Last Gasp

contained environment, hidden from the outside world. In the upper tunnels were the sleeping quarters --tiny cells burrowed out of the rock--while farther below the larger chambers and galleries housed workshops, the generator plant, and areas adapted for eating, study, and meditation. Natural springs deep underground had been tapped for fresh water. They had electric power. At the lowest level, several hundred feet down, a vast cavern held a reservoir of oil which fed the boilers, producing steam to power the generators.

From outside the sound of the gong was a faint rhythmic murmur,

hardly more than a vibration in the ocher flanks dotted with scrub and rocks encircling the bare granite peak of Mount Grafton.

The tables buzzed with the news of yet another successful mission. Mara listened to the excited chatter but didn't take part. Such frivolous behavior was degrading and unseemly. How could one attain Optimum Orbital Trajectory without discipline and absolute self-control? This was vain, idle, not the 'right stuff' at all.

Devadatta, sitting opposite, said, 'I wish it had been me. What about you, Mara?'

'To wish for anything is to have egoism,' answered Mara shortly. 'You obviously haven't ironed that bug out of your system.'

'I know the law as well as you do,' Devadatta protested, though he was slightly shamefaced. 'But my wish is to serve the Faith to the best of my ability. Nothing wrong in that.' He looked along the table, seeking support.

Most of the others were unsure and unwilling to commit themselves, mainly because Mara had achieved Special Category Selection and Devadatta hadn't. This gave the small thin-faced youth with the bulbous eyes behind the wire-frame spectacles the stamp of seniority.

'Perhaps Mara is afraid to serve,' said Virudhaka, a young man with red hair who was noted for being argumentative. 'Fear is an unironed bug as well as egoism.'

Mara was unruffled. 'Why mention fear? Because you haven't conquered it yourself, Virudhaka?'

'What if I haven't? At least I'm prepared to admit it.'

'Do you want to overcome it?'

'Sure--don't we all?'

'How will you know when you have?'

Virudhaka was confused. He blinked slowly and frowned. 'Well, I-- I'll just know, I guess.'

'You mean an inner voice will tell you,' Mara said, staring at him, unsmiling. 'One day an inner voice will say, 'No more fear,' and that'll be that.'

Virudhaka gave an uneasy half-shrug.

'That isn't the way it happens,' Mara told him. His piping treble voice might have been comic had not his manner been so severe, uncompromising, deadly certain. 'You will still experience fear, you will

still suffer, but such things no longer matter. Emotion has been put in its rightful place, the servant of the self rather than its master.'

'But how do you know when that happens?' Devadatta asked. 'Does it follow naturally with selection or is it a matter of psychological self-conditioning?'

Heads on either side of the table craned forward, shaven knobs of bone anxious to hear the answer from an adept who had achieved selection, which was the first important step toward the goal of briefing.

'You don't and you never do. Every day the battle is fought anew. The struggle is endless.'

Virudhaka was heard to remark skeptically, 'That's easy to say. Such talk is cheap, and it still doesn't answer the question.'

'Yes, you're right,' Mara agreed, surprising them all. 'Talk is cheap.'

He removed the long steel pin that secured his robe and pushed it with a slow, steady pressure through his right cheek until the steel point appeared through his left cheek. After a moment he slid the pin out and fastened his robe with it. On his cheeks were tiny bloodless punctures.

Devadatta had turned pale. Virudhaka too was silent, unable to drag his eyes away. There the discussion ended.

As they were filing out of the chamber one of the base controllers touched Mara's sleeve and indicated that he should stand aside. Mara waited, spindly arms folded inside his black robe. With clinical detachment he knew he was to be punished for breaking the rule of self-aggrandizement. He had yielded to petty temptation. Such empty posturing should be beneath him. He might even lose status.

Mara followed the base controller down a winding flight of steps cut into the rock and they emerged into the original main tunnel of the mine. This led from what had been the entrance--now blocked off-- into the heart of the mountain. The tunnel was high and wide with smooth walls and lit by globes in wire cages. The air was cool and fresh, wafted against their faces by hidden fans.

Down more steps, the tunnel narrower this time, into the lower depths where Mara had never been before. This was 'access restricted' to all adepts.

Finally they entered a short tunnel that ended in a wooden door. The base controller pushed the door open, stood to one side, and Mara squeezed past him. Once inside the small gloomy cell the door was shut and he was left alone in darkness and silence, the shuffle of sandaled footsteps fading away to nothing.

Was this his penance, to be locked away? For how long? Not that time was important, providing his status wasn't rescinded; that was his greatest fear.

Gradually it came to him that he wasn't alone--the other's black robes made him impossible to see, but Mara's heightened senses detected another presence in the whisper of a breath and the distinctive odor of another human being. So he had been locked away with another penitent. What wrongs, in deed or thought, had the other committed? What rules had he broken?

'Sit down, Mara.'

Staring hard, Mara's weak eyes were just able to make out a faint shadow that resolved itself into a narrow bony head on a stalk of a neck. His breathing quickened. Was it possible? Could it really be ... ?

'Sit down, Mara,' Bhumi Bhap repeated.

He obeyed, sitting cross-legged on the cool sandy floor of the cell.

Ever since the day he had been given the name of Mara he knew that he had been specially chosen. Mara, his namesake, the Evil One, lord of the upper sky, god of transient pleasures in heaven and hell-- the name was his because they had seen his promise from the beginning, as a shy, intense kid who never smiled. He had fulfilled that promise and now he was ready.

Mara exulted. This was his briefing!

'You are the youngest to be chosen, Mara, which means that we expect more of you. Your purpose must be keener, your resolve stronger. Age brings disillusionment and the prospect of failure, but at nineteen such things can't touch you. You copy?'

'I copy,' Mara replied.

'Your briefing schedule has been finalized,' Bhumi Bhap went on. 'Times and movements have been monitored and an optimum termination point selected. Follow the mission plan as closely as possible-- but not to the detriment of the OTP. Use your own initiative as the situation requires. You're out there on your own, so the final decision to achieving successful accomplishment rests with you. We at Mission Control can't make it for you. Is that clear?'

'Affirmative.' Mara could now make out Bhumi Bhap's face in more detail. The eye sockets were deep black holes, the skin shiny and tight like vellum. Mara had never been so close to him before. He had never known that Bhumi Bhap reeked of death.

'This mission is one of many, but each is vital to our ultimate goal. I know you won't fail us, Mara.'

' To be reborn it is necessary to die first,' ' said Mara, intoning the litany.

'One last thing.' A note of warning in Bhumi Bhap's voice. 'The Faith must be protected. If for whatever reason you find yourself in a no-go situation--abort. You know the procedure. You have been well trained and you're the right stuff. Do I need to say more?'

'Negative, Earth Father.'

'You will receive documentation at dawn tomorrow, including mission plan, log sheets, and termination pack. Questions?'

Mara was too excited to think straight. He shook his head giddily, the wire frame of his glasses faintly catching the dim light. His own mission at last!