A Cure for Cancer

I Outlaw in the sky

Jerry left the burning city behind and headed up the Mi. It was a wide, lonely road, through the hushed countryside.

He turned on the radio and tuned it to Radio Potemkin. It was playing The Yardbirds, The Moquettes, The Zephyrs, Mickie Most, The Downliners Sect, Key Anton and The Peppermint Men, The Syndicats, The Cheynes, The Cherokees, Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers. Unable to bear either the nostalgia or the quality, Jerry switched over to Radio John Paul Jones which was in the middle of putting over The Vibrating Ether Proves The Cosmic Vortex, the latest hit by Orniroffa, the Nip Nightingale. All art, thought Jerry, aspired to the condition of Muzak. What would William Morris have thought?

It was at times like this that the brain needed balming. He turned to his taper and selected Schoenberg's Quartet No .2, left the Mi and took a winding lane towards Oxford.

Soon he could see the white shell of the city shining in the distance. The concrete roof was good for anything except the H-Bomb.

He slowed as he reached the opening of the tunnel and drove through to emerge in the shadowy darkness of Magdalen Bridge.

The dim light from the central lamp at the highest part of the roof was reflected by the spires of the city. Power was failing, but Oxford survived.

Jerry felt the cold. The High was full of a strange, sticky dampness and black-cloaked figures crept miserably along be-side the walls, while every so often hollow, echoing shouts and clatterings broke the stillness. The hissing noise of his own car seemed menacing.

Stopping the Phantom VI in the car park of the Randolph Hotel he walked to the Ashmolean Museum, pushed open the heavy wooden doors and paused. A few candles in brackets on the walls lit a sinister avenue of Tompion and Knibb longcase clocks which had all stopped at a quarter past twelve. He began to walk.

The sound of his footsteps was like that of a huge pendulum, regular and ponderous. He came to the locked door at the end of the aventue and took a key from his pocket, turned it in the lock, opened the door and descended the stone staircase, lighting his way with his torch.

Climbing downwards for half an hour he at last reached a tunnel which led to another door. Unlocking this, he came to a room containing a small power plant. He crossed to the plant and depressed a lever.

The plant whispered and then hummed softly and steadily. Lights went on. Jerry switched off his torch, passed through two more empty chambers until he came to a fourth room which was lined on three sides with cupboards that had mirrors set into their panels. The cupboards had been imported from Sweden nine years earlier. The mirrors were more recent.

The room was carpeted with a deep, red Russian rug. On it stood a couch draped with white mink covers and yellow silk sheets. It was unmade. Against the wall near the door was a neat console operating a series of small monitor screens and micro-tronic indicator boards, all slightly archaic in design and function but still in good working order. Jerry had not been here since he had left the seminary.

Sitting on the couch, he tugged off his block-heeled boots; he removed his jacket and his shoulder holster and dropped them on the floor, pulled back the pillows and touched a stud on the control panel set in the low headboard. The console activated, he lay and watched it for a bit until he felt up to visiting the morgue.

The room had become unfamiliar, yet a lot of things had happened here. The Shifter gateways had been erected, the earliest prototype of the machine had been built, the Web completed and, of course, those ridiculous books had been written.

It had been a rapid development really, from priest to politician to physicist, but it had been necessary and, he supposed, inevitable.

He was drained. He smiled and shrugged. Perhaps he had better visit the Web before he went to the morgue. It was still very cold in the room. It would take a while for the place to warm up.

This had been. his grandfather's complex. originally, before the old man had moved to Normandy, and his father had inherited it, passing it on to him. His father had built and stocked the morgue, too.

He got up shivering, opened one of the mirrored panels and stepped through into a well-lit corridor with four steel doors on each side and another steel door at the end. He rested his palm against the fourth door on the right and it opened. A peg behind the door supported a clean black car coat. Jerry put it on and buttoned up. The schizophrenia had been bad at first, his father had said. He had been lucky not to inherit the worst of it.

There were ten drawers set low into the far wall. Each drawer was labelled with a name. Jerry opened the first drawer on the left and looked down into the eyes of the pale, beautiful girl with the tangled black hair.

He touched the cold skin of her breasts.

'Catherine...'

He stroked the face and drew a deep breath.

