Keep your mouth shut, then, ox, he told himself bitterly. Let the smart men decide how to run the world. Just as you always have.
But, even with all of that running in his head, he couldn’t help but feel a chill slice through him when Boone stepped up to the Throne. His mouth had gone dry with fear, and, when Boone reached forth a hand and actually touched the Throne, lightly, caressingly, Hanson felt the small hairs along his spine and on the back of his neck stir and stand up, one by one by one.
“I still don’t think you should do this,” Hanson said, in spite of himself, unable to keep the terror out of his voice.
“Don’t worry,” Boone said distractedly. “It’s perfectly safe—for me.” For a long still moment, he made no sound, and then he shook himself, gathering all his will and purpose. “Well,” said Boone. “Here it is, then, the moment when History turns, when Mankind’s destiny awakes from its long slumber!” He hovered over the Throne a moment, unable to work up the nerve to sit down and unwilling to retreat. “Now!”
He sat.
Grinning nervously, Boone gripped the armrests of the Throne. He took a deep breath. “This is a historic moment,” he told Hanson. “Impress it on your memory. Forget nothing!”
Then he nodded to Cicero. “I am ready.”
“As you will.”
Five long needles of light converged upon Boone, piercing his skull.
“Ah!” he cried.
He stiffened, rising up slightly, and was silent.
For a long time, the little man sat wordlessly, staring straight ahead of himself, so far as Hanson could determine, into nothing. “Boone…” He reached out a tentative hand, and then, as Boone’s wild eyes flicked in his direction, withdrew it. “Are you all right?”
Boone said nothing.
To Cicero, Hanson repeated, “Is he all right?”
“That is a difficult question to answer simply.”
Abruptly Boone raised a hand. “Watch this!” The shifting blackness surrounding them transformed itself, so that they were staring across great reaches of the City of God. He pointed past a range of fang-thin pyramids (or maybe they were patterned neon stalagmites, high as skyscrapers—there was no way for Hanson to tell) to a park-like region where a flock of flamingos clustered like great masses of scarlet flowers at the edge of a shallow lake. Then he made his hand into a fist.
At Boone’s gesture, the lake exploded upward. Water shot skyward, and, geysering, froze into a hollow latticework tube of ice that twisted and glittered wildly in the sun. Through the mist thrown out by the fantastic exchange of temperatures, Hanson saw the charred bodies of the flamingos falling like cinders.
“Do you know how much energy it took to do that? Fabulous amounts! More energy than was deployed by one of the nuclear weapons of antiquity. Oh, I wish you had the math to understand! It would stagger you to work out the figures!”
Staring at the blue-ice spire, all twisty and interwoven angles through a fog so dazzlingly bright he winced to look upon it, Hanson felt his mouth go dry. He swallowed hard and said, “What—what’s it for?”
“For?” Boone laughed like a child. “For no reason at all! For the joy of the thing! Because I felt like it. I made it, and I can unmake it, if I wish, just like—that!”
He snapped his fingers.
The construction shattered. And even as the great shards were falling, Boone gestured again, the darkness re-forming around them, so that they were snug in the tiny room again.
“Now,” Boone said, suddenly businesslike. “We must make plans. First, the Wall will have to come down. No question about that. But those who wish to benefit from my accomplishment must be brought to heel. I know them, you see. Oh, yes, I know their type! They will brush us aside with a pat on the head and a warning not to meddle, if they can; force is their all. They must be taught respect.” He closed his eyes, thinking. “An object lesson, perhaps?” Then, offhandedly, “You can have my old rooms if you wish, Hanson. I think they’d suit you.”
“You’re… you’re planning to live here?” Hanson said in horrified disbelief, staring about at the formless, crawling void that surrounded them.
Boone’s eyes snapped open. “What? Of course I am! This room is the nexus, the focal point—anything I want can be brought to me here. Food. Books.” With an oddly defiant toss of his head, he added, “Women.”
Hanson twisted his mouth sourly. He understood well enough what was going on here, for he’d seen it happen before. Dumb as he might be, he wasn’t so stupid he couldn’t smell shit when somebody pushed his nose into it. Boone was turning himself into a boss. Seemed you couldn’t get rid of them. Kill all the bosses, and the quiet guy who’d worked alongside you all his life and never once did anybody dirt would step forward to fill the vacancy and become a boss himself, and next thing you knew you were eating dust at his feet, right back where you’d always been. Nothing ever changed; it seemed like nothing ever really could change. He clenched and unclenched his fists in helpless and baffled anger.
“First, though—the Wall.” Boone lifted his arms grandly.
The blackness before him bulged.
“What—?” Boone began.
A fierce and armless man strode up to the Throne, as stern and beautiful as an angel. His robes were afire, burning continuously without being destroyed. The smell of roasting flesh was nauseating. He frowned down upon Boone with blinded eyes whose sockets were encrusted with dried blood.
“My proud brother,” the phantom said. “You have returned.”
Boone’s eyes widened in astonishment for the briefest of instants, then narrowed again, shrewdly. “I’m not your brother.”
“You are a Renunciate. It is the same thing.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you are human,” Cicero said mildly, “of the race which built the City, but one of those who, given the opportunity to enter it, turned away.”
Carefully, Boone said, “I am a Utopian—a citizen. You cannot question my authority.” He slapped his chest. “I hold the key within me.”
“You are no citizen!” The phantom pointed sternly at Hanson. “He is a citizen. He holds the key to the City within him. You are allowed in the City only as his property. But even as his property, you have gone too far!”
It was the briefest of looks Boone threw Hanson, but one that spoke eloquently of hurt and betrayal, a look that pierced Hanson to the core of his being, that made him want to throw up his hands and protest his innocence. I didn’t mean to do it, he wanted to cry. The key left you for me when you died. It wasn’t my idea! If I’d known it was important—
But Boone, ever pragmatic, had already turned back to argue with his opponent. “Damnit, you can’t condemn me for something I never did. I’m not one of your ancient enemies. Those who refused to enter the City with you are dead long ages ago. I didn’t make that decision. I would have chosen differently.”
“No matter! You are a Renunciate. The sin is in the seed. Time cannot expunge it. Your kind shirked the peril, the challenge, the transforming glory and horror, and for what purpose? In order to cling to your humanity! Your betrayal is not forgotten and can never be forgiven. It is too late for regrets.”