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  “What did he actually say?” Alida put her hands between her knees to stop them trembling.

  “That our only hope, if Long proved adamant, was to convince the public that we were right and Azrael was behaving in a petty foolish manner. He warned of a partial failure whatever we did: a wave of suicides, a wave of wilful deaths in risky pastimes. There is something damnably attractive about the idea of putting a term to a monotonous existence! That’s presumably why people flock to see Rungley, and why Long thought fit to bestow the blessing of publicity on him.”

  “So he told you to ensure that Long got stranded here.”

  “Where we can ensure that he is gradually diminished from a mysterious, awe-inspiring stranger to a familiar, rather foolish figure who doesn’t know what’s good for him or his world.”

  “You didn’t—uh—prompt Hans into staying on Azrael?”

  “I may be conceited, but I’d never dream of telling a pantologist what to do! No, he foresaw everything, including a legalistic justification which warrants him doing so under Azrael law.”

  “He got himself appointed as Shrigg’s special investigator into Chen’s death?”

  “Congratulations, Alida! You’re beginning to think like your normal self again. On Azrael they don’t have a trial prior to the execution of someone who killed in the course of ritual, but they do have to file a verdict prepared by someone who would correspond, in old-fashioned legal terms, to an examining magistrate. On their own terms they have to put up with him until he’s satisfied.”

  “How about getting him home?”

  The plump man hesitated. At length he said gently, “The scoutship will stand by indefinitely, and he can contact Captain Inkoos whenever he likes.”

  “I see… Moses, did you discuss your parent-role theory with Lorenzo? I mean, in connection with Jorgen?”

  “I didn’t need to. Apparently loss of the direct contact with the future represented by raising children is among the commonest causes of the condition the poor fellow is suffering from.”

  “The ‘black night of the soul’?”

  “Precisely.”

  Alida shuddered. “What a horrible phrase! All by itself it carries one back to the Dark Ages, when people laboured under the burden of crazy superstition—black magic, witchcraft, demons and evil spirits everywhere one turned!”

  “That’s why Hans is prepared to take his gamble.”

  “What?” Alida turned in confusion; they were nearing the end of their journey.

  “I was instructed not to tell you this until everything had worked out as Hans predicted. But I can do so now. You know the fur hats the men from Azrael wear?”

  “Of course!”

  “Have you ever seen Long without his?”

  “No, I haven’t—but what of it?”

  “The doctors did, at the hospital where he was taken for his snake-bite. That was how I found out.”

  “What?”

  “When his hat is off, you can see on each side of his forehead, just below the hairline, a little puckered excrescence of hardened skin. They said it was almost as hard as a fingernail. In other words, Alida, because he thinks it fitting to his role, Lancaster Long is trying to grow horns.”

  XI

  If that one moment in the act of suicide which lies between the decision and the death could be stretched to days or weeks, Hans Demetrios thought, it would best resemble what he was now experiencing. The hung-on-nothing instant after the chair is kicked away, before the cord constricts the throat; the seconds between the cliff-top and the rocks; the intolerable burning of the poison in the gut; the hiss of air escaping into space, carrying its own sound to ears that will never hear anything again…

  Yet there was hope to cling to. He imagined—he forced himself to believe—that he had located the weak spot in these people’s reasoning. He must chisel away at it tirelessly until the monolith of their conviction shattered.

  Must. For if he didn’t…

  But he refused to let himself think about that.

  The people were puzzled at first when the scoutship, giving no warning, lifted from the port, leaving only the dwarfed figure of Hans standing on the arid concrete like a lone mourner. He felt at that moment curiously divided, between regret at what he was losing and eagerness to know whether he was justified in his sacrifice. He compared himself to a starving man who could find no food except a bitter fruit which twisted his mouth even as he choked it down.

  It was a little while before a group of silent men came to escort him before one of the local officials known as custodians of propriety. They handled him roughly, but he was prepared for that. In a room walled with brown planks the official demanded the reason for his presence.

  Hans answered meekly, hiding his true emotions.

  “Your representative, Lancaster Long, refused to permit a Bridge to Azrael, and demanded that we leave your world forthwith. We would not try and force anybody to act against his will. Yet there remains unfinished business. I am here to complete it. I am of rank superior to your own, but shall be content if you address me as an equal.”

  Since the official was clearly old enough to be Hans’s grandfather, he bridled.

  “What about Long and his companions?”

  Hans gave a measured shrug.

  “What they do is of no concern to me. I presume they are still on Earth. Certainly they did not come back by way of the scoutship’s Bridge.”

  That was met with a scowl. “And what do you want?”

  “For myself, nothing. For the people of Earth, justice. One of us was killed here.”

  “The account was regulated. There was an execution. All was done in accordance with the law.”

  “But it must be shown that your law is just.”

  “What else is justice but the law?”

  “If that is true, why does not every planet have the same law as your own?”

  Hans stood meekly blinking, and waited. At length the official uttered barking orders, and guards took him to a cell. Squatting on the hard floor, back into a corner for what support it lent him, Hans reviewed in imagination what must be happening beyond these stark bare walls.

