Vulcan's Hammer

  “Evidently there’s no particular limit to what Vulcan 3 can produce. There’s no restriction on raw materials available to him.” Him. He, too, was saying that now. “And he has the technical know-how. He has more information available to him than any purely human agency in the world. And he’s not limited by any ethical considerations.”

  In fact, he realized, Vulcan 3 is in an ideal position; his goal is dictated by logic, by relentless correct reasoning. It is no emotional bias or projection that motivates him to act as he does. So he will never suffer a change of heart, a conversion; he will never turn from a conqueror into a benevolent ruler.

  “The techniques that Vulcan 3 will employ,” Barris said to the child gazing up at him, “will be brought into play according to the need. They’ll vary in direct proportion to the problem facing him; if he has ten people opposed to him, he will probably employ some minor weapon, such as the original hammers equipped with heat beams. We’ve seen him use hammers of greater magnitude, equipped with chemical bombs; that’s because the magnitude of his opposition has turned out to be that much greater. He meets whatever challenge exists.”

  Marion said, “So the stronger the Movement gets, the larger he’ll grow. The stronger he’ll become.”

  “Yes,” Barris said. “And there’s no point at which he’ll have to stop; there’s no known limit to his theoretical power and size.”

  “If the whole world was against him—”

  “Then he’d have to grow and produce and organize to combat the whole world.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because that’s his job.”

  “He wants to?”

  “No,” Barris said. “He has to.”

  All at once, without any warning, the girl said, “I’ll take you to him, Mr. Barris. My father, I mean.”

  Silently, Barris breathed a prayer of relief.

  “But you have to come alone,” she added instantly. “No guards or anybody with guns.” Studying him she said, “You promise? On your word of honor?”

  “I promise,” Barris said.

  Uncertainly, she said, “How’ll we get there? He’s in North America.”

  “By police cruiser. We have three of them up on the roof of the building. They used to belong to Jason Dill. When there’s a lull in the attack, we’ll take off.”

  “Can we get by the hammer birds?” she said, with a mixture of doubt and excitement.

  “I hope so,” Barris said.

  As the Unity police cruiser passed low over New York City, Barris had an opportunity to see first-hand the damage which the Healers had done.

  Much of the outlying business ring was in ruins. His own building was gone; only a heap of smoking rubble remained. Fires still burned out of control in the vast, sprawling rabbit warren that was—or had been—the residential section. Most of the streets were hopelessly blocked. Stores, he observed, had been broken into and looted.

  But the fighting was over. The city was quiet. People roamed vaguely through the debris, picking about for valuables. Here and there brown-clad Healers organized repair and reclamation. At the sound of the jets of his police cruiser, the people below scattered for shelter. On the roof of an undestroyed factory building a blaster boomed at them inexpertly.

  “Which way?” Barris said to the solemn child beside him.

  “Keep going straight. We can land soon. They’ll take us to him on foot.” Frowning with worry, she murmured, “I hope they haven’t changed it too much. I was at that school so long, and he was in that awful place, that Atlanta . . .”

  Barris flew on. The open countryside did not show the same extensive injury that the big cities did; below him, the farms and even the small rural towns seemed about as they always had. In fact, there was more order in the hinterlands now than there had been before; the collapse of the rural Unity offices had brought about stability, rather than chaos. Local people, already committed to support of the Movement, had eagerly assumed the tasks of leadership.

  “That big river,” Marion said, straining to see. “There’s a bridge. I see it.” She shivered triumphantly. “Go by the bridge, and you’ll see a road. When there’s a junction with another road, put your ship down there.” She gave him a radiant smile.

  Several minutes later he was landing the police cruiser in an open field at the edge of a small Pennsylvania town. Before the jets were off, a truck had come rattling across the dirt and weeds, directly toward them.

  This is it, Barris said to himself. It’s too late to back out now.

  The truck halted. Four men in overalls jumped down and came cautiously up to the cruiser. One of them waved a pelletrifle. “Who are you?”

  “Let me get out,” Marion said to Barris. “Let me talk to them.”

