Twenty

Anna was fighting and fighting and fighting.

But she barely realized what she was doing.

All she knew for certain was that she did not want to move-that any action at this time would have the most dreadful consequences-what?-that she was safe only when she was sitting in one place, doing nothing.

Programmed in advance, the plane carried her through the sky without the need for human assistance. Within an hour after leaving Wyoming, the plane landed at the central downtown terminal in San Francisco. Anna disembarked at once. She rushed across the landing strip, raced into the adjoining cafeteria, and bought a mug of coffee. More deliberately, she took a table and tried to control the urge to swallow down the coffee in great burning gulps. She finished the first mug and stood up. She ordered another. Again, she sat, drinking. Slower, she thought to herself. Please-not so fast-slower.

A clock above the counter said: eleven-oh-five.

She drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

Suddenly, a man appeared at her elbow. A stranger. He was sixty or sixty-five with gray hair, gray eyes, and bushy gray brows. He asked:

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"No," she said. "Please-please do."

The man nodded and sat down. His head continued to jerk. He smiled at Anna and said, "Daley. Arthur T. Daley. From the look of me, you wouldn't believe it.

Right?"

She said, "No," and tried to probe his mind. But then she remembered that she couldn't do that any more.

"And I bet you can't guess what I am?"

"No," she admitted. "I can't."

He gave a sharp nod. "I'm a mechanic. Believe that. One of the best in the world.

There are only a few like me left, don't you know. Work is scarce. But a few people-the very rich-they still like to see a pair of flesh-and-blood hands poking around their cars and planes and boats and gadgets. My son went to college. He wasn't going to be- (the man sobbed aloud)-a mechanic, a bum."

"Is it something to do with your son?" Anna was struggling not to finish the coffee. She wanted this man to keep on talking forever. Her eyes kept darting-without conscious volition-to the clock.

"It's him," the man said. He spoke in very loud tones, as if he could not trust a milder voice to convey his message. Everyone else in the room-it was quite crowded-was aware of his presence. Anna scratched her head viciously, as if the itch she felt emanated from beneath the scalp rather than on top.

Hastily, she asked, "What do you mean?"

"The army. They got him. My boy. Do you have any idea how that makes a person feel? On my way home tonight, I looked at the headlines. I don't usually pay much attention to the news, so I didn't know. I mean, yes, I'd heard, but you're always hearing about trouble in the world. This time, though, it's for real. They're going to fight. They're going to try to kill my son."

"Perhaps," she said.

The man did not seem to hear her. "So that's why I went and got like this. I don't care what I do now. This could be the last night of the world. A man has to do something."

"I know."

"It's all been known beforehand. Have you ever read the Bible? The Book of the Apocalypse? This is it. It was written down beforehand."

"I don't believe in that," she said.

"Oh, but you should." The man shook his head pityingly. Anna couldn't remember his name. He gave her a deep, searching look. "A person has to believe in something. If you don't, what have you got to live for? We all need help: you and me, my boy." He waved a hand, indicating the inclusion of the rest of the world. "Who's going to give it?"

Anna started to be honest and shake her head no but then she remembered. Yes.

"There is a man," she said, softly. "A person, I mean."

The man shook his head. "There can't be."

"Yes-I know him. I tell you, I do."

"You're lying!" The man reached over and clamped his hand viciously down on hers.

"Tell me you are!"

She shook her head. "He is my husband." Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Alec Richmond."

"I've never-"

Her feet kept trying to move toward the door. In her mind, she kept seeing a sign, which said:

THEODORE MENCKEN

Agent

She had to find it-now!

She sprang to her feet and stood frozen for a moment, her head turning frantically, searching for an exit. Then she saw the door and, ignoring the man's heated protests, turned and ran. But he wasn't about to let her go. He came rushing after her. The eyes of everyone else swiveled to follow their progress.

He caught her at the door.

Holding her elbow, he shouted: "Tell me! How can he help us?" His eyes rilled with tears. "Please."

"Androids," she said. "Don't you know? They're going to do all the fighting for us. Your son-he won't have to die."

"I know that," he said, bitterly disappointed.

"You do?"

"It was on the news. Everyone knows that. So what? They'll kill all the androids-and then it'll be my son's turn." He let go of her arm

.

So it wasn't true. Alec couldn't help anyone. He was useless-a monster.

She turned and ran outside. The man did not attempt to stop her this time. He was weeping into his hands.

A public walkway ran past the front steps of the terminal. Anna leaped aboard. In spite of the lateness of the hour, the walkway was jammed. She tried to find herself.

Where was she heading? People of all types and kinds blocked her view. Not just the usual midnight downtown scum-respectable people too. Well-dressed. As many women as men. Small children. No one seemed to be talking. At least, Anna could hear nothing. She noticed a high building and thought she recognized it. Another high tower. A billboard. The nightly headlines streamed here. In spite of herself, she read the words: "WAR... MOBILIZATION... WARNING... THREAT... ANDROIDS...

ATTACK..."

Everyone knew. Alec couldn't help anyone. What had caused her to think he could?

In her mind, a single image dominated. A long dim corridor. A motionless walkway. Then a door. A sign. The words:

THEODORE MENCKEN

Agent

Again and again, as the walkway carried her into the night, she saw this sign.

There was no way she could block it out. Nothing else seemed to matter. The words, over and over, were driving her mad. Suddenly, she realized that this was what had been bothering her all night. The itching inside her skull. She had to find that sign.

When she saw it-really saw it with her own eyes-when she passed beyond it-then she could relax; she would be set free.

With a start, she realized she was riding in the wrong direction. She cried out, attracting stares. The walkway was carrying her along the edge of the waterfront, down toward the Marina, away from the towering downtown skyscrapers. The sign was back the other way. She had to find it.

She was maneuvering desperately, trying to find a means of escape, when she saw a cloverleaf ahead. She moved through it carefully, following the signs, and when she emerged from the scramble, she was turned in the right direction. She laughed at her victory. Any moment now. She bit her hand to keep from screaming.

Someone beside her reached out and grabbed her hand.

She turned to look. A young man-good-looking in a well-scrubbed way. But she didn't know him.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, leaning close in spite of the silence around them. He pointed at her fist between her teeth. "I thought-"

She removed the hand and said, quickly, "Thank you- I'm fine."

"But aren't you Anna Richmond?"

"I am," she said, after a moment's consideration.

His smile glowed. "I've always admired your tapes tremendously." He laughed hollowly. "Isn't it funny I'd meet you tonight-of all nights?" Then, in an entirely different tone: "Tonight must be the worst night ever."

Anna was barely hearing him. She had managed to reach the farthermost lane of the walkway where she could watch the streets and buildings as they passed. She was looking for the right place to exit. She could see the sign as clearly as if it were an inch in front of her face. "What is?" she asked, vaguely.

"I mean this war."

"Why? Don't you want it? Don't you think it's necessary?" For some reason, she thought everyone felt this way.

He laughed and held her arm tightly. "I know you're just testing me. I think the whole thing is crazy. Us and them-it would be so easy to live together."

"Would it?"

"Of course. They hate us because we're rich. We hate them because they hate us and because there are more of them than us. So the solution-I told you it was easy-is to spread the wealth around, share it. If everyone is equal, then no one has any reason to hate."

"But everyone isn't equal," she insisted.

"I meant materially."

"But that's just a symptom. It isn't a cause." Where had she heard these words before?

She sensed they were not her own. Oh, yes-Alec. Alec Richmond.

"I think it's worth trying. Anything new is worth trying."

"What's new about it? What about communism? That didn't work."

"Communism was a lie. Anyway, it was based on false premises. Marx...."

She let him run on. Since the words weren't hers, she saw no reason to defend them. His sincerity dazzled her. Suddenly, she heard herself saying-these words were not her own either: "I love it. War. The bombing. Shooting. Fighting. I think war is the perfect metaphor for human life." Maybe she was wrong-maybe these words were hers.

She could tell she had shocked him. But wasn't that the idea? The one thing she didn't need tonight was an admirer.

"But your tapes," he said. "I've seen them all. You can't feel that way."

"But I do."

"The tapes-"

"I was hungry."

"But you're rich. Your family-"

"A person can be hungry for a lot of things besides food. Admiration. Respect.

Status. Maybe I just wanted to prove that I was as human as anyone else."

"But I could tell-I felt that you-"

He was not the right person to tell. Who was? Except Alec? She recognized that building there. Yes. It was the one that contained the sign.

But she did not get off the walkway. Darting ahead, she slipped between bodies, escaping the young man. The walkway carried her away. The building faded behind.

