by E. C. Tubb
“Death?"
“Yes, fool! Death!”
“But . . .”
“Comain can predict many things,” said the old woman, and it was as if she spoke to herself more than to the young girl sitting at her desk. “It can predict the success of a harvest, the probability of a storm, the result of an experiment. It can predict the life of a building, the endurance of a machine, the extent to which any fabrication can be relied on. Comain can predict all these things. Comain can foretell what must be and it can do it to within 99.9999999 per cent of probability. It can do all these things I say—if it has all the data.”
“So,” continued the old woman, and it was as if Nyeeda had never spoken. “If a machine can do all that isn’t it reasonable to expect it to do a little more? If, with all the available data, it can predict to a day, to an hour even, the durability of a piece of steel, couldn’t it do more? Couldn’t it perhaps predict the life span of a man or of a woman? Couldn’t it state that at a certain time a certain person would reach the end of her days?” She stared at Nyeeda and the girl shuddered to what she saw glowing in the old woman’s eyes. “Answer me, girll Could it do all that?”
“I don’t know, Madam. I . . .”
“Yes, girl. You do know. How many times have you been tempted, to ask about your own future? How many times have you hesitated before asking the one question the answer to which would have made your life a living misery? How often have you wondered just when you would die?”
It was true. Nyeeda knew it, knew too that the old woman had read her innermost thoughts. The temptation was always there, only the fact that all her questions to Comain were recorded, that, and a secret fear of doubting her own inner strength had prevented her from asking the fatal question. Silently she stared at the old woman and a great pity for the Matriarch stung her eyes with unshed tears.
“For the Matriarch it is easy,” whispered the old woman. “She can ask any question she wishes. She has access to Comain here, in her own office, and there is no need to descend to the lower levels of fear that that her questions will be recorded. Perhaps years pass before she ever thinks about it. Ten years, twenty, even more, but, day after day, hour after horn", the temptation is there, waiting. Years pass and she grows old. More years pass and still there is so much to do, so many things to direct, to change, to alter. So many things. Too many. And so the temptation grows and grows and grows and grows. It would be so simple to ask. To end the gnawing doubt, to get some idea so that fhe essential work could be completed in a single lifetime. It would be so easy, just one simple question and all doubt, all fear, all hesitation would be over for ever.”
Something like a sob echoed through the room and Nyeeda winced to the pain in the old woman’s eyes.
“I asked the question. It must have been twenty years ago now. Twenty years. To me at that time it seemed as if I had an eternity of life before me. Then, as the years passed, as age and senility added their weight to gnawing fear, desperation came. Daily I questioned Comain. Daily I had my answer and, as the time lessened, so the probability increased. Two nines! Three. Five. Seven. Nine. Certainty!”
The old voice broke as it rose and the list word came out as a ragged scream. Silence followed, a deep silence broken only by the rasping echo of a woman sobbing with dry eyes and a breaking heart.
“Can you imagine what I ’suffered? Can you even begin to know the desperation, the frenzy, the futile longing and forlorn hope. I tried altering what I had planned deliberately doing my best to make the predictions inaccurate, changing the data as much as possible to vary the original predictions as to my life span. It was for that reason I recalled the Martian colonists. I had hoped that with more than five hundred new sets of data, five hundred new influences in the world, somehow, in some unguessable way, the original time limit would be extended. I was wrong.”
“You mean that there has been no change?” For the first ' time the Matriarch seemed to remember that she was not alone, and she stared at Nyeeda with haggard eyes.
“No. No change. No change even though all the colonists have been re-registered and all the city, too. No change even though we have had fighting and open rebellion. No change even though we have among us a man risen from the dead.” “But he hasn’t been registered yet.” Nyeeda felt a surge of excitement as she stared at the Matriarch. “Rosslyn is still an unknown factor.”
“What!” Hope flared in the faded eyes. “Yes. Yes, of course, I had forgotten. Bring him here, Nyeeda. Stab his brain with electricity if you have to, drug him, do anything as long as he is conscious and-can be registered. Bring him to me. Hurry.”
