Earth's Last Fortress

by A. E. van Vogt

  “Furthermore, even if it was true, the message you received was stupid, because no known power or military knowledge could force the surrender of Delpa one minute sooner. It is impossible to neutralize a time-energy barrier except in the way that it is being done; any other method would destroy the neutralizing machine. The military maneuver being used is the ultimate development of dimensional warfare in a given area of space. And so—”

  The words scarcely penetrated, though all the sense strained through, somehow. His mind was like an enormous weight, dragging at one thought, one hope. He said, fighting for calmness now, “Commander, by your manner to this tentacle and its master, I can see that you have long ago ceased to follow its conclusions literally. Why? Because it’s inhuman. The Observer is a great reservoir of facts that can be coordinated on, any subject, but it is limited by the facts it knows. It’s a machine, and, while it may be logical to destroy me before you leave the ship, you know and I know that it is neither necessary nor just, and what is overwhelmingly more important, it can do no harm to hold me prisoner, and make arrangements for a Planetarian to examine the origin of the message that came to me.”

  He finished in a quiet, confident tone, “Captain, from what one of the men told me, you’re from the 2000’s A.D.. I’ll wager they still had horse races in your day. I’ll wager, furthermore, that no machine could ever understand a man getting a hunch and betting his bottom dollar on a dark horse. You’ve already been illogical in not shooting me at sight, as you threatened on the communicator; in not leaving the ship as the Observer advised; in letting me talk here even as the attack on your enemies is beginning—for there is an attack of some kind, and it’s got the best brain on this ship behind it. But that’s unimportant because you’re going to abandon ship. What is important is this: You must carry your illogic to its logical conclusion. Retrieve your prestige, depend for once in this barren life here on luck and luck alone.”

  The hard eyes did not weaken by a single gleam, but the hard voice spoke words that sounded like purest music. “Willant, take this prisoner into the lifeboat.”

  It was at that moment it happened. With victory in his hands, the knowledge that more than two years remained before the time-energy barrier would be threatening the universe, the whole, rich, tremendous joy that he had won everything—all of that, and unutterable relief, and more, was in his brain when—

  A voice came into his mind, strong and clear and as irresistible as living fire, a woman’s voice. Norma’s!

  Jack, Jack, help me! I need you! Oh, Jack, come—”

  The universe spun. Abruptly, there was no ship, and he was pitching into a gulf of blackness. Inconceivable distance fell behind him.

  There was no ship, no earth, no light.

  Time must have passed, for slow thought was in him; and the night remained. No not night. He could realize that now, for there was time to realize. It was not night, it was emptiness. Nothingness!

  Briefly, the scientist part of his brain grasped at the idea; the possibility of exploring, of examining this non-space. But there was nothing to examine, nothing in him to examine with, no senses that could record or comprehend—nothingness! He felt dismay then, a black wave of it. His brain shrank from the terrible strain of impression. But, somehow, time passed. The flood of despair streamed out of him. There remained only nothingness!

  Change came abruptly. One instant there was that complete isolation. The next, a man’s voice said matter-of-factly, “This one is a problem. How the devil did he get into the configuration of the upper arc? You’d think he fell in.”

  “No report of any planes passing over Delpa,” said a second voice. “Better ask the Observer if there’s any way of getting him out.”

  Figuratively, gravely, his mind nodded in agreement to that. He’d have to get out, of course.

  His brain paused. Out of where? Nothingness?

  For a long tense moment, his thought poised over that tremendous question, striving to penetrate the obscure depths of it that seemed to waver just beyond the reach of his reason. There had been familiar words spoken.

  Delpa! An ugly thrill chased through his mind. He wasn’t in Delpa—he felt abruptly, horribly sick—or was he?

  The sickness faded into a hopeless weariness, almost a chaotic dissolution. What did it matter where he was? Once more, he was a complete prisoner of a powerful, dominating environment, prey to forces beyond his control, unable to help Norma, unable to help himself.

  Norma! He frowned mentally, empty of any emotion, unresponsive even to the thought that what had happened implied some enormous and deadly danger for Norma. There was only the curious, almost incredible way that she had called him; and nightmarishly he had fallen—toward Delpa! Fallen into an insane region called the configuration of the upper arc. With a start, he realized that the Observer’s voice had been speaking for some seconds:

  “…it can be finally stated that no plane, no machine of any kind, has flown over Delpa since the seventeenth time and space manipulation four weeks ago. Therefore, the man you have discovered in the upper arc is an enigma whose identity must be solved without delay. Call your commander.”

  He waited, for there was nothing to think about, at least not at first. He recalled finally that the spaceship had been pulled a million miles a second by the mysterious seventeenth manipulation of time and space; only Derrel had distinctly described it as a repercussion from several years in the future. Now, the Observer talked as if it had happened four weeks ago. Funny!

  “Nothing funny about it!” said a fourth voice, a voice so finely pitched, so directed into the stream of his thought that he wondered briefly, blankly, whether he had thought the words, or spoken them himself; then, “Professor Garson, you are identified. The voice you are hearing is that of a Planetarian who can read your mind.”

