S.T.A.R. Flight Read online

  He was surrounded by tiers of crystal vats in which rested lungs, spleens, kidneys, livers, stomachs, glands, fathoms of intestines, miles of nerve-fibre. Eyeballs floating like watchful marbles. Hearts beat with a sleepy rhythm. Bone looked like yellow-white sticks of celery immersed in nutrient fluids. Every part of the human body grew quietly in the rows of containers. Every part but a brain.

  “That is the one spare part we cannot supply,” said the girl, guessing his thoughts. “We can grow a cortex, of course, but doing so gives rise to various problems. Intelligence,” she explained.’ “Awareness of self. We could use cerebal matter as the control nexus of organotic servomechanisms. We could even produce a brain with a surrogate personality but what would be the point? If you were to die,” she said, “really die, which means the destruction of the brain, what good would it do you for us to supply a new brain with its own personality?”

  “None,” he admitted. “But I am surprised that you have such ethical considerations. Surely, to you, a body is what a hover car is to a mechanic?”

  “True,” she said. “But only as far as we deal in organic replacements. The brain is in a different category. We do not tamper with the seat of intelligence. We can rebuild a brain,” she admitted, “but always there is the problem of personality. Have you seen a zombie?”

  Preston shook his head.

  “A living, walking, breathing creature. But one without conscious intelligence. Worse than a moron. Worse than insane. A thing. The brain serving only to coordinate the functions of the body. Horrible!”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Preston. He had, he thought, taken her word for quite a lot but, as yet, he had nothing to complain about. “What happens now?” he demanded. “I mean, won’t the Kaltich get annoyed when they find I’m gone? Won’t they guess you had something to do with it?”

  She smiled, obviously amused. “Why should they? You are dead,” she said. “A body now lies in your cot. Soon a doctor will examine you and pronounce you officially extinct.”

  “But the monitoring device? Won’t they have spotted the exchange?”

  “No.” She stepped past the last tier of vats and led the way down a corridor. “We run this hospital,” she pointed out. “At the critical time an adjustment was made in the circuitry. The waiting Kaltich noticed nothing. There was no reason for him to guess that he was watching another patient. After you had left the adjustment was rectified. The examining doctor, of course, is a member of GERM.”

  It made sense, thought Preston. If you wanted to build up a resistance group what better place than in a hospital? The staff already worked in unison, had a common loyalty, were used to emergencies and sudden effort. He guessed that the body which had taken his place had been made to resemble himself.

  “They won’t like it,” he said. “The Kaltich, I mean. They’re not going to like it at all.”

  Sylvia shrugged.

  “They can be nasty,” he warned.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “We’ve learned that in the past. Why else do you think we have GERM?”

  The passage ended in a door. Beyond it was a small room containing three men, a chair, a cabinet of drugs and instruments and a large wall clock. One of the men pointed to the chair. “Sit down.”

  Preston sat, rising immediately when he saw one of the other men coming toward him with something glittering in his hand. “Now wait a minute,” he protested.

  “Sit down,” repeated the first man. “Jarl. Max.”

  “All right,” said Preston. He sat down and looked at the woman. She stood silently behind the obvious leader of the group. “What’s going to happen?”

  “No talking,” said the man. “Just keep sitting and do as you’re told.”

  Preston took a deep breath, sprang upright and spun so as to stand behind the chair. He gripped it, lifted it, poised it to throw.

  “No!” said the woman sharply. “Don’t be a fool!” She looked at the leader. “Tell him, John. Explain.”

  “We’ve got to find out if you’re genuine,” said the man reluctantly. “Now put down that chair and relax so that we can get on with it.”

  Preston hesitated.

  “You’ve got a choice,” said John. “You do things our way or we kill you. This isn’t a game,” he added. “This is for real. Now put down that chair and stop wasting time.”

  “It’s my time,” said Preston.

  “Maybe, but it’s our necks.” John lifted his hand. He held a gun. “I’m giving you one last chance. Put down that chair or I’ll drop you.”

