by A. V. Clarke
Chapter Five
VICTOR drummed stubby fingers on his massive desk, staring from blue eyes at the papers Wray had given him. Lin and Wray stood before him in his musty room, waiting. Lin wondered just what action Victor would take about his having failed to obtain the books, in effect, having disobeyed an order.
Victor flicked through two or three pages again, verifying some point, then looked up thoughtfully at Lin.
“Lin. When you were with this girl, did she give you any idea of the place where she and these other high-levels proposed to go?”
Lin cleared his throat, tried to remember not only if Merryl had said anything definite, but whether he had admitted it to Victor at his first interview. His memory was blank on both points and he shook his head.
“No, she didn’t tell me,” he said at last.
“Umm. Well, there’s no harm in you knowing some of what is in these papers that Wray obtained.” He gave a congratulatory nod to Wray. “There does seem to be quite a well-planned if small organisation among some of the higher levels. This girl Merryl seems to be well placed in it.”
Brush, sitting cleaning his gun by the door, stirred and spat on the floor.
“Women! This isn’t their sort of work. I don’t see the sense in bothering with it if there’s women mixed up in it.”
“Because the type of woman you know is a drudge, very nearly as brainless as yourself,” said Victor, coldly, “is no reason to suppose that intelligence is a purely male attribute. This girl is a First or Second. That means she is intelligent. This is getting away from the point. Remember, Brush, I am leader here.”
Brush slammed a clip savagely into his automatic, but kept his eyes down. Victor went on speaking, his hairless head shining under the fluorescents.
“We have to determine whether this group is a practical one that will serve our purposes or whether it is merely a gathering of visionaries who might as well be occupied with the impractical ideas of the other Firsts.”
He rose to his feet, a short, thick-set figure, and leaned forward on the desk. The blue eyes glittered at Lin.
“You, Lin, have already met this girl, Merryl. From the look of you I think you like her. That doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you have her friendship—for what the friendship of a First is worth. There is an address in these papers. I want you to contact this woman, find out. her plans, see if she is willing to help us.”
Lin’s mouth was as dry as a dust bowl Outside.
“And if she isn’t?”
Victor looked at him grimly for a moment, then picked up the papers in one massive fist. He tapped them with his other hand, emphasising his words.
“Here they speak guardedly of establishing a colony outside the city-block. They do not state where, only that they expect it to be cold. That means the proposed site is nowhere near here; probably in the Far North, which I believe is extremely cold. Tell them that we shall see that the other Firsts discover this intended desertion, that the chance of setting up this refuge will be gone for ever. And if they refuse, then—” Victor’s voice rose, his face ' became flushed. “Tell them that when I have control here, which will be soon now, I'll lead an army to destroy them, as all the Firsts will have been destroyed!”
“Some of the Firsts may be all right,” protested Lin. “You don’t know—”
“Quiet!” Victor’s boom interrupted him. “We’ll see about that when the time comes. Be back here in half an hour and I’ll have servant’s dress ready for you. Wray will go as well. You’ll receive directions then. That’s all.”
He waved a hand, Brush opened the door and they went out. .
Lin stood for a moment, fists clenched, staring at the closed panels, seeing the grain of the wood run before his eyes. Wray touched him on the arm.
“Come on, Lin, have something to eat. Victor is the Chief, you know. He’s overbearing: but he’s organised us, and it’s no good arguing about it.’’
Lin shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. But I don’t like it. Let’s eat.”
The First Level corridors were spotlessly clean, whiter than any Lin had ever seen before, and full of a low whispering. It was a peculiarly soothing sound, and after tracing its source to the huge ventilators that circulated cool fresh air this depth below ground, Lin wondered if the Fifth Level would feel the same if quietness prevailed.
Up there one could always hear the tramp of feet, the distant roar of machines in the factory blocks, giant trucks growling ponderously down dimly lighted corridors.
Here, except for an occasional servant clad like himself in white jerkin and shorts, there was little traffic.
