Alternate waves of guilt and almost unbearable excitement washed Clawly
I as he hurried through the deserted corridors of the Blue Lorraine
toward the office of Oktav. In grimmest seriousness he wondered whether
his own fancied role of mad Pied Piper had not come true, whether
his mind--and those of Firemoor and his other accomplices in the
Martian hoax--were not already more than half usurped by diabolically
mischievous mentalities whose only purpose, or pleasure, was to see a
sane world reduced to chaos.
For the faked threat of a Martian invasion was producing all the
effects he could ever have anticipated, and more, as the scenes he had
just been witnessing proved. They stuck in his mind, those scenes.
The air around the Blue Lorraine aswarm with fliers from bullet-swift
couriers to meddlesome schoolchildren. Streams of machine-units and
various materials and supplies going out on subtronic currents for
distribution to selected points in the surrounding countryside, for it
had early become apparent that the skylons were exceedingly vulnerable
to attack from space--all Earth's eggs in a few thousand baskets.
Engineers busy around the Blue Lorraine's frosty summit, setting up
energy-projectors and other improvised subtronic artillery--for
although the skylons were vulnerable, they were the proud symbols and
beloved homes of civilization and would be defended to the last. All
eyes craned apprehensively upward as a thundering spaceship burst
through the blue sky, then lowered in ruefully humorous relief as
it became obvious that it was, of course, no alien invader, but one
of Earth's own ships headed for the nearby yards to be fitted with
subtronic weapons. All eyes turned momentarily to the west, where
defensive screens were being tried out, to watch a vast iridescent dome
leap momentarily into being and a circle of woodland puff into smoke.
Excited eyes, all of them, as ready to flash with humor as to betray
shock, anxiety, or fear. Eyes that were seven-eighths "There probably
won't be any invasion" and one-eighth "There will be." Eyes that made
Clawly proud of mankind, but that also awakened sickening doubts as to
the wisdom of his trickery.
And to think that this sort of thing was going on all over the world.
The use of subtronic power in transport and fabrication made possible
a swiftness in preparation never before known in Earth's history.
Organization was a weak point, the Earth being geared for the leisurely
existence of peace and individual freedom, but various local agencies
were taking over while the World Executive Committee created the
framework of a centralized military authority. Confusedly perhaps,
and a little bunglingly, but eagerly, wholeheartedly, and above all
swiftly, Earth was arming to meet the threat.
It was all so much _bigger_ than anyone could have anticipated,
Clawly told himself for the hundredth time, unconsciously increasing
his already rapid pace as he neared Oktav's office. He had started it
all, but now it was out of his hands. He could only wait and hope that,
when the real invasion came, across time rather than space, the present
preparations would prove useful to Earth's bewildered defenders. In any
case, a few hours would tell the story, for this was the third day.
But what if the transtime invasion did not come in three days? The hoax
might be uncovered at any moment now--Firemoor was already regretting
the whole business, on the verge of a funk--and during the period of
angry reaction no invasion reports of any sort would be believed. Then
he would be in the position of having cried wolf to the world.
Or what if the transtime invasion did not come at all? All his actions
had been based on such insubstantial evidence--Thorn's dream-studies,
certain suggestive psychological aberrations, the drugged Conjerly's
murmur of "... invasion ... three days...." He was becoming
increasingly convinced that he would soon wake, as if from a nightmare,
and find himself accused as a madman or charlatan.
Certainly his nerves were getting out of hand. He needed Thorn. Never
before had he realized the degree to which he and Thorn were each
other's balance wheel. But Thorn was still missing, and the inquiry
agencies had no progress to report. Despite the larger anxieties in
which his mind was engulfed, Thorn's absence preyed upon it to such a
degree that he had twice fancied he spotted Thorn among the swirling
crowd outside the Blue Lorraine.
But even more than he needed Thorn, he needed Oktav. Now that the
crisis had come, he could see to what an extent the seer's advice
had determined all his actions, from his first serious belief in the
possibility of transtime invasion to his engineering of the Martian
hoax. Call it superstition, ignorant credulity, hypnotism, the fact
remained that he believed in Oktav, was convinced that Oktav had access
to fields of knowledge undreamed of by ordinary men. And now that
Oktav was gone, he felt an increasing helplessness and desperation, so
that he could not resist the impulse driving him back once more to the
cryptically empty office.
