The Far Side of Evil

by Sylvia Engdahl

  Escape, then, would be total escape, and it was all too tempting. On foot, miles from anywhere, the Commander wouldn’t be able to raise an alarm until they were well out of the country. The border patrol wouldn’t question an SSP car driven by a man with SSP identification. Once beyond the territory controlled by the dictatorship, they would be free. He and Kari would have at least a little time together before the Service caught up with him; even if nuclear war came, they might well live through it if they kept away from cities. Perhaps, in that event, the Service would never find him at all.

  Not that what happened to him was important. What mattered was that Kari would live. He loved Kari; it was up to him to protect her. How could he kill her by his own hand?

  The choice was clear-cut: escape for Kari and Elana, or the destruction of the landing craft. There was no way he could achieve both. It was unfair, Randil thought bitterly, that he should be presented with such a choice! He had made an error in judgment, and he was willing to pay for it with his life; about that there was no question. He was not willing to have Kari pay for it with hers, not when an alternative existed. Once again he was facing a test that he was very much afraid that he would fail.

  Kari was innocent. It wasn’t right that she should be the one to pay. Elana, too, was innocent, but with Elana it was different; she was sworn. She wouldn’t want to buy her life at the cost of nuclear war for Toris any more than he himself would.

  All at once a disturbing idea struck Randil: would Kari?

  Though he didn’t communicate the question consciously, Kari’s sudden thought broke in on his turmoil. They’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t they, Randil? When we get wherever it is we’re going, and Elana doesn’t talk?

  No! No, darling, I won’t let them.

  But Elana said—

  Never mind what she said. I couldn’t stop them from scaring you back there, but I’m not going to let you die.

  Gently Kari persisted, She said yesterday that if either of you gave in to save me, it could start a nuclear war, a war that could mean the end of the human race. You wouldn’t take a chance on that; you know you wouldn’t.

  He had known it once, Randil thought. He had sworn an oath to that effect, and he had flattered himself that he took that Oath more seriously than anybody else in the Service! What was the matter with him, that it could seem so dim and distant now?

  I don’t know much about what’s happening, Randil, Kari declared, but I do know that I’d rather not be saved if that war could get started on account of it.

  Oh, Kari, you shouldn’t ever have had to consider such things!

  What do you think I am, Randil—a baby? I wouldn’t blame you; I’ve acted like one often enough. I didn’t understand myself very well till yesterday. She hesitated. It’s been funny … I was awfully scared in there, and yet there was another feeling too, even before you came—a feeling I can’t describe. It was as if I didn’t really mind what they did to me, because it wasn’t important compared with what I was doing by resisting. I was free inside, and they couldn’t change that; but I could stop them from doing harm to the world, so I had more power than any of them.

  Randil twisted around in the seat, looking at Kari in wonder and self-reproach. She had answered the question he could not have brought himself to think through, and with belated perception he saw what he had been doing. He had been mistaken about more than the Critical Stage. His gravest and most basic error had been in his judgment of people, not only the dictator and his kind, but the very people he cared about. He had misjudged Varned; he had misjudged Elana; and, he realized painfully, he had misjudged Kari, for whom he cared most of all. He had done worse than misjudge her. He had placed himself above her, diminished her, as he had diminished her race by taking on a role of protector and guardian that was not his to assume. In supposing that she would value her life above the future of her world, he had been guilty of the same patronizing approach toward Younglings as in his determination to control the destiny of the Torisians.

  He’d been a presumptuous fool. That the girl he loved must die as a result of his presumption was unfair, certainly, but he did her an injustice if he thought her less capable of sacrifice than he.

  He reached out toward Kari with his mind as he longed to reach physically. Darling, he urged, keep that feeling! Hold to it. You don’t ever have to be afraid again. There’s much I can’t explain, but I promise you two things. I am not going to let the dictator’s men hurt you, and I am not going to let them start a nuclear war either.

  How can you have it both ways? she protested.

  I can; let’s not worry about how. Let’s try to get back what we had there tonight, the good, shining thing…

  I don’t think it lasts, Randil. The love, yes—we’ll always have love. But the exaltation, the radiance … I think there has to be some urgent need for that.

  I know, he agreed, yet for a little while I think it will come back to us. Their minds met wordlessly then, and it did come back, and he did not tell her that there was only a little while remaining.

  *

  I retreated into an apathetic, despairing silence during the long drive out to the ship. Kari and Randil were completely absorbed in each other, and I did not intrude on their thoughts. My own thoughts were hard enough to handle. I should feel joy, I knew, at the unexpected chance to save Toris—joy and relief. Instead there was only guilt and sorrow and resignation.

  Resignation, not fear. Though I was close to death, I had been close to death before, on Andrecia. There too I had gone past the point of any hope, and so the numbness I felt was no surprise to me anymore. It was not quite the same sort of numbness, however; for then I had wanted to live, desperately, and this time I could not honestly say that I cared.

