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3

Afterward, lying on his back, staring into the darkness, Hal thought as he had many a time before. What was it that cut through his abdomen like a broad, thick steel plate and seemed to sever his torso from his hips? He was excited, in the beginning. He knew he must be because his heart beat fast, he breathed hard. Yet, he could not—really—feel anything. And when the moment came—which the Forerunner called the time of generation of potentiality, the fulfillment and actualization of reality—Hal experienced only a mechanical reaction. His body carried out its prescribed function, but he felt nothing of that ecstasy which the Forerunner had described so vividly. A zone of unfeeling, a nerve-chilling area, a steel plate, cut through him. He felt nothing except the jerkings of his body, as if an electrical needle were stimulating his nerves at the same time it numbed them.

This was wrong, he told himself. Or was it? Could it be that the Forerunner was mistaken? After all, the Forerunner was a man superior to the rest of humanity. Perhaps, he had been gifted enough to experience such exquisite reactions and had not realized that the remainder of mankind did not share his good fortune.

But no, that could not be, if it were true—and perish the thought that it could not be—that the Forerunner could see into every man's mind.

Then, Hal himself was lacking, he alone of all the disciples of the Real Sturch.

Or was he alone? He had never discussed his feelings with anyone. To do so was—if not unthinkable—undoable. It was obscene, unrealistic. He had never been told by his teachers not to discuss the matter; they had not had to tell him, for Hal knew without being told.

Yet, the Forerunner had described what his reactions should be.

Or had he done so directly? When Hal considered that section of The Western Talmud which was read only by engaged and married couples, he saw that the Forerunner had not actually depicted a physical state. His language had been poetical (Hal knew what poetical meant, for as a linguist, he had access to various works of literature forbidden to others), metaphorical, even metaphysical. Couched in terms which, analyzed, were seen to have little relation to reality.

Forgive me, Forerunner, thought Hal. I meant that your words were not a scientific description of the actual electrochemical processes of the human nervous system. Of course, they apply directly on a higher level, for reality has many planes of phenomena.

Subrealistic, realistic, pseudorealistic, surrealistic, superrealistic, retrorealistic.

No time for theology, he thought, no wish to make my mind whirl again tonight as on many nights with the unsolvable, unanswerable. The Forerunner knew, but I can't.

All he knew now was that he was not in phase with the world line; had not been, possibly never would be. He teetered on the brink of unreality every waking moment. And that was not good—the Backrunner would get him, he'd fall into the Forerunner's brother's evil hands . . .

Hal Yarrow woke suddenly as the morning clarion rang through the apartment. For a moment, he was confused, the world of his dream meshing with his waking world.

Then, he rolled out of bed and stood up, looking down at Mary. She, as always, slept on through the first call, loud as it was, because it was not for her. In fifteen minutes, the second blast of bugles over the tridi would come, the women's call. By then he must be washed, shaved, dressed, and on his way. Mary would have fifteen minutes to get herself on the road; ten minutes later, the Olaf Marconis would enter from their night's work and prepare to sleep and live in this narrow world until the Yarrows returned.

Hal was even quicker than usual because he still wore his dayclothes. He relieved himself, washed his face and hands, rubbed cream over his face stubble, wiped off the loosened hairs (someday, if he ever rose to the rank of a hierarch, he would wear a beard, like Sigmen), combed his hair, and he was out of the unmentionable.

After stuffing the letters he'd received the previous night into his traveling bag, he started toward the door. Then, impelled by an unexpected and unanalyzable feeling, he turned and went back to the bed and stooped over to kiss Mary. She did not wake up, and he felt regret—for a second—because she had not known what he had done. This act was no duty, no requirement. It had come from the dark depths, where there must also be light. Why had he done it? Last night, he had thought he hated her. Now . . .

She could not help doing what she did any more than he. That, of course, was no excuse. Every self was responsible for its own destiny; if anything good or bad happened to a self, then only one person had caused that happening.

He amended his thought. He and Mary were the generators of their own misery. But not consciously so. Their bright selves did not want their love to be wrecked; it was their dark selves—the deep-down, crouching, horrible Backrunner in them—that was causing this.

Then, as he stood by the doorway, he saw Mary open her eyes and look, somewhat confusedly, at him. And, instead of returning to kiss her again, he hastily stepped into the hallway. He was in a panic, fearing that she might call him back and begin the whole dreary and nerve-racking scene again. Not until later did he realize that he had not had a chance to tell Mary that he would be on his way to Tahiti that very morning. Oh well, he was spared another scene.

By then, the hallway was crowded with men on their way to work. Many, like Hal, were dressed in the loose plaids of the professionals. Others wore the green and scarlet of university teachers.

Hal, of course, spoke to each one.

"Good future to you, Ericssen!"

"Sigmen smile, Yarrow!"

