Space Police

by Andre Norton

  “And you’ll listen to them even more closely than I did, in the hope of finding out whether or not anyone was able to understand in time to help.”

  Weinbaum and Wald looked dazed.

  Her voice became a little more somber. “Most of the voices in the Dirac beep are like that—they’re cries for help, which you can overhear decades or centuries before the senders get into trouble. You’ll feel obligated to answer every one, to try to supply the help that’s needed. And you’ll listen to the succeeding messages and say: “Did we—will we get there in time? Did we understand in time?’

  “And in most cases you won’t be sure. You’ll know the future, but not what most of it means. The farther into the future you travel with the machine, the more incomprehensible the messages become, and so you’re reduced to telling yourself that time will, after all, have to pass by at its own pace, before enough of the surrounding events can emerge to make those remote messages clear.

  “The long-run effect, as far as I can think it through, is not going to be that of omniscience—of our consciousness being extracted entirely from the time-stream and allowed to view its whole sweep from one side. Instead, the Dirac in effect simply slides the bead of consciousness forward from the present a certain distance. Whether it’s five hundred or five thousand years still remains to be seen. At that point the law of diminishing returns sets in—or the noise-factor begins to overbalance the information, take your choice—and the observer is reduced to traveling in time at the same old speed. He’s just a bit ahead of himself.”

  “You’ve thought a great deal about this,” Wald said slowly. “I dislike to think of what might have happened had some less conscientious person stumbled on the beep.”

  “That wasn’t in the cards,” Dana said.

  In the ensuing quiet, Weinbaum felt a faint, irrational sense of let-down, of something which had promised more than had been delivered—rather like the taste of fresh bread as compared to its smell, or the discovery that Thor Wald’s Swedish “folk-song” Nat-og-Dag was only Cole Porter’s Night and Day in another language. He recognized the feeling: it was the usual emotion of the hunter when the hunt is over, the born detective’s professional version of the post coitum triste. After looking at the smiling, supple Dana Lje a moment more, however, he was almost content.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said. “I don’t want to be insufferably skeptical about this—but I want to see it work. Thor, can we set up a sampling and smearing device such as Dana describes and run a test?”

  “In fifteen minutes,” Dr. Wald said. “We have most of the unit already in assembled form on our big ultrawave receiver, and it shouldn’t take any effort to add a high-speed tape unit to it. I’ll do it right now.”

  He went out. Weinbaum and Dana looked at each other for a moment, rather like strange cats. Then the security officer got up, with what he knew to be an air of somewhat grim determination, and seized his fiancée’s hands, anticipating a struggle.

  That first kiss was, by intention at least, mostly pro form a. But by the time Wald padded back into the office, the letter had been pretty thoroughly superseded by the spirit.

  The scientist harrumphed and set his burden on the desk. “This is all there is to it,” he said, “but I had to hunt all through the library to find a Dirac record with a beep still on it. Just a moment more while I make connections. . .”

  Weinbaum used the time to bring his mind back to the matter at hand, although not quite completely. Then two tape spindles began to whir like so many bees, and the end-stopped sound of the Dirac beep filled the room. Wald stopped the apparatus, reset it, and started the smearing tape very slowly in the opposite direction.

  A distant babble of voices came from the speaker. As Weinbaum leaned forward tensely, one voice said clearly and loudly above the rest:

  “Hello, Earth bureau. Lt. T. L. Matthews at Hercules Station NGC 6341, transmission date 13-22-2091. We have the last point on the orbit-curve of your dope-runners plotted, and the curve itself points to a small system about 25 light-years from the base here; the place hasn’t even got a name on our charts. Scouts show the home planet at least twice as heavily fortified as we anticipated, so we’ll need another cruiser. We have a ‘can-do’ from you in the beep for us, but we’re waiting as ordered to get it in the present. NGC 6341 Matthews out.”

