The Universe Maker Read online

  She put a pressure on him which added to his own anxiety. On the twelfth day he visited the airport and angrily drew Withrow aside. "I have a feeling," he said,

  "that your group is stalling. There's a weakness here somewhere, an unwillingness to burn your bridges."

  Withrow looked unhappy. "There's something to that," he admitted. "All I hear is excuses."

  Cargill could understand that. Thinking of these leaders who had never before seen action, he was reminded of the eve of battle. As one stormy dawn broke he had thought and hoped that surely the attack would be called off. And, curiously, he had thought simultaneously, "Thank heaven, the issue is being forced at last."

  This issue also had to be forced. And there was only one man who had the motivation, the will and the experience to force it. He said in measured tone, "Withrow, the attack must be made not later than tomorrow morning. If it isn't made I will inform Commander Greer who the ringleaders are."

  Withrow turned pale. "You wouldn't dare."

  Cargill said quietly, "Perhaps you'd better let the others think that I would dare."

  He returned the pilot's gaze steadily. At last Withrow sighed. He held out his hand. "You've named the day," he said. "Thank you."

  They shook hands silently and separated.

  Cargill had his first premonition of disaster as he entered the house shortly after dark. Ann, her face gray, met him at the door. "They've posted guards around the house," she whispered. "They're sending you to Shadow City tonight."

  Cargill stood stock still, dimly aware of her fluttering hands stroking his arm.

  She whispered, "I'm sorry."

  He patted her hand absently. He was thinking, "Is this tuned? Do they know or suspect?" Aloud he said, "Why did they select tonight?"

  "Grannis—" she began.

  That shocked him. With an astounded fury he cut her off, gripped her shoulders cruelly. "But I thought you were his contact!"

  "I used to be," she said miserably. "I don't know what's happened. Please, you're hurting me."

  He let her go with a mumbled apology. His sense of imminent catastrophe was greater. The incredible, fantastic, mysterious Grannis had taken one more step in his inexplicable scheme. But this time he had moved in a direct and deadly fashion. Whatever else Grannis had in mind it was clear that he intended Captain Morton Cargill to experience the terrible risk of going to Shadow City.

  Finally, he patted her gently and stroked her hands. He could feel her trembling. He stepped away from her and said: "Has any date been set?"

  She shook her head. "I'm out of this picture. They're telling me nothing."

  He said softly, "Go and see about dinner, Ann. I'll investigate the situation."

  He headed for the terrace, crossed the garden in the dark, climbed over the fence—he was stopped by a guard.

  "Get back!" The command was curtly spoken. A spitter glinted hi the man's hand.

  Cargill obeyed readily and headed immediately for the gate that led to the front of the house. It was unlocked. But as he stepped through, a soldier came from behind a tree and angrily motioned him to return.

  Altogether in the course of a few minutes he counted nine guards, all armed, all aware of his identity. When he re-entered the house Commander Greer was there with Ann.

  "Sorry, Captain," he said, "but we just couldn't take any chances. Grannis advised us that there was going to be a rebellion and so we've ordered all officers to report to their units. Just in case there is a disturbance you leave right after dinner for Shadow City."

  Greer remained for dinner. When the meal was over, as Cargill and Ann followed the officer to the outer hall, she whispered, "Find some way of kissing me good-by. I'll pretend to resist."

  A volor-powered floaterlike craft waited for them on the lawn. Cargill turned to Ann and, mustering all his sardonicism, said, "Miss Reece, once it amused you to say that you would kiss me good-by when I left like this. I demand that kiss."

  He didn't wait for assent. Firmly he stepped to her, put his finger under her chin, lifted her head and bent his own. The kiss he gave her was outrageously bold, and the only trouble was that she didn't resist very hard. Fortunately, the guards thought his move an attack and pulled him away from her.

  "Good-by, darling," said Cargill cheerfully. "I'll be back."