“Yes, Madam.” The girl hesitated. “Have I a time limit?” “Get him here as soon as possible.” Anger flared in the haggard eyes. “I . . .” The Matriarch winced, almost falling from her chair, and clutching at the region of her heart. She sagged, her skin turning a' peculiar shade of gray, and her breath whistled between her clenched teeth. Startled, Nyeeda sprang to her feet and stooped over the old woman.
“Madam! You are ill. Let me call a doctor.”
“No!” Grimly the Matriarch struggled upright on her chair. “Leave me. It is nothing, a pain I get at times, almost as if a hand is clutching at my heart. Leave me now. I still have time.” Her pain-filled eyes stared at the clock hanging against one wall. It was a beautiful piece of mechanism, electronically operated and warning of the passing hours by means of a deep chime.
“I still have an hour,” whispered the old woman desperately. “Comain can’t fail me now, not after twenty years. I shall die in one hour’s time, at eleven o’clock, Comain predicted it.” She gasped, and perspiration shone thickly against her greyish skin. “Hurry, girl. Get Rosslyn here. Get him here conscious and aware.” Urgently she pushed Nyeeda towards the door.
“Get Rosslyn!”
. She slumped again as the secretary left the room, and her eyes, as she stared at the wide face of the clock, held all terror and all fear.
She had one hope left.
CHAPTER XVIII
Deep within the building which was Comain, in a windowless cell with a barred door and a single light, Curt Rosslyn sat and let his mind writhe like a thing alive within the confines of his skull. Of the passage of time he knew nothing. Of where .he was and why he was here. Between his capture by the metaman and his awakening in this cell lay a blank period, a flame-shot time of dulled senses, of inner pain and a numb, half-aware realisation of peculiar changes and agonising rebirth.
Now he sat and struggled to bring order out of chaos.
It was. his mind, he knew that, knew too that in some indefinable way the blasting radiations of outer space had changed him while he rested in frozen death within the confines of his wrecked ship. He had been half-aware- of it before, his ability to direct the fall of dice and the spin of a ball, his fumbling efforts to move the tiny leaf while sitting in the park, those things had warned him that he was not as other men, not as he used to be.
Now . . .
Pain traced fiery paths through his aching skull,. and the back of his head seemed to be splitting from internal pressures It was as if the normally unused portions of the brain, the nine tenths which seemed to serve no useful function, had acquired feeling and awareness, and Curt pressed the heels of his palms to his throbbing skull as he stared down at the smooth concrete floor of his cell.
Telekinesis. The ability to direct the movements of inanimate objects by mental power alone. He had that ability. Somehow he had acquired it dining his centuries-long journey exposed to the free radiations of outer space, and, if he had acquired one such power, what other unsuspected abilities rested within his activated brain? Teleportation perhaps? The ability to move himself through space with no other aid than his mental control of paraphysical science. Telepathy? He frowned as he thought about it, he wasn’t sure that he would like to be able to read the minds of other people.
Irritably he relaxed and stared at the single bulb illuminating the cell. Electron
s, he thought, tiny particles speeding at almost the velocity of light along a wire. Perhaps . . .
The light went out.
In the darkness he grinned ,and felt unsuspected neuron paths open in the normally unused portions of his brain. It was simple. If it were possible to control dice and ball and leaf, how much simpler must it be to control a tiny thing like an electron? He directed his thoughts and abruptly the light flared with eye-searing brilliance, then, as he adjusted the flow, softened into its normal glow.
So much for that.
The door came next. Suddenly the barred portal sagged against the jamb, the heavy metal bars bowing as to the impact of a tremendous force, and the steady glow of the single bulb flared and wavered in a confused alternation of light and darkness. Curt groaned and slumped on to the narrow bed, blood seeping from his bitten lips and his hands pressed tight against the throbbing agony of his skull.
