Complete Short Fiction, page 108
Uncontrolled, the little ship hurtles into interstellar space in the general direction of Alpha Centauri.
Earlier the empress, in her determination to protect her family’s sovereign power, has sentenced to death by hanging a Captain Hedrock, whom she believes to be a Weapon Shop spy, and with whom she is half in love.
Captain Hedrock, however, is more than just a Weapon Shop agent, protecting Weapon Shop interests inside the palace. He is Earth’s only immortal man, with private long-range purposes of his own, transcending any temporary commitments he might make.
He persuades the empress to exile him. Unfortunately, in the stress of the hanging episode, the Weapon Makers have come to suspect his bona fides. He is brought before the Council of Thirty and sentenced to death on the suspicion that he is not what he seems. Hedrock escapes, but now the mighty Weapon Makers organization is after him.
He goes to one of his secret hide-outs, and prepares for the tremendous struggle ahead. He owns many powerful companies, and he now uses them to help him force the empress to give up the secret of interstellar drive.
His own purposes are of a great nature: to learn the secret of his immortality, so that all men can be immortal; to further the progressive spirit of men against all tyrannical forces. He realizes that it is necessary to put the fear of revolution into the heart of the family-proud empress.
This he does by using the Weapon Shop secret of vibratory magnification to enlarge himself to giant size. As a hundred-and-fifty-foot giant, he stalks through great cities, destroying them. Homeless people are the most likely to rebel.
The tension increases hour by hour. Hedrock knows that the Weapon Makers must know that he is the giant; and he does not underestimate their power. Among the Weapon Makers are almost literally superhuman men. There is, for instance, Edward Gonish, the No-man, who needs only ten percent of the facts to divine a whole truth.
Gonish is Hedrock’s friend, but Hedrock knows that Gonish is first of all a Weapon Shop man, and that, convinced of the necessity, he will help the Weapon Makers trap Hedrock.
The crisis comes when the empress, alarmed by the gathering unrest created by the giant, invites Hedrock back to the palace. The time has come, Hedrock realizes, to use one of his own secret inventions. He tests the invention, then goes to the palace.
XII.
The warm, cloudy night was ablaze. The long street, the notorious Avenue of Luck, scintillated like a monstrous jewel, as Gonish walked along it. Mile on dazzling mile of jewel, fusing in the remote distance in either direction to a sun-bright shimmer of mingled resplendent white and flaming color.
Great signs glowed at the No-man, a lambent glory of light-engraved messages:
WIN A FORTUNE
WALK IN WITH TEN CREDITS
WALK OUT WITH A MILLION
THE DIAMOND PALACE
10,000,000 DIAMONDS BLAZON
INTERIOR
TRY YOUR LUCK IN A
SETTING OF DIAMONDS
There were more of that type as Gonish walked on: THE RUBY PALACE—GOLD PALACE—EMERALD PALACE—intermingled with hundreds of no less gaudy structures. He came finally to his destination:
LUCK EMPORIUM
BETS AS LOW AS FIVE PENNIES
NO LIMIT
The No-man paused smiling gravely. It was fitting that the empress had selected as their rendezvous one of her properties that catered to the masses. Now, if she only knew where Hedrock was, and he could get the information out of her, and escape with his life—
Gonish’s eyes studied the crowds of predominantly young people who were streaming in and out of the garish building. Their laughter, the rich young voices of them, quickened the splendor of the blazing night.
It all seemed normal, but he stood with practiced patience measuring the faces that moved by, assessing the characters of the loungers from their expressions; and it didn’t take long to grasp the reality:
The sidewalks swarmed with Imperial Government agents.
Gonish stood grim. The Weapon Makers council had insisted that the place of meeting be public. It was understandable that great precautions should be taken by the secret government police, and also that her majesty would not be keen on having it known that she was dealing with the Weapon Shops so soon after the appearance of the giant.
The conference was scheduled for the small hour of 2:30 a.m. It was now—Gonish glanced at his watch—exactly 1:55.
He remained where he was, conscious of a gathering sadness that it was his duty to attempt to ensnare Hedrock. But the identification of Hedrock from his message, as the man behind the giants had been shockingly convincing and, it seemed to Gonish, fully justifying the fears of the council.
It was simply unthinkable that a man who possessed the basic secrets of the Weapon Shops could be permitted at large. And if, as the council believed, the empress knew his whereabouts, the information must be cleverly extracted from her at the meeting which she herself had suggested.
His friend Hedrock must die—and meanwhile he had better go inside and look around.
The interior sparkled with gardens and fountains and mechanical games. It was bigger than it seemed from outside, longer. And it was crowded with about equal numbers of men and women. Many of the women wore masks.
Gonish nodded with abrupt comprehension. So that was to be the method of concealment. The Empress Isher would be simply one more masked woman.
Gonish paused before a game that was all flashing fire, a spray of violently glittering numbers twisting over the velvet blackness of a great board.
Thoughtfully, the No-man watched several games run their blazing course, trying each time to impress the over-all structure of the game into the ultratrained region that was his brain. Finally, he placed ten credits on each of three numbers.
