Compleat collected sff w.., p.278
COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 278
The Secretary was finally beginning to understand. "There's been another suicide. An electronics man. And two more insanity cases. Not counting Dr. Pastor."
"The equation should be suppressed till we—"
"Impossible. It must be solved. You don't know your office will succeed. As long as there's a chance that someone may solve that—thing, we've got to take the chance."
"Even if it drives every technician in the country crazy," DuBrose said.
"I don't like it either. Keep in touch with me."
That was all. DuBrose eyed the window port. Claustrophobia touched him chokingly. At any second, all this might dissolve—
Pastor was loose—somewhere. And until his brain was blasted into nothingness, there would be no safety for anything or anyone, anywhere.
He sent another batch of material in to Cameron and tried to conjure up the image of Seth, without too much success.
"What now?"
"How should I know?"
"I can't rush the chief—"
"Naturally. He mustn't suspect the importance of the equation."
"What about Pastor?"
"Done everything you can?"
"I'm not equipped to find him. I've condemned him to death already. Isn't that enough?"
"What about Ridgeley?"
"Oh. Well, the more information I can get about that guy—"
-
Billy Van Ness had a private room in the infirmary. DuBrose went there to study the boy's chart and examine the patient. The excitement caused by Ridgeley's arrival last night had worn off. Van Ness was in a passive state, eyes closed, thin face relaxed.
ETP. Extra-temporal perception might prove valuable in dealing with a man from another time-sector. Pell had spoken of hypnosis, had tried it on the boy, with some success. DuBrose ordered gadgets brought in and used mechano-suggestion on Van Ness. When that failed, he had recourse to an injection.
K-k-k-k-kuk!
The harsh, unpleasant noise rasped out of the boy's throat. DuBrose remembered the palate deformation. Was this sound the equivalent of hard radiation emanations made audible—the probable method of communication used by that unknown race that had created the Duds?
He probed. This time it was easier to make Van Ness speak intelligibly. Pell had broken trail last night. But the temporal disorientation was still present. The mutant made no distinction between past, present and future. Some sort of temporal anchor was needed to pin down Van Ness' wildly oscillating perception. How strange the world must seem to this mutant who never used his eyes! He could see duration—
"—living and then backwards in long extension and stop ... and again backwards, and again—"
Question.
"Shining. Bright domes. So long they reach to—"
Question.
"No word. There is none at the end. Or the bend, I mean. Where they doubled back. Came to look for—"
Question.
"There is no word. Back and back, searching."
Question.
"Where are they now? ... The end is now."
DuBrose thought. Genus X, the race that had built the domes, that strange unimaginable people that had traveled back through time and left the shining, tattered Duds as their eidolons. He wondered. Searching for what?
For something necessary to their existence. And failing to find it. Back through time, in age-long leaps, back to this world that must have seemed so primevally alien to genus X. But the end is now.
"The man you saw last night. Billy—"
"K-k-k-k-kuk!"
Saw? Last night? To the mutant, the words were variables. DuBrose tried to frame his question more narrowly.
"The man. He reached in the right direction, remember?" Would it be memory or prescience to Van Ness' warped, expanded time-sense? "He was longer than anyone else. Except the shining things. He was more complete—"
"Running, running ... I saw him run. There was a fight."
"A fight, Billy? What kind of a fight?"
"K-k-k-kuk! Too short to see—those big machines. Oh, big, big, but so short!" Immense machines of brief duration. What could they be?
"Noise. Sometimes. But sometimes silence, and a place where many lives were short—running, running, as they come ... came ... will come ... k-k-k-k-uk! K-K-K-K-KUK!"
The first symptoms of convulsion began to appear. DuBrose hastily gave another injection and calmed the boy with deft hypnotic suggestion. The racking shudders died. Van Ness lay motionless, breathing shallowly, his eyes closed.
-
DuBrose went back to his office. He was in time to meet Cameron tossing some papers on the desk.
"I'm going home, Ben," the director said, "A bit of a headache. I couldn't do much with these problems. Managed a few. Where's Seth?" He watched DuBrose's face. "Never mind. I—"
"Nothing's wrong, is there?"
"No," Cameron said flatly. "I'll see you later." He went out, leaving DuBrose to wonder. Had Ridgeley got to the chief again?
Symptoms: headaches, nervousness, inability to concentrate—
DuBrose hurriedly leafed through the folders, looking for one in particular. He found it. But the dossier on Dr. Emil Pastor had apparently not been touched. Maybe those other screening charts listing the avocations might—
Nothing there either. Or wait. Opposite one name there was a lightly penciled check mark.
Eli Wood, Low Orleans, mathematician; home, 108 Louisiana b-4088; avocation, fairy chess—
-
IX.
