Complete Short Fiction, page 112
“Our constitution,” said Bayd Roberts, the senior councilor, with dignity, “demands that we take any action necessary to maintain our position. The proviso that this be done without an attack on the person or residence of the reigning Isher, her heirs or successors, has no meaning in an extreme emergency such as this. You will notice that we did secure the absence of her majesty during the attack. That—”
“I must interrupt—” It was the chairman of the council. “Incredibly, the prisoner has succeeded in concentrating the conversation according to his own desires. I can understand that we all have a guilty feeling about the attack on the palace, but we are NOT required to defend our actions to the prisoner. Therefore—”
He spoke curtly into his chair-arm ’stat, “Commander, come in here and put a sack over the prisoner’s head.”
Hedrock was smiling gently as the guard of ten came in. He said, “We will now have the shock.”
He stood perfectly still as the men grabbed him. The sack came up and—
It happened.
When Hedrock, in the palace, half an hour before, had stepped through the section of wall, which he had brought up from the tombs, he found himself in a dim world.
He stood for a long time letting his body adjust, and hoping that no one would attempt to follow him through that electronic-force field.
It was not a personal worry. The vibratory shield was tuned to his body and his alone; and during all the years that it had been part of the wall in the underground palace storeroom, the only danger had been that someone might unknowingly wander into it, and suffer damage.
Hedrock had often wondered what would happen to such an unlucky innocent. Several animals that he had tagged and put through an experimental model had been sent back from points as far away as ten thousand miles.
Some had never been returned despite the stiff reward offer printed on the tag.
Now that he himself was in, there was no hurry. Normal time and space laws had no meaning in this realm of half-light.
It was nowhere and it was everywhere. It was the quickest place in which to go mad, because the body that intruded on it experienced time; it didn’t.
He had found that a six-hour session made genuinely serious inroads on his sanity. His incursion earlier in the evening, through the shield in his hide-out, had been for what would have been two hours normal time, and the trip had revealed to him that the empress wanted to marry him.
Temporarily, that had guaranteed his safety; what was more important it also guaranteed that he would have access to the shield in the palace tombs. Accordingly, he had withdrawn swiftly, conserving the remaining four hours of the six that was the human limit.
His present incursion mustn’t occupy more than four hours, preferably three, preferably two. After which, he’d have to stay away from the mind-destroying thing for months.
The idea for the invention had been broached to him during one of his terms as chairman of the Weapon Makers council, an enormously autocratic position that had enabled him to assign an entire laboratory of physicists to assist the brilliant young man whose brain child it was.
Simply, the problem had been: The Weapon Shop vibratory transmitter bridged the spatial gap between two points in interplanetary space by mechanically accepting that space had no material existence. Why not then, the inventor had expounded, why not reverse the process, and create an illusion of space where there had been nothing?
The research was a success. The inventor reported the details to Hedrock, who thought it over and informed the man and his colleagues that the council had decided on secrecy. To the council itself, he made a negative report on the invention—and had it.
The subject, once explored, was considered one more closed door, was entered as such in the files at INFORMATION CENTER for the future reference of men who might have a repetition of the idea. Accordingly, it would never again be the subject of Weapon Shop research.
Some day, but not now, he would release the knowledge.
It was not, Hedrock reflected grimly, as he stood there patiently letting his body adjust, not the first time that an invention had come into his possession and been withheld from the public.
His own discovery, vibratory magnification, he had kept as a personal secret for twenty centuries before finally using it to establish the Weapon Shops as a counterbalance to the Isher emperors.
He still had several others; and his main rule for withholding or not had always been: Would release for general use be of benefit to the progressive spirit of man? Or would the power that it represented merely assist some temporal group in tightening a tyranny already too rigid?
Quite enough dangerous inventions were carelessly produced during the inventive spurts that came every few centuries, produced by scientists who never thought in a practical fashion of what the effect might be of their discoveries.
Damn it, why should a billion people die because some inventor had a brain that couldn’t see an inch into human nature?
Then, of course, there were the people who saw an invention in terms of their own private or group or economic welfare. If they were withholding, as the empress was withholding the interstellar drive, they must be forced by all means to yield their secret.
Sometimes, the decision had been a hard one, but who else had the power, the experience to decide? For better or for worse, he was the arbiter.
He let the thought drain slowly out of him. His body was ready. The time had come for action.
Hedrock began to walk forward in the mist. He could see the people in the palace, standing rigidly like carven figurates seen at late dusk. His time relation to them had not changed a single instant.
He paid them no attention, even when they were in his way, but stepped through their bodies as if they were clouds of gas.
Walls yielded before his mass, but that had to be carefully done. It would have been just as easy, too easy, to sink through the floor, and so on into the earth.
The laboratory experiments of the inventor and his assistants had produced one such casualty; and repetition was not desired.
