The Final Encyclopedia

Chapter Sixty-two

Sidi Barrani lay inland from the shore of the Mediterranean, across one of those areas which had been among the first to be reclaimed from the North African desert, over two hundred years before. Tall still-towers had been built and water from the Mediterranean had been pumped into them, to be discharged within their tops and allowed to fall some hundreds of meters to great fans in their bases, which then blew the moistened air back up and out the tops of the towers to humidify the local atmosphere.

That humidity had made lush cropland out of the dry earth surrounding; and, as the years went by, a resulting climatological change had altered the fertile areas, pushing inland from the shoreline the edge of the desert Rommel and Montgomery had fought over in the mid-twentieth century. The desert's edge had been forced to retreat some hundreds of kilometers, until it had been finally overwhelmed and vanquished entirely against the green borderland surrounding the newly formed Lake of Qattara; a large body of water formed when the Nile, backed up by the massive Aswan Dam, had at last found a new channel westward into the Qattara Depression.

It was to the shore of that lake and to a hotel called the Bahrain, therefore - an inconspicuous, low, white-walled structure in a brilliantly flowered and tropically aired landscape - that Hal and Jason came finally in their journey to find Rukh.

But for all the peace and softness of the physical surroundings, stepping through the front door of the hotel was like stepping out into a bare field when lightning is in the air. Hal shot a quick glance at Jason, who, after his years in the Harmony resistance, could be sensitive enough to feel the field of emotional tension they had just entered, but might not yet be experienced enough to react wisely to it.

However, Jason's face was calm. Possibly a little more pale than usual - but calm.

The sunken lobby under the high-arched white ceiling before them showed no one occupying the overstuffed floats hovering around a small ornamental pool. The only visible living figure to be seen was what, here on Earth, must be a desk clerk hired for purely ornamental purposes. His gaze was directed downward behind the counter of the reception desk, as he appeared busy, or pretended to be busy, at something. Otherwise there was no sign of anyone human within sight or hearing - but the feeling of tense, if invisible watchers, all around them, was overwhelming.

The desk clerk did not look up until they had actually reached the counter and stopped on their side of it. He was a slight young man with a brown, smooth skin and a round face.

"Welcome to the Bahrain," he said. "Can I be of assistance?"

"Thanks, yes," said Hal. "Would you tell the lady that Howard Immanuelson is here to see her?"

"Which lady would that be, sir?"

"You've only got one lady here that message could be for," said Hal. "Please send it right away."

The clerk put both hands on the counter and leaned his weight slightly on them.

"I'm afraid, gentlemen," he said, "I don't understand. I can't deliver a message until I know who it's for."

Hal looked at him for a second.

"I can understand your position," he said, gently. "But you're making a mistake. We'll go and sit down by the pool, there; and you see that message I gave you gets delivered. If it doesn't… perhaps you'd better ask someone who'd know, who Howard Immanuelson is."

"I'm sorry, sirs," said the clerk, "but without knowing who you want to contact, I've no way of knowing if that person is even a guest here, and - "

But they had already turned away, with Hal in the lead, and his voice died behind them. Hal chose a float with his back to the desk; and Jason moved to sit opposite him so that between them they would have the whole lobby in view. Hal frowned slightly; and, after a split second of hesitation, Jason took a float beside him, facing the same way.

They sat without talking. There was no sound from the desk. Hal's eyes and ears and nose were alert, exploring their surroundings. After a moment his nose singled out a faint, but pervasive and pleasant, scent on the air of the lobby; and an alarm-signal sounded in his mind. Out on one of the Younger Worlds such a thing would have been highly unlikely; but here on Earth, where riches made for easy access to exotic weapons, and disregard for even the most solemn local laws and international agreements were not to be ruled out, it was not impossible that an attempt was being made to drug them by way of the lobby atmosphere.

It would not call for a drug capable of making them unconscious. All that would be needed would be to slightly dull one or more of their senses, or blunt the fine edge of their judgment, to give the unseen watchers a dangerous advantage.

On the other hand, the scent could be no more than it seemed. One of the services, or grace notes, a place like this might provide to make its lobby pleasant to guests.

There was only one way to find out which it was. The single ability most vulnerable to any kind of drugging was the meditatively creative one. The gossamer bubbles of memory or fantasy, blown by the mind, and all the powerful release of emotion these could entail, were invariably warped or inhibited by anything alien to the physiological machinery supporting them.

He let the meditative machinery of his mind sink momentarily below the surface level of that watchful awareness which still continued to be maintained automatically by the outward engine of his consciousness; and allowed himself to slip back into recall of his childhood years, to a time when all emotions had been simple, pure and explosive.

