The Fritz Leiber Megapack Read online

  From robot farm and mine, streams of grain and metal flowed to dumps near ports of embarkation. There too went the barges that would carry the materials on the last leg of their journey. People gazed in awe at these gargantuan stockpiles. An ancient war would eat them steadily, day by day, but this war must take them at one gulp.

  Civilians went about with surface casualness, working longer, eating skimpier, playing less. The fear that had troubled them on the first night had retreated deep into their nerves, where it did not lack for companions.

  Amusement areas were closed, except to those who could show a death notice. Inside them, unlimited pleasure was provided, since a softening as well as a hardening of fiber was part of the plan for the chosen.

  Religion, such as it was, thrived. The ministers of the man-worshipping cult did boom-town business. Monster mass-meetings were held daily, with believers either telepresent or in the flesh. At them, emotions were purged almost as effectively as, though less painfully than, by the machines in the dungeons of J’Wilobe’s secret police. Afterward a few hysterical women would offer themselves for the volunteer service. Among the gray-clad female officers who swore them in was one whose elfin features and smile contrasted sharply with the acid-lipped masculine visage of the average.

  Crime was no longer in the spotlight. Except for unpublicized hunts for deserters and even more hushed proceedings against violators of the morale-code, police activities were nil.

  High-ranking officers of the war-forces, already so worried as to how the men under them would behave that they hardly thought of their own approaching fate, met more frequently to work out exercises in logistics. At one such meeting—fair sample of the rest—a dozen men gathered around a transparent globe on which colored dots and dashes represented triphibian squadrons, barge assemblies, divisions.

  The ranking officer rose. “Today’s problem presupposes a rendezvous in the South Atlantic at the point indicated. How would you handle it, F’Sibr?” An odd note entered his voice as he mentioned the name. Both he and the others showed a peculiar mingling of uneasiness, attraction, and respect as they listened to the big, remote-eyed man explain how the war forces might best make their final five-day voyage.

  At thousands of training centers and in the field, men were oriented for death. They met it in every form and guise. They became inured to the hot windy whine of burn-blast and stab-ray, no matter how near were the misses. They learned to face the robot projectile with their number on it and to trap it in a web of close-range fire no matter with what sentient cleverness it ducked and dodged. In transparent armor they crawled on hands and knees through phosphorescent miles of deadly radioactive dust. They were marooned in bathyspheres on the ocean floor and in space suits beyond the moon, only to be rescued at the last moment. At the word of command they stepped unequipped onto the clouds and were caught a few dozen yards above the ground by diving fliers. In conclaves suggesting those of ancient secret societies they drank down cups of wine, every thousandth one of which was supposedly poisoned. An illusion of invulnerability was built up, along with the habit of absolute obedience. A crammed routine of hardship, pain, pleasure, peril, and glory erased private thoughts almost before they occurred and fostered the feeling that each individual was only a cell in the hand that was fingering the gun, would soon raise it to the temple.

  CHAPTER IX

  Norm was home on furlough. He sat paying lazy attention to a color tune turned on so low that it was only a shifting of shadowy hues around the teletactor. Allisoun leaned her head on his shoulder. His father and mother sat side by side and gazed proudly at the sleek gray uniform with its insignia of rank.

  “Who’d ever have thought four months ago,” his father philosophized, “that you’d become an officer.”

  “Not just an officer,” his mother corrected. “An aide.”

  “That’s right, Mother. Say, what do you think of this F’Sibr fellow, Norm?”

  “Oh—he’s rather quiet.”

  “Now that’s very interesting,” observed his father, leaning forward brightly. “Tell me all about your work, Norm. I know it’s teletaction, but what exactly do you do?”

  “He’s tired of talking about that. He wants to enjoy himself. Don’t bother him.”

  “I guess you’re right, Mother.” But he still regarded Norm hopefully.

  Allisoun squeezed Norm’s hand gently.

