by E. C. Tubb
"Leave me," said Vargas. "It is nothing. A bad dream."
"As you wish, sire." The gun, thank God, was lowered. "Is there anything you desire?"
A new body, a new mind, a ton of courage and a total lack of imagination. At times Vargas wished he had never been born.
Aloud he said, "No. Nothing."
He rose as the door closed behind the guard, fumbling for euphorics, sitting on the edge of the bed as he waited for the drugs to take effect. A grown man, he thought bitterly. A master scientist. A person respected and deferred to every moment of his waking day. And at night he was a slave to terrifying dreams.
The workings of the subconscious, he mused. Buried fears rising to the surface in terms of symbolism or, perhaps, they were warnings disguised in unfamiliar frames of reference. The web in which he had been trapped, for example. That could be his position, the responsibility of office, or, again, it could be the strands of intrigue woven by others to insure his downfall. The monstrosity which had crawled toward him; that undoubtedly was a symbol of the envy and jealousy with which he was surrounded. The things which had stung and bitten; they must represent those members of the council with whom he seemed to be continually at war. Brekla, Krell, Gist, Sterke, the list was too long.
And his fear was too great.
The fear of assassination, of injury, of death. Coldly, a part of his mind reduced the fears to normal proportions. They were a normal part of the heritage of every person ever born and only when they became obsessive did they edge over the norm. Paranoia, he thought. A persecution complex combined with delusions of grandeur. The rule of thumb diagnosis given by every low grade psychoanalyst fresh from college.
And yet he was the Technarch. Could such facile judgments be applied to him?
No, he decided as the euphorics took effect. They could not. For he was persecuted, and with logical reason. A man could not expand the boundaries of his society without creating enemies. And, if to be ambitious was to hold delusions of grandeur, then that also was true.
Revived, he rose and stepped into the shower. The sting of scented water lent a transient vitality to aging flesh, bolstering the action of the drugs coursing through his blood. Dispassionately, he stared at himself in a mirror. Beneath a cap of white hair his deep-set eyes glared from under bushed eyebrows. His hooked nose hung like a beak over a savage mouth and a thrusting jaw. The face of a fighter, he thought, even though cragged and gouged with time. Too much time. His eyes dropped to his body and quickly moved away. He was a fool to wait so long, and yet always there was the fear. A mistake, a single error deliberate or unconscious and he would be dead.
But how much longer could he continue as he was?
The thought was a spur, driving him to dress, to leave his chamber, to stride through passages his guard a watchful shadow at his rear. Doors yielded before him, the last resisting for a moment before swinging wide. Within a tall, emaciated figure rose like a bright flame.
"My lord?"
"Do I disturb you, cyber?"
"No, my lord." Cyber Ruen stood motionless as Vargas slammed the door on his guard. His shaven head roared skull-like above the thrown back cowl of his scarlet robe. His hands were buried within the wide sleeves and, on his breast, the great seal of the Cyclan shone with reflected light. "You are troubled, my lord?"
"I had a dream," said Vargas. "A bad one." Did cybers ever dream, he wondered. They were strangers to emotion, that he knew, training and an operation on the thalamus at puberty had robbed them of the capacity to feel. They were living robots of flesh and blood their only possible pleasure that of mental achievement. Almost he envied the cyber; it must be wonderful not to know fear and hatred, terror and despair. Yet was the price too high? The loss of pain gained only at the loss of the capacity to love, to lust, to experience the joys of food and wine. The joys, perhaps, of a new and virile body.
Casually he glanced around the chamber. It was sparsely furnished and contained a mass of electronic equipment. A computer stood on the desk connected, he guessed, to the main information banks. Ruen must have been busying himself in some abstruse study.
"I was just correlating various items of data, my lord," he said as Vargas asked the question. "Mostly from Loame."
"The garden planet," said Vargas. The euphorics had made him a little lightheaded, swinging his depression a trifle too far so that, for amusement, he demanded, "I am considering altering the plan of attack. Your prediction as to what would happen if I should destroy the thorge?"
"The economic swing would be reversed. With fresh lands to cultivate the growers would maintain their power. With previous experience to draw on they would increase their exports and use the income to develop biological weapons against Technos. The probability of that, my lord, is eighty-five percent."
"High," mused Vargas. "And if I continue as planned?"
"The growth will spread until the planet is on the edge of starvation. Long before that the economic structure will disintegrate with the workers rebelling against the growers and their hold on the land. Within five years there will be a civil war, naturally on a minor scale. Within ten the planet will be overrun by the thorge and the growers bankrupt. The accuracy of that prediction, my lord, is ninety-nine percent. Practically certain."
"But not total certainty," said Vargas shrewdly. "With your ability to extrapolate from known data and predict the logical sequence of events from any course of action why can't you be more positive?"
"Because, my lord, there is always an unknown factor," explained Ruen. "Total certainty cannot exist in the universe."
Vargas was sharp. "Not even for death?"
"No, my lord. Not even for that."
