The Empire of Isher

by A. E. van Vogt

  Every instrument in the ship, the ship itself, and the two adjuster rings on Hedrock’s finger, were attuned to a master control on the switchboard of the spaceship.

  The second ring and the matching adjusters on the machine comprised the second valuable function of the invention. By controlling the second ring, it was possible to go backward and forward in time for a short distance. Theoretically, years could be covered; actually, the shattering effect of the entire experience to the human brain limited a trip to a few hours backward or forward.

  Hedrock had discovered that, in nine hours forward in time, and nine backward, eighteen altogether, the body lived the six normal hours that it could endure without going too insane. Three for one. The method of time travel had no relation to the seesaw system of time travel unwittingly devised by the Empress’

  physicists seven years before, wherein the body collected time energy which could never again quite be balanced off, with the result that the time traveler was always destroyed. There was no time in this space; there was only a method of adjusting the space to a given time in the normal world.

  Hedrock eased the little spaceship and everything in it around to where the Weapon Shop cruiser lay-to beside the break in the palace wall. Through the hard shell of the cruiser, he nosed his machine; then switched off the engines, and turned on the master time adjuster to full power, thrice the rate of normal time. He waited tensely, watching the Sensitives, which were nothing but automatic relays converted to use in this space. It shouldn’t take long. The Sensitive lights flashed; the master switch clicked instantly down to one-third its full power, adjusting the whole ship to normal-time rate. Simultaneously, Hedrock felt movement. The great Weapon Shop cruiser was rising; and he and his small machine were with it, perfectly matched as to time rate, and just far enough out of the special space to keep from falling through the walls of the cruiser.

  If he was right, there were now two Hedrocks in the cruiser, himself here in the gray-dark realm, and himself returned to the palace from this very spy trip, made prisoner by the Weapon Makers and brought aboard the cruiser. It was unwise to take that for granted. One of the difficulties of moving around in time was that of locating people, and keeping track of them in crowds, or just keeping track. He had once wasted an entire six-hour period searching for a person who had gone to a theatre. Accordingly, even now, it was best to make sure. He peered into the ’stats; and, yes, there he was, surrounded by guards.

  The Hedrock out there was already back from this time trip, and knew what had happened. Which was more than he did. It shouldn’t take long, though.

  The cruiser flashed to the fortress that was its destination. Prisoner and guards emerged and went down into the building, where the thick metal room had been constructed. Hedrock forced his ship through the heavy walls and got busy. First, he put out a sound collector, and while listening to the argument in the room unloaded some of his machines. When the guards rushed in with the “sack”, which was simply a gagging device, he waited till it was about to be fastened, then lowered a mechanical hand and snatched it into his own space. He sat then, with his fingers on the time control, waiting for developments.

  In the room itself, the silence was a thing of tensed nerves and startled looks. Hedrock, the prisoner, stood still, a faint, sardonic smile on his lips, making no effort to break the grip of the guards who held him. He felt remorseless. There was a job to be done, and he intended to do it thoroughly. He said icily,

  “I won’t waste any time on verbal argument. The determination of this organization to kill me, despite the fact that the Pp machine proved my altruism and good will, shows a defensive conservatism that always tries to destroy when confronted by something it does not completely understand. That conservatism shall be taught by overwhelming force that there exists an organization capable of overthrowing even the mighty Weapon Makers.”

  Peter Cadron said coldly, “The Weapon Shops recognize no secret organization. Guards, destroy him!”

  “You fool,” Hedrock cried. “I thought better of you, Cadron, than that you would give such a command after what I have said.”

  He went on talking, paying no attention to what was happening. Without looking around at the guards, he knew.

  In that other space, his earlier self simply cut the time-adjuster switch, whereupon everything in the room stabilized. Without haste, his earlier self relieved the guards of their weapons, and then proceeded to disarm every member of the Council, including the removal of the rings from their fingers and the ’stat radios from their wrists and chairs. Next, he slipped handcuffs on to their wrists, chaining them all together in a long row around the table. The guards he handcuffed arms to legs, and set outside in the hallway. Then he closed and locked the door. The whole job took no time. Literally.

