Tor Shan brought his glance back to Devon.
“I feel it will be difficult for me to face the boy,” he said slowly. “I am responsible for his condition—for the loss of his wife. A great shock to him.”
“He is completely recovered from that shock,” Devon returned easily. “Actually, Kor suffered two distinct shocks simultaneously: the loss of his wife and his conflict with his Oath as a Man. His normal desire was to attack the Trisz with whatever power he could command and so attempt to save the woman’s life. Had he done this, he might have saved his mind. As it was, he found himself on the horns of a dilemma. The conflict between his duty to his wife and his duty to his Manhood was too much for him to bear. Remember, the decision he had to make was a split-second one. His sanity shattered under the strain.”
Tor Shan weighed the papers in his hand.
“He seemed to possess for a while an unconscious use of certain of his mental powers. Then he lost this use. How do you account for that?”
Devon shrugged.
“Who knows what he was thinking when he came out on the bank of the creek and saw the Trisz devouring his wife?” Devon permitted a shudder to ripple through his bulk. “You have said that his greatest drawback was personal pride; you tried to help him free himself of it. Perhaps his thoughts were concerned with his pride in being a Man. Very well. Some of that would stick with him, below the conscious level. He went ‘on automatic’, as we say. His powers burst forth automatically in response to some unusual call of his will. For the better part of a year, he went without food or water. The practice is not recommended for such long periods of time, and in his case, the result was not entirely beneficial to his tissues. The digestive and eliminative organs suffered especially—became atrophied. As far as his mind goes, Kor could be discharged today, but he needs a further period of physical acclimatization to return to the normal level.
“It is easy enough to speculate on why his powers deserted him entirely at the end. It probably was his subconscious realization that he had violated his Oath of Manhood in using his powers against the Trisz. He could not consciously reason this, of course. That’s why the shut-off was so drastically final. Below the conscious level, he felt that he had degraded himself from the stature of a Man by violating his Oath. He was no longer worthy to be a Man.”
“How long will you need to keep him here?”
“Six weeks, at least.”
Tor Shan nodded thoughtfully.
“The Trisz, of course, are alerted in the vicinity of the Karelian system. Our spies have transmitted to us an account of the meeting between Kor and the Trisz—from the Trisz point of view. His actions upset them considerably. They have not yet connected him with the Men, but his use of the sign language has convinced them that he was foreign to Karel IV. They are working their extrapolators overtime in all parts of the Universe.” He tapped the papers in his hand. “However, we are fortunate that the Trisz have not connected Kor with the destruction of their exploring vessels. They consider that the work of the erupting volcano.”
“Have they taken any retaliatory steps?”
“Against Karel IV? None, except to mark the planet out of bounds and to set a patrol around the system to observe it. Too—” he chuckled—“they have been badgering the Blue Brotherhood for further enlightenment on the nature of God and the casuistic principles of religion. We have reports that other religious bodies on numerous planets are being queried in the same manner.”
Devon laughed. “I daresay what they find out won’t help them. Would you like to see Kor now, Sir?”
Tor Shan stood up.
“Immediately, Doctor. I shall have to leave soon.”
* * * *
Kor was relaxed in a deep leather chair. His hands were brown and emaciated. They rested moveless on the broad arms of his chair. He was dressed in regulation hospital garments, a throw-over robe, and a pair of slippers. Hospital barbers had sheared his hair and shaved his beard. His cheeks and neck showed a startling pallor; where his face had been exposed, the skin was as brown as his hands.
Kor smiled, got up quickly as Devon entered with Tor Shan.
“Sit down, sit down, boy!” Tor Shan gestured violently and took Kor’s hand as the latter sank back into his chair.
“I’ll leave you, Sir. Lecture coming up,” Devon said. “There are no restrictions on talking to the patient. When you are ready to leave, I’d like to see you again. Ask one of the nurses.”
He smiled a friendly goodbye and left the two alone.
“I hope you like it here,” Tor Shan began awkwardly.
Kor nodded quickly. “They’ve been wonderful to me, Sir.” His voice was swift, eager. He seemed buoyant with returned vigor.
“I am glad, Kor. I would like to say how sorry I am, but it seems rather useless…”
Kor offered the ghost of a smile.
“It really doesn’t matter, Sir, too much. I brought it all on myself, of course, I—I’ll tell you about that later. Just now, I’d like to say that I’ve made that—that recovery you told me I needed.”
Tor Shan nodded solemnly.
“I told you that you would not need to mention it. I see that you have.”
“If you don’t mind, Sir, I want to talk about it. I—I thought there was something of professorial authoritarianism about you when you brought the subject up. I’ve learned you were right. You were referring to my pride, of course. Pride just does not go with being a Man. It’s funny how proud you can be, and at the same time think you are the most humble creature in the galaxy! I’m grateful to Doctor Naz for saving my memory of the Karelian episode. Without it, I should probably be pretty much the same old Kor. As it is, I can remember the height of my pride when I thought I was God…” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “Better still, I remember the depths of my degradation when the Go denounced me and would have put me to death if the Saints you sent to look for me had not intervened at just the right time.”
