by Fritz Leiber
Of course he had advised M’Caslrai to arrest Heshifer months ago, had warned him against F’Sibr. But that couldn’t be the reason, because M’Caslrai had ignored his proposals.
No, the World Director must have some private source of information. Either he had organized an inner spy-system, or had suborned some of J’Wilobe’s own men, or was protecting an informer.
Well, at all events, no one but J’Wilobe knew the present combination to the door of the brig, and he could destroy all life inside it at the touch of a finger. Whatever risky or even traitorous course M’Caslrai might be taking, those in the brig were out of the picture.
At the thought J’Wilobe felt a rush of self-confidence, so exhilarating and intense that he sat there trembling. He suddenly knew that whatever threat arose tonight he would be equal to it. It was as if a cloak of invulnerability had been dropped around his shoulders, masking even his one great hidden weakness—the one he dared not even think about, let alone give an outsider a chance of guessing.
There would be threats tonight, yes—he was curiously sure of that—but he would master them.
He looked around the Security Room. It was as neat and metallic as his mind.
He was immune to assault. No one could even telecontact the room or the inner vestibule, except from the fortified outer vestibule.
The panel before him would inform him of any movements in the restricted areas of the Finality. But J’Wilobe had the illusion of a strange clairvoyant extension of his senses that made the panel seem ridiculously crude by comparison. He felt he could sense at once the slightest hostile movement anywhere aboard the ship, throughout the world—even respond to the faintest inimical scratching on the skin of the space-time cosmos.
A light glowed violet, indicating that someone had entered the outer vestibule.
To J’Wilobe it was as if a long-awaited chess-game had begun. Someone had moved pawn to king’s fourth.
He instantly whipped on his telemask and was functionally present in the outer vestibule. His hand-counterparts closed on sidearms conveniently present there.
At first glance there seemed to be no one. Suspecting an invisible man, he prepared to crisscross the walls with fire.
Then he saw a hand on the table.
Someone had made an impossible move with a knight.
Just a gloved hand.
Or was it merely a glove, retaining the shape of the hand that had dropped it?
No, it moved. The fingers drummed—or was the hand starting to walk?
It made a fist. Then the forefinger pointed—first away, then swinging it toward him.
Conscious of a greater pang of terror than he had ever known in his life, J’Wilobe found himself back in the Security Room. It spoke well for his courage that moments later, just as the blue light glowed, he was projecting himself into the inner vestibule.
The hand was there. Without hesitating, he directed a needle beam at it. The hand writhed at the touch of the fiery ray, seemed to crumple, then jerked aside—and pointed at him.
Someone had sacrificed a knight.
By a supreme effort of will, he managed for a moment to continue his fire. The hand recoiled, but kept pointing.
Back in the Security Room, he found the hand ahead of him. He tried to pick up a sidearm, but his fingers could not grasp. He lunged toward the control that would flick death through the brig.
But the pointing hand waggled a little, as if to say “No.”
The hand looked hurt. Three fingers dangled. They seemed to be crushed.
Perhaps the waggling was only a wounded shaking. But it continued.
J’Wilobe dropped back from the death control.
Someone had played, “Queen takes pawn. Check.”
The hand pointed commandingly toward the door of the brig.
J’Wilobe was not conscious of the sting of the sweat running down into his eyes—only that the blur it produced was insufficient to dissolve the hand.
He took a step toward the door.
A part of his mind had analyzed what had happened. The hand was a tele-counterpart, projected by someone who knew his hidden weakness. From the outer vestibule it had re-projected itself to the inner, and so to the Security Room. Now it was only the projection of a projection of a projection. Yet he had badly maimed the original—the impact of the ray had been transmitted.
But that part of his mind had not power over his actions. It was getting farther and farther away from his consciousness, like something fading toward the most distant star.
There was only enough room in his mind for the hand and the combination to the brig, and the former was pushing out the latter.
As he moved step by step toward the door, the moving finger seemed to press on his skull. Now it was a hand of steel, now of marble, now of fleshless bone, now of boneless flesh, now a man’s, now a woman’s, now M’Caslrai’s, now Inscra’s, now Heshifer’s, now the fingers were serpents’ heads with flickering tongues, now they were the red tongues themselves, now the forefinger was a crooked gun pointed at him, now a crushed but inching caterpillar, now a comet zigzagging toward him through blackness…eventually all these faded and it became his father’s hand, approaching to tickle him, apparently loving, actually cruel. Mind-destroying laughter twitched at his lips.
Checkmate!
The door opened, the finger poked through his skull, the laughter exploded…and then the whole world blacked out, and J’Wilobe realized that he had fallen millions of miles and landed in a cozy, velvet-lined cell where he could eternally play a thousand simultaneous blindfold chess games and win them all. With a calm happiness that he had never known before, he made his thousand first moves.
CHAPTER XVII
From the stratospheric heights in which his flier idled, Airscout Mardel overlooked the entire curved area of sea constituting the rendezvous. Rank after rank of triphibian and barge, spaced with geometrical precision except for the few lines of late arrivers. Albino soldier ants on a dark field.
