And now Joe heard it. And, beside him, Mali seemed to have heard it, too; she turned swiftly, then loped to the building’s entrance. Outside, in the meager light, she peered up.
He followed after her. So did Willis.
A huge bird hung in the night sky, containing two hoops: one of water, one of fire. Within the two an adolescent female face gazed out, partially covered by its Paisley shawl. Glimmung, as he had first appeared to Joe, yet now elevated into an enormous bird form. An eagle, Joe thought wonderingly. Screaming as it came, ploughing up the nocturnal sky with its talons. He moved backward a space, into the security of the building’s doorway. And still the great bird soared toward them, the right-angle hoops spinning with shrill intensity.
“It’s the old fellow,” Willis said, showing no anxiety. “I asked him to come. Or did he ask me? I forget. Anyhow the two of us conversed, but it’s a little blurred, now, in my mind. We have that problem, my colleagues and I.”
Mali said, “He’s landing.”
The bird came to rest in the air, its beak working in spastic agitation; the yellow eyes glowered at Joe—specifically at Joe and no one else—and then from the huge craw of the bird, words came, shouted into the darkness of the night. Words sharp and wild, a screech of interrogation. “_You_,” the bird yelled at him. “I didn’t want you to go into the ocean. I didn’t want you to see what’s there, buried at the bottom. You are here to cure pots. What did you see? What did you do?” The shrieks of the bird had a frantic quality about them, an overpowering urgency. Glimmung had come here because he could not wait to find out; he had to know at once what had happened at the ocean bottom.
“I found a pot,” Joe said.
“The pot lied!” Glimmung shrieked. “Forget what it said; listen to me instead. Do you understand?”
Joe said, “The pot only told me—“
“There’re a thousand lying pots down there,” Glimmung broke in. “Each has a separate, false tale to tell to anyone who happens to come by and notice it.”
“A great black fish,” Joe said. “It showed that.”
“There is no fish. Nothing is real down there except Heldscalla. I can bring it up any time; I can do it alone, with no help from you or from anyone. I can bring each pot up myself; I can free them one by one from the coral, and if they break I can repair them or get someone who can. Shall I send you back to your cubicle to play your game? To deteriorate over the years? To sink into decay gradually over the years until you become debris, without mind or plans? Is that what you want?”
“No,” Joe said. “That’s not what I want.”
“You are going back to Terra,” Glimmung shrilled; the beak snapped open and shut, open and shut, biting the air savagely.
“I’m sorry I—“ Joe began, but the bird cut him off with ruthless fury. And, as before, with overwhelming agitation.
“I will return you to the crate in my basement,” Glimmung declared. “You can stay there until the police catch up with you. Further, I will tell them where you are; they will get you and they will reduce you to tatters. Do you understand? Didn’t it occur to you that if you disobeyed me I’d expel you? I have no use for you. As far as I am concerned you no longer exist. I’m sorry to yell at you this way, but this is the way I get when I’m thoroughly teed off. You’ll have to excuse me.”
Joe said, “It seems to me you’re going overboard. What in fact have I done? I went below; I found a pot; I—“
“You found the pot I didn’t want you to see.” The frigid eyes of the bird bored relentlessly, stultifyingly down at him. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve forced my hand. I have to react now; I can’t wait!” All at once the bird wheeled upward, spinning and realigning itself, turned now toward the sea, rather than Joe. The bird shot outward, at tremendous velocity; its massive wings flapped with violent rage and the bird soared, rose, and hovered. It hung in the sky above the sea, shrieking in wild, determined bursts of ear-piercing noise. “Cavorting Cary Karns and his six phones won’t help you now!” the bird shrilled as it hung in the dark sky, merging with the fog which rolled in, like waves, above the ocean surface. “The radio audience doesn’t know about you! The radio audience doesn’t care about you!” The bird wheeled, dropped lower . . .
Something rose from the sea.
13
“Oh god,” Mali said, standing close to Joe. “It’s the Black One. Coming to meet him.”
From the sea the Black Glimmung ascended, meeting the authentic Glimmung in midair. Feathers flew in all directions as the two creatures raked each other with their claws; then, almost at once, the tangled mass of the two of them dropped like a stone into the water. On the surface they thrashed momentarily, and it seemed to Joe—unless it was an illusion—that the authentic Glimmung was struggling to extricate himself.
Both Glimmungs disappeared. Out of sight, into the depths of Mare Nostrum.
“It pulled him under,” Mali whispered in a stricken voice. To the robot, Joe said, “Is there anything we can do? To help him? To get him free?” He’s drowning, Joe realized. This will kill him.
“He will emerge,” the robot said.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Joe said; Mali, beside him, echoed his words. “Has this ever happened before?” Joe demanded. “Glimmung pulled under?” Instead of lifting Heldscalla up, he realized, Glimmung had been dragged down . . . to join the Black Glimmung and the Black Cathedral forever. Like my corpse; a lifeless thing floating about in the form of mere debris. Dwelling in a box.
“I can fire an HB cartridge into the water,” the robot said. “But a warhead like that would kill him, too.”
“No,” Mali said emphatically.
“This did happen once before,” Willis said, reflecting. “In Terran time—“ It calculated. “Late in 1936. About the time of the summer Olympics, held in Berlin, that year.”
Mali said, “And he made it back up?”
“Yes, Mrs. Lady,” Willis answered. “And the Black One slid back down to the bottom again. Where it has remained until now. By coming here, Glimmung took a calculated risk; he knew it might disturb the Black One. That’s why he said, ‘You’ve forced my hand.’ You did. It’s been forced; he’s down there now.”
Flashing his torch out onto the water, Joe saw something bobbing about. An object which reflected light. “Do you have a power boat?” he asked Willis.
“Yes, Mr. Sir,” the robot said. “Do you want to go out there? What if they come boiling up?”
“I want to see what that is out there,” Joe said. He already had a good idea.
Grudgingly, the robot went off in search of the boat.
A few minutes later the three of them put-putted their way out onto the dark and turbulent surface of Mare Nostrum.
“There it is,” Joe said. “A few yards to the right.” He held the object fixed with his torch as the boat approached it. Reaching out, he groped for the thing; his fingers closed over its handle and he lifted it back, into the boat.
A large bottle. And, in the bottle, a note.
“Another message from Glimmung,” Joe said acidly as he unscrewed the lid of the bottle and dumped the note out; it fluttered onto the bottom of the boat and he retrieved carefully. Holding it in the light of the torch he read it.
Watch this place for hourly progress reports. Cordially, Glimmung. P.S. If I’m not up by morning, notify everybody that the Project has been scrubbed. Get back to your own planets as best you can. My best to you all. G.
“Why does he do this?” Joe asked the robot. “Why does he leave notes in bottles and reach people via radio programs and—“
“An idiosyncratic method of interpersonal communication,” the robot answered as they put-putted back toward the staging center. “As long as I’ve known him he’s dribbled out opaque, elliptical chunks of information in indirect ways. In your opinion, how ought he to communicate? By satellite?”
“He might as well,” Joe said, and felt gloom descend over him in a morbid, taciturn cloud. He withdrew silently into himself; shivering with cold he awaited their arrival back at the staging area.
“He’s going to die,” Mali said quietly.
“Glimmung?” Joe asked.
She nodded. In the dim light her face seemed ghostly; across it vague shadows flitted, like ebbing tides.
“Did I ever tell you about The Game?” Joe said.
“I’m sorry; at this moment I—“