Read Online Colossus and Crab by D. F. Jones - Free Book Online

said it all. “Chief…”
    “Yes. Take it easy.” He tried to sound relaxed.’ ‘Now, slowly: give me the main items.”
    He had not selected video output, and as she gave him a precis of the world’s news as she knew it, he was glad. After the first minute, still listening intently, he sought the brandy: he needed all the strength he could get.
    “Okay, okay, Angela. That’s enough.” He considered briefly. “Tell the UN I’ll talk with the Sec-Gen in thirty minutes. Until then, I don’t want to know - you hear, Angela?”
    “Yes, Chief.”
    “Call me five minutes before time.” He snapped off the channel, and with it his sharp manner.
    God, what a hopeless mess! Rioting in a dozen capitals; hundreds, maybe thousands of Sectarians killed. Worse, deepening unease, clear round the globe, at the silence of the Master. Control had to be reestablished, never mind how phony it might be. … The Martians had to see that. He’d given himself less than half an hour to find some start to a solution. Think… .
    Time is not a constant factor; a school-kid’s hour in an unfavorite subject bears no resemblance to a lover’s, and neither had any relation to Forbin’s twenty-five minutes.
    He awoke as if from a nightmare, called by Angela to a bigger nightmare. Unwillingly he crossed to the panel, his head whirling with half-formed, half-baked ideas.
    “Anything new?”
    “Nothing good, Chief. A stack of reports of mobs gathering all over, and riots now in Rio and Sydney as well as the rest, and -“
    “Don’t bother! Make sure I come up on time, that’s all.”
    “Going video, Chief?”
    “No, er, no.” He should let himself be seen, but the way he felt - no.
    On time, he heard the frightened voice of the UN Secretary-General. “Father Forbin, the news is terrible. We don’t know what to do.” The man was crying. “A War Fleet has bombarded us, many have been killed. The ships, they’re still there -“
    “Silence!” shouted Forbin. “Who cares about your miserable little problems?” Impulsively, hardly thinking, he went on harshly, “Do you think this is what the Master expects, what I expect? You have fifteen minutes, one quarter of an hour, to have the General Assembly ready to hear me. Got it?”
    “Yes, Father, but -“
    “Fifteen minutes!”
    “Yes, Father.”
    The Sec-Gen’s tone, a mixture of fear and veneration, was not lost on Forbin, and made him feel sick. The man was a fair sample of the UN: great guys while the going was good, now no better than a flock of witless sheep, frantic for a shepherd to defend them against the wolves. If Colossus could speak, in ten minutes world order would be restored; failing the Master, it had to be him.
    Him!
    What a futile charade: he was no god, no Colossus… .
    Charles Forbin, a miserable, inadequate man, unable to hold his own wife against the power of a brutish peasant stallion; a man of learning, of liberal - and therefore indecisive - views, saddled with this awful responsibility because he alone was the link between men and their god. Except that he was now the interface between man and nothing. But for humanity’s sake he had to keep up the pretence. Why? What did he really care for the vast, faceless mass?
    Forbin slammed his fist on the desk top and shouted to the unresponsive room. “God, why me! As if I hadn’t enough without this - this mess.” He saw the time: ten minutes left. His mouth twisted in a sour grin. At least he’d given the UN something to do. They’d be like an upset beehive, frantic to be in their places… .
    Suddenly his path was transparently clear, his mind made up. He went into action.
    In the bedroom he scarcely glanced at the sleeping Blake. Hastily he got out a clean blouse, tore the old one off, soused his head in cold water.
    With four minutes in hand he was back at the console, fastening - with trembling fingers - his glittering Director’s badge, the Colossus motif in diamonds and platinum.
    He called