IX

Manipulation: Wonderful! Delightful! How nicely destruction was being abetted by the so-called Primary Force! That such satisfying dissolution could be wrought simply by tampering with causative discipline! There: that ship striking—of all things—an iceberg! And—of all places—in what the Favored Creatures had named the “Gulf of Mexico”! And over there (many stars away): that huge satellite just entering—what did they call it?—oh, yes: Roche’s Limit. Crackling. Crumbling. Pulverizing. Only after many more millennia had passed would that fascinating spectacle have occurred if determinism had not been modified.

And all this chaos among the Favored Ones! Most likely the Primary didn’t even suspect that the Destroyer was pulling strings of His own, prodding, urging, inspiring. Oh, those poor, simple creatures were so easy to manipulate!

And the best was yet to come. The Constructive Force hadn’t realized that, in abdicating conscious control of Creation, He had become altogether dependent upon sequestration. To awaken completely now would result in an avalanche of disorder nullifying nearly all natural law.

How easy it would be to force the issue by bringing about the death of the unsuspecting host!

* * *

Shelved upon the wall of Bradford’s downtown hotel room, the television rasped out coarse, monotonous words—those of a spokesman for the Presidential Advisory Commission on Civil Safety:

“Ask yourself first: ‘Is this trip necessary?’ If it is, proceed with extreme caution. Restrict your speed to well below the newly established limits.

“Check constantly for fire hazards in homes and business places.

“Operate all boilers at minimum levels.

“Remain indoors. Do not venture outside except in transit to or from work or upon absolutely necessary errands. When purchasing household provisions, buy in long-lasting quantities.

“Keep interurban travel at a minimum.

“As pedestrians proceed only with redoubled caution.

“Assist the militia, police, and other public safety agencies.

“Do not seek treatment at established hospitals. Local authorities have prepared lists of emergency medical centers. Consult those—”

Bradford dulled his ears to the frequently broadcast video tape and rolled out of bed, squinting against morning sunlight. Then he sat in a chair flexing his left wrist. Both pain and swelling were gone. Must have been only a sprain or it wouldn’t have healed in just two weeks. He was damn lucky. Many stretcher and basket cases had been removed from his derailed train just outside the city.

Below, a siren’s swiftly climbing pitch heralded its approach. Off in the distance, sliding down toward the bass end of the scale, another siren sped away on some urgent mission. Sirens, sirens, sirens. Every once in a while: remote blasts. Occasionally the crisp barking of gunfire as looters were routed.

An abrupt crash, sounding like an explosion in its own right, silenced the nearby siren. And the building quaked with the force of resounding impact. Bradford went to the broken window, one of its panes having been shattered a week earlier by a confused albatross that had plunged through into the room and spread its viscera upon the rug. An albatross? Here? This far from the sea?

Ten stories below a fire engine was half buried in the side of the hotel, submerged under an avalanche of bricks and mortar.

Since there were so few persons on the street only a handful gathered around the wreckage as the firemen hauled themselves out of the debris, like phoenixes rising from ashes.

Dazed, they exchanged glances until one shouted, “Nobody hurt out here. How’s it in there?”

A waiter poked his head out of the hole in the wall. “Bricks and plaster all over the place. But no casualties.”

“Your government,” the Advisory Commission spokesman went on, staring from the television screen, “is investigating the cause of this accelerated accident rate. Until it is found and corrected, you are urged to observe the following precautionary measures: First …”

Bradford switched to another channel and went into the bathroom to shave. As he lathered his face he reflected on what an ironic twist Fate had taken: Two weeks ago he had seemed to be the only unbalanced element in a sane world; now it was a world gone mad, in which he alone stood out as a rock of rationality. Or was it all only the effects of a prolonged freakout?

He paused while the hot-water faucet vented steam. Could it be that sanity was only relative? Had nothing changed but his perspective? Was everything about him illusion—his own hallucinations? But, no. He was all right. It was everything out there that was all wrong. Or was it?

As to proving whether he was being watched, though, he had established nothing. For it might be either that he had thrown off his followers, in which case he would soon give them a chance to latch on again, or that present circumstances made tailing impracticable.

