Kor waved a sheaf of papers aloft.
“I have been working day and night with the cybernograph, integrating the factors. The cybernograph proves the assumption I made from observation—here is the math as well as the mechanics of the situation.”
Tor Shan and Devon both grabbed for the papers at once. Kor jerked them back.
“This material will keep a while longer. The future has already been determined. The Trisz are already destroyed. Only I can change that chain of events, and I am not about to try!”
He frowned thoughtfully at his audience.
“Back on Karel IV, there was an instant in which the Trisz mind was wide open to mine. I do not mean the mind of what you probably think of as that individual Trisz, but of the Trisz—the parent body, which does not exist in this space and time at all!”
Cries of astonishment went up from the assembly.
“The concept of contiguous universes, of probability universes, of interlocking universes, and so on, is not a new one,” Kor continued. He gestured toward the machine at his back. “This device proves the fact: there are universes infinite in number, each separated from the other by the thinnest of imaginable partitions. Let me show you.”
He adjusted several dials and depressed a stud. Parts of the machine lighted up as vacuum tubes warmed rapidly. A soft humming came from it.
“This,” Kor went on, “is a tiny model of the machine that will destroy the Trisz—I should say, that has destroyed the Trisz, since that future is already determined. I built it to ascertain experimentally the factors I have been telling you about. You will notice this…” He pointed toward the heart of the machine, where a tiny violet flame arced continuously between two electrodes.
“That arc is a point of contact between our space-time and another, somewhere among the infinite number of universes that do exist. Semantics breaks down—words become meaningless when we try to describe the existence of these universes. Shall we say that they are on different planes, have varying periods of vibration? Much study will be required to devise an adequate language to express the physical situation.
“However, if I thrust the end of a stylus into the arc like this—” He thrust the instrument into the flame until half its length was swallowed. “…It passes through the hole I have created in space-time and emerges in another universe.”
The forefront of his audience crowded close. The stylus seemed to end abruptly at the point where it touched the outer influence of the tiny arc. Kor withdrew the stylus, held it up, then inserted it again as before.
“Now,” he said, “if I change the adjustment of the machine to switch over to still another of the infinite number of existing universes…” He turned a dial slowly. The machine howled, and Kor held up the stylus, neatly sliced off at the middle. “The other end of this stylus,” he grinned, “was left in the first universe as the influence of the machine was moved to the second.”
He called for order at this point, and the Men reluctantly returned to their seats.
“What is the Trisz?” Kor went on. “It is a single, universal being existing in another universe adjacent to our own—and it completely fills that universe! It consists of what we would consider pure energy. In our Universe, the Trisz would be a solid body-matter, not energy. The Trisz, in its own universe, is infinite in size; it is intelligent, but not infinite in intelligence.
“The Trisz universe is timeless. Only its excursion into this Universe has made the Trisz aware of time, which it sees as an obstacle to continuity. Time, in its function as the catalyst of awareness, is the one factor which permits us to exist here as we do—and prevents the Trisz from entering our universe completely. The vibratory influence of time, acting like the shutter of a motion picture projector, allows the Trisz to project itself into this universe only in infinitesimal spurts instead of all at once and everywhere simultaneously. Imagine the Trisz as like the head of a chicken pecking corn, moving rapidly back and forth. It can penetrate into our Universe only during the positive swing of the time-cycle, and must withdraw on the negative. Because of its high cyclic rate of vibration, keyed to our time rate, the Trisz appears to us as a closed energy form.
“We never dared expose our powers in the neighborhood of the Trisz. But only by doing so could the nature of the Trisz be discovered. When I trapped the Trisz in the field of the time-stasis, its true nature became apparent to me. My mind drained the Trisz mind of its entire store of knowledge.” Kor tapped his forehead significantly. “Everything the Trisz knows, I know too—and a few things besides!”
His listeners sat now with bated breath.
“How many parts of the Trisz are in view at one time? Only one … the same Trisz is everywhere observable simultaneously. The Trisz is a whole—not a multiplicity of individuals. It simply manifests itself as it wills—subject to the limitations set upon it by the time-element of our universe.
“The Trisz had a beginning countless billions of years ago, as we would reckon it. It was the only life-form in its universe. It began as a freak wisp of energy that fed and grew. It was born in the airless reaches of interstellar space, and it fed on the radiation of distant suns. As the Trisz grew, it reached out for the stars, swallowed them and drained them of their energy to feed its own swiftly growing bulk.
“The universe of the Trisz is now cold and dark. The energy of its last sun was long ago drunk by the Trisz. The Trisz became a field of static energy, with nowhere further to grow into. How long its intelligence lay in a quiescent state, we have no means of knowing. Undoubtedly it still felt the desire to expand, to feed insatiably upon energy. Time could not exist for it, because it had destroyed time in its own universe when it destroyed the last particle of material awareness which that universe contained. It would do the same to this Universe, allowed sufficient time to continue growing and to develop refinements in its penetration technique. But the time of the Trisz has run out. The Trisz exists simultaneously not only in space but in time—so it knows its own future. It is aware of its own end, and what that end will be…but it cannot know when it will occur because it has no actual appreciation of time. I know what the Trisz’ end is…and I know when it will occur. That is why I have said that the Trisz has already been destroyed, because its future is absolutely determined—as much as if it had already happened.”
