Ever the volume and luminosity multiplied. Hibbert's ears no longer could contain the music, but he felt it roaring throughout his body. His eyes smarted from the awesome light but he could not lift a hand to wipe his tears away. All his will was one with the psakn and glory, ascending—where? Could it perhaps soar to some more ethereal plane, contributing if only infinitesimally to the forces there? He did not care I He was grateful merely that he could join it if only in heart, no matter what its destination.
Then even for him the screen failed, the radiance
4
blinding him. There was a hideous sensation of tumbling interminably into engulfing blackness and choking silence. Patur's regretful voice came like a saving hand to stay him:
"Your senses are not enough trained to proceed farther."
Burks said: Tleligious hysterial Well, I'll be damned.**
"Even so," Patur agreed sadly. *ln your sphere are blind moles who do not beheve in the sun—yet the sun continues to shine."
"And they say things like that at us, too," Carlotta murmured.
Patur said hurriedly: "One last picture—behold!"
They saw on the web this very green-walled room, and a Patur young in carriage and manner who received visitors from the world below— a, Patur who aged between receptions in a matter of seconds, since for the sake of dramatic emphasis he condensed centuries of intramundane communication into one solitary scene, a Patur whose melting like a witch's waxen doll into the round shoulders and slumping spine of ancient age, whose eyes darkened with sorrow in ratio to their deepening sagacity, raised whimpers of protest from an outraged Carlotta.
And if it was a bizarre miscellany which had found the way up to Khoire, Hibbert wondered how much quainter still was the body of those who, through the ages, had ventured into the Everglades. For beside the Indians and hunters whom Hibbert had reason to expect in the swamps, there was a swarthy Mayan warrior in quilted armor and flowing plumes; a Viking Norseman with winged helmet and torn and rusted mail; Spaniards arrogant in equipage of damascened gold; pirates shifty eyed and ratlike
for all their brave flaunt of colored array; several stiff-backed British Redcoats doggedly understating their responses; cowering Negroes, perhaps fugitive slaves; a haggard madwoman in bedraggled, bustled skirts of the Eighties, wild eyes smoldering under the wreath of withered flowers fallen aslant her straggling ringlets, hve snakes coiled like bracelets on her arms. And at the end of this motley procession, goading Carlotta into a gasp, then a careful and admiring appraisal of the self portrayed—came the very four who watched this picture: Hibbert and Burks, Scarlatti and the womani
Chapter Eight
Burks Bargains
The pictures ended. Patur took the crystal mask from his face and gave it to the manservant. He said:
**Now you know not only me, but Khoire as well— and what to expect of it. Let me see who you are, and what to expect of you. Please hold the mask to your own faces, each in turn, and visualize to the best of your ability whatever words I speak to you.*"
He took up the necklace hanging on his girdle and passed its beads between thumb and forefinger. The flame-haired man bore the mask around the floating web to Hibbert and offered it, bowing. The crystal was curiously light, all its trifling weight centered in its black handle.
Hibbert lifted it to his face. Its flaring nostrils afforded ample breathing-space. By some optical trickery, he could discern only a star-small portion of the web before him, its scarlet threads running together into a solid mesh the color of simhght warming closed eyehds. Inadvertently, he remembered the ether mask that had been clamped inexorably over his nostrils when surgeons had operated on his lamed leg. The memory must have registered on the screen, for he heard a surprised squeak from Carlotta.
Patur said: *Dwell on each word which I mention.** He enunciated them slowly, and "pleasure** was one, "family" another—and many more followed. Hibbert strove dutifully to envision each as concretely as possible. The rosy hue of the web with its suggestion of lowered eyelids eased the effort of concentration. He sank into a sea of memories, and was abruptly fished out of it by Scarlatti's loud remark:
"That gimmick could pile us up a fortune in HoUywoodl You wouldn't need to hire nobody—just dream up the whole works yourself and get somebody to photograph iti**
"That is what our storytellers do," Patur told him. "But please, no interruptionsi**
When Hibbert*s recurring dream entered the picture, Patiu* reacted to it as strongly as Burks and Carlotta. Even the giant sat up a trifle straighter.
