Breakthrough, p.18
Breakthrough, page 18
We gazed at each other like a couple of assassins who have just heard that the archduke is about to pass by. ‘It could make sense,’ I murmured. ‘Yes, it could. Do you remember how we couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let me say I was in love with her—how her other self wouldn’t permit it?’
‘You’re interesting me, Jimmy.’
‘Well, what good would a lever be unless it was separate from its fulcrum? I mean if they were one and the same thing they’d cancel out, wouldn’t they? The machine wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work.’
‘You’re right,’ he said slowly. ‘It couldn’t work. Goddamit, Jimmy, I’ve a hunch we really are on to something.’ He whistled. ‘A Time-lever searching for its own fulcrum. It’s fantastic. But why should it need to?’
‘Maybe something went wrong somewhere,’ I said. ‘Yes! That’s it! The dream we both had! I didn’t go through with it, but Rachel did. My arm—’
‘Your arm!’ he cried, grabbing hold of my sleeve in his excitement. ’That’s it, Jimmy! Your arm—Haalar’s arm! That’s why she couldn’t find you—why you’re here talking to me now, maybe, instead of lying there beside her! They lost you, boy! Old Archimedes lost his fulcrum because Haalar lost his nerve! God knows how long they’ve been searching down the centuries to find you. Thousands of years? Millions? Who are you? Where do you come from? What are you here for?’
‘Hey, steady on!’ I said. ‘I’m here because Rachel’s here, and for no other reason. As soon as you’ve got her back on her feet again, we’re off.’
Dumps darted me a quick, sharp look and then glanced away over to the comer where Peter was waiting.
’That is quite clear, isn’t it?’ I said firmly.
He nodded abstractedly. ‘Why, sure. Sure it is.’
‘You don’t sound sure.’
He stroked the flank of the torus and frowned.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘when are we going to start?’
He screwed up the tap in the coiled pipe that lapped the machine. ‘Jimmy,’ he said slowly, ‘has it occurred to you that you might be in something of a fix?’
‘You’re telling me!’ I cried. ‘I’m not just trying to kid myself I’m in love with Rachel! I really am! ’
‘I don’t mean that exactly,’ he said, ’though obviously it’s extremely important. No, what I was getting at was the problem facing old Archimedes. What’s he going to do when he finds he’s finished with his lever?’
I gulped. ‘But, Dumps, that’s only an hypothesis.’
’True,’ he admitted, ‘but you can’t deny it’s one that seems to fit an awful lot of the facts.’
I gaped at him. ‘Are you trying to tell me that—well, that she may never come round?’
’Oh, no,’ he said uneasily, ‘I’m pretty sure she’ll come round all right. The question is—where!’
Of all the shocks I had received since I’d known Dumps there’s no doubt ‘at all in my mind that that one word outweighed the rest several times over. I heard myself echo it incredulously in a squeaky falsetto.
He nodded sombrely. ‘How much has Rachel ever told you about herself, Jimmy?’
‘Well, not much,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ve never really asked her.’
‘You knew she was an orphan though.’
‘Yes, I know that. She lives with an aunt or something.’ ’Adoptive parents actually. I went down to Norwich and met them.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘Well, no, there didn’t seem any point at the time. I happened to be in Cambridge, so I took the opportunity to pop over.’
‘Well?’
‘Rachel’s a foundling.’
‘I didn’t know,’ I said.
‘But not just an ordinary one, Jimmy. She wasn’t “found” until she was ten years old! ’
‘What?’
‘It’s the truth. There’s a big heath just outside the city—Mousehold or some such name. Rachel was found there one morning in August ’55, just wandering around.’
‘Are you making this up, Dumps?’
He shook his head. ‘What’s more she was as naked as the day she was born—that is, if she ever was.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘She didn’t know who she was, where she was or how she’d got there. As far as the past was concerned, her mind was a complete blank. Yet she could speak fluent English and apparently write it too. She was adopted by the Bernsteins .—the people who’d found her—and brought up as one of the family. She made friends easily, was extremely affectionate and, as we know, developed into a beauty. But as far as any bona fide antecedents go—blank.’
