by Various
Further--so that was it. The creation of mechanoids must represent the height of human development. Which meant they were necessary to going on, reaching the stars....
"You mean, if humans could work with mechanoids, we could even travel to other worlds and spread throughout the universe?"
"He's getting close to the 'matter masters matter' principle," mused Mr. Third. "It's growth through extension, Sethos, a universal. Not just 'human'--man isn't alone in the universe."
Sethos did not understand. But another thought struck him.
"Just a moment, Hol. I've never seen you before. Where are you from?"
"From Antares System. I am an ethnographer, making a survey of the planets of man's early history."
Sethos was stunned.
"You--you are from out in space? From the stars?"
"That is correct. Man lives everywhere in the universe. But as Mr. Third said, that may be misleading."
Sethos disregarded the comment. It didn't matter if he were alone or not, at least he was there--man in the universe!
"I have completed a section of my work here. It is necessary to speak with the first level alone, if possible," said Hol.
"Of course," said Mr. Third. "Sethos, there is a vehicle in the hall. Will you return home until you wish to contact us about therapy? You have clearance to come in directly when you decide."
"Yes--yes, certainly."
In his shock he was barely conscious of an autocar hurtling through the dark streets, the familiar trees of West Park looming above him. Then, once more he saw the lights at Matya's, heard the noise and laughter.
Stepping from the autocar, Sethos felt the night breeze on his face. He looked upward at the sky, saw the stars like fierce eyes that had been watching all along. The revelation was too much to take, he thought. Suddenly Earth itself, so vastly greater than the small reservation of men, and short hours ago a veritable infinity, seemed tiny and insignificant.
"Why, Sethos! Where have you been?"
It was Paton's voice. The old man stood alone on the path.
"Paton, you couldn't guess what has happened. It's incredible!"
"Come up and get a drink, boy. You look exhausted. I was alarmed when I found you'd left."
Sethos took his arm and faced him squarely.
"Paton--I left the zone, and was taken to Mr. First's office. And do you know who I met? I met a man from the stars! Think of it! A man from other worlds, Paton. Do you realize that human beings have already traveled those fantastic distances, long ago? They must have forgotten about us on Earth!"
"Why, that is amazing. It just goes to show you, there's nothing new under the sun. Come along, and get that drink. I found some exquisite wine."
Sethos stopped. His hand slipped from Paton's arm.
"Paton.... Did you hear what I said? Didn't it penetrate? I said man has reached the stars! We already own the universe...."
"Of course. But I must say I don't know what we want with it all. Won't you join us now? Say, Ela has been looking for you."
"Ela? Yes, Ela. I want to see Ela...."
She came down the walk, and took him by the hands.
"There you are, you elusive boy! I want to go home now. I simply have to adjust my crystals or they'll overflow the bedroom. Oh, Matya! Thank you for a splendid time. I'll be having you over next week, don't forget."
Then they were down from the hill and in the park, and the party flowed on behind them, forgetting.
* * * * *
They were home again, and Ela hurried off to add nutrients to the huge crystal sculpture that was growing in the bedroom. It glowed and vibrated in every color of the spectrum, and strange textures developed at those edges where Ela hovered with a glass dropper and her chemicals, touching, wiping, smoothing....
"Oh, it nearly got away from me over here. I must get these reds to balance, or the whole thing will never refract properly at all. Did you know, Seth--they want to erect it in Central Plaza when I'm finished! Isn't that wonderful?" Her pleased face sparkled as she worked.
Sethos sat on the bed, folding his hands in his lap. Still stunned by Paton's reaction, he gazed absently at the floor.
"Ela, I met a man tonight. He is a very important man."
"Yes, there were so many dolls there. I only wish I had met Andian again. He'd be so jealous if he knew I was acclaimed for exhibition in the Plaza."
"I don't mean at the party."
Ela turned. "Really, dear? Where was he?"
"In the office of Mr. First. He wanted to talk to me."
"You went outside zone? Whatever for?"
Sethos rose and took her shoulders firmly in his hands.
"This man is from another planet, Ela. He told me that people live all over the universe!"
"You don't say!"
"They left the earth a long time ago. They've traveled between the stars for centuries and centuries!"
"That's wonderful, dear. Help me with this pot of dye, will you, Seth?"
Sethos drew back, unbelieving.
"Ela.... The stars are trillions of miles apart. Men have learned to fly between them somehow!"
"It's breathtaking. The dye?"
"Quintillions, some of them! Think of it, Ela!" Sethos was shaking with agitation.
"Dearest," said Ela, moving away from him, "do you think we might move closer to Center after my Plaza crystal is finished? I'd like to be able to look out and see it every morning in the sun...."
She wasn't listening! She didn't care!
"Ela. Ela, love--listen to me! What's wrong with you? Can't you see?" His voice shrank to a whisper.
She smiled tolerantly. "Of course, dear."
"I'm telling you something no one has dreamed of before and you fuss about your crystals! Don't you ever get sick of this little cage? Don't you ever feel like getting out and running away?"
"Cage?"
"I'm telling you the earth can be ours! People can live like mechanoids if they'll only wake up and stop their childish play!"
