To Die In Italbar

CHAPTER 2

Within the highest tower of the greatest port, he sat, one man opposing an empire.

Idiotic? he asked himself. No. Because they cannot hurt me.

Glaring down at the ocean, now momentarily visible, he inspected the wet miles of distance that lay beyond the Manhattan Citadel, his home.

It could be worse.

How?

When there's nobody else in port, you sometimes get fidgety ...

Looking at the waters, he watched the great plume cover them again, like an opening fan.

Someday, maybe ...

Dr. Malacar Miles was the only man on Earth. He was lord, he was monarch here. And he did not care. The Earth was his. Nobody else wanted it.

He stared through the bubble-window. It afforded him a prospect of half of what remained of Manhattan.

The smoke was a great cloud, and a mirror that hovered showed him the orange burning when he maneuvered it at the proper angle.

It blazed.

His shields absorbed this.

It burned; it was radioactive.

His shields absorbed this too.

There had been a time when he had actually paid attention to it.

He stared upward, and the Earth's dead moon in quarterphase was there before his eyes.

For three, ten seconds, he waited.

Then came the ship, and he sighed.

_My brother is hurting_, said Shind. _Will you give him more medicine now?_

_Yes_.

_I saw this thing long ago. Beware_.

Before moving to the laboratory, Malacar stared down at the thing which had once been New York City's heart. Long gray vines had whipped their ways around the bases of killed buildings, climbed high. Their leaves were coarse, long, rustling. The smoke blackened them, withered them. Still they grew. He could actually see the movement. No human being could live in those canyons of masonry they wound. For no special reason, he pressed a button and a low-yield atomic missile destroyed a building miles away.

_I will have to use karanin on your brother. It will impair his respiratory functions a bit_.

_It will do more good, will it not? Over-all?_

_Yes_.

_Then we must_.

_Go get him. Take him to the laboratory_.

_Yes_.

He looked out one more time, out across his kingdom and the patches of its ocean that showed through smoke. Then he departed the high deck.

The winds that swirled about the world had deposited their rubbish as he had watched. As always. The only human inhabitant of the place, he was neither especially paternal nor antagonistic about the view.

The drop-tube took him to the lower level of his citadel. To test them, he broke three alarm circuits as he moved along a corridor. Entering the laboratory, he saw Shind's brother Tuv waiting.

He extracted the medication from its wall-slot and blasted it into the small creature.

He waited. Perhaps ten minutes.

_How is he?_

_He complains concerning the sting of the injection, but he states that he begins to feel improvement in his condition_.

_Good. Can you unwind your mind now and tell me a little more about Morwin's visit?_

_He is your friend. Mine too. From long ago_.

_So why the 'Beware' business?_

_It is not he himself, but something that he brings which may lead you to danger_.

_What?_

_Information, I feel_.

_News that may kill me? Those CL radicaLs with their rockets did not exactly accomplish the job. What has Morwin got?_

_I do not know. I speak only as a member of my race who occasionally glimpses a fragment of future truth. Sometimes I know. I dream it. I do not understand the process_.

_Okay. Monitor your brother's condition and tell me about him now_.

_His breathing is a trifle labored, but his hearts beat more easily. We thank you_.

_It has worked again. Good_.

_It is not good. I see his life as coming to an end in twopoint-eight Earth years_.

_What do you want me to do?_

_He will require stronger drugs as time goes on. You have been kind, but you must be kinder. Possibly, a specialist_ ...

_All right. We can afford it. We will get him the best. Tell me more about what is wrong_.

_The blood vessels will begin to deteriorate at a more rapid rate soon. It will take approximately sixteen Earth months before the harm is widespread, however. Then he will go quickly. I do not know what I will do_.

_He will depend upon my care, and it will not be prominent by its absence. Talk to him and make him comfortable_.

_I am doing that now_.

_Pipe me in_.

_Bide a moment_.

... Then into the mind of a Mongoloid child, but more. Snatched up by the currents, drawn in, he knew and he saw.

... Everything that had fallen before those eyes was there, and Malacar had seen to it that they had looked upon many things.

You do not toss away a tool such as this because of a doctor's bill.

Malacar gazed into that dark place, the mind, moved through it. Shind maintained the bond and Malacar regarded the medium which held him. Skies, maps, millions of pages, faces, scenes, diagrams. It might be that there was no understanding in the idiot creature's mind, but it was a place where everything his yellow eyes had fallen upon had found a home. Malacar moved carefully.

No, that furry head was a storage house; and not to be surrendered readily.

Then, all about him, rang the feelings. Suddenly, he was near the spot of pain and death-fear--only partly understood, and more awful thereby--the seething nightmare place where half-formed images crawled, writhed, burned, bled, froze, were stretched and torn. Something within his own being echoed it and moved toward congruency. It was the basic terror of a thing confronting nothingness, attempting to people it in some fashion with all the worst gropings of the imagination, succeeding in this latter and, failing to comprehend, repeating it.

_Shind! Pull me out!_

... And he stood there again, beside the sink. He dumped a retort, rinsed it.

_The experience was of value?_

He decided so.

_I will increase the dosage on a very slow basis. Do not permit him to exert himself unduly_.

_You like his memory?_

_You are damned right I do, and I will act to preserve it_.

_Good. The estimate I gave you concerning his life expectancy might be several months off_.

