Man of Two Worlds Read online

  “The source of your steak. Come along.”

  They entered and the door closed behind them. The room was large, equipped with Seeker’s tools such as the Serviceman had never dreamed of, but that was not strange to him. It had been a long time since he had worked in a laboratory.

  They passed on and came to a darkened corridor in which the fetid smell became stronger and almost sickening.

  “They can’t stand much light,” Ketan explained.

  As he spoke, they stopped before a barred partition and he switched on a low light.

  The Serviceman could not conceal the impulse of horror that leaped within him. “Bors!”

  A great, shaggy beast rumbled towards them, head lowered, red eyes glowing malignantly out of the darkness.

  It stood half again as high as a man and its head looked like a huge black boulder surmounted by twin curved horns that hooked out menacingly. It snorted and pawed the floor, creating a dull thunder that echoed in the cavern.

  The Serviceman backed fearfully. “But—how did you ever get it here?” he cried incredibly. “I tried, myself, long ago. The ban—”

  “The ban is easily evaded,” said Ketan, “if one is resourceful. But that isn’t what I brought you here to see. Look.”

  The Serviceman turned again. Now, a second beast, slightly smaller than the first was approaching with fearful inquisitiveness. “Two of them—”

  “Yes—two—the two I brought with me from Dark Land in defiance of the ban our stupid leaders insist on against the bringing of any life but human into Kronweld. I followed the Bors for many days alone until I found their lair in the darkest parts of Dark Land. There I found small Bors, not these great beasts—do you understand what that means?”

  Ketan had grasped the harness strap of the Serviceman in a fierce grip and now his eyes were boring into those of Varano. The Serviceman returned the gaze as if hypnotized.

  “Do you understand what that means—Bors an eighth the size of these animals ? I brought three of them back with me. One we have eaten. Now look into the cage and tell me what you see ”

  The very fierceness of Ketan’s emotion turned the eyes of the Serviceman to the cage and then he cried out: “Back in the corner—a third—it is a baby Bors!”

  “Now do you believe I have something to tell the First Group— to tell all Kronweld. I have found the secret of life itself.”

  VII

  The Serviceman had fallen asleep on the lounge and was emitting rumbling snores. But there was too much to be done for Ketan to sleep much.

  He first drew out his own car and loaded it with the plates and exhibits to present before the Seekers Council. It was nearly time for the rising of the first globe when he had the last of the dozens of plants stowed away, and behind the car was a massive, soundproofed trailer in which reposed the family of Bors.

  This work completed, he sat down with heavy weariness before his communicating plate and ordered a connection. Shortly, Elta’s face appeared on the plate. Her eyes were dry now, but red from past tears.

  “What has happened?” she asked.

  “Nothing—yet. I just called to tell you my application for a public hearing has been entered and I’ll soon be on my way. Wish me success, won’t you?”

  She did not answer, but merely stared at him with her wide, lambent eyes. He returned her gaze softly.

  Always he experienced that inexplicable feeling when he looked upon her. Companions were supposed to be chosen according to affinity between the works they were doing as Seekers and servants of Kronweld.

  But Ketan knew he had not approached Elta simply because she was the foremost Seeker in her section of Physical Reactions. He often wondered if she felt the same about their coming companionship as he did—and wondered if there were something wrong with him for feeling as he did. It was something’ about which no one ever spoke.

  At last she said, “So you did it! Oh, why will you rush on so blindly before you—know?”

  “I know enough to be sure that this is the only way progress can be made against superstition and blindness. You’ve got to smash through it and batter it down—or else live in its smothering encirclement.”

  “Not when you have nothing more to offer than you have.”

  “I have all I need. I have my plants and I have the Bors. What more could they want?”

  She gazed at him long and fondly. “There is one thing more that we might offer them—you and I—”

  He shook his head. “I don’t dare, yet … not you, Elta—”

  “Of course you don’t, because you don’t know.” She shuddered slightly as if with cold and her tousled, fire-gold hair fell across her face.

