New Writings in SF 25 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Kenneth Bulmer

  ‘I’d like to timetravel, too.’

  Gin said this yearningly.

  ‘That’d be a failure. It won’t work with your delicate-circuit brain, fortunately, otherwise we’d have to scrape together bodies for you in the millennia. But tell me,’ he turned round astonished, ‘what feeble-minded electrician programmed you with such impossible wishes?’

  ‘Not everything that I am, think, or feel is programmed,’ said Gin. ‘You seem to forget that I belong to the Self-Development models.’

  ‘Well then, start developing,’ said the old official, smiling. ‘I’d rather have myself pensioned off today than tomorrow; but then who’s going to climb into the box and fetch out the people that the Time-traverser has sifted from somewhere or other?’

  ‘In view of that, a procedure should be evolved whereby a positronic brain can be worn hard without destroying it.’

  ‘I hope so. Gin, because I’ve really had enough. I’m old. A thousand years in the service of the Time-traverser. For the Time-traverser it’s nothing, another nought on the scale; but for me it’s a whole mass of time.’

  ‘Yes, Chief.’

  The Time-traverser waited in the Johannesburg epoch.

  When the stranger entered it the machine registered the identical brainwave pattern. The hand took hold and pulled him back over ash and leaf, sea and dust, cold and darkness.

  Kiara.

  * * * *

  A light point flashed on the Johannesburg Gate’s marking and travelled up the timeline to extinguish itself at the starting mark of the Kiara-Time-traverser-Date. Simultaneously a bell sounded.

  ‘He’s back again, Chief,’ said the android who had been controlling the instrument.

  ‘Wake him up, Gin. I’ll fetch him a glass of water. He’ll have gone through a lot.’

  When the stranger came out of the cabin, he limped.

  You could see he was pale, despite his dark skin, and his shoes were just as dusty as they had been 3000 years earlier.

  ‘Now,’ said the official. ‘Satisfied? Neat work, eh? No messing about. Exactly twelve minutes.’

  He smiled complacently and pointed to the great clock over the instrument panel where, under a sign with the inscription ‘Time-traverser-Relative-Now-Time at Destination’, seconds in illuminated characters slipped by on a screen.

  The stranger was somewhat numbed and looked at the instrument bewilderedly. The official was following his look and laughing.

  ‘Yes, it’s not easy to find your way here at first glance. Next to the standard time we measure the universal and relative times “Now” of this system as well as 7000 other relative times. Moreover that’s an old machine. But take a drink first.’

  He pushed the glass of water across the counter. The stranger rubbed his hands as if they hurt him.

  ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Did you fulfil your mission, or did you have difficulties?’ inquired the old official.

  ‘Everything’s o.k.,’ he said. ‘If I’d foreseen, though ...’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. The wait.’

  The stranger shook his head, but didn’t answer. His eyes turned to the ship on the airfield.

  ‘The ship’s still there?’ he said disconcertedly.

  ‘Naturally. As I said: neat work. All of twelve minutes.’

  The stranger groped absent-mindedly for the glass and his hands closed on the cool curve as if they were hot.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and drank.

  ‘Yes, you’ve got time, but not much more,’ Gin interrupted the silence. ‘The ship leaves in three minutes.’ He turned to go.

  ‘Your bag, sir. Don’t forget your bag,’ said Gin.

  The stranger looked around him as if he still had trouble finding himself back. But as he went with his bag and his books, he didn’t limp any more. The light point had found its way back, the controlling instance had taken over the body again, had adapted.

  When the door shut behind him, Gin said:

  ‘He didn’t seem to have had a good time.’

  ‘That’s not the machine’s fault,’ said the old man, ‘that’s the fault of time. No time is good.’

  The restaurant had raised itself and gone away.

  When the ship had leapt away, the afternoon returned hesitantly to the airfield, spread out its stillness and sunned itself.

  The dust blew about and coloured the few trees on the edges still greyer.

  The heat remained.

  The stranger hadn’t quite finished the drink. The old official, who was a man and sweated, poured the rest of the water into the palm of his hand and washed his face and neck contentedly.

  ‘Gin,’ he said, ‘just ask in the transmitter whether I can get a channel open to Manila. There ought to be a connection open for me.’

  ‘Surely, Chief.’

  ‘It’ll rain there.’ He pointed to the weather chart. ‘It’s always raining there, on account of the tropical nature park,’ and he enjoyed in imagination the streaming, splashing wetness on the skin.

  Gin almost smiled as he tried to form an attraction for the notion, but the thought of wetness left him shuddering.

  The uniform of the official, who was a man, now showed many small, fresh, dark splotches between the big stains under the arms and on the back.

  In front of the high windows the airfield stretched lazily in the sun, and the wind blew in the desert on the other side of the old town.

  Kiara.

