So began the pantomime. It continued for fifteen minutes, through three episodes, celebrating the triumph of vagary over plan, affirming the wisdom of folly. Each episode was disarmingly simple, a simplicity obscured by the weird charm of the pierrette, her drooping black mouth, her eyes large and black, like clamshells full of ink. Each episode proceeded at a definite rhythm and was accompanied by a progression of chords, resolving at the denouement.

  The first episode took place in a workroom of the Mozambique Perfume Company. The pierrette slipped on a black rubber apron, to become a laboratory technician. She set to work, mixing syrups, oils and essences: bergamot, jasmine, myrcia, bayberry; but producing only the most fetid vapors, which blew out over the hall. She threw up her hands in vexation and consulted a large book. Then she found a beaker, dropped in first a fish head, then a handful of rose petals. The beaker flickered with green flame. The pierrette was entranced. She judiciously dropped in her handkerchief, the beaker threw up a magnificent fountain of colored sparks, a pyrotechnical delight, and this was the resolving of the chord.

  In the second episode the pierrette cultivated a garden. The ground was barren and rocky. She dug holes with a metal spike, and in each hole tenderly planted a flower: a rose, a sunflower, a white lily. One after another the flowers sprouted into weeds; rank, unkempt, unlovely. The pierrette performed a jig of frustration. She kicked away the flowers and, as a final gesture of annoyance, plunged the metal spike into the ground—which at once put forth branches from which hung green leaves, golden apples, and red pomegranates.

  In the third episode the set was dark. There was visible only a high clock face which had two hands of green slave-light and a luminous red mark at the twelve position. The pierrette came on the set, looked a moment at the sky, then began to build a house. She piled together the most unlikely materials: broken boards, scraps of metal, fragments of glass. By some miracle the unlikely bits and pieces began to take form. The pierrette watched the sky, worked with ever greater urgency, while the clock hands moved closer toward the red mark.

  The structure was finished. After a moment of consideration, the pierrette seized a nozzle and released a sparkling white fog which first hid the construction, then lifted suddenly to reveal a little house painted white. The pierrette was delighted. But the house began to sway from side to side, and after a final teetering moment collapsed to the ground. With a petulant flourish the pierrette took up another nozzle, pointed it; and it sucked the paint away from the pile of trash, and the scraps rose by themselves into their previous form. The pierrette prepared to enter, but could not. She looked through the door, pulled out and warned off a vagrant ruffian, who was Adrian Boss, shooed out a flight of birds, and while she was so occupied the clock hands met the red line.

  The pierrette froze in her tracks, then moved stiffly as if the air had congealed. She looked up at the clock; the hands moved backward, away from the red line; the pierrette laughed. The hands advanced once more with the finality of doom. There was a dazzle of purple light, a clap of thunder, an image of blazing white surf advancing to overcome the world. A roar, a rumble, a triumphant scream. And in the echoes, the resolution of the chord.

  The room lights came on, the black curtain was quiet; the wall slid slowly back into place.

  5

  The Anastasia de Fancourt returned to her dressing room, slid the door shut. She felt exhilarated fatigue, like that of a person returning to a sunny beach after a plunge into ice-cold breakers. The production had gone over well, though there had been rough spots. Perhaps a fourth sequence might be included…

  The Anastasia stiffened. Someone was in the room, someone unfamiliar. She peered around the angle of wall into the little reception room. A man sat there, a big man, knees drawn up under his great head.

  The Anastasia came forward, pulling away the skull cap, freeing her tousle of dark curls. “Mr. Reinhold Biebursson. I’m honored.”

  Biebursson slowly shook his head. “No. The honor—the presumption, perhaps I should say—is mine. I will not apologize. A spaceman feels that he is above convention.”

  The Anastasia laughed. “I might agree if I knew what convention you had in mind.”

  Biebursson turned his grave eyes away. The Anastasia went to the dressing table, picked up a towel. Wiping the white paste from her face, she came back to where Biebursson sat.

  “I am not a man who speaks well,” he said. “My thoughts come in images I cannot translate. For days, for weeks and months, I keep watch. I maintain the ship while the scientists and star-explorers sleep in the cells. It is better this way.”

  The Anastasia slid into a chair. “It must be very lonely.”

  “I have my work. I have my sculpture. And I have music. Tonight I watch you. I am surprised. Because only in my music do I find the eloquence, the subtlety…”

  “That is to be expected. My craft is much like music. I and the musician both use symbols abstracted from reality.”

  Biebursson nodded. “I understand completely.”

  The Anastasia went close to Biebursson, peered into his face. “You are a strange man, a magnificent man. Why are you here?”

