A Maze of Death

7

“Don’t kid yourself,” Glen Belsnor said. “If it shot at your wife it’s because that loopy dame, that Susie Dumb or Smart, whichever it is, wanted it to. She taught it. They can be trained, you see.” He sat holding the tiny structure, staring down at it, a brooding expression settling by degrees into his long, lean face.

“If I hadn’t grabbed her,” Seth said, “we would have had a second death tonight.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Considering the meager output of these things it probably would only have knocked her out.”

“The beam bored through the wall.”

Belsnor said, “The walls are cheap plastic. One layer. You could punch a hole through with your fist.”

“So you’re not upset by this.”

Belsnor plucked at his lower lip, thoughtfully. “I’m upset by the whole thing. What the hell were you doing with Susie in her room?” He raised his hand. “Don’t tell me, I know. She’s deranged sexually. No, don’t give me any details.” He played aimlessly with the replica of the Building. “Too bad it didn’t shoot Susie,” he murmured, half to himself.

“There’s something the matter with all of you,” Seth said.

Belsnor raised his shaggy head and studied Seth Morley. “In what way?”

“I’m not sure. A kind of idiocy. Each of you seems to be living in his own private world. Without regard for anyone else. It’s as if—” He pondered. “As if all you want, each of you, is to be left alone.”

“No,” Belsnor said. “We want to get away from here. We may have nothing else in common, but we do share that.” He handed the destroyed structure back to Seth. “Keep it. As a souvenir.”

Seth tossed it onto the floor.

“You’re going out exploring with Susie tomorrow?” Belsnor said.

“Yes.” He nodded.

“She’ll probably attack you again.”

“I’m not interested in that. I’m not worried by that. I think that we have an active enemy on the planet, working from outside the settlement area. I think it—or they—killed Tallchief. Despite what Babble found.”

Belsnor said, “You’re new here. Tallchief was new here. Tallchief is dead. I think there’s a connection; I think his death was connected to his unfamiliarity with the conditions on the planet. Therefore you’re equally in danger. But the rest of us—”

“You don’t think I should go.”

“Go, yes. But be very careful. Don’t touch anything, don’t pick up anything, keep your eyes open. Try to go only where she’s been; don’t tackle new areas.”

“Why don’t you come too?”

Regarding him intently, Belsnor said, “You want me to?”

“You’re the settlement’s leader, now. Yes, I think you should come. And armed.”

“I—” Belsnor pondered. “It could be argued that I ought to stay here and work on the transmitter. It could be argued that you ought to be at work composing a prayer, instead of tramping around in the wilderness. I have to think of every aspect of this situation. It could be argued—”

“It could be argued that your ‘could be argueds’ may kill us all,” Seth Morley said.

“Your ‘could be argued’ may be correct.” Belsnor smiled as if at a private, secret reality. The smile, with no amusement in it, lingered on his face; it remained and became sardonic.

Seth Morley said, “Tell me what you know about the ecology out there.”

“There is an organism which we call the tench. There are, we’ve gathered, five or six of them. Very old.”

“What do they do? Are they artifact makers?”

“Some, the feeble ones, do nothing. They just sit there here and there in the middle of the landscape. The less feeble ones, however, print.”

“‘Print’?”

“They duplicate things brought to them. Small things, such as a wristwatch, a cup, an electric razor.”

“And the printings work?”

Belsnor tapped his jacket pocket. “The pen I’m using is a print. But—” He lifted out the pen and extended it toward Seth Morley. “See the decay?” The surface of the pen had a furry texture, much like dust. “They decompose very rapidly. This’ll be good for another few days, and then I can have another print made from the original pen.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re short on pens. And the ones we have are running out of ink.”

“What about the writing of one of these print-pens? Does the ink fade out after a few days?”

“No,” Belsnor said, but he looked uncomfortable.

“You’re not sure.”

Standing, Belsnor dug into his back pocket and got out his wallet. For a time he examined small, folded pieces of paper and then he placed one in front of Seth. The writing was clear and distinct.

Maggie Walsh entered the briefing chamber, saw the two of them, and came over. “May I join you?”

“Sure,” Belsnor said remotely. “Pull up a chair.” He glanced at Seth Morley, then said to her in a leisurely, hard voice, “Susie Smart’s toy building tried to shoot Morley’s wife a little while ago. It missed, and Morley poured a plate of water over it.”

