THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY Read online

  XIII

  Extract from an address to the opening session of the British Society, June 1st, 1974: “When the sum total of knowledge about the universe is finally collated into one grandiose all-embracing Encyclopaedia—and incidentally when the human race has lost its reason for continuing to exist (loud applause)—then the history of scientific endeavour will probably be divided into three sections…

  “The first naturally, will cover the period in which men—having learned they were capable of formulating ideals—attempted to construct idealised schemes for the cosmos. We might instance the Ptolemaic version of the Solar System… The second would deal with the growth of such disciples as relativity, and man’s attempt to comprehend the actual workings of the universe…

  “The third would be the period whose opening date may well be some time in this year of 1974! It would be the period in which man admitted that the universe’s rules obey laws which to us must inevitably appear as capricious as the untrammelled whim of a human being…”

  Magwareet carried his unaccustomed costume off with an air of distinction, but Red found it uncomfortable and awkward. He fidgeted under the stern gaze of the landlord.

  “So yuh meester Komm from Muscovy?” the fat man said. “An’ yussef?”

  “I’ve spent a long time there,” said Red carefully. The landlord’s knowledge of English was scanty enough, and his seventeenth-century accent—though unexpectedly close to some dialects of twentieth-century American—added to the problem. “My master is a student of the philosophical art which men call alchemy.”

  “Dis gold—ist alchemic?” The landlord rapped one of the thalers they had given him in payment for their accommodation. Red shook his head.

  “Alchemical gold,” he improvised, “is mystical and not to be used in trade.”

  The landlord looked relieved, but Red noticed that he put their payment in a separate bag from the rest of the money in his coffer. Turning back to them, he said, “An’ yuh vant wat?”

  “My master wishes to meet and speak of alchemic matters with the learned men of this city.”

  “Den go see Meester Porelius. Iss de assay-meester of de kinglich court. EE’ull zendt my apprentist to guide.”

  He went out, and Red looked at Magwareet. “Are you getting what he says?” he asked.

  Magwareet nodded. “What was the office of this man he wants to send us to, though?”

  “Assay-master—if I heard him right. That means he’s an inspector of currency, and probably an expert in the chemistry of metals. I think we’ve struck lucky first time.”

  He glanced down at himself ruefully. “I’m supposed to be used to this kind of costume, but you, who are supposed to come from a barbarian country, look much more at home in it!”

  There was a knock at the door, and a small boy put his head in. “This will be our guide,” Red commented—they were talking Speech, chancing anyone meeting them who knew what Russian actually sounded like. “Shall we go right away?”

  “The less time we waste the better.” said Magwareet, with a grave expression befitting an adept in the pyrotechnian art. “Lead the way, little one!”

  They followed the boy out into the narrow crowded streets which they had already traversed on their way into the town. They had managed to obtain samples of clothing and money while invisible, and having returned to the ship had duplicated them. Properly equipped, they had set out. But two previous days had gone already, and they were only beginning their task.

  Passing men laden with goods, men selling fresh water from barrels, itinerant vendors of needles, distinguished citizens with attendants, rough artisans, slatternly women, they were predominantly conscious of one thing—a stink which was almost nauseating. Magwareet suffered even worse than Red. The reason was perfectly plain, of course—from upper storey windows maidservants were casually tossing night slops into the streets, horses padded through the muddy pools leaving the inevitable signs of their passage, and the inhabitants themselves were blithely and unselfconsciously unaware of the values of public sanitation. The most resplendently dressed people they met were scratching themselves for lice.

  “This is a civilised country?” said Magwareet meaningly as they paused to let a couple of packhorses precede them down a tiny alleyway, and Red shrugged.

  “I see what you mean,” he agreed. “Unpromising, isn’t it?”

  The house before which they finally halted was plainly that of a well-to-do citizen, but—like the majority of those in the town—owing to infirm foundations it was very slightly, but noticeably, on the skew. Their little guide, brushing his hair back with a quick gesture, stretched on tip-toe and raised the knocker.

  A pretty young maidservant opened to them, and on hearing their errand, stood back smiling to let them enter. They hesitated on the threshold because of the state of their feet, but there were already muddy marks on the wood floor, and Red remembered that he had heard somewhere of a complaint about the Dutch custom of never wiping one’s feet.

  They followed the maid into a large, well-furnished room, where she invited them to sit down. Red, after some difficulty—but he was getting used to Dutch by now—discovered that Meester Porelius was out at the moment on some mission, but was due back shortly.

  He relayed this to Magwareet. “He’s gone to see a goldsmith called Brechtel—as far as I can gather, about some alchemical business. So it seems we’re really in luck.”

  They had not long to wait. Meester Porelius came in in less than ten minutes, with a companion, talking at the top of his voice. Red listened carefully, but caught no more than that something was fantastic and incredible.

  Within a short while Porelius himself entered and, bowing to them, invited them to state their business.

