“It’ll be that bad?” Wilkins asked nervously.
Honor nodded emphatically. “It could be that bad. One miscalculation of my numbers, could open the very gates of hell. Get prepared for the worst.”
Wilkins pulled himself erect and took Honor’s hand. “Good luck,” he said simply. Then he shook Clinton’s hand and walked across the office with the two men. He closed the door behind them, then retraced his steps to the desk, picked up the telephone, and gazed at it thoughtfully.
“What sort of emergency preparations do you make for the advent of hell?” he murmured. He shook his head, hung up the telephone, and depressed the master- net button on the intercom. “Everybody in here on the double-quick,” he barked. Then he released the button and added, under his breath, “The sky is falling.”
7: Hell’s Geometer
Barbara and Dorothy lolled unconscious in the back seat of the steamer. Clinton was behind the wheel of the speeding vehicle, casting dark glances at Honor who sat casually in the comer next to the door.
“Twenty minutes ’til doomsday,” Clinton intoned dramatically.
Honor grinned. “What’s eating you?”
Clinton sighed and said, “Final doubts, I guess.”
“Doubts about what?”
“You can read my mind.” Clinton said warily. “So read it.”
Honor chuckled. “We’ve been a few years down the road together, Milt,” he said softly.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve valued your friendship. Thanks.”
Clinton shot him another dark look. “Sounds like a deathbed confession,” he said.
“Just want you to know how I feel. And, uh, let your doubts rest, Milt. We’re on the right side.”
“Yeah, well, it’s too late to cop out now, anyway,” Clinton observed. “But . .. sometimes ... it does seem that . . . you know what I mean. How do we know we’re on the right side?”
“It’s a matter of being on the side of truth, Milt.”
You keep saying that. But how do you know? The difference between truth and error, I mean. We’ve sure been raising a lot of hell lately, Pat. I never was one to shout hosanna’s . . . but. . . well, hell, I never believed in selling my soul to the devil, either.”
Honor laughed and said, “You know better than that.”
“No, no I don’t. That’s just the hell of it. I don’t know better. Okay, so I’ve had some beautiful nooky, and I’ve been to an enchanting place that seemed like heaven and I was shown some more beautiful things there . . . and I was given the understanding that this was truth. But who gave me that understanding, Pat?” Clinton shivered lightly and glanced into the rearview mirror. “And now my wife is sitting back there in some sort of a trance, zooming about the world in some sort of light body, getting a lot of other people fired up to a sexual frenzy. I’m sorry, Pat, but I have to call it the way I see it. And I really don’t see truth all that clearly.”
“The sex bit has been bothering you all the way, hasn’t it,” Honor replied.
Clinton shrugged his shoulders. “Sex is a sacred thing, Pat. It isn’t easy to shake it off.”
“How sacred has it been for you, Milt, the past ten years or so, until just recently?” Honor asked softly.
“It’s been sacred,” Clinton said, angling a quick glance toward Honor.
“It’s been hell and you know it. Tell me something, Milt. When you see a couple of dogs going at it, do you see truth and beauty in that movement ... or do you see something disgusting?”
“Dogs?” Clinton grinned suddenly. “Well, it depends on where they’re going at it.”
“God’s sake, Milt,” Honor said, “sex is the prime tool of creation. How can you love God and be revolted by sex? Where ever you see it?”
“I, uh, I feel a bit mixed-up about that,” Clinton admitted.
“Don’t take it to heart,” Honor advised. “Just look at truth and see it as it is . . . simple and uncomplicated. When truth moves into complications, then bet your ass the Rogue is there, juggling the facts. You start looking at sex—any kind of sex—between plants, insects, animals, or men—as the plan of God in action, then you’re going to see the unvarnished truth. Ten million hosannas aren’t going to get you as close to truth as one simple, uncomplicated little brush with beautiful nooky. You still confused?”
Clinton grinned and replied, “Yeah, but I’m resigned. Gotta have faith in something, I guess. I have faith in you, Pat.”