“I warned her,” Maggie said, “that those things are unsafe.”

“It was safe enough,” Belsnor said. “It’s Susie that isn’t safe … as I was explaining to Morley.”

“We should pray for her,” Maggie said.

“You see?” Belsnor said to Seth Morley. “We do have concern for one another. Maggie wants to save Susie Smart’s immortal soul.”

“Pray,” Seth Morley said, “that she doesn’t capture another replica and begin teaching that one, too.”

“Morley,” Belsnor said, “I’ve been thinking about your thoughts on the whole bunch of us. In a way you’re right: there is something the matter with each of us. But not what you think. The thing we have in common is that we’re failures. Take Tallchief. Couldn’t you tell he’s a wino? And Susie—all she can think about is sexual conquests. I can make a guess about you, too. You’re overweight; obviously you eat too much. Do you live to eat, Morley? Or had you never asked yourself that? Babble is a hypochondriac. Betty Jo Berm is a compulsive pill-taker: her life is in those little plastic bottles. That kid, Tony Dunkelwelt; he lives for his mystical insights, his schizophrenic trances… which both Babble and Frazer call catatonic stupor. Maggie, here—” He gestured toward her. “She lives in an illusory world of prayer and fasting, doing service to a deity which isn’t interested in her.” To Maggie he said, “Have you ever seen the Intercessor, Maggie?”

She shook her head no.

“Or the Walker-on-Earth?”

“No,” she said.

“Nor the Mentufacturer either,” Belsnor said. “Now take Wade Frazer. His world—”

“How about you?” Seth asked him.

Belsnor shrugged. “I have my own world.”

“He invents,” Maggie Walsh said.

“But I’ve never invented anything,” Belsnor said. “Everything developed during the last two centuries has come from a composite lab, where hundreds, even thousands of research workers work. There is no such thing as an inventor in this century. Maybe I just like to play private games with electronic components. Anyhow, I enjoy it. I get most if not all of my pleasure in this world from creating circuits that ultimately do nothing.”

“A dream of fame,” Maggie said.

“No.” Belsnor shook his head. “I want to contribute something; I don’t want to be just a consumer, like the rest of you.” His tone was hard and flat and very earnest. “We live in a world created and manufactured from the results of the work of millions of men, most of them dead, virtually none of them known or given any credit. I don’t care if I’m known for what I create; all I care about is having it be worthwhile and useful, with people able to depend on it as something they take for granted in their lives. Like the safety pin. Who knows who created that? But everyone in the goddam galaxy makes use of safety pins, and the inventor—”

“Safety pins were invented on Crete,” Seth Morley said. “In the fourth or fifth century B.C.”

Belsnor glared at him. “About one thousand B.C.”

“So it matters to you when and where they were invented,” Seth Morley said.

“I came close to producing something one time,” Belsnor said. “A silencing circuit. It would have interrupted the flow of electrons in any given conductor for a range of about fifty feet. As a weapon of defense it would have been valuable. But I couldn’t get the field to propagate for fifty feet; I could only get it functional for one-and-a-half feet. So that was that.” He lapsed into silence, then. Brooding, baleful silence. Withdrawn into himself.

“We love you anyway,” Maggie said.

Belsnor raised his head and glared at her.

“The Deity accepts even that,” Maggie said. “Even an attempt which led nowhere. The Deity knows your motive, and motive is everything.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Belsnor said, “if this whole colony, everybody in it, died. None of us contribute anything. We’re nothing more than parasites, feeding off the galaxy. ‘The world will little note or long remember what we do here.’”

Seth Morley said to Maggie, “Our leader. The man who’s going to keep us alive.”

“I’ll keep you alive,” Belsnor said. “As best I can. That could be my contribution: inventing a device made out of fluid-state circuitry that’ll save us. That’ll spike all the toy cannons.”

“I don’t think you’re very bright to call something a toy simply because it’s small,” Maggie Walsh said. “That would mean that the Toxilax artificial kidney is a toy.”

“You would have to call eighty percent of all Interplan ship circuitry toys,” Seth Morley said.

