helplessness, her fear, the flashing intruded until, to her dulled mind, the message came through. With a sob, she ran to the flashing instrument, touched it with her hand. Her mind pattern was communicated to her, a blaze. And then, RED ALERT PLANET KILLER. SECTION G-1034876 STAR R-875948 PLANET 3. «What does that mean to me?» she sent. «Why is the Trang missing?» Blaze. «You are the sentinel. For this circuit, you are on call.» «But there's never been a call,» she sent. She remembered, now. Always there had been the assignments. Numberless times before she had been the sentinel, had been on call. But they'd never stopped the flow of Trang before. «I demand to know the meaning of this.» Through her hand, into her mind, came the communication of the huge central computer. Behind her she heard the male from A-7 whimpering in his Trangless panic. And the incredible message went into her mind. «I can't do it,» she sent. «I won't do it.» «You must.» «I can't do it without Trang.» «There is a way.» A servomech snaked out. She opened her mouth, swallowed. Soon a strange feeling came to her. The aching need for Trang left her. She knew, but had never known, normalcy. She could feel the blood flowing. She could feel her heart beating. She knew the workings of her organs. It was horrible. Yet, it was bearable. «What must I do?» When she was told, she felt her heart sink. Out' Out into the open world? Worse. Into space. Into space without Trang. On the rare trips she made to commitments—she, being of superior quality usually had males coming to her—she was thoroughly Tranged, euphorized to the point of being blocked out of the necessary movements to port, to ship, to port to structure on another planet. Now she was being told that she had to go forth un-Tranged and not in a comfortable personal ship but in an armed, cold, vast ship of the line. «Why me?» she moaned. «You are on call.» «Let him go,» she sent, indicating the moaning male from A-7. «No,» he gasped. «No.» «Please,» she sent to him. «For me. When you come back I'll be yours, here, for the next two commitments.» «Without Trang?» he sent. He shuddered. «Three commitments, then,» she promised. «You know I'm good.» «No,» he said. «Please go. Please I must have Trang.» At her bidding, a servomech brought a gleaming singlet. She slipped into it. It molded her form. As she left the room she heard the sigh of the Tranger. Beautiful Trang. And he was going to have it all to himself. She turned to go back. The door was closed and her palm on the senlock had no effect. Damned computer. Locking her out. There was an atmoflyer on the roof. With a grim face, she entered, punched destination. She didn't know what was going on but whoever or whatever was responsible for taking her away from Trang and from a very promising coupling would suffer. She would promise that. CHAPTER SIX The morning news said that the vast light in the sky was the North American Station blowing up. Luke felt letdown for a moment. However, he soon brightened. He was not going to think that God had blown up the North American Station just to give him a sign, but the fact remained that the great light in the sky had acted as a sign and had inspired him to do something which was, beyond doubt, a genuine miracle. That fact could never be taken away from him. He had healed. And not just some imagined ailment. He had healed a fatal wound. A man lived because of him. And because that man lived, hope lived in Luke's heart. He breakfasted on fishcakes made from an odorous meal which tasted almost as bad as it smelled. His coffee was bitter-weak, in spite of a reckless splurge of generous spoonings of the ground near-coffee into the
hot water. It was not the best of all possible ways to start a day, but Luke's optimism was stronger than his usual distaste for the unappetizing meal. He gulped it down, dressed in a clean set of coveralls, his number-two outfit, and was making his plans for the day when he heard the authoritative knock on the door. «Coming,» he said, turning, wondering who could be calling at this hour of the morning. He did not have time to reach the door. The ancient, weakened wood of the frame gave way under a pounding force. Wood splintered, the bolts and locks broke and bent. A helmeted Brotherfuzz lurched in behind the broken door, righted himself, weapon at the ready. Luke froze in shock. More Brotherfuzz moved in, three of them, big, grim, coming toward him silently. «I'm clean,» Luke said, thinking with belly-sinking panic of the incriminating bottle of Soul Lifter on the shelf. «I'm—» Without speaking, two of the Brotherfuzz seized his arms, lifted him until his feet were barely touching the floor, hustled him toward the door. «Hey, listen,» Luke said. «Listen, what is all this?» The most frightening thing was the silence of the three Brotherfuzz. They moved him along rapidly, out the door, down the hall, past the nonfunctioning elevator, down the stairs. «What is it?» Luke asked. «Where are you taking me?» A jet-rotor with Brother markings waited. Curious people stood at a safe distance and watched Luke being shoved into the craft. Numbed by
the suddenness of it, Luke was pliant. He made no effort to resist, took his seat between two of the big Brotherfuzz as the rotor hummed, roared,
listed slightly as it lifted. Below, Luke saw a ground truck pull up in front of his building. Uniformed Brotherfuzz poured out, carrying instruments which were unfamiliar to Luke. They moved into the entrance as the rotor lifted beyond the walls of the canyon and Luke, for the first time in his nineteen years, saw Old Town spread below, spiked and turreted and glassed and looking strangely neat and clean. For a moment he forgot to be frightened. A kind of elation filled him. Thus God must see the world, from on high, a world of moiling humanity and tall buildings and ground cars crawling on the streets. «It must be nice,» Luke said to one of the Brotherfuzz, smiling, «to be able to see this every day, huh?» Silence. Grim faces looking straight ahead. The hum of the jet-rotor. And Luke could sec the water. Huge ships. Small craft moving. It was so damned beautiful he felt tears come to his eyes. He lifted his hand to wipe them away, shamed. A Brotherfuzz caught his arm, shook his head menacingly «Don't try anything. Lay. « «No, sir,» Luke said. But the moment of beauty known was past. In its place fear, dread. Ahead, tall buildings, the rotorcraft just clearing the tops, another Brotherfuzz rotor passing, gleaming with Brother insignia, piloted by a grim-faced Brotherfuzz who waved. Then, moving down slowly toward a
port on the roof of a dark, old building. Luke didn't recognize it at first. Then, as he drew closer, the front of the building perspected down toward the distant street and he knew that it was the Hall of Justice. «Listen,» he said, «could you tell me why?» Silence. A slight bump as the rotorcraft landed. Luke was pulled out, two Brotherfuzz on his arms, lifting him, dragging him, his feet working to
try to keep up, to try to get a purchase on the roof, to walk. A door opened ahead of them. A guard nodded, looked at Luke without curiosity. Luke was jerked to a halt in front of a desk. An old Brotherfuzz didn't look up. «Name.» «I am poor Apprentice Brother, Third Class, Luke Parker, by your leave,» Luke said. «Room 802,» the man at the desk said, still not looking up. «Listen,» Luke said, as he was being hustled along a hall, into an
elevator, «if it's the Soul Lifter, I can explain. It's not mine, see? I mean it was left there, you know?» Silence. A dropping sensation. Down, down the shaft. Out into a hallway which was windowless, dim. Luke noted the room numbers. 806. 804. 802. Into the room, coming to a halt, looking around with a sinking sensation. More Brotherfuzz, high-ranking men. And a full Brother in a purple robe, looking grim. «Luke Parker,» one of Luke's captors said, speaking for the first time. «You may leave,» said the Brother. Luke was left standing alone. «Sit,» the Brother said, waving toward a hard, straight chair. «Brother,» Luke said, thinking that maybe things were not so bad after all. He'd wanted to come into contact with a Brother. He'd wanted to tell about the miracle. He wanted to ask for his chance. With such a gift, surely he'd be made a full Brother without having to take the impossible tests. «You will speak when you are told to speak.» One of the high-ranking Brotherfuzz said. «Name,» said the Brother. «Luke Parker,» he said, frightened again. «Lay?» asked the Brother. «Apprentice Brother, Third Class.» «By what means?» «By appointment,» Luke said. «To University One, the Brothers?» «Get his record.» The Brother sighed. He turned to Luke. «Is that where you learned medicine?» «Huh?» Luke said. «You will find it easier if you cooperate,» said one of the Brotherfuzz. «Sure—I mean, yes, sir,» Luke said. «Were you taught medicine at University One?» the Brother asked. «No, sir,» Luke said. A Brotherfuzz came in with a sheet of copy paper, handed it to the Brother, who looked at it with knitted brows for a moment. Finished, he looked at Luke. «Where did you learn medicine?» «Sir,» Luke said, frowning in sincere concentration, «I'm not sure I know—» «The search team,» said a Brotherfuzz, answering a signal on a communicator. The Brother took the headset. He listened. «Very Well,» he said, taking off the headset. They looked at Luke. The Brother frowned. Luke swallowed nervously. «They found nothing but Newasper and a partially consumed bottle of Soul Lifter in his apartment,» he said, as if to himself. «Listen, sir,» Luke said, «about that Soul Lifter—» «You are in serious trouble, young man,» the Brother said. «I know, sir,» Luke said, «but you see, it wasn't mine. I mean, this guy left it there, you know? I mean, I was going to report it—» «Silence!» the Brother said coldly. He leaned toward Luke, his face working with what seemed to be suppressed anger. «Now I want you to
talk and talk fast. I want you to tell me where you learned medicine. I want you to tell me where you have hidden your tools, your drugs. I don't want to hear any more rot about Soul Lifter, do you understand?» «Yes, sir, I mean, well—» Luke was truly baffled. «I'll tell you anything.
