and, as he's badly wounded, he comes first. Darr Veter's been appointed to
build the new satellite and that's his share in helping Mven Mass. I'm
making no mistake when I tell you quite seriously to go to him, ask nothing
of him, not even a tender glance, no plans for the future, no love ... only
give him your support, dispel his doubts in his own right and then bring him
back to our world. You have strength enough to do that, Chara. Will you go?"
The girl was breathing fast, she raised her childishly trusting eyes to
the older woman and there were tears in them.
"I'll go today!"
Evda Nahl kissed Chara heartily.
"You're right, you must hurry. We'll go to Asia Minor together on the
Spiral Way. Renn Bose is in a surgical sanatorium on the Island of Rhodes
and I'll send you on to Deir-es-Sohr where there is a helicopter base
belonging to the technical and medical first-aid service on the Australia
and New Zealand route. I can imagine the pleasure it will give the pilot to
take the famous dancer Chara- alas, not the biologist Chara!-to any place
she wants to visit."
The chief conductor of train 116/78 invited Evda Nahl and her companion
to pay a visit to the central control room. A corridor, covered with a
silicolloid hood, ran along the whole length of the huge cars. Mechanics
walked up and down this corridor, from one end of the train to the other,
watching instruments indicating the temperature of the axles, the strain on
the springs and frame of each of the cars. Geiger counters kept a check on
lubrication and brakes. The two women went up a spiral staircase and walked
along the corridor until they came to a big cabin high up over the
streamlined nose of the first car. In a crystal ellipsoid twenty-two feet
above the railway line sat two mechanics one on either side of the pyramidal
hood of the electronic robot driver. Parabolic screens showed them
everything that was going on on both sides and behind the train. The
whiskers of the antenna that trembled on the roof belonged to an apparatus
that should give warning of anything appearing on the line of the Spiral Way
for the next 50 kilometres although the circumstances under which anything
could appear would be very extraordinary.
Evda and Chara sat down on a sofa against the bade wall of the cabin
placed half a metre higher than the seats of the mechanics and allowed
themselves to be hypnotized by the railway lines racing swiftly towards
them. The gigantic railway crossed mountain ranges, was carried over the
plains along huge embankments and crossed narrow waters and bays by viaducts
built deep in the water. The forest planted on the sides of the colossal
cuttings and embankments formed a continuous carpet owing to the train's
uniform speed of 200 kilometres an hour, a carpet that was reddish, light or
dark green depending on the trees of the district-pines, eucalypti, or
olives. The calm waters of the Archipelago were set in motion on both sides
of the bridge by the movement of the air as it was cut by the ten-metre-wide
train. The big ripples ran out fanwise, darkening the transparent blue
water.
The two women sat in silence, watching the line and wrapped up, each in
her own thoughts and cares. So they sat for four hours on end. Another four
hours were spent in the comfortable chairs of the saloon on the second
storey amongst the other passengers until they parted near the coast of Asia
Minor. Evda transferred to an electrobus that would take her to the nearest
port and Chara continued her way to the East Taurus station, the junction of
the First Meridian Branch. Another two hours and Chara found herself on a
hot plain, in a haze of hot dry air. Here on the edge of the former Syrian
Desert was the airport Deir-es-Sohr, where spiral helicopters, dangerous in
inhabited areas, could land and take off.
Chara Nandi would never forget the weary hours she spent at
Deir-es-Sohr waiting for the plane to come in. Time and again she thought
over her words and her actions, trying to imagine her meeting with Mven
Mass;
she built up plans for the search for him on the Island of Oblivion,
where everything was blurred in the procession of uneventful days.
