‘No human could stand Gs like that. They are robot-controlled,’ you said, gripped by the fascination of battle.
‘And they put out the trellis screen!’ Prim said. It was a flash of inspiration, shortly to be proved correct. He turned and barked orders at bombardment, telling them to hit the giants at any cost. By now the flagship was on its own, the rest of its company disintegrated or scattered far away.
The four giants were in position. Again the hellish blue pattern scissored across the flagship’s course. Prim had no time to swerve away – they racketed towards the dazzling pattern. At the last moment, bombardment fired a superfuser dead ahead.
Superfuser and trellis met.
The two insensate energies clawed each other like vast beasts of prey. Instead of spreading its usual explosion, the fusion climbed the writhing squares of trellis, gobbling as it mounted. At the centre it left a widening circle of nothingness, through which the flagship shot unharmed. It climbed to the trellis corners, barbed fire-devouring fire. It reached the four giant vessels.
Just for a moment they remained intact, each radiating a three-dimensional rainbow which flickered magically up and down the spectrum and was visible hundreds of light years away. Then that blinding beauty fused, the four rainbow orbs merged and became antilight. They sucked, guttered and went out – and a great gap in the nothingness of the universe appeared and spread. The ineluctable fabric of space itself was being devoured.
Several Yinnisfar ships were engulfed in this cataclysm. The flagship was spared no time to rejoice. The moment of its greatest triumph was also the moment of its destruction. A translucent globe from an enemy destroyer caught its dorsal vane.
Like an electronic monster, the globe spread tentacles of light and engulfed the flagship.
Prim swore furiously.
‘Nothing responds any more,’ he said, dropping his hands to his sides.
It was doubtful if anyone heard him. A continuous sizzle filled their ears while their body electricity jumped in protest at what was taking place. The scene was rendered in unforgettable hues of orange and black, as the light penetrated everything. Faces, clothes, floor, instruments, all were ravaged.
Then it was over, that moment of near madness. They were left in darkness, only pale starlight touching their faces. Prim staggered for the controls. He swept his hand wildly over banks of instruments. All were dead.
‘We’re finished!’ he announced. ‘Not a whisper of life anywhere. Even the air purifier is finished.’
He sank down, covering his face with his hands. For a while no one spoke; all were emotionally drained by the apocalyptic rigours of battle, the sag of defeat.
‘They must be chivalrous on Yinnisfar,’ you said at length. ‘They will have some residual code of battle. They will come and take us. We shall be honourably treated.’
Welded said harshly from a corner, ‘You still find room for cockiness! We ought to destroy you now.’
‘Let’s kill him,’ One Eye said, but made no move. They were all just lumps against the wall of starlight, lumps that spoke without relevance.
‘I only feel relaxed,’ you said. ‘The battle is over. We have lost honourably. Look at your captain here, half-dead with fatigue. He fought well, resourcefully. No blame lies with him that we lost the gamble. Now he can sit back without remorse – and we can do the same – knowing the future is not in our hands. Soon they will be here to collect us and give us an honourable trial on Yinnisfar.’
The others made you no answer.
7
The air was growing foul when the emissaries of Yinnisfar arrived, as you had predicted. They cut their way rapidly through the hull, rounded up all of the dazed men aboard and transferred them to their own ship. Full speed was then made towards Yinnisfar. The flagship was left to its own ruined devices.
You had been given a separate room with Prim, One Eye, and Welded. The latter two had been quite drained of all life by the magnitude of recent events. They sat together now like a pair of dummies, not speaking. Prim was in better shape, but reaction had hit him now, and he lay shaking on a couch. So you alone stood by the port and took in the spectacle as Yinnisfar approached.
