The Crucible of Time

by John Brunner

  All eyes turned on Chybee, who mustered maximum self-control. She was saved from immediate speech, though, by Startoucher.

  "She's already been 'dazzled! She can tell us about life on Sluggard's moons! I never met anyone who's been in contact with those folk before—except you, of course," he added deferentially. "And she came all the way from Hulgrapuk specially to find out about how it was Sunbride and Swiftyouth that hurled the Greatest Meteorite at us."

  "Halgrapuk," Aglabec repeated, his voice and attitude abruptly chill. "Now, that is a city I have little truck with. To my vast regret, the traitor Imblot, whom some of you may remember, who rebelled against me on the grounds that I was a 'mere male,' has established a certain following there. It would not in the least surprise me if by now she had persuaded a clawful of ignorant dupes that there is no need to fast, or cultivate the welcome assistance of a moldy mantle, in order to attain the knowledge state. But, as you know very well, it is granted only to a dedicated few to learn that mind is all and matter is nothing. It is dependence on the material world which blinds us to this central truth. Our luxury homes, our modern transport and communications, our telescopes and our recordimals and everything we prize in the ordinary way—those are the very obstacles that stand between us and enlightenment. If they did not, why, then there would be enough mental force in this very bower to put a stop to what the so-called scientists are doing!"

  He hunched forward. "Who are you, girl? By what right do you claim to have been stardazzled?"

  Terrified, Chybee could do nothing but concentrate on masking her reactions. With a puzzled glance at her, Cometaster said, "Her name is Chybee and her parents are Whelwet and Yaygomitch. At least that's what she told us."

  "You're a long way from enlightenment, then, you three, despite having dared to take new names!" Aglabec quit the crotch he had been resting in and erupted to full height. "I hereby decree you shall renounce them! Revert to what you were called before! It will be a fit punishment for your indescribable stupidity!"

  Cringing in dismay, the trio huddled together as though their dream-leader's wrath were a physical storm.

  "But—but what have we done that's so bad?" whimpered Startoucher-that-was.

  "You brought among us, right here into my presence, a follower and a budling of followers of Imblot! You took her story at mantle value, didn't you? You forgot that I have many enemies, who will stop at nothing to ruin my work!" Aglabec checked suddenly, leaning towards the petrified Chybee.

  "I thought so," he said at last. "I've seen you before, haven't I? You were at Ugant's, at the pointless so-called debate she organized. Very well! Since you've chosen to come here, we shall find out why before we let you go. It may take some tune, but we'll pry the truth out of you whether you like it or not!"

  VIII

  Being in so much better health, Chybee might have fought free of any two, or even three, of Aglabec's adorers. But, as he himself watched with a cynical air, everyone else in the bower either seized hold of her or moved to block the only way of escape. A tight grasp muffled her intended cry for help ... though, in this quarter of Slah, who would have paid attention, let alone come to her rescue?

  Half-stifled, wholly terrified, she felt herself being enclosed in some kind of lightproof bag that shut the world away. Still she resisted, but within moments she discovered that it was also airtight, and she must breathe her own exudations. Just enough power of reason remained to warn her that if she went on struggling she would lose consciousness at once, and the sole service she could do herself was to try and work out what her captors intended. She let her body go limp, hoarding the sour-gas in her tubules.

  "What shall we do with her?" demanded a voice much like ex-Startoucher's; perhaps it was his, and he was eager to curry new favor with his dream-leader.

  "There's a place I know," replied Aglabec curtly. "Just follow me."

  And Chybee was hoisted up unkindly by three or four bearers and carried bodily away.

  If only odors as well as sounds could have penetrated the bag! Then she might have stood some chance of working out where she was being taken. As it was, she had to rely on fragmentary clues: there, the moan of an overloaded draftimal; there, the chant of someone selling rhygote spice; there again, the boastful chatter of a gang of young'uns...

