Loga said, “Au revoir. Forgive us for this violence.”
A woman pointed a short, slim blue cylinder at the Burton on the stage, and he crumpled. Two men, wearing only white kilts, emerged from the fog. They picked up the senseless body and carried it into the mists.
Burton tried again to get at the people on the stage. Failing, he shook his fist at them, and he cried, “You’ll never get me, you monsters!”
The dark figure in the wings applauded, but his hands made no noise.
Burton had expected to be placed in the area where he had been picked up by the Ethicals. Instead, he awoke in Theleme, the little state which he had founded.
Even more unexpected was that he had not been deprived of his memory. He remembered everything, even the inquisition with the twelve Ethicals.
Somehow, X had managed to fool the others.
Later, he got to wondering if they had lied to him and had not intended to tamper with his memory. That made no sense, but then he did not know what their intentions were.
At one time, Burton had been able to play two games of chess at the same time while blindfolded. That, however, only required skill, a knowledge of the rules, and familiarity with the board and the pieces. He did not know the rules of this game, nor did he know the powers of all the chessmen. The dark design had no pattern.
3
Groaning, Burton half-awoke.
For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. Darkness surrounded him, darkness as thick as that which he felt filled him.
Familiar sounds reassured him. The ship was rubbing up against the dock, and water lapped against the hull. Alice was breathing softly by him. He touched her soft, warm back. Light footsteps came from above, Peter Frigate on night watch. Perhaps he was getting ready to wake up his captain. Burton had no idea what time it was.
There were other well-known sounds. Through the wooden partition the snores of Kazz and his woman, Besst, gurgled. And then, from the compartment behind theirs, the voice of Monat issued. He spoke in his native language, but Burton could not distinguish the words.
Doubtless, Monat was dreaming of far-off Athaklu. Of that planet with its “wild, weird clime” which circled the giant orange star, Arcturus.
He lay for a while, rigid as a corpse, thinking, Here I am, a one-hundred-and-one-year-old man in the body of a twenty-five-year-old.
The Ethicals had softened the hardened arteries of the candidates. But they had not been able to do anything about atherosclerosis of the soul. That repair was apparently left up to the candidate.
The dreams were going backward in time. The inquisition by the Ethicals had come last. But now he was dreaming that he was experiencing again the dream he’d had just before he awoke to the Last Trump. However, he was watching himself in the dream; he was both participant and spectator.
God was standing over him as he lay on the grass, as weak as a newly born baby. This time, He lacked the long, black, forked beard, and He was not dressed like an English gentleman of the fifty-third year of Queen Victoria’s reign. His only garment was a blue towel wrapped around his waist. His body was not tall, as in the original dream, but was short and broad and heavily muscled. The hairs on His chest were thick and curly and red.
The first time, Burton had looked into God’s face and seen his own. God had had the same black straight hair, the same Arabic face with the deep, dark eyes like spearpoints thrusting from a cave, the high cheekbones, the heavy lips, and the thrust-out, deeply cleft chin. However, His face no longer bore the scars of the Somali spear that had sliced through Burton’s cheek, knocking out teeth, its edge jammed into his palate, its point sticking out the other cheek.
The face looked familiar, but he couldn’t name its owner. It certainly was not that of Richard Francis Burton.
God still had the iron cane. Now He was poking Burton in the ribs.
“You’re late. Long past due for the payment of your debt, you know.”