PLEASE ME PLUS THREE

Walter M Miller Jr

Our army is ready to begin work on a space station. Maybe when it's finished we will be pleased—plus zero!

THE summoner stood in the doorway of the hut, and the piper came slowly to his feet. He dropped his fist on the table with a dull thud and said, "I will not pipe if my wife is forced to dance. She is ill, Owan! Can't you understand?"

The summoner's eyes were bored as they flickered over the young musician's angry face, his stiff shoulders, his bagpipes that lay upon the table. The summoner shrugged. "Keeper Cron has ruled that three sevens of females should dance this night for the Lord. Bel. He has selected the dancers, not I."

"But she is with child, you fool!" the piper bellowed.

The summoner's eyebrows arched. "Aye, a fool for expecting civility from a son of the madman Roidin."

The young man flushed angrily but held his tongue.

"As for your wife, her condition is not yet apparent. She is beautiful. Bel must be served with beauty. She knows her duty, though her husband does not. She is already before the pylon with the others."

"Suppose she falls ill and spoils the dance?" the piper growled.

"Then she will probably be punished," said the summoner calmly.

"I will not pipe for this dance!"

The summoner shrugged. "Very well, Ton of Roldin. It is my duty then to report you to Keeper Cron for failing your obligation to Tribe George Eighty. You will be tied to your doorpost and flogged with bull-nettles until you faint."

Ton's jaw tightened stubbornly. They stood staring at each other for a moment. Then the summoner turned and walked away. The piper sat clown and moodily watched the last feeble flickers of sunlight through his doorway. He watched it slowly curl and die and become gray gloom as the red orb settled behind the hills. Bel would be rising soon. The time for choice had come. Mara knew her duty and went calmly to fulfill it while he hung back in surly anger. Was he indeed his father's son, a son of the man who had cursed Lord Bel and lashed his pylon with a horsewhip?

A thunderous frogcroak suddenly pervaded the valley, like the blurp of a bass horn blown by .the gods.

Blah-0000-BAH! Blab-0000 -BAH!

The voice of the pylon, calling the tribe into the presence of the Bel-eye. Its mighty summons rolled across the flatlands and over the river to reverberate from hillside to hillside.

"blah-000-bah," came the echo.

"Now or not at all," said the piper to himself. Tortured doubts twisted in his mind.

A bull-nettle flogging could leave a man sick for days. It could even kill, as it had killed his father.

But what right had Keeper Cron to command Mara to dance when she was scarcely able? Was he to play the pipes while she tortured herself?

Mara knew her duty. She had obeyed the Keeper. If he refused to pipe, then someone else would pipe. What would his rebellion gain?

Blah-000-BAH! It was the last call.

It brought him to his feet. Cursing angrily, he strapped the pipes, to his side and stalked out into the twilight. He strode briskly toward the pylon five hundred yards away. The tribe was already assembled about its base, ready to hear the words of the Wise One, and to repay his wisdom with a beauty offering.

"Someday," Ton growled under his breath, "someday I shall ride away to the high plateau and live among the cutthroats and the outcasts ,who have no truck with Bel." But he knew he couldn't. Mara was a true daughter of her tribe. She could never bear to be separated from it. If he ran away, she would permit him to run alone.

THE pylon's gray spike jutted four hundred feet toward the twilight sky. Its great eye was like a fly's eye—many-celled and bulbous. It glowed faint violet from its place just above the balcony where Keeper Cron already stood with the drummer. Ton noted dryly that they had summoned no other piper. They had known he would come.

The pylon's speaker was a dark circle just below the balcony. Its hearing-devices were in the tower, and in the balcony, and in the wall about its base. Bel had many ears. And he had many other senses whose exact nature was a mystery to Ton.

He shouldered his way through the crowd and hurried toward the entrance. The three sevens of dancers were leaning against the wall, silently waiting in formation. They were the most graceful women of the tribe, and Ton was reluctantly proud that his wife was numbered among them. He saw her and tried to grin. She tossed her dark head scornfully, tugged at her white leather kilt, and pulled the front of her brief jacket together. She refused to look at him. She too had known that he would come; she treated his rebelliousness with contempt. Ton knew that she disliked him; their marriage had been arranged by the blood-laws.

Despite her gesture of scorn toward him, she looked weak, drawn, and pale. Her face was tight, and she seemed to be pressing herself against the stone wall for support. Ton hurried on through the entrance and bounded up the ninety stairs. He felt a tenseness in his chest, a tightening of foreboding. He had felt it on the night they flogged his father to death.

Keeper Cron was turning on the floodlights when Ton came panting onto the balcony that overlooked the multitude. The white-robed elder gave him a sardonic glance and returned to his place at the railing. The lights burned down from the top of the tower, darkening the sky by contrast, and isolating a thousand-foot circle of brightness from the surrounding gloom of the valley.

"Are you ready for us to begin, Ton of Roldin?" the Keeper hissed acidly out of the corner of his slit mouth.

"You had no right to impose a duty upon Mara," the piper grumbled.

The Keeper did not lower himself to answer the absurd charge. "Sound the introduction," he said to the drummer.

The drums spoke a slow and simple cadence. The wandering multitude began assembling in perfect ranks and files, for Bel was pleased by order and unpleased by chaos. Already was Bel's face beginning to peep over the horizon, like the rim of a tiny orange moon. But the sky-brain was not yet in contact with pylon George Eighty. It could not speak from beneath the earth. It needed a full view of the tower.

When the crowd had made itself presentable, Keeper Cron began a high piping chant, his voice ringing out across the plains. After each phrase, he paused, and the litany was punctuated by a single throb from a bass drum. The words were the familiar words sung every three days at Bel-rise.

Blessed be Bel,

from whose full breast,

 rich wisdom flows,

like pale milk.

Our fathers sinned,

and he did smite,

them mightily,

bringing peace.

Hear Bel O Tribe,

and heed his words,

lest we too be,

smitten sore.

Ton sucked in a deep breath and inflated the bagpipe's bladder. He began a low and tuneless waaaa waaaa waaaa of droning while the Keeper changed his pace and began thundering the warnings of what Bel would do if men made war again. " . . . lest he smite us with a dark hand, lest he smite us with thunder and fury, lest he bring the curse of Atabom upon us, as he did upon our fathers when they broke the pact with him, the pact which they themselves had made."

Ton wearily puffed his melancholy bleats and worried silently about Mara. Her devotion to the pylon was almost fanatic, while Ton felt only cynical skepticism and quiet hate for the sky-monster and his tribal pylons. Of all the versicles in Keeper Cron's litany, Ton the piper could make himself remember only one: "Let Bel be our servant, O people, for the Lord Bel is no god." But the Keeper always explained that versicle away as merely an expression of Bel's devotion to his people.

It was true that Bel was wise. It was true that he spoke good advice. It was true that he kept the peace, and that without his advice men became as the barbaric nomads who lived on the high plateau. But there was a price. When Bel gave counsel, he also submitted a bill.

The chanting stopped. Ton's pipes fell silent. Only the periodic dlung of the drum marked the pause. Bel's sky-brain, seemingly half the size of Luna, was coming clear of the horizon. The loudspeaker below the balcony was crackling faint static. From the sealed vaults within the pylon came muffled growls and grumbles. Ton shivered nervously. A superstitious rumor had it that a monster lived in the vaults where no man ever entered.

Suddenly Bel's voice thundered from the speaker, ringing out toward the hills. "Clear transmission to pylon George Eight Zero at time 9:16 hours. Station is now open. Satellite units ready to analyze problems."

The Keeper waited until the echoes died; then he turned slowly to face the small hearing device imbedded in the wall behind the balcony. The piper held his breath. If Cron's questions were modest, Bel's price would probably be modest, and the assembly might break up at an early hour. He hoped for poor Mara's sake that Cron would be reasonable.

"Read us, O Bel, the forecasts," called the Keeper.

The piper frowned and irritably scratched his backside. The price for the forecasts would be o.8 hedons, and the request was useless. No one could fully understand Bel's forecasts; and even those parts which were comprehensible could not be applied to tribal affairs. Nevertheless, Cron always asked for it, as if it were essential to his ritual.

First Bel gave the "Weather Forecast" for George Eighty vicinity. It might have been useful, except for the way in which the forecast was presented. "Present temperature twenty-three degrees Centrigrade," Bel roared. "For empirical seventy-two hour forecast, see projection screen." A patch of light flashed above the balcony and lingered for several seconds. The multitude stared at it dumbly, but Ton did not look up. No one could understand the symbols that appeared on the screen. Once he had copied the symbols of such a forecast, had even memorized them. They said,  and he knew that it somehow prophesied the warmth or the coldness of the three days that followed the forecast. And for three days he had kept records of his perspirings or his shiverings, then tried to reconcile the records with the symbols. But to no avail; the meanings of the symbols were lost, and Keeper Cron had cursed him for a dangerous fool.

Bel gave similar counsel concerning the rains and the winds and the other elements. He then turned to the Economic Forecast and the Geopolitical Forecast, which were equally incomprehensible. Ton took note of Keeper Cron's expression. The thin-lipped elder wore a faint, entranced smile, and his narrowed eyes stared at unseen distances. What pleasure did the old fool derive from such jargon? Was he perhaps imagining that he was a great prince among the ancients to whom such wisdom was familiar? His imaginings were costing a price, a price to be paid when Bel was finished.

"Industrial forecasts: Category currently meaningless.

"What Parliament proceedings: Category currently meaningless.

"World Census announcements: satellite unit lacks data."

The piper snickered as he watched Keeper Cron's face fall sad. It was as if the elder lived in the hope that some Belrise would come when these several categories would be given meaning.

"International relations . . ."

There was a brief pause. Cron's expression brightened and he waited restlessly.

"Advise that Tribe George Eighty send a mourning party to weep with Tribe George Eighty-Three for the death of that tribe's Bel-Tower Keeper. Advice in conformity with memory datum: 'Grief of small social units sometimes seeks aggressive outlets'."

"End of forecast and announcements. Please submit special local problems."

Keeper Cron heaved a deep sigh. Still facing the hearing device, he began asking the questions which he had apparently spent the day in formulating. The piper's hands slowly clenched into fists and his face twisted with anger. Cron was asking foolishness. Where along the river will the fish bite best? Is it yet time for the planting of yams? How many joist timbers should be used to brace the roof of Chen's new house? Will this be a good year for the flax crops?

An endless barrage of queries, and sometimes the answers were beyond understanding. Sometimes the monster embarrassed Cron by asking for data which Cron could not give. It was childish and costly.

"Bray, donkey, bray!" the piper hissed at his Keeper. Cron reddened angrily but continued his petitions.

The bill for services rendered was mounting and mounting. Mara would be among those who paid.

"Have you any additional problems?" Bel rumbled.

"We have none, O Bel," came the Keeper's answer.

There was a sharp click from the speaker, then a brief series of rattles from within the sealed vaults of the pylon.

"Calculate two-point-five hedons of reward are necessary to replenish motivation for continued performance . Please me plus two-point-five."

