The port itself . . . lived. He looked out where a machine sat in the port, stranger than any he had ever seen, a gray monster attempting nonchalance on the soil of Freedom, where lights glared and motors whined. It was gulping down supply drums; and those drums were about to be lifted off Freedom, to something which, if he looked up, would not be visible, the size and the nature of which he did not clearly picture to himself, although he had seen pictures of ships.
Waden's. All of this belonged to Waden, and indirectly, therefore, to him, and yet he had never imagined it, or had, in the sense that he had conceived at least of the possibility in comprehending Waden Jenks, in that statue in Jenks Square. Like the sculpture in the Square, it took on independent life, surprising him, disquieting him.
His mind flinched back to the escort which had come with Waden, the unwelcome visitants who had walked within the dome at Jenks Square. More of them would come. His Work was great, and all those who came to Freedom's station and to Freedom itself would be drawn to it. He thought of Camden McWilliams and the Pirela weavings, and felt a slight insecurity, the apprehension of a destructive, not a creative, force, which had begun to disturb him even then. He remembered the face and the form which were safely shut in that sketchbook he had not touched after that day, that dark and overlarge figure which had occupied Waden Jenks's office as that ship occupied the port, radiating things Outside, a figment of Waden Jenks's private ambitions, which now began to have many faces.
That was what had begun to nag at him, that was the disturbance which had made these strangers unbearable to him . . . that unfinished portrait and the whole concept behind it, that . . . presence . . . in the untouched sketchbook, which was not a part of Freedom's reality, and was; and was his; and was not. It was in there, imprisoned in the leaves, reminding him of the same thing the machine out there told him—that within the ambition of Waden Jenks, and therefore within his own, was the like of Camden McWilliams and the foreign colonel who wanted him . . . what, dead? Was that what became of enemies in the Outside? It was all full of uncertainties, things half-formed.
That was what kept at him. Open the hook, it said, that unfinished sketch, wanting him to do something with it, interpret it, bring it the rest of the way into view of all the rest of these people, for Waden and for Keye and for the city, make them see what he saw, make their vision . . .
. . . Outward.
As his kept leading him. Look, look at the potential in this individual; consider the perspective of his being; look at the hazard; and the possibility; look.
See him, this invisible, this Outsider.
He wiped his mouth, which had gone dry, stared at the inspiration which was trying, combined with what sat out there in the floodlights, to rear up inside him and claim his undivided attention.
His own reality suddenly discarded the whole project of the expedition to Hesse as irrelevant—an expedition to a place which would be as rude and bare of need for art as Law's Valley; the prospect stifled him. This, on the other hand, this argued for seizing an opportunity before Waden Jenks could have it all his way, before Keye could work upon Waden or anyone else. Make them see his visions instead . . . .
Camden McWilliams. Waden had betrayed the man to his hunters, had traded that man and that information for what Waden wanted, which was the station Freedom had never had since the colony ship broke up. A second chance. And from that second chance, that station which would bring the military to Freedom—a chance to extend the grasp of Waden Jenks. To take the minds of their leaders, to divert them for his purposes . . . all these things.
Camden McWilliams, whatever else he was and whatever potential he had, became the commodity in this trade, which was being made now, for good or for ill for Freedom. That brooding black figure stayed central in his thoughts, the solitary image, dark, like the Outside; unknown, like the Outside.
He started walking, toward the University, toward the studio. The port, the street, the stairs passed in a blur of other thoughts, of visions which began like fevered dreams to tumble one over the other. He forgot about supper, remembered it when he was already in the University building, and from one direction there was a soft noise of the Fellows' Hall, and in the other the stairs, and the studio.
He had no appetite for food now, not with the other hunger.
He took the stairs, the way to the studio which he had visited only infrequently of late. He walked into the studio and turned on the light. Everything was disordered as he had left it, dusty with neglect. He kicked papers this way and that, kicked some old rags aside—they were for wiping his hands from the clay. He remembered where he had left the sketchbook on the table by the bed, sat down on the rumpled sheets—no servants ever gained access here; they had never been permitted. He knew the place and the page, and opened it to that series dark with shading out of which the Outsider face stared. He had caught the expressions, the frowns, the menace, the poses of the powerful body. It was all there; he remembered.
He laid the book down and made the pages stay open, cleared a working surface on the second of the modeling tables—the first one still held models for the dome—and opened the vat by the tableside, scooped out large handfuls of wet clay, flung them onto the surface, lidded the vat and straightened, his hands already at it. He should stop, should change to his working garments—there was already clay on his black clothes—but the vision was there, now. He worked, feverish in his application, blinded by what he saw it should become if he could only get it in time.
It became. He watched it happen and loathed what he was creating, but it went on becoming, a face, features contracted as if it stared into something unapprehended, a force, which itself radiated and got nothing back. There was despair within it; there was—hate. It was citizen Harfeld's look, and his sister Perrin's; it was that of Leona Pace, that hunger which never filled itself, which stared at lost things and never-had things and ached and got nothing back.
XXI
Waden Jenks: You've taught me something.
Master Law: What, I?
Waden Jenks: That duration itself is worth the risk; and that's my choice as well, Artist.
He stopped, when his shoulders had stiffened and his arms ached from the extension and his hands hurt from working the clay. He looked at it; he had not the strength to work to completion at one sitting. That would take days and months to do as he had done the other, but the concept wanted out of him, refusing patience, promising months of effort if he lacked the stamina to go on now, in hours, to finish what vision he had. It sat rough and half-born, the essence of it there. He touched the wet clay, brushed at it tentatively and finally surrendered, dropped his hand and folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them and slept where he sat, fitfully, until he gained the strength to walk over and fall into the unmade bed—to waken finally with hands and arms painfully dry and caked thick with clay, to open his eyes and stare across the room at the creature on the table as if it were some new lover that had come into the room last night and stayed for morning. He had feared it was a dream which might fade out of reach; but it was there, and demanded, unfinished as it was, an attention he presently could not give it.