Oneness Page 3

hadmoved very slightly on the desk before him and Rainbolt had just hadhis first experience with direct nerve stimulation. He stood kneadinghis right hand with his left, staring up at the spokesman, mouth halfopen.

  Menesee smiled in grim amusement. It would have been a low-levelpulse, of course; but even a low-level pulse, arriving unexpectedly,was a very unpleasant surprise. He had foreseen the spokesman'saction, had, in fact, felt a sympathetic imaginary twinge in his ownright hand as the pulse reached the prisoner.

  Rainbolt swallowed, said in a changed voice, "Sir, we heard from thetwo captured men that the Machine has retained its practice of tortureduring interrogations. It isn't necessary to convince me that you areserious about this. Do the questions you referred to have to do withthe stardrive?"

  The spokesman nodded. "Of course."

  Rainbolt said stubbornly, "Then, sir, it can do you no good at all totorture me. I simply don't have such information. We do plan to makethe stardrive freely available to Earth. But not while Earth is ruledby the organization of the Machine."

  This time, Menesee did not observe the motion of the spokesman's hand.Instead he saw Rainbolt jerk violently to the right. At the samemoment, a blast of intense, fiery, almost unbearable pain shot up hisown arm. As he grasped his arm, sweat spurting out on his face, heheard screams from the box on his left and realized it was DirectorCornelius who screamed.

  There were answering screams from around the hall.

  Then the pain suddenly subsided.

  * * * * *

  Menesee started about, breathing raggedly. The pain-reaction had beensevere enough to affect his vision; the great hall looked momentarilydarker than it should have been. And although the actual pain hadended, the muscles of his arm and shoulder were still trying to crampinto knots.

  There was no more screaming. From the right came Director Ojeda'sgasping voice. "What happened? Did something go wrong with thestimulating devices? We might all have been killed--!"

  Menesee didn't reply. Wherever he looked, he saw faces whitened withshock. Apparently everyone in the Tribunal Hall, from theadministrator and Spokesman Dorn on down to the directors' attendantsand the two guards flanking the prisoner's area, had felt the samething. Here and there, men who had collapsed were struggling awkwardlyback to their feet. He heard a hoarse whisper behind him. "Sir,Director Cornelius appears to have fainted!"

  Menesee glanced around, saw Cornelius' attendant behind the box, thenCornelius himself, slumped forward, face down and motionless,sprawling half across his table. "Let him lie there and keep quiet,fool!" Menesee ordered the man sharply. He returned his attention tothe center of the hall as Spokesman Dorn announced in a voice whichheld more of an edge than was normal but had lost none of its strengthand steadiness, "Before any moves are suggested, I shall tell you whathas been done.

  "The Tribunal Hall has been sealed and further events in it will bemonitored from without. No one will be able to leave until the matterwith which we are now concerned here has been settled to thesatisfaction of the Machine.

  "Next, any of you who believe that an instrument failure was involvedin the experience we shared can disabuse themselves. The same effectwas reported immediately from two other auditoriums on the GreatCircuit, and it is quite possible that it was repeated in all ofthem."

  Rainbolt, grimacing and massaging his right arm vigorously, nodded."It was repeated in all of them, sir!"

  The spokesman ignored him, went on. "The Tribunal Hall has, therefore,been cut out of the Grand Assembly Circuit. How circuit energies couldhave been employed to transmit such physical sensations is not clear.But they will not be used in that manner again."

  Menesee felt a flash of admiration. His own thoughts had been turningin the same direction, but he couldn't have approached SpokesmanDorn's decisive speed of action.

  Dorn turned his attention now to Rainbolt. "What happened," he said,"apparently was caused by yourself."

  Rainbolt nodded. "Yes, sir. It was. It was an application of Oneness.At present, I'm acting as a focal point of Oneness. Until thatcondition is changed, whatever I experience here will besimultaneously experienced by yourselves."

