Slan

by A. E. van Vogt

  She couldn't take her eyes off the leader.

  The conviction came that here was a cornered man, racking his brain, searching back into his experience for a technique to turn the imminent defeat into victory. She struggled to penetrate that brain, but his iron grip on his thoughts, the very lucid, straightforward motion of his mind, remained an unshakable barrier between them.

  But in those surface thoughts she read his doubts, a queer uncertainty that yet held within it no fear, simply hesitation as to what he should do, could do, next. That seemed to mean that he had not really foreseen a crisis of such proportions, an organized opposition, a smoldering hatred of himself awaiting only the opportunity to overthrow and destroy him. Her thought ended as John Petty said:

  "I think we ought to take a vote on this matter now."

  Kier Gray began to laugh, a long, deep, cynical laugh that ended on a note of surprisingly good humor. "So you'd like to vote on an issue that a moment ago you said I hadn't even proved to be existent! Naturally I refuse to appeal to the reason of those present any longer. The time for reason has passed when deaf ears are turned, but just for the sake of the record, a demand for a vote at this time is an implicit admission of guilt become openly arrogant, the result, no doubt, of the security engendered by the support of at least five, possibly more, of the council. Let me put one more of my cards on the table. I have known of this rebellion for some time and have prepared for it."

  "Bah!" said Petty. "You're bluffing. I've watched your every move. When we first organized this council we feared eventualities such as one man dispensing with the votes of the others, and the safeguards then set up are still in force. Each of us has a private army. My own guards are out there, patrolling the corridor, and so are the guards of every member of the council, ready to rush at each other's throats when the word is given. We are quite prepared to give it and take our chance of being killed in the battle that results."

  "Ah," said Kier Gray softly, "now we're out in the open."

  There was a shuffling of feet among the men, a chilling spray of thoughts; and then, to Kathleen's dismay, Mardue, one of the three she had thought in unconditional support of Kier Gray, cleared his throat. She caught the thought of his weakening resolve just before he spoke.

  "Really, Kier, you're making a mistake in regarding yourself as dictator. You're only elected by the council, and we have a perfect right to elect someone in your place. Someone, perhaps, who will be more successful in organizing the extermination of the slans."

  It was turncoating with a vengeance. The rats were deserting the sinking ship and trying desperately now, Kathleen saw, to convince the new powers that their support was valuable.

  In Harlihan's brain, too, the wind of thought was blowing in a new direction. "Yes, yes. Your talk about making a deal with the slans is treason – pure treason. That's the one untouchable subject so far as the mo... the people are concerned. We must do something to exterminate the slans, and perhaps a more aggressive policy on the part of a more aggressive man – "

  Kier Gray smiled wryly; and still that uncertainty was in his brain – what to do, what to do? There was a vague suggestion of something else, a tensing to the situation, a darkening resolution to take a chance. But nothing tangible, nothing clear, came to Kathleen.

  "So," Kier Gray said, still in his soft voice, "you would turn the chairmanship of this council over to a man who, only a few days ago, allowed Jommy Cross, nine years old, probably the most dangerous slan alive today, to escape in his own car."

  "At least," said John Petty, "there's one slan who won't escape." He stared malevolently at Kathleen, then turned triumphantly' toward the others. "Here's what we can do – execute her tomorrow; in fact, right now, and issue a statement that Kier Gray was removed from office because he had come to a secret agreement with the slans, and his refusal to kill Kathleen Layton was proof of it."

  It was the strangest thing in the world to be sitting there, listening to that death sentence and feeling no emotion, as if it weren't herself they were talking about. Her mind seemed far away, detached, and the murmur of agreement that rose up from the men also had that odd distortion of distance.

  The smile faded from Kier Gray's face. "Kathleen," he said aloud sharply, "we might as well stop playing. How many are against me?"

  She stared at him blurrily and heard herself replying tearfully: "They're all against you. They've always hated you. They've always hated you because you're so much smarter than they are, and because they think you've kept them down and overshadowed them, and made it seem as if they're not important."

