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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..950ad23 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51845 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51845) diff --git a/old/51845-8.txt b/old/51845-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fd5173d..0000000 --- a/old/51845-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5073 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wolfbane, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Wolfbane - -Author: Frederik Pohl - C. M. Kornbluth - -Release Date: April 23, 2016 [EBook #51845] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOLFBANE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - WOLFBANE - - By FREDERIK POHL and C. M. KORNBLUTH - - Illustrated by WOOD - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Science Fiction October and November 1957. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - Appallingly, the Earth and the Moon had been - kidnapped from the Solar System--but who were - the kidnappers and what ransom did they want? - - -I - -Roget Germyn, banker, of Wheeling, West Virginia, a Citizen, woke -gently from a Citizen's dreamless sleep. It was the third-hour-rising -time, the time proper to a day of exceptional opportunity to appreciate. - -Citizen Germyn dressed himself in the clothes proper for the -appreciation of great works--such as viewing the Empire State ruins -against storm clouds from a small boat, or walking in silent single -file across the remaining course of the Golden Gate Bridge. Or as -today--one hoped--witnessing the Re-creation of the Sun. - -Germyn with difficulty retained a Citizen's necessary calm. One was -tempted to meditate on improper things: Would the Sun be re-created? -What if it were not? - -He put his mind to his dress. First of all, he put on an old and -storied bracelet, a veritable identity bracelet of heavy silver links -and a plate which was inscribed: - - PFC JOE HARTMANN - _Korea_ - 1953 - -His fellow jewelry-appreciators would have envied him that bracelet--if -they had been capable of such an emotion as envy. No other ID bracelet -as much as two hundred and fifty years old was known to exist in -Wheeling. - -His finest shirt and pair of light pants went next to his skin, -and over them he wore a loose parka whose seams had been carefully -weakened. When the Sun was re-created, every five years or so, it was -the custom to remove the parka gravely and rend it with the prescribed -graceful gestures ... but not so drastically that it could not be -stitched together again. Hence the weakened seams. - -This was, he counted, the forty-first day on which he and all of -Wheeling had donned the appropriate Sun Re-creation clothing. It was -the forty-first day on which the Sun--no longer white, no longer -blazing yellow, no longer even bright red--had risen and displayed a -color that was darker maroon and always darker. - - * * * * * - -It had, thought Citizen Germyn, never grown so dark and so cold in all -of his life. Perhaps it was an occasion for special viewing. For surely -it would never come again, this opportunity to see the old Sun so near -to death.... - -One hoped. - -Gravely, Citizen Germyn completed his dressing, thinking only of -the act of dressing itself. It was by no means his specialty, but -he considered, when it was done, that he had done it well, in the -traditional flowing gestures, with no flailing, at all times balanced -lightly on the ball of the foot. It was all the more perfectly -consummated because no one saw it but himself. - -He woke his wife gently, by placing the palm of his hand on her -forehead as she lay neatly, in the prescribed fashion, on the Woman's -Third of the bed. - -The warmth of his hand gradually penetrated the layers of sleep. Her -eyes demurely opened. - -"Citizeness Germyn," he greeted her, making the assurance-of-identity -sign with his left hand. - -"Citizen Germyn," she said, with the assurance-of-identity inclination -of the head which was prescribed when the hands are covered. - -He retired to his tiny study. - -It was the time appropriate to meditation on the properties of -Connectivity. Citizen Germyn was skilled in meditation, even for a -banker; it was a grace in which he had schooled himself since earliest -childhood. - -Citizen Germyn, his young face composed, his slim body erect as he -sat but in no way tense or straining, successfully blanked out, one -after another, all of the external sounds and sights and feelings that -interfered with proper meditation. His mind was very nearly vacant -except of one central problem: Connectivity. - -Over his head and behind, out of sight, the cold air of the room seemed -to thicken and form a--call it a blob; a blob of air. - -There was a name for those blobs of air. They had been seen before. -They were a known fact of existence in Wheeling and in all the world. -They came. They hovered. And they went away--sometimes not alone. If -someone had been in the room with Citizen Germyn to look at it, he -would have seen a distortion, a twisting of what was behind the blob, -like flawed glass, a lens, like an eye. And they were called Eye. - -Germyn meditated. - -The blob of air grew and slowly moved. A vagrant current that spun out -from it caught a fragment of paper and whirled it to the floor. Germyn -stirred. The blob retreated. - -Germyn, all unaware, disciplined his thoughts to disregard the -interruption, to return to the central problem of Connectivity. The -blob hovered.... - -From the other room, his wife's small, thrice-repeated throat-clearing -signaled to him that she was dressed. Germyn got up to go to her, his -mind returning to the world; and the overhead Eye spun relentlessly, -and disappeared. - - * * * * * - -Some miles east of Wheeling, Glenn Tropile--of a class which found it -wisest to give itself no special name, and which had devoted much time -and thought to shaking the unwelcome name it had been given--awoke on -the couch of his apartment. - -He sat up, shivering. It was cold. The damned Sun was still bloody dark -outside the window and the apartment was soggy and chilled. - -He had kicked off the blankets in his sleep. _Why couldn't_ he learn -to sleep quietly, like anybody else? Lacking a robe, he clutched the -blankets around him, got up and walked to the unglassed window. - -It was not unusual for Glenn Tropile to wake up on his couch. This -happened because Gala Tropile had a temper, was inclined to exile -him from her bed after a quarrel, and--the operative factor--he knew -he always had the advantage over her for the whole day following the -night's exile. Therefore the quarrel was worth it. An advantage was, by -definition, worth anything you paid for it or else it was no advantage. - -He could hear her moving about in one of the other rooms and cocked an -ear, satisfied. She hadn't waked him. Therefore she was about to make -amends. A little itch in his spine or his brain--it was not a physical -itch, so he couldn't locate it; he could only be sure that it was -there--stopped troubling him momentarily; he was winning a contest. It -was Glenn Tropile's nature to win contests ... and his nature to create -them. - -Gala Tropile, young, dark, attractive, with a haunted look, came in -tentatively carrying coffee from some secret hoard of hers. - -Glenn Tropile affected not to notice. He stared coldly out at the cold -landscape. The sea, white with thin ice, was nearly out of sight, so -far had it retreated as the little sun waned. - -"Glenn--" - -Ah, good! _Glenn._ Where was the proper mode of -first-greeting-one's-husband? Where was the prescribed throat-clearing -upon entering a room? - -Assiduously, he had untaught her the meticulous ritual of manners that -they had all of them been brought up to know; and it was the greatest -of his many victories over her that sometimes, now, _she_ was the -aggressor, _she_ would be the first to depart from the formal behavior -prescribed for Citizens. - -Depravity! Perversion! - -Sometimes they would touch each other at times which were not the -appropriate coming-together times, Gala sitting on her husband's lap in -the late evening, perhaps, or Tropile kissing her awake in the morning. -Sometimes he would force her to let him watch her dress--no, not now, -for the cold of the waning sun made that sort of frolic unattractive, -but she had permitted it before; and such was his mastery over her that -he knew she would permit it again, when the Sun was re-created.... - -If, a thought came to him, _if_ the Sun was re-created. - - * * * * * - -He turned away from the cold outside and looked at his wife. "Good -morning, darling." She was contrite. - -He demanded jarringly: "Is it?" Deliberately he stretched, deliberately -he yawned, deliberately he scratched his chest. Every movement was -ugly. Gala Tropile quivered, but said nothing. - -Tropile flung himself on the better of the two chairs, one hairy leg -protruding from under the wrapped blankets. His wife was on her best -behavior--in his unique terms; she didn't avert her eyes. - -"What've you got there?" he asked. "Coffee?" - -"Yes, dear. I thought--" - -"Where'd you get it?" - -The haunted eyes looked away. Still better, thought Glenn Tropile, -more satisfied even than usual; she's been ransacking an old warehouse -again. It was a trick he had taught her, and like all of the illicit -tricks she had learned from him, a handy weapon when he chose to use it. - -It was not prescribed that a Citizen should rummage through Old Places. -A Citizen did his work, whatever that work might be--banker, baker or -furniture repairman. He received what rewards were his due for the work -he did. A Citizen _never_ took anything that was not his due--not even -if it lay abandoned and rotting. - -It was one of the differences between Glenn Tropile and the people he -moved among. - -I've got it made, he exulted; it was what I needed to clinch my victory -over her. - -He spoke: "I need you more than I need coffee, Gala." - -She looked up, troubled. - -"What would I do," he demanded, "if a beam fell on you one day while -you were scrambling through the fancy groceries? How can you take such -chances? Don't you _know_ what you mean to me?" - -She sniffed a couple of times. She said brokenly: "Darling, about last -night--I'm sorry--" and miserably held out the cup. He took it and set -it down. He took her hand, looked up at her, and kissed it lingeringly. -He felt her tremble. Then she gave him a wild, adoring look and flung -herself into his arms. - -A new dominance cycle was begun at the moment he returned her frantic -kisses. - -Glenn knew, and Gala knew, that he had over her an edge, an -advantage--the weather gauge, initiative of fire, percentage, the -can't-lose lack of tension. Call it anything, but it was life itself to -such as Glenn Tropile. He knew, and she knew, that having the advantage -he would press it and she would yield--on and on, in a rising spiral. - -He did it because it was his life, the attaining of an advantage over -anyone he might encounter; because he was (unwelcomely but justly) -called a Son of the Wolf. - - * * * * * - -A world away, a Pyramid squatted sullenly on the planed-off top of the -highest peak of the Himalayas. - -It had not been built there. It had not been carried there by Man or -Man's machines. It had--come, in its own time; for its own reasons. - -Did it wake on that day, the thing atop Mount Everest, or did it -ever sleep? Nobody knew. It stood, or sat, there, approximately a -tetrahedron. Its appearance was known: constructed on a base line of -some thirty-five yards, slaggy, midnight-blue in color. Almost nothing -else about it was known--at least, to mankind. - -It was the only one of its kind on Earth, though men thought (without -much sure knowledge) that there were more, perhaps many thousands more, -like it on the unfamiliar planet that was Earth's binary, swinging -around the miniature Sun that hung at their common center of gravity -like an unbalanced dumbbell. But men knew very little about that planet -itself, only that it had come out of space and was now there. - -Time was when men had tried to label that binary, more than two -centuries before, when it had first appeared. "Runaway Planet." "The -Invader." "Rejoice in Messias, the Day Is at Hand." The labels were -sense-free; they were Xs in an equation, signifying only that there was -_something_ there which was unknown. - -"The Runaway Planet" stopped running when it closed on Earth. - -"The Invader" didn't invade; it merely sent down one slaggy, -midnight-blue tetrahedron to Everest. - -And "Rejoice in Messias" stole Earth from its sun--with Earth's old -moon, which it converted into a miniature sun of its own. - -That was the time when men were plentiful and strong--or thought they -were--with many huge cities and countless powerful machines. It didn't -matter. The new binary planet showed no interest in the cities or the -machines. - -There was a plague of things like Eyes--dust-devils without dust, -motionless air that suddenly tensed and quivered into lenticular -shapes. They came with the planet and the Pyramid, so that there -probably was some connection. But there was nothing to do about the -Eyes. Striking at them was like striking at air--was the same thing, in -fact. - -While the men and machines tried uselessly to do something about it, -the new binary system--the stranger planet and Earth--began to move, -accelerating very slowly. - -But accelerating. - -In a week, astronomers knew something was happening. In a month, the -Moon sprang into flame and became a new sun--beginning to be needed, -for already the parent Sol was visibly more distant, and in a few years -it was only one other star among many. - - * * * * * - -When the little sun was burned to a clinker, they--whoever "they" -were, for men saw only the one Pyramid--would hang a new one in the -sky. It happened every five clock-years, more or less. It was the same -old moon-turned-sun, but it burned out, and the fires needed to be -rekindled. - -The first of these suns had looked down on an Earthly population of ten -billion. As the sequence of suns waxed and waned, there were changes, -climatic fluctuation, all but immeasurable differences in the quantity -and kind of radiation from the new source. - -The changes were such that the forty-fifth such sun looked down on a -shrinking human race that could not muster up a hundred million. - -A frustrated man drives inward; it is the same with a race. The -hundred million that clung to existence were not the same as the bold, -vital ten billion. - -The thing on Everest had, in its time, received many labels, too: The -Devil, The Friend, The Beast, A Pseudo-living Entity of Quite Unknown -Electrochemical Properties. - -All these labels were also Xs. - -If it did wake that morning, it did not open its eyes, for it had no -eyes--apart from the quivers of air that might or might not belong -to it. Eyes might have been gouged; therefore it had none. So an -illogical person might have argued--and yet it was tempting to apply -the "purpose, not function" fallacy to it. Limbs could be crushed; it -had no limbs. Ears could be deafened; it had none. Through a mouth, it -might be poisoned; it had no mouth. Intentions and actions could be -frustrated; apparently it had neither. - -It was there. That was all. - -It and others like it had stolen the Earth and the Earth did not know -why. It was there. And the one thing on Earth you could not do was hurt -it, influence it, or coerce it in any way whatever. - -It was there--and it, or the masters it represented, owned the Earth by -right of theft. Utterly. Beyond human hope of challenge or redress. - - -II - -Citizen and Citizeness Roget Germyn walked down Pine Street in the -chill and dusk of--one hoped--a Sun Re-creation Morning. - -It was the convention to pretend that this was a morning like any other -morning. It was not proper either to cast frequent hopeful glances at -the sky, nor yet to seem disturbed or afraid because this was, after -all, the forty-first such morning since those whose specialty was Sky -Viewing had come to believe the Re-creation of the Sun was near. - -The Citizen and his Citizeness exchanged the assurance-of-identity -sign with a few old friends and stopped to converse. This also was a -convention of skill divorced from purpose. The conversation was without -relevance to anything that any one of the participants might know, or -think, or wish to ask. - -Germyn said for his friends a twenty-word poem he had made in honor -of the occasion and heard their responses. They did line-capping for -a while--until somebody indicated unhappiness and a wish to change by -frowning the Two Grooves between his brows. The game was deftly ended -with an improvised rhymed exchange. - -Casually, Citizen Germyn glanced aloft. The sky-change had not begun -yet; the dying old Sun hung just over the horizon, east and south, much -more south than east. It was an ugly thought, but suppose, thought -Germyn, just _suppose_ that the Sun were not re-created today? Or -tomorrow. Or-- - -Or ever. - -The Citizen got a grip on himself and told his wife: "We shall dine at -the oatmeal stall." - -The Citizeness did not immediately reply. When Germyn glanced at her -with well-masked surprise, he found her almost staring down the dim -street at a Citizen who moved almost in a stride, almost swinging his -arms. Scarcely graceful. - -"That might be more Wolf than man," she said doubtfully. - -Germyn knew the fellow. Tropile was his name. One of those curious few -who made their homes outside of Wheeling, though they were not farmers. -Germyn had had banking dealings with him--or would have had, if it had -been up to Tropile. - -"That is a careless man," he decided, "and an ill-bred one." - -They moved toward the oatmeal stall with the gait of Citizens, arms -limp, feet scarcely lifted, slumped forward a little. It was the -ancient gait of fifteen hundred calories per day, not one of which -could be squandered. - - * * * * * - -There was a need for more calories. So many for walking, so many for -gathering food. So many for the economical pleasures of the Citizens, -so many more--oh, many more, these days!--to keep out the cold. Yet -there were no more calories; the diet the whole world lived on was a -bare subsistence diet. - -It was impossible to farm well when half the world's land was part -of the time drowned in the rising sea, part of the time smothered in -falling snow. - -Citizens knew this and, knowing, did not struggle--it was ungraceful -to struggle, particularly when one could not win. Only--well, Wolves -struggled, wasting calories, lacking grace. - -Citizen Germyn turned his mind to more pleasant things. - -He allowed himself his First Foretaste of the oatmeal. It would be -warm in the bowl, hot in the throat, a comfort in the belly. There was -a great deal of pleasure there, in weather like this, when the cold -plucked through the loosened seams and the wind came up the sides of -the hills. Not that there wasn't pleasure in the cold itself, for that -matter. It was proper that one should be cold now, just before the -re-creation of the Sun, when the old Sun was smoky-red and the new one -not yet kindled. - -"--still looks like Wolf to me," his wife was muttering. - -"Cadence," Germyn reproved his Citizeness, but took the sting out of it -with a Quirked Smile. - -The man with the ugly manners was standing at the very bar of the -oatmeal stall where they were heading. In the gloom of mid-morning, he -was all angles and strained lines. His head was turned awkwardly on -his shoulder, peering toward the back of the stall where the vendor -was rhythmically measuring grain into a pot. His hands were resting -helter-skelter on the counter, not hanging by his sides. - -Citizen Germyn felt a faint shudder from his wife. But he did not -reprove her again, for who could blame her? The exhibition was -revolting. - -She said faintly: "Citizen, might we dine on bread this morning?" - -He hesitated and glanced again at the ugly man. He said indulgently, -knowing that he was indulgent: "On Sun Re-creation Morning, the -Citizeness may dine on bread." Bearing in mind the occasion, it was -only a small favor and therefore a very proper one. - -The bread was good, very good. They shared out the half-kilo between -them and ate it in silence, as it deserved. Germyn finished his first -portion and, in the prescribed pause before beginning his second, -elected to refresh his eyes upward. - -He nodded to his wife and stepped outside. - - * * * * * - -Overhead, the Old Sun parceled out its last barrel-scrapings of heat. -It was larger than the stars around it, but many of them were nearly as -bright. - -A high-pitched male voice said: "Citizen Germyn, good morning." - -Germyn was caught off balance. He took his eyes off the sky, half -turned, glanced at the face of the person who had spoken to him, raised -his hand in the assurance-of-identity sign. It was all very quick and -fluid--almost too quick, for he had had his fingers bent nearly into -the sign for female friends and this was a man. Citizen Boyne. Germyn -knew him well; they had shared the Ice Viewing at Niagara a year before. - -Germyn recovered quickly enough, but it had been disconcerting. - -He improvised swiftly: "There are stars, but are stars still there if -there is no Sun?" It was a hurried effort, he grieved, but no doubt -Boyne would pick it up and carry it along. Boyne had always been very -good, very graceful. - -Boyne did no such thing. "Good morning," he said again, faintly. He -glanced at the stars overhead, as though trying to unravel what Germyn -was talking about. He said accusingly, his voice cracking sharply: -"There isn't any Sun, Germyn. What do you think of that?" - -Germyn swallowed. "Citizen, perhaps you--" - -"No Sun, you hear me!" the man sobbed. "It's cold, Germyn. The Pyramids -aren't going to give us another Sun, do you know that? They're going to -starve us, freeze us; they're through with us. We're done, all of us!" -He was nearly screaming. - -All up and down Pine Street, people were trying not to look at him and -some of them were failing. - -Boyne clutched at Germyn helplessly. Revolted, Germyn drew -back--_bodily contact!_ - -It seemed to bring the man to his senses. Reason returned to his eyes. -He said: "I--" He stopped, stared about him. "I think I'll have bread -for breakfast," he said foolishly, and plunged into the stall. - -Boyne left behind him a shaken Citizen, caught halfway into the -wrist-flip of parting, staring after him with jaw slack and eyes wide, -as though Germyn had no manners, either. - -All this on Sun Re-creation Day! - -What could it mean? Germyn wondered fretfully, worriedly. - -Was Boyne on the point of-- - -Could Boyne be about to-- - -Germyn drew back from the thought. There was one thing that might -explain Boyne's behavior. But it was not a proper speculation for one -Citizen to make about another. - -All the same--Germyn dared the thought--all the same, it _did_ seem -almost as though Citizen Boyne were on the point of--well, running amok. - - * * * * * - -At the oatmeal stall, Glenn Tropile thumped on the counter. The laggard -oatmeal vendor finally brought the ritual bowl of salt and the pitcher -of thin milk. Tropile took his paper twist of salt from the top of the -neatly arranged pile in the bowl. He glanced at the vendor. His fingers -hesitated. Then, quickly, he ripped the twist of paper into his oatmeal -and covered it to the permitted level with the milk. - -He ate quickly and efficiently, watching the street outside. - -They were wandering and mooning about, as always--maybe today more than -most days, since they hoped it would be the day the Sun blossomed flame -once more. - -Tropile always thought of the wandering, mooning Citizens as _they_. -There was a _we_ somewhere for Tropile, no doubt, but Tropile had not -as yet located it, not even in the bonds of the marriage contract. - -He was in no hurry. At the age of fourteen, Glenn Tropile had -reluctantly come to realize certain things about himself--that he -disliked being bested, that he had to have a certain advantage in -all his dealings, or an intolerable itch of the mind drove him to -discomfort. The things added up to a terrifying fear, gradually -becoming knowledge, that the only we that could properly include him -was one that it was not very wise to join. - -He had realized, in fact, that he was a Wolf. - -For some years, Tropile had struggled against it, for Wolf was an -obscene word; the children he played with were punished severely for -saying it, and for almost nothing else. - -It was not _proper_ for one Citizen to advantage himself at the expense -of another; Wolves did that. - -It was _proper_ for a Citizen to accept what he had, not to strive for -more, to find beauty in small things, to accommodate himself, with the -minimum of strain and awkwardness, to whatever his life happened to be. - -Wolves were not like that. Wolves never meditated, Wolves never -Appreciated, Wolves _never_ were Translated--that supreme fulfillment, -granted only to those who succeeded in a perfect meditation, that -surrender of the world and the flesh by taking leave of both, which -could never be achieved by a Wolf. - -Accordingly, Glenn Tropile had tried very hard to do all the things -that Wolves could not do. - -He had nearly succeeded. His specialty, Water Watching, had been most -rewarding. He had achieved many partly successful meditations on -Connectivity. - -And yet he was still a Wolf, for he still felt that burning, itching -urge to triumph and to hold an advantage. For that reason, it was -almost impossible for him to make friends among the Citizens; and -gradually he had almost stopped trying. - -Tropile had arrived in Wheeling nearly a year before, making him one of -the early settlers in point of time. And yet there was not a Citizen in -the street who was prepared to exchange recognition gestures with him. - -_He_ knew _them_, nearly every one. He knew their names and their -wives' names. He knew what northern states they had moved down from -with the spreading of the ice, as the sun grew dim. He knew very nearly -to the quarter of a gram what stores of sugar and salt and coffee -each one of them had put away--for their guests, of course, not for -themselves; the well-bred Citizen hoarded only for the entertainment of -others. - -Tropile knew these things because there was an advantage in knowing -them. But there was no advantage in having anyone know him. - -A few did--that banker, Germyn; Tropile had approached him only -a few months before about a prospective loan. But it had been a -chancy, nervous encounter. The idea was so luminously simple to -Tropile--organize an expedition to the coal mines that once had -flourished nearby, find the coal, bring it to Wheeling, heat the -houses. And yet it had seemed blasphemous to Germyn. Tropile had -counted himself lucky merely to have been refused the loan, instead of -being cried out upon as Wolf. - - * * * * * - -The oatmeal vendor was fussing worriedly around his neat stack of paper -twists in the salt bowl. - -Tropile avoided the man's eyes. Tropile was not interested in the -little wry smile of self-deprecation which the vendor would make to -him, given half a chance. Tropile knew well enough what was disturbing -the vendor. Let it disturb him. It was Tropile's custom to take extra -twists of salt. They were in his pockets now; they would stay there. -Let the vendor wonder why he was short. - -Tropile licked the bowl of his spoon and stepped into the street. He -was comfortably aware under a double-thick parka that the wind was -blowing very cold. - -A Citizen passed him, walking alone: odd, thought Tropile. He was -walking rapidly and there was a look of taut despair on his face. Still -more odd. Odd enough to be worth another look, because that sort of -haste, that sort of abstraction, suggested something to Tropile. They -were in no way normal to the gentle sheep of the class _They_, except -in one particular circumstance. - -Glenn Tropile crossed the street to follow the abstracted Citizen, -whose name, he knew, was Boyne. The man blundered into Citizen Germyn -outside the baker's stall, and Tropile stood back out of easy sight, -watching and listening. - -Boyne was on the ragged edge of breakdown. What Tropile heard and saw -confirmed his diagnosis. The one particular circumstance was close to -happening--Citizen Boyne was on the verge of running amok. - -Tropile looked at the man with amusement and contempt. Amok! The gentle -sheep _could_ be pushed too far. He had seen Citizens run amok, the -signs were obvious. - -There was pretty sure to be an advantage in it for Glenn Tropile. There -was an advantage in almost anything, if you looked for it. - -He watched and waited. He picked his spot with care, so that he could -see Citizen Boyne inside the baker's stall, making a dismal botch of -slashing his quarter-kilo of bread from the Morning Loaf. - -He waited for Boyne to come racing out.... - -Boyne did. - -A yell--loud, piercing. It was Citizen Germyn, shrilling: "Amok, amok!" -A scream. An enraged wordless cry from Boyne, and the baker's knife -glinting in the faint light as Boyne swung it. And then Citizens were -scattering in every direction--all of the Citizens but one. - -One Citizen was under the knife--his own knife, as it happened; it was -the baker himself. Boyne chopped and chopped again. And then Boyne came -out, roaring, the broad knife whistling about his head. The gentle -Citizens fled panicked before him. He struck at their retreating forms -and screamed and struck again. Amok. - -It was the one particular circumstance when they forgot to be -gracious--one of the two, Tropile corrected himself as he strolled -across to the baker's stall. His brow furrowed, because there was -another circumstance when they lacked grace, and one which affected him -nearly. - - * * * * * - -He watched the maddened creature, Boyne, already far down the road, -chasing a knot of Citizens around a corner. Tropile sighed and stepped -into the baker's stall to see what he might gain from this. - -Boyne would wear himself out--the surging rage would leave him as -quickly as it came; he would be a sheep again and the other sheep would -close in and capture him. That was what happened when a Citizen ran -amok. It was a measure of what pressures were on the Citizens that, -at any moment, there might be one gram of pressure too much and one -of them would crack. It had happened here in Wheeling twice within -the past two months. Glenn Tropile had seen it happen in Pittsburgh, -Altoona and Bronxville. - -There is a limit to the pressure that can be endured. - -Tropile walked into the baker's stall and looked down without emotion -at the slaughtered baker. The corpse was a gory mess, but Tropile had -seen corpses before. - -He looked around the stall, calculating. As a starter, he bent to pick -up the quarter-kilo of bread Boyne had dropped, dusted it off and -slipped it into his pocket. Food was always useful. Given enough food, -perhaps Boyne would not have run amok. - -Was it simple hunger they cracked under? Or the knowledge of the thing -on Mount Everest, or the hovering Eyes, or the sought-after-dreaded -prospect of Translation, or merely the strain of keeping up their -laboriously figured lives? - -Did it matter? _They_ cracked and ran amok, and Tropile never would, -and that was what mattered. - -He leaned across the counter, reaching for what was left of the Morning -Loaf-- - -And found himself staring into the terrified large eyes of Citizeness -Germyn. - -She screamed: "Wolf! Citizens, help me! Wolf!" - -Tropile faltered. He hadn't even _seen_ the damned woman, but there she -was, rising up from behind the counter, screaming her head off: "Wolf! -Wolf!" - -He said sharply: "Citizeness, I beg you--" But that was no good. The -evidence was on him and her screams would fetch others. - -Tropile panicked. He started toward her to silence her, but that was no -good, either. He whirled. She was screaming, screaming, and there were -people to hear. Tropile darted into the street, but they were popping -out of every doorway now, appearing from each rat's hole in which they -had hid to escape Boyne. - -"Please!" he cried, sobbing. "Wait a minute!" - -But they weren't waiting. They had heard the woman and maybe some of -them had seen him with the bread. They were all around him--no, they -were all over him; they were clutching at him, tearing at his soft, -warm furs. - -They pulled at his pockets and the stolen twists of salt spilled -accusingly out. They yanked at his sleeves and even the stout, -unweakened seams ripped open. He was fairly captured. - -"Wolf!" they were shouting. "Wolf!" It drowned out the distant noise -from where Boyne had finally been run to earth, a block and more away. -It drowned out everything. - -It was the other circumstance when _they_ forgot to be gracious: when -they had trapped a Son of the Wolf. - - -III - -Engineering had long ago come to an end. - -Engineering is possible under one condition of the equation: Total -available Calories divided by Population equals Artistic-Technological -Style. When the ratio Calories-to-Population is large--say, five -thousand or more, five thousand daily calories for every living -person--then the Artistic-Technological Style is _big_. People carve -Mount Rushmore; they build great foundries; they manufacture enormous -automobiles to carry one housewife half a mile for the purchase of one -lipstick. - -Life is coarse and rich where C:P is large. At the other extreme, where -C:P is too small, life does not exist at all. It has starved out. - -Experimentally, add little increments to C:P and it will be some time -before the right-hand side of the equation becomes significant. But -at last, in the 1,000 to 1,500 calorie range, Artistic-Technological -Style firmly appears in self-perpetuating form. C:P in that range -produces the small arts, the appreciations, the peaceful arrangements -of necessities into subtle relationships of traditionally agreed-upon -virtue. - -Think of Japan, locked into its Shogunate prison, with a hungry -population scrabbling food out of mountainsides and beauty out of -arrangements of lichens. The small, inexpensive sub-sub-arts are -characteristic of the 1,000 to 1,500 calorie range. - -And this was the range of Earth, the world of ten billion men, when the -planet was stolen by its new binary. - -Some few persons inexpensively studied the study of science with -pencil and renewable paper, but the last research accelerator had long -since been shut down. The juice from its hydro-power dam was needed to -supply meager light to a million homes and to cook the pablum for two -million brand-new babies. - -In those days, one dedicated Byzantine wrote the definitive -encyclopedia of engineering (though he was no engineer). Its four -hundred and twenty tiny volumes examined exhaustively the engineering -feats of ancient Greece and Egypt, the Wall of Shih-Hwang Ti, -the Gothic builders, Brunel who changed the face of England, the -Roeblings of Brooklyn, Groves of the Pentagon, Duggan of the Shelter -System (before C:P dropped to the point where war became vanishingly -implausible), Levern of Operation Up. But the encyclopedist could not -use a slide rule without thinking, faltering, jotting down his decimals. - -And then ... the magnitudes grew less. - -Under the tectonic and climatic battering of the great abduction of -Earth from its primary, under the sine-wave advances to and retreats -from the equator of the ice sheath, as the small successor Suns waxed, -waned, died and were replaced, the ratio C:P remained stable. C had -diminished enormously; so had P. As the calories to support life grew -scarce, so the consuming mouths of mankind grew less in number. - - * * * * * - -The forty-fifth small Sun shone on no engineers. - -Not even on the binary, perhaps. The Pyramids, the things on the -binary, the thing on Mount Everest--they were not engineers. They -employed a crude metaphysic based on dissection and shoving. - -They had no elegant field theories. All they knew was that everything -came apart, and that if you pushed a thing, it would move. - -If your biggest push would not move a thing, you took it apart and -pushed the parts, and then it would move. Sometimes, for nuclear -effects, they had to take things apart into 3 × 10^9 pieces and shove -each piece very carefully. - -By taking apart and shoving, then, they landed their one spaceship -on the burned-out sunlet. Four human beings were on that ship. They -meditated briefly on Connectivity and died screaming. - -A point of new flame appeared on the sunlet's surface and the spaceship -scrambled for the binary. The point of flame went from cherry through -orange into the blue-white and began to spread. - - * * * * * - -At the moment of the Re-creation of the Sun, there was rejoicing on the -Earth. - -Not quite everywhere, though. In Wheeling's House of the Five -Regulations, Glenn Tropile waited unquietly for death. Citizen Boyne, -who had run amok and slaughtered the baker, shared Tropile's room and -his doom, but not his rage. Boyne, with demure pleasure, was composing -his death poem. - -"Talk to me!" snapped Tropile. "Why are we here? What did you do and -why did you do it? What have I done? Why don't I pick up a bench and -kill you with it? You would've killed me two hours ago if I'd caught -your eye!" - -There was no satisfaction in Citizen Boyne; the passions were burned -out of him. He politely tendered Tropile a famous aphorism: "Citizen, -the art of living is the substitution of unimportant, answerable -questions for important, unanswerable ones. Come, let us appreciate the -new-born Sun." - -He turned to the window, where the spark of blue-white flame in what -had once been the crater of Tycho was beginning to spread across the -charred moon. - -Tropile was child enough of his culture to turn with him, almost -involuntarily. He was silent. That blue-white infinitesimal up there -growing slowly--the oneness, the calm rapture of Being in a universe -that you shaded into without harsh discontinua, the being one with the -great blue-white gem-flower blossoming now in the heavens that were no -different stuff than you yourself-- - -He closed his eyes, calm, and meditated on Connectivity. - -He was being Good. - -By the time the fusion reaction had covered the whole small disk of the -sunlet, a quarter-hour at the most, his meditation began to wear off. - -Tropile shrugged out of his torn parka, not bothering to rip it -further. It was already growing warm in the room. Citizen Boyne, of -course, was carefully opening every seam with graceful rending motions, -miming great and smooth effort of the biceps and trapezius. - -But the meditation was over, and as Tropile watched his cellmate, he -screamed a silent _Why?_ Since his adolescence, that wailing syllable -had seldom been far from his mind. It could be silenced by appreciation -and meditation. - -Tropile's specialty was Water Watching and he was so good at it that -several beginners had asked him for instruction in the subtle art, in -spite of his notorious oddities of life and manner. He _enjoyed_ Water -Watching. He almost pitied anybody so single-mindedly devoted to, say, -Clouds and Odors--great game though it was--that he had never even -tried Water Watching. And after a session of Watching, when one was -lucky enough to observe the Nine Boiling Stages in classic perfection, -one might slip into meditation and be harmonious, feel Good. - -But what did one do when the meditations failed, as they had failed -him? What did one do when they came farther and farther apart, became -less and less intense, could be inspired, finally, only by a huge event -like the renewal of the Sun? - -One went amok, he had always thought. - -But he had not. Boyne had. He had been declared a Son of the Wolf, on -no evidence that he could understand. Yet he had not run amok. - -Still, the penalties were the same, he thought, uncomfortably aware -of an unfamiliar itch--not the inward intolerable itch of needing the -advantage, but a localized sensation at the base of his spine. The -penalties for all gross crimes--Wolfhood or running amok--were the -same, and simply this: - -They would perform the Lumbar Puncture. He would make the Donation of -Spinal Fluid. - -He would be dead. - - * * * * * - -The Keeper of the House of Five Regulations, an old man, Citizen -Harmane, looked in on his charges--approvingly at Boyne, with a -beclouded expression at Glenn Tropile. - -It was thought that even Wolves were entitled to the common human -decencies in the brief interval between exposure and the Donation -of Fluid. The Keeper would not have dreamed of scowling at the -detected Wolf or of interfering with whatever wretched imitation of -meditation-before-dying the creature might practice. But he could not, -all the same, bring himself to offer even an assurance-of-identity -gesture. - -Tropile had no such qualms. - -He scowled at Keeper Harmane with such ferocity that the old man almost -hurried away. He turned an almost equally ugly scowl upon Citizen -Boyne. How dared that knife-murderer be so calm, so relaxed! - -Tropile said brutally: "They'll kill us! You know that? They'll stick -a needle in our spines and drain us dry. It _hurts_. Do you understand -me? They're going to drain us, and then they're going to drink our -spinal fluid, and it's going to _hurt_." - -He was gently corrected. "We shall make the Donation," Citizen Boyne -said calmly. "Is not the difference intelligible to a Son of the Wolf?" - -True culture demanded that that remark be accepted as a friendly joke, -probably based on a truth--how else could an unpalatable truth be put -in words? Otherwise the unthinkable might happen. They might quarrel. -They might even come to blows! - -The appropriate mild smile formed on Tropile's lips, but harshly he -wiped it off. They were going to _kill_ him. He would _not_ smile for -them! And the effort was enormous. - -"I'm _not_ a Son of the Wolf!" he howled, desperate, knowing he was -protesting to the man of all men in Wheeling who didn't care, and -who could do least about it if he did. "What's this crazy talk about -Wolves? I don't know what a Son of the Wolf is and I don't think you -or anybody does. All I know is that I was acting _sensibly_. And -everybody began howling! You're supposed to know a Son of the Wolf by -his unculture, his ignorance, his violence. But you chopped down three -people and I only picked up a piece of bread! And _I'm_ supposed to be -the dangerous one!" - -"Wolves never know they're Wolves," sighed Citizen Boyne. "Fish -probably think they're birds and you evidently think you're a Citizen. -Would a Citizen speak as you are speaking?" - -"But they're going to kill us!" - -"Then why aren't you composing your death poem?" - - * * * * * - -Glenn Tropile took a deep breath. Something was biting him. It was bad -enough that he was about to die, bad enough that he had done nothing -worth dying for. But what was gnawing at him now had nothing to do with -dying. - -The percentages were going the wrong way. This pale Citizen was getting -an edge on him. - -An engorged gland in Tropile's adrenals--it was only a pinhead -in Citizen Boyne's--gushed raw hormones into his bloodstream. He -could die, yes--that was a skill everyone had to acquire, sooner or -later. But while he was alive, he could not stand to be bested in an -encounter, an argument, a relationship--not and stay alive. Wolf? Call -him Wolf. Call him Operator, or Percentage Player; call him Sharp -Article; call him Gamesman. - -If there was an advantage to be derived, he would derive it. It was the -way he was put together. - -He said, for time: "You're right. Stupid of me. I must have lost my -head!" - -He thought. Some men think by poking problems apart; some think by -laying facts side by side to compare. Tropile's thinking was neither -of these, but a species of judo. He conceded to his opponent such -things as Strength, Armor, Resource. He didn't need these things for -himself; to every contest, the opponent brought enough of them to -supply two. It was Tropile's habit (and Wolfish, he had to admit) to -use the opponent's strength against him, to break the opponent against -his own steel walls. - -He thought. - -The first thing was to make up his mind: He was Wolf. Then let him _be_ -Wolf. He wouldn't stay around for the spinal tap; he would go from -there. But how? - -The second thing was to plan. There were obstacles. Citizen Boyne was -one. The Keeper of the House of the Five Regulations was another. - -Where was the pole which would permit him to vault over these hurdles? -There was always his wife, Gala. He owned her; she would do what he -wished--provided he made her _want_ to do it. - -Yes, Gala. He walked to the door and shouted to Citizen Harmane: -"Keeper! I must see my wife! Have her brought to me!" - -It was impossible for the Keeper to refuse. He called gently, "I will -invite the Citizeness," and toddled away. - -The third thing was time. - -Tropile turned to Citizen Boyne. "Citizen," he said persuasively, -"since your death poem is ready and mine is not, will you be gracious -enough to go first when they--when they come?" - -Citizen Boyne looked temperately at his cellmate and made the Quirked -Smile. - -"You see?" he said. "Wolf." - -And that was true. But what was also true was that Boyne couldn't and -didn't refuse. - - -IV - -Half a world away, the midnight-blue Pyramid sat on its planed-off peak -as it had sat since the days when Earth had a real sun of its own. - -It was of no importance to the Pyramid that Glenn Tropile was about to -receive a slim catheter into his spine, to drain his saps and his life. -It didn't matter to the Pyramid that the pretext for the execution -was an act which human history had long stopped considering a capital -crime. Ritual sacrifice in any guise made no difference to the Pyramid. - -The Pyramid saw them come and the Pyramid saw them go--if the Pyramid -could be said to "see." One human being more or less, what matter? Who -bothers to take a census of the cells in a hangnail? - -And yet the Pyramid did have a kind of interest in Glenn Tropile. Or, -at least, in the human race of which he was a part. - -Nobody knew much about the Pyramids, but everybody knew _that_ much. -They wanted something--else why would they have bothered to steal the -Earth? - -The date of the theft was 2027. A great year--the year of the first -landings on the Runaway Planet that had come blundering into the Solar -System. Maybe those landings were a mistake--although they were a very -great triumph, too; but maybe if it hadn't been for the landings, the -Runaway Planet might have run right through the ecliptic and away. - -However, the triumphal mistake was made and that was the first time a -human eye saw a Pyramid. - -Shortly after--though not before a radio message was sent--that human -eye winked out forever; but by then the damage was done. What passed -in a Pyramid for "attention" had been attracted. The next thing that -happened set the wireless channels between Palomar and Pernambuco, -between Greenwich and the Cape of Good Hope, buzzing and worrying, as -astronomers all over the Earth reported and confirmed and reconfirmed -the astonishing fact that our planet was on the move. Rejoice in -Messias had come to take us away. - -A world of ten billion people, some of them brilliant, many of them -brave, built and flung the giant rockets of Operation Up at the -invader: Nothing. - -The first, and only, Interplanetary Expeditionary Force was boosted up -to no-gravity and dropped onto the new planet to strike back: Nothing. - -Earth moved spirally outward. - -If a battle could not be won, then perhaps a migration. New ships were -built in haste. But they lay there rusting as the sun grew small and -the ice grew thick, because where was there to go? Not Mars. Not the -Moon, which was trailing alone. Not choking Venus or crushing Jupiter. - -The migration was defeated as surely as the war, there being no place -to migrate to. - -One Pyramid came to Earth, only one. It shaved the crest off the -highest mountain there was and squatted on it. An observer? A warden? -Whatever it was, it stayed. - -The sun grew too distant to be of use, and out of the old Moon, the -Pyramid aliens built a new small sun in the sky--a five-year sun that -burned out and was replaced, again and again and endlessly again. - -It had been a fierce struggle against unbeatable odds on the part of -the ten billion; and when the uselessness of struggle was demonstrated -at last, many of the ten billion froze to death, and many of them -starved, and nearly all of the rest had something frozen or starved -out of them; and what was left, two centuries and more later, was more -or less like Citizen Boyne, except for a few--a very few--like Glenn -Tropile. - - * * * * * - -Gala Tropile stared miserably at her husband. "I want to get out of -here," he was saying urgently. "They mean to kill me. Gala, you know -you can't make yourself suffer by letting them kill me!" - -She wailed: "I _can't_!" - -Tropile looked over his shoulder. Citizen Boyne was fingering -the textured contrasts of a golden watch-case which had been his -father's--and soon would be his son's. Boyne's eyes were closed and he -wasn't listening. - -Tropile leaned forward and deliberately put his hand on his wife's arm. -She started and flushed, of course. - -"You _can_," he said, "and what's more, you will. You can help me get -out of here. I insist on it, Gala, because I must save you that pain." - -He took his hand off her arm, content. - -He said harshly: "Darling, don't you think I know how much we've -always meant to each other?" - -She looked at him wretchedly. Fretfully she tore at the billowing filmy -sleeve of her summer blouse. The seams hadn't been loosened; there -had not been time. She had just been getting into the appropriate Sun -Re-creation Day costume, to be worn under the parka, when the messenger -had come with the news about her husband. - -She avoided his eyes. "If you're really Wolf...." - -Tropile's sub-adrenals pulsed and filled him with confident strength. -"_You_ know what I am--you better than anyone else." It was a sly -reminder of their curious furtive behavior together; like the hand on -her arm, it had its effect. "After all, why do we quarrel the way we -did last night?" - -He hurried on; the job of the rowel was to spur her to action, not to -inflame a wound. "Because we're _important_ to each other. I know that -you would count on me to help if you were in trouble. And I know that -you'd be hurt--_deeply_, Gala!