“But we must show the world that PK is a human ability and not a Fishhook ability. And furthermore — if this could be done, then the entire human race would return to sanity and would regain its old-time self-respect.”
“You’re talking in terms,” Blaine told him, “of cultural evolution. It is a process that will take some time. In the end, of course, it may work out naturally — another hundred years.”
“We can’t wait!” cried Stone.
“There were the old religious controversies,” Blaine pointed out. “War between Protestant and Catholic, between Islam and Christianity. And where is it all now? There was the old battle between the Communist dictatorships and the democracies . . .”
“Fishhook helped with that. Fishhook became a powerful third force.”
“Something always helps,” said Blaine. “There can be no end to hope. Conditions and events become so ordered that the quarrel of yesterday becomes an academic problem for historians to chew on.”
“A hundred years,” said Stone. “You’d wait a hundred years?”
“You won’t have to,” Harriet told him. “You have it started now. And Shep will be a help.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Shep,” said Stone, “please listen.”
“I am listening,” said Blaine, and the shudder was growing in him once again, and the sense of alienness, for there was danger here.
“I have made a start,” said Stone. “I have a group of parries — call them underground, call them cadre, call them committee — a group of parries who are working out preliminary plans and tactics for certain experiments and investigations that will demonstrate the effective action which the free, non-Fishhook parries can contribute to their fellow men. . . .”
“Pierre!” exclaimed Blaine, looking at Harriet.
She nodded.
“And this is what you had in mind from the very start. At Charline’s party you said old pal, old friend . . .”
“Is it so bad?” she asked.
“No, I don’t suppose it is.”
“Would you have gone along,” she asked, “if you’d known of it?”
“I don’t know. Harriet, I honestly don’t know.”
Stone rose from his chair and walked the step or two to Blaine. He put out both his hands and dropped them on Blaine’s shoulders. His fingers tightened hard.
“Shep,” he said, solemnly. “Shep, this is important. This is necessary work. Fishhook can’t be the only contact Man has with the stars. One part of the human race cannot be free of earth and the rest remain earthbound.”
In the dim light of the room his eyes had lost their hardness. They became mystical, with the shine of unshed tears.
His voice was soft when he spoke again. “There are certain stars,” he said, almost whispering, as if he might be talking to himself, “that men must visit. To know what heights the human race can reach. To save their very souls.”
Harriet was busily gathering up her handbag and her gloves.
“I don’t care,” she announced. “I am going out to eat. I am simply starved. You two coming with me?”
“Yes,” said Blaine, “I’ll go.”
Then suddenly remembered.
She caught the thought and laughed softly.
“It’ll be on us,” she said. “Let us say in part payment for the times you fed the both of us.”
“No need to be,” said Stone. “He’s already on the payroll. He’s got himself a job. How about it, Shep?”
Blaine said nothing.
“Shep, are you with me? I need you. I can’t do without you. You’re the difference I need.”
“I am with you,” Blaine said simply.
“Well, now,” said Harriet, “since that is settled, let us go and eat.”
“You two go along,” said Stone. “I’ll hold the fort.”
“But, Godfrey—”
“I’ve got some thinking that I have to do. A problem or two. . . .”
“Come along,” Harriet said to Blaine. “He wants to sit and think.”
Puzzled, Blaine went along with her.
TWENTY
Harriet settled herself resolutely and comfortably in her chair as they waited for their orders.
“Now tell me all about it,” she demanded. “What happened in that town? And what has happened since? How did you get in that hospital room?”
“Later,” Blaine objected. “There’ll be time later on to tell you all of that. First tell me what is wrong with Godfrey.”
“You mean him staying back in the room to think?”
“Yes, that. But there is more than that. This strange obsession of his. And the look in his eyes. The way he talks, about men going to the stars to save their souls. He is like an old-time hermit who has seen a vision.”
“He has,” said Harriet. “That is exactly it.”
Blaine stared.
“It happened on that last exploratory trip,” said Harriet. “He came back touched. He had seen something that had shaken him.”
“I know,” said Blaine. “There are things out there . . .”
“Horrible, you mean.”
“Horrible, sure. That is part of it. Incomprehensible is a better word. Processes and motives and mores that are absolutely impossible in the light of human knowledge and morality. Things that make no sense at all, that you can’t figure out. A stone wall so far as human understanding is concerned. And it scares you. You have no point of orientation. You stand utterly alone, surrounded by nothing that was ever of your world.”
“And yet you stand up to it?”
“I always did,” said Blaine. “It takes a certain state of mind — a state of mind that Fishhook drills into you everlastingly.”
“With Godfrey it was different. It was something that he understood and recognized. Perhaps he recognized it just a bit too well. It was goodness.”
“Goodness!”
“A flimsy word,” said Harriet. “A pantywaist of a word. A sloppy kind of word, but the only word that fits.”
“Goodness,” Blaine said again, as if he were rolling the word about, examining it for texture and for color.
“A place,” said Harriet, “where there was no greed, no hate, no driving personal ambition to foster either hate or greed. A perfect place with a perfect race. A social paradise.”
“I don’t see . . .”
“Think a minute and you will. Have you ever seen a thing, an object, a painting, a piece of statuary, a bit of scenery, so beautiful and so perfect you ached when you looked at it?”
“Yes. A time or two.”
“Well, then — a painting or a piece of statuary is a thing outside the human life, your life. It is an emotional experience only. It actually has nothing at all to do with you yourself. You could live very well the rest of your life if you never saw it again, although you would remember it every now and then and the ache would come again at the memory of it. But imagine a form of life, a culture, a way of life, a way you, yourself could live, so beautiful that it made you ache just like the painting, but a thousandfold more so. That’s what Godfrey saw, that is what he talked with. That is why he came back touched. Feeling like a dirty little boy from across the tracks looking through the bars into fairyland — a real, actual, living fairyland that he could reach out and touch but never be a part of.”
Blaine drew in a long breath and slowly let it out.
“So that is it,” he said. “That is what he wants.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose. If I had seen it.”
“Ask Godfrey. He will tell you. Or, come to think of it, don’t ask him. He’ll tell you anyhow.”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“And you are impressed?”
“I am here,” she said.
The waitress came with their orders — great sizzling steaks, with baked potatoes and a salad. She set a coffee bottle in the center of the table.
“That looks good,” said Harriet. “I am always hungry. Remember, Shep, that first time you took me out?”