Deep Freeze

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Watcher, in the form of a maturely attractive woman, waved one hand gracefully toward chairs arranged in a conversational circle. Vinn Stern nodded at Pete and Iain and set the example by accepting the Watcher's invitation.

Sarah de Conde sat on the edge of her chair, her hands in her lap. She stared at the Watcher with her eyes squinted belligerently.

The material that covered Vinn's chair made a dry, crackling noise as he lowered his weight. The furniture was functionally simple in design and made for the humanoid form. As Vinn leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, a faint whiff of age and dry rot emanated from the chair.

The walls showed a faint geometric pattern. Light came from a glowing square in the ceiling, which was an expanse of otherwise unbroken white.

In the center of the circle of chairs was a low table on which sat a free-form sculpture. Pete de Conde picked up the piece, judging it to be carved from a stone very much like marble.

"I am sure you have questions," the Watcher said, through the extension. "If, however, you will allow me to speak, I think that most of them will be answered."

"We are your guests," Pete said, inclining his head toward the extension.

"It is in the intent of creation that each living thing consummate the purpose for which it was intended." The extension leaned forward slightly and spoke in a low, intense voice.

"What gives you the right to speak for creation?" Sarah demanded.

The Watcher ignored the interruption. "Life is the apogee of the cycle of cosmic evolution and no one form of life is more favored than others. I'm sure that you think me wrong, for you consider yourselves to be the penultimate achievement of creation and evolution. I say penultimate rather than ultimate because you are not content with life as it was given to you. You cling to the belief, or the hope, that there is something after this life, that you are destined to evolve into an even higher form. Once you were so certain of this uncertainty that you manipulated your genes to take the form of that to which you aspire."

"Are you speaking of the fossil remains of winged beings on Erin Kenner's world?" Vinn asked.

The extension nodded, causing her dark hair to sway forward onto her cheeks. "An excellent example of perverting the intent of creation. Of course, such blatant manipulation of form and intent had disastrous effects on the mental balance of the winged ones."

"That's very interesting," Iain said, "but what does it have to do with us?"

"As far as we know," Vinn said, "our race evolved on one planet, Earth."

"Be patient, and you will understand," the Watcher said. "Your narrowness of vision is another of your weaknesses, but your most serious fault is the result of your having postulated for yourself an exalted existence after death. By relegating your life to secondary importance, you have given yourselves an avenue of evasion down which you can travel to rationalize away your failure to accept the responsibilities that are inherent to the living."

Vinn was being very human. Resentment toward the Watcher's condescending lecture made him bristle. "You know so much about us in such a short time?" he asked.

"I know enough," the Watcher said. "You told me that you are familiar with only a small portion of this galaxy, but you send your exploration ships into unknown areas searching for that rarest of treasures, a planet which can support life; and when you find such a planet what do you do?

You immediately begin to alter the balance that nature has developed."

"Is this wisdom your own, or was it implanted by your creators?" Vinn asked. "Because if you're forming your opinion of our entire race from what you've learned from a few individuals, you have only a tiny piece of the picture. You speak of balance, but the balance changes. It is natural for a newly evolving species to compete with an established species and there can only be one winner. Of course, a growing population of humanity on a world alters that world. That in itself is the nature of things."

"The problem is that you actively and often maliciously attack the symmetry of creation," the Watcher said. The extension fixed her large blue eyes on Vinn. "In nature, development of a particular species can be looked upon as somewhat experimental. It's as if creation says—ah, let's see if this will work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but if a species vanishes it was not the experiment that failed, but the subject of that experiment. You overturn the entire scheme of things by, in effect, taking over the experiment yourself. You are not content to live in your environment, you change it to suit your desires at the moment. Let me give you an example. Through you I know the planet you call Terra II. Ithas taken centuries of effort to even partially repair the damage you did to it."

"That was thousands of years ago," Vinn said. "And speaking of altering the environment, what do you call what was done to this planet?"

"It is not necessary to justify the actions of the Creators," the Watcher said. "However, I will tell you that eradicating life from this planet was a part of the restoration of balance. Unlike what you did to your Earth, the actions taken by the Creators were essential. You know so little about your own mother planet, but you do know that you soiled it, used it up, and then charred it. You made it unfit for life except in its lowest forms."

"You know Earth?" Vinn asked.

