Back alone in his chill room, bound as securely as before, Joe thought he could hear more people arriving. There were more voices, and the voices were getting somewhat louder, as they tended to do at any party. And now Joe imagined that he could hear them talking in Latin. At least he might have called it Latin, if he had been forced to take a guess.
Latin was bad, because it made him remember Johnny. Johnny in his closet, losing fingers. Then reporting the Latin conversations which nobody quite believed. . . .
Somewhere in the outer air, between Joe and the distant streetlight, moved something that was larger and thicker than a snowflake but just as silent as the snow. There was no way that he could see what it had been.
The box that the dead woman had climbed out of was completely open now, lid beside it on the floor. He had been hallucinating. If he looked into that box now, he would see something ordinary. But he wasn’t going to try.
“But, why do we not speak English now?” said Carol’s voice, not far outside the storeroom door. “Some of you in the past have chided me for using the old tongue too much. Poach, I think there are more guests on the roof, go up and ask them in.”
“Thank you,” said a man, not Poach. “English will certainly be more convenient for most of us. I suppose half of us at least have been born on this side of the Atlantic.”
“And many of the rest,” a woman put in, “have been here a hundred years or more. Long enough to forget a great deal of the Old World.” Other voices murmured polite agreement. There was a nervous little female laugh.
Poach was back, saying something. With him came a man and a woman, new arrivals, for various greetings were exchanged. When that was over, Carol talked. She had become a public speaker now, addressing a gathering.
“I trust you have all had a tolerable journey, weather notwithstanding. Let me assure everyone that this storm is perfectly natural, at least as far as I and Poach are concerned. Our whole energies have been directed elsewhere.”
Someone commented: “It’s a great night not to be a breather.” It had the sound of a quoted proverb. Again there was a scattering of nervous laughter.
When this had died, the hostess resumed: “As you know, this meeting was originally called that I might solicit your support in a struggle for our freedom.” She paused. “That, I say, was the
Another pause. The room they were all gathered in was suddenly extremely quiet.
And the shadow in front of Joe’s streetlight was back again. Its presence was continuous now, but it was not still—there was a shapeless outline, shifting with some kind of movement. It was only the snow. What else could it be?
Abruptly Carol’s voice rang out: “Your support in that struggle is no longer necessary, for victory is ours. This afternoon our enemy overreached himself. He attempted to attack Poach in his earth.” This last was delivered as an indictment, made with disgust, as of an offense that was not only criminal but represented some ultimate breach of decency. “That ancient, evil . . . I scarcely know what to call him. That tyrant had evidently been taking his own publicity too seriously. He overestimated his own powers, and underestimated those of Poach.”
A few moments of silence intervened. Then Carol, in a harder voice, continued: “Surely no one here regrets this turn of events?”
Another woman eventually answered. “It is only that we are—surprised.”
Someone else murmured a faint question.
“No, he is not yet dead,” Carol replied. “But he is firmly in my hands, awaiting judgement.”
A man’s voice, stammering a little but with more boldness than any of the others had yet shown, asked: “And who is to sit in judgement on him then? Of what is he accused?”
“Of—what—accused?” Carol whispered back the question as if incapable of believing that it had been asked. “Of what? To begin the catalogue, of attempting to murder Poach—but I can’t believe that you are really serious.”
Another man’s voice put in: “I am older than any here, I think, except yourself, lady. If judgement is to be rendered on a
Now Carol’s young voice snapped like a whip. “I warn you, I warn you all, things are going to go hard on his secret sympathizers. His crimes are legion. Even the breathers’ histories document them. Do you think he is milder now, less murderous, less oppressive, than he was in the fifteenth century?” She paused. “Some of you, I think, do not yet appreciate the positive aspects of today’s victory. What it is going to mean in terms of freedom for all of us. No more are we to be a powerless minority on the face of the earth, always hunted and in hiding.”
A woman replied tremulously: “I think—I think we will all come to understand it better, in time. Can you explain it to us more fully, Morgan?”
“If necessary.” Carol’s—or Morgan’s—voice went on. “That foul old man has had some of you completely brainwashed for centuries. That must be changed. When I call him old you know I am not speaking of mere spins of the Earth. He has been selfish and unchanging in his thought, blind to all our needs. Insisting that all of us be fettered by what he calls his honor. Not to use the breathers who swarm about us, not to taste their blood unless they give consent. Not to remove those who give us offense or stand in our way. Not to enjoy the treasures of the earth, that by rights belong to us as superior beings . . . but today a new world has been born. All that is changed.”
There was a little silence. The speaker’s voice was bright and confident when it continued. “Have any of you any more questions? Yes. Dickon?”
The pause dragged on before one of the men’s voices dared: “I was only . . . I still think it would be better if we . . .”
“Poach, it seems we have an agent of the old man’s here among us. Place him—”
“No, Morgan! I did not mean to dispute your authority in this. It’s nothing to me, really. He—he whom you call the old man is nothing.”
When Morgan spoke again, her voice had grown even more light and cheerful. “Then enough of business, I think, for the time being. Would any of you care for some refreshment?”
Maybe if a man had to, if there were nothing else, he could break ropes with his arms. Even if his arms were numb. If he really gave it
TWENTY
As soon as the couple that Kate had seen descending through the air were out of sight, she flew again. This time she landed on the roof of the building into which they had somehow vanished. There she crouched in woman- form again, straining all her senses to locate Joe.
She knew he was very near now, somewhere below her, somewhere inside. His presence felt strongest when she approached a certain window. When she hung her head and upper body downward from the edge of the roof this window let her see into a large, unfinished room or area of some kind in which workmen’s tools and building materials lay scattered. Joe was still not visible. But, as Kate looked into this window, her attention gradually became centered on a door at the far side of the unfinished space. It was a plain door, with a glass upper panel, leading to some kind of small, dark room beyond. Gradually she understood that Joe was there.
The window she was looking through was barred with heavy metal-and-wood grillwork, and wired with electrical alarms. But these gave Kate no trouble. Once inside, she moved straight across the empty, unfinished space, solidifying her body again as she came to the glass-paneled door. Joe, doubled over and bound, lay on the floor inside it, amid a confusion of stored boxes. His eyes were closed and he was motionless. But she was certain he was not dead.
Wanting to keep her senses at maximum alertness if she could, Kate did not pass through the closed door but retained her solid form and gently tried its knob. It was not locked, and swung smoothly outward. She rushed in silently to Joe’s side—
She willed to rush to him—
The threshold, or something in the air above it, caught her like an invisible, impalpable steel net. She could
