And there the Harmonists had their big lead. They had teleports who already could work miracles. Given a few generations of genetic work, they might be sending expeditions to other solar systems. Once you could move a man five miles in safety, it was only a quantitative jump, not qualitative, to get him to Procyon. Martell had to tell them. Santa Fe called to him—that vast sprawl of buildings where technicians split genes and laboriously pasted them back together, where esper families submitted to an endless round of tests, where bionics men performed wonders beyond comprehension.
But he did not go. A personal report seemed unnecessary. A message cube would do just as well. Earth now was an alien world to Martell, and he was uneasy about returning to it, living in breathing-suits. He balked at making the return journey.
Through the good offices of Nat Weiner, Martell recorded a cube and had it shipped to Kirby at Santa Fe. He remained at the Martian Embassy while waiting for his reply. He had set forth the situation on Venus as he understood it, expressing his great fear that the Harmonists were too far ahead and would have the stars. In time Kirby’s reply arrived. He thanked Martell for his invaluable data. And he expressed a calming note: the Harmonists, he said, were men. If they were to reach the stars, it would be a human achievement. Not theirs, not ours, but everyone’s, for the way would be opened. Did Brother Martell follow that reasoning, Kirby asked?
Martell felt quicksand beneath him. What was Kirby saying? Means and ends were hopelessly jumbled. Was the purpose of the order fulfilled if heretics conquered the universe? In distress, he stood before the improvised altar in the room Weiner had given him, seeking answers to unaskable questions.
A few days later he returned to the Harmonists.
seven
Martell stood with Christopher Mondschein by the edge of a sparkling lake. Through the clouds came the dull glow of the masked sun, imparting a faint gleam to the water-that-wasnot-water. It was not that trickle of sunlight that made the water sparkle, though; it teemed with luminous coelenterates that lined its shallow bottom. Their tentacles, waving in the currents, emitted a gentle greenish radiance.
There were other creatures in the lake, too. Martell saw them gliding beneath the surface, ribbed and bony, with gnashing jaws and metallic fins. Now and then a snout split the water and a slim, ugly creature whipped twenty yards through the air before subsiding. From the depths came writhing, sucker-tipped tendrils that belonged to monsters Martell did not care to know.
Mondschein said, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“When I went out to face the Venusians?”
“No. Afterward, when you holed up with the Martians. I thought you were making arrangements to go back to Earth. You know it’s hopeless to try to plant a Vorster chapel here.”
“I know,” Martell said. “But I’ve got that boy’s death on my conscience. I can’t leave. I lured him into visiting me, and he died for it. He’d be alive if I had turned him away. And I’d be dead if you hadn’t had one of your other little Venusians teleport me to safety.”
“Elwhit was one of our finest prospects,” Mondschein said sadly. “But he had this streak of wildness—the thing that brought him to us in the first place. A restless boy’ he was. I wish you had left him alone.”
“I did what I had to do,” Martell replied. ‘I’m sorry it worked out so awfully.” He followed the path of a sinuous black serpent that swept from right to left across the lake. It extended telescoping arms in a sudden terrifying gesture and enveloped a low-flying bird. Martell said carefully, “I didn’t came back here to spy on you. I came back to join your order.”
Moudschein’s domed blue forehead wrinided a little. “Please. We’ve been through all this already.”
“Test me! Have one of your espers read me! I swear it, Mondschein. I’m sincere.”
“They’ve embedded a pack of hypnotic commands in you in Santa Fe. I know. I’ve been through it myself. They sent you here to be a spy, but you don’t know it yourself, and if we probed you, we might have trouble finding out the truth.You’ll soak up all you can about us, and then you’ll return to Santa Fe, and they’ll toss you to a debriefing esper who’ll pump it all out of you. Eh?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Are you sure?”
“Listen,” said Martell, “I don’t think they did anything to my mind in Santa Fe. I came to you because I belong on Venus. I’ve been changed.” He held out his hands. “My skin is blue. My metabolism is a biologist’s night-mare. I’ve got gills. I’m a Venusian, and this is where the changed ones go. But I can’t be a Vorster here, because the natives won’t have it. Therefore I’ve got to join you. Do you see?”
Mondachein nodded. “I still think you’re a spy.”
“I tell you—”
“Stay calm,” said the Harinonist. “Be a spy. That’s quite all right. You can stay. You can join us. You’ll be our bridge, Brother. You’ll be the link that will span the Vorsters and the Harmonists. Play both sides if you like. That’s exactly what we want.”
Once again Martell felt the foundations giving way beneath his feet He imagined himself in a dropshaft with the gravity field suddenly gone—falling, falling, endlessly falling. He peered into the mild eyes of the older man and perceived that Mondschein must be in the grip of some crazy ecumenical scheme, some private fantasy that—
He said, “Are you trying to put the orders back together?”
“Not personally. It’s part of the plan of Lazarus.” Marteil thought Mondschein was referring to his own assistant. He said, “Is he in charge here or are you?”
Smiling, Mondschein replied, “I don’t mean my Lazarus here. I mean David Lazarus, the founder of our order.”
“He’s dead.”
“Certainly. But we still follow the course he mapped for us half a century ago. And that course envisages the eventual reuniting of the orders. It has to come, Martell. We each have something the other wants. You have Earth and immortality. We have Venus and teleportation. There’s bound to be a pooling of interests, and possibly you’ll be one of the men who’ll help to bring it about.”
“You aren’t serious!”
“As serious as I know how to be,” said Mondschein. Martell saw the darkening of his expression; the amiable mask dropped away. “Do you want to live forever, Martell?”
“Tm not eager to die. Except for some overriding purpose, of course.”
“The translation is that you want to live as long as you can, with honor.”
“Right”
“The Vorsters are getting nearer to that goal every day. We have some idea of what’s going on in Santa Fe. Once, about forty years ago, we stole the contents of an entire longevity lab. It helped us, but not enough. We didn’t have the substratum of knowledge. On the other hand, we’ve made some strides, too, as I think you’ve discovered. Will it be worth a reunion, do you think? We’ll have the stars—you’ll have eternity. Stay here and spy, Brother. I think—and I know Lazarus thought—that the fewer secrets we have, the faster our progress will be.”
Martell did not reply. A boy emerged from the woods—a Venusian boy, possibly the one who had saved him from the Wheel, perhaps the dead Elwhit’s brother. They looked so interchangeable in their strangeness. Instantly Mondschein’s manner changed. He donned a bland smile; cosmic matters receded.