The whine died; the figures stepped forward around the body now stiff, dead, rigid. The flesh was hard, but elastic; the fluids were congealed; the joints firm.
The men worked swiftly, with exceeding deftness. They used knives with entering edges only six molecules thick. The knives cut without pressure, splitting the tissues into glass-smooth laminae. The body was laid open halfway up the back, slit down either side through the buttocks, thighs, calves. With single strokes of another type of knife, curiously singing, the soles of the feet were removed. The flesh was rigid, like rubber; there was no trace of blood or body fluid, no quiver of muscular motion.
A section of lung was cut out, an ovoid energy-bank introduced. Conductors were laid into the flesh, connecting to flexible transformers in the buttocks, to processors in the calves. The antigravity mesh was laid into the bottom of the feet and connected to the processors in the calves by means of flexible tubes thrust up through the feet.
The circuit was complete. It was tested and checked; a switch was installed under the skin of the left thigh. And now began the tedious job of restoring the body.
The soles were dipped in special stimulating fluid, returned precisely into place, with accuracy sufficient to bring cell wall opposite cell wall, severed artery tight to severed artery, nerve fibril against nerve fibril. The slits along the body were pressed tightly together, the flesh drawn back into place over the energy bank.
Eighteen hours had passed. The four men now departed for rest, and the dead body lay alone in the darkness.
Next day the four men returned. The great machine whined again, and the violet light flickered around the room. The field which had gripped the atoms of Beran's body, in theory reducing his temperature to absolute zero, relaxed, and the molecules resumed their motion.
The body once more lived.
A week passed, while Beran, still comatose, healed. He returned to consciousness to find Palafox standing before the pallet.
"Rise," said Palafox. "Stand on your feet."
Beran lay quiet for a moment, aware by some inner mechanism that considerable time had passed.
Palafox seemed impatient and driven by haste. His eyes glittered; he made an urgent gesture with his thin strong hand. "Rise! Stand!"
Beran slowly raised himself to his feet.
"Walk!"
Beran walked across the room. There was a tautness down his legs, and the energy-bulb weighed on the muscles of his diaphragm and rib-sheathing.
Palafox was keenly watching the motion of his feet. "Good," he exclaimed. "I see no halting or discoordination. Come with me."
He took Beran into a high room, hitched a harness over his shoulders, snapped a cord into a ring at his back.
"Feel here." He directed Beran's left hand to a spot on his thigh. "Tap."
Beran felt a vague solidity under his skin. He tapped. The floor ceased to press at his feet; his stomach jerked; his head felt like a balloon.
"This is charge one," said Palafox. "A repulsion of slightly less than one gravity, adjusted to cancel the centrifugal effect of planetary rotation."
He made the other end of the cord fast on a cleat. "Tap again."
Beran touched the plate, and instantly it seemed as if the entire environment had turned end for end, as if Palafox stood above him, glued to the ceiling, as if he were falling head-first at the floor thirty feet below him. He gasped, flailed out his arms; the cord caught him, held him from falling. He turned a desperate glance toward Palafox, who stood faintly smiling.
"To increase the field, press the bottom of the plate," called Palafox. "To decrease, press the top. If you tap twice, the field goes dead."
Beran managed to return to the floor. The room righted, but swung and bobbed with nauseated effect.
"It will be days before you accustom yourself to the levitation mesh," said Palafox briskly. "Since time is short, I suggest that you practice the art diligently." He turned toward the door.
Beran watched him walk away, frowning in puzzlement. "Just why is time short, then?" he called to the spare retreating back.
Palafox swung around. "The date," he said, "is the fourth day of the third week of the eighth month. On Kanetsides Day I plan that you shall be Panarch of Pao."
"Why?" asked Beran.
"Why do you continually require that I expose myself to you?"
"I ask from both curiosity and in order to plan my own conduct. You intend that I be Panarch. You wish to work with me." The gleam in Palafox's eyes brightened. "Perhaps I should say, you hope to work through me, in order to serve your ends. Therefore, I ask myself what these ends are."
Palafox considered him a moment, then replied in a cool even voice. "Your thoughts move with the deft precision of worm-tracks in the mud. Naturally I plan that you shall serve my ends: You plan, or, at any rate, you hope, that I shall serve yours. So far as you are concerned, this process is well toward fruition. I am working diligently to secure your birthright, and if I succeed, you shall be Panarch of Pao. When you demand the nature of my motives, you reveal the style of your thinking to be callow, captious, superficial, craven, uncertain and impudent."
Beran began to sputter a furious refutal, but Palafox cut him off with a gesture. "Naturally you accept my help--why should you not? It is only right to strive for your goals. But, after accepting my help, you must choose one of two courses: serve me or fight me. Forward my aims or attempt to deny me. These are positive courses. But to expect me to continue serving you from a policy of abnegation is negative and absurd."
"I cannot consider mass misery absurd," snapped Beran. "My aims are...."
Palafox held up his hand. "There is nothing more to say. The scope of my plans you must deduce for your self. Submit or oppose, whichever you wish. I am unconcerned, since you are powerless to deflect me."
Day after day Beran practiced the use of his modification, and gradually became adjusted to the sensation of falling head-first away from the ground.
He learned how to move through the air, by leaning in the direction he wished to travel; he learned how to descend, falling so fast the air sang past his ears, then braking with deft timing to land without a jar.
On the eleventh day, a boy in a smart gray cape, no more than eight years old, with the typical Palafox cast to his features, invited Beran to Palafox's apartments.
Crossing the concrete quadrangle, Beran armed his mind and arranged his emotions for the interview. He marched through the portal stiff with resolution.
Palafox was sitting at his desk, idly arranging polished trapezoids of rock crystal. His manner was almost affable as he directed Beran to a chair.
Beran warily seated himself.
"Tomorrow," said Palafox, "we enter the second phase of the program. The emotional environment is suitably sensitive: there is a general sense of expectation. Tomorrow, the quick stroke, the accomplishment! In a suitable manner we affirm the existence of the traditional Panarch. And then"--Palafox rose to his feet--"and then, who knows? Bustamonte may resign himself to the situation, or he may resist. We will be prepared for either contingency."
Beran was not thawed by unexpected cordiality. "I would understand better had we discussed these plans over a period of time."
Palafox chuckled genially. "Impossible, estimable Panarch. You must accept the fact that we here at Pon function as a General Staff. We have prepared dozens of programs of greater or less complexity, suitable for various situations.
This is the first pattern of events to mesh with one of the plans."
"What, then is the pattern of events?"