Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time

by Judith Merril (ed. )

  “What do you want?” Johnson held his hands steady with an effort. He’d never heard of the man, although he’d noticed the housing tract. It couldn’t be missed—a great ant heap of ugly pillboxes straddling the highway. Baines looked like the kind of man who’d own them. But what did he want here?

  “I’ve bought some land up this way,” Baines was explaining. He rattled a sheaf of crisp papers. “This is the deed, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.” He grinned good-naturedly. “I know it’s around this way, some place, this side of the state road. According to the clerk at the County Recorder’s Office, a mile or so this side of that hill over there. But I’m no damn good at reading maps.”

  “It isn’t around here,” Dave broke in. “There’s only farms around here. Nothing for sale.”

  “This is a farm, son,” Baines said genially. “I bought it for myself and my missus. So we could settle down.” He wrinkled his pug nose. “Don’t get the wrong idea—I’m not putting up any tracts around here. This is strictly for myself. An old farmhouse, twenty acres, a pump and a few oak trees—”

  “Let me see the deed.” Johnson grabbed the sheaf of papers, and while Baines blinked in astonishment, he leafed rapidly through them. His face hardened and he handed them back. “What are you up to? This deed is for a parcel fifty miles from here.”

  “Fifty miles!” Baines was dumbfounded. “No kidding? But the clerk told me—”

  Johnson was on his feet. He towered over the fat man. He was in top-notch physical shape—and he was plenty damn suspicious. “Clerk, hell. You get back into your car and drive out of here. I don’t know what you’re after, or what you’re here for, but I want you off my land.”

  In Johnson’s massive fist something sparkled. A metal tube that gleamed ominously in the midday sunlight. Baines saw it—and gulped. “No offense, mister.” He backed nervously away. “You folks sure are touchy. Take it easy, will you?”

  Johnson said nothing. He gripped the lash-tube tighter and waited for the fat man to leave.

  But Baines lingered. “Look, buddy. I’ve been driving around this furnace five hours, looking for my damn place. Any objection to my using your—facilities?”

  Johnson eyed him with suspicion. Gradually the suspicion turned to disgust. He shrugged. “Dave, show him where the bathroom is.”

  “Thanks.” Baines grinned thankfully. “And if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, maybe a glass of water. I’d be glad to pay you for it.” He chuckled knowingly. “Never let the city people get away with anything, eh?”

  “Christ.” Johnson turned away in revulsion as the fat man lumbered after his son, into the house.

  “Dad,” Jean whispered. As soon as Baines was inside she hurried up onto the porch, eyes wide with fear. “Dad, do you think he—”

  Johnson put his arm around her. “Just hold on tight. He’ll be gone, soon.”

  The girl’s dark eyes flashed with mute terror. “Every time the man from the water company, or the tax collector, some tramp, children, anybody come around, I get a terrible stab of pain—here.” She clutched at her heart, hand against her breasts. “It’s been that way eighteen years. How much longer can we keep it going? How long?”

  The man named Baines emerged gratefully from the bathroom. Dave Johnson stood silently by the door, body rigid, youthful face stony.

  “Thanks, son,” Baines sighed. “Now where can I get a glass of cold water?” He smacked his thick lips in anticipation. “After you’ve been driving around the sticks looking for a dump some red-hot real-estate agent stuck you with—”

  Dave headed into the kitchen. “Mom, this man wants a drink of water. Dad said he could have it.”

  Dave had turned his back. Baines caught a brief glimpse of the mother, gray-haired, small, moving toward the sink with a glass, face withered and drawn, without expression.

  Then Baines hurried from the room, down a hall. He passed through a bedroom, pulled a door open, found himself facing a closet. He turned and raced back, through the living room, into a dining room, then another bedroom. In a brief instant he had gone through the whole house.

  He peered out a window. The back yard. Remains of a rusting truck. Entrance of an underground bomb shelter. Tin cans. Chickens scratching around. A dog, asleep under a shed. A couple of old auto tires.