  The mission had been a total loss. Varned was dead; both Randil and I soon would be, and neither of us had learned anything worthwhile. Through our own incompetence, we had almost brought disaster upon a Youngling world. At my order, we were about to kill a good many innocent people—Kari among them—in an attempt to stave off that disaster. The attempt might not even work, since retaliations for the “sabotage” might bring on war in any case. Moreover, during those final hours in the prison we had met evil: raw, loathsome evil by which my supposedly invincible trust in the universe had been abruptly quenched. These things swirled around in my mind while the car sped forward into the night. And always, hovering in the background, was the pain of the burns, over which my control was slipping; I was fast losing my powers from sheer exhaustion and inner tumult.

  Ahead, as we emerged from the dark tunnel of deserted hills, was the well-illuminated enclosure that topped the underground installation where the ship was being kept. The car stopped only briefly at the entrance, for the guards, recognizing Commander Feric, respectfully waved us on; we swerved sharply and backed into a parking space facing the open gate. More guards surrounded us immediately, opening the front door for the Commander. Randil got out too, with the driver, and the three of them stood talking while Kari and I remained trapped in the back seat. Though I could have opened our doors by psychokinetic pressure on the outer handles, there was no chance of escape, what with all the armed men posted outside; we would have nowhere to run in any case.

  Kari was maintaining an icy calm. Elana? she asked suddenly. What’s this all about? Why did Randil get them to bring you here?

  I can’t tell you, Kari.

  He wouldn’t tell, either. But it’s something dangerous, isn’t it?

  It’s something necessary.

  Afterwards, what will happen to us?

  We won’t end up back in the interrogation room; I can promise you that.

  This ship you’ve all been talking about: is it really sabotaged?

  I hesitated, then admitted slowly, Yes.

  Kari didn’t reply; her thought was abruptly masked. But I think she understood.

  Commander Feric approached the car, motioning the guards to take us out. They stood ready w
ith handcuffs, and their guns were drawn. Randil stood a little aside; he didn’t contact me, but in the cold glare of the arc lights I could see his face. He was suffering not for himself, I knew, but for the others, and of course, for Kari. If only we could have saved Kari, I thought. If only that one little thing had been granted us.

  It was then, in a last desperate flash of awareness, that I noticed two small details that might mean that it had been.

  The gate of the enclosure had not yet been shut; our car faced it. And in the driverless front seat, sealed off from us by the wire barrier, the ignition keys still hung!

  There was a way out after all. Not for Randil, to be sure, but I couldn’t achieve anything of value by dying with Randil; by saving Kari, on the other hand, I would be doing the only thing that could possibly help him. I had only a few seconds left in which to act. Throwing all my mental strength into psychokinesis, I released the brake, turned the key in the ignition, and jammed the accelerator down hard.

  The car surged forward. The guards, incredulous at the sight of it starting off without a driver, reacted slowly; we were through the gate before they could even think of getting it closed. Some wild shots were fired, and Kari screamed. “Get down!” I shouted, pushing her to the floor while I myself crouched low, peering over the top of the front seat so that I could see the road ahead. Belatedly, I “pulled” the knob for the headlights, and just in time, for suddenly the whole area was plunged into blackness. I had no chance to wonder how or why, for my psychokinetic skill was being taxed to its utmost; it required the full focus of my mind to manage the steering wheel while maintaining simultaneous pressure on the accelerator. But I know what must have occurred: Randil, as he saw the car lurch into motion, must have spotted the main power switch through the window of the brightly lighted gatehouse and—also psychokinetically—thrown it.

  That was why the shots that followed missed us, and why we weren’t pursued; it bought vital moments during which the guards were thrown into confusion. And amid that confusion, Randil somehow got down into the cavern that concealed the ship itself. Elana? he beseeched me. Elana, are you clear?

  We’re clear. We’re safe, Randil—Kari’s safe!

  We had just reached the top of the pass when it happened. There was no sound, but behind us the sky blazed white, white enough to illuminate the barren hills with a reflected radiance brighter than any that had ever before shone upon Toris. Almost at once it faded; by the time I had stopped the car and turned to look back, nothing could be seen but a large and sterile crater, made visible only by its waning bluish glow.

  Kari raised her head. Randil? she cried silently.

  As we knelt on the seat, staring out the rear window, I wept for them: Randil … the scientists and technicians assigned to that ship … the guards … and even Commander Feric, about whom I somehow felt guiltiest of all because I suspected that for him my sorrow was not wholly sincere. He was, after all, less innocent than the others; moreover, I couldn’t suppress a shameful twinge of regret at the thought that he had never known of my triumph.

  I clutched Kari’s hand. “Randil was the only one who could do this,” I told her. “Once that ship had taken off, nothing could have stopped it: not the Libertarians, not anything. But they would have retaliated. It would have been full-scale nuclear war. The world’s civilization would have been wiped out for good.”

  The tears were streaming down her face, but her voice was steady. “He knew from the beginning, didn’t he?” she said. “That was why he would never talk about us getting married.”

  “He knew underneath that he couldn’t ever marry you,” I admitted gently. “He didn’t want to hurt you, but he loved you too much to stay away.”

