by Gunn, James
I studied the Cathedral for a long time. There were guards, as I had known there would be. They were inconspicuous. They lounged in doorways in their black suits. They hid in the shadows. Sabatini didn't give up.
I watched them, and they didn't notice me. "Watch for a young man who limps," they had been told. "He may be dressed as an Agent and he may not, but he'll be big and young and he'll limp." To them an old, bent freedman in ragged clothes with a tattered cap pulled down over his forehead didn't exist.
People came and went, and the Agents looked at them and looked away. People passed through the flickering, golden translucence of the Barrier and came out, entered troubled and came out in peace, and the Agents glanced casually and forgot. I watched them, too, and I didn't forget. I saw one man enter with a box in his hand. He had the badge of the carpenter's guild on his chest, and he didn't come out.
I shuffled toward the long steps that led up to the Barrier. My toes were still tender, but I didn't limp. I was very careful not to limp. I fought the temptation. I shuffled up to the entrance, thinking.
Sanctuary, I thought. Sanctuary for the soul. Peace for the troubled spirit. There is no Barrier for those who seek peace.
But it was hard. I didn't want sanctuary and peace. It is difficult at best for a man to direct his thoughts effectively, for a man who has known happiness to think of sorrow, for a man determined on winning through incredible difficulties to a lost pebble to be hopeless and poor in spirit, and all the while to shuffle, bent over, when it was natural to straighten up and limp.
A delicate tingling warned me that the Barrier was not fooled.
Laurie has left me, I thought. I will never see her again. She is gone, and I am nothing. My eyes stung with tears. Peace, I thought. Peace. And I must go about a hopeless task, an impossible thing, and there is no help for me, no help except inside the Cathedral.
I shuffled forward, up the steps that were painful to climb without limping, clinging to the synthetic emotions that welled up inside me, forgetting the Barrier; and the Barrier parted for me and let me through.
The Cathedral was peaceful and cool. Nostalgia swept over me like a breeze from a distant land. Here was real peace. Nowhere outside was there anything like it. Nowhere in the world was there peace but here, and I had left it, and I would never be a part of it again.
I pressed my lips together firmly. There are better things than peace. Peace is surrender. It is an unnatural state. It can't exist side by side with life; only with death comes true peace, when the struggle is ended and the ultimate surrender is made.
Nostalgia ebbed and was replaced by purpose.
The service was going on. I watched, and it was good. Efficiency and sincerity were its strongest qualities. I wondered who was in the control room. Father Michaelis? Father Konek?
I knelt at a bench on one side, near the Portal, my head down. It would be fatal to be recognized now. I inspected the repairs out of the corner of my eye. The gaping hole in the forward wall had been filled in with cement. Whoever had patched it had worked carefully; the colors matched perfectly, and there was only a hairline division. Most of the shattered kneeling benches had been repaired. Only a few needed final touches. I noticed the carpenter kneeling at the rear, waiting for the service to end.
Now the miracles were taking place behind the altar. They were competently done, but they were more mechanical than inspired, and I suspected that Father Konek was at the controls. His mind would be elsewhere, back among his beloved relics, the machines of mystery and secret purpose that might yet work again for the Church. He would be wondering what Brother John had discovered while he was on duty.
I noticed the worshippers nearby. Their faces were upraised to the service, blindly, reverently, shining with awe and faith, and I envied them their ignorance, which was blessed. Because to know too much is to doubt, and I knew too much, and I could never share their blind faith again.
I closed my eyes and studied myself, and it was a strange mixture I saw of strength and weakness, knowledge and ignorance, courage and cowardice, and many other things that I saw more clearly now than I had ever seen. I remembered what I had been before I was cast out into the ravenous world. Would it have been better to stay as I was, innocent and unaware? Would I have been happier if I had been guiltless and at peace?