She rode for hours. Once more, she was fighting and fighting and fighting.

Again, she was barely aware of what she was doing.

But-at last-she couldn't resist. The sign drew her onward. She looked up. The building loomed above her. She had arrived.

She sensed it was too late now for anything but moving ahead. She entered the building. The lobby was dark and empty. She found an elevator, entered, and allowed it to carry her up.

Then it was her dream all over again. She saw the dim corridor. The motionless walkway. She moved ahead. In the pocket of her suit, she felt the slick plastic handle of the gun. It was a beam weapon. She placed her finger around the trigger. It was almost time now. She would knock. He would tell her to come in. And then... then...

She turned and faced the door. The sign read:

THEODORE MENCKEN

Agent

The sight-so familiar-made her want to laugh. Raising a fist, she stifled the urge.

She removed the gun from her pocket. She pointed the barrel straight at the door.

Then she knocked-firmly.

But no one answered.

Gently, she called: "Alec? Can you hear me? Open the door. It's me-it's Anna."

Still, no answer.

She touched the knob. It turned easily and then-unexpectedly-the door popped open. Beyond, a small room was filled with yellow light.

She stepped inside and closed the door.

"Alec?"

Where was he? She searched the first room carefully, then went into the second.

Nothing here either. No people.

Once more: "Alec?"

Then she went ahead, opened the last door, peered into the last room. The light was on here too.

She saw the body lying on the floor.

At first she thought it was Alec. She had killed him and then forgotten all about it and come a second time. Wasn't that funny? Or maybe this was a dream. She was being forced to relive the act again and again. This was her punishment. They were never going to let her wake up.

Then, stepping closer to the body, she realized it couldn't be Alec. It was a woman.

She turned the body over and looked at the face.

At first, she didn't know. It wasn't herself. Who was it? Recognition came slowly.

She remembered a tall, tall building. An outside elevator made of glass. Eathen.

Oh, oh, oh, yes. Sylvia Mencken. She had a gaping hole in the center of her forehead. And she was dead.

Anna, kneeling beside the body, cradled the unused gun in her lap and rocked on her heels. She began to sing: "Sylvia-poor Sylvia-dead Sylvia-poor, lousy, dead, dead, dead..."

She started to laugh.

It wasn't so bad. Hey, her head didn't itch any more. She had passed the sign and now she was free. Alec was saved. Nobody was going to kill her any more.

She did laugh.

Then, suddenly, her body jerked stiff. She sprang to her feet, balancing on the tips of her toes like a dancer. She threw her hands high in the air. She screamed. She fell over.

On her back, she shook, trembled, twitched. She was fighting and fighting and fighting. He had promised. He had told her. The sign... the sign... the sign.... She had passed it.

Someone was laughing.

It was useless. She fought and fought and fought.

She lost.

Standing, no longer shaking, she reached down carefully and retrieved the beam gun. She placed the weapon gently into her pocket. Then she turned and went obe-diently toward the door.

She passed into the second room. Then the first.

Within her mind, a single image dominated everything. There was no room for other thoughts; resistance was inconceivable. A big house set high on a hill. Dawn.

An eerie orange glow spreading across the surrounding countryside. The house was shaped like a square doughnut. At its center, not a hole-a plush green garden.

She had to go here. She had to enter that garden and then she would be free.

A man stood in the center of the garden. A narrow stream, flowing briefly. A high arched wooden bridge.

"Alec," she whispered. "Alec-I'm coming."

She stepped out into the dim and silent corridor and went to find the elevator.

Twenty-One

With the faint first light of dawn streaming across the naked flesh of his back, Alec Richmond sat on a bare strip of grass in his garden and sipped orange juice through a straw. Long ago, Alec had removed the glass dome from over the garden, preferring the natural light and heat of sun and moon and stars to their more demure and artificial replicas. Because of this, many of the more exotic varieties of foliage in the garden were now wilted, dead, or dying. Only the sturdy, experienced, native American varieties had managed painlessly to withstand the casual poisons which lurked within the local atmosphere, remnants for the most part from those ugly years before the human race had been forced to learn-however dimly- that nature could kill men as easily as men could attempt to kill nature.

He had chosen this open space deliberately because it was one of the few places in the garden that did not make him think of Anna. She had always liked trees and bushes, running water and high bridges. There was nothing like that here: just grass, a few decaying plants, maybe a worm or two.

He crossed his legs beneath him and continued to sip. The house was far enough distant so that if the phone in the living room decided to ring he could easily pretend not to hear it. He had already disconnected the garden extensions. He felt good now, clean, able to luxuriate in a degree of privacy he had not known in years and years, if ever.

It was a shame he had promised the general his new android model so soon. It must be well past six o'clock by now. Soon enough-probably before seven-his failure to appear with the promised designs would seem suspicious. They would try to call him-first at the office and finally here at home. By eight, their patience should be exhausted. He set eight-thirty as the likely time for them to reach the office. Before nine, they would reach him here.

But that still gave him three hours alone. And the war might well delay them too.

As soon as he stepped through the front door, the tridee screen in the living room-which neither he nor Anna ever watched-had automatically blossomed into life, revealing a dull man who spoke with an unemotive voice. War had been declared.

Hostilities had commenced. And on and on and on.

Removing the poker from its place on the fireplace hearth, Alec had driven the end straight through the tridee screen, coolly destroying-in a flash of sparks, a buzz of shorted wires-both the man and his voice.

From there, he had gone directly to the garden.

Alone. Three hours. Less now. What to do, what to do? How should he spend these final few hours? Should he simply sit and sulk and mourn for Sylvia? Or should he be more active: sit and curse and spit hatred at Cargill? Or what about Anna? He had barely given her a thought, despite Cargill's warning that she might be in great danger.

How lucky Anna was.

She had been permitted to meet and know her own father. If he happened to be-as Cargill asserted-something ugly and despicable, a monster who would calmly squash her underfoot without a second thought-well, that was really irrelevant; what mattered was that he was still her father.

What about his own?

At the government home, when Alec turned thirteen, the director, Mr. Eliot, had called him in-it was official procedure-and congratulated him on his birthday. Then, reading from what appeared to be-from the rear-an official state document, Mr. Eliot began to discuss Alec's own father. He had been, said Mr. Eliot, a mechanic and for years had worked on his own, repairing broken machinery, tending to the maintenance of cars and planes and other devices and gadgets. All of this was recorded (or so Mr. Eliot claimed) in the official state document. But the need for human mechanics was fast disappearing; machines could fix other machines far more efficiently than any pair of human hands. The profession moved toward obsolescence-it would soon be as unnecessary as ditch-diggers, bootleggers, or Indian scouts. So Alec's father had been forced to move farther and farther away from his real enemy-civilization. Eventually, in a cold corner of Alaska, he had met and married Alec's mother, who had soon died while giving birth under very primitive conditions to Alec. But, even here, work was scarce. Soon, there was not nearly enough to support a man and his son. Alec's father had been faced with a decision: he must choose between his work and his son. He could remain where he was-in the civilized world-and risk starvation. Or he could emigrate-to any primitive nation-and find his services well-required and his belly quite full. He would not be permitted, of course, to take his child with him if he left the civilized world; the law required the boy to enter a home.

"But," Alec had asked Mr. Eliot, unable to restrain himself despite the fear he felt for this man, "why didn't he retrain? Wouldn't they let him?"

They would but-he saw no other alternative-Mr. Eliot would cover this point quite bluntly. The fact was that Alec's father had refused retraining. The only open professions at that time-and the situation was little different today-were artistic and electronic. Alec's father had no interest in or knowledge of the arts, and he further rejected official denials that any such interest or knowledge was necessary. No. And, as far as electronics was concerned, he flatly refused that too. He didn't mind fixing machines-he loved the work in fact-but he wouldn't work any closer with them. It was a point of personal pride. In any man-machine relationship, Alec's father believed, one party must dominate-and he felt it had to be- and ought to be-the man. Perhaps this view was obsolete. He didn't know. But it was his view, and it meant enough to him that he was willing to sacrifice his son and leave his homeland forever.

"Where did he go?" Alec asked, boldly.

"Africa," said Mr. Eliot, peering over the edge of the official document.

"Senegal. But-I warn you-don't try looking for him when you leave this home. You will be sorry-very sorry. You won't find him. He won't be there."

Alec had accepted this advice. For some reason he had known as soon as Mr.

Eliot spoke that it was true. Anna had acted otherwise.

And she had been the one to win.

