More Than Superhuman

by A. E. van Vogt

  He asked her the question: Why had she and Dav separated?

  The woman was startled. She sensed the dark purpose in him — who had always been so friendly to her and with whom she had communicated so well in the past.

  After a moment, realizing that delay was unwise, she gave him Dav's diagnosis — that she had gone into the death thing that had destroyed man. She deemed it the best reply, considering all possibilities.

  Her answer and its deadly implications for her shocked him out of his madness. She explained in greater detail.

  Rocquel said, 'Then what you are saying is that you acted out of some parallel to the type of emotion used by people who actually did have the death thing. You did this consciously, knowing Dav would believe it was in fact the death thing.'

  'I think that's what I did,' Miliss replied. She added quickly, The death thing is subtle. One can fool oneself.'

  Rocquel persisted, 'But as far as you're concerned, you're not really dying?'

  'As far as I know, I'm not'

  Rocquel considered that in a gathering amazement.

  Finally: 'But why aren't you doing something about getting out of this prison? You shouldn't be here.'

  'What can I do?'

  'Don't you have any protection of your own?'

  'Nothing,' she said, 'but the Symbols so far activated. Except for a few hand weapons and mobile energy units, most of which we've given to the Janae, that's all we have.'

  'What about other — later — Symbols?'

  'Their time is not yet,' said Miliss, 'They wouldn't work — not for Jana.'

  Rocquel sighed.

  But, he wanted to say, Dav used the power of millions of believers in a constitutional monarchy before they ever believed in it — in fact, before they even knew about it. Why not use the power of millions of believers in some future Symbol before they ever believe in it?

  He did not ask the question. The concept of any Symbol was beyond his ability to grasp. He realized humbly that he was a Jana nobleman of a somewhat simple nature and that the year he had spent aboard the earth battleship — the time he had described to no one — had been really like some tribal king's being... entertained, if that was the right word, by traders or scientists from a superior civilization. Being kindly disposed, they had been anxious not to hurt his feelings — but to them he had been a nothing. His status had been meaningless except in so far as they had a policy of using native kings in their interplanetary welfare work.

  Nonetheless, he tried again to reach understanding

  At his request Miliss explained the power of a Symbol once more. But it didn't penetrate.

  We thick-skulled males....

  'And the ridiculous thing,' he explained his failure to Miliss, 'is that I myself actually have control of a Symbol — '

  He stopped. It was an admission that he would have made to no other living person — only to this one individual with whom he had always felt able to speak freely.

  He finished lamely, 'Of course, that was given to me as a protection.'

  He stopped again because of the look on her face — intent, avid, seeking, startled, unbelieving but finally believing.

  Miliss whispered, 'Who gave you control of that Symbol?'

  'Human beings,' Rocquel said simply.

  She sank back. She seemed to cringe on the cot, as if, like a mental patient, she were wracked by a psychic disease that contracted her body, curling it, twisting her head to one side.

  Finally she said, 'Then Jaer's intuitions, accusations, may be true. There are human beings out there — ' She suddenly broke off, breathless. 'Tell me exactly where you were, what you saw — '

  Rocquel described his year on the battleship.

  She whispered, There were both men and women?'

  'Yes. It was a community of several thousand, I would say.'

  'They never landed anywhere?'

  'Not that I was aware of.' He sighed. 'But it was such a big ship. I saw only what appeared on the visual screens in the sections where I was permitted to wander. They didn't teach me the language. I only heard what the interpreting machines said to me.' He considered possibilities. 'Landing parties could have gone down to planets without my knowing it'

  'It was one of these humans that taught you control of a Symbol?'

  'Yes.'

  Miliss persisted: 'But what was it supposed to do? If Jaer had actually slashed at you with his sword — what would have happened to him?'

  Rocquel didn't know,

  He explained slowly, 'They warned me to be careful with it — because if I wasn't, it would hook onto me, too.' He added:

  'When I set it up against Jaer, I could feel it tugging at me, sort of like' — he paused, groping — 'maybe like a magnet.'