And the belief came, from deep inside, that knowledge, though it is sorrow and pain, is worthwhile in spite of everything, and I could never have stayed in the monastery, even if the girl hadn't entered. She had precipitated what was inevitable. Eventually I would have turned away from the monastic life, or been turned from it, for life is purposeful, and the thinking man must seek its purpose, whether he wishes to seek or not.
Now the walls were down, and I could see with eyes that had been blinded by the darkness. I could live freely and love with all the power that was in me to love, and the liberation was worth whatever I had paid for it or would be called upon to pay.
And instead of blessing the one God, I blessed Laurie.…there is one word for mankind, one word alone, and the word is—choose.…
I had chosen.
The service was over. One by one, the worshippers left. The carpenter went to work quietly with his tools, softly, so as not to disturb the Cathedral peace, and soon we were alone. In a few minutes Father Konek would leave the control room, and it would be empty for an hour or so before the next service. That would be plenty of time for what I had to do.
Father Konek would have turned off the controls by now, but he would linger for a moment to inspect the machines lovingly. They were so ingeniously designed, so cleverly constructed; they were things of beauty beside which paintings and statues and music paled to insignificance, because these things worked. But now he would leave, glancing behind him once, and descend the stairs, slowly, because he was not a young man any more. He would slide back the panel at the foot of the stairs, step out into the corridor, and push it back into position, and he would walk away toward Brother John's workshop, anticipation quickening his steps.
I waited a moment more, preparing myself for the second and more dangerous plunge. The Portal was at my side, blue, opaque, and impenetrable.
I breathed deeply, slowing my pulse. I thought quiet thoughts of deep, green meadows where peace lay over the land like a gentle blanket, where nothing moved and the silence was complete. I thought of lying there, motionless upon the grass, breathing slowly and deeply, at peace with the universe. More than that, I wanted to be one with the universe, quietly running with the streams down to the rivers, with the rivers down to the seas, there to lose myself in the oneness of the universal. I wanted to circle with the stars on their eternal rounds, flame with their exhaustible abundance, cool with them toward the final death.
Death and peace. Peace and death. The gentle, silent, eternal twins. I shall walk behind the Portal and find peace. I shall walk behind the Portal to—
Thinking these thoughts, feeling this resignation, I got up. Wearily I shuffled toward the Portal. Wearily I stepped through. Trembling, I stopped on the other side and leaned against the wall and sweated. Like everything else, thought and emotion control improve with practice. It hadn't been so difficult this time, but it had been bad enough. I had convinced myself that I wanted eternal peace, and I had convinced the Portal.
As I leaned against the wall, I heard footsteps in the wall opposite, descending. I frowned. Was time passing so slowly for me that I thought a few seconds was half an hour? I could step back through the Portal. That was no problem from this side. But I would have to come through again, and I didn't know whether I could face that torment again.
I glanced at the Portal, and the panel slid back. Father Konek stepped out into the corridor, looking up the steps he had descended. His face was troubled as he closed the panel and turned slowly away from me and started slowly up the corridor.
I let out a long, silent breath.
What troubles you, Father Konek? Why do you frown? Why do you walk
so slow? Does the desecration of the monastery and the Cathedral still linger long after all evidence of it is gone? Was the peace and the calm shattered for good by the angry voices and the sound of gunfire? Do the shadows of violence and death hang gloomily in unsuspected places, leaping out at the unwary? Do you walk uneasily now, as unsure of your faith as you are unsure of your home?
It would be a sad thing if it were true, I thought, and felt responsible.
I slipped to the panel, pressed my ear against it, and listened. There was no sound from the control room above. Of course, there wouldn't be. Gently, silently, I slid the panel aside, took the first step up, and closed the panel behind me. And I stopped and listened, without knowing quite what I stopped for, what I listened to hear. And there was nothing.
I glided up the steps like a shadow, looking up. And I saw him.
The mirror had been replaced. I saw him in it. He was standing flat against the wall to the right side of the doorway, looking toward the opening expectantly, his gun ready in his hand. He didn't know that I could see him. He wasn't intending to capture me. His mouth was a straight line, as compressed and white as his hand on the gun he pointed at the doorway. I knew him. I had never seen him before, but I knew him. He was brother to all the other Agents I had seen, deadly in shadow black.