At last she was on her way: below spread the endless fields of
thermo-elements in the Nefud and Rub-el-Hali deserts, huge stations for the
conversion of sunshine into electric power. They were arranged in straight
rows and had blinds that shielded them at night and from the dust; built on
consolidated sand dunes, on plateaux cut away with a slope to the south and
over a labyrinth of filled-in wadis, they stood there as a monument to man's
terrific struggle for energy, a struggle that had begun when the ancient
coal and oil resources were exhausted, after the first failures with atomic
energy, when mankind came to the conclusion that the chief source of energy
would have to be that of the sun in two forms-hydroelectric power stations
and sun stations. When new forms of energy, P, Q and F energy were
discovered, the necessity for severe economy disappeared. A whole forest of
windmotors stood motionless along the southern coast of the Arabian
Peninsula, another reserve power capacity for the northern living zone. In
an instant the helicopter had crossed the barely noticeable line of the
coast and was airborne over the Indian Ocean. Five thousand kilometres was
an insignificant distance for the swift aircraft. Very soon Chara Nandi,
followed by good wishes and hopes for a speedy return, left the helicopter,
stepping wearily on her shaky legs.
The director of the landing field sent his daughter with a tiny
flat-bottomed motor-boat to take Chara to the Island of Oblivion. The two
girls were frankly delighted with the high speed of the tiny boat as it
skimmed the big waves of the open sea. They went straight to a big bay on
the east coast of the island where there was a medical station belonging to
the Great World.
Coconut palms, their feathered leaves bowed over the wavelets lapping
gently against the shore, welcomed Chara to the island. The medical station
was deserted, all its workers having gone inland to destroy ticks discovered
on certain rodents in the forest.
There was a stable at the station. Horses were still bred for work in
places like the Island of Oblivion or at sanatoria where helicopters could
not be used on account of the noise or electric cars on account of the
absence of roads. Chara slept for a while, changed her clothes and then went
to look at the rare and beautiful animals. There she met a woman who was
skilfully operating two machines-a feed distributor and a stable-cleaning
machine. Chara helped her with her work and the woman answered her
questions. Chara asked her the best way to look for somebody on the island.
The woman advised her to join one of the destroyer caravans that travelled
all over the island and knew the place much better than the local
inhabitants. Chara approved of this idea.
CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE ISLAND OF OBLIVION
The hydroplane was crossing Palk Strait against a strong head wind,
leaping over the flat-topped rollers. Two thousand years before there had
been a ridge of coral reefs and shallows there known as Adam's Bridge.
Recent geological processes had created a deep gulf in place of the ridge
and deep waters now divided the lovers of repose from a mankind that was
surging ever forward.
Mven Mass stood against the rail, his feet placed wide apart, peering
at the Island of Oblivion as it gradually grew in size on the horizon. This
huge island, washed by warm currents, was a natural paradise. In man's
primitive religious conceptions paradise had been a happy refuge after death
where there were no cares or labour. The Island of Oblivion was also a happy
asylum for those who were not attracted by the feverish activity of the
Great World and who did not want to work on the same level as other people.
Here in the lap of mother nature, they lived out their years in the
peace and calm known to the ancient cultivator of the soil, fisherman or
herdsman.
Although mankind had given their weaker brothers a large area of
wonderfully fruitful land, the primitive economy of the island could not
fully guarantee the population against famine especially in periods of
drought or other calamities that were so common where the productive forces
were poorly developed. The Great World, therefore, was constantly allotting
part of its reserve supplies to the Island of Oblivion.
Foodstuffs, preserved to last for many years, medicines, means of
biological protection and other necessities were shipped to the island
through three ports on the north-western, southern and eastern coasts. The
three chief local governors also lived in the north, east and south and were
known as the Directors of Animal Husbandry, Agriculture and Fisheries
respectively. These people, elected by the islanders themselves, were always
noted for their strong character. Some of them might have become pitiless
tyrants if it had not been for the constant watch kept by the Economic and
Health Councils and by the Control of Honour and Justice.
Not only on the island, but also in the Great World it occasionally
happened that men of the hated category of "bulls" tried to enter into
conspiracies and organize rebellions but the detachments of the Destroyer
Battalions were as ruthless in dealing with wilful murderers as they were
with sharks, bacteria and poisonous reptiles.
As he gazed at his future asylum Mven Mass began to wonder whether he,
too, was a ''bull", but he put the thought aside in disgust. A "bull" was a
strong and energetic man but one completely unaffected by the sufferings of
others, a man who thought only of his own, usually unworthy, pleasures.
