The Golden Space

by Pamela Sargent

  “We are truly fortunate, then,” Karim said smoothly. “Had we run into any difficulties, you would have been nearby.”

  Eline stood up straight, looking relieved. “Right. I’m glad you understand. Some people don’t at all. We’re here to help. I’ve even got my equipment.”

  “Oh, I understand,” Karim said. “I sympathize, in fact. People like you are always disparaged by those who are concerned only with passing matters.”

  “I know.” She sighed. She seemed young; she had none of the hesitancy or weariness Merripen was used to seeing. She had probably grown up with Rescuers, knowing nothing else. “They think we should just tend to their bodies. But the soul is more important, surely.”

  “Too many of us simply can’t look beyond our own world,” Karim said, sounding sincere. “That is to be expected, I suppose.” He bowed slightly. “But we must be on our way.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  “As you wish.”

  As Merripen returned to his craft, he could feel Eline watching him. He got in and Andrew leaned toward him.

  “So she’s going to follow.” He closed the dome as Merripen settled in his seat. “Wonderful. I wonder where Karim learned how to sound so convincing.” They followed the other man across the bridge, while Eline tailed them. “I’ve heard they torture people into accepting their truth.”

  “I’ve never heard that.”

  “How could you?” Andrew stretched out his legs. “Maybe we should go back.”

  “We can’t. She’d only follow. If she saw where we were going, I don’t think we’d get there.”

  “We’re having bad luck.” He glared at the back of Karim’s craft.

  The road curved over a hill. The morning rain had stopped, but the sky was still pewter. Karim’s craft hovered at the crest, then settled to the ground. Andrew drove up beside him.

  Below lay what had been Harsville. The ruins of four houses lay scattered over blackened earth; two others, partly burned, had broken windows. Only one cottage was untouched, but the yard in front of it was strewn with furniture and clothing.

  Merripen was unable to speak. Eline had pulled up. She had opened her dome and now stood on her seat, staring out at the ruin. Her mouth was open.

  Merripen turned toward Andrew, but the other man had left the craft and was moving around the front toward Eline. He grabbed her arm and pulled her from her craft, dragging her over the door and onto the ground. His knife was out. He twisted one arm behind her back while holding the knife to her throat.

  Merripen’s legs shook as he got out. Eline’s eyes were wide. She struggled and her face contorted. Andrew twisted her arm more tightly.

  “You knew,” Andrew said.

  “I didn’t.” Her eyes pleaded with Merripen silently.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Andrew pricked her throat with the point of his knife, and Merripen saw a drop of red. He felt dizzy. Karim had crept up to his side and was watching Andrew warily. “I don’t know anything,” Eline said again. “I haven’t been here before.”

  “I see,” Andrew said. “You’re not afraid of me. You have your other life to look forward to. I hope you like it, because I may be sending you there soon.”

  Eline’s face was pale. Merripen thought he heard her whimper. Karim said, “Let her go.” Andrew glared at him. “Let her go.”

  Andrew lowered the knife and pushed the woman from him; she fell, sprawling on the ground. Karim helped her up. She clutched at his arms with trembling hands.

  “I thought you people weren’t afraid to die,” Andrew said harshly.

  “I am,” she said. Her voice was high. “I’ve fought against it. I’ve tried to have more faith.” She clung to Karim, who stood stiffly, as if unable to decide what to do with her. “I was sent out alone, to test myself. But I’m still afraid anyway.” She let go of Karim and sat down hard on the ground, covering her face with both hands.

  “That was stupid,” Karim said to Andrew. Andrew put his knife away, then began to walk down the hill toward the town.

  Eline looked up as Merripen went to her. “I didn’t know about this,” she said.

  “I know.”

  She stood up, wiping her face with a soiled sleeve. Karim went back to his craft and leaned inside; he stepped away and the craft moved down the hill slowly. After sending the other two after it, he returned to Merripen’s side. “Let’s walk down.”

