“I’ll tell you whether you want to hear it or not!” he exclaimed. ‘Til tell you that you came from beyond the great Edge from a world that is ours by right of heritage. I have been to -that world and it wants us back. Long ago, a group of great Seekers prepared the means for us to escape the destruction that came upon our home world and sent us to Kronweld for our own protection. Now, it is time for us to go back and rebuild that world. It is our heritage. It is the only reason for our existence.
“All of you must go where I have been and see for yourselves. But the Gateway is closed now. No new life will appear within the Temple of Birth until we reopen it. We must first reopen the Gateway from this side before we can go through.”
He stopped. He looked upon them. He scanned a thousand faces and what he saw there shook him with a terror that he had never before known. In that one instant he recalled the words of the Director: “I have not studied Kronweld all these years for nothing. Success is absolutely impossible for you, yet you will go on struggling until the day Bocknor turns on his beam. That will be the amusing part of it.”
He wondered if the Director were watching now, if his mysterious powers could pierce the Edge and enable him to know that Ketan realized what he meant.
As motionless as the golden image of Dorien, behind him, Ketan looked at the assemblage and knew that he had failed. A thousand tara ago they had created the myth of the Temple of Birth and now that monstrous creation bound them with chains. Only the stark reality of the Temple’s destruction would convince them. That, and a glimpse into the world of Earth. Not words, not any man could accomplish that.
The murmur was rising from them now. They were recovering from the shock of his words. Someone threw a stone. A blast of heat and thunder and a moment’s blind-ing light marked the instant it came above the protecting purple line.
“Blasphemer!”
The cry rose on the outer edge of the mob and traveled inward like a gathering wave. It washed over Ketan and left him sick and weary.
He remembered that other mob, the one in the village of the Illegitimates. This one wanted his blood just as surely as had that first one.
He must show them, he thought dully, through the weariness. Words were not enough. He must get to the Unregistereds, find what had become of them, and carry on his work with them. Even the Director had advised mockingly to do that. That old and withered husk held a mind that knew far more of Kronweld than did he, Ketan admitted bitterly.
He did not quite comprehend the suddenness of the next event—nor did the mob. Then someone shouted, “The line! It’s been turned off!”
They came at him then. He ran up the low inline, straining to outdistance the irrational mob. But there was nowhere to go and the pain within him was overwhelming. He turned and faced them and waited until they swept over him.
He was alone that night in a single interior room of his house. In accordance with custom, it had been declared open for occupancy as soon as he was reported dead, but no one would live in the house of Ketan, the blasphemer, and so his things were as he had left them.
In every room that opened from the one he was in there were three Servicemen. Outside, a double line of them patrolled the house.
For hours he sat without moving. His mind was working only in retrospect. As time passed, the realization of the enormity of his mistake grew upon him. How could he have so underestimated the power of the suppression of knowledge through the ages of Kronweld’s history? Branen, even, had understood its effect better than he. He had supposed the sudden revelation of truth would crush it. All the rest of the Unregistereds—Elta —the Director—all of them knew what those hundreds of tara of superstition had done.
Had Igon, in his eagerness, made the same mistake as he, Ketan wondered ?
Somewhere the whole vast dream of Richard Simons had gone wrong. But where?
It centered in the Temple of Birth. The ancient scientists had never anticipated such a growth. They had supposed that life and birth would be normal in Kronweld except for the appearance of those who came through the Edge. Had the ancients been correct the suppression of knowledge of life processes would not have existed. There would have been Seekings in medicine, surgery, biology, bacteriology, physiology, and all that realm of knowledge of whose existence William Douglas had spoken.
But something was present to create sterility in every man and woman who came into Kronweld. This meant that the cream of Earth’s intellect had been drained off through the centuries and had not reproduced itself. Slowly, but inevitably, a reverse evolution of the combined society of Earth and Kronweld had taken place. The handful now living in Kronweld should have been a host of hundreds of thousands of Seekers. The scientists who built the pinnacle had failed because they didn’t understand the world into which they plunged their choicest offspring. Ketan had failed because lie hadn’t understood his own people.
He slept finally and was awakened by a Serviceman who shook him roughly by the shoulder.
“The Council orders your presence,’5 the man said.
“I am ready.”
Ready for declassing. Ready to live as an outcast, a pariah among the friends he had known.
When he was dressed, they took him out to a waiting car and sat him between two silent Servicemen, who disdained even a greeting. The short ride ended too quickly for him and he was ushered up the lift of the Control Central and led to the doors of the chamber.
As he neared, he was puzzled by the commotion and the buzzing sound of a multitude of voices. He wondered where they were coming from. Then the chamber doors opened and he gazed in upon the filled hall. The hearing had been declared public. The Council must be sure of themselves, he thought despairingly.
He was led to the space in the semicircular table before the solemn Councilors. In tiered rows on all sides were gathered the two thousand Seekers in attendance.
Ketan turned to the Council. He wondered who was Leader in the place of the dead Hoult. None could be more vicious than the Statist.