I'm a good citizen, sir. I mean, I've never been busted. And I try to do all I can—» «Last night,» the Brother said, breaking in, «you healed a Fare called James Trimble. He had been wounded in a street fight. You used medical knowledge and equipment to heal his wounds. I want to know what you used and where you learned the skill.» Luke sighed with vast relief. «Oh, that,» he said. «Praise, God, I'm glad you brought that up. Brother, I healed! I mean I really healed.» «Yes,» the Brother said. «I got this sign from God, you know.» I mean I prayed and this sign came and—» «All right,» the Brother said. «I will not question your sincerity. How did you heal the Fare?» «He was cut, Brother, you know?» Luke said, excited now, trying to talk faster than his lips and tongue would move. «He was cut bad. I looked at him and I knew he was dying. And I knew that I couldn't help him. I've got this gift, you know, sir? I mean, sometimes I really can heal. I mean, I've healed things before. But I knew I couldn't heal this Fare, because he was dying and his entrails were hanging out and then God sent this sign and I
felt this tremendous surge of—something. I felt it. I got this sign from God. I mean, the whole heavens lit up—and they told me later it was the station blowing up, but it was a sign, nevertheless, and it gave me this power and I said, HEAL! and the cut closed and there was nothing left but some blood and—» «Put him on the rack,» the Brother said. Two Brotherfuzz leaped toward Luke. He gasped in surprise as he was seized, lifted. He was hustled into an adjoining room. He recognized the shakeshock rack and his heart leaped and his throat went dry. «Brother,» he cried out, his voice choked. «Brother, please.» But they were throwing him onto the rack and he was too shocked and too frightened to fight. He felt the straps go around his arms and his legs and then the big strap across his forehead. «I'm giving you one last chance,» the Brother said. He stood beside Luke, the control panel for the shakeshock rack in one hand. «Tell me where you learned the medicine. Tell me where you've hidden your equipment.» «I'm telling you, sir,» Luke cried. «It was faith and the power from God!» A teethshaking jolt hit him. His every muscle spasmed, tightened, screamed. A muffled grunt was shocked from his throat and his heart stopped momentarily, leaving a great, tearing pain in his chest and he couldn't even scream and it went on for an eternity and then it stopped and his spasmed body plumped back down onto the rack and he screamed, once. «Where and how?» the Brother said. «Oh, God,» Luke sobbed. «Oh, my God.» «Talk,» the Brother said. «Brother,» one of the high-ranking Brotherfuzz said with humble deference, «I would point out to you that you have the machine turned to two-thirds power.» «I know,» the Brother said. «I have little patience with such as this.» He looked down at Luke. Tears were streaming down Luke's cheeks. «Now, Parker, now. Where is the medical gear?» «Oh, God, Brother, as God and the Holy Book are my witnesses—» Jolt. Rippppppp. Terror. Heart stopped and body thrown into convulsions of unbelievable pain which went on again for the eternity and left him in a half-fainting condition and sobs coming with metronomic regularity and tears and fear and hopelessness. «Oh, God, help me,» his voice said and it was from somewhere outside of him. «The gear was not in your room,» the Brother said. «We know you practiced medicine. We know, do you understand? We have witnesses. We have a half dozen Tired and Fares who saw you practice medicine. They saw the cut in the Fare's stomach and they saw you close it. Now, tell me. What did you use to suture the cut? What medicines did you administer?» «God gave me a sign,» Luke sobbed. «And I felt the power—»
— Wereeeeeeeeeeeee— Blue flames in his eyes and body supported by
the back of his head and his heels as the incredible pain hit and lifted and tightened and bucked and shook and his voice keening— eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee— «Once more,» the Brother said. Luke was limp. The room swam before his tearful eyes. He heard a great roar in his brain. His eyes ached, were hot. «Where is the medical equipment which you used?» «Brother,» Luke whispered, «Man of God, believe me I healed—with—faith!» And, just as the shakeshock force hit him, Luke heard a voice from afar. «—can't stand much more. Brother. « And blackness, merciful blackness. He awoke in blackness. Things moving around him. He opened his eyes. Blue stars swam, exploded in blackness. He moaned. His throat was sore. He tried to move his arms. He cried out in pain. Every muscle in his body was a small sea of pain. He tried to scream and nothing came but a groan. Blackness. And pain. And a voice. At first he could hear and not understand, then. «Easy, easy, boy.» Darkness. «Easy. Just lie easy. Don't try to move.» A pinpoint of pain in his arm. And, spreading from that pinpoint, a radiating wave of blissful numbness. He could breathe again. But he couldn't see. He was blind. «Help me,» he managed to say. The numbness spread, made him feel sleepy, killed the pain in every muscle fiber. «I can't see,» he said. «Just lie easy.» Eternity Blackness. Then a glow of light, dim, far. «Can you hear me?» «Yes,» Luke said. «There's nothing but muscle damage, fortunately. You'll be all right.» «I can't see,» Luke said. «That will pass.» Glow. Brightening. Movement. He tried to lift his head. He couldn't move. Numbness was everywhere. But the light was growing brighter and
then, far off, he saw the face. An old face. White hair. A man's face close to his. Fingers at one eye, lifting the lid. «Can you see me?» «Yes,» Luke said. «Good. Now I'm going to let you sleep.» When he awoke the soreness was there. Not much pain as long as he didn't try to move, but flaming soreness when he lifted his hand and let it
fall back weakly. The face He could see it more clearly. «Just take it easy, boy. You won't be able to move for a long time. You see, they hit you so hard it tore down all the muscle fiber. It's as if you had exercised every muscle in your body for ten hours at maximum potential.» Bite of needle at his arm. «Just something to help you.» Numbness. Later. «Do you feel like talking?» The man's face was close. He had blue eyes, a beard, wrinkles, gray hair. «Yes,» Luke said. «It was faith. God gave me a sign.» «Easy. They're not here.» He could see clearly. The man was dressed in white. The room was white. A table nearby was laden with strange, gleaming instruments bottles, containers. «I had the power,» Luke said. «I know, I know. Now listen to me. They'll be back for you soon.» «Oh God—» «Just listen. I'm a friend. What did you use to heal that Fare?» «Oh, God,» Luke said. «It was the power.» «I'm your friend. Tell me. Did you have tools?» «No,» Luke said. «God gave me a sign.» «Medicines?» «No.» «This is important,» the man in white said. «Very important. I'm not the one who put you on the rack, boy. I'm your friend. Tell me, exactly, how you did it. Tell me how you felt. Tell me everything you can remember.» Luke told him. He told him about the healing, how, at times, he had the feeling he could see inside people. He told him about knowing that there was something wrong inside the woman's side when he put his hand on it, how he straightened things in there, how the pain left her, how he felt. He told how the Fare's stomach was cut, how he stuffed the things, the coils, the pulpy, hot wet things back in with his hands, how he saw the light in the heavens. How he felt the power. «Where did you feel it?» the man in white asked. «Here,» Luke said, holding his stomach. «It shot into me there and—» «Burn?» «Kinda,» Luke said. «Funny. But I knew it was the power And I could feel the way the things were supposed to be inside the Fare and I put them together with my mind—» «With your mind?» «—the power,» Luke said. «Do you think you could do it again'?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «All right,» the man in white said. «They're going to be coming back for you soon.» «Oh, God, no.» Luke said. «I couldn't stand it.» «No, you couldn't,» the old man said, «not with that maniac jolting it to you at three-quarters power.» He lifted Luke's hand, held it for a long moment, his fingers looped loosely around Luke's wrist. «Hummm.» «Why are they doing this to me?» Luke asked. He felt a strange warmth for the white-haired man in the white coat. «Because you're rocking the boat, boy.» «Huh?» He started to add that he didn't understand, but the white-haired man put his finger to his lips. «You just lie here,» the white-haired man said. «Don't open your eyes and don't make a sound no matter what you hear, do you understand?»
Actually, it was what Luke wanted to do, lie perfectly still, only his chest moving with his breathing, his heart pounding, blood flowing through his veins. There was a soreness in his chest which pulsed with the beat of heart, as if his very heart muscle were tired. He heard voices. He recognized the voice of the Brother who had put him on the rack. His pulse pounded, but he made no movement. «Have you not revived him?» «I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.» «You will address me with the respect which is my due.» «Sir.» The word oozed with contempt. «You bastards think the universe turns around you. Remember, my friend, no one is indispensable.» «Indeed, Brother. I agree. And, so, I think it would be only democratic for you and the rest to realize that and take your chances with the general populace.» «I can put you on the rack, doctor.» «Sure you can. And sometimes I think that would be the best thing. It would be quick with me. I'm not young and strong like this fellow.» «The arrogance of these quacks—» «Who keep you and others like you alive—» «I order you to be silent.» «Yes, sir.» «This criminal. Why is he not revived?» «Because you've almost killed him.» «Nonsense. I want him aware. I want to question him.» «Then talk with your God. I have done all I can.» Luke held his breath. He'd never heard anyone talk to a Brother in such a manner. And the remark about God. It sounded, in tone, like rank sacrilege. He expected the wrath of the Brothers and of God to fall upon the old man. But there was a moment of silence. He heard movement, felt the nearness of someone, kept his eyes closed. «When will I be able to question this Lay?» «Do you mean put him back on the rack?» «If necessary.» «It may not be necessary. You may have killed him already.» Luke felt a touch of fear. But the man had told him he would be all right. «I want this man to talk!» The Brother's voice was hard. «I will do my best, but I'm afraid that his heart was damaged. I've told you that these people, who are beset by every pestilence known to medicine, who have never had the first minute's care, cannot survive under your methods of questioning. If you insist on sending a killing shock through them, I can only warn you again that they will not talk. You don't talk when you're dead.» Luke felt like crying out. They were talking about him. The man in white was talking about him! He was the one who was dying! But, with the great, exhausted numbness in him, he lay still, breathing evenly. «If you let this one die, I'll—» «You'll do what?» The old man laughed. «A long time ago a man said, there is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not protest. All you can do, Brother, is kill me. And sometimes I think that wouldn't be too bad.» The Brother made an angry sound. «Let me know the minute he revives.» Then there was a movement. Silence. Then, «All right, son. He's gone.» Luke opened his eyes. «What you said—» «About you dying?» He chuckled. «Don't worry. You're strong as a horse. I don't understand why, but you're in better shape now than most who have not been shocked.» He put his hand on Luke's arm. «We're going to get you out of here .» Then, with a smile, «But you're going to have to die to do it. « «Huh?» Panic. His heart thudding. Soreness. Pain. «At least they'll think you're dead. You won't be, I assure you.» He was doing something with a long, gleaming needle. Luke watched fearfully. He flinched away. «You
won't feel anything. You'll go to sleep. When you awaken you'll be in a safe
place. You'll be able to hear but you won't be able to move.» The needle bit. «Relax. You're safe. Safe.» Safe. Safe. Safe. The word rebounded in his skull. A wave of dizziness came over him. Then a numbness spread. He felt himself going limp, felt his breathing slow, halt. Yet there was no panic. His heart thudded, bumped, slowed and then, seemingly, it stopped. Waves of peace billowed up, covered, engulfed him. And he was not breathing and his heart was stopped and the soreness no longer bothered him and he could hear the old man moving about, making a thin, whistling sound through his teeth,
heard the clicks, the voice. «Tell your boss he won't be able to question this one. He's dead.» And long periods of silence and someone talking as he floated on a sea of softness and dim light and they were talking about him, about his body. «—keeping you alive—need subjects—train young doctors—-body—» and the time suspended and then a floating and other sounds, some known, some not known and traffic around him, ground-car movement and peace, peace. CHAPTER SEVEN «Where am I?» «You're safe. Safe.» Safe, safe, and safe safe safesafesafe… Coolness. The bite of a needle in his arm. A low sound of music. Clean air. Coolness at his lips. Swallowing. «Am I in heaven?» A low laugh. «Not quite.» Time passing endlessly. Coolness Comfort. Clean, sweet air. Chewing.
Sweet taste. His eyes still closed. Soreness. Moving his arms. People lifting, moving, pushing, rubbing. He awoke. Light, a cool, early morning light. He could see. A form moved when he tried to raise his head. He was in a huge bed. «Ah, we're awake, are we?» A feminine voice. He turned his head. A female face near. He shrank. «How do we feel?» He was naked under a sheet. He felt ashamed. A woman close and him naked under the sheet. Coolness at his lips. «Drink this.» Swallowing. And when next he awoke, full awareness. The room was large, clean, white. A window, or what seemed to be a window, was closed. There was a distant hum of power. He was alone. Experimentally, he raised his head. There was no soreness. He moved each limb in turn, sat up, put his feet off the edge of the bed. He felt good. He looked around for his clothing. The door opened. He scrambled back under the sheet as the woman came in crisply. «Well, look at us. All bright and chipper.» Luke swallowed, his face flushing. «Hey, how about my clothes?» «Ah, we feel that good, do we?» The woman, smiling, walked on padded feet to what he'd thought was a window but what was actually a small door which opened outward into the room. The woman removed a folded, white garment, tossed it onto the bed. «Here. Try that for size.» Luke crouched under the sheet. «Well, put it on!» Luke squirmed uncomfortably. «Oh, all right,» the woman laughed. She paced out of the room. Luke stood. His legs almost gave way. He had little strength. He lifted the one-piece coverall. It seemed to weigh a ton. He managed to step into it and sat down, exhausted. The door flew open. The bouncy woman was back. «Ah, not so chipper after all, huh?» «I'm all right,» Luke said. «Feel like walking?» «I don't know,» Luke admitted. «Just sit tight.» She was gone again. She came back with a wheelchair. Luke sat. She moved him briskly out of the room, down a hall. There were no windows anywhere. The air, however, was clean and fresh. The lighting was recessed into the ceilings. People passed, nodding, brisk, moving about their business as if it were of some importance. Nearing a door, the woman turned, backed into it, pulled Luke and the chair through after her, wheeled him around with a swiftness which made his head go dizzy for a moment. The white-haired man sat behind a huge desk. There was a nameplate on the front on the cluttered desk top. Dr. Zachary Wundt. He
looked up, smiled. In the clear light of the office Luke could see dark spots on the skin of this man's face. «How do you feel?» «Fine,» Luke said. «Sore.? Weak?» «Yes,» Luke said. Behind him the woman shifted from foot to foot. «That will pass,» Wundt said. «I imagine you have some questions.» «Well, gee…» Luke said, not knowing where to start. «OK,» Wundt said. «You're two hundred feet below the surface of the Earth. Never mind what particular section of the Earth. You're with friends. You were brought here from Old Town under the influence of a drug with an unpronounceable name which made your metabolism slow down to a crawl. To the naked eye of one not experienced in medicine, you were dead. You're here because you did something the other night in Old Town which interested the Brothers—and us.» «The healing—» Luke had not understood it all, but he knew the man in the white coat was talking about the healing, about his power. «The healing. We want to know how you did it.» «Oh, God,» Luke said. «I told them. I've told you.» Wundt smiled. «Sure, son. You've told us. We believe you. It's not unknown, you know. Others have healed with a certain—power. Not as spectacularly as you did, I'll admit. But the phenomenon is not unknown to us. A fellow named Jesus."—-Luke caught a quick breath, shocked by the casual reference to the Lord—"did it. Some of his people did it. Preachers from time to time have healed, in minor ways. We just want to talk with you about the—power. Maybe have you try to use it again. OK?» «I guess so,» Luke said. «Can I ask you something'?» «Shoot,» Wundt said. «Are you a—a—doctor'?» «I am.» «You can heal?» «Some things,» Wundt said. «We can heal some things. We can't make a belly wound close up instantaneously, however.» «And you took me away from that place,» Luke said. «Why?» «Hummm,» Wundt mused. «There's no simple answer to that, my boy.