“Tell me,” said Tor Shan. “If the Trisz expansion took place solely in search of energy, why does it bother with the inhabitants of our Universe? Why doesn’t it draw energy directly from the stars?”
“The amount of energy required to open a hole in space,” Kor returned, “is prodigious—almost infinite. The nature of the Trisz, as a diffuse body of energy existing in no-time, will not permit it to concentrate more than a small portion of its available energy upon creating an opening. And the opening is a very small one—one that could not exist in the frightful force fields of a star. Therefore, the Trisz can draw only enough energy to maintain its interspatial opening.”
“From the water stolen from the various planets?” suggested Devon, focusing the stub of his cold cigar into incandescence and puffing furiously.
Kor tapped his thumbnail with the shorn end of the stylus.
“From that—and one other source. We have always considered the Trisz in the light of being a more or less human type of conqueror. On the contrary, the Trisz is alien to everything we know. But we can liken him to the stock farmer with his watchdogs and herds of cattle.
“Evidence of Trisz killing is not new. We did not know how the Trisz killed, but now we do. The Trisz draws life-energy from its victim and converts it to its own vital kind of energy. The Trisz colonies scattered throughout space? They do not exist! Colonists are recruited to furnish the Trisz with a constant supply of needed life-energy from the hapless volunteers! Our entire Universe is nothing but a vast stock farm for the Trisz!”
Tor Shan grimaced. Devon dropped his cigar butt and ground it under foot. He focused on the tip of a fresh cigar and puffed furiously. The assembly of Men rumbled protest.
“Very well,” growled Devon. “If the Trisz is bound to be destroyed, I suppose there is nothing further we need do except sit back and wait until the creature goes poof! and vanishes.”
“You need not worry about what to do, Doctor,” Kor told him seriously. “We shall all be carried along by events as they occur. Our work is cut out for us now, and we can’t avoid it.” He turned to Tor Shan. “Your first move is to call in every Man from the Search Battalions, issue instructions to—”
CHAPTER XXI
The project Kor put into action was titanic. He called upon the entire manpower and technological resources of the Scarlet Saints. In unprecedented fashion, Kor was named Commander-in-Chief of the Brotherhood of Men, in supreme control everywhere. His least word became a command that was carried out to the letter.
In the cavern cities of Rth and the other inhabited planets where the Men maintained operations, every mind and machine was turned to the immediate problem.
“Power!” Kor said. “Energy! That is what we are going to need!”
He let them know the gigantic aspect of his plan, what he desired to do and why. Kor stood before the tri-dimensional space viewer in Tor Shan’s office in Sub-den. His audience consisted of Tor Shan and the highest ranking members of the Men, those who wore the green robes of supreme authority. These were Men whose minds were keenest and most productive of all in the Organization.
Kor adjusted the viewer to his satisfaction. It disclosed a blazing cluster of supernal suns, light years distant in space.
“Here is an open cluster of stars,” Kor pointed out, “about a million parsecs beyond the extreme edge of our galaxy. It contains about five thousand stars, all possessing the same proper motion. As you can see from the nebular remnants connecting the stars, this is a young system, in which no living thing has yet developed.”
The cluster under discussion glowed with the loveliness of precious stones strewn on a field of black velvet. Filmy strands of nebulosity looped from sun to sun, stood in delicate whorls and silken strands, an oasis of glowing lambence in the arid sterility of space.
“We will harness the energy of these suns—all of them,” Kor continued. “I have already explained to you the technique of hurling the Fire out of Heaven—the ancient term being more romantic than descriptive. A similar technique, mechanically applied, will combine the energy of the suns in this cluster, will give us the power we need to penetrate into the universe of the Trisz.”
Even as Kor talked, the legions of Men labored at the task. Dark stars in the cluster…great masses of matter huger than planets, rivaling the stars in size, but cold, solidified, served as power bases for the titanic undertaking. From a hundred planets of the galaxy, a stream of material was being transmitted instantaneously through sub-space to permanent locations on those utterly airless and lightless worlds. Fantastic towers, bolstered and braced against the prodigious force of gravitation they had to combat, climbed into blazing-starred skies, stood as skeletal silhouettes against the drooping folds of nebulosity that glowingly spanned the firmament.
No such task could have been performed in secret. The Scarlet Saints threw off their mask of secrecy. Their hidden cities everywhere erected titanic force fields for protection against attacks by the Trisz that might mature at any hour. On Rth, the Saints were recalled from the Chapels. The situation was explained to the Blue Brotherhood, and as many as possible were transported bodily to the subterranean cities of the Men. The transition was performed smoothly.
But as quickly as the Men acted, the Trisz awoke to the realization of danger. Flying squads moved in on the Chapels, and though the scarlet-clad Men escaped, many of the Blue Brotherhood were taken by the avenging Thugs or dispatched on the spot by one of the multifarious Trisz manifestations.
