Athtar answered, 'No, I sense that they're ready.'
His words, the implication of ultraperception that reached over, perhaps, thousands of years, startled Edith, and held her unmoving, but only momentarily.
'The truth is,' said Edith aloud, completing her thought, 'we all feel that we have no alternative.'
Without any further delay, she reached forward and picked up the crystal.
Then she gasped.
The man who walked out of the corner of the room, where he had materialized, was a giant. Seven, eight, nine feet — her mind kept reassessing the height, as she strove to adjust to the enormous reality.
The size, the blue harness clothing — like a Roman centurion guard in summer uniform — the bronze body, the large face with eyes as black as coal, unsmiling and firm; and in his bearing, conscious power unqualified by doubt or fear.
He said in a bass voice, in English, 'I am Shalil, the best of all possible.'
XI
For a long moment Edith waited for him to complete the sentence. She presumed that the final word would be his name. At last, with a shock, she realized the sentence was finished. The crystal makers had sent the most qualified individual of their entire race to handle this situation.
In the doorway, Marge cringed away from the monster with a moan. At the sound, two of the Seth Mitchells leaped into view from where they had been standing. As they caught the blonde woman's half-fainting body, they also saw the apparition, and froze with glaring eyes. That brought the other three Seths crowding into the doorway.
As of one accord, obviously unwisely and therefore — as Edith realized later — under unnoticed control, they moved into the room, bringing Marge with them. The Seth who brought up the rear pulled the door shut behind him.
And there they were, as the best Athtar stirred and said in a sharp tone, 'Miss Price — uncreate him! He does not mean well.'
The giant grimaced. 'You cannot uncreate men.' He spoke again a perfect English in the same bass voice. 'Naturally, I, and only I, now control the crystal. The term "mean well" is relative. I mean well for my own time and my own group.'
His eyes, like black pools of dark shiningness, glanced over the five Seths and the two women, and then settled on Athtar. 'Which of you are the biologically original human beings?' he asked.
There wag a speed to him and a purposefulness that was disturbing all by itself. Edith clutched the crystal, and then she glanced uncertainly over at the Seths, silently appealing for suggestions. But they were staring at the giant and seemed unaware of her seeking gaze.
Yet it was one of ~he Seths who said abruptly, 'Athtar, in what way doesn't he mean well?'
Athtar shook his head. 'I don't sense the details,' he said unhappily. 'It's a feeling. They sent the crystal back here for their purpose. His question about original human beings points a very significant direction. But don't answer it — or any other question.'
It seemed a small, useless denial. Even as it was uttered, the huge man strode toward the door. The little group of Seths separated before him automatically. The giant opened the door and peered out into the hotel lobby. After a single, swift survey, he pushed the door shut, and faced about.
'I deduce,' he said, 'that the people of this era are the originals. That's who we want for our experiments.'
Athtar said tautly to the Seths, 'One of you has the worst Athtar's gun. Shoot him!'
The instant the words were spoken, the pistol floated into view, avoided the fingers of the two Seths who tried to grab it, and darted over to Shalil's palm. He slipped the weapon into a pocket of his simple blue garment
The best Athtar glanced at Edith. 'Well,' he said glumly, 'I've done my best.' He faced the monster. 'What happens to me?'
Those wonderful black eyes studied him again, more carefully. 'The crystal is communicating data to me,' he said. 'You and the other Athtar are from an era where the people have already been biologically altered?'
Athtar was silent. The giant grimaced, and thereupon analyzed substantially what the worst Athtar had told Edith in New York, adding only that he had the impression that vast amounts of bodily organ transplants for medical purposes had preceded the first big decision to chance the race itself.
Athtar glanced apologetically at Edith. 'He has it so accurately,' he said, 'that I see no additional danger in asking him a question.'
Without waiting for a reply he addressed the huge man: The decision made in the thirty-first century, nearly four hundred years before my time, was that small, heavy bodies had more survival potentiality than tall, thin ones. I see that in your era a much taller, bigger, more powerful man than any we have even imagined is the norm. What is the rationale?'
'Different problems,' answered Shalil. 'In my era, which by your reckoning would correlate to the ninety-third century, we are space people.' He broke off. 'Since we have no interest in you at present, I propose to send you and the other Athtars back to your own time.'
'Wait!' The best Athtar spoke urgently. 'What do you intend to do with these people?' He waved toward Edith and the Seths.
Again there was a grimace on the huge face. 'They are crystal patterns now,' was the stem reply. 'But all we actually want for our experiments are the best Seth Mitchell and the beet Edith Price. The other 1810 Seths and — he hesitated, then — 723 Ediths are free to go. We set the crystal to find the best specimens.'
'But why?'
'Something has gone wrong. We need to restudy human origins.'
'Do you need these specific persons, or will you merely have the crystal duplicate them in your own era?'
'There's only one of each. If any of them is created in any other time, he becomes uncreated here.'
'What will you do? Dissect them?'
