It was dark before he reached his house. He located his riding beast, saddled it, and started toward the building to collect his manuscript. Then he saw Kleon reading it, and gave up. He was in no condition to face the questions of the old man. He led the animal out onto the trail, mounted quickly, and headed for Kalva, hoping only that he had enough money on him for the trip.
It was a long rMe, and there was time for more than enough thought. Sometimes he gloated to himself over the end of herf power, as ft his victory proved that she had never been more than he was. Sometimes shame came over him, either at the breaking of the taboo against aliens or at what he had done to her. And always there were other feelings that he cursed and ranted against, but which lasted longer than the others.
At the end of a year, when his transfer was okayed, he spent all his money to send her a box of luxuries, using the village as her address. When his transfer ship was delayed, he began to fear she might trace him back, but he saw no more of her.
Instead, it was the aged Kleon who came, and by then it didn’t matter. Eli was inside the passenger fence, getting final clearance, and no natives were permitted. Kleon tried to pass and was turned back. Then, as he saw Eli, one thick arm swept forward, tossing something over the fence.
It was the thin, worn little mission book Meia had been reading. He stood holding it, trying to guess what it meant, as Kleon left. Shaking proved there was no note between the pages, and nothing was written inside the covers. It was a mystery to him. Yet he was homesick as the rocket roared upward, lifting him from Sayon.
Judson woke early, bothered by the light streaming from the windows on two sides of his apartment. He groaned, still aching, and fumbled about until he found his glasses. A slave must have come in during the night to undress him, and one entered now, bringing his freshened clothes and a welcome cup of coffee.
One wall of windows faced north toward the hill, he saw. The other opened on a rear garden. He threw one of the windows open, letting in fresh air and a babble of childish voices. There were three little boys, from six to eleven, playing outside. From their looks, they were obviously Dupont’s. The man had been a fool to have them, but Judson couldn’t really blame him as he watched them, envy thick in him.
He shut the window again, just as Dupont himself came in. The man looked sick and scared. “The Fas Kaia arrested Athon!” he screamed, wasting no time on civilities. “She’s holding trial on him for profaning the temple. After I ordered her to leave him alone. Come on, we’ve got to stop it!”
The rule book was torn up, and Dupont’s carefully built shelter was gone. It was a shock to Judson too, but no cause for panic. He should have expected some such high-handed action from the priestess.
“I countermanded your order,” he said. He realized he was committing himself—probably accepting Kaia’s bribe—but there was no use trying to undo what she had done. The less damage the better. “If you’re worried, Dupont, maybe you’d better get your sister and your boys to the ship.”
The sickness in the man abruptly washed out all the fear. Incest was still enough to ruin him completely. But he nodded at last. He shook himself, pulling at some strength inside him to put on a normal appearance, then headed for the garden.
Judson hurried out to the street. There was no chariot waiting, of course; Fas Kaia obviously meant to have a fait accompli when he heard of it. He set out on foot, noticing that there were mobs clustered about the temple, and others streaming toward it. But they were still leaderless and unsure of what had happened. They made way for his uniform without thinking.
Inside the temple, a reluctant priestess led him to a great gold and silver door and swung it open for him. He could see Kaia at the far end of the huge room, addressing a prisoner in the hands of two Ludh. How the temple rated Ludh guards would have to be explained later.
She looked up and motioned him to her, standing up as he drew near. “I couldn’t get a chariot and message to you through the hostile crowd,” she lied easily in a low voice. “So I went ahead, hoping you’d hear. Here, I’ve already judged him an impostor of Earth stock, and handed him over to the temple as a spy in temple uniform—his robe really is an old temple one. I found rules about jurisdiction over spies in an old covenant of Earth and used them?”
“So you didn’t need me, after all?” he asked bitterly. He could admire her solution; with the detail of the temple uniform, it might even be legal. But her tactics rankled.
She shook her head, smiling faintly. “I’m glad you’re here, Eli. I’d rather not forge the papers. Here, take the seat of judgment and finish. You can certify to his being human, too.”
He found himself seated in the great chair, with the papers in front of him. They were in good order and in English. Kaia was thorough. But if he had even a shred of doubt about the man, after her arrogant assumption she could control him, he’d let her go whistle…
Abruptly, he saw the prisoner, and the anticlimax took all the stubbornness out of him. The man was unimpressive and plain, with mild blue eyes and carroty-red hair that could only come from Earth. There was even a hint of freckles across the nose.
Reluctantly, Judson signed. There was no doubt left, and nothing else to do. One man couldn’t count against whole worlds, any more than Meia had counted against Earth. But his hand shook as he put the pen back.
“Hear the judgment,” Kaia called immediately. “For sacrilege within the temple, let the self-termed O6 Athon die on the pointed seat this day. Take him away!”
Judson rose to protest. The man was practically a political prisoner. He’d only come for ritualistic laving, not to harm the temple literally. But it was too late for protests. Anyhow, the prisoner was speaking.
It was a rich, ringing voice that seemed to fill the whole room. “The world has judged and the world is judged,” Athon pronounced slowly. His eyes lingered on them and his hand came up in a strange gesture. Then he shrugged and let the guards move him away.
