New Writings in SF 21 - [Anthology] Read online

  ‘All right, Doctor, if you think it’s any use going on.’

  Rachel Waters, with her tinted hair and brisk manner, didn’t need to put on an act with him; she was a good medium, in demand, and made a more than adequate living. But a medium for what ?

  He escorted her to the door. ‘Thanks for coming, Rachel, and—yes, I do think it’s worth going on.’

  After she had gone he sat at his desk and filled his pipe, scribbled a note in the file and dated it: May 1976. Each drawing, each piece of automatic writing seemed to reveal a different personality. He was both intrigued and confused, and wondered: was he wasting his time on this experiment? Could Rachel help him understand his patients at the hospital? The split personalities who appeared to live half their lives in another world ? He was lucky to have her cooperate, but------

  He leafed through a batch of writing she had done previously, reached for the telephone. Perhaps Webb had something to report by now.

  * * * *

  ‘Black Leopards clashed again with members of the White Klan here today. Highlight of a city-wide riot was the attempted assassination of the Black Leopard leader, Mahmoud. Only a deliberate sacrifice by one man saved him; nothing is known so far about the hero of the hour, except that he was not a member of Mahmoud’s personal bodyguard. Witnesses state that the unknown appeared to be in deep trance immediately before fighting his way through the crowd with demoniac strength to grapple with the would-be killer. Assassin and hero died together as a grenade exploded violently between them. A few bystanders were slightly injured—Mahmoud escaped unhurt. Angered by the attack on their leader, Black Leopards erupted into a full-scale riot that is still continuing as this report comes to you. Cars burn in the streets, police barricades have been swept aside, shops wrecked—deaths so far are feared to be almost one hundred. A Klan spokesman denies any knowledge of the assassination attempt.’

  Webb, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, was a spidery man with rimless spectacles and a loose-fitting suit. He sat poised on the edge of a chair in Shannon’s olive-and-cream apartment.

  ‘This particular script breaks down fairly easily. It’s in English, a unique variety. I’d hate to have to say how it developed; a sort of home-brewed dialect, distorted, yet with its own internal logic. Different again from the other examples you’ve sent me—totally indecipherable many of them. I’ve typed a transcript for you.’

  Shannon took the foolscap sheet and compared it with Rachel’s hand-writing—rather, her fountain-pen which had seemed to move of its own volition, at high speed, scribbling without halt. He read carefully:

  ‘Yesterday we flew over the islands. The bridges so crowded, traffic at a standstill, water-lanes crawling with hover-ferries and more arriving all the time. The beaches were one solid black mass. As David said, where else could they go? The problem appears insoluble short of an extermination programme. The islands depressed me and I was glad when we circled over the great herd, such a reassuring sight, all that mass of solid protein, square miles of it. The problem we had come to investigate turned out to be rather a minor affair and soon settled; so we were back in time for------’

  Shannon read it through again; something nagged at the back of his mind.

  ‘I assume some kind of fantasy image,’ Webb commented. ‘Interesting though.’

  Shannon did not answer immediately. The script had a coherence he found disturbing.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said, clipping the transcript to Rachel’s original. And remained unconvinced.

  * * * *

  ‘This is Radio Five calling, temporarily taken over by the Anti-Establishment. We have an ultimatum for you, the peoples of the West. Stop the war in Cambodia: withdraw, or we close all schools, colleges and universities! We’re sick of the power-money bloc, its lies and police-troops. And, just in case you’re wondering how serious we are, let me tell you how we gained control of this broadcasting station. A spy leaked news of our plan to Authority, and police ringed this station to keep us out. One student broke the blockade. One desperate and inspired student. As we marched on the main door, he emptied petrol over his clothes and struck a match—then hurled himself, a living torch, at the police barrier. They gave way and we rushed into the gap he made ... that’s how seriously one of us took the cause of peace.’

  * * * *

  After a heavy day at the hospital, Dr. Shannon lit his pipe and sat back to review the case of Rachel Waters. He was not at all satisfied with the standard answers as he leafed through a steadily growing file.

  Each piece of writing, each taped voice, each coloured drawing so clearly revealed a different personality. Each represented an altered world, a society not quite of here and now. Where did she find these startling images ?

  He studied one script he privately nicknamed the ‘garbage world’, recognising primary features: rivers scummy with pollution leading to a poisoned sea, an atmosphere of smog, a wasteland through which trudged masked women. A world easily enough projected from today’s trends. So...?

  He turned to another scene, dark-skinned people in a tropical country. Africa? Starved figures existing at poverty level in a land swept by plague and tribal warfare.

  Another: a world of human ants in an automated city, living space, freedom and food rationed. Shift-living, controlled by state police.

  One of the drawings showed a rural setting. A small group of elegant people reclined on air-cushions beneath flowering trees, waited on by—slaves ?

  Another drawing revealed a giant statue dominating a town square bordered by timber cottages. The statue had more resemblance to a commutator than any living form. A technological religion ?

  Taken together they were like the pieces of a jig-saw where he had no idea of the finished picture; they didn’t fit. Each appeared quite separate—and some were totally indecipherable. But all came from Rachel’s mind.

