by Peter Heath
Then an overworked oil line burst and the engine stopped. The captain, who was quite dead, fell forward as the plane now began its plunge toward the green jungle 1,500 feet below. Jason watched the jungle rise swiftly. He heard the shrill whine of the wind through the aluminum struts. Then the L-19 began to spin, and the whole world became a green vortex. The whine rose to a hysterical level. Then Jason remembered . . . the switch . . . he was supposed to do something with it. Five seconds before the L-19 dug its grave in the jungle floor his fingers were still fumbling.
Then there was no more world and no more anything.
* * *
Chapter †
TWO
A THIN STREAK of blue marked the top of the rain forest. A green fly hovered in the cool shadow. It was investigating the twisted mass of wreckage that lay in the deep gash carved in the red earth. It came closer. It buzzed a hunger sound. Then it settled on the protruding arm closest to the shade and it began to feed.
Since the creature was too small to interfere with the transfer facility, it was left alone. The air shimmered five feet away from the crater. It pulsed rapidly and an almost invisible blue light played across a growing spot. The spot became a definable circle, poised five feet above the surface of the jungle floor. It changed to a deeper blue and grew outward. Slowly, it dilated until it was a lens six feet in diameter. The lens was limitlessly deep, a vortex of pure force, shimmering and vibrating in the cool shadows.
The fly continued to suck the coagulated blood out of the open wound on the arm. Since its eyes operated on the infrared spectrum and its ears in the ultrasonic range, it sensed nothing as the lens began to move. The lens moved slowly and delicately until it hovered over the wreckage of the airplane. It paused for a few seconds. Then it descended until it enclosed what remained of the rear section and what remained of the man inside.
The fly was quite content. Suddenly it emitted a shrill buzz of anger and frustration. The arm and the body it was attached to were gone. The loud pop of air rushing in to fill a small vacuum drove the fly five feet away. All was quiet. It waited and then it flew toward the other bloody but edible thing and settled to its interrupted meal.
By the time the first crackle of foliage announced the coming of humans, the fly had bloated itself and had flown away. Colonel Po and his men came out of the jungle with trained caution. Without a word, his specialists went to work. By the time they had finished their task, the first sound of American helicopter motors could be heard in the distance. With a quick glance at the sky, Po ordered his men back into the jungle. Then, with an American safety match, Po ignited one of the L-19’s ruptured wing tanks. He waited until the smoke billowed high enough to mark the wreckage. Then he too faded into the forest.
The body lay inside a transparent cube while probes analyzed the extent of its damage and prepared the repair apparatus. A steady hum filled the vast interior of the Transfer Facility. Robotlike tentacles moved in the shadows. A thousand lights winked their different-colored messages across the faces of the instruments. Outside the air was warm and scented, the perpetual spring on the night face of the planet.
The analyzer finished its investigation. Now it issued its instructions. New energies were created and focused to points deep within the still body. Atoms altered their positions slightly; new molecules were formed; chromosomes and gene chains re-spiraled themselves until the analyzer was satisfied. A part of the dead brain was energized and instructed to repair the internal and external damage. It did this aided by the instruments a million times more swiftly than it could have done under normal circumstances. The energy and direction was supplied by the machine.
Even so, the repairs were extensive. It took the machine five minutes to complete them. And still the body lay cold inside the evacuated cube with the supervisors watching, checking and waiting.
Now the machine issued its final instructions. Gases—oxygen, nitrogen and minute quantities of argon and helium—were created. They boiled out of micro-pores into the cube until the atmosphere of Earth in the twentieth century was expanding and steaming over the inert body. Then the machine issued a command that the bio-physicists of the year 51,220 A.D. had studied intensively as children . . . a command that galvanized the processes into a whole. A command that produced a succession of twitches in the long-dormant heart muscle, twitches which organized themselves into the first full systolic contraction.
Jason Starr opened his eyes.
