Instant of Decision Read online

keep them peaceful, why should we give themspaceships so they can destroy Moonbase?

  The Eurasian League had been quiet for a good many years, brooding,but behaving. Then, three years ago, Moonbase had vanished in a flashof actinic light, leaving only a new minor crater in the crust ofLuna.

  There was no proof of anything, of course. It had to be written off asan accident. But from that day on, the League had become increasinglybolder; their policy was: "Smash the UN and take the planets forourselves!"

  And now, with Carlson Spacecraft going up in flames, they seemed to begetting closer to their goal.

  * * * * *

  Karnes accepted his weapon and billfold from the guard and led themback down the stairway. "Would one of you guys phone the State Police?They'll want to know what happened."

  The State Police copters came and went, taking Karnes and the late Mr.Avery with them, and leaving behind the now dying glow of CarlsonSpacecraft.

  There were innumerable forms to fill out and affidavits to make; therewas a long-distance call to UN headquarters in New York to verifyKarnes' identity. And Karnes asked to borrow the police lab for anhour or so.

  That evening, he caught the rocket for Long Island.

  As the SR-37 floated through the hard vacuum five hundred miles abovecentral Nebraska, Karnes leaned back in his seat, turning the oddcigarette case over and over in his hands.

  Except for the neat, even checking that covered it, the littlethree-by-four inch object was entirely featureless. There were nocatches or hinges, or even any line of cleavage around the edge. Hehad already found that it wouldn't open.

  Whatever it was, it was most definitely _not_ a cigarette case.

  The X-ray plates had shown it to be perfectly homogeneous throughout.

  _As far as I can see_, thought Karnes, _it's nothing but a piece ofacid-proof plastic, except that the specific gravity is way the helltoo high_. _Maybe if I had cut it open, I could have--_

  Karnes didn't push anything on the case, of that he was sure. Nor didhe squeeze, shake, or rub it in any unusual way. But somethinghappened; something which he was convinced came from the case in hishands.

  He had the definite impression of something akin to a high-pressurefirehose squirting from the interior of the case, through his skull,and into and over his brain, washing it and filling it. Little riversof knowledge trickled down through the convolutions of his brain,collected in pools, and soaked in.

  * * * * *

  He was never sure just how long the process took but it was certainlynot more than a second or two. Afterwards, he just sat there, staring.

  From far across the unimaginable depths of the galaxy, fighting itsway through the vast, tenuous dust clouds of interstellar space, camea voice: "Are you ill, sir?"

  Karnes looked up at the stewardess. "Oh. Oh, no. No, I'm all right.Just thinking. I'm perfectly all right."

  He looked at the "cigarette case" again. He knew what it was, now.There wasn't any English word for it, but he guessed "mind impressor"would come close.

  It had done just that; impressed his mind with knowledge he should nothave; the record of something he had no business knowing.

  _And he wished to Heaven he didn't!_

  _This_, Karnes considered, _is a problem_. _The stuff is so_ alien!_Just a series of things I know, but can't explain. Like a dream; youknow all about it, but it's practically impossible to explain it toanybody else._

  At the spaceport, he was met by an official car. George Lansberg, oneof the New York agents, was sitting in the back seat.

  "Hi, sleuth. I heard you were coming in, so I asked to meet you." Helowered his voice as Karnes got in and the car pulled away from theparking lot. "How about our boy, Avery?"

  Karnes shook his head. "Too late. Thirty million bucks worth ofmaterial lost and Avery lost too."

  "How come?"

  "Had to kill him to keep him from getting away with these."

  He showed Lansberg the microfilm squares.

  "The photocircuit inserts for the new autopilot. We'd lose everythingif the League ever got its hands on these."

  "Didn't learn anything from Avery, eh?" Lansberg asked.

  "Not a thing." Karnes lapsed into silence. He didn't feel it necessaryto mention the mind impressor just yet.

  Lansberg stuck a cigarette into his mouth and talked around it as helit it.

  "We've got something you'll be getting in on, now that Avery is takencare of. We've got a fellow named Brittain, real name Bretinov, who isholed up in a little apartment in Brooklyn. He's the sector head forthat section, and we know who his informers are, and who he givesorders to. What we don't know is who gives orders to him.

  "Now we have it set up for Brittain to get his hands on some veryhonest-looking, but strictly phony stuff for him to pass on to thenext echelon. Then we just sit around and watch until he does passit."

  * * * * *

  Karnes found he was listening to Lansberg with only half an ear. Hisbrain was still buzzing with things he'd never heard of, trying to fitthings he had always known in with things he knew now but had neverknown before. Damn that "cigarette case"!

  "Sounds like fun," he answered Lansberg.

  "Yeah. Great. Well, here we are." They had driven to the Long IslandSpaceways Building which also housed the local office.

  They got out and went into the building, up the elevator, down acorridor, and into an office suite.

  Lansberg said: "I'll wait for you here. We'll get some coffeeafterwards."

  The redhead behind the front desk smiled up at Karnes.

  "Go on in; he's expecting you."

  "I don't know whether I ought to leave you out here with Georgie ornot," Karnes grinned. "I think he has designs."

