Hand from the Void

Chapter Four Call to Arms

Sargo pulled his old car off the road five hundred yards from Means’ place. It was midnight. One light was on in the main building. The moon was almost full, and the landscape was thickly silvered.

Sargo quickly unloaded his equipment. A light collapsible ladder, a thick old blanket, wire cutters with rubber grips. He hummed softly. He handed Jeff one of the revolvers. Jeff stuffed it inside his belt without a word.

Stones rattled under their steps with startlingly loud sounds. Sargo shushed him a few times. At last they reached that portion of the wall that Sargo had selected based on the crude map Jeff had drawn for him.

Sargo, once they were at the wall, acted as casual as any plumber. He hummed under his breath, extended the ladder, joggled it into a solid position and went up with a quick agility surprising in a man of his bulk. He reached up with the wire cutters and snipped the strand. It was taut enough to making a swish and ping as it parted. He spread the blanket over the broken glass, eased himself down on top of the wall and motioned to Jeff. When Jeff was beside him he pulled up the ladder and lowered it on the inside of the wall. “No current in the wire,” he said in that low tone that doesn’t carry half as far as a whisper.

Moments later they walked cautiously across the grounds, staying out of the bright bands of moonlight. Jeff was half sick with worry about Julie. Her claim that Mike, Paul, Laura and Elaine were not of this earth had been enormously strenghthened by the incredible decomposition of the unknown object that had been affixed to his car. With human opponents it is possible to make assumptions regarding possible future courses of action. But no assumptions are valid when dealing with the unknown. There is no pattern to extrapolate.

They reached the outbuilding without seeing any movement or sign of life. It was of the same stone as the main building. It was a flat-roofed twenty-foot cube with one door. Sargo began to hum again. A coyote howled and sobbed off in the wasteland. They stood in the black shadows of the doorway. Sargo took a pencil flash out of his pocket and began to examine the door. He grunted.

“What’s the matter?”

“Put your hand on the door.”

Jeff did so. He snatched his hand away, replaced it cautiously. The door had warmth that was not warmth. It was a-tingle, pulsating with a current of some sort.

“And no keyhole. No knob. No nothing,” Sargo said with intense disgust.

Under the thin beam of the light the door had an opalescence about it, as though it had been recently oiled. Sargo began to run his hands around the frame, searching for some hidden catch.

“I don’t think that’s going to do any good,” Jeff whispered.

“What do you mean, doc?”

“I don’t think it’s a door... as we know doors.”

“So what is it, now? A window maybe?”

“Don’t clown, Sargo. This is a serious thing.”

Sargo continued searching. At last he gave up. They circled the building, hurrying where the moonlight was brightest. There were no windows.

“Now what, doc?” Sargo asked.

“Now we’ll see if we can get the girl.”

“Lead on.”

In the shadows near the doorway to the big house Jeff whispered, “I’ll try to get in and see her. That main gate is open. If and when I come out with her, we’ll get her to the car as fast as we can. If I don’t come out in five minutes, come on in after me.”

“I hope you know what this is all about, doc. I certainly don’t.”

Jeff straightened his shoulders and walked to the main door. He raised his hand to the massive bronze knocker and paused with his fingers against the cool metal. He lowered his hand and tried the big knob. It turned and the heavy door swung in without sound. The hallway was dark. He slipped in and closed the door, stood with his back to it, his breathing shallow, his skin prickling.

It took several moments before his eyes were accustomed to the lesser light of the hallway. He knew that Julie’s room was upstairs. He knew in which end of the building it was. He did not know which door would be hers.

For a time he doubted the wisdom of his decision to take her out of there. It had seemed wiser for her to stay there... until he had found out about the device affixed to the car.

Yes, the world was a big place and surely a small girl could be hidden where no one — human or alien — could find her.

He drifted silently by the doorway of the room containing all the office equipment. He looked in and saw the military alignment of the desks, silent in a mild shaft of moonlight.

He reached the stairs and remembered reading somewhere that the center of the treads were most likely to squeak.

