Wave Without A Shore

XV

He looked out Keye's window at a night somewhat removed from that night, when the whole apartment was dark and the only light was coming in from the glaring floods outside. The noise went on, the grinding of cranes, the voices of workmen and the voices of apprentices giving orders, the occasional ring of hammer and chisel. The twelfth course was laid. What had been three rings from above, with the thick central pillar and the apparent random placement of additional touch-points to act as supports . . . began to show other curves. The inward curve of the dome began to be apparent, and the curve of the pillar which was headed to meet it in three levels. That slamming of pipe . . . the scaffolding Was going into place, the supports which would hold the developing dome until the last courses could be laid, and their keystones settled. During the next several days, the cranes would work nonstop. The whole shell would be put up; lighting was being arranged interior to the shell as well as exterior. Apprentices with their computer printouts and their cutters would sit at the base of a surface completing their tasks in sculpture, while cranes swung the vast stones into place above them. The major perforations would be made only when the whole structure stood solid. Minor texturing proceeded.

He put on his clothes, disturbing Keye as little as possible: "Difficulty?" she lifted her head from the pillow to ask. "Restless," he said. "Make love?" she murmured politely. "No need," he said, and Keye snuggled contentedly into the sheets and pillows, having had what she wanted and as happy, he knew well enough, to have the bed to herself thereafter; Keye was an active sleeper. He finished his dressing, padded out and down the hall, down to the foyer and out, into the glare of the floods and the business of the workmen and apprentices.

"Is it stable?" he asked of the night supervisor, Carl Gytha. "Any difficulty?"

"None," Gytha assured him. "The engineers assure us so."

He nodded, pleased with himself, looked about him where now the bone-white marble formed the strong bend of an arch against the velvet sky and the staring eyes of the floods. While he watched, another block settled, homed by the seeker-sensor that told the crane operator it was coming down on target. It hovered. The sensor plate became aligned with its mate as it settled. Workmen hastened to strip off the paired sensors, free the fore and aft clamps, scrambling along the scaffolding. Liberated, the crane swung with ponderous grace and dipped its cable after the next block the master apprentice would designate. The clamps settled, embraced, seized, lifted.

That smoothly.

Block after block, through the night. The operation had smoothed itself into a precision and a pace which held without falter; shifts worked and rested in alternation, enjoyed food and warm drink, cups which sent curls of steam up into the air. Herrin savored the hot sweet liquid, fruited milk and sugar, which fueled the crews and, keeping them off stronger drink, kept their perceptions straight and their reflexes instant. They were bright-eyed and enthusiastic, pampered by the project, afforded whatever they reasonably desired while on the project and promised a bonus if it met deadline, and wherever Herrin walked there was a flurry of zeal and an offering of respect.

"I'm not great, sir," an older worker said to him, when he inquired the view of the man, who had been rigging scaffolding. "But this thing is real and it's going to go on standing here and I'll look at those stones and remember doing them."

That was to him a tremendous insight, first into the thinking of the less than brilliant, with whom he had had little association and less conversation; and secondly, into possibilities and levels of the sculpture's reality which he had himself hardly yet grasped. "Indeed," he said, sucking in his breath, stirred by the concept of others falling within this design of his making. "Do you know—what is your name?"

"John Ree, sir," said the worker, jamming uncertain hands into his pockets as if seeking refuge for them. He was a big man, graying and weathered from work out of doors. "Ree."

"John Ree. It occurs to me to make a great bronze plaque when all's done; to set the name of every hand that worked to rear this sculpture, the apprentices, the stonemasons, the crane operators, the runners, every single one . . . out before the north wall."

"Would be splendid, sir," Ree murmured, looking confused, and Herrin laughed, walked away with energy in his step.

Within the hour, before dawn, the word had traveled. Supervisor Carl Gytha had heard, and asked him. "Everyone," he confirmed, "every name," and watched Gytha's eyes grow round, for Gytha was competent and knew at least a degree of ambition within the University.

"Yes, sir," the supervisor said earnestly.

"Make a list; keep it absolutely accurate. Cross check with Leona Pace."

"Yes, sir."

"To the least. To the sweepers. Everyone."

"Yes, sir." Gytha went off. Herrin smiled after him, marvelously self-content. "Come on," he heard yelled from the top of the courses, workers exhorting each other. No different than had been . . . but was there yet a sudden keenness in the voice?

He sculpted lives, and intents. Promised John Ree a place in time, along with Waden Jenks and Herrin Law. Created . . . in John Ree . . . a possibility which had never been there in his wildest fancies.

