Seeker Page 10

  "You," he said, handing him a small sharp knife. "Show us you're a true scientist."

  The junior took the knife.

  "Yes, Professor." He spoke too loudly, eager to affirm his commitment to his profession. "Now, Professor?"

  "Now."

  The junior set off at once across the quarry to the tethered axer.

  "Is he in any danger?" asked Similin.

  Ortus shrugged.

  "The trigger time is unknown, of course. One shallow cut, anywhere on the body. Just enough to cause bleeding. The charged blood reacts when exposed to the air, setting off a chain reaction. The stored energy is released, in a force-wave. But how quickly? And how powerfully? We have no idea."

  "The flame of knowledge sometimes burns the hand that holds it," said Similin with a smile.

  The junior with the knife made his cut, and came racing back to the shelter of the rock. He had barely dropped to the ground when there came a sound like a deep dull thud. This was followed by a shiver in the air, a distorting ripple. Then a shriek of high wind. The force-wave ripped outward from the center, blasting the loose fragments of rock across the quarry floor and into the surrounding cliffs. The tethered cattle were carbonized where they stood. The blast slammed into the rock cliffs and caused the very ground to shudder beneath the crouching team. Then, like distant thunder, the blast expended itself, rolling away across the fields and the lake.

  Cautiously the team members rose from their sheltering place, and relighting their lanterns, which had been doused by the blast, they went back into the quarry. The entire quarry floor had been swept clean, as if by a giant broom. In the center, the iron post had melted into a simmering mound. Barban was gone. Not one trace of him remained.

  "Stupendous!" said Soren Similin.

  "And that," said Evor Ortus, swelling with pride, "is a fraction of the power we can release."

  "What a weapon! Professor, I salute you!"

  Ortus could no longer contain himself.

  "My friends, what we have all just witnessed is beyond question a major scientific success. You should all be very proud. As for me, I'm not ashamed to say that this is my finest hour. My discovery will change the world!"

  The team, all as excited as their leader, pumped one another's hands in their delight. The doubting junior, who had so nearly been swept away in the blast himself, set up a cheer of triumph.

  "Science is marching on!" he cried.

  Soren Similin watched and was well pleased. Such a weapon could never be detected by the Nomana, because what was there to see? The carrier could walk naked into the Nom, and he need do no more than scratch one finger to detonate an explosion that would wipe the holy island off the face of the earth. Then the king, in his gratitude, would raise his secretary to a position of power, and Soren Similin would be able to proceed to the final stage of his long-unfolding plan.

  "We must present ourselves to the king," said Ortus, eager now for his rightful praise. "We must tell the king of our success."

  "We must indeed," said the secretary. "But would it not be wiser to wait until we're ready to act?"

  "We are ready! The test was a triumph!"

  "There is still the matter of the carrier."

  "Pooh! That's easy. Take a spiker out of the public tanks."

  "Professor, our carrier must go alone and unaided onto the island. I think you'll agree with me, once you give the matter some thought, that a common spiker won't do at all. We need a very special kind of carrier. We need a volunteer."

  "A volunteer?" The scientist frowned as he took in this notion. "It's true, a volunteer would be desirable."

  "And we need, you would agree, a person who has access to the holy island. One who lives there, perhaps. Or a pilgrim."

  "Yes. I can see that would be an advantage."

  "One who is brave enough to penetrate to the shrine at the heart of the Nom."

  "Yes..."

  "And one who hates the Nomana so much that he or she would gladly die to destroy their power."

  The professor's face had been falling more and more with each requirement. Now all his excitement evaporated.

  "But how can such a person ever be found?"

  "Where there's power," said Soren Similin, "there's hatred."

  "It seems to me to be beyond all possibility. Why should anyone who lives on Anacrea, or anyone who goes there to worship as a pilgrim, have any desire to destroy the island—let alone themselves?"

  "That is now my humble task. To find such a person. To convince them of their mission. You have your genius, Professor. You have shown it in the making of this weapon. My abilities are more modest; but I do possess a certain plodding persistence in the pursuit of simple goals. You have defined what is needed. I will now seek out our perfect carrier. In this way, between us, we will achieve our final victory."

  At the time that Soren Similin spoke these words, the scientist could not but agree. He told himself that with the ugly young man's help, his full glory was now close at hand. But as soon as Similin had left him, he began to harbor suspicions. The more he told himself that he was about to reap the just reward for his life's work, the less certain he grew. He kept hearing in his mind the secretary's soft voice saying, "Between us, we will achieve our final victory." Between us? The ugly young man had done nothing. But Similin was in high favor with the king. And now he had taken upon himself the final stage of the operation, the finding of a carrier.

  So Ortus brooded and became ever more angry until he succeeded in convincing himself that he was about to become the victim of a great injustice. He broached the subject with his oldest friend, a fellow scientist. His friend was sympathetic.

  "If I were you, I wouldn't stand for it."

  "But what can I do?"

  "Whatever it is that this other fellow is doing to steal your thunder, you do it first."

  "Me! How?"

  "How would I know? You keep it all so hush-hush, I haven't the least idea what it's all about. But I suppose you know. This final stage, which will get all the applause—can't you do it yourself?"

