The Overlords of War

by Gerard Klein

  He was aware that he was seeing hardly anything of the battle; it must go on for light-years, and all he was watching was a local dogfight. But the violence of this clash was enough to tell him something important about the nature of this space.

  It was not beyond the border of Aergistal. It formed part of Aergistal. That fitted. Space wars too must have their place at Aergistal, along with air wars, sea wars, land wars. A special environment was required, so it had been provided. The model, if this universe was a model, was nearly perfect.

  So who could be fighting out there in space? Humans, aliens, humans versus aliens? The wreck of the cruiser against the barrier was nothing like any vessel he was acquainted with, and for all he could tell—distances and sizes being so deceptive in space—might be a kilometer long, or many kilometers. The intact ship must have been at least three times as big. He thought he spotted a human form drifting among the debris like a fetus. But it was so far away that it might easily have been a chunk of metal.

  Touray cleared his throat. The vibrations had faded. The air was calm as a stagnant pool. It was no longer necessary to shout to make oneself heard, even though a ghostly rambling continued in their battered ears.

  “We’re in a bit of a mess,” the black man said.

  “I’m afraid we are,” Corson admitted. He had already reviewed and rejected every possibility open to them. The suspension ropes were not long enough for them to reach the water. If they cut up the gasbag and tried to make parachutes, they might loosen it from the barrier and sink under the waves after a kilometer-long fall. There was almost no chance of the balloon breaking free by itself. And even if somehow they did manage to get down, he had no idea how they might return to solid land, after flying thousands of kilometers at incalculable speed. So here they were, stuck like flies on a wall smeared with glue.

  If only one of these Breathers would occur!

  At first, when Touray talked about Breathers—a name doubly apt, implying both a respite and a chance for the dead to “get their breath back”I—he had been filled with a confused, animal fear. To go through a Breather must be like dying, or witnessing the end of the world. Now here he was praying for one. But that was pointless. They Could never hope to influence the decisions of the unseen gods who had created—or were administering—this universe.

  Another thing that Touray had said came back to his mind. But he was reluctant to draw all the conclusions that it implied.

  Yonder in space he saw the darkness break into a kind of foam. The depths seemed to come alive, not with the random agitation of the stars, but as though—very close—a swarm of bees had appeared . . . or rather mosquitoes, flying about in no perceptible pattern. And, like mosquitoes, they were pestering the nearest of the starships, which were becoming directly visible. They dodged the ships’ fire with devilish skill. One cruiser exploded, then another. The two blasts of light briefly blinded Corson, although he had taken the precaution of shading his eyes. He wondered what would happen if a ship were blown up right against the barrier. Presumably it would withstand the shock, if the repair mechanism had functioned properly, but would it screen enough of the radiation?

  Mosquitoes?

  All of a sudden Corson realized what they were. Pegasones! His last doubts vanished when one of them materialized just the other side of the barrier. He recognized that girdle of lidless eyes, those six clawed feet spreadeagled on nothing, the mane of tendrils floating like the tentacles of a sea anemone, the harness, and—when the Monster turned around—the uniform which Veran’s forces wore.

  Beyond the barrier the rider gave an unheard cry of surprise on spotting the gondola and its occupants. His lips could be seen moving inside his helmet. A moment later a cloud of pegasones pressed against the barrier . . . and vanished . . .

  And reappeared the other side. Without apparent effort they had penetrated the force field. Encircling the balloon they waited, their guns trained on the gondola. Antonella clutched at Corson’s arm. Touray, wiping his sweaty forehead, demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

  There was no time to answer. The idea which had just taken root in Corson’s mind grew into a decision. They could not expect mercy from Veran. But he might try to take them alive. With a woman like Antonella his men could have a lot of fun.

  Corson ground his teeth. There was suddenly a taste of blood in his mouth. He looked up at the gasbag. Did it contain hydrogen or helium? There was no time to inquire of Touray. Well, it was a fifty-fifty chance. Hydrogen in contact with air would explode readily, though the temperature of his gun beam was not nearly high enough to initiate a fusion reaction.

  Drawing the gun from the holster hidden in his suit, he calmly fired. He had time to see the gasbag rip open and a flame lick up. Then he felt fire engulfing him, and his eyes no longer saw the darkness of space, but an ineffable brilliance. He felt his hands burn, his face, his skin. His broken eardrums spared him the sound of the others screaming—and himself with them.

  All he could think was: Yes, hydrogen . . .

  He fell, and felt Antonella’s body against him even though he was no longer corporeal. Oddly, he was not dead. He did not even have the impression of dying. But the light was fading, even as a huge flame rushed toward him. The sky turned purple, then black. As though in the negative of a black-and-white photograph, he could make out pegasones and even their riders, frozen into expressions of amazement like comical statues. He too was struck motionless. The flame ceased to spread a few centimeters from his face ... except that he had no face any longer. He felt as though this moment of stasis was universal and would last for ever.

  Then the flame went out.

