R.W. III - The Dark Design

  "The second should be thrown out. It came from marijuana, not from myself. You see, I've smoked perhaps half a dozen marijuana cigarettes in my life. This was during one year, 1955, some time before the younger generation took up drugs. At that time, marijuana and hash were mostly confined to bohemian groups in the big cities. And to the blacks and Mexicans of the ghetto.

  "This particular incident took place, of all places, in Peoria, Illinois. My wife and I had met a couple from New York, Greenwich Village types . . . I'll explain what this means later . . . and they talked us into trying marijuana. It made me pretty uncomfortable, downright uneasy, to have the stuff around. I had visions of narcotics agents bursting in, arresting us, being in jail, the trial, the conviction, the penitentiary. The disgrace. And what would happen to our children?

  "But alcohol had dissolved my inhibitions, and I tried a joint, as it was called, among other things.

  "I had trouble getting the smoke into my lungs and holding it, since I had never even smoked tobacco though I was thirty-seven years old. But I did it, and nothing happened.

  "Later that evening, I picked up what was left of the joint and finished it. And this time I suddenly felt that the universe was composed of crystals dissolved in a solution.

  "But now I perceived a subtle shift. Suddenly, the crystals in the supersaturated solution were precipitated. And they were all in some kind of beautiful order, rank on rank, like angels drawn up in a parade.

  "However, there was no accompanying sense, as on that other occasion, that the universe was right, that I had a place in it, and that the place was right. That it could be no other way."

  "The third time?" Nur said.

  "I was fifty-seven then, the sole passenger in a hot-air balloon soaring over the cornfields of Eureka, Illinois. The pilot had just turned off the burner, and so there was no noise except from a flock of pheasants the roar of the burner had disturbed in a field.

  "The sun was setting. The bright summerlight was turning grey. I was floating as if on a magic carpet in a light breeze which I couldn't feel. You can light a candle in the open car in a strong wind, you know, and the flame will burn as steadily as if in an unventilated room.

  "And suddenly, without warning, I felt as if the sun had come back up over the horizon. Everything was bathed in a bright light in which I should have had to squint my eyes to see anything.

  "But I didn't. The light was coming from within. I was the flame, and the universe was receiving my light and my warmth.

  "In a second, maybe longer, the light disappeared. It did not fade away. It just vanished. But for another second the feeling that the world was right, that no matter what happened, to me or to anybody or to the universe, it would be good, that feeling lasted for a second.

  "The pilot noticed nothing. Apparently, I wasn't showing my feelings. And that was the last time I had any experience like that.''

  Nur said, "Apparently these mystical states had no influence on your behavior or your outlook?"

  "Did I become better because of them? No."

  Nur said, "The states you describe are akin to what we call tajalli. But your tajalli is a counterfeit. If it had resulted in a permanent state, by self-development in the right path, then it would have been a true tajalli. There are several forms of false or wasteful tajalli. You experienced one of these."

  "Does that mean," Frigate said, "that I am incapable of experiencing the true form?"

  "No. At least you felt some form of it."

  They fell silent for a while. Frisco, hidden under a pile of cloths, muttered something in his sleep.

  Suddenly, Frigate said, "Nur, for some time I've been wondering if you'd accept me as your disciple."

  "And why didn't you ask me?"

  "I was afraid of being rejected."

  There was another silence. Nur checked the altimeter and turned on the vernian for a minute. Pogaas shook aside his blankets and stood up. He lit a cigarette, the glow of his lighter throwing strange lights and shadows on his face. It looked like the head of a sacred hawk cut from black diorite by ancient Egyptians.

  "Well?" Frigate said.

  "You've always thought of yourself as a seeker after truth, haven't you?" Nur said.

  "Not a steady seeker. I've drifted too much, floated along like a balloon. Most of the time I've taken life as it was or seemed to be. Occasionally, I've made determined efforts to investigate and even practice this and that philosophy, discipline, or religion. But my enthusiasms would subside, and I'd forget about them. Well, not entirely. Sometimes an old enthusiasm would flare up, and I'd drive myself again toward the desired goal. Mostly, though, it's just been floating with the winds of laziness and indifference."

