Don Pendleton's Science Fiction Collection, 3 Books Box Set, (The Guns of Terra 10; The Godmakers; The Olympians)

by Don Pendleton

  Honor continued, “Well, Barbara had been going over some of Wenssler’s notes. She thought she had a clue as to what had gone wrong for the Professor. She suggested an experiment, involving the two of us. A psychic experiment. As a result of that experiment, I experienced a sort of breakthrough into the object of Wenssler’s research. I, uh, learned many things, Mr. President.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well . . . Honor glanced at Clinton. “I learned that there are some highly destructive forces loose in this world, Mr. President.”

  “You’re speaking of the collective-unconscious.”

  “Sir?”

  “Wenssler was aware of these forces. He equated them with Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious. Are you familiar with Jung’s work?”

  “No sir, not intimately.”

  “Swiss psychologist, died in 1961. Jung theorized that the subconscious minds of all men everywhere are linked, that this constitutes a collective-unconscious from which spring all of man’s creative expressions. Wenssler hypothesized this Collective Unconscious as the source of psychic power.”

  Honor looked at Clinton and said, “The Rogue.” “What’s that?” Wilkins asked quickly.

  “We call this mental field ‘The Rogue,' sir,” Honor replied quietly.

  “Why do you call it that?”

  “Because it is malevolent in its effect on our world. It is, so to speak, in competition with God.”

  “Then why don’t you call it Satan?” Wilkins snapped. “Others have called it that, also,” Honor sighed. “But it ... is not ... willfully evil. Actually, sir, this force is built and sustained by the minds of men.” “What do you mean, it isn’t willfully evil?”

  “I mean that ...” Honor groped for delicate shadings of words. “ . . . that it operates through natural law ... of the ‘cause and effect’ variety. Or, ‘action and reaction.’ Also, it is anti-evolutionary. Especially since man’s higher intellect has begun to evolve. You might say that the Rogue is a devolutionist.”

  “You’ll have to explain that one, Honor,” the President said, staring at him intently.

  Honor sent a despairing look toward Clinton. “The Rogue pre-dates modern man. By billions of years. He was, uh, an off-shoot of, uh, non-life evolution. His roots are very strongly in the geometric fields of, uh, I mean, uh, he is rooted in the material universe.” Honor cleared his throat and explained, “Stars and planets, you know, and—”

  “You’re saying that the stars are conscious, you know,” the President observed, his interest quickening. “That’s really what you’re saying.”

  “Well ... yes sir ... of an elemental sort. The earth itself is conscious. The earth is evolving, sir. As is the entire material universe.”

  The President coughed, looked at the clock, and said, “I believe I can have a smoke now. Will you gentlemen join me in a cigar?”

  Both men declined. Honor lit a cigarette. Clinton merely glowered. Honor lit the President’s cigar. Wilkins coughed, glared at the cigar, and said, “Tried to cut me off completely. Say there’s still some congestion.” He patted his chest. “Smoke’s good for my congestion . . . tried to tell ’em that.” He chewed the end of the cigar for a moment. “How is the earth conscious?” he asked suddenly.

  “It’s energy conscious,” Honor replied, surprising himself with the answer. “Energy is a consciousness unto itself. A form of consciousness, I mean. Those who say that consciousness is the only reality are deluded by this universal form, this energy consciousness. It’s true that energy is the consciousness of inanimate matter, but it is a very elemental and unevolved consciousness. This is the root of the Rogue. This is his field, his natural one. But there was a mutation.”

  “What sort of mutation?” The President’s cigar had gone out.

  “God goofed,” Honor replied immediately. A peculiar expression was forming on his face. “Even the geometer of geometers has free will, and therefore imparts free will to all the geometers. A rock has free will.” Honor paused and ran a hand through his hair. Clinton’s feet scraped the floor in a restless movement. Honor only vaguely heard it. He was sitting stiffly in the chair, as though at attention.

  “What sort of mutation?” Wilkins asked again.

