by Various
"I'll count three," Margot said. "Then I'll shoot the Vegan girl. Do you understand?"
Ramsey's face went white.
"One," Margot said.
Vardin stared at him beseechingly.
Ramsey said: "All right, Margot. All right."
Five minutes later, subjective time, the Enterprise landed with a lurch.
That they had reached a world in hyper-space there could be no doubt. But outside the portholes of the little freighter was only the murky grayness of the timeless hyper-space continuum.
* * * * *
"They've gone down, sir!" Ramar Chind cried.
Garr Symm nodded. For the first time he was really nervous. He wondered about the Dennison letter. Could his fear be attributed to ancestral memory, as Dennison had indicated? Was it really baseless--this crawling, cold-fingered hand of fear on his spine?
There was no physical barrier. The Enterprise had established that fact. Then was there a barrier which Garr Symm, along with all humanoids, had somehow inherited?
A barrier of stark terror, subjective and unfounded on fact?
And beyond it--what?
Power to chain the universe....
Think, Garr Symm told himself. You've got to be rational. You're a scientist. You've been trained as a scientist. This is their barrier, erected against you, against all humanoids, a million years ago. It isn't real. It's all in your mind.
"Do you want me to follow them down?" Ramar Chind asked.
Garr Symm envied the policeman. Naturally, Ramar Chind did not share his terror. You didn't know the terror until you learned about proto-man; then the response seemed to be triggered in your brain, as if it had been passed to you through the genes of your ancestors, waiting a million years for release....
Fear, a guardian.
Of what? Garr Symm asked himself. Think of that, fool. Think of what it guards.
Power--
Teleportation or its equivalent.
Gone the subjective passage of hours in hyper-space.
Earned--if you were strong enough or brave enough to earn it--the ability to travel instantly from one humanoid world to another. Instantly. Perhaps from any one point on any humanoid world to any one point, precise, specific, exact, on another world.
To plunder.
Or assassinate.
Or control the lives of men, everywhere.
Sans ship.
Sans fear.
Sans the possibility of being caught or stopped.
Sweating, Garr Symm said: "Bring the Dog Star down after them, Ramar Chind."
* * * * *
Ramsey smiled without humor. "What now, little lady?" he said mockingly.
"Shut up. Oh, shut up!"
"What are you going to do now?"
"I told you to shut up. I have to think."
"I didn't know a gorgeous tri-di actress ever had to think."
"Let me see those figures again," Margot said.
Ramsey handed her the tapes from the Enterprise's environment-checker.
Temperature: minus two hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
Atmosphere: none.
Gravity: eight-tenths Earth-norm.
"And we don't have a spacesuit aboard," Ramsey said.
"But it can't be. It can't. This is the home of proto-man. I know it is. But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air in minutes."
"That's right," Ramsey said almost cheerfully. "So do I take the ship back up?"
"I hate you, Jason Ramsey. Oh, I hate you!" Margot cried. Then suddenly: "Wait! Wait a minute! What was that you were thinking? Tell me! You must tell me--"
Ramsey shook his head and tried to force the thoughts from his mind with doggerel. Ben Adam, he thought. Abou Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty, hurry, hurry, hurry, the only two headed get yours here the sum of the square of the sides is equal to the square of the hyper-space, no, mustn't think that mimsy were the borogroves and the momraths now what the heck did the momraths do anyhow absolute zero is the temperature at which all molecular activity....
"What were you thinking, Ramsey?"
His mind was a labyrinth. There were thousands of discrete thoughts, of course. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once he did not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts kept whirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, she could pluck it from his mind.
She stood before him, her brow furrowed, sweat beading her pretty face.
And she was winning, forcing the thought to take shape in Ramsey's mind--
But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of air in minutes.
Cold, came the known and unbidden thoughts to Ramsey's struggling mind. And lack of air. Attributes of extension, of space, but measured by duration, by time. And since time does not exist in hyper-space, the vacuum out there and the terrible, killing cold, could have no effect on you. You could go out there perfectly protected from the lethal environment by the absence of the time dimension.
