Wood pursed his lips. “Seems like it would. Can’t you get that through your mutant?”
“He’s a superficial observer. Even if he saw the counterequation used, he couldn’t describe the set-up clearly enough. He’d miss too much. Besides, we can’t guide him easily—and if we could, we wouldn’t know what to look for. But assuming that Ridgeley knows the answer to the equation and how to handle it, can’t we also assume he knows the counterequation?”
“Seems like. You’ve got scanners on him.”
“That,” Cameron said, “is what I mean. He’s looking for Pastor. And Pastor’s got that obliterative power that’s part of the equation. Ridgeley must know how to protect himself against Pastor.”
“The only protection would be the counterequation.”
“If he uses it against Pastor—”
“The application,” Wood said thoughtfully, staring at his pipe bowl. “I see. If he should do that, we could break down whatever he does into the counterequation. If a scientifically trained observer sees a gun go off for the first time, he should be able—theoretically, anyway—to work out a formula for gunpowder. Huh. I’d suggest cameras equipped for quantitative and qualitative analysis; keep them focused on Ridgeley through the scanners. Attach ultraviolet, infrared and any other stuff you can think of. That’ll do to start. If Ridgeley does use some application of the counterequation against Dr. Pastor, we can crack that problem, too.”
As Wood checkered out, Cameron turned to DuBrose. For the first time in weeks, the chief’s eyes lost their tight fixity.
“You know what it would mean?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” DuBrose said. “You wouldn’t be . . . haunted . . . any more.”
Cameron shrugged. “Natural for me to think of the personal application first. But it would also mean we could smash the Falangists. They don’t have the counterequation. Because Ridgeley wouldn’t have given it to them. The counter-equation is his own life insurance. In his position, he’s automatically a target for assassination—because the Falangists can’t trust him.”
“Wouldn’t he be too valuable to them?”
“More dangerous than valuable. He gave them a weapon that could win the war, in exchange for . . . something. I don’t know what. But if they should win, what use would they have for Ridgeley? And suppose Ridgeley sold out to us? A mercenary will change sides if it’s profitable enough. The Falangists may be afraid of Ridgeley, they may find him tremendously useful, but they can’t possibly trust him. He could win the war for either side, from the Falangist point of view. So Ridgeley would know enough not to trust his allies, and he wouldn’t sell ’em his armor as well as his weapon.”
“Sounds sensible,” DuBrose admitted. “But suppose he doesn’t find Pastor?”
“Mm-m. Cheerful, aren’t you? Let’s try Billy again.”
The pattern emerged.
There had been war in Ridgeley’s time, too. But an absolute war. One that was served by the mightiest technological system the planet had ever seen.
It had gone on for a long time. It had sealed its impress into every part of the socio-economic system. Before birth, the sensitive germ-plasm was impregnated with radiations that would permit the later development of certain necessary talents. Ridgeley’s people were warriors in bone, sinew, nerve, and brain. Psychologically they were beautifully equipped for their job.
And, in that time, there was but one job. War.
Exquisite muscular co-ordination blended with a super-fine neural structure. Ridgeley had whiplash responses. He could make split-second decisions. He was the embodiment of Mars.
He had been trained to fight and conquer, with all the tremendous facilities of his time-era. To fight and win.
But only that.
In Cameron’s office—
“You started the wheels going around in my head,” Wood said, “when you suggested that Ridgeley wouldn’t trust his Falangist allies. He wouldn’t give them the counter-equation. But the big point—the one that was holding me up—is something else. There’s been a certain screwiness to the equation itself.”
“The whole thing’s screwy,” DuBrose said. “That’s the basic idea, isn’t it?”
Wood blinked. “Nevertheless I was assuming the gambits were all there. Until yesterday. Has it occurred to either of you that the Falangists aren’t making full use of their weapon?”
Cameron said slowly. “Our technicians are going insane——”
“A few factors of variable logic have been used. All that can be used by application of the incomplete equation.”