After that, Mr. Eliot had shown him the tridee photograph. A middle-aged man-but tall, strong, smiling. A black beard. Blue shirt and blue jeans. "This is your father," Mr. Eliot had explained, "the way he looked the day he left you with us. Don't expect him to be that way now."

"Yes, sir," Alec had said.

And was he? In other words, which picture was true? The one shown him by Mr.

Eliot-or the other, the Cargill version? Man or monster? Mechanic or superman? Callous killer or loving father?

Or both?

Alec crossed the open grass and crouched beside a budding flower. Was it any different from this? Bending way down, he placed his nose close to the tiny red blossom and he sniffed.

There were two worlds. In one, this flower was a collection of molecules, capable of being broken down into its component particles. More importantly, it could be explained. The fragrance, the shape, the color-all of this could be explained.

But in the other world-a place where things existed in the form they ought to possess-this same flower was only an object of rare and unique beauty, a divine creation of color and scent, form and structure and feeling. Two worlds-and they could not be merged. One must accept either one or the other. The world of science-the world of poetry. The way things were-or the way things ought to be. In the past, Alec had tried to combine the two. He had created life through science, but the thing which had emerged in the end (the android soldiers) had been all science and no life-no poetry.

Or take Ah Tran-the new messiah-another presumptuous advocate of fusion: the poetry of compassionate mysticism and the science of natural ecology. It wouldn't work. It could not be done. One or the other-never both.

Bending down, Alec plucked the flower and held it lightly between his fingers.

He made his choice: poetry. He did not want a world where things could be explained. He wanted a place where everything-flowers, androids, gods, fathers-existed in the form they ought rightly to possess.

Anna's failure to know and decide had driven her mad. That was her own fault, but his too. When he first met her, he now recalled how impressed he had been-glancing into her mind-by the depth of knowledge and wisdom she possessed. To have these qualities close at hand on a more or less permanent basis, he had married her.

Well, that was another mistake-a failure to choose. Love, marriage, romance-the stuff of poetry-undertaken for reasons of curiosity and study-science again. The marriage had failed. What else?

He wished he could see her now. Anna. If nothing else, he could at least explain the truth to her. None of them had given him the time. From every conceivable side, they had hemmed him in. Astor, the Inner Circle, Cargill, Sylvia, Anna, General Hopkins. If only they had allowed him to think-he would have seen the truth before it was too late.

They would, of course, be coming soon. He would not be permitted to remain free for long but, if nothing else, he had found the time to see the truth and that was something they would never be able to take away from him.

An enormous bang cracked the silent sky. He laughed. Sonic boom. Rocketplane.

War.

If nothing else, the generals and admirals-wittingly or not-had finally seen the truth. In the past, they had tried to make of war a thing of fusion-another hybrid of science and poetry. On the one hand, the genuine glory of battle-the expressions of daring and real courage-love and self-sacrifice-patriotism and ideals-the poetry of both victory and defeat. On the other hand were the creations of science: the weapons that grew progressively more powerful-from sticks and stones to hydrogen bombs.

Science came to supersede poetry. Men were no longer necessary in order to wage a war. And now, at last, android soldiers. There would be no glory in this new war-no courage or love or self-sacrifice. It was science's war-quick, clean, efficient. And meaningless.

Enough. Alec stood up. His thoughts had come full circle. They would be coming soon enough and, when they did, he would simply tell them: I am through.

No more vain attempts to merge what did not belong together. No more android soldiers. Let them accuse him of murdering Sylvia-he had no idea what Cargill intended to tell them-and he would not demur. A cell. Quiet. Tranquil. Not just prisoners but monks-mystics-often lived in cells. Peace. The perfect domain for someone who now fully accepted the existence of a world where things existed only in their most perfect and inexplicable states.

He had made up his mind. He turned toward the house. As soon as he did, he saw her. She came close to him. Raising a tentative hand in welcome, he said:

"Anna."

Then she fired.

A beam gun!

He cried out. The first burst exploded at his feet, digging a hole a meter deep in the soft ground. He looked down at this gaping pit, unable to comprehend the fact of murder, then lifted his gaze and met her eyes. The gun was clenched in her fist.

He stepped forward. "Anna, no, I-"

He saw her finger tighten around the trigger. Her face and eyes-her lips-were expressionless.

She fired again.

If he hadn't fallen aside at the last possible moment, the beam would have cut him in half. Instead, it struck the thick trunk of a tree behind him. The tree toppled neatly over backward and burst into flames.

'Anna!" he cried, looking up at her. He crawled forward. If only he could tell her-force her to understand. "Please-I must-I-"

Once more, she fired.

The beam dug a furrow through the earth, cutting as straight as a plow, barely brushing the extended fingertips of his left hand. Flowers, shrubs, bushes, small trees blazed with fire. He screamed and shook his left hand. There was no real pain. He looked at the fingers: the tips were gone, neatly and cleanly amputated.

He screamed and staggered to his feet. "I'm hit!" The next burst of fire was inches away. He stared at the pit and then, holding his wounded hand in his good fist, turned and ran back toward the garden. He went only a few yards. A wall of fire stopped him. The flames leaped high into the air. There had to be a way around but-He turned and faced his wife. "No!"

She came toward him. The flames beat at his bare back, but he could not move.

Anna held the gun steadily in front of her. He was screaming, shaking his arms, showing her his wound, but unable to express the truth he knew so clearly.

She was three yards away. Two. He fell silent, not moving, studying her feet. Her mind was dead. She radiated nothing. What was she? An automaton? An android? A product of pure science-devoid of thought, feeling, love? His wife? Anna?

Alec closed his eyes, waiting for the end.

But it never came.

He fainted.

Time must have passed. He was lying on the ground. He felt the fire on his bare flesh. He opened his eyes and peeked but Anna wasn't anywhere.

Instead, it was Cargill who crouched beside him. Cargill shouted: "Hurry! The fire! We've got to get out of here!"

Alec could see the flames darting through the tops of the trees, spreading toward the house. The air was filled with smoke. He could barely breathe. Cargill helped him to his feet. Together, they ran toward the house.

It wasn't until he reached the living room-dense with smoke-that Alec refused to go any farther.

"Anna!" he cried, gesturing toward the garden. "She was there! She was-!" He started to turn back.

Cargill reached out and grabbed him. "Anna's dead." He tugged at Alec's sleeve.

"No!" Alec shook away. "I didn't see her! She must be-!"

"She's dead!" Cargill cried. The fire had reached the roof now. Suddenly, part of the ceiling collapsed, spraying them both with plaster. Ghostlike, Cargill stuck out a pale hand and grabbed Alec by the shoulder: "Hurry!" he cried.

This time, Alec did not resist. Together, they stumbled toward the door. Cargill kicked it open. They went out. Coughing, weaving, they went down the winding pathway. Neither stopped until they had passed out of direct sight of the house.

Then Alec fell to the ground and lay there, gasping and heaving. A cloud of smoke rose into the air, forming thick black clouds.

Alec reached up and touched the top of his head. Something hurt. He felt a smooth round bump-and blood.

He looked at Cargill, who was sitting calmly in the grass, as if nothing had happened. When Cargill did not speak, Alec began to swear at him.

"You did it!" he cried. "You killed her!"

Twenty-Two

As soon as the android appeared, the circle formed quickly around him. Twenty-five men and women in a small, white, bare room. Ah Tran sat with his legs crossed underneath him, no different from the other two dozen. He placed himself demurely between two lumpy, plain-faced young women. Recent converts. Sisters. Father as rich as Midas. He bowed his head. He focused his gaze on the floor. His expression was determinedly blank.

The android stood alone in the center of the circle. Tall-though not exceptionally.

Palefaced. Wiry black hair. The android was the sort of person, physically, who might result if all the world's population were mixed in one big vat and from this brew a typical man were created. The android was that man. Typical-average-common. Ah Tran despised his very existence here.

But, right this moment, the android-Eathen-Arthur---was the single most important person in the whole world.

Even if he wasn't a person, Ah Tran thought.

