This Fortress World (19 page)

I told her about the nightmares that were real and the reality that was nightmare, about the many-legged things and the silence and the loneliness and the pain, and, at last, how she had come and I had thought she was Sabatini or the others, and I was being cheated. And it wasn't terrible any more, not any of it, but something that had happened to someone a long time ago.

When my voice died away, after I had told her almost everything, she shook her head sadly. "All for a pebble," she said. But she didn't ask why I had done what I had done and suffered what I had suffered. She seemed to know. I was grateful for that. I still wasn't sure. "And you never knew," she said, "what it was or why everyone wanted it so much."

I shook my head. "Maybe it wasn't anything except what men made it. Maybe it was a kind of mirror in which men saw the reflections of their own desires. I think all the killing and the torment was for nothing. Maybe it always is."

"No," she said. "I think you're wrong. I think it must be the key to the fortress."

I looked at her quickly, wondering what she meant.

"Think of them, Siller and Sabatini and the others," she went on. "They weren't dreamers to chase a phantom, to pursue their own shadows. They were hard men, realistic men. They must have had some clue. The pebble must be the keystone of the crazy arch that spans the galaxy. Pull it out and the whole fantastic structure will crumble. Siller was right about that. The power situation keeps the galaxy divided, but one simple discovery could change it all. I think the pebble is that discovery, and they are afraid of it, those hard men, or they covet the power that control of it would mean. And if the pebble is that, it is the key to every fortress world in the galaxy."

"Maybe you're right," I said. "I'll tell you where it is. When I left the Cathedral, I hid it where no one can get it, not you or me or anyone. But if you know—"

"I don't want to know," Laurie said violently. "I don't want you to tell me."

"But if—but if you should be captured—" I stopped. The thought was like agony, worse than anything Sabatini had done. "If Sabatini should find you, you can tell him."

"I'd rather have nothing to tell," Laurie said. "You said yourself that it was better not to talk. Frieda had something to tell, and she told it, and it didn't help her. I'd rather not know."

I sighed. "All right. But if you're right about the pebble, something should be done with it. It should get into the right hands, somehow, if there are any right hands—"

"But you said that no one could get it."

"That's right. None of us."

The suspense of the memories and the reliving of them had kept me sitting up straight. Now I sank back again against the pillows propped at my back.

"Now you know all about me," I said. It didn't occur to me that I didn't know anything about Laurie; if I had thought of it, I would have decided that it didn't matter. I knew everything about Laurie I needed to know. "You know everything except one thing. And maybe you know that, too. I said a lot of things while I was out of my head."

"Yes," she said, looking away. "You were delirious. I knew it didn't mean anything."

"Some of it didn't. Some of it was only the fever and my sick mind. But one thing I said was more true than anything I've ever said. You know what it is."

"No," she said.

It was hard to say again. When I was sick I had said it many times. I remembered saying it, and it had made me feel happy; even with walls crumbling around me I had felt happy. But now there were other walls to consider and someone else's feelings, and I was afraid because it might not work out, and it might make Laurie unhappy, and I didn't want to do anything, ever, that would make her unhappy. But I knew I could never rest until I said it. And so, selfishly, I said it.

"I love you, Laurie." It came out cold and harsh; it frightened me. "Don't say anything; I'm not asking for anything. I just wanted you to know." But that wasn't true; I knew it, and I had to go on. "You've seen me without my walls. Can you endure what you've seen?"

She sighed. It was a happy sound. "Yes. Yes.…"

"Why do you sigh?"

"I was afraid the walls might be too strong, that you could never get the words through." She leaned toward me until her face was so close I couldn't make out her features.

Her lips touched mine, warm and full and sweet, moving gently as if to whisper secrets to my lips, and I was filled with a great exultation that choked my throat with joy. New strength flowed through me.

I pulled her close, and she came to me like dawn to the world, gladly, filled with light and joy and promise…

"Will," she said softly. "Will—Will—Will." Or was it only a thought? It was a moment in which we might have shared our thoughts, if such a thing were possible.

"Tomorrow," I said, "I'll get the pebble."

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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.