This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  My father! My father! I could shoot them now. I could shoot them both, before they could move, shoot them down unarmed, in anger and horror. My father! The word was like blasphemy.

  You are no father! It takes more than an act of passion to make a man a father!

  The old man sank down on his knees, his hand clenched and upraised. "Please," he said in a dry, tight voice. "My son." He bowed his head before a gun and a pebble and an unseen spirit of vengeance.

  Live then! It was a scream of agony. And suffer!

  I pulled them back to me, the gun and the pebble, suffering with an intensity I had never known, not ever in the worst days in Sabatini's torture cell. My mind was a raging, probing torment.

  Oh, God! If there is any help in the world, if there is any hope, speak now!

  The pebble spoke.

  | Go to Table of Contents |

  Chapter Sixteen

  I remember it still. I could not forget it if I wanted to. It is seared into my mind so deeply that time's erasing hand can never rub it out, except with death. It is only when I try to put words to it that I have difficulty. Because it was not in words. The medium cannot be described. I could say pictures or images, but these are only approximations.

  Perfect mental communication is an experience which cannot be explained, because there is nothing with which to compare it. And so the pebble spoke to my mind, saying everything in seconds it takes pages to repeat. Words are slow and stumbling; ordered thoughts are precise and time-cheating. If the words are awkward, then it is because there are no good words.

  The pebble said:

  To you (mental communicator—a word, a word) who come after, who are our children, from us (Terrans, mental communicators), who once lived and loved and died and now are dead, greetings.

  This is the story of your fathers:

  A small, green world circling a small, yellow sun (Earth and Sol). A vision of the galaxy, solid, packed tight with stars, one among them shining yellow and unmistakable, the world circling it green and bright (Sol and Earth located indelibly). Here Man was born and lived and died long ages before he spread to the stars.

  Man's history on Earth was a cyclic thing, his civilizations rising and falling periodically (the history, complete), but at last Man broke through the cycles and climbed one peak higher than he had ever climbed before. He conquered space and colonized the galaxy, and secure on his height he thought he would never fall again.

  The conquest was not an easy sweeping-out and overrunning and consolidation. It was a long, weary, extended effort that exhausted the resources of Earth and the Solar System and drained the vitality of those who stayed behind on Earth. The colonies, held together by a slender strand of memory and affection for the mother world, grew lustily. And Terrans looked out upon the galaxy and the empire, and it was good, because men had done it.

  But memory is a weak thing, and building a new world is a hard thing and begets realism. Realistically, Earth had no future; it had a past. It was a debtor world. It could export nothing but sentiment. But the out-worlds would not trade resources for sentiment, and no one argued that this was not right.

  The Second Stage began. The Empire was only sentimental fiction, but Earth carved itself out another empire. Earth transformed itself into a vast university with all knowledge as its realm. Classified wisdom flowed outward from Earth in an endless stream: inventions, basic science, philosophy. The colonies had no time for such things; they were exploiting their inheritance, the stars. But they were willing to trade food for the prototype of a gadget, raw materials for a basic law of nature, and a little fuel for philosophic insight.

  From all over the galaxy men came to Earth to learn, to sell, to buy. Earth was a marketplace for all things. But the galaxy was restless, and Terrans foresaw their world torn between contending forces. To possess the marketplace, the worlds would make it a battleground, and in so doing destroy it. Such is the wisdom of possession: to possess is to destroy.

  Gradually Earth relinquished its role, ceased exporting, and simplified its existence. Men forgot. They thought that Earth was dying. And when the First Empire exploded, Earth was overlooked. While other worlds were dying in flames, Earth survived, green and peaceful, thoughtful and quiet, watching with a great sorrow the death throes of a galaxy.

  In that peace a unique thing happened. On Earth men began to think clearly for the first time, and that was the Third Stage. It is a strange and terrible thing that what is needed for survival is clear thinking, and what is needed for clear thinking is the peace and quiet which can only come when there is no immediate question of survival. As understanding of how men think developed, control of the thought processes grew, and out of that control came mental communication.

