Sparkling signs lit up the canyoned streets with an interfluctuation of garish color. Huge televisor screens glared with outdoor public entertainment, news, tidbits of fancy to catch the attention and absorb the interest. Ka-si was like a human city might be, if it had not been populated also by the Trisz. Humanity lived only on the lower levels.
The work of the Triszmen was conducted on levels higher up, while above those, only the Trisz knew what took place. Up there, far above the gay, bright lights, the Trisz reigned alone, unapproachable, inexorable, invisible, but potently and hideously present.
Kor had no hope of obtaining audience with the Trisz this evening, but he took himself to the Administration Center in search of possible information. A uniformed guard gave him the news he was looking for.
“Sorry, Sir. Audience with the Trisz takes place at half of the morning. You will have to come back then.”
Though a Triszman, the guard had respect for the scarlet of Kor’s office.
“Is there lodging to be had nearby, soldier?”
Kor drifted away with brief directions in mind. He joined the throng of people crowding the walk. Shortly, he noticed that a clear space was left around him as he walked, the crowd automatically parting to permit him untrammeled passage. The Scarlet Saints were respected both by the People and the Triszmen…even feared in a superstitious way. Occasionally, a passer-by approached closer than his fellows, knelt quickly and touched the hem of Kor’s robe with reverent fingers.
Kor spoke a blessing on each occasion, but his mind was not on his surroundings. He had begun to extrapolate, seeking to find a clear course for his future actions. Up to now, he had not had enough factors, and even yet, many necessary ones were lacking. He could make nothing clear of the future—merely a muddled impression of encroaching menace. No amount of juggling the factors in third-order rationalization could bring this disturbing impression into the sharp focus of a probable future event.
* * * *
The lodging to which the guard had directed him was a spire that thrust a half-mile into the early evening sky. It must, Kor thought, pierce a half-mile as well into the rocky bed underlying the plain.
The entrance was gay with glittering glass and colorful plastic, a dazzling display of ever-changing hues that invited and repelled him at once. A stream of people went in and out through revolving doors which emitted puffs of cool breath from the air-conditioned interior. As Kor tarried, trying to make up his mind to enter, the feeling of menace which haunted him strengthened perceptibly.
Kor stood aside from the flow of human traffic, his mind locked in third-order rationalization of the situation. A type of logic that was not logic, Kor’s method of reasoning based its processes on dissimilarities rather than similarities, proceeded swiftly onward to conclusions completely divorced from the premises. The conscious mind being incapable of this dissimilar analysis, the function was carried on by the superconsciousness, called the “primary mind” in the vocabulary of the Men.
The Scarlet Saints received intensive training in the development and use of this rational function, present in all human beings but submerged by the conscious attributes of the individual and generally referred to as “instinct” or “intuition.” It was the Saints’ recognition, isolation…and refinement of this function as an illogical method of rational apprehension that made possible their complete control of mind and environment and produced that superbly-knit thinking machine called a Man.
His reasoning told Kor that his life would be in immediate danger if he entered this building. Obviously, then, the guard who had directed him to this place had been under orders to do so. But Kor’s mind brought him an other restless conviction. If he did not enter the building, he was in even more positive danger. Wherein lay the difference between the two evils? His mind rationalized the additional factors and came up with the conclusion that his best action was to remain where he was. Another factor was about to enter the picture, and he could best cope with the situation if he remained to see what might be its nature.
So Kor waited, apparently amusing himself by watching the crowds go by. There was music on the air from radionic speakers spaced along the street. Across the street, a gigantic television screen flickered in full color its messages of entertainment, news, or whatever was being broadcast at the moment, synchronized with the noise made by the speakers.
As Kor relaxed, his mental distress became soothed. He merely felt a sense of expectant unease at being among an unfamiliar crowd.
It seemed to him that he could almost feel the eyes of the Trisz upon him, if it could be said that the Trisz possessed eyes. But, then, they did of course—this horde of People represented the eyes of the Trisz, and the ears and hand as well; for the Triszmen in their blind ignorance and love of comfort served their masters well.
Kor wished that he might expand his mind into this crowd, but he dared not. He could not resort at all to his expanded super-powers anywhere in the city, even in the face of death, for it was not his own safety alone that was at stake, but the safety of the Brotherhood as well, and the destiny of the entire human race of People.
A swirl of blue detached itself from the hurrying, colorful crowd and approached Kor. A Blue Brother, Kor observed with an attempt at relief that did not quite jell. The man’s visage was hawk-like, deep-hued from desert sun, and saturnine. Kor automatically entered his coming as a factor in his dissimilarization of the situation. The result was not good.
“Sir!” The Blue Brother dipped his head before Kor in the salute to rank.
Kor returned the greeting with a similar nod.
“Blessing, Brother!”
“Blessing, Sir. It is unusual to meet one of our Scarlet Saints in Ka-si. Where is your See?”
“I am unassigned,” Kor replied stiffly, introducing himself. “I came to receive assignment from the Trisz, but I am told that reception is at half of the morning. It is now the first of the evening, and I was considering where I might spend the night.”