It had been, he remembered, a time when excitement had had the power to almost tear him apart. Sorrow had been unbearable, happiness had lit up the world around him like a sheet of lightning, and anger had swallowed up all things - like one sheet of flame devouring the universe.

There had been a time, once, when he had been about five years old, that Malachi Nasuno had refused him something. He could not now remember what it had been without digging for the information and for present purposes so much was not necessary. He had wanted to handle some tool or weapon, that the old Dorsai had considered beyond his years and ability; and Malachi had refused to let him have it. A fury at all things - at Malachi, at rules and principles, at a universe made for adults in which he was manacled by the unfairness of being young and small, had erupted in him. He had exploded at Malachi, shouting out his frustration and resentment, and run off into the woods.

He had run and run until breath and legs gave out together; and he had dropped down at last at the narrow edge of a stream which had cut its way through the mountain rock, bursting into unexpected tears. He had cried in sheer fury; determined never to go back, never to see Malachi or Walter or Obadiah again. Wild visions of living off the land in the mountains by himself billowed up like smoke from the bitter fires of frustration inside him.

And gradually a new despair came over him; so that he lay by the stream, silent in the misery of the thought that it seemed he could never be either what he wanted to be or what Malachi and the others might want him to be. Inwardly, he accused them of not understanding him, or not caring for him - when they were all he had, and when he had tried with every ounce of strength he owned to be what they wanted.

… And in that moment, as he huddled lost on the ground, two massive, trunklike arms closed around him and brought him gently against the wide chest of Malachi. It was infinitely comforting to be found after all, held so; and he sobbed again - but now in relief, wearing himself out into peace and silence against the rough fabric of Malachi's jacket. The old man said nothing, only held him. He could hear, through jacket and chest wall, the slow, powerful beating of the adult heart. It seemed to him that his own heart slowed and moved to match that rhythm; and, just before he slipped into a slumber from which he would not wake until hours later, in his own bed, he felt - as clearly as if it had been in himself - the pain and sorrow that was in his tutor, together with an urge to love no less powerful than his own…

He came back to full awareness of the Bahrain lobby, still wrung by the remembered emotions, and the achievement of that first rung on the ladder of human understanding, which had made life different for him from that moment on; but reassured by the successful summoning up of that ancient emotion that whatever perfumed the air around him was nothing with any power to inhibit either his body or his mind.

There was the sound of shoe soles on the hard, polished surface of the floor, approaching behind them. They turned to see the desk clerk.

"If you'll go up to room four-thirty-nine, gentlemen?" said the clerk. "It's the fifth door, to your right as you step out of the lift tube."

"Thanks," said Hal, rising. Jason was also getting to his feet; and they went toward the bank of lift tubes that the clerk was indicating with one hand.

The soft, white walls of the corridor of the fourth floor stretched right and left from the lift tube exits there, but bent out of sight within a short distance in either direction. Clearly it was designed to wander among the rooms and suites available. They went to their right; and, as they passed each door, it chimed and lit up its surface. As they went by, the number faded.

"Vanities!" said Jason under his breath; and Hal glanced at him, smiling a little.

Perhaps thirty meters from the lift tubes, a door glowed alight with the number 439 as they came level with it. They stopped, facing toward it.

"This is Howard Immanuelson," said Hal, clearly, "with someone who's an old friend of all of us. May we come on?"

For a moment there was no response. Then the door swung silently inward; and they entered.

The room they stepped into was large and square. The whole of the side opposite the door by which they had come in was apparently open to the weather, with a balcony beyond; but the coolness and stillness of the atmosphere about them told of an invisible barrier between room and balcony. Green-brown drapes of heavy material had been pulled back from the open wall to their limit on each side. Framed by these, the blue waters of Lake Qattara, with three white triangles that were the sails of one-person pleasure rafts, looked inward to the room.

There was no one visible, only a closed door in the wall to their left. The entrance, which had opened behind them, closed again. Hal turned toward the closed door in the side wall.

"No," said a voice.

A thin, intense figure with the long-barrelled void pistol, favored for its silence and deadliness on an Earth where there was little call for long-range accuracy, and where the destruction of property could have a higher price tag than that of human lives, stepped from behind the bunched folds of the drape three steps down the wall from the side door. Bony of feature, frail and deadly, incongruous in khaki-colored, Earth-style beach shorts and brightly patterned shirt with leg-o-mutton sleeves, was Amyth Barbage; and the pistol in his hand covered both Hal and Jason with utter steadiness.

Hal took a step toward him.

"Stop there," said Barbage. "I know of what thou art capable, Hal Mayne, if I let thee come close enough."

