Man of Two Worlds Read online

  “It’s beautiful,” exclaimed Elta, “but how—”

  Dorien explained the pinnacle and its illusions and realities as Ketan had heard them. An unreasonable, haunting sadness brought tears to Elta’s eyes with the thought that this lovely girl had lived and died more than a thousand years ago.

  After Elta had dressed, they all had breakfast in the same dining room where Ketan and William Douglas had eaten. The images of the two ancient ones went through the motions of eating and entertained them with fascinating stories of their own age.

  Javins was amazed and overjoyed at the experience of being privileged to view the wonders of the pinnacle. Regarding the Gateway he said to Elta, “It’s simpler than we thought. With the abundance of equipment here we can build around the gauge in five or six days a unit large enough for our needs. All the other circuits that were built into the Selector had to do with the examination of the infants. The Gate itself is simple. It requires tremendous power, but that’s already available here.”

  Elta made no answer. Since arising the sensation had been growing in her mind that she was in the grip of a strange, unreal power. A power that went beyond the bounds of all understanding and ; was slowly molding her thoughts and beliefs to its own pattern.

  She couldn’t resist it, it was so gradual and persuasive. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to resist it. The thing she wanted to do was explore and delve into every secret of the vast pinnacle. This was the same power that had infolded Ketan and established his unyielding position. She wanted to know it, to experience those same forces that had molded him, and try to understand what had been in his mind.

  She felt somehow that her own standards were slowly shattering. Yet her one pivotal question remained unanswered—and apparently unanswerable.

  The Kronweldians were not fit to govern. There would be conflict and death and terror when the two civilizations met and—she could envision no other possibility—the Statists would exterminate the benevolent invaders.

  She followed her father and William Douglas and the image of Richard Simons to the laboratory where they were rebuilding the mechanism that would once again open the Gateway. Javins looked at her questioningly, but she said nothing. The change was in her eyes and he saw it.

  With Dorien she went through the pinnacle. She saw the great underground power chambers hundreds of feet below the surface of the desert where Ketan had not visited. She saw a score of fantastic landscapes of gardens and forests and mountains, and lakes. These had been built by the ancient scientists for their own enjoyment in anticipation of having to live much of their lives in the pinnacle, but most of them had been busy to the last with their work of gathering the remnants of Earth’s science, That afternoon they came to the laboratory where the replicas of Earth’s scientists worked over their ageless dreams. As Elta came out upon the little balcony that overlooked the room, she gave a little involuntary start of stage fright at what appeared for an instant to be a vast audience watching her.

  Dorien touched her arm. -“They are the same as we.”

  The impact of the sight before her penetrated more deeply into her consciousness than it had into Ke-tan’s, for she caught the meaning of it instantly.

  “Let’s go down,” she said breathlessly.

  They walked among the busy images and Elta talked with them. Talked with Archimedes and Aristotle, Mendel and Descartes, Newton and Einstein. She listened and was lost in their dreams and visions.

  She spoke with the scientists who had lived just prior to Richard Simons’ own day. She saw the last days of their tragic history, when they groped for a solution to the night onolackness that was encroaching upon the world, when they tried to find a logical way to preserve ten thousand years of science against the invasion of the barbarian. And more than that, to preserve the intellects that would be born in that dark era. ‘

  She sensed the frantic urgency of those last decades before darkness closed down. She understood the dream of Utopia that they dreamed of in the strange land of Kronweld.

  It was easy to vision Ketan here among them. She could picture him overpowered by this revelation of a mighty dream. But with him. there had been ready and willing acceptance with no thought of criticism. He had been told what the plans for Kronweld were and Elta knew he had not stopped to criticize the plan because he had no knowledge upon which to base judgment. He could not answer the question of whether or not they were prepared to govern because he did not comprehend the problems- involved.

  There was no answer within the pinnacle, she knew.

  It was two months instead of Javins’ optimistic five or six days before he peered through the reopened Gateway into Kronweld. It was the first he had ever seen it. The vision of its marble palaces and the purple curtains in its sky was like some exotic dream.

  He sat before the small instrument panel controlling the forces connecting the worlds. The vision was open to him as if through a doorway beside him. And, indeed, he could have stepped through that doorway into the world of Kronweld, for this was a simpler arrangement than the Gateway in the Selector. It did not require the instantaneous opening and closing to prevent as much as possible a vision from one world to the other as was necessary in the Temple of Birth.

  He shifted the Gateway about, careful not to bring it too close to any individual’who might have been Surprised to suddenly look into the space beside him and see a queerly dressed individual sitting at a table of strange instruments.

  He wondered where Ketan was and how he could be located, but ·that was not his task. His part was done now. He moved to call the Director on his private circuit.

  “That won’t be necessary. I will take charge from now on. Your part is done.”

  Javins whirled at the sound of the familiar, hated voice.

  “Bocknor!”

  “Your colleague.”

  “How did you get in here?” “Richard Simons,” the Statist grinned mirthlessly.

