Page 11 of The Pritcher Mass

  Marti had himself back under control.

  "All right," he said dryly. "If you feel that strongly, Chaz, you can have another try at the Mass. But one more instance of suspected hal­lucination and you're off it permanently."

  "Good." Chaz, sensing a psycho­logical victory, got to his feet quickly. "I'm ready to go back up right now."

  "No," said Marti, definitely. "We'll want at least to give you a thorough checkup and keep you un­der medical observation for a few days. You can understand that, I hope. You'd better report to the Medical Section now." He reached out and punched on the desk phone before him. "I'll let them know you're on your way down."

  In actuality, it was eight days, as those in the platform counted them, before Chaz was able to get back up on the Mass. The Medical Section held on to him for tests and observa­tions for three days, then bucked the matter back up to Marti, with a re­port they would not let Chaz see.

  “But I don't see why you should worry very much," said the physician in charge of Chaz' case, unofficially.

  Marti, however, decided to take time to consider the report. He con­sidered through a fourth and fifth day of idleness for Chaz. The sixth day found Chaz camping in Marti's outer office, without success. The seventh day, Chaz went to find Jai.

  "I came out here to work," Chaz told the tall Assistant Director, bluntly. "I'm able to work. He knows it. I don't care how you put it to him, but say I know I'm getting different handling than anyone else on the Mass who's qualified to work is gets ting; and if I'm not cleared to go up­stairs tomorrow, I'm going to start finding ways to fight for my rights. And take my word for it—I'm good at finding ways to fight when I have to."

  "Chaz . . ." protested Jai, softly, "that's the wrong attitude. Leb has to think of the good of the Mass and the people working here as a whole—"

  He broke off, looking away from Chaz' eyes, which had remained un­movingly on those of the Assistant Director all the while.

  "All right," said Jai, with a sigh. "I'll talk to Leb."

  He went off. The morning of the next day he came to Chaz.

  "Leb says there's only one way you can prove you made contact with the Mass," Jai said. "That's by doing some work on it that will show up as an obvious addition to it, in the perceptions of the other workers. Do that, and you'll have proved your case. But he'll only give you one more shot at it. Leb says you can go up and take that shot right now; or you can take as long as you like to get ready before trying it."

  "Or, in other words," said Chaz, "I can sit around until self-doubt starts to creep in. No thanks. I'll go up now. Want to come along with me and take a look at my airsuit before I put it on, to make sure it's all right?"

  Jai stared at him.

  "Why wouldn't your airsuit be all right?"

  "I have no idea," said Chaz, blandly. "Why don't you have a look at it anyway?"

  Jai stared at him a second longer, then nodded with sudden vigor.

  "All right," he said. "I'll do that. In fact, I'll go out on the Mass with you, unless you have some objec­tion."

  "No objection. Let's go."

  They went upstairs, where Jai ac­tually did examine Chaz' airsuit carefully before they dressed and went out. They went up a nearby mast and changed to a cable car. In mid-cable, Chaz stopped the car.

  "Tell me," he said to Jai. "How do you feel about my being allowed to work on the Mass?"

  "How do I feel?" Jai stared at him through the faceplate of his airsuit helmet.

  The question hung in both their minds. There was a moment of pause—and Chaz moved into that moment, •expanding it by opening his mind to admit the Mass-force.

  The Mass-force entered. The dark mountain of hurricanes swirled him up and away, even as he saw time slow down and stop for Jai by com­parison. Within himself, Chaz chuckled, reaching into his memory attic. What was it Puck had said in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"? ". . . I'll put a girdle round the Earth in forty minutes . . ."

  He would put a collar and a leash on the Mass in forty seconds—be­tween his question and Jai's answer—unless he had very much mistaken the abilities of the force he had learned to ride the last time he was up here. If he was mistaken, of course, the whole thing could back­fire. But this was the sort of chance he liked to take.

  The Mass swung him up into it. In a minisecond, he was soaring again, rather than being carried off help­lessly. He grinned to himself. The workers on the Mass wanted contact with a different world, did they? Well, perhaps he knew of one world out there he could contact that would surprise them all.

