Boaz turned his face away. It was no wonder Hebron was interested in him, he thought. He remembered Gare Romrey. It was more than likely he had disclosed Boaz’s quest under interrogation.
‘You see how closely our ambitions match, Captain,’ Hebron went on. ‘The difference is that you seek only escape. You have not grasped that the goal is rather a glorious new adventure. To create wholly new events! To control time, space and materiality!’ His eyes shone. ‘To become, in a word, gods. That is our future – a future outside the dead time we are used to.
‘And yet if anyone has earned a place in our society, it is you, Captain,’ Hebron added calmly. ‘You see, I have learned all about you from your girl. On Meirjain you met the ibis-headed man, who told you the secret of attaining super-consciousness.’ He gestured. ‘All this technical research is unnecessary. The secret is in the will. If you can descend into hell, and emerge unbroken, you will become a god.’
‘Except that no one could do it,’ Boaz said bitterly.
‘Not even if it is the only way? Think, Boaz. We are a madcap species. Some man, somewhere, must brave that which cannot be faced. Perhaps it will be our society that implements the ibis-headed man’s instructions.’
‘You will not implement it. If you try, you will fail. You could not endure that agony. I could not. No one can, and if either your aim or mine depends on it the cause is lost.’
‘In any case,’ he said after a pause, ‘are you not guilty of a failure of perspective? The universe has spawned millions of species, any of whom might be candidates for this transformation you speak of. More likely than ourselves, for instance, might be the ibis-headed people.’
Hebron laughed. ‘Have you not committed the same hubris, Captain? Why should you be the only mite who can move a mountain? Yet that has not deterred you. We believe that man is unique. Time and again it has been shown that other races, while they may be advanced intellectually, lack man’s daring. The ibis-headed man tried to denigrate this forceful quality of ours by calling it obsessiveness. Yet because of it, our guess is that it is man’s destiny to be the inheritor of the new universe. Look!’
Suddenly he held up his open hand, palm outward. He seemed to concentrate for a moment or two, and on the pale palm words appeared, standing out blood-red:
WHO
DARES
WINS
‘Our identifying motto. A willed stigma, made visible by mental effort. You may bear this stigma, if you choose.’
‘I take it you do not adhere to this doctrine?’ Boaz said to Ebarak.
Ebarak’s wry smile returned. ‘I’m a scientist,’ he said. He rapped his knuckles on the workbench, producing a hollow drumming sound. ‘Matter and force are what are real, not ideas. As for belief without proof, I’ve no time for that.’
Hebron waved his hand, allowing the motto to fade. ‘Aban’s is a shallow attitude. Science rests on philosophical thought; it is nothing without it. Your own mentor pointed that out to me, Captain. But I detect, somehow, that you are not with us.’
‘That’s right,’ Boaz said. He did not like the look of Hebron, or the sound of his philosophical society, which he sensed was ruthlessness personified. ‘Your teaching is interesting, but my aims are purely negative. I don’t care about the future of existence, on whatever plane.’
Hebron gave no sign of disappointment. ‘We are bound to work together, nevertheless.’ He turned to Ebarak. ‘I was going to contact you today anyway. Orm is on the point of tracking down Captain Boaz. He may well discover his connection with you, too. I can’t delay matters long – you had both better get out. Best, in fact, if we move the whole operation to a fringe planet I have selected.’ He turned back to Boaz. ‘Gems, equipment and most of the staff will leave by separate ships in separate directions. You leave first. You can join up with us later.’
‘And why should I allow you to dictate my actions?’ Boaz responded in an unfriendly tone.
The Director smiled. ‘Can you be so ignorant? Are you unaware of why time research is banned? It is because whatever Aban may say about it, government scientists do think that time mutation is possible. The Cabal is a traditionalist institution, just like any government anywhere. In its eyes time research threatens destruction. So if I tell you that the Rectification Branch has orders to hunt you down with unusual vigour, you will realize that you took an enormous risk in coming here. Perhaps I will return to my office today and be informed that your ship has already been traced to Kathundra. For a few hours I can delay its seizure, but no more. So do as I say, take your girl and go where I tell you – before it is too late.’
The news startled Boaz. It made him feel vulnerable, reminding him that the surrounding city was, in effect, hostile territory – and that he was miles from his ship, linked to it only by its subtle beams. Could these alone be enough to break his cover? Until now he had not thought so. He had presumed that the government of the decaying econosphere would not have the latest technical refinements in its armoury, and that the integrator beams would remain invisible. But then he had taken only routine methods of surveillance into account…
He found it bewildering that the totally private nature of his mission to change time should have been breached. That other minds considered it valid, that it was a secret political issue, made the concept seem paradoxically unreal. He doubted, too, that he had any real friends here. Hebron’s co-operative attitude was probably connected with the fact that Boaz still had a hoard of time-gems in his possession.
Mace stirred, opened her eyes abruptly and stared about her in alarm.
Boaz placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘All right,’ he said, speaking to Hebron, ‘we’ll do as you say.’
10
Again, lemon-sherbet skies. Again, sitting on a hill to contemplate a fading universe.
Except that it was a different hill, and a different town sprawling below it. Except that this time Mace was beside him, and that his thoughts and feelings were, comparatively, confused.
‘You took a long time getting here,’ she said.
‘I made a mistake,’ he told her. ‘I stopped over at Al-Kadron to buy fuel rods. I was spotted by Rectification Branch agents. I had to kill three of them.’
It was soon after leaving Kathundra that he had parted company with Mace, feeling that the risk of capture was too great and should not involve her. But she had insisted on a rendezvous. When he arrived on Chaunce, the planet chosen by Hebron, it was to find her waiting.
His delayed, wandering course – he had taken eight standard months in getting here – was not entirely due to caution. In a deeper sense, Boaz had lost his way. Now, when he should at last have been feeling some hope of success in his mission, it was as if the quest itself had deserted him, and the iron-hard certainty in his soul seemed, despite himself, to waver, and all his efforts to seem trivial and useless.
‘I think Hebron is here,’ Mace told him.
He looked at her in surprise. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Ebarak was acting shifty the last time I saw him, and there were some official people about. I got the idea Hebron had arrived to see how the research was going. Ebarak wouldn’t tell me that, of course.’