To Die In Italbar

CHAPTER 1

On the night he had chosen months before, Malacar Miles crossed the street numbered seven, passing beneath the glowglobe he had damaged during the day.

All three of Blanchen's moons were below the horizon. The sky was slightly overcast, the few visible stars tiny and weak.

Glancing up and down the street, inhaling another puff of lung-conditioner, he moved forward. He wore a black garment with slit pockets, stat-sealed up the front. While crossing, he tested his pockets for access to the side-pacs. Having dyed his entire body black three days before, he was nearinvisible as he moved among shadows.

Atop the building across the street numbered seven, Shind sat, a two-foot ball of fur, unmoving, unblinking.

Before proceeding to Employee Entrance Four, he located three key points in the durrilide wall and deactivated their alarm devices without breaking the circuits. The door at Entrance Four took him longer; but within another fifteen minutes he stood inside the building. The darkness was complete.

Donning goggles and lighting his special torch, he moved ahead, passing through aisles containing identical pieces of machinery. In recent months, he had practiced dismantling and reassembling the proper sections of this particular piece of equipment.

_A human guard is passing in front of the building_.

_Thanks, Shind_.

After a time, _He is turning up the street you took_.

_Let me know if he does anything that seems unusual_.

_He is just walking, shining his light into shadows_.

_Tell me if he stops at any of the places I stopped before I came in_.

_He has passed the first_.

_Good_.

_He has gone by the second one_.

_Capital_.

Malacar opened the housing of one of the machines and removed a component the size of a pair of fists.

_He has stopped by the entrance. He is testing the door_.

He commenced the installation of a similar-appearing component he had carried in with him, stopping only for occasional whiffs from his aerosol.

_He is moving away now_.

_Good_.

Finishing the installation, he replaced and affixed the console cover.

_Advise me when he is out of sight_.

_I will_.

He returned to Employee Entrance Four.

_He is gone_.

Malacar Miles departed then, halting only at key points to remove all traces of his visit.

After three blocks, he paused at an intersection and looked in all directions. A sudden splash of red across the sky indicated the arrival of another transport vessel. He could go no farther.

Blanchen was no ordinary world. So long as he remained within the twelve-by-twelve complex of blocks and did not trip an alarm-device on any of its windowless buildings of durrilide, he was moderately safe from detection. There were, however, several living watchmen assigned to each complex, along with rolling patrols of robots covering a larger area. This is the reason he stood within shadow. He avoided as best he could the glow-globes on each building, the lights which guided low-flying nightcraft and served to orient watchmen.

Seeing nothing at the intersection, he reentered the complex and scouted the rendezvous point.

_To your right. One block over and two ahead. A mechanical car. It is turning a corner. Go right_.

_Thanks_.

He moved to the right, keeping track of the turns he made.

_The vehicle is well off in the distance now_.

_Good_.

He retreated from a watchman, retraced a block, turned at right angles to his course, proceeded three blocks. He froze when he heard the sound of a flying machine.

_Where is it?_

_Stay where you are. You are out of their line of sight_.

_What is it?_

_A small skimmer. It came in quickly from the north. It has slowed. Now it is hovering above the street of your recent activities_.

_Oh God!_

_It is descending_.

Malacar checked the chrono on his left wrist and suppressed a groan. He patted at the bulges of various weapons that he bore.

_It has landed_.

He waited.

After a time, _Two men have emerged from the vehicle. They appear to have been its only occupants. A watchman is coming to meet them_.

_Where did he come from? Not the building?_

_No. From the opposite street. It is as if he had been waiting for them. They are talking now. Now the watchman is shrugging his shoulders_.

Malacar felt the pounding of his heart and sought to control his breathing, so as not to hyperventilate himself in the unusual atmosphere of Blanchen. He inhaled more mist from his aerosol. He started then, as two transports cut the sky in rapid succession--one headed toward the southeast, one west.

_The two men are reentering their vehicle_.

_What of the watchman?_

_He is just standing there--watching_.

He counted twenty-three heartbeats.

_Now the vehicle is beginning to rise, very slowly. Now it is drifting toward the face of the building_.

Though the night was chill, Malacar felt perspiration across his high, dark brow. He brushed it away with the edge of his forefinger.

_They are hovering. Now there is some activity. I cannot determine what it is. it is too dark-- There! Now it is light. They have replaced the globe you damaged. Now they are rising again. The watchman is waving. They are heading back in the direction from which they came_.

Malacar's great frame shook. He laughed.

Then he began working his way, slowly, back in the direction of the rendezvous point--a point he had chosen carefully, as Blanchen was no ordinary world.

In addition to the watchmen and the alarms, there were air-surveillance networks at various altitudes. On the previous evening, his vehicle had blocked them effectively on the way down, and presumably had done the same on the way back out. He checked his chrono and whiffed more of the lungcleaning vapors. He had not taken the trouble to have himself conditioned for the airs of Blanchen, in the fashion of the watchmen, laborers and technicians who dwelled there.

Less than forty minutes ...

Blanchen had no oceans, lakes, rivers, streams. Not a trace of indigenous life remained--only an atmosphere to testify that something had once dwelled there. At one point in its more recent history, the notion had been entertained of retaining a worldscaper to beat it into livable shape. It was rejected on two grounds, however: expense, and the fact that an alternative to habitation had been proposed. A combine of manufacturers and shippers had recommended that its dry lands and preservative atmosphere would provide ideal conditions for making use of the entire planet as a warehouse. They offered the discoverers full partnership in the venture, and for their own part wanted to undertake the development and staffing of the world. These terms were acceptable, accepted and accomplished.

Now Blanchen lay like a durrilitic pineapple with millions of eyes. Thousands of interstellar freighters circled constantly, and between them and the hundreds of thousands of landing docks plied the transport vessels, bringing and taking. The three moons of Blanchen served as traffic control centers and rest havens. The ground crews, working out of area centers, moving between docks and warehouses, bringing and taking. Depending upon the output of industry and the demands of the consumer worlds, a particular dock, area or complex might be constantly busy, occasionally busy or seldom used. Ground crews were shifted according to the flows of activity. The men's pay was good, with living conditions comparable to those of the peacetime military. Unlike a warehouse which serves the world it occupies, however, while storage space means money and prolonged storage a loss thereof, transportation across interstellar distances is extremely costly.

Accordingly, goods in small demand may remain in storage for years, centuries, even. The building which Malacar had visited had remained undisturbed for almost two Earth months. Knowing this, he had expected small difficulty; that is, unless the impending deal of which he had become aware had been concluded ahead of schedule.

Considering the overworked traffic control centers, and the monitor and avoidance system programmed into his tiny, personal vessel, _The Perseus_, he did not feel that he would be taking too great a personal risk in leaving the DYNAB and entering into the territory of the Combined Leagues, in coming to Blanchen. If they found him and killed him, he would be proven incorrect. If they found him and captured him or accepted his ready surrender, they would have no choice but to send him home. But they would probably question him first, under drugs, find out what he had done and then undo it.

But if they did not find him, inside, in time ...

He chuckled, softly.

... The bird would have struck once more, halving another small worm.

His chrono gave him fifteen to twenty minutes.

_Where are you, Shind?_

_Above you, keeping watch_.

_This one, Shind, should be a good one_.

_It seemed so, from the way you described it_.

Three transports flashed above them, heading east. Malacar followed them with his eyes until they were out of sight.

_You are tired, Commander_, said Shind, reverting to a bygone formality.

_Nervous fatigue. That is all, Lieutenant. What of yourself?_

_There is some of that. My main concern, of course, is for my brother_ ...

_He is safe_.

_I know that. But he will not recall our assurances. He will grow lonely, then afraid_.

_He will come to no harm, and we will be united soon_.

There was no reply, so Malacar sniffed his vapors and waited.

Half-dozing (for how long?), he was alerted:

_She comes! Now! She comes!_

Smiling, he stretched his muscles and looked upward, knowing that for a few moments he would be unable to see that which the eyes of Shind had already detected.

It dropped like a spider and hung like a grim festival float. For a moment it hovered above him, while Shind boarded it. Another moment, and it had lowered itself farther and extended the drop-bar. Seizing it, he put his weight upon it and was taken up into the belly of _The Perseus_, passing by that mask of Medusa with the smile of the Mona Lisa which he had painted there himself. He longed for a serpent, but would settle for worms.

He spat out of the hatch just before it closed, striking the side of the building below him.

Heidel von Hymack, on the way to Italbar, watched his companions die. There had been nine of them--volunteers all--who had set out to accompany him through the rain forest of Cleech to the mountain town Italbar where he was needed; Italbar, a thousand miles distant from the space port. He had taken an air car to reach it. Forced down, he had told his story to the villagers by the River Bart, who had come upon him walking westward. Now five remained of the nine who had accompanied him against his protestations. Now one of the five was sweating, and another coughed periodically.

Heidel ran his hand through his sandy beard and continued to kick his black boots through the growth that covered what was supposed to be a trail. He perspired and his shirt stuck to him. He had warned them that it was dangerous to accompany him, he reflected. It was not as if he had not warned them.

They had heard of him, heard that he was a holy man, heard that he was on an errand of mercy.

"The last part is correct," he had told them, "but you will not score any heavenly merit points because of me."

They had laughed. No, he would need someone to protect him from the animals and show him the trail.

"Ridiculous! Point me in the right direction and I will get there," he had said. "You will be in more danger in my company than you would be out there alone."

But they had laughed again and refused to show him the way unless he permitted an escort to accompany him.

"But it can be death to be with me for too long a period of time!" he had protested.

They were adamant.

He had sighed.

"Very well, then. Give me a place where I may be completely alone and undisturbed for a day or so. It will be an expenditure of valuable time, time that should not really be lost at this point. But I must try to protect you if there is no other way that you will assist me."

They did this, and then they danced about one another and laughed at their part in a great adventure. Heidel von Hymack, the green-eyed saint from the stars, was obviously going to pray, to arrange things for their safety and the success of the trip.

Two or three days, walking, they had told him. So he had tried forcing the catharsis in order to get under way. A child lay dying in Italbar, and he had come to measure the minutes in terms of her breathing.

The Blue Lady had told him to wait, but he thought of that breathing and of the contractions of a large heart that had once been tiny. He had started out after fifteen hours and it had been a mistake.

The fevers of two of his companions had gone undetected, because of fatigue and the excessive heat of the forest. They had expired on the afternoon of the second day. He was unable to identify which of the many possible diseases it was. This was because he did not try very hard. Once a man is dead, he considered the means an academic point. In addition, his desire for urgency was such that he begrudged the others even the brief funeral ceremony and burial in which they indulged. He felt this doubly on the following morning, when two of the remaining seven did not awaken and he was compelled to witness the same rite repeated. He cursed in other languages as he helped prepare the graves.