  “There can be only one result.” Her voice became a monotone of resignation. “You will be declassed —never again will you be able to Seek. Never will you be able to find the answer to any of the Mysteries that exist.”

  She looked up now in firm decision. “This will be the end of the life we’ve known, Ketan. Don’t wait for the hearing before the Council—flee for your life. Even though you may be merely declassed now, there are those who will not let you live. You are too dangerous to those whose personal ambitions demand the destruction of Kronweld. Hoult will not let you live! Go into Dark Land, now —tonight. Wait for me there. I will come to you soon. You must do this, Ketan, believe me!”

  Her pleading, agonized image grew larger in the plate, until he seemed to be able to reach out and touch her. The intensity of her expression held him entranced.

  She cut off.

  He realized absently that the plate had turned its normal blank gray. He tried to call back, but she refused to answer.

  Slowly, he turned away from the instrument. What had she meant by saying that he must flee for his life? Had she told Hoult and Teacher Daran that he knew who they were? Did they know that the withered old woman had given him her command to slay all three ?

  He shook off the thought. Elta would not have betrayed him.

  The second globe had almost risen when he woke. He brushed a hand across his face and struggled up. He hadn’t intended to go to sleep, just take a moment’s rest.

  The entrance signal was jangling furiously. He whistled a note and the portly Serviceman rushed in.

  “The Seekers Council are not accustomed to waiting,” he snapped.

  “Maybe some of us aren’t as anxious to obtain declassing as you were.”

  They turned at the sound of the voice. The second Serviceman, Varano, stood in the doorway, sharp-eyed from his night’s sleep. His leader snapped a look that Ketan knew would be followed later by reprimand.

  Ketan hurried out of the room to get into his harness and finish his preparations. He returned shortly and anounced his readiness.

  The shining white cube of the House of Control lay in a straight line through the city from the Temple of Birth. It was the edifice second in importance in Kronweld.

  Ketan led his car along a road that disappeared directly beneath the building. Down a steep, brightly lit corridor they rolled until they came to the huge freight elevator that would carry his exhibits up to the hall of justice.

  The high, shining corridors of the building were frigid in their marble hardness. Their footsteps rattled against the walls until their marching sounded like an approaching mob.

  Ketan had expected to see a large number of people filing into the hall, but the corridors were empty except for the three of them. The paunchy Serviceman seemed to read his thoughts.

  “I neglected to tell you previously that the Council rejected your application for a public hearing— they said it was not important enough to warrant a public proclamation. The hearing will be before the Council only.”

  A cold premonition gripped Ketan. He knew that the Serviceman’s neglect was deliberate, and he sensed the refusal of the Council to grant a public hearing was a deliberate plot against the spreading of his revelations among the populace.

  Half the effect would be nullified if he sp
oke only before the Council. He had counted strongly on making an appeal to some of the Seekers who might be in the audience. He knew they would be easier to convert than the Council itself. Now, the stiff and barren-minded Council would form his only audience.

  He was on time. The clerk read his name as the two Servicemen escorted him into the sumptuous hall.

  Beneath the high ceiling of glistening gold and marble was the Council table. From it, twenty pairs of eyes turned upon him— only one member was absent.

  Some of those eyes focused on him in wrath like a burning glass. Some curious, some quizzical, some squinting in disbelief, all amazed at what they saw.

  Not once in ten tara did a learner Seeker demand an appearance before the Council. Not one in a hundred who did escaped declassing.

  Ketan’s black hair that spilled in a half touseled way above the edge of his forehead bespoke youthful incompetence, but the deepset eyes beneath stabbed out uncomfortably at them, as if guiding a mind-probing ray that bit deeply into the inner thoughts of each of them. Several glanced away in discomfiture.

  They were ringed in solemn dignity about the outer edge of a semicircular table. To the hollow space in the center Ketan strode slowly and with deliberation. The Servicemen left him standing alone in the center of the great hall and departed. Varano gave his hand a brief grip before he disappeared.