  He touched the stud on the instrument panel which released the port; it slid open, and Marion at once scrambled out and hopped down to the dusty ground.

  Barris, still in the ship, waited tensely while she conferred with the four men. Far up in the sky, to the north, a flock of hammers rushed inland, intent on business of their own. A few moments later bright fission flashes lit up the horizon. Vulcan 3 had apparently begun equipping his extensions with atomic tactical bombs.

  One of the four men came up to the cruiser and cupped his hands to his mouth. “I’m Joe Potter. You’re Barris?”

  “That’s right.” Sitting in the ship, Barris kept his hand on his pencil beam. But, he realized, it was nothing more than a ritualistic gesture now; it had no practical importance.

  “Say,” Joe Potter said. “I’ll take you to Father. If that’s what you want, and she says it is. Come alone.”

  With the four men, Barris and Marion climbed aboard the ancient, dented truck. At once it started up; he was pitched from side to side as it swung around and started back the way it had come.

  “By God,” one of the men said, scrutinizing him. “You used to be North American Director. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Barris said.

  The men mumbled among one another, and at last one of them slid over to Barris and said, “Listen, Mr. Barris.” He shoved an envelope and a pencil at him. “Could I have your autograph?”

  For an hour the truck headed along minor country roads, in the general direction of New York City. A few miles outside the demolished business ring, Potter halted the truck at a gasoline station. To the right of the station was a roadside café, a decrepit, weatherbeaten place. A few cars were pulled up in front of it. Some children were playing in the dirt by the steps, and a dog was tied up in the yard in the rear.

  “Get out,” Potter said. All four men seemed somewhat cross and taciturn from the long drive.

  Barris got out slowly. “Where—”

  “Inside.” Potter started up the truck again. Marion hopped out to join Barris. The truck pulled away, made a turn, and disappeared back down the road in the direction from which they had just come.

  Her eyes shining, Marion called, “Come on!” She scampered up on the porch of the café and tugged the door open. Barris followed after her, with caution.

  In the dingy café, at a table littered with maps and papers, sat a man wearing a blue denim shirt and grease-stained work pants. An ancient audio-telephone was propped up beside him, next to a plate on which were the remains of a hamburger and fried potatoes. The man glanced up irritably, and Barris saw heavy ridged eyebrows, the irregular teeth, the penetrating glance that had so chilled him before, and which chilled him again now.

  “I’ll be darned,” Father Fields said, pushing away his papers. “Look who’s here.”

  “Daddy!” Marion cried; she leaped forward and threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad to see you—” Her words were cut off, smothered by the man’s shirt as she pressed her face into it. Fields patted her on the back, oblivious to Barris.

  Walking over to the counter, Barris seated himself alone. He remained there, meditating, until all at once he realized that Father Fields was addressing him. Glancing up, he saw
the man’s hand held out. Grinning, Fields shook hands with him.

  “I thought you were in Geneva,” Fields said. “It’s nice seeing you again.” His eyes traveled up and down Barris. “The one decent Director out of eleven. And we don’t get you; we get practically the worst—barring Reynolds. We get that opportunist Taubmann.” He shook his head ironically.

  Barris said, “Revolutionary movements always draw opportunists.”

  “That’s very charitable of you,” Fields said. Reaching back, he drew up a chair and seated himself, tipping the chair until he was comfortable.

  “Mr. Barris is fighting Vulcan 3,” Marion declared, holding on tightly to her father’s arm. “He’s on our side.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Fields said, patting her. “Are you sure about that?”

  She colored and stammered, “Well, anyhow, he’s against Vulcan 3.”

  “Congratulations,” Fields said to Barris. “You’ve made a wise choice. Assuming it’s so.”

  Settling back against the counter, propping himself up on one elbow so that he, too, was comfortable, Barris said, “I came here to talk business with you.”

  In a leisurely, drawling voice, Fields said, “As you can see, I’m a pretty busy man. Maybe I don’t have time to talk business.”

  “Find time,” Barris said.

