Man of Two Worlds Page 32

  “I witched you all those years,” Igon said. “I led you and guided you. I sent special envoys at times to bend you the way I wanted you to go. Branen of the Unregistereds was one. But you must not think I tried to force you into a pattern where you were not using your own initiative. Just the opposite. I merely supplied specific stimuli to bring out the qualities of initiative that were necessary for you to develop.”

  Ketan thought back to Branen the loyal friend he had known. A thousand little incidents fell into place and were explained where they had been annoying puzzles before.

  “So that’s why Branen so gently but insistently pushed me on. I could never understand him. He was so self-effacing, but he was like a shadow following me and building up my own ego when I doubted myself. Even in his attempted dissuasion when I was determined to go before the Council I think he was actually goading me on.

  “Of course he was,” said Igon. “That’s what I sent him there to do. There were others of the Res-torationists among the Unregistereds who did the same for you. They watched and taught you and reported to me.

  “When the time was right for you to go back, I intended that one of the Hameths as Varano should go with you. I didn’t want you to dream up some fantastic scheme based on half information as did some of the others who came through. Two of them became so fanatical that I had to kill them. It wyas the impact of the knowledge that the pinnacle revealed. Their minds were not strong enough to evaluate it properly in spite of the fact that they were brought back through the Selector.

  “You did very well in your objective evaluation of the facts you were given. Your weakness was that you underestimated the complexity of the Kronweldians’ reactions by standardizing your own, but that was a natural mistake in view of your background. Elta came to a better evaluation there than did you because she had more facts to base her decision on. But she failed utterly until very recently to understand the goal or motive of Richard Simons and his group.

  “You got along very well without Varano’s help so that it was unnecessary for me to intervene further except to send you back to Kronweld and to the Restorationists.”

  “I don’t understand one thing,” said Ketan. “If Varano was merely one of the Hameths, a machine, why did he react to my blow on his jaw, and to the injection I gave him?”

  “I had to make him act naturally. To have revealed him then as a machine would have threatened your own self-assertion which had reached a delicate balance at that point. It would have crumbled if you had jmown the truth.”

  Ketan gazed upon his grandfather with almost a sense of resentment. “You’ve pretty well controlled me so far, but we can’t remain here talking. A war is being fought and a hundred generators are attacking this building. Our talk .must wait.”

  “There is time,” the old man said. “And don’t resent what I have done, Ketan. Think a moment and you will understand. You comprehend the ideal of Richard Simons and therefore you know that any measure necessary to carry it out was justified.

  “But after growing in Kronweld you were like a plant reared in artificial environment. You had to be taught and your mind prepared very carefully for each step that was to come. I led you to William Douglas who was best qualified to show you the Illegitimates and their conflict. I led you back to Kronweld that you might understand how they would react to the truths you had to tell them. Now you know their reaction and you shall be able to deal with them.

  “1 haven’t tried or desired to control you. I have taught you. This is about the end of it for me. It’s yours from here out. This building, as you may have guessed, is removed a trifle from the plane of Earth. That renders your beams inoperative in this space. The dead Statists you may have seen below are some of the leaders I called here for safety when you began your attack. I destroyed them to assist in your task, but there are thousands of others who will still fight and must be overcome.

  “The most dangerous of all is Bocknor. If he knows he’s defeated, he will attempt to destroy the pinnacle and the gauge and cut you off forever. You could duplicate the gauge setting only in a thousand years of trial and error.” “I must get back!”

  “There is time. I want to know before you go: What are your plans? How will you govern?”

  “Plans ?” They’ll have to be your plans,-not mine. I had plans, but they were impetuous and ill-thought out. I’ll carry out your plan for teaching and orienting the Kron-weldians. There’ll be chaos for a long time, but with communication and transportation—”

  He stopped suddenly as if ail his thoughts and all the events that had transpired had led to the abrupt, mountainous barricade of Igon’s last question. Elta had asked it, but he hadn’t known then what it implied.

  “Govern?”

  He spoke the word against the backdrop of the scene in his mind. A scene of Earth’s millions of ignorant and repressed peoples who would be thrown into an exuberant chaos at their release from the Statist tyranny. They were the hundreds of thousands of barbarous, impulsive Illegitimates. And Kronweld’s handful of dazed and bewildered and shocked Seekers. He understood then what Elta had meant.

  He shut the scene out of his mind and closed his senses to the complexity of the problem before it blinded him to its simplicities.

  “We won’t try to govern them,” he said at last. “We’ll let them ‘govern themselves. That’s the way that’s always been best. That’s the way it’s got to be. We won’t govern ; we’ll teach. For a while we shall have to administer, but we’ll give it over to them in the end.

  “And we’ll give them the Karildex. That will be our gift to them, and in the end it may prove to be the one thing that will bring about the realization of Richard Simons’ I dream. All the old governments i failed when their attempts at representative rule collapsed because of their complexities and the patent impossibilities inherent in the idea of (a billion people sitting down together and making their own laws.

  “The Karildex removes all those impossibilities. The desires and wishes of the most remote member of such a society will not be overlooked in lawmaking with the use of the Karildex. I wonder why the old civilization never saw that it would take a machine to make their government function as they desired ?”

