Martell had no time to study the process of dissolution. The man caught in his fatal collars of slime was close to death, and the surviving deputy, his face almost black with fear and rage, had drawn a knife on the boy.
Elwhit knocked it out of his hand. He tried to gather strength for another cast into the fungus patch, but his face was sweat-speckled, and bunching muscles in his cheeks told of the inward struggle. The deputy rocked and swayed, resisting the telekinesis. Martell stood frozen. The police chief bounded forward, knife on high.
“Elwhit!” Martell screamed.
Even a telekinetic has no way of defending himself against a stab in the back. The blade went deep. The boy dropped. In the same moment, with the pressure withdrawn, the deputy slipped and fell on his face. The chief seized the wounded, convulsing boy and hurled him into the Trouble Fungus. He landed beside the soft mass of the dead deputy, and Martell watched in honor as the sinister loops locked into place. Sickness assailed him. He ran halfway through the disciplinary techniques before his mind would work properly again.
By then the police chief and his deputy had recovered their calmness. With scarcely a look at the two dissolving corpses, they seized Martell and hauled him back into the chapel.
“You killed a boy,” Martell said, breaking loose. “Stabbed him in the back. Where’s your honor?”
“I’ll settle that before our court, priest. The boy was a murderer. And under the spell of dangerous doctrines. He knew we were closing you down. It was a violation to be here. Why isn’t that reactor off?”
Martell groped for words. He wanted to say that he did not intend to accept defeat, that he was staying on here, determined to fight even to the point of martyrdom, despite their order that he shut up shop. But the brutal killing of his only convert had smashed his will.
“I’ll shut the reactor down,” he said hollowly.
“Go and do it.”
Martell dismantled it. They waited, exchanging pleased glances when the light flickered out. The deputy said, “It isn’t a real chapel without the light burning, is it, priest?”
“No,” Martell replied. “I’m closing the chapel, too, I guess.”
“Didn’t last long.”
“No.”
The chief said, “Look at him with his gills flapping. All tricked out to look like one of us, and who’s he fooling? We’ll teach him.”
They moved in on him. They were burly, powerful men. Martell was unarmed, but he had no fear of them. He could defend himself. They neared him, two nightmare figures, grotesquely inhuman, their eyes bright and slitted, inner lids sliding tensely up and down, small nostrils flickering, gills atremble. Martell had to force himself to remember that he was a monster as much as they; he was a changed one now. Their brother.
“Let’s give him a farewell party,” the deputy said.
“You’ve made your point,” said Martell. “I’m closing the chapel Do you need to attack me, too? What are you afraid of? Are ideas that dangerous to you?”
A fist crashed into the pit of his stomach. Martell swayed. caught his breath, forced himself to remain cool. The edge of a hand chopped at his throat. Martell slapped at it, deflected it, and seized the wrist. There was a momentary exchange of ions and the deputy fell back, cursing.
“Look out! He’s electric!”
“I mean no harm,” said Martell mildly. “Let me go in peace.
Hands went to daggers. Martell waited. Then, slowly, the tension ebbed. The Venusians moved away, apparently willing to let the matter end here. They had, after all, succeeded in throttling the Vorster mission, and now they appeared to have qualms about dealing with the defeated missionary.
“Get yourself out of town, Earthman,” the police chief grumbled. “Go where you belong. Don’t come mucking around here with your phony religion. We aren’t buying any. Go!”
five
There was no blackness quite like the black of the night sky of Venus, Martell thought. It was like a layer of wool swathing the vault of the heavens. Not a hint of a star, not a flicker of a moon-beam cut through that arch of darkness overhead. Yet there was light, occasional and intermittent: great predatory birds, hellishly luminous, skewered the darkness at unpredictable moments. Standing on the rear veranda of the Harmonist chapel, Martell watched a glowing creature soar past, no higher than a hundred feet up, near enough for Martell to see the row of hooked claws that studded the leading edges of the curved, back-swept wings.
“Our birds have teeth as well,” said Christopher Mondschein.
“And the frogs have horns,” Martell remarked. “Why is this planet so vicious?”
Mondachein chuckled. “Ask Darwin, my friend. It just happened that way. You’ve met our frogs, then? Deadly little beasts. And you’ve seen a Wheel. We have amusing fish, too. And carnivorous fauna. But we are without insects. Can you imagine that? No land arthropods at all. Of course, there are some delightful ones in the sea—a kind of scorpion bigger than a man, a son of lobster with disturbingly large claws—but no one goes into the sea here.”
“I understand why,” Martell said. Another luminescent bird swooped down, skimmed the trees, and rocketed away. From its flat head jutted a glowing fleshy organ the size of a melon, wobbling on a thick stem.
Mondschein said, “You wish to join us, after all?”
“That’s right.”
“Infiltrating, Martell? Spying?”
Color came to Martell’s checks. The surgeons had left him with the flush reaction, although he turned a dull gray when affected now. “Why do you accuse me?” he asked.
“Why else would you want to join us? You were haughty about it last week.”
“That was last week. My chapel is closed. I saw a boy who trusted me killed before my eyes. I have no wish to see more such murders.”
“So you admit that you were guilty in his death?”
“I admit that I allowed him to jeopardize his life,” Martell said.
“We warned you of it.”
“But I had no idea of the cruelty of the forces that would strike at me. Now I do. I can’t stand alone. Let me join you, Mondschein.”
“Too transparent, Martell. You came here bristling with the urge to be a martyr. You gave up too soon. Obviously you want to spy on our movement. Conversions are never that simple, and you’re not an easily swayed man. I suspect you, Brother.”
“Are you esping me?”
“Me? I don’t have a shred of ability. Not a shred. But I have common sense. I know a bit about spying, too. You’re here to sniff.”
Martell studied a gleaming bird high against the dark backdrop. “You refuse to accept me, then?”
“You can have shelter for the night. In the morning you’ll have to go. Sorry, Martell.”
No amount of persuasion would alter the Harmonist’s decision. Martell was not surprised, nor greatly distressed; joining the Harmonists had been a strategy of doubtful success, and he had more than half expected Mondschein to reject him. Perhaps if he had waited six months before applying, the response would have been different.