by Isaac Asimov
He scarcely saw Shekt and Schwartz. They sat on his left. And there was Balkis, the damnable Balkis, with his lips still swollen, one cheek green, so that it must hurt like the devil to talk–and Arvardan’s own lips stretched into a furious, aching smile at the thought and his fists clenched and writhed. His own bandaged cheek ached less at the thought.
Facing all of them was Ennius, frowning, uncertain, almost ridiculous, dressed as he was in those heavy, shapeless, leadimpregnated clothes.
And he was stupid, too. Arvardan felt a thrill of hatred shoot through him at the thought of these Galactic trimmers who wanted only peace and ease. Where were the conquerors of three centuries back? Where?...
Six hours left–
Ennius had received the call from the Chica garrison some eighteen hours before and he had streaked half around the planet at the summons. The motives that led him to that were obscure but nonetheless forceful. Essentially, he told himself, there was nothing to the matter but a regrettable kidnaping of one of those green-robed curiosities of superstitious, hagridden Earth. That, and these wild and undocumented accusations. Nothing, certainly, that the colonel on the spot could not have handled.
And yet there was Shekt–Shekt was in this–And not as the accused, but as an accuser. It was confusing.
He sat now facing them, thinking, quite conscious that his decision in this case might hasten a rebellion, perhaps weaken his own position at court, ruin his chances at advancement–As for Arvardan’s long speech just now about virus strains and unbridled epidemics, how seriously could he take it? After all. if he took action on the basis of it, how credible would the matter sound to his superiors?
And yet Arvardan was an archaeologist of note.
So he postponed the matter in his mind by saying to the Secretary, “Surely you have something to say in this matter?”
“Surprisingly little,” said the Secretary with easy confidence. “I would like to ask what evidence exists for supporting the accusation?”
“Your Excellency,” said Arvardan with snapping patience, “I have already told you that the man admitted it in every detail at the time of our imprisonment day before yesterday.”
“Perhaps,” said the Secretary, “you choose to credit that, Your Excellency, but it is simply an additional unsupported statement. Actually the only facts to which outsiders can bear witness to are that I was the one violently taken prisoner, not they; that it was my life that was in peril, not theirs. Now I would like my accuser to explain how he could find all this out in the nine weeks that he has been on the planet, when you, the Procurator, in years of service here, have found nothing to my disadvantage?”
“There is reason in what the Brother says,” admitted Ennius heavily. “How do you know?”
Arvardan replied stiffly, “Prior to the accused’s confession I was informed of the conspiracy by Dr. Shekt.”
“Is that so, Dr. Shekt?” The Procurator’s glance shifted to the physicist.
“That is so, Your Excellency.”
“And how did you find out?”
Shekt said, “Dr. Arvardan was admirably thorough and accurate in his description of the use to which the Synapsifier was put and in his remarks concerning the dying statements of the bacteriologist, F. Smitko. This Smitko was a member of the conspiracy. His remarks were recorded and the recording is available.”
“But, Dr. Shekt, the dying statements of a man known to be in delirium–if what Dr. Arvardan said is true–cannot be of very great weight. You have nothing else?”
Arvardan interrupted by striking his fist on the arm of his chair and roaring, “Is this a law court? Has someone been guilty of violating a traffic ordinance? We have no time to weigh evidence on an analytical balance or measure it with micrometers. I tell you we have till six in the morning, five and a half hours, in other words, to wipe out this enormous threat.... You knew Dr. Shekt previous to this time, Your Excellency. Have you known him to be a liar?”
The Secretary interposed instantly, “No one accused Dr. Shekt of deliberately lying, Your Excellency. It is only that the good doctor is aging and has, of late, been greatly concerned over his approaching sixtieth birthday. I am afraid that a combination of age and fear have induced slight paranoiac tendencies, common enough here on Earth.... Look at him! Does he seem to you quite normal?”
He did not, of course. He was drawn and tense, shattered by what had passed and what was to come.