"Now this is most interesting!*' And when Hibbert had finished nmning the gamut and gantlet of memories: "Enough, John Hibbert, and thank you." Hibbert lowered the mask. "It would seem that you are something of a natural telepath, a clairvoyant."
Scarlatti bridled as if they'd been dirty words. ^'What's that?**
Patur explained: "In your world, yoiu* researchers are only beginning to discover that some men have the gift of second-sight which attunes them to future events. They concede that it may be possible, but that it is an art without control. They have much to learn."
Carlotta ventured timidly: 'Tou mean, everything's fate, all set up in advance? Is that why we had to come here, even when I tried to stop it? Because I had those kind of dreams too. Kind of. Just before we got here."
Patur smiled. "In both your world and this, like attracts like. It may be that John Hibbert's dream, an obsession resulting from experiences in early childhood drew him here as iron is drawn to a magnet, or as the attitudes of prospective murder-victims attract murder to them. The thief instinctively is drawn to wealth, the landlocked sailor to the sea. In your own case, Miss—Carlotta—^what you dreamed may have been a visitation from one of our Watchers, of which you may hear more presently. But now, John Hibbert, please be so kind as to pass the mask to that man on your left." He hesitated. "To—Burks."
Burks took the mask, inspected it critically, then held it to his face, for the moment forgetting the guns beside him on the cushion. The giant and Carlotta tinned expectantly toward the screen. Hibbert shifted as though seeking a more comfortable position, and rested a hand near one of the guns. Nobody was watching him; he slipped the gun into his shirt, hardly knowing why he bothered. Perhaps Burks would continue to forget about it. If not, nothing much would be lost—and it might come in handy.
Might? It would positively, if he had any knowledge at all of Scarlattil Leisurely Patur fed Burks the words which he had given Hibbert for stimulus, and in hop-skip-and-jump fashion, in flashbacks and anachronistic presciences—a picture puzzle whose pieces were laid out for assembling by the hands of Time— Burks' life was blazoned before them.
Hibbert didn't attend carefully at first. If what Patiu" had said was truth, that the strength of his dream had led him willy-nilly to this unsuspected sphere, what of the girl in the dream? Was she somewhere around? Not waiting for him—^he could
I
scarcely hope for so much—but receptive to his type of personality? He wanted desperately to ask about her. Then he thought of the others. Burks was so obviously ahke in appearance to these flame-tressed Khoireans, and not crippled, that surely the girl would prefer him to Hibbert. Was that why he had dreamed of an impassable gulf between the girl and himself? He coiddn t bear thinking of it. He watched the pictures.
They revealed that Burks came from a well-to-do family, but that his narrow-minded parents had been fanatically strict with him. The comparative freedom of his schoolmates—whom his tight-lipped mother denounced as "doomed devils" and "imps of hell"— roused his envy, and he sought to assert himself by outdoing their mischiefs, getting into trouble with his neighbors, and drawing bitter condemnation from his parents. They tried to foster in him an overwhelming sense of guilt; starved him, dragged him to weary-long church services that only sparked him into fresh rebellious explosions; at last he repUed to merciless beatings by running away from home. He was caught and shipped to a reformatory as a
n incorrigible.
At sixteen, he emerged into the world stocked with dubious information which—when self-righteous citizens held his record against him—he did not hesitate to use. It was his only means of survival. And bitter as his schooling had been, so great was his profit from it.
Sociologically, he had gone from bad to worse, but from the standpoint of self-preservation, from bad to better. It tickled him to trap his sanctimonious critics into compromising situations and then to blackmail them. Since he was not allowed to earn—for society
preaches repentance but never allows its practice— he took; and if it led to violence and even killing, then he killed with no remorse.
He rescued Scarlatti from a police chase not from quixotic kindness but because he saw profit from the giant's brute strength. They prospered by smuggling until Scarlatti was caught through sheer stupidity and pent in the same cell as Hibbert. For women Burks had no more use than men. His social attitude was that of a slummer, yet his reaction to the word ''success" was only a vision of himself in a modest dwelHng, with a wife, children, and friends by no means out of the ordinary—save that on their faces, turned to him, were trust, respect, and love.