For a moment he thought that he was going to die, and, so great was his pain, he would have welcomed death for the mercy of its oblivion. A sound forced its way past his clenched teeth, a raw, animal-like sound, a cry born of the ultimate torment the mind arid body of man can endure, and his muscles jerked and quivered in uncontrolled reflexes beneath his sweat-soaked skin.
Slowly the pain died, and, almost sick with weakness and reaction, Curt rested on the narrow cot and stared curiously at the barred door. Why had he felt such torment? How was it that he could control the flow of electrons and yet, when he had tried to wrench open the door, he had suffered such agony? Understanding came and his Ups writhed with selfcontempt at his own stupidity.
He had been a fool!
He was like a child with the muscles of a. man, or, more correctly, a moron playing with new powers. An electron was a tiny thing, its mass almost undetectable, and it needed little to alter its flow. But it still had mass and he had forgotten that. His mental force was new, untried, untrained. He had tasted success and had rushed in to test his powers without thought or any exercise of logic. Like a child who found he could lift a heavy weight, he had tried to move the mass of many tons. The door was of metal, a hard adamantine metal, with thick bars and interlaced strips. He had tried to move it with brute force and his mental energy had recoiled upon itself. Like a man who attempts to drive his muscles too far, he had suffered a form of mental, muscle-strain, and he had paid for it.
He gritted his teeth and again the light dimmed, flared, died and resumed its normal glow. Again he concentrated on the door, but this time with caution, letting his mind probe and feel. Deep down inside his brain something seemed
to scratch the surface of his awareness, like a tiny finger irritating the delicate structure of his brain, like the nagging presence of a half-forgotten thought. He frowned, .trying to ignore it, concentrating on the mass of metal barring his way _ to freedom. Again it bowed, thrusting from the jamb and straining at its multiple locks. Again pain seared him, burning along the neuron paths and bringing sweat to his chilly flesh with the promise of hell to come. Hastily he retracted his thoughts, frowning as the nagging irritation probed within his skull, and he concentrated on it, turning his thoughts inward, and yet, at the same time, keeping his resolve to open the door to the forefront of his consciousness.
The irritation grew, seemed to sparkle with tiny bursts of .-'''mental energy, and—the door swung open.
For a moment Curt stared at it, noting the shining surfaces of the severed locking bars and the easily poised weight of the metal lattice. He smiled as understanding came, and, like a child playing with a new toy, caused the door to swing on its well-oiled hinges.
After a while he rose and walked into the deserted corridor of his cell.
A second barred door opened to his new-found trick of mental concentration and he walked casually towards a short ^flight of stairs. Something stirred in an alcove, a metallic thing with articulated arms and a cone-shaped head. It stirred, ruby light flaring-from its scanning eyes, then metal clashed as it collapsed on to the concrete floor, its articulated limbs sprawled and useless. Curt ignored it, his mind v already probing the intricacies of the locked door of an elevator. He tensed as his ears caught the hum of machinery, and his mind sharpened to the approach of sentient beings. For a moment he hesitated, not yet full confident in his own powers to risk teleportation, and, as he stood in doubt before the elevator, the door swung open and he stared at the startled features of a dark-haired woman.
“Rosslyn!” Nyeeda leapt from the cage and behind her, female guards lifted their weapons in automatic reflex action, the tiny orifices o£ the high velocity pistols centred on his stomach. “Rosslyn! How did you get here?”
He shrugged, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the menacing weapons. He could disarm the guards, he knew that. He could wrench the pistols from their hands, dash them against the unyielding metal of the wall, step, over their broken bodies to the elevator and to—what? Not freedom. Not the calm acceptance of these people as an equal. Not to the safety of friends and the comfort of a place in this civilisation. He could escape,- but what point was there in continually running from a danger he only suspected? If they had wanted him dead they could have killed him long ago, but, despite all that he had been told, they had saved his life and there seemed no immediate reason to doubt their intentions. He stared at the woman.
"Who are you?”
