The Sinners of Erspia

NINE The Poisoned Chalice

While running back to the cargo ship Laedo told himself that he might now have an advantage. ‘Klystar’

would think him absorbed into the life-vat, his substance unwillingly donated to the formation of Klystar’s next body.

Once inside the ship’s lounge he sat down to think.

Histrina watched him with concern. “What are we going to do?” she asked anxiously.

Laedo didn’t answer. Matters were becoming clear in his mind. He had to do more than simply escape, if indeed that was possible at all. It was his duty to oppose Klystar.

He wondered if his cargo carrier’s defence blaster would be capable of destroying the main palace, or least that part of it containing the vat. He rejected the idea. He would be firing on innocent people, and besides the palace might well be capable of defending itself.

There might be a sneakier way of foiling Klystar.

Sunset came. All the Erspia worlds had a twenty-eight hour day, but the moon’s orbit gave it a much briefer period. Laedo had slept for only a few hours when the artificial sun came up again. He left Histrina fast asleep, and armed with a flashlight, made his way to the Excelsior.

He paused, sensing the derelict old starliner all around him. Hull integrity had held and the ship had done its settling long ago. It was eerie to think what it must have been like when in service, thronging with people. Especially weird was to contemplate their fright and bewilderment when the liner was seized by Klystar. As before, Laedo passed through a ballroom, a couple of salons, and descended to the cargo hold where Garo’s stasis cabinet rested.

It was many years since he had travelled on a starliner. He was trying to recall the likely layout. Where would the engineering section be?

Once through the other end of the cargo hold all lights were out. Garo was conserving power, lighting only that part of the ship he planned to walk through. Laedo switched on his flashlight. He was heading towards the stern of the ship, where he reckoned the crude mechanics of drive and power would be located. He got early confirmation. The elegance of the passenger section was gone. His flashlight flickered on bare metal and plastic, seams and rivets. Only the crew would come here.

In a ship of this size there must surely be facilities for effecting repairs: a machine shop, in other words. It perplexed him that he had not thought of this before. Another result of his mental confusion, perhaps, though very likely everything in the machine shop was wrecked.

In due course Laedo discovered the engine room. The huge windings of the inertial drive which had once propelled the Excelsior at several hundred times the velocity of light were a slumped mass of fused and molten metal.

Several doors led from the engine room. Through one of these Laedo found the machine shop. As anticipated, Klystar had trashed this also. Lathes, mills and forming machines were smashed, knocked over, melted, and even the benches on which they had stood mangled into useless shapes. Laedo passed along two lines of machines, training his flashlight on each machine in turn. When he reached the far extent of the room a faint smile came to his lips. Klystar had not been entirely thorough. Probably he had done no more than aim some type of destructive device from the doorway, because a forming machine at the end of the further row had been torn from its mooring bolts and tumbled to the floor, but remained in one piece.

Laedo knelt to examine it. The data processing unit was smashed, so the machine would have to be set up by hand. Laedo was no kind of engineer, but if he could lug the machine back to his cargo ship, power it up and study it for a while, then maybe he could make the part he needed from some piece of metal left lying around.

Maybe.

But that wasn’t his immediate concern. In the ruined engine section should be something else useful.

Laedo used his nose and followed dead, sterile smells years old. In a darkened, blackened corridor he found what he wanted, still seeping with infinite slowness from ruptured tanks: a thick sludge of oil, toxic metals, and exotic compounds. Another search produced a bucket flung in a corner a century and a half earlier. Laedo scooped up a quantity of the sludge and carried it out of the Excelsior.

Treading the yellow moss, he climbed up the declivity until the roofs of the pleasure palaces came in sight.

The rest of his plan depended on simple daring. He made the short journey to the main palace, passed through the magnificent entrance, and into the great entrance hall, still carrying the bucket.

Few people were about. Encouraged, Laedo started across the hall. Then he froze as a voice spoke behind him.

“What’s that you’ve got there?”

