John Norman Read online

  Hamilton regretted having come. The retainer had been impossible to resist, and Hamilton, in the tense job market, had been without position. The position was to last four weeks. Already Hamilton had been at the compound more than two months. The supply truck no longer came. Herjellsen himself, in his British Land Rover, to which he kept the keys, made overland journeys to Salisbury and back, taking Gunther and William with him. Hamilton was not permitted to accompany them. Hamilton had received traveling expenses from California and an initial fee of four hundred British pounds. But Hamilton had received nothing further. Hamilton wanted to return to the United States.

  “We need you,” had said Herjellsen. “You may not leave now.”

  “I will tell you who Herjellsen is,” had said Gunther, speaking to Hamilton privately. He showed Hamilton, too, the clippings, the police bills.

  Hamilton was not permitted outside the compound. The blacks saw that Hamilton remained in the compound.

  “Do your work, Doctor Hamilton,” had said Herjellsen. “We need you.” Sweat had broken out on his broad forehead. His hands had opened and closed.

  “I will walk you to the shed,” had said Gunther.

  “No,” Hamilton had said. “I will go alone.” Hamilton feared Gunther. Hamilton did not care for Gunther’s eyes. They frightened Hamilton.

  Hamilton threw away the cigarette, onto the dry dust of the compound.

  The high wire fence about the compound was said to protect the compound from animals. It was electrified. Hamilton was not permitted beyond the fence.

  Prometheus had stolen fire. Herjellsen was kindling it.

  The Greeks were not children. The legend of Prometheus was not a child’s explanation for man’s possession of fire. It said rather that fire was what would make men akin to the gods, and like unto the gods themselves. It would bring them above the beasts. It might take them, in the eruptions of flaming engines, to the stars.

  And the Greeks were wary, for this might be pride in men, and carry in it the seeds of their downfall. Prometheus had expiated his crime, chained to a rock in Scythia, his body prey to the avenging eagle of Zeus, but while he screamed in the sun, beneath the beak and talons, the ships, in their thousands, carrying coals of fire, set forth from the rocky inlets, to colonize a world.

  Man will go to the stars, had cried Herjellsen. He will put his flags, and his children, beyond the perimeter of Orion; he will make his camps on the shores of Ursa and build cities in the archipelagoes of Antares and Andromeda.

  Hamilton wondered if Prometheus might have regretted his decision.

  Herjellsen sometimes spoke of Prometheus.

  “Did he regret his decision?” had asked Hamilton of Herjellsen, amused, for Herjellsen seemed to take such tales seriously.

  “I do not regret what I have done,” had said Herjellsen.

  Hamilton had not pressed the matter further. Nothing more had been said at the meal.

  Herjellsen was mad.

  He was also a dying man. He had angina pectoris, and was subject to attacks of increasing severity. He drove himself cruelly, foolishly, mercilessly.

  The generator whined to a halt.

  The lights in the experimental shack went out.

  Hamilton was startled.

  The four light bulbs, set on poles about the compound, had been extinguished, and the dust of the compound was no longer the bleak, bright reflecting surface that it had been, hot, hard and yellow, but now, in the light of the African moon was white and cold.

  The door to the shack opened. One of the blacks, a lantern swinging in his hand, went to the door. William slipped from the door, swiftly.

  He passed Hamilton. “I must get my bag,” he said.

  “What is wrong?” asked Hamilton, frightened.

  “It’s the old man,” he said.

  Hamilton tensed.

  William had gone to the hut he shared with Gunther. In a moment he emerged, carrying his bag.

  William was a physician. He had practiced in London. He was also a gifted mathematician. Many of the equation resolution procedures which Hamilton had programmed into Herjellsen’s analyzer, a modified 1180 device, had been provided by William. A condition of Hamilton’s employment had been, oddly, a medical examination in William’s London office. “The employer,” had said William, indicating the man Hamilton was later to learn was Herjellsen, “requires excellent health in those working in his service.” Hamilton had understood that the employer’s facility was in Rhodesia, in an out of the way area, and that medical facilities would not be readily available. Hamilton had been surprised to learn, later, that William was a member of the staff at the compound. He had arrived, returning to the compound, the day before Hamilton. Gunther, and Herjellsen, and the blacks, had been waiting. His quarters were well stocked with supplies. He himself, Hamilton was aware, was a competent, respected physician. Medical facilities, it seemed, were quite adequate. Perhaps, Hamilton had speculated, the employer is a hypochondriac, with a phobia concerning infections, or some such affliction. But Herjellsen, Hamilton had learned, was not a hypochondriac. Indeed, he was an actually ill man, a desperately ill man who took too little care of his own body.