“Thanks.” Honor was genuinely warmed by the admission. He twisted about to gaze at the girls. “Look at that expression on Barb’s face,” he said. “She sure loves her work, doesn’t she.”
“Dotty too,” Clinton replied. “I guess that’s one of the things that’s been bugging me. She’s really carried away by this stuff.”
“It’s a woman’s essential nature,” Honor told him. “She’s the root center of creation.”
“Yeah,” Clinton said drily.
“You and Dotty ought to have some kids before you’re too old.”
Clinton threw him a surprised sideways glance. “Hell, we gave that idea up a long time ago. We’re already too old.”
“Oh hell no,” Honor replied.
Clinton studied his unconscious wife’s reflection in the mirror. “Well, we’ll see how things turn out,” he murmured.
Honor smiled and closed his eyes. “I can feel it already,” he said a moment later.
“You can feel what?”
“The field of error. It gets stronger with every mile we close on that lab. I think I’ll try a light probe into that mess out there. See what those guys are cooking up.”
“Be careful,” Clinton advised tensely.
Honor’s smile broadened and he relaxed more into the seat. His eyelids fluttered. The smile evaporated, his body jerked, and he lunged upright in the seat. “Damn!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“Those nutty bastards!”
“What’re they doing?”
“They’ve got a numbers game of their own in progress. And artificially amplified.”
“I can’t imagine Wenssler doing anything—”
“Wait . . .” Honor gripped the seat with both hands and leaned toward the dashboard, his eyes closed and the lids quivering.
A moment later, Clinton cried, “Well Jesus Christ! Look it that!”
Honor’s eyes jerked up and focused immediately on a billowing mass in the sky. “Uh-huh,” he breathed, “that’s just what I thought.”
“We’re almost there,” Clinton said excitedly. “Is that thing hovering over the farm?”
“That thing certainly is hovering above the farm,” Honor whispered. “And that thing, old buddy, is our friend the Rogue, objectified.”
“Oh, hell, how could that be?” Clinton yelled.
“Those dumb bastards have given him body,” Honor sighed.
The tremendous cloud, quickly analyzed by Honor as an ion mass, was in a fantastic mushroom development when the streamer bounced to a halt in the farm yard. They had been waved to a frantic halt on the lee side of the knoll by one of Clinton’s operatives.
“Don’t try to get any closer,” the operative excitedly advised. “That cloud is protecting the barn. Don’t ask me how, but it must be some kind of force field. A collie dog just wandered into it and was vaporized, whoosh!, like that.”
“What do you mean?” Clinton said. “The dog wandered into what?”
“I dunno, it was about 20 yards from the barn, and it flashed, and it was gone. I tossed a stick down there and the same thing happened to the stick.”
“It’s all right, Milt,” Honor said calmly. “We don’t need to get into the lab. The house will do fine.”
Clinton nodded, passed brief instructions to his operative, and threw the steamer into reverse. Then backed to the front of the house while Honor roused the women. The four of them leapt to the ground and ran to the house with nervous glances into the heavens. The huge mass seemed to be do
ubling rhythmically, growing in pulsing geometric progression.
“What in the world is that?” Dorothy cried.
“I’ll bet it can be seen from Washington,” Clinton yelled.
“Pat, what’s going on?” Barbara asked nervously. Honor shoved them on through the doorway, saying, “No time to talk about it now. How’s your numbers?”
“Great!” Barbara replied breathlessly. “And geometrizing on the square!”
“I’ll have to go through you, Barb!” Honor said. He was scrambling out of his clothes. “Milt—you and Dotty ground us here. Now don’t let go. Barb—you stay at the gate.”
“Oh God, Pat, be careful!” Dorothy cried, fighting frantically with her clothing.
Honor grabbed her and kissed her, grinned at Clinton and punched him lightly on the shoulder, then picked up his own woman and bore her to the floor.
“Give me everything you’ve got, team,” he said. “You girls—bring those numbers to the gate! I’m swirling with ’em—clear to hell!”
“Pat, darling, I love you,” Barbara gasped. “Let me go with you, all the way.”