  Ortus became very quiet after that. He began to turn his thoughts in a more practical direction. Maybe there was a way. Maybe if he put out the word, discreetly of course, and let it be known what he was looking for—maybe he could give the ugly young man a surprise after all.

  Soren Similin, meanwhile, proceeded with his plan, unaware that he had left behind him an angry and suspicious partner. This was an unusual mistake for Similin to make. He always took great care to stroke the vanity of those he sought to use. He had made the mistake out of impetuosity. As soon as he had seen with his own eyes that the human bomb was a reality, his busy mind had leaped forward to the next stage in the long-conceived plan. He knew he must seek his perfect carrier on Anacrea itself. He also knew that the island would be open to pilgrims, for one day only, on midsummer day. And midsummer day was the very next day. The journey downriver would take all day. He had no time to lose.

  That evening, he asked the king's permission to leave Radiance, allowing himself to hint that the day he had so long promised might now be approaching.

  "You want to go to Anacrea yourself?"

  "Yes, Radiance. In this final stage, I must see the shrine for myself and make my plans accordingly."

  "Final stage! Let it be so! I pray daily to the Radiant Power above to guide you and give you strength."

  "Your prayers are heard, Radiance. I am guided. I am strong."

  "The Nomana will be destroyed soon now?"

  "Soon now, Radiance."

  That night, alone, the surrogate fell once more to his knees.

  "Have I done well, mistress? Am I deserving?"

  You are deserving.

  So came the sweetness, and his busy mind was still. His eyes closed; he moved his head gently from side to side, like one turning his cheeks to the warmth of the sun, and was bathed in a stream of bliss.

  14. Pilgrims

  AS SOON AS LIGHT DAWNED ON M
IDSUMMER DAY, pilgrims began to cross the water to the holy island of Anacrea. Some had camped out the previous night on the seashore, eager to pass as many hours as possible of this, the year's longest day, in the presence of the All and Only. Then as the morning wore on, the pilgrim barges began to arrive, each one crowded with men, women, and children, all of them simply dressed, all of them devoted to the god of the Noble Warriors.

  The Nom had no empire. The Nom owned no estates. The Nomana never preached their faith in public. These hundreds who had chosen to follow their example did so because they had been moved by the simplicity of the Nomana's lives, or awed by the Noble Warriors in action. So pilgrims came from far and wide, from the mountains of the east and the forests of the west, and from the broad fertile plains in between. Some had come every year of their lives. Some came for the first time, filled with excited curiosity. And some stepped onto the holy island bright with the hope that they would be accepted into the Community themselves and would not be leaving Anacrea with the rest of the pilgrims that night.

  Morning Star never forgot her first sight of the holy island. The river had grown steadily wider as it approached the sea, following a looping path between densely forested granite-walled banks. This was quite unlike her own home country of grassy foothills, where the trees clustered in the sheltered valleys. Here the land was broken by towering crags, which burst up out of the endless forest like the humps of some giant petrified beast. She saw little evidence of life along the river's banks; the forest was too dense, the stone cliffs too steep.

  Then seagulls began to appear in the sky, calling their mournful call, and she smelled salt on the wind. The chain of barges rounded a wide bend in the river, and there it was, no more than half a mile away, in the wide mouth of the river where it met the sea: the high hump of Anacrea. Approached this way, from the north, in mid-afternoon on midsummer day, the sunlight fell on the rock formations and on the walls and towers of the great castle-monastery at the top, and caught the silver tiles on the dome that was its highest point. It was a beautiful sight but also one that made her smile, because the castle seemed to sit above the town like a mother hen on her chicks, gathering the pink-roofed houses beneath her gray and silver wings. The terraced streets tumbled steeply down the island's craggy sides, transforming what must have once been a forbidding rock into a pyramid of domesticity.

  On the east shore of the island, where the river met the sea, lay a little port with a protective seawall. Other riverboats were already moored here, and other pilgrims were disembarking. On a high rock that looked down on the port, there stood a solitary robed figure: a watching Noma.

  "Look! There's one of them!"

  The pilgrims round her called to one another, pointing to the lone figure, all eager to set eyes on the famous Nomana. On the quayside, where the pilgrims who had just landed were being divided into groups and searched, there were other Nomana, easy to spot because of the space that formed around them. They stood motionless, vigilant, ready to strike if it became necessary, but until then, content to be still.

  Morning Star too looked on the Noble Warriors with awe. She loved the simple clothing they wore and the plain gray badan that shaded their faces. She loved their containment and their silence. She loved the soft white glow that she alone could see round them, the color of tranquillity. At last her goal was before her.

  Her journey had taken the better part of two days. After the capture of her escort, she had made her way alone, with no protection and no money. Neither had proved necessary. Other travellers on the way had let her join their company and had shared their food with her; and when at last she had reached the Great River, other pilgrims had gladly clubbed together to pay her passage on one of the barges heading for the holy island. It was enough to name her destination to find herself among friends.

