A large anthology of sci.., p.370
A Large Anthology of Science Fiction, page 370
The man stepped back. “This sort of secretive activity has forced the inevitable upon you Upinshads. I can tell you because you will soon be rendered either mindless or dead, and won’t be able to communicate the knowledge. The time is here; you’ve known it was coming. We, the Destroyers, are ready to strike outward, boundlessly outward as is our destiny. As part of it, we’re going to exterminate you Upinshads. All of you. In fact, we’re going to exterminate all of you within a day; we are only waiting for the decree from the Grand Shamdhi.”
THE BIG man pressed a minute stud on a small round crystal on his wrist. A somewhat feminine voice, whiny and distorted, came out of it. “Yes, Lingan.”
The man, Lingan, said tersely. “Come up here, Krisha. The subman’s conscious now.”
Conrad thought rapidly. The loneliness and shock were gone, drowned by desperate urgency.
Well, this was Earth, but it didn’t mean much. He had not expected it to be much the same anyway; he had never expected to get back to Earth at all. But with his background of general knowledge and basics from the Synthesis Schools, he did recall the significance Of the names.
Shiva—that was ancient Indian or Hindustan, and it meant Destroyer. City of the Destroyers. And Upanishad, too, was ancient Eastern in origin. The Upinshads were devoted to discussions of philosophy and ‘intellectual mysticism’—whatever that was, or had been.
Maybe the ancient philosophies of the East had fused with Western culture. The trend had been under way long ago when they had left for Andromeda. A rebound from the futile walls of positive science into mystical worlds of Bhrama, Yoga, and the other philosophies that had arisen, supposedly, in Pamir sixty thousand years before Western Culture had started on its materialistic pathway of machine worship.
But the Upinshads had been considered a rather exalted order among the ancients. Here they were’ considered submen. Kaye and he were also considered as submen. “You two,” he had said inclusively. Then what had happened to Hudson and Koehler? For evidently these men of Shiva knew nothing about either of them nor—
Evidently they hadn’t found the the ship either.
What had happened to the spaceship?
A figure that had every qualification of femininity in theory, but appearing to have very little, if any, in practice, entered with machine-like precision. She gazed coldly at Conrad. “He won’t confess either, Lingan?”
“Nothing. Pretends complete ignorance.”
“Maybe they are mindless. The Upinshads do have peculiar mental ability, Lingan; they have some sort of control. Remember that Yogin we captured and put through Ward Six? I still insist that he willed his heart to stop; there was no physical reason for him to die.”
“Krisha, let’s not discuss it here. I’ll admit it. A subman Is liable to do anything; they’re unpredictable, like animals.”
“Look here,” she said to Conrad. “What were you two doing out there? Did you have some kind of machine?”
“I don’t remember,” said Conrad. “My head aches.”
“Well,” she said carelessly. “We’ll have to use the electrodes. The electrode needles should find something besides these meaningless fantasies about a pre-war spaceflight, and such nonsense. You realize what will happen, of course, if we use them. The mind is almost completely destroyed; only thalamic levels remain. We’ve sent more than one subman back into the forests as an example, with no mind. If you cooperate, we won’t have to use electrode needles. You’ll be permitted quick and painless extermination, and that’s more than the rest of you Upinshads will get. We’re going to spray that valley with atomic dust, you know, among other things.”
It would be better, thought Conrad with an inward shudder, if they gloated, or looked even a little sadistic. But there was no visible emotion at all. He bluffed, for time, for knowledge. “I would tell you, but I can’t remember. There was some sort of machine, then an explosion. Now there’s just a dull ache in my head.”
“There was a machine,” she said, turning to Lingan. “It’s possible he’s telling the truth about the rest of it, but it isn’t worth our time. Soon they’ll all be exterminated. Send him to Ward Seven.” She started for the door. “Peculiar dialect, sounds like an animal.”
She paused by the door. “See you later, Lingan.”
“Yes. Thanks, Krisha.”
He turned back toward Conrad. “Well, that’s it—the best way for you, too. You’ll escape the very painful death the other Upinshads will know. Extermination in Ward Seven is utterly painless. You two are very fortunate Upinshads.”
