by Fritz Leiber
“But anyway I was in the mountains when the power broke loose and ate up all the metal it could reach. Our party was laid up by the fumes, and two of them died. Afterwards some of us started out to try to contact other survivors, but the fumes were worse where we went and some more died and the rest broke up. I got in with a gang that was trying to make a go of farming just north of the volcano belt, but we made a lot of mistakes and then came the first of the long winters and finished off all our plans and made us realize that the weather had all gone different, what with the exposed raw rock taking all the carbon dioxide out of the air, and not enough green stuff left to replace it. After that I drifted around and took up with different scavenging gangs, but when the cannibalism started and the cats and dogs began to get really dangerous, I headed north and made it to the glaciers. Since then I’ve just hung on, like you see me.”
He turned to Thorn. Already his voice was hoarse. Like nervous hunger, his eagerness to talk had not carried him far.
Thorn shook his head, peering beyond the fire. “There must be a way,” he said slowly. “Admittedly it would be difficult and we’d risk our lives, but still there must be a way.”
“A way?” the other asked blankly.
“Yes, back to wherever men are beginning to band together and rebuild. South, I suppose. We might have to hunt for a long time, but we’d find it.”
There was a long silence. A curious look of sympathy came into the other man’s face.
“You’ve got the dreams,” he told Thorn, making his croaking voice gentle. “I get them myself, so strong that I can make myself believe for a while that everything’s the way it was. But it’s just the dreams. Nobody’s banding together. Nobody’s going to rebuild civilization, unless”—his hand indicated something beyond the fire—“unless it’s those devils out there.”
XI.
He who lets fortunetellers shape his decisions, follows a chartless course.
Artemidorus of Cilicia
Alternate waves of guilt and almost unbearable excitement washed Clawly I as he hurried through the deserted corridors of the Blue Lorraine toward the office of Oktav. In grimmest seriousness he wondered whether his own fancied role of mad Pied Piper had not come true, whether his mind—and those of Firemoor and his other accomplices in the Martian hoax—were not already more than half usurped by diabolically mischievous mentalities whose only purpose, or pleasure, was to see a sane world reduced to chaos.
For the faked threat of a Martian invasion was producing all the effects he could ever have anticipated, and more, as the scenes he had just been witnessing proved. They stuck in his mind, those scenes. The air around the Blue Lorraine aswarm with fliers from bullet-swift couriers to meddlesome schoolchildren. Streams of machine-units and various materials and supplies going out on subtronic currents for distribution to selected points in the surrounding countryside, for it had early become apparent that the skylons were exceedingly vulnerable to attack from space—all Earth’s eggs in a few thousand baskets. Engineers busy around the Blue Lorraine’s frosty summit, setting up energy-projectors and other improvised subtronic artillery—for although the skylons were vulnerable, they were the proud symbols and beloved homes of civilization and would be defended to the last. All eyes craned apprehensively upward as a thundering spaceship burst through the blue sky, then lowered in ruefully humorous relief as it became obvious that it was, of course, no alien invader, but one of Earth’s own ships headed for the nearby yards to be fitted with subtronic weapons. All eyes turned momentarily to the west, where defensive screens were being tried out, to watch a vast iridescent dome leap momentarily into being and a circle of woodland puff into smoke. Excited eyes, all of them, as ready to flash with humor as to betray shock, anxiety, or fear. Eyes that were seven-eighths “There probably won’t be any invasion” and one-eighth “There will be.” Eyes that made Clawly proud of mankind, but that also awakened sickening doubts as to the wisdom of his trickery.
And to think that this sort of thing was going on all over the world. The use of subtronic power in transport and fabrication made possible a swiftness in preparation never before known in Earth’s history. Organization was a weak point, the-Earth being geared for the leisurely existence of peace and individual freedom, but various local agencies were taking over while the World Executive Committee created the framework of a centralized military authority. Confusedly perhaps, and a little bunglingly, but eagerly, wholeheartedly, and above all swiftly, Earth was arming to meet the threat.
It was all so much bigger than anyone could have anticipated, Clawly told himself for the hundredth, time, unconsciously increasing his already rapid pace as he neared Oktav’s office. He had started it all, but now it was out of his hands. He could only wait and hope that, when the real invasion came, across time rather than space, the present preparations would prove useful to Earth’s bewildered defenders. In any case, a few hours would tell the story, for this was the third day.
But what if the transtime invasion did not come in three days? The hoax might be uncovered at any moment now—Firemoor was already regretting the whole business, on the verge of a funk—and during the period of angry reaction no invasion reports of any sort would be believed. Then he would be in the position of having cried wolf to the world.
Or what if the transtime invasion did not come at all? All his actions had been based on such insubstantial evidence—Thorn’s dream-studies, certain suggestive psychological aberrations, the drugged Conjerly’s murmur of “… invasion… three days …” He was becoming increasingly convinced that he would soon wake, as if from a nightmare, and find himself accused as a madman or charlatan.
Certainly his nerves were getting out of hand. He needed Thorn.