When he reached the fifth stair, staying close to the edge, sliding his hand up the railing, the lights came on. For a moment they blinded him. He turned. The one called Mike stood by the light switch, his back against the wall, his smile lazy and contained. The taller girl stood a few feet from him. In panic he looked up the stairs. The other man, the one who must be called Paul, sat on the top step, indolent, his forearms on his knees, his hands hanging limp from his wrists. The other girl stood so close to Paul that his shoulder brushed her skirt.

There was nothing specifically threatening about their attitude. Jeff had seen a cat act the same way, bored with playing with a mouse, yawning and looking away before making another dutiful pounce.

“Where’s Julie?” he demanded.

The tall girl — Laura — made a most peculiar gesture with one hand. It utilized the extraordinary flexibility of her wrist. The other three smiled with cool delight, as though it were a joke that was slightly improper.

“Where is she?”

“Sleeping,” said Mike. He cocked his head on one side. “No. Now she’s half awake. She moaned a little. Very interesting. Transmission on the alpha level. Not many of you have that, you know.”

Jeff carefully slid his hand down the railing a few inches and tightened his grip. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.

“You would land where the floor is very slippery,” Elaine said.

Mike made a tiny shrug. Laura turned and looked at him and Jeff thought he saw a trace of anger in her face. The total effect of four of them together was overwhelming. It intensified their alien appearance and manner.

Laura said, “You see, Jeffrey Rayden, we are still divided. Mike is our conformist. He detests untried solutions. He despises this whole assignment. Very primitive of him. We’ve given the two of you some very exhaustive tests, you know. Dos Almas is one of those tests. It did not exist before the aircraft landed. And it exists no longer. But for a time it was as real as this house. Mike wants us to erase your memories back to the point where you both became aware of something ‘odd’ about our Mister Borden Means. The rest of us think we can make our solution work.”

“Make what work?” He heard the blankness of his own tone.

The main door swung open and Sargo came in. He walked with bent-kneed cat-stride, the revolver looking the more deadly from the casual way he held it. Jeff was annoyed with himself for forgetting the gun stuffed inside his own belt.

“Okay, folks,” Sargo said, “Line up right over there along the wall.”

Not one of them moved. Sargo made an angry motion with the gun. “Move! You think I got faucet water in this thing?”

Jeff saw Laura glance at Mike. Mike looked steadily at Sargo. The lines of anger and resolution faded from Sargo’s face. He stared stupidly down at the gun in his hand. Then he looked at each of them in turn. “What makes?” he asked thickly. “Who...”

“That was a very neat erasure that Mike just performed,” Laura said.

“I’m sorry, Sargo,” Jeff said wanly.

“And who might you be, doc? Where am I? I’m sitting waiting for Mary and here I am inside some hallway pointing guns. Either I’m going nuts or Willis is spiking the beer.”

Laura gave Sargo a charming smile. “The hot sun will do that, Mister Sargo. Your ladder and tools are in the brush right outside the door and to the right. You can pick them up and go out the main gate and turn right. You’ll find your car not too far down the road.”

Sargo turned to go, shaking his head in a bewildered fashion.

Something grasped Jeff’s brain so strongly that it misted all his senses. He was conscious of his hand taking the gun out, reversing it, of his feet starting to carry him down the steps. Then the pressure was gone. Three of them were looking angrily at Mike. He had staggered back against the wall, his face pale, a film of sweat on his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Jeffrey Rayden,” Elaine said from the head of the stars. “We didn’t let him guide you long enough for any mental damage to occur. He shouldn’t have done it. He won’t do it again. Please take the gun to Mister Sargo.”

Sargo took the gun, looked blankly at it, recognized it as his own and left without another word.

“I’ll have Julie come down,” Laura said.

“This erasing,” Jeff said thickly. “That’s what you did to Looder and Lamke and the others.”

“That, too, causes a certain functional damage,” Paul said, speaking for the first time, “but not enough to make them less effective in their restricted existences. With you that damage would make a difference.”

“Only,” said Mike icily, “if their plan is approved.”

“Our plan will be approved,” Paul said. He turned to look at Julie who had appeared behind him, a pale green terry-cloth robe belted around her, her hair in disarray, her eyes sleepy and puzzled.