  A Planetarian! Relief made a chaos of his brain. With an effort, he tried to speak, but he seemed to have no tongue, or lips, or body. He had nothing but his mind there in that emptiness; his mind revolving swiftly, ever more swiftly around the host of things he simply had to know. It was the voice, the cool, sane voice, and the stupendous things it was saying, that gradually quieted the turmoil that racked him.

  “The answer to what worries you most is that Miss Matheson was the center of the seventeenth space and time manipulation, the first time a human being has been used.

  “The manipulation consisted of withdrawing one unit of the Solar System from the main stream without affecting the continuity of the main system; one out of the ten billion a second was swung clear in such a fashion that the time-energy cycle with its senseless, limitless power began to re-create it, carrying on two with the same superlative ease as formerly with only one.

  “Actually, there are now eighteen solar systems existing roughly parallel to each other—seventeen manipulated creations and the original. My body, however, exists in only two of these because none of the previous sixteen manipulations occurred in my lifetime. Naturally, these two bodies of mine exist in separate worlds and will never again have contact with each other.

  “Because she was the center of activity, Norma Matheson has her being in the main solar system only. The reason your physical elements responded to her call is that she now possesses the Insel mind power. Her call merely drew you toward her, not to her, because she lacks both the intelligence and the knowledge necessary for the competent employment of her power.

  “As Miss Matheson did not protect you from intermediate dangers, you fell straight into the local time-energy barrier surrounding the city of Delpa, which promptly precipitated you into the time emptiness where you now exist. Because of the angle of your fall, it will require an indefinite period for the machines to solve the equation that will release you. Until then, have patience.”

  “Wait!” Garson said urgently. “The great time-energy barrier! It should be completed about now!”

  “In two weeks at most,” came the cool reply. “We received your story, all right, a
nd transmitted the startling extent of the danger to the Glorious. In their pride and awful determination, they see it merely as a threat to make us surrender—or else! To us, however, the rigidly controlled world they envision means another form of death—a worse form. No blackmail will make us yield, and we have the knowledge that people of the future sent the warning. Therefore, we won!”

  There was no time to think that over carefully. Garson phrased his next question hurriedly. “Suppose they’re not of the future, not of this seventeenth, or is it eighteenth, solar system? What will happen to me if this solar system explodes out of existence?”

  The answer was cooler still. “Your position is as unique as that of Miss Matheson. You fell out of the past into the future; you missed the manipulation. Therefore you exist, not in two solar systems, but only where you are, attached in a general way to us. Miss Matheson exists only in the main system. There is no way to my knowledge that you two can ever come together again. Accustom yourself to that idea.”

  That was all. His next question remained unanswered. Time passed and his restless spirit drooped. Life grew dim within him. He lay without thought on the great, black deep. Immense, immeasurable time passed, and he waited, but no voices came to disturb his cosmic grave. Twice, forces tugged at him. The first time, he thought painfully: The time-energy barrier of the Glorious had been completed, and the pressure, the tugging, was all he felt of the resulting destruction.

  If that had happened, nothing, no one, would ever come to save him!

  That first tugging, and the thought that went with it, faded into remoteness, succumbed to the weight of the centuries, was lost in the trackless waste of the aeons that slid by. And finally, when it was completely forgotten, when every plan of action, every theory, every hope and despair had been explored to the nth degree—the second tug of pressure came.

  A probing sensation it was, as if he was being examined; and finally a flaming, devastatingly powerful thought came at him from outside!

  I judge it an extrusion from a previous universe, a very low form of life, intelligence .007, unworthy of our attention. It must be registered for its infinitesimal influence and interference with energy flowage—and cast adrift.

  13

  Returning consciousness stirred in Norma’s body. She felt the sigh that breathed from her lips. Dimly, she grew aware that she must leave this place. But there was not yet enough life in her nerves, no quickening of the co-ordination, the concentration, so necessary to the strange, masochistic power she had been given. She thought drearily: If only I had gone to a window instead of projecting myself against an impenetrable wall. She must get to the breakfast-nook window that overlooked the roof.

  She stood at the window instantly, weary with pain, startled by the swift reaction to her thought. Hope came violently. She thought; Pain—no pain can touch me.

  Behind her, footsteps and other, strange sounds crashed on the stairway; behind her, the outer door blinked into ravenous flame. Ahead was the dark, lonely night. She scrambled to the sill. In her ears was the sound of the things that were swarming into her apartment. Then she was at the edge of the roof, and she could see the milling beast men on the sidewalk below, and she could see the street corner a hundred yards away.

  Instantly, she was at the corner, standing lightly, painlessly, on the pavement. But there were too many cars for further “power” travel, cars that would make devastatingly hard walls.

  As she paused in a desperate uncertainty, one of the cars slowed to a stop; and it was the simplest thing to run forward, open the door and climb in, just as it started up again. There was a small man crouching in the dimness behind the steering wheel. To him, she said, almost matter-of-factly, “Those men! They’re chasing me!”

  A swarm of the beast men wallowed awkwardly into the revealing glow of the corner light, squat, apelike, frightening things. The driver yelped shrilly, “Good God!” The car accelerated.