The fire slowed its gyrations in its coruscating fashion, and became a dazzling pillar of numbers piled one on top of another. The croupier intoned: “74, 29, 86, paying odds this time of 17 to 1.”
As Gonish collected his five hundred ten credits, the croupier stared at him. “Say,” he said in an astonished voice, “that’s only the second time since I’ve been at this table that anybody’s ever won all three numbers.”
The No-man smiled. “Mind over matter,” he said gently; and disinterested, wandered off. He could almost feel the croupier’s astounded gaze boring into his back.
What he wanted was a game he couldn’t solve with his special abilities. And there was still nearly twenty-five minutes to find it.
He came to an enormous machine with balls and an involved series of wheels under wheels. The balls, sixty of them, all numbered, started at the top; and, as the wheels spun, the balls rolled gradually downward, progressing from wheel to wheel.
The farther down they went, the more they paid; but the first half of that complicated though swift journey didn’t count—and few ever got lower.
The great attraction, so far as Gonish could make out, was the sensation of watching one’s ball go down, down, with hope not fading until the last second.
It turned out to be too simple. His ball went farthest four times in a row. Gonish pocketed his winnings—and came finally to a game that was a sphere of black and white light. The two lights merged into a single, spinning beam, and came out all white—or all black. The bet was: which Would it be.
Not once was he sure. He finally laid his first wager on the gambler’s basis that white was the symbol of purity.
White lost.
He watched his money whisked off, and decided to forget purity.
Black lost.
Beside him, a woman’s rich laughter tinkled; and then, “I hope, Mr. Gonish, that you can do better than that with the giant. But please follow us to the private rooms.”
Gonish turned. Three men and a woman stood there. One of the men was Prince del Curtin. The woman’s face under its mask seemed long and the mouth itself was unmistakably Isher. Her eyes through the mask slits glinted green and her familiar, golden voice completed the recognition picture.
The No-man bowed low, said, “I’m sure I shall.”
He took his time. There were questions he wanted to ask. The strange thing was, his casual references to Hedrock produced only silence.
After a while, that was astounding. Gonish leaned back, studying the faces of the three men and the woman, genuinely disturbed. He said at last, very carefully:
“My feeling is that you are withholding information.”
It wasn’t, he thought after he had spoken, that they could be doing it consciously. Their earnestness was unmistakable. And they couldn’t possibly suspect that it was Hedrock he was after. Yet there seemed to exist among them a tacit understanding that nothing be said about Hedrock.
It was Prince del Curtin who made the denial, “I assure you, Mr. Gonish, you are quite mistaken. Among us four is every scrap of information that has come in about the giant; and, of course, any clue that may have turned up in the past as to his identity will probably be somewhere in our minds, too. You have only to ask the proper questions, and we will answer.”
It was convincing. This was going to be harder than he had thought, and it was just possible that, dangerous though it was, he might have to come into the open. Gonish said slowly:
“You are mistaken in assuming that you are the only reliable sources of information. There is a man, probably the greatest man now living, whose extraordinary abilities we of the Weapon Shops are just beginning to appreciate.
I am referring to Robert Hedrock, who holds the rank of captain in your majesty’s army.” To Gonish’s amazement, the empress leaned toward him; her gaze was intense, her lips parted breathlessly, her eyes shining.
“You mean,” she whispered, “the Weapon Shops consider Robert . . . Captain Hedrock as one of the world’s great men?”
She did not wait for a reply, but turned to Prince del Curtin. “You see,” she said, “you see!”
The prince smiled. “Your majesty,” he said quietly, “my opinion of Captain Hedrock has always been high.”
The woman faced Gonish across the table, said in a strangely formal tone, “I will see to it that Captain Hedrock is advised of your urgent desire to interview him.”
She knew! He had that much. As for the rest—Gonish leaned back in his chair ruefully. She would advise Hedrock, would she? He could just imagine Hedrock’s sardonic reception of the information.
Gonish straightened slowly. His situation was becoming desperate. The entire Weapon Shop world was geared to act on the results of this meeting. And still he had nothing.
There was no doubt that these people here were as anxious to get rid of the giant as the Weapon Makers were to get hold of Hedrock; and the irony was that the death of Hedrock would simultaneously solve both problems.
With an effort, Gonish mustered his best possible smile, and said:
“You seem to have a little mystery among yourselves about Captain Hedrock. May I ask what it is?”
Surprisingly, the question brought a puzzled stare from Prince del Curtin. “I should have thought,” the man said finally, politely, “that in your fashion you would long ago have put two and two together. Or is it possible that, of all the people in the solar system, you are not aware of what happened tonight. Where have you been since 9:45?”
Gonish was silent, utterly startled. In his desire to keep his mind clear for this meeting, he had come early to Imperial City. At 9:30 he had gone into a quiet little restaurant. Emerging an hour later, he had attended a play. That ended at 12:30. Since then, he had wandered along sightseeing and—
He had ignored the news. He knew nothing. Incredibly, half the world could have been destroyed and he wouldn’t know. Prince del Curtin was speaking again:
“It is true that the identity of the man in such a case is traditionally withheld, but—”
“Prince!”
