His eyes adjusted slowly to the torrent of color. World of a Thousand Colors, they called this place? That was an underestimate. Hundred thousand. Million. Billion. Shades and near-shades mingled to form new colors.
“Are you Derveran Marti?” a voice asked.
Startled, Hollinrede looked around. It seemed as if a band of color had spoken: a swirling band of rich brown that spun tirelessly before him.
“Are you Derveran Marti?” the voice repeated, and Hollinrede saw that it had indeed come from the band of brown.
It seemed a desecration to utter the lie here on this world of awesome beauty, and he felt the temptation to claim his true identity. But the time for that was later.
“Yes,” he said loudly. “I am Derveran Marti.”
“Welcome, Derveran Marti. The Test will soon begin.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“Right out here? Just like this?”
“Yes,” the band of color replied. “Your fellow competitors are gathering.”
Hollinrede narrowed his eyes and peered towards the far reaches of the ringwall. Yes; he saw tiny figures located at great distances from each other along the edge of the crater. One, two, three…there were seven all told, including himself. Seven, out of the whole Galaxy!
Each of the other six was attended by a dipping, bobbing blotch of color. Hollinrede noticed a squareshouldered giant from one of the Inner Worlds surrounded by a circlet of violent orange; to his immediate left was a sylphlike female, probably from one of the worlds of Dubhe, wearing only the revealing token garment of her people but shielded from inquisitive eyes by a robe of purest blue light. There were others; Hollinrede wished them well. He knew it was possible for all competitors to win, and now that he was about to attain his long-sought goal he held no malice for anyone. His mind was suffused with pity for the dead Derveran Marti, sacrificed that Jolvar Hollinrede might be in this place at this time.
“Derveran Marti,” the voice said, “you have been chosen from among your fellow men to take part in the Test. This is an honor that comes to few; we of this world hope you appreciate the grace that has fallen upon you.”
“I do,” Hollinrede said humbly.
“We ourselves are winners of the prize you seek,” the voice went on. “Some of us are members of the first expedition that found this world, eleven hundred years ago. As you see, life has unlimited duration in our present state of matter. Others of us have come more recently. The bank of pale purple moving above you to the left was a winner in the previous competition to this.
“We of the World of a Thousand Colors have a rare gift to offer: total harmony of mind. We exist divorced of body, as a stream of photons only. We live in perfect freedom and eternal delight. Once every five years we find it possible to increase our numbers by adding to our midst such throughout the Galaxy as we feel would desire to share our way of life—and whom we would feel happy to welcome to us.”
“You mean,” Hollinrede said shakily, “that all these beams of light—were once people?”
“They were that—until welcomed into us. Now they are men no more. This is the prize you have come to win.”
“I see.”
“You are not required to compete. Those who, after reaching our world, decide to remain in the material state, are returned to their home worlds with their memories cleared of what they have been told here and their minds free and happy to the end of their lives. Is this what you wish?”
Hollinrede was silent, letting his dazzled eyes take in the flamboyant sweep of color that illuminated the harsh, rocky world. Finally he said: “I will stay.”
“Good. The Test will shortly begin.”
Hollinrede saw the band of brown swoop away from him upward to rejoin its never-still comrades in the sky. He waited, standing stiffly, for something to happen.
Then this is what I killed a man for, he thought. His mind dwelled on the words of the band of brown.
Evidently many hundreds of years ago an exploratory expedition had come upon some unique natural phenomenon here at a far end of the universe. Perhaps it had been an accident, a stumbling into a pool of light perhaps, that had dematerialized them, turned them into bobbing immortal streaks of color. But that had been the beginning.
The entire Test system had been developed to allow others to enter this unique society, to leave the flesh behind and live on as pure energy. Hollinrede’s fingers trembled; this was, he saw, something worth killing for!
He could see why some people might turn down the offer—those would be the few who cautiously would prefer to remain corporeal and so returned to their home worlds to live out their span.
But not me!
He faced upward and waited for the Test to begin. His shrewd mind was at the peak of its agility; he was prepared for anything they might throw at him. He wondered if anyone yet had come to the World of a Thousand Colors so determined to succeed.
Probably not. For most, the accolade was the result of luck—a mental scanning that turned up whatever mysterious qualities were acceptable to the people of this world. They did not have to work for their nomination. They did not have to kill for it.
But Hollinrede had clawed his way here—and he was determined to succeed.
He waited.
Finally the brown band descended from the mass of lambent color overhead and curled into a tight bowknot before him.
“The Test is about to begin, Jolvar Hollinrede.”
Use of his own name startled him. In the past week he had so thoroughly associated his identity with that of Derveran Marti that he had scarcely let his actual name drift through his mind.
“So you know,” he said.
“We have known since the moment you came. It is unfortunate; we would have wanted Derveran Marti among us. But now that you are here, we will test you on your own merits, Jolvar Hollinrede.”
It was just as well that way, he thought. The pretense had to end sooner or later, and he was willing to stand or fall as himself rather. than under an assumed identity.
“Advance to the center of the crater, Jolvar Hollinrede,” came the command from the brown band.
Leadenly Hollinrede walked forward. Squinting through the mist of color that hazed the view, he saw the other six competitors were doing the same. They would meet at the center.
“The Test is now under way,” a new and deeper voice said.
Seven of them. Hollinrede looked around. There was the giant from the Inner World—Fondelfor, he saw now. Next to him, the near-nude sylph of Dubhe, and standing by her side, one diamond-faceted eye glittering in his forehead, a man of Alpheraz VII.
The selectors had cast their nets wide. Hollinrede saw another Terran, dark of skin and bright of eye; a being of Deneb IX, squat and muscular. The sixth Testee was a squirming globule from Spica’s tenth world; the seventh was Jolvar Hollinrede, itinerant; home world, Terra.
Overhead hung a circular diadem of violet light. It explained the terms of the Test.
“Each of you will be awarded a characteristic color. It will project before you into the area you ring. Your object will be to blend your seven colors into one; when you have achieved this, you will be admitted into us.”
“May I ask what the purpose of this is?” Hollinrede said coldly.
“The essence of our society is harmony—total harmony among us all, and inner harmony within those groups which were admitted at the same temporal juncture. Naturally if you seven are incapable even of this inner harmony, you will be incapable of the greater harmony of us all—and will be rejected.”