‘Dumps, are you trying to tell me she dropped out of the sky or something?’
‘All I’m doing, Jimmy, is giving you the facts as I had them. And I can assure you they are facts.’
‘But why are you giving them to me now?’
‘Because they fit in somewhere, and we’ve got to find out where.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll buy it. What’s your explanation?’
‘I haven’t got one yet,’ he replied, ‘But don’t you see, Jimmy, it could fit the hypothesis?’
‘I’m damned if I do,’ I retorted. ‘How could it?’
‘Well, assuming there is this crazy time-lever stretching back into God knows what dim and distant past, then each passing century is going to make it a little more difficult to control. Hell, Jimmy, by now its temporal energy alone must be virtually incalculable I There it is, swinging back and forth through the ether, combing for its lost fulcrum. Maybe it comes to rest for a while here and there—perhaps in the early nineteenth-century, where it found Martin and Keats. Wherever it comes to rest it draws to itself those people who have some strange affinity with it. But all the time it is searching for its one true fulcrum, the only one which can serve its ordained purpose and—who knows?— even grant it its release.’
‘Its release?’ I echoed faintly.
‘Sure. What else could you call it? Anyway, finally, either by accident or by some design altogether beyond the bounds of human comprehension, it eventually comes to rest in our own day and age. Once again it sets out on its eternal search, but this time—eureka! it finds what it has been seeking. At once the true power of its fantastic mechanism becomes manifest. The laws of chance are knocked sideways not once but half a dozen times, until at last a faint suspicion of what’s going on registers on the one person who is capable of grasping something of its true significance.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, Jimmy. Me. I alone had access to the technical resources necessary to restrain the lever, to position the fulcrum and—and this is surely a vital point—to siphon off enough of the incredible accumulation of psychic energy and so prevent the whole works going up in smoke. I might even go so far as to say I am the only person capable of conceiving, however dimly, something of the possible purpose behind it all. If I’m reading this thing right, I, too, am a vital part of the scheme of things, though exactly what part I have yet to discover.’
‘And what is the “possible purpose” then?’
He shrugged. ‘My guess is Rachel’s a messenger of some kind. But what kind of messenger and who sent her, only she can tell us.’
’That’s all right as far as it goes,’ I said, ‘but what’s to prevent me from walking out of that door this very minute and driving back to Wales? Wouldn’t that make your Grand Design look a bit silly?’
‘It certainly would,’ he agreed, ‘if you could do it. I’ve no means of knowing, of course, but I suspect we three are chained together pretty tightly by now. Besides I believe you’re in love with Rachel.’
I sighed. ‘But if you meant what you said about her being jerked off the face of the earth it looks as if I’m bound to lose her, anyway.’
’That’s just one possibility among a thousand, Jimmy. Nothing’s bound to happen. Oddly enough I’ve got a hunch that old Archimedes—whoever he is or was—might well be a pretty benevolent guy. Admittedly that’s just a hunch, but recently I’ve come around to trusting my hunches a great deal more than I trust my I.Q.’
‘Do you think this is the first time I’ve met Rachel?’ I asked.
‘Do you think it is?’ he countered.
‘No, I don’t. We’ve known each other before somewhere.
I’m sure of it, Dumps. Maybe this sort of thing has happened already.’
‘Maybe it has, but I kind of doubt it. If it had, why are you here now?’
’Then you don’t really think she’ll be carted off into the past or the future or something equally crazy?’
‘It makes much better sense to me to believe you two are the future,’ he replied with a smile. ‘In which case we might as well proceed as planned.’
‘Amen to that,’ I muttered. ‘But God, Dumps, I pray that hunch of yours is right.’
