Slaves of Ijax

by John Russell Fearn

  “I just don’t know,” Alza mused. “I first met him seven years ago when I became a secretary. At that time he was friendly to everybody, then after he met with his accident all his good nature seemed to evaporate and he became the impersonal creature he is now. I’ve often wondered if the operation he underwent didn’t change him somehow.”

  “Operation?” Peter opened his eyes inquiringly to find the girl looking at him.

  “He was injured in the head by a laboratory accident and had to be operated upon,” she explained. “As a matter of fact it was Anton Shaw himself who performed the operation, some little time before the law caught up with him. At that time, being the head scientist, he was also a master-surgeon. He put Mr. Lanning on his feet again, anyway, and except for his change of manner he’s been healthy enough ever since.”

  Peter reflected for a moment. “Did Anton Shaw know at that time that he was heading for a fall?”

  “He might have had hints, but he couldn’t have known. I think Lanning had a really painful task in arresting Shaw, for it was he who found out the unsavoury truth. It has always seemed to me that he felt it keenly—having to turn over to justice the very man who had saved his life.”

  “Mmmm...,” Peter mused. “I just wondered. Had Shaw known what was coming he might have done something to Lanning as a sort of advance revenge.”

  The girl shook her head as though she doubted the possibility; then Peter sat up actively and gathered in his robe sleeve with its insignia.

  “I think we ought lo be on the move, Alza. This lying down may be a good idea but I’m more accustomed to exercise. Coming?”

  The girl rose and stood up, question in her grey eyes. “Where would you like to go now, Excel...Peter?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking.” He took her arm deliberately as they left the place and felt pleased by the fact that she did not resist his action. “Have you anywhere in this city where you keep information? I mean a sort of reference library, or a place where records are kept?”

  “We have the Historian’s Hall, about a mile from here. What are you seeking, exactly?”

  “Moondust,” Peter said, with an amiable grin. “I want to find out about it. I know I’ve heard of it somewhere.”

  Alza nodded and they continued walking down the street. Peter had the impression that exercise did not appeal to the girl, for she kept glancing wistfully towards the floating air-taxis. But since he did not give word to summon one she obviously could not. In five minutes they reached a corner of the pedestrian level and the girl pointed over a bridge spanning the nearest canyon of street to a building with a door at pedestrian street level.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Quite an interesting place....”

  They crossed the bridge and entered a wide hall of many windows admitting the afternoon sunshine. There was nobody in sight and the emptiness echoed with their footfalls as they crossed the richly tiled floor to a door in the distance. Beyond it they entered a room of breathtaking dimensions—and for a moment Peter found himself gazing about in awestruck wonder.

  As the girl directed him towards the reference library his pace slowed. He just could not get over the fascination of the exhibit cases. There was a wry smile on his face as he looked at a genuine antique automobile of 2050. Then there were parts of a hydrogen bomb, described as man’s most devastating weapon in the twenty-first century. Had he not had another purpose in mind he could have lingered for the rest of the day over such offerings.

  He entered the reference library to find that the girl had already summoned a robot, which was placing a truly colossal book of fine metal leaves on a desk. It was a giant encyclopedia covering every conceivable thing in the world from A to Z. Rubbing his hands gently together Peter sat down in front of it and the girl stood watching over his shoulder.

  “M for moondust,” he murmured, turning the pages and marvelling at the clearness of the coloured illustrations, “Moon. Moonbeam—Moonblind—Moon-daisy— Ah. moondust! Here it is!”

  Alza followed his finger to a thick paragraph of type—

  Moondust—a mineral allied to quartz, silica, and silicon dioxide, crystallizing hexagonally after the fashion of quartz. According to Webster and other prominent scientists it is unique in that it is photogenic to the action of moonlight, revealing a definite energy-excitement when stimulated by the rays of the full moon. In sunshine it lies dormant. Moondust possesses much of the capacity for varying electrical resistance in light and dark as does selenium.