  Gate to a past full of secrets, for archaeologists, historians and odd characters, a fulcrum far out in the galaxy.

  Earth.

  * * * *

  Excuse me if I start again about me and my lodger, but you could be in the same position as I.

  The sun shone on Saturday. It was cold certainly, but beautiful; and there we were, my friend and I, going out to the Max-Planck-Institute at Garching. My friend has a car, you know, I haven’t, therefore I’d persuaded him to make the trip. So we looked around a bit, only from a distance of course, because you can only go as far as the barricade. Where they experiment with atoms they make such a circus about it with barbed wire and special passes that no one can even blow his nose.

  It was all done and investigated and figures were given out which were staggering; but taking everything into account it all finally looked really pitiful.

  We started talking to the porter and drank a beer with him. He told us they now have a new computer which can calculate so fast that it can do more in one hour than a hundred mathematicians could in a hundred years. My friend found that very impressive and the porter did too, but I didn’t share their opinion. I believe that in order to have time really within your grasp you must have machines capable of doing in one hour everything a hundred of these computers can do in a century.

  And when you’re sitting in the car and the heating isn’t working properly, then you can feel sympathetic with these people who are waiting for the first Time-traverser. Isn’t it the same with you ? They’ll be sitting round a long time yet before they can get back home. A lot of thought and calculation must be done generally. Of course one day it will have gone so far that they will make the gate, otherwise I wouldn’t have a lodger. That much is clear. But that could still be a long time yet. Already the poor fellow has waited 2000 years. Just imagine it! In this terrible waiting-room of time, grey and shadowy. We should try to console them, be friendly towards them.

  Perhaps we’ll hear them this evening.

  Shall we try?

  At night, when the city is still and sleeps under its roofs, and the moon is bright and the heavens swim.

  Then, when we’re lying awake or in the half-sleep on the edge of our dreams ...

  Just a whispering, a buzzing, a murmuring, quite near.

  Then listen closely!

  Perhaps ...?

  <>

  * * * *

  THE ENEMY WITHIN

  Donald Malcolm

&nb
sp; The first starship back from the stars brought with her a problem to freeze the mind with horror—yet Neil Hallett, Chief Medical Officer, for the sake of the sanity of mankind had to handle the situation in a terse and matter-of-fact way.

  * * * *

  It was the day all Earth had waited for: the return of the first manned starship after her journey to the Centauran system. Neil Hallett shared the excitement and the sense of belonging of everyone connected with the project; but in a quiet way. The designers and the engineers had been vindicated. Machines could travel to the stars and come back. As Chief Medical Officer, and a practising psychologist, his part in the success—or failure—of the project would now be under scrutiny. He had yet to find out if men were ready for the stars. He waited with a deep foreboding. The captain of the ship, Derek Armour, had sent a coded message as soon as they were within radio range. All was not well aboard. More than that he refused to divulge.

  The news had been restricted to the highest executives on the project. By common consent, even the governments of the world were to be told nothing, until the nature of the trouble was revealed. Hallett did not waste his time in idle speculation as to what Armour’s cryptic message might mean. There was a crew of four on the ship. Armour was American. The others were Alexander Khvalis, a Russian, Lim Soo of China and Henri Breguet, with dual Franco-British nationality.

  The following day, Hallett and Franz Udet, the project’s security head, were on Tsiolkovsky Station, in orbit around the Moon, awaiting the arrival of the starship. They gazed out at the sedate drift of the stars as the station slowly rotated.

  ‘Armour’s silence worries me, Neil. Silence always means trouble.’

  Hallett was trying to identify various constellations. ‘He didn’t say that anyone was dead. And there is nothing we can do until the ship comes.’

  ‘There are worse things than death. But, more immediately, how much longer can we maintain this secrecy ? This is the most momentous news in history. Our very clever P.R.O. is beginning to show the strain.’

  ‘We can rely on Zassetsky. He’s a very charming—and disarming—man.’

  Udet took up his contemplation of the Moon and the stars. ‘You’ll have heard that a reporter aboard a World News ship was considerably roughed up by escorting police for getting too close to the starship ? That has sharpened a lot of suspicions. Now everyone from government heads down wants to know what all the secrecy is about and why they can’t talk to the captain.’

  Hallett was very patient. He’d been chewing his mental fingernails ever since contact had been made with the ship. That way it didn’t show.

  ‘When the ship arrives, only you and I are going to know what, if anything, is wrong. Let’s wait till then.’

  * * * *

  Two hours later the starship was sighted visually and the two men made their way to the little craft that would ferry them across. They listened into the navigational cross-talk and noted with apprehension that Armour was answering all the instructions. What was the matter with Khvalis, the navigator? Despite his outward calm, Hallett felt himself becoming worried, not merely concerned. Psychologists were not supposed to become as excited as ordinary human beings, which, in the circumstances, was unfortunate.

