"Meaning they didn't know what the Negs' intentions were. Neither did I, until just now."
"Oh? And what are the Negs' intentions?"
"To get me killed. You idiots have been playing the Negs game all along!"
"Interesting, if true. And if untrue, a clever theory for you to advance under the circumstances. What's your evidence?"
"I went to Splendiss-on-Terra, where the local medic just happened to be a Sect Dualer. The Neg picked that moment to hit me with an ache, when my condition would come to the attention of a man who would interpret my symptoms as a reason to derange or kill me.
"After that, the Neg remained more mildly in evidence while I was still on Earth, perhaps hoping for my confinement, in a hospital for instance, as a second-best goal. Once on my ship and away from other people, I wasn't bothered by the Neg until shortly before I boarded the Calcutta and entered the presence of other prospective confiners or killers.
"I left the Calcutta without a pain in my body and stayed that way until I reached the stability where I meant to conduct some tests. Now, I admit there was nobody around at the time to do me in, so the Negs' efforts there must have been for another purpose. I would think it was trying to discourage me from doing my work. Maybe because Negs are opposed to increased knowledge per se, just as we are opposed to increased ignorance, but more likely because the Negs are skittish about my work in particular. Why else would they want me killed?
"After that, no more pain until I arrived on Bensor," Keaflyn concluded. "It's been giving me a fit ever since, to let the local contingent of Sect Dualers know it's still on the job. And here you are, with the good Dr. Smath hinting that he'll struggle manfully against his humane squeamishness this time in order to do a bang-up job on me and my Neg."
He stopped, then added, "Oh, I almost forgot. When your colleagues pointed their guns at me and ordered me out of the robocar, I was all at once too tired to move. The Neg couldn't have been sure the guns were just a bluff." He chuckled wildly. "I wasn't very damned sure of it myself! Anyway, your pals had to jerk me out of the car."
The seated man glanced at the two men behind Keaflyn for a moment, then nodded.
"So the Neg can make you tired, huh?" he observed.
"Sure. It seems capable of hitting me with any psychosomatic sensation or unpleasant emotion. But it can't overwhelm me with them. I manage."
"No other indication of its presence?"
"No."
Smath looked questioningly at the other seated man and was given a quick nod. Keaflyn concluded that the exchange had informed the doctor Keaflyn was speaking truthfully, which meant Smath's colleague was a sensitive.
"The Arlan Siblings looked you over and let you go," the man said reflectively, "though you attribute to them data on the Negs that is superior to ours. Why did they free you?"
Keaflyn shrugged. "I'll tell you anything you want to know about myself. If you want to know something about the Arlans, I suggest you ask them. They seem to value their privacy, and I'm not going to violate it."
"We know the Negs would consider them key individuals," the man stated.
"Okay, you know that," replied Keaflyn.
The questioner and Smath huddled for a whispered conversation. Keaflyn waited.
After a couple of minutes they broke it up. The questioner told one of the men behind Keaflyn, "Go ungimmick the robocar." Then to Keaflyn he said, "We're letting you go, Mark. Your interpretation of the Neg's aims concerning you is convincing—at least to the degree that we don't care to risk aiding the enemy's cause in our efforts to hinder it. Also, we are inclined to respect the judgment of the Arlans."
"Glad to hear it," chuckled Keaflyn.
Smath cleared his throat uncomfortably. "There's no way to tell you, Mark, how deeply I regret . . . uh, the damage you sustained at my hands. I was only carrying out . . . well, I felt fully justified . . . "
"Both of us will just have to live with my affliction, won't we?" Keaflyn giggled. Smath winced and turned away.
"We wish you well, Mark," said the questioner. Keaflyn couldn't honestly say the feeling was mutual, so he merely nodded and turned to the door. The Neg was no longer paining him, he noticed thankfully. Now that he and the Sect Dualers had reached a truce, it evidently had backed away once more from the pleasureimpress. Perhaps, he ruminated, he owed Smath a modicum of gratitude after all . . . but he had no intention of paying it.
