A Star Above It and Other Stories Read online

  Conan Lang paced through the long white corridors and walked around the afterhold where the brown sacks of ricefruit had been. He read in the library and joked with the medics who had salvaged his burned body. And always ahead of him, swimming in the great emptiness of space, were the faces of Kit and of his son, waiting for him, calling him home again.

  Rob must have grown a lot, he thought. Soon, he wouldn’t be a boy any longer—he would be a man, taking his place in the world. Conan remembered his son’s voice from a thousand quiet talks in the cool air of evening, his quick, eager eyes—

  Like Andy’s.

  “Dad, when I grow up can I be like you? Can I be an Agent and ride on the ships to other worlds and have a uniform and everything?”

  What could you tell your son now that you had lived so long and were supposed to know so much? That life in the Process Corps filled a man with things that were perhaps better unknown? That the star trails were cold and lonely? That there were easier, more comfortable lives? All that was true, all the men who rode the ships knew it. But they knew, too, that for them this was the only life worth living.

  The time passed slowly. Conan Lang was impatient to see his family again, anxious to get home. But his mind gave him no rest. There were things he had to know, things he would know before he went home to stay.

  Conan Lang had the right questions now. He had the right questions, and he knew where the answers were hidden.

  Fritz Gottleib.

  The star cruiser had hardly touched Earth again at Space One before Conan Lang was outside on the duralloy tarmac. Since the movements of the star ships were at all times top secret matters, there was no one at the port to greet him and for once Conan was glad to have a few extra hours to himself. Admiral White wouldn’t expect him to check in until tomorrow anyway, and before he saw Kit he wanted to get things straight once and for all.

  The friendly sun of Earth warmed him gently as he hurried across the tarmac and the air felt cool and fresh. He helped himself to an official bullet, rose into the blue sky, and jetted eastward over the city. His brain was seething and he felt cold sweat in the palms of his hands. What was it that Gottleib had said to him on that long-ago day?

  “Sometimes it is best not to know the answers to one’s questions, Dr. Lang.”

  Well, he was going to know the answers anyhow. All of them. He landed the bullet in the space adjoining the cybernetics building and hurried inside, flashing his identification as he went. He stopped at a switchboard and showed his priority credentials.

  “Call the Nest, please,” he told the operator. “Tell Dr. Gottleib that Conan Lang is down here and would like to see him.”

  The operator nodded and spoke into the intercom. There was a moment’s delay, and then he took his earphones off and smiled at Conan Lang.

  “Go right on up, Dr. Lang,” the operator said. “Dr. Gottleib is expecting you.”

  Conan Lang controlled his astonishment and went up the lift and down the long white corridors. Expecting him? But that was impossible. No one even knew the star cruiser was coming back, much less that he was coming here to the Nest. Impossible—

  All around him in the great building he felt the gigantic mechanical brain with its millions of circuits and flashing tubes. The brain crowded him, pressed him down until he felt tiny and insignificant. It hummed and buzzed through the great shielded walls.

  Laughing at him.

  Conan Lang pushed past the attendants and security men and opened the door of the Nest. He moved into the small, dark room and paused to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the dim light. The room was silent. Gradually, the shadow behind the desk took form and he found himself looking into the arctic eyes of Fritz Gottleib.

  “Dr. Lang,” he hissed softly. “Welcome to the Buzzard’s Nest.”

  The man had not changed; he was timeless, eternal. He was still dressed in black and it might have been minutes ago instead of years when Conan Lang had last seen him. His black eyebrows slashed across his white face and his long-fingered hands were bent slightly like claws upon his desk.

  “How did you know I was coming here?” Now that he was face to face with Gottleib, Conan Lang felt suddenly uncertain, unsure of himself.

  “I know many things, Dr. Lang,” Fritz Gottleib said sibilantly. “Had I cared to, I could have told you ten years ago the exact date, within a day or so, upon which we would have this meeting. I could even have told you what you would say when you came through the door, and what you are going to say five minutes from now.”

