switched on the televisor set in the wall on one side.

  Looking at its scanner, he said sharply, “Get me the Department of Commerce, Movements Section.”

  The screen colored, a fat man in civilian attire appeared. An expression of intense respect covered his ample features as he identified his caller.

  “Yes, your excellency?”

  “The Navy has reported two vessels immobilized beyond the Frontier. They’re the Callan and the Mathra. Have they been recorded recently in any movements bulletins?”

  “A moment, your excellency.” The fat man disappeared. After some time, he came back, a puzzled frown on his face. “Your excellency, we have those two ships recorded as obsolete war vessels functioning as freighters. Their conversion was assumed by us, since they are transporting passengers and tonnage. The Callan has cleared four ports in the Frontier Zone, Sector B, in the last eight days. The Mathra departed from the system of Hyperion after landing passengers and freight on each of its nine planets. Its destination was given as external to the Frontier Zone, Sector-J.”

  “Inform the Navy Department,” Burkinshaw ordered, and switched off. He was the least disturbed individual at the table. His manner was calm, unruffled as he spoke to Harold. “So they’re busily bringing in Terrans or Terrestrials or whatever you call yourselves. The logical play is to have those two vessels blown out of existence. Can it be done?”

  “I’m afraid not. It depends largely upon whether the ships getting such an order have or have not already come under our control. The trouble with warships and atom bombs and planet-wreckers is that they’re useful only when they work when and where you want them to work. Otherwise, they’re liabilities.” He gestured to indicate Burt and George. “According to my friends, the bomb allocated to Terra is on the ship Warcat clearing from your third neighbor. Ask Amilcare about it.”

  It required some minutes to get the third planet’s Lord on the screen, and then his image was cloudy with static.

  “Where’s the Warcat?” rasped Burkinshaw.

  The image moved, clouded still more, then cleared slightly. “Gone,” said Amilcare jovially. “I don’t know where.”

  “On whose authority?”

  “Mine,” Amilcare answered. His chuckle was oily and a little crazy. “Jon wanted it so I told him to take it. I couldn’t think of anything you’d find more gratifying. Don’t you worry about Jon—I’m looking after him for you.”

  Burkinshaw cut him off. “This Jon is a Terran, I suppose?”

  “A Terrestrial,” Harold corrected.

  “Put a call out for him,” urged Dykstra irefully. “The police won’t all be bereft of their senses even if Amilcare is.”

  “Let me handle this,” Burkinshaw said. Then, to Harold, “What has he done with the Warcat?”

  “He’ll have put somebody on it to control the crew and they’ll be giving you a demonstration of what a nuisance planet-wreckers can be when they drop where they shouldn’t.”

  “So your defense is attack? The bloodshed has started? In that case, the war is on, and we’re all wasting our—”

  “There will be no bloodshed,” Harold interrupted. “We’re not so infantile as that. None’s been shed so far, and none will be shed if it can be avoided. That’s what we’re here for—to avoid it. The fact that we’d inevitably win any knock-down and drag-out affair you care to start hasn’t blinded us to the fact that losers can lose very bloodily.” He waved a hand toward the televisor. “Check up with your watertight bureaucrats. Ask your astronomers whether that refueling asteroid of yours is still circling.”

  Burkinshaw resorted to the televisor for the third time. All eyes were on its screen as he said, “Where is Nemo now?”

  “Nemo? Well, your excellency, at the present moment it is approaching alignment with the last planet Drufa and about twenty hours farther out.”

  “I’m not asking where it ought to be! I want to know whether it’s actually there!”

  “Pardon me, your excellency.” The figure slid off the screen and was gone a long time. When it returned, its voice crept out of the speaker hushed and frightened. “Your excellency, it would seem that some strange disaster has overtaken the body. I cannot explain why we’ve failed to observe—”

  “Is it there?” rapped Burkinshaw impatiently.

  “Yes, your excellency. But it is in gaseous condition. One would almost believe that a planet-wrecker had—”

  “Enough!” Without waiting to hear the rest, he switched off.

  Lying back in his chair, he brooded in complete disregard of the fact that his mind was wide open to some even though not to all. He didn’t care who picked up his impressions.

  “We may be too late. Possibly we were already too late the day Roka came back. At long last we’ve fallen into the trap we’ve always feared, the trap we avoided when we vaporized that world of parasites. Nevertheless, we can still destroy Terra—they can’t possibly have taken over every world and every ship and we can still wipe her out. But to what avail? Revenge is sweet only when it’s profitable. Will it profit us? It all depends on how many of these people have sneaked into our ranks, and how many more can get in before we destroy their base.”

  Helman thought, “This is it! Any fool could tell it had to come sooner or later. Every new world is a risk. We’ve been lu
cky to get through four thousand of them without getting in bad. Well, the end could have been worse. At least, these are our own kind and should favor us above all other shapes

  Melor murmured, “Their hate has weakened, and their fear turns to personal worry. Excepting the Purple One and the Floran. The Purple One, who was amused, is now angry. The Floran, who was interested and amiable, now fears.”

  “That’s because we’re not of their shape. Racial antagonisms and color antagonisms are as nothing to the mutual distrust between different shapes. There lies the Empire’s weak spot. Every shape desires mastery of its own territory. So far as we’re concerned, they can have it,” Harold commented.