The Final Encyclopedia

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "How are things?" he asked, when she looked out of the phone screen at him. "Is now a good time for me to come up and give you both the whole story?"

  "Just fine," she said. "You'll find us both in Tam's suite."

  "I'll be right there."

  When he stepped through the door into Tam's suite, he found her with Tam, seated in an obviously already prepared group of three chair floats facing each other. He came on in, took the empty float and smiled at Tam.

  "How are things?"

  "I'm fine," said Tam. "Don't waste time worrying about me. You've got the chain of consequences worked out?"

  Hal nodded.

  "At least as far back as the fourteenth century," he said. "Where, for practical purposes, this present historical phase begins with a pivotal figure named John Hawkwood."

  "Ajela told me about him from the time you were here before and wanted to look up Conan Doyle's novelistic hero, Nigel Loring." Tam's gaze sharpened. "But Loring was different. He was one of the original Knights of the Garter under the Black Prince, wasn't he? Hawkwood's barely mentioned in Froissart—I know that much."

  "After the Peace of Bretigny, when the Black Prince captured King Jean at Poitiers and England and France were at peace, Hawkwood was one of the leaders of the White Company that went over the mountains into Italy," Hal said. "He ended as Captain General of the forces of Florence, two decades later; and he was at least in his forties when he went into Italy."

  "They call him 'the first of the modern generals,' Ajela tells me," Tam said. "Anyway, how'd you get to him? And why've you been so close-mouthed about your progress until now?"

  "It was one of those situations where I had to have all the pieces before it fell together," Hal said. "Until a week ago I was still going largely on faith. That's why I didn't have anything solid to tell you."

  "Faith in yourself," murmured Ajela.

  Tam glanced at her.

  "All right," he said to her. He looked back at Hal. "Tell us in your own way. I won't interrupt."

  "As you know, I started working from the present backwards," Hal said. "The Others are crossbreeds between different Splinter Culture individuals. So they, too, are products of elements in the Splinter Cultures. The Splinter Cultures were a product of elements in the society of Old Earth just before and during the period when the phase-drive began to work and we had the explosion of emigration over less than a hundred years to the presently occupied worlds. The Exotics came from an organization that named itself the Chantry Guild in the twenty-first century. The Friendlies were originally colonies sponsored by the so-called marching societies—and so on and so forth. These, in turn, had their roots in the breakout century—the Chantry Guild of that time grew out of the twentieth century's apocalyptic upsurge of interest in Eastern religions, the occult, and paranormal abilities. The marching societies developed from the re-emergence of religious fundamentalism."

  "An apocalyptic time, generally," Tam grunted. "In any time of social stress, you've got this sort of hysteria cropping up in biblically-rooted societies. It isn't just with western Christians—the same thing happens with Jews and Moslems, when conditions are right. Lots of historical instances before the twentieth century."

  "But there's a special historical pivot point in the twentieth century," said Hal. "It was the time of the acknowledgment of space. The great mass of humanity up until then had ignored, even when they knew of it, the size of the universe outside Earth's air envelope and the insignificance of their little planet compared to it. Suddenly, they couldn't do that anymore, and the psychological shock was profound. Earth had suddenly ceased to be a safe, warm protective shell for the race. They were suddenly naked to the stars. The shock of that made their century unique in human history and pre-history, and they were forced to be aware of that uniqueness. I know—to those people who live in it, their own time is always the supremely important one; but the people in the twentieth really had some reason to think that way. The idea of space shook them up hard, down to the unconscious levels, and consequently, it shook up the then-existing forms of society—all over Old Earth. Those same forms had been shaped by five hundred years of technological development that really became explosive in the mid-nineteenth century… and so on. But I'm covering ground too fast, maybe—"

  "Did I say you were?" growled Tam.