  “The mind of man arose and began to dominate his environment. This was the plan, unfolding. This also caused the mutation, caused by the impact of free-will against free-will.” Honor took a deep breath and said, “Gods in collision!” He stood, his face in awe and wonderment, and turned to Clinton. “It must be the shielding,” he said in shocked tones. “Things are clearer now. The Rogue has been impacting me. Of course! Of course!”

  Clinton had surged to his feet and taken a step toward Honor. The President caught his eye and sent a silent reprimand. Clinton hesitated, then sat back down.

  “It’s true that truth returns through the geometers,” Honor breathed. “But not spontaneously. It builds the personality ... and ... returns through death. Error rises spontaneously, though, and builds the personality of the Rogue. That’s why . . . yes . . . that’s why.”

  “Go on, Honor,” Wilkins prompted quietly. “That’s why what!”

  “It’s why—or how—the Rogue is taking over. Why he’s so strong. That’s it. Jung was right, Wenssler too. It is the collection of self-conscious error, forever being harvested by the Rogue . . . for God’s sake . . . he’s not unconscious any longer."

  “What do you mean by that?” the President asked.

  “He works through the law, sure, inexorable in the action-reaction sense, but he’s also a self-conscious entity now. For God’s sake, he knows what he’s doing.” Honor took a furious drag on his cigarette, spilling a long ash on the President’s bed, and urgently said, “Mr. President, you have to stay in this vault until your numbers run out!”

  The President was visibly shaken. “Wenssler’s nines,” he murmured.

  “Yes sir, and—”

  Clinton had come alive once again. He was at Honor’s side and gently tugging him away from the bed. “I’m sorry, Jack,” he said tensely. “Pat is still shaken up from that accident this afternoon. He—”

  “No, no, Milt,” Wilkins broke in. “I understand everything he’s been saying. Sit down. Let’s kick this thing around some. Now, Pat. You said awhile ago that this, uh, Rogue is not willfully evil. Now you’re saying that it is self-conscious, and knows what it’s doing. That needs some clarification.”

  “It came to me,” Honor said weakly. He glanced about the room. “The shielding . . . Truth comes from within, error from without. The Rogue’s error-influence was interfering with my . . . until . . . well, when I started thinking . . . in here, behind the shielding, things became clearer. Even here I can sense a . . . rather. .fine influence. I suppose it isn’t possible to shut him out completely, this side of the geometers. He’s sort of omnipresent in his finest form. Yes sir, he is self conscious and therefore willful . . but his denser influences have to follow the law. The law of his root being, and this is an energy base. The shielding will protect you during your numbers. After that, the law itself will protect you.”

  “What numbers?” Clinton asked irritably.

  “Wenssler’s nines,” Wilkins said, his brow furrowed in thought. “He stumbled onto this ancient mathematical symbology in the Far East... seems to think it was the basis for the Cabalistic mysteries. You understand the intriguing aspects of the number nine, don’t you?”

  Clinton shook his head, obviously surprised at the President’s reaction to Honor’s “babbling.”

  “Arabic numerals,” the President explained, “were not generally adopted by the Western world until somewhere around the 10th Century, or so Wenssler tells me. He found evidence that they are incredibly ancient, however, and ... well, look here, Milt. There are ten basic digits to the Arabic system, the one we’ve been using for a thousand years or so. These are the numerals 1 through 9, and the zero. The zero is not actually a value, however, standing alone, so it is said that the
basic Arabic numerals are the digits 1 through 9. Nine numbers, you see. Now. If you add those nine numbers together, you get a sum of 45. Now. Add the two digits of that sum, the four and the five, and you get a sum of nine. Thus it is said that the reduced sum of all digits is nine. Many of the ancient religious mysteries are resolved around that number. In all the mysteries, this curious property of numbers is regarded as being fraught with symbolism.

  “Now Wenssler was never much of a mathematician, but he stumbled onto something over in the East that shook him right down to his core. He worked on the thing and came up with the idea that this value of nine symbolizes the very basis of creation itself. And he has done some amazing things with it.”

  “The blue car,” Honor muttered.

  Wilkins shot him a sharp glance. “You know about that, eh?”

  “I tangled with it,” Honor said, smiling glumly.

