The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister

by Banister, Manly

  The sociological aspect of this latter-day Rth was a peculiar one…a complication of treading down and being downtrodden. The Trisz on top, then the Triszmen, and at the bottom—the People. Although Kor had not traveled, physically, so much as a yard into the world beyond the limits of the Institute, his teachers had kept him well informed of the state of things. Since the novitiate left the world at the age of six, it was necessary that he be kept informed in order to re-enter it at the conclusion of his training.

  It was not only the thought of his pending return that sent a delicious shudder of anticipation through Kor. He had a secret of his own…one which he felt was of great importance to every Man, and ultimately, to the People and to Rth. Today’s examination would reveal that secret—a specialized ability the young Initiate had assiduously practiced in his years of study and drill.

  The Men had developed the highest type of double mind in the Universe, a mind that gave them complete mastery of their environment to the nth degree. So far, only Kor knew that his own mind, developing a latent function peculiar to itself, had gone beyond even the far-reaching mental development of the Men. Kor’s was not only a double, but a separable mind!

  The Initiates stood stiffly at attention before the rostrum erected in the center of the athletic field. The green-clad elder Men who were the Masters stood grouped upon the stand, murmuring last minute details among themselves.

  Tor Shan, Supreme Master of the Institute, turned from his colleagues and faced the junior Men below. His was an imposing figure, tall, muscular, cheeks clean-shaven, eyes dark under startling brows, his bristling hair sparsely shot with gray. Tor Shan was over two centuries old, but he appeared not over fifty, as age is recognized among the People. He wore the brilliant green accoutrements of the Institute Masters.

  “Men,” his words came slowly and clearly. “You are the one hundred sixty-first class I have helped graduate from the Institute.” He smiled gravely. “I was assistant instructor at the first graduation I attended functionally. There were two Men in that class. There are six in this—the largest class ever graduated at one time by any of the Institutes.”

  It was true, then, Kor thought. Although Blue Brothers were Graduated by the hundreds all over the world each year, few were those who became Men. Kor flung his glance around the empty, tiered stone seats of the Arena. A week ago the Blue Brothers had conducted their ceremony here and then had gone out to their Chapels in the world of the People. He had watched that graduation. But there were no spectators for this one. A special force field now surrounded the entire area, effectively preventing entry even by the Trisz. This examination would be conducted in secret.

  The twenty-one who had accompanied Kor into the ranks of Initiate had dwindled until now there were only six. Would they still be six when the setting Sun permitted breaking of the ritual fast? The course of the Examination was hard and dangerous, and many classes of two or three members failed to struggle through the day.

  “…You have been impressed with the fact that your training has been conducted in secret,” Tor Shan continued clearly. “No one outside the Brotherhood of Men knows of your training, your capabilities, or your aims. You know what you have been trained for—the world does not. The welfare of the People is in your charge…your work is for them, regardless of how they, in their ignorance, may work against you. It has been said that, once, in ages before the Trisz, the world was peopled only by the race of Man. Rth shall again become a world of Men alone.

  “The people are our sacred trust. To free them and Rth of the Trisz and to lift the People again to the stature of Men is our sworn and solemn duty.”

  Tor Shan concluded his brief speech, announced the order of the Examination, and turned the procedure over to a junior Master.

  First came the Games, followed by the Contests. These were strictly physical affairs, of course. The Initiates contended with each other, in pairs and in groups. The Games tested their manual skill, their coordination of mind and muscle. In the Contests, they pitted themselves against each other in wrestling, boxing, fencing, racing, and jumping. The exertion of their struggles tuned oily their bodies, brought their minds alive to the hazardous Challenges that lay ahead, which they must grasp and defy with all the might of their minds and wills.

  After a period of relaxation, Tor Shan called Kor to the rostrum.

  “Are you ready for your first Challenge?”