"But why, dear?"
"Why? We were meant to, that's why. Because we've already done it, or someone has. But we're still here, left behind. We've got to catch up!"
"How silly." She returned to her chemicals.
Sethos felt a burning rage seize him. This woman he had loved--she was only a shell, a stick of wood, with no ideas of her own--no curiosity. Nothing! And she didn't have the faintest notion what he was talking about. She didn't care!
Furious, he grasped a heavy bronze ash tray and hurled it, hard as he could, into the mass of shining crystal that filled the room. With an explosive rainbow of color and a reverberating crash, it collapsed under the heavy blow into a million tiny fragments.
He stood, glaring at the scattered shards, waiting for Ela to leap at him, screaming and clawing him for the ruin he had made of her masterpiece.
But she only smiled weakly, and shrugged.
"Dear, that was very irrational. I think you had better request therapy one of these days. Now I shall have to start all over again. But don't fret, sweet. I had a much better idea anyway. I can get sensational results using fluorides."
She wouldn't fight him--she couldn't think of such an act, raised in a world where coercion and violence did not exist. She didn't care about anything!
Calm now, he knew what to do. Striding swiftly from the house, he went straight to the vehicle space. He got into an autocar and slammed the door.
"Direction, please."
"Contact Dispatching. Ask for permission to go directly to first level primary. Tell them it's Sethos."
Pause. "Permission granted."
* * * * *
"Come in, Sethos. What can I do for you?"
Sethos looked around the room anxiously.
"I want to make a request, Mr. First, if it isn't too late."
"Too late?"
"I would like to see Hol before he leaves. Is he still here?"
"Perhaps I can arrange it. His time is budge
ted, you understand."
"I must see him."
Mr. First was silent for a moment, and Sethos realized he was contacting someone. Then, he announced, "Yes, he's willing to see you. Go through this door. His compartment is the second down the corridor."
Sethos thanked him and hurried out. Finding the door, he hesitated an instant, then went in.
"Good morning," said Hol.
There was a second man standing beside him, dressed in the same manner and of the same stature as Hol.
"I had to see you," Sethos began hastily, not expecting to encounter two men.
"I see. This is Bek, a field observer. He was at your party last night."
Sethos remembered the stranger he had taken for a spying apprentice on the hillside. He felt embarrassed, but brushed it aside.
"I ... want you to take me with you."
Hol looked at his companion.
"I don't fit here," Sethos went on. "Mr. Third himself said I'm more intelligent than the others--I'm the only one who knows what your visit means. I want to go where people are interested in learning and progress. If I stay here I'll have to fool around with a hobby the rest of my life. There's no work, no expansion. You can see why I have to leave, can't you? I'm the curious type."
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Why? Can't you take me with you? What harm would it do?"
"Well, there are rules."
"But--I'm not just anybody. I'm an exception to the rule. I qualify as a genius--you mean there isn't a place for me somewhere in the universe? Surely you can use a smart man!"
"You are a genius, that's true," said Bek, in a deep, serious voice. "As long as you remain here. Hundreds of centuries ago, your ancestors discovered principles that are not even expressible in your language, and learned to apply them to matter. Soon they knew no boundaries. The earth was not forgotten, but it was no longer important. It still is only a statistic. And we are here to examine it briefly. We have many others to visit.
"You see, Sethos, man changed out in space. He is a long way from your ancestors who started all this. But before those ancient men left, they established Earth as a control planet, to maintain forever a specimen of the original stock. It may have been done out of his egocentric ideas at the time, but it proved wise, for such a specimen is valuable in our research."
"Sethos," said Hol, seeing the bewilderment on the young man's face, "the mechanoids who attend your little community are more than one hundred thousand years old. That is how long your little culture has been faithfully preserved, just as it was then. You would not be capable of living elsewhere in the universe now. You could survive, perhaps, bright as you are, for a century or so, and then die, unhappy, maladjusted, never finding another of your own level. You are, after all, a savage."
Sethos was dazed.
He--an atavism, a prehistoric man! No wonder his people behaved as they did--they were merely a docile herd of caged animals, kept complacent and well-fed by the keepers outside. An extinct beast, left to be tended until the earth reached the end of its course as a flaming speck in the infinite cavern of space!
"You--you must take me! I couldn't stand it now. How can I go back, knowing we're just a miserable experiment? Please--I'll go crazy!"
"Even now you exhibit one of your primitive traits--pride of being a man. But you will adjust to life. It is as it should be."
"But--"
"I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do."
"No, wait--I...."
The two men were gone.
Sethos stared. He was alone in the room. A constriction grew in his throat, and he felt weak. Indeed, man had changed.
"Sethos?"
Mr. First stood in the door.
"Yes...."
Now the pattern was clear. Sethos--the curious man, the genius--was doomed. He had lost a battle in which he never had a chance. Still, he had fought.
But walking down the corridor with the mechanoid, he knew that no one lost completely. He knew that Sethos, the human, the adjusted hobbyist, would soon look back on this night as though it were an ordinary phase of life.
