by A. V. Clarke
This door, this portal to the unknown. This was a thing great beyond any fighting. He almost fell from exhaustion, and sat back, his head against the door.
“Here it is!” A booming voice rang in Lin’s ear. He sat up to see Victor come striding arrogantly to the bronze door. Brush and a mob of gunmen surrounded him, weapons ready.
“Lin! You found it first, then? And stood guard?
That was well done. I’ll not forget it.” Victor spoke with an inflection, a tone of voice that Lin could not place. It still contained the old, confident, forceful Victor; but there was a new note, a disquieting hint of change, that Lin found impressed him with an air of unreality, as though Victor had outstripped puny mortals. Lin stood up wearily.
“Has the fighting finished, Victor?” he asked. His back ached, and his clothes stuck to his body, blood caked.
“Everywhere my triumphant armies have been victorious!”
Lin made no reply. He was too tired to try to evaluate the change in Victor. Brush and his henchmen were obviously even more in awe of Victor than before. To him. the man who had made all this revolution and retribution possible, they gave all their devotion.
Victor went on speaking, occasionally gesticulating as though addressing a crowd of thousands.
“My men are on guard at all key points. We have secured the service centres, lighting and heating control points, we stand watchful over Hydroponics. Only the last and most vital key to the city-block awaits our arrival. And we are here! Brush, where is that First scientist?”
“Here, Chief,” replied Brush. He prodded the shrinking, white-robed form of an aged First forward.
“Brush!” Victor purpled, his voice an outraged shriek. “Address me as Emperor, or Your Majesty!” Before Brush could answer, Victor turned on the First, seized him by the front of his robe, and shook him like a rat.
“You! Decadent specimen. Open this door!”
The First, his face working horribly, took from an inner pocket a small bronze casket.
“You do not understand what you are doing.” His voice was a high treble. “The CC must not be disturbed.”
Victor struck him casually across the face, sending the old man to his knees.
“Open the door, and let your betters decide what is right.”
Whimpering with fear, the First took from the casket an incredibly small radio set. He set the dials on its face, and switched it on. Smoothly, effortlessly, without a sound, the gigantic bronze circle rolled to one side. Beyond gaped blackness.
Lin knew without being told that the radio set had operated relays in the wall rolling the door aside. That much was easy to guess. What was not so easy was the fact that he also knew that the radio lock changed its combination every twenty-four hours, automatically, and the radio set had to be changed manually to compensate. How he knew this Lin did not know. It was just there, in his mind, facts gained by merely studying the door and the radio set.
Then those thoughts of wonder were swamped by an overmastering and incredible elation that possessed him.
Since childhood the dream that one day he, Lin, a common Fifth, might see and reverence the Cybernetic Controller, had danced ever before him, impossible of attainment.
Now that day had come.
Beyond the portal, mysterious and chilling, lay the Cybernetic Controller. Slowly the darkness vanished as lights sprang into life, massing the ceiling, sending down a growing tide of brilliance that washed over the fantastic manmade machine lying living below.
Lin was conscious of a wide pathway before him, meticulously tiled in green and white squares. It stretched away, growing narrower with perspective, until it vanished under the lights. Crossing it were similar pathways, and between the avenues were hunched dull metallic boxes. These boxes were split into sections, and each section was equipped with a transparent window.
He walked, awed and silent at the sheer immensity of the thing, to a panel and looked within. The window was a good yard across; behind it were minute valves, serried in multiple rows, some gleaming with orange fire, others dead and dark. There was not a sound in all the vastness except the soft pad of feet on tile.
This mighty machine was as near a living creation, a separate entity, as any handful of grey cells in a man’s cranium. The idea that he could stand here, in these hallowed avenues, and feel the aura of power and majesty flow over him, intoxicated Lin. He had never remotely conceived that he might one day stand here; it had smacked of blasphemy. He felt like falling to his knees under a compulsion stronger than any artificial levelling decrees.
Then Lin spun on his heel and raced dementedly from the chamber of the Cybernetic Controller.