_I will be judicious in acting upon it. --Tell me more of Morwin_.

_He is troubled_.

_Aren't we all?_

_He will be landing soon and coming by. It seems that his mind is invaded by fears given there by people of the place that you hate_.

_Likely. He lives among them_.

He only glanced at the vision of his world.

He had activated the Screens which showed him much of the Earth, to while away a few minutes. He shut them down because the changed map bored him. Living beside a volcano, simply because the site had once meant something, had accustomed him to the worst that the screens could show. It still meant something to him, but there was little he could do to change the landscape. Now he followed the trail of the ship and watched Morwin emerge.

Fixing a tracer on the man, he primed several weapons systems.

This is ridiculous, he decided. There must be somebody a man can trust.

He observed Morwin's progress all the way to his gate, however; and followed him with a hover-globe that could pour fiery death in an instant.

The space-armored figure halted and looked upward. Fracture lines crossed the globe. Malacar struck the recall button on his massive Weapons Console.

A white light blinked, and he turned a dial, bringing in words and static:

"I'm just here to say 'Hi,' sir. If you want me to go away, I will."

He touched Broadcast.

"No. Come on in. It's just the old precaution business."

But he tracked Morwin every step of the way, feeding the movement patterns into his battle computer. He X-rayed him, weighed him, determined his heartbeat rate, blood pressure and electroencephalographic indices. He fed this data to another computer which analyzed it and routed it back to the battle computer.

_Negative_, was the reading, as he had expected it to be.

_Shind? What do you read?_

_I would say that he is just stopping by to say "Hi," sir_.

_Okay_.

He opened the front gate of his fortress and the artist entered.

Morwin moved into the massive front hail. He seated himself upon a drifting divan.

Stripping, Malacar stepped into a screen of hazes that bathed him and shaved him as he passed. Moving to a closet, he dressed quickly, concealing only the ordinary weapons on his person.

He tubed then to ground level and entered the main hall of his fortress.

"Hello," he said. "How are you?"

Morwin smiled.

"Hello. WThat were you shooting at when I came down, sir?"

"Ghosts."

"Oh. Hit any?"

"Never. --It's a pity that all Earth's vineyards are dead, but I still have a good supply of their squeezings. Would you care for some?"

"That would be fine."

Malacar crossed to a wine chest, poured two glasses, passed one to Morwin, who had followed him.

"A toast to your health. Then dinner."

"Thank you."

They touched glasses.

He stood. He stretched. Better. Much better.

He tested his legs, his arms. There were still painful spots, cramped muscles. These he massaged. He brushed at his clothing. He moved his head from side to side.

Then he crossed the shed and peered out through its grimy window.

The lengthening shadows. The end of day once again.

He laughed.

For an instant, a sad blue countenance seemed to swim before his sleep-spotted eyes.

"Sorry," he said; and then he moved to sit upon a box while he waited for the night.

He felt the power singing in his sores, and in a new, unhealed lesion which had occurred on the back of his right hand.

It was good.

Deiling of Digla meditated, as was his custom, while awaiting the ringing of the tidal bell. His eyes half-lidded, he nodded, there on his balcony, not really seeing the ocean he faced.

The event had been one for which his training in the priesthood had not really prepared him. He had never heard of a similar occurrence, but then it was an ancient and complicated religion wherein he held his ministry.

It was inconceivable that the matter had not been called to the attention of the Names. Traditionally, the lighting was a galaxy-wide phenomenon.

But the Names were strangely indifferent to the doings of their own shrines. Generally, the Name-bearers only communicated with one another on matters of worldscaping, in which nearly all of them engaged.

Would it be impertinent for him to submit an inquiry to one of the Thirty-one Who Lived?

Probably.

But if they were truly unaware, they should be advised. Should they not?

He pondered. For a long while, he pondered.

Then, with the ringing of the tidal bell, he rose and sought the communications unit.

It was unfair, he decided. It was what he had wanted, and it was appropriate, so far as he was now concerned. But the intention had been lacking at the time of the act, and this took away a taste which would have been far sweeter upon his lips.

He moved through the streets of Italbar. There were no lights. There was no movement beneath those blazing stars.

He tore down a quarantine sign, stared at it, ripped it across. He let the pieces fall to the ground and walked on.

He had wanted to come in the night, touching door handles with his wounds, running his hands along banisters, breaking into stores and spitting on food.

Where were they now? Dead, evacuated, dying. The town bore no resemblance to what he had seen that first evening, from the hilltop, when his intentions had been far different.

He regretted that he had been their agent of destruction by accident rather than by design.

But there would be other Italbars--worlds, and worlds filled with Italbars.

When he passed the corner where the boy had shaken his hand, he paused to cut himself a staff.

When he passed the place where the man had offered him a lift, he spat.

Having led a solitary life for so many years, he felt that he could see man's basic nature far, far better than those who had dwelled in cities all their lives. Seeing, he could judge.

Clutching his staff, he passed out of the town and into the hills, the wind tumbling his hair and beard, the stars of Italbar in his eyes.

Smiling he went.

Malacar stretched his arsenal arms and legs and stifled a yawn.

"More coffee, Mr. Morwin?"

"Thank you, Commander."

"... So, the CL is thinking of further hostilities and they want to use me as an excuse? Very good."

"That's not exactly the way it was put to me, sir."