A young woman in a loose-fitting light green gown was staring at the bucket, her nose wrinkled in distaste. Laedo smiled in embarrassment.

“It’s from the food tanks. I’m taking it to reprocessing.”

“Oh.

Her face blank with incomprehension, she gave a curt nod and moved on.

Sighing with relief, Laedo continued on to the broad staircase, mounted to the outside balcony, and thence to the narrow corridor and spiral stairs. When nearly at the top he raised his eyes just above floor level and peeped furtively into the gallery.

It was unoccupied.

With alacrity Laedo leaped up the remaining steps, sprang to the nearest vat and upended his bucket.

The thick, dark, oily sludge poured with treacly slowness into the pus-coloured fluid. He watched in fascination as it spread and formed tentacles and swirls and multicoloured stains, tainting and poisoning the flesh substance that was meant to form Klystar’s new body.

Would ‘Klystar’, or the team which serviced the tank, discover the pollution? It would be rash to think otherwise, but Laedo paused to consider Klystar’s carelessness. There was a singular lack of security—in consequence, perhaps, of Klystar’s contempt for human intelligence.

Though still fascinated by the spreading discoloration, which had reached the other openings by now, he decided he had been here long enough. He turned and made for the stairs.

Then the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. There came a slamming sound, together with a rushing, sloshing noise.

He whirled. The oval vats, really openings of a single tank, had slid to the extreme ends of the gallery, revealing the full extent of the ochre slime.

That slime was surging towards the middle of the tank. The air crackled. A dramatic transformation was taking place, a tumultuous rising, a gushing spout which formed itself into a tall figure.

And stepped from the tank.

The figure resembled ‘Klystar’, complete with the long spindly legs, the four spindly arms and the turreted, swiftly rotating head. But it was much more invigorated, with an integument of brilliant shining yellow in place of the pale pastel of the older body.

Laedo stared, transfixed.

Klystar had returned.

Here at last was the creator of the Erspia worlds: Klystar the ancient, the polymath, who held in a single consciousness more knowledge than was possessed by the whole of mankind.

It was stupefying to think of his achievements. His method of travel meant that he could take no instruments with him, yet unaided he had shaped planetoids, built machines, worked wonders. Such feats were impossible except with the aid of supreme knowledge.

Drops and gobs of life-substance dripped from Klystar as he stood before Laedo, bending his head to regard him. The turret was rotating back and forth with rapidity. The five separately functioning eyes flashed with fiendish intelligence.

Laedo became absolutely certain that here was a being who never slept or rested, and who never paused from ceaseless mentation.

He wished he had brought his gun with him. What subconscious impulse had prompted him to leave it behind? Was it to avoid the possibility, always a horror to him, of having to kill a sentient being while in that being’s presence?

Perhaps he had accomplished the act already. Purple discoloration was appearing on Klystar’s body, creating a mottling effect. Klystar appeared to flinch. A vibrant voice issued from the turreted head.

“Is it you who has poisoned this body? Everything is disrupted.”

A click sounded. The tall door through which ‘Klystar’ had earlier exited opened. The previous body of the polymath strode through, walked a short distance, then stopped, facing its replacement.

Modulated sounds passed between the two: some sort of high-speed language. The newly arrived Klystar sagged and staggered. Its paler, older counterpart started, as if in shock, eyes briefly becoming a thousand times more alive than before, flashing fire. Then, in the same moment that the new Klystar collapsed to the floor, they waned into dullness once more.

“What has happened?” Laedo whimpered.

‘Klystar’ rotated his head to regard him with a single middle eye. He spoke in a reedy voice which was much weaker than before. “You have successfully sabotaged Klystar’s body replacement. It is defunct.

He was forced to take refuge in this body temporarily.”

“Then do I now address the real Klystar?”

“No, you do not. Klystar lingered only long enough to obtain the Erspia data from me, though he would have preferred to review the results for himself. He has already left for a new destination.” With no change of tone, ‘Klystar’ added, “It may please you to hear that inadvertently you have forestalled the imminent destruction of the specimens. Klystar is meticulous in his actions. He would have closed down the experiment on completion, reducing the Erspia worlds to the rubble from which they were formed.”