He waited there to kill me, for he had heard me coming, and I didn't know what I could do. He didn't care who I was. If I was Father Konek returning, he would kill me as soon as I stepped out into view. He had been ordered to kill, and that was a strange thing.
But I didn't have time to consider all the implications of that thought. He was growing impatient; he was wondering if his ears had tricked him or if the man on the stairs had suspected something. In a moment he would dart to the doorway, and he would fire, and there was nothing I could do, because I hadn't brought a gun. I hadn't wanted to carry a gun. I regretted it now.
He shifted, and in that moment of shifting, I took a whispering step upward and sideward. I brought my feet together just below the top of the steps and pressed myself against the right wall. I hugged the wall and, just around the corner, he hugged the wall, and we waited. I couldn't see him in the mirror any more, but he couldn't see me, either, and he couldn't be sure that I knew he was there.
We waited. Seconds passed, dragging their feet. Slowly the snout of a flash gun poked itself around the corner, sniffing toward me. I waited as it eased out and around, coming closer. The hole in the barrel got blacker and rounder, and I saw a patch of skin, and I struck, savagely, with the side of my hand.
The gun dropped. He made a sound that was half a grunt, half a scream, and whipped his hand back. I was around the corner while he was still nursing his right wrist in his left hand. I hit him low. As he doubled up, gasping, I swung the edge of my hand against the back of his neck. He crumpled to the floor.
I stood in the center of the room for a moment, struggling for breath. I hadn't realized until then that the suspense had sapped my strength so thoroughly. Then I stopped and tied him up securely and put a gag in his mouth. I straightened up and looked around, and it was good to be back.
Everything was in place, all the familiar machines, but this time it gave me no sense of power. I felt a strange humility. Forgotten geniuses of the lost ages had created these things, and we used them now as legacies, without knowing why they worked or how, only that they worked if we did this and that. We had fallen a long way.
I sighed and sat in the chair facing the controls. I flipped on the power switch, fitted the skull cap to my head, and slipped my hands into the gauntlets. The last time I had sat here there had been four men below in the Cathedral, searching for me. But I was here now to search for something else, and I must hurry.
I probed the murky darkness of the walls; I slid down them and through them and swung past the thinner darkness and swung back. I searched it, fishing back and forth, tugging. Nothing. There was nothing at all in the cornerstone.
The pebble was gone.
I sat there for minutes, trying to absorb this fact and fit it together with all the other little pieces. All at once it made sense. I turned around. The Agent's eyes were open, staring at me, bright with malice. He had been told to kill. Of course. Because the pebble had been found, and I was worthless.
I was overwhelmed by a sense of relief. Sabatini would like me dead now, and he would place guards to kill me if I came back, but he wouldn't search me out, because he had what he wanted. I was free. I had been tied to the pebble for a long time, but now I was free. Free to live, free to love Laurie. And I hadn't given it to him. He had found it for himself, or someone had found it for him. But I hadn't told; my responsibility was over.
But shame crept in, as I thought of Laurie and what she would think, and what I would think of myself. For the pebble could be the key, as Laurie said, but in Sabatini's hands it would be a key to terror and destruction. Responsibility for that wasn't something I could shake off, like water from a wet dog. Maybe I had told him the hiding place. I didn't think I had, but I had been almost out of my mind, and there was that chance.
The Agent's eyes were watching me narrowly, and it gave me an uneasy feeling as if I had forgotten something or wasn't seeing something that was obvious. I looked around the room, but there wasn't anything unexpected in it.
And then I realized that I was jumping to the conclusion that Sabatini had found the pebble days ago, that he was gone with it. It didn't have to be that way. It could still be in the monastery, and I had at my disposal the finest searching device on Brancusi. With it someone had found the pebble where I had hidden it. With it I could find the pebble again, if it was still within range.