--if I didn't count on you." - -She sniffled and scuffed the bright strap over her open-toed sandal. - -Then she met his eyes. - -It was the after-effect of the argument, of course. Glenn Tropile knew -just how heavily he could rely on the after-spiral of a quarrel. She -was submitting. - -She glanced furtively at Citizen Boyne and lowered her voice. - -"What do I have to do?" she whispered. - - * * * * * - -In five minutes, she was gone, but that was more than enough time. -Tropile had at least thirty minutes left. They would take Boyne first; -he had seen to that. And once Boyne was gone-- - -Tropile wrenched a leg off his three-legged stool and sat precariously -balanced on the other two. He tossed the loose leg clattering into a -corner. - -The Keeper of the House of Five Regulations ambled slack-bodied by and -glanced into the room. "Wolf, what happened to your stool?" - -Tropile made a left-handed sign of no-importance. "It doesn't matter. -Except it _is_ hard to meditate, sitting on this thing, with every -muscle tensing and fighting against every other to keep my balance...." - -The Keeper made an overruling sign of please-let-me-help. "It's your -last half-hour, Wolf," he reminded Tropile. "I'll fix the stool for -you." - -He entered and slammed and banged it together, and left with an -expression of mild concern. Even a Son of the Wolf was entitled to the -fullest appreciation of that unique opportunity for meditation, the -last half-hour before a Donation. - -In five minutes, the Keeper was back, looking solemn and yet glad, like -a bearer of serious but welcome tidings. - -"It is the time for the first Donation," he announced. "Which of you--" - -"Him," said Tropile quickly, pointing. - -Boyne opened his eyes calmly and nodded. He got to his feet, made a -formal leavetaking bow to Tropile, and followed the Keeper toward his -Donation and his death. As they were going out, Tropile coughed a -would-you-please-grant-me-a-favor cough. - -The Keeper paused. "What is it, Wolf?" - -Tropile showed him the empty water pitcher--empty, all right; he had -emptied it out the window. - -"My apologies," the Keeper said, flustered, and hurried Boyne along. He -came back almost at once to fill the pitcher, even though he should be -there to watch Boyne's ceremonial Donation. - -Tropile stood looking at the Keeper, his sub-adrenals beginning to -pound like the rolling boil of Well-aged Water. The Keeper was at a -disadvantage. He had been neglectful of his charge--a broken stool, no -water in the pitcher. And a Citizen, brought up in a Citizen's maze of -consideration and tact, could not help but be humiliated, seeking to -make amends. - -Tropile pressed his advantage home. "Wait," he said to the Keeper. "I'd -like to talk to you." - -The Keeper hesitated, torn. "The Donation--" - -"Damn the Donation," Tropile said calmly. "After all, what is it but -sticking a pipe into a man's backbone and sucking out the juice that -keeps him alive? It's killing, that's all." - -The Keeper turned literally white. Tropile was speaking blasphemy and -he wasn't stopping. - -"I want to tell you about my wife," Tropile went on, assuming a -confidential air. "Now there's a real _woman_. Not one of these -frozen-up Citizenesses, you know? Why, she and I used to--" He -hesitated. "You're a man of the world, aren't you?" he demanded. "I -mean you've seen life." - -"I--suppose so," the Keeper said faintly. - -"Then you won't be shocked," Tropile lied. "Well, let me tell you, -there's a lot to women that these stuffed-shirt Citizens don't know -about. Boy! Ever see a woman's knee?" He sniggered. "Ever kiss a woman -with--" he winked--"with the _light on_? Ever sit in a big armchair, -say, with a woman in your _lap_--all soft and heavy, and kind of warm, -and slumped up against your chest, you know, and--" - -He stopped and swallowed. He was almost making himself retch, it was so -hard to say these things. But he forced himself to go on: "Well, that's -what she and I used to do. Plenty. All the time. That's what I call a -real _woman_." - -He stopped, warned by the Keeper's sudden change of expression, glazed -eyes, strangling breath. He had gone too far. He had only wanted to -paralyze the man, revolt him, put him out of commission, but he was -overdoing it. He jumped forward and caught the Keeper as he fell, -fainting. - - * * * * * - -Tropile callously emptied the water pitcher over the man. The Keeper -sneezed and sat up groggily. He focused his eyes on Tropile and -agonizedly blushed. - -Tropile said harshly: "I wish to see the new sun from the street." - -The request was incredible. Even after the unbelievable obscenities -he had heard, the Keeper was not prepared for this; he was staggered. -Tropile was in detention regarding the Fifth Regulation. That was -all there was to it. Such persons were not to be released from their -quarters. The Keeper knew it, the world knew it, Tropile knew it. - -It was an obscenity even greater than the lurid tales of perverted -lust, for Tropile had asked something which was impossible! No one -_ever_ asked anything that was impossible to grant, for no one could -ever refuse anything. That was utterly graceless, unthinkable. - -One could only attempt to compromise. The Keeper stammeringly said: -"May I--may I let you see the new sun from the corridor?" And even that -was wretchedly wrong, but he had to offer something. One always offered -something. The Keeper had never since babyhood given a flat no to -anybody about anything. No Citizen had. A flat no led to anger, strong -words--perhaps even hurt feelings. The only flat no conceivable was the -enormous terminal no of an amok. Short of that-- - -One offered. One split the difference. One was invariably filled with -tepid pleasure when, invariably, the offer was accepted, the difference -was split, both parties were satisfied. - -"That will do for a start," Tropile snarled. "Open, man, open! Don't -make me wait." - -The Keeper reeled and unlatched the door to the corridor. - -"Now the street!" - -"I can't!" burst in an anguished cry from the Keeper. He buried his -face in his hands and began to sob, hopelessly incapacitated. - -"The street!" Tropile said remorselessly. He himself felt wrenchingly -ill; he was going against custom that had ruled his own life as surely -as the Keeper's. - -But he was Wolf. "I _will_ be Wolf," he growled, and advanced upon the -Keeper. "My wife," he said, "I didn't finish telling you. Sometimes she -used to put her arm around me and just snuggle up and--I remember one -time she kissed my ear. Broad daylight. It felt funny and warm--I can't -describe it." - -Whimpering, the Keeper flung the keys at Tropile and tottered brokenly -away. - -He was out of the action. Tropile himself was nearly as badly off; the -difference was that he continued to function. The words coming from him -had seared like acid in his throat. - -"They call me Wolf," he said aloud, reeling against the wall. "I will -be one." - -He unlocked the outer door and his wife was waiting, holding in her -arms the things he had asked her to bring. - -Tropile said strangely to her: "I am steel and fire. I am Wolf, full of -the old moxie." - -She wailed: "Glenn, are you sure I'm doing the right thing?" - -He laughed unsteadily and led her by the arm through the deserted -streets. - - -V - -Citizen Germyn, as was his right by position and status as a -connoisseur, helped prepare Citizen Boyne for his Donation. There -was nothing much to it--which made it an elaborate and lengthy task, -according to the ethic of the Citizens; it had to be protracted, each -step being surrounded by fullest dress of ritual. - -It was done in the broad daylight of the new Sun, and as many of the -three hundred citizens of Wheeling as could manage it were in the -courtyard of the old Federal Building to watch. - -The nature of the ceremony was this: A man who revealed himself Wolf, -or who finally crumbled under the demands of life and ran amok, could -not be allowed to live. He was hauled before an audience of his equals -and permitted--with the help of regretful force, if that should be -necessary, but preferably not--to make the Donation of Spinal Fluid. - -Execution was murder and murder was not permitted under the gentle code -of Citizens; this was not execution. The draining of a man's spinal -fluid did not kill him. It only insured that, after a time and with -much suffering, his internal chemistry would so arrange itself that it -would continue to function, only not in a way that would sustain life. - -Once the Donation was made, the problem was completely altered, of -course. Suffering was bad in itself. To save the Donor from the -suffering that lay ahead, it was the custom to have the oldest and -gentlest Citizen on hand stand by with a sharp-edged knife. When the -Donation was complete, the Donor's head was removed--purely to avert -suffering. That was not execution, either, but only the hastening of an -inevitable end. - -The dozen or so Citizens whose rank permitted them to assist then -dissolved the spinal fluids in water and ceremoniously sipped them, at -which time it was proper to offer a small poem in commentary. All in -all, it was a perfectly splendid opportunity for the purest form of -meditation for everyone concerned. - -Citizen Germyn, whose role was Catheter Bearer, took his place behind -the Introducer Bearer, the Annunciators and the Questioner of Purpose. -As he passed Citizen Boyne, Germyn assisted him to assume the proper -crouched-over position. Boyne looked up gratefully and Germyn found -the occasion correct for a commendatory half-smile. - -The Questioner of Purpose said solemnly to Boyne: "It is your privilege -to make a Donation here today. Do you wish to do so?" - -"I do," said Boyne raptly. The anxiety had passed; clearly he was -confident of making a good Donation. Germyn approved with all his heart. - -The Annunciators, in alternate stanzas, announced the right pause for -meditation to the meager crowd, and all fell silent. Citizen Germyn -began the process of blanking out his mind, to ready himself for the -great opportunity to Appreciate that lay ahead. A sound distracted -him; he glanced up irritably. It seemed to come from the House of the -Five Regulations, a man's voice, carrying. But no one else appeared to -notice it. All of the watchers, all of those on the stone steps, were -in somber meditation. - -Germyn tried to return his thoughts to where they belonged. - -But something was troubling him. He had caught a glimpse of the Donor -and there had been something--something-- - -He angrily permitted himself to look up once more to see just what it -had been about Citizen Boyne that had attracted his attention. - -Yes, there _was_ something. Over the form of Citizen Boyne, silent, -barely visible, a flicker of life and motion. Nothing tangible. It was -as if the air itself were in motion. - -It was, Germyn thought with a bursting heart--it was an Eye! - -The veritable miracle of Translation and it was about to take place -here and now, upon the person of Citizen Boyne! And no one knew it but -Germyn himself! - - * * * * * - -In this last surmise, Citizen Germyn was wrong. Or was he? True, no -other human eyes saw the flawed-glass thing that twisted the air over -Boyne's prostrate body, but there was, in a sense, another witness ... -some thousands of miles away. - -The Pyramid on Mount Everest "stirred." - -It did not move, but something about it moved, or changed, or radiated. -The Pyramid surveyed its--cabbage patch? Wristwatch mine? As much -sense, it may be, to say wristwatch patch or cabbage mine. At any rate, -it surveyed what to it was a place where intricate mechanisms grew, -ripened and were dug up at the moment of usefulness, whereupon they -were quick-frozen and wired into circuits. - -Through signals perceptible to it, the Pyramids had become "aware" that -one of its mechanisms was now ready to be plucked--harvested. - -The Pyramid's blood was dielectric fluid. Its limbs were electrostatic -charges. Its philosophy was: Unscrew It and Push. Its motive was -survival. - -Survival today was not what survival once had been, for a Pyramid. - -Once survival had merely been gliding along on a cushion of repellent -charges, streaming electrons behind for the push, sending h-f pulses -out often enough to get a picture of their bounced return to integrate -deep inside. - -If the picture showed something metabolizable, one metabolized it. One -broke it down into molecules by lashing it with the surplus protons -left over from the dispersed electrons; one adsorbed the molecules. -Sometimes the metabolizable object was an Immobile and sometimes a -Mobile--a vague, theoretical, frivolous classification to a philosophy -whose basis was that _everything_ unscrewed. If it was a Mobile, one -sometimes had to move after it. - -That was the difference. - -The essential was survival, not making idle distinctions. And one small -part of survival today was the Everest Pyramid's job. - -It sat and waited. It sent out its h-f pulses bouncing and scattering, -and it bounced and scattered them additionally on their return. -Deep inside, the more-than-anamorphically distorted picture was -reintegrated. Deeper inside, it was interpreted and evaluated for its -part in survival. - - * * * * * - -There was a need for certain mechanisms which grew on this planet. At -irregular times, the Pyramid evaluated the picture to the effect that -a mechanism--a wristwatch, so to speak--was ripe for plucking; and -by electrostatic charges, it did so. The electrostatic charges, in -forming, produced what humans called an Eye. But the Pyramid had no use -for names. - -It merely plucked, when a mechanism was ripe. It had found that a -mechanism was ripe now. - -A world away, before the steps of Wheeling's Federal Building, -electrostatic charges gathered above a component whose name was Citizen -Boyne. There was a small sound like the clapping of two hands which -made the three hundred citizens of Wheeling jerk upright out of their -meditations. - -The sound was air filling the gap that had once been occupied by -Citizen Boyne, who had instantly vanished--who had, in a word, been -ripe and therefore been plucked. - - -VI - -Glenn Tropile and his sobbing wife passed the night in the stubble of a -cornfield. Neither of them slept much. - -Tropile, numbed by contact with the iron chill of the field--it would -be months before the new Sun warmed the Earth enough for it to begin -radiating in turn--tossed restlessly, dreaming. He was Wolf. Let it be -so, he told himself again and again. I _will_ be Wolf. I will strike -back at the Citizens. I will-- - -Always the thought trailed off. He would exactly _What_? What could he -do? - -Migration was an answer--go to another city. With Gala, he guessed. -Start a new life, where he was not known as Wolf. - -And then what? Try to live a sheep's life, as he had tried all his -years? And there was the question of whether, in fact, he could manage -to find a city where he was not known. The human race was migratory, -in these years of subjection to the never quite understood rule of the -Pyramids. - -It was a matter of insulation. When the new Sun was young, it was hot, -and there was plenty of warmth; it was possible to spread north and -south, away from final line of permafrost which, in North America, -came just above the old Mason-Dixon line. When the Sun was dying, the -cold spread down. The race followed the seasons. Soon all of Wheeling -would be spreading north again, and how was he to be sure that none of -Wheeling's Citizens might not turn up wherever he might go? - -He could be sure--that was the answer to that. - -All right, scratch migration. What remained? He could--with Gala, he -guessed--live a solitary life on the fringes of cultivated land. They -both had some skill at rummaging the old storehouses of the ancients, -and there was still food and other commodities to be found. - -But even a Wolf is gregarious by nature and there were bleak hours in -that night when Tropile found himself close to sobbing with his wife. - -At the first break of dawn, he was up. Gala had fallen into a light and -restless sleep; he called her awake. - -"We have to move," he said harshly. "Maybe they'll get up enough guts -to follow us. I don't want them to find us." - -Silently she got up. They rolled and tied the blankets she had bought; -they ate quickly from the food she had brought; they made packs and put -them on their shoulders and started to walk. One thing in their favor: -they were moving fast, faster than any Citizen was likely to follow. -All the same, Tropile kept looking nervously behind him. - -They hurried north and east, and that was a mistake, because by noon -they found themselves blocked by water. Once it had been a river; the -melting of the polar ice caps that had submerged the coasts of the old -continents had drowned it out and now it was salt water. But whatever -it was, it was impassable. They would have to skirt it westward until -they found a bridge or a boat. - -"We can stop and eat," Tropile said grudgingly, trying not to despair. - -They slumped to the ground. It was warmer now. Tropile found himself -getting drowsier, drowsier-- - -He jerked erect and stared around belligerently. Beside him, his wife -was lying motionless, though her eyes were open, gazing at the sky. -Tropile sighed and stretched out. A moment's rest, he promised himself, -and then a quick bite to eat, and then onward.... - -He was sound asleep when they spotted him. - - * * * * * - -There was a flutter of iron bird's wings from overhead. Tropile -jumped up out of his sleep, awakening to panic. It was outside the -possibility of belief, but there it was: - -In the sky over him, etched black against a cloud, a helicopter. And -men staring out of it, staring down at him. - -A helicopter! - -But there were no helicopters, or none that flew--if there had been -fuel to fly them with--if any man had had the skill to make them fly. -It was impossible! And yet there it was, and the men were looking at -him, and the impossible great whirling thing was coming down, nearer. - -He began to run in the downward wash of air from the vanes. But it was -no use. There were three men and they were fresh and he wasn't. He -stopped, dropping into the fighter's crouch that is pre-set into the -human body, ready to do battle. - -The men didn't want to fight. They laughed and one of them said -amiably: "_Long_ past your bedtime, boy. Get in. We'll take you home." - -Tropile stood poised, hands half-clenched. "Take--" - -"Take you home. Yeah. Where you belong, Tropile. Not back to Wheeling, -if that's what is worrying you." - -"Where I--" - -"Where you belong." - -Then Tropile understood. - -He got into the helicopter wonderingly. Home. So there _was_ a home -for such as he. He wasn't alone. He needn't keep his solitary self -apart. He could be with his own kind. - -He remembered Gala Tropile and paused. One of the men said with quick -understanding: "Your wife? I think we saw her about half a mile from -here. Heading back to Wheeling as fast as she could go." - -Tropile nodded. That was better, after all. Gala was no Wolf, though he -had tried his best to make her one. - -One of the men closed the door; another did something with levers and -wheels; the vanes whooshed around overhead; the helicopter bounced on -its stiff-sprung landing legs and then rocked up and away. - -For the first time in his life, Glenn Tropile looked _down_ on the land. - -They didn't fly high--but Glenn Tropile had never flown at all, and -the two or three hundred feet of air beneath made him faint and queasy. -They danced through the passes in the West Virginia hills, crossed icy -streams and rivers, swung past old empty towns which no longer even had -names of their own. They saw no one. - -It was something over four hundred miles to where they were going, one -of the men told him. They made it easily before dark. - - * * * * * - -As Tropile walked through the town in the evening light, electricity -flared white and violet in the buildings around him. Imagine! -Electricity was calories, and calories were to be hoarded. - -There were other walkers in the street. Their gait was not the -economical shuffle with pendant arms. They burned energy visibly. They -swung. They _strode_. It had been chiseled on his brain in earliest -childhood that such walking was wrong, reprehensible, debilitating. It -wasted calories. These people did not look debilitated and they didn't -seem to mind wasting calories. - -It was an ordinary sort of town, apparently named Princeton. It did not -have the transient look to it of, say, Wheeling, or Altoona, or Gary, -in Tropile's experience. It looked like--well, it looked permanent. - -Tropile had heard of a town called Princeton, but it happened that -he had never passed through it southwarding or northbound. There was -no reason why he or anybody should or should not have. Still, there -was a possibility, once he thought of it, that things were somehow so -arranged that they should not; maybe it was all on purpose. Like every -town, it was underpopulated, but not so much so as most. Perhaps one -living space in five was used. A high ratio. - -The man beside him was named Haendl, one of the men from the -helicopter. They hadn't talked much on the flight and they didn't talk -much now. "Eat first," Haendl said, and took Tropile to a bright and -busy sort of food stall. Only it wasn't a stall. It was a restaurant. - -This Haendl--what to make of him? He should have been disgusting, -nasty, an abomination. He had no manners whatever. He didn't know, or -at least didn't use, the Seventeen Conventional Gestures. He wouldn't -let Tropile walk behind him and to his left, though he was easily five -years Tropile's senior. When he ate, he _ate_. The Sip of Appreciation, -the Pause of First Surfeit, the Thrice Proffered Share meant nothing to -him. He laughed when Tropile tried to give him the Elder's Portion. - -Cheerfully patronizing, this man Haendl said to Tropile: "That stuffs -all right when you don't have anything better to do with your time. -Those poor mutts don't. They'd die of boredom without their inky-pinky -cults and they don't have the resources to do anything bigger. Yes, I -do know the Gestures. Seventeen delicate ways of communicating emotions -too refined for words. The hell with them, Tropile. I've got words. -You'll learn them, too." - -Tropile ate silently, trying to think. - -A man arrived, threw himself in a chair, glanced curiously at Tropile -and said: "Haendl, the Somerville Road. The creek backed up when it -froze. Flooded bad. Ruined everything." - -Tropile ventured: "The flood ruined the road?" - -"The road? No. Say, you must be the fellow Haendl went after. Tropile, -that the name?" He leaned across the table, pumped Tropile's hand. "We -had the road nicely blocked," he explained. "The flood washed it clean. -Now we have to block it again." - -Haendl said: "Take the tractor if you need it." - -The man nodded and left. - -Haendl said: "Eat up. We're wasting time. About that road--we keep all -entrances blocked up, see? Why let a lot of sheep in and out?" - -"Sheep?" - -"The opposite," said Haendl, "of Wolves." - - * * * * * - -Take ten billion people and say that, out of every million of them, -one--just one--is different. He has a talent for survival; call him -Wolf. Ten thousand of him in a world of ten billion. - -Squeeze them, freeze them, cut them down. Let old Rejoice in Messias -loom in the terrifying sky and so abduct the Earth that the human race -is decimated, fractionated, reduced to what is in comparison a bare -handful of chilled, stunned survivors. There aren't ten billion people -in the world any more. No, not by a factor of a thousand. Maybe there -are as many as ten million, more or less, rattling around in the space -their enormous Elder Generations made for them. - -And of these ten million, how many are Wolf? - -Ten thousand. - -"You understand, Tropile?" said Haendl. "We survive. I don't care what -you call us. The sheep call us Wolves. Me, I kind of call us Supermen. -We have a talent for survival." - -Tropile nodded, beginning to understand. "The way I survived the House -of the Five Regulations." - -Haendl gave him a pitying look. "The way you survived thirty years of -Sheephood before that. Come on." - -It was a tour of inspection. They went into a building, big, looking -like any other big and useful building of the ancients, gray stone -walls, windows with ragged spears of glass. Inside, though, it wasn't -like the others. Two sub-basements down, Tropile winced and turned away -from the flood of violet light that poured out of a quartz bull's-eye -on top of a squat steel cone. - -"Perfectly harmless, Tropile--you don't have to worry," Haendl boomed. -"Know what you're looking at? There's a fusion reactor down there. -Heat. Power. All the power we need. Do you know what that means?" - -He stared soberly down at the flaring violet light of the inspection -port. - -"Come on," he said abruptly to Tropile. - -Another building, also big, also gray stone. A cracked inscription over -the entrance read: ORIAL HALL OF HUMANITIES. The sense-shock this time -was not light; it was sound. Hammering, screeching, rattling, rumbling. -Men were doing noisy things with metal and machines. - -"Repair shop!" Haendl yelled. "See those machines? They belong to our -man Innison. We've salvaged them from every big factory ruin we could -find. Give Innison a piece of metal--any alloy, any shape--and one of -those machines will change it into any other shape and damned near any -other alloy. Drill it, cut it, plane it, weld it, smelt it, zone-melt -it, bond it--you tell him what to do and he'll do it. - -"We got the parts to make six tractors and forty-one cars out of -this shop. And we've got other shops--aircraft in Farmingdale and -Wichita, armaments in Wilmington. Not that we can't make some armaments -here. Innison could build you a tank if he had to, complete with -105-millimeter gun." - -"What's a tank?" Tropile asked. - -Haendl only looked at him and said: "Come on!" - - * * * * * - -Glenn Tropile's head spun dizzily and all the spectacles merged and -danced in his mind. They were incredible. All of them. - -Fusion pile, machine shop, vehicular garage, aircraft hangar. There was -a storeroom under the seats of a football stadium, and Tropile's head -spun on his shoulders again as he tried to count the cases of coffee -and canned soups and whiskey and beans. There was another storeroom, -only this one was called an armory. It was filled with ... guns. Guns -that could be loaded with cartridges, of which they had very many; guns -which, when you loaded them and pulled the trigger, would fire. - -Tropile said, remembering: "I saw a gun once that still had its firing -pin. But it was rusted solid." - -"These work, Tropile," said Haendl. "You can kill a man with them. Some -of us have." - -"_Kill_--" - -"Get that sheep look out of your eyes, Tropile! What's the difference -how you execute a criminal? And what's a criminal but someone who -represents a danger to your world? We prefer a gun instead of the -Donation of the Spinal Tap, because it's quicker, because it's less -messy--and because we don't like to drink spinal fluid, no matter what -imaginary therapeutic or symbolic value it has. You'll learn." - -But he didn't add "come on." They had arrived where they were going. - -It was a small room in the building that housed the armory and it held, -among other things, a rack of guns. - -"Sit down," said Haendl, taking one of the guns out of the rack -thoughtfully and handling it as the doomed Boyne had caressed his -watch-case. It was the latest pre-Pyramid-model rifle, anti-personnel, -short-range. It would not scatter a cluster of shots in a coffee can at -more than two and a half miles. - -"All right," said Haendl, stroking the stock. "You've seen the works, -Tropile. You've lived thirty years with sheep. You've seen what they -have and what we have. I don't have to ask you to make a choice. I know -what you choose. The only thing left is to tell you what _we_ want from -_you_." - -A faint pulsing began inside Glenn Tropile. "I expected we'd be getting -to that." - -"Why not? We're not sheep. We don't act that way. Quid pro quo. -Remember that--it saves time. You've seen the quid. Now we come to the -quo." He leaned forward. "Tropile, what do you know about the Pyramids?" - -"Nothing." - -Haendl nodded. "Right. They're all around us and our lives are beggared -because of them. And we don't even know why. We don't have the -least idea of what they are. Did you know that one of the sheep was -Translated in Wheeling when you left?" - -"Translated?" - -Tropile listened with his mouth open while Haendl told him about what -had happened to Citizen Boyne. - -"So he didn't make the Donation after all," Tropile said. - -"Might have been better if he had," said Haendl. "Still, it gave you -a chance to get away. We had heard--never mind how just yet--that -Wheeling'd caught itself a Wolf, so we came looking for you. But you -were already gone." - - * * * * * - -Tropile said, faintly annoyed: "You were damn near too late." - -"Oh, no, Tropile," Haendl assured him. "We're never too late. If you -don't have enough guts and ingenuity to get away from sheep, you're no -wolf--simple as that. But there's this Translation. We know it happens, -but we don't even know what it is. All we know, people disappear. -There's a new sun in the sky every five years or so. Who makes it? -The Pyramids. How? We don't know that. Sometimes something floats -around in the air and we call it an Eye. It has something to do with -Translation, something to do with the Pyramids. What? We don't know -that." - -"We don't know much of anything," interrupted Tropile, trying to hurry -him along. - -"Not about the Pyramids, no." Haendl shook his head. "Hardly anyone has -ever seen one, for that matter." - -"Hardly--You mean you have?" - -"Oh, yes. There's a Pyramid on Mount Everest, you know. That's not just -a story. It's true. I've been there, and it's there. At least, it was -there five years ago, right after the last Sun Re-creation. I guess it -hasn't moved. It just sits there." - -Tropile listened, marveling. To have seen a real Pyramid! Almost he had -thought of them as legends, contrived to account for such established -physical facts as the Eyes and Translation, as children with a Santa -Claus. But this incredible man had seen it! - -"Somebody dropped an H-bomb on it, way back," Haendl continued, "and -the only thing that happened is that now the North Col is a crater. You -can't move the Pyramid. You can't hurt it. But it's alive. It has been -there, alive, for a couple of hundred years; and that's about all we -know about the Pyramids. Right?" - -"Right." - -Haendl stood up. "Tropile, that's what all of this is all about!" He -gestured around him. "Guns, tanks, airplanes--we want to know more! -We're going to find out more and then we're going to fight." - -There was a jarring note and Tropile caught at it, sniffing the air. -Somehow--perhaps it was his sub-adrenals that told him--this very -positive, very self-willed man was just the slightest bit unsure of -himself. But Haendl swept on and Tropile, for a moment, forgot to be -alert. - -"We had a party up Mount Everest five years ago," Haendl was saying. -"We didn't find out a thing. Five years before that, and five years -before _that_--every time there's a sun, while it is still warm enough -to give a party a chance to climb up the sides--we send a team up -there. It's a rough job. We give it to the new boys, Tropile. Like you." - -There it was. He was being invited to attack a Pyramid. - -Tropile hesitated, delicately balanced, trying to get the _feel_ of -this negotiation. This was Wolf against Wolf; it was hard. There had to -be an advantage-- - -"There is an advantage," Haendl said aloud. - -Tropile jumped, but then he remembered: Wolf against Wolf. - -Haendl went on: "What you get out of it is your life, in the first -place. You understand you can't get out now. We don't want sheep -meddling around. And in the second place, there's a considerable hope -of gain." He stared at Tropile with a dreamer's eyes. "We don't send -parties up there for nothing, you know. We want to get something out of -it. What we want is the Earth." - -"The Earth?" It reeked of madness. But this man wasn't mad. - -"Some day, Tropile, it's going to be us against them. Never mind the -sheep--they don't count. It's going to be Pyramids and Wolves, and the -Pyramids won't win. And then--" - -It was enough to curdle the blood. This man was proposing to _fight_, -and against the invulnerable, the godlike Pyramids. - -But he was glowing and the fever was contagious. Tropile felt his own -blood begin to pound. Haendl hadn't finished his "and then--" but he -didn't have to. The "and then" was obvious: And then the world takes up -again from the day the wandering planet first came into view. And then -we go back to our own solar system and an end to the five-year cycle of -frost and hunger. - -And then the Wolves can rule a world worth ruling. - -It was a meretricious appeal, perhaps, but it could not be refused. -Tropile was lost. - -He said: "You can put away the gun, Haendl. You've signed me up." - - -VII - -The way to Mount Everest, Tropile glumly found, lay through supervising -the colony's nursery school. It wasn't what he had expected, but it had -the advantages that while his charges were learning, he was learning, -too. - -One jump ahead of the three-year-olds, he found that the "wolves," far -from being predators on the "sheep," existed with them in a far more -complicated ecological relationship. There were Wolves all through -sheepdom; they leavened the dough of society. - -In barbarously simple prose, a primer said: "The Sons of the Wolf are -good at numbers and money. You and your friends play money games almost -as soon as you can talk, and you can think in percentages and compound -interest when you want to. Most people are not able to do this." - -True, thought Tropile subvocally, reading aloud to the tots. That was -how it had been with him. - -"Sheep are afraid of the Sons of the Wolf. Those of us who live among -them are in constant danger of detection and death--although ordinarily -a Wolf can take care of himself against any number of sheep." True, too. - -"It is one of the most dangerous assignments a Wolf can be given to -live among the sheep. Yet it is essential. Without us, they would -die--of stagnation, of rot, eventually of hunger." - -It didn't have to be spelled out any further. Sheep can't mend their -own fences. - -The prose was horrifyingly bald and the children were horrifyingly--he -choked on the word, but managed to form it in his mind--_competitive_. -The verbal taboos lingered, he found, after he had broken through the -barriers of behavior. - -But it was distressing, in a way. At an age when future Citizens would -have been learning their Little Pitcher Ways, these children were -learning to fight. The perennial argument about who would get to be Big -Bill Zeckendorf when they played a strange game called "Zeckendorf and -Hilton" sometimes ended in bloody noses. - -And nobody--nobody at all--meditated on Connectivity. - -Tropile was warned not to do it himself. Haendl said grimly: "We -don't understand it and we don't like what we don't understand. We're -suspicious animals, Tropile. As the children grow older, we give -them just enough practice so they can go into one meditation and get -the feel of it--or pretend to, at any rate. If they have to pass as -Citizens, they'll need that much. But more than that we do not allow." - -"Allow?" Somehow the word grated; somehow his sub-adrenals began to -pulse. - -"_Allow!_ We have our suspicions and we know for a fact that sometimes -people disappear when they meditate. We don't want to disappear. We -think it's not a good thing to disappear. Don't meditate, Tropile. You -hear?" - - * * * * * - -But later, Tropile had to argue the point. He picked a time when -Haendl was free, or as nearly free as that man ever was. The whole -adult colony had been out on what they used as a parade ground--it had -once been a football field, Haendl said. They had done their regular -twice-a-week infantry drill, that being one of the prices one paid for -living among the free, progressive Wolves instead of the dull and tepid -sheep. - -Tropile was mightily winded, but he cast himself on the ground near -Haendl, caught his breath and said: "Haendl--about meditation." - -"What about it?" - -"Well, perhaps you don't really grasp it." - -Tropile searched for words. He knew what he wanted to say. How could -anything that felt as good as Oneness be bad? And wasn't Translation, -after all, so rare as hardly to matter? But he wasn't sure he could get -through to Haendl in those terms. - -He tried: "When you meditate successfully, Haendl, you're one with the -Universe. Do you know what I mean? There's no feeling like it. It's -indescribable peace, beauty, harmony, repose." - -"It's the world's cheapest narcotic," Haendl snorted. - -"Oh, now, really--" - -"_And_ the world's cheapest religion. The stone-broke mutts can't -afford gilded idols, so they use their own navels. That's all it is. -They can't afford alcohol; they can't even afford the muscular exertion -of deep breathing that would throw them into a state of hyperventilated -oxygen drunkenness. Then what's left? Self-hypnosis. Nothing else. It's -all they can do, so they learn it, they define it as pleasant and good, -and they're all fixed up." - -Tropile sighed. The man was so stubborn! Then a thought occurred to him -and he pushed himself up on his elbows. "Aren't you leaving something -out? What about Translation?" - -Haendl glowered at him. "That's the part we don't understand." - -"But surely self-hypnosis doesn't account for--" - -"Surely it doesn't!" Haendl mimicked savagely. "All right. We don't -understand it and we're afraid of it. Kindly do not tell me Translation -is the supreme act of Un-willing, Total Disavowal of Duality, Unison -with the Brahm-Ground or any such slop. You don't know what it is and -neither do we." He started to get up. "All we know is, people vanish. -And we want no part of it, so we don't meditate. None of us--including -you!" - - * * * * * - -It was foolishness, this close-order drill. Could you defeat the -unreachable Himalayan Pyramid with a squads-right flanking maneuver? - -And yet it wasn't all foolishness. Close-order drill and -2500-calorie-a-day diet began to put fat and flesh and muscle on -Tropile's body, and something other than that on his mind. He had not -lost the edge of his acquisitiveness, his drive--his whatever it was -that made the difference between Wolf and sheep. - -But he had gained something. Happiness? Well, if "happiness" is a -sense of purpose, and a hope that the purpose can be accomplished, then -happiness. It was a feeling that had never existed in his life before. -Always it had been the glandular compulsion to gain an advantage, and -that was gone, or anyway almost gone, because it was permitted in the -society in which he now lived. - -Glenn Tropile sang as he putt-putted in his tractor, plowing the -thawing Jersey fields. Still, a faint doubt remained. Squads right -against the Pyramids? - -Stiffly, Tropile stopped the tractor, slowed the diesel to a steady -_thrum_ and got off. It was hot--being midsummer of the five-year -calendar the Pyramids had imposed. It was time for rest and maybe -something to eat. - -He sat in the shade of a tree, as farmers always have done, and opened -his sandwiches. He was only a mile or so from Princeton, but he might -as well have been in Limbo; there was no sign of any living human but -himself. The northering sheep didn't come near Princeton--it "happened" -that way, on purpose. - -He caught a glimpse of something moving, but when he stood up for a -better look into the woods on the other side of the field, it was -gone. Wolf? _Real_ Wolf, that is? It could have been a bear, for that -matter--there was talk of wolves and bears around Princeton; and -although Tropile knew that much of the talk was assiduously encouraged -by men like Haendl, he also knew that some of it was true. - -As long as he was up, he gathered straw from the litter of last -"year's" head-high grass, gathered sticks under the trees, built a -small fire and put water on to boil for coffee. Then he sat back and -ate his sandwiches, thinking. - -Maybe it was a promotion, going from the nursery school to labor in -the fields. Or maybe it wasn't. Haendl had promised him a place in the -expedition that would--maybe--discover something new and great and -helpful about the Pyramids. And that might still come to pass, because -the expedition was far from ready to leave. - -Tropile munched his sandwiches thoughtfully. Now _why_ was the -expedition so far from ready to leave? It was absolutely essential to -get there in the warmest weather possible--otherwise Mt. Everest was -unclimbable. Generations of alpinists had proved that. That warmest -weather was rapidly going by. - -And _why_ were Haendl and the Wolf colony so insistent on building -tanks, arming themselves with rifles, organizing in companies and -squads? The H-bomb hadn't flustered the Pyramid. What lesser weapon -could? - -Uneasily, Tropile put a few more sticks on the fire, staring -thoughtfully into the canteen cup of water. It was a satisfyingly hot -fire, he noticed abstractedly. The water was very nearly ready to boil. - - * * * * * - -Half across the world, the Pyramid in the Himalays felt, or heard, or -tasted--a difference. - -Possibly the h-f pulses that had gone endlessly wheep, wheep, wheep -were now going wheep-_beep_, wheep-_beep_. Possibly the electromagnetic -"taste" of lower-than-red was now spiced with a tang of beyond-violet. -Whatever the sign was, the Pyramid recognized it. - -A part of the crop it tended was ready to harvest. - -The ripening bud had a name, of course, but names didn't matter to the -Pyramid. The man named Tropile didn't know he was ripening, either. -All that Tropile knew was that, for the first time in nearly a year, -he had succeeded in catching each stage of the nine perfect states of -water-coming-to-a-boil in its purest form. - -It was like ... like ... well, it was like nothing that anyone but -a Water Watcher could understand. He observed. He appreciated. He -encompassed and absorbed the myriad subtle perfections of time, of -shifting transparency, of sound, of distribution of ebulliency, of the -faint, faint odor of steam. - -Complete, Glenn Tropile relaxed all his limbs and let his chin rest on -his breast-bone. - -It was, he thought with placid, crystalline perception, a rare and -perfect opportunity for meditation. He thought of Connectivity. -(Overhead, a shifting glassy flaw appeared in the thin, still air.) -There wasn't any thought of Eyes in the erased palimpsest that was -Glenn Tropile's mind. There wasn't any thought of Pyramids or of -Wolves. The plowed field before him didn't exist. Even the water, -merrily bubbling itself dry, was gone from his perception. - -He was beginning to meditate. - -Time passed--or stood still--for Tropile; there was no difference. -There was no time. He found himself almost on the brink of -Understanding. - -Something snapped. An intruding blue-bottle drone, maybe, or a -twitching muscle. Partly, Tropile came back to reality. Almost, he -glanced upward. Almost, he saw the Eye.... - -It didn't matter. The thing that really mattered, the only thing in the -world, was all within his mind; and he was ready, he knew, to find it. - -Once more! Try harder! - -He let the mind-clearing unanswerable question drift into his mind: - -_If the sound of two hands together is a clapping, what is the sound of -one hand?_ - -Gently he pawed at the question, the symbol of the futility of -mind--and therefore the gateway to meditation. Unawareness of self was -stealing deliciously over him. - -He was Glenn Tropile. He was more than that. He was the water -boiling ... and the boiling water was he. He was the gentle warmth of -the fire, which was--which was, yes, itself the arc of the sky. As each -thing was each other thing; water was fire, and fire air; Tropile was -the first simmering bubble and the full roll of Well-aged Water was -Self, was--more than Self--was-- - -The answer to the unanswerable question was coming clearer and softer -to him. And then, all at once, but not suddenly, for there was no time, -it was not close--it _was_. - -The answer was his, was him. The arc of sky was the answer, and the -answer belonged to sky--to warmth, to all warmths that there are, and -to all waters, and--and the answer was--was-- - -Tropile vanished. The mild thunderclap that followed made the flames -dance and the column of steam fray; and then the fire was steady again, -and so was the rising steam. But Tropile was gone. - - -VIII - -Haendl plodded angrily through the high grass toward the dull throb of -the diesel. - -Maybe it had been a mistake to take this Glenn Tropile into the colony. -He was more Citizen than Wolf--no, cancel that, Haendl thought; he was -more Wolf than Citizen. But the Wolf in him was tainted with sheep's -blood. He _competed_ like a Wolf, but in spite of everything, he -refused to give up some of his sheep's ways. Meditation. He had been -cautioned against that. But had he given it up? - -He had not. - -If it had been entirely up to Haendl, Glenn Tropile would have found -himself back among the sheep or dead. Fortunately for Tropile, it -was not entirely up to Haendl. The community of Wolves was by no -means a democracy, but the leader had a certain responsibility to his -constituents, and the responsibility was this: He couldn't afford to be -wrong. Like the Old Gray Wolf who protected Mowgli, he had to defend -his actions against attack; if he failed to defend, the pack would pull -him down. - -And Innison thought they needed Tropile--not in spite of the taint of -the Citizen that he bore, but because of it. - -Haendl bawled: "Tropile! Tropile, where are you?" There was only the -wind and the _thrum_ of the diesel. It was enormously irritating. -Haendl had other things to do than to chase after Glenn Tropile. And -where was he? There was the diesel, idling wastefully; there the end of -the patterned furrows Tropile had plowed. There a small fire, burning-- - -And there was Tropile. - -Haendl stopped, frozen, his mouth opened, about to yell Tropile's name. - -It was Tropile, all right, staring with concentrated, oyster-eyed gaze -at the fire and the little pot of water it boiled. Staring. Meditating. -And over his head, like flawed glass in a pane, was the thing Haendl -feared most of all things on Earth. It was an Eye. - -Tropile was on the very verge of being Translated ... whatever that was. - -Time, maybe, to find out _what_ that was! Haendl ducked back into the -shelter of the high grass, knelt, plucked his radio communicator from -his pocket, urgently called. - -"Innison! Innison, will somebody, for God's sake, put Innison on!" - -Seconds passed. Voices answered. Then there was Innison. - -"Innison, listen! You wanted to catch Tropile in the act of Meditation? -All right, you've got him. The old wheat field, south end, under the -elms around the creek. Get here fast, Innison--there's an Eye forming -above him!" - -Luck! Lucky that they were ready for this, and only by luck, because it -was the helicopter that Innison had patiently assembled for the attack -on Everest that was ready now, loaded with instruments, planned to -weigh and measure the aura around the Pyramid--now at hand when they -needed it. - -That was luck, but there was driving hurry involved, too; it was only a -matter of minutes before Haendl heard the wobbling drone of the copter, -saw the vanes fluttering low over the hedges, dropping to earth behind -the elms. - -Haendl raised himself cautiously and peered. Yes, Tropile was still -there, and the Eye still above him! But the noise of the helicopter had -frayed the spell. Tropile stirred. The Eye wavered and shook-- - -But did not vanish. - -Thanking what passed for his God, Haendl scuttled circuitously around -the elms and joined Innison at the copter. Innison was furiously -closing switches and pointing lenses. - -They saw Tropile sitting there, the Eye growing larger and closer over -his head. They had time--plenty of time; oh, nearly a minute of time. -They brought to bear on the silent and unknowing form of Glenn Tropile -every instrument that the copter carried. They were waiting for Tropile -to disappear-- - -He did. - - * * * * * - -Innison and Haendl hunched at the thunderclap as air rushed in to -replace him. - -"We've got what you wanted," Haendl said harshly. "Let's read some -instruments." - -Throughout the Translation, high-tensile magnetic tape on a madly -spinning drum had been hurtling under twenty-four recording heads at -a hundred feet a second. Output to the recording heads had been from -every kind of measuring device they had been able to conceive and -build, all loaded on the helicopter for use on Mount Everest--all now -pointed directly at Glenn Tropile. - -They had, for the instant of Translation, readings from one microsecond -to the next on the varying electric, gravitational, magnetic, radiant -and molecular-state conditions in his vicinity. - -They got back to Innison's workshop, and the laboratory inside it, in -less than a minute; but it took hours of playing back the magnetic -pulses into machines that turned them into scribed curves on coordinate -paper before Innison had anything resembling an answer. - -He said: "No mystery. I mean no mystery except the speed. Want to know -what happened to Tropile?" - -"I do," said Haendl. - -"A pencil of electrostatic force maintained by a pinch effect bounced -down the approximate azimuth of Everest--God knows how they handled the -elevation--and charged him and the area positive. A _big_ charge, clear -off the scale. They parted company. He was bounced straight up. A meter -off the ground, a correcting vector was applied. When last seen, he was -headed fast in the direction of the Pyramids' binary--fast! So fast -that I would guess he'll get there alive. It takes an appreciable time, -a good part of a second, for his protein to coagulate enough to make -him sick and then kill him. If the Pyramids strip the charges off him -immediately on arrival, as I should think they will, he'll live." - -"Friction--" - -"Be damned to friction," Innison said calmly. "He carried a packet of -air with him and there _was_ no friction. How? I don't know. How are -they going to keep him alive in space, without the charges that hold -air? I don't know. If they don't maintain the charges, can they beat -the speed of light? I don't know. I can tell you _what_ happened. I -can't tell you _how_." - -Haendl stood up thoughtfully. "It's something," he said grudgingly. - -"It's more than we've ever had--a complete reading at the instant of -Translation!" - -"We'll get more," Haendl promised. "Innison, now that you know what to -look for, go on looking for it. Keep every possible detection device -monitored twenty-four hours a day. Turn on everything you've got -that'll find a sign of imposed modulation. At any sign--or at anybody's -hunch that there _might_ be a sign--I'm to be called. If I'm eating. If -I'm sleeping. If I'm enjoying with a woman. Call me, you hear? Maybe -you were right about Tropile; maybe he did have some use. He might give -the Pyramids a bellyache." - -Innison, flipping the magnetic tape drum to rewind, said thoughtfully: -"It's too bad they've got him. We could have used some more readings." - -"Too bad?" Haendl laughed sharply. "This time they've got themselves a -Wolf." - - * * * * * - -The Pyramids did have a Wolf--a fact which did not matter in the least -to them. - -It is not possible to know what "mattered" to a Pyramid except by -inference. But it is possible to know that they had no way of telling -Wolf from Citizen. - -The planet which was their home--Earth's old Moon--was small, dark, -atmosphereless and waterless. It was completely built over, much of it -with its propulsion devices. - -In the old days, when technology had followed war, luxury, government -and leisure, the Pyramids' sun had run out of steam; and at about the -same time, they had run out of the Components they imported from a -neighboring planet. They used the last of their Components to implement -their stolid metaphysic of hauling and pushing. They pushed their -planet. - -They knew where to push it. - -Each Pyramid as it stood was a radio-astronomy observatory, powerful -and accurate beyond the wildest dreams of Earthly radio-astronomers. -From this start, they built instruments to aid their naked senses. They -went into a kind of hibernation, reducing their activity to a bare -trickle except for a small "crew" and headed for Earth. They had every -reason to believe they would find more Components there, and they did. - -Tropile was one of them. The only thing which set him apart from the -others was that he was the most recent to be stockpiled. - -The religion, or vice, or philosophy he practiced made it possible -for him to be a Component. Meditation derived from Zen Buddhism was -a windfall for the Pyramids, though, of course, they had no idea at -all of what lay behind it and did not "care." They knew only that, -at certain times, certain potential Components became Components -which were no longer merely potential--which were, in fact, ripe for -harvesting. - -It was useful to them that the minds they cropped were utterly blank. -It saved the trouble of blanking them. - -Tropile had been harvested at the moment his inhibiting conscious mind -had been cleared, for the Pyramids were not interested in him as an -entity capable of will and conception. They used only the raw capacity -of the human brain and its perceptors. - -They used Rashevsky's Number, the gigantic, far more than astronomical -expression that denoted the number of switching operations performable -within the human brain. They used "subception," the phenomenon by which -the reasoning mind, uninhibited by consciousness, reacts directly to -stimuli--shortcutting the cerebral censor, avoiding the weighing of -shall-I-or-shan't-I that precedes every conscious act. - -The harvested minds were--Components. - -It is not desirable that your bedroom wall switch have a mind of its -own; if you turn the lights on, you want them _on_. So it was with the -Pyramids. - -A Component was needed in the industrial complex which transformed -catabolism products into anabolism products. - - * * * * * - -With long experience gained since their planetfall, Pyramids received -the _tabula rasa_ that was Glenn Tropile. He arrived in one piece, -wearing a blanket of air. Quick-frozen mentally at the moment of inert -blankness his Meditation had granted him--the psychic drunkard's -coma--he was cushioned on repellent charges as he plummeted down, and -instantly stripped of surplus electrostatic charge. - -At this point, he was still human; only asleep. - -He remained "asleep." Annular fields they used for lifting and lowering -seized him and moved him into a snug tank of nutrient fluid. There were -many such tanks, ready and waiting. - -The tanks themselves could be moved, and the one containing Glenn -Tropile did move, to a metabolism complex where there were many other -tanks, all occupied. This was a warm room--the Pyramids had wasted no -energy on such foppish comforts in the first "room." In this room, -Glenn Tropile gradually resumed the appearance of life. His heart once -again began to beat. Faint stirrings were visible in his chest as his -habit-numbed lungs attempted to breathe. Gradually the stirrings slowed -and stopped. There was no need for that foppish comfort, either; the -nutrient fluid supplied all. - -Tropile was "wired into circuit." - -The only literal wiring, at first, was a temporary one--a fine -electrode aseptically introduced into the great nerve that leads to the -rhinencephalon--the "small brain," the area of the brain which contains -the pleasure centers that motivate human behavior. - -More than a thousand Components had been spoiled and discarded before -the Pyramids had located the pleasure centers so exactly. - -While the Component, Tropile, was being "programmed," the wire rewarded -him with minute pulses that made his body glow with animal satisfaction -when he functioned correctly. That was all there was to it. After a -time, the wire was withdrawn, but by then Tropile had "learned" his -entire task. Conditioned reflexes had been established. They could be -counted on for the long and useful life of the Component. - -That life might be very long indeed; in the nutrient tank beside -Tropile's, as it happened, lay a Component with eight legs and a -chitinous fringe around its eyes. It had lain in such a tank for more -than a hundred and twenty-five thousand Terrestrial years. - - * * * * * - -The Component was placed in operation. It opened its eyes and saw -things. The sensory nerves of its limbs felt things. The muscles of -its hands and toes operated things. - -Where was Glenn Tropile? - -He was there, all of him, but a zombie-Tropile. Bereft of will, emptied -of memories. He was a machine and part of a huger machine. His sex -was the sex of a photoelectric cell; his politics were those of a -transistor; his ambition that of a mercury switch. He didn't know -anything about sex, or fear, or hope. He only knew two things: Input -and Output. - -Input to him was a display of small lights on a board before his vacant -face; and also the modulation of a loudspeaker's liquid-borne hum in -each ear. - -Output from him was the dancing manipulation of certain buttons and -keys, prompted by changes in Input and by nothing else. - -Between Input and Output, he lay in the tank, a human Black Box which -was capable of Rashevsky's Number of switchings, and of nothing else. - -He had been programmed to accomplish a specific task--to shepherd -a chemical called 3, 7, 12-trihydroxycholanic acid, present in the -catabolic product of the Pyramids, through a succession of more than -five hundred separate operations until it emerged as the chemical, -which the Pyramids were able to metabolize, called Protoporphin IX. - -He was not the only Component operating in this task; there were -several, each with its own program. - -The acid accumulated in great tanks a mile from him. He knew its -concentration, heat and pressure; he knew of all the impurities -which would affect subsequent reactions. His fingers tapped, giving -binary-coded signals to sluice gates to open for so many seconds and -then to close; for such an amount of solvent at such a temperature to -flow in; for the agitators to agitate for just so long at just such a -force. And if a trouble signal disturbed any one of the 517 major and -minor operations, he--it?