  "You become detached?"

  "I tried to be intellectually detached even when my emotions fired me up."

  "To achieve true detachment, you must be free from both emotion and intellect. It's evident that, though you pride yourself on a lack of preconceptions, you have them. If I did take you as a disciple, you'd have to put yourself absolutely under my control. No matter what I ask, You must do it at once. Wholeheartedly."

  Nur paused. "If I asked you to jump out of this car, would you do so?"

  "Hell, no!"

  "Nor would I do so. But what if I ask you to do something which is the intellectual or emotional equivalent of jumping out of the car? Something which you'd regard as intellectual or emotional suicide?"

  "I won't know until you ask me."

  "I wouldn't ask you until I thought you were ready. If indeed you ever will be."

  Pogaas had been looking out of a port. He grunted and then said, "There's a light out there! It's moving!"

  Frigate and el-Musafir joined him. Tex and Frisco, aroused by their excited voices, got up and stared sleepily out another port.

  A long shape, at about the same altitude as the balloon, was silhouetted against a bright stellar cloud.

  Frigate said, "It's a dirigible!",

  Of all the things they'd seen on The Riverworld, this was the strangest and most unexpected.

  "There're lights near its prow," Rider said.

  "It can't be from New Bohemia," Frigate said.

  "Then there is another place where metals have been found," Nur said.

  "Unless it's one They built!'' Farrington said. ,"It may not be an airship, it's just built like one."

  One of the lights near the nose of the vessel began blinking. After looking at it for a minute, Frigate said, "It's Morse code!"

  "What's it saying?" Rider said.

  "I don't know Morse code."

  "Then how do you know it's Morse?"

  "By the length of the pulses. Long and short."

  Nur left the port to return to the vernian. He shut it off, and now the only sound was the heavy breathing of the crew. They watched the great, sinister-looking shape turn and move directly toward them. The light continued blinking. Nur ignited the torch for about twenty seconds. When he turned it off, he started toward the port again. But he stopped suddenly, and he said sharply, "Don't anybody make a noise!"

  They turned to stare at him. He took a few steps and turned off the fan which sucked in carbon dioxide.

  Frisco said, "What're you doing that for?"

  Nur went swiftly to the vernian, saying, "I thought I heard a hissing!"

  He looked at Pogaas. "Put that cigarette out!"

  Nur bent down to place his ear against the connection of the inlet pipe to the cone inside the case.

  Pogaas dropped the cigarette and raised his foot to stamp it out.

  Chapter 69

  * * *

  Jill Gulbirra heard the report on the raid from Cyrano before the helicopter arrived in the hangar bay. She was appalled at the casualties and furious because the mission had even been considered. Part of her anger was at herself. Why hadn't she argued more firmly with Clemens?

  Yet. . . what could she have done? The laser was the only means possible to get into the tower. Clemens would not
release it unless the raid was carried out.

  After the copter landed, she ordered the airship taken up out of the Valley. It turned its nose southwest, heading for the Mark Twain. Cyrano went to sick bay to have his wounds bandaged, then reported to the control room. Jill got a more complete report from him, after which she radioed the boat.

  Clemens was not as happy as she had expected him to be.

  "So you think Rotten John is dead? But you're not one hundred percent sure?

  "Yes, I'm afraid so. But we did everything you asked, so I assume you'll give us the LB."

  LB was the code name for the laser.

  ''You can have the LB. The chopper can pick it up from the flight deck."

  The radar officer said, "UFO portside, sir. At approximately our altitude."

  Clemens must have heard her, since he said, "What's that? A UFO?"

  Jill ignored the voice. For a moment she thought the radar-scope was showing two objects. Then recognition came.

  "It's a balloon!"

  Clemens said "A balloon? Then it's not Them!"

  Cyrano said softly, "Perhaps it is another expedition to the tower. Our unknown colleagues?"

  Jill gave orders to turn a searchlight toward it and use it as a Morse code transmitter.

