Fulfilment, page 1
FULFILMENT
by
A.E. Van Vogt
I sit on a hill. I have sat here, it seems to me, for all eternity. Occasionally I realise there must be a reason for my existence. Each time, when this thought comes, I examine the various probabilities, trying to determine what possible motivation I can have for being on the hill. Alone on the hill. Forever on a hill overlooking a long, deep valley.
The first reason for my presence seems obvious: I can think. Give me a problem. The square root of a very large number? The cube root of a larger one? Ask me to multiply an eighteen-digit prime by itself a quadrillion times. Pose me a problem in variable curves. Ask me where an object will be at a given moment at some future date, and let me have one brief opportunity to analyse the problem.
The solution will take me but an instant of time.
But no one ever asks me such things. I sit alone on a hill. Sometimes I compute the motion of a falling star. Sometimes I look at a remote planet and follow it in its course for years at a time, using every spatial and time control means to ensure that I never lose sight of it. But these activities seem so useless. They lead nowhere. What possible purpose can there be for me to have the information?
At such moments I feel that I am incomplete. It almost seems to me that there is something else just beyond the reach of my senses, something for which all this has meaning.
Each day the sun comes up over the airless horizon of Earth. It is a black starry horizon, which is but a part of the vast, black, star-filled canopy of the heavens.
It was not always black. I remember a time when the sky was blue. I even predicted that the change would occur. I gave the information to somebody. What puzzles me now is, to whom did I give it?
It is one of my more amazing recollections, that I should feel so distinctly that somebody wanted this information. And that I gave it and yet cannot remember to whom. When such thoughts occur, I wonder if perhaps part of my memory is missing. Strange to have this feeling so strongly.
Periodically I have the conviction that I should search for the answer. It would be easy enough for me to do this. In the old days I did not hesitate to send units of myself to the farthest reaches of the planet. I have even extended parts of myself to the stars. Yes, it would be easy.
But why bother? What is there to search for? I sit alone on a hill, alone on a planet that has grown old and useless.
It is another day. The sun climbs as usual towards the midday sky, the eternally black, star-filled sky of noon.
Suddenly, across the valley – on the sun-streaked opposite rim of the valley – there is a silvery-fire gleam. A force field materialises out of time and synchronises itself with the normal time movement of the planet.
It is no problem at all for me to recognise that it has come from the past. I identify the energy used, define its limitations, logicalise its source. My estimate is that it has come from thousands of years in the planet’s past.
The exact time is unimportant. There it is: a projection of energy that is already aware of me. It sends an interspatial message to me, and it interests me to discover that I can decipher the communication on the basis of my past knowledge.
It says: “Who are you?”
I reply: “I am the Incomplete One. Please return whence you came. I have now adjusted myself so that I can follow you. I desire to complete myself.”
All this was a solution at which I had arrived in split seconds. I am unable by myself to move through time. Long ago I solved the problem of how to do it and was almost immediately prevented from developing any mechanism that would enable me to make such transitions. I do not recall the details.
But the energy field on the far side of the valley has the mechanism. By setting up a no-space relationship with it, I can go wherever it does.
The relationship is set up before it can even guess my intention.
The entity across that valley does not seem happy at my response. It starts to send another message, then abruptly vanishes. I wonder if perhaps it hoped to catch me off-guard.
Naturally we arrive in its time together.
Above me, the sky is blue. Across the valley from me – now partly hidden by trees – is a settlement of small structures surrounding a larger one. I examine these structures as well as I can, and hastily make the necessary adjustments, so that I shall appear inconspicuous in such an environment.
I sit on the hill and await events.
As the sun goes down, a faint breeze springs up, and the first stars appear. They look different, seen through a misty atmosphere.
As darkness creeps over the valley, there is a transformation in the structures on the other side. They begin to glow with light. Windows shine. The large central building becomes bright, then – as the night develops – brilliant with the light that pours through the transparent walls.
The evening and the night go by uneventfully. And the next day and the day after that.
Twenty days and nights.
On the twenty-first day I send a message to the machine on the other side of the valley. I say: “There is no reason why you and I cannot share control of this era.”
The answer comes swiftly: “I will share if you will immediately reveal to me all the mechanisms by which you operate.”
I should like nothing more than to have use of its time-travel devices. But I know better than to reveal that I am unable to build a time machine myself.
I project: “I shall be happy to transmit full information to you. But what reassurance do I have that you will not – with your greater knowledge of this age – use the information against me?”
The machine counters: “What reassurance do I have that you will actually give me full information about yourself?”
It is impasse. Obviously, neither one of us can trust the other.
