Robert Silverberg - To Open the Sky

Into Kirby’s wary silence Vorst murmured, “I’ve talked to Lazarus and closed the deal. He’s agreed to supply us with pushers, as many as we need. It’s possible we’ll have an interstellar expedition on its way by the end of the year.”

“I feel a little numb at that, Noel.”

“Anticlimactic, isn’t it? For a hundred years you move an inch at a time toward that goal, and suddenly you find yourself staring at the finish line, and the thrill of pursuit becomes the boredom of accomplishment.”

“We haven’t landed that expedition on another solar system yet,” Kirby reminded the Founder quietly.

“We will We will. That’s beyond doubt. We’re at the finish line now. Capodimonte’s already running personnel checks for the expedition. We’ll be outfitting the capsule soon. Lazarus’s bunch will cooperate, and off we’ll go. That much is certain.”

“How did you get him to agree, Noel?”

“By showing him how it will be after the expedition has set out. Tell me, have you given much thought to the goals of the Brotherhood once we’ve sent that first expedition?”

Kirby hesitated. “Well—sending more expeditions, I guess. And consolidating our position. Continuing the medical research. Carrying on with all our current work.”

“Exactly. A long smooth slide toward utopia. No longer an uphill climb. That’s why I won’t stay around to run things any longer.”

“What?”

“I’m going on the expedition,” Vorst said.

If Vorst had ripped off one of his limbs and clubbed him to the floor with it, Kirby would not have been more amazed. The Founder’s words hit him with an almost physical jolt, making him recoil. Kirby seized the arms of his chair, and in response the chair seized him, cradling him gently until his spasm of shock abated.

“You’re going?” Kirby blurted. “No. No. It’s beyond belief, Noel. It’s madness.”

“My mind’s made up. My work on Earth is done. I’ve guided the Brotherhood for a century, and that’s long enough. I’ve seen it take control of Earth, and by proxy I have Venus, too, and I have the cooperation if not exactly the support of the Martians. I’ve done all I’ve intended to do here. With the departure of the first interstellar expedition, I will have fulfilled what I’ll be so gaudy as to call my mission on Earth. It’s time to be moving along. I’ll try another solar system.”

“We won’t let you go,” Kirby said, astounded by his own words. “You can’t go! At your age—to get aboard a capsule bound for—”

“If I don’t go,” said Vorst, “there will be no capsule bound for anywhere.”

“Don’t talk that way, Noel. You sound like a spoiled child threatening to call the party off if we don’t play the game your way. There are others bound up in the Brotherhood, too.”

To Kirby’s surprise, Vorst looked merely amused at the harsh accusation. “I think you’re misinterpreting my words,” he said. “I don’t mean to say that unless I go along, I’ll halt the expedition. I mean that the use of Lazarus’s espers is contingent on my leaving. If I’m not aboard that capsule, he won’t lend his pushers.”

For the second time in ten Mondschein Kirby was rocked by amazement. This time there was pain, too, for he was aware that there had been a betrayal.

“Is that the deal you made, Noel?”

“It was a fair price to pay. A shift of power is long overdue. I step out of the picture; Lazarus becomes supreme head of the movement; you can be his vicar on Earth. We get the espers. We open the sky. It works well for everybody concerned.”

“No, Noel.”

“I’m weary of being here. I want to leave. Lazarus wants me to leave, too. I’m too big, I overtop the entire movement. It’s time for mortals to move in. You and Lazarus can divide the authority. He’ll have the spiritual supremacy, but you’ll run Earth. The two of you will work out some kind of communicant relation between the Harmonists and the Brotherhood. It won’t be too hard; the rituals are similar enough. Ten years and any lingering bitterness will be gone. And I’ll be a dozen light-years away, safely out of your path, unable to meddle, living in retirement. Out to pasture on World XI of System Y. Yes?”

“I don’t believe any of this, Noel. That you’d abdicate after a century, go swooshing off to nowhere with a bunch of pioneers, live in a log cabin on an unknown planet at the age of nearly a hundred and fifty, drop the reins—”

“Start believing it,” said Vorst. For the first time in the conversation the old whiplash tone returned to his voice. “I’m going. It’s decided. In a sense, I have gone.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know I’m a very low-order floater. That I plan things by hitchhiking with precogs.”

“Yes”

“I’ve seen the outcome. I know how it was, and so I know how it’s going to be. I leave. I’ve followed the plan this far—followed and led, all in one, heels over head through time. Everything I’ve done I’ve had a hint of beforehand. From founding the Brotherhood right to this moment. So it’s settled. I go.”

Kirby closed his eyes. He struggled for balance.

Vorst said, “Look back on the path I’ve traveled. Was there a false step anywhere? The Brotherhood prospered. It took Earth. When we were strong enough to afford a schism, I encouraged the Harmonist heresy.”

“You encouraged—”

“I chose Lazarus for what he had to do and filled him full of ideas. He was just an insignificant acolyte, clay in my hands. That’s why you never knew him in the early days. But he was there. I took him. I molded him. I got his movement going in opposition to ours.”

“Why, Noel?”

“It didn’t pay to be monolithic. I was hedging my bets. The Brotherhood was designed to win Earth, and it did, but the same principles didn’t—couldn’t—appeal to Venus, So I started a second cult. I tailored that one for Venus and gave them Lazarus. Later I gave them Mondschein, too. Do you remember that, in 2095? He was only a greedy little acolyte, but I saw the strength in him, and I nudged him around until he found himself a changed one on Venus. I built that entire organization.”

“And you knew that they’d come up with pushers?” Kirby asked incredulously.

“I didn’t know. I hoped. All I knew was that setting up the Harmonists was a good idea, because I saw that it had been a good idea. Follow? For the same reason I took Lazarus away and hid him in a crypt for sixty years. I didn’t know why at the time. But I knew it might be useful to keep the Harmonist martyr in my pocket for a while, as a card to play in the future. I played that card twelve years ago, and since then the Harmonists have been mine. Today I played my last card: myself. I have to leave.

My work is done, anyway. I’m bored with running out the skein. I’ve juggled everything for a hundred years, setting up my own opposition, creating conflicts designed to lead to an ultimate synthesis, and that synthesis is here, and I’m leaving.”

After a long silence Kirby said, “You humiliate me, Noel, by asking me to ratify a decision that’s already as immutable as the tides and the sunrise.”

“You’re free to oppose it at the council meeting.”

“But you’ll go, anyway?”

“Yes. I’d like your support, though. It won’t matter to the eventual outcome, but I’d still rather have you on my side than not I’d like to think that you of all people understand what I’ve been doing all these years. Do you believe there’s any reason for me to stay on Earth any longer?”

“We need you, Noel. That’s the only reason.”

“Now you’re the one who’s being childish. You don’t need me. The plan is fulfilled. It’s time to clear out and turn the job over to others. You’re too dependent on me, Ron. You can’t get used to the idea that I’m not going to be pulling the strings forever.”