  "This is the airship Parseval. This is the airship Parseval. Identify yourself. Identify yourself."

  She had also told the radio operator to send the same message. There was no reply by wireless or light.

  She spoke to Nikitin. "Head directly for the balloon. We'll try to get a look at it close up."

  "Jes, kapitano."

  The Russian, however, started, and he pointed at a blinking red light on the control panel.

  "The hangar-bay hatch! It's opening!"

  The first officer sprang to the intercom. "Hangar bay! Hangar bay! Coppename here! Why are you opening the hatch?"

  There was no answer.

  Jill pressed the general-alarm button. Sirens began whooping throughout the ship.

  "This is the captain! This is the captain! Central crew's quarters! Central crew's quarters!"

  The voice of Katamura, an electronics officer, said, "Yes, Captain! I read you!"

  "Get men down to the hangar bay fast. I think Officer Thorn has escaped!"

  Cyrano said, "Do you really think it's he?"

  "I don't know, but it seems likely. Unless . . . someone else . . ."

  She called sick bay. No answer.

  "It's Thorn! Damn! Why didn't I install a belly-hatch override switch?"

  In rapid sequence, she ordered two groups to run to the hangar bay and one to the ship's hospital.

  "But, Jill," Cyrano said, "how could he escape? He has not recovered from his wounds, he is guarded by four men, he is shackled to the bed, the door is locked, and the two men inside don't have the key!"

  "He's no ordinary man! I should have chained his hands, too! But it seemed unnecessarily cruel!"

  "Perhaps the helicopter was not refueled?"

  "If it wasn't, Szentes was neglecting his duty. No chance of that!"

  "The hatch is full-open now," Nikitin said.

  Graves' voice came over the intercom. "Jill! Thorn . . ."

  "How'd he get out?" Jill snapped.

  "I'm not sure of the details. I was sitting in my office, sampling some of the medical alcohol. All of a sudden I heard a hell of a brouhaha. Shouts, somebody crashing into something. I got up, but there was Thorn at the door. A length of broken chain was trailing from his ankle shackle. He must have broken the links with his bare hands!

  "He charged on in, shoving me to one side so hard I was knocked against the wall. For a minute I was stunned, I couldn't even stand up. He ripped the intercom off the bulkhead with his hands! His bare hands! I tried to get up, but I couldn't. He tied my hands behind me and my ankles together with belts he'd taken from the two guards. He could have killed me easily enough, snapped my neck. Man, I still hurt where he grabbed me. But he left me alive, I'll say that for him.

  "I finally got loose and staggered out to the ward. All four guards were on the floor. Two are still alive but badly hurt. The intercoms were all wrecked. The door was locked, and the pistols and knives of the outside guards were gone. I'd still be there if I wasn't so handy at picking locks and the lock wasn't pickable. Then I ran to the nearest bulkhead phone . . ."

  "How long ago was it that he broke loose?"

  "Twenty-five minutes ago."

  "Twenty-five?"

  She was dismayed. What had Thorn been doing in all that time?

  "Take care of those men," she said and switched him off.

  "He must have had a transmitter hidden somehow, somewhere,'' she said to Cyrano.

  "But how do you know that?"

  "I can't be sure. What else would take so much of his time? Nikitin, take her down to ground level! As fast as possible!"

  Katamura's voice came over the intercom.

  "Captain, the chopper's gone."

  Cyrano swore in French.

  Nikitin flipped on the general address and informed the crew that the ship would be going into dangerous maneuver. All personnel should make themselves secure.

  "Forty-five degrees, Nikitin," Jill said. "Full speed."

  The radar operator reported that the helicopter was on his scope. It was going south and downward at a maximum velocity at a forty-five degree angle to the horizontal.

  By then, the deck of the control room was tilted downward. The others hastened to strap themselves into chairs bolted to the deck. Jill took a seat by Nikitin. She would like to have taken over the pilot's chair, but even now protocol forbade that. However, it did not matter that she was not at the controls. The wild Russian would get the dirigible down as swiftly as she could. Her job would be to make sure that he did not overdo it.