He wanted to scream. He was floating almost weightlessly inside of a glass box, something that reminded him of an aquarium, and he was utterly naked. His senses seemed totally disoriented. He was afraid. He wanted to be a child again. Because, on the other side of the aquarium wall, there was blackness; and in the blackness he saw something staring at him.
The analyzer reported the fear the second it was generated. A command was given immediately.
Suddenly the walls which enclosed Jason changed to opaque. His weight returned and he was lying on his back, breathing fresh pure air. A soft light filled the chamber, its source a mystery.
Jason tried to sit up, but not a muscle would obey. It was an inward block, as if the part of his mind that issued instructions to his body was being overridden by a force too powerful to resist. The same force seemed to be controlling his respiration. As he watched the regular rise and fall of his chest, memory returned.
The plane, plunging toward the green jungle. The pilot dead. His finger trying to throw the switch . . . then nothing. And now—? It was totally beyond anything he had ever experienced. It was as if . . .
But Jason never finished the thought. A voice was growing. A voice inside of him. A voice that wasn’t like anything he had ever heard before.
You are called Jason Starr, it said. Do not be afraid. I have—transported—you in order to repair your damaged systems. Do you understand?
Repair his damaged systems? Sweat broke out on Jason’s forehead. A twisted, broken bundle of dead flesh inside the shattered L-19 . . . and now he was in one piece . . . he was breathing . . . his body felt normal, even relaxed. Something had prevented him from dying . . . or at least from staying dead.
“What—are—you?” He mouthed the words, knowing that the thing had different ears—mental ears.
It will be explained at the proper time, the voice filled his mind. I have recreated you in order to serve your race. Your existence is necessary on the M-27 time plane. You will be returned shortly. Your world line will continue.
The enormity of the statement sank into Jason’s mind. For centuries man had speculated on the possibilities of time travel; for the past fifty years the world’s greatest scientific minds had given the question serious study. But no one had proven or disproven Einstein’s postulates on the subject. And now Jason was communicating with an intelligent being who seemed to be able to penetrate the envelope of past, present and future.
“Can you explain who—what—you are?” he said, this time as coolly as possible.
It will be explained at the proper time. First you must agree to return to your continuum as my ally. The voice, or whatever it was, seemed to be waiting for a reply.
Jason had the feeling that his decision could make the difference between life and death. Death number two, he thought. Or hallucination number three, a crazy mixed-up dream with voices in his head, something peering through transparent walls at him . . . a million laughs . . . what a way to go. Except that he knew it wasn’t a dream. It was happening.
If he said no—would he ever wake up? If he said yes, would his world be the old familiar one with his work, his pleasures and a life expectancy of seventy-five? In the last analysis there could be only one answer. Forever is a long, long time.
“Yes,” he said. “I agree to help you, or is it serve you?”
You were chosen because of your intelligence. You were chosen not to obey but to act according to your decisions.
“So now what happens?”
You will return to your cont
inuum. You will resume your human functions. You will forget . . . until contact is made again.
“Forget! But why?” A thought crossed Jason’s mind. Before he could ask his next question the thing interrupted.
You will be contacted at the appropriate time. Until then, resume your normal pattern.
He was being lifted by mandibles of force that were so strong yet so gentle that he felt like a baby starting its passage from the womb into the world. Then he was spinning, faster and faster, into a tunnel of blackness. When the blackness was so thick that it seemed to penetrate his body, he lost consciousness. His last thought was: forever is a long, long, long time.
The Special Forces reconnaissance team found the still-smoldering wreckage of the L-19 in the dark. They found it by using their noses.
It wasn’t a pretty smell. The stench of burnt flesh never is. The thing that had been the pilot was an unrecognizable lump of charcoal, smashed into the remaining pieces of the instrument panel.
“It isn’t much of a thought but thank God the poor bastard was dead before the fire started,” said the tall officer with no bars on his lapel.
