Solin sat with his hand on the port control, completely frozen by an astonishment so vast that he could not move. Arla had asked to perform the actual execution. Solin had been glad to comply as he had no heart for it. He opened the port for her and when she had the hand weapon readied, he lighted the target area for her. Andro and Calna were in perfect range, a hundred yards away and fifty feet below them. In the instant of touching the lights he had seen the third figure in the act of hurling what seemed to be a knife at the pair leading him.
The unknown man had hurled the knife. There had been a keening whistle indicative of high velocity and a full-throated chunk. Arla had fallen dead with the knife blade in her brain, the guard of the haft flat against her forehead.
No person could throw a knife that way. Yet they had. He had seen it. The thrower lay crumpled on the ground with both Andro and Calna staring at him.
Solin dropped the ship to the ground beside the hidden tunnel entrance. He stepped over Arla’s body and out into the now restricted area of green-white light.
Transition rested in Era 3 beside the endless thunder of the space port.
The Socionetics Board had launched a full scale investigation of the circumstances surrounding the loss of Era 4, and the loss of the thirty-odd Field Teams who had been trapped there when the index of probability dropped below the point where Agent ship power could accomplish the return.
The Board was exercising its prerogative of interviewing the staff members, one at a time. The Board met in the huge central chamber with the luminescent mural depicting the eventual merger of twenty-six co-existent worlds. Though now, of course, there were only twenty-four and thus the mural was, in that sense, a rather wry joke.
After three weeks of review and deliberation, the Director was called in to hear the decision of the Board.
The decision was very simple and very direct. It was given to him in the form of an order. Improper controls and criminal laxness have lost us two complete spheres of eventual cultural expansion. There will no longer be a continuing effort to accelerate the extrapolated cultural pattern of all backward eras simultaneously. All Field Teams will be concentrated on one era. All existing equipment will be immediately altered to make only that era, plus the basic three, available to Agent ships. Era 20 is closest to unity status. All effort is to be concentrated there. If, by any chance, Era 20 should be lost to us, all Field Team activities will be cancelled. No further acceleration of cultures will be attempted. All equipment except one master ship will be altered so as to permit only slip between basic eras. Periodic surveys with the master ship will be made. When each peripheral culture has attained proper probability status, then unity will be undertaken, but it will achieve that status in its own way and in its own time.
“And if unity is achieved with Era 20 without trouble?” the Director asked in a low voice.
“Then all effort will be concentrated on the next era closest to a possible unity status.”
The Director was permitted to leave. He gave the orders he was required to give. He gave an additional one of his own. He called all remaining Field Teams in for complete indoctrination on Era 20, for retraining, for re-analysis.
Thirty-three Field Teams trapped in Era 4. Count Andro and Calna, and subtract Arla. Sixty-seven persons. So few. So very few.
The golden pyramidal ships sat in a closed circle in such a way that the shields combined to form a cone of silence. The cone rose black and tall near the palaces of Rael.
In the streets they said, in hushed tones, “The Great Ones speak again together.”
Andro had matured in the past months. Authority was stamped on his face, and dignity was imprinted on each movement.
“It is time to speak,” he said after a long silence. “I do not pretend to know how you are trapped here. It has been explained to me. I have been told that my activities caused this era to diverge from some pattern or other. You say that this era has become less probable, in relation to your basic eras. Be that as it may. The damage was done. You were trapped. Through the urging of Solin and Calna, you consented to help me impose my will on what is left of Empire. That has been done. There is no more resistance. We are the object of superstitious awe on every inhabited planet of Empire. Now you must feel that your task is ended. I say to you that it is not ended. With your consent, I wish to make you my agents, give each of you an area to govern until such time as self-government is possible. You have been told the things in which I believe. You do not need specific orders. It is not easy to be considered a god, as I now am. If you do your assigned tasks properly, there will come a time when I am no longer considered to be a god. That time will come long after all of us have died. I am urging this course because it seems to me that in this way this era can be gently guided back toward a point where eventually your own people will once again be able to make contact.”
The trapped Agents showed no great enthusiasm.
Calna took Andro’s place and spoke. “I urge you to accept. Through the incident of Arla’s death, we have a piece of knowledge that they do not have back at Transition. We know now that while we were attempting to build backward eras up to the point where unity could be achieved, a stronger force was seeking to make all frames divergent. We do not know what that stronger force is. In my own case, I know I was guided when I set this entire pattern in motion. I suspected it then. I know it now. One thing is puzzling. Why was Deralan made the agent of saving Andro and myself from certain death? Divergence had already been achieved. Why was it done in such a way that we would learn of this outside force which interferes with the achievement of unity for our co-existent eras? There is one possible answer. We were saved so that we could be the focal point of this successful effort of the past few months. We were advised of outside interference so that we should be able to content ourselves with these new limitations.”
Solin spoke. “Content ourselves? How is that meant?”
“Through knowledge that we are part of a master plan guided by some race, some civilization whose abilities make ours look like the efforts of children,” Calna replied
“What sort of master plan is it which keeps the basic eras from achieving unity with all sister probability frames? That seems like progress in the wrong direction,” another Agent said with a note of anger.
“I say,” said Solin, “that now that we have given Andro the assistance he asked, we should concentrate on using what skills and talents we have to devise a power source ample enough to enable us to slip back to our own era.”
There was a mutter of agreement. Andro turned to Calna and shrugged.
He said to all of them, “I see that Solin’s suggestion is your wish. So be it.” He looked at Calna. “You will work with them?”
“I made my choice quite a long time ago,” she said. Together they went back to the palaces where new laws were being written for a galactic race.
Deralan knew at last that the madness was leaving him. It began to leave when he was willing to admit to himself that he had been mad. Something had swept across his brain, twisting it, convulsing it. At last he recognized his environment, knew with a sense of shock that he was in a cell deep under the main palace, a cell that he had filled and emptied many times in what now seemed like a previous incarnation.