As he raised his hand to activate the door, memories came stealing
eerily back--of former sessions in the room beyond, of the last
session, of Oktav's strange summoner clad in the garments of Dawn
Civilization, of the inexplicable disappearance of summoner and
summoned in the exitless inner chamber.
But before his hand could activate the door, it opened.
Clad in his customary black robe, Oktav was sitting at his desk.
As if into a dream within a dream, Clawly entered.
* * * * *
Although the seer had always seemed supernaturally ancient, Clawly's
first impression was that Oktav had vastly aged in the past three days.
Something had happened to drain his small remaining store of life
forces almost to the last drop. The hands were folded white claws. The
face was wrinkle-puckered skin drawn tight over a fragile skull. But
in the sunken, droopingly lidded eyes, knowledge burned more fiercely
than ever. And not knowledge alone, but also something new--a reckless
determination to use that knowledge. It was a look that made Clawly
shiver--and thrill.
All the questions that had pounded at his brain so long, waiting for
this interview, were suddenly mute.
"I have been on a far journey," said the seer. "I have visited many
worlds that were supposed to be dead, and have seen what strange
horrors can result when mere men seek to make wise use of a power
befitting only a god or creatures like gods. I have gone in constant
danger, for there are those against whom I have rebelled and who
therefore seek my life, but I am safe from them for a time. Sit down,
and I will tell you what is in my mind."
Clawly complied. Oktav leaned forward, tapping the desk with one
bone-thin finger.
He continued, "For a long time I have spoken to you in riddles, dealt
with you vaguely, because I was trying to play a double game--impart
essential information to you, and yet not impart it. That time is past.
From now on I speak clearly. In a little while I shall depart on a
desperate venture. If it succeeds, I do not think you will have to fear
the invasion threatening your world. But it may fail, and therefore I
must first put at your disposal all the information I possess, so that
you can judge how best to act in that event."
He looked up quickly. Clawly heard movement in the corridor. But it was
from the inner chamber that the sudden interruption came.
Once again Oktav's summoner stood in the inner doorway. Once again
that young-old, ignorant-wise, animal-god face was turned on Oktav.
The muscles of the clamped jaw stood out like knobs. One arm in its
cylinderlike sleeve of stiff, ancient fabric, was rigidly extended
toward the seer.
But Clawly had only time for the barest glance, and Oktav had even
less--he was just starting to turn and his eyes were only on the verge
of being lighted with a flicker of recognition--when a great tongue of
softly bluish flame licked out from the summoner's hand and, not dying
as flames should, folded around Oktav like a shroud.
Before Clawly's eyes, Oktav's robe burst into flame. His body
shriveled, blackened, contorted in agony, curling like a leaf. Then it
was still.
The soft flame returned to the summoner's hand.
Incapable of motion or connected thought or any feeling but
a sick dismay, Clawly watched. The summoner walked over to
Oktav's desk--clumsily, as if he were not used to dealing with
three-dimensional worlds, but also contemptuously, as if worlds of
three or any other number of dimensions were very trivial affairs to
him. He extracted from the charred remains of Oktav's robe a small gray
sphere, which Clawly now saw was similar to one which the summoner had
been holding in his outstretched hand. Then, with an equal clumsiness
and contempt, with a sweeping glance that saw Clawly and ignored him,
the summoner walked back through the inner doorway.
* * * * *
Clawly's body felt like a sack of water. He could not take his eyes off
the thing behind the desk. It looked more like a burnt mummy than a
burnt man. By some chance the blue flame had spared the high forehead,
giving the face a grotesquely splotched appearance.
The outer door was opened, but Clawly did not turn or otherwise move.
He heard a hissing inhalation--presumably when the newcomer saw the
hideous corpse--but the newcomer had to come round in front before
Clawly saw and recognized--or rather, partly recognized--him. And
even then Clawly felt no reaction of astonishment or relief, or any
reaction he might have expected to feel. The incredible scene he had
just witnessed lingered like an after-image, and other thoughts and
feelings refused to come into focus. The dead body of Oktav dominated
his vision and his mind, as if emanating a palpable aura that blurred
everything else.
The newcomer noted the incompleteness of Clawly's recognition, for he
said, "Yes, I'm Thorn, but, I think you know, not the Thorn who was
your friend, although I am inhabiting his body." To Clawly the words
seemed to come from a great distance; he had to fight an insidious
lethargy to hear them at all. They continued, "That Thorn is taking
my place in the world--and three days ago I rejoiced to think of the
suffering he would undergo there. Fact is, I was your enemy--his and
yours--but now I'm not so sure. I'm even beginning to think we may be
able to help each other a great deal. But I'm responsible for more
lives than just my own, so until I'm sure of you, I daren't take any
chances. That's the reason for this."
