“Second, maybe less critical at the moment but definitely to be considered, the Johannine Church. A, This is a democratic country. A lot of perfectly sincere., voters are either Johnnies or believe Johanninism is just another creed. A fair number of important people fall into the same classes. Remember what a stink went up when the House committee tried to probe around a little. The present affair does suggest the faction is right which says the Johannine Church was instigated by the Lowest as a means of discrediting religion, undermining society, and turning man against man. The last thing the Administration will want—at tlis ticklish juncture—is to go through that ‘subversion’ versus ‘suppression’ shouting match again. Secrecy buys peace, quiet, and time.”
Barney halted to rekindle his cigar. The room had become very still as we listened. Smoke filled the sunbeams with blue strata and our nostrils with staleness. Ginny and I exchanged a forlorn look across the table. Yesterday I’d gone into the basement to replace a blown fuse. She’d come along, because these days we stayed together when we could. Some things of Valeria’s stood on a shelf, lately outgrown and not yet discarded. The everfilled bottle, the Ouroboros teething ring, the winged training spoon, the little pot with a rainbow at the end—We went upstairs and asked our guard to change the fuse.
Her fists clenched before her. Svartalf rubbed his head on her arm, slowly, demanding no attention in return.
“The conclusion,” Barney said, “is that, resources or no, the government isn’t likely to use them for quite a while, if ever. As of today, we, this bunch of us, have the right and duty to take what action we can.
“You see, Doctor, we’ve done nothing technically illegal. Steve was not under arrest. He was free to go in and out of his home, in a Tarnkappe via the window if he chose, accountable to nobody. I was free to lend him my broom. The cathedral is open to the public. If Steve went into other parts of the building, looking for someone who might have information helpful in his hour of need, at most he committed a civil tort. Let the hierarchy sue him for damages if it wants. He can charge felonious assault, remember. One does not have the privilege of using lethal weapons in defense of mere privacy, and he was clubbed and shot at.
“Accordingly, no crime having been committed, none of us are accessories after the fact. No crime being contemplated, none of us are engaging in conspiracy. I grant you, soon the National Defense Act, and anything else the President finds handy, will be invoked. Then we would be in trouble if we behaved as we’re doing. But no legally binding prohibition has been laid on us to date; and the Constitution forbids ex post facto proceedings.”
“Hm.” Ashman reflected.
“As for the withholding of essential information,” Barney continued, “don’t worry, we aren’t about to do that either. We are sifting what we’ve been told, as responsible citizens who don’t want to make accusations that may be unfounded. But we will see that whatever is sound gets into the right hands.”
“Must we act so fast?” Ashman demurred. “If the child can be recovered from the same instant as she arrived . . . yonder . . . isn’t it best for her too that we let the government operate on her behalf at a slow, careful pace, rather than going off ourselves ill-prepared and under-equipped?”
Admiral Charles’ lean features darkened. “Frankly,” he said, “if no further incidents occur, I don’t expect this Administration will act. It’s let unfriendly countries rob, imprison, or kill American nationals-some in uniform without doing more than protest. What do you imagine they’ll say in Foggy Bottom at the thought of taking on hell itself for one small girl? I’m sorry, Mrs. Matuchek, but that’s the way matters are.”
“Be that as it may,” said Falkenberg in haste, for the look on Ginny’s face had become terrifying, “as I understand the situation, the, ah, enemy are off balance at present. Mr. Matuchek took them by surprise Evidently the, ah, Adversary is debarred from giving them direct help, counsel, or information. Or else he considers it inadvisable, as it might provoke intervention by the Highest. The, ah, Johannine Mages can do extraordinary things, no doubt. But they are not omniscient or omnipotent. They can’t be sure what we have learned and what we will attempt. Give them time, however, in this universe, and they will, ah, recover their equilibrium, mend their fences, possibly make some countermove.”
Ginny said out of her Medusa mask: “Whatever the rest of you decide, Steve and I won’t sit waiting.”
“Blazes, no!” exploded from me. Svartalf laid back his ears, fangs gleamed amidst his whiskers and the fur stood up on him.
“You see?” Barney said to the group. “I know these people. You can’t stop them short of throwing them in jail for life; and I’m not convinced any jail would hold them. They might have to be killed. Do we let that happen, or do we help them while we still can?”
Voices rumbled around the table, hands went aloft, Janice Wenzel cried loudest: “I’ve got kids of my own Virginia!” Eyes turned from us to Ashman. He flushed and said:
“I’m not going henhouse on you. Remember, all this has just been sprung on me without warning. I’m bound to raise the arguments that occur to me. I don’t believe that encouraging Valeria’s parents to commit suicide will do her any good.”
“What do you mean?’ Barney asked.
“Do I misunderstand? Isn’t your intention to send Steven and Virginia—my patients—into the hell universe?”
That brought me up cold. I’d been ready and raging for action; but this was as if a leap had fetched me to the rim of Ginnungagap. The heart slammed in me. I stared at Ginny. She nodded.
The whole group registered various degrees of consternation. I scarcely noticed the babble that lifted or Barney’s quelling of it. Finally we all sat in a tautstrung silence.
“I must apologize to this committee,” Barney said. His tone was deep and measured as a vesper bell’s. “The problem that I set most of you was to collect and collate available information on the Low Continuum with a view to rescue operations. You did magnificently. When you were informed of Steve’s findings, you used them to make a conceptual breakthrough that may give us the method we want. But you were too busy to think beyond the assignment, or to imagine that it was more than a long-range, rather hypothetical study: something that might eventually give us capabilities against further troubles of this nature. Likewise, those of you I discussed the political or religious aspects with didn’t know how close we might be facing them in reality.
“I saw no alternative to handling it that way. But Mrs. Matuchek reached me meanwhile, surreptitiously.” I gave her the whole picture, we discussed it at length and evolved a plan of campaign.” He bowed slightly toward Ashman. “Congratulations on your astuteness; Doctor.”
She knew, I thought in the shards of thinking, and yet no one could have told it on her, not even me—not till this instant, and then solely because she chose.
A part of me wondered if other husbands experience corresponding surprises.
She raised her hand. “The case is this,” she said with the same military crispness as when first I’d met her. “A small, skilled group has a chance of success. large, unskilled group has none. It’d doubtless sufl more than the Army or the Faustus teams did, sing they retreated quickly.”
“Death, insanity, or imprisonment in hell with everything that that implies—” Ashman whispered. “You assume Steven will go.”
“I know better than to try stopping him,” she said.
That gave me a measure of self-control again. I not unconscious of admiring glances. But mainly listened to her: