Brian n ball, p.5
Brian N Ball, page 5
The fat man had left the card hi the totex globe. Dod had caught the quick, concealed motion of the Psychman’s hand.
“Ruins,” it read. “Today at 1500 hours. Explore Level 7.”
He had been quick, and his sources of information were good; only a few minutes before, the Chairman had authorized more or less unrestricted movement on the Moon during his last few hours there. And the Psychman knew it. He also knew that the seventh level of the Ruins was Dod’s particular specialty.
Dod looked about and realized he was getting the trick 41
of conspiracy; that was another thing that he felt he had been good at in some other kind of life. He flicked on the ‘ceiver.
“Moonbug at 1500,” he ordered.
“Purpose of journey?” asked the Trans clerk.
“Exploration of the seventh level.”
“Refer to Plag, please, Spacepilot,” answered the clerk.
“Commander!” snarled Dod. Hastily the clerk blanked the screen, and Getler’s face filled it.
“I’ll have to send an escort craft, Commander,” said the Plagchief deferentially. “Until you leave Moonbase you’re my responsibility. We want you to be safe.”
Dod felt his hate welling up, the frustration of five years of being a safe, conventional, obedient automaton rising up and wanting outlet. He remembered Getler’s boots.
“No escort,” said Dod. He outranked the Plagchief now. “That’s an order.”
“I can’t do it, Commander! On my head!”
Dod looked round at the trophy case. Getler’s head would complete the trio of Flagmen who had playfully smashed him about the Plagchief’s office. Getler followed his gaze.
“I’d keep a mile away,” offered the Plagchief. “One vessel-a scout. A mile away.”
Getler could keep him in Moonbase if he was driven to it, Dod realized. But would the Psychman still come if there was a Plag scout in the area? He had no choice.
“A mile. Be sure it’s a mile and no less. And take those clowns off my door!”
“Very good, Commander.” Getler’s face was creased with the effort he was making to hide his antagonism; his eyes could not conceal the sheer cold murderous loathing of his feelings. Dod looked back at him.
If Getler wanted trouble, he was ready. When he looked up, the Trans clerk was there. Certainly, the bug would be ready, fuelled, full reserves, and did the Commander want a driver? Or anything? Was there nothing Trans could do?
“Fifteen hundred,” said Dod, hearing the ring of command in his voice with pleasure.
42
THREE
most of the staff of Trans turned out to see Dod as he climbed into the waiting moonbug. The Station-master had escorted him personally to the craft.
“Fuelled for ten hours’ running,” he said respectfully.
“Air? Food?” Dod found the words snapping out with an authoritative ring; the Station-master quivered. Dod now outranked him by a dozen grades.
“Ample, Commander,” he said. “A full week’s emergency supply in addition to the normal three days’ reserves. This is one of our latest models, Commander, new from Terra only last week-although it’s been extensively checked,” he added hurriedly.
Dod flipped the bug to flight and zoomed to twenty miles above Moonbase. The Plag vessel waited below. There was no chance of evading it-the Plag scout could at a pinch make Terra with its powerful annular-beam engine. He punched a course for the Ruins.
At one time he would have felt a contained, intellectual excitement at the prospect of another day’s delving in the Ruins of the mid-Third Millennium Ruins.
For years, they had been his one hobby, and he had attained some distinction as a selenologist; but now that was gone. It was the fat Psychman’s half-promises that kept him keyed up with interest. Instead of putting another small piece of the Ruins in its proper historical and technological perspective, he was going to find out something about the fat Psychman; and perhaps about himself.
The Plag scout kept the stipulated mile away; it was cruising at the same speed as the moonbug, but it seemed to be moving slowly, warily, like a big cat over the dead landscape of the moon. When Dod grounded his vessel by the entrance to the ruins, and went out, miniature digger in one hand, and heat-pencil in the other, the Plag ship grounded softly, waiting.
43
The Ruins occupied about a square mile on the surface where the small first level had been exposed; beneath that were the many other levels; nine had been excavated so far, but it was known that they extended much deeper, honeycombing for miles outward and downward.
The Ruins had fascinated him for as long as he could remember, exercising a strong hold on his imagination. The great caverns, the weird, torn and blistered machines -if they were machines-and the fantastic, tangled conglomerations of metals and plastics filled him with a sense of awe and purpose. Usually, anyway.
There had always been the possibility of a really startling discovery about the machines of the people of the mid-Third Millennium, who had left no records, no monuments, nothing but these extensive remains of grand designs; maybe there was a starship drive hidden somewhere-maybe the light-drive had once been known and was concealed here. There could be a clue as to the purpose of the Ruins. Even that was unknown.
As Dod penetrated further into the depths, the familiar tingle of excitement touched him; coupled with it was a half-wish to revert to Dod’s life again-he was already thinking of Dod as another person, he noticed.
What was the idea of meeting in the Ruins? At first, Dod had approved of the idea, since normally there would be no one excavating there; vacation time was a month away. But surely there was some less complicated method of communicating? For one thing, the Ruins had not been pressurized yet-and in all probability would never be fully pressurized since there was such a huge space to fill with air. That meant staying in suits, and communicating by radio. Dod walked on and down.
