Suddenly, Hal felt hot all through his body, and his legs quivered.
'Yes, abba?'
His own voice sounded weak and distant. Olvegssen made a steeple of his hands and looked at Yarrow over the tip.
'Much as I would regret it, I would be forced to take action. I can't have a man with a low M.R. on my staff. I'm afraid that I...'
There was a long silence. Hal felt the sweat trickling down from his armpits and the beads forming on his forehead and upper lip. He knew that Olvegssen was purposely hanging him in suspense, and he did not want to ask him anything. He did not want to give the smug gray-haired gimel the satisfaction of hearing him speak. But he did not dare seem to be uninterested. And, if he did not say anything, he knew that Olvegssen would only smile and dismiss him.
'What, abba?' said Hal, striving to keep a choking sound from his voice.
' I'm very much afraid that I could not even allow myself the leniency of merely demoting you to secondary school teaching. I would like to be merciful. But mercy in your case might only be enforcing unreality. And I could not endure the possibility of that. No...'
Hal swore at himself because he could not control his trembling.
'Yes, abba?'
'I am very much afraid that I would have to ask the Uzzites to look into your case.'
'No!' said Hal loudly.
'Yes,' said Olvegssen, still speaking behind the steeple of his hands. 'It would pain me to do that, but it would be unshib not to. Only by seeking their help could I dream correctly.'
He broke the steeple of his hands, swung around in his chair so his profile was to Hal, and said, 'However, there is no reason that I should have to take such steps, is there? After all, you and you alone are responsible for whatever happens to you. Therefore, you've nobody to blame but yourself.'
'So the Forerunner has revealed,' said Hal. 'I will see that you are not pained, abba. I will make certain that my gapt has no reason to give me a low M.R.'
'Very good,' said Olvegssen as if he did not believe it. 'I will not hold you up by examining your letter, for I should have a duplicate in today's mail. Aloha, my son, and good dreaming.'
'See real, abba' said Hal, and he turned and left. In a daze of terror, he scarcely knew what he was doing. Automatically, he traveled to the port and there went through the process of obtaining priority for his trip. His mind still refused to function clearly when he got onto the coach.
Half an hour later, he got off at the port of LA and went to the ticket office to confirm his seat on the coach to Tahiti.
As he stood in the ticket line, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
He jumped, and then he turned to apologize to the person behind.
He felt his heart hammer as if it would batter through his chest.
The man was a squat broad-shouldered potbellied fellow in a loose, jet black uniform. He wore a tall, conical, shiny black hat with a narrow rim, and on his chest was the silvery figure of the angel Uzza.
The officer leaned forward to examine the Hebrew numbers on the lower rim of the winged foot Hal wore on his chest. Then he looked at a paper in his hand.
'You're Hal Yarrow, shib,' said the Uzzite. 'Come with me.'
Afterward, Hal thought that one of the strangest aspects of the business was his lack of terror. Not that he had not been scared. It was just that the fear was pushed far down into a corner of his mind while the greater part devoted itself to considering the situation and how to get out of it. The vagueness and confusion that had filled him during his interview with Olvegssen and that had lasted long afterward now seemed to dissolve. He was left cold and quick-thinking; the world was clear and hard.
Perhaps, it was because the threat given by Olvegssen was distant and uncertain, whereas being taken into custody by the Uzzites was immediate and certainly dangerous.
He was taken to a small car on a strip by the ticket building. Here he was ordered into the seat. The Uzzite with him also got in, and he set the controls for his destination. The car rose vertically to about five hundred meters and then shot, sirens screaming, toward its destination. Hal, though not in a humorous mood, could not help reflecting that cops had not changed in the last thousand years. Even though no emergency warranted, the guardians of the law must make noise.
Within two minutes, the car had entered a port of a building at the twentieth level. Here the Uzzite, who had spoken not a word to Hal since the initial conversation, gestured to him to get out. Hal had not said anything either because he knew that it would be useless.
The two walked up a ramp and then through many corridors filled with hurrying people. Hal tried to keep the route straight just in case he was able to escape. He knew that flight was ridiculous, that he could not possibly get away. Also, he had no reason as yet to think that he would be in a situation where running was the only way out.
Or so he hoped.
Finally, the Uzzite stopped before an office door which bore no legend. He jerked his thumb at it, and Hal walked in ahead of him. He found himself in an anteroom; a female secretary sat behind a desk.
