‘Yes, of course, can we talk about it as we go?’
‘We go when this is settled. I forgot that this being Sunday I’ll be getting double time and triple time after four hours.’
‘Fine, agreed. Let’s go.’
‘In writing.’
‘Yes, writing, of course.’ The Lieutenant’s scriber flew over a message pad and he ripped off the sheet. ‘There, I’ve signed it as well, with my serial number. The Army will stand behind this.’
‘Had better,’ Jerry Cruncher said, carefully folding the slip and placing it securely in his wallet before they moved out again.
It was a nightmare journey for all except the grey, solid man who led them like a Judas goat through this underground inferno. The main tunnels were easy enough to pass through, though pendant valvewheels and transverse pipes lay constantly in wait for the unwary. Had they not been wearing helmets half of the little force would have been stunned before they had gone a mile. As it was there was many a clank and muffled cry from the rear. Then came the inspection hatch and the first crawltube leading to a vertical pit sixty feet deep down which they had to make their way on a water-slippery ladder. At its foot an even damper tunnel, this one faced with blocks of hand-hewn stone, led them through the darkness—no lights here, they had to use their torches—to an immense cavern filled with roaring sound.
‘Storm sewer,’ Jerry Cruncher said, pointing to the rushing river that swirled by just below their feet. ‘I’ve seen it bone dry in the season. Been rain in the suburbs lately, and here it is now. Stay on the walkway, this is the shortest way to go, and don’t slip. Once in that water you’re a goner. Might find your body fifty miles out in the ocean if the fishes don’t get it first.’
With this cheering encouragement the men slithered and crawled the awful length of that great tunnel, almost gasping with relief when they were back in the safety of a communications tube again. Shortly after this Jerry Cruncher halted and pointed up at a ladder that rose into the darkness above.
‘98 BaG dropwell. This is the one you want, to that second centre you talked about.’
‘You’re sure?’
Jerry Cruncher eyed the Lieutenant with something very much like disgust and he groped his pipe from his pocket.
‘Being you’re ignorant, mister, I take no offence. When Jerry says a tunnel is a tunnel, that’s the tunnel he says.’
‘No offence meant!’
‘None taken,’ he muttered mollifiedly around the pipe stem. ‘This is the one. You can see all the wires and communication cables going up there as well. Can’t be anything else.’
‘What’s at the top?’
‘Door with a handle and a sign saying no admission under par. 897a of the military code.’
‘Is the door locked?’
‘Nope. Forbidden under paragraph 45-C of the Tunnel Authority Code. Need access, we do.’ ’
‘Then this is it. Sergeant, take eighteen men and get up that ladder. Synchronise your watch with mine. In two hours we go in. Just get through that door and start shooting - watch out for the equipment though - and keep shooting until every one of those slimy dirty Betelgeuseans is dead. Do you understand?’
The Sergeant nodded with grim determination and drew himself up and saluted. ‘We’ll do our duty, sir.’
‘All right, the rest of you, move out.’
They had walked for no more than ten minutes down a lateral tunnel lined with frosted pipes before Jerry Cruncher stopped and sat down.
‘What’s wrong?’ the Lieutenant asked.
‘Tea break,’ he said, putting his still warm pipe into his side pocket and opening his lunch box.
‘You can’t—I mean, listen, the enemy, the schedule...’
‘I always have tea at this time.’ He poured a great mugful of the potent brew and sniffed it appreciatively. ‘Tea break allowed for in the schedule.’
Most of the men brought out rations and sipped from their canteens while the Lieutenant paced back and forth slapping his fist into his hand. Jerry Cruncher sipped his tea placidly and chewed on a large chocolate biscuit.
A shrill scream sliced through the silence and echoed from the pipes. Something black and awful launched itself from a crevice in the wall and was attached to Trooper Barnes’ throat. The soldiers were paralysed. Not so Jerry Cruncher. There was a whistle and a thud as he instantly lashed out with his three foot spanner and the vicious assailant rolled, dead, onto the tunnel floor before their bulging eyes.
‘It’s ... it’s ... hideous!’ a soldier gasped. ‘What is it?’
‘Mutant hamster,’ Jerry Cruncher said as he picked up the monster of teeth and claws and stuffed it into his lunch box. ‘Descendants of house pets that escaped centuries ago, mutated here in the darkness until they turned into this. I’ve seen bigger ones. Boffins at the university give me three credits for every one I bring them. Not bad if I say so myself, and tax free too, which I hope you won’t be repeating.’ He was almost jovial now at this fiscally remunerative encounter. As soon as the trooper had been sewn up they pressed on.
A second squad was left at the next communication substation and they hurried on towards ComCent itself.
‘Ten minutes to go,’ the Lieutenant gasped, jogging heavily under the weight of all his equipment.
‘Not to worry, just two tunnels more.’
It was three minutes to deadline when they reached the wide opening in the ceiling above them, sprouting cables from its mouth like an electronic hydra’s head.
