things more than living creatures was to invite evil.
Did Jeld hold the building in higher regard than his sworn purpose in life?
Watching him, Tobol was reluctant to believe it. The face, limned by the dying light of the sun now resting on the watery horizon, held the firm resolution of youthful dedication, but that was to be expected. As was the fire in the eyes, the impatience, the fretting at what must have seemed illogical barriers. As, too, was the yearning for power, the ability to sweep aside all the obstructions which hindered the final glory of Man.
The moment when each could look at the other and realize the basic truth.
The millennium which he would never see. As Jeld would never see or any monk now living. Men bred too fast and traveled too far for that but even while accepting that he would never see the culmination of his work, Tobol was content to do what he could-to alleviate suffering, to feed the starving, to comfort those in need. To set the example he wished others to follow.
A point he emphasized as he walked with Jeld across the sward surrounding the church.
'Of all dangers men face when dealing with their fellows pride is the most insidious. It seems so natural to display success, to show the world we have gained an advantage or achieved a measure of gratification. A man will boast of a new raft, a boat, his promotion. A woman of her new gown, her new home, a better situation. Small things, harmless it would appear, but that appearance is deceptive. For such things feed envy and envy can destroy.'
'The church,' said Jeld. 'You are talking about the church.'
This time Tobol made no play on the word. 'Yes, Brother, this church. I was against it from the first and I thought you knew why. How many faiths have foundered because the original intention became lost in a desire for pomp and possessions? That danger we must avoid above all others, for to display wealth would set us apart from those we are dedicated to serve. Pride can have no place in our existence.'
Which was why all monks, even the highest, wore the same brown robe, the same sandals on bare feet, had the same look of deprivation.
Food was for the starving and to wear a gem was to insult those to whom the bauble would mean food and warmth and medicine. To preach was to offend with its assumption of superiority and was itself a display of pride. To serve. To help the afflicted. To tend the sick and ill and to ease the hearts and souls of the troubled-the life of a monk.
'Is there nothing we can do?' Jeld halted to look beyond the church at the ocean below the high ground on which it stood. The light from the sun painted the spire with ruby, turning it into a glowing pillar of flame. 'If she decides against us-what can we do?'
'We can hope,' said Tobol quietly. 'And pray.'
There was nothing else and the younger man knew it. Even so, Tobol saw the sudden clenching of his hand, the tension made manifest in the jaw, the throat, signs obvious to the trained eye, even though the face had remained impassive in the frame of the thrown-back cowl. Impatience controlled but present, and the old monk could feel sympathy. How often, when young, had he felt the same frustration?
Too often and too long ago but the time which had seamed his face and taken his hair had also curbed his impatience. As it would curb Jeld's. As it would teach him that, while a monk needed to feel, yet that feeling must not be too narrow, too intense. It was right to care for the sick-but
Yet the one Carmodyne had built would be missed.
He let his eyes run over the structure as they made their way back. A computer had determined stress levels and tolerances, the optimum spans and arches, but an artist had placed his own imprint on the whole and the man finally responsible had sealed that with his own peccadilloes.
The carving, for instance, had he ordered the mason to be so outrageous? The mosaic in the south transept- had he planned the transfiguration when light struck it at certain times of the day? Curtains had shielded the area and nullified the original intention-if intention it had been-but could the subtle depiction of interwound figures have been anything else? The explicit activity in which they were engaged?
A scene not likely to appeal to the new owner with her reputation for fastidious modesty. One probably exaggerated but built on a foundation of truth. He had been right not to have mentioned it, the carving had been enough, but Tobol didn't think he had made a mistake. The woman was grown, adult, a person of experience and one who must know something of the basic facts of life. Sex, of course, but more than that; the humor which lurked in unsuspected places as did farce and tragedy, pleasure and pain.
Would she sell?
Tobol recalled the way she had looked when examining the exterior of the church. Her eyes had held contempt if not for the building then for the man who had ordered it. The reason he had shown her the carving; if bad blood had existed between them the depiction may have shown a side of her uncle she hadn't known.
By contrast the interior of the church was dark; the light which had illuminated the tessellated floor now touching the upper reaches, casting smoke-like shadows on the groins, the vaulted spaces. In the dusk the suppliants waited with their usual patience. As he took his place one came to kneel in the cubicle before him; a man with a pale, tormented face, thin, knotted hands which clenched and clenched again as if they were animals beyond his control.
A man in need and Tobol listened to his litany of petty sins, studying the pale face now illuminated by the swirling colors of the benediction light.
'… neighbor's wife and we did wrong when he was kept late at the factory. A good man and I can't look into his eyes now and I'm sure he must suspect something because he used to wait for me to walk home with him and now he doesn't and…'
Suspicion and terror of punishment coupled with an inner guilt and sense of shame to create a situation verging on the borders of insanity. A less sensitive man would have suffered less, a more brutal one not at all, but they too had their fears and guilts and terrors which haunted their lives.
'Look into the light,' said Tobol as the litany came to an end. 'Look into the light of forgiveness. Bathe in the flame of righteousness and be cleansed of all sin. Be freed of pain. Of suffering. Yield to the benediction of the Universal Brotherhood.'
The light was hypnotic, the suppliant responsive, the monk skilled in his application. The pale face relaxed, the hands, the body, as he slipped into a trance, in which he would suffer subjective penance later to receive the bread of forgiveness.
And if some came only for the wafer of concentrate it didn't matter. Each, while under the light, was conditioned never to kill. Potential murder prevented for the cost of a little food-it was a fair exchange.
Chapter Five
Sacaweena was not Earth. Dumarest had known it from the moment of landing, even before, for Earth was a world with empty skies at night and the journey had been too short to have carried them far toward the Rim. The sky, too, was the wrong color, the sun, the lack of a moon. And, at night, there was fire.
He watched it from the window of the room they had taken in an inexpensive hotel set high against the edge of encircling hills. An oddly built place with a rounded roof and thick copper bars flanking the windows-lightning conductors which graced every building and reared high in every street. A defense against the flickering glows in the north, the electrical fury which sent low rumbles through the air as if gods were waging dreadful war with outmoded cannon.
'It's normal,' said Vardoon as he came to join Dumarest at the window. 'The sun charges the atmosphere during the day and we get the discharge at night. There are peaks to the north which act as conductors. Like the ones in the street,' he added. 'But storms don't often hit the town.'
'How often?'
'It varies. If the solar wind is strong then the charge builds high and all hell lets loose. Three, four times a year, maybe.'
'And every night?'
'Usually every night,' admitted Vardoon. 'But the full impact is far to the north where the rocks have a high
