“They want to love you,” Helen said.

“But why? Are they so empty?”

“Terribly empty,” Helen murmured.

Heyman said distantly, “If you went among them, you’d feel their love.”

Vornan seemed to shiver. “It would be unwise. They would destroy me with their love.”

I remembered Vornan in Los Angeles six months before, gleefully plunging into a mad mob of Apocalyptists. He had shown no dread of their desperate energies then. True, he had been masked, but the risks had still been great. The image of Vornan with a pile of stunned cultists forming a living barricade came to me. What joy he had felt in the midst of that chaos! Now he feared the love of the mobs that yearned for him. This was a new Vornan, then, a cautious one. Perhaps at last he was aware of the forces he had helped to unleash, and had grown more serious in his appraisal of danger. That freewheeling Vornan of the early days was gone.

In mid-October we were in Johannesburg, scheduled to hop the Atlantic for a tour of South America. South America was primed and ready for him. The first signs of organized Vornanism were appearing there: in Brazil and Argentina there had been prayer meetings attended by thousands; and we heard that churches were being founded, though the details were fragmentary and uninformative. Vornan showed no curiosity about this development. Instead he turned to me suddenly late one afternoon and said, “I wish to rest for a while, Leo.”

“To take a nap?”

“No, to rest from traveling. The crowds, the noise, the excitement — I have had enough. I want quietness now.”

“You’d better talk to Kralick.”

“First I must talk to you. Some weeks ago, Leo, you spoke to me of friends of yours in a quiet place. A man and a woman, a former pupil of yours, do you know the ones I mean?”

I knew. I went rigid. In an idle moment I had told Vornan about Jack and Shirley, about the pleasure it gave me to flee to them at times of internal crisis or fatigue. In telling him, I had hoped to draw from him some parallel declaration, some detail of his own habits and relationships in that world of the future that seemed yet so unreal to me. But I had not anticipated this.

“Yes,” I said tensely. “I know who you mean.”

“Perhaps we could go there together, Leo. You and I, and these two people, without the others, without the guards, the noise, the crowds. We could quietly disappear. I must renew my energies. This trip has been a strain for me, you know. And I want to see people of this era in day-to-day life. What I have seen so far has been a show, a pageant. But just to sit quietly and talk — I would like it very much. Could you arrange it for me, Leo?”

I was taken off balance. The sudden warmth of Vornan’s appeal disarmed me; and automatically I found myself calculating that we might learn much about Vornan this way, yes, that Jack, Shirley, and I, sipping cocktails in the Arizona sunlight, might pry from the visitor facts that had remained concealed during his highly public progress around the world. I was aware of what we might try to get from Vornan; and deluded by the undemanding Vornan of recent months, I failed to take into account what Vornan might try to get from us. “I’ll talk to my friends,” I promised. “And to Kralick. I’ll see what I can do about it, Vornan.”

SIXTEEN

Kralick was bothered at first by the disruption of the carefully balanced itinerary; South America, he said, would be very disappointed to learn that Vornan’s arrival would be postponed. But the positive aspects of the scheme were apparent to him as well. He thought it might be useful to get Vornan-19 off into a different kind of environment, away from the crowds and the cameras. I think he welcomed the chance to escape from Vornan for a while himself. In the end he approved the proposal.

Then I called Jack and Shirley.

I felt hesitant about dropping Vornan on them, even though they had both begged me to arrange something like this. Jack was desperately eager to talk to Vornan about total conversion of energy, though I knew he’d learn nothing. And Shirley… Shirley had confessed to me that she was physically drawn to the man from 2999. It was for her sake that I hesitated. Then I told myself that whatever Shirley might feel toward Vornan was something for Shirley herself to resolve, and that if anything happened between Shirley and Vornan, it would be only with Jack’s consent and blessing. In which case I did not have to feel responsible.

When I told them what had been proposed, they both thought I was joking. I had to work hard to persuade them that I really could bring Vornan to them. At length they decided to believe me, and I saw them exchange offscreen glances; then Jack said, “How soon is this going to come about?”

“Tomorrow, if you’re ready for it.”

“Why not?” Shirley said.

I searched her face for a betrayal of her desire. But I saw nothing except simple excitement.

“Why not?” Jack agreed. “But tell me this: is the place going to be overrun by reporters and policemen? I won’t put up with that.”

“No,” I said. “Vornan’s whereabouts are going to be kept secret from the press. There won’t be a media man in sight. And I suppose the access roads to your place will be guarded, just in case, but you won’t be bothered with security people. I’ll make sure they stay far away.”

“All right,” Jack said. “Bring him, then.”

Kralick had the South American trip postponed, and announced that Vornan was going to an undisclosed place for a private holiday of indeterminate length. We let it leak out that he would be vacationing at a villa somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Amid great show of significance, a private plane left Johannesburg the next morning bound for the island of Mauritius. It sufficed to keep the press baffled and misled. A little later that morning Vornan and I boarded a small jet and headed across the Atlantic. We changed planes in Tampa and were in Tucson by early afternoon. A car was waiting there. I told the Government chauffeur to get lost, and drove down to Jack and Shirley’s place myself. Kralick, I knew, had spread a surveillance net in a fifty-mile radius around the house, but he had agreed not to let any of his men come closer unless I requested help. We would be undisturbed. It was a flawless late-autumn afternoon, the sky sharp and flat, free of clouds, the taut blueness practically vibrating. The mountains seemed unusually distinct. As I drove, I noticed the occasional golden gleam of a Government copter high overhead. They were watching us… from a distance.

Shirley and Jack were in front of the house when we drove up. Jack wore a ragged shirt and faded jeans; Shirley was dressed in a skimpy halter and shorts. I had not seen them since the spring, and I had spoken to them only a few times. It struck me that the tensions I had observed in them in the spring had continued to erode them over the succeeding months. They both looked edgy, coiled, compressed, in a way that could not altogether be credited to the arrival of their celebrated guest.

“This is Vornan-19,” I said. “Jack Bryant. Shirley.”

“Such a pleasure,” Vornan said gravely. He did not offer his hand, but bowed in an almost Japanese way, first to Jack, then to Shirley. An awkward silence followed. We stood staring at each other under the harsh sun. Shirley and Jack behaved almost as though they had never believed in Vornan’s existence until this moment; they seemed to regard him as some fictional character unexpectedly conjured into life. Jack clamped his lips together so firmly that his cheeks throbbed. Shirley, never taking her eyes from Vornan, rocked back and forth on the balls of her bare feet. Vornan, self-contained and affable, studied the house, its environment, and its occupants with cool curiosity.