I turned back to the controls and slipped through the back wall, lowered the scanner to eye level along the corridor and sped back through the monastery faster than a man could run.
The corridors were empty. But I didn't expect the pebble to be there. I wasn't sure where it would be, but I knew where to start. I didn't want to start there. I was afraid of what I would find.
I hesitated before the door, the Abbot's door, and then slipped through its brief darkness. They were there.
The Abbot was in his armchair, powerful and white-haired, impassive. Opposite him stood Sabatini, dark, big-nosed, smiling sardonically. Between them, on a small table, was the pebble, gleaming dully.
"…haven't learned anything in three days," Sabatini was saying. "Now I will see what I can do."
"And you think you can succeed where we have failed?" the Abbot's deep voice asked. "What facilities do you have to work with? What trained minds can you put on it?"
"At least," Sabatini said, "I won't be afraid to take a chance."
"And in the process, destroy it. No, Carlo, this is too subtle for your bluntness. You will leave it with us, and if the secret can be solved, Brother John will solve it. It's too valuable for you to tamper with."
"Valuable!" Sabatini exclaimed. "What do you know of value? Maybe you've forgotten whose money paid for it, paid you for it as well as others, and who told you to look for it in the Cathedral. Who kept saying, 'Put yourself in Dane's place. You're besieged in the control room. Where would you hide the—?'"
"And yet," the Abbot broke in casually, "it could be sold for more, much more than you've paid, especially when we discover its secret. And we will."
Sabatini's face got red. "Not another chronor!" he shouted, slapping the table. The pebble jumped.
"Now, now, Carlo," the Abbot cautioned, frowning. "There is no need for such a display of temper. It's very likely that the thing is worthless, that you would be getting nothing in any case. I think that it is probable that you have already given up too much for too little."
"What I have given up, I can get back," Sabatini said coldly. "What I have paid for," he roared, "I take."
He reached for the pebble. It shifted away from his hand, but he didn't notice. The Abbot noticed.
"Really, Carlo," the Abbot said, "you can't expect to get aw
ay with theft in my monastery. Not when I have the control room at my disposal."
"And I have your future at my disposal," Sabatini said, smiling. "A word to the Archbishop about your activities—? And remember, I have my man in the control room—by your consent."
He reached for the pebble again. It slid off the table onto the floor. As he stooped for it, his gun slipped out of his inside jacket pocket and poised in the air. The pebble joined it. They hung there in two unseen hands.
Sabatini straightened, lunged for the pebble and the gun in a sudden rush of anger.
Ah! Ah! The gun waggled menacingly in the air as the words formed themselves in Sabatini's mind. He stopped.
"Who is it?" the Abbot asked. "Is it you there in the control room, Father Konek? Good work, Father! Now give the gun and the pebble to me!"
He got up from his chair and started forward.
Ah! Ah! The Abbot stopped, confused and alarmed, as the gun pointed at him.
It is I, Father. William Dane. An acolyte thrown out into the world to die, an innocent man sold to the torturers.
"William!" the Abbot said. "William, my son!"
Sabatini gathered himself. Careful!
I have come for what is not yours nor his, Father, but what is mine. One of you is a callous, hypocritical traitor and the other is a torturing killer, and I should kill you both where you stand!
The sudden passion of the thought rocked them both. Sabatini recovered first. He folded his arms across his chest and stared into the air where the pebble and the pistol hung. The Abbot's ruddy face turned pale.
"No!" he said hoarsely. "You mustn't do that! You mustn't have my blood on your hands!"
The blood of a false Abbot? The blood of a breaker of vows, a cheat, a thief, a merchant of torment?
His face grew even whiter. "You would be spilling your own blood," he said wildly. "You are my flesh, my blood. You are my real son."
GOD! The thought shook me like an earthquake. The gun trembled in the air as my hand clenched uncontrollably in the gauntlet. I had been surprised and shocked by the Abbot's falseness, but I wouldn't have shot them. Not before. Now the world reeled.
