_What value has a promise when you make
it to the Father of Evil? To slay him, I
could promise anything--and still be free
of sin. Indeed, his death would make me holier._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories October 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
My leg itched. The knitting fracture beneath the cast was letting me
know in no uncertain terms that a simple fracture is simple in name
only. There is nothing like a nagging, unscratchable itch. It doesn't
really hurt, but after awhile it can become unadulterated torture,--and
all you can do is grin and bear it. Ultimately you stop grinning.
To make matters worse, I had Wolverton for company. Zard knows, I
despised the man enough before I saw him and contact had only served to
change my dislike to active loathing.
He sat across from me, draped bonelessly in the contoured comfort of
a Varkhide chair fashioned for him by one of his Halsite retainers--a
tall, angular man of indeterminate age, sandy-haired, lean-cheeked,
beak-nosed, with piercing yellow eyes that flashed golden under
tufted brows. His face was leathery and hatched with innumerable fine
wrinkles, but his eyes and voice were young.
* * * * *
To give the devil his due, he had a wonderful voice--cajoling,
persuasive, domineering and demanding. He could use it with all the
skill and passionate conviction of a Bearer of the Word. His tongue
was a weapon--a club and a rapier--and I had been pounded and pierced
with it for nearly two weeks. I hated it, but I had to listen for I was
literally a captive audience.
"As I was saying last time," Wolverton continued, "rabbits have nothing
on the human race. Given a halfway favorable opportunity and sufficient
time, humanity can make a planet look like the Australian bush. Men
don't understand it until it's too late--and then, stifled by their own
swarm, they either degenerate or strike out to find a new world where a
man can breathe. Always they go in pairs--male and female--and pretty
soon another world becomes another rabbit warren."
"What's a rabbit?" I asked.
Wolverton looked at me and laughed. "It's obvious you've never been on
the Inner Worlds, have you?"
I shook my head. "I am an Adept," I said. "I am satisfied here in
Promised Land."
"Thought so. You wouldn't be asking about rabbits if you had. The early
colonists took them along as food animals,--and it's touch and go
whether men or rabbits are the dominant species on some planets."
He didn't explain any further, but I got the general idea.
"But that isn't the point," Wolverton went on, his voice mellow and
persuasive. "Rabbits maintain a fairly balanced ecology because they're
more subject to natural forces which we humans ignore or circumvent. We
change environment to meet our needs--and in those rare instances where
environment changes us, we adapt to it and change ourselves. Take Samar
for example, normally a human being is monogamous either by nature or
by law--but what happens when women outnumber men?"
I stiffened. I had heard of Samar from traders and from the Word
itself. "Samar," I said, "is a disgrace--a sink of iniquity--a foul
blot upon the face--"
"Oh stop it," he said wearily. "You can't blame environmental forces.
Nor can you blame men for adapting to them. Sure, you can point with
holy horror at Samarian social customs, but even so, they aren't as bad
as your ancestors'. They don't murder excess girls."
"They should," I retorted brutally. "The old days were harsh, but they
were necessary. One man must cleave to one mate. The Word demands it.
Polygamy must be stamped out at the source if Faith is to survive.
"But it did no good population-wise," Wolverton said. "You're now
exceeding safe growth limits for your territories. That's why you want
mine."
"Lies," I muttered.
"Not at all. And you know it. Your people already _want_ my land. Soon
you will _need_ it. And in a few centuries, _you won't be able to exist
without it_!" His voice was flat with certainty.
* * * * *
"Lies," I said, but my voice wasn't as certain as his. I had seen the
crowding in the towns and fields of Promised Land, and we _did_ need
Wolverton's Holding to absorb good farmers who had no land to farm.
Wolverton was right about that. We had lived up our naturally tillable
acreage and reclamation projects were slow to provide needed soil.
Deviants were already appearing who defied the Word by advocating birth
control. Yet the Word said, "_Be fruitful and replenish the land._"
"Back in the Dark Ages on a planet known as Earth," Wolverton went on
inexorably, "a man named Malthus predicted our birth rate would fight a
losing battle with famine. So far we have managed to avoid it by laws,
by finding new frontiers, and by improving food technology. But laws
and technology can only retard the growth, and frontiers are getting
even harder to find. Time is catching up with us."
"I don't see--", I said. Wolverton looked at me grimly. "I know you
don't," he said. "I haven't made the slightest impression."
"You've made an impression, all right," I assured him with equal
grimness.
He shrugged. "There are all kinds of impressions," he commented wryly,
"and not all of them are good."
"Yours has not been," I said boldly. "I place my trust in Zard, not in
the voice of Evil."
"That blank, sanctimonious stare!" he said acidly. "You Worders--gah!
You're so filled with catechism and cant that you won't see a fact if
it hits you in the face. Of all the possibilities on this benighted
planet, the one with all the proper qualities turns out to be mentally
defective." He glared at me. "I don't know why I waste my time.
Ordinarily I'd condition you and let it go at that."
"But you won't," I said confidently.
He winced and I smiled. It wasn't often that I won an advantage over
him, and the taste of it was sweet in my mouth.
"The power of Faith," I said sententiously, "is the greatest force in
the universe. It even restrains you."
* * * * *
He looked at me with the pitying contempt an adult has for a
not-too-bright child. "What you need is an education," he said slowly.
"You've never had a chance."
I groaned inwardly. Always he tried to shake my faith--but he had
failed before and would fail again for my course was unalterably
clear. "_Avoid the smooth tongue of Evil lest ye lose your immortal
soul. For the Evil will come to judgment--and the tortures of Hell are
everlasting._" So said Zard in the days of his Teaching--and so we all
believed. The Word of Zard was more than a symbol. It was a way of
life, and Promised Land had bloomed and flowered under it.