"It amounts to the same thing."

Too bad I cannot trust you, Malacar decided, even though you consider yourself trustworthy. You were a good Exec, and I always liked you. You artistic types are too unstable, though. You go where they buy your art. With that mindtrick of yours aimed at a fusion reactor we could do some good work together again. Too bad. Why don't you smoke that pipe I gave you?

_He is thinking of it now_, said Shind.

_What else is he thinking?_

_Whatever the information I feared, it is not foremost in his mind. Or if it is, I do not recognize it as such_.

"Mr. Morwin, there is a favor I would like to ask of you."

"What is it, sir?"

"It concerns those dream-globe things that you make ..."

"Yes?"

"I'd like you to make me one."

"I'd be only too happy. But I don't have my equipment with me. If I had known you were interested, I could have brought the gear along. But--"

"I understand, in principle, what it is that you do. I believe that my laboratory facilities would be sufficient for us to work something out."

"There are the drugs, the telepathic linkage, the globe--"

"--And I'm a doctor of medicine with a telepathic friend who can both receive and transmit thought-images. As for the globe, we should be able to manufacture one."

"Well, I'll be glad to try."

"Good. Why do we not begin this evening? Now, say?"

"I have no objections. Had I known of your interest earlier, I would have offered to do it long ago."

"I only thought of it recently, and the present seems a particularly appropriate time.

So very, he reflected. And late.

He moved through the great rain forest of Cleech. He passed beside the River Bart. By boat, he traveled hundreds of miles along that watercourse, stopping at villages and small towns.

By now, his appearance was indeed that of a holy outcast--somehow stronger and taller, with voice and eyes that could catch and draw the attention of crowds, his garments in tatters, hair and beard grown long and unkempt, body covered with countless sores, blotches, excrescences. He preached as he passed, and men listened.

He cursed them. He told them of the violence that lay in their souls and of the capacity for evil which informed their beings. He spoke of their guilt, which cried out for judgment, announced that this judgment had been rendered. He stated that there is no such act as repentance, told them that the only thing remaining for them was to spend these final hours in the ordering of their affairs. None laughed as he said these words, though later many did. A few, however, moved to obey him.

Thus tolling the Day of Annihilation, he moved from town to city, from city to metropolis; and his promise was always kept.

The few who survived considered themselves, for some obscure reason, as the Chosen. Of What, they had no idea.

"I am ready," said Malacar, "to begin."

"All right," Morwin agreed. "Let's."

What the hell does he want with it? he asked himself. He was never especially introspective or aesthetically inclined in the old days. Now he wants a highly personalized work of art created for him. Could he have changed? No, I shouldn't think so. His taste in decorating this place was as abominable as ever, and nothing has changed since last I was here. He talks the same as he always did. His intentions, plans, desires seem unaltered. No. This has nothing to do with his sensibilities. What then?

He watched Malacar inject a colorless fluid into his arm.

"What is the drug you took?" he asked.

"A mild sedative, somewhat hallucinogenic. It will be a few minutes before it takes effect."

"But you haven't told me yet what thing I am to look for--to attempt to induce, if necessary--for the work."

"I'm making it easier for you," Malacar told him, as they reclined upon their couches before the globe they had erected. "I will tell you--via Shind--when it is ready. Then all you will have to do is hit your controls and capture it, exactly the way that it is."

"That would seem to imply a moderately strong element of consciousness on your part. This invariably interferes with the strength and clarity of the vision. That is why I prefer to use my own drugs, sir."

"Don't worry. This will be strong and clear."

"How long do you feel it will be before it occurs just as you would have it?"

"Perhaps five minutes. It will come in a flash, but it will remain long enough for you to activate your controls and impose it."

"I will try, sir."

"You will succeed, Mr. Morwin. That is an order. It will be the most difficult one you have ever attempted, I am certain. But I want it--there, before me--when I awaken."

"Yes, sir."

"Why don't you relax for a while? Make whatever mental preparations you do?"

"Yes, sir."

_Shind?_

_Yes, Commander. I am watching. He is still puzzled. He is wondering now why you want it and what it will be. Failing to arrive at any conclusions, he attempts to dismiss these questions for the moment. Soon he will know, he tells himself. He tries to relax, to follow your order, now. He is very tense. His palms perspire and he wipes them on his trousers. He regulates his breathing and his heartbeat. His mind becomes a more peaceful place. His surface thoughts diminish. Now! Now... He does a thing with his mind that I cannot follow, understand. I know that he is readying himself for the exercise of his special talent. Now he does indeed relax. He knows that he is ready. There is no tension in him. He allows himself the joy of reverie. Thoughts arise unbidden, vanish in like fashion. Wisps, rag-tails, highly personal, nothing strong_ ...

_Continue to follow him_.

_I do. Wait. Something, something_ ...

_What is it?_

_I do not know. The globe--something about the globe_ ...

_This globe? The one we made?_

_No, the globe seems only to have served as the stimulus, now that he is relaxing and there are free associations ... This globe ... No. it is another. Different_ ...

_What is it like?_

_Big, and with a backdrop of stars. Inside_ ...

_What?_

_A man. A dead man, but he moves. There is also much equipment. Medical equipment. The globe is a ship--his ship. _B Coli__ ...

