Slan

by A. E. van Vogt

  It could be converted to motion and to vibration, to radiation and – directly – to electricity.

  He began to build himself an arsenal. He transformed a mountain near the ranch into a fortress, knowing that it would be inadequate against any concerted attack, but it was something. With an ever vaster protective science behind him, his search grew more determined.

  Jommy Cross seemed always to be driving along roads that gleamed toward distant horizons, or in strange cities, each with its endless swarms of human beings. The sun rose and set, and rose and set, and there were dark days of drizzling rains, and there were countless nights. Although he was always alone, loneliness did not touch him, for his expanding soul fed with an always dissatisfied eagerness at the tremendous drama that was daily enacted before his eyes. Everywhere he turned, facets of the tendrilless slan organization met his gaze, and week by week he grew more puzzled. Where were the true slans?

  The puzzle seemed a crazy, unanswerable thing that never left him. It followed him now as he walked slowly up a street of the hundredth – or was it the thousandth? – city.

  Night lay upon the city, night spattered by countless glittering shop windows and a hundred million blazing lights. He walked to a newsstand and bought all the local papers, then back to his car, that very ordinary-looking, very special battleship on wheels which he never allowed out of his sight. He stood beside the long, low-built machine. A chilling night wind caught at the sheets of the paper as he turned page after page, briefly letting his gaze skim down the columns.

  The wind grew colder as he stood there, bringing the damp-sweet smell of rain. A gust of cold air caught an edge of his paper, whipped it madly for a moment, abruptly tore it, then went screaming victoriously down the street, chasing the scrap of paper wildly. He folded the newspaper decisively against the rising clamor of wind and climbed into the car. An hour later he tossed the seven daily papers into a sidewalk wastepaper receptacle. Deep in thought, he re-entered the car and sat behind the steering wheel.

  The same old story. Two of the papers were tendrilless slan. It was easy for his mind to note the subtle difference, the special coloration of the articles, the very way the words were used, the distinct difference between the human-owned papers and those operated by the tendrilless slans. Two papers out of seven. But those two had the highest circulation. It was a normal average.

  And, once more, that was all there was. Human being and tendrilless slan. No third group, none of the difference that he knew would show him when a paper was operated by true slans, if his theory were right. It remained only to obtain all the weekly papers, and to spend the evening as he had spent the day, driving along the streets, searching, each house, each passing mind; and then, as he drove toward the distant east, the gathering tempest charged like some untamed beast through the black night.

  Behind him, the night and the storm swallowed up another city, another failure.

  The water lay dark and still around the spaceship in that third year when Jommy Cross finally returned to the tunnel. He swirled around in the mud, turning the blazing force of his atomic-powered machines on the wounded metal thing.

  Ten– point steel seared over the hole his disintegrator had carved on that day when he escaped the slan cruisers. And all through one almost endless week a snug-fitting, leech-shaped metal monstrosity hugged inch by inch over the surface of the ship, straining with its frightful power at the very structure of the atoms, till the foot-thick walls of the long, sleek machine were ten-point steel from end to end.

  It took him some weeks to analyze the antigravity plates with their electrically built-up vibrations, and to fashion a counterpart which, with grim irony, he left there in the tunnel, for it was on them that the detectors of the tendrilless slans operated. Let them think their craft still there.

  Three months he slaved and then, in the dead of one cold October night, the ship backed along six miles of tunnel on a cushion of resistless atomic drive, and plunged up through a mist of icy rain.

  The rain became sleet, then snow; then abruptly he was beyond the clouds, beyond earth's petty furies. Above him the vast canopy of the heavens glittered in a blazing array of stars that beckoned to his matchless ship. There was Sirius, the brightest jewel in that diadem, and there was Mars, the red. But it was not for Mars that he was heading today. This was only a short exploratory voyage, a cautious trip to the Moon, a test flight to provide that all-necessary experience which his logic would use as a basis for the long, dangerous journey that seemed to be becoming more inevitable with each passing month of his utterly futile search. Someday he would have to go to Mars.