  But so much might have identified any part of any large city, and the strain of concentration was too great. Despairing, at the last possible moment she surrendered her grip on awareness, wondering whether she would die.

  "Water!" someone shouted, and doused her with it. She opened her maw, but not soon enough. By the time she had registered that she was still alive, reflex had dropped her to the floor, gasping for any drop that might remain. But she lay on an irregular mesh of tree-roots with wide gaps between them; it drained away. There was a stench of ancient rot. What light reached her came from phosphorescent molds, not decent luminants.

  Moaning, she tried to raise her eye quickly enough to identify the person who had soaked her. She failed. A barrier of tightly woven branches was being knotted into place above her. A harsh laugh was followed by slithering as her tormentor departed.

  But at least she wasn't dead.

  Summoning all her remaining energy, Chybee felt for any spongy-soft areas that might have absorbed a little of the water. She found two or three, and though the taint nauseated her, she contrived to squeeze out enough to relieve the dryness of her maw.

  By degrees she recovered enough to take stock of her predicament. The roots she was trapped among were so tough there was no hope of clawing or gnawing through them. The sole opening was blocked. Her weather-sense informed her that she was far below the bower where she had encountered Aglabec. There was one and only one explanation which fitted. He had ordered her brought to the deep foundations of Slah, where nobody had lived for scores-of-scores of years. Above her there must be layer upon layer of dead and living houses, totaling such a mass that it amazed her to find this gap had survived without collapsing.

  With bitter amusement she realized how fitting his choice had been. Did he not wish to lure everyone into the pit of the dead past, instead of letting the folk expand towards the future?

  And those he could not dupe, he would imprison...

  Was she close to the outcrop of rock which must account for the existence of this tiny open volume, little wider than she herself was long? She hunted about her for a probe—a twig, anything—and met only slimy decay and tough unbreakable stems.

  At that point she realized she was wasting energy. What she needed more than all else was something to eat. Because otherwise...

  Oh, it was clear as sunlight. They were going to starve her. When she was as dreamlost as Isarg, they would lay siege to her mind with fawning talk. In the end she would accept passively whatever Aglabec chose to say, until she betrayed Ugant and Hyge and Wam, until—

  No! It must not happen! Feverishly she scoured her prison, tasting the foulest patches of rot in the hope that some trace of nourishment might inhere in them ... and at last slumped into the least uncomfortable corner, having found not a whit of anything less than utterly disgusting. Somehow she had lost even Glig's protective leaves. She could only hope they hadn't been noticed and identified.

  Well, if all else failed, she could gulp down some poisonous mess and cheat Aglabec that way. But she was determined not to let him overcome her hatred of him and all he stood for. She would fight back as long as she could.

  And surely, long before she was driven to such straits, Ugant would have started to worry and sent out searchers!

  Compacting her body to conserve warmth, for there was a dank chill draught here, redolent of loathsome decay, she set about giving herself instructions for resistance, even though already a hint of anger colored her thoughts when she remembered Ugant so prosperous in her fine home, so ready to enlist a stranger in her cause...

  The only way she had to measure time was by the changing air-pressure of successive dawns and sunsets,
for as it turned out the person who had been assigned to pour water over her—the absolute minimum needed to keep her alive—was also instructed to do so at random intervals. Sometimes the chilly shower occurred four tunes in a single day; then a whole one might pass without it, and she was almost reduced to begging as she watched, in the wan glow of the molds, how her mantle was shrinking from thirst. Enough of her pride remained thus far to protect her against that humiliation. But she could discern how hunger was taking its toll. At first she had kept careful count of darks and brights; then after a while she was alarmed to realize she no longer knew precisely how long she had been shut up. Her trust in Ugant gave way first to doubt, then to sullen resentment. The pangs of anger multiplied, until it came to seem that the scientist, not Aglabec, was her true captor, because as yet she had not succeeded in locating this secret prison.

  Then voices began to whisper to her.