It opens up the entire subject and I don't think you're ready for it. Let me just say that not everyone feels about the world as the Brothers feel.» Luke was pushed away, back to his room. The woman was cheerful, talkative. However, when Luke questioned her about the place, about the man named Zachary Wundt, she merely laughed and told him he'd have his questions answered sooner or later. «The thing for you to do is get some rest,» she said, holding a glass of water and a small, round pill somewhat like Newasper. Luke swallowed. He slept. He awoke and was wheeled to a room with fantastic instruments all around a hard table. He
felt blissfully peaceful. He didn't mind at all their probings, pokings, the indignities which ordinarily would have made him livid with shame and outrage. They probed his anus. They told him to drink thick, milky liquid. Machines moved and hummed and clicked. He was suspended halfway between sleep and awareness. Their voices were quiet, and seemed to come from a great distance. Back in his room, he slept. The next day there was more. Small spots were shaved on his head, cold little plates attached. Wires ran in a bewildering array to winking, moving machines. And through it all the woman he'd first seen was there, pushing little capsules into his mouth from time to time, serving food, talking cheerfully about nothing. Then he was, once again, in the office of Zachary Wundt. He'd had no capsules that morning. He felt alert. His legs no longer threatened to collapse when he stood. He walked to Wundt's office, sat upright in a comfortable chair. «Well, my boy, has it been too bad?» «No, sir.» «You've had what is known as the works,» Wundt said. «The works?» «We know more about you than you do. Inside and out. We've got you down right here.» He held up a sheaf of papers. Luke looked puzzled. «You're in good shape, considering. A few cavities in your teeth, an irritated stomach lining, crud in your lungs, enlarged adrenal glands,
heart a bit oversize as a result of the overactive adrenals. The usual things
you find in a city dweller. Your brain is of normal size. You've got the usual crud in your bloodstream, potential disease and all. We're clearing that up. Can't do anything about the adrenals except advise long walks in the country—» He chuckled. «The country. Hah!» «I don't get it,» Luke said. «No. You wouldn't.» He frowned. «We've got more tests for you, I'm afraid. We've cut off the sedative—» It was all strange to Luke. All the words. He felt as if he'd been lifted into a foreign country. Nothing was familiar. He felt dizzy, uneasy. «—but you're recovering nicely from the shakeshock and after we run a few more tests on you we'll be able to get down to work.» Luke nodded. Somehow he felt he could trust the white haired man. And it didn't really matter. Now that he could think clearly again, he was confused. He'd found a great and valuable gift from God, his healing power. That gift should have gained him instant acceptance as a full Brother. Instead, it got him shakeshock, and not in therapeutic doses. Then this. «You won't be seeing me for a few days. I've got to get back to the city. It seems that Brother Murrel has a cold.» The name registered with Luke. But before he could question Wundt, the white-haired man went on. «You'll be looked after in good style by Miss Caster. If you need anything, just ask her.» He read letters and symbols from a chart on the wall. Listened to tones, telling them when he could hear and when he couldn't. He put little pegs into holes in a brightly painted board. For three more days he was shuttled from room to room, from efficient young man to efficient young
man. Then, in a pleasantly lit, white room, he sat in a plastic chair in front of a table. Wundt and some of the men he'd seen in the previous hectic days sat at the table. They talked about him and to him. He learned that the medical treatment, which was continuous, was clearing up the
irritation in his stomach, was dissolving the foreign material in his lungs.
He learned that he was of average intelligence. He started to question that, for he could read, and that was more than anyone he knew in Old Town could do. Wundt, as if sensing his objection, explained. The measure was of potential, not of learned matter. In short, he was merely a man, not a superman with hidden mental powers. Luke understood. They were trying to define his power. «It comes from God,» he said. «Yes,» Wundt said. «We know.» They wanted him to heal. «Here?» he asked. One of the men had a small cut on his hand. He extended it toward Luke, the hand, soft and clean, lying palm down on the table. «I can't,» he said. «Try.» He tried. He put his hand on the man's hand and said. «Heal!» He even prayed. But he didn't feel it. There was too much strangeness. The room
was too quiet. There were no traffic noises, no people, no Techs or Fares or Tired looking on with burning eyes, no muted «amens» from the audience, no feeling. «I—I have to preach,» Luke said. «Would you?» Wundt was leaning forward. «We'd very much like to hear.» He tried. But their calm faces stared at him. No feeling. He told the
story of the birth of Christ. He prayed. He told them that to be healed, one must have faith. He used his mind, but there was no feeling. «Heal.» Nothing happened. «That's all right, Luke. Don't worry.» «Conditions not right—» «Under field conditions, perhaps—» «—set up simulated conditions—» In a large space without windows people gathered. They were dressed as city people. Yet there was something wrong. The Tireds looked too robust, too healthy. None of them coughed blood from lung sickness. The Fares were too contented. The Techs too quiet. Luke, dressed in his own clothing, preached. He prayed. He put his hands on people with minor complaints. «Heal! Heal!» His hand shaking. Their heads held in his palm, shaking with his force. Nothing. «It's no use,» he told them. «I don't feel it.» He didn't say that he felt, also, their lack of faith. They had been kind to him. «He can't go back to Old Town, that's for sure.» «They think he's dead. His records will have been pulled and destroyed.» «We can't risk it.» «I agree,» Wundt said. «If one of his acquaintances recognized him and reported another miracle—a resurrection—» They were in the conference room. All the crisp young men and Wundt. And Luke. Being talked about, not to. «I think it's a waste of time.» «There were three dozen witnesses,» Wundt said. «They saw. Now if it had been healing a cancer or the lung sickness or menstrual disorders—» «They could have been mistaken. Ignorant people—» «It's hard to miss a belly wound,» Wundt said. «And at least three Fares saw the intestines hanging out.» «It's too risky.» «No one would know him in Middle City,» Wundt said. «If there's the faintest chance—» One of the crisp young men. «Luke,» Wundt said, speaking directly at him for a change, «do you think you could feel, the, uh, power if you went into the city and preached?» «I—I don't know,» Luke admitted. It seemed so long ago, the healing. And trying to create the feeling of power artificially had left him numb, left him feeling slightly guilty, as if he'd been asking God to perform on cue. «Would you be willing to try?» «I guess so.» «Then there's only the question of who will go with him,» Wundt said. «I'd like to go,» said the crisp young man who had indicated his willingness to experiment if there were the slightest chance of discovering Luke's power. «How about it, Luke? Is Carter all right with you?» «You mean you want him to go and watch me preach?» Luke asked. «Yes.» «I don't know,» Luke said, thinking about how he'd feel with the young man looking over his shoulder. No faith. Only what they called scientific interest. «I really don't think—» «What?» Wundt asked. «We want you to be perfectly frank.»