  “Wenssler calls it a ‘warp nine projection,’ though I haven’t the foggiest notion of how it actually works,” Wilkins said.

  “Geometric displacement,” Honor murmured.

  “How’s that?”

  “Man manipulates his environment,” Honor replied casually. “You have any idea how many geometers are disturbed by our technologies? Wenssler’s mathematics rounds up the displaced geometers and gives them the new field. It’s a sort of a matching process. You know the old science-fiction idea of teleportation? Well, Wenssler discovered the principle and learned how to use it, though in a limited sense. It’s a matter of geometer alignment into the displaced fields. Pretty simple, really, once you see the principle.”

  “It’s too much for me,” Wilkins said, frowning thoughtfully.

  “It was too much for the Rogue, too,” Honor replied. “This is what got him all stirred up, I’d guess. It seems likely that Wenssler was mating the Rogue’s field to the causal field. I can’t think of any other way to get a projection warp. It’s okay to use the Rogue for simple psychic games, but this was too much.”

  “Are you saying that Wenssler awakened this, uh, whatever it is?”

  Honor shook his head and said, “No, I’d say that the Rogue ‘awakened’ a very long time ago. But Wenssler very likely focused his attention. We’re in for a lot of hell, make no mistake. All over the world.” Honor raised his eyes suddenly, a nerve jumped in his cheek, and he exclaimed, “Oh, hell!"

  “What is it?” Wilkins asked. “Another ‘revelation’?”

  You could call it that.” Honor replied shakily. “There is but one self-conscious God in this geometric field we call the universe.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that the true God does not realize himself until the job of human evolution is completed.” The blood drained from Honor’s face. He leaned against the bed, hands to his cheeks. “Oh God, Hadrin?” he cried. "It can’t be!"

  Wilkins and Clinton exchanged uncomfortable glances. Honor was not even aware of their presence. He was remembering Hadrin’s instruction: “Go, Godmaker, and be true to the image.” That’s the entire story, isn’t it, Honor was thinking. Go, Godmaker, and make the true God. The whole thing was in the hands of mankind. Continue evolving into the perfect image of the creator, or else be content with what you’ve got . . . live in the bosom of the Rogue forever . . . or until the geometers split. But how did one go about making the true God? What could Honor do? Why had he been given this knowledge? What could he do with it?

  “Mr. President,” he mumbled, “I’ve got to have some help.”

  Wilkins placed a hand on Honor’s shoulder. “What can I do, Honor?” he asked solemnly.

  “Evolve,” Honor replied.

  5: Inverse Order

  Clinton eased the steamer out of the parking lot. “It’s funny,” he mused, “I came here thinking that maybe you’d get us both fired. I leave here with you as my boss.”

  “I’m not your boss,” Honor protested. “It’s just a temporary assignment to the staff.”

  “Have you ever seen me talk back to any of the White House Staff?” Clinton said.

  Honor chuckled. “Well, we’re all in the same boat, anyway,” he observed. “I guess it couldn’t matter less who’s at the tiller and who’s at the throttle. The important thing is that we have the government behind us. Now if Wilkins can just line up the other world governments ...”

  “History reveals the immensity of that task,” Clinton growled.

  “Watch it!” Honor exclaimed, placing a hand on Clinton’s arm. “An accident is waiting for us at the intersection.”

  Befuddled, Clinton slammed on the brakes. The steamer stood on its nose and rocked back and forth. A truck thundered through the intersection, violating Clinton’s right of way, the driver’s face reflecting anxiety and consternation.

  “Lost his brakes,” Honor muttered.

  “How the hell did you know?” Clinton asked in a quivery voice. “I didn’t even see that guy until the last second.”

  “I just knew,” Honor replied. “Take it slow and easy. The Rogue’s after us.”

  “I’m afraid to believe you and afraid not to,” Clinton sighed. He moved the car cautiously through the intersection and slowly picked up speed.

  “I’ll radar for us,” Honor said.

  “This thing can really attack us?”

  “Indirectly, sure. He’s running things, you know.”

