New Writings in SF 4 - [Anthology] Read online

  Stan rubbed his face. “Rick, listen and hear me. I may not have the chance to repeat what I’m going to say. You can’t explain the Black Horse, I can’t, none of us can. So we’ll take the things that have happened as pointers and see what they can show us. If we see something outside our technology, that’s a pity. Because like the guy said, once you’ve eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.”

  He took a swig of whisky. He said, “We’ll eliminate sabotage. If you wanted to wreck our lines, O.K., but how would you melt a tower ? And we’ll eliminate the chance that we’re all asleep and dreaming this, I cut my face shaving this morning, I bled...We’ll also discount the idea that we’ve suffered a series of unconnected mishaps because a probability of that order is strictly in the monkeys-play-Beethoven class. We’ll take the facts as interrelated events and work from there.

  “An old hobo died. Then there was the farmer. Then the boys in the chopper, they flew nearly straight at High Eight. And Halloran up on the wires. Then the people we saw the day the tower melted. Now, I know and you know, Jim Halloran wouldn’t have killed himself. It’s like the guys said, he was pulled up there. The zombies didn’t kill themselves consciously either; you know that, you were with me, you helped drag ‘em off the lines. They weren’t conscious of a damn thing. I don’t believe any of the deaths have been suicides, except maybe the old tramp. People have been drawn to the lines, in particular to High Eight, and there hasn’t been a damn thing they could do about it. To me that suggests a force, a Will if you want to think of it like that. Something stronger than humans, something that can cut across the basic instinct to survive, make you go up there and ... char yourself into a union with it. And the figures say something else. First it was one, then two, then three, then a hundred. The Will is getting stronger. So I maintain it’s a process of feeding....”

  Rick said hoarsely, “For the sake of God...”

  Stan kept on talking, overrode him. “It’s very strong now because it took the ones that died in hospital. It’s strong and it’s mean. It’s made mistakes in the past. Bad ones. But it won’t make any more. What happened to Station Seven we shall never know. Or the tower. I’d say that last time it got over-keen. It was hauling in its biggest batch to date, it got careless, allowed too big a concentration of itself in one place. Because it can concentrate and disperse. It can adjust our voltage to what it needs. This I’ve proved.”

  Rick said, “But our juice—”

  Stan stopped him savagely. “It isn’t our juice. He ... it ... uses the current somehow as a carrier. It can work the voltage the way it wants. For instance, it can keep surges away from the trip gear when it doesn’t want the hotplate turned off. They read on the dials, they read every place, but the lines don’t pull out.”

  “That’s crazy—”

  “Rick, you don’t know about this because it was done behind your back. For that, I’m sorry. I put recording voltmeters on that line. One on the output at Saskeega, one in High Eight, one at Station Seven, half a dozen more in between. They were set up one night and taken down again before dawn. I got the rolls here.” He turned on a shaded lamp and opened a drawer. He handed Rick the graphs. The overseer stared at them. It seemed to him in that moment the shadows in the workshop started to darken and crowd. Theories were great, but they were still just playing with words, this was something you could touch. Rick was a working stiff, he believed in something he could touch.

  The line up to the Black Horse was full of knots and snarls. The graphs showed it. There were pulses in the voltage, peaks and zeroings. There were rhythms where something had raced all night up the wires and back between Saskeega and High Eight. Something impossible, something malevolent, something terribly strong. Allison had talked about music. This was the notation of the time she’d heard...

  Stan said quietly, “I ran the same test in Indian Valley. Beyond High Eight the voltage doesn’t move. The lines are clean.”

  Rick could only whisper. “What in Hell is it? You know what in Hell it is, Stan?”

  He shrugged. “How can I answer that? How can anybody ? Maybe it’s the old man, the hobo. Maybe he somehow got caught in the lines. And he’s lonely, wants some company...Maybe it’s something that blew in with the cosmic rays, maybe we generated it ourselves from cobalt and hydrogen, maybe there was a second Creation down there in the windings, deep in the darkness and warmth, and this is the new Adam. Demon or spirit. Stallion Jim or AntiChrist himself, I don’t know. But I know why it uses our lines, why it’s sitting up there in High Eight.”

  “Why?”

  He said, “Use your head, Rick. We’re the biggest feeder into the Sand Creek Pool. And there’s the gear on the hill, the Doomsday units. Whatever we think, whatever happens, those lines are going to stay intact. The thing could flow off, it’s got a whole country to travel in, hunt in. It must have moved when it blew the stage, it must have got out when the tower went. But it comes back each time to where it knows its safe.”

  Cameron was just beginning to see possibilities. He had to lick his lips to make his voice come. “Stan,” he said. “what’s going to be the end of this...”

  The Controller was standing in the half dark outside the circle of lamplight. Rick saw him shrug. He said, “This is still supposition. But the way I see it, there need be no end. Look at the lines, Rick, think about them. Think about them the way Judy does. Think how they go out from the power companies to the substations, how they split into street mains, how the street mains split into the risers. Think about how they wind themselves through towns and villages, into shops and movie houses and theatres, factories, farms, hospitals...A forest, that’s what the lines are. A million trees on the same trunk. And if those lines go bad, and it’s starting here at High Eight ... they could touch us all. There’d be no getting away.

