The Far Shore of Time

All the same, there was a lot of worrying going on around Camp Smelly. Even Hilda was snappish, and the deputy director was hemorrhaging wrath, blame and worry all over the installation. He had his own way of dealing with worry, and it took the form of starting a one hundred percent interrogation of everybody in sight, thirsty for the blood of the despicable traitor who had broken security. By “interrogation” I don’t just mean questioning; he had four PET-scan machines flown in from Arlington for lie-detector tests.

I didn’t expect much from that. Position emission tomography is pretty good at sorting out facts from fantasy, because those two files seem to be stored in different parts of the brain, but it takes three or four hours to test a single subject. Marcus had not only the couple hundred people at Camp Smolley to test but all the ones at Hampton Roads as well. The good part of that was that it kept him out of my hair.

And then even Hilda left me alone. When I finished my breakfast it was Dan M. who was waiting for me outside my room. “I’m your new shepherd, Dan,” he told me wryly. “Hope that’s all right with you. Hilda couldn’t put her dialysis off any longer, so she’s out of commission for the rest of the day.”

“Fine,” I said, more or less meaning it. I still wasn’t entirely easy in the company of this other myself, but as the day went on it got better. He wasn’t just someone to talk to, he was that nearly ideal person for a conversation who was nearly ideal because he had the advantage of thinking exactly the way I did. As we moved from one appointment to another we chatted about what was going on around us, and if nothing new came out of any of the chat, at least it was useful to be able to talk, but then the world obtruded itself on us.

We were just entering the chamber where the techs waited when every screen in the area turned itself on at once, and when we saw what was on all those screens it took our minds right off the planned questions.

The Scarecrows were talking to us again.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

At least the Scarecrows were no longer going to the trouble of faking the face of a human being to deliver their little homilies. The creature displayed on the screen was unquestionably a Dopey. He was squatting comfortably on a gold-colored cushion, his little hands busy in his belly bag. Behind his head was a pretty background landscape, distant hills and fleecy white clouds in a blue, blue and very Earthly sky. All faked, no doubt. The Dopey was doing his best to look amiable and trustworthy, not an easy job for a Dopey. When he spoke his voice had the cajoling quality of a late-night, golden-oldie disk jockey.

“You know who I am,” he said, the little cat eyes gleaming, his fan spread in glorious iridescence. “I have spoken to you before, bearing the generous messages of our Beloved Leaders, who know what is best for all of us and whose patience is great-but not without limit.”

His plume darkened and his voice became sorrowful. “But you are a willful species,” he scolded. “You have betrayed the trust of the Beloved Leaders. You have wickedly stolen a vehicle which is their property. You have begun the construction of armed spacecraft. And you have done even worse. You have brought to your planet a representative of the despicable Horch.

“The Beloved Leaders cannot permit this to go on.

“Therefore they command you to take two steps. Within the next four days you must broadcast an invitation for representatives of the Beloved Leaders to come to your planet. And, as a token of good faith, you must rid yourself of this evil monster, the Horch. Kill him. Do so in a public place. Broadcast his execution. And when he is dead amputate all of his limbs and head. Let it be seen that this is done, so there can be no question of the sort of trickery you have shown yourself capable of.”

He raised himself on his little legs and peered sternly into the camera. “Four days!” he said sternly. “If you have not complied by that time, at that hour you and your entire race will die.”

He stood silent for a moment, then sank back on his cushion. The colors of his peacock tail brightened into soft pastels and his tone became wheedling.

“You must understand,” he said, “that the Beloved Leaders seek no personal gain from you. It is for your own good-indeed, if you force them to put an end to your lives, even that is for your good, since it will speed your way to the Eschaton.

“The Beloved Leaders know that, in your present primitive state, this is frightening to you, for it is what you call ‘death.’ But death is only an incident. It will come sooner or later to each of you-the temporary death which all organisms experience. It is not to be feared. It is only the way which we must all pass, in order to reach that great eternity of the Eschaton.