Yet, splitting the Powers-Chuck-Ann scene had proved something. Since then there had been no more illusions, no more unsolicited freakouts, anxieties. That is, if what was happening outside was the real reality—not an unreality of his mind’s own making. It was almost as though something within him, however, were more at peace with the world, with the entire universe.

The tap water turned ice-cold, became spewed hailstones that clattered against the basin, then regained its normal temperature. He resumed shaving.

But he had no intention of hiding forever. He was still head of an established business. All right, then—“figurehead.” Nevertheless, he was determined to be on hand if the ax of financial dissolution fell—as it was falling so frequently all over now despite emergency federal regulations. Perhaps he could help stay the ax. Or maybe he just wanted to see the expression on his managing director’s face when the plug was pulled on P & D Enterprises.

Life had become too involved, too incomprehensible, unmanageable. So he had simply copped out, as though afraid to face the consequences of all the complexities. But soon things would be different. Now he was ready to begin asserting himself. First, he would lay the groundwork. (He glanced at his watch; if he didn’t hurry he’d be late for the appointment.) Then he would make the establishment scene again, well assured that the watchers would themselves be under surveillance.

Would Ann still be there? God, he hoped not. Her involvement in his deception had been the most difficult reality to bear. It would be better if he never saw her again.

While dressing for the appointment, his attention was half directed upon a special telecast in which several somber, imposing panelists were officiously exploring “this thing that has befallen us.”

“It appears clear,” one of them was saying, “that what we are concerned with here is a sort of mass hysteria deriving from the pressure of intolerable social events.”

“Would you clarify that, Dr. Brightley?” said the moderator.

“Of course. The civilizing process advances in spurts, with the gregarious individual laboring up slopes onto plateaus of optimum accommodation. As developing societies struggle up these elevations, complexities pile on top of complexities until, without realizing it, the individual potential as an instrument of mass hysteria ripens and …”

“Are you saying,” interrupted the moderator, “that the load is too heavy to bear? That we are all—shall we say?—at the end of our rope as a result of political entanglements, social upheavals, imminent nuclear holocaust, economic insecurity, and a spate of coincidental natural disasters?”

“That is a valid diagnosis,” another panelist presumed to answer. “Unconsciously, our culture is at the breaking point.”

“Yes, of course,” Brightley resumed. “At such a juncture in the civilizing process, it requires but a subtle prod to set off the entire reactive syndrome. A few spectacular accidents are sufficient stimuli to plant the suggestion in everybody’s mind that we are all suddenly hyperprone to catastrophe. Autosuggestive processes take over. And we find ourselves where we are today—each trying desperately to prevent the mishaps that we are unconsciously determined to experience.”

The moderator cleared his throat. “That is a sophisticated theory, gentlemen. And one well worth examining. But what about all the minor impossible happenings, and the freaks of …”

But Brightley wouldn’t be led away from his hypothesis: “Oh, we’ve seen it many times before. There was a witch-burning hysteria. Another led to public mayhem in the arenas of ancient Rome. Of less serious consequences: unidentified objects cluttering our skies. This present manifestation of mass hysteria is more serious, more universal because communication is now instantaneous. I think …”

Bradford didn’t give a damn what Brightley thought, so he switched to another channel and welcomed the unfamiliar sight of a simple commercial on the cleansing attributes of the nation’s leading detergent.

In a sense, Brightley’s explanation held no more water than that advanced by the God-Walks-Among-Us-Ites who claimed to have prophesied the nova currently flaring in the southern sky. One interpretation was no less a wild guess than the other. And neither took into account the altogether improbable destruction of Moonbase Britain by a meteor six days ago, or ripples turning into tidal waves, or—for that matter—faucets that hissed out steam, then spat ice pellets. Maybe it was all his own personal weirdout after all.

He adjusted his stud belt and fetched a tangerine jacket from the closet.

The soap commercial ended. A microphone-wielding interviewer and his subject, a balding man in Army olive drab, claimed the screen to resume yet another “special newscast.”

“We could just possibly be under some sort of attack,” proposed the uniformed officer.

“Are you suggesting a military attack?”

