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  Proofed by an unsung hero.

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  The Terra Data by E.C. Tubb

  Chapter One

  In the dark a child was crying.

  Listening to it, a normal man would have responded to the thin, keening wail, feeling the emptiness, the terror and hopeless despair, but to Elge it was merely the symptom of a disturbing problem. The thing crying had been old long before he'd been born, and tears, to it, had been alien for the major part of its life. Yet now it cried as if a child again. Why?

  "Catatonia," said the man at his side. Like Elge he wore the scarlet robe of the Cyclan. His face was gaunt, bone prominent, his skull devoid of hair; attributes common to all cybers. "The probability is so high as to eliminate doubt. For some reason the intelligence is trying to find escape in the past."

  Moving back through time into childhood—there to find forgotten terrors. An answer which was almost certainly correct; Icelus was too skilled to make errors, but one which left the main problem unsolved. Why should the intelligence have needed to escape at all?

  Leaning back in his chair Elge stared thoughtfully at the console before him; the meters, readouts, signal lights, the speakers from which came the endless sobbing. Crude apparatus compared to what alternatives were available but far safer to use as two cybers had proved; one now dead from cerebral shock, the other a mindless shell. And yet a probability remained that he could gain some measure of success.

  A touch and a microphone was activated. "Itel," said Elge. "Itel, can you hear me? Answer if you can. Answer!"

  The sobbing continued.

  "Itel?" A waste of time and energy; the intelligence had reverted to before the name had been given. A fact Icelus would have known but he had remained silent, content to watch, to gauge the other's ability. Elge said, "You have his dossier?"

  He waited as it was fed into a machine; a minute chip which held the sum total of a man's active existence. The details flashed on the screen were what he'd expected; a child of the slums spotted by a shrewd agent and placed in a Cyclan school for elementary training. Proving worthy he had become first an acolyte then, later, had won the scarlet robe of a cyber. A man trained and tested and dedicated to serving the organization; one as efficient as a living machine. Itel had served well in that he had never failed and had earned his final reward. A reward he had enjoyed for centuries—why should he now be crying?

  "As I told you," said Icelus when Elge asked the question. "Catatonia."

  "The condition but not the cause."

  "True—that is, as yet, unknown." He added, as Elge remained silent, "All possible causes have been eliminated by a series of exhaustive tests. The nutrient fluids have been analyzed and found innocuous. No trace of radiation was found in the casing or attendant structures. No chemical alterations of any kind could be discerned in any part of the essential apparatus. There is no apparent protoplasmic degeneration."

  "But there is a correlation with previous breakdowns." Elge studied the addendum on the dossier. "This unit was removed from its original position and placed in isolation."

  "To minimize the risk of contamination," explained Icelus. "It was previously in close proximity to a bank of failed units."

  Brains which had taken to uttering nothing but gibberish—the entire unit of which they were a part totally destroyed by orders of the Cyber Prime. A decision which, obviously, had failed to achieve the desired result. Elge listened again to the thin, frightened wailing of a lost and lonely child. What was it seeking? How did it feel? A brain, taken from its skull, fitted with life-support apparatus, placed in a vat of nutrient fluids there to rest, alive, awake and aware. Once it had been a part of Central Intelligence; incorporated in the massed brains which, linked together, formed the tremendous cybernetic computer able to handle an incredible input of data. Able also to eliminate time and space in direct communication with cybers scattered throughout the galaxy. The heart of the Cyclan—one now at risk.

  Elge recognized the danger as did others. A unit could fail and, if that failure was due to a malfunction of apparatus, it could be accepted. But if a unit should fail for no apparent reason then to punish the attendants was not enough. The cause had to be found and eliminated. Had to! The merest acolyte could predict the disaster implicit in the disintegration of the Central Intelligence. At all costs that disaster must be avoided.

  The screen died as Elge touched a control; data vanishing as the chip was automatically expelled. Facts he had assimilated and could always check if the need arose but which now served no useful purpose. The sound of weeping followed, to be replaced by a sudden, almost tangible silence. One broken by a rustle as Icelus moved.

  "The Council will be expecting your attendance," he said. "They may wish to hear your conclusions."

  "There is time." Minutes and to a cyber a minute was not to be wasted, yet what more could he do? Elge rose, conscious of a sudden chill, wondering at its origin. The body was a machine and not to be cosseted for fear of it becoming less efficient. Food was fuel and fat excess tissue, hampering, unwanted, yet at times the loss of insulation made itself felt. He must increase his diet a little, there was an optimum balance to be maintained; in the meantime a walk would restore his efficiency. One through the caverns of the headquarters of the Cyclan.

  An earlier age would have called it a temple; a place built to house a subterranean god, formed, adorned, tended by devoted priests. But no earlier age could have imagined the vastness of the huge complex which lay in calculated array miles beneath the surface of a scarred and lonely world. Yet the similarity remained; the mathematical form of the caverns designed for maximum strength held the beauty of functional design, the cybers were dedicated servants and if a god was something more than a man the Central Intelligence was all of that. And, like a god, it had its sacrifice.