  He found a door leading out. Soundlessly, he tore the door open and stepped outside. No one was in sight. There was a barn, a leaning, ancient wood structure. Cedar trees beyond, a creek of some kind. What had once been an outhouse.

  Baines moved cautiously around the side of the house. He had perhaps thirty seconds. He had left the door of the bathroom closed; the boy would think he had gone back in there. Baines looked into the house through a window. A large closet, filled with old clothing, boxes and bundles of magazines.

  He turned and started back. He reached the corner of the house and started around it.

  Nat Johnson’s gaunt shape loomed up and blocked his way. “All right, Baines. You asked for it.”

  A pink flash blossomed. It shut out the sunlight in a single blinding burst. Baines leaped back and clawed at his coat pocket. The edge of the flash caught him and he half-fell, stunned by the force. His suit-shield sucked in the energy and discharged it, but the power rattled his teeth and for a moment he jerked like a puppet on a string. Darkness ebbed around him. He could feel the mesh of the shield glow white, as it absorbed the energy and fought to control it.

  His own tube came out—and Johnson had no shield. “You’re under arrest,” Baines muttered grimly. “Put down your tube and your hands up. And call your family.” He made a motion with the tube. “Come on, Johnson. Make it snappy.”

  The lash-tube wavered and then slipped from Johnson’s fingers. “You’re still alive.” Dawning horror crept across his face. “Then you must be—”

  Dave and Jean appeared. “Dad!”

  “Come over here,” Baines ordered. “Where’s your mother?”

  Dave jerked his head numbly. “Inside.”

  “Get her and bring her here.”

  “You’re DCA,” Nat Johnson whispered.

  Baines didn’t answer. He was doing something with his neck, pulling at the flabby flesh. The wiring of a contact mike glittered as he slipped it from a fold between two chins and into his pocket. From the dirt road came the sound of motors, sleek purrs that rapidly grew louder. Two teardrops of black metal came gliding up and parked beside the house. Men swarmed out, in the dark gray-green of the Government Civil Police. In the sky swarms of black dots were descending, clouds of ugly flies that darkened the sun as they spilled out men and equipment. The men drifted slowly down.

  “He’s not here,” Baines said, as the first man reached him. “He got away. Inform Wisdom back at the lab.”

  “We’ve got this section blocked off.”

  Baines turned to Nat Johnson, who stood in dazed silence, uncomprehending, his son and daughter beside him. “How did he know we were coming?” Baines demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Johnson muttered. “He just—knew.”

  “A telepath?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Baines shrugged. “We’ll know, soon. A clamp is out, all around here. He can’t get past, no matter what the hell he can do. Unless he can dematerialize himself.”

  “What’ll you do with him when you—if you catch him?” Jean asked huskily.

  “Study him.”

  “And then kill him?”

  “That depends on the lab evaluation. If you could give me more to work on, I could predict better.”

  “We can’t tell you anything. We don’t know anything more.” The girl’s voice rose with desperation. “He doesn’t talk.”

  Baines jumped. “What?”

  “He doesn’t talk. He never talked to us. Ever.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “No communication.” Baines was sweating. “In eighteen years there hasn’t been any semantic bridge bet
ween you? Does he have any contact? Signs? Codes?”

  “He—ignores us. He eats here, stays with us. Sometimes he plays when we play. Or sits with us. He’s gone days on end. We’ve never been able to find out what he’s doing—or where. He sleeps in the barn—by himself.”

  “Is he really gold-colored?”

  “Yes.”

  “Skin, as well as hair?”

  “Skin, eyes, hair, nails. Everything.”

  “And he’s large? Well-formed?”

  It was a moment before the girl answered. A strange emotion stirred her drawn features, a momentary glow. “He’s incredibly beautiful. A god. A god come down to earth.” Her lips twisted. “You won’t find him. He can do things. Things you have no comprehension of. Powers so far beyond your limited—”

  “You don’t think we’ll get him?” Baines frowned. “More teams are landing all the time. You’ve never seen an Agency clamp in operation. We’ve had sixty years to work out all the bugs. If he gets away it’ll be the first time—”

  Baines broke off abruptly. Three men were quickly approaching the porch. Two green-clad Civil Police. And a third man between them. A man who moved silently, lithely, a faintly luminous shape that towered above them.

