The Second Randall Garrett Megapack. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ a locked room; no one could possibly have gotten in or out. One of the characters suggested that the murderer traveled through the fourth dimension in order to get at the victim. He didn’t go through the walls; he went around them.” The Senator puffed a match flame into the bowl of his pipe, his eyes on the younger man. “Is that what you’re driving at?”

      “Exactly,” agreed Camberton. “The fourth dimension. Time. You must go back in time to an instant when that wall did not exist. An infant has no shame, no modesty, no shield against the world. You must travel back down your own four-dimensional tube of memory in order to get outside it, and to do that, you have to know your own mind completely, and you must be sure you know it.

      “For only if you know your own mind can you communicate with another mind. Because, at the ‘instant’ of contact, you become that person; you must enter his own memory at the beginning and go up the hyper-tube. You will have all his memories, his hopes, his fears, his sense of identity. Unless you know—beyond any trace of doubt—who you are, the result is insanity.”

      The Senator puffed his pipe for a moment, then shook his head. “It sounds like Oriental mysticism to me. If you can travel in time, you’d be able to change the past.”

      “Not at all,” Camberton said; “that’s like saying that if you read a book, the author’s words will change.

      “Time isn’t like that. Look, suppose you had a long trough filled with supercooled water. At one end, you drop in a piece of ice. Immediately the water begins to freeze; the crystallization front moves toward the other end of the trough. Behind that front, there is ice—frozen, immovable, unchangeable. Ahead of it there is water—fluid, mobile, changeable.

      “The instant we call ‘the present’ is like that crystallization front. The past is unchangeable; the future is flexible. But they both exist.”

      “I see—at least, I think I do. And you can do all this?”

      “Not yet,” said Camberton; “not completely. My mind isn’t as strong as Wendell’s, nor as capable. I’m not the—shall we say—the superman he is; perhaps I never will be. But I’m learning—I’m learning. After all, it took Paul twenty years to do the trick under the most favorable circumstances imaginable.”

      “I see.” The Senator smoked his pipe in silence for a long time. Camberton lit a cigaret and said nothing. After a time, the Senator took the briar from his mouth and began to tap the bowl gently on the heel of his palm. “Mr. Camberton, why do you tell me all this? I still have influence with the Senate; the present President is a protégé of mine. It wouldn’t be too difficult to get you men—ah—put away again. I have no desire to see our society ruined, our world destroyed. Why do you tell me?”

      Camberton smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid you might find it a little difficult to put us away again, sir; but that’s not the point. You see, we need you. We have no desire to destroy our present culture until we have designed a better one to replace it.

      “You are one of the greatest living statesmen, Senator; you have a wealth of knowledge and ability that can never be replaced; knowledge and ability that will help us to design a culture and a civilization that will be as far above this one as this one is above the wolf pack. We want you to come in with us, help us; we want you to be one of us.”

      “I? I’m an old man, Mr. Camberton. I will be dead before this civilization falls; how can I help build a new one? And how could I, at my age, be expected to learn this technique?”

      “Paul Wendell says you can. He says you have one of the strongest minds now existing.”

      The Senator put his pipe in his jacket pocket. “You know, Camberton, you keep referring to Wendell in the present tense. I thought you said he was dead.”

      Again Camberton gave him the odd smile. “I didn’t say that, Senator; I said they buried his body. That’s quite a different thing. You see, before the poor, useless hulk that held his blasted brain died, Paul gave the eight of us his memories; he gave us himself. The mind is not the brain, Senator; we don’t know what it is yet, but we do know what it isn’t. Paul’s poor, damaged brain is dead, but his memories, his thought processes, the very essence of all that was Paul Wendell is still very much with us.

      “Do you begin to see now why we want you to come in with us? There are nine of us now, but we need the tenth—you. Will you come?”

      “I—I’ll have to think it over,” the old statesman said in a voice that had a faint quaver. “I’ll have to think it over.”

      But they both knew what his answer would be.

      QUEST OF THE GOLDEN APE (1957)

      CHAPTER I

      Mansion of Mystery

      In a secluded section of a certain eastern state which must remain nameless, one may leave the main highway and travel up a winding road around tortuous bends and under huge scowling trees, into wooded country.

      Upon a certain night—the date of which must remain vague—there came a man who faced and was not turned back by a series of psychological barriers along this road which made it more impregnable than a steel wall. These barriers, which had kept out a hundred years of curiosity-seekers until that certain night, were forged by the scientific magic of a genius on a planet far beyond the sun.…

      The man who boldly followed his headlights up the road was of middle age with calm, honest eyes and a firm mouth indicating bargains made in his name would be kept. He pushed on, feeling the subtle force of the psychological powers against him but resisting because he vaguely understood them.

      He left his car presently and raised his hand to touch the hard outline of a small book he carried in his breast pocket and with the gesture his determination hardened. He set his jaw firmly, snapped on the flashlight he had taken from the dash of his convertible and moved on up the road.

      His firm, brisk steps soon brought him to its end, a great iron gate, its lock and hinges rusted tight under the patient hand of Time. It was high and spiked and too dangerous for climbing. But someone had smashed the lock with a heavy instrument and had applied force until the rusted hinges gave and the gate stood partially open. From the look of the metal, this could have been done recently—even in the past few minutes.

      * * * *

      The man entered and found a flagstone pathway. He followed this for a time with the aid of his flashlight. Then he stopped and raised the beam.

      It revealed the outline of a great stone mansion, its myriad windows like black, sightless eyes, its silent bulk telling of long solitude, its tongueless voice whispering: Go away, stranger. Only peril and misfortune await you here.

      But I am not exactly a stranger, the man told himself, approaching the door and half hoping to find the scowling panel locked.

      But it was not locked. The ponderous knob turned under his hand. The panel moved back silently. The man gripped his flashlight and stepped inside.

      The knowledge that he was no longer alone came as a shock. It was brought to him by the sound of labored breathing and he flashed the light about frantically trying to locate the source of the harsh sound. Then the bright circle picked out a huddled form on the floor nearby. The man moved forward instantly and went to his knees.

      He was looking into an incredibly ancient face. The skin was so deeply lined СКАЧАТЬ