Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time

by Judith Merril (ed. )

  “The Neanderthal probably thought the Cro-Magnon man had merely an improved line. A little more advanced ability to conjure up symbols and shape flint. From your description, this thing is more radical than a mere improvement.”

  “This thing,” Baines said slowly, “has an ability to predict. So far, it’s been able to stay alive. It’s been able to cope with situations better than you or I could. How long do you think we’d stay alive in that chamber, with energy beams blazing down at us? In a sense it’s got the ultimate survival ability. If it can always be accurate—”

  A wall-speaker sounded. “Baines, you’re wanted in the lab. Get the hell out of the bar and upramp.”

  Baines pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Come along. You may be interested in seeing what Wisdom has got dreamed up.”

  A tight group of top-level DCA officials stood around in a circle, middle-aged, gray-haired, listening to a skinny youth in a white shirt and rolled-up sleeves explaining an elaborate cube of metal and plastic that filled the center of the view platform. From it jutted an ugly array of tube snouts, gleaming muzzles that disappeared into an intricate maze of wiring.

  “This,” the youth was saying briskly, “is the first real test. It fires at random—as nearly random as we can make it, at least. Weighted balls are thrown up in an air stream, then dropped free to fall back and cut relays. They can fall in almost any pattern. The thing fires according to their pattern. Each drop produces a new configuration of timing and position. Ten tubes, in all. Each will be in constant motion.”

  “And nobody knows how they’ll fire?” Anita asked.

  “Nobody.” Wisdom rubbed his thick hands together. “Mind-reading won’t help him, not with this thing.”

  Anita moved over to the view windows, as the cube was rolled into place. She gasped. “Is that him?”

  “What’s wrong?” Baines asked.

  Anita’s cheeks were flushed. “Why, I expected a—a thing. My God, he’s beautiful! Like a golden statue. Like a deity!”

  Baines laughed. “He’s eighteen years old, Anita. Too young for you.”

  The woman was still peering through the view window. “Look at him. Eighteen? I don’t believe it.”

  Cris Johnson sat in the center of the chamber, on the floor. A posture of contemplation, head bowed, arms folded, legs tucked under him. In the stark glare of the overhead lights his powerful body glowed and rippled, a shimmering figure of downy gold.

  “Pretty, isn’t he?” Wisdom muttered. “All right. Start it going.”

  “You’re going to kill him?” Anita demanded.

  “We’re going to try.”

  “But he’s—” She broke off uncertainly. “He’s not a monster. He’s not like those others, those hideous things with two heads, or those insects. Or those awful things from Tunis.”

  “What is he, then?” Baines asked.

  “I don’t know. But you can’t just kill him. It’s terrible!”

  The cube clicked into life. The muzzles jerked, silently altered position. Three retracted, disappeared into the body of the cube. Others came out. Quickly, efficiently, they moved into position—and abruptly, without warning, opened fire.

  A staggering burst of energy fanned out, a complex pattern that altered each moment, different angles, different velocities, a bewildering blur that cracked from the windows down into the chamber.

  The golden figure moved. He dodged back and forth, expertly avoiding the bursts of energy that seared around him on all sides. Rolling clouds of ash obscured him; he was lost in a mist of crackling fire and ash.

  “Stop it!” Anita shouted. “For God’s sake, you’ll destroy him!”

  The chamber was an inferno of energy. The figure had completely disappeared. Wisdom waited a moment, then nodded to the technicians operating the cube. They touched guide buttons and the muzzles slowed and died. Some sank back into the cube. All became silent. The works of the cube ceased humming.

  Cris Johnson was still alive. He emerged from the settling clouds of ash, blackened and singed. But unhurt. He had avoided each beam. He had weaved between them and among them as they came, a dancer leaping over glittering sword-points of pink fire. He had survived.

  “No,” Wisdom murmured, shaken and grim. “Not a telepath. Those were at random. No prearranged pattern.”

  The three of them looked at each other, dazed and frightened. Anita was trembling. Her face was pale and her blue eyes were wide. “What, then?” She whispered, “What is it? What does he have?”