  Kor nodded stiffly. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good. I can tell you nothing about your problem in advance, the challenges have been carefully thought out, and are the result of centuries of experiment. They are intended to bring out the best you have at your command. You have ten seconds in which to adjust your mind to the first Challenge.”

  CHAPTER II

  Kor staggered in slippery ooze. The exchange had been appallingly swift…instantaneous.

  Around him, primeval ferns hurled fronded tops into low-lying mist that streamed in the humid wind, mirrored themselves in stagnant scum-ridden ponds. The fumes of rotting humus, of a dank, watery wastescape cloyed at his nostrils.

  Off to Kor’s right, something began to splash heavily, in the streaming mists. A bellowing scream of agony quivered giant ferns, rippled the swamp ponds. Ooze belched noisome exhalations of gas. A struggle was taking place between unseen, monstrous beasts of this primeval world. Kor’s conscious mind was aware of the tumult, the stench, the dreary surroundings. His superconscious mind quivered with anticipation of something else, picked up the calm voice of Tor Shan, speaking in tones of infinite calm.

  “Kor, you have been transported to a young planet, located somewhere in our own galaxy. I may not give you its galactic co-ordinates. It will be your Challenge to return to us here on Rth … to the exact spot in the arena from which you were transported. The time allowed for this is three point two seconds. You will be credited with five points if you return in this time, ten points if in less, two-and-a-half points if more. A return to any point in the Solar System, requiring reorientation for the final return is worth only two points … two-and-a-half points for a similar return elsewhere on Rth. Time begins when you hear the pseudo-sound of the gong.”

  The Master spoke only in Kor’s superconscious mind, the marvelous instrument forged in the training of the Men. Far away…it seemed to Kor that a muted gong chimed melodiously. He had 3.2 seconds in which to orientate himself, select the swiftest orbit home, and to appear before the Masters in the arena.

  The simplest Challenges came first, of course.

  Silence flashed across the primitive world. Ferns and rippled marsh-ponds presented an appearance of frozen, stroboscopic rigidity. It seemed as if Time had suddenly fled from this world, crystallizing this ultimate moment into timelessness.

  Kor’s training had stressed speed of reaction. His double, separable mind automatically assumed control of its environment. Kor was living fast now, so fast that he could grow old and die before Tor Shan could step down from the rostrum.

  Time was a matter of how you were adjusted to it, Kor thought fleetingly, satisfied. With the immediate response of his superconscious mind. It only seemed that a stasis of time seized the surroundings. Actually, every electron in his body vibrated at a tremendous cyclic rate, speeding up his perception of Time. His body was matter beyond matter, wholly subject to his own will…cast completely out of the time-rate of the Universe. It owed no allegiance whatsoever to the laws that bound material cause to material effect.

  “Desire is our scourge…” Kor thought, arrowing upward through the now-solid mists that shrouded this world. A high-cycle passage opened ahead of him as he forged through and out of the atmosphere, into the vacuum of space. “Need is our blessing…” The planet was a golden disc, distant in space, like a brassy shield, hung upon an ebony wall. Stars glittered with cold fury in far immensities.

  Kor checked their ali
gnment and distribution with a cold, reasoning analysis. It was impossible to recognize their appearance, or to attempt a spectral analysis while he was in this state of time-stasis. The light which reached his senses was distorted, stepped up in its own cyclic rate of vibration. Analysis of the starlight could tell him nothing.

  Kor drifted in timelessness. There was neither heat nor cold in this state. Airlessness was a condition without meaning. No longer matter in the accepted sense, his body did not require oxygen or pressure. It drew its furious needs from the inexhaustible store of sub-etheric energy tapped by his mind.

  Kor relaxed and let his mind expand. His ultra perceptions snapped outward, spiraling logarithmically toward the ultimate reaches of the galaxy. A “sound” cut across on the high-abstract level of perception…a shrill, high whistling that went on and on in a steady, unvarying note. Kor recognized it. The sound signified Trisz, a mental wave length held featureless in the time-stop.