  Shannon relit his pipe, brooding. The scripts were in different hand-writing, some agitated, some restrained; the taped voices held different timbres. Were they really only facets of a multiple personality ?

  He toyed briefly with the idea of life on another planet; dismissed it—the human element was too strong.

  The hour grew late and he was on duty first thing in the morning. Sighing, he closed the file on Rachel Waters. One day, perhaps, it would make some kind of sense.

  * * * *

  ‘There came a startling development in the trial of Paul Adamson, self-styled Messiah of the Happies, fifteen minutes ago. Adamson, accused of living on the immoral earnings of his followers, advocating self-indulgence at any cost including crime, claimed to be above the law. In a packed courthouse, he called on the Lord to support him in his time of trial and shame the lying witness to his good name. As if his words were a trigger, the prosecution’s leading witness was shot and killed by an unknown man. The trial was immediately postponed. Doubt is expressed in some quarters whether or not the prosecution now has sufficient evidence to convict; bookmakers are already laying odds on his release. The murderer was seized and arrested; he appeared dazed, as if he did not know what he had done. No connection has so far been traced between the killer and Adamson’s Cult.’

  * * * *

  ‘Interesting, Doctor, very,’ Smith said politely. ‘It’s really why I’ve called to see you. Experts are somewhat scarce in this area.’

  Shannon looked at the man in grey executive suiting and wondered who he was. The telephone had buzzed an hour before, an appointment been insisted on, and at very high level. Smith had introduced himself as a civil servant for an unnamed government department.

  ‘One of our top scientists has been murdered, Doctor. Naturally he was well guarded. Unfortunately, the kind of attack where the killer has no objection to dying himself is very hard to stop. Almost impossible. This one acted like a man possessed...’

  Smith put emphasis on the word he left hanging and waited for Shannon’s reaction. When the doctor, irritated by though
ts of his waiting patients, refused to take the bait, he continued:

  ‘This is restricted information. Our man was working on a new energy source. He’d jury-rigged a gadget that worked —once. He was the sort of man who carried things in his head, taking no assistant into his confidence. We’re left with a gadget that no longer works and a few meaningless jottings. So we’ve lost that ... but we don’t want to lose anything else. The difficulty is ... I suppose you keep up with the news ? Mahmoud, Adamson ? They form a pattern with a number of others that haven’t made the news. A politician whose throat was cut by a girl he picked up; she acted strangely just before she killed. There have been others, deliberately suppressed.

  ‘Something is affecting quite ordinary people. We’ve checked them out; previously they were non-entities, clerks, labourers, shop assistants. Something takes them over, makes them act out of character. A plague, you might call it—a plague of the possessed. The government’s worried—and not only ours. This isn’t restricted to one country and the plague appears to be on the increase. It’s not drug-induced—though we’re putting out a drug story to cover up, to stop panic. Frankly, we don’t know the cause.’

  He studied Shannon’s face. ‘We don’t expect you to come up with-an answer overnight. I’m here to put you in the picture, the big picture. Think about it. Maybe you’ll be able to suggest something. I hope so, we’re desperate.’

  Smith left his chair, fitted a Robin Hood over wavy hair and made for the door. ‘We just hope you can think of something, anything, soon.’

  Shannon, alone, felt suddenly chilled.

  * * * *

  Rachel said, irritated: ‘How would I know ? How could I know? My conscious mind is suspended, it’s like someone writing or speaking through me.’

  Shannon remained patient. ‘I’m not doubting you. This has suddenly become important and I hoped a memory might linger—as a dream perhaps.’

  ‘I can’t help you, Doctor. These places exist, they’re real. I’ve no idea where and, frankly, no desire to find out.’ Her short laugh was harsh. ‘They don’t seem very nice places, do they? Some of them read too close to the news items these days—that racial one, you could imagine we’ll be living that a few years from now.’

  Rachel left him with an idea. A few years from now. Was she getting messages from the future ?

  Shannon poured himself a lager and went to his desk, searched the file again, comparing one item with another. Some, perhaps, might fit an imagined future. But he couldn’t fit them all together to make one world. There were too many discrepancies, one cancelling out another.

  He discarded the idea as he prepared for bed; but the notion of messages from the future stayed with him, buried like a seed in the fertile ground of his mind.

  * * * *

  ‘Overnight, it seems a new religion is sweeping the mainland of Asia. Young men and women are leaving jobs and homes to follow a teenage Burmese girl calling herself the Coloured Virgin...’

  ‘A jumbo jet of Mid-Pan airlines was hi-jacked shortly after leaving Beirut. A last radio message stated that the hijacker was a madman. Witnesses on the ground confirm that the plane nose-dived at high speed and was completely destroyed. There are no survivors. Among those aboard was Kasimir, the multimillionaire oil sheikh and his personal entourage.’

  ‘A state of emergency has been declared in Georgia. A wide area is sealed off—-rumours indicate disaster at a biological warfare laboratory resulting from a drug-crazed chemist running amok.’

