The buxom lecturer held up a plastic model of the infant man. “There is, fortunately, one function of which all are created capable. That is the ability to take food when properly presented. For this we use a special device. It is a bottle filled with liquid food and fitted with a flexible tip in which is a small hole. An automatic motion of the infant’s lips can draw the liquid through the hole. In this manner life is preserved until more efficient intake can be accomplished. Is there any question?’
There was none. A dull insensibility had settled upon the ‘minds of most members of the group, which would not be dispelled for days.
“That is all for today, then,” said the lecturer. “You will proceed to the next compartment where the successive stage of development will be demonstrated.”
From a wide doorway they were shown the room in which tara old beings were learning to walk. The Ladies could not refrain from breaking out in unrestrained laughter at the grotesque actions of the little men and women.
I But after a moment’s laughter, something halted them. They looked down upon the helpless creatures and a sense of compassion filled them. Even Ketan felt it extending from him towards the tiny, misshapen beings who would some day grow into perfection.
The instructor nodded with approval and smiled as the girls advanced hesitantly towards the babies and gave them a hand.
From there they passed on to other compartments where larger children were engaged in learning to use their arms and legs and develop skills. In others, they were learning language and the fundamentals of Seeking. On the top level of the Temple were those who were prepared to leave and emerge into Kronweld the next tara.
There, it was explained to them how a means of influencing the memories of those who emerged was accomplished through memory domination. This was done to preserve the secrets of the Temple and its sanctity among the inhabitants of Kronweld.
Surging, whipping tentacles of memory tried to find a grip amid these scenes, but all memory of having passed through these stages of existence were only wistful shadows in Ketan’s mind.
Alone, in his compartment at the end of the day’s tour through the Temple, Ketan knew he was no nearer the solution of the Mystery of the Temple than when he had first emerged from it himself.
For a time the strange baffling forces he had witnessed in the chamber of birth had confused him. Now he saw clearly that they were only the mask to a still deeper mystery. Life was not created by those flaming fires. Such a thing was a grotesque farce.
Where, then, did the creation of life take place? How could life even be present in the midst of those flaming lights? Was all he had seen merely a half-knowledge which was reserved for the newest Ladies while the older ones were partakers of greater Mysteries?
He determined that there was one way only of finding out. That was from Matra. He felt confident that she would ask him to come to her again. And when she did he would find the answer to these questions if he had to choke it out of her skinny throat with his own hands.
He wished he could see Elta and talk with her. He was more than ever puzzled by her deliberate coming here. He could see no purpose in it, especially when she knew of Matra’s enmity towards her. It was conceivable that she had come to attempt an understanding with Matra, but again Ketan was baffled by a stone wall of ignorance. What understanding was necessary between them?
Who were the Statists?
Ketan’s guide, Nelan, was more a guardian than a guide, it seemed to Ketan. She attached herself to him as soon as he left his compartment and left him only as he returned to it. He was sure her duties did not call for this close observation. He noticed, however, that many of the others were treating their student Ladies similarly.
She spoke at midday meal several days later. “Are you growing accustomed to your life with us?” Her attempt at a friendly smile was grotesque.
“I like it,” Ketan lied. ‘It’s the most sacred life a woman could live.”
“You are right.” Nelan nodded. And Ketan noticed now that there were a half dozen others crowded around as if assenting.
“But that -proves one thing,” Nelan went on. “Our position should entitle us to the best of the possible compensations in life. We deserve many of the comforts and liberties of life that we couid enjov here but don’t have. It should be our right to possess them.”
“That’s right,” another, older woman nodded. “Matra has never cared much about us having conveniences and comforts in our lives. She always insisted so much on devotion to duty that we had scarcely time to live.”
“Devotion to duty is our primary objective in life,” Nelan pointed out solemnly. “But we have a right to ask for those things that we deserve. There is a sure way to get them.”
Ketan wondered what more they could want. There was more luxury of living in the Temple than he had ever dreamed of in his own social statis in Kronweld. He wondered where all this was leading to.
“We need your help, the help of all you younger Ladies,” someone else spoke directly to Ketan. “Ane-tel will get them for us if we support her.”
“What are you talking about ?” Ketan demanded.
“Matra is old,” Nelan said. “She will soon die. One of us will have to be prepared to take her place. Her successor will be chosen by common consent. Most of us have decided in favor of Anetel. She is the natural one for the place. She will build a new era of progress for the Temple of Birth. The new born will emerge into Kronweld far more capable of taking their proper places there.
“And Anetel will see that conditions within the Temple—among the ranks of the Ladies—will be greatly improved. We will have better living quarters, more freedom to enjoy our existence and compensate for the things we have given up. Doesn’t that sound desirable ?”
Ketan nodded. “Very desirable.”
They smiled upon him. “Then you will assist us in supporting Anetel?”
“Yes.”
