'You have proved to us that we were justified in selecting you, but you can overcome the boundaries we set around you. But hurry, we beg you - hurry…'
'What will happen if we succeed?'
'You will experience a stage of metamorphosis. Soon you will no longer need a universe of the kind you know now. Things are coming to an end. You have the choice of life - more than life or death!'
Renark accepted this. It was all he could do.
'And us - what is our function now?'
'To perform what you set out to do.'
There was a long, long pause.
Womb-warmth filled the two men and tune stopped for them as the Originators exuded sympathy and understanding. But glowing like hard reality beneath this, Renark sensed - his own oblivion? His own death? Something lay there in the future. Something ominous was in store for him.
'You are right, Renark,' said the Originators.
'I can't be right or wrong. I have no idea what my fate is.'
'But you sense, perhaps, our foreknowledge of your termination as a physical entity - perhaps your end as a conscious entity. It is hard to tell. Your spirit is a great one, Renark - a mighty spirit that is too great for the flesh that chains it. It must be allowed to spread, to permeate the multiverse!'
'So be it,' Renark said slowly.
Asquiol could neither understand nor believe what the Originators were saying. His form - golden, flashing red - bounced and flared before Renark as he said:
'Are you to die, Renark?'
'No! No!'
Renark's voice roared like a tower of flame. He addressed his friend. 'When I am gone you must lead our race. You must direct them towards their destiny - or perish with them. Do you understand?'
'I accept what you say, but without understanding. This experience is driving us to madness!'
The cool tones of the Originators swept inwards like flowing ice to catch their attention and silence them.
'Not yet, not yet. You must both retain something of your old forms and your old convictions. Your part is not played out yet. Now that you understand the nature of the multi-verse, it will not be difficult to supply you with material means for escaping your shrinking universe. We will give you knowledge of a machine to produce a warp effect and enable your people to travel to another, safer universe where they will undergo further tests. Our plans have not fully worked themselves out yet. There are others of your race involved - and you must meet and react and harden one another before you can fulfill the destiny we offer you. You, Asquiol, will be entrusted with this part of the mission.'
'Renark is the strongest,' Asquiol said quietly.
'Therefore Renark's spirit must be sacrificed as a gift to the rest of you. This is necessary.'
'How shall we accomplish this exodus to a new universe?' Renark asked hollowly.
'We will help. We shall instil in your fellow creatures a trust in the word of you both. It will necessarily be a temporary thing. Once you have left your universe, our workings must be of a subtler sort, and only the efforts of certain individuals will save you.'
'We shall be on our own?' Asquiol questioned.
'Virtually, yes.'
'What shall we find in this new universe?'
'We do not know, for it is likely that your jump will be a random one into any of the other multiversal planes. We cannot guarantee you a friendly reception. There are forces opposed to our purpose - meaner intellects who strive to prevent the evolution of our being.'
'Our being?' Asquiol's shape flickered and re-formed.
'Yours - ours - everyone's. We, the Originators, call ourselves Intelligent Optimists, since we see a purpose, of sorts, to existence. But there are pessimists in the universe. They prey upon us, seek to destroy us, since they themselves have given up hope of ever breaking the bonds which chain them to the half-real state in which they exist. They have their unknowing supporters among your own segment of the total race.'
'I understand.'
With those two words they became whole men. They saw, at last, the real universe - the myriad-planed universe comprising many, many dimensions so that there was no empty space at all, but a crowded, rich existence through which they had previously moved unknowing.
With an effort of his titanic will, Renark said urgently: 'One thing. What is your purpose? What is our ultimate purpose?'
To exist,' was the simple reply. 'You cannot have, as yet, real knowledge of what that means. Existence is the beginning and the end. Whatever significance you choose to put upon it is irrelevant. If we were to die before you were ready to take our place, then all our creation would die. The multi-verse would die. Chaos would flood over everything and a formless, mindless, fluctuating shroud would mark our passing.'
'We do not want that,' said Asquiol and Renark together.
'Neither do we. That is why you are here. Now - the information you will need.'
Their minds, it seemed, were taken by a gentle hand and sent along a certain course of logic until, at length, they had complete understanding of the principle involved in building dimension-travelling space-ships.
In what was, for them, normal space-time, it would have been virtually impossible to have formulated the principle in all its aspects. But now, dwelling in the whole multiverse, the logic seemed simple. They were confident that they could impart the information to their own race.
'Are you satisfied?' the Originators asked.
'Perfectly,' Renark said. 'We must hurry now, and return to our own universe. The exodus must begin as soon as possible.'
'Farewell, Renark. It is unlikely that when we meet again you will remember us. Farewell, Asquiol. When we meet again let us hope that you have succeeded in this matter.'
'Let us hope so,' Asquiol said gravely.
Then their beings were spreading backwards and streaming through the multiverse towards the ship which still lay on Roth.
NINE
The traveller stopped at the sagging filling station, the last human artifact before the long, grey road began again.
A huge, shapeless haversack bulged on his stooping back, but he walked along effortlessly, smiling in the depths of his lean, black face, his hair and beard wild about him.
Kaal Yinsen whistled to himself and took the road North. It was several centuries since the Earth had been populated by more than the few thousand people living here now, and this was the way he liked it. Kaal Yinsen had never had a dream in his life, and when this one came it came with force.
The road faded, the whole surface of the planet reared up, whirled and bellowed. Suddenly he knew he must head South again. This he did and was joined, on the way, by hundreds of families going in the same direction.
Bossan Glinqvist, Lord of Orion, sat in an office which was part of an isolated metal city, hanging in space close to the heart of the galaxy. He picked up the file on Drenner Macneer and began to leaf through it, not sure that his duties as Moderator in the Council of Galactic Lords were sufficiently satisfying to make him live a third of his adult life in so unnatural an environment. Macneer's case was a difficult one, requiring all Glinqvist's concentration and intelligence to judge.
The man had instigated a breach-of-code suit against the Council - accusing it of failing to represent the interests of a minority group of traders who, because of a change in a tariff agreement between Laming and Balesorn in the Clive System, had lost their initiative to survive by labour and were currently living off the citizen's grant on a remote outworld. It was a serious matter. Glinqvist looked up, frowning, and experienced a powerful hallucination.
Soon afterwards he was giving orders for the city to be set in motion - an unprecedented order - and directed toward the Kassim System.