The faceless, laughing ones--for so he had come to consider them--now possessed expressions and lacked laughter. Their ruby eyes were wide and darted at every sound. The six digits of their hands shook, writhed, snapped. Now they were beginning to understand. Now it was too late.

But two or three days ... This was the third day, and the mountains were nowhere in sight.

"Clay, where are the mountains?" he asked the coughing one. "Where is Italbar?"

Glay shrugged and pointed ahead.

The sun, a giant yellow ball, was all but invisible from their trail. Its light leaked through the starfish leaves, but in every place that it missed there was moisture or fungus. Small animals or large insects--he did not know which--darted from their path, scurried behind them, rattled the bushes and moved along the branches. The larger creatures of which he had been warned never appeared, though he heard their hisses, their whistles, their barks often in the distance; and occasionally there was the sound of something huge crashing through the forest near at hand.

He was taken by the irony of it. He had come to save a life and the effort had already cost four. "Lady, you were right," he muttered, thinking of his dream.

It was perhaps an hour later that Clay collapsed, racked with coughing, his normally olive complexion the color of the leaves about them. Heidel moved to his side, recognizing the condition. Given several days' preparation, he might have been able to save the man. He had failed when he had tried with the others because his own catharsis had not been complete. The necessary balance had been lacking. At that moment--as he had looked upon the first of the fallen--he had known that all nine of them were going to die before very long. He helped to make Clay comfortable, back against a tree trunk, his pack for a pillow, gulping water. He glanced at his chrono. Anywhere from ten minutes to an hour and a half, he guessed.

He sighed and lit a cigar. It tasted foul. The moisture had long before gotten to it, and it was obvious that the fungi of Cleech had nothing against nicotine. The little green mound of it that flared momentarily smelled something like sulfur.

Clay looked up at him. A glare of accusation seemed to be in order.

Instead, "Thank you, Heidel," he said, "that we may share with you in this thing," and then he smiled.

Heidel wiped the man's brow. It took him another half hour to die.

This time he did not mumble to himself during the burial, but studied the faces of the remaining four. The same expression was present. They had started out with him as though on a lark. Then the situation had changed and they had accepted it. It did not seem a matter of resignation either. There were expressions of happiness on their dark faces. Yet they all knew it, he could tell. They all knew they were going to die before Italbar.

He appreciated stories of noble sacrifices as well as any man. But futile deaths--! To do it for no reason... He knew--and they knew, he was certain--that he could have made it to Italbar alone. All along, they had done nothing but walk with him. There had been no menacing beasts to fend off; the trail had been clear enough once he had set foot upon it. It would be pleasant simply to be a geologist, as he had been on that day ...

Two died after a lunch during which they ate little. Mercifully, it was mawl fever, previously unknown on Cleech, which makes for a sudden cardiac arrest and twists the victim's face into a smile.

Both men's eyes remained open after death. Heidel closed them himself.

They set about the business again, and Heidel did not interrupt when he saw that they were digging four graves. He assisted, and afterward he waited with them. Nor did he have long to wait.

Finishing, he shouldered his pack once more and continued on his way. He did not look back, but in his mind's eye he could see the mounds he had left behind. The obvious, grisly analogy could not be suppressed. His life was the trail. The graves were symbolic of the hundreds--no, probably thousands--of dead that he had left behind. At his touch men died. His breath withered cities. Where his shadow touched sometimes nothing remained.

Yet it was within his power to undo ills. Even now he trudged uphill with this intention. For this he was often known, though the name was only H.

The day seemed to brighten, though he knew it was well into the afternoon. Seeking the answer, he saw that the trees were smaller, the gaps between their leaves greater. The sunlight fell in more places and there were even flowers-- red and purple, bearded and haloed with gold and pale yellow--drifting on the vines the breezes pushed about him. His way grew steeper, but the grasses that had snatched at his ankles were shorter now and fewer small things rushed chittering about him.

After perhaps half an hour's time, he could see farther ahead than at any previous point on his journey. For a hundred meters the way lay clear and bright. When he had traversed this distance he met with the first full gap in the living roof and saw there a huge, pale, green pool, the sky. Within ten minutes, he was walking in the open and was able to look back upon the shifting sea of boughs beneath which he had passed. A quarter mile ahead and above lay what seemed the summit of the hill he now realized himself to be climbing. Small, pale-jade clouds hung above it. Avoiding rocks, he approached.

Attaining this vantage, he was able to see what he guessed to be the final leg of his route. There was a descent of several dozen meters, an hour's walk across a fairly level valley, sloping upward at its far end, and then a steep ascent of high hill or low mountain. He rested, chewed some rations, drank water, moved on.

The crossing proved uneventful, but he cut himself a staff before he reached its end.

The air grew more chilly as he climbed the far trail, and the day began to wane. By the time he had reached the halfway mark on his ascent, he felt a certain shortness of breath and his muscles were aching from this as well as the previous days' exertions. He was able to look back over a great distance now, where treetops were like a vast plain beneath a darkening sky and a few birds circled.

He paused to rest more frequently as he neared the summit, and after a time he saw the first star of evening.

He pushed himself until he stood upon the broad ridge that was the top of this long, gray line of rocky prominence; by then, the night had come down around him. Cleech had no moons, but the great stars all shone with the brilliance of torches through crystal, and behind them the lesser stars foamed and bubbled in seeming millions. The night sky was a blue and illuminated place.

He crossed the remaining distance, following the trail with his eyes, and there were lights, lights, lights, and many dark forms that could only be houses, buildings, ground vehicles in motion. Two hours, he guessed, and he could be walking those streets, passing among the inhabitants of peaceful Italbar, stopping at some friendly inn perhaps, for a meal, a drink, passing the time of day with some fellow diner. Then he looked away and thought upon the trail he had walked, knowing that he could not, yet, venture this thing. The vision of Italbar at that moment of time, however, would remain with him all the days of his life.

Moving back away from the trail, he found a level place to spread his bedroll. He forced himself to eat as much as he could and to drink as much water as his stomach would hold, in preparation for what was to come.

He combed his hair and beard, relieved himself, undressed, buried his clothing and crawled into the bedroll.

He stretched his not quite six-foot frame full length, clamped his arms tightly to his sides, clenched his teeth, regarded the stars for a moment, closed his eyes.

After a time, the lines went out of his face and his jaw sagged. His head rolled toward his left shoulder. His breathing deepened, slowed, seemed to stop altogether, resumed much later, very slowly.

When he rolled his head to the right, it appeared as if his face had been shellacked, or as if a perfectly fitting mask of glass had been laid upon it. Then the perspiration ran and the droplets glittered like jewels in his beard. His face began to darken. It grew red, then purple, and his mouth opened and his tongue protruded and his breath came into him in great paroxysmic gasps, while saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

His body shuddered, and he curled himself into a ball and began to shake steadily. Twice his eyes snapped open, unseeing, closing again only slowly. He foamed at the mouth and groaned. Blood trickled from his nose and dried upon his mustache. Periodically, he mumbled. Then his body stiffened for a long while, loosened finally and was still until the next seizure.

_______________

The blue-touched mists hid his feet, billowed about him, as though he were walking through snow ten times lighter than any he had ever known. Curving lines of it twisted, drifted, broke, recombined. It was neither warm nor cold. There were no stars overhead, only a pale blue moon that hung motionless in that place of perpetual twilight. Banks of indigo roses lay to his left and there were blue rocks to his right.

Turning, beyond the rocks, he came upon the shallow flight of stairs that led upward. Narrow at first, they widened until he could no longer see their limits at either hand. He mounted, moving through blue nothingness.

He came into the garden.

There were shrubs of all shades and textures of blue, and vines that climbed what might have been walls--though they grew too densely for him to be certain--and stone benches of seeming random situation.

Wisps of mist drifted here also, slowly, seeming almost to hover. He heard birdsongs above him and from within the vines.

He advanced into the place, passing at irregular intervals large chunks of stone that glittered like polished quartz. Little rainbows danced about them and hordes of large blue butterflies seemed attracted by the shining. They swarmed, pirouetted, lighted a moment, returned to the air.

Far ahead, he saw a barely distinct shape, so vast as to be unbelievable, did he possess that critical faculty which gives rise to disbelief.

It was the form of a woman that he saw, half-hid amid bewilderments of blue, a woman whose hair, blue-black, swept the skies to the farthest horizons, whose eyes he could not see, but only feel, as though she watched from all directions, while her aura and partly glimpsed lineaments were, he knew, the _anima_ of the world. Then came to him a feeling of immense power and immense restraint.

As he drew nearer to that place in the garden, she vanished. The feeling of her presence persisted.

He became aware of a blue stone summerhouse, situated behind a high stand of shrubbery.

The light faded as he neared it until, when he entered, he felt once again the sorry realization that he would only glimpse a smile, a fluttering eyelid, an earlobe, a strand of hair, the sheen of blue moonbeams upon a restless forearm or shoulder. Never had he, nor would he--he felt--look her full in the face, describe with his eyes her entire form.

"Heidel von Hymack," came the words--not voiced, but in a whisper that carried far better than ordinary speech.

"Lady--"

"You did not heed my warning. You started out too soon."

"I know. I know ... When I am awake you seem unreal, just as now that other place seems but a dream."

He heard her soft laughter.

"You have the best of both worlds, you know," she said, "a thing that is seldom given to a man. While you are here with me in this pleasant bower, your body writhes with the extreme symptoms of terrible diseases. When you awaken there, you will be refreshed and whole once again."

"For a time," he said, seating himself on a stone bench that ran along a wall, resting his back against the wall's cool roughness.

"... And when that fresh time has passed, you may return here at will--" (Was that a trick of moonlight or a glimpse of her dark, dark eyes? he wondered) "--to be renewed."

"Yes," he said. "What happens here when I am there?"

He felt her fingertips brush against his cheek. There came a whelming of delight within him.

"Are you not happiest when you are here?" she asked.

"Yes, Myra-o-arym," and he turned his head and kissed her fingertips. "But other things than disease seem to remain behind when I come here--things that should be in my mind. I-- I cannot remember."

"This is as it must be, _Dra_ von Hymack. --Now, you must remain with me this time until you are fully refreshed, for the fluids of your body must be in perfect balance for you to do what must be done upon your return. You may depart this place at will, as well you know. But this time I recommend that you await my advice."

"This time I shall, Lady. --Tell me things."

"What things, my child?"

"I-- I am trying to think of them. I--"

"Do not try too hard. It will be of no avail--"

"Deiba! That is one of the things I sought! Tell me of Deiba."

"There is nothing to tell, _Dra_. It is a small world in an insignificant portion of the galaxy. There is nothing special about it."

"But there is. I am certain. A shrine ... ? Yes. On a high plateau. There is a ruined city all about it. The shrine is underground--is it not?"

"There are many such places in the universe."

"But this one is special. Isn't it?"

"Yes, in a strange, sad way it is, offspring of Terra. Only one man of your race ever came to proper terms with what you met there."

"What was it?"

"No," she said; and she touched him once more.

Then he heard music, soft and simple, and she began to sing to him. He did not hear--or if he heard, did not understand--any of the words she sang; but the blue mists swirled about him and there were perfumes, breezes, a kind of quiet ecstasy; and when he looked again there were no questions at all.

_______________

Dr. Larmon Pels orbited the world Lavona and transmitted a message to Medical Central, a message to Immigration and Naturalization Central and a message to Vital Statistics Central. Then he folded his hands and waited.

There was nothing else for him to do but fold his hands. He did not eat, drink, smoke, breathe, sleep, excrete, feel pain or indulge in any of the other common expressions of the flesh. In fact, he possessed no heartbeat. Various powerful chemical agents with which he had been invested were all that stood between Dr. Pels and putrefaction. There were several things which kept him going, however.

One was a tiny power system implanted within his body. This allowed him to move about without expending his own energy (though he never descended to the surface of a world, for his mini-powered movements would be overcome immediately, transforming him into a living statue captioned, perhaps, "Collapse"). This system, feeding as it did into his brain, also provided sufficient neural stimulation for his higher cerebral processes to function at all times.

Totally spacebound and continually thinking, therefore, was Dr. Pels, an exile from the worlds of life, a wanderer, a man who sought, a man who waited--by normal standards, a moving dead man.

The other thing which kept him going was not so tangible as his physical support system. His body frozen seconds before the onset of clinical death, it was not until days later that his Disposition of Assets Statement was read. Since a frozen man "does not enjoy the same status as a dead man" (_Herms v. Herms_, 18,777 C., Civil No. 187-3424), he may "exercise authority over his possessions by means of earlier demonstrations of intention, in precisely the same fashion as a sleeping man" (_Nyes et al. v. Nyes_, C., Civil No. 14-187-B). Accordingly, despite the protestations of several generations of well-meaning offspring, all of Dr. Pels' assets were converted to cash, which was used to purchase a bubble ship of interstellar capability with full medical laboratory, and to transform Dr. Pels himself from a state of cold inanimation to one of chilly mobility. All of this because, rather than await, dreamless, the hoped-for-but-maybe-never treatment of and recovery from his own condition, he had decided that he would not be especially troubled by dwelling indefinitely at a point perhaps ten seconds removed from death, so long as he could continue with his research. "After all," he had once said, "think of all the persons who at this moment are but ten seconds removed from death and are not even aware of the fact, so that they might attempt that which they most love."

That which Dr. Pels most loved was pathology, of the most exotic sort. He had been known to trace a new disease halfway across the galaxy. Over the decades he had published brilliant papers, had developed major remedies, had written textbooks, had lectured medical classes from his orbiting laboratory, had been considered for both the Dyarchic Nations and Allied Bodies and Combined Leagues Medical Awards (each, it was rumored, rejecting him for fear that the other might award him) and was granted full access to the general medical information banks of virtually any civilized planet he visited. Just about any other information he desired was relayed to him also.

Hovering above his laboratory tables--gaunt, hairless, six and a half feet in height and pale as bone--his long, thin fingers adjusting a flame or tilting a squeeze-bulb toward a vacuum-sphere, Dr. Pels seemed uniquely appropriate for the investigation of the many-splendored forms of death. Now, while it was true that he was not liable to the common exercises of living things, there was one pleasure which he possessed in addition to his work. He had music wherever he went. Light music, profound music; there was music about him constantly. His numbed body could feel it, whether he listened or ignored it. It may be that in some way it substituted for the heartbeat and the breathing and all the other little bodily sounds and feelings most men take for granted. Whatever the reason, it had been years since he had been without music.

Amid music and with folded hands, therefore, he waited. Once he glanced at Lavona, in its black and tawny beauty above him, a tiger in the night. Then he turned his mind to other matters.

For two decades he had wrestled with a particular disease. Realizing then that he was only a little further along than when he had begun, he decided upon a different avenue of attack: locate the one man who survived it and find out why.

With this in mind, he had set out in a roundabout fashion for the hub of the Combined Leagues--Solon, Elizabeth and Lincoln, the three artificial worlds designed by Sandow himself, orbiting Kwale's Star--where he might consult the Panopath computer for information as to the whereabouts of the man called H, whose identity he had recently ascertained. The information should be there, though few would know the proper questions to put to the machine.

Dr. Pels stopped along the way, however, to make inquiry at various worlds. It would be worth the extra time, should he locate his man in this fashion. Once he reached SEL he might wait over a year before obtaining access to Panopath, as major public health projects had automatic priority.

So he beat a circuitous route toward SEL, hub of the Combined Leagues, concerts streaming about him, death-analysis gear at the ready. He doubted that he would ever reach SEL, or need to. From the little that he had learned in his two decades' struggle against _mwalakharan khurr_, the Deiban fever, he was certain that he would recognize as clues items that another man would dismiss as isolated phenomena. He was also certain that from these clues he would locate the man he sought, and that he would be able to extract from him the weapon which would lay another shade of the Reaper.

Ten seconds away from eternity, Dr. Pels bared his teeth in a white, white grin above his bony knuckles, as the tempo of the music increased. Soon he would have his answer from the tiger in the night.

When he awakened, his chrono told him that two and a half days had passed. He propped himself up, seized one of the canteens and began to drink water. He was always terribly thirsty after the catharsis-coma. Once he had slaked his thirst, however, he felt perfect; he was vibrant and in tune with everything about him. This balance achieved, it generally stayed strong for several days.

It was only after minutes of drinking that he noticed it to he a pleasant, cloudless morning.

Hurriedly, he cleaned his body by means of canteen and handkerchief. Then he donned fresh garments, re-rolled his pack, located his staff, moved toward the trail.

The downhill way was easy, and he whistled as he went. The trek through the forest seemed a thing that had happened to another person, years ago. In less than an hour he reached level ground. Shortly, he began to pass dwelling places. As he advanced, they became more common. Almost before he realized it, he was walking along the main street of the small town.

He stopped the first man he met and asked directions to the hospital. When he tried the second major language of the planet, he received an answer rather than a shrug. Ten blocks. No trouble.

As he neared the eight-story building, he withdrew a narrow sliver of crystal from a case he carried. Fed into their med-bank, it would tell the doctors all they needed to know about Heidel von Hymack.

However, when he entered the smoky, periodical-strewn lobby, he found that he did not need to present immediate identification. The receptionist, a middle-aged brunette in a silver, sleeveless thing, belted at the waist, was on her feet and moving toward him. She wore an exotic native amulet on a chain about her neck.

"Mr. H!" she said. "We've been so worried! There were reports--"

He leaned his staff against the coat rack.

"The little girl ... ?"

"Luci's still holding on, thank the gods. We heard that you were flying up here, and then they lost radio contact; and--"

"Take me to see her doctor at once."

The three other inhabitants of the lobby--two men and a woman--stared at him.

"Just a moment."

She returned to her desk, touched controls behind it and spoke into a communications unit.

"Please send someone to the front desk to fetch Mr. H," she said; and to him, "Won't you be seated while you wait?"

"I'll stand, thank you."

Then she regarded him again, through blue eyes which for some reason made him feel uncomfortable.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Power failure in several systems," he said, looking away. "I had to belly-land it and walk."

"How far?"

"Quite a distance."

"After all this time and no report, we thought that--"

"I had to take certain medical precautions before I could enter your town."

"I see," she said. "We are so relieved that you made it. I hope that--"

"So do I," he said, seeing for a moment the nine graves he had helped to fill.

Then a door beside her desk opened. An old man dressed in white emerged, saw him, moved toward him.

"Helman," he said, extending his hand. "I'm treating the Dorn girl."

"You'll want this then," said Heidel, and handed him the gleaming sliver.

The doctor was about five and a half feet in height and very pink. What remained of his hair stood out in wisps from his temples. Like all doctors he had known, Heidel noted that his hands and fingernails seemed the cleanest things in the entire room. The right hand, bearing a slim ring with a twisted design, moved now to clutch his biceps, steered him through the door.

"Let's find an office where we can discuss the case," he was saying.

"I'm not a doctor of medicine, you know."

"I did not know. But I guess it doesn't really matter, if you are H."

"I am H. I would not like to have it widely known, of course. I--"

"I understand," said Helman, leading him along a wide corridor. "We will naturally cooperate in the fullest."

He stopped another man in white.

"Run this through the med-bank," he told him, "and send me the results in Room 17.

"In here, please," he said to Heidel. "Have a seat."

They seated themselves beside a large conference table and Heidel hooked an ashtray toward him and withdrew a moldy cigar from his jacket. He stared out the window at the green sky. On a pedestal in tile corner beside it crouched a native deity--exquisitely carved from some yellow-white substance--about eighteen inches in height.

"Your condition fascinates me," said the doctor. "It has been written up so many times that I almost feel I know you personally. A walking antibody, a living pool of remedies--"

"Well," said Heidel, "I suppose you could put it that way. But it is oversimplifying. With proper preparation I can effect the cure of almost any disease, if the patient is not too far gone. On the other hand, my own condition is not a completely one-sided thing. It might be more appropriate to say that I am a living pool of diseases which I can bring into a sort of balance. When that balance is achieved, I can act as a remedy. Only then, though. The rest of the time, I can be very dangerous."

Dr. Helman plucked a dark string from his sleeve and deposited it in the ashtray. Heidel smiled at this, wondering how he must look to the doctor.

"But there is no indication as to the mechanism involved?"

"Nobody seems to be certain," Heidel said, finally lighting the cigar. "I seem to find diseases wherever I go. I contract them, then some sort of natural immunity seems to stave off the worst of the symptoms and I recover. Thereafter, under the proper circumstances, a serum made from my blood is effective against the same condition in someone else."

"What, specifically, are the preparations, the circumstances you speak of?"