  “I have come to ask you to go with me,” said Biebursson with majestic simplicity. “Into space. The Star Enterprise is taking on stores and fuel; soon we shall leave for Achernar; I would have you with me, to live in the black and star-colored sky.”

  The Anastasia smiled her wry smile. “I am as craven as the rest.”

  “I find this hard to believe.”

  “It’s true.” She stood before him, her hands on his shoulders. “I could not leave my surrogates; our empathy would fail; our souls would diverge; there would be no identification, no continuity. I would not dare take them along, there is too much risk of total termination. So—” she made a wan gesture “—I am fettered by my own freedom.”

  Behind them came a clatter, a thud of feet, a harsh voice.

  “I must say, this is a pretty scene.”

  The Abel Mandeville stood in the doorway, surveying the room. He came forward. “Hobnobbing with this bearded scarecrow—embracing him!”

  The Anastasia was vexed. “Abel, at last you overreach yourself!”

  “Bah! My bluntness is less nauseating than your nymphiasis.”

  Biebursson rose from the chair. “I’m afraid I have brought dissension to your evening,” he said sadly.

  Mandeville barked a short sharp laugh. “Don’t inflate yourself. You and everyone else of the gender.”

  A third male voice spoke. Vincent Rodenave looked through the door. “If I might have a word with you, Anastasia.”

  The Abel said, “Another one?”

  Vincent Rodenave stiffened; his sharp face twitched. “You are offensive, sir.”

  “No matter. What do you do here?”

  “I can see no basis for your interest.”

  The Abel strode forward; Vincent Rodenave, half his size, stood staunchly in place. The Anastasia thrust herself between them. “You cockerels! This must stop! Abel, will you go?”

  The Abel was outraged. “Me, go! Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will go after them. I want a word with you.” He waved at Rodenave and Biebursson. “Go, you dancing-tom; go, spaceman!”

  “All of you!” cried The Anastasia. “Leave me!”

  Reinhold Biebursson bowed with a kind of gaunt grace and departed.

  Vincent Rodenave frowned. “Perhaps I could see you later? I must explain—”

  The Anastasia came forward, her face twisted in a wry expression. “Not tonight, Vincent. I desperately want rest.”

  Rodenave hesitated, then reluctantly withdrew.

  The Anastasia turned to The Abel Mandeville. “Now Abel, please. I must dress.”

  The Abel stood like a bull. “I want words with you.”

  “I want none with you!” Her voice rose suddenly into contempt. “Do you understand me, Abel? I am finished with you—finally, completely. Now—leave me!”

  The Anastasia turned on her heel, went to her dressing table, began wiping off the last of her make-up.

  Behind her came the pad of a heavy foot. The room sounded to a gasp, a groan, and then a steady drip, drip that soon stopped.

  Chapter XII

  1

  T

  he day following the exhibition was a Sunday. Waylock awoke to a mood of gloom and pessimism. He dressed slowly, descended to the street, walked south in the shadow of the towers, to Esterhazy Square and Pearl Pavilion beside the lake. Selecting a table overlooking both mall and water, he ordered strong tea in a black glass, rolls and quince preserve.

  The square was brilliant with sunshine and more than usually crowded. Near by a dozen noisy children played “Who’s-a-Glark”. On a bench below Waylock three young men sat in a sly huddle, exchanging obscene stories—anecdotes tweaking the prime taboo: “Did you hear about the horse-trainer who broke his leg? The horses thought he’d have to be killed.” And, “This apprentice assassin drove the struggle-buggy to the wrong address. It was where Director-General Jarvis himself lived. They hauled him down and boosted him in…”

  Waylock’s gloom deepened. The three young men on the bench below snickered at their jokes; Waylock joined them in a sour grin. He should put his head over the parapet and say, “Look at me! I am a Monster. I have killed, not once, but twice. I am considering a course of action which may bring death to many others.” Their eyes would stare, their mouths would fall open, their lewd laughter would choke back down their throats.

  The sun warmed Waylock; he began to feel more cheerful. The horrible event of last night, after all, tended to vindicate him, as even The Jacynth must admit. If she would cease her persecution of him, he could forget the monstrous scheme which had formed in his mind. And yet—the idea stirred him by reason of its own intrinsic interest.

  He reached in his pocket, brought out Rodenave’s envelope. With a viewer he inspected The Anastasia’s flake.

  It should not be too difficult, he thought, to separate the two images. It was necessary only to identify some conspicuous landmark, which would provide a key to one of the superimposed charts. This could then be subtracted by photological techniques, or an application of phase analysis, leaving the second chart clear and distinct.

