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."Silverstone shook his head."I don't think that moment will come.Not for us, the Himalayan generation.I hoped it would come to me but it hasn't.Our brains are too loaded with what we must call the inhibitions of the future.But the next generation, your sons, will be free of the overmind, if we put over the message to everyone clearly and soon enough."For a long while, Howes had been standing moodily apart from them, almost as if he were not listening.Now he turned and said, "You explain well, Silverstone, but you have not given us one concrete shred of proof for all this.""On the contrary, I have quoted proof from the arts and sciences.When we have overturned our enemies, and astronomers can resume their studies, they will soon give you proof that the Doppler effect is in fact evidence for a shrinking universe.Proofs will soon surround you.Proof does surround you, but you will not take these dreary rocks for evidence that the end of the world is at hand."Howes shook his head."I don't want to believe! Supposing I manage to confront Gleason and kill him? He then lives again?""Think it out, man! We hope you have reached Gleason and killed him! Now, in 2093, he has his moment of power -- but we know he will be out of power, the economic disorders will vanish, and soon nobody will have heard of him -- he will be an insignificant major soldiering in Mongolia.And if you mind back to, say, the year 2000, not one whisper of his name would remain.""If I have killed him, why don't I remember doing so?""Think it out for yourself, Captain! Until now, you believed you had a good memory but next to no precognitive faculty.Now you see the reverse is true, and there seems a logical reason for it.Beyond the Himalayan divide we have spoken of, human life wifl be organized towards forgetting; a bad memory will be a positive asset; while I think you will agree an ability to see clearly into the future would be useful at any time."Howes looked at the others and said, as if trying to win their support, "See how the professor fancies himself as the prophet, bringing great things to his people!""Wrong! Utterly wrong, Captain!" Silverstone said."I see only that we are the end of a great era when people saw the truth.For some reason, we and those that come after us all the way to the Stone Age will be utterly deluded.I -- I am merely the last man ever to remember the truth, for me there is the special terror of knowing that I shall be outcast and persecuted until I forget what everyone else has forgotten, that I shall be reduced to agreeing to Wenlock's false theory of mind, and spend my young manhood partly believing poor old Freud and his camp-followers!"For a moment, he did indeed look a tragic figure, suddenly overcome with the magnitude of what he was saying, so that he could say no more.It was clear now where the look of the sell-mocking-bird came from.Ann and Bush tried to cheer him up.Howes took the chance to speak to Borrow."It's getting dark.We ought to be away from this damned horror spot -- if I have much more of these riddles and these phantom people looking on, I really shall be a nut case! What do you make of all this, Borrow? You started by riding with it, I know, but you have been a bit silent lately -- I thought that possibly you had bad second thoughts.""Not exactly that.I think I accept what Norman says, though it's going to take living with for full acceptance, obviously.My thought is 'Why?' Why did this overmind come down over the true brain like a pair of dark glasses and obscure everything? Why?""Ha! Silverstone hasn't managed to explain that! Silverstone!"They turned to Norman Silverstone.Behind him, the great circle of shades they were learning to think of as minders from the past was unbroken, overlapping like the countless images in a crazy photograph.But in front of them -- Bush caught a movement that did not belong among the ghosts.A figure was emerging from the corner of one of the elephantine rocks.He recognized it.Wildly incongruous in the Cryptozoic, if incongruity existed any more, the man stepping from the rock still wore the grey silk coat and fawn topper he had sported as disguise in Buckingham Palace.Bush identified him at once.It was Grazley, the skilled assassin.Grazley was at his trade now.His heavy mouth was set, he had a gun raised.Bush still had ready the gun he had taken from Howes' pack, in case any sort of trouble occurred.He swung it up reflexively."Down!" he yelled.He fired.Even as he did so, he knew he was too late.The air beyond his left cheek was briefly livid as the lasered beam pulsed from Grazley's gun.He had missed Grazley.He fired again.The killer was fading, minding, clearly still under the influence of CSD.Bush's pulse of light burned into his left shoulder.Grazley spun slowly and fell, not changing his rigid attitude; but, before he could hit the floor, he had vanished, presumably to drift unconscious like a derelict ship throughout the eons of mind-travel, sliding down the entropy slope through the unplumbed geochrons of the Cryptozoic towards the dissolution of the Earth.Dismissing Grazley from his mind, Bush turned, to see Silverstone dying in Ann's care.His jacket still smoldered, and a charred patch spread across his chest.There was no hope for him.Howes was raving like a madman."I'll be shot for this! You idiots! Bush, this is your fault, you stole my gun -- how could I guard Silverstone properly? Now what'll we do? To think Grazley got back here! In one way, it was the logical place to look -- Silverstone ought to have seen that! He signed his own death warrant!""You let Grazley live in the Palace -- you alone are to blame, Howes!" Bush said.He stood looking down at Silverstone and reflected on what a wonderful man he had been, wonderful and unknown.The professor's eyes were staring now, and be had ceased to breathe, although Ann still helplessly held his shoulders.Borrow tugged at Bush's sleeve."Eddie, we've got another visitor!""Huh?" He looked up heavily, unwilling to face anything more.The Dark Woman had stepped from the vast shadowy crowd.Now she was close to them, standing next to Borrow.She raised her hand with an imperious gesture, and quickly took on substance, until she was as real and solid as they.The look that she cast on Bush was both loving and searching, so that he shied from its intimacy."You can materialize into our continuum?" he said."Then why didn't you stop Grazley? There must be thousands of you here -- why the hell didn't you intervene if you could?"She spoke, gesturing down at the still body of Silverstone."We assembled here to attend the birth of a great man."Chapter 8WALKERS OF THE CRYPTOZOICShe was a fine woman, seen close to.Bush estimated her to be no more than twenty-five, with blemishless brown skin, clear grey-blue eyes, and midnight black hair.Her figure and carriage were good, while her sumptuous long legs were well displayed by her short tunic-skirt.But it was her commanding presence that particularly impressed, even subdued, them.As Bush stared at her, she grasped his hand and smiled at him."We have known each other for a long while, Eddie Bush! My name is Wygelia Say [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]