Margot smiled at him. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Ramsey."
He was about to speak, but she added: "And don't give me that stuff about a power we shouldn't tamper with. I'm going out there. Now."
Ramsey nodded slowly. "I won't stop you."
"But just so you don't get any ideas of stranding me here--Vardin. Vardin's going with me."
The Vegan girl looked at Ramsey mutely.
* * * * *
Ramsey said: "What makes you think I'll let you take her?"
Margot smiled again. "The m.g. gun makes me think so."
"The heck of it is, you're not really bad, Margot. This thing's got you, is all. You're not essentially evil."
"Thank you for the thrilling compliment. I'm delighted," Margot said sarcastically.
"Vardin stays with me."
Margot reminded him of the lethal m.g. gun by showing it to him, muzzle-first.
He laughed in her face. "Go ahead and shoot."
She stared at him.
"There isn't a lethal weapon'd do you any good here in a timeless continuum. Take an m.g. gun. It induces an artificial breakdown of radioactive fuel in its chamber, firing an instantly lethal dose of radiation. But in order for radioactive breakdown to occur, time must pass. Even if it's only milliseconds, as in the case of an m.g. gun. There aren't any milliseconds on this world, Margot. There isn't any time. So go ahead and pull the trigger."
Margot frowned and pointed the gun to one side and fired.
Nothing happened. Margot almost looked as if her hard shell had been sundered by the impotence of the m.g. gun. She pouted. Her eyes gleamed moistly.
Then Ramsey said: "O.K. Let's go."
"What--what do you mean?"
"Out there. All of us."
"But I thought you said--"
"Sure, I'm scared stiff. A normal man would be. It's in our genes, according to your father. But I'm also a man. What the devil d'you think it was first got man out of his cave and started along the road to civilization and the stars? It was curiosity. Fear restraining him, and curiosity egging him on. Which do you think won in the end?"
"Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss you!"
"Go right ahead," Ramsey said, and she did.
They opened the airlock. They went outside smiling.
But Vardin, who went with them, wasn't smiling. There was sadness instead.
* * * * *
In cumbersome spacesuits, the five Irwadians made their way from the Dog Star to the Enterprise. Ramar Chind and his three policemen carried m.g. guns; Garr Symm was unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizer to force the pattern of the lock on the outer door of the Enterprise's airlock. Then the five of them plunged inside the ship.
The inner door was not closed.
The Enterprise was empty.
Garr Symm looked doubtfully at the gray murkiness behind them. Although the Dog Star stood out there less than a quarter of a mile away, they couldn't see it through the murk.
"Where did they go?" Ramar Chind asked.
Symm waved vaguely behind them.
Chind and his men turned around.
Gritting his teeth against the fear which welled up like nausea from the pit of his stomach, Garr Symm went with them.
At that moment they all heard the music.
"You hear it?" Ramsey asked softly. His voice did not carry on the airless world, of course. But he spoke, and the words were understood, not merely by Margot, who could read his mind, but by Vardin as well.
"Music," said Margot. "Isn't it--beautiful?"
* * * * *
Ramsey nodded slowly. He could barely see Margot, although he held her hand. He could barely see Vardin although they stood hand in hand too. The music was un-Earthly, incapable of repetition, indescribably the loveliest sound he had ever heard. He wanted to sink down into the obscuring gray murk and weep and listen to the haunting, sad, lovely strains of sound forever.
"What can it possibly be?" Margot asked.
Surprisingly, it was Vardin who answered. "Music of the Spheres," she said. "It's a legend on Vega III, my world."
"And on Earth," Ramsey said.
Vardin told them: "On all worlds. And, like all such legends, it has a basis in reality. This is the basis."
That didn't sound like timid little Vardin at all. Ramsey listened in amazement. He thought he heard Vardin laugh.
