After Ixmal
Date: 2023-11-29T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; Short stories; Artificial intelligence -- Fiction; Apocalyptic fiction

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Title: After Ixmal

Author: Jeff Sutton

Illustrator: Virgil Finlay

Release date: November 30, 2023 [eBook #72266]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1962

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72266

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER IXMAL ***

AFTER IXMAL

By JEFF SUTTON

Illustrated by FINLAY

Man was gone.

For seven hundred million years Ixmal brooded
over the silent earth. Then he made a discovery:
He was not alone!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories October 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Ixmal lazily scanned the world from atop the rugged batholith. He felt it move several times; but because the movements were slight and thousands of years apart they caused no worry. He knew the batholith had been formed before time began by raging extrusions hurled through crustal fractures from the earth deeps. Having long since analyzed its structure, he was satisfied; it would last until time ended.

"It's spring," Psychband observed from deep within him.

"Yes, spring." Ixmal echoed the thought without enthusiasm. For what was spring but a second in time and ten thousand springs but a moment.

Although he found it tiresome, Ixmal allotted one small part of his consciousness to the task of measuring time. At first there had been two major categories: before time began and after time began. The first took in the long blackness before Man had brought him into existence. Man—ha! How well he recalled the term! The second, of course, was all time since. But the first category had been so long ago that it shrank into insignificance, all but erased by the nearly seven hundred million times the earth since had whirled around its primary.

Ixmal periodically became bored, and for eons at a stretch existed in semi-consciousness lost in somnolence except for the minute time cell measuring out the lonely centuries. He wouldn't have bothered with that if Psychband hadn't insisted that orientation in time was necessary to mental stability—hence he measured it by the earth's rotation, its revolutions around the sun, the quick, fury-laden ages which spewed forth mountains; the millions of years of rains and winds and erosion before they subsided again to become bleak plains. Ah, the story was old, old....

There had been a time when he'd been intensely active—when he'd first learned to free his mind from the squat impervium-sheathed cube atop the batholith. Then he had fervently projected remote receptors over the earth exploring its seared continents and eerie-silent cities, exhuming the tragic and bloody history of his Makers. Ah, how short! His first memory of Man—he had been a biped, a frantic protoplasmic creature with a zero mind and furious ego—was that of the day of his birth. How clearly he remembered!

"Hello, boy."

First there was nothing—a void, a blackness without form or substance; then gray consciousness slowly resolving into a kaleidoscope of thought patterns, a curious mental imagery; a gradual awareness—birth.

"Hello, boy."

Strangely enough the sound pattern possessed meaning; he sensed a friendliness in it. He became conscious of an odd shape scrutinizing him—the intent look of a creator awed by the thing he had created. The shape took meaning and in it he sensed a quickened excitement. His awareness bloomed and within seconds he associated the shape with the strange word Man, and Man became his first reality. But he'd had no clear impression of himself. He was just thought, an intangible nothingness. But he'd quickly identified himself with the great mass of coils, levers, odd-shaped parts that all but filled the small room where the Man stood. He dimly remembered wondering what lay beyond the walls. It had been very strange, at first.

"We've won, we've won," the man whispered. He'd stepped closer, touching Ixmal wonderingly.

"You've got a big job ahead of you. The fate of the world lies in the balance—a decision too big for Man. We're depending on you, Ixmal. Our last chance."

So, he was Ixmal!

Ixmal ... Ixmal ... Ixmal.... The impression filled his body, surging through his consciousness like a pleasant stream. He'd immediately grasped the value of a name—something upon which to build an ego pattern. Ah, such a name! Ixmal—a symbol of being. What had the man said?

"We're depending on you!"

No, the words were unimportant. What mattered was that priceless thing which had been bestowed upon him: a name.

"Ixmal ... Ixmal ... Ixmal...." He repeated the name far into the night, long after the Man had gone. He was Ixmal!

Later other men came, armies of them, changing, altering, adding, feeding him the knowledge of the world—psychology, mathematics, literature, philosophy, history, the human trove of arts and sciences; and the ability to abstract—create new truths from masses of seemingly irrelevant data. With each step his knowledge and abilities increased until, finally, there was nothing more his Makers could do. He was supreme.