He began to mumble. The others hastily joined in. The android sat down, nodding at the others. For the most part, the disciples were rigidly similar: young, white, handsome, slim, respectable. Of the twenty-four, nine were men and the rest were women. All were equally respectable-at least their parents were. And rich too, of course. The disciples had their faces scrubbed clean- their teeth glistened. What they were-Ah Tran had often searched for the one right term before deciding upon this one-they were dilettantes-amateurs. When Ah Tran called, none had seen any reason not to come running at once. Religious feeling was a thing nowadays limited to the rich. Not faith or acceptance or conviction, but real feeling. None of this was to say that the disciples were not in earnest. They were deadly serious-they believed in Ah Tran as the new messiah. Had he told them to kill, he thought they would have acted at once. But that wasn't what he asked. Instead, he asked each of them to do this: to sit in a circle and surrender his identity, to allow that identity to merge with those of the others until a fused whole was created which would then-through a conduit-be sent spiraling upward toward the heavens. He asked them to do this-and each said yes.

It was happening already. Experience and practice made the impossible seem easy. He sensed the gestalt forming around him. He remained deliberately outside, laboring at the edges of the growing mass, exuding a careful aura of total contentment and serenity, working to weld the temporary fusion of spirits into a secure and final whole which could then be sent forward to take possession of the waiting void of the conduit.

The strain of not acting was immense. At the previous sessions, Ah Tran had always acted as the conduit. As such, he had always ensured that the gestalt was properly fused before allowing it to enter and obliterate his own consciousness. But he had told the android not to try that. He had instructed him to commence his own process of obliteration, to create his own void. The android had done so. Where he sat, there was nothing but the vacant husk of his own body. When he thought in these terms, Ah Tran had to resist the impulse to laugh. Gestalt, conduit, fusion of spirits-it was all the old spiritualist mumbo-jumbo that he thought he had taken over for the simple expedient of getting rich. Well, he was rich, but there was something else besides: the mumbo-jumbo-at least this part of it---happened to work.

So he didn't laugh.

It wasn't telepathy. He didn't believe in that. But he did believe-the evidence forced him to believe-that separate human minds could merge and that these minds, in unison, were far more powerful than any two minds in isolation. There would be twenty-four minds working here. Ah Tran wasn't ignorant. He knew that many past psychologists had theorized the existence of a unified racial consciousness that existed above and apart from individual memory or awareness. So why couldn't-this was his own theory-that racial consciousness be reformed, welded together, and repaired, and then sent upward into the non-spatial domain which was its proper dwelling place? In the Orient, meditation had long been accepted as the proper technique for achieving salvation, so Ah Tran- when he formed his movement-had of course adopted it as an integral part of his new gospel. But the Eastern mystics were wrong. They practiced meditation as a means by which the ego could be momentarily obliterated. What they failed to recognize was that this was only a first step.

Ego-death was only another means, it was not an end in itself. Obliterate the ego-yes-but do not stop there, continue on, discover the mass racial wholeness that lies just beyond the next horizon. Ah Tran had done that. Accidentally, it was true. But he had done it and now he knew.

The fusion continued. Ah Tran felt its presence in an almost physical way. It was the mass racial mind of twenty-four-so far twenty-three but he would be joining them shortly-separate individuals.

But it was the third step-the one following meditation and ego-death-which had so far eluded them: transcendence, the passing of the fused gestalt into its higher and proper realm of existence.

Ah Tran looked briefly at the android. What he saw shocked him. The slackness of the android's expression, the ghostly paleness of his flesh, the stillness of his breathing, the absence of tension in his muscles. This man, Ah Tran thought fearfully, though only for a moment, is dead.

But no. The android was not dead. At least, not in any physical sense. He was not even a man-he was a flesh and blood machine-and, as such, was proving, as Ah Tran and Cargill had hoped, to be the perfect conduit. Ego-death would be simple for him: killing a child was always a simpler process than slaying an adult man.

Around the circle, the others were ready too. Ah Tran sensed that it was time.

Close. Very close. He could feel them-no, it- waiting for him to come.

But he hesitated. Could the android be expected to bear the strain? In the past Ah Tran had willingly risked his own life and sanity, but now he was demanding that another-an innocent-take these same risks. Did he have that right? His doubts, previously stifled, rose in tremendous unity.

But he had to decide yes. Not yes, he had that right, but rather yes, it was necessary. Outside these peaceful walls, the future existence of the human race was threatened. It sounded like a line from a creaky old melodrama, but if life could sometimes be seen to follow art, why not melodrama too? Besides, the android wasn't human. What God

gave, God could take away; what man (as God) gave, he could also take away.

Wasn't that logical? Didn't that make strict sense? Ah Tran shut his eyes. He leaned easily back. He made his mind an utter blank. I am no one. Ah Tran is gone. I am not he. I am no one, not any one, he is dead...

And when Ah Tran was gone-the spirit which had once been his merged with the fused mass of the gestalt-then the entirety of the twenty-four could finally rush forward to enter and consume the empty vessel which had once been Eathen.

After that-for a moment that seemed to stretch endlessly-utter silence dominated the tiny room. Twenty-five empty bodies sitting motionlessly, as if all life had been drained from them. Nothing moved, breathed, thought, spoke.

Then-at the center of the circle-Eathen screamed.

A moment afterward, he let go a second dreadful cry. The muscles in his arms and legs and chest tightened. He sprang to his feet. He clawed at the top of his skull.

He howled. Wailed.

Finally, he fell over. To his knees. Hands clenched in front of his chest. Fingers interwoven. A brief, fleeting expression of horror passed across his face. Then he fell over on his face and, after that, didn't move.

Ah Tran was the first of the circle to awake. Seeing Eathen, he rushed forward and knelt down. He turned Eathen over on his back. Leaning down, Ah Tran seemed to be kissing the android. Actually, he was trying to force the air from his own lungs down Eathen's throat. As he labored, the others also awoke and came forward, gathering in a circle to watch the attempted resurrection. When Ah Tran breathed, Eathen's chest expanded. When Ah Tran backed off to rest, nothing happened.

A minute passed.

Two minutes.

One of the disciples-a young, thin, handsome girl-broke the silence: "He's dead."

"No," said another. "Ah Tran will save him."

"It's been too long," the girl insisted. "I took a class once. His brain is damaged.

Even if-"

"He's an android. He doesn't have a brain."

Another, speaking in a voice filled with uncertain awe, said, "Didn't you feel that-that thing up there?"

"I did, yes."

"Me too."

"Yes."

"I think all of us did."

Ah Tran continued to force air down Eathen's throat, into his lungs, heart, bloodstream.

"It was like-I can't explain it. I don't remember." She shook her head.

"I do." This was the first girl-the one who believed that Eathen was dead. She spread two fingers minutely and showed them to the others. "We were this close. To that place. We were floating up."

"We were going to make it," said another.

"I saw the White Light."

"Oh, that's silly superstition."

"I saw something."

"We were going."

"Yes. Oh, yes."

"But then something-I don't know-that-that thing. It stopped us."

"Something lives up there."

"It came down and stopped us. The pain was awful. It was like hurting without being hurt. The pain was all inside."

"And-" the girl pointed at Eathen "-it killed him."

Ah Tran drew away. He leaned back on his haunches and wiped the sweat off his face. He peered down at poor dead Eathen and wondered if death for an android was the same as death for a man. Of course, there was no way of knowing for sure; he had no idea. But he did find it hard to accept that androids might have souls. Wouldn't death for one of them have to have the same insignificance as death for a car or plane-any gadget or machine-not death but merely cessation, a blackness, the end? But Eathen had never been a machine. Ah Tran, who had known him, knew better than that. Eathen had been as close to a man as any creature could possibly come without actually being a man, and maybe that last wasn't true: maybe-by the end-Eathen had indeed become a man. Who could say? Did he have a soul? How was Ah Tran supposed to know that? He was dead-that was all-but the meaning of that death would long remain a veiled mystery.

He stood up.

The girl asked him: "Is he dead?"

Ah Tran said, "Yes."

One of the young men asked, "What was that thing we felt up there? Did you feel it too?"

"I did."

"But you don't know what it was?"

"I know."

"Can we kill it? Or go around it? Does it live up there? Does it mean we'll never make it?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, tell us what it is," another broke in. "We have a right to know."

"No, you don't," Ah Tran said. He hurried toward the door without another word.

Nobody tried to stop him or follow. He went into the room that served as his bedroom, locked both connecting doors, then lay down on the bed. He knew he ought to call Cargill; he should have done it as soon as he woke without wasting time trying to play messiah and bring back to life a man-or android-who was already thoroughly and irrevocably dead.

But he knew what it was that had stopped them up there. He even knew its name.

It was Karlton Ford.

But, still, he did not get up to call.

Twenty-Three

As soon as the plane safely reached a straight and level course above the clouds, Alec turned in his seat and faced the pilot, who sat hunched behind the wheel, eyes rigidly-focused upon the thick glass of the forward windshield. Alec had to tap him gently on the shoulder to attract his attention.

