Robert Silverberg - To Open the Sky

Comfortable in his nest of webfoam, Vorst said, “I think it’s time to unite our movements, David. We complement one another. There’s nothing to gain from further division.”

“There might be something to lose by union,” said Lazarus. “We’re the younger branch. If you reabsorbed us, we’d be swallowed up in your hierarchy.”

“Not so. I guarantee you that your Harmonists will remain fully autonomous. More than that, I’ll guarantee you a dominant role in policy setting.”

“What kind of guarantee can you offer?”

“Let that pass a moment,” Vorst said. “I’ve got an interstellar team ready to go. They’ll be fully equipped in a matter of months. I mean fully equipped. They’ll be able to cope with anything they meet. But they have to have a way of getting out of the solar system. Give us a push, David. You’ve got the personnel now. We’ve monitored your experiments.”

Lazarus nodded, his gill-bunches quivering. “I won’t deny what we’ve done. We can push a thousand tons from here to Pluto. We can keep the same mass going right to infinity.”

“How long to get to Pluto?”

“Fast. I won’t tell you exactly how fast. But let’s just say the stars are in reach. Have been for the past eight or ten months. We could get a ship there in—oh, let’s call it a year. Of course, we’d have no way of maintaining contact. We can push, but we can’t talk across a dozen light-years. Can you?”

“No,” said Vorst. “The expedition would be out of contact the moment it got past radio range. It would have to send back a conventional relay ship to announce its safe arrival. We wouldn’t know for decades. But we have to try. Give us your men, David.”

“You realize it would burn out dozens of our most promising youngsters?”

“I realize. Give us your men, anyway. We understand techniques for repairing burnouts. Let them push the ship to the stars, and when they drop in their tracks, we’ll try to fix them up again. That’s what Santa Fe is for.”

“First drive them to exhaustion, then patch them together?” Lazarus asked. “That’s ruthless. Are the stars that important? I’d rather see these boys develop their powers here on Venus and remain intact.”

“We need them.”

“So do we?’

Vorst made use of the interval to flood his body with stimulants. He was tingling, palpitating with vigor by the time his reply was due. He said, “David, I own you. I made you and I want you. I put you to sleep in 2090 when you were nothing, an upstart, and I brought you back to life in 2152 and gave you a world. You owe me everything. Now I’m calling in that obligation. I’ve been waiting a hundred years to reach this position. You people finally have the espers who can send my people to the stars. Whatever the personal cost at your end, I want you to send them.”

The strain of that speech left Vorst dizzy with fatigue. But he had time to recover. Time to think, to wait for the reply. He had made his gamble, and now it was up to Lazarus. Vorst did not have many cards left to play.

The blue-faced figure in the screen was motionless; Vorst’s words had not even reached Venus yet. Lazarus’s reply was a long time in coming.

He said, “I didn’t think you’d be so blunt, Vorst. Why should I be grateful to you for reviving me, when you jammed me into that hole in the first place? Oh, I know. Because my movement was insignificant when you took me away from it and a major force when you brought me back. Do you take credit for that too?” A pause. “Never mind. I don’t want to give you my espers. Breed your own, if you want to get to the stars.”

“You’re talking foolishness. You want the stars, too, David. But you don’t have the technical facilities, up there in the backwoods, to equip an expedition. I do. Let’s join forces. It’s what you your-self want to do, no matter how tough you talk now. Let me tell you what’s holding you back from agreeing to join me, David. You’re afraid of what your own people will do to you when they find out you’ve agreed to cooperate. They’ll say you’ve sold out to the Vorsters. You’re frozen in a position you don’t believe, just because you don’t have real independence. Assert yourself, David. Use your powers. I put that planet into your hands. Now I want you to repay me.”

“How can I go to Mondschein and Martell and the others and tell them that I’ve meekly agreed to submit to you?” Lazarus asked. “They’re restless enough at having had a resurrected martyr slapped down on top of them. There are times when I expect them to martyr me again, and this time for good. I need a bargaining point.”

Vorst smiled. Victory was in his grasp now. He said, “Tell them, David. that I offer you supreme authority over both worlds. Tell them that the Brotherhood not only will welcome the Harmonists back, but that you’ll be made the sole head of both branches of the faith.”

“Both?”

“Both.”

“And what becomes of you?”

Vorst told him. And once the words were past his lips, the Founder sank back, limp with relief, knowing that he had made the final move in a game a century old, and that it had all come out in the right way.

Reynolds Kirby was with his therapist when the summons came to go to Vorst. The Hemispheric Coordinator lay in a nutrient bath, an adapted Nothing Chamber whose purpose was not oblivion but revivification. If Kirby had chosen to escape into temporary nothingness, he could have sealed himself off from the universe and entered complete suspension. He had long since outgrown the need for such amusements, though. Now he was content to loll in the nutrient bath, restoring the vital substances after a fatiguing day, while an esper therapist combed the snags from his soul.

Ordinarily, Kirby did not tolerate interruptions of such sessions. At his age he needed all the peace he could get. He had been born too early to share the quasi-immortality of the younger generations; his body could not snap back to vitality the way a twenty-second-century man’s body could, for he had not had the benefit of a century of Vorster research when he was born. There was one exception to Kirby’s rule, however: a summons from Vorst took precedence over everything, even a session of needed therapy.

The therapist knew it. Deftly he brought the session to a premature close and fortified Kirby for his return to the tensions of the world. In less than half an hour the Coordinator was on his way to the white dome-roofed building where Vorst made his headquarters.

Vorst looked shaky. Kirby had never seen the Founder look so drained of strength. The vault of Vorst’s forehead was like the roof of a skull, and the dark eyes blazed with a peculiarly dis-comfiting intensity. A low pumping sound was evident in the room: Vorst’s machinery, feeding strength to the ancient body. Kirby took the seat toward which Vorst beckoned him. Strong fingers in the upholstery grasped him and began to knead the tension out of him.

Vorst said, “I’ll be calling a council meeting in a little while to ratify the steps I’ve just taken. But before the entire group gathers. I want to discuss things with you, run them through once or twice.”

Kirby’s expression was guarded. After decades with Vorst, he could supply an instant translation: I’ve done something authoritarian, Vorst was saying, and I’m going to call in everybody to rubber-stamp an okay on it, but first I’m going to force a rubber-stamping out of you. Kirby was prepared to acquiesce in what-ever Vorst had done. He was not a weak man by nature, but one did not dispute the doings of Vorst. The last one who had seriously attempted to try was Lazarus, who had slept in a box on Mars for sixty years as a result.