  "Oh, goodie!" she grinned back.

  _My, my aren't we clever!_ His thought was bitter, but his face didn'tshow it.

  Before he went in, he straightened his collar before the wall mirror.He noticed that his plain, slightly tanned face still looked the sameas ever. Same ordinary gray-green eyes, same ordinary nose.

  _Chum, you_ look _perfectly sane_. _You_ are _perfectly sane. But whoin hell would believe it?_

  It wouldn't, after all, do any good for him to tell anyone anything hehad found. No matter what the answer was, there wasn't anything hecould do about it. There wasn't anything _anyone_ could do about it.

  Thus, Karnes' report to his superior was short, to the point, andcensored.

  That evening, Karnes sat in his apartment, chain-smoking, and staringout the window. Finally, he mashed out a stub, stood up, and saidaloud: "Maybe if I write it down I can get it straight."

  He sat down in front of the portable on his desk, rolled in a sheetof paper, and put his fingers on the keys. Then, for a long time, hejust sat there, turning it over and over in his mind. Finally, hebegan to type.

  _A Set of General Instructions and a Broad Outline on the Purposes and Construction of the Shrine of Earth._

  _Part One: Historical._

  _Some hundred or so millennia ago, insofar as the most exacting of historical research can ascertain, our remote ancestors were confined to one planet of the Galaxy; the legendary Earth._

  _The third planet of Sun (unintelligible number) has long been suspected of being Earth, but it was not until the development of the principles of time transfer that it became possible to check the theory completely._

  _The brilliant work done by--_

  (Karnes hesitated over the name, then wrote--)

  _--Starson on the ancient history and early evolution of the race has shown the theory to be correct. This has opened a new and fascinating field for the study of socioanthropology._

  _Part Two: Present Purposes and Aims._

  _Because of the great energy transfer and cosmic danger involved in too frequent or unrestricted time travel, it has been
decided that the best method for studying the social problems involved would be to rebuild, in toto, the ancient Earth as it was just after the initial discoveries of atomic power and interplanetary space travel._

  _In order to facilitate this work, the Surveying Group will translate themselves to the chronological area in question, and obtain complete records of that time, covering the years between (1940) and (2020)._

  _When the survey is complete, the Construction Group will rebuild that civilization with as great an exactness as possible, complete with population, fossil strata, edifices, etc._

  _Upon the occasion of the opening of the Shrine, the replica of our early civilization will be begun as it was on (January 3, 1953). The population, having been impregnated with the proper memories, will be permitted to go about their lives unhampered._

  Karnes stopped again and reread the paragraph he had just written. Itsounded different when it was on paper. The dates, for instance, hehad put in parentheses because that was the way he had understoodthem. But he knew that whoever had made the mind-impressor didn't usethe same calendar he was used to.

  He frowned at the paper, then went on typing.

  _Part Three: Conduct of Students._

  _Students wishing to study the Shrine for the purpose of (unintelligible again) must obtain permits from the Galactic Scholars Council, and, upon obtaining such permits, must conduct themselves according to whatever rules may be laid down by such Council._

  _Part Four: Corrective Action to be Taken._

  _At certain points in the history of ancient Earth, certain crises arose which, in repetition, would be detrimental to the Shrine. These crises must be mitigated in order that--_

  Karnes stopped. That was all there was. Except--except for one morelittle tail end of thought. He tapped the keys again.

  (_Continued on Stratum Two_)

  _Whatever in hell that means_, he thought.

  He sat back in his chair and went over the two sheets of typed paper.It wasn't complete, not by a long shot. There were little tones ofmeaning that a printed, or even a spoken word couldn't put over. Therewere evidences of a vast and certainly superhuman civilization; of analien and yet somehow completely human way of thinking.

  But that was the gist of it. The man he had seen in that new buildingat Carlson Spacecraft was no ordinary human being.

  That, however, didn't bother Karnes half so much as the gray globe theman had disappeared into after he had been shot at. And Karnes knew,now, that the shots probably hadn't missed.

  The globe was one of two things. And the intruder had been one of twogroups.

  (A) One of the Surveyors of Ancient Earth, in which case the globe hadbeen a--well, a time machine. Or

  (B) A student, in which case the machine was a type of spacecraft.

  The question was: Which?

  If it were (A), then he and the world around him were real, living,working out their own destinies toward the end point represented bythe man in the gray globe.

  But if it were (B)--

  Then this was the Shrine, and he and all the rest of Earth werenothing but glorified textbooks!

  And there would come crises on the Shrine, duplicates of the crises onold Earth. Except that they wouldn't be permitted to happen. The poorignorant people on the Shrine had to be coddled, like the childrenthey were. Damn!

  Karnes crumpled the sheets of paper in his hands, twisting themsavagely. Then he methodically tore them into bits.

  * * * * *

  When the first dawnlight touched the sea, Karnes was watching it outthe east window. It had been twenty-four hours since he had seen thesuperman walk into his gray globe and vanish.

  All night, he had been searching his brain for some clue that wouldtell him which of the two choices he should believe in. And hecouldn't bring himself to believe in either.