  Hamilton moved as though to leave the porch. “Do not come to the shack,” said William sharply. It was unlike William to speak sharply.

  “Oh,” said Hamilton. “Very well.” Hamilton had never been allowed in the experimental shack.

  William disappeared in the door of the shack. It closed behind him. Hamilton could see the light of the black’s lantern through the white-painted window.

  It had been Hamilton’s health in which Herjellsen had been critically interested. Not his own. “You are in superb condition,” had said William in his London office. “The employer will be pleased.”

  The work that Hamilton had performed in the compound Hamilton had discovered could have been performed by Herjellsen himself, or Gunther. Hamilton had done a great deal of work, but it was not work which only Hamilton, of those on the staff, could have performed. The services of Hamilton, it seemed, were not, strictly, required.

  “It frees us for other work,” Herjellsen had said, “and, too, should one of us be unable to function, another will be able to take his place.”

  “Skill redundancy,” had added Gunther, “is policy with Herjellsen.”

  “I expect to be able to function,” had smiled Hamilton.

  “I am confident,” had said Gunther, “you will fulfill all our expectations.”

  Herjellsen, then, with Continental gallantry, had lifted his glass of wine to Hamilton. Hamilton had looked down at the table.

  But the services of Hamilton, Hamilton had come to discover, more and more, day by day, were truly not needed. Two nights ago Hamilton had, deliberately, slipped an error into the print outs. Herjellsen, in less than fifteen minutes, had discovered it.

  “This was careless of you, Doctor Hamilton,” he had said, “-and obvious.”

  Herjellsen himself had corrected the program and completed the run.

  “I wish to leave your employment,” Hamilton had told Herjellsen that evening.

  “You are needed,” had said Herjellsen.

  “I am not needed,” had said Hamilton.

  “You are mistaken,” had said Herjellsen.

  Now Hamilton stood on the porch of the computer building and looked to the experimental shack. “For what am I needed?” had demanded Hamilton. Herjellsen had said only, “You are needed,” and then left. The experimental shack was dark, save for the light of the black’s lantern, like a flickering pool within the white-painted window. Hamilton wondered if Herjellsen were dead.

  After that night, that of the computer error, Hamilton had done little work, but much reading. Herjellsen provided books. Among them were an English translation of Diogenes Laertius, the Ancilla of Pre-Socratic Fragments, translated by Freeman, from Diel’s original translations, Kirk’s book on Heraclitus, Plutarch’s Laves, the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini,
FitzGerald’s second translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion; in German, Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra; Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

  “You are needed,” Herjellsen had said.

  Frightened, Hamilton looked at the fence which encircled the compound.

  Hamilton was not permitted beyond the fence.

  The fence was to protect the occupants of the compound from the predations of wild animals.

  “It is dangerous beyond the fence,” Herjellsen had told Hamilton, and given his orders. Hamilton was not permitted by the blacks beyond the fence.

  There were no animals dangerous to men in the vicinity that Hamilton knew of.

  She wondered why the blacks were armed.

  Hamilton was not permitted beyond the fence.

  “No,” had said the black with the rifle at the gate, when Hamilton, testing Herjellsen’s order, had attempted to leave the compound. The black had not been rough. Hamilton was simply not permitted to leave.

  It was not necessary for the black to threaten, or resort to his rifle.

  Hamilton had looked up at the ebon face.

  Frustrated, furious, Hamilton had turned about and returned to the computer building.

  That night, at supper, Herjellsen had admonished Hamilton.

  “My dear Doctor Hamilton,” had said Herjellsen, “you must not leave the compound. I had thought that was clearly understood.”