Never before had he realized the degree to which he and Thorn were each other’s balance wheel. But Thorn was still missing, and the inquiry agencies had no progress to report. Despite the larger anxieties in which his mind was engulfed, Thorn’s absence preyed upon it to such a degree that he had twice fancied he spotted Thorn among the swirling crowd outside the Blue Lorraine.
But even more than he needed Thorn, he needed Oktav. Now that the crisis had come, he could see to what an extent the seer’s advice had determined all his actions, from his first serious belief in the possibility of transtime invasion to his engineering of the Martian hoax. Call it superstition, ignorant credulity, hypnotism, the fact remained that he believed in Oktav, was convinced that Oktav had access to fields of knowledge undreamed of by ordinary men. And now that Oktav was gone, he felt an increasing helplessness and desperation, so that he could not resist the impulse driving him back once more to the cryptically empty office.
As he raised his hand to activate the door, memories came stealing eerily back—of former sessions in the room beyond, of the last session, of Oktav’s strange summoner clad in the garments of Dawn Civilization, of the inexplicable disappearance of summoner and summoned in the exitless inner chamber.
But before his hand could activate the door, it opened.
Clad in his customary black robe, Oktav was sitting at his desk.
As if into a dream within a dream, Clawly entered.
Although the seer had always seemed supernaturally ancient, Clawly’s first impression was that Oktav had vastly aged in the past three days. Something had happened to drain his small remaining store of life forces almost to the last drop. The hands were folded white claws. The face was wrinkle-puckered skin drawn tight over a fragile skull. But in the sunken, droopingly lidded eyes, knowledge burned more fiercely than ever. And not knowledge alone, but also something new—a reckless determination to use that knowledge. It was a look that made Clawly shiver—and thrill.
All the questions that had pounded at his brain so long, waiting for this interview, were suddenly mute.
“I have been on a far journey,” said the seer. “I have visited many worlds that were supposed to be dead, and have seen what strange horrors can result when mere men seek to make
wise use of a power befitting only a god or creatures like gods. I have gone in constant danger, for there are those against whom I have rebelled and who therefore seek my life, but I am safe from them for a time. Sit down, and I will tell you what is in my mind.”
Clawly complied, Oktav leaned forward, tapping the desk with one bone-thin finger.
He continued, “For a long time I have spoken to you in riddles, dealt with you vaguely, because I was trying to play a double game—impart essential information to you, and yet not impart it. That time is past. From now on I speak clearly. In a little while I shall depart on a desperate venture. If it succeeds, I do not think you will have to fear the invasion threatening your world. But it may fail, and therefore I must first put at your disposal all the information I possess, so that you can judge how best to act in that event.”
He looked up quickly. Clawly heard movement in the corridor. But it was from the inner chamber that the sudden interruption came.
Once again Oktav’s summoner stood in the inner doorway. Once again that young-old, ignorant-wise, animal-god face was turned on Oktav. The muscles of the clamped jaw stood out like knobs. One arm in its cylinderlike sleeve of stiff, ancient fabric, was rigidly extended toward the seer.
But Clawly had only time for the barest glance, and Oktav had even less—he was just starting to turn and his eyes were only on the verge of being lighted with a flicker of recognition—when a great tongue of softly bluish flame licked out from the summoner’s hand and, not dying as flames should, folded around Oktav like a shroud.
Before Clawly’s eyes. Oktav’s robe burst into flame. His body shriveled, blackened, contorted in agony, curling like a leaf. Then it was still.
The soft flame returned to the summoner’s hand.
Incapable of motion or connected thought or any feeling but a sick dismay, Clawly watched. The summoner walked over to Oktav’s desk—clumsily, as if he were not used to dealing with three-dimensional worlds, but also contemptuously, as if worlds of three or any other number of dimensions were very trivial affairs to him. He extracted from the charred remains of Oktav’s robe a small gray sphere, which Clawly now saw was similar to one which the summoner had been holding in his outstretched hand. Then, with an equal clumsiness and contempt, with a sweeping glance that saw Clawly and ignored him, the summoner walked back through the inner doorway.
Clawly’s body felt like a sack of water. He could not take his eyes off the thing behind the desk. It looked more like a burnt mummy than a burnt man. By some chance the blue flame had spared the high forehead, giving the face a grotesquely splotched appearance.
The outer door was opened, but Clawly did not turn or otherwise move. Fie heard a hissing inhalation—presumably when the newcomer saw the hideous corpse—but the newcomer had to come round in front before Clawly saw and recognized—or rather, partly recognized—him. And even then Clawly felt no reaction of astonishment or relief, or any reaction he might have expected to feel. The incredible scene he had just witnessed lingered like an after-image, and other thoughts and feelings refused to come into focus. The dead body of Oktav dominated his vision and his mind, as if emanating a palpable aura that blurred everything else.
The newcomer noted the incompleteness of Clawly’s recognition, for he said, “Yes, I’m Thorn, but, I think you know, not the Thorn who was your friend, although I am inhabiting his body.”
To Clawly the words seemed to come from a great distance; he had to fight an insidious lethargy to hear them at all. They continued, “That Thorn is taking my place in the world—and three days ago I rejoiced to think of the suffering he would undergo there. Fact is, I was your enemy—his and yours—but now I’m not so sure. I’m even beginning to think we may be able to help each other a great deal. But I’m responsible for more lives than just my own, so until I’m sure of you, I daren’t take any chances. That’s the reason for this.”
