Van Vogt, AE More Than Superhuman

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of a paranoid male himself. He was still hereditary general, still married to Nerda, with no intention of
giving up either the position or the wife. Yet he had tolerated a change in the form by which he exercised
his power, and he had accepted less total control over his wife.
And in neither instance did he feel a real loss,
Nerda suggested to him that the long-term programming of Miliss and Dav had been designed to make it
possible for them to accept the unendurable existence of a lovely human couple marooned on an alien
planet. And because the stream of life flowed immortally through them, they were separately
programmed as a man and a woman to survive periodic crises. So the great civilization out there
controlled even its own emissaries.
In this generation, Nerda continued, perhaps only she and Rocquel would know the truth and, to a lesser
extent, Jaer. The hereditary general and his wife; and the hereditary leader of the principal subordinate
group, the Dorrish. But their own personalities remained overwhelmingly private. The stream of Jana
identity flowed on in them but it was now a more civilized being that felt the flow.
She must have realized from the accepting expression of his face and body that she could finally change
the subject.
'Do you still have control of the Symbol?' she asked.
It was night, and they were standing at a huge window looking toward the slickrock mountains.
Rocquel imaged the first three stages of the Tizane pattern, Something grazed his leg. He knew a
hackles-raising sensation a sense of an energy field of enormous power,
Hastily he turned his thoughts aside.
'Yes,' he said. 'It's still there.'
'In your presence,' said Nerda, 'no one can be killed as long as you control that Symbol. Did they
say when they would take it away from you?'
Rocquel was about to make the same reply he had given to Miliss when he realized that there was
quite a different awareness in him. A barrier had lifted from his memory. He recalled exactly what he had
been told.
'No,' he said simply, 'they just gave it to me. It's a lifetime gift'
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He began to feel better.
In my presence, no one can be killed...
Suddenly he divined that his was a very advanced Symbol indeed. He stood at a nearly unthinkable
height of understanding and power.
Deep inside him something that was almost infinitely savage was mollified. Possessing what was surely
one of the ultimate human Symbols he accepted his lesser than human status.
* *
For Dav it felt strange to be free. He walked slowly to a nearby restaurant and sat down at a table. He
was eating almost mindlessly when he heard the radio announce that he had been pardoned. The news
struck him with an odd impact. The life force within him quickened.
He grew aware that the Janae in the restaurant were staring at him curiously. No one showed hostility.
He had no place that he wanted to go so later he walked the streets. Finally he began to wonder.
Am I trying to solve a problem and if so, what?
He could not decide. Everything seemed very far away.
He had a feeling that there was something he should be doing. But he did not know what.
Night came.
He waved a surface car to a halt. It drew up, its lights glittering, its bells clanging. No one said anything
to him as he swung aboard.
Some younger Janae climbed on at the next stop. They sat giggling at him. But they rushed off into a
brilliantly lighted park where hundreds of youthful Janae were dancing to the rhythm of a low, fast-tempo,
sobbing music.
He continued his public exposure until almost midnight, without any untoward incidents. He returned to
the white house by the river. As he entered the west wing, he presumed Miliss was in her part of the
residence. But he made no effort to contact her.
He slept the special deep sleep which triggered long-ago programming deep in his brain. Still asleep, he
went to a room that was deceptively equipped with what seemed to be ordinary Jana-level electronic
equipment. But by pressing certain buttons and turning certain dials in a specific sequence, Dav activated
a communications system hidden in a remote part of the Jana planet.
Subspace radio waves thereupon transmitted a massage to a receiver many light-years away.
The message was: 'The crisis of the last stage of kings has passed '
The message completed automatically, then repeated and repeated. Finally a relay was closed on the
receiving planet by an accepting mind.
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A voice or a thought said, 'Message received, recorded.' A light flashed on in an instrument in
front of Dav and, still asleep, he returned to bed.
* *
Miliss had watched him first through scanners and then as she realized his catatonic unawareness of
his surroundings by following him closely.
So that, as he turned away from the equipment, she stepped up to it and spoke to the distant listener. It [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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