To Conquer Chaos

That’s the broken sentence. It goes on.

‘“Its capacity is being continually expanded. Indeed, it will continue to expand to match the growing volume of interstellar traffic for the foreseeable future. No other information-processing system would be capable of coping. Only the organochemic cortex has saved interstellar traffic from being overwhelmed by its own complexity. It is predicted that in a century’s time organochemic cortexes will be handling fifty times the present traffic safely and without error.

‘“The organochemic cortex combines the reliability of inorganic cortexes with the flexibility and self- programming ability of the human brain. Terminal Station ‘A’ is the first, but it will not for long be the only, interstellar transit station to be completely supervised by an organochemic cortex.’ ”

He put the paper aside, looking hopefully at Yanderman. “Have you learned anything from these memories of the past which will help you to clarify that?”

Yanderman shook his head. “All I gathered was that, first, this place was a transit station, right? In other words, you could really walk to other worlds from here, something which I’d dismissed as absurd. And second, the organochemic cortex-whatever that might be-was very important.”

“It’s not absurd, this walking to other worlds story,” Keefe put in. “After all, that mechanism is one of the ones still functioning.”

Both Conrad and Yanderman looked at him in bewilderment.

“So you finally decided to agree with me!” Grandfather Maxall roared, slapping his knee. Keefe looked uncomfortable, and explained to the puzzled newcomers.

“We say, out of habit, that the things ‘hatch’ in the Station. Maxall has always said that wasn’t right-they must come from somewhere else, where they have others of their own kind to breed with. That much figures. And things like the ovens, the power accumulators, the clothing-dispensers-they certainly have gone on working all this time without much help from us.”

“What’s more, though we don’t know what the organochemic cortex is, exactly,” Maxall put in, “we know where it is. You saw that dense mass of dangerous vegetation which fills up a great deal of the dome? Of course you did. And you probably wondered why we don’t just go in with heatbeams and burn it out. Well, the reason is that according to tradition the cortex is located somewhere under the plants, and without it we’d freeze, starve and go naked because it too is still working and maintaining the services which support us.”

He gulped down his drink and held out his mug for more. Nestamay hesitated before pouring for him. She said, “Grandfather-doesn’t this mean that we can change that?”

“How so?” Maxall blinked at her.

“Why, if it’s been proved possible to cross the barrenland, can’t we stop worrying about the risk of putting the Station out of action? Can’t we make plans to evacuate to the outside world and then try and burn our way into the dome and-?”

She let the last words trail away.

“That’s not what we’re here for!” the old man snapped. “We are here to maintain and repair the Station! In other words, it’s not up to us to wreck it just to prevent a few more lousy things breaking through and terrorising us! And now we’re in contact with the outside again, we have grounds for hope.”

Cheeks crimson, Nestamay muttered something about fetching more drink, and slipped out of the hovel again. Conrad stared after her musingly.

“Hmmm …” Yanderman said at length. “Now you said the barrenland was a quarantine area. What against?”

“I’ll have to refer to something else I don’t properly understand,” Maxall said. He sorted through his case of documents again. “This is apparently an official decree. It’s headed ‘Bureau of Traffic’ and ‘Bureau of Public Health’, and it says: ‘As of the receipt of this notice Terminal Station A and routes serviced therefrom are to cease operation. Immediate Class One-Plus quarantine restrictions are placed on all stations subject to recent traffic from areas known to be foci of encephalosis dureri.’ Legend says this was a kind of contagious madness, by the way,” he added. On Yanderman’s curt nod-yes, I know-he resumed.

‘“Terminal Station A is declared subject to absolute quarantine exclusive only of repair and maintenance technicians, who must sign a voluntary release before entering the banned zone.’”

“That clears up a lot of problems I had after listening to you, Conrad,” Yanderman said, turning. Then: “Conrad!”

With a start, Conrad looked round. “I’m sorry! I was trying to work out … Yanderman, please explain this. If my visions come from the distant past, how is it that I could have seen Nestamay in them? So clearly that when I tried carving a girl’s head out of soap the day you came to Lagwich, I made it look like her instead of like Idris, as I intended?”

“A family resemblance,” Yanderman said curtly, and went back to his discussion with Maxall.

XXI

Hours later, when he and Yanderman had been left to rest in the hovel-its usual occupants having insisted on moving to another-the superficial glibness of that explanation was still irritating Conrad. It refused stubbornly to let him yield to the sleep his exhaustion craved.

Giving up at last, he rolled on his side and looked in Yanderman’s direction. It was far too dark to see him even in outline. A soughing breeze turned momentarily to a stiff wind and rattled a few grains of sand on the hovel wall.

“Conrad?” Yanderman said. On receiving a grunted response, he went on, “How do you feel after our epic trip?”

“Not very different,” Conrad admitted. “It turned out so much easier than I expected it all feels unreal. And the people here, too-so ordinary in so many ways. You’d expect them to make much more fuss after over four hundred years in isolation.”

“I know.” Sounds suggested that Yanderman was rolling on his back to look upwards at the low ceiling. “I think there are two reasons why our arrival passed off so calmly. For one thing, there are no precedents. Your people at Lagwich, mine in Esberg-we’ve developed a set of habits for meeting strangers. A marrying expedition comes, and you put on your best clothes and bake celebration bread and clean house and so on; well, all that has just gone with the wind here. And the second reason, it seems to me, is that the pattern of life here is such a tightly-knit one there’s no slack. Some of the demands of the existence you and I know are taken off their shoulders by the ancient machines: they’d have no opening for a soapmaker, for instance, because they have a device which takes in soiled clothing and delivers fresh. And some of the food is automatically produced-I want to investigate that tomorrow. But even so, nine-tenths of their waking time is taken up in meeting the demands of their predicament. Every single day a twenty-man working party is occupied in keeping the vegetation under control, Maxall says. Yesterday the discovery of an alien plant seeded from the hoof of a recently arrived thing meant that those people who should have had a day to rest up had to go out and scour the barrenland for any other specimens. That’s how the plants we saw on the way got where they are, obviously. I’m amazed they haven’t caved in under this pressure long ago, especially as they have no proper weapons!”

“No weapons?” Conrad echoed in astonishment. “But how about the things they used to burn Jaspers body- the heatbeams? Those looked like weapons to me!”

“Maxall says they weren’t intended for such use. They were converted, a long time ago, from devices meant for welding or smelting metal. They’ve been indispensable, but they consume immense quantities of power which can only be replaced through solar batteries-collecting sunlight and storing it-and they burn out rapidly. Besides, they’re cumbersome. You saw how awkward they are to handle.”

“There’s something else,” Conrad said after a pause. “I mean another reason why they didn’t go crazy with joy on seeing us. They’re frightened.”

There was a further pause, considerably longer. At last Yanderman said, “You’re no fool, Conrad. Have you any idea why?”