Cargill turned and smiled at Alec.

"I have a right to know what's going on," Alec said.

"Eh?" said Cargill. He cupped his ear and grimaced painfully. "I didn't catch that." He turned back and faced the windshield.

The plane was a classic, battered, twin-engined jet. The noise of the engines thundered through the tiny cramped cockpit.

Alec shouted: "I want to know what happened back there! At the house! If you didn't kill her, who did?"

"Weren't you there?" Cargill was shouting too. "At the house, I mean." He smiled, then shook his head to indicate his confusion. "I was sure you-"

"Now wait a-" Alec began.

Cargill waved him silent. The small viewscreen in the center of the plane's control panel was flashing in a brilliant display of rainbow colors. Cargill reached out and removed the phone. The viewscreen failed to clear. Cargill began to talk, barely whispering. From what little Alec could overhear, they were being ordered to land immediately.

Turning in his seat, Alec looked outside. Beneath lay a soft, plush, unbroken layer of lazy white clouds. They had left the ground flying east but he had no way of knowing where they were going now. North, south, east, west- didn't you always end up at the same place in the end? The Earth, after all, was a globe and that meant-He turned back. Cargill, apparently involved in a fierce dispute, was waving his arms angrily as he talked. The plane dipped and swayed as his attention wavered. The whole situation was very strange. Here Alec was-up above the clouds-going he didn't know where-and the funny thing was he couldn't ever recall agreeing to come.

He remembered the drive-in an old diesel car-to the air terminal in Berkeley. He remembered Cargill leading him toward the plane. He recollected an angry debate before they had been granted permission to take-off. All of that was clear; what wasn't clear was why.

Alec heard a click. Cargill had replaced the phone and was now chuckling softly to himself.

"Now what?" Alec asked, remembering to shout.

But Cargill, when he replied, spoke in a normal conversational tone. It irritated Alec to find he could easily hear every word quite clearly: "A fool. Wanted me to land. Because of the war, they seem to feel they now own the air itself. Fortunately, as was the case in Berkeley, my credentials managed to convince them of my legitimacy."

"In other words, you lied to them."

"Hardly. I merely insisted my business was urgent. Which it certainly is. I merely hope the various bodies we have left scattered around remain undiscovered until we have landed. I would hate to be shot out of the sky."

"Then you better get a parachute," Alec advised. "They're sure to find Sylvia."

He explained about the android project and his deadline.

Cargill chuckled again. "Oh, that's no problem. Before speeding to your home, I contacted your general-an acquaintance of mine, incidentally-and informed him you were a traitor."

"That was nice of you."

"I suggested he send a squad of investigators to a certain place in Oregon. I told him that was your suspected hideout. Fortunately, I have visited the area in the past and can vouch for the presence of a cabin there. A refuge, in fact, from certain cares of the world." He smiled in recollection.

"And he believed that story?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"No, I don't.”

"Well, frankly, my integrity has never been questioned before."

"No, but---"

"And I do not care to have it questioned now." Cargill suddenly found something of extreme interest down among the clouds. He leaned over in his seat, staring out his window. Alec looked out too, but could see nothing beyond the unbroken layer of white clouds. As usual, Cargill's thoughts were under stern control and nothing peeped out.

When Alec turned back, Cargill was regarding him with an amused grin.

"About Anna..." Alec began.

"Fifteen minutes," Cargill said. He glanced down at the controls. "Twenty at the most."

"I didn't ask-"

"Ah Tran is particularly eager to meet you."

"Who? That crackpot? Look here, is this-"

"Of course it isn't."

"Well---"

"Look," Cargill said, waving at the interior of the plane. "Perhaps I'm wrong. But you are here, aren't you?"

"Not by choice."

"Oh, I see. You're accusing me of kidnapping."

"No, of course not. But you did-"

"Coercion? What kind? Physical? Mental? Spiritual?"

"No, none of that. But I-"

"Then I really don't think-" Cargill assumed a pained, hurt expression "-you ought to imply otherwise."

"But I didn't."

"First," Cargill went on, "you demand to know the truth. Then you tell me to shut up. Well, you can't have it both ways, Alec. Which is it?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then I suggest you listen." But instead of going on, Cargill turned and faced the window and looked out, humming softly to himself.

Infuriated, Alec decided simply to sit and wait. When Cargill wanted to talk, he would. Until then, patience would have to serve. Cargill could deliver him over to Ah Tran or any other messiah of his choice but that didn't mean he would cooperate. And he didn't intend to. He knew his own version of the truth, and that would have to serve him for now.

"I think we can beat them," Cargill said.

"What?"

Cargill shrugged and recommenced his melodic humming. Again, Alec restrained himself and was patient.

Finally, Cargill said, "I told you the truth before."

"Which time was that?" Alec asked, sarcastically.

"When I said I didn't kill her. She deserves more credit than that."

"If you didn't, who did? It wasn't me. I was out cold."

"I know. I knocked you out."

Cargill fell silent, either lost in thought or else pretending to be. The impenetrable density of his radiations did not change. Alec tried to remain patient but he couldn't do it any longer.

"Well," he said. "Which is it? Either you're going to tell me about Anna or you're not."

"I wish I could."

"What's stopping you."

Cargill glanced at the control panel, then shrugged. "Oh, nothing, I guess. But you must remember that I'm not a young man and, frankly, without going into details, women have long played a central role in my life. I have always attempted to know and, if and when possible, understand and sympathize with their race. It's hardly a simple process. Greater men than myself-I think of Tolstoy, Max Ophuls, Ibsen, Sternberg, Henry James-have tried and failed. Women are-to me-to us-an alien species. One might even say-with only a hint of facetious-ness-that women were our first true supermen. I hope I'm not being patronizing when I say that I believe women-at their best-to possess all the worthier characteristics of men, plus several others that none of us will ever know. The point of all this-why I dare to bore you- is, of course, Anna. I want you to realize the significance of this remark: of all the women I have ever known or studied, she is the one I admire most."

"But you killed her."

"No," Cargill said. "I did not. I moved her body into the path of the flames in order to ensure that she received a fitting funeral. When I did that, she was already dead."

"That's impossible. Don't tell me there was someone else there."

"No."

"Well, then-"

For the first time, Cargill's radiations reached Alec clearly: anger.

"She killed herself, you idiot."

"Oh."

"I received a report that she had reached the city but, because of this stupid war and my visit to your office, it was delayed reaching me. Nevertheless, I rushed to your home immediately. As I wound my way up the path leading to your doorstep, I spied the flames. I ran ahead as if a demon were pursuing my tail and broke into the house.

I went straight into the garden. Neither of you-clearly being involved in more private matters-detected my approach. I crept up behind you and delivered the necessary blow with a stick."

"But why me? You should have hit her."

"So that, in response, she would shoot you?" Cargill shook his head. "Besides, I would never strike a woman. I met Anna eye-to-eye. I started to speak, to voice a plea. It did not prove necessary. She simply turned the weapon on her own face and squeezed the trigger. It was over in a moment and she was dead. It was an act of divine sacrifice."

"Hardly." Alec laughed. "No one made her try to kill me."

Once more, Cargill's anger flared. He glared at Alec. "You call yourself a Superior. Think before you speak. Didn't you hear a word of what I told you before?

She was under the control of her father, an Inheritor. He made her try to kill you."

"Then why didn't she?"

"A good question." Cargill nodded his appreciation. "But the answer should be obvious: Anna defied them. She asserted her humanity in what was, perhaps, the only way open to her: through suicide. Can you say the same?"

"You want me to kill myself?" Alec laughed.

"I want you to assert your own freedom. Other ways of doing so are open to you-they weren't for Anna."

"Such as?"

"Ah Tran and I will show you a way."

Alec said, "No," but this denial was by no means positive. What Anna had done-at least what Cargill claimed for her-could not fail to move him. She had sacrificed herself-in the face of dreadful odds-in order to save him. But why? What reason did she have for placing his life above her own? If he wished to lie, he could tell himself she had acted from motives of pure love. But he knew better: Anna hadn't loved him.

Instead, he was beginning to understand that she had acted from more selfish motives.

Anna had not saved him-no, she had saved herself. In dying, she had chosen to express her own freedom. And now Cargill wanted him to do the same. "All right, tell me what you want."

"I simply want you to agree to save yourself-and the world as well."

"You make that sound so simple. But how am I supposed to do it? By helping you and your friend, Ah Tran, I suppose. There's one thing wrong with that-Ah Tran is a fool. He-(Alec saw no point in continuing to conceal the truth)-doesn't understand reality. He tries to comprehend poetry through science. He tries to mix them together.