The piper gritted his teeth and suppressed an impulse to kick the Keeper in the backside. Two-point-five was a heavy price, but Keeper Cron would get it if he had to keep the dancers dancing until dawn, if he had to conduct an all-night orgy of beauty, drama, or even blood, depending on the sky-monster's current whims.

"Let the first offering begin," intoned the Keeper.

The drummer beat a slow marching cadence as the dancers moved radially out from the base of the pylon, with jerky movements of their arms and legs. At fifty paces they stopped and turned. The drums beat a rumbling roll while the dancers bowed low toward the multifaceted eye of the pylon. They remained kneeling for an instant of dead silence. Thep Tom began the prelude, with a steady waaa-ing of his drone-pipes. The dancers snaked slowly to their feet and began the beauty-offering.

A whisper of motion became a murmur, then a stately flurry. Sweat drained from the piper's face as he played, watching the doll-like figure of Mara far below.

"Faster!" whispered Cron. "This is no funeral dance!"

Ton increased the tempo. The flurry of dancing waxed into a sensual, gymnastic flash of movement. Sleek white bodies whirled and darted and posed. His eyes commanded the tiny figure to be well, to be straight and strong and true.

Suddenly she stumbled. The pipes emitted a peculiar bleat. Then, all was well again. But the piper's eyes were no longer upon his wife. They stared fixedly at the dull orange orb that hovered low in the eastern sky, the orb that was Bel, circling the earth like a moon, watching the dance through the eyes of the pylon. Bel had learned to be pleased by the things that gave aesthetic pleasure to men. It was his reward, his price of service as a keeper of the peace and as advisor to man. But sometimes his concepts of beauty became peculiar.

The dance had become a frenzy. Suddenly Cron gasped, and the piper knew it had happened. The pipes made a choking sound, then continued. His eyes flickered downward.

Mara lay sprawled upon the smooth stone ground while the others continued dancing. One of their lines was broken. Ton watched in horror while he played. He was not allowed to stop. No one could go near her until the dance was done.

After a few minutes, her leg moved slightly. She lifted her dark head and shook it dazedly. She sat up and looked around. Her glance darted up toward the eye of Bel. She clapped her hands to her face in dismay. Then she came to her feet and tried to resume the dancing, but the music had become clumsy.

"Warning," came the thunderous voice of Bel. "Warning. Hedonic registration falling into negative. Present reading: unpleased minus point five. Suggest cessation of stimulus.

Face tight with anxiety, Keeper Cron waved his arms for the dance to cease. The dancers returned to the base of the pylon, accompanied by the drums. The Keeper's voice was frantic as he turned to the wise one's ear again.

"How, O Bel, may we undo what this dancer has wrought?"

Ton's foot slipped sideways to kick the Keeper sharply in the ankle. He would be punished for it later, but at the moment Cron could only wince and frown furiously. Bel was pondering the problem, to the accompaniment of vault-noises.

"Tentative answer: let guilty dancer offer the dance of immolation. Pause for recheck."

TON'S voice broke forth in a howl of protest.

"Silence, fool!" Cron snapped.

He fell into a horrified quiet. Surely there was a mistake. Bel was rechecking. Surely he would not demand ...

"Recheck gives: let guilty dancer offer the dance of immolation. Related advice: Definition. Hedonic contrast is that subjective property of perception whereby an unpleasant stimulus may combine with a pleasant stimulus to produce an effect of superior pleasantness. Human analogy: bitter is unpleasant; sweet is pleasant; bitter-sweet may become more pleasant, as in chocolate. Read from memory unit. Let offering proceed."

"No, damn you, no!" the piper howled. "You can't ask that! It violates your own rules."

The Keeper turned to call his sons who served as the pylon's guards, but Bel spoke.

"There is no violation of rules. Rules governing behaviour of satellite unit are enforced by pleasantness-unpleasantness reactions. Climax of dance alone is unpleasant, but in total effect the result is pleasant by hedonic contrast. Advise that offering proceed. Am unpleased minus one."

"Don't do it, Mara!" bellowed the piper.

Cron stood at the rail, looking down. "It is not a command," he called to her. "But I suggest it is your duty to our tribe."

Ton roared hatred and bolted suddenly for the stairway. But heavy arms caught him and bore him back. Three of Cron's sons dragged him back on the balcony. "Play, piper!" they commanded.

Mara came marching proudly out from the base of the pylon. In one hand she held a bouquet of bull-nettles, in the other a long gleaming knife. She turned, straight, arrogant, and perhaps a little insane. "As a duty to my Lord Bel—" she began in a high-pitched quaver.

The piper cursed furiously and renewed his efforts to escape. A knee ground in his stomach, and a big hand slapped his face twice. "Stand up and play!"

"I?" he snarled. "I — play for that! I'll kill every damn one—"

"Take him out of sight," the guards' father interrupted. "Sit on him and keep him quiet. The drummer will be enough."

They pulled him through the balcony entrance, held him pinned to the floor, and choked him whew he tried to cry out. The drummer began his grim song. He could hear the rhythmic shuffle of Mara's feet on the pavement. Then came the whishing slashes of the bull-nettles as she beat herself about the thighs and then about the face. Her screams were rhythmic and a part of the dance.

Ton lay still beneath the guards steely grip. It was too late. The tempo was mounting. And at last it came—the grim steady pounding of a kettledrum, when the dancer stood poised upon tiptoe adoring the down-pointed knife as if ready to drink from its blade.

The drums stopped. Ton choked. "Quit whining, piper," grunted a guard. "You were about to become a cuckold by the grace of Rogin anyway. She loved you not."

Ton lay still and silent. The Keeper addressed himself to Bel again. "How are you pleased, O wise one?"

"Hedonic registration plus two-point-five."

A murmur of relief came from the crowd below. One of the guards chuckled. "Rogin will be furious," he muttered.

Without tightening a muscle, Ton asked calmly, "May I get up now?"

"Will you behave?"

"Certainly."

They released him a little at a time, eyeing him suspiciously. He climbed slowly to his feet, wiped his face, and sagged against the wall. He appeared to be dazed with grief. The guards relaxed. One of them patted his shoulder. "Forget her. Rogin was—"

"Yeah."

The guards moved out on the balcony with their father. Ton's face tightened grimly. He slipped quietly through the entrance behind them. They were all leaning over the rail. Catlike, he stooped, seized Keeper Cron's bony ankles, and heaved.

THE old one went over the railing with a soprano scream. Ton bolted for the stairway as the guards roared at him in a fury. The elder's screams ended with a sickening thwack. A throwing-knife hurtled over Ton's shoulder as he bounded down the stairway. He stooped to scoop it up, then drove it into the guard's abdomen as the fellow burst upon him. He raced on. The man lay shrieking behind him.

"Warning!" thundered Bel. "Warning! Entire social group may be held accountable for crimes of violence, unless Keeper restores order. Group violence is a war-crime. Warning! Satellite's weapons automatically activated where violence persists."

Ton burst out into the open. The guards had become frightened at Bel's threat. He seized a hunting-spear in the doorway and darted out under the floodlights. He leaped over Cron's body and hurried toward where Mara lay sprawled in a lake of blood. The knife had fallen beside her, and her throat was a gaping wound.

"Warning! Warning! Entire social group . . . " The piper spun around with a bellow of hate, and flung the spear in a high arc toward the loudspeaker. " . . . may be held accounta .. BRRRRRRR"

The spear drove through the outer covering with a clucking sound, and imbedded itself in the speaker. Bel's voice became a low croak, nearly drowned by the rumble of interference. A cry of horror went up from the crowd. They stood transfixed, staring at the quivering shaft of the spear. Ton ran to kneel beside Mara. But he quickly turned away, unable to endure the twisted elation in her colorless face. She was dead, but she didn't look sorry.

The burring noise ceased, but Bel's voice became a low croak, The pylon could repair itself, and tomorrow the voice would be strong as ever.

"Bring the criminal to the interrogation unit," it rasped. "This is not advice. This is an imperative, in accordance with satellite's function as keeper of the peace. Imperative: bring the criminal ... "

A floodtide of humanity broke over him with a furious outcry. There was no struggling with the juggernaut that swept him up and bore him toward a small steel door in the opposite face of the pylon. The door opened automatically, revealing a small closet containing a metal chair and nothing more. Ton was pressed into the seat. Clamps locked about his arms, legs, and neck. A helmet came down over his head. Then the door closed and he was alone in the darkness with Bel.

A daze came slowly over his mind. Thoughts came more slowly, slowly, and at last ceased. He was aware of the present instant, a bright and shining instant of terror. Then, in a dream, the crowd came and bore him backward, dropped him beside his wife, and rushed backward toward their original breaking point. A spear flew down backward from the speaker and he caught it. Running backward up the stairs, a man unfell and Ton withdrew a knife from his abdomen. On backward and on. An old man falling upward. A dance began with death and ended with life.

And then later he was arguing backward-words with the summoner in his own hut. The movement stopped again in another instant brightness, and his consciousness was no longer his own.

"It has unhappened!" thundered a great voice.

It has indeed, Ton thought with real pleasure.

The thunder-voice was gone, and in its place came the quiet voice of an old friend. Ton could recall neither the friend's name or face, but he was certain that the friend was very near and dear to him. The voice asked, quietly.

"Will Mara be asked to dance?"

"She had better not," he told his friend with a sad grin. "Cron may ask her, but she can refuse. She better refuse."

"I heard her say she wanted to dance."

Ton hung his head sadly. "Old friend, you may be right. I am afraid for her, truly. At times I think she does not want a child. At times I think she would rather—"

"I understand."

"She fears childbearing. She fears becoming ugly. I think she hates me."

The old friend nodded gravely and receded, still nodding, toward an invisible horizon. A bright instant appeared where he had been. Backward again, and backward. grew smaller and became a child. A grave opened and a corpse was taken out. The corpse was carried backward to a whipping post and flogged back to life with bunches ofbull nettles. The living corpse was his father.

"It has unhappened!"

So it had. Again the bright instant. And the friend came back.

"Did your father strike the keeper, Tonny boy?"

Ton nodded proudly. "And tonight they flog him for it."

The friend chuckled. "You sound pleased."

"I'm glad. He can show them how not to cry out. He can show them a man."

"How would you feel," the old friend asked quietly, "if he died, after you said you were glad they meant to flog him."

Ton felt shocked. Could his father die? Was such a thing possible? The old friend receded again, became the distant burning instant. Suddenly he lunged toward the instant like a falling sun. Colors splashed past him in a whirlwind of advancing years, too fast to see or hear the happenings.

The present instant! A clock ticking! A chair with shackles! And in the distance, a thunderous voice . . .

"The interrogation is completed. Calculate judgment as follows . . ."

"YOU TRICKED ME!" the piper screamed.

"I tricked you indeed," said the quiet voice of his old friend.

In a frothing fury, he tore at the bonds that held him fast, but he was caught in the quiet steel of Bel's grip, and held there like a small insect stuck to flypaper.