«Well, it's just that, well, I don't feel faith,» Luke said. «I mean, I'm sorry but—» «I understand,» Wundt said. «Is there anyone here who would not, uh, inhibit you?» Luke thought. There was one person and one person only in the strange place of the doctors who didn't make him feel as if he were some kind of thing to be examined and tested. And she was a female. And that made it impossible. Go into the city with a female? Impossible. «Luke,» Wundt said, «do you realize how important this is?» Frankly, he didn't. Frankly, he didn't know why they were so interested in his power. They had their medicine. He'd learned a few things in his days in the underground place. For example. Miss Caster had told him that Dr. Wundt was over seventy years old. That was incredible. If a Lay lived to be forty, he was an old, old man. Only Brothers and high officials
lived past thirty-five or forty. And it was the magic of medicine that did it. So, if they had that magic, why should they want his poor power? For,
although he'd healed the Fare of his terrible cut, that Fare would still die before he was forty. He would die of the lung sickness or cancer or his heart would just stop one day. He tried to express it to them. Wundt nodded understanding. «But that's it, Luke, don't you see? That's exactly it. What we do is not magic. It's just sound science, based on a long history of medicine. There is hardly anything, except old age, that we doctors can't cure.» «Lung sickness?» Luke asked. «Yes. And cancer. And heart problems.» «Then why—» «Why don't we cure all the Lays?» Wundt smiled sadly. «Because there are just too damned many of them. Because the great influx and the population explosion drained this country down to nothing. Because people put more value on a new ground car than on medicine. Because the Brothers—» He paused. «Luke, did you read any history when you were at the University?» «Only a little,» Luke said. «Do you know that the life expectancy of everyone in this country used to be almost seventy years?» «No,» Luke said, shaking his head with disbelief. «Do you know that people used to choose their government by ballot?» «We still do,» Luke said. «Sure. You vote for men handpicked by the Christian Party. Have you ever bothered to vote, Luke?» Luke shook his head. «Why?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «Because it just doesn't seem to matter. I mean, my vote among all the millions—» «Have you ever been to a museum, Luke?» «Sure. I went to the Met once.» «And did you see the paintings?» «Yes.» «The huge ones by Rubens and Titian and others'» «Yes,» Luke said, «I saw lots of them.» «Did you see a single nude?» Luke blushed. «Of course not.» «That's because the Brothers had clothing painted on them,» Luke Wundt smiled at him reassuringly. «How is a baby made, Luke?» Luke shifted in his seat, embarrassed, bewildered by the doctor's dirty talk. «What books have you read?» Wundt asked. Relieved by the change of subject, Luke said, «Oh, the Bible. A few books like the life of Jesus and—» «Ever read a novel?» «A what?» «A novel. A story. Something that just tells about life, about love and living and adventure and the relationship of one human being to another.» «No!» Luke said. He didn't like being accused of being a pervert. Wundt sighed. «All right,» he said. «I'll drop that course. What does Freedom mean to you, Luke?» «Gee, I dunno—» «If you were going to change things, what would you like to be able to do?» «Well, I wish there wasn't so much red tape involved in getting a permit to preach on the streets,» Luke said. «Before the revolution you didn't have to have a permit to preach on the streets,» Wundt said. «Once men in this country could meet where and when they pleased to talk about anything, God, politics, anything. They could even talk about not believing in God.» «Not believe in God?» Luke was shocked. «But most importantly,» Wundt said, «there was the freedom to live one's life as one wanted to live it. A man could rise from poverty—-I mean, well, like a Fare could rise to be the President of the United States. And there was freedom to travel. A man could go anywhere he wanted to go. And freedom to be treated by a doctor for sickness. Freedom to practice medicine for the masses.» «Gee,» Luke said. He was sweating uncomfortably He didn't like the way the talk was going. First talking dirty, about babies and all. Then about practicing medicine. He remembered what he'd been given, shakeshock three-quarters full, for healing, and he hadn't even practiced medicine. God didn't want anyone practicing medicine. God didn't like such talk. The Brothers said— «I know this may come as a shock to you, Luke,» Wundt went on, as the young crisp men looked on with interest, «but there are people in this country who are working toward a second revolution.» «Heaven help us!» For he'd been fed stories about revolution since he was old enough to watch a screen. He'd been told, time and time again,
that the Brothers made it the best of all possible worlds, that the Brothers and the Christian Party kept away the horrors of atomic war, of sinful excess, of evil. «There are people who want to throw the Brothers out of power,» Wundt said carefully. Luke was too shocked to speak. «Because all over the Western Hemisphere people are dying when they should be in the prime of their lives. Our natural resources, what's left of them, are being squandered in an endless flow of billions of ground cars, of senseless waste. There are people who want to change the government because once man was moving into space, Luke. Do you remember that?» «I've seen the old films,» Luke said. «We went to the moon. We went to Mars and Venus. We were ready to move out past Mars, and research showed promise of developing the means to go farther, showed promise of opening up the universe to man. Space promised to be the overflow valve for the Earth. Somewhere out there in space there are worlds like this, Luke, worlds which could accept our surplus, fresh worlds unspoiled by nuclear waste, worlds of fresh, running water and grass and trees. But we squander what remains of our wealth in making ground cars, gadgets, dumping our wealth in huge loads to the already littered bottom of the sea.» There was silence for a moment. Then Wundt continued. «I've digressed. Let me ask this, Luke. Would you like to live, in health, to be seventy, eighty years old?» «Anyone would,» Luke said. «Everyone can,» Wundt said. «If we could divert our resources into the proper programs, birth control, medicine, science—» «I don't see what this has to do with me,» Luke said. «Maybe nothing,» Wundt said. «I'll be that frank with you. Maybe we're pushing you into a wild-goose chase. But you're not the first man who has shown unusual powers of the mind, Luke. All over the country in places like this, people like us are looking into the mind. We've got people who can make things move without touching them. People who can read thoughts. Oh, not completely, but they can read them well enough to make us think that something is happening to the race. There just may be a change taking place. People have been thrown into incredible, crowded, miserable conditions for decades now, Luke, and we knew way back in the twentieth century that overcrowding does things. You show signs of it yourself in your oversized heart and adrenals and in your perpetually irritated stomach. We can see physical changes and we suspect, and have some scientific basis to suspect, mental changes, too. To get to the point, as far as you're concerned, we have reason to think that you caused a severe stomach wound to close, that you, without actual scientific knowledge of the proper placement of the intestines, put them back into place. We can't come out into the open and practice medicine. The Brothers, the millions of them, while still only a minority of the population, are numerous enough so that the meager facilities of the profession are scarcely enough to keep them healthy. But what would happen if we could isolate this, uh, power of yours? What if you could control that power, heal anyone anywhere? What if we could teach this power to others?