For it knew all human history, and felt contempt—such contempt as made any man wriggle with embarrassment and wish to vanish through the ground—for these squabbling, greedy, half-intelligent creatures which had stolen the techniques and artifacts of their greater predecessors and claimed the conquest of the galaxy. To what end? To the downfall of their vaunted Empire, and the return of the species on tens of thousands of worlds to a state no better than the mud-grubbing life of beasts!
Even when it was over, the vision still filled his head and dazzled his eyes. He was passive among the crowd that forced its way from the temple, letting himself be pushed back on to the street. His questions had been answered, and in a way he had not expected; the shock had dazed him.
Someone tried to claim his attention. He shook his head and went on thinking about what he had learned. The person—Tiorin, possibly—gave up in annoyance and turned to someone else: Eunora. He wasn’t interested in what was being said; all that concerned him was in his memory.
It was much later that he realized he was being escorted along a street floored with dirty snow, his companions beside him. He was shivering, having failed to fasten his clothing about him when he left the hot overcrowded temple. Ahead, someone was walking fast with occasional backward glances that suggested anxiety.
“Where are we going?” he forced out.
“You’re with us again?” Tiorin came eagerly to his side. “I was afraid you’d been overtaken by the same thing as these unfortunate wretches.”
“Hm? Oh! Oh, yes. I guess I was.” The reference drove him back inside himself, his eyes unfocusing and his feet stumbling occasionally on the unlevel rock-hard snow.
“The man ahead,” Tiorin explained, thinking Spartak was still listening. “Vix recognized him from the campaign he fought here—says he was a loyal and brave soldier. And Eunora got close enough to tell that he’s still trying to resist Bucyon, only goes to the temple because he’d risk exposure if he didn’t. We plan to follow until we get him alone and can approach him openly.”
But Spartak was lost again in the depths between the galaxies, playing over in his mind the vision he had had of supernal power, monstrous intelligence, and indescribable conceit.
XVIII
LIKE MOST of the towns and all the cities in Asconel’s northern hemisphere, Penwyr relied largely on water-borne transport; it was unusual, however, in being built astride a river instead of on the coast. They continued to follow the man whom Vix recognized until he reached the embankment paralleling the river, by which time they were sure he would take the bridge to the other side of the town, a quarter of low-built, rather mean houses.
He was becoming frightened by then, however, and had quickened his pace so much that it looked as if he might break into a run at any moment. People were about on the river’s edge, some inspecting boats moored to rings in the stone wall, some working on repairs, some merely leaning over and watching. It was a choice between losing their quarry if he ran, and attracting a good deal of undesirable attention by running themselves.
“Shall I go and speak to him?” Vineta proposed. “He’s not likely to be afraid of a girl.”
Tiorin hesitated. “That might be the answer. Spartak, what do you think?”
“No use trying to talk to him,” Vix grunted. “He’s off mooning again.”
Tiorin looked dismayed. “Yes, Vineta, see if you can catch him up and get him talking—Eunora was quite sure he was not a Bucyon man, isn’t that right?”
The mutant girl’s eyes were on Spartak. She started. “What—? Oh yes! Yes, he’s not one of these miserable dupes, like all the others.”
“Go ahead,” Tiorin ordered, and Vineta hurried off, leaving them to stroll like any of the other idlers along the quay.
“It’s horrible,” Vix muttered. “Everything’s stopped! Even during the worst of the revolution here, we kept the main streets running, and the bridge yonder”—he threw up an angry arm. “It’s all going back to the mud now! What’s become of the engineers we had, the builders, the craftsmen?”
“Right now I’m more worried about Spartak,” Tiorin muttered. “Eunora, can you tell us what’s happened to him? I agree, the—the mental show, or whatever it was, that we had at the temple was pretty impressive, but I was on guard against some sort of tampering with my mind, and it’s mainly left me with the feeling I’d like to know how it’s done”
“Not so impressive,” Vix put in. “To people who haven’t flown space much, perhaps—especially to people who thought the Empire was all pure magnificence and got some of their illusions dented. But we’ve seen what it’s like nowadays, and made up our minds that’s not the best mankind can do.”
