A dark man whom Garr remembered as the best brain-surgeon on Loren said evenly, “I was in the middle of an operation.”
The others knew what that meant. One does not interrupt a brain-operation of the caliber this man alone could do. Some unknown human being had died because of the illness of the King’s pet.
Kett, the King’s Physician, said inquiringly, “Garr, I believe you have just returned. You have news for us?”
Garr smiled very faintly. “Not news. A discovery to be verified. On Yorath they are much excited but the decision must be made with care.”
Kett grunted. His hands were trembling a little. He was, past question, the greatest medical man on the planet. But if he failed in the service of the King matters would go hard with him. When the King died he would die also in any case.
A devoted servant could not survive the disgrace of not being able to cure his King. And if the King chose to make it a command that his loathsome pet be cured, then the King’s Physician must commit suicide if unable to obey. Garr felt no envy for Kett.
“Don’t tell me,” said Nord hopefully, “they’ve developed something intelligible to explain psychosomatic tissue changes?”
“It’s nothing so simple,” said Garr. He hesitated and said uncomfortably, “It’s a new electronic circuit. You know that our devices have had minimum pick-up of nerve-currents from brains and muscles.
“When the signal is faint enough it is no stronger than the random shot-effect currents in the apparatus itself. When we amplify a sufficiently faint signal we get only meaningless static.”
Nord said impatiently, “Of course! I’ve cursed it often enough!”
“This new circuit,” said Garr, “filters out the random impulses. It seems to work. Apparently there is now no lower limit to the signals that can be picked up and amplified without distortion.”
The dark man, the brain-surgeon, leaned forward.
“I’ve brought back one device they’ve made with the new circuit,” said Garr, hesitating to speak. “I’d rather not say what they think it does.”
“What,” asked Nord, “did you see it do?”
Garr looked out of the window again. There were clouds below. There was blue sea ahead—a sea it was forbidden for commoners to navigate, because the King had a palace on one of its islands. He turned his head resolutely back.
“It brings messages from somewhere,” said Garr. “Coherent and specific messages. It brings sights, sounds, smells and other physical sensations from a level of energy lower than anything we have ever tapped before. I used it, and I saw—well—sights and places and—persons—that do not exist in our cosmos.”
“Artificial delirium?” asked Kett, feigning interest to hide the shaking of his hands. “Induced illusions?”
“I would rather not say,” said Garr. “I thought of the possibility while using the device. I raised the question with—the person I was talking to.”
He added wryly, “It is two-way communication, by the way. Messages come up from a level below previous detection. They also go down to a level below previous control. I was—talking to someone about what I saw and heard and that someone gave me proof that it was not delirium. Illusion—perhaps. Delirium—no!”
The blue sea flowed underneath the cruiser, three miles down. Garr realized that men for whom he had great respect were listening very attentively.
“I would rather not talk about it,” he said awkwardly. “It is quite unreasonable. Not the circuit, of course—that is simple enough. There is no doubt that it does amplify, quite clearly, signals previously too faint to be detected. But the evidence is not conclusive on where the signals come from.”
Someone said with skeptical mildness, “A microscopic culture?”
“I would rule that out absolutely,” said Garr. “I have used the device. But the received signals are of the order of micro-micro-micro-milliwatt-seconds energy.”
There was silence. Twenty of the best brains of Loren listened to Garr. Before he went to Yorath he had done good work. When he made a statement on a subject concerning his specialty he was worth listening to. This was distinctly linked with psychosomatic medicine. Illusion and psychosomasis are relevant. Nord leaned forward.
“You spoke of speaking to someone, of raising a question,” he observed. “This someone spoke—or communicated, at any rate—on a signal of no more than thousands of trillionths of watt-seconds energy. Who or what was the someone?”
Garr flushed slowly.
“My experience was exactly in line with the results of the Yorathians. But I would rather not describe my sense-impressions. I was—let us say that I seemed to be talking to my father. He proved to me that he was my father. He gave me excellent reasons for—ah—continuing to be a good boy.” He added apologetically, “My father has been dead for ten years.”
There was silence. Then someone said in a queer voice, “But that means you have scientific proof of the survival of personality?”
“That,” said Garr with restraint, “has been offered as an explanation on Yorath. It is an interesting speculation. So far, it is no more. There is not enough data. Of course, it has often been suggested that the ego, the id, the human personality, is a force-field, itself immaterial, which can only be detected by its effect upon matter.
“Other force-fields are also detected only by material effects. But up to now what might be termed personality-fields have affected only the substance of our brain-cells. It may be that nothing else has been a sensitive enough detector.
“The device I brought back is a superlatively sensitive detector. But it is purely speculation to guess that egos or personalities which are not associated with living brain-tissue can affect it.”
Kett spoke with sudden wistfulness. “It would mean that death is not the end. It would be the proof that the soul does not die with the body. Death would not be terrifying!”
Garr paused before he answered. “It would depend,” he said very carefully, “on what sort of life one had led.”
There were islands ahead and below. The great cruiser swooped down. It slowed. It came to a deft landing upon one of the great shafts of the King’s pleasure-palace which stood on one of the islands in the vast blue sea.
