Martell did not care to seek worshipers, not just yet. He preferred that his converts be voluntary, if possible. The chapel remained empty. On the fifth day it was entered—but only by a frog-like creature ten inches long, armed with wicked little horns on its forehead and delicate, deadly-looking spines that sprouted from its shoulders. Were there no life-forms on this planet that went without armor or weaponry, Martell wondered? He shooed the frog out. It growled at him and lunged at his foot with its horns. Martell drew his foot back barely in time, interposing a chair. The frog stabbed at the wood, sank inch-deep with the left horn; when it withdrew, an iridescent fluid trickled down the leg of the chair, burning a pathway through the wood. Martell had never been attacked by a frog before. On the second try he got the animal out the door without suffering harm. A pretty planet, he thought.
The next day came a more cheering visitor: the boy Elwhit. Martell recognized him as one of the boys who had been teleporting dirt behind the Harmonist place. He appeared from nowhere and said to Martell, “You’ve got Trouble Fungus out there.”
“Is that bad?”
“It kills people. Eats them. Don’t step in it. Are you really a religious?”
“I like to think so.”
“Brother Christopher says you shouldn’t be trusted, that you’re a heretic. What’s a heretic?”
“A heretic is a man who disagrees with another man’s religion,” Martell said. “I happen to think Brother Christopher’s the heretic, as a matter of fact. Would you like to come inside?”
The boy was wide-eyed, endlessly curious, restless. Martell longed to question him about his apparent telekinetic powers, but he knew it was more important at the moment to snare him as a convert. Questions at this point might only frighten him away. Patiently, elaborately, Martell explained what the Vorsters had to offer. It was hard to gauge the boy’s reaction. Did abstract concepts mean anything to a ten-year-old? Martell gave him Vorst’s book, the simple text. The boy promised to come back.
“Watch out for the Trouble Fungus,” he said as he left.
A few days passed. Then the boy returned, with the news that Mondschein had confiscated his book. Martell was pleased at that, in a way. It was a sign of panic among the Harmonists. Let them turn Vorster teachings into something forbidden, and he’d win all of Mondschein’s four thousand converts away.
Two days after Elwhit’s second visit, Martell had a different caller—a broad-faced man in Harmonist robes. Without introducing himself, he said, “You’re trying to steal that boy, Martell. Don’t do it.”
“He came of his own free will. You can tell Mondschein—”
“The child has curiosity. But he’s the one who’ll suffer. If you keep allowing him to come here. Turn him away the next time, Martell. For his own sake.”
“I’m trying to take him away from you for his own sake,” the Vorster replied quietly. “And any others who’ll come to me. I’m ready to battle with you to have him.”
“You’ll destroy him,” said the Harmonist. “He’ll be pulled apart in the struggle. Let him be. Turn him away.”
Martell did not intend to yield. Elwhit was his opening wedge into Venus, and it would be madness to turn him away.
Later that same day there came another visitor, no friendlier than the horned frog. He was a burly Venusian of the lower caste, with armpit-daggers bristling on both sides of his chest He had not come to worship. He pointed to the reactor and said, “Shut that thing off and dispose of the fissionables within ten hours.”
Martell frowned. “It’s necessary to our religious observance.”
“It’s fissionables. Not allowed to run a private reactor here.”
“There was no objection at customs,” Martell pointed out. “I declared the cobalt-60 for what it was and explained the purpose. It was allowed through.”
“Customs is customs. You’re in town now, and I say no fissionables. You need a permit to do what you’re doing.”
“Where do I get a permit?” asked Martell mildly.
“From the police. I’m the police. Request denied. Shut that thing off.”
“And if I don’t?”
For an instant Martell thought the sell-styled policeman would stab him on the spot The man drew back as though Martell had spat in his face. After an ugly silence he said, “Is that a challenge?”
“It’s a question.”
“I ask you on my authority to get rid of that reactor. If you defy my authority, you’re challenging me. Clear? You don’t look like a fighting man. Be smart and do as I say. Ten hours. You hear?”
He went out.
Martell shook his head sadly. Law enforcement a matter of personal pride? Well, it was only to be expected. More to the point: they wanted his reactor off, and without the reactor his chapel would not be a chapel. Could he appeal? To whom? If he dueled with the intruder and slew him, would that give him the right to run the reactor? He could hardly take such a step, anyway.
Martell decided not to give up without a struggle. He sought the authorities, or what passed for authorities here, and after spending four hours waiting to be admitted to the office of a minor official, he was told clearly and coldly to dismantle his reactor at once. His protests were dismissed.
Weiner was no help, either. “Shut the reactor down,” the Martian advised.
“I can’t function without it,” said Martell. “Where’d they get this law about private operation of reactors?”
“They probably invented it to take care of you,” Weiner suggested amiably. “There’s no help for it, Brother. You’ll have to shut down.”
Martell returned to the chapel. He found Elwhit waiting on the steps. The boy looked disturbed.
“Don’t close,” he said.
“I won’t.” Martell beckoned him inside. “Help me, Elwhit. Teach me. I need to know.”
“What?”
“How do you move things around with your mind?”
“I reach into them,” the boy said. “I catch hold of what’s inside. There’s a strength. It’s hard to say.”
“Is it something you were taught to do?”
“It’s like walking. What makes your legs move? What makes them stand up underneath you?”
Martell simmered with frustration. “Can you tell me what it feels like when you do it?”
“Warm. On top of my head. I don’t know. I don’t feel much. Tell me about the electron, Brother Nicholas. Sing the song of photons to me.”
“In a moment,” Martell said. He crouched down to get on the boy’s eye level. “Can your mother and father move things?”
“A little. I can move them more.”
“When did you find out you could do it?”
“The first time I did it.”
“And you don’t know how you—” Martell paused. What was the use? Could a ten-year-old boy find words to describe a telekinetic function? He did it, as naturally as he breathed. The thing to do was to ship him to Earth, to Santa Fe, and let the Noel Vorst Center for the Biological Sciences have a look at him. Obviously, that was impossible. The boy would never go, and it would hardly be proper to spirit him away.
“Sing me the song,” Elwhit prodded.
“In the strength of the spectrum, the quantum, and the holy angstrom—”
The chapel door flew open and three Venusians entered: the police chief and two deputies. The boy pivoted instantly and skittered past them, out the back way.
“Get him!” the police chief roared.
Martell shouted a protest. It was useless. The two deputies pounded after the boy, into the yard. Martell and the police chief followed.
The deputies closed in on the boy. Abruptly, the meatier one was flipping through the air, legs kicking violently as he headed for the deadly patch of Trouble Fungus in the underbrush. He landed hard. There was a muffled groan. Trouble Fungus, Martell had learned by watching it, moved quickly. The carnivorous mold would devour anything organic; its sticky filaments, triggering with awesome speed, went to work instantly. The deputy was trapped in a network of loops whose adhesive enzymes immediately began to operate. Struggling only made it worse. The man thrashed and tugged, but the loops multiplied, stapling him to the ground. And now the digestive enzymes were coming into play. A sweet, sickly odor rose from the Trouble Fungus clump.