  The man began to babble, “Get out! Get out! I can’t afford to get mixed up in a thing like this. I’ve got a family—wife-children—waiting for me this instant at home. Get out!”

  He shoved at her with one hand, as if he would somehow push her through the closed door. And, because her brain was utterly pliant, utterly geared to flight, she had no real resistance. A neon light a block away caught her gaze, and she said, “See that taxi stand? Let me off there.”

  By the time she climbed out, tentacles were glittering shapes in the air above the dim street behind her. She struck at them with her mind, but they only sagged back, like recoiling snakes, still under control, obviously prepared now for her power.

  In the taxi, her mind reverted briefly in astounded thought: That mouse of a man! Had she actually let him control her, instead of forcing the little pipsqueak to her mighty will—

  Will! She must use her will. No tentacle can come within—within—She’d have to be practical. How far had they retreated from her power? Half a mile? No tentacle can come within half a mile of this car. Eagerly, she stared out of the rear window, and her eyes widened as she saw they were a hundred yards away and coming closer. What was wrong? In shrinking expectation she waited for the devastating fire of third-order energies, and when it did not come, she thought: This car must be made to go faster!

  There were other cars ahead, and some passing, but altogether not many. There was room for terrible speed if she had the courage, didn’t lose control, and if the power would work. Through there, she directed, and through there and around that corner—

  She heard-yells from the driver, but for a time the very extent of his dismay brought encouragement. That faded bleakly as the tentacles continued their glittering course behind her, sometimes close, sometimes far away, but always relentlessly on her trail, unshakably astute in frustrating every twist of her thought, every turn of the car, every hope.

  But why didn’t they attack? There was no answer to that as the long night of flight dragged on, minute by slow minute. Finally, pity touched her for the almost mad driver, who half-sat, half-swooned behind the steering wheel, held to consciousness and to sanity—she could see in his mind—only by the desperate knowledge that this car was his sole means of livelihood and nothing else mattered besides that, not even death.

  Let him go, she thought. It was sheer cruelty to include him in the fate that was gathering out of the night for her. Let him go, but not yet. At first, she couldn’t have told what the purpose was that quivered in her mind. But it was there, deep and chill and like death itself, and she kept directing the car without knowing exactly where she was going.

  Conscious understanding of her unconscious will to death came finally, as she climbed to the ground and saw the glint of river through the trees of a park. And knew her destiny. Here in this park, beside this river, where nearly four years before she had come starving and hopeless to commit suicide—here she would make her last stand!

  She watched the tentacles floating toward her through the trees, catching little flashing glimpses of them as the dim electric lights of the park shimmered against their metallic bodies; and she felt a vast wonder, untainted by fear. Was this real? Was it possible that there was no one, no weapon, no combination of air, land and sea forces, nothing that could protect her?

  In sudden exasperation, she thrust her power at the nearest glint. And laughed a curt, futile laugh when the thing did not even quiver. So far as the tentacles were concerned, her power had been nullified. The implications were ultimate. When Dr. Lell arrived, he would bring swift death to her.

  She scrambled down the steep bank to the dark edge of the sullen river; and the intellectual mood that had brought her here to this park, where once she had wanted death, filled her being. She stood taut, striving for a return of the emotion, for the thought of it was not enough. If only she could recapture the black, emotional mood of that other dark night!

  A cool, damp breeze whisked her cheeks; but she could not muster the desire to taste those ugly waters. She wanted, not deat
h, nor power, nor the devastation of third-order energies, but marriage, a home with green grass and a flower garden. She wanted life, contentment—Garson!

  It was more of a prayer than a command that rose from her lips in that second call for help, an appeal from the depths of her need to the only man who in all these long, deadly years had been in her thoughts: Jack, wherever you are, come to me here on Earth, come through the emptiness of time, come safely without pain, without bodily hurt or damage, and with mind clear. Come now!

  With a dreadful start, she jerked back. For a man stood beside her there by the dark waters!

  The breeze came stronger. It brought a richer, more tangy smell of river stingingly into her nostrils. But it wasn’t physical revival she needed. It was her mind again that was slow to move, her mind that had never yet reacted favorably to her power, her mind lying now like a cold weight inside her. The figure stood with stonelike stolidity, like a lump of dark, roughly shaped clay given a gruesome half-life. She thought in ghastly dismay: Had she recalled from the dead into dreadful existence a body that may have been lying in its grave for generations?

  The thing stirred and became a man. Garson said in a voice that sounded hesitant and huskily unnatural in his own ears, “I’ve come—but my mind is only clearing now. And speech is hard after a quadrillion years.” He shuddered with the thought of the countless ages he had spent in eternity; then, “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what danger made, you call me a second time, or whether any exists; but, whatever the situation, I’ve thought it all out.

  “You and I are being used by the mysterious universe manipulators because, according to their history, we were used. They would not have allowed us to get into such desperate straits if they could come to us physically, and yet it is obvious that everything will fail for them, for us, unless they can make some direct physical contact and show us how to use the vast power you have been endowed with. They must be able to come only through some outside force, and only yours exists in our lives. Therefore, call them, call them in any words, for they must need only the slightest assistance. Call them, and afterward we can talk and plan and hope.”