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «There is going to be a revolution, Luke. Sooner or later there will be revolution. A billion people will not stay in subjection forever. We want that revolution to be an orderly one, as orderly as possible under the circumstances. We want to be able to offer a sensible program to the millions when the revolution comes. One of our greatest weapons would be the ability to heal, with medicine or with the mind. If we could show the masses that we could offer them the same health and long life which is now enjoyed by the Brothers, they would follow us.» «I don't know,» Luke said. «I just don't know. I don't understand all this.» «All right, Luke,» Wundt said. «We have time. We'll give you time to think.» CHAPTER EIGHT Luke was walking the brightly lit corridors with the nurse, Irene Caster. She was dressed in white. He wore a comfortable set of coveralls, also white. He had been moved from the room they called a hospital room to a beautiful room with comfortable chairs, a bed which, when not in use, hid away in the wall. There was music to be had at the touch of a button. A viewscreen uncovered itself at the pressing of another button And there was a shelf filled with books. The books worried Luke. For two days after his last conference with Dr. Wundt and all the crisp young men, he'd spent the time alone in his room, listening to the music, watching the viewscreen, thumbing through the disturbing books. Some of them were called histories They had pictures. He saw ancient pictures of the country before the revolution. He saw men working in open fields, families eating on rustic tables in scenes of outdoor splendor. One section of the book showed before and after scenes. A bright mountain stream would be shown cascading over rocks. Then the same stream was shown,
in color, foamed, dirty, dead fish floating. A typical family dwelling of the late twentieth century was shown. It was a beautiful building with large windows and rock on the front. Inside there were, unbelievably three bedrooms, a large area called an entrance hall—this was the most incredible waste of living space Luke had ever seen—a vast living room with a fireplace for burning wood. There was an entirely separate room reserved only for eating! A tremendous kitchen with gleaming appliances. A thing they called a family room with comfortable chairs and a bookcase and rugs on all the floors. But the books which disturbed Luke most had no pictures. They had names like Of Mice and Men, War and Peace, Gone With the Wind, Catch 22. They were things that Dr. Wundt had mentioned. Novels. Stories. Thumbing through the one called Catch 22 he saw, and he cringed as he saw it, the word «whore.» Blushing, feeling soiled and degraded, he read a few sentences. Men and women were naked in a room. He could read no more. He was sure that he was in league with anti-Christ devils. He was frightened. After that he left the novels alone, avoiding them as if they were poison, as if they were, indeed, the devil's work. Alone in his luxurious room he prayed for forgiveness for reading the vile material. He prayed for release. He prayed to be allowed to go back to
his life. At least, in Old Town, he'd helped slightly to do God's work. There he'd preached and he had healed. What was he doing in this hidden, underground place. Was it God's will? Had he been sent to do something about the godless conditions here? Was he to preach to these strange doctor people? He felt helpless. Food was delivered to him. Caster came and took his pulse and temperature and gave him capsules. And, as usual, she talked cheerfully about many things. She would ask him how he felt and what he was doing to entertain himself. She asked if there were anything in particular he'd like to hear in the way of music. She would ask if she could get him something special in the way of food and if he'd seen a particular program on the screen and if he'd read any of the books. He blushed at the mention of the books, wondering if she read the obscene novels. He didn't think she did. She seemed wholesome. But she knew books. She went to the shelf and handed him a book and suggested he might enjoy it. After she was gone he opened the book suspiciously It was called A Brief History of the
United States. It, at least, was not dirty. It told about people in an ancient time who rebelled against a country called England, probably one of those countries which had been destroyed in the great Godless Communist nuclear war. Those people had fought because of something called taxes. It was all strange to Luke, but, having nothing else to do, he struggled through the text. And was fascinated by the overwhelming fact that once the country had been a wilderness. Once the population had been concentrated along the eastern coast in the area which was now covered by East and South Cities. West of that were mountains and forest—trees, hundreds of miles of trees and open land where Middle City now sprawled. And animals. Huge herds of things called buffalo and people killing them for meat and for their hides and— «Do you believe this stuff?» he asked Caster. «Don't you?» «I don't know.» He frowned. «Why didn't they have ground cars? It says here it took months to go from the East to a place called California by a thing called a wagon train pulled by animals. Why didn't they go by ground car?» «They didn't have roads,» Caster said, smiling. «Oh,» Luke said. That was reasonable. He lost himself in the book. He read how the country fought over slavery, and the concept was shocking to him. People owning other people. Why had God allowed it? And why did those ancient people think people with black skin were bad? According to the book, people thought people with black skins were worse than—than—well, worse than Fares, probably. He read about more wars and he talked with Caster about it when she came to check his pulse. She was nice, after all. She was a cheerful woman who said she was forty-two years old. She had nice brown hair cut short and a good smile and she was just a little bit shorter than him, but built solidly in contrast to Luke's thinness. They talked. Then she suggested that it was time for him to start exercising. She took him to a place they called a gym. The crisp young men were there riding things with pedals and lifting things and wearing baggy, thick suits. Luke tried the pedals things and saw no future in sitting on a sharp seat pushing pedals with his feet and going nowhere. Besides, he became tired easily. His exercise in the past had consisted of walking around the sidewalks of Old Town and climbing the stairs to his room. They walked. Caster showed him places called laboratories with fantastic arrays of glass and smoking, steaming things. Men worked and smiled and waved and talked and Luke wondered who they all were. «Doctors, scientists,» Caster said. «Buy why are they here? If the Brothers need Doctors so badly, how can they all stay here?» «They're all dead,» Caster said. Luke looked at her blankly. «You're dead,» she said. «Oh. You mean like that.» «Like that,» she said. «I don't understand,» Luke said. «Why—» «Some of them were brought here because they were being given shakeshock by the Brothers for some offense.» «Healing?» Luke asked, since he knew that healing, for some reason, was frowned on by the Brothers. «Well, practicing medicine, maybe. Or for questioning things. Some of them choose to come here.» «They must be crazy.» Luke said. «I don't know why they'd choose to live here. Never seeing the sun. Never being out in the fresh air—» «Fresh air?» Caster laughed. «Don't talk to me about fresh air. I'm from West City. When I was brought here I was terminal with the lung sickness.» Since she had opened the subject, Luke felt free to ask, «Why are you here, Caster?» She shrugged. «I smuggled medicine out of a Brother house I was working as a maid. I knew I had the lung sickness and I heard the Brother talking with his doctor and when I heard that there was something that could be done, I took medicine. I didn't know what medicine I was taking.