  And out of the peace and the quiet, Terrans went forth again into the galaxy, not as at first, with thunder and flame and great joy, but silently, unnoticed, recognizing the danger but even more aware of their responsibility. Into the galaxy came a breath of reason, a subtle sense of unity, a mute hope. Slowly at first and then more rapidly, the worlds stopped fighting among themselves, the galaxy cooled, the flames died away, and humanity gave thanks to the gods of peace.

  Unthanked, unknown, we worked throughout the galaxy, shifting a force here, adjusting one there, one hand upon the pulse of empire while the other led upward. Always upward. The Second Empire was born, the golden time of humanity, abundant, rewarding, fruitful. The peaks Man climbed now, he had never suspected. The view he saw, he had never dreamed of.

  And it was a long rich summer, but the winter, no matter how long delayed, must come at last.

  Out of our labors came our own destruction. A machine was invented; we were detected. Savage and untamed, the galaxy turned upon us. This is the wisdom of difference: to be different is to be hated. We were different; we were hated. It did not matter what we had done or why.

  We slipped away, fleeing before the stinging winds of winter. We fled down the galaxy, unseen, hoping to hide ourselves away for another season and knowing, while we hoped, that hope was futile. They did not follow us. We lost them. But they analyzed and thought and deduced with the minds we had helped to educate in the peace we had nurtured, and they picked Earth out of a billion worlds.

  We saw the first scout today. Tonight or tomorrow they will come, united one last time in vengeance before the galaxy explodes into a million burning brands. They seek their revenge against those who gave them what they did not ask for. They will sear the soil of their ancient home with flame. They will kill every living thing upon it so that nothing will ever grow again upon the world that gave birth to them and to their benefactors. Before they turn upon each other, we will die, but Earth will grow green again. The Earth will heal its wounds and wait endlessly for men to walk upon her bosom once more. With a mother's understanding, Earth will forgive her children for their childishness, and Earth will wait.

  The galaxy will grow cold and dark, chilled by the winter of a new Dark Ages, and Earth will wait. Men will forget and remember until remembering is like forgetting and forgetting is like remembering, and myths will grow. And Earth will wait. This message will rest upon it, and hidden away (here and here and here) are other secrets for you who come after. Find them. Use them with wisdom. They are your inheritance.

  Someday man will set foot again upon the Earth, and it does not matter if it is not one of you, because this pebble is imprinted with desire. Men will want it more than life itself, and it will pass from hand to hand until it comes to you who can read it.

  And you will be there to read it, for we have sowed our seed across the galaxy, and though we die today or tomorrow, we can never be destroyed. Someday we will live again in you, our children, when the seed reunites and conditions are favorable.

  Be strong. Be wise. Be kind.

  Earth is waiting.

  I sat there with the pebble in my hand, dazed, emotion drained from me. I had read a letter, and the letter was not for me. I wasn't one of their children
. I felt a sweep of pity and shame. It was a thing of beauty and sorrow, and I was a poor, weak mortal who couldn't help to build again the Empire they had built.

  Slowly I lifted the cap from my head and put it down and looked at the Agent in the corner. His eyes glared at me, filled with hate. I stood up, leaving the gun behind. I didn't want it.

  They weren't here yet. How long had it been since I brought the pebble back to the control room, since I had probed at it with my torment? Eternity? I had known the great sweep of history through the long ages; I had lived it grandly and minutely. It was mine, forever; I knew more about Man's forgotten past than anyone had known since the Second Empire disintegrated. But I knew that it had taken only a few seconds. They were, I thought with sudden sureness, still minutes away.

  I walked to the man in the corner and stood above him. "Tell your master," I said, "not to follow me. He won't listen, but tell him. Tell him I spared him this time, and I may spare him again, but the time will come when he will force me to kill."

