New Writings in SF 19 - [Anthology] Read online

  ‘That Luger ?’ The Dealer didn’t want to answer X’s question. ‘You find ammunition with it ? I might be able...’

  ‘I’ve been Outside.’ X watched the Dealer closely. The man’s jaw dropped. He stepped back, he looked really surprised.

  ‘Outside! You ... you’re not dead ? How long ... ?’

  ‘Four days.’ It was X’s turn to grin. ‘I’ve got a surprise for everybody. Twenty miles out the desert stops, only you can’t see that for the hills. Green then ... green grass. Further on there are trees. Trees and people, they make things, they even make ammunition that fits Lugers. Where’s the Generator?’

  ‘Up.’ The Dealer answered without thinking. ‘Beyond the Nice Part ... You ... you’re not going to do anything desperate?’ He looked at the Luger and back to X’s face. ‘Now look! You can’t!’

  ‘Tell me how I get there.’

  ‘I’m not saying! It’s watching now! There were alarms before you came in. You haven’t got the money to get me to tell you that!’

  ‘I only need a bullet,’ said X slowly. ‘In your right knee cap. You’ll never walk straight again. If that doesn’t do there’s still your left...’

  ‘All right! But the Happiness Generator! Taking that on! Just think!’

  ‘That’s me, not you. I’ve got to do it. Anyway, it deserves it.’ X brought up the Luger. ‘This thing won’t just smash your knee. Might even take your leg off ... very powerful...’

  ‘All right! There’s a lift—this way.’ He led off. X kept out of reach and followed. As he went he took an overall from one of the tractors and slipped it on.

  The lift had white walls. X drove the Dealer in and made him operate the controls.

  For a full five minutes the lift ground up through the darkness and many levels of the Old Capital. Then they plunged into the sunlight and music of the Nice Part. X held his Luger on the trembling Dealer and stole glances out of the window to his left. He spotted the Weapons’ Hall far down there and saw Guard Travellers moving on the roads and ramps. The people were brilliant in their holiday clothes, but it was always holiday under the Happiness Generator. It was a kind of innocence, a sort of Eden to live in the Capital. X knew what he intended was right, a virtuous thing that he owed the dead Curator. He would unleash humanity to do great things again, it couldn’t be bad but he knew he would get no thanks.

  Then suddenly they were high through the sky and the lift had stopped. X opened the door and they were in a jungle. There was water underfoot, the air was humid, water beads flashed and all he could see was green-yellow flickering ferns and small dashes of clear blue sky beyond them. He was dazzled, he walked on the way he had to go in that flashing light-show jungle.

  X shoved the Dealer on in front with the long barrel of the Luger. They burst through thorny bushes on to white tropical sand that hurt their eyes with its glare. A turtle watched them stonily, blue ocean stretched away beyond waves breaking on the reef, warships, low and grey, lay out there. More museum pieces, thought X, just anchored there.

  ‘The Happiness Generator? It’s here?’ He could see no sign of anything that fitted, there was nothing that he could identify. ‘What is this place? How is it done?’

  ‘The President’s. He lives here. It’s for him. His secret garden, he never leaves. The Generator’s here too, or the part you want anyway.’

  ‘All for him ? He lives here ? But I’ve seen him—he lives among his people, shows himself to them!’

  ‘Dolls.’ The Dealer grinned suddenly. ‘He wouldn’t live like the people. Not where they are. They wouldn’t risk him down there. Androids ... dummies. That way he can be in more places.’ He looked hard at X and then went on. ‘You don’t have to believe it, but it’s the President that really gives the Happiness Generator its orders! It really is!

  The President—he lives for ever. You don’t have to believe that either, but it’s true! Medicine, you know. Surgery. The Generator sees to all that...’

  X found himself believing it. It suddenly seemed right, as if he’d been led up to it all along, as if he’d always known it. A pistol, even a Luger, could kill a man, but what could it do to a Generator? It fitted and anyway, no machine could hurt the Race like it had, not unless there was a man behind it.

