Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07

by Bridge of Ashes

  Dead silence.

  Not only the murmuring, but every small sound within the hall had ceased. Not a cough nor the scraping of a chair, not the rattle of a briefcase nor the scratch of a match; not a rustle of paper, the clink of a water tumbler, the closing of a door nor the sound of a footstep. Nothing.

  Gilbert Van Duyn paused and looked up.

  Nor was there any movement.

  Total stillness, as in a snapshot . . . Not a body stirred. Cigarette smoke hung motionless in the air.

  He turned his head, seeking some small activity— anything—within the assembly.

  His eyes passed over the figure within the tableau several times before the expression and the stance registered, before the object clasped in both hands and thrust forward came suddenly to his notice.

  Then he froze.

  The man, in the delegation from one of the smaller, warmer nations, had obviously sprung to his feet but a moment before—his chair still tilted backward, an upset folder still hanging at an impossible angle before him, spilling still papers into the air.

  The man held a pistol, pointed directly at him, a thin wisp of unmoving smoke twisted to the left of its muzzle.

  Slowly then, Gilbert Van Duyn moved. He left his notes, drew away from the microphone, stepped down, crossed back, made his way toward the place where the man stood with the pistol, eyes narrowed, teeth bared, brows tightened.

  When he came up beside him, he stood for a moment, then reached out cautiously, touched the man's arm.

  . . . Stiff, unyielding, statuelike. It did not feel like flesh beneath his fingers, but some substance much denser, more rigid. But then, even the cloth of the sleeve felt stiffer than it should have.

  Turning, he touched the next nearest man. The sensations were the same. Even the shirtfront behaved as if it were of a coarse, heavily starched material.

  Gilbert Van Duyn regarded the papers, still unnaturally suspended before the gunman. He touched one. The same rigidity ... He tugged at it. It cracked soundlessly.

  He extracted an automatic pencil from a delegate's pocket, held it before him, released it. It hung in the air, motionless.

  He glanced at his watch. The second hand was not moving. He shook it, put it to his ear. Nothing.

  Returning to the gunman, he sighted along the barrel of the pistol. There could be no doubt. It was aimed directly at the spot he had recently vacated.

  ... And what was that up ahead?

  He straightened, made his way forward, regarded the pellet about six feet out from the muzzle. It was the bullet, almost hanging there, creeping forward at a barely perceptible velocity.

  He shook his head, stepped back.

  Suddenly, it became necessary that he know the extent of the phenomenon. He turned and headed for the door, his pace increasing as he went. Passing through, he moved to the nearest window and regarded the world beyond.

  Traffic stood silent and still, birds hovered in midflight, not a flag rippled. There was no motion to the clouds....

  "Spooky, isn't it?" something like a voice seemed to say. "Necessary, though. I realized at—you might say, the last minute—that I had to talk with you."

  Van Duyn turned.

  A dark man, clad in green slacks and a pale sport shirt, was leaning against the wall, left foot resting on a large black satchel. Stockily built, wide forehead, dark eyes, heavy brows, flaring nostrils ... He was uncertain as to the swarthy man's race or nationality.

  "Yes," Van Duyn answered, "it is spooky. You know what's happened?"

  The other nodded.

  "As I said, I wanted to talk with you."

  "So you stopped time?"

  Something like laughter. Then, "Just the opposite. I've speeded you up. You may grow extremely hungry in what seems like the next few minutes. Just tell me when you do. I have food with me." He hefted the satchel. "Come this way, please."

  "You are not really talking," Van Duyn said. "I just realized that. Your words are coming directly into my head."

  The man nodded again.

  "It's this or write notes. Listen! You can't even hear your footsteps. Sound is a trifle slow at the moment— or rather, we are too fast for it Come on. Time is a dear commodity."

  He turned, and Van Duyn followed him out of the building. He took what seemed an unnecessarily long time to open the door.

  Then he seized Van Duyn's hand and did something with the satchel. They rose into the air.

  Moments later, they had come to rest atop the building. The man turned then and gestured at the East River, a piece of muddy glass, and at the hazed and grainy sky where strands of smoke lay like bloated things on a beach.

  "There is that," he said. "And here ..." He took him by the arm and led him to the other end of the roof. ". . . the city."

  Van Duyn looked out, across the silent city where the still cars lay at the bottom of the sea of their exhausts—pedestrians, storefronts, flagpoles, hydrants, shrubbery, benches, signs, tangles of wire, lightpoles, grass, a few trees and a stray cat all embedded within it. He looked up at dark clouds, down at the play of light and shade on dingy surfaces.

  "What is it that you want me to see?" he asked.

  "There is pollution," said the other.

  "I am well aware of that—particularly today."

  ". . . and power, and beauty."

  "I can't deny it."

  "The resolution you were about to urge be passed ... What do you think its chances really are?"

  "Everyone feels the voting will be close."

  The dark man nodded.

  "Yet what is it basically?" he said. "A thing which would put some pressure on those nations not party to them to become signatory to several already existing treaties dealing with contamination of the seas and the atmosphere. Everyone agrees in principle that the world should be kept clean, yet there is strong resistance to the measures proposed."