'In the end, perhaps. The experimenters will decide.' Sharply. 'Never mind that. The program is laid out on a crash basis, and the subjects are urgently needed.' His voice grew imperious. 'Miss Price, give me the crystal. We're not needlessly cruel, so I wish to send the Athtars home.'
Athtar urged, 'Miss Price, don't give it to him. His statement that he totally controls the crystal may not be true yet, but it may become true the moment he has possession of it. These far-future beings must be persuaded to accept another, less arbitrary solution to their problem.'
Edith had been standing, watching the fantastic giant, listening to the infinite threat that was developing out of. his blunt words. Suddenly, what had seemed an utterly desirable goal — to be the best — had become the most undesirable.
But she observed that she was still not afraid. Her mind was clear. And she realized that the millions of tumbling thoughts and feelings of all these days, which had suddenly fallen into an exact order in her mind earlier that night, remained orderly.
Her own reaction was that Athtar was wrong and that she had, in fact, lost control of the crystal.
Obvious that they would have had some preemptive system, by which they could regain its use at a key moment.
But she intended to test that.
She glanced at and into the crystal, and said firmly, 'Whoever can defeat this giant — be here now!'
Moments after she spoke, the crystal was snatched from her fingers by the same kind of unseen force as had taken the automatic pistol from one of the Seths earlier. She looked up and watched helplessly as it also floated over to the giant's palm. The huge man's black eyes gleamed triumphantly at her, as he said: 'That was a good try. But all your allies are in this room. There's nobody else.'
'In that case,' said a man's voice quietly, 'I imagine that, regardless of consequences, my moment has come.'
Whereupon the bachelor Seth Mitchell walked forward and stood in front of the giant.
For some reason the monster man merely regarded him. There was a long pause. Edith had time to gaze at the Seth and to savor the mere humanness that he represented. She saw that he was well dressed in a dark gray suit, that his lean face was firm, his gray eyes calm and fearless. At some deep of
her mind, she was proud that at this key moment such a Seth Mitchell existed. Yet, though she was still not afraid herself, she was aware of her hopes sinking.
The silence ended.
The great being from the far future said in a deliberate tone, 'I hope you realize that you are condemning the other Seths in thus forcing your identity on me. In this era the crystal has no alternative but to uncreate them.'
Behind Edith, Marge cried out faintly.
Edith whirled. For several seconds, then, she was blank, not knowing what ailed the young blond woman. Marge seemed to be choking, and after a moment Edith ran over to her, and caught her arm, and put one arm around her waist.
'What's the matter?' she cried.
Marge continued to choke, and the words when they finally came were almost inaudible: 'They're gone, the other Seths!'
Edith looked around, and it was then that the reality finally penetrated her blankness. Where the four Seths had been standing near the door, there was no one. She had an impulse to run to the door and glance out of it. The feeling was, surely, that they had stepped outside for a moment.
Abruptly, she realized.
They had been uncreated.
'Oh, my God!' she said, and it was a sob.
She caught herself, for the giant was speaking again: 'Other than that,' he said, 'the best of all possible Seth Mitchells merely seemed a good specimen, and not dangerous.'
Seth Mitchell spoke in the same quiet tone as before, I said, regardless of consequences.'
He glanced back toward the two women. 'Since the Seths remain crystal patterns, they're no more in danger now than they would be if this creature is able to carry out his threat. That probably even applies to the Seth of the gold Cadillac and the Edith who presumably was killed in New York.'
To Shalil he said, 'I think you'd better put the Athtars up in their own time.'
There was an ever so slight pause; the giant's eyes changed slightly, as if he were thinking. Then: 'It's done,' he said.
Edith glanced to where Athtar had been, with the same automatic second look as before, and the same gasping intake of her breath.... And then with a conscious effort she had control once more.
Athtar had disappeared.
With a grimace, Shalil surveyed the best of all possible Seth Mitchells, said, 'You really benefited from the crystal, didn't you?' He spoke in his softest bass. The intent expression, as if he were listening, came into his face. 'You own... one... three, four corporations.'
'I stopped when I was worth ten million,' said the best Seth. He turned to look at Edith apologetically. 'I couldn't imagine having use for even that much money. But I had set it as a goal, so that's what I did.'
Without waiting for her reply, he once more faced the gigantic enemy. 'All the Seth Mitchells,' he said, 'are the results of a boy's dreams based on what information he had. He undoubtedly observed that there are tax experts, and lawyers, and doctors, and tramps, and policemen. And in a town like Harkdale it would include being aware of summer and resort visitors, many of them highly personable people from New York. And on the level of a boy's daydreams it would mean that until they were uncreated just now there was a cowboy Seth Mitchell, an African hunter Seth, a sea captain, an airline pilot, and probably even a few glamorous criminals.'
He broke off. 'I have a feeling you wouldn't understand that, because you don't have any boys anymore where you are, do you?'
The giant's eyes did an odd thing. They shifted uncertainly. Then he said, 'We are crystal duplicates. Thus we shall presumably live forever if we can solve the present tendency of the cells to be tired.'
He added reluctantly, 'What's a boy?'
