COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 352
"That's enough of that," Coriole said, dusting his fingers and flicking off the screen. "Now I'll show you something really interesting. Watch this."
He got up and knelt before the screen, feeling under the ledge that held the dials. His eyes went slightly crossed with concentration. I heard metal squeak faintly on metal.
Then Coriole said, "Ah!" and lifted the whole panel of dials neatly off. Wires strung from its inner face into the intricacies of the mechanisms within. He laid the panel down on the table, keeping the connections taut, and began to fiddle delicately with bare copper wires inside. I cringed a little.
"This has to be done carefully," Coriole announced with some importance. "Invisible fires can melt your bones if you touch the wrong plates here. But Falvi showed me how to do it and it isn't hard. Now I've got to twist these threads here to those over there—like this, and the thing's done. Excellent. Now you'll see something."
Without replacing the panel, he twitched a dial again, and this time the screen lit up abruptly without the golden A, the music and the chanting. There was something very businesslike about it now.
"This," Coriole told me, "is a secret known only to the priesthood. The usual talking screens show only a selected few pictures the priests prepare. But if you know the secret you can use the same screens to look almost anywhere you like and eavesdrop on anything that happens in the Temple.
"It's a miracle," he added wryly, glancing at me. "What would you like to see now?"
"That machine," I said promptly. "The thing that opens the gate between the worlds." I expected to return by it at some very early date if possible, though there seemed no point in discussing that just now. Still, it would be useful to know a little more about this vital link in my plans.
"How does the thing really work, anyhow?" I inquired.
Coriole gave me one of his pale, oblique glances.
"I don't even know how they make the lights go on at night," he said morosely.
"Well, let's have a look at the machine anyhow. Can you show it to me in operation? From behind the scenes, I mean."
"Yes, I think so. It's on record. For some reason they put a sequence on file not long ago. I ran across it just the other day, eavesdropping. A friend of yours is in it, incidentally."
He grinned at me and worked diligently at the dials.
Without fanfare a familiar room began to take shape on the screen. The lines for a moment were fuzzy and out of focus, then they steadied and I was looking at a strictly unrehearsed scene in a room I had left a very short while ago.
There was the wall of instruments that meant nothing to me. There was the curtained corner where I'd hidden from Falvi. The round, blank face of the machine looked emptily into the screen. But this time it was partially obscured.
The little room was full of people. The illusion was so perfect that Coriole and I seemed to be peering secretly down out of some window in the wall which had escaped my notice when I had been in the room.
Gazing down on the blue-striped heads and robed shoulders of the men around the machine, I said, "Just how does this work? I mean—"
"It's a spy system. The upper priesthood uses it to check on the junior members and the attendants. You can look into almost any room in the Temple except the Hierarch's private chambers and the secret rooms. Now and then they make recordings of something they want to study—like this. Watch."
He leaned forward a little as a stir of the crowd around the machine heralded something new. Then the heads and shoulders moved aside, leaving a lane, and apparently from directly under us a veiled figure moved. Evidently the hidden lens of the camera was located just over the door.
Coriole leaned still further forward as if he were trying to see around corners in the reflection itself. I saw the men's faces turn to the newcomer, anticipation and excitement showing under every striped headdress.
The veiled woman lifted her arms and put the silvery gauze back from her face. It was a familiar gesture. I knew the way her arms moved and the way her head and neck rose from her shoulders ... But now there was something different. For there was a studied grace in every line of this figure, a certain theatrical self-assurance that had never existed in the original I remembered so well.
"Clia," Coriole said in a flat voice. "I think you know her?"
I craned as he had. I wanted very much to see more of this foreshortened and half-averted face. But all I could glimpse was a flicker of much longer lashes than the original Lorna ever had, a flash of beautiful nose and much improved mouth as for an instant she glanced up at the machine.
It was Lorna, all right—but not the Lorna I knew. This was the Clia of the cloud picture, with eyes like blue swimming pools.
"What makes you think I know her?" I demanded.
"Clia got a thorough questioning as soon as the priests could give it to her," Coriole assured me, still trying to catch sight of the averted, foreshortened face. He did not take his eyes from the screen, but he went on.
"They had some trouble but eventually they managed to make her understand the language. Falvi told me how. Something about abstracting the words she seemed to grasp and working out a sort of basic Malescan for her. They wanted to know how she'd happened to fall through and whether anybody else was likely to come too. That's when we got a description of you. Wait—"
He held up one hand for silence. I leaned forward again. The reflected synthetic Lorna in her upward glance had finally realized what this machine was. I think the intoxication of all those admiring glances had probably slowed down even farther her naturally slow reactions. But once she grasped what this wall full of gadgets really was she shrank back a little and said distinctly,
"Oh, no! Let me out of here!"
