The World-Thinker and Other Stories

by Jack Vance

  Shorn looked around the faces in the room. Laurie was sympathetic; Circumbright looked away uncomfortably; Thursby frowned thoughtfully; Kasselbarg waited with courteous deference.

  “Everything you say is true,” Shorn said. “I would be the most ruthless of us all, if these four thousand deaths did not rob the human race of the most precious gift it possesses. Telekinesis to date has been misused; the Teleks have been remarkable for their selfishness and egotism. But in reacting to the Teleks’ mistakes, we should not make mistakes of our own.”

  Thursby said in a cool clear voice, “What is your concrete proposal, Mr. Shorn?”

  “I believe we should dedicate ourselves, not to killing Teleks, but to giving telekinesis to every sane man and woman.”

  A small red-haired man sneered. “The ancient fallacy, privilege for the chosen ones—in this case, the sane. And who, pray, determines their sanity?”

  Shorn smiled. “Your fallacy is at least as ancient; surely there’s nothing occult about sanity. But let me return to my fundamental proposition: that taking telekinesis out of monopoly and broadcasting it is a better solution to the problem than killing Teleks. One way is up, the other down; building versus destruction. In one direction we put mankind at its highest potential for achievement; in the other we have four thousand dead Teleks, if our plan succeeds. Always latent is the possibility of a devastated world.”

  Thursby said, “You’re convincing, Mr. Shorn. But aren’t you operating on the unproved premise that universal telekinesis is a possibility? Killing the Teleks seems to be easier than persuading them to share their power; we’ve got to do one or the other.”

  Shorn shook his head. “There are at least two methods to create Teleks. The first is slow and a long-range job: that is, duplicating the conditions which produced the first Teleks. The second is much easier, quicker, and, I believe, safer. I have good reason for—” he stopped short. A faint buzzing, a vibration in his pocket.

  The detector.

  He turned to Luby, who stood by the door. “Turn out the lights! There’s a Telek spy-cell nearby! Out with the lights, or we’re all done for.”

  Luby hesitated. Shorn cursed under his breath. Thursby rose to his feet, startled and tense. “What’s going on?”

  There was a pounding at the door. “Open up, in the name of the law.”

  Shorn looked at the windows: the tough vitripane burst out; the windows were wide open. “Quick, out the window!”

  Circumbright said in a voice of deadly passion, “Somewhere there’s a traitor—”

  A man in black and gold appeared at the window with a heat-gun. “Out the door,” he bellowed. “You can’t get away, the place is surrounded. Move out the door in an orderly fashion; move out the door. You’re all under arrest. Don’t try to break for it; our orders are shoot to kill.”

  Circumbright sidled close to Shorn. “Can’t you do something?”

  “Not here. Wait till we’re all outside; we don’t want anyone shot.”

  Two burly troopers appeared in the doorway, gestured with pistols. “Outside, everybody. Keep your hands up.”

  Thursby led the way, his face thoughtful. Shorn followed; behind came the others. They marched into the parking area, now flooded with light from police lamps.

  “Stop right there,” barked a new voice.

  Thursby halted. Shorn squinted against the searchlight; he saw a dozen men standing in a circle around them.

  “This is a catch and no mistake,” muttered Thursby.

  “Quiet! No talking.”

  “Better search them for weapons,” came another new voice. Shorn recognized the dry phrasing, the overtones of careless contempt. Adlari Dominion.

  Two Black and Golds walked through the group, making a quick search.

  A mocking voice came from behind the searchlights. “Isn’t that Colonel Thursby, the people’s hero? What’s he doing in this nasty little conspiracy?”

  Thursby stared ahead with an immobile face. The red-haired man who had challenged Shorn cried to the unseen voice: “You Telek boot-licker, may the money they pay rot the hands off your wrists!”

  “Easy, Walter,” said Circumbright.

  Thursby spoke toward the lights. “Are we under arrest?”

  There was no answer—a contemptuous silence.

  Thursby repeated in a sharper tone: “Are we under arrest? I want to see your warrant; I want to know what we’re charged with.”

