Timepiece

by Brian N Ball

  The girl held his hand tightly. ‘Tell me why were looking at things in the wrong way.”

  “The salamander bugs on VU 870,” said Del. “We didn't believe anything could live at temperatures barely below subfission. But we found a consumption of carbon that couldn't be accounted for. Their respiratory systems. And that's how we identified them. Now, suppose we landed somewhere and whoever was analysing the happening could only see—”

  “Our livers,” said the girl. “You're talking about the Desoto-Rotunda Hypothesis.” She explained concisely. If some entity saw us for the first time and was only aware of our livers, what would “he” make of “us”? Somehow we lived without an apparent external form of sustenance; extensive and complex chemical changes occurred, and there was a regular intake and output of material. But what intelligence caused this functioning? And what was its purpose? I filter, therefore I am? “Eventually, working backwards from function, the hypothesis that what was seen was only part of a whole would be put forward.”

  “I was looking at things the other way round,” said

  Del. “Suppose we landed—as we have—and saw or recorded or thought there were huge chunks of mass moving around—as we think there are: suppose we can see only in part .”

  The girl jumped lightly from one craggy chunk of rock to the bottom of a valley. “How much further is it?”

  “A mile or so,” said Del.

  “You’re talking of the slabs of mass?” said the girl.

  “Maybe we see—record, too much,” said Del.

  “They’re not there at all?” said the girl.

  “Not exactly,” said Del. “It could be a time-shift phenomenon, to link up with the original Smith Report. The things, whatever they are, might be smaller or larger than we think: or just exist in a different way. Say in a number of different continuums.”

  “A thing that can exist in a different time-continuum,” said the girl. “Or simultaneously in a number of continuums.” She looked back to the ship, but it was hidden by a rolling promontory. “Things gradually fit together, Del.”

  “No,” Del told her. “We’re only on the edge of the beginning. If we had more time! A few days even, and a ship to survey the Planet!”

  “The hollow. That will tell us something.” They had reached the far side of the wide valley now and they were climbing again. “It’s got to have a reason,” the girl went on.

  They reached the edge of the hollow and found it was far deeper than they had imagined. Sharp-edged in black basalt, the sides of the crater plunged away sheer and symmetrical to a level floor gleaming dully in the fading, orange sunlight. They looked over the edge.

  Smashed into a million pieces lay the sister-ship of the Thomas Cook. Its ponderous machinery was fragmented into almost unrecognizable lumps. The green crest of the Galaxy shone brightly on one tilted block of metal. They were looking for the dead men.

  Del raised powerful binoculars; the girl unpacked the recording instruments. There was no sign of life, but none of death either.

  "Still in their couches,” whispered Del. He counted the bodies. 'Three—two there, another one—eight. And the Commander. Nine.” The horror of the scene gripped him. The girl suddenly realized the shocking truth.

  She screamed. "Del! They could have died today!”

  The instruments recorded the grisly facts clearly. “Don t look,” he said, keeping the binoculars from the girl.

  The long-dead men lay in the attitudes of the just-dead. Still strapped in their primitive cocoons of padding, they looked as though they might be ready to stir at any moment and release themselves.

  “What is it, Del?” whispered the girl.

  'Time,” said Del. “Here’s part of the answer. They were preserved until—until yesterday,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Yesterday?”

  'Were recording the kind of levels of decay that we’d get if they were killed only yesterday.”

  “Yesterday,” said the girl again, but Del could see that she too had arrived at the answer. “It was when the—the slabs moved. When the ship was crushed.” She stared at the deep chasm, now darkening as the sunlight filtered away. The presence of the dead men oppressed them. They had expected to find pitiful whitened bones, and here was all the horror of corpses; they had hoped for some land of solution, but it was obvious that whatever had controlled the hollow’s peculiar properties had gone.

  “We can’t get down there,” said Del. “And it would be a waste of time. There’s nothing for us here.”

  “So we’ve failed,” said the girl.

