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

by Banister, Manly

  “Remember,” Tor Shan reminded him. “Your new body lies in a vault in Sub-den. Atom for atom, it is identical with this body whose hand I hold. When your work is done in the Trisz universe, return to us and live again to lead the Men into that brilliant future you have promised.”

  Kor smiled grimly. His pressure on the older man’s hand was gratifyingly expressive of assent. Only Kor knew that he would not return, that something beyond the thin, almost indestructible barrier between the spaces, would hold him there, forever forbidding return…but he had not let them know, nor would he. Whatever that unknown thing was he had to face, he went forward willingly and gladly, knowing in the causative logic of his mind that what he did set the Universe forever free of the Trisz.

  * * * *

  The Scarlet Saints in a single surge vanished from the region of the star-cluster. Alone on the vast, darksome world wheeling in the midst of nebulosity, Kor prepared himself for the final act of his drama. There was no eye to watch him, no voice to shout a cheering huzza. The machine towered on a glassy, obsidian plain. This was the control center of the vast network of sub-etheric connections from world to world and star to star. The power of thousands of suns was linked here in this great machine that lifted lofty ramparts above the plain. It was the apex of man’s technology, the culmination of the scientific and spiritual endeavor of the race.

  Quickly, Kor flitted across the vast control board, checking and adjusting the settings of dials and verniers. He had not left this final setting to a subordinate. Too much depended upon accuracy. He placed himself in the operator’s niche, a thousand feet above the plain, where shortly the violet arc of the dimension-penetrator would build itself into a ram of power that would punch a hole in space and time and let the enormous energy of this cluster of stars pour through the rent into the universe of the Trisz.

  Everything was in readiness. Kor strapped himself in the operator’s niche with a silent prayer that amounted to a command. Nothing could go wrong now. Kor expanded his mind, felt it spring out, unwinding like a lash of steel, establishing the necessary contacts. Kor’s conscious mind floated free, perceptions attuned, but helpless to guide further the automaton that automatically went through predetermined motions. Kor was aware that his physical self yanked a lever. The metal bar slid smoothly into place without a click in the airless void. For an instant, the wheeling Universe stood still—then all was dark, cold, and intensely silent.

  No more could Kor perceive the glowing nebulosity of the wandering system, nor its thousands of glowing suns, like great arcs in the frosted sky.

  The space of a vibrating electron away, his own Universe still existed, still blazed with the starry incandescence of its firmament. But the stars of the wandering cluster were dark, drained of their energy to the ultimate erg, lightless, lifeless—utterly destroyed.

  The great machine among them on that frigid world Kor had left was a mass of molten metal, coruscating and sputtering in the eternal cold of space, already congealing around the material body of the Man Kor. And throughout all of that Universe Kor’s mind had left, the Trisz vanished, cast out forever by that mortal thrust.

  There was a flutter in the dark of his consciousness, a breathless stir of something that drew Kor’s perception to a razor edge. His mind still expanded, flinging its influence ever outward into the universe and the encompassing energy-body of the Trisz. There were worlds here that had once been planets, and worlds that had once been suns, cold now and dead, forever wheeling in the empty dark, empty save for the frictionless fluid of the Trisz’ being.

  And something else was here. Kor paused to wonder. A whisper, a stir, a rustling call. Voices—he heard voices! Suddenly they began to rain in upon his consciousness, querulous, plaintive, hurling upon him from every side, until a gabble poured through his mind that was like every tongue of the Universe, spoken aloud at once.

  “Life!” murmured the voices.

  “Life!” they yammered.

  “Life!” they howled in a cacophony of wild celebration.

  “Life has been brought among us!”

  “We want life!”

  “Give us life, O God!”

  A canny voice, a cautious voice, but a thundering voice that rose above all the rest, cried out, “What is this life? Who brings life to this dead and nighted universe? Who comes here, and his life is not sucked away like ours? Who, I say—who?”