  Opposite Ketan sat Leader Hoult. A solemn black cape hung from his shoulders in useless semblance of a day cloak. His black eyes glared upon Ketan—and held his inner thoughts in utter secrecy.

  Ketan returned his gaze, wondering how much the man knew, wondering what kind of a double role the man was playing.

  “We have previously heard the complaint of Teacher Daran,” he said. “You have asked for a hearing before the Seekers Council. You may make any statement you see fit. You have the privilege of the Council. Proceed.”

  A pounding began to rise in his chest, but it quieted when he started to speak.

  “I have not come before you, respected Seekers, so much to answer the complaint against me as to ask a question of you and to present the results I have obtained in my Seeking—Seeking which I frankly admit to be in the realm of forbidden Mysteries.”

  A sudden shifting rippled through the Council. Shoulders hunched forward as if they were preparing to leap on him en masse.

  “You admit such?” the Leader asked. His eyebrows raised like a shaggy brush. Ketan thought he looked suddenly disconcerted.

  “I state it. The question I ask is why is the Mystery I have chosen forbidden? What is there that we are afraid of?”

  “Just what is this Mystery you have chosen?” an ingratiating voice came from one end of the table. He turned and recognized Anot, the newest member of the Council, who had performed much applauded Seeking into the structure of the ground beneath Kronweld.

  “It is the Mystery of us—you and I. Why we are here … how we came here—”

  For a wild moment he felt a terrible surge of panic and uncertainty. What was he doing here? How could he ever tell these stonefaced cadavers how he felt at night looking up at the terrifying blankness of the Edge—the surging mystery of the Temple of Birth—the threatening unknown of Dark Land —They had never known the feelings that were locked within him.

  “It is the Mystery of existence, the Mystery of life that I would Seek out—”

  “You are not very clear,” said Leader Hoult.

  “Look, let me show you.”

  Ketan’s exhibits were being rolled into the hall from the rear. He retreated, then pushed forward a rolling table on which some of his plants had been placed. He set up his screen and his projector before them.

  “Why is it that man found no life in Kronweld when he came?” he challenged rhetorically. “Why was Kronweld a barren world, for so many long tara until Igon pierced Fire Land and brought plants— trees and flowers—from Dark Land? Why do we yet have to bring all plants from Dark Land into Kronweld?”

  “Such questions are adequately answered by our religion. Seekers have no concern with such.”

  Ketan turned to face the quiet voiced speaker who addressed him. It was bland-faced Nabah, representative of religion on the Council. For many tara he had struggled for a place on the Council to control and preserve the sacred Mysteries from the prying of too energetic Seekers. Ketan knew that here was a man who would stab him in the back at every turn.

  “The God placed man in Kronweld, and plants in Dark Land. That is the proper province of each. Question not the disposition of the God,” Nabah intoned from his creed.

  “Then man defies the God each time he brings a plant into Kronweld ?”

  The room was still and all eyes were intent upon Ketan and Nabah.

  “Man is the master of all,” the latter said. “It is his privilege to do as he wills with the materials of Dark Land.”

  “Then it is his privilege to open all Mysteries connected with the plants of Dark Land. That is a thing which I have sought—and found. Look.”

  He flashed a drawing on the screen before them. It was a skeleton outline of a flower.

  “This blossom may represent the flower part of all plants, for all of them contain these essential parts in one form or another. We have in the center an elevated stalk with a bulbous form at its base containing small ovules.

  “Surrounding this stalk are numerous small filaments bearing minute grains of powder. When these grains light upon the central stalk of this same flower—or more generally, of the flower of a neighboring plant—the grains pierce the length of the stalk and subsequently unite with the small ovules in the base.”

  “That has been known for many tara,” said Leader Hoult. “Have you nothing new at all to offer?”

  “I have this: Can any of you tell me the purpose of this strange mechanism which is universal among plants in one form or another ?”

