Robert Moore Williams

“ West said.
The figures had become clear. It seemed to be a view of some kind of underground cavern where men were working on an object that looked like—Zen squinted his eyes, to make certain.
"A small space ship!" the colonel said. He felt eagerness rise in his voice. Like so many kids born in the age of science, he had harbored the dream of the days to come when men would fly beyond the sky, to storied space islands that lay afar. Science had promised that this would happen and the fiction writers had embellished this belief with dream worlds. ”

“ For all Zen knew this section was to have been cleared before the firing of the first rocket. He did not know whether provision had been made for the elimination of flame and smoke but he knew that heat and smoke hit him as he pulled Nedra away.
Then the main charges let go.
Rising like some devil spurting upward from the depths of hell itself, the launching cradle carrying the rocket lurched upward. The stone floor shook underfoot, the mountain shook. Unless this rocket could be stopped, the whole planet would shake. Earth would twitch her skin like an elephant stung by a giant wasp. ”

“ Shrugging, Zen moved toward the opening of the tunnel, then drew back as a mass of rock crashed outside. "It's raining boulders out there," he said. "What do you know about the so-called new people?"
"Not much," she answered.
"You're a very lovely liar, but the fact that you are lovely doesn't make you any less a liar," Zen said. She was very beautiful with her violet eyes and bronze hair, but an overworked intelligence officer could not be concerned with these things.
"Thank you, colonel," she said. "But I do not relish being called a liar." ”

“ Emphasis crept into his voice.
"I did not say these were errors, colonel," West replied. "I merely said they were history."
"But what point are you making if not the one that wars are mistakes?" Zen asked, surprised at the way the other's thinking had gone.
"I am making the point that war seems to be the way the entity, the human race as a whole, evolves. The method of evolution revealed by history is the pitting of one part of the entity against another part, then letting them fight it out to see which is the more efficient." ”

“ West said, while the ruined city was displayed on the screen. "But does it make a great deal of difference?"
Zen stared at the man, wondering what kind of a human he was. In the dim room, it was difficult to make out West's features. "It makes all the difference in the world. We believed in fairness. They ignored it. We believed in a better world. They would plunge us back into the night of barbarism. We believed in freedom. They wanted slaves. They set up a slave state and threw armed slaves against free men. We had no choice except to fight back." ”

“ The nurse was talking to him.
Involuntarily, as if they had a will of their own, Zen's legs started carrying him up the slope. He had taken a dozen steps before he remembered the counter on his wrist.
"To hell with the count!" he thought. "I'm going up there and drag her down here. She's not going to throw her life away while I skulk like a coward down below. I don't give a damn whether she's one of the new people or not. She's human!"
He climbed the slope with giant strides. Then he saw that Nedra was running toward him and waving him back.
"Colonel! You can't come up here." ”

“ Zen answered, shrugging. "Generally, when people say goodbye these days, they mean goodbye forever."
"I know." Sadness showed on the craggy, lined face. "It is too bad that things have to be this way. Well, experience is a difficult school, but homo sapiens seems incapable of learning in any other."
"It is war," Zen said.
"I disagree with you there," West said. "War is only a symptom of the disease, it is only an expression of humanity. War itself is not at fault, but man. ”

“ Nedra seemed to think otherwise. "But men like you don't just faint," she protested.
"I did."
"They don't faint unless something is wrong with them," Nedra continued. "Are you sure you're not suffering from delayed shock following the bomb explosion? Or—" Her voice slid away into silence as if she were afraid to voice the thought that was in her mind. Behind her, West said nothing.
"I just did it," Zen said, becoming more indignant. "I fainted. Who says it can't be done?" Confusion existed somewhere. He was sure it was the nurse who was confused. ”

“ As the surge of fear shot upward from his middle, he felt his body jerk and start to tremble. "Run!" a voice screamed inside him. "Get away from here! Run for your life!"
He caught the impulse to flee, held it in check. It was like trying to hold back a tidal wave. "This is an interesting effect," he said. "Does the generator have the same effect on all people?"
West grunted and walked ahead without answering the question. Zen thought the grunt held an approving tone. Nedra squeezed his arm but said nothing. ”

“ Zen caught his arm.
"The invaders have guns." His tone conveyed the impression that West was at fault because no weapons existed inside the mine. "Or do you want to go join him?" He nodded toward the body on the floor. Blood had stopped spilling from that body now. The essence of life had gone elsewhere and the tides of life had ceased flowing.
"Yes," West said bluntly. "I want to go with him." His face had grown more black. Heat lightning was dancing in his eyes.
Zen caught the impulse to say that this made two of them who wanted to join the bronze-skinned youth. ”

