The Administrator

Chapter 10 of the science fiction novel Elis Royd

Elis Royd

Chapter Ten

The Administrator

To a thinking man, no vision of Gehenna could be more spectacular or surreal: on a field lit only by stars were hundreds of marauding Great Roaches; scavenging and fighting over cadavers, running down hysterical Earthmen and royds, laying into anything they could tackle.

The Administrator stood motionless in the rubble of a fine old two-story, watching without emotion as a man hurled his family into a widening pit to spare them a slower horror. Ordinarily he’d have been transfixed--now he felt…nothing.

There was a predictable, nauseating pattern:

The opening of each new chasm would be followed by a momentary lull. The perimeters would appear to quiver and rock.

And the rims would come alive: thousands of those foot-long gray roaches would pour out like overflowing water, radiating in swarms that just as abruptly vanished into adjacent pits. Maters, clinging out of view, would flop their long purplish necks along the crumbling rims in search of scrabbling humans; they’d pull themselves root to root, then drag themselves topside by latching onto the limbs of corpses and ravening Great Roaches.

Even as he watched, a great column of super-heated steam blew out of the crust half a mile away--a basin geyser, one of many to come. This, too, struck him as just another detail in an endless 3D nightmare.

He clasped his hands at the small of his back and wandered, lost in thought.

There were razors in his quarters, along with various household poisons that, when mixed in the correct proportions and taken on an empty stomach…self-inflicted wounds by gun or blade are just so pedestrian…to leap poetically from the heights: ah, but into what…the Administrator brooded as he walked, his tranquil behavior making him that much less noticeable in the general feast and frenzy.

He stopped.

A soul-deep sickness had just radiated from his chest to his shoulders. He had to rest, had to sit. All the excitement--this was no place for a sedentary man. And the air was certainly more rarefied. The pumps…he fell back against a burned-out building on a chasm rim, dully watching the world die.

In a few minutes he felt stronger. He rose and looked longingly at the blacked-out Administration complex, accessible only by crossing half a dozen of these spiny tapering bridges. Elis Royd’s engineers had constructed the complex above the asteroid’s most thickly-columned latticework on this Wiffle ball world; EarthAd would surely be the last feature to go. He stepped to the first bridge and looked down, experiencing all the dread of a novice parachutist.

The chasm walls were absolutely alive with millions of gray roaches, with thirsting grandmaters swinging gymnastically column-to-bridge-to-ledge, with climbing humans, royds, and Great Roaches, all tangled up in the necks of furiously sucking young and adult maters.

He tiptoed out and paused, forcing himself to not look down.

This was a zen challenge.

The Administrator walked upright and with forced calm, reached the middle, paused again, and steadily proceeded to the end. He crossed the first five bridges pretending the crawling horror below was all a dream; he kept his respiration absolutely steady and controlled his balance by holding his arms at a relaxed, admirably maintained forty-five degrees.

But by the time he was halfway across the final bridge he was a nervous wreck. His rigid arms, now out at right angles, dipped and windmilled with each step; his teeth were grinding right into his skull, spots flashed and swam before his eyes. His trembling only made the bridge seem more precarious, and then--smack--a mater had him by the ankle.

He went straight down, instinctively embracing the bridge.

A second and third neck wrapped around his left arm and thigh. He automatically shifted his grip and rolled, and if it hadn’t been for the clinging mater he’d surely have spun right off the bridge. The Administrator lunged forward, tearing the mater free and hauling it airborne. He had to weave and bob to avoid its many whipping necks, but the thing was desperate for a grip; in seconds he’d taken one across the eyes, and another right in the mouth. He immediately peeled off the high one and bit down hard--the high neck shot out of his hands, the injured neck flailed wildly, snapped back, and wrapped around his throat. He staggered along on his hands and knees dragging the thrashing mater, finally collapsing full-out on a relatively wide length of bridge.

The Administrator rolled onto his back, tore off the neck and gripped it, jerking and snapping, six inches from his nose. A pursing ring of suckers pushed out of the bleeder’s mouth.

The instant that mouth clamped on his cheek the Administrator freaked--he ripped it off and swung the mater round and round by its wounded neck, hurled it kicking and screaming into the abyss, and recovered just in time to catch the bridge with an arm and a leg. With the last of his strength he pulled himself back up.

A sharp pain squeezed his chest and rolled down his dangling left arm. His brain told him he was a fool not to rest, but something deeper--a horror of losing consciousness, of being eaten alive--drove him wheezing to his hands and knees.