"What did she say?" Coriole demanded with interest.
I told him. He nodded, still watching. He had not taken his eyes from the screen since the graceful figure veiled in silvery gauze appeared on it. Now there was a small turmoil around Lorna, many voices murmured reassurance and they coaxed her forward a little farther.
"What's going on here?" I demanded.
"Wait," was all Coriole would say. So I waited. We watched the rest of the little recorded scene play itself out. There wasn't much. Lorna was objecting violently to the machine and I caught a distinct echo in her new melodious voice of the old raucousness as her temper mounted.
The priests soothed her in vain. The picture ran on for a minute or two and then Lorna whirled with a wide outswing of her veils and stalked from the room, passing directly under our observation post so that we had one brief glimpse of her transfigured face.
She had turned into the Beautiful Princess, all right, I thought morosely. Every detail was there as nearly as I could tell from glimpses. The limpid eyes, the lovely features, the melodious voice only a little marred by the old harsh tinny quality when she was angry.
So, in spite of myself I was acquiring the attributes of the hero of romance. Here I was in search of the lovely heroine. I couldn't go back without her. And the organization of rebels was ready and waiting for me to join them so I could overthrow the government, release the princess and return home in triumph.
It made me feel very uneasy.
Coriole sighed as Lorna flounced off the screen and the picture faded.
"Exactly what was happening there?" I demanded. "Why were they trying to—"
"Suppose you answer a few questions for a change," my cousin interrupted. "What do you know about Clia? What are your relations with her? She seems to have come through the Earth-Gates from your living quarters. Is she your wife by any chance?"
"God forbid," I said.
He grinned a little, not much. "Good. I see what you mean. She's a fool, of course. Nobody could mistake that. But they've made the most of her. Falvi tells me she was a very ordinary-looking woman when she came through. They gave her some of their miraculous treatments and made a beauty of her and they did a fine job.
"You saw how those priests reacted? Falvi says they studied the problem very carefully and chose exactly the features and attitudes that would be most appealing to the average man. A sort of visual semantics, Falvi says. And they called her Clia because—" He paused and chuckled.
"This shows you how clever they were. They went through the records of recent deaths in the country and located a deceased woman who'd had a facial likeness to the new angel. Then they idealized and beautified her into the sort of being you'd expect from Paradise.
"And they spread the word that the deceased Clia had led a life of such extreme virtue she'd gone straight into Paradise, bypassing various incarnations and the final incarnation of priesthood on the way. They announced that Paradise had arranged for the transfigured Clia to come back and tell her story as an inspiration to the rest of humanity."
He was smiling but it seemed to me that his gaze still lingered on the blank screen as if it searched in retrospect for the beautiful face which the priesthood's "visual semantics" had assembled so deftly. Apparently their cleverness had paid off all too well.
I had an idea that a good many Malescans were about half in love with their angelic Clia or the idealization that had been handed to them under that name. I grinned to myself. They ought to know the real Lorna. That would cure anybody of romantic ideas about Clia.
Coriole twisted a dial idly and a pale uncertain image of a hospital ward flickered before us. He twisted again and the ward dissolved into a room seething with dim translucent children, whose voices came to us in a sort of shrill whispering yammer tuned down almost to silence.
It occurred to me that if the priesthood maintained hospitals and kindergartens it might not be wholly without regard for the welfare of the people, selfish though the regard probably was.
I thought in a vague way that before I threw in with Coriole's side the least I could do was try to get some unbiased slant on the opposition, too. Naturally Coriole was painting his side white and the other side black. If I'd met the priesthood first no doubt I'd have heard an entirely different story with all the values reversed.
Then I remembered it was the priesthood I'd met first with lamentable results. Falvi's desire to wipe me out had been purely personal, of course, to cover his own illegal tampering with the machine. Dio, on the other hand, had seemed rather interesting.
"Do you know a priest named Dio?" I asked.
"I do." Coriole sounded grim. "Why?"
Then I told him my little story about the procession through the streets. He looked thoughtful at the end of it, but he shrugged.
"Well, I hope Falvi can handle him. Dio's unpredictable. We've tried to sound him out for joining us, but what he wants is a sure thing. He never takes chances unless he's sure they'll pay off. And he isn't quite sure about us.
"Still, I think he has an idea we might just possibly get somewhere, some day. Dio's for Dio first and the winning side next. I suppose he'll keep his mouth shut, but it was clever of you to sidetrack him like that. You're just the man we need, cousin. I'm glad you're going to join us."
"Am I? You seem to have it all worked out. Just what plans have you got for me, Coriole?"
"That depends on whether you join us willingly or not." He gave me a very chilly glance. Then I saw an unexpected grin flicker across his face and the Coriole I had first met showed through for an instant—Coriole in his civilian guise, so to speak.