People who, in the past obtained such characters from an unfortunate
combination of inherited qualities had to keep themselves in hand and in
training throughout their lives in order to be worthy members of the new
society. The sufferings, quarrels and misfortunes of mankind in the distant
past had always been aggravated by such people who, in various guises,
proclaimed themselves the sole holders of the truth, the rulers who claimed
the right to suppress all those whose opinions did not agree with theirs,
the right to eradicate all other ways of thought or of life. Since then
mankind has avoided the slightest sign of the absolute in opinions, desires
and tastes and had become more wary of the "bulls" than of anything else.
They, the "bulls," ignoring the inviolable laws of economics, with no
thought for the future, lived only for the present. The wars and
disorganized economy of the Era of Disunity had led to the plundering of the
planet. In those days forests were felled, supplies of coal and oil that had
accumulated in the course of millions of years were burned up, the
atmosphere was polluted by carbon monoxide and other filth that belched out
of improperly constructed factories, beautiful and harmless animals were
annihilated, and this went on until the world at last arrived at the
communist structure of society, the only system that could ensure man's
continued existence. Great difficulties were left for the descendants. In
the Era of Unity the most complicated reorganization of the world had to be
undertaken in countries whose trees had degenerated into bushes and their
cattle into dwarfs. The earth had been littered with rubbish of all
sorts-broken glass, paper, rusty iron-and the rivers and sea-coasts had been
polluted by waste oil and chemicals. Only when the water, air and earth had
been properly cleansed did man see his planet in its present form where he
could go anywhere barefoot without fear of hurting his feet.
But had not he, Mven Mass, who had been less than two years in an
important post, destroyed an artificial satellite built by thousands of
people employing miracles of the engineer's art? Four competent scientists,
any of whom might have become a Renn Bose, had been killed and Renn Bose
himself had been saved with the greatest difficulty. Again the figure of
Beth Lohn, hiding somewhere in the mountains and valleys of the Island of
Oblivion, arose before his eyes, this time arousing great sympathy in him.
Before he had left, Mven Mass had seen photographs of the mathematician, and
had remembered his energetic face with its massive jaw and sharp eyes,
deep-sunk and close to each other-he remembered his whole athletic frame....
The hydroplane engineer came over to Mven Mass. "There's heavy surf. We
shan't be able to put in to the coast, the waves are beating over the mole.
We'll have to make for the southern port."
"There's no need to. You have life rafts. I can put my clothes on one
and swim ashore."
The engineer and helmsman looked at Mven Mass with respect. Surf-capped
white waves piled up on the shallows and poured down in heavy, thundering
cascades. Closer to the shore a disorderly swirl of waves whipped the sand
and foam together and raced far up the low beach. The warm, fine rain that
fell from the low-hanging clouds was swept at a slant by the wind and mixed
with the wisps of foam.
Some grey figures were dimly visible on the beach through the veil of
haze.
The engineer and the helmsman exchanged glances as Mven Mass stripped
and packed up his clothes. Those who went to the Island of Oblivion were no
longer under the guardianship of society where everybody protected everybody
else and helped him. Mven Mass' personality aroused the involuntary respect
of the helmsman and he decided to warn him of the great danger he was
running. The African waved his hand carelessly. The engineer brought him a
small hermetically sealed case.
"Here is a month's supply of concentrated foods, take it with you."
Mven Mass thought for a second then put the case and his clothes in the
waterproof chamber, buckled the flap tightly and with the little raft under
his arm put his leg over the rail.
"Swing her round!" he commanded. The hydroplane leaned over in a sharp
turn. Mven Mass, thrown far away from the tiny vessel, began his furious
fight with the waves. Those on the boat saw him rise on the crest of a wave,
disappear into a trough and reappear on another crest.
"With his strength he'll manage it all right," said the engineer, with
a sigh of relief. "We're drifting, we must get away from here."
The screw raced and the little vessel jumped forward and lifted up on a
wave that ran counter to it. Mven Mass' dark figure appeared at full height
on the beach and merged with the haze of rain.
Across the sandy beach, beaten hard by the waves, a group of people
wearing nothing but loin-cloths came to meet him. They were dragging a huge,
madly writhing fish in triumph. When they noticed Mven Mass they stopped and
greeted him in friendly manner.