The man detailed to ungimmick the robocar was closing the hood as Keaflyn approached. "Will it obey my orders now?" he asked.
The man nodded.
Keaflyn got in the car. "Globe Circus," he commanded.
"Yes, sir."
The car rolled out into the rain, now a hard downpour. Keaflyn watched the car's progress critically until he was sure it was moving in the right direction.
He relaxed, with a strong feeling of relief. Not only had his Neg-induced physical discomforts vanished; gone also was the threat of physical or mental harm from the Sect Dualers. He had not realized until now, until the threat was lifted, just how deeply it had bothered him. Even the pleasure-impress, though basically as firmly fixed to him as ever, seemed less effective with the other problems eased. That was a normal phenomenon: cure a mind of one thing, and in the sudden ebullience of its release the mind may—temporarily—cure its remaining problems.
In any case, his expression felt like a relaxed smile rather than a taut grin.
"Globe Circus, sir," announced the robocar. Keaflyn looked out at the stability through the constant rainsplatter on the car window.
"Move around to the windward side."
"Yes, sir, if you will indicate which side is windward," replied the robocar. "I am not equipped with sufficient sensors—"
"Of course not," replied Keaflyn, realizing he had given a command beyond a robocar's capabilities. "Turn left and move around the Circus until I say stop."
The car circled the stability until Keaflyn halted it with the rain blowing against its left side and the Resistant Globe on its right.
"Lower the rear window on the right," he instructed. The glass dropped and Keaflyn leaned outward, his eyes fixed in contemplation of one of his favorite sights in the universe: the soaring bulge of the Resistant Globe's dark perfect-mirror surface.
It was not especially huge—forty and a fraction meters in diameter—and its reflectivity gave a fleeting impression of insubstantiality. But no one viewed the Globe for more than a split-second without sensing that here was the essence of solidity, of endurance. It had this quality to a degree that was present in no other known stability. Whereas Lumon's Star was an unfailing light, the Resistant Globe was the unyielding object.
The Rock of Ages, mused Keaflyn, pulling that phrase in from his backtrack. Interesting, he thought, how man back in the Earthbound days had invented religious concepts with characteristics similar to those of stabilities discovered since. Thus a god would be a dependable rock and an ever-shining light . . . but what about the characteristics of Locus? Um-m-m. He couldn't recall a god who made a point of motionlessness . . .
He shrugged these thoughts aside. To modern man, the Resistant Globe was a marvel, but a non-mystical marvel. It was a challenge to his science and his mental powers—a very stubborn challenge.
Scientific investigation of it had yielded practically nothing. Even neutrino beams, the most penetrating energies known, entered the Globe to a maximum penetration of 1.44 centimeters before bouncing out. Keaflyn's only hope of doing better than that in his study was a rather vague one; he hoped, in the course of analyzing other stabilities, to hit upon a means of probing this one.
Mental investigation of the Globe was only a halfserious game, but one widely played. Earthbound visitors to an old Irish castle had once made a practice of kissing the Blarney Stone; galactic citizens visiting Bensor-onBensor made a practice of "nulling" the Resistant Globe. This ritual was, in a way, a philosophical experiment . . . though maybe a silly one, Keaflyn mused. Theoretically,
matter and energy were subservient to thought—that is, all the physical universe and its appurtenances existed because mind considered they did. Thus, if mind said some particular part of the universe had ceased to exist, then that part should vanish.
Mind, however, was myriads of minds—ego-fields strong and ego-fields weak. In order for mind to change, countless individual minds would have to do so. Certainly there would have to be a consensus, or at least a majority opinion, to make an existing reality cease existing—providing, of course, that the theory of the seniority of thought was correct.