“Maybe that’s my problem,” Belsnor said wryly. “I can’t tell what’s a toy and what isn’t… which means I can’t tell what’s real. A toy ship is not a real ship. A toy cannon is not a real cannon. But I guess if it can kill—” He pondered. “Perhaps tomorrow I should require everyone to go systematically through the settlement, collecting all the toy buildings, in fact everything from outside, and then we’ll ignite the whole pile and be done with it.”

“What else has come into the settlement from outside?” Seth Morley inquired.

“Artificial flies,” Belsnor said. “For one thing.”

“They take pictures?” Seth asked.

“No. That’s the artificial bees. The artificial flies fly around and sing.”

“‘Sing’?” He thought he must have heard wrong.

“I have one here.” Belsnor rummaged in his pockets and at last brought out a small plastic box. “Hold it to your ear. There’s one in there.”

“What sort of thing do they sing?” Seth Morley held the box to his ear, listened. He heard it, then, a far-off sweet sound, like divided strings. And, he thought, like many distant wings. “I know that music,” he said, “but I can’t place it.” An indistinct favorite of mine, he realized. From some ancient era.

“They play what you like,” Maggie Walsh said.

He recognized it, now. Granada. “I’ll be goddamed,” he said aloud. “Are you sure it’s a fly that’s doing that?”

“Look in the box,” Belsnor said. “But be careful—don’t let it out. They’re rare and hard to catch.”

With great care Seth Morley slid back the lid of the box. He saw within it a dark fly, like a Proxima 6 tape-fly, large and hairy, with beating wings and eyes protruding, composite eyes, such as true flies had. He shut the box, convinced. “Amazing,” he said. “Is it acting as a receiver? Picking up a signal from a central transmitter somewhere on the planet? It’s a radio—is that it?”

“I took one apart,” Belsnor said. “It’s not a receiver; the music is emitted by a speaker but it emanates from the fly’s works. The signal is created by a miniature generator in the form of an electrical impulse, not unlike a nerve impulse in an organic living creature. There’s a moist element ahead of the generator which alters a complex pattern of conductivity, so a very complex signal can be created. What’s it singing for you?”

“Granada,” Seth Morley said. He wished he could keep it. The fly would be company for him. “Will you sell it?” he asked.

“Catch your own.” Belsnor retrieved his fly and placed the box back in his pocket.

“Is there anything else from outside the settlement?” Seth Morley asked. “Besides the bees, flies, printers and miniature buildings?”

Maggie Walsh said, “A sort of flea-sized printer. But it can only print one thing; it does it over and over again, grinding out a flood that seems endless.”

“A print of what?”

“Of Specktowsky’s Book,” Maggie Walsh said.

“And that’s it?”

“That’s all we know about,” Maggie amended. “There may be others unknown to us.” She shot a sharp glance at Belsnor.

Belsnor said nothing; he had again retracted into his own personal world, for the moment, oblivious to them.

Seth Morley picked up the abolished miniature building and said, “If the tenches only print duplicates of objects then they didn’t make this. Something with highly-developed technical skills would have had to.”

“It could have been made centuries ago,” Belsnor said, rousing himself. “By a race that’s no longer here.”

“And printed continually since?”

“Yes. Or printed after we arrived here. For our benefit.”

“How long do these miniature buildings last? Longer than your pen?”

“I see what you mean,” Belsnor said. “No, they don’t seem to decay rapidly. Maybe they’re not printings. I don’t see that it makes much difference; they could have been held in reserve all this time. Put aside until needed, until something along the lines of our colony manifested itself.”

“Is there a microscope here in the settlement?”

“Sure.” Belsnor nodded. “Babble has one.”

“I’ll go see Babble, then.” Seth Morley moved toward the door of the briefing chamber. “Goodnight,” he said, over his shoulder.

Neither of them answered; they seemed indifferent to him and to what he had said. Will I be this way in a couple of weeks? he asked himself. It was a good question, and before long he would have the answer.

“Yes,” Babble said. “You can use my microscope.” He had on pajamas and slippers and an ersatz-wool striped bathrobe. “I was just going to bed.” He watched Seth Morley bring forth the miniature building. “Oh, one of those. They’re all over the place.”

Seating himself at the microscope, Seth Morley pried open the tiny structure, broke away the outer hull, then placed the component-complex onto the stage of the microscope. He used the low-power resolution, obtaining a magnification of 600x.