  "But understandable," Van Duyn said. "The wealthy, powerful nations owe their power, their wealth, their standards of existence, to the sort of exploitation the others are now being called upon to forgo—and the call comes just at the point when those others are approaching a position where they can indulge in the same sorts of enterprise and reap similar benefits. It is only human for them to feel cheated, see it as a neo-colonial conspiracy, resist it."

  "Only human," said the other. "That, unfortunately, is the problem—and it is a much larger problem than you could possibly realize. I respect you, enormously, Dr. Van Duyn, and because of this I have decided to take this time to tell you exactly what that word means. Human. Do you think Leakey and the others were right, that it was East Africa where some hominid first took his thumb and got a grip on the humanity business?"

  "It is quite possible. We may never know for certain, but there is evidence—"

  "I will spare you the trouble. The answer is yes. That is where they did it. But they were not entirely unassisted in the matter—at that point, and at many other points far earlier in time."

  "I do not understand...."

  "Of course not. Your education was based on admirable presumptions of regularity and an unavoidable eschewal of the teleological. You are a victim of your own sound thinking. There is no way you could have arrived at the proper conclusions, short of being told. Yet the answer is teleological: the human race was designed to serve a particular end, and that end is now in sight."

  "Mad! Ridiculous!" Van Duyn said, and the dark man gestured toward the city.

  "Can you make things move again?" he asked.

  Van Duyn lowered his head.

  "Then hear me out. Suspend judgment until I have finished the story. Are you hungry?"

  "Yes."

  The other reached into his satchel.

  "Sandwiches, wine, lemonade, chocolate, coffee ..." He unfolded a cloth and spread the food upon it. "Eat, and listen."

  "Ages ago," he began, "a particular creature was selected to develop into the dominant life form on this planet. It was given certain br
eaks and certain challenges, all of which, when utilized or overcome, marked it indelibly with particular traits as it moved along the road to a higher sentience. Its course was directed through many of the situations recently determined by archaeologists and anthropologists to lead up to the hominids and beyond, to bring about the dominance of this planet by the gregarious killer ape. It was necessary to produce a life form of this sort which would achieve a communal existence and acquire the ability to manipulate its environment in such a fashion as to give eventual rise to an urban life style and an inevitable state of high industrial development."

  Van Duyn shook his head, but his mouth was full and he had no choice but to listen as the other went on:

  "This was desirable solely because of the physical alteration of the world which would come about as a by-product of such a civilization's normal functioning. The agents of mankind's development sought the evolution of an environment characterized by the presence of such compounds as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, methyl mercury, fluorocarbons 11 and 12, tetrachlo-roethylene, carbon tet, carbon monoxide, polychlo-rinated biphenyls, organic phosphates and numerous other industrial effluents and discharges which characterize the modern world. In short, they devised the human race as a planoforming agent, designed and programmed so perfectly that it would not only do this job for them, but would self-destruct when it was completed."

  "But why?" asked Van Duyn. "What purpose would this serve?"

  "The human race," said the other, "was so designed by beings from another world. I do not know what events finally destroyed their own planet, though I can make some obvious guesses. A few of them escaped and came here. The Earth apparently filled the bill as a suitable world, if certain changes could be effected. There were too few of them to set about the massive job, so they assured the development of the human species to do it for them. They have been sleeping all this while, in stasis chambers aboard their vessels. Periodically, one of them is awakened to monitor the human race's progress and to make whatever adjustments may be required to keep things moving along the proper track."

  "Toward our destruction?"

  "Yes. They have calculated things pretty closely— possibly having had experience with this sort of situation before—so that the planet becomes suitable for them at just about the point where it becomes uninhabitable for humanity. Your purpose is to do the job for them and expire at its completion."

  "How could such a type of being have evolved? I cannot understand the natural development of a creature adapted to a planet despoiled in such a sophisticated fashion. Unless—"

  The other shrugged. "—unless they are some secondary species evolved on an already ruined world? Or the primary one, struck by a fortuitous run of mutations? Or perhaps they were far enough along in the life sciences to induce the changes to save themselves after they had already wrecked their world? I do not know. I only know that they seek a particular sort of post-ecological-catastrophe environment and that they are well on their way to achieving it here."

  "You said that they keep us under surveillance, and make—adjustments?"

  "Yes."

  "This would seem to indicate that our programming to achieve their ends is not perfect."

  "True. For the past several thousand years they have been keeping a much closer watch over human society than they had previously. They have always been wary of prodigies, prophets, possible mutations, who might redirect the course of events in undesirable directions. Their impact could be greater now than, say, ten thousand years ago. Also, statistically, the possibility of their occurrence has increased. Consequently, they were much more alert during this time to stifle premature technological developments which might have slowed or thwarted their program, and to discourage philosophical tendencies which could have had similar effects. On the other hand, they encouraged the opposite. For an example, they saw an advantage in promoting the otherworldly aspects of Christianity, Buddhism and Islam for purposes of minimizing the importance of the Earth itself. They have dealt with hundreds of philosophers, scientific thinkers—"

  "Dealt with?"