Nevertheless, the individual ego-field could nullify an existence from its own viewpoint by a simple act of will. The saner, more fully self-determined the ego-field, the more confident its act of nulling. The ego-field could null a wall and move through the space where the wall had been, finding nothing there. Of course, if the ego-field tried to walk its body through the wall, the body would be stopped very abruptly and might contract a bloody nose in the process. Again, if the ego-field depended on information from its body's eyes, it would have data to the effect that the wall had remained solid all the time. But the ego-field could nullify any object, any energy, for itself as an ego-field. This was a contributing consideration to the theory that a general agreement of mind could cause actual nullity. And that was why visitors to the Resistant Globe, after looking at it as long as they wished, ended their visit by nulling it. Over enough years, every human-grade ego-field in the galaxy or even in the universe might pass that place and tell the Globe:
"Vanish!"
And perhaps it would.
Probably the game was not entirely explainable as a philosophical experiment, Keaflyn ruminated as he continued gazing at the Globe, brightly illuminated through the night by glow-panels concealed in the shrubs around its base. For trillions of years the individual human had known himself as a soon-to-perish entity in a never-ending, ever-surviving universe. That knowing was opposite to fact, as humanity now had learned. But this was recent learning, perhaps recent enough for humans still to harbor a remnant of resentment against the apparently durable universe. And what better object to vent this resentment on than a stability, the Resistant Globe? Keaflyn stirred. He was ready to return to his ship and get some sleep—sleep that should come easily in his relaxed condition. It was time for the parting ceremony. Even though he had nulled the Globe before, he always repeated the action at the end of each visit.
Vanish! he willed it. It did so. Although his eyes could still see it, his ego-field sense corresponding to sight said nothing was there but empty air. And this sense could examine the far side of Globe Circus through the vacancy, could observe the buildings there and—Something aware but alien was suddenly using that same sense! The Neg was stirring!
Keaflyn twitched with alarm. Was this the Neg's bid to seize control from him, to direct his mind and actions? He tensed for the struggle, but no contest began. The Neg was not fighting him, not disagreeing with him. It was merely going along with his own thought-processes, verifying and supporting with its own act of will the nullity of the Resistant Globe . . .
Nullity?
Keaflyn's startled attention turned to what his eyes were seeing.
In the center of the Circus, where the sparkling Globe had stood, now hung darkness—darkness that wavered, threatening to become transparent with the complete annihilation of the stability that had once existed there!
A calm corner of Keaflyn's frantic mind was contributing: Of course contralife entities have their own share of the total mind. And perhaps they can channel a consensus through one individual Neg, which added to the nulling actions of several billion humans who have nulled the Resistant Globe is sufficient to . . .
Emergency alarms in the city were clanging loudly, he realized. Of course, all sorts of detectors and alarms had long been rigged around the Globe to give notice of any change in its condition. These were sounding now, arousing the city.
And suddenly something previously unknown to Keaflyn's experience but immediately recognizable impinged on his mind: transmitted human thought, powerful enough even for his minute telepathic ability—because this was a thought from thousands in chorus, a thought of distress, a thought seeking him:
(What?) The Resistant Globe! Being nulled! Oh, no! It can't be!
Universal collapse!
(Who? Where?) Close by! There he is! Mark Keaflyn! Mark Keaflyn! STOP IT, MARK KEAFLYN!
My God, and we made a game out of this! Contralife—he's harboring contralife!
Stop him, somebody! Who's close?
SOMEBODY KILL KEAFLYN, FOR GOD'S SAKE! Keaflyn quivered under the mental impact of frightened hate boiling around him. I meant no harm! he tried to reply, but he had no impression that his thought was received. I'll try to fix it back, he promised, and stared hard at the place where the Resistant Globe had been. Be there! he willed.
The darkness seemed to thicken in response, but no more than that.
—We'll stop him! We're on our way!
Keaflyn could sense that they were indeed on their way, converging on Globe Circus with whatever weapons they could lay hands on.
It won't do any good to kill me now! he tried to tell them. The harm's done, and not by my intention. But he was too out of agreement with the consensus for his communication to register.
"Get out of here, car!" he yelled hoarsely. "West on Central Boulevard!"
"Yes, sir," the car responded, and began to move.
"Highest legal speed!" he snapped.
"Yes, sir."
The car was on the Boulevard and speeding westward in seconds. A few minutes would take him to the shippark in the outskirts where he had left the Kelkontar . . . if he was not stopped.