  Conan Lang just stared at him, feeling like an absurd little child who had presumed to wrestle a gorilla, His mind recoiled from the strange man before him and he knew at last that he knew nothing.

  “I do not waste words, Dr. Lang,” Gottleib said, his eyes cold and unmoving in his head. “You will remember that when we last met you said you wanted to ask some questions of the machine. Do you remember what I said, Dr. Lang?”

  Conan Lang thought back across the years. “Perhaps one day, Dr. Lang,” Gottleib had said. “When you are old like me.”

  “Yes,” said Conan Lang. “Yes, I remember.”

  “You were not ready then,” Dr. Gottleib said, his white face ghostly in the dim light. “You could not even have framed the right questions, at least not all of them.”

  Conan Lang was silent. How much did Gottleib know? Was there anything he didn’t know?

  “You are old enough now,” said Fritz Gottleib.

  He turned a switch and the surface of his desk glowed with dull red light. His face, reflected in the flamelike glow, was unearthly. His cold eyes looked out of hell. He rose to his feet, seeming to loom larger than life, filling the room. Moving without a sound, he left the room and the door clicked shut behind him.

  Conan Lang was alone in the red room. His heart hammered in his throat and his lips were dry. He clenched his fists and swallowed hard. Alone—

  Alone with the great machine.

  Conan Lang steadied himself. Purposefully, he made himself go through the prosaic, regular motions of lighting up his pipe. The tobacco was healthily full-bodied and fragrant and it helped to relax him. He smoked slowly, taking his time.

  The red glow from the desk filled the room with the color of unreality. Crimson shadows seemed to crouch in the corners with an impossible life of their own. But was anything impossible, here? Conan Lang felt the pulse of the great machine around him and wondered.

  Trying to shake off a persistent feeling of dreamlike unreality, Conan Lang moved around and sat down behind Gottleib’s desk. The red panel was a maze of switches which were used to integrate it with technical panels in other sections of the building. In the center of the panel was a keyboard on an open circuit to the machine and set into the desk was a clear square like a very fine telescreen. Conan Lang noticed that there was nothing on Gottleib’s desk that was not directly connected with the machine—no curios, no pictures, no paperweights, not a single one of the many odds and ends most men picked up for their desks during a long lifetime. The whole room was frightening in its very impersonality, as though every human emotion had been beaten out of it long ago and the room had been insulated against its return.

  The machines never slept and the circuits were open. Conan Lang had only to ask and any question that could be answered would be answered. The red glow in the room reminded him of the fire and he shuddered a little in spite of himself. Had that really been over three years ago? How much had he learned in those three years when he had seen the Oripesh change before his eyes and had had time for once to really think his life through? How much did he still have to learn?

  Conan Lang took a long pull on his pipe and set the desk panel for manual type questioning and visual screen reception. He hesitated a moment, almost afraid of the machine at his disposal. He didn’t want to know, he suddenly realized. It wasn’t like that. It was rather that he had to know.

  Framing his words carefully, Conan Lang typed out the question that
had been haunting him for years:

  IS THE EARTH ITSELF THE SUBJECT OF PROCESS MANIPULATION?

  He waited nervously, sure of the answer, but fearful of it nevertheless. There was a faint, all but inaudible hum from the machine and Conan Lang could almost feel the circuits closing in the great walls around him. The air was filled with tension. There was a brief click and one word etched itself blackly on the clear screen:

  YES.

  Conan Lang leaned forward, sure of himself now, and typed out another question.

  HOW LONG HAS THE EARTH BEEN MANIPULATED AND HAS THIS CONTROL BEEN FOR GOOD OR EVIL?

  The machine hummed and answered at once.

  THE EARTH HAS BEEN GUIDED SINCE EARTH YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED A.D. THE SECOND PART OF YOUR QUESTION IS MEANINGLESS.

  Conan Lang hesitated, staggered in spite of himself by the information he was getting, Then he typed rapidly:

  WITH REFERENCE TO GOOD, EQUATE SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE.

