Man of Two Worlds Read online

  Man of

  Two Worlds

  (Original Title, RENAISSANCE)

  A Science Fiction Novel by

  Raymond F. Jones

  PYRAMID BOOKS • NEW YORK

  First Published in Astounding Science Fiction in July, August, September and October 1944

  MAN OF TWO WORLDS

  (Original title: RENAISSANCE)

  A PYRAMID BOOK

  arrangement with Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Ino. Printing History

  Published by

  Copyright 1944 cations, Inc.

  Gnome Press edition published 1951 Pyramid edition published November 1963 Copyright 1951 by Raymond F. Jones in U.S.A. and Great Britain by Street and Smith Publi-

  All Rights Reserved

  Pyramid Books are published by Pyramid Publications, Inc,, 444 Madison Avenue, New York 22, New York, U.S.A.

  "Run For Your Lives! The Beam Is Coming This Way!”

  Elta stood dazed as she watched the slow melting away of the mighty terraces before her. The beam cut through the metal wall of the Selector in a long white gash. Hundreds of glass and metal tubes collapsed. Some exploded in a rumble of thunder that further shattered the circuits as their gases were released and turned into isotopes.

  They Were Upon Her...

  a score of cruel Statists who seized her arms in a crippling grip and tore the weapon from her hands. They hurried her out the side of the building and into the electronic chamber.

  "Leave Us Alone!"

  spoke an unseen voice. Elta chilled at the sound. She knew that she had been taken to the sanctum of the Director, that in the huge tube before her was the crippled ageless thing, half-man, half-machine that should have been destroyed ages ago.

  And Now She Was In Its Power!

  I

  The first globe had set, and the lengthening shadows cast by the second sun were darkening the great hall of the Karildex.

  The mighty machine seemed crouched down in the half darkness, like some mammoth creature settling for the night. The purple sheen of its thousand metallic facets reflected the glowing fire-bursts that lit the sky from Fire Land,

  Only one position of the machine was occupied. It was being used by an inconspicuous, middle-aged man who punched one key after another in laborious indecision.

  Twice, Ketan had offered to help him, and each time had been shrugged away. Would the fool never leave?

  Ketan glanced at the other end of the hall where a single immobile figure was outlined against the twilight streaming through the broad, colored window.

  Branen had been patient, but Ketan was anxious to carry out the purpose of their meeting. He sat down at his technician’s position and turned to the filing of some of the day’s new matrices.

  These were the square perforated transparencies by which the master integration of the Karildex was formed. Each citizen of Kronweld, if he so chose, had the right to keep on file a matrix which integrated his characteristics, desires, wants, wishes, and passions with the thousands of others in the city.

  The complete integration of the factors on the thousands of matrices formed an integrated will—the will, the law of Ivronweld. The result could be read on the indicators and charts as if the entire city were a single individual.

  The Karildex was thus the law and the government, requiring only administration. Any citizen desiring to know the concurrency of a contemplated act simply prepared a prospective integration on the keyboard and took an indication of congruency with the standard will of Kronweld. Lawbreaking was obviated before it could be initiated.

  This was what the lone inquirer of the Karildex was doing as Ketan chafed at his technician’s position, irritably filing the revised matrices which had been submitted that day.

  After three mistakes he gave up. He stood watching at the side of the towering machine, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He ran his lean, strong fingers through his black locks and thought of Elta whom he must meet within a short time—and of Daran. His lean jaw set hard as he thought of the coming encounter with the great Teacher.

  Abruptly, the position light at the distant keyboard snapped out. The intruding presence of the trifling inquirer disappeared slowly through the broad doors of the building. Only the glow of dim night lamps far up against the ceiling and low green lamps outlining the Karildex remained to illumine the hall. The suns had set, leaving the purple, weaving glow from Fire Land to dominate the sky.

  Ketan whipped into action. The figure at the other end of the hall approached. Ketan hurried to meet him.

  “What did you find out, Branen ?” he asked quickly.

  “Nothing. I set keys all day until the tips of my fingers are worn down. Anything involving the question of the Temple of Birth has an index of above a hundred. Absolutely forbidden. The index is rising constantly. I’ll bet those new matrices you filed today put it up another tenth of a point. It’s hopeless to try to oppose it.”

  “I know the index,” Ketan snapped impatiently. “But it’s not hopeless. We’re going to carry it through. Come here, and let me show you why I asked you to come.”

  He led the way quickly past the machine into a half hidden alcove. There lay the master control board to which only members of the First Group had access. Its multiple tiers of keys in semicircular banks rose to the limit of a long arm reach. At the top of the banked keys the indicator faces arced over in a ceiling formation that made a shell like inclosure of the intricate keyboard. Only after long tara of experience did a man become proficient in its use.

  Branen uttered a gasp as Ketan led him forward. “You’ve broken the seal on the master control board!”

  “Never mind. Come here and look,” Ketan urged. He sat before the ten thousand keys of the position and began manipulating an intricate formation.