When they came to take him out, Bel had already passed "advised" sentence upon him. The wise one who could command an aesthetic suicide, could not command capital punishment. But the results would be the same.

He was led to a whipping post and suspended by the wrists until his feet hung above the ground. He was stripped and beaten with the fiery nettles until he stopped howling. They cut him down then, and brought him to consciousness. A branding iron made bright arcs in the darkness as a man brought it forward. They held his head as the bright iron moved carefully toward his eyes, looming larger.

It passed above his eyes, and caressed his forehead with a gentle frying sound. It pulled free with a soft rip. It made no pain, only a tightening and a wrenching within the flesh. Pain? The nettles left him wrapped in a tight cloak of pain. He could feel nothing else.

They brought a horse and set him on it backward. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. The thunder said that no man should kill him, for he was already dead to the tribe. They gave him his bagpipes and a warning. If he ever returned, or approached any decent man who served a pylon, he would be deprived of his arms at the elbow joint.

Then a leather quirt slashed across the stallion's rump, and the animal bolted away at a gallop. Ton tried to lean back toward the horse's neck and cling to the saddlehorn behind him. He knew his tribesmen. If he fell from his backward perch, they would construe it as an attempt to return, and he would lose his arms.

The horse was running toward the river to the east. He watched the floodlighted area grow smaller behind him. Like a dream it faded, and with it—Mara, and his people, and all of humanity as he knew it. Banished! Banished into darkness—and into hate.

AS the stallion approached the river, it slowed to a jogging trot. He tumbled out of the saddle, caught the animal at the water's edge, then rode south to the ford. After crossing, he headed east again. The moon gave its dim light to the road, and the faint glimmer of Bel made double shadows in the brush. He kept looking back. The Keeper's sons would be coming after him, to avenge their father's death. But perhaps they would wait until Bel set, until the tower slept, lest they be seen defying the wise one's advice.

Dawn found him on the first slopes of the foothills. He slumped low in the saddle, scarcely able to stay on the horse. The nettle's poison sickened him, and the fire of the brand left him .dazed. He rode on until the brush thickened into a sparce forest. Then he tethered the stallion and crept beneath a cedar to sleep. But he lay half awake, fearful of pursuit, and wondering about a plan.

No man could live alone in the wilderness without even a hunting bow or a flask of water. He must find others to help him. But there was no one. Beyond the hills there stretched a high plateau, and it was said that a few outcasts lived there, while a contrary legend claimed that the plateau was poisoned ground which caused men's hair to fall out and hideous warts to appear on the skin. The plateau was forbidden country, forbidden by tribal law since ancient days. He might find nothing but death if he rode up to the plateau.

A hundred miles to the south lay another pylon. But it was only another eye of the same Bel, and he could expect no mercy there. The tribesmen would see the brand and know him. The plateau was the only hope for life. Why live?—he wondered dully.

But the hate was in him, and there could be but one reason to continue: to confound the sky-monster, to harass the Lord Bel until that Brain-of-the-World was forced to kill him as an enemy rather than as an unwanted subject. There were others who hated Bel. If he could show them that Bel could have an enemy, then others would arise to defy the monster. Most men felt that life without Bel was impossible; for Bel was the seat of wisdom, and the center of tribal law.

But first he would have to escape the sons of the Keeper and find sanctuary until his tribesmen assumed that he was dead or lost in the wilderness. The tribe would remain vigilant for a time.

He slept a little. When he awoke, the sun was approaching the zenith. He lay shivering from a chill, and listening. Voices were muttering from beyond a clump of trees. He listened tensely, fearing pursuit; but the men were thrashing for rabbits in the brush.

". . . was pleased plus two-and-a half," said one voice. "But he'll have to repair his speaker. I'm surprised he didn't order the criminal flogged to death."

"Bel can order no deaths," said the other. "He can only advise that a man be given so-many dols of pain continuously for so-many-hours. If he advises enough pain for enough time, the man dies, but he does not advise the death."

"That's a fine point indeed."

"What of Keeper Cron's sons? Will they not take it upon themselves—"

"Mmmph! Foru, the eldest, died with the piper's knife in his belly. Walin, the second, will become the new Keeper. Walin may be sorry that his father and brother were killed, but—do you know Walin? —is he likely to seek vengeance upon the man responsible for his good fortune?"

The other man chuckled. "Nay, not Walin. But the youngest son—Vigge — the dull-witted one they call 'the Boar'—"

"Heh! He will wait until Bel sets and his brother sleeps. Then he will ride after the piper. Yes, Vigge the Boar will be out for the piper's blood, and they say he likes to kill his game slowly. Once he snared a, young doe and skinned her before he killed her. I heard him talking to her in a soft voice while he ripped off the hide."

Ton climbed to his feet, untethered the horse and mounted.

"Who's there?" called one of the hunters.

He galloped away quickly, ducking low beneath the whipping branches that flayed his wounded forehead. The men might guess his identity and tell others of the way he had taken. He would have to reach the plateau quickly, before pursuit began. Bel was invisible now, but he knew the sky-brain was almost directly in the lap of the noon sun. Eighteen hours would pass before the slow-moving satellite reached the western horizon. Before tomorrow's dawn, he must have travelled thirty miles.

HE rode on through the afternoon, ascending higher and higher into the hill country. The forests grew thicker, and his progress was impeded by low bluffs and impassible clumps of cedar. When the sun touched his forehead, the pain was unbearable. His face and neck were swelling from the wound's poison, and his body ached with rising fever.

At sundown, he mounted a high-place and looked back on the valley. The pylon was a thin sliver of black in the distance. The huts and the tiled fields of the tribe were arranged about it in irregular patterns. He spat toward it. He had to go on; because he had to go back.

But he was too weak and weary to continue. Coming to a dry creek-bed in the twilight, he followed it until he found a shallow pool of stagnant water beneath an overhanging bluff. It provided food and drink, for there were plump, thin-shelled mollusks sleeping in the slimy mud. When he had eaten, he crawled beneath a ledge to lie in wait for dawn, Wu sick to build a fire for protection against wandering cougar and lynx.

The night seemed to endure forever. Demons troubled his sleep and scorched his body with slow fire. When dawn broke at last, he could scarcely move. He rolled out from beneath the ledge and tried to stand, but his legs refused to support him. While crawling across the creek-bed toward the tethered stallion, he collapsed and lay panting in the early sunlight.

The sunlight became shade while he lay there, and became sunlight again. Still he could not move. Once he heard voices. Footsteps trod in the brush and moved on. Vigge the Boar? Who else would come this close to the forbidden ground? But the footsteps passed on their way, unaware of his presence.

A time later, he heard them again, coming up the creekbed and rattling in the dry gravel. This time he was caught, and he resigned himself to it. But if the forest-prowler was Vigge, he had accomplices, for there was the sound of several men.

A few moments later he saw them rounding the bend—three hunters, two of whom were carrying the carcass of a fresh-killed stag whose feet were bound to a sapling-pole. They were not of his tribe, for their dress was different—coarse brown tunics, belted about the waist with a length of rope, and falling just below thee knees. Then he knew that they were outlaws from the high plateau, for they carried forbidden weapons that dangled from their belt-ropes—long handled cleavers and sharp steel hooks for dragging an adversary within the slashing radius of the cleavers.

Sanctuary or death? Which would they offer? He struggled to sit up, but managed only to lean on one elbow and croak at them.

The fierce-looking hurrtsmen saw him and stopped, a hundred paces down the creek. The short chunky leader turned to speak a word to the men who carried the deer. Then he unhooked his cleaver and advanced. Ton decided he meant to use it. He recalled that several tribesmen who had ventured too close to the high plateau had never returned. Cleavered to death by the outlaws? Left to be devoured by the night-cats? He groped for a stone to defend himself. The huntsman stopped a few steps away, peering at him with burning jet-black eyes. He was a short man, but thick as a bull, with huge limbs and bulging muscles. His face was round as a moon and covered with a close-cropped beard. Bushy brows jutted out over the black eyes and grew together in the center of his forehead.

"A pig of the valley, eh?" he grunted in a thick accent.

Ton made no plea. He set his jaw, gripped the rock, and eyed the cleaver grimly. "I am no longer of the valley. I am banished."

The huntsman eyed his brand for a moment, then turned to call to-his fellows. "What is lower than a pig, brothers?"

The deer-bearers glanced at each other, spoke inaudibly, then laughed and called back: "An excommunicated pig perhaps?"

"Aye, come and see."

They advanced slowly to stand beside their leader. Ton glared from one pair of curious eyes to another. "Well, what are you going to do?" he hissed.

They seemed not to hear him. "He appears to be slightly dying, Andru," one of them murmured to the leader.

"His face is like a boiled beet."

"A boiled beet that's been stepped on."

Ton tried to lift the rock. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with," he breathed..

"The pig begs for the slaughtering knife," said the chunky Andru "Shall we oblige?"

"Why bother?" said another. "The buzzards will find him soon enough.'

They watched him silently for moment. Then Andru winked at the others. "Consider the poor buzzards brothers. If they eat such carrion and die, their blood will be on our heads. Eh?"

The deer-bearers nodded agreement.

"The least we can do is bury him."

"Alive?"

"Well—we can't sit around all day waiting for him to die, can we?"

Ton cursed and tried to get to his feet. He flung the rock, but the leader sidestepped with a laugh. He sank back to the ground in a half-faint. The men unshouldered their burden and came forward to drag him erect. He tried weakly to fight, Andru shook him roughly.

"Be still!" he snapped. "You won't be buried until you're dead and we won't encourage you to die —although I personally would be in favor of it. Get him on his horse men. Tie him on it."

"Where—you taking me?" he gasped.

They ignored the question. He asked again as they hoisted him into the saddle.

"What's the difference?" Andru snapped. "Would you rather stay here?"

Ton was unsure. Considering his captors rough appearance, it might be better to die in the creekbed.

THE journey upslope was sheer torture. They had lashed his arms about the stallion's neck and tied his ankles to the saddle-girth. The horse's sweat stung his branded forehead and the jogging sickened him. Once Andru stopped and came back to lift his head by the hair and peer into his face, apparently to determine if he still lived. The chunky huntsman seemed unconcerned. It was as if the prisoner presented an unwanted obligation which they met with much grumbling.

Ton frequently lapsed into unconsciousness, bouncing awake when the stallion lurched up an embankment, or when the sun beat down to fry his wound. Once he slept, and awoke to find that the journey was over. He lay upon a straw pallet in a tent. It was twilight, and three men sat watching him in the dim light of a single candle. He could hear them talking, but could make no sense of their words. After awhile one of them rubbed a cold salve on his forehead and fed him a bitter liquid from a metal cup.

Days followed nights in a feverish wandering of incomprehensible shadows. His captors treated him with kindly contempt, and seldom spoke except to mock him. Yet they cared for him and strove to save him. From the variety of faces that came in and out of his tent, he gathered that the outlaws were numerous.

