Garve's face took on the glint of madness. He said, "But I will stop
you. I'll stop you if I have to kill you." He turned and strode
bitterly from the room.
* * * * *
Horror was still fresh in Eric's mind when Nolette returned. "All is
ready," she said. "Come now, my husband-to-be."
Eric followed her into the chamber of the elder dreamers. Kroon stood
at the doorway and greeted him as he entered. He said, "One cannot
fight the truth, so we have consented to this marriage. Will you join
hands?"
The ceremony was simple, but beautiful, much like an Earth wedding,
with the city making music that was beautiful beyond belief. But all
the time Eric listened his mind was working, and by the time he had
kissed his bride at the end of the ceremony he knew what he had to do.
He walked back to their room with his arm around her waist, and his
resolve weakened with each step.
Yet when he reached the room he had the will to say, "I must leave you
for a time. When I return our life together will begin." He kissed her
again, and said, "It will not be long."
He broke away, and left her. When he reached the hallway he felt once
in his pocket to be sure the explosive grenades were still there. So
far the machine had controlled his destiny. So far the very belief of
the dreamers in his destiny had brought the predictions to pass. Very
well now, he would destroy the machine, but not at the request of the
dreamers. He would do it now, before there was time to consummate the
horrible part of the prediction. Then he would come back to Nolette and
his honeymoon.
He ran along the hallways, always going down when he found a stairway,
always seeking the central area below that had been indicated by Kroon
in their first talk. And when at length he came out into a large room,
with a maze of delicate electronic apparatus below, he knew he had
arrived, and he pulled the grenade from his pocket.
Yet before he pulled the safety release he could not but marvel a
moment at the intricate science below him. Much was familiar, and much
was unintelligible.
As he stood he was seized from behind, and he twisted to find he was
caught in the hate-strengthened grip of his brother. Pain lanced
through his arm, and Garve gritted, "Drop it." Eric dropped the
grenade, and it fell between them. Eric was suddenly glad that the
safety had not been pulled, and then he was fighting savagely with his
brother.
He was older, and wiser in the dirty tricks of fighters from the
planets. After a time he was able to set himself, and bend forward.
Where Garve had been behind, now he was flung up, over Eric's back in a
sprawling arc. He fell, teetered for an instant, and then crashed into
the delicate heart of the machine below. Glass tinkled, and a flare lit
the room. Eric closed his eyes, afraid to look. Garve must have been
electrocuted.
* * * * *
Eric opened his eyes to find the room subtly changed. It was roughly
the same, but the walls were a rough sandstone, and the glamour was
gone. He heard sounds, and saw Garve struggling up from the wreckage
below. Both of them knew it was ended. The machine was beyond repair.
Garve paused. He said, "It's over now. I suppose in a year or two I
shall forget this. I am going away. Until I can forgive you I shall
stay away. God grant you peace, for you have lost more than I." Garve's
steps echoed hollowly on the stone corridor and he disappeared in the
distance.
Eric stood quietly. There was no happiness in him, only a nameless
fear brought on by his brother's words, a fear that he had forgotten
something.
Then suddenly he knew what it was. He remembered the ugly city. When
he came out of the corridor, out of this building, the city would be a
foul sty again. And the people, he had not seen the people, but they
would no doubt be horrible. Nolette, his wife--he could not let himself
think of how she would look. It seemed Garve was right and the final
prediction had come true. All was finished, even the Daughter of the
City had been destroyed.
He began to move up out of the subterranean room and back to the city.
He reached the outer door, and did not even pause to look for Nolette,
but set his teeth, and stepped out into the city.
And there he was surprised. Here was no ugly city, only a very normal,
ordinary one, with ordinary persons going about the streets, blinking
at the changes. The lines of the city were still there, but the jeweled
panes were ordinary glass.
Eric tried to understand. Then suddenly he recalled his hatred of the
city when he had been cast out, his subconscious thoughts of it as
evil. He had taken off the helmet, and for an instant he had been out
of contact with the elders, disoriented. In that instant the city had
shown him his concept of ugliness. That ugly city was as unreal as the
fantastically beautiful one created by the elders.
Eric turned, and went back into the building, looking for Nolette.
He found her, standing with Kroon in the great room, before a table
which was only laminated wood. She was a slender girl, gray eyed,
pleasant to look at, but without the beauty and the music and the
witchery of her counterpart.
She said quietly, "It is finished, Eric, and we are not the two who
married. It is finished, and the dream is ended."
Eric said only, "Yes," watching her.
She said, "I release you from the marriage. It will be a memory for us
both, a wonderful dream that ended before it was consummated, a dream
cut short too soon."
Eric asked, "What will you do?" Her voice was hardly changed, and
watching her he felt an odd pleasure. There was no wild racing of his
blood, yet his interest was awakening.