  Alone in his office Master Nequal, Cyber Prime, sat and contemplated the nearing conclusion of his life. It had been a long one; the stamp of years accentuated the skull-like appearance of his face which formed a waxen ball against the rich scarlet of his thrown-back cowl. An old face for it takes time to achieve great power and he had started as a starving boy begging in a gutter, stealing when the opportunity arose, fighting like an animal when, inevitably, he had been caught. Then the school, the strange men with their strange ways, the lessons instilled by pain, the promises and the proofs, the growing desire to be as they were; men indifferent to the normal world, protected from it, respected for the attributes they possessed.

  The skilled talent he had nurtured and had brought to flower.

  One which now had turned against him.

  To know. To have the ability as every cyber had to extrapolate from a handful of known facts and to predict the logical sequence of events. To gauge and evaluate and to reach a conclusion that was so probable as to be almost certain. And he knew his inevitable fate.

  He would die. A death earned because he had failed and even though he was the Cyber Prime still he had to pay the penalty of failure. To die. To be robbed of his hoped-for reward. Never to rest in blissful freedom of the irritations of the body and enjoy the pleasure of mental expansion. Of tasting the joy of mental achievement—the only pleasure a cyber could know.

  An end he had anticipated all through the long, long years of his dedicated service.

  A lamp glowed on the panel before him followed by a voice as he touched a stud. "Master?"

  "Yes?"

  "The Council is assembling." Jarvet, his aide, and one who said too little. Yandron would have said more but he was dead now, long gone to his reward, wondering, perhaps, why his old master was taking so long to join himself and the rest in mental gestalt. "Master?"

  "I heard."

  A pause as if of waiting, then the lamp died as Jarvet broke the connection. Had he hoped for more? Unnecessary repetition? Questions of an empty nature? If so he had been disappointed. If almost a century of life failed to teach a man discretion then he had better never to have been born.

  But the years rode heavily. Nequal straightened, slowly, using the desk to gain support until he was firmly upright. A thing which would have told against him had any been present to observe and they would have been right to condemn him. A cyber had to be efficient at all times and the Cyber Prime most of all. Why had he waited so long?

  The answer bloomed before him as he activated a familiar control.

  It was a masterpiece of electronic ingenuity; tiny motes of light held in a mesh of invisible forces, the entire galactic lens constrained within three hundred cubic feet of space. With such compression details had to be lost; the billions of individual worlds, the comets, the asteroidal matter, rogue planets, isolated patches of dust, all swallowed in the glowing depiction of countless stars. Nequal touched a control and scarlet flecks appeared in scattered profusion, each fleck representing a cyber. More than there had been when he first became Cyber Prime to rest at the very apex of his world, but not as many as he would have liked. Still there were large areas devoid of the scarlet flecks, spaces in which they were thinly scattered, regions and nodes in which the influence of the Cyclan was minor or absent. More evidence of his failure but none other than himself would have considered it as such. It was a personal assessment of how far he had failed to reach the goal he had set himself when the Council had elevated him to his present position. And yet, even when setting that target, he had known he would fail.

  Ambition, even the emotionless aspirations of a c yber, had to accept the limitations of reality. It took time for a cyber to gain the trust of a ruler. More to make himself indispensable. Years and even decades before the domination of the Cyclan could be so firmly established that nothing could shake it. And the galaxy was so vast, the worlds so plentiful, the task so great that it seemed it would never be accomplished. That sheer size and distance would thwart the Great Plan and frustrate the ideal which governed his life and the lives of all who wore the scarlet robe. To dominate everyone everywhere. To eliminate waste. To establish the law of logic and reason wherever mankind could be found.

  An aim to which he had dedicated his life.

  One shortly to end.

  "Master!" Jarvet had arrived in person, now standing within the open door, his eyes like his face as impassive as if carved from stone. "The Council—"

  "Are waiting my presence. I understand."

  "No, master. They are willing to excuse you if that is what you wish."

  A deference to his rank while reinforcing the fact that they were the real strength of the Cyclan. A guard and check against dangerous excess or reluctant tardiness; watchdogs to keep the Cyber Prime at his best. He could sit and wait and their decision would be delivered but they, and he, knew what it would be. Or he could attend and face those who chose to accuse him and defend the actions he had taken. A choice which was really no choice at all.

  "I shall not keep them waiting." The glowing depiction died to form splintered shards of fading luminescence. A brilliance against which the normal, bluish glow seemed dull by contrast. "Go ahead and inform the Council I am on my way."

  They stirred as he entered the chamber, a dozen men who appeared as brothers, uniform in their robes, each blazoned with the great Seal of the Cyclan on the breast. Shaven heads bowed and fabric rustled as they resumed their seats. Nequal, when they had settled, walked to his own at the head of the table.

  Before sitting he said, "I am aware of the purpose of this meeting and commend it. I have also given thought to the one who should succeed me as, I know, you have also. But, until he does, I remain the Cyber Prime. As such I am willing to be questioned."

