His groan, received by the sensitive input audio system of the anti-prolepsis chamber, became processed: recorded at twenty inches of iron oxide audio tape a second it whipped in retrograde to rewind, then released itself at six inches a second to be carried to the earphones well fixed to Gloch’s bony head. Presently Gloch responded to his reception of his superior’s groan with characteristic eccentricity. His cheeks puffed out; his face turned red as he held his breath. And at the same time he grinned vacuously, his head lolling, turning himself into a parody of a brain-damaged defective—a double parody, because it was of course his own fantastic mentational processes which constituted the actual target of his lampoon. Disgusted, von Einem looked away, gritted his near-priceless custom-fashioned teeth, returned to his scrutiny of the intel-repo material which had newly been made available to him.
“I’m Bill Behren,” the tinny mechanical voice of the intel-repo transport announced cheerfully. “Operator of fly 33408. Now, as you may or may not remember, fly 33408 is a real winner. I mean it really gets in there and tackles its job and really gathers up the stuff, the real hot stuff. I’ve personally been operator for, say, fifty flies . . . but in all this time, none has really performed true-blue like this little fella. I think he—or it, whatever they are these days—deserves a vote of thanks from us all involved in this highly delicate work we do. Right, Herr von Einem?” Operator of housefly 33408 Bill Behren paused hopefully.
“The vote of thanks,” von Einem said, “goes to you, Mr. Behren, for your compound eyes.”
“How about that,” operator Behren rambled on oozingly. “Well, I think we’re all inspired by—”
“The data,” von Einem said. “As to the activity at the UN Advance-weapons Archives. What specifically is meant by their code number variation three of that time-warping construct they’re so devoted to?” Queer for, he thought to himself; the UN wep-x personnel probably take turns going to bed with it.
“Well, sir,” operator Bill Behren of fly 33408 answered vigorously, “variation three appears to be a handy-dandy little portable pack unit in the ingenious shape of a tin of chocolate-flavored psychic energizers.”
On the video portion of the intel-repo playback system a wide-angle shot of the portable pack appeared; von Einem glanced toward Gloch in his whirring anti-prolepsis chamber to see if the hunched, grimacing youth was receiving this transmission. Gloch, however, obviously lagged at least fifteen minutes behind, now; it would be some time before his synchronizing gear brought this video image to him. And no way to speed it up; that would defeat the chamber’s purpose.
“Did I say ‘chocolate-flavored’?” Behren droned on, in agitation. “I intended to say ‘chocolate-covered.’ ”
And with such weapons artifacts as this, von Einem reflected, the UN expects to survive. Of course, this assumed that the intel-repo were accurate.
His inquiry into the certainty of fly 33408’s information brought an immediate reaction from operator Behren.
“There are just plain virtually no houseflies as intelligent as this; I give you no niddy, Herr von Einem, no niddy at all. And here’s the real substance of what 33408 has captured via his multipartis receptors: I suggest you prepare for this, as it’s overwhelming.” Behren cleared his throat importantly. “Ever hear of ol’ Charley Falks?”
“No,” von Einem said.
“Think back to your childhood. When you were, say, eight years old or maybe a little more. Recall a backyard and you playing, and ol’ Charley Falks leaning over the fence and—”
“This is what your verfluchte fly brought back from the UN Advance-weapons Archives?” Time for a replacement of both Behren and his dipterous insect, both of them with one arboreal, American orthopterous katydid; it could carry twice the minned receptors and recording spools of 33408 and probably would possess the same brain-convolutions as Behren and his housefly put together. Von Einem felt gloomy; in fact his depression bordered on despair. At least Theo Ferry managed to handle the tricky situation at Whale’s Mouth effectively—in contrast to this. And that, more than anything else, counted.
Effectively except for the unhappy weevils and their destroyed, ridiculous crypto-perceptions. The old comrades back in 1945 would have known how to dispatch those Unmänner, von Einem thought to himself with irritable satisfaction. It’s a clear sign of genetic decay to be possessed by such subrealities, he brooded. Inferior type-basics overwhelming weak, unstable character-structures; degenerate idioplasm involved causally, beyond doubt.
“Ol’ Charley Falks,” operator Behren said, “is the individual back in your childhood days who more than any other human being formed your ontological nature. What you have been throughout your adult life depends absolutely, in total essence, on what ol’ Charley—”
“Then,” von Einem said witheringly, “why is it that I fail to recall his existence?”
