Himself.
He was, after all, very comfortable this night. He had simply recovered his previous state, before Keye, which was solitude. He thought of the first night he had begun to realize his solitude, the first night he had begun to conceive of himself as psychurgos and not as child, the night the visitor had come to tell him he was different.
His parents. Perrin. In fact his thoughts had not tended that way twice in a day in a very long time. He would bring them to Kierkegaard when his great work was finished. They would be an excellent test of it. The anticipation of the effect on them excited him.
Accomplishment, he thought, did not diminish goals: it opened new ones. To reach back to Camus and to alter that place too . . . one of his apprentices, trained by the work here, would suffice to change Camus. And to change his parents' and sister's lives, by enveloping them in his influence, giving them prominence in Camus . . . .
He smiled, self-pleased, confident, and walked from the facade of the Residency and its power and its philosophy toward his own domain at the University. He never meant to let Waden come too close to him, as Keye had come, until she tried to maneuver him and discovered that she could not.
He whistled, walking along the walk beneath the street-lamps, disturbing the night because it was his to disturb.
A shadow confronted him, gangling, robed. He saw it because it startled him, coming out of that patch of shadow between the two buildings. Or perhaps it had been there all along and he had not perceived it. He had truly not seen one of the Others in—he had forgotten how long. He had learned how not to see them, out of politeness.
It stood there, a blob of midnight in the light of the street-lamp, and from within the hood seemed to stare at him, a question posed. His path was blocked. The ahnit made himself . . . itself? inconvenient to his progress.
He walked round it and curiously—for he was beyond such curiosity—he had a nagging impulse to look back, to see if it regarded his departing back, or if he should see it taking its own way.
Anathema.
It did not exist. He refused it existence. An inevitable question occurred to him, regarding his existence in its eyes.
His mind rebounded perversely to his analysis of the insane, who confronted a reality which swallowed them, and who thereafter, had to ignore all realities, or establish their own rules.
He laughed nervously, silently, because the night was no longer empty of threat to him. He went not to his studio, but to the Fellows' Hall in the University, and sat at that table which he and Waden had shared on a certain night, familiar scarred wood.
The University was created for Waden, and created Herrin Law, sculptor.
He drank his beer and sat alone, because he was a Master and there were no younger Students who dared approach or question him; because he was known to be powerful and most of good sense would not come to him uninvited, fearing the edge of his wit. His apprentices had spread his reputation of late and the self-knowing retreated from hazard.
He was alone. Solitary in his Universe, the only real point.
X
Master Herrin Law: Does emotion originate from within or without your reality?
Apprentice: Within. There are no external events.
Master Law: Is the stimulus to emotion also internal?
Apprentice: Sir, no external events exist.
Master Law: Am I within your reality?
Apprentice: (Silence).
Master Law: That is a correct answer.
Waden Jenks tolerated the sitting, suffered in silence, because to admit discomfort and then go on to bear it was to admit he was constrained. Herrin prolonged the misery in self-contained humor, took whatever shots might be minutely necessary, sketched from several angles, after resetting the lighting with meticulous care.
And Waden, perched on his uncushioned chair, sat rigidly obedient.
"The lighting," Herrin said, "will be from a number of sources. I take the seasons into account; apprentices are running the matter in the computer, so that the lighting will be exact from season to season, the sun hovering hour by hour in a series of what appear to be design-based apertures. The play of—"
"Spare me. I'll see the finished effect. I trust your talent."
Herrin smiled, undisturbed. Darkened an area beneath the chin and smiled the more.
"A little haste," said Waden. "I have appointments."
"Ah?"
"A ship in orbit. An ordinary thing."
"Ah."
"There is some hazard. This is McWilliams's Singularity."
Herrin lifted an eyebrow, nonplused.
"An irregular client, one of the more troublesome. I'd like you to be there, Artist."
Both eyebrows. "Me? Where, at the port?"
"The Residency, my friend."
"What, you want sketches?"
Waden smiled. "I find the opinion of the second mind of Freedom—an asset. You have an insight into character. I value your assessment. Observe the man and tell me what you'd surmise about him."
"Interesting. An interesting proposal. I bypass your naïve assumption. I'll come."
"Of course you will."
He stopped in midshadow, made it a reflective pause, studiously ignoring Waden, refusing at this moment to interpret him.
XI
Apprentice: Master Law, what is the function of Art in the State?
Master Law: The question holds an incorrect assumption.
Apprentice: What assumption, sir?
Master Law: That Art is in the State.
And on the morrow the shuttle was down and Camden McWilliams was in the Residency.
Herrin wore Student's Black; it was stark and sufficiently dramatic for confrontations. He sat in the corner of Waden's office, refusing to be amazed at the splendor of the decoration, much of the best of the University culled for the private ownership of the First Citizen. He knew the individual styles: the desk with the carved legs, definitely Genovese; the delicate chair which bore Waden's healthy weight, Martin's; the paintings, Disa Welby; the very rugs on the floor, work of Zad Pirela, meant as wall hangings, and here trod upon as carpet.
He was offended. Vastly offended. He observed, catalogued, refused to react. It was Waden's prerogative to treat such things with casual abuse, since Waden had the power to do so; he recovered his humor and smiled to himself, thinking that there was one work Waden could not swallow, but which engulfed him.
Meanwhile he sketched, idly, and looked up with cool disinterest when functionaries showed in captain Camden McWilliams.
A black man of outlandish dress, bright colors, a big man who assumed the space about him and who had probably given the functionaries difficulty. Waden greeted McWilliams coldly, and Herrin simply smiled and flipped the page of his sketchbook to begin again.
"McWilliams of the irregular merchanter Singularity," Waden Jenks said, failing to hold out his hand. "Herrin Law, Master of Arts."
"McWilliams," Herrin said cooly.
McWilliams took him in with a glance and frowned at Waden. "Wanted to see," he began without preamble, "what kind of authority we have here. You're old Jenks's son, are you?"
"You've been informed," Waden said. "Come the rest of the way to your point, McWilliams of Singularity"
"Just looking you over." McWilliams studiously spat on the Pirela carpet. "Figure the same policies apply."
"I follow old policies where pleasant and convenient to me. That I see you at all is more remarkable than you know, for reasons that you won't understand. Outsiders don't. You'll accept the same goods at the same rate and we'll accept no nonsense. Trade here is not necessary."