To realize that he had emptied his bucket into the tank in the nick of time gave Laedo a sense of destiny.

“Then will you do that yourself? Or continue in charge as before?”

“I am unable to do either. You have killed not only the new body, but the old one as well. In a few minutes both will lie dead on the floor of this chamber.”

“I don’t understand,” puzzled Laedo.

“It is simple enough. Immediacy of Thought is like stretching a piece of elastic and letting one end go. It snaps forward and stings the fingers. The longer the stretch, the greater the violence of contraction. A transfer from galaxy to galaxy delivers a shock so great it is lethal to an aged body such as speaks to you now.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” protested Laedo. “You did not receive Klystar from another galaxy, only from across the room!”

‘Klystar’ made no immediate answer. He appeared to be gathering his remaining strength. When he responded, it was in a dry voice. “Are you hungry for knowledge, or merely argumentative?” Again his head rotated slowly, dim eyes staring in turn. “Immediacy of Thought, though described as instantaneous, in practice takes several minutes to accomplish in full. The essence of the traveller is projected in a wave train stretching the length of the distance to be traversed. That is the ‘elastic band’. It is the leading end which makes instant contact with the target. The rear end is then released, and the wave train contracts into its new location in a non-zero time interval. The Klystar who spoke to you was not the whole Klystar but a partial representation, the vanguard of the wave train. On finding that the new body was poisoned he switched the target to me in order to collect the Erspia data. I-Klystar received the full force of the remaining wave train.”

Now Laedo understood. He had frustrated Klystar, denying him a receptacle. The polymath had been forced to depart and could not have remained. It was to be hoped he had no further reason to return.

‘Klystar’s’ voice was growing weaker. He slumped. The lack of rancour on his part was a striking element. Laedo had wreaked considerable inconvenience on Klystar, yet there was no hint of seeking revenge. And why should there be? Such attitudes were part of the social dimension, which in Klystar was absent.

Also curious was the readiness to spend one’s last moments explaining technical matters to a near-stranger and proven enemy. It was the dying reflex of one dominated by the compulsive hunt for knowledge.

The next words, however, were far from reassuring. “It took Klystar only seconds to evaluate the data and render a judgment. It is this. Your species is unstable in evolutionary terms. Its survival index is low.

True intelligence will begin its appearance in this galaxy in about two billion years time. Klystar may well be still alive then. But homo sapiens , as you term yourselves, will have devolved back to the simian level in less then half a million years from now, your spurious intelligence evaporated…”

‘Klystar’ was losing his ability to stand upright. Slowly he toppled. As he lay on the floor Laedo made a hurried, if impudent, request.

“Can you release control of the projector station to me?”

‘Klystar’ was still. “Projector station…” he whispered.

And then was silent.

Laedo stepped to the inert body and kicked it. “Speak!”

There was no response.

At the other end of the gallery the extra-tall door clicked open. Half a dozen men and women, all clad the same, in loose blue trousers and blouses patterned in silver-and-gold, entered. On seeing the two dead Klystar bodies they halted.

“What has happened?”

The shocked question came from a man somewhat older than the others, with streaks of grey in his hair.

These would be the body servitors referred to by ‘Klystar’, a team charged with maintaining the flesh tank.

“Klystar has returned, and gone away again,” Laedo announced. “You can close the project down now.

He will not return a second time. The tank needs no more victims.”

Ignoring their stunned looks, he left the gallery. No one tried to stop him as he descended the spiral stairs, regained the grand entrance hall and walked back to his cargo ship, where he found Histrina stirring into wakefulness. He told her to get herself some breakfast, then made his way once more to the Excelsior. It took him more than an hour to lug the damaged forming machine to his own ship and place it in storage there. Then he made one more trip, searching till he found several pieces of metal which he hoped were of the right quality. These also he stored.

By then Histrina had eaten a plate of pancakes. She gave him some coffee, which he gulped gratefully.