Then he bent down and picked her up, carrying her from the morgue and back to the bedchamber with the console.

Placing her in the bed, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and lay beside her, feeling the heat flow out of his body into hers.

His life was so dissipated, he thought. But there was no other way to spend it. « 'Catherine...'

She stirred. He knew there could only be a few seconds left.

'Catherine.'

The eyes opened and the lips moved. 'Frank?'

'Jerry.'

'Jerry?' Her perfect brow frowned slightly.

'I've got a message for you. There's some hope. That's the message.'

Her eyes warmed, then faded, then closed.

Trembling with a terrible cold, Jerry began to cry. He staggered from the bed, fell to his knees, got up and lurched from the chamber into the corridor, pressing his frozen palm against the first door on his left.

The door opened stiffly, almost reluctantly.

Jerry leaned against it as it closed, peering through his blurred eyes at the rustling machine before him.

Then he flung himself at the singing red, gold and silver webs and gasped and grinned as they enmeshed him.

Why was resurrection so easy for some and so difficult for others?

2 Beyond the X ecliptic

When he had filed Catherine again, Jerry whistled a complicated piece of Bartok and returned, radiant and replete, to his cosy room to look at himself in the mirrors.

Time to be moving; moves to be timing.

He opened a cupboard and regarded his wardrobe. The clothes were somewhat theatrical and old-fashioned but he had no choice. His nearest wardrobe to Oxford was now in Birmingham, the only major city in the area which had not needed cleaning, and he had never fancied Birmingham much at the best of times.

He selected a military-style green jacket, a suede shako with a strap that buttoned under his chin, matching suede britches, green jackboots and a shiny green Sam Browne belt with a button-down holster for his vibragun. A short green pvc cape secured by a silver chain over one shoulder, and the ensemble was complete.

He left the little complex and closed the door behind him.

Shining the torch up the stone staircase he climbed to the top and opened the surface door. Then, stopping at each and winding them up, he walked back down the avenue of long-case clocks. The gallery was soon filled with their merry ticking.

As he strolled away from the Ashmolean towards the carpark of the Randolph Hotel, he heard the clocks begin to strike nine o'clock.

He started the Phantom VI and turned the car into the Broad, switched the taper to Nina Simone singing Black Swan, and lay well back in the driving seat until he reached the Western airlock which he passed through without difficulty. He blinked as he broke into the bright, warm morning.

Soon he could see Milton Keynes.

The new conurbation rose out of the greenish ground mist, each great tower block a different pastel shade of pale chrome yellow, purple, gamboge, yellow ochre, chrome orange, vermilion, scarlet, red (ost), crimson, burnt sienna, light red, cobalt, cerulean blue, turquoise, ultramarine, prussian blue, mauve, leaf green, emerald, sap green, viridian, hookers green, burnt umber, Vandyke brown, orange (ost), ivory black and grey (ost).

Entering the quiet streets of the great village, with its trim grass verges and shady trees, Jerry was filled with a sense of peace that he rarely experienced in rural settlements. Perhaps the size of the empty buildings helped, for most of them were over eighty feet high, arranged around a series of pleasant squares with central fountains splashing a variety of coloured, sparkling water or with free-form sculptures set in flower gardens. There were terraced gardens with vines and creepers on the buildings themselves and the air was full of butterflies, mainly red admirals and cabbage whites.

Jerry drove at a leisurely pace until he came to the middle of the conurbation. Here were the main administration buildings and shopping arcades, the schools and the play areas, and here were parked the armoured vehicles, the tanks and the helicopters of the advisory force. Neat, newly painted signs had been put up and it was easy for Jerry to park his car and make for General Cumberland's headquarters in the tall, domed building that the planners had intended for the town hall and which now flew the Stars and Stripes.

As Jerry climbed the steps, a detachment of unhappy marines broke from the building and surrounded him with a ring of sub-machine guns. 'I was hoping I'd find Frank Cornelius here,' Jerry said mildly.

'What you want with Colonel Cornelius, boy?'

'I have some information for him.' A faint shock ran from the left hemisphere to the right of Jerry's brain.

'What sort of information, fella?'

'It's rather secret.'

The marines sniffed and rubbed their noses with their forearms, keeping their steely eyes fixed on him.

