New Writings in SF 22 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Kenneth Bulmer

Here there were many more people, mostly men. Several of them carried crossbows, and one or two held placards or clubs.

  No one took any notice of him, their attention diverted towards a tightly-packed group of men at the far end of the passage. They were all shouting and waving their fists.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mann said to one of the crossbow-carriers near him.

  The man looked at him. ‘You’re Future Mann.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s the Terminators, sir. Trying to reach the reactor. They want to stop the city.’

  Gerdun Mann made to say something else, but suddenly an order was given and all the crossbowmen moved towards the crowd. Mann looked in the opposite direction, saw there were fewer people there. He headed that way.

  He found a doorway and stepped into its shelter. From a pocket of the leather tunic Langham’s men had taken from the captive, Mann took the plan. He consulted it anxiously, trying to locate where he was so that he could reach the reactor-room.

  Behind him there was a renewed outburst of shouting and he heard many people running in his direction. Mann pushed his way through the door, and found two children lying on the floor, their arms around one another.

  He closed the door. One of the children burst into tears.

  ‘Where’s the reactor-room?’ Mann said to the other child. ‘Do you know where it is ?’

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘Come on ... it’s important!’ There was still no response. ‘Listen, do you know who I am ? I’m a Future. You’ve got to tell me.’ By now, Mann had realised that a ‘Future’ held a position of some importance in the station.

  ‘Then you know where it is.’

  ‘Tell me. Pretend I don’t.’

  The boy shook his head again, and Mann seized his shoulder. ‘Is it by the winches?’

  ‘It’s under the cockpit,’ said the girl through her tears. ‘Why don’t you know where it is?’

  Mann went back through the doorway, and consulted his plan again. The cockpit was clearly marked as ‘Control Cabin’—or at least he presumed the two were synonymous —and was situated at the front of the station. In the passageway he tried to get his bearings. He looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the position of the sun. Instead, apparently rearing up over the city, was the countryside to the south.

  It took Mann a second or two to recover from the unexpectedness of this discovery, and realise that logically the control cabin would lie at the opposite end of the station.

  He walked that way, avoiding large groups of people and changing direction if he saw any signs of trouble.

  He came in the end to a large wooden building that was separate from the others. There was one large entrance which was heavily guarded by a cordon of crossbowmen. Mann thought for a moment, then moved around to one side. In a narrow passage he saw two or three smaller entrances ... but almost as soon as he had turned the comer three crossbowmen came and confronted him.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the ... cockpit,’ said Mann.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Don’t you recognise me?’

  One of the crossbowmen said something quietly to the others.

  ‘Sorry, Future Mann. There’s an emergency on.’

  The crossbowmen stood back, and Mann walked on.

  He made for the first doorway, and went inside. There was a flight of steps, and he went up them. At the top there was a corridor, well lit by electricity. He walked down it, looking into rooms which had doors open. There appeared to be no one about. At the end of the corridor, another staircase.

  He walked up this, along another passage and came out into a small room crammed with instruments and controls. There were five men here, sitting or standing by the instruments. One man stood in front of a window, staring forward. In his first few seconds in the room, Mann caught a glimpse of the view: it was directly ahead of the station, and the sea was now clearly visible.

  The man by the window turned.

  ‘Future Mann! You have a new survey-report?’

  Mann was temporarily lost for words. Langham’s interrogation of the captive had revealed that the man was a ‘surveyor’, but the actual nature of his work had never been clearly understood.

  ‘I’ve come from the bridge,’ he said in a moment. ‘It won’t be ready in time.’

  ‘There are still a few more days.’

  ‘Even so...I have an alternative plan.’

  The man at the window walked towards him. ‘If you have no report, Future-Surveyor, you have no right of access to the cockpit.’

  Abruptly, an alarm-bell rang out. A few yards away there was a loud bang, and a shout. There came the sound of running feet.

  The man turned away and went to a console. ‘Get back to your station, Future-Surveyor. We are too busy to be interrupted.’

  Mann looked round. At the far side of the control-cabin there was another doorway, marked with a radioactivity-warning sign. Disregarding the other men, he walked towards it. At that moment, the door through which he had entered opened again and suddenly several men poured into the room. They were holding crossbows and clubs.

