The taller of the two was a man with blue eyes that were clear and direct. With raised eyebrows, he coolly appraised the intruder.
‘Captain Joachim Boaz, I presume?’ he said after a moment’s hesitation.
‘How do you know me?’ Boaz asked gruffly.
‘You look the part, Captain. I admit, I had not anticipated that you would turn up here. You are even more resourceful than I had thought.’
Boaz used his gun to wave both men to the rear of the room. The use of the archaism ‘Captain’ in place of ‘shipkeeper’ disconcerted him slightly. He stepped to Mace, taking hold of her face in a thick hand and directing her eyes to him. She stared up without recognition.
He released the clasps on her wrists and waist. ‘Stand up,’ he ordered. When she did not respond he hauled her to her feet. Unsteadily she stayed on her feet, leaning on his shoulder. He backed away, guiding her toward the door, keeping the gun trained on her interrogators.
‘Stop,’ the taller man said.
Boaz’s plan was to leave by the transport cubicle he had seen in the other room. Regretfully he was thinking to himself that he would have to kill these two first. But he halted.
Something in the situation was odd.
Apart from the lack of formal dress, apart from the furtive location, there was the behaviour between the two men. The smaller individual with sandy hair and a snub nose had said nothing and seemed unready to take any initiative, looking to the other as a disciple toward a master.
Boaz recognized that look. It was a feature of many philosophic or occult groups, whose members were apt to fall into what Madrigo had termed thelemic transfer – the surrender of the individual’s personal will to the superiors in the order.
‘I take it you are government?’ he queried.
‘Yes and no. Let me introduce myself. I am Cere Chai Hebron, Director of the Department of Scientific Affairs. My friend here’ – he indicated the other – ‘also works for the government. But today neither of us is acting in an official capacity. We are, to put it bluntly, committing a crime, as you are.’
He smiled, without mirth but in an apparent attempt to win Boaz’s confidence. ‘I think you should listen to me. Without my help you stand little chance of leaving Kathundra alive. You see, it is not simply a matter of illegal possession of alien artifacts. I am sure you have little idea of the alarm with which the government regards your very existence, or of the effort that is being put into tracking you down.’
A bundle of questions arose in Boaz’s mind. In particular he wondered how these people had found Mace. But then it occurred to him that this man Hebron, if that was his real name, could be doing nothing more than feeding him information gained from Mace herself. Perhaps she was the victim of a random kidnapping, snatched to satisfy the festering lusts or warped hobbies of pleasure-sated Kathundrans. The man was evidently trying to delay him, and every extra moment spent here increased his danger.
He started back again. ‘At least let me call Aban Ebarak here to talk to you,’ Hebron said hurriedly.
Again Boaz stopped. That name could not have come from Mace.
‘You know Ebarak?’
‘Indeed. You and I are collaborators, in a way.’
‘What is his number?’
Hebron recited a string of digits, which Boaz matched against the number he held in his adplant. He nodded, but was still suspicious. ‘Come here,’ he said.
Beckoning them into the other room, he dialled. After a short wait Ebarak appeared on the vision plate by the side of the booth which was inset into the wall. Boaz pushed Hebron before it.
‘Do you know this man?’
Guardedly Ebarak nodded. ‘Yes. He’s a Cabal Director.’
‘What can I expect from him?’
Ebarak, reluctant to say anything incriminating over a public service, looked ill-at-ease. ‘You could say he’s on our side,’ he murmured eventually.
‘Then we’re coming through. Stand by.’
‘I was suggesting Aban come here,’ Hebron said diffidently.
‘Get in the booth, both of you.’
Still at gunpoint, they obeyed. After dispatching them Boaz dialled again, pulled Mace in after him, and stepped out with her in Ebarak’s vestibule.
Only the scientist was present. ‘They’ve gone into the lounge,’ he said. ‘You will join us?’
‘They gave Mace a truth drug. Bring her round for me.’
‘Bring her in here.’
He led Boaz into the laboratory and helped him lower Mace into a chair. Disappearing into a storeroom, he returned a few moments later with a hypodermic into which he measured a tiny amount of colourless fluid.
With a faint hiss the drug went into Mace’s blood-stream. ‘She’ll be all right. Don’t suppose he gave her anything to hurt her, anyway.’
‘Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’
Ebarak smiled wryly. ‘Philosophy again. A human preoccupation that seems capable of producing an endless variety of fanatics.’
‘I had guessed it,’ Boaz muttered.
Mace seemed to have fallen asleep. Ebarak arranged her limbs more comfortably in the deep armchair. ‘You see, the government, including the Cabal itself, has unwittingly become host to a secret occult society, and its beliefs are treasonable. Cere Hebron, the tall fellow in the next room, is Director of this society. He is also Director of the Department of Scientific Affairs.’ He shrugged. ‘I haven’t been able to tell you this before, but we have both, to some extent, been under his protection. I have also been obliged to collaborate with his society in the matter of research into the time-gems.’
‘These treasonable beliefs concern time?’ Boaz asked.
‘Yes. The society’s aims are broadly speaking the same as your own. But the philosophical background is quite different.’
Unseen by Ebarak, Cere Chai Hebron had slipped into the laboratory while he spoke. ‘That is right, Captain Boaz,’ he said quietly. ‘And yet you, I gather, should be able to appreciate that background.’
‘What “philosophy” is it that makes it necessary to kidnap an innocent woman?’ Boaz demanded brusquely.
‘I make no apology,’ Hebron replied, unperturbed. ‘The Great Work is of such magnitude that any act committed in pursuit of it is praiseworthy. As it is, I took your friend so as to gain an insight into your good self, Captain. And I am glad that I did.’
He moved closer, without a glance at Mace. His gaze on Boaz was open and disconcerting. ‘Listen closely, and I will explain our doctrine. We reject that colonnader teaching on the absoluteness of mind-fire. We believe it is not a state of ultimate consciousness, but only a kind of limpid sleep, a clear, calm quiescence. The whole universe is in this state of quiescence, whether in its latent or its manifest phase. Essentially, it consists of the fact that nothing ever changes. The Mirror Theorem proves this. It is what we call predestination. But what does predestination signify? To those of us in the society it merely signifies that existence has not yet evolved true consciousness and will. What consciousness does exist, either as pure mind-fire or as the smaller consciousness that is present in every one of us, is passive and not in command of itself.
‘In this condition, the universe resembles a flower, or some other plant, that blossoms by day and closes up by night, and does nothing more. This opening and closing, of course, symbolizes the manifest and latent stages of the world. So it has been for no one knows how long.
‘But it will not remain so forever. The universe is capable of further development. There is a higher destiny – to evolve a new, more intense consciousness that is not quiescent, but which instead is capable of change and innovation. Only creatures possessing individual consciousness can take this step, and doubtless this is the reason why such creatures – organic creatures – exist. We believe it is man’s specific duty to generate the new consciousness. We are the acme of creation. But we are still conditioned by the material universe. We can, if we choose, become its masters.’