  Not ritual but a statement of intent; the Cyclan had no time for empty formalities. From a point down the table a man said, "Before we vote should we hear the summation of events?"

  "Unnecessary." Dekel, his face as thin as a razor, did not look at the speaker. "I put the question direct; Master Nequal, do you agree that you have outlived your usefulness as Cyber Prime?"

  "I do."

  "Then we are agreed. A summation will serve no useful purpose."

  "Yet there is no need of haste." Thern, older, his face a trifle rounder, added his comment. "And there is still a question to be decided."

  "Have I merited the reward of success." Nequal knew what it had to be. "Who accuses me of failure?"

  Boule was the first to speak. "I for one. You failed in your treatment of the degenerated brains as later events have demonstrated. And you have failed to regain the lost secret of the affinity twin."

  Facts, but how could he have acted other than he had as regards the brains? Units had gone apparently insane and had to be divorced from the main assembly. To destroy them had seemed the wisest course. As for the other—he had no defense.

  "Vote." The voice was emphatic. "The final decision may be left to the new Cyber Prime."

  The new deciding how to dispose of the old and how he chose to do so would be noted. Nequal took the paper before him; it held three names and, without hesitation, he marked one with a bold tick. Others did the same and he was certain whom they had chosen. The same man as himself—a simple matter of logical extrapolation.

  Rising he said, "With your permission I shall return to my office. After Cyber Elge has been informed of his new status perhaps he will come to claim it."

  He entered softly, standing to look at the dimensions of the place, the severely functional lines. Only the glowing depiction gave life and color, painting Nequal's face with dancing motes, accentuating the hollows, the lines, the passage of years. It was time and more than time for him to be replaced and yet it was not easy for Elge to dismiss him. The man had worked too hard, had served too long for that. Not sentiment, but the appreciation of merit— and if nothing else he was owed that.

  Without moving his eyes from the depiction Nequal said, "Your decision?"

  "You failed."

  "And so merit erasure. To be turned into basic elements, brain, body and bone." Extinction, his awareness terminated, complete and total disintegration. "The brains?"

  "The degeneration has not been halted. From my study of the previous breakdown I find you at fault for ordering the destruction of the units in question. Saved, they could have yielded information of value. There is even the possibility they could have been progressing to a higher framework of mental reference using concepts which we failed to understand."

  "And so, logically, I could have destroyed a higher intelligence." Nequal lifted his head, reflected light glowing from his eyes. "I refute the possibility. Even if it existed nothing was lost. The units were old and if the progression was an attribute of age then other units would have shown similar symptoms. If the decay was not of that nature then it was imperative to avoid contamination."

  "Tests showed there was no danger of that."

  "On a physical level, perhaps. I was thinking of a para-physical contamination. An insane person can affect others and alter their appreciation of reality. The same could apply to the brains. It was a possibility I had to consider."

  And had been right to do so. Elge remembered the crying, the sound of a child from darkness. What if it should spread?

  Nequal, watching, said, "You appreciate the dilemma. It was essential to gain time and to safeguard Central Intelligence. Analysis of the affected units revealed nothing which could have been a physical cause. Yet the problem remained."

  As did the theories but none provided a solution to the cause.

  Elge said, "And now?"

  "A new development. A unit which has returned to childhood. Catatonia. I would assume that the condition has been induced by the isolation of the unit. And yet that seems too facile. My own fears are that a progressive degeneration could be taking place on a subconscious level and that it requires only a stimulus to complete the transformation from sane to aberrated response. If I am correct then all observed symptoms are relatively unimportant in that they are only various manifestations of the same disease."

  Tears, gibberish, screams, babbling—how long before the Central Intelligence began to transmit false information?

  "I have a suggestion." Nequal looked again at the glowing lens. "It could help to achieve direct communication with the catatonic unit. Electronic apparatus is too crude and the normal use of the Samatchazi formulae with the arousing of the grafted Homochon elements has proved too dangerous. However, should I be processed and linked to the affected unit, it is possible that I may be able to solve the entire problem." A gamble and one he couldn't lose. Nequal was offering himself as a sacrifice in the hope of gaining near immortality. If he succeeded he would be linked to the massed brains—the reward he still hoped to achieve. If he failed he would have lost nothing of value.

  Elge said, "And the rest?"

  "The affinity twin." Nequal's eyes moved from star to star of the depiction. It changed as he manipulated a control, expanding, the edges thinning, vanishing as a part gained greater detail. A smear of opaque dust in which suns burned like angry coals. "The Rift," he said. "The Quillian Sector. Harge."

  "Dumarest?"

  "Earl Dumarest, my real failure. The decaying units— who can foretell what is to come with absolute certainty? Always remains the unknown factor, the random, unpredictable element. A man named Brasque, for example, who stole the secret from our laboratory on Riano. Who gave it to his dying wife who used it to become young and lovely. Who died in turn and who passed it on to Dumarest. A wanderer. A traveler. A drifter among worlds."

  A man who had defeated the Cyclan and who'd merited death for the cybers he had killed. Who had, incredibly, managed to elude the traps set for him, the snares designed to hold him fast.

 

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