  ‘You’re all under arrest!’ the leading man shouted. He aimed his crossbow at the Navigator who had spoken to Mann, and stepped forward. ‘The city has to be stopped. You are taking us to our deaths.’

  At the intrusion, Mann had stopped by the door. One of the men was aiming a crossbow at him.

  ‘As duty-Navigator, I order you to leave the cockpit.’

  ‘You no longer have authority. Olssen has surrendered.’

  Gerdun Mann had no wish to be caught up in a local revolution. He moved quickly, opening the door and almost throwing himself through. As he did so, one of the men loosed his crossbow. The bolt narrowly missed him, hit the door and clattered down on to some metal steps. Without pausing, Mann hurried down the steps.

  He found himself in the reactor-room. He paid no attention to the reactor itself, but headed for the graviton field-generator which, according to Langham’s plan, was situated at the rear of the room.

  At first, he was unable to find it ... then saw a large machine covered with a sheet. He heard the sound of feet on the steps at the far side of the reactor-room.

  He tore the sheet aside. He knew exactly what he had to do. Langham had shown him a simulator on true Earth, and Mann had practised many times.

  Two men came down the steps and stood at the bottom, looking for him in the poorly-lit room. Mann ducked low, and turned the first of the five switches that activated the generator.

  ‘You’re under arrest, Future!’ They had seen him now and were advancing on him, crossbows raised.

  ‘Keep away! This is important.’

  ‘Nothing is as important as stopping the city.’

  Four of the five switches were open now, and the fifth one was stiff. The old generator, which hadn’t been used for more than a hundred years, was coming to life. Dials moved, warning-lights came on, a cathode-ray scanner glowed vivid green.

  ‘Stop ... or we shoot!’

  The fifth switch suddenly freed, and there was a loud noise. It began as a low roar, then quickly raised in pitch. Around them, the lights of the reactor-room began to dim. Almost the whole output of the station’s reactor was being used up by the generator ... taking power away from the winches, halting the long journey of Earth city.

  The crossbows were raised, both aimed at him.

  Then one of the men lowered his weapon.

  ‘Future ... what have you done?’

  Mann turned to face them, put up his hands defensively.

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ he said weakly.

  The other man lowered his weapon too.

  The noise from the generator continued to mount; now it was a high whine.

  ‘The winches have stopped,’ he said. The Future has stopped the city.’

  They ignored Mann, and went back to the steps leading to the control cabin. Mann turned back to the field-g
enerator, it was now 90% operational, and still mounting. As the needle of the dial touched 100%, he picked up the sheet, and threw it once more over the machine.

  * * * *

  Gerdun Mann walked out from under the base of the station and looked around.

  Immediately in front of him, less than a mile away, was the sea. Beyond that, a very clear horizon. There were two ships in view.

  He looked over to one side. A few hundred yards away he could see Langham’s transporter, and beyond it a cluster of helicopters, ambulances and trucks. He walked towards them.

  After he had covered half the distance, he turned and looked back at the station.

  The people of the city of Earth were looking at the planet of Earth. As Mann had walked through the station, the Terminators were announcing that the city had stopped ... and now the people came to the side of the station, looking at a world where there were horizons on all sides. A world where the ground didn’t move. Where the sun was a simple sphere.

  Mann sat down on the dry soil. He felt strangely reactionless.

  A few minutes later, a vehicle stopped nearby and Langham stepped out. He shook Mann’s hand, congratulated him.

  Mann just smiled. He didn’t feel as if he had saved a world. He was thinking of all that had to be done. There were still people in that hyperboloid world: the people who had been away from the city when the generator was activated. They would have to be collected. All the people of the station would have to be rehabilitated.

  Then there was the curious fact of the captive. The man who shared his name, who looked so remarkably like him. He wondered how much more than this they had in common; perhaps one of his own ancestors had been a member of Destaine’s original crew.

  And Gerdun Mann thought of the pile of books that lay unread in his hotel room. He hadn’t forgotten those, but he was beginning to realize that it might be some time before he got around to looking at them.

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