  At first she was aware that what she heard formed part of Aglabec's plot. Out of sight behind the mesh of roots must be two or three of his disciples, under orders to confuse her by telling fantastic tales about life in Swiftyouth and Sunbride, Steadyman and Stolidchurl and Sluggard and their multiple moons unknown before the telescope. She called to them, demanding food, and they refused to answer, but kept on with their whispering.

  For a while she argued, reciting what astronomers had worked out from the planets' spectra concerning conditions there, inquiring why anyone should believe Aglabec rather than Ugant and her colleagues. At last, when she was so weak she could scarcely raise herself to half normal height, she received an answer.

  Someone said, and it could have been Startoucher: "You and all those like you want to deny life. But we affirm it. We share the fiery joy of existence near the sun. We enjoy the frozen beauty of the giant worlds. We know what it means to be weighed down by gravity a score-score-fold, and not to care, because we borrow bodies suited to it. From searing heat to bitter cold, we transcend the dull plain world of every day, and eventually we shall perceive the universe. When our task is done, no one will care if this petty planet is destroyed."

  "The destiny of bodies is to rot," said another voice. "The destiny of mind is glorious!"

  "I'm losing mine!" whimpered Chybee against her will. The confession was greeted with a chuckle, then with silence.

  But it didn't last. After she had made one last futile search for something she might eat, new whispering began. This time she could not convince herself there was anybody talking to her. There was only one voice, and it was inside her very pith, and it was her own, so how could she deny what it said? It told her that life must exist everywhere, in an infinite range of guises, and that only a fool could imagine that this was its sole and unique haven. It told her she was guilty of despair, when she needed only to look within her and seek the truth. It echoed and repeated what her parents told their followers, what they had learned from Imblot ... but she was a traitor, wasn't she? She'd dismissed Aglabec as a "mere male" although Aglabec was powerful, all-powerful, exercised the right of life and death over this person Chybee...

  Occasionally she stirred as though touched by a sharp prong. Then the suspicion did cross her mind that some of her thoughts were being imposed from outside. But she lacked the energy to claw hold of the idea. Likewise, she sometimes experienced the shock of realizing that she was beginning to digest her own tissue, and that her mantle was patched with molds like those afflicting her cage of roots, as though the tiny organisms had decided she too was fit to putrefy. But she shut such notions out of thinking, obsessed with yearning for the beautiful visions of life on other worlds which she had been promised. Where were they? Why could she only perceive this horrible, this revolting dungeon?

  Because ... Ah, but bliss, but miracle! Something sweet and delicious had been poured into her mandibles, restoring her strength. She strove to thank whoever had aided her at last, and could only whimper, but at least the sound was recognizable.

  "Ugant...?"

  "Ah, so it was Ugant who reduced you to this plight!"

  A booming voice, a waft of pheromones redolent of well-being and authority. Timidly she agreed.

  "She sent you to spy on us, was that it?"

  "Yes, yes! More food, more food!"

  "Of course you shall have more! I'm appalled to find you in such a state because of what Ugant did! Help her out, quickly!"

  Suddenly she was surrounded by familiar figures: Aglabec, ex-Cometaster, ex-Startoucher. She curled her limp mantle into a sketch for gratitude as they half led, half carried her upward, pausing now and then to offer more of the delicious liquor which had so revived her.

  At last they reached the open air, under a clear sky sown with stars. Weakly she raised a claw to indicate Stumpalong.

  "I see the folk up yonder!" she declared. She did not, but she knew it was what her saviors expected.

  There was a puff of excitement from the young people. Aglabec canceled it with a quick gesture.

  "You believe at last?" he challenged Chybee.

  "How could I not, after all the visions that have come to me?"

  "Are you obliged to Ugant for them?"—in a stern commanding tone.

  "Ugant? What I've been through, all my suffering, was due to her! You saved me, though! You saved me!"

