Behind Stetson like a pet on an invisible leash rolled a mechanocart piled high with cramtapes, microrecords and even some primitive books in stelaperm bindings. The cart trundled itself into the room, its wheels rumbling as it cleared the slideseal at the doorway.
Orne had focused on the cart, knowing it immediately as the object of his dread. He got to his feet, stared hard at Stetson. “What’s this, Stet?”
Stetson pulled the chair from the foot of the bunk, sailed his cap onto the blanket.
His dark hair straggled in an uncombed muss. His eyelids drooped. He said: “You’ve had enough assignments to know the trappings when you see them.”
“Don’t I have any say in that anymore?” Orne asked.
“Well, now, things may’ve changed a bit and then again, maybe they haven’t,” Stetson said. “Besides, this concerns something you say you want.”
“I’m getting married in three weeks,” Orne said.
“Your wedding has been postponed,” Stetson said. He held up a placating hand as Orne’s face darkened. “Wait a bit. Postponed, nothing more.”
“On whose orders?” Orne demanded.
“Well, now, Diana agreed to leave this morning on an assignment which the High Commissioner arranged for us.”
“We were having dinner tonight!” Orne said, outraged.
“That’s been postponed, too,” Stetson said. “She sends her regrets. There’s a visocube in that stuff on the cart—her regrets, her love and all of that, but she hopes you’ll understand the purpose of her sudden departure.”
Orne’s voice came out in a growl: “What purpose?”
“The purpose of getting her out of your hair. You’re leaving for Amel in six days, not in six months, and there’s a mountain of preparation before you’re ready to go.”
“You’d better explain a little more about Diana.”
“She knows she would have wasted your time, distracted you, diverted attention which you absolutely require now. She’s off to Franchi Primus to deliver some important personal information explaining to the Nathian underground there why they no longer are underground and why their handpicked candidate had to withdraw from the election so abruptly. She’s perfectly safe and you can get married when you return from Amel.”
“Provided you don’t dream up some new emergency,” Orne snarled.
“You’re the ones who took the I-A oath,” Stetson said. “She takes her orders just like the rest of us.”
“Oh, this I-A is real fun,” Orne growled. “I must recommend it whenever I find a likely young fellow looking for a job!”
“Amel, remember?” Stetson asked.
“But why so sudden?”
“Amel ... well, Lew, Amel isn’t quite the picnic ground you may have imagined.”
“Not the ... but it is the place for advanced psi training. You put through my application, didn’t you?”
“Lew, that’s not quite the way it works.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t apply to Amel, you are summoned.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s only one way to go there if you’re not on the approved list, a graduate or priest or some such. That’s as a student—summoned.”
“And I’ve been summoned?”
“Yes.”
“What if I refuse to go as a student?”
Hard lines formed beside Stetson’s mouth. “You took an oath to the I-A. Do you remember it?”
“I’m going to rewrite that oath,” Orne growled. “To the words ‘I pledge my life and my sacred honor to seek out and destroy the seeds of war wherever they may be found’ let us add: ‘and I will sacrifice anything and anybody in the process.’”
“Not a bad addition,” Stetson said. “Why don’t you propose it when you get back?”
“If I get back!”
“Granted there’s always that possibility,” Stetson said. “But you have been summoned and the I-A wants desperately for you to accept.”
“So that’s why none of you questioned my request.”
“That’s part of it. Our Psi Branch confirmed that you were a genuine talent ... and we had our hopes raised. We want someone of your caliber on Amel.”
“Why? What’s the I-A’s interest in Amel? Never been a war anywhere near the place. The big shots are always afraid of offending their gods.”
“Or their priests.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone having trouble getting to Amel,” Orne said.
“We’ve always had trouble.”
“The I-A?”
“Yes.”
“But our Psi Branch technicians were trained there.”
“They are assigned to us out of Amel at Amel’s insistence, not at ours. We’ve never been able to send a genuine investigative agent, trustworthy and dedicated, to Amel.”
“You think the priests are cooking up something?”
“If they are, we’re in trouble. How do we handle psi powers? What do we do to confine someone like that guy on Wessel who can jump to any planet in the universe without a ship? How do we deal with a man who can remove our instruments from within his flesh and without making an incision?”
“So you know about that, eh?”
“When our transceiver stopped giving us the noises of your surroundings and started giving us fish-gurgles, yes, we knew,” Stetson said. “How’d you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“And maybe you’re telling me the truth,” Stetson said.
“I just wished for it to happen,” Orne said.
“You just wished! Maybe that’s why you’re going to Amel.”
Orne nodded, dazzled by this thought. “It could be.” But he still felt the premonition, not focused on the cart now, but going beyond it to Amel. “Are you sure it’s me they’ve summoned?”
“We’re sure and we’re anxious.”
“You haven’t explained that, Stet.”
Stetson sighed. “Lew, we just had confirmation on it this morning: At the next session of the Assembly there’s going to be a motion to do away with the I-A, turning all of its functions over to Rediscovery & Reeducation.”
“Oh, you must be joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Under Tyler Gemine and his Rah-Rah boys?”
“None other.”