  A sensation of chill settled upon Kor’s expanding mind.

  “It is I, the Man Kor. I have life,” he returned. “Who questions my coming? Are you the intelligence of the Trisz?”

  “Not I! We are the offal, thrown here in discard as our life was sucked into that intelligence you name. We seek life…”

  A glad cry broke upon the ringing tones of the voice, a familiar cry that set Kor back, caused his mind to sound with gladness.

  “Soma!” he cried. “Soma! I hear you!”

  He heard her, sensed her presence—but where was Soma? Where were the others who cried out, their voices like the beat of thunder that rolls from cloud to cloud and bursts in the drenching rain?

  “Kor!” Soma screamed that he might hear. “Kor—you have brought life with you! You have come to destroy the Trisz!”

  There was nothing of the Trisz, no sound, no sight. Only the empty dark, and the voices that whispered and screamed, begging him for life.

  “Quiet!” Kor thundered at them. “I will give you life, but you must be quiet!”

  He knew now why he had known he would not return. He could have entered this universe, done his job, and returned with his precious life to animate the body in the vault of Sub-den. But here was the place for that spark of life, where mighty things might be done with it.

  Now was the moment! Kor unleashed the flood of energy he bore. The time-stasis field leaped out, slowly at first, then faster and faster—faster than thought in the timeless reaches of this universe. The Trisz universe accelerated. Awareness grew in every atom and circling electron. Energy strained against energy within the body of the Trisz as the alien monster died. Super-titanic forces weaved from end to end of the universe, lashed with demonical fury. The universe awakened. Nebulae flared, spun like giant pinwheels against the forever dark. Mighty suns awoke, began to spin in a mad dervish-dance of life renewed. Pinpricks of light speared through the gloom that had been timeless. Time returned to its domain, under the thrust of the time-stasis field, went mad. Aeons sped swiftly in an instant. Novae flared. Planets erupted from the womb of parent suns, congealed, grew air-envelopes, wheeled insanely in circling streaks of flaring light.

  The universe blazed; its worlds hung fair and lifeless—fresh, new worlds that awaited the coming of life.

  The voices took up their lament again, exclaimed with wonder, cried out with delight.

  “Let us live! O, give us life!”

  “Life, life!” they chanted. “Make us to live on these worlds of light!”

  “There shall be Life,” Kor said.

  In warm seas, the ooze, stirred in sluggish response to the command. Elements joined. A living cell crept out of the mud. Another followed. The cells divided, swifter than thought.

  Life! The Word vibrated throughout the universe. And life there was, on every steaming planet. The cells grew, divided, multiplied, coalesced, died, and were replenished. Minutiae swarmed in the seas, milled on the sunny shores. Algae formed, withered, grew again. Aeons passed. Grasses sprouted, leafed, seeded, died and rose again. Trees developed, shot lordly crowns heavenward. Everywhere the miracle of creation repeated itself through geologic ages.

  The first animals came out of the seas on every habitable world throughout the universe, while the Word yet rang in the very structure of matter.

  The universe was a silent blaze of wondrous light. Kor hung brooding and alone upon it. Where were the identi
ties that had whispered and screamed? Where were those who prayed for life? The universe was bright, vivid, and silent. Softly, Kor called out in the silence of his mind.

  “Soma!”

  “Kor!”

  “I gave them light—gave them Life. The Universe lives!”

  “Yes, Kor. The Universe lives—because of you.”

  “Come,” he said abruptly. “There is a place for us, too!”

  THE GREAT ILLUSION

  Originally published in Super Science-Fiction, February 1957.

  Cliff Rowley’s lean jowls beaded with sweat in the stagnant warmth of the tent. He tapped a bony finger on the camp table and glared at the communicator.

  “Clear out in a week! Why?”

  Commander Waldo Spliid’s tired voice trickled from the communicator grid. Rowley would have appreciated video hook-up now. He wondered how Spliid’s features portrayed his thoughts.