  "No," Hal smiled at the old man. "Of course not. What I meant was, I was getting ahead of myself. What I did, working from the present backward, was to key on shifts in historical development, tied to unique individuals. For example, a necessary precursor to the development of the present social conditions that have provided a breeding ground for the rise to power of the Others was the achievement of Donal Graeme in pulling all the fourteen worlds together under one legal system; and putting an end to exploitative opportunities that gave rise to the interstellar barons like William of Ceta—"

  "I saw Graeme only once," the antique way of referring to an individual by surname only rang oddly on Hal's ears, in the harsh old voice of Tam. "It was at a party for him on Newton. He wasn't particularly impressive to look at."

  "But in any case," said Hal, "what Donal did wouldn't have been possible without the emergence of a unique group like the Dorsai; which in the beginning were nothing but a supply of cannon fodder for the inter-colony wars of the early centuries of interstellar expansion. And, in turn, what they became, and what Donal achieved would never have been possible without the unorthodox military science developed by Cletus Grahame."

  "Runs in the family, doesn't it?" said Tam, smiling grimly.

  "The Dorsai was a strongly hereditary culture," said Hal. "It's less surprising on a place like the Dorsai that Donal and Cletus should turn out to be related, than it might have been someplace else. But the interesting thing is that Cletus could not have done what he did without the financial backing of the Exotics, even at that early time, and the Exotics became the Exotics almost exclusively because of—"

  "Walter Blunt," said Tam.

  "I don't think so," said Hal, slowly. "Walter Blunt was apparently wholeheartedly sincere about his gospel of a cleansing destruction as his cure for whatever ailed the human race. I've got a lot more to learn about Walter Blunt and the Chantry Guild. On the face of it that theory of his is the very antithesis of the search for the evolved human, which the Exotics developed; and yet the Chantry Guild became the Exotics. No, there's another man who comes out of nowhere suddenly, in the late twenty-first century, a mining engineer with one arm who suddenly becomes involved with the Chantry Guild Walter Blunt had founded and rises to essentially challenge Blunt's leadership in a very short time—only to drown almost immediately after that challenge becomes successful, in a small sailboat he was sailing in the Pacific Ocean, offshore. But his brief interaction with the Chantry Guild changes everything about it. After this man—Paul Formain—had been involved, Blunt was left essentially as nothing more than a figurehead; and Jason—"

  The chime announcing a phone call interrupted him.

  "What's that?" said Tam. "Ajela, I thought you told them—"

  "I said we weren't to be bothered, except for something of the gravest importance," she answered, reaching for the console on the arm of her float. "They wouldn't call us unless it was that… Chuni?"

  "Ajela?—We've got a request from Bleys Ahrens to come for a talk with Hal Mayne."

  Ajela's finger lifted from the phone connection. Her eyes, and Tam's as well, went to Hal.

  "Yes," said Hal, after a moment. "I suppose it was bound to happen. I'll talk to him, of course."

  "Tell Bleys Ahrens he can come on in," Ajela said over the phone circuit. "Hal will see him."

  "All right," answered the voice at the far end. "And—Ajela?"

  "What?"

  "We've got another request that came in at almost the same moment, from a jitney that's just docking in B chamber now. An Exotic named Amid; doesn't have a pass, but he also wants to talk to Hal. Bleys Ahrens is holding distance in a priva
te spacecraft. I don't think they know about each other."

  Ajela looked again at Hal.

  "Amid first," said Hal. "Then Bleys. Amid may have some information for me that'd be useful before I meet Bleys. I told you about Amid; he's the one I mailed my papers to when the Militia caught me finally on Harmony; and he passed the word to the local Exotic consulate to help me if I could get to them, then took care of me on Mara."

  "Let them both in, Chuni," said Ajela. "Hal's going to see Amid first. Take him to Hal's room; and if you think they don't know about each other, better keep the two of them separate."

  She glanced at Hal and Hal nodded. She closed off the phone circuit.

  "Well," said Hal, "I think, under the circumstances, I'd better cut this short. There's too much to tell you to try to rush through it now. The essential point is, the chain leads back to a John Hawkwood, in the fourteenth century. Or rather, it leads back to the Renaissance; and if it hadn't been for John Hawkwood, we might not have had a Renaissance."