“The word ‘attack’ implies as much, doesn’t it?”

“But the effects we’re observing are worldwide. Doesn’t that eliminate your thesis?”

The Army man shrugged. “Not at all. First, how do we actually know the effects are worldwide? Then: Suppose it was decided to introduce a new nerve gas or similar agent into the fighting in Turkey—something that causes malcoordination during critical moments when the human organism should be peaking for emergency response. Malcoordination and possibly hallucination too. Suppose, however, the delivery system backfired, achieving worldwide coverage.”

“In that case, the malfunctioning delivery system could have been the responsibility of the Turkish insurgents or loyalists, or the Russian support forces—or even our own expeditionary personnel.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” the officer replied guardedly.

“Thank you, colonel,” said the interviewer. “And now, Dr. Sellick, I understand you have some thoughts on the matter.”

Panning away from the colonel, the screen brought a small, shaggy-haired man into view on the right. “I’m interested,” he said, “in Peking’s charge that the distortion in space curvature caused by orbital nuclear testing not only affected pi, but also interrupted the discipline of cause and effect as well.”

“You mean you believe that?”

“No, not exactly. But Dr. Strauss of the Vienna Institute of Advanced Physics is attempting to reduce probability and determinism to a field theory. Such effects as we’re witnessing today would then be explained by fluctuation in the field.”

Bradford snapped off the set, more interested in a coincidence that had just occurred to him. His freakout on the beach—dreams of being hit by a car in an unlikely accident, of miraculous escape after falling from a plane, of unbelievable luck at gambling—they were all similar to the improbabilities that were now bugging reality!

He straightened his jacket, thrust a cigarette between his lips and struck a match. But it wouldn’t light. He tried another. No luck. When a third match brought him no nearer success, he tossed the cigarette, together with the matchbox, into a wastebasket and strode out of the room. A minute later the entire box flared into flame that spread successively to a newspaper in the basket and the drapery hanging just above it.

* * *

Next morning Powers, a sheriff’s deputy, and the coroner drew up in front of a glass-panel office door. “This,” the psychiatrist said, “is a pathetic case. Young man. Wealth, position, everything. I’ve been treating him for five years.”

“Not dangerous, is he?” the deputy asked, stiffening.

“Of course not. Just suffering delusions.”

“And you need me for commitment proceedings?” the coroner said.

“God, I hope not! That’s why I asked you to accompany me. I’m trying every trick to avoid institutionalization. I’ve got to know each move he makes. He called here yesterday.” Powers thrust his thumb toward the doorplate that read:

PROCTOR & PROCTOR

(Private Investigation)

“If I can learn why,” he added, “I may be able to help him.” The coroner acknowledged the obligations of longstanding friendship. “We’ll do whatever we can, Boris.”

“Sure,” the deputy agreed. “But let’s don’t waste time. I’ve got my hands full out there.” He gestured outdoors, where yesterday’s hotel fire had gutted three buildings just a block away.

Within minutes they were seated around the elder Proctor’s cluttered desk and the latter, fingering the bristly gray surface of an anomalous crew cut, was saying: “Even if I admitted a client named Bradford was here, Phil, I couldn’t tell you the nature of his business.” His obstinacy was directed at the deputy.

“Oh, come on,” Phil scoffed. “Don’t pull that professional code of ethics stuff on me, Jim.”

Frowning, Proctor ran a hand over his stubbled scalp. “Okay. So I’ve got a plum I don’t want to lose. Anything wrong with that?”

“Perhaps,” Powers suggested, “you won’t have to lose it.”

“This could be a commitment case, Mr. Proctor,” the coroner reminded him. “Where would your plum be then? As a matter of fact, how do you know Bradford’s checks won’t bounce?”

“He paid a fat retainer.” Proctor loosened a bit. “And his check didn’t bounce. That was the first thing I made sure of.”

“There.” Powers spread his hands. “You suspected it right off. Surely you realize he’s no normal client. What did he want here?”

Proctor hesitated. “Come on, Jim,” the deputy urged. “This case is an exception.”

Proctor signaled his submission with a sigh. “Bradford believes some unknown persons are shadowing him.”