  “So that’s what it is!” Alza exclaimed, mildly surprised. “I never bothered to find out.”

  Peter closed the book slowly. “I remembered my friend Michael Blane referring to it once. The name of ‘Moondust’ has such a lyrical sound I couldn’t easily forget it.”

  “I wonder,” Alza mused, “why the Task demands that we should fill the Grand Tower hemisphere with moondust? It’s—peculiar.”

  “It’s not the only thing which is peculiar,” Peter responded. “Why all the channels from the Grand Tower? Why a Grand Tower at all, if it comes to that? There’s a whole heap of things in this age that I don’t understand, Alza, but since circumstances have made me the figurehead, I mean to find things out. The trouble is I’m not a good scientist. How about you?

  “I’ll do my best to explain anything scientific that puzzles you,” she responded.

  “Good!” Peter got to his feet with a grin. “Let’s start with moondust itself. Is it being mined somewhere in readiness for the Tower, or what?”

  “I believe it has been mined for the past two years. As I told you, that’s Mr. Lanning’s chief concern.”

  “Well, I’m no wiser,” Peter sighed, tugging at his underlip. “All right. Let’s kill a little more time by taking a look at the museum. It may bore you but it’s fascinating to me. The stuff you class as ancient I’ve never even seen.”

  She followed him back into the exhibition hall, and apart from the ‘ancient relics’ there were other scientific marvels that fascinated him. Chief among them, out of date though it was, was an automatic Eclipse-Forecaster that after the touch of a button went through mystic inner calculations and finally revealed the date in a small display, underneath the word ‘Sun’ or ‘Moon’.

  After checking back on eclipses he had seen during his lifetime, he felt assured of the instrument’s accuracy and cast ahead in time yet to come. For 2746 one solar eclipse, partial, was due on the 8th November, and one total lunar one on September 28th.

  “Pretty good,” he said at last, wagging his head admiringly. “Could have done with something like this in my day. Incidentally,” he added in surprise, “what’s the date today? And the month?”

  “It’s the thirty-first of July, Twenty-Seven Forty-Six,” the girl responded. “And, Peter, I think its time we had some refreshment. We have been in here over four hours.”

  “Time flies when you’re interested,” Peter apologized, smiling. “All right. And thanks for waiting for me. I’ll bet you’ve been bored—I used to be with museums at home.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SLAVES OF IJAX

  For tea they returned to the automat and remained there until the summer evening shadows were being cast by the giant buildings. It had been an interesting rest for Peter, but as became his nature he had spent most of it storing up impressions and questioning Alza.

  He discovered for one thing that the whole city—the whole world indeed—was powered by atomic force; that the climate was also balanced equably over the entire planet; that medical skill could defeat almost anything except death, and yet—a queer thing, this—all space travel had been abandoned some five years earlier. This had followed the discovery that space had become dangerous following a terrific increase in cosmic radiation. The astronauts and scientists manning satellite space stations had been returned to Earth, and the satellites abandoned. Also abandoned had been the lunar research base where, without the protection of a dense atmosphere and strong magnetic field—such as the E
arth enjoyed—those scientists manning the base would have been subjected to the full fury of the deadly radiations. No one knew whence the increased radiation had originated, but until it abated, space travel was no longer safe. Peter realized that he had seen no sign of a spaceport or spaceships—only airplanes. Here was yet another mystery to add to the store he had already collected.

  From this general discourse he switched to the girl herself—her personal history. But she had little to tell. She was a technician and secretary, more intelligent than most, and as became the custom of Metropolita’s society she lived her own life entirely apart from her parents. The severance of parental control, it appeared, was encouraged in this age, and since the State took care of the older people there was probably a good deal to be said for it. But always, to Peter’s mind, things worked back to the same old thing. People did not really progress. They had achieved ultimate perfection, but everything was bent towards the Task, that great overriding question mark.