  "So he uses her to spy on us," John Petty snarled, but there was triumph in his rage. "Well, at least it's pleasant to know that we're all agreed on one thing – that Kier Gray is through."

  "Not at all," said Kier Gray mildly. "I disagree so violently that all eleven of you will face firing squads within ten minutes. I was undecided about taking such drastic action, but now there is no alternative and no going back because I have just taken an irrevocable action. I have pressed a button advising the eleven officers in command of your guard, your most trusted advisers, and your heirs, that the hour has come."

  They stared at him stupidly as he went on:

  "You see, gentlemen, you failed to allow for a fateful flaw in human nature. The desire of underlings for power is as great as your own. The solution to such a situation as came up today was suggested to me some time ago when Mr. Petty's chief aide approached me with the offer that he would always be willing to replace Mr. Petty. I made it a policy then to explore the matter further, with very satisfying results, and saw to it that the men were on the scene for Kathleen's eleventh birth – ah, here are the new councilors!"

  The door burst open and eleven grim young men with drawn revolvers came in. There was a great shout from John Petty: "Your guns!" And a wailing cry from one man: "I didn't bring one!" And then the crash of revolver shots filled the room with an echoing, re-echoing roar.

  Men writhed on the floor, choking in their own blood. Through a blur, Kathleen saw one of the eleven councilors still standing, smoking gun in hand. She recognized John Petty. He had fired first The man who had thought to replace him was dead, a motionless figure on the floor. The chief of the secret police held his gun steady, pointed at Kier Gray, as he said, "I'll kill you before they can get me unless you make a deal. I'll cooperate, naturally, now that you've turned the tables so neatly."

  The leader of the officers glanced inquiringly at Kier Gray. "Shall we let him have it, sir?" he asked. He was a lean, dark man with an aquiline face and a sharp baritone voice. Kathleen had seen him around the palace occasionally. His name was Jem Lorry. She had never tried to read his mind before, but now she realized that he also had a power of control over his thoughts that defied penetration. However, there was enough of his character on the surface of his mind to show him for what he was: a tough, calculating and ambitious man.

  "No," Kier Gray replied thoughtfully. "John Petty will be useful. He'll have to agree that the other men were executed as a result of the investigations of his police disclosing secret arrangements with the slans.

  "That will be the explanation – it always works on the poor, bewildered mass of fools outside. We owe the idea to Mr. Petty himself, but I think we were capable of thinking of it ourselves. However, his influence will be valuable in putting it over. In fact," he said cynically, "I believe the best method is to give Petty credit for the executions. That is, he was so horrified at his discovery of their perfidy, he acted on his own initiative, and then threw himself on my mercy, which, in view of the serious evidence he produced, I naturally granted at once. How's that?"

  Jem Lorry came forward. "Good stuff, sir. And now there's one thing I'd like to make clear, and I speak for all of the new councilors. We need you, your terrific reputation, your brains, and we're willing to help make you a god to the people – in other words, to help consolidate your position and make it unassailable – but don't think you can
make arrangements with our chief officers to kill us. That won't work again."

  Kier Gray said coldly, "It's hardly necessary to tell me anything so obvious. Clear this carrion out, and then – we've got some planning to do. As for you, Kathleen, go to bed. You're in the way now."

  As she hurried off, shaking now from reaction, Kathleen wondered: In the way? Did he just mean – Or did he mean – After the murders she had witnessed, she couldn't be sure of him, of anything. It was a long, long time before sleep came...

  She was still alive the next day. And the next day. On the third day, as she was walking along a corridor, she became aware of Davy Dinsmore following her. Something of his mental attitude penetrated to her, and she, stopped.

  He came running up to her, and said breathlessly, "It's all right. We can be friends again."

  Kathleen looked at him but said nothing.