  “He’s a good guesser,” Wisdom suggested.

  “He’s not guessing,” Baines answered. “Don’t kid yourself. That’s the whole point.”

  “No, he’s not guessing.” Wisdom nodded slowly. “He knew. He predicted each strike. I wonder… Can he err? Can he make a mistake?”

  “We caught him,” Baines pointed out.

  “You said he came back voluntarily.” There was a strange look on Wisdom’s face. “Did he come back after the clamp was up?”

  Baines jumped. “Yes, after.”

  “He couldn’t have got through the clamp. So he came back.” Wisdom grinned wryly. “The clamp must actually have been perfect. It was supposed to be.”

  “If there had been a single hole,” Baines murmured, “he would have known it—gone through.”

  Wisdom ordered a group of armed guards over. “Get him out of there. To the euth stage.”

  Anita shrieked. “Wisdom, you can’t—”

  “He’s too far ahead of us. We can’t compete with him.” Wisdom’s eyes were bleak. “We can only guess what’s going to happen. He knows. For him, it’s a sure thing. I don’t think it’ll help him at euth, though. The whole stage is flooded simultaneously. Instantaneous gas, released throughout.” He signaled impatiently to the guards. “Get going. Take him down right away. Don’t waste any time.”

  “Can we?” Baines murmured thoughtfully.

  The guards took up positions by one of the chamber locks. Cautiously, the tower control slid the lock back. The first two guards stepped cautiously in, lash-tubes ready.

  Cris stood in the center of the chamber. His back was to them as they crept toward him. For a moment he was silent, utterly unmoving. The guards fanned out, as more of them entered the chamber. Then—

  Anita screamed. Wisdom cursed. The golden figure spun and leaped forward, in a flashing blur of speed. Past the triple line of guards, through the lock and into the corridor.

  “Get him!” Baines shouted.

  Guards milled everywhere. Flashes of energy lit up the corridor, as the figure raced among them, up the ramp.

  “No use,” Wisdom said calmly. “We can’t hit him.” He touched a button, then another. “But maybe this will help.”

  “What—” Baines began. But the leaping figure shot abruptly at him, straight at him, and he dropped to one side. The figure flashed past. It ran effortlessly, face without expression, dodging and jumping as the energy beams seared around it.

  For an instant the golden face loomed up before Baines. It passed and disappeared down a side corridor. Guards rushed after it, kneeling and firing, shouting orders excitedly. In the bowels of the building, heavy guns were rumbling up. Locks slid into place as escape corridors were systematically sealed off.

  “Good God,” Baines gasped, as he got to his feet. “Can’t he do anything but run?”

  “I gave orders,” Wisdom said, “to have the building isolated. There’s no way out. Nobody comes and nobody goes. He’s loose here in the building—but he won’t get out.”

  “If there’s one exit overlooked, he’ll know it,” Anita pointed out shakily.

  “We won’t overlook any exit. We got him once; we’ll get him again.”

  A messenger robot had come in. Now it presented its message respectfully to Wisdom. “From analysis, sir.”

  Wisdom tore the tape open. “Now we’ll know how it thinks.” His hands were shaking. “Maybe we can figure out its blind spot. It may be able t
o out-think us, but that doesn’t mean it’s invulnerable. It only predicts the future—it can’t change it. If there’s only death ahead, its ability won’t…”

  Wisdom’s voice faded into silence. After a moment he passed the tape to Baines.

  “I’ll be down in the bar,” Wisdom said. “Getting a good stiff drink.” His face had turned lead-gray. “All I can say is I hope to hell this isn’t the race to come.”

  “What’s the analysis?” Anita demanded impatiently, peering over Baines’s shoulder. “How does it think?”

  “It doesn’t,” Baines said, as he handed the tape back to his boss. “It doesn’t think at all. Virtually no frontal lobe. It’s not a human being—it doesn’t use symbols. It’s nothing but an animal.”

  “An animal,” Wisdom said. “With a single highly developed faculty. Not a superior man. Not a man at all.”

