by Jack Vance
He turned back to the field, noticed a service wagon not in use, pulled it up, moved it past his charges. Gingerly they took tea, rum punch, cakes, fruit. Shorn set the case back on the turf.
The bump-ball game ended; now began the water sculpture. Columns of water reared into the air: glistening soft forms, catching the sunlight glowing deep from within.
Event followed event: compositions and displays in color, skill, ingenuity, swift reaction; arrows were pitted against arrows each trying to pierce the bladder trailed by the other. Colored spheres were raced through an obstacle course; there was an exhibition in which sparrows were released and after an interval herded into a basket by a small white tambourine.
There were other displays: the air over the stadium swam with fascinating colors, shapes, tapes, screens, and so passed the morning. At twelve, laden buffet tables dropped from the sky to the stadium turf. And now Shorn found himself on the horns of a dilemma. By remaining aloof from the tables his group made themselves conspicuous; but they risked quick detection by mingling with the Teleks.
Thursby resolved the problem. He leaned forward. “Don’t you think we’d better go down to lunch? Maybe a few at a time. We stick out like a sore thumb sitting up here hungry.”
Shorn acquiesced. By ones and twos he set the members of his company down to the sward. Laurie nudged him. “Look. There’s Dominion. He’s talking to old Poole.”
Circumbright in unusual agitation said, “I hope Poole keeps his wits about him.”
Shorn smiled grimly. “If Dominion makes one move—” Circumbright saw one of the dueling arrows lift easily into the air. Dominion turned away. Shorn sighed. The arrow returned to the turf.
A moment later Shorn brought Poole back to his seat. “What did Dominion want?”
Poole was a scholarly-looking man of middle age, mild and myopic. “Dominion? Oh, the gentleman who spoke to me. He was very pleasant. Asked if I were enjoying the spectacles, and said that he didn’t think he recognized me.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I didn’t get out very much, and that there were many here I hardly knew.”
“And then?”
“He just moved away.”
Shorn sighed. “Dominion is very sharp.”
Thursby wore a worried frown. “Things haven’t gone so well this morning.”
“No. But there’s still the afternoon.”
The afternoon program began with a score of young Telek girls performing an air ballet.
IX
Three o’clock.
“There’s not much more,” said Circumbright.
Shorn sat hunched forward. “No.”
Circumbright clenched the arms of his seat. “We’ve got to do something, and I know what to do.”
“What?”
“Drop me down to the field. I’ll pick up the arrows, and you start picking off the Teleks. Dominion first. Then they’ll all—”
Shorn shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. You’d be throwing away your life for nothing.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?” Circumbright demanded belligerently.
Shorn gestured to the two hundred and sixty-five. “Do you think we could arouse a real rapport in the business of pulverizing you? No.” He looked up at the director’s cupola. “It’s got to come from there. And I’ve got to arrange it.” He reached over, clasped Laurie’s hand, nodded to Thursby, rose to his feet, took himself by an inconspicuous route along the back wall, up to the transparent spar supporting the cupola. Inside he glimpsed the shapes of two men.
He slid back the door, entered quietly, froze in his footprints. Adlari Dominion, lounging back in an elastic chair, smiled up at him, ominous as a cobra. “Come in. I’ve been expecting you.”
Shorn looked quickly to Lemand De Troller, the program director, a bulky blond man with lines of self-indulgence clamping his mouth.
“How so?”
“I have a pretty fair idea of your intentions, and I admit their ingenuity. Unluckily for you, I inspected the body of Cluche Kurgill, assassinated a short time ago, and it occurred to me that this was not the man whom I entertained at Glarietta; I have since reprimanded myself for not scrutinizing the catch at Portinari Gate more carefully. In any event, today will be a complete debacle, from your standpoint. I have excised from the program any sort of business which might have helped you.”
Shorn said thickly, “You showed a great deal of forbearance in allowing us to enjoy your program.”