  "If Thorn has a transmitter," Cyrano said, "he can use it now. We'll never make it."

  Though he was pale and wide-eyed, he smiled at her.

  Jill looked from Cyrano to the control panel indicators. The ship was parallel to the Valley, so there was no problem about clearing the mountain tops. The Valley looked narrow, but it was rapidly broadening. There were some lights down there, bonfires around which would be sentinels or late-night revellers. The rain clouds had dissipated swiftly, as they almost always did. The star-packed skies cast a pale light into the space between the two mountains. Was anybody down there looking up at them? If so, they must wonder what this huge object was and why it was coming down so swiftly.

  Not that it was going fast enough to suit her.

  Cyrano was right. If Thorn did intend to set off a bomb, he would be doing it now. Unless . . . unless he would be willing to wait until the ship had landed. After all, he had spared Graves, and he could have killed the other two guards.

  Keeping an eye on the panel radar-scopes, she called the hangar bay.

  Szentes answered.

  "We were all in our quarters, "he said. "There's no guard posted in the bay."

  "I know," she said. "Just tell me . . . quickly . . . what happened?"

  "Thorn stuck his head in the door. He pointed a pistol at us. Then he ripped off the intercom, and he told us that he was going to close the door. He said he had a bomb rigged to explode if the door was opened. Then he shut it. We didn't know if we should believe him, but no one was willing to find out if he was lying or not. Then Officer Katamura opened the door. There wasn't any bomb; Thorn had lied. I'm sorry, Captain."

  "You did what you should have done."

  She told the radio operator to transmit their situation to the Mark Twain.

  At 915 meters, a little over 3000 feet, she ordered Nikitin to tilt the propellers to give the ship an upward thrust. Also, to raise the nose by three degrees. The inertia would keep them diving despite the braking effect of the propellers. In a minute she would order the nose raised by ten degrees. This would flatten out the dive even more.

  What to do when the ship straightened out at about 915 meters or s
omewhat over 3000 feet? If it leveled at that altitude. She was really cutting it close, though she knew the capabilities of the Parseval almost as well as she knew hers.

  Should she land the ship? There was no way to moor it, and the hydrogen would have to be valved off so that it would not rise as the crew abandoned it. Otherwise, some of the men would not get off in time, and they would be carried away.

  But what if Thorn had no transmitter, what if there was no bomb? The airship would be lost for no reason.

  "Too fast! Too fast!" Nikitin said.

  Jill was already leaning forward to set the ballast switch for a discharge of 1000 kilograms of water. She punched the button, and a few seconds later the ship rose abruptly.

  "Sorry, Nikitin," .she murmured. "There wasn't any time to waste."

  Radar indicated that the helicopter was hovering north of them at 300 meters altitude. Was Thorn waiting to see what they would do? If so, he did not intend to set off the bomb if they crash-landed or abandoned the ship.

  What was she to do? The thought of either alternative made her grind her teeth. She could not bear the idea of wrecking or losing this beauty. The last airship.

  The safety of the crew, however, had to come first.

  "One hundred and fifty-two meters altitude," Nikitin said.

  The propellers were turned fully upward and biting into the air at full speed. The mountains loomed on both sides; The River sparkled in starlight on the port; the plains ran smoothly beneath them.

  There were dwellings below, frail bamboo structures filled with people, most of whom would be sleeping. If the dirigible landed on the plain, it would crush hundreds. If it caught fire, it would burn many more.

  Jill ordered Nikitin to steer it over The River.

  What to do?

  Of the people along The River who had to stay awake or who wanted to, a few had looked into the white-and-black-spangled sky. These saw two silhouetted objects, one much larger than the other. The smaller one was composed of two spheres, one below the other, the larger of the spheres above the other. The greater object was long and shaped like a fat cigar.

  They were moving toward each other, the smaller emitting a faint light from the lower sphere, the other sending out bright beams. One of these beams began to go on and off in measured lengths of time.