  The exact status which entitled Long to speak for Azrael in negotiations with Earth was one of the things that even Jacob Chen had not been able to fathom. Ipewell had been perfectly simple; there was the quasi-religious foundation of the matriarchy, the legend of the Greatest Mother of All whose temporary personification was Uskia—a whole interlocking society to which keys could readily be found. The image of the Grand Lama in ancient Tibet had been particularly indicative. Because there was minimal delegation of authority it had been necessary for Uskia herself to go to Earth; because she was absent, it had been easy to work out how the power-relations between her subordinates operated. The analysis, though complex, was derivable from a few basic assumptions, and though it might need to be modified in the light of experience, once people from Ipewell and other human worlds began to interact, it was fundamentally sound. Hans was sure of that.

  But as to Azrael—

  It was clear that there was a kind of caste system. If one could compare it with anything, perhaps the structure of ancient Japan might serve as an analogy. More than pedigree, what counted in determining one’s caste was a code of behaviour. In the highest caste of all, it could be taken for granted that any member of it would react in precisely the same way as any other to no matter what sort of challenge—up to and including renewed contact with the fardistant mother planet.

  In principle, therefore, it would have made no odds whether Long and his entourage had been selected to visit Earth, or a totally different group. It verged on the impossible for someone raised against the background of Earth’s society, which cherished individuality, to comprehend such an iron-rigid set of assumptions; yet there was no alternative explanation that fitted half so well.

  One had to reach into the far past to gain a glimmer of understanding. Hints and clues abounded—in classical
Greece, an artist who had created a master-work would flaw it deliberately, for fear its perfection might excite the jealousy of the gods; also, in many cultures, people had taken their most prized possessions and burned them for a sacrifice. Even to an only child. Even to life itself. And done so as unquestioningly as by reflex.

  But who would have dreamed of such attitudes on a planet which had been colonised by a faster-than-light starship, whose culture was as little inclined as Earth’s own to imagine capricious supernatural overlords?

  Captain Inkoos and the rest of the crew of the Hunting Dog knew such concepts as sacrifice and divine jealousy only from their study of history. The fact of existence made its own demands on them, which they were satisfied to fulfil. They regarded their lives as rewarding. They had skills and tactics developed over more than their own lifetimes which had proved to be trustworthy tools. Therefore they had expected nothing out of the ordinary at Azrael, save insofar as every world re-contacted had its own peculiar characteristics. They had even inclined to hope that this planet might be especially remarkable; it was nice, on furlough, to mention what one had recently been doing and find that complete strangers wanted to ask informed questions. Accordingly they had announced their presence, established contact, landed in the place designated, met with officials of the highest caste, offered the Bridge…

  Nothing had prepared them for the shock which had so disheartened the scoutship’s staff pantologist that he had to resign and make way for Chen… by which time the close-mouthed natives had already selected Long and his fellow delegates, and they were on Earth.

  Where they still were.

  Hans sat in the corner of the chilly cell and willed the rumours to begin. The rigidity of this society implied that everybody must be constantly suspicious of one another’s motives. Where the only grounds for trust consisted in the assumption that other people thought identically to oneself, the slightest hint of departure from the common norm must breach that trust. Nobody would yet ask him, Hans, whether Long had chosen to stay on Earth; the very idea he should so have chosen would be unthinkable.

  It was his most immediate task to make it thinkable. By adroit implication, he must cause people to worry. Had Long betrayed their code, so he would not dare return home? Despite all his outward scoffing at the decadent ways of Earth, had he let himself be tempted by them? Once posed, such questions would demand an answer. And because they had no channel of communication with Earth—even now, he estimated, they would be discovering the wall of silence he had ordered the scoutship to maintain—their only means of finding out was via himself.

  It was a slender thread on which to depend for his life. But he was tolerably certain they would decide to collaborate with him in the hope of learning the truth about Long indirectly. Perhaps they would try to strike a bargain; perhaps they might lose patience and torture him. However it turned out, he would have to rely chiefly on his own resources. He did not even possess one of the computerbelts which Earth’s representatives normally wore when travelling off-world; van Heemskirk had offered him his choice of the newest and best, and he had refused, saying, “These people are only human, like myself. It will prove nothing if I can’t beat them without machines.”

  The most he had accepted was a thread-like communicator hidden in his hair. It would enable him to report progress to Captain Inkoos and thus to Earth. But he expected to make little use of it. It did have a second function; it monitored his life-signals, and if they ceased or grew dangerously irregular the Hunting Dog would descend snarling from the sky to snatch back, if need be, his still-warm corpse at the cost of anyone who tried to stand in the way. It would be the final proof of the argument he was attempting to defend. A little late for himself, but just possibly soon enough to rescue Azrael.

  He concentrated on that one above all his other insights. People like Shrigg, van Heemskirk, Jorgen Thorkild, even Alida who was immensely sensitive to his predicament—they all thought he was taking this gamble for the sake of Earth.

  Not so.

