The Beyond Read online

  A low booming reached his ears and he looked ahead, seeing a small meadow among the trees.

  The Dimbo river. He'd seen it coming down, a black torrent that rushed from the Kavu mountains, winding through the agora forests toward some unknown destination. It sounded as if it were tumbling over rocks.

  He reached the edge of the meadow and stopped, watching the froth of water thunder from the forest to swirl and eddy across the clearing. It formed a small lake in the distance. Inflatable boats and rafts, fishing lines and hooks -- items like that should be in demand. He'd have a talk with Simon.

  Abruptly he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked his head around, momentarily startled. A boy! It took him an instant to comprehend that the boy was sitting on a low knoll facing the river, his arm around the neck of a shaggy yellow beast. A dog, he thought, and marveled at it. For some reason he'd never thought of a boy on Engo, much less a dog.

  Gazing at the two, Cromwell wondered at his surprise. Of course there would be children, even on this godforsaken planet. But he'd never really considered the possibility. Somehow he'd come to believe that the planet was inhabited solely by adults like Simon, doddering and creaking, waiting for the day when they would take their places under the white headstones in the graveyard.

  This fellow couldn't be more than ten or twelve, he reflected. But what a hellish place for a child.

  Did he know he was doomed? Probably not. Children had an amazing adaptability. A hundred planets gave testimony to that.

  Cromwell felt a touch of nostalgia. How long had it been since he'd sat with his dog, watching the bright yellow sun Capella slide below the soft hills of Mypor? Over fifty years, half a century; closer to sixty, when he thought of it. Kolo, the dog's name had been, a big, shaggy beast like the one ahead of him. Kolo had bounded at his side throughout his childhood years. And when he died, he had buried him on a hillside and cried.

  "I'll get you another dog," his father promised. But there wasn't another dog, nor could there be.

  No other could take Kolo's place. Somehow his father had understood. Now, standing on the meadow, he let the memories rush back.

  But that was long ago. For over fifty years now he'd been a wanderer among the stars. He'd watched the sun rise and set on a hundred forgotten planets. He'd grown old under the stars.

  Not that he could complain; they had been good years, filled with freedom, danger, hardship --

  the solitude he loved. There was little he hadn't seen or done. And when he died someday, it would be in space. He would be buried by whatever sun happened to be nearest.

  Who could ask for more?

  He brought back his attention as the boy scrambled to his feet and threw a stick. "Get it! Get it!"

  he yelled in a thin, piping voice. Cromwell remembered his own youth and smiled sadly.

  The dog yelped and bounded forward to seize the stick when it leaped to a new spot. Barking and prancing, the dog looked around expectantly.

  "Very clever," Cromwell murmured, wondering how the toy worked. He could sell a million of them with ease, two million, and he wouldn't have to resort to the black market. It was the kind of thing any child would love, and adults too. No doubt it was a local invention, perhaps the boy's. If so, he could get it easily. A few saws and hammers should do the trick.

  The dog barked, subsiding on its haunches, its head cocked as it regarded the stick. Suddenly the Page 6

  stick moved upward, dangling a dozen or so feet in the air while the dog leaped and yelped frantically.

  "Get it, Rok," the boy cried. He jumped and clapped his hands. "Get it, get it."

  Cromwell was trying to comprehend the sight when the dog suddenly shot a dozen feet into the air and grasped the stick in its jaws, then remained floating in space to the accompaniment of the boy's pealing laughter.

  "My God, a freak..." Cromwell caught his breath, feeling his heart begin to pound. Telepaths, yes...but this! His mind reeled at the sight.

  Psychokinesis! He'd heard the term -- the power to move objects by thought.

  But that had been a fairy tale; no one could...He watched, his eyes bulging, and all at once he began to tremble.

  Wheeling, he stumbled back through the village.

  Two

  ASCENDING the marble stairs which led to the Social Administration building, Alek Selby wondered again at the sudden conference called by

  Director Korl Smithson. Right in the middle of the holidays; the thought was faintly perturbing.

