"At last. Daveen hid you so well I thought we'd never find you. Finally
I decided to go myself. I found you--and lost you again."
"You're missing my point," Kesley said sharply. "I'm _back home_."
"And?"
"And I haven't changed my ideas."
Van Alen slipped the electrostimulator into his hand once again and
let the minute voltage caress his nerves. "So?" he said quizzically.
"I still feel the force-screen ought to come down."
Van Alen shook his head frowningly. "You're not the green boy you were
when you left, you know. You've seen the courts of the Dukes; you've
worked on a farm. You know what it is to flee for your life."
"And I've seen Mutie City and the Colony and Wiener," Kesley added.
"I've really been around."
"And?"
"And I think the world's rotten at the core! I think _you_ can save
it--if you'll only lift your damned Barrier and give what you have here
to the rest of the world!"
Pain filtered over van Alen's face. He stared sadly at Kesley for a
moment, with the timeless expression in his eyes that Kesley knew he,
himself, would one day acquire. "You still don't understand," van Alen
said huskily, "why that Barrier is up."
"No. I don't."
"You've dealt with three Immortals: Winslow, Miguel, me. What do we
have in common?" van Alen demanded suddenly.
Startled, Kesley stopped to think of their common characteristics.
_Nothing in common_, he nearly answered. Then he saw he was wrong.
Physical vitality. Long life. These things were obvious.
The deepness of the eyes. Constant for all three.
And a deepness of personality, a strange complexity of behavior, a
pattern of actions that appeared to be based on random selection. Yes,
that was it. "You're unpredictable," Kesley said. "One never knows what
to expect from you. It's as if you act without motivation sometimes."
"It seems that way, doesn't it? But look: you're lying in a tub of
water, completely submerged. A hand suddenly breaks the surface of the
water and plunges a knife into you. All you see is the hand; for all
the evidence you have, that's all there is--just a hand.
"It's completely unmotivated, isn't it? Why would a mere _hand_ want to
murder you? No reason at all. But suppose that hand is attached to the
arm of your most deadly enemy? It's not so unmotivated then, is it?"
"You mean we only see segments of events; you see the entire happening.
That it?"
"It comes with long life. You'll have it too," van Alen said. "It's a
curse. You'll be living in three dimensions and everyone else in two.
And no one will ever manage to understand you fully except another one
like you."
"You're stalling. The Barrier," Kesley prodded.
"The Barrier. I put that up out of fear." Van Alen's strong head
drooped; his ancient eyes looked bleak. "I'm safe, secure down here.
We've continued to progress. No bombs were dropped on Antarctica. I
don't want any bombs coming down."
"But there won't be! There can't be! They've virtually reverted to
a pre-mechanical culture in the Twelve Empires. They've got as much
chance of being able to build bombs as you do of sprouting wings."
A new thought occurred to Kesley. "When did you come to Antarctica? You
said you'd only been ruling three hundred sixty-odd years. The Blast
was more than four hundred years ago."
Van Alen seemed to be trembling. "I came to Antarctica in 2164,
established control, and erected the barrier the following year." His
voice wavered. "Do you want the rest of it?"
"I don't need it." Kesley jabbed a forefinger at the Duke. "You never
told me this, but now I understand. 2162--that's the year the Twelve
Dukes met and divided up the world, all except Antarctica. Right?"
"Yes," van Alen said tonelessly.
"Okay. In 2162, there were twelve Empires--and _thirteen Immortals_!
You were the odd man out!"
Van Alen winced, and Kesley felt a surge of pity now that he finally
had voiced the words. Van Alen had lived alone with these memories for
hundreds of years.
"They cast you out," Kesley went on. "You were an Immortal--it was
obvious, you were a hundred years old and still in the prime of
life--and everyone else grabbed a Dukedom before you did. So you slunk
off to Antarctica with your tail wrapped around your hind legs, and
founded yourself an Empire down here."
"No more, please," van Alen said. "Please."
"I want to go on." Kesley's eyes flashed. "You built that barrier
out of fear and hatred; you closed yourself away from the Twelve who
rejected you! And now--"
"And now I'm very tired," said van Alen. He rose. "Five years ago you
argued for overthrowing the Barrier. I refused without citing reason.
Now you understand why."
"It was because you didn't dare face your twelve old enemies," Kesley
said mercilessly. "Even though Antarctica had continued scientific
development and they had shunned it, even though you now had the
weapons and the techniques to blast the twelve of them off their
thrones at long distance, you still kept thinking of yourself as the
poor relation who got shunted away. That's why you ran away when the
bandits caught me in Argentina; you dreaded going before Miguel. You
had to escape even at the cost of leaving me behind."
"That's part of it." Van Alen seemed to recover some of his former
poise. "If you'll remember, though, I couched my refusal of your ideas
five years ago in such a way that you'd almost certainly react by
running away."
"I remember. Why?"
"You've seen the world. You've seen other Dukes. You know what the
world is like. You've matured. It was a sink-or-swim process, and you
swam."
Kesley began to see what was coming. His fingers started to tremble.
"Five years ago," van Alen went on, "I said no. Today's answer is
different. It's _yes_."
Van Alen laid his still powerful hand on Kesley's shoulder.
"I can't take down the Barrier myself. I need it up there, as
protection--protection against emotional fears that even I know,
intellectually, are foolish.
"But _you_ can take it down, Dryle--as Duke of Antarctica!"
Kesley had seen it coming. He nodded. "I'm so used to thinking of
myself as Dale Kesley that it's hard to remember my name's the same as
yours--Dryle van Alen."
"_Dux et Imperator_," the older man added, grinning. "A little while
ago I dictated an abdication. At knifepoint, to be sure, but I kept my
voice calm. That message is still on the tapes. Any time you want, you
have my permission to broadcast it."
Young van Alen stared evenly at his father. "The Barrier _will_ come
down. The Dukes will fall. I'll get Narella back from Miguel."
"These things will happen. Remember, though, there will be others after
Narella. It's one of the prices you pay for long life."
"I know," he said gravely. He grinned. "I'm still young, yet, and so is
she. There's time for me to start learning how to take the long view
later."
He turned away and extended a hand toward the control that would
broadcast his father's message to all the continent of Antarctica.
His hand hovered for a moment.
Once, he knew, Antarctica had been covered with ice, a frozen, desolate
land. Men had cleared the ice and built a garden continent.
Now, the new Duke thought, it was the other nine-tenths of the world
that lay under an icy pall. That could be altered, too. The Twelve
Dukes could be swept away; the walls around the cities and around men's
minds could be destroyed. And it was not necessary that the tragedy of
2062 be repeated.
His finger brushed the stud and his father's words began to echo
through the city and out over the entire continent.
"_People of Antarctica, hear and believe this message. Today, in the
362nd year of my rule, I am giving up my throne._"
As the abdication decree resounded through the halls of the Ducal
palace, he turned and saw the robots rolling toward him, ready to give
allegiance to their new lord.
He drew a deep breath. Plenty of work lay ahead. The years of the
freeze were at their end; the great thaw was just beginning.