For one thing, he could not count this as a complete success unless he got out alive and uncaptured. A true work of art had to be finished to the last and least detail. He would not be caught. He was no moth to burn himself in the flame for the beauty of the act.
Carmody took from his beltbag a small flat case. After uncapping it, he squeezed it, and its liquid contents squirted out over the body. Satisfied that the corpse was covered with a film of the fluid, he retreated from it. Another case, much smaller than the first, came out of his bag. He threw his cloak up to shield his face, aimed the case, and squeezed. The spray from a tiny nozzle at its end struck the film of liquid. Yess burst into flames. Smoke and the stench of burning flesh rose upward, then spread out.
Carmody smiled. The Kareenans would not be able to make a holy candle from the bone flour of their god. The panpyric would not stop oxidizing until the entire body was ashes.
But there was the half-eaten candle dropped by Yess when the bullets struck him. Carmody stooped and picked it up. At first, he intended to burn it, too. Then he grinned. And he ate the candle. The waxy stuff had a faintly bitter taste, not objectionable. He downed it easily, smiling at the thought that his eating of the candle was a unique event, whereas the assassination was only of historical importance. Previous Yesses had been killed, although not by an Earthman. But never, as far as he knew, had anyone but the god-son of Boonta eaten the god-candle.
While he ate, he looked for exits by the glare of the fire, through the shifting windows afforded by the curls of smoke. He saw, behind the legs of Boonta, a hole in the wall. Somehow, he had missed it before when he had passed his flashlight beam over the wall. It was no higher than his head and very narrow. In fact, on walking to it he found that he would have to turn sideways if he were to get through it.
Now, he paid for past self-indulgence. His belly was too big; it caused him to jam in the hole like a slightly oversize cork in the neck of a wine bottle.
Even as he struggled and cursed, he wondered how others got through this hole. Then it came to him that many men just would not be able to use it. Therefore, this was not the usual door to whatever lay beyond. What kind of a door, then, was it?
A trap!
He tore himself loose and ran a few steps away. When he turned, he saw that the archway, which had seemed to be of stone, like the wall in which it was set, was slowly closing.
So, part of the wall, at least, was composed of pseudosilicon. But the knowledge would do him no good. He did not have whatever key was needed to open a way for him.
Voices rose behind him. Men and women shouted. He whirled to see the door through which he had entered, and which had shut behind him, now gaping wide. A number of Kareenans had already passed through it. Behind them were others. Those in front were pointing with horror at the burning corpse.
John Carmody shouted and dashed toward them through the smoke. Some tried to stop him, but he shot them down. Those in the doorway either jumped through and hurled themselves out of his path or ran back out into the purple haze.
Carmody ran after them. He was coughing, and his eyes were burning and tearful. But he kept on running until he had gone through the outer door and his lungs were rid of the smoke and the stink. Then he slowed down to a fast walk. A quarter of a kilometer away, he stopped. Something was lying on the avenue before him. It resembled a man, but it was stiff and hard, and there was a quality about it and the rigidity of limbs that made him investigate it.
It was the life-sized statue of Ban Dremon, tumbled from its pedestal.
He looked up at the pedestal. Ban Dremon—another one—stood there in what should have been an empty place.
He gripped the edge of the marble base, which was a foot above his head, and with one easy powerful graceful motion pulled himself up and then over. The next moment, gun in hand, he was eye to eye with the statue.
No statue. A man, a native.
He was in the same attitude as the dislodged Ban Dremon, the right arm held out in salute, the left holding a baton, the mouth open as if to give a command.
Carmody touched the skin of the face, so much darker than the normal Kareenan’s, yet not so dark as the bronze of the statue.
It was hard, smooth and cold. If it was not metal, it would pass for it. As near as he could determine in the uncertain light, the eyeballs had lost their light color. He pressed his thumbs in on them and found that they resisted like bronze. But when he stuck his finger from his left hand in the open mouth, he felt the back part of the tongue give a little, as if the flesh beneath the metallic covering were still soft. The mouth, however, was dry as any statue’s.
Now how, he thought, could a man turn his protoplasm, which had only a very minute trace of copper and, as far as he remembered, no tin, into a solid alloy? Even if those elements were present in large enough quantities to form bronze, what of the heat needed?
The only explanation he could think of was that the sun was furnishing the energy and the human body was furnishing the blueprints and, somehow, the machinery necessary. The psyche had free scope during the seven nights of the Chance; it utilized, however unconsciously, forces that must exist at all times around it but of which it had no knowledge.
If that were so, he thought, then man must be, potentially, a god. Or if god was a term too strong, then he must be a titan. A rather stupid titan, however, blind, a Cyclops with a cataract.
Why couldn’t a man have this power at other times than the Night? This vast power to bend the universe to his will? Nothing would be impossible, nothing. A man could move from one planet to the next without a spaceship, could step from the Avenue of the Temple of Boonta on Dante’s Joy some 1,500,000 light-years to Broadway in Manhattan on Earth. Could become anything, do anything, perhaps hurl suns through space as easily as a boy hurled a baseball. Space and time and matter would no longer be walls, would be doorways to step through.
A man could become anything. He could become a tree, like Mrs. Kri’s husband. Or, like this man, a statue of bronze, somehow digging with invisible hands into the deep earth, abstracting minerals, fusing them without the aid of furnace walls and heat, with no knowledge of chemical composition, and depositing them directly in his cells without immediately killing himself.
There was one drawback. Eventually, having gotten what he wanted, he would die. Though able to bring about the miracle of metamorphosis, he could not bring about the miracle of living on.
This half-statue would die, just as Skelder would die when his insane lust swelled that monstrous member which he had grown to complete his lust, swelled it until it became larger than he and he, now its appendage, would find himself immobile, unable to do anything but feed himself and it and wear his heart out trying to pump enough blood to keep himself, and it, the parasite grown larger than the host, alive. He would die, just as Ralloux would die in the heat of an imagined flame of hell. They would all die unless they reversed the leap of mind and flow of flesh that hurtled them into such rich sea- changes.
And what, he thought, what about you, John Carmody? Is Mary what you want? Why should you? And what harm can her resurrection do to you? The others are obviously suffering, doomed, but you can see no doom to you in yourself giving birth to Mary again, no suffering. Why are you an exception?
I am John Carmody, he whispered. Always have been, am, will be an exception.
From behind and below him came a loud roar like a lion’s. Men shouted. Another roar. A snarling. A man screamed as if in a death agony. Another roar. Then a strange sound as if a great bag had burst. Vaguely, Carmody felt that his ankles were wet.