  A new cultural deviation which threatened the general welfare? A new edict from on High? (The High Council of Ten, representing the ten sectors that comprised the Federation, had convened recently on Earth, administrative center for the Federation's nearly three thousand planets; it seemed likely that the conference was related.) Or was it something else?

  Selby glanced at the yellow-white sun of Altair rising above the stately buildings of Mekla before he passed into the shadows of the arched doorway. It was the something else which bothered him, the almost nameless fear that had lurked deep in his mind for more years than he cared to remember.

  Nameless? Not quite, but a fear so deeply recessed that not even Psymaster Hallam Vogel's probing had touched it. (Thank God for that!) Or was the fear utterly groundless, an irrational fantasy born of his childhood imagination and unshakable throughout the years? No, he knew that with certainty; the fear was not groundless.

  The big building appeared empty. With most of the population celebrating the 3181st anniversary of the Federation's founding -- signed into existence at the Vegan Conference following the Thirty-Year War which ended in the collapse of the Hanhight Dynasty -- only essential maintenance and guard units were at work. As he entered the main hall, a voice in the distance echoed hollowly, emphasizing the silence that followed.

  Invisible rays probed him for security clearance as he turned into a side corridor; ahead, bronze doors swung silently open at his approach. He slowed his pace, regrouping his thoughts in a final effort to fathom the reason for the meeting. He ticked off a dozen possibilities, dismissing them all.

  Sighing, he entered the director's conference room and saw four men sitting at the long table.

  Philip Wig! He caught his breath at sight of the dark, saturnine figure who headed Department 404, SocAd's secret police arm. Philip Wig, a shadowy figure, was charged with enforcement of the mutant control laws. His assistants, Derek Jonman and Jabor Conrad, flanked him on either side. So, the conference was concerned with the mutant problem? Then why had he been summoned? The question alarmed him.

  He switched his eyes to the fourth man. Psymaster Hallam Vogel! Selby's unease grew stronger than ever. Before his appointment as principal investigator on the director's staff, he had been required to have his psyche and stability certified. Vogel had been the probe master. Although that time was five years in the past, he seldom encountered the psymaster without sensing a vague fear. Yet Vogel had found nothing, nothing at all. Selby clung to that knowledge as an antidote to his fear.

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  Nothing of that showed on his face as he crossed the room. Smiling briefly, he nodded toward the others and settled into a chair across from

  Vogel. Wig, conversing in a subdued voice with his assistants, appeared not to notice him. Selby didn't mind. He disliked the executor intensely, and his aides as well. They had what he liked to think of as the police mind, in which the psychic probing was by force.

  He eyed the psymaster speculatively. "What's it all about?"

  Vogel shrugged. "Don't know. I just received the summons." Leaning back, he closed his eyes, his way of saying he didn't want to talk.

  Selby studied him thoughtfully. Vogel was fiftyish, of average height, average build, average appearance -- "Mr. Nobody," he'd once heard him described. And it was true, at least superficially; Vogel's voice, looks, and personality were designed to total anonymity. But he had risen high, held power -- the power to certify the existence of the telepath
ic trait, the power to exile mutants to Engo. Yet he appeared so mild and retiring...Selby wondered why he feared him.

  He switched his eyes to the executor.

  Philip Wig was another matter. Slender, fortyish, with a domed forehead and pale, sharp features, he was ambitious, vain, a man driven by the pursuit of power. The mutant laws were his weapon; he was relentless in his pursuit of any actual or suspected telepath, relentless in his constant cry of a "mutant underground" which, he warned, was plotting to overthrow the Federation government. But more to the point, he was rumored to be a favorite of Ewol Strang, the Third Sector representative on the High Council of Ten. As such, he was considered as Smithson's successor when the 78-year-old director stepped down. Philip Wig was the crown prince -- the whispers ran through the offices and corridors of Sector Three SocAd.

  Selby watched him, his face blank.