"I go into a coma," Heidel began, "which I can induce at will. During this time, my body does something which seems to purify it. This takes anywhere from a day and a half to several days. I am told--" He paused here, quickly drawing upon his cigar. "I am told that during this time my body undergoes frightful symptoms from all the diseases I carry. I don't know. I never have any memory of this. And I have to be alone at such times, as my diseases then become quite contagious."

"Your clothing--"

"I disrobe first. My body carries nothing when I awaken. I change clothes afterward."

"How long does this--balance--last?"

"Usually a couple days, and then I revert--slowly. Once the balance is destroyed I become progressively dangerous again. I become a disease-bearer until the next catharsis-coma."

"When did you last undergo this coma?"

"I just woke up a few hours ago. I haven't eaten anything since. That sometimes seems to prolong the safe period."

"You are not hungry, after all that time?"

"No. In fact, I feel very strong--powerful, you might even say. But I do get quite thirsty. I am just now, in fact."

"There is a water cooler in the next room," said Helman, rising. "I'll show you."

Heidel placed his cigar in tile ashtray and stood.

As they were passing through the side door, the man Helman had spoken with earlier entered the room, holding a sheaf of crystal-extrusion reports and a small envelope which Heidei judged to contain his med-ident crystal. Dr. Helman gestured toward the water cooler and, when Heidel nodded, turned back into the room they had departed.

Heidel began filling and draining a small paper cup. As he did this, he noted the tiny green Strantrian good luck mark painted on the side of the cooler.

Somewhere between the fifteenth and twentieth cup, Dr. Helman entered tile room. He held tile papers in one hand. Passing Heidel the envelope, he said, "We had better take your blood right now. If you will come with me to tile laboratory, please ..."

Heidel nodded, disposed of the cup, returned his crystal to its case.

He followed the doctor out of the room and walked with him to an old-fashioned lift. "Six," said the doctor to the wall, and tile lift closed its door and began its ascent.

"The reports are strange," he said, after a time, gesturing with the papers he held.

"Yes, I know."

"There is something here to the effect that your mere proximity after a coma will often result in arrest and reversal of disease."

Heidel tugged his ear and regarded his boot tops.

"That is correct," he said, finally. "I didn't mention it because it smacked of faith healing or something of that sort, but it seems to be the case. The use of my blood at least provides a somewhat scientifically acceptable explanation. I can't explain the other."

"Well, we'll stick to the serum for the Dorn girl," said Helman. "But I wonder if you would be willing to participate in an experiment afterward?"

"What sort of experiment?"

"Visit all my terminal patients with me. I shall introduce you as a colleague. Then you speak with them briefly. About anything."

"All right. I'll be glad to."

"Do you know what will happen?"

"It will depend upon the conditions from which they are suffering. If it is a disease I've had, it may go away. If it is something involving major anatomical damage, the condition will probably remain unchanged."

"You have done this before?"

"Yes, many times."

"How many diseases have you been exposed to?"

"I don't know. I'm not always aware of taking one. I don't know what I'm carrying around inside me. --You being willing to try me on them this way," said Heidel, as the lift halted and the door opened, "that's interesting. Why not use my serum on everybody, now that you have me here?"

Helman shook his head.

"These reports only tell me what it has proven specific against in the past. So I'll trust it--well, try it, I should say-- on the Dorn girl. None of my other terminals fit your list, though. I would not risk it."

"Yet you would try the other?"

Helman shrugged.

"I am quite open-minded about these things," he said, "and there would be no risk. It certainly can't do them any harm, at this point. --The lab's at the end of this hall."

As he waited for his blood to be drawn, Heidel stared out the window. In the late morning light of that giant sun, he saw no fewer than four churches of as many different religions, as well as a flat-roofed wooden building, the face of which was covered with ribbons and tacked-on devotions, much on the order of one he had seen in the village beside the River Bart. Squinting, turning his head, leaning far forward, he could also make out tile aboveground structure which indicated a Pei'an shrine below, far up the road to his right. He grimaced and turned away from the window.

"Roll up your sleeve, please."

John Morwin played God.

He manipulated the controls and prepared the birth of a world. Carefully ... The rosy road from the rock to the star goes _there_. Yes. Hold. Not yet.

The youth stirred on the couch at his side but did not awaken. Morwin gave him another whiff of the gas and concentrated on the work at hand. He ran his forefinger beneath the front edge of the basket which covered his head, to remove perspiration and the latest attack of a recurring itch in the vicinity of his right temple. He stroked his red beard and meditated.

It was not vet perfect, not yet the thing the boy had described. Closing his eyes, he looked farther into the dreaming mind beside him. It was drifting in what he took to be the proper direction, but the feeling he sought was not there.

Waiting, he opened his eyes and turned his head, studying the fragile, sleeping form--the expensive garments, the thin, almost feminine face--that wore the mate of his basket, connected to his own by a maze of electrical leads, the narcoticbearing airjet fluttering the jacket's lacy collar. He pursed his lips and frowned, not so much with disapproval as with envy. One of his great regrets in life was that he had not grown up in the midst of wealth, been indulged, spoiled, turned into a fop. He had always wanted to be a fop, and now that he could afford it, he discovered that he lacked the proper upbringing to carry the thing successfully.

He turned to stare at the empty crystal giobe before him-- a meter in diameter, nozzles penetrating it at various points.

Push the proper button and it will be filled with swirling motes. Transfer the proper sequence and it will be frozen there forever ...

He reentered the boy's dreaming mind. It was wandering once again. The time had come to introduce stronger stimuli than the suggestions he had employed.

He threw a switch. Softly, then, the boy heard his own recorded voice, as he had spoken earlier in describing the dream. Then the images shifted and from within the dreaming mind he felt the click of _d_j_ vu_, the sensation of the appropriate, the feeling of desire achieved.

He depressed the button and the nozzles hissed. At the same moment, he threw the switch which severed the connection between his mind and that of his client's son.

Then, with his powerful visual memory and the telekinetic ability which only he among those few creatures possessing it could employ in this fashion, he laid his mind upon the swarming particles within the crystal. There he hurled the key instant of the dream he had snatched from the mind of its dreamer, its form and its color--the dream of a sleeper still informed with something of a child's exuberance and wonder--and there, within the crystal, with the mashing of another button, he froze it forever. Another, and tile nozzles were withdrawn. Another, and the crystal was sealed--never to be broached again without destroying the dream. A switch, and the recorded voice was stilled. As always, he found then that he was shaking.

He had done it again.

He activated the air cushion and withdrew the supports, so that the crystal floated before them. He lowered the black velvet backdrop and turned on concealed lights, adjusting them so that they struck the thing perfectly.

It was a somewhat frightening tableau: something part man was twisted snakelike about orange rocks which were also a part of itself, and it looked back upon itself to where it was joined with the ground; above it, the sky was partly contained in the arc of an upflung arm; a rosy road led from a rock to a star; there was a moistness like tears upon the arm; blue forms were in flight below.

John Morwin studied it. He had seen it by means of assisted telepathy, sculpted it telekinetically, preserved it mechanically. Whatever adolescent fantasy it might have represented, he did not know. Nor did he care. It was there. That was enough. The psychic drain that he felt, the feeling of elation that he felt, the pleasure that he felt in contemplating his creation--these were sufficient to tell him that it was good.

Occasionally, he was troubled by doubts as to whether what he did was really art, in the mere representation of another man's fantasies. True, he possessed the unique combination of talent and equipment to capture a dream, as well as a large fee for his troubles. But he liked to think of himself as an artist. If he could not be a fop, then this was his second choice. An artist, he had decided, possessed as much ego and eccentricity, but because of the added dimension of empathy could not behave toward his fellows with the same insouciance. But if he were not even a true artist .

He shook his head to clear it and removed the basket. He scratched at his right temple.

He had done sexual fantasies, dreamscapes of peace, nightmares for mad kings, psychoses for analysts. No one ever had anything but praise for his work. He hoped that the fact that these were externalizations of their own feelings was not the only ... No, he decided. Portraiture was valid art. But he wondered what would happen if one day he could do his own dream.

Rising, he shut down and removed the equipment from the boy Abse. Then, from his workstand, he picked up the pipe with the old insignia carved into tile side of the bowl, ran his thumb over it, packed it, lit it.

He seated himself behind the boy, after activating the servomechanisms which slowly moved the sleeper's couch into a semi-recline position. The stage was set. He smiled through his smoke and listened to the sounds of breathing.

Showmanship. He had become the businessman once more, the salesman displaying his wares. The first thing that Abse would see upon awakening would be the dramatically situated object. His own voice, from behind, would then break the spell with some trifling comment; and the magic-- broken--would partly retreat into the depths and so be sealed in the viewer's mind. Hopefully, the object's attractiveness would be enhanced by this.

The stirring of a hand. A slight cough. A gesture suddenly frozen, never to be completed ...

He drew it out for perhaps six seconds, then said, "Like it?"

The boy did not reply immediately, but when he did, it was with the words of a younger child, rather than those with which he had entered the studio. Gone was the faintly hidden contempt, the feigned weariness, the ostentatious sense of duty to a parent who had decided upon that as the ideal birthday present for a son who had little else to desire.

"That's it ..." he said. "That's it!"

"I take it, then, that you are pleased?"

"Lords!" The boy rose and moved toward it. He put his hand out slowly, but did not touch the crystal. "Pleased ... It's great." Then he shuddered and stood silent for a time. When he turned, he was smiling. Morwin smiled back, with the left corner of his mouth. The boy was gone again.

"It is quite pleasant," and he made a casual gesture toward it with his left hand, not looking back. "Have it delivered and bill my father."

"Very good."

Morwin rose as Abse moved toward the door that led to the front office and out. He opened it and held it for the boy. Abse halted before passing through and looked into his eyes for a moment. Only then, after a moment, did he return his glance to the globe.

"I--would like to have seen how you did it. It's too bad that we did not think to record the act."

"It's not all that interesting," said Morwin.

"I suppose not. --Well, good morning to you." He did not offer to shake hands.

"Good morning," said Morwin, and watched him depart.

Yes, being spoiled would have been pleasant. Another year or two and the boy would have learned ... everything that he would ever know.

Alyshia Curt, his secretary-receptionist, cleared her throat within her alcove around the corner behind the door. Holding to the frame with both hands, he leaned to his right and peered down at her.

"Hi," he said. "Have Jansen pack it and deliver it; and send the bill."

"Yes, sir," and she gestured with her eyes. He followed them.

"Surprise," said the man seated by the window, without any inflection in his voice.

"Michael! What are you doing here?"

"I wanted a cup of real coffee."

