“Conditions are remarkably conducive tonight,” Herrick commented with some surprise. “The nodes are particularly strong. Here comes a good one.”
The view, as most of them were, was from the air. It showed the outskirts of a town of moderate size, judging by the layout of the buildings. The angle of the sun revealed the time to be midafternoon.
“Do you recognise it?” Herrick asked him.
Heshke shook his head. It could have been any of a thousand such towns.
Instead of dissipating after a few seconds, which was what normally happened, the picture lingered. Herrick managed to steady it further, until the quality was almost of commercial standard.
“At last I’m getting somewhere,” Herrick said sadly. “It seems a pity to – what’s that?”
The frame of the picture itself remained steady and bright; but certain elements in it were fading. While the two men watched (Heshke was vaguely aware of other eyes peering over his shoulder through the double doors) all the buildings in the picture seemed to melt away, leaving a bare background. Not only that, but a grove of trees also vanished, together with a stretch of grass.
What remained was bare, arid soil.
“Some effect of the system?” Heshke suggested mildly.
“I don’t see how,” Herrick muttered. “There are television systems that could produce this effect – systems employing a memory bank to hold persistent elements in the picture, so that it’s built up piece by piece – but I rely on a simple scanning procedure. Look, you can see the places where those buildings had stood. It’s just as if the whole town had disappeared into thin air.”
“Then you must have been picking up two different images superimposed,” Heshke said. “One faded out and you’re left with the other.”
“Yes, that might explain it.” Herrick nodded reluctantly. “That must be it. But as to how they came to blend so perfectly – and I thought I’d licked the tuning problem, too.”
Heshke wandered out of the room, leaving Herrick still absorbed in his apparatus.
He went onto the verandah and looked out over the desert. The night sky seemed to hold a strange, flickering light, as if lightning was playing somewhere beyond the horizon.
The attempted return to Brourne’s HQ was hectic.
They’d gone about half a mile in the squad’s armoured runabout – the Titans scorned to use Retort City’s own public transport system – when they came upon one of the main arteries that had been cleared to give the city’s new masters easy access. The highway was thundering with traffic, all of it heading toward the sound of bombs and gunfire that came from the city’s bottleneck end.
“Toward the front,” muttered the sergeant.
The wild looks on the faces of the Titans who clung to the swaying gun carriages told them that the situation had more than a measure of desperation. No natives were in sight: presumably they were all huddling somewhere, terrified of Titan savagery when the going got tough. A Titan soldier, for example, would shoot anyone who happened to be standing in his way when a sense of urgency overtook him.
“What in the Mother’s name is going on, sarge?” one of the troopers asked.
“Must be something big.” He ruminated. “Maybe the Chinks were holding onto their defences.” He nudged the driver. “Our job is to get this man to HQ. Get across the highway when there’s a gap and go by way of the secondary route.”
The highway came in from the main supply dump, close to the dock. HQ was in a central part of the city. Eventually they crossed the busy viaduct and continued, past empty tiers, galleries and plazas.
“This place gives me the creeps,” someone grumbled. “I’ll be glad to get back to Pradna.”
Ahead of them was a machine gun post. Troopers yelled at them, brought them to a halt.
“You can’t go up there,” a corporal told them, “it’s cut off.”
“Cut off by who?”
“The Chinks have an army,” the corporal said stolidly. “Everything’s in chaos.”
Suddenly the machine gun gave out a short stuttering burst. “Here they come!” yelled the man firing it.
The sergeant reached into the runabout and brought out his burp gun. He could see them, too, now, emerging from the end of a tree-lined avenue. They wore rough, blue uniforms and wide-brimmed dome helmets.
He rapped out orders. The armoured runabout proceeded slowly up the avenue, its occupants firing from its slits. He stayed with the machine gun crew, down on one knee, peering over the barricade and fingering his burp gun.
And then, without any warning, the Chinks were upon them: all around them, as if they’d dropped from the nonexistent sky.