And he indicated the small tubular object in his hand, which seemed
to be the dismantled main propulsion unit of a suit of flying togs--a
crude but effective short-range blaster.
Clawly began to take him in, though it was still hard for him to see
anything but the thing behind the desk. Yes, it was Thorn's face, all
right, but with a very uncharacteristic expression of stubborn and
practical determination.
The newcomer continued, "I've been following you because Thorn's
memoranda tapes showed that you and he were working together in
what seemed to be an effort to warn this world of its danger. But
lately things have been happening that make me doubt that--things
I want explained. What's this Martian invasion? Is it real? Or an
attempt to rouse your world into a state of preparedness? Or a piece
of misdirection designed to confuse the issue and make the Servant's
invasion easier? Then, why did you come here, and who is this creature,
and how did he die?" With a gesture of repugnance, he indicated the
body of Oktav. "What I overheard reawakened my old suspicion that
there's somebody behind this business of duplicate worlds, somebody
who's making a profit from it, somebody--"
His voice went dead. In an instant, all the frowning concentration
blanked out of his face. Very slowly, like a man who suddenly becomes
aware that there is a monster behind him, he began to turn around.
At the same time, Clawly felt himself begin to shake--and for the same
reason.
It was a very small and ordinary thing--just a small cough, a dry
clearing of the throat. But it came from behind the desk.
* * * * *
The shriveled, scorched body was swaying a little; the charred hands
were pushing across the desk, leaving black smears; a tremor was
apparent in the blackened jaw.
For a moment they only watched in horror. Then, drawn by the same
irresistible impulse, they slowly approached the desk.
The blind, ghastly movements continued. Then the burnt lips parted, and
they heard the whisper--a whisper that was in every syllable a hard-won
victory over seared tissues.
"I should be dead, but strange vitalities linger in him who has
possessed a talisman. My eyes are embers, but I can dimly see you. Come
closer, that I may say what must be said. I have a testament to make,
and little time in which to make it, and no choice as to whom it is
made. Draw nearer, that I may tell you what must be done for the sake
of all worlds."
They obeyed, sweat starting from their foreheads in awe of the
inhumanly sustained vitality that permitted this charred mummy to speak.
"Purely by chance, a man of the Dawn Civilization discovered a
talisman--a small nonmechanical engine controlled by thought--giving
him the power of traveling in time, and across time, and into the
regions beyond time. There it led him to seven other talismans, and
to a similar but larger engine of even greater power, which he named
the Probability Engine. He took in with him seven accomplices, I being
one, and together we used the Probability Engine to split time and make
actual all possible worlds, preserving only the best of them, and--so
we thought--destroying the rest."
The whisper slowly began to diminish in strength. Clawly and the other
leaned in closer to the black, white-foreheaded face.
"But I discovered that those destroyed worlds still exist, and I know
too well what mad tinkering the others will be prompted to, when they
make the same discovery. You must prevent them, as I intended to. In
particular, you must find the Probability Engine and summon its true
owners, whatever creatures they may be, who built it and who lost the
first talisman. They're the only ones fitted to deal with the tangle
of problems we have created. But to find the Probability Engine, you
must have a talisman. Ters, who destroyed me, took mine, but that was
one which I had stolen. My own original talisman is in the possession
of Thorn, the Thorn of this world, who stole it from me, I now believe,
because of some unconscious prompting from the True Owners, groping
through many-layered reality in an effort to find their lost engine.
That Thorn is worlds away from here, more worlds than you suspect. But
you"--his fingers fumbled sideways, touching those of the other Thorn,
who did not withdraw his hand--"can get into touch ... with him ...
through your linked ... subconscious minds." The whisper was barely
audible. It was obvious that even the talisman-vitalized strength was
drawing to an end. "That talisman ... which he has ... is inert. It
takes a key-thought ... to unlock its powers. You must transmit ... the
key-thought ... to him. The key-thought ... is ... 'Three botched ...
worlds--'"
The whisper trailed off into a dry rattle, then silence. The jaw
fell open. The head slumped forward. Clawly caught it, palm to white
forehead, and let it gently down on to the desk, where the groping
fingers had traced a black, crisscross pattern.
Over it, Clawly's eyes, and those of the other Thorn, met.