Manalone (25 page)

The door led not into a corridor as he had expected, but directly into a room: but such a room as this he had been unprepared to face. Apart from being an immaculate period piece, there was nothing unusual in the manner of decoration and furnishings. The problem was that everything was consistently three times as large as that to which he had been accustomed. The unusual perspectives thrust on him a feeling akin to vertigo. He almost reeled with the impression that the whole place was an optical illusion. However, it was no illusion. The room was completely real.

‘Steady, Manalone! You’d already deduced this in theory. It’s just having to face it that makes you want to cringe. Here’s the past they tried to bury, the history which got in the way. This is what lay beyond the gaps in reality. It’s the same reality viewed on a different scale. The differences weren’t in the observation, but in the observer. Not the past which was terrible, but ourselves who are.’

The oak beam rising from the floor was solid to his touch. Its texture had the authenticity that only natural solid wood can have. The other beams and ties were solid also. Together they supported an expanse of leather – a chair of such proportions that his chin was even with the level of the seat.

‘Whoever said that giants belong to fairy tales …’

The four really great oak spindles were turned in proper proportion and finished with all the care which could be bestowed by a craftsman worker in wood. Table legs taller than a man … antique … well used … He could walk underneath the table-top without difficulty.

‘You know what
was done to the human race, Manalone. And you know why it was done. But knowledge is one thing and experience another. It’s the experience which makes you sick with apprehension.’

The carpet was thick beneath his feet. The gross pile was difficult to walk on, yet its fitness in the gigantic scheme of the room was obvious. It was himself who was alien.

‘No stage mock-up, this, Manalone. Once this room was lived in. Everything used and well cared for. It’s all here just as it used to be. Nothing’s changed but the people. It’s the rest of the world that’s been scaled down.’

Intrigued and gradually becoming bolder, he began to explore. Everything about the room had an atmosphere of age and solidity and a fitting massiveness; a rightness and a unity which made him feel that this was how things were intended to be. It depressed him to sense that his own concepts were, by comparison, trivial and imperfect, and could never attain the stature or the permanence of this unthinkable place. The idea left him feeling very small and very humbled.

There were books on the shelves, most of them far larger than the old book which Shears had left for him on the raft. He would have liked to have pulled them out and read, but his hand was stayed partly by a feeling of sacrilege at interfering with relics of the past, and partly by an instinct that warned him something was wrong with his estimation of his own situation.

‘That door, Manalone, its being open was no accident. Even the lights in this room – precious old filament lamps, completely irreplaceable – left burning. There has to be a reason.’

In his heart he knew the reason. It was another aspect of the casual education in the impossible to which he had found himself subjected since he had first become aware of his manipulation by the MIPS. This was a confirmation exercise – a plain statement of facts with no punches pulled – part of the test.

‘The only thing you need to know now, Manalone, is did you pass, or fail.’

He looked around for a door other than the one by which he had entered. Shortly he found it, massive and solidly built on the old scale. Even by standing on tip-toe he could only just grasp the doorknob above his head. It took the relocation of all his weight to induce the knob to turn. Finally he felt the latch give, and the door moved open slightly so that he could get his fingers around the edge and heave it open.

‘Come
on in, Manalone!’ said Colonel Shears. ‘I was hoping you’d arrive in time.’

Manalone was taken
off guard by the note of warmth behind the invitation. His initial impression was that the phrase was sarcasm, but this was not substantiated. What he had presumed to be a gun in Shears’ hand proved to be no more than a dress baton. Slightly apprehensive, he followed the colonel through the door.

Inside the room, fully a dozen people were seated around a long table. Manalone halted in front of them, painfully conscious of his dirty, unkempt appearance. An elderly man with a distinguished face and long white hair, rose from the table’s head to shake his hand.

‘So you’re Manalone! We’ve been hearing a great deal about you. On behalf of the Council, I bid you welcome.’

He smiled, and aristocratic wrinkles ran up to the corners of his eyes. They were the same eyes which had peered out of the vidiphone screen at Manalone just after the police had raided his house.

‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Delton Hanser, President of the Council. You may already know some of the others, but I’ll arrange introductions later. There’s a few formalities we have to attend to first.’

Whilst Hanser had been speaking, Manalone had been studying the people at the long table. Each had the look which he had previously described as significant. He recognized Alex Stormtrop and one or two of the others, but the rest were unfamiliar except that he might have seen their photographs in the scientific press. Kitten, Colonel Shears, and several others in MIPS uniform sat at a second, smaller table, and were obviously not part of the Council.

Hanser returned to his seat and called the meeting to order. Manalone was motioned to stand at a place near the table’s foot.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, this Council is now in special session. We all know the purpose of this meeting, which is Manalone’s final interview. The relevant documents and records have been circulated, so I think we can dispense with the preliminary statement.’

‘Before you go
too far,’ said Manalone, ‘may I ask a question?’

Hanser looked at him sagely. ‘Of course, Manalone, if it’s important.’

‘It is to me. Would somebody please explain what I’m being interviewed for?’

‘You mean you don’t know? Colonel Shears, this candidate’s your responsibility. Hasn’t he been properly prepared?’

‘Prepared!’ Shears’ voice was heavy with disgust. ‘I’ve not been able to catch him, much less prepare him.’

‘Then how does he appear here?’

‘He found his own way, President. He worked out for himself what the Council was, where it was, and how he could enter despite our precautions to the contrary.’

‘Ah! So it was Manalone who was responsible for the alarm scare a short while ago?’

‘It was. But I had to arrive at the fact by deduction. I’d no positive proof he was even in the area. I had to rely on the fact that he won’t let a problem rest till he’s worried it to the bitter end.’

‘This is all most irregular,’ said Hanser. ‘We go to the trouble of having a special induction process, and our most likely candidate in years appears here of his own volition without any idea of what’s required of him. I’ll be having words with you later about this, Colonel. In the circumstances I think we’d better go back a little and make this interview slightly more formal.’

He turned back to Manalone.

‘We appear to owe you an explanation, Manalone. We are the Council charged with the grievous responsibility of trying to save some of the human race from extinction. For such a task, we’ve been given powers which are almost absolute. Being only men, such authority sits uneasily on us, yet without such powers we can’t succeed. We therefore find it necessary to make the most thorough and long-ranging examination of candidates when we need to renew our ranks. With or without your knowledge, you’re one such candidate. I will now take the formal declarations.’

He turned
to the smaller table. ‘Who proposes this candidate?’

‘I do,’ said Kitten, rising. ‘From the original list of seven hundred possibles, only Manalone has fulfilled all the conditions. I recommend him without qualification.’

‘Mm! You’ve formidable support there, Manalone. Madam Kosolev is rarely so generous. In fact I’ve sometimes wondered if anyone could meet her standards. Colonel Shears, on the executive side, what’s your report?’

Shears frowned. ‘The case speaks for itself, President. We smashed his marriage, took away his home, his job and his civil identity. We denied him access to any form of credit or income, killed his best friend and isolated him from his sources of information. But we couldn’t break him, and we couldn’t deter him.

‘Having got him into the gutter, he refused to stay there. He not only solved all the problems, but actually mounted attacks against the civil authorities and against our own defences. I submit that’s clear evidence of an insight, an intelligence, a resilience, and a single-mindedness which goes way beyond the test criteria. I too recommend him without qualification.’

Hanser turned his attention back to Manalone.

‘Since you’ve not been prepared, you’re probably still wondering about the barbarity of our selection methods. I assure you there’s a good reason behind them. Before you can give absolute power, you have to be sure it’ll only be used for the right purpose. Once given, it’s difficult to rescind. Our purpose is to serve humanity, not to rule it. Therefore our candidates must be fully aware of what small, vulnerable creatures they actually are. They must have seen their lives shattered, known cold and hunger and loss and isolation. They must be acutely aware of their own fragile mortality. Only this prevents them from confusing themselves with God.’