“The UN wep-x tacticians,” operator Behren said, “have not as yet placed him there.”
Within his anti-prolepsis membrane—the environment manufactured by Krupp und Sohnen years ago which permitted him to collaborate with the conventionally time-oriented personalities linked indirectly to him—the warped, inspired protégé of Sepp von Einem contemplated the message-packets discharged at intervals by the data-storing houses of his intricate mechanism. As always, he felt weary; the release of stimuli came too frequently for his overtaxed metabolism . . . the adjusting of periodic discharge control gate lay unfortunately outside his manual reach.
What reached him, at the moment, consisted of what seemed the most miserable idiocy he had ever encountered; bewildered, he attempted to focus his depleted attention on it, but only ill-formed fragments of the intel-repo material constellated for his mentational scrutiny.
“. . . fettered fetus of homemade apples lurching . . . searching . . . something like pataradical outfits of lace. Iron beds of red hot sabratondea flashes jut jib FRIB—”
Resignedly, Gregory Gloch listened on helplessly, wondering what transistorized turret-control of the chamber had gone astray this time.
“. . . medicine ice
“man.
“cone-shaped melting dripping
“away—away—”
As apathy began to seep over him an interval of almost startling meaning abruptly caught his ear; he awoke, paid rapt attention.
“Operator Behren, here, with really thrilling data on ol’ Charley Falks, who, you’ll remember, was placed in the formative years of Herr von Einem on an alternate time-path by the UN wep-x tacticians in order to deflect Herr von Einem from his chosen—and militarily significant—profession to a relatively harmless vocation, that of—” And then, to his chagrin, the lucid segment of verbal data faded and the meaningless chatter—with which he had, over the years, become so familiar—resumed.
“. . . fiber-glassed. Windows
“stained with grease
“off a polyhemispheric double-overhead-cam
“EXTERNAL compulsion engine
“floating out
“into the vast gigantic money-thing-making machine
“. . . diaperashis phenomenon disintegrating
“into foul fierce
“pressure
“spinning spinning
“lifting harsh
“harsh—a breath, a beat—a being still present
“—thank god . . .”
And, in the midst of this, the steady but interrupted by the far stronger signal-strength of the babble, the authentic intel-repo continued to make its vital point; he brought his internal attention to bear on it and managed to follow its thread of meaning.
Evidently fly-technician Behren had gathered at last the crucial material as to the UN’s disposition of its near-absolute device. With vigorous, virtually relentless logic, Jaimé Weiss, the top-strategist now working under Horst Bertold—he who at one time had been von Einem’s most brilliant and promising new discovery in the field of weapons inventiveness, but who had turned: gone over to the better-paying other side—this renegade had come up with the correct answer to the UN’s strategic needs.
To kill off Sepp von Einem was now pointless; Telpor existed. But to abolish von Einem sometime in the past, before his discovery of the basic mechanism of teleportation . . .
A less skilled manipulation of past-time factors would have sought as its objective cheap outright murder—the total physical elimination of Sepp von Einem. But this, of course, would simply have left the field open to others, and if one man could locate the principle on which teleportation could be effectively based, then so, eventually, given enough time, could someone else. Telpor, not Sepp von Einem, had to be blocked—and it would require the presence of a uniquely strong personality to block it. Jaimé Weiss and Bertold could not do it; they were not that formidable. In fact, probably only one man in the world could manage it . . . successfully.
Sepp von Einem himself.
To himself Gregory Gloch thought, It’s a good idea. This, his professional, official appraisal of the tactical plan which the UN had put in motion to abort the evolution of the Telpor instrument, had now to be said aloud; Gloch, selecting his words carefully, spoke into the recording microphone permanently placed before his lips, simultaneously activating the tape-transport.
“They want for their disposal,” he declared, “the use of yourself, Herr von Einem—nothing else is adequate. A compliment . . . but one which you could no doubt do without.” He paused, considered. Meanwhile, the tape-reel moved inexorably, but it was dead tape; he felt the pressure on him to produce a counter-tactic in response to what those opposed to his superior had so artfully—and skillfully—advanced. “Umm,” he murmured, half to himself. He felt, now, even more truly out of phase in the time-dimension: he felt the gulf between himself and those, everyone else in the universe of sentient life, beyond his anti-prolepsis chamber. “In my estimate,” he continued, “your most profitable avenue of action—” And then abruptly he ceased. Because once again the random word-salad noise had burbled into seeming spontaneous existence in his ears.