'You'd better tell the colonel I'm here, I think.'

'What's your name?'

'He'll know who it is if you describe me.' One of the marines broke away and trotted inside. The circle closed up. Jerry lit a Romeo y Julieta and dropped the aluminium tube on the ground. Still staring unblinkingly at his prisoner's face, a marine with pursed lips kicked the tube violently away.

Frank hurried out.

'Jerry! You made it! Great!'

The marines withdrew behind Jerry and came to the salute with a crash of boots and armour.

'Did you have any luck with the machine?' Frank put a cold arm round Jerry's shoulder and guided him into the new town hall.

'I can't complain.' Jerry spoke through his cigar. 'And are you satisfied?'

'Relatively, Jerry. Look, we'll go to my private quarters. That's the best idea, eh?'

They went through a glass door, crossed the open quadrangle and entered the building's northern wing. 'It's just here.' Frank stopped, unlocked his door and led Jerry into an airy, pleasant room in which Rose Barrie was arranging flowers on a sideboard.

That's fine, Rose, thanks.' Frank smiled. The girl left.

'You're pretty loathsome, Frank.' Jerry took a golden chrysanthemum from the vase and smelled it.

'So would you be. I was never the favoured son, Jerry. I had to fight for what I wanted. You had it easy.'

'Until you fought for what you wanted.'

'Oh, that...'

'I've just been to see Catherine.'

'How is she? I was wilder in those days, Jerry.'

'She's keeping pretty well.'

'Our family always were great survivors.' Frank grinned. 'Do 'you want a...? No,. I suppose not. But let's face it, Jerry. You got where you were by luck — by intuition, if you like. I had to do everything by thinking. Hard thinking. Logical thinking.'

'It made you tense, Frank.'

'That's the price you pay.'

Jerry put the chrysanth back. Then he smashed the vase from the sideboard and looked at the fallen flowers, the spilled water and the broken glass on the carpet.

'Don't lose your temper, Jerry.' Frank was laughing. 'You are a hothead! What's wrong, old sweat?'

'I'd love to be able to kill you, Frank. Kill you, Frank. Kill you, Frank.'

Frank spread the fingers at the end of his extended right arm. 'Jesus, Jerry, so would I...'

'I'd love to be able to kill you, Frank.'

That's a remote possibility.'

'It's all too fucking remote.'

Jerry swayed from the waist, eager for his gun.

'Calm down, Jerry, for Christ's sake.' Frank snapped his fingers at his sides. 'You'll need removing. Is this the time? Is this the place?'

'Space is all you ever fucking think about.'

'Somebody has to. Listen, Jerry, I've got a moral responsibility. I never had that. I have changed. I could lose it all. Split. I'm going to keep it. The power's building up.'

'You'd have thought Einstein had never happened!'

'Maybe he shouldn't have happened. It's running too wild. We need something concrete — definite — solid. Something hard.'

'I want something easy.'

'Exactly. Connect, Jerry — just for a moment.'

'Shit...'

Technology is potential freedom from brutality. I should know. The old can't riot and have no power. We must forfeit the right to breed in order to retain the right to breathe. Immortality is just around the corner!'

'Mortality is space.'

'You've got too much imagination. That's what I mean.'

'What's the matter with you, Frank? You...'

'I'm older. You can never be that.'

'Piss...'

'Man is the only animal with the imaginative characteristic developed to any degree. No competition, see? The trait has become over-developed. A survival characteristic turned into an anti-survival characteristic. We must limit imagination. Destroy it, if necessary, in the majority, limit it in the rest. Jerry, it's our only chance to get back to something worthwhile. To normality.'

Jerry stared vaguely at his brother. 'Get back? Get back? But we're moving on. The abstract...'

'... can only destroy civilization...'

'... as we know it.'

'You see.'

'See? Death.'

'Death — and life.'

'Sure.'

'Then...?'

'Kill you, Frank.'

'No!'

Jerry felt faint. 'You're fouling things up, Frank. You were nicer when you knew it.'

'Forget Time.' Frank slapped the sideboard. That's what's important right now. A cleaning up. A getting back to fundamentals.'

'Forget Space.'

