The Crucible of Time

by John Brunner

  Certainly she missed no opportunity of boasting about her city and its skills. For example, to someone making the obvious inquiry about Karg's physical health, she would describe how frost had ruptured many of his tubules and he might lose his right pad, and then continue: "Luckily, as you know, we now have a loss-free sparkforce lead all the way to Drupit, so when one of our ultramodern snowrithers brought him there, a local physician was able to apply penetrative heating to the affected tissues. Now we're attempting to regenerate his damaged nerve-pith, too."

  Whereupon someone would invariably ask, "Has he regained full normal consciousness?"

  "No, I'm afraid he's still dreamlost, though there are signs of lucidity. When he does recover, by the way, the first thing we shall want to know is whether he still feels the way he used to about the respective merits of what they do at Slah with their resources, and what we do with ours this side of the ocean. I think his views may well have changed since his unreliable toy fell out of the sky!"

  Cue for sycophantic laughter...

  As Quelf's nominee for Jingfired status, Albumarak was bound to dance permanent attendance on her, but the duty was becoming less and less bearable. Today, listening to the latest repetition of her stale gibes, feeling the change in air-pressure which harbingered bad weather, she wished the storm would break at once and put an end to the interview.

  If only Presthin had not gone home ... The goadster had been persuaded to accompany her and Karg to Fregwil, and spent a couple of grumpy days being introduced to city officials and other notables. Suddenly, however, she announced she'd had her mawful of this, and returned to her usual work with the snowrither, surveying the trade-routes which kept the highland towns supplied in winter and making sure that they were passable.

  In the pleasant warmth of Fregwil, Albumarak found it almost impossible to recapture in memory the bitter chill of the valley where Karg had crashed. How could anybody want to be there, rather than here? There was, she realized glumly, an awful lot she didn't yet understand about people. Worst of all, she had not yet had a chance to fulfill the purpose which had induced her to join Presthin's rescue mission. All the time she had been in company with Karg, he had been unconscious or dreamlost, and since he had been brought here she had not been allowed to see him. Nobody was, apart from Quelf, a few of her associates, and the regular medical staff.

  Wind rustled the nearby trees; the air-pressure shifted again, very rapidly, and people on the fringe of the crowd began to move away in search of shelter. With a few hollow-sounding apologies Quelf brought her public appearance to an end just as the first heavy drops pounded down.

  "Do you need me any more right now?" Albumarak ventured.

  "Hm? Oh—no, not until first bright tomorrow. Come to think of it, you could do with some time off. You don't seem to have recovered properly from the strain of bringing Karg back. Actually meeting someone who's prepared to abandon the rest of us to our fate is a considerable shock, isn't it?"

  Albumarak recognized another of Quelf's stock insults, which the curtailment of today's interview had prevented her from using. But she judged it safest to say nothing.

  "Yes, get along with you! Go have some fun with young'uns of your own age. Enjoy your dark!"

  And the famous neurophysicist was gone, trailing a retinue of colleagues and admirers.

  Dully Albumarak turned downslope, making for a branchway that would take her into the lower city, but with no special destination in mind. She had few friends. Some of her fellow students cultivated her acquaintance, but she knew it was because of her association with Quelf, not for her own sake, so she avoided them as much as possible. Now and then, and particularly since her return from the highlands, she found herself wishing for the old days when she could afford to do outrageous things in order to annoy her family. But she had not yet decided to risk trying that again, for Quelf would never be so tolerant ... How strange to think of her parents as tolerant, when a year ago she would have sworn they were cruel and repressive!

  She was aware of a sort of revolution going on within her. Attitudes she had taken for granted since budlinghood were changing without her willing it. It was like having to endure a private earthquake. She had been dazzled by the idea that one day she too could be Jingfired; she was growing into the habit of behaving herself appropriately. But now she was constantly wondering: do I really want it after all?

  "Excuse me!"

  A voice addressed her in an unfamiliar accent. She turned to see a she'un not much older than herself.

  "Yes?"—more curtly than she intended.