  “Cris!” Jean screamed.

  “We got him,” one of the police said.

  Baines fingered his lash-tube uneasily. “Where? How?”

  “He gave himself up,” the policeman answered, voice full of awe. “He came to us voluntarily. Look at him. He’s like a metal statue. Like some sort of—god.”

  The golden figure halted for a moment beside Jean. Then it turned slowly, calmly, to face Baines.

  “Cris!” Jean shrieked. “Why did you come back?”

  The same thought was eating at Baines, too. He shoved it aside—for the time being. “Is the jet out front?” he demanded quickly.

  “Ready to go,” one of the CP answered.

  “Fine.” Baines strode past them, down the steps and onto the dirt field. “Let’s go. I want him taken directly to the lab.” For a moment he studied the massive figure who stood calmly between the two Civil Policemen. Beside him, they seemed to have shrunk, become ungainly and repellent. Like dwarfs… What had Jean said? A god come to earth. Baines broke angrily away. “Come on,” he muttered brusquely. “This one may be tough; we’ve never run up against one like it before. We don’t know what the hell it can do.”

  The chamber was empty, except for the seated figure. Four bare walls, floor and ceiling. A steady glare of white light relentlessly etched every corner of the chamber. Near the top of the far wall ran a narrow slot, the view windows through which the interior of the chamber was scanned.

  The seated figure was quiet. He hadn’t moved since the chamber locks had slid into place, since the heavy bolts had fallen from outside and the rows of bright-faced technicians had taken their places at the view windows. He gazed down at the floor, bent forward, hands clasped together, face calm, almost expressionless. In four hours he hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “Well?” Baines said. “What have you learned?”

  Wisdom grunted sourly. “Not much. If we don’t have him doped out in forty-eight hours we’ll go ahead with the euth. We can’t take any chances.”

  “You’re thinking about the Tunis type,” Baines said. He was, too. They had found ten of them, living in the ruins of the abandoned North African town. Their survival method was simple. They killed and absorbed other life forms, then imitated them and took their places. Chameleons, they were called. It had cost sixty lives before the last one was destroyed. Sixty top-level experts, highly trained DCA men.

  “Any clues?” Baines asked.

  “He’s different as hell. This is going to be tough.” Wisdom thumbed a pile of tape-spools. “This is the complete report, all the material we got from Johnson and his family. We pumped them with the psych-wash, then let them go home. Eighteen years—and no semantic bridge. Yet, he looks fully developed. Mature at thirteen—a shorter, faster life cycle than ours. But why the mane? All the gold fuzz? Like a Roman monument that’s been gilded.”

  “Has the report come in from the analysis room? You had a wave-shot taken, of course.”

  “His brain pattern has been fully scanned. But it takes time for them to plot it out. We’re all running around like lunatics while he just sits there!” Wisdom poked a stubby finger at the window. “We caught him easily enough. He can’t have much, can he? But I’d like to know what it is. Before we euth him.”

  “Maybe we should keep him alive until we know.”

  “Euth in forty-eight hours,” Wisdom repeated stubbornly. “Whether we know or not. I don’t like him. He gives me the creeps.”

  Wisdom stood chewing nervously on his cigar, a red-haired, beefy-faced man, thick and heavy-set, with a barrel chest and cold, shrewd eyes deep-set in his hard face. Ed Wisdom was Director of DCA’s North American Branch. But right now he was worried. His tiny eyes darted back and forth, alarmed flickers of gray in his brutal, massive face. “You think,” Baines said slowly, “this is it?”

  “I always think so,” Wisdom snapped. “I have to think so.”

  “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean.” Wisdom paced back and forth, among the study tables, technicians at their benches, equipment and humming computers. Buzzing tape slots and research hookups. “This thing lived eighteen years with his family and they don’t understand it. They don’t know what it has. They know what it does, but not how.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It knows things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  Wisdom grabbed his lash-tube from his belt and tossed it on a table. “Here.”