"Come on back. I've got some simmering."

The man rose and moved slowly, his bulk, his pale uniform, his albino hair reminding Morwin for the dozenth time of ice ages and the progress of glaciers.

They passed back into the studio and Morwin sought two clean cups. Locating them, he turned to discover that Michael had crossed, silently, the entire length of the studio, to regard the latest creation.

"Like it?" he asked.

"Yes. It's one of your best. --For that Arnithe kid?"

"Yeah."

"What did he think of it?"

"He said he liked it."

"Mm." Michael turned away and moved to the small table where Morwin sometimes took his meals.

Morwin poured the coffee and they sipped it.

"Tile _lamaq_ season opens this week."

"Oh," said Morwin. "I hadn't realized it was getting around to that time of year. You going out?"

"I was thinking of the weekend after this. We could skim up to the Blue Forest, camp out a couple nights, maybe bag ourselves a few."

"That sounds like a good idea. I'm with you. Anybody else coming along?"

"I was thinking maybe Jorgen."

Morwin nodded and drew on his pipe, his thumb covering the insignia on its side. Jorgen the giant Rigellian and Michael of Honsi had been crewmates during the war. Fifteen years earlier he would have shot either one of them on sight. Now he trusted them at his back with guns. Now he ate, drank, joked with them, sold his works to their fellows. The DYNAB insignia, Fourth Stellar Fleet, seemed to throb beneath his thumb. He was squeezing it tightly, feeling ashamed that he sought to conceal it from the Honsian but unable to uncover it. If we had won it would have been the other way around, he told himself, and nobody would have blamed Michael if he wore that damned big battle ring of his backward or on a chain around his neck, out of sight. A man has to make his life where he finds things best. If I had stayed in the DYNAB, I would still be juggling electrons--in some damned laboratory--on starvation wages.

"How much longer've you got till retirement?" he asked.

"Around three years. Still a lot of looking forward left."

Michael leaned back then, and with his right hand withdrew a news printout from his tunic.

"Looks as if a certain friend of yours plans never to retire."

Morwin took the paper, ran his eyes along the columns.

"What are you referring to?" he asked, for the sake of form.

"Second column. About halfway down."

"'Explosion on Blanchen'? That one?"

"Yes."

He read the report slowly. Then, "I'm afraid I don't understand," he said, while a certain thing like pride occurred within him. He kept it there, inside.

"Your old fleet commander, Malacar Miles. Who else?"

"'Six men dead, nine injured ... Eight units destroyed, twenty-six damaged,'" he read. "'No clues have been found but the Service is working on ...' --If no clues have been found, what makes you suspect the Commander?"

"The contents of the warehouses."

"What was in them?"

"High-speed voice-translation units."

"I fail to see--"

"--Previously only produced in the DYNAB. These were the first ones manufactured on CL worlds."

"So they're cutting into _that_ DYNAB industry too."

Michael shrugged.

"I guess they have a right to make what they want. The DYNAB simply was not turning them out fast enough. So, some Leagues industrialists went into that line. That was the first batch. As you know, they are precision instruments--one of the few machines that requires considerable manual adjustment. Lots of skilled hand labor makes for high overhead."

"And you think the Commander was involved?"

"Everybody _knows_ he was responsible. He's been doing things like this for years. He forgets the war is over, the armistice signed ..."

"You can't very well go into the DYNAB after him."

"No. But some powerful civilian may someday--somebody who gets tired having his property destroyed, or his friends or workers murdered."

"It's been tried, and you know what happened. Anybody who tries it now will be snapping at an even more indigestible mouthful."

"I know! It could lead to big trouble--to a thing we don't want."

"Supposing tile Service caught him, red-handed, putting a knife into somebody's back here in the CL--is it still what they used to say?"

"You ought to know the answer."

Morwin looked away.

"We never talk about such things when we talk," he said, finally.

Michael ground his teeth and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Yes," he said, then. "It still has full force and effect. We would have to return him to the DYNAB. We would then file a complaint with DYNAB Central, which of course would do nothing to their only surviving retired fleet commander. Legally, we would have to return him--so if there are too many witnesses, that's what gets done. If only they hadn't made him their representative at the First SEL Conference. It does seem as though they planned it then and are encouraging him now. I wish there were some way to get him to admit that it is a lost cause, or for us to get his diplomatic immunity revoked. The situation is very embarrassing."

"Yes."

"You served under him. You used to be a pretty good friend of his."

"I guess so."

"Well. You still are, aren't you?"

"As you know, I go to visit him occasionally--for old times' sake."

"Any chance you could talk some sense into him?"

"As I said, we don't talk about things like that. He wouldn't listen to me if I did."

Morwin poured more coffee.

"No matter what he once was, he is a murderer and an arsonist--among other things--now. You realize that, don't you?"

"I guess so."

"If he were ever to go too far--if he were ever to pull off something resulting in a really large-scale disaster--it _could_ possibly lead to war. There are a lot of political and military types would love an excuse to take on the DYNAB again, to dispose of it for once and ever."

"Why are you telling me about it, Mike?"

"I'm off duty and I'm not under orders. Hopefully, my superiors will never find out that I mentioned it to you. It's just that you are the only man I know of--living right here in town and a friend of mine--who actually knows the man and even sees him sometimes. Hell! I don't want another war! Even if this time it would be an overnight affair. I'm getting old. I just want to retire and hunt and fish. --You were his EQ. He'd listen to you. He even gave you that fancy pipe when it was all over. Isn't it a Bayner-Sandow briar? They cost something. He must have liked you."

Morwin's face reddened and he nodded into the smoke, got it in his eyes, shook his head.

And I sold him out, the same as all the others, he thought, when I moved to the CL and started taking their money.

"I haven't seen him in a long time. I'm sure he wouldn't listen."

"I'm sorry," said Michael, staring down into his coffee. "I was way out of order, suggesting something like that. Forget it, huh?"

"You working on the Blanchen thing?"

"Only peripherally."

"I see. I'm sorry."

There was a long silence, and then Michael gulped his coffee and stood.

"Well, I've got to be getting back to work," he said. "I'll see you in eleven days, my place. Sunrise. Right?"

"Right."

"Thanks for the coffee."

Morwin nodded and raised his hand in a half-salute. Michael closed the door behind him.

For a long while, Morwin stared at the boy's frozen dream. Then his gaze fell upon his coffee cup. He watched it until it rose into the air and dashed itself against the wail.

Heidel von Hymack stared down at the girl and returned her faint smile. About nine years old, he guessed.

"... And this is a Claanite," he explained, adding a stone to tile row beside her on the counterpane. "I picked it up a little while back on the world called Claana. I've polished it a lot since then, but I didn't do any grinding. That's its natural shape."

"What is Claana like?" she asked him.

"Mostly water," he said. "It's got a big blue sun in a sort of pinkish sky and eleven small moons that are always doing something interesting. There are no continents, just thousands of islands all over the place. Its people are batrachians, and they spend most of their lives in the water. They do not have any real cities that anybody knows of. They are migrants and traders of sorts. They trade things they find in the oceans for knives and duralines and things like that. This stone comes from their seas. I found it on a beach. It gets its shape from all that grinding against sand and other stones while it is being washed ashore. The trees there spread out for great distances--and they push extra roots out over the ground to reach the water. They have many very large leaves. Some have fruit. The temperature is almost always pleasant, because there are always winds coming in off the water. --And any time you want, you can climb up on something high and start looking off in all directions. You will always find a dark place where it is raining, somewhere. Anything seen through the rainwall is misty and distorted, sort of like the far shores of fairyland. Also, there are mirages. You see islands in the sky, with trees growing upside down. One of the natives told me that that's where they go when they die. They think that their ancestors are up there looking down at them--staring into the seas, watching. --If you like that stone, you can have it."

"Oh yes, Mr. H! Thank you!"

She clutched the stone and rubbed it with her hand. She polished it on the front of her hospital gown.

"How are you feeling today?" he asked.

"Better," she said. "A lot better."

He studied the small face, dark eyes beneath dark bangs, freckles sprinkled everywhere. There was more color to it than there had been a day and a half earlier when she had received the treatment. Her breathing was no longer labored. She was now able to sit up, propped with pillows, and could speak for fairly lengthy periods of time. Her fever was down and her blood pressure was almost normal. She was displaying curiosity and recovering the animation one would expect in a child her age. He considered the treatment a success. He no longer thought of the nine graves in the forest, or the others that lay farther behind him.

"... I'd like to see Claana someday," she was saying, "with its blue sun and all those moons ..."

"Perhaps you will," he told her, guessing far ahead, however, and seeing her with some local boy, a housewife in Italbar for all the days of her now recovered life, with perhaps only an orange stone to remind her of the dreams of childhood. Well, it could be worse, he decided, remembering that evening in tile hills above the city. A town like Italbar might be a pleasant place to end one's wanderings .

Dr. Helman entered the room, nodded to them both, took her left wrist in his hand and watched his chrono.

"You are a bit excited, Luci," he announced, lowering the wrist. "Perhaps Mr. H has been telling you of too many adventures."

"Oh no!" she said. "I want to hear them. He's been everywhere. --See the stone he gave me? I'll bet it's a lucky one. It's from Claana--a world with a blue sun and eleven moons. The people live in the sea ..."

The doctor glanced at the stone.

"It is quite pretty. Now I want you to get some rest."

Why doesn't he ever smile? Heidel asked himself. He should be happy.

Heidel scooped up the rest of his stones and deposited them in tile monogrammed _kuhl_-skin hag he carried.

"I guess I'd better be going now, Luci," he said. "I am glad that you are feeling better. If I don't see you again, it has been pleasant talking to you. --Be good."

He stood and moved toward the door, along with Dr. Helman.

"You'll be coming back, won't you?" she said, sitting up away from the pillows, her eyes widening. "You'll come back--won't you?"

"I can't say for certain," Heidel told her. "We'll see."

"Come back ..." he heard her say, as he passed through the door and into the hallway beyond.

"She has responded amazingly," Helman said. "I still find it difficult to believe."

"What of the others?"

"All the ones you visited have either had their conditions arrested or are undergoing small rallies. I wish I understood how it worked. --Your blood, by the way, is even more of a mess than those reports indicated--according to our laboratory. They would like more samples, to send to Landsend for further analysis."

"No," said Heidel. "I know my blood is a mess, and they won't discover much new about it by sending it to Landsend. If they are especially interested, they can request very detailed reports concerning it from Panopath in SEL. It has been tested in every possible way, and the reports are still inconclusive. Besides, it will be getting dangerous again soon. I have to be going."