“You do not consider the cave men responsible for their actions?”
“Certainly not. As I said before, I was responsible. We will go into that later. I want to talk this out. The things that happened to me on Karel IV seem like a dream now—bizarre and preposterous. Yet I know it was real. I really lived with the people of Go and did the things I did. They kept telling me I was a god, you see—all but Tharg, that is. Poor devil of a villain! I hope he has not taken it to heart that he has ‘slain a God’!”
Tor Shan smiled. “I thought you might like to know that we’ve kept an eye on the thurb. After your immolation, they migrated across the plain. They found the analyzing laboratory you landed there. Are you interested in hearing about it?”
Kor leaned forward. “Very much, Sir!”
“We had intended removing the laboratory of course. We were searching for it and that is how we happened to chance upon the thurb. We made a mental survey of the situation and learned they had connected the bubble with you. They were happily settled around it—they called it the ‘Sky Cave of the God Kor’. I am afraid you are still a god to the thurb, Kor, along with the deified Eldra. There is a healthy religion going strong among the thurb, one that could easily lead to the path of Manhood, if they don’t get lost in the by-paths of dogma, creed, and ritual.”
Kor shook his head wonderingly.
“With the death of An-Ga, Tharg assumed a natural leadership. An-Ga would never have permitted it. The Go must have killed him.”
Tor Shan smiled slightly. “On the contrary. Tharg is very much alive. It seems that your chieftain’s brother came out of the holocaust alive and assumed his brother’s chieftainship. Tharg has a title under the new order. He is called High Priest of Kor!”
Kor mused on the strange turn-about of affairs among the thurb.
“That will all be changed, of course,” h
e smiled, “when colonists are transported to the Karelian System.”
“There will be no colonists on Karel IV. We have reserved it on our list as a very special kind of experiment.”
Kor nodded. “You would arrange it that way. You took the bubble away, though, of course.”
“Yes. We left them only their memories to help them develop their minds…”
Kor sighed.
“Another thing I wanted to mention, Sir,” he put in abruptly, “is that I had personal contact with the Trisz on Karel IV.”
“I read that in Devon’s report.”
“Devon’s report—oh! That doesn’t begin to state the situation, Sir. I found out everything there is to know about the Trisz!”
Tor Shan leaned eagerly forward.
“What did you discover? Quickly, boy!”
Kor smiled, relaxed in his chair and closed his eyes. “I—I’m growing very tired, Sir.”
Tor Shan stood nervously erect. An agitated expression crossed his face.
“I shouldn’t have tired you! I will go.”
“It would be best, Sir.”
Kor smiled contentedly, drew a folded paper from his pocket and tendered it to the older man.
“I understand I may not leave the hospital for a few weeks yet. I don’t want to waste any time. I have made a list of a few things I should like to have brought to me here.”
Tor Shan scanned the list. His brows went up.
“Electronic cybernograph-thousand kilo-volt energy pile, portable-silver wire-resigtors-condensor-collectors…” Tor Shan’s glance continued to the bottom of the impressive list. He snapped the paper crisply in his palm.
“Is this important, Kor?”
“Extremely, Sir. Just a beginning, of course, to help me work out a few fundamentals. Later, I’ll need a fully equipped psycho-physical laboratory and the mental resources of the entire Brotherhood of Men. But that stuff will do for the present.”
Tor Shan opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and left at once. An obliging nurse directed him to the classroom where Technical Director Devon was holding forth before a small class of off-duty attendants, doctors, and nurses.
Devon dismissed the gathering, turned his attention to Tor Shan.
“You are returning to Rth at once, Sir?”
“Yes,” Tor Shan replied. “Here.” He handed over Kor’s list. “Can any of this material be supplied here?”
Devon scanned the list expertly.
“About all of it, Sir, except the cybernograph. We haven’t any third-order integrating equipment at all. We haven’t any need for it. A portable model would almost fill a room the size of this one!”
“Very well,” Tor Shan spoke crisply. “Get the rest of this stuff together, then. I will transmit the cybernograph from Sub-den.” He turned abruptly to leave.
“After I get it together,” Devon inquired, “what shall I do with it?”
“Give it to Kor,” Tor Shan tossed over his shoulder. “He will know what to do with it!”
CHAPTER XX
Kor faced his distinguished listeners in one of the large suite of rooms that had been turned over to his activities. Devon and Tor Shan were there, and a company of about twenty of the keenest scientific minds in the Brotherhood of Men.
The curious machine at Kor’s back half-filled the room. Looking at it, one had the impression that he saw only part of it—that the machine went on and on, into other spaces and other times. Here was a machine beyond all machines, as the Men were beyond all men, and Kor was beyond the Men. It was an ultimate machine, partaking of unguessable principles, functioning in illimitable ways.
“I want to begin my discussion,” Kor told them, “with a brief survey of the concepts underlying the work I have just accomplished here.”