  ‘He was the President when the Fuller was made. Power. That’s what he lived for—lives for. A politician, elected in the first place, he’d do anything to go on for ever!’

  It was true! X was sure. He saw it, he saw the pattern. The Capital had to go on to support the President, he was the one that needed the people to suppress and rule, X had heard of politicians. It was mad, but it was a human’s madness. It made sense, in a crazy way, X knew it made sense.

  ‘It’s the President you want to shoot. Not the Generator!’ The Dealer turned to face X. ‘There! I’ve said it! If they catch me they’ll kill me, but you’ll probably do that anyway. At least we’ll die for the right thing!’ He laughed again. ‘I know because my family always dealt in things— things like information. Got a good living ... fun too—but this big thing I’ve told you for nothing!’

  ‘You go,’ said X. ‘Your life, I’ll give you that.’ He had to find time to think.

  ‘Good luck!’ The Dealer backed off the way they’d come. ‘They’ll get me for sure: That Luger—you make it count!’

  X heard the lift door open. It was too quick. The Dealer could never have crossed a mile of fern jungle. ‘You remember !’ The Dealer’s voice came back loud and clear. ‘It’s illusions—all false. Remember it’s the President’s place, you know what he is. It’s made of deceptions, built of them, one on the other for a thousand years.’

  X heard the door close and the lift whirr down and it couldn’t have been twenty feet away. He shook his head and turned to look up the beach. There were buildings there perhaps two miles away, hazy in the distance. He pushed the Luger inside his overall and began walking in the hot sun. When he looked back the fern jungle was as far away as the buildings had been. There were more and bigger ships anchored in close to the shore, all hazed and foreshortened in a funny perspective that he didn’t quite understand. From the ferns to the buildings had taken one and a half minutes and he didn’t understand that either. Simultaneously he appeared, standing, bright light and puzzled in two million screens throughout the Capital.

  Two and a half million viewers saw him scratch his head, half draw his Luger and then push it back. The screens cut to a close-up of his sweaty face, the people saw his eyes narrow as he glanced up at the sun. Some of them even noticed him.

  The screens cut to the figure of the President as he poured the last vapouring liquid hydrogen from a heavy, insulated container into the giant refrigerator. He threw down his thick gloves and made a little bow towards the lenses. The screens played applause and cut briefly to a shot of the Curator android lying on his back with his chest open. Minimal lights flickered a dim pattern in the dark cave of the thorax. The Generator showed X’s sweaty, worried face and played raucous laughter to its audience.

  X rounded the first building. A full size steam-engine confronted him, a figure stood in its shadow. X hesitated, then drove himself out into the open for the sake of the Curator, he reached out the Luger and crept towards the man’s broad back.

  The screens flicked and the President’s face filled them all. He smiled, gestured with his long pointer towards the complicated display behind him. He cleared his throat and began to speak.

  ‘Don’t make a sound!’ X reached the man and pushed the Luger into the neck under the tricorn hat. Turn slowly. This is a pistol!’

  The man didn’t move. X shoved harder on the Luger. The man fell forward. Hit the ground with a small flurry of dust and X nearly screamed. It was like the Curator all over again. Three and a half million viewers caught the expression on his face and joined in the laughter. Perhaps it was going to be a good evening after all. A comedy, perhaps. The Generator, pleased with the effect, played the sequence five more times.

/>   X felt for the pulse at the man’s neck. There was nothing, the flesh was ice cold. X eased past the engine to where a Wright Flyer stood wilting in the sun. Two men were there, with leather jackets and caps worn back to front. As X went the android model of Newcomen flicked an eye open and watched him go.

  ‘This evening,’ said the President, ‘continuing my series on Technology ...’ The viewers relaxed. Perhaps there would be more jokes later.

  The screens showed the Newcomen android being laid on to a test stand alongside the Dealer and the Curator.