  The Breather ended as quickly as it had begun. Corson, who had no recollection of opening his eyes, floated in a universe of purple light, where huge tangled tubes without visible openings throbbed, stretched, bulged, and suddenly split apart into rootlets which in their turn started to grow. There was neither up nor down. Even though he had nothing to judge size and distance by, Corson felt a sensation of vastness.

  I’ve gone through the roof, he thought. I’ve gone to heaven.

  His limbs would not obey him, but he felt no pain: more, vague curiosity. Memories came back to him little by little. Gaps remained, but a slow process of reassembly at the border of consciousness, perhaps not too trustworthy, was filling them in.

  That was how he knew that he was marooned in a very strange place. Typically, at Aergistal, one reawoke in the middle of a battle. So he must have left there. He was sure he must be on the other side of the sky. Was this another hell, a place where creatures inconceivable to man fought one another? Or had he been removed from the game because he ought not to have been in it, or because something else was in store for him?

  He was alone. He knew that, even though he could not turn his head.

  And then a voice broke the silence like a string of bubbles in clear water. At first he perceived it as pure music, and took a while to realize that it was addressing him. But the words remained graven on his memory as though it had been washed, made new, and was eager to be filled with knowledge.

  “So you’re a war criminal, then!”

  After a moment’s consideration, he answered, “And you’re a god.”

  The voice started to laugh. It sounded almost childlike, but also as though among an infinity of echoes, overlapping so that one could hardly be distinguished from the next, he was hearing only the nearest and most comprehensible to him. And among that maze of sound other voices were concealed, some of them very horrible.

  Yes, the voice was much like a child’s. But it could also be that of a lizard, or a spider, the fiery siren call of a star, the squeak of a rat, the stridulation of wing cases rubbed together, the whistle of the wind endowed with speech.

  “We have more powers than any gods you can imagine.”

  Corson hesitated. This conversation had begun very strangely. Surely he could not have been brought here for a theological argument? Or maybe
that was the custom, here in heaven. He wanted to change the subject, yet at the same time he felt drawn along by the natural course of the dialogue.

  I’ve been drugged, he thought, as though that accounted for everything. Then he realized what a thin explanation it was.

  Curiosity, and also an urge to challenge the unknown, made him continue.

  “Gods are all-powerful,” he said.

  “All-powerful?” the voice repeated. “That’s just a word, an empty word. You can only endow them with powers you are capable of defining, and hence of acquiring.”

  Corson pondered again. The statement did seem to make a weird kind of sense. He decided, “You’re immortal.”

  Once again the voice seemed to be amused.

  “Yes and no. You make no distinction between what is infinite and what is boundless. We are not immortal if you mean that our lives are infinite. Nothing is infinite in that sense, not even the universe, not even what includes the universe. But our lives are boundless.”

  “Boundless?” The concept escaped him.

  “We can take them back, relive them differently, modify their course. Nothing which happens during our lives is outside our control.”

  “I see,” Corson said, and this time he did. Existence, for these beings, was not a fixed form cast like bronze in the mold of the past and blindly stretching ahead into the mists of the future. From end to end their existence was a malleable continuum, capable of being reshaped. They could know nothing of “before” and “after.” Their lives would have no “length.” And in fact, he asked himself, what is the “width” of a human life, or its “thickness”? These beings would view their lives as a unity, coherent and susceptible of being altered. As a result of the consequences they would change the causes. For them the present would be only a particular point of view. Therefore they must control time. Their power must stem from that ability. Just as human beings, for ages imprisoned by the limits of the distance they could cover on foot, petty even given a lifetime of a century, had conquered space and flown to the stars, so these beings had conquered time. For them men must be no more than pitiable hobbled creatures, crippled, to be regarded much as Corson himself regarded those of his ancestors who had been confined to one narrow patch of ground.

  That’s a fearful power, Corson thought, and then—as though someone had offered him the chance—I’m not ready to exercise it.

  “You can’t be human,” he said.

  Who are they to gamble with our lives? Invaders from another galaxy, or another dimension? Pure mind, our creators, the deities of mythology?

  “You will be as we are,” the voice declared.

  Is that a promise or a statement of fact? How can I become like you and still remain myself when I can’t even imagine how to use a power like yours? Or could these be the distant descendants of mankind? The talent Antonella’s people have: could that foreshadow the master power? How many billions of years lie between the primitive being Corson and this unheard-of posterity which judges him?

  “Did you appear—after us?” he asked.

  The amusement in the voice this time calmed him instead of irritating him.

  “We did not appear ‘after’ you,” it said. “We are in the same time as you because we fill the whole of duration. Our two existences are coextensive, as you might say. But in a very special sense, if it will comfort you—yes, we did come after you. We were born from you.”

  So they are our descendants. And at the same time far, far older than us. From that point in the future where their branch and ours separated, they have invaded the whole of the universe of which we occupy a petty little corner. They were born of us, yet they have been there since our beginning.

  “What about other species—the Urians, for example?”

  “There is no difference,” said the voice.

  No difference! That was a categorical answer. And it’s too soon to ask for an answer to the answer.