Airscout Mardel’s features were the set, hopeless ones of a man who must meet an unvanquishable foe. Even if he had been the sort to consider desertion in battle, he knew that it was doubtful whether there was time enough left for the fastest flight to carry him beyond range of the general blast. And granting he escaped the general blast, there was the disintegrative charge buried in his flier—a relatively small one, but ample for its purpose. Moreover, there would be the other fliers to reckon with. And then there was that omnipresent feeling of an unseen, unknown enemy who would surely engulf any man who straggled far.
The sky had been lightening for some time. Now a blinding chunk of sun shoved above the horizon. It occurred to Airscout Mardel that this was a sunrise which those below would not be privileged to watch.
He looked down again and frowned. He fancied there was a slight jumbling of the ships, a disorder in the ranks, the barest suggestion of a scattering. As if an invisible giant had thrust a stick toward the silver ants.
The commander of the Enterprise looked around the Command Room. He was a florid, portly man. A glance at the panel showed him that everyone was at battle stations, ready for the event. The communications officer gave him a message. The commander read it twice. He began to laugh, softly at first, then in more and more joyful peals. The others edged away. He dropped the message and began to strip off his clothes. The navigation officer picked up the message and read, “The time has come for you to reveal yourself. The sign has appeared—the bloody star. Drop the mask. Speak!” He looked up uncomprehendingly. Naked, the captain strode out onto the dress bridge, crying, “I am Man! I am Man!” A bit of red glowed beside the doorway—it looked like a star-shaped jewel. Perhaps the communications officer had dropped it—he had come in that way. And now the communications officer was giving orders in a crisp voice.
Aboard the Decision order was give
n to gather in the mess room for religious service. Almost immediately it was followed by an order to return to battle stations. Then the first order was repeated. Then the second. Again the first. Again the second. When the scrambling was at its most frantic, the executive officer turned up suddenly with a glowing knife and ran through the ship, slashing right and left.
Throughout the fleet, key men screamed at shadows, pawed at phantoms, smirked at the invisible. They listened to nonsensical messages whispered over teletactors and their limbs grew hysterically rigid. They glanced at a foolish picture and went blind. They were shown meaningless bric-a-brac and fell into convulsions. They closeted themselves briefly with teletactive messengers and came out unharmed—in body.
Panic was awakened in subordinates. Each man was a fuse exploding those below him. The thing was contagious, though here and there an oddly cool-headed few sought to stem the confusion—but only after it reached a peak.
The crew of the Mortality abandoned ship. Hundreds of men simply dropped overboard and swam away. Of the four officers who stayed in the control room, one was laughing, another cried, the third crouched horrified in a corner, the fourth was sunk in apathy. They were looking at something that dangled from the control panel.
There was fighting aboard the Remote. Just small arms, until someone ordered the big guns backfired to clear out the corridors. There was a giant flash and a shock wave that smashed a valley in the water. Then there were only the Remote’s neighbors heaving on a giant swell caked with silver dust.
The Ultimate turned her guns on the Infinity, disintegrated her, then committed suicide.
The commander of the Immortality saw something through the forward telescopes. What it was he would tell no one, but he ordered the forward guns fired into the western darkness and the ship itself sent full-speed ahead in pursuit. No one understood, but he was obeyed. He manifested extraordinary excitement as they blasted first into the air and then into outer space. Perhaps it was Death itself he thought he was attacking, for he muttered such things as, “That hurt him, boys! Look, he runs! But we’ll track him down even if he lairs on Uranus! Watch out!—he’s raised his sting!” He clung to the telescopes. The Immortality blasted away from the sun, toward the outer planets.
There was wild music aboard the Farewell. Red-daubed women and green-smeared men were dancing. Food was strewn, liquors sloshed. The drug lockers had been broken open. Someone had dragged out an emotion machine and was experimenting fantastically.
Aboard the Nightfall they prayed.
* * * *
It was an hour when minds were jerked open like long-locked drawers and their dark contents blindly strewn. Secret ideas fumed like smoke, obscuring the face of reality. It was not the actual sky and sea, but a delirium of water and air. The paling stars were a paranoid’s dream of grandeur. Only insanity was real.
In the Fleet Command Room of the Finality, Commander Sline had collapsed, but Fleet Commander Z’Kafir had the situation well in hand. His mind was clear and cool. He realized what had happened and saw exactly what must be done. But he was speaking at ten times his normal rate, and when he tried to indicate by gestures what must be done, his hands moved too fast to follow. This purely mechanical defect in his ability to communicate rendered all his brilliant ideas useless.
General Secretary Inscra took over smoothly, although he was bothered by the disappearance of M’Caslrai. Phlegmatically he began to give the orders that were locked inside Z’Kafir, when Communications Officer F’Sibr entered the room. Inscra observed that it was only a teletactive counterpart, but he deduced that F’Sibr was operating from the Fleet Communications Room, and he knew how that room could be destroyed. He made a movement, but F’Sibr opened his hand and extended it toward Inscra.
Inscra’s eyes—the eyes which had always seemed the only live things in a dummy figure—now died too.
On the outstretched palm was a large gray spider.