  He returned to the control board, adjusted his time rate from zero to normal and listened to the uproar of the men discovering their situation.

  The dismay was vast. Chains clanked. Men cried out in wonder and alarm, and then sank back looking pale and terrified. Hedrock knew there was very little personal fear involved. It was all too plain that every man present had suddenly had a terrible vision of the end of the Weapon Shops.

  He waited for their startled attention to jerk back to him, then spoke swiftly, “Gentlemen, calm your fears. Your great organization is not in danger. This situation would never have arisen if you had not pursued me with such singleness of purpose. For your information, it was your own founder, Walter S.

  de Lany, who recognized the danger to the State of an invincible body such as the Weapon Makers. It was he who set a group of friendly watchers over the Shops. That is all I will say, except to emphasize our friendliness, our good will, our resolve not to interfere so long as the Weapon Makers live according to their Constitution. It is that Constitution which has now been violated in its one inflexible article.”

  He paused there, his gaze sweeping the faces before him, but mentally he was coolly appraising his words. It was a good story withal, the lack of detail being its safest feature. All he desired from it was that it conceal the fact that an immortal man was the only watcher. He saw that several of the men had recovered sufficiently to attempt speech, but he cut them off.

  “Here is what must be done. First, keep silent about what you have learned today. The Watchers do not wish it known that they exist. Secondly, resign in toto. You can all stand for re-election, not for the next term, but thereafter. The mass resignation will serve as a reminder to the rank and file of the Shops that there is a Constitution and that it is one to respect. Finally, no further attempt to molest me must be made.

  About noon tomorrow, inform the Empress that you have released me, and ask her to give up the interstellar drive. I think myself that the drive will be forthcoming before that hour without any urging, but give her the chance to be generous.”

  His voice must have been holding them in thrall. As he finished, there was an angry clamor, then silence, and then a lesser clamor, and silence again. Hedrock did not fail to notice that three or four men, among them Peter Cadron, did not join in either manifestation of that confusion. It was to Cadron that Hedrock addressed himself, “I am sure that Mr. Cadron can act as spokesman. I have long regarded him as one of the most able members on the Council.”

  Cadron climbed to his feet, a strongly-built man in his middle forties. “Yes,” he said, “I believe I can be spokesman. I think I speak for the majority when I say that we accept your terms.”

  No one dissented. Hedrock bowed and said loudly, “All right, No. 1,pull me out!”

  He must have vanished instantly.

  They attempted no experiments, the two Hedrocks who were briefly together in that misty partial space.

  The human brain suffered too greatly from the slightest interference with time. Numerous tests had proved that fact long before. The “earlier” Hedrock sat at the controls of the little ship, driving it hard back in time and toward the palace. The other stood
beside him, looking down gloomily.

  He had done what he could. As a result the psychological direction events were taking was so marked that the issue was no longer in doubt. It was possible that Innelda would hold the interstellar drive back for bargaining purposes. But that didn’t matter. Victory was sure.

  The trouble was that greater beings had “freed” him to see what he would do. Somewhere out in space a vast fleet manned by a spider race had paused to study man and his actions. Having captured him they had instantly traced him back to his planet of origin, and manipulated him as if distance did not exist.

  Having watched him carry out his original purpose, and realizing that there would be little point in further observation of a person who had completed an action, they would undoubtedly reassert control of him.

  Theoretically they might now be bored with human beings, and destroy the solar system and all its intensely emotional inhabitants. Such destruction would be a mere incident in their coldly intellectual existence.

  With a grimace, as he reached that point in his thought, Hedrock saw that they were at their destination.

  The shield loomed up in the dim reaches of the shadowy palace, a rectangular shape of soft brilliance.

