Judgment Night M

by C. L. Moore

  Harding jumped a little. “Where are you, George?”

  “Where you won’t find me. Never mind. Maybe I’m in my getaway ship, all set to take off for Venus. Maybe I’m right behind you. Answer my question.”

  “Rugged individualism,” Harding said.

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Go on, explain yourself. And keep walking.”

  “I was kicked off,” Harding said, “because I was so different from you. Exactly your opposite, as a matter of fact. You were the leader of the Team and you held the rest down to your level because you weren’t adaptable—remember? It didn’t show up because you were leader and set the pace. Only when a new man came in did your status-quo limitations show. The new man, in case you’ve forgotten, was I.”

  “I remember,” the palm tree said coldly.

  “You fizzled. I skyrocketed,” Harding said. “I had too many boosters. They finally figured I was getting into abstract levels far beyond the Team, which is as bad as being too slow. So I was fired for undependable irrationality, which I prefer to think of as rugged individualism. Now you know.”

  Ten feet ahead a flowering shrub chuckled.

  “That’s very funny. You were the stupid, unadaptable ones—you and the rest. You couldn’t realize I was simply developing along a new line, a different path toward the same goal. I wasn’t lagging behind. I was forging ahead of you. Look around you. This island’s the living proof. You kicked me into a pretty unpleasant gutter and I pulled myself up by myself. Not easily. I built a living island here. You can have six feet of it, and that’s all.”

  The bush sighed. “I’ve dreamed of killing you,” it said, rustling gently. “But I’d have left you alone if you’d stayed out of my way. I’ve never forgotten, though. And I’m going to get even, when the time comes—with you, and the rest of the Team, and Earth. And Earth!”

  Harding whistled softly. “So that’s the way it is,” he said to the empty air.

  The moss underfoot said bitterly: “That’s the way it is. I don’t care what happens to Earth now. Earth’s overreached itself. Let it blow up. It and its Teams. I’ll throw a shield around Venus that no power in the solar system can crack.”

  “Maybe that’s your trouble, George,” Harding told the moss8220;You think in terms of shields that can’t be cracked. Sooner or later the pressure from within may force a crack. Growth can’t be stopped. That was what went wrong on Team Twelve-Wye-Lambda, remember?”

  The moss was silent.

  “Anyhow, it checks,” Harding went on, trudging downhill. “Central Integration when I … ah … left the Team, was sending out dope-sheets on an enormously complex plan under way on Venus. That would be you, George. Stuff too complex to figure out and counter without a lot of work among the Teams linked up in units. Obviously the Secessionists had themselves an Integrator at last. It didn’t take a Round Table session to find out who they’d subsidized.”

  The moss laughed.

  “It was a mistake to let me go,” it said. “Do you want to know the real reason? It’s the reason why no Integrator that Earth ever sets up can control Venus. The basic logic’s wrong. Their key principles are based on Venus being a social satellite of Earth—and the balance has shifted. I’ve shifted it, Ed. Venus is no protectorate planet any more. That’s Apollonian logic. Not a single Integrator on Earth is based on the Faustian viewpoint, which in this case is perfectly simple—Venus is the center of the new Empire!”

  “You think so?” Harding murmured.

  “I made it so! Every single premise the Earth Integrators base on a … a geocentric society has got to turn out wrong. Or multiordinal, anyhow—valid only as long as the truth of Earth’s power is maintained. I stopped believing in the old truth-concepts of the Earth Empire—and they threw me off the Team.

  “But right here on Akassi is the only Integrator that works from the basic assumption that Venus is the System’s center.”

  “All right,” Harding said calmly. “Maybe I agree with you.”

  “No,” an airy whisper said above the whisper and rustle of a red-flowering vine that hung across the path. “Not necessarily. How do I know you’ve really been kicked off the Team? How do I know you’re not a Trojan horse?”

  “There isn’t much you can be sure of, is there?” Harding asked. “Your Team here can’t be very efficient. You’ve forgotten basic psych. Why do you suppose you’ve dreamed of killing me?”

  “Prescience,” the vine said quietly.