“Somebody called me and — Jeff! Jeff, what are you doing here! Why are all of you...” She made a sound suspiciously like a sob, hurried past Elaine and Paul and ran down the steps into Jeff’s arms, clinging to him, her fingers digging into his arms just above the elbows.

“We’re taking you to that building you’ve been so curious about. Don’t be alarmed. It will be easier to talk to you there,” Laura said. “Your... understanding will be improved.”

“But not enough,” Mike said.

The six of them walked through the moonlight. Jeff kept his arm around Julie. He could feel her tremble. Laura reached the door first. She touched it and it slid to one side. A subdued orange radiance shone out onto the ground. They went through a narrow hallway six feet long, smoothly metallic, and came into a small room in which the air seemed to throb.

As Jeff started to look around, the intense exhilaration struck him. He heard himself begin to giggle helplessly. Julie was laughing, the tears running down her face. It was like the contagion of laughter.

Paul had hurried to a small panel set into the smooth wall. The drunken feeling faded, but it didn’t go away completely. There was an old sensation of lightness, clarity and well-being. There was no room in his mind for fear.

Mike looked on with a sardonic expression.

“It was set just a bit too high for you,” Laura said.

The room, except for the regularly placed panel inserts, was featureless. There seemed to be no source for the soft orange radiance. Paul stepped to another panel and a thin, haunting, atonal melody began to fill the air, more felt than heard.

“We are far more comfortable here than in your — forgive us — crude environment,” Elaine said.

Paul had made yet another adjustment. One entire wall changed abruptly to utter blackness. Mike said, “Understand that they have no approval for this, you two.”

When Jeff looked behind him he saw six odd chair-like objects formed of coils of a soft substance. He had not seen them appear.

They were told to sit down. Paul brought Laura a gleaming circlet of metal and set it gently on her shining hair. All six of them sat, facing the dark wall.

Laura said, “I am explaining all this to you because I am in charge of this team. I will use your speech and visual explanation. I can cause any image I wish to appear on that wall. So do not let it frighten you. I can read your minds, and so I will adjust the speed of the explanation to suit the slowest one of you. If you have a question, please vocalize it. It makes it easier to read.”

The wall was filled with a billion shining stars.

Afterward, Jeff was to realize that the most incredible thing about the next hour was not the galactic scope of her story, nor was it the most casual references to incredible time spans, nor was it the oddness of the room in which they sat. It was his own willingness to believe — his own total lack of skepticism, as though something had caught and held his mind so that it could not twist away from facts which should normally have resulted in either a blank stare or a short laugh of incredulity.

It was a story to match the size of the sky.

She transposed the figures into the numerical system of the world of Jeff and Julie. The figures had the roar of distant thunder.

“This galaxy is called Reeth. It is like a vast hand, figures straight and close together. Your planet is at base of the palm. Our home planet, Syala, is at the fingertips. It is a hundred thousand light years from the fingertips to the base of the palm, and eleven thousand light years across the palm at its widest point. It contains forty billion suns, two hundred billion planets. Four billions of the two hundred billions of planets have had, or will have, a spontaneous generation of unicellular living creatures which will apex at last in a man-like creature — that is, an oxygen-breathing biped with articulated fingers at the ends of the other two limbs. This phenomenon is due to the origin of the galaxy. The universe began with the explosion of super-condensed matter. It continues to explode. All of the planets of Reeth, coming as they did from the same area within the super-condensed matter, have a homogeneity of basic elements which, once life is begun, must perforce funnel the life-apex into a man-like creature. Different gravities result in ‘distortions’. In more cases than not, Reethians developing independently on planets of similar gravities are so similar that when intermingled they can breed true.

“The Reeth Covenant had been in effect for thirty thousand years. The Covenant marked the end of interstellar wars. The basic philosophy of the Covenant is that each life-bearing planet shall mature independently without outside influence.

“Each primitive planet is scheduled for periodic survey and grading. The grading is as follows: Division One — all planets which have acquired the internal combustion engine. Division Two — primitive atomics. Division Three — exploration and colonization of home system planets. Division Four — a practicable interstellar drive. Division Five — the conquest of the barrier of the speed of light.