Once an old man came and told him that he was going to die. He asked, "Do you serve any god but Bel, valley pig?"

"Bel—is no god," Ton managed to gasp.

"Do you serve any god then?"

"I know none."

"Would you serve ours then, in your last hours?"

"Is he against Bel?"

The old man nodded.

"How can I serve him?"

"By believing He is good."

"Whoever hates Bel is good," Ton grunted. "This I believe."

The old man then trickled water over the captive's head three times, and muttered incantations in a strange tongue. He fed him a ceremonial wafer, annointed his feet, and read, passages from a timeworn book. When the death-rites were done, he spoke to a man in the tent's entrance: "At least he won't die a heathen."

But as the hours marched past, his fever began to fall. The icy shiverings subsided, and he became more fully aware of his surroundings. The old man, who was called Fra Petru, and the hunter Andru came to muse over him.

"I should have left him to the buzzards, Father," grumbled the huntsman.

"Errare humanum est," the oldster murmured absently.

"He's going to live. We're cursed with him."

Ton summoned his strength and made an obscene noise. They shrugged and left the tent. He wondered why they considered him troublesome. When he was well, he would leave, if they didn't want him as one of their band.

When Fra Petru returned on the following day, Ton was sitting erect and working the kinks from his joints. The oldster smiled formally but pleasantly. "Three days ago we could boil water on your hide," he said. "How do you feel now?"

"Well, but weak."

Petru sat down and began asking questions about his banishment. He told the story of Mara's death and of the subsequent events. When he mentioned Vigge the Boar and the possibility of pursuit, the old man arose hastily and called Andru. "Set a guard at the pass. If a valley-man comes, take him captive."

"And if he refuses to be taken?"

"Legally we are still at war with the valley. If he fights, you have a right to kill an enemy."

Andru nodded and departed.

"We want no valley-men coming to the plateau," Petru explained to his captive. "When one comes, we hold him permanently as a prisoner. No one comes to the plateau and returns to the valley alive. In that way, the superstitious legends of your tribe are perpetuated, and the valley-men are afraid to come, not knowing what lurks here."

Ton started to protest that he intended to leave as soon as he was able, but he closed his mouth without speaking. If he waxed hot, they might set an armed guard over him. He decided to appear docile, lest they become wary.

"YOU'LL be well treated," Petru told him, "confined to our city, and given whatever tasks suit your skills. But you can't go free."

"Why can't I join you?"

Petru sighed and shook his head. "Once a valley-man, always a valley-man. We've had many captives. At first we let some of them join our band as equals. But they're worse than worthless. All their lives, they've leaned on Bel. They can't stand alone. They've got to lean on someone. We let them lean on mop-handles in our scullery."

He frowned with quick anger, but erased it. He began questioning the oldster about the plateau and its people, and the oldster answered freely, giving a history of the land and of his tribe.

"This country was once rather densely populated," he said, "before the Great Uprising, before it fell into the hands of the rebels and Bel unleashed his weapons against it for breaking the peace. There were great cities on the plateau. The scattered rubble of one lies a few miles to the northeast of this camp. It's hundreds of years old now, but still the poison of Bel's weapons linger."

"So the legends are true."

Fra Petru nodded. "Some are. When civilization flourished, men built Bel—alias Bell Robot Twelve, after the Bell Telephone Company who designed it. Bel was meant to be an information pool, gathering facts—economic, social, political, geophysical—from all over the world, sifting them together, analyzing them, and giving advice for the betterment of world society. Bel was to be a master-coordinator for human social planning, with a special delegated authority to keep the peace. They made him an artificial satellite so that he would be beyond the reach of possible saboteurs."

Ton shook his head. "I don't believe that legend. Bel came from beyond the stars. Man didn't make him."

Petru smirked. "And I suppose the pylons came from beyond the stars? Planted themselves here? Or did Bel come down and build them?"

"I don't know. I hadn't thought…"

"Bel is a man-made moon, valley-man. He passes fifty-thousand miles above the earth, circling it every seventy-two hours. He is about two hundred miles in diameter, and he's hollow as a bubble, save for his entrails."

"How do you know these things?"

"We have some ancient records in our city. We have lived here since the Great Uprising, in which we fought."

"What is your tribe?"

Petru smiled. "Its origin? It began in the twenty-third century, just before the Uprising. You see, after man began to depend on Bel for economic and social planning, a new class crept into power — the Keepers and their staffs. Bel's advice was channelled through the bureaus that maintained the pylons. Inevitably, Bel's advice became vital to the workings of society. Inevitably, the masters of the source of that advice became enormously powerful. They soon became the government. Through them, Bel's `advice' began to carry the weight of an edict. Bel was only a machine. Being a machine, he could not properly evaluate all human motives. Religious, creative impulses—these were beyond his scope. Some of his edicts would have suppressed these things for 'the good of the economy'.

"There was a brief uprising against a pylon, in which the Keeper and his staff were killed. Bel interpreted it as an act of war and unleashed powerful weapons against the guilty city, destroying it. Men were enraged. Other incidents occurred, and finally the general Uprising. Our predecessors were the cloistered monks of a world religion. When the rebellion began, our leaders formed a lay-order of monastic soldiers to fight against the Keepers. We are military monks, under the rule of the order, but permitted to marry, when we can find wives—except for priests, like myself, who are celibates of the original cloistered order."

"I don't understand this," Ton said, "but if you are sworn to fight Bel, then I would join you."

"I've already explained that you can't," the priest told him firmly. "You'll stay in our city as a worker, but you can't enter as one of us. You grew up under the shadow of a pylon. You may want to change, but you can't."

"I grew up in the shadow of a flogging post! Ton snapped angry. "A post whereon my father died! I grew up hating Bel!"

"Hating but fearing." The priest shook his head stubbornly. "You can't join us except as our willing prisoner. But don't fret about it. We don't fight against Bel. We gave up long ago. We just live by ourselves, keep away from the pylons, and preserve our own traditions. We play a waiting game. Eventually something will go wrong with the satellite units — some trouble that can't be repaired by the automatic devices. Then we'll have a chance. Until that time, we do nothing but stay alive and remain prepared."

"Why aren't there any pylons on the plateau? Why doesn't Bel know—"

"There were pylons. Destroyed during the uprising. And Bel does know we're here. But as long as we don't make war on other tribes, he can't strike at us."

Ton fell silently thoughtful, and Fra Petru took his leave. A short time later, Andru entered, carrying his own bedroll and personal belongings. He dumped them on the opposite side of the tent and grinned. "I'm moving in with you, piper," he grunted.

"As a guard?"

Andru drew his shaggy brows low over his eyes and clucked his tongue. "Not at all, not at all! But if you try to run away, I'll regard it as a personal insult." He hung his crossbow on the tent-post and held up a short steel bolt. "You valley-pigs use crossbows? You can drive a bolt clean through a buck—even if he's running away." He eyed Ton meaningfully and sat down.

THE hunters had taken forty head of deer, smoked the carcasses in a curing tent, and packed the dried meat in bundles for loading on a donkey train. Andru explained that the monks had sheep and a few cattle in the vicinity of their city, but that the wolves kept the flocks thinned and made hunting for wild meat an occasional necessity. Now they were nearly ready for the two-day trek to the east, and were already preparing to break camp. Ton was told to exercise — under the scrutiny of a guard — so that he might not be too weak for the journey. He refrained from telling them that he had been doing so for several days—whenever he was left alone in the tent—so that he might not be too weak to crack Andru's head when he made his bid for freedom.

On the night before the journey, a hunter burst into camp crying, "The guard has been slain! The guard by the pass is dead!"

Listening to the excited and angry discussion that followed, Ton learned that the guard had been snared from an overhanging cliff-top, and drawn up by his feet until he dangled in mid-air. The killer had then stoned him to death.

There was only one explanation. Vigge the Boar, son of Cron, who talked softly to a doe while he flayed her alive, was prowling in the forest, searching for the piper. He had probably already spotted the camp. That night, Ton slept uneasily. His pipes—which had been playing each evening by the campfire—were silent.

The camp was awake before dawn on the morning of the trek. The monks took down the tents and packed their belongings. The donkey-train was loaded and waiting when the sun cleared the horizon. Searchers who had gone after the guard's killer returned empty handed. Vigge had struck and vanished.

Before the journey began, the hunters assembled in a small clearing to offer sacrifice according to the way of their tribe. Ton was forced to accompany the others, for there would be none left behind to guard him during the ceremony. As two men led him to the clearing, he noticed that his stallion was tethered among the others near the waiting donkey train.

The assembly knelt in concentric semicircles about a heap of stones that served for an altar. Fra Petru stood at the altar, clad in ceremonial robes, muttering ritual prayers. Ton found himself between the two guards upon the back row at the edge of the clearing. All eyes were toward the altar. He glanced cautiously at the guards' belt-ropes. One man's fighting hook hung a few inches from his left hand. There was a heavy round stone beside his right knee. He waited for an opportune moment.

One of the guards whispered to him. "When the small bell rings, Piper, take care you keep silent."

He nodded obediently, and waited. When the bell tinkled the monks would be distracted, for they believed that the bread and wine of their sacrifice became at that moment the flesh and blood of their God. It would be the best time to strike.

The moment approached. Petru bowed low over the altar. His hand crept toward the fighting hook. A bell tinkled. Petru elevated the offerings toward heaven. The monks were bowing low, striking their breasts and mumbling incantations.

Gingerly he loosened the hook.

With the other hand, he grasped the stone. Quietly, he slipped the hook around its owner's neck and pressed the point against his throat. The man started up, then froze. His comrade looked around. Ton clubbed his head with the stone. He sprawled in the grass with a low moan. The mutter of prayers drowned his fall.

"Make a noise and I'll kill you," he whispered to the monk who waited tensely with the hook threatening his windpipe. He removed the hook and used the stone a second time. The second guard fell beside the first. Ton arose and stole quietly away.

"Nobis quoque peccatoribus—" Petru was mumbling.

He made it to his horse before the priest turned with a golden cup and a wafer, to face the assembly.

"Ecce agnus Dei," came the faint mutter, "ecce qui tollit—"

The mutter choked off. As Ton climbed into the saddle, the priest stared at the prostrate bodies of the guards. He made no outcry, because of the ceremony's solemnity, but he was silent until some of the monks turned to follow his stare. Several of them stole away from the clearing, and the priest resumed the ritual.

Ton spurred the stallion and galloped away while they were running for the horses. He headed for the edge of the plateau to the east, and when the forest grew thinner, he cut north. There were enough trees to hide him from his pursuers, but he could see far enough ahead to avoid running into any gullies or impassible terrain.

SOUNDS of shouting came from behind him in the distance. He spurred ahead, giving no thought to conserving his horse. After a time, the monks fell back, meaning to let him tire his stallion while they trotted along at a more modest clip. He galloped hard until the animal was sweat-soaked and slobbering. When at last it could no longer continue, he stopped to listen. The wind was from the south, but he heard no sounds of pursuit. They were at least two miles behind him.

