The Winds of Limbo

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

IN the following weeks Alan led a fairly solitary life, taking little interest in the elections, scarcely aware of the fact that Helen was almost certain to win since there were no candidates in the field with her popularity. Denholm Curtis, who had played some part in the denunciation of Powys, was now the Solrefs candidate for the office, but he didn't stand much of a chance. Helen was busy, but she had tried to contact him from time to time. He would see her when he was ready.

The election date came. The votes were counted. Helen was President.

The day after her election she came to see him and he let her in.

"I thought you were angry with me," she said as she accepted a drink. "I thought, perhaps, you'd decided not to see me again. I know you've had a bad series of emotional shocks, Alan-but I could have helped you. I could have been some comfort, surely."

"I didn't need comfort, Helen. I needed to be alone with myself. And anyway, you couldn't have afforded to waste time on me-you had problems of your own."

"What do you propose to do now?" She couldn't disguise the fact that she was anxious.

"Ask you to marry me, Helen."

"I accept," she said thankfully. "I thought…"

"We all tend to see other people's emotions as reflecting on ourselves. It's a mistake. People's emotions are rarely created by anyone else. I think we might be happy, don't you?"

"In spite of my work?"

"In spite of that, yes. I don't expect to see much of you for some time. But maybe that's for the best."

A buzz began to sound on her wrist.

"I'm "sorry." She smiled. "I get issued with this thing-I'm on call, as it were, all the time. I didn't expect it to start so soon."

She went to his laservid and pressed a number.

"President Curtis," she said to the slightly perturbed looking man on the screen. She put the drink down on the set.

"Madame-there is probably no danger but I have just received news that a strange space-ship has landed somewhere near Algiers. It's believed to be the Fireclown's."

"No need for declaring a state of emergency now." She smiled. "It will be good to see him again." She switched out and turned to Alan. "He's your father-want to be part of a deputation?"

"If it's just the two of us, yes."

"Come on then. Let's see what his experiments have proved."

Before Helen could go she was forced to leave notification of her whereabouts.

Her Presidential duties had not really begun as yet, but from now on her time would never be her own. In his new state of mind, Alan decided he could bear it so long as she only served one term.

The Pi-meson rested on its belly, its pitted hull gleaming in the African sun.

As yet, nothing had been heard from the ship. It was as if it were empty, bereft of life.

As their car settled beside it, the huge "airlock began to open. But nothing else happened.

"What now?" Helen looked to Alan for guidance.

"Let's go in," he said, leading the way over to the ship and clambering into the airlock.

On the big landing deck Alan touched the stud operating the sliding wall. It opened and they climbed into the control deck. It was darkened. No light passed the closed ports.

"Father?" Alan spoke into the silence, certain someone was here. "Fireclown?"

"Alan…" The voice was rumbling, enigmatic, thoughtful.

"Yes-and Helen Curtis. We've got something to tell you." He was slightly amused at his decision to announce his engagement formally to his strange father.

A single light shone now from the corner. Alan could just make out the slumped bulk of the Fireclown. A short distance away Cornelia Fisher stirred. Corso seemed prone, but Alan thought he heard him mumble under his breath.

"Is anything wrong father?"

"No." The Fireclown raised his huge body up from the couch. His gaudy tatters curled about him, his conical hat still bobbed on his head and his face was still painted. He chuckled. "I thought you'd come here first. I wouldn't have admitted anyone else."

"Helen and I are getting married, Father."

"Ah… really?" The Fireclown didn't sound very interested. His manner had become, if anything, more detached and alien.

"A lot's been happening on Earth, sir," Helen put in, "since we last met. You're no longer an outcast."

The Fireclown's body shook with laughter which he at first suppressed and then let roll from his mouth in roaring gusts. "No-longer-an-outcast. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Good!"

Nonplussed, Alan glanced at Helen, who frowned back at him.

"It is not I who am the outcast, young lady-not in the cosmic sense. It is the human race, with their futile, worthless intelligence."

"I still don't understand…" Helen said bewilderedly.

"I took you to the heart of the sun-I took you even to the heart of the galaxy and you still failed to understand! Consciousness is not the same as intelligence. Consciousness is content to exist as it exists, to be what it is and nothing more. But intelligence-that is a blot on the cosmos! In short, I intend to wipe out that blot. I intend to destroy intelligence!"

"Destroy intelligence? You mean, destroy life in the Solar System!" Alan was horrified.

"No, my son, nothing so unsubtle. For one thing, human life is the only culprit-the only thing that offends against the law of the universe. I have journeyed throughout the galaxy and have found nothing like it anywhere else.

Intelligence, therefore, is a weed in the garden of infinity, a destroying weed that must be dealt with at once."

"You are mad!" Alan said desperately. "It's impossible to destroy intelligence without destroying those who have it!"

"According to human logic, that is true. But according to my logic-the Fireclown's logic-that is false. I have perfected a kind of fire-Time Fire, call it-which will burn away the minds of those it strikes without consuming them in body. My Time Fire will destroy the ability to think, because thought takes time."

The Fireclown reached out his hand towards a stud and depressed it. The wall hummed down. He went over to the controls and began to operate them. "I waited for you to arrive because I still retain some human sentiment. I did not want to make my son go with the rest. I will convince you, anon, that I speak truth and you will agree with me. You will want only consciousness!"

Alan strode towards his father and grasped his huge arm. "It can't work-and even if it could, who are you to take such a task upon yourself?"

"I am the Fireclown!"

The screen in front of them showed that the ship had once again set up its own peculiar field. The spheres began to flash past.

"See those?" The Fireclown pointed. "They are chronons-Atoms of Time! Just as there are atoms of matter, the same is true of time. And I control those atoms as ably as the physicists control their electrons and protons. They are the stuff of my Time Fire!"