He brushed roughly through the group around Victor, dashed up stairs and alleyways; sobbing with exertion he flew down a long, deserted corridor.
Hair flying, eyes wild, Lin crashed through a narrow opening, sending up clouds of dust, unheeding the bodies of slain guardsmen. Frantically he peered through the gloom.
“Merryl! Merryl! ”
Silence.
“Merryl!” His voice almost broke with hysteria.
She was not there. The vault lay empty but for dead bodies. There was not a sign to show where she had gone, whether willingly or dragged off as a despised First.
Lin leaned hopelessly against the wall.
“Merryl,” he groaned and his eyes were wide and unseeing.
During the days that followed, Lin had little time in which to worry over Merryl. He found that Victor had singled him out for much of the reconstruction work that had to be put in hand immediately if the city-block was not to be suffocated, starved or flooded. Lin had not been able to find a trace of Merryl among the groups of Victor’s fighting-drunk gunmen, and hoped against hope that she had been able to return safely to the rocket site.
He had been at great pains to avoid telling Victor of the existence of the rocket, merely informing him that a group of scientists were working along their own lines for the freedom of the city.
Now, in the incessant work that called for every last ounce of his energy, he found a relief from worry. The core of the matter lay in the CC; control and supervision of the wonderful machine gave complete command of the city. Any threat to Victor’s authority could be immediately countered by cutting off air, water, food. Lin found his faculty for instantaneous knowledge of wiring circuits and mechanics of intricate installations taxed to the uttermost.
The CC was a city unto itself. Even Lin could not hope to unravel the miles of complicated circuits in the short time at his disposal. He was eagerly anticipating finding the fault he was convinced existed, and proving himself to be, not an unintelligent Fifth, but, he hoped, secretly, at least a Second. Then Victor sprang his bombshell. He alone was to be the arbitrator of the city-block. He alone would decide the placing of children in classes.
This affected Lin so much that one “evening” he climbed moodily from the CC chamber, weary and head aching from tracing circuit after circuit, and blew up. Luckily, for he felt in a dangerous mood, he did not meet Victor.
Lin made his way to the portcullised door, opened it. traversed the railed pathway high among the trees of the overgrown Hydroponics section, his heat rifle ready, took the elevators to the ruined cinema.
It was only as his helicopter flashed down over the secret rocket site that he cursed himself for not having done this before.
As the vanes stopped whirling he was surrounded by scientists, crowding in, enquiring faces turned to the stranger climbing from the cabin.
Then they dispersed, scattering to various bunkers and strongpoints. Lin smiled wanly. Surely they did not fear a member of Victor’s victorious army to that extent?
Then Merryl stepped forward, standing with hands at her sides, looking at him with a half smile, her black hair blowing in the breeze.
“Lin! I knew you’d come. I’ve waited—”
“Merryl!” Lin could not say more.
“Come quickly, we’re making a f
inal test of the rocket. Get under cover in a bunker. I found out that Syme deliberately gave a false time to the delegates. He may have been responsible for the police attack. I don’t know. Quick, in here.”
They ran down concrete steps and stood shoulder to shoulder, looking into a television screen showing the slender, defiant shape of the rocket, poised as if to hurl itself at the stars. Flames shot soundlessly from the stern. The rocket shifted fractionally, then, impossibly, it was toppling.
So slowly to the eye, yet with devastating speed, it swept over sideways, flames pouring in mounting volume from venturi tubes. Ponderously, majestically, the rocket smashed downwards, crushing buildings and hangars into flaming ruin.
Chapter Nine
“No! Oh, No! It can’t be true!” Merryl sobbed, digging her nails agonisedly into her palms.
Scientists were running in confusion, pouring out of bunkers, streaming from buildings, making in a confused mass foe the outskirts of the devastated area, to stand helplessly as flames licked higher.