  Fields said, “I’m not much interested in business. I’m more interested in work. You could have joined us back when it mattered, but you turned tail and walked out. Now—” He shrugged. “What the heck does it matter? Having you with us doesn’t make any particular difference one way or another. We’ve pretty well won, now. I imagine that’s why you’ve finally made up your mind which way you want to jump. Now you can see who’s the winning side.” He grinned once more, this time with a knowing, insinuating twinkle. “Isn’t that so? You’d like to be on the winning side.” He waggled his finger slyly at Barris.

  “If I did,” Barris said, “I wouldn’t be here.”

  For a moment, Fields did not appear to understand. Then, by degrees, his face lost all humor; the bantering familiarity vanished. He became hard-eyed. “The hell you say,” he said slowly. “Unity is gone, man. In a couple of days we swept the old monster system aside. What’s there left? Those tricky businesses flapping around up there.” He jerked his thumb, pointing upward. “Like the one I got, that day in the hotel, the one that came in the window looking for me. Did you ever get that? I patched it up pretty good and sent it on to you and your girl, for a—” He laughed. “A wedding present.”

  Barris said, “You’ve got nothing. You’ve destroyed nothing.”

  “Everything,” Fields said in a grating whisper. “We’ve got everything there is, mister.”

  “You don’t have Vulcan 3,” Barris said. “You’ve got a lot of land; you blew up a lot of office buildings and recruited a lot of clerks and stenographers—that’s all.”

  “We’ll get him,” Fields said, evenly.

  “Not without your founder,” Barris said. “Not now that he’s dead.”

  Staring at Barris, Fields said, “My—” He shook his head slowly; his poise was obviously completely shattered. “What do you mean? I founded the Movement. I’ve headed it from the start.”

  Barris said, “I know that’s a lie.”

  For a time there was silence.

  “What does he mean?” Marion demanded, plucking anxiously at her father’s arm.

  “He’s out of his mind,” Fields said, still staring at Barris. The color had not returned to his face.

  “You’re an expert electrician,” Barris said. “That was your trade. I saw your work on that hammer, your reconstruction. You’re very good; in fact there probably isn’t an electrician in the world today superior to you. You kept Vulcan 2 going all this time, didn’t you?”

  Fields’ mouth opened and then shut. He said nothing.

  “Vulcan 2 founded the Healers’ Movement,” Barris said.

  “No,” Fields said.

  “You were only the fake leader. A puppet. Vulcan 2 created the Movement as an instrument to destroy Vulcan 3. That’s why he gave Jason Dill instructions not to reveal the existence of the Movement to Vulcan 3; he wanted to give it time to grow.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After a long time, Father Fields said, “Vulcan 2 was only a computing mechanism. It had no motives, no drives. Why would it act to impair Vulcan 3?”

  “Because Vulcan 3 menaced it,” Barris said. “Vulcan 2 was as much alive as Vulcan 3—no more and no less. It was created originally to do a certain job, and Vulcan 3 interfered with its doing that job, just as the withholding of data by Jason Dill interfered with Vulcan 3’s doing its job.”

  “How did Vulcan 3 interfere with Vulcan 2’s doing its job?” Father Fields said.

  “By supplanting it,” Barris said.

  Fields said, “But I am the head of the Movement now. Vulcan 2 no longer exists.” Rubbing his chin, he said, “There isn’t a wire or a tube or a relay of Vulcan 2 intact.”

  “You did a thorough, professional job,” Barris said.

  The man’s head jerked.

  “You destroyed Vulcan 2,” Barris said, “to keep Jason Dill from knowing. Isn’t that so?”

  “No,” Fields said finally. “It isn’t so. This is all a wild series of guesses on your part. You have no evidence; this is the typical insane slander generated by Unity. These mad charges, dreamed up and bolstered and embroidered—”

  Once again, Barris noticed, the man had lost his regional accent. And his vocabulary, his use of words, had in this period of stress, greatly improved.

  Marion Fields piped, “It’s not true! My father founded the Movement.” Her eyes blazed with helpless, baffled fury at Barris. “I wish I hadn’t brought you here.”

  “What evidence do you have?” Fields said.