  He put into the Mass his memory of the cartoon world with towers leaning at crazy angles, all surfaces covered with a thin sheet of flowing water, on which rode beings like great snails, and where an alien like a tall praying mantis spoke to him. He pointed the Mass in search of such a world.

  And he was there. It was just as he remembered it. Except that the water was ice now, and the air was bitterly cold. He shivered, watching; but the Snails skated as serenely on the fro­zen surfaces as they had on the liq­uid, and the Mantis, unperturbed by, or apparently indifferent to the cold, gazed calmly down at him.

  "So you really look like this?" said Chaz. "And your world looks the way I dreamed it?"

  "No. It looks the way you picture it," said the Mantis. "And we look the way you imagine us. I talk with the words you give me. You're our translator."

  "Am I?" said Chaz. "Well, I'm go­ing to translate everything about you into the Mass, right now."

  "No, you won't," said the Mantis.

  "No?" Chaz stared up at him.

  "You seem to believe that either we'll be of some help to you," said the Mantis, "or that you'll be able to use us to help yourself. Both ideas are incorrect."

  "What's correct, then?" he asked.

  "That we are real, if different from the way you are this moment imag­ining us," said the Mantis. "More than that, you are required to dis­cover for yourself."

  "I see," said Chaz; and abruptly, he thought he did. "You're saying we aren't wanted on or in touch with your world? The doors are closed?"

  "All doors are closed to you," said the Mantis. "I only answer you now because of our obligation to answer all who come asking."

  "That so?" said Chaz. "Who else on the Mass have you told about that?"

  "No one but yourself," said the Mantis. "You were the only one who came looking and found us."

  "But I found you back before I came to the Mass," Chaz demanded. "I dreamed about you first when I was back on Earth with no Mass to help me."

  "The Mass is on Earth," said the Mantis.

  "The Mass on . . . ?" Chaz' mind whirled suddenly. The words of the Mantis seemed suddenly to open up echoing corridors of possibilities. Abruptly, he stared away down bot­tomless canyons of linked causes and effects, swooping off toward a conclusion so improbably distant that for all its vast importance, it was be­yond perception. The winds of the Mass-force shrieked suddenly in his ears like a chorus of billions of hu­man voices, crying all at once. And among those who cried, he heard one in particular ...

  He left the Mantis and the cartoon world with its skating Snails; and he went towards Earth, into darkness, calling.

  "Eileen? Eileen, are you there?"

  "Chaz …"

  "Eileen? Eileen, answer me. Where are you, someplace in the Citadel?"

  "No." The answer was slower in coming than usual. "I'm out now. They've let me go"

  "Good!" he said. "You're all right, then. Are you back in our old con­dominium? When did you get out—what're you doing now?"

  "Chaz," she said. "Listen. I've got something to talk to you about—"

  "Go ahead," he told her.

  "The Citadel told me some things before they let me go. Most of it isn't important. But there's one thing. You know, the trips to the Mass are all one-way. You won't be coming back—"

  "No. But you can qualify yourself for the Mass," he said. "I've been thinking about that. You've already got the talent;
and I can help you. With the two of us out here—"

  "No," she interrupted him. "You're wrong. I'm not able to qualify and I wouldn't if I could. That's some­thing I didn't tell you about those of us who used to call ourselves witches. The Earth is special to us. We'd never leave her. We'll all die here first. So you see, I can't go; and you'll never be coming back. The Citadel reminded me about that; and I'm glad they did. Because there's no use you and I both going on making ourselves unhappy. The sooner I settle back into the way things used to be with me, the better; and the sooner you settle down out there and forget me, the better."

  He stared into darkness, hearing the words but absolutely refusing to believe them.

  "Eileen?" he said. "What did they do to you? What is this crazy non­sense you're talking? I've never turned back from anything in my life once I started after it. Do you think I'd turn back from you—of all things?"