“Did he say why he thinks he’s being followed?” Powers asked.

“No. Wants me to get an independent answer and see if it confirms his suspicions.”

Relieved, the psychiatrist said. “He is being followed—by members of my staff. His condition is nearing a critical phase, but we’re trying to avoid commitment. He even suspects me of conspiring against him, I believe.”

Proctor smiled. “You’re right, doctor. We’re supposed to keep you under surveillance too, to determine whether any of the persons tailing him are in contact with you.”

“Jim,” the deputy said, “I think you should cooperate with Dr. Powers. You could help a good deal, obviously.”

“Indeed you could,” Powers confirmed. “I would suggest that you simply hold your operatives in readiness—on the strength of Bradford’s retainer, of course. If we need you to help keep track of him, we’ll call for your services.”

“But what do I do about reporting to him? We were supposed to start running shifts tomorrow morning when he returns to his office.”

“Just stay out of Dr. Powers’ way,” the deputy advised, “and give Bradford negative reports at the intervals you agreed upon.”

“And I keep the retainer?”

“You’ll have to work for it later on,” Powers revealed. “And I, personally, shall see that you receive additional compensation.”

The desk tilted abruptly, thudding down upon a suddenly crumbling leg and spilling pen set, papers, and ashtrays upon the floor. “Would you look at that?” Proctor invited, kneeling to inspect the damage. “Leg just gave way. And the desk is brand new.”

* * *

“What it amounts to,” Duncan was saying as he crowded Wittels’ bony elbow at the direction-finder controls in communications, “is either that favorable or unfavorable results are likely. Thank God it’s not a complete breakdown in causation. Where the balance is delicate—especially where the almost random effects of human activity are involved—the results are more noticeable, sometimes spectacularly so. By the same token, a lot of people who otherwise would be lying dead in the streets are escaping harm.”

Wittels was waiting for the receiver to warm up. “What about random effects in nature?”

“We’ve seen some of them. Aberration in molecular activity is apparently tolerable on the whole, though at times deadly in particular instances. Cosmic effects, of course, won’t be assessed for years. Geologic results? I don’t like the marked disturbances in world meteorological patterns that we’ve heard about.”

Joining them, Chief Mathematician Steinmetz advised, “Our real concern ought to be in the atomic range. I’ve been told by our contacts in several of the laboratories that nuclear experiments are yielding unpredictable results.”

“There’ve been no reactor failures, at least,” Duncan said. “Perhaps their multiple damping systems cancel out the effects of our new probability values.”

Behind them, Security Chief Hawthorn let his chair lean back against the wall. “If all that keeps up out there, I don’t see how we can preserve civilization.”

“No doubt,” Duncan agreed, “we’ll have to modify conventional human behavior, stressing caution. But, even then, we won’t be able to save an economy based on risk as a concession to profit.”

The foundation director joined his staff in introspective consideration of the dangers and necessities that lay ahead. If disintegration in natural law couldn’t be reversed, rather than simply halted, it would mean an entirely different mode of existence. Life, as it had been known before, would not be able to continue.

Inner fibers of dedication and determination stiffened as he began refining requirements of the future. There’d have to be, of course, worldwide scientific investigation to establish the modified parameters of survival. Then many authoritarian enforcement arms would be needed to mold the remnants into new patterns of behavior as well as scores of specialized shock troops. And the obligation would have to rest with his organization, for only the foundation was aware of the circumstances.

Yes, the responsibility was his. Not that he’d sought it. Rather it had been thrust upon him. And, because he knew better than anyone else the underlying reality of what was happening, he couldn’t slough it off—although he normally wouldn’t want to be placed in a position of authority over even a single laboratory assistant.

But he had to continue manipulating Bradford, the crucially variable factor in a delicately balanced equation. If he were to save the world, Bradford’s influence would have to be stabilized. The rigid discipline that had once governed natural law would now have to be imposed on the Creative Force’s host.

And there could be no more mistakes in directing Bradford’s destiny. For each error would be too costly and any one of them could be the ultimate slip. The discipline that was evaporating from natural processes would have to be enforced even more stringently upon the foundation and upon the unwitting host around whom the entire organization revolved.