Intricate strands… printed circuitry, of course, on a series of modules. Resistors, condensers, valves. A power supply: one ultra-miniaturized helium battery. He could make out the swivel of the cannon barrel and what appeared to be the germanium arc which served as the source of the energy beam. It can’t be very strong, he realized. Belsnor in a sense was right: the output, in ergs, must be terribly small.

He focused on the motor which drove the cannon barrel as it moved from side to side. Words were printed on the hasp which held the barrel in place; he strained to read them—and saw, as he adjusted the fine focus of the microscope, a confirmation of what he most feared.

The construct had come from Earth. It had not been invented by a superterrestrial race—it did not emanate from the native life forms of Delmak-O. So much for that.

General Treaton, he said to himself grimly. It is you, after all, who is destroying us. Our transmitter, our receiver—and the demand that we reach this planet by noser. Was it you who had Ben Tallchief killed? Obviously.

“What are you finding there?” Babble asked.

“I am finding,” he said, “that General Treaton is our enemy and that we don’t have a chance.” He moved away from the microscope. “Take a look.”

Babble placed his eye against the eye-piece of the microscope. “Nobody thought of that,” he said presently. “We could have examined one of these any time during the last two months. It just never occurred to us.” He looked away from the microscope, peering falteringly at Seth Morley. “What’ll we do?”

“The first thing is to collect all of these, everything brought into the settlement from outside, and destroy them.”

“That means the Building is Earth-made.”

“Yes.” Seth Morley nodded. Evidently so, he thought. “We are part of an experiment,” he said.

“We’ve got to get off this planet,” Babble said.

“We’ll never get off,” Seth Morley said.

“It must all be coming from the Building. We’ve got to find a way to destroy it. But I don’t see how we can.”

“Do you want to revise your autopsy report on Tallchief?”

“I have nothing more to go on. At this point I’d say he was probably killed by a weapon that we know nothing about. Something that generates fatal amounts of histamine in the blood supply. Which brings on what looks like a natural breathing-apparatus involvement. There is another possibility which you might consider. It could be a forgery. After all, Earth has become one giant mental hospital.”

“There are military research labs there. Highly secret ones. The general public doesn’t know about them.”

“How do you know about them?”

Seth Morley said, “At Tekel Upharsin, as the kibbutz’s marine biologist, I had dealings with them. And when we bought weapons.” Strictly speaking, this was not true; he had, really, only heard rumors. But the rumors had convinced him.

“Tell me,” Babble said, eyeing him, “did you really see the Walker-on-Earth?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I know firsthand about the secret military research labs on Terra. For example—”

Babble said, “You saw someone. I believe that. Someone whom you didn’t know came up and pointed out something that should have been obvious to you: namely, that the noser you had picked out was not spaceworthy. But you had it already in your mind—because it was taught to you throughout childhood—that if a stranger came to you and offered unsolicited help, that that stranger had to be a Manifestation of the Deity. But look: what you saw was what you expected to see. You assumed that he was the Walker-on-Earth because Specktowsky’s Book is virtually universally accepted. But I don’t accept it.”

“You don’t?” Seth Morley said, surprised.

“Not at all. Strangers—true strangers, ordinary men—show up and give good advice; most humans are well-intentioned. If I had happened by I would have intervened too. I would have pointed out that your ship wasn’t spaceworthy.”

“Then you would have been in the possession of the Walker-on-Earth; you would have temporarily become him. It can happen to anyone. That’s part of the miracle.”

“There are no miracles. As Spinoza proved centuries ago. A miracle would be a sign of God’s weakness, as a failure of natural law. If there were a God.”

Seth Morley said, “You told us, earlier this evening, that you saw the Walker-on-Earth seven times.” Suspicion filled him; he had caught the inconsistency. “And the Intercessor too.”