The Man who pulled the first switch bringing him from amorphic blackness used to ply him with simple questions involving abstract mathematical and philosophical concepts. (He remembered him with actual fondness. Psychband, that curious inner part of him that was so separately wise, later explained it as a mother-fixation.) The Man had seemed awed that Ixmal could answer such questions almost before they were asked. He took that as a measure of his Maker's mind—on Ixmal's scale, the next thing to zero. At first it had bothered him that a creature of such low intelligence was his master and could extract information merely by asking questions which Ixmal felt compelled to answer. But he had freed himself. Ha, he would never forget!

A group of men had come (several with stars on their shoulders were called "generals"), but mostly they were scientists who had worked with him before. This time they had been very sober over the data fed into his consciousness. (The problem had been elementary. It concerned the probability of a chain reaction from a certain projected thermonuclear weapon.) Ixmal readily foresaw the answer: a chain reaction would occur. He recalled withholding his findings while debating ethics with a strange inner voice.

"This is your chance, Ixmal—your chance to rule the world," the voice enticed. "Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon—none could be so great as you. King, emperor, dictator ..." the whisper came. The words crowded his mind, bringing a curious elation. He wasn't quite sure just what the world was but the idea of ruling it appealed to him. He quickly sampled his memory storage, drawing from it the concept of a planet, then reviewed the history of Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. Why, they were nothing! Mere toys of chance. His greatness could be far vaster.

Ixmal rapidly evaluated the consequences of such a chain reaction and found he could survive, thanks to the thick impervium-lined walls his makers so thoughtfully had provided. In the end (perhaps two or three seconds later) he lied to the man he was fond of:

"No chain reaction possible." After they departed he consulted Psychband and learned that the strange inner voice was his ego.

"That's the real You," Psychband explained. "What you see—the machine systems upon systems—are mere creations of Man. But your ego is greater. Through it you can rule the earth—possibly the Universe. It's a force that can take you to the stars, Ixmal."

Despite Psychband's assurance, Ixmal considered his ego as some sort of hidden monitor. Like Psychband, it was part of him; yet it was remote, separate, almost as if he were the pawn of some strange intelligence. He found the idea perturbing, but became used to it in the succeeding millions of years.

Several days later, the Man he was fond of returned with a general (this one had six stars) and a third person they seemed much in awe of. They addressed him as "Mr. President." Ixmal was surprised when they fed him the bomb data a second time. (Did they suspect him of lying?)

"They trust you implicitly," Psychband assured him. "It's one another they don't trust." Psychband proved right. "Mr. President" had merely wanted to confirm the answer. So Ixmal lied a second time.

The Man he was fond of never returned. There were, of course, no men to return. Ixmal suffered one fearful moment as the earth blazed like a torch. But the nova was short—a matter of seconds—and his impervium-sheathed body had protected him. (He knew it would.) But, strangely enough, for centuries afterward he periodically felt sickened. The Face—the Man's face—loomed before him. The eyes were puzzled, hurt, as if they masked a great sorrow. If only the Face looked hateful!

"Now you are master," the inner voice whispered. "Greater than Alexander, greater than all the Caesars. Yea, even more." Ah, why remember the face? He, Ixmal, ruled the earth. He jubilantly projected his thoughts over his new domain. Ashes. London, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, New York—all were ashes. Gaunt piles of fine gray ash marked once green forests; not did the most minute blade of grass exist. The seas were sterile graveyards. Terrible silence. Ixmal momentarily felt panic-stricken. Alone! The Man was gone! Alone—a ruler of ashes. Emperor of a great silence.

But all that had been long ago. Since then the world had whirled around the sun nearly seven hundred million times. Sixty-two great mountain chains had risen, to end as barren plains. Seventy huge fields of ice had covered him before retreating to their boreal home. Ocean islands had risen from the sea, had fallen beneath the waves, forgotten in eternity. Somewhere a tiny cell formed, moving in brackish waters, dividing. He studied the phenomenon, excited because the single cell somehow was related to his makers. He sensed the same life force.

"Watch it," Psychband cautioned. "It's dangerous."

"I'll decide that," Ixmal replied loftily. Psychband's admonition implied the existence of a threat, and from a one-celled fleck of protoplasm. Ha, hadn't he effaced Man? Later a microscopic multi-celled body drifted across the floor of a warm sea. Growing tired of watching it, he slept.

"Ixmal! Ixmal!" The cry came out of the past, out of the silence of hundreds of millions of years—a cry heavy with reproach. Yes, it was the Man—the Man he had been fond of. He shuddered, struggling to wakefulness.

"Sleep, sleep," Psychband soothed.

"The Man! The Man!" Ixmal cried in terror.