  Shannon struggled up from sleep in the middle of the night, groping to pin down an idea dissolving at the back of his skull. Why one future? Why one?

  * * * *

  Sunlight crept between the slats of Venetian blinds, casting striped shadows over a desk littered with reports and tapes. Shannon, wearing his bleakest expression, faced Smith across the desk; his voice was getting hoarse.

  ‘You can check right back through history. There’ve been isolated cases before. Possession, usually by the Devil, speaking in tongues—it’s nothing new. Webb agreed when I put it to him: Rachel’s scripts could be a future development of our present languages. He’s turned some of the others over to foreign linguists, but I’ve no doubt what they’ll find.’

  Smith’s smile had a frozen quality. He remained polite, if incredulous. ‘You have nothing more to offer, Doctor?’

  ‘What more do you need ? You know better than I what’s going on. You’ve heard the tapes, looked at the pictures. D’you have a better answer? Rachel’s images come from some time period ahead of ours, not from the future—from many different possible futures.’

  Shannon rammed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, knowing he was packing too tightly. It seemed important to keep his hands busy.

  ‘Imagine time as a river, with many streams flowing from it. The streams, an infinity of them, are the future. Only the past, the broad river, is fixed. It becomes fixed at that moment we call “now”, the present. Just keep in mind that, ahead of us in time, are many possible divergences. Only one of those future streams can become the broad river of the past, the others fade out.’

  He tried to draw on his pipe as he held a match above the bowl; he had packed too tightly.

  ‘Someone up ahead has learnt how to travel back—mind travel you might call it—back into their past. In this form of travel they take over people here, the possessed. As the possessed, they try to influence events now, to influence them so their particular stream in the future will be the one that doesn’t fade out.’

  Smith said politely, ‘A way-out notion, Doctor, if I ever, heard one.’

  ‘Isn’t it? But consider the period—nineteen seventy-six— we’re right bang in the middle of an expanding technology with social barriers breaking down all round, new attitudes appearing faster than we can keep up. An age of maximum change. A time of changing alliances, a new frontier in space. Naturally, the possessors will concentrate their maximum effort now.’

  Smith looked unhappy as he headed for the door.

  ‘I don’t want to believe you’re right, Doctor. Because, if you are, we’re no longer making our own destiny. We’re puppets. And I see no way of stopping this unnatural interference. Do you?’

  Slowly, Shannon shook his head. Alone again, he slumped in a chair, drained, a man without a future.

  <>

  * * * *

  WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

  by Colin Kapp

  Baba was a very strange planet, its atmosphere torn by unexpected and unpredictable storms. No intelligent life could be found but the larger Baban birds seemed to have a strong system of social hierarchy. Kinoul’s job was to decide whether the planet was suitable for human colonisation without displacing Baba’s sentient life.

  * * * *

  Shortly the great stormclouds obscured the brilliant Baban sun. A low and ominous twilight settled across the treetops. Everything was gripped by an unnatural calm. Even the slight wind, which was Baba’s prevailing right was absent from the leaves and the grasses. The great depression was a spring, tight-wound with an expectancy of the fury soon to come.

  With the rising tension, came a failure of the light. Rockwell was becoming worried. He found it increasingly difficult to discern the route of the slight track along which he was attempting to drive the landcat. Even in sunlight the way was awkward enough to follow. Nature had a grim determination to heal every scar caused by a landcat’s tracks. Now, against the shades of unscheduled night, the chore of driving had passed into the realms of nightmare.

  Too old and too unused to such continuous strain, Rockwell was tiring rapidly. Having gained what he had come for, he should have been clear of the area long before. He switched on the computer and drew out the charts, intending to navigate by instruments. To his consternation, tight bands of static swamped the transmissions from the radio reference beacons. The readout from the navigation computer made erratic nonsense. After a very few moments he rejected the electronic confusion and return
ed again to rely on his own senses. Things were becoming critical indeed.

  The descending cloudbase was moving even lower and the scene was growing darker still. Rockwell switched on the searchlight to supplement the headlamps. Dark and lush, the greenness of the foliage, greedily absorbed the extra light and returned but little of it. The very existence of the track seemed to recede into improbability. Overhead the darkness was now total. Only on the far horizon, beyond the fringes of the storm, did there linger even the faintest trace of daylight.

  The forest was frightened and still, waiting with tense expectancy for the storm to break. Even the minute forest fauna had fled for cover deep beneath the roots and leaves. No creatures roamed the runs beneath the ferns and brush. In the skies no great birds flew. A storm on Baba was something which nothing in Creation faced with equanimity.

  The hiatus was broken by an eager wind blowing towards the centre of a maturing thundercell. Rockwell deduced its direction from the way it moved the foliage. He was not surprised to find the cell was located directly over his intended path. His dismay was coloured by a grudged appreciation of the scale of the fantastic trap into which he had driven. Probably this single thundercell involved a thousand cubic kilometres of tropical atmosphere, structured into a destructive electrostatic generator capable of exchanging million ampere pulses with the ground. Its location was precisely in accordance with the theory he had come to verify. Unfortunately its real implication was not so well defined.