  After the first instant of stunned amazement—for no amount of intellectual willingness to accept could have prepared him for the overwhelming fact itself—Weinbaum had grabbed a pencil and begun to write at top speed. As the voice signed out he threw the pencil down and looked excitedly at Dr. Wald.

  “Seven months ahead,” he said, aware that he was grinning like an idiot. “Thor, you know the trouble we’ve had with that needle in the Hercules haystack! This orbit-curve trick must be something Matthews has yet to dream up—at least he hasn’t come to me with it yet, and there’s nothing in the situation as it stands now that would indicate a closing-time of six months for the case. The computers said it would take three more years.”

  “It’s new data,” Dr. Wald agreed solemnly.

  “Well, don’t stop there, in God’s name! Let’s hear some more!”

  Dr. Wald went through the ritual, much faster this time. The speaker said:

  “Nausentampen. Eddettompic. Berobsilom. Aimkaksetchoc. Sanbetogmow. Datdectamset. Domatrosmin. Out.”

  “My word,” Wald said. “What’s all that?”

  “That’s what I was talking about,” Dana Lje said. “At least half of what you get from the beep is just as incomprehensible. I suppose it’s whatever has happened to the English language, thousands of years from now.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Weinbaum said. He had resumed writing, and was still at it, despite the comparative briefness of the transmission. “Not this sample, anyhow. That, ladies and gentlemen, is code—no language consists exclusively of four-syllable words, of that you can be sure. What’s more, it’s a version of our code. I can’t break it down very far—it takes a full-time expert to read this stuff—but I get the date and some of the sense. It’s March 12, 3022, and there’s some kind of a mass evacuation taking place. The message seems to be a routing order.”

  “But why will we be using code?” Dr. Wald wanted to know. “It implies that we think somebody might overhear us—somebody else with a Dirac. That could be very messy.”

  “It could indeed,” Weinbaum said. “But we’ll find out, I imagine. Give her another spin, Thor.”

  “Shall I try for a picture this time?”

  Weinbaum nodded. A moment later, he was looking squarely into the green-skinned face of something that looked like an animated traffic signal with a helmet on it. Though the creature had no mouth, the Dirac speaker was saying quite clearly, “Hello, Chief. This is Thammos NGC 2287, transmission date Gor 60, 302 by my calendar, July 2, 2973 by yours. This is a lousy little planet. Everything stinks of oxygen, just like Earth. But the natives accept us and that’s the important thing. We’ve got your genius safely born. Detailed report coming later by paw. NGC 2287 Thammos out.”

  “I wish I knew my New General Catalogue better,” Weinbaum said. “Isn’t that M 41 in Canis Major, the one with the red star in the middle? And we’ll be using non-humanoids there! What was that creature, anyhow? Never mind, spin her again.”

  Dr. Wald spun her again. Weinbaum, already feeling a little dizzy, had given up taking notes. That could come later; all that could come later. Now he wanted only scenes and voices, more and more scenes and voices from the future.

  IV

  The indoctrination tape ended, and Krasna touched a button. The Dirac screen darkened, and folded silently back into the desk.

  “They didn’t see their way through to us, not by a long shot,” he said. “They didn’t see, for instance, that when one section of the government becomes nearly all-knowing—no matter how small it was to begin with-it necessarily becomes all of the government that there is. Thus the bureau turned into the
Service and pushed everyone else out.

  “On the other hand, those people did come to be afraid that a government with an all-knowing arm might become a rigid dictatorship. That couldn’t happen and didn’t happen, because the more you know, the wider your field of possible operation becomes and the more fluid and dynamic a society you need. How could a rigid society expand to other star-systems, let alone other galaxies? It couldn’t be done.”

  “I should think it could,” Jo said slowly. “After all, if you know in advance what everybody is going to do—”

  “But we don’t, Jo. That’s just a popular fiction—or, if you like, a red herring. Not all of the business of the cosmos is carried on over the Dirac, after all. The only events we can ever overhear are those which are transmitted as a message. Do you order your lunch over the Dirac? Of course you don’t. Up to now, you’ve never said a word over the Dirac in your life.