At long intervals there would be the soft rolling brush of tyres on the white stone floor and a silent electric brougham would drive past. But they were few. Inside, lost in contemplation, the fragile figures of Firsts were hurried about their business.
The First Level thinkers kept to their rooms as much as possible, it seemed, studying, eating and sleeping, studying, ever delving into the mysteries of life. Lin felt huge and clumsy beside their small, intent figures.
There had been a guard at the elevator who had glanced casually at their servant dress and had not bothered to stop or question them. It might have been laxness, but the feeling of uneasiness that had possessed him ever since he stepped from the elevator gave Lin the answer. The other Levels had been taught, ordered, semi-hypnotised into the belief that each must keep to his own Level, and Lin found that he had to make a conscious fight to conquer an inner compulsion to turn back.
Wray compared the figures on his scrap of paper, copied from those taken from the dead First, with the luminescent numerals on the door of an apartment set in an angle of the corridor.
“This is the right one, Lin. Let’s hope we get in as easily as we passed that guard.”
Looking round once, Lin knocked on the door, and waited. There was silence. Perhaps there was no one inside. Then it occurred to him that in their utter absorption with study the Firsts would require soundproof rooms and doors.
He looked around the door, found a niche in the wall, felt inside. He found nothing tangible, but his groping hand must have cut a photo-electric ray, there was a subdued click, and a pleasantly modulated voice sounded from a hidden speaker. An almost inaudible background hum showed it to be recorded.
“Good morrow. Who is it, please?”
“I have private business with—” what was her number?—“with one-Merryl-four.”
The speaker clicked again. A moment passed, then the door slid into a recess and Lin and Wray stepped across the threshold.
The room was carpeted even more luxuriously than the best Fifth pleasure room. Walls were a translucent plastic, glowing with pastel shades, rounding off into a ceiling that radiated soft, even light. The simple, functional furniture scattered pleasantly about had the same quality of smooth, unbroken line.
Lin felt a tenseness mount inside him. He had to see Merryl before anyone could challenge his right- to be here. If guards arrested a prowling Fifth in the sacred Levels of the Firsts—Lin grew cold at the thought.
The predominant colour of the room was a restful blue-green, shading to duck-egg blue ceiling. Against this soothing background, the man who stood straddle-legged, clad all in hospital white, impacted a note of force and disharmony that halted Lin in mid-stride. Wray, following closely behind, collided with Lin and the two stumbled forward awkwardly.
The man’s plump features and smoothly arrogant expression proclaimed him a First. His eyes widened in disbelief.
“A Fifth! What are you doing here?”
“I wish to see one-Merryl-four—”
Before Lin could finish, Gray gave a startled gasp and sprang to one side. Lin whirled, muscles tense. Through the still-open door, two guards stalked, their stun guns held in steady hands.
For a brief moment the tableau held. Then the First, his eyebrows a thick line of anger, spoke harshly.
“Guards! Seize these men!”
Lin was only partly conscious of feelings of despair. To have come so far, and at the last to be foiled like this. These arrogant Firsts and their lackey guards, thinking they and only they controlled the destiny of the human race—
With an inarticulate cry, Lin sprang forward, his fist crashing into the leading guard’s jaw. The man, unprepared foe resistance from docile Fifths, went over backwards, his stun gun flying into the air.
Wray launched himself in a tigerish leap that took the second guard’s knees from under him. A bolt from the gun splattered the ceiling. Then Wray had the man’s throat between two gripping hands and constricted straining muscles. Lin went after the stun gun, mercilessly knocking the First out of his way.
Two quick stabs of energy from the gun, and the guards lay limp. Lin pointed his weapon at the First, and, his voice trembling and thick with passion, said:
“All right. Now let’s get back to where we were. 1 want to see one-Merryl-four. This is her apartment?”
Some of the assurance had gone from the First’s face. He nodded his head dazedly. He tried to speak and Lin watched with satisfaction the sight of a First unable to cope with a situation.
