The Winds of Limbo

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOURS seemed to pass and Helen dozed in Alan's arms. Alan, too, was half asleep, mesmerized by the colored spheres on the screen.

He came fully awake as the spheres began to jerk and slow. A bright red filled the screen, divided itself into fragments.

More spheres appeared, but these were suns.

Suns. A profusion of suns as closely packed as the planets to Sol. Huge, blue suns, green, yellow and silver suns.

A thousand suns moving in stately procession around the ship.

The screens slid up from the ports and light, ever changing, flickered through the cabin.

"Where are we?" Helen gasped.

"The center of the galaxy," the Fireclown announced grandly.

All around them the huge discs of flame, of all colors and all possible blends of color, spun at extraordinary speeds, passing by in an orbit about an invisible point.

Alan, once again, could not retain his self-possession.

Something within him forced him to look and wonder at the incredible beauty.

These were the oldest suns in the galaxy. They had lived and died and lived again for billions of years. Here was the source of life, the beginning of everything.

Though the Fireclown would probably have denied it, the vision was-profound. It had significance of such magnitude that Alan was unable to grasp it.

Philosophically, he resigned himself to never knowing what the experience implied. He felt that the Fireclown's belief of existence without significance beyond itself was preposterous, yet he could see how one could arrive at such a conclusion. He himself was forced to cling to his shredding personality. The whirling stars dwarfed him, dwarfed his ideas, dwarfed the aspirations of humanity.

"Now," chuckled the Fireclown in his joyous insanity, "what is Earth and all its works compared with the blazing simplicity of-this!"

Helen spoke with difficulty. "They are-different," she said. "They are linked, because they all exist together, but they are different. This is the order of created matter. We seek an order of cognizant matter and the stars, however mighty, however beautiful, have no cognizance. They might perish at some stage.

Man, because he thinks, may one day make himself immortal-not personally, perhaps, but through the continuance of his race. I think that is the- difference."

The Fireclown shrugged.

"You have wondered what is real, have you not? You have wondered that we have lost touch with the realities, we human beings; that our language is decadent and that it has produced a double-thinking mentality which no longer al-lows us contact with the natural facts?" He waved his hands to take in the circling suns. "Intelligence! It is nothing, it is unimportant, a freak thrown up by a chance combination of components. Why is intelligence so esteemed? There is no need for it. It cannot change the structure of the universe-it can only meddle and spoil it. Awareness-now, that's different. Nature is aware of itself, but that is all-it is content. Are we content?

No! When I go to Earth and try to convey what I know to the people, I am conscious of entering a dream world. They cannot understand me because they are unaware! All I do, sadly, is awaken archetypal responses in them which throws them further out, so they run around like randy pigs, destroying. Destroying, building, both acts are equally unimportant. We are at the center of the galaxy.

Here things exist. They are beautiful but their beauty has no purpose. It is beauty-it is enough. They are full of natural force but the force has no expression; it is force alone, and that is all it needs to be.

"Why ascribe meaning to all this? The further away from the fundamentals of life we go, the more we quest for their meaning. There is no meaning. It is here. It has always been here in some state. It will always be here. That is all we can ever truly know. It is all we should want to know."

Alan shook his head, speaking vaguely at first. "A short time ago," he said, "I was struck by the pettiness of political disputes, horrified by the ends to which people would go to get power-or 'responsibility* as they call it-feeling that the politicians in the Solar House were expending breath on meaningless words…"

"So they were!" the Fireclown bellowed back at him approvingly.

"No." Alan plugged on, certain he was near the truth. "If you wished to convince me of this when you took us on this voyage, you have achieved the opposite.

Admittedly, as one observes them at the time, the politicians seem to be getting nowhere, society detaches itself further and further from the kind of life its ancestors lived. Yet, seeing these suns, entering the heart of our own sun, has shown me that this stumbling progress-unaware gropings in the dark immensity of the universe, if you like-is as much a natural function as any other."

Gustily, the Fireclown sighed.

"I felt I could help you, Alan Powys. I see you have fled further back into your fortress of prejudice." He closed the port covers. "Sit down-sleep if you wish.

I am returning to the monastery."

They berthed and entered the monastery in silence. The Fireclown seemed depressed, even worried. Had he seen that, for all his discoveries, for all his vision and vitality, he was not necessarily right? Alan wondered. There was no knowing. The Fireclown remained still the enigmatic, intellectual madman-the naive, ingenuous, endearing figure he had been when Alan first saw him.

Auditor Kurt greeted them. "We are looking at our, weekly lasercast. Would you like to come and watch? It might interest you."

He took them to a small room where several monks were already seated. Corso was there, too, and Cornelia Fisher. At the door the Fireclown seemed to rouse himself from his mood.

"I have things to consider," he told them, walking away down the corridor.

They went in and sat down. The laserscreen was blank. Evidently the amount of laser-viewing allowed the monks was limited.

Corso came and sat next to them. Alan was getting used to his apparently skinless face.

"Well," he said good-naturedly, "did your voyage enlighten you?"

"In a way," Alan admitted.

"But not in the way intended, I think." Helen smiled a trifle wistfully, as if she wished the Fireclown had convinced them.

"How did he hit on the discovery that enables him to travel so easily and to such dangerous parts?" Alan said.

"Call it inspiration," Corso answered. "I’m not up to understanding him, either, you know. We were co-pilots on an experimental ship years ago. Something went wrong with the ship-the steering devices locked and pushed us towards the sun.