The two men moved toward the lift shafts.

"This 'balance' you speak of," said Helman. "There is no such thing. You speak as if the pathogens formed ranks, warring against one another, and then sign a truce for a time where none of them misbehaves. This is nonsense. The body does not work that way."

"I know," said Heidel, as they entered the lift. "It's just an analogy. As I said, I'm not a doctor of medicine. I've coined my own simple, pragmatic terms for referring to what occurs to me. Translate them as you would. I'm still the expert on the effects."

The lift dropped them to the ground floor.

"Shall we stop in the office?" said Helman, as they emerged.

"You say you have to be going soon, and I know when your air car is coming in. This means you want to go up into the hills and undergo another coma. I'd like to arrange to observe it and--"

"No!" said Heidel. "That's out. Definitely. I don't allow anybody near me when I do that. It's too dangerous."

"But I could put you in isolation."

"No, I won't allow it. I've been responsible for too many deaths already. Things like what I did here are my way of trying to partly make up for them. I won't chance causing more by having people around me during the coma--even trained people. Sorry. No matter what the precautions, I'd still be afraid that something would go wrong."

Helman shrugged slightly.

"If you should ever reconsider, I'd like to be the physician in charge," he said.

"Well ... Thanks. I'd better go away now."

Helman shook his hand.

"Thanks for everything," he said. "The gods have been kind."

To your patients, maybe, Heidel thought. Then, "Good afternoon, Doctor," he said; and he walked through the door that led to the lobby.

"... Bless you," she was saying. "May the gods bless you!"

She had seized his arm and drawn him near as he passed her chair.

He looked down into the tired face with its red-rimmed eyes. It was Luci's mother.

"She'll be all right now, I think," he said. "She's a nice little girl."

While she clung to his left arm, his right hand was taken and pumped by a thin man wearing light slacks and sweater. His weather-beaten face was split by a smile that showed a row of irregular teeth.

"Thank you so much, Mr. H," he said, his palm moist against Heidel's. "We must have prayed in every house of worship in town--and all our friends were doing it too. I guess our prayers were answered. May all of the gods bless you! --Would you care to come home with us for dinner tonight?"

"Thank you, but I really have to be going," said Heidel. "I have an appointment--something I have to take care of before my transportation arrives."

When he was finally able to draw away from them, he turned to find the lobby filling with people. Among the sounds of many voices, he heard the words "Mr. H" being spoken over and over again.

"... How did you do it, Mr. H?" came from five different directions. "--May I have your autograph? --My brother has an allergy. Will you ... ? --I would like to invite you to attend services this evening, sir. My parish ... --Can you heal at a distance? --Mr. H, would you care to make a statement for the local ... ?"

"Please," he said, turning his head from face to camera to face. "I _must_ be going. I appreciate your attention, but I have nothing to tell you. Please let me through."

But the lobby was filled and the front door was held open by the pressure of bodies pushing forward. People were raising children into the air to see him. He looked to tile coat rack and saw that his staff was missing. Looking through the glass wall beyond that place, he saw that a crowd was forming in front of the building.

"... Mr. H, I have a present for you. I baked them myself ... --May I drive you to wherever you're going? --Which gods do you pray to, sir... ? --My brother has this allergy ..."

He backed to the desk and leaned toward tile woman who had received him there.

"I wasn't warned of this," he said.

"We didn't expect it either," she told him. "They assembled in a matter of minutes. There was no way of knowing. Get back in the corridor, and I'll tell them no one is allowed beyond here. I'll call for someone to show you out the back way.

"Thanks."

He passed through the door once more, waving and smiling to the people.

A cry went up as he departed. It was a combination of "H!" and a cheer.

He stood in the corridor until an orderly appeared and conducted him to the rear of the building.

"May I drive you a distance from here?" the man inquired. "If the crowd sees you walking nearby and recognizes you-- well, they might follow and be a bother."

"All right," said Heidel. "Why not take me half a dozen blocks or so in the direction of those hills."

He gestured toward the ones he had crossed in coming to Italbar.

"I can take you right up to the foot of them, sir. Save you some walking."

"Thanks, but I want to stop somewhere and pick up some supplies--maybe even get a warm meal--before I head on up. Do you know any place in that direction where I could?"

"There are several. I'll take you to a small one on a quiet street. I don't think you'll be troubled there. --That's my car," he indicated.

They encountered no difficulty in reaching the place the orderly had recommended--an old-smelling, narrow store with wooden floors, walls lined with uncovered shelves-- selling food retail in the front and serving it in a tiny dining room in the rear. Only one thing disturbed Heidel. When the vehicle had halted before the establishment, the orderly had reached down inside his collar and fetched forth a green amulet--a lizard with an inlaid line of silver down its back.

"I know this sounds sort of silly, Mr. H," he said, "but would you touch this for me?"

Heidel complied, then asked him, "What did I do?"

The young man laughed and looked away, depositing the carving within his shirt once more.

"Oh, I guess I'm a little superstitious, like everyone else," he said. "That's my good luck piece. With everyone talking the way they are about you, I figured it couldn't do any harm."

"Talking? What are they saying? Don't tell me that 'holy man' thing has followed me here too?"

"I'm afraid that it has, sir. Who knows? There may be something to it."

"You work in the hospital. You spend a big piece of your time among scientists."

"Oh, they're the same way, most of them. Maybe it has to do with living this far away from things. Some of the preachers say it's sort of a reaction because we're close to nature again, after our ancestors had spent centuries living in big cities. Whatever the reason, thanks for humoring me."

"Thanks for the ride."

"Best of luck."

Heidel stepped out and entered the store.

He replenished his supplies, then seated himself at a table in the windowless back room. The room was lighted by eight ancient, insect-specked glow-globes set in the walls, and was almost adequately air-conditioned. Despite the fact that he was the only customer, it was a long while before he was served. He ordered a local steak and brew and refrained from inquiring as to the nature of the beast from which the steak had been cut, a policy he had long before determined to be prudent when on brief visits to strange worlds. As he sipped the brew and waited for the meat, he reflected upon his condition.

He was still a geologist. It was the only thing he could do well and do safely. True, none of the larger companies would take him on as an employee. While none of them knew for certain that he was H, they all knew there was something strange about him. Perhaps they had him listed as an accident-prone. For that matter, though, he would not in good conscience hire on, anyway, and run the risk of being assigned to a place he did not wish to work--that is, any place near groups of people. Most of the companies, though, were happy to take him on as an independent contractor. Strangely, this had resulted in his making more money than ever before in his life. Now that he had it, though, he had little use for it. He stayed away from cities, from people, from all the places where money is spent in large quantities. Over the years, he had come so to accept a solitary existence that now the presence of people--even in far smaller groups than that crowd at the hospital--tended to cause him distress. He anticipated a solitary existence--a cabin on some far outback, a shanty near a quiet beach--in his old age. His cigars, his mineral collection, a few books and a receiving set that could pull in News Central--these were all that he really desired.

He ate slowly, and the owner of the store came back and wanted to talk. Where was he going with that pack and those rations?

Camping, tip in the hills, he explained. Why? He was about to tell the old man it was none of his affair, when it occurred to him that perhaps he was lonely. Neither the store nor the dining room looked as if they drew much business. Possibly the man did not see many people. And he was old.

So Heidel made up a story. The man listened to it, nodding. Soon Heidel was listening and the storekeeper was doing all the talking. Heidel nodded occasionally.

He finished his meal and lit a cigar.

Gradually, as the time wore on, Heidel realized that he was enjoying the man's company. He ordered another brew. Finishing his cigar, he lit a second one.

Because there were no windows, he did not see the long shadows begin. He spoke of other worlds; he showed the man his stones. The man told him of the farm he once had owned.

As the first stars of evening gave their light to tile world, Heidel glanced at his chrono.

"It can't be _that_ late!" he said.

The old man looked at Heidel's, looked at his own.

"I'm afraid that it is. I didn't mean to keep you if you were in a hurry ..."

"No. That's all right," said Heidel. "I just didn't realize what time it was getting to be. I've enjoyed talking with you. But I'd better be going now."

He paid his bill and departed quickly. He was not eager to push his safety margin.

He turned right when he left the store, walking through the twilight, heading in the direction from which he had originally come. After fifteen minutes, he was out of the business district and passing through a pleasant residential section of the city. The globes glowed more brightly atop their poles as the sky darkened and stars were splashed across it.

Passing a stone church, a faint light coming from behind its stained glassite windows, he felt that old jittery sensation that churches always gave him. It had been--what?--ten or twelve years ago? Whatever the interval, he recalled the event clearly. It still troubled him on occasion.

It had been a stifling summer day on Murtania and he had been caught out in the noonday heat, walking. He had sought refuge in one of those underground Strantrian shrines, where it is always cool and dark. Seating himself in an especially shadowy corner, he had rested. He closed his eyes when two worshipers appeared, hoping to appear appropriately contemplative. The newcomers, instead of praying quietly as he had expected, did not seat themselves, but commenced an exchange of excited whispers. One of them departed, and the other moved forward and took a seat near to the central altar. Heidel studied him. He was a Murtanian, and his branchial membranes were swollen and flared, which indicated excitement. His head was not bowed; instead, he was staring upward. Heidel followed the direction of his gaze, and saw that he was looking at that row of giassite illustrations which formed a continuous band of deities, passing along all the walls of the chapel. The man was staring at the one among all those illustrations which was now glowing with a blue fire. When his own eyes fell upon it, Heidel felt something akin to an electric shock. Then his extremities tingled and there came a feeling of dizziness. Not one of the old diseases acting up, he hoped. But no, it did not behave that way. Instead, there was a strange exhilaration, like the first stages of drunkenness, though he had had nothing alcoholic to drink that day. Then the place began to fill with worshipers. Almost before he realized it, there was a service being conducted. The feeling of exhilaration and power began to heighten, and then specific emotions appeared--oddly contradictory emotions. One moment, he wanted to reach out and touch the people about him, call them "brother," love them, heal them of their ills; the next moment, he hated them and wished that he had not just undergone catharsis, so that he might infect the entire congregation with some fatal disease that would spread like flames in a pooi of gasoline and kill them all in a day. His mind cycled back and forth between these desires and he wondered if he were going mad. He had never exhibited schizophrenic tendencies before, and his feelings toward humanity had never been characterized by either extreme. He had always been an easygoing individual who neither gave trouble nor sought it. He had neither loved nor hated his fellows, but took them as they were and moved among them as best he could. Consequently, he was at a total loss to understand the mad desires that suddenly possessed him. He waited for the latest wave of hatred to pass, and when the lull came before the next upswing of amity, he rose quickly and pushed his way to the door. By the time he reached it, he was well into the other phase and he apologized to everyone he jostled. "Peace, brother. I crave your pardon. --Forgive me, for I love you. --I apologize with all my heart. --Excuse my unworthy passage, please." Once he made it through the door, up the steps and onto the street, he ran. Within a few minutes, all unusual feelings had departed. He had considered consulting a psychiatrist, but refrained because he later explained it to himself as a reaction to the heat, followed by the sudden coolness, in combination with all the little side effects that come of visiting a new planet. Then, too, there was never a recurrence of the phenomenon. From that day on, however, he had never set foot in a church of any sort; nor could he pass one without a certain feeling of apprehension which he traced back to that day on Murtania.