"Only through your knowledge of it, but I can describe it to you. Once it thrived with living things. Creation has a talent for seeking out and filling with life all possible habitats. There were millions of species of vegetation.

There was an extravagant diversity of animal life and bird life, not to mention insects and microbes and other microscopic forms. Then evolution produced you and you altered the experiment. You lifted yourselves beyond the purpose for which you were intended. For just such a situation have we been waiting."

"You have been waiting to do what?" Iain asked.

"We will discuss that," the Watcher said.

"How long have you waited?" Vinn asked.

"No matter, you have come. Now we must decide."

"We can't decide anything with nothing more than hints about you and your purpose," Vinn said. "Before we attempt to make any heavy decisions, we have to have the answers to a few basic questions."

The extension nodded.

"First, tell me how you regard yourself."

"I am that which was created."

"By whom?"

"By the Creators."

"Do you consider yourself to be a living entity?"

"From your own mind I find the phrase: I think, therefore I am."

"That's an evasive answer," Vinn said.

"You would call me a machine."

"A thinking computer with the ability to reason and learn?"

"Yes."

"Therefore you were manufactured, put together, by someone like us, someone who breathed oxygen, someone who was flesh and blood."

"Yes."

"Who were your creators?"

"Yes, you would have to ask, wouldn't you? You have no way of knowing."

"No, we don't know," Vinn said.

"I was created by you."

Pete, who had been leaning forward eagerly, sat back with an audible sigh of exasperation.

"And the Sleepers," Vinn said. "Who are they?"

"They are what you would have been."

"Would have been if what?" Vinn asked in exasperation.

"Excuse me, Vinn," Pete said, "isn't this just so much mumbo jumbo?

Let's ask this thing why it killed my wife's family."

"I will answer that question. Those who trespassed were silenced because, as I have pointed out to you, it is the intent of creation that each life-form be allowed to perform its purpose."

"I'm sorry," Vinn said, "that doesn't make sense. Those who came to your planet were, at least in their view, going about a purpose. It's the nature of mankind to seek knowledge."

"It has been your nature to disregard the intent of creation, to interrupt the natural process, to destroy, to alter. The Creators saw this and took steps to restore the balance."

Vinn wiped a film of nervous perspiration from his forehead. It was easy to forget that the lovely woman who smiled at him so caringly was nothing more than metals and plastics. The way she— or it—was lecturing them told him that the Watcher considered itself to be superior, but there was a chilling irrationality in its reasoning.

A world had been, somehow, wiped clean of life and then turned into a frozen fortress to guard what seemed to be a force of cosmic enforcers of a doctrine that not only questioned but prohibited human achievement.

There was no time to think through the hints and tidbits of information that the Watcher had thrown out, but it was evident that the Watcher and its creators believed that the development of life was common in the galaxy, and that the end result of creation, or the evolution of life-forms, was man, or something so like man that there was, in the Watcher's awareness, no difference.

Of course, they were curious, the four who sat on the age-dried coverings of the functionally designed chairs and listened to the words of the Watcher coming from the lips of an imitation of life in the form of a beautiful woman. But there was an underlying implication of deadly danger that made Vinn want to look over his shoulder. He had used the finely tuned sensors of the E.V.A. suit's gloves to touch the smooth, artificial skin of the female who sat demurely opposite them. There had been no life there. The skin was cold and unfeeling. She was nothing more than an extension of a machine, and he was beginning to think that that machine, the Watcher, was not rational or—equally as dangerous, that those who had made the machine and set it to make life and death decisions in the name of keeping nature's balance had been psychopathic to the point of believing that it was their duty to commit genocide in the name of a natural balance.

There was an air of tension in the stark room. Vinn felt as if he should be doing something, that time was running out.

"I'd like for you to explain that last statement," Vinn said. "Just how did those who made you restore the balance?"

"You have seen," the lovely woman said with a slight smile, and into Vinn's mind sprang the images of the dead worlds spinning their way through eternal emptiness.

On the hand holding his rifle, Iain's knuckles went white. "Vinn," he said, "I think it's time we started looking for an exit."

"Not yet," the Watcher said. "It has not been decided." The extension rose. "Now you will come with me."

"Not just yet," Vinn said. "Why did the Creators destroy those planets we call the Dead Worlds?"