"A new one from that world," said one of the fishermen with a smile.
"He swims well. Come and live with us!"
Mven Mass gave the fishermen a frank, friendly look and shook his head.
"It would be hard for me to live here on the sea-coast and always be
looking at the expanse of water and thinking of my beautiful lost world. I'm
going into the interior, on to the plateau where the herdsmen live."
One of the fishermen with a lot of grey in his thick beard that
apparently was here considered an adornment to a man, laid his hand on the
newcomer's wet shoulder.
''Could you have been compelled to come here?"
Mven Mass gave a bitter smile and tried to explain what had brought him
there.
The fisherman looked at the newcomer sadly and with sympathy.
'"We do not understand each other. Go your way," he said, pointing to
the south-east, where the blue terraces of distant mountains could be seen
through a break in the clouds. "It is a long way and there is no other means
of transport here than..." and the islander slapped the powerful muscles of
his legs.
Mven Mass was glad to get away as quickly as possible and with long,
swinging steps went up the winding path that led to some low hills.
The way to the centre of the island was a little more than two hundred
kilometres and Mven Mass was in no hurry. Why should he be? Wearisome days,
not filled by any sort of useful labour, dragged on slowly. At first, when
he had not fully recovered from the catastrophe, his tired body demanded
repose, the tranquillity of nature. If he had not been conscious of the
tremendous loss he had suffered he would have enjoyed the silence of the
deserted, wind-swept plateaux and the blackness and primordial silence of
hot, tropical nights.
But as day followed day, the African, wandering about the island in
search of some work to interest him, began to yearn for the Great World. The
peaceful valleys with their groves of hand-cultivated fruit-trees no longer
gave him pleasure nor was he lulled by the almost hypnotic gurgle of the
pure mountain streams on whose banks he could now sit for countless hours in
the heat of the afternoon or on a moonlit night.
Countless hours ... why should he count that which was of no use to him
there, time? He bad as much as he wanted, an ocean of time but he felt that
his own, individual time was so insignificant. One brief and soon-forgotten
moment! That was what happened to the lives of our stone age ancestors,
lives full of courage and real heroism.
Only then did Mven Mass feel how well the island had been named-the
Island of Oblivion! The stupid namelessness of the ancient ways of life, the
doings and feelings of man! Deeds were forgotten by descendants because they
were performed for the satisfaction of individual needs and did not make the
life of the community easier and better, did not brighten life with creative
art.
Mven was accepted into a company of herdsmen in the centre of the
island and for two months pastured herds of buffalo at the foot of a huge
mountain bearing the clumsily long name it had been given by the people who
inhabited the island in ancient days.
For a long time he boiled his black porridge in a sooty pot and a month
before he had had to seek fruits and nuts in the forest in competition with
the greedy monkeys who threw their shells and peelings at him. That had
happened when he had given the food he brought from the hydroplane to an old
couple in a distant valley in accordance with the rule of the Great Circle
World and its greatest joy: first give pleasure to others. Then he had
discovered what it meant to have to seek food in unpopulated desert places.
What a senseless waste of time.
Mven Mass got up from the stone on which he had been sitting and
glanced round. The sun was setting behind the edge of the plateau and the
wooded, rounded top of a hill rose up before him.
Below in the twilight murmured a swift rivulet flowing between growths
of tall, feathered bamboos. Half a day's journey on foot or on the back of a
buffalo at an even slower pace, stood the almost six-thousand-year-old ruins
of the ancient capital of the island. Other bigger and better preserved
cities had also been abandoned. Mven Mass took no interest in them so far.
The herd lay like black boulders in the dark grass. Night fell quickly.
The stars came out in their thousands to twinkle in the black sky. This was
the darkness to which the astronomer was accustomed ... the well-known
outlines of the constellations ... the bright lights of the bigger stars.
From there he could see the fatal Tucana - but how weak human eyes are!