--was set to decide among alternatives: - ---scrap the batch in view of flow conditions along the line? - ---isolate and bypass the batch through a standby loop? - ---immediate action to correct the malfunction? - -Without inhibiting intelligence, without the trammels of humanity on -him, the intricate display board and the complex modulations of the two -sound signals could be instantly taken in, evaluated and given their -share in the decision. - -Was it--he?--still alive? - -The question has no meaning. It was working. It was an excellent -machine, in fact, and the Pyramids cared for it well. Its only -consciousness, apart from the reflexive responses that were its -program, was--well, call it "the sound of one hand alone." Which is to -say zero, mindlessness, Samadhi, stupor. - -It continued to function for some time--until the required supply of -Protoporphin IX had been exceeded by a sufficient factor of safety -to make further processing unnecessary--that is, for some minutes or -months. During that time, it was Happy. (It had been programmed to be -Happy when there were no uncorrected malfunctions of the process.) -At the end of that time, it shut itself off, sent out a signal that -the task was completed, then it was laid aside in the analogue of a -deep-freeze, to be reprogrammed when another Component was needed. - -It was totally immaterial to the Pyramids that this particular -Component had not been stamped from Citizen but from Wolf. - - -IX - -Roget Germyn, of Wheeling a Citizen, contemplated his wife with growing -concern. - -Possibly the events of the past few days had unhinged her reason, but -he was nearly sure that she had eaten a portion of the evening meal -secretly, in the serving room, before calling him to the table. - -He felt positive that it was only a temporary aberration; she -was, after all, a Citizeness, with all that that implied. A--a -creature--like that Gala Tropile, for example--someone like that -might steal extra portions with craft and guile. You couldn't live -with a Wolf for years and not have some of it rub off on you. But not -Citizeness Germyn. - -There was a light, thrice-repeated tap on the door. - -Speak of the devil, thought Roget Germyn most appropriately; for it was -that same Gala Tropile. She entered, her head downcast, looking worn -and--well, pretty. - -He began formally: "I give you greeting, Citi--" - -"They're here!" she interrupted in desperate haste. Germyn blinked. -"Please," she begged, "can't you do something? They're _Wolves_!" - -Citizeness Germyn emitted a muted shriek. - -"You may leave, Citizeness," Germyn told her shortly, already forming -in his mind the words of gentle reproof he would later use. "Now what -is all this talk of Wolves?" - -Gala Tropile distractedly sat in the chair her hostess had vacated. -"We were running away," she babbled. "Glenn--he was Wolf, you see, and -he made me leave with him, after the House of the Five Regulations. We -were a day's long march from Wheeling and we stopped to rest. And there -was an aircraft, Citizen!" - -"An aircraft!" Citizen Germyn allowed himself a frown. "Citizeness, it -is not well to invent things which are not so." - -"I saw it, Citizen! There were men in it. One of them is here again! -He came looking for me with another man and I barely escaped him. I'm -afraid!" - -"There is no cause for fear, only an opportunity to appreciate," -Citizen Germyn said mechanically--it was what one told one's children. - -But within himself, he was finding it very hard to remain calm. That -word Wolf--it was a destroyer of calm, an incitement to panic and -hatred! He remembered Tropile well, and there was Wolf, to be sure. The -mere fact that Citizen Germyn had doubted his Wolfishness at first was -powerful cause to be doubly convinced of it now; he had postponed the -day of reckoning for an enemy of all the world, and there was enough -secret guilt in his recollection to set his own heart thumping. - -"Tell me exactly what happened," said Citizen Germyn, in words that the -stress of emotion had already made far less than graceful. - -Obediently, Gala Tropile said: "I was returning to my home after the -evening meal and Citizeness Puffin--she took me in after Citizen -Tropile--after my husband was--" - -"I understand. You made your home with her." - -"Yes. She told me that two men had come to see me. They spoke badly, -she said, and I was alarmed. I peered through a window of my home and -they were there. One had been in the aircraft I saw! And they flew away -with my husband." - -"It is a matter of seriousness," Citizen Germyn admitted doubtfully. -"So then you came here to me?" - -"Yes, but they saw me, Citizen! And I think they followed. You must -protect me--I have no one else!" - -"If they be Wolf," Germyn said calmly, "we will raise hue and cry -against them. Now will the Citizeness remain here? I go forth to see -these men." - -There was a graceless hammering on the door. - -"Too late!" cried Gala Tropile in panic. "They are here!" - - * * * * * - -Citizen Germyn went through the ritual of greeting, of deprecating the -ugliness and poverty of his home, of offering everything he owned to -his visitors; it was the way to greet a stranger. - -The two men lacked both courtesy and wit, but they did make an attempt -to comply with the minimal formal customs of introduction. He had to -give them credit for that; and yet it was almost more alarming than if -they had blustered and yelled. - -For he knew one of these men. - -He dredged the name out of his memory. It was Haendl. The same man had -appeared in Wheeling the day Glenn Tropile had been scheduled to make -the Donation of the Spinal Tap--and had broken free and escaped. He had -inquired about Tropile of a good many people, Citizen Germyn included, -and even at that time, in the excitement of an Amok, a Wolf-finding and -a Translation in a single day, Germyn had wondered at Haendl's lack of -breeding and airs. - -Now he wondered no longer. - -But the man made no overt act and Citizen Germyn postponed the raising -of the hue and cry. It was not a thing to be done lightly. - -"Gala Tropile is in this house," the man with Haendl said bluntly. - -Citizen Germyn managed a Quirked Smile. - -"We want to see her, Germyn. It's about her husband. He--uh--he was -with us for a while and something happened." - -"Ah, yes. The Wolf." - -The man flushed and looked at Haendl. Haendl said loudly: "The Wolf. -Sure he's a Wolf. But he's gone now, so you don't have to worry about -that." - -"Gone?" - -"Not just him, but four or five of us. There was a man named Innison -and he's gone, too. We need help, Germyn. Something about Tropile--God -knows how it is, but he started something. We want to talk to his wife -and find out what we can about him. So will you get her out of the back -room where she's hiding and bring her here, please?" - -Citizen Germyn quivered. He bent over the ID bracelet that once had -belonged to the one PFC Joe Hartman, fingering it to hide his thoughts. - -He said at last: "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the Citizeness is with -my wife. If this be so, would it not be possible that she is fearful of -those who once were with her husband?" - - * * * * * - -Haendl laughed sourly. "She isn't any more fearful than we are, Germyn. -I told you about this man Innison who disappeared. He was a Son of -the Wolf, you understand me? For that matter--" He glanced at his -companion, licked his lips and changed his mind about what he had been -going to say next. "He was a Wolf. Do you ever remember hearing of a -Wolf being Translated before?" - -"Translated?" Germyn dropped the ID bracelet. "But that's impossible!" -he cried, forgetting his manners completely. "Oh, no! Translation comes -only to those who attain the moment of supreme detachment, you can be -sure of that. I _know_! I've seen it with my own eyes. No Wolf could -_possibly_--" - -"At least five Wolves did," Haendl said grimly. "Now you see what the -trouble is? Tropile was Translated--I saw that with _my_ own eyes. The -next day, Innison. Within a week, two or three others. So we came down -here, Germyn, not because we like you people, not because we enjoy it, -but because we're _scared_. - -"What we want is to talk to Tropile's wife--you, too, I guess; we want -to talk to anybody who ever knew him. We want to find out everything -there is to find out about Tropile and see if we can make any sense of -the answers. Because maybe Translation is the supreme objective of life -to you people, Germyn, but to us it's just one more way of dying. And -we don't want to die." - -Citizen Germyn bent to pick up his cherished identification bracelet -and dropped it absently on a table. There was very much on his mind. - -He said at last: "That is strange. Shall I tell you another strange -thing?" - -Haendl, looking angry and baffled, nodded. - -Germyn said: "There has been no Translation here since the day the -Wolf, Tropile, escaped. But there have been Eyes. I have seen them -myself. It--" He hesitated, shrugged. "It has been disturbing. Some of -our finest Citizens have ceased to Meditate; they have been worrying. -So many Eyes and nobody taken! It is outside of all of our experience, -and our customs have suffered. Politeness is dwindling among us. Even -in my own household--" - -He coughed and went on: "No matter. But these Eyes have come into every -home; they have peered about, peered about, and no one has been taken. -Why? Is it something to do with the Translation of Wolves?" He stared -hopelessly at his visitors. "All I know is that it is very strange and -therefore I am worried." - -"Then take us to Gala Tropile," said Haendl. "Let's see what we can -find out!" - -Citizen Germyn bowed. He cleared his throat and raised his voice just -sufficiently to carry from one room to another. "Citizeness!" he called. - -There was a pause and then his wife appeared in the doorway, looking -ruffled and ill at ease with her guest. - -"Will you ask if Citizeness Tropile will join us here?" he requested. - -His wife nodded. "She is resting. I will call her." - -They called her and questioned her for some time. - -She told them nothing. - -She had nothing to tell. - - -X - -On Earth's binary, Glenn Tropile had been reprogrammed for a new task. - -The problem was navigation. Earth had been a disappointment to the -Pyramids; it was necessary to move rapidly to a more rewarding planet. - -The Pyramids had taken Earth out past Pluto's orbit with a simple -shove, slow and massive. It had been enough merely to approximate the -direction in which they would want to go. There would be plenty of time -for refinements of course later. - -But now the time for refinements had come, earlier than they might -have expected. They had now time to travel, they knew where to--a star -cluster reasonably sure to be rich in Componentiferous planets. It was -inherent in the nature of Component mines that eventually they always -played out. - -There were always more mines, though. If that had not been so, it would -have been necessary, perhaps, to stock-breed Components against future -needs. But it was easier to work the vein out and move on. - -Now the course had to be computed. There were such variables to -be considered as: motion of the star cluster; acceleration of the -binary-planet system; _gravitational influence of every astronomical -object in the island universe, without exception_. - -Precise computation on this basis was obviously not practical. That was -not an answer to the problem, since the time required would approach -eternity as one of its parameters. - -It was possible to simplify the problem. Only the astronomical bodies -which were relatively nearby need be treated as individuals. Farther -away, the Pyramids began to group them in small bunches, still farther -in large bunches, on to the point where the farthest--and the most -numerous--bodies were lumped together as a vague gravitational "noise" -whose average intensity alone it was required to know and to enter as a -datum. - -And still no single Component could handle even its own share of the -problem, were the "computer" they formed to be kept within the range of -permissible size. - -It was for this that the Component which had once been Tropile was -taken out of storage. - -This was all old stuff to the Pyramids; they knew how to handle it. -They broke the problem down to its essentials, separated even those -into many parts. There was, for example, the subsection of one certain -aspect of the logistical problem which involved locating and procuring -additional Components to handle the load. - -Even that tiny specialization was too much for a single Component, but -fortunately the Pyramids had resources to bring to bear. The procedure -in such cases was to hitch several Components together. - -This was done. - -When the Pyramids finished their neuro-surgery, there floated in an -oversized nutrient tank a thing like a great sea-anemone. It was -composed of eight Components--all human, as it happened--arranged in a -circle, facing inward, joined temple to temple, brain to brain. - -At their feet, where sixteen eyes could see it, was the display board -to feed them their Input. Sixteen hands each grasped a molded switch -to handle their binary-coded Output. There would be no storage of -the Output outside of the eight-Component complex itself; it went as -control signals to the electrostatic generators, funneled through -the single Pyramid on Mount Everest, which handled the task of -Component-procurement. - -That is, of Translation. - -The programming was slow and thorough. Perhaps the Pyramid which -finally activated the octuple unit and went away was pleased with -itself, not knowing that one of its Components was Glenn Tropile. - - * * * * * - -Nirvana. (It pervaded all; there was nothing outside of it.) - -Nirvana. (Glenn Tropile floated in it as in the amniotic fluid around -him.) - -Nirvana. (The sound of one hand.... Floating oneness.) - -There was an intrusion. - -Perfection is completed; by adding to it, it is destroyed. _Duality -struck like a thunderbolt. Oneness shattered._ - -For Glenn Tropile, it seemed as though his wife were screaming at him -to wake up. He tried to. - -It was curiously difficult and painful. Timeless poignant sadness, five -years of sorrow over a lost love compressed into a microsecond. It was -always so, Tropile thought drowsily, awakening. It never lasts. What's -the use of worrying over what always happens.... - -Sudden shock and horror rocked him. - -_This_ was no ordinary awakening--no ordinary thing at all--_nothing_ -was as it ever had been before! - -Tropile opened his mouth and screamed--or thought he did. But there was -only a hoarse, faint flutter in his eardrums. - -It was a moment when sanity might have gone. But there was one curious, -mundane fact that saved him. He was holding something in his hands. He -found that he could look at it, and it was a switch. A molded switch, -mounted on a board, and he was holding one in each hand. - -It was little to cling to, but it at least was real. If his hands could -be holding something, then there must be some reality somewhere. - -Tropile closed his eyes and managed to open them again. Yes, there was -reality, too. He closed his eyes and light stopped. He opened them and -light returned. - -Then perhaps he was not dead, as he had thought. - -Carefully, stumbling--his mind his only usable tool--he tried to make -an estimate of his surroundings. - -He could hardly believe what he found. - -Item: he could scarcely move. Somehow he was bound by his feet and his -head. How? He couldn't tell. - -Item: he was bent over and he couldn't straighten. Why? Again he -couldn't tell, but it was a fact. The great erecting muscles of his -back answered his command, but his body would not move. - -Item: his eyes saw, but only in a small area. - -He couldn't move his head, either. Still, he could see a few things. -The switch in his hand, his feet, a sort of display of lights on a -strangely circular board. - -The lights flickered and changed their pattern. - - * * * * * - -Without thinking, he moved a switch. Why? Because it was _right_ to -move that switch. When a certain light flared green, a certain switch -had to be thrown. Why? Well, when a certain light flared green, a -certain switch-- - -He abandoned that problem. Never mind why; what the devil was going -_on_? - -Glenn Tropile squinted about him like a mollusc peering out of its -shell. There was another fact, the oddness of the seeing. What makes it -look so queer, he asked himself. - -He found an answer, but it required some time to take it in. He was -seeing in a strange perspective. One looks out of two eyes. Close one -eye and the world is flat. Open it again and there is a stereoscopic -double; the saliencies of the picture leap forward, the background -retreats. - -So with the lights on the board--no, not exactly; but something _like_ -that, he thought. It was as though--he squinted and strained--well, as -though he had never really _seen_ before. As though for all his life he -had had only one eye, and now he had strangely been given two. - -His visual perception of the board was _total_. He could see all of it -at once. It had no "front" or "back." It was in the round. The natural -thinking of it was without orientation. He engulfed and comprehended -it as a unit. It had no secrets of shadow or silhouette. - -I think, Tropile mouthed slowly to himself, that I'm going crazy. - -But that was no explanation, either. Mere insanity didn't account for -what he saw. - -Then, he asked himself, was he in a state that was _beyond_ Nirvana? He -remembered, with an odd flash of guilt, that he had been Meditating, -watching the stages of boiling water. All right, perhaps he had been -Translated. But what was this, then? Were the Meditators wrong in -teaching that Nirvana was the end--and yet righter than the Wolves, -who dismissed Meditation as a phenomenon wholly inside the skull and -refused to discuss Translation at all? - -That was a question for which he could find nothing approaching an -answer. He turned away from it and looked at his hands. - -He could see them, too, in the round, he noted. He could see every -wrinkle and pore in all sixteen of them.... - -_Sixteen hands!_ - - * * * * * - -That was the other moment when sanity might have gone. He closed his -eyes. (Sixteen eyes! No wonder the total perception!) And, after a -while, he opened them again. - -The hands were there. All sixteen of them. - -Cautiously, Tropile selected a finger that seemed familiar in his -memory. After a moment's thought, he flexed it. It bent. He selected -another. Another--on a different hand this time. - -He could use any or all of the sixteen hands. They were all his, all -sixteen of them. - -I appear, thought Tropile crazily, to be a sort of eight-branched -snowflake. Each of my branches is a human body. - -He stirred, and added another datum: I appear also to be in a tank of -fluid and yet I do not drown. - -There were certain deductions to be made from that. Either someone--the -Pyramids?--had done something to his lungs, or else the fluid was as -good an oxygenating medium as air. Or both. - -Suddenly a burst of data-lights twinkled on the board below him. -Instantly and involuntarily, his sixteen hands began working the -switches, transmitting complex directions in a lightninglike stream of -on-off clicks. - -Tropile relaxed and let it happen. He had no choice; the power that -made it _right_ to respond to the board made it impossible for his -brain to concentrate while the response was going on. Perhaps, he -thought drowsily, he would never have awakened at all if it had not -been for the long period with no lights.... - -But he was awake. And his consciousness began to explore as the task -ended. - -He had had an opportunity to understand something of what was -happening. He understood that he was now a part of something larger -than himself, beyond doubt something which served and belonged to the -Pyramids. His single brain not being large enough for the job, seven -others had been hooked in with it. - -But where were their personalities? - -Gone, he supposed; presumably they had been Citizens. Sons of the Wolf -did not Meditate and therefore were not Translated--except for himself, -he corrected wryly, remembering the Meditation on Rainclouds that had -led him to-- - -No, wait! - -Not Rainclouds but Water! - - * * * * * - -Tropile caught hold of himself and forced his mind to retrace that -thought. He _remembered_ the Raincloud Meditation. It had been prompted -by a particularly noble cumulus of the Ancient Ship type. - -And this was odd. Tropile had never been deeply interested in -Rainclouds, had never known even the secondary classifications of -Raincloud types. And he _knew_ that the Ancient Ship was of the fourth -order of categories. - -It was a false memory. - -_It was not his._ - -Therefore, logically, it was someone else's memory; and being available -to his own mind, as the fourteen other hands and eyes were available, -it must belong to--another branch of the snowflake. - -He turned his eyes down and tried to see which of the branches was his -old body. He found it quickly, with growing excitement. There was the -left great toe of his body. He had injured it in boyhood and there was -no mistaking the way it was bent. Good! It was reassuring. - -He tried to feel the one particular body that led to that familiar toe. - -He succeeded, though not easily. After a time, he became more aware -of _that_ body--somewhat as a neurotic may become "stomach conscious" -or "heart conscious." But this was no neurosis; it was an intentional -exploration. - -Since that worked, with some uneasiness he transferred his attention to -another pair of feet and "thought" his way up from them. - -It was embarrassing. - -For the first time in his life, he knew what it felt like to have -breasts. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was like to -have one's internal organs quite differently shaped and arranged, -buttressed and stressed by different muscles. The very faint background -feel of man's internal arrangements, never questioned unless something -goes wrong with them and they start to hurt, was not at all like the -faint background feel that a woman has inside her. - -And when he concentrated on that feel, it was no faint background to -him. It was surprising and upsetting. - -He withdrew his attention--hoping that he would be able to. Gratefully, -he became conscious of his own body again. He was still _himself_ if he -chose to be. - -Were the other seven still themselves? - -He reached into his mind--all of it, all eight separate intelligences -that were combined within him. - -"Is anybody there?" he demanded. - -No answer--or nothing he could recognize as an answer. He drove harder -and there still was none. It was annoying. He resented it as bitterly, -he remembered, as in the old days when he had first been learning the -subtleties of Ruin Appreciation. There had been a Ruin Master, his name -forgotten, who had been sometimes less than courteous, had driven hard-- - -Another false memory! - -He withdrew and weighed it. Perhaps, he thought, that was a part of -the answer. These people, these other seven, would not be driven. The -attempt to call them back to consciousness would have to be delicate. -When he drove hard, it was painful--he remembered the instant violent -agony of his own awakening--and they reacted with anguish. - - * * * * * - -More gently, alert for vagrant "memories," he combed the depths of -the eightfold mind within him, reaching into the sleeping portions, -touching, handling, sifting and associating, sorting. This memory of -an old knife wound from an Amok--that was not the Raincloud woman; it -was a man, very aged. This faint recollection of a childhood fear of -drowning--was that she? It was; it fitted with this other recollection, -the long detour on the road south toward the sun, around a river. - -The Raincloud woman was the first to round out in his mind, and the -first he communicated with. He was not surprised to find that, early in -her life, she had feared that she might be Wolf. - -He reached out for her. It was almost magic--knowing the "secret -name" of a person, so that then he was yours to command. But the -"secret name" was more than that. It was the gestalt of the person. -It was the sum of all data and experience, never available to another -person--until now. - -With her memories arranged at last in his own mind, he thought -persuasively: "Citizeness Alla Narova, will you awaken and speak with -me?" - -No answer--only a vague, troubled stirring. - -Gently he persisted: "I know you well, Alla Narova. You sometimes -thought you might be a Daughter of the Wolf, but never really believed -it because you knew you loved your husband--and thought Wolves did not -love. You loved Rainclouds, too. It was when you stood at Beachy Head -and saw a great cumulus that you went into Meditation--" - -And on and on, many times, coaxingly. Even so, it was not easy; but -at last he began to reach her. Slowly she began to surface. Thoughts -faintly sounded in his mind, like echoes at first, his own thoughts -bouncing back at him, a sort of mental nod of agreement: "Yes, that is -so." Then--terror. With a shaking fear, a hysterical rush, Citizeness -Alla Narova came violently up to full consciousness and to panic. - -She was soundlessly screaming. The whole eight-branched figure quivered -and twisted in its nutrient bath. - -The terrible storm raged in Tropile's own mind as fully as in hers--but -he had the advantage of knowing what it was. He helped her. He fought -it for the two of them ... soothing, explaining, calming. - -At last her branch of the snowflake-body retreated, sobbing for a -spell. The storm was over. - -He talked to her in his mind and she "listened." She was incredulous, -but there was no choice for her; she _had_ to believe. - -Exhausted and passive, she asked finally: "What can we do? I wish I -were dead!" - -He told her: "You were never a coward before. Remember, Alla Narova, I -_know_ you as nobody has ever known another human being before. That's -the way you will know me. As for what we can do--we must begin by -waking the others, if we can." - -"If not?" - -"If not," Tropile replied grimly, "then we will think of something -else." - -She was of tough stuff, he thought admiringly. When she had rested and -absorbed things, her spirit was almost that of a Wolf; she had very -nearly been right about herself. - -Together they explored their twinned members. They found through them -exactly what task was theirs to do. They found how the electrostatic -harvesting scythe of the Pyramids was controlled, by and through them. -They found what limitations there were and what freedoms they owned. -They reached into the other petals of the snowflake, reached past -the linked Components into the whole complex of electrostatic field -generators and propulsion machinery, reached even past that into-- - -Into the great single function of the Pyramids that lay beyond. - - -XI - -Haendl was on the ragged edge of breakdown, which was something new in -his life. - -It was full hot summer and the hidden colony of Wolves in Princeton -should have been full of energy and life. The crops were growing on all -the fields nearby; the drained storehouses were being replenished. - -The aircraft that had been so painfully rebuilt and fitted for the -assault on Mount Everest were standing by, ready to be manned and to -take off. - -And nothing, absolutely nothing, was going right. - -It looked as though there would _be_ no expedition to Everest. Four -times now, Haendl had gathered his forces and been all ready. Four -times, a key man of the expedition had--vanished. - -Wolves didn't vanish! - -And yet more than a score of them had. First Tropile--then -Innison--then two dozen more, by ones and twos. No one was immune. Take -Innison, for example. There was a man who was Wolf through and through. -He was a doer, not a thinker; his skills were the skills of an artisan, -a tinkerer, a jackleg mechanic. How could a man like that succumb to -the pallid lure of Meditation? - -But undeniably he had. - -It had reached a point where Haendl himself was red-eyed and jumpy. He -had set curious alarms for himself--had enlisted the help of others of -the colony to avert the danger of Translation from himself. - -When he went to bed at night, a lieutenant sat next to his bed, -watchfully alert lest Haendl, in that moment of reverie before sleep, -fell into Meditation and himself be Translated. There was no hour of -the day when Haendl permitted himself to be alone; and his companions, -or guards, were ordered to shake him awake, as violently as need be, at -the first hint of an abstracted look in the eyes or a reflective cast -of the features. - -As time went on, Haendl's self-imposed regime of constant alertness -began to cost him heavily in lost rest and sleep. And the consequences -of that were--more and more occasions when the bodyguards shook him -awake; less and less rest. - -He was very close to breakdown indeed. - -On a hot, wet morning a few days after his useless expedition to see -Citizen Germyn in Wheeling, Haendl ate a tasteless breakfast and, -reeling with fatigue, set out on a tour of inspection of Princeton. -Warm rain dripped from low clouds, but that was merely one more -annoyance to Haendl. He hardly noticed it. - -There were upward of a thousand Wolves in the Community and there -were signs of worry on the face of every one of them. Haendl was not -the only man in Princeton who had begun laying traps for himself as a -result of the unprecedented disappearances; he was not the only one who -was short of sleep. When one member in forty disappears, the morale of -the whole community receives a shattering blow. - -To Haendl, it was clear, looking into the faces of his compatriots, -that not only was it going to be nearly impossible to mount the planned -assault on the Pyramid on Everest this year, it was going to be -unbearably difficult merely to keep the community going. - -The whole Wolf pack was on the verge of panic. - - * * * * * - -There was a confused shouting behind Haendl. Groggily he turned and -looked; half a dozen Wolves were yelling and pointing at something in -the wet, muggy air. - -It was an Eye, hanging silent and featureless over the center of the -street. - -Haendl took a deep breath and mustered command of himself. "Frampton!" -he ordered one of his lieutenants. "Get the helicopter with the -instruments here. We'll take some more readings." - -Frampton opened his mouth, then looked more closely at Haendl and, -instead, began to talk on his pocket radio. Haendl knew what was in the -man's mind--it was in his own, too. - -What was the use of more readings? From the time of Tropile's -Translation on, they had had a superfluity of instrument readings on -the forces and auras that surrounded the Eyes--yes, and on Translations -themselves, too. Before Tropile, there had never been an Eye seen in -Princeton, much less an actual Translation. But things were different -now. Everything was different. Eyes roamed restlessly around day and -night. - -Some of the men nearest the Eye were picking up rocks and throwing -them at the bobbing vortex in the air. Haendl started to yell at them -to stop, then changed his mind. The Eye didn't seem to be affected--as -he watched, one of the men scored a direct hit with a cobblestone. The -stone went right through the Eye, without sound or effect; why not let -them work off some of their fears in direct action? - -There was a fluttering of vanes and the copter with the instruments -mounted on it came down in the middle of the street, between Haendl and -the Eye. - -It was all very rapid from then on. - -The Eye swooped toward Haendl. He couldn't help it; he ducked. That -was useless, but it was also unnecessary, for he saw in a second that -it was only partly the motion of the Eye toward him that made it loom -larger; it was also that the Eye itself was growing. - -An Eye was perhaps the size of a football, as near as anyone could -judge. This one got bigger, bigger. It was the size of a roc's egg, -the size of a whale's blunt head. It stopped and hovered over the -helicopter, while the man inside frantically pointed lenses and meters-- - -Thundercrash. - -Not a man this time--Translation had gone beyond men. The whole -helicopter vanished, man, instruments, spinning vanes and all. - -Haendl picked himself up, sweating, shocked beyond sleepiness. - -The young man named Frampton said fearfully: "Haendl, what do we do -now?" - -"Do?" Haendl stared at him absently. "Why, kill ourselves, I guess." - -He nodded soberly, as though he had at last attained the solution of a -difficult problem. Then he sighed. - -"Well, one thing before that," he said. "I'm going to Wheeling. We -Wolves are licked; maybe the Citizens can help us now." - - * * * * * - -Roget Germyn, of Wheeling, a Citizen, received the message in the -chambers that served him as a place of business. He had a visitor -waiting for him at home. - -Germyn was still Citizen and he could not quickly break off the -pleasant and interminable discussion he was having with a prospective -client over a potential business arrangement. He apologized for the -interruption caused by the message the conventional five times, -listened while his guest explained once more the plan he had come to -propose in full, then turned his cupped hands toward himself in the -gesture of Denial of Adequacy. It was the closest he could come to -saying no. - -On the other side of the desk, the Citizen who had come to propose an -investment scheme immediately changed the subject by inviting Germyn -and his Citizeness to a Sirius Viewing, the invitation in the form of -rhymed couplets. He had wanted to transact his business very much, but -he couldn't _insist_. - -Germyn got out of the invitation by a Conditional Acceptance in proper -form, and the man left, delayed only slightly by the Four Urgings to -Stay. Almost immediately, Germyn dismissed his clerk and closed his -office for the day by tying a triple knot in a length of red cord -across the open door. - -When he got to his home, he found, as he had suspected, that the -visitor was Haendl. - -There was much doubt in Citizen Germyn's mind about Haendl. The man had -nearly admitted to being Wolf, and how could a citizen overlook that? -But in the excitement of Gala Tropile's Translation, there had been no -hue and cry. Germyn had permitted the man to leave. And now? - -He reserved judgment. He found Haendl distastefully sipping tea in -the living room and attempting to keep up a formal conversation with -Citizeness Germyn. He rescued him, took him aside, closed a door--and -waited. - -He was astonished at the change in the man. Before, Haendl had been -bouncy, aggressive, quick-moving--the very qualities least desired in -a Citizen, the mark of the Son of the Wolf. Now he was none of these -things, but he looked no more like a Citizen for all that; he was -haggard, tense. - -He said, with an absolute minimum of protocol: "Germyn, the last time I -saw you, there was a Translation. Gala Tropile, remember?" - -"I remember," Citizen Germyn said. Remember! It had hardly left his -thoughts. - -"And you told me there had been others. Are they still going on?" - - * * * * * - -Germyn said: "There have been others." He was trying to speak -directly, to match this man Haendl's speed and forcefulness. It -was hardly good manners, but it had occurred to Citizen Germyn -that there were times when manners, after all, were not the most -important thing in the world. "There were two in the past few days. -One was a woman--Citizeness Baird; her husband's a teacher. She was -Viewing Through Glass with four or five other women at the time. She -just--disappeared. She was looking through a green prism at the time, -if that helps." - -"I don't know if it helps or not. Who was the other one?" - -Germyn shrugged. "A man named Harmane. No one saw it. But they heard -the thunderclap, or something like a thunderclap, and he was missing." -He thought for a moment. "It is a little unusual, I suppose. Two in a -week--" - -Haendl said roughly: "Listen, Germyn. It isn't just two. In the past -thirty days, within the area around here and in _one other place_, -there have been at least fifty. In _two_ places, do you understand? -Here and in Princeton. The rest of the world--nothing much; a few -Translations here and there. But just in these two communities, fifty. -Does that make sense?" - -Citizen Germyn thought. "--No." - -"No. And I'll tell you something else. Three of the--well, victims have -been children under the age of five. One was too young to walk. And the -most recent Translation wasn't a person at all. It was a helicopter. -Now figure that out, Germyn. What's the explanation for Translations?" - -Germyn was gaping. "Why--you Meditate, you know. On Connectivity. The -idea is that once you've grasped the Essential Connectivity of All -Things, you become One with the Cosmic Whole. But I don't see how a -baby or a machine--" - -"No, of course you don't. Remember Glenn Tropile?" - -"Naturally." - -"He's the link," Haendl said grimly. "When he got Translated, we -thought it was a big help, because he had the consideration to do it -right under our eyes. We got enough readings to give us a clue as to -what, physically speaking, Translation is all about. That was the first -real clue and we thought he'd done us a favor. Now I'm not so sure." - -He leaned forward. "Every person I know of who was Translated was -someone Tropile knew. The three kids were in his class at the nursery -school--we put him there for a while to keep him busy, when he first -came to us. Two of the men he bunked with are gone; the mess boy who -served him is gone; his wife is gone. Meditation? No, Germyn. I know -most of those people. Not a damned one of them would have spent a -moment Meditating on Connectivity to save his life. And what do you -make of that?" - - * * * * * - -Swallowing hard, Germyn said: "I just remembered. That man Harmane--" - -"What about him?" - -"The one who was Translated last week. He also knew Tropile. He was the -Keeper of the House of the Five Regulations when Tropile was there." - -"You see? And I'll bet the woman knew Tropile, too." Haendl got up -fretfully, pacing around. "Here's the thing, Germyn. I'm licked. You -know what I am, don't you?" - -Germyn said levelly: "I believe you to be Wolf." - -"You believe right. That doesn't matter any more. You don't like -Wolves. Well, I don't like you. But this thing is too big for me to -care about that any more. Tropile has started something happening, -and what the end of it is going to be, I can't tell. But I know this: -We're not safe, either of us. Maybe you still think Translation is -a fulfillment. I don't; it scares me. _But it's going to happen to -me_--and to you. It's going to happen to everybody who ever had -anything to do with Glenn Tropile, unless we can somehow stop it--and I -don't know how. Will you help me?" - -Germyn, trying not to tremble when all his buried fears screamed -_Wolf!_, said honestly: "I'll have to sleep on it." - -Haendl looked at him for a moment. Then he shrugged. Almost to himself, -he said: "Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we can't do anything about it -anyhow. All right. I'll come back in the morning, and if you've made up -your mind to help, we'll start trying to make plans. And if you've made -up your mind the other way--well, I guess I'll have to fight off a few -Citizens. Not that I mind that." - -Germyn stood up and bowed. He began the ritual Four Urgings. - -"Spare me that," Haendl growled. "Meanwhile, Germyn, if I were you, I -wouldn't make any long-range plans. You may not be here to carry them -out." - -Germyn asked thoughtfully: "And if you were _you_?" - -"I'm not making any," Haendl said grimly. - - * * * * * - -Citizen Germyn, feeling utterly tainted with the scent of the Wolf -in his home, tossed in his bed, sleepless. His eyes were wide open, -staring at the dark ceiling. He could hear his wife's decorous -breathing from the foot of the bed--soft and regular, it should have -been lulling him to sleep. - -It was not. Sleep was very far away. - -Germyn was a brave enough man, as courage is measured among Citizens. -That is to say, he had never been afraid, though it was true that there -had been very little occasion. But he was afraid now. He didn't want to -be Translated. - -The Wolf, Haendl, had put his finger on it: _Perhaps you still think -Translation is a fulfillment._ Translation--the reward of Meditation, -the gift bestowed on only a handful of gloriously transfigured persons. -That was one thing. But the sort of Translation that was now involved -was nothing like that--not if it happened to children; not if it -happened to Gala Tropile; not if it happened to a machine. - -And Glenn Tropile was involved in it. - -Germyn turned restlessly. - -If people who knew Glenn Tropile were likely to be Translated, and -people who Meditated on Connectivity were likely to be Translated, then -people who knew Glenn Tropile and didn't want to be Translated had -better not Meditate on Connectivity. - -It was very difficult to _not_ think of Connectivity. - -Endlessly he calculated sums in arithmetic in his mind, recited the -Five Regulations, composed Greeting Poems and Verses on Viewing. -And endlessly he kept coming back to Tropile, to Translation, to -Connectivity. He didn't _want_ to be Translated. But still the thought -had a certain lure. What was it like? Did it hurt? - -Well, probably not, he speculated. It was very fast, according to -Haendl's report--if you could believe what an admitted Son of the Wolf -reported. But Germyn had to. - -Well, if it was fast--at that kind of speed, he thought, perhaps you -would die instantly. Maybe Tropile was dead. Was that possible? No, it -didn't seem so; after all, there was the fact of the connection between -Tropile and so many of the recently Translated. What was the connection -there? Or, generalizing, what connections were involved in-- - -He rescued himself from the dread word and summoned up the first image -that came to mind. It happened to be Tropile's wife--Gala Tropile, who -had disappeared herself, in this very room. - -Gala Tropile. He stuck close to the thought of her, a little pleased -with himself. That was the trick of _not_ thinking of Connectivity--to -think so hard and fully of something else as to leave no room in the -mind for the unwanted thought. He pictured every line of her face, -every wave of her stringy hair.... - -It was very easy that way. He was pleased. - - -XII - -On Mount Everest, the sullen stream of off-and-on responses that was -"mind" to the Pyramid had taken note of a new input signal. - -It was not a critical mind. Its only curiosity was a restless urge to -shove-and-haul, and there was no shove-and-haul about what to it was -perhaps the analogue of a man's hunger pang. The input signal said: _Do -thus._ It obeyed. - -Call it craving for a new flavor. Where once it had patiently waited -for the state that Citizens knew as Meditation on Connectivity, and the -Pyramid itself perhaps knew as a stage of ripeness in the fruits of its -wristwatch mine, now it wanted a different taste. Unripe? Overripe? At -any rate, different. - -Accordingly, the high-frequency wheep, wheep changed in tempo and in -key, and the bouncing echoes changed and ... there was a ripe one to be -plucked. (Its name was Innison.) And there another. (Gala Tropile.) -And another, another--oh, many others--a babe from Tropile's nursery -school and the Wheeling jailer and a woman Tropile once had coveted on -the street. - -Once the ruddy starch-to-sugar mark of ripeness had been what human -beings called Meditation on Connectivity and the Pyramids knew as -a convenient blankness. Now the sign was a sort of empathy with -the Component named Tropile. It didn't matter to the Pyramid on -Mount Everest. It swung its electrostatic scythe and the--call them -Tropiletropes--were harvested. - -It did not occur to the Pyramid on Mount Everest that a Component might -be directing its actions. How could it? - -Perhaps the Pyramid on Mount Everest wondered, if it knew how to -wonder, when it noticed that different criteria were involved in -selecting components these days. If it knew how to "notice." Surely -even a Pyramid might wonder when, without warning or explanation, -its orders were changed--not merely to harvest a different sort of -Component, but to drag along with the flesh-and-blood needful parts -a clanking assortment of machinery and metal, as began to happen. -Machines? Why would the Pyramids need to Translate machines? - -But why, on the other hand, would a Pyramid bother to question a -directive, even if it were able to? - -In any case, it didn't. It swung its scythe and gathered in what it was -caused to gather in. - -Men sometimes eat green fruit and come to regret it. Was it the same -with Pyramids? - - * * * * * - -And Citizen Germyn fell into the unsuspected trap. Avoiding -Connectivity, he thought of Glenn Tropile--and the unfelt h-f pulses -found him out. - -He didn't see the Eye that formed above him. He didn't feel the -gathering of forces that formed his trap. He didn't know that he was -seized, charged, catapulted through space, caught, halted and drained. -It happened too fast. - -One moment he was in his bed; the next moment he was--elsewhere. There -wasn't anything in between. - -It had happened to hundreds of thousands of Components before him, but, -for Citizen Germyn, what happened was in some ways different. He was -not embalmed in nutrient fluid, formed and programmed to take his part -in the Pyramid-structure, for he had not been selected by the Pyramid -but by that single wild Component, Tropile. He arrived conscious, awake -and able to move. - -He stood up in a red-lit chamber. Vast thundering crashes of metal -buffeted his ears. Heat sprang little founts of perspiration on his -skin. - -It was too much, too much to take in at once. Oily-skinned madmen, -naked, were capering and shouting at him. It took him a moment to -realize that they were not devils; this was not Hell; he was not dead. - -"This way!" they were bawling at him. "Come on, hurry it up!" - -He reeled, following their directions, across an unpleasantly warm -floor, staggering and falling--the binary planet was a quarter denser -than Earth--until he got his balance. - -The capering madmen led him through a door--or sphincter or trap; -it was not like anything he had ever seen. But it was a portal of a -sort, and on the other side of it was something closer to sanity. It -was another room, and though the light was still red, it was a paler, -calmer red and the thundering ironmongery was a wall away. The madmen -were naked, yes, but they were not mad. The oil on their skins was only -the sheen of sweat. - -"Where--where am I?" he gasped. - -Two voices, perhaps three or four, were all talking at once. He could -make no sense of it. Citizen Germyn looked about him. He was in a sort -of chamber that formed a part of a machine that existed for the unknown -purposes of the Pyramids on the binary planet. And he was alive--and -not even alone. - -He had crossed more than a million miles of space without feeling a -thing. But when what the naked men were saying began to penetrate, the -walls lurched around him. - -It was true; he had been Translated. - -He looked dazedly down at his own bare body, and around at the room, -and then he realized they were still talking: "--when you get your -bearings. Feel all right now? Come on, Citizen, snap out of it!" - -Germyn blinked. - -Another voice said peevishly: "Tropile's got to find some other place -to bring them in. That foundry isn't meant for human beings. Look at -the shape this one is in! Some time somebody's going to come in and we -won't spot him in time and--pfut!" - -The first voice said: "Can't be helped. Hey! Are you all right?" - -Citizen Germyn looked at the naked man in front of him and took a deep -breath of hot, sour air. "Of course I'm all right," he said. - -The naked man was