  I walked down the steps deliberately and stepped out into the corridor and slid the panel shut. That might delay them for a few moments. I walked through the Portal, which was no trick at all from the monastery side, and stood inside the Cathedral. It was dark and deserted. The carpenter was gone, although his work wasn't finished.

  I looked down at my hand. The pebble was still there, no longer mysterious but invested with something else, meaning perhaps, which made it even more precious. I slipped it into the pouch at my waist, feeling strong and unafraid. I sniffed at the room with sharpened senses.

  The Agents outside might have been warned. They might be watching for someone to come out of the Cathedral, but there would be some way to evade them without violence. There was, of course. They couldn't stop everybody.

  I walked to where the carpenter had been working. His tools were there in a wooden case. I picked them up; they were light in my hand. I shuffled toward the Barrier, my shoulders bent, my head down. I shuffled through the Barrier and down the long steps into the street. It was getting dark outside.

  Shuffling, I made my way down the street carrying the wooden case. I passed a doorway. A hand reached out to grab my arm. I cocked my head to look at them, my face haggard and old.

  "Wait a minute," one of the Agents said.

  "Let him alone," said the other. "You're giving our position away."

  "But I saw the carpenter leave a few minutes ago."

  "So there's two of them! Look at the old fellow. That isn't Dane."

  Slowly the hand relaxed on my arm. When it fell away, I moved again. I shuffled down the street, an old man with a few tools. I was sorry that the carpenter had to be deprived of his precious saws and hammers and planes so that I could escape with the pebble, but it was important. Not because the pebble was worth anything, but to save it from men like Sabatini who might destroy it before it reached those to whom it was addressed.

  I stopped at an alley entrance and put down the case, hoping that it would be found and returned to its owner. I walked briskly away. And just as I thought I was safe, I saw the helicopters dropping like falling leaves.

  I looked behind me. Far off in a vast circle, they were swarming down, all around. I knew what their plan would be. Given enough men, it was simple and foolproof. Throw a ring of men around a given area and let them work inward, questioning everyone as they come to them, searching them carefully—they would find even the smallest object. The pebble burned in my pouch.

  I walked swiftly toward the line of falling planes. There was a bare possibility that I could get outside the line before it formed. When I was a hundred feet away, the chance disappeared.

  "Stay where you are!" the loudspeakers thundered. "Do not pass beneath the planes! Stay where you are!…"

  Ahead of me the pedestrians thickened, clotted, forming a living barricade. I had to obey.

  If one direction was barred to me, I could still move in the other. I turned, inconspicuously, and walked back the way I had come. I wasn't alone. Others were still walking; some of them broke into a hysterical run.

  "Stay where you are!…" the loudspeakers thundered, but the thunder was more distant.

  I looked behind once. The helicopters were disgorging orange-and-blue mercenaries. They formed lines across the street and began screening the waiting crowd.

  All around. All around, I thought. But there is an answer to everything; it is usually implicit in the conditions of the statement. Given enough men.…And the answer was that they didn't have enough men. They couldn't have enough men to search as thoroughly as was necessary.

  I slid into the alley. Beside me rose the ruins of a warehouse, ruins that can be found everywhere, since trade shifts as conditions change and cities grow, and it is cheaper to build a new one than to rebuild an old one. Somewhere here there would be a window or a door, broken, sagging, decayed. There was. A window gaped blackly. I looked quickly to the right and left and up. I was not observed. I stepped through the window and waited for my eyes to grow used to the darkness. Soon, with the fading light of evening behind me, I could make out the blurred outlines of old crates and discarded materials, rotting, moldering away, forgotten.