  “You’re being taken to headquarters for questioning,” came the reply. “Behave yourselves; if you’ve committed no crime, there’ll be no charge.”

  “We’ll never reach headquarters,” Circumbright muttered to Shorn. Shorn nodded grimly, staring into the lights, seeking Dominion. Would he recognize the Cluche Kurgill whom he had invested with Telek power?

  The voice called out, “Were you contemplating resistance to arrest? Go ahead. Make it easy on us.”

  There was motion in the group, a swaying as if from the wind which moved the tops of the dark pine trees.

  The voice said, “Very well, then, march forward, one at a time. You first, Thursby.”

  Thursby turned slowly, like a bull, followed the trooper who walked ahead waving a flashlight.

  Circumbright muttered to Shorn, “Can’t you do something?”

  “Not while Dominion is out there—”

  “Silence!”

  One by one the group followed Thursby. An air barge loomed ahead, the rear hatch gaping like the mouth of a cave.

  “Up the ramp; inside.”

  The hold was a bare, metal-walled cargo space. The door clanged shut, and the fifty captives stood in sweating silence.

  Thursby’s voice came from near the wall. “A clean sweep. Did they get everybody?”

  Circumbright answered in a carefully toneless voice. “So far as I know.”

  “This will set the movement back ten years,” said another voice, controlled but tremulous.

  “More likely destroy it entirely.”

  “But—what can they convict us of? We’re guilty of nothing they can prove.”

  Thursby snorted. “We’ll never get to Tran. My guess is gas.”

  “Gas?”—a horrified whisper.

  “Poison gas pumped through the ventilator. Then out to sea, drop us, and no one’s the wiser. Not even ‘killed while escaping’. Nothing.”

  The aircraft vibrated, rose into the air; under their feet was the soft feeling of air-borne flight.

  Shorn called out softly, “Circumbright?”

  “Right here.”

  “Make a light.”

  A paper torch ignited by a cigarette lighter cast a yellow flicker around the hold; faces glowed pale and damp as toad-bellies; eyes glared and reflected in the flare of the torch.

  The row of ports was well shuttered, the hand-keys were replaced by bolts. Shorn turned his attention to the door. He had moved the planet Jupiter; he should be able to break open a door. But the problem was different; in a sense this bulging open of a door was a concept several times more advanced than movement of a single object, no matter how large. There was also a psychological deterrent in the fact that the door was locked. What would happen if he attempted to telekinecize and nothing happened? Would he retain his power?

  Thursby was standing with his ear to the ventilator. He turned, nodded. “Here it comes. I can hear the hiss—”

  The paper torch was guttering; in darkness Shorn was as helpless as the others. Desperately he plunged his mind at the door; the door burst open, out into the night. Shorn caught it before it fluttered away into the dark air, brought it edgewise back through the door opening.

  The wind had blown out the torch; Shorn could only vaguely feel the black bulk of the door. He yelled, to be heard over the roar of the wind rushing past the door, “Stand back, stand back—” He could wait no longer; he felt reality slipping in the darkness; the door was only a vague blot. He concentrated on it, strained his eyes to see, hurled it against the metal hull, stove
out a great rent. Air swept through the hold, whisked out any gas which might have entered.

  Shorn took himself out the door, rose above the cabin, looked through the sky dome. A dozen Black and Golds sat in the forward compartment looking uneasily back toward the cargo hold whence had come the rending jar. Adlari Dominion was not visible. Luby, the bronze-haired courier with the medallion face, sat statue-quiet in a corner. Luby was to be preserved, thought Shorn. Luby was the traitor.

  He had neither time nor inclination for half-measures. He tore a strip off the top of the ship; the troopers and Luby looked up in terror. If they saw him at all, he was a white-faced demon of the night, riding the wind above them. They were shucked out of the cabin like peas from a pod, flung out into the night, and their cries came thinly back to Shorn over the roar of the wind.

  He jumped down into the cabin, cut off the motors, jerked the cylinder of gas away from the ventilation system, then whisked the craft east, toward the Monaghill Mountains.