Haendl. - - * * * * * - -The Tropile-petal "said" to the Alla Narova-petal: "Got another one! -It's Citizen Germyn!" The petal fluttered feebly in soundless laughter. - -The Alla Narova-petal "said": "Glenn, come back! The whole -propulsion-pneuma just went out of circuit!" - -Tropile pulled his attention away from his human acquisitions in -the chamber off the foundry and allowed himself to fuse with the -woman-personality. Together they reached out and explored along the -pathways they had laboriously traced. The propulsion-pneuma was the -complex of navigation-computers, drive generators, course-vectoring -units that their own unit had been originally part of--until Glenn -Tropile, by waking its Components, had managed to divert it for -purposes of his own. The two of them reached out into it-- - -Dead end. - -It was out of circuit, as Alla Narova had said. One whole limb of their -body--their new, jointly tenanted body, that spanned a whole planet and -reached across space to Earth--had been lopped off. Quick, quick, they -separated, traced separate paths. They came together again: Still dead -end. - -The dyad that was Tropile and the woman reached out to touch the others -in the snowflake and communicated--not in words, not in anything as -slow and as opaque as words: _The Pyramids have lopped off another -circuit._ The compound personality of the snowflake considered its -course of action, reached its decision, acted. Quick, quick, three of -the other members of the snowflake darted out of the collective unit -and went about isolating and tracing the exact area that had been -affected. - -Tropile: "We expected this. They couldn't help noticing sooner or -later that something was going wrong." - -Alla Narova: "But, Glenn, suppose they cut _us_ out of circuit? We're -stuck here. We can't move. We can't get out of the tanks. If they know -that we are the source of their trouble--" - -Tropile: "Let them know! That's what we've got the others here for!" He -was cocky now, self-assured, fighting. For the first time in his life, -he was free to fight--to let his Wolf blood strive to the utmost--and -he knew what he was fighting for. This wasn't a matter of Haendl's -pitiful tanks and carbines against the invulnerable Pyramids; this was -the invulnerability of the whole Pyramid system turned against the -Pyramids! - -It was a warning, the fact that the Pyramids had become alert to -danger, had begun cutting sections of their planetary communications -system out of the main circuit. But as a warning, it didn't frighten -Tropile; it only spurred him to action. - -Quick, quick, he and the woman-personality dissolved, sped away. -Figuratively they sought out the most restive Components they could -find, shook them by the shoulder, tried to wake them. Actually--well, -what is "actually?" The physical fact was surely that they didn't -move at all, for they were bound to their tank and to the surgical -joinings, each to each, at their temples. No crawling child in a -playpen was more helplessly confined than Tropile and Alla Narova and -the others. - -And yet no human being had ever been more free. - - * * * * * - -Regard that imbecile servant of Everyman, the thermostat. - -He runs the furnace in Everyman's house, he measures the doneness of -Everyman's breakfast toast, he valves the cooling fluid through the -radiator of Everyman's car. If Everyman's house stays too hot or too -cold, the man swears at the lackwit switch and maybe buys a new one -to plug in. But he never, never thinks that his thermostat might be -plotting against him. - -Thermostat : Man = Man : Pyramid. Only that and nothing more. It was -not in the nature of a Pyramid to think that its Components, once -installed, could reprogram themselves. No Component ever had. (But -before Glenn Tropile, no Component had been Wolf.) - -When Tropile found himself, he found others. They were men and women, -real persons with gonads and dreams. They had been caught at the moment -of blankness--yes; and frozen into that shape, true. But they were -palimpsest personalities on which the Pyramids had programmed their -duties. Underneath the Pyramids' cabalistic scrawl, the men and women -still remained. They had only to be reached. - -Tropile and Alla Narova reached them--one at a time, then by scores. -The Pyramids made that possible. The network of communication that they -had created for their own purposes encompassed every cell of the race -and all its works. Tropile reached out from his floating snowflake -and went where he wished--anywhere within the binary planet; to the -brooding Pyramid on Earth; through the Eyes, wherever he chose on -Earth's surface. - -Physically, he was scarcely able to move a muscle. But, oh, the soaring -range of his mind and vision! - - * * * * * - -Citizen Germyn was past shock, but just the same it was uncomfortable -to be in a room with several dozen other persons, all of them naked. -Uncomfortable. Once it would have been brain-shattering. For a Citizen -to see his own Citizeness unclothed was gross lechery. To be part of a -mixed and bare-skinned group was unthinkable. Or had been. Now it only -made him uneasy. - -He said numbly to Haendl: "Citizen, I pray you tell me what sort of -place this is." - -"Later," said Haendl gruffly, and led him out of the way. "Stay put," -he advised. "We're busy." - -And that was true. Something was going on, but Citizen Germyn couldn't -make out exactly what it was. The naked people were worrying out a -distribution of some sort of supplies. There were tools and there were -also what looked to Citizen Germyn's unsophisticated eyes very much -like guns. Guns? It was foolishness to think they were guns, Citizen -Germyn told himself strongly. _Nobody_ had guns. He touched the floor -with an exploratory hand. It was warm and it shook with a nameless -distant vibration. He shuddered. - -Haendl came back; yes, they were guns. Haendl was carrying one. - -"Ours!" he crowed. "That Tropile must've looted our armory at -Princeton. By the looks of what's here, I doubt if he left a single -round of ammunition. What the hell, they're more use here!" - -"But what are we going to do with _guns_?" - -Haendl looked at him with savage amusement. "Shoot." - -Citizen Germyn said: "Please, Citizen. Tell me what this is all about." - -Haendl sat down next to him on the warm, quivering floor and began -fitting cartridges into a clip. - -"We're fighting," he explained gleefully. "Tropile did it all. You've -been shanghaied and so have all the rest of us. Tropile's alive! He's -part of the Pyramid communications network--don't ask me how. But he's -there and he has been hauling men and weapons and God knows what all up -from Earth--you're on the binary planet now, you know--and we're going -to bust things up so the Pyramids will _never_ be able to put them back -together again. Understand? Well, it doesn't matter if you don't. All -you have to understand is that when I tell you to shoot this gun, you -shoot." - -Numbly, Citizen Germyn took the unfamiliar stock and barrel into his -hands. Muscles he had forgotten he owned straightened the limp curve of -his back, squared his shoulders and thrust out his chest. - -It had been many generations since any of Citizen Germyn's people had -known the feeling of being an Armed Man. - -A naked woman with wild hair and a full, soft figure came toward them, -jiggling in a way that agonized Citizen Germyn. He dropped his eyes to -his gun and kept them there. - -She cried: "Orders from Tropile! We've got to form a party and blow -something up." - -Haendl demanded: "Such as what?" - -"I don't know what. I only know where. We've got a guide. And Tropile -particularly asked for you, Haendl. He said you'd enjoy it." - -And enjoy it Haendl did--anticipation was all over his face. - - * * * * * - -They formed a party of a dozen. They armed themselves with the guns -Tropile had levitated from the bulging warehouse at Princeton. They -supplied themselves with gray metal cans of something that Haendl said -were explosives, and with fuses and detonators to match, and they set -off--with their guide. - -A guide! It was a shambling, fearsome monster! - -When Citizen Germyn saw it, he had to fight an almost irresistible -temptation to be ill. Even the bare skins about him no longer mattered; -this new horror canceled them out. - -"What--What--" he strangled, pointing. - -Haendl laughed raucously. "That's Joey." - -"What's Joey?" - -"He works for us," said Haendl, grinning. - -Joey was neither human nor beast; it was not Pyramid; it was nothing -Citizen Germyn had ever seen or imagined before. It crouched on -many-jointed limbs, and even so was twice the height of a man. Its ropy -arms and legs were covered with fine chitinous spines, laid on as close -as hairs in a pelt, and sharp as thorns. There was a layer of chitin -around its reddish eyes. What was more horrible than all, it spoke. - -It said squeakily: "You all ready? Come on, snap it up! The Pyramids -have got something big building up and we've got to squash it." - -Citizen Germyn whispered feverishly to Haendl: "That voice! It sounds -odd, yes--but isn't it Tropile's voice?" - -"Sure it is! That's what old Joey is good for," said Haendl. "Tropile -says he's telepathic, whatever that is. Makes it handy for us." - -And it did. Telepathy was the alien's very special use to Glenn -Tropile, for what Joey was in fact was another Component, from a -previous wristwatch mine. Joey's planet had once circled a star never -visible from Earth; his home air was thin and his home sunlight was -weak, and in consequence his race had developed a species of telepathy -for communicating at long range. This was handy for the Pyramids, -because it simplified the wiring. And it was equally handy for Glenn -Tropile, once he managed to wake the creature--with its permission, he -could use its body as a sort of walkie-talkie in directing the tactics -of his shanghaied army. - -That permission was very readily given. Joey remembered what the -Pyramids had done to its own planet. - -"Come on!" ordered Joey in Tropile's filtered voice, and they hastened -through a straight and achingly cramped tunnel in single file, toward -what Tropile had said was their target. - -They had nearly reached it when, abruptly, there was a thundering of -explosions ahead. - -The party stopped, looked at each other, and got ready to move on more -slowly. - -At last it had started. The Pyramids were beginning to fight back. - - -XIII - -Citizeness Roget Germyn, widow, woke from sleep like a well-mannered -cat on the narrow lower third of the bed that her training had taught -her to occupy, though it had been some days since her husband's -Translation had emptied the Citizen's two-thirds permanently. - -Someone had tapped gently on her door. - -"I am awake," she called, in a voice just sufficient to carry. - -A quiet voice said: "Citizeness, there is exceptional opportunity to -Appreciate this morning. Come see, if you will. And I ask forgiveness -for waking you." - -She recognized the voice; it was the wife of one of her neighbors. -The Citizeness made the appropriate reply, combining forgiveness and -gratitude. - -She dressed rapidly, but with appropriate pauses for reflection and -calm, and stepped out into the street. - -It was not yet daylight. Overhead, great sheets of soundless lightnings -flared. - -Inside Citizeness Germyn long-unfelt emotions stirred. There was -something that was very like terror, and something that was akin to -love. This was a generation that had never seen the aurora, for the -ricocheting electron beams that cause it could not span the increasing -distance between the orphaned Earth and its primary, Old Sol, and the -small rekindled suns the Pyramids made were far too puny. - -Under the sleeting aurora, small knots of Citizens stood about the -streets, their faces turned up to the sky and illuminated by the -distant light. It was truly an exceptional opportunity to Appreciate -and they were all making the most of it. - -Conscientiously, Citizeness Germyn sought out another viewer with whom -to exchange comments on the spectacle above. "It is more bright than -meteors," she said judiciously, "and lovelier than the freshly kindled -Sun." - -"Sure," said the woman. Citizeness Germyn, jolted, looked more closely. -It was the Tropile woman--Gala? Was that her name? And what sort of -name was _that_? But it fitted her well; she was the one who had been -wife to Wolf and, more likely than not, part Wolf herself. - -Still, the case was not proved. Citizeness Germyn said honestly: "I -have never seen a sight to compare with this in all my life." - -Gala Tropile said indifferently: "Yeah. Funny things are happening all -the time these days, have you noticed? Ever since Glenn turned out to -be--" She stopped. - -Citizeness Germyn rapidly diagnosed her embarrassment and acted to -cover it up. "That is so. I have seen Eyes a hundred times and yet -has there been a Translation with the Eyes? No. But there have been -Translations. It is queer." - -"I suppose so," Gala Tropile said, looking upward at the display. She -sighed. - -Over their heads, a formed Eye was drifting slowly about, but neither -of the women noticed it. The shifting lights in the sky obscured it. - -"I wonder what causes that stuff," Gala Tropile said idly. - -Citizeness Germyn made no attempt to answer. It was not the sort of -question that would normally have occurred to her and therefore not a -sort to which she could reply. - -Moreover, it was not the question closest to Gala Tropile's heart at -that moment--nor, for that matter, the question closest to Citizeness -Germyn's. The question that underlay the thoughts of both was: _I -wonder what happened to my husband._ - -It was strange, but true, that the answers to all their questions were -very nearly the same. - - * * * * * - -The Alla-Narova mind said sharply: "Glenn, come back!" - -Tropile withdrew from scanning the distant dark street. He laughed -soundlessly. "I was watching my wife. God, we're giving them fits down -there! The Pyramids must be churning things up, too--the sky is full of -auroral displays. Looks like there's plenty of h-f bouncing around the -atmosphere." - -"Pay attention!" the Alla-Narova mind commanded. - -"All right." Obediently, Tropile returned to the war he was waging. - -It was a strange conflict, strangely fought. Tropile's mind searched -the abysses and tunnels of the Pyramid planet, and what he sensed or -saw was immediately communicated to all of the awakened Components who -were his allies. - -It was a godlike position. Was he sane? There was no knowing. Sanity -no longer meant anything to Tropile. He was beyond such human affairs -as lunacy or its reverse. An insane man is one who is out of joint -with his environment. Tropile was himself his environment. His mind -encompassed two planets and the space between. He saw with a thousand -eyes. He worked with a thousand hands. - -And he struck mighty blows. - -The weakness of a network that reaches everywhere is that it is -everywhere vulnerable. If a teletype repeater in Omaha garbles a single -digit, printing units in Atlanta and Bangor will type out errors. -Tropile, by striking at the Pyramids' net at a thousand points, garbled -their communications and made them nearly useless. More, he took the -Pyramid network for his own. The Tropile-pulse sped through the neurone -guides of the Pyramid net, and what it encountered it mastered, and -what it mastered it changed. - -The Pyramids discovered that they had been attacked. - -Frantically (if they felt frenzy), the Pyramids replaced Components; -the Tropile-pulse woke the new ones. Unbelievingly (did they know -how to "believe"?), the Pyramids isolated contaminated circuits; the -Tropile-pulse bypassed them. - -Desperately (or joyously or uffishly--one term fits exactly as well as -another), the Pyramids returned to shove-and-haul, and there was much -destruction, and some Components died. - -But by then, the Components had reprogrammed themselves. - - * * * * * - -The first job had been the matter of finding hands for the -Tropile-brain to work with. Bring hands in, then! Tropile commanded -the Pyramids' network and obediently it was done. The Translation -mechanism, the electrostatic scythe that had harvested so many crops -from the wristwatch mines, suffered a change and went to work not for -the pickers but for the fruit. - -The essential change in the operation of that particular pneuma had -been simple; first, to "harvest" or "Translate" the men and women -Tropile wanted as fighters instead of the meditative Citizen kind. -Second, to divert the new arrivals to where they would not go straight -to deep-freeze. It happened that the only alternate space Tropile could -find was a sort of foundry that was nearly Hell, but that was only a -detail. The important thing was that new helpers were arriving, with -minds of their own and the capacity to move and act. - -Then Tropile needed to communicate with them. He found the alien, -ropy-limbed Component whose name vaguely approached "Joey." Joey's -limited sense of telepathy was needed and so, with enormous difficulty, -Tropile and Alla Narova, combined, managed to reach and wake it. - -And so he had an army, captured humans for troops, an awakened Joey -for liaison. - -Tropile was lord of two worlds. Not only the Pyramids were under his -thumb, but his own fellow humans whom he had drafted into his service. -They ate when a captured circuit he controlled fed synthetic mush into -troughs for them. They breathed because a captured circuit he directed -created air. They would return to Earth when--and only when--a captured -circuit he operated sent them home. - -Sane? - -By what standards? - -And what difference did it make? - - -XIV - -With a series of grinding shocks, like an enormous earthquake-fault -relieving a strain, the Pyramids began to fight back. - -"Tropile!" the Alla-Narova mind called urgently. - -Tropile flashed to the trouble spot. Through eyes that were not his -own, Tropile scanned the honeycombed world of the Pyramids. There was -an area where huge and ancient vehicles lay covered with the slow dust -of centuries, and the vehicles were beginning to move. - -Caterpillar-treaded hauling machines were loading themselves with what -Tropile judged were quickly synthesized explosives. Almost forgotten -wheeled vehicles were creeping mindlessly out of nearly abandoned -storage sections and lumbering painfully along the tunnels of the -planet. - -"Coming toward us," Tropile diagnosed dispassionately. - -Alla Narova queried: "They mean to fight?" - -"Of course. You see if you can penetrate the circuit that controls -them. I--" already he was flashing away--"I'll get to the boys through -Joey." - -It was queer, looking through the eyes of the alien they called Joey; -colors were all wrong, perspective was flat. But he could see, though -cloudily. He saw Haendl joyously fitting a bayonet--_a bayonet!_--to -a rifle; he saw Citizen Germyn, naked but square-shouldered, puffing -valiantly along in the rear. - -Tropile said through the strange vocal cords that belonged to the -alien: "You'll have to hurry." (Strange to speak in words again!) "The -Pyramids are heading toward the chambers where the Components are kept. -I think they mean to kill us." - -He flashed away, located the area, flashed back. "You'll have to go -without me--I mean without Joey-me. The only way I see to get there is -through a narrow little ventilation tunnel--I guess ventilation is what -it was for." - -Quickly (but against the familiar race of thought, it seemed -agonizingly slow) he laid out the route for them and left; it was up -to them. Watching from a dozen viewpoints at once, he saw the slow -creep of the Pyramids' machines and the slower intersecting march of -his little army. He studied the alternate cross routes and contrived -to block some of them by interfering with the control-circuits of the -emergency doors and portals. - -But there were some circuits he could not control. The Pyramids -had withdrawn whole sections of their net and areas of the -planet were now hidden from him entirely. Sections of the vast -maintenance-propulsion-manufacturing complex were no longer subject to -his interference or control. - - * * * * * - -It would be, Tropile thought dispassionately, a rather close thing. -The chances were perhaps six out of ten that his hastily assembled -task force would be able to intercept the convoy of automatic machines -before it could reach the racks of nutrient tanks. - -And if they were not in time? - -Tropile almost laughed out loud, if that had been possible. Why, then, -his body would be destroyed! How trivial a thing to worry about! He -began to forget he owned a body; surely it was someone else's bone and -tissue that lay floating in the eight-branched snowflake. He knew that -this was not so. He knew that if his body were killed, he would die. -And yet there was no sense of fear, no personal involvement. It was an -interesting problem in scheduling and nothing more. - -Would the human fighters get there in time? - -Perhaps the automatic machines had senses, for as the first of the -humans burst into the tunnel they were using, a few hundred yards ahead -of the lead load-carrier, the machines shuddered to a stop. Pause for -a second; then, laboriously, they began to back toward the nearest of -the side passages that Tropile had been unable to block. He scanned it -hurriedly. Good, good! The circuits surrounding the passage proper were -out of his reach, but it led to another passage, an abandoned pipeline -of sorts, it seemed to be. And _that_ he could reach.... - -Patiently (how slowly the machines crept along!) he waited until one of -the Pyramids' machines bearing explosives passed through an enormous -valve in the line--and then the valve was thrown. - -The explosion triggered every vehicle in the line. The damage was -complete. - -Scratch one threat from the Pyramids-- - -And almost at once, there was another urgent call from Alia Narova: -"Tropile, quickly!" - - * * * * * - -The Pyramids were the mightiest race of warriors the Universe had ever -known. They were invulnerable and unconquerable, except from within. -Like Alexander the Great, they had met every enemy and whipped them -all. And, like dying Alexander, they writhed and raged against the -tiny, unseen bacillus within themselves. - -Blindly, almost suicidally, the Pyramids returned to their ancient -principle of shove-and-haul. - -The geography of the binary planet was like a hive of bees, nearly -featureless on the surface, but internally a congeries of tunnels, -chambers, warrens, rooms, tubes and amphitheaters. Machinery and metal -Components were everywhere thick under the planet's crust. The more -delicate and more useful Components of flesh and blood were, to a -degree, concentrated in a few areas.... - -And one of those areas had disappeared. - -Tropile, battering futilely with his mind at the periphery of the -vanished area, cried sharply to Alla Narova and the others: "It looks -as though they've broken a piece right out of the planet! Everything -stops here--there's a physical gap which I can't cross. Hurry, one of -you--what was this section for?" - -"Propulsion." - -"I see." Tropile hesitated, confused for the first time since his -awakening. "Wait." - -He retreated to the snowflake and communed with the other -eight-branched members, now become something that resembled his general -staff. He told them--most of them already knew, but the telling took so -little time that it was simpler to go through it from beginning to end: - -"The Pyramids attempted to cut the propulsion-pneuma out of circuit -some seconds or days ago and were unsuccessful; we awakened additional -Components and were able to maintain contact with it. They have now -apparently cut it loose from the planet itself. I do not think it is -far, but there is a physical space between." - -"The importance of the propulsion-pneuma is this: It controls the -master generators of electrostatic force, which are used both to -move this planet and ours, and to perform the act of Translation. If -the Pyramids control it, they may be able to take us out of circuit, -perhaps back to Earth, perhaps throwing us into space, where we will -die. The question for decision: How can we counteract this move?" - - * * * * * - -A rush of voices all spoke at once; it was no trick for Tropile and the -others to sort them out and follow the arguments of each, but it cannot -be reproduced. - -At last, one said: "There is a way. I will do it." - -It was Alla Narova. - -"What is the way?" Tropile demanded, curiously alarmed. - -"I shall go with them, trace the areas the Pyramids are attempting to -isolate, place my entire self--" by this she meant her "concentration," -her "psyche," that part of all of them which flashed along the neurone -guides unhampered by flesh or distance--"in the most likely point they -will next cut loose. And then I shall cause the propulsion units on the -severed sections to force them back into circuit." - -Tropile objected: "But you don't know what will happen! We have never -been cut off from our physical bodies, Alla Narova. It may be death. It -may not be possible at all. You don't know!" - -Alla Narova thought a smile and a farewell. She said: "No, I do not." -And then, "Good-by, Tropile." - -She had gone. - -Furiously, Tropile hurled himself after her, but she was quick as -he, too quick to catch; she was gone. _Foolishness, foolishness!_ he -shouted silently. How could she do an insane, chancy thing like this? - -And yet what else was there to do? They were all ignorant babes, -temporarily successful because there had been no defense against them, -for who expects babes to rise up in rebellion? They didn't _know_. -For all they could guess or imagine, the Pyramids had an effective -counter for any move they might make. Temporary success meant nothing. -It was the final decision that counted, when either the Pyramids were -vanquished or the men, and what steps were needed to make that decision -favor the men were anyone's guess--Alla Narova's was as good as his. - -Tropile could only watch and wait. - -Through a great many viewpoints and observers, he was able to see -roughly what happened. - - * * * * * - -There was a section of the planet next the severed chunk where the mind -and senses of Alla Narova lay coiled for a moment--and were gone. For -what it had accomplished, her purpose succeeded. She had been taken. -She was out of circuit. - -The overwhelming consciousness of loss that flooded through Glenn -Tropile was something outside of all his experience. - -Next to him in the snowflake, the body which he had learned to think -of as the body of Alla Narova twisted sharply as though waking from a -dream--and lay flaccid, floating in the fluid. - -"Alla Narova! _Alla Narova!_" - -There was no answer. - -A voice came piercingly: "Tropile! Here now, quickly!" - -Good-by, Alla Narova! He flashed away to see what the other voice had -found. Great mindless boulders were chipping away from the crust of the -binary planet and whirling like midges in the void around it. - -"What is it?" cried one of the others. - -Tropile had no answer. It was the Pyramids, clearly. Were they -attempting to demolish their own planet? Were they digging away at the -crust to uncover the maggot's-nest of awakened Components beneath? - -"The air!" cried Tropile sharply, and knew it was true. What the -Pyramids were up to was a simple delousing operation. If you could -destroy their own machinery for maintaining air and pressure and -temperature, they would destroy all living things within--including -Haendl and Citizen Germyn and thus, in the final analysis, including -the bodies of Tropile and his awakened fellows. For without the mobile -troops to defend their helpless cocoons against the machines of the -Pyramids, the limp bodies could be destroyed as easily as a larva under -a farmer's heel. - -So Alla Narova had failed. - -Alone against the Pyramids, she had been unable to bring the recaptured -sections back into the circuit that Tropile's Components now dominated. -It was the end of hope; but it was not the fear of defeat and -damnation for the Earth that paralyzed Tropile. It was Alla Narova, -gone from him forever. - -The Pyramids were too strong. - -And yet, he thought, quickening, they had been too strong before and -still a weak spot had been found! - -"Think," he ordered himself desperately. - -And then again: "Think!" Components stirred restlessly around him, -questioning. "Think!" he cried mightily. "All of you, think! Think of -your lives and hopes! - -"Think! - -"Hope! - -"Worry! - -"Dream!" - -The Components were reaching toward him now, wonderingly. He commanded -them violently: "Do it--concentrate, wish, think! Let your minds run -free and think of Earth, pleasant grass and warm sun! Think of loving -and sweat and heartbreak! Think of death and birth! _Think_, for the -love of heaven, _think_!" - -And the answer was not in sound, but it was deafening. - - * * * * * - -In the cut-off sections, Alla Narova's soaring mind lay trapped. It -had not been enough; she could not force her will against the dull -inflexibility of the Pyramids.... - -Until that inflexible will began to waver. - -There was a leakage of thought. - -It maddened and baffled the Pyramids. The whole neuronic network was -resounding to a babble of thoughts and emotions that, to a Pyramid, -were utterly demented! The rousing Component minds throbbed with urge -and emotion that were new to Pyramid experience. What could a Pyramid -make of a human's sex drive? Or of the ropy-armed aliens' passionate -deification of the Egg? What of hunger and thirst and the blazing -Wolf-need for odds and advantage that streamed out of such as Tropile? - -They wavered, unsure. Their reactions were slow and very confused. - -For Alla Narova succeeded in her purpose. She was able to reach out -across the space and barrier to Tropile and the propulsion-pneuma was -back in circuit. The section that controlled the master generators of -the electronic scythe lay under his hands. - -"Now!" he cried, and all of the Components reached out to grasp and -move. - -"Now!" And the central control was theirs; the full flood of power from -the generators was at their command. - -"Now! Now! Now!" And they reached out, with a fat pencil of -electrostatic force and caught the sluggish, brooding Pyramid on Mount -Everest. - -It had squatted there without motion for more than two centuries. Now -it quivered and seemed to draw back, but the probing pencil caught -it, and whirled it, and hurled it up and out of Earth, into the tiny -artificial sun. - -It struck with a flare of blue-white light. - -"One gone!" gloated Tropile. "Alla Narova, are you there?" - -"Still here," she called from a great distance. "Again?" - -"Again!" - -They reached for the Pyramids and found them, wherever they were. Some -lay close to the surface of the binary planet, and some were hundreds -of miles within, and a few, more desperate than the others or merely -assigned to the task, they discovered at the very portal of the single -spaceship of the Pyramids. - -But wherever they were and whatever they chose to do, each one of them -was found and seized. They came wriggling and shaking, like trout -on an angler's line. They came bursting through layer on layer of -impenetrable metal that, nevertheless, they penetrated. They came by -the dozens and scores, and at last by the thousands; but they came. - -There were more and more flares of blue-white light on the tiny sun--so -many that Tropile found himself scouring the planet in a desperate -search for one surviving Pyramid--not to destroy as an enemy, but to -keep for a specimen. - -But he searched in vain. - -The Pyramids were destroyed, gone. There was not one left. The Earth -lay open and free under its tiny sun for the first time in centuries. - -It had been a strange war, but a short one. - -And it was over. - - -XIV - -Tropile swam up out of hammering blackness into daylight and pain. - -It _hurt_. He was being born again--coming back to life--and it had -all the agonies of parturition, except that they were visited upon the -creature being born, himself. There were crushing blows at his temples -that pounded and pained like no other ache he had ever felt. He moaned -raspingly. - -Someone moved blurrily over his shut eyes. He felt something sting -sharply at the base of his brain. Then it tingled, warming his scalp, -comforting it, numbing it. Pain went slowly away. - -He opened his eyes. - -Four masked torturers were leaning over him. He stared, not -understanding; but the eyes were not torturers' eyes, and in a moment -the masks came off. Surgical masks--and the faces beneath the masks -were human faces. - -Surgeons and nurses. - -He blinked at them and said groggily: "Where am we?" And then he -remembered. - -He was back on Earth; he was merely human again. - -Someone came bustling into the room and he knew without looking that it -was Haendl. - -"We beat them, Tropile!" Haendl cried. "No, cancel that. _You_ beat -them. We've destroyed every Pyramid there was, and a nice hot fire -they're making up there on the sun, eh? Beautiful work, Tropile. -Beautiful! You're a credit to the name of Wolf!" - -The surgeons stirred uneasily, but apparently, Tropile thought, there -had been changes, for they did no more than that. - -Tropile touched his temples fretfully and his fingers rested on gauze -bandages. It was true: he was out of circuit. The long reach of his -awareness was cut short at his skull; there was no more of the infinite -sweep and grasp he had known as part of the snowflake in the nutrient -fluid. - -"Too bad," he whispered hopelessly. - -"What?" Haendl frowned. The nurse next to him whispered something and -he nodded. "Oh, I see. You're still a little groggy, right? Well, -that's not hard to understand--they tell me it was a tricky job of -surgery, separating you from that gunk the Pyramids had wired into -your head." - -"Yes," said Tropile, and closed his ears, though Haendl went on -talking. After a while, Tropile pushed himself up and swung his legs -over the side of the operating table. He was naked. Once that would -have bothered him enormously, but now it didn't seem to matter. - -"Find me some clothes, will you?" he asked. "I'm back. I might as well -start getting used to it." - - * * * * * - -Glenn Tropile found that he was a returning hero, attracting a curious -sort of hero-worship wherever he went. It was not, he thought after -careful analysis, _exactly_ what he might have expected. For instance, -a man who went out and killed a dragon in the old days was received -with great gratitude and rejoicing, and if there was a prince's -daughter around, he married her. Fair enough, after all. And Tropile -had slain a foe more potent than any number of dragons. - -But he tested the attention he received and found no gratitude in it. -It was odd. - -What it was like most of all, he thought, was the sort of attention a -reigning baseball champion might get--in a country where cricket was -the national game. He had done something which, everybody agreed, was -an astonishing feat, but about which nobody seemed to care. Indeed, -there was an area of accusation in some of the attention he got. - -Item: nearly ninety thousand erstwhile Components had now been brought -back to ambient life, most of them with their families long dead, all -of them a certain drain on the limited resources of the planet. And -what was Glenn Tropile going to do about it? - -Item: the old distinctions between Citizen and Wolf no longer made much -sense now that so many Componentized Citizens had fought shoulder to -shoulder with Componentized Sons of the Wolf. But didn't Glenn Tropile -think he had gone a little too far _there_? - -And item--looking pretty far ahead, of course, but still--well, just -what _was_ Glenn Tropile going to do about providing a new sun for -Earth, when the old one wore out and there would be no Pyramids to tend -the fire? - -He sought refuge with someone who would understand him. That, he was -pleased to realize, was easy. He had come to know several persons -extremely well. Loneliness, the tortured loneliness of his youth, was -permanently behind him, _definitely_. - -For example, he could seek out Haendl, who would understand everything -very well. - -Haendl said: "It is a bit of a letdown, I suppose. Well, hell with -it; that's life." He laughed grimly. "Now that we've got rid of the -Pyramids, there's plenty of other work to be done. Man, we can breathe -now! We can plan ahead! This planet has maundered along in its stupid, -rutted, bogged-down course too many years already, eh? It's time we -took over! And we'll be doing it, I promise you. You know, Tropile--" -he sniggered--"I only regret one thing." - -"What's that?" Tropile asked cautiously. - -"All those weapons, out of reach! Oh, I'm not _blaming_ you. But you -can see what a lot of trouble it's going to be now, stocking up all -over again--and there isn't much we can do about bringing order to -this tired old world, is there, until we've got the guns to do it with -again?" - -Tropile left him much sooner than he had planned. - - * * * * * - -Citizen Germyn, then? The man had fought well, if nothing else. Tropile -went to find him and, for a moment at least, it was very good. Germyn -said: "I've been doing a lot of thinking, Tropile. I'm glad you're -here." He sent his wife for refreshments, and decorously she brought -them in, waited for exactly one minute, and then absented herself. - -Tropile burst into speech as soon as she left. "I'm beginning to -realize what has happened to the human race, Germyn. I don't mean just -now, when we licked the Pyramids and so on. No, I mean hundreds of -years ago, what happened when the Pyramids arrived, and what has been -happening since. Did you ever hear of Indians, Germyn?" - -Germyn frowned minutely and shrugged. - -"They were, oh, hundreds _and_ hundreds of years ago. They were a -different color and not very civilized--of course, nobody was then. But -the Indians were nomads, herdsmen, hunters--like that. And the white -people came from Europe and wanted this country for themselves. So they -took it. And do you know something? I don't think the Indians ever knew -what hit them." - -"_They_ didn't know about land grants and claiming territory for the -crown and church missions and expanding populations. They didn't have -those things. It's true that they learned pretty well, by and by--at -least they learned things like guns and horses and firewater; they -didn't have those things, either, but they could see some sense to -them, you know. But I really don't think the Indians ever knew exactly -what the Europeans were up to, until it was too late to matter. - -"And it was the same with us and the Pyramids, only more so. What -the devil _did_ they want? I mean, yes, we found out what they did -with the Translated people. But what were they _up_ to? What did -they _think_? _Did_ they think? You know, I've got a kind of a crazy -idea--maybe it's not crazy, maybe it's the truth. Anyway, I've been -thinking. Suppose even the _Pyramids_ weren't the Pyramids? We never -talked to one of them. We never gave it a Rorschach or tested its knee -jerks. We licked them, but we don't know anything about them. We don't -even know if they were the guys that started the whole bloody thing, or -if they were just sort of super-sized Components themselves. Do we? - -"And meanwhile, here's the human race, up against something that it not -only can't understand, same as the Indians couldn't the whites, but -that it can't begin to make a _guess_ about. At least the Indians had -a clue now and then, you know--I mean they'd see the sailors off the -great white devil ship making a beeline for the Indian women and so on, -and they'd begin to understand there was _something_ in common. But we -didn't have that much. - -"So what did we do? Why, we did like the reservation Indians. We turned -inward. We got loaded on firewater--Meditation--and we closed our minds -to the possibility of ever expanding again. And there we were, all -tied up in our own knots. Most of the race rebelled against action, -because it had proven useless--Citizens. A few of the race rebelled -against _that_, because it was not only useless but _deliberately_ -useless--Wolves. But they're the same kind of people. You've seen that -for yourself, right? And--" - -Tropile stopped, suddenly aware that Citizen Germyn was looking tepidly -pained. - -"What's the matter?" Tropile demanded harshly. - -Citizen Germyn gave him the faint deprecatory Quirked Smile. "I know -you thought you were a Wolf, but--I told you I've been thinking a lot, -and that's what I was thinking about. _Truly_, Citizen, you do yourself -no good by pretending that you really thought you were Wolf. Clearly -you were not; the rest of us might have been fooled, but certainly you -couldn't fool yourself. - -"Now here's what I think you ought to do. When I found you were coming, -I asked several rather well-known Citizens to come here later this -evening. There won't be any embarrassment. I only want you to talk to -them and set the record straight, so that this terrible blemish will no -longer be held against you. Times change and perhaps a certain latitude -is advisable now, but certainly you don't want--" - -Tropile also left Citizen Germyn sooner than he had expected to. - - * * * * * - -There remained Alla Narova, but, queerly, she was not to be found. - -Instantly it became clear to Tropile that it was she above all whom he -needed to talk to. He remembered the shared beauty of their plunging -drive through the neurone-guides of the Pyramids, the linked and -inextricable flow of their thoughts and of their most hidden feelings. - -She could not be very far, he thought numbly, cursing the blindness of -his human eyes, the narrowness of his human senses. Time was when two -worlds could not have hidden her from him; but that time was gone. He -walked from place to place with the angry resentful tread of one used -to riding--no, to flying, or faster than flying. He asked after her. He -searched. - -And at last he found--not her. A note. At one of the stations where the -re-awakened Components were funneled back into human affairs, there was -a letter waiting for him: - - _I'm sure you will look for me. Please don't. You thought that - there were no secrets between us, but there was one._ - - _When I was Translated, I was sixty-one years old. Two years before - that, I was caught in a collapsing building; my legs are useless, - and I had grown quite fat. I do not want you to see me fat and - old._ - - _Alla Narova._ - -And that was that, and at last Glenn Tropile turned to the last person -of all those on his list who had known him well. Her name was Gala -Tropile. - - * * * * * - -She had got thinner, he observed. They sat together quietly and there -was considerable awkwardness, but then he noticed that she was weeping. -Comforting her ended the awkwardness and he found that he was talking: - -"It was like being a god, Gala! I swear, there's no feeling like it. -I mean it's like--well, maybe if you'd just had a baby, and invented -fire, and moved a mountain, and transmuted lead into gold--maybe if -you'd done all of those things, then you might have some idea. But I -was everywhere at once, Gala, and I could do anything! I fought a whole -world of Pyramids, do you realize that? Me! And now I come back to--" - -He stopped her in time; it seemed she was about to weep again. - -He went on: "No, Gala, don't misunderstand, I don't hold anything -against you. You were right to leave me in the field. What did I have -to offer you? Or myself, for that matter? And I don't know that I have -anything now, but--" - -He slammed his fist against the table. "They talk about putting the -Earth back in its orbit! Why? And how? My God, Gala, we don't know -_where_ we are. Maybe we could tinker up the gadgets the Pyramids used -and turn our course backward--but do you know what Old Sol looks like? -I don't. I never saw it. - -"And neither did you or anyone else alive. - -"It was like being a god-- - -"And they talk about going back to things as they were-- - -"I'm sick of that kind of thinking! Wolves or Citizens, they're dead on -their feet and don't know it. I suppose they'll snap out of it in time, -but I can't wait. I won't live that long. - -"Unless--" - -He paused and looked at her, confused. - -Gala Tropile met her husband's eyes. - -"Unless what, Glenn?" - -He shrugged and turned away. - -"Unless you go back, you mean." He stared at her; she nodded. "You want -to go back," she said, without stress. "You don't want to stay here -with me, do you? You want to go back into that tub of soup again and -float like a baby. You don't want to _have_ babies--you want to _be_ -one." - -"Gala, you don't understand. We can own the Universe. I mean mankind -can. And I can do it. Why not? There's nothing for me--" - -"That's right, Glenn. There's nothing for you here. Not any more." - -He opened his mouth to speak, looked at her, spread his hands -helplessly. He didn't look back as he walked out the door, but he knew -that his back was turned not only on the woman who happened to be his -wife, but on mankind and all of the flesh. - - * * * * * - -It was night outside, and warm. Tropile stood in the old street -surrounded by the low, battered houses--and he could make them new and -grand! He looked up at the stars that swung in constellations too new -and changeable to have names. _There_ was the Universe. - -Words were no good; there was no explaining things in words. Naturally -he couldn't make Gala or anyone else understand, for flesh couldn't -grasp the realities of mind and spirit that were liberated from flesh. -Babies! A home! And the whole grubby animal business of eating and -drinking and sleeping! How could anyone ask to stay in the mire when -the stars challenged overhead? - -He walked slowly down the street, alone in the night, an apprentice -godling renouncing mortality. There was nothing here for him, so why -this sense of loss? - -Duty said (or was it Pride?): "Someone must give up the flesh to -control Earth's orbit and weather--why not you?" - -Flesh said (or was it his soul--whatever that was?): "But you will be -_alone_." - -He stopped, and for a moment he was poised between destiny and the -dust.... - -Until he became aware of footsteps behind him, running, and Gala's -voice: "Wait! Wait, Glenn! I want to go with you!" - -And he turned and waited, but only until she caught up, and then he -went on. - -But not--forever and always again--not alone. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Wolfbane, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. 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M. Kornbluth - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Wolfbane - -Author: Frederik Pohl - C. M. Kornbluth - -Release Date: April 23, 2016 [EBook #51845] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOLFBANE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="366" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover2.jpg" width="377" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>WOLFBANE</h1> - -<p>By FREDERIK POHL and C. M. KORNBLUTH</p> - -<p>Illustrated by WOOD</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Science Fiction October and November 1957.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>Appallingly, the Earth and the Moon had been<br /> -kidnapped from the Solar System—but who were<br /> -the kidnappers and what ransom did they want?</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">I</p> - -<p>Roget Germyn, banker, of Wheeling, West Virginia, a Citizen, woke -gently from a Citizen's dreamless sleep. It was the third-hour-rising -time, the time proper to a day of exceptional opportunity to appreciate.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn dressed himself in the clothes proper for the -appreciation of great works—such as viewing the Empire State ruins -against storm clouds from a small boat, or walking in silent single -file across the remaining course of the Golden Gate Bridge. Or as -today—one hoped—witnessing the Re-creation of the Sun.</p> - -<p>Germyn with difficulty retained a Citizen's necessary calm. One was -tempted to meditate on improper things: Would the Sun be re-created? -What if it were not?</p> - -<p>He put his mind to his dress. First of all, he put on an old and -storied bracelet, a veritable identity bracelet of heavy silver links -and a plate which was inscribed:</p> - -<p class="ph4">PFC JOE HARTMANN<br /> -<i>Korea</i><br /> -1953</p> - -<p>His fellow jewelry-appreciators would have envied him that bracelet—if -they had been capable of such an emotion as envy. No other ID bracelet -as much as two hundred and fifty years old was known to exist in -Wheeling.</p> - -<p>His finest shirt and pair of light pants went next to his skin, -and over them he wore a loose parka whose seams had been carefully -weakened. When the Sun was re-created, every five years or so, it was -the custom to remove the parka gravely and rend it with the prescribed -graceful gestures ... but not so drastically that it could not be -stitched together again. Hence the weakened seams.</p> - -<p>This was, he counted, the forty-first day on which he and all of -Wheeling had do-nned the appropriate Sun Re-creation clothing. It was -the forty-first day on which the Sun—no longer white, no longer -blazing yellow, no longer even bright red—had risen and displayed a -color that was darker maroon and always darker.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It had, thought Citizen Germyn, never grown so dark and so cold in all -of his life. Perhaps it was an occasion for special viewing. For surely -it would never come again, this opportunity to see the old Sun so near -to death....</p> - -<p>One hoped.</p> - -<p>Gravely, Citizen Germyn completed his dressing, thinking only of -the act of dressing itself. It was by no means his specialty, but -he considered, when it was done, that he had done it well, in the -traditional flowing gestures, with no flailing, at all times balanced -lightly on the ball of the foot. It was all the more perfectly -consummated because no one saw it but himself.</p> - -<p>He woke his wife gently, by placing the palm of his hand on her -forehead as she lay neatly, in the prescribed fashion, on the Woman's -Third of the bed.</p> - -<p>The warmth of his hand gradually penetrated the layers of sleep. Her -eyes demurely opened.</p> - -<p>"Citizeness Germyn," he greeted her, making the assurance-of-identity -sign with his left hand.</p> - -<p>"Citizen Germyn," she said, with the assurance-of-identity inclination -of the head which was prescribed when the hands are covered.</p> - -<p>He retired to his tiny study.</p> - -<p>It was the time appropriate to meditation on the properties of -Connectivity. Citizen Germyn was skilled in meditation, even for a -banker; it was a grace in which he had schooled himself since earliest -childhood.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn, his young face composed, his slim body erect as he -sat but in no way tense or straining, successfully blanked out, one -after another, all of the external sounds and sights and feelings that -interfered with proper meditation. His mind was very nearly vacant -except of one central problem: Connectivity.</p> - -<p>Over his head and behind, out of sight, the cold air of the room seemed -to thicken and form a—call it a blob; a blob of air.</p> - -<p>There was a name for those blobs of air. They had been seen before. -They were a known fact of existence in Wheeling and in all the world. -They came. They hovered. And they went away—sometimes not alone. If -someone had been in the room with Citizen Germyn to look at it, he -would have seen a distortion, a twisting of what was behind the blob, -like flawed glass, a lens, like an eye. And they were called Eye.</p> - -<p>Germyn meditated.</p> - -<p>The blob of air grew and slowly moved. A vagrant current that spun out -from it caught a fragment of paper and whirled it to the floor. Germyn -stirred. The blob retreated.</p> - -<p>Germyn, all unaware, disciplined his thoughts to disregard the -interruption, to return to the central problem of Connectivity. The -blob hovered....</p> - -<p>From the other room, his wife's small, thrice-repeated throat-clearing -signaled to him that she was dressed. Germyn got up to go to her, his -mind returning to the world; and the overhead Eye spun relentlessly, -and disappeared.