  Norm smiled. He was remembering J’Quilvens. Last week they had been alone together, just after he had received a routine hypnotic treatment from F’Sibr to strengthen his mind against government propaganda. He had made love to her. She had threatened to have F’Sibr implant a posthypnotic dislike for her in his mind. And then she had started him talking about his original ideas for communications sabotage.

  J’Quilvens was an oddly attractive girl, oddly enticing…and oddly remote.

  He returned the pressure of Allisoun’s hand and put his arm around her.

  He didn’t admire himself for it, but he had to admit that he enjoyed Allisoun’s submissiveness and the way she crawled for favors.

  Just as he took a cruel pleasure in playing up to his parents’ admiration of his uniform and egging them on to say ridiculous things—despite his new understanding of them.

  It made him feel uneasy and rather disgusted, but he was unable to resist, basking ironically in his pseudoglory.

  His father couldn’t keep quiet. “It certainly is amazing the way Norm’s come along. I’ll frankly admit—because I was wrong—that I didn’t think he’d make a good soldier. And you’ll agree that Norm’s behavior, when he first got the news, wasn’t encouraging. We were even afraid he’d desert! But now it appears that a military career is the very thing for him. Just goes to show how little we know about people—even our own.” He stood up, directing his genial lecture at his wife and Allisoun. “Look how he’s succeeded. An officer—an aide, Mother!—in four months! Why there’s no telling to what heights he may rise, no limit to the positions he may attain—except, of course, that…”

  He realized his blunder. The silence became painful. He hurried over to the teletactor and began to fiddle with the controls. Faint colors and sounds came and went.

  “Any news of Willisoun?” Norm asked lazily.

  His mother answered for Allisoun. “Not a word! He must be off on some very important mission, because Allisoun has inquired again and again at his office, but they won’t tell her anything.”

  “I can’t understand why he doesn’t ‘tact’ me,” Allisoun murmured.

  “It must be a very secret mission, dear,” Norm’s mother said.

  Norm nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” said Allisoun hesitatingly, “that you and he had that…disagreement before he went away.”

  Norm nodded and smiled.

  A tall ghostly figure materialized in front of the teletactor, became solider as his father adjusted the controls. It stood with its feet sunk in the floor because the teletactor was a little off level.

  The gaunt suffering face was M’Caslrai’s. Norm sat up straighter. His jaw set. Allisoun looked around at him curiously.

  “…because it has always been my practice to talk frankly to critics and detractors,” came the tired, plodding voice. “The so-called neo-humanitarians have made their plea against certain aspects of the war. This is my answer: It is because we do not want to see humanity tortured and degraded by conflict that we do this thing. The conscientious objectors have advanced their claims. But I say to them: Be thankful. You are not asked to kill, only to give your lives. The advocates of a ‘token’ sacrifice have made their suggestions. But I tell them: You can’t fool reality with ‘token’ payments. You can’t appease the death-wish with any such shallow trick. Would that we could, folks! Would that we could!”

  Norm clenched his fists and twisted a little, like a small boy being upbraided by his parent. It was ins
anity that M’Caslrai was mouthing, he reminded himself fiercely. Stark lunacy. And yet…

  “To all of you I say this: He who casts doubt upon our dreadful sacrifice, he who seeks in the slightest degree to sabotage our war, is a traitor to all…”

  Norm was on his feet. The others were staring at him astonished.

  “Shut it off, will you! Shut it off!”

  CHAPTER X

  Heshifer let his thoughts ramble. There were so many ways of playing the present situation—of taking advantage of the cumulative death-wish of mankind—that he wished he lived in a dozen worlds so he could try them all. For instance, they could seek to direct the death-wish at an outside enemy, by faking an invasion—not from Mars or Venus anymore, but from one of Jupiter’s moons or just the interstellar unknown. But that had been tried seventy-five years ago and it hadn’t worked. Or desperate diseases justifying desperate remedies, they might attempt to divide the war forces into two groups that would fight each other. Or, better yet, get them to turn around and to conquer the rest of the world. But that, as bitter experience had shown, was as impossible as telepathy.

