New Writings in SF 20 - [Anthology] Read online

  ‘Not if it’s true,’ he said, bunching his incongruously dark eyebrows, which seemed to belong to a different set from the grey hair and beard. ‘But if it is, where does that leave your boy Charlie?’

  ‘He was never wrong during the trials.’

  ‘That’s another thing bothers me,’ Goldberg said. ‘Then he was working on data we’d fed him deliberately—stuff on which the computer itself would have predicted a blow-up. This time he’s either spotted some relationship the computer hasn’t seen, or he’s pulled the whole thing out of thin air.’

  ‘I think his Pre-Cog ability is more likely to be the result of fourth level seepage than any logical process of deduction,’ I said.

  ‘Even unconscious?’ Goldberg shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. In that case he wouldn’t need the data, would he? Even so, the nodal point has to show sooner or later...’ He rushed past me towards the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

  ‘Over to Strategic Command,’ he flung over his shoulder as he opened the door.

  He didn’t have to walk out of the Monitor Room before ‘porting himself to Strategic Command, but that’s another funny thing about Teleports. They can’t bear the idea of being seen in the act of leaving or arriving anywhere. He turned on me as I followed him out into the corridor. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘About the matter of my replacement,’ I said.

  ‘That will be arranged in due course.’

  ‘Due course? I leave in three days—or rather two and a half now.’

  He grunted. ‘There are a couple of likely prospects over at Central.’

  I was shocked by his off-handedness. ‘You mean you haven’t made a definite selection yet? I was hoping that I would have the opportunity of briefing whoever it was before I left. After all, Charlie does need careful handling if we’re to get the best out of him.’

  ‘If you’re so concerned about his welfare, I wonder you can bear to leave him.’

  ‘You don’t understand—he’s very sensitive...’

  ‘So am I! Especially about the thought that the whole damned world is due to go kaput sometime during the next forty-eight hours if we don’t find that node,’ Goldberg said. ‘Now will you get to hell off my back, Jan ?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, turning away and walking back into the Monitor Room. That was the trouble with Goldberg; you might disagree with him, hate him or condemn him for his ruthless manipulation of human beings—but in the long run you always ended up recognising the fact that he was right. The whole root of the thing was tied up with his unshakeable conviction that the entire future of the human race depended on Psi Central. He’d had every member of the Psi Corps believing that since its foundation ten years ago and me in particular for the past five. That was why he was running the show and would continue to do so after I had settled into my cosy domestic routine—if we didn’t all get blown to hell in the meantime.

  I didn’t stay long in the Monitor Room. Wilson and Mackinder were far too busy to take any notice of me. Not so Carter unfortunately, now that Goldberg was gone. God! Any man who can be lecherous under such circumstances and in such surrounds at 6 a.m. must really be trying to prove something. I got out of there and took an elevator up to the roof of the building for some fresh air. I could have saved myself the trouble. A bank of smog was rolling in off the river, glowing red in the dawn light. Maybe the blow-up was the answer, ridding Earth of the disease that was mankind at last, allowing her to return to a natural, unfouled state ...

  Goldberg was back again when I checked into the Monitor Room at nine o’clock. From the conversation that rattled around the knot of six people gathered near him I guessed that there was still no sign of the nodal point and therefore nothing anyone could do to avoid the disastrous probability pattern. It occurred to me that perhaps in this one instance the nodal point was so close to the actual blow-up that there would be no time to do anything to correct the situation before it happened. Like if you put your brakes on about fifty metres before you reach that corner on the down-swooping mountain road you may make it, but if you can’t see the corner until you’re on top of it then you don’t stand a chance.

  Figuring that I might as well try to make at least one human being reasonably happy, I went in and had breakfast with Charlie Noone. As always, he seemed pleased of my company and after starting out by lying to him about the situation being well in hand I even managed to work myself into a slightly more cheerful mood.

  Goldberg called a conference at mid-day. He looked wizened and tired, as if even his phenomenal energy was flagging under the hopelessness of his efforts. He explained that if the average forty-eight hour time lag still held good we had a whole thirty-eight hours and so many minutes in which to locate the node. He also talked very reasonably and calmly about the necessity for rushing through a full evaluation of any change, however apparently trivial, in the Overall picture. Everybody must be alert, the utmost vigilance„..

  Watching that slight figure, and listening to the clipped, deliberately unemotional voice I began to be really scared that this time we just weren’t going to make it.

  The rest of that day and night passed in a kind of nightmarish blur. I was in a hypersensitive state where the whole of my body seemed to be covered with exposed, frayed nerve endings and my mind was whirling in a never-ending spiral of nothingness where no coherent thought seemed to stick in place for more than a few seconds at a time. Put in so many words I suppose I was running scared—and that went for 99 per cent of the people connected with the operation.