He lowered the mask and stared Patur straight in the eye, unashamed and unafraid.
"So you killed the blue flamingol'' Patur murmured, shaking his head, ^t was trying to protect you from the dangers of Khoire by turning you away.**
**I know it now," Bmrks said. "And for once—^I m sorry."
Carlotta snatched the mask from him and had it to her face before Patur could intervene. She treated them to a rather unexpected version of herself as Cleopatra, with the skyline of Manhattan as a backdrop.
Apparently, she liked the way that she looked, for she had made no alterations in her build, nor removed any wrinkles. She was clothed in the sheerest excuse of a spangled veil and reclined on a tiger-skin, sniffing daintily at an orchid which she held with little-finger rigidly extended; then ripping it apart heavy-handed coyness.
"He loves me—loves me not. Loves me—^loves me noti"
Carlotta was not intending to be funny, and somehow the picture was not. The miscasting was pathetic.
Around Carlotta a score of lovers knelt, dressed and undressed with small scruple for place and period. There was a clean-shaven cave-man in a clout of shabby fur and dark-stained club in hand; a sunburned adventurer in spotless white puttees and pith helmet cocked jauntily on the back of his head, his belt an arsenal's annex; a sleek gigolo elbowing a Hindu prince in satin turban and embroidered robe and armed with a gemmed scimitar—and all of them were Scarlattil Carlotta might have many beaux ideal, but she had certainly solved the problem of fidelity to every one of them.
Yes, it was the giant who was that grotesque towering creature, so unsuited to the role of a dandy from an old French court; that dark-skinned Sioux in beaded deerskin with war bonnet spraying like a feathered waterfall down his spine. Even the Nubian slave waving a peacock fan behind the Serpent of the Nile—or rather of the Hudson—^was simply the giant in black paint.
Carlotta yawned indelicately at the abject worship of them all, and kicked at the one who seized her ankle and kissed it. She said severely to the Gallic coxcomb:
"Fransoyse, we are finishedl'' She clapped her hands. The Nubian salaamed, reached behind a curtain and brought forth a golden goblet of green liquid. ''Here, Fransoyse,** she said, taking the goblet from the slave and holding it out. "It's poison—have a shotl"
He trembled, then threw his head proudly high-He snatched the cup, drained it, tossed it clanging
away, and died with appropriate throes. Carlotta buffed her nails on the tiger-hide and jabbed a perfunctory thumb at the corpse. The Nubian stooped, lifted the body, and carried it away.
A small and dessicated gentleman in rusty black, with a heavy load of dog-eared, leather-bound books imder his arm, teetered in. He was bald, his forehead a bulging dome; his eyes were lost behind the glitter of thick spectacles and there was a wistful scrap of goatee on his chin. He represented Carlotta's conception of Wisdom.
She said: "Oh, it's you, professor! What's eating you now?''
Although he replied in her idiom, his accent was 300 percent Oxford. Carlotta had seen a lot of movies. "Carlotta—I mean, Cleo—I'm over the barrel on account of the damnedest riddle that's been bothering people since they made the worldl I have been around to all the big colleges and universities and public hbraries, and I have seen all the smart boys you read about in the papers, and there is nobody who can tell me the score. So I have come to the one who's got all the answers."
"Me," she agreed blandly, fitting a cigarette in a foot-long holder. "Well, what's the problem?"
She was competent enough show-woman to have the withered savant creep close and whisper his problem in her ear. While she might not know the solution to the teaser of the ages, at least she took care to hide it. Her expression, as she listened, was bored.
She pushed him away wearily. "Ah, don't tell me that old chestnutl The answer's so simple. When something like that comes up, you just tell them nol That's all there is to itl"
He flung down his books, threw himself after them, and lay kissing her toes. The Nubian brought a torch and lit her cigarette. She blew a series of perfect smoke rings, then yawned again, cavemously; discovered that the professor was still kissing her feet, and spumed him away. He scrambled up and rushed from sight, energetically waving his arms and shrilling: "The toughest question in the whole damn world—and a woman knew it all the timel"
Carlotta's manifold wooers came clamoring back, jostling each other in their eagerness. All impetuously offered coffers overflowing with gems, of which she gripped healthy handfuls, only to grimace and fling them rattling from her.
