Man of Two Worlds Page 3

  Then something stopped him like a thudding blow within his skull. He heard the distant sound as of a human voice, soaring all the way across the reaches of that endless desert, distant—as if it came from the far away pinnacle itself.

  “Hasten, Lonely One—your time is short. You must not fail … you must not fail . . , come—”

  The voice trailed off to inaudibility, and the wind soared in a howling frenzy of madness as if to drive the sound waves back to their very origin and prevent the words from ever having been uttered.

  Abruptly, all was gone.

  Ketan found himself at a distance from the last place he remembered walking as the vision came. The same distance apparently that he had trudged over the drifting desert sands.

  He was dripping with cold sweat that formed in his pores. The sound of that alien, haunting voice still rang in his ears, as if it were the final call of a dying world, and he, somehow, had the strange, unknown power to be its saviour.

  He shook off the maddening vision, but his being cried out for relief from it. Sixteen times now he had experienced it since emerging from the Temple of Birth. This last time was by far the worst. Never before had he heard that voice, never had the winds beat so fearfully.

  Never had he told anyone of these experiences.

  But the mad old woman who had come to the Karildex had known of them. How was it possible ?

  When would it end? What did it mean?

  When he saw Elta sitting among the trees of the small parkway that divided the road he forgot the horrors of his vision. He stood and watched her a moment before she saw him.

  Her slim brown body was dark under the violet sky glow that rippled fitfully above them. She was clad only in the universal fashion of brief, white harness that served necessary convenience and protection. Her small, golden head was moving anxiously from side to side, trying to find him somewhere in the darkness.

  Music was coming faintly from the outlets of Artist Center hidden among the trees.

  He stepped up behind her. “Waiting for someone?”

  “Ketan!”

  She whirled, startled. “Have I waited ? A dozen times I decided to go and then to stay just another while. What kept you so long ? Inquirers ?”

  “Yes—they don’t often come this late. But I had some rather distinguished company tonight.”

  He paused. He wondered if he should go on. All the way from the Karildex he had determined to ignore the strange factors he had seen in her graphs, to let it make no difference between them. Now, as he sat down beside her, there was a barrier that the loveliness of her presence, her tender possessing glance would not put down.

  “Leader Hoult was in to see me.”

  “Leader Hoult! What did he want ?”

  “He was looking—he said—for a little old lady whom he thought he might find inquiring at the Karildex.”

  Ketan paused. Had Elta’s face blanched a trifle—her lips shown a momentary unsteadiness ? He couldn’t tell for sure in the accursed light from the sky.

  “A little old woman? Why was he looking for her? Who was she?” Elta’s voice betrayed no emotion.

  “He said she was insane and had escaped from confinement. The Servicemen were looking for her— and Leader Hoult wanted her found with dead certainty.”

  “How do you know? Did he say so?”

  “He merely mentioned her. His concern was so obvious that I think he dared not stay longer because of it.”

  “Queer—” she laughed, “the things you observe, tending the Karildex. Tell me what else happened today.” She drew closer and settled against his shoulder. “It’s been so long since I saw you.”

  “Since yesterday, isn’t it?” he smiled. “But I can’t stay here. You remember I said Teacher

  Daran wanted to see me soon?”

  She nodded, dismayed. “And you have to see him tonight?” “How did you guess?”

  “I can foretell things like that. I’ll be so glad when you become a full Seeker—and we can make our companionship.”

  He clutched her hand tightly, though his veins were ice within him.

  “Anyway, we can be together a whole day, the day after tomorrow.

  The Karildex will not be open,” she reminded him.

  “Of course it will! Why shouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s the opening of the Temple of Birth. Had you forgotten?” “Yes—I had forgotten.” His voice was thin. The reminder drove his mind back to the unyielding purpose of his existence—to bare the treachery and fraud of that unholy place.

  His mind completed the circle of its problems and came back to Elta. She was looking up at him in the silent, confident glance that bound them tighter than chains and made a great thankfulness well up within him.

  And he cursed himself for the things that he was about to say.

  “Elta—today I accidentally introduced your matrix into a problem I was working on. Some strange results appeared. I found three factor indexes which are not recognizable by any description in the standard catalogue. It has bothered me a great deal. Do you know what it means or how they got into your matrix?”

  Ketan was not conscious of it at first, but gradually he became aware that Elta had become as stone beside him. Every muscle had drawn to the limit of its taut-ness. She was trembling faintly as if with cold, and her eyes were not upon him, but were staring far beyond him.

  When her voice spoke it was like the soft tinkling of ice. “You didn’t find those factors by yourself, did you? The little old woman showed you. So she has set herself against me at last—and you had to know it, too—”

  “Elta, what are you talking about ? Do you know who she is ?” “She showed you, didn’t she ?” “Yes—”

  Ketan couldn’t go on. There was suddenly nothing that he could say, nothing he wanted to say. He felt as if he had touched upon something that would haunt him ir. dreams through the rest of his life, something horrible and unclean that was ensnaring him and Elta like a trap. If he went along and said nothing, it would die and pass out of existence, but to stir it up, attempt to fight it—

  “I knew you would find it some day,” she was saying dully. “I knew she could come. What did she say about me?”