Then he had doubts of that judgment. In the Leader’s position sat Anot. A look of infinite pleasure was upon his small face as he glanced at Ketan.
Ketan had forgotten the tiny, ambitious geologist, whose lust for dominance reminded him of the Director. Like the latter, Anot enjoyed power over larger men and greater mentalities than his own. He was enjoying that power now.
The crowd had become hushed and silent, but Ketan could feel their gaze upon his back. Almost, he imagined, he could feel the hot breath of their sudden primitive savagery on his neck.
The Council before him was icy faced. Anot rose slowly with deliberation and turned quietly about so that his gaze raked the entire audience. He brought it back at last to Ketan.
“Only once or twice before in the history of Kronweld,” said Anot, forcing his high-pitched voice to the farthest listener, “has this chamber been filled on such an occasion.
“To be accurate, I should say that never before has there been such a situation as we have here before us. For today we are met to pass judgment upon one whose blasphemy surpasses any recorded by our history.”
He pivoted about once more, letting his eyes take in the room and Ketan.
“This is not an ordinary hearing before the Council for the purpose of administering a reprimand. This man’s transgressions have struck at the roots of our society and force upon us a retrospection of our entire structure of society in order that judgment may be rendered.
“We are not often called upon to consider our objectives in existence either as a community or as individuals. We go automatically from the Temple of Birth to our period of learning in the Houses of Wisdom and then take up our own Seeking according to our desires and abilities. Those having the highest gifts in Seeking are given the most respected places in our community and freed from the small but necessary tasks of producing food and buildings and conveniences which we all must have.
“Thus, we all find a satisfaction in existence. Thos
e of us who have been in a position to view the expanding Wisdom and discoveries of the past few tara have been pleased to observe that the long goal of our race has almost been reached. We have almost come to the end of the Age of Seeking. Soon, we shall have discovered the secrets of all the Mysteries that lie before us and a new age will dawn in which we shall be permitted to occupy ourselves entirely with the enjoyment of those things we have produced. There shall be no more necessity for Seeking, because we shall know all. Then our minds and intellects will expand and abound with the beauty and pleasures to be found in the arts of our land and the Wisdom we possess. All men shall then experience the extreme happiness of existence in having arrived at the goal for which we set out long tara ago when the God first saw fit to place us here.”
“Lie!” Ketan blazed forth. He whirled about and faced the tiers. “Do you … you Seekers believe a word of this? You whose only pleasure in life is in Seeking—do you believe you will find the supreme happiness in idleness when these already-dead old men of the Council have finally forbidden you to Seek at all?”
“Silence!”
The command of the Leader hissed at Ketan. A trio of Servicemen approached menacingly at a signal.
“You will listen and maintain respect for the Council or be removed while judgment is issued in your absence,” Leader Anot glared down upon Ketan.
“I should, perhaps, thank you, however,” he oontinued, “for exhibiting to this assembly the very qualities of the offense with which you are charged.
“There have, throughout the ages, been certain Mysteries into which we know we shall not Seek,1 for they are Mysteries belonging to the realm of the God, upon which we shall not trespass.
“The foremost of these is the Mystery of the Temple of Birth. Each of us comes into existence in a miraculous manner which no man comprehends. Only those Ladies who have sanctified themselves and dedicated their lives to devoted service within the Temple are permitted to know anything of this Mystery, and it is not believed that they know fully how life comes into being there.
‘‘But there are some among us who are not qualified to live in a community of Seekers respecting that which is sacred. They are those who view the tools of Seeking as hammers of destruction with which any irresponsible man may blindly go about tearing down the veils with which the God has shrouded the Mysteries that are our pleasure. They are those who cannot understand the difference between those Mysteries which man may unveil and those which belong to the realm of the God.
“They are those who would tear down the Temple of Birth, who would desecrate the human body by daring to cut into it in order to Seek into the Mysteries of it.”
Anot leaned forward and pierced Ketan with the pinpoint gaze of his little eyes. “Such men/’ he hissed, “cannot be allowed to live in Kronweld.”
Exile!
Something hardened and grew bleak within Ketan. He thought of the long dreary wastes of Dark Land, the hostile Bors—that would be his surroundings for the rest of his life.
But Anot had merely paused for dramatic emphasis. He went on now in deadly tones. “But since the opening of the Mysteries of Dark Land I say that all creation is Kron
weld. Therefore, such men as this”—his finger stabbed out at Ketan—“cannot be allowed to live. I call for the death of this man!”
He sat down. The room was still. Then a low sob of horror swept over the assembly. Only once before in all history had such a penalty been called for—Igon, who was later given mercy and exile.
A confused murmur and a lone cry or two of protest was heard, but more slowly and more surely a thunderous note of approval grew, a surging, savage cry that turned Retail’s heart cold within him. Even the faces of some of the Councilors blanched at the torrent of fury that had been unleashed.