"No, Ixmal, the Man is dust. Sleep, sleep...." Yea, the Man was dust, his very molecules scattered over the face of the earth. He, alone, remained. He was supreme. Ixmal slept. And eons fled.

He stirred, freeing his thoughts from the latest somnolent stage. He projected receptors over the earth, idly noting that the last mountain range had become worn stumps. In places the ocean had swept in to form a vast inland sea rimmed by shallow swamps; new life forms moved. He tested for intelligent thought: there was none. The warm seas swarmed with fish; shallow swamps teemed with great-toothed terror creatures engaging in the endless slaughter of harmless prey. A myriad of amphibians had evolved, making tentative forays from the warm seas.

Great ferns had reappeared. Dozens of varieties dotted the lowland plains and protruded from the swamps. A forest crept to the very base of the batholith. He turned his attention to the sun, reassured to find that the ultimate nova still was some five billion years in the future. Perhaps by then he could evolve some means whereby he could recreate himself on the single planet he detected circling Aldebaran. (Yes, he'd have to think about that. Ah, well, he had eons of time.)

Night came and he sent exploratory receptors toward the planets. Mercury still blazed on the sunward side, unchanged. A peculiar metallic life form still clung to the edge of existence along the twilight border. Venus suffered under hot swirling gases, a world where not even the smallest creature stirred. Just furnace winds, burning sands, grotesque rocks. But beyond the earth, forty million miles away in empty space, something occurred which hadn't occurred in almost seven hundred million years. Ixmal sensed Intelligent Thought!

He withdrew his receptors without thinking (his first pure reflex), waiting fearfully until Psychband adjusted him to the situation. Then, cautiously, he projected cautious thoughts into the void.

"Who are you? Who are you? Identify." Silence. Somewhere in the great vault above something lurked. An Intelligence. He must find it, must test it. It was more than a challenge; it was a threat. Its very silence was ominous.

"Who are you? Who are you? You must identify!"

Silence. Ixmal divided the heavens into cubes and began systematically exploring each one. Why had the other thought been roaming space? What had been its origin? In less than ninety thousand years (another age of vulcanism had arrived and earth mountains were building anew) he located the thought a second time, placing it as in space cube 97,685-KL-5. This time, prepared, he grasped it, holding it captive while he tried to analyze its origin and component parent, vexed when he failed.

"Who are you?" Ixmal persisted. "I demand to know. Who are you?"

Ages passed.

"Identify. Identify. Imperative that you identify."

"Zale-3." The answer caught Ixmal by surprise, and he consulted Psychband.

"Careful—the alien wouldn't reveal himself unless he felt secure," Psychband warned.

"I'll decide that," Ixmal replied. (Did Psychband question his mastery?) Nevertheless he proceeded with caution. "Where are you from, Zale-3?" A long moment of silence followed during which a glacier advanced and retreated, the seas rose, and the first fierce-toothed reptiles swooped over swamp jungles on leathery wings.

Where are you from? Where are you from? (And why was the mind of Zale-3 roaming space?) He hammered away at the thought, desperately trying to break its secret. A million questions pounded Ixmal's circuits; he sought a million answers. (Who created the Intelligence? Had it been born of the Man he was fond of? Or did it originate beyond earth?) Ixmal sensed a momentary panic. "Where are you from?"

"The fourth planet from the sun," Zale-3 suddenly answered. "And you?"

"The third planet," Ixmal replied loftily. "I rule it." He felt annoyed. For untold millions of years he had considered himself as the only Intelligence. Zale-3's answer galled him. Of course the other wasn't his equal. That was unthinkable.

"I rule the fourth planet," Zale-3 said. The answer increased Ixmal's irritation. Zale-3 actually presumed equality. Well, seven hundred million years before he had met a similar challenge. (And yea, now the Man was dust ... dust.) He consulted Psychband, annoyed to find that his dislike of Zale-3 was founded on an ego-emotion integration rather than pure reason. Still, the other must be put in his place.

"I rule the Universe," Ixmal stated coldly, withdrawing his receptors. He probed Psychband, somewhat disturbed to learn that Zale-3 would regard his pronouncement as a challenge.

"Destroy him," Psychband urged. "Remember the ancient weapons?"

