Nine by Laumer

by Keith Laumer

  But I still had unplayed aces—if there was time.

  I had meant to use the matter transmitter to stage a dramatic proof that I wasn’t the tool of the enemy. The demonstration would be more dramatic than I’d planned. The bomb would fit the machine as easily as the tape. The wheels would be surprised when their firecracker went off—right on schedule—in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

  I set to work, my heart pounding. If I could bring this off— if I had time—if the transmitter worked as advertised …

  The stolen knowledge flowed smoothly, effortlessly. It was as though I had been assembling matter transmitters for years, knew every step by heart. First the moebius windings; yard after yard of heavy copper around a core of carbon; then the power supply, the first and second stage amplimitters …

  How long? In the sump in the next room, the bomb lay quietly ticking. How long … ?

  The main assembly was ready now. I laid out cables, tying my apparatus in to the atomic power-source buried under the vault. The demand, for one short instant, would tax even those mighty engines. I fixed hooks at the proper points in the room, wove soft aluminum wire in the correct pattern. I was almost finished now. How long? I made the last connections, cleared away the litter. The matter transmitter stood on the table, complete. At any instant, the bomb would reduce it—and the secret of its construction—to incandescent gas—unless I transmitted the bomb out of range first. I turned toward the laundry room—and the telephone rang.

  I hesitated, then crossed the room and snatched it up.

  “Listen to me,” Kayle said grimly. “Give me straight, fast answers. You said the Master Tape was there, in the vault with you. Now tell me: What does it look like?”

  “What?”

  “The … ah … dummy tape. What is its appearance?”

  “It’s a roughly square plastic container, bright yellow, about a foot thick. What about it?”

  Kayle’s voice sounded strained. “I’ve made inquiries. No one here seems to know the exact present location of the Master Tape. Each department says that they were under the impression that another handled the matter. I’m unable to learn who, precisely, removed the Tape from the vault. Now you say there is a yellow plastic container—”

  “I know what the Master Tape looks like,” I said. “This is either it or a hell of a good copy.”

  “Granthan,” Kayle said. There was a note of desperation in his voice now. “There have been some blunders made. I knew you were under the influence of the Gool. It didn’t occur to me that I might be too. Why did I make it possible for you to successfully penetrate to the Central Vault? There were a hundred simpler ways in which I could have dealt with the problem. We’re in trouble, Granthan, serious trouble. The tape you have there is genuine. We’ve all played into the enemy’s hands.”

  “You’re wasting valuable time, Kayle,” I snapped. “When does the bomb go up?”

  “Granthan, there’s little time left. Bring the Master Tape and leave the vault—”

  “No dice, Kayle. I’m staying until I finish the transmitter, then-”

  “Granthan! If there’s anything to your mad idea of such a machine, destroy it! Quickly! Don’t you see the Gool would only have given you the secret in order to enable you to steal the tape!”

  I cut him off. In the sudden silence, I heard a distant sound— or had I sensed a thought? I strained outward …

  . . volunteered … damn fool … thing on my head is heavy … better work …

  “… now … okay … valve, gas … kills in a split second … then get out . . ”

  I stabbed out, pushed through the obscuring veil of masonry, sensed a man in the computer room, dressed in gray coveralls, a grotesque shield over his head and shoulders. He reached for a red-painted valve—

  I struck at his mind, felt him stagger back, fall. I fumbled in his brain, stimulated the sleep center. He sank deep into unconsciousness. I leaned against the table, weak with the reaction. Kayle had almost tricked me that time.

  I reached out again, swept the area with desperate urgency. Far away, I sensed the hazy clutter of many minds, out of range. There was nothing more. The poisonous gas had been the only threat—except the bomb itself. But I had to move fast, before my time ran out, to transmit the bomb to a desert area …

  I paused, stood frozen in mid-move. A desert. What desert?

  The transmitter operated in accordance with as rigid a set of laws as did the planets swinging in their orbits; strange laws, but laws of nature none the less. No receiver was required. The destination of the mass under transmission was determined by the operator, holding in his mind the five-dimensional conceptualization of the target, guiding the action of the machine.