  "You'll have to forgive me," Davy went on, scarcely pausing. "But when I heard about what was to happen to you on your birthday, my father warned me... I got scared. He said I had to make a show of being against you. I tried to think of some way to warn you. But you wouldn't read my mind. I could see that you wouldn't."

  His story and his manner made his actions of three days ago so obvious that Kathleen said, "Oh!" And then, she stepped up to him, put her arms around him impulsively, and kissed him tearfully on the cheek. "You saved my life," she whispered. "If I hadn't known in advance, I don't know what would have happened."

  Chapter Four

  For Jommy Cross there were long spells of darkness and mental blankness that merged finally into a steely gray light through which vague thoughts at last wove a web of reality. He opened his eyes, conscious of great weakness.

  He was lying in a little room, staring up at a smeared, dirty ceiling, from which some of the plaster had fallen. The walls were an uneven gray, splotched with age. The pane of the single window was cracked and discolored; the light that forced its way through fell across the end of the kon bedstead in a little pool and lay there as if exhausted from the effort.

  Its wan brightness revealed bedclothes that were remnants of what had once been gray blankets. At one edge, straw stuck out from the old mattress, and the whole thing stank with a stale, unaired odor. Sick though he still was, Jommy flung the foul coverings from him and started to slip out of bed. A chain rattled menacingly, and there was sudden pain in his right ankle. He lay back, panting from the exertion, and stunned. He was chained to this loathsome bed!

  Heavy footsteps aroused him from the stupor into which he had fallen. He opened his eyes to see a tall, gaunt woman in a formless gray dress standing at the door, her black eyes gleaming down at him like bright beads.

  "Ah," she said. "Granny's new boarder has come out of his fever, and now we can get acquainted. That's good! That's good!"

  She rubbed her dry hands together raspingly. "We're going to get along beautifully, aren't we? But you've got to earn your keep. No slackers can leech off Granny. No, sir. We'll have to have a heart-to-heart talk about that Yes, yes," she leered at him over clasped hands, "a heart-to-heart talk." Jommy stared up at the old woman in repelled fascination. As the thin, slightly stooped creature sank with a grunt, onto the foot of the bed, he drew his legs up against his body, withdrawing as far from her as the chain would allow. It struck him that he had never seen a face that more nearly expressed the malignant character that lay behind the mask of old flesh. With rising disgust, he compared her thin, lined, egg-shaped head with the mind inside; and it was all there. Every twisted line in that wrecked face had its counterpart in the twisted brain. A whole world of lechery dwelt within the confines of that shrewd mind.

  His thought must have shown in his face, for she said with sudden savagery, "Yes, yes, to look at Granny you'd never think she was once a famous beauty. You'd never suspect that men once worshiped the white loveliness of her. But don't forget that this old hag saved your life. Never forget that, or Granny may turn your ungrateful hide over to the police. And how they'd love to have you. How they would love it! But Granny's kind to them that's kind to her and does as she wants."

  Granny! Was there ever a term of affection more prostituted than by this old woman calling herself Granny!

  He searched her mind, trying to find in its depths her real name. But there was only a blur of pictures of a silly, stage-struck girl, profligate of her charms, ruined, degraded to the level of the street, hardened and destroyed by adversity. Her identity was buried in a cesspool of the evil she had done and thought. There was an endless story of thieving. There was the dark kaleidoscope of more loathsome crimes. There was murder committed – Shuddering, immeasurably weary now that the first stimulus of her presence was fading, Jommy withdrew from the abomination that was Granny's mind. The old wretch leaned toward him, her eyes like gimlets drilling into his.

  "It's true," she asked, "that slans can read minds?"

  "Yes," Jommy admitted, "and I can see what you're thinking, but it's no use."

  She chuckled grimly. "Then you don't read all that's in Granny's mind. Granny's no fool. Granny's smart; and she knows better than to think she can force a slan to stay and work for her. He has to be free for what she wants him to do. He's got to see that, being a slan, this will be the safest place for him until he grows up. Now, isn't Granny clever?"