  “I wanted to take a walk,” had said Hamilton icily.

  “It is dangerous outside the compound,” said Herjellsen.

  “Very well,” had said Hamilton.

  Hamilton stood on the porch of the computer building. No one had emerged from the experimental shack since William had entered.

  “You are needed,” Herjellsen had told Hamilton.

  Hamilton looked at the high wire fence, slim strands of strung wire, lit in the white light of the great moon.

  For what am I needed, wondered Hamilton.

  The moon glinted on the wire.

  There was a sound at the shed.

  One black emerged, and then, between him and William, staggering, Herjellsen.

  The two men supported Herjellsen, and made their way across the ‘compound, toward Herjellsen’s small sleeping shack.

  “We can move you on a cot,” said William, supporting the short, older man.

  “I can walk,” said Herjellsen, pushing him away. Then, too, he pushed away the black. Another black, he with the lantern, stood behind them.

  Herjellsen stood unsteadily on the dust of the compound, hunched over with pain. His face was tight, ashen.

  “Do not help me,” he warned them.

  William and the two blacks, one with a lantern, stood to one side.

  Herjellsen saw Hamilton. He straightened up. “Good evening, my dear Doctor Hamilton,” he said.

  “Good evening, Professor Herjellsen,” whispered Hamilton.

  “Yes,” said Herjellsen, looking about. “It is a good evening.”

  Gunther was still in the shack. Hamilton had not seen him come out.

  “I think I shall go to my quarters,” said Herjellsen. “I am weary.”

  William put out his hand.

  “I need no help,” said Herjellsen, sharply.

  William glanced at Hamilton.

  Herjellsen wished to show no weakness before Hamilton.

  “Good-night, Doctor Hamilton,” said Herjellsen.

  “Good-night, Professor Herjellsen,” said Hamilton.

  A voice within the shed suddenly cried, “Bring the lantern!” Hamilton was startled. It was Gunther’s voice. She had never heard such a cry from him.

  Herjellsen did not move, but stood on the dust of the compound. He did not turn to the shed.

  The black with the lantern rushed to the shed.

  Hamilton waited on the porch.

  Herjellsen stood quietly in the compound. William looked to the shed. He seemed frightened.

  Gunther’s figure emerged from the shed. He was a tall man, large, broad-shouldered, blond haired, muscular, blue eyed. He was a strong man, hard, lithe, swift. He had much stamina. He enjoyed hunting, and was a superb hunter, skilled, tireless, merciless, efficient. Next to Herjellsen, whom Hamilton regarded as mad, Gunther was rated by Hamilton as the most intelligent in the compound. Gunther’s mind was brilliant. It could be, at times, as sharp and keen as surgeon’s steel, and like that steel, cold and hard; and at times, when he pleased, it could be as sardonic as acid; or, when he wished, as swift and stinging as a quirt in the hands of a horseman. Hamilton feared him. In his presence Hamilton felt uneasy, and small and weak. Before Gunther, Hamilton felt clumsy, and found it difficult to speak. What Hamilton felt, not understanding it, in the presence of Gunther, was the presence of a superior, dominant animal. Gunther was clearly stronger and more intelligent than Hamilton. “He is a bit overawing,” had joked William. Hamilton resented Gunther. Hamilton hated him. William, too, resented him. It was a bond between them, their dislike for Gunther. It was not simply that Gunther was a splendid organism, but that he made no attempt to conceal his superiority. He seemed little motivated by the conventions whereby superior animals sheath their claws and conceal their teeth. Gunther was a lion among men, a blond lion. His eyes made Hamilton angry, and afraid. He looked at Hamilton with such casual, unquestioned superiority, as though Hamilton might have been a servant, and, too, he looked at Hamilton in another way, sometimes grinning, that frightened Hamilton. He seemed so sure of himself, so strong.

  “What is it?” asked William of Gunther, who stood, dazed, as Hamilton had never seen him, in the door of the experimental shack.

  Hamilton was frightened.

  Never had Gunther seemed so shaken. His tall, muscular frame trembled in the doorway.