  "Killed or ruined, or backed and assisted—as the case may be."

  "It is a terrible picture that you paint," said Van Duyn. "Why have you told me all these things?"

  The dark man looked away, out over the city, fingering a medallion he wore about his neck.

  "I have fought them," he finally said, "for ages. At best, I might have succeeded in slowing things a bit. Now, though, our struggle is rushing to a conclusion— the conclusion toward which they directed the race so long ago. I am not certain how much of a chance remains. It would almost seem necessary to effect some change in the nature of man in order to defeat them. What or how, I do not know. What I am attempting now is to buy time, to slow things as much as possible, while I continue to search for an answer. The passage of the resolution now before the General Assembly would help in this—considerably. I was aware that the voting would run very close. This is why I arranged for a spectacle—your assassination. I felt that with the endorsement of a martyr, its chances of passage would be considerably improved. At the last moment, however, I realized that my respect, my fondness for you, would not permit me to proceed quite so coldbloodedly. I owed you this much of explanation. By then, though, it was too late to stop the assassin. And unnecessary. While no one has ever succeeded in controlling time, that bridge of ashes man leaves behind him, I possess the ability to manipulate a person's physiology to the point where the effect is the same as a time-stoppage. So I did this, to give you this explanation, to give you a choice."

  "A choice?"

  The other nodded.

  "I am capable of using almost anyone. Almost..."

  "I see," said Van Duyn. "I also see that my death could make the difference Who are you, anyway?"

  The dark man shook his head.

  "There is simply no time to tell you my story, as it is longer than all of history. As for names ... I have lost count of them. You might say I am an early experiment of theirs that went bad. And I managed to steal a few things from them before they caught up with me. They make periodic attempts to destroy me and my woman, but they have never been able to recall our lives entirely. They were handicapped in many ways by the uncongenial environment—and over the ages we have acquired many defenses. I am . . . their adversary. That is all. That is enough."

  "All right," said Van Duyn, straightening. He glanced out over the city once more, turned, crossed the roof and regarded the dark river. "All right."

  After a time, he turned away and looked at the dark man.

  "Take me back down."

  The other reached into his satchel. Moments later, he took his hand. They left the roof.

  Below, they entered the building. Van Duyn headed toward the assembly hall. He looked back once, to say something to the dark man, and discovered that the other was no longer with him.

  He continued on, entering the hall, moving back along the aisle he had previously followed. He paused beside the man with the pistol, studying his contorted face. He checked the position of the bullet, which had advanced considerably in his absence. Then he remounted the podium, returned to the lectern.

  He reached for his notes, took them into his hand. He glanced up then at the United Nations flag, blue, with the white circle of the world at its center. From the corner of his eye, he seemed to detect a movement. Then something struck and we— He— I—

  Slumped across the lectern now, he— We regard the white circle on the field of blue as everything else grows dim and—

  He—I—

  I... I am— L

  I!

  I am! I am! I am!

  ... He lies there, breathing gently. The bleeding has stopped. It is night, and she has built a fire and covered him over with the skins of animals. He has been very cold. She has brought him water in a large shell. I begin to understand.

  Part II

  Richard Guise walked in the hills, beheading flowers with a
stick. Northern New Mexico is an extraordinary bump on the Earth and summer brings it to its clement best. But Richard Guise had no eye for scenery that day. His vision was turned in upon himself.

  He descended into an arroyo, followed it to a place where it branched, then stood undecided. Finally, he sighed and seated himself on a stone in the shade of the farther wall, sat tracing patterns in the dust.

  "Damn!" he said, after a time, and again, "Damn!"

  Richard Guise resembled the countryside in some ways, though he had been born forty-some years before in urban New Jersey: heavy-set, well-tanned; hair a mix of sand and gray, darker across the backs of the big-knuckled hands that guided his stick; dark eyes wide of a once-broken nose.

  But he was not fond of the mountains, the pinons, the rocks, the cacti, the cottonwoods. He was President of the International Telepathic Operators Union, and despite the enormous efficiencies of twenty-first-century communication, of which he was a significant part, he would have felt far more comfortable in a large urban environment, preferably Eastern. He maintained offices in such locations, true, but his was the same problem which had caused all telepaths with young children to seek residence in remote areas. Only, with Dennis, something had gone wrong....

  He reached with his special sense, down into the infra-awareness of a stinkbug picking its way among pebbles.

  ... A world of coarse texture and massive forms, of striking odors and peculiar kinesthetic sensations ...

  He swung his stick and observed the sensations dwindle to nothing, the kinesthetics fading last. It was not at all true that empathy bred sympathy. Sometimes the best thing about a channel of experience was the ability to cut it off.

  These walks had become more frequent in recent weeks, as it became increasingly apparent that something was still wrong with their son. Beyond the fatigue factor and the possibility of broadcasting his feelings near the child, he simply did not like shielding his thoughts around Vicki. He had to get off somewhere to think them, though.