Titan-Major Brourne knew already that he’d committed a tactical error when he moved his HQ from the cramped accommodation at the dockside to his present palatial quarters near the centre of the city.
At the time it had seemed reasonable. The city had been taken. He needed an administrative centre, and the dock just wouldn’t do.
But now, up through the bottleneck from the Production Retort which all his scouts had assured him was empty, had come a huge army, well-prepared and well-disciplined. Brourne still only had an inkling of where this army had really come from, but in any case explanations, at this stage, were very low down on his list of priorities.
When it first became clear that the threat was serious he’d given thought to the route back to the dock, to a withdrawal to the ships floating outside the city if necessary. With deep chagrin he learned that the dock was one of the first points to be seized by the enemy. His forces were still trying to retake it.
Elsewhere the story was one of repeated disaster. The invasion force was overwhelming, and none of the measures he’d taken to retain military control seemed effective. The Chinks were able to flit in and out of existence like shadows, by means of some device they possessed, apparently, and so were able to infiltrate all his fixed defences. They carried only light arms and knives, but more often than not fought using an unarmed combat technique that was as deadly as anything he’d come across.
His ire rising, Brourne listened to the distressing tale of section after section of the city falling, of the enemy appearing simultaneously everywhere, that the battle reports told. He slammed down the key that opened the line to all district commanders. For some minutes now they’d been requesting instructions.
“Kill everything that moves!” he roared. “Have you got that? Everything that moves!”
“Haven’t I met you somewhere?” Leard Ascar asked, squinting quizzically at the white man wearing the uniform of the Lower Retort invaders.
“Sobrie Oblomot.” The other smiled. “We met twice, a few days ago. For you it was a few days ago, that is; for me it was more than a year.”
“Oh yes, that’s right,” Ascar muttered. “You came in on the ship from Earth, in Rond Heshke’s place. Forgive me, I’ve a poor memory for faces.” He waved a hand negligently. “So the Titans haven’t had it all their own way?”
Sobrie allowed himself a look of quiet triumph. “They don’t know what’s hit them. You know the secret of the Lower Retort’s success, of course – that it can always take as much time as it needs to work on something, even when results are required in minutes. We only spent a year in organising our onslaught, but we could have taken twenty-five years if need be.”
“Yes, I thought there would be something like that,” Ascar said. “I’m surprised the Titans let you pull off such a stunt.”
“They had no opportunity to stop us. Do you remember a young man by the name of Hueh Su-Mueng? The Titans brought him with them, back from Earth. They’d have done better to leave him behind: he switched off the time tunnel between the two retorts, denying the Titans access to it, in its normative time, at least. I expect they could have found their way into it with the new ships they have, but we were upon them before they fully realised what was going on. In Leisure Retort time, Su-Mueng and myself were back within an hour of leaving – with
a fully-equipped and trained army!”
Ascar grunted. “Somebody on Limnich’s staff goofed. Not that it matters.” He stretched. He’d been separated from the Titan prisoners and put in more luxurious surroundings reserved, he guessed, for detainees of more exalted rank. Oblomot’s visit, however, had been a surprise.
“I remember you now,” he said. “You’re some kind of revolutionary nut, aren’t you? A dev-lover. Yes, that’s right.”
“Say what you like. I’m not alone: Su-Mueng is a revolutionary too. Things are going to change around here.”
“If you’re expecting the Production Retort workers to toe some kind of rebellion line, forget it,” Ascar told him. “People know how to arrange society in this ISS. It’s orderly.”
“Well, we’ll see. Su-Mueng is an extraordinary person in some ways. It’s really impressive the way he was able to get things organised in the Lower Retort. And we’ve saved Retort City!” Boastfulness crept into Sobrie’s voice.
“They respond naturally to being organised down there,” Ascar retorted. “It doesn’t mean a damn thing.” He yawned. He felt tired. “So you’ve saved Retort City, have you? Well, bend a knee to me, friend. You’re looking at the man who’s saved the planet Earth!”