The twenty men stood up to go and examine the King’s pet ylith.
Kett said in a low tone to Garr, “I shall come to see this device. I hope.”
Garr did not answer. He was being jostled by the others on the way to the landing-platform. There were guards everywhere, of course.
* * * *
Presently they came to the apartment where the King’s ylith lay fretfully, its piglike eyes glaring hate at all about it. Garr stood respectfully in the rear. The King’s Physician, Kett, took the beast’s temperature with a skin thermometer and compared it with the normal temperature as recorded by the Keeper of the Beasts.
Then, in succession, every resource of medicine was called into play. The beast had no fever. A fluoroscope showed no internal injury and no intestinal obstruction. Glandular secretions were normal. Everything was normal. There was nothing the matter with the ylith.
But it would not eat. It was sullen and foul of temper, and it wanted only to lie in one place with its eyes glaring hate. It had actually snapped at the King himself!
Kett, the King’s Physician, began to tremble perceptibly.
The King had commanded that his ylith be cured. If his command was not obeyed Kett would be disgraced. Disgraced, he would be doomed.
Garr drew him aside. He said softly, “You have heard of artificial neurosis produced in experimental animals. I would not suggest it if any physical symptom existed. But I think this ylith, as the King’s pet, would be treated like a great minister—or the King’s Physician.
“He would be kept always ready to be produced at the King’s command. He would wait long hours on the bare chance that the King might desire his presence. He might be flown two thousand miles or kept waiting for his dinner or perhaps kept from se
eing his wife and children if the King happened to think of him. Is it not so?”
Kett’s hands shook as he nodded. Garr went on. “These inbred animals are like the aristocracy—also inbred. They have not the stamina of us common mortals. I think he has developed a neurosis of frustration. He can do nothing that he desires, only what the King desires. So he revolts and desires to do nothing at all. He wishes only to be let alone.”
Kett said hopelessly, “But then what, Garr? What can be done for a sick soul?”
“That is twice you have used the term ‘soul’,” said Garr drily. “It is most unscientific—and a ylith is not supposed to have a soul. But you can remove it. He is sick because he perceives his frustration.
“Drug him. Stupefy him. Give him a sedative so his perceptions are dulled and a euphoriac so that what he does perceive will seem pleasurable. It will be temporary and harmless. If it is successful you have resources to make it permanent.”
The King’s Physician shivered, and said fearfully, “It is a great risk, but there has been no other suggestion of a diagnosis. If you will sign the prescribed treatment with me—”
Garr shrugged his shoulders. Kett wrote out the order for treatment. Garr countersigned it. The twenty greatest medical minds on Loren were conducted away to await the event of the recovery of the King’s pet. They were placed in separate luxurious suites.
Garr went to bed and seemingly to sleep. If he actually thought of his wife and children he gave no sign.
At noon next day Kett came to him, shaking all over with joy.
“It worked!” he told Garr. “The King himself asked who had cured his pet! Your name was given him with mine. Your fortune is made, Garr!”
Garr said practically, “Will my fortune let me see my family?”
“Not now. Not yet. The King has ordered you attached to the Department of the King’s Beasts that you may be at hand for other emergencies of the same sort.”
Garr was very still. This was high honor. It was also imprisonment. He had attracted the King’s attention—favorably, to be sure, but fatally. From now on, his life-work would be the curing of neuroses in the loathsome small beasts which were the King’s pets.
“If you ask quickly,” said Kett, “you can have your apparatus brought here. You will have leisure. You can do research. But you would not want your family here, of course.”
Garr shook his head. He would not want his family to share a dungeon, however beautifully decorated.
* * * *
He went about his business—the King’s business. Within a week his apparatus had been examined and cleared as containing no possibility of being used as a weapon. He received an official communication from his family. His wife was well. His children were well. They sent him greetings. He read the printed card inscrutably.
He set up the apparatus from Yorath, though it was not designed for veterinary use. It worked as well on Loren as on Yorath. It was, however, interesting to observe that animals gave no reaction in the device. But Kett, the King’s Physician, was summoned to the pleasure-palace some two weeks later. He came to Garr’s suite and the room he had cleared out for a laboratory.
Garr explained in detail the circuit which amplified impossibly small signals—of the order of ten to the minus thirteenth milliwatt-seconds. Then the King’s Physician sat down and put on the curious, filigree cap. He sat quite still for a long time. When he removed the cap he was weeping happily.
“It is true, Garr,” he said unsteadily. “There is no death! I am not afraid to die now! Not after what my mother told me! I shall welcome it! You were quite right about the device!”
“I am neither right nor wrong about it,” insisted Garr. “I said that it amplifies signals fainter than any previously detected. That is all. I do not say that it communicates with persons in an after-life.”
“But I say it!” said Kett with tears streaming down his cheeks. “I say it, Garr! I shall speak of this in high places!”
“To whom?” demanded Garr. “And what will you say?”
The King’s Physician wiped his eyes. “Such assurance of an after-life,” he said reverently, “is the greatest of possible treasures. Would not a loyal subject of the King wish to give his master such a gift?”