  "Then," said Aglabec with enormous satisfaction, "you must tell us what Ugant is planning, and all the ways in which we can forestall her frightful plot."

  IX

  But Aglabec did not begin his interrogation at once, as though afraid that Chybee's obedience might still be colored by excessive eagerness to please. He had her taken to the home of one of his followers, a certain Olgo. It was neither large nor well kept, but in comparison with the place where she had been incarcerated it was paradise. There she babbled of indebtedness while her sore mantle was tended and food and drink were meted out to her, enough to restore part of her lost bulk, but far from all.

  This, though, was only half the treatment he had decided on. Much more important was the fact that by dark and by bright other of his disciples came to visit, and greeted her as one saved for the cause of truth, and sat by her telling wondrous stories about their mental voyages to the planets. Dimly she remembered there was a reason not to believe such yarns, but she was afraid to claw hold of it; she knew, though nobody had said so, that if she expressed the slightest doubt she would be returned to captivity.

  Besides, the pheromones inciting to credulity were denser than ever, not only within the house but throughout the psychoplanetarist quarter. Docile under the impact of them, she listened passively as she heard about the vigorous inhabitants of Sunbride, reveling in the brilliance of the solar glare, absorbing and transmuting it until by willpower alone they could sculpture mountain ranges to amuse themselves ... or hurl a giant rock on any reckless race that tried to bridge the spatial void.

  Others told her of the ancient culture on Swiftyouth, so far advanced that bodies were scarcely necessary to them anymore. There, she learned, budding and death had long been obsolete; perfected minds could don and doff a physical envelope at whim.

  Yet more marvels were recounted to her, concerning the giant planets each of which was itself a conscious being, the end-product of craws of years of evolution, so perfectly and so precariously adapted that a single seed from any other world might destroy them, and thus waste the fruit of an age-long study of the universe. (Dimly Chybee realized that this contradicted what she had been told at Hulgrapuk, but that of course was due to Imblot's heresy.) To such colossal beings even the inhabitants of their own moons were dangerous; therefore the latter had been taught, by channels of mental communication, to rest content with their own little spheres. Awed, yet determined to fulfill their several destinies, they had set about contacting intelligences more like themselves, using techniques the giant worlds had pioneered, with success in every case bar one: this world whose moon was dead.

  "Our world!" Chybee whispered, and they praised her for her flawless understan
ding.

  "Perhaps, in the very long ago," someone said, "our moon too was an abode of life. But arrogant fools down here must have sent a vessel thither. What else can account for it being barren, when none other of the solar family is so except the asteroids, which orbit too close to the sun?"

  "Not even they, in one sense," someone else objected. "We know of life existing in hot gas-glouds, don't we? I think some of them make use of the asteroids, for purposes we dare not dream of!"

  All the listeners murmured, "Very likely!"

  And one of them added with a sigh, "What miracles must be taking place in the Major Cluster! What would I not give to eavesdrop on the feelings of a new-budded star!"

  "Oh, yes!" whispered Chybee. "Oh, yes!"

  They turned to her, their exudations sympathetic and inviting. Thus encouraged, she went on, "And to think that what Ugant and Hyge are planning could despoil it all!"

  "Would you not work with us to stop them?" demanded her hostess, Olgo.

  "Of course! I want to! It's my duty!"

  A wave of satisfaction-odor rose from the company, and one who was near the entrance slipped away, shortly to return with Aglabec in high excitement.

  "At last!" he said as he accepted the place of honor at the center of the bower. "I've been making inquiries about the situation at Hulgrapuk. It seems that the traitor Imblot has ensnared many folk there who should be wiser than a youngling like yourself. Yet you came hither, did you not, in search of truth?"

  "I did!" Chybee confirmed excitedly.

  "Well, you were guided to where I was, even though you failed to understand the reason. Now you've been shown the error of your ways, are you resolved to make amends?"

  "With all my pith! I never dreamed what harm would stem from what Ugant and Hyge are doing!"