“I’m not quite convinced,” said Conrad, and tried to think of a way out. He wasn’t manacled at all, except by the metal helmet. Evidently these Shivans considered the Upinshads too inferior even to bother with on that score.
I don’t want to die, he thought. Kaye either. We’ve been too close to it, and we know what it is.
4
LINGAN removed the metal helmet from Kaye’s head, laid it on one of the metal benches. He turned to repeat the process with Conrad. Conrad tensed. Behind Lingan, Kaye was creeping forward, the heavy helmet raised high; a fierce determination drowned the fear in her black eyes.
The helmet made a pleasant, hollow thud against Lingan’s skull. His eyes rolled up, and his body sagged down into Conrad’s arms. “Magnificent,” said Conrad, sincerely. “That was quick thinking; you’re a real subwoman.”
He told her his quickly-conceived idea even as he started stripping the torn cloth from his body, substituting the sleek, skin-tight transparent stuff wrapped around the inert Lingan. Looking down at the results of the completely transparent stuff, he said wryly. “This is almost indecent.”
“An amoral society,” elaborated Kaye in a small weak voice. Then, stirred by professional enthusiasm, her voice strengthened. “Eastern and Western thought merged during our little absence, Alan. Now neither of them has but vague resemblance to the old. The caste system has merged with Western love of militarism and power. Shiva, the Destroyer, rules. And philosophers, intellectuals, are now living like animals, considered as subhuman.”
“Interesting, but we’ve got to get out of here. The forest would look wonderful to me right now, even as an animal. We’ve got to find Koehler and Hudson and,” he hesitated, “—and the ship.”
“Yes,” Kaye said it with an uneasy flicker of her long lashes. “The ship. When I led you away from there, the ship was still visible.”
Conrad moved the stud on Lingan’s wrist radio as he had watched Lingan do. That familiar, pseudo-feminine voice whined distortedly. “Yes, Lingan.”
Conrad was no actor, but he made a good try. The small receiver distorted his voice; that helped. Also he was terse. “Come here.” Rather peremptory, but effective.
Conrad moved over quickly to the smoothly-paneled metal door. Krisha walked in mechanically, with certainty. She stumbled, her eyes widened, her mouth opened. Conrad covered it with his hand. Her body was suddenly twisting, wiry cords; but he held her.
“Sorry,” he panted, “but somehow this doesn’t seem an affront to chivalry.” He didn’t hit her hard; but she collapsed soundlessly. “If she had any doubts about my being a subman, I’m sure her doubts have vanished.”
He dragged her over to the metal chair. Together they stripped her clothing off, and Kaye put the filmy material on. It looked good on her. Or rather Kaye looked good; they studied each other.
“Fantastic,” he said, then they went out through the door and down a long straight metal hall.
“No warmth here anywhere,” said Conrad.
“It’s natural enough,” whispered Kaye. “Take every dominant trend of Earth when we left it, carry it out six hundred years along logical lines of development and where does it lead?”
“Extermination.”
“You get here, inevitably. There’s a synthesis of Western and ancient Eastern philosophy which were always diametrically opposed. Western mechanical positivism has been developed by the warrior class of the East. The thinkers, philosophers, idealists, relegated to barbarism. The ruling class are the militarists and materialists, worshiping machines, gadgets, science-power, here in Shiva—amorality, statism, individual unimportance. Racial-group superiority. Subservience to state or council. It’s all here; only a miracle could have made it any different.”
“A bigger miracle will have to get us out of the City of Shiva,” muttered Conrad as they walked with slow caution down the long cold hall.
Kaye didn’t couldn’t. The hall branched into several corridors. They walked to the left. Around a smooth curve, they found a great oval opening looking over a magnificent city—all metal. A blinding glare like molten steel struck their eyes. Mighty buildings rose to awesome heights, many blocks square at their base, cut through with skyways, and highways. Tubes of metal wound between the buildings.
Conrad leaned against the edge of the high opening, staring with rising hopelessness. That seemed an insurmountable barrier with no weapons, knowledge.