'Jerry — when I returned I decided there had to be some constructive thought. We mustn't fight.'

'Catherine. You killed our sister.'

'You killed her.'

'You made me.'

'Who's the guilty one?'

'Guilt? There you go again.' Jerry relaxed. 'Well, I suppose you just saved your life. Boredom is a great preserver.' He stretched. 'So you've decided to think ahead? I can't see it myself.'

'You won't give yourself a chance. You won't give me a chance.'

Jerry began to pick up the pieces of broken glass and put them on the sideboard. He gathered the flowers into a bunch and crossed the room to a mock Tudor table which had an empty vase on it. He put the flowers in the vase. 'It's a question of identity, Frank. What the hell. A wild environment, an integrated identity.'

'We're clearing things up. Tidying the world.'

'You might just as well be in the political age. You can't bring it back, Frank.'

'We will.' . 'Not for long.'

'You'll see.'

'But you know what I'm out to do, don't you?'

'Randomize.'

'More or less.'

'You won't succeed. History's against you, Jerry.'

'That's the difference between you and me, Frank. I'm against History.'

'Where are you going?'

Jerry made for the door. 'I've got to look up an old flame. You don't mind me hanging around for a while, do you?'

Td rather you did. Have you got the machine with you?'

'No.'

'Then I'd rather you did.'

Til be seeing you soon, Frank.'

'Bet on it.'

3 The prison of the stars

Jerry found Flora Hargreaves by the fountain, behind the M-6o tanks.

'You're just as I remember you,' he said.

She smiled, smoothing her olive uniform. 'You never told...'

'No.'

Thanks.'

'You met a friend of mine in London, didn't you? He gave you something to look after.'

'That's right, Jerry.'

'I need it now.'

'You do? You'd better come back to my quarters. I've got a nice place. There's plenty of space for everybody.'

'Everybody who needs it.'

'Yes.'

They walked between the tanks and crossed the square to the violet building opposite the town hall. All around the square the marines were relaxing, chatting to the WACs, smoking, sipping soft-drinks, cleaning their Navy Colts.

'It's been pretty tough for them,' said Flora. 'But I guess they know how to take it.'

'They can take anything by the look of them.'

'Almost anything.' Flora straightened her shoulders: She winked at him. 'It's gotten to be a rotten war., Jerry. I sometimes wonder what you people make of it. It can be hard, sometimes, to take the overall view when your own country's... well...' Jerry sucked in his breath. 'It has to be this way. Maybe if the CIA were still around things would be better.'

'I guess.'

'They've nothing against — you know — consorting?'

'If you're here, Jerry, you've had security clearance. That's all they want to know. It's my leave. I can do what I like.'

They entered the building and climbed the concrete stairs to the first floor, walking along a cool, shady corridor until they came to her room. She turned the handle and threw the door open with a sweeping gesture. 'Apres vous!' Jerry padded in and eyed the room. It was very feminine. There were a lot of soft toys on the bed, posters of British beauty spots on the walls, a helmet and battle overalls hanging over a chair, a.22 in a holster on a stack of Penguin paperbacks, a neat kitchenette through an archway. The room was sunny. Flora drew the blinds.

The machine,' said Jerry.

She went to her wardrobe. There were three print dresses in it. She bent and Jerry looked at her thighs. She straightened, holding something black, square and heavy, and Jerry looked at her eyes. She widened them. 'Is this it?'

'This is it.' Jerry laughed with relief. 'Put it down. Aha!'

As she put it on the floor he seized her, running his hand up her leg and down her regulation drawers; kissing her wide, soft, hot, damp, lively mouth; running his other hand through her sweet auburn hair; guiding her to the bed and fucking her with enormous joy and energy.

'Well, that was nice,' she said. 'I always knew...'

'Come off it.' He gave her one of her Kents and lit one for himself.

'Is the box valuable?'

'It means the world to me.'

'It just looks like some sort of geiger counter — something like that.'

'It's a bit more versatile than that.'

Tell me what it is, Jerry.' She curled a leg over his leg and licked his left nipple.

There's no real word for it. Nothing — authentic. One of its functions is as a sort of randomizer. It can produce all the alternatives at once. There's a lot of power in that little box.'

'A computer? Multivalue logic?'

