"No." Stal Tay went and sat on a curved sigellis-chair and crossed his
heavy legs. He drummed short, powerful fingers against the beethel-wood
arm. "But the fact that you came back after getting free--that is
important. You wouldn't have stayed in Karr City unless you had to. Who
made you stay? Certainly you didn't hate me enough to risk your neck on
such a long chance."
Angus grinned through the fear in him. "A million people hate you,
if you want to know. You keep the lower-city men and women in filthy
poverty to buy you and your kind jewels and luxury. You subsidize the
Hierarchy, using their science to make your life easier and safer. Why
deny those poor devils down below what you could give them so cheaply?
Heat. Light. Power to operate a few machines. Let them taste something
from life besides slops and sweaty clothes and hard beds."
"Oho," laughed the Diktor softly. "Plegasston of Nowk made a convert.
What else did he say, Angus?"
"He said that government and science should serve the people, not
enslave them. Doesn't Stasor teach that?"
* * * * *
Moana laughed softly. Her black eyes taunted him. She said, "You want
to hear what Stasor says about government and science and people,
Angus the Red? Let me take him through the Veil, Eminence. Let the god
himself tell the fool."
The Diktor smiled thinly, looking from man to woman. He shook his head.
Moana moved to one side of the square-set ruler. Her black eyes bored
straight at Angus. He tried to understand their expression.
The Diktor stood up. "I've used reason, Angus. You're a pirate. You've
preyed on my space-caravans. You've stolen and plundered from me. I
tell you again, I'll forgive all that--even reward you--if you tell me
who sent you here this night."
The black eyes burned at him in Moana's pale white face. She touched
her full upper lip with a red tongue-tip.
"If I could see Stasor," fumbled Angus, trying to fathom what Moana
wanted him to say. When she nodded almost imperceptibly, he went on,
"perhaps he could make me change my mind. If Stasor says I've been a
fool, why then everything I've believed in will have gone smash. In
that case I'd like to serve your Eminence."
Moana's black eyes laughed, silently applauding him. The Diktor
scowled thoughtfully. He swung around on the girl. "Will you be his
vow-companion?"
Angus knew what that meant. If he found a way to escape, the Diktor
would stretch that lovely white body on the rack in place of his own,
give those thighs and breasts and face to the red-hot pincers, the
nails, the barked hooks. He would never let her suffer that fate.
Maybe the Diktor knew that. He smiled a little as Moana promised. He
went, without another glance at Angus.
Moana said softly, "It was all I could do, Red Angus. He would have
taken you to the Pits tonight if I hadn't delayed it."
"You don't owe me anything," he told her crisply.
"I do, though. My brother angered the Diktor a year ago. He was sent
to the salt marshes of Ptixt. You raided the caravan that carried him
and set him free. My brother lives safely hidden today, in one of your
pirate cities. I remember that, Angus. Sometimes good deeds do pay off.
What does Plegasston say about that?"
She went past him and through the doorway.
He followed her swaying body along the drape-hung corridors, into small
rooms and past oak-beamed doors. She came to a blank wall, reached up
and pressed pink fingertips against a rose-red stone.
"The whorls at the tips of my fingers set off a light-switch mechanism
within the stone," she explained. "It's better than any key."
Somewhere an engine hummed faintly and the rock wall began to turn. It
swung aside to reveal a narrow corridor leading downwards. The walls
were coated with a luminescent blueness that glowed brightly, lighting
the way.
Angus saw the pool long before he came to it. A round metal collar
bordered the glistening blackness, that seemed to press upward as
though striving to burst free of whatever held it. It shimmered and
quivered. It pulsed and throbbed with something close to life itself.
Angus came to a stop, staring at it. He put out a hand and thrust it
into the darkness. It felt light, biting, and he thought it might taste
like heady wine.
Moana took his other hand. She whispered, "Come," and stepped down into
the pool.
The darkness swam all around Angus. He felt it on his skin, in the
pores of his arms and hands and legs. It made him giddy, so that he
wanted to laugh. It was like walking on air, to stride in this thing.
They went down into the pool and stood in a strange space, where there
was only blackness, unrelieved by light. It was cold. Faintly, Angus
could hear what he thought was music.
"Will yourself ahead," he heard a musical voice whisper.
He floated effortlessly.
"Where are we?" he wondered aloud.
"Out of space. Out of time. In the abode of the god. Soon now, we shall
see Stasor."
A bright point of red glowed faintly, as a pinhead might gleam when
heated in a fire. It grew swiftly to the size of a fist, to the size of
a head.
The red glow burst, and sent streamers of flame out into the darkness.
Where the red had been was Stasor.
* * * * *
His face floated in a white mist, ancient and wise and sorrowful. The
dimly veined lids were shut. The forehead was high, rounded, surmounted
by snowy hair. On either side of the great hawk-nose, high cheekbones
protruded. The eyelids quivered, slowly arose.
Angus stared dumbly into living wisdom. He wondered deep inside him
how old Stasor must be, to know what those eyes knew; how many worlds
he must have gazed on, how many peoples he must have seen grow to
statehood, to degeneracy, to death.
"You entered the pool. I felt your emanations. What do you wish?"
Moana said, "I am your priestess, Stasor. I have brought a man to see
you."
"Let the man speak."
Angus wet his lips. He scowled, trying to find words. He mumbled, "I've
been sentenced to die for attempting to kill the Diktor of Karr. He's
an evil man."
"What is evil, my son? Is a man bad because he opposes your will?"
Angus growled, "He's a curse to his race. He sends disease and death on
his people when they disobey him. He keeps improvement from them. He
makes them slaves when they might be gods."
"That is your belief. What says the Book of Nard?"