  He was surprised to realize that he meant it. He was tremendously drawn to Ann Reece. "I thought I loved them all," he told himself in almost drunken confusion. "Lela and—" He remembered some of the wonderfully personable girls who had been milestones in his life up until 1954—but Ann was different.

  "Well, I'll be damned," he thought. "I've fallen for the girl."

  The metal door clanged shut behind him. The ship lifted violently. As he sank into a seat the black reality of his position crushed down upon his spirits.

  He braced himself finally and thought: "I've still got to decide what I'm going to do."

  Hopefully, he looked at the crew that was taking him to his destination. He recognized none of the five volor-men aboard, but they must have been among those to whom he had lectured. Although he doubted that he could subvert them, he thought there was no "harm in trying.

  He waited till the co-pilot looked back from the cockpit, and then he beckoned him. The man spoke to his commander, apparently received permission, and came striding back.

  "Captain?" he said politely.

  For some reason the remark struck Cargill as excruciatingly funny. He began to laugh. "Captain!" he repeated aloud, and the word again set him into a gale of laughter.

  Tears streaming down his eyes, Cargill looked up at the other. "Lieutenant—" he began. He stopped. "Lieutenant!" "Lieutenant" was even funnier than "Captain." After a time, he controlled the new, greater burst of laughter and managed to say: "Lieutenant, have you made your will?"

  "No, sir." The man was stiff.

  Cargill laughed that one off, resigned now to his hysteria; he'd seen men in this state before. The best way to handle it was to give it full release. "Better make your will, Lieutenant. Men die in war, you know. Or are you a behind-the-lines man?"

  "No, sir, I volunteered."

  "Volunteered!" roared Cargill, and this time he laughed for minutes. He said finally, between gasps: "That's the spirit, boy. What we need in this army are volunteers, ready to die for dear old Alma Mater— pardon me, I'm getting my places mixed up, or is it my spaces?"

  That was a special joke, out of his wild dreams; and he nearly cracked a rib before that laughter subsided.

  "You've got to face reality, sir," said the co-pilot, evidently a serious young man.

  It was almost too much. When he finally stopped laughing, Cargill said, "Young man, keep right on facing reality, and be sure to keep an eye on the facts, and report to me every day. That's the important thing. Keep in touch."

  "I'm sorry that you're taking this so hard," said the young man.

  "It's not the initial cost," roared Cargill. "It's the upkeep. Young love cannot live on bread and cheese alone, you know. They also need a Cadillac—pardon me, a floater. Pardon me!" His attention was momentarily caught by the phrase. Several times he fumbled it with his tongue, savoring the thousands of times he had used it. "Be sure to pardon me," he said at last, soberly. "Yes, sir, I've got to be pardoned."

  He saw that he had lost his audience. The co-pilot was heading forward. Cargill stared after him with an almost owlish concern. He said aloud to no one in particular: "He's going to report that I'm off my rocker."

  An older man in a captain's uniform came back and bent over him. "We've got an all-night trip ahead of us, Captain Cargill," he said.

  Cargill nodded thoughtfully. "Would you suggest that I try to sleep, sir?" he asked gravely.

  "I would most certainly suggest it," was the firm reply.

  "Get my forty winks, would you say, sir?" Cargill asked.

  There was a pause; then quietly: "Perhaps you would like a sedative, Captain."

  Cargill sighed. The l
aughter seemed to be exhausted. His heart was no longer in the project. And it seemed that he had learned something: These men were serious. At the assigned hour, they would make their volor dives on the Shadow City, prepared to face the grave risk of personal destruction. Cargill sighed again. "I'll go quietly, Captain," he said.

  When the officer departed, Cargill sat for many minutes staring out into the gathering darkness. "I needed that," he thought. "I've been holding too many strings: trying to be a puppetmaster when actually I'm only a puppet." He thought of all the strings he had laid out for himself, each one attached to an iron that he had put into some remote fire. Looking back, it all seemed pretty futile. Looking ahead . . .