‘Big door at the top,’ Jerry Cruncher said, shining his torch up the shaft. ‘Has a dual interlock compound wheel exchange lever. As you turn the wheel counterclockwise the lever in position ready must be...’
‘Come up with us, please,’ the Lieutenant begged, peering at his watch and chewing his lip nervously. ‘We’ll never get in in time and they’ll be warned by the attacks on the other stations.’
‘Not my job, you know, getting shot at. I let them as has been paid for it do it.’
‘Please, I beg of you, as a patriotic citizen.’ Jerry Cruncher’s face was as of carved stone as he bit down heavily on the stem of his pipe. ‘You owe it to yourself, your family, your conscience, your country. And I can guarantee a hundred credit bonus for opening it.’
‘Done.’
They climbed against time and when they reached the platform at the top the second hand on the Lieutenant’s watch was just coming up on the twelve.
‘Open it!’
The wheel spun and gears engaged, the great lever went down and the massive portal swung open.
‘For Mother Earth!’ the Lieutenant shouted and led the charge.
When they had all gone inside and the tunnel was silent again Jerry Cruncher lit his pipe and then, more out of curiosity than anything else, strolled in after them. It was a vista of endless steel corridors lined with banks of instruments, whirring and humming under electronic control. He stopped to tamp down his pipe just as a door opened and a short hairy creature, no taller than his waist, shaped like a bowling pin and possessing a number of arms, scuttled out and raced towards a large red switch mounted on the opposite wall. Five of its arms were reaching for the switch, spatulate fingers almost touching it, when the spanner whistled once again and sank deep into the creature’s head, flooring it instantly. Jerry Cruncher had just retrieved the spanner when the white-faced Lieutenant raced through the same door.
‘Praise heaven!’ he gasped, ‘you’ve stopped him in time.’
‘Didn’t like his looks at all, though I didn’t mean to bash his brains in.’
‘That is their leader, the only survivor, and he was going for the destruct switch that would have blown us all a mile high. He’s our prisoner now and he’ll talk, believe me. You didn’t kill him. The Betelgeuseans have their brains in their midriffs, their stomachs are in their heads. He’s just unconscious.’
‘Like a boot in the guts. Glad of that, didn’t mean to kill him.’
* * * *
‘Where yo
u been?’ Agatha called from the kitchen when she heard Jerry’s heavy tread in the hall.
‘Special job,’ he wheezed, pulling off his high boots. ‘Going to be some extra lolly in the pay packet this week.’
‘We’ll need it to fix the viddy. It’s been out of order all day, though it just came back on. Something wrong with it I’m sure. Had phone trouble too, would you believe, all in the same day. Tried to call Mum but our line went dead. Was it a hard job?’
‘Not specially,’ Jerry grunted, digging out his pipe. ‘Government work, bit of a bonus in. it too I imagine. Showed a bunch of chaps through the tunnels. Not a clue they had. One mashed his hand in a lid and the other just sat there while a hampmutey went for his throat.’
‘Oooh, don’t say that, I’ll have no appetite at all. Tea’s ready.’
‘Now that is the sort of thing I like to hear.’
He smiled for the first time since he had gotten out of bed that morning and went in to have his tea.
<
* * * *
EVANE
E. C. Tubb
E. C. Tubb, winner of the new Europa Award presented at the first European sf congress at Trieste in 1972 for his short story Lucifer, is well known for his powerful evocation of human emotions aroused by confrontation with the daunting spectacle of scientific progress. Just how far can machinery go in making use of life?
* * * *
The computer had been vocalised on the basis of psychological necessity; a concept determined by those who lived in ivory towers and who, trying to be rational, ended by being sadistic. There were other things also, some explicit photographs, some books, a thing in a box which could be inflated and used to ease personal tensions. He used it once and then, repulsed, destroyed it together with the books and photographs. The voice he could do nothing about.
It was soft, mellifluous, the voice of an actual woman or something designed on computer-optimums, he had no way of telling. But it was mellow, devoid of the stridency of youth and for that he was grateful. And, as he couldn’t ignore it or turn it off he had learned to live with it and, over the long, long years, had grown to accept it, to rely on it as an integral part of his limited universe. He had even amused himself by fitting a face and figure to the sound.
The image had varied as age had stilled the passions of his blood. At first she had been lithe with raven hair and jutting breasts and hips and thighs belonging to adolescent yearnings. And then she had matured into a more comfortable image, the transition moulded by the voice of his own desires. Now she was tall with short blonde hair curling just above the shoulders. Her eyes were blue, deep-set, crinkled at the corners with a tracery of fine lines. She wore black, a simple dress revealing smooth shoulders and the upper parts of her fulsome breasts. Not the hard, jutting promontories lie had once imagined but soft and slightly pendulous, matching the maturity of her face, the rounded swell of her hips. And he had given her a name.
‘Time for routine inspection, Charles.’