  "That's rather a large statement, isn't it?" said Tam. "You aren't trying to tell us that history goes the way it does not simply because of a chain of social developments, but because of a chain of unusual individuals?"

  "No," said Hal. "Pressures within the river of historical forces determine the bends and turns in that river; and the unusual individuals are thrown up by those same pressures at the turning points. A different turn or bend would have thrown up a different individual. At least, that's the way it always was in the past. But, beginning about a thousand years ago, the race started to move into an area where certain individuals began to develop a consciousness of the river; and, depending upon how great that consciousness is, each one since has been consciously able to make some at least partially successful attempt to bend the river to his or her will. That's why someone like Bleys with his great awareness of what's now happening can be many times more effective than he could have been in any past period of history."

  He stood up.

  "I should go," he said. "I want time to talk to Amid without Bleys knowing that I've kept him waiting."

  "What difference would it make if he knew?" Ajela said.

  "I don't know. With anyone else I wouldn't be so concerned," said Hal. "But I'm cautious about exposing even the corner of any potentially useful data to that mind of Bleys'. I'll talk to you again as soon as I've seen these two."

  Amid, looking almost toylike in a silver-gray robe, was waiting for him when Hal stepped back into his own room. The small Exotic was standing by Hal's desk.

  "Sit down," said Hal, taking a seat himself, away from the desk. "It's good to see you."

  Amid smiled wryly, and settled himself in a float.

  "It's good of you to say so," he said. "Are you sure you're that pleased to see me?"

  "Of course," said Hal. "How long will you stay?"

  Amid's face sobered.

  "Forever," he said, quietly. For a moment the lines of his face were sad and older than Hal had ever seen them. "Or, in practical terms, as long as I can be of any use to you."

  Hal considered him thoughtfully for a moment.

  "Should I take it opinions about me have changed on the Exotics?"

  "In a sense," said Amid. "I'm afraid we've given up. That's why I'm free to come to you."

  "Given up?" Hal sat looking at him. "That's a little like saying an elephant has given up being an elephant—it makes no sense at all. You don't mean it literally?"

  "Literally? Of course not," said Amid. "No more than any healthy-minded person means it when he says he's going to give up living. Death is unthinkable; and since the Others mean to kill us off, to acquiesce in that is impossible. No, it's only that our best calculations show us no way out. Effectively, the contest is over. The Others have already won."

  "You can't mean that either," said Hal.

  "No other answer's possible. How much do you know, about what they've been doing lately?"

  "Not much," said Hal. "We interpret the factors that reach us, particularly with Tam Olyn's understanding of the Encyclopedia to help us; and we get a general picture of the fact that they're mobilizing rapidly under Bleys Ahrens. But it's all inference—even if it's very high level inference. Specific information's what we don't get much of."

  "That's why I'm here. I can help you with that." Amid sat with Exotic stillness in his chair, but Hal felt a tenseness in him. "For example, the situation isn't just that the Others are mobilizing against you; it's that they've already achieved mobilization—past the point where it looks as if they can be stopped. But, about me. With no visible way to go, we're all left free to do what we choose. So, I decided to humor my natural inclinations, and offer you my services, while the Others can still be fought. That's what I meant when I said I could stay forever, if you want. I can stay with you until the end."

  Hal sat back in his float, thoughtfully.

  "Oh," said Amid. "And, incidentally, we admit now that you and the Dorsai were right. The attempt to assassinate the Others, individually, wouldn't have worked. Each one of them's now got a large partisan population around them, on all the nine worlds they control. Even if they all could be killed, their deaths would only make those populations determined to destroy us in revenge."

  "This is interesting," said Hal, slowly. "When I got here, some twelve standard months ago, all I could learn, through Tam Olyn, was that Danno was dead, and that Bleys had taken over, and started to mobilize."

  "When you got away from Bleys on Coby," said Amid, "I think you signed Danno's death warrant. We'd known for years that he and Bleys had very different ideas of what the destiny of the Others should be. Danno wanted peace and plenty in his time; and nothing much more. Bleys had a somewhat longer view."