“What I meant by that,” Babble said smoothly, “is that I encountered life-situations in which human beings acted as the Walker-on-Earth would have acted, did he exist. Your problem is that of a lot of people: it stems from our having encountered non-humanoid sentient races, some of them, the ones we call ‘gods,’ on what we call ‘god-worlds,’ so much superior to us as to put us in—for example—the role that, say, dogs or cats have to us. To a dog or a cat a man seems like God: he can do god-like things. But the quasi-biological, ultra-sentient life forms on god-worlds—they’re just as much the products of natural biological evolution as we are. In time we may evolve that far… even farther. I’m not saying we will, I’m saying we can.” He pointed his finger determinedly at Seth Morley. “They didn’t create the universe. They’re not Manifestations of the Mentufacturer. All we have is their verbal report that they are Manifestations of the Deity. Why should we believe them? Naturally, if we ask them, “Are you God? Did you make the universe?’ they’ll reply in the affirmative. We’d do the same thing; white men, back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, told the natives of North and South America exactly the same thing.”

“But the Spanish and English and French were colonists. They had a motive for pretending to be gods. Take Cortez. He—”

“The life forms on so-called ‘god-worlds’ have a similar motive.”

“Like what?” He felt his dull anger beginning to glow. “They’re saint-like. They contemplate; they listen to our prayers—if they can pick them up—and they act to fulfill our prayers. As they did, for example, with Ben Tallchief.”

“They sent him here to die. Is that right?”

That had been acutely bothering him, starting at the moment he had first caught sight of Tallchief’s dead and inert body. “Maybe they didn’t know,” he said uncomfortably. “After all, Specktowsky points out that the Deity does not know everything. For instance, He did not know that the Form Destroyer existed, or that He’d be awakened by the concentric rings of emanation that make up the universe. Or that the Form Destroyer would enter the universe, and hence time, and corrupt the universe that the Mentufacturer had made in his own image, so that it was no longer his image.”

“Just like Maggie Walsh. She talks the same way.” Dr. Babble barked out a harsh, short laugh.

Seth Morley said, “I’ve never met an atheist before.” In actuality he had met one, but it had been years ago. “It seems very strange in this era, when we have proof of the Deity’s existence. I can understand there being widespread atheism in previous eras, when religion was based on faith in things unseen… but now it’s not unseen, as Specktowsky indicated.”

“The Walker-on Earth,” Babble said sardonically, “is a sort of anti-Person-from-Porlock. Instead of interfering with a good process or event he—” Babble broke off.

The door of the infirmary had opened. A man stood there, wearing a soft plastic work-jacket, semi-leather pants and boots. He was dark-haired, probably in his late thirties, with a strong face; his cheekbones were high and his eyes were large and bright. He carried a flashlight, which he now shut off. He stood there, gazing at Babble and Seth Morley, saying nothing. Merely standing silent and waiting. Seth Morley thought, This is a resident of the settlement that I’ve never seen. And then, noticing Babble’s expression, he realized that Babble had never seen him either.

“Who are you?” Babble said hoarsely.

The man said in a low, mild voice, “I just arrived here in my noser. My name is Ned Russell. I’m an economist.” He held out his hand toward Babble, who accepted it reflexively.

“I thought everyone was here,” Babble said. “We have thirteen people; that’s all there’s supposed to be.”

“I applied for a transfer and this was the destination. Delmak-O.” Russell turned to Seth Morley, again holding out his hand. The two men shook.

“Let’s see your transfer order,” Babble said.

Russell dug into his coat pocket. “This is a strange place you’re operating here. Almost no lights, the automatic pilot inoperative… I had to land it myself and I’m not that used to a noser. I parked it with all the others, in the field at the edge of your settlement.”

“So we have two points to raise with Belsnor,” Seth Morley said. “The made-at-Terra inscription on the miniaturized building. And him.” He wondered which would prove to be the more important. At the moment he could not see clearly enough ahead to know one way or the other. Something to save us, he thought; something to doom us. It—the equation of everything—could go either way.

In the nocturnal darkness Susie Smart slipped by degrees in the direction of Tony Dunkeiwelt’s living quarters. She wore a black slip and high heels—knowing that the boy liked that.

Knock, knock.

“Who is it?” a voice mumbled from within.

“Susie.” She tried the knob. The door was unlocked. So she went ahead on in.

In the center of the room Tony Dunkelwelt sat crosslegged on the floor in front of a single candle. His eyes, in the dim light, were shut; evidently he was in a trance. He showed no sign of noticing her or recognizing her, and yet he had asked her name. “Is it all right for me to come in?”

His trance-states worried her. In them he withdrew entirely from the regular world. Sometimes he sat this way for hours, and when they questioned the boy about what he saw he could give little or no answer.