He talks about souls in terms of ecosystems. That isn't just wrong-it's foolish."

"And why is that?" Cargill asked, evenly.

"Because when science and poetry are merged, the results are invariably a big mess." He gave Cargill some of the examples he had worked out for himself in the garden. Spoken aloud, the words somehow seemed less convincing but he refused to be diverted. "That's the way it is and not you or me or even Ah Tran can change it."

Cargill started to smile but clearly decided to suppress the reaction. He said,

"You're wrong-there is no difference."

"Don't joke with me-please."

"I wouldn't, Alec, and I'm not."

"But don't you see? Science is concerned with the world as it is, while poetry conceives of an entirely different place, a world where things exist in the forms they ought to possess."

"But the world-this world-does exist in the form it ought to possess. Science merely confirms the inspirations of poetry, when those inspirations are valid. It has to be this way. In what other possible state could our world exist?"

"It isn't a place filled with love. It could be. It isn't beautiful or glorious or divine.

It could be all of those. It could be a place without evil and ugliness and war and poverty and murder and hate and-"

"In other words," Cargill said, and he laughed, "it could be an incredible bore.

What you're stating is an adolescent fantasy-a sterile view of a lifeless heaven. It could be as you say, but who really needs it?"

"Maybe I do-maybe the human race does."

"Then you'll have to do something about it, because I won't, but from what you say, you won't either."

"I've already found that world."

"And you won't let anyone else try?"

"Me?"

"Why not? Isn't that what Anna was trying to do?"

"I don't know. Anna is dead." Turning away from Car-gill, Alec looked out the window and noticed that the plane was at last descending through the clouds. A sea of fluffy, unreal whiteness surrounded the plane.

"Let me explain," Cargill said. "I owe you that much." He told Alec about Ah Tran's experiments into the recreation of the mass racial consciousness of the species.

"But, so far, he has always failed to reach his goal."

"I'm not surprised."

Then Cargill told about the circle of disciples, the spiritual conduit, and the death of Eathen.

Alec smiled on hearing the last. "So that's what you want from me. You tried to use one freak and he died and now you want to use another freak-me. Android or superman, they're both the same to you and your messiah. Less than human, so why not sacrifice them? Anna too. She's dead."

"She killed herself. To save you."

"To save herself."

"And you're afraid to do the same?"

"I don't need to."

"They are your fathers. Don't you owe the human race that much?"

"If the Inheritors are my fathers and the human race my mothers, why should I choose one over the other?"

"Anna did."

"Quit bringing her up. She failed."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you afraid?"

"Of what? Death? No---hardly."

"The war has already begun," Cargill said. "I'm afraid there's nothing any of us can do about that. But it will not last forever. Someday, the fighting will be done.

What kind of world are we going to have then, Alec? Is it going to be the world as it ought to be? Who will rule? Who should? The decision is yours, Alec. Make your choice. The Inheritors? Or mankind?"

"So far man hasn't done so well. Maybe it's time to let someone else have a chance."

"Ah, you supermen," Cargill said, shaking his head. "Such a common error. Man has not failed. The fact is that he has, instead, succeeded quite gloriously. Your view is limited only to those things that are wrong. You can see the war and privation, the killing and hate-but what about the successes, the accomplishments? You must realize that the human race is still barely in its childhood. Do we kill small boys because they have failed to accomplish adult aims? No. Don't we indeed allow these boys a chance to attain manhood, the opportunity to grow and develop and mature? What one boy is permitted, surely a whole race deserves as well."

The plane had pierced the layer of clouds. Alec looked down, seeing-without surprise-the vast blue wastes of the Pacific Ocean. From one side, a speck of land appeared, slowly expanding in size. Cargill took firm control of the plane. The land mass grew larger.

Alec was thinking. Everything Cargill had told him was, he knew, only an echo of phrases he had once uttered himself. For years, he had lectured the Superiors on the duty they owed the human race.

Had he come to reject all that? In the past few months, hadn't he experienced so much that the simple solutions of the past now seemed absurdly obsolete?

But Cargill had given him an opening. Anna. Hadn't she chosen to act not from motives of ideal selflessness but rather from an understandable need to express her own personal freedom? Could he do any less than that? Succeed or fail, didn't he owe himself that much?

Outside the window, a paved landing strip had materialized. The plane circled above. Cargill began to speak softly into the phone. The plane dipped, nose turned down, hurtling toward the earth below. A moment later, the wheels struck. The plane bounced, quivered, then rolled casually to a stop.

Alec turned and touched Cargill on the shoulder and said, in a rush, "All right-you win-I'm going to try it."

"I won?" Cargill asked.

A small crowd was rushing the plane. Among the mass, Alec recognized Ah Tran's familiar, worn features. He smiled. Right on time. Cargill had got it down to the last possible second. So that was the reason for all those silly hesitations at the beginning of the voyage. Cargill didn't want Alec to have a chance to say no after he had once said yes. There was no time for changing his mind now.

"We both won," Alec said.

Cargill nodded and opened the door. He pointed at the crowd awaiting them.

"Let's go," he said.

Twenty-Four

Alec Richmond sat in the center of the circle.

What he wanted to do was ignore everything that existed outside or beyond the limits of his own self. It was not a simple process. There were twenty-four in the circle. Except for Ah Tran, he knew none of them, who or what or why they were.

Physically-and he turned his head to make sure-each seemed a rather insubstantial reflection of the person beside him. Whether male or female-and most were female-white or black-and only one was black---young or old-and only Ah Tran could be called old-such distinctions as these did not matter. Each of the disciples radiated a portion of himself, so that-in spite of his wishes---Alec could not keep them out entirely. After a time, he quit trying. It wasn't wholly necessary-not yet. He shouldn't deplete his strength too soon. The best way of handling the situation would be to wait for the mass to form, for the gestalt to be fused into a secure whole, and then, in a rush, he could easily obliterate that which was not relevant and then allow them (or it) to enter. What happened after that was more difficult to determine in advance.

He received snatches of information from around the circle. One of the women-barely a girl in fact-was anxious because, the night before, she had confessed to one of the men that she loved him and he had not, so far, chosen to make an answer. One man-for all Alec knew he might be the subject of the girl's concern-was very upset because the wife he had deserted in London some months past had recently communicated a threat to have him confined to a mental home because, she claimed, his action in depositing their joint fortune in a Swiss bank account belonging to Ah Tran (under a phony name) indicated a certain looniness on the part of the man. All sorts of questions assailed him. Would the war intervene and prevent his wife from obtaining the court order she sought? Maybe, with luck, London would be the recipient of that now famous Indonesian A-bomb. Or should he take steps to free the money and see that his wife received a fair share, thus preserving his own freedom for the nonce? There was another young man, who wondered what position his father-the ruler of a primitive island kingdom unfortunately located less than a hundred miles from the center of civilized power-would take now that the war had actually begun.

Would he (the father) feel it necessary, for reasons of national or personal pride, to field an army? And, if so, would he then consider it necessary to follow ancient tradition and recall his son and heir to head that army? As he sat in the circle, supposedly trying to meditate, the son struggled to recall some of the lessons he had been forced to study in early childhood relating to the tactical theories of battlefield action. If he was going to be a general, he had to know the proper way to fight.

Alec felt all of them-not just these three. The radiations reached him simultaneously but he had no difficulty separating one from the others. Never before had his talent come so near assuming the aspects of real telepathy. Although each of the disciples was striving to meditate, seeking to discover some abstract location upon which to focus all attention, none had as yet wholly succeeded and thoughts continued to flow. Alec saw anxiety, pleasure, guilt, jealousy, anger, bitterness, fear, envy, disgust, avarice, serenity, joy, pride, and loathing. Alec focused his attention on Ah Tran and although the messiah had withdrawn more fully than the others his thoughts were clearly open. Alec was surprised at what he discovered but not really shocked. He restrained himself to keep from laughing.

Alec realized it was time for him to act. Reaching out with his own mind, he sought to enter the others. He went to the young woman first and drove out all thoughts of her self-proclaimed future husband. He cautioned the man to forget his wife for the time being and further calmed the anxious recollections of the son and heir. He went to each of the twenty-four, smoothing out their psychic wrinkles, slicing off any jagged mental peaks, filling in the gaping chasms, creating a flat but equal wholeness.