  ‘In the fission bomb,’ the President smiled at his people, ‘the Uranium 235 or Plutonium 239, or a mixture, were divided and enclosed in a heavy case. They were then driven together by a conventional explosive. The masses were so held together long enough for fission to take place.

  ‘In the bomb named “Thin Man” for example, two pieces of Uranium 235 were set at opposite ends of a tube and driven together, rather like two bullets fired from opposite ends of the same barrel. In “Fat Man”, on the other hand ...’

  X pushed over the Wright brothers and the people laughed again. He ignored the Victorian electrical machinery with its waxed linen wrapped wires and moved quickly past the test beds with the turbo jets. The androids watched him go. When the audience lost interest the Generator switched them back to the President.

  ‘... 5.30 in the morning, July 16th, 1945, in the old reckoning ... at a place called Alamogordo in New Mexico...’ The President consulted his notes. ‘In what was then the United States of America. Shortly other devices were exploded elsewhere, our forefathers wasted little time ...

  ‘In a fission bomb only 0.1 per cent of the matter present is made into energy. In the fusion bomb 0.5 per cent is released. A vast improvement. With the fission bomb the temperature necessary for fusion became possible. It was possible and it was done.’ The President turned and indicated the corrugated iron building that had appeared behind him on the screens. ‘Here we have a reconstruction of a fusion bomb.’ The Generator flashed the characters ‘T minus 2-10’ on to the four million screens.

  X stumbled over heavy cables that led from diesel generators to the iron building. A trace of white vapour escaped from a tall chimney. As he got near a blast of hot air flapped his overall. He reached the door and hesitated there.

  ‘In fact this is a more advanced design than the first thermonuclear weapon.’ The President, inside now, tapped his pointer on the frost-caked drum that almost filled the hut. The lenses zoomed in closer than ever. ‘At the heart— invisible, I’m afraid—is a simple fission bomb. All around is liquid hydrogen, almost at absolute zero to provide a dense mass. The outer container is several tons of Uranium 238—which is not normally fissionable, there is no critical mass—the small cables leads to the TNT charge which is to initiate the central bomb. In the trees to your left I have a switch ...” He walked out of one door as X entered at the other. T minus 2.00’ said the Generator’s numbers on the four and a half million screens that were now activated.

  The light flashed on the President’s diamond cuffs, his throat ruffles were swan white and pink against the vegetation.

  X edged through the narrow space between the bomb and the corrugated wall. Suddenly everything was very urgent and he didn’t know why. The screens cut from the striding President to X and back again. The Generator began a commentary, drumming up the tension until the people stopped laughing at X’s contortions and sat up on the edges of their six million identical stools.

  ‘Will the President be in time ? Will he see the assassin, X? T minus 1.90 ... 1.89 ...’

  X got into the sunshine in time to see the President reach the trees. He ran that way. Past a jet fighter, past the combustion chambers of a Saturn five, past dummies, a small house with people in it—past assorted crucifixes arranged to test effects and resistances to radiation and blast. He skirted a Lunar Module, frightened a herd of tethered goats and burst through the bushes to confront the blank stare of the President’s sun goggles.

  ‘The initiating conventional explosive is detonated with a normal electric detonator. The system is in triplicate to avoid mishaps.’

  ‘Will he be in time? Will he do it? Will the Capital be destroyed? T minus 1.01 ... 1.00 ...’

  The President smiled at something over X’s shoulder. X looked that way and the trees and bushes were hung with lenses and receptors. He turned and saw the President begin to walk leisurely towards a large switch that was screwed to the trunk of one of the ferns.

  ‘T minus .68!’ said the Generator.

  ‘Stop!’ Yelled X.

  ‘Yes?’ The President turned to face him. ‘You mustn’t hold up my programme.’ He turned to the lenses. ‘Are the fishing boats in position? The fishermen?’ He turned back to X. ‘You’ve got to do things right.’