The bridge broadened at the rim. The scary crossings, the recent struggle: by now the Administrator was really shaken--so shaken he was completely unaware of another presence until the Great Roach’s drooping antennae were almost in his face. He froze on all fours, looking into a horseshoe-shaped bank of compound eyes glinting palely with starlight. One antenna dropped. The other hovered for a few seconds, then slowly made its way forward, moving in an up-and-down serpentine motion. When it was right in his face the Administrator’s entire frame locked up. The whole fight-or-flight thing was out of him; he couldn’t move.

Pointless questions knocked about in his brain: Do doomed animals become immobilized out of self-preservation, on the off chance they’ll be overlooked? Or is it simple shock, numbing one for the inevitable? Does apprehension give way to acceptance…out of some healthy give-and-take aspect of the food chain? That certainly seemed the case now. Are life and death naturally in equipoise? At that moment the Administrator simply ceased to exist; as a fighter, as a dreamer, as a viable life form. The antenna shivered and fell. The Roach rolled onto its side, then, with a final jerk and heave, onto its back. Its hundred legs kicked wildly for a few seconds and ceased. Now the Administrator could see the huge steel signpost protruding from its abdomen.

Triggered by the Great Roach’s death throes, a dozen maters immediately flung their necks on the bank, and at least eight more popped out of the dirt. The Administrator was forced to navigate a snapping, wriggling gauntlet. Fighting for breath, he stole around the carcass, stomped on a pair of lunging necks, and hurriedly moved to safer ground.

Now each structure in the complex showed clearly against the stars. The area was deserted. He moved listlessly down the streets, only half-aware of the familiar old homes, shops, and official buildings.

Gutted, burned-out, looted, razed.

A rumbling underfoot backed him up to a leaning storefront. The exhausted Administrator zoned there, paralyzed by the vibrations racing up and down his frame.

Not a hundred yards away, a huge mass of earth kicked up. A sinkhole appeared, pulling in enormous chunks of land from all sides, tearing up the ground radially, widening rapidly--he could only stare as the perimeter came on, expecting at any moment to be swallowed up.

A crushing sensation clamped his breastbone, followed by the profoundest sense of morbidity. Molten electricity flowed down his left arm. The Administrator paled head to toe.

This was it.

He slid down the wall incrementally, a foot at a time, coming to rest with his legs sprawled out and his upturned hands dug halfway into the dirt.

There was no air to breathe; none. His head fell to his shoulder, and he caught a great gasp. Hot sweat soaked his cassock. His fingers and toes crimped. The Administrator closed his eyes, found his center, and passed.

Five minutes later his eyelids cracked apart and he looked out on the same old disaster. Cheated. He’d have to go through it all again, sooner or later. Life still wasn’t done with him.

The Administrator laughed as he stumbled down the streets; at everything and at nothing. A broad playground was abruptly sucked underground; that struck him as funny. A senior center went next. Hilarious. He instinctively made his way to Applications, slowly climbed the steps, and tenderly ran his fingers over the mounted touch pad’s soot-dusted screen. Nostalgically, almost wistfully, he tapped out the old security sequence, and was nearly blown away when the double doors quietly swung open.

The darkness inside was broken only by a haunting red glow; the source was a nondescript bank of metal cabinets against the east wall. He locked the doors and stepped over.

The light came from a series of liquid crystal display touch pads. The largest, in the center, bore the embossed words:

EMERGENCY GENERATOR

Intrigued, the Administrator tentatively pressed a finger on the pad.

Something kicked under the building and the place lit up like a Christmas tree. The Administrator stepped back. After a few seconds he pressed again. The lights shut down and the centermost pad began blinking. He triggered the generator again, then set about turning off all but the essentials.

There were certain recessed lights--he’d never noticed them before--that didn’t respond to any of the switches. These minor lights bordered specific doorways, and formed a blinking path on the floor. The Administrator followed, knowing exactly where he was going: the trail led through familiar territory into Records, terminating at the blinking screen he’d haunted a thousand times and more; it was RAT, the Records Access Terminal, hub and wellspring of all worth knowing. He sat in the padded contour recliner and tapped the screen.

The blinking stopped. The screen glowed coolly, separating hues and eliminating angles, until a soothing tidepool-blue swam in mother of pearl. A canned gender-neutral voice came from a bank of microspeakers buried in the console:

“Thank you. The emergency system has been activated. Sensors indicate a meltdown of QX-Tandem-Oh-Five, with irremediable structural damage. Subsurface stresses are radiating logarithmically. World annihilation is imminent.”

