Hedrock shook himself like a stag at bay. Damned if he’d believe they had anything. “So,” he said, and his voice sounded harsh in his own ears, “so I’m five percent braver than I ought to be. I don’t believe it. Bravery is a matter of circumstances. A coward becomes a lion given the proper incentive.”
In spite of himself, his voice was suddenly more forceful. Some of the fife of his convictions, his dark anxieties, thickened and deepened his tone. “You people,” he snapped, “do not seem to be alive to what is going on. What is happening is no idle whim of a bored ruler. The Empress is a mature personality in all except minor meanings of the terms; and it must never be forgotten that we are now entering into the fifth period of the House of Isher. At any hour mighty events could erupt from the under-currents of human unrest. Twenty billion minds are active, uneasy, rebellious. New frontiers of science and relations among men are beyond the near horizon, and somewhere out of that chaotic mass will grow the fifth crisis of cosmic proportions in the history of the Isher civilization. Only a new development on a high level could bring the Empress to such sustained, forceful action at this stage of her career. She said that in two months she would call me back, and suggested it might be less. It will be less. My impression, and I cannot emphasize it too strongly, is that we shall be lucky to have two days. Two weeks is the outside limit.”
He was roused now. He saw that Cadron was trying to speak, but he plunged on, unheeding. His voice filled the room. “The entire available trained strength of the Weapon Shops should be concentrating in Imperial City. Every street should have its observer. The fleet should be mobilized within striking distance of the city. All this should be already in ceaseless operation. But what do I find instead?” He paused, then finished scathingly, “The mighty Weapon Shop council is frittering its time away on some obscure discussion of whether or not a man should have been as brave as he was.
He ended, drably conscious that he had not influenced them. The men sat unsmiling, cold. Peter Cadron broke the silence quietly. “The difference,” he said, “is seventy-five percent, not five. That’s a lot of bravery, and we shall now discuss it briefly.”
Hedrock sighed his recognition of defeat. And felt better. Wryly, he recognized why. Against all reason, there had been hope in him. Now there wasn’t. Here was the crisis, product of a scientific force which he had thought under control. And it wasn’t. His life now depended on moment to moment developments. He listened intently as Cadron spoke again.
“I assure you, Mr. Hedrock,” the man said with quiet sincerity, “we are all distressed by the duty that devolves upon us. But the evidence is relentless. Here is what happened: When the psychologists discovered the variation, two cerebro-geometric configurations were set up on the Pp machine. One used as a base the old record of your mind; the other took into account a seventy-five percent increase in every function of your mind, EVERY FUNCTION, I repeat, not only courage. Among other things, this brought your I.Q. to the astounding figure of two hundred seventy eight.”
Hedrock said, “You say, every function. Including idealism and altruism, I presume?”
He saw that the men were looking at him uneasily. Cadron said, “Mr. Hedrock, a man with that much altruism would regard the Weapon Shops as merely one factor in a greater game. The Weapon Shops cannot be so broad-minded. But let me go on. In both the cerebro-geometric configurations I have mentioned, the complicated configuration of the Empress was mechanically woven into the matrix, and because speed was an essential, the possible influence on the situation of other minds was reduced to a high level Constant, modified by a simple, oscillating Variable—”
In spite of himself, Hedrock found himself becoming absorbed. His conviction that he ought to interrupt as often as was psychologically safe yielded before a gathering fascination in the details of a science that had so greatly outstripped his capacity even for learning about it. Graphs of brain and emotional integers, curious mathematical constructions whose roots delved deep into the obscure impulses of the human mind and body. He listened and watched, intently, as Cadron went on with his damning words:
“The problem, as I have said, was to insure that the rescue party did not arrive at the palace too soon, or too late. It was found that the graph based on your old Pp proved that you would never leave the place alive, unless an Unknown of the third order intervened in your favor. That configuration was instantly abandoned. Science cannot take account of possible miracles. The second projection centralized on the hour of 1:40 p.m., with a concentric error possibility of four minutes. The landing therefore, was effected at 1:35, the false Imperial credentials were accepted within two minutes. At 1:39 you emerged from the elevator. You will agree, I think, that the evidence is conclusive.”