  “I saw the skill with which you rebuilt that ruined hammer,” Barris said. “It amounted to mechanical genius on your part. With ability like that you could name your own job with Unity; there’re no repairmen on my staff in New York capable of work like that. The normal use Unity would put you to with such ability would be servicing the Vulcan series. Obviously you know nothing about Vulcan 3—and Vulcan 3 is self-servicing. What does that leave but the older computers? And Vulcan 1 hasn’t functioned in decades. And your age is such that, like Jason Dill, you would naturally have been a contemporary of Vulcan 2 rather—”

  “Conjecture,” Fields said.

  “Yes,” Barris admitted.

  “Logic. Deduction. Based on the spurious premise that I had anything to do with any of the Vulcan series. Did it ever occur to you that there might have been alternate computers, designed by someone other than Nat Greenstreet, that competent crews might have been put to work at—”

  From behind Barris a voice, a woman’s voice, said sharply, “Tell him the truth, Father. Don’t lie, for once.”

  Rachel Pitt came around to stand by Barris. Astonished to see her, Barris started to his feet.

  “My two daughters,” Fields said. He put his hand on Marion Fields’ shoulder, and then, after a pause, he put his other hand on the shoulder of Rachel Pitt. “Marion and Rachel,” he said to Barris. “The younger stayed with me, was loyal to me; the older had ambitions to marry a Unity man and live a well-to-do life with all the things that money can buy. She started to come back to me a couple of times. But did you really come back?” He gazed meditatively at Rachel Pitt. “I wonder. It doesn’t sound like it.”

  Rachel said, “I’m loyal to you, Father. I just can’t stand any more lies.”

  “I am telling the truth,” Father Fields said in a harsh, bitter voice. “Barris accuses me of destroying Vulcan 2 to keep Jason Dill from knowing about the relationship between the old computer and the Movement. Do you think I care about Jason Dill? Did it ever matter what he knew? I destroyed Vulcan 2 because it wasn’t running the Movement effectively; it was holding the Movement back, keeping it weak. It wanted the Movement to be nothing
but an extension of itself, like those hammers of Vulcan 3. An instrument without life of its own.”

  His voice had gained power; his jaw jutted out and he confronted Barris and Rachel defiantly. The two of them moved involuntarily away from him, and closer to each other. Only Marion Fields remained with him.

  “I freed the Movement,” Fields said. “I freed humanity and made the Movement an instrument of human needs, human aspirations. Is that wicked?” He pointed his finger at Barris and shouted, “And before I’m finished I’m going to destroy Vulcan 3 as well, and free mankind from it, too. From both of them, first the older one and next the big one, the new one. Is that wrong? Are you opposed to that? If you are, then god damn it, go join them at the fortress; go join Reynolds.”

  Barris said, “It’s a noble ideal, what you’re saying. But you can’t do it. It’s impossible. Unless I help you.”

  Hunched forward in his chair, Father Fields said, “All right, Barris. You came here to do business. What’s your deal?” Raising his head he said hoarsely, “What do you have to offer me?”

  Barris said, “I know where the fortress is. I’ve been to it. Dill took me there. I can find it again. Without me, you’ll never find it. At least, not in time; not before Vulcan 3 has developed such far-reaching offensive weapons that nothing will remain of life above ground.”

  “You don’t think we’ll find it?” Fields said.

  “In fifteen months,” Barris said, “you’ve failed to. Do you think you will in the next two weeks?”

  Presently Father Fields said, “More like two years. We started looking from the very start.” He shrugged. “Well, Director. What do you want in exchange?”

  “Plenty,” Barris said grimly. “I’ll try to outline it as briefly as I can.”

  After Barris had finished, Father Fields was silent. “You want a lot,” he said finally.

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s incredible, you dictating terms to me. How many in your group?”

  “Five or six.”

  Fields shook his head. “And there are millions of us, all over the world.” From his pocket he produced a much-folded map; spreading it out on the counter he said, “We’ve taken over in America, in Eastern Europe, in all of Asia and Africa. It seemed only a question of time before we had the rest. We’ve been winning so steadily.” He clenched his fist around a coffee mug on the counter and then suddenly grabbed it up and hurled it to the floor. The brown coffee oozed thickly out.