Harlan Ellison Troublemakers

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Gunnderson was at the stateroom door, palming the loktite open having watched the manner used by
the Blaster when he had left on several occasions and putting one foot into the companionway.
Then the Blaster struck. His fury rose, and he lost his sense of duty. This man had struck him; he was a
psioid . . . an accepted psioid, not an oddie! His eyes deepened their black immeasurably, and his face
strained. His cheekbones rose in a stricture of a grin, and theforce materialized.
All around Gunnderson.
He could feel the heat.
He could see his clothes sparking and disappearing.
He could feel his hair charring at the tips.
He could feel the strain of psi power in the air.
But there was no effect on him.
He was safe.
Safe from the power of the Blasters.
Then he knew he didn t have to run.
He turned back to the cabin.
The two psioids were staring at him in open terror.
It was always night in inverspace.
The ship constantly ploughed through a swamp of black, with metal inside, and metal outside, and the
cold, unchanging devil-dark beyond the metal. Men hated inverspace they sometimestook the
years-long journey through normal space, to avoid the chilling life of inverspace. For one moment the
total black would surround the ship, and the next they would be sifting through a field of changing,
flickering crazy-quilt colors. Then ebony again, then light, then dots, then shafts, then the dark once more.
It was ever-changing, like a madman s dream. But not interestingly changing, so one would wish to
watch, as one might watch a kaleidoscope. This was strange, and unnatural, something beyond the
powers of the mind, or the abilities of the eye to comprehend. Ports were allowed only in the officer s
country, and those had solid lead shields that would slam down and dog closed at the slap of a button.
Nothing could be done men were only men, and space was their eternal enemy. But no man willingly
stared back at the deep of inverspace.
In the officer s country, Alf Gunnderson reached with his sight and his mind into the coal soot that now
lay beyond the ship. Since he had proved his invulnerability over the Blaster, he had been given the run of
the ship. Where could he go? Nowhere that he could not be found. Guards watched the egress ports at
all times, so he was still, in effect, a prisoner on the invership. He had managed to secure time alone,
however, and so with the Captain and his officers locked out of country, he stood alone, watching.
He stared; the giant quartz window, all shields open, all the darkness flowing in. The cabin was dark, but
not half so dark as that darkness that was everywhere.
That darkness deeper than the darkness.
What was he? Was he man or was he machine . . . to be told he must turn a sun nova? What of the
people on that sun s planets? What of the women and the children . . . alien or not? What of the people
who hated war, and the people who served because they had been told to serve, and the people who
wanted to be left alone? What of the men who went into the fields, while their fellow troops dutifully
sharpened their war knives, and cried? Cried because they were afraid, and they were tired, and they
wanted home without death. What of those men?
Was this war one of salvation or liberation or duty as they parroted the phrases of patriotism? Or was
this still another of the unending wars for domination, larger holdings, richer worlds? Was this another
dupe of the Universe, where men were sent to their deaths so one type of government, no better than
another, could rule? He didn t know. He wasn t sure. He was afraid. He had a power beyond all powers
in his hands, and he suddenly found himself not a tramp and a waste, but a man who could demolish a
solar system at his own will.
Not even sure hecould do it, he considered the possibility, and it terrified him, making his legs turn to ice
water, his blood to steam. He was suddenly quite lost, and immersed into a deeper darkness than he had
ever known. With no way out. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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