The World Menders

Farrari found himself in action as soon as he awoke, and he enjoyed none of it. He cleaned out a narnpf stall, learning to handle a heavy, wood-bladed shovel while not breathing through his nose. He helped to unload a grain wagon and then to load a flour wagon, mastering after a fashion the technique of balancing the heavy crocks on edge and maneuvering them. The young IPR agents performed such heavy manual labor stoically. Natives did it; they were natives, so they did it. Farrari’s muttered complaints first amused and then annoyed them. They sternly ordered him to mutter in silence until he’d learned to complain in Rasczian, and as punishment they left him to line up the grain crocks by himself. He managed to do it, upsetting only three of them on the process. Fortunately the seals held and there was no audience.

Rani Holt finally rescued him, leading him off to a meal of regulation IPR rations. He thanked her sincerely; she smiled and remarked that the native food took some getting used to, and those who had been eating it for years tended to forget that. Since Farrari had developed no compelling fondness for manipulating grain crocks, he ate slowly and relaxed his aching muscles. Not until he had finished did she inform him that he’d been ordered to attend a staff meeting that had already started.

He attempted to slip into the room unobserved, but conversation halted when he appeared. Enis Holt motioned him to the table, Jorrul indicated a vacant chair, and the four strange faces regarded him with frank curiosity.

Jorrul performed introductions: Anan Borgley, 112, baker in Scorv. Ned Lindor, 89, grainery supervisor. Bion Brilett, 130, stonecutter. Karl Mdan, 193, potter. Farrari acknowledged the introductions gravely, feeling increasingly impressed and puzzled. These men, in the work dress of their occupations, could visit a miller as often as they chose without causing comment. The baker could he buying flour; the grainery supervisor selling grain; the stonecutter shaping new millstones; the potter delivering grain crocks. IPR had achieved a fiendish efficiency on this planet. Why, then, did it accomplish so little?

“We have a mystery on our hands,” Jorrul said. “The kru is dead but there has been no public announcement except for the drapery on the Life Temple and no explanation of that. And there seems to be no public reaction. We were wondering if perhaps it’s been so long since a kru died that neither the officials nor the citizens quite know what’s to be done, or how they should act.”

“The kru was considered a god,” Farrari said. “Surely there’d be a religious tradition concerning his death, and for anything that important there’d be a voluminous written record. What does Jan Prochnow have to say about it?”

The six pairs of eyes remained fixed on Farrari. Jorrul said lightly, “We’d like to know what Cultural Survey has to say about it.”

Farrari experienced neither anger nor resentment. They had a new toy to play with, a Cultural Survey toy, and whether he joined in their game or not, the result had been predetermined by them. Two thousand years.

“Do the citizens know the meaning of the tapestry?” he asked.

“A guard was posted at the entrance to the temple square before the drapery was hung,” Borgley answered. “The square has been closed off ever since, at considerable inconvenience to the population—the city’s main thoroughfare passes through it. So they must know that something has happened or is about to happen, but no one talks about it.”

“You knew the kru was dead as soon as you saw the tapestry,” Jorrul said. “The citizens of Scorvif ought to be as perceptive as a Cultural Survey trainee concerning their own kru, but there’s been no reaction. Why?”

“Has any kind of tapestry or cloth been hung there before?” Farrari asked.

Borgley shook his head.

“I knew the kru was dead because the final picture said so. Is it possible to make out the details of the tapestry from outside the square?”

“No. It’s an extremely large square. The details wouldn’t be visible without binoculars, and the rascz don’t have any.”

“If a tapestry is hung only when the kru dies, the citizens wouldn’t have to see the details to get the message. Do you have a teloid of it?”

Jorrul wheeled in a projector and snapped the cube into it. Farrari studied the projection meditatively. “In my report I noted that the final scene—the one without the kru—was crudely done. I was wrong. It was hastily done.” The six pairs of eyes were now frowning into the projection. “A religious tradition,” Farrari went on. “The kru is dead. The kru’s portrait is on the facade of the Life Temple. The portrait of a dead kru on the Life Temple is sacrilege. So, in a frenzy of haste, slap the final scene onto the tapestry so it can be hung over the facade and the portrait removed.”

“Interesting,” Jorrul remarked politely. “But why no public announcement?”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” Farrari said. “Either the mere hanging of the tapestry is announcement enough, or it’s considered none of the public’s business. The question is—what are they waiting for? The kru is dead. If they were giving him a state funeral, they would have announced his death and at least started preparations. They haven’t, so they probably won’t. So why don’t they invest, or crown, or elevate, or whatever it is they do to the new kru, and carry on?” He thought for a moment. “Prochnow has the idea that the dead kru selects the eye through which he will watch over his subjects for all eternity, and when he dies he’s buried behind it. If true, the kru’s death means only that he’ll be watching over his people from a different residence. The really significant thing would be the elevating of the new kru. And the new kru—” He paused. “Of course. They can’t crown the new kru until his portrait is on the Life Temple. The Kemple of the kru without a portarit of a live kru to adorn it is likewise sacrilege. Right now the new kru should he sitting for his portrait, and because it’s a portrait of the kru, they won’t dare to do it hastily.”

The others exchanged solemn glances that suddenly twisted into grins. Jorrul said, “One of our agents— that’s 178—is a krolc, a priest’s lay servant, which is the closest we’ve ever been able to place anyone to the priesthood. His master was ordered to Scorv for the ceremonies of enshrinement and coronation—canonization might be a better word, the new kru is invested as a god. Anyway, 178 got to come along. It’s the first time we’ve had an agent inside the Life Temple—legally, that is.”

“Will he be able to take some teloids?” Farrari asked.

“How’s that?”

“Teloids. Of the interior of the Life Temple. I don’t have interiors of a single temple or palace.”

Jorrul said irritably, “Of course. He’s already taken some. Anyway, he reports that every prominent artist in Scorvif is at work on reliefs of the new kru. When one of them comes up with something the kru likes—or maybe something the priests like—the ceremonies can commence. They’ll take down the old kru’s tapestry, hang a blank one, perform the necessary in cantations, and when they remove that the new kru’s portrait will be in place. The Holy Ancestors will have spoken. Prochnow thinks they’ll make a production of it and drag the ceremony out for days.”

“When can I have them?” Farrari asked.

“Have what?”

“The teloids of the temple’s interior?”

Jorrul shrugged. “When they’re processed, I suppose.”

Farrari wrenched his mind back to the business at hand. His anger, when it finally came, was not less fierce because he’d been slow to react. They had set a trap for him, and the fact that he’d made a lucky hit did not distract him from the realization that he could just as easily have made a fool of himself. Testing, he thought, looking about the table with cold contempt, was a game two could play. They’d had their fun with their Cultural Survey toy; he was entitled to a share of amusement in return. He would hand them a problem that no IPR manual could cope with and watch them squirm.