  “I did all that this afternoon,” Branen observed impatiently. “The index—”

  “The index is a hundred and ninety. That indicates that investigation into the origin of human life is absolutely forbidden. Now let’s try this one.”

  Ketan reset the keys. “There’s merely the question of life itself. The index is the same. That shows that the integration of life makes no distinction between life and human life. The factor is identical. Now watch when we change the factor to plants and animals.” Breathlessly, Branen watched.

  This was a line of reasoning that he had not followed. He waited for the index to appear on the indicator.

  “Ninety,” he breathed, “why, that—”

  “Remember, now7, we still have the factor of the Temple of Birth present in the master integration. Now, suppose we remove it.”

  “You can’t. That’s an impossibility.”

  “What do you think this master control board is for? Why do you suppose the First Group keeps it sealed ?”

  “But you will destroy the integration. The factor strengths are on record. When it is discovered that they have been changed—”

  “They’ll not change. I am setting up a separate memory circuit which holds all factors controlled by the concept of the ‘Temple of Birth in abeyance. Read your index !”

  One by one, Branen read them off as Ketan set up the factors minus the concept of the Temple of Birth. “Twenty-five, sixteen, nine!” he exclaimed. “We could investigate.”

  “If this integration represented the actual status of things,” Ketan said. He reset the disturbed factors and returned the keyboard to normal. He replaced its intricate seal so that his intrusion wrould never be known. Then he led Branen away, back to the main hall.

  “I asked you here tonight,” Ketan said slowly, “to show you this, and to instruct you to take my place with the Unregistereds—if anything happens to me.”

  “Why should anythin
g happen to you ? You aren’t—?” Branen began.

  “I think the time has come to test our strength. Unless we make some positive forward move quickly the Unregistereds will die out and our purpose be lost.”

  “But you are the only one that is impatient,” Branen protested. “The other members of the Unregistereds are content to wait until the situation becomes more promising.”

  “Becomes more promising! It will never become more promising until we make it so!” Ketan’s fist smashed down against a position panel on the Karildex. His eyes shifted their focus and stared off into the far distance where darkness hid the other end of the machine.

  “Imagine it,” he murmured, “superstition, false knowledge, mental degeneracy—becoming so great that nine tenths of the problems we would investigate now are forbidden to us because the people of Kr on we Id believe they are reserved for the God. Those of us who refuse to register our Seeking with the Seekers Council must work in darkness in secret shops and hide as if we were declassed.

  ““We would be—if we were discovered.”

  Ketan whirled upon his companion impatiently. “Branen, this is what I am trying to say: The time has come for the Unregistereds to come out of their holes, their hidden laboratories, and assert their rights to Seek into any Mystery whose existence is obvious—the Mystery of the Temple of Birth, the Mystery of the great Edge, the Mystery of Fire Land. These things should not be closed to us. We should not have to go and make application to a bunch of whiskery old men and desiccated old women in order to Seek into a Mystery. The only right they have to restrict our Seeking is based upon false integrations of the Karildex.

  “That means the time has come to eradicate those false integrations. The time has come to bare to ail Kronweld the work that we have been doing.”

  “We wouldn’t dare!” Branen gasped.

  “No—we wouldn’t dare,” Ketan said bitterly. “We wouldn’t—meaning most of the Unregistereds. But I would. I’m going to take the chance. I’m going to tell the Seekers Council—at a public hearing— that I’ve found the secret of the creation of life.”

  “They’ll declass you!”

  “Let them—if they dare, after what I have to show them.” Branen gazed in silent admiration upon the tall, rangey form of his leader. He gazed into the snapping eyes and the long, lean jaw that clenched firm, admitting of no uncertitude, once a course of action had been set.

  He shook his head sadly. “I could never take your place. You are so sure. You seem to know without a doubt where you’re going. You say that five hundred tara of tradition in Kronweld can be overthrown in a day and state it as easily as if you were going to order a meal from a panel. I must be honest with you. Not one of the Unregistereds believes you can succeed in your defiance of the ways of Kronweld—though you almost convince me.”

  “And that is why you are the only one to whom I can offer my place in case something happens to me. There is danger enough. I am not minimizing it. I know it’s tampering with the most explosive force in Kronweld to attack the Temple of Birth. But it must be destroyed. Every shred of its influence must be wiped out of our lives. Unless it’s done our civilization is doomed. I’m going to make a start. If I fail, you will carry on the work of the Unregistereds— until the situation becomes more promising. You agree?”

  “I’ll do it,” Branen whispered solemnly. “I’ll do it.” Then, “What is your plan?” he asked.

  “Teacher Daran has asked me to come to see him tonight. I’ll provoke him into ordering a reprimand for me. That will provide an opportunity for a full public hearing which I shall demand.”

  “It won’t be hard to provoke Teacher Daran. He’s been on the verge of ordering your reprimand almost from the first time he saw you.”

  “I know. If I fail, you will find all my notes and materials in my hidden laboratory beneath the house. You know where they are. Take them and use them. Carry the work on from there. That is all.”