“Lin!”
Tapestry hangings parted and Merryl came swiftly into the room. She went at once to the door, pressed a button, closed it with a rustling sigh.
“Lin, why are you here? I thought—”
“Merryl—I—”
Lin found it hard to speak. He realised with a grim irony that he was confronted with a situation with which he did not know how to cope. He thrust the stun gun into his belt and straightened his shoulders.
“Merryl, I must speak to you urgently, and privately.”
She disregarded the sprawled bodies of the guards. After one quick look, she walked to a chair and sat down. Lin sensed that things for her, too, were moving a trifle too fast.
“Lin, this is Syme, one of us. He knows all that has happened.” She nodded to the man in the white coat. “I want you to work together, that is, Lin, if you have come to join us?”
Wray gave a short laugh and began tying the two guards with strips torn from their uniforms. He was enjoying himself.
The First, Syme, sat unsteadily on a couch and pulled his lower lip, glaring at Lin. Merryl said quickly:
“This is Lin, Syme. The Fifth that Chayce and I found in the ruins Outside.” She rose, moved quickly across the room, looked down at him wonderingly. “Lin, how in Sissy’s name did you find me?”
Lin hesitated, glanced at Syme. Merryl smiled, and gestured him to proceed. “Please, Lin, Syme is one of out top scientists. He is the backbone of our group.”
Syme sat back with a half-stifled snort. Lin remembered fleetingly the good fellowship of Chayce, shrugged, and looked back to the slim loveliness of Merryl. Carefully, he told her how his captors had taken him to Victor, of his attempt to obtain his books from his old quarters, the fight in the pleasure rooms. The papers taken from the dead First.
Merryl turned away, eyes moist.
“That was a dear friend of ours. I shall never forgive myself for persuading him to come with me; but we never dreamed anything like that could happen, even if we were recognised.
“It was a mistake,” said Syme, brutally. “And all because of this—this—Lin.”
“Because of me?”
“I—I wanted to find you again.” Merryl looked at her feet. “There is something extraordinary about a Fifth with your knowledge. Sissy can't make a mistake, and yet your intelligence is obviously far in advance of your level.”
“It may be imagination,” interposed Syme. “His imagination,” he added hastily as Merryl straightened. “The Cybernetic Controller was constructed to strict scientific principles that must be correct, but the designers made no allowance for anything except pure logic. The human quality of imagination—but we can discuss that later.”
He looked sourly at Lin.
“You, I suppose, came here today to seek our help. Well, I don’t know that we can accept you entirely on Merryl and the late Scientist Chayce’s emotional enthusiasm, natural as it may be.”
Merryl flushed, but before she could answer, Lin rose lithely to his feet and looked down at Syme.
“I’m afraid that you allow natural emotion to overcome you,” he said, smoothly. He saw Syme’s face twist at this change of tone and all the resentment and anger that had been building up in Lin burst in a passion of tumbling words.
“I didn’t come crawling here to ask you to take me into your organisation. From what we can make out it’s just a group of idealists and misfits, who can’t even meet the realities of life in the soft, luxurious First Level.”
His voice rose, and he had to grip his fingers together to prevent their trembling.
“I came to present an offer to you from a revolutionary group that knows what it is doing. More. That will very soon wipe away you and other First Level parasites ck your type. We offer you your lives if you will co-operate fully with us.”
Now that he had finished, Lin wished that Merryl had not been present when he presented Victor’s ultimatum, but his pent up feelings had been too violent to stay. He felt relieved, purged. Syme had fallen back in his chair, now he levered himself up, his face working spasmodically, and his eyes shone with sheer hate for Lin.
“You dare! You miserable Fifth worm. I’ll—”
“Silence, Syme!” Merryl, face white, stepped forward and caught the scientist’s arm. “Lin has been subverted by some mongrel pack of renegades. We can put him right. Let him see that ours is the only way.”
