by Fritz Leiber
Norm nodded. She continued lightly, almost humorously, as if too much seriousness were dangerous. “Times changed. There came the first and second world leagues, the first and second world federations, the all-out Nuclear War that reduced Earth’s population to a fraction of one percent, the reclaiming of the Deathlands, the rule of the Benevolent Lunatics—we aren’t the only crazy ones, Norm—the re-pioneering of the planets.
“The main group kept working in secret. At intervals, after the carefullest consideration, new members were admitted.
“The organization shifted with the times, responsive to winds of influence. Sometimes it was almost open; sometimes, when suspicious tyranny was enthroned, it was secret—though there were times, I imagine, when it survived solely because no policeman or politician would take it seriously—it inclined to such long-range views that it seldom became involved in practical action. And that,” she added bitterly “is not entirely a past matter.
“Sometimes the members considered it little more than a nonsensical hobby. Sometimes they were almost dead serious. Sometimes there were bursts of activity—meetings, discussions, plans. Sometimes they were a wolf pack, nipping at man’s heels and almost forgetting not to snap at the jugular vein—a lot of them weren’t humanity-lovers, believe me! Sometimes members lost touch with each other for decades, almost for lifetimes.
“They never had a real name. Sometimes they called themselves the Company of the Sane, or the League of Psychiatrists. They got into the habit of addressing each other as ‘doctor’ or ‘geodoc’ because the world was their patient.
“Times continued to change. The world state was born and the worship of man. War as we know it today came into existence—not, like you’ve been taught to believe, as the result of logical analysis, but because a civil-war army, sworn to suicide in case of failure, thought they’d been trapped before the war began and jumped the gun on self-destruction.
“The final, fixed phase in the psychosis of history had set in. The docs half woke from their centuries of dabbling and realized that they could no longer evade the problem facing them. Though their organization was almost at its lowest ebb, the time had come to act.
“In the face of a socialization, regimentation, and surveillance more intense than any they had faced before, they went back to the practices of their secretest days—and improved on them. If they had gone underground before, this time they really burrowed. Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent infiltration by spies. A cell-system was set up, to avoid too much mutual acquaintance of members.
“Cautiously they began to experiment at influencing the world. Sometimes they worked on individuals, sometimes on groups. They tried out all the psychological and secret propaganda techniques that had been developed through the ages, discarding, reviving, improving, inventing. They perfected their methods, gathered data, distributed their members in the most effective pattern for action.
“Wars, being the most tragic of mankind’s symptoms, were their chief target. Each war they opposed with every weapon they dared use. Each time they planned and put into effect elaborate psychological counterprograms.
“And yet each time they failed. Wars marched on relentlessly. The counterprograms always dissolved into futile nuisance tactics. Each generation produced its quota of sacrificial deaths. Until now…”
A silvery tone sounded from beyond the archway. J’Quilvens reacted to it, but did not break off. Her eyes burned, there were spots of color in her cheeks, her lips were tight lines. For a moment the elf was a fury.
“And now…we know that we dare not let this war succeed. If we fail, it’s the finish. We’ve studied our own symptoms as well as those of the world. If we fail, we’ll merely become an integral part of the universal madness—a futile counter-symptom. We’ve been too careful, been too much afraid for our own skins, perhaps we’ve secretly gloried in our position as the only sane persons in an insane world. We’ve got to take chances, try every method, fight!”
“Did I hear someone mention that irrational word?” a cool voice inquired.
A tall shaven-headed man in amber pajamas was standing in the archway. He was handsome, after the fashion of an ancient Eastern god—aloof, faintly amused, coldly compassionate.
J’Quilvens turned slowly. “I did, F’Sibr.”
“He has arrived,” he informed her. He looked at Norm, who began to feel uncomfortable.
“I’m coming.” J’Quilvens dropped from the table. “Wait here,” she told Norm.
The shaven-headed man gave Norm another unrevealing look and followed her out.
CHAPTER VI
“They’re on to us,” Heshifer affirmed, his white beard wagging. “This time J’Wilobe’s paranoid delusions coincide with reality. And M’Caslrai actually spotted our aims and the sources of our methods.”
“And yet you’re sure you weren’t followed.” F’Sibr inquired unperturbedly.
“Impossible! As impossible as telepathy!” Heshifer grinned. “Oh, I’ll admit my suspicions were roused for a moment, but it wasn’t anything. The electronic barriers were all in order.”
“You have a weakness for running risks,” said F’Sibr mildly. “That business of the chess sets was injudicious. And putting the truth drug into Inscra’s drink was impudently foolhardy.”
“But don’t you see, we’ve got to be foolhardy!” J’Quilvens broke in eagerly.
“And it did shake them up so beautifully,” Heshifer added, smiling reminiscently.
They were conferring in a low, large, comfortably furnished room from which several corridors radiated. There were softly glowing three-dimensional pictures, bits of sculpture, bunches of flowers, as if a conscious effort had been made to suppress any feeling of underground grimness or of wide-webbed, long-tentacled efficiency.