The Blue Brother’s expression was keen-eyed, crafty. His manner developed a grudging warmth.
“You must be he who will occupy the See of No-ka-si, which was recently vacated. I am Pol Seran, Blue Brother of the second district Chapel in No-ka-si. However, since it is not customary for a Saint to enter his See before assignment, the hospitality of my own Chapel is open to you, if you will spend the night with me. You surely are not registered here?” He gestured toward the gaudy entrance.
“Not yet, Brother, but I had wished to be close for my audience.”
The Blue Brother shrugged and made a face.
“A public girlhouse, Sir! Come—it is but a short distance to my Chapel. Do you have baggage?”
Kor’s bags were still at the carriage depot, at the edge of the city, a long walk from this central spot.
“Easily picked up tomorrow,” said Brother Pol. “I myself will bring you back in the morning in time for the Trisz reception. Come, Sir. The evening is getting along, and the street at night is no place for our Saints.”
Was there a tinge of mockery to the utterance of the Blue Brother’s final words? Kor would have liked to ask a few leading questions, but the sense of unease which gripped him warned silence.
Momentarily Kor extrapolated the sum of his experiences, and decided that he would be safer in the sanctuary offered, than anywhere else. It was not surprising to him that the Blue Brother fitted well with the situation.
The Blue Brothers were trained in the essence of service to the Trisz and the orders of their religion. It had to be that way. Only the Men themselves could be permitted to know fully what was going on.
For an instant, Tor Shan’s parting words hung tantalizingly in Kor’s mind—“…find out just how dangerous you can be to the Trisz—and still live!”
Kor had noticed the small surface car
s plying the street, but had not realized they were public transportation until the Blue Brother hailed one and they got in. The seat was soft, luxuriously upholstered—uncomfortable to Kor, who was used to sterner ways of travel.
The car was a product of Trisz technology, a manifestation of the simulated benevolence of the Trisz to their servants. Only the people of the Trisz cities had use of them, as well as of the air cars which flew from city to city. Such technological luxuries were on a par with home comforts, television, entertainment, the whorehouses, the synthetic liquors served in well-kept bars—for these were the temporal rewards the Trisz paid their faithful servants for their devotion and loyalty.
On the surface, it seemed that the Trisz were friends of mankind, returning a means of luxurious living, a life of pleasure and joy for a few hours out of each individual’s day. Only the Saints were fully aware that mankind’s service to the Trisz was bringing about its own slow death, that the aliens from outer space were killing the People with a satanic brand of kindness.
* * * *
Kor was careful to attempt no prying conversation as they rode northward to No-ka-si. He knew enough to beware the Trisz bearing gifts; the car was a nest of spy devices.
He did not doubt at all that the Trisz had sent the Blue Brother after him. They wanted him under control until a means could be devised to draw his fangs, whatever the Trisz might suspect they were. Kor’s extrapolation for a full day ahead brought him nothing but a feeling of unrest. Therefore, he could assume that his actions had been channeled into an acceptable line of conduct. What lay outside this line? Left to himself, what might he have done that would have pointed up his dangerous attitude toward the Trisz and ensured his own immediate peril? Somehow Kor was sure that not even the Trisz themselves knew.
The Scarlet Saint was eagerly interested in No-ka-si. If the Blue Brother’s surmise were correct, and Kor should be assigned to this diocese, then his surroundings had an added significance for him. Much as Kor had learned of the social aspects of the People, it had been all from lectures and books. For the first time he was seeing an aggregation of People that covered more territory than the meager confines of a village.
The human city of No-ka-si was located to the north of the main city, separated from it by a narrow belt marking the ancient course of the Miz-zon. Nowhere in the surrounding waste was a tree or a blade of grass. The macadamized highway was laid on a bed of sterile sand, and ended on the paved streets of the smaller town.
Here there were no blazing electric lights. The streets were dimly lit by an occasional lamp-post that contained an oil-burning light. Windows were yellow rectangles of oil lamp or candle illumination.
The streets were paved with a rough-surfaced plastic. The low, domed houses were built of a plastic similar to that in the buildings of the city. Everywhere, even in small courtyards and entries, the ground was completely plastic-paved in order to hold down as much as possible the ever-present dust. There were few enough trees left on Rth, and no lumber at all for purposes of construction, even precious few metals; hence the prevailing use of plastic for building, hard, strong, colorful, made from the ubiquitous sand.
Deep artesian wells furnished both cities with water—precious water that was husbanded and re-used as often as it could be passed through the purifying tanks.
This careful conservation of water made the natural production of vegetable food impossible except in outlying areas where only rare rainfall made a species of farming possible, or where association of the land with a surface stream permitted irrigation. Mostly, however, the People ate synthetic foods, many of which were imported from distant worlds in the far-flung commercial system of the Trisz, with the addition of a few vegetables grown in the hydroponic gardens of the Trisz cities.