“You would be dismissed for talking nonsense!” said Garr sharply. “Don’t be a fool! If you must talk send me an honest man too highly placed to be dismissed. Old Sard would do, I think. He’s the Grand Chamberlain and the King’s cousin. By all accounts he’s a saintly old character. Send him to me.”
Days later the Grand Chamberlain came waddling to Garr’s suite. Kett, he said benevolently, had told him about a remarkable device that Garr had brought from Yorath. He would be glad to know just what Kett had been talking about.
Garr explained carefully and respectfully. The old man was not over-intelligent but he was an aristocrat of aristocrats and he had never been ambitious. He was perfectly happy to be Grand Chamberlain. Being a happy man he was a kindly one. He was even a good man according to his lights. Garr explained and had him wear the filigree headpiece.
When he took it off the Grand Chamberlain beamed. “My sister scolded me,” he chuckled. “She has been dead since I was fourteen but she mothered me even then. She scolded me for laziness! Kett was quite right. This device does communicate with persons no longer in the flesh—and quite content about it!”
“Sir,” said Garr urgently, “I beg Your Excellency not to speak of this! You have no need to fear a future existence. But if someone less worthy were to find himself—ah—facing unpleasantness, he would not be pleased with me.”
The Grand Chamberlain beamed on. “Ha!” he chuckled. “I shall send my nephew to you! He took a commoner’s wife the other day and the commoner was impertinent, and my nephew had him killed. I have lectured him before to no effect. Now I shall scold him and send him to you!”
Garr drew in his breath sharply.
When an imperious young aristocrat appeared and curtly demanded to learn what the machine would say to him Garr went very white. He tried to explain its scientific aspects but the young man silenced him in black fury.
Garr expected to be killed when it was finished but the young aristocrat did not even see him. His eyes were pools of pure horror. His face was gray with an ashen grayness. His garments were soaked with the sweat of fear. He stumbled from the room like a drunken man.
Two days later an order came for the surrender of the machine to the King’s Guard. Garr let it go without protest. He did not even let his eyes flash triumph. He waited, going about his duties as one of the physicians to the King’s pets.
Three days later still he faced a menacing Guard-captain in a Guard laboratory. The machine was there. Garr explained again exactly what it did. It received and amplified signals too faint to have been detected by any previous device. It also transmitted signals reduced to an immeasurably small power-content. That was all.
Yes, it had been suggested that it might be a way of communication with personalities not associated with living tissues. He did not consider the body of evidence great enough for a reasoned judgment. Yes, he would willingly use the machine, with its controls worked by a guardsman.
He did. His eyes were shining when he took off the filigree cap. A Guardsman took his place. When he removed the cap he was shaken but convinced. A second and a third. The Guard-captain himself.
The Captain came out sweating and grim. “Enough!” he said thickly to Garr. “Back to your kennels!”
* * * *
Garr went back to his duties. His eyes glowed a little, as he waited for the inevitable, logical result.
Just after sunset, he heard the sound of fighting in the Palace. Hand-guns and stabbing beams made a tumult in which the screams of dying men could barely be heard.
He heard the shouts, “For the King! For—” They proved that what he had planned and anticipated even back on Yorath—without ever daring to breathe one syllable to any other person about his hopes
—had come to pass. The King had used the machine.
When the fighting spread all through the Palace in monstrous confusion he very practically hid under his bed. And there he listened as the slaughter went on.
* * * *
It was three months before he reached the capital city again. He was thin and footsore and half-starved. He arrived on foot, and when he saw that the Palace lay half in ruins his heart seemed to stop. But then he saw that the Quarter of the Palace Domestics was untouched. He went stumblingly toward it and there were no guards at the gate. That was astounding.
He went in and a thin-faced man came out of a door at ground-level and started toward a battered ground-car. Garr blinked at him. All was strange, but this was strangest of all,—for a man to come out of the ruined Palace as if it were any ordinary building.
Then he recognized the man—Sortel, the friend who had waited on a balcony to take a picturescope scene of him as he arrived from Yorath. His friend from long years past.
“Sortel!” cried Garr.
The other man turned, saw Garr and ran. He seized Garr by the arms, and hugged him.
“Garr, you scoundrel!” he cried joyfully. “You were in the Palace of the Azure Sea and we thought you were dead! Everybody died there! Your wife was half mad—but she was half mad when you were promoted, too. She’s all right!” he added quickly. “So are the children! I’ll take you to them! Instantly!”
Garr went weak with relief and then managed to smile. “It was a bad gamble,” he said unsteadily, “I did not expect to win. But it was a gamble that had to be made.”
Sortel helped him across the grass to the battered ground-car. He helped him into the seat beside the driver. The ground-car shot into motion.
“There were thirty of us who lived,” said Garr. “Everybody else died. The King, too. After it was over there was no way to leave the island, so we had to build a boat with planks we tore off the buildings. And then we had to sail to the mainland. And then I came here. Was it very bad?”
“Was it bad?” Sortel laughed without mirth, yet in bitter satisfaction. “The estimate is two million total deaths—because the King went insane!”
The Second Murray Leinster Megapack Page 62
