Forbidden Planet (14 page)

I showed them the great, console-like control board. I said, “These are the contacts which, when their proper use has been learned, are the key to the storehouse . . .” I manipulated a combination, and the screen glowed with life, showing a page of the simpler characters as notations to a geometric diagram. “It was from this theorem,” I said, “that I began to deduce the vast but logical Krell alphabet. That was almost two decades ago, and for every day of those years I have come here. My sole purpose—to learn, to learn! To amass knowledge.” My hands played with the contacts as I talked, bringing new pages to the screen. “And still I feel like some illiterate savage wandering dazedly through some stupendous scientific institution, not comprehending a thousandth part of its wonders . . .

“It was months before I discovered one of the basic aims of the Krell, but when I had, I began to master the primary techniques, and applied them. My first experiment was to construct the Robot which—” I could not resist a glance at Adams—“has apparently impressed you. Let me assure you, that was child’s play. Since then, in every hour of every day of every year that I have spent with this treasure-chest of knowledge, I have learned new concepts, new techniques—”

I was checked. First by Adams, who said, “This is too big. It can’t be evaluated all at once. It—”

And then by Ostrow, who seemed to glance warningly at the younger man before he spoke. Ostrow said, “You spoke of the ‘basic aim’ of the Krells, Doctor Morbius. What was it?”

He was watching me, studying me. I considered my answer for a long moment. In his undeveloped way, the man had intelligence. I said, carefully, “My actual words, Major, were ‘one of the basic aims.’ I was referring to the Krell’s objective of lessening, and eventually eliminating, all dependence upon physical instrumentalities.”

He frowned, his mind grappling with the concept. Adams—and for once I was glad of his presence—put in his word again. Surprisingly, it showed a certain grasp of essentials.

He said, “Twenty years doesn’t seem so long, Doctor. Not in relation to—” he made a gesture—“to all this.” Groping for words, he was not so blunt as usual. He said, “I can’t understand how you could—could absorb all the physical science stuff. I mean, you weren’t trained that way—”

I said, “A shrewd thought, Commander.” A little flattery could not, I felt, do anything but good. “However, if you will follow me, I will show you the answer to the problem . . .”

I moved as I was speaking, leading the way toward the center of the chamber. We had not so much as approached it yet, and I doubt whether they had even noticed the sunken, rail-surrounded island and what it contained. I stood by one of the low, wide seats—those seats so plainly not designed for human use—and turned, and watched their reactions as they drew level.

More starings. More wordlessness. More childish frowns of non-comprehension. And, most surely, renewed realization of their own inadequacy . . .

I let them stare for a while before I spoke. And when I did speak, I was careful to keep my tone on the same note of friendly, matter-of-fact exposition.

I said, “What you are looking at now, gentlemen—this whole area and the devices it contains—represent to me the focal point, the ultimate funnel, as it were, of all that you have seen here, of all that you will see when I take you deeper into the heart of the mountain, of all the lore in that great library . . .”

I checked myself. Their eyes were only watchful, there was no light of comprehension in them. I said, “Perhaps I am trying to go too fast, to over-simplify.” I looked at Adams. “We will attack the question another way, Commander—by telling you that this device—” I leaned over the rail and unhooked the head-piece and pulled it up into view at the end of its glittering cord—“this device will answer your question as to how my untrained mind could assimilate such advanced, such more-than-human, experiments in physics . . .”

They crowded closer and I waved them to seats beside me. They had something new to gape at now. The headpiece, with its three gleaming electrodes at the end of their flexible arms.

“This instrument,” I said, “is denoted in the Krell writings by symbols which would translate, approximately, as The Gateway.” I slipped it onto my head, adjusting the arms. “It has many functions, but at this moment we need only consider one of them. This being, strangely enough, the least important . . .”

I pointed to the switches. “We will take the least first. It is simply a means of measuring the power of the mind. Consider those words, gentlemen. They cover more than their simplicity might lead you to believe.”

Adams said, “You mean it’s a sort of super I.Q. test?”