Never again would he see the magnificent spectacle of the Cosmos, the
spirals of the gigantic galaxies, the mysterious planets and blue suns. All
these were now only points of light immeasurably distant. Did it matter any
more whether they were stars or lanterns hanging on a crystal sphere, as the
ancients used to think. To the unaided eye it was all the same!
The African scraped together the brushwood he had made ready. There was
another article that had become necessary, a small lighter. Perhaps soon he
would follow the example of some of the local inhabitants and inhale
narcotic smoke to make the endlessly lengthy days seem shorter.
Tongues of flame played amongst the sticks, driving away the darkness
and extinguishing the stars. The big animals were snuffling peacefully near
by. Mven Mass stared pensively into the fire.
Had this bright planet of ours become a gloomy home for him?
No, his proud renunciation was nothing more than the self-confidence of
ignorance. Ignorance of his own self, an underestimation of the loftiness of
the full creative life he had lived, a misunderstanding of his love for
Chara. It would be better to sacrifice his life for one hour of some
worth-while deed for the Great World than to live here a whole century.
On the Island of Oblivion there were about two hundred medical centres
where doctor volunteers from the Great World provided the local inhabitants
with everything modern medicine could offer. The youth of the Great World
also served in the Destroyer Battalions that prevented the island from
becoming a breeding ground for the ancient diseases and for harmful animal
life. Mven Mass deliberately avoided meeting these people so that he should
not feel himself an outcast from the world of beauty and knowledge.
At dawn Mven Mass was relieved by another herdsman. He was free for two
days and decided to go to a small town to get a cloak as the nights in the
mountains were chilly.
It was a calm, hot day when Mven Mass left the plateau and descended to
the wide plain, a veritable sea of pale lilac and golden-yellow flowers over
which countless brightly coloured insects were hovering. Puffs of a light
breeze made the tops of the plants wave and the flowers gently brushed their
heads against Mven Mass' bare knees as he walked through them. When he
reached the middle of the huge field he stood still for a moment to enjoy
the simple and joyful beauty of that aroma-filled natural garden. Bending
down, the African passed the palms of his hands pensively over the
wind-rocked flowers, and felt he was reliving a childhood dream.
A faint, rhythmical tinkle reached his ears. Mven Mass raised his head
and saw a girl walking along swiftly, up to her waist in flowers. She turned
to one side and Mven Mass looked admiringly at her graceful figure in the
midst of that sea of flowers. A feeling of deep regret seized him: that
could have been Chara if... if things had turned out differently.
His scientist's sharp powers of observation told him at once that the
girl was worried. She kept looking back and increased her pace without
reason as though she were afraid she were being followed. Mven Mass changed
his direction and quickly caught up with the girl.
The girl stopped. A brightly-coloured shawl was wrapped tightly round
her body with the ends crossed and the hem of her red skirt was wet with
dew. The thin bracelets on her bare arms tinkled more loudly as she threw
back from her face a lock of hair that the wind had tousled. Her sorrowful
eyes were looking out in concentration from under short curls that fell
carelessly on her cheeks and forehead. The girl was breathing heavily,
apparently from her long walk. A few beads of perspiration showed on her
pretty, tanned face. She made a few uncertain steps towards Mven Mass.
"Who are you and where are you hurrying to?" he asked. "Perhaps you are
in need of help?"
The girl stared intently at him and then answered, hurriedly and
jerkily:
"I'm Onar from the 5th Settlement. But I don't need help."
"I think you do! You're tired and something is bothering you. What can
be threatening you? Why do you refuse my help?"
The girl looked at him and her eyes beamed, pure and profound, like
those of a woman of the Great World.
"I know who you are! You are the big man from there," and she waved her
hand in the direction of Africa and the sea. "You are kind and credulous."
"You be the same! Is somebody after you?"
"Yes!" gasped the girl in despair, "he's chasing after me!"
"Who is he that dares to make you fear him and to chase after you?"
The girl blushed and hesitated.
"There's one man who wants me to be his...."
"But surely you can choose for yourself whether to respond or not,
can't you? How can he compel you to love him? Let him come here and I'll
tell him...."
"Oh, no! He also came from the Great World, but a long time ago, and
he's strong, only he's not like you, he's terrible!"