  Beneath him a blur of night-enveloped globe receded. At one edge of that mass, a blaze of light grew more brilliant as he watched and then, abruptly, his contemplation of the glory of the approaching sunrise was jarred by the clanging of an alarm bell. A pointer light flashed on and off discordantly far up on his forward visiplate. Decelerating at full speed, he watched the changing position of the light. Suddenly, the light clicked off and there, at the extreme range of his vision, was a ship.

  The battleship was not coming directly toward him. It grew larger, became plainly visible just beyond the Earth's shadow, in the full glare of the Sun. It passed by him, less than a hundred miles away, a thousand-foot structure of smooth, dark metal. It plunged into the shadows and instantly vanished. In half an hour the alarm stopped ringing.

  And then, ten minutes later, it was clamoring again. The second ship was farther away, traveling at right angles to the path of the first. It was a smaller ship by far, destroyer size, and it did not follow a fixed path, but darted here and there.

  When it was gone in the distance, Jommy Cross edged his ship forward, undecided now, almost awed. A battleship and a destroyer! Why? It seemed to indicate a patrol. But against whom? Not against human beings, surely. They didn't even know the tendrilless slans and their ships existed.

  He slowed his ship, stopped. He was not prepared yet to risk running a gauntlet of well-equipped battleships. Watchfully, he swung his ship around – and in the middle of the turn he saw the small dark object, like a meteorite, rushing toward him.

  In a flash he whipped aside. The object twisted after him like a living monster out of space. It loomed far up in his rear visiplate, a dark, round metal ball, about a yard in diameter. Frantically, Jommy Cross tried to maneuver his ship out of its path, but before he could make a turn there was a deafening, mind-shattering blast.

  The explosion smashed him to the floor; the concussion kept him there, stunned, sick but still alive, and conscious that those sturdy walls had survived the almost intolerable blow. The ship was rocking in frightful acceleration. Dizzily, Jommy Cross picked himself up and climbed back into the control chair. He'd struck a mine. A floating mine! What terrifying precautions were here – and against what? Thoughtfully he maneuvered his dented, almost disabled ship into a tunnel under the river that cut through Granny's ranch, a tunnel that curved up into the heart of a mountain peak, clear of the water that swirled after it. He could" not even hazard a guess as to how long it must remain hidden there. Its outer walls were violently radioactive and therefore the ship was temporarily useless to him if only for that reason. And one other thing was certain. He was not ready yet either to oppose or to outwit the tendrilless slans. Two days later, Jommy Cross stood in the doorway of the rambling ranch house and watched their nearest neighbor, Mrs. Lanahan, come tight-lipped along the pathway that led between the two orchards. She was a plump blonde whose round baby face concealed a prying, malicious mind. Her blue eyes glowed at Granny's tall, brown-eyed, brown-haired grandson with suspicion.

  Jommy Cross eyed her with amusement as he opened the door for her and followed her into the house. In her mind was all the ignorance of those who had lived their lives in backward rural areas in a world where education had become a pale shadow, a weak, characterless reflection of official cynicism. She didn't know exactly what a slan was, but she thought he was one, and
she was there to find out. She made an interesting experiment for his crystal method of hypnotism. It was fascinating to watch the way she kept glancing at the tiny crystal he had put on the table beside her chair – observing the way she talked on, completely in character, never realizing when she ceased to be a free agent and became his slave.

  She walked out finally into the glare of the late fall sunshine, apparently unchanged. But the errand that had brought her to the farmhouse was forgotten, for her mind was conditioned to a new attitude toward slans. Not hatred – that was for a possible future that Jommy Cross could envision; and not approval – that was for her own protection in a world of slan haters.

  The following day he saw her husband, a black-bearded giant of a man in a distant field. A quiet talk, a differently attuned crystal, brought him, also, under control.

