Then I—disappeared. And here I am. Do you have trouble believing in me?”
“Perhaps I’ve been tampered with,” Kirby said. “I wish I remembered you.”
Lazarus lay back. He stared at the green, rubbery walls. The instruments monitoring his life-processes whirred and t clicked. There was an acrid odor in the air: asepsis at work. Kirby looked unreal. Lazarus wondered what sort of maze of pumps and trestles held him together beneath his thick, warm blue robe.
Kirby said, “You understand that you can’t remain on Earth, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Life will be uncomfortable for you on Venus unless you’re changed. We’ll do it for you. Your own men can supervise the operation. I’ve talked to Mondschein about it. Are you interested?”
“Yes,” Lazarus said. “Change me.”
They came the next day to turn him into a Venusian. He resented the public nature of the operation, but it was idle to pretend that his life was his own any more, anyway. It would take several weeks, they said, to effect the transformation. Once it had taken months to do it. They would equip him with gills, fit him out to breathe the poisonous muck that was the atmosphere of Venus, and turn him loose. Lazarus submitted. They carved him, and put him back together again, and readied him for shipment.
Vorst came to him, feathery-voiced and shrunken, but still a commanding figure, and said, “You must realize I had no part in your kidnapping. It was totally unauthorized—the work of zealots.”
“Of course.”
“I appreciate diversity of opinion. My way is not necessarily the only right way. I’ve felt the lack of a dialogue with Venus for many years. Once you’re installed—there, I trust you’ll be willing to communicate with me.”
Lazarus said, “I won’t close my mind against you, Vorst. You’ve given me life. I’ll listen to what you have to say. There’s no reason why we can’t cooperate, so long as we respect each other’s sphere of interests.”
“Exactly! Our goal is the same, after all. We can join forces.”
“Warily,” Lazarus said.
“Warily, yes. But wholeheartedly.” Vorst smiled and departed.
The surgeons completed their work. Lazarus, now alien to Earth, journeyed to Venus with Mondschein and the rest of the Harmonist retinue. It was in the nature of a triumphant homecoming, if one can be said to come home to a place where one has never been before.
Green-robed brethren with bluish-purple skins greeted him. Lazarus saw the Harmonist shrines, the holy ikons of his order. They had carried the spiritualistic element further than he had ever visualized, practically deifying him, but Lazarus did not intend to correct that. He knew how precarious his position was. There were men of entrenched power in his organization who secretly might not welcome a prophet’s return, and who might give him a second martyrdom if he challenged their vested interests. Lazarus moved warily.
“We have made great progress with the espers,” Mondschein told him. “We’re considerably ahead of Vorst’s work in that line, so far as we know.”
“Do you have telekinesis yet?”
“For twenty years We’re building the power steadily. Another generation—”
“I’d like a demonstration.”
“We have one planned,” Mondschein said.
They showed him what they could do. To reach into a block of wood and set its molecules dancing in flame—to move a boulder through the sky—to whisk themselves from place to place—yes, it was impressive, it defied comprehension. It certainly must be beyond the abilities of the Brotherhood on Earth.
The Venusian espers cavorted for Lazarus, hour after hour. Mondschein, sedate and complacent, gleamed with satisfaction, spoke of thresholds, levitation, telekinetic impetus, fulcrums of unity, and other matters that left Lazarus baffled but encouraged.
He who had returned pointed to the gray band of clouds that hid the heavens.
“How soon?” Lazarus asked.
“We’re not ready for interstellar transport yet,” Mondschein replied. “Not even interplanetary, though in theory one shouldn’t be any harder than the other. We’re working on it. Give us time. We’ll succeed.”
“Can we do it without Vorst’s help?” Lazarus asked. Mondschein’s complacence was punctured. “What kind of help can he give us? I’ve told you, we’re a generation ahead of his espers.”
“And will espers be enough? Perhaps he can supply what we’re missing. A joint venture—Harmonists and Vorsters collaborating—don’t you think the possibilities are worth exploring, Brother Christopher?”
Mondschein smiled blandly. “Why, yes, yes, of course. Certainly they’re worth exploring. It’s an approach we hadn’t considered. I admit, but you give us a fresh insight into our problems. I’d like to discuss the matter with you further, after you’ve had a chance to settle down here.”
Lazarus accepted Mondschein’s flow of words graciously. He had not, though, been away so long that he had forgotten how to read the meanings behind the meanings.
He knew when he was being humored.
nine
At Santa Fe, with the unaccustomed invasion of Harmonists at its end, things returned to normal. Lazarus was come forth and loose upon the worlds, and the television men had retreated, and work went on. The tests, the experiments, the probing of the mysteries of life and mind—the ceaseless tasks of the Vorster inner movement.
Kirby said, “Was there ever really a David Lazarus, Noel?”
Vorst glowered up at him out of a thermoplastic cocoon. Hardly had the surgeons finished with Lazarus than they had gone to work on the Founder, who was suffering from an aneurysm in a twice-reconstituted blood vessel. Sensors had nailed the spot, subcutaneous scoops had exposed it, microtapes had been slammed into place, a network of thread and looping polymers replacing the dangerous bubble. Vorst was no stranger to such surgery.
He said, “You saw Lazarus with your own eyes, Kirby.”
“I saw something come out of that vault and stand up and talk rationally. I had conversations with it. I watched it get turned into a Venusian. That doesn’t mean it was real. You could build a Lazarus, couldn’t you, Noel?”
“If I wanted to. But why would I want to?”
“That’s obvious. To get control of the Harmonists.”
“If I had designs against the Harmonists,” Vorst explained patiently, “I would have blotted them out fifty years ago, before they took Venus. They’re all right. That young man, Mondschein—he’s developed nicely.”
“He isn’t young, Noel. He’s at least eighty.”
“A child.”
“Will you tell me whether Lazarus is genuine?”
Vorst’s eyes fluttered in irritation. “He’s genuine, Kirby. Satisfied?”
“Who put him in that vault?”
“His own followers, I suppose.”
“Who then forgot all about it?”
“Well, perhaps my men did it. Without authorization. Without telling me. It happened a long time ago.” Vorst’s hands moved in quick, agitated gestures. “How can I remember everything? He was found. We brought him back to life. I gave him to them. You’re annoying me, Kirby.”
Kirby realized that he was treading a field salted with mines. He had pushed Vorst as far as Vorst could be pushed, and anything further would be disastrous. Kirby had seen other men presume too deeply on their closeness to Vorst, and he had seen that closeness imperceptibly withdrawn.
“I’m sorry,” Kirby said.
Vorst’s displeasure vanished. “You overrate my deviousness, Kirby. Stop worrying about Lazarus’s past. Simply consider the future. I’ve given him to the Harmonists. He’ll be valuable to them, whether they think so now or not. They’re indebted to me. I’ve planted a good, heavy obligation on them. Don’t you think that’s useful? They owe me something now. When the right time comes, I’ll cash that in.”