Judson felt his eyes smarting, and his vision seemed to blur. He reached for his glasses automatically and began cleaning them. Then shock hit him as he glanced at the papers before him. Without the glasses, the smallest
text was clearly visible. There had been a final miracle, even inside the temple.
Kaia was in front of him as he stumbled to his feet, and there was a package in her hands. “Sometimes the Goddess is quick to reward,” she chuckled. “Naturally, to refuse Her gift is to profane Her name. The temple thanks you, too, Eli.”
He took the package and thrust it into his pocket, knowing it bound him to her, and not caring at the moment. “You are kind, Fas Kaia,” he said formally. Then he headed for the exit and toward the street.
But now the crowd was thicker, pressing inward. As he came to the steps, he found himself swallowed by it, almost carried by it. It had always been a faceless, abstract crowd to him before—one with no character or feeling. He hadn’t really realized that it could claw and tear and smother with its solidity. And he was too old to tear through it.
Then another shock registered. A few feet away, the face of Kleon appeared, with the old eyes staring straight toward him, before the movement of the mob drove them apart. The surprise seemed to clear his mind, though. He lifted his voice to a shout. “They are taking him to the hill for the Seat. Kaia has ordered the Seat for him!”
Other voices picked up the cry and spread it. Now suddenly the crowd began to turn, trying to get away from the temple and toward the hill. Judson was forced along with them, but they were moving north, at least, toward the palace as well as the hill. He put all his failing energies to the task of working sideways, looking for a chance to drop out before they passed the palace.
Somehow, he made it. He had no memory of it, nor of passing out on his bed. But he came to, filthy and torn, some time later. There was no answer when he yelled for a slave. He struggled through a hasty bath and into one of the standard Service uniforms in the closet. Then the silence of the house and the
low rumble of sound from the north finally registered, and he looked out.
Kalva was deserted now. The entire populace was at the hill, where Ludh guards with crossbows held a small circle open at the tjjp. In the middle of that, there was a quiet figure. Foi> a inoment, Judson hoped that the tortured man was dead^ until the head moved weakly.
Athon had not saved himself. The judgment was fulfilled.
And in the sky, dark clouds were piling up for one of the periodic storms. Judson gazed at it, beginning to worry again. This was a primitive world, where omens were all-important. A storm now would indicate divine displeasure—it would damn him and Kaia more than all logic or law—more than he could damn himself, perhaps.
It was no time to linger.
He packed hastily, leaving the book and the package for the last. Then he ripped away the wrapping, to study the necklace. The thirty jewels on it were silvery white in the shadows where he held them. They meant a measure of youth again—a wife to give him sons—Earth or any planet he chose. They meant everything he wanted, except peace within himself.
But he had done only what had to be. A man could never stand idly by and see his world ruined, even though the fools in it were bent on riding downhill to perdition. At least in his tune, Earth must retain her dominion.
Lightning flashed, a heavy bolt that crashed down against the roof of the temple. It was natural, since the gold dome was the highest point in the city, but it would be more food for the superstitious. The thunder rolled out, drowning the sound of the rain, and almost covering the footsteps behind him.
He looked around slowly, with no surprise. “It’s been a long time, Kleon.”
“Too long, Eli,” the old voice said. Amazingly, the man looked no older than he had in the village, but there were fatigue and pain hi every movement he made. “Your guards are gone, so I left my beasts and came in.”
“Vengeance?” Judson asked.
The head shook slowly. “I still leave anger to others,
Eli. Anyhow, vengeance for what? Meia wanted you. And he—he knew it had to be and brought it on himself. I was only a teacher, not a disciple, though I loved the man. No, I followed you to see you, and to take back word of you to Meia. She still lives hi the village, and still thinks of you.”
Judson shook his head. He’d schooled himself to think of her as being dead. But there was nothing ‘he could say.
The storm seemed to be thinning out, almost as quickly as it had come. Kleon moved to the windows, staring toward the hill. There were tears in his eyes, but his sigh was one of relief. “It is finished,” he said.
He bowed his head and seemed to be quoting. ” “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell hi the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined…. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled hi blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.’ I can’t blame you for trying to stop a battle that will not be confined to this world, Eli, though the tune for any man to take action has passed—as even our priestess seems to know, to her sorrow.”
“I stopped it once,” Judson protested harshly.
Kleon stared at him, surprise on his old face. He glanced at the book on the table, and the surprise deepened. “I wondered, when you didn’t return. And yet. How could you fail to get her message and yet have the book all these years, Eli?”
He moved to the thin volume, pulling it open with a cord that day between the pages. Then he hesitated, and picked up the binoculars instead. “Look; Eli. Look carefully, and beneath the surface!”
Judson moved uncertainly to the window, unwilling but unable to resist. He focused on the figure that was still upright. Now, when it should have been dulled in death, the face had picked up a strange strength and nobility, and it seemed to stare at the sky, triumphant and waiting. But it was drawn thin by the hours of suffering, and there was something about the features-—the nose, the shape of the chin…
“No!” It ripped put of Judson, while the binoculars crashed to the floofcn”Ifs impossible! Physically impossible!” iV~;(
Kleon shook his head. “Not to one who had the Power, Eli. She burned herself out in one effort—but she succeeded. Here’s the message I brought you from her, thirty years ago.”