“Let’s pull Bradford in and try the Ultimate Remedy,” Hawthorn urged.

“We will,” Duncan decided impulsively, “… as soon as he’s maneuvered into voluntary acceptance of treatment at the clinic. He’ll be back at his office tomorrow. We’ll let Powers, Chuck, and Ann take it from there.”

“Then the Ultimate Remedy?” Hawthorn said anxiously.

“First I would want him fully sedated for a long time while we decide whether to attempt direct contact with the Creative Force or let things ride, with the hope that Bradford’s total isolation will serve to restore some of the order that’s been destroyed.”

Yes, Duncan reflected, it was better that they have Bradford under thumb. Not knowing what might go down the drain next was too suspenseful. Even now, the entire universe may have been snuffed out except for this insignificant system of sun and nine planets—no, eight; they’d already inspired the destruction of Pluto.

A squeal peaked in the D/F receiver’s speaker. Wittels tapped the cabinet. “Composite carrier wave, coming from all of the left-heel transmitters in Bradford’s P & D Towers apartment.”

“Hell with that,” Hawthorn said. “Let’s see where Bradford is.”

Wittels adjusted the directional antenna and the squeal was eventually replaced by a softer tone that emitted beeps at two-second intervals. He read the calibrations on his dials. “Same place as before—his hotel.”

“How do you know?” Hawthorn demanded.

Wittels spoke into a transmitter’s microphone. “Any change, Bevins?”

“None,” the answer came out of another speaker. “Stabilized in his room. Rutledge’s D/F and mine are holding on the same fix.”

“Good. Make certain he doesn’t slip away until he comes back under direct observation in the morning.”

“That’s it,” Wittels told Hawthorn, “… in his room pacing.”

“How do you know what he’s doing?”

“PE generator’s modulating the carrier wave of the transmitter in his left heel with every other step he takes.”

“Good equipment,” Hawthorn acknowledged, then taunted: “But how come we couldn’t track him when he escaped from his lodge in a motorboat?”

“The foundation’s not exempt from the new vicissitudes of probability. We lost two men when our D/F truck went off the cliff that night. And don’t forget, we picked Bradford up again just as soon as he came within range of our equipment here in the city.”

Duncan turned abruptly toward the opening door.

“They told me I’d find you here,” the man who poked his head in said. Although broad of shoulder and stocky, he bore the burden of layers of flesh that late middle age had deposited about his waist.

“Perrilaut!” Duncan greeted his Washington observer who had access to the scientific hot line. “You didn’t tell us you were coming!”

“Couldn’t risk having any intelligence agent listening in on a conversation with you.”

“But you took a chance traveling.”

“It was worth it, considering the news I bring. I saw Vasilof in Washington. He’s going to meet with you.”

Duncan savored near elation for the first time in months, and showed it with a smile he hadn’t used in as long a time. “When? Where?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Here.”

Duncan winced. “God! You haven’t led him to the foundation?”

“Of course not. He believes you’re coming from another city too. The appointment’s for one in the afternoon. Grandmoor Hotel.”

“What persuaded him?” Steinmetz asked.

“Proxima Centauri going nova. What else? He was deeply impressed by our prediction.”

Duncan thought a moment. “What does he expect to talk about?”

“In a vague sense, a new effect that’s been discovered by a group of scientists outside of the conventional establishment.”

Duncan luxuriated in the possibility that others, perhaps an entire foundation branch on the other side of the world, might soon share the burden of Bradford, helping detect future aberrations in natural law, and evaluate their consequences.

“You’re happy about this meeting?” Perrilaut asked.

“Aren’t you?”

“I have my doubts. That Russian could have suspicions of a political nature, you know.”

Duncan drew erect with self-confidence, sought to radiate the calm assurance that he knew was expected of him as their leader. “I’ll convince him. I have all the evidence. Irrefutable proof. The kind a scientific mind can’t reject.”

“It had better also be the kind an ideological mind can’t suspect, just in case Vasilof’s above-country dedication to science is only a superficial aspect of the man’s character.”