That clang was echoed, forward, by a cannon-crack of sound. Gil had been keeping himself from looking in that direction, but now he turned. The plastic wall had been split across the center third of its extent by a horizontal fissure a few feet above the trays.
Gil lay still on his platform, watching cautiously. Ensign Rom came charging across the trays and past him, trampling the crop unheedingly, to hurl himself at the wall. Even cracked, it resisted his onslaught easily, but he kept pounding at it with his fists, trying to force his fingers into the tiny crevice. Gil looked back the other way. The Overseer was still down. Hudak was trying the forward door and finding it locked. Then first he, and then the other people, were scrambling over trays to join Rom and help him.
Gil tested his platform’s control and found that it no longer worked, though the platform was still aloft. He got up from it, setting foot in soil for the first time in a couple of months; it was a good feeling. Then he lifted the thin metal platform sideways out of its null and carried it over to where everyone else was already struggling with the wall. “Here,” Gil said, “try sticking the corner of this in the crack and pryin’.”
It took them several hours of steady effort to make a hole in the wall big enough for Rom to squeeze through. In a minute he was back, crying and shouting, announcing freedom and victory. They were in control of the ship!
When he came back the second time, he was in control of himself as well, and puzzled. “What cracked the wall, though? There’s no fighting, no other ships around—” He fell silent as he joined Hudak in staring down the narrow space between the farthest forward tray and the slightly bulged-in section of wall where the strain had come to force the first crack above. Gil had already looked down there into the niches between wall and transverse girder. Those niches were opened up now, displaying their contents—the dull yellowish fruit Gil had guided into place with a pinch and a twist of vine. The fruit had been very small then, but now they were huge, and cracked gently open with the sudden release of their own internal pressure.
Funny pulpy things that a man could break with a kick, or a steel hand squeeze through like nothing.
. . . “But growth is stobborn, boys,” the Old Man always said, squinting to read a dial, then piling more weights onto the machine with the growing squash inside it, a machine he’d set up to catch kids’ eyes and minds. “Can’t take a sudden shock. Slow. But now, look. Five thousand pounds pressure per square inch. All from millions of tiny cells, just growing, all together. Ever see a tree root swell under a concrete walk?”
It was on Rom’s and Hudak’s faces now that they understood. Gil nodded at them once and smiled just faintly to make sure they knew it had been no accident. Then the smile faded from his face as he looked up at the edges of broken plastic, the shattered tracery of what had been a million sandwiched printed circuits.
“I hope it was slow,” Gil said. “I hope it felt the whole thing.” END
THE WINGED HELMET
The planet possessed a strange time fault. Through it, a host of Berserkers were attacking!
I
Arms upraised, gray beard and black robes whipping in the wind, Nomis stood on a tabletop of black rock twenty feet square, a hundred feet above the smashing surf.
White seabirds coasted downwind toward him, then wheeled away, emitting sharp little dies like those of small souls in pain. Around Nomis on three sides there towered other splintered crags and fingers of this coastline of black basaltic rock; before him spread the immense vibration of the sea.
Feet braced apart, he stood centered in an indicate diagram chalked on the flat rock. Around him he had spread the paraphernalia of his craft—things dead and dried, things old and carven, things that most men would think better destroyed and forgotten. In his thin penetrating voice he was singing into the wind:
Gather, storm-clouds, day and night
Gather, lightning, and chew the ship
Gather, waves, and swallow the ship
Chew and swallow and drink it down!
The long-ship wherein my enemy rides.
There was much more to the song, and it repeated itself over and over. Nomis’s thin arms quivered, tired from holding splinters from wrecked ships over his head, while the wind blew his thin gray beard up into his eyes.
Today he could not escape the feeling that his labor was in vain. Today he had been granted none of the tokens of success that sometimes came—heated dreams, dark trances shot with moments of strange vision, startling stretchings of the mind.
Not often in his life had Nomis managed to call down evil on his enemies’ heads, not nearly so often, he knew, as those who stood in awe of him believed. Twice before in his life had Nomis tried to raise a storm. Once he had seemingly been successful, but even on that occasion the suspicion had persisted in his own mind that the storm would have come anyway, that the order and control of such a force was beyond him or any man.
But doubtful as he was of the result, he persisted now in the effort that had kept him almost sleepless on this rock for the past three days. Such was his fear and hatred for the man he knew must now be crossing the sea toward him, coming to rule this country called Queensland.
Nomis’s grim eyes, turned hopefully far out to sea, were mocked by the passage there of a thin squallline. Of a ship-killing tempest there was no sign at all.
The cliffs of Queensland were still a day’s rowing out of sight, dead ahead. In the same direction, but closer, some mildly bad weather was brewing. Harl frowned across the sea’s gray face at the line of squalls, while his hands rested with idle sureness on the long-ship’s steering oar.
The thirty rowers, freemen and warriors all, could turn their heads and see the bad weather as easily as Harl could see it. And they were all experienced enough to reach the same conclusion, that just slowing down a bit would probably let the squalls blow past before the ship got near them and make things a bit more comfortable for all on board. So now by unspoken agreement they were all easing up on the oars.
