The Chaos Weapon by Colin Kapp Read Free Book Online Page B

partially beyond the room’s thick walls. In the darkness beyond the mullioned windows slight noises were beginning to disturb the night.
    “What’s your problem, Marshal?”
    “Chaos. I assume you know what Chaos is?”
    “Reflections of the slow death of the universe. It has many mysteries for us.”
    “And for us. That’s what brings me here. The Galactic Federation appeals for your help. Somebody or something is tampering with the patterns of Chaos. They’ve forged it into a selective weapon. This weapon is being used against key individuals, most of whom are vital links in the future of man’s tenure in space.”
    “You realize we don’t support the aims and ambitions of the Federation?”
    “And I think you realize that were it not for the Federation forces on this edge of the galaxy, Mayo would long ago have fallen to the aliens. Like it or not, the Federation’s existence and your own are inseparable.”
    “A good point, Marshal. Please proceed.”
    “So far our only defense against the weapon is anticipation—immediate and on-the-spot interpretation of the patterns of Chaos. If we’re to find the weapon and neutralize it, this is vital.”
    “And for that you have your computing engines.”
    “Nothing smaller than a room or a shipful of electronics. Nothing as mobile as a man. But we’re given to understand the Sensitives have a Chaos Seer. We’d like to secure his cooperation in destroying the Chaos Weapon.”
    Pilon placed his hands together and looked at his long, slim fingers for many minutes before replying.
    “You’re a painfuland terrifying man, Marshal. The more so because you don’t know what it is you seek. What you ask is barely possible. If it were possible, it wouldn’t be wise. And even if it were wise, the results would not be those you think.”
    “I asked for assistance, not for a book of riddles. It’s true that such a seer exists?”
    “It’s true there is one. But I doubt the rest of the galaxy’s ready for the contact.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Marshal, why do you think the Sensitives isolate themselves from the rest of mankind?”
    “It is said you breed selectively over many generations in order to develop special talents. You can’t tolerate the possibility of contamination by unexceptional bloodlines.”
    “That’s only a half-truth. The rest is that, having bred pure strains, we dare not release them on mankind. Their talents are too extreme, too powerful, too liable to be subjected to abuse or perverted to an unforeseen end. You’re a man of wisdom, so you’ll see my point. Would
you
deliver such an extraordinary power into the hands of an idiot child?”
    “Is that how you see us?” asked Wildheit.
    “That’s how we see the Federation. A marvelous child, but congenitally immature. Its collective psychology is at an emotional level barely above an instinctive reaction. It procreates mindlessly and multiplies because it must, and then it spreads like a cancer through the stars.”
    “Sophistry!”
    “Is it? We’ve many seers, each with different specialties. Any of them might distort your ideas on what you think you want your society to become. We want no responsibility for what you might do with them—or they with you.”
    “I think you overestimate the potential of your seers. In any case, you have given me forewarning. Thus the onus is on us, not on you. I repeat my request for a Chaos Seer.”
    The dim noisesbeyond the window were growing gradually more distinct. Suddenly he could hear a rhythmic rattle as of wooden sticks clicking together, then a subnote like a deep and resonant horn. Coul was crouched in anticipation, flickering vaguely, always returning to the same attentive pose. Even Wildheit could smell a strong and strange pervasive scent something like Terran violets.
    “Something’s going on out there,” he said suddenly to Pilon. “What?”
    “The Guardians have come. There are many factions among the Sensitives. Some