“I do not…” the Administrator fumbled, “I do not understand.”

“Thank you. The security system to this building has been deactivated via password. This screen was triggered by the emergency generator. The program itself will be initialized once the security pass that accessed the building is re-entered.”

A backlit exclamatory security logo appeared on the screen, identical to the one embossed on the mounted touch pad outside. The Administrator placed his fingertips on the logo and repeated his password.

“Thank you. The asteroid is determined to destruct in--00-29-17--whereas time is represented in particulars of hours, minutes, and seconds. Please enter your log and obit for Earth Administration now, and seal and launch the box. You have--00-28-53.”

The Administrator spread his hands. “I have nothing to seal.” He looked around. “I do not know what is meant by ‘launch the box’.”

“Thank you. Please relay your distress call to the Orbiter monitor. Begin speaking in three, two, one--now.”

The Administrator’s jaw worked uselessly.

“Hello?” he mumbled. He cleared his throat. “Hello! Hello! I am unfamiliar with these proceedings! I am to coordinate with a monitor somewhere. If you are hearing me now, I can only tell you that this process is a complete mystery to me. However, I am nominally in command of the vestiges of Earth Administration. There has been some kind of catastrophe--as I understand it, the atomic power plant that supplies the basics to this world has suffered a form of technological calamity. There is much death and suffering. We urgently require assistance, and beg that--”

“Thank you. Records reveal that the Orbiter was retired at--minus 164-09-17-23-59-07--whereas time is represented in particulars of years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. You may leave a brief bio, as well as a message for your immediate family; include kin related directly by marriage, but exclude kin related by marriage of progeny. You have--00-24-51.”

The Administrator studied his hands.

“Of progeny, I have none,” he admitted. “My wife, you see, was unable to perform her natural duties due to some misbegotten notion concerning a work ethic of which I will frankly--”

“Thank you. You may request an Intercession. You have--00-23-19.”

The Administrator balled his hands into fists. He wanted to smash the contraption, so great was his frustration. “I do not know what you mean! I am unfamiliar with these things!”

“Thank you. You are required to respond in the negative or the affirmative. You have--00-22-46.”

The Administrator’s shoulders sagged. He unclenched his fists. “Whatever,” he said, and slowly wagged his head. After a minute he sighed, “Yes.”

“Thank you.” An interactive icon appeared, taking up the bulk of the screen. The icon was in the shape of a crucifix, with a touch pad at the tip of each of its limbs.

“The four pads correspond to cardinal points. They are as follows--Uppermost: forehead. Right: left shoulder. Bottommost: sternum. Left: right shoulder. Please touch each pad as it engages, followed immediately by the corresponding cardinal point. The pads will light in proper sequence. You have--00-19-34.”

The top pad was a softly glowing scarlet. The Administrator curiously tapped it with a forefinger before touching the finger to his brow. The pad went dark and the lowest lit. The Administrator followed patiently, touching pad to point until he’d crossed himself and completed the sequence.

“Thank you.”

Except for the screen, the room went entirely dark: the emergency lights, inside and out, clicked off; the warning indicators and room guide lights vanished. The screen itself became a contoured dull white plate--entirely blank and absolutely neutral. Now the screen began blinking off and on, rhythmically, so that the immediate environment smoothly alternated black and white, lost and recovered, unlit and lit. It took a moment for the Administrator to realize the equipment was reading and matching his heartbeat. This very restful experience quickly became cloying: the program had locked on his pulse, and was now electronically determining its subject’s subliminal responsiveness.

The screen filled up with a stupefying hail of spots and flashes. The Administrator’s eyes ached with the unnaturalness of it; his skull became congested, his mind a passive sponge. He sat perfectly relaxed, upright hands resting on the console, staring fixedly at that flickering white field until the barrage ceased.

The backbeat released his pulse, the screen dimmed, the room went black.

He sat in deepest darkness, only gradually becoming aware of a smattering of white points cropping up all around the walls. These pinpricks were electronic glyphs meant to represent stars, thousands of them, glowing everywhere. The room was simulating night. He rose woodenly.