  Impressions poured through his mind. Matter…here, there, everywhere…planets, suns, aimlessly drifting planetoids. Kor searched more widely, receiving, sorting, classifying. He eliminated the regions that obviously were not the one he sought.

  A hundred light years…five hundred…a thousand. Three thousand-odd light years away, a familiar, low buzz caught his attention. He mentalized a shift in the timewarp that held him and thrilled to the momentary, excited chirp-chirp-chirp into which the signal developed.

  Again Kor shifted the lever of his conscious mind against his superconsciousness. The Universe blacked out. Racing atoms spiraled and coruscated before his perceptions. He shifted once more, sorting, seeking, classifying, rejecting…out of the darkness sprang the tiered stone seats of the arena, the assembled Examination Masters. Tor Shane stood on the rostrum, holding an electronic stop-watch. He drew in a slow breath. His nostrils dilated as he smiled with a pleased expression.

  “One point oh three seconds, Kor. You have done well!”

  Kor had a right to be proud of his score in the Examination. The extra points he earned were owing to his swift, facile mind…proving itself superior to even the super-sharp standards set by the Men.

  The Initiates went through their Challenges singly, Kor with mounting excitement as the ease and speed of his accomplishments dazzled even himself. His second Challenge took him to the heart of the Andromeda nebula, to return with a cubic centimeter of the vacuum held at the core of that supernal mass of stars. His third Challenge was to visit seven planets whose locations were known only to Tor Shan, and to bring back from each a specimen of its rocky core, correctly labeled. His time to accomplish this last Challenge was only seven-tenths of a second, and most of that time was gone before Kor succeeded in breaking the shield Tor Shan threw across his mind.

  * * * *

  Finally, the long day of Challenges drew to a close. The westering Sun cast long shadows across the floor of the arena. Tor Shan held up his hand.

  “The Examination is concluded,” he said, and Kor experienced a thrill of disappointment. He had been certain that Tor Shan would require a demonstration of the Fire Out of Heaven. This was Kor’s cherished secret. The theory of the Fire had long ago been mathematically demonstrated by the Men, but none had ever achieved its control…until he, Kor Danay, had learned to control it. He opened his mouth to protest, but Tor Shan preceded him by a word.

  “However,” he continued in his calm, peaceful voice, “at this point in the Examination, opportunity is given the Initiates to demonstrate what has romantically been called the Fire Out of Heaven. You have studied its laws, and are aware of what it means, but no Man has ever successfully controlled the Fire. To attempt to control it and to fail means instant, sure destruction. You are cautioned to think carefully before volunteering to attempt such a demonstration. You will be required to demonstrate separately, in remote sections of the galaxy from each other, for the action must take place far from the usual trade lanes of the Trisz. A Master will accompany each Initiate for the purpose of observing the Challenge. If none of you choose to demonstrate, it is quite as well as if you had. It is a possibility that no mind will ever learn to control the Fire.”

  Quiet settled over the arena. Kor lifted his hand.

  “Sir … I should like to demonstrate the Challenge!”

  Tor Shan nodded. “Very well.”

  John Moran spoke up. “And I, Sir!”

  “Any others?” Tor Shan roved his calm gaze over the Initiates. No other volunteered. “That is good. You others may return to your quarters and prepare for the ceremonial breaking of fast.”

  Kor’s heart thudded painfully as the four Initiates filed out of the arena. They were his classmates…his friends. Would he ever see them again? Jon Moran lifted clasped hands in the ritual Sign of the Conqueror and grinned at Kor. Kor suddenly grinned in return, lifted his own hands in the Sign.

  “Tor Shan,” Kor said, “I should like your company at the Challenge.”

  The Master inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  It was dark as the eternal night of Space on the planet to which Tor Shan took himself and Kor. The surface was a frozen rubble of volcanic ash, and great, tumbled slabs of glassy obsidian that carved ebon gaps in the clotted stars of the galactic perimeter. Almost directly overhead, a singular star blazed with the intensity of a carbon arc … the far-off sun of this abysmal and nighted planet.

