A. van Vogt - The Empire of Isher

“If you think,” Fara said shakily, “that the trick voice is going to make me turn, you’re crazy. That’s the left wall of the building. I know there’s no one there.”

“I’m all in favor, Rad,” said the old man, “of letting him live his life. But he was the prime mover of the crowd outside. I think he should be discouraged.”

“We’ll advertise his presence,” said Rad. “He’ll spend the rest of his life denying the charge.”

Fara’s confidence in the gun had faded so far that, as he listened in puzzled uneasiness to the incomprehensible conversation, he forgot it completely.

The old man said persistently: “I think a little emotion might have a long-run effect. Show him the palace.”

Palace! The word tore Fara out of his paralysis. “See here,” he began, “I can see now that you lied to me. This gun isn’t loaded at all. It’s—”

His voice failed him. His body went rigid. There was no gun in his hand.

“Why, you—” he began wildly. And stopped again. His mind heaved with imbalance. He fought off the spinning sensation, thought finally, tremblingly: Somebody must have sneaked the gun from him. That meant there was someone behind him. The voice was no mechanical thing. He started to turn. And couldn’t. He struggled, pushing with his muscles. And couldn’t turn, couldn’t move, couldn’t budge. The room was growing curiously dark. He had difficulty seeing the old man. He would have shrieked then if he could. Because the weapon shop was gone.

He was standing in the sky above an immense city. Standing in the sky, and nothing around him but air, and blue summer heaven, and the city a mile, two miles below. His breath seemed solidly embedded in his lungs. Sanity came back as the remote awareness impinged on his mind that he was actually standing on a hard floor, and that the city must be a picture somehow focused directly into his eyes.

For the first time, with a start, Fara recognized the metropolis below. It was the city of dreams, Imperial City, Capital of the glorious Empress Isher. From his great height he could see the grounds of the silver palace, the Imperial residence itself. The last tendrils of his fear were fading now before a gathering fascination and wonder. The fear vanished as he recognized with a thrill that the palace was drawing nearer at tremendous speed. “Show him the palace!” they had said. The glittering roof flashed straight at his face. The solid metal of it passed through him.

His first sense of imminent and mind shaking desecration came as the picture paused in a huge room, where a score of men sat around a table at the head of which sat a young woman. The inexorable, sacrilegious, limitlessly powered cameras that were doing the photographing swung across the table and caught the woman full face.

It was a handsome face, but there was passion twisting it now, as she leaned forward and said in a voice at once familiar—how often Fara had heard its calm, measured tones on the telestats—and distorted. Distorted by anger and an insolent certainty of command. That caricature of a beloved voice slashed across the silence as clearly as if he were there in the great room.

“I want that traitor killed, do you understand? I don’t care how you do it, but I want to hear by tomorrow night that he is dead.”

The picture snapped off and instantly Fara was back in the weapon shop. He stood for a moment, swaying, fighting to accustom his eyes to the dimness. His first emotion was contempt at the simpleness of the trickery. A motion picture. What kind of a fool did they think he was, to swallow something as transparently unreal as that? Abruptly, the appalling depravity of the scheme, the indescribable wickedness of what was being attempted here brought red rage.

“Why, you scum!” he flared. “So you’ve got somebody to act the part of the empress, trying to pretend that—Why, you—”

“That will do,” said the voice of Rad. Fara shook as a big young man walked into his line of vision. The alarmed thought came that people who would besmirch so vilely the character of her imperial majesty would not hesitate to do physical damage to Fara Clark. The young man went on in a steely tone, “We do not pretend that what you saw was taking place this instant in the palace. That would be too much of a coincidence. But it was taken two days ago. The woman is the empress. The man whose death she ordered is a former adviser whom she considered a weakling. He was found dead in his apartment last night. His name, if you care to look it up in the news files, was Banton Vickers. However, let that pass. We’re finished with you.”

“But I’m not finished,” Fara said in a thick voice. I’ve never heard or seen so much infamy in all my life. If you think this town is through with you, you’re crazy. We’ll have a guard on this place day and night, and nobody will get in or out.”

“That will do.” It was the silver-haired man. “The examination has been most interesting. As an honest man, you may call on us if you are ever in trouble. That is all. Leave through the side door.”

It was all. Impalpable forces grabbed him, and he was shoved at a door that appeared miraculously in the wall, where seconds before had been the palace. He found himself standing in a flower garden, and there was a crowd to his left. He recognized his fellow townsmen, and that he was outside.

The nightmare was over. As he entered his house half an hour later, Creel said, “Where’s the gun?”

“The gun?” Fara stared at his wife.

“It said over the ’stat a few minutes ago that you were the first customer of the new weaponshop.”

Fara stood, remembering what the young man had said: “We’ll advertise his presence.” He thought in agony: His reputation! Not that his was a great name, but he had long believed with a quiet pride that Fara Clark’s motor repair shop was widely known in the community and countryside. First, his private humiliation inside the shop. And now this lying to people who didn’t know why he had gone into the store.

He hurried to the telestat and called Mayor Dale. His hopes crashed as the plump man said:

“I’m sorry, Fara. I don’t see how you can have free time on the telestat. You’ll have to pay for it. They did.”

“They did!” Fara wondered if he sounded as empty as he felt.

“And they’ve paid Lan Harris for his lot. The old man asked top price, and got it. He phoned me to transfer the title.”

“Oh!” Fara’s world was shattering. “You mean nobody’s going to do anything? What about the Imperial garrison at Ferd?”

Dimly, he was aware of the mayor mumbling something about the empress’ soldiers refusing to interfere in civilian matters. “Civilian matters!” Fara exploded. “You mean these people are just going to be allowed to come here whether we want them or not, illegally forcing the sale of lots by first taking possession of them?” A thought struck him. “Look,” he said breathlessly, “you haven’t changed your mind about having Jor keep guard in front of the shop?”

The plump face in the telestat plate grew impatient.

“Now, see here, Fara, let the constituted authorities handle this matter.”

“But you’re going to keep Jor there,” Fara said doggedly.

The mayor looked annoyed. “I promised, didn’t I? So he’ll be there. And now, do you want to buy time on the telestat? It’s fifteen credits for one minute. Mind you, as a friend, I think you’re wasting your money. No one has ever caught up with a false statement.”

Fara said grimly, “Put two on, one in the morning, one in the evening.”

“All right. We’ll deny it completely. Good night.”

The telestat went blank; and Fara sat there. A new thought hardened his face. “That boy of ours—there’s going to be a showdown. He either works in my shop or he gets no more allowance.”