  “And there’s much more to it than that. All dictatorships are based on the proposition that government can somehow control a man’s thoughts. We know now that the consciousness of the observer is the only free thing in the Universe. Wouldn’t we look foolish trying to control that, when our entire physics shows that it’s impossible to do so? That’s why the Service is in no sense a thought police. We’re interested only in acts. We’re an Event Police.”

  “But why?” Jo said. “If all history is fixed, why do we bother with these boy-meets-girl assignments, for instance? The meetings will happen anyhow.”

  “Of course they will,” Krasna agreed immediately. “But look, Jo. Our interests as a government depend upon the future. We operate as if the future is as real as the past, and so far we haven’t been disappointed: the Service is 100% successful. But that very success isn’t without its warnings. What would happen if we stopped supervising events? We don’t know, and we don’t dare take the chance. Despite the evidence that the future is fixed, we have to take on the role of the caretaker of inevitability. We believe that nothing can possibly go wrong . . . but we have to act on the philosophy that history helps only those who help themselves.

  “That’s why we safeguard huge numbers of courtships right through to contract, and even beyond it. We have to see to it that every single person who is mentioned in any Dirac ‘cast gets born.

  Our obligation as Event Police is to make the events of the future possible, because those events are crucial to our society—even the smallest of them. It’s an enormous task, believe me, and it gets bigger and bigger every day. Apparently it always will.”

  “Always?” Jo said. “What about the public? Isn’t it going to smell this out sooner or later? The evidence is piling up at a terrific rate.”

  “Yes and no,” Krasna said. “Lots of people are smelling it out right now, just as you did. But the number of new people we need in the Service grows faster—it’s always ahead of the number of laymen who follow the clues to the truth.”

  Jo took a deep breath. “You take all this as if it were as commonplace as boiling an egg, Kras,” he said. “Don’t you ever wonder about some of the things you get from the beep? That ‘cast Dana Lje picked up from Canes Venatici, for instance, the one from the ship that was traveling backward in time? How is that possible? What could be the purpose? Is it—”

  “Pace, pace,” Krasna said. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Neither should you. That event is too far in the future for us to worry about. We can’t possibly know its context yet, so there’s no sense in trying to understand it. If an Englishman of around 1600 had found out about the American Revolution, he would have thought it a tragedy; an Englishman of 1950 would have a very different view of it. We’re in the same spot. The messages we get from the really far future have no contexts yet.”

  “I think I see,” Jo said. “I’ll get used to it in time, I suppose, after I use the Dirac for a while. Or does my new rank authorize me to do that?”

  “Yes, it does. But, Jo, first I want to pass on to you a rule of Service etiquette that must never be broken. You won’t be allowed anywhere near a Dirac mike until you have it burned into your memory beyond any forgetfulness.”

  “I’m listening, Kras, believe me.”

  “Good. This is the rule: The date of a Serviceman’s death must never be mentioned in a Dirac ‘cast.”

  Jo blinked, feeling a little chilly. The reason behind the rule was decidedly tough-minded, but its ultimate kindness was plain. He said, “I won’t forget that. I’ll want that protection myself. Many thanks, Kras. What’s my new assignment?”

  “To begin with,” Krasna said, grinning, “as simple a job as I’ve ever given you, right here on Randolph. Skin out of here and find me that cab-driver—the one who mentioned time-travel to you. He’s uncomfortably close to the truth; closer than you were in one category.

  “Find him, and bring him to me. The Service is about to take in a new raw recruit!”

  We Are Policed

  4. To hunt criminals on an alien world—a chase over unknown territory with the natives unaware of either the pursued or the pursuer—policing a strange solar system for its own safety. This adventure of an unknown officer from Sirius is a new note in law enforcement service.