TWENTY-FIVE
During the next hour we reached back farther and farther into the stream of Rachel’s memories of her immediate past, dipping haphazard into the years, until at last we arrived at the source itself. There I discovered that, so far as her own powers of total recall could verify it, Dumps’ extraordinary story of her initial appearance was indeed true. Her visual memories ceased abruptly at that very instant when they might have told us so much that we wanted to know. The only clue to aid us came from Peter’s dials, which at the moment of blackout registered a reading equalled only by the previous crisis. Since, as Dumps pointed out, this was ‘a genuinely retrospective solo manifestation’, it seemed reasonable to assume that the phenomena surrounding her unlikely advent had been absolutely phenomenal.
Dumps did not appear particularly depressed by our failure, in fact he seemed almost to relish it. ‘Well, now,’ he said, patting Rachel’s inert knee, ’that’s disposed of the first layer of our onion. This is where the serious work begins. O.K., Peter, go ahead and sector P.i.’ He then turned chattily to me. ‘After our little mishap with Lambert we took the precaution of subdividing the pineal area into ten separate zones: that way we find we obtain a fair measure of control over the degree of energy release. Incidentally, Jimmy, this is the first time I’ve come across a subject without a single archetypal trace. Usually by the time you’re back to the age of ten they’re becoming pretty obvious, but this kid’s as clear as ice water right the way through. Makes you wonder who her parents were, doesn’t it?’
‘You can say that again,’ I grunted, watching the phantom smoke rings beginning their already familiar hypnotic drifting through the screen. ‘How long have we got before that drug wears off?’
‘A couple of hours or so.’
‘And what happens then?’
‘She’ll come round I guess—if she’s ready to.’
‘Will she be?’
’That depends.’
‘On whether she’s dispensable you mean?’
’On whether she’s told us what she’s come to tell us. I’d say.’
‘And when she has?’ I persisted.
Peter said, ‘Nothing at all on P.i, by the look of it.’
‘Neutralize it and move on round,’ said Dumps. ‘We’re bound to strike something sooner or later.’
‘How will we know if she’s dispensable, Dumps?’
‘I wish I could be sure, Jimmy.’
’Then you really think there is a chance she might—well, simply vanish into thin air?’
’As I said before, we can’t ignore the possibility. After all, the indications are that that’s where she appeared from in the first place. But it is only a possibility.’
I heard a kind of singing at the back of my skull. ‘Dumps,’ I muttered, ‘I can’t go through with it.’
Peter said, ‘Complete blank on P.*.’
‘Keep on trying,’ Dumps told him. ‘My guess is that 4, 5 and 6 are what we’re looking for.’
‘I mean it, Dumps,’ I said. ‘I can’t do it! ’
’O.K., Jimmy,’ he said. ‘I can’t make you.’
I released Rachel’s hand and slowly pushed back my chair. Dumps took out his pipe, blew through it and began to fill it. Peter glanced across at me and then immediately returned his attention to his controls. As I stood up, the reserves of energy which had sustained me through the long night’s journey and right up till this moment suddenly seemed to drain out at my toes. I had to grip the chair back to keep myself upright. My knees trembled. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered.
Dumps struck a match. By its flare I saw him watching me with a kind of sympathetic curiosity. ‘Christ!’ I exclaimed bitterly. ‘Can’t you stop seeing us both as just another experiment? She’s a person, a real, live person, not some bloody psychic super freak!’
He blew out the match and dropped it into the tin. ‘What are you going to do, Jimmy?’
‘Phone for an ambulance and get her to a hospital.’
Peter said quiedy, ’There’s something here on 4.’
‘Hold it, Pete. Listen, Jimmy. I swear you’ll lose her if you do. I know’
‘I’ll lose her!’ I exploded. ‘And what the hell are you doing?’ And with that I swung round and stumbled towards the door.
‘Wait, Haalar!’
I’m not even sure if I actually heard the command or if it was just there in my mind. What I do know is that it was something I could no more have disobeyed than I could have willed my own heart to stop beating. I simply stopped, with my arms hanging limply at my sides, waiting for the next order, and I heard Dumps call out sharply, ‘What’s up, old son?’
I could neither answer nor move. It was exactly as if I were in the grip of some strange paralytic spell. I heard Peter say, ‘Number 4’s gone completely berserk!’ Dumps’ arm fell across my shoulder, and I heard his worried question, ‘Jimmy, are you all right?’