  There was no air to breathe. Their bodies vibrated in time-stasis. Kor touched his mind to that of the Master.

  “Sir…yonder is a high mountain. Please retire to its summit for your personal safety. Break all mental contact with me, for I must work alone.”

  Tor Shan expostulated. “How can I observe if I do not hold contact with you? If your demonstration should fail, I must be in a position to learn.”

  Kor bore him down with the force of his obstinacy.

  “No! I have worked out all the equations on the cybernograph, Sir, and I believe that there is something in the additional mind which introduces an aberration.”

  “Kor…have you performed the demonstration in secret?”

  “Yes, Sir. I have successfully drawn the Fire Out of Heaven!”

  “Very well. I withdraw.”

  Kor let his mind expand. His superconsciousness whipped outward like an uncoiling steel spring, surging with released power.

  Tor Shan retired to the mountain top as directed. He watched the desolate plain where Kor stood, but Kor knew that he could not be seen by the sense of physical sight alone. What he was about to do would be seen, though.

  Kor looked down. His conscious mind floated miles above the glassy, ash-covered plain. His eyes were on the surface, with his body, but Kor had other senses to serve him. He perceived himself far below, poised like an athlete. He no longer had direct contact with his own superconsciousness, but through a secondary channel, the impressions of that lonely figure filtered through to him.

  He sensed the mighty effort of mind that went into the drawing together of universal forces. The figure of himself staggered with strain. Kor Danay was wholly divorced from that figure; he was only an observer of the robot he had set in motion.

  This was the crux of his secret, Kor acknowledged—this ability of his to separate the twin factors of his mind. The presence of even his own ego in the performance of this superlative task introduced aberrations into the elaborate forces of mind which wove and re-wove in his superconsciousness. His separable mind was Kor’s answer to the problem.

  Kor’s superconsciousness drove like a physical thing across the gap of space to the sun of this peopleless world. Even with his minds separated as they were, Kor felt the shock of the contact.

  Distant, distant that sun. It was only by virtue of supraliminal perception that Kor was aware of what occurred on its seething surface, the violence of the storms that began to rage in its atmosphere.
A whirlpool of energy sucked upward from the surface, controlled and directed by the power of Kor’s unleashed mind.

  The lonely, wooden figure on the airless plain moved stiffly. Its arm rose, hurled forward…and a river of scarlet flame gushed across the eerie landscape. Volcanic upthrusts, frozen for an eternity in the endless chill of space, showered sparks, stone melted into magma and flowed in the torrent of flame.

  The scene blotted out. Kor and Tor Shan stood again in the arena of the Institute of Manhood on Rth.

  “You could smash the Solar System with that power,” the Master observed calmly at last; but it was apparent that he restrained himself with difficulty.

  “Or the Galaxy!” Kor murmured softly to himself.

  CHAPTER III

  The ceremonial breakfast was conducted in silence, for only five graduates were on hand. Jon Moran had not returned, nor had the Master who accompanied him. Perhaps their lifeless bodies sprawled on some cold, airless stone in outermost space, crumbs of ice, shattered by the forces they had tried to control. Or perhaps, Kor thought, ten thousand years from now, a nova might blaze in the night sky of Rth, heralding a news long buried in the mists of Time, that a Man had given his life for the Brotherhood of Men.

  Concluding the meal, the graduate Men returned to their quarters to don the scarlet garments that had been laid out for them in their absence. They were Men now and entitled to wear the regalia of Men.

  Kor sought to dull the ache of grieving for his friend. It is glorious to die for the cause of Men, he thought, but more glorious still to live for it. Resolve is our armor; Will is our weapon… He murmured the ritualistic babble, seeking comfort in its hidden interpolations.

  In the Audience Hall of the Administration Building, the Masters awaited the graduate classmen. The latter filed in, splendid looking in their garments and robes of scarlet, and took places close to the front. Tor Shan rose.