"Hal!" said Jason, quickly. "It's all right. He's Rukh's now!"

"I am none but the Lord's, weak man - nor ever have been," replied Barbage, dryly, "as perhaps thou hast. But it's true I know now that Rukh Tamani is of the Lord and speaks with His voice; and I will guard her, therefore, while I live. She is not to be disturbed - by anyone."

Hal stared with a touch of wonder.

"Are you sure about this?" he said to Jason, without taking his eyes off the thin, still figure and the absolutely motionless muzzle of the gun. "When did he change sides?"

"I changed no sides," said Barbage, "as I just said. How could I, who am of the Elect and must move always in obedience to His will? But in a courtyard of which you know, it happened once to be His will that a certain blindness should be lifted from my eyes; and I saw at last how He had vouchsafed that Rukh should see His Way more clearly than I or any other, and was beloved of Him above all. In my weakness I had strayed, but was found again through great mercy; and now I tell you that for the protection of her life, neither you nor anyone else shall disturb her rest. Her doctor has ordered it; and I will see it done."

"Amyth Barbage," said Hal, "I have to see her, now; and talk to her. If I don't, all the work she's done can be lost."

"I do not believe you," said Barbage.

"But I do," said Jason, "since I know more about it than you, Old Prophet. And my duty to the Lord is as great as yours. Count on that, Hal - "

"Wait!"

Hal spoke just in time. He had read the sudden tensing in the man at his side, and understood that Jason was about to throw himself into the fire of Barbage's pistol so Hal might have time to reach the other man and deal with him. Jason slowly, imperceptibly, relaxed. Hal stared at the man with the gun.

"I think," he said slowly, "a little of that blindness you talked about is still with you, Amyth Barbage. Did you hear what I said - that if I didn't see and talk to Rukh now, all her work here could be lost?"

His eyes matched and held those of Barbage. The seconds stretched out in silence. Then, still holding the void pistol's muzzle steadily upon them, still watching them unvaryingly, Barbage moved sideways to the door in the side wall they had been facing, softly touched and softly opened it, then stepped backward through it. Standing one step inside the further room, he spoke in so low a voice they barely heard him.

"Come. Come quietly."

They followed him into a curious room. It was narrow before them as they stepped into it and completely without furniture. Its far end was closed by drawn draperies of the same material and color as those in the room they had just left; and the wall to their right seemed to shimmer slightly as they looked at it.

As soon as they were inside and the door had closed automatically behind them, Barbage held up his free hand to bring them to a halt.

"Stay here," he said.

He turned and walked through the wall with the shimmer, revealing it for the projected sound-barrier image that it was. Hal and Jason stood silently waiting for several slow minutes; then suddenly the imaged wall vanished to show a large, pleasant hotel bedroom with the drapes drawn back and a bed float contoured into a sitting position - and, propped up in it, Rukh.

Barbage was standing by the bedside, frowning back at them.

"Her strength must not be wasted," Barbage said. "I do this only because she insists. Tell her briefly what you have to say."

"No, Amyth," said Rukh from the bed, "they can talk until I ask them to stop. Hal, come here - and you, too, Jason."

They stepped to the bedside. Clearly, Hal saw, Rukh had never recovered from the thinness to which her ordeal at the hands of the Harmony Militia had reduced her; and now, with her upper left side and shoulder, farthest from them, bulky with bandages under the loose white bed dress she wore, she looked even more frail than when Hal had seen her last. But her remarkable beauty was, if anything, more overwhelming than ever. In the green-blue light reflected into the room by the vegetation and water outside, there appeared to be a translucency to her dark body, framed by the pale buttercup shade of the bed coverings.

Jason reached out to touch the arm of her unwounded side, gently, with the tips of his fingers.

"Rukh," he said softly. "Thou art not in pain? Thou art comfortable?"

"Of course, Jason," she said, and smiled at him. "I'm not badly hurt at all. It's just that the doctor said I was needing a rest, anyway - "

"She hath been close to exhaustion for some months, now - " began Barbage harshly, but checked himself as she looked at him.

"It's all right," she said. "But Amyth, I want to talk to Hal alone. Jason, would you forgive us… ?"

"If this is thy wish." Barbage lowered the pistol, turned to the shimmering image wall and passed through it. Jason turned to follow.

"Jason - I'll be talking to you, too. Later." Rukh spoke hastily. He smiled back at her.

"Of course. I understand, Rukh - whenever you want to, I'll be here," he said, and went out.

Left alone with Hal she lifted her good right arm with effort from the bedspread covering her and started to reach out to him. He stepped close and caught hold of her hand with his own before hers was barely above the covers. Still holding it, he pulled a chair float up to her bedside with his other hand and sat down close to her.