“If they spread the cult of Belizuek any further, it’s apt to be the only thing we ever did,” Tiorin said sourly. “Look, Vineta’s beckoning. Spartak, hurry up, will you, instead of dawdling along like a dreamer?”
Tiorin kept one eye on Eunora as they approached Vineta and the man Vix recognized, but she gave no indication of altering her judgment, and it was with some confidence that he addressed the allegedly loyal citizen.
“Your name is Tharl, I understand. You won’t know us, but I assure you you’ll be very interested in what you hear from us.”
Tharl, a nervous man of early middle age, clad in old but carefully patched clothes and with a pinched expression on his face, looked from one to other of the people who had been following him. He said at length, “I took you for a party of Bucyon’s men set on my heels by the priests. But I should have known better, seeing the child with you. Well, what do you want with me?”
“We’ve returned to Asconel from traveling ten long years,” Tiorin said. “And—we’re horrified.”
Tharl let a quick smile come and go on his lips. “Say no more! I can provide you little hospitality—my wife and my son both offered themselves to Belizuek, and my two daughters are married and living away. But I have a home still, and some refreshment; come and join me there!”
“Luck’s with us,” Vix muttered, and they fell in behind Tharl to cross the bridge over the river. As they had foreseen, its formerly heated and moving surface was immobile beneath a covering of soiled snow, so they had to walk all the way.
Tharl’s house was less neglected than those which flanked it; those had snow on their roofs, whereas his was warm enough to melt it away, and the doors and windows still drew power instead of being converted to manual operation. But all he could offer by way of “refreshment” was some stale beer and bread and cheese.
“Ten years!” he murmured as he set out the food and drink, “Why, then I’d have offered you meat and fruit, even in dead winter.…Do you know that now they kill all their herds in the fall, salting the meat in sea-brine and keeping only enough stock to breed again in spring? The priests taught them that! I was raised on a farm, and to me it makes no sense.”
“You—ah—you said your wife and son both offered themselves to Belizuek,” Tiorin ventured. “Since then you’ve lived on your own.”
“That’s what’s saved me from becoming like all these fools you saw at the temple.” Tharl’s brows drew together over his nose and he stared into the distance. “I learned to hate just in time. Those who didn’t have been duped, and betrayed, and ultimately they won’t be human anymore.”
He peered curiously at Tiorin; apparently his eyesight was failing. “Tell me, though, how did you know it was safe to address me? If I make myself so obvious the priests will catch me—it’s a crime even to think, let along speak, against Bucyon’s rule.” Alarm colored his words.
Tiorin hesitated, making a warning gesture to Vix who might have blurted out their true identity. “Ah—we took a chance. My friend here remembers meeting you during the campaign against the rebels hereabout in the time of the old Warden, Hodat’s father. You were loyal then, and we felt a man like yourself couldn’t have changed so much.”
Tharl pursed his lips. “Luck’s with you!” he commented, unconsciously echoing
Vix’s remark of a short while earlier. “You can’t have been home long, or you’d know that anyone can be changed and made into a follower of Bucyon. Why, men I fought beside in the old days, Warden’s men as they were, have offered themselves to Belizuek since!”
“Does nothing withstand Bucyon, then?” Vix demanded.
It was Tharl’s turn for hesitation. Coming to a favorable decision, he leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone. “There’s my old general, Tigrid Zen, who’s in exile on Gwo. He has forces, and ships—why, occasionally word comes to say there’s been a landing in a secret place, and a message is passed as to how those whom the priests are hunting may safely be hidden till a ship can fetch them to Gwo.…” He seemed to realize it was thin comfort to his hearers, and the words tailed away.
“You’re in touch with a resistance movement here, then?” Vix suggested.
