The Best of AE van Vogt Part 12

He meant it. He had never been able to get excited about the pecking order. Yet he had known for a long time that some Silkies felt strongly about their inferior-as it seemed to them-role. Others, like himself, did their duty, were faithful to their human wives, and tried to enjoy the some-what limited possibilities of human civilization-limited for Silkies, who had so many additional senses for which there was no real creative stimulation.

Presumably, things could be better. But meanwhile, they were what they were. Cemp recognized that any attempt to alter them would cause fear and disturbance among human beings. And why do that merely to satisfy the egos of some-what fewer than two thousand Silkies?

At least, that had been the problem until now. The coming of the s.p.a.ce Silkies would add an indefinite number of new egos to the scene, yet, Cemp reasoned, not enough to change the statistics meaningfully.

Aloud, he said, "As far as I can see, under all conceivable circ.u.mstances, there is no better solution to the Silkie problem than that which exists right now."

Charley Baxter chose that moment to end the discussion, saying, "Nat, you have our best, our very best, wishes. And our complete confidence. A s.p.a.ceship will rush you to Mercury's...o...b..t and give you a head start. Good luck."

6.

The scene ahead was absolutely fantastic.

The Silkie planetoid would make its circuit of the sun far inside Mercury's eccentric orbit, and the appearance was that it might brush the edges of the great clouds of hot gas that seemed to poke out like streamers or shapeless arms from the sun's hot surface.

Cemp doubted if such a calamity would actually occur, but as he periodically subjected his steel-hard chitinous Silkie body to the sun's gravity, he sensed the enormous pull of it at this near distance. The circle of white fire filled almost the entire sky ahead. The light was so intense and came in on him on so many bands that it overwhelmed his receptor system whenever he let it in. And he had to open up at intervals in order to make readjustments in his course.

The two hurtling bodies-his own and that of the planet-oid-were presently on a collision course. The actual moment of "collision" was still hours away. So Cemp shut off his entire perception system. Thus, instantly, he sank into the deep sleep that Silkies so rarely allowed themselves.

He awoke in stages and saw that his timing had been exact. The planetoid was now "visible" on one of the tiny neural screens inside the forward part of his body. It showed as a radar-type image, and at the beginning it was the size of a pea.

In less than thirty minutes it grew to an apparent size of five miles, which was half its diameter, he estimated.

At this point, Cemp performed his only dangerous maneuver. He allowed the sun's gravity, to draw him be-tween the sun and the planetoid. Then he cut off the sun's gravity and, using a few bursts of energy manufactured at the edge of a field behind his body, darted toward the planetoid's surface.

What was dangerous about this action was that it brought him in on the dayside. With the superbrilliant sunlight behind him, he was clearly visible to anyone in or on or around the planetoid. But his theory was that no Silkie would normally be exposing himself to the sun, that in fact, every sensible Silkie would be inside the big stone ball or on its night side.

At close range in that ultrabright light, the planetoid looked like the wrinkled head and face of a bald old Amerind. It was reddish-gray and pock marked and lined and not quite round. The pock marks turned out to be actual caves. Into one of these, Cemp floated. He went down into what to human eyes would have been pitch darkness, but the interior was visible to him as a Silkie on many bands.

He found himself in a corridor with smooth granite walls that led slantingly downward. After about twenty minutes he came to a turn in the pa.s.sageway. As he rounded it, he saw a shimmering, almost opaque energy screen in front of him.

Cemp decided at once not to regard it as a problem. He doubted if it had been put up to catch anyone.

In fact, his lightning a.n.a.lysis of it indicated that it was a wall, with the equivalent solidity of a large s.p.a.ceship's outer skin.

As a screen it was strong enough to keep out the most ma.s.sive armor-piercing sh.e.l.ls. Going through such a screen was an exercise in Silkie energy control. First, he put up a matching field and started it oscillating. The oscillation un-stabilized the opposing screen and started it in a sympathetic vibration. As the process continued, the screen and the field began to merge. But it was the screen that became part of Cemp's field, not the reverse.

Thus, his field was within minutes a part of the barrier. Safely inside his field, he crossed the barrier s.p.a.ce. Once past it, disengagement was a matter of slowing down the oscillation until the field and the screen abruptly became separate ent.i.ties.

The sound of the separation was like the crack of a whip, and the presence of sound indicated he had come into air s.p.a.ce. Quickly, he discovered that it was air of an unearthly mixture-thirty percent oxygen, twenty percent helium, and most of the rest gaseous sulphur compounds.

The pressure was about twice that of sea level on Earth, but it was air, and it undoubtedly had a purpose.

From where he had floated through the energy barrier, he saw a large chamber the floor of which was about a hundred feet below him.