And if the Sect Dualers really had unrigged their overrides on this car's robot . . . After that possibility occurred to Keaflyn, he watched each approaching intersection with anxiety, wondering if the robocar would swerve right or left, carrying him away from his one hope for avoidance of death and degradation.
Chapter 8
In his hurried dash for his ship and the safety of outer space, Keaflyn was at no time really aware of the Insecurity, as that moment in time came to be called. Only upon being told of it later, and thinking back, did he realize that he might have been feeling, during his escape, a threat to far more than his personal being. But at the time the Neg had turned on the pain again, shortly after Keaflyn ordered his robocar away from the badly compromised Resistant Globe, and had thrown in fear for good measure. Keaflyn had all but forgotten what the physical sensations of gut fear were like, and for several panicky seconds he was nearly unmanned by that all-too-appropriate emotional overresponse to his situation.
He was aware, as the robocar sliced through the rain on Central Boulevard, that the telepathic chorus of the awakened people of the city was dimming, seemingly being left behind as he fled from the center of town. This gave him hope that he was making good his escape. The thought did not occur to him that the populace's attention had been drawn from him by a concern of far more tremendous magnitude and urgency: the nearly nullified Resistant Globe.
That was the Insecurity.
It aroused not only the citizens of Bensor-on-Bensor, but sleeping lifeforms on worlds scattered through an immense range of the galaxy. And on countless worlds, beings who were not sleeping at the time but were busy with their usual pursuits were frozen in mid-action by that same urgent alarm.
Reality seemed to slip, as they described the sense of it later. It was somewhat similar to the loss of orientation that comes with intoxication . . . but only somewhat: because this was not the product of a drunken mind's view of the universe; this was slippage of the universe itself.
Sleepers awoke suddenly, to grab (with an instinct they did not know they possessed) at reality and grip it tight. Walkers halted in their tracks, as suddenly, to concentrate on bearing witness that the ground beneath them and the sky above were thoroughly and definitely there. Swimmers stopped paddlin
g to validate the waters around them.
Fliers stopped flapping. They glided. Many of them crashed to ground, their concentration unbroken. Indeed, ego-fields that were between lives stopped non-doing briefly in order to do.
Those particular billions of humans who had played the game of Nulling the Resistant Globe did not direct their grip to reality in general. They knew, deeply and non-intellectually, precisely where the Insecurity had struck. Wherever they were on the wide-scattered worlds of humanity, they reached for the Resistant Globe, found it, and hung on.
On the world Danolae, Alo Felston halted in the act of rigging a psionic device on a sad-faced hound dog, and the hound dog halted scratching.
On Terra, the operators of Splendiss stopped mere seconds before they were due to lift that city from its late-summer site in Quebec to its early-autumn spot in the mid-Appalachians. Disaster was missed by that much.
And behind the fleeing Keaflyn in Bensor-on-Bensor, four Sect Dualers in a pursuing robocar were distracted from their grim intent to do their share toward meeting a still grimmer challenge. Their robocar, however, continued westward on Central Boulevard, so Keaflyn gained no ground. Not right then. But when he turned off the thoroughfare at the ship-park where the Kelkontar waited, the preoccupied Sect Dualers took no notice and sped on by.
Why was he not involved with the rest of humanity in shoring up the Insecurity erosion? That remained something of a moot question long afterward. Perhaps because he had consciously done all he could, before anyone else, to repair the ruin he and his impinging Neg had triggered by nulling the Resistant Globe. He had withdrawn his nullification and had willed the Globe to be there! as forcefully as he could.
Or perhaps he did not participate because, as the being who had done the harm, he was automatically excluded by some unwritten law of mind from trying to help with the mending.
Or perhaps he did participate. Among the other concerns his frantic mind held during those few long minutes, the continuation of the Resistant Globe was not missing. He did not cease wanting it to be there! Maybe the fact that he alone knew precisely what had happened enabled him to continue other conscious activities while fighting the Insecurity.
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