  “Displacement,” Harding told it. “Who would you be wanting to kill? It couldn’t be—yourself?”

  Silence.

  “What kind of a Team have you got, anyhow?” Harding asked after a moment. “If it can’t answer a simple question like that, it can’t be worth much. Maybe you need me, George, even more than I need you.”

  “Maybe I haven’t got a Team,” the vine said behind him, in a die-away voice as the distance lengthened between them.

  “You’d be a maniac if you hadn’t,” Harding told the empty air flatly. “You’ve got to have a Team, if you’re operating an Integrator. One man couldn’t keep up with it. You need a minimum of seven to balance against a machine like that. You have a Team, all right, but an incompetent one. I’ll tell you exactly what you’re got—either discarded misfits or untrained men. That’s all there is available. And it isn’t good enough. You need me.

  “You’re not wanted here,” a clump of bamboo said hissingly, rubbing its fronds together. “If my backers had needed another Integration man, they’d have got in touch with you. I’m all they need.”

  Harding laughed. “Thought of a way yet to kill me?”

  The bamboo did not reply. But presently a patch of gravel hissed underfoot and said, “Go down into the village. There’ll be a door open in the Integration Building.” And a lizard that looked curiously down at him from the top of a flat stone appeared to add in Mayall’s voice, “Maybe I’ve found a way—”

  Harding pushed the heavy door wider and looked into the green-shadowed room. Sunlight filtering through leaves outside its broad windows made the dim air seem to flicker. Frond-shaped shadows moved restlessly upon banked controls which were the nerve-endings of the island.

  In the center of the web George Mayall sat, his sunken eyes glittering, grinning above his beard at the door.

  Harding stood still just inside the door and drew a long, deep breath. The smell of the room, oil and steel, the feel of it around him, the faint throb that traveled from the floor up his body and blended with the beating of his heart, made him a complete man again as he had not been for a long time now. He stood in the presence of the Integrator. He was the Integrator.

  He closed his eyes for a moment When he opened them again he saw that Mayall’s sardonic grin had widened and drawn down at the corners.

  Harding nodded. “Alone?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” Mayall said, and his glance flickered once toward the inner door at his elbow—the door without a knob, but a flat plate inset where the lock should be. Harding could see through the steel panels as if they were glass, because he knew so well what the little black-walled room inside looked like, with its tri-di screen and its table and its chair.

  “You’ve been here all along?” Harding asked. “Are you here now?”

  Mayall only grinned. Harding took out a cigarette, litndowsinhaled smoke. He strolled forward casually toward the inner door, glancing around the big room as he crossed it. A control room is seldom as spectacular as the operational devices it controls. Most of the equipment looked familiar. It was what lay out of sight that interested Harding most. For this was only the antechamber to the Integrator.

  “That’s far enough,” Mayall said after a moment. Harding stood still, the smoke from his cigarette wreathing ahead of him toward the man behind the control desk. Mayall swung his hand edge-on, chopped through a swirl of smoke. His grin turned down farther at the corners.

  “I’m real,” he said. “Don’t bother with smoke
tests. Clever, aren’t you? Stand still, Harding. Don’t come any farther. I’ve got one more question to ask you and then—well, we’ll see.”

  “Fire away,” Harding said, looking at the door with the plate in it.

  “Second question, then,” Mayall said. “Second and last. Just what did you hope to accomplish by coming here?”

  Harding blew smoke at him. “It could be almost anything, couldn’t it?” he said. “Maybe I came to ask you a question. Could you guess what it is? Or would you rather I didn’t speak at all?”

  Mayall regarded him with narrowed eyes, burning black in hollow sockets.

  “Go on,” he said after a pause.

  Harding nodded. “I thought you’d say that. Maybe you’ve been expecting somebody with—a question. Put it like this. You say all Integration has to fail that doesn’t figure Venus as the center of the social system. Right?”

  “I said that,” Mayall agreed cautiously. “What’s your question?”

  “Why Venus?” Harding inquired.

  “What?”

  “You’re not stupid. You heard me. Why Venus?”