'Angel Patterson reporting,' said the Uzzite. 'I have Hal Yarrow, Professional LIN-56327.'
The secretary relayed the information through a speaker, and a voice came from the wall telling the two to enter.
The secretary pressed a button, and the door swung open.
Hal, still in the lead, walked in.
He was in a room large by the his standards, larger even than his classroom or his whole puka in Sigmen City. At its far end was a huge desk whose top curved like a crescent or a pair of sharp horns. Behind it sat a man, and the sight of the man shattered Hal's calm composure. He had expected a gapt of high rank, a man dressed in black and wearing a conical hat.
But this man was not an Uzzite. He was clad in flowing purple robes with a cowl over his head, and on his chest was a large golden Hebrew L, the lamedh. And he had a beard.
He was among the highest of the high, a Urielite. Hal had seen his kind only a dozen times in his life and only once before in the flesh.
He thought, Great Sigmen, what have I done? I'm doomed, doomed!
The Urielite was a very tall man, almost half a head higher than Hal. His face was long, his cheekbones protruding, his nose large, narrow, and curved, his lips thin, and his eyes pale blue with a slight internal epicanthic fold.
Behind Hal, the Uzzite said in a very low voice, 'Halt, Yarrow! Stand at attention! Do everything the Sandal-phon Macneff says, without hesitation and with no false moves.'
Hal, who would not have thought of disobeying, nodded his head.
Macneff looked at Yarrow for at least a minute, meanwhile stroking his bushy brown beard.
Then, after making Hal sweat and quiver inwardly, Macneff finally spoke. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a thin-necked man.
'Yarrow, how would you like to leave this life?'
Afterward, Hal had time to thank Sigmen that he had not followed his impulse.
Instead of becoming paralyzed with terror, he had considered whirling swiftly and attacking the Uzzite. The officer, though he wore no visible arms, undoubtedly had a gun in a holster under his robes. If Hal could knock him out and get the weapon, he might be able to take Macneff as a hostage. With him as a shield, Hal could flee.
Where?
He had no idea. To Israel or the Malay Federation? Both were a long way off, though distance meant little if he could steal or commandeer a ship. Even if he succeeded in doing that, he had no chance of getting past the antimissile stations. Unless he could fool the guards, and he did not know enough of military usage or codes to do that.
Meanwhile, thinking of the possibilities, he felt the impulse die. It would be more intelligent to wait until he found out what he was accused of. Perhaps, he could prove that he was innocent.
Macneff's thin lips curved slightly in a smile that Hal was to know well. He said, 'That is good, Yarrow.'
Hal did not know if he had been given an implication to speak, but he took a chance of not offending the Urielite.
'What is good, Sandalphon?'
'That you turned red instead of pale. I am a reader of selves, Yarrow. I can see into a man within a few seconds after meeting him. And I saw that you were not ready to faint with terror, as many would have done if they had just heard my first words to you. No, you became flushed with the hot blood of aggresiveness. You were ready to deny, to argue, to fight against anything I might say.
'Now, some might say that that would not be a favorable reaction, that your attitude showed wrong thinking, a leaning toward unreality.
'But I say, What is reality? That was the question propounded by the Forerunner's evil brother in the great debate. The answer is the same, that only the real man can tell.
'I am real; otherwise, I would not be a Sandalphon. Shib?
Hal, trying to keep from breathing noisily, nodded. He was thinking that Macneff must not be able to read as clearly as he thought he could, for he had said nothing about knowing Hal's first intention to resort to violence.
Or did Macneff know but was wise enough to forgive?
'When I asked you how you would like to leave this life,' said Macneff, 'I was not suggesting that you were a candidate for H.'
He frowned, and he said, 'Though your M.R. suggests that if you keep on your present level, you may soon be. However, I am certain that if you volunteer for what I propose, you will soon straighten out. You would then be in close contact with many shib men; you could not escape their influence. "Reality breeds reality." So said Sigmen.
'However, I may be rushing things. First, you must swear on this book' – he picked up a copy of The Western Talmud – 'that nothing that we say in this office will be divulged to any person under any circumstances. You will die or undergo any torture before you betray the Sturch.'
Hal put his left hand on the book (Sigmen used his left hand because of the early loss of his right), and he swore by the Forerunner and all the levels of reality that his lips would be locked forever. Otherwise, he cut himself off forever from any hope of the glory of seeing the Forerunner face to face and of some day having his own universe to rule.