"Pearls and rubiesl" she mourned, ashing her cigarette in the nearest casket. "I got the whole world at my feet, and it's no use—nobody really loves me!"
Her suitors drew back, crestfallen and awed. She stared heavenward in her agony, and a ray of Ught obHgingly slanted down, the better to accentuate her misery. There was a brass fanfare. The curtains shd back, reveahng a Scarlatti-version of Marc Antony. He bashfully preferred a single violet.
"A flowerl" Carlotta shrieked, throwing away cigarette and holder, and bounding toward him. "He loves mel" She was swooning away in his arms when Patur interrupted with the stimuh of his selected words.
Surely the enactment of that wish-drama had disclosed the key to the woman's character, but Patur persisted in the ritual, if possibly only for the sake of inflexible tradition.
Distinct as Carlotta had been in her conjuring-up of grand romance, she was vague and diffused among memories. They wedged their wan Httle gleams into
a procession of sickly shadows—^her home a squatter s shack, her mother a neglectful slut more interested in what she called good times than in her children, and her father a part-time fruit-picker and full-time drunkard. As a baby, her only attention came from her tall older brother who resembled an immature Scarlatti, and who died in a hunting accident when she was seven. Under her dirt, she was rather pretty, and some of the men in her environ behaved a little foolishly over her, giving her absurd notions about her powers of attraction. She preferred exploring the swamps to school, perhaps because she could not apply herself there, among classmates always younger than she who laughed at her background and her aflFectations. But in one subject she excelled because it had reaHty for her, and perhaps because she developed a childish passion for the rather good-looking biology teacher. Not content with her beloved swamp, she read voraciously in her favorite subject, at least for a time.
Her mother always sent her to wheedle groceries from the shopkeepers, who flattered and felt sorry for her. At fourteen, a strapping swarthy vagrant charmed her away from home, and after the police picked him up she knew too much to be happy among her family. She roamed the streets of the larger tovras and the men she met were always brunette and brawny. Finally, Scarlatti crossed her path and she w
on him by making herself useful to him, treasuring alike his kisses and blows.
And that was the history of Cleopatra—irresistible and wise. She sat with her eyes following the play of her fingers on her lap, defiant but shamed.
Scarlatti looked at the mask where Carlotta had laid it, but made no move to take it. His mouth was
set and wry, his deep-set eyes under their screening brows like hunted things hiding behind bushes.
"Please," Patin: said, gestiuing.
Scarlatti jumped up and shook a flinty fist T^Iothing doingl'' He backed warily away. *The hell with it— the hell with all of youl''
Burks said, a verbal icicle: Tou pick up that mask, Frank, or by God— *" He felt for his guns, realized that one was missing, and flashed a sharp query at Hibbert. The giant softened his voice, half-bowed to Patur, and said with unbecoming humility:
"Later on—yeah, I'll do it then when you and me's by ourselves. But not in front of nobody else."
His tone was whetted to a hostile edge as he scanned the others. **What I been and done is strictly privatel"
They had all become so accustomed to the fire which spurted from their mouths when they spoke that by now it scarcely existed for them, in spite of the fact that it rose like a colored wall before their eyes and temporarily blinded them.
Perhaps Patur really considered the unexpected nicety of the giant's sensibihties, or more likely he had gleaned enough from the thoughts of the others to pigeonhole Scarlatti. He said:
"Let it be as you will. We force none, here." He roved them with his eyes. "And now, have you any questions?*'
The giant bared his teeth in an unpleasantly triumphant grin and returned to his seat beside Carlotta. Burks decided for reasons best known to himself to forget the purloined gun. He murmured: "We know what this place is like now, even if we don't know how it got this way." And directly to Patiu": "All I really want to know right this minute is, you'll swear to it
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