  "Aren't you Albumarak, who helped to rescue Karg?"

  It was pointless to deny the fact. Any number of strangers recognized her nowadays.

  "My name is Omber. I'm from the space-site at Slah."

  Albumarak's interest quickened. She knew that a delegation of scientists had arrived a few days ago, to take their pilot home and negotiate for recovery of his cylinder. But this was the first time she had met one of them.

  "Ah! I suppose you've been to visit Karg, then."

  "They won't let us!" was the astonishing response.

  "What?"

  "Literally! Not even Yull—she's my chief, second-in-command of the entire project and the senior member of our group—not even she has been allowed to see him yet. Do you have any idea why?"

  "This is the first I've heard about it!" Albumarak declared.

  "Really?" Omber was taken aback. "Oh ... Oh, well, then I won't trouble you any further. But I did rather assume—"

  With rising excitement Albumarak interrupted. "No, I assure you! I'm horrified! What possible reason can they have to stop Karg's friends from visiting him, even if he isn't well enough to talk yet?"

  "I'm not exactly a friend of his," Omber said. "I only met him once or twice during his training. If it were just a matter of myself, I wouldn't be surprised. But Yull...! How is he, really? I suppose you've seen him recently?"

  "They won't let me see him either," Albumarak answered grimly. "They didn't let Presthin, come to that."

  "Presthin—? Oh, yes: the goadster! You mean not even she...? This is ridiculous! Excuse me; one doesn't mean to be impolite to one's host city, but it is, isn't it?"

  "It's incredible!"

  "You don't suppose ... No, I oughtn't even to say it."

  "Go ahead," Albumarak urged.

  Omber filled her mantle. "You don't suppose he's being submitted to some sort of experimental treatment, and it's going wrong? We can't find out! Not many people here care to talk to us, and the people from our permanent trade mission say it's always the same for them, too."

  "You make me ashamed for my own city!"

  "That's very kind and very reassuring." Abruptly Omber sagged, revealing that she was dreadfully tired. "Excuse me, but I haven't had a proper rest since we boarded the floater. Yull sent me up here to have one more go at persuading the staff to admit us, while she went to see some official or other about recovering the cylinder. Not that there's much hope of our getting it back before the spring, apparently. They're making excuses about the danger from its unexpended fuel, and nobody understands that the colder it is, the safer. I mean, I work with it every day of my life, back home, and we haven't had any accidents with it, not ever, not even once. By the spring, though, venting it could really be hazardous. Still, with a bit of luck Yull will manage to make them listen."

  There was a pause. Except for the hardiest, most of the crowd surrounding the healing-house had dispersed or sought shelter. Abruptly Albumarak realized that she had kept Omber standing in the pouring rain, and hastily urged her to the nearest bower.

  "Do you think your colleagues will believe that even I haven't been allowed to see Karg?" she demanded.

  Omber gave a curl of faint amusement. "I believe you entirely. And nothing in this weird city is likely to surprise me after that. Yes, I think they will."

  "But just in case they don't..." Albumarak's mind was racing. "Would you like me
to tell them personally?"

  "Why—why, that's too much to ask! But it would be wonderful! That is, if you can spare the time?"

  "I have nothing much to do," Albumarak muttered, thinking how accurate that was not only of the present moment but of her entire life. Quelf's idea of encouraging her students' research was to let them watch what she herself was doing and then take over the repetitive drudgery involved ... and blame them for anything that afterwards went wrong. "Where is your delegation lodged?"

  "In a spare house near our trade mission, which they had to wake up specially for us. It's a bit primitive, since it hasn't been occupied for several moonlongs, but if you're sure you wouldn't mind...?"

  "It will be a pleasure," Albumarak declared. "Let's go!"

  V

  Nobody paid attention to the creature which Yull, Omber and Albumarak turned loose as they entered the healing-house at first bright next day. It looked like a commonplace scrapsaq—on the large side, perhaps, but one expected that in a public institution. Its kind were conditioned to go about disposing of spent luminants, spuder-webs full of dead wingets and the like, attracted to one or several kinds of rubbish by their respective odors. Having gathered as much as they could cope with, they then carried their loads to the rotting pits, and were rewarded with food before setting off again.