  Whose side was he on, really? Which cause should he support? If the Tweeners won—and he was not killed—he could go back to Ann. Never again would he have to fear being returned to the therapy room of the Shadows. It was something to think about, not at all to be despised. Lan Bruch of unborn Merlica, city out of a dream, would likewise approve.

  So what, if it hadn't been Morton Cargill up there in that future. How could he expect it to be? By 7301 a.d., the bones of Captain Cargill would have had four thousand years of mouldering.

  "Why resist the inevitable?" Cargill asked.

  He thought presently of at least one reason. The Tweeners were starting this war. That was one hundred per cent against them in his book. If it were left to the Shadows, there would be no war. That was one hundred per cent in their favor.

  It was hard, it seemed to Cargill, to argue against a two hundred per cent differential in favor of the Shadows.

  He slept. He awakened to a sunlit world. A member of the crew, holding a tray, was bending over him. "Got breakfast for you, sir. Captain says for you to eat and then come forward."

  It was the coffee, particularly, that Cargill enjoyed. He entered the control room, his cup still in his hand. He was prepared to be friendly in exchange for more coffee.

  "You can see Shadow City,!' said the pilot, "if you look straight ahead through the mist." He broke off. "Ed, give Captain Cargill your seat."

  The co-pilot promptly rose. Cargill settled into the seat and looked out. Fog and haze blurred the horizon ahead. Mountain peaks seemed to waver in the uncertain light. It was hard to distinguish one shape from another.

  Suddenly, he saw the pyramid. It was uneven to his vision and very small, as the peak of a stupendous mountain seems toylike from afar. He estimated that it must be at least a hundred miles ahead.

  The floater continued to move toward it at normal floater speed. This was natural enough—Cargill had gathered that they didn't want the Shadows to suspect anything unusual about this particular machine.

  Half an hour went by and all that time the fantastic city ahead grew larger. The towering pyramid shape came into sharper and sharper focus. At ten miles, it was a tremendously high pointed structure, set on a vast base. It straddled a nest of mountains. From five miles away the pyramid resembled a slope of glass through which Cargill could see the buildings concentrated in the central area. Seen close-up, the pyramid seemed anything but a powerful energy screen. It was even harder to grasp that he was here to disconnect the energy of that screen so that the Tweeners could dive down in their marvelous volors upon the unprotected metal and concrete of Shadow City—shadow no more.

  "We land below there at the terminal." The pilot pointed at a building that stood at the edge of a forest. No other words were spoken. The floater came gently down on the gre en sward a hundred and fifty feet from a long low building. Cargill stepped out without being asked. The door clicked shut behind him. He watched as the machine rose into the sky and headed off toward the east.

  Cargill turned and automatically started toward the terminal. And then he stopped. "I'm free," he thought. "They didn't wait to make sure that I would go in. Why shouldn't I just head downhill and lose myself in the wilderness?"

  The surroundings appeared immeasurably desolate: peaks, crags, valleys, ravines and everywhere the primitive forest. It would probably take several days to reach the foothills. But it was a way out. Cargill made as if to turn. Nothing happened. He stood very still, startled. He remembered the tube that had "trained" him. Carefully he walked forward, then abruptly tried to twist on his heels. The muscles wouldn't respond. Pale but determined he thought, "I'll just stay here. I'll act so queerly that the Shadows will become suspicious."

  His legs began to move, easily, naturally, without any sense of strain. He tried to stop them, but he had apparently forgotten how. Involuntarily, but without any of the appearance or feeling of being an automaton, lie walked across the lawn toward the terminal building. He was able to pause at the door, but only long enough to peer briefly through the thick glass into a marble alcove. A young woman inside smiled at him and pressed a button. The door opened.

  A moment later Cargill was inside.

  16

  Cargill paused again just inside the door. In spite of his tenseness, he was curious. He stared with interest and some excitement at the young woman behind the alcove desk. A Shadow? he wondered. She had something of the intelligent look that he'd half expected. But there was also an intensity about her that was hard to define.