Music. But didn't the notes need the medium of time in which to be heard? How could they hear music here at all? Or were they hearing it? Perhaps it merely impinged on their minds, their souls, just as they were able to hear one another's thoughts as words....
They'd never understand fully, Ramsey knew suddenly. Perhaps they could grasp a little of the nature of this place, a shadow here, the half-suggestion of the substance of reality there, a stillborn thought here, a note of celestial music there, the timeless legacy of proto-man, whatever proto-man was....
"The fog is lifting!" Vardin cried.
The fog was not lifting.
Then it was.
Ramsey would never forget that. Vardin had spoken while the dense gray murk enveloped them completely.
Then it began to grow tenuous.
As if Vardin's words had made it so. Little Vardin, shy, frightened Vardin, suddenly, inexplicably, the strongest, surest one among them....
The sky, white and dazzling, glistened. The gray murk glistened too, a hundred yards off in all directions, like a wall of polished glass surrounding them.
In the very middle of the bell-jar of visibility granted them all at once, stood a black rectangular object.
"The teleporter!" Margot cried. "The matter-transmitter! I know it is. I know it is!"
Ramsey stood waiting breathlessly.
No, he realized abruptly, not breathlessly. You couldn't say breathlessly.
For Ramsey had not breathed, not once, since they left the Enterprise.
You didn't breathe on a timeless world. You merely--somehow--existed.
"It's opening!" Margot cried.
The black rectangle, ominously coffin-shaped, was indeed opening.
"The matter transmitter," Margot said a second time. "The secret of proto-man, of our ancestors who colonized all the worlds of space with it, instantly, at the same cosmic moment. Think of what it means, Ramsey, can you? Instantaneous travel, anywhere, without the need for energy since energy cannot be used here, without the passage of time since time does not exist here." She stood transfixed, looking at the black box. The lid had lifted at right angles to the rest of the box.
* * * * *
Margot said, in the whisper of an awed thought: "Who controls it controls the galaxy...."
And she walked toward the box.
At that moment Ramsey had a vision. He saw--or thought he saw--Margot Dennison in the costume she had worn when they first met. She stood, eyes wide, fearful, expectant, before a chess-board. The pieces seemed to be spaceships. It was a perfectly clear vision, but it was the only such vision Ramsey had ever been vouchsafed in his life. He was no mystic. He did not know what to make of it.
Playing chess with Margot was--proto-man.
Ramsey only saw his hand.
A hand perhaps five million years old.
He blinked. The vision persisted, superimposed over Margot's figure as she walked toward the box.
A game, he thought. Because we don't understand it. Not that kind of power. Not the power a matter-transmitter would give. A cosmic game on a chess-board which wasn't quite a chess-board, with a creature who had never lived as we know life and so could never die....
With the future of the galaxy hanging in the balance. Life or death for man hanging on a slim thread, because man wasn't ready for matter-transmission, couldn't hope to use it wisely, would use it perhaps for war, transmitting lethal weapons, thermonuclear, world-destroying weapons, instantly through space, for delivery anywhere, negating time....
Death hovered.
"Wait!" Ramsey called, and ran forward.
Just then five new figures, space-suited, appeared under the gleaming dome.
"Stop that woman!" a voice which Ramsey should not have been able to hear but which he somehow heard perfectly cried. "Stop her!"
M.g. guns were raised, fired.
Without effect.
Three of the spacesuited figures ran after Margot as the voice repeated: "Stop her! The box is mine, mine!"
It was Garr Symm's voice.
Ramsey did not know if he should stop Margot himself, or fight Symm's men. Although they couldn't use their weapons on this world, they could still hurt--possibly even kill--Margot. Ramsey turned and waited for them.
The strange, mystic vision was gone. He saw only three space-suited figures, saw Margot walking steadily toward the box. Either she was moving very slowly or the box retreated or it was further away than it had looked at first. For she hadn't reached it yet.
Ramsey met the space-suited figures head-on.
There were three of them, but they were awkward in their suits, cumbersome, incapable of quick responses.
Ramsey hit the first one in the belly and darted back. His fist felt contact with the soft bulk of the insulined suit, then with the harder bulk of the man. He struck again, harder this time.
* * * * *
The scaly green face of the Irwadi within the space-suit grimaced with pain. He doubled over and fell, his helmet shattering against the ground at Ramsey's feet.
Then an incredible thing happened. The Irwadi opened his mouth to scream. His face froze. He lost his air. His face bloated.
And he died.
Ramsey couldn't believe his eyes.
It was not possible to die from lack of air or from cold on a world without the time continuum. Ramsey, Vardin and Margot had proved that by venturing out without protection.
But the Irwadi had died.
Mental suggestion?
Because he thought he would die?
Because that was the only way you could perish on a world lacking in the time dimension--by your own thoughts?
The second space-suited figure closed with Ramsey awkwardly. Ramsey hit him. The man of Irwadi fell, his helmet cracked, he tried to scream--and died.
The third man fled.
Ramsey ran after Margot. "Wait!" he cried. He couldn't talk to her about his fantastic vision. It was personal. She wouldn't understand. Mystic experience always is like that. And yet, with the conviction that only a mystic can have--although he certainly was no mystic--Ramsey knew the galaxy would be in grave trouble if mankind were given the secret of matter-transmission.
A voice said: "You are right."
It was Vardin's voice, and Vardin went on:
"Ramsey, stop her. I can't stop her. It is only granted that I observe--and convince, if I can. I am not a Vegan girl. I am--"
Ramsey said it. "Proto-man!"
"There aren't many of us left. We discovered matter-transmission. We used it once, to people the worlds of the galaxy. I
t was our final creative effort. We merely observe now, unable to destroy our creation, trying to keep it out of mankind's hands. You see--"
"Then back on Irwadi you knew all along we would come here!"
"I was vouchsafed the vision, yes. Even as you--stop her, Ramsey. You must stop her!"
* * * * *
Ramsey sprinted forward. Margot was nearing the black coffin now.
Ramsey ran at her, and tackled her.
They went down together, the girl fighting like a tigress, tooth and nail, wildly, sobbing, striking out at Ramsey with small impotent fists, until he subdued her. Panting, they glared at each other.
And could not stop Garr Symm from running past them, eyes rapt behind the plastiglass of his helmet, and jumping into the black box.
"To the end of the universe and back!" he cried. "Take me there and back. Instantly. Prove to me that you work! Now...." His voice trailed off. He had addressed the black rectangle almost as if it were something alive.
* * * * *
Ramsey thought he heard a growl from the box. He stood before it, looking in. The hackles rose on his neck.
"You see," Vardin said. "My ancestors and yours discovered the power of a god--and did not understand it. We were incorporeal. We created life--your ancestors. We patterned it to fit the evolution of the three thousand worlds. Human life. Millions of them, colonists for the worlds of normal space. We were tampering in our tragic pride, Ramsey, with forces we would never comprehend.
"We colonized the worlds, deciding that physical existence, along with the mental prowess we had, was the ideal state. A few of us, like myself, or my ancestors if you wish, although the purely mental lives continuously--a few of us stayed behind and saw--the loss of a million years!"
Ramsey's eyes still could not pierce the darkness inside the box.
"What do you mean?" he asked in an awed voice.
"We sent out god-like men. We did not understand our discovery. The god-like men--but look at Garr Symm."
The spacesuited figure got up slowly. It blinked at Ramsey. It growled. It had a recognizably green, scale-skinned face. But it was not the face of Garr Symm. It was the face of Garr Symm's caveman ancestors, a million years ago....
"This is what happened to my people," Vardin said.
She looked at Ramar Chind and Chind, responding, went to Garr Symm and led him quietly back toward the Dog Star. Chind never said a word. Garr Symm growled.