Grunting as if carrying a heavy load, Kutsi Merc trudged along behind Ave. He was not in the least surprised to notice that the nurse had fallen behind her charge and was adjusting a shoelace.
Letting Ave go ahead, the hunchback hung back near the roundhead, and she, without straightening up, said almost inaudibly:
“As soon as shining Jupi rises in the sky, take your master to the ruins of the old shrine in the Dread Wall.”
Kutsi Merc nodded, grinned craftily and caught up with his master.
“Success is the envy of failures. A tryst has been made at the old ruins in the light of Jupi, the brightest of planets.”
Ave looked round suddenly.
“Are you jesting?”
“Jesting is of no avail in my profession. Kutsi Merc is too good a … helper.”
By a whim of the Dictator’s, the Dread Wall round his Lair ran through a tiny ruined shrine dividing it into two halves. This screened from view the Blood Door, which was hardly noticeable in any case. The wall in the lower part divided in obedience to the brain biocurrents written into the program of the electronic automatons.
Mother Lua nervously gave the door its mental instructions and it opened.
Ave and Kutsi Merc, who were standing in the half-ruined portico, quickly proceeded through the gap, Lua followed them and the Wall closed behind her. Only the ruins on the inner side of the wall showed where to look for the vanished door.
Ave looked round. He was in a luxuriant garden. Sinuous lianas hung down like snakes guarding their prey. Beyond the shaggy tree-trunks lurked a gloom that seemed dense and clammy. Lua, the nocturnal luminary whose name the nurse bore, had not yet begun to rise, and Jupi, the brightest of the planets, was only just silvering the tree-tops. Under them it was as dark as on a starless night.
The young Faetian’s heart was thudding in his breast.
Kutsi Merc’s pulse was throbbing evenly enough. He had gained access to the Lair, into which not even a snake could crawl its way…
Chapter Two
TWO SHORES
Ave Mar first met Kutsi Merc, his secretary, half a cycle before the encounter with Mada on the Great Shore.
Ave Mar’s steamcar stopped that day in a mountain pass on the continent of the Culturals of Danjab.
The view took Ave’s breath away. The ocean, revealed from high up, seemed to ascend to the very heavens. The misty band of the horizon looked like a ridge of lofty clouds.
Below lay Business City. The skyscrapers stood in concentric circles. They were linked by ring and radial streets and avenues, on both sides of which lay green parks and glittering lakes. In the city centre towered a skyscraper resembling the conical axis of the monstrous Wheel of Business Life.
Ave put his foot down on the pedal to open the high-pressure boiler valve. The steam drive slowly moved the car from its place, accelerating it to the required speed.
Steamcars had appeared very recently, but had quickly replaced the obsolete vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. In their time, these machines had poisoned the air of the cities with their exhaust gases. The fuel they consumed could have served as chemical raw material for clothing and other goods in daily use.
As he drove at top speed along the magnificent road, Ave Mar crossed the outer circle avenue on which stood the tower blocks of Business City.
From a distance, they seemed conical. In fact, they were stepped. They were girt by a spiral steamcar road which gave access to each storey in succession and to the garage entrances outside every flat.
The conical towers housed shops with corridors leading to exits onto the spiral road, restaurants, cafes, and also theatres and concert or viewing halls. There were production workshops and business offices in the centre of the multistorey building.
Moving staircases led to the garages under the living quarters.
The ordinary Faetians, toiling in the workshops, had no cars and hardly ever left their cramped little rooms, unaware of any world other than that shut in by the skyscraper’s spiral roadway.
Ave stopped his steamcar. The garage doors opened automatically and closed behind him when he had driven in.
The car needed no maintenance, being permanently ready for use with the necessary steam pressure in its boiler. The heating device of disintegration matter was, so to speak, part of the machine and wore out with it.
Ave Mar was in a dejected mood. He dropped in on one of his friends; but the friend had summoned a secret meeting and had not invited Ave. Ave understood what it was all about and drove off immediately.
On the way back he saw the pathetic hovels of the Faetians who worked in the fields. He felt ashamed of himself for having, over his garage, several living rooms in which no one lived, in fact, except for himself.
He had never known lack of room, but he had known loneliness and could only call up his mother over the screen. Oh, Mother, Mother! Even at that enormous distance, she unerringly guessed what was in her son’s heart and was always the first to appear on the screen.
Ave glumly stepped onto the upward moving staircase.
What was the meaning of life, if all that lay ahead was a blind alley from which the Faetians could not escape? It was madness to seek deliverance in wars of annihilation. Many Faetians understood as much…
But why did his friends not trust him? He needn’t keep quiet with them. Did he not also subscribe to the Doctrine of Justice? But they didn’t need him… No one needed him…
Ave went into the first of his round rooms and stopped dead in amazement. A broad-shouldered, burly hunchback came up to meet him with a guarded smile on his hard face.
“Ease and happiness!” said the stranger. “I am Kutsi Merc! The Ruler Dobr Mar gave me the key of this flat as his son’s secretary.”
Ave smiled bitterly.
“Is my father worried that his son is gnawed by misery?”
“Your father was thinking of something more important.”
“Will it deliver me from bitterness?”
“Would it be a bad thing to visit the ancient continent of Powermania? High technology in the hands of barbarians who call themselves Superiors?”
“What’s the sense of such dreams? I worked with Um Sat. I specialise in the disintegration of matter, so I am not allowed to travel overseas. We live in times of emptiness, disillusion, tension…”
“As your secretary, I shall help you in everything, even in a trip to the continent of the barbarians.”
So saying, the hunchback went into the other room. He soon returned carrying vessels with beverages and two cylinders of compressed narcotic smoke which the Culturals loved to inhale when relaxing. Kutsi Merc’s clothes were stretched tight over his hump, as if tailored for someone else.
Ave was amazed at the speed with which his new acquaintance made himself at home. The neglected flat was transformed. Mechanisms, switched on before the occupant’s arrival, had cleaned the place up.
As he inhaled the smoke, the young Faetian studied Kutsi Merc.
“If only we journey to Powermania,” he said reflectively, “before misery kills desire…”
“Desires must be fulfilled. Otherwise it is not worth desiring. The Faetesses over the ocean are very beautiful.”
“How can that be of any importance? Even knowledge is powerless to lead the Faetians out of their blind alley. Soulless power politics, blind subordination to dogma! The blockheads refuse to listen to anything that is unfamiliar to them!…” Ave was suffering from rejection of his ideas and was airing his sense of injury.