  'But what is it a Symbol of?' Miliss asked.

  Rocquel had no idea.

  She went on, baffled: 'It must be drawing its energy from some meaningful idea on another planet — since we didn't sense anything here. But what could it be?' No answer came to her, and she asked, 'You still have control of it?' He nodded.

  'Did they say they would let you maintain it permanently?'

  Rocquel gazed at her unhappily. 'I can't remember. I was told something — but each time I think I'm going to recall it, it fades.'

  'That sounds like close-to-the-surface programming.' Miliss nodded. 'As if whatever it relates to might happen at any time. So we must be near a crisis.' She added, obviously thinking out loud, that only a Symbol could act with subtle or powerful influence over distances. She finished: 'It must be very personal to you, which in itself is unusual. For example, if I could do what you have described — I could get out this prison.'

  Miliss' second admission of helplessness focused Rocquel's attention on her situation. Her confession that she could not protect herself was abruptly enormously significant. It placed control back in Jana hands. Janae could accept or reject a gift of knowledge from the reservoir on a self-determined basis.

  We can use what they have, but we don't have to...

  Rocquel felt somehow stronger in his Jana identity as he had that awareness. The accusations leveled at Miliss by Jaer had had a certain truth to them. The entire populace felt a displacement as a consequence of the human presence, gentle as it was.

  After a little he was able to reason out the extent of her predicament. He was appalled. Her position was very severe if she and Dav could not really protect themselves.

  With an effort he pushed aside his anxiety for her, grew calm and grave.

  'There will be a difficult time ahead, my dear,' he said gently. 'The new law binds me as much as it does everyone else. I cannot arbitrarily set you free. Have you an attorney?'

  'Not yet,' Miliss answered.

  'I'll call Dav and tell him that it is imperative he get one for you.'

  'He won't do a thing.' She reminded him of the death-dive situation — how only those survived who refused to help. She finished, 'I counted on that to keep him away from me. So there can be no help from him,'

  Rocquel shook his head, smiling, and pointed out that his position in the matter was stronger than Dav's.

  'I'll call him,' he said firmly. 'He'll do it because I ask him, not necessarily to help you.' He broke off. 'He's the one who should act in this matter. It will look odd if he doesn't. So he will.'

  At that moment Rocquel accidentally caught a glimpse of his watch. It registered nearly four in the morning. He was instantly contrite.

  'I'm sorry,' he apologized. 'I've kept you awake.'

  Miliss brushed his words aside.

  'I feel so much better. You've given me the first information from — out there' — she gazed upward, waved vaguely — 'that I've had in all the years Dav and I have been here. It's not clear — it's hard to decide what it means. But now I know that there are still a few other human beings.'

  On that note they separated. Rocquel returned to the palace and presently slipped into bed beside the sleeping Nerda.

  She
was a problem to which he had no quick solution either.

  VI

  The Jana attorney whom Dav consulted shook his head gravely over the fourth count.

  'The other accusations,' he said, 'have as yet no legal penalties. The judge could do anything, could even release her. But criminal intent has proved dangerous in the past. It can bring a capital verdict.'

  Dav attended the trial as a witness, getting angrier every minute as all his 'gifts' to the Janae were used as evidence against Miliss. The argument of the State was that a superior culture was, by way of its scientific gifts, cunningly guiding the Janae away from their natural development and into a mental enslavement that was the equivalent of a takeover of one people by another. Dav's concern was with the accusations, not with Miliss.

  Called to the stand by Miliss' attorney, he denied all such intent.