See, John Ree would say to his son or daughter, to his children's children, see . . . there. There I am.

I.

Ambition . . . for ten thousand years of that unremarkable worker's descendants. And what might it not do?

He felt a sudden lassitude, physical impact of half a night awake, as he considered creative energies expended, looked at the dawning which began to pale the glare of lamps, realized what sleep he had missed. But the brain was awake, seldom so much awake. He paced a time longer, finally knew that he was exhausted, and headed outward, through the developing maze of the shells, out into the pink daylight.

A row of dark figures stood there, robes flapping in the slight breeze. Eight, nine of them, all in a row vaguely artistic—an arc observing the arc of the dome itself, he realized; invisibles, all of them. Watching. He stopped, unease touching him like the touch of the wind, and on an impulse he turned and walked back through the maze to the other side, the other gateway, to the south.

There were more invisibles, and more than one row, not appearing to have any symmetry to their standing, but symmetrical all the same, because they were focused on the dome.

He refused the sight. He turned and retraced his steps, the way he had started in the first place. Workers called out to each other, still shouting instructions. He swept through the dome, out past the line of watchers, managing this time not to see them, except as shadows.

He made no particular haste, walking in the dawning up through the street, on which morning walkers were beginning to appear, ordinary citizens. Safe, the thought came to him, and why he should subconsciously reckon hazard he did not know. There had never been any hazard from invisibles. It was fancy, imagination, and he thought that he had purged fear of that.

He moved to the Residency that morning. It was a matter of packing up a sackful of clothing and personal items from the studio and appearing at the Residency entry desk in the main hall, casting himself on Waden's recommendation and the staff's invention. The room turned out to be extravagant, by his standards, with white woodwork and a wide, soft bed. It had a magnificent view of the Port Street walkway, the hedge, the grand expanse of Main beyond, and most important, the dome, the Work.

He was delighted, grandly pleased, stood smiling into the daylight which was streaming over distant Jenks Square.

He did not delude himself that Keye would come here. She had an almost superstitious fear of being inside this place. He grinned with amusement. So much for Keye's fears, and his twilight nightmares and watchers about the square.

So much for any assumption Keye might now make that she had dissuaded him from this venture into the Residency. He had, he thought, delayed overlong on her account . . . or his own comfort. It was, after all, a mere change of address. And Keye's apartment was still accessible from the Square . . . when there was time. He foresaw a time of increasing preoccupation, when he would not indeed have time to have made the shift to the Residency, and he would not have Keye pouring her own opinions into his ear without also doing what he chose on the contrary tack. That Keye should know his independence ... he had no vanity in that regard—in fact whatever she wanted to think was very well, and better if she deceived herself—but he would not be dissuaded by her, or oppose her for its own sake, which was likewise to move at her direction. It was simply a good morning to get around to the move, when he could do so without particular reason one way or the other.

He found it even more pleasant than he had thought.

The door opened uninvited. "Welcome," said Waden's voice from behind him.

He turned, raised brows. "Well. It's splendid hospitality, First Citizen."

"It's nothing too good for you, is it?

"Of course not."

Waden laughed softly. "Breakfast?"

"Gladly."

"You choose strange hours for moving."

"Convenient to my schedule."

Waden's eyes traveled over him minutely. "You worked all night? Zeal, Artist."

"I enjoy my work."

"Doubtless you do."

Waden walked to the window, turned, wiped a finger across the brooch he wore on his collar, smiled quizzically. "Bizarre ornament."

Herrin smiled, said nothing, which brought a spark of amusement to Waden's eyes. Herrin laid a hand on Waden's back, turned him toward the door. "Fellows' Hall?"

Waden agreed. They walked together, ate together; Waden went back to his offices and his work; Herrin went back to his, in the studio, at peace with his reality. He gathered up his own cutter for the first time since the project began, selected his tools, went out to the Square on the nervous energy which had fired him since midway through the night.

The cranes groaned and ground their way about their business. Leona Pace came up with her checklist to see if there was anything that wanted doing; he refused her, waved off a question about the plaque and the proposal of the names to be engraved there.

"True," he said simply, and knelt down and began unwrapping his tools, his own, which were the finest available, before the pillar which would be the central sculpture. He was sure now. That had been the reason for the lack of sleep, the anxiety, the energy which had suffused him and dictated so many shiftings and changes and readjustments in recent days.

He focused himself now on his own phase of the work. The cranes hefted enormous weights which sailed like clouds overhead, any one of which, slipping, could have crushed him to grease, but he refused even the slight concern the possibility suggested.

He focused the beam, and began, oblivious to all else.