Orbit 2

“No,” the clear, liquid voice said solemnly, “you are a different kind of man, Kinross. You could have helped me to bear the load, and perhaps together we could have endured it until the help came that is coming now. Do not wash your hands of Fay and Bo Bo, Kinross.”

“Kruger,” Garcia said hesitantly, “do you mean that all those devils are really Fay and Bo Bo?”

“Most of them are,” the silvery voice confirmed, “but many of them are Kerbeck. He is disintegrating without my interference. And some are you, too, Garcia; some are Kinross, the woman, all of you. You are built into this world more than you know.”

“I don’t like it,” Garcia said. “Kruger, I won’t give up my devils.”

“You can’t help it, Garcia. But you have millions to spare, and besides you don’t really lose them, you know. You just spread yourself through the world, in a way. Every time you put a compulsion on this world by expecting something, it costs you a devil or two. Do you understand?”

“No!” the Mexican growled.

“I think you do. If you don’t, talk to Kinross later. But it’s not so bad, Garcia. When you become a loose cloud of devils, instead of a shiny black stone, you will be a poet or a sylvan god.”

“Kruger,” Kinross broke in, “do you hold it against me, that I denied you my help that time?”

“Do you hold it against me that I initiated all this by blowing up the Ixionl”

“I don’t know… I just don’t know. .”

“Nor do I know, Kinross. Perhaps we’re even. And I still have need of you.”

“Where is your body, Kruger? Can you animate it yet?”

“It is above the waterfall. I can see dimly now how Iwill animate it in the distant future and come into this world in a kind of glory. But not yet, not yet. .?”

“Your thirst, Kruger. Are you still thirsty?”

“Yes, Kinross. It still tears at me. I don’t know how much longer I will have to endure it.”

“Doesn’t rapport with Fay—?”

“No one but you, Kinross. And now not even you. You disobeyed me once.”

“Kruger, I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be. May we go now?”

“Yes. Go and serve our world. Try to be content.”

“Let’s go, Garcia,” Kinross said, turning. The Mexican set off briskly, leading Kinross. When they were passing through the dark grove Kinross halted.

“Let’s sit here and talk about devils for a while, Garcia,” he proposed. “I’m not ready to face Mary Chadwick just yet.”

When the two men returned to the fire, more than a dozen people were standing around it. Several were women. A tall, slender man wearing a leather jacket and gray trousers tucked into heavy boots came out of the group to meet them. He had reddish-blond hair.

“Mr. Kinross?” he asked. “Allow me to introduce myself and to apologize for making free of your fire. My name is Friedrich von Lankenau.”

They shook hands. The newcomer had a sinewy grip in his long fingers. His face was gaunt and bony, frozen, with thin lips and a high, narrow beak of a nose. Kinross stared at him quizzically and deep-set gray eyes looked back at him steadily from under shaggy brows. The thin lips smiled slightly.

“Miss Chadwick tells me that you are Mr. Kruger’s lieutenant, so to speak,” the man said. “We are a group gathered together in chance meetings along the way here. We are anxious to learn a rational, physical explanation of what we are experiencing.”

A babble of voices broke from the group. “Silence!” snapped the tall man. “If Mr. Kinross will explain, you may all listen, you who know English. I will then to the others explain.” The babble stilled.

Kinross told the story of the soldiers of Tibesti and of the sailors of the Ixion, He watched Lankenau closely as he spoke. The man never lost the rigid composure of his features, but his eyes blazed and he continually nodded his comprehension. When he finished Kinross checked the renewed babble by setting Garcia to telling the story in Spanish. Then he drew Lankenau to one side.

“Mind telling me where you were when you came through?” he asked.

“I was nearly to the top of Sajama in Bolivia, climbing alone.”

“How about the others?”

“From all over. Brazil, the New Hebrides, Mozambique, Australia, Rhodesia. .”

“I guess Kruger’s right and the gate does sweep the eighteenth parallel,” Kinross mused.

“We can establish it quite exactly with a little questioning, I have no doubt,” Lankenau said confidently. “But sooner or later, Mr. Kinross, I would like to talk directly to the Herr Kruger if it can be arranged. I am much intrigued—”

“You just go see him, Mr. Lankenau. I’m not his secretary. But I can tell you now, he will permit no one to return to the old world.”

“I would not for anything return to the old world!” Lankenau spoke with feeling that broke through his composure.

“From boyhood I knew the story of the soldiers of Tibesti,” he continued. “As a very young man I sought the gate through all of the Tibesti, and perhaps found the spot, but it did not reveal itself to me as it did for the Herr Kruger. So I sought a gate of my own, on mountain-tops in winter, such peaks as Sajama. I am not at all sure that I came through your gate, Mr. Kinross, but I am sure that I came to stay.”

“Mary — Miss Chadwick — has somewhat the same notion,” Kinross said. “I never knew so many people—” His voice trailed off.

“Forgive my outburst,” Lankenau said, composure regained. “For me this is a lost hope suddenly realized, and I am a bit overcome. If you will excuse me, I will visit the Herr Kruger now.”

He bowed and strode away springily. Kinross became aware of the Australian woman at his elbow.

“Mary,” he said, “did you hear him? But let me tell you, we can get back to your world, although it will be dangerous. I’ll work on it and let you know.”

She seemed hardly to listen, staring after the retreating figure. “Bonzer!” she said. “There walks a man.”

Kinross walked away, slightly irritated. Garcia was talking to a group of Latins including the three women. Kinross sought out the Rhodesian, a stocky, florid man wearing plaid shorts. His name was Peter White.

“What do you think of all this?” he asked.

“You have quite a good thing here,” the man replied. “Like being a child again, isn’t it rather?”

Kinross grunted and asked him what he thought of Lankenau. White said he admired von Lankenau, that he had felt rather forlorn and drifting until he had joined von Lankenau’s group. Kinross fidgeted over commonplaces for a few minutes and finally said, “You know, White, we can go back through that gate if we work it right.”

“I wouldn’t want to, just yet,” White said soberly. “This is rather a lark.”

“But in time — when you get tired—”

“Tired? That’s as may be. You know, Kinross, the last I remember of the old world was being almost dead of fever in the low veldt. Dreams, . visions. . I’m not ready to wake back. .”

“Then you think this is a dream?”

“Yes. A different and a better one.”

Kinross excused himself and walked away shaking his head. Garcia was still yapping in Spanish. He walked aimlessly for a while, then lay under a breadfruit tree near the fire and tried to sleep. He felt bored and angry. He saw two newcomers, both women, come down the hillside and left it to Garcia to welcome them.

Hours later von Lankenau strode back from the grove with an exalted look on his lean face. He called his group together and instructed them in their several languages as to their duties. Each must gather a token handful of fruit or berries every morning and place it on the cairn before the cave entrance. Then he spoke of huts and sanitary arrangements. White had a belt axe. One of the Mozambique Negroes had a bush knife and the other a grubbing hoe. When the work was going forward to his satisfaction he joined Kinross under the breadfruit tree. Garcia came with him.