  “She said I must kill you—to save Kronweld.”

  Elta gave a quick gasp. Her voice was heavy with sorrow when she spoke. “How she must hate us. What others did she mention ?” Ketan ignored her question and burst out with the torment that was within him. “Elta! Tell me what this is all about. You talk as if you were in another world and I were nothing but a little actor on a tiny stage with my own insignificant world while you belong to an alien fearful wcft’ld far beyond my experience. Tell me, Elta!” “Tell me what your answer to Teacher Daran is going to be.” Her sudden change of subject irritated him. “That’s not important—now. I want to know what all this about your unknown factors means.”

  “It’s all part of the same problem. Tell me what your answer is going to be.”

  “I’ve got to know what he wants, first.” This new track disconcerted him, gave him no time to build up to what he must say concerning his decision.

  “Tell me what your answer is going to be. You know what his question is!”

  “Well—if he asks me to enter the House of Wisdom and be entrained to take his place, I’ll accept it, of course. Any learner Seeker would be glad to have such an honor.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I do. Naturally, I’ll ask for the same privileges all other Seekers in the House of Wisdom have—the right to pursue their own Seeking while there.”

  “Even if it is unregistered?” “What do you mean by that?”

  “I know you, Ketan. You’ll not be content to work in darkness, in secrecy in your underground laboratory while inquisitive Servicemen snoop constantly for evidence of your lawbreaking. You are going to refuse Teacher Daran, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he blazed suddenly, “and I’m going to do more than that. I�
�m going to demand a public hearing before the Seekers Council and tell them I know the secret of the creation of life. I’ll expose the deception of the Temple of Birth to all Kronweld.

  “Day after tomorrow is the opening of the Temple,” he added thoughtfully. “What better time could I have chosen?”

  She was silent for so long that he turned and looked down upon her. She had slumped from her stone-rigid position and sat with eyes averted downward. Her hands were composed upon the warm, bronzed skin of her thighs.

  “Elta—”

  “Ketan, I want the first promise that I have ever asked of you. When the time comes—and it will come soon—when I can tell you what all this means, I promise that I will tell you fully. I promise,” too, that I shall never do anything —I have never done anything—to harm Kronweld. The old woman didn’t understand. She cannot know that my pain has been as great as hers. I promise that I shall clear up this mystery and you will know and understand that I have done right. I must go away for a little while. When I come back, we shall make our companionship. But you must not attempt to overthrow the Temple of Birth by declaring your discoveries to the Seekers Council. That is the promise I want of you. They’ll declass you. You’ll be unable ever to Seek again. I want your promise, Ketan.”

  “I can’t give it. This is the thing I’ve dreamed of since the first time I was introduced to Seeking. I’ve known that this was my work. How can you ask such a thing of nie, when you won’t even explain the slightest fragments of the mystery about yourself ? Why must you go away? Where is there to go that I cannot come with you, or follow you ?”

  “Then at least promise you’ll postpone it until I can return to you and explain the things you want to know.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t even do that. I’ve told the Unregistereds what I plan to do. No other time will be so appropriate as this once in a tara opening of the Temple. If I failed now, the Unregistereds would disintegrate and be exactly as they were when I began. I cannot wait!”

  Elta had straightened to look into his eyes, but now her shoulders slumped again. Her lips moved impulsively, silently. At last she said, “You’re a fool—a wonderful, idiotic genius of a fool. And I love you so. I wish often that I had never met you. I wonder how it will all end?”

  “How would you want it to end ?”

  “How?” She looked up at him again and then away to the shimmering curtains of light in the sky.

  “Like we always dreamed it would end. You and I going away into Dark Land, continuing our work there, proving you are right about the creation of life in absolute freedom. Oh, I know we’re not free here. It irks and drags on me as much as it does on you. But we can’t turn the whole of Kronweld upside down because we’ve discovered something there’s no hope of making them believe. Let’s go to Dark Land—some of the others will go with us. We can build a community and a life of our own, far away from all this.”

  “You’d die out there, and you know it. We aren’t made to live like Bors. We’re men and women. And we’ve a duty to Kronweld, a duty to Seeking.”

  “We could carry out that duty in Dark Land—”

  “But not until we’ve tried here, first.

  “I must go,” he said abruptly, “Teacher Daran will not wait all night. I must see him. Will you go with me?”

  V.

  Elta remained outside the gate opening on the short path that led to the garden. Ketan walked slowly along it, alone, clutching the thick day cloak tightly about him.

  Teacher Daran was relaxing beside the fountain that spumed up in the midst of his garden. Brightly colored, phosphorescent ·muds spouted into the night air through an artificial orifice and fell back in a sluggish stream that flowed through a carefully channeled way and then sagged into the bosom of the earth again, A soft curtain of steamy mist floated over the garden towards the plain marble house where Teacher Daran lived alone. He had never taken a companion.

  ‘‘Wisdom.” Ketan approached through the curtain of mist.

  Teacher Daran rose on one arm. He had thrown aside his day cloak and had been lying with eyes shut, enjoying music that Ketan knew was coming from Artist Center.