“Captain, I’ve seen some smash-ups in my time but never one like this,” said a sergeant with no stripes. “Probably hit nose-down with the controls locked. Looks like they really opened up on her. They never had a chance.”
The captain grunted. It was strange. Not the way the L-19 had crashed—they got it the same way every day—and not the poor bastard in the front seat. What was screwy was the man they had found sprawled nearby, his parachute unopened, his body apparently undamaged and his breathing deep and regular. In a deep coma, a colonel in the Air Force . . . now what in the hell was he doing alive when he should have been pulverized in the crash? The captain adjusted his bolstered .45. He looked up at the star-strewn night sky, a habit he had fallen into during his five years of jungle combat. Five years during which he had seen more than a man cares to remember.
At last he shrugged. “Well, let’s stop scratching our armpits,” he growled at his men. “The joker was lucky but he’s not lucky enough to keep living unless we shovel him up and get him back to the medics. And salvage what you can of that junk in the rear seat. We were supposed to provide verification of damages and I guess the Air Force will want some evidence.” The captain flicked off the tip of his cigarette and his men went to work.
* * *
Chapter †
THREE
THE SUN was shining through a window and the air was so sweet that he could taste it. Light. Taste? A jumble of other sensations entered Jason Starr’s mind as it groped its way up from blackness. The pillow, the soft sheets, the faint smell of medicinals. A hospital. Of course. He opened his eyes.
He was lying in a high-ceilinged room, facing two big windows that opened onto a scene that he knew well: blue sky, green hills above, and ships—hundreds of them—moving and anchored in the land-locked harbor below. In between, rows of neat bungalows on wide, tree-shaded streets. He was in the Navy Hospital at Pearl Harbor. He tried to sit up. It was a dizzying process, and he let himself sink slowly back. Memory was shot to hell: an aching confusion of half-real, half-crazy dreams and the strange stirrings of something so deeply buried in his subconscious that it was like the recollection of another life. It was like trying to remember being born.
He sighed and slept again—this time the normal sleep of a man who had returned from the eternal, sad sleep of death. As twilight crept over the green hills the nurse tiptoed into the room. She closed the Venetian blinds and stood looking down at the sun-etched face of the sleeper. It was a strong and yet tender face. The well-molded lips had the slight curl upward that indicated both humor and natural sensuality. It was an experienced and strong face, she thought. No woman would ever know it completely. She was a woman who knew men. She leaned over him and her lips brushed his. Then she left.
The CIA men came early the next morning. Two of them, both young and both with that look of professional distrust that always put them apart from other, more normal young men. They took Starr into an empty doctor’s office. Then they talked to him.
“The Air Force has decided to write Project Hysteria off, Colonel,” said the crewcut blond one. “So you’re going back to your old job . . . if you still want it, of course. No one will ask any questions, so you don’t have to worry on that score.”
Just like that. You were told to forget it and you forgot.
“Now wait one hundred million minutes,” said Starr. “You’re telling me the project is headed for the wastebasket! Without even a test! Millions of dollars, thousands of man-hours, and you don’t even want to know if the thing really works?”
He scowled blackly across the desk. The blond one wasn’t having any. Jason continued, “I want a better explanation. I want some facts . . . so forget that you’re little-boy spies long enough to tell me what I’m doing in a Navy Hospital. And how the hell the Air Force decided to cancel out five months of hard work.”
The ball was passed to the other one, with the pipe in his breast pocket. Very collegiate, no doubt. A real Yale paratrooper.
“That’s what we’re afraid of, Colonel. Or do you prefer me to call you Doctor . . . ?” He waited. When nothing happened he went on: “Look—ah—Doctor . . . the Air Force did recruit you to produce some kind of machine—even we don’t know what. According to our information you worked alone. And now the Air Force says it’s canceling the whole business. We were sent here to tell you. Your work is finished. Here—” The unsmiling youngster drew a large white envelope out of his inside pocket. “Inside, you’ll find discharge papers—honorable, of course—a plane ticket to the West Coast . . . and—a—” The CIA man cleared his throat. He was embarrassed. “A compensatory sum of money for services rendered above and beyond the call of duty. It’s made out to your bank in Los Angeles.”