  Then he spoke. “The cage,” he said, “-the cage is gonel”

  Herjellsen, Hamilton thought, seemed to smile, and then he began to walk slowly to his sleeping quarters.

  William and the black who had attended Herjellsen waited for Gunther, who walked slowly towards them.

  Gunther looked at William. “The cage is gone,” he said.

  “Impossible!” cried William. William ran to the shed.

  “I don’t understand, Gunther,” said Hamilton. “What cage?”

  Gunther did not answer Hamilton but turned to face the shed.

  In a moment William, followed by the black with the lantern, who understood no more than Hamilton, emerged from the shack.

  William’s face was white. “It’s gone,” he said.

  “Gunther!” said Hamilton.

  But Gunther had turned away and was walking slowly toward the hut he shared with William.

  “William!” cried Hamilton.

  “Yes?” said William, looking at Hamilton on the porch.

  “What cage is gone?” begged Hamilton.

  “The one we were using in the experiment,” said William, slowly, blankly.

  “What does it mean?” begged Hamilton.

  “It means, I think,” said William, smiling thinly, “that the Herjellsen conjecture is true.”

  Hamilton stood silently on the porch.

  “Good-night, Brenda,” said William.

  “Good-night, William,” said Brenda Hamilton.

  2

  “Splendid!” cried Hamilton, delightedly.

  She worked at the side of the men in the experimental shack.

  In the past days she had felt herself a full member of the team, welcomed and respected. She was one with them. Herjellsen was gentle, perceptive, directive. William was helpful, amusing. Even Gunther was bearable, and seemed now, for the first time, to see her as a human being. He had even, once, called her “Brenda.”

  The interior of the translation cubicle, seen through the heavy, clear, plastic walls, was beginning to glow, pulsating with a diffused, photic energy; this phenomenon, Herjellsen had explained, was a conco
mitant of the transference phenomenon, not a manifestation of the phenomenon per se; it was related to the phenomenon derivatively, not directly; it was like the waves that are displaced by the passage of an invisible ship, not the ship but the sign of its passage; yet the photic phenomenon, like turbulence in a medium, ‘in water or an atmosphere, signaled the presence of the force Herjellsen had called P.

  Gunther’s eyes blazed, looking into the cubicle.

  William touched Hamilton’s arm. “Do not be afraid now,” he whispered.

  “I’m not!” cried Hamilton, happily. “It’s beginning, is it not?”

  She looked to Herjellsen.

  Herjellsen sat to one side, in a straight wooden chair, before a wooden table. To one side was the amplifying mechanism, wires running to it from the generator, and from the mechanism to the steel hood mounted on the table. Two cables, in a loop, passed from the hood to the cubicle and back, as though a self-reinforcing cycle might be established.

  Under the hood Herjellsen’s head was down. His fists were clenched.

  Suddenly, for no reason she understood, Brenda Hamilton was apprehensive.

  Gunther and William were intent.

  There is only one reality, had said Herjellsen, in its infinite modes and attributes.

  “Spinoza thought something like that,” had remarked William earlier.

  “Spinoza did not understand,” said Herjellsen. “It is neither God nor Nature. It is deeper than nature, and too deep and terrible to be God.”

  “What is it?” had asked William.

  “The reality,” had said Herjellsen.

  “I do not understand,” had said William.

  “The reality-and the power,” had said Herjellsen.

  Hamilton shivered.

  “And nature, and gods,” had said Herjellsen, “and spiders and stars are but its forms, the lion and the child, flowers and galaxies, perceptions, modes, diversities, transiencies, all!”

  William had been silent. It was not wise to argue with Herjellsen at certain times, in certain moods. He was at most times eminently rational, pleasant, but when the mood was upon him, the frenzy of the conjecture, one did not speak with him.

  “And,” Herjellsen had cried, “the reality-the power-is as much and wholly present in a blade of grass, in the petal of a flower, as in the furnace of Betelgeuse!” He had looked wildly at William, who had not met his eyes. “And that means,” had cried Herjellsen, “that here-in my hand-in my head-as much as anywhere, as full and perfect, lies the power. We, each of us, are the reality, the power.”