Ketan turned about slowly, staring at the galleries of faces. He knew them, hundreds of them. They had been his friends. They had gone to the House of Wisdom with him. Now they wanted to kill him because he had tried to show them the world beyond the Edge. Here were not the men and women Richard Simons had intended to send through the Selector, he thought. Something had . gone wrong in ages past and only bitter, clever savages had come through.
Leader Anot rose again, trembling with emotion. He silenced the mob. “The Council will decide!”
He turned to his fellow Councilors. “You have heard my call. Are there objections or debate?”
Ketan opened his eyes wider and looked about the semicircle and saw blank enmity on every face, every one but that of old Jedal who rose with tottering uncertainty. His voice was barely audible.
“I hold that this man is not guilty of any crime,” he said feebly.
“Then you are as guilty as he!” snapped Nabah.
Anot ordered Jedal to continue. “I know that you disagree with much that I hold to be true,” the aged member said. “And I know that my words on this particular matter will carry no weight, for you have already in your minds judged him guilty. But I offer this: To commit one crime does not erase the fault of another. Granted that this man has transgressed in his Seeking, you propose a far greater crime in taking his life, for there is no means by which it can be done without committing a far greater desecration than that of which you accuse him. You cannot kill him.” Only the ring of judges had heard his feeble words, and Nabah spoke up craftily. “There is always a way provided. We can allow him to die. Starvation is a natural way of death that involves no desecration.” “That is denying him the most elemental privilege of obtaining food” Jedal objected.
“Enough of this!” Anot snapped. “We will find a way if that is the only objection. What is your judgment ? Do you accede to my call ?” Only the aged Jedal demurred.
XXIV.
The death cell was a room of his own house.
Escorted by a heavy guard of Servicemen, one of whom was armed with a Dark Land weapon, Ketan was returned to the same room in which he had been prisoner the day before. Without speaking a word, they left him alone and closed the door.
He knew he would never leave that room alive.
It was night by the time the ordeal in the Council was over and Ketan lay down in weariness from the experiences of the past two days.
His tired brain forced all thought out of it as he lay there, eyes staring in darkness. Thought was replaced by a panorama of shifting images that streamed across his mental vision. There were merely images, no thought sense or judgment associated with them.
As if he were only a disinterested spectator, his brain drew out the record of his life and paraded it before him. He saw again the day that he came out of the Temple. He saw the first days in the House of Wisdom, his first meeting with Elta, the first time he heard the story of the famous and infamous Igon, the moment he determined some day to follow in the footsteps of the great man, and the fulfillment of that dream when he actually penetrated the flaming wastes of Fire Land to go into Dark Land.
He saw the visions of the pinnacle that had so tormented him during those tara.
And then—it was no mere mental image—!
He was sitting upright and on either side were the two from the pinnacle. As if illumined by some ethereal inner light. Dorien was there on his right and Richard Simons on his left.
“We knew it would be difficult,” said the scientist. “But we are depending on you. Do not fail us.” And then Dorien—he felt the touch of her hand upon his arm and it gave him a chill though her flesh was warm. “There is always a way out of difficulty. Sometimes it is such an obvious thing that you have overlooked it.”
Then they were gone.
He was trembling in every muscle and moist in every pore. He rose and turned on the light. He was alone. For a moment, he wondered if he had dreamed it, but knew that the had not been asleep—knew it as he had always known that the visions of the pinnacle were of a reality. But what had caused this vision ?
The Gateway was closed. Could projections come through the barrier anyway? He did not know. But he k
new that he had friends— friends who were counting on him to complete their work. Friends-who had lived and died a thousand tara ago, but friends, nevertheless.
It made him feel as if he had experienced a rebirth. They were counting on him. The thought rang like the reverberations of a mighty bell of undying tones. And what was it that the image of Dorien had said? “There is always a way— Sometimes it is such an obvious thing that you have overlooked it.”
New life flowed into his brain and he began to consider his position, the possibilities of survival. They were few enough. The Council had put him there to die in the only way that would not break any of their laws—by starvation. Any thought of breaking through the cordon of Servicemen outside was vain.
How could he keep f rom weakening and eventually starving?
Food!
Slowly he sat down and laughed softly to himself, then turned out the lights. He pressed the secret combination on his refreshment panel and in a moment he heard the soft click of its levers. He felt for the tray. It was loaded with as hearty a meal as he could have desired. The Servicemen had not found the private, secret channels that he had connected to the food service of the house. There was food enough in his storage compartments to last him many days.
Enough for exactly fourteen days, he thought.
Its presence meant that Serviceman Varano had not yet revived or been discovered. It would be just fourteen days until that event, then the Serviceman would reveal what he knew of Ketan’s secret arrangements.
Ketan lost track of time. He purposely refrained from marking off the days and they grew in length until they were endless. The nights became long eons of nightmare.
Every waking moment his brain concentrated upon how to make an escape, how to contact the Unregistereds. In the narrow confines of the room there was nothing that any amount of ingenuity could turn into a weapon or means of escape. And if he could have escaped, there was no haven for him.
As the days passed and he knew the food supply was getting low, he was seized again with despair.
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