Tor Shan told Kor about the fate of Blue Brother Set. The portly priest with saintly smile had not been one of those to escape the thrust of the Trisz.
* * * *
On a thousand worlds, within the galaxy closest to the field of the Men’s operation, a Trisz combat fleet was shaping. The terrific disturbance set up by the activities of the Men in the sub-ether gave the Trisz direction. Nothing the Men did could be secret now; and the myriad Triszmen throughout the Universe labored to build a fleet that would destroy the installations the Men were building in the open cluster.
A patrol of Men numbering thousands covered the vast reach of extra-galactic space in and around the star cluster. Their minds were interlocked, spread in a vast screen encompassing trillions of cubic miles of space, to prevent the materialization of the Trisz interspatial penetration within the cluster.
But no such defense could avail against the mental power of the Trisz wielded over its slaves. They labored till they dropped, forging new weapons to arm the fleet that must destroy this threat against Trisz domination of the Universe.
Kor worked feverishly on a giant world a hundred times the diameter of Rth. The great mass of its bulk set up strains in space itself, caused a thousand delays, presented a ceaseless stream of special problems, in readying the equipment. And just before the power-network was finished, the Trisz struck.
Important as Kor’s place was on the job, he and he alone could face the Trisz fleet and gain for the racing Men the time they needed to complete the power circuit. Kor left the job in the hands of capable assistants and fled into space.
Space swarmed invisibly with the Men of the outpost patrols. Kor felt their presence everywhere as his mind lashed out in the vacuity of cold. His senses received a thousand reports at once that enabled him to beam his perceptions directly toward the oncoming fleet.
The enemy was as uncountable as the stars in the Milky Way. Grains of sand in the remote depths of space, they hung like a cloud swept on the wings of an incredible wind.
Kor’s mind was filled with the high whistles of the Trisz note as he palped the plunging ships. He sensed the crews of human, humanoid, and bizarre life forms pressed into service by the Trisz. He felt the presence of new and unheard of weapons, read their significance and potentialities from the minds of the officers commanding the fleet. In every vessel, the Trisz was present, a curious multiplicity of its single self, commanding, directing operations, laying the plans for the assault upon the gigantic power-worlds of the Men.
Kor linked his mind with the thousands who patrolled. He remembered with amusement his first experiments with hurling the Fire. To have linked his mind then with another would have been dangerous. It was different now, thanks to his new understanding of the infinite orders of rationalization. The other minds gave him added power, like dry-cells connected in series to form a battery. He had perfected the technique for this precise eventuality, knowing that, in the order of events as he had pre-determined them this conflict with the Trisz fleet was unavoidable, hence pre-determined as well.
Kor felt a curious, floating aloneness as he cast out the time-stasis field and his conscious self hovered free of the reaction he set in motion.
Three light years away, a sun of the great cluster erupted violently. Flames whorled on its surface, shot upward with dizzying speed and vanished into the darksome funnel of sub-space Kor created there. It would take three years for the blazing incandescence of that nova-like explosion to reach Kor’s position, but he knew that it happened, and he knew when it winked suddenly out, though its ghost-image continued to blaze, and would continue so as its last departing radiation trailed for three long years through space at the snail’s pace of light.
Like a broad fan of luminescence, clawed and fanged with the unleashed energy of a giant sun, the nova appeared in space ahead of Kor, between him and the light-years distant fleet. It spread slowly, seemingly gelid in th
e frigid non-temperature of space.
Another sun erupted violently in the cluster, was sucked into the sub-space funnel, and appeared lashing in the neighborhood of its brother sun, fanning out into the depths of space at the rate of millions of miles a second. That automaton of Kor’s divisible mind worked automatically, hurling sun after sun toward the approaching fleet, until all of space was a seething cloud of berserk energy, a magnetic storm beyond description, through which no material thing could pass. Fleet as the ships of the Trisz were, it would take them six months to draw to a slow halt, alter their course, and by-pass the deadly barrier.
Of course, neither the Men nor the Triszmen could see the novas lashing together in space. It would take years for the light of the energy cloud to reach either side. The Men could sense it with their naked minds—and the Triszmen possessed instruments that would detect the blazing mass in plenty of time.
Kor returned to his interrupted labors on the planet.
“That will hold them long enough,” he communicated to Tor Shan. “I didn’t have the heart to manifest those suns within the fleet. Those poor slaves are not to blame. As soon as our work here is finished, the Trisz will vanish from every one of those ships and the crews will be free of its influence. They will be glad enough to return to their home bases.”
The work went on under the cold light of the stars. Kor himself brought the last wire into position, welded it in place.
Tor Shan held Kor’s hand, looked worriedly into his eyes.
“We have done everything possible? You are certain now?”
Kor nodded.
“Yes. It is time now for the Men to withdraw to the galaxy. The drain of energy will destroy space itself throughout this sector. I want none other here than myself.”
The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister Page 45