  Merripen hesitated. Eline’s face was frozen; she lifted her chin. “What could have happened?” Merripen asked.

  “We knew that there were strange things going on north of here. We’d better try to find out what happened.”

  Merripen followed Karim down the hill, Eline at his side. Andrew had already reached the bottom; his back was stiff as he strode into Harsville. “Are you all right now?” Merripen asked the woman.

  “I’m fine. I’ll get over it.” Her face had a hard look now, as if she had decided to be brave.

  The three vehicles floated into the town’s main street and set down in a row. Andrew leaned against one, head down. Karim approached the unburned cottage, threading his way through the debris on the lawn. He went to the door and looked inside, then came over to Merripen. “It’s been stripped clean. The people must have left a while ago, and then raiders came and took what they could.” Andrew had moved to the edge of the lawn; he was watching Eline.

  Merripen wandered toward another structure, peering at the burned building. He stopped, raised a hand to his mouth, and moaned softly. Under blackened timbers, the bones of a human hand gripped the ground; the wrist still wore a tarnished Bond. He stood there silently until he felt a hand on his back. Karim steered him toward the cluttered yard.

  Merripen sat on a torn-up chair that wobbled under him. He said, “They didn’t leave. They were killed.”

  Karim was silent as he seated himself on a rotting leather ottoman and rested his arms on his legs. Then he murmured, “We can’t stay here.”

  “I know.”

  “Where are you going to go, Merripen?”

  Merripen glanced at Eline, who had wandered into the middle of the road, out of earshot. “I don’t know. Back to the Citadel, I suppose.”

  “You’re going to give up?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I’ve seen all I need to see. I see what we are, what we always were.”

  “I could go on with Eline. That would give you and Andrew a chance to go back.”

  Merripen heard a cry, and turned. Eline was staring down the road; Andrew stood next to her. Eline’s hands fluttered.

  A band of men had emerged from the trees and was walking toward the road. They were unshaven, dressed in dirty pants and tops made of hides and fur. But they also carried silver wands. The slender weapons were pointed at them.

  Merripen was afraid to move. The other man plucked at his sleeve, helped him up, and guided him toward the road. “Don’t try for a craft,” Karim whispered. “They’ll shoot before you reach it.” They stood with the others as the men walked toward them. He peered at Andrew, relieved to see that the man had not reached for his knife.

  Merripen thought: We should have stayed in our craft; we would have been safe. His face grew hot; he felt his legs tremble. He wasn’t ready to die, even after all this time. He suddenly envied Eline. If she could hold on to her peculiar faith, she would meet her death calmly. Merripen was afraid not only that he would die, but also that he would die badly, begging to be spared, pleading with the strange men who were now approaching them. He hoped that he would die quickly, and just as strongly hoped that he would not die at all.

  The men stopped a few feet away. Merripen did not move. Karim was still; then, slowly, he lifted his arms and held out his hands, palms up.

  A brown-bearded man stepped forward; the others lowered their wands. Merripen held out his own hands, as did Eline. Andrew frowned, but extended his arms after a few moments.

  The men before them seemed to rel
ax. Their eyes gazed at them placidly. Merripen drew a breath. He suddenly had the impression that the men were being controlled by some outside force; they seemed to be waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Perhaps implants were directing them.

  Brown-Beard, who seemed to be the leader, said a few words, but Merripen did not understand them. He glanced at Karim. Abruptly, the band was around them, pawing their bodies and searching their pockets. One man seized Andrew’s knife and held it up. A man jostled Merripen; he heard a laugh. Then he was being pushed. He stumbled, but kept on his feet.

  The men spoke again, babbling. Karim frowned. “I think they want us to go with them,” he murmured. They were being herded up the road; as they left the town behind, Merripen tried not to think of their abandoned vehicles and the burned buildings. They had been spared, though he did not know why.

  IV

  The singing of the men was harsh and unmelodious; Merripen found himself walking in time to their rhythm. Eline wobbled a bit as she walked. One of the men walked near her, holding her arm when she seemed most tired. Once, when they stopped for a moment, the man reached out and touched her hair gently. She stiffened, but did not pull away.

