The Masks Of Time Part 18

He finished speaking. To me he said, "Now let us go down among them, Leo."

We put on our s.h.i.+elds. I was at the edge of terror; and Vornan himself, peering over the lip of the copter's hatch into that swirling madhouse below, seemed to falter a moment and draw back from the descent. But they were waiting. They cried out for him in love-thickened voices. For once the magnetism worked the other way; Vornan was drawn forward.

"Go first," he told me. "Please."

With suicidal bravado I seized the grips and let myself be swung down a hundred feet to the beach. A clearing opened for me. I touched ground and felt s.h.i.+fting sand at my feet. People rushed toward me; then, seeing that I was not their prophet, they halted. Some rebounded from my s.h.i.+eld. I felt invulnerable, and my fear ebbed as I saw how the amber glow repelled those who came too close.

Now Vornan was descending. A low roar rumbled from ten thousand throats and rushed up the scale to become an intolerable shriek. They recognized him. He stood beside me, aglow with his own power, proud of himself, swollen with joy. I knew what he was thinking: for a n.o.body he had done pretty well for himself. It is given to few men to become G.o.ds in their own lifetimes.

"Walk beside me," he said.

He lifted his arms and strode slowly forward, majestic, awesome. Like a lesser apostle I accompanied him. No one paid heed to me; but wors.h.i.+pers flung themselves at him, their faces distorted and transfigured, their eyes gla.s.sy. None could touch him. The wondrous field turned all away, so that there was not even the impact of collision. We walked ten feet, twenty, thirty. The crowd opened for us, then surged inward again, no one willing to accept the reality of the s.h.i.+eld. Protected as I was, I felt the enormous pent-up strength of that mob. Perhaps a million Brazilians surrounded us; perhaps five million.

This was Vornan's grandest moment. On, on, on he moved, nodding, smiling, reaching forth his hand, graciously accepting the homage offered.

A gigantic black man stripped to the waist loomed before him, s.h.i.+ning with sweat, skin nearly purple. He stood for a moment outlined against the brilliant summer sky. "Vornan!" he shouted in a voice like thunder. "Vornan!" He stretched both his hands toward Vornan- And seized his arm.

The image is engraved on my mind: that jet-black hand gripping the light-green fabric of Vornan's garment. And Vornan turning, frowning, looking at the hand, suddenly realizing that his s.h.i.+eld had ceased to protect him.

"Leo!"he screamed.

There was a terrible inward rush. I heard cries of ecstasy. The crowd was going wild.

Before me dangled the grips of the copter's scoop. I seized them and was pulled aloft to safety. I looked down only after climbing aboard; I saw the formless surging of the mob on the beach, and shuddered.

There were several hundred fatalities. No trace of Vornan was ever discovered.

EIGHTEEN.

It is over, now, and yet it is just beginning. I do not know if Vornan's disappearance will steady us or destroy us. We may not know that for a while.

I have lived in Rio for six weeks, but in such isolation that I might as well have been on the Moon. When the others left, I remained. My apartment is a small one, just two rooms, not far from the beach where Vornan's final act was played. I have not left my apartment in over a month. My food is delivered through the house data-channel; I take no exercise; I have no friends in this city. I cannot even understand the language.

Since the fifth of December I have occupied myself by dictating this memoir, which shortly will be done.

I do not intend to seek publication. I have set down, as accurately as recollection permits, the whole story of Vornan-19's stay among us, and of my involvement with him. I will seal the tape and have it placed in a vault, to be opened in not less than one hundred years. I have no wish to add to the flood of gospels now appearing; perhaps my testimony will be of some use a century hence, but I will not have it employed now to feed the fires that are raging in the world. I wish I could feel confident that by the time someone breaks my seal of silence, all this will have receded into oblivion. But I doubt that that will be the case.

So many ambiguities remain. Did Vornan perish in that mob or did he return to his own time? Was that black giant a courier come to fetch him? Or did Vornan transmit himself into the future at the instant his s.h.i.+eld failed? I wonder. And why did the s.h.i.+eld fail, anyway? Kralick had sworn that it was proof against all but deliberate sabotage. Did Kralick gimmick the s.h.i.+eld out of fear of Vornan's growing power? And did he then use me as the cat's-paw in his conspiracy, persuading me to cooperate so that an uneasy Vornan would agree to put the flawed s.h.i.+eld on and go into the crowd? If that is so, I am an accessory after the fact, I who pretend to abhor violence. But I am not sure that Vornan was murdered; I am not even sure that Vornan died. All I know beyond doubt is that he has gone from us.

I think he is dead. We could not risk Vornan's further presence among us. The conspirators who slew Caesar felt they were performing a public service. With Vornan gone, the question remains: can we survive his departure?

We have written the proper climax for the myth. When a young G.o.d comes among us, we slay him. Now he surely is dismembered Osiris and murdered Tammuz and lamented Baldur. Now the hour of redemption and resurrection must follow, and I fear it. Vornan alive might have undone himself in time, revealing himself to the world as foolish, vain, ignorant, and amoral, a mingling of peac.o.c.k and wolf.

Vornan gone is another matter. He is beyond our control now that we have martyred him. Those who needed him will wait for his successor, for someone to fill the void now created. I do not think we will lack for successors. We are coming into an age of prophets. We are coming into an era of new G.o.ds.

We are coming into a century of flame. I fear that I may live to see the Time of Sweeping of which Vornan spoke.

Enough. It is nearly midnight, and tonight is the thirty-first of December. At the stroke the century will turn, for all but the purists. There is revelry in the streets. There is dancing and singing. I hear coa.r.s.e shouts and the dull boom of fireworks. The sky blazes with light. If there are any Apocalyptists left, they must await the next hour in dread or in bliss, dreaming of approaching doom. It will be the year 2000 before long. The sound of that is strange to me.

It is time to leave my apartment at last. I will go out into the streets, among the crowds, and celebrate the birth of the new year. I need no s.h.i.+eld; I am in no danger now, except only the danger in which we all must live. Now the century dies. I will go out.

end.