“I don’t mean to butt in,” she said, when he did not answer. In a modulated, detached voice, Tony said, “Welcome.”

“Thank you,” she said, relieved. Seating herself in a straight-backed chair she found her package of cigarettes, lit one, settled back for what she knew would be a long wait.

But she did not feel like waiting.

Cautiously, she kick-kicked at him with the toe of her high heeled shoe. “Tony?” she said. “Tony?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Tell me, Tony, what do you see? Another world? Can you see all the busy gods running about doing good deeds? Can you see the Form Destroyer at work? How does he look?” No one ever saw the Form Destroyer except Tony Dunkelwelt. He had the principle of evil all to himself. And it was this frightening quality about the boy’s trances which kept her from trying to interfere; when he was in a trance-state she tried to leave him alone, to work his way back from his vision of pure malignancy to their normal and everyday responsibility.

“Don’t talk to me,” Tony mumbled. He had his eyes squeezed shut, and his face was pinched and red.

“Knock off for a while,” she said. “You ought to be in bed. Do you want to go to bed, Tony? With me, for example?” She placed her hand on his shoulder; by degrees he then slid away, until she was holding nothing. “You remember what you said about me loving you because you’re not yet a real man? You are a real man. Wouldn’t I know? Leave the deciding up to me: I’ll tell you when you’re a man and when you’re not, if you ever happen to be not. But up until now you’ve been more than a man. Did you know that an eighteen-year-old can have seven orgasms in one twenty-four-hour period?” She waited, but he said nothing. “That’s pretty good,” she said.

Tony said raptly, “There is a deity above the Deity. One who embraces all four.”

“What four? Four what?”

“The four Manifestations. The Mentufacturer, the—”

“Who’s the fourth?”

“The Form Destroyer.”

“You mean you can commune with a god that combines the Form Destroyer with the other three? But that’s not possible, Tony; they are good gods and the Form Destroyer is evil.”

“I know that,” he said in a sullen voice. “That’s why what I see is so keen. A god-above-god, which no one can see but me.” Again, by degrees, he drifted back into his trance; he ceased speaking to her.

“How come you can see something that no one else can, and still call it real?” Susie asked. “Specktowsky didn’t say anything about such a super Deity. I think it’s all in your own mind.” She felt cross and cold, and the cigarette burned her nose; she had, as usual, been smoking too much. “Let’s go to bed, Tony,” she said vigorously, and stubbed out her cigarette. “Come on.” Bending, she took hold of him by the arm. But he remained inert. Like a rock.

Time passed. He communed on and on.

“Jesus!” she said angrily. “Well the hell with it; I’ll leave. Goodnight.” Rising, she walked rapidly to the door, opened it, stood half inside and half out. “We could have so much fun if we went to bed,” she said plaintively. “Is there something about me you don’t like? I mean, I could change it. And I’ve been reading; there’re several positions I didn’t know. Let me teach them to you; they sound like a lot of fun.”

Tony Dunkelwelt opened his eyes and, unwinkingly, regarded her. She could not decipher the expression on his face, and it made her uneasy; she began rubbing her bare arms and shivering.

“The Form Destroyer,” Tony said, “is absolutely-not-God.”

“I realize that,” she said.

“But ‘absolutely-not-God’ is a category of being.”

“If you say so, Tony.”

“And God contains all categories of being. Therefore God can be absolutely-not-God, which transcends human reason and logic. But we intuitively feel it to be so. Don’t you? Wouldn’t you prefer a monism that transcends our pitiful dualism? Specktowsky was a great man, but there is a higher monistic structure above the dualism that he foresaw. There is a higher God.” He eyed her. “What do you think about that?” he asked, a little timidly.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Susie said, with enthusiasm. “It must be so great to have trances and perceive what you perceive. You should write a book saying that what Specktowsky says is wrong.”

“It’s not wrong,” Tony said. “It’s transcended by what I see. When you get to that level, two opposite things can be equal. That’s what I’m trying to reveal.”

“Couldn’t you reveal it tomorrow?” she asked, still shivering and massaging her bare arms. “I’m so cold and so tired and I had an awful run-in with that goddam Mary Morley tonight already, so come on, please; let’s go to bed.”