Yet Shekt forced his voice into normal tones, even into calmness. He said, “I might say that for the last two months I have been under the continual watch of the Ancients; that my letters have been opened and my answers censored. But it is obvious that all such complaints would be attributed to the paranoia spoken of. However, I have here Joseph Schwartz, the man who volunteered as a subject for the Synapsifier one day when you were visiting me at the Institute.”
“I remember.” There was a feeble gratitude in Ennius’s mind that the subject had, for the moment, veered. “Is that the man?”
“Yes.”
“He looks none the worse for the experience.”
“He is far the better. The exposure to the Synapsifier was uncommonly successful, since he had a photographic memory to begin with, a fact I did not know at the time. At any rate, he now has a mind which is sensitive to the thoughts of others.”
Ennius leaned far forward in his chair and cried in a shocked amazement, “What? Are you telling me he reads minds?”
“That can be demonstrated, Your Excellency. But I think the Brother will confirm the statement.” The Secretary darted a quick look of hatred at Schwartz, boiling in its intensity and lightninglike in its passage across his face. He said, with but the most imperceptible quiver in his voice, “It is quite true, Your Excellency. This man they have here has certain hypnotic faculties, though whether that is due to the Synapsifier or not I don’t know. I might add that this man’s subjection to the Synapsifier was not recorded, a matter which you’ll agree is highly suspicious.”
“It was not recorded,” said Shekt quietly, “in accordance with my standing orders from the High Minister.” But the Secretary merely shrugged his shoulders at that.
Ennius said peremptorily, “Let us get on with the matter and avoid this petty bickering.... What about this Schwartz? What have his mind-reading powers, or hypnotic talents, or whatever they are, to do with the case?”
“Shekt intends to say,” put in the Secretary, “that Schwartz can read my mind.”
“Is that it? Well, and what is he thinking?” asked the Procurator, speaking to Schwartz for the first time.
“He’s thinking,” said Schwartz, “that we have no way of convincing you of the truth of our side of what you call the case.”
“Quite true,” scoffed the Secretary, “though that deduction scarcely calls for much mental power.”
“And also,” Schwartz went on, “that you are a poor fool, afraid to act, desiring only peace, hoping by your justice and impartiality to win over the men of Earth, and all the more a fool for so hoping.”
The Secretary reddened. ‘.1 deny all that. It is an obvious attempt to prejudice you, Your Excellency.”
But Ennius said, “I am not so easily prejudiced.” And then, to Schwartz, “And what am 1 thinking?”
Schwartz replied, “That even if I could see clearly within a man’s skull, I need not necessarily tell the truth about what I see.”
The Procurator’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You are correct, quite correct. Do you maintain the truth of the claims put forward by Drs. Arvardan and Shekt?”
“Every word of it?”
“So! Yet unless a second such as you can be found, one who is not involved in the matter, your evidence would not be valid in law even if we could obtain general belief in you as a telepath.”
“But it is not a question of the law,” cried Arvardan, “but of the safety of the Galaxy.”,
“Your Excellency”–the Secretary rose in his seat–” I have a request to m
ake. I would like to have this Joseph Schwartz removed from the room.”
“Why so?”
“This man, in addition to reading minds, has certain powers of mental force. I was captured by means of a paralysis induced by this Schwartz. It is my fear that he may attempt something of the sort now against me, or even against you, Your Excellency, that forces me to the request.”
Arvardan rose to his feet, but the Secretary overshouted him to say, “No hearing can be fair if a man is present who might subtly influence the mind of the judge by means of admitted mental gifts.”
Ennius made his decision quickly. An orderly entered, and Joseph Schwartz, offering no resistance, nor showing the slightest sign of perturbation on his moonlike face, was led away.
To Arvardan it was the final blow.
As for the Secretary, he rose now and for the moment stood there–a squat, grim figure in green; strong in his self-confidence.