Admittedly I was ignorant of the heathenish jargon Wolverton advanced.
I knew nothing of nucleonics, spaceways, genetic factors, chromosome
patterns, economies or sociology. Nor did I care. Our people had known
it once but they had passed it by as childish--as men put aside the
games of children. For us there was the Word. For did not Zard write in
letters of fire upon the riven rock, "_Be steadfast in thy faith. Fix
thine eyes upon the joys of heaven and abjure Evil. For the Faithful
Man is a bright beam in the Almighty's eye and naught shall harm him
who walks the fourfold path of Righteousness._" Zard's words were
comfort. Wolverton's were pain. I was thrice thankful I had learned the
Word. It was so much a part of me that not even Wolverton could shake
my belief. I was strong--in faith and in will. For I was an Adept--next
only to a Bearer of the Word.
Wolverton with his machines could contain my powers--but that was all.
He could not capture my soul. And that was what he wanted. My body was
useless to him. He had many bodies of flesh and metal to serve him, but
none had my powers to seek into the hearts of men, to know their inmost
thoughts, to bring things to me by the power Zard had given. To kill,
if need be.
It was because of my powers that I was here, nursing a broken leg,
helpless in the house of the Father of Evil, a prisoner of a primitive
idol worshipper who exalted his machines above the Word.
* * * * *
Wolverton eyed me speculatively. "If you would get the idea through
your thick head that you are eventually going to join me--that you
are _not_ going to leave here until you do--that you are going to see
things as they really are and not as you wish they were--we'd both have
an easier time and I wouldn't be forced to keep a Halsite watching you,
or waste power blanketing this place with ultra frequencies. But if I
have to take ten years to pick the scales off your eyes one by one,
I'll still do it and count it time well spent. You see, you are unique.
There's no one quite like you anywhere in the known Universe--and
what's more, you are necessary."
I laughed at him and rejoiced in the black anger which came to his
face. Then the lines smoothed and the hard glitter vanished from his
golden eyes--and again I was afraid. Not for myself, but for my soul.
"Well, let's try again," Wolverton said with forced cheerfulness.
I tried to find his true meaning--but he was blank--a smooth,
cold-hard surface which I could not penetrate. Not like the
others. They were soft and fuzzy. Their pictures were not
clear--distorted--wavering--unreal, but that was due to Wolverton's
machines. I could not communicate with them, but I couldn't even
_reach_ Wolverton. And as usual, my failure increased my determination.
He was inhuman, a soulless monster, blacker than the Pit of Night. The
Bearers were right. Promised Land would never be safe until we were
finally rid of him. Wolverton must die.
But Wolverton was not dead. He survived and prospered. His Halsite
mercenaries guarded his island Holding--and the broad reaches of his
lands, innocent of the plow, were as lush and untamed as they had been
in the days of the first-comers.
The followers of the Word could gain no foothold on his lands--for
behind Wolverton was the might of his machines, which men could neither
influence nor withstand. Wolverton's ancestor had found this world,
and therefore the Holding was his--half a million square miles of
island kingdom that cried in darkness for the Word. The fierce Halsites
Wolverton employed and the hidden telltales scattered through his lands
inevitably found trespassers and most of these were promptly and
urgently returned to Promised Land. But not all. Adepts who tried to
kill him never returned.
It was infuriating. It was a disgrace to our world. It was intolerable.
And so it was that I had volunteered to kill Wolverton with an ancient
weapon of horrid power, and in the bright cleansing flame of the
explosion purge our world forever of the face of Evil.
* * * * *
But Evil, it seemed, was not defenseless. High as I was--I was seen
from below and a flaming lance of power reached up from the forest
to touch me,--and I fell. In shameful cowardice I dropped the Weapon
without setting the detonator.
Hurtling down to certain death, I berated myself and swore a mighty
oath on Zard's bones never again to give way to weakness of the flesh
if I were permitted to survive. For it was borne upon me as I fell
toward the rocky ground below that I had never really expected to die
despite my proud boasts of sacrifice.
And Zard heard my prayer and was merciful--yet tempered his mercy with
a stern reminder of his power. For although I recovered enough control
to break the force of my descent, I did not escape completely. I did
not die on the cruel rocks, but as punishment for my sins of pride and
cowardice, my right leg was snapped between ankle and knee--a reminder
that while Zard was merciful, he was also just and meted out punishment
when it was deserved.
A Halsite found me an hour later--faint and weak with pain and shock.
I could not reach him as he advanced upon me warily. But his fierce
crest flattened back upon his head when he saw my helplessness and his
yellow fangs bared in a travesty of a human grin as he came forward
with gliding steps, lifted me in his huge arms, and ran with catlike
leaps down the mountainside. My weight was nothing to him, nor was the
pain of my broken leg. At the third dizzy leap and jarring landing, I
fainted and knew no more until I opened my eyes and saw Wolverton.
I was lying on a couch in a small inner courtyard. Around me towered
his fabulous stronghold--a mighty pile of metal and stone anchored
to the top of a hill, bristling with structures of metal and weird
spiderwork fabrications that rotated endlessly on gimbals. My head was
filled with buzzings and dizzy pinwheels of color as he bent over me
and examined my torn and dirty sacramental robe. "Hmm--an Adept," he
said--"Wonder what you're adept at?" He chuckled. "You're lucky that
my boy obeyed orders and brought you in. You had no business over my
land. And judging from that bomb you were towing, you were loaded for
bear."