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Some miles east of Wheeling, Glenn Tropile—of a class which found it -wisest to give itself no special name, and which had devoted much time -and thought to shaking the unwelcome name it had been given—awoke on -the couch of his apartment.</p> - -<p>He sat up, shivering. It was cold. The damned Sun was still bloody dark -outside the window and the apartment was soggy and chilled.</p> - -<p>He had kicked off the blankets in his sleep. <i>Why couldn't</i> he learn -to sleep quietly, like anybody else? Lacking a robe, he clutched the -blankets around him, got up and walked to the unglassed window.</p> - -<p>It was not unusual for Glenn Tropile to wake up on his couch. This -happened because Gala Tropile had a temper, was inclined to exile -him from her bed after a quarrel, and—the operative factor—he knew -he always had the advantage over her for the whole day following the -night's exile. Therefore the quarrel was worth it. An advantage was, by -definition, worth anything you paid for it or else it was no advantage.</p> - -<p>He could hear her moving about in one of the other rooms and cocked an -ear, satisfied. She hadn't waked him. Therefore she was about to make -amends. A little itch in his spine or his brain—it was not a physical -itch, so he couldn't locate it; he could only be sure that it was -there—stopped troubling him momentarily; he was winning a contest. It -was Glenn Tropile's nature to win contests ... and his nature to create -them.</p> - -<p>Gala Tropile, young, dark, attractive, with a haunted look, came in -tentatively carrying coffee from some secret hoard of hers.</p> - -<p>Glenn Tropile affected not to notice. He stared coldly out at the cold -landscape. The sea, white with thin ice, was nearly out of sight, so -far had it retreated as the little sun waned.</p> - -<p>"Glenn—"</p> - -<p>Ah, good! <i>Glenn.</i> Where was the proper mode of -first-greeting-one's-husband? Where was the prescribed throat-clearing -upon entering a room?</p> - -<p>Assiduously, he had untaught her the meticulous ritual of manners that -they had all of them been brought up to know; and it was the greatest -of his many victories over her that sometimes, now, <i>she</i> was the -aggressor, <i>she</i> would be the first to depart from the formal behavior -prescribed for Citizens.</p> - -<p>Depravity! Perversion!</p> - -<p>Sometimes they would touch each other at times which were not the -appropriate coming-together times, Gala sitting on her husband's lap in -the late evening, perhaps, or Tropile kissing her awake in the morning. -Sometimes he would force her to let him watch her dress—no, not now, -for the cold of the waning sun made that sort of frolic unattractive, -but she had permitted it before; and such was his mastery over her that -he knew she would permit it again, when the Sun was re-created....</p> - -<p>If, a thought came to him, <i>if</i> the Sun was re-created.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He turned away from the cold outside and looked at his wife. "Good -morning, darling." She was contrite.</p> - -<p>He demanded jarringly: "Is it?" Deliberately he stretched, deliberately -he yawned, deliberately he scratched his chest. Every movement was -ugly. Gala Tropile quivered, but said nothing.</p> - -<p>Tropile flung himself on the better of the two chairs, one hairy leg -protruding from under the wrapped blankets. His wife was on her best -behavior—in his unique terms; she didn't avert her eyes.</p> - -<p>"What've you got there?" he asked. "Coffee?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, dear. I thought—"</p> - -<p>"Where'd you get it?"</p> - -<p>The haunted eyes looked away. Still better, thought Glenn Tropile, -more satisfied even than usual; she's been ransacking an old warehouse -again. It was a trick he had taught her, and like all of the illicit -tricks she had learned from him, a handy weapon when he chose to use it.</p> - -<p>It was not prescribed that a Citizen should rummage through Old Places. -A Citizen did his work, whatever that work might be—banker, baker or -furniture repairman. He received what rewards were his due for the work -he did. A Citizen <i>never</i> took anything that was not his due—not even -if it lay abandoned and rotting.</p> - -<p>It was one of the differences between Glenn Tropile and the people he -moved among.</p> - -<p>I've got it made, he exulted; it was what I needed to clinch my victory -over her.</p> - -<p>He spoke: "I need you more than I need coffee, Gala."</p> - -<p>She looked up, troubled.</p> - -<p>"What would I do," he demanded, "if a beam fell on you one day while -you were scrambling through the fancy groceries? How can you take such -chances? Don't you <i>know</i> what you mean to me?"</p> - -<p>She sniffed a couple of times. She said brokenly: "Darling, about last -night—I'm sorry—" and miserably held out the cup. He took it and set -it down. He took her hand, looked up at her, and kissed it lingeringly. -He felt her tremble. Then she gave him a wild, adoring look and flung -herself into his arms.</p> - -<p>A new dominance cycle was begun at the moment he returned her frantic -kisses.</p> - -<p>Glenn knew, and Gala knew, that he had over her an edge, an -advantage—the weather gauge, initiative of fire, percentage, the -can't-lose lack of tension. Call it anything, but it was life itself to -such as Glenn Tropile. He knew, and she knew, that having the advantage -he would press it and she would yield—on and on, in a rising spiral.</p> - -<p>He did it because it was his life, the attaining of an advantage over -anyone he might encounter; because he was (unwelcomely but justly) -called a Son of the Wolf.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A world away, a Pyramid squatted sullenly on the planed-off top of the -highest peak of the Himalayas.</p> - -<p>It had not been built there. It had not been carried there by Man or -Man's machines. It had—come, in its own time; for its own reasons.</p> - -<p>Did it wake on that day, the thing atop Mount Everest, or did it -ever sleep? Nobody knew. It stood, or sat, there, approximately a -tetrahedron. Its appearance was known: constructed on a base line of -some thirty-five yards, slaggy, midnight-blue in color. Almost nothing -else about it was known—at least, to mankind.</p> - -<p>It was the only one of its kind on Earth, though men thought (without -much sure knowledge) that there were more, perhaps many thousands more, -like it on the unfamiliar planet that was Earth's binary, swinging -around the miniature Sun that hung at their common center of gravity -like an unbalanced dumbbell. But men knew very little about that planet -itself, only that it had come out of space and was now there.</p> - -<p>Time was when men had tried to label that binary, more than two -centuries before, when it had first appeared. "Runaway Planet." "The -Invader." "Rejoice in Messias, the Day Is at Hand." The labels were -sense-free; they were Xs in an equation, signifying only that there was -<i>something</i> there which was unknown.</p> - -<p>"The Runaway Planet" stopped running when it closed on Earth.</p> - -<p>"The Invader" didn't invade; it merely sent down one slaggy, -midnight-blue tetrahedron to Everest.</p> - -<p>And "Rejoice in Messias" stole Earth from its sun—with Earth's old -moon, which it converted into a miniature sun of its own.</p> - -<p>That was the time when men were plentiful and strong—or thought they -were—with many huge cities and countless powerful machines. It didn't -matter. The new binary planet showed no interest in the cities or the -machines.</p> - -<p>There was a plague of things like Eyes—dust-devils without dust, -motionless air that suddenly tensed and quivered into lenticular -shapes. They came with the planet and the Pyramid, so that there -probably was some connection. But there was nothing to do about the -Eyes. Striking at them was like striking at air—was the same thing, in -fact.</p> - -<p>While the men and machines tried uselessly to do something about it, -the new binary system—the stranger planet and Earth—began to move, -accelerating very slowly.</p> - -<p>But accelerating.</p> - -<p>In a week, astronomers knew something was happening. In a month, the -Moon sprang into flame and became a new sun—beginning to be needed, -for already the parent Sol was visibly more distant, and in a few years -it was only one other star among many.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When the little sun was burned to a clinker, they—whoever "they" -were, for men saw only the one Pyramid—would hang a new one in the -sky. It happened every five clock-years, more or less. It was the same -old moon-turned-sun, but it burned out, and the fires needed to be -rekindled.</p> - -<p>The first of these suns had looked down on an Earthly population of ten -billion. As the sequence of suns waxed and waned, there were changes, -climatic fluctuation, all but immeasurable differences in the quantity -and kind of radiation from the new source.</p> - -<p>The changes were such that the forty-fifth such sun looked down on a -shrinking human race that could not muster up a hundred million.</p> - -<p>A frustrated man drives inward; it is the same with a race. The -hundred million that clung to existence were not the same as the bold, -vital ten billion.</p> - -<p>The thing on Everest had, in its time, received many labels, too: The -Devil, The Friend, The Beast, A Pseudo-living Entity of Quite Unknown -Electrochemical Properties.</p> - -<p>All these labels were also Xs.</p> - -<p>If it did wake that morning, it did not open its eyes, for it had no -eyes—apart from the quivers of air that might or might not belong -to it. Eyes might have been gouged; therefore it had none. So an -illogical person might have argued—and yet it was tempting to apply -the "purpose, not function" fallacy to it. Limbs could be crushed; it -had no limbs. Ears could be deafened; it had none. Through a mouth, it -might be poisoned; it had no mouth. Intentions and actions could be -frustrated; apparently it had neither.</p> - -<p>It was there. That was all.</p> - -<p>It and others like it had stolen the Earth and the Earth did not know -why. It was there. And the one thing on Earth you could not do was hurt -it, influence it, or coerce it in any way whatever.</p> - -<p>It was there—and it, or the masters it represented, owned the Earth by -right of theft. Utterly. Beyond human hope of challenge or redress.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">II</p> - -<p>Citizen and Citizeness Roget Germyn walked down Pine Street in the -chill and dusk of—one hoped—a Sun Re-creation Morning.</p> - -<p>It was the convention to pretend that this was a morning like any other -morning. It was not proper either to cast frequent hopeful glances at -the sky, nor yet to seem disturbed or afraid because this was, after -all, the forty-first such morning since those whose specialty was Sky -Viewing had come to believe the Re-creation of the Sun was near.</p> - -<p>The Citizen and his Citizeness exchanged the assurance-of-identity -sign with a few old friends and stopped to converse. This also was a -convention of skill divorced from purpose. The conversation was without -relevance to anything that any one of the participants might know, or -think, or wish to ask.</p> - -<p>Germyn said for his friends a twenty-word poem he had made in honor -of the occasion and heard their responses. They did line-capping for -a while—until somebody indicated unhappiness and a wish to change by -frowning the Two Grooves between his brows. The game was deftly ended -with an improvised rhymed exchange.</p> - -<p>Casually, Citizen Germyn glanced aloft. The sky-change had not begun -yet; the dying old Sun hung just over the horizon, east and south, much -more south than east. It was an ugly thought, but suppose, thought -Germyn, just <i>suppose</i> that the Sun were not re-created today? Or -tomorrow. Or—</p> - -<p>Or ever.</p> - -<p>The Citizen got a grip on himself and told his wife: "We shall dine at -the oatmeal stall."</p> - -<p>The Citizeness did not immediately reply. When Germyn glanced at her -with well-masked surprise, he found her almost staring down the dim -street at a Citizen who moved almost in a stride, almost swinging his -arms. Scarcely graceful.</p> - -<p>"That might be more Wolf than man," she said doubtfully.</p> - -<p>Germyn knew the fellow. Tropile was his name. One of those curious few -who made their homes outside of Wheeling, though they were not farmers. -Germyn had had banking dealings with him—or would have had, if it had -been up to Tropile.</p> - -<p>"That is a careless man," he decided, "and an ill-bred one."</p> - -<p>They moved toward the oatmeal stall with the gait of Citizens, arms -limp, feet scarcely lifted, slumped forward a little. It was the -ancient gait of fifteen hundred calories per day, not one of which -could be squandered.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a need for more calories. So many for walking, so many for -gathering food. So many for the economical pleasures of the Citizens, -so many more—oh, many more, these days!—to keep out the cold. Yet -there were no more calories; the diet the whole world lived on was a -bare subsistence diet.</p> - -<p>It was impossible to farm well when half the world's land was part -of the time drowned in the rising sea, part of the time smothered in -falling snow.</p> - -<p>Citizens knew this and, knowing, did not struggle—it was ungraceful -to struggle, particularly when one could not win. Only—well, Wolves -struggled, wasting calories, lacking grace.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn turned his mind to more pleasant things.</p> - -<p>He allowed himself his First Foretaste of the oatmeal. It would be -warm in the bowl, hot in the throat, a comfort in the belly. There was -a great deal of pleasure there, in weather like this, when the cold -plucked through the loosened seams and the wind came up the sides of -the hills. Not that there wasn't pleasure in the cold itself, for that -matter. It was proper that one should be cold now, just before the -re-creation of the Sun, when the old Sun was smoky-red and the new one -not yet kindled.</p> - -<p>"—still looks like Wolf to me," his wife was muttering.</p> - -<p>"Cadence," Germyn reproved his Citizeness, but took the sting out of it -with a Quirked Smile.</p> - -<p>The man with the ugly manners was standing at the very bar of the -oatmeal stall where they were heading. In the gloom of mid-morning, he -was all angles and strained lines. His head was turned awkwardly on -his shoulder, peering toward the back of the stall where the vendor -was rhythmically measuring grain into a pot. His hands were resting -helter-skelter on the counter, not hanging by his sides.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn felt a faint shudder from his wife. But he did not -reprove her again, for who could blame her? The exhibition was -revolting.</p> - -<p>She said faintly: "Citizen, might we dine on bread this morning?"</p> - -<p>He hesitated and glanced again at the ugly man. He said indulgently, -knowing that he was indulgent: "On Sun Re-creation Morning, the -Citizeness may dine on bread." Bearing in mind the occasion, it was -only a small favor and therefore a very proper one.</p> - -<p>The bread was good, very good. They shared out the half-kilo between -them and ate it in silence, as it deserved. Germyn finished his first -portion and, in the prescribed pause before beginning his second, -elected to refresh his eyes upward.</p> - -<p>He nodded to his wife and stepped outside.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Overhead, the Old Sun parceled out its last barrel-scrapings of heat. -It was larger than the stars around it, but many of them were nearly as -bright.</p> - -<p>A high-pitched male voice said: "Citizen Germyn, good morning."</p> - -<p>Germyn was caught off balance. He took his eyes off the sky, half -turned, glanced at the face of the person who had spoken to him, raised -his hand in the assurance-of-identity sign. It was all very quick and -fluid—almost too quick, for he had had his fingers bent nearly into -the sign for female friends and this was a man. Citizen Boyne. Germyn -knew him well; they had shared the Ice Viewing at Niagara a year before.</p> - -<p>Germyn recovered quickly enough, but it had been disconcerting.</p> - -<p>He improvised swiftly: "There are stars, but are stars still there if -there is no Sun?" It was a hurried effort, he grieved, but no doubt -Boyne would pick it up and carry it along. Boyne had always been very -good, very graceful.</p> - -<p>Boyne did no such thing. "Good morning," he said again, faintly. He -glanced at the stars overhead, as though trying to unravel what Germyn -was talking about. He said accusingly, his voice cracking sharply: -"There isn't any Sun, Germyn. What do you think of that?"</p> - -<p>Germyn swallowed. "Citizen, perhaps you—"</p> - -<p>"No Sun, you hear me!" the man sobbed. "It's cold, Germyn. The Pyramids -aren't going to give us another Sun, do you know that? They're going to -starve us, freeze us; they're through with us. We're done, all of us!" -He was nearly screaming.</p> - -<p>All up and down Pine Street, people were trying not to look at him and -some of them were failing.</p> - -<p>Boyne clutched at Germyn helplessly. Revolted, Germyn drew -back—<i>bodily contact!</i></p> - -<p>It seemed to bring the man to his senses. Reason returned to his eyes. -He said: "I—" He stopped, stared about him. "I think I'll have bread -for breakfast," he said foolishly, and plunged into the stall.</p> - -<p>Boyne left behind him a shaken Citizen, caught halfway into the -wrist-flip of parting, staring after him with jaw slack and eyes wide, -as though Germyn had no manners, either.</p> - -<p>All this on Sun Re-creation Day!</p> - -<p>What could it mean? Germyn wondered fretfully, worriedly.</p> - -<p>Was Boyne on the point of—</p> - -<p>Could Boyne be about to—</p> - -<p>Germyn drew back from the thought. There was one thing that might -explain Boyne's behavior. But it was not a proper speculation for one -Citizen to make about another.</p> - -<p>All the same—Germyn dared the thought—all the same, it <i>did</i> seem -almost as though Citizen Boyne were on the point of—well, running amok.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At the oatmeal stall, Glenn Tropile thumped on the counter. The laggard -oatmeal vendor finally brought the ritual bowl of salt and the pitcher -of thin milk. Tropile took his paper twist of salt from the top of the -neatly arranged pile in the bowl. He glanced at the vendor. His fingers -hesitated. Then, quickly, he ripped the twist of paper into his oatmeal -and covered it to the permitted level with the milk.</p> - -<p>He ate quickly and efficiently, watching the street outside.</p> - -<p>They were wandering and mooning about, as always—maybe today more than -most days, since they hoped it would be the day the Sun blossomed flame -once more.</p> - -<p>Tropile always thought of the wandering, mooning Citizens as <i>they</i>. -There was a <i>we</i> somewhere for Tropile, no doubt, but Tropile had not -as yet located it, not even in the bonds of the marriage contract.</p> - -<p>He was in no hurry. At the age of fourteen, Glenn Tropile had -reluctantly come to realize certain things about himself—that he -disliked being bested, that he had to have a certain advantage in -all his dealings, or an intolerable itch of the mind drove him to -discomfort. The things added up to a terrifying fear, gradually -becoming knowledge, that the only we that could properly include him -was one that it was not very wise to join.</p> - -<p>He had realized, in fact, that he was a Wolf.</p> - -<p>For some years, Tropile had struggled against it, for Wolf was an -obscene word; the children he played with were punished severely for -saying it, and for almost nothing else.</p> - -<p>It was not <i>proper</i> for one Citizen to advantage himself at the expense -of another; Wolves did that.</p> - -<p>It was <i>proper</i> for a Citizen to accept what he had, not to strive for -more, to find beauty in small things, to accommodate himself, with the -minimum of strain and awkwardness, to whatever his life happened to be.</p> - -<p>Wolves were not like that. Wolves never meditated, Wolves never -Appreciated, Wolves <i>never</i> were Translated—that supreme fulfillment, -granted only to those who succeeded in a perfect meditation, that -surrender of the world and the flesh by taking leave of both, which -could never be achieved by a Wolf.</p> - -<p>Accordingly, Glenn Tropile had tried very hard to do all the things -that Wolves could not do.</p> - -<p>He had nearly succeeded. His specialty, Water Watching, had been most -rewarding. He had achieved many partly successful meditations on -Connectivity.</p> - -<p>And yet he was still a Wolf, for he still felt that burning, itching -urge to triumph and to hold an advantage. For that reason, it was -almost impossible for him to make friends among the Citizens; and -gradually he had almost stopped trying.</p> - -<p>Tropile had arrived in Wheeling nearly a year before, making him one of -the early settlers in point of time. And yet there was not a Citizen in -the street who was prepared to exchange recognition gestures with him.</p> - -<p><i>He</i> knew <i>them</i>, nearly every one. He knew their names and their -wives' names. He knew what northern states they had moved down from -with the spreading of the ice, as the sun grew dim. He knew very nearly -to the quarter of a gram what stores of sugar and salt and coffee -each one of them had put away—for their guests, of course, not for -themselves; the well-bred Citizen hoarded only for the entertainment of -others.</p> - -<p>Tropile knew these things because there was an advantage in knowing -them. But there was no advantage in having anyone know him.</p> - -<p>A few did—that banker, Germyn; Tropile had approached him only -a few months before about a prospective loan. But it had been a -chancy, nervous encounter. The idea was so luminously simple to -Tropile—organize an expedition to the coal mines that once had -flourished nearby, find the coal, bring it to Wheeling, heat the -houses. And yet it had seemed blasphemous to Germyn. Tropile had -counted himself lucky merely to have been refused the loan, instead of -being cried out upon as Wolf.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The oatmeal vendor was fussing worriedly around his neat stack of paper -twists in the salt bowl.</p> - -<p>Tropile avoided the man's eyes. Tropile was not interested in the -little wry smile of self-deprecation which the vendor would make to -him, given half a chance. Tropile knew well enough what was disturbing -the vendor. Let it disturb him. It was Tropile's custom to take extra -twists of salt. They were in his pockets now; they would stay there. -Let the vendor wonder why he was short.</p> - -<p>Tropile licked the bowl of his spoon and stepped into the street. He -was comfortably aware under a double-thick parka that the wind was -blowing very cold.</p> - -<p>A Citizen passed him, walking alone: odd, thought Tropile. He was -walking rapidly and there was a look of taut despair on his face. Still -more odd. Odd enough to be worth another look, because that sort of -haste, that sort of abstraction, suggested something to Tropile. They -were in no way normal to the gentle sheep of the class <i>They</i>, except -in one particular circumstance.</p> - -<p>Glenn Tropile crossed the street to follow the abstracted Citizen, -whose name, he knew, was Boyne. The man blundered into Citizen Germyn -outside the baker's stall, and Tropile stood back out of easy sight, -watching and listening.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="600" height="478" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Boyne was on the ragged edge of breakdown. What Tropile heard and saw -confirmed his diagnosis. The one particular circumstance was close to -happening—Citizen Boyne was on the verge of running amok.</p> - -<p>Tropile looked at the man with amusement and contempt. Amok! The gentle -sheep <i>could</i> be pushed too far. He had seen Citizens run amok, the -signs were obvious.</p> - -<p>There was pretty sure to be an advantage in it for Glenn Tropile. There -was an advantage in almost anything, if you looked for it.</p> - -<p>He watched and waited. He picked his spot with care, so that he could -see Citizen Boyne inside the baker's stall, making a dismal botch of -slashing his quarter-kilo of bread from the Morning Loaf.</p> - -<p>He waited for Boyne to come racing out....</p> - -<p>Boyne did.</p> - -<p>A yell—loud, piercing. It was Citizen Germyn, shrilling: "Amok, amok!" -A scream. An enraged wordless cry from Boyne, and the baker's knife -glinting in the faint light as Boyne swung it. And then Citizens were -scattering in every direction—all of the Citizens but one.</p> - -<p>One Citizen was under the knife—his own knife, as it happened; it was -the baker himself. Boyne chopped and chopped again. And then Boyne came -out, roaring, the broad knife whistling about his head. The gentle -Citizens fled panicked before him. He struck at their retreating forms -and screamed and struck again. Amok.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="346" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>It was the one particular circumstance when they forgot to be -gracious—one of the two, Tropile corrected himself as he strolled -across to the baker's stall. His brow furrowed, because there was -another circumstance when they lacked grace, and one which affected him -nearly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He watched the maddened creature, Boyne, already far down the road, -chasing a knot of Citizens around a corner. Tropile sighed and stepped -into the baker's stall to see what he might gain from this.</p> - -<p>Boyne would wear himself out—the surging rage would leave him as -quickly as it came; he would be a sheep again and the other sheep would -close in and capture him. That was what happened when a Citizen ran -amok. It was a measure of what pressures were on the Citizens that, -at any moment, there might be one gram of pressure too much and one -of them would crack. It had happened here in Wheeling twice within -the past two months. Glenn Tropile had seen it happen in Pittsburgh, -Altoona and Bronxville.</p> - -<p>There is a limit to the pressure that can be endured.</p> - -<p>Tropile walked into the baker's stall and looked down without emotion -at the slaughtered baker. The corpse was a gory mess, but Tropile had -seen corpses before.</p> - -<p>He looked around the stall, calculating. As a starter, he bent to pick -up the quarter-kilo of bread Boyne had dropped, dusted it off and -slipped it into his pocket. Food was always useful. Given enough food, -perhaps Boyne would not have run amok.</p> - -<p>Was it simple hunger they cracked under? Or the knowledge of the thing -on Mount Everest, or the hovering Eyes, or the sought-after-dreaded -prospect of Translation, or merely the strain of keeping up their -laboriously figured lives?</p> - -<p>Did it matter? <i>They</i> cracked and ran amok, and Tropile never would, -and that was what mattered.</p> - -<p>He leaned across the counter, reaching for what was left of the Morning -Loaf—</p> - -<p>And found himself staring into the terrified large eyes of Citizeness -Germyn.</p> - -<p>She screamed: "Wolf! Citizens, help me! Wolf!"</p> - -<p>Tropile faltered. He hadn't even <i>seen</i> the damned woman, but there she -was, rising up from behind the counter, screaming her head off: "Wolf! -Wolf!"</p> - -<p>He said sharply: "Citizeness, I beg you—" But that was no good. The -evidence was on him and her screams would fetch others.</p> - -<p>Tropile panicked. He started toward her to silence her, but that was no -good, either. He whirled. She was screaming, screaming, and there were -people to hear. Tropile darted into the street, but they were popping -out of every doorway now, appearing from each rat's hole in which they -had hid to escape Boyne.</p> - -<p>"Please!" he cried, sobbing. "Wait a minute!"</p> - -<p>But they weren't waiting. They had heard the woman and maybe some of -them had seen him with the bread. They were all around him—no, they -were all over him; they were clutching at him, tearing at his soft, -warm furs.</p> - -<p>They pulled at his pockets and the stolen twists of salt spilled -accusingly out. They yanked at his sleeves and even the stout, -unweakened seams ripped open. He was fairly captured.</p> - -<p>"Wolf!" they were shouting. "Wolf!" It drowned out the distant noise -from where Boyne had finally been run to earth, a block and more away. -It drowned out everything.</p> - -<p>It was the other circumstance when <i>they</i> forgot to be gracious: when -they had trapped a Son of the Wolf.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">III</p> - -<p>Engineering had long ago come to an end.</p> - -<p>Engineering is possible under one condition of the equation: Total -available Calories divided by Population equals Artistic-Technological -Style. When the ratio Calories-to-Population is large—say, five -thousand or more, five thousand daily calories for every living -person—then the Artistic-Technological Style is <i>big</i>. People carve -Mount Rushmore; they build great foundries; they manufacture enormous -automobiles to carry one housewife half a mile for the purchase of one -lipstick.</p> - -<p>Life is coarse and rich where C:P is large. At the other extreme, where -C:P is too small, life does not exist at all. It has starved out.</p> - -<p>Experimentally, add little increments to C:P and it will be some time -before the right-hand side of the equation becomes significant. But -at last, in the 1,000 to 1,500 calorie range, Artistic-Technological -Style firmly appears in self-perpetuating form. C:P in that range -produces the small arts, the appreciations, the peaceful arrangements -of necessities into subtle relationships of traditionally agreed-upon -virtue.</p> - -<p>Think of Japan, locked into its Shogunate prison, with a hungry -population scrabbling food out of mountainsides and beauty out of -arrangements of lichens. The small, inexpensive sub-sub-arts are -characteristic of the 1,000 to 1,500 calorie range.</p> - -<p>And this was the range of Earth, the world of ten billion men, when the -planet was stolen by its new binary.</p> - -<p>Some few persons inexpensively studied the study of science with -pencil and renewable paper, but the last research accelerator had long -since been shut down. The juice from its hydro-power dam was needed to -supply meager light to a million homes and to cook the pablum for two -million brand-new babies.</p> - -<p>In those days, one dedicated Byzantine wrote the definitive -encyclopedia of engineering (though he was no engineer). Its four -hundred and twenty tiny volumes examined exhaustively the engineering -feats of ancient Greece and Egypt, the Wall of Shih-Hwang Ti, -the Gothic builders, Brunel who changed the face of England, the -Roeblings of Brooklyn, Groves of the Pentagon, Duggan of the Shelter -System (before C:P dropped to the point where war became vanishingly -implausible), Levern of Operation Up. But the encyclopedist could not -use a slide rule without thinking, faltering, jotting down his decimals.</p> - -<p>And then ... the magnitudes grew less.</p> - -<p>Under the tectonic and climatic battering of the great abduction of -Earth from its primary, under the sine-wave advances to and retreats -from the equator of the ice sheath, as the small successor Suns waxed, -waned, died and were replaced, the ratio C:P remained stable. C had -diminished enormously; so had P. As the calories to support life grew -scarce, so the consuming mouths of mankind grew less in number.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The forty-fifth small Sun shone on no engineers.</p> - -<p>Not even on the binary, perhaps. The Pyramids, the things on the -binary, the thing on Mount Everest—they were not engineers. They -employed a crude metaphysic based on dissection and shoving.</p> - -<p>They had no elegant field theories. All they knew was that everything -came apart, and that if you pushed a thing, it would move.</p> - -<p>If your biggest push would not move a thing, you took it apart and -pushed the parts, and then it would move. Sometimes, for nuclear -effects, they had to take things apart into 3 × 10<sup>9</sup> pieces and shove -each piece very carefully.</p> - -<p>By taking apart and shoving, then, they landed their one spaceship -on the burned-out sunlet. Four human beings were on that ship. They -meditated briefly on Connectivity and died screaming.</p> - -<p>A point of new flame appeared on the sunlet's surface and the spaceship -scrambled for the binary. The point of flame went from cherry through -orange into the blue-white and began to spread.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At the moment of the Re-creation of the Sun, there was rejoicing on the -Earth.</p> - -<p>Not quite everywhere, though. In Wheeling's House of the Five -Regulations, Glenn Tropile waited unquietly for death. Citizen Boyne, -who had run amok and slaughtered the baker, shared Tropile's room and -his doom, but not his rage. Boyne, with demure pleasure, was composing -his death poem.</p> - -<p>"Talk to me!" snapped Tropile. "Why are we here? What did you do and -why did you do it? What have I done? Why don't I pick up a bench and -kill you with it? You would've killed me two hours ago if I'd caught -your eye!"</p> - -<p>There was no satisfaction in Citizen Boyne; the passions were burned -out of him. He politely tendered Tropile a famous aphorism: "Citizen, -the art of living is the substitution of unimportant, answerable -questions for important, unanswerable ones. Come, let us appreciate the -new-born Sun."</p> - -<p>He turned to the window, where the spark of blue-white flame in what -had once been the crater of Tycho was beginning to spread across the -charred moon.</p> - -<p>Tropile was child enough of his culture to turn with him, almost -involuntarily. He was silent. That blue-white infinitesimal up there -growing slowly—the oneness, the calm rapture of Being in a universe -that you shaded into without harsh discontinua, the being one with the -great blue-white gem-flower blossoming now in the heavens that were no -different stuff than you yourself—</p> - -<p>He closed his eyes, calm, and meditated on Connectivity.</p> - -<p>He was being Good.</p> - -<p>By the time the fusion reaction had covered the whole small disk of the -sunlet, a quarter-hour at the most, his meditation began to wear off.</p> - -<p>Tropile shrugged out of his torn parka, not bothering to rip it -further. It was already growing warm in the room. Citizen Boyne, of -course, was carefully opening every seam with graceful rending motions, -miming great and smooth effort of the biceps and trapezius.</p> - -<p>But the meditation was over, and as Tropile watched his cellmate, he -screamed a silent <i>Why?</i> Since his adolescence, that wailing syllable -had seldom been far from his mind. It could be silenced by appreciation -and meditation.</p> - -<p>Tropile's specialty was Water Watching and he was so good at it that -several beginners had asked him for instruction in the subtle art, in -spite of his notorious oddities of life and manner. He <i>enjoyed</i> Water -Watching. He almost pitied anybody so single-mindedly devoted to, say, -Clouds and Odors—great game though it was—that he had never even -tried Water Watching. And after a session of Watching, when one was -lucky enough to observe the Nine Boiling Stages in classic perfection, -one might slip into meditation and be harmonious, feel Good.</p> - -<p>But what did one do when the meditations failed, as they had failed -him? What did one do when they came farther and farther apart, became -less and less intense, could be inspired, finally, only by a huge event -like the renewal of the Sun?</p> - -<p>One went amok, he had always thought.</p> - -<p>But he had not. Boyne had. He had been declared a Son of the Wolf, on -no evidence that he could understand. Yet he had not run amok.</p> - -<p>Still, the penalties were the same, he thought, uncomfortably aware -of an unfamiliar itch—not the inward intolerable itch of needing the -advantage, but a localized sensation at the base of his spine. The -penalties for all gross crimes—Wolfhood or running amok—were the -same, and simply this:</p> - -<p>They would perform the Lumbar Puncture. He would make the Donation of -Spinal Fluid.</p> - -<p>He would be dead.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Keeper of the House of Five Regulations, an old man, Citizen -Harmane, looked in on his charges—approvingly at Boyne, with a -beclouded expression at Glenn Tropile.</p> - -<p>It was thought that even Wolves were entitled to the common human -decencies in the brief interval between exposure and the Donation -of Fluid. The Keeper would not have dreamed of scowling at the -detected Wolf or of interfering with whatever wretched imitation of -meditation-before-dying the creature might practice. But he could not, -all the same, bring himself to offer even an assurance-of-identity -gesture.</p> - -<p>Tropile had no such qualms.</p> - -<p>He scowled at Keeper Harmane with such ferocity that the old man almost -hurried away. He turned an almost equally ugly scowl upon Citizen -Boyne. How dared that knife-murderer be so calm, so relaxed!</p> - -<p>Tropile said brutally: "They'll kill us! You know that? They'll stick -a needle in our spines and drain us dry. It <i>hurts</i>. Do you understand -me? They're going to drain us, and then they're going to drink our -spinal fluid, and it's going to <i>hurt</i>."</p> - -<p>He was gently corrected. "We shall make the Donation," Citizen Boyne -said calmly. "Is not the difference intelligible to a Son of the Wolf?"</p> - -<p>True culture demanded that that remark be accepted as a friendly joke, -probably based on a truth—how else could an unpalatable truth be put -in words? Otherwise the unthinkable might happen. They might quarrel. -They might even come to blows!</p> - -<p>The appropriate mild smile formed on Tropile's lips, but harshly he -wiped it off. They were going to <i>kill</i> him. He would <i>not</i> smile for -them! And the effort was enormous.</p> - -<p>"I'm <i>not</i> a Son of the Wolf!" he howled, desperate, knowing he was -protesting to the man of all men in Wheeling who didn't care, and -who could do least about it if he did. "What's this crazy talk about -Wolves? I don't know what a Son of the Wolf is and I don't think you -or anybody does. All I know is that I was acting <i>sensibly</i>. And -everybody began howling! You're supposed to know a Son of the Wolf by -his unculture, his ignorance, his violence. But you chopped down three -people and I only picked up a piece of bread! And <i>I'm</i> supposed to be -the dangerous one!"</p> - -<p>"Wolves never know they're Wolves," sighed Citizen Boyne. "Fish -probably think they're birds and you evidently think you're a Citizen. -Would a Citizen speak as you are speaking?"</p> - -<p>"But they're going to kill us!"</p> - -<p>"Then why aren't you composing your death poem?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Glenn Tropile took a deep breath. Something was biting him. It was bad -enough that he was about to die, bad enough that he had done nothing -worth dying for. But what was gnawing at him now had nothing to do with -dying.</p> - -<p>The percentages were going the wrong way. This pale Citizen was getting -an edge on him.</p> - -<p>An engorged gland in Tropile's adrenals—it was only a pinhead -in Citizen Boyne's—gushed raw hormones into his bloodstream. He -could die, yes—that was a skill everyone had to acquire, sooner or -later. But while he was alive, he could not stand to be bested in an -encounter, an argument, a relationship—not and stay alive. Wolf? Call -him Wolf. Call him Operator, or Percentage Player; call him Sharp -Article; call him Gamesman.</p> - -<p>If there was an advantage to be derived, he would derive it. It was the -way he was put together.</p> - -<p>He said, for time: "You're right. Stupid of me. I must have lost my -head!"</p> - -<p>He thought. Some men think by poking problems apart; some think by -laying facts side by side to compare. Tropile's thinking was neither -of these, but a species of judo. He conceded to his opponent such -things as Strength, Armor, Resource. He didn't need these things for -himself; to every contest, the opponent brought enough of them to -supply two. It was Tropile's habit (and Wolfish, he had to admit) to -use the opponent's strength against him, to break the opponent against -his own steel walls.</p> - -<p>He thought.</p> - -<p>The first thing was to make up his mind: He was Wolf. Then let him <i>be</i> -Wolf. He wouldn't stay around for the spinal tap; he would go from -there. But how?</p> - -<p>The second thing was to plan. There were obstacles. Citizen Boyne was -one. The Keeper of the House of the Five Regulations was another.</p> - -<p>Where was the pole which would permit him to vault over these hurdles? -There was always his wife, Gala. He owned her; she would do what he -wished—provided he made her <i>want</i> to do it.</p> - -<p>Yes, Gala. He walked to the door and shouted to Citizen Harmane: -"Keeper! I must see my wife! Have her brought to me!"</p> - -<p>It was impossible for the Keeper to refuse. He called gently, "I will -invite the Citizeness," and toddled away.</p> - -<p>The third thing was time.</p> - -<p>Tropile turned to Citizen Boyne. "Citizen," he said persuasively, -"since your death poem is ready and mine is not, will you be gracious -enough to go first when they—when they come?"</p> - -<p>Citizen Boyne looked temperately at his cellmate and made the Quirked -Smile.</p> - -<p>"You see?" he said. "Wolf."</p> - -<p>And that was true. But what was also true was that Boyne couldn't and -didn't refuse.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">IV</p> - -<p>Half a world away, the midnight-blue Pyramid sat on its planed-off peak -as it had sat since the days when Earth had a real sun of its own.</p> - -<p>It was of no importance to the Pyramid that Glenn Tropile was about to -receive a slim catheter into his spine, to drain his saps and his life. -It didn't matter to the Pyramid that the pretext for the execution -was an act which human history had long stopped considering a capital -crime. Ritual sacrifice in any guise made no difference to the Pyramid.</p> - -<p>The Pyramid saw them come and the Pyramid saw them go—if the Pyramid -could be said to "see." One human being more or less, what matter? Who -bothers to take a census of the cells in a hangnail?</p> - -<p>And yet the Pyramid did have a kind of interest in Glenn Tropile. Or, -at least, in the human race of which he was a part.</p> - -<p>Nobody knew much about the Pyramids, but everybody knew <i>that</i> much. -They wanted something—else why would they have bothered to steal the -Earth?</p> - -<p>The date of the theft was 2027. A great year—the year of the first -landings on the Runaway Planet that had come blundering into the Solar -System. Maybe those landings were a mistake—although they were a very -great triumph, too; but maybe if it hadn't been for the landings, the -Runaway Planet might have run right through the ecliptic and away.</p> - -<p>However, the triumphal mistake was made and that was the first time a -human eye saw a Pyramid.</p> - -<p>Shortly after—though not before a radio message was sent—that human -eye winked out forever; but by then the damage was done. What passed -in a Pyramid for "attention" had been attracted. The next thing that -happened set the wireless channels between Palomar and Pernambuco, -between Greenwich and the Cape of Good Hope, buzzing and worrying, as -astronomers all over the Earth reported and confirmed and reconfirmed -the astonishing fact that our planet was on the move. Rejoice in -Messias had come to take us away.</p> - -<p>A world of ten billion people, some of them brilliant, many of them -brave, built and flung the giant rockets of Operation Up at the -invader: Nothing.</p> - -<p>The first, and only, Interplanetary Expeditionary Force was boosted up -to no-gravity and dropped onto the new planet to strike back: Nothing.</p> - -<p>Earth moved spirally outward.</p> - -<p>If a battle could not be won, then perhaps a migration. New ships were -built in haste. But they lay there rusting as the sun grew small and -the ice grew thick, because where was there to go? Not Mars. Not the -Moon, which was trailing alone. Not choking Venus or crushing Jupiter.</p> - -<p>The migration was defeated as surely as the war, there being no place -to migrate to.</p> - -<p>One Pyramid came to Earth, only one. It shaved the crest off the -highest mountain there was and squatted on it. An observer? A warden? -Whatever it was, it stayed.</p> - -<p>The sun grew too distant to be of use, and out of the old Moon, the -Pyramid aliens built a new small sun in the sky—a five-year sun that -burned out and was replaced, again and again and endlessly again.</p> - -<p>It had been a fierce struggle against unbeatable odds on the part of -the ten billion; and when the uselessness of struggle was demonstrated -at last, many of the ten billion froze to death, and many of them -starved, and nearly all of the rest had something frozen or starved -out of them; and what was left, two centuries and more later, was more -or less like Citizen Boyne, except for a few—a very few—like Glenn -Tropile.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Gala Tropile stared miserably at her husband. "I want to get out of -here," he was saying urgently. "They mean to kill me. Gala, you know -you can't make yourself suffer by letting them kill me!"</p> - -<p>She wailed: "I <i>can't</i>!"</p> - -<p>Tropile looked over his shoulder. Citizen Boyne was fingering -the textured contrasts of a golden watch-case which had been his -father's—and soon would be his son's. Boyne's eyes were closed and he -wasn't listening.</p> - -<p>Tropile leaned forward and deliberately put his hand on his wife's arm. -She started and flushed, of course.</p> - -<p>"You <i>can</i>," he said, "and what's more, you will. You can help me get -out of here. I insist on it, Gala, because I must save you that pain."</p> - -<p>He took his hand off her arm, content.</p> - -<p>He said harshly: "Darling, don't you think I know how much we've -always meant to each other?"</p> - -<p>She looked at him wretchedly. Fretfully she tore at the billowing filmy -sleeve of her summer blouse. The seams hadn't been loosened; there -had not been time. She had just been getting into the appropriate Sun -Re-creation Day costume, to be worn under the parka, when the messenger -had come with the news about her husband.</p> - -<p>She avoided his eyes. "If you're really Wolf...."</p> - -<p>Tropile's sub-adrenals pulsed and filled him with confident strength. -"<i>You</i> know what I am—you better than anyone else." It was a sly -reminder of their curious furtive behavior together; like the hand on -her arm, it had its effect. "After all, why do we quarrel the way we -did last night?"</p> - -<p>He hurried on; the job of the rowel was to spur her to action, not to -inflame a wound. "Because we're <i>important</i> to each other. I know that -you would count on me to help if you were in trouble. And I know that -you'd be hurt—<i>deeply</i>, Gala!—if I didn't count on you."</p> - -<p>She sniffled and scuffed the bright strap over her open-toed sandal.</p> - -<p>Then she met his eyes.</p> - -<p>It was the after-effect of the argument, of course. Glenn Tropile knew -just how heavily he could rely on the after-spiral of a quarrel. She -was submitting.</p> - -<p>She glanced furtively at Citizen Boyne and lowered her voice.</p> - -<p>"What do I have to do?" she whispered.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In five minutes, she was gone, but that was more than enough time. -Tropile had at least thirty minutes left. They would take Boyne first; -he had seen to that. And once Boyne was gone—</p> - -<p>Tropile wrenched a leg off his three-legged stool and sat precariously -balanced on the other two. He tossed the loose leg clattering into a -corner.</p> - -<p>The Keeper of the House of Five Regulations ambled slack-bodied by and -glanced into the room. "Wolf, what happened to your stool?"</p> - -<p>Tropile made a left-handed sign of no-importance. "It doesn't matter. -Except it <i>is</i> hard to meditate, sitting on this thing, with every -muscle tensing and fighting against every other to keep my balance...."</p> - -<p>The Keeper made an overruling sign of please-let-me-help. "It's your -last half-hour, Wolf," he reminded Tropile. "I'll fix the stool for -you."</p> - -<p>He entered and slammed and banged it together, and left with an -expression of mild concern. Even a Son of the Wolf was entitled to the -fullest appreciation of that unique opportunity for meditation, the -last half-hour before a Donation.</p> - -<p>In five minutes, the Keeper was back, looking solemn and yet glad, like -a bearer of serious but welcome tidings.</p> - -<p>"It is the time for the first Donation," he announced. "Which of you—"</p> - -<p>"Him," said Tropile quickly, pointing.</p> - -<p>Boyne opened his eyes calmly and nodded. He got to his feet, made a -formal leavetaking bow to Tropile, and followed the Keeper toward his -Donation and his death. As they were going out, Tropile coughed a -would-you-please-grant-me-a-favor cough.</p> - -<p>The Keeper paused. "What is it, Wolf?"</p> - -<p>Tropile showed him the empty water pitcher—empty, all right; he had -emptied it out the window.</p> - -<p>"My apologies," the Keeper said, flustered, and hurried Boyne along. He -came back almost at once to fill the pitcher, even though he should be -there to watch Boyne's ceremonial Donation.</p> - -<p>Tropile stood looking at the Keeper, his sub-adrenals beginning to -pound like the rolling boil of Well-aged Water. The Keeper was at a -disadvantage. He had been neglectful of his charge—a broken stool, no -water in the pitcher. And a Citizen, brought up in a Citizen's maze of -consideration and tact, could not help but be humiliated, seeking to -make amends.</p> - -<p>Tropile pressed his advantage home. "Wait," he said to the Keeper. "I'd -like to talk to you."</p> - -<p>The Keeper hesitated, torn. "The Donation—"</p> - -<p>"Damn the Donation," Tropile said calmly. "After all, what is it but -sticking a pipe into a man's backbone and sucking out the juice that -keeps him alive? It's killing, that's all."</p> - -<p>The Keeper turned literally white. Tropile was speaking blasphemy and -he wasn't stopping.</p> - -<p>"I want to tell you about my wife," Tropile went on, assuming a -confidential air. "Now there's a real <i>woman</i>. Not one of these -frozen-up Citizenesses, you know? Why, she and I used to—" He -hesitated. "You're a man of the world, aren't you?" he demanded. "I -mean you've seen life."</p> - -<p>"I—suppose so," the Keeper said faintly.</p> - -<p>"Then you won't be shocked," Tropile lied. "Well, let me tell you, -there's a lot to women that these stuffed-shirt Citizens don't know -about. Boy! Ever see a woman's knee?" He sniggered. "Ever kiss a woman -with—" he winked—"with the <i>light on</i>? Ever sit in a big armchair, -say, with a woman in your <i>lap</i>—all soft and heavy, and kind of warm, -and slumped up against your chest, you know, and—"</p> - -<p>He stopped and swallowed. He was almost making himself retch, it was so -hard to say these things. But he forced himself to go on: "Well, that's -what she and I used to do. Plenty. All the time. That's what I call a -real <i>woman</i>."</p> - -<p>He stopped, warned by the Keeper's sudden change of expression, glazed -eyes, strangling breath. He had gone too far. He had only wanted to -paralyze the man, revolt him, put him out of commission, but he was -overdoing it. He jumped forward and caught the Keeper as he fell, -fainting.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tropile callously emptied the water pitcher over the man. The Keeper -sneezed and sat up groggily. He focused his eyes on Tropile and -agonizedly blushed.</p> - -<p>Tropile said harshly: "I wish to see the new sun from the street."</p> - -<p>The request was incredible. Even after the unbelievable obscenities -he had heard, the Keeper was not prepared for this; he was staggered. -Tropile was in detention regarding the Fifth Regulation. That was -all there was to it. Such persons were not to be released from their -quarters. The Keeper knew it, the world knew it, Tropile knew it.