He began, in serious, formal style, “Your Excellency, all of Dr. Arvardan’s beliefs and statements rest upon the testimony of Dr. Shekt. In turn, Dr. Shekt’s beliefs rest upon the dying delirium of one man. And all this, Your Excellency, all this, somehow never reached the surface until after Joseph Schwartz was submitted to the Synapsifier.
“Who, then, is Joseph Schwartz? Until Joseph Schwartz appeared on the scene, Dr. Shekt was a normal, untroubled man. You yourself, Your Excellency, spent an afternoon with him the day Schwartz was brought in for treatment. Was he abnormal then? Did he inform you of treason against the Empire? Of certain babblings on the part of a dying biochemist? Did he seem even troubled? Or suspicious? He says now that he was instructed by the High Minister to falsify the results of the Synapsifier tests, not to record the names of those treated. Did he tell you that then? Or only now, after that day on which Schwartz appeared?
“Again, who is Joseph Schwartz? He spoke no known language at the time he was brought in. So much we found out for ourselves later, when we first began to suspect the stability of Dr. Shekt’s reason. He was brought in by a farmer who knew nothing of his identity, or, indeed, any facts about him at all. Nor have any since been discovered.
“Yet this man has strange mental powers. He can stun at a hundred yards by thought alone–kill at closer range. I myself have been paralyzed by him; my arms and legs were manipulated by him; my mind might have been manipulated by him if he had wished.
“I believe, certainly, that Schwartz did manipulate the minds of these others. They say I captured them, that I threatened them with death, that I confessed to treason and to aspiring to Empire–Yet ask of them one question, Your Excellency. Have they not been thoroughly exposed to the influence of Schwartz, that is, of a man capable of controlling their minds?
“Is not perhaps Schwartz a traitor? If not, who is Schwartz?”
The Secretary seated himself, calm, almost genial.
Arvardan felt as though his brain had mounted a cyclotron and was spinning outward now in faster and faster revolutions.
What answer could one make? That Schwartz was from the past? What evidence was there for that? That the man spoke a genuinely primitive speech? But only he himself–Arvardan–could testify to that. And he, Arvardan, might well have a manipulated mind. After all, how could he tell his mind had not been manipulated? Who was Schwartz? What had so convinced him of this great plan of Galactic conquest?
He thought again. From where came his conviction of the truth of the conspiracy? He was an archaeologist, given to doubting, but now–Had it been one man’s word? One girl’s kiss? Or Joseph Schwartz?
He couldn’t think! He couldn’t think!
“Well?” Ennius sounded impatient. “Have you anything to say, Dr. Shekt? Or you, Dr. Arvardan?”
But Pola’s voice suddenly pierced the silence. “Why do you ask them? Can’t you see that it’s all a lie? Don’t you see that he’s tying us all up with his false tongue? Oh, we’re all going to die, and I don’t care any more–but we could stop it, we could stop it–And instead we just sit here and–and–talk–” She burst into wild sobs.
The Secretary said, “So we are reduced to the screams of a hysterical girl.... Your Excellency, I have this proposition. My accusers say that all this, the alleged virus and whatever else they have in mind, is scheduled for a definite time–six in the morning, I believe. I offer to remain in your custody for a week. If what they say is true, word of an epidemic in the Galaxy ought to reach Earth within a few days. If such occurs, Imperial forces will still control Earth–”
“Earth is a fine exchange, indeed, for a Galaxy of humans,” mumbled the white-faced Shekt.
“I value my own life, and that of my people. We are hostages for our innocence, and I am prepared at this instant to inform the Society of Ancients that I will remain here for a week of my own free will and prevent any disturbances that might otherwise occur.”
He folded his arms.
Ennius looked up, his face troubled. “I find no fault in this man–”
Arvardan could stand it no more. With a quiet and deadly ferocity, he arose and strode quickly toward the Procurator. What he meditated was never known. Afterward he himself could not remember. At any rate, it made no difference. Ennius had a neuronic whip and used it.
For the third time since landing on Earth everything about Arvardan flamed up into pain, spun about, and vanished.
In the hours during which Arvardan was unconscious the six o’clock deadline was reached–
Twenty-One: The Deadline that Passed
And passed!