He started, shocked out of his reverie, blinking as he sat upright in the big chair. Before him the panels were as always, the big dials with their creeping hands, the gleam of polished metal, the rows of telltales. He had been dreaming, he realised, not asleep but sunken into a reverie which was a form of self-defence, a half-world in which memory became confused with imagination and fiction outweighed reality.
‘Time for routine inspection, Charles.’
The use of his name, another psychological device but one which led to an inevitable personalisation of the machine. A blatant trick to assuage loneliness but one which could too easily lead to insanity. If it was insane to give a mechanical voice a name. To imagine that a real woman was speaking. To dream that somehow, incredibly, he wasn’t really alone, that somewhere in his restricted world was another living person and that, perhaps, some time they would meet.
‘Time for routine inspection, Charles.’
It was imagination, it could be nothing else, but had the voice grown a little sharp? A trifle impatient at his lack of response? Worried, even? It would be nice to think that someone cared; but experience had taught him to know better than that. Three times and then the shock, the electrical stimulus which would jerk him fully aware if asleep, a painful reminder that there was a job to be done and he the one to do it.
Quickly he said, ‘All right, Evane. I heard you.’
‘Your response was delayed. Were you asleep?’
‘No, just thinking.’
‘Are you well, Charles?’
He looked down at his hands, at the thick veins and mottled patches, the skin creped over the knuckles. Once they had been young and strong and good to see. When had they changed ? Why hadn’t he noticed the change before ?
‘Charles?’
‘I’m all right,’ he said shortly.
‘I think I should monitor your metabolism, Charles. After the inspection, naturally.’
‘Damn it, Evane, you don’t have to nag me. I’m all right, I tell you.’
‘After the inspection, Charles.’
How could you argue with a machine ? He could refuse; but there were ways to make him obey, the Builders had seen to that. Nowhere could he be free of the sensors and to disobey meant punishment. Sullenly he rose from the chair, uneasily conscious of physical malfunction. His legs, for example, had they always ached as they did now? Over the years he had become accustomed to the dimming of his vision so now it was normal for him not to be able to see the fine divisions on the dials from his position in the chair. But the ache, the slight hesitation of his left foot so that he almost stumbled, saving himself by gripping the back of the chair? Was this new or had he experienced it before? And, if he had, why couldn’t he remember?
The thought nagged as he moved from the chair down the ten feet of space towards the rear bulkhead. He could reach the ceiling by lifting his arms, touch the walls by extending them. A tiny space backed by complex machines which fed him air and food and water in calculated amounts. A sealed environment in which he was nurtured and housed and, above all, protected from external influences. In such a place experiences were few and always strictly personal. How could he possibly forget any detail of his monotonous life ?
‘Charles, you hesitate. The inspection must be completed.’
He reached the bulkhead and reached for the simple controls. Freed by the computer they responded to his touch, a panel lifting to reveal a vast area dimly lit and magnified by the plate through which he stared. Direct vision aided by lenses and mirrors to eliminate the possibility of electronic malfunction. Dutifully he examined the enigmatic hoppers, the ranked containers, countless phials, numberless motes which were packed into thin-skinned ampoules, unknown objects tucked into plastic membranes. Once he had thrilled at the sight, conscious of a tremendous sense of purpose, warmed by the conviction that he was important and essential to the success of the project. Now he simply went through the motions.
‘Charles?’
He had stared for too long, losing himself in another of the insidious reveries, trying, perhaps, to recapture the early thrill, extrapolating, looking ahead, guessing at incredible futures. Or perhaps he had simply dozed a little, bored, resentful of the dominance of the computer.
‘Charles, is everything at optimum function?’
‘Yes, Evane, as always.’
‘Then return to the chair, Charles. I must monitor your metabolism.’
He felt the controls shift beneath his hands, the panel falling to seal the bulkhead, and slowly he returned to the chair, sitting, thrusting his right hand and arm into the familiar orifice. Probes sank into his flesh and he felt the mild tingle of surface stimulation. He leaned back, closing his eyes, imagining a smooth face framed with blonde hair, blue eyes, a little anxious perhaps, the full lips pursed and the dress falling a little, a very little away from the chest and shoulders as she leaned forward to study the results of her examination.
‘Well, Nurse, will I live?’
/>
‘Nurse?’
‘At this moment, Evane, you’re a nurse. A person who takes care of the sick. Am I sick?’
‘You are not operating at optimum efficiency, Charles.’
‘Which means that I’m sick. Cure me, Evane.’
He felt the touch of something followed by a rising euphoria. An injection of some drug, he guessed, something to dispel his depression, his mounting sense of anxiety. And the obedience helped, the fact that she had complied with his instruction. A man should always be the dominant partner.
Eyes still closed, imagining her leaning back, smiling, her expression a soft blend of affection and motherly concern, he said, ‘How long, Evane?’
New Writings in SF 22 - [Anthology] Page 2
