He looked around in surprise and saw that the moon had gone down and the sun had risen. What had he been doing all night? Standing here on this pedestal dreaming away the purple hours?
He blinked and shook his head. He had allowed himself to be caught up in the bronze thoughts of this statue, had felt as it did, had slowed time and let it lap around him gently and dreamily, just as he had experienced the hard scarlet lust of Skelder, Mary’s meltingness and liquid movements toward the satyr-priest, the impact of bullets tearing into her, her terror of death, of dissolvingness, and Ralloux’s agony of flesh in his sheet of flame and agony of soul over man’s damnation—just as he had felt all these, so now he had fallen prey to this creature’s mineral philosophy; and might perhaps have ended as it had, if something had not jarred him out of the fatal contemplation. Even now, coming out of his—coma? -- he felt the temptation of the silent peace, of letting time and space flow by, sweetly and softly.
But in the next second he came fully awake. He had tried to move away and found that he was anchored more than mentally. The finger he’d put into the statue’s mouth was clamped tight between its teeth. No matter how violently he pulled away, he could not get it loose. There was no pain at all, only a numbness. This, he supposed, was because the circulation was cut off. Still, there should be some pain. If this sharing of thoughts had gone so far that his own flesh had changed...
The man-statue must not have been completely transformed; there must have been feeling left in the soft back part of the tongue. Reacting automatically—or maybe maliciously—it had slowly closed its jaws during the night, and when the sun saw the process of casting flesh into bronze complete, its jaws were almost shut. Now they would never open, for the soul within it was gone. Or, at least, Carmody could detect no thoughts or feeling emanating from it.
He looked around him, anxious not only because he did not know yet how to get free of this trap but because of his exposed position. What made things worse was that he’d dropped the gun. It lay at his feet, but, though he bent his knees and reached down for it with his left hand, his fingertips were several inches away.
Straightening up, he allowed himself the luxury of a firecracker-string of curses. It was ridiculous, this verbal explosion, of no practical use whatever. But he certainly felt a little less tense.
He looked up and down the street. Nobody in sight.
He looked down, remembering then that he had had the impression his legs had been wetted during the night. Dried blood caked his sandals and stained the green and white stripes of his fashionably painted legs.
He muttered, “Oh, no, not again,” thinking of the shower of blood in Mrs. Kri’s kitchen. But a further examination showed him that Mary was not responsible. The stuff had spurted from wounds made in the body of a monster, which lay face up at the base of the pedestal, its dead eyes staring at the purplish sky. It was twice as tall as the average
Kareenan and was covered with a bluish feathery hair. Apparently its body hairs, once no thicker than those of an Earthman, had sprouted into a dense mat. Its legs and feet had broadened, like an elephant’s, to support its weight. From the hips, grew a long thick tapering tail that would in time have resembled that of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The hands had degenerated into talons, and the face had assumed a bestial angle, slanting out, the jawbones thickening, powered with great muscles, equipped with sharp teeth. These were fastened down on an arm that it had torn from some unlucky man, probably one of those who had killed it during the fight that must have taken place. But of the others there was no sign except great stains on the street and sidewalk.
Then six men walked around the corner and halted staring at him.
Though they seem unarmed, there was something in the concentration of their expressions that alarmed him. Violently he jerked upon his finger, again and again until, panting, sweating, he could only look into the rigid grin and fixed eyes of the statue and swear at it. Once, he thought, this thing was human and therefore could have been dealt with, being of weak flesh and blood. But now, dead and of unyielding, uncaring metal, it was past argument, past cunning words.
He ground his teeth in silent agony, and he thought, If they won’t help me, and there’s no reason why they should, then I must sacrifice my finger. That’s logical; that is if I want to get free again. It is possible to get my knife from my pocket and...
One of the men said, mockingly, and as if he had been reading Carmody’s thoughts, “Go ahead, Earthman, cut it off! That is, if you can possibly endure to mutilate your precious flesh!”
For the first time, Carmody recognized the man as Tand.
He had no chance to reply, for the others began to jeer, making fun of his having been caught in such a ridiculous way, asking him if he always made a public spectacle of himself like this. They hooted and laughed and slapped their thighs and each other’s backs in typically uninhibited Kareenan fashion.
“This is the pipsqueak who thought he would kill a god!” howled Tand. “Behold the great deicide, caught like any baby with his finger in the jam jar!”
Keep cool, Carmody, they can’t touch you.
That was a fine thing to say, and it meant exactly nothing. He was tired, tired, his proud bristling-forward bearing gone with the strength that seemed to have drained from his body. If his finger did not hurt because it was of frozen metal, his feet certainly made up for it. They felt as if he’d been standing on them for days.
Suddenly, he felt panic. How long had he been upon this pedestal? How much time had flowed by? How much time did he have left before the Night of Light was over?
“Tand,” said one of the men, “do you honestly think that this would-be statue might have the Power?”
“Look at what he has done so far,” replied Tand. He spoke to Carmody. “You have slain the old Yess, friend. He knew that it was to happen, and he told me so before the Night began.
“Now, we six are looking for one more to make the Seven Lovers of the Great Mother, the Seven Fathers of the baby Yess.”
“So you lied to me!” snarled Carmody. “You weren’t going to Sleep, then?”
“If you will recall my exact words,” said Tand, “you will see that I did not lie. I told you the truth but ambiguously. You chose the particular interpretation.”
“Friends,” spoke another man, “I think we are wasting our time here and giving the Enemy an advantage we may not be able to overcome. This man, despite his tremendous power, which I can sense in him even without probing—this man, I say, is one of the dirty-souled. In fact, I doubt if he does have a soul. Or, if he does, it is a fragment, a rag, a minuscule, a tiny little thing cowering in the deep and the darkness, afraid to have anything to do with the body, allowing the body to operate as it will, refusing to take any responsibility, refusing to admit even its own existence.”
The others seemed to find this very funny, for they laughed uproariously and added remarks of their own.
Carmody trembled. Their amused contempt struck him like six hammers, one after the other, then all at once, then one after the other, like an anvil chorus. It was intensified many times because he shared in it at the same time that he felt its impact, as if he were both transmitter and receiver. He who had always thought he was above being affected by anyone’s contempt or laughter had suddenly found that it was not altitude that protected him but a barrier built up around him. And the defense had crumbled.
Wearily, hopelessly, he began jerking on the finger, then, as he saw six other strangers walking down the street toward him, he gave up. These men were also unarmed and walked with the same proud bearing possessed by the other group. They, too, stopped before him but ignored the first-comers.