_Negative_, was the reading, as he had expected it to be.
_Shind? What do you read?_
_I would say that he is just stopping by to say "Hi," sir_.
_Okay_.
He opened the front gate of his fortress and the artist entered.
Morwin moved into the massive front hail. He seated himself upon a drifting divan.
Stripping, Malacar stepped into a screen of hazes that bathed him and shaved him as he passed. Moving to a closet, he dressed quickly, concealing only the ordinary weapons on his person.
He tubed then to ground level and entered the main hall of his fortress.
"Hello," he said. "How are you?"
Morwin smiled.
"Hello. WThat were you shooting at when I came down, sir?"
"Ghosts."
"Oh. Hit any?"
"Never. --It's a pity that all Earth's vineyards are dead, but I still have a good supply of their squeezings. Would you care for some?"
"That would be fine."
Malacar crossed to a wine chest, poured two glasses, passed one to Morwin, who had followed him.
"A toast to your health. Then dinner."
"Thank you."
They touched glasses.
He stood. He stretched. Better. Much better.
He tested his legs, his arms. There were still painful spots, cramped muscles. These he massaged. He brushed at his clothing. He moved his head from side to side.
Then he crossed the shed and peered out through its grimy window.
The lengthening shadows. The end of day once again.
He laughed.
For an instant, a sad blue countenance seemed to swim before his sleep-spotted eyes.
"Sorry," he said; and then he moved to sit upon a box while he waited for the night.
He felt the power singing in his sores, and in a new, unhealed lesion which had occurred on the back of his right hand.
It was good.
Deiling of Digla meditated, as was his custom, while awaiting the ringing of the tidal bell. His eyes half-lidded, he nodded, there on his balcony, not really seeing the ocean he faced.
The event had been one for which his training in the priesthood had not really prepared him. He had never heard of a similar occurrence, but then it was an ancient and complicated religion wherein he held his ministry.
It was inconceivable that the matter had not been called to the attention of the Names. Traditionally, the lighting was a galaxy-wide phenomenon.
But the Names were strangely indifferent to the doings of their own shrines. Generally, the Name-bearers only communicated with one another on matters of worldscaping, in which nearly all of them engaged.
Would it be impertinent for him to submit an inquiry to one of the Thirty-one Who Lived?
Probably.
But if they were truly unaware, they should be advised. Should they not?
He pondered. For a long while, he pondered.
Then, with the ringing of the tidal bell, he rose and sought the communications unit.
It was unfair, he decided. It was what he had wanted, and it was appropriate, so far as he was now concerned. But the intention had been lacking at the time of the act, and this took away a taste which would have been far sweeter upon his lips.
He moved through the streets of Italbar. There were no lights. There was no movement beneath those blazing stars.
He tore down a quarantine sign, stared at it, ripped it across. He let the pieces fall to the ground and walked on.
He had wanted to come in the night, touching door handles with his wounds, running his hands along banisters, breaking into stores and spitting on food.
Where were they now? Dead, evacuated, dying. The town bore no resemblance to what he had seen that first evening, from the hilltop, when his intentions had been far different.
He regretted that he had been their agent of destruction by accident rather than by design.
But there would be other Italbars--worlds, and worlds filled with Italbars.
When he passed the corner where the boy had shaken his hand, he paused to cut himself a staff.
When he passed the place where the man had offered him a lift, he spat.
Having led a solitary life for so many years, he felt that he could see man's basic nature far, far better than those who had dwelled in cities all their lives. Seeing, he could judge.
Clutching his staff, he passed out of the town and into the hills, the wind tumbling his hair and beard, the stars of Italbar in his eyes.
Smiling he went.
Malacar stretched his arsenal arms and legs and stifled a yawn.
"More coffee, Mr. Morwin?"
"Thank you, Commander."
"... So, the CL is thinking of further hostilities and they want to use me as an excuse? Very good."
"That's not exactly the way it was put to me, sir."
"It amounts to the same thing."
Too bad I cannot trust you, Malacar decided, even though you consider yourself trustworthy. You were a good Exec, and I always liked you. You artistic types are too unstable, though. You go where they buy your art. With that mindtrick of yours aimed at a fusion reactor we could do some good work together again. Too bad. Why don't you smoke that pipe I gave you?
_He is thinking of it now_, said Shind.
_What else is he thinking?_
_Whatever the information I feared, it is not foremost in his mind. Or if it is, I do not recognize it as such_.
"Mr. Morwin, there is a favor I would like to ask of you."
"What is it, sir?"
"It concerns those dream-globe things that you make ..."
"Yes?"
"I'd like you to make me one."
"I'd be only too happy. But I don't have my equipment with me. If I had known you were interested, I could have brought the gear along. But--"
"I understand, in principle, what it is that you do. I believe that my laboratory facilities would be sufficient for us to work something out."
"There are the drugs, the telepathic linkage, the globe--"
"--And I'm a doctor of medicine with a telepathic friend who can both receive and transmit thought-images. As for the globe, we should be able to manufacture one."
"Well, I'll be glad to try."
"Good. Why do we not begin this evening? Now, say?"
"I have no objections. Had I known of your interest earlier, I would have offered to do it long ago."
"I only thought of it recently, and the present seems a particularly appropriate time.
So very, he reflected. And late.
He moved through the great rain forest of Cleech. He passed beside the River Bart. By boat, he traveled hundreds of miles along that watercourse, stopping at villages and small towns.
By now, his appearance was indeed that of a holy outcast--somehow stronger and taller, with voice and eyes that could catch and draw the attention of crowds, his garments in tatters, hair and beard grown long and unkempt, body covered with countless sores, blotches, excrescences. He preached as he passed, and men listened.
He cursed them. He told them of the violence that lay in their souls and of the capacity for evil which informed their beings. He spoke of their guilt, which cried out for judgment, announced that this judgment had been rendered. He stated that there is no such act as repentance, told them that the only thing remaining for them was to spend these final hours in the ordering of their affairs. None laughed as he said these words, though later many did. A few, however, moved to obey him.
Thus tolling the Day of Annihilation, he moved from town to city, from city to metropolis; and his promise was always kept.
The few who survived considered themselves, for some obscure reason, as the Chosen. Of What, they had no idea.
"I am ready," said Malacar, "to begin."