Lin shouted a brief warning to Merryl, then sprang out of the concrete bunker, sprinted across the cleared space towards the chaos of the fallen rocket. Heat blasted at him, the sun was dimmed by rolling clouds of smoke coiling high into the air. He made for the fire-control point, remembering its situation from his inspection tour.
The fire-control point lay buried under tons of rubble smashed from ruined hangars. Scientists milled without order, not knowing what to do before their age-old enemy, fire. Taking in the situation at a glance, Lin realised the only hope was to beat in the bounds of the fire and prevent its spreading The insulation of the rocket should prevent damage resulting purely from fire; the rocket, from what he could see from smarting eyes, was still in one piece. Luckily, almost miraculously, it had not broken up in its fall.
Working madly, urging dazed scientists to greater efforts, Lin rapidly organised fire parties, ran emergency lines and pumps as near in to the inferno as men could fight. Thin streams of silvery water fell hissing on red and blue flames. Charring and burning filled the air, smoke rolled heavily across the site.
“Save as much equipment as you can,” shouted Lin, eyes red rimmed, clothes blackened. He pushed forward at the head of a band of technicians, spraying water from hoses, making for a group of fuel tanks dangerously near the edge of the flaming inferno.
Another mob of scientists appeared through the smoke, running with fearful glances at the overheated fuel tanks. Lin recognised Syme at their head and shouted above the din.
“Syme! Get your men to help shift these tanks. If they go up they’ll spray the whole area with burning fuel; they’ll probably destroy what little chances we have left of salvaging the rocket.”
Syme did not answer. He ran straight past Lin, his plump face ghastly in the lurid glow, his mouth sagging open.
Lin had no time foe thought on Syme’s conduct. He threw himself on the fuel tanks, wrapping his hands in strips of cloth, rolled the drums away from the fire, struggling on and on until his lungs seemed filled with liquid agony. His small band followed his lead, pushing and trundling the drums as fast as they could.
As soon as they had reached an area safe from possible conflagration, Lin let his drum roll free and started off, back again into the inferno. A thoughtful technician sprayed him with water and the cool drops on cracked lips gave Lin fresh strength. Three times he made the journey, emerging from smoke and flames like some genie coiling from a forgotten hell.
Just as he was about to make the fourth trip to retrieve the last few fuel tanks they exploded with stunning violence. Gouts of burning fuel flamed upwards in a crescendo of brilliance, smashing down in a destroying wave on hangars and men alike. Lin barely had chance to dive headlong into a bunker, grass flashed briefly into nothingness, concrete cracked across. He saw with a sickened glance men disintegrate into shapeless masses.
Slowly he picked himself up, climbed the steps of the bunker; stood for a moment looking at the ruin spread all around. The only glimmer of hope was that the rocket was still entire. He hoped fervently that its tough protection had proved adequate to withstand the shocks it had gone through. Flames died down, and out of a last wisp of smoke Merry! walked with head bent.
Quite unconscious of his action, Lin put his arms round her and she sobbed hopelessly, black hair filled with charred particles, eyes red. Lin was at a loss what to say.
“Well, that just about finishes us.” Syme’s voice came to Lin and roused sudden bleak desires to rend and kill.
Merryl straightened sharply, her eyes flashed.
“We’re not finished yet, Syme. The rocket is still there. We can replace most of the handling equipment lost. It all depends on the interior state of the rocket. Don’t give in before you know the full story. It’s just the futility of the whole thing.”
“What caused the accident?” enquired Lin, gently.
“We’ll never know. It could have been any one of a hundred mishaps.”
A technician, arm roughly bound up in a sling, hurried across to them.
“There’s a message on the radio for Lin,” he gasped. “I don’t know who the caller is. He came in with loads of power, demanding to know if Lin was here.”
The group moved quickly across to the radio shack, where various sets maintained contact with the scattered members of the scientists’ organisation. Lin adjusted the controls to his liking, then waited for the caller to repeat.
“No sense in answering,” he said, grimly. “It might be Victor trying to get a lead on this place.”
The hum of the carrier came clearly, then a voice that Lin immediately recognised.