  In the late evening they left the automat to find the city ablaze with lights, the full moon and stars sailing serenely in a darkened sky. From then on until midnight they cruised about in the comfort of an air taxi over the canyons and towering lighted buildings; then the girl instructed the driver to take them down to ground level on the Twenty-Third Intersection, and on to the particular Temple of Ijax belonging to that neighbourhood.

  It was a building totally different from its surroundings. Square and extensive, it was topped by a grey dome at the summit, surmounted by an immense Ijax in the usual sitting position. The doors of the place were wide open, casting forth a fan of brilliance upon the men and women moving slowly up the six wide granite steps.

  Together they took their place in the queue and followed it into the Temple’s interior. Here Peter was confronted by immense distance, reminding him of the biggest hall he had ever seen, and ending in a highly ornate railed platform upon which stood a gigantic Ijax illuminated by intense floodlighting which flickered and changed colour continuously.

  Peter took his seat beside Alza and they sat gazing over the multitude of people filing in quietly and settling down. At last, when the giant electric clock showed it was exactly midnight, the lights dimmed but did not altogether expire Peter glanced about him, discovering suddenly to his discomfited surprise that everybody, Alza included, was bowing the head forward as if in prayer. Rather than look odd he did the same but he certainly wondered at the reason for it. Then everybody straightened he did likewise and waited for something to happen.

  The astonishing thing, to Peter, was that nothing did happen!

  And yet, around him, faces were becoming flushed; there was restive movement—even visible action here and there as is noticeable in a victim of incipient religious mania. It was as though a breeze were passing over the great assembly. The people rocked to and fro, murmuring to themselves, some holding clenched fists to their heads and staring meanwhile at Ijax.

  Peter frowned and glanced sideways at Alza. Her full lips were parted, her eyes bright and staring fixedly in front of her. A colour that was clearly abnormal had mounted into her neck and cheeks. She had all the symptoms of terrific emotional tension.... So it went on for quite ten minutes—then with one obvious movement everyone relaxed, bowed their heads, and the lights came up again.

  There was a scraping of chairs on the polished floor, the movement of men and women. Talking excitedly they turned to one another. Peter rose too and a man gripped his arm.

  “Marvellous, wasn’t it?” he asked tensely. “Ijax speaks with such authority—and yet he is so tolerant.”

  “Yes,” Peter agreed blandly. “Most tolerant, I’m sure.”

  “Wonderful!” a woman declared to him, as she fled by.

  Peter rubbed his chin in bewilderment and looked round on the faces. Every one of them was somehow—fascinated. That was the word. He had already noticed how moonstruck most people appeared; now they looked doubly that way—as though they had seen an awe-inspiring marvel and had not yet recovered from the shock.

  Then Alza was plucking at his sleeve, her eyes shining with a feverish brilliance in her now pale face.

  “Shall we go?” she whispered, and he nodded.

  They went out together, gradually separating from the press of surging people, and walked a little distance along the lower level street. Then Peter stopped.

  “I suppose it’s time we returned home?” he asked.

  “I live in the Governing Building,” Alza said, “so we can go together. Shall we walk? It’s not far to the Escalator Junction.”

  Peter nodded and they went on again. He noticed as the girl clung to him that she was trembling violently.

  “Now you know,” she said presently, in a hushed voice. “He is wonderful, isn’t he?”

  “Is he? Frankly, Alza, I haven’t the remotest notion what the whole thing is about! I saw everybody swaying and getting hot under the collar for about ten minutes over that pot-bellied idol; then— Then it was all over.”

  Alza halted with a jerk. “What! Great heavens, Peter, you mean you didn’t hear him speak?”

  All her calm dignity had gone for the moment. She behaved just like any girl in any century who has received a staggering surprise.

  “No, I didn’t,” Peter said quietly.

  “But—but you must have done! Why, everybody in the world would hear him speak at that moment.... Or at least everybody on this side of the world. Australia will hear him when their night falls.”