  “Here’s final classification on Hume, Cliff. Category two X sub one.”

  “Closed world!” Rowley groaned. “We’ve only been here three months!”

  “Eleven men in the field, Cliff. You’re the odd ball. Everybody else is satisfied Hume is only a step above savagery in culture. Top rating is satisfied. I don’t like the conflicting picture of it, myself, but …”

  “Nor I,” Rowley stabbed. The look in his hazel eyes hardened.

  “You wouldn’t,” Spliid said calmly, “even without seeing the reports. You’re a percie, Cliff—our only psi-sensitive on Hume. But you’ve got to do a lot more than you’ve done yet to impress top rating. They’re keener on the things you can’t do than the things you can.”

  “A few more months, Commander…”

  “A week, Cliff. Seven days. Get in and dig for all you’re worth.”

  “Me and my little psychic shovel,” Rowley commented bitterly.

  A hum came out of the comm. Somewhere, far above the atmosphere of Hume, the Survey ship, with Spliid on board, cruised among the stars.

  “Clean up any questions you can,” Spliid went on. “Bring your notes up to date. The pilot boat will pick you up…let’s see…this is Wednesday… Wednesday for us, anyway. Next Wednesday, then. Have everything ready to load. And keep on reporting.”

  Rowley started to retort, thought better of it. He switched off the comm.

  Well, that did it. They’d had it, as far as Hume was concerned. And the puzzle still stared him in the face—him, Rowley, the boy who was going to do great things, like with teleconscious apprehension, with psychometry, with…

  Psi-sensitives were new in the Galactic Ethnological Survey Corps—Galethsurv in the cryptic, telegraphic coding of service vernacular. Spliid had not been sarcastic when he had called Rowley a “percie”, the abbreviated, half-humorous, half-scornful, scuttle-butt designation for the percipients.

  Percipiency was still too new in the ethnological service to evaluate. A percie had hunches and feelings he was supposed to follow. Sometimes, it seemed, a percipient vaulted completely over painful steps of reasoning and “cogged” a conclusion that was often correct. The ability could be valuable, if properly used. That’s where Rowley’s harness rubbed. His wasn’t being used.

  He knew something was wrong on Hume. But if Galethsurv wanted to overlook his recommendation for further study, it should be no concern of his.

  But he couldn’t run away from a problem that challenged him to solve it.

  Long grass swished against his calves as he strolled thoughtfully down toward the village of thatched, stone houses, bathed in the pink glow of a setting sun. Blue smoke curled lazily over stone chimneys, and even from this distance, he could hear the sharp, shrill voices of children raised in play. He took in the scene with a single glance, the stream running beside the village, the small, brown figures darting about the grassy lanes.

  The village was nestled in a hollow of the rolling land. Beyond it and stalking around it to enclose it in a clasp of balsam, lay the great pine forest of Hume. Not really pine, but an other-world equivalent of it, each tree spaced a precise, geometrical distance from its neighbor, towering toward flecks of burnt-orange and mauve-colored clouds in the aquamarine sky.

  The forest of Hume was gigantic, mystifying. It challenged the mind. It covered the whole land surface of Hume with its geometrical spacing of trees. And the people who populated Hume called themselves Keepers of the Trees.

  Rowley tried to grasp the fact that what he saw here was almost endlessly repeated over the broad face of Hume. Why did he think that the real culture of Hume was otherwise than what he saw? A thousand thousand villages, purpling in the swift-rushing sunset…a myriad of slender semi-savages, who spent their lives tending the trees. If he, Rowley, could perceive more than other men, then what did he perceive here? He wished he knew.

  What was the real culture? What lay behind this facade? Why did he think the impressions of his ordinary senses reported only the outward effect of a mere stage play? It was a mighty big play, performed for a very small audience—the eleven investigators for Galethsurv. How could he get to the bottom of the puzzle in the few days remaining, with no more guide than an inexplicable “feeling” of falseness? Time was so short!