Then the ancient voice of supreme authority was again booming into my mind, ‘Haalar, you have nothing to fear ’ A voice that was of me and yet was not my voice cried out passionately, ‘Liar! Breaker of solemn promises! Who told me I would meet her in Los? Who sent Solan and Thostris to hunt me like a mad dog through the ruins of Rinam? Speak, Kroton! Liar! Tell me this, and then, if you can, tell me that I have nothing to fear!’
‘Haalar, you wrong me,’ came the voice, now as sad as the sea itself and troubled through all its sounding depths. ’The Sky Children are no more. Rinam and Los are buried beneath the sands of Time. Araaran and you alone remain. I speak the truth, Haalar. You and she are the last of the Sky Children.’
I felt Haalar’s despair run like a deep shiver through the fissures of my soul even as he cried out, ‘It is not true! Thostris swore to me that you had betrayed us! I held him by the throat there before the altar of Rinam until he swore by Solan’s blood! Do you tell me he lied even then?’
‘He lied, Haalar, he lied to prevent your return to Los ’
4O smooth tongued Kroton’ came the retort, though I could feel the numbing chill of conviction beginning to creep like frost through Haalar’s defiance, ’O subtle one, 1 did return to Los and I learnt that he had not lied. Araaran was not there to meet me. Where was she, Kroton?’
4She had already been there, Haalar. Thostris knew she would obey me, but he also knew that you, Haalar, were not bound by Araaran’s vows. When he and Solan failed to trap you in Rinam he realized that his only hope lay in delaying your return to Los. He risked death to do it, and he succeeded. Chance alone came to our aid then, for in the very act of leaping from the altar your arm brushed through the„ flame. This, little though it was, has proved enough to enable Araaran to find you, in the end. But the delays occasioned by that ancient treachery have spread like ripples down the aeons. The difference of hours became days, days years and years centuries. Araaran I could still hold, but you, Haalar, drifted beyond my reach, slipped into the dark currents and were lost. All I could do then was to release Araaran and hope that somehow she would find you.’
I was hearing the truth. I knew it, and Haalar knew it. Destiny cannot lie, and Kroton’s was the voice of destiny. It seemed to me that I tasted the very dust of Rinam in my mouth as Haalar asked, ‘What must now come to pass?’
Sadly Kroton replied, ’The old plans have long since trembled into dust. They died when the last feeble flame of Los guttered and went out. All that is left now is yourself and Araaran. Kroton is nothing but a voice from the past speaking to you through her: the voice of those immortal longings of the Sky Children for whom all things were to be new and beautiful, whose playground was to be Time itself and whose palace the morning of Eternity. Perhaps we were too proud, Haalar, too proud and too sure. But we dreamed our dream and bodied forth our vision, and the end is not yet. We live on in you and in Araaran and Time is always young.’
‘Must she die, Kroton?
‘Death can have no meaning for those who passed through the flame of Los, Haalar; though the doubts Thostris implanted in you still appear to retain their own measure of immortality.’
’Then I, Kroton? What is to become of me?’
’The choice is your own, Haalar. The choice has always been yours. You alone among the Sky Children were born free. It has been both your strength and your weakness. It enabled you to defy the Law in Rinam, to kill Solan and to escape. It enabled you to survive when all except Araaran perished. It enabled you to hide yourself like a leaf in the forest among the young Children of Earth and to mingle your spirit with theirs so that today each one of them bears some spark of the immortal flame within them. This, which for so long I deemed your greatest treachery, may yet prove to be our salvation and their own, for that spark once kindled can never be wholly extinguished. Who knows, Haalar, you may yet be the Sky Child destined to fan it into lasting flame.’
‘You denied Araaran to me before, Kroton. How do I know you will not do it again?
‘She is no longer mine to command, Haalar, and even if she were I would not do it. I absolved her from her vows when I sent her forth from Los to seek for you among the Children of Earth. For four thousand years she has been wandering alone. She is yours, Haalar, and you are hers. Think well before you relinquish her, Son of the Morning. Think well.’