People were not numerous in the streets of No-ka-si, but Kor noticed that some were Triszmen; and there was a solid proportion wearing the simple garments that proclaimed them Outlanders. The Triszmen living here, lived with their Outlander families who were not permitted dwelling room in the Trisz city. Becoming a Triszman was a matter of application and careful selection, so that in most families of No-ka-si only the bread-earner was in the service of the masters. The town was under the rulership of the regional Lord, since the Trisz were not directly concerned with its administration. The local Lord, however, was held responsible for keeping the peace and administering civic affairs throughout his own region and had to conform in all ways to the overlordship of the Trisz.
Kor learned these things from the talk of his blue robed companion as they rode into the town. Getting out when the vehicle stopped by the dark bulk of a building, Brother Pol gestured back the way they had come. The lighted spires of Ka-si reared like beacons into the night sky, and as Kor looked at them, a trillion tiny sparkles of iridescent light began to wink and cluster into a semi-opaque curtain before the view.
“A beautiful effect!” Kor remarked. “What causes it?”
“Sandstorm,” Brother Pol replied. “The city is protected by anti-sand projectors. They send up a curtain of radiation around the entire city. As the sand is blown into it, it is disrupted, and none can get through. When the wind blows extremely hard, it is often a most compelling sight.”
Kor had noticed that a chill wind was rising, and now he began to feel the sting of flying grit. It was obvious that the human city had no such protection.
Brother Pol conducted Kor to the low dome dwelling beside the larger Chapel, which was cubical, plain-surfaced in the style of Chapels everywhere. A gilded simulacrum of the Sun guarded the entrance to the Priest’s quarters, and broad, shallow steps led down at once from the entrance toward the sunken center of the dwelling: the living room, from which other rooms, at higher levels approached by stairs, gave off.
The cold of night had not yet penetrated into the Brother’s house, but it was not uncomfortably warm, even though no air-conditioning was permitted here. A sweet smell of incense picked at Kor’s nostrils. From somewhere, he heard the soft playing of a stringed instrument. In a moment, he spied the musician: a handsome, half-naked girl of the People, dark-haired and well-shaped, squatting on a mat across the room. She plucked fitfully at the strings of her instrument as they came in.
Her presence made Kor feel ill at ease, though he knew it was customary and accepted for the Brothers to take girls, as well as other serving people, into their service. Their ability to do so, naturally, depended upon the financial solvency of their administrative position; and it was only to be expected that the priest, this close to a populous Trisz city, would be fully solvent. Brother Pol was obviously as successful as any Blue Brother could ever hope to be.
The Brother spoke to the girl.
“That will do, Seta.” He turned and whispered to Kor, “In deference to you, Sir, I will send her home tonight.” He spoke kindly to the girl. “You may return to your people tonight, Seta. Please stop by the kitchen on your way out and instruct the cook to prepare dinner for myself and His Eminence, Sir Kor. And do hurry on your way; a sandstorm is springing up and it may get nasty out.”
The girl rose lithely and dropped her instrument on the mat. Her complexion was clear, her features regular and only a shade less than beautiful. She radiated a happy gratitude. Her single garment covered her slightly in the middle…but only slightly. Kor looked away with a feeling of embarrassment.
The girl did not leave at once, but came toward Kor, dropped to one knee and touched the hem of his scarlet robe, raised it to her bare breasts, then to her lips.
“Your blessing, Sir.”
“Blessing, in the name of the Lord Sun, daughter,” Kor murmured mechanically, gazing over her head.
The girl backed slowly from the room. Brother Pol smiled with saturnine amusement.
“Splendid creature, isn’t she? But of little interest to a newly graduated Saint such as yourself, Sir Kor!�
�
“Of no interest whatever,” Kor replied distantly, then mentally kicked himself for having answered at all.
Brother Pol shrugged, still smiling.
“It takes only a little time away from the Institute, and one’s values change. The world is new and strange to you now, Sir, but it will grow on you. Girls are pleasant people, you will doubtless find that out for yourself!”
CHAPTER VI
The audience hall of the Trisz was a large chamber, high up in the Administration Center, above the common levels of human occupation. The elevator had shot upward like a bullet for many seconds before slowing to a stop. Clusters of People stood about the polished floor. Some were Outlanders and others wore colorful garb reserved for the Triszmen. Uniformed guards passed among them, alert to keep order. It was not quite the hour of half-morning.
Kor said, “Must all these People take their turn in audience before the Trisz?”
The Blue Brother made an expansive gesture around the perimeter of the audience chamber. Rich draperies shot scintillant reflections as they stirred gently in the air-conditioned breeze.
“Many more than these could be accommodated simultaneously. When the word is given, all go behind these drapes and are interviewed by the Trisz in smaller chambers. It gives the individual privacy.”
“Each has audience before a separate Trisz, then?”
The Blue Brother shrugged and smiled, “Or the same Trisz. Is there any difference, as far as the Trisz are concerned? They seem to have that peculiar faculty which we generally ascribe only to the Lord Sun—omnipresence.”
Such a statement did not become a Blue Brother, but Kor refrained from comment. Brother Pol had been trained to believe in the twin concepts of the Lord Sun and the benevolence of the Trisz. Only Kor himself in all this crowd understood how much of that faith was truth and how much was hokum to impress the People and confuse the Trisz.
The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister Page 30