“Nothing doing,” he grunted. “Come on, swing it, hurry, hurry.” His probe went out instantly to the Clintons and he gathered them into his field.
Get in step!
We’re with you Pat, from Milt Clinton.
We love us!, from the ready and shrieking Dorothy.
“Oh God, we’re one, we’re one!” Barbara moaned, and then she and Honor and the Clintons were swirling across the infinite sea. Their numbers began to swell immediately as other fields swirled in to join them, progressing geometrically in a continual expansion.
“Drop away,” Honor commanded. “And don’t worry, we’re stronger than error.” He left his partners at the geometer gate, bursting through to the other side with brilliant streamers of an erotic pyramid trailing behind, then swinging in a sharp arc into the geometer barrel of Rauhl Bey Singh.
Curt Wenssler was wondering if he was really doing the right thing. After all, he had opposed Singh once—and look at the trouble that had brought him. After all, went his reasoning, no one could doubt that the little Hindu was a man of God—Wenssler had gone afoul of natural law because he’d failed to heed the warnings of Singh. And now that his former Master had offered to join unreservedly in the search for universal power, Wenssler was not too proud to once again assume the role of “student”. In the greater interests of science, what difference did it make which one did the leading? He did not pretend to understand the significance of the lab rearrangement. Singh had it all worked out even before Wenssler arrived—and Wenssler was grateful that Singh had rounded up the new volunteers. So what if they were Hindus? Who would be better equipped than these quiet little men with centuries of mind-control in their genes?
Wenssler sat in the special glass cubicle which Singh had prepared for him, and watchfully monitored the indications of the power controls. It certainly was curious . . . the way Singh had the lab set up now. All the lounges arranged in a circle, with Singh’s jutting out like a pointer, almost touching the tremendous filament. Wenssler wondered vaguely where Singh had managed to find a filament such as that. Well . . . the thing was underway . . . only time would tell now if he had been an idiot again.
Singh’s lounge was at full recline. The little Hindu was stretched out casually immobile, the electrodes on his head looking like insect antennae. Wenssler wondered what was going on. His finger moved to the next event on the checklist as the digital timer clicked along, then he moved the lever to again carefully double the power output. What was that Singh had said? We must move to protect the one God? Was that why Singh wanted to harness the power source? To turn it into a God! Wenssler chuckled drily. Oh well, he reasoned, there was no reason why God and Science could not co-exist.
And then Singh did something remarkable. He sat bolt upright on the recliner and clawed at the electrodes, tearing them away from his scalp in a most careless fashion. Then he began tearing at his clothes and threshing about, flipping onto his stomach and grinding his hips in a very lewd and suggestive manner. Curt Wenssler was shocked. Singh, in all the years Wenssler had known him, had been a faultless ascetic. And now the man was . . . was . . . Wenssler sighed and began scaling down the power output. Obviously something had gone wrong.
Honor boomed up through the geometer in a pyramidal ream, hesitating only slightly in the universe of Singh’s mind and then following the power flow with an explosive expansion. For a micro-instant he experienced Singh’s consternation as 81 powers of libido displacement roared through his consciousness, and then Honor was through and expanding into the Universal Subconscious. Powering at nine progressions beyond the speed of light, he reamed up through the barrel parallax and swirled with exploding powers into the Rogue’s assimilation chamber surfacing at the geometric center and flashing unhesitatingly for the first ring of universal memory. The ring wavered and parted at his approach, shock waves of malevolent energy tore at him momentarily and then the ring broke up and fell toward the center. Honor convoluted into a double helix and sighted out to the next ring. He was targeting directly on a rolling image of the French Revolution and Paris was in his gunsights as he swelled to the next progression. He became aware of pain and almost unendurable sadness and he could have sworn he heard a loud rumbling groan. He shook it off and bore on relentlessly in his invasion of the only God the world had ever known.
