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

by Banister, Manly

  Scarcely an hour passed before Kor was removed from his cell, prodded into an elevator, and dropped swiftly he knew not how many levels below the surface. Two officers accompanied him. They were met at the bottommost level by three guards with drawn blasters. The five surrounded Kor and conducted him down a long corridor to a pneumatic tube car station. They got into the waiting tube car, which shot away, then slowed to a stop in a matter of seconds.

  Kor disembarked in the eye-searing blaze of illumination that encompassed the city’s massive heart. Great machines arrayed themselves as far as he could see in every direction. A forest of pillars, girdered and trussed, supported the roof of this artificial cavern. Everywhere, the machines that fed life to the city hummed, whirled, shot sparks, emitted a strong odor of ozone.

  A score of uniformed, blaster-armed guards were waiting. The officers and guards who had accompanied Kor returned to their tube car. Kor was marched through the maze of machinery until he stood before a leaden wall, studded with meters, dials, and great doors that looked like the breech-blocks of monster cannon. All along the wall, chain conveyors, one to each door, rattled in starts and jerks. As the nearest conveyor jerked forward, a thick lead door swung open … the chains rattled in with a load of trivia … the door swung shut. Further away, another door opened, the conveyor jerked and rattled. Up and down the length of this endless wall, the process repeated itself intermittently, the conveyors feeding the ravening atomic converters that filled the veins, arteries, and nervous system of this great city with the vibrant power of its artificial life.

  Each time a door opened, Kor noticed, the dial above it dropped to zero. As the door closed on a load of waste, the needle jumped upward, registering the last quantum of energy released from its dissolution. He knew that when his own body was fed to this vast, unfriendly machine, that needle would leap again, registering the amount of energy released from the atoms of his body. Somewhere, a recording machine would take note of the amount with an arrangement of perforations in a tape. That was all that would remain of the Man Kor: an arrangement of holes in a very brief length of tape.

  Kor was not insensible, either, to the occasion that was being made of his execution. Already the news of his condemnation had been broadcast, and every eye in the city was turned to the televisor screens. Television cameras peered at Kor silently from a dozen angles.

  Kor held himself rigidly erect. He was a Man. He had no plan, except to submit to whatever lay in store for him. He would die like a Man, if need be. Need. Again he heard the voice of Tor Shan monotonously intoning the Oath held precious by the Scarlet Saints … “I solemnly vow never to use my powers against any of the Trisz … though I lose my life…”

  Men had died before at the behest of the Trisz. To dart away now, as Kor longed to do, would betray the Brotherhood; worse, betray the very People to whom the Brotherhood of Men was dedicated, and the Rth and the Universe, too. What did his life matter, Kor asked himself?

  A conveyor had been switched from automatic to manual. It stood moveless and ready. Naked to the waist, Kor was led to it, stretched out on the cold chains and lashed fast. Kor looked up into a blaze of light and the snout of an unblinking, emotionless, television camera. On the other side of that lens, a million People watched. Kor imagined their stir of feelings, and he smiled.

  A smartly uniformed officer paced to Kor’s side. He read sententiously from a sealed and beribboned document.

  “Kor Danay, of the Brotherhood of Men, formerly Man of the See of No-ka-si, you have been examined and found guilty of crimes against the Trisz; to wit, dissidence, sedition, treason, and illegal possession. For these offenses, Trisz justice requests the death penalty, to be administered humanely, without pain or physical suffering, by dissolution in the atomic converter. You are permitted to beg forgiveness of the Lord Sun for your crimes before the sentence is carried into execution.”

  Kor lifted his head. “I have made my peace with my God,” he said quietly.

  The officer folded the paper smartly and stepped back a pace.

  “May the Lord Sun have mercy on your soul, Sir Kor!”

  The officer lifted his hand. Kor turned his glance toward the great leaden door. Slowly, it began to swing open, exposing the shining interior. The officer brought his hand down.