  “My master,” said Red, pleased to find that Porelius spoke good English, “is a learned man of Muscovy, by name Andreev, and we desire to meet and discuss matters concerning the pyrotechnian art and mystery—”

  Porelius expanded like a flower in the sun, and called for wine to be brought. “Then you will be delighted and amazed to learn that in this very city at the moment is the most remarkable adept in that art who ever existed!”

  “Really?” said Red, glancing at Magwareet, who was preserving his dignity with difficulty.

  “Yes, indeed!” exclaimed Porelius. “I have myself been at the silversmith’s this morning, submitting to the test of fire some alchemic gold which was transmuted by Meester Helvetius, physician to the Royal Court of Orange, using some of the Philosopher’s Stone which was given to him as a token by a certain Meester Elias some few days ago.”

  “And the gold stood the test?”

  “Most surely. More than that, I saw that it itself had some of the wonderful virtue of the Medicine used on it. For in my presence, gentlemen, I saw it transmute a full dram of silver into gold.”

  Porelius sat back with a self-satisfied air, and the maid poured wine and brought it to them. Red was so startled that at first he hardly noticed the girl waiting at his side.

  “And this—Meester Elias who has the Stone,” he said at length. “What manner of man is he?”

  “That I cannot fairly say,” admitted Porelius, “for I myself have not seen him. But I have it from Meester Helvetius that he is a small man, beardless, with black hair, and that he is said to be founder of brass who was taught the Art by an outlandish friend.”

  Red seized the chance with both hands. “This outlandish friend—perchance he came from Muscovy?”

  “It is possible. Know you this Elias?”

  “Not certainly. But a fellow adept of my master has travelled to this part of Europe before, and has recounted that he met one pupil especially apt to learn. Now that I bethink me of it, his name might full well have been Elias. If it is indeed the same, my master would much desire to have discourse with him.”

  Porelius chuckled, and held out his mug for more wine. “He is not alone! I too crave that, as does everyone who witnessed the transformatio
n that took place this morning. We have already criers out to know where he lodges, but no man knows him.”

  Red’s heart sank, but he was puzzled beyond measure to know what sort of person this mysterious Elias might be. If he was indeed able to transmute metals, he would be an incredibly valuable contact.

  There was the chance of trickery, naturally—Red had heard of the astute charlatans who duped whole groups of people with pretended transmutations—but Porelius struck him as a level-headed type, and certainly, if he was the equivalent of Master of the Mint, he could not be deceived in the testing of precious metal.

  Fired by his new audience, Porelius continued to enlarge on what he had seen, and the idea in Red’s mind grew to a certainty. Elias was their man.

  But how to find him?

  The best they could do was to extract a promise that Porelius would notify them if anyone found Elias; meantime, he promised to introduce them to such experimenters in the Art as there were at The Hague. With that, they departed.

  Then there began a dreary round of meetings with half-sensible, half-bemused mystics and serious but misguided experimenters. Helvetius himself they met, and heard his story—it convinced them completely that Elias was the person they were after. No one else had even the remotest chance of being useful to them. They simply lacked the necessary scientific discipline; their work was confused and muddled with so much esoteric jargon that both sides concluded that their new acquaintances were incompetent.

  And still there was no sign of Elias.

  Red began to doubt that such a person existed, but Magwareet, oddly enough, was perfectly ready to accept both his ability and his actual transmutation.

  “It is entirely possible to transmute metals chemically,” was the upsetting remark he made when Red taxed him. “I don’t see why you’re so distrustful!”

  “Well, then—how, for goodness sake?”

  “The nearest analogy is by saying it’s a biological process,” frowned Magwareet. “Certain atomic patterns have the property of reduplicating themselves under the right conditions, and it doesn’t take the energy of a cyclotron or one of those other early nuclear devices to force the reaction. But it took the combined resources of most of Centre’s computers to determine those conditions, and the one thing that does bother me is whether anyone would really have been silly enough to set them up by accident!”

  Slightly heartened, Red pursued his search.

  They had been there so long, that they were almost used to the smell when, one morning, as they were setting off to meet yet another of these experimenters who might help them, they passed a small man in a dark fustian coat, who walked along the muddy road unattended and with downcast eyes. Magwareet looked at him, looked away, and then turned back with most undignified haste.

  “Wymarin!” he shouted, and the little man halted and came back with all the self-possession in the world.

  “Thank goodness you showed up,” he said mildly. “I thought I was going to have found nuclear physics from the bottom up in order to get home.” He looked at them inquiringly. “You don’t seem very surprised to see me, I must say.”

  Red waited long enough to make sure he had his breath back, and then spoke equally mildly. “I suppose you’re Elias,” he said disgustedly.

  “Of course. Where’s the ship? I must get back—I’ve got something very important to tell Artesha.”

  XIV

  “Am I my brother’s keeper?”—Cain, the brother of Abel whom he slew…

  “No man is an island!”—John Donne, cleric, sensualist and master of the English language…

  One might think that Jung’s simile comparing individual consciousness to islands poking up through the surface of a sea, contradicted that, but nonetheless the islands were indivisibly connected through the bed of the ocean.

  And yet somewhere under that was knowledge. Which of these was neighbour to him that fell among thieves?