  Up and down the corridors of the DCA Building, guards and equipment clanged. Loads of Civil Police were pouring into the building and taking up positions beside the guards. One by one, the corridors and rooms were being inspected and sealed off. Sooner or later the golden figure of Cris Johnson would be located and cornered.

  “We were always afraid a mutant with superior intellectual powers would come along,” Baines said reflectively. “A deeve who would be to us what we are to the great apes. Something with a bulging cranium, telepathic ability, a perfect semantic system, ultimate powers of symbolization and calculation. A development along our own path. A better human being.”

  “He acts by reflex,” Anita said wonderingly. She had the analysis and was sitting at one of the desks studying it intently. “Reflex—like a lion. A golden lion.” She pushed the tape aside, a strange expression on her face. “The lion god.”

  “Beast,” Wisdom corrected tartly. “Blond beast, you mean.”

  “He runs fast,” Baines said, “and that’s all. No tools. He doesn’t build anything or utilize anything outside himself. He just stands and waits for the right opportunity and then he runs like hell.”

  “This is worse than anything we’ve anticipated,” Wisdom said. His beefy face was lead-gray. He sagged like an old man, his blunt hands trembling and uncertain. “To be replaced by an animal! Something that runs and hides. Something without a language!” He spat savagely.

  “That’s why they weren’t able to communicate with it. We wondered what kind of semantic system it had. It hasn’t got any! No more ability to talk and think than a—dog.”

  “That means intelligence has failed,” Baines went on huskily. “We’re the last of our line—like the dinosaur. We’ve carried intelligence as far as it’ll go. Too far, maybe. We’ve already got to the point where we know so much—think so much—we can’t act.”

  “Men of thought,” Anita said. “Not men of action. It’s begun to have a paralyzing effect. But this thing—”

  “This thing’s faculty works better than ours ever did. We can recall past experiences, keep them in mind, learn from them. At best, we can make shrewd guesses about the future, from our memory of what’s happened in the past. But we can’t be certain. We have to speak of probabilities. Grays. Not blacks and whites. We’re only guessing.”

  “Cris Johnson isn’t guessing,” Anita added.

  “He can look ahead. See what’s coming. He can—prethink. Let’s call it that. He can see into the future. Probably he doesn’t perceive it as the future.”

  “No,” Anita said thoughtfully. “It would seem like the present. He has a broader present. But his present lies ahead, not back. Our present is related to the past. Only the past is certain, to us. To him, the future is certain. And he probably doesn’t remember the past, any more than any animal remembers what’s happened.”

  “As he develops,” Baines said, “as his race evolves, it’ll probably expand its ability to prethink. Instead of ten minutes, thirty minutes. Then an hour. A day. A year. Eventually they’ll be able to keep ahead a whole lifetime. Each one of them will live in a solid, unchanging world. There’ll be no variables, no uncertainty. No motion! They won’t have anything to fear. Their world will be perfectly static, a solid block of matter.”

  “And when death comes,” Anita said, “they’ll accept it. There won’t be any struggle; to them, it’ll already have happened.”

  “Already have happened,” Baines repeated. “To Cris, our shots had already been fired.” He laughed harshly. “Superior survival doesn’t mean superior man. If there were another world-wide flood, only fish would survive. If there were another ice age, maybe nothing but polar bears would be left. When we opened the lock, he had already seen the men, seen exactly where they were standing and what they’d do. A neat faculty—but not a development of mind. A pure physical sense.”

  “But if every exit is covered,” Wisdom repeated, “he’ll see he can’t get out. He gave himself up before—he’ll give himself up again.” He shook his head. “An animal. Without language. Without tools.”

  “With his new sense,” Baines said, “he doesn’t need anything else.” He examined his watch, “It’s after two. Is the building completely sealed off?”

  “You can’t leave,” Wisdom stated. “You’ll have to stay here all night—or until we catch the bastard.”

  “I meant her.” Baines indicated Anita. “She’s supposed to be back at Semantics by seven in the morning.”

  Wisdom shrugged. “I have no control over her. If she wants, she can check out.”