  The screen clouded, cleared, and the words formed.

  THE CONTROL HAS BEEN FOR GOOD.

  Conan Lang’s breathing was shallow now. He typed tensely:

  HAS THIS CONTROL COME FROM WITHIN THIS GALAXY? IF SO, WHERE? IS THERE USUALLY AN AGENT OTHER THAN EARTH’S IN CHARGE OF THIS MACHINE?

  The hum of the machine filled the blood-red room and the screen framed the answers.

  THE CONTROL HAS COME FROM WITHIN THE GALAXY. THE SOURCE IS A WORLD KNOWN AS RERMA, CIRCLING A STAR ON THE EDGE OF THE GALAXY WHICH IS UNKNOWN TO EARTH. THE MAN KNOWN AS GOTTLEIB IS A RERMAN AGENT.

  Conan Lang’s pipe had been forgotten and gone out. He put it down and licked his dry lips. So far so good, But the one prime, all-important question had not yet been asked. He asked it.

  IF THE PLAN IS FOLLOWED, WHAT WILL BE THE FINAL OUTCOME WITH RESPECT TO RERMA AND THE EARTH?

  The machine hummed again in the red glow and the answer came swiftly, with a glorious, mute tragedy untold between its naked lines:

  RERMA WILL BE DESTROYED. THE EARTH WILL SURVIVE IF THE PLAN IS CAREFULLY FOLLOWED.

  Conan Lang felt tears in his eyes and he was unashamed. With time forgotten now, he leaned forward, asking questions, reading replies, as the terrible, wonderful story unfolded.

  Far out on the edge of the galaxy, the ancient planet of Rerma circled her yellow sun. Life had evolved early on Rerma—had evolved early and developed fast. While the other humanoid peoples of the galaxy were living in caves, the Rerma were building a great civilization. When Earth forged its first metal sword, the Rerma split the atom.

  Rerma was a world of science—true science. Science had eliminated war and turned the planet into a paradise. Literature and the arts flourished hand in hand with scientific progress, and scientists worked surrounded by cool gardens in which graceful fountains splashed and chuckled in the sun. Every man was free to develop himself as an individual and no man bent his head to any other man.

  The Rerma were the human race in full flower.

  But the Rerma were few, and they were not a warlike people. It was not that they would not fight in an emergency, but simply that they could not possibly win an extended encounter. Their minds didn’t work that way. The Rerma had evolved to a point where they were too specialized, too well adjusted to their environment.

  And their environment changed.

  It was only a question of time until the Rerma asked the right questions of their thinking machines and came up with the knowledge that their world, situated on the edge of the galaxy, was directly in the path of a coming cultural collision between two star systems. The Rerma fed in the data over and over again, and each time the great machines came up with the same answer.

  Rerma would be destroyed.

  It was too late for the equation to be changed with respect to Rerma—she had gone too far and was unfortunately located. But for the rest of the human race, scattered on the far-flung worlds that marched along the star trails, there was a chance. There was time for the equation to be changed for them—if only someone could be found to change it! For the Rerma had the knowledge, but they had neither the manpower nor the driving, defiant spirit to do the job themselves. They were capable of making heroic decisions and sticking by them, but the task of remolding a star system was not for them. That was a job for a young race, a proud and unconquerable race. That was a job for the men of Earth.

  The ships of the Rerma found Earth in the earth year 1900. They knew that in order for their plan to succeed the Rerma must stand and fight on that distant day when galaxies collided, for their power was not negligible despite their lack of know-how for a long-range combat. They must stand and fight and be destroyed—the plan, the equation, was that finely balanced. Earth was the only other planet they found that was sufficiently advanced to work with, and it was imperative that Earth should not know that she was being manipulated. She must not suspect that her plans were not her own, for a young race with its pride wounded is a dubious ally and an ineffective fighting mechanism.

  The Rerma set to work—willing even to die for a future they had already lived. The scientists of Rerma came secretly to Earth, and behind them, light-years away, their crystal fountains still sparkled sadly in the sun.