  “I wondered if you’d see it,” said Igon solemnly. “The whole contribution of Kronweld to civilization consists of the Karildex and your means of government. It is justification enough for Richard Simons’ entire experiment. He proved that minds of the type he selected could not concern themselves with the pettiness of government by politics; they removed the problem as quickly as possible and set up a means of control that was almost automatic in its function.

  “The weakness of Kronweld, that almost succeeded in destroying it, was a common weakness of man, susceptibility to superstition. Superstition’s only remedy is knowledge. You tried to give them that. Sometimes education has to be administered violently as is now being done. There was no other way. Kronweld was slowly rotting from its intellectual inbreeding. It had passed its apex of civilization.

  “There is one thing above all that you must teach the people. Teach them to build and use and revere machines. The machine is the mark that sets man apart from the animals. It is the expression of his intelligence, but intelligence without expression is only a vapor. In the Second Dark Age man became afraid of the machine and vowed

  to live without it and so he became no more than the beasts, unable to travel faster than his legs would allow, or to speak any farther than the sound of his voice would carry.

  “Teach the people to build and dream of greater and greater machines until they can reach the stars. -The machine is man’s poetry and his music and all his art. Never forget that fact.

  “Never make the mistake the antimaterialists made.”

  “I won’t,” Ketan promised solemnly.

  After a time he said, “What of us, now? You are coming back with me. You must speak to the Kronweldians, tell them of your work.”
<
br />   “No … no, they must look to you. I shall remain a legend as the great iconoclast of Kronweld. I’ll send you back now, to the pinnacle. I’ll return your machine to the valley in Dark Land. You must go to the pinnacle and deal with Bocknor. Then after you are gone I shall go on a little further. There is a plane where death is very quick and quite sweet.

  “Good-bye Ketan, son of my son.”

  XXIX.

  With the words still in his ears, blackness covered his vision and Ketan was alone in his disembodiment, soaring through space and time. There was only one conscious thought in that epoch of transversal. The image of that half human figure of Igon, the knowledge that he had found a living ancestor.

  He thought for a time that he was in the forest of Kyab where he had first awakened. There were trees rocking slowly against the distant sky and clouds floating at their tips.

  He sat- up sharply trying to think. This was not the same. Deep beds of flowers covered the earth and almost overpowered the senses with their perfume. Then he heard a voice.

  “We have been waiting for you. Igon said you would come.”

  He jerked his head about and looked up. It was Dorien, the First Woman.

  “Where is she?” he demanded ‘almost harshly. “Where is Elta?” “Elta is safe. She is imprisoned with her father and William Douglas. There are other Statists here, but Igon told us to wait until you came before destroying them.” “Igon is dead.”

  “I know. He said that you would take his place and we should work with you.”

  “Can you destroy the Statists?” “We prepared ourselves to prevent the entry of any unauthorized persons. We have allowed these to come, but we can take care of them.”

  “Then I’ll help—”

  “There is nothing you can do. Watch.”

  The image of the girl passed gracefully between the trees and through the flowers, her dark hair like some exquisite blossom moving with the gentle breeze.

  Then Ketan saw the man through the trees in the far distance. He

  was a Statist, armed and arrogant.1

  Ketan rose to follow Dorien. He should have asked her the way to Bocknor. Somewhere within the pinnacle the Statist was guiding the attack upon Kronweld. Fear was high within Ketan over the outcome of the battle. Igon had seemed so calm as if it were already decided, but Ketan knew the Restorationists could yet lose, miserably and calamitously. He wondered if the attack upon the valley had begun, or if Bocknor had not been able to locate it.

  Screening himself · in the forest, he tried to catch Dorien, but he could not even keep pace. Then he saw her close to the distant Statist. The man had lowered his weapon and was putting his arms around her. Ketan stared uncomprehend-ingly.

  At that moment a tremendous flame of light blinded him. Its fire and the blast of it flung him backwards. He threw an arm before his eyes to blot it out. When he could at last see again, Dorien was returning and the Statist was nowhere to be seen.

  Then he understood what had happened, and a cold, trembling wave went through him at the thought of what might have happened if they had not properly identified him when he fell through the excavation into the pinnacle the first time. The power that was dormant in those images—

  “Take me to Bocknor—and Elta,” he said.

  “You must be careful. There are many Statists—”

  They went up the familiar trail and broke into the marble hall, A Statist was waiting for them there.

  He raised his weapon instantly towards Ketan. Ketan’s own was leveled, but he was slower. The Statist pressed the trigger and a blossom of fire burst into the air.

  Dorien caught it. She leaped in front of Ketan as his own weapon sprayed her back with a cloak of livid radiance. But she was still running with outstretched arms towards the gasping, staring Statist.

  The man fired again and again, and the beams sprayed over her figure in an aura of terrible light. Then she was upon him, her arms clinging tightly about him.

  Ketan whirled and buried his face against his arms, but the radiance she unleashed penetrated the blackness as if through his very flesh.

  He turned back. She was walking towards him with a smile on her lips.