The Administrator was standing in a desert hollow, watching those stars shine with a curious beauty unknown on Elis Royd. He was experiencing something cell-deep, something his remote ancestors had breathed in, night after night, long before his own wretched arrival in life. And as he stared, one of those stars appeared to increase in brightness, and to gently drift toward the horizon. It swept down majestically, in slow motion, growing brighter and brighter until it fully lit the sky over a shabby little tent. The Administrator, mesmerized, bent down to check it out, and ended up landing on his knees in that tent, where a poor woman sat swaddling her newborn son. A strange pain ripped through him, and for some reason his eyes welled. The Administrator struggled to his feet, only to find himself following a peculiar receding figure down a dusty desert path. He was one of so many in this man’s train, and was being jostled left and right. The Administrator elbowed his way forward, turned, and looked into a face that was a steady stream of black bytes on white. He turned back and tripped over the other followers--suddenly so many he had to fight to regain his feet. They were all part of a great crowd, straining to hear the words of that same faceless figure, standing in a rowboat on a little sea. The Administrator climbed through the rapt listeners until he came to a long flight of rock steps. That mystery man was now dragging up an enormous wooden cross. He was in heartbreaking shape, and the Administrator had to assist him--had to. He threw out his arms and lunged, landing prostrate at the foot of the cross, now propped upright on a skull-shaped hill. An unbelievable grief ground him down, a desperate pain that was shared in spades by a handful of others, all crying out to this broken hanging man as though he were the closest of family. The Administrator wept openly as he rose, reached up, and stretched himself to his limits in an unworthy embrace: one hand to each of the crucified man’s own--two points--torso to torso--another point--his wracked face falling forward for a final begging kiss.

“Thank you.”

The lights came up, the apparition vanished, the Administrator’s arms dropped to his sides. He stood slumped in the room’s center, vaguely hearing, as his senses returned, a pounding and crying without.

The survivors of Elis Royd wanted in.

They’d seen Applications’ little light show: couldn’t miss it, actually; it was the only electric thing going. The roof’s cap was now emitting steady pulses of light. The Administrator shuffled out of the room and hauled open the great double doors.

The entire crowd fell in, one on top of the other. It was a fairly even mix of Earthmen and royds; perhaps two hundred in all.

“Let us stay!” wailed a woman. She hugged a badly wounded Uryndm to her heaving chest. “We don’t want to fight any more! We’re sorry, we’re sorry!”

“Yes!” cried a half-buried man. “We’re all sorry--we’re sorry, sorry, sorry! Whatever we did, we apologize, and we promise not to do it again! Please let us in.”

The Administrator languidly spread his arms. “There is nothing for you here.” He numbly stepped through and out into the night.

A different woman embraced his legs. “Oh, please don’t leave us. Please. Anything you want. We’ll do it--anything! Only just don’t leave us.”

The Administrator cocked his head side to side. “I am not the one you seek.” He continued his slow brooding walk, his hands clasped behind his back, his upturned face fixed on the brilliant night.

The crowd followed him to the top step’s lip.

“Look up,” he said, “to the eastern sky. A star will announce his coming; a falling star that will light the world for all time. Only in him will you find salvation; not in me, not in yourselves, not in any selfish philosophy of humans or royds. Upon his arrival there will be great celebrations, and all will be well.”

He turned back, addressing those silhouetting the Applications lobby: “Fall on your faces when you see him. Know that your sins are to be borne by one too great to deny.”

A royd grabbed his arm. The Administrator looked on him curiously. The royd’s expression was torn by wonder, his eyes about to bust out of his face. The Administrator studied the crowd and saw that every member was staring at a point just above his left shoulder. He turned.

Among a million stars in that black velvet night, one was falling gracefully, growing larger and brighter as it neared. The impression was uncanny: the Administrator was witnessing the exact sequence, in real time, that he’d viewed in Records.

A tremendous gasp filled his body. His hand shot to his chest.

The royd at his arm embraced him as he fell, eased him to his back, cushioned his head with his lap. The Administrator’s blue lips twitched and writhed. The royd pressed closer.

“I could not see his face,” the Administrator wheezed. “I must see him. In the flesh. I must see him.” The royd fanned him urgently, despite his broken forelimb and lacerated claw.

The light of this star was now so great as to cast shadows. The Administrator’s face, fully illuminated in that expanding pool, grew whiter and whiter, even as his dull eyes correspondingly dimmed. He gripped the royd passionately, although the bleached and blue mask of his face was unable to reflect his joy. “He is come!” he whispered. “He is come, he is come!”

And the beautiful star grew and grew, cutting out the night, laying bare the crowd, and filling up the whole visible sky with its promise of sweet, white, and all-glorious light.