</p> - -<p>It was an obscenity even greater than the lurid tales of perverted -lust, for Tropile had asked something which was impossible! No one -<i>ever</i> asked anything that was impossible to grant, for no one could -ever refuse anything. That was utterly graceless, unthinkable.</p> - -<p>One could only attempt to compromise. The Keeper stammeringly said: -"May I—may I let you see the new sun from the corridor?" And even that -was wretchedly wrong, but he had to offer something. One always offered -something. The Keeper had never since babyhood given a flat no to -anybody about anything. No Citizen had. A flat no led to anger, strong -words—perhaps even hurt feelings. The only flat no conceivable was the -enormous terminal no of an amok. Short of that—</p> - -<p>One offered. One split the difference. One was invariably filled with -tepid pleasure when, invariably, the offer was accepted, the difference -was split, both parties were satisfied.</p> - -<p>"That will do for a start," Tropile snarled. "Open, man, open! Don't -make me wait."</p> - -<p>The Keeper reeled and unlatched the door to the corridor.</p> - -<p>"Now the street!"</p> - -<p>"I can't!" burst in an anguished cry from the Keeper. He buried his -face in his hands and began to sob, hopelessly incapacitated.</p> - -<p>"The street!" Tropile said remorselessly. He himself felt wrenchingly -ill; he was going against custom that had ruled his own life as surely -as the Keeper's.</p> - -<p>But he was Wolf. "I <i>will</i> be Wolf," he growled, and advanced upon the -Keeper. "My wife," he said, "I didn't finish telling you. Sometimes she -used to put her arm around me and just snuggle up and—I remember one -time she kissed my ear. Broad daylight. It felt funny and warm—I can't -describe it."</p> - -<p>Whimpering, the Keeper flung the keys at Tropile and tottered brokenly -away.</p> - -<p>He was out of the action. Tropile himself was nearly as badly off; the -difference was that he continued to function. The words coming from him -had seared like acid in his throat.</p> - -<p>"They call me Wolf," he said aloud, reeling against the wall. "I will -be one."</p> - -<p>He unlocked the outer door and his wife was waiting, holding in her -arms the things he had asked her to bring.</p> - -<p>Tropile said strangely to her: "I am steel and fire. I am Wolf, full of -the old moxie."</p> - -<p>She wailed: "Glenn, are you sure I'm doing the right thing?"</p> - -<p>He laughed unsteadily and led her by the arm through the deserted -streets.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">V</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn, as was his right by position and status as a -connoisseur, helped prepare Citizen Boyne for his Donation. There -was nothing much to it—which made it an elaborate and lengthy task, -according to the ethic of the Citizens; it had to be protracted, each -step being surrounded by fullest dress of ritual.</p> - -<p>It was done in the broad daylight of the new Sun, and as many of the -three hundred citizens of Wheeling as could manage it were in the -courtyard of the old Federal Building to watch.</p> - -<p>The nature of the ceremony was this: A man who revealed himself Wolf, -or who finally crumbled under the demands of life and ran amok, could -not be allowed to live. He was hauled before an audience of his equals -and permitted—with the help of regretful force, if that should be -necessary, but preferably not—to make the Donation of Spinal Fluid.</p> - -<p>Execution was murder and murder was not permitted under the gentle code -of Citizens; this was not execution. The draining of a man's spinal -fluid did not kill him. It only insured that, after a time and with -much suffering, his internal chemistry would so arrange itself that it -would continue to function, only not in a way that would sustain life.</p> - -<p>Once the Donation was made, the problem was completely altered, of -course. Suffering was bad in itself. To save the Donor from the -suffering that lay ahead, it was the custom to have the oldest and -gentlest Citizen on hand stand by with a sharp-edged knife. When the -Donation was complete, the Donor's head was removed—purely to avert -suffering. That was not execution, either, but only the hastening of an -inevitable end.</p> - -<p>The dozen or so Citizens whose rank permitted them to assist then -dissolved the spinal fluids in water and ceremoniously sipped them, at -which time it was proper to offer a small poem in commentary. All in -all, it was a perfectly splendid opportunity for the purest form of -meditation for everyone concerned.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn, whose role was Catheter Bearer, took his place behind -the Introducer Bearer, the Annunciators and the Questioner of Purpose. -As he passed Citizen Boyne, Germyn assisted him to assume the proper -crouched-over position. Boyne looked up gratefully and Germyn found -the occasion correct for a commendatory half-smile.</p> - -<p>The Questioner of Purpose said solemnly to Boyne: "It is your privilege -to make a Donation here today. Do you wish to do so?"</p> - -<p>"I do," said Boyne raptly. The anxiety had passed; clearly he was -confident of making a good Donation. Germyn approved with all his heart.</p> - -<p>The Annunciators, in alternate stanzas, announced the right pause for -meditation to the meager crowd, and all fell silent. Citizen Germyn -began the process of blanking out his mind, to ready himself for the -great opportunity to Appreciate that lay ahead. A sound distracted -him; he glanced up irritably. It seemed to come from the House of the -Five Regulations, a man's voice, carrying. But no one else appeared to -notice it. All of the watchers, all of those on the stone steps, were -in somber meditation.</p> - -<p>Germyn tried to return his thoughts to where they belonged.</p> - -<p>But something was troubling him. He had caught a glimpse of the Donor -and there had been something—something—</p> - -<p>He angrily permitted himself to look up once more to see just what it -had been about Citizen Boyne that had attracted his attention.</p> - -<p>Yes, there <i>was</i> something. Over the form of Citizen Boyne, silent, -barely visible, a flicker of life and motion. Nothing tangible. It was -as if the air itself were in motion.</p> - -<p>It was, Germyn thought with a bursting heart—it was an Eye!</p> - -<p>The veritable miracle of Translation and it was about to take place -here and now, upon the person of Citizen Boyne! And no one knew it but -Germyn himself!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In this last surmise, Citizen Germyn was wrong. Or was he? True, no -other human eyes saw the flawed-glass thing that twisted the air over -Boyne's prostrate body, but there was, in a sense, another witness ... -some thousands of miles away.</p> - -<p>The Pyramid on Mount Everest "stirred."</p> - -<p>It did not move, but something about it moved, or changed, or radiated. -The Pyramid surveyed its—cabbage patch? Wristwatch mine? As much -sense, it may be, to say wristwatch patch or cabbage mine. At any rate, -it surveyed what to it was a place where intricate mechanisms grew, -ripened and were dug up at the moment of usefulness, whereupon they -were quick-frozen and wired into circuits.</p> - -<p>Through signals perceptible to it, the Pyramids had become "aware" that -one of its mechanisms was now ready to be plucked—harvested.</p> - -<p>The Pyramid's blood was dielectric fluid. Its limbs were electrostatic -charges. Its philosophy was: Unscrew It and Push. Its motive was -survival.</p> - -<p>Survival today was not what survival once had been, for a Pyramid.</p> - -<p>Once survival had merely been gliding along on a cushion of repellent -charges, streaming electrons behind for the push, sending h-f pulses -out often enough to get a picture of their bounced return to integrate -deep inside.</p> - -<p>If the picture showed something metabolizable, one metabolized it. One -broke it down into molecules by lashing it with the surplus protons -left over from the dispersed electrons; one adsorbed the molecules. -Sometimes the metabolizable object was an Immobile and sometimes a -Mobile—a vague, theoretical, frivolous classification to a philosophy -whose basis was that <i>everything</i> unscrewed. If it was a Mobile, one -sometimes had to move after it.</p> - -<p>That was the difference.</p> - -<p>The essential was survival, not making idle distinctions. And one small -part of survival today was the Everest Pyramid's job.</p> - -<p>It sat and waited. It sent out its h-f pulses bouncing and scattering, -and it bounced and scattered them additionally on their return. -Deep inside, the more-than-anamorphically distorted picture was -reintegrated. Deeper inside, it was interpreted and evaluated for its -part in survival.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a need for certain mechanisms which grew on this planet. At -irregular times, the Pyramid evaluated the picture to the effect that -a mechanism—a wristwatch, so to speak—was ripe for plucking; and -by electrostatic charges, it did so. The electrostatic charges, in -forming, produced what humans called an Eye. But the Pyramid had no use -for names.</p> - -<p>It merely plucked, when a mechanism was ripe. It had found that a -mechanism was ripe now.</p> - -<p>A world away, before the steps of Wheeling's Federal Building, -electrostatic charges gathered above a component whose name was Citizen -Boyne. There was a small sound like the clapping of two hands which -made the three hundred citizens of Wheeling jerk upright out of their -meditations.</p> - -<p>The sound was air filling the gap that had once been occupied by -Citizen Boyne, who had instantly vanished—who had, in a word, been -ripe and therefore been plucked.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">VI</p> - -<p>Glenn Tropile and his sobbing wife passed the night in the stubble of a -cornfield. Neither of them slept much.</p> - -<p>Tropile, numbed by contact with the iron chill of the field—it would -be months before the new Sun warmed the Earth enough for it to begin -radiating in turn—tossed restlessly, dreaming. He was Wolf. Let it be -so, he told himself again and again. I <i>will</i> be Wolf. I will strike -back at the Citizens. I will—</p> - -<p>Always the thought trailed off. He would exactly <i>What</i>? What could he -do?</p> - -<p>Migration was an answer—go to another city. With Gala, he guessed. -Start a new life, where he was not known as Wolf.</p> - -<p>And then what? Try to live a sheep's life, as he had tried all his -years? And there was the question of whether, in fact, he could manage -to find a city where he was not known. The human race was migratory, -in these years of subjection to the never quite understood rule of the -Pyramids.</p> - -<p>It was a matter of insulation. When the new Sun was young, it was hot, -and there was plenty of warmth; it was possible to spread north and -south, away from final line of permafrost which, in North America, -came just above the old Mason-Dixon line. When the Sun was dying, the -cold spread down. The race followed the seasons. Soon all of Wheeling -would be spreading north again, and how was he to be sure that none of -Wheeling's Citizens might not turn up wherever he might go?</p> - -<p>He could be sure—that was the answer to that.</p> - -<p>All right, scratch migration. What remained? He could—with Gala, he -guessed—live a solitary life on the fringes of cultivated land. They -both had some skill at rummaging the old storehouses of the ancients, -and there was still food and other commodities to be found.</p> - -<p>But even a Wolf is gregarious by nature and there were bleak hours in -that night when Tropile found himself close to sobbing with his wife.</p> - -<p>At the first break of dawn, he was up. Gala had fallen into a light and -restless sleep; he called her awake.</p> - -<p>"We have to move," he said harshly. "Maybe they'll get up enough guts -to follow us. I don't want them to find us."</p> - -<p>Silently she got up. They rolled and tied the blankets she had bought; -they ate quickly from the food she had brought; they made packs and put -them on their shoulders and started to walk. One thing in their favor: -they were moving fast, faster than any Citizen was likely to follow. -All the same, Tropile kept looking nervously behind him.</p> - -<p>They hurried north and east, and that was a mistake, because by noon -they found themselves blocked by water. Once it had been a river; the -melting of the polar ice caps that had submerged the coasts of the old -continents had drowned it out and now it was salt water. But whatever -it was, it was impassable. They would have to skirt it westward until -they found a bridge or a boat.</p> - -<p>"We can stop and eat," Tropile said grudgingly, trying not to despair.</p> - -<p>They slumped to the ground. It was warmer now. Tropile found himself -getting drowsier, drowsier—</p> - -<p>He jerked erect and stared around belligerently. Beside him, his wife -was lying motionless, though her eyes were open, gazing at the sky. -Tropile sighed and stretched out. A moment's rest, he promised himself, -and then a quick bite to eat, and then onward....</p> - -<p>He was sound asleep when they spotted him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a flutter of iron bird's wings from overhead. Tropile -jumped up out of his sleep, awakening to panic. It was outside the -possibility of belief, but there it was:</p> - -<p>In the sky over him, etched black against a cloud, a helicopter. And -men staring out of it, staring down at him.</p> - -<p>A helicopter!</p> - -<p>But there were no helicopters, or none that flew—if there had been -fuel to fly them with—if any man had had the skill to make them fly. -It was impossible! And yet there it was, and the men were looking at -him, and the impossible great whirling thing was coming down, nearer.</p> - -<p>He began to run in the downward wash of air from the vanes. But it was -no use. There were three men and they were fresh and he wasn't. He -stopped, dropping into the fighter's crouch that is pre-set into the -human body, ready to do battle.</p> - -<p>The men didn't want to fight. They laughed and one of them said -amiably: "<i>Long</i> past your bedtime, boy. Get in. We'll take you home."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="600" height="444" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Tropile stood poised, hands half-clenched. "Take—"</p> - -<p>"Take you home. Yeah. Where you belong, Tropile. Not back to Wheeling, -if that's what is worrying you."</p> - -<p>"Where I—"</p> - -<p>"Where you belong."</p> - -<p>Then Tropile understood.</p> - -<p>He got into the helicopter wonderingly. Home. So there <i>was</i> a home -for such as he. He wasn't alone. He needn't keep his solitary self -apart. He could be with his own kind.</p> - -<p>He remembered Gala Tropile and paused. One of the men said with quick -understanding: "Your wife? I think we saw her about half a mile from -here. Heading back to Wheeling as fast as she could go."</p> - -<p>Tropile nodded. That was better, after all. Gala was no Wolf, though he -had tried his best to make her one.</p> - -<p>One of the men closed the door; another did something with levers and -wheels; the vanes whooshed around overhead; the helicopter bounced on -its stiff-sprung landing legs and then rocked up and away.</p> - -<p>For the first time in his life, Glenn Tropile looked <i>down</i> on the land.</p> - -<p>They didn't fly high—but Glenn Tropile had never flown at all, and -the two or three hundred feet of air beneath made him faint and queasy. -They danced through the passes in the West Virginia hills, crossed icy -streams and rivers, swung past old empty towns which no longer even had -names of their own. They saw no one.</p> - -<p>It was something over four hundred miles to where they were going, one -of the men told him. They made it easily before dark.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As Tropile walked through the town in the evening light, electricity -flared white and violet in the buildings around him. Imagine! -Electricity was calories, and calories were to be hoarded.</p> - -<p>There were other walkers in the street. Their gait was not the -economical shuffle with pendant arms. They burned energy visibly. They -swung. They <i>strode</i>. It had been chiseled on his brain in earliest -childhood that such walking was wrong, reprehensible, debilitating. It -wasted calories. These people did not look debilitated and they didn't -seem to mind wasting calories.</p> - -<p>It was an ordinary sort of town, apparently named Princeton. It did not -have the transient look to it of, say, Wheeling, or Altoona, or Gary, -in Tropile's experience. It looked like—well, it looked permanent.</p> - -<p>Tropile had heard of a town called Princeton, but it happened that -he had never passed through it southwarding or northbound. There was -no reason why he or anybody should or should not have. Still, there -was a possibility, once he thought of it, that things were somehow so -arranged that they should not; maybe it was all on purpose. Like every -town, it was underpopulated, but not so much so as most. Perhaps one -living space in five was used. A high ratio.</p> - -<p>The man beside him was named Haendl, one of the men from the -helicopter. They hadn't talked much on the flight and they didn't talk -much now. "Eat first," Haendl said, and took Tropile to a bright and -busy sort of food stall. Only it wasn't a stall. It was a restaurant.</p> - -<p>This Haendl—what to make of him? He should have been disgusting, -nasty, an abomination. He had no manners whatever. He didn't know, or -at least didn't use, the Seventeen Conventional Gestures. He wouldn't -let Tropile walk behind him and to his left, though he was easily five -years Tropile's senior. When he ate, he <i>ate</i>. The Sip of Appreciation, -the Pause of First Surfeit, the Thrice Proffered Share meant nothing to -him. He laughed when Tropile tried to give him the Elder's Portion.</p> - -<p>Cheerfully patronizing, this man Haendl said to Tropile: "That stuffs -all right when you don't have anything better to do with your time. -Those poor mutts don't. They'd die of boredom without their inky-pinky -cults and they don't have the resources to do anything bigger. Yes, I -do know the Gestures. Seventeen delicate ways of communicating emotions -too refined for words. The hell with them, Tropile. I've got words. -You'll learn them, too."</p> - -<p>Tropile ate silently, trying to think.</p> - -<p>A man arrived, threw himself in a chair, glanced curiously at Tropile -and said: "Haendl, the Somerville Road. The creek backed up when it -froze. Flooded bad. Ruined everything."</p> - -<p>Tropile ventured: "The flood ruined the road?"</p> - -<p>"The road? No. Say, you must be the fellow Haendl went after. Tropile, -that the name?" He leaned across the table, pumped Tropile's hand. "We -had the road nicely blocked," he explained. "The flood washed it clean. -Now we have to block it again."</p> - -<p>Haendl said: "Take the tractor if you need it."</p> - -<p>The man nodded and left.</p> - -<p>Haendl said: "Eat up. We're wasting time. About that road—we keep all -entrances blocked up, see? Why let a lot of sheep in and out?"</p> - -<p>"Sheep?"</p> - -<p>"The opposite," said Haendl, "of Wolves."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Take ten billion people and say that, out of every million of them, -one—just one—is different. He has a talent for survival; call him -Wolf. Ten thousand of him in a world of ten billion.</p> - -<p>Squeeze them, freeze them, cut them down. Let old Rejoice in Messias -loom in the terrifying sky and so abduct the Earth that the human race -is decimated, fractionated, reduced to what is in comparison a bare -handful of chilled, stunned survivors. There aren't ten billion people -in the world any more. No, not by a factor of a thousand. Maybe there -are as many as ten million, more or less, rattling around in the space -their enormous Elder Generations made for them.</p> - -<p>And of these ten million, how many are Wolf?</p> - -<p>Ten thousand.</p> - -<p>"You understand, Tropile?" said Haendl. "We survive. I don't care what -you call us. The sheep call us Wolves. Me, I kind of call us Supermen. -We have a talent for survival."</p> - -<p>Tropile nodded, beginning to understand. "The way I survived the House -of the Five Regulations."</p> - -<p>Haendl gave him a pitying look. "The way you survived thirty years of -Sheephood before that. Come on."</p> - -<p>It was a tour of inspection. They went into a building, big, looking -like any other big and useful building of the ancients, gray stone -walls, windows with ragged spears of glass. Inside, though, it wasn't -like the others. Two sub-basements down, Tropile winced and turned away -from the flood of violet light that poured out of a quartz bull's-eye -on top of a squat steel cone.</p> - -<p>"Perfectly harmless, Tropile—you don't have to worry," Haendl boomed. -"Know what you're looking at? There's a fusion reactor down there. -Heat. Power. All the power we need. Do you know what that means?"</p> - -<p>He stared soberly down at the flaring violet light of the inspection -port.</p> - -<p>"Come on," he said abruptly to Tropile.</p> - -<p>Another building, also big, also gray stone. A cracked inscription over -the entrance read: ORIAL HALL OF HUMANITIES. The sense-shock this time -was not light; it was sound. Hammering, screeching, rattling, rumbling. -Men were doing noisy things with metal and machines.</p> - -<p>"Repair shop!" Haendl yelled. "See those machines? They belong to our -man Innison. We've salvaged them from every big factory ruin we could -find. Give Innison a piece of metal—any alloy, any shape—and one of -those machines will change it into any other shape and damned near any -other alloy. Drill it, cut it, plane it, weld it, smelt it, zone-melt -it, bond it—you tell him what to do and he'll do it.</p> - -<p>"We got the parts to make six tractors and forty-one cars out of -this shop. And we've got other shops—aircraft in Farmingdale and -Wichita, armaments in Wilmington. Not that we can't make some armaments -here. Innison could build you a tank if he had to, complete with -105-millimeter gun."</p> - -<p>"What's a tank?" Tropile asked.</p> - -<p>Haendl only looked at him and said: "Come on!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Glenn Tropile's head spun dizzily and all the spectacles merged and -danced in his mind. They were incredible. All of them.</p> - -<p>Fusion pile, machine shop, vehicular garage, aircraft hangar. There was -a storeroom under the seats of a football stadium, and Tropile's head -spun on his shoulders again as he tried to count the cases of coffee -and canned soups and whiskey and beans. There was another storeroom, -only this one was called an armory. It was filled with ... guns. Guns -that could be loaded with cartridges, of which they had very many; guns -which, when you loaded them and pulled the trigger, would fire.</p> - -<p>Tropile said, remembering: "I saw a gun once that still had its firing -pin. But it was rusted solid."</p> - -<p>"These work, Tropile," said Haendl. "You can kill a man with them. Some -of us have."</p> - -<p>"<i>Kill</i>—"</p> - -<p>"Get that sheep look out of your eyes, Tropile! What's the difference -how you execute a criminal? And what's a criminal but someone who -represents a danger to your world? We prefer a gun instead of the -Donation of the Spinal Tap, because it's quicker, because it's less -messy—and because we don't like to drink spinal fluid, no matter what -imaginary therapeutic or symbolic value it has. You'll learn."</p> - -<p>But he didn't add "come on." They had arrived where they were going.</p> - -<p>It was a small room in the building that housed the armory and it held, -among other things, a rack of guns.</p> - -<p>"Sit down," said Haendl, taking one of the guns out of the rack -thoughtfully and handling it as the doomed Boyne had caressed his -watch-case. It was the latest pre-Pyramid-model rifle, anti-personnel, -short-range. It would not scatter a cluster of shots in a coffee can at -more than two and a half miles.</p> - -<p>"All right," said Haendl, stroking the stock. "You've seen the works, -Tropile. You've lived thirty years with sheep. You've seen what they -have and what we have. I don't have to ask you to make a choice. I know -what you choose. The only thing left is to tell you what <i>we</i> want from -<i>you</i>."</p> - -<p>A faint pulsing began inside Glenn Tropile. "I expected we'd be getting -to that."</p> - -<p>"Why not? We're not sheep. We don't act that way. Quid pro quo. -Remember that—it saves time. You've seen the quid. Now we come to the -quo." He leaned forward. "Tropile, what do you know about the Pyramids?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing."</p> - -<p>Haendl nodded. "Right. They're all around us and our lives are beggared -because of them. And we don't even know why. We don't have the -least idea of what they are. Did you know that one of the sheep was -Translated in Wheeling when you left?"</p> - -<p>"Translated?"</p> - -<p>Tropile listened with his mouth open while Haendl told him about what -had happened to Citizen Boyne.</p> - -<p>"So he didn't make the Donation after all," Tropile said.</p> - -<p>"Might have been better if he had," said Haendl. "Still, it gave you -a chance to get away. We had heard—never mind how just yet—that -Wheeling'd caught itself a Wolf, so we came looking for you. But you -were already gone."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tropile said, faintly annoyed: "You were damn near too late."</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, Tropile," Haendl assured him. "We're never too late. If you -don't have enough guts and ingenuity to get away from sheep, you're no -wolf—simple as that. But there's this Translation. We know it happens, -but we don't even know what it is. All we know, people disappear. -There's a new sun in the sky every five years or so. Who makes it? -The Pyramids. How? We don't know that. Sometimes something floats -around in the air and we call it an Eye. It has something to do with -Translation, something to do with the Pyramids. What? We don't know -that."</p> - -<p>"We don't know much of anything," interrupted Tropile, trying to hurry -him along.</p> - -<p>"Not about the Pyramids, no." Haendl shook his head. "Hardly anyone has -ever seen one, for that matter."</p> - -<p>"Hardly—You mean you have?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes. There's a Pyramid on Mount Everest, you know. That's not just -a story. It's true. I've been there, and it's there. At least, it was -there five years ago, right after the last Sun Re-creation. I guess it -hasn't moved. It just sits there."</p> - -<p>Tropile listened, marveling. To have seen a real Pyramid! Almost he had -thought of them as legends, contrived to account for such established -physical facts as the Eyes and Translation, as children with a Santa -Claus. But this incredible man had seen it!</p> - -<p>"Somebody dropped an H-bomb on it, way back," Haendl continued, "and -the only thing that happened is that now the North Col is a crater. You -can't move the Pyramid. You can't hurt it. But it's alive. It has been -there, alive, for a couple of hundred years; and that's about all we -know about the Pyramids. Right?"</p> - -<p>"Right."</p> - -<p>Haendl stood up. "Tropile, that's what all of this is all about!" He -gestured around him. "Guns, tanks, airplanes—we want to know more! -We're going to find out more and then we're going to fight."</p> - -<p>There was a jarring note and Tropile caught at it, sniffing the air. -Somehow—perhaps it was his sub-adrenals that told him—this very -positive, very self-willed man was just the slightest bit unsure of -himself. But Haendl swept on and Tropile, for a moment, forgot to be -alert.</p> - -<p>"We had a party up Mount Everest five years ago," Haendl was saying. -"We didn't find out a thing. Five years before that, and five years -before <i>that</i>—every time there's a sun, while it is still warm enough -to give a party a chance to climb up the sides—we send a team up -there. It's a rough job. We give it to the new boys, Tropile. Like you."</p> - -<p>There it was. He was being invited to attack a Pyramid.</p> - -<p>Tropile hesitated, delicately balanced, trying to get the <i>feel</i> of -this negotiation. This was Wolf against Wolf; it was hard. There had to -be an advantage—</p> - -<p>"There is an advantage," Haendl said aloud.</p> - -<p>Tropile jumped, but then he remembered: Wolf against Wolf.</p> - -<p>Haendl went on: "What you get out of it is your life, in the first -place. You understand you can't get out now. We don't want sheep -meddling around. And in the second place, there's a considerable hope -of gain." He stared at Tropile with a dreamer's eyes. "We don't send -parties up there for nothing, you know. We want to get something out of -it. What we want is the Earth."</p> - -<p>"The Earth?" It reeked of madness. But this man wasn't mad.</p> - -<p>"Some day, Tropile, it's going to be us against them. Never mind the -sheep—they don't count. It's going to be Pyramids and Wolves, and the -Pyramids won't win. And then—"</p> - -<p>It was enough to curdle the blood. This man was proposing to <i>fight</i>, -and against the invulnerable, the godlike Pyramids.</p> - -<p>But he was glowing and the fever was contagious. Tropile felt his own -blood begin to pound. Haendl hadn't finished his "and then—" but he -didn't have to. The "and then" was obvious: And then the world takes up -again from the day the wandering planet first came into view. And then -we go back to our own solar system and an end to the five-year cycle of -frost and hunger.</p> - -<p>And then the Wolves can rule a world worth ruling.</p> - -<p>It was a meretricious appeal, perhaps, but it could not be refused. -Tropile was lost.</p> - -<p>He said: "You can put away the gun, Haendl. You've signed me up."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">VII</p> - -<p>The way to Mount Everest, Tropile glumly found, lay through supervising -the colony's nursery school. It wasn't what he had expected, but it had -the advantages that while his charges were learning, he was learning, -too.</p> - -<p>One jump ahead of the three-year-olds, he found that the "wolves," far -from being predators on the "sheep," existed with them in a far more -complicated ecological relationship. There were Wolves all through -sheepdom; they leavened the dough of society.</p> - -<p>In barbarously simple prose, a primer said: "The Sons of the Wolf are -good at numbers and money. You and your friends play money games almost -as soon as you can talk, and you can think in percentages and compound -interest when you want to. Most people are not able to do this."</p> - -<p>True, thought Tropile subvocally, reading aloud to the tots. That was -how it had been with him.</p> - -<p>"Sheep are afraid of the Sons of the Wolf. Those of us who live among -them are in constant danger of detection and death—although ordinarily -a Wolf can take care of himself against any number of sheep." True, too.</p> - -<p>"It is one of the most dangerous assignments a Wolf can be given to -live among the sheep. Yet it is essential. Without us, they would -die—of stagnation, of rot, eventually of hunger."</p> - -<p>It didn't have to be spelled out any further. Sheep can't mend their -own fences.</p> - -<p>The prose was horrifyingly bald and the children were horrifyingly—he -choked on the word, but managed to form it in his mind—<i>competitive</i>. -The verbal taboos lingered, he found, after he had broken through the -barriers of behavior.</p> - -<p>But it was distressing, in a way. At an age when future Citizens would -have been learning their Little Pitcher Ways, these children were -learning to fight. The perennial argument about who would get to be Big -Bill Zeckendorf when they played a strange game called "Zeckendorf and -Hilton" sometimes ended in bloody noses.</p> - -<p>And nobody—nobody at all—meditated on Connectivity.</p> - -<p>Tropile was warned not to do it himself. Haendl said grimly: "We -don't understand it and we don't like what we don't understand. We're -suspicious animals, Tropile. As the children grow older, we give -them just enough practice so they can go into one meditation and get -the feel of it—or pretend to, at any rate. If they have to pass as -Citizens, they'll need that much. But more than that we do not allow."</p> - -<p>"Allow?" Somehow the word grated; somehow his sub-adrenals began to -pulse.</p> - -<p>"<i>Allow!</i> We have our suspicions and we know for a fact that sometimes -people disappear when they meditate. We don't want to disappear. We -think it's not a good thing to disappear. Don't meditate, Tropile. You -hear?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But later, Tropile had to argue the point. He picked a time when -Haendl was free, or as nearly free as that man ever was. The whole -adult colony had been out on what they used as a parade ground—it had -once been a football field, Haendl said. They had done their regular -twice-a-week infantry drill, that being one of the prices one paid for -living among the free, progressive Wolves instead of the dull and tepid -sheep.</p> - -<p>Tropile was mightily winded, but he cast himself on the ground near -Haendl, caught his breath and said: "Haendl—about meditation."</p> - -<p>"What about it?"</p> - -<p>"Well, perhaps you don't really grasp it."</p> - -<p>Tropile searched for words. He knew what he wanted to say. How could -anything that felt as good as Oneness be bad? And wasn't Translation, -after all, so rare as hardly to matter? But he wasn't sure he could get -through to Haendl in those terms.</p> - -<p>He tried: "When you meditate successfully, Haendl, you're one with the -Universe. Do you know what I mean? There's no feeling like it. It's -indescribable peace, beauty, harmony, repose."</p> - -<p>"It's the world's cheapest narcotic," Haendl snorted.</p> - -<p>"Oh, now, really—"</p> - -<p>"<i>And</i> the world's cheapest religion. The stone-broke mutts can't -afford gilded idols, so they use their own navels. That's all it is. -They can't afford alcohol; they can't even afford the muscular exertion -of deep breathing that would throw them into a state of hyperventilated -oxygen drunkenness. Then what's left? Self-hypnosis. Nothing else. It's -all they can do, so they learn it, they define it as pleasant and good, -and they're all fixed up."</p> - -<p>Tropile sighed. The man was so stubborn! Then a thought occurred to him -and he pushed himself up on his elbows. "Aren't you leaving something -out? What about Translation?"</p> - -<p>Haendl glowered at him. "That's the part we don't understand."</p> - -<p>"But surely self-hypnosis doesn't account for—"</p> - -<p>"Surely it doesn't!" Haendl mimicked savagely. "All right. We don't -understand it and we're afraid of it. Kindly do not tell me Translation -is the supreme act of Un-willing, Total Disavowal of Duality, Unison -with the Brahm-Ground or any such slop. You don't know what it is and -neither do we." He started to get up. "All we know is, people vanish. -And we want no part of it, so we don't meditate. None of us—including -you!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was foolishness, this close-order drill. Could you defeat the -unreachable Himalayan Pyramid with a squads-right flanking maneuver?</p> - -<p>And yet it wasn't all foolishness. Close-order drill and -2500-calorie-a-day diet began to put fat and flesh and muscle on -Tropile's body, and something other than that on his mind. He had not -lost the edge of his acquisitiveness, his drive—his whatever it was -that made the difference between Wolf and sheep.</p> - -<p>But he had gained something. Happiness? Well, if "happiness" is a -sense of purpose, and a hope that the purpose can be accomplished, then -happiness. It was a feeling that had never existed in his life before. -Always it had been the glandular compulsion to gain an advantage, and -that was gone, or anyway almost gone, because it was permitted in the -society in which he now lived.</p> - -<p>Glenn Tropile sang as he putt-putted in his tractor, plowing the -thawing Jersey fields. Still, a faint doubt remained. Squads right -against the Pyramids?</p> - -<p>Stiffly, Tropile stopped the tractor, slowed the diesel to a steady -<i>thrum</i> and got off. It was hot—being midsummer of the five-year -calendar the Pyramids had imposed. It was time for rest and maybe -something to eat.</p> - -<p>He sat in the shade of a tree, as farmers always have done, and opened -his sandwiches. He was only a mile or so from Princeton, but he might -as well have been in Limbo; there was no sign of any living human but -himself. The northering sheep didn't come near Princeton—it "happened" -that way, on purpose.</p> - -<p>He caught a glimpse of something moving, but when he stood up for a -better look into the woods on the other side of the field, it was -gone. Wolf? <i>Real</i> Wolf, that is? It could have been a bear, for that -matter—there was talk of wolves and bears around Princeton; and -although Tropile knew that much of the talk was assiduously encouraged -by men like Haendl, he also knew that some of it was true.</p> - -<p>As long as he was up, he gathered straw from the litter of last -"year's" head-high grass, gathered sticks under the trees, built a -small fire and put water on to boil for coffee. Then he sat back and -ate his sandwiches, thinking.</p> - -<p>Maybe it was a promotion, going from the nursery school to labor in -the fields. Or maybe it wasn't. Haendl had promised him a place in the -expedition that would—maybe—discover something new and great and -helpful about the Pyramids. And that might still come to pass, because -the expedition was far from ready to leave.</p> - -<p>Tropile munched his sandwiches thoughtfully. Now <i>why</i> was the -expedition so far from ready to leave? It was absolutely essential to -get there in the warmest weather possible—otherwise Mt. Everest was -unclimbable. Generations of alpinists had proved that. That warmest -weather was rapidly going by.</p> - -<p>And <i>why</i> were Haendl and the Wolf colony so insistent on building -tanks, arming themselves with rifles, organizing in companies and -squads? The H-bomb hadn't flustered the Pyramid. What lesser weapon -could?</p> - -<p>Uneasily, Tropile put a few more sticks on the fire, staring -thoughtfully into the canteen cup of water. It was a satisfyingly hot -fire, he noticed abstractedly. The water was very nearly ready to boil.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Half across the world, the Pyramid in the Himalays felt, or heard, or -tasted—a difference.</p> - -<p>Possibly the h-f pulses that had gone endlessly wheep, wheep, wheep -were now going wheep-<i>beep</i>, wheep-<i>beep</i>. Possibly the electromagnetic -"taste" of lower-than-red was now spiced with a tang of beyond-violet. -Whatever the sign was, the Pyramid recognized it.</p> - -<p>A part of the crop it tended was ready to harvest.</p> - -<p>The ripening bud had a name, of course, but names didn't matter to the -Pyramid. The man named Tropile didn't know he was ripening, either. -All that Tropile knew was that, for the first time in nearly a year, -he had succeeded in catching each stage of the nine perfect states of -water-coming-to-a-boil in its purest form.</p> - -<p>It was like ... like ... well, it was like nothing that anyone but -a Water Watcher could understand. He observed. He appreciated. He -encompassed and absorbed the myriad subtle perfections of time, of -shifting transparency, of sound, of distribution of ebulliency, of the -faint, faint odor of steam.</p> - -<p>Complete, Glenn Tropile relaxed all his limbs and let his chin rest on -his breast-bone.</p> - -<p>It was, he thought with placid, crystalline perception, a rare and -perfect opportunity for meditation. He thought of Connectivity. -(Overhead, a shifting glassy flaw appeared in the thin, still air.) -There wasn't any thought of Eyes in the erased palimpsest that was -Glenn Tropile's mind. There wasn't any thought of Pyramids or of -Wolves. The plowed field before him didn't exist. Even the water, -merrily bubbling itself dry, was gone from his perception.</p> - -<p>He was beginning to meditate.</p> - -<p>Time passed—or stood still—for Tropile; there was no difference. -There was no time. He found himself almost on the brink of -Understanding.</p> - -<p>Something snapped. An intruding blue-bottle drone, maybe, or a -twitching muscle. Partly, Tropile came back to reality. Almost, he -glanced upward. Almost, he saw the Eye....</p> - -<p>It didn't matter. The thing that really mattered, the only thing in the -world, was all within his mind; and he was ready, he knew, to find it.</p> - -<p>Once more! Try harder!</p> - -<p>He let the mind-clearing unanswerable question drift into his mind:</p> - -<p><i>If the sound of two hands together is a clapping, what is the sound of -one hand?</i></p> - -<p>Gently he pawed at the question, the symbol of the futility of -mind—and therefore the gateway to meditation. Unawareness of self was -stealing deliciously over him.</p> - -<p>He was Glenn Tropile. He was more than that. He was the water -boiling ... and the boiling water was he. He was the gentle warmth of -the fire, which was—which was, yes, itself the arc of the sky. As each -thing was each other thing; water was fire, and fire air; Tropile was -the first simmering bubble and the full roll of Well-aged Water was -Self, was—more than Self—was—</p> - -<p>The answer to the unanswerable question was coming clearer and softer -to him. And then, all at once, but not suddenly, for there was no time, -it was not close—it <i>was</i>.</p> - -<p>The answer was his, was him. The arc of sky was the answer, and the -answer belonged to sky—to warmth, to all warmths that there are, and -to all waters, and—and the answer was—was—</p> - -<p>Tropile vanished. The mild thunderclap that followed made the flames -dance and the column of steam fray; and then the fire was steady again, -and so was the rising steam. But Tropile was gone.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">VIII</p> - -<p>Haendl plodded angrily through the high grass toward the dull throb of -the diesel.</p> - -<p>Maybe it had been a mistake to take this Glenn Tropile into the colony. -He was more Citizen than Wolf—no, cancel that, Haendl thought; he was -more Wolf than Citizen. But the Wolf in him was tainted with sheep's -blood. He <i>competed</i> like a Wolf, but in spite of everything, he -refused to give up some of his sheep's ways. Meditation. He had been -cautioned against that. But had he given it up?</p> - -<p>He had not.</p> - -<p>If it had been entirely up to Haendl, Glenn Tropile would have found -himself back among the sheep or dead. Fortunately for Tropile, it -was not entirely up to Haendl. The community of Wolves was by no -means a democracy, but the leader had a certain responsibility to his -constituents, and the responsibility was this: He couldn't afford to be -wrong. Like the Old Gray Wolf who protected Mowgli, he had to defend -his actions against attack; if he failed to defend, the pack would pull -him down.</p> - -<p>And Innison thought they needed Tropile—not in spite of the taint of -the Citizen that he bore, but because of it.</p> - -<p>Haendl bawled: "Tropile! Tropile, where are you?" There was only the -wind and the <i>thrum</i> of the diesel. It was enormously irritating. -Haendl had other things to do than to chase after Glenn Tropile. And -where was he? There was the diesel, idling wastefully; there the end of -the patterned furrows Tropile had plowed. There a small fire, burning—</p> - -<p>And there was Tropile.</p> - -<p>Haendl stopped, frozen, his mouth opened, about to yell Tropile's name.</p> - -<p>It was Tropile, all right, staring with concentrated, oyster-eyed gaze -at the fire and the little pot of water it boiled. Staring. Meditating. -And over his head, like flawed glass in a pane, was the thing Haendl -feared most of all things on Earth. It was an Eye.</p> - -<p>Tropile was on the very verge of being Translated ... whatever that was.</p> - -<p>Time, maybe, to find out <i>what</i> that was! Haendl ducked back into the -shelter of the high grass, knelt, plucked his radio communicator from -his pocket, urgently called.</p> - -<p>"Innison! Innison, will somebody, for God's sake, put Innison on!"</p> - -<p>Seconds passed. Voices answered. Then there was Innison.</p> - -<p>"Innison, listen! You wanted to catch Tropile in the act of Meditation? -All right, you've got him. The old wheat field, south end, under the -elms around the creek. Get here fast, Innison—there's an Eye forming -above him!"</p> - -<p>Luck! Lucky that they were ready for this, and only by luck, because it -was the helicopter that Innison had patiently assembled for the attack -on Everest that was ready now, loaded with instruments, planned to -weigh and measure the aura around the Pyramid—now at hand when they -needed it.</p> - -<p>That was luck, but there was driving hurry involved, too; it was only a -matter of minutes before Haendl heard the wobbling drone of the copter, -saw the vanes fluttering low over the hedges, dropping to earth behind -the elms.</p> - -<p>Haendl raised himself cautiously and peered. Yes, Tropile was still -there, and the Eye still above him! But the noise of the helicopter had -frayed the spell. Tropile stirred. The Eye wavered and shook—</p> - -<p>But did not vanish.</p> - -<p>Thanking what passed for his God, Haendl scuttled circuitously around -the elms and joined Innison at the copter. Innison was furiously -closing switches and pointing lenses.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="573" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>They saw Tropile sitting there, the Eye growing larger and closer over -his head. They had time—plenty of time; oh, nearly a minute of time. -They brought to bear on the silent and unknowing form of Glenn Tropile -every instrument that the copter carried. They were waiting for Tropile -to disappear—</p> - -<p>He did.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Innison and Haendl hunched at the thunderclap as air rushed in to -replace him.</p> - -<p>"We've got what you wanted," Haendl said harshly. "Let's read some -instruments."</p> - -<p>Throughout the Translation, high-tensile magnetic tape on a madly -spinning drum had been hurtling under twenty-four recording heads at -a hundred feet a second. Output to the recording heads had been from -every kind of measuring device they had been able to conceive and -build, all loaded on the helicopter for use on Mount Everest—all now -pointed directly at Glenn Tropile.</p> - -<p>They had, for the instant of Translation, readings from one microsecond -to the next on the varying electric, gravitational, magnetic, radiant -and molecular-state conditions in his vicinity.</p> - -<p>They got back to Innison's workshop, and the laboratory inside it, in -less than a minute; but it took hours of playing back the magnetic -pulses into machines that turned them into scribed curves on coordinate -paper before Innison had anything resembling an answer.</p> - -<p>He said: "No mystery. I mean no mystery except the speed. Want to know -what happened to Tropile?"</p> - -<p>"I do," said Haendl.</p> - -<p>"A pencil of electrostatic force maintained by a pinch effect bounced -down the approximate azimuth of Everest—God knows how they handled the -elevation—and charged him and the area positive. A <i>big</i> charge, clear -off the scale. They parted company. He was bounced straight up. A meter -off the ground, a correcting vector was applied. When last seen, he was -headed fast in the direction of the Pyramids' binary—fast! So fast -that I would guess he'll get there alive. It takes an appreciable time, -a good part of a second, for his protein to coagulate enough to make -him sick and then kill him. If the Pyramids strip the charges off him -immediately on arrival, as I should think they will, he'll live."</p> - -<p>"Friction—"</p> - -<p>"Be damned to friction," Innison said calmly. "He carried a packet of -air with him and there <i>was</i> no friction. How? I don't know. How are -they going to keep him alive in space, without the charges that hold -air? I don't know. If they don't maintain the charges, can they beat -the speed of light? I don't know. I can tell you <i>what</i> happened. I -can't tell you <i>how</i>."</p> - -<p>Haendl stood up thoughtfully. "It's something," he said grudgingly.</p> - -<p>"It's more than we've ever had—a complete reading at the instant of -Translation!"</p> - -<p>"We'll get more," Haendl promised. "Innison, now that you know what to -look for, go on looking for it. Keep every possible detection device -monitored twenty-four hours a day. Turn on everything you've got -that'll find a sign of imposed modulation. At any sign—or at anybody's -hunch that there <i>might</i> be a sign—I'm to be called. If I'm eating. If -I'm sleeping. If I'm enjoying with a woman. Call me, you hear? Maybe -you were right about Tropile; maybe he did have some use. He might give -the Pyramids a bellyache."</p> - -<p>Innison, flipping the magnetic tape drum to rewind, said thoughtfully: -"It's too bad they've got him. We could have used some more readings."</p> - -<p>"Too bad?" Haendl laughed sharply. "This time they've got themselves a -Wolf."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Pyramids did have a Wolf—a fact which did not matter in the least -to them.</p> - -<p>It is not possible to know what "mattered" to a Pyramid except by -inference. But it is possible to know that they had no way of telling -Wolf from Citizen.</p> - -<p>The planet which was their home—Earth's old Moon—was small, dark, -atmosphereless and waterless. It was completely built over, much of it -with its propulsion devices.</p> - -<p>In the old days, when technology had followed war, luxury, government -and leisure, the Pyramids' sun had run out of steam; and at about the -same time, they had run out of the Components they imported from a -neighboring planet. They used the last of their Components to implement -their stolid metaphysic of hauling and pushing. They pushed their -planet.</p> - -<p>They knew where to push it.</p> - -<p>Each Pyramid as it stood was a radio-astronomy observatory, powerful -and accurate beyond the wildest dreams of Earthly radio-astronomers. -From this start, they built instruments to aid their naked senses. They -went into a kind of hibernation, reducing their activity to a bare -trickle except for a small "crew" and headed for Earth. They had every -reason to believe they would find more Components there, and they did.</p> - -<p>Tropile was one of them. The only thing which set him apart from the -others was that he was the most recent to be stockpiled.</p> - -<p>The religion, or vice, or philosophy he practiced made it possible -for him to be a Component. Meditation derived from Zen Buddhism was -a windfall for the Pyramids, though, of course, they had no idea at -all of what lay behind it and did not "care." They knew only that, -at certain times, certain potential Components became Components -which were no longer merely potential—which were, in fact, ripe for -harvesting.</p> - -<p>It was useful to them that the minds they cropped were utterly blank. -It saved the trouble of blanking them.</p> - -<p>Tropile had been harvested at the moment his inhibiting conscious mind -had been cleared, for the Pyramids were not interested in him as an -entity capable of will and conception. They used only the raw capacity -of the human brain and its perceptors.</p> - -<p>They used Rashevsky's Number, the gigantic, far more than astronomical -expression that denoted the number of switching operations performable -within the human brain. They used "subception," the phenomenon by which -the reasoning mind, uninhibited by consciousness, reacts directly to -stimuli—shortcutting the cerebral censor, avoiding the weighing of -shall-I-or-shan't-I that precedes every conscious act.</p> - -<p>The harvested minds were—Components.</p> - -<p>It is not desirable that your bedroom wall switch have a mind of its -own; if you turn the lights on, you want them <i>on</i>. So it was with the -Pyramids.</p> - -<p>A Component was needed in the industrial complex which transformed -catabolism products into anabolism products.