One of those spherical flying craft settled in the opening, clicking against a runway at the opening’s base. The panel slid back; a thin slightly grey man started to step out.
“Let’s grab the other horn,” suggested Conrad, and hit the man in the face. As the figure stumbled back into the flying craft, Conrad and Kaye leaped in after him; they heard someone behind them yelling in sudden alarm.
CONRAD cast one wild glance at the control board, around the rest of the aircraft. Wingless, atomic-powered, he remembered its silent flight. The few levers on the control board were meaningless.
“Try to operate the thing,” he urged as he turned, faced the men running toward them. “I’ll try to keep these warriors out of here.”
Kaye’s voice trembled. She had been through a lot, thought Conrad grimly as he kicked one of the dark men in the groin, parried a peculiar flat-handed punch of the other.
Dimly, he heard Kaye’s voice. “I was conscious—I remember this—”
“Try to get this door shut,” yelled Conrad, as the heel of the man’s hand smashed hard across his nose. Tears blinded him; he dodged. The sharp ridge of hand chopped across his back. An intense pain hitched through his stomach. This man’s face was a grinning mask of emotionless purpose.
Dazedly, he heard the clicking sound. The panel shot across, blocked out the face. Conrad staggered back, turned to stand beside Kaye.
Odd that these warriors carried no weapons, at least here in their City of metal. He watched her fumbling at the control levers. But maybe there was only one city of Shiva, one warrior class, so there were no opponents, no need for weapons-ordinarily.
Then what did they destroy? Surely there was more to destroy than merely the Upinshads. That had sounded merely an incidental part of a vaster plan for destruction. The Universe—that must be an analogy of some sort.
The craft heaved outward. He heard a tearing grind beneath them, then a sudden, sickening acceleration hurled them skyward. “Good girl,” he gasped; “get everything out of this crate you can!”
He staggered over to the cowling, looked out and down. They were suddenly very high. Conrad could see all of the City, miles of surrounding country. And the left half of the City . . . Conrad gazed at the spectacle, awed, overwhelmed. A gigantic bowl and in it were at least half a thousand gigantic spaceships. They were balanced with noses skyward on four wide spread levelling legs. They were huge, formidable; and they were waiting.
He mentioned them to Kaye. She kept on jerking the levers, but Conrad continued verbalizing thought, and his thought had sheered away from the ships. Something horrible about their gigantic silence. Something—Unthinkable.
“This City isn’t so large, Kaye. Looks like Southern California country. The ocean and peninsula—but that tremendous forest is new. And the City is many times smaller than it used to be. Florida is different, too; must be a lot lower average temperature now. The forest is all pines, conifers. I don’t see any other towns or villages anywhere . . .”
He turned, swore softly. Kaye had passed out, was sprawled limply across the control panel.
He eased her down on the soft rubber-like synthetic of the floor. Shadows passed over the ship, darkened the cowling. Pursuers, small deadly skycraft, circling, darting. He saw long narrow snouts snap out of the crafts. Guns, power weapons of some kind. He saw no explosion, felt the effects. The craft buckled, sheered wildly in boiling air. Smoke curled delicately from the control panel. The interior was suddenly a dense choking mass of acrid gas.
He jiggled the control levers with desperate indiscrimination, punched buttons. He felt the sudden rapid drop of their fall diminish, start again, then plunge in a plummeting path straight down. The cowling burst open. An icy wind roared through, almost sucking him out of the craft.
He saw a mass of high pointed pine peaks rushing up into his face. The skycraft spun into the topmost branches. A sweet pungent scent of pine clouded him. He heard the crash of limbs, the soft brushing of foliage. The craft groaned, bounded high in the air, crashed again, this time striking thick solid branches, and trunks, and plunging to earth.
Conrad, buffeted around, managed to protect his head with his arms. The skycraft dropped quickly, struck a large branch, rolled over and thudded heavily and with finality against solid earth.
HE DRAGGED Kaye out of the wrecked craft onto a cool, shadowed expanse of brown pine needles.
