"I think," he confided to them, and voices fell silent and faces turned to him, "that we can take down the scaffolding tomorrow, all the lights, clean it and sweep it and prepare it . . . It's complete. It's finished. But—" Their watching faces haunted him. He groped for something less final, hating his weakness. "There'll be more projects. Others. Those of you who want will always have first priority when I choose crew; maybe here, maybe elsewhere. You're the best. We can do more than this."
"I want on," said John Ree. Voices tumbled over his, all asking. Me, Master Law, Me.
He nodded. "All who want." They were shameless as children. As if they were his. They stirred that kind of protective feeling in him, an embarrassment for their sakes where they had no shame. In fact they were comfortable about him, like an old garment; with them he could breathe easier, knowing things were going well without his watching, because they were good.
"We can get that scaffolding down," said John Ree, who was discharged and already had his pay.
Herrin nodded. "Everything but mine. There's still some polishing. That comes down . . . maybe in two days."
There were nods, tacit agreement. The drink passed; the rain splashed down. There were warmer places to sit than where they were and certainly drier, but there was laughter and good humor, people who had known each other for months discussing families and how they had gotten on and what they had done with their bonuses and whose baby was born and who had what at market and how here and there people should meet for lunch or dinner. Herrin listened, both included and excluded, taking interest in the whole biazarre situation.
Then the rain stopped and they went away again, taking their empty bottles and their tarps and wishing him well. Even some complete outsiders from the street who had sheltered here and stood amazed on the fringes of the group had gotten to talking, and bade each other farewell and in some instances invited each other to meet again on the streets as if they knew each other.
And quietly, a lingering echo, the wet tap of footsteps which had been behind the curtain-walls, in the outer shells; Herrin heard them, casually, because there was no reason not to. He looked, and his skin drew, because he saw Others, whose midnight cloaks were wet, who did not depart, but stood there staring.
He cleared his throat, shrugged, turned to the scaffolding and scrambled up again, taking up the polishing, which was tedious work but mindless. He dried the area with a cloth from his pocket, and took up the abrasive again, set to work, ignoring Gytha and Phelps and the others who stirred about disassembling some of the other scaffolding.
He worked until his shoulders ached, and became aware, slowly, of the presence of a shadow at the foot of the scaffold.
He looked down, drawn by a horrid fascination, fighting his own instincts, which knew, as from one night he had known, that something would be there.
The invisible was looking up. It was Leona's face framed within the midnight hood, her plump freckled face and her brown hair and her stout shape within the cloak. There was longing in her eyes, which looked up at the statue.
"Leona," he said, very, very softly, and frightened her and himself. "Are you all right, Leona?"
She nodded, almost imperceptibly. There was a vast silence. Perhaps Gytha and Phelps were looking this way. No, they could not. It was like the wearing of the brooch— people would not see it because they dared not see it, because it was not right to see. And if people went on seeing . . . .
There were solutions for the invisibles if people started seeing them. There was the Solution, which the State had always avoided; and he knew it and surely Leona Pace knew it, and he wished that he could look through her.
She turned and walked away. He found himself shivering as if the wetness of the wood on which he was sitting had gotten through the tarp, or the coldness of the stone traveled up his hands into his heart. He thought that perhaps he should go home for the day, rest, drive himself no further. But that was to admit that something had happened. He looked at Gytha and Phelps, when a clatter drew his attention: they were working away, and probably they had not noticed.
Or they were stronger than he at the moment.
He shivered and steadied his hands enough to begin his polishing again. He felt everything slipping again, everything balanced on a precipice and ready to tumble over the edge. What did the rest of his life promise if this was the beginning: brilliance, leading to madness?
There was a thunder in the sky that for the moment he attributed to the clouds and the rain, but it kept coming, and steadied, and he knew then what it was, that at the port a part of Waden's reality had come to earth. A part of his own, at some time to come. He had no time for it at the moment, did not want to think about it . . . yet. There was a cold spot where that knowledge rested, colder than the stone or the recent rain. He heard the shuttle come down and heard the noise stop. His mind kept running with the image, the prospect of Waden Jenks's offworld negotiations, the world irrevocably widening, the walls all abolished, and nothing to do but keep staring at the horizons and widening and widening forever.
He pursed his lips and dipped his cloth in the abrasive, concentrated on the curve he was smoothing, finger width by finger width.
Something stirred near him, a step. Suddenly someone reached up near him and took the hammer. Leona, he thought; he did not want to see. There was the impression of midnight cloth in the corner of his eye. Slowly the tool moved off the platform, and there was a crash, metal on stone; he looked, alarmed.
He stared within a blue hood at no human face, and at once his vision blanked and he caught for support against the statue itself. It went away, a shadow in his vision, and he stayed there with his heart beating against his ribs and the impression of what he had almost seen lingered in his vision, wide dark eyes, a dusky color like the cloth, and features . . . he did not want to see. Ever.
"Sir?" Carl Gytha asked, coming near the platform. "You all right, sir?"
He nodded, shrugged, put himself to work again.
Simple pilferage. He finished the place he had begun, calmly set himself at the next. It had gone long enough . . . he could work late, drive himself just a little longer . . . .
. . . get finished with this, once for all.
No, he reminded himself. He had tired that and nearly broken himself. "I'm folding up," he said. "Going back for the day."
"We'll stay," Gytha said, "by turns. Keep things from harm."
They came to help him down. He accepted the help, dusted himself off and started the walk home, for a decent supper and a little rest.
They had seen, he persuaded himself. Even normal people saw as much as he had seen. They proved that, by offering to stay and protect things. He was not abnormal. Perhaps they had seen Leona Pace, too, and were too self-possessed to admit it. He had never been able to ask anyone. No one was able to ask anyone.
He walked as far as the hedge and through the archway. He stopped then and blinked in surprise at the entourage which had come down Port Street and pulled up in front of the Residency. There were vehicles and troops; men in no-color uniforms . . . with weapons. He had never seen the like, not in such numbers. They filled four trucks; a fifth was vacant, with soldiers all over the frontage of the Residency, and some in the doorway; and now came transports with what might be dignitaries. Those were not Kierkegaard vehicles, they had come from offworld. From up there and out there, and something larger than an ordinary shuttle had landed to carry all of that.