  Clinton cast his companion a dark sideways glance. What he saw was not at all reassuring. Honor was sitting stiffly in the comer by the door, eyes closed, face angled upwards.

  “Christ’s sake, Pat,” he said gruffly, “this is the age of science. We left witchcraft and black magic in the dark ages.”

  “Maybe we did, but he didn’t,” Honor retorted. “Science evolves, too, you know. Wenssler is a scientist of the first order. And let me assure you, he figured out how to move a ton and a half of automobile faster than the speed of light. Just zip zap, like that.”

  “Nothing moves faster than the speed of light,” Clinton argued. “That much I do know. It’s the universal speed limit.”

  “Yeah, but which universe?” Honor responded, chuckling.

  “Shit,” Clinton said.

  "Floorboard it!” Honor cried.

  Clinton’s reflexes moved ahead of his thinking mind. He’d clicked the steamer into high range and was pushing with all his weight on the accelerator before he even noticed the gasoline truck. It was pulled over to the side of the road, an orange flame licking up from one of the rear wheels. Clinton’s headlamps picked up the driver, sprinting up the road ahead of the truck. Then they had flashed past in a continually building acceleration. Seconds later he saw the flash in his rearview mirror, and then the sound waves reached their ears in a thunderously rolling explosion.

  “What . . . the . . . hell,” Clinton said in an awed voice.

  “We were supposed to have been right alongside when she blew,” Honor explained tightly.

  “Twice in two minutes is too much,” Clinton observed shakily. “No more conversation, buddy. This thing is really after our ass, isn’t it. You radar, I’ll drive.”

  Honor smiled. “He may be self-conscious, but I’m quicker,” he announced. “And he doesn’t have my number, yet, for the dense forces.”

  “What’s all this crap about a number?” Clinton asked. “That the formula stuff Barbara brought to the office?”

  “Yeah, it’s a cyclic vibrational characteristic . . . energy patterns. We all have one, every material object. It runs on a sine wave. Wenssler obviously worked up calculations ... or else he drew them out of the Rogue."

  “What sort of calculations?”

  “I thought you said no more conversation.”

  “Yeah, but what sort of calculations?”

  “The Rogue’s dense forces can pick us up during a descending characteristic. I doubt that medical science has anything to combat them. He can kill with those dense bodies, just simply snuff us out.”

  “Dense bodies, dense forces, bullshit, wha
t are you talking about?”

  “There are various types. You know what a virus is.”

  “Oh, viruses, sure, if that’s all you’re talking—”

  “No, that is not all. I just gave that as a point of reference. He does use viruses, but they are the very densest of his weapons. The virus is the bridge between life and non-life, chemically speaking, and is a micro-miniature body. There are various other bodies, vastly smaller, and forces which can scramble the brains, disrupt organs, and jam the nervous system. These are the dense forces. The fine forces operate on the mind, influence thought, and contribute to all manner of human problems.”

  “Sounds like a cop-out,” Clinton said nervously. “A nice easy way to shrug off personal responsibility. Hell, it’s not my fault that I’m a rat, it’s the damn Rogue influencing me. I can’t buy that, Pat.”

  “Buy it or not, it works that way. It’s the errors of the world pulling against you, old buddy. At your core, you are a divine being. Slow down a bit, a guy is going to run a red light two blocks up.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” Clinton asked irritably.

  “Because I just caught the program. It’s a matter of timing.”

  “No, I mean how do you know that I’m a divine being?”

  Honor grinned. “You’re going to have wings if you don’t follow my instruction and slow down. We’re on a collision course.”

  Clinton abruptly removed his foot from the accelerator, glowered at Honor, then reapplied a gentle pressure. They drove along in silence for a block and a half. A car shot across just ahead of their position, travelling fast and against the light. Clinton whistled and said, “Well, you called it again. You want to drive the rest of the way?”

  “It’s better this way,” Honor replied, smiling. “I don’t have to get involved in automatic reflexes.”

  “This thing—this Rogue—does it control those, too?”

  Honor nodded. “He can influence them.”

  “Why’s he got a hard on for the whole human race?” Clinton cried, in sudden anger.