  This one, however, was a trifle out of the ordinary.

  Having seen it safely on its way, Albumarak turned to her companions.

  "Follow me!" she urged. "Quelf is always in the neurophysics lab at this time of the morning."

  With Yull exuding the pheromones appropriate to a high official, and Omber playing the role of her nominee as Albumarak had taught her, they arrived at the laboratory unchallenged, along a high branchway either side of which the boughs were festooned with labeled experimental circuitry. Pithed ichormals lay sluggish with up to a score of tendrils grafted on their fat bodies; paired piqs and doqs stirred uneasily as each tried to accept signals from the other; long strands of isolated nerve-pith, some healthy and glistening, some dry and peeling, were attached to plants in an attempt to find better repeaters for nervograp links, for despite Quelf's optimism it would be long before loss-free communication circuits became universal.

  "I don't like this place," Omber muttered.

  "That's because you're more used to working with raw chemicals than living things," Yull returned, equally softly. "But we exploit them too, remember."

  "Yes. Yes, of course. I'm sorry."

  Nonetheless she kept glancing unhappily from side to side.

  One of Albumarak's fellow students, engaged in the usual drudgery of recording data from the various experiments, caught sight of her and called out "Hey! You're late! Quelf is fuming like a volcano!"

  "I'm on my way to make her erupt," was the composed reply.

  And Albumarak led her companions into the laboratory itself, where the neurophysicist was holding forth to a group of distinguished visitors, probably foreign merchants anxious to acquire and exploit some of Fregwil's newest inventions. That was an unexpected bonus!

  Albumarak padded boldly towards her, not lowering as she normally would in her professor's presence. Abruptly registering this departure from ordinary practice, Quelf broke off with an apology to her guests and glared at her.

  "Where've you been? When I wished you a good dark I—"

  "I want to see Karg," Albumarak interrupted.

  "What? You know perfectly well that's out of the question! Have you spent your dark taking drugs?"

  "Not only I," said Albumarak as though she had not spoken, "but my companions. Allow me to present Scholar Yull, head of the Slah delegation, and her assistant Omber."

  "Who are both," murmured Yull in a quiet tone, "extremely anxious to see our old friend."

  She was a tall and commanding person in her late middle years. Albumarak clenched her claws, trying to conceal her glee. The moment she had set eye on Yull, last evening, she had suspected that she could dominate Quelf—and here was proof. She had an air of calm authority that made the other's arrogance look like mere bluster.

  Taken totally aback, and hideously embarrassed that it should have happened in the presence of strangers, rather than only her students whom she could always overawe, Quelf reinforced her previous statement.

  "Out of the question! He's still far too ill! Now show these people out and resume your duties!"

  "If Karg is still so ill after being so long in your care," Yull said silkily, "that indicates there must be something wrong with your medical techniques."

  "They are the best in the world! He was half-frozen! It was a miracle he didn't lose both pads instead of one!"

  "I see. How is regrowth progressing?"

  "What?"

  "I said how is regrowth progressing?"—in the same soft tone but taking a step towards Quelf. "In such a case we would grow him a replacement, which would lack sensation but restore normal motor function. Has this not been done?"

  "We—uh, that is, it's not customary..."

  "Well, it's not important; it will be better for him to have the job done at home anyway, since your methods appear to be suspect." Yull was ostensibly unaware of the grievous insult she was offering, but Quelf's exudations ascended rapidly towards the anger-stink level. She went on, "At least, however, we must insist on verifying that he is not at risk from secondary infection."

  "He's in our finest bower, guarded by a score of winget-killers, with filter-webs at every opening!"

  "In that case, judging by his medical record, he should have recovered from a slight attack of frostbite long ago. Did the crash cause worse injuries than you've admitted?"

  Albumarak was trying not to dance up and down with joy.