  The two Hedrocks tried no trickery, attempted no paradox. It was his “earlier” self who stepped through the shield and became one more misty form in the palace room. Hedrock sprayed the combustible shield with a sticky explosive powder, and set it afire. He waited till it had burned, and then he sent the little ship hurtling across the dark city toward one of his dozen secret apartments. Swiftly, he set the Sensitives to hold the ship at normal time rate for possible future use, then he focused the power of the lifter on himself, and felt it lower him into the apartment.

  The moment he was on his feet, he headed for a comfortable armchair. When he had settled himself, he called in a savage tone, “All right, my spider friends, if you have any further plans, better try to carry them out now.”

  The greater struggle had still to be made.

  Seventeen

  HIS FIRST AWARENESS OF THE PRESENCE OF THE ALIENS WAS a thought, not directed at him, but which was intended for him to understand. The thought was on the old titanic level, so violent that his brain was shocked by the impact:

  “—AN INTERESTING EXAMPLE OF AN ENERGY IMPULSE CONTINUING AS IF NO

  OUTSIDE FORCE HAD BEEN APPLIED—”

  “NO!” The answer was cold. “THE MAN WAS AWARE OF US. THE PURPOSE DRIVING HIM

  WAS CARRIED THROUGH IN SPITE OF HIS KNOWLEDGE OF OUR EXISTENCE.”

  “CLEARLY, THEN, HE ACTED ILLOGICALLY.”

  “POSSIBLY.BUT LET US BRING HIM BACK ... HERE ...”

  Hedrock recognized that the critical moment had come. For many hours he had been thinking of what he would do when it arrived, and for more than a minute, ever since he had sat down, he had been doing it.

  His eyes were closed, his body calm, his mind slow and blank. It was not a perfect state of what the ancient Hindu fakirs had called Nirvana but it was a condition of profound relaxation; and millennia before, the great institutes for mind and sensory study had used it as the basis for all mind training. Sitting there, Hedrock grew conscious of a steady and enormous pulsing that shook his brain with its thunder.

  But that physical phase, that pounding of his heart with its attendant murmurs of blood flow, and all the tens of thousands of muscular tensions each with its own tiny sounds—that phase, also, passed. He was alone with utter calm and utter peace.

  His first impression, then, was that he was sitting in a chair—but not the chair of his apartment. The picture grew so clear that he knew after a few seconds that the chair was in the control room of the lifeboat, which in turn was inside one of the huge alien-controlled spaceships.

  Hedrock sighed, and opened his eyes. He sat there letting the familiarity of the surroundings figuratively suffuse his being. So his resistance had failed. It was too bad, but of course he had not positively counted on success. He continued to sit in the multi-purposed control chair, because relaxation was his only method of resistance, and he intended to resist from now on.

  While he waited, he glanced lazily into the glowing ’stats. Three of the view plates showed starry space, but there was an image of a ship in the rear view plate. Odd, he thought. His lifeboat must no longer be inside the alien machine. He considered that with a faint frown, and then he noticed something else. There was only one ship. But, then, where were the hundreds of others?

  He fought down a rising excitement, as he realized what was happening. The relaxation process was working. Had worked to some extent. The spider beings had succeeded in bringing him back to his lifeboat, but their domination of his mind was partially broken, and so several of their illusions had faded from his mind.

  The first illusion had been that there was more than one ship. Now, free of their control, he could see that there was only one. The second illusion had been that his lifeboat had been inside their machine.

  Now, free of their control, he could see that it wasn’t. He was about to go on in that orderly fashion when his mind leaped to the possibility that their control of him was probably very tenuous at this moment. He closed his eyes, and he was about to think himself back to his apartment when there was an interruption.