To avoid the calamity, the research staff finally designed that the initial creation of new space should be on a partial scale only. A ring was provided which, when activated, would increase or decrease the original apportionment at will, for use when heavy materials had to be penetrated.
The ring, one of two—the other had a different purpose—was what Hedrock used when he came to walls: first, an easy jump, followed as his feet left the floor by a touch on the activator of the ring, then swift release of the activator, and then a gentle landing on a floor that gave like thick mud under his feet.
It was simple for muscles so perfectly coordinated as his own. He reached the cache of machines which he had long ago tuned to this space, and secreted in the palace.
There was a small spaceship, with lifting devices, magnetizers large and small, particularly there were dozens of machines that could, snatch and hold things. There were various weapons, and, of course, every tool, every instrument from spaceship to mechanical fingers had its own equivalent of the two adjustors necessary to their complete operation.
Every instrument in the ship, the ship itself, and the two adjustor rings on Hedrock’s fingers were attuned to a master control on the switchboard of the spaceship.
The second ring and the matching adjustors on the machines comprised the second valuable function of the invention. By controlling the second ring, it was possible to go backward and forward in time for a short distance.
Theoretically, years could be covered; actually the shattering effect of the entire experience to the human brain limited a trip to a few hours backward or forward.
Hedrock had discovered that, in nine hours forward in time, and nine backward, eighteen altogether, the body lived the six normal hours that it could endure without going too insane. Three for one.
The method of time travel had no relation to the seesaw system of time travel unwittingly devised by the empress’ physicists seven years before, wherein the body collected time energy, which could never again quite be balanced off, with the result that the time traveler was always destroyed.
There was no time in this space; there was only a method of adjusting the space to a given time in the normal world.
Hedrock eased the little spaceship and everything in it around to where the Weapon Shop cruiser lay-to beside the break in the palace wall.
Through the hard shell of the cruiser, he nosed his machine; then switched off the engines, and turned on the master time adjustor to full power, thrice the rate of normal time.
He waited tensely, watching the Sensitives, which were nothing but automatic relays converted to use in this space. It shouldn’t take long. It—
The Sensitive lights flashed; the master switch clicked instantly down to one third its full power, adjusting the whole ship to normaltime rate. Simultaneously, Hedrock felt movement.
The great Weapon Shop cruiser was rising; he and his small machine were with it, perfectly matched as to time rate, and just far enough out of the special space to keep from falling through the walls of the cruiser.
If he was right, there were now two Hedrocks in the cruiser, himself here in the gray-dark realm, and himself returned to the palace from this very spy trip, made prisoner by the Weapon Makers and brought aboard the cruiser.
Unwise though to take that for granted. One of the great difficulties of moving around in time was that of locating people, and keeping track of them in crowds, or just keeping track. He had once wasted an entire six-hour period searching for a person who had gone to a theater. Therefore—
Best to make sure. He peered into the ’stats; and, yes, there he was, surrounded by guards.
The Hedrock out there was already back from this time trip, and knew what had happened. Which was more than he did. It shouldn’t take long, though.
It didn’t.
The cruiser flashed to the fortress that was its destination; prisoner and guards emerged and went down into the building, where the thick metal room had been constructed. Hedrock forced his ship through the heavy walls and got busy.
First, he put out a sound collector; and, while listening to the argument in the room, unloaded some of his machines. When the guards rushed in with the “sack,” which was simply a gagging device, he waited till it was about to be fastened, then lowered a mechanical hand, and snatched it into his own space.
He sat then, with his fingers on the time, control, waiting for developments.
In the room itself, the silence was a thing of tensed nerves and startled looks. Hedrock, the prisoner, stood utterly still, a faint, sardonic smile on his lips, making no effort to break the grip of the guards who held him.
He felt remorseless. There was a job to be done; and he intended to do it thoroughly. He said icily:
“I won’t waste any time on verbal argument. The determination of this organization to kill me, despite the fact that the Pp machine proved my altruism and good will shows a defensive conservatism that always tries to destroy when confronted by something it does not completely understand.
“That conservatism shall be taught by overwhelming force that there exists an organization capable of overthrowing even the mighty Weapon Makers.”
Peter Cadron said coldly, “The Weapon Shops recognize no secret organization. Guards, destroy him!”
“You silly fool,” Hedrock cried. “I thought better of you, Cadron, than that you would give such a mindless command—”
He went on talking grimly, paying no attention to what was happening. Without looking around at the guards, he knew.
In that other space, his earlier self simply cut the time-adjustor switch, whereupon everything in the room stabilized. Without haste, his earlier self relieved the guards of their weapons, and then proceeded to disarm every member of the council, including the removal of the rings from their fingers, and the ’stat radios from their wrists and chairs.
Next, he slipped handcuffs onto their wrists, chaining them all together in a long row around the table. The guards he handcuffed arms to legs, and set outside in the hallway. Then he closed and locked the door.