  But Quelf gathered her forces for an equally crushing rebuttal.

  "What you regard as good health may perhaps not correspond with what we of Prutaj take for granted," she said, having recovered most of her poise. "Indeed, perhaps we have made a mistake in trying to bring him up to that level. But you must not prevent it happening, if it can be done."

  Yull turned her eye slowly on all those present, while drawing herself up to full height. She overtopped Quelf by eye and mandibles; moreover her mantle was sleek and beautifully patterned for her age. Only the youngest students' could match it. The distinguished visitors, and Quelf too, betrayed the puffiness due to overindulgence, and here and there a fat-sac peeked out under a mantle's edge, yellowish and sickly.

  "I like your boss!" Albumarak whispered to Omber.

  "She's a terror when you cross her," came the answer. "But this kind of thing she's very good at."

  There was no need for Yull to spell out the implication of her scornful survey; many of the visitors fidgeted and tried to pull themselves into better shape. Only Quelf attempted to counter it.

  "Well, if you prefer to go about half-starved, forever on the verge of becoming dreamlost, that's your lookout!"

  "You're implying that I'm in that condition now?" Yull's manner suddenly turned dangerous.

  "You? I wouldn't know about you for certain, but it seems pretty obvious that only people who were good and dreamlost would think of trying to send someone out into space!"

  Yull turned away. "There seems little point in pursuing this conversation," she said to Omber. "Show them what you're carrying and let's find out the truth."

  "Ah! The truth is that your costly toy fell out of the sky!" Quelf declared in triumph, using a phrase she had grown fond of. "You can't deny that, so you refuse to—"

  But nobody was paying attention to her. All eyes were on Omber, who had produced from a bag she was carrying something which all present recognized by its unique odor: a farspeaker, smaller, yet patently more powerful, than they had ever seen before.

  "This," said Yull didactically, "is one of the miniature farspeakers we developed to communicate with our spaceship when in orbit. We brought a few of them with us so as to keep in touch with the authorities at Slah."

  S
he pinched the creature with a gentle claw. Its colors altered slightly and it gave off an aroma of contentment.

  "Albumarak programmed a scrapsaq carrying another of these to seek out Karg. By now it should have reached the place where you're imprisoning him. When I—"

  "Imprisoning? You have no right to say that!" Quelf shrieked.

  "Let's find out whether I do or not," said Yull imperturbably, and activated the farspeaker to maximum volume. At once a voice rang out, impersonal, repetitive: the sound of a recordimal.

  "—is better than life at Slah. Having seen for myself, I honestly think life at Fregwil is better than life at Slah. Having seen for myself, I honestly think—"

  "They're trying to condition him!" Albumarak burst out.

  Silencing the farspeaker, Yull nodded gravely. "I can come to no other conclusion. Having had this gift from the sky drop into their claws, seeing the chance of a propaganda victory over us whom they regard as their rivals, Quelf and her colleagues set out to force poor Karg into such a state of permanent dreamness that when they eventually decided to let him appear in public again he would renounce his former allegiance. Luckily, as is evidenced by the fact that after so long they are still having to force one simple sentence into his memory, this is so transparent an untruth that even in his weakened state he continues to reject their dishonest overtures."

  "Untruth?" bellowed Quelf. "What's untrue is what you are saying!"

  "Really?" Yull turned an icy gaze on her. "How, then, about the statement 'having seen for myself? What of Fregwil have you permitted Karg to see? The inside of a healing-house bower, correct?"

  "That's exactly what I was thinking!" One of the visitors thrust forward. "I'm Yaxon, merchant from Heybrol! I came here to buy nervograp specifications—never mind that—and I know a conditioning program when I hear one! But I thought they'd been made illegal!"

  She was echoed by an angry mumble from the others.

  "In civilized cities," Yull murmured, "yes, they have!"

  Having closed on Quelf, the company now drew back, as though from something emitting a noxious stench. The professor uttered a faint whimper, looking about her for support. None was forthcoming; even her students regarded her with sudden loathing.