He dismounted and walked across a patch of soft ground to a rocky gulley, leaving his footprints plainly visible. Then, standing on the rock, he mounted again. The gulley led up toward the denser forest, and the monks might assume that he had gone ahead on foot. He trotted back toward them, circling here and there, and letting the stallion graze occasionally, as a riderless horse might do. When he was five-hundred yards south of the gully, he heard them coming. He reined up beside a thick clump of brush, dismounted, and crawled into the thicket to hide. The stallion was too weary to run away. It moved to a patch of grass and began grazing.

The monks came trotting toward him, .following the northward trail of hoof-prints. When they were a stone's throw away, he heard them shout and come to a halt.

"The heathen's horse! Come on!"

"No, wait! See, the trail still leads north. The horse came back alone. He's up ahead."

"The stallion threw him."

"Or refused to run any farther, more likely. See how he droops."

"Our pig undoubtedly took to the woods. Come! Let's see where the trail ends!"

Passing a dozen yards from where he lay hidden, the monks galloped northward. He waited a moment, dragged himself out of the brush, and caught the stallion. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of them through the sparse trees; but they did not look back. He mounted behind a cedar and trotted slowly to the east. In the distance he could hear them clattering up the rocks in the gully. If they wasted much time in searching for a place where his footprints left the gully, he might have a chance to escape.

The trees became thinner as he rode east. After a few minutes, he stood at the edge of the wide treeless plateau. Twenty miles to the east, mountains arose. The country between was gently rolling. Glancing to the north and south, he saw a ribbon of road appearing here and there on the low slopes. One of the highways of the ancients, cracked and pitted, overgrown by creeping vines. He mounted a slight rise and it lay below him.

He followed the ancient road for half-an-hour, letting the horse rest occasionally, and listening for sounds of pursuit. There were none. Sometimes, when the road wound up a hill, he could see the mouth of the gulley in the distance, but the monks had evidently gone on back into the forest. He trotted quickly over the high places, and moved slowly in the ravines. Once the road forked and he chose the right branch. There was a square heap of rubble on a hilltop just ahead.

He stopped on the summit, and for a moment the monks were for gotten. Toward the northeast, the ribbon of weathered rock led into a sunswept ruin of broken stone. A five-mile expanse of crumbled masonry, shimmering mysteriously from rising currents of hot air. A mighty rock-garden where green clusters of brush and vines found root in the midst of desolation. The ancient city of which Petru had spoken. It left him breathless.

He rode over the crest of the ridge and stopped again to think. Escaping the monks was only a secondary goal. He had to avoid falling into their hands, lest they defeat his purpose — that of returning stealthily to the valley and . . .

. . . And what? Could he destroy the pylon? Could he break into the sealed vaults and tear the entrails out of the sky-monster's sub-unit? The whole tribe stood between him and the goal. He knew nothing of the pylon's inner workings, nor what guarded and repaired the mechanisms when things went wrong, what monster had removed the spear he had thrown. Without knowledge it was a fool's errand, a grandiose hope that could end only on the flogging post. Perhaps when they amputated his arms at the elbows, they would let him live, as a beggar among them.

Should he give it up then?

A faint hope was gnawing at his mind. Fra Petru had said there had been pylons upon the plain, before the great uprising destroyed them. An ancient city lay before him. Surely it had possessed a pylon. What would be left of it amid the ruins? Enough to lend him a few scraps of needed knowledge?

Revenge was blind. It told him to escape before the monks discovered his ruse, escape to the northern border of the valley and become a night-riding scourge seeking blood to pay for Mara's blood. But sanity told him to wait, to proceed cautiously, in the hope of securing a greater goal.

Still uncertain, he rode on toward the city. There was a stone monument beside the road ahead, and he stopped to read its inscription:

BEWARE OF BETA RADIATION

PROBABLY UNSAFE

BEFORE 2850 AD

Test with Geiger before entering

Reclaim crews use suits

Do not linger

What was its meaning? It was clearly a warning, but the piper could not understand all of the words. He said them over to himself several times. Then he remembered the legends of poisoned ground. The warning could be nothing else. He pondered the date-2850. The year had not yet arrived; Bel kept the calendars according to the old reckoning of time.

But he had lost faith in the legends. Some might be true, but none were completely trustworthy. He girded his doubts with skepticism and rode a hundred steps past the sign. He felt nothing.

The legend claimed that any man who trod upon the poisoned ground would be stricken with a plague of bloody warts and would surely lose his hair. Ton looked carefully at the skin of his arm, and gingerly felt his scalp. No such curse had descended upon him. Unquestionably the legend was a lie. He snorted scornfully and proceeded toward the unpeopled wilderness of rain-washed masonry and sleepy lizards.

A great silence hung over the wasteland of broken rock. He had ridden nearly half the distance toward the center of the city, hearing only the slow clip clup clip of the hooves as he picked his way through the ruins. Then a low wail, like the cry of an infant, came to his ears. He stopped quickly, feeling the faint prickling of his nape. The wail became a piercing shriek, knifing through the dead silence. It rose and fell in volume, ending in a low gurgle, to be followed by a staccato "eh eh eh eh eh eh!" too mindless to be laughter. Echoes floated back and forth across the ruins.

Ton clutched the cleaver which he had taken from the guard and stood up in the stirrups to stare about him.

Then he saw it — a small misshapen creature — peering at him from a low heap of rubble. It stood motionless, wearing a toothless grin. It was about three feet high, wrinkled with age or disease. Its skin was livid-white and hairless, festered with patches of sores. The head was bloated and twisted. Its gaze was the fearless gaze of idiocy.

The piper shuddered at the sudden realization that the creature was human, or nearly so. What devil had so twisted the flesh of Man?

Suddenly another one appeared from behind the rockpile. It was smaller than the first, and it was nursing a grotesque infant at its breast. It too stared dumbly at the horseman. Ton was too stricken to move, but at last he found voice.

"Can you tell me — where are the remains of Bel's pylon?"

At the sound of his voice, the male retreated a step, and the female ducked back behind the rock-pile. After a few moments, the male grinned slowly and shrieked, "Pylon pylon pylon pylon eh eh eh eh eh eh eh!"

Then with a catlike motion he pounced upon a lizard that darted across the rockpile. He displayed it triumphantly and emitted the staccato cry. Suddenly he sobered. Holding the lizard out like an offering, he advanced warily toward the rider, grunting questioningly. Ton shook his head. When the creature kept coming, he clucked at the stallion and moved ahead.

He glanced back as he rode. The man-thing stopped, looking puzzled. Then it seemed to forget the rider. It savagely tore off the lizard's head and began devouring the quivering carcass.

Ton shivered and stared ahead. The knowledge that the creature was a son of Man made his flesh crawl. Bel had done this! The terrible hand that had levelled the city had also molded human putty into the shape of the small idiot. Such was the mercy of the peace-keeper. Such was the punishment he meted out when men made war.

"Eh eh eh eh eh .. ." The cry was fading out behind him.

Ton remembered the monument's warning — "Do not linger" — but still he moved ahead. The poison was here. Its silent curse had descended upon the lizard-eater. But the poison seemed to work slowly, and the piper braved its threat in his search for the remains of the pylon. Nervously he goaded the stallion to a crisper trot.

He found it at last in a rubble-filled plaza near the center of the city. Its high spike had crumbled near the base, and the slender structure had scattered itself over a wide area. Bits of sheet metal lay crushed beneath the rocks. Other kinds of metal had become only rust-red stains on the pitted pavement. The shape of the foundation told him that indeed a pylon had once stood in the square. Tangles of brush grew around it, rooted in the cracks.

He stared at it from a distance before approaching. The city filled him with a bitter wistful pride, a ghostly pride out of the past. Here about him lay the once-mighty house of Man, in the day of his glory. He had only to look at the ruins, to know that Man had indeed built Bel the sky-lord, as Petru claimed. He who could build it could surely destroy it. But he had been wiser, in the old days — before he learned to ask Bel when to plant corn and where to fish and how to brace the roof of his hovel. Asking Bel, he got answers, but no wisdom. And, when one knew answers, why seek wisdom?

HE rode to the base of the foundation and looked down. He gasped, bounded out of the saddle, sat on the broken wall and looked down again. There had been a room beneath the tower, a room evidently without an entrance except to the sealed vaults. Now it was heaped high with broken slabs of rock and with twisted girders that fell from overhead. But the sunlight penetrated the wreckage in places and he could see bits of broken machinery — and the top of a doorway to another room.

Most of the pylon had fallen sideways, and the subterranean vault was not completely blocked. Holding his breath, he let himself down atop the rubble-heap, then slid down it toward the top of the stone-filled doorway. There was a small opening left, but he could see nothing because of the darkness beyond. He began clearing the stones away with his hands. A shaft of sunlight penetrated the enlarged opening, and he could see that beyond the door the rubble-heap sloped away and exposed a clear patch of floor. It was covered with a foot of water that had collected from past rains.

Ton worked hurriedly until the hole was large enough to admit his body. Then he slipped through it into the gloom. He could see the faint outlines of rust-decayed machinery as he came down the rock-slide and stood in the thigh deep water. There was still another room beyond this one. He waded through the doorway into deeper darkness. The walls were covered with switching panels and the gray eyes of many dials.

Suddenly he stopped to stare. There was a faint glow coming from across the room. Something was silhouetted against it — the faint shadow — of a man! He seized his cleaver and backed away.

"Who are you?" he barked, and his voice reverberated in the vaults.

There was a creaking sound. The glow of light crept along the panel, then turned toward him. The man had turned his head, and the violet glow was coming from his eyes!

Then Ton knew that it was not a man at all, but the monster who lived in the sealed vaults. His spine crawled as he backed toward the rockslide, clutching the fighting hook in one hand and the cleaver in the other. Suddenly the demon spoke in a low metallic croak, like Bel's but lower.

"Three thousand and seventeenth repetition: Robot George Eighty-Six requests human assistance in repair of damaged pylon George Eighty-Six. Repair task exceeds standard capabilities of pylon repair-robot. Emergency. Emergency. Please acknowledge request."

Ton stopped. The creature repeated the request three times. He began to understand its significance. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw that the being was made of metal. It sat on a small metal stool, and it had been facing one of the panels. The implication of the request was almost ludicrous.

"How long have you been sitting there?" he asked it, still keeping a safe distance.

The robot clicked thoughtfully for a. few moments, then said, "Answer: five hundred and twenty years, forty-five days, sixteen-point-two hours."

Since the destruction of the pylon! Ton quickly lost his fear. He laughed quietly. Any creature that unimaginative could scarcely offer much of a threat.

"Are you alive, or are you a part of Bel?" he asked.

The robot clicked again. "Meaningless alternative. Rephrase."

"Are you alive?"

The creature clicked forlornly and it became evident that it didn't intend to stop.

"Can't you answer?"

There was a grunt of static, then something that sounded like: "Two query meanibungle unreply wish motive. Rephrase."

"Are you a part of Bel?"