He looked at her with a new sense of pity. If he was any judge, a rude awakening was in store for her.

On the external viewscreen he saw that a large body of people had emerged from the palace complex and was marching on the cargo ship. The palace staff had finally got their wits together and were in a mood to ask questions.

“Time we were going, Histrina.”

He powered the manoeuvring engine. The ship soared above the small moonscape, leaving the approaching crowd gawping.

The atmosphere ended abruptly five miles up. It took only a short while to cross space to the atmosphere of Erspia-5. Laedo eased the ship into it and began to look for the grounded projector station among the spread of fields and villages.

That took a little longer, but eventually he spotted the spherical shape. Hovering briefly to unlock its portal with a radio burst, he settled beside it, to see that men were working in the nearby field as before.

Already they were running towards the ship. Brio Fong was among them. Reluctantly Laedo rose from the control panel and took himself outside.

Anxiously Brio searched his face. He pointed a finger at the sky.

“Have you been—up there? To the Heavenly Mansion?”

Poker-faced, Laedo nodded.

“Did you see my little Helsey?” Brio asked eagerly. “Is she happy?”

Laedo stayed poker-faced. “No,” he lied, “I didn’t see her.”

He turned away to face the projector station. The radio burst had not only released the lock on the portal but had also brought the access stairway snaking down to the ground. That had not happened when he had used the same trick in space. He thought only the lever Histrina had found worked that mechanism.

Anyway, it saved him the trouble of having to climb up to the entrance by means of treads and handgrips on the station’s outer skin.

Histrina had appeared at the doorway. He beckoned her on to the turf, locked the door, then led her into the projector station, ignoring the Erspians altogether.

He seated himself at the control board and spoke into the air.

“The experiment is complete. Klystar has gathered his data and departed. Pass control of this station to me.”

The printer chattered, ejecting a sheet of parchment through the slot.

Completion confirmed. Control transferred to manual or voice.

It was hardly likely that the mechanism was taking his word for it. Laedo deduced that ‘Klystar’ had ordered the station to relinquish control, as requested, in his last moments.

Surprisingly, there was a civilised side to Klystar’s bodily shell after all.

He sat there thinking. The sensible thing now would be to affix his cargo ship to its previous pick-a-back position on the station, and set course for Harkio. If, that was, the projector station staff had been told the truth by Klystar.

Laedo saw no reason to believe that.

And anyway Laedo was no longer thinking sensibly. Incongruously acting as his conscience, ‘Klystar’

had made him aware of a wrong he had committed, and which he had to make amends for, inasmuch as that was possible. Furthermore it had to be done without delay, for delay would be unethical. He could not merely fly to Harkio and then try to direct the help of the authorities from there.

What he planned would jeopardise his original mission, true. But there was no other course.

He turned to Histrina. “How would you like to visit your home village?”

She clapped her hands. “Oh yes! I can see my family!”

Leaving his seat, he took Histrina’s hands in his.

“Do you still feel that you belong to Ahriman?”

Frowning, she shook her heed. “I can’t say I feel I belong to anyone or anything.”

“But Ahriman rules on your world. The goodness of Ormazd has been taken away. Hoggora has had plenty of time to reach your village. Everyone there might be dead.”

Histrina, of course, did not know what he was talking about; did not know what he had done and probably would not be able to understand it, despite his earlier effort to explain the artificial nature of the twin gods.

She shook her head again, more vigorously then before. “Oh no! There is an army to keep the evil ones at bay. Hoggora’s camp was fun… but he’ll never get through to Courhart.”

“Things may be different now, Histrina,” Laedo said sadly.

He spoke to the control board. “Show me a map of the Erspia worlds.”

The panel obeyed. A hitherto blank extra viewplate displayed an ebony background against which glowed a number of locations connected by lines on which distances were printed.

There were in fact twelve Erspias, not ten as Garo had thought. But which was which? Though he had privately numbered those he had visited One to Five, he didn’t know if there was an actual numbering.