  Del realized in surprise that he was not disappointed. Had he ever expected to find an answer to the problem?

  “It could have been here." said the girl angrily. “What else could we have done?”

  "We’ve learned something. In a negative way,” said Del.

  The girl gestured wildly at the great crater below. “From time!” she said. “They were all encased in time. Snatched backwards as Smith said in his Report! They took off, they were moving away, and then they were drawn back! Smith felt it happening. Something caught them, Del!” And now her voice was shrill with excitement, hysterical with disappointment “Del, this thing here, it caught them. It gleans ships out of space. It’s a net of some kind. It flicked the ship out of space and brought it back like a child with a net!”

  “Yes,” said Del. “And now it doesn’t work.”

  “It’s not needed, Del,” said the girl. “And now we’ll never know.” She was weeping, angry tears streaking down her brown cheeks. “Del, I thought you could have found out what it was! You had to be the man to find what it all means!”

  They looked together at the monstrous pit of death.

  “Del,” said the girl, reasonable now, “we must be able to find something?”

  “Go back,” said Del. “That’s all. We could look at the corpses, but that would tell us nothing.” He began to move when he heard the faint thunder of the primitive ion-drive. “The ship,” he said.

  For a moment, they looked at one another.

  “Hear it?” said Del.

  The girl had heard it, but she didn’t want to believe her senses. “Garvin’s testing the drive,” she said.

  They listened to the growing thunder. It stopped for a moment, and they heard only the freshening wind in the slithering undergrowth. Del felt sick with relief. It had been a long day: the eerie new world, the burst of passion; and then the anti-climax of the graveyard in the hollow.

  "I suppose thats that,” said the girl dully. “Back to the life we know.”

  Then they heard again the sound of the engine: purposeful, loud, brief and final. Within seconds the noise died away, receding in faint hammer-blows across the strange terrain.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They hurried back, impelled by fear to find out the extent of their peril, against all reason hoping that the ship would still be waiting, and Garvin calling reassuringly to them.

  “It is there!” shouted the girl.

  Running now, they reached the ship. Its ports hung open, its screen glowed dimly. Lights flashed on as a few of the secondary systems sensed them; the radio buzzed for attention. But Garvin was gone. Del found himself momentarily recalling a score of half-hints that this would happen.

  “Garv!” called the girl tensely. “Del, where—?”

  “Gone,” said Del. “I should have known,” he said bitterly. He’s been planning this for days.” And he realized the inadequacy of the judgement “Weeks. From the start.”

  The girl was boiling with questions, with anger, and with fear:

  “But his back—” She stopped. “Hes left me—us— behind! And where’s he gone? And how?”

  Del plunged through the wreck of the small vessel. Plates lay askew and the systems still intact had been hastily dismantled. The fields were supplied with energy from the fuel cells of the life-raft. The bulky ion-jet drive had gone.

  “He faked the back injury. Or it gave him
the idea of using a slight injury. Where’s he gone? Henry Sokutu might know. And he’s put together some kind of surface craft. Air cushion from the look of the wreck.”

  “But the screens? They’re still working.”

  “Fuel cells. They’ll last for a few hours.”

  “But why?" Why has he gone!”

  The question brought its own answer. “He wanted to be the first,” said Del. “The first to find the Key.” “Where?” whispered the girl. “He must have known all along!”

  Del reluctantly allowed his appreciation of Garvin’s subtlety. It was Garvin who should have led the expedition. “Come to think of it,” Del said aloud, “he did.”

  “Garvin?” said the girl.

  “Yes. Garvin was the man who brought us here. He knew where he was going from the beginning. He got Ellison to walk down into the drive!”

  “The radio,” said the girl. “Henry’s calling.”

  “Don’t trouble to explain!” said Henry Sokutu when Del had switched on the set. “Garvin’s left you stranded! I watched him—every move! And he wouldn’t talk to me! Not a word! Now, see if he’s left a message—he might have done that much to set my mind at rest!”

  “Nothing,” said Del.