“A movement—well …” Tharl sighed. “Put it like this. Over two or three years, I’ve sounded out those who have a reason to hate Belizuek as I do, and perhaps ten or twelve have proved loyal to the old ways, and of them half have given themselves away, by attacking a priest or profaning the temple, and the rest of us serve to encourage each other. As for rising up against Bucyon, though—which I assume is what you hope to hear news of—I don’t see how it can be done.”
He pointed at Spartak. “Why, even your friend here has been so deeply affected by what happens in the temple that his mind’s adrift in space! First it was a wonder, and the curious talked about it and attracted the reluctant; then suddenly it became the only thing that mattered in the lives of the citizens. I escaped, as I said, because I already had a reason for hate—my wife and boy were the first of all to offer themselves in Penwyr. But that apart, I’d have become as bemused as he is.”
Worried, Tiorin nudged Spartak as he sat with pale face and staring eyes on the chair next to him.
“Tharl is wrong,” Eunora said timidly. “What’s affected him isn’t the power of Belizuek, but something else.”
“What?” Vix snorted, ready to fall back into his longtime assessment of Spartak as a dreamer and a ninny.
“He—Let him tell you himself,” Eunora said, and tugged at Spartak’s sleeve.
“Yes?” the bearded man said, coming to the present like a sleeper rousing. “I—I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking over what I learned down there at the temple.”
“That’s what we all want to discuss,” Tiorin said. “We know what’s being done to the people now, and if we can discover how it’s being done we can try to counteract it.”
“You’ve missed half the point,” Spartak said. “Don’t you know what Belizuek is, now you’ve seen what he can do?”
There was a blank silence. Eunora smiled to herself as though enjoying the secret knowledge she could pick from Spartak’s unspoken thoughts.
“Well, go on!” Vix burst out when the suspense had become intolerable.
Spartak shook his head. He seemed bewildered. “Then—well, possibly I’m mistaken, since you haven’t reached the same conclusion that I have.” He shivered, as if he were still out in the street instead of in the comparative warmth of Tharl’s home.
“I must go back and make sure,” he added, rising without waiting for objections and on the point of starting for the door.
“Just a second!” Tharl jumped up and strode to stand in front of him. “Back to the temple? What for?”
“I shall have to get a direct look at Belizuek,” Spartak explained with the sweet reasonableness of one addressing a child.
“A direct look—!” Tharl was thunderstruck. “How do you propose to manage that? Nobody has ever gone behind the screen they keep around him, except for sacrificial victims and the priests who escort the poor fools. When the temple was new, there were several who tried, and rumor says they were killed by a deadly charge on the metal mesh.”
“When the temple was new,” Spartak repeated, apparently struck by a new idea. “Tell me, how was it—well—consecrated?”
Tharl curled his lip. “That I know only too well. Some priests came from Gard in a skyboat—Gard, the old royal island, is the site of the chief temple now—bringing some great chest or case affair which was unloaded with much ceremony. It was transported to the market—what’s now the temple—and they held the first big sacrifice, with two victims. My wife and my son.”
Tiorin, seeing the man was almost overcome, moved to his side to comfort him. He flashed a scowl at Spartak, who remained quite unaffected. Lost in his own thoughts, the other muttered, “It might be the oxygen.…If only I knew where we found the ships we appropriated! But there’s that blank wall of ignorance supposed to be because it was bad for our self-respect to admit the real source of our skills—”
“You’re maundering,” Vix cut in. “If you have a point to make, make it!”
“Shut up!” Spartak ordered. This was so different from the usual meekness of the younger man’s manner that Vix was taken aback; while he was recovering, Spartak rounded on Eunora.
“Do you think I’m right?” he demanded.
The girl blushed. She said, “I can tell you what I felt, if that’s any help.…Well,” she licked her lips, “I thought there was somebody behind the screen who went—uh—who went an awfully long way. Like very old, but also very big. Sort of connected to other places. Do you see what I mean?”
