by A. V. Clarke
“Thanks, Wray. That's better.” Lin stifled a yawn and looked sombrely out over the immense living machine sprawled under the lights, seeming almost to leer at him in mocking defiance, challenging him to interfere with sacred rights.
“I’ve checked all the relevant circuits,” went on Lin, hesitantly. “Those that concern the Dawes-Richardson procedure, selecting the appropriate level for a child to enter, are all in perfect order. Anyone tested now will be graded correctly.”
Wray looked carefully at Lin.
“You suggest we test ourselves?” he asked, in a small voice.
“I do.”
“If the answers are the same—”
“How can they be?” Lin demanded, vehemently. “You and I both know we are better than Fourth and Fifth respectively. We are capable of greater things than many of the Firsts we have met. The machine must have erred in our grading.”
“All right, Lin. I’m ready.”
Without further words, Lin connected up the electrodes, clamping them firmly to Wray’s temples, building up the power, ultimately cutting in the automatic switching mechanism that would trip the operation of the CC Dawes-Richardson circuits.
Grimly he waited. Nothing showed on Wray’s face. He might have been sitting idly reading a microspool novel.
There was an equal lack of activity in the CC. In precisely ten seconds, a green light flashed over the teleprinter attachment, an archaic hangover from pre-automatic days that Lin had brought back into operation. The carriage gave one jerk, a single key sprang upwards, striking yellow paper with a sharp click.
“Four,” said Lin, tonelessly.
Listlessly he removed the electrodes from Wray’s temples, clamped them around his head, the metal cool against his feverish skin. He had worked many long hours, how many days together he did not know, only to find this final, convincing proof. He himself had checked the machine, and it was right. It was working correctly, and it had graded him Fifth.
He knew that was the answer, even before Wray read oil the teleprinter numeral, his voice shaking with emotion.
“Five.”
“Fifth! Fifth! Fifth!” Lin cried out, the figures branding themselves into his mind.
The one thread of hope he had clung to stubbornly for as long as he could remember had been snapped ruthlessly in these last few moments. He was a Fifth. He would always remain a Fifth. Blindly Lin turned away from the controls, stumbled to a rough pallet laid on the tiles, flung himself down. His tired body took over command of his brain, the past days of frantic work took their toll and Lin dropped into sleep unable to think of further problems.
When he awoke, feeling tired, a furry taste in his mouth, Lin saw Wray standing over him, black against the lights. Lin blinked his eyes and rolled over on his side. Then he saw a red beard and heard Brush’s grating voice.
“Lin! Victor wants you at once. Get up!”
Lin sat up with a groan. His head began to throb and the ever-present radiance hurt his eyes.
“What does he want now?”
“It’s not for you to question what the Chief—that is the Emperor—needs you for. You’d better get a move on. He’s waiting.”
Reluctantly Lin stood up, stretching. He felt so low that he had half a mind to tell Brush to go back without him. Then he realised that that sort of childish behaviour only created more trouble, and walked slowly after Brush, already marching briskly down the green and white floor.
Lin ran his mind back over the various circuits of the Dawes-Richardson tests, hope waning as he could find no possible flaw that would account for error in the CC. He was not fully aware that they had reached Victor’s apartments. He stood, head bent, running once again over the the core the CC existence.
“Wake up, man!” Victor's booming voice jerked Lin into consciousness of his surroundings.
“You wanted me?” he enquired.
“Yes.” Victor bristled for a moment at Lin’s tone, then went on, his voice a threatening edge of sound.
“I need the guided missiles at once. A reply from the other city-block contemptuously rejects my offer; they do not think I am able to subdue them. We attack as soon as the rockets are ready. You will begin work at once.”
Lin looked up with lack-lustre eyes. He put one hand to his back and straightened, feeling his muscles pull with fatigue. He had just about had enough of this paranoic.