We managed, narrowly, to avoid plunging into the sun's heart and went into orbit. But we were fried. Refrigeration collapsed slowly. I suffered worse in some ways. It took my skin off, as you can see. My fellow pilot-the Fireclown to you, these days-didn't suffer so badly physically, but something happened to his mind. You'd say he was mad. I’d say he was sane in a different way from you and me. Whatever happened, he worked out the principle for the Pi-meson in the Martian hospital-we were rescued, quite by chance, by a very brave crew of a freighter which had gone slightly off course itself. If that hadn't happened, we'd both be dead now. We were in hospital for years. The Clown pretended amnesia and I did the same. For some reason we were never contacted by Spaceflight Research."

"How did you get the money to build the Pi-meson?"

"We got it from Bias, the man you accused of being an arms dealer. He thinks the ship is a super-fast vessel but otherwise ordinary enough. He supplied us with computer parts this time."

"Where is Bias now?"

"The last I heard he had a suite at the London Dorchester."

"The Dorchester? That's reasonable-a man could hide in the Mayfair slums and nobody would know."

"I think you don't do Bias justice. He's an idealist. He wants progress more than anyone. He wouldn't have any part in blowing the world up. At least…"

Corso paused. "He's a funny character, but I don't think so."

Alan was quiet for a while. Then he said:

"After that trip, I think I do believe you when you say you're not implicated in the arms dealers' plans-not knowingly, anyway. At least the Fireclown has satisfied me on that score, even if he didn't achieve his main object." He turned to Helen. "What about you?"

"I agree." She nodded. "But I'd give a lot to know Bias's motives in helping you." She looked at Corso. "Are you telling us everything?"

"Everything I can," he said ambiguously.

The laserscreen came to life. A news broadcast.

The newscaster bent eagerly towards the camera.

"It's fairly sure who the next President will be, folks. Simon Powys, the one man to recognize the peril that the world is in from the infamous Fireclown's insane plot to destroy the world, is top of this station's public opinion poll.

His niece, the only strong opponent in the elections which begin next week, has dropped right down. Her violent support of the Fireclown hasn't helped a bit.

Rumor circulates that Miss Curtis and Minister Powys' grandson, Alan Powys, have disappeared together. Strange that two people who were seen publicly fighting in the recent riots should have teamed up."

Shot of Simon Powys in his home, a smug expression on his powerful old face.

Reporter: "Minister Powys, you were the first to discover the bomb plot. How did it happen?"

Powys: "I suspected the Fireclown from the start. I don't blame people for being duped by his talk-we're all human, after all-but a responsible politician has to look below the surface…"

Reporter (murmuring): "And we're all very grateful."

"I made sure that a constant check was kept on his activities," Simon Powys continued, "and thus was able to avert what might have been a terrible crime-the ultimate crime, one might say. Even now the threat of this man still trying to bombard the Earth from some secret hiding place is enormous. We must be wary. We must take steps to ensure his capture or, failing that, ensure our own defense."

"Quite so. Thank you, Minister Powys."

"Everything's calm again in Swiss City," announced the newscaster as he faded in, "and we're back to normal after the riots and subsequent fire which swept sixteen levels yesterday. The Fireclown's victims number over three hundred men, women-and little children. We were all duped, folks, as Minister Powys has pointed out. But we'll know better next time, won't we? The freak hysteria has died as swiftly as it blew up. But now we're watching the skies-for the search for the Fireclown seems to prove that he has left Earth and may now be hiding out on Mars or Ganymede. If he's got bombs up there, too,-we must be ready for him!"

Although angered, Alan was also amused by the laser-caster's double-thinking ability. He, like the rest, had done a quick about-face and now Simon Powys, ex-villain and victimizer, was the hero of the hour.

But the hysteria, he realized, had not, in fact, died down. It had taken a different turn. Now there was a bomb scare. Though he hadn't planned it that way, Alan thought, Simon Powys could easily be falling into the arms syndicate's plot, for this scare was just what they needed to start trouble. As soon as he got the chance he was going to tell the police about Bias and the Dorchester-or else go there himself and confront the arms dealer.

He didn't bother to watch the lasercast but turned to Helen.

"We'd better try to get the Fireclown to let us go as soon as possible," he said worriedly. "There're things to be done on Earth."

"Apart from anything else," she pointed out, "I've got an election to fight!"

A chuckle behind her, full-throated and full of humor, made her turn and look up at the Fireclown's gaudy bulk filling the doorway.

"You are persistent, Miss Curtis. Even a journey into the heart of the sun does nothing to change your mind. You'll be pleased to hear that we are leaving very soon and you'll be able to return to Earth. But first…" He looked directly at Alan, stared into his eyes so that Alan felt a strange thrill run through him, partly fear, partly joy. There was no doubt that the Fireclown's magnetism was something apart from his strange ideas. "I must talk with you, Alan Powys- alone. Will you follow me?"

Alan followed. They entered a room decorated with marvelous oil paintings, all of them depicting the sun seen in different ways.

"Did you do these?" Alan was impressed as the Fire-clown nodded. "You could have put more across to the public by displaying them than with all that talking you did," he said.

"I didn't think of it. These are private." The Fireclown indicated a metal bench for Alan to sit on. "No one comes here but me. You are the first."

"I feel honored," Alan said ironically. "But why me?"

The Fireclown's huge chest heaved as he took an enormous breath. "Because you and I have something in common," he said.

Alan smiled, but kindly. "I should say that extremely unlikely judging by our earlier conversations."

"I don't mean ideas." The Fireclown moved about-like a caged lion. There was no other analogy to describe his restless pacing, Alan thought. "I regret that I’ve been unable to convince you. I regret it deeply, for I am not normally given to regretting anything, you know. What happens, happens-that is all. I should have said we have someone in common."

"Who?" Alan was half dazed already, for he thought he knew what the Fireclown was going to say.

"Your mother," grunted the Fireclown. The words took time coming out of this man, normally so verbose.

"You are my son, Alan."