F’Sibr sat, arms folded. Heshifer paced, sometimes almost skipping, as if trying to keep up with the sudden twists and turns of his thoughts. J’Quilvens perched, playing with a smolder-stick.
“I see no reason to put our general plan in jeopardy,” said F’Sibr. “The masked trend toward sanity is increasing as calculated. The propaganda of doubt and distrust, foolproof and insanity-proof by test, is successfully invading every phase of the war. The master propaganda—”
Heshifer picked up a fragile jar of reddish powder and tossed it in his hand. “What’s this?”
“A dyed sample of the new anti-dissociation drug. To resume, the master propaganda, designed to convince every last individual that the war is crookedly administered, is set to go. Everywhere our agents stand ready to usurp key positions as soon as present civilian executives and war officers gain sufficient insight into the irrationality of their motives as to become incapable of carrying on. You, like the others, have that job to do when, but only when, M’Caslrai and the others—”
“You know, it’s a funny thing about M’Caslrai,” said Heshifer, stopping dead. “He always reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who.”
“A living person?” F’Sibr asked patiently.
“No, I don’t think so. I almost get it—and then it’s gone. You know, we’ve never really understood M’Caslrai. We’ve never gotten a convincing line on his phobias or the general form of his delusions. We cannot even classify his psychosis with any confidence. Compared to the others, his mind’s a dark book.”
“True. To continue, you’ll have your job, and a very important one, when M’Caslrai and J’Wilobe and the others lose their grip. Just as I’ll have my job, and J’Quilvens hers. There is no justification for endangering the total plan by psychological guerrilla tactics and unnecessary risk-running. J’Quilvens, I disapprove of your bringing that boy here.” He nodded toward an archway flanked by bowls of flowers.
“There was no other place.”
“That is hardly accurate.”
“But he did us a service. Besides, he’s gotten his death
notice, and we’ll need every agent we can get in the war forces. He’s obvious officer material—and a teletaction expert. You’ll need an aide you can trust, and he might fill the bill.”
“Conceivably. Nevertheless, I disapprove of the risk you ran in bringing him here.”
“Look, F’Sibr,” said Heshifer, his eyes twinkling. “Are you getting a leadership complex?”
“Of course I am. Doubtless if I were a glorified mental sniper, I too could maintain a charming irresponsibility.” And F’Sibr grinned, every whit as delightedly as Heshifer. But only for a moment. “To conclude, reports indicate that our plan is proceeding according to schedule. Premature assaults, however appealing, might wreck it.”
Heshifer sighed. “It’s such a good plan,” he said wistfully.
“Well?”
“I was thinking of all the past wars and our counter-plans. They were such good plans too.”
“On the contrary, they failed because they contained major flaws. Our present plan is well-calculated.”
“The others seemed well-calculated too,” said Heshifer softly. “I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but I’m the sort of person who doesn’t really begin to worry about anything until it threatens his friends—I’d hate to see you two snuffed out along with the rest of the war forces, just because we had such a good plan.” Abruptly he grinned. “Look, F’Sibr, I’m worried. Let’s get ready—merely get ready—the Chaos Plan, in case.”
“The Chaos Plan is worse than no plan at all.” F’Sibr’s voice had grown gentler than ever, but his face was that of a carven god.
“I don’t think so.”
“It and the present plan are incompatible. The one would ruin the other.”
Heshifer’s beard bobbed. “Agreed. But I’m not asking that we put the Chaos Plan into effect—only that we transmit the necessary knowledge to all agents, so they’ll be able to use it if the necessity should arise. I have the information in my dossiers on key personnel here and at the Deep Mental Lab.”
“The information alone would be too much of a temptation. It could only be imparted with the strict injunction that it never be used except on order from above, and even then we couldn’t be sure. I am against it.”
“But I’m worried. Ever since that conference with M’Caslrai and J’Wilobe, I’ve had the feeling…” Heshifer paused and glanced around uneasily.
For once F’Sibr’s voice was sharp. “Are you sure that you weren’t followed?”
Heshifer didn’t reply.
CHAPTER VII
Norm was getting uneasy. Alone in this gray little room it was all too easy to wonder whether this wasn’t insanity, rather than what he’d left. The outside world was getting in its licks.
It was hard to keep M’Caslrai’s face out of his mind. Like the mask of a guilty conscience, that gaunt solemn visage kept trying to peer over his shoulder, sorrow rather than anger in the dark-circled eyes.
When he thought of his father and mother, of Allisoun, even of Willisoun, the sense of nauseous abnormality, recently so keen, was blunted. He pictured them doing the familiar, inconsequential things that make up the round of daily life.
They were his people. They were home.
Whereas these strangers—
If he’d listened to M’Caslrai—
Perhaps he’d make a big mistake—
He didn’t exactly ask himself these questions, but it was becoming hard not to.
He wished J’Quilvens would return. He walked over to the archway, simultaneously becoming aware of a flowery odor that registered unpleasantly—why, he couldn’t for the moment remember.
It occurred to him that her “Wait here” hardly constituted an order. Almost before he realized it, he was tiptoeing down the curving corridor.