  In the afternoon, a light rain began to fall, and the air became misty. They came to plowed fields ready for planting; ahead, through the mist, Merripen saw the ghostly shapes of buildings. As they came closer, his surprise grew. The fields surrounded a village of straight roads meeting at right angles and square, tidy houses built of wood and stone. The center of the town was dominated by a windowless white marble building; stone steps led to its flat roof. Did these unkempt men live here? It was hard to believe.

  As they left the fields, people came out of the nearest houses. Unlike the men, these people wore clean white garments, the women in long robes, the men in short kilts and shirts. Children babbled at the men and ogled the newcomers; Merripen had never seen so many children. Soon they were surrounded by a sea of bodies and noise. One young woman made signs at Merripen with her hands; not knowing what to do, he smiled, and she laughed.

  Brown-Beard stopped in front of one house and greeted the woman in the doorway, who held a baby, then waved his arms at Merripen, who finally understood that they were to follow him inside. The crowd drifted away as they entered.

  Merripen surveyed the room. In the center stood a long wooden table and benches; mats covered the floor. One corner near a window seemed to be a shrine of some sort; a little table held a small clay figure of a bearded man. The beard had been painted a bright yellow. With a shock, he saw that a small holo screen had been hung on the wall behind the table.

  He had no time to wonder at it. A young man pushed him; Brown-Beard and another man led them up wooden steps to the second floor. They opened a door and pushed their prisoners into an empty room. The door closed behind them. Merripen tried the door; it was bolted.

  Eline sat down on the floor. Karim went over to the window and looked outside while Andrew fidgeted. There was another door near the window. Merripen went over to it and pushed it open. He saw a porcelain toilet and a sink with chrome faucets.

  He started to laugh. Then he began to shake, and had to sit down. “A bathroom,” he said. “A holo screen downstairs. It makes no sense.”

  “Yes, it does,” Karim said as he sat down. “Someone’s helping them, or controlling them.” He paused. “Or else they’ve regressed, gone backward.”

  Merripen shivered; his clothes were damp from the rain. “I wonder why they brought us here.”

  “I don’t know. I think we were lucky. They looked ready to kill us. I saw them change when I held out my hands. Such an obvious gesture.”

  A man opened the door and threw in four bundles of cloth before closing it again. Eline got up and unwrapped one of the bundles, holding up a shirt. “I suppose we’d better bathe and put them on,” she said.

  “Are we just supposed to do whatever they want?” Andrew said from the corner where he was sitting.

  “We have no choice.” Karim rose, picked up one bundle of garments, and went into the bathroom, closing the door.

  “Nice little place,” Andrew said harshly. “Nice, friendly people when they’re not burning down houses.”

  “You don’t know that they did that,” Merripen said.

  “Don’t I? Who else could it have been? I’ll bet they were returning for more loot.” He scowled. “Did you notice? They have a lot of children here, and I saw a few graybeards in the crowd. You know what that means. They live and die.” He turned to Eline. “This is a good place for a Rescuer, don’t you think? All these unchanged people—maybe you can recruit a few.”

  “You don’t understand,” Eline replied.

  “But I do.”

  “No, you don’t. We don’t object to minor genetic engineering, as long as we don’t become something else. And we accept long life because it gives us a chance to prepare ourselves for the higher state, the life beyond. We mustn’t die before we’re prepared, but we know there’s nothing to fear in death, because our souls don’t die.” Her voice shook slightly.

  “You must believe it,” Andrew said. “You’ve shown such fortitude yourself.”

  Eline bowed her head, but not before Merripen saw her tight mouth and icy eyes.

  Bowls had been pushed through the door. Eline rolled up her long white sleeves and began to pick at her food. The shirts and pants she and Andrew now wore were too large; the two looked like children hiding in the darkening room, puzzled about why they had been shut away.