  “Nobody would realize when it really started to pull. Maybe it would take the scientists, the politicians, anybody who could understand it, know what it was trying to do. Maybe we’d start a few wars, help it on with the job. One thing’s certain; until the very last of us went, Saskeega would still be manned, those lines to Sand Creek would be alive. And after that, when there was nobody left.... Who knows ? Perhaps Saskeega would still be manned...

  “If I wasn’t an engineer, if I wasn’t works controller for Saskeega and if I believed this, I’d get out. I’d go live in Tibet. That way I might manage to die apart from it. But I’m not a free agent. I have to say this is rubbish, this is all fools’ talk. I have to get on with the job.”

  He lit a cigarette. The sudden flare of light was startling. Rick saw his face for a second. He looked worried nearly to death. The overseer said suddenly, “We can kill it, Stan. Cut the lines at Saskeega and beyond High Eight, quarantine it, starve it to death...”

  Stan laughed. He said bitterly, “Kill it? Can you see that happening, can you see me running to old man Perkins, to the Government? What would I say, cut the lines over the Black Horse, cut ‘em each end because the Devil’s in the wires and we got to starve him out? Can you see me doing that? And can you imagine them listening? I told you it was smart. It’s damn smart. There’s no way out.”

  Rick said, “Take it in your own hands. You know what’s happening, you’ve sold me on it...I’m with you, my boys’d do it...”

  Stan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll forget you said that, Rick. But I’ll give you this warning. I forbid you as your superior to do anything that would prejudice the running of Saskeega Power. I’m still Works Controller, and, by God, if that’s my job I’m going to see it keeps on getting done. You clear on that, Rick?”

  Cameron shook his head. It was like he couldn’t think straight any more. “You can’t just let it build, Stan. It’s too bloody awful to think about. If this thing gets started...”

  Mainwaring shook his head. “Rick, I’m in a vice. I’m caught in the same trap as everybody else. It’s the sort of trap only the human race could have in
vented for itself. It could have sprung any time. It’s chosen now. We’re hooked on our own technology.

  “Those lines have got to stay in. We need ‘em. We’re dead without them. Could be we’re dead with them as well, that’s just too bad. But we can’t turn the clock back. We can’t scrap electricity just because it’s turned mean.

  “I’ve told you what I know is true. But I didn’t tell you I believed it. This is one of those times when knowing and believing are two different things. I can’t let myself believe this because of what I am at Saskeega. I can’t believe it on a personal basis either because it represents the descent to what I’ve been taught to regard as unreason. I can’t take a fall like that.”

  He walked across the shed and turned on another light. Then another. Then he started one of the lathes. He said, “I stand or fall on what I’ve told you. I’m about to prove it one way or the other.”

  Suddenly, Rick was scared. “Stan, what the Hell....”

  He turned on the other lathe, the drilling machine. He looked round but there was nothing else left to start up. The whole place was humming and clacking, light streaming out across the lawn in the dusk. And far-off was the Black Horse, a shadow in the night. The mountain looked ten miles tall. Stan said, “This filth can come down the wires. It got to the people in hospital. It got to the girl Allison. It made her do something I still shudder to think about. So it could be with us now. In the lamps, the lathes.

  “I say the Thing, whatever it is, is logical. So far it’s moved in steps that can and have been explained. Being logical, it knows I’m the only guy understands it and can order its death. I’ve absolved you from responsibility and also for the moment from risk by giving you the orders I did. So if it wants to stay alive it’s got to take me. And it’s got to move fast.” He put his hand on the housing of one of the lathes and looked at the mountain. He said, “I’m challenging you, you bastard. And whichever way you move you’re through. Because if I go off the book people will finally know you’re real, and they’ll know how to carve your heart out...”

  Nothing happened. The mountain hung in the sky like a cloud and the lathes turned softly and the belts went click-click-click over the pulleys and that was all. They waited; then Stan shut down the gear and Rick followed him back to the house.

  They heard a late night newscast. The news was weird. Throughout the States ten thousand people had been reported missing from their homes within the last twenty-four hours. The FBI were conducting nation-wide enquiries. An airliner had crashed in the Rockies, nearly five hundred miles off course. A cowboy, riding a boundary miles from anywhere, had seen a strange thing. He swore he’d met an army of ragged, empty-faced folk who swarmed past without speaking, pushed on to God knew where. There was a lot more stuff like that.

  Stan hunted out some maps and did a little plotting. The course of the aircraft, the sightings of wandering people ... he wound up with a set of lines. They all pointed to one place.

  Rick felt he couldn’t believe his eyes. But he had to believe. He said, “Stan, by God, it’s moving. It’s started to move...” Stan just sat and shook his head. He didn’t answer.

  They talked the girls into going east. They couldn’t say what they were afraid was happening, they just told them, over and over, there was something badly wrong. They had a hard job convincing them, but they gave in finally. Stan left it that Judy would drive out in the morning, he’d follow on as soon as he could. Then they tried to get some rest. Rick was up at dawn. It was pretty early, but Stan had beaten him to it. The garage was empty, he’d already gone to Saskeega.