"To restore the balance in that segment of the galaxy," the Watcher said.

"Men like us lived on those worlds?" Vinn asked.

"Yes."

"You have accused us of being insensitive, of doing damage to worlds, of depriving other species of the right to fulfill their purpose. How can you justify the slaughter of billions of people?"

"When you administer a drug to cure yourself of an infectious illness you destroy billions of units of life to restore the equilibrium within your own personal system," the Watcher said.

"If you think that comparing mankind to a virus is original," Pete said angrily, "you're crazy."

"It was, I felt, an analogy you could understand."

"We may understand more than you give us credit for," Pete said.

"Vinn, let's go," Iain said nervously.

"Not just yet," Pete said.

"Come," said the extension, moving toward the door to the chamber.

Vinn followed the extension into a long corridor. He tensed, and his hand was on the butt of his weapon. Iain bumped into him, lifted his saffer rifle. Dozens of silent, still, metallic, anthropoid forms stood with their backs against the walls.

"They are not animated," the Watcher said.

The extension led the way to a low-slung, open-topped vehicle with multiple seats, took her place at the front and motioned for the others to join her. When everyone was seated the vehicle moved silently and swiftly, passed through a circular port that closed behind them. They were in one of the infinitely long, narrow rooms that had been shown to them. Soft light glowed through the transparent domes of the containers arrayed along the walls.

"The Sleepers," Vinn said.

The silent vehicle flashed past hundreds, thousands of the containers, but the seats were so low that Vinn could not see into the domes. The vehicle turned and sped past the arched openings to other container-filled rooms. A door opened. The vehicle stopped just inside. One wall of the large room was covered with screens, instruments, dials. At the base of the wall a console ran full length with what appeared to be work stations at intervals. Although there was no sound other than those made by themselves, there was a feeling in the air somewhat like standing next to the housing of a blink generator when it was fully charged. Placed in rows were mechanical and electronic constructions, most of them with a seat attached.

"The Creators were very much like us," Vinn said to the extension of the Watcher.

"Of course. It is the pattern of evolution."

"And you, the Watcher," Vinn said, waving his hand toward the far wall, "you are here."

"Because an accident might cause some damage," the extensions said,

"you will relinquish your weapons."

"Not a chance," Iain said.

A door opened and one of the metallic, animated extensions entered the room. Iain tried to raise his rifle, but his arms were paralyzed. Pete was also helpless.

Vinn felt the intrusion of the Watcher into his mind. He fought against it, and with a great effort managed to put his hand on the butt of his hand saffer and lift it from its holster. That was the limit of his ability.

"The animated extension will take your weapons," the Watcher said.

"No," Sarah said. She moved quickly, jerked the saffer from Vinn's hand, pointed it at the advancing robot. The heat of the blast warmed her face as the extension halted, a huge hole blasted into its middle.

Sarah turned, trained the saffer on the female. "We will keep our weapons."

"If you had missed the animated extension, great damage would have been done," the female said.

Sarah aimed the weapon at the control wall. "Get out of our minds or I'll blast every instrument on that wall."

"All right," Pete said, lifting his rifle. Iain turned a full circle, rifle at the ready.

"Perhaps you are responsible enough to be allowed to keep your weapons," the Watcher said.

For the first time the Watcher was unable to form a conclusion. That the woman was able to resist control was not logical. Only the Creators were strong enough to resist once initial penetration had been accomplished. One thing was certain. It had been a mistake to take those who had come to the Center. The one called Vinn had, quite surprisingly, recognized the control panel for what it was, and even while the Watcher ran the question through its center again and again Vinn was examining the keyboards, guessing at the function of switches, and coming very close.

The Watcher had the ability to learn, but over the eons of time since the beginning some of the Watcher's perceptiveness had eroded. Perhaps that was why there was indecision, although the Watcher could not knowguilt nor the fear of failure. When there was a thing to be done, it was done. The Creators were, of course, infallible. What they had intended to be would be. Everything they had predicted had come to pass. They had known that the process of creation was a universal constant, that sooner or later others would be in their image and that, once again, the balance would be affected. The Creators had erred only in their estimation of the amount of time that would be required for the selfish ones to evolve again and in not foreseeing that, so quickly, at least some of those who would come would have reached the Creators' own state of development. If, indeed, that last were true, the Watcher's task was simple. The Sleepers would have to be awakened. But it was necessary to be absolutely sure before taking that irrevocable step.