  And I had no target.

  I could no more direct the bomb to a desert without a fivefold grasp of its multi-ordinal spatial, temporal, and entropic coordinates than I could fire a rifle at a target in the dark.

  I was like a man with a grenade in his hand, pin pulled—and locked in a cell.

  I swept the exocosm again, desperately. And caught a thin, five line. I traced it; it cut through the mountain, dived deep underground, crossed the boundless plain …

  Never branching, it bored on, turning upward now—and ending.

  I rested, gathering strength, then probed, straining …

  There was a room, men. I recognized Kayle, gray-faced, haggard. A tall man in braided blue stood near him. Others stood silently by, tension on every face. Maps covered the wall behind them.

  I was looking into the War Room at the Pentagon in Washington. The line I had traced was the telephonic hot-line, the top-security link between the Record Center and the command level. It was a heavy cable, well protected and always open. It would free me from the trap. With Gool-tutored skill I scanned the room, memorized its co-ordinates. Then I withdrew.

  Like a swimmer coming up from a long dive, I fought my way back to the level of immediate awareness. I sagged into a chair, blinking at the drab walls, the complexity of the transmitter. I must move fast now, place the bomb in the transmitter’s field, direct it at the target. With an effort I got to my feet, went to the sump, lifted the cover. I grasped the lifting eye, strained— and the bomb came up, out onto the floor. I dragged it to the transmitter …

  And only then realized what I’d been about to do.

  My target.

  The War Room—the nerve-center of Earth’s defenses. And I had been ready to dump the hell-bomb there. In my frenzy to be rid of it I would have played into the hands of the Gool.

  VII

  I went to the phone.

  “Kayle! I guess you’ve got a recorder on the line. I’ll give you the details of the transmitter circuits. It’s complicated, but fifteen minutes ought to—”

  “No time,” Kayle cut in. “I’m sorry about everything, Gran-than. If you’ve finished the machine, it’s a tragedy for humanity— if it works. I can only ask you to try—when the Gool command comes—not to give them what they want. I’ll tell you, now, Gran-than. The bomb blows in—” there was a pause—“two minutes and twenty-one seconds. Try to hold them off. If you can stand against them for that long at least—”

  I slammed the phone down, cold sweat popping out across my face. Two minutes … too late for anything. The men in the War Room would never know how close I had come to beating the Gool—and them.

  But I could still save the Master Tape. I wrestled the yellow plastic case that housed the tape onto the table, into the machine.

  And the world vanished in a blaze of darkness, a clamor of silence.

  NOW, MASTERS! NOW! LINK UP! LINK UP!

  Like a bad dream coming back in daylight, I felt the obscene presence of massed Gool minds, attenuated by distance but terrible in their power, probing, thrusting. I fought back, struggling against paralysis, trying to gather my strength, use what I had learned …

  SEE, MASTERS, HOW IT WOULD ELUDE US. BLANK IT OFF, TOGETHER NOW …

  The paths closed b
efore me. My mind writhed, twisted, darted here and there—and met only the impenetrable shield of the Gool defenses.

  IT TIRES, MASTERS. WORK SWIFTLY NOW. LET US IMPRESS ON

  THE SUBJECT THE CO-ORDINATES OF THE BRAIN PIT. The conceptualization drifted into my mind, here, man. transmit the tape here!

  As from a distance, the monitor personality fraction watched the struggle. Kayle had been right. The Gool had waited—and now their moment had come. Even my last impulse of defiance— to place the tape in the machine—had been at the Gool command. They had looked into my mind. They understand psychology as no human analyst ever could; and they had led me in the most effective way possible, by letting me believe I was the master. They had made use of my human ingenuity to carry out their wishes—and Kayle had made it easy for them by evacuating a twenty-mile radius around me, leaving the field clear for the Gool.

  HERE— The Gool voice rang like a bell in my mind: TRANSMIT THE TAPE HERE!

  Even as I fought against the impulse to comply, I felt my arm twitch toward the machine.

  THROW THE SWITCH! THE VOICE THUNDERED.