I just took medicine. It happened to be a mild opiate. That's a sort of drug. I got high—» «High?» «Know how you felt when you were having all the tests? All woozy and kinda floating and not caring about anything?» «Yes.» «I got higher than that. You've had Soul Lifter?» Luke smiled in agreement. «I was high, like you get high on Soul Lifter. I went in to work and they spotted it. They put me on the rack and I talked my head off. I told them about stealing the medicine. They sentenced me to therapeutic shock until my memory was cleansed of the knowledge of medicine. You know what that means.» Luke shuddered. «You walk around blank.» Yes, he'd seen those who had been cleansed of evil by shakeshock. «A doctor 'killed' me. With the drug. I woke up here.» «But you know medicine now,» Luke said. «Hah! I'm a nurse. I know how to talk to a sick man and how to take his
pulse and temperature. I'm still under training. I'll learn more. But I don't know medicine. Not like the doctors.» «You mean they teach you that stuff?» «If you want to learn,» she said. «Do you want to learn, Luke?» «I don't know.» «This is a good place, Luke. They're good people. They want to help. They want to help everyone, not just the Brothers.» «But they don't believe in God,» Luke said, remembering the cynical remarks he'd heard from Wundt and some of the others. «They don't tell you not to believe in God, do they?» «No.» «They believe in freedom,» she said. «I don't think I know exactly what freedom is,» Luke said. Then there was another book. She brought it in from outside. «Dr. Wundt thinks you're ready for this,» she said. It was called The Revolution, Its Causes and Effects. And it was written by Dr. Zachary Wundt. «To understand the revolution,» the book began, «one must understand the condition of the country in the late decades of the twentieth century.» And then, the man who said he believed in freedom, wrote that, perhaps, there was too much freedom in that ancient time. He wrote about the country being in a war and how some people thought it was wrong. He said that most of those people were «liberals» and were «victims» of the victory of Communist propaganda. He said the liberals were free to talk against the government because of a thing called the guarantee of freedom of speech and that they abused this freedom by giving aid and comfort to an enemy who wanted to control the world by violent means. He wrote about the freedom to take drugs and a gradual breakdown in law and order. He said that the culture of the entire country was influenced by a subculture who worshiped a drug called LSD, how the users of this drug created an entirely new music form and now, because it was fashionable to be «young,» the entire country accepted this so-called music. He said that the drug-using minority also influenced the country in many other ways, in dress, for example. And there were pictures of dirty-looking young people in rags, with long hair and beads and strange decorations. He said that the drug users also contributed to a breakdown in morality. And (Luke blushed and started to put the book away, but didn't) how sex became one of the new freedoms, how girls and boys lived together and did sex indiscriminately. He wrote about how nudity became acceptable, how Broadway shows were performed with the cast naked, how the screen was filled with nude bodies, how books were allowed to be
sold openly describing sexual acts, natural and perverted, in minute detail. Sexual freedom, Wundt said, contributed to a slow breakdown in the family unit, long a standard of Western civilization, one of the adhesive factors. Wundt wrote: Freedom, without the education necessary to use freedom intelligently, can be destructive. To inject a personal note, the freedom to enjoy sex with a partner of one's choice is a necessary part of being civilized, of being human. Yet this freedom was handed to a nation with Puritan upbringing, a nation that had been weaned on the teaching that all sex is dirty, or even criminal. The nation eagerly seized this freedom, without
the understanding of it, and, while enjoying it, lacerated itself with guilt. In the orgy of freedom in the late twentieth century, all barriers were lowered. The nation used the freedoms to be traitorous in the name of free speech, to be perverted in the name of sexual freedom, to be poisoned by drugs in the name of personal freedom. The old values faded and were
replaced by new non-values of doubtful worth. Styles of attire in the 1980's were indicative of the new thought. Women were bare to the waist. Men wore bottomless suits. The original function of attire was forgotten. Originally, the human race began to wear clothing, at least in the opinion of this writer, as protection and for comfort. A mature woman with large mammary glands needs some sort of support for comfort and for protection. The male reproductive glands are sensitive and easily
susceptible to injury, therefore, clothing was devised as protection. Yet, in the last two decades of the century, commonsense was discarded in the rush to freedom. And yet, during this very orgy of freedom, there was a hard core of unreconstructed fanatics, throwbacks to the old Puritanical values, who resisted. While the majority of the country rushed to new extremes, this hard core of fanatics banded together under the skirts of the organized church and began to fight. A President of the First Republic, Richard M. Nixon, dubbed this segment of society the Silent Majority. Perhaps, when he first coined this phrase, in 1969, he was right. Those who objected to the excesses of the more lunatic segments of society may have been more numerous, but, in the fantastic time of prosperity, they ignored the warning signals and allowed the rush to dubious freedoms to continue. Then, when resistance began to become organized under the United Church, it was too late to rectify the defects by peaceful means. The Church, itself, had undergone drastic changes, the largest single unit, the Roman Catholic Church, had disintegrated under the forces and disputes centered around birth control and celibacy. The Protestant churches had been weakened by the Tax Act of 1985, an extreme measure made necessary by the success of the rich churches in business and land speculation. The new-freedom advocates, having elected their own members to the national legislature, pointed out the power of the tax-free churches in the financial world. It was estimated that 85 percent of the real property in the nation was church owned. The Tax Act of 1985 was drastic, punitive, and final. Taxes ate into the Church holdings with an incredible swiftness and, since the common man had abandoned the Church, there was no way of stopping it. However, the loss of financial power galvanized the fanatics into union. Mr. Nixon's Silent Majority, no longer in the majority but possessed of vast financial and industrial power, organized the Christian Party and began a slow, futile effort to recapture the country by political means. Having failed by peaceful means to effect change, the Christian Party tried, at the turn of the century, to overthrow the administration of the long-haired, drug-taking President, Peaches Tickles, a former guitar-playing pop singer, by force. The insurrection was put down in an extremely bloody manner by administration shock troops who were allegedly high on the newest of so-called mind-expanding drugs, XES. The Christian Party was forced to go underground. Since members of the medical community were instrumental in Christian Party politics, and since many professional people died in the massacre of 2000, one of the most dramatic effects of the national schism began to make itself felt soon afterward. The medical system, already overburdened by the population explosion, weakened by the lack of young people willing to sacrifice the good times to be had under XES for the years of study required to become a medical practitioner, began to break down rapidly. Disease and death became endemic. Then the Influx, following the great Communist War and the destruction of vast land areas of the Old World, made medical care for the masses an impossible dream from the past. With the nation in chaos, the Christian Party found it possible to develop vast redoubts in hidden areas. Scientific progress, seemingly halted in the surface world, continued in the underground caverns. The alliance of fanatics and professional men functioned and developed, extending its tendrils into the chaotic conditions of the country. Revolution was assured. There was only the question of timing. And it appeared that external affairs, namely the development of a nuclear capacity in the Republic of South America, coupled with a new Nazism with expansionist leanings by the South Americans, would force the revolution prematurely. It was at this crucial stage that Colonel Ed Baxley made his great technological breakthrough, the invention of the fire gun. Threatened by the ultimate weapon, the decadent First Republic surrendered immediately. The Republic of South American was brought to heel by the threat of instant and total destruction. The revolution was completed. Seemingly, then, all was right with the world. The sensible people were back in power. It was time to right the wrongs. The life expectancy of the average man had dropped, in a decade, by twenty years. Swift and decisive measures were needed. Professional members of the Christian Party urged a crash attack on disease and the serious problem of environmental pollution. The fanatics, in the majority, were more interested in consolidating their hold on the country and in perpetuating themselves in power. A new schism developed. And suddenly the professional men found themselves to be virtual prisoners of the majority. We stood by helplessly as freedom, wounded by its own excesses, was erased. Censorship not only removed objectionable material from the arts, it stifled art entirely. The labor movement, guilty of vast excesses in the past, creator of inflation, disruptive of national wealth in excessive strikes, a virtual proletarian dictatorship within a dictatorship, was exterminated in a vast, bloody purge which saw the industrial capacity of the nation crippled, then revived to produce status objects, such as the ground car, with the installation of automated machines. Mighty Labor was reduced to a pitiable collection of workers who became known, in the new slang, as Techs. The government, in possession of all technology, industry, and wealth, doled out a minimum living to a vast segment of the society, creating the nonproductive Fares. Minor governmental workers, of which there were millions, became know as Lays and, when retired after twenty years of service, as Tireds. Meanwhile, in an effort to reduce the teeming population, the Christian Party withheld medical aid from the masses, giving them nothing more than a placebo called Newasper and, as punishment, therapy, a catch-all, a diabolical retread from early, experimental treatment of mental illnesses known as shock treatments, a terror named shakeshock. The effects of severe crowding in the environment have been studied by professional men since the middle of the last century and there is sufficient material on record without our going into the details here. However, it is well known