“Exactly, Commander.” I found I could even smile at him now. I pressed the first switch. “If you’ll look at that panel on the left—”

They stared at the panel. I said, “You will see that approximately a third of the board is glowing. Among the Krell that would have placed me, I imagine, as hardly better than a moron.”

There was speculation in Ostrow’s eye. He said, “May I try it?”

I cut the switch and took off the headpiece. I said, “By all means,” and fitted it on him. Adams suppressed a movement; I could feel suspicion of me welling up in him.

I said, “There is no danger, Commander.” I did not look at him. I pressed the switch—and a few inches at the bottom of the board glowed.

Ostrow said, “And my official I.Q.’s one sixty-one!” He smiled ruefully, staring at the board.

I looked at Adams. “Would the Commander care to take the test?”

For the first time I saw a smile on his face. It was directed at Ostrow, not at me. He said to Ostrow, “I won’t bother. Leave you guessing—”

He said something to me, but I did not hear it. Because I saw that Ostrow, still with the activated electrodes upon his head, was leaning over the rail and peering at the other switches. He put out a hand toward them and said, “What are these other contacts? What do
they
do? What’s this white one?”

I thought he might touch it. I clutched at his wrist and pulled his hand away. I said, “Be careful, Major. Be very careful!” I took the headpiece, and lifted it from his head. I leaned over and cut off the first switch.

Again they stared at me. I was growing tired of those blank, half-suspicious eyes. I said, “You must excuse my nervousness. But you are trifling with dangers you cannot appreciate.” I pointed. “That white switch—subject yourself to the power it liberates and you are asking for death!” I found that my hands were shaking. I said, “It was fatal to the Commander of our expedition. And I myself experienced—”

Adams said, “You told us everybody was killed by a ‘Force.’ ” He made a gesture. “Is all this what you meant by ‘Force’?”

I had to choke down rage. I said, “No. At the time you saw fit to question me, I realized it would be—” I reshaped my thought—“I realized that, newly arrived in a strange world as you were, you would not be ready to assimilate too many and differing concepts.”

His eyes were hard with suspicion. But before he could speak again, Ostrow put in his word. He shot Adams a glance, and then said to me, “You were going to say something else, Doctor. About yourself and this—this machine—”

I was grateful for the interruption. “I myself also experimented,” I said. “It was in the days when my wife and I were alone. Before my house was built over the mouth of this excavation . . .

“At that time my brain-pattern on that panel was only a fraction of what it is today. But then one day I cut in the circuit controlled by the white switch, releasing its full power—” I hesitated, on the point of telling them of those first sensations of magical expansion, of standing upon the brink of understanding. But I checked the urge. I said, “I subjected myself to the full power for too long. Fortunately I had enough sense of self-preservation left to tear off the headpiece before I collapsed. But I lay unconscious for a day and a night, and had to be nursed back to health . . .”

Adams said. “But it didn’t kill you.” He had returned to blunt brutality. “You were ‘immune’ again. The way you were to this other ‘Force’—”

Once more I saw Ostrow dart a warning glance at him. Ostrow said, “You hadn’t finished, Doctor Morbius. I think you were going to tell us of some other effect besides your illness.”

I said, “Exactly. When I used the indicator again, I discovered that my mental capacity had more than doubled.”

“And you used the white switch again,” Ostrow said. Like that earlier remark of his, it was neither statement nor question but something in between the two.

I said, “Of course. But with the greatest caution.” I turned to Adams. “There you have the full answer to your question of how my mind was able to assimilate—”

I saw that he was not listening to me. He was staring past me, at the great pillar of the central gauge. He pointed to it. “What does that register?” he said. “It’s been active all the time we’ve been here. But it showed heavier when you were using that head-set.”

I was surprised by the sharpness of his observation. To the eyes of most laymen, the pillar would have seemed purely architectural. I said, “For the first of what will probably be many times, Commander, I cannot fully answer your question.” I crossed to where we could see more clearly, and they followed me.