  “Wisdom,” Teacher Daran responded. His eyes tried to pierce the darkness and mist, “Is it you, Ketan ? My eyes are weakening more each day. Come—you are wearing your cloak when it is nearly night ?”

  The old man chuckled. “What is it, Ketan? You come in the midst of the night with your day cloak and it is you who are always preaching that we are weaklings because we must wear the cloak at all. You say we should go without protection as our predecessors did.” Katan threw aside the heavy garment of lead strands.

  “You asked me to come, Teacher,” he said.

  “Of course. It is simple,” said Teacher Daran. “Recline.”

  Ketan dropped beside the old man. The Teacher’s great body was lined with the marks of age, but it was still filled out with smooth rippled muscles of strength, and the massive chest rose and fell with long, regular rhythm.

  “The Council of the House of Wisdom has appointed you to fill my place.”

  Ketan supported himself on one elbow gazing for a moment into the eyes buried deep beneath the overhanging crags of the man’s forehead. He thought of the unknown factors in the matrix, and the old woman who had come to the Karildex.

  “I would become a full Seeker, then ?”

  Teacher Daran smiled and nodded. “And you could make your companionship with Elta at once. You don’t know how fortunate you are. Perhaps if I had found such a Seeker companion when I was young—”

  “I would be accorded full rights of Seeking—the privilege of choosing my own Mysteries?”

  “Subject only to the approval or rejection of the Council,” the Teacher nodded.

  “I do not recognize their right to pass upon the Mysteries I choose. Why should they have power to tell me that I may not choose the Mystery of the great Edge, of Fire Land—or even of the Temple of Birth itself?”

  “So the things they whisper about you are true?”

  “What is whispered about me?” “In the Council of the House of Wisdom have come reports of an organization called the Unregistereds—who confine their Seeking to unregistered Mysteries. There are those in the Council who say you are one of those. Many times it has been talked of—the desirability of making a complaint to the First Group. Because of the excellence of your work with the Karildex I have been able to persuade them from taking’ such drastic action, and even to put through a vote for you to fill my place.

  “I am warning you severely, Ketan, as a friend and as your Teacher, that you stand on very dangerous ground. How can you possibly say that you challenge the right of the Seekers Council to supervise Seeking when you are so expert in operation and knowledge of the Karildex? Surely you must know that the Council’s commission was a direct solution given out by the Karildex three hundred tara ago.”

  “And that is the very reason I challenge the restrictions ! The integration of the Karildex is based upon false factors.”

  “How can that be? The integration is renewed twice every tara and may be supplemented any time a person so desires.”

  “The integration reflects only the knowledge of the individuals assembling it. If that knowledge is false, the integration is likewise in error.”

  “And just which factors do you claim to be false?” Teacher Daran spoke the words very evenly.

  Ketan pressed his lips tightly. “You know the ones. I haven’t been silent about them.”

  “Then it is true—what they say about you. I have been a fool to try to defend you before the Council of the House of Wisdom. It is true that you deny the sacred aspect of the Temple of Birth and advocate its removal from the category of sacred Mysteries. You believe it should be opened to the profane study of all Seekers in Kronweld?” “Advocate? Believe? I demand it!”

  “I shall make a complaint against you tonight. This time tomorrow will see you declassed.”

  Elta
was waiting at the end of the path, her slender form silhouetted against the sky. She stretched out a hand as he approached.

  “What did you tell him ?” she asked anxiously.

  Ketan told her briefly. “He is issuing a complaint at once. I must hurry to the house and get my materials ready. I shall ask for a hearing, a public hearing.”

  “Ketan—no! Please, for my sake. Go back and ask Teacher Daran to withdraw the complaint. He will accept }-our apology, I know. Tell him you will take the position offered.”

  “I shall ask for a hearing,” Ketan said. “Kronweld must know the truth about the creation of life, and the Temple of Birth must be opened to Seekers.”

  “You fool, you unutterable idiot!” Elta hurled at him. Her flame-blue eyes flashed a reflection from the sky.

  But Ketan had turned to the road. “I must hurry. I’ll walk as far as you are going. Are you coming ?”

  They turned out from the private path to the main road whose green, glassy surface stretched away in a great circle which passed before the magnificent Temple of Birth in the near distance.

  They walked along in silence, intent upon the sky reflections in the road surface. The road led out of the more luxurious section of the city where lived those entitled to luxury, the full Seekers, the members of the First Group, and the managers of production. Elta lived closer to the center of the city in a group house of Seekers.

  Ketan lived on the other side with those entitled to less, the learner Seekers. And here it was that most of the population of ten thousand lived, for there were few full Seekers. Nearly all Mysteries had been solved. Man had reached a point near the apex of his available knowledge. The unavailable knowledge—the sacred Mysteries—constituted those things, that were not meant for man to know.

  The city was laid out in a great circle that stretched before the pair as they walked in the darkness. It was bounded on one side by the volcanic, radioactive Land of Fire that lit the entire sky with its blaze of violet and crimson lights. Beyond it lay the eternal wastes of Dark Land with its perpetual pall of clouds and fog of smoke and ashes that were carried by the feirce winds that spewed out of Fire Land.