  CHAPTER XII

  The conveyor jerked, ground forward. Kor’s naked back slid along the smooth metal runway. His mind raced. Another instant, and he would be inside. Too late then… He was inside. The door would swing shut. Far too late… It swung shut. Kor was enclosed in coffin-like darkness, bound to the silent chains. In another instant…dissolution … to be followed by the leap and fall of the needled dial above the door. The door would open again upon an empty chamber, readied for another load of garbage…

  In his mind’s eye, Kor could see the dramatic focusing of the television screens on that meter. He would need… Need! Kor snapped himself into the time-stasis—he reached out exploringly with his mind. Already, the current had begun to flow in the arm-thick leads that fed the giant busbars of the converter. He could sense the sluggish flow of it from atom to atom, from molecule to molecule.

  Even in time-stasis, Kor had precious little time. The flow of current into the converter was practically instantaneous in normal time. Again the Extrapolator’s jingle went through his mind: “The Scarlet Saint will die undead, pots and pans depart instead.” A silly, dancing refrain. Desire. Need. Resolve. Will. Now was the need—now was the time! It became clear in a flash. Here was his destiny, to be accomplished in the split fraction of a second required for the surging current to activate the converter. No eye could see him, the energy field of the converter would mask his own field as he hurled himself to the ends of the Universe. None would be the wiser!

  None the wiser? How about that tell-tale dial with the television cameras focused upon it? How about, the quanta of released energy to be recorded?

  Pots and pans!

  Kor focused his mind upon his own body. Electrons streamed thick and fast through his consciousness. He weighed, counted, evaluated every physical element of which his body was composed. He would have to replace every molecule with an equivalent molecule of other matter. He cast his mind out, out, of that death trap, instantaneously, into homes and public eating places. The stress he made in the sub-ether, which the Trisz might have detected, was completely masked by the energy field set up in the converter. Pots and pans! There were scores of them, thousands of them to be had! Mysteriously, from a kitchen here, from a kitchen there throughout the city, pots and pans vanished. Other items, too—water, sand from the desert—a perfect assortment of heterogeneous matter, equivalent in its sum to the energy-mass of Kor’s physical body.

  Kor remembered a place, a small, quadrangular area before the altar of the Scarlet Chapel, where he had remained one day to pray and meditate. He had practiced molecular dissection of it then, and now that dissection remained with him. He had no time to select a place more suitable or less dangerous. He must go there at once. The sluggishly flowing current already caressed the discharge cathodes. His mind grasped the functions of dissimilarity.

  All over the city, the People stood or sat transfixed before televisor screens, eyes glued to the image of a moveless needle. The needle jerked over suddenly, and a great sigh went up—as assorted pots, pans, and other junk materialized in the converter and took the dissolution intended for the Scarlet Saint.

  Kor stood with head bowed before the altar of the Scarlet Chapel, a half-naked Man who had met—and mastered—the Trisz.

  He dared hesitate only a second. The Chapel seemed deserted, but he could not risk having an acolyte blunder in and discover him. Kor hurried to his own quarters, let himself into his study.

  “I thought perhaps you would return here first.”

  Kor jerked around. Brother Set sat cross-legged on the floor, smi
ling his saintly smile. “I must say, though,” he went on, “that it has been a tiring vigil, I could not know precisely when you would get here.”

  Kor stood poised, speechless. He eyed the Blue Brother with a calculating intensity.

  “You expected this?” he said at last. “Is this another prelude to an invasion by Trisz soldiers? You know they cannot take me now!”

  “Perish the thought!” Brother Set wagged his round head. “How may I convince you, Sir Kor, of my delight at witnessing your evasion of Trisz justice? I have been for you all along, if only you knew it.”

  Kor cast his mind in a cautious circle, exploring the surroundings. Brother Set spoke the truth. There were no soldiers within a mile, and even the Chapel itself was deserted, save for the two of them. Normal conditions of life prevailed in the town, as far as Kor dared reach out.

  “What is loyalty?” the Blue Brother queried sagely. “Is it not love for one’s own skin? Such has been my loyalty to the Trisz.”