He paused at a corner to let three vehicles pass. While waiting, he heard a sound at his back.

"Mr. H!"

A boy of about twelve emerged from the shadows beneath a tree and advanced toward him. In his left hand he held a black leash, the other end of which was clipped to the collar of a green meter-long lizard with short, bowed legs. Its claws clicked on the pavement as it waddled after the boy, and when it opened its mouth to dart its red tongue in his direction, it seemed as if it were grinning. It was a very fat lizard, and it rubbed against the boy's leg several times as he approached.

"Mr. H, I went to the hospital to see you earlier, but you had to go back inside, so I only got a glimpse. I heard about how you healed Luci Dorn. It sure is lucky meeting you, just walking along."

"Don't touch me!" said Heidel; but the boy had clasped his hand too quickly and was looking up at him with eyes in which the stars danced.

Heidel dropped his hand and backed off several paces.

"Don't get too close," he said. "I think I'm catching a cold."

"Then you shouldn't be out in this night air. I'll bet my folks would put you up."

"Thanks, but I have an appointment."

"This is my _larick_." He tugged on the leash. "His name is Chan. Sit up, Chan."

The lizard opened its mouth, squatted, curled into a ball.

"He doesn't always do it. Not when he doesn't feel like it, anyway," the boy explained. "When he wants to, though, he's real good at it. He stabilizes himself with his tail. --Come on, Chan! Sit up for Mr. H."

He yanked on the leash.

"That's all right, son," said Heidel. "Maybe he's tired. --Look, I have to be going. Maybe I'll meet you again before I leave town. Okay?"

"Okay. Sure glad I got to meet you. G'night."

"Good night."

Heidel crossed the street and hurried on.

A vehicle drew up beside him.

"Hey! You're Dr. H, aren't you?" a man called.

He turned.

"That's right."

"I thought I saw you at the corner back that way. Went round the block so I could get a good look."

Heidel drew back, away from the vehicle.

"Can I give you a lift to wherever you're going?"

"No thanks. I'm almost there."

"You're sure now?"

"Positive. I appreciate the offer."

"Well, okay. --My name's Wiley."

The man extended his hand out through the window.

"I have grease on my hand. I'll get you dirty," said Heidel; and the man leaned forward, seized his left hand, squeezed it briefly, then drew back into the car.

"Okay. Take it easy, then," he said, and he drove off.

Heidel felt like screaming at the world, telling it to go away and stop touching him.

He ran for the next two blocks. Minutes later, another vehicle slowed when its lights fell upon him, but he averted his face and it passed him by. A man sitting on a porch smoking a pipe waved at him and rose to his feet. He said something, but Heidel ran again and did not hear the words.

Finally, there were greater open spaces between dwellings. Soon the aisle of glow-globes ceased and the stars took on a greater prominence. When the road ended, he continued along the trail, the bulk of the hills now blocking half his prospect.

He did not look back at Italbar as he mounted above it.

Leaning far forward, her knees pressed hard against the plated sides of tile eight-legged kooryab she rode, black hair streaming in the wind, Jackara raced through the hills above Capeville. Far below and to her left, the city crouched beneath its morning umbrella of fog. From over her right shoulder, the risen sun cast shafts down into the mist and made it sparkle.

There, the tall buildings of the city, all of silver, their countless windows taking white fire like gems, the sea beyond them something between purple and blue, clouds like one giant, frothing tidal wave, massed at the city's unguarded back, touched with pink and orange at its crest, there, halfway up the sky, ready to topple through the blue air and shave the entire peninsula from the continent, sinking it full fathom five, to lie forever dead at the ocean's bottom, becoming over the ages the lost Atlantis of Deiba, she dreamed.

Riding, clad in slacks and a short white tunic belted with red, a matching red headband keeping that fluttering hair from her bright blue eyes, Jackara cursed with the foulest oaths of all the races she had known.

Turning her mount and drawing it to a halt, so that it reared and hissed before it settled panting, she glared down at the city.

"Burn, damn you! Burn!"

But no flames leaped to do her bidding.

She drew her unregistered laser pistol from a holster beneath her garment and triggered it to cut through the trunk of a small tree. The tree stood for a moment, swayed, then fell with a crash that dislodged pebbles and sent them rolling down the hill. The _kooryab_ started at this, but she controlled it with her knees and a soft word.

Reholstering her pistol, she continued to stare at the city, and unspoken curses were there in her eyes.

It was not just Capeville and the brothel in which she worked. No. It was the whole of the CL that she hated, hated with a passion only exceeded perhaps by that of one other being. Let the other girls visit the churches of their choice on this, a holiday. Let them eat candy and grow fat. Let them entertain their true loves. Jackara rode the hills and practiced with her gun.

One day--and she hoped that that day came during her lifetime--there _would_ be fire, and blood and death within the blazing hearts of bombs and rockets. She kept herself as prepared as a bride for that day. When it came, she desired only the opportunity to die in its name, killing something for it.

She had been very young--four or five, she'd guessed-- when her parents had emigrated to Deiba. When the conflict had begun, they had been confined to a Relocation Center because of the planet of their origin. If she ever had the money, she would go back. But she knew that she would never have it. Her parents did not live out the duration of the conflict between the Combined Leagues and the DYNAB. Afterward, she had become a ward of the state. She learned that the old stigma remained, also, when she came of age and sought employment. Only the stateoperated pleasure house in Capeville was open to her. She had never had a suitor, or even a boy friend; she had never held a different job. "Possible DYNAB Sympathizer" was stamped on a file, in red, somewhere, she felt, and in it, probably, her life history, neatly typed, double-spaced, filling half a sheet of official stationery.

Very well, she had decided, years before, when she had sorted through the facts and achieved this conclusion. Very well. You picked me up, you looked at me, you threw me away. You gave me a name, unwanted. I will take it, removing only the "Possible." When the time comes, I will indeed be a canker at this flower's heart.

The other girls seldom entered her room, for it made them uneasy. On the few occasions when they did, they would giggle nervously, depart quickly. No lace and ruffles, no tridee photos of handsome actors, such as adorned their rooms--none of these occupied the austere cell that was Jackara's. Above her bed was only the lean, scowling countenance of Malacar the avenger, the last man on Earth. On the opposite wall hung a pair of matched whips with silver handles. Let the other girls deal with ordinary customers. She wanted only those she could abuse. And these were given to her, and she abused them, and they kept returning for more. And every night she would speak to him, in the closest thing in her life to prayer: "I have beaten them, Malacar, as you have struck down their cities, their worlds, as you still strike, as you shall strike again. Help me to be strong, Malacar. Give me the power to hurt, to destroy. Help me, Malacar. Please help me. Kill them!" And sometimes, late at night or in the early hours of morning, she would wake up crying and not know why.

She turned her mount and headed toward the trail that led through the hills toward the other shore of the peninsula. The day was young and her heart was light, filled as it was with the recent news of Blanchen.

Heidel drank one full canteen of water and half of another. The damp, past-midnight darkness lay upon his camp. He turned onto his back and clasped his hands behind his head, staring up into the heavens. Everything recent seemed so far past. Each time that he awakened from the thing it was as if he were beginning a new life, the events of previous days seeming for a time as cold and flat as a year-old letter discovered behind the waste container it had missed. This feeling would pass in an hour or so, he knew.

A shooting star crossed the bright heavens and he smiled. Harbinger of my final day on Cleech, he told himself.

He consulted his gleaming chrono once again, confirming the time. Yes, his sleep-filled eyes had not misread it. Hours still remained before the dawn.

He rubbed his eyes and thought back upon her beauty. She had seemed so very quiet this time. Though he seldom remembered the words, it seemed that there had been fewer of them. Was it sadness that had marked the tenderness? He recalled a hand upon his brow and something moist that fell onto his cheek.

He shook his head and chuckled. Was he indeed mad, as he had expected lives ago, back in that Strantrian shrine? To consider her as a real person was an act of madness.

On the one hand ...

On the other... How do you explain a recurring dream, anyway? One that persists over a decade? Not the dream, exactly, though. Only the principals and the setting. The dialogue changed, the moods shifted. But each time he was taken with a sense of love and strength into a place of peace. Perhaps he should have seen a psychiatrist. If he had wanted to straighten himself out, that is. But he did not, he decided. Not really. Alone most of the time, who was there for him to harm? Awake when he dealt with others, he was not influenced by them. They gave him comfort and distraction. Why destroy one of the harmless pleasures of life? There seemed no progressive derangement involved.

So he lay there for several hours. He thought about the future. He watched the sky grow light, and one by one he saw the stars put away. He was curious as to the happenings on other worlds. It had been a long while that he had been away from News Central.

When dawn broke the world in two, he rose, sponged himself, trimmed his hair and beard, dressed. He breakfasted, packed his belongings, stowed his pack on his back and started downhill.

Half an hour later, he was passing through the outskirts of town.

As he crossed a street, he heard a bell tolling the same note over and over.

Death, he said; a funeral. And he passed on.

Then he heard sirens. But he continued on, not seeking their source.

He came to the store where he had taken a meal several days earlier. It was closed, and there was a dark remembrance set upon the door.

He walked on, suddenly fearing the worst, knowing it.

He waited for a procession to pass the corner where he stood. A hearse rumbled by, lights on.

They still bury the dead here, he reflected; and, Not what I think, he told himself. Just a death, an ordinary death ... Who am I trying to fool?

He walked on, and a man crossed his path and spat upon it.

Again? What have I become?

He walked the streets, wending his slow way to the airfield.

If I am responsible, how can they know so soon? he asked himself.

They cannot, not for sure ...

But then he thought of himself as they knew him. What? A god-touched being dropped into their midst. Mutual apprehension would prevail, along with the awe. He had stayed too long, that day, centuries ago. Now every moment's pleasure was refined, drained, siphoned, lessened by each bellnote. Every new moment here was closed to pleasure.