From ahead a cool, light breeze sprang up, to flutter the pennons on the sailless masts and ripple the awning fringes on the tent of royal purple which stood amidships. Inside that tent, alone for the moment with his thoughts, was the young man Harl called king and lord. Harl’s frown faded, at the thought that young Ay was probably now making plans for the fighting that was sure to come. The tribes who cared nothing for the new god or the old Empire were certain to test the will and courage of Queensland’s new ruler, not that there were grounds for doubting either.
Harl smiled at the thought that his young lord in the tent might not be planning war at all, but a campaign to tame the Princess Alex. It was her hand in marriage that was to bring him his kingdom and his army. If she was like some other high-born girls that Harl had met, her conquest might be as difficult as that of any barbarian chief; and of course even more to a sturdy warrior’s taste.
Harl’s expression, having become about as jovial as his facial scars would allow, faded once more into glumness. It occurred to him that his king might be practicing reading. Ay had long been an admirer of books and was actually bringing two of them with him on this voyage. Or he might even be praying to his gentle new slave-god; for young and healthy though he was, Ay now and then took the business of worship seriously.
Though half his mind was busy with these thoughts, Harl of course remained alert as always. Now a faint splashing in the water nearby caused him to turn his head to portside—and in a moment all the thoughts in his head were frozen, together with his warrior’s blood.
Rearing right beside the ship, rising across the horizon and the distant afternoon clouds, came a dragon-face out of legend, a head out of nightmare.
It rode on a shining neck that a man might just be able to circle with both arms. Sea-demons alone might know what the body in the sea below was like! The eyes were clouded sun, the size of silver platters; the scales of head and neck were gray and heavy. The mouth smiled, like a coffin with the
lid open just a crack and fenced inside with daggers.
Long as a cable, the thick neck came reeling right in over the gunwale. The men’s first cries were sounds such as warriors should not make, but in the next instant all of them were grabbing bravely enough for their weapons. Big Torla, strongest of the crew, leaped to stand on his rower’s bench and was the first to hack with a sword at that tremendous swaying neck.
Torla’s mighty blows fell useless on scales that gleamed like thick wet iron. The dragon did not even turn to him. Its head swayed to a stop facing the door of the purple tent, and from the slit of its terrible mouth it blew a challenge whose like Harl had not heard in a lifetime of war.
With all the clamor of the men, Ay had needed no such summons to make ready. The tent flaps were ripped open from inside before the dragon-bellow had ceased, and the young king came forth armed with shield and helm, sword ready in his hand.
Harl felt a tremendous pride to see that the young man did not flinch from the sight that met him. And with the pride Harl’s own right arm came back to life, drawing from his belt the short-shafted, iron-bladed axe, gripping it for a throw.
The axe clanged harmlessly from the clouded silver of one eye. The enormous head, its full shock of mouth suddenly open, lunged forward for the king. Ay met it bravely, aiming a thrust straight into the darkness of the throat.
But the king’s long sword meant no more than a woman’s spin. The doorlike jaw slammed shut, crushing Ay instantly. The head on its long neck swept away, for a moment displaying the horror of broken limbs dangling outside the teeth. And then, with one more sullen splash beside the ship, the evil miracle was gone. Everywhere the sunlit sea rolled on unchanged, hiding its secrets all below.
The remaining hours of daylight passed with scarcely a word spoken aboard the long-ship. In full battlereadiness she prowled on and on, in watery circles. But there was nothing for her to fight. The edge of the squall-line came and went, the men taking measures to meet it mechanically, not really aware of its passage. And then at the end of the day the sea was calm again.
Squinting into the setting sun, Harl rasped out a one-word order: “Rest.”
Long ago he had retrieved his blunted axe and replaced it in his belt Now the evidence to be seen on deck was only this: Ay’s winged helmet, fallen from his head, and a few small spots of the last of his blood.
II
Derron Odegard, recently promoted three grades to major, was sitting in as a junior aide on an emergency staff meeting called by the new Time Operations Commander. At the moment Derron was listening with professional interest as a colonel from the Historical Research Section held forth.
“. . . as we more or less expected, the berserkers have chosen to focus this latest attack upon one individual. Naturally they’ve chosen one whose removal from history will have disastrous consequences for us.
“Their target is King Ay of Queensland. Until recently most historians even doubted this man’s reality, but with some direct observation of the past, his historicity and his importance have both been fully confirmed.”
The colonel-historian turned to an electric map, which he attacked with a teacher’s gestures.
“We see here the middle stages in the shrinkage and disorganization of the Continental Empire, leading to its ultimate collapse. It’s very largely due to Ay’s activity and influence that Queensland here remains in a state of at least semicivilization, providing something solid for our planet’s later civilization to base itself on.”
The new Time Operations Commander—his predecessor was reported on his way to the moon, or at least the surface—raised a hand. “I admit I’m not too clear on this. Ay was a bit of a barbarian himself, wasn’t he?”