At the fifth level, the full lighting system was replaced by the scanty, insufficient, and temporary fixtures that had been set up only recently. There was a timeless air about the Ruins which became stronger the further you went down; they looked as if they had stood since the beginning of time. ‘
When he reached the seventh level, Dod put down the digger; he looked about. Should he continue with his survey of the storeroom-like caverns he had found and was working on? One or two anomalies, misproportions that seemed to have been deliberately manufactured existed…
44
A flash of light sent him darting behind a great, twisted column of steel. The fat man had arrived. Dod walked out, and was about to speak when he checked himself.
“Relax,” said the Psychman. “At this depth-we’re way down remember-we can’t be picked up.”
“Is that why you said here?”
“No. This place is dangerous now, although there’s no alternative as things are.”
“And how are they?” Dod was feeling irritable now. The Psychman wasn’t getting to the point.
“I can’t rush this, even though it’s dangerous to stay here for long-I’m not certain whether Plag didn’t put someone on to me.”
“You’ve helped me. I’m grateful,” said Dod. “I’ve got my troubles though. I want to keep out of further trouble if I can.”
The Psychman’s huge fat face was solemn. “You ever wondered about these ruins?”
Dod was exasperated. “WonderI spend all my vacations here! I’ve published reports on them. I know them as well as anyone!”
“Not that,” said the fat man. “Not what you know-why you come.”
Dod was puzzled now; what was this leading up to? Surely the Psychman knew why he came. Everybody had hobbies. You went in for Games or excavation, or any one of a dozen other pursuits depending on your Psych grading; Spacepilots nearly all opted for the Games. A few, like himself, went in for more academic hobbies. As a Psychman, he should know that,
“Ever wonder why you’re so interested?” he went on.
Dod tried to think about it: years ago he had fallen under the spell of the Ruins; the ‘texs he had seen had fanned that interest. Why, he had been absorbed in them for-he had forgotten how long.
“This important?” he asked the Psychman. Wasn’t there something more important the Psychman could tell him?
“You don’t know how much. Think. When did you first come here?” He had dropped the sour note in his voice, and looked deadly serious.
“Years ago,” Dod said, and as he spoke a new wariness “crept into his mind. Was the answer too glib? Too ready?
45
“But when exactly? You should remember the first time.”
He was right thought Dod. One always remembered the first time for everything. Then suddenly another answer formed.
“When I first came here!” It was obvious; he felt relieved.
“When was that?”
Dod found himself growing angry with this pinning down-there was no point in it! “In––” he began furiously. Nothing else came into his mind; the tone of his voice was changing as he heard himself continuing. “When I qualified in Space School.” It was like listening to another person.
“When was that? Think!”
Dod couldn’t. Thought had stopped, suspended in a jangle of emotions.
“Step by step, then,” went on the Psychman. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“How long have you been on the Pluto run?”
“Five years.” Or was it four, or ten, or two? His mind raced madly as if something had become detached in his head. Lights and jagged loops of fire flashed in front of him. “Does it all matter?” he shouted, trying to stop the whirlwind of mad thoughts.
“Five is right,” the Psychman said.
“Five,” Dod repeated. It sounded right now.
“And you’re thirty-two.”
“Yes.” That was enough of questions. “That’s right. Five years. Thirty-two.”
“And the figures add up?”
Of course they didn’t, his mind screamed back at him, but he couldn’t face the implications, and his thoughts again twisted and turned like live cables.
“You have to figure it out for yourself,” the Psychman said. His voice drummed on, sounding miles away. “Spacepilots graduate at twenty-one.”
Dod felt the great cavern closing in on him, and the colored lights that flashed and blinked inside his skull blinding him; a band tightened on his brain and a cloud of swirling fire caught him, took him with it until he was falling … and that was all.
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The fat man had propped himself against the twisted column, Dod saw, when he came round.
“You nearly went,” he told him. ‘They do sometimes. I thought I’d got a corpse on my hands.”
“And me,” said Dod. He got to his feet. Memories filtered back, and he could put names to places and people he had not seen for over five years. Ideas and concepts he had forgotten came back, a patchwork of bright spots and grey, still unremembered, recollections.
“You through?” asked the Psychman. Dod knew why the fat man had been unable to tell him directly of his past.
He nodded. “I’ve got it now.”
“You know who you are?”
“No.” It wasn’t important, though; eventually it would all come back to him, his lost identity.
“You’ve beaten the block down?”
“Partly.”
“Where’ve you reached?”
“I’ve got the Ruins-compulsion worked out-it’s sublimation of a search, some sort of investigation I was working on.”
“Yes. Kept you busy and off dangerous ground.”
“And the Spacepilot’s job?”
“I can tell you that,” said the Psychman. “It’s chiefly subliminal, too. Space is the ocean of knowledge. Your ship is the urge to explore. Your research into the unknown becomes driving an old freighter about the System.”