  Despite Wig's high position, he had a brake on his power. Although he was charged with enforcement of the mutant laws, his department had been placed under SocAd by a thoughtful Imperator, who considered that such a move might erase the stigma of persecution. As such, Wig was answerable to Director

  Korl Smithson. Nor could he certify the existence of the telepathic trait in those taken into custody; that was the psymaster's province. Wig could pursue, trap, arrest, but there his power ended and Hallam Vogel's began. That, Selby knew, was a thorn in the executor's side.

  He glanced up as the bronze doors swung open and closed behind Director Korl Smithson, who crossed the golden carpet with a limping gait. Sparse and gray, his deeply lined face gave ample evidence of his years; all but the eyes. A cobalt blue, they held a penetrating quality that fascinated Selby. At times he had the uncomfortable feeling that they looked inside his body, watched the organs at work. Silly, of course, but they were those kind of eyes.

  Selby liked the director. Smithson had come up through the Social Administration ranks, for the last twenty years serving as its head -- no small feat in this day of shifting politics, he reflected.

  The hushed conversation between Wig and his assistants ceased and Vogel opened his eyes, sitting straighter.

  Fitting himself into a well-cushioned chair at the head of the table, Smithson said in a voice reedy with age, "I wish to apologize for calling this

  conference in the midst of the holidays, especially" -- he looked at Vogel --

  "just as our psymaster was about to enjoy a long-postponed vacation."

  "It can wait," Vogel returned placidly.

  "It will have to wait," Smithson acceded. He let his gaze rove around the circle of faces before continuing, "A serious situation has arisen, perhaps a dangerous one."

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  "What is it?" asked Wig sharply.

  "We appear to have a boy who can make sticks rise in the air, make dogs float." The director sat back, contemplating them. Selby suppressed a sense of shock. A psychokinetic? Unbelievable.

  And yet...

  "A pk?" Wig's eyes were startled.

  "On the evidence we have now, yes." Smithson nodded. Selby saw that Hallam Vogel's expression hadn't changed. It was, he thought, as if the psymaster were listening to a routine report. Then Vogel stirred.

  "Seems far-fetched," he observed.

  "Far-fetched?" Wig shot back. "Why? How about Henry Fong? Anna LeMay?"

  "Telepathy, yes, but I regard the beyond powers largely a product of public hysteria," answered Vogel. He hunched closer, fixing his dark eyes on the executor's face. "A lot of overripe imaginations are at work."

  "Fong was a certified pk," snapped Wig.

  "After his death, yes, and by a psymaster third in a remote town on a small agricultural planet.

  Scarcely what you'd call credible evidence."

  "You can't deny..."

  Vogel waved him to silence and continued, "Henry Fong was never investigated during his short life, never subjected to probing. The rumor started he could lift stones, shake trees, make the earth around him tremble;

  and he was promptly killed by the superstitious people among whom he lived.

  You can't cite Fong as a precedent."

  "No?" asked Wig coldly. "How about the LeMay girl?"

  "What do we actually know?" asked Vogel. "She was reputed to be clairvoyant."

  "She predicted her own death!"

  "Any suicide can do that." Vogel smiled acidly.

  Selby felt a faint surprise. He would have expected the psymaster, if anyone, to appreciate the possibility of powers beyond telepathy, yet he clearly wasn't impressed. And why was Wig so vociferous? He switched his gaze to the director; the cobalt blue eyes held a tolerant, waiting expression.

  "Perhaps we'd better hear the evidence," suggested Vogel.

  "What is the evidence?" Wig stared at the director.

  "The captain of a tramp freighter witnessed the act," Smithson replied.

  "He was drunk, talking in a public place. The police heard him and took him in for questioning."

  "Where?" demanded Wig.

  "In Eliksen, a port city on the planet Krall."

  "The Canulus system? That puts him under our jurisdiction."

  Smithson nodded. "Fortunately the local SocAd director was informed immediately and had him transferred to department custody." He smiled slightly. "I have scant doubt but that you'll hear of it soon enough from your

  404 office there."

  Wig asked quickly, "Was he put under psychic probe?"

  "By our own people," Smithson acceded. "He was telling the truth all right, at least as he saw it."

  "Any chance of his having an overactive imagination?" asked Selby.