None knew him. He was grateful; he felt deep humility because he could walk through the Ways of Low Denver and not be recognized for what he was. The Ways swept past, crowded with warmen, but no one watched the small, quiet figure strolling on the stationary central path. This was the second test, and probably a more difficult one than the first. Destroying the symbols of his past had been dangerously easy. The temptation had been there. Because he knew, now, that all things were hollow, he also knew how easy it would be to prick the world bubble.
For he could not die. His thought would live on. In the beginning was the Word, and in the end would be the Word, too.
He had wanted to go home, but this test must come first, and Low Denver had been the nearest cave city. His credentials had enabled him to enter. He had used those credentials just as though he were an ordinary man. And he would go on pretending that, in all humility. Only his thoughts, the thoughts of God, would blaze between the stars, the hollow stars, into the hollow universe that he could destroy—
That was the test. He must never use the power again. How often the other God must have been tempted to erase the universe He had made! But He had refrained, as Dr. Emil Pastor must refrain.
He would still call himself Dr. Emil Pastor. That was a part of the program of humility. And he would never die. His body might, but his thought would not.
All these warmen on the Ways—how grateful they would be if they knew they continued to exist only by the loving-kindness of Dr. Emil Pastor. Well, they would never know. Pride was a snare. He didn't want altars.
The firmament was an altar revealing the glory of Dr. Emil Pastor.
An ant crawled out of a crevice and raced toward the Ways. Pastor chased it back to safety. Even an ant—
How long had he stayed here? Surely there had been time enough. He had passed this test of humility; nothing had tempted him to reveal himself to the warmen of Low Denver; he wanted to go home. He hoped his wife would not realize the change. She must always continue to believe that he was Emil-dear, as the children must never guess he was anyone else but Dad. He could play the role. And he felt a surge of tenderness toward them because he knew that they were hollow.
They could vanish—if he willed it.
So he must never will it. He would be a kindly god. He believed in the principle of self-determination. It was not his task to interfere.
Time enough had passed. He stepped on a Way and was borne toward one of the pneumocar stations. In the car, he clutched a strap—the acceleration always did odd things to his stomach—and leaned back, waiting for the brief blackout to pass.
It passed. Fifteen minutes later he stepped out at a Gateway. A group of uniformed men were standing waiting. At sight of him an almost imperceptible tension touched them. But they were well trained. Not a hand moved toward a pistol.
God walked toward them.
-
Cameron was dining with Nela. He watched her calm, friendly face and knew that there was no sanctuary even there. As he watched, the flesh might melt from her skull and—
Music murmured from an audio. Fresh pine-scent filled the room. Cameron picked up a spoon, dropped it again, and reached for a water goblet.
The water was warm and brackish. The shock to his taste buds was violent. But he managed to set the glass down without spilling more than a few drops.
"Jitters?" Nela asked.
"Tired. That's all."
"You were like this last night. You need a furlough, Bob."
"Maybe I'll take one," Cameron said. "I don't know—"
He tried the water again. It was freezingly cold and very sour.
Abruptly he pushed back his chair. "I'm going to lie down for a bit. It's all right. Don't get up. A bad headache is all."
Nela knew how he hated fussing. She merely nodded and went on eating. "Call me if you want," she said, as Cameron went out. "I'll be around."
And then upstairs, in the bed that at first was pleasantly soft and relaxing, and then too soft, so that he kept sinking down and down into a feathery, pneumatic emptiness, with that nausea in his stomach that droppers always gave him—
He got up and walked around the room. He didn't look into the mirror. The last time he had done so, his image had made ripples in the glass.
He walked.
He was walking in circles. But presently he noticed that he was always facing the same spot, the same picture on the wall. He was on a turntable.
He stood motionless, and the room tilted. He found a chair, closed his eyes, and tried to shut out all sensory impressions.
Hallucination or reality.
If reality, then it was more dangerous. Were Seth and Ben DuBrose involved? Their hints about assassination were palpable red herrings. He might have believed them under other circumstances. But these hallucinations—
It was difficult to think clearly.
Perhaps that was the intention. Perhaps he wasn't intended to think clearly.
Half-formulated thoughts swam into focus. He had to pretend to believe that these—attacks—were purely subjective. He had to pretend that they were succeeding in their purpose—
But he knew that the psychic invasion was objective.
He knew that he was being persecuted. Others might not notice the things that had been happening to him. The persecutors were clever. They were determined to drive him mad—well, why? Because he possessed information of value? Because he was a valuable key man?
And that argument added up to one thing. Paranoia, with systematized delusions of persecution.