“ I made a mistake," he heard West gasp.
He was moving with the rocket, on a parallel course. West had matched course and velocity but he had not achieved his exact aiming point. Error in the instrument? Human mistake? Who knew?
Who cared?
Click!
Like a vast ocean of warm, pulsing, sure power, the race mind came into Kurt Zen. It existed here in space, too! He had never thought of that. In what little thinking he had had time to do, he had considered it as a super special sort of field which possessed intelligence but which was limited to the surface of the planet. ”

“ Zen said.
"You're not worth a damn to me!" Cuso shouted.
"He is worth something to me," West interposed.
Again the Asian swallowed. If ever he reached the explosion point, his anger was going to come out as boiling rage. "As I said, let us be reasonable and talk this over together."
"Glad to," West agreed. "What is more reasonable than a corpse?"
The question took Cuso aback. But only for an instant. "Come to think of it, you're right. Nothing that I have ever seen is more agreeable than a corpse, to me, that is. ”

“ Nor can man really be regarded as being at fault, since what he is now going through is only a stage of growth."
Momentarily the memory of the contact with the race mind flicked through Zen's consciousness. "I know that," he said. Then he hesitated. "Or I knew it once."
"Ah? When?"
"Up the slope there, I knew it. But I have forgotten now what I knew." Zen spoke slowly. He was trying hard to remember—or to forget—he wasn't sure which.
"Ah?" West repeated. "Goodday, sir. Nedra, I would like to speak with you for a moment, before I leave. With your permission, of course, Colonel Zen." ”

“ As they returned through the gallery, he saw that the bronze girl was still going through her rhythmic dance in time to the slow music. The sight of that perfectly formed nude body slowly swaying in the small room sent such a surge of excitement through Kurt Zen that he hastily turned his eyes away. If he was going to live in this place very long, they would have to make some new rules. How could any human being stay in bed alone when that beautiful bronze creature was going through her swaying dance? ”

“ But the bomb still rested in its launching cradle.
Zen took one long look at that bomb. He felt his sigh of relief clear down to the ends of his toes. At the sight, the last remnant of pain vanished from his toes and fingers. Not that the damage done by the matches did not still exist. It did. But in the surge of elation that swept through him, he completely forgot the pain.
"We just got here in time," a man said, appearing beside him. It was Spike Larson who had spoken. Awe on his face, Larson glanced around the cavern. "They started killing each other. They must have gone nuts." ”

“ West did not seem to understand the term. "We have none."
"What?" Zen said. Hadn't West understood him. Every farmer, every rancher, and every householder had his stock of weapons. Almost all people went armed. "No rifles?"
"No."
"Not even tear gas?"
"No, colonel."
"Then how in the hell did you expect to stay alive?" Zen burst out. "You surely knew they would find you sometime."
"Staying alive is actually not as important as you think. Yes, son." West bent again to listen to the youth's words. ”

“ But now the bell was tolling the death of a people, wailing that the glory that once had been was truly gone, wailing that the brave world that some men had tried to build was going into ashes and into doom. ”

“ The reason for his thinking became a little clearer. He was wishing the world were different so that he might make love to this nurse under conditions that would permit this love to bear other fruit than frustration, despair, and death.
He found himself wishing that a vine-covered cottage existed somewhere, a place where a man and a woman might live in peace and reasonable security, raising some kids who could play on a mountain slope that was not saturated with atomic radiation. ”

“ He could see no possible importance in the emotional response of the tall kid except that the kid had intimated that he might be spending the night with Nedra. Would people who didn't use toilets spend nights together? If they did, what would they do? Talk about the beauties of flowers and read poetry to each other? Zen sniffed silently to himself, to show his contempt for such antics.
"I'll show you where to go," John said, suddenly.
Zen followed the tall youth out of the room and into a short tunnel which led to a large gallery. Here the old-time miners had found a sizeable body of ore. ”

“ He saw the human race in its entirety, one man and all men, all men in one man. Simultaneously, he saw the whole history of the race, he saw the long journey it had made from so-called inanimate matter to the point where it was now a creature that looked outward to the stars. ”

“ On the basis of Grant's report, an investigation was begun. A vast mass of data was assembled, some of it dating from the time of Jal Jonnor, but when no practical results were immediately forthcoming, the project was shelved, at least temporarily. Its manpower was desperately needed for other purposes. Men fighting for their lives have no time to think of the future.
This dusty, forgotten mass of data was exhumed by a tall, lean man named Kurt Zen, a colonel of intelligence, who had a reputation for daring even among that elite band of men who daily looked death in the face. ”