  “You did not offer to help me,” Kor pointed out.

  “Can the buried help the living? A Man is necessarily his own help, Sir Kor. What could I have done that you could not—save to further those plans destined to give you your freedom? And now that you are both dead and undead, Sir, what is your next move? Well, never mind answering. You do not fully trust me.”

  Brother Set looked unhappy. Kor laughed sharply.

  “You have been a strange sort of friend, if not an audacious enemy, Brother Set. How can one who has proved himself a villain become worthy of trust? But perhaps I can trust you this far … to get me clothing such as worn by the People. I dare not appear again in public dressed as a Man.”

  Brother Set got painfully to his feet, shook the cramps out of his legs.

  “Under the circumstances, public appearance would be rather dangerous for you. I suggest flight in secrecy, myself. As for clothing, you will find what you need in there.” He nodded toward a massive chest against the wall.

  Kor gave him a piercing look. The chest had contained his own wardrobe of Brotherhood garments, he well knew. He stepped quickly to the chest, lifted the lid.

  A complete outfit of common clothing lay neatly folded on the very top. Kor lifted the topmost piece, a coarse, brown material of fluffy texture that would insulate from the sun as well as keep out the cold. He turned to the Blue Brother.

  “You did expect me to return!”

  “I hoped for the best, let us say. You will note that the color of the garments will pass wherever you may go. You could be a farmer from the Mis-pi with those clothes, or a desert wolf in for a holiday. You will find identification papers in the pocket…a clever forgery, if I do say so, myself, who committed the crime.”

  Kor relaxed and grinned, then sobered quickly.

  “I do not trust you that far, Brother Set. Forgive my seeming suspicion if I change the identification you have so thoughtfully provided. The Scarlet Saints are rather clever at forgery themselves. I will take care of the matter before leaving. My thanks now, Brother; you may leave me alone.”

  The Blue Brother turned to go.

  “Brother Set!”

  “Yes, Sir Kor?”

  “Blessing, Brother.”

  “Blessing, Sir!”

  Alone, Kor studied the document. Brother Set may have been in earnest, but he could afford to take no chances. The paper was printed, with appropriate blanks for filling in desired information with a pen. Kor put his mind into the paper, deftly erased the handwritten parts by freeing the molecules of ink from the paper. With equal care, he replaced the molecules in a pattern of his own, giving himself a different name, place of origin and age. The age he chose was sixty-five.

  A half-hour later, a burly, gray-bearded fellow dressed in the coarse, brown habiliments of an Outlander, passed down the steps of the Scarlet Chapel and disappeared into the night that lay heavily over No-ka-si. None but another Man would have recognized that figure as a Scarlet Saint in disguise.

  The inn was crowded and noisy. A stuffy pall of rancid cigar smoke and the reek of synthetics hung heavily on the air. Kor made his way among the tables, listening sharply as he went. He was looking for a particular person. He paused by a table seating four young Triszmen. They discussed the execution which they had just come from viewing on the city televisor screen.

  Kor sat down nearby and ordered a mug of synthetic.

  “These Chapel Men aren’t so holy,” one sounded off. “I tell you, they aren’t for the People at all. That goes for the Reds and the Blues both. I think they’re constantly working against the Trisz, and we’re the ones who’ll suffer.”

  Kor let his mind steal out. He located the spy devices hidden in the walls. He wanted that young man, but here was no place to interfere with him, Kor continued to wait; he lifted his mug from time to time as if to drink from it. The level of the liquid went down, but none of it passed Kor’s lips.

  Meanwhile, Kor’s mind was subtly busy. One by one, the talker’s companions found an urgent need to be elsewhere. When the last one had departed, Kor planted a compulsion in the remaining Triszman’s mind to go home. Considerably the worse for his drinking, the fellow got to his feet and weaved out of the inn. After a minute lapsed, Kor followed him out.