“You …?” began Sobrie wonderingly, but he was interrupted by a call from outside the apartment.
Hueh Su-Mueng entered. He glanced disdainfully at Ascar, then turned to Sobrie.
“All goes well. The retort is ours, apart from a few pockets of resistance. Also, we’ve found out where the Earthmen were holding the Leisure Retort cabinet. They should be arriving here soon!”
“Good!” said Ascar vigorously. “Since this little fiasco is finished, I take it my master Shiu Kung-Chien can now return to his observatory and attend matters of greater import. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to join him.”
“Oh yes, I recognise you,” Su-Mueng said. “You’re the man who preferred to devote himself to abstract things, rather than try to help his own people. Go on your way, by all means. We have no use for you here.” There was a new hardness in the young man, Ascar noted. The past year had changed him.
“Wait!” Sobrie interjected. “What was that you were saying just now – about Earth?”
Ascar put on a stubborn face and folded his arms. “I want to see Shiu Kung-Chien.”
“I see what’s in your mind,” Su-Mueng said after a moment. “You’re afraid that I’ll execute all the cabinet ministers, including your beloved master. Don’t worry, that’s for the people to decide, not me. Perhaps he’ll be put to work in a factory, to discover what it’s like.”
He gave the word to Sobrie, who went out and returned a few minutes later with Shiu. The aged scientist murmured a perfunctory greeting as he entered the room, then spoke to Ascar.
“Was there time to complete the operation?” he asked.
“Just about,” said Ascar. “I visited the Oblique Entity, anyway.”
“And did you learn anything encouraging?”
“It depends which way you look at it – but yes, you could say I did.”
He turned to Sobrie. “You’re an Earthman, I suppose, so I’ll try to explain. You see, my efforts haven’t been quite as devoid of practical motive as might be imagined. Several light-years from here there exists an … intelligence, an entity that has been known to Retort City for some time. It’s called the Oblique Entity, because it exists obliquely in time. Our object – mine and Shiu’s – has been to establish a good enough communication with this entity for an exchange of practical knowledge. Its understanding of the time process is much more profound than ours; consequently I was anxious to find out if it could help us, if there was any way available to science of controlling the onrush of time-systems so as to avert the impending collision on Earth.”
“I … think I see,” Sobrie said in a subdued tone. He felt slightly ashamed of having misjudged Ascar, whom hitherto he’d taken to be little more than a dropout.
Ascar looked at Shiu before continuing. “To my surprise, sir, the Entity already knew about Earth. It makes a hobby, apparently, of watching planets where life exists. I was even more staggered to hear it admit that it has the power, if it chooses, to prevent the cataclysm there. It’s able to exert an influence over the direction of time, even upon so massive a system as Earth’s and even at so great a distance. Don’t ask me how. But it did make it quite clear to me that this power is something human beings will never learn to control.”
“But that makes it like a god!” Sobrie exclaimed disbelievingly.
“Yes, like a god,” Ascar repeated, his lips curling slightly. That was exactly what he’d said at the time, and the Entity’s reply still sounded in his ears: I am as insignificant as you. The Supreme does not notice me, just as it does not notice you.
“Is he speaking the truth?” Sobrie asked Shiu anxiously. “Is that really what you’ve been doing in your observatory?”
Shiu’s tone was cold and superior. “That was indeed our project. I’d suspected long ago that the Oblique Entity has powers unknown to us.”
“Deus ex machina,” Sobrie muttered.
“Yes,” said Ascar tonelessly, “a real deus ex machina. However, the Oblique Entity insists it’s basically a spectator, a noninterventionist. When I asked it to use its powers on our behalf, it refused.”
A heavy silence fell on the room, and Su-Mueng stirred.
“My regrets for your planet,” he said stiffly. “However, if you’ll excuse me, Retort City will continue to exist and I have business to deal with.”
“That wasn’t the end of the matter, sir,” Ascar said quickly to Shiu when the younger man had left the room, “I argued with it further.”