Light–
Blurring light and misty shadows–melting and twisting, and then coming into focus.
A face–Eyes upon his–
“Pola!” Things were sharp and clear to Arvardan in a single, leaping bound. “What time is it?”
His fingers were hard upon her wrist, so that she winced involuntarily.
“It’s past seven,” she whispered. “Past the deadline.”
He looked about wildly, starting from the cot on which he lay, disregarding the burning in his joints. Shekt, his lean figure huddled in a chair, raised his head to nod in brief mournfulness.
“It’s all over, Arvardan.”
“Then Ennius–”
“Ennius,” said Shekt, “would not take the chance. Isn’t that strange?” He laughed a queer, cracked, rasping laugh. “The three of us singlehandedly discover a vast plot against humanity, singlehandedly we capture the ringleader and bring him to justice. It’s like a visicast, isn’t it, with the great all-conquering heroes zooming to victory in the nick of time? That’s where they usually end it. Only in our case the visicast went on and we found that nobody believed us. That doesn’t happen in visicasts, does it? Things end happily there, don’t they? It’s funny–” The words turned into rough, dry sobs.
Arvardan looked away, sick. Pola’s eyes were dark universes, moist and tear-filled. Somehow, for an instant, he was lost in them–they were universes, star-filled. And toward those stars little gleaming metallic cases were streaking, devouring the light-years as they penetrated hyperspace in calculated, deadly paths. Soon–perhaps already–they would approach, pierce atmospheres, fall apart into unseen deadly rains of virus–
Well, it was over. It could no longer be stopped. “Where is Schwartz?” he asked weakly. But Pola only shook her head. “They never brought him back.”
The door opened, and Arvardan was not so far gone in the acceptance of death as to fail to look up with a momentary wash of hope upon his face.
But it was Ennius, and Arvardan’s face hardened and turned away.
Ennius approached and looked momentarily at the father and daughter. But even now Shekt and Pola were primarily Earth creatures and could say nothing to the Procurator, even though they knew that short and violent as their future lives were to be, that of the Procurator would be even shorter and more violent.
Ennius tapped Arvardan on the shoulder. “Dr. Arvardan?”
“Your Excellency?” said Arvardan
in a raw and bitter imitation of the other’s intonation.
“It is after six o’clock.” Ennius had not slept that night. With his official absolution of Balkis had come no absolute assurance that the accusers were completely mad–or under mental control. He had watched the soulless chronometer tick away the life of the Galaxy.
“Yes,” said Arvardan. “It is after six and the stars still shine.”
“But you still think you were right?”
“Your Excellency,” said Arvardan, “in a matter of hours the first victims will die. They won’t be noticed. Human beings die every day. In a week hundreds of thousands will have died. The percentage of recovery will be close to zero. No known remedies will be available. Several planets will send out emergency calls for epidemic relief. In two weeks scores of planets will have joined the call and States of Emergency will be declared in the nearer sectors. In a month the Galaxy will be a writhing mass of disease. In two months not twenty planets will remain untouched. In six months the Galaxy will be dead.... And what will you do when those first reports come in?
“Let me predict that as well. You will send out reports that the epidemics may have started on Earth. This will save no lives. You will declare war on the Ancients of Earth. This will save no lives. You will wipe the Earthman from the face of his planet. This will save no lives.... Or else you will act as go-between for your friend Balkis and the Galactic Council, or the survivors thereof. You may then have the honor of handing the wretched remnants of the crumbs of the Empire to Balkis in return for antitoxin, which mayor may not reach sufficient worlds in sufficient quantities in sufficient time to save a single human being.”
Ennius smiled without conviction. “Don’t you think you’re being ridiculously overdramatic?”
“Oh yes. I’m a dead man and you’re a corpse. But let’s be devilishly cool and Imperial about it, don’t y’know?”
“If you resent the use of the neuronic whip–”
“Not at all,” ironically. “I’m used to it. I hardly feel it any more.”