"Did you have a bright dream, Chang?"

"Shib, Yarrow! Straight from truth itself."

"Shalom, Kazimuru."

"Sigmen smile, Yarrow!"

Then Hal stood by the lift doors while a keeper, on duty at this level in the morning because of the crowd, arranged the priority of their descent. Once out of the tower, Hal stepped onto a series of belts with increasingly swift speed until he was on the express, the middle belt. Here he stood, pressed in by the bodies of men and women but at ease because they belonged to his class. Ten minutes of travel, and he began to work his way through the crowd from belt to belt. Five minutes later, he stepped off onto the sidewalk and walked into the cavernous entrance of Pali No. 16, University of Sigmen City.

Inside, he had to wait, though not for long, until the keeper had ushered him into the lift. Then, he went straight up on the express to the thirtieth level. Usually, when he got out of the lift, he went directly to his own office to deliver his first lecture of the day, an undergraduate course which went out over tridi. Today, Hal headed for the dean's office.

On the way, craving a cigarette and knowing that he could not smoke it in Olvegssen's presence, he stopped to light one and to breathe in the delicious ginseng smoke. He was standing outside the door of an elementary class in linguistics and could hear snatches of Keoni Jerahmeel Rasmussen's lecture.

"Puka and pali were originally words of the primitive Polynesian inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands. The English-speaking people who later colonized the islands adopted many terms from the Hawaiian language; puka, meaning hole, tunnel, or cave, and pali, meaning cliff, were among the most popular.

"When the Hawaiian-Americans repopulated North America after the Apocalyptic War, these two terms were still being used in the original sense. But, about fifty years ago, the two words changed their meanings. Puka came to be applied to the small apartments allotted to the lower classes, obviously in a derogatory sense. Later, the term spread to the upper classes. However, if you are a hierarch, you live in an apartment; if you belong to any class below the hierarchy, you live in a puka.

"Pali, which meant cliff, was applied to the skyscrapers or to any huge building. It, unlike puka, also retains its original meaning."

Hal finished his cigarette, dropped it in an ashtray, and walked on down the hall to the dean's office. There he found Doctor Bob Kafziel Olvegssen sitting behind his desk.

Olvegssen, the senior, spoke first, of course. He had a slight Icelandic accent.

"Aloha, Yarrow. And what are you doing here?"

"Shalom, abba. I beg your pardon for appearing before you without an invitation. But I had to arrange several matters before I left."

Olvegssen, a gray-haired middle-aged man of seventy, frowned.

"Left?"

Hal took the letter from his suitcase and handed it to Olvegssen.

"You may process it yourself later, of course. But I can save you valuable time by telling you it's another order to make a linguistic investigation."

"You just got back from one!" said Olvegssen. "How can they expect me to run this college efficiently and to the glory of the Sturch if they continually drag my staff away on wild word chases?"

"You're surely not criticizing the Urielites?" said Hal, not without a touch of malice. He did not like his superior, try though he had to overcome this unrealistic thinking on his part.

"Harumph! Of course not! I am incapable of doing so, and I resent your imputation that I might be!"

"Your pardon, abba," said Hal. "I would not dream of hinting at such a thing."

"When must you leave?" said Olvegssen.

"On the first coach. Which, I believe, takes off in an hour."

"And you will return?"

"Only Sigmen knows. When my investigation and the report are finished."

"Report to me at once when you return."

"I beg your pardon again, but I can't do that. My M.R. will be long overdue by then, and I am compelled to clear that out of the way before I do anything else. That may take hours."

Olvegssen scowled and said, "Yes, your M.R. You didn't do so well on your last, Yarrow. I trust your next shows some improvement. Otherwise . . ."

Suddenly, Hal felt hot all through his body, and his legs quivered.

"Yes, abba?"

His own voice sounded weak and distant.

Olvegssen made a steeple of his hands and looked at Yarrow over the tip.

"Much as I would regret it, I would be forced to take action. I can't have a man with a low M.R. on my staff. I'm afraid that I . . ."

There was a long silence. Hal felt the sweat trickling down from his armpits and the beads forming on his forehead and upper lip. He knew that Olvegssen was purposely hanging him in suspense, and he did not want to ask him anything. He did not want to give the smug gray-haired gimel the satisfaction of hearing him speak. But he did not dare seem to be uninterested. And, if he did not say anything, he knew that Olvegssen would only smile and dismiss him.

"What, abba?" said Hal, striving to keep a choking sound from his voice.

"I'm very much afraid that I could not even allow myself the leniency of merely demoting you to secondary school teaching. I would like to be merciful. But mercy in your case might only be enforcing unreality. And I could not endure the possibility of that. No . . ."

Hal swore at himself because he could not control his trembling.

"Yes, abba?"

"I am very much afraid that I would have to ask the Uzzites to look into your case."