  He wasn’t bluffing. Preston put down the chair and sat in it. Jarl came towards him holding a hypogun. The blast of air made a small sound as it sent a charge of drugs through the pink uniform, through the skin and fat into the bloodstream. Preston leaned back, relaxing as he looked at the clock. The hands pointed to 3:37. He blinked. The hands now pointed to 4:26. He looked around. Aside from Sylvia and John the room was empty.

  “You’re clear,” said John. “Either that or you’ve had one of the best preconditioning jobs in history. I’m gambling that you’re genuine.”

  “It’s no gamble,” said Preston. His mouth was dry, either from talking or from the effects of the drug. “I’m not working for the Kaltich. You’ve got nothing to worry about as far as I’m concerned. In fact,” he added, “I don’t know what you’ve got to worry about at all. Couldn’t you just tell the Kaltich where to get off?”

  “No,” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said the man.

  “Make up your mind,” said Preston. He swallowed to ease the dryness of his throat. He felt irritable, weaker than he’d expected. And why not? You’ve had a major operation, he told himself. Even though you’ve had weeks of subjective time in which to heal you’ve still been in bed. Lifting that chair had been a stupid thing to have done, he decided. And yet he’d had to do it. At least it had made them respect him a little.

  “We can’t do without them,” said Sylvia. “Not now.”

  “We could if we really wanted to,” said the man. He looked at Preston. “You know how it is,” he said. “A world divided. One part wants pure freedom — the other wants what the Kaltich has to offer. Even GERM isn’t wholly united.”

  Neither is STAR, thought Preston wearily. Neither is UNO. Neither is any group with more than a few members. Maybe that’s a good thing. If everyone thought alike where would they be? Under, he decided. Under this or under that or under something else. But under.

  “So what are you working for?” he asked. “To get rid of the Kaltich?”

  They nodded.

  “Then why not just kick them out? Refuse to play? They need you more than you need them,” he said. “You hold the top hand. You can supply what they need and you can always threaten to cut off that supply.”

  No, he thought, it can’t be as simple as that. They would have their own hospitals, their own medical personnel. He remembered the tremendous building he had seen in the facsimile window. They must have everything, he decided. They would never let themselves become dependent on any one world.

  “It isn’t as simple as that,” said Sylvia Meecham. “We need the Kaltich or,” she qualified, “we need what they bring us. Divergent types from which to grow our spare parts. Radioactive isotopes and rogue tissues from the M and R worlds. Primitive cellular organisms — a thousand other things. We are a hospital culture,” she pointed out. “A world devoted to medical care. A society geared to the endless treatment of the sick. It is the reason for our existence.”

  And, he thought bleakly, your Achilles’ heel. What was the good of a planetful of doctors if they had no patients? How could they utilise their learning if there was no one on which to operate? An army has to fight if it is to stay an army. A man must do what he has trained himself to be good at. Rob him of the opportunity and you take away the meaning of his life.

  “They control the Gates,” said Sylvia. “We need them. The Gates, not the Kaltich, but we have to take on
e to get the other. Eighty-three years,” she said. “That’s how long the Kaltich have been here. Eighty-three years during which our society has expanded only in one direction. Can you guess how many doctors we have now? How many orderlies, nurses, laboratory workers? You saw some of our spare parts. Well, this is only a small hospital. The Kaltich use it for their personal use, which is why they sent you here. That’s why we rescued you. That’s —“

  “Just a minute,” said Preston. He rested his aching head between his hands. Doctors, he thought bitterly. How selfish can they get? I’m sick but she doesn’t give a damn. Aloud he said, “Eighty-three years. That would put it just after the war.”

  John frowned. “Which war?”

  “World War Two. Never mind,” said Preston. “That isn’t important. But eighty-three years is a long time. You must have learned something since they came. The Gates,” he urged. “Surely you must know something about the Gates.