For nine seconds of earth history, the impossible became commonplace around the globe. Indians once again chased buffalo across the American plains, but this time through urban centers and, in at least one place, right through the substantial walls of a City Hall. Viking longboats were seen in die North Atlantic and a fleet of pirate vessels appeared briefly off the Virgin Islands. Pilgrims in the wartorn Holy Land swore that they saw Jesus carrying his cross through the streets. In France, a group of school children picnicking near the coastal cliffs claimed to have witnessed a band of cavemen battling a huge prehistoric beast. The inhabitants of a small Southern town in America viewed a 9-second reenactment of a Civil War battle, while in Mexico Pancho Villa rode again.
Residents of the mid eastern seaboard states panicked in reaction to a false nuclear alert, produced by the sudden appearance of a huge mushroom cloud which as suddenly disappeared to be replaced by an immense weather system that baffled weathermen. Washington and environs suffered a two-inch rainfall in less than 20 minutes, with resultant flash flooding, stalled traffic, and panicky motorists; otherwise, there seemed to be no adverse effects from the mushroom cloud.
Communications were disrupted around the world for a full nine seconds, and many jetliners reported erratic operations in flight during that period; again, however, no tragedies were reported.
In the days immediately following these strange incidents, a new atmosphere seemed to settle about the planet. Various warring nations exchanged peace feelers, a new ecumenical movement was launched within the several great world religions, and people everywhere remarked upon how nice their neighbors were behaving.
“I’ve scrambled him, Barb!” Honor exulted. “He’s falling apart all around me!”
“Pat . . . darling ... I can’t hold on . . . much longer.”
Clinton cried, “Get back, Pat! The Rogue isn‘t the only thing that’s falling apart!”
“God—I’m running out of gas,” Honor said, his thought-waves suddenly enfeebled. “Go on, Barb. Go on back.”
“I’m at... the gate,” she replied weakly. “I’m waiting.”
“No . . . don’t . . .” Honor was no more than a faint spark across a cosmic distance.
“Pat you get back here!” Dorothy screamed.
“Falling ... falling ...”
“Pat, darling, I’m . . . at the gate.”
“I’m coming in after you, Pat!” Clinton yelled.
“No, no . . . too late . . . too . . . Barb, God, Barb, I love . . .” The spark extinguished completely. A weak moan from Barb
ara seemed to punctuate the flare-out.
Dorothy was weeping hysterically and pushing at her husband. “Milt, they’re dead, they’re .. .” She pushed free of Clinton’s weight and rose to an elbow in a wild survey of the room. “Oh God!” she screamed. “Milt, oh my God, Milt—look at them!”
Clinton rolled to hands and knees and crawled to the other pair. He stared glassily for a brief moment, then turned a sick look to his wife. “Too much,” he whispered. “Too much for too long.”
“Th-they’re all b-burnt!” Dorothy wailed.
“I’d say fused,” Clinton replied. He reached out and touched Honor’s bare back, flinched, then moved an exploring hand to the joined planes of flesh, jerking it swiftly away in quick reaction. “Yeah,” he said, awed. “Fused.”
Flickering lights were dancing on the windows. “Wh-what’s that?” Dorothy asked.
Clinton got to his feet and staggered to the window.
“Oh hell,” he muttered. “It’s the barn. It’s an inferno.” He snatched at his pants and began straggling into them, lurching toward the door as he did so.
“What about Pat and Barb?” Dorothy moaned.
“Too late for them,” Clinton mumbled. “They’re gone.”
Milt Clinton made his sad-eyed report to the President, swore an oath of “to the grave” secrecy concerning the events of the previous few weeks, and took his weeping wife to their childless home in Georgetown.
“I don’t believe I can go in that house,” Dorothy said as they pulled into the driveway.
“There’s no place else to go,” Clinton replied bleakly. He went around and helped her out of the car. Her legs gave way completely at the doorway. Clinton had to lift her and carry her inside. “Call that symbolic of something,” he said. “After all these years of marriage, I finally carried my wife across the threshold.”
Don Pendleton's Science Fiction Collection, 3 Books Box Set, (The Guns of Terra 10; The Godmakers; The Olympians) Page 31