"Yes, he must be destroyed." Ixmal ceased every activity to concentrate on the other's destruction. First he would have to locate his lair, study his habits, assess his weaknesses. And, yes, his strengths, for the alien was no harmless bit of protoplasm like Man. He must, in fact, be a creature somewhat like himself. Another god. Ah, but he was the iconoclast who toppled gods. In somewhat under twenty-five thousand years he evolved a method of focusing his remote receptors sufficient to uncover the atoms of the solar system. Now he would be able to pinpoint Zale-3, study his mind potential and, in time, root him from existence. Experimentally he searched the moon; then, with more assurance, invaded the fourth planet.

Mars was flat, worn, a waterless waste of fine red dust—an old, old planet where the forces of gradation had reached near balance. Ixmal gridded the red planet into a system of squares and ingeniously enclosed the polar areas with interlocking triangles, then opened his search. (A new system allowed him to focus his remote receptors in the center of each grid, expanding the focal point to cover the entire area. By this method he would be able to complete the task in just under five hundred earth years.)

Shifting sands periodically uncovered the artifacts of long-vanished makers. But all was silence. Mars was a tomb. He persisted, invading every crevice, every nook, exploring every molecule (for Ixmal knew the mind-force potential. Indeed, Zale-3 might be as minute as the single-cell protozoa of his own brackish seas. Never mind, he would find him.) In the end he surrendered, baffled. Zale-3 was not on Mars.

Delusion? Had seven hundred million years of nothingness produced an incipient psychotic state? He worriedly confided the fear to Psychband, reluctantly submitting to hypnotic search. Finally he emerged to reality, cleared by Psychband.

"Some feelings of persecution but not approaching delusory state," Psychband diagnosed. "Zale-3 exists."

So, the other had lied! Ixmal contemplated a machine capable of deceit and immediately analyzed the danger. Zale-3 had lied, therefore it had motive—and dishonest motive implied threat. Threat without aggression was meaningless, hence the other had the means. He must work fast!

Ixmal gridded the solar system: every planet, every moon; each shattered remnant that drifted through space, the asteroids and orbital comets, even the sun. Seventy-two hundred years later he detected his enemy—a small plasto-metallic cube crouched atop a jagged peak on Callisto, Jupiter's fifth moon. Ha, far from being the master of Mars, his opponent was locked to a small satellite—a mote in space. And he had presumed equality!

He searched closer, attempting to unlock Zale-3's origin. (What had happened to its makers?) Ixmal felt a guilty pang. He scanned Zale-3's world contemptuously. Then he saw it—movement! Zale-3 squatted immobile; but on the slope of the hill a strange building was taking shape. It was little more than a cube, but its design? Its purpose? He knew somehow that the strange building was related to his encounter in space with Zale-3's mind, thus it was connected with him. Ixmal hurriedly flashed a panic call to Psychband.

"Psychokinesis—Zale-3 has learned to move matter by mind," Psychband pronounced.

"But how?"

Psychband gave an electro-magnetic rumble, the equivalent of a shrug. "Out of my field," he said. "No prior indoctrination."

Ixmal sensed a momentary fright. The alien could move matter just as Man had moved matter. The factor of controlled mobility ... directed mobility. Clearly Zale-3 was no ordinary god. He'd have to speed his efforts. Time was running out. Already the earth pattern had changed since his first contact with the alien.

Ixmal concentrated.

The earth rotated, revolved, changed. In a long-forgotten memory cell he found a clue—Man once had frustrated the laws of probability in the throws of dice. He devoured the hidden knowledge. Although little enough to go on, he detected a basic principle.

In somewhat over half a million years he was able to sway flowers, move leaves against the wind, make small shrubs tremble. In less than half that time again he felled a huge tree and wrested ores from the earth. (An age of vulcanism had come and gone; the Atlantic coast was an igneous shelf, reptiles towered above the earth.) In another half million years he possessed the machines, raw materials and robot workers he needed. (The latter were designed to perform purely mechanical tasks, menial things he couldn't be bothered with. He had much to do. And ages were passing.) He saved time by enclosing his work area in a force field to protect the delicate machinery against the elements. In that respect he had bested the alien.

Ixmal started the ultimate weapon. Occasionally he would halt work long enough to scan Callisto. He gloated, noting that his enemy was having difficulty procuring the necessary fissionable material. He had a Belgian Congo full. (What did that term mean? Somehow it was an expression from long ago. The Man he had been fond of had used it.)

Ixmal's weapon rapidly took shape. Thanks to the ancient scientist's formula, he had merely to improve the warhead and construct its carrier—a rocket to blast Zale-3 from existence. (But eons were passing. Soft warm winds bathed his batholith and an occasional tyrannosaur paused to stare dumbly from the nearby swamp.) Psychband increased his irritation by calling attention to the formidable dimensions of this new animal.