“ Zen said. "But this mountain exists in America. I don't know whether it is actually on Canadian ground or lies in the United States, but this does not matter. By mutual treaty, the countries have become one nation. A citizen of one is automatically a citizen of the other."
"True, colonel." West did not attempt to explain.
"Then what country do you claim to belong to?" Zen felt his voice falter as he tried to grasp what lay back of this very strange man. "You talk like an American." ”

“ He saw that the destiny of the race lay in those stars, and in all that vast expanse of space between them, if it did not destroy itself in the process of growing to star stature. He saw that the race could do exactly this, that it could blow itself back to the component atoms that composed it, in which case the long and toilsome, heart-breaking struggle upward from the atomic level would have to begin all over again. ”

“ Grant looked fussed, but he gripped the rifle he had taken from one of Cuso's men with determination.
"Just between you and me, I'd rather fly a space satellite to Mars any day in preference to facing this jump."
"I know what you mean," Zen said.
As he spoke, another figure came into existence to his left. Nedra! She came spinning into reality with a smile on her face. Zen wasted a moment wondering what kind of cast-iron nerves this girl had.
"It looks as if all we have to do is to tie them up," Spike Larson said. "This is almost too good to be true."
"It is too good to be true," Zen said. ”

“ Not a man grumbled, not a man complained. Knowing men, Zen knew that this was ominous.
These men had had it. They knew they had had it. In the face of that knowledge, nothing else mattered. Outwardly, they looked fit. Inwardly, something had happened to them. It seemed to Zen that he could see glows coming from their bodies. One was swaying. Zen seemed to glimpse a blob of light moving suddenly upward from the man. The soldier fell. He did not move a muscle after he hit.
Nedra started toward him. Zen shook his head. ”

“ Zen said.
"I know," West replied. A sadness as deep as the ocean of space was in his voice.
"Pull these people back to you."
"Of course."
"Me last." The last lingering roars of sound were still pounding down the bore of the launching cradle.
"Why do you want to be last?"
"Duty," Zen said. "Get that miracle device of yours into operation, pronto."
"Sure. I'm starting now."
"Hey, guys, you're going home!" Zen yelled at the people with him.
"What good is it to go home?" Spike Larson asked.
"There won't be any home within an hour," Grant added. "Or however long that rocket will take to land. ”

“ Hunger thickened on Cuso's face as he thought of this.
West blinked, then smiled back at Cuso. "That is interesting. But what makes you think I would be interested in such a commission—or in any commission—in your armies?"
"For protection, for one reason," Cuso answered promptly. "Our reports indicate that you are not a citizen of any country. Since this leaves you with no friends to protect you, this is an undesirable position. On the other hand, since you belong to no one, every country feels that you are an enemy. Because of this, your life is constantly in danger. ”

“ When the photo plane passed over hours later, the city was still burning. We really blasted the hell out of that dump!"
"You sound pleased, colonel. Do you know how many millions of people died directly or indirectly in that bomb explosion?"
"How many millions died in Washington, Pittsburgh, and Chicago?" Zen flared.
"Granted," West answered. "But after the first man has been killed, does it help the situation to kill a second? Or does killing the second one merely make it more likely that a third one will have to be destroyed?" ”

“ If he could use this radar to see into the country of the enemy, it was a very important invention, though West did not seem to realize this.
In war, information was always as important as weapons, and sometimes more so. Knowledge of the enemy's troop dispositions, of his strength and his weaknesses, was often more than half the battle.
West did not answer. Another city swam into position on the screen. Zen caught a glimpse of a single minaret standing among the bare ruins and hazarded a guess as to the identity of the city. ”

“ Ahead, soldiers were lined up at the back end of the truck, waiting their turn in line.
"Your rank entitles you to priority," Nedra said hesitantly.
"In the place where I am now, my rank doesn't exist," he answered. "I join the end of the line, I take my turn." He was quite stubborn about this.
The nurse looked pleased. He wondered if he had said something important. To him, what he had said seemed obvious. Behind him, West was a silent shadow wrapped in an enigma. Even with his sudden new perception, his contact with a higher form of consciousness, he could not perceive West clearly. ”

“ It won't have them until it grows them itself. A turtle with the memories that it was once a man, knowing that if it had hands, it could rebuild human culture!" A bemused expression appeared on her face. "I wonder how the race mind will solve that problem." Again she seemed to muse. "It would be worse to be crabs. Or would it?"
"Shut up!" Zen snarled. "We're not turtles yet. Or crabs. And we're not back on the mud flats."
"But we're on the edge of them," the girl insisted. "One more teeter and we will go totter."
Zen turned to West. "What the hell has happened to Nedra?" ”