Somewhere the word started and went from ship to ship, first a whisper, then a shout growing toward a cheer. “The war’s over!” And then a strange comment was added. “We’ve won! We’ve won!”
Cold sweat trickled down Airscout Mardel’s forehead. An incredulous joy twisted his tight features. The sun was above the horizon. It drenched the whole sea with gold. It glittered from every last vessel. The moment of disintegration had come and gone—a half-hour ago.
The giant’s stick had poked. The silver ants were scattering. Two collided as he watched. Silvery splotches marked the grave of the Remote, the Infinity, and the Ultimate. There was no order or intelligence left.
Airscout Mardel grinned, snarled, “I’m alive!” and sent his flier rocketing crazily toward outer space.
Heshifer darted from the Fleet Communications Room. Never had he seemed quite so old, or quite so active. He was followed by J’Quilvens and Norm, the latter with his right hand cased in transparent plastic where J’Wilobe’s needle ray had mangled it.
“We sealed off the War Room at the start,” Heshifer explained. “Now we’ll draw the fangs of the whole setup.”
Perhaps in automatic response to the word echoing through the fleet, Norm murmured to J’Quilvens as they hurried along after, “We’ve won.”
J’Quilvens giggled. “Not by a long sight. We’ve only driven the fleet crazy. And we’ll drive the whole world crazy before we’re through. From now on, we’re attendants in the violent ward. But it’s a beginning—a chance!”
The guards before the War Room stepped aside. Heshifer opened the door—and instantly stopped dead. He motioned everyone to stay where they were. “Above all,” he whispered, “don’t make a move with your weapons.”
Over Heshifer’s shoulder, framed by the square of the doorway, Norm could see M’Caslrai. He was standing behind a table that resembled an altar. In it a black rod was vertically set. M’Caslrai looked sad and resolute. The way he stared at them was reminiscent of a sleepwalker. Slowly he began to bear down on the lever.
“Mister President,” Heshifer called softly.
M’Caslrai paused. “How did you know the name of my real office?” he asked. “I’ve been careful to keep that a secret from everyone.”
“Mr. President,” Heshifer said, “the British ambassador wants an audience. There is an important memorandum from General Scott. And Secretary Seward’s here to see you. It’s very urgent.”
“I know,” said M’Caslrai. “I’ll be right there. But there’s something I must do first.” Again he bore down on the lever.
“But there’s no time, Mister President,” Heshifer interjected. “It’s come at last. They’ve fired on Fort Sumter!”
M’Caslrai’s hand fell away from the lever. “So,” he murmured softly. “Well, what must be must be.” He came around the table and started toward the door. He smiled, almost sheepishly, at Heshifer. “It’s a funny thing, Mister Nicolay,” he said, “but I was having the darnedest dream—it seemed to last a lifetime. I dreamed they’d made me boss in another world, and there was another war, and there was something I had to do. I wonder…”
Then he looked ahead, and his face grew grave and prophetic, as if he were thinking of the brave, bitter times ahead, and the part he must play in them. As he shuffled past, Heshifer heard him mutter as if he were rehearsing that part, “…that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
THE MOON IS GREEN
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1952.
“Effie! What the devil are you up to?”
Her husband’s voice, chopping through her mood of terrified rapture, made her heart jump like a startled cat, yet by some miracle of feminine self-control her body did not show a tremor.
Dear God, she thought, he mustn’t see it. It’s so bea
utiful, and he always kills beauty.
“I’m just looking at the Moon,” she said listlessly. “It’s green.”
Mustn’t, mustn’t see it. And now, with luck, he wouldn’t. For the face, as if it also heard and sensed the menace in the voice, was moving back from the window’s glow into the outside dark, but slowly, reluctantly, and still faunlike, pleading, cajoling, tempting, and incredibly beautiful.
“Close the shutters at once, you little fool, and come away from the window!”
“Green as a beer bottle,” she went on dreamily, “green as emeralds, green as leaves with sunshine striking through them and green grass to lie on.” She couldn’t help saying those last words. They were her token to the face, even though it couldn’t hear.
“Effie!”
She knew what that last tone meant. Wearily she swung shut the ponderous lead inner shutters and drove home the heavy bolts. That hurt her fingers; it always did, but he mustn’t know that.
“You know that those shutters are not to be touched! Not for five more years at least!”
“I only wanted to look at the Moon,” she said, turning around, and then it was all gone—the face, the night, the Moon, the magic—and she was back in the grubby, stale little hole, facing an angry, stale little man. It was then that the eternal thud of the air-conditioning fans and the crackle of the electrostatic precipitators that sieved out the dust reached her consciousness again like the bite of a dentist’s drill.
“Only wanted to look at the Moon!” he mimicked her in falsetto. “Only wanted to die like a little fool and make me that much more ashamed of you!” Then his voice went gruff and professional. “Here, count yourself.”
She silently took the Geiger counter he held at arm’s length, waited until it settled down to a steady ticking slower than a clock—due only to cosmic rays and indicating nothing dangerous—and then began to comb her body with the instrument. First her head and shoulders, then out along her arms and back along their under side. There was something oddly voluptuous about her movements, although her features were gray and sagging.