  Mayall licked his lips suddenly, with a quick, flickering motion, and glanced once at the big TV screen on the wall, nervously, as if the blank screen might be watching him.

  “There are other Thresholders,” Harding went on. “You just pointed out that if your backers had needed another Integration man they’d have got in touch with me. Well, maybe somebody did. Not necessarily your boys, but—somebody.” He blew more smoke. “Shall I go on?”

  Mayall did not speak a word, but after a second he nodded jerkily.

  “What you’ve got here is priceless,” Harding said. “The group you back has a chance to wi independence from Earth. So I just wondered … now, you take Ganymede, for instance. A flourishing little colony they’ve got up there. Doing a lot of exporting these days. A very rewarding business. Plenty of money in it. What would you say, George, to setting up a little problem in the Integrator to see if you could figure Ganymede as a social center?”

  Mayall did not move for a long moment. Then he drew a shaken breath.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me.”

  Harding shrugged.

  Mayall leaned forward over the control desk.

  “What proof have you got?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.

  Harding threw back his head and laughed. Then he took one final deep pull at his cigarette, threw it to the floor, ground it out under his toe.

  “All right, Mayall,” he said crisply. “You can step down now. I’m taking over.”

  Mayall jerked back in his chair, startled and incredulous. His tongue came out again and touched his lip lightly.

  “Like hell you are,” he said. “You can’t throw a scare into—”

  “Shut up!” Harding snapped. “Get on your feet, George. I mean it! Out of that chair and open the door for me. I’ve played it your way till now. But I know all I need to know. I’m a lot smarter than you ever were. I can take over, and I’m doing it. And you can’t do a thing to stop me. You can’t kill me! So I’m giving you one last chance—to join me.”

  “You … you’re insane!” Mayall said, in a stunned voice. “This is my island. I know every nerve-center on it. My men could—”

  “Could do everything but injure me,” Harding said, and stepped forward briskly. “So you lose. Let’s put it to the test now. I’m tired of talking. You had your fun, and you’ve told me enough so I know who’ll win this little game.”

  “You’re crazy!” Mayall cried, scraping his chair back. “I’ll have my boys kill you! I … I’ll send you off the island. I—”

  “No you won’t,” Harding told him, rounding the corner of the desk. “Because you aren’t sure. Maybe I’ve got that proof from Ganymede right here in my pocket. You want to bet I haven’t? We’ll call your Team together and see what—”

  “Oh no you don’t!” Mayall shouted, his voice shaking. “You’ll never see my Team!”

  “Afraid I’ll get you kicked off this one, too?” Harding asked ironically. “Up! Out of that chair, George. You’re going to work the trick lock on that door over there and open up your Round Table. Oh yes, you are. Then you’ll call your Team together and we’ll make a few trial runs. You needn’t worry, George. You’re perfectly safe. You and I couldn’t hurt each other if our lives depended on it—and maybe they do. It doesn’t make a bit of difference. Open the door.”

  “You’ll never get that door open,” Mayall said, stepping backward.

  Harding snorted impatiently.

  “Here, get out of my way,” he said. “What kind of a code have you set it for? I haven’t time to argue about it.”

  He ran his hand experimentally over the surface of the metal plate set where the lock should be. Between plate and palm he felt the varying pressures slide soft and rippling. There was something familiar about the pattern of the pressure. It could hardly be the old cipher, the original team-code that had opened the doors to seven Round Tables, far away in time and space. It could hardly be that, and yet—

  The door swung gently open under Harding’s palm.

  Mayall jerked around, his breath rasping with surprise.

  “Who told you my code?”

  Harding fowned at him. “It’s the old code. Didn’t you realize that?”

  “You’re crazy. It can’t be. I made it up, arbitrarily. Why should I have used the old code?”

  “You’ve been fighting yourself all down the line, haven’t you?” Harding said, and stepped through into the little black-steel room.

  Mayall stumbled after him, stammering protests. “It can’t be! You’re crazy! You found it out—somehow.”