Devon drew a cigar from his pocket, focused his attention on the tip of it until the tobacco flamed, then settled back in his chair with a look of interest, blue coils of smoke wreathing his head. Tor Shan and the others leaned forward.
Kor began.
“First, a brief recapitulation of the orders of reasoning. Deductive reasoning is our first order of rationalization. It is most highly exemplified in the field of mathematics. Mathematics, however, is less an exact science than a science of exactitudes. Mathematics deals entirely with exact premises, and exactness exists nowhere in our Universe. Mathematics, as a means of reasoning, therefore, can express only ideal conclusions. It is the language of the Universe around us.
“Inductive reasoning is the second order of rationalization. Isolated facts are brought together, and from their behavior, a general law is induced to explain them. Inductive reasoning opened the portals of science to man’s groping mind, for by its means the natural laws of the Universe were worked out in earliest times.
“Strangely enough, men thought for thousands of years that these two were the only possible methods of reasoning. They thought this because these are methods of conscious rationalization.
“In the early periods of our race, any mental or so-called psychic phenomenon not well understood was relegated to the supernatural category. And ignored. What used to be called telepathy, teleporting, prevision, and so on, were considered by some to be supernatural manifestations. Others, in a desperate gesture toward scientific rationalization, called them ‘parapsychological phenomena’. Neither term is capable of semantic abstraction. Most scientists shrugged such phenomena off as mere superstitions of the masses.
“Another inhibiting factor of the early discovery of third order rationalization was the common misunderstanding held toward what then were variously labeled instinct, intuition, and the subconscious mind. Any mental phenomenon not yielding to empiric methods of investigation was either cast into one of the first two categories, or hastily dumped in the province of the third—and no attempt was made to define any of them.
“It was from these little known and largely discredited functions of the human mind that the first Men received what they thought to be hints of the existence of a third order of logic—that method of rationalization which transcends both deduction and induction and is the survival factor which works toward the preservation of the individual when all other methods of conscious reasoning fail. The form of third-order rationalization is not readily apparent to conscious investigation…it cannot be consciously detected as a function. The function is inferred by analyzing its results. Without the mental training to which the Men are subjected from early childhood, evidence of its existence is flighty and inconclusive—what used to be interpreted as instinct or intuition.
“On the other hand, the higher orders of third-order logic have never been explored, even by the Men. Our attempt at extrapolation, for instance, is weak, hazy, and fraught with errors.”
Kor laughed suddenly, explosively.
“As a matter of fact, I myself committed the most colossal of blunders in trying to extrapolate—a blunder so important that it has rid our Universe of the Trisz, will completely change the future of the Men, and through them, of the People!”
Devon chewed heavily on his cold cigar and frowned with concentration. Tor Shan appeared eagerly interested.
“You said it has rid the Universe of the Trisz?”
Kor nodded.
“Quite so. The Universe has been rid of the Trisz!”
Tor Shan looked at Devon.
“Doctor, are you sure—?” Devon was in the act of concentrating the dead hulk of his cigar into combustion. He drew heavily and expelled a cloud of smoke. He wagged his head.
“He’s sane, Sir. In fact, more than sane, if our graphs have any meaning. I think we are now getting at something that has had me puzzled ever since we made our first electropsychigraphic readings of his mind. I want to know why extrapolation of his graph shows no descen
ding variations of the third-order function. Can you explain that, Kor?”
“Because,” Kor replied emphatically, “there is no reason to stop at third-order logic, as there was not to stop with deduction and induction as methods of reasoning. The orders of logic are infinite in number—and my mind has developed to the point of encompassing them all!”
Tor Shan and Devon both began to expostulate at once. The room was an uproar of rumbling objections. Kor smiled and waved his hand for silence.
“Gentlemen…please! What I have said is not so astounding as it appears. I have made a statement of fact, but I cannot enlarge upon it now. There will be time ahead for making it clear to you. I want to describe the blunder I mentioned.
“Let us return to the planet Karel IV. Every act I performed there was plotted in advance. When I thought I was activating the third-order function to extrapolate future events, I actually side-stepped that function and made use of a new order of beyond-logic. Actually, what I did determined, rather than foretold, the future!”
Again, the assembly uttered excited comments. Kor held up his hand.
“I should be ashamed to say it,” he grinned wryly, “but from the moment I left the Institute, instead of extrapolating the future, as I thought, I was determining the events of my own future through a system of determinant logic transcending the recognized third-order function. That is why my attempts at extrapolation failed—why yours failed also.” He nodded at Tor Shan. “You could not foretell my future actions, because they stemmed from a new cause originating in my own mind, and had no relationship to past events. My every act was destined to bring me in the shortest possible time into intimate contact with the Trisz, so that I could learn the things which I have learned.”
Devon stabbed with the odorous butt of his cigar.
“A blunder, as you put it, is easy to make in extrapolation. The perceived result may be only a figment of the imagination instead of a veridical picture of the future event. What gives you the impression that you were actually making the future?”
The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister Page 44