It was a nightmare. All these years while he had been living and planning, carefully building up the structure of his hopes, he had actually already committed his-fortunes to the Pp machine, possibly the greatest invention ever developed in the field of the human mind. Distractedly, Hedrock realized that one of the councilors, not Cadron, but a little gray-haired man, was saying:
“In view of the fact that this is not a criminal case in an ordinary sense of the term, and particularly because of Mr. Hedrock’s past services, I think he is entitled to assurance that we are taking seriously what the Empress is doing. For your information, young man, our staff here has been enlarged fivefold. Perhaps in your personal anxiety at the time, you did not notice that the elevator from the airport went down much farther than usual to reach here. We have taken over seven additional floors of the hotel and our organization is in ceaseless operation. Unfortunately, in spite of your stirring appeal, I must agree with Mr. Cadron. The Weapon Shops, being what they are, must handle cases like yours with cruel dispatch. I am compelled to agree that death is the only possible sentence.”
There were nods along the table, voices murmuring: “Yes, death—death—immediate—”
“Just a minute!” Hedrock’s voice made a strong pattern above the quiet medley. “Did you say that this council room is now a part of the hotel not previously occupied by the Meteor corporation?”
They stared at him blankly, as he ran, not waiting for a reply, straight at the ornamental panel on the darkly gleaming wall to his right. It was simpler than he had expected in his wildest imaginings. No one stopped him; no one even drew a gun. As he reached the panel, he adjusted his four fingers, accurately fitted them against the panel, twisted—and the ring slid out of its hidden groove on to his index finger. In one continuous, synchronized motion, he turned its pale-green fire on the vibratory device—and stepped through the transmitter.
Hedrock wasted no time examining the familiar room in which he found himself. It was located in underground vaults twenty-five hundred miles from Imperial City, filled with softly pulsing machines and glittering instruments. His hand closed on a wall switch. There was a hiss of power as he plunged it home. He had a brief mind picture, then, of all the rings and devices in the Hotel Royal Ganeel dissolving out of existence. They had served their purpose. One surprise escape was all he could ever hope to make from the Weapon Shops. He turned, walked through a door; and then, at the last instant, saw his deadly danger and tried to leap back.
Too late. The twenty-foot monster pounced on him. Its sledge-hammer paws sent him spinning along one wall, dizzy, sick, half unconscious. He tried to move, to rise—and saw the gigantic white rat darting toward him, its great teeth bared for the kill.
Four
GRIMLY, HEDROCK WAITED UNTIL THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT. And then the roar of his voice filled the room with its threatening echoes. There was a massive squealing as the rat dodged aside into the far corner. It crouched there, and he could see that its violent movement had incremented its already speeded up life processes. Slowly, it began to keel over. Its glazed eyes peered at Hedrock as he staggered over to the rat enclosure, straight for the line of power switches. It made no effort to follow him; and, in a moment, he had pulled the lever t
hat furnished the force for its size.
More slowly, he walked back into the large room. He had already noticed where the wall had been smashed but he did not pause to examine the break. It required half a minute to find the creature, now that it was no longer physically magnified. But he finally saw the six-inch glint of dirty white, where it had crawled under a broken chair. It was still alive, a very old-looking rat. It twisted weakly as he picked it up and carried it through the rat enclosure into the laboratory beyond. The feeling that came to him then had very little to do with the miserable creature he was placing in his data-gathering machine. It was pity, but on a vast scale, not for any individual. The compassion embraced all life. He felt, suddenly, alone in a world where people and things lived and died with heartbreaking rapidity, ephemeral shadows that blinked in the strong light from the sun, and then faded and were gone for-evermore.