  “I—I’m proud to think he loved me. Only I don’t believe I was worthy of anyone so brave.”

  “Don’t ever say that, Kari! Don’t ever think it! You were as brave as he tonight; if you had not been, he wouldn’t have been able to carry the thing through. He didn’t know until the last minute, you see, that we would be able to get the car away.”

  For the first time, the miraculous aspects of our escape struck her. As she glanced around, noting the lack of a driver in the front seat, I forestalled the obvious questions by saying, “There’s still a lot I can’t tell you, Kari. So please don’t ask—” I broke off, choking with my own tears; then all at once the pain engulfed me, and I collapsed on the seat, with Kari’s arm cradling my head.

  *

  And so it is over, and though Toris is now safe from our interference, I am never going to find what’s happened easy to live with. It makes no difference that it was Randil who threw the switch instead of me. I would have done it; I tried to, and if I had it to do over, I would try again. What’s more, I gave the order; I assumed the position of Senior Agent, and in the end Randil acknowledged it. The Senior always bears the responsibility, although that doesn’t release the other team members.

  It’s all very well to say that Randil brought on the whole mess by breaking the Oath in the first place. But you can’t look at it like that; if you did, you could justify any sort of wrong simply by tracing it back to an earlier one.

  Yet the fact that killing those people was wrong doesn’t mean that it wasn’t necessary.

  Once, our last morning on Andrecia, Father said to me: Sometimes we must be willing to do what’s wrong, and take the consequences. And that’s true. People differ in their ideas about morality—the Younglings have their beliefs, a whole variety of them, and we have ours—but by and large everybody agrees that if you deliberately do wrong, somewhere, somehow, you will suffer for it. Well, you do, and it can’t be avoided. The hardest thing of all to learn is that it is not always a matter of wrong versus right; sometimes the only choice is between two wrongs.

  Kari and I are in hiding now; we abandoned the car when dawn came, and climbed higher into the hills. The police will naturally assume that we died in the explosion along with Commander Feric, so there is little chance that they’ll search for us. But since we can’t get back into the city without papers, there’s nothing to do but wait. Sooner or later someone from the starship may come, for agents will have been trying to locate the landing craft, and the radiation given off by its vaporization, being unlike anything known on Toris, will be investigated.

  Staying alive is no problem. There’s a stream where we’ve managed to get some fish, and though the hills are treeless, there are plenty of edible plants around. An agent’s preparation includes training in wilderness survival; I could live here indefinitely if I had to.

  But Kari couldn’t, and my chief worry is what to do about her. I can scarcely take her with me to meet an agent, nor can I leave her alone here. Any contact I make will be telepathic, of course, but if I’m picked up, I’ll have to get some kind of appropriate clothes as well as a fake passport and travel permit for her; otherwise she’ll have no place to go. She hasn’t given that much thought yet. She trusts me; she believes I’m part of a well-organized resistance network, and besides, her grief for Randil is still too overwhelming.

  My burns are healing rapidly, and now that I’m rested, I’m able to keep the pain under control. Kari, who believes that the “drug” must surely have worn off by this time, gives me credit for extreme heroism, which is rather embarrassing considering the fact that I don’t in the least deserve it. My suffering is mental, not physical, and I am not feeling very brave.

  From the crest of a nearby ridge we can look down on the crater. It is clean, smooth—almost glossy—and when the sun hits it, the walls sparkle. Men have approached, at first warily and heavily-suited, carrying radioactivity detectors, but later with more confidence and in increasing numbers. Kari, too, expressed some initial concern about fallout, but I assured her that despite the brilliance of the original flash there can be no harmful radiation of any kind. I wonder what the Torisians will make of such a phenomenon.

  *

  I am leaving Toris. I’m in a landing craft, as a matter
of fact, on my way back to the starship; and I am “recording” because if I were not doing so, I would be crying, and I don’t want to cry in front of the people who have rescued me.

  Last night while I was lying sleepless, staring up at the stars, the contact came: from Meleny herself, her thoughts warm and reassuring, though faint because she hadn’t dared to bring her landing craft too low. I was able to give her only the briefest summary, but I did exact her promise that the ship that picked me up would bring clothes, money, and a new set of papers for Kari. So earlier tonight I had to go and get them. I asked Kari to once more place unquestioned faith in me and stay alone while I took care of an errand that I was not free to divulge. She didn’t argue. I retreated far enough into the hills so that the ship would not be seen, guided the pilot down telepathically, and agreed to return to the same spot in exactly four hours for pickup. Then I went back to explain the plan I had worked out for her and to say my farewells.

  It was worse than I had imagined it could be. I knew Kari’s experience had transformed her, but I hadn’t guessed what had been going on in her mind for the past few days; I hadn’t realized she had acquired initiative as well as strength. So I didn’t anticipate what would happen when I told her I was leaving Cerne.

  “I knew, of course, that you’d have to go away,” she said calmly. “After all, you must be part of something awfully big.”