  “Yes,” said Sylvia. “We do. We know all about them. That,” she added, “is why we rescued you.”

  A bell chimed softly, and John looked at the clock. The hands pointed to 5:15. “Second shift coming up,” he said quietly. “We haven’t got much more time.” Preston asked him why. “We’ve got things arranged,” he said obliquely. And then, to the girl. “What about it, Sylvia? Do we go ahead or wait some more?”

  “Wait for how long?” She made a negative gesture. “We’ve got to take this chance while it’s going. At least we can trust him.”

  “Would someone,” asked Preston, “mind telling me what all this is about? I’ve got an interest,” he added. “I take it that you intend to use me for some purpose of your own. Am I right?”

  John nodded. “You object?”

  “You’re damn right I object,” said Preston bluntly. “I want to know what I’m getting into. And,” he added, “I want to know what’s in it for me.”

  “We saved your life,” said the man. “Isn’t that worth something? Loyalty, perhaps?” He looked at the woman. “I don’t like this,” he said. “He’s too mercenary. He could sell us out.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Preston disgustedly. “Amateurs,” he said. “Part-time conspirators. So you saved my life, all right, I’m thankful. But don’t expect me to be so grateful that I’ll do anything you say. You tested me,” he pointed out. “You know that I’m safe to trust. If you can’t believe in your own findings then why are we here?” He looked at the woman. “You said that you know all about the Gates. Do you mean that literally?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know how they work? How to build them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why the hell haven’t you done it?” Preston knew the answer. “You can’t. You haven’t the technology. You’ve concentrated on the medical sciences and relied on the Kaltich to supply everything else. You’re like an aborigine who is told exactly how to manufacture a radio. To him the knowledge is useless because he doesn’t know how to even get started. How to mine ores, extract metals, grow transistors. But you’re intelligent,” he said. “The analogy isn’t exact.”

  “It’s close enough,” said John. “What you say is true. We’ve learned how to build a Gate but we don’t know how to build the components. Even if we did we still haven’t the scientists to understand the theory. That’s where you come in.

  “Just a minute,” said Preston. “One thing at a time. How did you get this information?” he asked the woman. “The Kaltich would never have given it to you.”

  “We stole it. From the minds of those who came here for treatment,” she explained. “A little at a time. The basic theory from one, the structure from another, the circuitry from the third. It took more than fifty years. We aren’t clever,” she admitted. “Not in the field of electronics and atomics. For two hundred years we’ve concentrated on medicine to the exclusion of almost everything else. But we knew that we had to become independent of the Kaltich. So we probed minds, a thousand, ten thousand minds. They guard the secret well. But, slowly, we’ve learned how it can be done.”

  The bell chimed again. Preston ignored it. “What do you want from me?”

  “You’ve travelled from world to world,” said John eagerly. “Aside from the Kaltich you’re the only one we know who has done so. You could take the secret of the Gates and go to a world which has the technology to build them. In return you supply us with operating Gates.” He took a deep breath. “Then,” he said slowly, “we can get rid of the Kaltich for good.”

  “My world could build them,” said Preston confidently. I’m not lying, he thought. Any race that can jump from steam to atomic power in the space of a single lifetime could do damn near anything if they had the incentive. And if these people could give me the plans?

  He rose, too excited to remain seated, pacing the floor as he thought about it. He’d set out to get two things and one of them was almost in his lap. Two?

  “You make the longevity treatment here,” he said slowly. “You could tell me how it’s done. Give me the plans of the machine.”

  Sylvia frowned. “Machine?”

  “That’s right,” said Preston. “You go to a Gate,” he explained. “Old people, that is. They get tested out on a machine and then get the treatment. If the Kaltich allow them to have it,” he said, remembering. “If you cross them in any way they won’t play. But you must know all this.”

  “Maybe,” said John cautiously. “What are you getting at?”