  He replaced the flake in the envelope, returned it to his pocket. Rodenave had dared greatly for The Anastasia. If apprehended, he would suffer severely—certainly expulsion from his position and possibly the Cage of Shame. He had dared once without reward. It remained to be seen if he would dare a second time for higher stakes.

  He looked across the sunny square, where children played games presaging their future; where men and women walked briskly toward the Actuarian and came away sagging with spent emotion. He picked up his newspaper. The Anastasia’s picture stared from a box, fragile and fine as the face of a sylph: her passing was big news. The paper was the Clarion, The Abel’s own.

  He glanced through the other news of the day. A millionaire glark had sought to trade half his wealth for Amaranth inoculations, and had been severely rebuked. There was an article on Balliasse Palliatory, endorsing the new superintendent, Didactor Leon Gradella. The League for Civic Morality was up in arms against what they termed ‘indecent games and recreations’ at Carnevalle, where living animals received ‘disgusting treatment’ at the ‘hands of perverts’.

  Waylock yawned, put down the paper. Across the mall came an odd couple: a tall solemn young man and a woman equally tall, with lank red hair and a face long as a violin. She flaunted an arsenic-green smock, a sulphur-yellow skirt, and jangled a dozen brass bracelets on her arm.

  Waylock recognized the woman: Pladge Caddigan. She met his gaze. “Gavin Waylock!” she cried, and waved her long arm till the bracelets clashed. She took the young man’s arm and steered him through the pavilion to Waylock’s table.

  “Roger Buisly, Gavin Waylock,” she said by way of introduction. “May we join you?”

  “Of course,” said Waylock. Any grief Pladge might have felt at the loss of Seth was clearly under control.

  Pladge seated herself and the young man followed suit.

  “I’ve great hopes, Roger,” said Pladge, “of making Gavin Waylock one of us.”

  “One of what?” asked Waylock.

  “A Whitherer, of course. Everyone of consequence is a Whitherer nowadays.”

  “I’ve never got it quite straight: exactly what is a Whitherer?”

  Pladge rolled up her eyes despairingly. “There are as many definitions as there are Whitherers. Basically, we’re people in a state of protest. We’ve made some attempt to form a coalition, to set up a central council.”

  “Why?”

  Pladge looked surprised. “So we can organize and function as a force, do something about our government!”

  “What, specifically?”

  Pladge performed one of her more extravagant gestures. “If we were agreed, the rest of it would be simple. Present conditions are intolerable; we all want a change—all, that is, except Roger Buisly.”

  Buisly smiled complacently. “This is an imperfect world. I believe that our present system is as good as can be hoped for. It holds up a standard, offers a goal, fulfills the dearest hopes of the human race; and it can be tampered with only to our great disadvantage.”

  Pladge grimaced wryly. “You can see how conservative our Roger becomes.”

  Waylock considered Buisly. “Why is he a Whitherer then?”

  Buisly answered. “Why not? I am a Whitherer of Whitherers. They demand of each other, ‘Whither the world?’ I expand the question to: ‘Whither the world, if these crackpots have their way?’”

  “He has nothing constructive to offer,” Pladge told Waylock. “He obstructs and carps.”

  Buisly protested. “Not at all! I have a sound position; it is so simple that Pladge and her abstruse friends are oppressed. I reason in three stages. Step one: everyone wants eternal life. Step two: we can’t permit it to everyone, or we’d have another Age of Chaos. Step three: the obvious answer is—give life to those who have earned it. This is our present system.”

  “But what of the human cost?” said Pladge. “What of the strain, the grief, the terror, the turmoil? What of the poor devils crowding the palliatories? Twenty-five per cent of all those participating!”

  Buisly shrugged. “This is an imperfect world. There always have been grief and terror. We all want to minimize it. I believe that’s what has been done.”

  “Oh Roger! You can’t really believe that!”

  “In the absence of proof to the contrary, yes.” He turned to Waylock. “In any event, those are my views. I am detested, of course, but I afford these people a convenient butt for their sarcasm.”

  “It’s probably a necessary function,” Waylock told him. “I met a Whitherer last night. His name is Jacob Nile—”

  “Jacob Nile!” Pladge prodded Buisly with her finger tips. “Roger, you must call Jacob on the commu; he lives so close by; see if he will join us.”

  Roger Buisly demurred, and when Pladge insisted made plaintive sounds.

  “Very well,” said Pladge in grand hauteur, “I’ll call him myself.”

  She rose from the table, marched to the public commu.

  “A very headstrong woman,” Buisly observed.

  “Evidently.”

  Pladge returned in triumph. “He was just leaving his apartment and he’ll be right over.”

  A few minutes later Jacob Nile appeared, and was introduced to Waylock. He knit his brows. “Somehow you seem familiar. Have we met?”