"As the lamb said to the curran," he added, " 'How's that for High?' "
"Very funny," I told him unsympathetically. "Suppose I don't join you?"
"Then I'll turn you over to Falvi," my cousin said, reverting to his military guise with no perceptible effort. "I'm supposing you do join. Then we'll take you to the mountains and give you a course in politics and strategy. You're much too valuable to lose, my dear cousin. For instance—"
Someone rapped sharply on the door.
Coriole and I looked at each other. Neither of us moved. The knocking came again, very loud in this small room. Coriole switched off the screen. Then he got up cautiously and crossed toward the door. On the way his bare foot came down on a broken eggshell and he swore in a whisper, hopped a time or two and limped the rest of the way.
"Who is it?" he demanded.
"It's me—Falvi," an excited whisper declared through the panels. "Let me in. They're after me!"
I could see Coriole's grimace. That was Falvi, all right. Let him in so he could lead the police right to the vital spot! Coriole, standing on one foot and brushing at the injured sole, spoke softly.
"What's the matter?"
"I think I've killed Dio!"
Coriole sighed and unlocked the door, opening it just a crack. I saw Falvi's thin nose thrust eagerly through.
"Let me in, Coriole!"
"Now wait a minute," Coriole said in a patient voice. "I'm busy here. What makes you think you've killed Dio? Did you shoot him?"
"No, I hit him over the head. I tell you they're after me! Let me—"
"What did you hit him with?"
"My sandal. Coriole, will you let me—"
"Then I doubt if he's dead, you fool. You aren't that powerful. Calm down a minute will you? Who's after you?"
"Well, the guards, I think." Falvi's excitement was beginning to subside.
"You're as safe there as you'd be here," Coriole told him unsympathetically. "Wait—I'll be with you in a second."
He shut and locked the door and turned back to me. Then his eye fell on the dismantled screen and he limped forward and began to work rapidly with the copper wiring he had just readjusted.
"I've got to calm him down," he said. "I'll give you fifteen minutes by yourself to think things over. How about it?"
"Have I got anything to say?"
"No." My cousin gave me his ready grin. "Not a word. You sit tight and don't make any fuss. When I get back we'll start in planning. I'll lock you in so you won't be bothered."
He finished the rewiring, snapped the panel into place and straightened, wrapping himself afresh in the orange towel. "Don't try to get out," he warned. "Remember, Falvi's right outside."
"Have it your own way," I said, watching him unlock the door. A drift of the fragrant fog seeped in through the opening as he looked cautiously out. He spoke to me casually over his freckled shoulder.
"Clia's our real key," he said. "You sit here and think of some way you could talk her into joining our side. We'll have to work fast, you know. Angels from Paradise can get to be a drug on the market if they hang around too long. The Hierarch's planning to send her back to New York any day now." He slipped out into the swirling fog.
"See you later," he said and shut the door. I heard the lock click.
-
Chapter X
I HEARD my brain click, too. So Lorna was going back to New York any day now. Well, well, I thought, in a rather dazed fashion, staring at the blank screen. And I'd had my trouble for nothing, had I? Obviously, that was what the scene with Lorna at the machine had meant. I thought back, trying to remember exactly what had been said. Lorna was objecting and the priests were coaxing her. Why?
I could understand her aversion toward the machine, once she recognized it. That transition between worlds was a very disagreeable experience. For some reason it seemed necessary to persuade her to go willingly. Probably they were planning a big public ceremony when the angel returned to Paradise. It would spoil the show if she didn't seem to want to go back.
But she was going back. Well, then, what was I sitting here waiting for? All I had to do was get to the Hierarch and persuade him to send me with her, and everything would be fine again. Or was it that easy?
I scratched my ear and tried to think. There was something wrong here. If this were the familiar melodrama I was reliving, I'd have dived head first into the excitement my cousin was offering. It seemed to promise unlimited chances to swing swords, gallop on fiery steeds and lead lost causes at the top of my voice. But I felt strongly that I was never cut out to be a hero.
For one thing, the hero never pauses to consider what's in it for him before he plunges into combat to overthrow the government. And how did I know the majority of the Malescans wanted their government overthrown? I had only Coriole's word for it.
Assuming that everything he'd said was perfectly accurate, even then I knew I was lacking in the stuff of heroes. It's true that when he was telling me Uncle Jim's story he seemed to be speaking to a quality in my mind that responded. I knew then what real heroes are like—and I knew I wasn't one of them.
It takes conviction, for one thing. Maybe it takes a man who's a misfit in ordinary life and I wasn't a misfit. I was an up-and-coming young actor with a future in show business. I had everything in the world to go back to if I could take Lorna with me and clear myself.