The air was crisp, cool, moving softly through the scented boughs. He carried Kaye a while until she was conscious again, and insisted on walking. Then they ran weakly through the sun-dappled quiet of the great forest.
Sometimes when they could see the solid expanse of blue sky through the high small openings between the trees, they also saw their pursuers circling doggedly.
Once they hid themselves in thick brush while two warriors of Shiva edged past with guns poised, eyes searching. They did have weapons now, elaborately coiled mechanisms suggesting basic energy. They were available when needed.
The effects of the stimulant Lingan had given them wore off soon. Old, prolonged weariness seeped into their blood, slowed them; it began to grow noticeably colder as evening slipped in through the great silent trees. And finally they dropped down, unable to force themselves another step.
Kaye was shivering. They crawled beneath the low hanging boughs of a small spruce that formed a kind of shelter from the cold wind and searching eyes. They lay there in each other’s arms, fighting off the invading cold. “Babes in the darkling woods,” said Conrad softly.
But Kaye was already sleeping.
Conrad remembered the nursery rhymes he had studied as a part of a course on pre-atomic psychological expression. Part of a study of inherent death impulses expressed in children during the old systems. It had a kind of terrifying nostalgia as those children’s songs usually had.
“Do you remember, a long time ago, two poor little babes whose names I don’t know—went out to play one bright summer’s day, and were lost in the woods I’ve heard people say—”
The warmth from Kaye’s body seeped through him slowly; a warm blanket of lassitude settled over him. Above him a night-bird sang mournfully. Some large shadowy form padded by.
Went out to play one bright summer’s day—
Eighteen hundred thousand light years—and were lost in the woods I’ve heard people say.
And when they were dead the robins so red brought strawberry leaves and over them spread—
M-32 in Andromeda—the petal faces and horror that shattered that beautiful land? Was that a memory of Andromeda?
Extermination. Philosophers in caves sprayed with atomic dust.
And sang sweet songs the whole day long.
Poor babes in the woods.
5
A SHAFT of liquid, gold moonlight shown strangely on the man who had parted the low hanging boughs and was awaking him. A white-headed elderly man, with a sun-leathered face of what seemed to be infinite wisdom and kindness.
He smiled gently at Conrad, stopped shaking him, and stood up. He was clothed in animal skins; his cap was silver and black fur. Strong white teeth gleamed warmly. “Hiyah,” he said. “You two had better come with me. It isn’t exactly safe here. Bears and big cats get pretty hungry after dark.”
Conrad said. “How did you know about us?”
“Saw you crash and followed you. Had to be careful though; the Kshatya were thick as flies around here for a while.”
Kaye stirred, sat bolt upright, stared, then relaxed when she got a good view of the stranger.
Kshatya, mused Conrad; a slight alteration of another Eastern word for warrior class. Kshatriya. The men of Shiva.
The older man held out a gnarled hand, helped Kaye to her feet. “We’d better hurry. You’ll be safe with us—that is, as long as we’re safe from attack. I guess that won’t be for very long. But meanwhile the Rigeda fire burns brightly tonight, and you’re welcome to join our great Aum, even if it’s for the last time.”
“Sure,” said Conrad. They followed him along a moon-lighted path through the towering trees. The wind sang a gentle night song that had undertones of sorrow, and old, old pain.
Kaye hadn’t said anything. She walked pensively, staring at the elderly man leading them.
The Rigeda Fire. Conrad dug into his memory. He didn’t get the fire part, but the Rig-veda was a collection of hymns which the Aryans brought with them to India—thousands of years before Christ brought his Eastern beliefs to the West. Eastern philosophy had been the big movement throughout the world, when the four had left on their escapist flight to another constellation. And the theory then had been that soon Eastern thought as developed in Asia was to come again out of the incomputable past to rescue Western culture from suicidal materialism.
Even in his time, materialists, positivists, scientists, had been succumbing to ‘intellectual mysticism’ by the millions. But somehow the fusing of the two philosophies had resulted in a terrifying final form of materialism due to Western culture’s obsession with machines, power, with metals and lust for conquest.