“All planet groups from Division One through Division Four are normally obsessed with the egocentric belief that they are alone in the galaxy and the universe.

“After Division Four is reached the planet is approached, acquainted with the Covenant and requested to cooperate. Minor disciplinary measures are invariably required. Then the planet becomes an autonomous member, is assigned guardianship over the primitive planets in its immediate area, is placed on trade routes, receives and gives technological information.

“There are six hundred planets which have attained Covenant Status. Each has a guardianship function over six and a half million planets of primitive status. Under normal conditions, Earth would have been left severely alone, with surveys conducted in secrecy, until Division Four had been reached. It had been estimated that Earth was within three thousand years of a practicable interstellar drive.”

Laura began to speak again, but the Syalan who called himself Mike interrupted. The wall on which had been pictured all that she had spoken of, faded to its normal orange radiance.

Mike stood in front of Jeff. He said, “I will say this aloud for your benefit, Earth-creatures. I wish to prove my conviction that my team-mates’ solution to this problem is faulty. Now tell us of any discrepancy you have noted.”

Jeff waited a moment. He said slowly, “It goes wrong in that part where you say that we would be left alone until we had achieved an interstellar drive. You are not leaving us alone. You are interfering. So there is something we haven’t been told yet. I can think of several things. Maybe you four are operating outside of this Covenant you spoke of. You do come from the opposite end of the galaxy. That means that you wouldn’t normally be responsible for us. Maybe you’re running from something. Maybe you’re operating outside of your own laws.”

He thought he saw a look of quiet triumph in Mike’s odd eyes.

Jeff bludgeoned his mind into another pattern. “Wait a minute! Maybe this precious covenant of yours has gone sour. Maybe your member planets have split up andБ"

“No, Jeff,” Julie said softly.

He glanced angrily at her. “Have you got the answer?”

“I... don’t know. Maybe they want us to... grow up faster. There’d be a reason for that, you know. But I don’t think it would come from inside the galaxy. Something from outside, maybe. Something threatening the whole structure they’ve built up, so that they want us to develop more quickly than we are and be a part of it all so that we can... help.”

Jeff saw Laura turn to Mike and give him a look of triumph. Mike turned moodily away.

Laura said, “You see, he has been telling us that despite the way this room affects the ability to perceive and to understand, you would both find it impossible to break free of petty thought patterns and think in terms of a unified galaxy. The rest of us were more certain of you. We select you carefully.”

“Selected!” Julie gasped.

Jeff turned to her. “Remember? We had the next six all planned. Means wasn’t one of them. Then Haskill jumped in and sicked us onto Means.”

“Mr. Haskill was very open to our sort of suggestion,” Elaine said.

“Why should you want us?” Jeff asked.

“You’ll be told that in due time,” Paul said.

And then, in quiet tones, with the wall once again illustrating each point, Laura told them of the thing which menaced the galaxy.

“Reeth is a young galaxy. It matured late. Consequenty the life-apex-form has had little time to develop. The nearest island universe is six hundred and eighty thousand light years away. Reethian astro-physicists have long observed the higher incidence of nova and super-nova, of fading suns in the neighbor galaxy. They knew that they observed conditions existing better than a half million light years ago, and in comparing it to Reeth as it must have existed at that time, they knew that Glayd, as they called the neighbor galaxy, was older. They guessed, and rightly, that if conditions on the planets of Glayd were such as to have caused life to exist, that life-apex would vary greatly from the man-like life-apex on Reeth, due to the divergence in basic homogeneity — Glayd having been formed from a different area within the original super-condensed matter.

“It was considered a problem of no specific importance.

“Glayd could not be visited by means of supra-light travel. The reason is simple. Think of a familiar stone by your back porch steps. You know every indentation on its surface. You know its color, size. Maybe you have lifted it. Now you are fifty parsecs from that stone. Shut your eyes. Make yourself see it, in every particular. Some part of you has returned to a position near that stone. You have vizualized a part of yourself back to that familiar yard, with its scrawny elm and the trash can with the bent cover.

