A Time of Changes

45

I did not understand what he meant by that until we were in Manneran again. We landed at Hilminor, paid Captain Khrisch, went through a minimum of inspection formalities (how trusting the port officials were, not very long ago!), and set out in our groundcar for the capital. Entering the city of Manneran by the Sumar Road, we passed through a crowded district of marketplaces and open-air shops, where I saw thousands of Mannerangi jostling, haggling, bickering. I saw them driving their hard bargains and whipping out contract forms to close the deals. I saw their faces, pinched, guarded, the eyes bleak and unloving. And I thought of the drug I carried and told myself, If only I could change their frosty souls. I had a vision of myself going among them, accosting strangers, drawing this one aside and that, whispering gently to each of them, “I am a prince of Salla and a high official of the Port Justiciary, who has put such empty things aside to bring happiness to mankind, and I would show you how to find joy through selfbaring. Trust me: I love you.” No doubt some would flee from me as soon as I began to speak, frightened by the initial obscenity of my “I am,” and others might hear me out and then spit in my face and call me a madman, and some might cry for the police; but perhaps there would be a few who would listen, and feel tempted, and come off with me to a quiet dockside room where we could share the Sumaran drug. One by one I would open souls, until there were ten in Manneran like me — twenty — a hundred — a secret society of selfbarers, knowing one another by the warmth and love in their eyes, going about the city unafraid to say “I” or “me” to their fellow initiates, giving up not merely the grammar of politeness but all the poisonous denials of self-love that that grammar implied. And then I would charter Captain Khrisch again for a voyage to Sumara Borthan, and return laden with packets of white powder, and continue on through Manneran, I and those who now were like me, and we would go up to this one and that, smiling, glowing, to whisper, “I would show you how to find joy through selfbaring. Trust me: I love you.” There was no role for Schweiz in this vision. This was not his planet; he had no stake in transforming it. All that interested him was his private spiritual need, his hunger to break through to a sense of the godhood. He had begun that breakthrough already, and could complete it on his own, apart. Schweiz had no need to skulk about the city, seducing strangers. And this was why he had given me the greater share of our Sumaran booty: I was the evangelist, I was the new prophet, I was the messiah of openness, and Schweiz realized that before I did. Until now he had been the leader — drawing me into his confidence, getting me to try the drug, luring me off to Sumara Borthan, making use of my power in the Port Justiciary, keeping me at his side for companionship and reassurance and protection. I had been in his shadow throughout. Now he would cease to eclipse me. Armed with my little packets, I alone would launch the campaign to change a world.

It was a role I welcomed. All my life I had been overshadowed by one man or another, so that for all my strength of body and ability of mind I had come to seem second- rate to myself. Perhaps that is a natural defect of being born a septarch’s second son. First there had been my father, whom I could never hope to equal in authority, agility, or might; then Stirron, whose kingship brought only exile for me; then my master in the Glinish logging camp; then Segvord Helalam; then Schweiz. All of them men of determination and prestige, who knew and held their places in our world, while I wandered in frequent bewilderment. Now, in the middle of my year’s, I could at last emerge. I had a mission. I had purpose. The spinners of the divine design had brought me to this place, had made me who I was, had readied me for my task. In joy I accepted their command.