CHAPTER XVI

RECAPITULATION AND EPIPHANY: Folsom with his highly developed and acute sense of the developing realities of the situation had known from the beginning that Stark was the villain, the corruptor from the opposition smuggled through the training processes into the crew. Stark or Closter but probably Stark because Folsom just had an instinct that it would have to be him. From Stark the poison and corruption had then spread, infecting the others so that soon the entire crew was arrayed against him and only Folsom himself remained as the bulwark of sanity and righteousness. It was a pity that the Bureau could not have understood this, could not have leaped to an appreciation of the situation to equal Folsom’s own but the explanation for that was obvious as well. The opposition had managed to infiltrate the Bureau and were destroying their policies and procedures. Folsom’s desperate messages, instead of reaching the proper authorities were being intercepted at the point of communications intercept and destroyed, then false messages were being turned back. But the original villainy was obviously perpetrated by Stark. He had been responsible for everything. From him the poisons had leaked out. That was the way it had been. Nothing else to say. The poisons would have infected the powerful and dependable Folsom himself if he had not been, by virtue of his great strength and com­mander’s position, above being so easily manipulated. Actually, it was surprising that he had survived this, managed to dispose of the villains. The Bureau would surely be proud of him . . . if only he could get his position over to them.

Stumbling briskly through the forest again with Ezekiel, the alien pattering along behind him like a faithful if friendless dog, big tears of rain falling absently around him, colliding with the mud like petals, Folsom felt the need to once again discuss this with the alien, make his position clear. It was unfortunate that he did have to talk about it with Ezekiel, although anyone else would have been better but his choices were severely limited and the alien, at least, could understand. The murderous crew had given him enough equipment to do that.

“It was all Stark, that’s what I figure,” Folsom said, not turning but making his voice very loud and distinct so that not a word would be missed, not with the sizzling sound of rain, “it all started with him. Closter and that woman, that bitch Nina, they came right along with it, they were weak minded and treacherous from the start but the one who began it was Stark. How did he slip through? I asked them that but they wouldn’t answer. They won’t say anything to me now.”

“Nothing,” Ezekiel said after a while. “Nothing.” His footsteps kept measured pace with Folsom’s. Folsom was no fool, he was listening for those footsteps every step of the way: if he had heard them cease or even break their rhythm for an instant he would have taken out his weapon and shot the native as he had shot all of the other treacherous slugs. But those footsteps slammed away behind him like Folsom’s own conscience, as regular as his breath; he knew that he would have no difficulty with the creature. “Nothing at all.”

“You know why they won’t say anything to me now?” bellowed Folsom and without waiting for the creature to reply said, “because they know how dangerous I am, because they know that I’m onto the truth. The whole world, almost all of it, is controlled by the opposition and they’re going to take their deceit to the stars, seed the stars with their deceit, that’s it . . . but they know that I know their plan and they can’t stop me. That’s why they won’t answer. What do you think of that?”

The alien said nothing and Folsom felt constrained to halt, turn on the thing and show his weapon. “What do you think of that?” he said again. He did not mean to threaten; he was only trying to have a reasonable conversation.

“I think not. I do not know. I do not know about the affairs of gods.”

“And that’s another thing,” Folsom said. “I want you to stop that right now. We aren’t gods. We’re ordinary fellows just like all of you are, just at a more advanced technological level. We’re here to help you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ezekiel said. He leered at Folsom with his characteristic look of stupidity, the alien did, but Folsom could tell from the use of the familiar contraction that the alien was not nearly so dull as he wished to appear, that he might indeed have been proselytized by the faithless barbarians who trained it into the same treacherous point of view. Folsom knew that this was a possibility, being no fool at all, but had no choice, granted all the circumstances, but to continue to deal with the creature. After he had finished with him, after he had done what was necessary, a different approach might be possible and Folsom had plans, he had a great number of plans, but for the moment he had to face the alien, put up with his own deceit. Ezekiel made a motion which Folsom found uninterpretable, an absent wave of his hand as if he were signaling someone and then he began to move once again. Folsom put out a hand to halt the alien and then, thinking the better of it, turned and preceded him. There was no point in getting into a dispute. It had all gone be­yond that.

“None of this is my fault, you know,” Folsom said, “I’m not responsible. I was just trying to do a job. The others wouldn’t let me. None of them understood that it had to be done my way. None of them ever accepted that.”

He was babbling, Folsom thought. He was beginning to lose control of language. Perhaps it would be better to keep quiet. Perhaps he should let the responsibility for explanation shift from him to elsewhere; he could not do it all himself. It was not ex­pected. Folsom found himself thinking, for the first time, of a higher power: not the Bureau, some power even higher than that controlling and shaping his actions on which he could rely in this moment of great difficulty. He could not do all of this himself. It was not right that all of it should devolve upon him. There should be someone or something else which would take over the responsibility and in the name of everything, silently, Folsom evoked it. Really, he had been driven quite to the limits of his ability to function. Too many pressures had descended upon him and even though he had managed to fight off all of them one by one, solving each problem as it was thrust upon him, he was now approaching his limits. How much more of this can he take? Folsom thought, crashing foot by foot through the forest. Was it fair for him to be put through all of this? He had always despised self-pity but at this moment he discovered that it was the glue which can piece a failing personality together. Now, he really did not know what he would do without it.