The whole job took no time—literally.
He returned to the control board, adjusted his time rate from zero to normal and listened to the uproar of men discovering their situation.
The dismay was vast. Chains clanked. Men cried out in wonder and alarm, and then sank back looking pale and terrified. Hedrock knew it was not personal fear; it was all too plain that every man present had suddenly had a terrible vision of the end of the Weapon Shops. He waited for their startled attention to jerk back to him, then went on swiftly:
“Gentlemen, calm your fears. Your great organization is not in danger. This situation would never have arisen if you had not pursued me with such singleness of purpose.
“For your information, it was your own founder, Walter S. de Lany, who recognized the danger to the State of an invincible body such as the Weapon Makers. It was he who set a group of friendly watchers over the Shops. That is all I will say, except to emphasize our friendliness, our good will, our resolve not to interfere so long as the Weapon Makers live according to their Constitution. It is that Constitution which has now been violated in its one inflexible article.”
He paused there, his gaze angrily sweeping the faces before him, but mentally he was coolly appraising his words. It was a good story withal, the lack of detail being its safest feature. All he desired from it was that it conceal the fact that an immortal man was the only watcher.
He saw that several of the men had recovered sufficiently to attempt speech, but he cut them off ruthlessly:
“Here is what must be done. First, keep silent about what you have learned today. The Watchers do not wish it known they exist.
“Secondly, resign in toto. You can all stand for re-election, not for the next term, but thereafter. The mass resignation will serve as an impressive reminder to the rank and file of the Shops that there is a Constitution, and that it is one to respect.
“Finally, no further attempt must be made to molest me. About noon tomorrow, suggest to the empress that you will exchange me for the interstellar drive. I think myself that the drive will be forthcoming before that hour without any bargaining, but make the offer. And now—any questions?”
His voice it was that must have held them in thrall so long. As he finished, there was an angry clamor, then silence, and then a lesser clamor, and silence again. Hedrock did not fail to notice that three or four men, among them Peter Cadron, did not join in either manifestation of that confusion. It was to Cadron that Hedrock addressed himself:
“I am sure that Mr. Cadron can act as spokesman. I have long regarded him as one of the most able members on the council.”
Cadron climbed to his feet, a strongly built man in his middle forties. “Yes,” he said, “I believe I can be spokesman. I think I speak for the majority when I say that we accept your terms.”
No one dissented. Hedrock bowed and said loudly:
“All right, No. 1, pull me out!”
He must have vanished instantly.
They tried no stunts, the two Hedrocks who were briefly together in that misty partial space. The brain suffered too greatly from the slightest attempt to fool with time. Curious how that worked, but experiments had proved the fact long before.
The earlier Hedrock sat at the controls of the little ship, driving it hard back into time and toward the palace; the other stood beside him, looking down gloomily.
He could find no clear reason for his mood. There were still things to do, of course, but they were unimportant now, secondary. The main job was not actually done; the interstellar drive was still not in the open, but the psychological tendency was so marked that the issue was no longer in doubt. It was possible that Innelda would hold the “drive” back for bargaining purposes.
The exact method didn’t matter. Victory was sure. As for what he had just been forced to do, that was another matter. What a horrible, unpleasant affair it had been. It seemed incredible that he who admired every member of the present Weapon Shop council should have been compelled even in self-defense to act against them. Nevertheless—
There could be no real regret. Earth’s immortal man must assume his life was worth saving. For better or for worse he was what he was, and all the world must put up with him so long as he could protect himself.
Hedrock grimaced and saw that they were at the destination. The shield loomed up in the dim reaches of the shadow palace, a thing of softly radiant flame.
They tried no trickery, attempted no paradoxes. It was his earlier self who stepped through the shield and became one more misty shape in the palace room.
Hedrock burned the shield with a flare of gunpowder—and then sent the little ship hurtling across the dark city toward one of his dozens of secret apartments. Swiftly, he set the Sensitives to hold the ship at normal time rate for possible future use; then he focused the power of a lifter on himself, and felt it lower him into the apartment.
He stood alive in normal time, and headed straight for bed. Sleep came easily to his strained body.
He wakened shortly after noon the following day, and sat eating as he listened to the ’stat news. But there was nothing about the interstellar drive.
Frowning, Hedrock connected the ’stat to one of his relay systems, and by that roundabout fashion called the Weapon Makers. He smiled grimly as Peter Cadron’s face appeared on the plate.
Cadron’s face lighted up. He said, “Hedrock, it’s you!”
“Yes.”
The man said tensely. “Hedrock, I want to tell you that I’m glad to see you. The council has decided to hold no grudges.”
“Thank you. That means definitely no plotting.”
“Our word of honor.”
Hedrock sighed. In a way he had been worried. He need be no longer. He said finally, “Have you made the offer to exchange me?”