  “When we start to make the Gates the Kaltich may learn what we’re doing. If they do they’ll crack the big whip. They’ll stop giving the longevity treatment. Our governments are composed of old men,” he said. “Do I have to draw you a picture?” He looked at their blank faces. “I’ve got to weaken the Kaltich all along the line. If I’ve the secret of the longevity machine then I’ve got them where it hurts.”

  “Maybe,” said John cautiously. “What are you getting at?”

  “When we start to make the Gates the Kaltich may learn what we’re doing. If they do they’ll crack the big whip. They’ll stop giving the longevity treatment. Our governments are composed of old men,” he said. “Do I have to draw you a picture?” He looked at their blank faces. “I’ve got to weaken the Kaltich all along the line. If I’ve the secret of the longevity machine then I’ve got them where it hurts.”

  “It isn’t a machine,” said the woman slowly. “It is a balanced injection of certain semi-intelligent organisms which are capable of recognizing degeneration and rectifying it. Like a gang of builders,” she explained. “Send them to an old building with suitable materials and they will renovate the place. You couldn’t manufacture the serum,” she insisted. “Even if we told you how to do it.”

  “And we’re not going to tell you,” said John flatly. He was shrewd, thought Preston. No fool. Maybe he’d made a mistake in trying to grab too much but the chance was one he’d had to take. “You get the gates built and supply us with them. In return we’ll supply all the serum you need. In fact,” he added, “that can be a part of our bargain.”

  “The formulae too?”

  “Yes,” said the man. “You have my word for it. The word of GERM.”

  Preston snapped his fingers. “That’s another thing,” he said accusingly. “GERM. General Earth Resistance Movement. Earth. Why Earth?”

  Sylvia frowned. “Why not?” she said. “What else should we call ourselves? This is Earth, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Preston. “How can it be? Earth is my world.”

  “And ours,” said John. He looked at Preston. “Let’s get this straight,” he demanded. “Just what do you think the Gates are?”

  “Matter transmitters,” said Preston. “Space warps, how the hell should I know? But you step into them on one planet and step out on another.” Both shook their heads. “No?”

  “There’s only one planet,” said Sylvia. “This one. This is all of it. We learned that from the Kaltich but we’d have known it anyway. From the specimens they send us,�
�� she explained. “From the patients. From the Kaltich themselves. They’re too similar. Coincidence couldn’t stretch so far. Surely you must have wondered why the Kaltich are physically so human?

  “There’s only one planet,” she insisted, not waiting for an answer. “And this is it. Earth.”

  TWELVE

  Preston closed his eyes and saw a gigantic book filled with an infinity of pages and each single page was Earth. The same planet circled the same sun but each page bore a slight modification. Earth — when the dinosaurs had continued to rule and mammals had failed to appear; when the ice still reached almost to the tropics; when the sun had entered a zone of dust and the seas had frozen; when Gondowanaland still reared above the waves; when Roman Legions still held their empire.

  An infinity of Earths each a fraction different from the other, but those fractions accumulating until the planet became hardly recognizable. Hadn’t been recognizable. Aside from one, he thought. The first. The place with the Red Indians and the buffalo. In that Earth, perhaps, the Spanish hadn’t discovered Mexico. Or the Pilgrim Fathers had never reached New England. Or there had been no war of Independence. Or …

  Infinity was all there was and could be. Name it and it was included.

  Preston sighed and eased his aching head. The concept hadn’t caused the pain. He glared at the instrument standing against one wall of the little room. Hypnotism, he thought, should be painless. But this wasn’t the mild suggestion he had known. This was something far more vicious and far more efficient. A teaching device perfected in this particular Earth. In his brain, waiting to be summoned, were the full facts concerning the Gates as learned from the reluctant Kaltich. Sylvia had told him that, and he had no reason to doubt what she said. He looked at the clock. 16:54. Ten hours, he thought. High speed tuition. Forced planting of reams of information. Plans, circuits, composition of alloys, relationships of components — it would all come out, so she had said, at the proper time.

  In the meantime his head felt about to burst.