  GEORGE LONGDON

  Of Those Who Came

  EVENING SUN touched the top of the blue hills. The lonely slopes lay in shadow, gray and dim, and I stopped the saloon halfway along the road that wound down into the valley. Below was a single house, seen among trees, and above it oscillated a faint yellow radiance coming from an indistinguishable source.

  I sat motionless, gloved hands on the wheel, feeling no surprise. The yellow halo slowly shrank, dropping down towards the rooftop and coalescing into a spheroid which gradually sank from view behind the house. A dim reflection on the trees showed it was still there, concealed by the building. I started the saloon and began to wind down into the valley.

  The sky was growing dark. Seen across the valley the house had only been a dim outline and it passed from view as the saloon sped into the valley bottom where a river ran between wooded banks. I drove to the bridge. The saloon murmured across and began to climb the winding road towards the house. Fifty yards away I parked the vehicle under trees and got out.

  The night was very still, and the yellow reflections that had illuminated the rear of the house were gone. Moving silently I crept near, parting bushes to look into the garden.

  The spherical vessel rested on turf behind the house, but the power that sustained it had been turned off, leaving it a fragile tracery of spidery girders almost as thin as wire, vulnerable now that the lines of force forming the hull had been collapsed. Two green vaporous shapes moved inside the vessel, visible through the tracery of its sides. I grew completely still, watching.

  Two, I thought. Only two. I had expected that there would be three forms in the vessel.

  After a long time the vaporous shapes slowly left the machine and crossed the turf towards the house. They were of diffused outline, slightly luminous in the gathering dark, tall as a man. Only when they were gone from view round the corner of the house did I step out from the bushes towards the ship that had come so far.

  Its tracery of fragile members buckled under the blows of the spanner brought from the car, bending and folding into a tangle of jointed wire. Within moments it was destroyed beyond even the skill of its owners to repair. Silence returned. A few stars, immeasurably remote worlds, had begun to show in the heavens. I looked up, searching for bright Sirius from where I knew the vessel had come. But drifting cloud obscured that section of the night sky.

  A green shape came round the comer of the house and stopped. I sensed its surprise, quickly followed by antagonism and fury. Glowing it came across the turf, its speed increasing to catch me.

  I turned on my heels and ran, slipping through the bushes to the road. The saloon was not far. I dragged open the door, jumped in . . . and not until half the valley lay behind did I stop, looking back.

  The two green shapes were searching
round the house. For a long time they passed in and out among the bushes like mysterious pillars of green light, then they returned to the house, were lost from view. My agitation began to subside. I told myself that things had worked out well on the whole, that as much had been accomplished as could be expected. Obviously they had not believed their coming was anticipated, must now be regretting having left their vessel unguarded.

  I drove slowly back towards the house. It was unfortunate that there had been no time to bring a weapon—or at least one of such a type as would be effective against the beings from the spheroid. There was every reason why their physical make-up should be familiar to me. They could control matter, but were not matter themselves. A life-form totally dissimilar to any known on Earth, they were sentient, highly intelligent, yet composed of molecules as insubstantial as those of the air. My sworn duty was to destroy them. Theirs was to eliminate me.

  An opening in the bushes permitted a view of the rear of the house. The broken vessel was gone, but whether hidden away with the hope of repair or concealed because its presence would arouse suspicion, could not be decided. The house was silent and I crept round it.

  Two men had just emerged and were walking quickly away down the road. One was a trifle more than average height, the other an inch or two below. They were of average build, quite undistinguished. To my trained eye they appeared not as individuals, but as types.

  A good disguise, I thought. They had speedily adopted the appearance of average types of the life-forms among which they would now move. That offered concealment, yet opportunity for unlimited activity. There was not a man on Earth who would not swear each was a human, just like himself.

  I went round the house quickly, looking inside through each window. No light showed, nor was there any movement. Satisfied, I went back to the car. Apparently the vessel had brought two only, despite supposition to the contrary.