  Rerma would be destroyed—but humanity would not die.

  Conan Lang sat alone in the red room, talking to a machine. It was all clear enough, even obvious, once you knew the facts. Either there were no advanced races in the galaxy, which would account for Earth having no record of any contact—or else the Earth had been contacted secretly, been manipulated by the very techniques that she herself was later to use on undeveloped worlds.

  He looked back on history. Such profound and important changes as the Neolithic food revolution and the steam engine had been produced by Earth alone, making her the most advanced planet in the galaxy except for the Rerma. Earth had a tradition of technological skill behind her, and she was young and pliable. The Rerma came—and the so-called world wars had followed. Why? Not to avenge the honor of insulted royalty, not because of fanatics, not because of conflicting creeds—but in a very real sense to save the world. The world wars had been fought to produce atomic power.

  After 1900, the development of Earth had snowballed in a fantastic manner. The atom was liberated and man flashed upward to other planets of the solar system. Just as Conan Lang himself had worked through the ancestor gods of the Oripesh to bring about sweeping changes on Sirius Ten, the Rerma had worked through one of the gods of the Earthmen—the machine.

  Cybernetics.

  Man swept out to the stars, and the great thinking machines inevitably confronted them with the menace from beyond that drew nearer with each passing year. Young and proud, the men of Earth accepted the most astounding challenge ever hurled—they set out to reshape a galaxy to give their children and their children’s children a chance for life.

  And always, behind the scenes, beneath the headlines, were the ancient Rerma. They subtly directed and hinted and helped. With a selflessness unmatched in the universe, those representatives of a human race that had matured too far prepared Earth for galactic leadership—and themselves for death on the edge of the galaxy. They had unified Earth and pushed and prodded her along the road to survival.

  When the Rerma could have fled and purchased extra time for themselves, they chose instead—these peace-loving people—to fight for another chance for man.

  Conan Lang looked up, startled, to find the black figure of Fritz Gottleib standing by his side. He looked old, very old, in the blood-red light and Conan Lang looked at him with new understanding. Gottleib’s impatience with others and the vast, empty loneliness in those strange eyes—all that was meaningful now. What a life that man had led on Earth, Conan Lang thought with wonder. Alone, wanting friendship and understanding—and having always to discourage close personal contacts, having always to fight his lonely battle alone in a sterile little room, knowing that the very men he had dedicated his life to help laughed behind his back and comp
ared him to a bird of prey.

  “I’ve been a fool, sir,” Conan Lang said, getting to his feet. “We’ve all been fools.”

  Fritz Gottleib sat down again behind his desk and turned the machine off. The red glow vanished and they were left in the semidarkness.

  “Not fools, Dr. Lang,” he said. “It was necessary for you to feel as you did. The feelings of one old man—what are they worth in this game we are playing? We must set our sights high, Dr. Lang.”

  Conan Lang waited in the shadows, thinking, watching the man who sat across from him as though seeing him for the first time. His mind was still groping, trying to assimilate all he had learned. It was a lot to swallow in a few short hours, even when you were prepared for it beforehand by guesswork and conjecture. There were still questions, of course, many questions. He knew that he still had much to learn.

  “Why me?” Conan Lang asked finally. “Why have I been told all this? Am I the only one who knows?”

  Fritz Gottleib shook his head, his face ghost-white in the darkened room. “There are others who know,” he said sibilantly, “Your superior officer, Nelson White, has known for years, of course. You were told because you have been selected to take over his command when he retires. If you are willing, you will work very closely with him here on Earth for the next five years, and then you will be in charge.”

  “Will I … leave Earth again?”

  “Not for a long time, Dr. Lang. The integration-acceleration principle will keep you busy—we are in effect lifting Earth another stage and the results will be far-reaching. But you will be home, Dr. Lang—home with your family and your people.

  “That is all, Dr. Lang,” Gottleib hissed.

  Conan Lang hesitated. “I’ll do my level best,” he said finally. “Good-by, sir … I’ll see you again.”