They smiled more and remained with him throughout the meal.
Idealism.
The word churned bitterly in Ketan’s mind. So this was the holy, sacred Temple of Birth—and these were the unselfish, sacrificing, sacrosanct Ladies who devoted their lives to the high things of existence. These petty, mean-minded old women who harped about in cliques groveling for the minor advantages of prestige and rights within the Temple.
Ketan wondered what the starry-eyed girls thought now—those who had listened so raptly in Preparation Center. They probably grew hardened as the tara passed.
But gone was any sympathy he had momentarily possessed or any doubts he had held about desecrating the place.
Ketan had never spoken to Anetel directly. He had seen her only as he passed in the halls and corridors.
She was tall and blonde and stately, with finespun golden hair. Her skill with the new born was unmatched. Her apparent coldness at a distance was deceptive. In direct speech—which was as frequent as necessary, and no more— her personality was like liquid warmth flowing over her listener. She put at ease the most timid of the Ladies when she chose to speak to them. Those repelled by the lined and shrunken features of Matra were easily nurtured by Anetel ‘s presence.
She was not small and insinuating, nor was she powerful and brusque. She did not gather with any of the small groups that collected about the halls and rooms when the duties of the day were over. She did not fawn over the new arrivals.
She defied Ketan’s analysis.
He hated her on sight.
He knew the words spoken by the campaigning lieutenants in the hall were words they had first heard spoken in private by Anetel. He knew she was acutely aware of every Lady in the Temple and studiously distributed her agents where their propaganda would do the most good.
More than often, he wondered why Matra failed to do something about it. The Temple personnel was a shambles. Matra could not help knowing it.
Perhaps she had simply reached the end of her power.
But when he thought of thos
e deep, hypnotic eyes and remembered her before the keyboards of the Karildex he did not believe that.
For seemingly endless days, though actually they were not many, Ketan and Elta and the rest of the new Ladies learned their routine duties of caring for the developing human beings.
Ketan found it strangely amusing to care for the newest ones, assisting them in their feeding and their more repulsive personal needs. He thought of Teacher Daran and the others he had known at the House of Wisdom walking in and recognizing him at these duties.
Then he remembered that Teacher Daran had been killed— killed by the forces that ruled this Temple in the hands of Matra—
He knew he had but little longer to stay. He had to reach a decision and act soon, for his disguise was wearing. The plastic was not substantial before the daily twisting and friction to which his body subjected it. Each night he had to soften it a bit with hot water and remold it. He wondered curiously if some of the Ladies didn’t notice a strange day-to-day metamorphosis in him.
He had long ago made his final decision with regard to the Temple. It awaited only his assignment to a watcher’s post in the chamber of birth.
In that chamber lay the solution to the whole Mystery of the Temple.
He thought himself calm, but the day his assignment came his breath quickened and his pulses leaped. Lie felt that at last he stood on the threshold of a solution.
He wondered who his companion on the watch would be. It was too much to hope that it would be Elta. He hoped for someone who’d not interfere with his investigations. But he’d find out what he’d come for if he had to kill the other watcher to keep her quiet.
It was Etta.
She stood at the entrance to the RENAISSANCE chamber and looked unbelievingly at him. She half turned as if to escape.
“Elta—” he whispered, “this is more than I could have hoped for.” Her form seemed to sag wearily. “Why did it have to be you ?” “Elta! Aren’t you glad that we can be alone together for a time?”
“No—listen to me, Ketan.” Her voice was anguished now. “I came here to do a certain thing. Will you trust—this time?
“Perhaps I can do all that you want done—the destruction of the Temple. But you must leave me alone here. Go out of the chamber. Go back to your room. You can get there without being seen. When I have finished, I will come back to you. We can fight our way out for I have discovered where many Dark Land Weapons are hidden. Will you do this for me?” “No.”
“Ketan—”
“No, Elta. I’ll not leave you to go ahead with whatever mad plan you have. Why you ever came here, I cannot guess—but I have my own purposes and they are more important than anything you may have planned,”
“I have spoken with Matra. She approved—”
Ketan stared at her. What could he believe? Matra had passed lethal judgment on Elta’s life. How’ could she approve any plan of Elta’s which might involve destruction of the Temple? What was Elta trying to do?
“I can’t believe that,” he said. “I don’t think destruction of the Temple is possible without first learning the secrets of this chamber. How is life created within those fires that flame up in the niche? What is their secret? I intend to find out.”
“Those are the forbidden things of Kronweld,” Elta murmured. “No man is meant to know them. No one within the Temple knows them. Do not tamper with forces beyond man’s understanding.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. Why have you become so cautious? It was not that way when you first worked within the ranks of the Unregistereds, helping me to organize them.”
“Perhaps I have come to realize there are forces beyond man’s strength to combat. Forces not worth combating because they mean only battering heads against stone walls and slowly washing away life’s energies and chances for happiness. Leave me now, Ketan. I will come back to you quickly.”