_Pels. The dead doctor. Pathologist. I've read some of his papers. What of him?_

_Nothing to Morwin, for the thing is gone now from his mind, and the wispy thoughts have come again. But there was something there for me. --My dream-thing. The thing of which I warned you, the thing that I said he would bear--this is it, somehow. Or connected with it_.

_I will find out_.

_Not from Morwin, for he does not know. it is simply the fact that there is knowledge you will gain in connection with Pels, and that he has brought into your presence a thought of the dead doctor, which menaces you. I-- Commander, forgive me! I am the agent! Had I not told you of my dream of weeks ago, discerned its key just now and told you of this, also, there would be no danger. The way to trouble is through Pels, not Morwin. Better I had remained completely silent. --Simply avoid anything connected with the dead doctor_.

_Strange. A very strange twisting. But we have uncovered the information we desired. We can deal with it later. Let us get on with the "dream_."

_Wait. Let there be no later. Dismiss Pels from your thinking and never recall him_.

_Not now, Shind. Now you must help me seek through your brother's memories_.

_Very well. I will assist you. But_--

_Now, Shind_.

Then he was there again, moving along aisles of that library, the brother-thing's mind. In it, everything the creature had experienced, from vague pre-birth feelings through present awareness, lay before him. He sought the sad, sore spot he had come upon earlier. Locating it, he drew nearer. Shaken, at the pain-death-fear nightmare-place, he forced himself to bore deep within it. It was a dream Tuv had had earlier, but the preservative quality of the memory made it hang there, like all the others, in the gallery of his agony. It was a corkscrew-twisted blot, with two streamers like writhing legs, the whole penetrated by spark-lines, as from the tail of a green comet; there was a faint lightening near its bottom, featuring a vague, facelike area--suggesting no creature Malacar had ever known--the horrid face-place, lying at that instant between life and death, red tears emerging in all directions therefrom, falling into the blot and beyond, into a faintly silver landscape of crystal or of thin-flamed silver fire. Into the center of this thing, from out his own memory on such matters, Malacar cast the main stat-map of the CL, each sun so faint--like cells in a dying body! The whole took but an instant, and Malacar said, _Now, Shind!_ and heard Morwin scream. But he also heard the jets come alive.

He realized then that he was screaming too; and he continued to, until Shind pulled him out. Then blackness, like lightning, struck him.

The world called Cleech fell away at his back. Within a matter of hours, he would be outside that small system and able to enter subspace. He turned from the console and fetched a long, slim cigar from a supply he had taken from the dead man's counter, there in the dead men's space port.

It had been much faster this time, had gone through a larger area almost immediately. What had it been? He had not even recognized the condition. Could it be that he had somehow become a breeding place for new diseases?

He lit the cigar and smiled.

His tongue was black and the sclerae of his eyes had grown yellowish. Very little healthy tissue was now visible upon him. He had become a discolored mass of sores and swellings.

He chuckled and puffed smoke until his eyes fell upon his reflection in the dampened screen to his left.

Then he stopped chuckling and the smile went away. He put the cigar aside and leaned forward, studying his face. It was the first time he had seen it since-- How long ago? Where? Italbar, of course. Where it had all started.

He regarded the lines, the places that looked like burns, the dark ridges that crossed the cheeks.

Something inside him chose, at that moment, to close its fingers about his stomach and squeeze.

He turned away from the screen, his breath quickening. Suddenly, he found that he was panting. His hands began to tremble.

My appearance need not be so extreme to achieve the desired effect, he decided. Three weeks in sub before I reach Summit. Might as well go into remission and clean up a bit.

He located the cigar and continued to puff on it. He placed his left hand where it was out of sight. He did not look back at the screen.

After he had entered hd, he turned on the forward screen and regarded stars. Centered about a point directly before him, they moved in long, burning spirals, some clockwise, some counterclockwise. He hung there, absolutely still, and for a time he regarded the universe as it moved about him.

Then he reclined the seat, closed his eyes, folded his arms and followed the long trail he had not taken since before Italbar.

_______________

... Walking, quickly, through the mists. Blue, blue, blue. Blue flowers, like the heads of serpents. A more exotic perfume in the air. Blue moon above, blue vines across the shallow stairs.

Up into the garden ...

Blue insects swarmed about him, and as he gestured to brush them away he saw his hand.

Something is wrong, he decided. Whenever I come to this place I am whole again.

He advanced into the garden and felt a subtle change, though there was no specific thing to which he could attribute it.

He cast his eyes upward, but there was only the motionless 'noon.

He listened, but there were no birdsongs.

The mists snaked about his ankles. The first glittering stone, when he came upon it, still cast its prisms. The butterflies, though, were missing. Instead, it was partly covered by a webwork within which dozens of fat blue caterpillars hung suspended, turning, contracting into U's and straightening again, slowly. Beneath knobbed horns, their faceted eyes blazed like sapphire chips. As he watched, they all contrived to turn in his direction and raise their heads.

He did not look upon the other stones as he passed them, but pressed forward with increasing distress, seeking a certain high stand of shrubbery.

When he located it, he hurried in that direction; and as always, the light faded at his approach. He saw then the summerhouse.

It stood as he had never seen it before. Shaded, peaceful, cool, it had always been. Now, however, each stone was clearly delineated, burning with a cold blue light. Inside, there was absolute blackness.

He halted. He succumbed to a chill that gave way to a shudder.