that severe overcrowding at first stimulated sexual activity. The growing population of the past century and breakdown of the old morality seems to support this. Further, the leveling off of the population at approximately one billion seems also to make more believable the old theory that overcrowding also tends, after a suitable period, to inhibit breeding and keep the population level static. Thus, with the leveling off, there was created, with encouragement by the ruling Christians, a new Puritanism. Once again, sex became a dirty word. The formation of a new underground was inevitable. Professional men who objected to government policies began to seek ways and means of changing the intolerable situation before a vast and bloody upheaval from the lower classes destroyed civilization as we had known it. The history of the success or failure of this new attempt to restore a sensible new freedom is yet to be written… Luke read and reread and forgot to be shocked by the references to dirty things like sex and breeding. He asked Caster about things which were difficult for him to understand. «I'm no authority on history,» she said. «I just know that things are not good outside. I know that my mother died when she was twenty-nine years old with the lung sickness. I'm forty-two years old and all my brothers and sisters are dead. Dr Wundt and the others want to change this. I'll walk on fire to help them.» «But they don't believe in God.» «And you do,» she said. «Of course,» Luke said, shocked that she'd even question it. «Then why don't you get about his work?» Caster asked. «Huh?» «You said you were given a gift, a gift of healing. Why don't you go out and use it?» «Well,» Luke said, «I mean—they—» «They what? All they want you to do is go out and see if you still have the gift.» «They want someone to go with me,» Luke said. «And they don't have faith. I mean, you've gotta have faith. It's like that. If you don't have faith…» «They want to see what you do. They want to understand how you can do what you did with that Fare in Old Town. I think their having faith has nothing to do with it, Luke. I think you've lost faith.» «No!» He protested the idea with a loud voice. «Then let's go out and heal,» she said. Luke's face turned red, for he had once had the thought of asking them to let Caster go with him and now she was saying, «Let's—» «I'm Lay, too,» she said. «I know what you're thinking.» «Huh?» «Oh, I'm not one of those who can read thoughts, not really, but I just know what you're thinking. If we went together it would be me and you, a man and a woman, alone in the city:» She smiled. «Well, don't worry, boy. I've got the same hangups you have. I was born in a city, too. I got the treatment. I was going to be married when I came down with the lung
sickness and I was just fifteen. I feel the same way you feel, Luke. I don't like it, but that's the way I am. No man has ever touched me and it doesn't
look as if one of you ever will, not the way I feel. So your virtue would be safe with me.» Luke was unable to speak. He turned away. It wasn't the act he was
afraid of. It was the continuous smutty talk of these people. Alone with one of them in a city? He'd die if she said something similar to what she'd been saying where people could hear. «And I also know that you don't talk about things like that,» Caster said. He looked at her quickly. Maybe she could read his thoughts. «I pray every night,» she said simply. «Huh?» «I shouldn't. My prayers have never been answered. I've never had a sign from heaven like you, but I pray. I pray because I think there has to be something. Something better than this.» He was silent. He thought about the big Fare who had come to his defense, who had fought the Techs to allow him to preach without heckling. He thought about the way the big man was breathing, all jerky and gaspy, how the blood and ooze covered his lower body. He thought about how he felt, seeing the sign from God. And Caster prayed. She
believed. And things were bad outside. If he could help. If he could make it easy for the people. If he could help bring them ease from their illnesses and make life better… «They don't have the right, do they, the Brothers, to live while we die?» «No,» she said. «They don't.» «Then I'll go,» Luke said. «I'll tell them,» Caster said. When she left, Luke fell to his knees, hands clasped. «Help me,» he prayed. «Please help me.» There was no light in the sky, only a lightening in his heart as if a weight had been lifted. CHAPTER NINE Truly, she thought, those who were responsible would suffer. It was a living hell. The massive ship of the line was a prison. Time was, for the first time within her immediate memory, a thing to be endured. Back on the Trangized planets, entire solar circuits meant little. In the small, enclosed, Trangless ship, a standard rotation period was eternity. Being alone was a new and unsettling experience. The navigation and handling of the ship was automatic, of course, directed by the huge computer back on A-l. Shipboard computers regulated the life of the ship. She was merely a passenger. Moreover, she was a prisoner. The shipboard computers were tyrannical. Machines directed her every movement, controlled her every moment. Machines indicated when it was time to take nourishment, time to sleep. Machines forced her into an indoctrination room where her mind was invaded, stimulated, shuffled around. Knowledge she had once been fed was reactivated from the memory storage banks of her brain, useless knowledge which had been force-fed her when she was a child, so long, long ago. It was there, but it was beyond her reach under normal conditions, for her pleasure-filled life on A-l had not been concerned with such things. It was traumatic to be jerked out of a sweet mixture of Trang and the joys of endless coition into a world of machines and complicated areas of knowledge. It is the function of the beings aboard a ship of the line to be capable of backing up any mechanical system. And, thus, she was crammed with terribly dry data regarding arms systems, navigation systems, the life system, power systems, emergency systems. It pleased her to find that the armament of the ship was sufficient to destroy a planetary grouping. She entertained bloody, joyful thoughts of finding the disturbing elements in Section G-1034876 and of blasting them into cosmic dust with one flyby. It pleased her to think of the sub-beings on Planet 3, Star R-875948 watching the nighttime skies to see planet after planet nova and spread death toward them, broiling them slowly before the actual effects of the guns reached them. One of the most frustrating aspects of the entire miserable situation was the remoteness of the suspected planet. It was far out from galactic center, an outpost planet near the thinning edge of the galaxy, remote, small, insignificant. Getting there was a series of lightning-fast jumps which ate vast distances. Incredible distances were covered in each jump into sub-space, but there were interminable waiting periods between jumps while the shipboard computers located a suitable power source from among the near stars, focused onto it, hummed in motionless energy as the power banks were recharged for yet another jump. It was the recharging periods which were deadly. The indoctrination helped, after the shock of having areas of the mind stimulated wore off. The indoctrination, after the first few sessions, became somewhat of a release from the sheer boredom of shipboard loneliness. There was even a sort of pride in finding that one's memory banks were so completely stocked with a vast technology. And there was a sense of childish pride in being reminded of the history of the race. Once she had been taught all of it and it had been pushed aside into unused areas of the brain during the eons of Trang-life. Once, when she was a child, she'd been indoctrinated in the
history of a people who started, ageless eternities ago, to people an empire which encompassed most of the galaxy. Having completed the necessary technical re-education, she passed the time with historical sessions and knew, with a sense of renewed wonder, the achievements of the race. Reliving it almost as if she participated, she saw the formation of the empire, the spreading out from A-l to near star systems, then on and on, the race proliferating as if it had been given a mandate to people the entire island universe. She saw the early starships flash into sub-space, some never to resurface. She saw the trials of the early colonists in primitive surroundings. She met the greats of the race. All were preserved in the banks of the great knowledge banks, almost alive in her mind. Outside, during the recharging periods of floating, seemingly motionless in space, she saw the great suns and the whorls of gaseous nebula and the great dark clouds and the distance, the sheer distance, involved in her trip. Far ahead of the ship, using sub-space as an instant medium of conduction, the small sensor near R-875948 acted as a beacon. Ancient records, exhumed by the central computer on A-1, proved the coordinates for each jump, and yet it was time-consuming. There was boredom, in spite of the interest in the historical archives. There was, after all, a physical limit to the time she could stay under the preceptors in the indoctrination room. For the remaining time, she was forced to endure long, Trangless periods of dissatisfaction. And alone! For the most desired female in the original system to be alone was the most unforgivable thing of all. There were times when her entire being cried out for male companionship, for the closeness, the joy of it. And for that, she determined, the sub-beings on that miserable, stinking planet would pay, and pay, and pay. At last the shipboard computer joined onto the weak, distant rays of the star R-875948 and the power banks hummed to gather strength for the last jump. It was then that she was summoned—summoned! Her!—to the indoctrination room. She went sullenly. She had just completed a thorough self-survey making minute adjustment to a gland, revitalizing dying cells, changing her hair color, just to pass the time, to a more glowing red. She felt wonderful, of course. She'd never felt any other way.
But she still longed for the peaceful languor of Trang and for the thrilling endlessness of love. Communication was not in words. It was in concepts passed directly into her mind. However, the information conveyed by the computer, in contact through sub-space with the central memory bank on A-l, concerned the destination planet. She absorbed the information with a certain interest. She would, at least, know what manner of sub-beings she was going to destroy. Not destroy. No? She was of the race. She was in command, in spite of the fact that she was, seemingly, directed in every action by machines. Machines were creations of the race. Thus, she was the last word. Sample, check, learn. There was no time to do those things. She had to get back. Her partner, alone. A commitment to be made. A thousand thousand sleeping, Trangized worlds, the race, threatened. How threatened if she destroyed the offending planet completely? So
they had even developed a primitive planet-killer, or at least the potential of one. So how much good would that do if she swept in from the depths of