Mven Mass laughed a carefree laugh.
"Where are you going?"
"To the 5th Settlement. I've been to the town and I met...."
Mven Mass nodded his head and took the girl by the hand. She allowed
her fingers to remain in his big hand and together they went along a side
path leading to the settlement.
On the way the girl, from time to time looking back apprehensively,
told him that the man who was persecuting her was always accompanied by two
other strong and evil men who were in every way obedient to him.
Her fear to speak frankly made Mven Mass indignant. He had been trained
from childhood by history lessons, through books, films and music to hate
all those who oppressed people, all the secret organizations that had
existed in the past, everything that was hidden from the conscience and
judgement of the people, everything that meant bloodshed and unhappiness. He
could not tolerate the existence of oppression, even if it were only
occasional, on their well-ordered earth!
"Why don't your people do something?" exclaimed Mven Mass, "and why
doesn't the Control of Honour and Justice know about it? Don't your schools
teach you history and don't you know what even tiny centres of brute force
may lead to?"
"We're taught... we know ..." answered Onar, mechanically, looking
straight in front of her. The flowery plain had come to an end and the path
disappeared among the bushes in a sharp bend. Two men jumped out at the
bend, barring the road to them. The girl snatched her hand away frantically,
whispering, "I'm afraid for you, go away, man from the Great World!"
"Seize her!" came an imperative voice from behind the bushes. In the
Great Circle Era nobody spoke so roughly. Mven Mass instinctively thrust the
girl behind him and began to try his persuasion on these incomprehensibly
wild people, but he stopped talking when he realized that his words did not
reach them.
The broad-shouldered young men ran up to him and tried to push him away
from the girl but Mven Mass stood as firm as a rock.
Then one of them gave him a lightning-like blow in the face with his
fist. Mven Mass staggered. Never in his life had he seen deliberate,
spiteful blows struck for the purpose of causing hurt, to stun and insult a
man.
The other man punched him in the kidneys and through the ringing in his
ears Mven Mass heard Onar's pitiful cry. Fury overcame him and he threw
himself on his enemies, trying to crush them. Two deadly blows in the
stomach and the jaw brought the African to the ground. Onar dropped to her
knees, covering him with her body but her enemies seized her with a howl of
triumph. They pulled her elbows bads behind her and she straightened up in
pain, her head thrown back. Hands filthy from earth and Mven Mass' blood
squeezed her helplessly writhing body and the girl sobbed, her face purple
with anger.
"Bring her here!" came the loud voice again. An elderly man of
tremendous height came out of the bushes. He was naked to the waist and
athletic muscles rippled under the grey hair that covered his torso.
Mven Mass, however, had already recovered. He had had more serious
tussles during his youth when he was performing his Labours of Hercules and
had fought against sharks and octopuses, beings not bound by human laws. He
tried to remember all he had been taught about hand-to-hand fighting with
the monsters.
Mven Mass remained on the ground for a few second? to get his breath
and then with one powerful leap reached the men who were dragging Onar away.
One of them turned to meet the attack and Mven punched him exactly on a
nerve centre. He fell to the ground with a bestial howl and a moment later
was followed by his companion, brought down by a well-placed kick. The girl
was free. Mven stood face to face with the third man, the leader of the
gang, who was lifting his hand to strike. He cast one glance at his
fury-distorted face to note the spot where he would deliver him one crushing
blow-and staggered back. He recognized that powerful face that had so long
tormented him in his dreams when he was wondering about his right to carry
out the Tibetan experiment.
"Beth Lohn!"
Lohn stood still, staring at the unknown dark-skinned man who had now
lost all his customary good nature.
The two confederates jumped up, still writhing with pain and wanted to
attack again but the mathematician waved them back imperiously.
"Beth Lohn, I have thought a lot about the possibility of meeting you,
believing you to be my companion in misfortune" exclaimed Mven Mass, "but I
never expected the meeting would be like this!"
"Like what?" asked Beth Lohn insolently, hiding the wrath that burned
in his eyes.
Mven Mass waved the question aside. "What is the use of empty words? In
that world you did not use them and acted, even if criminally, for the sake
of a great idea. For the sake of what are you acting here?"
