The Weapon Shops of Isher

by A. E. van Vogt

  In conclusion, let me affirm my faith in Cayle. I cannot account for his actions, but I believe that the end-result will be honorable.

  (Signed) Lucy Rail Clark

  November 14, 4784 I

  Chapter XXV

  THIS WAS it. For a month Hedrock had delayed his reaction, waiting for new evidence. But now, reading Lucy's document, the conviction came. The unexpected turn of events that he had been waiting for was happening. What it was he had no idea. He felt a tensed alarm, the fear that he was missing vital clues. But doubt he had none- this was it.

  Frowning, he reread the girl's statement. And it seemed to him then that Lucy was developing a negative attitude toward the weapon shops. It was not in what she had done but that she felt her actions might be misinterpreted. That was defensive, and therefore bad. The hold of the shops on its members was psychological. Usually, when anyone wanted to break away, he was divested of vital memories, given a bonus depending on length of service and shooed off with the blessings of the organization. But Lucy was a key contact during a great crisis. The conflict between her duty to the shops and her personal situation must not be allowed to become too disturbing.

  Hedrock frowned over the problem, then dialed the 'stat. Lucy's face came onto the screen and Hedrock said earnestly, "I have just read your statement, Lucy, and I want to thank you for your cooperation. We appreciate your position thoroughly and I have been asked-" he worded it deliberately as if an executive group were behind what he was saying-"I have been asked to request that you hold yourself ready for a call from us night and day until the critical period is over. In return, the weapon shops will do everything in their power to protect your husband from any dangerous reactions that may result from what he is doing."

  It was no light promise. He had already handed the assignment over to the protective branch. Insofar as it was possible to protect a man in the Imperial sphere the job was being done. He watched Lucy's face casually but intently. Intelligent though she was, she would never fully comprehend the weapon shop-Isher war. It didn't show. No guns were firing. Nobody was being killed. And even if the weapon shops were destroyed Lucy would not immediately notice the difference. Her life might never be affected and not even the immortal man could say what the pattern of existence would be when one of the two power facets of the culture was eliminated. He saw that Lucy was not satisfied with what he had said. He hesitated, then, "Mrs. Clark, on the day you were married you took your husband's callidity measurements and gave them to us. We Lave never told you the integrated result because we did not want to alarm you. I think, however, that you will be interested rather than anxious.

  "They're special?" Lucy asked.

  "Special!" Hedrock searched for adjectives. "Your husband's callidity at the time you measured him was the highest that has ever been recorded in the history of the Information Center. The index has nothing to do with gambling and we cannot guess what form it will take but that it will affect the whole world of Isher we have no doubt."

  With troubled eyes he gazed at her. The devastating aspect of the affair was that Cayle Clark was not doing anything. There he was, attached to the personal staff of the empress, his movements accounted for by a host of spies-well, almost all his movements. Several 'stat calls he had made from the palace had proved too private for interference. And twice he had slipped away from the palace, and eluded his shadows. Minor incidents-they could scarcely account for the fact that, according to his callidetic measurement, what was happening was happening now. The great event, whatever it was, was taking place. And not even the No-men of the shops were able to guess what it was.

  Hedrock explained the situation, then, "Lucy," he said, "are you sure you have held nothing back? I swear to you it is a matter of life and death, particularly his life."

  The girl shook her head. And though he watched closely her eyes did not change, showed not a trace of myopia. They widened, but that was another phenomenon. Her mouth remained firm, which was a good sign. It was impossible to tell definitely, of course, just by looking at her physical reactions-except that Lucy Rail was not known ever to have taken evasive training. Where Robert Hedrock could lie without giving one of the known lie-reactions, Lucy simply didn't have the experience or nerve-control training to stifle the unconscious signals of her muscles.

  "Mr. Hedrock," she said, "you know that you can count on me to the limit."

  That was a victory for his immediate purpose. But he broke the connection, dissatisfied, not with Lucy or with the other agents, but with himself. He was missing something. His mind was not seeing deep enough into reality. Just as the solution to the seesaw problem was eluding him, so now he was baffled by what must in reality be very apparent. Sitting here in his office, mulling over facts and figures, he was too far from the scene.

  It was clearly time for an on-the-spot investigation by Robert Hedrock in person.

  Chapter XXVI

  HEDROCK WALKED slowly along the Avenue of Luck savoring the difference in its appearance. He couldn't recall just when he had last been on the street, but it seemed a long, long time ago. There were more establishments than he remembered, but not many changes otherwise. A hundred years did not affect the structural metals and material of a building made under the rigid Isher regulations. The general architectural designs remained the same. The decoration was different. New lighting facades, planned to attract the eye, confronted him in every direction. The science of refurbishing had not been neglected.

  He entered the Penny Palace, undecided as to what level of action he should pursue. He favored the irresistible approach-he thought-better leave the decision about that for the moment. As he walked into the "treasure room" a ring on his little finger tingled. A transparency was probing him from his right. He walked on, then turned casually to examine the two men from whose direction the impulse had come. Were they employees or independents? Since, he always carried about fifty-thousand credits on him, independent sharpers would be a nuisance. He smiled gently as he came up to them.

