In his Marak office, Tyler Gemine, director of R&R, faced his visitor across an immense blackwood desk. The desk smelled of perfumed polish. Its wide top held a holographic projection of Gemine’s family and a communications console.
Behind Gemine, a simulwindow looked out across the pyramid steps of Marak’s Government Central, a descending line of parks and angular structures glistening under the green light of noon sun. The director was a rounded outline against the simulwindow, a fat and genial surface with smiling mouth and hard eyes. Frown wrinkles creased his forehead.
“Let me get this clear, Admiral Stetson,” Gemine said. “You’re telling me that Orne appeared in your office out of nowhere?”
Stetson slouched in the shaping chair across from Gemine, eyes almost level with the desktop. It interested him that the polished surface of the desk created an illusion of heat waves which danced across Gemine’s chest.
“That’s what I’m telling you, sir,” Stetson said.
“Like that fellow from Wessen, you mean? A psi thing?”
“Call it whatever you want, sir: Orne just popped out of nowhere, grinned at me and delivered that message.”
“I don’t find this flattering at all,” Gemine protested. His hard eyes bored into Stetson.
Stetson hid amusement under a mask of concern. “Well, sir, there are a lot of us from I-A who need jobs now that you’ve taken over our work.”
“I understand that,” Gemine said, his gaze cold and measuring. “But I resent, I deeply resent the suggestion that R&R has been making dangerous mistakes…”
“There was that unfortunate business on Hamal, sir,” Stetson said, “Not to mention Gienah and…”
“I am not suggesting we’re perfect, Admiral,” Gemine said. “But our positions now remain pretty clear. The vote in the Assembly was decisive. The I-A is no more and we are…”
“Nothing’s really decisive in a final sense, sir,” Stetson said. “You’d better, ahhh, kind of go through once more what Orne is saying in that message.”
“His message is plain enough,” Gemine said. “And I must say it sounds rather far-fetched to suggest that I should take this on faith and… I say, isn’t it getting rather hot in here?” Gemine ran a finger around his collar.
Without shifting his body, Stetson pointed to the region above Gemine’s left ear. The R&R director turned, eyes going wide as his gaze encountered a dancing point of flame hanging in the air. Burning, prickling sensations crawled along his skin.
Abruptly, the flame swelled to a ball almost a meter in diameter.
Gemine leaped to his feet, knocked over his chair as he stumbled backward. Heat blasted his face.
“How now?” Stetson asked.
Gemine dodged to the right and the flame shot ahead of him, cutting him off. It pressed him toward a corner.
“All right!” Gemine shrieked. “I agree! I agree!”
The flame dwindled to a spark, vanished.
“The way Orne explains it,” Stetson said, “There’s no place in the universe where there hasn’t been flame at some time or other. It’s just a matter of shifting space and time so the space coincides with a time of fire. As long as we’ve come to an agreement, you can sit down, sir. I don’t think he’ll bother you anymore unless…”
Gemine righted his chair, sank into it. Perspiration ran from his face. He stared at Stetson with a stricken expression, said: “But you said I was to remain in charge of the department!”
It was Stetson’s turn to scowl. “Damn nonsense about hoes and handles!”
“What?”
“He says we live in a universe where anything can happen and that means even war has to be a possibility,” Stetson growled. “You’ve read the report! We didn’t dare leave a thing out of his message.”
Gemine glanced fearfully at the area over his left ear, back to Stetson. “Quite.” He cleared his throat, leaned back and steepled his hands in front of him.
Stetson said: “I’m to be attached to your office as a special executive assistant. My duties are to facilitate the absorption of I-A into…” He hesitated, swallowed. “…R&R.”
“Yes… of course.” Gemine leaned forward, his manner suddenly confidential. “Any idea where Orne is now?”
“He said he was going on a honeymoon,” Stetson growled.
“But…” Gemine shrugged. “I mean, with his powers, with the things he apparently can do… I mean, the psi thing and all…”
“All I know is what he told me,” Stetson said. “He said he was going on a honeymoon. He said it was the thing any normal, red-blooded man would want to do at a time like this.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Once a psi, always a psi. Once a god, you can be anything you choose. I give you the proper obeisance, Reverend Abbod, for your kindness and your instruction. Humans get so conditioned to looking at the universe in terms of little labeled pieces they tend to act as though the universe really were those pieces. The matrix through which we perceive the universe has to be a direct function of that universe. If we distort the matrix, we don’t change the universe; we just change our way of seeing it. As I told Stet, it’s like a drug habit. If you enforce anything, including peace, you require more and more of that thing to satisfy you. With peace, it’s a terrible paradox: You require the contrast of more and more violence, as well. Peace comes to those who’ve developed the sense to perceive it. In gratitude for this, I will keep my promise to you: humankind has an open-ended account in the Bank of Time. Anything can still happen.
P.S. Please record a note that I want this inscription on my tomb: “He chose infinity one finite step at a time.” We’ll call our first son Hal and let him make up his own joke about what it means. I’m sure Ag will help him.
Copyright
Electronic Edition 2013
WordFire Press
Copyright 1972 Herbert Properties LLC
Originally published 1972
Some portions were also published/serialized under the title “The Priests of Psi.”
ISBN: 978-1-61475-061-1
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