“Each planet then, to the Reeth ships, is a stone. Each planet is a metallic card eight inches by four inches. It contains an unbelievable number of infinitesimal points of varying magnetization. The points define the size, shape, color, weight, topography and ‘feel’ of a planet down to the fiftieth decimal point. It takes fifty decimal places sometimes to achieve a uniqueness of one planet over another at the opposite end of the galaxy. Feed the planet card into the heart of the ship. The heart of the ship is a visualizer. It ‘sees’ that planet as described by the card. In ‘seeing’ it, it puts a portion of itself at that planet. The rest of the ship is so anchored to that fleeting portion that the ship returns as a unit to the place so delicately described.

“It is the speed of thought.

“And it is but one heartbeat from one end of the galaxy to the other.

“And that is why Glayd could not be visited by that method — not at least until a ship had gone to Glayd at less than the speed of light and had made out a visualization card on a specific Glayd planet. After that was done, Glayd would be as close as the corner store. Closer.

“So a ship was sent to Glayd at one meter per hour less than the speed of light. Six hundred and eighty thousand light years. But time contracts in transit. To the passengers it becomes, at a contraction ratio of seventy thousand to one, but ten years experienced. The ship left ten thousand years ago. Five years ago it returned. It took ten thousand Earth years to go a bit over nine thousand light years into space — counting the slow acceleration period — and a heartbeat to return.

“To return with the news of an incredible fleet driving down on Reeth. More than a million ships. More than a million gigantic grey mushrooms, driving — hood forward, squat stems pointing back toward Glayd. Each ship larger than any ever contemplated by those of Reeth. The migration of the inhabitants of a fading galaxy to one that was newer. Other news, too. News of weapons unleashed, of a coldly savage attempt to destroy without attempt at communication. News that only the fact of the visualization card being already in the slot saved the tiny Reeth ship, brought warning to the galaxy.

“Nine thousand years of grace. With deacceleration perhaps a bit more.

“No time left for orderly growth of all primitive planets.

“Time now for stimuli — for an acceleration of the growth curve.”

Jeff said, “Nine thousand years? We’ll all be dust.”

“One attribute of a civilization on the right path toward maturity,” said Laura, “is its willingness to endure present discomfort for the sake of generations unborn. Your remote descendants will curse you for the wasting of this home planet of yours.”

“Where do we fit in?” Julie asked.

“We have found,” said Paul, “a great variation in the rapidity with which primitive planets pass through the divisions. The reason lies in the index of ingenuity of the race itself. You of Earth have had an almost phenomenally short span of time between Division One and Division Two. Only one other planet, according to our records, has progressed as quickly. That planet no longer exists.”

“Why?” Jeff asked. “What happened?”

“Technistic progress so far outstripped progress in the social sciences and humanities that the planet was not psychologically equipped for an atomic era. A social stone age combined with a scientific atomic age equals inevitable self-destruction. We’ve plotted that on our calculation equipment a hundred times. The answer is always the same.”

“Under ‘normal’ conditions, then,” Jeff asked dryly, “you’d let us go ahead and destroy ourselves?”

“Under the Covenant, yes,” Laura said. “But now we have an emergency situation. Your rate of progress indicates that if we interfere we can forestall that destruction, that if we can save you, you may be able, through your basic rate of progress, to contribute something of value to the combat nine thousand years in the future.”

“And if we can’t?”

“You’ll add to our numbers. By then you’ll be an autonomous member of the group and you’ll share our techniques and be able to utilize them.”

Paul and Elaine left the room.

“Then we’re a test case, or something like that?” Jeff asked.

Laura’s smile had an unearthly coolness. “Not exactly. All members were put on an emergency basis. Our home planet was assigned the task of the acceleration of primitive planets. That assignment is a small part of the planning that is going on. We are one of four thousand trained teams. Each planet presents its own problem. We have spent nearly two of your years here, attacking the specific problem you present.”

“And you think,” Jeff said, “that Borden Means is the answer?”

“We know it,” Mike answered. “I merely object to your part in it.”

He turned away from a high table in the corner of the room. On the table was a cube of night. In the center of the cube a small sphere stood, apparently unsupported.

“What is Borden Means?” Julie asked.