Dominion made a lazy gesture. “It’s just as well not to bring our problems too sharply to the attention of the spectators; it might lay a macabre overtone upon the festival for them to observe at close hand two hundred and sixty-five condemned anarchists and provocateurs.”
“You would have been made very uncomfortable if I had not come up here to the cupola.”
Dominion shook his head indulgently. “I asked myself, what would I do in your position? I answered, I would proceed to the cupola and myself direct such an event to suit my purposes. So—I preceded you.” He smiled. “And now—the sorry rebellion is at its end. The entire nucleus of your gang is within reach, helpless; if you recall, there is no exit, they have no means to scale the walls.”
Shorn felt thick bile rising in his throat; his voice sounded strange to his ears. “It’s not necessary to revenge yourself on all these people; they’re merely decent individuals, trying to cope with—” He spoke on, pleading half-angrily for the two hundred and sixty-five. Meanwhile his mind worked at a survival sub-level. Dominion, no matter how lazy-seeming and catlike, was keyed-up, on his guard; there would be no surprising him. In any struggle Lemand De Troller, the program director, would supply the decisive force. Shorn might be able to parry the weapons of one man, but two cores of thought would be too much for him.
Decision and action came to him simultaneously. He gave the cupola a great shake; startled, De Troller seized the desk. Shorn threw a coffee mug at his head. Instantly, before the mug had even struck, he flung himself to the floor. Dominion, seizing the instant of Shorn’s distraction, aimed a gun at him, fired an explosive pellet. Shorn hit the floor, saw De Troller slump, snatched the weapon from Dominion’s hand, all at once.
The gun clattered to the deck, and Shorn found himself looking into Dominion’s pale glowing eyes.
Dominion spoke in a low voice, “You’re very quick. You’ve effectively reduced the odds against yourself.”
Shorn smiled tightly. “What odds do you give me now?”
“Roughly, a thousand to one.”
“Seems to me they’re even. You against me.”
“No. I can hold you helpless, at the very least, until the program property man returns.”
Shorn slowly rose to his feet. Careful. Let no movement escape his eye. Without moving his eyes from Dominion’s he lifted the coffee mug, hurled it at Dominion’s head. Dominion diverted it, accelerated it toward Shorn. Shorn bounced it back, into Dominion’s face. It stopped only an inch short, then sprang back at Shorn’s head with tremendous speed. Shorn flicked it with a thought, he felt the breath of its passage and it shattered against the wall.
“You’re fast,” said Dominion lightly. “Very fast indeed. In theory, your reactions should have missed that.”
Shorn stared at him thoughtfully. “I’ve got a theory of my own.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“What happens when two minds try to teleport an object in opposing directions?”
Dominion frowned slightly. “A very exhausting matter, if carried to the limit. The mind with the greater certainty wins, the other mind—sometimes—lapses.”
Shorn stared at Dominion. “My mind is stronger than yours.”
Dominion’s eye lit up with a peculiar inner glow, then filmed over. “Very well, suppose it is? What do I gain in proving otherwise?”
Shorn said, “If you want to save your life—you’ll have to.” With his eyes still on Dominion, he took a knife from his pocket, flicke
d open the blade.
It leaped from his hand at his eyes. He frantically diverted it, and in the instant his defense was distracted, the gun darted to Dominion’s hand. Shorn twisted up the muzzle by a hair’s-breadth; the pellet sang past his ear.
Fragments of the coffee mug pelted the back of his head, blinding him with pain. Dominion, smiling and easy, raised the gun. It was all over, Shorn thought. His mind, wilted and spent, stood naked and bare of defense—for the flash of an instant. Before Dominion could pull the trigger Shorn flung the knife at his throat. Dominion turned his attention away from the gun to divert the knife; Shorn reached out, grabbed the gun with his bare hands, tossed it under the table out of sight.
Dominion and Shorn glared eye to eye. Both of them thought of the knife. It lay on the table, and now under the impulse of both minds, slowly trembled, rose quivering into the air, hilt up, blade down, swinging as if hung by a short string. Gradually it drifted to a position midway between their eyes.
