Voices in the immediate vicinity of the shack put Jared on guard and he had time to feign an attitude of sleep before he heard the door open. Listening to two of his captors enter, he remained rigid as they came over and stood by the bed. And as they spoke he could hear their words filtering through the cloth face masks:
“This the new one?”
“The last brought out. Incidentally, as best we can determine, he’s the one who slugged Hawkins over that infraredsensitive girl.”
“Oh, that one. Fenton — Jared Fenton. His old man’s been waiting for this day.”
“Want me to go tell Evan we got him?”
“Can’t. He’s been moved to advanced reconditioning.”
Jared hoped the pair hadn’t detected his start at the mention of his father. Convincing them he was asleep was his only hope of forestalling torture.
“Well, Thorndyke,” said the closer of the two, “let’s get on with it.”
Jared couldn’t help starting again on learning Thomdyke Himself was there.
“Has he had his primary shots yet?” the latter asked.
“All of them.”
“Then I guess we can shuck these without touching off another cold epidemic.”
Jared heard them remove the cloths from their faces. Then a hand came down unexpectedly on his shoulder.
“All right, Fenton,” Thorndyke said. “I’m going to hit you between the eyes with a lot of stuff you won’t even usderstand — at first. But it’ll seep through gradually.”
When Jared didn’t answer, the other captor asked, “You suppose he’s still out?”
“Of course not. All those who don’t bounce up screaming put on the sleep act. Come on, Fenton. As I get it, you’ve had more experience with light than any of them. You ought to take this in stride.”
Perhaps it was the calculated smoothness of the voice. Or, it may have been that, without realizing it, Jared had grown tired of holding his eyes shut. At any rate, in the next beat light was pouring into his conscious and carrying a succession of inseparable impressions with it.
“That’s better,” Thorndyke sighed. “Now we’re moving.”
But Jared’s lids ificked shut, blocking out the disturbing sensations. And he compared the Light composite he had stored in that brief instant with the audible impulses he was still receiving.
Thorndyke was a big man (briefly, he questioned his description of the monster as human) with a blunt face whose bone structure suggested strength and determination. Those traits, however, were a puzzling contrast to the femininity implied by his hairless chin.
Loose folds of cloth that fluttered with each minor movement confused the over-all composite. But Jared conceded that, for beings who lived in the vastness and relative warmth of infinity, tight-fitting cloths would be both uncomfortable and inconvenient.
“Throw back those drapes, Caseman,” Thorndyke said, “and let’s get some light in here.”
“You sure he’s ready for it?” the other asked, going over to the window.
“I think so. He’s holding up almost as well as a Zivver. Probably had more brushes with light than we know about.”
A surge of apprehension shuddered through Jared as he listened to the curtain being drawn aside and sensed the assault of fierce light against his closed lids.
Thorndyke’s hand came back to rest on his shoulder. “Easy now, Fenton. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”
But, of course, it was only deceit. They were going to soften him, give him a false sense of confidence. Then, when they smothered his hope with torture, their amusement would be complete.
He opened his eyes. But he could hardly brave the fury of light pouring into the shack now. When he relowered his lids, however, it wasn’t as much because he feared the light as it was because he had seen two Thorndykes standing side by side! It made him tremble.
Thorndyke laughed. “Lack of optical co-ordination makes thmgs confusing, doesn’t it? But you’ll learn the finer points of focusing sooner or later.”
He drew up a framework bench and sat beside the bed. “Let’s set a few things straight for the record. Some of it will go over your head. The rest will rub against logic. Take whatever you can on faith. You’ll get it all eventually. First — this is not Radiation. We’re not demons. You’re not dead and lost on the way to Paradise. In the sky outside is the sun. It’s quite an impressive thing, but it’s not Hydrogen Himself.”
“It’s not Light Almighty either,” Caseman added.
“No, Fenton,” Thorndyke affirmed. “Contrary to what you believe now, you may later start thinking of this outside world as Paradise.”
“Actually,” said Caseman, “you’ll learn to conceive of Paradise in another way — yet unattainable in a material sense, still beyond infinity, but beyond a new kind of infinity. Which leads up to the fact that you’re going to have to trade in a bunch of old beliefs for new ones.”
There was a moment of silence that played heavily against Jared’s patience. Then Thorndyke asked, “You still with us? Want to say anything?”
“I want to go back to my Level,” Jared managed without opening his eyes.
“There!” Caseman laughed. “He does talk!”
“I thought you’d want to go back,” Thorndyke said wearily. “Can’t be done. However, how about this: Would you like to, ah, hear — what’s the girl’s name?”
“Della,” Caseman supplied.
Jared strained against his bonds. “What are you doing with her? Can I — see her?”
“Say! This one even knows what he’s doing with his eyes! Caseman, what about the girl? How’s she making out?”
“Taking things in stride like the other Zivvers, since sight isn’t completely alien to them. Of course, she doesn’t understand what it’s all about. But she’s willing to accept things as they are for the moment.”
Thorndyke slapped his thigh. “All right, Fenton. You’ll see the girl tomorrow — next period.”
There it was — the beginning of the torture. Offer him something, then tantalize him by holding it just out of his reach.
“So much for the preliminaries,” Thorndyke said finally. “Now, here’s a whole bunch of facts you can file away against the time when they’ll all start making sense:
“Your two levels and the Zivver group are descendants of U. S. Survival Complex Number Eleven. Consider a whole world — not the kind you know, but one many, many times greater with billions-you know what a billion is? — bilions of people crammed in it. They’re divided into two camps, ready to hurl themselves at one another with weapons deadly beyond imagination. Even to use them would mean to, ah — poison all the air for many generations.”
Thorndyke paused and Jared got the impression it was a story he had told hundreds of times.
“This war does start,” he resumed, “but, fortunately, not until preparations are made for the survival of a few groups — seventeen, to be exact. Sanctuaries are established beneath the ground and are sealed off against the poisoned atmosphere.”
“Actually,” Caseman put in, “even making it possible for a handful to survive was a remarkable achievement. It wouldn’t have been possible without adaptation of nuclear power and development of a type of plant life that functioned through thermosynthesis instead of photo—”
The flow of words came to a halt, as though Caseman had sensed his listener’s inability to cope with them.
“Manna plants to you,” Thorndyke explained curtly. “At any rate, the survival complexes were prepared; the war started, and the selected few fled from their — Paradise, so to speak. For the most part, things went along as planned. All equipment worked properly; knowledge and familiar institutions were preserved, and life went on with everybody knowing where they were and why they were there. Generations later, after the outside air had purged itself, the descendants of the original survivors determined it was safe to return outside.”