  Clouds fell away from the moon; he saw a field below. Here was as good a spot as any to land and reorganize.

  The aircraft settled to the field. Dazed, trembling, buffeted, fifty men and women crept from the hold.

  Shorn found Thursby leaning against the hull. Thursby looked at him through the moonlight as a child might watch a unicorn. Shorn grinned. “I know you must be puzzled; I’ll tell you all about it as soon as we’re settled. But now—”

  Thursby squinted. “It’s hardly practical our going home, acting as if nothing had happened. The Black and Golds took photographs; and there’s a number of us that—are not unknown to them.”

  Circumbright appeared out of the darkness like a pink and brown owl. “There’ll be a great deal of excitement at the Black and Gold headquarters when there’s no news of this hulk.”

  “There’ll be a great deal of irritation at Glarietta Pavilion.”

  Shorn counted the days on his fingers. “Today is the twenty-third. Nine days to the first of the month.”

  “What happens on the first of the month?”

  “The First Annual Telekinetic Olympiad, at the new stadium in Swanscomb Valley. In the meantime—there’s an old mine back of Mount Mathias. The bunkhouses should hold two or three hundred.”

  “But there’s only fifty of us—”

  “We’ll want others. Two hundred more. Two hundred good people. And to avoid any confusion—” he looked around to find the red-haired man who thought that sanity was no more than a function of individual outlook “—we will equate goodness to will to survive for self, the family group, human culture and tradition.”

  “That’s broad enough,” said Thursby equably, “to suit almost anyone. As a practical standard—?” In the moonlight Shorn saw him cock his eyebrows humorously.

  “Practically,” said Shorn, “we’ll pick out people we like.”

  VIII

  Sunday morning, June the first, was dull and overcast. Mist hung along the banks of the Swanscomb River as it wound in its new looping course down the verdant valley; the trees dripped with clammy condensations.

  At eight o’clock a man in rich garments of purple, black and white dropped from the sky to the rim of the stadium. He glanced up at the overcast, the cloud-wrack broke open like a scum, slid across the sky.

  Horizon to horizon the heavens showed pure and serene blue; the sun poured warmth into Swanscomb Valley.

  The man looked carefully around the stadium, his black eyes keen, restless. At the far end stood a man in a black and gold police uniform; he brought the man through the air to the rim of the stadium beside him.

  “Good morning, Sergeant. Any disturbance?”

  “None at all, Mr. Dominion.”

  “How about below?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. I’m only responsible for the interior, and I’ve had the lights on all night. Not a fly has showed itself.”

  “Good.” Dominion glanced around the great bowl. “If there are no trespassers now, there won’t be any, since there’s no ground level entrance.”

  He took himself and the trooper to the ground. Two other men in uniform appeared.

  “Good morning,” said Dominion.

  “Any disturbance?”

  “No sir. Not a sound.”

  “Curious.” Dominion rubbed his pale peaked chin. “Nothing below the stadium?”

  “Nothing, sir. Not a nail. We’ve searched every nook and cranny, down to bedrock, inch by inch.”

  “Nothing on the detectors?”

  “No, sir. If a gopher had tunneled under the stadium, we’d have known it.”

  Dominion nodded. “Perhaps there won’t be any demonstration after all.” He stroked his chin. “My intuition is seldom at fault. But never mind. Take all your men, station them at the upper and lower ends of the valley. Allow no one to enter. No one, on any pretext whatever. Understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  Dominion returned to the rim of the stadium, gazed around the sunny bowl. The grass was green and well cropped; the colored upholstery of the chairs made circular bands of pastel around the stadium.

  He took himself through the air to the director’s cupola, an enclosed booth hanging in a vantage point over the field on a long transparent spar. He entered, seated himself at the table, switched on the microphone. “One—two—three.” He stopped, listened. His voice, channeled to speakers in the arms of each of the seats, came back to him as a husky murmur.

  Other Teleks began to arrive, dropping like brilliant birds from the sky, settling to bask in the sunlight. Refreshment trays floated past; they sipped fruit juice, tea, and ate mint cakes.