  Wearily Harding said over his shoulder: “You must have flunked basic psych, George. It’s the old cipher, but it unlocks a different door now, no matter what your unconscious had on its mind when it set up Twelve-Wye-Lambda’s key. That door will never open again for you. Or me. This one will have to do, and it’s good enough for me. Now let’s have a look at your Team. Who are they, George? Where are they?”

  Mayall laughed, a high whinny of mirthlessness.

  “You’ll never know. I’ll kill you first.”

  Harding snorted. “Think so? You’re welcome to try.”

  “You can’t get to my Team!” Mayall shouted. ̶They … they’re all on Venus. They’re—”

  Harding swung round and regarded the excited man with a sudden, quickened surprise. “Don’t talk like a fool, George. Of course they’re not on Venus. What’s the matter with you?”

  “They are on Venus!” Mayall cried. “That’s it! And if you call them together to talk about Ganymede—you know what they’ll do, don’t you? So you can’t do it, Ed! You can’t!”

  Harding turned around completely and looked at Mayall with a frown between his brows.

  “What’s wrong with you, George? I think you really are a little crazy. Are you jealous, George? Is that it?” He laughed suddenly. “Maybe I’ve got something there. You think you are the Integrator, is that the trouble? Well, George, my friend, I may not be able to kill you even if my life depends on it, but—I can dismantle your Integrator! How would you like that?”

  Mayall drew a whistling between his teeth. He stepped backward into the open doorway, leaned to grope toward his desk, his sunken eyes not moving from Harding’s. Then he let the breath out in a sigh and straightened. There was sweat on his face and he was breathing hard.

  “Stand back, Ed,” he said grimly. “Get away from that table. Now I can do it! Now I know I can kill you!”

  Harding looked down into the black eye of the pistol trained upon his middle. He lifted his gaze to meet Mayall’s murderous stare.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Try.”

  Sweat trickled down Mayall’s forehead. His beard jutted. Ridges of tendon began to stand out on the back of his gun hand. But the crooked finger inside the trigger guard didn’t move at all.
He lowered his head, staring at the gun. Then he brought his left hand forward to grip his right in reinforcement. Both hands were shaking badly.

  “Threshold reactions happen inside the body,” Harding said. “What good will that do?”

  Mayall’s breath whistled through his teeth more sharply than before. He looked up at Harding, a white, frantic glare. Suddenly he closed his eyes, squeezing the lids shut. Panting, he tried to pull the trigger.

  His gun hand quivered—quivered and began to swerve. Slowly it moved until the gun muzzle pointed beyond Harding, toward the wall.

  Now the gun cracked, six times, six sharp explosions that blended into one. Mayall’s eyes stayed shut. His gun hand dropped.

  “I did it,” he said in a whisper. “I’ve killed you. I—”

  Slowly he opened his eyes and looked into Harding’s. Then his gaze went farther, resting upon the six silvery star-shaped holes in the black wall.

  Harding shook his head gently. He turned his back upon the man in the doorway, dismissing him. He pulled out the chair that faced the tri-di screen and sank into it.

  Then the chamber of memory slid softly over to superimpose upon this real chamber. The little square black-steel room was suddenly a part of Harding, as close and warm as the domed walls that shielded his living brain.

  He laid his palms flat on the metal plate.

  At first it was like wind under his hands, then water, then soft sand gently embedding his palms. Soundlessly he spoke. “Ready, boys” he said. “Come in.”

  “You can’t do it, Ed,” Mayall said behind him. “You can’t—”

  In the outer room a sudden crash sounded. A sudden voice shouted with a wheeze in it, “Mayall! Harding! Do you hear me? Turner speaking! Mayall, answer me!”

  Harding twisted in his chair, glancing up with a startled face to meet Mayall’s eyes. Mayall swung up his empty gun and spun too, toward the door. The antechamber was empty, but Turner’s harsh breathing filled it with sound. And on the wall-screen Turner’s sweating, unstable face glared blankly at the unoccupied room.

  “Mayall!” the fat man shouted. “I know you’re there! Step out where I can see you, or I’ll blow the whole island sky-high!”