Then he drew back. It was time for him to wait. Needing something to fill the gap, he recalled the ancient fable of the dying man and decided to try to review his own life. It was an easy process making it rise up. The events of a lifetime flowed neatly behind his eyes. He assumed an attitude of disinterested observation. He might have been watching one of Anna's more speculative sculptures. The life story of an incomplete superman. A tale without plot, theme, significance, or hero. The most valid artistic aspect of the tale was its keen ambiguity. What, he wondered, was the point? What about the author? Where did he stand in relation to his material? Artistic objectivity seemed quite total. Alec failed to detect, within the story, so much as a hint of tragedy, comedy, farce, allegory, or irony. The sequence of events proceeded casually from cause to effect. A child was born, placed in a home, became a man, married, worked, and-finally-riding in a small plane-turned to the pilot and said that yes, he would do it. Minor characters came and entered. Subplots flickered, then faded. At last, he saw himself seated within the circle. Was this the end? He couldn't tell, but he stopped. Then he sat, witnessing what seemed to be an infinity of mirrors, endless dwindling layers of shining glass, one piled atop the other.

The twenty-four were gone. Instead, a single fused mass lay waiting. Alec trembled with sudden dread. Had he ever really expected this? They had succeeded.

The mass

beat against the hastily erected barriers of his mind, demanding entrance. For a time-involuntarily-he resisted.

Then he closed his mind, drawing back. It was too late now for saying no. He began to tear down his own self, moving through his mind from room to room, snuffing out any illumination he found. At last he came to a final lighted corner and, stopping here, he turned and raised the barriers, allowing the fused mass to rush through. It poured into his mind as thick as water, obliterating any final remnants of himself, drowning his soul, consuming him; and in the final flickering moments of his awareness, Alec reached out and grabbed the thing that had entered his mind and threw it high, like a rock, letting it soar upward and into the infinite unknown.

Then Alec Richmond was gone.

The fused spirit-departing the husk of the conduit---rose high. Propelled by the spark provided by the man once known as Alec Richmond, the mass sped into the heavens, reaching out, stretching toward a form of existence never previously known.

The gestalt was whole now-fused and merged-and once it reached its proper dwelling place would assume a fixed location in the universe and be as truly and purely alive as any of its components once had been. Closer... it came closer... closer. The mass rushed through a world outside space, one lacking in color, light, and time. A place of utter nothingness and yet-near at hand-another place lay waiting, a world of synesthesia, where light was sound, color motion, and time space. The mass moved as an embryo now. Its existence seemed inexorable, as though firmly predestined, predicated upon events that had already occurred and could not be revoked.

But then the other thing came rushing down. In a flash of individual awareness, Alec knew: Ford! It came sweeping down-blackness-ripping into the fused mass, lodging there, caught. The moment contact occurred, Alec screamed, Father, father, father. He fought with all his might to drive this foul and ugly thing away. But he was burning up. As if he had been carried bodily through space and plunged into the heart of a flaming star. He could not fight. This thing was far stronger than himself.

Father, father, father. The thing exuded an essence of such undiluted evil that Alec was suddenly certain that not only was there a Creator but a Destroyer and that this thing was as surely the son of the latter as Christ was born of God.

The thing of blackness permeated the fused gestalt. Alec glimpsed the dawning of his own end. He did struggle-yes-he resisted. But the barriers he erected to protect himself were as fruitless against this thing as the shield of a medieval knight raised against a cosmic bomb. The fusion began to shatter. Alec glimpsed them separately-the woman worried of her love, the heir and his father, the man and his wife, and even Ah Tran himself- rigid with fear. The broken gestalt limped through the summit of its arc, then turned downward. The earth rushed up, spinning, while Alec-alone-struggled to preserve some faint, lingering vision of life.

And then a flash of sudden whiteness swept over him and, with it, the sweeping pain was gone. A horrible weight was raised from his shoulders. The black thing was gone; the gestalt was set free. Quickly, though wounded, Alec struggled to fuse the mass together once more, to repair the injured fragments. He let it fall. The mass dipped, swung through the nadir of its arc, then soared high again. Alec died. He merged wholly with the mass. The place came near-land of synesthesia-paradise, heaven. It grew nearer. Closer. Closer. Close....

And then it was there.

The journey was over.

The gestalt paused, trembling with eager expectation, but then, realizing that anticipation was no longer necessary, settled down to await the beginning.

And, soon enough, it came.

Later, Inspector Cargill approached the room where the circle had met. With the key Ah Tran had given him, he unlocked the door and peeped inside. He discovered the twenty-three remaining disciples, Ah Tran, and Alec Richmond seated exactly as he had originally left them. He shook his head, but without any real disappointment.

In truth, he had not expected anything more. Ah Tran was his friend and an intelligent young man. Perhaps he had indeed stumbled upon some important spiritual technique and if that method had not proved great enough to save the human race, then the failure in itself could hardly be termed exceptional. After all, in all the past centuries of human life, no other method or technique had been invented, created, or detected capable, by itself, of providing complete spiritual salvation. Why should Ah Tran be allowed to succeed where so many others had failed before him? There was only one difference this time. Before, there had always been other times in which to try again.

But the days were over now and, with them, the human race as well.

Cargill entered the room in order to find out exactly what had occurred. He approached the circle. The eyes of the disciples were shut. Only Alec, in the center, lifted his gaze as Cargill came near.

"What happened?" Cargill asked, standing behind the circle. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Alec said, and his voice was barely more than a whisper.

The tone caused Cargill to shiver. "Don't tell me you- you made it?"

"Yes," Alec said. "We made it."

"We?"

"Yes. You see-" Alec smiled "-I am not I any more; I am we."

Cargill nodded. "I see."

Alec crooked a finger. "Come closer and we will tell you what happened."

"Yes, tell me," Cargill said, but he came no closer.

"We went up," Alec said, "just as you told me-told Alec. It was astonishing, the way we merged into a single glorious whole. We thought we would get there for certain this time. Then Ford came down. We tried to resist, but he was far too strong even for Alec. We began to fall. Then, suddenly, Ford was gone. We returned and reached the place we sought. And that is where we are now."

"You killed him?"

"Ford? We do not know. Yes, perhaps that is what happened. But it did not seem that way. Perhaps we tired him and he was not able to fight us any more. But it did not seem that way either. He was gone and then we were there."

"But he isn't dead?"

Alec shrugged. "We can't know. Death is there and we are here." He giggled.

"This is another universe."

"And I don't suppose you can tell me what it's like?"

"No, we cannot. But we are not alone here. There are other races here too. Other peoples who have achieved in the past what our race has achieved now."

"But you can't tell me any more?"

"You must come here first."

"How will I manage that?"

"We will assist you. All men must come here now that the path is open. We are a superman." Again, Alec giggled and stopped himself only by thrusting his fist into his mouth.

Cargill pretended not to notice. "Are you greater than the Inheritors?"

"The Inheritors, despite what they think, are merely the children of the human race. We are another, far superior race entirely."

"Then you can defeat them? Drive them away?"

"If necessary, that could be accomplished."

"If necessary? But I thought that was the whole point of this experiment."

"Their domain is limited to the Earth. Ours now spans the universe. They are harmless creatures now."

"What about Ah Tran?" Cargill pointed to one motionless figure within the circle. "I'd like to talk to him."

"Ah Tran no longer exists. He is part of us now."

"But I can talk to you, Alec."

"We are not Alec."

"Oh." Cargill stepped back, shaking his head. He glanced eagerly toward the door. "Is there anything you need? Food? Water? I can bring it."

"We need nothing."

"I see." Cargill stepped away. The eyes-Alec's eyes-followed him. He opened the door and slipped through. On the other side, alone again, he found he was shaking.

When he recovered, he threaded a path through the maze of floors and rooms and corridors and came at last to the kitchen, where he stopped to eat. He was munching on a sandwich when one wall of the room suddenly erupted in a blaze of light and sound and color. Dead-faced troops raced across a burnt and forsaken landscape.

The announcer's voice said, "An important victory was today attained by the civilized forces active upon the plains south of Manitoba. Western Hemispheric action has been declared inevitably successful. Current attack plans call for-"

Cargill realized he did not want to hear another word of this. What did it matter?

The war was over and no one knew it yet but he. Searching the wall for some means of making the picture go away, he found nothing, finally giving up, kicking furiously out, thrusting the tip of his shoe through the center of the electronic battlefield. Obe-diently, the picture faded away.

Smiling, he went back to the sandwich. He thought, He's gone mad, and found the idea powerfully reassuring. He knew about reversion, how the Superiors, balanced precariously between two conflicting species, often fell into the chasm between. The pressure had got to Alec; he had gone mad.