What is it that is wrong? he asked himself. It has never been this way before. Could she be angry with me? Why? Perhaps I should not enter. Perhaps I should wait here until it is time to go back. Or perhaps I should return immediately. There is an electrical quality to the air. Like just before a storm ...

He stood there, watching, waiting. Nothing occurred within the stillness.

The tingling sensation increased. The back of his neck began to throb, then his hands and feet.

He decided to depart, discovered that he could not move.

The throbbing spread throughout his entire body.

He felt an urge to move forward. It was not a desire, but a compulsion. Throbbing, he moved ahead once more.

When he entered, his feelings were not as they had been on prior occasions in the place. This time he hoped that he would not even glimpse a smile, a fluttering eyelid, an earlobe, a strand of hair, the sheen of blue moonbeams upon a restless forearm or shoulder. This time he was afraid to see anything of her. This time, he hoped she was not present.

He moved to the stone bench that ran along the wall, seated himself upon it.

"_Dra_ Heidel von Hymack," came the words, and they made him want to rise and flee, but he could not move. They were more sibilant than usual, and their breath came cold upon his cheek. He kept his face averted.

"Why do you not turn and look at me, _Dra_ von Hymack? You have always desired this in the past."

He said nothing. She was the same--yet different. Everything had been altered.

"_Dra_ von Hymack, you do not turn and you do not answer me. What is the matter?"

"Lady--"

"Then be unchivalrous. it is enough that you have come home, at last."

"I do not understand."

"You have finally done the correct thing. Now the stars have turned in their courses and the seas have come unchained."

It is a lovely voice, he decided. More so than before. It was the sudden alteration that startled me. The garden is prettier too.

"You have noticed the changes and you approve. That is good. Tell me what you think of your new strength."

"I like it. Men are worthless and they deserve to die. If my power were greater, more of them would."

"Oh, it shall be! Believe me. Soon you will be able to emanate spores that will slay across hundreds of kilometers. And there will come a day when you will need but set foot upon a world to kill everything which dwells there."

"it is only the people that I care about. It was they who hurt me. It is man who is unthinking and brutal. The other races, the other life forms--they do not disturb me."

"Ah, but if you would serve me fully--as you have chosen to do--then all of life is become your enemy."

"I would not go that far, Lady. For it was not all of life that attacked me."

"But to reach the guilty, you must strike among the innocent as well. It is the only way."

"I can avoid the non-human worlds."

"Very well. For a time, perhaps. Are you still happiest of all when you are here, with me?"

"Yes, Myra-o--"

"Do not barbarize my name. Speak it as it should be spoken--A rym-o-myra--when it must be spoken at all."

"Lady, I apologize. I had thought it otherwise."

"Cease thinking. Simply do as I tell you."

"Of course."

"With your new power, which grows in you by the day, you have the best of both worlds. it is only while you are here that your sleeping body does not bear all the marks of your power. it snores quietly in that little shell you use to cross between the worlds. When you awaken there, you will bear greater strengths and deeper marks than any you have thus far known."

"Why is this? I can recall when it was the other way about."

"It is because you have chosen to act as a man no more, but as a god, that godlike strengths have been granted you."

"I had thought that you might cleanse me for a time, for I discover that I grow increasingly ugly."

She laughed.

"You? Ugly? By all the Names, you are the most beautiful creature that lives. Turn now and fall upon your knees. Adore me. I shall require sexual worship of you, and then I shall confirm you as my servant forever."

He turned and finally beheld her face. Then he fell upon his knees and lowered his head.

_______________

When he awakened, Malacar gave himself a genuine injection he had had ready, a tranquilizer. The first one he had taken had been distilled water. He did not allow himself to look at the globe during this time.

Then he rose to administer similar medication to the still unconscious Morwin. He hesitated, however.

_Why is he still out, Shind?_

_The full strength of the death-dream came upon him in conjunction with his using his shaping power. It seems to have given it more force_.

_In that case, I am going to give him a sedative and put him to bed_.

It was only after this was done that he returned to the laboratory and considered the globe.

He felt prickly sensations in unlikely places.

God! That's it! he decided. That is exactly what I saw! I never realized he was that good! He actually succeeded in stuffing a nightmare inside that globe. It is perfect. Too perfect, in fact. I did not want a work of art. That is what it is, though, when you see it like this--fully conscious. I think he does make small alterations ... I will never know, for certain. --All I had wanted was a nasty, striking item to ship to the High Command in SEL--from Malacar, with love--to let them know I am on to their latest--to warn them. I wanted to tell them, by this, what I am going to try to do to their whole bloody CL. I will fail, of course, but I grow older and there is no successor in sight. When I do try that big one, it will be all over. They will be frightened of the DYNAB again, for a time. Perhaps during that time another Malacar will come along. That is what I will be praying when I carry the bomb into their E-Room. I almost hate to give them the globe, though. Too bad Morwin went over. He isn't a bad sort. Those globes of his... Globes ... What the hell!

He searched the laboratory. Not locating what he sought, he tried the monitor, checking all the rooms in the citadel.

_All right, Shind. Where are you hiding?_

No response.

_I know you have some sort of mind-lock on me. I want you to release it_.

Nothing.

_Look, you know I can break it, now that I know it exists. It may take me several days, weeks even. But I will get through it. Save me the trouble_.

There came to him the mental equivalent of a sigh.