  'Science is neutral,' he said. 'It is the truth of nature. Jana scientists would normally and in due course have discovered exactly the same truths. In giving the Janae the scientific artifacts of Earth's ancient civilization, I fulfilled a duty imposed upon me by a vanished race to hand on the torch of knowledge as rapidly as feasible in the hope that, with such a head start, the Janae would succeed in establishing a permanently growing civilization instead of one that would eventually dwindle as others, including man's, have been them — '

  When he later came out on the street a troop of guards sent by Rocquel saved him from a demonstrating crowd. KEEP YOUR FOREIGN SCIENCE ... JANA MUST BE FREED FROM THE ALIEN YOKE ... JANA FOR THE JANAE ... DEATH TO THE INVADERS ... HUMANS, GO HOME —

  The crowds screamed insults as Dav was escorted to a bus that took him, accompanied by several guards, to the end of the line. From there the soldiers walked with him to his house, where other soldiers patrolled the approaches, back, front, and sides.

  Miliss was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death. Three appeals to ever higher courts failed. But Rocquel granted her a full pardon on the grounds that the Chosen had not legislated on the matters at issue.

  'Prime Minister' Jaer Dorrish — and where bad the title come from? — thereupon introduced amendments to criminal law. They were duly passed by the Chosen. Rocquel, to Jaer's surprise, did not veto the legislation.

  He asked Rocquel about it. The hereditary ruled gestured.

  'I told you I wouldn't interfere.' He paused, curious. 'Suppose all those charges you're making turn out to be true. If man is really a superior race, then presumably a fleet of total power will come to the rescue of his representatives on Jana — and we will all be degraded by having to submit, however briefly, to an Occupation force. What would you gain if that were to happen?'

  Jaer scowled.

  'Jana honor,' he said with the traditional arrogance of the Jana male, 'demands that the truth of this matter be brought out into the open. We shall deal with this so-called total power when we see it.'

  'With what weapons?' Rocquel asked derisively.

  Jaer said, 'The human man is being watched night and day. At the proper moment we'll make a raid and we'll capture all man's scientific secrets and make an end of his degrading dole system on which he seems to have been operating — one secret at a time. Such doling is an unbearable insult. We want to have everything — now!'

  Rocquel stared sardonically at the other's flushed face.

  Finally he said skeptically, 'Your concern with such minor matters does not fit with your previous character, Jaer. I wonder what you're really up to.'

  The big male stiffened. 'Do you question my loyalty, sire?'

  It could have been a dangerous moment. But Rocquel merely shook his head chidingly.

  'No, Jaer, I expect you will accept the new law. It is to your advantage. What is your next move?'

  'You'll see.'

  Jaer turned abruptly and walked away.

  Later Rocquel sought out Nerda, reported Jaer's statements, and asked her opinion.

  She answered at once — no longer a surprise to him. Ever since her rebellion on the matter of going to sleep without his permission — which she now did as a matter of course — she had been freer in her responses in every way, even in their personal relations.

  She told him that in her opinion Jaer wanted the human woman and that therefore his real target in the trial was not Miliss but Dav.

  Rocquel stared at his wife.

  'But —' he began, and stopped.

  Careful, he thought. Don't give her another reason for losing respect for you... No knowing what repercussions that would have...

  But he felt slightly helpless before her statement. What she suggested was an immensely tricky thing for Jaer to be doing. Presumably the head of the Dorrish clan expected that Miliss would be freed.

  Rocquel's thought paused, a light dawning. Of course, in the trial of Miliss all the weaknesses of the prosecution's case — and the strength of the defense — would be revealed, whereupon all the various loopholes in the law would be rectified — at which time Dav would be tried and irrevocably convicted.

  Rocquel stepped forward impulsively, and embraced Nerda, 'You're very brilliant,' he said. 'There's no question — I've got a very unusual and perceptive queen. Thank you.'

  He kissed her and was aware for the barest instant that she kissed him back. The action must have been involuntary. She' broke the kiss and became passive.

  Rocquel was not offended. In the back of his mind was the thought that Jana females were, perhaps, not as unemotional as was believed.

  It might be worthwhile someday to conduct a deeper experiment.

  Meanwhile — he had to warn Dav.