Syme brushed a hand across his eyes, then he jerked his arm savagely free from Merryl’s grasp and strode across to Lin. They stood chest to chest and their eyes locked.
Lin had remained silent- during Syme’s outburst, now, before he could speak, Wray’s lazy voice floated across the room.
“All right, Syme. Don't start any trouble. These stun guns work very effectively, as you’ve just seen.”
Syme's jaw«s worked viciously, then he relaxed.
“I'll not forget you two, that I promise,” he said, vindictively. “At the moment there is nothing else I can do than to accede to Merryl’s request. Let m« know the terms of your offer.”
Lin knew that he had made a nasty enemy. But through him ran an exultant feeling that he, a common Fifth, had aroused emotions of any description in a First. Surely he must be different from his fellow men of the Fifth Level?
Wray was talking, telling Syme details of Victor’s demands, but Lin could not take it in. He turned, eyes shining, to Merryl, who was listening intently to Wray. Then he chilled. After this Merryl would not, could not. have any further interest in him. Admittedly she had stood up for him to Syme, but that had been only because of her scientific interest. Lin felt his enthusiasm cool.
She looked worried. No doubt the thought that Fifths, the lowest class, could be planning revolt seemed blasphemy.
“We might have some sympathy for them,” she exclaimed. “But they’re well clothed, well fed, looked after.
With their level of intelligence, what more do they want? Our work is vital to the future of the human race. We can’t leave it just to help a few fools exchange ordered Comfort for free misery.”
“I was one of the fools,” said Lin, coldly. “According to what Victor said your group intends to desert the comfort of the city-block for the misery of a bare settlement in the Arctic, which, by your standards—”
“You insolent scum!” Syme bristled with anger for a moment, his plump features shaking. Then he turned with a savage growl and flung himself into a chair.
Lin had stood calmly by, and now felt a surge of amazement run through him like an electric current. Only a few short days ago, and any demonstration of anger by a First would have sent him cowering to his knees.
Merryl moved forward quickly, her slim figure like a barrier between Syme and Lin.
“Please! Let us rationalise this thing out calmly. Stop
acting like children. Lin, you haven’t been told where we are intending to go, have you?”
“No. Victor said from the papers it appeared to be somewhere cold.”
“It is.” Merryl paused, biting her lower lip in sudden indecision.
“Merryl, you’re surely not going to tell him—” Syme looked up, a frown drawing down his massive brows.
“Yes. It’s better that he should have an idea of what we are attempting to do. We cannot allow anything to hinder us at this stage. Lin will help in temporizing with this Victor, because after he knows our objects, he will most certainly be with us.”
Lin couldn't quite follow all this. He seemed again to be on the brink of being caught up in events and orders which tossed him willy-nilly along paths of danger, quite without volition on his part.
“I don’t like it.” Syme was obviously worried, and, Lin knew, with greater things than a squabble with a Fifth. He felt suddenly small again.
“I think it best,” said Merryl. “And the others will agree.”
“How are you going to get him out?”
“The same way we go. Why not?”
“And have him tell the guards?” Syme laughed, sneeringly. Lin moved towards him, fighting himself and this sudden return of fear. Syme cut his laugh short and snarled: “All right. But I’ve warned you.”
Lin stopped and let out a breath. Whether it was the proximity of Merryl or just his movement, Syme had backed down.
“Come on,” Merryl said, briskly.
“Just a moment.” Unaccountably, Lin felt his mouth dry with a mounting excitement. “Where is your group planning on setting up your new home?”
“Mars,” said Merryl, simply.
Chapter Six
“Mars!" Lin echoed. “But that’s impossible!”
“There’s your typical Fifth reaction,” said Syme, contemptuously.
“Listen, Lin,” Merryl said, her piquant face serious. ‘‘We can get to Mars. If our group is left alone, left to work out plans already well advanced, the job can be done. We must leave any further discussion until I can show you definite proof—”