  “Yes,” the girl said suddenly. “Here, his data recorder.”

  “Then switch it on!” shouted Henry Sokutu from the wreck of the ship. ‘I’m recording this!”

  “He wanted Ellison out of the way,” said Del. “And us—he had to be alone.”

  Garvin’s voice flooded happily over them, a confident voice, sure that it would find ready acceptance and understanding:

  “I almost didn’t dare, Del! I know none of you would have taken the only chance that’s left to us—

  to risk the main drive to get to the maze before they begin the ritual. You’ll have worked some of it out by the time you hear this: all of you know a bit of it, but, Del, Suzanne, Henry, if you can all hear me, don’t you realize now that you wouldn't have gone! I’m going to find the Key to Time!” Garvin called out. "I’ll take the suit and keep in touch. There’s enough energy left in the fuel cells to keep you out of danger,” he said reasonably. "Wish me luck!”

  Del thought the message was over, but Garvin had added an afterthought:

  "How was Suzanne? Has she told you yet? Del, get her to tell you her dream!”

  There was no more, though they listened for minutes.

  "Your dream?” said Del quietly.

  The girl looked stunned. "Not now, Del. Please.” “The maze! The ritual!” Henry Sokutu called. "Magnificent! He knew Ellison had an immensely high tolerance level for new concepts! He knew Ellison would work out the idea of the hyperspace cubes and the labyrinth! Every figure has a centre, every group of forces has a centre—Ellison would have told us of the dangers of reaching for the labyrinth, and we wouldn’t have dared!”

  "What the Commander said,” the girl said. She looked at Del with something in her face that was near to hate. "The Commander spoke of a labyrinth!” "You’ve got it,” Del agreed. “Ellison would have worked it out. His gyrational patterns, the interior lines of hyperspace. And the maze.” He paused and waited for the girl to speak. She had nothing to say; quickly crowding emotions showed in her face. She seemed to be planning again. Women, thought Del. They waited, they talked, and they had said nothing; but somehow the thunder broke furiously around them.

  “He could have got in touch,” said Henry Sokutu. “He won’t though.”

  “Where is he now?” asked Del.

  “The scanners placed him about to reach the cliffs a few minutes ago, then they lost him ”

  Del checked the coordinates as the data flowed from the orbiting deep-space vessel. “He’s not alone, our friend Garvin,” offered Sokutu.

  “Were stuck here,” the girl was saying and Del realized that she had been talking for some time. “Stranded. Del, how can we get back? There’s no power unit. And the whole shell of the vessel collapses in a few hours if there’s anything like the effect that happened yesterday!”

  “Garvin’s got more trouble,” said Henry Sokutu. Suzanne Rosetti opened her exquisite mouth and screamed. Howl after howl of terror and despair shook the wrecked cabin. Del slapped hard once and she cowered at his feet. “But Del,” she whispered, “there’s nothing for us—for you and me.”

  “They’re moving?” said Del, ignoring the girl.

  “All of them. Towards the cliffs.”

  “Towards the centre,” said Del. He told Henry Sokutu briefly of their findings: the shattered vessel, the pit now deserted by the strange power that had drawn the Commander’s vessel back to the Planet by some unguessable trick of time and space.

  “His charts—how did he work out the location?” Henry Sokutu demanded.

  Garvin had not troubled to hide the final stages of his charts. Del was instantly aware of the incredible feat of deduction the man had accomplished; the neatness, the immaculate perfection, of the conjoining symmetrical curves of probability showing the correlationship of field effects and temporal shifts, were undeniable evidence of Garvin’s genius. Without access to a computer, Garvin had worked in all the data and with a sudden and powerful blast of original reasoning, he had put the parts of the puzzle together in a delicately elegant form. Each stage of deduction led to the next: the result was inevitable.

  “Del, you have to talk to me,” said the girl.

  Del turned away from the sharp curves of probability and glanced at the girl. One bright red mark blazed on her face.

  “Talk to hex',” ordered Henry Sokutu. “You two have to face things together.”