  A momentary uncertainty crossed Branen’s face, and then he turned and was gone.

  II.

  Ketan moved towards the lights and door controls. He walked in weariness after the tension of coming to a decision was over. He felt as if he were flowing on the breast of a river of destiny. Nothing could turn him aside, now.

  He was glad the day was over. He never knew how long a day might be, because the machine was at the service of the people of Kronweld as long as there were any who still desired to use it. As senior technician, it was Ketan’s duty to remain until the last inquirer had been satisfied.

  But there would be no more tonight. He flicked off the light and hurried along towards the dimly luminous panel of the door. The great machine with its store of the mind and feelings of Kronweld lay silent and asleep like a great living beast.

  Ketan knew he was already late for his appointment with Elta. She would be angry and her eyes, like the tips of hot, blue flames would be scathing—for a short time. It was hard for either of them to hold the peak of anger long between them before they found themselves laughing at their baseless arguments.

  As he stepped out, the cool night wind brushed his face in relaxing freshness. His heartbeat increased and the day’s weariness began to pass with the thought of Elta.

  It was then that he saw the old woman.

  She was alone, hobbling along the walk that led from the distant street to the steps of the hall of the Karildex. As she shuffled forward, Ketan stood entranced by the wave of near hypnotic attention the withered figure demanded.

  She was like the dried leaves that scurried across the lawn in front of the building. Her hair was awry and swaying like living tentacles in the night. And the black shawl, that was characteristic of the old when their bodies became too ill-formed for the revealing harness of ordinary wear, was like a shroud about her.

  She croaked a single word at him and pointed a gnarled finger. “Wait!”

  It was no request. It was a command.

  “The building has just been closed for the night. It is too late to make any inquiry tonight.” Ketan’s vocie carried little conviction.

  “Don’t tell me any of that! I know the regulations governing the use of the Karildex. Admit me.”

  She was within her rights. Ketan swore softly and pressed the combination release that swung open the great, wide doors again. “There would be much more time tomorrow,” he suggested.

  “Not for me … not for me.” the old woman whispered. “Here, help me up these steps.”

  He took her hand and it was like lifting the hollow branch of a rotted tree. It was so light. He knew there was prophecy in her words. There was not much time for her— not much time at all. It drew out a quality of pity in him, for the tragedy of age and death were the supreme of all tragedies to Ketan.

  “What is it you would inquire?” he asked, anxious to atone somewhat for his initial brusqueness, and to be free as soon as possible. “Perhaps I could help you at the keyboard.”

  “None of your business,” she snapped. “It’s my own affair.”

  Her reply turned his sympathy cold and he left her inside the door and returned disgruntled to his technician’s position. He did not even turn on his position light, but sat in the darkness, watching the distant gleam that hung over the thin, withered shoulders of the old woman who hunched over the keyboard.

  He wondered what she wanted. Why had she come alone in the night, hobbling to the reservoir of desires and will of all Kronweld? What possible difference could it make to her or to Kronweld what choice the shriveled creature made in any question that was before her?

  Ketan’s attention was dragged almost against his will to concentrate on her. For a moment, he couldn’t tell what drew him. Then he realized: It was the swift click of flashing keys. Ordinarily, the average inquirer punched slowly, one at a time, squinting up at the graphs and dials each time to laboriously interpret the results offered him.

  But the old woman was playing upon the keyboard with the touch and spe
ed of a master technician. Only one man had Ketan ever seen who could perform like that at the keyboards. He wondered if she were just madly punching keys or if she were really pursuing a logical inquiry.

  At that instant her dry, cracked voice echoed through the dead and silent hall.

  “Ketan!”

  He started.

  Then, more softly, it came again, almost caressingly. “Ketan.”

  It sent a chill along the back of his neck—the strange tone of her voice. How had she known his name? Had she deliberately sought it from the Karildex?

  She moved away from the position and came towards him in the darkness. He had a feeling that she could see him.

  He turned on the light at his position. “Have you finished?”

  “I have only begun,” she said waveringly. “I must have the master control board.”

  “The ma—! That’s impossible. Only the First Group and the Council of Seekers have entry to the master keyboard. That is not for general use.”

  “You have used it tonight,” she said. “You altered the setting of the master integration with respect to the Temple of Birth and the Edge. You thought you returned it to the original factors. Perhaps no one else would ever have detected it, but I have detected it. You would not like the master technician to know that, would you ?”

  Beads of perspiration stood out upon Ketan’s forehead. Who was this insidious old woman? His sympathy for her began to turn to fear and hate. He could not afford any involvement over his use of the Karildex now that his decision with regard to his presentation before the Seekers Council had been made.

  “What do you want?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Who are you?” “You have thought to save Kronweld from herself, the slow dying senility she is passing through—like me. That is good. But the enemy you see is pitiful—a trifling matter —compared with the actual enemy that besets Kronweld, of which you know nothing. Give me that keyboard!”