Kuttner, Henry The Portal in the Picture

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the Earth-Gates were among the great miracles of science, and I couldn't
concentrate on them at all because I had stage fright.
I stood waiting, facing the far end of the enormous room, wondering where the
exit door was, running over my opening lines, wishing again and again that the
next half hour were over, that Lorna and I were back home again. Then the air
suddenly shuddered with the hollow hooting of trumpets and the whole far end of
the room shimmered before me.
I thought it was my eyes blurring. Then I saw that the entire end wall had grown
translucent with a pouring flood of pale light. A vast A began to bum upon the
surface of the wall, and I realized that it was no wall but a great curtain.
It shivered and began to rise. The trumpets tooted their hollow notes again and a
second curtain rose, lead-gray, to reveal a third and then a fourth beyond,
successively thinner and more golden. Now I could see a dim outline of the
square in which I had left my faithful followers.
But the curtains distorted things. It looked as if the whole square, which had been
half empty when I left, was full now of restless motion. I had thought the crowd
would, if anything, thin out a little while it waited. I had even braced myself to
find it entirely dispersed by the time I got to relying really heavily on the people.
But Coriole had been smarter than I expected.
The last curtain rolled upward, pure golden yellow, and from the dais where I
stood I could see that the entire square was one solid, seething mass of heads and
faces turned toward me. And that wasn't all.
As far as the eye could reach down the streets leading into the square there were
more heads, more faces, more restless pushing and surging. It looked as if all of
Malesco had gathered here to send me off with appropriate ceremony. You
couldn't see the pavement anywhere the crowd was packed so tight.
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When the curtain rose the foremost ranks rolled forward in one solid mass and
the noise of it surged into the Temple and reverberated from the walls. The
people weren't shouting. They didn't make any particular noises when they saw
me.
I'd rather expected some sort of demonstration, but I didn't get it. The volume of
their voices rose a little, but each individual man and woman was talking in low,
controlled tones and there was no shouting. It seemed to me that mis crowd
meant business.
It scared me. Could I handle it? Could the Hierarch? I didn't know what weapons
he had, but it looked to me that nothing short of an atom blast could wipe out this
entire mob at one blow. He could, at worst, destroy the foremost of the crowd.
It seemed to me those endless ranks of people disappearing
down the streets far away could and would surge forward and find out and
destroy the sources of the destruction before the last man was anywhere near
extinction. I didn't look around at the Hierarch, but I felt a little cool breath of...
dismay?... move over the dais as the priesthood prepared to greet its audience.
In less time than I'd have believed, the hall was packed tight and solid with men
and women shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the dais and at me. And with them
came a curious atmosphere of tension and expectation, so that the enclosing
walls seemed to pack the feeling down tight under the high roof and we all felt it
pressing around us.
Down there in the front ranks I saw one familiar face Coriole's.
He was only about twenty feet away from me and he was watching me like a cat,
his pale blue eyes never swerving from mine. It made me uncomfortable. I looked
away and found I was staring at another familiar face, this time in the wings and
even closer than Coriole. This time it was Dio.
He still looked sleepy. He still had the air of a man who's had a hard night and
not enough rest. But there was a lot more in his expression now. Sullenness, I
thought, for one thing. I had a series of quick consecutive thoughts about Dio.
There just hadn't been time until now to wonder where the Hierarch got his
detailed information about my activities since my arrival here, but it was obvious
when I thought back. Dio, of course he had probably been hanging around
Falvi's door hoping for a break and had got one.
Maybe he'd suspected Falvi's connection with the underground for some while
and finally had caught him at it with me. That would explain his air of avid
anticipation when he carried me down the shaft and set me adrift in the city,
hoping I'd lead him to something worthwhile.
That was Dio's policy, of course. Coriole had confirmed it if I'd needed
confirmation. Dio was on Dio's side and nobody else's. And now he was sullen.
Why? Well, he'd given the Hierarch some valuable information, certainly. But
what reward had he got? Not enough, to judge by his expression.
He hadn't even been inside the Hierarch's door when I went to pay my formal
call. He'd been hanging around in the hall, hoping for crumbs. It wasn't enough
for Dio not nearly
enough. I wondered about promotion in the priesthood. Maybe it went by
seniority. Dio was young. He wouldn't be content to wait another fifty years for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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