Cameron got up carefully. He winced. Once again it had happened. And, as usual, the unexpected.
He went downstairs, walking slowly and awkwardly, his face drawn and gray. Nela caught her breath at sight of him.
"Bob. What's wrong?"
"I'm flying to Low Manhattan," he said through stiff lips. "A doctor there I want to see—Fielding."
She came swiftly toward him. Her arms slipped around his neck.
"Darling, I won't ask any questions."
"Thanks, Nela," Cameron said. He kissed her.
Then he went out to the copter, walking unsteadily and remembering the fairy tale of the little mermaid who exchanged her fish-tail for human legs. There had been a price exacted. Ever after that, the little mermaid walked on sharp knives, no less painful because they were imaginary.
Wincing at every step, Cameron walked toward the copter's hangar.
-
"I don't drink," the mathematician said, "but I've some brandy I keep for guests. Or do you prefer Pix? I've got some somewhere. I don't use them either, but—"
"Never mind," DuBrose said. "I just want to talk, Mr. Wood." He laid the portfolio across his knees and stared. Wood sat rather uneasily in a plain relaxer chair, a tall, thin man with old-fashioned non-contact spectacles and a thatch of neatly-combed, mousy hair. The room was meticulously, fussily clean, an odd contrast to Pastor's cluttered, garish eyrie lab.
"Is it war work, Mr. DuBrose? I'm already working in Low Orleans—"
"Yes, I know. I've investigated. Your record shows you're extremely capable."
"Why—thanks." Wood said. "I ... thanks."
"This will be confidential. We're alone here?"
"I'm a bachelor. Yes, we're alone. I gather you're from Psychometrics, though. That's rather out of my line."
"We have our fingers in a lot of pies." Watching the man, DuBrose found it difficult to believe how many degrees Wood held and how many papers had been published under his name—some of them advancing remarkable theories of pure mathematics. "Here it is. You're interested in fairy chess, aren't you?"
Wood stared. "Yes. Yes, I am. But—"
"I've got a reason for asking you. I'm not a chess player. Can you give me some idea of what fairy chess is?"
"Why ... certainly. You understand this is merely a hobby of mine." DuBrose thought Wood blushed slightly as he reached for a pile of chessboards and laid them out on a table. "I don't quite know what you want, Mr. DuBrose—"
"I want to know what fairy chess is. That about covers it."
Some of Wood's shyness was dissipated. "It's a variation of ordinary chess, that's all. About 1930 a number of players got interested in the possibilities offered. They felt there wasn't enough scope in orthodox chess, with its variation of problems—two-man moves and so on. So fairy chess was created."
"And—?"
"Here's a regulation board—eight squares by eight. Here are orthodox chessmen, king, queen, knight, bishop, castle, pawn. Knight moves two squares in one direction and one at right angles, or one and two. Castle in straight lines, bishop—diagonally in any direction on a single color. The idea, of course, is to checkmate. There've been a great many variations, but some themes are simply impossible on the regulation board, especially certain geometrical themes."
"You use a different board?"
"In fairy chess, you may have men of different powers and boards of different types. Modified space compositions—here's one." He showed DuBrose an oblong board, eight squares by four. "Here's another, nine by five; here's a larger one, sixteen by sixteen. And here are fairy chessmen." DuBrose stared at unfamiliar pieces. "The grasshopper. The nightrider—though that's merely an extension of knight's move. Here's the blocker, which can block but never capture. Here's an imitator."
"What does that do?"
"When any man moves, the imitator must move for the same number of squares in a parallel direction. It's rather difficult to explain unless you're familiar with chess principles, I'm afraid."
"Well—I gather it's chess, with a new set of rules."
"Variable rules," Wood said, and DuBrose leaned forward sharply. "You may invent your own men and assign them arbitrary powers. You may design your own boards. And you can have rule games."
"Meaning?"
"Here's one." Wood set up a few pieces. "Let's say, on this, that black never plays a longer move than his previous move. A one-rule game."
DuBrose studied the board. "Wait a moment. Doesn't that presuppose a certain arrangement of men?"
Wood smiled, pleased. "You might make a good player. Yes, you'd automatically have to assume that black's longest move is always available to begin with. Here's another. Black helps white mate in two moves. Oh, there are plenty of problems, the castling mutation, the camel-hopper, the actuated revolving center, checkless chess, the cylinder board—the variations are endless. You can have irreal men. The possibilities are endless."
"Assigning these arbitrary values—wouldn't that bother a man who'd been trained with orthodox chess?"
"There's been a minor war since 1930," Wood said. "The orthodox players, some of them, call fairy a bastard and unacceptable form. Still, we have enough fairy chess players to hold tournaments once in a while."