The result is no more than I expect. But I have found out at least part of what I want to know. My enemy thinks that I am its superior. Its belief – plus my own knowledge of my capacity – convinces me that its opinion is correct.
And still I am in no hurry. Again I wait patiently.
I have previously observed that the space around me is alive with waves – a variety of artificial radiation. Some can be transformed into sound; others to light. I listen to music and voices. I see dramatic shows and scenes of country and city.
I study the images of human beings, analysing their actions, striving from their movements and the words they speak to evaluate their intelligence and their potentiality.
My final opinion is not high, and yet I suspect that in their slow fashion these beings built the machine which is now my main opponent. The question that occurs to me is, how can someone create a machine that is superior to himself?
I begin to have a picture of what this age is like. Mechanical development of all types is in its early stages. I estimate that the computing machine on the other side of the valley has been in existence for only a few years.
If I could go back before it was constructed, then I might install a mechanism which would enable me now to control it.
I compute the nature of the mechanism I would install. And activate the control in my own structure.
Nothing happens.
It seems to mean that I will not be able to obtain the use of a time-travel device for such a purpose. Obviously, the method by which I will eventually conquer my opponent shall be a future development, and not of the past.
The fortieth day dawns and moves inexorably towards the noon hour.
There is a knock on the pseudo-door. I open it and gaze at the human male who stands on the threshold.
“You will have to move this shack,” he says. “You’ve put it illegally on the property of Miss Anne Stewart.”
He is the first human being with whom I have been in near contact since coming here. I feel fairly certain that he is an agent of my opponent, and so I decide against going into his mind. Entry against resistance has certain pitfalls, and I have no desire as yet to take risks.
I continue to look at him, striving to grasp the meaning of his words. In creating in this period of time what seemed to be an unobtrusive version of the type of structure that I had observed on the other side of the valley, I had thought to escape attention.
Now I say slowly, “Property?”
The man says in a rough tone: “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you understand English?”
He is an individual somewhat taller than the part of my body which I have set up to be like that of this era’s intelligent life form. His face has changed colour. A great light is beginning to dawn on me. Some of the more obscure implications of the plays I have seen suddenly take on meaning. Property. Private ownership. Of course.
All I say, however, is, “There’s nothing the matter with me. I operate in sixteen categories. And, yes, I understand English.”
This purely factual answer produces an unusual effect upon the man. His hands reach towards my pseudo-shoulders. He grips them firmly – and jerks at me, as if he intends to shake me. Since I weigh just over nine hundred thousand tons, his physical effort has no effect at all.
His fingers let go of me, and he draws back several steps. Once more his face has changed its superficial appearance, being now without the pink colour that had been on it a moment before. His reaction seems to indicate that he has come here by direction and not under control. The tremor in his voice, when he speaks, seems to confirm that he is acting as an individual and that he is unaware of unusual danger in what he is doing.
He says, “As Miss Stewart’s attorney, I order you to get that shack off this property by the end of the week. Or else!”
Before I can ask him to explain the obscure meaning of ‘or else’, he turns and walks rapidly to a four-legged animal which he has tied to a tree a hundred or so feet away. He swings himself into a straddling position on the animal, which trots off along the bank of a narrow stream.
I wait till he is out of sight, and then set up a category of no-space between the main body and the human-shaped unit with which I had just confronted my visitor. Because of the smallness of the unit, the energy I can transmit to it is minimum.
The pattern involved in this process is simple enough. The integrating cells of the perception centres are circuited through an energy shape which is actually a humanoid image. In theory, the image remains in the network of force that constitutes the perception centre, and in theory it merely seems to move away from the centre when the no-space condition is created.
However, despite this hylostatic hypothesis, there is a functional reality to the material universe. I can establish no-space because the theory reflects the structure of things – there is no matter. Nevertheless, in fact, the illusion that matter exists is so sharp that I function as matter, and was actually set up to so function.
Therefore, when I – as a human-shaped unit – cross the valley, it is a separation that takes place. Millions of automatic processes can continue, but the exteroceptors go with me, leaving behind a shell which is only the body. The consciousness is I, walking along a paved road to my destination.
As I approach the village, I can see rooftops peeking through overhanging foliage. A large, long building – the one I have already noticed – rises up above the highest trees. This is what I have come to investigate, so I look at it rather carefully – even from a distance.
It seems to be made of stone and glass. From the large structure there rears a dome with astronomical instruments inside. It is all rather primitive, and so I begin to feel that, at my present size, I will very likely escape immediate observation.
A high steel fence surrounds the entire village. I sense the presence of electric voltage; and upon touching the upper span of wires, estimate the power at 220 volts. The shock is a little difficult for my small body to absorb, so I pass it on to a power storage cell on the other side of the valley.