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>With long experience gained since their planetfall, Pyramids received -the <i>tabula rasa</i> that was Glenn Tropile. He arrived in one piece, -wearing a blanket of air. Quick-frozen mentally at the moment of inert -blankness his Meditation had granted him—the psychic drunkard's -coma—he was cushioned on repellent charges as he plummeted down, and -instantly stripped of surplus electrostatic charge.</p> - -<p>At this point, he was still human; only asleep.</p> - -<p>He remained "asleep." Annular fields they used for lifting and lowering -seized him and moved him into a snug tank of nutrient fluid. There were -many such tanks, ready and waiting.</p> - -<p>The tanks themselves could be moved, and the one containing Glenn -Tropile did move, to a metabolism complex where there were many other -tanks, all occupied. This was a warm room—the Pyramids had wasted no -energy on such foppish comforts in the first "room." In this room, -Glenn Tropile gradually resumed the appearance of life. His heart once -again began to beat. Faint stirrings were visible in his chest as his -habit-numbed lungs attempted to breathe. Gradually the stirrings slowed -and stopped. There was no need for that foppish comfort, either; the -nutrient fluid supplied all.</p> - -<p>Tropile was "wired into circuit."</p> - -<p>The only literal wiring, at first, was a temporary one—a fine -electrode aseptically introduced into the great nerve that leads to the -rhinencephalon—the "small brain," the area of the brain which contains -the pleasure centers that motivate human behavior.</p> - -<p>More than a thousand Components had been spoiled and discarded before -the Pyramids had located the pleasure centers so exactly.</p> - -<p>While the Component, Tropile, was being "programmed," the wire rewarded -him with minute pulses that made his body glow with animal satisfaction -when he functioned correctly. That was all there was to it. After a -time, the wire was withdrawn, but by then Tropile had "learned" his -entire task. Conditioned reflexes had been established. They could be -counted on for the long and useful life of the Component.</p> - -<p>That life might be very long indeed; in the nutrient tank beside -Tropile's, as it happened, lay a Component with eight legs and a -chitinous fringe around its eyes. It had lain in such a tank for more -than a hundred and twenty-five thousand Terrestrial years.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Component was placed in operation. It opened its eyes and saw -things. The sensory nerves of its limbs felt things. The muscles of -its hands and toes operated things.</p> - -<p>Where was Glenn Tropile?</p> - -<p>He was there, all of him, but a zombie-Tropile. Bereft of will, emptied -of memories. He was a machine and part of a huger machine. His sex -was the sex of a photoelectric cell; his politics were those of a -transistor; his ambition that of a mercury switch. He didn't know -anything about sex, or fear, or hope. He only knew two things: Input -and Output.</p> - -<p>Input to him was a display of small lights on a board before his vacant -face; and also the modulation of a loudspeaker's liquid-borne hum in -each ear.</p> - -<p>Output from him was the dancing manipulation of certain buttons and -keys, prompted by changes in Input and by nothing else.</p> - -<p>Between Input and Output, he lay in the tank, a human Black Box which -was capable of Rashevsky's Number of switchings, and of nothing else.</p> - -<p>He had been programmed to accomplish a specific task—to shepherd -a chemical called 3, 7, 12-trihydroxycholanic acid, present in the -catabolic product of the Pyramids, through a succession of more than -five hundred separate operations until it emerged as the chemical, -which the Pyramids were able to metabolize, called Protoporphin IX.</p> - -<p>He was not the only Component operating in this task; there were -several, each with its own program.</p> - -<p>The acid accumulated in great tanks a mile from him. He knew its -concentration, heat and pressure; he knew of all the impurities -which would affect subsequent reactions. His fingers tapped, giving -binary-coded signals to sluice gates to open for so many seconds and -then to close; for such an amount of solvent at such a temperature to -flow in; for the agitators to agitate for just so long at just such a -force. And if a trouble signal disturbed any one of the 517 major and -minor operations, he—it?—was set to decide among alternatives:</p> - -<p>—scrap the batch in view of flow conditions along the line?</p> - -<p>—isolate and bypass the batch through a standby loop?</p> - -<p>—immediate action to correct the malfunction?</p> - -<p>Without inhibiting intelligence, without the trammels of humanity on -him, the intricate display board and the complex modulations of the two -sound signals could be instantly taken in, evaluated and given their -share in the decision.</p> - -<p>Was it—he?—still alive?</p> - -<p>The question has no meaning. It was working. It was an excellent -machine, in fact, and the Pyramids cared for it well. Its only -consciousness, apart from the reflexive responses that were its -program, was—well, call it "the sound of one hand alone." Which is to -say zero, mindlessness, Samadhi, stupor.</p> - -<p>It continued to function for some time—until the required supply of -Protoporphin IX had been exceeded by a sufficient factor of safety -to make further processing unnecessary—that is, for some minutes or -months. During that time, it was Happy. (It had been programmed to be -Happy when there were no uncorrected malfunctions of the process.) -At the end of that time, it shut itself off, sent out a signal that -the task was completed, then it was laid aside in the analogue of a -deep-freeze, to be reprogrammed when another Component was needed.</p> - -<p>It was totally immaterial to the Pyramids that this particular -Component had not been stamped from Citizen but from Wolf.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">IX</p> - -<p>Roget Germyn, of Wheeling a Citizen, contemplated his wife with growing -concern.</p> - -<p>Possibly the events of the past few days had unhinged her reason, but -he was nearly sure that she had eaten a portion of the evening meal -secretly, in the serving room, before calling him to the table.</p> - -<p>He felt positive that it was only a temporary aberration; she -was, after all, a Citizeness, with all that that implied. A—a -creature—like that Gala Tropile, for example—someone like that -might steal extra portions with craft and guile. You couldn't live -with a Wolf for years and not have some of it rub off on you. But not -Citizeness Germyn.</p> - -<p>There was a light, thrice-repeated tap on the door.</p> - -<p>Speak of the devil, thought Roget Germyn most appropriately; for it was -that same Gala Tropile. She entered, her head downcast, looking worn -and—well, pretty.</p> - -<p>He began formally: "I give you greeting, Citi—"</p> - -<p>"They're here!" she interrupted in desperate haste. Germyn blinked. -"Please," she begged, "can't you do something? They're <i>Wolves</i>!"</p> - -<p>Citizeness Germyn emitted a muted shriek.</p> - -<p>"You may leave, Citizeness," Germyn told her shortly, already forming -in his mind the words of gentle reproof he would later use. "Now what -is all this talk of Wolves?"</p> - -<p>Gala Tropile distractedly sat in the chair her hostess had vacated. -"We were running away," she babbled. "Glenn—he was Wolf, you see, and -he made me leave with him, after the House of the Five Regulations. We -were a day's long march from Wheeling and we stopped to rest. And there -was an aircraft, Citizen!"</p> - -<p>"An aircraft!" Citizen Germyn allowed himself a frown. "Citizeness, it -is not well to invent things which are not so."</p> - -<p>"I saw it, Citizen! There were men in it. One of them is here again! -He came looking for me with another man and I barely escaped him. I'm -afraid!"</p> - -<p>"There is no cause for fear, only an opportunity to appreciate," -Citizen Germyn said mechanically—it was what one told one's children.</p> - -<p>But within himself, he was finding it very hard to remain calm. That -word Wolf—it was a destroyer of calm, an incitement to panic and -hatred! He remembered Tropile well, and there was Wolf, to be sure. The -mere fact that Citizen Germyn had doubted his Wolfishness at first was -powerful cause to be doubly convinced of it now; he had postponed the -day of reckoning for an enemy of all the world, and there was enough -secret guilt in his recollection to set his own heart thumping.</p> - -<p>"Tell me exactly what happened," said Citizen Germyn, in words that the -stress of emotion had already made far less than graceful.</p> - -<p>Obediently, Gala Tropile said: "I was returning to my home after the -evening meal and Citizeness Puffin—she took me in after Citizen -Tropile—after my husband was—"</p> - -<p>"I understand. You made your home with her."</p> - -<p>"Yes. She told me that two men had come to see me. They spoke badly, -she said, and I was alarmed. I peered through a window of my home and -they were there. One had been in the aircraft I saw! And they flew away -with my husband."</p> - -<p>"It is a matter of seriousness," Citizen Germyn admitted doubtfully. -"So then you came here to me?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, but they saw me, Citizen! And I think they followed. You must -protect me—I have no one else!"</p> - -<p>"If they be Wolf," Germyn said calmly, "we will raise hue and cry -against them. Now will the Citizeness remain here? I go forth to see -these men."</p> - -<p>There was a graceless hammering on the door.</p> - -<p>"Too late!" cried Gala Tropile in panic. "They are here!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Citizen Germyn went through the ritual of greeting, of deprecating the -ugliness and poverty of his home, of offering everything he owned to -his visitors; it was the way to greet a stranger.</p> - -<p>The two men lacked both courtesy and wit, but they did make an attempt -to comply with the minimal formal customs of introduction. He had to -give them credit for that; and yet it was almost more alarming than if -they had blustered and yelled.</p> - -<p>For he knew one of these men.</p> - -<p>He dredged the name out of his memory. It was Haendl. The same man had -appeared in Wheeling the day Glenn Tropile had been scheduled to make -the Donation of the Spinal Tap—and had broken free and escaped. He had -inquired about Tropile of a good many people, Citizen Germyn included, -and even at that time, in the excitement of an Amok, a Wolf-finding and -a Translation in a single day, Germyn had wondered at Haendl's lack of -breeding and airs.</p> - -<p>Now he wondered no longer.</p> - -<p>But the man made no overt act and Citizen Germyn postponed the raising -of the hue and cry. It was not a thing to be done lightly.</p> - -<p>"Gala Tropile is in this house," the man with Haendl said bluntly.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn managed a Quirked Smile.</p> - -<p>"We want to see her, Germyn. It's about her husband. He—uh—he was -with us for a while and something happened."</p> - -<p>"Ah, yes. The Wolf."</p> - -<p>The man flushed and looked at Haendl. Haendl said loudly: "The Wolf. -Sure he's a Wolf. But he's gone now, so you don't have to worry about -that."</p> - -<p>"Gone?"</p> - -<p>"Not just him, but four or five of us. There was a man named Innison -and he's gone, too. We need help, Germyn. Something about Tropile—God -knows how it is, but he started something. We want to talk to his wife -and find out what we can about him. So will you get her out of the back -room where she's hiding and bring her here, please?"</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn quivered. He bent over the ID bracelet that once had -belonged to the one PFC Joe Hartman, fingering it to hide his thoughts.</p> - -<p>He said at last: "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the Citizeness is with -my wife. If this be so, would it not be possible that she is fearful of -those who once were with her husband?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Haendl laughed sourly. "She isn't any more fearful than we are, Germyn. -I told you about this man Innison who disappeared. He was a Son of -the Wolf, you understand me? For that matter—" He glanced at his -companion, licked his lips and changed his mind about what he had been -going to say next. "He was a Wolf. Do you ever remember hearing of a -Wolf being Translated before?"</p> - -<p>"Translated?" Germyn dropped the ID bracelet. "But that's impossible!" -he cried, forgetting his manners completely. "Oh, no! Translation comes -only to those who attain the moment of supreme detachment, you can be -sure of that. I <i>know</i>! I've seen it with my own eyes. No Wolf could -<i>possibly</i>—"</p> - -<p>"At least five Wolves did," Haendl said grimly. "Now you see what the -trouble is? Tropile was Translated—I saw that with <i>my</i> own eyes. The -next day, Innison. Within a week, two or three others. So we came down -here, Germyn, not because we like you people, not because we enjoy it, -but because we're <i>scared</i>.</p> - -<p>"What we want is to talk to Tropile's wife—you, too, I guess; we want -to talk to anybody who ever knew him. We want to find out everything -there is to find out about Tropile and see if we can make any sense of -the answers. Because maybe Translation is the supreme objective of life -to you people, Germyn, but to us it's just one more way of dying. And -we don't want to die."</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn bent to pick up his cherished identification bracelet -and dropped it absently on a table. There was very much on his mind.</p> - -<p>He said at last: "That is strange. Shall I tell you another strange -thing?"</p> - -<p>Haendl, looking angry and baffled, nodded.</p> - -<p>Germyn said: "There has been no Translation here since the day the -Wolf, Tropile, escaped. But there have been Eyes. I have seen them -myself. It—" He hesitated, shrugged. "It has been disturbing. Some of -our finest Citizens have ceased to Meditate; they have been worrying. -So many Eyes and nobody taken! It is outside of all of our experience, -and our customs have suffered. Politeness is dwindling among us. Even -in my own household—"</p> - -<p>He coughed and went on: "No matter. But these Eyes have come into every -home; they have peered about, peered about, and no one has been taken. -Why? Is it something to do with the Translation of Wolves?" He stared -hopelessly at his visitors. "All I know is that it is very strange and -therefore I am worried."</p> - -<p>"Then take us to Gala Tropile," said Haendl. "Let's see what we can -find out!"</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn bowed. He cleared his throat and raised his voice just -sufficiently to carry from one room to another. "Citizeness!" he called.</p> - -<p>There was a pause and then his wife appeared in the doorway, looking -ruffled and ill at ease with her guest.</p> - -<p>"Will you ask if Citizeness Tropile will join us here?" he requested.</p> - -<p>His wife nodded. "She is resting. I will call her."</p> - -<p>They called her and questioned her for some time.</p> - -<p>She told them nothing.</p> - -<p>She had nothing to tell.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">X</p> - -<p>On Earth's binary, Glenn Tropile had been reprogrammed for a new task.</p> - -<p>The problem was navigation. Earth had been a disappointment to the -Pyramids; it was necessary to move rapidly to a more rewarding planet.</p> - -<p>The Pyramids had taken Earth out past Pluto's orbit with a simple -shove, slow and massive. It had been enough merely to approximate the -direction in which they would want to go. There would be plenty of time -for refinements of course later.</p> - -<p>But now the time for refinements had come, earlier than they might -have expected. They had now time to travel, they knew where to—a star -cluster reasonably sure to be rich in Componentiferous planets. It was -inherent in the nature of Component mines that eventually they always -played out.</p> - -<p>There were always more mines, though. If that had not been so, it would -have been necessary, perhaps, to stock-breed Components against future -needs. But it was easier to work the vein out and move on.</p> - -<p>Now the course had to be computed. There were such variables to -be considered as: motion of the star cluster; acceleration of the -binary-planet system; <i>gravitational influence of every astronomical -object in the island universe, without exception</i>.</p> - -<p>Precise computation on this basis was obviously not practical. That was -not an answer to the problem, since the time required would approach -eternity as one of its parameters.</p> - -<p>It was possible to simplify the problem. Only the astronomical bodies -which were relatively nearby need be treated as individuals. Farther -away, the Pyramids began to group them in small bunches, still farther -in large bunches, on to the point where the farthest—and the most -numerous—bodies were lumped together as a vague gravitational "noise" -whose average intensity alone it was required to know and to enter as a -datum.</p> - -<p>And still no single Component could handle even its own share of the -problem, were the "computer" they formed to be kept within the range of -permissible size.</p> - -<p>It was for this that the Component which had once been Tropile was -taken out of storage.</p> - -<p>This was all old stuff to the Pyramids; they knew how to handle it. -They broke the problem down to its essentials, separated even those -into many parts. There was, for example, the subsection of one certain -aspect of the logistical problem which involved locating and procuring -additional Components to handle the load.</p> - -<p>Even that tiny specialization was too much for a single Component, but -fortunately the Pyramids had resources to bring to bear. The procedure -in such cases was to hitch several Components together.</p> - -<p>This was done.</p> - -<p>When the Pyramids finished their neuro-surgery, there floated in an -oversized nutrient tank a thing like a great sea-anemone. It was -composed of eight Components—all human, as it happened—arranged in a -circle, facing inward, joined temple to temple, brain to brain.</p> - -<p>At their feet, where sixteen eyes could see it, was the display board -to feed them their Input. Sixteen hands each grasped a molded switch -to handle their binary-coded Output. There would be no storage of -the Output outside of the eight-Component complex itself; it went as -control signals to the electrostatic generators, funneled through -the single Pyramid on Mount Everest, which handled the task of -Component-procurement.</p> - -<p>That is, of Translation.</p> - -<p>The programming was slow and thorough. Perhaps the Pyramid which -finally activated the octuple unit and went away was pleased with -itself, not knowing that one of its Components was Glenn Tropile.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nirvana. (It pervaded all; there was nothing outside of it.)</p> - -<p>Nirvana. (Glenn Tropile floated in it as in the amniotic fluid around -him.)</p> - -<p>Nirvana. (The sound of one hand.... Floating oneness.)</p> - -<p>There was an intrusion.</p> - -<p>Perfection is completed; by adding to it, it is destroyed. <i>Duality -struck like a thunderbolt. Oneness shattered.</i></p> - -<p>For Glenn Tropile, it seemed as though his wife were screaming at him -to wake up. He tried to.</p> - -<p>It was curiously difficult and painful. Timeless poignant sadness, five -years of sorrow over a lost love compressed into a microsecond. It was -always so, Tropile thought drowsily, awakening. It never lasts. What's -the use of worrying over what always happens....</p> - -<p>Sudden shock and horror rocked him.</p> - -<p><i>This</i> was no ordinary awakening—no ordinary thing at all—<i>nothing</i> -was as it ever had been before!</p> - -<p>Tropile opened his mouth and screamed—or thought he did. But there was -only a hoarse, faint flutter in his eardrums.</p> - -<p>It was a moment when sanity might have gone. But there was one curious, -mundane fact that saved him. He was holding something in his hands. He -found that he could look at it, and it was a switch. A molded switch, -mounted on a board, and he was holding one in each hand.</p> - -<p>It was little to cling to, but it at least was real. If his hands could -be holding something, then there must be some reality somewhere.</p> - -<p>Tropile closed his eyes and managed to open them again. Yes, there was -reality, too. He closed his eyes and light stopped. He opened them and -light returned.</p> - -<p>Then perhaps he was not dead, as he had thought.</p> - -<p>Carefully, stumbling—his mind his only usable tool—he tried to make -an estimate of his surroundings.</p> - -<p>He could hardly believe what he found.</p> - -<p>Item: he could scarcely move. Somehow he was bound by his feet and his -head. How? He couldn't tell.</p> - -<p>Item: he was bent over and he couldn't straighten. Why? Again he -couldn't tell, but it was a fact. The great erecting muscles of his -back answered his command, but his body would not move.</p> - -<p>Item: his eyes saw, but only in a small area.</p> - -<p>He couldn't move his head, either. Still, he could see a few things. -The switch in his hand, his feet, a sort of display of lights on a -strangely circular board.</p> - -<p>The lights flickered and changed their pattern.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Without thinking, he moved a switch. Why? Because it was <i>right</i> to -move that switch. When a certain light flared green, a certain switch -had to be thrown. Why? Well, when a certain light flared green, a -certain switch—</p> - -<p>He abandoned that problem. Never mind why; what the devil was going -<i>on</i>?</p> - -<p>Glenn Tropile squinted about him like a mollusc peering out of its -shell. There was another fact, the oddness of the seeing. What makes it -look so queer, he asked himself.</p> - -<p>He found an answer, but it required some time to take it in. He was -seeing in a strange perspective. One looks out of two eyes. Close one -eye and the world is flat. Open it again and there is a stereoscopic -double; the saliencies of the picture leap forward, the background -retreats.</p> - -<p>So with the lights on the board—no, not exactly; but something <i>like</i> -that, he thought. It was as though—he squinted and strained—well, as -though he had never really <i>seen</i> before. As though for all his life he -had had only one eye, and now he had strangely been given two.</p> - -<p>His visual perception of the board was <i>total</i>. He could see all of it -at once. It had no "front" or "back." It was in the round. The natural -thinking of it was without orientation. He engulfed and comprehended -it as a unit. It had no secrets of shadow or silhouette.</p> - -<p>I think, Tropile mouthed slowly to himself, that I'm going crazy.</p> - -<p>But that was no explanation, either. Mere insanity didn't account for -what he saw.</p> - -<p>Then, he asked himself, was he in a state that was <i>beyond</i> Nirvana? He -remembered, with an odd flash of guilt, that he had been Meditating, -watching the stages of boiling water. All right, perhaps he had been -Translated. But what was this, then? Were the Meditators wrong in -teaching that Nirvana was the end—and yet righter than the Wolves, -who dismissed Meditation as a phenomenon wholly inside the skull and -refused to discuss Translation at all?</p> - -<p>That was a question for which he could find nothing approaching an -answer. He turned away from it and looked at his hands.</p> - -<p>He could see them, too, in the round, he noted. He could see every -wrinkle and pore in all sixteen of them....</p> - -<p><i>Sixteen hands!</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>That was the other moment when sanity might have gone. He closed his -eyes. (Sixteen eyes! No wonder the total perception!) And, after a -while, he opened them again.</p> - -<p>The hands were there. All sixteen of them.</p> - -<p>Cautiously, Tropile selected a finger that seemed familiar in his -memory. After a moment's thought, he flexed it. It bent. He selected -another. Another—on a different hand this time.</p> - -<p>He could use any or all of the sixteen hands. They were all his, all -sixteen of them.</p> - -<p>I appear, thought Tropile crazily, to be a sort of eight-branched -snowflake. Each of my branches is a human body.</p> - -<p>He stirred, and added another datum: I appear also to be in a tank of -fluid and yet I do not drown.</p> - -<p>There were certain deductions to be made from that. Either someone—the -Pyramids?—had done something to his lungs, or else the fluid was as -good an oxygenating medium as air. Or both.</p> - -<p>Suddenly a burst of data-lights twinkled on the board below him. -Instantly and involuntarily, his sixteen hands began working the -switches, transmitting complex directions in a lightninglike stream of -on-off clicks.</p> - -<p>Tropile relaxed and let it happen. He had no choice; the power that -made it <i>right</i> to respond to the board made it impossible for his -brain to concentrate while the response was going on. Perhaps, he -thought drowsily, he would never have awakened at all if it had not -been for the long period with no lights....</p> - -<p>But he was awake. And his consciousness began to explore as the task -ended.</p> - -<p>He had had an opportunity to understand something of what was -happening. He understood that he was now a part of something larger -than himself, beyond doubt something which served and belonged to the -Pyramids. His single brain not being large enough for the job, seven -others had been hooked in with it.</p> - -<p>But where were their personalities?</p> - -<p>Gone, he supposed; presumably they had been Citizens. Sons of the Wolf -did not Meditate and therefore were not Translated—except for himself, -he corrected wryly, remembering the Meditation on Rainclouds that had -led him to—</p> - -<p>No, wait!</p> - -<p>Not Rainclouds but Water!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tropile caught hold of himself and forced his mind to retrace that -thought. He <i>remembered</i> the Raincloud Meditation. It had been prompted -by a particularly noble cumulus of the Ancient Ship type.</p> - -<p>And this was odd. Tropile had never been deeply interested in -Rainclouds, had never known even the secondary classifications of -Raincloud types. And he <i>knew</i> that the Ancient Ship was of the fourth -order of categories.</p> - -<p>It was a false memory.</p> - -<p><i>It was not his.</i></p> - -<p>Therefore, logically, it was someone else's memory; and being available -to his own mind, as the fourteen other hands and eyes were available, -it must belong to—another branch of the snowflake.</p> - -<p>He turned his eyes down and tried to see which of the branches was his -old body. He found it quickly, with growing excitement. There was the -left great toe of his body. He had injured it in boyhood and there was -no mistaking the way it was bent. Good! It was reassuring.</p> - -<p>He tried to feel the one particular body that led to that familiar toe.</p> - -<p>He succeeded, though not easily. After a time, he became more aware -of <i>that</i> body—somewhat as a neurotic may become "stomach conscious" -or "heart conscious." But this was no neurosis; it was an intentional -exploration.</p> - -<p>Since that worked, with some uneasiness he transferred his attention to -another pair of feet and "thought" his way up from them.</p> - -<p>It was embarrassing.</p> - -<p>For the first time in his life, he knew what it felt like to have -breasts. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was like to -have one's internal organs quite differently shaped and arranged, -buttressed and stressed by different muscles. The very faint background -feel of man's internal arrangements, never questioned unless something -goes wrong with them and they start to hurt, was not at all like the -faint background feel that a woman has inside her.</p> - -<p>And when he concentrated on that feel, it was no faint background to -him. It was surprising and upsetting.</p> - -<p>He withdrew his attention—hoping that he would be able to. Gratefully, -he became conscious of his own body again. He was still <i>himself</i> if he -chose to be.</p> - -<p>Were the other seven still themselves?</p> - -<p>He reached into his mind—all of it, all eight separate intelligences -that were combined within him.</p> - -<p>"Is anybody there?" he demanded.</p> - -<p>No answer—or nothing he could recognize as an answer. He drove harder -and there still was none. It was annoying. He resented it as bitterly, -he remembered, as in the old days when he had first been learning the -subtleties of Ruin Appreciation. There had been a Ruin Master, his name -forgotten, who had been sometimes less than courteous, had driven hard—</p> - -<p>Another false memory!</p> - -<p>He withdrew and weighed it. Perhaps, he thought, that was a part of -the answer. These people, these other seven, would not be driven. The -attempt to call them back to consciousness would have to be delicate. -When he drove hard, it was painful—he remembered the instant violent -agony of his own awakening—and they reacted with anguish.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>More gently, alert for vagrant "memories," he combed the depths of -the eightfold mind within him, reaching into the sleeping portions, -touching, handling, sifting and associating, sorting. This memory of -an old knife wound from an Amok—that was not the Raincloud woman; it -was a man, very aged. This faint recollection of a childhood fear of -drowning—was that she? It was; it fitted with this other recollection, -the long detour on the road south toward the sun, around a river.</p> - -<p>The Raincloud woman was the first to round out in his mind, and the -first he communicated with. He was not surprised to find that, early in -her life, she had feared that she might be Wolf.</p> - -<p>He reached out for her. It was almost magic—knowing the "secret -name" of a person, so that then he was yours to command. But the -"secret name" was more than that. It was the gestalt of the person. -It was the sum of all data and experience, never available to another -person—until now.</p> - -<p>With her memories arranged at last in his own mind, he thought -persuasively: "Citizeness Alla Narova, will you awaken and speak with -me?"</p> - -<p>No answer—only a vague, troubled stirring.</p> - -<p>Gently he persisted: "I know you well, Alla Narova. You sometimes -thought you might be a Daughter of the Wolf, but never really believed -it because you knew you loved your husband—and thought Wolves did not -love. You loved Rainclouds, too. It was when you stood at Beachy Head -and saw a great cumulus that you went into Meditation—"</p> - -<p>And on and on, many times, coaxingly. Even so, it was not easy; but -at last he began to reach her. Slowly she began to surface. Thoughts -faintly sounded in his mind, like echoes at first, his own thoughts -bouncing back at him, a sort of mental nod of agreement: "Yes, that is -so." Then—terror. With a shaking fear, a hysterical rush, Citizeness -Alla Narova came violently up to full consciousness and to panic.</p> - -<p>She was soundlessly screaming. The whole eight-branched figure quivered -and twisted in its nutrient bath.</p> - -<p>The terrible storm raged in Tropile's own mind as fully as in hers—but -he had the advantage of knowing what it was. He helped her. He fought -it for the two of them ... soothing, explaining, calming.</p> - -<p>At last her branch of the snowflake-body retreated, sobbing for a -spell. The storm was over.</p> - -<p>He talked to her in his mind and she "listened." She was incredulous, -but there was no choice for her; she <i>had</i> to believe.</p> - -<p>Exhausted and passive, she asked finally: "What can we do? I wish I -were dead!"</p> - -<p>He told her: "You were never a coward before. Remember, Alla Narova, I -<i>know</i> you as nobody has ever known another human being before. That's -the way you will know me. As for what we can do—we must begin by -waking the others, if we can."</p> - -<p>"If not?"</p> - -<p>"If not," Tropile replied grimly, "then we will think of something -else."</p> - -<p>She was of tough stuff, he thought admiringly. When she had rested and -absorbed things, her spirit was almost that of a Wolf; she had very -nearly been right about herself.</p> - -<p>Together they explored their twinned members. They found through them -exactly what task was theirs to do. They found how the electrostatic -harvesting scythe of the Pyramids was controlled, by and through them. -They found what limitations there were and what freedoms they owned. -They reached into the other petals of the snowflake, reached past -the linked Components into the whole complex of electrostatic field -generators and propulsion machinery, reached even past that into—</p> - -<p>Into the great single function of the Pyramids that lay beyond.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">XI</p> - -<p>Haendl was on the ragged edge of breakdown, which was something new in -his life.</p> - -<p>It was full hot summer and the hidden colony of Wolves in Princeton -should have been full of energy and life. The crops were growing on all -the fields nearby; the drained storehouses were being replenished.</p> - -<p>The aircraft that had been so painfully rebuilt and fitted for the -assault on Mount Everest were standing by, ready to be manned and to -take off.</p> - -<p>And nothing, absolutely nothing, was going right.</p> - -<p>It looked as though there would <i>be</i> no expedition to Everest. Four -times now, Haendl had gathered his forces and been all ready. Four -times, a key man of the expedition had—vanished.</p> - -<p>Wolves didn't vanish!</p> - -<p>And yet more than a score of them had. First Tropile—then -Innison—then two dozen more, by ones and twos. No one was immune. Take -Innison, for example. There was a man who was Wolf through and through. -He was a doer, not a thinker; his skills were the skills of an artisan, -a tinkerer, a jackleg mechanic. How could a man like that succumb to -the pallid lure of Meditation?</p> - -<p>But undeniably he had.</p> - -<p>It had reached a point where Haendl himself was red-eyed and jumpy. He -had set curious alarms for himself—had enlisted the help of others of -the colony to avert the danger of Translation from himself.</p> - -<p>When he went to bed at night, a lieutenant sat next to his bed, -watchfully alert lest Haendl, in that moment of reverie before sleep, -fell into Meditation and himself be Translated. There was no hour of -the day when Haendl permitted himself to be alone; and his companions, -or guards, were ordered to shake him awake, as violently as need be, at -the first hint of an abstracted look in the eyes or a reflective cast -of the features.</p> - -<p>As time went on, Haendl's self-imposed regime of constant alertness -began to cost him heavily in lost rest and sleep. And the consequences -of that were—more and more occasions when the bodyguards shook him -awake; less and less rest.</p> - -<p>He was very close to breakdown indeed.</p> - -<p>On a hot, wet morning a few days after his useless expedition to see -Citizen Germyn in Wheeling, Haendl ate a tasteless breakfast and, -reeling with fatigue, set out on a tour of inspection of Princeton. -Warm rain dripped from low clouds, but that was merely one more -annoyance to Haendl. He hardly noticed it.</p> - -<p>There were upward of a thousand Wolves in the Community and there -were signs of worry on the face of every one of them. Haendl was not -the only man in Princeton who had begun laying traps for himself as a -result of the unprecedented disappearances; he was not the only one who -was short of sleep. When one member in forty disappears, the morale of -the whole community receives a shattering blow.</p> - -<p>To Haendl, it was clear, looking into the faces of his compatriots, -that not only was it going to be nearly impossible to mount the planned -assault on the Pyramid on Everest this year, it was going to be -unbearably difficult merely to keep the community going.</p> - -<p>The whole Wolf pack was on the verge of panic.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a confused shouting behind Haendl. Groggily he turned and -looked; half a dozen Wolves were yelling and pointing at something in -the wet, muggy air.</p> - -<p>It was an Eye, hanging silent and featureless over the center of the -street.</p> - -<p>Haendl took a deep breath and mustered command of himself. "Frampton!" -he ordered one of his lieutenants. "Get the helicopter with the -instruments here. We'll take some more readings."</p> - -<p>Frampton opened his mouth, then looked more closely at Haendl and, -instead, began to talk on his pocket radio. Haendl knew what was in the -man's mind—it was in his own, too.</p> - -<p>What was the use of more readings? From the time of Tropile's -Translation on, they had had a superfluity of instrument readings on -the forces and auras that surrounded the Eyes—yes, and on Translations -themselves, too. Before Tropile, there had never been an Eye seen in -Princeton, much less an actual Translation. But things were different -now. Everything was different. Eyes roamed restlessly around day and -night.</p> - -<p>Some of the men nearest the Eye were picking up rocks and throwing -them at the bobbing vortex in the air. Haendl started to yell at them -to stop, then changed his mind. The Eye didn't seem to be affected—as -he watched, one of the men scored a direct hit with a cobblestone. The -stone went right through the Eye, without sound or effect; why not let -them work off some of their fears in direct action?</p> - -<p>There was a fluttering of vanes and the copter with the instruments -mounted on it came down in the middle of the street, between Haendl and -the Eye.</p> - -<p>It was all very rapid from then on.</p> - -<p>The Eye swooped toward Haendl. He couldn't help it; he ducked. That -was useless, but it was also unnecessary, for he saw in a second that -it was only partly the motion of the Eye toward him that made it loom -larger; it was also that the Eye itself was growing.</p> - -<p>An Eye was perhaps the size of a football, as near as anyone could -judge. This one got bigger, bigger. It was the size of a roc's egg, -the size of a whale's blunt head. It stopped and hovered over the -helicopter, while the man inside frantically pointed lenses and meters—</p> - -<p>Thundercrash.</p> - -<p>Not a man this time—Translation had gone beyond men. The whole -helicopter vanished, man, instruments, spinning vanes and all.</p> - -<p>Haendl picked himself up, sweating, shocked beyond sleepiness.</p> - -<p>The young man named Frampton said fearfully: "Haendl, what do we do -now?"</p> - -<p>"Do?" Haendl stared at him absently. "Why, kill ourselves, I guess."</p> - -<p>He nodded soberly, as though he had at last attained the solution of a -difficult problem. Then he sighed.</p> - -<p>"Well, one thing before that," he said. "I'm going to Wheeling. We -Wolves are licked; maybe the Citizens can help us now."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Roget Germyn, of Wheeling, a Citizen, received the message in the -chambers that served him as a place of business. He had a visitor -waiting for him at home.</p> - -<p>Germyn was still Citizen and he could not quickly break off the -pleasant and interminable discussion he was having with a prospective -client over a potential business arrangement. He apologized for the -interruption caused by the message the conventional five times, -listened while his guest explained once more the plan he had come to -propose in full, then turned his cupped hands toward himself in the -gesture of Denial of Adequacy. It was the closest he could come to -saying no.</p> - -<p>On the other side of the desk, the Citizen who had come to propose an -investment scheme immediately changed the subject by inviting Germyn -and his Citizeness to a Sirius Viewing, the invitation in the form of -rhymed couplets. He had wanted to transact his business very much, but -he couldn't <i>insist</i>.</p> - -<p>Germyn got out of the invitation by a Conditional Acceptance in proper -form, and the man left, delayed only slightly by the Four Urgings to -Stay. Almost immediately, Germyn dismissed his clerk and closed his -office for the day by tying a triple knot in a length of red cord -across the open door.</p> - -<p>When he got to his home, he found, as he had suspected, that the -visitor was Haendl.</p> - -<p>There was much doubt in Citizen Germyn's mind about Haendl. The man had -nearly admitted to being Wolf, and how could a citizen overlook that? -But in the excitement of Gala Tropile's Translation, there had been no -hue and cry. Germyn had permitted the man to leave. And now?</p> - -<p>He reserved judgment. He found Haendl distastefully sipping tea in -the living room and attempting to keep up a formal conversation with -Citizeness Germyn. He rescued him, took him aside, closed a door—and -waited.</p> - -<p>He was astonished at the change in the man. Before, Haendl had been -bouncy, aggressive, quick-moving—the very qualities least desired in -a Citizen, the mark of the Son of the Wolf. Now he was none of these -things, but he looked no more like a Citizen for all that; he was -haggard, tense.</p> - -<p>He said, with an absolute minimum of protocol: "Germyn, the last time I -saw you, there was a Translation. Gala Tropile, remember?"</p> - -<p>"I remember," Citizen Germyn said. Remember! It had hardly left his -thoughts.</p> - -<p>"And you told me there had been others. Are they still going on?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Germyn said: "There have been others." He was trying to speak -directly, to match this man Haendl's speed and forcefulness. It -was hardly good manners, but it had occurred to Citizen Germyn -that there were times when manners, after all, were not the most -important thing in the world. "There were two in the past few days. -One was a woman—Citizeness Baird; her husband's a teacher. She was -Viewing Through Glass with four or five other women at the time. She -just—disappeared. She was looking through a green prism at the time, -if that helps."</p> - -<p>"I don't know if it helps or not. Who was the other one?"</p> - -<p>Germyn shrugged. "A man named Harmane. No one saw it. But they heard -the thunderclap, or something like a thunderclap, and he was missing." -He thought for a moment. "It is a little unusual, I suppose. Two in a -week—"</p> - -<p>Haendl said roughly: "Listen, Germyn. It isn't just two. In the past -thirty days, within the area around here and in <i>one other place</i>, -there have been at least fifty. In <i>two</i> places, do you understand? -Here and in Princeton. The rest of the world—nothing much; a few -Translations here and there. But just in these two communities, fifty. -Does that make sense?"</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn thought. "—No."</p> - -<p>"No. And I'll tell you something else. Three of the—well, victims have -been children under the age of five. One was too young to walk. And the -most recent Translation wasn't a person at all. It was a helicopter. -Now figure that out, Germyn. What's the explanation for Translations?"</p> - -<p>Germyn was gaping. "Why—you Meditate, you know. On Connectivity. The -idea is that once you've grasped the Essential Connectivity of All -Things, you become One with the Cosmic Whole. But I don't see how a -baby or a machine—"</p> - -<p>"No, of course you don't. Remember Glenn Tropile?"</p> - -<p>"Naturally."</p> - -<p>"He's the link," Haendl said grimly. "When he got Translated, we -thought it was a big help, because he had the consideration to do it -right under our eyes. We got enough readings to give us a clue as to -what, physically speaking, Translation is all about. That was the first -real clue and we thought he'd done us a favor. Now I'm not so sure."</p> - -<p>He leaned forward. "Every person I know of who was Translated was -someone Tropile knew. The three kids were in his class at the nursery -school—we put him there for a while to keep him busy, when he first -came to us. Two of the men he bunked with are gone; the mess boy who -served him is gone; his wife is gone. Meditation? No, Germyn. I know -most of those people. Not a damned one of them would have spent a -moment Meditating on Connectivity to save his life. And what do you -make of that?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Swallowing hard, Germyn said: "I just remembered. That man Harmane—"</p> - -<p>"What about him?"</p> - -<p>"The one who was Translated last week. He also knew Tropile. He was the -Keeper of the House of the Five Regulations when Tropile was there."</p> - -<p>"You see? And I'll bet the woman knew Tropile, too." Haendl got up -fretfully, pacing around. "Here's the thing, Germyn. I'm licked. You -know what I am, don't you?"</p> - -<p>Germyn said levelly: "I believe you to be Wolf."</p> - -<p>"You believe right. That doesn't matter any more. You don't like -Wolves. Well, I don't like you. But this thing is too big for me to -care about that any more. Tropile has started something happening, -and what the end of it is going to be, I can't tell. But I know this: -We're not safe, either of us. Maybe you still think Translation is -a fulfillment. I don't; it scares me. <i>But it's going to happen to -me</i>—and to you. It's going to happen to everybody who ever had -anything to do with Glenn Tropile, unless we can somehow stop it—and I -don't know how. Will you help me?"</p> - -<p>Germyn, trying not to tremble when all his buried fears screamed -<i>Wolf!</i>, said honestly: "I'll have to sleep on it."</p> - -<p>Haendl looked at him for a moment. Then he shrugged. Almost to himself, -he said: "Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we can't do anything about it -anyhow. All right. I'll come back in the morning, and if you've made up -your mind to help, we'll start trying to make plans. And if you've made -up your mind the other way—well, I guess I'll have to fight off a few -Citizens. Not that I mind that."</p> - -<p>Germyn stood up and bowed. He began the ritual Four Urgings.</p> - -<p>"Spare me that," Haendl growled. "Meanwhile, Germyn, if I were you, I -wouldn't make any long-range plans. You may not be here to carry them -out."</p> - -<p>Germyn asked thoughtfully: "And if you were <i>you</i>?"</p> - -<p>"I'm not making any," Haendl said grimly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Citizen Germyn, feeling utterly tainted with the scent of the Wolf -in his home, tossed in his bed, sleepless. His eyes were wide open, -staring at the dark ceiling. He could hear his wife's decorous -breathing from the foot of the bed—soft and regular, it should have -been lulling him to sleep.</p> - -<p>It was not. Sleep was very far away.</p> - -<p>Germyn was a brave enough man, as courage is measured among Citizens. -That is to say, he had never been afraid, though it was true that there -had been very little occasion. But he was afraid now. He didn't want to -be Translated.</p> - -<p>The Wolf, Haendl, had put his finger on it: <i>Perhaps you still think -Translation is a fulfillment.</i> Translation—the reward of Meditation, -the gift bestowed on only a handful of gloriously transfigured persons. -That was one thing. But the sort of Translation that was now involved -was nothing like that—not if it happened to children; not if it -happened to Gala Tropile; not if it happened to a machine.</p> - -<p>And Glenn Tropile was involved in it.</p> - -<p>Germyn turned restlessly.</p> - -<p>If people who knew Glenn Tropile were likely to be Translated, and -people who Meditated on Connectivity were likely to be Translated, then -people who knew Glenn Tropile and didn't want to be Translated had -better not Meditate on Connectivity.</p> - -<p>It was very difficult to <i>not</i> think of Connectivity.</p> - -<p>Endlessly he calculated sums in arithmetic in his mind, recited the -Five Regulations, composed Greeting Poems and Verses on Viewing. -And endlessly he kept coming back to Tropile, to Translation, to -Connectivity. He didn't <i>want</i> to be Translated. But still the thought -had a certain lure. What was it like? Did it hurt?</p> - -<p>Well, probably not, he speculated. It was very fast, according to -Haendl's report—if you could believe what an admitted Son of the Wolf -reported. But Germyn had to.</p> - -<p>Well, if it was fast—at that kind of speed, he thought, perhaps you -would die instantly. Maybe Tropile was dead. Was that possible? No, it -didn't seem so; after all, there was the fact of the connection between -Tropile and so many of the recently Translated. What was the connection -there? Or, generalizing, what connections were involved in—</p> - -<p>He rescued himself from the dread word and summoned up the first image -that came to mind. It happened to be Tropile's wife—Gala Tropile, who -had disappeared herself, in this very room.</p> - -<p>Gala Tropile. He stuck close to the thought of her, a little pleased -with himself. That was the trick of <i>not</i> thinking of Connectivity—to -think so hard and fully of something else as to leave no room in the -mind for the unwanted thought. He pictured every line of her face, -every wave of her stringy hair....</p> - -<p>It was very easy that way. He was pleased.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">XII</p> - -<p>On Mount Everest, the sullen stream of off-and-on responses that was -"mind" to the Pyramid had taken note of a new input signal.</p> - -<p>It was not a critical mind. Its only curiosity was a restless urge to -shove-and-haul, and there was no shove-and-haul about what to it was -perhaps the analogue of a man's hunger pang. The input signal said: <i>Do -thus.</i> It obeyed.</p> - -<p>Call it craving for a new flavor. Where once it had patiently waited -for the state that Citizens knew as Meditation on Connectivity, and the -Pyramid itself perhaps knew as a stage of ripeness in the fruits of its -wristwatch mine, now it wanted a different taste. Unripe? Overripe? At -any rate, different.</p> - -<p>Accordingly, the high-frequency wheep, wheep changed in tempo and in -key, and the bouncing echoes changed and ... there was a ripe one to be -plucked. (Its name was Innison.) And there another. (Gala Tropile.) -And another, another—oh, many others—a babe from Tropile's nursery -school and the Wheeling jailer and a woman Tropile once had coveted on -the street.</p> - -<p>Once the ruddy starch-to-sugar mark of ripeness had been what human -beings called Meditation on Connectivity and the Pyramids knew as -a convenient blankness. Now the sign was a sort of empathy with -the Component named Tropile. It didn't matter to the Pyramid on -Mount Everest. It swung its electrostatic scythe and the—call them -Tropiletropes—were harvested.</p> - -<p>It did not occur to the Pyramid on Mount Everest that a Component might -be directing its actions. How could it?</p> - -<p>Perhaps the Pyramid on Mount Everest wondered, if it knew how to -wonder, when it noticed that different criteria were involved in -selecting components these days. If it knew how to "notice." Surely -even a Pyramid might wonder when, without warning or explanation, -its orders were changed—not merely to harvest a different sort of -Component, but to drag along with the flesh-and-blood needful parts -a clanking assortment of machinery and metal, as began to happen. -Machines? Why would the Pyramids need to Translate machines?</p> - -<p>But why, on the other hand, would a Pyramid bother to question a -directive, even if it were able to?</p> - -<p>In any case, it didn't. It swung its scythe and gathered in what it was -caused to gather in.</p> - -<p>Men sometimes eat green fruit and come to regret it. Was it the same -with Pyramids?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And Citizen Germyn fell into the unsuspected trap. Avoiding -Connectivity, he thought of Glenn Tropile—and the unfelt h-f pulses -found him out.</p> - -<p>He didn't see the Eye that formed above him. He didn't feel the -gathering of forces that formed his trap. He didn't know that he was -seized, charged, catapulted through space, caught, halted and drained. -It happened too fast.</p> - -<p>One moment he was in his bed; the next moment he was—elsewhere. There -wasn't anything in between.