With an effort, he fought off that black mood and, turning away from the data machine, went to examine his rat enclosure. The four rat houses were doing well. Each had a new batch of young ones, and from the size of them he guessed that they had been born since the mechanical process had been interrupted by the rat that had broken out.
It would take too long to repair the break in the big metal pen, but the rest of the process resumed with automatic precision the moment he threw the switches back into position. The process was simplicity itself. He had begun it a thousand years before by introducing a dozen rats (six males and six females) into each of four specially constructed houses. Food was provided at intervals. The pens were kept clean by an ingenious pusher device that worked on a gear system. Nature had her own automatic methods, and every little while youngsters appeared and grew up, adding to the weight of the delicate balances that held up the floor. As soon as the weight of rats on the poised floor reached a set point, a little door would open, and sooner or later a rat would go into the narrow corridor beyond. The door would close behind it; and no other door in any of the four houses would open until it was disposed of. At the far end of the corridor was bait, inside which was a tiny Weapon Shop magnifier. When swallowed, the magnifier warmed from the rat’s body heat and set off a relay which opened the door into an enclosure forty feet long, wide and high. It also set the little corridor floor moving. Like it or not, the rat was precipitated immediately into the open. That door shut too, blocking the way back.
More food in the center of the room activated the power that set off the magnifier. With a bang, the rat plummeted into size, becoming a twenty-foot monster, whose life functions speeded up in almost direct proportion to the difference in size. In that accelerated life-world, death came swiftly. And, as the corpse cooled below a certain temperature, the magnifying power was shut off, the floor tilted, and the small white body slid on to a conveyor belt Which transported it to the data-gathering machine, from whence it was precipitated into a ray bath and disintegrated.
The process then repeated. And repeated and repeated and repeated. It had been going on for a millennium; and its purpose was tremendous. Somewhere along the line, the enlarging rays of the vibrator would do to a rat purposely what they had done accidentally to Hedrock fifty-five centuries previously. A rat would become immortal, and provide him with a priceless subject for experiment. Some day, if he succeeded in his search, all men would be immortal.
The data card of the rat that had so nearly killed him turned up in the “special” rack. There were three other cards with it, but the special quality about them was the continued functioning of some organ after death. Long ago, he had explored similar freak happenings to exhaustion. The fourth card excited Hedrock. The rat that had attacked him had lived the equivalent of ninety-five years. No wonder it had had time to break out. It must have lived several hours as a giant.
He calmed himself because he couldn’t go into the matter now. The rat would have been precipitated, not into the dissolver, but into the preserver with the other specials, and would be waiting for his examination at some future date. Right now there were things to do, vitally important things affecting the existing human race; and he, who worked so hard for the future, had never yet let the might-be interfere at decisive moments with the now.
There were things to do, and they must be done before the Weapon Shop Council could completely nullify his position and his power in the Weapon Shop organization. Swiftly, Hedrock donned one of his “business” suits, and stepped through a transmitter.
He arrived in one of his secret apartments in Imperial City, and saw by his watch that ten minutes had passed since he had escaped from the Hotel Royal Ganeel. He’d be reasonably safe in assuming that the tens of thousands of Weapon Shop members would not yet have been notified that; he was now regarded as a traitor. Hedrock seated himself at the apartment ’stat, and called the Weapon Shop information center.
“Hedrock speaking,” he said when an operator answered. “Get me the address of Derd Kershaw.”
“Yes, Mr. Hedrock.” The response was quick and courteous, with no indication that his name was now anathema to the Shops. There was a pause, and then he heard the familiar click at the other end.
Another woman spoke, “I have Mr. Kershaw’s file here, sir. Would you like it sent to you, or shall I read it to you?”
“Hold it up,” said Hedrock, “I’ll copy the information I want.”
The image of a file sheet slid on to his ’stat plate. He noted down Kershaw’s most recent address, “1874 Trellis Minor Building.” The rest of “page” one was devoted to previous addresses of Kershaw, and to information about his birthplace, parentage, and the childhood trainings he had received.