  “I’ll stay,” Anita decided. “I want to be here when he—when he’s destroyed. I’ll sleep here.” She hesitated. “Wisdom, isn’t there some other way? If he’s just an animal couldn’t we—”

  “A zoo?” Wisdom’s voice rose in a frenzy of hysteria. “Keep it penned up in the zoo? Christ no! It’s got to be killed!”

  For a long time the great gleaming shape crouched in the darkness. He was in a store room. Boxes and cartons stretched out on all sides, heaped up in orderly rows, all neatly counted and marked. Silent and deserted.

  But in a few moments people burst in and search the room. He could see this. He saw them in all parts of the room, clear and distinct, men with lash-tubes, grim-faced, stalking with murder in their eyes.

  The sight was one of many. One of a multitude of clearly etched scenes lying tangent to his own. And to each was attached a further multitude of interlocking scenes, that finally grew hazier and dwindled away. A progressive vagueness, each syndrome less distinct.

  But the immediate one, the scene that lay closest to him, was clearly visible. He could easily make out the sight of the armed men. Therefore it was necessary to be out of the room before they appeared.

  The golden figure got calmly to its feet and moved to the door. The corridor was empty; he could see himself already outside, in the vacant, drumming hall of metal and recessed lights. He pushed the door boldly open and stepped out.

  A lift blinked across the hall. He walked to the lift and entered it. In five minutes a group of guards would come running along and leap into the lift. By that time he would have left it and sent it back down. Now he pressed a button and rose to the next floor.

  He stepped out into a deserted passage. No one was in sight. That didn’t surprise him. He couldn’t be surprised. The element didn’t exist for him. The positions of things, the space relationships of all matter in the immediate future, were as certain for him as his own body. The only thing that was unknown was that which had already passed out of being. In a vague, dim fashion, he had occasionally wondered where things went after he had passed them.

  He came to a small supply closet. It had just been searched. It would be half an hour before anyone opened it again. He had that long; he could see that far ahead. And then—

  And then he would be able to see another area, a region farther beyond. He was always moving, advancing into new regions he had never seen before. A constantly unfolding panorama of sights and scenes, frozen landscapes spread out ahead. All objects were fixed. Pieces on a vast chessboard throug
h which he moved, arms folded, face calm. A detached observer who saw objects that lay ahead of him as clearly as those under foot.

  Right now, as he crouched in the small supply closet, he saw an unusually varied multitude of scenes for the next half hour. Much lay ahead. The half-hour was divided into an incredibly complex pattern of separate configurations. He had reached a critical region; he was about to move through worlds of intricate complexity.

  He concentrated on a scene ten minutes away. It showed, like a three-dimensional still, a heavy gun at the end of the corridor, trained all the way to the far end. Men moved cautiously from door to door, checking each room again, as they had done repeatedly. At the end of the half-hour they had reached the supply closet. A scene showed them looking inside. By that time he was gone, of course. He wasn’t in that scene. He had passed on to another.

  The next scene showed an exit. Guards stood in a solid line. No way out. He was in that scene. Off to one side, in a niche just inside the door. The street outside was visible, stars, lights, outlines of passing cars and people.

  In the next tableau he had gone back, away from the exit. There was no way out. In another tableau he saw himself at other exits, a legion of golden figures, duplicated again and again, as he explored regions ahead, one after another. But each exit was covered.

  In one dim scene he saw himself lying charred and dead; he had tried to run through the line, out the exit.

  But that scene was vague. One wavering, indistinct still out of many. The inflexible path along which he moved would not deviate in that direction. It would not turn him that way. The golden figure in that scene, the miniature doll in that room, was only distantly related to him. It was himself, but a faraway self. A self he would never meet. He forgot it and went on to examine the other tableau.

  The myriad of tableaux that surrounded him were an elaborate maze, a web which he now considered bit by bit. He was looking down into a doll’s house of infinite rooms, rooms without number, each with its furniture, its dolls, all rigid and unmoving. The same dolls and furniture were repeated in many. He, himself, appeared often. The two men on the platform. The woman. Again and again the same combinations turned up; the play was redone frequently, the same actors and props moved around in all possible ways.