  “What?”

  “Here.” Wisdom signaled, and a view window was slid back an inch. “Shoot him.”

  Baines blinked. “You said forty-eight hours.”

  With a curse. Wisdom snatched up the tube, aimed it through the window directly at the seated figure’s back, and squeezed the trigger.

  A blinding flash of pink. A cloud of energy blossomed in the center of the chamber. It sparkled, then died into dark ash.

  “Good God!” Baines gasped. “You—”

  He broke off. The figure was no longer sitting. As Wisdom fired, it had moved in a blur of speed, away from the blast, to the corner of the chamber. Now it was slowly coming back, face blank, still absorbed in thought.

  “Fifth time,” Wisdom said, as he put his tube away. “Last time Jamison and I fired together. Missed. He knew exactly when the bolts would hit. And where.”

  Baines and Wisdom looked at each other. Both of them were thinking the same thing. “But even reading minds wouldn’t tell him where they were going to hit,” Baines said. “When, maybe. But not where. Could you have called your own shots?”

  “Not mine,” Wisdom answered flatly. “I fired fast, damn near at random.” He frowned. “Random. We’ll have to make a test of this.” He waved a group of technicians over. “Get a construction team up here. On the double.” He grabbed paper and pen and began sketching.

  While construction was going on, Baines met his fiancée in the lobby outside the lab, the great central lounge of the DCA Building.

  “How’s it coming?” she asked. Anita Ferris was tall and blonde, with blue eyes and a mature, carefully cultivated figure. An attractive, competent-looking woman in her late twenties. She wore a metal-foil dress and cape—with a red and black stripe on the sleeve, the emblem of the A-Class. Anita was Director of the Semantics Agency, a top-level government co-ordinator. “Anything of interest, this time?”

  “Plenty.” Baines guided her from the lobby into the dim recess of the bar. Music played softly in the background, a shifting variety of patterns formed mathematically. Dim shapes moved expertly through the gloom, from table to table. Silent, efficient robot waiters.

  As Anita sipped her Tom Collins, Baines outlined what they had found.

  “What are the chances,” Anita asked slowly
, “that he’s built up some kind of deflection cone? There was one kind that warped their environment by direct mental effort. No tools. Direct mind to matter.”

  “Psychokinetics?” Baines drummed restlessly on the table top. “I doubt it. The thing has ability to predict, not to control. He can’t stop the beams, but he can sure as hell get out of the way.”

  “Does he jump between the molecules?”

  Baines wasn’t amused. “This is serious. We’ve handled these things sixty years—longer than you and I have been around added together. Eighty-seven types of deviants have shown up, real mutants that could reproduce themselves, not mere freaks. This is the eighty-eighth. We’ve been able to handle each of them in turn. But this—”

  “Why are you so worried about this one?”

  “First, it’s eighteen years old. That in itself is incredible. Its family managed to hide it that long.”

  “Those women around Denver were older than that. Those ones with—”

  “They were in a government camp. Somebody high up was toying with the idea of allowing them to breed. Some sort of industrial use. We withheld euth for years. But Cris Johnson stayed alive outside our control. Those things at Denver were under constant scrutiny.”

  “Maybe he’s harmless. You always assume a deeve is a menace. He might even be beneficial. Somebody thought those women might work in. Maybe this thing has something that would advance the race.”

  “Which race? Not the human race. It’s the old ‘the operation was a success but the patient died’ routine. If we introduce a mutant to keep us going it’ll be mutants, not us, who’ll inherit the earth. It’ll be mutants surviving for their own sake. Don’t think for a moment we can put padlocks on them and expect them to serve us. If they’re really superior to Homo sapiens, they’ll win out in even competition. To survive, we’ve got to cold-deck them right from the start.”

  “In other words, we’ll know Homo superior when he comes—by definition. He’ll be the one we won’t be able to euth.”

  “That’s about it,” Baines answered. “Assuming there is a Homo superior. Maybe there’s just Homo peculiar. Homo with an improved line.”