Then, on the table, with the gently humming mechanism lowered to his head, the knot in his throat softened.
"All yours," said Mr. First to Mr. Third.
"A remarkable case," said Mr. Third. "Sometimes I wish we kept a record of his kind. It might be very interesting."
"Someday, perhaps. When our work grows dull."
* * *
Contents
MAD MUSIC
By Anthony Pelcher
The sixty stories of the perfectly constructed Colossus building had mysteriously crashed! What was the connection between this catastrophe and the weird strains of the Mad Musician's violin?
To the accompaniment of a crashing roar, not unlike rumbling thunder, the proud Colossus Building, which a few minutes before had reared its sixty stories of artistic architecture towards the blue dome of the sky, crashed in a rugged, dusty heap of stone, brick, cement and mortar. The steel framework, like the skeleton of some prehistoric monster, still reared to dizzy heights but in a bent and twisted shape of grotesque outline.
No one knew how many lives were snuffed out in the avalanche.
As the collapse occurred in the early dawn it was not believed the death list would be large. It was admitted, however, that autos, cabs and surface cars may have been caught under the falling rock. One train was known to have been wrecked in the subway due to a cave-in from the surface under the ragged mountain of debris.
The litter fairly filled a part of Times Square, the most congested cross-roads on God's footstool. Straggling brick and rock had rolled across the street to the west and had crashed into windows and doors of innocent small tradesmen's shops.
A few minutes after the crash a mad crowd of people had piled from subway exits as far away as Penn Station and Columbus Circle and from cross streets. These milled about, gesticulating and shouting hysterically. All neighboring police stations were hard put to handle the growing mob.
Hundreds of dead and maimed were being carried to the surface from the wrecked train in the subway. Trucks and cabs joined the ambulance crews in the work of transporting these to morgues and hospitals. As the morning grew older and the news of the disaster spread, more milling thousands tried to crowd into the square. Many were craning necks hopelessly on the outskirts of the throng, blocks away, trying vainly to get a view of what lay beyond.
The fire department and finally several companies of militia joined the police in handling the crowd. Newsies, never asleep, yowled their "Wuxtras" and made much small money.
The newspapers devoted solid pages in attempting to describe what had happened. Nervously, efficient reporters had written and written, using all their best adjectives and inventing new ones in attempts to picture the crash and the hysterics which followed.
* * * * *
When the excitement was at its height a middle-aged man, bleeding at the head, clothes torn and dusty, staggered into the West 47th street police station. He found a lone sergeant at the desk.
The police sergeant jumped to his feet as the bedraggled man entered and stumbled to a bench.
"I'm Pat Brennan, street floor watchman of the Colossus," he said. "I ran for it. I got caught in the edge of the wreck and a brick clipped me. I musta been out for some time. When I came around I looked back just once at the wreck and then I beat it over here. Phone my boss."
"I'll let you phone your boss," said the sergeant, "but first tell me just what happened."
"Earthquake, I guess. I saw the floor heaving in waves. Glass was crashing and falling into the street. All windows in the arcade buckled, either in or out. I ran into the street and looked up. God, what a sight! The building from sidewalk to towers was rocking and waving and twisting and buckling and I saw it was bound to crumple, so I lit out and ran. I heard a roar like all Hell broke loose and then something nicked me and my light went out."
"How many got caugh
t in the building?"
"Nobody got out but me, I guess. There weren't many tenants. The building is all rented, but not everybody had moved in yet and those as had didn't spend their nights there. There was a watchman for every five stories. An engineer and his crew. Three elevator operators had come in. There was no names of tenants in or out on my book after 4 A.M. The crash musta come about 6. That's all."
* * * * *
Throughout the country the news of the crash was received with great interest and wonderment, but in one small circle it caused absolute consternation. That was in the offices of the Muller Construction Company, the builders of the Colossus. Jason V. Linane, chief engineer of the company, was in conference with its president, James J. Muller.
Muller sat with his head in his hands, and his face wore an expression of a man in absolute anguish. Linane was pacing the floor, a wild expression in his eyes, and at times he muttered and mumbled under his breath.
In the other offices the entire force from manager to office boys was hushed and awed, for they had seen the expressions on the faces of the heads of the concern when they stalked into the inner office that morning.
Muller finally looked up, rather hopelessly, at Linane.
"Unless we can prove that the crash was due to some circumstance over which we had no control, we are ruined," he said, and there actually were tears in his eyes.
"No doubt about that," agreed Linane, "but I can swear that the Colossus went up according to specifications and that every ounce and splinter of material was of the best. The workmanship was faultless. We have built scores of the biggest blocks in the world and of them all this Colossus was the most perfect. I had prided myself on it. Muller, it was perfection. I simply cannot account for it. I cannot. It should have stood up for thousands of years. The foundation was solid rock. It positively was not an earthquake. No other building in the section was even jarred. No other earthquake was ever localized to one half block of the earth's crust, and we can positively eliminate an earthquake or an explosion as the possible cause. I am sure we are not to blame, but we will have to find the exact cause."
"If there was some flaw?" questioned Muller, although he knew the answer.