It was the empress, her voice low and tense. The men looked at her, startled, as she went on, more grimly:
“Say no more. There is something wrong. All this questioning about Captain Hedrock has an ulterior motive. They’re only partly interested in the giant. They’re—”
She herself must have realized that her warning was too late. She stopped and looked at Gonish; and the look in her eyes brought pity welling up in him. Until this moment, he had never regarded the Empress Isher as quite human; but now—
Only there could be no pity. With a jerk, Gonish brought his hand up near his mouth, tore back the sleeve, and said ringingly into the tiny radio that was strapped there:
“Captain Hedrock is in the empress’ personal apartment—”
They were quick, those three men. They bowled him over in one concerted rush; and then they were on top of him. Gonish offered no resistance, but simply lay there.
After a moment, he felt an odd relief that he, who had been compelled by inexorable duty to betray his friend, would now die, too.
XIII.
It wasn’t that the darkness lightened. Neelan sagged for a long time with his eyes open; and the night was abysmal. But there was a difference.
Why, of course, he thought finally, he was conscious, whereas he had been—
What?
It was hard for a moment, then, to grasp the idea of the two kinds of night involved. His brain seemed far away, his thought a dead-slow panorama.
Memory came, but there was a remote quality to it, as if, not he, but some other facet of himself had experienced the physicae involved.
Slowly, Neelan grew aware of a quietness around him, a lack of sensation, of movement. The elements of his mind gathered a little closer together; he straightened in the control chair, and glanced at the ’stat plates.
He was staring into space. In every direction were stars. No sun; nothing but needle-sharp points of light of varying brilliance.
And no pressure of acceleration, no gravity It wasn’t an unusual experience; it was simply—
He glanced at the Infinity Drive, but it was still in gear. That was the trouble. It was still in gear. And there was nothing.
The speedometer showed impossible figures; the automatic calendar said that the time was 7 p.m., August 28, 4791 Isher.
Neelan nodded to himself. So he had been unconscious for twenty-two days; and during that time the ship had gone—
He glanced at the speedometer again—and turned away swiftly without hazarding even the beginning of an estimate.
The abrupt physical movement brought a whirling in his brain, and a blur of nausea. He sat for a while, being quietly but violently sick. Slowly, however, his body that had withstood so many strains, struck a metabolistic balance; and realization came that hunger had brought that painful dizziness.
The craving grew monstrously from the thought of it. Sense-blurring hunger. Incredible, tearing emptiness of hunger! It was so nearly annihilating in the anguish it set in motion that his body seemed on the verge of twisting up.
He made two attempts to get to his feet, and each time fell back ill and dizzy. The third time he lowered himself to the floor, and crawled toward the galley.
Eating required a full hour because, after the first few sips of a reviving dextrose liquid, he forced himself to a careful diet. Afterward, it struck him that he ought to sleep.
Neelan hesitated. There was the problem of his distance away from Earth, and the curious lack of acceleration pressure. Somewhere in the course of his flight, the stellar drive had attained a supernal oneness with some great basic force. And the Point 00000 . . . 1 of inertia had vanished like a time-set smoke screen.
Frowning, he went back to the control board, switched off the lights again, and sat for long minutes manipulating the telescopic adjustors on the ’stats. A few stars waxed brighter, but none rushed into size; none showed any evidence of being really near.
The speedometer still registered something over four hundred million miles a second. At that rate, he was covering the distance between Earth and Centaurus every eighteen hours. The problem accordingly was—
Thoughtfully, he clutched the automatic half-circle into the steering shaft. It whirred and then went ticaticatic—a hundred and eighty times, very fast.
The stars reeled, but settled into steadiness as the stop watch showed three seconds. Neelan felt a glow. A perfect hairpin turn in twelve hundred million miles. At that rate he could be within sight of Earth’s sun in another twenty-two days. No, wait!
Neelan shook his head. It wasn’t as simple as that. He couldn’t possibly subject himself again to the kind of pressure that had held him unconscious so long.
After some mental estimations, he set the drive lever at three quarters reverse—and waited. Logic said he had recovered consciousness soon after the pressure stopped; so—
Two hours passed, and nothing happened. His head kept drooping, his eyes closing. But the blow of deceleration didn’t come.
A thought occurred to him; and he went back warily to look at the engines. But the meters showed a seventy-five-percent drain of power. The outer hide of the drive shaft felt natural: cold and—tense.
It was disturbingly obvious that he had been long in the supernormal force field that had nullified the remnants of his inertia, much longer than seemed reasonable or safe.
Uneasily expectant, Neelan finally went to sleep on one of the couches.
There was a jar that shook his bones. Neelan wakened with a start, but he calmed swiftly as he felt the steady pressure on his body. It was strong, like the current of a very heavy wind; but now that he had taken the first shock, it was bearable.
The only question was: where? At what point of speed had he emerged from the mysterious inertialess field, back into the world of deceleration pressures.
He ached to leap up, and examine the speedometer, but instead held himself where he was; he felt acutely conscious of the tingling readjustments going on in his body, the electronic, atomic, molecular, neural, muscular readjustments.