  Of course, he thought wistfully, there was always the Chaos Plan. Dangerous admittedly, and unpredictable, perhaps even ungovernable. But then, what wasn’t? Government was ungovernable! He wished they were at least prepared to employ the Chaos Plan. Fortunately, it was beginning to look as if that necessity might never arise. The Sanity Scheme and the F’Sibr propaganda seemed to be working out. Still, plans were treacherous things. One never knew. F’Sibr trusted so completely in the idea that only society was crazy, that individuals were mainly sane and would recognize their insanity if properly propagandized. An attractive paradox, and possibly true. Well—F’Sibr and Sanity must have their day, but if they failed, then Heshifer and Chaos!

  “I often wonder,” mused M’Caslrai, looking across the desk, “what you’re thinking about, Mister Heshifer, when you get that expression on your face.”

  As Heshifer took a moment to consider his reply, he wondered for the hundredth time of whom the World Director reminded him.

  * * * *

  J’Wilobe was lonely. Sometimes he felt horrible sure that of all men, he and he only had the slightest inkling of the myriad murderous conspiracies that were drawing their webs tighter and tighter around the world and him. A circle of malignant intellects, human and alien, surrounded the world and him, sending out tentacles. Their hostile thoughts exerted a tangible pressure. Everywhere you looked, there was evidence. Were the others blind fools, that they could not see? Whom could he really trust? Not even Inscra. Not even M’Caslrai. Of course, those two seemed to have some superficial understanding of the threat to the war, ever since he had demonstrated it so conclusively. M’Caslrai especially. But not even M’Caslrai would permit him to take such obvious steps as arresting Heshifer on suspicion. When it was plain to see, since Willisoun had disappeared while trailing Heshifer, that Heshifer must be in the plot. But M’Caslrai refused to see it, and Heshifer went about his business unchecked. Well, let him! Let the others be blind! He, never more rightfully the Secretary of Dangers than now, had eyes enough for them all. And at least there were no longer any hindrances to his questionings of minor prisoners. When the emotion machines had done with them, when they had laughed and cried and feared and hated until they could no more, then they would talk. Then J’Wilobe would…

  “I think I know what you’re afraid of, Mister J’Wilobe,” M’CasIrai said to him, smiling faintly. “But I also think I know how we’re going to get around it when the time comes.” He waggled his finger, desisting when he saw the expression in J’Wilobe’s eyes.

  CHAPTER XI

  Beneath the surface, things were not going well with the war.

  There were whispers. No one could say who started them, hardly even who repeated them. They were like the muttering voices the mind hears when it is drunk with fatigue. But they traveled. They did things.

  A riot in an amusement area. A work-stoppage that left uncompleted triphibians roosting helplessly. At a training center, a veiledly mutinous refusal to undergo further death-tests, with the officers mainly intent on concealing the evidence of their own inefficiency. At a government center, open criticism of officials, mass protests, shocking accusations.

  The burden of the whispers was always the same: That the war was being crookedly administered. That it had only been decided upon because M’Caslrai’s government was tottering. That death notices had gone only to those individuals whose independence and honesty made them a threat to the M’Caslrai regime. That no actual friend of the M’Caslrai regime had been chosen.

  Facts and figures were provided to prove this. Individuals were named. Everyone was supplied with a ready-made personal grievance.

  There grew a spirit of negativism, of smoldering resentment, of cynical disbelief in the whole fabric of society. There were sly sneers, spasms of sudden rage, guarded questionings of things held most sacred, deadly accusing glances.

  Rehabilitation centers for deviants filled, overflowed. The same thing happened to the temporary detention centers and the unpublicized dungeons. Closely guarded orders went out: “Except for ringleaders, no more arrests…”

  Along with the whispering, half-masked by it, there went more individualized form of psychological sabotage. It was as if, in the midst of a general barrage, a hidden sniper were picking preferred targets with a cold deliberation and slamming into their brains bullets of a far higher speed and greater destructiveness—mental bullets.