  I say 99 per cent, because one really shining example of non-panic was the person who had been the source of the whole thing. Alone in his room he was free from the contagion of fear that infected the rest, living his unchanged, routine existence. He accepted my reassurances without question and took at their face value the cheerful evaluations that channelled through to him continuously from the Strategic Command computer. That night he slept like a baby, while fifteen of us including Goldberg sat there in the Monitor Room watching the screens and dials for the first sign of ... of anything.

  My part of the vigil ended around half past seven the following morning when I tore myself away and walked wearily back to my room. I had a vague sort of hope that a shower and change of clothes would make me feel more human and insulate me at least partly from the hysteria that seemed to be vibrating in the very air of the building.

  I’d just finished towelling myself when the doorbell buzzed. I slipped on a robe and hurried to answer it.

  His face was leaner than I remembered, tanned a deep mahogany brown, and there were lines at the corner of his eyes that hadn’t been there before. But there was no mistaking the grin as he reached out and hugged me close to his stained combat uniform.

  ‘Tony! What happened ?’ I squealed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow night at the earliest.’

  ‘Now what kind of a welcome is that?’ he said, picking me up like a rag doll and kicking the door shut behind him. ‘I hitched a lift with one of the fly-boys who was headed north, instead of waiting for the regular transport.’

  ‘Tony!’ I protested, as he dumped me on to the bed.

  ‘I want you, a shower and some breakfast—in that order,’ he said, peeling off the uniform.

  What red blooded female could argue with that assessment of priorities after six months on the shelf? I stopped protesting.

  * * * *

  About an hour later I sat opposite him in the mess as he demolished a plate of ham and eggs. I was oblivious to everything but the warm glow of my satisfied body and the renewed joy of his presence. He had always been one hell of a man, but the past six months seemed to have hardened and toughened him to such a degree that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my eyes off him for a moment.

  What’s going on around here, anyway?’ he asked at length. ‘Everybody I’ve seen looks wrung out.*

  ‘There’s an emergency alert on,’ I explained. �
�Charlie came up with a traumatic nightmare the night before last and they haven’t been able to locate the nodal point so far.’

  ‘Charlie? Nodal point?’ He frowned inquiringly and I suddenly remembered that he hadn’t been told anything about Operation Canary.

  ‘Charlie’s a Pre-Cog,’ I explained. ‘I’ve been in charge of him for the past three months.’

  ‘You mean he tells fortunes?’

  ‘You could call it that,’ I said.

  ‘And this nightmare business?’

  ‘It will take quite a bit of explaining, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘But in the meantime I ought to go and make sure he’s all right. He’s probably awake by now.’

  ‘What are you to this Charlie, some kind of wet-nurse?’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it later,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Look, I’ll see you back in my room in twenty minutes or so, all right?’

  ‘Not all right,’ he said, pushing back his chair. ‘I’ve got a feeling I ought to meet this Charlie guy who’s been monopolising your time for so long.’

  ‘Well, I...’ I began to object, then I thought to myself what the hell ? What harm could there be in it ? After all, Charlie had to be told sometime during the next two days that I was leaving. What more logical than I should show him the reason and have him happy for me? After all, we had been good friends.

  ‘All right, come along if you want to,’ I said.

  Charlie was up and dressed when we arrived at his room. He was seated in front of the information screen watching the latest intelligence reports on the other side’s ICBM deployment, but he switched off as soon as he heard the door open and rose to his feet.

  ‘Jan, where have you been? I waited breakfast for you, but when you didn’t show ...’ The welcoming smile on his round face faded as he saw that I was not alone.

  ‘Charlie—this is Sergeant Moreno, Tony Moreno,’ I said. ‘Tony—Charlie Noone.’

  They stood eyeing each other warily. Tony, now wearing his elegant walking-out uniform, alert, handsome and tough—and the little fat civilian in his baggy salesman’s suit.

  ‘Tony has just got back from six months’ service in Antarctica,’ I explained, wishing that one or the other of them would make the move to shake hands, or at least to say something.

  Not a word—they remained a couple of metres apart, with me in the no-man’s-land in the middle.

  ‘I brought him in to see you, because I thought it would be a good idea for you to meet,’ I said, trying to force an air of light cheerfulness into my voice. ‘Tony and I are going to be married tomorrow, and I knew...’

  What did I know? Babbling platitudes, I knew absolutely nothing. Even though I was a Tp I had been so stupid that I hadn’t seen the thing that had been building up right under my nose for the past three months. Charlie Noone loved me—not in the carnal way the average man loves a woman. Unworthy creature that I was, he adored me as a goddess, an unattainable, pure ideal.

  And I had destroyed that ideal by revealing to him that I was just another woman, no different or better after all than one of his ten dollar whores, a woman who had given her body to another man.

  It was all there now, impossible to ignore, blazing out of Charlie Noone’s mind—exploding into a berserk fury as he flung himself across the room screaming his hatred for the man who had defiled his goddess.

  And Tony... After six months in the combat zone, where the least unexpected movement can spell instant death and a man lived as long as he could maintain a constant state of alert readiness, he reacted on a reflex level. He needed no other weapons, his battle-trained body was a highly efficient killing machine. This was the kind of situation he had been trained to deal with.