“No.”
Never, in all their association, had he felt so far distant from her as he did now in the small, unholy chamber in the depths of the Temple.
Why did she want him to leave her alone in this place?
It frightened him. He had a sudden glimpse of what life would be without her. It. was like looking over the edge of a deep black chasm. It left him panicky and he drew back from the thought.
She was standing in front of the niche, staring into its depths. He had an impulse to grasp her in his arms and attempt to crush out the bleak mysteries that thrust between them like ice curtains.
It was in vain. These things could not be swept aside by a single embrace. They were only branches of the deep-rooted faults buried deep in the society of Kronweld.
Pie strode about the dull, bare chamber and examined it minutely. There was nothing but blank walls of formed stone.
The niche itself was just as barren.
He crawled into it.
Elta screamed a terrified cry. “Ketan—!”
The shimmering violet glow was rising in the depths of the niche. For an instant it seemed to engulf Ketan, and his body took on a terrible transparency.
He leaped from the platform back into the chamber. His face was white and he was shaking uncontrollably. “Elta, I—”
“Look. Here it comes.”
The white fire was leaping at them, splitting into utter darkness. Before his eyes he thrust up a veil of the robe he wore and stared into the incandescence.
Then it was over, and on the platform a squealing infant human | by.
Elta lifted it in her arms. “Ring the alarm,” she said dully.
“Wait … there is something—”
A strange white strip was .‘wrapped about the infant’s leg. Ketan unwound it and exposed a j deep-cut injury. And a loose | crumpled sheet fluttered to the floor. He picked it up.
“It looks like a message—” He laughed a little shakily at the incredibility of the idea.
Elta glanced hastily at it. “Destroy it. Quickly. Ketan. Someone might come in and see us with it. I’m afraid—”
He looked up from the sheet of paper into her eyes. “Did you look deep into the light when it came at the time of birth. Did you see a kind of vision in it?”
“No, we were warned—”
“We were warned not to see what they don’t want us to see. When that first wave of light engulfed me it seemed as if this chamber vanished and I was flung for a moment into another far away world. There was a great assembly of people in a hall greater than this whole Temple. I stood before them at the base of a great machine and they looked up at me with fear and pleading in their eyes. They were crying out to me to come to them—to save them.”
Elta turned away and would not meet his gaze. “It must have been an illusion.”
“No, I saw it—and I shall see it again. Next time I shall walk towards it. I shall go through it. I shall find that great hall and the crying, pleading people—”
XIII.
He did not sleep that night. As soon as he was free to go to his compartment, he locked himself in and took out the sheet that he had found-oq the baby in the chamber.
It was too fantastic to believe that this was an actual message.
Yet, why not?
The inescapable logic of his Seeking told him that the infants that were created amid the flames in the chamber must have had natural parentage somewhere, sometime.
Was it the great hall filled with people who had looked to him for salvation ? Their eyes stared at him millionfold when he tried to close his own eyes and not think of them.
It did not take him long to decipher the characters with doubtful meaning. If it were correct, it was a terrible meaning. Not the words themselves, but it became the voice and the cry of that visioned concourse of people.
It said: “If any of you live, come through to us. Save us. Bring weapons,”
That puzzled him most—the words he had translated as “weapon.” Weapon was a guard. It had only two meanings, either referring to a Serviceman or to a protective rin
g such as surrounding the Temple of Birth, preventing trespassing from Kronweld.
Explorers in the Dark Land had devised an adaption of the principle of the protective ring which would kill Bors and other animals at a considerable distance. It was such a weapon to which Elta hiad referred earlier.
If he had translated correctly, the message asked for such a weapon.
The translation, such as it was, had not been hard because the characters appeared to be no more than twisted distortions of Kronweld characters, and a few unknown additions. It was a strange language.
While he stared iu contemplation at it, a thin needle of sound leaped into being in the depths of the night.
It sped in echoing resounding through the great halls and long corridors and pierced every sleeping ear. It became a scream of death and terror that cried through the Temple and woke every being.
Ketan ran into the hall to find it lined with terrified Ladies, scanty and sheer in night apparel.
Before he could even press through the hall and find the origin of the cry, they were being herded back by the forceful minions of the Temple. Adherents of Anetel— Ketan recognized them.
“What happened?” He added his voice to the babble, and it was lost. No one knew where the scream had come from.
The Ladies pressed forward, taxing the staff that tried to herd them back. Then for a moment the pressing surge relaxed while eyes stared expectantly down the corridor. More of Anetel’s guards came from the other end and the press in the hall began to move slowly back.
Then slowly, down the line, so spontaneous that no one knew who brought the information, passed the deadly rumor: “Someone tried to kill Anetel … stabbed with a knife … ran through the hall with it sticking in her back … one of the new girls did it … no one knows her name—
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