_I only did it for your own good_.

_Whenever people start talking to me about my own good, I reach for my gun_.

_I would like to discuss the advisability of not removing it before_--.

_Take it off! That's an order! No discussion! Take it off the easy way now, or I will have to sweat it the hard way later. Either way, it is coming off_.

_You are a very stubborn man, Commander_.

_You're damiwd right I am! Now!_

_As you say, sir. It will be easier if you calm down a bit_.

_I _am_ calm_.

There came the sensation of a dark bird passing through his head.

_The globe, Dr. Pels... Of course!_

_Now that you recall it, you can see that it is slim indeed. The stuff of dreams; an impossible, bootstrap-type paradox_--.

_But you felt strongly enough about it to attempt to suppress my memories of the matter. --No, Shind. There is something here that bears further inquiry_.

_What are you going to do?_

_I am going to read Pels' latest papers, and I am going to ascertain where his current interests lie. I am also going to determine his present physical whereabouts_.

Once more, there came to him the mental equivalent of a sigh.

That night he sent a request for a special messenger ship to come to Earth and pick up a parcel for delivery to the High Command on Elizabeth. The expense would be astronomical, but his credit was good. He personally crated the globe and included a "Gentlemen: Best wishes. --Malacar Miles, Fit. Cdr., Ret., 4th Stir., DYNAB" note. Then he began reading--and in some cases rereading--the writings of pathologist Larmon Pels.

When morning lightened the mists over Manhattan, he was still reading. He glanced at his notes. Aside from jottings with respect to medical items in which he was personally interested, he had written only two things he felt to be important: "Deiban fever" and "Special interest in the H case."

At that point, he debated retiring, decided against it, hit himself with a stimulator.

Morwin might have something else I want, he decided.

Later that day, as they sat to lunch, Morwin was saying, "... Pretty rough one you sprang on me, sir. I've done things verging on nightmare before, but nothing that emotionally charged. It kind of drained me. I didn't mean to pass out on you like that, though."

"I'm sorry I did it to you. I hadn't guessed it would affect you the way it did."

"Well ..." Morwin smiled and took a sip of coffee. "I'm glad you liked it."

"You're sure you won't take my money?"

"No thanks. --May I go to the upper deck again after lunch, to see the volcano?"

"Certainly. I'll go with you. Finish up, and we'll take a walk."

They rose to the upper levels, where they looked out and down and around. The sun had changed portions of the prospect to golden confetti. The collapsed skyline leaned like an ancient fence. Fires bubbled orange within a dark caidron. Molten stones were fired upward, filling portions of the air like flak. Occasionally, a faint tremor was felt. \Vhen the winds rose or shifted there was sometimes a parting of the agitated curtain; then sections of the dark Atlantic, especially that neck which curved inward, lapping about the base of the cone, would become visible through the distorting lens of the gases. The leaves of the man-thick vines grew green at their bases; the upper ones were black as crows.

"... Hard to believe that the whole world is like this," Morwin was saying, "and that it happened during our lifetimes."

"Ask the CL about it. They did it."

"... And that nobody will ever live here again, on the home planet."

"I live here--to remind them of their guilt, to stand as a warning of their own fate."

"... There are many worlds such as this once was. There are millions of innocent persons on them."

"In reaching all the guilty one sometimes strikes the innocent as well. Generally, I'd say. It is the way of revenge."

"And if revenge is abandoned, a few generations will level both the guilty and the innocent, anyhow. The new generation, at least, will be totally blameless for this--and worlds will endure."

"That's too philosophical an outlook to accept--for a man who has lived through some of the things I have."

"I lived through them too, sir."

"Yes, but--"

He bit off his words.

They stared outward for a time, then, "Has that disease specialist, Larmon Pels, stopped by Honsi recently?" Malacar asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Was he here too?"

"Some time ago. What was he looking for on your world?"

"Some general medical information, vital statistics and a man who wasn't there."

"The man ... ?"

"Hyneck, or something like that, I believe. There was no record of him with us either, though. --Look at that flare-up, will you?"

H? Malacar asked himself. Could this Hyneck or whatever be the disease pool? I never heard of him either, but if he is--.

_Deiban fever has, for the first time, been detected on worlds other than Deiba_, he remembered reading. _It is invariably fatal, save for one known exception. I refer, of course, to the case of H. The agent of transmission is not yet known_.

If this man were H, could he possibly also be the unwitting transmitter of the condition? It would be simple enough to obtain the exact name cited in Pels' request. I will, of course.

The outbreaks of Deiban fever on worlds other than Deiba were always accompanied by the occurrence of half a dozen other exotic diseases. Their presence, simultaneously, had never been adequately explained. But H had had countless diseases and survived them all, been pronounced cured. Could it be that some unknown cue within H caused them to recrudesce simultaneously--all mutually contagious?

The possible military applications flashed through Malacar's mind like the orange flare-up below him.

Everybody is prepared for bacteriological warfare, on one level or another--even combined approaches, he decided. But here would be a random assault, shotgun-style, attributable to knowable yet still unclassified natural causes. If this is possible and H is the key to controlling the process--or somehow _is_ the process--then I hear the tolling of the death bell. I could hurt the CL more than I'd thought. It but remains to determine whether this Hyneck is indeed H; and if so, to locate him.