  “Interesting,” Peter said frowning. “But I’m quite sure that something queer went on in that spook’s den tonight and I’d give my whole gold-plated suite to find out what it was.”

  “Ijax gave us further orders for the Task,” the girl said quickly. “And he complimented us on our progress. Oh, his soothing voice, his infinite gentleness—!”

  “But he didn’t speak!” Peter protested.

  “He did. As clearly as you are speaking to me now.”

  They stared at each other under the daylight-lamps. The impasse was complete. At last Peter shrugged his shoulders.

  “I must be different, or something,” he muttered, catching her arm. “Let’s forget all about the whole thing for the moment. Anyway I’m too tired right now to bother.”

  The girl was silent. It seemed to him that she was even a little hurt, and certainly disappointed, by his words. It was as though she didn’t believe him.

  Nonetheless, her manner had resumed its normal dignity when they parted from each other in the gigantic Governing Building, Peter into his suite and the girl to her own quarters down the wide, glazed metal corridor.

  Rubbing his chin Peter entered the great room that was the main living apartment of his suite and closed the doors quietly behind him. The light was on—cold light in opalescent globes high in the glazed ceiling; costly curtains with the shimmer of liquid gold covered the great windows. In the shadowless distance a tall figure was standing, hands tucked in the ends of his roomy sleeves.

  “I am glad you have returned safely, Excellence,” Mark Lanning murmured, as Peter advanced.

  Peter glanced at him and then settled thoughtfully in a chair.

  “You’re up late, Mr. Lanning,” he commented.

  “I have just returned from a sacred duty, Excellence. I felt I should call in on the way to my suite and see if you were safely home. You have travelled far today—learned much.”

  “You’re right there,” Peter agreed bluntly. “And I have come to the conclusion that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.”

  The tall scientist gazed down uncomprehendingly.

  “I mean,” Peter elaborated, “that the strangest things are going on in this city and I can’t find an explanation for any of them. Maybe you can help me. What is the exact nature of the Task?”

  Lanning’s thin mouth tightened. “I regret, Excellence, that there are some things I cannot explain. I warned you that you would not understand our laws and—“

 
; “Be damned to that! I can understand a gigantic Tower with a bowl at the top of it waiting to be filled with moondust! I can also understand six radiating channels being gouged from that Tower’s base. Those are facts, Mr. Lanning, not laws! What I do not understand is the purpose behind it, or why you were with a party of men in that bowl this very morning. I saw you from an airplane. Miss Holmes piloted me there.”

  “I guessed from the manner in which the machine hovered that it was you,” Lanning answered gravely. “I shall reprimand Miss Holmes severely for her unethical conduct. She had no right to fly over that Tower.”

  “Why the hell not? And you’ll not say anything to her without hearing from me! All she did was obey my orders and she’ll go on doing just that. Mr. Lanning, I think it’s time we came to an understanding. You believe in Ijax don’t you?”

  “I have only just returned from the Temple,” the scientist answered, then feeling inside a pocket of his sleeve he brought out a small Ijax idol in his palm. “We all of us believe,” he added.

  “And everybody listens to the words concerning the Task,” Peter said grimly. “Everybody—except me! I went into one of the Temples tonight with Miss Holmes and I couldn’t hear a word Ijax was supposed to be saying.”

  Something vaguely approaching relief crossed Lanning’s saturnine face. He returned the idol inside his sleeve and shrugged.

  “Perhaps that is because you are not one of us,” he said.

  “Not of this age, perhaps, but I’ve got ears, eyes, and all the rest of the things normal human beings have got. I want to know what’s going on—why everybody looks half doped, why they all enthuse over this Task which no one seems able to explain in detail. In particular I want to know why you balk me when I try to inquire too deeply.”

  “I can only say, Excellence, that it is better you do not know the meaning of some things,” Lanning answered coldly. “And I would also caution you against probing too far. To become too inquisitive may mean your forfeiting your comfortable position as a deified personality. I cannot think you would be so foolish.”