  “Man, do not compel us to destroy you. ”

  He had been expecting a mental interference, instinctively cringing in anticipation of the titanic impact of it. The shock was different from his expectation. The alien thought lacked force. It seemed far away, weak. Hedrock was conscious of astonishment, an unsteady, wide-eyed comprehension: This was the reality. Earlier, they must have established over him an instantaneous and complete rapport. Now, they had to reach at him from the outside. His situation was showing continuous improvement. The spider creatures that had seemed so supreme were being deflated every instant. Four hundred ships had become one. A seemingly super-human mind control was now reduced to reachable size. He had no doubt that their threat to destroy him was on a physical level. What they meant was that they would use energy beams against him.

  It was a far cry from their irresistible domination of his entire nervous system, but it was as dangerous as ever. He must play his game cautiously, and await an opportunity. He waited, and presently a thought was directed at him:

  “It is true that you have successfully released yourself from our mental thrall, and have discovered that there is but one ship. However, we have further use of you, and therefore we must ask you to cooperate under the threat of immediate extermination if you refuse. ”

  “Naturally,” said Hedrock, an old and successful cooperator, “I’ll do what is required unless it involves a near equivalent of extermination such as dismemberment.”

  “We have in mind, ”came the precise answer, “a further sensory study of the Neelan twins. Since you were connected with the relationship when you were under our control, we can dispense with the twin on Earth, and work directly through you. There will be no pain, but you must yield yourself to the investigation. ”

  Hedrock protested, “I heard one of you say that Gil Neelan was dead. That was before I was put back on Earth. How can you work with a dead man?”

  The reply was icy. “Please allow us to handle the cell growth problems involved. Do you submit yourself? ”

  Hedrock hesitated, “Are you going to let me live—afterwards?”

  “Naturally not. ”

  He had expected that answer, but it was a shock nonetheless. Hedrock countered, “I don’t see how you can expect me to cooperate on such a basis.”

  “We will, advise you of the moment of death. That will give you the emotional excitement you crave, and will thus conform to your requirements. ”

  Hedrock said nothing for a moment. He was fascinated. These monsters thought they would be catering to human nervous requirements by telling him when he was due to die. That was as far as they had gotten in their investigation of man’s emotional nature. It seemed i
ncredible that anyone could miss the mark so completely. The intellectual approach of these creatures to life and death must be stoical in the extreme.

  Instead of trying to bite the hand that was reaching forth to destroy it, each individual spider probably examined all methods of escape and, finding none, accepted death without a struggle.

  Hedrock said finally with a crisp ferocity, “You seem to have done pretty well, you and your kind. Here you are in a ship the size of a small moon. You obviously come from a mentally superior civilization; I’d like to see the planet that spawned you, its industries, its ordinary way of life. It should be interesting.

  Beyond doubt, your brand of logic has done well by you. Nature can pat herself on the back for a successful experiment in producing intelligence, but you’ve missed the point about man if you think that all I’m interested in is when I when expect to be killed.”

  “What more would you like to know? ” There was interest in the questioning thought.

  Hedrock said wearily, “All right, you win. I’d like to know when I can get something to eat.”

  “Food! ”His questioner was excited. “Did you hear that, — Xx-Y—(meaningless)?”

  “Most interesting, ”came another thought. “At a critical moment the need for food is uppermost. It seems significant. Reassure him, and proceed with the experiment. ”

  Hedrock said, “You don’t have to reassure me. What do you want me to do?”

  “Yield. ”

  “How?”

  “Submit. Think of the dead body. ”

  It was a relief to do that, and the picture grew remarkably sharp. He thought suddenly: Poor Gil, lying lifeless on a limitless sea of sand, his cells already collapsed from the ever rising pall of heat as the speedy planet drew ever nearer to one of its two parent suns. It was a strangely agonizing visualization for him, and yet, at the same time, thank God he was dead. The suffering was over. The mortal remains were beyond the pain of heat, beyond the ceaseless worry of the stinging sand, beyond thirst and hunger, beyond fear and unreasonable hope. Death had come to Gilbert Neelan as it must to all men. God bless him and keep him.