  Javins did not move. He knew resistance would be vain in the face of the weapon in Bocknor’s hand.

  Then Bocknor advanced. “Maybe it would be a good idea if you completed that call to the Director. He would like to know that we are ready.”

  In a daze, trying to fathom what this turn of events meant, Javins called the Director and in a moment his face appeared on the communicator. His voice came to them.

  “I have been watching you,” he said. “I see that you have completed your task, Javins. You have done well and I will remember you. Bocknor’s task is just beginning. You may proceed. I shall watch with interest.”

  “Attack?”

  “You may set the hour.”

  Bocknor cut the circuit and called half a dozen others. From the corner to which Bocknor had driven him, Javins watched the screen and wild horror overcame his senses.

  He saw bank on bank of fearful atomic generating stations and the great tubular projectors they fed. There were six of them stationed within great forts within the city. They had been built without any knowledge o f it coming to him. And anyone of the projectors could wipe out the pitiful city of Kronweld in a single instant.

  Bocknor called his commanders one by one. “Attack time, three hours,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  One by one they acknowledged.

  The click of the switching circuits was magnified a thousand times in the hollow chamber of the laboratory. The sound swelled and tumbled about Javins’ ears. It grew to a crashing roar that was the thunder of the shattered segments of his world. All his life had been based on the one precept: The Director was Igon who would some day unite the worlds.

  That precept was gone now.

  XXVII.

  For the time of a single breath Alva and Ketan remained motionless, staring at each other, while the soft white flakes rocked their slow pendulous way down from the sky.

  “Attack!” breathed Alva. “What if that were Hameth we saw? But it couldn’t have been. He’s got to lead us. He�
�s the only one who knows the full details of the defense and attack plans.”

  “It couldn’t have been he,” Ketan murmured. “We only imagined it. Let’s get back. Our generators will be needed.”

  His mind seemed dulled by the sudden blankness that had appeared, the blankness of the revelation of Hameth’s identity and his destruction.

  He climbed through the hatch and up to the control turret of the generator. Automatically, his fingers found the controls and he turned the machine about and headed towards the valley, following behind the other two machines that were now almost invisible in the curtain of snow.

  Against the white background he kept seeing the image of a crushed and shattered form, roughly human. A form of steel and glass and copper and plastic. He tried to tell himself that the whole incident was only the wildest imagination. He couldn’t possibly have seen the near naked form racing afoot through the snow. That alone was insane enough.

  But Alva had seen it, too* And the other driver.

  They hadn’t seen it, he told himself, and closed his mind. Nor had he seen that spot of glistening wreckage in the ruts of the generator’s wheels.

  His communication panel was on a direct circuit to Operations Center. He could hear orders given in crisp, sure voices by the subordinates in temporary command. The attack and defense plans were well laid out. The men knew their places. Hameth himself could almost be spared except in emergency conditions. But emergencies would certainly arise. No one could take his place then.

  As yet Ketan’s name or the number of the generator lie occupied had not been called. He knew it was unlikely it would be. He knew where his place was and he put on all possible speed to reach it. There were emergency orders, however, which had been created by Hameth to be opened in his absence during any such crisis. They might change everything.

  At that moment the communicator spoke. “Ketan—driving generator three-twelve.”

  He gave a start. “Responding.” “Emergency orders require your presence in Operations Center at once. In the absence of Leader Hameth you are delegated in temporary command to execute defense plan G-12. Respond.”

  “Responding,” Ketan answered mechanically. “Use the interplane transfer.”

  Two segments of his brain were swept with utterly contrasting thoughts. One dwelt on the incredi-bility of his position. Designated in temporary command. There must be a hundred men more suited for the post, he thought. Yet—

  He thought of the long hours and days that he had spent with Hameth, the merciless drilling until he knew the combat plans with the familiarity of old habits. He wondered if there were actually any other men who had been given such careful and now obvious drilling. Had Hameth anticipated his destruction before the attack?

  The other segment of Ketan’s brain was swiftly going over the memory - photographed plans in Operations Center. He called swiftly back into the microphone. “Give me the attack pictures.” While preparations were going forward to bring him bodily back to the Center by means of the Gateway, the subordinate answered, “There is only one break-through. A single beam burst through the Temple of Birth. No damage has occurred in the city as yet.”

  “Order the Ladies out of the Temple—the survivors.”

  “That has been done.”

  “Array a mesh before it.” “Done.”

  “Excellent. How many projectors are the Statists using?” “Reports indicate six forts, mounting an unknown number of projectors. It is believed there is only one to a fort, however.”

  Ketan frowned. He couldn’t understand why Hameth hadn’t been able to get more accurate information with his elaborate intelligence service. It seemed unlikely the Statists would have so few projectors, unless they were of terrific magnitude. But then they did not anticipate any opposition from Kronweld. Probably the six forts seemed an insanely huge force for the job of wiping out the helpless city.

