Beran finally broke the silence. “What is the process by which I become Panarch?”
Palafox said shortly, “The process began a month ago.”
“The rumors?”
Palafox was perhaps irritated by the implied deprecation. He answered in a metallic voice, “It is necessary that the people of Pao realize that you exist.”
“And why am I preferable to Bustamonte?”
Palafox laughed crisply. “In general outline, my interests would not be served by certain of Bustamonte’s plans.”
“And you hope that I will be more sympathetic to you?”
“You could not be more obstinate than Bustamonte.”
“In what regard was Bustamonte obstinate?” Beran persisted. “He refused to concede to all your desires?”
Palafox chuckled hollowly. “Ah, you young rascal! I believe you would deprive me of all my prerogatives.”
Beran was silent, reflecting that if he ever became Panarch, this indeed would be one of his primary concerns.
Palafox spoke on in a more conciliatory tone. “These affairs are for the future, and need not concern us now. At the present we are allies. To signalize this fact, I have arranged that a modification be made upon your body, as soon as we arrive at Pon.”
Beran was taken by surprise. “A modification?” He considered a moment, feeling a qualm of uneasiness. “Of what nature?”
“What modification would you prefer?” Palafox asked mildly.
Beran darted a glance at the hard profile. Palafox seemed completely serious. “The total use of my brain.”
“Ah,” said Palafox. “That is the most delicate and precise of all, and would require a year of toil on Breakness itself. At Pon it is impossible. Choose again.”
“Evidently my life is to be one of many emergencies,” said Beran. “The power of projecting energy from my hand might prove valuable.”
“True,” reflected Palafox. “And yet, on the other hand, what could more completely confuse your enemies than to see you rise into the air and float away? And since, with a novice, the easy projection of destruction endangers friends as well as enemies, we had better decide upon levitation as your first modification.”
The surf-beaten cliffs of Nonamand rose from the ocean; they passed above a grimy fishing village, rode over the first ramparts of the Sgolaphs, flew low over the moors toward the central spine of the continent. Mount Droghead raised its cataclysmic crags; they swept close around the icy flanks, swerved down to the plateau of Pon. The car settled beside a long low building with rock-melt walls and a glass roof. Doors opened; Palafox floated the car within. They grounded on a floor of white tile; Palafox opened the port and motioned Beran out.
Beran hesitated, dubiously inspecting the four men who came forward. Each differed from the others in height, weight, skin and hair-color, but each was like the others.
“My sons,” said Palafox. “Everywhere on Pao you will find my sons … But time is valuable, and we must set about your modification.”
Beran alighted from the car; the sons of Palafox led him away.
They laid the anaesthetized body on a pallet, injected and impregnated the tissues with various toners and conditioners. Then standing far back, they flung a switch. There was a shrill whine, a flutter of violet light, a distortion of the space as if the scene were observed through moving panels of poor glass.
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 a 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 nauseating 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 started to reply, but Palafox silenced him with a gesture.
Beran watched him walk away, frowning in puzzlement. “Just why is time short, then?” he called to the spare retreating back.