There was a gold star stamped on the lower right corner of the “page”. It was a Weapon Shop designation of merit, and indicated that Derd Kershaw was regarded by the shop scientists as one of the two or three greatest men in his field of physics.
“All right,” said Hedrock, “next page, please.”
The metal plate, many times thinner than an equal weight of paper, disappeared, and then reappeared again. “Page” two took up the story of Kershaw’s life where the first page had left off. Teen-age training, college training, character and intelligence evaluations, early achievements, and finally lists of scientific discoveries and inventions.
Hedrock did not pause to read the list of Kershaw’s discoveries. He could check on the details later. He had secured Kershaw’s name from Edward Gonish, the No-man, and that was a stroke of luck that must not be lightly cancelled by any slow action now. Because of that accidental meeting he had information about which, he had reason to believe, no one else was as yet doing anything. It was true that Gonish did not regard his intuition about Kershaw and interstellar travel as complete. But his words provided a working basis. Accordingly for another hour, or even a day, Robert Hedrock could’ follow up the clue without interference from the shops.
“Turn to the last page,” he said quickly. The page came on. Hedrock’s gaze flashed to the list of names at the right. They were the names of individuals who had most recently made use of the file. There were only two names, Edward Gonish, and below that, Dan Neelan. He stared at the second name with narrowed eyes and because he was alert and keyed up he noticed something that he might ordinarily have missed. Behind the name of Gonish there had been stamped a tiny symbol. It indicated that the No-man had made use of the file and that it had subsequently been returned to its cabinet. There was no such symbol after the name of Neelan. He asked swiftly, “When did Neelan make use of this file, and who is he?”
The girl was calm. “Mr. Neelan’s call is not completed, sir. When you requested the file we withdrew it from that section and, transferred it over here. One minute, please. I’ll connect you with the operator involved.”
She spoke to someone Hedrock couldn’t see and he did not catch her words. There was a pause and then another girl’s face came on the ’statplate. The new operator nodded when she understood what was wanted. “Mr. Neelan,” she said, “is waiting at this moment in
the Linwood Avenue Weapon Shop. His first inquiry was about his brother, Gil Neelan, who, it seems, disappeared about a year ago. When we told him that his brother’s last known address was the same as that of Derd Kershaw, he asked for information about Kershaw. We were in process of searching for that information when your call with its higher priority came through.”
Hedrock said, “Then Neelan is still waiting at the Linwood shop?”
“Yes.”
“Hold him there,” said Hedrock, “until I can get to the shop. I am not in a position to use a transmitter so k will take about fifteen minutes.”
The girl said, “We’ll take our time giving him his information.”
“Thank you,” said Hedrock. And broke the connection.
Regretfully but swiftly Hedrock removed his “business” suit. He stepped with it back through the transmitter into the laboratory and then returned to the apartment. He dressed in a normal cloth suit and headed for the roof of the apartment block to the hangar where he kept a private carplane.
It was a model he hadn’t used for several years, so precious minutes slid by while he checked the motor and the controls. In the air he had time to consider what he had done. What disturbed him most was the change from the “business” suit. And yet, there had been no alternative. The suit, which operated on the same energy principles as the “material” of which a weapon shop was made, was large enough to set up an energy disturbance in any part of the weapon shop, and was in its turn easily affected by the shop. Even that wouldn’t matter particularly by itself. But the disturbance was dangerous when it occurred close to the skin. It was possible to carry Weapon Shop energy guns and ring devices into a shop without ill effects, but a “business” suit was impractically large. There was another unfortunate aspect to his wearing such a suit into a weapon shop. He had incorporated into it features and inventions not known to the Weapon Makers. The possibility that some of those secrets might be analyzed by detector instruments was in itself sufficient reason for leaving the suit in a safe place.
The Weapon Makers Page 4