“Why ... that political hack! Half our problems come from Rah-Rah stupidities. They’ve damn near bumbled us into another Rim War dozens of times. I thought Gemine was our target number one for removal from office.”
“Mmmmm, hmmmm,” Stetson agreed. “And at the next Assembly session, less than five months away now, this motion will come up and it has the full support of Amel’s priesthood.”
“All of the priesthood?”
“All of it.”
“But that’s asinine! I mean, look at the …”
“Do you have any doubts that religious heat can carry this motion through?” Stetson asked.
Orne shook his head. “But there are thousands of religious sects on Amel ... millions, maybe. The Ecumenical Truce doesn’t allow for …”
“The Truce doesn’t say anything about not gunning for the I-A,” Stetson said.
“But it doesn’t fit, Stet. If the priests are after us, why would they invite me as a student at the same time?”
“Now you see why we’re so anxious,” Stetson said. “Nobody—repeat: nobody!—has ever before been able to put an agent onto Amel. Not the I-A. Not the old Marakian Secret Service. Not even the Nathians. All attempts have been met with polite ejection. No agent has ever gone farther than twenty meters from his landing site.”
“What’s on that cart you brought?” Orne asked.
“All of the stuff you were supposed to study for the next six months. You have six days.”
“What provisions will there be for getting me off if Amel goes sour?”
“None.”
Orne stared at him incredulously. “None?”
“Our bes
t information indicates that your training on Amel—they call it ‘The Ordeal’—takes about six months. If there’s no word from you within that limit, we’ll make inquiries.”
“Like: ‘What’ve you done with his body?’” Orne snarled. “Hell! There might not even be an I-A to make inquiry in six months!”
“There will, at least, be some concerned citizens, your friends.”
“The friends who sent me in there!”
“I’m sure you see the necessity. Diana saw it.”
“She knows all this?”
“Yes. She cried, but she saw the necessity and she went to Franchi Primus as ordered.”
“I’m your last resort, eh?”
Stetson nodded. “We have to find out why the center of all religions has turned against us. We haven’t a prayer, if you’ll excuse the reference, of going in there and subduing them. We might try it, but it’d start religious uprisings all through the federation. Make the Rim Wars look like a game of ball at a girls’ school.”
“But you haven’t ruled that out?”
“Of course not. But I’m not certain we could get enough volunteers to do the job. We never qualify personnel by religion. But I’m damned sure they qualify us if we made a move against Amel. That’s touchy ground, Lew. No, we have to find out why! Maybe we can change whatever’s bothering them. It’s our only hope. Maybe they don’t understand our …”
“What if they have plans for conquest by war, Stet? What then? A new faction could’ve come to power on Amel. Why not?”
Stetson looked sad. “If you could prove it …” He shrugged.
“What’s first on the agenda?” Orne asked.
Stetson hooked a thumb at the cart. “Dive into that material. You’ll be going back to the medics later today for a new and better psi amplifier.”
“When do I go to the medics?”
“They’ll come for you.”
“Somebody’s always coming for me,” Orne muttered.
***
Chapter Eighteen
A universe without war involves critical-mass concepts as applied to human beings. Any immediate issue which might lead to war is always escalated to questions of personal value, to the complications of technological synergism, to questions of an ethico-religious nature, to which areas are open for counteraction and, inevitably, there remain the unknowns, omnipresent and likely of insidious complexity. The human situation as it relates to war can be likened to a multilinear looped feedback system in which nothing is unimportant.
—“War, the Un-possible,”
Chapter IV, I-A Manual
Evening light sent long shadows into Orne’s hospital room at the I-A Medical Center. It was the quiet time between dinner and visiting hours. The psuedoperspective of the room had been closed in to produce surroundings of restful security. Decoracol stood at low-green, lights dim. The induction bandage felt bulky under his chin, but the characteristic quick-heal itching had not yet started.
Being in a hospital made Orne vaguely uneasy. He knew why. The smells and the sounds reminded him of all the months he’d spent creeping back from death after Sheleb. He recalled that Sheleb had been another planet where war could not originate.
Like Amel.
The door to his room slid aside, admitting a tall, bone-skinny tech officer with the forked lightning insignia of Psi Branch at his collar. The door closed behind him.
Orne studied the man—an unknown face: birdlike with long nose, pointed chin, narrow mouth. The eyes made quick, darting movements. He lifted his right hand in a fluttery salute, leaned on the crossbar at the foot of Orne’s bed.
“I’m Ag Emolirdo,” he said, “Head of Psi Branch. The Ag is for Agony.”
Unable to move his head because of the induction bandage, Orne stared along his own nose down the length of the bed at Emolirdo. So this was the shy and mysterious Chief of Psi in the I-A. The man radiated an aura of knowing confidence.
He reminded Orne of a priest back on Chargon—another Amel graduate. The reminder made Orne uneasy. He said: “I’ve heard of you. How d’you do?”
“We’re about to find out how I do,” Emolirdo said. “I’ve reviewed your records. Fascinating. Are you aware that you may be a psi focus?”
“A what?” Orne tried to sit up, but the bandage restraints held him fast.
