Theremon, facing her across the middle of Folimun’s tent, thought that she had never looked more beautiful than she did right then. Her eyes were luminous with anger. Her skin seemed to glisten. There was an aura of intensely focused energy about her that he found irresistible.
But this was hardly the moment to tell her anything like that.
Folimun said, “For stealing your tablets, Dr. Siferra, I can only offer my apologies. It was a shameless act of theft, which I assure you I never would have authorized except that you made it necessary.”
“I made it—”
“You did. You insisted on keeping them in your possession—on placing those irreplaceable relics of the previous cycle in jeopardy at a time when chaos was about to break loose and, for all you knew, the university buildings were going to be destroyed down to the last brick. We saw it as essential that they be placed in safekeeping, that is to say, in our own hands, and since you would not authorize that we found it necessary to take them from you.”
“I found those tablets. You’d never have known they existed if I hadn’t dug them up.”
“Which is beside the point,” Folimun said smoothly. “Once the tablets were discovered, they became vital to our needs—to humanity’s needs. We felt that the future of Kalgash was more important than your personal proprietary interest in your artifacts. As you will see, we have translated the tablets fully now, making use of the ancient textual material already available to us, and they have added greatly to our understanding of the extraordinary challenges that civilized life on Kalgash must periodically confront. Dr. Mudrin’s translations were, unfortunately, extremely superficial. But the tablets provide an accurate and convincing version, uncorrupted by centuries of textual alteration and error, of the chronicles that have come down to us under the name of the Book of Revelations. The Book of Revelations, I must confess, is full of mysticism and metaphor, adopted for propagandistic purposes. The Thombo tablets are straightforward historical accounts of two separate advents of the Stars thousands of years ago, and of the attempts made by the priesthoods of the time to warn the populace of what was about to happen. We can demonstrate now that throughout history and prehistory on Kalgash, small groups of dedicated people have struggled again and again to prepare the world for the disruption that repeatedly falls upon it. The methods they used, obviously, were insufficient to the problem. Now at last, aided as we are by a knowledge of past mistakes, we will be able to spare Kalgash from another devastating upheaval when the present Year of Godliness comes to its end two thousand years from now.”
Siferra turned to Theremon. “How smug he sounds! Justifying his own burglary of my tablets by telling me that they’ll enable him to set up an even more efficient theocratic dictatorship than they had hoped! Theremon, Theremon, why did you sell me out like this? Why did you sell us out? We could have been halfway to Amgando by this time, if only—”
Folimun said, “You’ll be in Amgando tomorrow afternoon, Dr. Siferra, I assure you. All of us will be in Amgando by tomorrow afternoon.”
“What will you do?” she asked hotly. “March me in chains at the rear of your conquering army? Tie me up and make me walk in the dust behind Mondior’s chariot?”
The Apostle sighed. “Theremon, explain things to her, if you please.”
“No,” she said. Her eyes were blazing. “You poor brainwashed ninny, I don’t want to hear the gibberish this maniac has poured into your mind! I don’t want to hear anything from any of you! Let me alone. Lock me up, if you like. Or turn me loose, if you can bring yourself to do it. I can’t possibly harm you, can I? One woman against a whole army? I can’t even cross a field without having someone come up and surprise me from behind!”
Theremon, dismayed, reached toward her.
“No! Keep away from me! You disgust me!—But it isn’t your fault, is it? They’ve done something to your mind.—You’ll do it to me too, won’t you, Folimun? You’ll make me into an obliging little puppet. Well, let me ask just this one favor. Don’t force me to wear an Apostle’s robe. I can’t stand the idea of walking around inside one of those ridiculous things. Take my soul away, if you have to, but let me dress as I please, all right? All right, Folimun?”
The Apostle laughed faintly. “Perhaps it would be best if I left the two of you alone. I see that nothing’s going to be accomplished so long as I’m part of the conversation.”
Siferra cried, “No, damn you, I don’t want to be left alone with—”
But Folimun had already risen and walked quickly from the tent.
Theremon turned toward Siferra, who backed away from him as though he were carrying some plague.
Softly he said, “I wasn’t hypnotized, Siferra. They haven’t done anything to my mind.”
“Of course you’d say that.”
“It’s true. I’ll prove it to you.”
She stared at him bleakly, coldly, making no response. Very quietly he said, after a moment, “Siferra, I love you.”
“How long did it take the Apostles to program that line into you?” she asked.
He winced. “Don’t. Don’t. I mean it, Siferra. I won’t try to tell you that I’ve never said those words to anyone before. But this is the first time I’ve meant them.”
“Oldest line in the book,” said Siferra derisively.
“I suppose I deserve that. Theremon the ladies’ man. There-mon the seducer-about-town. Well, all right. Forget I said it.—No. No. I’m serious, Siferra. Traveling with you these past weeks—being with you morning and afternoon and evening—there hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t looked at you and thought to myself, This is the woman I was waiting for all these years. This is the woman I never dared to imagine I would find.”
“Very touching, Theremon. And the best way you could find to show your love was to grab me from behind, practically breaking my arm in the process, and turn me over to Mondior. Right?”
“Mondior doesn’t exist, Siferra. There’s no such person.”
For an instant he saw a flicker of surprise and curiosity cut through her hostility.
“What?”
“He’s a convenient mythical construct, put together by electronic synthesis to make speeches on television. No one’s ever had an audience with him, have they? He’s never been seen in public. Folimun invented him to be a public spokesman. Since Mondior never appears in person, he can be on television in five different countries at once, all over the world—nobody could ever be sure where he really was, and so he could be displayed simultaneously. Folimun’s the real boss of the Apostles of Flame. He simply masquerades as a public-relations officer. In fact he calls all the shots, and has for the past ten years. Before that there was someone named Bazret, who’s dead now. Bazret was the one who invented Mondior, but Folimun’s brought him to his present eminence.”
“Folimun told you all this?”
“He told me some. I guessed the rest, and he confirmed it. He’ll show me the Mondior apparatus when we’re back in Saro City. The Apostles plan to restore television transmissions in another few weeks.”
“All right,” Siferra said harshly. “The discovery that Mondior’s a fake so overwhelmed you with its slimy cleverness that you decided on the spot that you absolutely had to join up with Folimun’s outfit. And your first assignment was to turn me in. So you skulked around looking for me, and took me by surprise, and thereby made certain that the people down in Amgando would fall into Folimun’s clutches. Nicely done, Theremon.”