"For my own sake, for myself alone!" said Beth Lohn contemptuously,
spitting the words through his teeth. "I have considered others and the
common good long enough. Now I realize that it is all of no use to a man.
Some of the wise men in ancient times knew it, too."
"You never did think of others, Beth Lohn," Mven Mass said,
interrupting him. "Giving way to your own desires in everything you have
become what you are now -rapist, deceiver, an animal, almost!"
The mathematician made as if to attack Mven Mass but restrained
himself.
"Is it proper for a man of the Great World to lie? I have never been a
deceiver."
"What about them?" Mven Mass pointed to the two young men who were
listening to the conversation in bewilderment. "Where are you taking them?
What are you leading them to-the narcotic bullets of the Destroyer
Battalion? You know very well that brute force, apparent power over other
people, is the way to repudiation and death."
"I did not deceive them in any way. They came of their own free
will...."
"You, with your powerful intellect and will-power made use of the
weakness of the human spirit, of their willingness to submit, a factor that
was responsible for many of the calamities of the ancient world. In the old
days men could avoid responsibility by laying the blame on the stronger, by
submitting blindly and obediently and then laying the blame for their own
ignorance, laziness and weak will on to God, an idea, a military or
political leader. Was that the same thing as reasonable obedience to a
teacher of our world? What you want is to train people who are loyal to you
in the same way as oppressors of the past did, you want human robots."
"Enough, you talk too much."
"I see that you've lost too much and I want...."
"And I don't want! Get out of my way!"
Mven Mass did not budge. With his head bent, he stood confidently and
threateningly in front of Beth Lohn and could feel the girl's trembling
shoulder against his back. That shiver enraged him far more than the blows
he had received.
The former mathematician stood stock still, staring straight at the
African, straight into black eyes that were burning with rage.
"Go!" he said with a loud gasp, stepping back from the path and
ordering his companions to do the same. Mven Mass again took Onar by the
hand and led her through the bushes; he could feel Beth Lohn's stare of
hatred following him.
At a bend in the path Mven Mass stopped so suddenly that Onar bumped
into him.
"Beth Lohn, let's go back to the Great World together!"
The mathematician burst out laughing with his former abandon but Mven's
sharp ear caught a note of bitterness behind his bravado.
"Who are you to suggest such a thing? Do you know?..."
"Yes, I know. I have also carried out a forbidden experiment and killed
people I should have protected.... My path in science was close to yours and
we, you and I and others, are already on the eve of victory! People need
you, but not such as you are today."
The mathematician stepped up to Mven Mass and lowered his eyes, then
suddenly turned away and contemptuously spat out coarse words of refusal
over his shoulder. Mven Mass continued his way along the path without a
word.
The 5th Settlement was about six miles away. The African learned that
the girl lived quite alone and advised her to go to the east coast, to a
seaside village where she would not meet the brutal Beth Lohn again.
Formerly a famous scientist, he had become a tyrant to
the quiet little settlements of the mountain district that lived such a
secluded life. In order to avoid any evil consequences Mven Mass decided to
go into the settlement at once and ask for the three men to be kept under
observation.
Mven Mass said good-bye to Onar on the outskirts of the settlement. The
girl told him that there were rumours that tigers had appeared in the
forests that covered the round-topped mountain; they had either escaped from
the reservation or were still living in the dense jungles that surrounded
the island's highest mountain. She grasped his hand and implored him to take
care of himself and not go through the mountains at night. Mven Mass made
his way back quickly and as he thought over everything that had happened he
could see the girl's last look, a look that was filled at once with both
anxiety and loyalty such as were rarely met with in the Great World. For the
first time in his life Mven Mass thought of the true heroes of the distant
past, people who had remained good in face of humiliation, wrath and
physical suffering, something that required indomitable courage and
fortitude. For the first time in his life he realized that the people of
ancient times whose life seemed so hard to his contemporaries had also known
the meaning of happiness, hope and creative activity, at times, perhaps,
even to a greater extent than was the case in the Great Circle Era.
