The Lovers

He laughed. 'I would have been here two days ago, but I had to wait until all the gigs that were on automatic were in use. Then, I pretended that I was in a hurry, that I had forgotten some notes, and that I had to go back to my apartment to pick them up. So, I borrowed one of the manually controlled gigs used for exploration outside the city. I never could have gotten permission from the O.D. for that if he had not been overwhelmed by this.'

Hal touched a large golden badge on his left chest. It bore a Hebrew L.

'That means I'm one of the Chosen. I've passed the 'Meter.'

Jeannette, who had seemingly forgotten her terror, had been looking at Hal's face in the glow from the panel light.

She gave a little cry. 'Hal Yarrow! What have they done to you?' Her fingers touched his face.

A deep purple ringed his eyes; his cheeks were sunken, and in one a muscle twitched; a rash spread, over his for-head; the seven whipmarks stood out against a pale skin.

'Anybody would say I was crazy to do it,' he said. 'I stuck my head in the lion's mouth. And he didn't bite my head off. Instead, I bit his tongue.'

'What do you mean?'

'Listen. Didn't you think it was strange that Pornsen wasn't with me tonight, breathing his sanctimonious breath down my neck? No? Well, you don't know us. There was only one way I could get permission to move out of my quarters in the ship and get an apartment in Siddo. That is, without having a gapt living with me to watch my every move. And without having to leave you out here in the forest. And I couldn't do that.'

She ran her finger down the line from his nose to the corner of his lip. Ordinarily he would have shrunk from the touch because he hated close contact with anybody. Now, he didn't move back.

'Hal,' she said softly. 'Maw sheh.'

He felt a glow. My dear. Well, why not?

To stave off the headiness her touch gave, he said, 'There was only one thing to do. Volunteer for the 'Meter.'

"Wuh Met? 'Es'ase'asah?'

'It's the only thing that can free you from the constant shadow of a gapt. Once you've passed it, you're pure, above suspicion-theoretically, at least.

'My petition caught the hierarchy off guard. They never expected any of the scientists – let alone me – to volunteer. Urielites and Uzzites have to take it if they hope to advance to the hierarchy–'

'Urielites? Uzzites?'

'To put it in ancient terminology, priests and cops. The Forerunner adopted those terms – the names of angels – for religious-governmental use – from the Talmud. See?'

'No.'

'I'll explain that later. Anyway, only the most zealous ask to face the 'Meter. It's true that many people do, but only because they are compelled to. The Urielites were gloomy about my chances, but they were forced by law to let me try. Besides, they were bored, and they wanted to be entertained – in their grim fashion.'

He scowled at the memory. 'A day later, I was told to report to the psych lab at twenty-three hundred S.T. – Ship's Time, that is. I went into my cabin – Pornsen was out – opened my labcase, and took out a bottle labeled 'Prophetsfood.' It is supposed to contain a powder whose base is peyote. That's a drug that was once used by American Indian medicine men.'

'Kfe?'

'Just listen. You'll get the main points. Prophetsfood is taken by everybody during Purification Period. That's two days of locking yourself in a cell, fasting, praying, being flagellated by electric whips, and seeing visions induced by hunger and Prophetsfood. Also subjective time-travelling.'

'Kfe?'

'Don't keep saying "What?" I haven't got time to explain dunnology. It took me ten years of hard study to understand it and its mathematics. Even then, there were a lot of questions I had. But I didn't ask them. I might be thought to be doubting.

'Anyway, my bottle did not hold Prophetsfood. Instead, it contained a substitute I'd secretly prepared just before the ship left Earth. That powder was the reason why I dared face the 'Meter. And why I was not as terrified as I should have been . . . though I was scared enough. Believe me.'

'I do believe you. You were brave. You overcame your fear.'

He felt his face reddening. It was the first time in his life he had ever been complimented.

'A month before the expedition took off for Ozagen, I had noticed, in one of the many scientific journals that I must review, an announcement that a certain drug had been synthesized. Its efficacy was in destroying the virus of the so-called Martian rash. What interested me was a footnote. It was in small print and in Hebrew, which showed that the biochemist must have realized its importance.'

'Pookfe?'

'Why? Well, I imagine it was in Hebrew in order to keep any laymen from understanding it. If a secret like that became generally known...

'The note commented briefly that it had been found that a man suffering from the rash was temporarily immune to the effects of hypno-lipno. And that the Urielites should take care during any sessions with the 'Meter that their subject was healthy.'

'I have trouble understanding you,' she said.