The planet which for so long had played such a prominent role in the Galaxy was a curious spectacle at this late date in its history. About its equator circled two splendid rings, one beyond the other. Of these rings, the first was natural and consisted of the debris of Luna, disintegrated when an antique craft embedded in Iri had suddenly exploded. The other ring was nothing more or less than a scrapyard. Breaking up spaceships on the ground had been forbidden ages ago on Yinnisfar, where piles of rusting metal were considered unsightly; instead, every fragment of scrap was thrown into the orbit of the ring. Over a vast period of time, this ring had grown until it was fifty miles deep and several hundred wide. Far from being ugly, it was a thing of beauty, one of the seventeen wonders of the Galaxy. It gleamed like an array of countless jewels, every inch of metal polished eternally by the ceaseless wash of meteoric dust.
When the ship in which you were held landed on the day side of the planet, the second ring was still faintly visible, straining like an arch around heaven.
This was Yinnisfar of tears and pleasures, stuffed with forgotten memories and protracted time.
After some delay, you and the others were disembarked, transferred to a small surface ship and taken to the Court of the Highest Suzerain in the city of Nion. The flagship crew was spirited off in one direction and the troops, still in suspended animation, in another, while you and the three officers were ushered into a room little bigger than a cubicle. Here again was more delay. Food was brought, but you alone were inclined to eat it, supplementing it with supplies that you carried on your person.
Various dignitaries visited you, most of them departing gloomily, without speaking. Through a narrow window you looked out on to a courtyard, brightened in one corner by a beautiful flowering jenny-merit. Groups of men and women stood about aimlessly, and no face was without its stamp of worry. Counsellors walked as if climbing a dark stair. It became clear that some grave crisis pended; its threat hung almost tangibly over the whole court.
Finally and unexpectedly, an order reached your guards. With a flurry of excitement you and the three with you were brought into a marble hall of audience and so into the personal presence of the Highest, Suzerain Inherit of Yinnisfar and the Region of Yinnisfar.
He was a pale man, dressed austerely in dark satins. He reclined on a couch. His features were leached, yet his eyes spoke of supreme intelligence and his voice was firm. Though his general pose suggested lethargy, his head was carried with an alertness that did not escape your attention.
He looked you over in leisurely fashion, weighing each of your group in turn, and finally addressed you as the leader. He spoke without preamble.
‘You barbarians, by the folly of your actions, have wrought havoc.’
You bowed and said with irony, ‘We regret it if we disturbed the great empire of Yinnisfar.’
‘Pah! I do not refer to the empire.’ He waved his hand as if the empire were a bauble, beneath his interest. ‘I refer to the cosmos itself, by whose grace we all exist. The forces of nature have become unknit.’
You looked at him interrogatively, saying nothing.
‘Let me explain the fate which now threatens,’ the Highest said, ‘in the hope you may die knowing a little of what you have done. Our Galaxy is old beyond imagining; philosophers, theologians and scientists combine to tell us that its duration, vast but not infinite, is nearing an end.’
‘The rumour has circulated,’ you murmured.
‘I am pleased to hear that wisdom travels. We have learned in these last few hours that the Galaxy – like an old curtain crumbling under its own weight – is dissolving; that this, in fact, is the end of all things, of past and future, and of all men.’
He paused in vain, to watch for any shadows of alarm crossing your face, then continued, ignoring the f
rightened responses of your fellow captives.
‘Peace has reigned in the Region for millennia. But when we learned your fleet was coming with hostile intent, our ancient ships and engines of attack – unused since the breakdown of the Self-perpetuating War – were resurrected. Systems of production, schemes of battle, organisations of fighting men – all had to be resurrected from the long-dead past. It required haste such as we have never known, and regimentation such as we detest.’
‘That’s worth a cheer anyway,’ One Eye said, with an attempt at courage.
The Highest regarded him for a moment before continuing.
‘We found, in our hurried search for weapons to use against you, one which was invented eons ago and never used. It was considered dangerous, since it harnessed the electrogravitic forces of the complex of space itself. Four gigantic machines called turbulators activated this force; they were the four ships you destroyed.’
‘We saw one of them on the margins of the Region days ago,’ Prim said. He had been following the Highest with excitement enthralled by his description of a gigantic military organisation grinding into action.