  He had set out to bring salvation to the planet Azrael.

  Days leaked away; he was fed, made more or less comfortable, visited now and then by men who could have been Long’s brothers and made polite inquiries concerning his well-being, which he met with muted but unmistakable complaints at not being able to conduct the business he was here for. After a week one of them, whom he had not seen before, glanced around worriedly as though afraid of being over-heard—but they were alone and the guard who stood before the cell-door had been sent on some specious errand—and asked whether Long had remained on Earth of his own free will.

  Hans concealed his jubilation. He said in a bored-sounding tone what was the perfect truth: “I never met this man Long! I heard he did something which I regard as stupid, and in public. Beyond that..

  And a shrug.

  “In any case,” he added, “Long could have had no part in the death of Chen. He wasn’t even on this planet when it happened. I require to speak with those who were and saw it.”

  Which concluded that particular conversation…

  Next morning, however, he was at last led from the cell and to a kind of audiencehall, just as devoid of ornament as any other room on Azrael, but sombrely decorated with men in robes of deep rich colours, who stood here and there on the stone-flagged floor like giant chess-pieces. At the centre of the group was a high-backed chair of dark wood, presently vacant.

  Stiff from his confinement, much aware of the aroma his clothes must be giving off after so long without washing, Hans preserved his dignity as best he could. He looked with deliberation at each of the men in turn; one returned his gaze with calm appraisal. Very good, Hans thought. That was the one he would direct his attention to, regardless of who came to occupy the chair.

  The door creaked open. A stooped old man appeared, helped along by a younger. His robe and hat were as black as space. It dawned on Hans that the garb of the man who had met his gaze was midnight-blue. His own clothing, for no particular reason, was off-white and was now of course marked with dust. Possibly a stroke of luck? At all events it offered an image that one might exploit in argument.

  Seated, the old man said in a thin but still forceful voice, “So you’re the boy who claims to be senior to our custodians of propriety! You will not do so in my presence. I am Alastair Shang, and I have renounced the right to die in ritual more often than any of my colleagues. I have endured the duty of existence for a century!” He bent aside to utter a wheezing cough. And, recovering, concluded: “It is still open to you to escape the universe at a mere fraction of my age!”

  How interesting… ! Hans’s heart leapt. But he preserved his impassive demeanour.

  “I had been informed that medical science on Azrael was atrophying,” he murmured. “I will therefore not trouble you with “the discrepancy between my apparent and my chronological age. It is entirely irrelevant to the purpose of my stay here. Of which I have already talked at length to several of your colleagues—separately, to my amazement. It had been my impression that the lords of Azrael spoke and acted as one.”

  “We do!” Shang declared, clutching the arms of his chair and leaning forward with a glare.

  “The secretive and confidential visits some of them have paid me in jail do not well match your claim,” Hans said, glancing from one to another of the listeners. “However, if you prefer to believe that, I shall not dispute it. I shall only observe that we of Earth act otherwise, and therefore it will be enough for you to justify Chen’s death to me alone.”

  There was a puzzled silence. Shang said at last, “There was talk of an investigation. But one was held here. It was enough. It was under the law he died by. Why do you mount another?”

  “It is not another. It is the only investigation. That is, it will be, if you let me complete it. There was no investigation here on Azrael.”

  “There was!” barked one of the tall men standing near the chair. “I conducted it myself!”

  �
�And you said”—Hans’s amazing memory brought the words to his lips without any need for him to think them out—“it was in the course of ritual, in the view of all, and when one does that, he is deliberate. So you said to Captain Inkoos, did you not?”

  “I well recall having done so!”

  “But you spoke only of the killer, not the victim. I speak of the victim, deprived of the opportunity to endure the duty of existence for another century or two. Of course, if here on Azrael you have no one whose life is of any value, the significance of what I say will be lost on you.”

  Beginning to look worried, one of the others bent to whisper in Shang’s ear, and after a little thought he did as Hans had been expecting. He signalled to the man in midnight-blue to take up the argument. This latter, smiling with thin lips above a straggly grey beard, stepped forward.

  “I am Casimir Yard. You touch on philosophical matters like a child, without understanding. I will attempt to enlighten your ignorance.”

  “Some would say,” Flans countered, “that taking the life of a stranger without consideration for any but one’s own selfish desire for oblivion is akin to the action not of a child but a baby, for whom the world beyond its own skin does not exist, save insofar as it can provide immediate gratification, of course. I take it, however, that all of you here present have grown up past that stage, at any rate, or you’d be dead already, wouldn’t you?”

  One of the onlookers drew a hissing breath, and many fists clenched. Casimir Yard, however, merely sighed.

  “Clearly you labour under the delusion that mere existence is worthwhile for its own sake. This is the condition not even of a baby, but of an unintelligent beast, or plant. By the same token, when the individual existence of a mindless organism reaches its term, it is of no account. On the other hand, we who are human—”

  Hans cut in sharply. “But you paid not the least heed to the question of Chen’s identity! Was the termination of his existence that of a mindless organism?”