Soft lights shone down. Seen in their light, the room was a jewel. The walls were inlaid with precious stones, fine metals, and vari-colored rock cunningly cut into a design. The design was a continuing story picture of a race of four-legged centaur-type beings with a proud bearing and-wherever there were close-ups-sensitive though nonhuman faces.

On the floor was a picture of a planet inset in some kind of glowing substance that showed the curving, mountainous surface, with sparkling lines where rivers flowed, likenesses of forests and other growth, glinting oceans and lakes, and thousands of bright spots marking cities and towns.

The sides of the planet curved away in proper proportion, and Cemp had the feeling that the globe continued on down and that the bottom was probably visible in some lower room.

The overall effect was completely and totallybeautiful.

Cemp surmised that the life scenes and the planet picture were an accurate eidolon of a race and a place with which the Silkies had at some time in their past been a.s.sociated.

He was mentally staggered by the artistic perfection of the room.

He had already, as he floated down, noticed that there were large archways leading to adjoining chambers. He had glimpses of furniture, machines, objects, shining bright and new. He surmised they were artifacts of either the centaur or other civilizations. But he could not take time to explore. His attention fastened on a stairway that led down to the next level.

He went down it and presently found himself facing an-other energy barrier. Penetrating it exactly as he had the other, he moved on and into a chamber filled with sea water. Inset in the floor of that huge room was a planet that glimmered with the green-blue of an under-sea civilization.

And that was only the beginning. Cemp went down from one level to another, each time through an energy screen and through a similarly decorated chamber. Each was inlaid in the same way with precious stones and glinting metals. Each had breathtaking scenes from what he presumed were habitable planets of far stars, and each had a different atmosphere.

After a dozen such chambers, Cemp found that the impact was c.u.mulative. Realization came to him that here, inside this planetoid, had been gathered such treasure as probably did not exist anywhere else.

Cemp visualized the seven-hundred-odd cubic miles that comprised the interior of the most fantastic asteroid in the galaxy, and he remembered what Mathews had said-that perhaps the planetoid was the "city" and Earth was the "farm".

It began to seem that the man's speculation might be truth.

He had been expecting to collide momentarily with an inhabitant of the planetoid. After pa.s.sing three more chambers, each with its glowing duplicate in miniature of a planet of long ago and far away, Cemp paused and recon-sidered.

He had a strong feeling that in learning of these treasures, he had gained an advantage-which he must not lose-and that the Silkies did indeed have their living quarters on the side away from the sun and that they did not expect anyone to arrive in this surprise fashion.

The idea continued to seem correct, and so he turned back and was presently dropping directly toward the dark side. Again the cave openings and, a few score feet inside, the energy barrier. Beyond that were air and gravitation exactly like those at sea level on Earth.

Cemp floated down into a smoothly polished granite chamber. It was furnished with settees, chairs, and tables, and there was a long, low-built bookcase at one end. But the arrangement was like that in an anteroom-formal and unlived in. It gave him an eerie feeling.

Still in his Silkie form, he went down a staircase and into another chamber. It had soil in it, and there was vegetation, which consisted of temperate-zone Earth shrubs and flowers. Once more, the arrangement was formal.

On the third level down were Earthlike offices, with in-formation computers. Cemp, who understood such matters, recorded what they were. He observed also that no one was using this particular source of data.

He was about to go down to the next level, when an energy beam of enormous power triggered the superfast defense screen he had learned from the Kibmadine.

The coruscation as the beam interacted, in an ever-vaster intensity, with Cemp's barrier screen lit the chamber as if sunlight had suddenly been let in. It stayed litaswhoever was directing the beam tested the screen's durability in a sustained power thrust.

For Cemp, it was a fight that moved at lightning speed down the entire line of his defenses and came finally up against the hard core of the second method the Kibmadine had taught him.

There, and only there, he held his own.

7.

A minute went by before the attacker finally seemed to accept that Cemp simply used the beam itself to maintain the barrier. Hence, it took nothing out of him, and the barrier would last as long as the beam did, reforming as often as necessary.

As suddenly as it had begun, the attacking energy ceased.

Cemp stared around him, dismayed. The entire chamber was a shambles of twisted, white-hot machinery and debris. The granite walls had crumbled, exposing raw meteorite rock. Molten rock dripped in a score of flowing rivers from the shattered ceiling and walls. Great sections were still tumbling and sliding.

What had been a modern office had become in a matter of minutes a gutted desolation of blackened metal and rock.

For Cemp, the initial staggering reality was that only the high-speed Kibmadine screen had saved him.

The a.s.sault had been gauged to overwhelm and overspeed the entire Silkie defense and attack system.

The intent had been death. No bargaining, no discussion, no questions.

The hard fight had driven him down to a special logic of levels. He felt an automatic outflow of hatred.

Yet after a little, another realization penetrated.Iwon! he thought.

Calm again but savage, he went down five more levels and emerged abruptly at the upper level of a great vista, a huge open s.p.a.ce. The city of the s.p.a.ce Silkies spread below him.

It was precisely and exactly a small Earth city-apartment buildings, private residences, tree-lined streets. Cemp was bemused, for here, too, the native Silkies had clearly attempted to create a human atmosphere.

He could make out figures on a sidewalk far below. He started down. When he was a hundred feet above them, the people stopped and looked up at him. One-a woman-directed a startled thought at him. "Who are you?"

Cemp told her.

The reaction of the four nearest people was astonish-ment. But they were not afraid or hostile.

The little group, three women and one man, waited for him. As Cemp came down, he was aware that they were signaling to others. Soon a crowd had gathered, mostly in human bodies, mostly women, but an even dozen arrived in Silkie form.

Guards? he wondered. But they were not antagonistic either. Everybody was mentally open, and what was dis-concerting about that was, no one showed any awareness of the attack that had been made on him in the office section near the surface.

Instantly, he saw their unawareness as an opportunity. By keeping silent and alert, he would be able to spot his vicious a.s.sailant. He presumed that the violence had been planned and carried out at the administrative level, I'll find those so andsos!he thought grimly.

To his audience of innocent citizens, he said, "I'm acting as an emissary of the Earth Government. My purpose here is to discover what binding agreements are possible."

A woman called up to him, "We can't seem to change into attractive females, Earth-style. What do you suggest?"

A gale of laughter greeted her remark, Cemp was taken aback. He hadn't expected such easy friendliness from the crowd. But his determination did not waver. "I presume we can discuss that at government level," he said, "but it won't be first on the agenda."

Some remnants of his hate flow must have gone out to them with this thought, for a man said sharply, "He doesn't sound very friendly."

A woman added quickly, "Come now, Mr. Cemp. This is your real home."

Cemp had recovered. He replied in a steady, level thought, "You'll get what you give. Right now, you're giving good. But the agents your government sent to Earth made blood-thirsty threats."

His thought paused there, puzzled. For these people as they were right now did not seem to have any of that threat in them. It struck him that that should be very significant.

After a moment's hesitation, he finished, "I'm here to discover what it's all about, so why not direct me to some-one in authority?"

"We don't have authorities." That was a woman.

A man said, "Mr. Cemp, we live a completely free existence here, and you and other Earth Silkies are invited to join us."

Cemp persisted, "Who decided to send those four hundred messengers to Earth?"

"We always do that, when the time comes," another woman replied.

"Complete with threats?" asked Cemp. "Threats of death?"

The woman seemed suddenly uncertain. She turned to one of the men. "You were down there," she said. "Did you threaten violence?"

The man hesitated. "It's a little vague," he said, "but I guess so." He added quickly, "It's always been this way when E-Lerd conditions us in connection with the Power. Memory tends to fade very quickly.

In fact, I hadn't recalled that threat aspect until now." He seemed astonished. "I'll be d.a.m.ned. I think we'd better speak to E-Lerd and find the reason for it."

Cemp telepathed directly to the man, "What was your afterfeeling about what you had done?"

"Just that I communicated that we s.p.a.ce Silkies were here and that it was time for the Earth Silkies to become aware of their true origin."

He turned to the others. "This is incredible," he said. "I'm astounded. We need to look into E-Lerd's administration of the Power. I uttered murderous words when I was on Earth! That's not like me at all."

His complete amazement was more convincing than any-thing else could possibly have been.

Cemp said firmly, "I gather, then, that contrary to your earlier statements, you do have a leader and his name is E-Lerd."

One of the Silkies answered that. "No, he's not a leader, but I can see how that might be understood.

We're free. No one tells us what to do. But we do delegate responsibilities. For example, E-Lerd is in charge of the Power, and we get its use through him. Would you like to talk to him, Mr. Cemp?"

"Indeed I would," said Cemp with intense satisfaction.

He was thinking,The Power! Of course. Who else? The person who has control of the Power is the only one who could have attacked me!

"My name is O-Vedd," said the s.p.a.ce Silkie. "Come with me."

His long, bulletlike body detached itself from the group of similar bodies and darted off over the heads of the crowd. Cemp followed. They came down to a small entrance and into a narrow, smooth-walled granite corridor. After a hundred feet this opened out to another huge s.p.a.ce. Here was a second city.

At least, for a moment that was what it looked like.

Then Cemp saw that the buildings were of a different character-not dwellings at all. For him, who was familiar with most of the paraphernalia of manufactured energy, there was no question. Some of the ma.s.sive structures below were the kind that housed atomic power. Others were distributing plants for electricity. Still others had the unmis-takable shape of the Ylem transformation systems.

None of these, of course, wasthe Power, but here indeed was power in abundance.

Cemp followed O-Vedd down to the courtyard of a building complex that, despite all its shields, he had no difficulty in identifying as a source of magnetic beams.