It was almost with anger that Mven Mass recalled the theoreticians of
those days who based their prophecy that mankind would not improve in a
million years on a false understanding of the slowness of the mutation of
species in nature.
If they had loved people more and had understood the dialectics of
development such ridiculous ideas would never have entered their heads.
The sunset turned red the clouds that lay on the rounded spur of a
gigantic mountain. Mven Mass jumped into a stream to wash off the dirt and
blood of battle.
Refreshed and calm at last he sat down on a flat stone to dry himself
and rest. He would not be able to get to the town before nightfall but he
expected to be able to cross the mountain when the moon came up. As he sat
contemplating the water gurgling over the stones he suddenly felt that
somebody's eyes were fixed on him but could not see anybody. The same
feeling that unseen eyes were watching him was still with him when he
crossed the stream and began to climb the slope.
Mven Mass walked quickly along the cart road leading to a plateau about
1,800 metres high, passing from terrace to terrace in order to cross a
wooded spur which was the shortest way to the town. The thin crescent of the
new moon would light the way for no more than an hour and a half and it
would be very difficult to ascend a steep mountain path in the dark.
Mven Mass, therefore, had to hurry. Occasional low trees cast shadows
that made black lines on the dry moonlit earth. Mven Mass kept a sharp
look-out in order not to stumble over the countless roots that lay in his
way but all the time he was thinking deeply.
From somewhere far away to the right, where the slope was gentler and
lay in deep shadow, came a menacing growl that made the earth tremble as it
carried over the ground. It was answered by a low roar from amongst the
patches and strips of moonlight in the forest. These sounds had a strength
in them that penetrated deep into a man's soul, arousing a long forgotten
feeling of fear and doom in the victim selected by an invincible beast of
prey. To counteract the ancient fear, in the African's heart there burned
the no less ancient fury of battle, inherited from countless generations of
nameless heroes that had defended the rights of the human race to live
amongst mammoths, lions, giant bears, savage bulls and ruthless wolf-packs
in exhausting days spent in hunting and nights spent in fear-filled defence.
Mven Mass stood still, looking round and holding his breath. Nothing
moved in the silence of the night but when he walked on a few steps along
the path, he was certain that he was being followed. Tigers!-was it possible
that Onar's information was really correct?
He began to run, trying to decide what to do when the animals, there
were clearly two of them, attacked him.
It was senseless to try to escape up a tall tree that a tiger could
climb better than a man. What was there to fight with? There was nothing at
hand but stones, lie could not even break a decent club off the branches of
trees as hard as iron. When the growls came from behind him and close at
hand he realized that he was lost. The dusty branches of the trees that now
overshadowed the path stifled him, he wanted to gain courage for the last
few moments from the eternal depths of the starry sky, to the study of which
all his past life had been devoted. Mven Mass ran on with long strides. Fate
favoured him for he came to a place in the forest where there was a big,
open glade. In the centre of the glade he noticed a heap of big boulders,
ran to it, seized a thirty-kilogram sharp-cornered block of stone and turned
towards the forest. He could now see vaguely moving, phantom-like figures.
They were striped and were easily lost amongst the shadows of the scanty
trees. The moon was already so low that its edge touched the tree-tops. The
lengthened shadows lay across the glade like paths and the huge cats were
crawling along them towards Mven Mass. He felt approaching death in the same
way as he had done in the underground chamber at the Tibetan Observatory.
This time it was not coming from inside him but from outside, it gleamed in
the green flame of the animals' phosphorescent eyes. Mven Mass breathed in a
puff of wind that came through the heated air, glanced up at the shining
glory of the Cosmos, straightened his back and raised the big stone above
his head.
"I'm with you!" A tall shadow spread across the glade from the darkness
of the slope threateningly brandishing a knotted branch. For a moment the
astounded Mven Mass forgot all about the tigers-he recognized the
mathematician. Beth Lohn, out of breath from his headlong race stood beside
Mven Mass, gasping spasmodically. The giant cats had at first drawn back but
now they began steadily approaching the men. The tiger on his left was no
more than thirty paces away and had drawn up its hind legs to spring.
"Quicker!" a loud shout resounded across the glad