  During the months that he relaxed with the hypnotically sweetened old woman that had been Granny, he gained mental control of every one of the hundreds of farm people who dwelt in the idyllic climate of the valley there in the ever-green foothills. At first he needed the crystals, but as his knowledge of the human mind grew, he found that, although it was a slower process, he could entirely dispense with that atomically unbalanced glass.

  He estimated: Even at the rate of two thousand hypnotized a year, and not allowing for new generations, he could hypnotize the four billion people in the world in two million years. Conversely, two million slans could do it in a year, provided they possessed the secret of his crystals. Two million needed, and he couldn't even find one. Somewhere there must be a true slan. And during the years that still must pass before he could logically pit his intelligence against the intellectual task involved in finding the true slan organization, he must search and search for that one.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She was trapped. Briefly, Kathleen Layton grew tense. Her slim young body straightened there beside the open drawer of Kier Gray's desk, the contents of which she had been studying. Her mind reached out with startled alertness, through intervening doors, to where Kier Gray and another man were opening the door that led from her room through a corridor and another room to this, the dictator's own study.

  She was conscious of chagrin. For weeks she had waited for the council meeting that would claim Kier Gray's attendance and give her safe access to his study – and now this wild accident. For the first time in her experience, Kier Gray had gone to her room instead of summoning her to him. With all the other exits guarded, her one avenue of escape had been cut off.

  She was trapped! Yet she did not regret her action in coming. An imprisoned slan could have no purpose but escape. The seriousness of her position struck deeper instant by instant. To be caught here red-handed – Abruptly, she ceased putting the papers back into the drawer. No time. The men were just beyond the door now.

  With sudden decision she closed the drawer, jerked the papers into a rough pile at one side of the desk and, like a fleeing fawn, rushed to an easy chair. Simultaneously, the door opened, and John Petty came in, followed by Kier Gray. The two men stopped as they saw her. The police chief's handsome face took on a darker color. His eyes narrowed to slits, then his gaze flicked questioningly to the dictator. The leader's eyebrows were lifted quizzically, and there was the faintest hint of irony in the smile that came into his face.

  "Hullo," he said. "What brings you here?"

  Kathleen had come to a decision about that, but before she could speak, John Petty cut in. The man had a beautiful voice when he wanted to use it, and he used it now. He said gently:

  "She's obviously been spying on you, Kier."

  There was something about this man with his incisive logic that brought chilling alarm to the girl. It seemed to be the dark destiny, of the secret-police chief to be present at the critical moments of her life, and she knew with a stiffening of her courage that here was such a moment, and that of all the people in the world, John Petty would strive with the full passion of his hatred for her to make it deadly.

  The police head went on calmly, "Really, Kier, we come dramatically back to what we were discussing. Next week this slan girl will be twenty-one years of age, for all legal purposes an adult. Is she to live on here until she eventually dies of old age a hundred and fifty or some such fantastic term of years from now? Or what?"

  The smile on Kier Gray's face was grimmer. "Kathleen, didn't you know I was at the council meeting?"

  "You bet she knew," John Petty interjected, "and its unexpected ending came as an unpleasant surprise."

  Kathleen said coldly, "I refuse to make replies to any questioning in which that man participates. He's trying to keep his voice calm and logical but, in spite of the queer way in which he hides his thoughts, there is already a distinct glow of excitement streaming from him. And the thought has come to the surface of his mind that at last he will be able to convince you that I ought to be destroyed."

  The leader's face was oddly hostile in the thought-fullness that came into it. Her mind touched lightly at the surface of his brain, and there was a forcing thought there, a developing decision, impossible to read. He said finally:

  "Historically speaking, her charge against you is true, John. Your desire for her death is... er... proved tribute, of course, to your antislan zeal, but a queer fanaticism in so enormously capable a man."

  John Petty seemed to shake off the words in the impatient gesture he made. "The truth is, I want her dead, and I don't want her dead. To me she constitutes a grave menace to the State, located here in the palace and possessing mind-reading ability. I simply want her out of the way; and, being unsentimental about slans, I consider death the most effective method. However, I will not urge such a verdict in view of my reputation for bias in this case. But I seriously think that my suggestion at the meeting today is a good one. She should be moved to a different residence."