  The next morning Rocquel learned that Miliss, who had been returned to custody on the formal charge of being a danger to the realm, was to be retried. Her attorney's plea at the preliminary hearing that afternoon was double jeopardy and the inapplicability of retroactive legislation.

  The judge released her.

  The prosecution requested and got a warrant for the arrest of Dav.

  The evening paper reported that the arresting officers had failed to find the Earth man.

  * *

  Dave spent the late afternoon in one of the hiding places of the Reservoir of Symbols, planning his escape.

  It was time for the kind of disappearance that Miliss" and he in times past had occasionally had to undertake. There had been other Janae like Jaer Dorrish. They, too, had had their own remorseless purposes. Escape in those distant times had almost always consisted of their waiting somewhere for the particular enemy to live out his short life span

  Dav left his hiding place after dark and made his way through the brush. His destination was a certain hillside where, nearly seventy years ago, he had buried a small spaceship.

  In years gone by, such long-buried machinery had not always been readily located when needed — but this one had survived its seven decades totally free of unpleasant accidents. No bulldozer had nosed near it. No one had perched a building on top of it The craft waited for him in its temporary grave.

  Dav was carefully clearing away a particularly dense clump of tall shrubs when he heard a sound. Noiselessly he sank to the ground. Too late. He heard a swift pad of footsteps in the dark Two pairs of eyes glowed at him from beside some brush. Then strong, lean fingers had him pinned down.

  The unmistakable long nose of a Jana male was silhouetted against the haze of city lights. A Jana female stood beyond him.

  The deep voice of the male said exultantly, 'Got you. Pema, quick, come over here and turn a light on this spying rascal — the words halted on a curse. By Dilit, it isn't that scoundrel suitor of yours after all. Pema, bring that light, and let's see what we've got here.'

  There was silence except for the unhurrying footsteps of the female.

  Dav lay unresisting. He could have taken steps. He could have reached up and, with the enormous strength that he could focus into any part of his body, with unerring fingers stabbed at the two vital nerve centers in the Jana, to send the big male sp
rawling in agony. Or he could simply have contemptuously and effortlessly disengaged himself by a direct muscular thrust.

  He did neither. As in past times, he was prepared to act defensively according to the need.

  A blaze of light cut off his thought. The light beat pitilessly down on his upturned face. And then, the female's voice came, thick with disgust.

  "Why, it's the man. So this is the kind of lover you protect me from. Bah!'

  'Not so fast with your criticism,' growled the male. 'There's a reward. We can get married.' His grip tightened on Dav. "Get up, you antique. It's time you and that woman ceased hanging onto life. Your kind is dead.'

  The moment for action had arrived, but Dav did nothing, He offered no resistance as he was jerked roughly to his feet.

  In those moments, an astounding thing had happened, He did not care.

  His thought was: Man's civilization is dead — why should Miliss and I be bound by the values of a society that has failed?

  The barriers he had erected against Miliss collapsed, and a great guilt overwhelmed him. Suddenly he saw how rigid he had been as the dedicated savior of a new race.

  In that prolonged moment of anguish, something she had once said flashed to his memory.

  I'm sure even your nose is - getting a little longer. Pretty soon you'll even look like the Janae — He had lived in a dream, he saw now, a kind of self-induced hypnotism — an ideal which had given a temporary significance to an otherwise meaningless existence.

  With Miliss doomed, nothing here was worth saving. He went wordlessly with his captor.

  * *

  The news came to Rocquel in the small hours of the morning that Dav had been arrested. He left his bed, dressed, phoned Miliss.

  Have you had a visitor yet?'

  'No. But I imagine he'll be here soon.'

  Rocquel said, 'I'm coming right over.'

  He arrived by way of the secret entrance, and walked along a narrow, dim-lit corridor until he came to a closed door.

  Voices sounded from beyond it.

  Rocquel drew the door toward him and stepped through. He found himself in an alcove lighted by reflections from a bright room beyond a green and gold screen. The voices came from the other side of the screen. He recognized the calm bass of Jaer Dorrish and Miliss' indignant soprano.