  Finally, the shining ovoid of the ship was shackled in lunar orbit. Hallett found himself wondering if, in some way, the ship knew that she had been out among the stars ? Perhaps, basically, all matter thrummed with the surge of universal life. The ferry jetted over to the ship, like a minnow approaching a whale. The airlocks were mated. Hallett and Udet were suited up as a precaution and, under low gravity, they went along the corridor leading to the bridge, like two divers in a deep-sea wreck. Gloomily, Hallett thought that the analogy might be truer than it seemed.

  The door to the bridge was open. Armour was facing the control console and had his back to them. He turned as they entered. Both men were tense, expecting the worst. But the captain looked normal, or as apparently normal as any human being could be after weeks in interstellar space.

  ‘Welcome aboard, gentlemen.’ He didn’t smile or offer to shake hands or tell them that, when he died, he wanted to be buried so far underground that even an earthquake wouldn’t disturb him. ‘You can remove your suits. It’s quite safe in here.’ He smiled faintly as he added. ‘After all, I’ve been aboard all of seven weeks—relatively speaking.’

  ‘We’ll keep them on, captain,’ Hallett replied. ‘Regulations.’ His eyes probed the bridge. No evidence of damage or accident. Only, three crew members were absent: Khvalis, the navigator, Soo the flight engineer and Breguet, the scientist and doctor.

  Armour noticed his questing looks. ‘They’re in the ... crew quarters.’

  The slight hesitation skimmed Hallett’s alertness and he filed it away in his mind. It was much too soon to start analysing Armour’s behaviour and the conditions weren’t right. No one knew what happened to the mind of a man who had gone to the stars. With patience, skill and some luck, he might find out.

  Hallett recalled his feelings when he had been shown over the ship, not long before she had pulled away from the silvered embrace of the Moon. Some of his suggestions had been utilised by the designers. He had wondered then how men were going to survive in her. While not being spartan, she was only as comfortable as the weight ratio would allow. It would all be recorded in the tapes.

  Armour stood aside at the door into the quarters to let them enter. The common room was circular. Individual doors led to each man’s cabin, wedge-shaped with the blunted point to the centre. Each also had individual access to and from the ship. Armour’s cabin was for’ard, Khvalis, starboard, Soo, aft and Breguet, port. All doors could be locked. Hallett knew the layout. It had been one of his ideas.

  Khvalis was lying on his cot, hands folded on his chest in the attitude of the dead, his eyes staring up at the ceiling.

  Hallett knelt beside him as Armour said, ‘He’s not ... dead. None of them is dead.’

  His peculiar emphasis the second time he said the word caused Hallett to turn and stare at him, to find the stare flashing back at him, like a reflected laser beam. Udet fidgeted by the door, watching, saying nothing. Hallett examined the Russian. And found nothing wrong, except that his eyes were blank, the pupils almost non-existent. He spoke to Khvalis. There was no reaction. He could have been dead.

  Hallett stood up. For the first time, he looked searchingly into Armour’s eyes. The pupils were much smaller than normal. That, too, he filed away.

  ‘How long has he been like this, captain?’

  The man’s facial muscles twitched several times before he answered and he had difficulty with the words. ‘About tre—three weeks.’

  Almost half the journey, their time. The ship had been in a grazing ellipse and nothing short of disaster could have diverted her from the course which, eventually, had brought the ship back to the Moon.

  ‘Take me to see the others, please, captain.’

  They were in the same condition as Khvalis. The living dead. Soo had been in his present state for twelve days, Breguet for three.

  * * * *

  Once back on the bridge, Hallett said, ‘Franz: I’m quarantining the starship ‘til I find out what’s happening. Get the medical team over here from Tsiolkovsky and ask Salmet to get in touch, also Zass. I’m taking the captain to his cabin.’

  Armour had been moving about like a man in a dream and seemed to take little notice of their presence. He let himself be led away like a child. Hallett was in a quandary. He would have liked to sedate the captain; but he didn’t know what effect drugs would have. Besides, the man didn’t look as if he needed sedation. His reactions were frighteningly slow for the commander of a starship.

  ‘Please lie on the cot, captain.’

  Armour continued to stand. His face was twitching and momentarily his pupils dilated a little. Puzzled, Hallett watched the captain; but something intuitive prevented him from saying or doing anything. After some hesitation, during which
time he appeared to begin to move towards a clothes closet. Armour went to the cot and sat down. He did not immediately lie down. He looked at Hallett; but there was no expression for the psychologist to interpret. He waited and Armour lay down and stared at the ceiling.

  Franz came to tell him that Salmet, the project’s Chief Scientist, was waiting to talk to him on the viewphone.

  Leaving Udet with the captain, Hallett went to the bridge and told Salmet the situation. ‘It’s too early to tell what might be wrong with Armour and the others. Only a rigorous medical examination can help us if they’ve contracted disease.’