It was obvious to all that the Watcher was speaking directly to Sarah.

"You, too, have responsibilities."

"That is not to be defined by you," Sarah said heatedly.

"Ah, but you are wrong. Only I can do so."

Sarah felt dizzy, fought it off, knowing that the Watcher was trying, once more, to control her. She thought of home, and her children, and the images of their faces burned away the feeling of infringement. She waved the saffer warningly.

"So be it," the Watcher said. "It is time. You have made the decision, Sarah. You and you alone."

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said.

"They will be awakened," the Watcher said, "but first we must determine whether or not you are worthy of knowing them."

The extension moved to stand beside an installation consisting of a comfortable chair and a framework of metal from which hung an appliance very much like an old-fashioned hair dryer. "I think, Sarah, that you would be of the most interest. Will you sit down, please?"

"No," Sarah said.

"You refuse to cooperate?"

"We are not subjects for experimentation," Pete said.

"Then the decision as to your worth must be made without complete data. I will have to decide based on the information I have."

Pete raised his saffer, pointed it at the control wall. "I don't think you could stop me before I pulled the trigger," he said.

The Watcher was silent as oceans of data swarmed into the Center and was examined without conclusion. The extension stood as if frozen, eyes blank, lips parted in a smile. The trespassers would not cooperate, therefore they were not as evolutionarily advanced as it had first appeared. There were puzzling contradictions. Certain aspects of their technology were impressive. The female was able to resist penetration, and the man called Vinn could do the same to a lesser extent. That was the most enigmatic thing about them. Did their science and the female's mental abilities offer threat? Raw data continued to churn through the Center, being checked and rechecked. The conclusion was that it was impossible for the trespassers to be where they were, or to exist at all. The development of intelligent life was a process that required time, time measured in geological eras. But they were there, and for a moment or two it had appeared that it would be necessary to awaken the Sleepers, but there was another solution.

"I have decided," the Watcher said. "Not only you, but the worlds you have infested will be silenced."

Vinn felt cold enter his body through the E. V.A. suit. Suddenly his toes ached, and he shivered. He tried to cry out, but he could not make a sound. He knew that he was under attack, and that the threat to his life was coming from the Watcher. His mind shouted, "No, I will not allow this."

The terrible cold penetrated to his bones. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pete and Iain topple to the floor. They fell stiffly, like cut trees. Sarah's scream was in his ears and there were huge, crashing noises and the smell of heated metal and things burning as Sarah's saffer flared. The female form of the extension was caught in the full force of the weapon. Hermidsection disappeared. Her head and torso fell to the floor. The lower body stood, balancing on long, smooth legs from which the silver gown, also cut in two by Sarah's blast, slowly sank to the floor. The exposed groin was smooth, like that of a doll.

The control wall buckled. Smoke filled the room. Vinn was able to move his head. He saw Sarah's face through her visor. Her white teeth showed in a snarl.

Vinn fell to his knees beside Pete de Conde. The liquid in Pete's eyeballs had expanded while freezing. There were skin lesions where rapid expansion had ruptured cells.

"You don't understand," the Watcher said in a flat voice that reverberated in the room. "You must not resist. You will feel pain only for a moment."

Sarah moved to stand over Pete's body. She looked down into his ruined face and cried out in loss and anger.

"You should not have caused such terrible damage," the Watcher said.

"Some of what you have done is irreparable."

"Sarah, we have to go," Vinn said.

"What about my husband?" There were no tears. Not yet. Her face showed nothing but fury as she stood over the bodies of Pete and Iain.

"We can't carry them," Vinn said. "We have to get out of here and do what we should have done in the first place, call in X&A."

"I can't leave him. I can't leave him."

"Sarah, X&A will recover the bodies," Vinn said, taking her arm. For a moment she resisted, then, weapon at the ready, she followed him.

The corridor outside the Center was blocked by four of the mechanical extensions. Vinn fired without hesitation, swinging his weapon back and forth on full beam until the way was cleared. The vehicle that had brought them to the Center was gone. Vinn led the way down the corridor and into the first of the long domed container rooms. The glowing containers could contain nothing other than the Sleepers.

"Entry is forbidden," the Watcher said.