'Maybe there's your problem,' said Seth Mitchell. 'You've forgotten about children. Gene variation.'
The best Seth continued to gaze up at the great being. 'I'm the creation,' he said gently, 'of a boy who for a long time after Billy Bingham disappeared, was under exceptional adult pressure and criticism, and as a result had many escape fantasies.'
The steady, determined voice went on, 'Picture that boy's fantasy of total power: somebody who would handle mean adults who acted as if you were lying and who treated you nasty... and someday you'd show them all. How? It may not have been clear to the boy Seth who felt that resentment, But when the time came, you'd just know, and of course you wouldn't be mean about it the way they had been. There'd be a kind of nobleness about you and your total power.'
The two men, the best of all possible Seth Mitchells from the twentieth century and the best of all possibles from the ninety-third century, were standing within a few feet of each other as these words were spoken.
'Perhaps,' the best Seth addressed the giant softly, 'you can tell better than I what the crystal would create out of such a command.'
'Since nobleness is involved,' was the harsh reply, 'I feel that I can safely test that boy's fantasy to the uttermost limit.'
Whereupon he spoke sharp, commanding words in a strange language.
Edith had listened to the deadly interchange, thinking in a wondering dismay: God really is dead! These far future people had never even heard of Him.
Her thought ended. For the giant's deep bass tones had suddenly ceased.
Something hit Edith deep inside of her body. Around her the room dimmed. As from a vast distance, she heard Seth Mitchell's voice say apologetically, 'Only thing I know, Miss Price, is to send you along with him. Seems you've got the solution in what you just thought, whatever that was. The crystal will make that real. Hope it works.'
A moment after that she was falling into infinity,
XII
The body of Edith lay unconscious on a contour rest-space in one corner of the crystal administrative center. Periodically, a giant walked over to her and routinely checked the instruments that both watched over her and monitored the invisible force lines that held her.
A slow night went by. A new day finally dawned. The sunlight that suffused the translucent walls also revealed half a dozen giants, including Shalil, gathered around the slowly breathing — but otherwise unmoving — body of the young woman from the twentieth century,
To wake or not to wake her?
They discussed the problem in low, rumbling voices. Since they were all scientists, capable of appreciating the most subtle nuances of logic, what bothered them was that the small female being presented an improbable paradox.
Outward appearance said she was helpless. At the instant of the best Seth's command to the crystal, Shalil had been able to put Edith into a coma, and she had arrived in that degraded condition in the ninety-third century.
Or rather, she had been uncreated in her own time, and had been re-created by the crystal in their time, already unconscious.
Accordingly, she herself had not for even a split instant had any control of her own destiny.
What disturbed her captors was that there now radiated from her, and had ever since her re-creation, an undefinable power. The power was not merely ordinary. It was total.
Total power! Absolute and unqualified! How could that be?
Once more they gave attention on both hearing and telepathic levels, as Shalil repeated his accurate account of what had transpired while he was in the twentieth century. The story, already familiar, reiterated the same peak moments: the ordinariness, the unthreatening aspect, of all the people of the past that Shalil had confronted.
Again they were told the climax, when the best Seth assumed that the crystal would evolve an unusual energy configuration out of a boy's fantasies of power. Clearly — at least, it was clear to the huge men — the crystal's response to that command established that it had originally been oriented to the best Seth, and its energies mobilized for later expression, when Seth Mitchell was a boy. From that energy response by the crystal alone, the giants reasoned unhappily: 'There is more potential in these crystals than we have hitherto analyzed.'
And how could that be?
But there was even worse.
In giving
his command to Edith, the best of all possible Seth Mitchells had implied that he had received a feed-back message from her, presumably by way of the crystal, indicating that she would all by herself now be able to defeat the entire science of the ninety-third century.
Once Shalil took control of the crystal, such a feedback of information — whether true or false — should not have occurred. And Seth's command, by any known scientific analysis, was impossible.
True, they did not know all there was to know about the crystals. There were several unexplained areas of phenomena, which were still being researched. But it had long been argued that nothing major remained to be discovered.
Furthermore, they believed that, under strict scientific control, the crystals had created the supreme possibilities of the biologically manipulated beings of their own time period. Every conceivable potentiality of the cells, and of the total gestalt of those cells, had been reasoned through. And the crystal had dutifully created each possibility for them: levitation, telepathy, control of distant matter on a thought level, and so on.
The only other implication: Original, unmanipulated human beings might have special qualities that had been lost to their biologically manipulated descendants.
Unquestionably, that culminative decision had made her the best of all possible Edith Prices. But such a person would have been meaningless in the twentieth century. And since she hadn't visualized the scene inside the crystal when she made it, that was not the source of her present power.
That was something else Something fantastic, unheard of, beyond all their science.
XIII
A giant grunted, 'I think we should kill her.'
A second huge man growled an objection. He argued: 'If the attempt to destroy her brought a reaction from the absolute power that radiated from her, the power would be uncontrolled. Much better to deduce on the basis of Shalil's report the low-level ways in which her mind functions, awaken her, and inexorably force responses from her.'
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