  Here a morale expert fell foaming with convulsions in the midst of an address, later opened dazed eyes that doubted everything. There a communications specialist began surreptitiously to play with the tape-spools of his trade—pile them up in toy skylons. Elsewhere an actuary was found working out statistically detailed plans for the complete destruction of human life throughout the solar system and the erasing of all signs of its presence.

  An empty-eyed officer at a training center recorded for teletaction an announcement beginning: “A token plan has been adopted. Death candidates desiring discharge will report to…” Before the announcement was killed, it was seen by dozens. When questioned, the horror-stricken officer could only recall that, just before going to sleep the previous evening, he had seen rhythmically bobbing lights, heard a drowsy insistent voice.

  A police official woke in the night and listened in terror and relief to a voice which told him that his crushing sense of guilt was merely due to a submerged memory of the many times he had imagined the death of his father.

  A minor executive looked up with drug-filled eyes and asked: “Are we saviors…or murderers? Are we…sane?”

  A billion throats threatened to take up that most dreaded question, until it became a scream heard around the world.

  * * * *

  Gradually the forces opposing the war drew even with those furthering it, until they teetered in precarious balance.

  At Supracenter M’Caslrai rose and surveyed his secretaries. His head was bowed, as if the skull, molding the tired flesh in its image, were made of lead.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “a greater strength than ours is needed. We must ask guidance of omniscient, omnipotent Man.” There was a murmur of agreement. “Dark teleconclaves for that purpose must immediately be called throughout the world. We here, as well as the rest, must join in supplication, ourselves to ourselves.”

  Across the round table, Heshifer smiled inwardly. This was a moment he had been waiting for.

  At the appointed conclave time, the smile appeared openly on Heshifer’s face. Sitting alone in his office in the Deep Mental Lab, he made certain trifling adjustments to a small instrument on his desk. Then he slipped on his telemask.

  He erased the smile as the black velvet mouths of the mask settled snugly over his eyes, nose, and lips, swung back and covered his ears. Leisurely he pulled on his telegloves.
Thus equipped, he could exercise his senses and manipulate objects through electronic counterpart-hands at any place in the world, or off it, where a teletactive unit existed. He could consult tapes in any library, savor a beverage in Africa, sign his name to a document on the moon, or strangle a man on Mars.

  He could function in any properly equipped assembly chamber anywhere.

  Or, as would happen now, he could functionally assemble with a hundred others in a chamber no bigger than an egg. In such a dark teleconclave, which in some ways resembled an ancient multiway telephone call, the electronic micro-counterparts of each participant would be brought together at a central point, according to any chosen assembly pattern, and the resultant images faithfully transmitted back to each participant.

  Plunged in soothing darkness, though still perfectly aware that he was sitting at his desk, Heshifer waited. Then, like white masks, other faces floated into view. Gradually the assembly pattern became clear—a sphere of closely packed inward-turned faces.

  He recognized J’Wilobe, Inscra, and other high executives and supervisors. Automatically his mind ticked off: paranoia, catatonia, melancholia, cosmic shock, dictatoria, ethical monomania, omniscientia, newsman’s psychosis, creative paralysis, hypertrophic realism, commissaria, permanent escapism, Manism, negatimania, the Venusioid delusion, and dementia praecox.

  Then he saw M’Caslrai, and his mind ticked off a question mark.

  The conclave was complete.

  Counterpart-hand grasped neighboring counterpart-hand, linking the elements of the sphere.

  There was a feeling of primal pulsation, as if they were the inward-peering walls of a life-cell swimming in dark immensity.

  Then, like the nucleus of such a cell, something pale and pinkish-sallow began to materialize at the central point toward which all eyes were directed.

  A reverently mellow voice spoke, “Oh Man, Manipulator of Destiny, from our trouble we appeal to you.” And they all repeated, “Oh Man, hear our voice.”