Part 6 (1/2)

Not all-wise, nor all-powerful. I wish they were; for they are kind.”

”You sound like nice people,” Newlin admitted. ”I wish I could believe you. Off-hand, I think you're crazy. You say we're all off the beam.

Then you talk like delusions of grandeur, and I have reason to know you can be homicidal. One of us is nuts. It's a toss-up.”

Songeen smiled wearily. ”It is possible that I am infected. I am inoculated against it, but so was Genarion. Will you believe that I loved him? He was my husband. We were children together, like brother and sister. Later, we were schooled together, were married, and asked to be a.s.signed our task together. I did not sentence him, and I would have died myself first. But he had been here too long. If he had gone back, the contagion would have gone with him. It was fated. You and I were mere tools. Weapons.”

”I'm sorry, Songeen. I do believe you loved him.”

She shook her head in curious ruffle of emotion. ”He was not the first.

Many of our kind have renounced their birthright to go among your people, become like you and share your hideous lives. They are part of your great religions, part of the legendary history of your races.”

Silence fell between them. Newlin thought of dying Mars, the burnt-out husk of Venus, the political and economic pesthole of Earth--even the grim, gray, terrible frontiers on the further planets and moons. His recollections were a dreadful pageant of spectres, of an ugly, terror-haunted childhood, of the bleak years of his barren, lonely wanderings--the memory kitbag of a homeless, and often hunted, s.p.a.ceb.u.m.

”I can believe you,” Newlin admitted slowly. ”Most of the truly worthwhile leaders of mankind stand so far above the mob that they seem cast in a different mold. The real leaders--not politicians, nor military bra.s.s. The thinkers and scientists, even the prophets. Every great religion sprang from the vision or inspiration of a single leader.

Beyond the chaff, the fragments of his actual thoughts and words--always sound good. But their followers don't follow them.”

Songeen's face twisted in bitter wrath. ”How terribly true! Can blind men follow the sun? They feel its warmth and reach out to it, but they stumble and fall on their own clay feet. Blind eyes and hands can never reach the light. Most of our emissaries, of that kind, die horribly, and their message is distorted to serve the ends of madness and corruption.”

”Is there no hope for us?”

She stared at him. The pale glow of her moonbright eyes softened and intensified.

”One hope, and only in yourselves. We have tried and failed. If you feel so strongly, why have you done nothing?”

Bitter hatred snagged in Newlin's throat, making his laugh a sound of horror. ”Not me. I can pity the ma.s.ses of poor and down-trodden, but only as ma.s.ses. As abstractions. Individually, I loathe them. Cornered rats will fight back--but men lick the boots of their tormentors. I learned only hate and defiance. I'm a cornered rat, not a man.”

There was sound now, outside the door they had entered. Low at first, a mere scrabbling, as if the trackers had located their refuge. In moments only, there came a heavy pounding, followed by the skirl of atomic drills. Newlin tensed, his hand itching at the b.u.t.t of his blaster.

”I'm a rat,” he went on. ”Cornered, like any other rat. And the terriers are out there scratching at my hole. If you'll open that non-squeak door, I'll talk to them. Maybe even kill a few.”

”No,” said Songeen positively. ”No killing.”

”But I'm a killer,” Newlin insisted. ”I've killed men before for a lot less reason. They're mining the door. How long do you think that will last against explosives?”

”Not long,” the girl admitted. ”But long enough. I have the key at last.

Stand back.”

Something formless and faintly radiant hovered indescribably in s.p.a.ce.

Suspended above the worn flooring, without visible support or tangible outline--it existed. Something like weird emptiness, a void appearing in the air itself.

”This is the portal,” Songeen told him calmly. ”Choose now. I will take you with me if I can without permission. But do not come with me, unwarned. There is grave peril, beyond anything I can describe to you.

Beyond your experience or imagination. I will try to get you safely back, somehow. But I can promise nothing. And if you stay too long, there is no coming back. You must remain there; even if the terror of your surroundings kills you.”

She stood beside the mysterious doorway, waiting. Newlin made a start to follow her, then balked.

”Wait!” he ordered roughly, as she was about to lead the way. ”I can't go with you--not like this.”