  Merripen inspected the meat and vegetables in his bowl, thought of where the food might have come from, and set the bowl down. Karim took it and ate heartily, while Merripen and Andrew shared a loaf of bread, washing it down with water.

  Karim finished eating, wiped his hand on his tight white shirt, rose, and wandered over to the window. Merripen followed and stood next to him. The sky had cleared; lavender clouds edged with orange hung near the distant hills. The sun was low. Below them, a procession moved through the street; other groups of people were converging on the marble building in the town’s center. The marble was pink in the evening light. Five women in blue robes were climbing the steps to the top of the building; on the other side, ten men, also in blue robes, had reached the roof. One of the men in blue looked familiar; Merripen peered at him and recognized Brown-Beard.

  “It looks like some sort of ritual,” Merripen said to Karim. Eline now stood near him, hands on the sill. Andrew suddenly elbowed his way in between Merripen and the woman.

  “Look,” Andrew said. “There’s no one below us now. They’re all going over there. We could get away.” He pointed. “It isn’t that far. We could hang from the window and drop.”

  Karim turned. “We’d have to travel by night, on foot. And we wouldn’t get far if they came after us.”

  “We can try.”

  “It won’t work.”

  The crowd was still. Merripen could no longer hear their murmurs. They were waiting for something. The people on the roof raised their arms.

  A dark object appeared in the west, a ship flying out of the sun. The people on the roof cried out and prostrated themselves. The dark shape grew larger. It was a bullet-shaped gravitic ship; it gleamed, its silver surface catching the last light of the sun. It swept down over the town and hovered above the roof; then, slowly, it dropped to the surface.

  The side of the ship opened. A bearded blond man emerged; he wore a long red robe. The people on the roof groveled; the crowd below hid their faces in the dust of the street. The man touched a silver necklace at his throat and then spoke. Merripen did not understand the words, but the voice was clear and resonant, probably amplified. A few of the blue-robed people were crawling toward him, heads down. Brown-Beard held out his hands; he seemed to be speaking. The red-robed man nodded.

  Brown-Beard, still kneeling, waved his arm. Two other men crawled to the edge of the roof and called to the people below. Several men at the edge of the crowd rose and move
d in Merripen’s direction.

  Andrew leaned out the window, as if ready to jump. The men were running through the street below; Merripen heard footsteps on the stairs. “They’re coming for us,” Andrew cried.

  The door swung open; howls filled the room. Merripen was dragged away from the window; he saw Andrew struggle and Eline try to pull away. He was forced down the stairs and into the street; fingers dug into his arms. They made their way past houses with open doors and through the crowd of kneeling people; heads rose, and eyes watched them pass. They were pushed toward the steps and borne upward to the roof; the blue-robed men reached out and hauled them up the last step.

  Merripen’s knees were about to give way. He reached for the person nearest him, and clutched Karim’s arm. The blue-robed men backed away from them; the blond man stared at them impassively. The women on the roof knelt. The men stretched out their arms; they were holding silver wands, pointing them at Merripen and his companions.

  Merripen knew he was going to die. He was past being frightened; his body was stiff and his heart thumped slowly. He raised his head; the blond man’s face would be the last thing he would ever see. The cold gray eyes stared back at him and then, incongruously, the man winked.

  Before Merripen could react, he heard the amplified voice once more. The robed men lowered their wands. The voice said a few more words and the crowd below shouted out a response. The blue-robed people backed away, arms out, heads down.

  The blond man motioned to them. Merripen approached him cautiously, Karim close behind him. Part of the roof slid open, revealing steps leading down into darkness. The man pointed at the steps, then led them below.

  As the roof slid shut above them, light flooded the room. The stairs faced a large holo screen; two walls were decorated with friezes. One wall showed a giant blond man with tiny figures at his feet; the other was of a disklike sun, its rays touching a painted village. Merripen descended the stairs and stood with his companions, looking uneasily at their savior. The man removed his silver necklace and spoke in normal tones; Merripen shook his head, not grasping his words.