The issue was joined. Sweating, breathing hard, they glared at the knife, and it vibrated, sang to the induced quiver from the opposing efforts. Eye to eye stared Dominion and Shorn, faces red, mouths open, distorted. No opportunity now for diversionary tactics; relax an instant and the knife would stab; blunt force strained against force.
Dominion said slowly, “You can’t win, you who have only known telekinesis a few days; your certainty is as nothing compared to mine. I’ve lived my lifetime in certainty; it’s part of my living will, and now see—your reality is weakening, the knife is aiming at you, to slash your neck.”
Shorn watched the knife in fascination, and indeed it slowly turned toward him like the clock-hand of Fate. Sweat streamed into his eyes; he was aware of Dominion’s grimace of triumph.
No. Allow no words to distract you; permit no suggestion; bend down Dominion’s own resolution. His vocal chords were like rusty wire, his voice was a croak.
“My certainty is stronger than yours because—” as he said the words the knife halted its sinister motion toward his throat “—time has no effect upon telekinesis! Because I’ve got the will of all humanity behind me, and you’ve got only yourself!”
The knife trembled, twisted, as if it were a live thing, tortured by indecision.
“I’m stronger than you are, because—I’ve got to be!” He sank the words into Dominion’s mind.
Dominion said quickly, “Your neck hurts, your mind hurts, you cannot see.”
Shorn’s neck hurt indeed, his head ached, sweat stung his eyes, and the knife made a sudden lurch toward him. This can’t go on, thought Shorn. “I don’t need tricks, Dominion; you need them only because your confidence is going and you’re desperate.” He took a deep breath, reached out, seized the knife, plunged it into Dominion’s breast.
Shorn stood looking down at the body. “I won—and by a trick. He was so obsessed by the need for defeating me mentally that he forgot the knife had a handle.”
Panting he looked out over the stadium. Events had come to a halt. The spectators restively waited for word from the program director.
Shorn picked up the microphone.
“Men and women of the future—” as he spoke he watched the little huddle of two hundred and sixty-five. He saw Laurie stir, look up; he saw Circumbright turn, clap Thursby’s knee. He felt the wave of thankfulness, of hero-worship, almost insane in its fervor that welled up from their minds. At that moment he could have commanded any of them to their death.
An intoxicated elation came to him; he fought to control his voice. “This is an event improvised to thank Lemand De Troller, our program director, for his work in arranging the events. All of us will join our telekinetic powers together; we will act as one mind. I will guide this little white ball—” he lifted a small ball used in the obstacle race “—through the words ‘Thank you, Lemand De Troller’. You, with your united wills, will follow with the large bump-ball.” He rolled it out into the center of the stadium. “With more preparation we would have achieved something more elaborate, but I know Lemand will be just as pleased if he feels all of us are concentrating on the big ball, putting our hearts into the thanks. So—now. Follow the little white ball.”
Slowly he guided the white ball along imaginary block letters in the air; faithfully, the big bump-ball followed.
It was finished.
Shorn looked anxiously toward Circumbright. No signal.
Once again.
“Now—there is one other whom we owe a vote of thanks: Adlari Dominion, the capable liaison officer. This time we will spell out, ‘Thank you and good luck, Adlari Dominion’.”
The white ball moved. The big ball followed. Four thousand minds impelled, two hundred and sixty-five minds sought to merge into the pattern: each a new Prometheus trying to steal a secret more precious than fire from a race more potent than the Titans.
Shorn finished the last N, glanced toward Circumbright. Still no signal. Anxiety beset him; was this the right indoctrination technique? Suppose it was only effective under special conditions, suppose he had been operating on a misapprehension the entire time?
“Well,” said Shorn doggedly, “once again.” But the spectators would be growing restless. Who to thank this time?
The ball was moving of its own volition. Shorn, fascinated, followed its path. It was spelling a word.
W – I – L – L—then a space—S – H – O – R – N—another space—T – H – A – N – K – S.