His mind fled back to his recent experience, still fresh in his memory. At first his world-weary cynicism had come to the fore. He’d shrugged his shoulders and mentally written Earth off.
But then he’d found that he was unable to give up so easily. Something in him had pushed him on, made him press his case to this being beside which he felt like an ant. He didn’t plead, exactly – no, plead wouldn’t be the right word – but he’d come close to it.
The Oblique Entity had answered in a throbbing voice. “There is considerable drama in this situation on Earth,” it had said. “I am reluctant to interfere with that drama.”
For periods during their discourse the room in which Ascar sat had wavered and vanished, and he’d found himself drifting like a dust-mote through vast ratcheting machine-spaces, or through dark emptinesses in which swam flimmering, half-seen shapes. This was not, he decided eventually, an attempt to frighten him or a show of anger on the Entity’s part. It was simply that its thought processes occasionally distracted its attention from the job of transmitting sensory data to the receiver in Retort City, and Ascar was left picking up random images. Each time the Entity spoke, however, he was promptly deposited back in his simulated room.
Then, finally, the voice had changed. Ascar had heard the girl’s voice again, coming through the speaker with a tinkly laugh.
“Enterprise such as yours deserves a reward,” she’d said. “This is what I will do.”
And the Entity had shown him, not in words, but in a graphic, simple demonstration that had jolted right into his consciousness. It showed him time being split up into rivulets and streaming in all directions to bring deserts to life. And it showed him the main torrent from which those rivulets were taken, rushing headlong to where it would meet with an equal power and be convulsed into a horrendous vortex that would destroy it.
When Ascar explained this to Shiu the old man nodded, reflecting at length.
“Ingenious,” he said. “And logical. The Oblique Entity clearly has a sense of justice.”
“I don’t understand,” Sobrie Oblomot complained. “I don’t understand any of it.”
Shiu glanced at him and then wrapped his arms in his sleeves. “It would be difficult for a layman,” he admitted in his slow, musing voice. “Attend
to the following description. Time moves forward, always in one direction. But there is more than just one direction in the real universe. Six dimensions can be defined, not just the three that the Absolute Present produces. So outside the stream of time that travels from the past into the future, there is yet more non-time, like a landscape through which the river of time flows. What this means in practical terms is that there are alternate Earths existing in the fifth dimension, side by side with the Earth you know. These Earths are uninhabited: they have no life, and no time. The river of time could be turned aside so as to flow into one of these alternate Earths, instead of directly onward. There would be no collision; an ideal solution to your problem.”
“And that, I take it, is not to be?” Sobrie asked, wrestling with these abstract ideas.
“Regretfully, no. The Entity is leaving the main stream of Earth’s time untouched. It agrees only to split off rivulets from the main flow, sending each into a different Earth – there are a vast number to choose from, all more or less the same. The people involved in these rivulets will find themselves constituting a small island of life in an otherwise desert planet. But eventually that life will spread to cover the whole globe. In each case a new world will be born.” He nodded to himself, an unselfconscious picture of sagacity. “It is, perhaps, a wiser solution than we would have chosen.”
“Each surviving dev reservation will be given a world of its own,” Ascar explained to Sobrie. “The Oblique Entity is giving every human subspecies its own future, free of interference from any other. A contingent of Titan civilisation, even, is being given its own Earth to rule – an Earth where there will be no alien interventionists, no future-Earth aliens to destroy Titan ambitions. And the same holds for the future-Earth race: they also have various factions and nations, some of which will be saved.”
“And for the rest – annihilation?”
“Yes – almost.” A gleam, as of a vision, came into Ascar’s eyes. “The Armageddon, the great war through time, must take place, as must the collision in time. But even there, there will be survivors. Even now the Titans are drawing up blueprints for protective bunkers, buffered with intense artificial time fields to try to ward off the force of the collision. Some of these bunkers – a few – will probably survive, provided their equipment is rugged enough. So there will be a handful of Titans left alive after it’s all over, to try to rebuild something on an Earth that will be unimaginably devastated.”
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