There was a dark circle around one verse on the page, followed by a thick, heavy exclamation point. Below that Meia’s signature was scrawled in English script. Judson bent over the book, focusing on the small, ancient print within the circle.
Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
His eyes wavered from the page to the sight of the necklace that was to have given him youth again, and a wife—and a son; rejuvenation to give him more years to realize what he had done and to watch what must become of the power his race had won. Years to think—and sometimes to wonder what a too-human woman in a Village on Sayon might be thinking.
He took one last look up the hill, dry-eyed and frozen. Then he turned to follow Kleon out of the empty palace, knowing he could never leave Sayon again. The men turned the corner outside together, climbed silently onto the waiting beasts, and moved slowly north, away from the distant spaceport and the hell that was beginning already in the city.
Night was falling and the city began to gleam with the angry red of growing fires, while the crowds fought back and forth across the streets, howling in sorrow and rage….
Behind, the book lay open on the table. Wind came in from the windows, turning the pages slowly to the last chapter of Isaiah. Then a sudden gust blew the book closed.
Vengeance Is Mine
1
Hate spewed across the galaxy in a high crusade. Metal jfcips leaped from world to world and hurtled across Space to farther and farther stars. Planets surrendered their ores to sky-reaching cities, built around fortress-temples and supported by vast networks of technology. Then more ships were spawned, armed with incredible weapons, and sent forth in the eternal search for an enemy.
In the teeming cities and aboard the questing ships, foul-wrenching music was composed, epic fiction and gupernal poetry were written, and great paintings and tculpture were developed, to be forgotten as later and nobler work was done. Science strove for the ultimate limit of understanding, fought against that limit, aid surged past it to limitless possibilities. But behind all the arts and sciences lay the drive of religion, and the religion was one of ancient anger and dedicated hate.
The ships filled the galaxy until every world was conquered. For a time, they hesitated, preparing for the great leap outward. Then the armadas sailed again, mcross thousands and millions of light-years toward the beckoning galaxies beyond.
With each ship went the holy image of their faith and the unsated and insatiable hunger of their hate…
2
The cattrack labored up the rough road over the crater wall, topped the last rise, and began humming its way down into Eratosthenes. Inside the cab, the driver’s seat groaned protestingly as Sam shifted his six hundred terrestrial pounds forward. Coming home was always a good time. He switched lenses in his eyes and began scanning the crater floor for the first sight of the Lunar Base dome.
“You don’t have to be quite so all-fired anxious to get back, Sam,” Hal Norman complained. But the little selenologist was also’ gazing forward eagerly. “You might show a little appreciation for the time I’ve spent answering your fool questions and trying to pound sense into your tin head. Anybody’d think you didn’t like my company.”
Sam made the sound of a human chuckle with which he had taught himself to acknowledge all the verbal nonsense men called humor. But truth compelled him to answer seriously. “I like your company very much, Hal.”
He had always liked the company of the men he’d met on Earth or during his long years on the Moon. Humans, he had decided long ago, were wonderful. He had enjoyed the extended field trip with Hal Norman; but it would still be good to get back to the dome, where the men had given him the unique privil
ege of joining them. There he could listen to the often inexplicable but always fascinating conversation of forty men. And there, perhaps, he could join them in their singing. All the robots had perfect pitch, of course, but only Sam had learned to sing acceptably enough to win a place in the dome.
In anticipation, he began humming a chanty about the sea he had never seen. The cattrack hummed downward between the walls of the road that had been crudely bulldozed from the rubble of the crater. Then they broke out into the open, and he could see the dome and the territory around it.
Hal grunted in surprise. “That’s odd. I hoped the supply rocket would be in. But what are those three ships doing there?”
Sam switched back to wide-angle lenses and stared toward the side. The three ships didn’t look like supply rockets. They resembled the old wreck that still stood at the far end of the crater, surrounded by the supply capsules that had been sent on automatic control to keep the stranded crew alive until rescue could be sent. The only other such ships were those used by the third expedition. But they had been parked in orbit around Earth after the end of the third expedition fifty years ago. Once the Base was established, their capacity had no longer been needed and they were inefficient for routine supply and rotation of the men here.
Before he could comment on the ships, the buzzer sounded, indicating that Base had spotted the cattrack. Sam flipped the switch and acknowledged the call.
“Hi, Sam.” It was the voice of Dr. Robert Smithers, the leader of Lunar Base. “Butt out, will you? I want to talk to Hal.”
Sam could have tuned hi on the communication frequency with his own receptors, since the signal was strong enough at this distance. But he obeyed the order to avoid listening as Hal reached for the handset. There was no way to detune his audio receptors, however. He heard Hal’s greeting. Then there was silence for at least a minute.
The man’s face was shocked and serious when he finally spoke again. “But that’s damned nonsense, Chief. Earth got over such insanity half a century ago. There hasn’t been a sign of… Yes, sir… All right, sir. Thanks for not taking off without me.”
The Best of Lester del Rey Page 34