The World Between and Other Stories Read online

  The big man in the black cloak removed the harness in brittle silence. At last he asked, “The planet you imagined in that last screening, was that a creation or a remembrance of actuality? It was none of our system here, and it rang with the clarity of truth.”

  Dobnor Daksat stared at him puzzled, and the words faltered in his throat. “But it is—home! This world! Was it not this world?”

  The big man looked at him strangely, shrugged, turned away. “In a moment now the winner of the contest will be made known and the jeweled brevet awarded.”

  ***

  The day was gusty and overcast, the galley was low and black, manned by the oarsmen of Belaclaw. Ergan stood on the poop, staring across the two miles of bitter sea to the coast of Racland, where he knew the sharp-faced Racs stood watching from the headlands.

  A gout of water erupted a few hundred yards astern.

  Ergan spoke to the helmsman. “Their guns have better range than we bargained for. Better stand offshore another mile and we’ll take our chances with the current.”

  Even as he spoke, there came a great whistle and he glimpsed a black pointed projectile slanting down at him. It struck the waist of the galley, exploded. Timber, bodies, metal, flew everywhere, and the galley laid its broken back into the water, doubled up and sank.

  Ergan, jumping clear, discarded his sword, casque and greaves almost as he hit the chill grey water. Gasping from the shock, he swam in circles, bobbing up and down in the chop; then, finding a length of timber, he clung to it for support.

  From the shores of Racland a longboat put forth and approached, bow churning white foam as it rose and fell across the waves. Ergan turned loose the timber and swam as rapidly as possible from the wreck. Better drowning than capture; there would be more mercy from the famine-fish which swarmed the waters than from the pitiless Racs.

  So he swam, but the current took him to the shore, and at last, struggling feebly, he was cast upon a pebbly beach.

  Here he was discovered by a gang of Rac youths and marched to a nearby command post. He was tied and flung into a cart and so conveyed to the city Korsapan.

  In a grey room he was seated facing an intelligence officer of the Rac secret police, a man with the grey skin of a toad, a moist grey mouth, eager, searching eyes.

  “You are Ergan,” said the officer. “Emissary to the Bargee of Salomdek. What was your mission?”

  Ergan stared back eye to eye, hoping that a happy and convincing response would find his lips. None came, and the truth would incite an immediate invasion of both Belaclaw and Salomdek by the tall thin-headed Rac soldiers, who wore black uniforms and black boots.

  Ergan said nothing. The officer leaned forward. “I ask you once more; then you will be taken to the room below.” He said “Room Below” as if the words were capitalized, and he said it with soft relish.

  Ergan, in a cold sweat, for he knew of the Rac torturers, said, “I am not Ergan; my name is Ervard; I am an honest trader in pearls.”

  “This is untrue,” said the Rac. “Your aide was captured and under the compression pump he blurted up your name with his lungs.”

  “I am Ervard,” said Ergan, his bowels quaking.

  The Rac signaled. “Take him to the Room Below.”

  A man’s body, which has developed nerves as outposts against danger, seems especially intended for pain, and cooperates wonderfully with the craft of the torturer. These characteristics of the body had been studied by the Rac specialists, and other capabilities of the human nervous system had been blundered upon by accident. It has been found that certain programs of pressure, heat, strain, friction, torque, surge, jerk, sonic and visual shock, vermin, stench and vileness created cumulative effects, whereas a single method, used to excess, lost its stimulation thereby.

  All this lore and cleverness was lavished upon Ergan’s citadel of nerves, and they inflicted upon him the entire gamut of pain: the sharp twinges, the dull lasting joint-aches which groaned by night, the fiery flashes, the assaults of filth and lechery, together with shocks of occasional tenderness when he would be allowed to glimpse the world he had left. Then back to the Room Below.

  But always: “I am Evard the trader.” And always he tried to goad his mind over the tissue barrier to death, but always the mind hesitated at the last toppling step, and Ergan lived.