With every step the odor of flowers became more pronounced.
A little later he saw the source—a room thick as a garden with blooms, each one pouring into the air its sickening stench.
He took a couple more silent steps. He made out among the flowers the amber sleeve of the cryptic fellow who had summoned J’Quilvens. He became aware of a mumble of talk and thought he recognized her voice.
He began to feel embarrassed. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he knew his actions would be interpreted as those of an eavesdropper—and a silly eavesdropper at that.
Yet to tiptoe back would be sillier still.
Nevertheless, he had about decided to, when something caught his eye.
It was a blue flower in the bowl to the right-hand side of the archway ahead.
One of its-petals was rolling and unrolling, like a tiny scroll.
The horror of this tiny action was not diminished by his dreamlike conviction that it was familiar—something he had witnessed a hundred times.
Unwillingly, helplessly, as in a dream, one hand outstretched, he stole forward.
Like trivial detail at the edge of an absorbing picture, the amber-coated man came into view, and beyond him J’Quilvens and a small gnomish person with a white beard.
The petal jerked from the flower, fluttered down, came to rest beside an odd irregularity in the flooring—a double depression like that made by a pair of moccasins.
Another petal began to roll and unroll.
The mumble of talk stopped.
He reached for the flower and his hand encountered in the air a cold, flexible, metallic surface.
There was a whirl of movement. Something slammed into his shoulder. The block in his mind lifted. He remembered who always fingered flowers.
Half reflex, half calculation—his hands grabbed at the air and closed on a metal-sleeved forearm. There was a jerk and he rocked forward. From where the forearm’s hand would be, a dazzling blue beam hissed past his face, scorching his cheek. Twisting away, he shifted his grip, one hand sliding toward the wrist, the other twining, getting leverage.
There was a spatter of molten drops as the blue beam traveled along the ceiling into the room ahead, and down. He was dimly aware of figures diving to either side.
There was a smothered grunt of pain. The blue beam was extinguished and something hit the floor with a tiny thud. The pinioned arm writhed free of his grip. Two bowls of flowers crashed to the floor a dozen feet ahead.
Then everything froze. As if they were parts of a scene revealed by a lightning flash, Norm noted the smoldering path of the beam, the scattered flowers, J’Quilvens crouched beyond them, the gnome-like old man peering over an upset table, the amber-coated man on hands and knees but starting up, like a leopard about to spring. In the whole room, nothing moved, save the eyes of those three.
Where the tiny thud had come from, Norm noted a faint depression in the flooring, as if a lightweight object rested there.
Something crushed one of the scattered flowers.
The old man popped up, arm raised and threw. A small jar shattered in the air a few feet from Norm, loosing a splash of red dust.
A partial man of red dust darted toward Norm. He recoiled.
The amber-coated man sprang.
Red dust and amber coat tangled, slammed down near the faint depression.
The blue beam flared again, charred a crazy design on the ceiling, came down, shortened to inches, splashed molten sparks from fading red dust, scared something else.
There was a muffled scream of agony. The beam continued to flare for several more seconds.
Then Norm realized the amber-coated man was getting to his feet, that the old man was fumbling near a smoking hole in the dust-freighted air eight inches off the floor, that J’Quilvens was watching.
The amber-coated man was looking at him coolly, and he heard him say, “I think you were right about the boy, J’Quilvens.”
He heard the old man remark pedantically, “Now that’s an interesting reflection on scientific progress. Here we hav
e a complete electronic warning system, and this invisible fellow slips right through because every radiant impulse is neatly routed around him. Whereas any primitive alarm system set off by the weight of a passing person would have shown him up instantly. Though that too would have failed if he had combined levitation with invisibility. But if we had a sure, simple way of detecting air displacement…”
He pulled something away, and after a brief scrutiny rolled it back. Willisoun’s dead face was not pleasant.
“Useful, this fabric,” he commented. “Though fortunately not strong enough to reroute a burn blast. J’Wilobe must have some research projects we don’t know about. Bad. We’ll want to analyze this stuff carefully.”
“Yes,” said the amber-coated man sharply. “But not now, and not here.” J’Quilvens and the old man looked around.
“We have only minutes,” he told them. “Maybe they didn’t have a spy-beam tracing Willisoun—or another invisible man!—but you can bet their instruments picked up that burn blast. And how long does it usually take J’Wilobe’s men to draw a cordon in the Old City? Come on!”
The amber-clad man looked exactly like a wolf then, and Heshifer like an old wolf, well exercised, and J’Quilvens like a pliant wolf girl.
CHAPTER VIII
Like a dark star traveling toward collision with Earth, hurtling or barely crawling across the interstellar void according to which time-scale nervous minds chose, the war entered its fifth month.
From thousands of noiseless, nerve-wrackingly unreal factories weapons and equipment poured forth. Silently triphibian-sections swung together, interwove, were flawlessly joined. In an unending slow-paced stream the completed transports slid stealthily into the air, bound on test runs outside the atmosphere and in the depths of the ocean on whose restless surface their final destiny would be worked out.