‘No such confusion’s likely,’ said Manalone. ‘Colonel Shears made sure of that.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. What you’ve suffered so far may be only a foretaste of what’s to come. Civilization’s on the verge of collapse. The next ten decades promise to be the most terrible in history. If the human race is going to survive, it’s going to need some pretty tough and dedicated guardians. That’s all our job is, Manalone – trying to bring enough of the right stock through to the next century to enable Man to have another chance.’

‘And
that’s what you’re looking for – guardians?’

‘Just that. And for that we must test at all levels. A top mind’s not sufficient, nor is the mere ability to survive. We need other qualities as well – awareness, and the capacity to solve practical problems in the face of multiplying adversity. Many people can solve a problem that’s been defined; but to recognize an undefined problem and to solve it while your life falls around your ears, that takes a special sort of person.’

Hanser reached into a drawer and pulled out a piece of ceramic. He handed it to Manalone.

‘Yours, I think. Tell me exactly what it is.’

‘It’s a cup handle.’

‘Correct! A cup handle of giant proportions. Why is it so large?’

‘Because when it was made, the average size of a human being must have been about three times what it is now.’

‘Again correct.’ Hanser glanced at Colonel Shears, who had a slightly smug expression on his face. ‘You’re doing excellently, Manalone. A credit to the persecution. I presume you’ve also decided the reason this state of affairs became necessary?’

‘It was an answer to the dangerously increasing population. As both land and resources were finite, the only way the population could continue to increase was by reducing the size of the individuals. The gains were enormous. In terms of plain area, four “half-men” could live in the space formerly used by one whole man. In terms of cubic space for housing, twenty-seven “third-men” could be accommodated in the area formerly used to house one whole man. The effect on consumable resources was similarly great.’

‘Your grasp of fundamentals is impressive, Manalone. Could you even tell us how the miniaturization was achieved?’

‘Apart from the fact that it was deliberate genetic manipulation, I don’t know how it was done. But whatever it was, it’s failing now.’

‘It
is,’ said Hanser. ‘But I’d like to know how you formed that opinion.’

‘I had Colonel Shears’ assurance that intelligence was on the decline. I’ve satisfied myself that it’s the truth. The other item was the unacceptable five percent of deaths of mothers during childbearing.’

‘Interesting, Manalone! There was no authorized release of information on the childbearing problem – even to you. You’re perfectly right, of course. There was genetic manipulation, and it’s this which is breaking down. An increasing proportion of human foetuses are reverting to the original scale, seriously endangering their third-sized mothers. But if that was the sum of our problems, we wouldn’t be too worried.’

‘Then the childbearing problem and the decline in intelligence aren’t related?’

‘Only casually. Whatever we may now think of the ethics of the world-wide organization which first took the decision, there’s no doubt about the quality of their geneticists. The theory of the miniaturization mechanism is rather involved, but genetic information can be considered as a set of rules for constructing an organism, rather than being a minutely detailed specification. The multiplying cells differentiate themselves into liver, heart, brain, limb, and the like, and take their form and position by reference to biological gradients across a network of positional fields. All that was done was to alter the genetic information which controlled the strength of these gradients.’

Manalone shook his head. ‘That’s way out of my field,’ he said.

‘And mine,’ agreed Hanser. ‘But the theory’s there for you to read when you feel inclined. Its effect was to build a constant reducing factor into the human gene structure, which ensured that successive generations would always be slightly smaller than their parents. Once that had been accomplished, there was no need for further interference, or so the theory goes.’

‘Isn’t it true?’

‘It’s true, but it’s only part of the story. For quite a few generations the modified strain of Man bred true. Then Nature itself rebelled. When the actual strength of the gradient has declined to about a third of its original value, the cells appear to assume they’re forming a simpler structure, and differentiate accordingly. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the human brain, which is becoming less convoluted and less effective. Only about two percent of the population are still breeding true today, and it’s from this two percent that all the people present in this room were drawn.’