“The men of your planet shoot at wild birds with a weapon based on the principle of the expansion of gases. The birds are wary. So an artificial bird is sometimes placed on the water. The men make reassuring bird sounds with instruments for that purpose.” There was an edge in Mike’s voice as he explained. “Soon the silly birds fly within range of the weapons. We merely carefully selected an artificial bird. We removed its own instincts and personality traits. We had made a study of those semantic combinations most likely to influence the people of this planet. The man-thing that was once Borden Means is easy to control. The sounds are made. The puppet moves. The flights wheel and soar in, suddenly realizing that this is sound and movement that they have yearned for all their lives.”

“We cannot be decoyed!” Jeff said hotly.

“Can’t you, though? You are a primitive species. Certain types of red ants throng to the source of an electric current. We merely take advantage of certain instincts. Your race badly needs emotional reassurance and security. An end of fear. A symbol to follow. It is very simple. We decoy you into a period of international unification. It is easier to achieve it on emotional grounds than on political. We lead you into a few decades of peace. And that is all you need. In three decades your social sciences will have bridged the gap. Should you split into autonomous nations again at the end of that period, there will no longer be the intense danger of self-elimination. Hence the puppet once known as Borden Means.

“We have given him a personal history without flaw. We found a puppet with those features most likely to appeal to the visual demands of your race. We have selected a puppet who can logically reach the greatest numbers. His skills are our skills because we control him. We bled him of every reaction pattern. He is the peak and personification of suggestibility. It is not necessary for him to breathe for his life to continue. In the new pattern there is no flaw, no possibility of his saying or doing anything to diminish his own influence. The result is a personal magnetism so intense that no one of your species can withstand it.”

Jeff stood up. “Our people will find him out,” he said.

“And have every memory of him erased.”

“Enemy nations will just think of him as a sign of weakness.”

“While their own people have begun to think of him as the greatest man in the world?”

“Please,” Julie said, “Tell us where we fit. Jeff and I. We were suspicious. You didn’t erase it out of our minds and you spoke of not wanting to because of damaging us in some way.”

“We have other planets to visit,” Laura said. “There are not enough teams. Though Vinthar... Mike... does not agree in principle, the rest of us wish to avoid years of bondage on Earth by turning the procedure into a self-sustaining circuit. In other words, by taking two people of Earth and training them to take over the guide function for Borden Means. This requires people with a knowledge of the public mind, a knowledge of human limitations and a dedication to our purpose. You two seem to have what we need.”

Jeff felt a sick nausea. He held his head in his hands for a moment. The chair adjusted to each change of position. “No,” he said. “It’s... too much power. Too much responsibility. And the thought of... controlling a thing like Means... like what you have made of Borden Means.” He stood up. “I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. Do you, Julie?”

She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t...”

“The period of training,” said Laura gently, “would take only four of your months. There would be many tangential advantages. You would be trained on our home planet. You would be transported there.”

“But it means forever thinking of all our own people as... stupid animals that can be deluded intoБ" Jeff said.

“Take a look at your planet as it is — as it has been over the past fifty years, Jeffrey Rayden,” Laura said in a tone that made him think of fractured steel.

Julie stood beside Jeff and took hold of his arm. She gave Laura the smile of a guest who wants to leave in the middle of the party. “You must see how we feel. Thank you very much. But we couldn’t possibly get on your ship, wherever it is, and go kiting off across the galaxy. I’m certain that as soon as I step out that door, everything that happened in here will seem crazy and unreal.”

The amusement that flashed between Mike and Laura was so tangible and so strong that Jeff felt the corners of his mouth lift involuntarily.

They were led to the door and it slid open.

Julie’s fingers bit into his arm. His mouth sagged open and his knees went as weak as water. They stood together in the glorious light of a strange vast yellow sun looking out across the gentle valley where, in the distance, the blood and crimson towers and minarets of an ancient city rose to half the height of the purple mountains beyond. In the middle distance a thousand fountains flung spray like diamonds into the air that smelled of strange pine.

“You will be trained here,” Laura said, “and you will prove Vinthar wrong. We have left Paul and Elaine behind. Your return will free them and the four of us can then go on to the next problem planet.”