He had steadfastly refused to let Layella join the League herself, though from their conversation she knew a good deal of his business with them – he was unable to refrain from sharing that side of him with his mate. But he had become more and more aware that he himself comprised the greatest threat to her existence. If he was pulled in, she would have no chance of escape.
“I don’t want more people to go down on account of me,” he said bluntly.
“More people? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see why Blare killed himself?” he said, looking up at her and trying to keep the note of agony out of his voice.
“You would all have to,” she soothed. “It’s necessary.”
“No, no, you don’t understand.” He clenched his fists. “Blare is – was – not the suicidal type. He would have hung on for as long as he could. He’s an optimist. He wouldn’t have killed himself right away – and yet that’s what he did. Almost as soon as they picked him up, before he could really have known how much they knew. He did it for me. So that he wouldn’t be able to betray me. If it comes to that, I was the only person he could have betrayed. He had no direct connection with anybody else.”
Both were silent for long moments. “You see why we must split up,” he said heavily. “We’ve taken risks for far too long. I don’t want to be the cause of your death, too.”
“You’re Blare’s brother,” she pointed out. “If they were suspicious they would have been here by now.”
“How do we know they’re not watching?” he rejoindered. “Still, we’re a large family, and scattered. They may not suppose a connection. But that’s not the point. They’re still liable to get me some day. That’s why you must go.”
“No,” she said with firmness, taking his arm. “You’re my… husband, or whatever. I’m staying with you, to take whatever comes.”
He stood up abruptly and paced the room, looking out of the wide window at the lights of the city, coming on in clusters and masses in the gathering dusk. “What a mess,” he said, feeling his fatigue. “Those goddamned Titans – causing all this tyranny. There’s nowhere you can go in the whole world and live like a free man.”
“It’s not really their fault,” Layella said mildly, her expression open. “True Man, as they call it, probably didn’t start all this. It was probably the Lorenes.”
“No, it wasn’t the Lorenes,” said Sobrie agitatedly. “It was even before that. It was the aliens – their invasion started all this insanity. But for them, the races of mankind would probably be living in peace together. Before the aliens came, they probably did live in peace together.”
She came over to him and stood behind him, her arms around his waist. At his back he could feel her voluptuous breasts, her head on his shoulder. From where he was standing he could see through the door into his small studio, littered with canvasses and plastic composites. Many of the paintings were of Layella. He thought bitterly of the studies of her he did not dare to paint, for fear that someone might see them: paintings of Layella without disguising cosmetic, in the nude, betraying the proportions between torso and hips. He thought of the children they did not dare to have, for fear of what might become of them.
Everything seemed hopeless. Nothing would be achieved in his lifetime; all the gains made by the Panhumanic League, important though they seemed within the League itself, were objectively trivial. Sobrie remembered what the Chairman had reiterated so many times: that they were working toward a goal that could not be achieved for several centuries; that their sights must be set that far ahead.
“Listen,” Layella said. “I couldn’t stand it if we parted. It would be too much of a blow for me. Leave the League if you like, if you can’t stand it any more. We’ll go away somewhere where we won’t be traced to our life here. Not that I’m asking you to. But don’t send me away.”
“All right,” said Sobrie. “Stay if you insist. If you can accept what it might mean. But I won’t leave the League. The League comes before everything.”
The meeting that took place far away, in a great castle some miles outside the city of Pradna, was far removed in style from the furtive sessions of the Panhumanic League.
The Titanium Legions were well-advanced in pomp; each high-backed chair bore a nameplate of titanium edged with gold, engraved with the name of its occupant. The table around which the chairs were set was of mahogany with inlaid platinum, while the walls were hung with tapestries depicting inspirational themes: representations of the Earth Mother with her strong, upright son; scenes of past glory – crucial moments in historic battles.
The Legionary Council of Generals convened once a year as a matter of course, or whenever Planetary Leader Limnich dictated. As he entered, all the Council members were at their places with eyes closed, deep in one of the spiritual exercises they all practised, especially during their sojourns at the castle. Planetary Leader Limnich insisted on these practices among his generals; he knew them to be proven strengtheners of the will. They had been handed down from ancient times – but only to a privileged few – by True Men deeply experienced in spirituality.
“Attention.”
Limnich spoke the word quietly but incisively as the big oak doors closed with a barely audible thump behind him. He was a man of below average height for a Titan, pale-faced, with a receding though blue-jowled chin, bulbous cheeks, and fish-cold eyes behind the large round lenses he preferred to more fashionable contact lenses.
The generals opened their eyes with a snap, summoned from their meditation, and stood to attention while Planetary Leader Limnich seated himself at the head of the table. Then, stiffly, they seated themselves again.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” greeted Limnich in a distant, but conversational tone. “You must be wondering why I’ve convened the Council at this particular time, when our annual retreat together is so near. As you may guess, there’s news of import. But first, I’ll hear your reports.”
One by one the generals gave a brief résumé. The accounts were no more than recapitulations – each man commanded a vast area of activity and his real reports were massive documents handled by computers. But Limnich was never one to skimp on ritual. He bent his head to give closest attention to the remarks dealing with the pursuit of the Panhumanic League and the hunting down of racially impure persons, numbers of which still existed in normal society, even years after the last of the deviant wars.
“The work is long and arduous, but its conclusion is inescapable, gentlemen,” he commented. “It must be prosecuted with unremitting vigour. Earth’s destiny is dependent on a one hundred per cent purity of racial stock… but now to the main burden of my information tonight.…”
In the dimly lit chamber, whose illumination was supplied by shaded cressets, his voice fell to a dramatic murmur, the tone of voice he used on his extremely rare vidcasts – Planetary Leader Limnich was the most powerful man on Earth, but he was the power behind the throne, not the man on the throne itself. Ostensibly his title referred only to his command of the Titanium Legions. There was a World Racial President, a civilian, whom the Legions were sworn to protect. But in actuality Limnich handled nearly all practical affairs, and made nearly all important decisions, though frequently after conferring with the President.
“You all know of the work being undertaken at the Sarn Establishment, and of the discoveries that have been made there,” he said, placing both hands on the table and directing his gaze at the shining mahogany. “You were all informed, by secret memo, of the mysterious disappearance of our first functional time travelling machine, together with Chief Physicist Leard Ascar and archaeologist Rond Heshke.