Tharl’s puzzled eyes roamed around the strangers, but he said nothing.
“It fits, doesn’t it?” Spartak urged.
“I don’t know,” Eunora answered helplessly. “You’ve studied so many things I’ve never even heard about, and it would take ages to track down all the ideas and possibilities which you’re considering.”
“Then we must go back to the temple,” Spartak concluded. “As soon as possible. Tharl, you must have been there at other times than the—the duty services. Presumably you’ve wanted to appear to be a loyal Bucyon man, to divert suspicion.”
Tharl nodded dumbly.
“Then tell me what the routine of the temple is, and how we can get close to Belizuek without the priests driving us away.”
XIX
“YOU CAN’T,” Tharl said shortly.
“But we must,” Spartak countered, making a movement as if to brush aside all objections. Eunora, however, caught his eye.
“He’s probably right,” she said. “Let him explain.”
More puzzled than ever at the attention they paid to this slip of a girl, Tharl did so. Listening, Spartak came back by degrees to the realities of the problem. Ceaseless supervision, eavesdropping by priests, traps for the unwary—it sounded as though the temple had been prepared to meet just such an intrusion as he had planned.
The solution, however, came from Vix. He gave a shrug. “How about remote detection devices? Won’t they do to settle your doubts? I have instruments aboard the ship which could probably be demounted temporarily, and you could probe the back wall of the temple and get some hint of what lies beyond.”
“Of course,” Spartak muttered. “It must be the depressing effect of coming back to this ruined world, or I’d have thought of that myself. How long will it take us to get the equipment?”
Vix frowned. “We’d best move under cover of dark,” he suggested. “It’ll be hard to conceal the gear by day.”
“That’ll be still more difficult,” Tharl put in. “There are strict curfew laws now. Even street-lighting has been abandoned—every drop of power and fuel is devoted to Belizuek’s cult.”
“We’ll have advance warning of any patrols we run into,” Tiorin said, not offering to give details. “I wish you’d explain more fully, though,” he added, turning to Spartak.
But the bearded man was engrossed in some calculations conducted on a memo board from his belt-pouch.
With infinite care and in complete silence they stole back towards the dead-seeming town in the pitch blackness and icy cold of the winter’s night. Half the sky was cloudy, but in the other half the stars burned like
the points of white-hot needles.
It had proved necessary to bring from the ship not only the instruments which Vix had mentioned, but means of powering them too—accumulators and a portable generator. When Tharl said all power went for Belizuek’s cult, he meant it; there would not be a power source for them to draw on for half a mile in any direction from the temple. Consequently they were all heavily laden, even Eunora, slipping and stumbling along gallantly at Spartak’s side.
They had had the greatest possible difficulty in dissuading Tharl from accompanying them, but he was already in possession of a good deal of information about them, and it was judged far better that he should remain at home. Undoubtedly he was both loyal and eager to help, but so—once—had Metchel been.
Reflecting on that traitor, Spartak realized that Tigrid Zen had been deceived even more thoroughly than he knew: he’d been told that the volunteers for sacrifice to Belizuek came forward of their own accord, yet he had accepted Metchel’s tale of being a fugitive from a threatened sacrifice.
Or was sacrifice also the fate of the condemned criminal—defining crime in its current sense here, to include activity against Bucyon?
They reached the edge of the town and went between dark walls which afforded a little shelter from the wind. All the windows were shuttered, many with crude hand-carpentered wooden panels instead of the original plastic power-operated ones. An occasional handlamp gleamed through the cracks, or even a primitive candle.
Once, Eunora gave the faint whistle they had chosen as an alarm signal, and they dodged into an alley between two houses as a woman emerged to empty some foul-smelling garbage into a street drain. It seemed there was no limit to the degree people could regress under Belizuek’s domination, Spartak told himself wearily; next they’d be back to open-pit latrines and epidemic diseases.
He ached to find out whether his guess about the nature of this “diety” was accurate.