“Psi focus,” Emolirdo said. “I’ll explain in a moment.”
“Please do that,” Orne said. He found himself not liking Emolirdo’s glib, all-knowing manner.
“You may consider this the beginning of your advanced training,” Emolirdo said. “I decided to take it on myself. If you’re what we suspect ... well, it’s extremely rare.”
“How rare?”
“Well, the only others are lost behind the mythical veils of antiquity.”
“I see. This psi focus thing, is that it?”
“That’s what we call the phenomenon. If you are a psi focus, then you’re ... well, a god.”
Orne blinked, sat in frozen shock. He felt the wheel of his life turning, the sense of his one-being aflame with a terrifying passion for existence. An overriding awareness churned within him, bringing up all the ancient functions of life for his review.
He thought: Nothing can be excluded from life. It is all one thing.
“You don’t question that?” Emolirdo asked.
Orne swallowed, said: “I have questions, plenty of them.”
“Ask.”
“Why do you think I’m this ... psi focus?”
Emolirdo nodded. “You appear to be an island of order in a disordered universe. Four times since you came to the attention of the I-A you’ve done the impossible. Any one of the problems you tackled could have led to ferment and perhaps general warfare. But you went in and brought order out of …”
“I did what I was trained to do, no more.”
“Trained? By whom?”
“By the I-A, of course. That’s a stupid question.”
“Is it?” Emolirdo found a chair, sat down beside the bed, his head level with Orne’s. “Let us take this in an orderly fashion, beginning with our articulation of life.”
“I articulate life by living it,” Orne said.
“Perhaps I should’ve said let us approach this from another viewpoint, just for the sake of definition. Life, as we understand it, represents a bridge between Order and Chaos. We define Chaos as raw energy, untamed, available to anything that can subdue it and bring it into some form of Order. In this sense, Life becomes stored Chaos. Do you follow this?”
“I hear your words,” Orne said.
“Ahhhh …” Emolirdo cleared his throat. “To restate the situation, Life feeds on Chaos, but must exist within Order. Chaos represents a background against which Life knows itself. This brings us to another background, the condition called Stasis. This can be compared to a magnet. Stasis attracts free energy to itself until the pressures of non-movement, of non-adaptation, grow too great and an explosion occurs. Exploding, the forms once in Stasis go back to Chaos, to non-Order. One is left with the unavoidable observation that Stasis leads always to Chaos.”
“That’s dandy,” Orne said.
Emolirdo frowned, then: “This rule holds true on both the chemical-inanimate level and the chemical-animate level. Ice, the stasis of water, explodes when brought into abrupt contact with extreme heat. The frozen society explodes when exposed to the heat of war or the burning contact of a strange new society. Nature abhors stasis.”
“The way it abhors a vacuum,” Orne said, speaking only in the hope of turning Emolirdo’s words off. What was he driving at? “Why all of this talk of Chaos, Order, Stasis?”
“We think in terms of energy systems,” Emolirdo said. “That is the psi approach. Do you have more questions?”
“You haven’t explained anything,” Orne said. “Words, just words. What’s all this have to do with Amel or your suspicion that I’m a ... psi focus?”
“As to Amel,” Emolirdo said, “That appears to be a
stasis that does not explode.”
“Then maybe it isn’t static.”
“Very astute,” Emolirdo said. “As to psi focus, that brings us to the problem of miracles. You have been summoned to Amel because we consider you a worker of miracles.”
Pain stabbed through Orne’s bandaged neck as he tried to turn his head. “Miracles?” he croaked.
“The understanding of psi represents the understanding of miracles,” Emolirdo said in his didactic way. “There is a devil in anything we don’t understand. Thus, miracles frighten us and fill us with feelings of insecurity.”
“Such as that fellow who supposedly can jump from planet to planet without a ship,” Orne said.
“He does do it,” Emolirdo said. “It’s another form of miracle to wish a device removed from your flesh and have that thing happen without harming you.”
“What would happen if I wished you removed from my presence?” Orne asked.
An odd half smile flickered across Emolirdo’s mouth. It was as though he had fought down an internal dispute on whether to cry or laugh and had solved it by doing neither. He said: “That might be interesting, especially if I countered with a wish of my own.”
Orne felt confused. He said: “I’m not tracking on this.”
Emolirdo shrugged. “I am only saying that the study of psi is the study of miracles. We examine things that happen outside of recognized channels and in spite of accepted rules. The religious call such things miracles. We say we have encountered a psi phenomenon or the workings of a psi focus.”
“Changing the label doesn’t necessarily change the thing,” Orne said. “I’m still not tracking.”
“Have you ever heard about the miracle caverns on the ancient planets?” Emolirdo asked.
“I’ve heard the stories,” Orne said.
“They are more than stories. Let me put it this way: Such places held concealed shapes, convolutions which projected out of our apparent universe. Except at such focal points, the raw and chaotic energies of the universe resist our desires for Order. But at such focal points, the raw energies of outer Chaos becomes richly available and can be tamed. By the very act of wishing it so, we mold this raw energy in unique new ways that defy our old rules.” Emolirdo’s eyes blazed. He seemed to be fighting for control of great inner excitement.