  Jommy sighed sleepily. "I can see what's in your mind, but I can't talk to you now. When we slans are sick – and that's not often – we just sleep and sleep. My waking up the way I did means that my subconscious was worried and forced me awake because it thought I was in danger. We slans have a lot of protections like that. But now I've got to go back to sleep and get well."

  The coal– black eyes grew wide. The lustful mind recoiled, briefly accepting defeat in its main purpose of making immediate wealth from its prey. Greed yielded momentarily to violent curiosity, but there was no intention of letting him sleep.

  "Is it true that slans make monsters out of human beings?"

  Fury burned through Jommy's brain. Weariness fell away from him. He sat up, in rage.

  "That's a lie! It's one of those horrible lies that human beings tell about us to make us seem inhuman, to make everybody hate us, kill us. It – "

  He sank back, exhausted, rage evaporating. "My mother and father were the finest people alive," he said softly, "and they were terribly unhappy. They met on the street one day, and saw in each other's minds that they were slans. Until then they'd lived the loneliest of lives, they'd never harmed anyone. It's the human beings who are the criminals. Dad didn't fight as hard as he could have when they cornered him and shot him in the back. He could have fought. He should have! Because he had the most terrible weapon the world has ever seen – so terrible he wouldn't even carry it with him for fear he might use it. When I'm fifteen I'm supposed to – "

  He stopped, appalled at his indiscretion. For an instant he felt so sick, so weary, that his mind refused to hold the burden of his thought. He knew only that he had given away the greatest secret in slan history, and if this grasping old wretch turned him over to the police in his present weakened condition, all was lost. Slowly, he breathed easier. He saw that her mind hadn't really caught the enormous implication in his revelation. She hadn't really heard him at the moment when he mentioned the weapon – for that rapacious brain had already been too long away from its main purpose. And now, like a vulture, it swooped down on prey it knew to be exhausted.

  "Granny's glad to know that Jommy's such a nice boy. Poor, starving old Granny needs a young slan to make money for her and him. You won't mind working for tired old Granny, will you?" Her voice hardened. "Beggars can't be choosers, you know."

  The knowledge that his secret was safe acted like a drug. His eyelids drooped. He said, "Really, I can't talk to you now; I've got to sleep."

  He saw that she wasn't going to let him go. Her mind had already realized what could agitate him. She spoke sharply, not because she was interested, but to keep him awake.

  "Wh
at is a slan? What makes you different? Where did slans come from in the first place? They were made, weren't they – like machines?"

  Funny how that could bring a surge of responsive anger when his mind saw that that was her purpose. Dimly he realized that bodily weakness had taken normal restraints from his mind. He said in a dull rage, "That's another one of the lies. I was born just like anyone else. So were my parents. Beyond that, I don't know."

  "Your parents must have known!" the old woman prodded him.

  Jommy shook his head. His eyes closed. "No, Mother said Dad was always too busy to investigate the mystery of the slans. But now, leave me alone. I know what you're trying to do and I know what you want, but it's dishonest and I won't do it."

  "That's stupid," the old woman snapped angrily, on her subject at last. "Is it dishonest to rob people who live by robbery and cheating? Shall you and Granny eat crusts of bread when the world is so rich that every treasury bulges with gold, every granary bulges with wheat, and honey flows in the streets? Bah for your honesty! That's what Granny says. How can a slan, hunted like a rat, talk of being honest?"

  Jommy was silent and not only because of his need for sleep. He had had thoughts like that himself. The old woman pounded on:

  "Where will you go? What will you do? Will you live in the streets? What about winter? Where in all this world can a little slan boy go?"

  Her voice sank, in an attempt at sympathy. "Your poor, dear mother would have wanted you to do what I'm asking, She had no love for human beings. I've saved the paper to show you how they shot her down like a dog when she tried to escape. Would you like to see it?"