‘The four turbulators had to be called from the distant quarters of the Region, where our ancestors had discarded them,’ the Highest explained. ‘They were stationed across the course of your fleet with the results that you saw. The trellis is the basic pattern of creation itself. By ill chance you destroyed it, or rather caused it to begin consuming itself. Our scientists suggest that such is the antiquity of our Galaxy, it no longer retains its ancient stability. Although the process is invisible, the disintegration you began continues – is spreading rapidly, in fact – and nothing known can stop it.’
Prim staggered back, as if struck.
The Highest stared at you, expecting a reply. As if uncertain for the first time, you looked searchingly at One Eye and the others; they stared blankly ahead, too absorbed with the prospect of catastrophe to notice you.
‘Your scientists are to be congratulated,’ you said. ‘They are late with their discovery of instability, but at least they have found it out for themselves. It is a catastrophe my friends here and I did not begin; it began long ago, and it was about that that I came to Yinnisfar to tell them – and you.’
For the first time, the Highest showed emotion. He rose from the couch, clutching its back fiercely. ‘You impertinent barbarian, you came here to rape and loot and pillage. What do you know of these matters?’
‘I came here to announce the end of things,’ you told him. ‘How I arrived, whether as captive or victor, was no concern of mine, so long as the peoples of every world had been roused to know of my coming. That was why I staged the invasion; such a thing is easily done, provided you can read and provoke the few basic human passions. If I had come here alone, who would have known or cared? As it is, the whole Galaxy has its myriad eyes open and I focused them on Yinnisfar. They may die knowing the truth.’
‘Indeed?’ The Highest raised an imperial eyebrow. ‘Before I have you erased, perhaps you might care to tell me about this truth over which you have gone to such trouble?’
‘By all means,’ you replied. ‘Perhaps you would care for a demonstration first?’
But the Highest brushed the suggestion aside, snapping his fingers. ‘You are a braggart!’ he said energetically. ‘You waste my time, and there is little enough left. Guards!’
The guards advanced in a half-circle, eager at an unprecedented chance to try their art on living flesh.
‘This is the sort of demonstration I had in mind,’ you said, turning to meet them.
Fourteen men comprised the guard. Their uniforms were laced, epauletted and braided; but their antique swords looked functional.
Without hesitation you advanced towards the nearest soldier. He, with equal decision, brought down his sword with a heavy blow at your head. You flung up your arm and caught the blade full on it.
The sword rang and crumbled into bits, as if turned to dust. The swordsman fell back in alarm.
The other guards were on you, thrusting and slicing. Their swords crumpled and snapped against you; not one but wrecked itself against your body.
When it was realised that you had – how would they think of it? – a secret power, they fell back. You saw then that from a balcony the snout of a machine was trained on you.
‘Before you are annihilated,’ the Highest said, glancing pointedly up at the balcony, ‘tell me what form of trickery this is.’
‘Try out your own trick first,’ you suggested. To hasten matters, you stepped towards the Highest. You had taken perhaps two paces before the machine on the balcony burst into action. A fusillade of beta pellets screamed towards you, only to fall uselessly to the ground at your feet.
At last the Highest seemed daunted.
‘Who are you? Where do you come from?’
‘That is what I wish to tell you,’ you said. ‘What I have to say must go out to every one of your people; when a great history ends, it ends most fittingly with everyone knowing why; a man who perishes without reason makes a mockery of all he stands for.
‘I come from a new world beyond this Galaxy – new because there the process of creation still goes on. New galaxies are forming out of the fathomless night, rising out of the margins of emptiness. My planet is new, and I am the first man upon it; it is nameless.’
Welded said, ‘So all you told me back on Owlenj was true?’
‘Certainly,’ you said. You did not bother to tell him how you had learned to pilot the dead Shouter’s ship. You turned instead to Prim. ‘Do you recall a conversation we once had about evolution? You claimed that man was its ultimate product.’
Prim nodded.