Shorn sank back into the elastic seat, his eyes brimming with tears of release and thankfulness. “Someone is thanking Will Shorn,” he said into the microphone. “It’s time for them to leave.” He paused. Two hundred and sixty-five new telekinetics lifted themselves from the stadium, flew west toward Tran, disappeared into the afternoon.
Shorn returned to the microphone. “There’re a few more words I want to say; please be patient a moment or two longer.
“You have just been witnesses—unwitting witnesses—to an event as important as Joffrey’s original Congress. The future will consider the sixty-year interval only a transition, humanity’s final separation from the beast.
“We have completely subdued the material world; we know the laws governing all the phenomena that our senses can detect. Now we turn ourselves into a new direction; humanity enters a new stage, and wonderful things lie before us.” He noticed a ripple of uneasiness running along the ranks of the Teleks. “This new world is on us, we can’t evade it. For sixty years the Teleks have rejoiced in a state of special privilege, and this is the last shackle humanity throws off: the idea that one man may dominate or control another man.”
He paused; the uneasiness was ever more marked.
“There are trying times to come—a period of severe readjustment. At the moment you are not quite certain to what I am referring, and that is just as well. Thank you for your attention and good-bye. I hope you enjoyed the program as much as I did.”
He rose to his feet, stepped over Dominion’s body, slid back the door, stepped out of the cupola.
Teleks leaving the stadium rose up past him like May flies, some turning him curious glances as they flew. Shorn, smiling, watched them flit past, toward their glittering pavilions, their cloud-castles, their sea-bubbles. The last one was gone; he waved an arm after them as if in valediction.
Then he himself rose, plunged westward toward the sword-shaped towers of Tran, where two hundred and sixty-five men and women were already starting to spread telekinesis through all of mankind.
The Ten Books
They were as alone as it is possible for living man to be in the black gulf between the stars. Far astern shone the suns of the home worlds—ahead the outer stars and galaxies in a fainter ghostly glimmer.
The cabin was quiet. Betty Welstead sat watching her husband at the assay table, her emotions tuned to his. When the centrifuge scale indicated heavy metal and Welstead leaned forward she leaned forward too in unconscious sympathy. When he burnt scrapings in the spectroscope and r
ead Lead from the brightest pattern and chewed at his lips Betty released her pent-up breath, fell back in her seat.
Ralph Welstead stood up, a man of medium height—rugged, tough-looking—with hair and skin and eyes the same tawny color. He brushed the whole clutter of rock and ore into the waste chute and Betty followed him with her eyes.
Welstead said sourly, “We’d be millionaires if that asteroid had been inside the Solar system. Out here, unless it’s pure platinum or uranium, it’s not worth mining.”
Betty broached a subject which for two months had been on the top of her mind. “Perhaps we should start to swing back in.”
Welstead frowned, stepped up into the observation dome. Betty watched after him anxiously. She understood very well that the instinct of the explorer as much as the quest for minerals had brought them out so far.
Welstead stepped back down into the cabin. “There’s a star ahead—” he put a finger into the three-dimensional chart “—this one right here, Eridanus two thousand nine hundred and thirty-two. Let’s make a quick check—and then we’ll head back in.”
Betty nodded, suddenly happy. “Suits me.” She jumped up, and together they went to the screen. He aimed the catch-all vortex, dialed the hurrying blur to stability and the star pulsed out like a white-hot coin. A single planet made up the entourage.
“Looks about Earth-size,” said Welstead, interest in his voice, and Betty’s heart sank a trifle. He tuned the circuit finer, turned up the magnification and the planet leapt at them. “Look at that atmosphere! Thick!”
He swiveled across the jointed arm holding the thermocouple and together they bent over the dial.
“Nineteen degrees Centigrade. About Earth-norm. Let’s look at that atmosphere. You know, dear, we might have something tremendous here! Earth-size, Earth temperature…” His voice fell off in a mutter as he peered through the spectroscope, flipping screen after screen past the pattern from the planet. He stood up, cast Betty a swift exultant glance, then squinted in sudden reflection. “Better make sure before we get too excited.”