“Incomplete!” DuBrose said.
Wood tapped ashes from his pipe. “It is. It’s beautifully disguised, camouflaged so that it almost seems like a complete equation, but there’s a factor missing. I didn’t realize that till I realized the possibility of its absence. A jig-saw puzzle with a piece missing. If you know that, if you fit the rest together, you can see the shape of the missing piece. In its present incomplete form the equation’s applications are limited.”
“But why?” Cameron asked.
DuBrose said, “By God, I know the answer to that! The complete equation must be dangerous to Ridgeley! It could be used against him! Naturally he wouldn’t trust that to the Falangists, or to anyone.”
The Director studied his hands. “We’ve been assuming that the Falangists have the . . . the complete weapon. Whereas you say they probably have the bomb but not the bomb-sight. Eh?”
Wood nodded. Cameron went on:
“Well . . . the Falangists aren’t fools. They have good technicians. They’d have discovered that the equation isn’t complete.”
Wood nodded again, “They’ve had time enough.”
“But they haven’t found the missing factor, or they’d have used it against us in an all-out attack.
I’m assuming that the completed equation, in practical application, would be rather invincible.”
“Can’t be sure. I’d say it might be. Except, of course, against the counterequation.”
Cameron smiled. “Then the Falangist technicians would be working on the problem, too. They’d have an occupational illness too. They’d have to get the missing factor, for fear we might get it first, and for fear of Ridgeley. I wonder how many top Falangist technicians are insane by now?”
DuBrose said excitedly, “It’s a two-edged sword. It must be. If Ridgeley—”
The Director grunted. “Can you find that missing factor?”
“I think so.”
“Then why couldn’t the Falangists?”
“A racial psychological handicap, perhaps,” DuBrose suggested. “They’ve always been reactionaries. Their culture as a unit is fairly new, but it’s based on very old, established lines.
They—”
“They don’t play fairy chess,” Wood said. “Oh, it’s possible they might get the answer, but they couldn’t have done it yet, or we’d be smashed. That’s how powerful the complete equation can be.
Here’s another point.” He chuckled. “If I should fail, I know I won’t be shot or have to commit honor-suicide. The Falangists have a strict, arbitrary code of ethics. They serve the State, but they worship it too. Failure to them is unthinkable.”
Cameron seemed to agree. “The Danes conquered the Saxons plenty of times, but Alfred and his men kept coming back. When the Danes were defeated at Ethandune, they were psychologically broken as well. The Falangist culture is inflexible. It had to be, in the beginning, or it would have broken up. But now . . . yeah, our technicians worry if they can’t solve the equation; and they go insane. But a Falangist technician would be conditioned to worry a lot more. Cultural handicap.”
Wood said mildly, “I’m having fun. I just don’t have time to worry. So I may crack the equation, missing factor and all, quite soon.”
Cameron looked at him. “We can win the war. We’ve the chance to do so. But if we do, I’ll always wonder why Ridgeley joined the losing side?”
“He wouldn’
t,” DuBrose said, “if he knew. So he couldn’t have known. Maybe no records survived to his time-period. There’d be only a vague legend that there was a war about now. But the legend might not say who won. Even if there were records, they might be so incomplete that—”
“Incomplete or incorrect,” Cameron said. “Then there’s another possibility. Alternative time-lines. In Ridgeley’s original past, the Falangists might have won. But by coming back in time, he changed the set-up and switched the historical line across to an alternative future.”
The mathemetician got up. “I must get back to work. Now that the matter is clarified somewhat, perhaps—”
Cameron didn’t hear from him, then, for three days.
In the cool of the evening God, nee Emil Pastor, walked through the wheat fields of Dakota. A small, slight figure, he trudged on, while the silvery ocean of wheat rippled softly around him in the moonlight. He was following his shadow.
The shadow is the reality; the reality, shadow. Under his feet the hollow earth boomed deeply, and the sound crashed again and again into his aching head. He hated to stop. There had been enough delay. The sooner he reached his goal, the sooner his questions would be answered.
God should be omnipotent. That was the trouble. He was a dual personality. He had a dim, uneasy feeling that he might be not only God, but Apollyon. He might not be God at all. He might be merely the demon of destruction.
Why hadn’t he been able to heal his own arm?
The neural tissues had been burned out. The pain he felt in that arm was imaginary, a familiar phenomenon in amputation cases. He had bound the withered member to his body; the loose swinging distracted him.
Physician, heal thyself. God, heal Thyself. Apollyon—
He was very, very puzzled as he slowed to a halt and stood silent in the great quiet wheat field, staring at his black, one-armed shadow. But far away and dimly he could still remember something called Emil-dear, and that meant safety, and his shadow would take him to that sanctuary.
There he could learn his name. God or Apollyon. That would tell him his destiny. God must rule with justice and forbearance. Apollyon must destroy.
Something was moving in the wheat.
No—it was the wind.
He willed the pain to stop, but it did not stop.
Slow, helpless, easy tears spilled down his cheeks, and he did not see the movement coming quietly through the wheat, under the white, relentless moonlight.
The iconoclast slipped noiselessly toward God.
“What about the application?”
“Simple enough. It’s like this, Mr. Cameron. You can’t play fairy chess unless you’ve got a board, the pieces, and unless you know the rules. Now we’ve cracked the equation, we know the rules.”
“The board, though? And the pieces?”
“All around us. Matter, light, sound—things you wouldn’t ordinarily think of as . . . uh . . . machinery. Ordinarily they’re not. In orthodox chess you can’t use a nightrider or a grasshopper.
In orthodox logic you can’t use a . . . a cigarette as a machine. But even a cigarette can be assigned arbitrary powers when you assume variable truths. This space-time continuum and its properties are the board and the men. By working on certain irreal space-time assumptions, you alter the shape of the board. And when I say irreal, I mean irreal by orthodox standards.”
“But the practical application!”
“A gas engine could give us the initial power, or simple nervous energy would do as well. There are vast sources of energy all around us, Mr. Cameron. In a world of orthodox logic we can’t tap that energy, or we can’t do it without specialized machines, anyhow.”
“You’ve got the complete equation? That missing factor—”
“I found it. It fits. We’ve got something even the Falangists don’t have. But even so it isn’t unlimited. The variable-truth microcontinuum can be maintained only as long as there’s a sufficient energy output effectively tapped and directed. Which may be lucky, or the universe could go hog-wild. There are limitations. Even mental radiations can’t be maintained indefinitely.
But a thought can start the ball rolling.”
DuBrose came into Cameron’s office.
“Pastor’s dead,” he said flatly. “Ridgeley killed him. But he didn’t use the counterequation.”
The director put his hands flat on the desk and studied them carefully. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“That,” he said, “is unfortunate.”
“How . . . how is it?”
Cameron lifted a ravaged face. “What do you think? They’ve been hammering at me without a let-up for—a million years! I . . . I . . . give me a shot, Ben.”
DuBrose carried a narcotic kit in his pocket these days. He put the sterilized needle deftly into Cameron’s arm and let ultraviolet glow briefly on the skin. A moment later the director settled back, the tic in his cheek subsiding.
“Better. Can’t stand much of this. Can’t think too clearly in this dreamlike state.”
“It keeps the bugs away, chief.”
“Not bugs now. Something new—” Cameron didn’t elucidate. “Tell me—what you want to.”
“The scanner’s been on Ridgeley, you know. He located Pastor in Dakota ten minutes ago. He sneaked up and killed him with that little crystal gadget of his. Indian stuff. Pastor never saw him coming. Ridgeley crawled to within range and let go. I don’t think any civilized man of this time could have done it.”
“Ridgeley—trained for war. All kinds.”