Astounded, Alan could only believe his father. He turned to Corso, who was opening his eyes, a dazed look on his red face. "Corso! Do you want any part of this? Stop him! Cornelia"-the woman stared at him blankly-"tell him to cease!"

The Fireclown put his painted, bellowing face close to Alan's. "They cannot understand you. They hear you-but they hear sound alone! They are the first to gain from the Time Fire. They are fully aware but they have no intelligence to mar their awareness."

"Oh, God!" Helen looked aghast at the blank-faced pair.

"Where are we going?" Alan yelled at his insane father.

"I intend to put the ship into a time-freeze. Then, as the globe passes beneath me, I will unleash the Time Fire, covering the world with its healing flames P"

"No, Father!"

"Don't try to tamper with the controls, Alan. If you do you will disrupt the time field and we might well perish."

The spheres-the chronons-flashed past. Alan stared at them, fascinated in spite of the danger. Atoms of Time. He had heard the chronon theory before, but had never believed it had any reality in fact. But there was no other explanation he could think of for the Fireclown's ability to ignore the laws of matter and venture into the sun's heart, travel swiftly through the galaxy to its center and remain unharmed. Unharmed bodily, at least. His mind had obviously been unable to stand up against the impressions it had seen.

Faster and faster the chronons rolled past on the screen.

Concentrating on his controls, the Fireclown ignored them.

"What are we going to do, Alan?" Helen said. "Do you think he's right about this Time Fire?"

"Yes. Look at Corso and Cornelia for proof. He is a genius-but he's an idiot as well. We've got to stop him, Helen. Heaven knows what destruction he can work-even if it isn't as bad as he boasts!"

"How?"

"There's only one way. Destroy the controls!"

"We could be killed-or frozen forever in this 'time freeze' of his!"

"We've got to take the risk."

"But what can you do? We've no weapons, nothing to destroy them with!"

"There's one thing we can do. I’m going to grapple with him. He's incredibly strong so I won't be able to hold him for long. While I keep him occupied, go to the control panel and press all the studs, change the position of all the levers, twist all the dials. That should do something. Ready?"

Conscious that this might be the last time he saw her before they perished, he gave her a long, eloquent look. She smiled.

He leaped at the Fireclown's back and got his arm around his father's thick neck.

The great arms went up and the hands closed over his wrists. The Fireclown shook him off.

"I’ve spawned a fool! You could cause us to slip into a time vortex we could never get out of!"

Alan grabbed the Fireclown's legs and, surprisingly, though the Clown was still a trifle off-balance, pulled him down.

Helen dashed towards the controls and began depressing studs and pulling levers.

"No!"

The Fireclown raised himself on one elbow, his other hand outstretched in a warning gesture.

The light began to fizz, to change color rapidly. The ship shuddered. He was blinded by the glare, his head ached. He felt the Fireclown move and flung, himself at his father. With a movement of his arm and body the Fireclown shook him off again.

Then the deck seemed to vanish and they seemed to hang in space. All around him now Alan saw the spheres whirling. The great chronons, each the size of the moon, spun in a dazzling and random course.

The Fireclown bellowed like a baleful bull from somewhere. He heard Helen's voice shouting. He could make no sense of their words. He tried to move but his body was rigid, would answer none of his commands.

Then the chronons changed color and began to expand. They burst! A chaotic display of colored streamers smeared themselves all around him and dissipated swiftly. Alan tried to breathe but couldn't. Instead, he sucked in water!

It took seconds for him to realize that he was under the sea. He struggled upwards and at last reached the surface, drew air into his lungs. He was in the middle of an ocean, no land in sight.

There was no evidence that a ship had crashed. Had it entered the water so smoothly that it hadn't made a ripple?

But-another thought came-he should have been in the ship! How had he gotten out?

Another head broke the surface. He swam towards it. The Fireclown! The paint streaked his face. He was panting and cursing. Then Helen's head came up!

"What happened!" Alan gasped. "Father-what happened?"

"Damn you! You broke the time field-I’ve lost my ship!"

Overhead Alan heard the drone of an air-car. He looked up, waving frantically.

It was an amphibian and it seemed to be looking for them. It came down low and landed.

Puzzled faces stared out of the cabin. Someone emerged on to the small, flat deck and a line flashed out over the water. Alan caught it, swam towards Helen and handed it to her. She was pulled swiftly in and, once aboard, the line was sent back. Alan handed it to the Fireclown.

The man refused to take it. Automatically, he kept himself afloat, but his face had an expression of melancholic suffering.

"Take it, Father!"

"Why should I? What purpose do I fulfill by continuing to live? I have failed."

Impatiently, Alan tied the rope around the passive Fire-clown and watched the great bulk being towed in. The Fireclown made no move to release himself or help himself on to the deck.

Alan took the line as it came out once again.

"How did you know we were here?" he asked the vessel's captain.

"We saw a peculiar kind of explosion in this area. We thought we'd better investigate. Sorry it took us so long. We've been circling over this area for three hours. Can't think how we missed you the first time."

"Three hours! But…" Alan stopped. "What time is it now?"

The captain glanced at his chronometer. "Fourteen hundred, almost."

Alan was about to ask the date but he decided against it. It seemed that they had been deposited in the ocean exactly half an hour before they had entered the Fireclown's ship. But what had happened to the ship? He asked the morose Fireclown who had slumped himself moodily in a corner of the cabin.

"I told you-you broke the time field. What happened was simple-we existed in a different time location, the ship in another. The ship should make its appearance between now and the next million years P'

Thereafter, his father refused to answer further questions.