  ‘Kill !’ screamed the Generator. ‘T minus 0.56 ... 0.55...’

  ‘You’re mad!’ said X coldly. ‘Fancy making a thing like that! Making that damned bomb again! Even if it’s a dummy...’

  ‘It’s a real...’ The President laughed at him. He started walking again, towards the trunk with the switch. ‘Where’d be the point if it wasn’t real?’

  ‘For God’s sake! Why make a thing like that?’

  ‘Power.’ The President began to giggle. ‘Because I could! It’s exactly as it must have been! Look at the ships!’

  ‘I’m going to kill you.’ X spoke with gravity. The viewers writhed a little on their seats, giggled uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry ... I really have to do it... I’m sorry.’ One or two in the audience began to cry.

  ‘Now X! Now! Don’t let him reach the switch! T minus 0.30 ... 0.29.’

  X pushed off the safety catch, brought up the Luger. He aimed at the President’s head. The close-ups on the screens flickered from one face to the other.

  ‘No!’ The President held out a hand as if to stop the bullet. ‘Please not yet—I haven’t finished!’

  The close up showed flame spit from the Luger. The viewers saw the toggle fly back and caught the cartridge case twinkle high into the airy sunshine.

  X’s weak wrist jerked up. Perhaps an earlier man could have held the recoil, but not X. The bullet went smashing into the foliage five feet over the President’s head.

  ‘Missed !’ The Generator was shrieking now. ‘You missed ! Again ! Quick! T minus 0.15 ... 0.14 ...’

  ‘No! Time...’ The President whimpered. ‘Give me ten seconds...’ He began to run for the switch. X fired and missed again. It was a moving target. Firing the Luger wasn’t what he’d thought it would be. He fired again and again and his arm felt as if it had been broken.

  ‘Low! Aim low ! T minus 0.9... Please hurry!’ For the first time the Generator sounded really worried. The people sat up and watched the President’s heels kick dirt as he ran. They saw the fern fronds come falling down as X’s bullets chopped into them, they gnawed their knuckles as whole sections of jungle blotted out and became different. They roared with laughter as the President ducked and bobbed, at X’s antics as he tried to draw a bead.

  Then the President reached the trunk with the switch.

  ‘Please! T minus 0.5 ... 0.4 ... 0.3 ...’

  X’s seventh bullet took the President in the small of the back. He crashed down, knocked flat, back broken and pelvis smashed. He screamed in agony, then moaned with despair when his clawing fingers couldn’t reach the red lever of the switch.

  ‘T!’ said the Generator. ‘T-time ... thank goodness!’

  X went to the President. Put the Luger to the weeping head.

  ‘No...’ the President waved the gun away. ‘It doesn’t matter ... I’m finished, save it...’ For some reason X took his last cartridge and loaded it into the empty magazine. That gave him two rounds. Somehow he felt he might need them.

  ‘You must understand ...’ The President was weakening. ‘That bomb—it wasn’t as powerful as I said—but it can blow the Fuller open ... open like an egg for breakfast. It’s the only th
ing that could touch it, took me six hundred-years to lead up to it, to get the parts and fool the Generator. You spoiled it! Pretended I was mad. Got to destroy the Generator ... you ... you pull the switch ...’

  ‘Too late,’ said the Generator. ‘Much too late ... yet something ... something not right! All right then ... past T-time. Something ... dismantle the bomb!’

  The viewers laughed to see the President die. They laughed at X’s puzzled face when he stood up. It had been a good evening. They laughed even more at his blank astonishment in his new surroundings.

  All the woods, the beaches and the ships, they were all gone. Aluminium, everything was made of aluminium, built for lightness in that high part of the Fuller. X found himself at the dead centre, two hundred feet above him the great arches of the main structure met at the apex of the Capital. Around him the floor curved up. Ten feet away, set on a low, circular balcony, about eye level, nine machined alloy boxes ringed him round. They were quite plain, unmarked, uncoded for any human recognition.