  The whole thing was over much too quickly for anyone to intervene. Charlie Noone was dead before his crumpling body hit the floor, the fire of his mind blotted out like a switched-off light bulb. There had been no time even for terror. In that last split second of his life Charlie Noone, the professional coward who had died a thousand speculative deaths, had known nothing but berserk, heroic rage.

  Tony stared down at the body as if wondering how it had got there, then he looked up at me, the horror growing in his eyes. ‘Jan, I didn’t mean... He was attacking me, and for all I knew ...’

  I turned away, unable to face what I now saw in him; the animal violence, the primitive, killing strength that had destroyed Charlie Noone, crushed that gentle little man like an insect.

  The next sound I heard was that of footsteps—going out of the room. I knew somehow that Tony was walking out of my life for ever, but I didn’t look, for fear that if I saw just once more the movements of that strong, handsome body I wouldn’t have the will-power to resist following him .. .or calling him back.

  When I did turn at last Goldberg was in the room, kneeling beside the body. It looked somehow smaller and shrunken in death. The face was a nothing, just a doughy, expressionless mask.

  ‘He loved me,’ I said, my voice cracking on the edge of hysteria. ‘All this time and I never even guessed. I was in his first level practically every day, but never once ...’

  Goldberg straightened up and looked at me. ‘Be grateful,’ he said gently. ‘And don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could have done to stop his being killed. The nodal point in this particular probability pattern was nothing to do with intelligence data or weapon disposition. It happened when Tony Moreno got on that plane at Antarctica Base.’

  ‘And now?’ I asked, aware that in one short second the whole course of my life had been changed. I could never look at Tony again without remembering what he had done to Charlie Noone—or remembering Charlie and how I had failed him.

  ‘Believe me, Jan, it would never have worked with Tony.’ Goldberg walked across and put his hands firmly on to my shoulders. ‘Better you should know before it’s too late.’

  Why did he always have to be so damned right ?

  ‘But it is too late,’ I said. My own voice sounded strange, as if it belonged to someone else, and I became aware that I was trembling. There were no tears, but inside me something seemed to be contracting, shrivelling into a tight, frozen ball...

  <>

  * * * *

  OH, VALINDA!

  By Michael G. Coney

  Hunting bergworms was a highly profitable but dangerous business, for the monsters lived deep within the polar ice mountains. There was also the environmental pollution and Man with which to contend.

  * * * *

  The rigid wind hissed around Skunder’s helmet as he stood, shivering despite the protection of thick fur, on the blinding Cantek ice-cap. Powdery snow was drifting about his boots and he shuffled nervously, watching the two Earthmen as they fiddled with their instruments, clumsy with gloved hands.

  The shorter of the two men, the captain, spoke. ‘There’s a definite trace down here. Right below us, depth about three hundred feet, I reckon. A big one.’

  ‘You sure?’ the other, taller man queried; his voice was cynical as always. ‘I mean, we’d look silly if we drifted out to sea on an unpropelled floe, Erkelens.’

  ‘Rosskidd,’ the short man’s voice was deliberately patient, ‘I’ve been transporting floes for a few years now. I know a trace when I see one.’ He indicated the screen. ‘See that shadow?’ The two men crouched over the large rectangular box. “That’s a bergworm, about four hundred yards long. A good worm.’

  Rosskidd chuckled dryly. ‘I suppose you can tell me which end the head’s at?’

  Erkelens glanced around, his gaze taking in the dazzling snowfields rising with distance into the blue haze of the floating polar ice-mountains. Turning, he regarded the ocean, grey and silver and raw, tossing from the horizon towards them, disappearing from sight beneath the edge of the glacial cliff some forty yards away. He moved back to the screen and indicated with a gloved finger.

  ‘That’s the head,’ he stated definitely. ‘Facing north-east, against the flow of current.’

 
; Skunder, still silently watching them, wondered why these Earthmen always insisted on placing such faith in their electronic gear. He, Skunder, a native-born Cantek—he knew the bergworm was down there. He had told them where to look. As soon as the helicopter passed over this spot, he had sensed the presence of the giant marine worm; sensed it as a tingling in his bones, a nervous void in his stomach. Sensed the obscene warm fatness of phosphorescent death buried deep within the ice, pulsing, drawing in huge quantities of water, filtering out plankton and larger fish, jetting out the torrent of denatured water from its monstrous anal opening. Hanging in the underside of the floating ice-cap like an inverted U; its phosphorus-rich body cooled, its cavernous mouth questing free and murderous in the dark water. Skunder shuddered...

  ‘You, Cantek... Skunder. Set up the tent.’

  He untied, unwrapped and laid out flat the flaccid folds of pink polythene and awkwardly screwed in the nozzle. As the two Earthmen moved away to survey their new property he jerked the stiff lever and air hissed, the tent rising and crackling, soon standing taut and dome-shaped like a mature breast on the niveous body of the snow-plain.