  I struggled, willed my arm to stay at my side. Only a minute longer, I thought. Only a minute more, and the bomb would save me …

  LINKUP, MASTERS!

  I WILL NOT LINK. YOU PLOT TO FEED AT MY EXPENSE.

  NO! BY THE MOTHER WORM, I PLEDGE MY GROOVE AT THE EATING TROUGH. FOR US THE MAN WILL GUT THE GREAT VAULT OF HIS NEST WORLD!

  ALREADY YOU BLOAT AT OUR EXPENSE!

  FOOL!! WOULD YOU BICKER NOW? LINK UP!

  The Gool raged—and I grasped for an elusive thought and held it. The bomb, only a few feet away. The waiting machine. And the Gool had given me the co-ordinates of their cavern …

  With infinite sluggishness, I moved.

  LINK UP, MASTERS: THEN ALL WILL FEED…..

  IT IS A TRICK. I WILL NOT LINK.

  I found the bomb, fumbled for a grip.

  DISASTER, MASTERS! NOW IS THE PRIZE LOST TO US, UNLESS YOU JOIN WITH ME!

  My breath choked off in my throat; a hideous pain coiled outward from my chest. But it was unimportant. Only the bomb mattered. I tottered, groping. There was the table; the transmitter …

  I lifted the bomb, felt the half-healed skin of my burned arm crackle as I strained …

  I thrust the case containing the Master Tape out of the field of the transmitter, then pushed, half-rolled the bomb into position. I groped for the switch, found it. I tried to draw breath, felt only a surge of agony. Blackness was closing in …

  The co-ordinates …

  From the whirling fog of pain and darkness, I brought the target concept of the Gool cavern into view, clarified it, held it …

  MASTERS! HOLD THE MAN! DISASTER!

  Then I felt the Gool, their suspicions yielding to the panic in the mind of the Prime Overlord, link their power against me. I stood paralyzed, felt my identity dissolving like water pouring from a smashed pot. I tried to remember—but it was too faint, too far away.

  Then from somewhere a voice seemed to cut in, the calm voice of an emergency reserve personality fraction. ‘‘You are under attack. Activate the reserve plan. Level Five. Use Level Five. Act now. Use Level Five …”

  Through the miasma of Gool pressure, I felt the hairs stiffen on the back of my neck. All around me the Gool voices raged, a swelling symphony of discord. But they were nothing. Level Five …

  There was no turning back. The compulsions were there, acting even as I drew in a breath to howl my terror—

  Level Five. Down past the shapes of dreams, the intense faces of hallucination; Level Three; Level Four and the silent ranked memories … And deeper still—

  Into a region of looming gibbering horror, of shadowy moving shapes of evil, of dreaded presences that lurked at the edge of vision …

  Down amid the clamor of voiceless fears, the mounting hungers, the reaching claws of all that man had feared since the first tailless primate screamed out his terror in a tree-top: the fear of falling, the fear of heights.

  Down to Level Five. Nightmare level.

  I groped outward, found the plane of contact—and hurled the weight of man’s ancient fears at the waiting Gool—and in their black confining caves deep in the rock of a far world, they felt the roaring tide of fear—fear of the dark, and of living burial. The horrors in man’s secret mind confronted the horrors of the Gool Brain Pit. And I felt them break, retreat in blind panic from me—

  All but one. The Prime Overlord reeled back with the rest, but his was a mind of terrible power. I sensed for a moment his bloated immense form, the seething gnawing hungers, insatiable, never to be appeased. Then he rallied—but he was alone now.

  LINK UP, MASTERS! THE PRIZE IS LOST. KILL THE MAN! KILL THE MAN!

  I felt a knife at my heart. It fluttered—and stopped. And in that instant, I broke past his control, threw the switch. There was the sharp crack of imploding air. Then I was floating down, ever down, and all sensation was far away.

  MASTERS! KILL TH

  The pain cut off in an instant of profound silence and utter dark.

  Then sound roared in my ears, and I felt the harsh grate of the floor against my face as I fell, and then I knew nothing more.