  I picked my way among them, careful not to stumble. Here and there the floor sagged dangerously beneath me before I leaped to a safer footing. Far back in the darkness I found what I wanted. I felt carefully around it. It was a large packing case from which one side was missing. I turned that side toward the back wall and pulled other boxes close around me, piling them up haphazardly until they teetered, ready to topple at the slightest touch. By that time I was inside the pile, inside the hidden packing case, sitting, my knees hugged up to my chest, waiting, waiting and thinking.

  The problem was like trying to analyze the random movements of air molecules. Even in a closed room, there are too many forces. The mercenaries of the Emperor, now. Who had summoned them? Sabatini? No. They had tried to stop him at the port. He was working for himself or someone other than the Emperor. By someone else, then, who was working for the Emperor inside the monastery.

  I knew who it had to be. If not Sabatini, then the Abbot. It had to be the Abbot, because he was the only other person who had known that I had the pebble and had known it soon enough to notify the Emperor before I escaped.

  Siller had been right about him, probably. And probably he was my father. He could have said it as a trick to save his life, but it wasn't the sort of thing one thought of on the spur of the moment. It had the ring of truth. I thought about him; it didn't hurt. He had sacrificed the right to hurt me. There were more important things. I wouldn't think about him any more.

  There were other forces, too, moving blindly through the long night. The Citizens. Struggling for an ideal, perhaps, but shot through with corruption, like the rest. The Peddlers. They were concerned with only one thing. Profits. And yet where did profits lie?

  Feet clumping. Distant but approaching.

  "Watch out! This place will fall in on you." The voice was deep and commanding.

  "What a rotting heap!" Querulous, disgruntled. "No one's been in here for years."

  "That's what he wants you to think. This is the kind of place I'd pick if I wanted to hide." It was the first voice.

  I cursed him silently.

  "Let's get it over with." A third one.

  How many did they have? Could I have been wrong? But I knew that I wasn't.

  The crash of wood, endlessly repeated, drawing slowly closer.

  "Can't you see there's nothing here?" The second one again, complaining.

  There was no answer except the overturning of crates.

  "Careful! He may be armed." The first one. He was much too close.

  "What a rat's nest!"

  "Grab that top box. Clear them away."

  A thunder of boxes, tottering, falling. A splintering of wood. A yell. They echoed in my box, back and forth, as if they were inside with me.

  "Pull him out."

&nb
sp; "Take it easy!" The second one, close to tears. "Those splinters are tearing my leg. Don't pull so hard!"

  A ripping of cloth. A scream of pain.

  "Oh, my God! Look at that! Stop it, somebody!"

  "Oh, let's get him out of here before we all fall through the floor. There's nobody here." It was the first voice.

  The feet went away, taking the screams with them.

  I waited in the darkness for a long time, thinking. After a few hours I uncurled myself and picked my way out of the shambles and started back to Laurie. It had been a long time, longer than I had expected, and she would be worried about me.

  I climbed the rickety, outside stairs eagerly. In a moment I would be with Laurie. I would give her the pebble, and she would listen to the story of my adventures. But most of all I would be with her. Maybe she wouldn't be worried. Maybe, confident of my skill and courage, she would be asleep, waiting for my return.

  I would wake her up. She would look up at me drowsily, and then her blue eyes would open wide, and she would draw me down, down…

  There was no one in the kitchen. I smiled; she was asleep. I took the pebble out of the waist pouch and held it in my hand as I tiptoed to her bedroom door and stopped—

  Someone was breathing inside the room, hoarsely, deeply. Someone's voice mumbled harsh, indistinguishable words. I couldn't move. Then I heard the terrible words that would shatter my sleep for endless nights, words as soft as a sigh, too soft to be heard as clearly as I heard them.

  "Mike," Laurie said. "Mike. Mike. Mike."

  I turned away from the door, sickened. Everything had fallen into place.

  I knew why she had rescued me and why she had nursed me back to health and why she had—But I wouldn't think about that. She had wanted the pebble; it didn't matter who she was working for. I tossed the pebble in my hand. She could have it. It wouldn't do her any good, but she had earned it.