Then I froze in my tracks and had my hand on my gun, half-drawing it from the holster. What—?
A chord. Then another. Then angry, throbbing music. Violent. Jerkily played. It was an organ, suddenly come to life in a recess not too far to my left. Moments later, I recognized the music, strange sounds for a place of worship and meditation: the Damnation of Faust.
I followed it, of course. There are circumstances under which the anomalous should be courted. Ignorance is one of them.
As I moved diagonally toward the entrance to the area, I caught a glimpse of a weird tableau within. A somewhat disheveled man in clerical garb was seated at the keyboard. A small candelabra gave him light from atop the instrument, and two wine bottles kept it company.
I advanced, entered. He smiled at me, closed his eyes and continued playing. As I moved nearer, he opened them again and his smile vanished, to be replaced by a loose-jawed look of horror. His fingers stumbled into a final discord and he slumped forward, shaking.
I stood there for a few moments, undecided as to what I should do. He resolved the matter, however, by raising his head and lowering his hands from his face. He stared at me, panting, then said, "Don't keep me in suspense. What is the verdict?"
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Has my petition been granted?" he asked, his eyes dropping to regard my feet, then turning toward the altar.
I followed his glance and saw that the altar was in disarray, with the crucifix inverted above it.
I gave a small shrug. So the local preacher had decided to switch sides. Was it worth the time it would take to find out what had prompted it?
Possibly, I decided, since something recent and traumatic was doubtless involved.
"Well?" he said.
"Who do you think I am?" I asked.
He smiled slyly and bowed his head.
"I saw where you came from," he said. "I have been watching the black door since I made my offering. When I saw you emerge, I played propitious music."
"I see. And what do you seek to gain by this?"
"You have heard me, you have come. You know what I would have."
"Do not try my patience!" I said. "I want to hear you say it! Now!"
His eyes widened and he threw himself prostrate before me.
"I meant no offense!" he said. "I seek only to please you!"
"What prompts this sudden appreciation of that which is most fitting and proper?"
"When it happened, and people began to come to me, with stories, of the terror ... I held services. People kept coming. Finally, I was granted a glimpse. Before the power failed. Before the evacuation order. I saw that we had been forsaken. I knew then that we had been given over to destruction, and I thought, 'Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.'"
"Why do you feel you have been forsaken?"
"For our presumption, our resentments, our secret desires—"
"I mean, what happened?"
He raised his head, looked up at me.
"You mean the explosions and all?"
"Yes. And get up off the floor."
He scrambled to his feet and backed away. When he came up against the bench, I nodded and said, "Sit down."
He did, and, "The explosions, just a few hours ago," he said, "when they tore through the wall, they showed us—the stars ... Oh God!" He looked comically startled, then added, "Fm sorry."
"Which level?"
"Living Room," he said, glancing at his bottle atop the organ.
I sighed. Good. That was down four, whereas the Library was only two levels below me. All the way through the wall ... It must have been quite an explosive, that.
"What happened after the explosions?" I said.
"There was a rush to get away," he said. "Then when everybody realized what had happened, there was a rush to go and look out." He licked his lips, looked at the bottle again. "Then another rush to get away," he finished.
"Go ahead and drink some," I said.
He seized the bottle, put it to his lips and threw his head back. I watched his Adam's apple do pushups off his collar.
Wing 5. At least, he had picked a fairly congenial planet for his catastrophe—the atmosphere was breathable, though somewhat irritating, and the temperature was bearable at night.
"And you went and looked?" I asked. He lowered the bottle, nodded and began to cough. Then, after a few moments, he pointed at the altar.
"I saw eternity," he said. *The sky just goes on and on forever. And I saw the lights in the heavens. I smelled the fumes of the Pit. People were screaming and fainting. Others were pushing forward. Some were running. Some went out into it, I think, and were lost. They herded us back finally, and off that level. They may have sealed it off by now. Many people came to the Chapel. There were services going on all over. I held three myself. I felt stranger and stranger all the while. I knew that it was Judgment Day. I knew that we were all unworthy. It is the end. The House is falling and the heavens have been opened. Man is insignificant, worthless. I knew that when I looked on eternity." He paused to take another drink, then continued, "After my last service, I knew that I could not go on. I could not go on praying for deliverance from that which I knew we deserved. Better to embrace it, I decided. So I came to this section which was not in use. All of the others are over that way." He gestured in the direction of the illumination—candles, doubtless. "Here I did what I thought most fitting," he concluded. "Take me, master," and he hiccupped.
"I am not he whom you have summoned," I said, and I turned to go.
"No!" I heard him cry; and I heard the bottle fall, and I heard him curse and scramble after it. Then, "I saw where you came from!" he shrieked. "You came through the black door!"
"You are mistaken," I said.
"No! I know what I saw! Who are you?"
His plight must have moved me a little further up the philosophical alley than I had realized, for I actually considered his question for a moment and answered it honestly.
"I don't really know," I said, and I kept moving. 125
"Liar!" he called out. "Father of Lies!"
Then he began to weep.
"So this is Hell ..." I heard him saying as I departed.
I moved away quickly, thinking about the reactions of others. I wondered whether he could be typical. I thought not. I hoped not. He was an aberrant, that was all. His ] was not the direction in which we had been steering them.
I walked at a brisk clip, paralleling the still beltway that led off toward the jackpole. Small knots of figures moved along it, passing in both directions through the gloom. What light there was came from those appliances and signs equipped with their own power units, from candlelit sections of the Chapel, luminous trouble-plates and hand-beams borne by the pedestrians. And during the next five or ten minutes, I passed two slow processions where everyone bore a lighted candle. I saw no one who was not I part of some group.
I thought again of the power loss. This sort of emergency would hardly call for an action that would require most of the electrical output, even for one level. No. There had to have been a bit of simultaneous mischief in the Cellar. Which indicated a time bomb rather than teamwork, as Black had always impressed me as playing a completely solitary hand. The timing, of everything, was very important. The attack on the family, the hole in the wall, the loss of power. I could feel the pattern there, although I could not understand it. It was quite possible that I never would. I would probably have to kill him before he could tell me. And the alternative made no provision for our enlightenment either. Pity. All that planning, timing, coordination—with success entailing the destruction of the only ones capable of appreciating your work. Kind of sad, any way you looked at it, whatever happened.
Before too long, I reached the jackpole and entered there. It was dark and still. I began walking down its spiral. I hurried past the next level—the Bedroom—for I could see clearly there because of
several fires, one near at hand. People were rushing about in their vicinities, and at first I thought that they had either panicked or become irrational and started the things themselves. But no. Most of them seemed to be beating at them or soaking them. Something appeared to be wrong with the sprinkler system. There were fire vehicles all about and more on the way—both in the air and on the ground. Groups of cranes hung frozen above them in a variety of attitudes.
As I reached the next level, my destination, I was pleased not to observe any disasters in progress. There were numerous small lights in motion below me. Personal handbeams, it seemed. I was glad that Mr. Black had not seen fit to indulge in incendiarism in the Library, too.
Quite a few people seemed to be entering at the base of the jackpole, but so far I had encountered no one. Which indicated that they were all heading downward. In the direction of the damaged Living Room. I wondered at their purpose.
Going over my mental map, I recalled an emergency-vehicle hatch about a quarter-mile in the direction of the far wall. I resolved to appropriate whatever might be available for flight, as the number Glenda had given me was a good distance away.
When I reached floor level, I stood aside as people hurried in past me and headed for the downward winding. They spoke excitedly, some near-hysterically, and many of them carried parcels.
"Where are you going?" I asked a man who had come running, and then paused to catch his breath.
"Out," he said.
I could not believe that he meant what he seemed to mean.
"You mean outside?" I said. "Out of the House?"
"Where else? It's coming apart around us, the House."
"But you can't—I mean, it's sealed off, it's quarantined down there, isn't it?"
He laughed.
"Take my advice and come along," he said. "You wouldn't believe what it is like out there."
"What is it like?"
"It's beautiful!"
"But—"
He hurried away then and was quickly out of sight.
I was of course disturbed. Overheard snatches of conversation indicated a variety of motives for this small-scale exodus, ranging from a fear of the imminent collapse of the House to a desire for adventure, a morbid fascination with the effects of disaster, religious fervor, scientific interest and just plain primate curiosity. Whatever the reasons, the results of the action would be around for a long while. I did not relish the introduction of unpredictables into my closed, controlled system.
There was nothing to be done about it just then, however. I pushed my way out the door and hurried in the direction of the vehicles bay.
I sprinted the final hundred yards or so to the bay, the doors of which stood open. I shone the beam I had appropriated from the man who had bumped against me and begun cursing me on the way out. There appeared to be two vehicles down to my left. I climbed over the edge, hung for a moment at arms' length and dropped to the landing stage.
One of the fliers was blocked up for maintenance work and the other was secured in a parking area. I checked the fuel level of the second one, unchocked its wheels and with considerable effort managed to roll it out onto the stage.
It started quickly, and within three minutes I was airborne. I moved carefully, fairly near to the ceiling, my forward and side lights switched to their brightest, avoiding cranes and pillars as I went. Below, it was like a photographic negative of moths about a flame, all those little lights flitting toward the black tower.
Cubicle 18237. That was quite a distance across the room. Periodically, I dropped lower, to shine my light on coordinate markers. Another flier passed me, going in the opposite direction, but I received no signals from it.
I withdrew my mind from thoughts of people's reactions and turned my attention to my own affairs. My enemy had planned things carefully, and I doubted he was about to slack off at this point. I thought of Glenda once again, and of the possibility that I was heading for some sort of trap. She had helped me earlier—a good sign—and she was Kendall's daughter—which was sufficient, to my way of thinking, to justify any action she cared to take against me, were she aware of my part in things. What moved her, and what were her intentions? Was Black using her? If so, how? Though I pushed my mind through a series of mazes, I could come up with no approach other than the direct. There were simply too many variables. Any attempt to be especially devious could boomerang on me.