  "I doubt it. Imagination is a relative surface phenomenon, Alek. A deep probe goes beyond that...into the subconscious reality."

  "The reality of the subconscious is not necessarily the reality of the actual situation," Vogel interposed. "Probing uncovers what is real to the

  mind -- in other words, what the mind accepts as reality; but that isn't necessarily the same as Page 9

  reality."

  "I'll grant that," Smithson returned. "At the same time, we're faced with an extremely uncomfortable possibility. I'm certain the High Council won't view it lightly."

  As if he hadn't heard, Wig murmured, "A pk." His eyes came up slowly, resting on the director's face. "Where was he spotted?"

  "The alleged beyond?" Smithson smiled faintly and said, "On Engo."

  "Engo!" In the startled silence that followed the executor's exclamation, Selby noted that Vogel alone betrayed no surprise. The psymaster didn't shake easily, he reflected.

  "What was he doing there?" demanded Wig.

  "The tramper captain? Illegal trading," answered Smithson.

  "It's nothing new," Vogel cut in. "When you put a planet out of bounds, you're inviting illegal trade."

  Wig glowered at him. "We should make an example of that man."

  "Why?"

  "Smuggling?" Wig lifted his eyes.

  "If reports are true, none of the exile planets lack for trade," Vogel answered casually. "I can't see that it's so monstrous."

  "How do you know they're traders? They can just as easily be members of the mutant underground."

  "The man was put under psychic examination," Vogel reminded.

  Wig switched his gaze to the director. "What's the captain's name?"

  "Gordon Cromwell of the Cosmic Wind," Smithson told him. "It's an old tramper of Capellan registry."

  "We should get that man here, wring him out."

  "That's my worry," Vogel interposed softly. Jonman, silent until now, asked raspingly, "What about the freak?"

  "The boy?" Smithson contemplated him. "We'll have to wait and see."

  "Wait?" interjected Wig. "We'd better take action right now."

  Irked by his tone, Selby asked, "Why? What is there to do? If he's on Engo, he's already exiled. What more can you do?"

  Wig regarded him poisonously. "Exile's not enough."

  "Not enough?"

&
nbsp; "Have you ever heard of Mr. Olaf? The mutant underground?" demanded Wig.

  "What do you think those people would do if they learned of a pk on Engo?

  They'd snatch him quick, and they could. The smuggler made it in an old tramper. The boy's a danger to the universe, Selby. I know that if you don't."

  "One small boy?" asked Selby wonderingly.

  "A pk," rasped Wig. "Don't you understand the meaning of that?"

  "Do you?" he asked.

  "I know he's dangerous -- too dangerous to live."

  "You'd kill him?" Selby stared at the executor disbelievingly. The pale, glittering eyes that met his held a mocking expression. He shifted his gaze to

  Vogel's face, and then to Smithson's. Both were set, inscrutable.

  After what seemed endless seconds the director said, "There's an unwritten policy to that effect, Alek."

  "Murder?"

  He smiled grimly. "It's not called murder. Usually there's an accident or some such arrangement."

  "It's still murder."

  "Yes, it is," the director assented.

  Selby suppressed his shock. "Henry Fong?" he asked quietly.

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  "An agent stirred the people up," Smithson acceded. "That's highly classified, of course."

  "I didn't know that," Vogel said flatly.

  "It was a Sector Five problem, Hallam. I really don't know the details."

  Smithson returned his gaze to Selby. "Power and justice aren't always compatible, Alek.

  Government -- all governments throughout history -- have had some such means to dispose of elements threatening to them."

  "But...a ten-year-old boy?"

  "A freak," Jonman interjected harshly.

  Wig smiled tightly and said, "You don't have to worry about getting your hands bloody, Selby.

  Jonman and Conrad will be happy to make the arrangements."

  Selby regarded Jonman stony-eyed. The agent's spade-shaped face with its underslung jaw and diagonally slanted eyes suggested ancestry in the Arcturus system. The lips, pulled tightly back, gave him a wolfish appearance. He switched his gaze to Conrad. Lean, dark, and hatchet-faced, Conrad returned the stare with blank, unfathomable eyes.