  Menesee thought that the effects of the Machine's discipline becamesplendidly apparent at that point. No one stirred in the great hallthough it must have been obvious to every man present that Rainbolt'swords might have doomed them along with himself.

  Rainbolt went on, addressing Spokesman Dorn.

  "There is only one mistake in your reasoning, sir. The demonstratedeffect of Oneness is not carried by the energies of the Grand AssemblyCircuit, though I made use of those energies in establishing aninitial connection with the other auditoriums and the people in them.

  "You see, sir, we learned from the two men captured on Mars about yourpractice of having the two highest echelons of your organizationattend significant hearings in the Tribunal Hall through the AssemblyCircuit. Our plan was based on that. We knew that if anything was tobe accomplished with the Oneness principles on Earth, it would have tobe through a situation in which they could be applied simultaneouslyto the entire leadership of the Machine. That has now been done, andthe fact that you had the Tribunal Hall taken out of the AssemblyCircuit did not change the Oneness contact. It remains in fulleffect."

  Spokesman Dorn stared at him for an instant, said, "We can test thetruth of that statement immediately, of course; and we shall!" Hishand moved on the desk.

  * * * * *

  Menesee felt pain surge through his left arm. It was not nearly asacute a sensation as the previous pulse had been, but it lastedlonger--a good ten seconds. Menesee let his breath out carefully as itagain ebbed away.

  He heard the spokesman saying, "Rainbolt's claim appears to beverified. I've received a report that the pulse was being experiencedin one of the auditoriums ... and, yes ... now in several."

  Rainbolt nodded. "It was a valid claim, believe me, sir!" he saidearnestly. "The applications of our principles have been verythoroughly explored, and the effects are invariable. Naturally, ourstrategem would have been useless if I'd been able to maintain contactonly long enough to provide you with a demonstration of Oneness. Sucha contact can be broken again, of course. But until I act deliberatelyto break it, it maintains itself automatically.

  "To make that clear, I should explain that distance, direction andintervening shielding materials do not change the strength of thecontact. Distance at least does not until it is extended toapproximately fifty thousand miles."

  "And what happens then?" the spokesman asked, watching him.

  "At that point," Rainbolt acknowledged, "Oneness contacts do becometenuous and begin to dissolve." He added, almost apologetically,"However, that offers you no practical solution to your problem."

  "Why not?" Dorn asked. He smiled faintly. "Why shouldn't we simplylock you into a spaceship and direct the ship through the defensefields and out into the solar system on automatic control?"

  "I sincerely hope you don't try it, sir! Experiments in dissolvingcontacts in that manner have been invariably fatal to all connectedindividuals."

  The spokesman hesitated. "You and every member of the Machine withwhom you are now in contact would die together if that were done?"

  "Yes, sir. That is certain what the results of those experimentsshow."

  Administrator Bradshaw, who had been staring coldly at Rainbolt, askedin a hard, flat voice, "If you do nothing to break the contact, howlong will this situation continue?"

  Rainbolt looked at him. "Indefinitely, sir," he said. "There isnothing I need to do about it. It is a static condition."

  "In that case," Bradshaw said icily, "_this_ should serve to break thecontact through you!"

  As his hand came up, leveling a gun, Menesee was half out of hischair, hands raised in alarmed protest. "Stop him!" Menesee shouted.

  But Administrator Bradshaw already was sagging sideways over thearmrest of this chair, head lolling backwards. The gun slid from
hishand, dropped to the platform.

  "Director Menesee," Dorn said coolly from beside Bradshaw, "I thankyou for your intended warning! Since the administrator and thespokesman are the only persons permitted to bear arms in the TribunalHall, I was naturally prepared to paralyze Administrator Bradshaw ifhe showed intentions of resorting to thoughtless action." He lookeddown at Rainbolt. "Are Director Menesee and I correct in assuming thatif you died violently the persons with whom you are in contact wouldagain suffer the same experience?"

  "Yes, sir," Rainbolt said. "That is implicit in the principles ofOneness." He shrugged. "Under most circumstances, it is a veryundesirable effect. But here we have made