  They wound upwards through the pinnacle’s passageways. No more Statists were in evidence, but they kept a sharp watch for any such. When they reached the end, Ketan realized all his care was worth little beside the probably automatic detection which told Dorien of the presence of anyone near.

  They came to a high vaulted entrance blocked by a closed door.

  Dorien hesitated. “My power will be dangerous to the others if I use it full strength in there.”

  “Wait until I ask it then,” said Ketan. “I don’t think it will be necessary.”

  He opened the door.

  The scene before Ketan was like a collection of wax images.

  Two Statist operators whirled from their panels on his left. Ahead of him, the corpulent Bocknor stood openmouthed. Beyond, in a small alcove, Elta and Javins and William Douglas were bound upright against the wall.

  Bocknor’s hand was on his weapon. “How did you get in here ?”

  “I come from the Director. He can’t get through to you. He wants to know what is wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong here! This is a trick. I’ll—”

  “Why don’t you call the Director, first?”

  “Call him!” Bocknor ordered an operator. Then to Ketan. “I don’t know how you found us here except by guess, but all the tricks in the world won’t do you Kronweldians any good now. Look at your city.; How do you like it?”

  ‘ He swung a hand towards the screen where the burning city could be seen. It was almost entirely-gone now. Only a molten lake was recognizable as far out as the farm-, ing lands.

  At that moment, Elta caught sight of Ketan for the first time: and her voice rang out with recog-1 nition. “Ketan!”

  She could not see Bocknor. Ke-‘ tan struggled with all his power toi keep from answering her cry, but he kept his eyes on Bocknor.

  The operator was having trouble, with the equipment. Ketan sup-‘ posed he was not completely fa-1 miliar with it yet. He finally got the: scene—the scene where the Statist citadel had stood. There was only a hemispherical depression in the ground, as deep as the building had been high.

  Bocknor gasped and swore. His mental reflexes functioned slowly and only succeeded in bringing contortions to his fat countenance. His alertness vanished and Ketan leaped.

  He seized Bocknor’s gun arm and twisted with all his strength. It took every erg of it to force the thick, short arm around and break the wrist hold on the weapon. Like many fat men, Bocknor was deceptively muscled.

  The gun dropped to the floor and spun away from them. Ketan kept on twisting, then suddenly flung his entire weight to one side. Bocknor slammed to the floor.

  Ketan’s foot struck a smooth spot as they fell and he landed on his back almost beside the Statist leader.

  The two operators Jiad risen from their feet and one of them jumped. He landed on Ketan’s outstretched wrist. Through the sudden pain waves Ketan saw the other foot ‘raised to smash into his face. He waited until the foot was in the air and jerked aside.

  Bocknor lay heavily, struggling for breath that had been knocked out by his fall. As the operator’s foot landed in the space where Ketan’s head had been, Ketan grabbed his leg and twisted, rising at the same time. The men fell headlong, his other knee plunging into Bocknor’s midriff.

  The second operator had picked up the gun by now and waited calmly as Ketan arose. He pointed the weapon directly at Ketan’s back. Sensing, rather than seeing it, Ketan whirled. But he was too late. The finger was already despressing the button.

  At that moment Dorien came up behind the Statist. .She did not approach too closely or reach out to touch him. She stood behind him as if trying to gauge her distance carefully. Her figure became inclosed in a halo of golden light.

&nb
sp; That halo touched the Statist operator. The smell of burned flesh filled the air, and his back arced as if he had been struck. He crumpled to the floor.

  The other operator had witnessed the scene. He had risen to one knee and remained petrified with terror for Dorien had not stopped. The golden glow still surrounded her and she was advancing towards him.

  He gave a fearsome scream as he backed into the corner.

  “No!” Ketan cried. “I can take care of these two. I want—”

  But Dorien’s hand had touched the man. His long scream of pain echoed in the chamber and then his blackened corpse collapsed.

  Bocknor cringed against the floor. Dorien was looking down at him. “They have despoiled our repository,” she said. Her voice was bitter.

  “Give me this one,” Ketan demanded. “He has done worse to Kronweld. He has changed it to his own pattern. He should live there!”

  “Do as you wish.” The golden halo died.

  Bocknor was rising to his feet, shaking with fear and swinging his fists. But there was no danger left in him. He sagged as Ketan plunged a fist into his face.

  He was half conscious, but Ketan dragged him to a point in the center of the floor. Then, after examining the control panel a moment, he adjusted a couple of controls. Instantly, a section of the hell-world of Kronweld opened beside him. He adjusted it to the edge of Fire Land where the beam spewing out of the Edge had not yet touched. He pressed a button. Bocknor was no longer in the room. He was lying on the radioactive sands at the border of Fire Land.

  Ketan closed the scene and went into the alcove. Swiftly, he cut the bonds from the three prisoners. His arms went about Elta and tears flooded over the ledges of her eyelids. Ketan felt their wetness upon his own face.

  Javins and William Douglas greeted him warmly.

  “We didn’t know whether we were ever going to see you again or not,” said William Douglas. “We thought Bocknor had come out on top for sure.”