"It occurred to me you'd be showing up here," she said, with a smile. Her hand was warm but narrow-boned in his own much larger grasp.

"I wanted to come the moment I heard," he said. "But it was pointed out to me that there were things to do, decisions I had to make. And we didn't know where you were until a few hours ago."

"Amyth and the others decided I ought to vanish," she said, "and I think they were probably right. This is an area where the people like me."

"Where they love you, you mean," said Hal.

She smiled again. For all its beauty, it was a tired smile.

"Duty kept you from searching for me right away, then," she said. "Did duty bring you now?"

He nodded.

"I'm afraid so," he said. "Time can't wait for either of us. Rukh, I had to make a decision to start things moving. We're out of time. I've sent word to the Dorsai they're to come here; and a phase shield-wall, like the one about the Final Encyclopedia, is going to be thrown around the whole Earth - including the Encyclopedia, in orbit. From now on, we're a fortress under siege."

"And the Exotics?" she said, still holding his hand, and searching his eyes. "All of us thought it would be one of the Exotics you'd chose to fortify and defend, with the help of the Dorsai."

"No." He shook his head again. "It was always to be here, but I had to keep that to myself."

"And Mara and Kultis, then? What happens to them?"

"They die." His voice sounded unsparing in his own ears. "We've taken their space shipping, any of their experts and valuables, and whatever else they could use. The Others will make them pay for giving us those things, of course."

She shook her head slowly, her eyes somberly upon him.

"The Exotics knew this would happen?"

"They knew. Just as the Dorsai knew they'd have to abandon their world. Just as you and those others from Harmony and Association who came here knew you came here not for a few months or years, but probably for the rest of your lives." He gazed for a long second at her. "You did know, didn't you?"

"The Lord told me," she said. She drew her hand softly from within his fingers and put it around them, instead. "Of course, we knew."

"All things were headed this way from the beginning," he said. His voice had an edge like the edge found in the voice of someone in deep anger. He knew he did not have to lay the cold truth out for her in spoken words, but his own inner pain drove him to it. "In the end, when the choosing of sides came, the Dorsai were to fight for the side of the future, the Exotics were to make it possible for them, at the cost of everything they'd built. And those of you from the Friendlies who truly held faith in your hands were to waken the minds of all who fought on that side so they could see what it was they fought for."

Her fingers gently stroked the back of his hand.

"And Earth?" she said.

"Earth?" He smiled a little bitterly. "Earth's job is to do what it has always done - to survive. To survive so as to give birth to those who'll live to know a better universe."

"Shh," she said; and she stroked his hand gently with her thin fingers. "You do the task that's been set you, like us all."

He looked at her and made himself smile.

"You're right," he said. "It doesn't change how I feel - but you're right."

"Of course," she said. "Now, what did you come to ask from me?"

"I need you back at the Encyclopedia," he said, bluntly, "if you're able to travel at all. I want you to make a broadcast to all of Earth from the Encyclopedia; and I want all of Earth to know you're speaking from the Encyclopedia. I need you to help explain why the Dorsai are coming here and why a phase-shield-wall's been put around this planet, both without anyone asking the Earth people's permission. I can talk to them at the same time you do and take any responsibility you'd like me to spell out. But no one else can make them understand why these things had to be done the way you can. The question is - can you travel?"

"Of course, Hal," she said.

"No," he replied deliberately. "I mean exactly what I say - are you physically able to make the trip? You're too valuable to risk losing you for the sake of one speech, no matter how important it is."

She smiled at him.

"And if I didn't go, what would happen then, when the Dorsai start arriving down here and they discover the shield-wall?"

"I don't know," he said. His eyes met hers on a level.

"You see?" she said. "I have to go; just as we all have to do what we have to do. But don't worry, Hal. I really am all right. The wound's nothing; and otherwise there's nothing wrong with me a few weeks of rest won't cure - once the Dorsai are here and the shield-wall's up. There's no reason I can't have time off then, is there?"

"Of course there isn't."

"Well, then - "

But what she had started to say was cut off by the sudden eruption through the wall of a man of ordinary height with thin, fading brown hair, a bristling gray mustache and a face that seemed too young for either. He was wearing a sand-colored business suit that looked as if he had been sleeping in it and had just been wakened. The expression on his face was one of bright anger. Amyth Barbage was right behind him.

"You!" he said to Hal. "Get out of here!"

He swung to face Rukh, on the bed.

"Am I your doctor or not?" His voice beat upward under the pale, white ceiling of the quiet room. "If I'm not, tell me now; and you can find yourself someone else to take care of you!"

"Of course you are, Roget," she said.