'I'll go slower. Hypno-lipno is the most widely used so-called truth-drug. I saw at once the implications in the note. The beginning of the article described how the Martian rash was narcotically induced for experimental purposes. The drug used was not named, but it did not take me long to look it and its processing up in other journals. I thought if the true rash would make a man immune to hypno-lipno, why wouldn't the artificial?

'No sooner said than done. I prepared a batch, inserted a tape of questions about my personal life in a psychotester, injected the rash drug, injected the truth-drug, and swore that I would lie to the tester about my life. And I could lie, even though shot full of hypno-lipno!'

'You're so clever to think of that,' she murmured.

She squeezed his biceps. He hardened them. It was a vain thing to do, but he wanted her to think he was strong.

'Nonsense!' he said. 'A blind man would have seen what to do. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Uzzites had arrested the chemist and put out orders for some other truth-drug to be used. If they did, they were too late. Our ship left before any such news reached us.

'Anyway, the first day with the 'Meter was nothing to worry about. I took a twelve-hour written and oral test in serialism. That's Dunne's theories of time and Sigmen's amplifications on it. I've been taking that same test for years. Easy but tiring.

'The next day I rose early, bathed, and ate what was supposed to be Prophetsfood. Breakfastless, I went into the Purification Cell. Alone, I lay two days on a cot. From time to time I took a drink of water or a shot of the false drug. Now and then, I pressed the button that sent the mechanical scourge lashing against me. The more flagellations, you know, the higher your credit.

'I didn't see any visions. I did break out with the rash. That didn't worry me. If anybody got suspicious, I could explain that I had an allergy to Prophetsfood. Some people do.'

He looked below. Moon-frosted forest and an occasional square or hexagonal light from a farmhouse. Ahead was the high range of hills that shielded Siddo.

'So,' he continued, unconsciously talking faster as the hills loomed closer, 'at the end of my purification I rose, dressed, and ate the ceremonial dinner of locusts and honey.'

'Ugh!'

'Locusts aren't so bad if you've been eating them since childhood.'

'Locusts are delicious,' she said. 'I've eaten them many times. It's the combination with honey that sickens me.'

He shrugged and said, 'I'm going to turn out the cabin lights. Get down on the floor. And put on that cloak and nightmask. You can pass for a wog.'

Obediendy she slid off the seat. Before he flicked the lights off, he glanced down. She was leaning over while picking up the cloak, and he could not help getting a full glimpse of her superb breasts. Her nipples were as scarlet as her lips. Though he jerked his head away, he kept the image in his head. He felt deeply aroused. The shame, he knew even then, would come later.

He continued uncomfortably: 'Then the hierarch came in. Macneff the Sandalphon. After him, the theologians and the dunnological specialists: the psychoneural parallelists, the interventionists, the substratumists, thechronentropists, the pseudotemporalists, the cosmobserverists.

'They sat me down in a chair that was the focus of a modulating magnetic-detector field. They injected hypno-lipno into my arm. They turned out the lights. They said prayers for me, and they chanted chapters from The Western Talmud and the Revised Scriptures. Then a spotlight was directed upon the Elohimeter–'

"Es 'ase'asah?'

'Elohim is Hebrew for 'God.' A meter is, well, those.' He pointed at the instrument panel. 'The Elohimeter is round and enormous, and its needle, as long as my arm, is straight up and down. The circumference of the dial's face is marked with Hebraic letters that are supposed to mean something to those giving the test.

'Most people are ignorant of what the needle indicates. But I'm a joat. I've access to the books that describe the test.'

'Then you knew the answers, nespfa?'

'Fi. Though that means nothing, because hypno-lipno brings out the truth, the reality... unless, of course, you are suffering from Martian rash, natural or artificial.'

His sudden laugh was a mirthless bark.

'Under the drug, Jeannette, all the dirty and foul things you've done and thought, all the hates you've had for your superiors, all the doubts about the realness of the Forerunner's doctrines – these rise up from your lower-level minds like soap released at the bottom of a dirty bathtub. Up it comes, slick and irresistibly buoyant and covered with layers of scum.

'But I sat there, and I watched the needle. It's just like watching the face of God, Jeannette – you can't understand that, can you? – and I lied. Oh, I didn't overplay it. I didn't pretend to be incredibly pure and faithful. I confessed to minor unrealities. Then the needle would flicker and go back around the circumference a few square letters. But, on the big issues, I answered as if my life depended on them. Which it did.

'And I told them my dreams – my subjective time-traveling.'

'Soopji 'tiw?'

'Fi. Everybody travels in time subjectively. But the Forerunner is the only man, except for his first disciple and his wife and a few of the scriptural prophets, who has traveled objectively.