Vinn stepped to the side of one of the domes. "My God," he said. Beside him Sarah shivered.

Tubes of some imperishable material were attached to the thin, sere arms of a wasted, mummified humanoid form.

"I have decided," the voice of the Watcher said, echoing away into the distance. "They must awaken."

Vinn moved on to the next dome. There, too, death had visited in remote times. From one of the tubes that terminated under the parchmentlike skin of the mummy a drop of clear liquid oozed. There was a puff of steam as it was quickly evaporated.

Sarah jumped convulsively as a sound of whirring machinery came from within the container. A robot arm moved toward the mummy's neck.

A long, gleaming needle was protruded. The whirring sound came from all of the domes, from the hundreds that were visible, dwindling in apparent size with distance.

"They awaken," the Watcher said. "I have miscalculated. You are a danger. Now your death will come, for these are the Sleepers, the terrible ones, the irresistible ones who once before restored the balance. They will destroy you as they destroyed those of you who came before you, and they will destroy you and the worlds you have fouled and all that you have created."

Vinn ran from dome to dome, saw only desiccated death. Attempts by the robot arms inside the domes to find a vein in the shrunken necks were resulting in robotic confusion. Long, gleaming needles searched, touched the withered skin, withdrew.

"Let's go," Vinn said, taking Sarah's arm. They ran back to the corridor, then in the direction from which they had come originally. In an alcove sat a vehicle much like the one that had brought them to the Center. Vinn helped Sarah into it, jumped in himself. He had watched the extension's operation of the vehicle on the way out. He pushed buttons. The vehicle sped down the corridor. He tried to remember which gallery led to the chamber where the aircars waited, but all of the arches looked the same.

He picked one and sent the vehicle speeding between the rows of domedcontainers. The whirling sound of the robotic machinery filled the long room.

"Whoa," he said, his heart leaping as he saw that the containers ahead were open. He pushed the button that stopped the vehicle. As far as his eye could see, the domes had been opened. Sarah's hand was shaking as she swept the empty aisle ahead with her saffer. Vinn leapt out of the vehicle and ran to look into one of the open containers. There was only the dry-rotted material of the pad on which a body had once lain. It was the same with the next few that he examined. In one there lay bones thinly covered with black, desiccated skin, but all of the others that he examined were empty.

He ran back to the vehicle. "If they were awakened, it was a long time ago," he said.

"No," said the Watcher's voice. "You're wrong."

But where were they, the Creators? The Watcher had taken the irrevocable step. The signal to activate the awakening procedure had gone out from back-up reason chambers. Monitors showed that the system was working, although the Watcher had most of its chambers engaged in assessing the damage done to the Center.

Where were the Creators? It had become obvious that the trespassers represented danger, that the balance was being tilted once again. Now the Creators would act. First the two remaining vermin would be exterminated, and then—

"It will do you no good to make ridiculous statements," the Watcher said.

"Your Sleepers are dead, Watcher," Vinn Stern said. "And these, several hundred of them, it appears, were awakened long ago."

"That is impossible. They are here," the Watcher said.

"Damn it, use your sensors," Vinn said. "Look, this dome has been open so long that the pad has atrophied. Look." He pressed the bottom of the container. Where his gloved hand touched, the material turned to dust.

The Watcher saw through Vinn's eyes. "Hundreds of them?"

"At least. The opened lids extend ahead of us as far as I can see."

The vehicle was moving at speed again. A blank wall ended the gallery.

Vinn turned the vehicle around and sent it flashing back toward the corridor. He regretted the wasted time.

"What's that sonofabitch up to?" he whispered to Sarah. In a loud voice he called out, "Watcher, they're all dead or gone."

The Watcher did not answer. The intruders were still alive. Something was wrong, for it was not logical that the Creators were awake and that those who had done such terrible damage to the Center were alive.

Vinn turned into another gallery. At the end of it, a distance of miles, a circular port opened. The two aircars sat in the center of the large, empty chamber. He helped Sarah out of the vehicle and led her at a clumsy run toward the aircars. He hit the switch that started the flux engine as he fell into the pilot's seat. Sarah was half-in, half-out when he tilted the aircar and triggered the laser cannon to boil away the metal hatch overhead. The air rushed out of the chamber as the aircar leapt for the sky.