I said, “I know, of course, that it is a gauge. And I know that it registers the presence—the presence upon this planet—of life and power. Mental power. For instance, its basic registration has been many units higher since you and your companions arrived. But why use of the headset apparatus should register additionally, I don’t yet know, though my present course of study must inevitably lead me to the answer very soon.”

They stared at the gauge, and Ostrow remarked upon its divisions, and again Adams surprised me. He said to Ostrow, “Sure. They’re in decimal series, I guess. With each block recording ten times the one before.” He looked at me and said, “Right?”

I said, “Precisely.”

Ostrow said, “But what are the units, Doctor?”

I said, “Why not call them amperes, Major?”

He smiled. “ ‘A volt by any other name.’ ”

“For Christ’s sake!” Adams was not amused. He looked at the gauge again; then at me. He said, “That’s a hell of a big gauge, with damn small calibrations. The total power must be—” He frowned. “Must be getting on for infinite.” His frown deepened as he tried to envisage the unthinkable.

Ostrow said, “God knows I’m no scientist. No mathematician either. But I want to know something—”

He paused a moment—and then asked the question I had either been hoping for or dreading. I did not know which. He said, “Doctor Morbius, what is the source of the power?”

Yet again, my hand was being forced. I had to show them now. I began to feel a fierce joy in contemplating their reactions.

“I will show you,” I said. They must have seen something in my face which told them they stood upon yet another threshold of experience. Because they said nothing; they merely followed me, half-expectant, half-wary.

I led them the full length of the chamber, to the door in the far corner of the inner rock-face. I broke the Rho-ray with my hand and the door slid open to reveal the conveyer car, poised and waiting. I pulled back the transparent hood and stood aside and told them to get in. They hesitated, and Adams came forward and looked down the tube-like tunnel, where the lights struck gleams from the single rail in an endless diminuendo.

Ostrow entered the car first, and I waved him to the far seat. I took the center, facing the controls. I waited, and in a moment Adams took the seat on my right. I pressed the hood-switch and the transparent shell slid back into place over our heads.

I said, “Our speed will be very high, gentlemen, but there is barely a sensation of movement.” I made great effort to keep my voice and tone normal, matter-of-fact. But I glanced at their faces, and saw what I wanted to see.

I made the starting contact. There was that one instant of pressure, with one’s back thrust against the seat as if by some great invisible hand; then release and the humming gentle sway of the journey . . .

Neither of them spoke, but I could see them—Adams particularly—continually glancing to the sides of the tunnel. They could not, of course, see anything but a blur of lights. But I knew they were calculating, consciously or unconsciously; time and distance, time and speed, time and speed and distance . . .

I set the dial to stop at the first great transverse. The humming changed, its note deepening. The pace began to slacken, so that the lights were no longer a blurring chain but entities growing wider and wider apart. The smooth surface of the rock shone dully around them . . .

We came out of the tube, the wheels of the conveyer barely moving, and rolled to a stop at the edge of the first shaft. I released the hood and it rolled back.

And I watched them as their eyes, at first glazed with the shock of what they were seeing, slowly cleared. Cleared only to fix themselves again in absorbed but half-rejected wonder.

They looked up the first vast shaft, and down it. And then across to the second, over the slender bridge spanning the seemingly bottomless chasm. And everywhere—up and down and across—their eyes met nothing but that endless, monstrous and beautiful monotony. The almost infinite repetition of the units, housed in their gleaming metal sheaths—side by side, head to foot—as far and farther than any eye could reach . . .

And each unit with its glowing relay rippling on and off in a perpetual pattern of light, ever-changing, always the same . . .

I reached across Adams and opened the door of the car. He looked at me with a start, almost as if I had wakened him from sleep. We did not speak, but he slid out and stood on the platform beside the monorail. I followed him, and Ostrow came close on my heels.

Still none of us spoke. I led the way out onto the bridge. We stood in the center and they gripped at the rail and went on using their eyes, forcing their minds to believe what they were seeing. Adams looked down, and shuddered and closed his eyes for a moment. Ostrow muttered something under his breath.

I said, “You are looking down twenty miles, Commander.” My voice echoed weirdly.