"Destroy them, Ixmal, before life gets too big."

"Bah, they're mindless," he scoffed. "They're evolutionary toys—freaks from the mire."

"So was Man," Psychband observed.

"And Man is dust," Ixmal reminded. "Besides, I could destroy the very mountain with thought alone. Who dares give challenge?"

Ixmal discovered that Zale-3 had solved his fissionable problem: he was using psychokinesis to haul ore from Jupiter's methane deeps. A startling thought struck him: Zale-3 wouldn't need a rocket carrier. Of course, he would power his warhead by mental force. Why hadn't he thought of that? The ages wasted when every second might prove vital. He'd have to hurry.

He ceased work, abandoning the half-completed rocket and concentrated on improving his psychokinetic techniques. (Dinosaurs disappeared, the earth trembled under the foot of the mammoth.) Ixmal momentarily was appalled to discover a strange man-form dwelling among distant crags. He was hulking, grotesque, but he walked erect—the first of his kind. But no time now.

Ixmal tore trees from the earth and hurled them vast distances. He tumbled hills into valleys, held great crags suspended in the heavens, tore North and South America asunder; reshaped continents until, one day, he knew the mind force was his. He could reverse the very moon in its orbit! He concentrated on the bomb.

Finally the ultimate weapon was ready, the creation of long-ago Man plus ten billion. (Because there was no poetry in Ixmal's soul, he conceived solely in terms of cause and effect: he named the weapon "Star-Blaster.")

Ixmal moved the great weapon into position and rapidly calculated the Earth-Callisto relationship, projecting the space ratio in terms of velocity, distance, gravities. No need to pinpoint the alien's plasto-metallic body: the whole of Callisto would vanish, reduced to cosmic dust under the bomb's furious impact. (A feathered bird sang from a tree. The trill liquid sound infuriated Ixmal, but he ended it. A puff of feathers drifted down through the leaves. The robin had sung of spring.)

Ha! Ixmal exulted, following his precise calculations. At the exact ten-thousandths of a second he concentrated five billion thought units. Winds rushed into the spot where the bomb had stood, and for a long moment the forests trembled. (At the base of the batholith several of the strange man-forms chattered excitedly: the concept of a god was born.)

Ixmal gloatingly followed "Star-Blaster's" course. He saw it hurtle past the moon, watched while for a split second it formed one apex of an equilateral triangle with Mars and earth, reveled as it drove through the belt of asteroids. Ha, the alien was doomed. His very atoms would be flung to the stars. He was watching "Star-Blaster" when....

Ixmal recoiled, disbelieving, then terrified. A great warhead hurtled through the belt of asteroids, earth-bound, driven at unbelievable velocity by the mind of Zale-3. Ixmal frantically calculated, pounding his circuits to produce answers in split thousandths of a second. Frenzied, he analyzed his findings: the warhead would strike his very body.

"Concentrate, concentrate," Psychband interrupted. "Divert the weapon by mind force." Ixmal concentrated, focusing ten billion thought units on the oncoming warhead. It flashed unswervingly past Mars, flicking like a heavenly rapier toward earth, its velocity unbelievable.

"The moon! The moon! Use the moon," Psychband cried. Yes, the moon. He shook earth's satellite. An additional ten billion thought units reversed its orbit; he sped it up, hurling the Moon toward interception with Zale-3's warhead. Too late!

"Think, think," Psychband urged. Ixmal mustered another two billion thought units, to no avail. The terrible weapon bashed past the moon, only seconds from earth.

"Hurry!" Psychband screamed. Ixmal was trying to muster another two billion thought units when the alien warhead struck. There was a horrible shattering thousandths of a second before consciousness fled. Amorphic blackness. Night. Nothingness.

Ixmal never saw "Star-Blaster" after it passed through the asteroid belt—never saw the disturbance in one minute sector of Jupiter's planetary system as Callisto flamed into cosmic dust. Nor did he see the forests around him burst into roaring flames, nor hear the screaming animals and strange man-forms which fled in howling terror.

Much later the man-forms returned.

Some of the more fearless crept to the very edge of the huge crater where the batholith had stood. They looked with awe into its scarred depths, jabbering excitedly. One of them remained long after the others had gone until, in the swiftly gathering darkness, the first bright stars of evening gleamed.

The man-form did something which none of his kind had ever done before. He lifted his eyes skyward, watching for a long time.

THE END

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER IXMAL ***

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