  "I'm afraid not," he said, "Forget any plans you had, eh?"

  The heavier of the two men reached into a coat pocket, then shrugged. "You're not carrying a weapon shop gun," he said pointedly. You're not armed at all."

  Hedrock said, "Would you like to test that?" And looked straight at the man's eyes.

  The gambler was the first to glance away. "C"mon, Jay," he said. "This job isn't the way I figured it."

  Hedrock stopped him as he turned away. "Work here?"

  The man shook his head. "Not," he said frankly, "if you're against it."

  Hedrock laughed. "I want to see the boss."

  "That's what I thought," the man said. "Well, it was a good job while it lasted."

  This time Hedrock let them go. He felt no surprise at their reaction. The secret of human power was confidence. And the confidence they had seen in his eyes was rooted in certainties of which most men had never heard. In all the world there had never been a man armed as he was with mental, physical, emotional, neural and molecular defenses.

  Lucy's description of Martin's office made it unnecessary for him to explore. He entered the corridor at the back of the gambling section. As he closed the door behind him, a net fell over him, neatly enveloping him. It drew instantly tight and pulled him several feet above the floor. Hedrock made no effort to free himself. There was enough light for him to see the floor five feet below, and the indignity of his position did not disturb him. He had time for several thoughts. So Harj Martin had become wary of uninvited visitors. It proved something; just what, he would leave to the moment of meeting.

  He had not long to wait. Footsteps sounded. The door opened, and the fat man came in. He turned on a bright light and stood with a jolly look on his face, staring up at his prisoner. "Well," he said at last, "what have we got here?" He stopped. His eye had caught Hedrock's. Some of the jolliness faded from his expression. "Who are you?" he snapped.

  Hedrock said, "On or about the night of October
fifth, you were visited here by a young man named Cayle Clark. What happened?"

  "I'll do the questioning," said Martin. Once again his eyes met Hedrock's. "Say," he said querulously, "who are you?"

  Hedrock made a gesture. It was very carefully timed and estimated. One of the rings on his fingers dissolved the hard material of the net. It parted beneath him like a door opening. He landed on his feet. He said, "Start talking, my friend. I'm in a hurry."

  Ignoring the gun that Martin snatched, he brushed past him into the large office. When he spoke again the confidence was in his voice. It required only a few moments after that for the resigned gambling palace operator to decide on cooperation. "If all you want is information, okay." He added. "Your date is right. It was October fifth about midnight when this guy Clark came in here. He had his twin brother with him."

  Hedrock nodded, but said nothing. He was not here for discussion.

  "Boy," said Martin, "they were about the most cold-blooded twins I ever saw and they worked together like a team. One of them must have had some Army experience because he stood-well, you know the hypnotic posture they get. He was the one who knew everything, and was he ever tough! I started to say something about not being a sucker and I got a blast across my legs. I made a bit too fast a move when I turned to pump the money out of the safe and another blast took off some of my hair."

  He pointed at a bald spot on one side of his head. Hed-rock examined it briefly. It had been close but obviously trained shooting. Weapon shop or Army. By elimination, Army.

  "You're all right," he commented.

  Martin shuddered. "That guy wasn't worrying whether I was all right or not." He finished, complainingly, "Life is getting too tough. I never knew the normal defense devices of Isher could be so easily nullified."

  Outside Hedrock headed for a carplane stop in a meditative mood. The existence of the two Cayles was now established. And one of them had been in the Army long enough to receive more than preliminary officer training. He had had that training on October fifth, a mere one day after Cayle Clark's arrival from Mars. By the morning of the sixth, the day Clark joined the Army, according to the record, he had 500,000 credits.

  It was a nice stake for a young man trying to get ahead. But it scarcely accounted for certain things that were happening. And, large though it was, it was a tiny sum when considered in its relations to Cayle Clark's callidetic index -if the callidity were due to follow a money pattern. His carplane arrived and the thought ended. He had one more call to make this morning-Colonel Medlon.

  Chapter XXVII

  ROBERT HEDROCK returned to his office in the Hotel Royal Ganeel shortly after midday. He examined the reports that had come in during his absence, then spent two hours on a private telestat with an economic expert at the weapon shop Information Center. Then he called the members of the weapon makers' council, and requested an immediate plenary session.

  It required about ten minutes for the full council to assemble in the council chambers of the hotel. Dresley opened the meeting. "Looks to me, gentlemen," he said, "as if our coordinator has struck a warm trail. Right, Mr. Hedrock?"

  Hedrock came forward smiling. Last time, in speaking to a delegation of this council, he had had the pressures of the time map and the empress on his spirit. The map was still in the building, its problem unsolved, becoming more urgent every hour. But now he had one solution. He began without preliminary. "Gentlemen, on the morning of November twenty-seventh, twelve days hence, we will send a message to the Isher Empress, and request her to end her war. We will accompany our request with facts and figures that will convince her she has no alternative."