“I regret that I shall be unable to help with the guided missiles. There is far too much to do with the CC, that is, if you wish to maintain this city-block in working order. Various supply—”
Victor’s roar cut him off.
“You dare refuse! You miserable worm! Don't you realise that I can have you shot out of hand?”
“If you do that, who will get the CC into working order?” asked Lin, wearily.
“I don’t believe the CC is damaged,” said Victor, cunningly, a light in his blue eyes. “We are existing quite satisfactorily now.”
Lin chilled. His only hope of life was to convince Victor that the CC needed Lin’s control. Otherwise, Victor would kill him without the slightest compunction.
Victor’s tone changed. Almost casually, too casually, he asked: “As you are tied to the CC at the moment, Lin, do you know of any other scientists who would be capable of working on the guided missile site?”
“You killed most of them off during the revolution,” replied Lin, bitterly. “Apart from those you now—”
“What about this group your woman Merryl has?” shouted Victor. “Just because I’ve been far too busy since the glorious revolution to hound them down doesn’t mean
I have forgotten them. They will work on the rockets.” “I've no idea what has happened to them,” lied Lin. “You say that you have not kept contact with them?” “How could I?” asked Lin. “Wherever they are hiding they keep well out of the way. I’ve been down in the CC continuously since the revolution.”
Victor strode away up the luxurious carpet, hands clasped behind his back, turned and marched back. He stopped before Lin, and thrust his heavy face forward.
“Let us get this straight,” he growled. “You say you must work on the Cybernetic Controller, otherwise we in the city-block will suffocate, starve or have any of a dozen catastrophes occur. You cannot work on the guided missiles because of that. Is that it?”
“Also I don’t think you have any right whatsoever to bomb other city-blocks!” Lin glared back, defiantly.
“Ah!” breathed Victor. He smiled horribly and went on.
“You have condemned yourself. I don’t need your miserable brains in my Empire. I have uncovered a first-class scientist who is only too willing to help.”
Brush, obeying Victor’s gesture, opened a draped door-day and beckoned.
The room swam before Lin’s eyes, he was uneasily conscious of the fact that he seemed to be herded into a corner. Victor had obviously become insane, at least where his own vanity was concerned. Lin life’s was not worth an empty food capsule, and he felt far too tired to care.
He looked at the door as a man, smiling, walked through. Then the full horror of the situation hit Lin, and shocked him into the knowledge that this was the end.
“Syme!”
Chapter Ten
THE floor of the cell was hard. Lin picked himself up as the metal doors clanged together and the sneering voices of Victor’s gunmen were cut off in the crash. He rubbed his bruises and wondered why Victor had not killed him there and then, instead of having him thrown into the prison block.
He looked around despondently. Concrete walls, concrete ceiling and floor, metal doors, a bunk, an overhead light and a ventilation fan. Not one chance in a million of fighting his way out. Lin slumped on the bunk and put his head in his hands.
Syme had gone over to Victor. That fact destroyed any hopes Lin might have had that he could work with either group, getting the best from both. He had just about reached the end of his patience with Victor. The power-mad dictator sickened him. The las
t demand that he prepare rockets to destroy other city-blocks had convinced him that he must throw in his lot with Merryl.
Now he was imprisoned in a cell that defied any hopes of escape. Lin groaned. Then, because his tired body refused to be abused any longer, he slept soundly.
He was aroused by a truculent guard bringing food. He ate, then slept again. He tried to sound the guard as to Victor’s intentions on the second occasion, but the guard remained obstinately silent. After eating, Lin felt refreshed, and explored the cell with more attention, but it only confirmed the impossibility of breaking out.
He came to the metal doors and was about to pass them up as being far too strong even to think of forcing, when his uncanny insight for circuits flamed into life.
He found that he could trace every circuit of the electric locking mechanism. The secret of the door lock lay bare before him!
With an unbelieving gasp, Lin saw, through the thick metal, the vital tumbler that released the lock.
