Robert Silverberg - The Masks of Time

“Five thousand kilowatts an hour,” Bruton proclaimed.

He splayed his hands against a counterbalanced silvery globe a foot in diameter and nudged it forward on a jeweled track. Instantly one wall of the control room folded out of sight, revealing the giant shaft of a magnetohydrodynamic generator descending into yet another subbasement. Monitor needles did a madman’s dance; dials flashed green and red and purple at us. Perspiration rolled down Wesley Bruton’s face as he recited, almost hysterically, the engineering specifications of the power plant on which his palace was founded. He sang us a wild song of kilowatts. He set his grip on thick cables and massaged them in frank obscenity. He beckoned us down to see the core of his generator, and we followed, led ever deeper into the pit by this gnomish tycoon. Wesley Bruton, I remembered vaguely, had put together the holding company that distributed electricity across half the continent, and it was as though all the generating capacity of that incomprehensible monopoly were concentrated here, beneath our feet, harnessed for the sole purpose of maintaining and sustaining the architectural masterpiece of Albert Ngumbwe. The air was fiercely hot at this level. Sweat rolled down my cheeks. Bruton ripped open his jacket to bare a hairless chest banded by thick cords of muscle. Vornan-19 alone remained untroubled by the heat; he danced along beside Bruton, saying little, observing much, quite uninfected by the feverish mood of his host.

We reached the bottom. Bruton fondled the swelling flank of his generator as though it were a woman’s haunch. Suddenly it must have dawned on him that Vornan-19 was less than ecstatic over this parade of wonders. He whirled and demanded, “Do you have anything like this where you come from? Is there a house that can match my house?”

“I doubt it,” said Vornan gently.

“How do people live up there? Big houses? Small?”

“We tend toward simplicity.”

“So you’ve never seen a place like mine! Nothing to equal it in the next thousand years!” Bruton paused. “But — doesn’t my house still exist in your time?”

“I am not aware of that.”

“Ngumbwe promised me it would last a thousand years! Five thousand! No one would tear a place like this down! Listen, Vornan, stop and think. It must be there somewhere. A monument of the past — a museum of ancient history—”

“Perhaps it is,” said Vornan indifferently. “You see, this area lies outside the Centrality. I have no firm information on what may be found there. However, I believe the primitive barbarity of this structure might have been offensive to those who lived in the Time of Sweeping, when many things changed. Much perished then through intolerance.”

“Primitive — barbarity—” Bruton muttered. He looked apoplectic. I wished I had Kralick on hand to get me out of this.

Vornan went on planting barbs in the billionaire’s unexpectedly thin hide. “It would have been charming to retain a place like this,” he said. “To stage festivals in it, curious ceremonies in honor of the return of spring.” Vornan smiled. “We might even have winters again, if only so we could experience the return of spring. And then we would dance and frolic in your house, Sir Bruton. But I think it is lost. I think it has gone, hundreds of years ago. I am not sure. I am not sure.”

“Are you making fun of me?” Bruton bellowed. “Laughing at my house? Am I just a savage to you? Do—”

I cut in quickly. “As an expert on electricity, Mr. Bruton, perhaps you’d like to know something about power sources in Vornan-19’s era. At one of his interviews a few weeks ago he said a few things about self-contained power sources involving total energy-conversion, and possibly he’d elaborate, now, if you’d care to question him.”

Bruton forgot at once that he was angry. He used his arm to wipe away the sweat that was trickling into his browless eyes and grunted, “What’s this? Tell me about this!”

Vornan put the backs of his hands together in a gesture that was as communicative as it was alien. “I regret that I know so little about technical matters.”

“Tell me something, though!”

“Yes,” I said, thinking of Jack Bryant in his agony and wondering if this was my moment to learn what I had to learn. “This system of self-sufficient power, Vornan. When did it come into use?”

“Oh… very long ago. In my day, that is.”

“Howlong ago?”

“Three hundred years?” he asked himself. “Five hundred? Eight hundred? It is so difficult to calculate these things. It was long ago… very long ago.”

“What was it?” Bruton demanded. “How big was each generating unit?”

“Quite small,” said Vornan evasively. He put his hand lightly against Bruton’s bare arm. “Shall we go upstairs? I am missing your so-interesting party.”

“You mean it eliminated the need for power transmission altogether?” Bruton could not let go. “Everybody generated his own? Just as I’m doing down here?”

We mounted a catwalk, spidery and intricate, that swung us to an upper level. Bruton continued to pepper Vornan with questions as we threaded our route back to the master control room. I tried to interject queries that would pin down the point in time at which this great changeover had come about, hoping to be able to ease Jack’s soul by telling him it had happened far in our future. Vornan danced gaily about our questions, saying little of substance. His lighthearted refusal to meet any request for information squarely aroused my suspicions once more. How could I help but swing on a pendulum, now gravely grilling Vornan about the events of future history, now cursing myself for a gullible fool as I realized he was a fraud? In the control room Vornan chose a simple method to relieve himself of the burden of our inquisitiveness. He strode to one of the elaborate panels, gave Bruton a smile of the highest voltage, and said, “This is deliciously amusing, this room of yours. I admire it greatly.” He pulled three switches and depressed four buttons; then he turned a wheel ninety degrees and yanked a lengthy lever.

Bruton howled. The room went dark. Sparks flew like demons. From far above came the cacophonous wail of disembodied musical instruments and the sounds of crashing and colliding. Below us, two movable catwalks clanged together; an eerie screech rose from the generator. One screen came to life again, showing us by its pale glow the main ballroom with the guests dumped into a disheveled heap. Red warning lights began to flash. The entire house was awry, rooms orbiting rooms. Bruton was madly clawing at the controls, pressing this and twisting that, but each further adjustment he made seemed only to compound the disruption. Would the generator blow, I wondered? Would everything come crashing down on us? I listened to a stream of curses that would have put Kolff into ecstasy. Machinery still gnashed both above and below us. The screen presented me with an out-of-focus view of Helen McIlwain riding piggyback on the shoulders of a distressed Sandy Kralick. There were the sounds of alarums and excursions. I had to move on. Where was Vornan-19? I had lost sight of him in the dark. Fitfully I edged forward, looking for the exit from the control room. I spied a door; it was in paroxysms, moving along its socket in arhythmic quivering jerks. Crouching, I counted five complete cycles and then, hoping I had the timing at least approximately correct, leaped through just in time to avoid being crushed.

“Vornan!” I yelled.

A greenish mist drifted through the atmosphere of the room I entered now. The ceiling tilted at unlikely angles. Bruton’s guests lay slumped on the floor, some unconscious, a few injured, at least one couple locked in a passionate embrace. I thought I caught sight of Vornan in a room vaguely visible to my left, but I made the mistake of leaning against a wall, and a panel responded to my pressure and pivoted, thrusting me into a different room. I had to squat here; the ceiling was perhaps five feet high. Scuttling across it, I pushed open a folding screen and found myself in the main ballroom. The waterfall of wine had become a fountain, spurting its bubbly fluid toward the dazzling ceiling. Guests milled vacantly, grabbing at one another for comfort and reassurance. Underfoot buzzed the mechanical insects that cleared away debris; half a dozen of them had caught one of Bruton’s metal birds and were rending it with tiny beaks. None of our group could be seen. A high whining sound now came from the fabric of the house.