  He expected a sensation, and he got it. These men knew that, when it came to his job, he was not one to raise false hopes (they had yet to discover that his efficiency was equally great in other fields). Feet stirred, and there was excitement.

  Peter Cadron said explosively, "Man! Don't keep us in suspense. What have you discovered?"

  "Permit me," said Hedrock, "to recapitulate." He went on. "Are you aware, on the morning of June third, four thousand seven hundred and eighty-four Isher, a man from the year nineteen hundred and fifty-one A.D. appeared in our Greenway weapon shop. The discovery was then made that the empress was directing a new energy weapon against all Imperial City weapon shops. This energy was a form of atomic power, old in nature but new to science. Its discovery heralds another step forward in our understanding of the complex structure of the space-time tensions that make for the existence of Matter. The source of the energy in Imperial City was a building completed about a year ago and located on Capital Avenue

  . Its effect on the Greenway shop differed from its effect on shops further away. Theoretically, it should have destroyed any material structure instantly but, though Isher rulers have never known it, weapon shops are not made of matter in the accepted sense. And so there was an intricate interplay of gigantic forces that took place predominantly in time itself. And so a man came seven thousand years out of the past."

  He described briefly, using pure mathematical terms, the seesaw action of the man and the building, once they were launched into the abyss of time. He went on. There are still people who cannot understand how there can be a time swing, when it is a macrocosmic fact that the sun and its planets move steadilv through space-time at twelve-plus miles a second, in addition to which the planets follow an orbital course around the sun at varying speeds. By this logic it should follow that, if you go into the past or future, you will find yourself at some remote point in space, far from Earth. It is hard for people who think this to realize that space is a fiction, a by-product of the basic time-energy, and that a matter tension like a planet does not influence phenomena in the time stream, but is itself subject to the time energy laws.

  "The reason for the balancing two hours and forty minutes after every swing is obscure, but it has been suggested that nature unrelentingly-seeks stability. The building when it swings into the past, occupies the same 'space' as it did in normal time but there are no repercussions- for the reason that similarity is a function of time itself, not of its tension-product. McAllister started at seven thousand years, the building at two seconds. That is approximate.

  "Today the man is several quadrillions of years away and the building swings at a distance of somewhat less than three months. The fulcrum, of course, moves forward in our time, so that we have the following situation-the building no longer swings back in time as far as June third, where the seesaw originally started. Please bear these facts in mind while I turn briefly to another division of this seemingly complicated but basically simple business."

  Hedrock paused. There were quick minds in this room. It interested him to see that every face was still expectant. Now that he himself knew the truth it seemed queer that they had not yet grasped the reality. He continued: "Gentlemen, the Coordination Department discovered some months ago that there existed in the village of Glay a callidetic giant. With so much internal pressure pushing him we had no difficulty maneuvering him into coming to Imperial City. At first, our belief that he would influence events markedly was nullified bv his ignorance of Isher realities. I won't go into the details but he was shipped to Mars as a common laborer. He was able to return almost immediately."

  He went on to explain how Lucy Rail had been married to one Cayle Clark a few hours before the arrival of the ship that brought Cayle Clark back to Earth, how the two Clarks secured 500,000 credits, then visited Colonel Medlon, one of them disguised. The visit was a fortunate one for Medlon. He Lad just been asked by the empress to produce Clark, or else. A captaincy was conferred on Clark, with the usual hypnotic machine training for officers. The following day he reported to the empress.

  "For a reason which she considers to have been impulse, but which is traceable to his callidity, she attached him to her personal staff and he is there now. Wherever his influence extends, he has followed a very interesting pattern of ruthlessly eliminating the more obvious corruption, and this h
as roused the interest of the ambitious Innelda. Even if nothing else worked in his favor, he would appear to be a young man destined to go far in the Imperial service."

  Then Hedrock smiled. "Actually, the Cayle Clark to watch is not the one in the open but the one who remained elusively in the city. It is that Clark who has been making history since last August seventh. In the time since then he has achieved the following successes-and gentlemen, I warn you, you've never heard anything like this before."

  In a few sentences, he described what had happened. When he had finished, the table buzzed with excited discussion. At last a man said, "But why marry Lucy Hall?"

  "Partly love, partly-" Hedrock hesitated. He had asked Lucy a pointed question and her answer made his reply possible now. "I would say he grew immensely cautious, and began to think of the future. Basic urges came to the fore. Suppose something happened to a man who in a few weeks had accomplished the miracle that he had. Gentlemen, he wanted an heir and Lucy was the only honest girl he knew. It may be a permanent arrangement. I cannot say. Clark, in spite of his rebellion against his parents is essentially a well-brought up young man. In any event, Lucy will not suffer. She will have the interesting experience of having a child. And, as a wife, she has community property rights."