The locations on the screen had neither numbers nor names.

He spoke again.

“Return the Ormazd projector to its original position.”

At once he heard the whine of the main drive starting up. The station swayed and lifted into the air. In hardly more than seconds they were again in the blackness of space, hurtling through the cluster of worldlets.

Two plans of action had occurred to Laedo. One was to park his cargo ship on the projector station, pick-a-back, as before, return the projector station to its proper place, and switch the Ormazd beam back on, thus restoring the status quo ante. He could then set about trying to make a transductor, and if successful, go home.

But he wasn’t satisfied with the status quo ante. He wanted to free the Erspians from mind control altogether. So he had decided on his second plan, which called for something more drastic. It would also endanger the cargo ship, which was why he had taken the dreadful risk of leaving it behind.

In little more than half an hour a glowing Erspian world swam into view. The station took up its fixed non-orbiting position diametrically opposite the Ahrimanic projector and automatically pointed the projector tube at the planetoid’s surface. Nothing issued from it, of course. The beam was still switched off.

Laedo took over the manual controls. He moved the station again, steering it to the other side of the worldlet. Gleaming in the light of the tiny sun, the Ahrimanic globe was wickedly on station.

“See that, Histrina? That’s Ahriman’s mouth. That’s where all your evil thoughts come from. Do you remember my showing it to you before?”

“It’s all vague,” she murmured, standing behind him. “What are you going to do?”

He waved to her. “Strap yourself into that couch. The inertial field should protect us, but it might get a little bumpy.”

He took the station further out and positioned it behind the Ahrimanic globe, which he could see hovering against the beautiful, slowly turning spectacle of Erspia-1. The projector stations did not need to orbit or maintain themselves against Erspia-1’s gravity—that petered out some miles below them. Laedo reasoned that the adjusting mechanism which rectified drift would therefore be low-powered. He was gambling that a sudden displacement would be too much for that mechanism to handle.

At a velocity of fifty miles per hour he steered the Ormazdian globe directly at its Ahrimanic twin. It was frightening to see the other projector station expand swiftly on the viewscreen until its striated surface hurtled close and still loomed larger. Histrina screamed, her hand to her mouth. Collision came with a shattering, clanging noise which rang throughout the station, but there was little effect on the two humans otherwise—the inertial field ensured that. Instead of being smashed against the forward wall, they felt no more than a shudder. Laedo heard a hiss of escaping air, but he didn’t worry about it very much. The inertial field would also be capable of compensating for breaches in hull integrity; if that failed bulkheads would close, sealing off the damaged area.

Ahriman moved, pushed off position. Where the two globes came in contact they seemed stuck together, but this was only because Laedo was keeping up the pressure, accelerating Ahriman down towards the surface of Erspia-1.

As soon as they hit the atmosphere he disengaged. Ahriman kept on falling, well within the gravity well by now. If the station staff, demented as they would be by a century and a half of living in the backwash of the evil beam, still had the presence of mind to activate the star drive, then his gamble would be lost.

He had been careful not to take Histrina and himself through the Ahrimanic beam. He continued to stay well clear of it as he followed the station down, aware that the structure might start to tumble. It did not appear to recover, but plummeted towards the ground, hurtling through the thin cloud layer.

At the very end the staff seemed to make some attempt to regain control. The station faltered in its trajectory. But it was too late. The globe struck the ground and crumpled, then went rolling much as the Ormazdian station had on Erspia-2, though with far more destructive results. When it came to rest, it was all but shattered. As for the cylindrical tube of the beam projector, that was gone altogether, the place where it had been gaping up at the sky.

Very likely the staff had survived. The inertial field should have held through all or most of the landing, which would have saved them.

But with luck, the station itself was permanently out of action. Dipping low, he passed several times over the wreck to test whether any violent thoughts came into his mind. He detected nothing abnormal.

Erspia-1’s long, artificially contrived moral drama was over.

Turning the station aside, he began, with Histrina’s help, to search for the village of Courhart.