“Nyeeda. Secretary to the Matriarch. But how did you get here?” She frowned as she saw the sprawled figure of the metaman. “Fenshaw! Call the guards.”
“Yes, Madam." One of the women sheathed her weapon -and pressing a stud on her belt whispered into a tiny disc strapped to her wrist. “Shall we return the prisoner to his cell?”
“No.” Nyeeda bit her lips -as she stared at the calm features of the man. “You stay here. You others escort us to the Matriarch. Rosslyn. You will come with me. At once!”
“Will I?” Deliberately he folded his arms, smiling into the perfect features of the dark-haired woman. “Why should I?” “Because if you don’t I’ll have the guards rip your body open with HV slugs.” Something ugly glowed for a moment in the midnight of her eyes and Curt grinned as he recognised her emotion for what it was.
“I don’t think that you will do that,” he said calmly. “You’re worried aren’t you? Why?"
“Please.” Nyeeda glanced impatiently towards the elevator. “Come with me now without question or argument. You will not be harmed, that I promise, but please waste no more time.”
“To the Matriarch?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Curt shrugged and stepped towards the elevator. “You know of me I take it? You know how I arrived here?”
“We know all about you.” Nyeeda gestured towards the guards, and, as they crowded into the cage, slammed the door and stabbed at the control buttons with her slender fingers.
“I’m glad of that,” said Curt quietly. “Am I being taken for trial?”
“No.”
“To freedom then?”
“Please!” Nyeeda stared at him with desperate intensity. "We have no' time for argument. You will not be harmed, but you must do as directed, and do it at once. If not . . .” She fell silent but her eyes were expressive as she glanced towards the watching guards.
“You would kill me?” Curt smiled and the woman flushed as She read the emotion in his grey eyes. “I think not—Nyeeda? Is that your name?”
"It is."
“A nice name,” mused Curt. He stared unabashedly at her dark beauty. “I think that we shall be seeing much of each other, Nyeeda.”
“I doubt it,” she snapped curtly. “I am Secretary to the Matriarch.”
“And I,” he said quietly, “am the friend of Comain.”
He smiled into her questioning eyes.
CHAPTER XIX
The elevator opened directly into the office of the Matriarch and Curt stared curiously about him as the dark-haired woman dismissed the guards and slammed the door of the cage. He stood, a rumpled figure in h
is tom slacks and blouse, and his slender body seemed vibrant with a new strength as he stared at the ruler of Earth with his peculiar scintillant grey eyes' In turn Sarah Bowman stared at the man who "was her one hope of life.
She had aged in the past thirty minutes, her cheeks sagging and her faded eyes burning with desperation. Against one wall the wide face of the electronic clock seemed to stare at her with inner mockery, and, feeling stifled in the confines of the room, she had flung open the high windows. They led on to a small terrace, a piece of architecture designed for ornamental rather than utilitarian purposes, but the builders had raised a low rampart along its edge and sometimes, in the cool of evening or the soft warmth of night, the Matriarch used it as a vantage point from which to survey the city and surrounding plain.
“Does he know?” She snapped the question, her eyes never leaving the calm features of the man. Nyeeda shook her head.
“No, Madam. Shall I inform him?”
“No, you fool!” Savagely the old woman pulled herself upright and rose from her chair. “That would take time, too much time, and I have so little now. So little.” -
“As you wish, Madam.” Nyeeda stepped forward to assist the old woman. r
“Get away from me, girl! Watch the man. I can manage.”
Slowly the old woman moved from .behind her wide desk and halted before a panel set flush into the wall. She pressed her palm against it, spreading her fingers against the sensitised plate, and, as the electronic scanning eye recognised the lines of her palm, the door slid silently aside revealing a small cubicle.
Within that cubicle was Comain.
Curt stared at the ruby lit scanning eye, the dull metal helmet, the low bench and easy chair. It seemed to be a copy of the one he had tried to use in the city, but there were subtle differences though the basics remained the same.
“Will you register the man first, Madam?”