  Hal looked more closely at him.

  "You sound as if you're giving me more credit for alarming Bleys than I'd suspected you would."

  "I'm free now to say and do what I want," said Amid.

  "How could Bleys move so fast with this mobilization that all of you on the Exotics would be sure he'd already won?"

  "Not—already won," Amid answered, "but certain to win. Because of that tremendous leverage on other people that the Others seem to be able to bring to bear. What he's done, in effect, is start a popular movement against all of us who might oppose him."

  "How? On what basis?" Hal said.

  Amid smiled, almost wistfully.

  "The man's a genius," he said. "He simply turned everything inside out. He made the Others' enemies the villains who'd destroy civilization. The popular opinion now becomes that there's a plot on the part of those same people on Earth who always wanted to control the Younger Worlds and their populations. The plot is supposed to be masterminded by those like yourself on the Final Encyclopedia; who, as everyone knows, for two hundred years have been busy developing scientific black magic of great power—the variant of the phase drive that gives you your protective envelope here is visible proof of that. The story goes that the main business of the Encyclopedia has been the development of awesome weaponry all these two centuries, and with these they can sweep all human life from the other worlds, unless those worlds surrender to them. The only hope of the Younger Worlds is that the Encyclopedia isn't quite ready to act; and if they move fast, they can kill the dragon before it gets out of its cave."

  Hal sat for a moment.

  "I see," he said at last.

  "The Others have advertized themselves as leaders and organizers of the effort to save the Younger Worlds. According to them, all the historical henchmen of the Encyclopedia, such as the Dorsai, Exotics, and the wrong kind of Friendly, are known to be in with the Encyclopedia in this, helping to soften up the Younger Worlds for Earth's final attack; and so they must also be rooted out at the same time, once and for all."

  Amid paused.

  "You'll notice," he said, "how neatly this line is set up to be developed later into one that says that, if all people are to have lasting safety, all knowledge, science and rel
ated demons must be done away with or strictly controlled; so that they can never rise again in the future, to threaten the ordinary human."

  "How large a proportion of the formerly uncommitted on those nine worlds seem to have been recruited by this, at the present time?" Hal asked.

  "Perhaps twenty per cent," said Amid, "and that's why we've calculated that there's no hope for us. Effectively, twenty per cent is more than enough to commit an overwhelming supply of cannon fodder for the Others to throw against us. For all practical purposes, twenty per cent might as well be a hundred per cent. It represents so many individuals that they could march upon us, twenty abreast, forever. They'd be self-renewing down the generations, if the war against us could last that long."

  "The Others may have the people," said Hal. "But it's something else to mount an attack between worlds with a force that massive, logistically."

  "True," said Amid. "So we do have some time. But on the Exotics, our best calculations see the attack eventually, and our destruction, as inevitable."

  His eyes were steady on Hal's.

  "So you see," he went on, after a second. "Oh, I know. Ten years ago, anything like such a military attempt of worlds upon worlds would have sounded as wild as a fairy tale come to life. But what everyone took for granted was that no people would consider such a tremendous wastage of life and material as would be necessary to gain such an end. But to the Others, the costs don't matter as long as they get the results they want."

  Hal nodded.

  "Since that's the case," he said, "and since I assume you don't find any flaws in the Exotic calculations—"

  "No," said Amid.

  "Why bother coming to me?" finished Hal. "According to what you say, what you and I can do isn't going to make any difference. Under those circumstances I'd expect a mature Exotic to give up philosophically."

  "Possibly then I'm not a mature Exotic," said Amid. "In spite of my wrinkles. As I say, I'm free now to do what I want; and, being free, I'm allowing myself to indulge an irrational, unprovable hope that, just as the Others with this charismatic talent of theirs pulled a rabbit out of their hat which nobody'd ever suspected, you just might be able to pull out an equally unsuspected counter-rabbit. Consciously, of course, I have to realize that such a hope is nonsense. But I believe I'll feel better if I go down resisting, so to speak, until the bitter end. So, I'd like to stay as long as I can and be of as much use to you as possible."