</p> - -<p>It had happened to hundreds of thousands of Components before him, but, -for Citizen Germyn, what happened was in some ways different. He was -not embalmed in nutrient fluid, formed and programmed to take his part -in the Pyramid-structure, for he had not been selected by the Pyramid -but by that single wild Component, Tropile. He arrived conscious, awake -and able to move.</p> - -<p>He stood up in a red-lit chamber. Vast thundering crashes of metal -buffeted his ears. Heat sprang little founts of perspiration on his -skin.</p> - -<p>It was too much, too much to take in at once. Oily-skinned madmen, -naked, were capering and shouting at him. It took him a moment to -realize that they were not devils; this was not Hell; he was not dead.</p> - -<p>"This way!" they were bawling at him. "Come on, hurry it up!"</p> - -<p>He reeled, following their directions, across an unpleasantly warm -floor, staggering and falling—the binary planet was a quarter denser -than Earth—until he got his balance.</p> - -<p>The capering madmen led him through a door—or sphincter or trap; -it was not like anything he had ever seen. But it was a portal of a -sort, and on the other side of it was something closer to sanity. It -was another room, and though the light was still red, it was a paler, -calmer red and the thundering ironmongery was a wall away. The madmen -were naked, yes, but they were not mad. The oil on their skins was only -the sheen of sweat.</p> - -<p>"Where—where am I?" he gasped.</p> - -<p>Two voices, perhaps three or four, were all talking at once. He could -make no sense of it. Citizen Germyn looked about him. He was in a sort -of chamber that formed a part of a machine that existed for the unknown -purposes of the Pyramids on the binary planet. And he was alive—and -not even alone.</p> - -<p>He had crossed more than a million miles of space without feeling a -thing. But when what the naked men were saying began to penetrate, the -walls lurched around him.</p> - -<p>It was true; he had been Translated.</p> - -<p>He looked dazedly down at his own bare body, and around at the room, -and then he realized they were still talking: "—when you get your -bearings. Feel all right now? Come on, Citizen, snap out of it!"</p> - -<p>Germyn blinked.</p> - -<p>Another voice said peevishly: "Tropile's got to find some other place -to bring them in. That foundry isn't meant for human beings. Look at -the shape this one is in! Some time somebody's going to come in and we -won't spot him in time and—pfut!"</p> - -<p>The first voice said: "Can't be helped. Hey! Are you all right?"</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn looked at the naked man in front of him and took a deep -breath of hot, sour air. "Of course I'm all right," he said.</p> - -<p>The naked man was Haendl.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Tropile-petal "said" to the Alla Narova-petal: "Got another one! -It's Citizen Germyn!" The petal fluttered feebly in soundless laughter.</p> - -<p>The Alla Narova-petal "said": "Glenn, come back! The whole -propulsion-pneuma just went out of circuit!"</p> - -<p>Tropile pulled his attention away from his human acquisitions in -the chamber off the foundry and allowed himself to fuse with the -woman-personality. Together they reached out and explored along the -pathways they had laboriously traced. The propulsion-pneuma was the -complex of navigation-computers, drive generators, course-vectoring -units that their own unit had been originally part of—until Glenn -Tropile, by waking its Components, had managed to divert it for -purposes of his own. The two of them reached out into it—</p> - -<p>Dead end.</p> - -<p>It was out of circuit, as Alla Narova had said. One whole limb of their -body—their new, jointly tenanted body, that spanned a whole planet and -reached across space to Earth—had been lopped off. Quick, quick, they -separated, traced separate paths. They came together again: Still dead -end.</p> - -<p>The dyad that was Tropile and the woman reached out to touch the others -in the snowflake and communicated—not in words, not in anything as -slow and as opaque as words: <i>The Pyramids have lopped off another -circuit.</i> The compound personality of the snowflake considered its -course of action, reached its decision, acted. Quick, quick, three of -the other members of the snowflake darted out of the collective unit -and went about isolating and tracing the exact area that had been -affected.</p> - -<p>Tropile: "We expected this. They couldn't help noticing sooner or -later that something was going wrong."</p> - -<p>Alla Narova: "But, Glenn, suppose they cut <i>us</i> out of circuit? We're -stuck here. We can't move. We can't get out of the tanks. If they know -that we are the source of their trouble—"</p> - -<p>Tropile: "Let them know! That's what we've got the others here for!" He -was cocky now, self-assured, fighting. For the first time in his life, -he was free to fight—to let his Wolf blood strive to the utmost—and -he knew what he was fighting for. This wasn't a matter of Haendl's -pitiful tanks and carbines against the invulnerable Pyramids; this was -the invulnerability of the whole Pyramid system turned against the -Pyramids!</p> - -<p>It was a warning, the fact that the Pyramids had become alert to -danger, had begun cutting sections of their planetary communications -system out of the main circuit. But as a warning, it didn't frighten -Tropile; it only spurred him to action.</p> - -<p>Quick, quick, he and the woman-personality dissolved, sped away. -Figuratively they sought out the most restive Components they could -find, shook them by the shoulder, tried to wake them. Actually—well, -what is "actually?" The physical fact was surely that they didn't -move at all, for they were bound to their tank and to the surgical -joinings, each to each, at their temples. No crawling child in a -playpen was more helplessly confined than Tropile and Alla Narova and -the others.</p> - -<p>And yet no human being had ever been more free.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Regard that imbecile servant of Everyman, the thermostat.</p> - -<p>He runs the furnace in Everyman's house, he measures the doneness of -Everyman's breakfast toast, he valves the cooling fluid through the -radiator of Everyman's car. If Everyman's house stays too hot or too -cold, the man swears at the lackwit switch and maybe buys a new one -to plug in. But he never, never thinks that his thermostat might be -plotting against him.</p> - -<p>Thermostat : Man = Man : Pyramid. Only that and nothing more. It was -not in the nature of a Pyramid to think that its Components, once -installed, could reprogram themselves. No Component ever had. (But -before Glenn Tropile, no Component had been Wolf.)</p> - -<p>When Tropile found himself, he found others. They were men and women, -real persons with gonads and dreams. They had been caught at the moment -of blankness—yes; and frozen into that shape, true. But they were -palimpsest personalities on which the Pyramids had programmed their -duties. Underneath the Pyramids' cabalistic scrawl, the men and women -still remained. They had only to be reached.</p> - -<p>Tropile and Alla Narova reached them—one at a time, then by scores. -The Pyramids made that possible. The network of communication that they -had created for their own purposes encompassed every cell of the race -and all its works. Tropile reached out from his floating snowflake -and went where he wished—anywhere within the binary planet; to the -brooding Pyramid on Earth; through the Eyes, wherever he chose on -Earth's surface.</p> - -<p>Physically, he was scarcely able to move a muscle. But, oh, the soaring -range of his mind and vision!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Citizen Germyn was past shock, but just the same it was uncomfortable -to be in a room with several dozen other persons, all of them naked. -Uncomfortable. Once it would have been brain-shattering. For a Citizen -to see his own Citizeness unclothed was gross lechery. To be part of a -mixed and bare-skinned group was unthinkable. Or had been. Now it only -made him uneasy.</p> - -<p>He said numbly to Haendl: "Citizen, I pray you tell me what sort of -place this is."</p> - -<p>"Later," said Haendl gruffly, and led him out of the way. "Stay put," -he advised. "We're busy."</p> - -<p>And that was true. Something was going on, but Citizen Germyn couldn't -make out exactly what it was. The naked people were worrying out a -distribution of some sort of supplies. There were tools and there were -also what looked to Citizen Germyn's unsophisticated eyes very much -like guns. Guns? It was foolishness to think they were guns, Citizen -Germyn told himself strongly. <i>Nobody</i> had guns. He touched the floor -with an exploratory hand. It was warm and it shook with a nameless -distant vibration. He shuddered.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus5.jpg" width="600" height="410" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Haendl came back; yes, they were guns. Haendl was carrying one.</p> - -<p>"Ours!" he crowed. "That Tropile must've looted our armory at -Princeton. By the looks of what's here, I doubt if he left a single -round of ammunition. What the hell, they're more use here!"</p> - -<p>"But what are we going to do with <i>guns</i>?"</p> - -<p>Haendl looked at him with savage amusement. "Shoot."</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn said: "Please, Citizen. Tell me what this is all about."</p> - -<p>Haendl sat down next to him on the warm, quivering floor and began -fitting cartridges into a clip.</p> - -<p>"We're fighting," he explained gleefully. "Tropile did it all. You've -been shanghaied and so have all the rest of us. Tropile's alive! He's -part of the Pyramid communications network—don't ask me how. But he's -there and he has been hauling men and weapons and God knows what all up -from Earth—you're on the binary planet now, you know—and we're going -to bust things up so the Pyramids will <i>never</i> be able to put them back -together again. Understand? Well, it doesn't matter if you don't. All -you have to understand is that when I tell you to shoot this gun, you -shoot."</p> - -<p>Numbly, Citizen Germyn took the unfamiliar stock and barrel into his -hands. Muscles he had forgotten he owned straightened the limp curve of -his back, squared his shoulders and thrust out his chest.</p> - -<p>It had been many generations since any of Citizen Germyn's people had -known the feeling of being an Armed Man.</p> - -<p>A naked woman with wild hair and a full, soft figure came toward them, -jiggling in a way that agonized Citizen Germyn. He dropped his eyes to -his gun and kept them there.</p> - -<p>She cried: "Orders from Tropile! We've got to form a party and blow -something up."</p> - -<p>Haendl demanded: "Such as what?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what. I only know where. We've got a guide. And Tropile -particularly asked for you, Haendl. He said you'd enjoy it."</p> - -<p>And enjoy it Haendl did—anticipation was all over his face.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They formed a party of a dozen. They armed themselves with the guns -Tropile had levitated from the bulging warehouse at Princeton. They -supplied themselves with gray metal cans of something that Haendl said -were explosives, and with fuses and detonators to match, and they set -off—with their guide.</p> - -<p>A guide! It was a shambling, fearsome monster!</p> - -<p>When Citizen Germyn saw it, he had to fight an almost irresistible -temptation to be ill. Even the bare skins about him no longer mattered; -this new horror canceled them out.</p> - -<p>"What—What—" he strangled, pointing.</p> - -<p>Haendl laughed raucously. "That's Joey."</p> - -<p>"What's Joey?"</p> - -<p>"He works for us," said Haendl, grinning.</p> - -<p>Joey was neither human nor beast; it was not Pyramid; it was nothing -Citizen Germyn had ever seen or imagined before. It crouched on -many-jointed limbs, and even so was twice the height of a man. Its ropy -arms and legs were covered with fine chitinous spines, laid on as close -as hairs in a pelt, and sharp as thorns. There was a layer of chitin -around its reddish eyes. What was more horrible than all, it spoke.</p> - -<p>It said squeakily: "You all ready? Come on, snap it up! The Pyramids -have got something big building up and we've got to squash it."</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn whispered feverishly to Haendl: "That voice! It sounds -odd, yes—but isn't it Tropile's voice?"</p> - -<p>"Sure it is! That's what old Joey is good for," said Haendl. "Tropile -says he's telepathic, whatever that is. Makes it handy for us."</p> - -<p>And it did. Telepathy was the alien's very special use to Glenn -Tropile, for what Joey was in fact was another Component, from a -previous wristwatch mine. Joey's planet had once circled a star never -visible from Earth; his home air was thin and his home sunlight was -weak, and in consequence his race had developed a species of telepathy -for communicating at long range. This was handy for the Pyramids, -because it simplified the wiring. And it was equally handy for Glenn -Tropile, once he managed to wake the creature—with its permission, he -could use its body as a sort of walkie-talkie in directing the tactics -of his shanghaied army.</p> - -<p>That permission was very readily given. Joey remembered what the -Pyramids had done to its own planet.</p> - -<p>"Come on!" ordered Joey in Tropile's filtered voice, and they hastened -through a straight and achingly cramped tunnel in single file, toward -what Tropile had said was their target.</p> - -<p>They had nearly reached it when, abruptly, there was a thundering of -explosions ahead.</p> - -<p>The party stopped, looked at each other, and got ready to move on more -slowly.</p> - -<p>At last it had started. The Pyramids were beginning to fight back.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">XIII</p> - -<p>Citizeness Roget Germyn, widow, woke from sleep like a well-mannered -cat on the narrow lower third of the bed that her training had taught -her to occupy, though it had been some days since her husband's -Translation had emptied the Citizen's two-thirds permanently.</p> - -<p>Someone had tapped gently on her door.</p> - -<p>"I am awake," she called, in a voice just sufficient to carry.</p> - -<p>A quiet voice said: "Citizeness, there is exceptional opportunity to -Appreciate this morning. Come see, if you will. And I ask forgiveness -for waking you."</p> - -<p>She recognized the voice; it was the wife of one of her neighbors. -The Citizeness made the appropriate reply, combining forgiveness and -gratitude.</p> - -<p>She dressed rapidly, but with appropriate pauses for reflection and -calm, and stepped out into the street.</p> - -<p>It was not yet daylight. Overhead, great sheets of soundless lightnings -flared.</p> - -<p>Inside Citizeness Germyn long-unfelt emotions stirred. There was -something that was very like terror, and something that was akin to -love. This was a generation that had never seen the aurora, for the -ricocheting electron beams that cause it could not span the increasing -distance between the orphaned Earth and its primary, Old Sol, and the -small rekindled suns the Pyramids made were far too puny.</p> - -<p>Under the sleeting aurora, small knots of Citizens stood about the -streets, their faces turned up to the sky and illuminated by the -distant light. It was truly an exceptional opportunity to Appreciate -and they were all making the most of it.</p> - -<p>Conscientiously, Citizeness Germyn sought out another viewer with whom -to exchange comments on the spectacle above. "It is more bright than -meteors," she said judiciously, "and lovelier than the freshly kindled -Sun."</p> - -<p>"Sure," said the woman. Citizeness Germyn, jolted, looked more closely. -It was the Tropile woman—Gala? Was that her name? And what sort of -name was <i>that</i>? But it fitted her well; she was the one who had been -wife to Wolf and, more likely than not, part Wolf herself.</p> - -<p>Still, the case was not proved. Citizeness Germyn said honestly: "I -have never seen a sight to compare with this in all my life."</p> - -<p>Gala Tropile said indifferently: "Yeah. Funny things are happening all -the time these days, have you noticed? Ever since Glenn turned out to -be—" She stopped.</p> - -<p>Citizeness Germyn rapidly diagnosed her embarrassment and acted to -cover it up. "That is so. I have seen Eyes a hundred times and yet -has there been a Translation with the Eyes? No. But there have been -Translations. It is queer."</p> - -<p>"I suppose so," Gala Tropile said, looking upward at the display. She -sighed.</p> - -<p>Over their heads, a formed Eye was drifting slowly about, but neither -of the women noticed it. The shifting lights in the sky obscured it.</p> - -<p>"I wonder what causes that stuff," Gala Tropile said idly.</p> - -<p>Citizeness Germyn made no attempt to answer. It was not the sort of -question that would normally have occurred to her and therefore not a -sort to which she could reply.</p> - -<p>Moreover, it was not the question closest to Gala Tropile's heart at -that moment—nor, for that matter, the question closest to Citizeness -Germyn's. The question that underlay the thoughts of both was: <i>I -wonder what happened to my husband.</i></p> - -<p>It was strange, but true, that the answers to all their questions were -very nearly the same.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Alla-Narova mind said sharply: "Glenn, come back!"</p> - -<p>Tropile withdrew from scanning the distant dark street. He laughed -soundlessly. "I was watching my wife. God, we're giving them fits down -there! The Pyramids must be churning things up, too—the sky is full of -auroral displays. Looks like there's plenty of h-f bouncing around the -atmosphere."</p> - -<p>"Pay attention!" the Alla-Narova mind commanded.</p> - -<p>"All right." Obediently, Tropile returned to the war he was waging.</p> - -<p>It was a strange conflict, strangely fought. Tropile's mind searched -the abysses and tunnels of the Pyramid planet, and what he sensed or -saw was immediately communicated to all of the awakened Components who -were his allies.</p> - -<p>It was a godlike position. Was he sane? There was no knowing. Sanity -no longer meant anything to Tropile. He was beyond such human affairs -as lunacy or its reverse. An insane man is one who is out of joint -with his environment. Tropile was himself his environment. His mind -encompassed two planets and the space between. He saw with a thousand -eyes. He worked with a thousand hands.</p> - -<p>And he struck mighty blows.</p> - -<p>The weakness of a network that reaches everywhere is that it is -everywhere vulnerable. If a teletype repeater in Omaha garbles a single -digit, printing units in Atlanta and Bangor will type out errors. -Tropile, by striking at the Pyramids' net at a thousand points, garbled -their communications and made them nearly useless. More, he took the -Pyramid network for his own. The Tropile-pulse sped through the neurone -guides of the Pyramid net, and what it encountered it mastered, and -what it mastered it changed.</p> - -<p>The Pyramids discovered that they had been attacked.</p> - -<p>Frantically (if they felt frenzy), the Pyramids replaced Components; -the Tropile-pulse woke the new ones. Unbelievingly (did they know -how to "believe"?), the Pyramids isolated contaminated circuits; the -Tropile-pulse bypassed them.</p> - -<p>Desperately (or joyously or uffishly—one term fits exactly as well as -another), the Pyramids returned to shove-and-haul, and there was much -destruction, and some Components died.</p> - -<p>But by then, the Components had reprogrammed themselves.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The first job had been the matter of finding hands for the -Tropile-brain to work with. Bring hands in, then! Tropile commanded -the Pyramids' network and obediently it was done. The Translation -mechanism, the electrostatic scythe that had harvested so many crops -from the wristwatch mines, suffered a change and went to work not for -the pickers but for the fruit.</p> - -<p>The essential change in the operation of that particular pneuma had -been simple; first, to "harvest" or "Translate" the men and women -Tropile wanted as fighters instead of the meditative Citizen kind. -Second, to divert the new arrivals to where they would not go straight -to deep-freeze. It happened that the only alternate space Tropile could -find was a sort of foundry that was nearly Hell, but that was only a -detail. The important thing was that new helpers were arriving, with -minds of their own and the capacity to move and act.</p> - -<p>Then Tropile needed to communicate with them. He found the alien, -ropy-limbed Component whose name vaguely approached "Joey." Joey's -limited sense of telepathy was needed and so, with enormous difficulty, -Tropile and Alla Narova, combined, managed to reach and wake it.</p> - -<p>And so he had an army, captured humans for troops, an awakened Joey -for liaison.</p> - -<p>Tropile was lord of two worlds. Not only the Pyramids were under his -thumb, but his own fellow humans whom he had drafted into his service. -They ate when a captured circuit he controlled fed synthetic mush into -troughs for them. They breathed because a captured circuit he directed -created air. They would return to Earth when—and only when—a captured -circuit he operated sent them home.</p> - -<p>Sane?</p> - -<p>By what standards?</p> - -<p>And what difference did it make?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">XIV</p> - -<p>With a series of grinding shocks, like an enormous earthquake-fault -relieving a strain, the Pyramids began to fight back.</p> - -<p>"Tropile!" the Alla-Narova mind called urgently.</p> - -<p>Tropile flashed to the trouble spot. Through eyes that were not his -own, Tropile scanned the honeycombed world of the Pyramids. There was -an area where huge and ancient vehicles lay covered with the slow dust -of centuries, and the vehicles were beginning to move.</p> - -<p>Caterpillar-treaded hauling machines were loading themselves with what -Tropile judged were quickly synthesized explosives. Almost forgotten -wheeled vehicles were creeping mindlessly out of nearly abandoned -storage sections and lumbering painfully along the tunnels of the -planet.</p> - -<p>"Coming toward us," Tropile diagnosed dispassionately.</p> - -<p>Alla Narova queried: "They mean to fight?"</p> - -<p>"Of course. You see if you can penetrate the circuit that controls -them. I—" already he was flashing away—"I'll get to the boys through -Joey."</p> - -<p>It was queer, looking through the eyes of the alien they called Joey; -colors were all wrong, perspective was flat. But he could see, though -cloudily. He saw Haendl joyously fitting a bayonet—<i>a bayonet!</i>—to -a rifle; he saw Citizen Germyn, naked but square-shouldered, puffing -valiantly along in the rear.</p> - -<p>Tropile said through the strange vocal cords that belonged to the -alien: "You'll have to hurry." (Strange to speak in words again!) "The -Pyramids are heading toward the chambers where the Components are kept. -I think they mean to kill us."</p> - -<p>He flashed away, located the area, flashed back. "You'll have to go -without me—I mean without Joey-me. The only way I see to get there is -through a narrow little ventilation tunnel—I guess ventilation is what -it was for."</p> - -<p>Quickly (but against the familiar race of thought, it seemed -agonizingly slow) he laid out the route for them and left; it was up -to them. Watching from a dozen viewpoints at once, he saw the slow -creep of the Pyramids' machines and the slower intersecting march of -his little army. He studied the alternate cross routes and contrived -to block some of them by interfering with the control-circuits of the -emergency doors and portals.</p> - -<p>But there were some circuits he could not control. The Pyramids -had withdrawn whole sections of their net and areas of the -planet were now hidden from him entirely. Sections of the vast -maintenance-propulsion-manufacturing complex were no longer subject to -his interference or control.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It would be, Tropile thought dispassionately, a rather close thing. -The chances were perhaps six out of ten that his hastily assembled -task force would be able to intercept the convoy of automatic machines -before it could reach the racks of nutrient tanks.</p> - -<p>And if they were not in time?</p> - -<p>Tropile almost laughed out loud, if that had been possible. Why, then, -his body would be destroyed! How trivial a thing to worry about! He -began to forget he owned a body; surely it was someone else's bone and -tissue that lay floating in the eight-branched snowflake. He knew that -this was not so. He knew that if his body were killed, he would die. -And yet there was no sense of fear, no personal involvement. It was an -interesting problem in scheduling and nothing more.</p> - -<p>Would the human fighters get there in time?</p> - -<p>Perhaps the automatic machines had senses, for as the first of the -humans burst into the tunnel they were using, a few hundred yards ahead -of the lead load-carrier, the machines shuddered to a stop. Pause for -a second; then, laboriously, they began to back toward the nearest of -the side passages that Tropile had been unable to block. He scanned it -hurriedly. Good, good! The circuits surrounding the passage proper were -out of his reach, but it led to another passage, an abandoned pipeline -of sorts, it seemed to be. And <i>that</i> he could reach....</p> - -<p>Patiently (how slowly the machines crept along!) he waited until one of -the Pyramids' machines bearing explosives passed through an enormous -valve in the line—and then the valve was thrown.</p> - -<p>The explosion triggered every vehicle in the line. The damage was -complete.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus6.jpg" width="580" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Scratch one threat from the Pyramids—</p> - -<p>And almost at once, there was another urgent call from Alia Narova: -"Tropile, quickly!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Pyramids were the mightiest race of warriors the Universe had ever -known. They were invulnerable and unconquerable, except from within. -Like Alexander the Great, they had met every enemy and whipped them -all. And, like dying Alexander, they writhed and raged against the -tiny, unseen bacillus within themselves.</p> - -<p>Blindly, almost suicidally, the Pyramids returned to their ancient -principle of shove-and-haul.</p> - -<p>The geography of the binary planet was like a hive of bees, nearly -featureless on the surface, but internally a congeries of tunnels, -chambers, warrens, rooms, tubes and amphitheaters. Machinery and metal -Components were everywhere thick under the planet's crust. The more -delicate and more useful Components of flesh and blood were, to a -degree, concentrated in a few areas....</p> - -<p>And one of those areas had disappeared.</p> - -<p>Tropile, battering futilely with his mind at the periphery of the -vanished area, cried sharply to Alla Narova and the others: "It looks -as though they've broken a piece right out of the planet! Everything -stops here—there's a physical gap which I can't cross. Hurry, one of -you—what was this section for?"</p> - -<p>"Propulsion."</p> - -<p>"I see." Tropile hesitated, confused for the first time since his -awakening. "Wait."</p> - -<p>He retreated to the snowflake and communed with the other -eight-branched members, now become something that resembled his general -staff. He told them—most of them already knew, but the telling took so -little time that it was simpler to go through it from beginning to end:</p> - -<p>"The Pyramids attempted to cut the propulsion-pneuma out of circuit -some seconds or days ago and were unsuccessful; we awakened additional -Components and were able to maintain contact with it. They have now -apparently cut it loose from the planet itself. I do not think it is -far, but there is a physical space between."</p> - -<p>"The importance of the propulsion-pneuma is this: It controls the -master generators of electrostatic force, which are used both to -move this planet and ours, and to perform the act of Translation. If -the Pyramids control it, they may be able to take us out of circuit, -perhaps back to Earth, perhaps throwing us into space, where we will -die. The question for decision: How can we counteract this move?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A rush of voices all spoke at once; it was no trick for Tropile and the -others to sort them out and follow the arguments of each, but it cannot -be reproduced.</p> - -<p>At last, one said: "There is a way. I will do it."</p> - -<p>It was Alla Narova.</p> - -<p>"What is the way?" Tropile demanded, curiously alarmed.</p> - -<p>"I shall go with them, trace the areas the Pyramids are attempting to -isolate, place my entire self—" by this she meant her "concentration," -her "psyche," that part of all of them which flashed along the neurone -guides unhampered by flesh or distance—"in the most likely point they -will next cut loose. And then I shall cause the propulsion units on the -severed sections to force them back into circuit."</p> - -<p>Tropile objected: "But you don't know what will happen! We have never -been cut off from our physical bodies, Alla Narova. It may be death. It -may not be possible at all. You don't know!"</p> - -<p>Alla Narova thought a smile and a farewell. She said: "No, I do not." -And then, "Good-by, Tropile."</p> - -<p>She had gone.</p> - -<p>Furiously, Tropile hurled himself after her, but she was quick as -he, too quick to catch; she was gone. <i>Foolishness, foolishness!</i> he -shouted silently. How could she do an insane, chancy thing like this?</p> - -<p>And yet what else was there to do? They were all ignorant babes, -temporarily successful because there had been no defense against them, -for who expects babes to rise up in rebellion? They didn't <i>know</i>. -For all they could guess or imagine, the Pyramids had an effective -counter for any move they might make. Temporary success meant nothing. -It was the final decision that counted, when either the Pyramids were -vanquished or the men, and what steps were needed to make that decision -favor the men were anyone's guess—Alla Narova's was as good as his.</p> - -<p>Tropile could only watch and wait.</p> - -<p>Through a great many viewpoints and observers, he was able to see -roughly what happened.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a section of the planet next the severed chunk where the mind -and senses of Alla Narova lay coiled for a moment—and were gone. For -what it had accomplished, her purpose succeeded. She had been taken. -She was out of circuit.</p> - -<p>The overwhelming consciousness of loss that flooded through Glenn -Tropile was something outside of all his experience.</p> - -<p>Next to him in the snowflake, the body which he had learned to think -of as the body of Alla Narova twisted sharply as though waking from a -dream—and lay flaccid, floating in the fluid.</p> - -<p>"Alla Narova! <i>Alla Narova!</i>"</p> - -<p>There was no answer.</p> - -<p>A voice came piercingly: "Tropile! Here now, quickly!"</p> - -<p>Good-by, Alla Narova! He flashed away to see what the other voice had -found. Great mindless boulders were chipping away from the crust of the -binary planet and whirling like midges in the void around it.</p> - -<p>"What is it?" cried one of the others.</p> - -<p>Tropile had no answer. It was the Pyramids, clearly. Were they -attempting to demolish their own planet? Were they digging away at the -crust to uncover the maggot's-nest of awakened Components beneath?</p> - -<p>"The air!" cried Tropile sharply, and knew it was true. What the -Pyramids were up to was a simple delousing operation. If you could -destroy their own machinery for maintaining air and pressure and -temperature, they would destroy all living things within—including -Haendl and Citizen Germyn and thus, in the final analysis, including -the bodies of Tropile and his awakened fellows. For without the mobile -troops to defend their helpless cocoons against the machines of the -Pyramids, the limp bodies could be destroyed as easily as a larva under -a farmer's heel.</p> - -<p>So Alla Narova had failed.</p> - -<p>Alone against the Pyramids, she had been unable to bring the recaptured -sections back into the circuit that Tropile's Components now dominated. -It was the end of hope; but it was not the fear of defeat and -damnation for the Earth that paralyzed Tropile. It was Alla Narova, -gone from him forever.</p> - -<p>The Pyramids were too strong.</p> - -<p>And yet, he thought, quickening, they had been too strong before and -still a weak spot had been found!</p> - -<p>"Think," he ordered himself desperately.</p> - -<p>And then again: "Think!" Components stirred restlessly around him, -questioning. "Think!" he cried mightily. "All of you, think! Think of -your lives and hopes!</p> - -<p>"Think!</p> - -<p>"Hope!</p> - -<p>"Worry!</p> - -<p>"Dream!"</p> - -<p>The Components were reaching toward him now, wonderingly. He commanded -them violently: "Do it—concentrate, wish, think! Let your minds run -free and think of Earth, pleasant grass and warm sun! Think of loving -and sweat and heartbreak! Think of death and birth! <i>Think</i>, for the -love of heaven, <i>think</i>!"</p> - -<p>And the answer was not in sound, but it was deafening.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In the cut-off sections, Alla Narova's soaring mind lay trapped. It -had not been enough; she could not force her will against the dull -inflexibility of the Pyramids....</p> - -<p>Until that inflexible will began to waver.</p> - -<p>There was a leakage of thought.</p> - -<p>It maddened and baffled the Pyramids. The whole neuronic network was -resounding to a babble of thoughts and emotions that, to a Pyramid, -were utterly demented! The rousing Component minds throbbed with urge -and emotion that were new to Pyramid experience. What could a Pyramid -make of a human's sex drive? Or of the ropy-armed aliens' passionate -deification of the Egg? What of hunger and thirst and the blazing -Wolf-need for odds and advantage that streamed out of such as Tropile?</p> - -<p>They wavered, unsure. Their reactions were slow and very confused.</p> - -<p>For Alla Narova succeeded in her purpose. She was able to reach out -across the space and barrier to Tropile and the propulsion-pneuma was -back in circuit. The section that controlled the master generators of -the electronic scythe lay under his hands.</p> - -<p>"Now!" he cried, and all of the Components reached out to grasp and -move.</p> - -<p>"Now!" And the central control was theirs; the full flood of power from -the generators was at their command.</p> - -<p>"Now! Now! Now!" And they reached out, with a fat pencil of -electrostatic force and caught the sluggish, brooding Pyramid on Mount -Everest.</p> - -<p>It had squatted there without motion for more than two centuries. Now -it quivered and seemed to draw back, but the probing pencil caught -it, and whirled it, and hurled it up and out of Earth, into the tiny -artificial sun.</p> - -<p>It struck with a flare of blue-white light.</p> - -<p>"One gone!" gloated Tropile. "Alla Narova, are you there?"</p> - -<p>"Still here," she called from a great distance. "Again?"</p> - -<p>"Again!"</p> - -<p>They reached for the Pyramids and found them, wherever they were. Some -lay close to the surface of the binary planet, and some were hundreds -of miles within, and a few, more desperate than the others or merely -assigned to the task, they discovered at the very portal of the single -spaceship of the Pyramids.</p> - -<p>But wherever they were and whatever they chose to do, each one of them -was found and seized. They came wriggling and shaking, like trout -on an angler's line. They came bursting through layer on layer of -impenetrable metal that, nevertheless, they penetrated. They came by -the dozens and scores, and at last by the thousands; but they came.</p> - -<p>There were more and more flares of blue-white light on the tiny sun—so -many that Tropile found himself scouring the planet in a desperate -search for one surviving Pyramid—not to destroy as an enemy, but to -keep for a specimen.</p> - -<p>But he searched in vain.</p> - -<p>The Pyramids were destroyed, gone. There was not one left. The Earth -lay open and free under its tiny sun for the first time in centuries.</p> - -<p>It had been a strange war, but a short one.</p> - -<p>And it was over.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">XIV</p> - -<p>Tropile swam up out of hammering blackness into daylight and pain.</p> - -<p>It <i>hurt</i>. He was being born again—coming back to life—and it had -all the agonies of parturition, except that they were visited upon the -creature being born, himself. There were crushing blows at his temples -that pounded and pained like no other ache he had ever felt. He moaned -raspingly.</p> - -<p>Someone moved blurrily over his shut eyes. He felt something sting -sharply at the base of his brain. Then it tingled, warming his scalp, -comforting it, numbing it. Pain went slowly away.</p> - -<p>He opened his eyes.</p> - -<p>Four masked torturers were leaning over him. He stared, not -understanding; but the eyes were not torturers' eyes, and in a moment -the masks came off. Surgical masks—and the faces beneath the masks -were human faces.</p> - -<p>Surgeons and nurses.</p> - -<p>He blinked at them and said groggily: "Where am we?" And then he -remembered.</p> - -<p>He was back on Earth; he was merely human again.</p> - -<p>Someone came bustling into the room and he knew without looking that it -was Haendl.</p> - -<p>"We beat them, Tropile!" Haendl cried. "No, cancel that. <i>You</i> beat -them. We've destroyed every Pyramid there was, and a nice hot fire -they're making up there on the sun, eh? Beautiful work, Tropile. -Beautiful! You're a credit to the name of Wolf!"</p> - -<p>The surgeons stirred uneasily, but apparently, Tropile thought, there -had been changes, for they did no more than that.</p> - -<p>Tropile touched his temples fretfully and his fingers rested on gauze -bandages. It was true: he was out of circuit. The long reach of his -awareness was cut short at his skull; there was no more of the infinite -sweep and grasp he had known as part of the snowflake in the nutrient -fluid.</p> - -<p>"Too bad," he whispered hopelessly.</p> - -<p>"What?" Haendl frowned. The nurse next to him whispered something and -he nodded. "Oh, I see. You're still a little groggy, right? Well, -that's not hard to understand—they tell me it was a tricky job of -surgery, separating you from that gunk the Pyramids had wired into -your head."</p> - -<p>"Yes," said Tropile, and closed his ears, though Haendl went on -talking. After a while, Tropile pushed himself up and swung his legs -over the side of the operating table. He was naked. Once that would -have bothered him enormously, but now it didn't seem to matter.</p> - -<p>"Find me some clothes, will you?" he asked. "I'm back. I might as well -start getting used to it."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Glenn Tropile found that he was a returning hero, attracting a curious -sort of hero-worship wherever he went. It was not, he thought after -careful analysis, <i>exactly</i> what he might have expected. For instance, -a man who went out and killed a dragon in the old days was received -with great gratitude and rejoicing, and if there was a prince's -daughter around, he married her. Fair enough, after all. And Tropile -had slain a foe more potent than any number of dragons.</p> - -<p>But he tested the attention he received and found no gratitude in it. -It was odd.</p> - -<p>What it was like most of all, he thought, was the sort of attention a -reigning baseball champion might get—in a country where cricket was -the national game. He had done something which, everybody agreed, was -an astonishing feat, but about which nobody seemed to care. Indeed, -there was an area of accusation in some of the attention he got.</p> - -<p>Item: nearly ninety thousand erstwhile Components had now been brought -back to ambient life, most of them with their families long dead, all -of them a certain drain on the limited resources of the planet. And -what was Glenn Tropile going to do about it?</p> - -<p>Item: the old distinctions between Citizen and Wolf no longer made much -sense now that so many Componentized Citizens had fought shoulder to -shoulder with Componentized Sons of the Wolf. But didn't Glenn Tropile -think he had gone a little too far <i>there</i>?</p> - -<p>And item—looking pretty far ahead, of course, but still—well, just -what <i>was</i> Glenn Tropile going to do about providing a new sun for -Earth, when the old one wore out and there would be no Pyramids to tend -the fire?</p> - -<p>He sought refuge with someone who would understand him. That, he was -pleased to realize, was easy. He had come to know several persons -extremely well. Loneliness, the tortured loneliness of his youth, was -permanently behind him, <i>definitely</i>.</p> - -<p>For example, he could seek out Haendl, who would understand everything -very well.</p> - -<p>Haendl said: "It is a bit of a letdown, I suppose. Well, hell with -it; that's life." He laughed grimly. "Now that we've got rid of the -Pyramids, there's plenty of other work to be done. Man, we can breathe -now! We can plan ahead! This planet has maundered along in its stupid, -rutted, bogged-down course too many years already, eh? It's time we -took over! And we'll be doing it, I promise you. You know, Tropile—" -he sniggered—"I only regret one thing."</p> - -<p>"What's that?" Tropile asked cautiously.</p> - -<p>"All those weapons, out of reach! Oh, I'm not <i>blaming</i> you. But you -can see what a lot of trouble it's going to be now, stocking up all -over again—and there isn't much we can do about bringing order to -this tired old world, is there, until we've got the guns to do it with -again?"</p> - -<p>Tropile left him much sooner than he had planned.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Citizen Germyn, then? The man had fought well, if nothing else. Tropile -went to find him and, for a moment at least, it was very good. Germyn -said: "I've been doing a lot of thinking, Tropile. I'm glad you're -here." He sent his wife for refreshments, and decorously she brought -them in, waited for exactly one minute, and then absented herself.</p> - -<p>Tropile burst into speech as soon as she left. "I'm beginning to -realize what has happened to the human race, Germyn. I don't mean just -now, when we licked the Pyramids and so on. No, I mean hundreds of -years ago, what happened when the Pyramids arrived, and what has been -happening since. Did you ever hear of Indians, Germyn?"</p> - -<p>Germyn frowned minutely and shrugged.</p> - -<p>"They were, oh, hundreds <i>and</i> hundreds of years ago. They were a -different color and not very civilized—of course, nobody was then. But -the Indians were nomads, herdsmen, hunters—like that. And the white -people came from Europe and wanted this country for themselves. So they -took it. And do you know something? I don't think the Indians ever knew -what hit them."</p> - -<p>"<i>They</i> didn't know about land grants and claiming territory for the -crown and church missions and expanding populations. They didn't have -those things. It's true that they learned pretty well, by and by—at -least they learned things like guns and horses and firewater; they -didn't have those things, either, but they could see some sense to -them, you know. But I really don't think the Indians ever knew exactly -what the Europeans were up to, until it was too late to matter.</p> - -<p>"And it was the same with us and the Pyramids, only more so. What -the devil <i>did</i> they want? I mean, yes, we found out what they did -with the Translated people. But what were they <i>up</i> to? What did -they <i>think</i>? <i>Did</i> they think? You know, I've got a kind of a crazy -idea—maybe it's not crazy, maybe it's the truth. Anyway, I've been -thinking. Suppose even the <i>Pyramids</i> weren't the Pyramids? We never -talked to one of them. We never gave it a Rorschach or tested its knee -jerks. We licked them, but we don't know anything about them. We don't -even know if they were the guys that started the whole bloody thing, or -if they were just sort of super-sized Components themselves. Do we?</p> - -<p>"And meanwhile, here's the human race, up against something that it not -only can't understand, same as the Indians couldn't the whites, but -that it can't begin to make a <i>guess</i> about. At least the Indians had -a clue now and then, you know—I mean they'd see the sailors off the -great white devil ship making a beeline for the Indian women and so on, -and they'd begin to understand there was <i>something</i> in common. But we -didn't have that much.</p> - -<p>"So what did we do? Why, we did like the reservation Indians. We turned -inward. We got loaded on firewater—Meditation—and we closed our minds -to the possibility of ever expanding again. And there we were, all -tied up in our own knots. Most of the race rebelled against action, -because it had proven useless—Citizens. A few of the race rebelled -against <i>that</i>, because it was not only useless but <i>deliberately</i> -useless—Wolves. But they're the same kind of people. You've seen that -for yourself, right? And—"</p> - -<p>Tropile stopped, suddenly aware that Citizen Germyn was looking tepidly -pained.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter?" Tropile demanded harshly.</p> - -<p>Citizen Germyn gave him the faint deprecatory Quirked Smile. "I know -you thought you were a Wolf, but—I told you I've been thinking a lot, -and that's what I was thinking about. <i>Truly</i>, Citizen, you do yourself -no good by pretending that you really thought you were Wolf. Clearly -you were not; the rest of us might have been fooled, but certainly you -couldn't fool yourself.</p> - -<p>"Now here's what I think you ought to do. When I found you were coming, -I asked several rather well-known Citizens to come here later this -evening. There won't be any embarrassment. I only want you to talk to -them and set the record straight, so that this terrible blemish will no -longer be held against you. Times change and perhaps a certain latitude -is advisable now, but certainly you don't want—"</p> - -<p>Tropile also left Citizen Germyn sooner than he had expected to.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There remained Alla Narova, but, queerly, she was not to be found.</p> - -<p>Instantly it became clear to Tropile that it was she above all whom he -needed to talk to. He remembered the shared beauty of their plunging -drive through the neurone-guides of the Pyramids, the linked and -inextricable flow of their thoughts and of their most hidden feelings.</p> - -<p>She could not be very far, he thought numbly, cursing the blindness of -his human eyes, the narrowness of his human senses. Time was when two -worlds could not have hidden her from him; but that time was gone. He -walked from place to place with the angry resentful tread of one used -to riding—no, to flying, or faster than flying. He asked after her. He -searched.</p> - -<p>And at last he found—not her. A note. At one of the stations where the -re-awakened Components were funneled back into human affairs, there was -a letter waiting for him:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><i>I'm sure you will look for me. Please don't. You thought that there -were no secrets between us, but there was one.</i></p> - -<p><i>When I was Translated, I was sixty-one years old. Two years before -that, I was caught in a collapsing building; my legs are useless, and -I had grown quite fat. I do not want you to see me fat and old.</i></p> - -<p class="ph5"><i>Alla Narova.</i></p> -</div> - -<p>And that was that, and at last Glenn Tropile turned to the last person -of all those on his list who had known him well. Her name was Gala -Tropile.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She had got thinner, he observed. They sat together quietly and there -was considerable awkwardness, but then he noticed that she was weeping. -Comforting her ended the awkwardness and he found that he was talking:</p> - -<p>"It was like being a god, Gala! I swear, there's no feeling like it. -I mean it's like—well, maybe if you'd just had a baby, and invented -fire, and moved a mountain, and transmuted lead into gold—maybe if -you'd done all of those things, then you might have some idea. But I -was everywhere at once, Gala, and I could do anything! I fought a whole -world of Pyramids, do you realize that? Me! And now I come back to—"</p> - -<p>He stopped her in time; it seemed she was about to weep again.</p> - -<p>He went on: "No, Gala, don't misunderstand, I don't hold anything -against you. You were right to leave me in the field. What did I have -to offer you? Or myself, for that matter? And I don't know that I have -anything now, but—"</p> - -<p>He slammed his fist against the table. "They talk about putting the -Earth back in its orbit! Why? And how? My God, Gala, we don't know -<i>where</i> we are. Maybe we could tinker up the gadgets the Pyramids used -and turn our course backward—but do you know what Old Sol looks like? -I don't. I never saw it.</p> - -<p>"And neither did you or anyone else alive.</p> - -<p>"It was like being a god—</p> - -<p>"And they talk about going back to things as they were—</p> - -<p>"I'm sick of that kind of thinking! Wolves or Citizens, they're dead on -their feet and don't know it. I suppose they'll snap out of it in time, -but I can't wait. I won't live that long.</p> - -<p>"Unless—"</p> - -<p>He paused and looked at her, confused.</p> - -<p>Gala Tropile met her husband's eyes.</p> - -<p>"Unless what, Glenn?"</p> - -<p>He shrugged and turned away.</p> - -<p>"Unless you go back, you mean." He stared at her; she nodded. "You want -to go back," she said, without stress. "You don't want to stay here -with me, do you? You want to go back into that tub of soup again and -float like a baby. You don't want to <i>have</i> babies—you want to <i>be</i> -one."</p> - -<p>"Gala, you don't understand. We can own the Universe. I mean mankind -can. And I can do it. Why not? There's nothing for me—"</p> - -<p>"That's right, Glenn. There's nothing for you here. Not any more."</p> - -<p>He opened his mouth to speak, looked at her, spread his hands -helplessly. He didn't look back as he walked out the door, but he knew -that his back was turned not only on the woman who happened to be his -wife, but on mankind and all of the flesh.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was night outside, and warm. Tropile stood in the old street -surrounded by the low, battered houses—and he could make them new and -grand! He looked up at the stars that swung in constellations too new -and changeable to have names. <i>There</i> was the Universe.</p> - -<p>Words were no good; there was no explaining things in words. Naturally -he couldn't make Gala or anyone else understand, for flesh couldn't -grasp the realities of mind and spirit that were liberated from flesh. -Babies! A home! And the whole grubby animal business of eating and -drinking and sleeping! How could anyone ask to stay in the mire when -the stars challenged overhead?</p> - -<p>He walked slowly down the street, alone in the night, an apprentice -godling renouncing mortality. There was nothing here for him, so why -this sense of loss?</p> - -<p>Duty said (or was it Pride?): "Someone must give up the flesh to -control Earth's orbit and weather—why not you?"</p> - -<p>Flesh said (or was it his soul—whatever that was?): "But you will be -<i>alone</i>."</p> - -<p>He stopped, and for a moment he was poised between destiny and the -dust....</p> - -<p>Until he became aware of footsteps behind him, running, and Gala's -voice: "Wait! Wait, Glenn! I want to go with you!"</p> - -<p>And he turned and waited, but only until she caught up, and then he -went on.</p> - -<p>But not—forever and always again—not alone.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Wolfbane, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOLFBANE *** - -***** This file should be named 51845-h.htm or 51845-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/8/4/51845/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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