Robert Silverberg - To Open the Sky

Let me see, Vorst begged.

The figure of David Lazarus bestrode the pattern of tomorrow, Vorst knew it would. Lazarus stood like a colossus, come forth to an unexpected resurrection, holding his arms out to the green-robed brethren of his heresy. Vorst shivered. The image wavered and was gone. The frail hand of the Founder relaxed its grip.

“She’s dead,” Vorst said. “Take me away.”

One old man had given the word, and another obeyed, and a third was approached for a favor. Nat Weiner of the Martian Presidium was always willing to oblige his old friend Reynolds Kirby. They had known one another for more years then they cared to admit.

Weiner, like nearly all Martians, was neither Vorster nor Harmonist. Martians had little use for the cults, and steered a neutral and profitable course. On Earth, by now, the Vorsters amounted to a planetary government since their influence was felt everywhere; it was simple good sense for Mars to retain open lines to the Vorster high command, since Mars had business to do with Earth. Venus, the planet of adapted men, was a different case. No one could be too sure what went on there, except that the Harmonist heresy had established itself pretty securely in the last thirty or forty years, and might one day speak for Venus as the Vorsters spoke for Earth. Weiner had served a tour of duty as Martian Ambassador to Venus, and he thought he understood the blueskins fairly well. He didn’t like them very much. But he was past feeling any strong emotion. He had left that behind with his hundredth birthday.

At staggering cost, Reynolds Kirby in Santa Fe spoke face-to-face with Weiner, and begged a favor of him. It was twelve years since they had last met—not since Weiner’s last visit to the rejuvenation centers at Santa Fe. It wasn’t customary for unbelievers to be granted the use of the rejuvenation facilities there, but Kirby had arranged for Weiner and a select few of his Martian friends to come down for periodic treatments, as a favor.

Weiner understood quite dearly that Kirby was silently accepting promissory notes for those favors, and that the notes would be taken down for repayment one of these days. That was all right; the important thing was to survive. Weiner might even have been willing to become a Vorster, if he had to, in order to have access to Santa Fe. But of course that would have hurt him politically on Mars, where both Vorsters and Harmonists were generally looked upon as subversives. This way he had the benefits, without the risks, and he owed it to his old friend Kirby. Weiner would go quite a distance to repay Kirby for that service.

The Vorster said, “Have you seen the alleged Lazarus vault yet Nat?”

“I was out there two days ago. We’ve got a tight security guard on it. It was my nephew who found it, you know. I’d like to kill him.”

“Why?”

“All we need is finding the Harmonist muck-a-muck out by Beltran Lakes. Why couldn’t you people have buried him on Venus, where his own people are?”

“What makes you think we buried him, Nat?”

“Aren’t you the ones who killed him? Or put him into a freeze, or whatever you did to him?”

“It all happened before my time,” Kirby said. “Only Vorst knows the real story, and maybe not even he. But surely it’s Lazarus’s own supporters who tucked him away in that vault, don’t you think?”

“Not at all,” Weiner replied. “Why would they get their own story garbled? He’s their prophet. If they put him there, they should have remembered it and preached his ressurrection, yes? But they were the most surprised ones of all when he turned up.” Weiner frowned. “On the other hand, the message that was recorded with him is full of Harmonist slogans. And there are Harmonist symbols on the vault. I wish I understood. Better still: I wish we’d never found him. But why are you calling, Ron?”

“Vorst wants him.”

“Wants Lazarus?”

“That’s right. To bring him back to life. We’ll take the whole vault to Santa Fe and open it and revive him. Vorst wants to make the announcement tomorrow, all-channel hookup.”

“You can’t, Ron. If anybody gets him, it ought to be the Harmonists. He’s their prophet. How can I hand him to you boys? You’re the ones who supposedly killed him in the first place, and now—”

“And now we’re going to revive him, which, as everyone knows, is beyond the capabilities of the Harmonists. They’re welcome to try, if they want, but they simply don’t have our kind of laboratory facilities. We’re ready to revive him. Then we’ll turn him over to the Harmonists and he can preach all he wants. Just let us have access to the vault.”

“You’re asking for a lot,” Weiner said.

“We’ve given you a lot, Nat.”

Weiner nodded. The promissory notes had fallen due, he realized. He said, “The Harmonists will have my head for this.”

“Your head’s pretty tightly attached, Nat. Find a way to give us the vault. Vorst will be pretty rough on us all if you don’t.”

Weiner sighed. “His will be done.”

But how, the Martian wondered when contact had broken? By force majeure? Hand over the vault and to hell with public opinion? And if Venus got nasty about it?

“There hadn’t been an interplanetary war yet, but perhaps the time was ripe. Certainly the Harmonists wanted—and had every right to have—their own founder’s body. Just last week that convert Martell, the one who had come to Venus to plant a Vorster cell and ended up in the Harmonist camp, had been here to see the vault, Weiner thought, and had tentatively sketched out a plan for taking possession. Martell and his boss Mondschein would explode when they found out that the relic of Lazarus was being shipped to Santa Fe.

It would have to be handled delicately.

Weiner’s mind whirred and clicked like a computer, or presenting and rejecting alternate possibilities, opening and dosing one circuit after another. It was not seniority alone that kept the Martian in power. He was agile. He had gained considerably in craftiness since the night when, a drunken young yokel, he ran amok in New York.

Three hours and a great many thousand dollars’ worth of interplanetary calls later, Weiner had his solution worked out satisfactorily.

The vault was Martian governmental property, as an artifact. Therefore Mars had an important voice in its disposal. However, the Martian government recognized the unique symbolic value of this discovery, and thus proposed to consult with religious authorities of the other worlds. A committee would be formed: three Harmonists, three Vorsters, and three Martians of Weiner’s selection. Presumably the Harmonists and Vorsters would look out only for their own cult’s welfare, and the Martians on the committee would maintain an imperturbable neutrality assuring an impartial judgment.

Of course.

The committee would meet to deliberate on the fate of the vault. The Harmonists, naturally, would claim it for themselves. The Vorsters, having made public their offer to employ all their superscience to bring Lazarus back to life, would ask to be given a chance to do so. The Martians would weigh all the possibilities.

Then, Weiner thought, would come the vote. One of the Martians would vote with the Harmonists—for appearance’s sake. The other two would come out in favor of letting the Vorsters work on the sleeper, under rigorous supervision to prevent any hanky-panky. The five-to-four vote would give the vault to Vorst. Mondschein would yelp, of course. But the terms of the agreement would allow a couple of Harmonist representatives to get inside the secret labs at Santa Fe for a little while, and that would soothe them somewhat. There would be a little grumbling, but if Kirby kept his word, Lazarus would be revived and turned over to his partisans, and how could the Harmonists possibly object to that?