  The illusion of reality in the village was strong enough to overwhelm him. Teramis was scratching in his garden while the light faded from the sky. He waved and called out to Rowley as he went by. Teramis had spent the day, with the rest of the villagers, among the trees, removing moss and insects, clipping dead branches…why?

  Shy, big-eyed little kids, showing brown where they weren’t clothed, ran in the grassy streets. Unusually—unnecessarily—clean for the offspring of a semi-savage people, he thought.

  Tsu was drawing water from the creek as he came up. She paused, holding the water jar against youthful breasts, restrained under the taut fabric of her yellow sarong. Like others of her race, she was surpassingly slender, breathtakingly beautiful in the liquid melody of her movements. Her face was long, tanned, glowing with the ripeness of youth. Her eyes, long, tip-tilted, were lidded with mystery, and her black hair was substanceless shadow caressing her shoulders.

  It almost came to him as he looked at her, greeted her. Did Tsu look the part of a shy, savage maiden of the wild? He had to admit that she did…she looked like an over-enthusiastic video casting director’s idea of category two X sub one maidenhood.

  The implications slipped from his mind as she clasped his hand. The warm flesh of her palm felt firm against his.

  An electric tingle wriggled up his arm. Not even the rigor of his emotional conditioning could have prevented that much. It was not good for field men to be bothered by emotions. It made their work difficult; they found wives on sub-standard worlds and wanted to bring them out to civilization; or, they reverted to the wilds themselves with their mates. The Corps conditioned its men against anything like that, so that emotional vagaries could not disturb the single-mindedness trained into them—to discover and interpret in the field.

  “Good evening, sintaha Rowley,” Tsu said.

  He followed her into the house she shared with Smarin and Torl, her parents. They greeted Rowley warmly, slim, smiling, happy as usual.

  It was a stage play, performed for his benefit. He moved around among the actors, but he was not an actor himself. He was the audience.

  Rowley had been in this house often, always with a haunting sense of wrongness. He knew it as well as he knew his own tent. Living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and quarters for bathing. Clean people, the natives of Hume.

  Rowley sat on the stone stoop and contemplated the gathering shadows. Tsu came out and sat close beside him. He asked her again about the trees, why the people tended them.

  “It is proper to tend the trees, sintaha Rowley. We have done so always.”

  Was she evading? Or did he fully under
stand her language, simple as it was? He had learned it quickly, and had wondered at the time that it was so similar in grammar and syntax to his own. An odd coincidence—or deliberate casting, to impress the play more easily on the audience?

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “I should like to learn more about the trees.”

  “If it will please you,” she said.

  * * * *

  Another sun was setting. Another day had gone to join the fruitless ones preceding it. The expedition among the trees had told him nothing. Everything was the same as Tsu had explained several times before. His alerted senses found no discrepancy. He was disappointed, and he said as much in his evening report to Commander Spliid.

  “It adds up,” Spliid said encouragingly.

  Rowley felt a glow.

  “You get it?”

  “No, frankly. But top rating must have the right slant. Where does percipiency leave off and old fashioned imagination begin? You’re functioning like a percie, even when there’s nothing to perceive.”

  “I thought you weren’t satisfied…”

  “I’m not a percie, Cliff. Any dissatisfaction I may feel is aroused by the conflicting reports of the field men. Anyway, we can probably clear that up in the correlating department.”

  Rowley’s heart sank. “You are satisfied!”

  The speaker hummed. Spliid said, flatly, “I’ve got to be. Everybody else is…except you.”

  Rowley grunted. “Six days! I’ll try to uncover something.”

  Spliid’s voice sounded worried. “I hate this, Cliff. Your talents can be valuable to the Corps. We deal in cubic parsecs of space and aeons of time. It takes more than ordinary reasoning power to cope with it.”

  “I believe you mean it,” Rowley said.

  “I do. So what’s Hume? One world in millions.”