The metal seemed to fade. It was still there to vision, an opaque mist that failed to conceal the inner wiring. Lin recalled his immediate understanding of the helicopter, of the complicated circuits of the Cybernetic Controller. This door was inches thick. He was conscious of the slightest of mental strains as he peered into the maze of wires, a feeling he had not experienced when looking at, and into, the helicopter and CC.
“By Sissy!” breathed Lin, afraid. This branded him as being no normal man. He threw himself wildly on his bunk, head roaring. Quite obviously, no normal man could actually see circuits as he could, otherwise anyone could have escaped from the cells of the prison block!
He stilled his trembling hands, rose and ran exploratory fingers over the metal. Although he could see, sense rather, the tumbler within the metal, he had no means of moving it.
Lin looked steadily at the switch, his mind a chaos of whirling thoughts, wondering, hoping, fearing.
He dismissed the idea that he was insane. The vision was too steady, too real, for that. He had always known that he was different from his fellow Fifths, had hoped against hope that he might in some incredible fashion be an incorrectly graded Second.
Now he knew without the shadow of a doubt that he was no ordinary Second, or First, for that matter.
He was a pariah!
Then all his will power surged out in a stupendous burst of anger. He was still looking at the locking tumbler, buried deep within the metal of the door, and his mad tempest of rage concentrated round it, all his frustration and desire flamed into one overpowering demand.
The tumbler moved!
The switch clicked open and Lin, hardly daring to breathe, pushed the door. It swung open silently.
He stepped out into the corridor, feet silent on white concrete, feeling like some madman in a madhouse.
The realisation of what he had done did not fully penetrate his conscious mind. He was too concerned with the desperate need for haste, the imperative necessity of escaping at once from the prison block. He began to walk down the corridor. He lengthened his stride, then he was running frantically, breath sobbing in his throat.
No time for thought. This uncanny power that, had thrust itself upon him must wait for further discovery and experiment. Get out, away, anywhere.
He ran straight into a party of guards.
They had been marching up a cross corridor, talking among themselves and Lin burst among them like a bombshell. He canoned into the front rank, sending them sprawling. The second pair made ineffectual grabs at him and Lin lashed out with bunched fists, feeling a solid crunch run up his arms from his knuckles.
Then he was through, dodging and twisting to avoid the expected stun-gun bolts. He dashed frantically into j cross corridor, saw with a gasp of relief a bank of elevators before him. Flinging himself into the first vacant cage, Lin punched buttons, sent the grille clanging to, and vanished downwards as orange bolts of energy flamed above his head.
He leant a moment against the side of the cage, sweat pouring from him, panting heavily. Now they knew he had escaped. The whole warren would be in chase, and they’d shoot first to kill, without compunction. He wiped his eyes and sprang from the cage as it slid to a standstill.
He did not recognise this section of the city-block, only that he was somewhere on the First- Level. Lin determined to use Brush’s procedure, and return again up another elevator, coming out on the Fifth Level and trying then to make for an exit. He whirled to the far end of the elevator bank, then dodged hopelessly into the shadows of a corridor mouth.
Two elevators disgorged a shouting mob of Victor's gunmen. They fanned out, running in little groups into tunnel mouths, their feet sending harsh echoes bouncing from wall and roof.
Lin cowered in his concealing shadow, pressing himself tight against the wall, sheltering under an arch as a squad of gunmen pounded past. They disappeared round the far comer and Lin tiptoed after them, ready on the instant to fling himself down. He had no idea where this tunnel led, but as he proceeded the lighting tubes became less and less frequent. Water began to swish under his feet and the air grew humid, filled with strange odours.
Before him an open door invited, swinging idle on oiled hinges. He could not go back, and there was no other way than to press on forward. Taking a breath, Lin squeezed through the opening, searching what lay beyond for guards.
He saw none, then realised where he was.