  Nabah smiled across to Anot. Members of the Council ill concealed their affected boredom. Leader Hoult said, “You are young, Ketan, and you have as yet learned little of the traditions of Seeking which have been firmly established among the great in Wisdom in Kronweld. There was a time once when it was the proper thing to inquire of every new discovery in nature: ‘What is the purpose of this thing? Why was it formed so?’

  “We have long since ceased to so concern ourselves. We accept the existence of such things and the Wisdom of the God in so forming them, and let it be an end to the matter. It is not Wisdom to pursue Seeking to absurd lengths.”

  ‘“Neither is it Wisdom to cease Seeking while still in the folds of ignorance,” Ketan blazed recklessly. “It is little wonder that no truly great Seekers have been found since the great Igon did his work—and was exiled and nearly slain for it. Seekers since then have been stifled by the traditions that have crusted about our Wisdom. I have broken those traditions and see what I have found!”

  He held up a handful of small seeds. “Within these ovules—into whose purpose you never thought to inquire—is the potential creation of new plants. I have put some of them in moist ground and supplied them with conditions as they are in the Dark Land and this is the result.”

  He swept a hand towards a row of twenty plants, varying systematically in height.

  “These were created one day apart, and each came from one tiny ovule. Respected Seekers, we have in our hands the secret of life itself.”

  A wave of frowning consternation swept through the Council. Someone—Ketan didn’t see who— murmured, “A commendable work, if this thing be true.”

  But Nabah was instantly on his feet. “See how he blasphemes! I call now for his declassing. We cannot have such among the respectful inhabitants of Kronweld.

  There is nothing such a matt would not do. Listen to him: ‘We have in our hands the secret of life itself.’ Next he will propose that we open the Temple of Birth to all Kronweld!”

  It was a shocking, unseemly thing, the way Nabah ranted. And Leader Hoult seemed utterly disinclined to control him. Suddenly, K
etan saw the pattern of the opposition. While there was no actual collusion between them, Hoult was giving Nabah free rein and counting on the nature of the man to sway the Council to condemn Ketan.

  Yet Ketan hesitated in accepting such a picture. It was a poor game, seemingly, that Hoult was playing. The other members had an instinctive dislike for Nabah; they would not be overly inclined to accept his leadership in pronouncing sentence. Either that, or Hoult was so confident that Ketan’s presentation would be so weak it would require no more opposition than Nabah could influence.

  Deetan, one of the elderly women Seekers on the Council, ignored Nabah’s protests. She addressed Ketan with interest. “If this is a natural thing, and the way plants are created in Dark Land, why is it not a common thing in Kronweld? Why must all plants be brought here from Dark Land?”

  Ketan shook his head. “That is yet another Mystery, one on which I have found no Wisdom. Much work remains to be done on the entire matter. I have made but a beginning.”

  Deetan turned to Leader Hoult. “I find nothing that blasphemes the God in this man’s Seeking. I offer my commendations. He has opened a wonderful new field to us.” Leader Hoult nodded. “We shall Seek into the matter further.” Ketan looked at him in astonishment. He saw unmistakably that Hoult Was dismayed by the turn of events. But there was a crafty reserve in his eyes.

  Ketan knew what that reserve was. Hoult was sure Ketan had not finished.

  Should he go on, he wondered. He could stop now with the achievement of having opened the study this far. But he could not stop now. This was only preparation for what was to come. If he stopped here, he would fail.

  ‘‘Have you more to show us?” Hoult leaned forward with feigned interest in the actual work.

  “I have more,” he said. “When Igon first went into Dark Land you remember that men of Kronweld could conceive of no other form of Jiving, moving beings other than themselves. When Igon brought back reports and pictures of the Hors and other creatures of Dark Land his life was sought because of his bold blasphemy.”

  “Those were primitive times, relatively speaking,” remarked Nabah. “You are not likening yourself and your times to that situation, I trust?”