  The young receptionist smiled and said in a rich, friendly voice, "We're so very glad to see you here of your own free will. We welcome you with all our hearts. We wish you luck. We want you to be one of us."

  Cargill studied her warily. He recognized an emotional appeal when he heard one and he was impressed by the psychology of it. However, he was not so prepared to accept it as applied to himself. He had too many walls erected against chance breakthroughs of an emotional nature.

  The young woman was speaking again. "You go through this door," she said as she pressed a button.

  Cargill had already glanced through the door. It was wonderfully transparent and led into a marble-walled corridor that slanted off to the right. He smiled at the receptionist, said, "Thank you!" and walked through the door she had opened for him. Two nice-looking older women—Cargill guessed about forty years each—sat at a records section to the right.

  One of them said, "You're a fine-looking young man. We wish you luck."

  The other came out from behind the counter. "Come with me."

  She led the way along a corridor that was lined with glass-fronted cubbyholes. They reminded Cargill of the way some department stores arranged their credit sections. In each office was a desk and two chairs. Cargill's guide paused at one of the entrances. "Here's your prize of the day, Moira." She touched Cargill's arm lightly. "Good luck, young man." "Thank you."

  He spoke automatically, then walked into the office. The young woman looked up and surveyed him thoughtfully for a moment. Then she said, "I like you."

  "Thanks," said Cargill somewhat drily. It seemed to him he was beginning to get the idea. And it was pretty impressive. In little more than a minute they had tried to make him welcome. He saw that Moira was studying him understandingly.

  "You're cynical?" she said.

  That was unexpected. Cargill protested, "I think you've got an excellent system."

  "It didn't hurt me to say I like you," said the girl, "so I said it. Do you mind closing the door?"

  Cargill closed it and remarked, "It's a very good technique for making new arrivals feel at home."

  She shook her head. "I'm very happy to disillusion you. That's the way we live. Part of our life is so tremendously intellectual, so precise and scientific, that we long ago adopted a warmly emotional personal approach on every level of our community here. You'll see when you get into the city. But now, please sit down."

  As Cargill complied, she took out a card and picked up a pen. "You're Morton Cargill, aren't you?"

  Cargill stiffened. He had had a false name quivering on the tip of his tongue. Now he sank a little lower in his chair, silent and alarmed. It seemed to him that he had no recourse but to admit the truth. The chilling effect of the identification grew. He had a sense of bein
g finally committed. Everything he had done since coming to the twenty-fourth century had been done under pressure. And yet, throughout, he'd had the feeling that he would be able to control his destiny. That feeling was gone. In spite of all his actions and counteractions here he was just where the plotters wanted him to be.

  He braced himself to the reality. His opposition, it seemed to him, must now be narrowed down to one individual. If he could somehow kill Grannis, that act, and that alone, might still sway the balance. Aloud he said, "Am I expected?"

  She nodded but said nothing. He watched as she wrote down his name, his nervousness growing. He thought of more implications of the recognition. Mentally, he pictured himself back in the original therapy room, being killed while Betty Lane, who had made the original complaint against him, looked on. The recollection put a pressure on him. He had to have more information. "I don't understand how you could possibly know my name. Do you know in advance the name of everyone who comes here?"

  "Oh, no. You're special." She looked up. "You've come for the training, of course?"

  It was only partly a question. The point was one which she evidently wanted to be taken for granted. Cargill decided temporarily to abandon his effort to find out how these people had learned his name. The young woman smiled at him again. Suddenly she looked so young that he said with impulsive curiosity: "Are you a Shadow?"

  The girl nodded. "Yes, I am." "You don’t always maintain the Shadow shape then?"

  "Whatever for?" She sounded astonished. "That's a highly specialized state of being." As if she suspected his instant fascination with the subject matter, she said hurriedly, "Have you any idea what your responsibilities will be when you become a Shadow?"

  Cargill noted that she said "when" and not "if." It gave him a heady sensation and emboldened him to ask directly, "How did you know my name?" "Time paradox."

  "You mean something has already happened that you know about but I don't?" She nodded.