So they used me, thought Jason, body and brain for five months. And now the big payoff. Now you can go home and forget you ever knew us. Because we’re the big boys, we make the rules and we control the action. And we’re shipping you back to the minor leagues.
“Sorry,” he said quietly and calmly. “I have other plans in mind. You want to hear them? Oh, I forgot. You don’t know anything so you wouldn’t be able to give me any advice. So I’ll skip the juicy parts and you’ll understand. In fact, now that I think about it, you’ll both be able to read about them in the newspapers.” Starr allowed himself to smile. The message was getting across. The two junior-executive espionage agents were looking uncomfortably at each other.
There was a bit of throat clearing, finger twitching, pocket adjusting, and silence. The type with the pipe finally let his jaw relax enough to sigh.
Then he said, “I was hoping that it wouldn’t be necessary, Doctor Starr. But since you seem unwilling to take our advice in this matter, you should at least be aware of the consequences of such—rashness.” The word fell out of his face like a rock.
“What are you saying?” For the first time, Starr felt a sinking feeling.
“The contents of the cases, Doctor . . .” The CIA man let the sentence dangle in mid air.
“Highly sophisticated electronic components. Show me a Class Q Clearance, tell me you have a ’need to know,’ and I’ll tell you how they functioned.”
“That won’t be necessary, Doctor. We already know.”
“What?”
“Sorry to have to be the one, Doctor. But you know as well as I—the boxes had no function.”
“You’re crazy.” Starr looked into the blue eyes across the desk. They were calm, assured, even friendly.
“Doctor, when the Special Forces team picked you up out of the jungle, they salvaged the instruments you had installed. They were flown back to Washington for analysis in our labs at Air Force request. Do you want to know what our best electron specialists had to say, Doctor? I’ll tell you. The wires, tubes, transistors and batteries of your so-called ’device’ added up to a great big fat nothin
g. In fact, all they did was produce dial indications and glowing green and red lights . . . So if you want to present your case to the papers, that’s up to you. It’s your reputation, not ours. If you’ve changed your mind, then we’re willing to let the whole matter drop.”
“Since you seem to know what the equipment was designed to do, what about the tests in Colorado?” Jason played his last card. “They showed what the machine could do,” he said.
“They showed the symptoms of something, Doctor. According to our report, the something was probably LSD, a drug that produces that kind of hallucinations that your—a—machine was supposed to create. You worked by yourself, Doctor. It would have been easy for someone—we don’t necessarily mean you—to give the animals an injection.” The CIA man paused. He looked at his watch. He stood up. His friend followed suit.
“Now, Doctor, I think you understand your position. If—” his hand indicated the envelope. “—if you decide to accept the contents we will all be very grateful. And I see we have a flight to catch. Goodbye, Doctor . . . and good luck.”
Jason said nothing as the two men left. He sat staring at the envelope. Then he stared at the wall. At last he stood up. He put the envelope into his bathrobe pocket and went back to his room. There he lay on his bed and stared some more.
The squeeze was on from all directions. Someone was pulling off one of the most fantastic frame-ups in history. Perhaps it was his own government, perhaps not. But it was a mystery that would haunt him for the rest of his life. And what kind of a life could he lead with the knowledge that his government would never trust him again? Not on the big things, not as a scientist or even as a man. There had to be a logical explanation. But how to find it or even where to begin looking was the question.
He closed his eyes and let his mind roam back. The plane spinning out of control and now the hospital. That was all. But something. In some way there was more. He concentrated until his thoughts flew off in all directions again. It was a blank wall. He could feel it in him like an itch, and it wouldn’t go away.