  "Chaz, listen to me! You've got a chance there. They told me that much. I mean, more than just a chance to fit in on the Mass. If you can be useful to them, you can be one of those who go on to the new world, when it's found. It's not just their promise—that wouldn't mean anything. But they pointed out to me that if you were worthwhile, they'd need you on the new world. And that's true. Only you have to forget me, just as I'm going to forget you—"

  He could see nothing but the dark­ness. He could read nothing in her voice. But a furious suspicion was building to a certainty in his mind.

  "Eileen!" he snapped at her, sud­denly. "You're crying aren't you? Why? Why are you crying? What's wrong? Where are you?"

  Stiff with anger, he reached back into the Mass-force for strength, found it, and ripped at the darkness that hid her from him. The obscurity dissolved like dark mist, and he saw her. She was stumbling along a rough, grassy hillside with tears streaking her face. There was a fish­belly-white sky above her and a wind was plucking at her green jumpsuit and whipping her hair about her shoulders. All around her, the land was without buildings or any sign of life, including Tillicum. He thought he could even smell the raw, chill, haze-flavored air.

  "You're outside!" he exploded at her. "Why didn't you tell me? Was that what they meant by saying they'd turn you loose? Why didn't you say they'd put you out of the sterile areas to die of the Rot?"

  X

  She stopped, lifting her head and looking around her, bewildered.

  "Chaz?" she said, "Chaz, you aren't here, are you? What do you mean, I'm outside?"

  "I can see you."

  "You can . . . see me?"

  She stared around her. Her face was flushed; and her eyes were un­naturally bright. For a moment, she tried with one hand to capture her flying hair and hold it still against the back of her neck, but failed. Her hand fell limply to her side.

  "That's right," he said. "And now I know what they've done to you, do you think I'm going to leave you out­side to die? I'll come back there—"

  "Leave me alone!" she cried. "Just go away and leave me alone! I don't want you back here. I don't want you at all. I just want you to stay where you are and forget about me—is that too much to ask? I don't want you—I don't need you!"

  "What about the Rot?" he de­manded. "If you're outside—"

  "I'm not afraid of the Rot!" she ex­ploded furiously. "Didn't I tell you when you first brought that unsteril­ized piece of stone in that it wouldn't infect me? Witches are immune to the Rot!"

  "No one's immune to the Rot—"

  "Witches are. I was—until you made me love you and I lost my tal­ents. Now, if you'll just go away and leave me alone, I can stop loving you and be able to use my craft again. I'll be all right, then; and that's all I want. Why can't I make you under­stand that? That's all I want—you to go away and stay away. Go away." She screamed it at him. "GO AWAY!"

  The violence of her feelings ex­ploded in his mind, leaving him numb. The darkness flowed back; and his sight of her was lost, her voice was silent. He was alone again, emotionally slashed and stunned.

  Like a man slowly waking up, he came back to awareness of the cable car on the Mass. Jai was still sitting opposite him and there was enough reflected light around from the ca­bles and the masts for him to see the other's face within his airsuit helmet. Jai's features were slowly molding themselves into a frown of some­thing like decision, as they stared at Chaz. Plainly, the speedup Chaz had initiated was still making a differ­ence between his own perceived time and that of the Assistant Director; but that did not mean Jai was una­ware of what went on. Chaz stared back grimly.

  Eileen had cut him off, shut him out. Once again, as it had been al­ways, all through his life, he had been thrown back on his own.

  He could try again. He could make use of the Mass to force con­tact on Eileen. But what was the point? She was right, of course. He had caused her to lose her ability to use her paranormal talent. It did not matter that he had not done it delib­erately; or that her loss was psycho­logical, rather than real. The prac­tical results had been the same. Also, he had been responsible for every­thing that had happened to her since meeting him—including being exiled now to the unsterile areas, to rot and die.

  As far as that went, she was right about his situation. He could stay on the Mass and prove himself too valu­able for the Citadel people here to do without. It did not matter that the cartoon world of the Snails and the Mantis was closed to them. If he could fit in here . . . He woke sud­denly to a realization of the non­sense he was thinking.