  There was no thought near the surface of Kier Gray's mind to suggest that he intended to speak. His gaze was on her with unnecessary steadiness. Kathleen said scathingly:

  "The moment I am removed from this palace, I will be murdered. As Mr. Gray said in effect ten years ago, after your hireling tried to murder me, once a slan is dead, inquiries into the affair are viewed with suspicion."

  She saw that Kier Gray was shaking his head at her. He spoke in the mildest, most unconvincing tone she had ever heard him use. "You assume far too readily, Kathleen, that I cannot protect you. On the whole, I think it is the best plan."

  She stared at him, stiff with dismay. He finished the virtual death sentence, his voice no longer mild, but even-toned, decisive:

  "You will gather your clothes and possessions and prepare yourself for departure in twenty-four hours."

  The shock passed. Her mind grew quite calm. The knowledge that Kier Gray had withdrawn his protection from her was too crystal-clear a realization for her to require any anticlimax of emotional disbelief.

  What astounded her was that there was as yet no evidence on which he could have based a criminal judgment. He hadn't even glanced at the papers she had arranged so hurriedly on the desk. Therefore, his decision was based on the mere fact of her presence here and on John Petty's accusations.

  Which was surprising, because he had in the past defended her from Petty under far more sinister circumstances. And she had come unpunished, unchecked into this study on at least half a dozen other occasions.

  It meant that his decision had been previously made, and therefore was beyond any argument she could hope to offer. She grew aware that there was amazement, too, in John Percy's brain. The man was frowning at his easy victory. The surface of his mind vibrated briefly a small stream of dissatisfaction, then abrupt decision to clinch the matter. His gaze flicked keenly over the room and came to rest ton the desk.

  "The point is, what did she find out while she was alone in your study? What are those papers?" He was not a shy man; and even while he asked the question he was stalking to the desk. As the leader came over behind him, Petty rippled through
the sheets. "Hm-m-m, the list of all the old slan hide-outs which we still use for trapping the unorganized slans. Fortunately, there are so many hundreds of them that she couldn't have had time to memorize their names, let alone descriptions of their locations."

  The falseness of his conclusion was not what concerned Kathleen in that moment of discovery. Evidently neither man suspected that not only was the location of every one of the slan hideaways imprinted indelibly on her mind, but that she had an almost photographic record of the alarm systems which the secret police had installed in each unit to warn them when an unsuspecting slan was entering. According to the shrewd analysis of one report, there must be some kind of thought broadcaster which made it possible for strange slans to locate the hiding places. But that was unimportant just now.

  What counted was Kier Gray. The leader was staring curiously at the papers. "This is more serious than I thought," he said slowly, and Kathleen's heart sank. "She's been searching through my desk."

  Kathleen thought tensely: It wasn't necessary for him to let John Petty know that. The old Kier Gray would never have provided her worst enemy with an ounce of ammunition to use against her.

  Kier Gray's eyes were cold as he turned to her. Strangely, the surface of his brain showed as calm and cool as she had ever known it to be. He was, she realized, not angry but, with an icy finality, breaking with her.

  "You will go to your room and pack – and await further instructions."

  She was turning away as John Petty said, "You have said on various occasions, sir, that you were keeping her alive for observation purposes only. If you move her from your presence, that purpose is no longer applicable. Therefore, I hope I am safe in assuming that she will be placed under the protection of the secret police."

  Kathleen shut her mind to their two minds as she closed the door behind her and raced along the corridor to her room. She felt not the vaguest interest in the details of any hypocritical murder plan which might be worked out between the leader and his henchman. Her course was clear. She opened the door leading from her room to one of the main corridors, nodded to the guard, who acknowledged her greeting stiffly – and then she walked calmly to the nearest elevator.