“Yeah. Well, he didn’t have to use the counterequation. The whole thing was recorded; Wood’s looking at the play-back now. But I’m sure he won’t find anything.”
Cameron slowly indicated a paper on his desk. “Been psyching Ridgeley. Read it.” He settled back, closing his eyes, the lines of strain still twisting his face. DuBrose studied the director anxiously, knowing that Cameron couldn’t stand much more of this. From the moment the doorknob had opened a blue eye and stared at Cameron, the man had been under relentless attack for nearly two weeks. The anxiety neurosis was building up to a true psychosis. Yet if the pressure could be removed, the cure would be speedy.
By the time Eli Wood appeared, DuBrose had finished the paper. He handed it silently to the mathematician.
Wood read it. He nodded at Cameron.
“Doped up, eh? Well, I guess you need it. Ridgeley didn’t use the counterequation; did DuBrose tell you?”
“Even if he had,” Cameron said rather thickly, “we might not have been able to break it down.”
Wood shook his head. “Fallacious logic. We’ve got the original solved equation as a model now.
And it’s possible to analyze anything. Just let Ridgeley try that counterequation where I can see him, and I’ll guarantee to give you the answer within a few hours, probably. The Integrators are already readjusted for variable logic.”
“He might . . . not know it, after all.”
DuBrose picked up the paper again. “But he might, chief. If we could force him into a position where he had to use it . . . mm-m. What dope have we got on him, anyway?”
“He came from . . . a world geared to total warfare.”
Wood said, “Did you get all that stuff from your mutant?”
DuBrose smiled faintly. “By major operations. This data has been boiled down from eighty thousand words of extraneous material. But as for Ridgeley—we’ve learned some of his limitations. He’s the last of the warriors.”
Not quite as simple as that. Picture a world geared to absolute warfare, a world so technologically advanced that interdoctrination could begin before birth. And visualize the planet shaking beneath the conflict of two nations, two races, that had been locked in a death-struggle for generation upon generation. By comparison the war with the Falangists seemed brief.
The matrix was war. That was the basic pattern, and all else had to integrate and co-ordinate. The psychology was more easily understandable than the science of that
time.
Indoctrination, then, until the individual was a perfect machine for fighting and winning. But only that.
Necessarily the faculty for compromise, for flexibility, had been rigidly trained along certain military lines. Daniel Ridgeley, since his embryonic period, had been shaped to conquer and rule.
Even before his conception, the basic genes and chromosomes had been carefully chosen for heredity value.
And Ridgeley’s nation had lost the war.
Of the defeated, many died, and very many more submitted and were absorbed into the social scheme of the victors. But Ridgeley was a war criminal. Not a major one; when he disappeared, no one troubled to search through time for him. He was gone—and he could not come back—so he was forgotten.
Temporal travel was beginning to be understood in Ridgeley’s period. So he had taken that way of escape. He could not have stayed in his own time-world, because his psychological pattern could not conceivably have fitted into a scheme of failure. He was a machine built for one purpose.
Tigers by heredity and environment are carnivores. On a diet of grass they would die. If they possessed the delicate nervous organisms of men, they might go mad. Carnivores rule; herbivores submit. The meat of battle—successful war—was necessary to Ridgeley’s existence. So, deprived of his natural diet, he had sought it elsewhere.
“Some of this is theoretical,” Cameron said slowly.
DuBrose nodded at Wood. “We don’t know from how far in the future Ridgeley comes. You’d think he could have referred to a history book and found out whether or not the Falangists will win this war. He’d never choose the losing side.”
“Maybe he didn’t,” Cameron said.
“We worked out another answer, chief. Remember? Histories of this era may not have survived in Ridgeley’s time. Perhaps all he had to work on was the knowledge that there was a war around this period. Then, again, time may be flexible after all, so the future can be changed by switching off into different probability lines. But I dunno. The big thing—” He watched Wood. “Listen to this. Time travel was understood by Ridgeley’s nation, and a number of people had tried it then.
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