  Dominion presently left the high cupola, drifted low over the stadium. There was no expectation of filling it; thirty thousand seats would allow room for future increase. Thirty thousand Teleks was the theoretical limit that the economy of Earth could maintain at the present standard of living. And after thirty thousand? Dominion shrugged aside the question; the problem had no contemporary meaning. The solution should prove simple enough; there had been talk of swinging Venus out into a cooler orbit, moving in Neptune, and creating two habitable worlds by transferring half of Neptune’s mantle of ice to dusty Venus. A problem for tomorrow. Today’s concern was the creation of the Telek Earth State, the inculcation of religious awe into the common folk of Earth—the only means, as it had been decided, to protect Teleks from witless assassination.

  He dropped into a group of friends, seated himself. His work was done for the day; now, with security achieved, he could relax, enjoy himself.

  Teleks came in greater numbers. Here was a large group—fifty together. They settled into a section rather high up on the shady side, somewhat apart from the others. A few minutes later another group of fifty joined them, and later there were other similar groups.

  At nine o’clock the program of events got under way. A whirlpool of jewel colors glinted high in the sky—A dozen great ice prisms appeared, each frozen from water of a different color.

  They commenced to revolve in a circle, rotating at the same time; shafts of colored light—red, gold-yellow, emerald, blue—played around the stadium. Then each of the prisms broke into twenty sections, and the pieces swung, swirled like a swarm of polychrome fireflies. With a great swoop they disappeared into the sky.

  The voice of Lemand De Troller, the Program Director, sounded from the speakers:

  “Sixty years ago, at the original Telekinetic Congress, our race was born. Today is the first annual convention of the issue of these early giants, and I hope the custom will persist down the stream of history, down the million years that is our destined future, ten million times a million years.

  “Now—the program for the day. Immediately following will be a game of bump-ball, for the world championship, between the Crimean Blues and the Oslandic Vikings. Then there will be a water-sculpture contest and display, and next—arrow-dueling, followed by an address by Miss Gloriana Hallen, on the Future of Tel
ekinesis, and then lunch will be served on the turf—”

  Circumbright and Shorn listened with dissatisfaction as De Troller announced the program. He finished with “—the final valediction by Graycham Gray, our chairman for the year.”

  Circumbright said to Shorn, “There’s nothing there, no mass telekinesis in the entire program.”

  Shorn said nothing. He leaned back in his seat, looked up to the director’s cupola.

  “Ample opportunity for mass exercise,” complained Circumbright, “and they overlook it entirely.”

  Shorn brought his attention back down from the cupola. “It’s an obvious stunt—perhaps too obvious for such a sophisticated people.”

  Circumbright scanned the two hundred and sixty-five men and women in radiant Telek costumes that Shorn had brought into the stadium, fifty at a time. “Do you suppose that the program as it stands will do the trick?”

  Shorn shook his head fretfully. “Doesn’t seem possible. Not enough mass participation.” He looked over his shoulder to Thursby, in the seat behind him. “Any ideas?”

  Thursby in brown and yellow said tentatively, “We can’t very well force them to indoctrinate us.”

  Laurie, beside Shorn, laughed nervously. “Let’s send Circumbright out to plead with them.”

  Shorn moved restlessly in his seat. Two hundred and sixty-five precious lives, dependent for continued existence on his skill and vigilance. “Maybe something will turn up.”

  The game of bump-ball was underway. Five men lying prone in eight-foot red torpedoes competed against five men in blue torpedoes, each team trying to bump a floating three-foot ball into the opposition goal. The game was lightning swift, apparently dangerous. The ten little boats moved so fast as to be mere flickers; the ball slammed back and forth like a ping-pong ball.

  Shorn began to notice curious glances cast up toward his group. There was no suspicion, only interest; somehow they were attracting attention. He looked around and saw his group sitting straight and tense as vestrymen at a funeral—obviously uneasy and uncomfortable. He rose to his feet, spoke in an angry undertone, “Show a little life; act as if you’re enjoying yourselves!”