  The Racs tortured by routine, so that the expectation, the approach of the hour, brought with it as much torment as the act itself. And then the heavy unhurried steps outside the cell, the feeble thrashing around to evade, the harsh laughs when they cornered him and carried him forth, and the harsh laughs when three hours later they threw him sobbing and whimpering back to the pile of straw that was his bed.

  “I am Ervard,” he said, and trained his mind to believe that this was the truth, so that never would they catch him unaware. “I am Ervard! I am Ervard, I trade in pearls!”

  He tried to strangle himself on straw, but a slave watched always, and this was not permitted.

  He attempted to die by self-suffocation, and would have been glad to succeed, but always as he sank into blessed numbness, so did his mind relax and his motor nerves take up the mindless business of breathing once more.

  He ate nothing, but this meant little to the Racs, as they injected him full of tonics, sustaining drugs and stimulants, so that he might always be keyed to the height of his awareness.

  “I am Ervard,” said Ergan, and the Racs gritted their teeth angrily. The case was now a challenge; he defied their ingenuity, and they puzzled long and carefully upon refinements and delicacies, new shapes to the iron tools, new types of jerk ropes, new directions for the strains and pressures. Even when it was no longer important whether he was Ergan or Ervard, since war now raged, he was kept and maintained as a problem, an ideal case; so he was guarded and cosseted with even more than usual care, and the Rac torturers mulled over their techniques, making changes here, improvements there.

  Then one day the Belaclaw galleys landed and the feather-crested soldiers fought past the walls of Korsapan.

  The Racs surveyed Ergan with regret. “Now we must go, and still you will not submit to us.”

  “I am Ervard,” croaked that which lay on the table. “Ervard the trader.”

  A splintering crash sounded overhead.

  “We must go,” said the Racs. “Your people have stormed the city. If you tell the truth, you may live. If you lie, we kill you. So there is your choice. Your life for the truth.”

  “The truth?” muttered Ergan. “It is a trick—” And then he caught the victory chant of the Belaclaw soldiery. “The truth? Why not? … Very well.” And he said, “I am Ervard,” for now he believed this to be the truth.

  ***

  Galactic Prime was a lean man with reddish-brown hair sparse across a fine arch of skull. His face, undistinguished otherwise, was given power by great dark eyes flickering with a light like fire behind smoke. Physically he had passed the peak of his youth—his arms and legs were thin and loose-jointed; his head inclined forward as if weighted by the intricate machinery of his brain.

  Arising from the couch, smiling faintly, he looked across the arcade to the eleven Elders. They sat at a table of polished wood, backs to a wall festooned with vines. They were grave men, slow in their motions, and their faces were lined with wisdom and insight. By the ordained system, Prime was the executive of the universe, the Elders the deliberative body, invested with certain restrictive powers.

  “Well?”

  The Chief Elder without haste raised his eyes from the computer. “You are the first to arise from the couch.”

  Prime turned a glance up the arcade, still smiling faintly. The others lay variously: some with arms clenched, rigid as bars; others huddled in foetal postures. One had slumped from the couch half to the floor; his eyes were open, staring at remoteness.

  Prime returned to the Chief Elder, who watched him with detached curiosity. “Has the optimum been established?”

  The Chief Elder con
sulted the computer. “Twenty-six thirty-seven is the optimum score.”

  Prime waited, but the Chief Elder said no more. Prime stepped to the alabaster balustrade beyond the couches. He leaned forward, looked out across the vista—miles and miles of sunny haze, ruffling the scant russet strands of his hair. He took a deep breath, flexed his fingers and hands, for the memory of the Rac torturers was still heavy on his mind. After a moment he swung around, leaned back, resting his elbows upon the balustrade. He glanced once more down the line of couches; there were still no signs of vitality from the candidates.

  “Twenty-six thirty-seven,” he muttered. “I venture to estimate my own score at twenty-five ninety. In the last episode I recall an incomplete retention of personality.