For hours they stood and watched the flames and the seething lava, the shifting patterns of sky and sea. Then Morwin cleared his throat.

"I'd like to rest for a time now. I still feel somewhat weak," he said.

"Of course, of course," said Malacar, suddenly withdrawing his attention from something distant. "I believe I will remain here myself. It looks as if another flare-up is due."

"I hope you didn't mind the unexpected company."

"Far from it. You've raised my spirits more than I can tell you."

He watched him go, then chuckled.

Perhaps that dream-globe you created was true, he decided. An accurate prediction of things to come. I never actually had hoped to succeed, unless ... How does it go? Those lines I learned at the university ... ?

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,

And Earth some new Convulsion tear;

And, us to joyn, the World should all

Be cramp'd into a _Planisphere_.

If I'm correct on this thing, I am going to cram it all there--all of the CL, just as you did that vision--into a planisphere.

_Shind!_ he called out. _Do you know what has happened?_

_Yes. I have been listening_.

_I will ask Morwin to stay and mind the shop. We ourselves will soon be leaving on another journey_.

_As you say. Where to?_

_Deiba_.

_I feared as much_.

Malacar laughed at this retort, and the mist ran away with the noon.

He watched the spiraling stars, like the distant fireworks of childhood. His hand fell upon the monogrammed bag fastened at his belt. He had forgotten it was there. He glanced downward when he heard the clicking sound, and for a moment he forgot the stars.

His stones. How lovely they were. How could he have pushed them from his memory with such ease? He fingered them and smiled. Yes, these were true. A piece of mineral never betrays you. Each is unique, a world unto itself and harmless. His eyes filled with tears.

"I love you," he whispered, and one by one he counted them out and replaced them in the bag.

As he tied them again at his belt, he watched the movements of his hands. His fingers left moist smudges upon the material. But his hands were beautiful, she had told him. And she was correct, of course. He raised them near to his face and a surge of power swept through his body and settled within them. He knew that he was stronger now than any man or nation. Soon he would be stronger than any world.

He turned his attention once more to the bright whirlpool that sucked him toward its center: Summit.

He would be there in no time at all.

When the message arrived, his first reaction was a very loud "Damn! Why ask _me?_" But since he already knew the answer he restricted his subsequent reactions to the expletive.

Pacing, he paused to flip a toggle and postpone his lunch until further notice. After a time, he noted that he was in his rooftop garden and smoking a cigar, staring into the west.

"Racial discrimination, that's what it is," he muttered, then moved to a hidden plate, thumbed it open and flipped another toggle.

"Send me a light lunch in the manuscript library in about an hour," he ordered, not waiting for a reply.

He continued to pace, breathing in the smells of life and growth that surrounded him and ignoring them completely.

The day grew gray and he turned to the east where a cloud had covered his sun. He glared at it and after a few moments it began to dissipate.

The day brightened once more, but he growled, sighed and walked away from it.

"Always the fall guy," he said, as he entered the library, removed his jacket, hung it on a hook beside the door.

He moved his eyes along the rows of cases which contained the most complete collection of religious manuscripts in the galaxy. On shelves beneath each case were bound facsimiles of the originals. He passed into the next room and continued his search.

"Way up there by the ceiling," he sighed. "I might have known."

Setting the foot of the ladder within three feet of the Qumran scrolls, he adjusted its balance and climbed.

He lit a cigarette after he had seated himself in an easy chair with a fac-copy of _The Book of Life's Manifold Perils and Pleas for Continued Breathing_, in ancient Pei'an script, across his knees.

It seemed but moments later that he heard a click and a programmed cough at his right elbow. The robot had entered, rolled silently across the thick carpeting, come to rest beside him and lowered the covered tray to a comfortable eating level. It proceeded to uncover it.

He ate mechanically and continued reading. After a time, he noted that the robot had departed. He had no memory whatever of what it was that he had eaten for lunch.

He continued to read.

Dinner passed in the same fashion. Night occurred and the lights came on about him, brightening as the darkness deepened.

Sometime in the middle of the night he turned the final page and closed the book. He stretched, yawned, rose and staggered. He had not realized that his right foot had grown numb. He reseated himself and waited for the tingling to pass. When it did, he climbed the ladder and replaced the volume. He restored the ladder to its corner. He could have had robot-extensors and gray-lifts, but he preferred libraries of the old-fashioned sort.

He passed through sliding windows and walked to his bar on the west terrace. He seated himself before it and the light to its rear came on.

"Bourbon and water," he said. "Make it a double."

There was a ten-second pause, during which he could feel the faintest of vibrations through his fingertips resting on the bar. Then a six-by-six square opened before him and the drink slowly rose into sight, coming flush with the counter top. He raised it and sipped.

"... And a pack of cigarettes," he added, remembering that he had finished his some hours before.

These were delivered. He opened the pack and lit one with what was probably the last Zippo lighter outside of museums. Certainly the last functioning one. Every piece of it had been replaced, countless times, by custom-made duplicates turned out solely to repair _this_ lighter--so it was not, properly speaking, an antique; it was more in the nature of a direct descendant. His brother had given it to him-- When? He took another sip. He still had the original around somewhere, all the broken pieces reassembled within its scratched case. Probably in the bottom drawer of that old dresser .