  He was forgetting something he had told her about himself; that he had never in his life turned back from anything he had set out to pur­sue. It was a simple truth, with no particular courage or virtue in­volved. It was simply the way he was built—no gears for going into re­verse. Something in him could never allow him to back off once he had started in a direction; and that same something was not about to let him back off now from Eileen. He had fallen in love with her; and she was one of the things he was going to have, or die trying to get. Eileen, and a cure to the conflict of disgust and pity within him that had driven him to the Mass.

  So, there was no choice. His deci­sion was a foregone conclusion, he being the way he was. That being the case, the sooner he rescued Eileen from the outside, the better. He turned his attention back to the cable car and Jai.

  A droning noise was coming over the earphones and Jai's lips were slowly moving. The speedup affect­ing Chaz was evidently still in effect. He had time.

  He went back mentally into the Mass, leaving Jai behind. There must be, he thought, a way of using the Mass-force to move him physi­cally from the cable car to Earth. He had considered the chance of mak­ing an actual, physical transfer to the cartoon world, back when he had been talking to the Mantis, before the Mantis told him that all doors were closed. If there had been a way to project him physically to the car­toon world—and that sort of projec­tion had been behind the idea of the Mass from its beginning—it ought to be much simpler to project himself merely to his own world and Eileen.

  He examined the matter. It would be necessary to set up some kind of logic-chain that would lead to the conclusion he wanted. He considered the situation as it now stood, with him above the platform, Eileen on Earth, the Mass—inspiration sparked.

  "Project," he thought, was the wrong word to use. To think of projecting something was to think in terms of the physical universe; and whatever mechanism he would use could not be of the physical universe. In fact, by definition it probably should be at odds with physical real­ity and physical laws. Suppose, to begin with, he threw out the whole idea of physical movement from place to place.

  In that case, perhaps what he wanted to accomplish was not so much a projection of his physical body anywhere, as a conviction within himself about where he was. As if, once he had completely con­vinced himself that his body was on Earth, rather than here, then by the force of the Mass the conviction could become reality. Physically he would then be subject to the con­victions of his mind.

  All right, mo
vement was out. Dis­tance and time could therefore be discarded.

  Position could be ignored.

  Of course! The Mass itself was ac­tually independent of position. In one sense, naturally, it was here above the platform. But in the sense of the purpose for which it was being built, it would have to be capable of also being on another world light-years distant—like the cartoon world. If it could be on the cartoon world, why couldn't it be anywhere?

  Of course again, it was every­where. Hadn't the Mantis told him that it was back on Earth? The Man­tis might have meant more in saying that than was readily perceivable; but nonetheless, the statement by the Mantis had been that the Pritcher Mass was on Earth. If the Pritcher Mass was on Earth . . . Chaz hunted for an anchor for his logic-chain, and found it.

  Once again, of course. He had contacted the Mantis, the Snails and the cartoon world, when he was back on Earth. Therefore the Mass had to be there, as the Mantis said. That an­chored the logic-chain, then. The Mass, beyond dispute, was on Earth. He was in the Mass—therefore he was also on Earth, in principle, since the Mass had no physical limitations on position. The only discrepancy was a matter of conviction—his belief that the platform was surrounding him, rather than the land and sky of a hillside on Earth. He need only al­ter that conviction ...

  He tried. For a moment there was only darkness. Then he saw the hill­side, but Eileen was not on it. A heavy wave of urgency and fear broke over him, like surf over a man wading out into water where he can swim. He reached to the Mass-force for strength.

  And conviction . . . became . . . reality.

  He was there.

  He stood on the hillside, strangely insulated in his airsuit. Mechani­cally, he began to strip it off, and was assailed by the iciness of the wind. It had been late fall when he left Earth, and now winter was clearly on its way; although there was as yet no sign of snow—the dirty gray snow that would cover ground and vegeta­tion when the cloud cover, always overhead, opened up with precipi­tation.

  The chill was too strong. Under the airsuit, he had been wearing only the light coveralls of the summer-temperature Mass platform. He stopped removing his airsuit and pulled it back on again, all but the helmet, which he left lying on the ground. Redressed, he felt more comfortable. The airsuit was not built for warmth, and its gray, un­inflated, rubbery fabric bunched around him as he moved; but it stopped the wind.