“Hi, Geronimo,” I said, trying to match his genialdom. “You knew I was coming?”

“Hell, no! We picked something up from the conduit through cable crosstalk but it sounded like a hundred bods. You?”

“Y. Then you can read our minds?”

“Y. How’d you turn yourself into a mob?”

“Codeine-Curarine.”

“Brilliant! Listen, Guig, I’ve been plagued by lunacy from the Extro ever since I came up. You?”

“N.”

“Who’s that with you?”

“Oldest member of the Group. Hic-Haec-Hoc.”

“Ah, yes. The Neanderthaler. What’s that cape-thing on his back?”

“A creature we brought back from space.”

“No! You don’t mean to tell me—”

“I do. Highly advanced exobiology for you to research, if you can persuade Tycho to let you keep it.”

At this moment the broadcasts began their regular carousel of commercials, and the complex filled with men, women, girls, children, doctors, lawyers, cartoon characters, all selling something. It was bedlam and it drove Twink mad with curiosity. It took off to examine the host, but since they were only three-dimensional illusions Twink kept flapping through them.

“I’ve been waiting for you for ages, Guig.”

“Didn’t you know where I was?”

“Not after Mexas City.” He hesitated. “How is she?”

“Fine. Still angry with our naughty brother.”

“She has a temper.”

“Why wait for me here, Chief?”

“I had a lot of work, weeks of it, debugging a program for the production of hermos here on Earth. And I knew you’d show up, sooner or later.”

“D’you know why?”

“To make a deal with me and the Extro.”

“Including the Rajah?”

“Who?”

“Ah! Then you don’t know his identity yet. The renegade killer who’s joined forces with the Extro to use you. He’s murdered Poulos. He nearly got Hillel. I’m probably next.” I turned to Hic and made forceful signs and grunts. He got the idea again, at last, and headed for the Extro. The Injun was perplexed.

“What’s all this, Guig?”

“Not a deal, a hit. We’re going to take the monkey off your back. We’re going to kill the Extro.”

He let out a yell that scattered the frightened cryos and made a dive at Hic, who was attacking the panels and fascia of the damned machine with his powerful hands. I made a dive at Guess, tackled him knee-high, and pulled him down.

There was no need for Sequoya to defend the computer; it had heard everything I said and was defending itself. Lights were shattering, with the fragments aimed downward; the air-cond blew up, more shrapnel; electronic locks on doors and software files burst and barraged us, circuits shorted and high-tension cables came sizzling down. Then the satellite computers were sacrificed. They began to blow up, and it seemed that the Extro would sacrifice every human in the complex, too.

An animal howl from Hic cut through the darkness and dementia. Guess and I froze and stared. One panel had been ripped from the Extro and we saw a lion within, glaring at us. The commercial carousel cast a confusing kaleidoscopic light on it. After a moment I saw that the lion was standing on its hind legs. After another I saw that it was a man wearing a lion mask. And then I realized it wasn’t a mask. It was a deformed face.

“Oh God! The big L.”

“What, Guig? What? What?”

The Chief and I climbed to our feet. “Lepcer… The final leonine stage… It… He…”

He shambled out of a dim clearing in the Extro that looked like a small camp walled with electronic units. He was crook-gaited and spastic, yet with ominous power; the strength that comes with loss of control and the agonizing hypersensitivity of terminal Lepcer, the honing of the senses that precedes final anesthesia. And he stank. He filled the center with his big L. Hic-Haec-Hoc whined and disappeared.

“So many years since the spa, my dear Curzon,” the Rajah said, poised and courteous as ever. His voice was hoarse and broken, but still singsong. My mind squealed and darted, trying to escape what had to be faced.

“And this, of course, is the latest addition to the beautiful Group. I was beautiful myself, once. Can you believe it, Dr. Guess? Yes, I know you. I have been watching you from the shadows for some time. I have been watching the entire Group. Give Dr. Guess my name, Curzon. My name and rank.”

It took all my courage to speak. “His Serene Highness, Prince Mahadeva Kauravas Bhina Arjuna, Maharajah of Bharat. The Group calls him the Rajah.”

“Delighted, Dr. Guess. I do not offer to shake hands or smite palms. Royal princes do not so greet commoners. It might be permitted to kiss my hand, but the touch of my skin is loathsome, even to myself. My dear Curzon, you did not tell him that I am also the avatar, the transfiguration of Siva on Earth.”

“I didn’t know, sir. Apologies.” My heart was watery but I was not to be outdone in poise. “So the renegade is really you, your Serene Highness. I could not believe it when Hillel told me.”

“Renegade, Curzon? Only a Jew unbeliever would say that. God, Curzon.” Abruptly he bawled, “God, Curzon. The divine Siva. We are Siva!”

I was convinced at last. Lepcer was the missing factor. The big L had turned an exquisite into a malignant enemy; stalking, lurking, destroying, literally a lion. This was the animal Long Lance had seen in the salt caverns. This was what had spooked the cryos and was deranging the Extro.

“I congratulate you on your choice of a hiding place, Rajah,” I said. “Your command post at the center of action? No one would ever dream of looking for you here. How did you make room for yourself in that damned clutter?”

“Discarded a few units, Curzon. It was less than a prefrontal lobotomy for the Extro, although it protested. Why is your pulse chattering, Dr. Guess? Are you fearful of Siva? Deny nothing. I hear it. I see it. A god senses all; everything is known, and this is why Siva’s destruction and creation are received with humility and love. Yes, humility and love for my destruction and regeneration of the void.”

“God in heaven!” I burst out. I was shaking. “Where is the regeneration for Fee, Poulos, Hillel’s arm, my home. Our—”

“Alas, not the little girl. I regret I did not destroy her. That was before my advent. The Greek, yes; a beautiful death. The Jew escaped me, but not a second time. No one escapes Siva twice.”

“Alas, not the little girl?” Sequoya repeated in a choked voice. “You regret you did not — ! Alas?”

“Humility and love, Dr. Guess. It is the true worship of Siva.” Suddenly he raged in the Chief’s face. “Humility and love! I am the all, the one, the destruction and regeneration, and the linga is my sacred symbol. See! See with humility and love.”

He displayed his enormous, rotting symbol. We backed away in revulsion.

Abruptly the rage was replaced by sweet reason. “You will love me even as I destroy you, for I am the maker of miracles by virtue of the penance and meditation of fifty years.”

“You’ve suffered from Lepcer for half a century, Rajah? I—” But I was stammering so badly that I had to stop.

The lion head nodded graciously. The lion face almost smiled. “It is permitted to address me by that name, my dear Curzon. Siva is only one of our thousand names. Above all, we prefer Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer. So we are most often idealized in sacred images.”

He uttered a croaking, sawing song, “Ga-ma pa-da-ma pa-ga-ma ga-ri-sani-sa-ni ga-ri-sa…” This in a slow 4/8 and 3/2 rhythm. Then faster, “Di na a na di na a na di na a na ka a ga a ka ga dhina na dhina na dhinagana…”

And he danced to it; solemn ritual stances, quick jerking movements, then pauses for poses; around us, around the Extro center, through the broadcast bedlam, through the debris and the crackling sparks of the shorted cables. He danced his cosmic dance with the convulsive frenzy of a spasmic rubber doll with arms, legs, hands and feet that seemed to crook the wrong way and flung their own debris. Each time he jerked his head left and right, tatters of hair scattered. Nails dropped off his fingers and toes. Each gasp for breath sprayed blood.