  “Where are we?” Corson asked diffidently.

  “Outside the universe, on its surface, on its skin. One must step outside a totality before one can comprehend and alter it.”

  The crust of the universe. Is that why ordinary laws of physics don’t apply at Aergistal, why these beings can do whatever they choose? And what lies beyond?

  He posed the question. The voice replied, “The universe in its own right. Something which has nothing to do with time or space. The exterior never influences the interior and therefore is not directly knowable.”

  Dead end. Is there a limit to the power of these beings, or does the only limit lie in the poverty of the concepts I have at my disposal?

  Corson decided to return to the subject of his predicament.

  “Are you going to sentence me?”

  “You have already been sentenced.”

  “I’m no criminal!” Corson protested with sudden impatience. “I never had any choice—”

  “But you will have the choice. You will have the chance to undo what you did, to break the chain of violence, cancel out a series of wars. You are going back to Uria. There you will be cured of war.”

  “Why do you need me? Why can’t you use your own powers to suppress all wars?”

  “War is part of the history of this universe,” the voice said. “In one sense, we too were born of war. We want to wipe out war, and we shall succeed—we have succeeded—with the help of those who wage it, in their own interest, in order to become what they could be. But we cannot share our powers with beings who have not overcome war. Perhaps in the ultimate analysis we could suppress war by using our powers, by using force. But that would be a contradiction in terms, for we would be struggling against ourselves. We have undertaken to remake this universe. A universe is remade with what it is made of. Aergistal is a means to an end. It has three functions. The first is to eliminate war. Aergistal breeds, sooner or later, dedicated devotees of peace. To eliminate war you must comprehend it, so Aergistal contains an immense number of battlefields. Conflicts between empires, worlds, or species do not exist at Aergistal except as background, as far-off motivations. For we know that war is not only kept going by actual conflict of interest, but spreads and perpetuates itself of its own accord, even when the proximate causes have disappeared, and well beyond what is justified by the stakes. War possesses a structure whose aspects are manifold, but only its aspects. The test tubes of Aergistal enable us to comprehend war and make those who fight comprehend it too.”

  War as an organism! Something endowed with a modicum of autonomy, bom perhaps at the moment of actual combat but feeding thereafter on the substance and energy of those involved!

  Corson seized on the idea because it would explain so much, even though not without some residual confusion. For example, it accounted for the fact that—before Corson’s day—there had been wars in every period of human history, under no matter what type of government. Regularly, a group of people would undertake to abolish war and never achieve it. At most they would manage to damp it down, create an oasis of peace lasting a century or so, rarely a millennium, between conflagrations. And usually their followers undertook to enforce peace by means of war.

  Why was that war raging between the Solar Powers and the Empire of Uria? For economic reasons? Because of the ambitions of the high command? Or the fear of the populace? All those reasons had some weight, but there had to be another to potentiate them. The Urian war had been a surrogate for one which threatened to break out between the human planets, whose origin could be traced back to treaties badly drafted long ago that in their turn were the outcome of still more ancient wars. Doubtless from there one could go back and back clear to the war which had laid Earth waste, millennia before Corson was born, and impelled men to the conquest of the stars by condemning them to temporary exile. And further back yet, to the first battle of all, when one pithecanthropus raised a rock to strike another.

  And it had been the same in the history of other species. Or al-

  most all of them. All those
at any rate which were represented at Aergistal.

  We’ve often wondered what we were fighting for, Corson thought. But never, or not often enough, why we were making war. History is diseased. We are ants struggling one against another for reasons which we imagine to be obvious but which mask a gigantic mystery, an absolute lack of knowledge. And Aergistal is a laboratory . . . or an array of culture dishes.

  "The third purpose of Aergistal,” the voice said, “is to preserve war. War is one of the activities of life. It’s part of our heritage. It could be that we shall need its techniques. Something might emerge on the exterior of the universe. Aergistal is a frontier, and a rampart too.”

  The voice had suddenly become strained, or perhaps touched with sadness. Corson tried to imagine the Outside, but that total abstraction defeated him. Utter blackness. Untime. Unspace. Nothing, yet perhaps something else. If I were a number, Corson thought, say, the number one, how could I imagine the number of numbers, the last number of all?

  “To eliminate war,” the voice said. “To comprehend war. To preserve war. The choice will be granted you. You will be sent back to Uria to solve a problem. If you fail, you will come here again. If you succeed, you will be free. In your own time you will no longer be a war criminal. But above all you will have made a step forward.”

  The air around Corson grew thick. Walls materialized on all sides of him. He found himself stretched out in a long box of metallic appearance. It resembled a coffin.

  Or a tin can.

  “Hey!” Corson shouted. “Give me weapons—give me something!”

  “You have a brain,” the voice said with finality. “And you will get what help you need.”

  “The Security Office—” Corson began.

  “We have nothing to do with them,” the voice said. “All they deal with is the Epoch of the Triple Swarm, and what’s more in only a single galaxy.'’

  In sum, Corson said to himself before he Sank into darkness, a pinch of dust. . .