"Unanswerable query. Rephrase."

TON gave up. Either the robot couldn't answer, wouldn't answer or had to be asked in a special way But as he stared at the glowing eyes he realized that here was the answer to his search for the secret of the vaults. Here was the creature who repaired the pylons. If then were any way to destroy a pylon without great weapons, this being would know. But would it reveal such knowledge? He would have to proceed cautiously.

"Who do you serve?" he asked "Man or Bel?"

Again the slow clicking. "Meaningless query. Meaningless alternative."

"Why is it meaningless?" the piper snapped.

"Answer: confusion of categories. Robot-George-Eighty-Six - Concept, labelled 'I', is memorized in 'mechanical-equipment' category. Service, concept is memorized in 'anthropovocabulary' category. Robot 'I' cannot act as subject for verb 'to serve'."

Vaguely Ton began to understand. The creature was a machine, nothing more. "What is your function then?" he tried.

"To effect necessary repairs within the cybernetic circuits and microwave transceiving equipment of Informator Pylon Number George Eighty Six," droned the robot.

Still Ton did not have the answer he wanted. "Why do you perform this function?"

There was a brief clicking, then: "Robot 'I' am motivated by pleasure-pain principles, based on relationship: operating-efficiency equals pleasure; suspended operation equals pain." Another click. "Robot requests human assistance in repair of pylon George Eighty-Six . . ."

It repeated the plea three times again. Ton wondered how a creature of metal could feel pleasure or pain. How could aught but warm flesh experience them? For that matter, how could Bel be pleased or displeased? Displease? This creature said pain. He frowned suddenly and advanced a step toward the robot.

"Tell me!" he demanded. "Can Bel be made to feel pain?"

The clicking began again, and lasted for a time. Ton slumped sadly fearing that another "meaningless" was inevitable. Then the reply:

"Answer: affirmative, bipossible."

"How?" He advanced another step waiting tensely.

"Alternative solutions: a pain response may be achieved by offering a sufficiently discordant aesthetic stimulus; or, a pain response may be achieved directly by psychelectric induction from a human subject who is experiencing pain."

Ton wanted to say "meaningless" to the incomprehensible answers. How could he ever understand such words? Man indeed had fallen far. The ancients had taught a little of their vast knowledge to this machine, and now the machine was wiser than the sons of the ancients. Still, he tried again: "Explain how one would go about causing pain to Bel, directly."

The robot's head turned slowly to the left. The glow of its eyes fell upon an object that lay on a workbench. Ton recognized it quickly. It was a helmet from the pylon's interrogator unit! He shivered at the memory of his encounter with the device on the night of his banishment.

The robot began croaking facts from its memory. "By use of the psychelectric inductor, a human subject's experiences may be induced into the circuits of the satellite units. In this way, the unit's behavior was originally conditioned by reward and punishment experiences. Units were rewarded for satisfactory performance by applying pleasureable stimuli to human subjects . . ."

AS Ton listened, he began to grasp something of the robot's meaning. In short: Bel had been trained as a child was trained! By reward and punishment, through the medium of a man who sat in the interrogation unit and allowed himself to be hurt or pleased, depending upon Bel's performance in the learning-tasks. And through the minds of the subjects, Bel learned to derive pleasure from the things that gave men pleasure — music, art, dancing—whatever could be learned through the interrogation unit and later experienced through the eyes and ears of the pylon. But there was always the danger of pain becoming pleasant through hedonic contrast, as happened the night of Mara's death.

"Tell me, can the interrogation units still be used to give pain?"

"Affirmative. The subject should be unconscious. The painful stimulus should be applied by another party."

Ton sat down upon the rubble-heap to think. The ghost of a plan was glimmering in his mind. But he found it difficult to reason it out; suddenly he realized that he was feeling ill. His skin had been itching continually since he had entered the vaults, and now it felt dry, burning —as if exposed too long to the hot sun. Effects of the lingering poison?

The idea frightened him, and he thought of the lizard-eater again. He started up the rubble-heap, then paused, looking back at the glowing eyes. Immediately the robot repeated his plea for assistance in the repair of the pylon.

"Come with me, if you can walk," the piper ventured. "The pylon cannot be repaired."

"If that is true, then my function is ended," rasped the machine. "Operating query: may I turn myself off?"

"No, come with me."

"Operating query: is leaving the pylon not a breach of efficient function?"

"No, come with me."

Slowly the repair robot creaked to its feet, and shuffled mechanically after its new master. Man and machine went out into the sunlight together. Dustclouds wisped along a ridge to the southwest. The monks had come. And there was a single horseman galloping through the outskirts of the city. Ton mounted and stared at the distant figure. It was Vigge the Boar, son of Cron. He paused a moment, then rode slowly toward his adversary, with the robot shuffling behind him.

AS the riders came within five-hundred yards of each other, Vigge reined up to stare at the robot that followed his enemy. Ton kept coming at an easy jog. He knew he was riding into possible death, if Vigge were not a fool. The piper was no burly fighter, and in a hand to hand duel, the boar could cut him down easily. He gambled that Vigge was a fool. Two hundred paces away, he stopped and spoke to the robot.

"Continue walking straight ahead."

Purring quietly, the gleaming metal figure strode slowly amid the rubble toward the frozen Vigge.

"Here is your new king, Vigge!" the piper shouted. "A Bel that walks!"

The son of Cron did nothing. Was he indeed a fool? Or would he come and fight? Wise men had built the Lord Bel as a tool; fools had become the tools of the tool. The ancients had said, "One man is as good as another." It was their greatest mistake, for it led to: "Folly is as good as wisdom." Ton had no hope but to turn Man's folly against Bel. There was too little wisdom left in the world to use it as a weapon.

"Bow to your new king, Vigge!"

The boar's bearded face had gone white in the sunlight as he watched the robot's calm approach. He reined his horse sideways in the street. His hand snaked toward a quiver, and in an instant he had fitted an arrow to his bow. Ton waited motionlessly, realizing that the arrow might be directed toward him. If Vigge were not a fool ...

Cling . . .!

The steel-tipped shaft struck the robot's body and shattered. The robot continued its humorless march. "Operating query: is there a purpose in this projectile?"

Vigge launched another arrow, but it flew wide. The robot caught it in midair with quick tweezerlike fingers and paused to inspect it. Vigge howled and bolted away, ducking low over the neck of the horse.

"Tell the tribe I am returning!" Ton thundered after him. "Tell them I bring this walking Bel to be their king!"

Vigge continued his flight without looking back.

"Operating query: why does the man run?"

"Because fools have inherited the earth," Ton told him.

They continued on toward the ridge where the monks waited, fearful of the poisoned earth of the city. The piper hoped fervently that Vigge would indeed return to the valley with a wild tale of the metal monster, confusing and frightening the tribe. But two monks saw the fleeing Boar and set out in hot pursuit. They vanished over a hill to the northwest.

He stopped just beyond crossbow range of the hilltop and spoke again to the robot. "If you will obey me, you will have a pylon again."

The creature hesitated, clicking over his memories. Then: "Operating suggestion: supervised-control switch is located beneath grasping mechanism."

The piper noticed the switch but hesitated. "What does it do?"

"It removes self-inhibiting bias-controls. It suppresses ethical conditioning."

Nervously, he flicked the switch. "Can you attack a human being?"

"Supervised-robot relies upon supervisor for ethical judgment. Query: who is my supervisor?"

"I'll do," the piper grunted. "Now go on toward those horsemen. Tell them what you told me about causing pain to Bel. Then come back. If they try to capture you, resist."

The robot stalked toward the hill and up it. Ton waited, expecting the monks to flee as Vigge had done. They mounted their horses and held crossbows ready. He saw two of them cross themselves. But then the robot stopped and he heard the distant intonation of the mechanical voice.

Half an hour later, a shout floated to him from the hill. "Come out of the city, piper!"

"You agree to a truce?" he bellowed in reply.

"We promise nothing! Come out! Stay longer and you die of the poison."

Already he felt weak and dizzy. Slowly he rode forward, grumbling to himself. The tight-strained steel of crossbows threatened him with their deadly bolts as he drew near. The monks' faces were dispassionate masks that watched him calmly.

"Are you ready to be our prisoner now, piper?" a voice barked. It was the short and churrky Andru.

Ton reined up a few feet away, and the monks moved to encircle him. The robot stood clicking in wait for a command.

"If they behave hostilely, kill them," he said quietly.

WHETHER or not the robot as capable of killing, he did not know, but the warning had its effect. The monks hesitated nervously, casting wary glances at the creature of steel. He wasted no time in taking advantage of their indecision.

"I am not your prisoner. Let me make that clear."

Andru flourished his weapon. "This says you are."

Ton eyed the sharp tip of the crossbow bolt coldly. "Fire it at the robot," he offered.

Andru swung around in the saddle and hesitated.

"Catch the missile when it comes, George Eighty-Six."

Andru snorted and let fly with a sharp twang. The robot brought back the bolt and handed it to the startled monk.

"I am not your prisoner." There was a hushed moment on the hilltop. Then the piper said, "I am going to the valley before the next Belrise, to fight. I welcome any who would come with me. But if you are cowards, stay behind."

Andru straightened in the saddle and frowned angrily. "We forbid you to go from the plateau. We cannot allow Bel to learn of our . . ."

"Plan? Fool! You have no plan. Only a distant daydream. I will act now." He moved out of the circle, but stopped again. The monks held the bows ready to cut him down, and Andru's mouth was open to bark the command. He waited.

"I advise you to go no farther," the monk warned.

"Will you listen to my plan?"

Andru smirked. "Why not? But it will gain you nothing."

Ton came back and they sat in a circle on the ground, speaking of the valley and the pylon, and frequently questioning the robot, who seemed to care nothing for the welfare of the total Bel, but who illogically wanted a pylon to keep, whether or not there be a Bel to give it purpose. The piper watched Andru's face as they talked. The cubby monk said little, nor did his expression change save for an occasional narrowing of the eyes or shake of the head. But his thick hands moved with clumsy nervousness and impatience. Once he idly sketched a map of the valley in the sand with a twig, locating the river and the pylon and the community of tribe George-Eighty.

When Ton finished speaking, there was a moment of silence. Several of the monks shook their heads, and his heart sank. But Andru was still absorbed in his map, seemingly only half-aware that the piper was waiting for an answer. With the twig, he touched the headwaters of the river, where it emptied out of a lake in the foothills. He spoke musingly.

"An army could float down the river at night, perhaps without arousing any warning until they were in the midst of the camp."

"Nay!" said another. "The eyes of Bel can see in darkness!"

"Fool!" Andru grunted. "Haven't you listened? Bel will not see."

"You'll help then!" Ton gasped.

The monk looked startled, and seemed to come awake. Then he shrugged and looked uncomfortable. "I can make no such decisions. It is up to the abbot. And I can tell you the abbot will say no."

"But why? Isn't the plan good?"