  “Twenty-five seventy four,” said the Chief Elder. “The computer judged Bearwalk the Halforn’s final defiance of the Brand warriors unprofitable.”

  Prime considered. “The point is well made. Obstinacy serves no purpose unless it advances a predetermined end. It is a flaw I must seek to temper.” He looked along the line of Elders, from face to face. “You make no enunciations, you are curiously mute.”

  He waited; the Chief Elder made no response. “May I enquire the high score?”

  “Twenty-five seventy-four.”

  Prime nodded. “Mine.”

  “Yours is the high score,” said the Chief Elder.

  Prime’s smile disappeared; a puzzled line appeared across his brow. “In spite of this, you are still reluctant to confirm my second span of authority; there are still doubts among you.”

  “Doubts and misgivings,” replied the Chief Elder.

  Prime’s mouth pulled in at the corners, although his brows were still raised in polite inquiry. “Your attitude puzzles me. My record is one of selfless service. My intelligence is phenomenal, and in this final test, which I designed to dispel your last doubts, I attained the highest score. I have proved my social intuition and flexibility, my leadership, devotion to duty, imagination and resolution. In every commensurable aspect, I fulfill best the qualifications for the office I hold.”

  The Chief Elder looked up and down the line of his fellows. There were none who wished to speak. The Chief Elder squared himself in his chair, sat back.

  “Our attitude is difficult to represent. Everything is as you say. Your intelligence is beyond dispute, your character is exemplary, you have served your term with honor and devotion. You have earned our respect, admiration and gratitude. We realize also that you seek this second term from praiseworthy motives: you regard yourself as the man best able to coordinate the complex business of the galaxy.”

  Prime nodded grimly. “But you think otherwise.”

  “Our position is perhaps not quite so blunt.”

  “Precisely what is your position?” Prime gestured along the couches. “Look at these men. They are the finest of the galaxy. One man is dead. That one stirring on the third couch has lost his mind; he is a lunatic. The others are sorely shaken. And never forget that this test has been expressly designed to measure the qualities essential to the Galactic Prime.”

  “This test has been of great interest to us,” said the Chief Elder mildly. “It has considerably affected our thinking.”

  Prime hesitated, plumbing the unspoken overtones of the words. He came forward, seated himself across from the line of Elders. With a narrow glance he searched the faces of the eleven men, tapped once, twice, three times with his fingertips on the polished wood, leaned back in the chair.

  “As I have pointed out, the test has gauged each candidate for the exact qualities essential to the optimum conduct of office, in this fashion: Earth of the twentieth century is a planet of intricate conventions; on Earth the candidate, as Arthur Caversham, is required to use his social intuition—a quality highly important in this galaxy of two billion suns. On Belotsi, Bearwald the Halforn is tested for courage and the ability to conduct positive action. At the dead city Therlatch on Praesepe Three, the candidate, as Ceistan, is rated for devotion to duty, and as Dobnor Daksat at the Imagicon on Staff, his creative conceptions are rated against the most fertile imaginations alive. Finally as Ergan, on Chankozar, his will, persistence and ultimate fiber are explored to their extreme limits.

  “Each candidate is placed in the identical set of circumstances by a trick of temporal, dimensional and cerebro-neutral meshing which is rather complicated for the present discussion. Sufficient that each candidate is objectively rated by his achievements, and that the results are commensurable.”

  He paused, looked shrewdly along the tine of grave faces. “I must emphasize that although I myself designed and arranged the test, I thereby gained no advantage. The mnemonic synapses are entirely disengaged from incident to incident, and only the candidate’s basic personality acts. All were tested under precisely the same conditions. In my opinion the scores registered by the computer indicate an objective and reliable index of the candidate’s ability for the highly responsible office of Galactic Executive.”

  The Chief Elder said, “The scores are indeed significant.”

  “Then—you approve my candidacy?”

  The Chief Elder smiled. “Not so fast. Admittedly you are intelligent, admittedly you have accomplished much during your term as Prime. But much remains to be done.”