‘Man is evolution’s fittest fruit – in this Galaxy,’ you told him. You looked at the Highest, at Welded, at One Eye. Without smiling, you said, ‘You are evolution’s highest flowering here. Think of the multitudes of experiments nature undertook before evolving you. She started with amino acids, then the amoeba, a simple cell … She was like a child at school then, but all this while she has been learning. I use analogies without subscribing to the pathetic fallacy, understand. Many of her experiments – even late ones like the sentient vagabond cells – are failures; man, on the whole, is her best so far.
‘In the new galaxy from which I come, she begins with man. I am the earliest, most primitive form of life in my galaxy – the new amoeba!’
You went on to tell them how in you radical changes had been made; you were, in truth, a different species. Your waste system was fundamentally altered. Your digestive processes had been changed. Genetically, not only were the old characteristics transferable from one generation to another; walking and language genes insured that those simple human skills were also inheritable. The psychological basis of your mind had been improved; much of man’s old random emotionalism had been eliminated entirely. Yet you had a range of altruism and identity with things surpassing man’s capabilities.
The Highest heard you out in silence and then said, ‘As the first of your – ah – species, how is it you can know so much about yourself?’
You smiled. It seemed a simple question.
‘Because all our other improvements are merely in some way a modification of the pattern used in man’s designing, I have in addition one priceless gift: an awareness not only of my psychological actions – thoughts, if you will – but of my physiological ones. I can control the working of my every enzyme, see into each last blood cell. I am integrated as you could never be. For instance, diseases can never touch me; I should recognise and check each at its inception. Nor do I freeze in a moment of crisis and get taken over by automatic reflexes; knowing myself, I am, quite literally, my own master. Though you have mastered your environment, you have never mastered yourselves.’
8
The Highest came down from his dais.
‘There was enough to worry about before you arrived,’ he said. ‘Though I have lived five centuries, I am as a child again
. Why, you must feel quite the superman on Yinnisfar!’
The derision in his tone pricked.
‘Didn’t you understand me?’ you flashed. ‘In my world, I rank as the amoeba. Should that make me proud? As to what supersedes me – ’
The Highest raised a manicured hand, and said, ‘I concede your point; you are suitably humble about your own might.’
‘What’s the good of all this?’ It was One Eye. He had stood helplessly by with Welded and Prim, his mind filled with fruitless plots of escape. Now he came up to you with a mixture of defiance and cajolery.
‘You got us here, you can get us back,’ he said. ‘And let’s not wait. Get us back to Owlenj if you’re such a superman.’
You shook your head.
‘You’d be no better off on Owlenj, of that I can assure you,’ you told him. ‘I’m sorry you had to be involved in this, but it’s been no worse for you than hiding out in the ruins of a city. And I’m no superman – ’
‘No superman!’ One Eye said angrily. He turned to the Highest and exclaimed, ‘No superman, he says. Yet he drank down enough poison for an army, he fended off those swords – you saw him! – he withstood a bombardment just then – ’
‘Listen to me!’ you interrupted. ‘Those things belonged to a different principle. Watch this!’
You walked over to a wall. It was built of solid blocks of marble, polished and selected for their delicate patterning. You placed one hand with extended fingers upon it and pushed; when you withdrew your hand, five short tunnels had been pierced in the marble.
It was a simple demonstration. They were properly impressed.
You wiped your hand and returned to them, but they shuffled away from you, their lips pale.
‘Yet I am no stronger than you,’ you told them. ‘The difference is only this: that I come from a freshly created world, new minted by the inexorable processes of continuous creation. And you – come from an old world. Think of your Galaxy. How old is it? You do not know exactly, but you know it is incredibly old. The truth is, it is wearing out, as everything wears out in time. Nothing is meant to last. Ask yourself what everything is made of. A tissue of energies which outcrops and becomes matter. That tissue of energy, since the beginning of time, has been running down, wearing thin. All matter, which is composed of it, has worn thin with it. The great magical batteries of your Galaxy are slowing, so all protons and neutrons lose their polarity. Their charges have run low, they cannot combine as they once used to. Steel has not the strength that paper once possessed, wood is water.’
The Complete Short Stories- The 1950s - Volume One Page 39