  “We haven’t the time!” said Del “Please,” said the girl again. She saw that he was listening. “You spoiled it, Del. I worked it all out for us. The gene analysis was perfect. We were made for one another!”

  Del listened, his thoughts cool but not on the girl’s words: women shaped their lines of reasoning as snakes coil themselves. He waited for the strike:

  “Del, I brought you here to show—”

  This was it.
  “I was doing my fieldwork on Social Compatibility. Test conditions. You were assigned to me. Insecure, unadapted, on the way down. Your Chief Programmer wanted a full report And my Ph.D. supervisor thought it would be useful original research.”

  “And?” said Del. Another piece had clicked mercilessly into place. She was the girl he dreamt of. She was the golden girl, the one that came on a few strange occasions when he wandered around the Social Compatibility lobbies, drunk and tired. The faceless girl who had a problem of identity.

  He tried to focus on Garvin’s plans. His meticulous charts. The time schemes. Was there time?

  "I fell in love with you.”

  Any free woman could sign up with the Compatibility lobbies. Computers matched them with mates. Breeding was scientific: selective, cautious, sure. Love?

  “And Garvin?” '

  “He wanted—the Key”

  “And your

  “You.”

  “But why?”

  “Why anyone?” The girl dabbed at blood from her cut lip. “Why anyone? And why no-one!” She faced him with a blazing intensity, and Del found himself responding to her rage: “I’m sick of being alone! Sick of impermanent relationships. Del,” she said quietly. “I loved you.”

  “I warned you,” said Henry Sokutu.

  “What are you doing?” asked the girl. Del paused in his survey of the wreck of the ship. He had manhandled some of the heavy cutting and lifting machinery through the gaping port.

  “Del, why bother?” She took hold of his arm. “We’ve no way of getting back. Henry can’t bring the ship down. We have to wait for Garvin.”

  “Del, what are you doing?” from the radio. There were demands for information, but now Del was working quickly.

  No more indecision; no more emotion. There was something to be saved for the wreck of the expedition; one more job to be done before his broken care
er was quite finished. Work itself was a way of blotting out this girls trick of plunging him into total unhoping despair. He threw a simple kit of tools from the life-raft after the heavy equipment.

  “To shunt poor Ellison into the drivel” chuckled Henry Sokutu. “The simplicity of it! The simple ingenuity—Garvin is no modem man, why he’s fit to hold converse with the gods! Dynamic! Riding alone on a metaphysical plane that leaves the rest of us groping in the dark whilst he reaches out—” Del missed some of the speech, but he heard at the end what he knew to be true: “He’s reaching out for the gods! He’s gone to meet them!”

  “Del, I did it for the best!” The woman’s cry since

  time began. “Where’s Garvin goneP” Her lucid moments brought Del to pity.

  “Get the analyses for the plant cell walls,” he told her.

  “Tell me what’s happening,” she said.

  “You all right?”

  “Yes, but tell me.”

  “Survival’s important. We have a few hours before the cells bum out. Garvin can’t handle the—” What do you call the moving slabs of force, Del wondered.

  “Monsters.” Henry Sokutu spoke the word. Massive and forceful; things moving with the inevitable ponderousness of waves pounding the shore, of suns gobbling up their circling planets.

  “He won’t get back!” Del told her, explaining as if to a child. “And we won’t be able to use the drive. If we stay, we’re subject to increasing hazards from the field effects—the monsters are throwing out”

  “You have to go after him,” Henry Sokutu agreed.

  “But the deep-space suits?” said Suzanne.

  “Wrecked.” Del looked around the storage chambers. “Garvin took the only one that is serviceable.”

  “You said to the cliffs?”

  “Where the monsters are making for,” Del said. “Here.”

  He showed her the snaking promontory on Garvin’s charts.

  “That’s the focus of it all.”

  He contained his impatience, for it was important to have the intelligent cooperation of both the girl and Henry Sokutu. He told them about Garvin’s incredible theories.