But what about the others? The disciples? Ah Tran? Had Alec, in the end, proved strong enough to drag them down with him? Had his ravaged mind swallowed them up, consumed them too?

It was a frightening thought. But what was worse was the opposite. The human race saved and yet-he had to admit this-destroyed more utterly than the Inheritors could ever have hoped to accomplish. If we have won, he thought, then what is wrong with me? Is it that I am merely me, myself, I? That I like to say I when I talk of me and never we or us or them? Is it that I am simply afraid?

He looked down at himself, seeing the blue veins in his bare arms, the skinny legs, weak misshapen hips. He raised his hands and held them close to his face. This is me, he thought, and I can never be we.

He was mad. He had to be mad. The war would go on. In the end, they-the Inheritors-would win. The Earth was theirs. No one could stop them from claiming their prize.

He dropped his hands. I am a man, he thought and, thinking this, felt suddenly and awfully and dreadfully alone.

Twenty-Five

Henry J. McCoy was the sort of person who, when forced to go out unprotected on the streets, had to proceed in a sharp, cautious, constantly alert manner, for otherwise, if he wasn't careful, something big and strong and tough would surely pop up from someplace and run straight over him. The truth was that hardly anyone ever noticed the existence of McCoy. Even when he spoke forcefully and waved his hands and danced a vigorous jig, it was necessary to reassure passing strangers that this gesturing wraith was, in fact, something real.

McCoy was fully aware of these facts and took the necessary precautions. Years ago, when first contacted by the agents of Karlton Ford, he had tried in vain to convince them that they had the wrong man.

"You are Henry J. McCoy, born of unknown parentage in Oakville, Wisconsin, home patient number 4678-99-4744?"

"Well, yes, that's me," McCoy admitted.

"Then there can be no mistake. You are the man Mr. Ford wants." The agents had then proceeded to reveal that Karlton Ford had personally considered more than a thousand applicants for the position of his private secretary before eventually choosing McCoy.

"But I didn't apply," McCoy said.

"A personal application is not required. Mr. Ford considered the best men for the job and selected you." Salary would not be permitted to present any obstacle. McCoy could name his own price. All he had to do was agree to accept the work and promise to do the best job he knew how.

"I shouldn't but-" McCoy began. He made himself stop. Shouldn't? But why not?

McCoy was then working for an old firm of corporate lawyers in San Francisco.

He was chief clerk-the only clerk actually-but had already been notified that, come the new year, his position would be automated. More than a dozen times in the past, this same fate had overtaken McCoy. On one dreadful occasion, he had been forced to draw the government unemployment pension for more than a year. He had always flatly refused all offers of retraining. In spite of its precarious aspects, he loved his work. He was a clerk, which meant doing whatever his current employer ordered him to do. Invariably, he performed his assigned tasks in an efficient-if never brilliant-manner. He always worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and if he happened to complete all his assigned duties in less time than that, then he would immediately begin over again, hoping to achieve a nearer perfection the second time around. Outside of his job, he had one hobby, but that was not a time-consuming avocation and was perfectly respectable.

"All right," he said, shocking himself with the firmness of his tone. "I'll do it."

"There is one other requirement," the agents said. "You must divest yourself of all friends and close acquaintances. Mr. Ford demands that his employees devote all their available energies to him."

"Of course," said McCoy. And-no wonder: he didn't have a single friend and only a few, very vague acquaintances.

McCoy went to work for Karlton Ford the following week.

He occupied a modest room of his own at the Wyoming ranchhouse and was soon provided similar quarters in the various apartments around the world. Karlton Ford did not prove to be-in any conceivable way-a common or normal human being.

But the work was good. Normally, McCoy labored sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, which left him time for seven good hours' sleep and one additional hour he could devote to his hobby.

That was collecting tape sculptures. Very respectable. Originals only. He experienced duplicates but would not collect them. No other form of art interested him in the least. He had never read a novel, studied a painting, heard a symphony, or seen a film. The hobby was his only eccentricity and as much as ninety percent of his salary was given over to new purchases. In fact, if it hadn't been for the hobby, he would gladly have been willing to work for board and room alone. But Karlton Ford paid splendid wages, and McCoy's collection grew to enormous proportions, threatening to spill both him and his small bed out into the corridor.

His favorite artist was a woman: Anna Richmond. Her work moved him in a way far deeper than mere words. She gave whatever meaning to his life that it possessed; and in return, well before he ever met her, Henry McCoy knew he must love her.

When she arrived at the ranchhouse, nothing about her changed his attitude. He liked to look at her-talking seemed less important-and so, though never neglecting his assigned duties, he often crept to some place where he might observe her without being seen in return. A dirty window. An untrimmed hedge. A broken fence. A stray hole in a wall. He felt a need to reconcile the mortal, flesh and blood visage of Anna with the divine inspiration that flowed through her work. McCoy acted no differently than any small boy suddenly confronted by the image of his ideal hero.

Then one night Anna went away on a plane programmed to carry her to San Francisco. McCoy placed her on board himself but she wouldn't answer the frantic questions he put to her.

Late the following day, Karlton Ford called McCoy to the sunporch on the roof and told him to take a letter. McCoy was so worried about Anna that it wasn't until the third paragraph that he realized what the letter was about.

"No!" McCoy cried, dropping pen and paper. "What are you talking about?

Anna? Dead? No!"

Ford glared angrily. "She tried to murder her husband. The police shot her down."

"But she loved him."

"Her husband? Don't be-"

"I know she did. She told me-told him. I heard her talking to herself."

"Well, next time-" Ford showed his impatience "-don't listen."

McCoy sprang to his feet and pointed an accusatory finger: "You-you killed her!"

Ford blinked, astonished. "What did you say to me?"

McCoy waved the finger. "I know you, Mr. Ford. You think you can make anyone do whatever you want. Anna was your daughter but you treated her like dirt-you never loved her. I could tell. You did things to her mind. You made her into a zombie. You're a monster! Monster! Monster! You killed her and now-!"

Ford's face flushed with anger. As he spoke, McCoy felt the first tentative hints of some painful presence encroaching on his mind. But he went on, rushing desperately to finish, wanting to say what he had to say before he was struck down.

Then Ford fell back. His face lost its angry expression. The painful presence disappeared from McCoy's mind.

"McCoy," said Ford, very softly, as if from far away. "You may go away. I won't need you here any more." His eyes dropped shut; he seemed to drift away.

McCoy had seen this happen often enough before. Standing, he left Ford as he lay. He went to the elevator and rode it down into the house. He passed through the kitchen.

Here, without intending to, he stopped. He leaned against a wall, clenched his fists tightly, and began to weep and wail. It wasn't the Anna Richmond he had known here for whom he cried; it was the work. He remembered all the titles and each one meant something deep and warm and significant. There was Last Woman and Passion, Tomorrow's Children, Tenderness, Crime and Punishment, Gloria. Only three days before, he had managed to acquire the original copy of her latest piece, New Messiah, the one about the android. Now none would follow. Anna Richmond was dead and that meant her work must be buried with her.

"You!" he cried, slamming his fists against the wall like a man deprived of the one firm, meaningful aspect of his entire existence. "You! You! You!"

On the kitchen table, something caught the light and glinted. He went over and raised the butcher knife in his hands. The blade was long, bright, and silver.

He rushed back to the sunporch.

Ford was lying on his back. His eyes were open but unseeing. His face and forehead were wrinkled, and his body was covered with a coating of sweat. The muscles in his legs and arms and neck were tensed and rigid as though engaged in some mighty, internal struggle.

McCoy noticed none of this. All he saw was Karlton Ford-Ford, the murderer-open and vulnerable.

McCoy raised the glinting knife and brought it straight down. The blade plunged through Ford's bare chest and penetrated his heart.

He died at once.

McCoy then left the blade where it was and hurried downstairs. He called the local police and explained what had happened but they were late in coming and when they did arrive refused to believe his story until he took them up on the roof and showed them the body.

"Good Lord, why?" asked one of the detectives. "Didn't you have a reason?"

McCoy made one attempt to express his feelings, but there was simply no way of communicating such intricate and sensitive motives. He fell into a sullen silence.

The detective shook his head wearily. "I'm so sick of this. I've never seen a murder that made any sense at all. What's supposed to be gained? What's ever changed or made over or made better or made right? It's not just stupid-it's pointless."

Overhead, a rocketplane blasted the silence of late afternoon and McCoy could not reply.