“Is Lin there, please? Answer, please. Can you hear me, anybody?”
“Yes, I can hear you, Wray,” Lin said, thankfully. “What’s the trouble?”
“Victor is raging mad. He’s been looking for you all over the city-block. I had a strong idea you’d be at the —at where you are. You’d better get back as fast as you can.”
“Coming right away. Stall him for me, if you can.”
Victor was raging mad. He strode rapidly up and down the luxurious apartments on the First Level, which he had appropriated for his own use. Clad in a long robe of deep purple, a pistol buckled incongruously around his waist, he gave Lin the firm seated conviction that his mind had over-reached itself.' The predominant thought in Victor’s brain was power. He had apportioned supreme authority to himself, and acted as though he were Emperor; by Divine Right.
“Lin,” Victor’s bald head jutted aggressively, “I need more living space. My Empire must expand. This city-block is far too small for the inhabitants. Some fault of the CC has allowed too many children to be born recently, and the fine balance between population and food supply and living space has broken down.”
“There are plenty of disused apartments,” ventured Lin.
“Filthy rabbit warrens!” shouted Victor, passionately. “I need new city-blocks. There is another city south of here. I intend to conquer and subdue it; make it the first of my outside conquests. My Empire must grow.”
“But—” Lin was cut off abruptly.
“Don’t argue with me! Listen. Just outside the city-limits is an ancient guided-missile site. The rockets are still there! With your skill they can soon be restored to efficiency. We will use them to reduce any city-block that dares resist. We will be invincible!”
Lin could only stand silently and wonder. This man was totally unlike the Victor he had first met. He had changed with the taste of real power. Lin had hated leaving Merryl and the scientists with their smashed-up spaceship site. Now he began to wonder whether his place after all was with them, and not with this paranoical dictator.
“There are certain things not quite right with the Cybernetic Controller,” said Lin, levelly. “It is necessary that I straighten out the machine before we have a total stoppage of vital supplies. You have abrogated the right to choose what level a child shall enter. That may be so. However. you must a
llow the CC to continue to run the city-block.”
He stopped, waiting for the expected outburst.
It did not come.
Victor, although obsessed by delusions of grandeur—and, Lin was forced to admit, his grandeur was very real —was far too clever, to imagine he could maintain and control the multifarious activities of everyday life in the city-block.
“You have my permission to continue work on the CC,” Victor said, pompously. “However, as soon as I require the missiles, you will at once commence work on them. Now get out.”
Lin got out, letting out a silent breath of relief that Victor had swallowed the bait. Now it remained to see just what could be accomplished with the CC.
The Cybernetic Controller stretched away in neatly segmented compartments, trim and dust free under the flood of light. Self repairing and self correcting, the Cybernetic Controller had not felt the prying touch of man for untold years. Its relays clicked almost angrily, lights flashed on and off in bewildering succession as Lin painstakingly traced the path of operation of those circuits he felt held the key to his personal fate.
The machine was errorless. That was a credo held inviolable since the first inception of Cybernetic Control. Now, in the past few months, men had dared to challenge that concept. Occurrences throughout the city-block had forced men to ask themselves the awkward question, to face the unsettling thought that perhaps the Cybernetic Controller was subject to mishap. Or, almost as disturbing, that the machine had been tampered with.
Lin looked up and knuckled his eyes as Wray came rapidly across the green and white tiles.
“Here, Lin,” Wray said, almost angrily, “you haven’t eaten a thing since yesterday, and I’m not at all sure you’ve slept.”
He thrust forward a plate and set it under Lin’s nose. “Eat this whilst I stand over you. Otherwise you’ll find yourself in the hospital and I shan’t come to see you; it’ll be your own fault.”
Obediently Lin began to eat, without interest, then, as he realised just how hungry he was, the food vanished rapidly. He drank a long glass of wine, product of the hydroponic garden's choicest grapes, hitherto reserved for those of the First Level, and sat back with a sigh.