Stretching out under lighting globes hanging regularly from the ceiling, row after row of immense tanks filled the entire floor space of a mighty chamber. Plants, their colouring a brighter green than nature’s, towered upwards, leaves and fruit rioting in a profusion of growth that dwarfed tiny roots, sucking at man-provided nourishment.
“The Hydroponic Gardens!” breathed Lin.
Immediately he darted into the concealing foliage between rows of metal tanks, thankfully losing himself from the pursuing guards. They might search for days and never come near him here.
Then the desperate nature of his predicament almost overwhelmed him. It was one thing to feel relatively safe here, quite another to find real security from recapture. He could not afford to skulk here, whilst the madmen above set about destroying city-blocks in the delusions of paranoia.
Lin pulled a luscious fruit from a laden branch and quenched his burning thirst. He had to contact Merryl, let her know how things stood in the city-block, tell her of Syme’s treachery, and, with her party’s aid, make a bold attempt to foil Victor’s plans. But he was weaponless, hunted, a marked man, with all the force of the city-block turned against him.
He squared his shoulders, determinedly. He finished his coreless fruit, selected another. Then he began to run through the avenues of plants, between long rows of tanks, towards where he hoped the overgrown section of the Hydroponics section lay. He just had to get through to Merryl.
After what seemed an age the vegetation changed from neat cultivation, becoming wilder and more overgrown. The tanks disappeared in masses of foliage. And then, with a sob of relief, Lin saw the tree hacked with footholds. He clambered up and ran staggeringly along the trellised walk high above the floor.
He slammed the elevator grilles savagely, almost seeming to force them upwards by sheer force. He burst out of the airlock, surprised that it was just dusk on the surface, and raced into the gloom of the ancient wrecked cinema.
A cry of despair was wrenched from him and he pulled up short amongst the litter of rubble.
The helicopter was gone!
Lin crept stealthily along the deserted First Level corridor. Just ahead the apartment that had been shared by Wray and himself for the few days Lin had not been working on the CC seemed to beckon. Lin was exhausted, he had struggled back through the Hydroponics section, coming up through devious byways, avoiding any sound, darting to cover at the first sigh of guards.
He pressed his palm against the thermionic control and as the door swung smoothly open almost fell into the apartment.
“Wray!” he
called, softly.
No answer. A rapid search showed the apartment to be empty, and Lin had to make up his mind again as to his next course of action. He was becoming tired of this continual hide and Seek existence, although it had all been crammed into a remarkably short time. He drank avidly from a beaker, then remained poised, the wine dripping unnoticed to the floor.
The door was opening. Pantherishly, Lin slid into the inner room, put his eye to the crack, saw Wray and two of Victor’s gunmen walk in.
“So you’d better not get any ideas like your pal Lin,” the leading guard spoke brutally. “Just remember that Victor’s patience is strained by ungrateful dogs like that.”
“He’s a great man,” Wray infused his voice with warmth.
“Sure he is. If this traitor Lin tries to get into touch with you. let us know fast. We know how to deal with rats like that.”
The guard lifted his gun in its holster, and dropped it back with a menacing pat.
“Now stay here until Victor sends for you.”
“Right,” Wray said. “If Lin tries to contact me I’ll let you know immediately.”
The two gunmen strutted arrogantly out. Lin felt a chill of despair. His last chance, Wray, on whom he had counted, to whom he had turned when all hope seemed lost, had gone over to the enemy. Well, Lin bunched his muscles, he might be slender and tired, but he’d give Wray a good fight before he went under.
Wray turned casually back into the room, and Lin tensed.
“Lin,” Wray spoke easily, “you can come out now. The bully boys have gone.”
Hate seething in him, Lin stepped softly round the door.
“All right, Wray,” he said, levelly. “I heard you. Why don’t you run and call them back?”
“Huh?” Wray was surprised, then his pale eyes lit and he laughed uproariously, slapping his thigh.
“So I’m as good an actor as that, am I?” he chuckled. “You big fool, Lin. Do you think I’d desert you now?”