  Rick drove up to his own place. Everything was quiet. He changed, hunted out an old cutthroat razor and had a shave. He didn’t fancy using his Remington. Then he went and stood outside where he could see the valley, the mountain beyond, the lines moving up there like cobwebs miles away. He kept thinking he ought to be packing, they all ought to be getting out. But it was still too crazy. It was like throwing away job and future and home and all the folk you knew because one night you’d had a bad dream. It was all so peaceful. The air smelled good, there just couldn’t be a Thing in the wires that was fixing to kill everybody on earth....

  He drove down to Saskeega. There were troops on the road, everything was confused. Nobody knew for sure what was happening. He saw tanks, and there were guns pointed about. Nowhere to aim them. He heard somebody ask if they’d started another war.

  Saskeega was empty. Deserted. It was crazy. Rick could hear the noise of the turbines, the roaring the place always made. The power was going out, but the station was running itself.

  A siren was howling someplace, but even the siren sounded sort of lonely. Like there was nobody to shout to and it knew it. Rick went into Main Block, got to the old man’s office. The door was swinging open, his chair was overturned, there were papers scattered about the floor. Like he’d jumped up suddenly and run out like a mad thing. There was no help there. Rick drove across to West Power.

  The sun was well up now, it was going to be a hot day. He got out of the car, ran across the macadam. His footsteps were the only thing there was. He got to the control room, Donnell was there on his own. Rick asked where the Hell were the shift staff, why hadn’t he yelled for help. He was sweating, looked half crazy. He’d tried, phones wouldn’t answer, he couldn’t leave the place on its own. Voltage had been jumping over the Black Horse, the trips hadn’t pulled the line. Mr. Mainwaring had been in, Mr. Mainwaring had driven up to High Eight. He’d said he would call from the pass. He hadn’t called yet...

  Rick looked at the dials on the main panel, they were reading steady. The building was pulsing. Wasn’t what you could call a noise, it was the feeling of a dozen turbines threshing power into the lines, driving it up and away over the Black Horse. Donnell couldn’t keep still. The wires were bad, they’d gone bad again, something was far wrong. He’d buy his lot if he let the line burn out, he’d buy his lot if he pulled the plug without an authority. Would Rick authorize him, would he clear him to close the line?

  Cameron swore at him. It was Donnell’s baby, not his. The engineer looked like he was going to burst out crying. He started patting panels and controls like he couldn’t believe anything was real any more. The phone rang.

  Rick grabbed it. But it wasn’t Stan, it was Judy. Somehow the call had got through, they couldn’t have all been dead in the exchange... Judy on the line, wanted to know were things O.K. ? She was packing, they were getting on the road, were things O.K. ?

  Donnell was yanking Rick’s arm. Muttering something about music. He knocked him off and he started to yell. “The music, Rick, it started again, was the music last time, I saw those dials move, we all did, couldn’t do a thing, just had to hear the music. Christ, Rick, the music . . .” He was down on his knees, groping about. Donnell was through.

  Rick stood feeling the power through the soles of his shoes and there was Judy on the line and he didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think any more. The voltage was going to waltz again and he couldn’t think. He said, “Look, Judy, get this and get it good. Things aren’t O.K., there’s something crazy happening. Just get out, Judy, make it fast...”

  Then it hit him. She was packing, meant she was calling from home. They shouldn’t have gone back up there, he wanted them away and clear. He yelled at her. “Judy, get out of that house...!”

  “What—”

  He gagged, but it had to be said. “Judy, the lines. Like you said, there’s something wrong with the lines. Judy, don’t go near any lines. Don’t try and cook, don’t use any lights, don’t take any more calls. Just get out. Tell Jeff that’s from Stan and me. Tell her we’ll come soon as we can, tell her I’ll bring Stan along, I’ll bring him if I have to carry him. But get out! You got that, Judy, you got that O.K.?”

  “Ye-es...”

  “Well, be a good girl, finish that packing and get out. Shoo, scat...I’ll see you soon as I can...”

  He put the handset down, ran to the line phone. D
onnell was yelling. “I heard it last time, Rick, couldn’t tell you, couldn’t lose my job, you’d have said I was crazy, couldn’t say what I heard....”

  He said, “For Chrissake, get out of the way. . . .” He got past him, got to the phone. He rang High Eight. Nobody there. The static on the line was horrible, it was wailing and gibbering at the same time, it was like hearing a mad army. He’d never heard static like that before. He yelled, “Anybody there? Come on, come on somebody, are you there ... ?”

  He thought he heard a handset being picked up. “Stan, that you ? You up at High Eight?”

  Something like a groan. It sounded like a groan. And a word, all threaded through and underlaid with static. Sounded like, “Can’t...” Then there was nothing.

  Cameron banged the receiver rest. He yelled, “Stan? Stan, you there ? West Power to High Eight, are you there... ?”

  High Eight answered. They both saw it, saw every dial on the board kick its stops as the voltage jumped up there on the mountain.....

  Rick made a noise like a horse neighing. He jumped at the board and pulled the line, killed it stone dead. Then he ran for the car.