The lid, noisily, was dragged aside. Light spilled in.and he looked up, saw into a face which peered down at him.
A wizened, dark, little old face. The Anarch's.
"I heard you calling," the Anarch said. "So I dropped what I had been doing and came to give aid. What can I do for you? Do you want to know the year? It is 4 B.C."
"Why?" Sebastian asked. "What does that signify?" He felt that it portended something vast; he felt awe.
The Anarch said, "You are the savior of mankind. Through you it will be redeemed. You are the most important person ever born."
"What do I have to do," Sebastian said, "to redeem mankind?"
"You must die again," the Anarch answered, but now the dream became wraith-like and hazy and he began to wake up; he sensed himself here in bed in his conapt, beside Lotta; he sensed that he had dreamed and so the dream ebbed away from him--leaving a peculiar residue.
Some message, he thought as he turned over, sat up, pushed the covers away from him and rose unsteadily to his feet to stand by the bed, deep in thought. Trying to remember as much of the dream as possible.
I must what? he asked himself. What did the Anarch want to say to me? Die? The dream told him nothing, only that he felt trapped and impotent, that he felt guilt, boundlessly so, for leaving the Anarch in the Library; all things he consciously knew. Big deal, he thought gloomily.
He stumbled into the kitchen--and found three men, wearing black silk clothes, seated at the table. Three Offspring of Might. The three men looked tired and fretful. Before them, on the table, lay a heap of creased handwritten notes.
"This is the man," one of them said, indicating Sebastian, "who left the Anarch in the Library. When he could have gotten him out."
The three Offspring of Might regarded Sebastian with mixed emotions visible on their weary faces.
To Sebastian the spokesman of the Offspring explained, "We're going to make our move against the Library tonight. Nothing subtle; we're going to drag a cannon up and lire nuclear shells at it until it falls apart. We may not get the Anarch but at least we'll have taken care of _them_." His tone indicated contempt and irate hostility.
"You don't think you could get in and get out?" Sebastian asked. It appalled him, the clumsy quality of their plans. The nihilism. Not saving the Anarch but destroying the Library; they had missed the entire point.
"There's a miniscule chance," the spokesman of the Offspring conceded. "That's why we stopped off to talk to you; we want to know exactly where you found the Anarch and how they're guarding him... how many men and with what weapons. Of course, it all will be changed by the time we arrive-it's probably all changed now--but there may be something we can make use of." He eyed Sebastian, waiting.
Lotta, sleepy-eyed, appeared in the kitchen doorway behind him. "Are they here to kill us?" she asked, slipping her arm through his.
"Apparently not," Sebastian told her; he patted her arm, trying to soothe her. "All I remember is armed Library guards," he said to the Offspring. "I don't remember which office I found him in, except that it was on the next to top floor. It seemed to be an ordinary office, like all the others; they probably selected it at random."
"Have you dreamed about the Anarch since?" the spokesman of the Offspring asked, surprisingly. "We're told that in his previous life the Anarch occasionally communicated with his followers through their dreams."
"Yes," Sebastian said guardedly. "I did dream about him; he told me something, about myself. That I had to do something. The year, he said, was 4 B.C. and I would be the savior of mankind. By doing this thing."
"Not very helpful," the spokesman of the Offspring commented.
"But in a sense true," another of the Offspring spoke up. "If he _had_ brought the Anarch out he _would_ have been the savior of mankind. That's what the Anarch wanted him to do; we don't need to hear the dream to know that." He jotted notes, scowling.
"You missed your chance, Mr. Hermes," the first Offspring said. "The biggest chance of your life."
"I know," Sebastian said woodenly.
"Maybe we should kill him," the third Offspring said. "Kill both of them. Now, instead of after the thrust on the Library."
Sebastian felt his pulse cease; he felt his body shrink into death. As it had been in the Tiny Place. But he said nothing; he merely hugged Lotta against him.
"Not as long as he may be helpful," their spokesman said flatly. Again he surveyed Sebastian. "Did you come across any weapons more formidable than laser beams and automatic rifles?" he inquired.
"No." Sebastian stiffly shook his head.
"There seemed to be no force-field, nothing modern, protecting the highly sensitive top levels of the structure."
"All hand weapons," Sebastian said.
"By what system are the Library guards alerted? Radio?"
"Yes." Again he nodded.
"They didn't try to stop you with nerve gas?"
Sebastian said, "I was the only one who used gas. Supplied to me by His Mightiness and the Rome party."
"Yes, we know what you were supplied with." The spokesman of the Offspring toyed with his pencil, licking the corner of his mouth and concentrating. "They had gas masks?"
"Some of them."
"Then they have gas--one kind or another--available. In case of an out-and-out invasion. And when our first shell hits the building we may see something larger than hand weapons emerge from within there." He once more contemplated Sebastian. "I don't believe it. I mean, I believe you--but I know they're better defended. They really didn't try to stop you; if it had been a team instead of one man, you'd have gotten the Anarch out." He turned to consult his two companions. "The Library is still an enigma," he told them. "Twice, within fortyeight hours, a man has gone in there and hauled Lotta Hermes out. Yet, there sits the Anarch, as if available; as if a fastmoving _putsch_ could be carried off. In my opinion the Anarch is already dead and what Hermes saw consists of nothing more than a simulacrum-robot, prepared in advance."
One of his companions said, "But Hermes' dream. It implies that His Mightiness is still alive. Somewhere. Maybe not in the Library, though."
Lotta detached herself from Sebastian and seated herself at the kitchen table across from the three Offspring of Might. "Haven't the Uditi ever been able to--" She gestured, not knowing the word. "Gotten one of you in--you know. On the staff. A spy."
"They use quasi-telepathic probes in screening applicants," the spokesman said. "We tried several times. They gunned the individual down each time; we got back a corpse."
"You couldn't say you were the inventor of a book," Sebastian said.
"_That_ you used up," the spokesman said cuttingly. "A gambit we prepared months ago. Because of the interference of the Rome party, you got hold of that. That didn't please us... the Offspring. Hermes, it may have perplexed Ray Roberts that you failed, but it doesn't perplex us. We have an enormous regard for the resources, the ingenuity of the Library; we will, on orders from Roberts, kill you to avenge the Anarch... but in our own separate opinion, you didn't have the foggiest ghost of a chance."
Sebastian said huskily, "But I didn't even try."
"That makes no nevermind. Not if what you saw consisted of a simrobot. Or they had more sophisticated weapons, ready to be lugged out as soon as you showed success. How readily did they agree to the détente? You getting out alive with your wife but without the Anarch?"
"They made the offer," Sebastian said.
"It's a trap," the spokesman of the Offspring said. "To lure us into a kamikaze raid; _all_ the Offspring: our entire corps. The Anarch probably has been taken miles from here, to one of the branch Libraries up the Coast toward Oregon. Any one of the more than eighty branches in the W.U.S." He brooded. "Or he could be in one of the private residences of an Erad. Or in a hotel. Do you know anyone high up in the Library hierarchy, Hermes? An Erad? A librarian? I mean personally."