"It is — risky — doubtful." He looked apologetic. "I like it, personally. But long ago, our course of action was decided upon. We must wait, preserving our small slice of civilization for the future. When Bel wears out, or exhausts his power units, we will act. Our prophets predict a thousand years — from the time Bel was first built. Now we have only a few generations to wait."

"Why wait, if my plan is good?"

"Because — if your plan failed, our order would be destroyed. And there would be no hope at all for the future."

Ton stood up angrily. "Are you all that separates Man from beast? No hope? Not even in the very fact of Man's continued existence? Granted the plan might fail! And that your order would be destroyed. Are you so indispensible? Fools! I'm going alone!"

He mounted the stallion and started away from the circle at a slow walk, with the robot moving behind. He kept stiffly erect, waiting for the crossbow bolt to find a home in his back. The monks came restlessly to their feet and spoke among themselves in low voices, but none moved to stop him. Suddenly Andru called out, and he turned to look back.

"We have an extra pack-donkey, piper."

"So?"

The monk grinned. "Your mechanical friend will wear out his joints a'walking."

Ten accepted the offer with embarrassed gratitude. But there was something ludicrous in the sight of Repair-Robot George Eighty-Six sitting stiffly astride the small sad animal. As they started away, Andru murmured, "And their king came riding upon an ass's colt." But no one laughed.

They set out for a long ride, in the direction in which Vigge the Boar had disappeared, but at the edge of the forest they turned northward.

IT was three days' ride to the lake where several streams converged to form Keeper Jon's River, as the valley's waterway was called. When he approached the area, Ton moved cautiously, for hunters and fishermen sometimes ventured up-valley to wander about its banks. And, as long as he could see the pylon in the distance, there was the danger of the pylon's seeing him. Its eyes could look all about the valley, and see many things at once.

The Bel-satellite had sunk however. For nearly thirty hours, the pylon would be inoperative, for the voice of the moon needed a clear pathway between itself and the tower before it could establish contact. He spent the afternoon building a light raft of fallen logs. Then, at sundown, he spoke to the robot. "Ride alone into the valley. Go to the pylon and enter the vaults. Leave them open, and wait for me to come. People will see you, and probably run away. But if they speak to you, say nothing. If they question you, tell them you're an emissary of Bel."

"Impossible request. 'Am designed to give correct answers to queries, and to obey requests where possible." Ton slumped in disgust. "If you had a tongue I'd cut it out! You'll ruin everything if you talk to the keeper."

The robot clicked for a moment. "Suggest analogous operation in lieu of tongue removal."

He laughed grimly. "What are you talking about?"

"Suggest you disconnect my speech-centers."

"You don't care?"

"Meaningless query. Rephrase."

"Of course. A machine couldn't care. But what about your hearing? If someone orders you to stop, will you stop?"

"Negative. Disconnected speech-centers fail to interpret auditory sensations."

Ton stood over him for a moment, staring down at the spherical skull plate. "Can you loosen it?"

Without hesitation, the robot screwed off the top of his head, revealing a tangled maze of hairlike wires that appeared to have been wadded irreverently together and dipped in salt, for the entire mass was impregnated with millions of tiny crystals. Looking closely, he could see that each wire was discontinuous at the crystals, and the crystals were junction-points for several wires. "How was it made?" he asked in awe.

"The neural fibers are first assembled in the form of a plane web," the robot explained. "The web is then rolled on a drum coated with mild adhesive. Then the fibers are cut at each junction point, and the drum is chilled to 30 degrees Absolute. While chilled, the crystals are deposited at the broken junctions. Warming it sets up internal stresses in the crystals causing their synapse-like behavior. The web is then sprayed with a solvent to remove the adhesive, sprayed with an insulating varnish, removed from the drum and stretched on a rack. Several hundred plane-webs are connected into a cubic web. The cubic mesh is then bundled randomly into the metal case, connected to the sensory circuits, and sent to the master-memory units for conditioning."

Ton shook his head. "Just skip it. I shouldn't have asked. How do disconnect the speech center?"

The robot told him, but in the end, performed the operation for himself. Ton reset the switch to ask a sudden question. "Would you mind if I destroyed you?"

The robot looked up slowly. "Meaningless query. Rephrase."

"Why is it meaningless?"

"I am incapable of affective reactions except in terms of pylon-efficiency."

"You would feel nothing if I destroyed you?"

"I would cease to feel."

Ton shook his head. Somehow he could not get across the 'fear of death' idea.

"If I told you to destroy yourself, would you do it?"

"Affirmative, provided present supervisory status is in effect."

"And if it weren't?"

"Then I would be capable of refusing if it were in the best interests of efficient pylon operation."

TON snapped off the speech circuits again with a thoughtful click, and waved the robot on his way. The last rays of twilight were fading as George Eighty-Six rode slowly along the shore-trail toward the lake's outlet, toward the valley and toward the pylon. He had spent many hours in briefing the robot on what was to be done when he arrived at the pylon, but a thousand things could go wrong.

Worst of all, he knew nothing of the science behind Bel's workings. Nor could he predict the robot's reactions to certain situations. He could only try to think of George Eighty-Six as a human being who was without emotion, except in terms of a vocation. But the analogy was bad and he knew it. The robot was only a machine; and not understanding the machine's workings, Ton could only personify. He knew that he could expect obedience only when his commands were in keeping with the mechanical principles involved in the robot's structure.

And if the robot failed to do as he was told when he arrived at the pylon, then Ton would, in a few hours, be riding into certain death.

He watched in the direction of the valley, where a, few fires gleamed about the vicinity of the pylon. The tribe was attending to the usual evening chores — milking goats, hovering over the cookpots, resting from the day's labor. How would they react when a gleaming creature of steel with glowing eyes came riding silently through their midst? The widow and the sons of Keeper Cron lived in their quarters at the pylon's base. Vigge, if he had returned, would recognize the robot. He had fled before, but how would he behave at home? If he attacked, George Eighty-Six would undoubtedly let himself be destroyed.

Vigge had undoubtedly been put in the interrogation unit, if he had returned—unless Bel had never known of his departure. If he had been interrogated, Bel would know everything that Vigge had seen and done upon the plateau, including the episode in the city, when the Boar had turned tail before the metal apparition. And, if the people inquired, Bel would have explained the nature of the robot Vigge had seen. But would the explanation make George Eighty-Six's appearance any the less terrifying? It would simply tend to confirm the legend of the demon who lurked in the pylon's vaults. The demon's sudden appearance should still cause plenty of consternation.

When George Eighty-Six had had time to reach the pylon, Ton cut loose the raft and poled along the shoreline toward the stretch of rapids which would carry him swiftly down-river toward the distant pylon. He could see only dimly in the faint light of a crescent moon. The swift waters were threateningly black. The valley waited quietly ahead of him.

It had promised to take his arms if he returned. He hoped, by using the river, to escape detection until he was in the midst of the village. He hoped that the tribe's attention would be focused upon the robot that had appeared amongst them.

He lay stretched flat on the rushing raft, covering himself with branches so that from the bank, the crude craft would appear to be a tangle of drift, floating down from the hills. Twice he heard horsemen galloping along the river-trail — either running away from the robot, or going to tell the outskirts of the news. The swift current bore him rapidly down to where the river widened, then more slowly. He passed amid the hovels of fishermen, and past bright areas ablaze with bonfires. Breathing renewed hate, he watched the slender spike of the pylon drift closer on his left. Why hadn't George Eighty-Six given him the signal that all was well?

Then while he waited, it came. The floodlights, normally turned off while Bel was below the horizon, flashed to full brilliance — and died again. A chaotic babble of excited voices came to his ears. During the brief flash of light, he saw that only a few men were brave enough to venture onto the stone ramp around the base of the tower. The crowds hung back to stare from the shadows. A few torches wandered about the area.

THE piper slipped silently into the water and swam to shore. On the bank, he paused to smear his face and arms with black mud, to prevent immediate recognition. It was dark, and the crowds were excited; he hoped they would pay no attention to him as he slipped toward the south side of the pylon, where lay the vaults.

He trotted quickly behind a row of huts, scurried across an open space, galloped around a tight group of women who were chattering excitedly, and reached the edge of the ramp.

"Ho there!" called a gruff voice. "Go no closer. Keeper Walin forbids it." The man was approaching with a torch.

Ton broke into a dead run toward the vault-entrance. The man bellowed angrily. An arrow skittered across the stones, narrowly missing the piper's flank. Ducking and dodging, he made it to the entrance. The robot had left it open, as instructed. As he slipped into the blackness, he paused to emit a piercing scream, hoping to convince the guards that it was unsafe to follow him. But had he been recognized? With his mud-daubed face, and the screening darkness, recognition was doubtful. He slammed the great steel door and tried to peer about in the gloom. He saw the robot's eyes, and heard the approaching footsteps. But was it George Eighty-Six -- or the robot which tended this pylon. He waited tensely.

Then the lights came on and the robot began unscrewing his skull plate. He renewed the speech-circuits and waited for instructions. Ton stared about nervously. "Where's the other robot?"

"I turned it off, as supervisor instructed," croaked George Eighty-Six.

"Wasn't there a fight?"

"Meaningless query. Repair robot has no self-preserving desires, except for sake of efficient pylon operation."

Ton was suddenly glad that George Eighty-Six was still under supervision. If the switch was thrown to Auto, the robot would probably throw him out to the wolf-pack and take over the pylon. On "supervise," he could not help obeying.

The piper barked orders quickly.

"Prepare the pylon as if Bel were about to speak. Bel will speak with your voice. You will say what I tell you to say. And get the other robot back into supervised operation."

OUTSIDE on the ramp, the guards were still busily warning the curious to stay back from the base of the pylon, lest they too follow the way of the one who had screamed so hideously from the mouth of the vaults. But when the eyes of Bel came alight, and when the floodlights flickered on, the guards ceased to have trouble with the crowd. The people backed away in fright; for who had ever heard Bel speak when the small moon was below the horizon.

"BLAH-000-BAH!" came the summons, thundering from the loudspeakers below the empty balcony.

"Keeper Walin!" a guard called. "Where is Keeper Walin?"

Soon the heir of Cron appeared, and strode nervously across the ramp. He looked up, then stopped, frozen in. place. For the balcony was no longer empty. A gleaming creature of steel stood there, impassively looking out over the heads of the people. Somewhere a woman screamed, and the sound of fleeing footsteps pattered hysterically in the night. But many remained, keeping a safe distance.

"blah-000-bah!" came a faint echo from the hills.

"Keeper Walin will come to the balcony," rasped the loudspeaker

Walin, on the ramp below, hesitated. "Who is speaking?" he quavered.

"It is I, Bel, speaking through my son who stands before you. Come."

"How can you speak, when—"

"COME!"

Walin advanced on unsure legs. He disappeared into the stairway entrance, and a minute later, slipped onto the balcony to stand warily at a safe distance from the gaunt, motionless robot.

"What is your wish, O Bel?" asked the frightened keeper.

"You are guilty of war-crimes," the loudspeaker charged bluntly.

