He had run and run until breath and legs gave out together; and he had dropped down at last at the narrow edge of a stream which had cut its way through the mountain rock, bursting into unexpected tears. He had cried in sheer fury; determined never to go back, never to see Malachi or Walter or Obadiah again. Wild visions of living off the land in the mountains by himself billowed up like smoke from the bitter fires of frustration inside him.
And gradually a new despair came over him; so that he lay by the stream, silent in the misery of the thought that it seemed he could never be either what he wanted to be or what Malachi and the others might want him to be. Inwardly, he accused them of not understanding him, or not caring for him - when they were all he had, and when he had tried with every ounce of strength he owned to be what they wanted.
… And in that moment, as he huddled lost on the ground, two massive, trunklike arms closed around him and brought him gently against the wide chest of Malachi. It was infinitely comforting to be found after all, held so; and he sobbed again - but now in relief, wearing himself out into peace and silence against the rough fabric of Malachi's jacket. The old man said nothing, only held him. He could hear, through jacket and chest wall, the slow, powerful beating of the adult heart. It seemed to him that his own heart slowed and moved to match that rhythm; and, just before he slipped into a slumber from which he would not wake until hours later, in his own bed, he felt - as clearly as if it had been in himself - the pain and sorrow that was in his tutor, together with an urge to love no less powerful than his own…
He came back to full awareness of the Bahrain lobby, still wrung by the remembered emotions, and the achievement of that first rung on the ladder of human understanding, which had made life different for him from that moment on; but reassured by the successful summoning up of that ancient emotion that whatever perfumed the air around him was nothing with any power to inhibit either his body or his mind.
There was the sound of shoe soles on the hard, polished surface of the floor, approaching behind them. They turned to see the desk clerk.
"If you'll go up to room four-thirty-nine, gentlemen?" said the clerk. "It's the fifth door, to your right as you step out of the lift tube."
"Thanks," said Hal, rising. Jason was also getting to his feet; and they went toward the bank of lift tubes that the clerk was indicating with one hand.
The soft, white walls of the corridor of the fourth floor stretched right and left from the lift tube exits there, but bent out of sight within a short distance in either direction. Clearly it was designed to wander among the rooms and suites available. They went to their right; and, as they passed each door, it chimed and lit up its surface. As they went by, the number faded.
"Vanities!" said Jason under his breath; and Hal glanced at him, smiling a little.
Perhaps thirty meters from the lift tubes, a door glowed alight with the number 439 as they came level with it. They stopped, facing toward it.
"This is Howard Immanuelson," said Hal, clearly, "with someone who's an old friend of all of us. May we come on?"
For a moment there was no response. Then the door swung silently inward; and they entered.
The room they stepped into was large and square. The whole of the side opposite the door by which they had come in was apparently open to the weather, with a balcony beyond; but the coolness and stillness of the atmosphere about them told of an invisible barrier between room and balcony. Green-brown drapes of heavy material had been pulled back from the open wall to their limit on each side. Framed by these, the blue waters of Lake Qattara, with three white triangles that were the sails of one-person pleasure rafts, looked inward to the room.
There was no one visible, only a closed door in the wall to their left. The entrance, which had opened behind them, closed again. Hal turned toward the closed door in the side wall.
"No," said a voice.
A thin, intense figure with the long-barrelled void pistol, favored for its silence and deadliness on an Earth where there was little call for long-range accuracy, and where the destruction of property could have a higher price tag than that of human lives, stepped from behind the bunched folds of the drape three steps down the wall from the side door. Bony of feature, frail and deadly, incongruous in khaki-colored, Earth-style beach shorts and brightly patterned shirt with leg-o-mutton sleeves, was Amyth Barbage; and the pistol in his hand covered both Hal and Jason with utter steadiness.
Hal took a step toward him.
"Stop there," said Barbage. "I know of what thou art capable, Hal Mayne, if I let thee come close enough."
"Hal!" said Jason, quickly. "It's all right. He's Rukh's now!"
"I am none but the Lord's, weak man - nor ever have been," replied Barbage, dryly, "as perhaps thou hast. But it's true I know now that Rukh Tamani is of the Lord and speaks with His voice; and I will guard her, therefore, while I live. She is not to be disturbed - by anyone."
Hal stared with a touch of wonder.
"Are you sure about this?" he said to Jason, without taking his eyes off the thin, still figure and the absolutely motionless muzzle of the gun. "When did he change sides?"
"I changed no sides," said Barbage, "as I just said. How could I, who am of the Elect and must move always in obedience to His will? But in a courtyard of which you know, it happened once to be His will that a certain blindness should be lifted from my eyes; and I saw at last how He had vouchsafed that Rukh should see His Way more clearly than I or any other, and was beloved of Him above all. In my weakness I had strayed, but was found again through great mercy; and now I tell you that for the protection of her life, neither you nor anyone else shall disturb her rest. Her doctor has ordered it; and I will see it done."
"Amyth Barbage," said Hal, "I have to see her, now; and talk to her. If I don't, all the work she's done can be lost."
"I do not believe you," said Barbage.
"But I do," said Jason, "since I know more about it than you, Old Prophet. And my duty to the Lord is as great as yours. Count on that, Hal - "
"Wait!"
Hal spoke just in time. He had read the sudden tensing in the man at his side, and understood that Jason was about to throw himself into the fire of Barbage's pistol so Hal might have time to reach the other man and deal with him. Jason slowly, imperceptibly, relaxed. Hal stared at the man with the gun.
"I think," he said slowly, "a little of that blindness you talked about is still with you, Amyth Barbage. Did you hear what I said - that if I didn't see and talk to Rukh now, all her work here could be lost?"
His eyes matched and held those of Barbage. The seconds stretched out in silence. Then, still holding the void pistol's muzzle steadily upon them, still watching them unvaryingly, Barbage moved sideways to the door in the side wall they had been facing, softly touched and softly opened it, then stepped backward through it. Standing one step inside the further room, he spoke in so low a voice they barely heard him.
"Come. Come quietly."
They followed him into a curious room. It was narrow before them as they stepped into it and completely without furniture. Its far end was closed by drawn draperies of the same material and color as those in the room they had just left; and the wall to their right seemed to shimmer slightly as they looked at it.
As soon as they were inside and the door had closed automatically behind them, Barbage held up his free hand to bring them to a halt.
"Stay here," he said.
He turned and walked through the wall with the shimmer, revealing it for the projected sound-barrier image that it was. Hal and Jason stood silently waiting for several slow minutes; then suddenly the imaged wall vanished to show a large, pleasant hotel bedroom with the drapes drawn back and a bed float contoured into a sitting position - and, propped up in it, Rukh.