Dod reflected. “To follow knowledge like a sinking star,” he quoted. From the hodge-podge of his memories this came back strongly.
“Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought,” completed the Psychman.
“Clever,” said Dod. “It was clever of them. It kept me happy-and handy, too.”
“It was a great job they did on you,” agreed the Psychman.
“Who was I? What was I?” Dod could face it calmly. But someone, he told himself, someone was going to suffer for this.
“You know I can’t say. You’ll never get back if you’re just told about it. Once you’re blocked-chopped we call it-you never get back unless you beat it down yourself. It’s got to come from within.”
47 “
“And the work I was doing?” Dod was just thinking aloud, and the Psychman didn’t answer. “You’ve seen many cases like mine?” he asked.
“My job,” said the fat man.
“Why block me?”
“You’ll find the answer. It so happens that I don’t know as well. I want to know-Psych was in a state of panic about it, that’s all I know. You were a danger to the Company. And how!”
“And they didn’t kill me,” Dod said.
“What you know they may still want,” the Psychman pointed out, but Dod was in front of him. He would have to be alert all the time to avoid showing Psych that he had beaten their block down.
He groped in his mind for the work he had been doing, but it was like trying to home on Uranus without the guide beams. If only he could find what it was the Company had feared so much, he would find himself too. That was where to start.
“You know why we’re here now?” asked the Psychman. “Why here in the Ruins?”
“I’m almost there. It’s not the safety angle.” The ugly face was smiling broadly in encouragement. Dod fought the Stardust from the whirl of his thoughts. “I know you,” he said to the Psychman. The fat man had seen recognition dawning, and was happy about it.
“You do.”
“So I’m not just a lame dog you picked up.”
“Right.”
Dod looked about the great cavern. “It’s something to do with this place.” He wasn’t asking questions now. Things were taking shape-there was a pattern about the sequence of events. He moved along derelict passages, through tangles of heat-blasted machines, and past massive thickets of wires and cables. He was moving in the right direction, he knew. “I found something in the Ruins-you were in on it.”
“That’s part of it,” agreed the Psychman.
“Only part?”
“The part I know about. And I’d like to be in on the rest.”
“So this isn’t altogether altruistic-there’s something in it for you.”
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“For both of us, I think. I can help more than you think. Am I in?”
Dod held out his hand and the fat man took it. Then he did a curious thing; he crossed to the lights control and cut all but one of the lights. After a few seconds, Dod’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom. The one remaining light drew his attention, and he began to remember.
Then the Psychman knocked on all the switches again, and Dod saw the odd configuration of the shattered girders spring into prominence as the lights brought it into focus. In the middle of the star the girders roughly formed would be the capsule. That was what the Psychman wanted to show him.
“Right in the center!” he said. “How did I miss it when we got here!” Then he recalled that seconds before he had been unaware of the capsule’s existence-until Scrimgouer pulled the switches down-Scrimgouer!
When he looked at the Psychman he could see that he was aware of the change in him by the expression on his face.
“Hello again, Scrimgouer,” Dod said. He could even remember how the Psychman had collected that jagged scar that ran from his forehead to his jaw; Scrimgouer had been an instructor at the Space School, on loan from Psych, and had got into an argument with one of the weapons training instructors. There had been a fight. The Psychman had been badly slashed, but the other man was dead, broken by Scrimgouer’s massive hands.
“Glad you’re back,” said Scrimgouer. “It’s been a long time.”
“I shouldn’t ask how long?”
“I wouldn’t tell you.”
Dod moved across to the girders, jumped for a ledge, and scrabbled in the rubble for what Scrimgouer meant him to find.
The capsule was about the same size as a space-suit helmet, and of a similar material. It was as smooth as an egg, without a scratch or break. Dod knew what to do. He let the capsule drop, broke his own fall by swinging from one fallen girder to another, and knelt by the capsule. The moon’s gentle gravity let it rock for a few seconds, and then it settled on its point of balance at an unlikely angle. Reducing the beam to a minimum, Dod applied the heat-pencil to the top of the capsule.
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It swung open.
“We found this after Space School,” Dod said. “You were out-they broke you down to the lowest grade in Psych.” Scrimgouer grinned in agreement.
“I’m still only an errand-boy. You’d better read and digest that,” he added, pointing to the book inside the capsule.
It was made of some kind of platinum alloy, with wafer-thin leaves; the writing had been done by hand; etched in acid? Dod wondered. The whole thing looked as if it had been completed hastily, for the writing, neat at first, sprawled jerkily after the first couple of pages. The writer had tried for objectivity, but his tone was hysterical. As Dod read on, he saw why.
“So you have found this, my last will and testament, my confession, my apologia pro vita: my indictment, if you like, of the whole insane conception you found this in. You are in the Ruins, or maybe you have taken this to a lab somewhere. If there is anybody about, get rid of him. You have intelligence: without it, you would not have found the heat-key, or the capsule’s hiding-place. But have you got integrity?