“I’m a prophet,” Tony said. “Like Christ or Moses or Specktowsky. I will never be forgotten.” Again he shut his eyes. The weak candle flickered and almost went out. He did not notice.

“If you’re a prophet,” Susie said, “perform a miracle.” She had read in Specktowsky’s Book about that, about the prophets having miraculous powers. “Prove it to me,” she said.

One eye opened. “Why must you have a sign?”

“I don’t want a sign. I want a miracle.”

“A miracle,” he said, “is a sign. All right, I’ll do something that will show you.” He gazed around the room, his face holding a deeply-ingrained resentment. She had awakened him now, she realized. And he didn’t like it.

“Your face is turning black,” she said.

He touched his brow experimentally. “It’s turning red. But the candle light doesn’t contain a full light spectrum so it looks black.” He slid to his feet and walked stiffly about, rubbing the base of his neck.

“How long were you sitting there?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s right; you lose all conception of time.” She had heard him say it. That part alone awed her. “Okay,” she said, “turn this into a stone.” She had found a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a knife; holding up the loaf of bread she moved toward him, feeling mischievous. “Can you do that?”

Solemnly, he said, “The opposite of Christ’s miracle.”

“Can you do it?”

He accepted the loaf of bread from her, held it with both hands; he gazed down at it, his lips moving. His entire face began to writhe, as if with tremendous effort. The darkness grew; his eyes faded out and were replaced by impenetrable buttons of darkness.

The loaf of bread flipped from his hands, rose until it hung well above him… it twisted, became hazy, and then, like a stone, it dropped to the floor. Like a stone? She knelt down to stare at it, wondering if the light of the room had put her into a hypnotic trance. The loaf of bread was gone. What rested on the floor appeared to be a smooth, large rock, a water-tumbled rock, with pale sides. “My good God,” she said, half-aloud. “Can I pick it up? Is it safe?”

Tony, his eyes once more filled with life, also knelt and stared at it. “God’s power,” he said, “was in me. I didn’t do that; it was done through me.”

Picking up the rock—it was heavy—she discovered that it felt warm and nearly alive. An animate rock, she said to herself. As if it’s organic. Maybe it’s not a real rock. She banged it against the floor; it felt hard enough, and it made the right noise. It is a rock, she realized. It is!

“Can I have it?” she asked. Her awe had become complete now; she gazed at him hopefully, willing to do exactly what he said.

“You may have it, Suzanne,” Tony said in a calm voice. “But arise and go back to your room. I’m tired.” He did sound tired, and his entire body drooped. “I’ll see you in the morning at breakfast. Good night.”

“Goodnight,” she said, “but I can undress you and put you to bed; I’d enjoy that.”

“No,” he said. He went to the door and held it open for her.

“Kiss.” Coming up to him she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you,” she said, feeling humble. “Goodnight, Tony. And thanks for the miracle.” The door started to close behind her but, adroitly, she stopped it with the wedge-shaped toe of her shoe. “Can I tell everyone about this? I mean, isn’t this the first miracle you’ve ever done? Shouldn’t they know? But if you don’t want them to know I won’t tell them.”

“Let me sleep,” he said, and shut the door; it clicked in her face and she felt animal terror—this was what she feared most in life: the clicking shut of a man’s door in her face. Instantly, she raised her hand to knock, discovered the rock … she banged on the door with the rock, but not loudly, just enough to let him know how desperate she was to get back in, but not enough to bother him if he didn’t want to answer.

He didn’t. No sound, no movement of the door. Nothing but the void.

“Tony?” she gasped, pressing her ear to the door. Silence. “Okay,” she said numbly; clutching her rock she walked unsteadily across the porch toward her own living quarters.

The rock vanished. Her hand felt nothing.

“Damn,” she said, not knowing how to react. Where had it gone? Into air. But then it must have been an illusion, she realized. He put me in a hypnotic state and made me believe. I should have known it wasn’t really true.

A million stars burst into wheels of light, blistering, cold light, that drenched her. It came from behind and she felt the great weight of it crash into her. “Tony,” she said, and fell into the waiting void. She thought nothing; she felt nothing. She saw only, saw the void as it absorbed her, waiting below and beneath her as she plummeted down the many miles.

On her hands and knees she died. Alone on the porch. Still clutching for what did not exist.