And he indicated the small tubular object in his hand, which seemed to be the dismantled main propulsion unit of a suit of flying togs—a crude but effective short-range blaster.
Clawly began to take him in, though it was still hard for him to see anything but the thing behind the desk. Yes, it was Thorn’s face, all right, but with a very uncharacteristic expression of stubborn and practical determination.
The newcomer continued, “I’ve been following you because Thorn’s memoranda tapes showed that you and he were working together in what seemed to be an effort to warn this world of its danger. But lately things have been happening that make me doubt that—things I want explained. What’s this Martian invasion? Is it real? Or an attempt to rouse your world into a state of preparedness? Or a piece of misdirection designed to confuse the issue and make the Servant’s invasion easier? Then, why did you come here, and who is this creature, and how did he die?” With a gesture of repugnance, he indicated the body of Oktav. “What I overheard reawakened my old suspicion that there’s somebody behind this business of duplicate worlds, somebody who’s making a profit from it, somebody—”
His voice went dead. In an instant, all the frowning concentration blanked out of his face. Very slowly, like a man who suddenly becomes aware that there is a monster behind him, he began to turn around.
At the same time, Clawly felt himself begin to shake—and for the same reason.
It was a very small and ordinary thing—just a small cough, a dry clearing of the throat. But it came from behind the desk.
The shriveled, scorched body was swaying a little; the charred hands were pushing across the desk, leaving black smears; a tremor was apparent in the blackened jaw.
For a moment they only watched in horror. Then, drawn by the same irresistible impulse, they slowly approached the desk.
The blind, ghastly movements continued. Then the burnt lips parted, and they heard the whisper—a whisper that was in every syllable a hard-won victory over seared tissues.
“I should be dead, but strange vitalities linger in him who has possessed a talisman. My eyes are embers, but I can dimly see you. Come closer, that I may say what must be said. I have a testament to make, and little time in which to make it, and no choice as to whom it is made. Draw nearer, that I may tell you what must be done for the sake of all worlds.”
They obeyed, sweat starting from their foreheads in awe of the inhumanly sustained vitality that permitted this charred mummy to speak.
“Purely by chance, a man of the Dawn Civilization discovered a talisman—a small nonmechanical engine controlled by thought—giving him the power of traveling in time, and across time, and into the regions beyond time. There it led him to seven other talismans, and to a similar but larger engine of even greater power, which he named the Probability Engine. He took in with him seven accomplices, I being one, and together we used the Probability Engine to split time and make actual all possible worlds, preserving only the best of them, and—so we thought—destroying the rest.”
The whisper slowly began to diminish in strength. Clawly and the other leaned in closer to the black, white-foreheaded face.
“But I discovered that those destroyed worlds still exist, and I know too well what mad tinkering the others will be prompted to, when they make the same discovery. You must prevent them, as I intended to. In particular, you must find the Probability Engine and summon its true owners, whatever creatures they may be, who built it and who lost the first talisman. They’re the only ones fitted to deal with the tangle of problems we have created. But to find the Probability Engine, you must have a talisman. Ters, who destroyed me, took mine, but that was one which I had stolen. My own original talisman is in the position of Thorn, the Thorn of this world, who stole it from me, I now believe, because of some unconscious prompting from the True Owners, groping through many-layered reality in an effort to find their lost engine. That Thorn is worlds away from here, more worlds than you suspect. But you”—his fingers fumbled sideways, touching those of the other Thorn, who did not withdraw his hand—“can get into touch … with hi
m … through your linked … subconscious minds.” The whisper was barely audible. It was obvious that even the talisman-vitalized strength was drawing to an end. “That talisman … which he has … is inert. It takes a key-thought … to unlock its powers. You must transmit … the key-thought … to him. The key-thought … is… ‘Three botched … worlds—’ ”
The whisper trailed off into a dry rattle, then silence. The jaw fell open. The head slumped forward. Clawly caught it, palm to white forehead, and let it gently down on to the desk, where the groping fingers had traced a black, crisscross pattern.
Over it, Clawly’s eyes, and those of the other Thorn, met.
XII.
The coup d’etat may appear in a thousand different guises. The prudent ruler suspects even his oven shadow.
de Etienne
The Sky Room of the Opal Cross was so altered it was hard to believe it had been a festivities center only three days ago. The World Map and Space Map still held their dominating positions, but the one was dotted with colored pictorial symbols indicating the location of spaceports and space-yards, defense installations, armament fabrication and conversion centers, regular and emergency power stations, field headquarters, and like military information, while the Space Map, in which a system of perspective realistically conveyed three-dimensional depth, was similarly dotted in the Marsward sector to indicate the real or hypothetic location of spacecraft. This latter map emphasized with chilling clarity the fact that Earth had nothing at all in the way of an interplanetary battle fleet, only a scattering of unarmed or lightly armed exploratory craft that now, by stretching a point, could be counted as scouts. While fanning out from Mars in a great hemisphere, hypothetic but none the less impressive, loomed a vast armada.