  “I hope,” General Titus was saying, “that you’ll accept the decoration now, Mr. Granthan. It will be the first time in history that a civilian has been accorded this honor—and you deserve it.”

  I was lying in a clean white bed, propped up by big soft pillows, with a couple of good-looking nurses hovering a few feet away. I was in a mood to tolerate even Titus.

  “Thanks, General,” I said. “I suggest you give the medal to the volunteer who came in to gas me. He knew what he was going up against; I didn’t.”

  “It’s over, now, Granthan,” Kayle said. He attempted to beam, settled for a frosty smile. “You surely understand—”

  “Understanding,” I said. “That’s all we need to turn this planet —and a lot of other ones—into the kind of worlds the human mind needs to expand into.”

  “You’re tired, Granthan,” Kayle said. “You get some rest. In a few weeks you’ll be back on the job, as good as new.”

  “That’s where the key is,” I said. “In our minds; there’s so much there, and we haven’t even scratched the surface. To the mind nothing is impossible. Matter is an illusion, space and time are just convenient fictions—”

  “I’ll leave the medal here, Mr. Granthan. When you feel equal to it, we’ll make the official presentation. Television …”

  He faded off as I closed my eyes and thought about things that had been clamoring for attention ever since I’d met the Gool, but hadn’t had time to explore. My arm …

  I felt my way along it—from inside—tracing the area of damage, watching as the bodily defenses worked away, toiling to renew, replace. It was a slow, mindless process. But if I helped a little …

  It was easy. The pattern was there. I felt the tissues renew themselves, the skin regenerate.

  The bone was more difficult. I searched out the necessary minerals, diverted blood; the broken ends knit …

  The nurse was bending over me, a bowl of soup in her hand.

  “You’ve been asleep for a long time, sir,” she said, smiling. “How about some nice chicken broth now?”

  I ate the soup and asked for more. A doctor came and peeled back my bandages, did a double-take, and rushed away. I looked. The skin was new and pink, like a baby’s—but it was all there. I flexed my right leg; there was no twinge of pain.

  I listened for a while as the doctors gabbled, clucked, probed and made pronouncements. Then I closed my eyes again. I thought about the matter transmitter. The government was sitting on it, of course. A military secret of the greatest importance, Titus called it. Maybe someday the public would hear about it; in the meantime—

  “How about letting me out of here?” I said suddenly. A pop-eyed doctor with a fringe of gray hair blinked at me, went back to fingering my arm. Kayle ho
ve into view.

  “I want out,” I said. “I’m recovered, right? So now just give me my clothes.”

  “Now, now, just relax, Granthan. You know it’s not as simple as that. There are a lot of matters we must go over.”

  “The war’s over,” I said. “You admitted that. I want out.”

  “Sorry.” Kayle shook his head. “That’s out of the question.”

  “Doc,” I said. “Am I well?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Amazing case. You’re as fit as you’ll ever be; I’ve never—”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to resign yourself to being here for a while longer, Granthan,” Kayle said. “After all, we can’t—”

  “Can’t let the secret of matter transmission run around loose, hey? So until you figure out the angles, I’m a prisoner, right?”

  “I’d hardly call it that, Granthan. Still …”

  I closed my eyes. The matter transmitter—a strange device. A field, not distorting space, but accentuating certain characteristics of a matter field in space-time, subtly shifting relationships …

  Just as the mind could compare unrelated data, draw from them new concepts, new parallels …

  The circuits of the matter transmitter … and the patterns of the mind …

  The exocosm and the endocosm, like the skin and the orange, everywhere in contact …

  Somewhere there was a beach of white sand, and dunes with graceful sea-oats that leaned in a gentle wind. There was blue water to the far horizon, and a blue sky, and nowhere were there any generals with medals and television cameras, or flinteyed bureaucrats with long schemes …

  And with this gentle folding … thus …

  And a pressure here … so …

  I opened my eyes, raised myself on one elbow—and saw the sea. The sun was hot on my body, but not too hot, and the sand was white as sugar. Far away, a seagull tilted, circling.