He moved along the street, cutting toward his right.

A young boy drew attention to him: "There he is!" he cried. "That's H!"

He could not deny it--but the tone made him wish he were catching his air car elsewhere.

He walked on, and the boy--along with several adults-- followed him.

But she lived, he told himself. I made her live ...

Big victory.

He passed a vehicle repair shop, and the men in blue uniforms who worked there sat in the front of the building, their chairs tilted back against the brick wall. They did not move. They sat there and smoked and stared at him as he passed by, silent.

The bells continued to ring. People moved out of doors and side passages to stare at him as he passed along the streets.

I stayed too long, he decided. It's not as if I wanted to shake anybody's hand. I never have this problem in a large city any more. They move me about in robot-controlled units, which they sterilize afterward; they give me a whole ward to myself, which they sterilize afterward; I only see a few people--immediately after catharsis; and I depart the way I arrived. It's been years since I visited a town this small for a job like this. I got careless. It's all my fault. It would have been all right if I hadn't talked too long after dinner. It _would_ have been all right. I got careless.

He saw a casket being loaded onto a hearse. Around the corner, another hearse waited.

Then it's not a plague ... yet? he decided. At that stage, people start burning bodies. They stay off the streets.

He glanced back, already knowing from the sounds they made what it was that he would see.

The individuals following him had become about a dozen. He did not look back again. Among the small noises that they made, he heard "H" spoken, several times.

Vehicles passed him, moving slowly. He did not look at them, consciously, though it seemed that there were many eyes fixed upon him.

He reached the center of town, passing along a small square situated there, a statue of some local hero/patriot/ benefactor turning green at its center.

He heard someone call out something in a language that he did not understand. He began to hurry; and now the sound of footfalls became more distinct at his back, as if the crowd had grown.

What were the words that had been spoken? he wondered.

He passed a church, and the sound of its bell was very loud as he moved before it. From behind him, he heard a woman utter an oath.

The touch of fear grew stronger. The sun had dropped a beautiful day about him, but he no longer took pleasure in its presence.

He turned to his right and headed toward the field, about three quarters of a mile distant. Now their voices rose, still not addressed to him, but talking about him. He heard the word "murderer" spoken.

He hurried, and as he moved he saw faces at windows. He heard curses at his back. No, it would not do to run. He crossed a street, and a vehicle swung toward him, then rushed away. He heard the strident cry of a bird, crouched beneath the eave of a house that he passed.

He had done it, they knew. People had died, and it had been traced back to him. The other day he had been a hero. Now he was a villain. And that damned primitive, superstitious aura that covered the town! All those references to gods, the talismans, the good luck charms--they added up to something, something that made him hurry his pace. Now, in their minds, he felt himself to be associated with demons rather than gods.

... If only he had not dwelled so long over his dinner, if he had fled from passers-by ...

I was lonely, he told himself. If I had been as wary as I was in the old days, it could have been avoided, there would have been no infection. I was lonely.

He heard someone call out, "H!" but he did not turn.

A child, standing beside a garbage can in an alleyway, shot him with a squirt gun as he passed.

He wiped his face. The bells continued their mournful clanging.

When he paused at a thoroughfare, someone flicked a cigarette butt in his direction. He stepped on it and waited. His followers massed behind him. Someone pushed him. It felt like an elbow in his kidney, though it could have been the heel of a hand. They jostled him, and he heard the word "killer" repeated several times.

He had encountered things of this nature previously. His past experience did not hearten him, however.

"What're you going to do now, mister?" someone called.

He did not answer.

"Infect more people?"

He did not answer.

Then he heard a woman coughing, suddenly, spasmodically, at his back.

He turned, now that he was clean and could help.

A woman had collapsed upon her knees and she was spitting blood.

"Let me through," he said, but they did not.

Held back by a wall of shoulders, he watched her die or go into a coma. She looked dead to him.

He tried to walk away, hoping that they would not notice, now that their attention was focused elsewhere. He moved to the next corner, crossed, began to run.

They were again at his back.

Running had been a mistake, for now he felt the first blow that was not administered by a hand. Someone had thrown something.

The stone clattered upon the pavement. It had glanced off his shoulder, inflicting no real damage. Still, a bad sign.

Now that he had begun the thing, however, he could not halt. The speed dictated more speed. He shed his pack and raced ahead.

The stones came clattering around him.

One touched his scalp, mussed his hair.

"Murderer! Killer!"

What will they take? he wondered.

He reviewed his assets and thought of possible bribes. He had been able to buy his way out of some tight situations in the past. This one, though, did not seem of a negotiable nature.

A small stone missed him and struck against the side of a building. The next one did not; it hit him on the arm, causing considerable pain.

He carried no weapons. There was nothing he could do to avert their madness; and mad was what he judged them.

Another stone passed by his ear. He shook his head.

"Bastard!" someone called.

"You don't know what you're doing!" he cried out. "It was an accident!"

He felt moisture on his neck. He touched it, and his fingertips came away bloody. Another stone struck him.

Could he dash into a store? Might he seek sanctuary in some place of business? He looked about, but could discover none that seemed to be open. Where were the police?

Several rocks fell against his back. He swayed, for they were thrown with some force and he felt sharp pains.

"I came here to be of help..." he began.

"Murderer!"

Then they rained against him, knocking him to his knees. He rose and ran. More of them hit him, but he stumbled on.

He continued to look for some place of refuge--any place--saw none, lengthened his strides.

There were more things thrown, and he fell. This time he did not rise so quickly. He felt several kicks, and someone spat into his face.

"Killer!"

"Please ... Listen to me! I can explain."

"Go to hell!"

He crawled, huddling finally against a wall, and now they came in close. There were kicks, spit, stones.

"Please! I'm clean again!"

"Bastard!"

Then came the fury. It was not right that they use him so, he felt. He had come to their town for a humanitarian purpose. He had undergone hardship to reach Italbar. Now he was bleeding on its streets and being cursed. Who were they to judge him as they had done, to call him names and abuse him? This thing rose up within him, and he knew that, had he the power, he would have reached out and crushed them all.

Hatred, that thing nearly unknown to him, suddenly filled his body with cold fire. He wished that he had not undergone catharsis. He would be the plague-bearer, infecting them all.

The kicks and missiles continued.

He drew his arms across his abdomen, hands before his face, and suffered them.

You'd better kill me, he said to himself. Because if you don't, I'll be back.

Where had he felt this way before? He did not seek the memory, but it returned.

The church. The Strantrian shrine. That was where he had experienced something akin to this hatred. Now he saw that it was right. Strange not to have realized it back then .

His ribs felt broken, his right kneecap dislodged. He was missing several teeth, and the blood and sweat kept filling his eyes. The crowd continued to abuse him, and he was never certain when it was that it let up.

Perhaps they thought that they had killed him, for he lay there very still. Or perhaps it was that they grew tired or ashamed. He never knew.

He lay there, huddled on the pavement, his back against the wall that had not opened to give him refuge. He was alone.

Something, like a dream of mumbling and cursing and receding footsteps, flickered through his consciousness.

He coughed and spat blood.

All right, he said. You tried to kill me. Probably think you did. You made a mistake. You let me live. Whatever your intentions were, don't ever ask me for forgiveness, or for mercy. You made a mistake.

Then he passed out again.

The rain fell gently upon his face. This was what had awakened him. It was into the afternoon of the day, and somehow he had been transported into an alley. He had no memory of having crawled to the place, but then he was certain that no one would have assisted him in achieving it.

Again there was a lapse of consciousness, and when it returned the sky was dark.

He was drenched now, and the rain still fell--or perhaps it had just begun again; he had no way of telling. He licked his lips.

How much time had passed? He drew his chrono near. It was broken, of course. His body insisted, though, that he had endured the ages.

All right.

They had harmed him. They had cursed him.

All right.

He spat and tried to see whether it was blood that mixed with the rainslick.

Do you know who I am?

I came here to help. I _did_ help. If I inadvertently caused some deaths while trying to be of assistance, do you seriously think that this was intentional?

No?

Then why this?

I know.

We do things because we _feel_ that we must. Sometimes we get hooked by our emotions, our humanity--as I did the other day. I probably did infect one or all of the people I was with.

But to die ... Would I cause another human being to do it, intentionally?

Not then. Not a while ago.

Now, though, you've showed me another side of life.

I have emotions, too, and they have turned. You beat the hell out of me while I was simply trying to make it to the airfield. Okay.

You have me for an enemy now. Let us see whether you can take it the way that you give it.

_Do you know everything that I am?_

_I am walking death_.

_You think that now you have done with me?_

_If you do, you are mistaken_.

_I came to help_.

_I will stay to slay_.

He lay there for long hours before he could rise and move on.

Dr. Pels regarded the world.

They had had something for him. They had given him a lead.

Deiban fever. That had been the beginning. It had served to put him onto the trail of H. Now as the night without end containing days without number wore on about him, certain other thoughts came and went, remained longer and longer, stayed.

H.

H was more than the key to _mwalakharan khurr_ ...

The very presence of H had served to remedy many unusual conditions.

Is this the real reason, he asked himself, that I abandoned twenty years' labor in favor of this line of attack? H cannot live forever, whereas I may--like this. Am I being completely scientific about this one?

He prepared the B Coli for distance-hopping. Then he reread the notice he had received.

The sounds of _Death and Transfiguration_ moved about him.

Heidel woke once again. He was lying in a ditch. There was no one near. It was still night. The ground was damp, muddy in places. But the rain had stopped.

He crawled, got to his feet, staggered.

He continued on, toward the field where he had been headed. He remembered something of its layout. He had seen it while strolling, later on on that day when he had given the blood--when?

When he arrived, near to its perimeter, he sought the shed he had seen.

There ...

It was unlocked and there was a warm corner. Covers for some sort of equipment had been thrown there. They were heavy with dust, but it did not matter. By then he was coughing again, anyhow.

A couple days, he told himself. Let the scar tissue start. That's all.

Malacar kept abreast of the news. He pulled it in, listened, turned it off. He thought about it, digested it, turned it back on again.

_The Perseus_ slid beneath the suns ...

He drowsed through weather reports for one hundred twelve planets. He grew bored while listening to News Central. He meditated sleepily upon sex while hearing a program out of Pruria.

He rushed on. His ship was in hd, and it would not stop till he was home again.

_We did it_, said Shind.

_We did it_, he answered.

_And the dead?_

_I would say we will have a tally before we strike home port_.

Shind did not reply.