The cyber spoke in an even modulation, a tone carefully trained to be devoid of all irritant factors, yet even so the Technarch thought he heard a note of utter conviction. It could be nothing, of course, merely the conviction of a scientist stating an unanswerable fact, but it could be more than that. The Cyclan was a strong and powerful organization which operated, if rumor was true, vast and secret laboratories. Could they have discovered the secret of immortality?
Carefully he said, "Tell me, cyber, if death is not certain then how can a man avoid it?"
"There is only one way, my lord. By continuing to live."
Vargas flushed with anger.
Quickly Ruen continued, "I do not mock, my lord. There is no other secret to immortality. In fact, by the nature of the universe, there can be no such thing. Nothing can last forever, certainly nothing as fragile as flesh and blood, but to extend life is not impossible. Your own physicians can do that."
"You contradict yourself, cyber." The drugs in Vargas's blood had mastered his rage. "First you say that nothing is certain including death and then you say that death is inevitable. Is this a sample of your trained logic? For half the price I pay to your clan I could buy machines to do better."
"If you wish to terminate your agreement with the Cyclan that can be arranged," said Ruen evenly. "We serve none against their will."
A threat? Vargas knew better. The Cyclan did not threaten, they did not take sides, they were not corrupt. But if he dismissed the man he would be free to take service with others. It would be foolish to provide his enemies with such a weapon. And he had so many enemies.
"If I so decide you will be informed," he said curtly. "In the meantime, cyber, remember that your loyalty lies to me alone. Not to the state, but to me."
* * *
Ruen bowed. "It is understood, my lord."
Alone the cyber reseated himself and assimilated the latest data. The Technarch was reaching a critical stage and already beginning to act illogically. The knowledge he had acquired when younger, the coldly appraising scientific approach, was dissolving beneath the mounting aberrations of his psychosis. Soon he would be completely irrational and then it would only be a matter of time before he was ousted from his position. But he would not go easily. Such a man could only hope to resist his enemies by hold
ing supreme power. Therefore, he would remain Technarch no matter what the cost.
At such times of confusion the Cyclan came into its own.
Had Ruen been able to feel amusement he would have smiled at Vargas's insistence on personal loyalty. A cyber was loyal only to the Cyclan. He was a part of the Great Design and against that all the petty desires of transient rulers were nothing. Vargas would fall. His successors would lean even more on the advice he had to offer. Subtly they would grow dependent and, in time, another sector of space would be under Cyclan domination.
He turned back to the computer on the desk, his fingers dancing over the keys, eyes reading the spinning dials as they settled to form words, spinning again as he tripped the release. A mass of routine information, a thousand items of data to one of potential value, and he would not recognize its significance until he saw it. Hence he must see them all, from Cest, Wen, Hardish and now from Loame.
Fifteen minutes later he rose and stepped to the door of an inner room. An acolyte, young, totally dedicated, rose as Ruen looked into the chamber.
"Master?"
"I am retiring. Total seal. I am not to be disturbed for any reason."
The acolyte bowed. "It is understood, master."
Ruen turned and crossed the outer room to the door of his own, private cubicle. It was small, holding a narrow cot and little else, a windowless niche devoid of decoration. The inside of the door had been fitted with a heavy bolt. Ruen threw it and then touched the thick bracelet locked about his left wrist. From it streamed invisible energies, a zone of force which made it impossible for any electronic eye or ear to operate in or focus on the vicinity. His privacy assured, he lay supine on the cot.
Closing his eyes he relaxed, concentrating on the Samatchi formula, ridding his mind of the irritation of external stimuli. He was deaf, numb and, had he opened his eyes, blind. Triggered by the formula the Homochon elements grafted in his brain woke to active life and, suddenly, he was not alone.
He was a part of the Central Intelligence, the gigantic organic computer at the heart of the Cyclan, the massed brains which resided in a world of pure intelligence. He was of them and with them in an encompassing gestalt which diminished time and distance, mind merging with mind in organic communication so nearly instantaneous that the speed of ultra-radio was by comparison the merest crawl.
Like water from a sponge the information was absorbed from his brain,
The man Dumarest was on Loame? You are positive?
Ruen emphasized his conviction.
And has departed to Choal?
If the information received from the computer had not lied the man he had been instructed to watch for had done exactly that. But his training qualified the answer. Lacking personal knowledge he could only relate the information available.
He must be apprehended. Agents will be instructed to intercept him on Choal. Others will watch on a predicted basis of fifty percent probability of movement. You, yourself must be even more alert. It is of prime importance that the man be constrained.
The subject discussed was dismissed. Brevity was the hallmark of such communication, but other matters needed clarification.
Cybers have been sent at the invitation of the ruler of Rhaga. You will divert any attempt at expansion in that direction. Extrapolation of the civil unrest on Hardish shows that insurrection will break out within one month. Acceleration of the program designed for Technos is desirable.
The rest was sheer intoxication.
As communication ceased Ruen felt that he was suspended in an infinity of diamond glitters, each tiny fragment of sparkling light the cold, clear flame of a living intelligence, and each aligned, one to the other so that all were composed of a universal whole, an incredible vastness which stretched across the entire galaxy. And, at the center, unified by nearly invisible filaments of brilliance, reposed the glowing heart of Central Intelligence, the hub and mind of the Cyclan.