  At that instant a tearing, blinding sensation blotted out all consciousness for a moment, then he found his machine beside the great spiring Operations Center.

  A driver was waiting to take over the generator, and Ketan hurried into the building, the great planning chamber that was the brain of the defense of a world. It was filled only with a soft hush of sound and occasional sharp commands that in no way indicated the momentous events occurring.

  In the center of the room a huge map showed Kronweld, Fire Land, Dark Land and the valley of the Restorationists. On the spot where a small model of the Temple of Birth lay, there was a tiny flame of fire slowly moving about, washing vainly against a tiny mesh cap that covered it. Tiny green lights indicated the position of nearly four hundred of the mobile generators plus the one mighty stationary weapon.

  Around the walls of the room” communicator panels showed facets of the attack. Motionless operators sat before a score of positions waiting for the order to move generators through the Gateway into Kronweld or place protective meshes over break-through points.

  Ketan strode at once to the map. There was no more questioning in his mind concerning his position. There would be time enough for that later. His appearance before his subordinates was of one who had been in command all his life.

  He scanned the map minutely. “No additional break - through points ?”

  The second in command shook his head. He was an elderly second-generation Restorationist whom Ketan knew would never question

  Hameth’s decision as to the succession of leadership. The man had only one, almost fanatical ideal, the success of the restoration.

  He was Zeeter. He said, “There are no others. We have aligned no units as yet. I wanted to test our mesh against the projector. It is holding up well.”

  “Good. But a second attack is sure to come. We’ll hold the big generator until we take the offensive, if possible. Align eight units of generators in checkered pattern across the city.”

  Even as he spoke, the tiny fire on the map died down and reappeared almost instantly outside the mesh. This time there was a long beam that swept and stabbed into the city. Where it touched, buildings and trees vanished in flames.

  “Screen it!” Ketan shouted the command. The operator handling the mesh shifted it quickly to the new location.

  In that instant the Statist projector vanished and reappeared again in another section of the city. The shielding mesh dropped about it but not before damage had been done.

  “Position those units!” Ketan ordered. He whirled about to the operators controlling the positioning of the mobile units. He did not underestimate the complexity of their problem, but his training in the operation of the Karildex made them appear inexcusably slow in handling the few dozen factors required of them.

  The sweating lead operator turned and nodded. “Units positioned.”

  Ketan looked back at the map. Crisscrossing the city in a checkered pattern, two hundred and forty of the mobile generators lay in wait for the next appearance of the projector. Any position in which it appeared now would place it inside a square of generators that would spray it with merciless fire.

  It appeared in a moment beside the building of the Karildex.

  Ketan gave a hoarse exclamation. The Karildex was the one structure he had hoped to save from damage, but now it was bathed in fire.

  A mesh screen dropped over the projector and blazed white, hiding the machine from view, but in the moment it had been visible Ketan had caught just a glimpse of a featureless cylinder surmounted by a dome. Spears of violet light beamed out of focusing rings surrounding that dome.

  The screen placed about the projector by means of the interplane method of transport offered partially mono-directive opposition to the radiant destruction, blocking that from the trapped projector and passing most of that trained upon it by the square of generators.

  He had watched this out of the corner of his eye as it appeared on a nearby communication panel. He moved closer and dimmed the reception until he could plainly see the tessellations of t
he mesh and the interplay of atomic fire at the centers of the squares where the attacking beams touched from the inside.

  Ketan knew that the stream of violet energy was playing against the inside of the mesh by the appearance of, spots of blinding incandescence that played over the susface and came at last to a halt in a blaze that threatened to burst the mesh shield.

  Ketan called to the operator handling the mesh. “Check your .screen current. It’s glowing into the white in several spots.”

  “The Eighth Unit Commander asked for a reduction. He can’t get through with his beams.”

  “All right,” Ketan assented. “Ready a second screen when this one goes.”

  The success of this method of defense and attack depended on the obtaining of the critical value of current that would block the projector beams but allow sufficient energy from the attacking generators to pass through and blast-the projector.

  To Ketan it looked as if that critical value could not be obtained. A dozen spots on the screen were glowing white. A rain of incandescent copper droplets was streaming away from the spots. It would only be a moment before the screen went.

  The twelve generators forming the square about the Statist projector held their beams in a circle of flame that would sever the head of the projector if they could get through the screen without themselves being destroyed. Torrents of energy were pouring through the screen, but it was not enough.

  Ketan turned his viewing screen upon the drivers of the generators. Alva was there. His lips were pressed bloodless as he watched the screen flaming and dissolving under the double impact of energy. Few moments remained before it would become a puff of volatilized copper.

  With a sudden, decisive motion he shifted his own beam and trained it directly upon one of the screen’s disintegrating spots, which he knew must be in line with the Statist projector.

  Instantaneously, the screen vanished at that point and both beams drove through. White coruscations blasted from the hole and streamed out over the landscape, mingling with the half visible auroral curtains in the sky. For an instant, the light dimmed the twin globes in the sky.