Most of the effects of Black's trank would have worn off by now, I knew.
When I came into her section, I located an open space near to considerable cover in the form of tables, partitions and machines, landed the flier, killed its lights and engine, and disembarked. It was quite dark, but I had swept the area with my spotlight before coming down. It had seemed to be empty of people.
I rushed for cover, nevertheless, and began a circuitous route that would take me into the area of the cubicle I sought.
I spent several minutes working my way toward the door of 18237 and investigating the vicinity. There were no ambushers that I could detect. But while the glow of candlelight emerged from the windows of the adjacent quarters, Glenda's were dark.
I approached with the pistol in my hand, rapped upon her door with its barrel, waited.
As I stood there, I wondered whether she had been caught up in the general confusion, or whether any of a number of other things had worked to keep her from returning. If she were not present, I resolved to enter and wait for her.
As I moved to knock again, however, I heard a noise from within and the door was unlatched and opened partway. Glenda stood there in the faint light, and her eyes moved from my face to the gun and back again quickly.
"Yes?" she said. "What do you want?"
"We parted rather abruptly a little while ago," I said. "But you invited me to drop by."
Her features constricted and relaxed in the space of an instant. Her voice was normal, even cheerful, as she then said, "Of course! Come in! Come in!" But she raised her right hand as if to bar my way as she said it. Then as I hesitated, puzzled, she hurled herself against me.
As I stumbled back to retain my footing and she slipped to the floor, I heard the sound of a shot from within. She had succeeded in thrusting me far enough to the side to be out of the line of fire, however. I immediately put two rounds through the door, just to let him know I was not standing there doing nothing, waiting to be shot at again, the while shouting to Glenda to get the hell out of sight.
She did not really need the encouragement, though, as she vanished quickly and soundlessly in the direction from which I had come.
I threw myself sprawling and slid up against the wall, as I had been in line of sight from both windows and had no idea where he was inside. My foresight was repaid as the nearest window was shattered by another shot. I fetched out one of my two gas grenades, activated it and lobbed it through the window. Moments later, I followed it with the second one.
Hugging the wall, I crawled backward, the better to cover the near windows as well as the door and the window on its far side.
I waited. I heard the things go off, with soft popping sounds, and after a time ghostly tendrils drifted out through the shattered window and the still-gaping door.
While I was wondering what was going to happen next, it happened.
There came an explosion and fragments of the wall fell all over me. I was engulfed in a cloud of dust and gas. I fought to keep from coughing, my eyes watered and I could see nothing but a blurred haze. I felt as if I had been kicked in several dozen places along my back and side. I jerked my pistol free of the mess and kept blinking my eyes to clear them.
I barely caught sight of the figure leaping through the rubble, right on the heels of the explosion. It was somewhere in the vicinity just vacated by the door. He passed to the right, running, and I fired after him. I missed, of course, and he kept going.
Shaking off debris, I struggled to my feet and plunged after him, staggering through my first several steps. He was still in sight, an
d I had no intention of losing him this time.
Coming to a partition, he whirled suddenly and fired back at me before passing behind it, not waiting to see the effect of his shot. I felt a stinging sensation along my left forearm, and I raised my weapon and put three rounds through the partition. I veered to reach an alcove then, and reloaded quickly once I had achieved it.
I dropped to all fours before I looked around the corner, and I pulled back quickly when I saw him, leaning around the edge of his partition and pointing a weapon in my direction. The shot followed a moment later, fairly high and wide.
I fired back before I withdrew to prime an explosive grenade. When I exposed myself to hurl it, he fired again. I drew back immediately, primed another grenade and sent it after the first.
The first one exploded while the second was still in the air. By the time the second explosion came, my weapon was back in my right hand. I rounded the corner and raced toward what was left of the partition.
There was no one about when I reached the wrecked area. I halted, casting about in all directions, and then I caught sight of a fleeing shadow, far off to the left. I plunged after him.
He was crossing an open area, heading toward a warren of narrow aisles and reading booths. I ran as fast as I could, and the distance between us narrowed. I fired a shot and he jerked, stumbled, recovered and kept going.
When he reached a post at the edge of the area, he threw himself against it, turned suddenly and began shooting. I was out in the open with nothing to duck behind, so I kept going, raising my own weapon and firing back at him.
The only reason I could see for his missing me under those conditions was the fact that he was injured. He emptied his weapon at me, realized that he did not have time to reload it, turned and lurched off up the nearest aisle. Mine had been emptied also by then, and I refused to allow him the time it would take me to reload. I pursued him up the aisle.
Ahead, he turned left into a side passage or booth, and I slowed. While it was still sufficiently dark to confuse my sense of perspective somewhat, I realized with a start that the overhead lights were glowing faintly now and could easily have been doing so for the past several minutes. A bad sign, the power coming back so quickly, when I wanted to get him and clear out before any measure of order returned to the place.
Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 Page 13