  Kor had left the Chapel with a decision to find the “organization” Soma Gol had mentioned. To do that, he felt, he must locate the girl, and the only way to find her was to seek her in the vicinity of the Extrapolator. Hence the need for his present encounter with this Triszman. Kor had sought him out by third-order rationalizing of the probable whereabouts of the nearest technician. Instinctively, he had been led to the inn where his path would cross that of this employee of the Operating Section.

  How simple if he could have found Soma by this same method. But the situation was not the same.

  Trailing a burst of ribald song, the technician turned a corner and staggered down a repulsively dark side street. Kor overtook him rapidly. He seized the Triszman by his saffron cloak, forced him back against the wall of a dark, silent building. There was no struggle. The technician collapsed under the sudden, fierce probe of Kor’s mind into his conscious faculties. Quickly, Kor robbed his mind of the information he needed. The technician would be a sick man for several days, but that could not be helped. He could blame it on the synth. Satisfied, Kor turned back, found the main thoroughfare leading to Ka-si, and walked along it.

  Lights sped up from the rear and passed him, crossing beams with those that came townward from the city. An empty surface car passed, rolled to a halt at Kor’s hail.

  “Yes, Sir! Just got in tonight,” Kor gaffed pleasantly with the driver. “I’ve made my pile, young feller, and now I’m looking for a place to have fun. Know any?”

  The driver was a mine of information. He expected a generous tip from this garrulous old Outlander with gray beard and obviously new clothing. The fellow knew every dive in the city, was intimately acquainted with every girl who plied her trade, and he was quick to offer suggestions, comparisons, and recommendations with a hearty gusto that almost made Kor wince.

  “Well,” Kor wheezed in his old man’s voice. “Drop me some place convenient to all of em, youngster!” He cackled at his own low joke. “No sense in playin’ favorites!”

  Kor knew what was expected of him. Upon leaving the car, he tipped generously from the fund of money Brother Set had thoughtfully left in a pocket of his suit. The driver had been a help in establishing his fictitious identity. The watchers on the other end of the car’s spy devices had a record of him now, sufficiently banal to put them at ease. But Kor had no desire to leave them with the impression that he was bound for any particular place. Doubtless there were visio-audio scanners in every crib of the city’s girl houses.

  The crowd was thick on the avenue. Music blared from the television screens, whi
ch depicted writhing dancers posturing and flinging themselves in time with a rapid, insensate rhythm. Kor paused, pretending interest. He was a “rube,” and everything the city had to offer must seem an amazement and a delight to him. He lost himself quickly in a swirl of colorful garments that flowed around him.

  Kor let himself be carried casually in the direction he wanted to go. It was not far. The Extrapolator was centrally located, housed in a tall spire of rainbow-hued plastic.

  Its base area was tremendous, surrounded for a quarter-mile extent on every side by gardens. Kor hurried along a deserted path under the trees. He had been “executed” at sunset; the hour was still early evening. The Extrapolator would be available to the public for several hours yet.

  People were scarce here, compared to the pleasure section of the city. Mile-broad steps led up to an equally long row of open doors. People were going in and out, singly and in groups; bright garments flashed in the artificial light.

  Colorful, lighted posters and placards caught Kor’s attention.

  WHAT’S TOMORROW? said one. Another read, HAPPINESS IS HIS WHO KNOWS. SEE WHAT TOMORROW HOLDS BEFORE ACTING TODAY! The posters were illustrated with gay pictures of men and women, semi-nude and nude. One poster consisted of a color drawing of a naked, curvaceous young woman with a bold sign blazoned across her middle—WHY WASTE TIME? FIND OUT IF SHE WILL. ASK INSIDE.

  Kor went in, asked directions of a uniformed attendant, and proceeded to the Prediction Center. He walked heavily, as an old man should.

  A badly made up young woman with a pitched-nasal whine to her voice halted him at the reception desk.

  “Your name, please?”

  Kor gave her the fictitious identity he had assumed. “Sam Kodel.”

  “Your papers, please.”

  Kor brought out his identification. It was plain that the Prediction Center, available to and used by all the People as it was, was a first-class Trisz checking station on the activities, desires, and aspirations of the citizens.