  When the barges reached the dock, the pilgrims disembarked in orderly lines. Morning Star stepped onto the paved quayside with a shiver of awe, a little overwhelmed that after all these years of waiting she was at last on the holy island. She looked up at the windows of the castle-monastery high above and wondered if her mother were there.

  Stewards were waiting on the quayside to meet each boat and to search the pilgrims for weapons and instruct them on how to behave. Morning Star and the rest of her group, which numbered over a hundred, were ushered into an open-sided shed, where benches were lined up in the shade. Here one of the stewards gave them what was evidently a standard speech.

  "In the name of the All and Only," he pronounced, "the Community of the Nom welcomes you to the holy island of Anacrea. Please respect this sacred ground. We ask you to follow the signed pilgrim paths and to go barefoot as we do. No weapons are permitted on Anacrea. No alcohol may be consumed here. No animals are slaughtered and eaten here. A simple meal will be provided for you after the Congregation. No charge will be made for this. We do not use money on the holy island."

  Every word he spoke, even though it was spoken in the singsong voice of one who repeats by rote, gladdened Morning Star's heart. All this was as she had expected, was as it should be. This life that she would soon begin would be different in every way from her old life.

  "The Nom can only be reached on foot," continued the steward. "There are four hundred and twelve steps before you reach the Pilgrim Gate. Please use this long climb to empty your heart of all bitterness and anger and greed and fear. With each step you take, shake the dirt from your feet and come into the presence of the All and Only with a light and loving heart."

  There followed a general shuffling about, as those with shoes or sandals removed them; and then, escorted by stewards and watched over by the silent Nomana, the pilgrims made their way up the steps. Morning Star followed the others in perfect silence, but for the pad-pad-pad of bare feet and the calling of seagulls high overhead. She was climbing towards her long-lost mother. She was climbing towards the Loving Mother of All, who waited for her in the Garden. She was climbing towards her new life.

  The fast boat carrying Soren Similin downriver came in sight of the riverside store where the boatman was accustomed to break his journey.

  "Do we stop for a little refreshment?" the boatman called to his passenger.

  "We do not," said Similin.

  "You wouldn't be wanting to go all the way to the ocean without a single stop," said the boatman.

  "I would," said Similin.

  "We've at least four more hours to go, noble sir. More if the wind drops."

  "Then put up more sail, if you please, and make more speed."

  So the boatman swept on past the riverside store, saluting the old shopkeeper to show his regrets as he went by. His regrets were all for himself.

  The old shopkeeper returned the boatman's salute with a slight stirring of one hand. He was dozing on his wide porch, with his peaked military cap low over his tired eyes. Above his head swung the wooden sign that read GENERAL STORE, to which he owed his name. No doubt countless years ago his father had given him some other name, but for as long as anyone living could remember, the old man had worn his soldier's cap and had saluted passing boats from his porch and had been known as General Store.

  Small though his hand's salute had been, it set off an answering motion in his stomach, which developed into a churning sensation. He knew then that soon now he must leave the comfort of his chair to empty his bowels. This urgent summons had become too frequent in recent months. No known remedy had made any difference. It had begun to obsess him.

  "Boy!" he called. "Take me to the po!"

  His assistant emerged from the store. One of his chief duties had now become leading his aging employer by the hand along the river path to the privy. But as he came out onto the porch, he saw a sleek sailing ship making its way down the east fork of the river towards the store's landing stage, and he knew at once that it was bringing trouble.

  "General!"

  The General had already been informed by his own senses of the coming trouble. Exactly which senses he c
ould hardly have said. He no longer heard very clearly, his eyes were misted with age, and he hadn't smelled a new smell in ten years. Perhaps it was a change in the movement of the air, an agitation driven towards his riverside post by the approach of the sailing ship. Barges were good. Riverboats were good. Sailing ships were not good.

  "General!" cried the boy. "Spikers!"

  The old man cursed to himself, and spat over the rails into the brown water, and creaked to his feet. He peered through gummy lids at the boat, even now tying up at his landing stage, and recognized the Lazy Lady. There was nothing to be done. The master of the Lazy Lady was mad and not to be bargained with.

  "Heya, General! Do you love me?"

  "No, I don't love you, you crazy spiker," grumbled General Store. "If you've come to slit my throat, do it now, and welcome."

  He felt his bowels churn ominously.

  "Whoa! I don't slit the necks of my friends."

  "So now I'm your friend, am I? So you rob your friends of the little they have and leave them to starve, do you?

  The Wildman put one braceleted arm round the old man's shoulders and hugged him affectionately.

  "Share and share alike, brava! My boys must be fed, just like your boys."

  The Wildman's crew were all ashore now, lounging on the store's cane chairs and passing round bottles of the store's brandy The assistant cowered in a corner, watching them but doing nothing to stop them. General Store saw all this with disgust.

  "One day you'll meet justice, Wildman. And after they hang you I'll follow you to your burying place, and I'll piss on your grave.

  "You won't forget me, old friend, I know that. But I'm not here for provisions." He saw his men now passing round cigars, and thought it likely they had not paid for them. "Not much in the way of provisions, at least. Maybe a little refreshment for me and my boys. No, General, we're just passing through, on our way downriver to the sea.

  "What do you want with the sea?"