"No!" said Hal loudly.

"Yes," said Olvegssen, still speaking behind the steeple of his hands. "It would pain me to do that, but it would be unshib not to. Only by seeking their help could I dream correctly."

He broke the steeple of his hands, swung around in his chair so his profile was to Hal, and said, "However, there is no reason that I should have to take such steps, is there? After all, you and you alone are responsible for whatever happens to you. Therefore, you've nobody to blame but yourself."

"So the Forerunner has revealed," said Hal. "I will see that you are not pained, abba. I will make certain that my gapt has no reason to give me a low M.R."

"Very good," said Olvegssen as if he did not believe it. "I will not hold you up by examining your letter, for I should have a duplicate in today's mail. Aloha, my son, and good dreaming."

"See real, abba," said Hal, and he turned and left. In a daze of terror, he scarcely knew what he was doing. Automatically, he traveled to the port and there went through the process of obtaining priority for his trip. His mind still refused to function clearly when he got onto the coach.

Half an hour later, he got off at the port of LA and went to the ticket office to confirm his seat on the coach to Tahiti.

As he stood in the ticket line, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He jumped, and then he turned to apologize to the person behind.

He felt his heart hammer as if it would batter through his chest.

The man was a squat broad-shouldered potbellied fellow in a loose, jet black uniform. He wore a tall, conical, shiny black hat with a narrow rim, and on his chest was the silvery figure of the angel Uzza.

The officer leaned forward to examine the Hebrew numbers on the lower rim of the winged foot Hal wore on his chest. Then he looked at a paper in his hand.

"You're Hal Yarrow, shib," said the Uzzite. "Come with me."

Afterward, Hal thought that one of the strangest aspects of the business was his lack of terror. Not that he had not been scared. It was just that the fear was pushed far down into a corner of his mind while the greater part devoted itself to considering the situation and how to get out of it. The vagueness and confusion that had filled him during his interview with Olvegssen and that had lasted long afterward now seemed to dissolve. He was left cold and quick-thinking; the world was clear and hard.

Perhaps, it was because the threat given by Olvegssen was distant and uncertain, whereas being taken into custody by the Uzzites was immediate and certainly dangerous.

He was taken to a small car on a strip by the ticket building. Here he was ordered into the seat. The Uzzite with him also got in, and he set the controls for his destination. The car rose vertically to about five hundred meters and then shot, sirens screaming, toward its destination. Hal, though not in a humorous mood, could not help reflecting that cops had not changed in the last thousand years. Even though no emergency warranted, the guardians of the law must make noise.

Within two minutes, the car had entered a port of a building at the twentieth level. Here the Uzzite, who had spoken not a word to Hal since the initial conversation, gestured to him to get out. Hal had not said anything either because he knew that it would be useless.

The two walked up a ramp and then through many corridors filled with hurrying people. Hal tried to keep the route straight just in case he was able to escape. He knew that flight was ridiculous, that he could not possibly get away. Also, he had no reason as yet to think that he would be in a situation where running was the only way out.

Or so he hoped.

Finally, the Uzzite stopped before an office door which bore no legend. He jerked his thumb at it, and Hal walked in ahead of him. He found himself in an anteroom; a female secretary sat behind a desk.

"Angel Patterson reporting," said the Uzzite. "I have Hal Yarrow, Professional LIN-56327."

The secretary relayed the information through a speaker, and a voice came from the wall telling the two to enter.

The secretary pressed a button, and the door swung open.

Hal, still in the lead, walked in.

He was in a room large by his standards, larger even than his classroom or his whole puka in Sigmen City. At its far end was a huge desk whose top curved like a crescent or a pair of sharp horns. Behind it sat a man, and the sight of the man shattered Hal's calm composure. He had expected a gapt of high rank, a man dressed in black and wearing a conical hat.

But this man was not an Uzzite. He was clad in flowing purple robes with a cowl over his head, and on his chest was a large golden Hebrew L, the lamedh. And he had a beard.

He was among the highest of the high, a Urielite. Hal had seen his kind only a dozen times in his life and only once before in the flesh.

He thought, Great Sigmen, what have I done? I'm doomed, doomed!

The Urielite was a very tall man, almost half a head higher than Hal. His face was long, his cheekbones protruding, his nose large, narrow, and curved, his lips thin, and his eyes pale blue with a slight internal epicanthic fold.

Behind Hal, the Uzzite said in a very low voice, "Halt, Yarrow! Stand at attention! Do everything the Sandalphon Macneff says, without hesitation and with no false moves."

Hal, who would not have thought of disobeying, nodded his head.

Macneff looked at Yarrow for at least a minute, meanwhile stroking his bushy brown beard.

Then, after making Hal sweat and quiver inwardly, Macneff finally spoke. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a thin-necked man.

"Yarrow, how would you like to leave this life?"

 

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