He kept on through the forest; it was only half a mile or so now to their ship. They had set down two miles from the village; Folsom had wanted to be closer but this had been Stark’s idea when they had circled the planet in low, close order, hovering then above this village for several cycles while the decision was being made. Stark had felt that putting down closer to the village than the two mile gap would be dangerous; frightening to the natives, dangerous to the village itself because of the heat of the engines, the fragmentation of impact and though Folsom had known that this was nonsense: the new equipment according to the Bureau was both cool and self-contained. Still he had not been anxious to overrule Stark with whom he had been trying to get along (at that time). He had been trying to get along with all of them in fact; the result was that they had put down two miles from the village, even more than two miles, and every time they had wanted contact with the natives they had to undertake that stumbling walk through the forest and after the contacts with the natives there was the stumbling walkback , back and forth through the forest, lumbering through the density and the mud, why it was enough to depress anyone; it would have taken the edge off anyone’s spirit to put up with that kind of hike just to make a routine contact. No wonder they had been unable to establish a real relationship with the village, no wonder things had been so difficult: the physical act of separation had meant that they would arrive at the village in a state of nausea. It all came clear to Folsom then. It was coming clearer all the time; it was aplot , that was what it was; a plot which Stark and Closter had worked out from the start in order to make contact as difficult as possible, in order to isolateFolsom from their plans . . . well, he had taken care of that, Stark and Closter were no longer his concern but if he had only known then what he deduced now it would not have gotten this far.

“There’s going to be an end to this,” he said to Ezekiel, “there’s going to be an end to it right now, all of this coming to a climax, I tell you, I don’t have to put up with this anymore,” and maybe the alien said something or maybe he did not; it did not matter to Folsom, the alien was absolutely intrinsic to his plans now, to his new-found insight.

The ship loomed up before them; he could see it through a break in the trees and seeing it that way, arched up into that engraved porcelain bowl of sky, Folsom could understand as if for the first time why the aliens might indeed think of them as gods, as the Thunder Gods, indeed the aspect of that ship looming, the way it must have appeared to them screaming fire as it circled in low orbit, spreading heat and fumes within its parameter of flame . . . why it must have been an enormous experience for these aliens, simple folk all, primitives, living on the lowest level of expectation and insight . . . and yet here was this ship, this great chariot of the sky rolling before them . . . yes, Folsom could un­derstand this. For the first time he felt a respect for the aliens, for tormented Ezekiel himself, it must have been a very difficult thing to go through. Considering everything they had shown unusual courage. And then Folsom found himself beginning to laugh in uneven, expectorative fashion, his frame shaking with the explo­sion of little coughs, flutters near his chest . . . who was he to sentimentalize the aliens when the aliens had hardly sentimentalized him? Well, that was a thought. All of this was interesting. All of it demanded further consideration; a shame that he would not have the time to pursue this line of thought through to its logical end. No time for that. Leave it be. Let it go.

The rain was falling more heavily now, the drops inflating to the size, Folsom thought, of saucers, the space between them also widening however so that Folsom had the sensation of a man walkingbetween the drops literally cleaving out a space through the elements in which he could pass untouched; a strange feeling of power in this apprehension. Walk through water. And the waters will pass aside. He passed the enclosure in which Stark and Closter had been without a trace of emotion, keeping his face tightly controlled with his captain’s façade. He had already passed the place where he had last seen Nina without response whatsoever. Gone. Purged out. He was beyond feeling.

In the shadow of the ship, the drops spattering around him, exploding on the ground like pieces of china, Folsom stopped. He turned toward Ezekiel. The alien came up behind him in a fast scuttle, then stopped at Folsom’s gesture, hanging on the terrain in a frozen posture. Folsom looked at him and he nodded. He felt in the alien’s submission the power beginning. Conditions were right.

He pointed toward the ship. “Go inside,” he said, “get in there.”

“But I must . . .”

“Get in there,” Folsom said loudly, his finger not wavering. Ezekiel shrugged. Then slowly, delicately, high on his toes, his gnarled little body bobbing, he passed Folsom and hit the first step of the ramp leading into the ship. Step by step he ascended. Folsom watched him. The alien passed through the first open lock and into the safety zone.

Only then did Folsom follow him, his attention concentrated into that little black well through which the alien had passed.

In the small cell of decontamination he would meet him. They would pass through the gates and into the ship together. And then in the abcess of the ship . . .

. . . Well, then, there would be an end to it.