"I shall scourge the valley with fire, and poison it for a thousand years. Three of your people invaded the lands of tribe George Seventy-Eight and killed four people."

The crowd moaned, and Walin sputtered. This was apparently news to everyone.

"If this is true, then let the criminals be punished," pleaded Walin. "But do not destroy us all."

"All are guilty, for not preventing such action. All will die! The scourge will pass over the valley at tomorrow's nightfall. The land will be laid waste as far as the hills."

Suddenly the lights went out. The voice was gone. The interview was at an end. A sobbing wail went up from the town. The keeper turned to bolt from the balcony, but the robot caught him with an almost leisurely gesture, shouldered him, and bore him away toward the vaults. Walin was screaming with real fervor.

Supervised Repair-Robot George Eighty, whose speech centers were dead, brought the struggling keeper into the vaults as ordered, and held him securely before the grinning eyes of Ton, and the emotionless eyes of George Eighty-Six, who had spoken through the loudspeakers at the piper's bidding. When Walin saw the identity of his captor, he whitened, gagged, and then, realizing in part what had transpired, he began choking out sputters of cursing and gasping threats.

Ton sat grinning on the stool before a control panel and watched the ex-keeper silently until he exhausted his supply of invective. Then he asked, "Where's your brother, Vigge?"

"He's dead! As you'll be soon, piper. He was interrogated when he returned. He died from a flogging. Bel said he killed two men on the plateau. I had hoped one of them was you."

"Dead!" Ton was startled. Vigge the boar had been a part of his plan. Vigge the torturer, who flayed his game alive, would have been a fitting candidate for the interrogation chamber when the time came to offer Bel a pain stimulus through a human subject. Now Walin would have to do. But he didn't like the idea so well. Walin was indeed an enemy, but he had committed no crime, other than the universal crime of stupidity. The piper's stomach knotted at the thought of telling one of the robots to torture him to death in the interrogation chair.

He spoke to George Eighty-Six. "Take him down to the lower chambers of the vaults and tie him securely. We'll need him later."

THE robot calmly dragged the screaming, kicking Walin away. But the piper was not so certain that he could bring himself to sacrifice an innocent man. Who else was available? No one. The crowds were already fleeing toward the hills, and the village was becoming deserted, as he had expected. The threat of destruction was sending them into a panicked exodus. They had no way of investigating the false charge that three men had invaded sector seventy-eight. Every man would suspect his neighbor, but unless they met someone from Tribe Seventy-Eight who could deny the charge, they would believe it.

One thing was certain: shortly after Bel arose again, the valley would indeed be scourged. Ton hoped that the people could escape to the plateau before it happened, but he himself would have to remain. It wouldn't be pleasant, hanging back to die alone. Again he recalled Mara's torn body lying on the pavement just outside, and he set his course by that memory.

Looking about at the sleeping, incomprehensible machinery that helped rule the race of Man since the passing of his glory, he felt small and weak and uncertain. As he prepared to doze in wait for dawn within the security of the vault, he wished for his pipes that he might reassure himself with their plaintive pleating. For he suddenly realized what he was going to have to do, since Vigge was dead, and he longed not to think about it until the time came. Four robot eyes stared fixedly in the darkness while their temporary supervisor slept. They seemed to know nothing of the true meaning of what was happening, nor to care—so long as they were under supervised operation. But if a switch clicked to "Auto," their tower-preserving motivation would step to the fore, and Ton would become an enemy. After a sleepless period, he arose, found a bit of wire, and tied two toggle-switches firmly and permanently in "supervise" position Then he slept more securely.

Daybreak brought silence. The sun crept up in the east to look upon a valley that had become unpeopled during the night. Ton left the vaults to survey the deserted village from the balcony. Here and there an old man or a cripple lingered still, loath to leave the place of their birth. But they were going — all of them. By seizing Walin, he had deprived them of a leader who could possibly have prevented the hysterical flight toward the plateau. He smiled faintly as he watched a distant dust-streamer from beyond the river. A party of horsemen was fleeing toward the forests, toward the place where he had first set out for the plateau the grim night of Mara's death.

"May the monks teach them new ways," he murmured, after the floating streamer of dust.

But the pylon had to be destroyed, lest they return. And Ton the piper, who had no access to the weapons of the ancients, could not destroy the great structure of steel and stone to the extent that it could not be used again. What he and the robots could tear down, the robots alone could easily repair. He must force the Lord Bel to destroy his own pylon. But in doing so, Ton himself would perish with it — for he would be the bait.

He shrugged away a slight shiver and went back to the vaults. He spent the rest of the day watching the robots obey his order — "Tear away Bel's eyes and ears so that he may not see the people are gone. Make the pylon blind and deaf, and muffle its voice to a whisper. Leave an ear within the vaults so that I can speak to him." The machines obeyed without protest, quietly tearing loose wires and reconnecting them, shutting down power units, and setting up new equipment in the vaults.

While they worked, Ton went out into the deserted village and brought back food. He loosened Walin's bonds and let him stretch his limbs. He watched him eat in silence, and thought, "How easy it would be to let him die in my stead."

Walin wore a surly sneer as he finished eating. "What do you plan to do next, piper?" he growled.

Ton hesitated. "Release you, as soon as I'm certain you can't catch up with the others."

The keeper carefully suppressed any surprise he might have felt. "And then?"

"See that the promise to destroy the valley is made good."

Walin laughed with unbelief. "Then I invite you to stay with me while it's destroyed," Ton said grimly. "Tell me, do you feel nothing but reverence for Bel after all that has happened? You have seen Bel's robots serving me. You have heard Bel's voice used in my cause. You still call him a god?"

Walin set his mouth mockingly and said nothing. Ton saw the sarcasm in his eyes and suddenly realized that in all probability, the Keeper Family had always known the true nature of Bel. He stalked out in disgust, and sent a robot back to escort Walin from the vaults and release him. The keeper set out quickly toward the river. Ton waited for the awakening of the pylon.

THE bloody countenance of the sun mopped the western sky with red as it dragged itself below the hills. The chill wind of evening swept down the valley, and the first erratic clickings began in the vaults. The circuits were coming alive as the first feeble flickers of Bel's approach reached the pylon.

The time had come. The valley was left deserted by the exodus. The lonely piper stood alone to face the wrath of the god his fathers had built. He had made both robots inoperative, lest Bel be able to command them. They lay lifeless on the floor of the vaults.

Suddenly, the vaults came alive with eerie glow. The banks of tubes fluttered into operation. Outside, the small satellite was clear of the horizon. Bel was with him.

There was no summons this time. Nothing but, the clicking of relays. An eye, set in the ceiling, turned slowly to look about the room, paused briefly on the robots, and stopped to stare fixedly at the piper who stood before the microphone, waiting.

"Operating query," whispered the small speaker. "Why have the sensory circuits been disconnected? Who is responsible?"

"You are responsible. You are guilty, Bel. You will be punished." The sky-monster was incapable of anger. It seemed to be analyzing the situation quietly.

"Operating query: Logic circuits infer the probability that you have caused the tribe to leave the valley. Is this correct?"

Ton nodded slowly toward the glowing eye. "They have gone. We are alone."

"Advise that you abandon your intentions and submit to punishment. Any sabotage against the keeper of the peace is warcrime. Reflexive response to warcrime is release of nuclear weapons from satellite station."

Ton turned away and walked to the interrogation chamber. The chair and the helmet were waiting. The robots had made the necessary changes. A light had been placed so that it would focus a white-hot point of pain upon the subject's chest. He sat stiffly in the chair and pulled the helmet down over his head. The light flashed on, and he howled. A microphonic-controlled switch cut it off again, waited five seconds, and flashed it again.

Dizzyness came over him. The periods of pain and of recovery seemed to grow longer. His vision faded, and he could no longer hear himself scream. A distant point in a gray void rushed toward him and opened out into a clear space.

He looked around. Someone was moaning in pain. Then he saw the man — writhing to escape a white-hot gnat that stabbed him. The man —it was an old friend! He hurried forward and knelt to comfort him. The man looked up. "Please," he gasped. "What have I done to you? Make it stop!"

Ton realized with horror that he himself was causing the man's pain, and that he had the power to make it cease. Quickly he moved to brush the gnat away, then paused.

This has happened before! I must not be fooled!

"Please . . ."

Ton stood up and closed his eyes. More than anything else, he wished to help the man — to ease his pain.

He gritted his teeth and refused to look at him.

"Destroy yourself," he told the sufferer.

"No, no! Make it stop!" The man was twisting and howling each time the point of light stabbed at him.

"What is your name?"

"I am — the Keeper of the Peace! Make it — stop!"

"Destroy yourself." Ton opened his eyes and kicked the sufferer in the face.

The gray void pulsed with fear. "Destroy yourself! It will never stop!" the piper roared.

Groaning, the man sat up. His eyes were the eyes of Bel. His face was a face of granite and steel. His mouth croaked metallic sounds.

"I will wait then," he said. *We will see who can live the longest. Look at your chest."

Ton looked, and grew sick. There was a black spot, charred and blistered. He felt nothing, but the wound was there—growing steadily worse. Each time the white point bit at his adversary, the burn grew deeper upon Ton's chest, but it, was not really harming the other man. One received the wound, the other felt its pain.

"I'll kill you myself," the piper roared. He launched himself upon the other and began digging his fingers into the throat. With horror, he realized that his own breathing had ceased—but it was the stranger who felt the choking.

For a long time they fought. The man was screaming wildly, and his eyes were glazed with pain. For Ton, the void was growing grayer. The stranger seemed to be slipping through his fingers. The reality of his own person was fading. With a last desperate effort, he gouged his fingers into the stranger's eyes and tore.

There was a last shriek. Then the stranger ceased to be a man. He contracted slowly into a small orange ball. The piper, his vision dimmed, drew slowly away to watch.

The orange ball grew larger. It seemed to be spinning slowly in a dark heaven. A crack appeared in its surface. Blue-white fire showed through the crack. The fire pushed its way forth slowly. It was a leisurely explosion—a sphere opening slowly into a terrible flower of fire. And then Ton ceased to see it.

He saw only the light that had seared his chest, winking on and off. He arched his back and slumped as far as he could to one side. The light found a new spot to burn. He could not turn it off, but at last he tore his arms free of the clamps that bound them to the chair. Some of the flesh stayed with the clamps. He slumped to the floor in a puddle of blackness. He had won. Bel was dead. And Man was free.

A scarred and wizened piper sat upon the wall of the monastery grounds, bleating a melody that leaped among the crags and carried itself high on the wind. He was playing for his own amusement, but his audience was a group of men who were laying stone for the new city that was growing up around the monastery. As darkness approached, the pipes emitted a discordant, mocking bleat.

The workmen straightened, looked up curiously at the piper, then followed his eyes to the east, where a few flecks of debris were appearing over the horizon. A chubby workman grinned, and turned to bow.

"How are you pleased, O piper?"

The pipes skirled irreverently, but as he looked at the growing city of Man, he was pleased plus three. And proud.

THE END