He dragged on the cigarette and felt the drink grow hot in his stomach, then move its momentary warmth into regions beyond. An orange moon hung low on the horizon and a rapidly moving white one was pacing midheaven. He smiled faintly, listened to the toadingales in their wallows. They were doing something of Vivaldi's. Was it from _Summer?_ Yes. There it was. He took another swallow and swirled the remainder in hi's glass.

Yes, this was his job, he decided. He was really the only one of them with experience in the area. And of course the priest would rather send the inquiry to an alien than to one of his own people. Less of a chance for reprimand, for racial reasons; and if there was something dangerous involved .

Cynical, he decided, and you don't want to be cynical. Just practical. Whatever prompted the thing, it's yours now; and you know what happened the last time something like this occurred. It must be dealt with. The fact that there will be no element of control means that, ultimately, it will be aimed at everybody.

He finished his drink, ground out his cigarette. The glass dropped from sight. The panel slid closed.

"Give me another of the same," he said; and quickly, "Not the cigarettes," as he remembered the new servomech's program.

The drink was replaced and he took it with him into his study. There, he dropped into and semi-reclined his favorite chair. He dimmed the lights, caused the room temperature to drop to 62 degrees Fahrenheit, moved a control which brought about the ignition of real logs in the fireplace across the room from him, dropped a tri-dee night winter scene upon the room's one window (it would have taken him several hours to arrange for the real thing), extinguished all the lights now he saw that the fire was taking and settled back into his favorite thinking environment.

In the morning, he switched on his automatic Secretary and Files unit.

"First order of business," he dictated. "I want to talk with Dr. Matthews and my three best programmers immediately after breakfast--here in my study. I want breakfast, by the way, in twenty minutes. You estimate the eating time."

"Do you wish to speak with them singly or as a group?" came the voice from the hidden speaker.

"As a group. Now--"

"What would you like for breakfast?" S & F interrupted.

"Anything at all. Now--"

"Please be more specific. The last time you said 'Anything'--"

"All right. Hamandeggsandtoastandmarmaladeandcoffee. Now, the second thing I want is for someone high up on my staff to contact the Surgeon General or the Director of Health or whatever the hell his title is, in the SEL complex. I want full access to that Panopath computer of theirs no later than tomorrow afternoon, local time, via remote input from here on Homefree. Third, have the port hands start checking over the T for distance-jumping. Fourth, find out who it belongs to and get me the dossier. That's it."

Approximately an hour and a quarter later when they had assembled in his study, he waved them toward chairs and smiled.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I require your assistance in obtaining some information. I am not certain as to the specific nature of the information or the questions I must ask in order to come by it, though I do have some vague notions. It will concern people, places, events, probabilities and diseases. Some of the things I wish to know concern happenings fifteen or twenty years past, and some quite recent. It could take a long while to come up with sufficient information for me to act upon, but I do not have a long while. I want it in two or three days. Your job, therefore, will first be to assist me in formulating the appropriate questions, and then to place those questions on my behalf before a data source which I believe capable of providing what I need. That is the general situation. Now we shall discuss specifics."

Late that afternoon, after they had departed, he realized that there was nothing more he could do for the time being, and so turned his attention to other matters.

That evening, however, as he wandered through his arsenal, it was for purposes of making a routine safety check, he told himself. But as time passed, he found that he was checking only the smaller, more lethal pieces, such as might be borne easily by one man, perhaps carried concealed and capable of striking from a distance. When he realized what he was doing he did not stop, however. As, among other things, the only living deicide in the galaxy, he felt it his bounden duty always to be prepared, just in case.

Thus did Francis Sandow spend the days before his departure for Deiba.

Anxious to test his new powers on a smaller scale before moving on to the large urban centers of Summit--a far more heavily populated world than Cleech--Heidel von Hymack orbited the world at a great altitude while he studied its maps and read statistics concerning that synthetic planet.

Then, careful to avoid the traffic control centers of the great space ports, he dropped into a thinly populated, backwoods area of its second major continent, Soris. There, in a canyon, he concealed the vessel he had used, beneath an overhang of rock. He locked its controls and its ports, and with a tiny beamer he had found in a rack, he cut brush for camouflage and arranged it about the jump-buggy.

Moving away, staff in his mottled hand, walking, he broke into song. At an earlier date, this would have surprised him, for he did not understand the words that he sang and the tune was a thing out of dream.

After a time, he saw a small farmhouse built against the side of a hill . .

The music throbbed about him as he set his laboratory in order. He cleaned, adjusted, locked down, put away everything which would not be needed for a time. His giant, ghostlike figure drifted about the ship, straightening, ordering.

I'm becoming a bit old-maidish, he chided himself, smiling inwardly. A place for everything and all of it there. What will it be like if I have the opportunity to go back, be around people again, readapt? Of course, I adapted to deep space ... Still, it would be quite a change. There is nobody who could tackle my condition yet, if H cannot do anything for me. So it would be years off. Several centuries, most likely. Discounting some unexpected breakthrough. What will it be like if it takes several centuries? What will _I_ be like by then? A ghost of a ghost? The only human alien to his own species? What will my descendants say?

Had there been functioning lungs within him, he would have chuckled. Instead, he moved forward and seated himself within the observation section of the _B Coli_. There, he watched the stars spin, as in a cosmic centrifuge, about him. A Gregorian chant provided the sound track as he hung and they wheeled, on his way to Cleech, Heidel von Hymack's last reported destination.