Voices echoed in Ruen's mind as he drifted in the glowing vastness, scenes, snatches of unfamiliar shapes, alien, unknown, and yet somehow belonging to the gestalt of which he was a part. The overspill of other minds, other memories, the interplay of living intelligences all serving the organization of which he was a fragment.
One day he would be more than that. At the end of his active life he would be taken to where the assembled brains rested miles deep beneath the surface of an ancient world. There he would join them, freed of all physical limitations, resting in a world unhampered by bodily ills, his detached brain joined with those of others there, living and aware for countless years.
It was the highest reward any cyber could hope to obtain. To become an actual part of Central Intelligence. To work for the complete domination of the galaxy and to solve all the problems of the universe.
The aim and object of the Cyclan.
* * *
It could have been a theater or a concern hall but Dumarest guessed that it was a lecture room, massed seats facing a dais backed with screens and boards, the low roof grilled with speakers, soft light diffused from the juncture of walls and ceiling. Cramped in the third row he turned, looking over a sea of olive faces to the rear of the hall. The doors were closed, locked no doubt, but there was no sign of the guards who had ushered them from the ship and across the field, down a tunnel into this place. No sign of the red and black uniforms but he knew they would be there. Out of sight behind loopholes, perhaps, or waiting in the corridor outside.
Beside him a man stirred, restless, anxious.
"What are they going to do with us?" he muttered. "Why are we here?"
"I'm hungry," said another further down the row. "When are we going to get fed?"
"What are we waiting for?" said someone from behind.
Like the rustle of ripe corn in a breeze the murmur of questions swept over the auditorium.
Dumarest ignored them, conscious of the rising tension. They had ridden packed like fish in a barrel, doped with quick-time and given no food. Hardened to travel he had slept most of the way but his companions had spent the time in worried speculation. Now cold, tired and hungry, they were growing restless. The murmur died as a man came from the side door and strode to the center of the dais.
He was a balding, plump, middle-aged man in civilian clothes with a ruddy face and a benign expression. He stood facing the assembly, hands locked behind his back, exactly as if he were a lecturer about to teach his students.
He said, "Welcome to Technos. I appreciate that you have had an uncomfortable journey and that you are probably worried as to your future. It is that I am going to explain, but first, are there any among you who are the sons or relatives of growers?"
One man lifted his hand. Dumarest did not.
"One only?" The speaker looked over the auditorium. "Thank you, sir. Will you please rise and go to the back of the hall. Right through the door which you will find open." He waited until the man had gone. "One only. It seems that the growers of Loame are very selective in their choosing. That man is the first in the past four contingents. Natural enough, I suppose, but hardly fair to their workers."
It was, thought Dumarest, cleverly done. Without making an issue of the matter the man had clearly demonstrated how unfairly those present had been treated. He relaxed a little, guessing what was to come.
"And now," continued the lecturer, "I would like to dispose of some of your preconceived notions. You are not going to be sold into slavery. You are not going to be slaughtered for meat and neither are you going to be used for medical research. The sole aim and object of you coming here is for the purpose of education. Let us, for a moment, talk about war. What is war? The efforts of one power to force its will on another. You may have been told that Technos is at war with Loame. This is not true. If it were you would now be in uniform, fighting and dying to protect the land of others. Instead you are here, safe, warm and comfortable. Soon you will be going back home."
He paused as a whisper raced across the assembled men.
/> "Does that surprise you? The truth often does. You must remember that the growers of Loame are, at the moment, in a position of feudal power over you and your families. That position will not last long. Already the economic system is beginning to crack. Soon it will utterly disintegrate and the old ways be forever gone. When that happens the thorge will be destroyed and the land reclaimed. Your land," he emphasized. "Fresh soil to be shared among those at present denied the opportunity to become free growers. Clean dirt for you and your families."
There was more: slides, pictures and elementary diagrams, smooth explanations and facile extrapolations, all designed to paint a glowing picture of the future to come. Technos was a crusading power eager to help the underprivileged. The old system had to be broken before the new could be installed. It was being broken and those who had been chosen to fill the tribute were the lucky ones. To them, once trained, would fall the newly cleared land. Each of them soon would become a grower.
Dumarest didn't believe it.
Not the basic premise of economic disruption. In a society such as existed on Loame it was the quickest and easiest way to shatter the old pattern, but to restore it under new ownership didn't make sense. And it would not be restored. Glancing at the rapt faces to either side of him Dumarest could appreciate the cleverness of what was being done. The dangling carrot to keep them eager, to break their spirit and make them amenable to whatever Technos wanted to do with them. And that was?
He wasn't sure and it didn't matter. He would not be a part of it. Now that he was on Technos the sooner he broke away from the rest the better. And it would have to be fairly soon. The dye which stained his skin to a matching olive would not last long and when it faded he would be too conspicuous.
From the auditorium they went to eat. Good food piled in generous portions, high protein substances kind to mouth and stomach. Facing Dumarest across the table a man belched and helped himself to more.