'Not a computer. Far from it. Almost the opposite, in one sense. It breaks down the barriers. It lets the multiverse — well -"in".'

'That isn't a proper word.'

'It's everything.'

'What's everything?'

'You're everything, Flora. But now you can be mirrored by your environment. It creates a human environment for a human being. It can also speed up various basic processes.'

That's an explanation?'

'Explanations shouldn't be necessary between us. Flora.'

There was a cool breeze and a neigh.

Frank stood in the open door, his upper lip curled like a mule's, his needle-gun in his hand. He came in and closed the door, crossing to the black box. 'I thought so.'

'You're so fucking high-minded.' Jerry climbed over Flora and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on his underpants and socks. 'You can't destroy that machine without risking the whole bloody universe going wild.'

'Isn't that what you want?'

'Moderation in all things, Frank.'

'You're a traitor, Captain Hargreaves. Consider yourself under arrest.'

Flora shrugged and pushed the bedclothes back with her feet.

Jerry crossed to the chair and picked up his shirt, pulling it over his head. 'Well, Frank, I think a certain equilibrium's been achieved, don't you?'

'You can talk of equilibrium with this' — Frank kicked at the black box — 'in existence. This chaos machine.'

'Oh, come now, Frank. We're not even sure if it has an en-tropic effect or not. It's an experimental model. That's how I came to lose it in the first place — I created the field and then couldn't find the machine in it.' Jerry laughed. 'Ironic, eh? I've got to test it. Find out exactly what it does do.'

'At the expense of society.'

'Well, that's how you see it.'

Jerry put on his other clothes and buckled his Sam Browne belt. 'That's better. You're always catching me with my pants down.'

'It used to be nice. But you know what happened the last time. What has this machine to do with Catherine?'

'Work it out. It's the creation of all possible worlds. It can channel energy — re-divert it — re-form it...'

'Bloody romantic,' said Frank.

'Who's Catherine?' said Flora. 'My aunt...'

'Our sister,' said Frank.

'Have it your way.' Jerry licked his lips. 'Still, this has nothing much to do with the current situation.'

'What is your relationship?' Flora frowned.

'It's become a little ambiguous of late,' Jerry told her. Frank had swung the needle-gun into line with his heart. 'I suppose it boils down to a matter of identification, in the long run.'

'Identity!'

Frank snarled and squeezed the trigger as Jerry dropped behind the chair and drew his vibragun.

'If either of us hits that machine,' said Jerry, 'we might find out a lot about identity.'

Frank hesitated then lowered his gun. 'All right, Jerry. Let's talk like rational men.'

'I'm not sure how it's done.'

Flora Hargreaves rose suddenly and threw the bedclothes over Frank's head. Jerry jumped out and thumped his relative on the back of his neck with the barrel of the vibragun. He fell down heavily. Jerry took the needle-gun out of the tangle of sheets and handed it to Flora. 'He couldn't bear it if you shot him.'

'Why?'

'Oh well. It's all a matter of ritual, you see.' Jerry uncovered Frank whose face had aged. He began to shiver, rubbing nervously at his arms, passing his hands over his head.

'I'm losing heat, Jerry. I'm losing heat, Jerry. I'm losing heat, Jerry.'

'And dynamic, I suppose.' Jerry pushed at Frank's chest with his vibragun. 'Move along there, Frank. Can you manage the box, Flora?'

Til have to get some clothes on first. And pack.'

'Wear your uniform. Pack your dresses. Okay?'

'Okay.'

Flora quickly got ready and lifted the heavy box. Jerry pushed the cringing Frank forward. 'We'll make for my convertible. We'll take you along with us, Frank. This environment isn't doing you any good at all.'

They descended the stairs, then descended the steps that led them into the square. Marines still stood about in the sun, taking a well-deserved rest from the dirty business of war. Jerry hid his vibragun with his cloak and the three of them walked slowly to the car. Flora got in the back with the box. Frank sat beside Jerry as he started the Phantom VI up.

'Where are we going?'Flora asked.

'Our first duty is to get Frank into a rest home. It's not far from here. A couple of hours drive. I think he'll last until then.'

Flora sniffed. 'You think so?'

'He is beginning to niff a bit, I must admit.'