  “Do you suggest that another man would have achieved more?”

  The Chief Elder shrugged. “I have no conceivable way of knowing. I point out your achievements, such as the Glen art civilization, the Dawn Time on Masilis, the reign of King Karal on Aevir, the suppression of the Arldd Revolt. There are many such examples. But there are also shortcomings: the wars on Earth, the savagery on Belotsi and Chankozar, so pointedly emphasized in your test. Then there is the decadence of the planets in the Eleven Hundred Ninth Cluster, the rise of the Priest-kings on Für, and much else.”

  Prime clenched his mouth and the fires behind his eyes burnt more brightly.

  The Chief Elder continued. “One of the most remarkable phenomena of the galaxy is the tendency of humanity to absorb and manifest the personality of the Prime. There seems to be a tremendous resonance which vibrates from the brain of the Prime through the minds of man from Center to the outer fringes. It is a matter which should be studied, analyzed and subjected to control. The effect is as if every thought of the Prime is magnified a billion-fold, as if every mood sets the tone for a thousand civilizations, every facet of his personality reflects in the ethics of a thousand cultures.”

  Prime said tonelessly, “I have remarked this phenomenon and have thought much on it. Prime’s commands are promulgated in such a way as to exert subtle rather than overt influence; perhaps here is the background of the matter. In any event, the fact of this influence is even more reason to select for the office a man of demonstrated virtue.”

  “Well put,” said the Chief Elder. “Your character is indeed beyond reproach. However, we of the Elders are concerned by the rising tide of authoritarianism among the planets of the galaxy. We suspect that this principle of resonance is at work. You are a man of intense and indomitable will, and we feel that your influence has unwittingly prompted an irruption of paternalistic doctrine.”

  Prime was silent a moment. He looked down the line of couches where the other candidates were recovering awareness. They were men of various races: a pale Northkin of Palast, a stocky red Hawolo, a grey-haired grey-eyed Islander from the Sea Planet—each the outstanding man of the planet of his birth. Those who had returned to consciousness sat quietly, collecting their wits, or lay back on the couch, trying to expunge the test from their minds. There had been a toll taken: one lay dead, another bereft of his wits crouched whimpering beside bis couch.

  The Chief Elder said, “The objectionable aspects of your character are perhaps best exemplified by the test itself.”

  Prime opened his mouth; the Chief Elder held up his hand. “Let me speak; I will try to deal fairly with you. When I am done, you may say your say.

  “I repeat t
hat your basic direction is displayed by the details of the test that you devised. The qualities you measured were those which you considered the most important: that is, those ideals by which you guide your own life. This arrangement I am sure was completely unconscious, and hence completely revealing. You conceive the essential characteristics of the Prime to be social intuition, aggressiveness, loyalty, imagination and dogged persistence. As a man of strong character you seek to exemplify these ideals in your own conduct; therefore it is not at all surprising that in this test, designed by you, with a scoring system calibrated by you, your score should be highest.

  “Let me clarify the idea by an analogy. If the Eagle were conducting a test to determine the King of Beasts, he would rate all the candidates on their ability to fly; necessarily he would win. In this fashion the Mole would consider ability to dig important; by his system of testing he would inevitably emerge King of Beasts.”

  Prime laughed sharply, ran a hand through his spare red-brown locks. “I am neither Eagle nor Mole.”

  The Chief Elder shook his head. “No. You are zealous, dutiful, imaginative, indefatigable—so you have demonstrated, as much by specifying tests for these characteristics as by scoring high in these same tests. But conversely, by the very absence of other tests you demonstrate deficiencies in your character.”

  “And these are?”

  “Sympathy. Compassion. Kindness.” The Chief Elder settled back in his chair. “Strange. Your predecessor two times removed was rich in these qualities. During his term, the great humanitarian systems based on the idea of human brotherhood sprang up across the universe. Another example of resonance—but I digress.”

  Prime said with a sardonic twitch of his mouth. “May I ask this: have you selected the next Galactic Prime?”