13

In incredulous horror Howson followed the decline of that bright glow of power which was now hardly to be called Ilse Kronstadt any longer. It was like seeing the last sparks die in a rain-swamped fire, knowing that the wolves waited at the edge of camp for the moment when they would be able to close in.

He was shouting aloud, in his little ridiculous piping voice, saying no, no, no ! over and over; there were tears streaming down his cheeks because the mind of Ilse Kronstadt had been so beautiful, so clear and luminous, like the childhood image of an angel. Vandals were smashing the panels of stained glass, throwing dirt at the master painting, treading the tapestry into the mud. A madman was biting off the head of a baby. Time eating his children, blood dripping down his chin, hoarse bubbling laughter making mock of human hopes.

And suddenly, without warning, like a last dry stick crackling into flame, the light returned. It showed a whole life, like a pathway seen from its end, with every step and stage of the journey clearly visible. Bewildered, awed, Howson gazed at it.

The flame began to die. There was a sense of illimitable regret — not bitter, because it was impossible for events to have gone otherwise: gently resigned. Mists closed over the path, leaving only the failures as grey shadows in the gloom. So many of them; so many, many, many failures. And that one out of all: the symbol-child of fate, cursed life-long by the heedlessness of a would-be tyrant, the selfishness of an ought-not-to-be mother, and the caprice of a cruel heredity.

The twisted baby whom I could not help…

He was blind, and yet he moved. Walked. Ran, his short leg dragging, finding somehow from somewhere the strength to open doors and go down winding stairs and traverse endless corridors he could not see for the tears that poured from his eyes, over his hollow cheeks. It was only his body that made the journey. He had gone elsewhere.

“Oh my God!” said the watchdog, and came to his feet as though a vast hand had snatched him out of the chair. Singh shot out an arm to steady him, despair blackening his mind.

“Has she gone ?” he whispered.

“Where’s it coming from?” the watchdog cried. “My God, Where’s it coming from?” Like a cornered animal he spun around, his eyes briefly mad with fear.

“What ?” Singh shouted. “What?”

The technician watching the trace on the encephalograph gave a stifled exclamation. “Dr. Singh!” he snapped. “I’m getting an overlay rhythm ! It’s beating out of phase — and look at the amplitude!”

“Her heart’s picking up!” reported another technician in an incredulous tone.

Singh felt his own heart give an answering lurch. There was no sense to be got out of the watchdog in his present state of shock, whatever had caused it; he hurried to stare at the encephalograph instead.

“See here!” The technician stabbed his finger at the weaving traces. “It’s smoothing now, going into normal phase, but when it first came on it was heterodyning so much I thought she was done for.”

“Is it Phranakis taking control of her entire mind ?”

“It can’t be!” the technician said with savagery. “I know his trace like — like his handwriting. And that’s not his.”

The air seemed to go stiff, as swiftly as supercooled water freezing. Totally lost, they looked at one another for an explanation.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Singh said at last “We can only wait.”

Slow nods answered him. And while they were still preparing themselves to endure the last crucial minutes, there came the noise from the passageway outside.

There were angry voices, raised to try and stop somebody.

There were running feet, light and muffled on the sound-absorbent floor. There was a hammering on the outermost of the soundproof doors, and a thin, barely heard scream.

The watchdog, still in shock, made two steps towards the door, jerking like a badly-manipulated puppet. Singh turned slowly, preconceived words about silence and danger dying as he sensed the truth and tried to remember what hope was like.

Then the doors slammed back and the giant came in, weeping, limping, and barely five feet tall.

There was the child, and I so wanted to help him, and I had to say those cheap rationalizing words about big problems and little problems… The doctor said: one shoulder higher than the other, one leg shorter than the other — pretty much of a mess. And later I found out about his grandfather, and found it out from the woman’s mind — she knew, and had the kid in spite of it, to use for blackmail… Big problems! What bigger problem could there possibly be? And I so wanted to help, and my whole life has been like that because there are so many people sick and sad and I can help… could help… DAMN THIS LUMP IN MY BRAIN! No bigger than a bullet, and like a bullet it’s killing me before I’m ready to die.

That was when Howson forgot himself.

At first she didn’t understand the power that had suddenly come to her. It was like becoming a torrential river, vast and deep and terrible. It was raw because it was as new as a baby, but it blazed.

Life force ? ? ? No such — but: life force!

Defeat? DEFEAT?

There was no room left for ideas of death and defeat !

Slowly, calmly as she had considered the prospect of dying, she began to take charge of what she had been given. There was no resistance, and she never questioned the source of the power — she was too accustomed to meeting strangers in her own mind to waste effort in finding out. The fatal images forced on her by Phranakis receded, becoming ghostly-faint; she sensed his terror and immediately postponed consideration of it. She was a little frightened herself, but calm yet.

Seeking levers with which to direct the force, she found almost at once a familiar concept, and it related so strongly to her recent conscious preoccupations that she was shaken.

Mother-child: images of parturition, nourishment, support, warmth, love. Child-mother: images of reflected pride, hope, gratitude, love. The forms were ill defined, as though from a source which knew little about such matters in real life. A faint puzzlement crossed her mind, and she dismissed it. With her detached consciousness she knew she had to make use of the power before she exhausted herself and lost her grip on it, and the first — the only — necessity was to struggle free of the hate Phranakis felt for her.

“She’s breaking loose!” someone exclaimed.

“I saw her eyelids flutter,” Singh whispered. There was a tightness in his chest he could not account for. His eyes were aching with the intentness of his staring; all his will was summed into the hope that his old, dear, marvellous friend should live. By what means she was rescued, he didn’t care. Later—later!

“But she’s only breaking loose!” muttered the technician by the encephalograph. “She isn’t bringing Phranakis with her—no, wait a second!” He bent close to the Phranakis tape, as if he could see through the present and read what had not yet been recorded. “Something’s happening, but heaven knows what!”

Cowed, bewildered, at a loss, the hero felt his satisfaction turn to ashes. A moment ago he was secure and confident; he had thwarted an attack on — well, his life, which sounded better than the truth, which was fearful to him. The last treacherous attempt of the barbarians to square accounts with him had been beaten off. The greatest city of all time, Athens the flower of civilization, was his, and its citizens were at his beck and call. Through the centuries they would remember him, Pericles the Great!