  Once he had thought: _Why do I believe, then, what the impressor said?Why not just forget it?_

  But that didn't help. He _did_ believe it. That alien instrument hadimpressed his mind, not only with the facts themselves, but with anabsolute faith that they _were_ facts. There was no room for doubt;the knowledge imparted to his mind was true, and he knew it.

  For a time, he had been comforted by the thought that the gray globemust be a time machine because of the way it had vanished. It was verycomforting until he realized that travel to the stars and beyonddidn't necessarily mean a spaceship as he knew spaceships.Teleportation--

  Now, with the dawn, Karnes knew there was only one thing he could do.

  Somehow, somewhere, there would be other clues--clues a man who knewwhat to look for might find. The Galactics couldn't be perfect, orthey wouldn't have let him get the mind impressor in his hands. Ergo,somewhere they would slip again.

  Karnes knew he would spend the rest of his life looking for that oneslip. He had to know the truth, one way or another.

  Or he might not stay sane.

  * * * * *

  Lansberg picked him up at eight in a police copter. As they floatedtoward New York, Karnes' mind settled itself into one cold purpose; apurpose that lay at the base of his brain, waiting.

  Lansberg was saying: "--and one of Brittain's men got the stuff lastnight. He hadn't passed it on to Brittain himself yet this morning,but he very probably will have by the time we get there.

  "We've rigged it up so that Brittain will have to pass it to hissuperior by tomorrow or it will be worthless. When he does, we'llfollow it right to the top."

  "If we've got every loophole plugged," said Karnes, "we ought to takethem easy."

  "Brother, I hope so! It took us eight months to get Brittain all hotand bothered over the bait, and another two months to give it to himin a way that wouldn't make him suspicious.

  "It's restricted material, of course, so that we can pin a subversiveactivities rap on them, at least, if not espionage. But we had toargue like hell to keep it restricted; the Spatial Commission wasready to release it, since it's really relatively harmless."

  Karnes looked absently at the thin line of smoke wiggling fromLansberg's cigarette.

  "You know," he said, "there are times when I wish this war would comeright out in the open. Actually, we've been fighting the League foryears, but we don't admit it. There have been little disagreements andincidents until the devil won't have it. But it's still supposed to bea 'worry war'."

  Lansberg shrugged. "It will get hot just as soon as the EurasianLeague figures they are far enough along in spacecraft construction toget the Martian colonies if they win. Then they'll try to smash usbefore we can retaliate; then, and not before.

  "We can't start it. Our only hope is that when they start, they'llunderestimate us. Say, what's that you're fooling with?"

  The sudden change of subject startled Karnes for an instant. He lookedat the mind impressor in his hands. He had been toying with itincessantly, hoping it would repeat its performance, or perhaps giveadditional information.

  "This?" He covered quickly. "It's a--a puzzle. One of those plasticpuzzles." _Maybe it doesn't work on the same person twice. If I canget George to fool around with it, he might hit the right combinationagain._

  "Hmmm. How does it work?" George seemed interested.

  Karnes handed it to him. "It has a couple of little sliding weightsinside it. You have to turn the thing just right to unlock it, then itcomes apart when you slide out a section of the surface. Try it."

  * * * * *

  Lansberg took it, turned it this way and that, moving his hands overthe surface. Karnes watched him for several minutes, but there didn'tseem to be any results.

  Lansberg looked up from his labors. "I give up. I can't even see whereit's supposed to come apart, and I can't feel any weights slidinginside it. Show me how it works."

  Karnes thought fast. "Why do you think I was fiddling wi
th it? Idon't know how it works. A friend of mine bet me a ten spot that Icouldn't figure out the combination."

  Lansberg looked back at the impressor in his hands. "Could he do it?"

  "A snap. I watched him twice, and I still didn't get it."

  "Mmm. Interesting." George went back to work on the "puzzle."

  Just before they landed on the roof of the UN annex, Lansberg handedthe impressor back to Karnes. It had obviously failed to do whateither of them had hoped it would.

  "It's your baby," Lansberg said, shaking his head. "All I have to sayis it's a hell of a way to earn ten bucks."

  Karnes grinned and dropped the thing back in his coat pocket.

  By the time that evening had rolled around, Karnes was beginning toget just a little bored. He and Lansberg had been in and out of theNew York office in record time. Then they had spent a few hours withNew York's Finest and the District Attorney, lining up a net to pickup all the little rats involved.

  After that, there was nothing to do but wait.

  Karnes slept a couple of hours to catch up, read two magazines fromcover to cover, and played eight games of solitaire. He was gettingitchy.

  His brain kept crackling. _What's the matter with me? I ought to bethinking about this Brittain fellow instead of--_

  But, after all, what did Brittain matter? According to the records, hewas born Alex Bretinov, in Marseilles, France, in nineteensixty-eight. His father, a dyed-in-the-wool Old Guard Communist, hadbeen born in Minsk in nineteen forty.

  _Or had he been wound up, and his clockwork started in January ofnineteen fifty-three?_

  The radio popped. "Eighteen. Alert. Brittain just left his place onfoot. Carson, Reymann following.