  Chantal noted that Red still limped, automatically, in moments of stress as they entered the miraculous door leading to any part of Centre’s complex of ships. And it was a moment of stress, truly—their first meeting with Artesha had been no more than one in a long series of incredible happenings, but now they knew the nature of that—ex-woman? The phrase rang suspiciously true—they felt awe.

  And yet there was nothing beyond the door except that same small room, warm and softly lit. In it, Chantal fancied she could sense presence.

  There were chairs waiting. Magwareet took one immediately and spoke up. “Artesha!”

  “I’m listening,” said the detached mechanical voice.

  “I’ll give you a brief run-down on exactly what we’ve done, first of all. Then Wymarin should be along—he went straight away to give the details of his last experiment to Burma. And Tesper brought up something in connection with one of the barbarians which I think is very important.”

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  It took Magwareet less than five minutes to give a complete account of their trip, and at the end of it Artesha gave a satisfied sound.

  “We had a fantastic stroke of luck—finding Wymarin the way we did,” ventured Red.

  “I wonder,” said Artesha thoughtfully. “Wymarin doesn’t think so.”

  “What?” The three of them—Red, Chantal and Magwareet—hunched forward as if jerked on strings.

  “Wymarin—I’m monitoring his report to Burma—believes that he succeeded in getting through to the Being, and although the reflex he stimulated did toss him off into time the Being did its best to control the movement and make certain he survived.”

  They digested that in silence for a moment. Then Magwareet heaved a huge sigh. “Is it true?” he asked.

  “I’ll leave that to Burma to settle for the time being. I’ve told him that as soon as Wymarin has given him the information required, he’s to try and repeat the experiment with a little less force. I’m ordering out as many anchor teams as we can spare to help hold down the temporal surge if he stimulates one. Here comes Wymarin now.”

  The door slid aside and admitted not only the little dark-haired man whose alchemical achievements had amazed seventeenth-century Holland, but also Tesper. They greeted Artesha, and sat down.

  “Well, Burma is going ahead,” Wymarin informed them. “We can expect results in one form or another within a few hours.

  “Briefly, what I did was this. I’ve been struggling for more than ten years now to deduce by pure logic what an intelligent creature existing in four dimensions would recognise as a significant pattern. I had a great deal of help from Kepthin’s team, but the one which seems to have been successful was entirely my own idea.

  “So I set up a wave-pattern which was symmetrical in four dimensions, and then modulated it in accordance with a number system derived from the co-ordinates of the world lines of the major planets. We already knew that the Being could detect radiant energy—witness the way it keeps away from the sun. I think, though, that I did it too powerfully—the shock actually harmed and pained the Being. But I am absolutely certain it recognised conscious intention behind what I did, and moreover knew that I, not the rest of my team, was responsible. So it looked after me.”

  He sat back looking pleased with himself.

  “There’s something fundamentally wrong with your ideas,” said Red suddenly, looking astonished at his own temerity. Magwareet and Wymarin glanced at him, startled.

  “Excellent,” said Artesha. “Go on, Red—what makes you so sure?”

  “Well… Put it this way. I know how hard it is to get across even to another human being a meaningful statement, even in terms of language. I found that back in my own time—I knew what I was trying to convey when I modelled a figure or statuette, but a good half the time people misunderstood what I was trying to indicate.” He was warming to the thesis.

  “I just can’t see that you could get across to a creature whose entire existence has nothing in common with ours, anything based on—for example,—number, whic
h is a product of our idea of time-flow. One precedes two, two precedes three, and so on—”

  “No, you’re wrong there,” Artesha broke in. “Wymarin’s mathematics is purely non-sequential. But I think your basic point is perfectly valid.

  “Wymarin, we’re beginning to break down the psychology of the specimen of the Enemy that we caught. Our only explanation of how he managed to penetrate our defences is that the Being is actually used by them. It may even be a weapon that they are only gradually coming to control. I want you to go down and see Kepthin and find out from him if the psychological pattern he is constructing agrees in any important features with the one you postulate for the Being. If it is—”

  “If it is,” said Magwareet flatly, “we’ve got to lick the two together, or we’re licked ourselves.”

  Looking thoroughly upset, Wymarin nodded and went out.

  “How long do you think it’ll take him to be doing useful work again after the break-up of his team?” asked Magwareet. “And have they recovered any more of the personnel?”

  “No,” said Artesha thoughtfully. “But I think he’ll readapt quickly. He’s collaborated with Kepthin before.”

  “What news is there of the fighting?” was Magwareet’s next question.

  “We’re still pulling back. We took an Enemy fleet clear out of the sky—fifty-five ships—when they were pushing towards Tau Ceti. But I think we’re going to have to evacuate there.”

  “That’s horribly close to home,” said Magwareet slowly.

  “Much too close. Magwareet, I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t see a way out. We could run, but there’s nowhere to run to—the Enemy controls space in all directions away from the Solar System. And every time we pull back, we have fewer resources to draw on, less space to manoeuvre—” Artesha, for the first time Magwareet could recall, sounded as completely human as she had been before she so nearly died.