“Well, he certainly began as such. But when he found himself with a land of hi§ own he settled down and defended it very well. He knew the raiders’ methods, and many of the raiders knew him and preferred to attack someone else.”
The next officer to appear at the head of the table was a major from Probability Analysis. “We don’t know how Ay was killed,” he began in a nervous voice. “But we do know where. His lifeline is newly broken here, while he’s voyaging to Queensland for the first time.” The major displayed a videotape made from a sentry screen. “As you can see, the other lifelines aboard ship remain unbroken. Probably the enemy expects historical damage to be intensified if Ay’s crew is thought to have done away with him. It seems to me all too likely that such an expectation is correct.”
The major paused for a quick sip of water. “Frankly the situation looks extremely grave. In nineteen or twenty days’ present-time, the historical shockwave should reach us, with the most—the most serious effects. I’m told that our chances of finding the enemy keyhole within nineteen days’ present-time are not good.”
The faces round the table had tightened. Only the new Time Ops Commander managed to remain relatively relaxed. “I’m afraid you’re right about the difficulty in finding this keyhole, major. Of course every effort is being made to find it. Trouble is the enemy’s getting smart about hiding his tracks. This time he attacked with only one machine instead of six. And immediately after killing one important man that one machine seems to have gone into hiding. It’ll be still on the scene somewhere, waiting to mess up whatever we do to set things right, but meanwhile it’s being careful not to stir up any changes we could use to track it.”
The talk soon moved into a highly technical level. Here of course the scientific people dominated, but they were far from agreeing among themselves on what could and should be done. When they began to exchange personalities along with formulae, Time Ops called a half hour’s recess.
With this much time unexpectedly on his hands, Derron called the nurses’ quarters at the nearby hospital complex. Lisa was bunking there now and starting to train for some kind of a nursing job. He was pleased to find her home and available; within a few minutes they were walking together in the park where they had met.
He had come with a topic of conversation prepared, but Lisa these days had a favorite subject of her own.
“Matt’s just healing so quickly that all the doctors are amazed!”
“Good. I’ll have to come round and see him one of these days.”
“They say it must be because he comes from so far in the past; they talk about the effect on one individual of coming up through twenty thousand years’ evolutionary gradient, about the organizational energies in his body and brain becoming infolded and intensified. I can’t follow most of it. They talk about the realm where the material and the non-material meet—”
“Yes.”
“—and Matt probably understands what they’re saying as well as I do, now. He’s up and around most of the time. They allow him a good deal of freedom. He’s quite good about staying out of rooms he’s warned not to enter, not touching dangerous things, and so forth.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, and did I tell you they’ve suspended healing in his face? Until they’re sure he can make a fully informed decision on what he wants his new face to look like.”
“Yes, I heard something about that. Lisa, how long are you going on living in the hospital? Are you really set on this nursing thing?”
“Oh.” Her face fell slightly. “Sometimes I don’t think I was cut out to be a nurse, but I have no immediate plans to move. They still work a little on my memory every day, and it’s handy to live there.”
“Any success with the treatments?” Derron knew that the doctors now accepted that Lisa had been caught in the path of the berserker missile while it was still a probability-wave. For a while they had considered the possibility that she was an emissary or deserter from the world of the future, made amnesic by descent through time.
But on the sentry-screens no such reversed lifeline could be found. No device or message had ever come to the modern age from the future. Either the inhabitants of the unknowable time-to-come had good reason to refrain from communication, or the future Sirgol was un
inhabited by man. Or this presenttime of the berserker war might be completely blocked off by paradox loops. It was some comfort at least that no berserker machines came attacking from the direction of tomorrow.
“The treatments don’t help much.” Lisa said. The memory of her personal life before the missile was still almost completely bank. She went back to taking about what Matt had done today.
Not listening, Derron closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the sensation of life he had when he was with her. There was the touch of her hand in his, the feel of soil under his feet, the warmth of the pseudosunshine on his face. And at any instant it might all be gone—a missile-wave could come down through the miles of rock, or the unraveling of King Ay’s severed cord might propagate faster than expected up through the weave of history.
He opened his eyes and saw the muraled walls surrounding the buried park and the improbably alive and singing birds. The place was thronged, as usual, with strolling couples and solitaries; in places the tough grass showed signs of wear, and the gardeners had had to defend it with string fences. All in all, a poor imitation of the real world; but with Lisa it became for him a place of joy.
Derron pointed. “Right there’s the tree where I first came to your rescue. Or you came to mine, rather. “I rescued you? From what horrible fate?”
“From dying of loneliness in the midst of forty million people. Lisa, I’m trying to tell you I want you to move out of that hospital dormitory.”
“If I do, where will I live?”
“I’m asking you to live with me, of course. You’re not a little lost girl any more, you’re studying to be a nurse, you’re a functioning adult, and I can ask. There are some unused apartments around, and if I take a companion I’ll rate a fairly nice one. Especially with this promotion they’ve given me.”
Short Fiction Complete Page 39