Once inside the fence, I conceal myself in the brush beside a pathway, and watch events.
A man walks by on a nearby pathway. I had merely observed the attorney who had come to see me earlier. But I made a direct connection with the body of this second individual.
As I had anticipated would happen, it is now I walking along the pathway. I make no attempt to control the movements. This is an exploratory action. But I am enough in phase with his nervous system so that his thoughts come to me as if they were my own.
He is a clerk working in the book-keeping department, an unsatisfactory status from my point of view. I withdraw contact.
I make six more attempts, and then I have the body I want. What decides me is when the seventh man – and I – think:
“… Not satisfied with the way the Brain is working. Those analogue devices I installed five months ago haven’t produced the improvements I expected.”
His name is William Grannitt. He is chief research engineer of the Brain, the man who made the alterations in its structure that enabled it to take control of itself and its environment; a quiet, capable individual with a shrewd understanding of human nature. I’ll have to be careful what I try to do with him. He knows his purposes, and would be amazed if I tried to alter them. Perhaps I had better just watch his actions.
After a few minutes in contact with his mind I have a partial picture of the sequence of events, as they must have occurred here in this village five months earlier. A mechanical computing machine – the Brain – was equipped with additional devices, including analogue shapings designed to perform much of the work of the human nervous system. From the engineering point of view, the entire process was intended to be controllable through specific verbal commands, typewritten messages, and at a distance by radio.
Unfortunately Grannitt did not understand some of the potentials of the nervous system he was attempting to imitate in his designs. The Brain, on the other hand, promptly put them to use.
Grannitt knew nothing of this. And the Brain, absorbed as it was in its own development, did not utilise its new abilities through the channels he had created for that purpose. Grannitt, accordingly, was on the point of dismantling it and trying again. He did not as yet suspect that the Brain would resist any such action on his part. But he and I – after I have had more time to explore his memory of how the Brain functions – can accomplish his purpose.
After which I shall be able to take control of this whole time period without fear of meeting anyone who can match my powers. I cannot imagine how it will be done, but I feel that I shall soon be complete.
Satisfied now that I have made the right connection, I allow the unit crouching behind the brush to dissipate its energy. In a moment it ceases to exist as an entity.
Almost as if I am Grannitt, I sit at his desk in his office. It is a glassed-in office with tiled floors and a gleaming glass ceiling. Through the wall I can see designers and draughtsmen working at drawing desks, and a girl sits just outside my door. She is my secretary.
On my desk is a note in an envelope. I open the envelope and take out the memo sheet inside. I read it:
Across the top of the paper is written:
Memo to William Grannitt from the office of Anne Stewart, Director
The message reads:
It is my duty to inform you that your services are no longer required, and that they are terminated as of today. Because of the security restrictions on all activity at the village of the Brain, I must ask you to sign out at Guard Centre by six o’clock this evening. You will receive two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Stewart.
As Grannitt, I have never given any particular thought to Anne Stewart as an individual or as a woman. Now I am amazed. Who does she think she is? Owner, yes; but who created, who designed the Brain? I, William Grannitt.
Who has the dreams, the vision of what a true machine civilisation can mean for man? Only I, William Grannitt.
As Grannitt, I am angry now. I must head off this dismissal. I must talk to the woman and try to persuade her to withdraw the notice before the repercussions of it spread too far.
I glance at the memo sheet again. In the upper right-hand corner is typed: 1.40 p.m. A quick look at my watch shows 4.07 p.m. More than two hours have gone by. It could mean that all interested parties have been advised.
It is something I cannot just assume. I must check on it.
Cursing under my breath, I grab at my desk phone and dial the book-keeping department. That would be Step One in the line of actions that would have been taken to activate the dismissal.
There is a click. “Book-keeping.”
“Bill Grannitt speaking,” I say.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Grannitt, we have a cheque for you. Sorry to hear you’re leaving.”
I hang up, and as I dial Guard Centre, I am already beginning to accept the defeat that is here. I feel that I am following through on a remote hope. The man at Guard Centre says:
“Sorry to hear you’re leaving, Mr. Grannitt.”
I hang up, feeling grim. There is no point in checking with Government Agency. It is they who would have informed Guard Centre.
The very extent of the disaster makes me thoughtful. To get back in I will have to endure the time-consuming red tape of reapplying for a position, being investigated, boards of inquiry, a complete examination of why I was dismissed – I groan softly and reject that method. The thoroughness of Government Agency is a byword with the staff of the Brain.
I shall obtain a job with a computer-organisation that does not have a woman as its head who dismisses the only man who knows how her machine works.
I get to my feet. I walk out of the office and out of the building. I come presently to my own bungalow.
