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Pao led Childe to the transparent cube and motioned to a man tobring achair. Childe looked around. There were six exits, some of them broadenough forthree men to go through abreast. There were also about fifty men andwomen in the room, a large number of them between him and the exits. All weredressed in tails and gowns. Pao and his two men were the only ones in businessclothes. He recognized Panchita Pocyotl and Vivie
The crowd had been talking when he entered but the conversationsoftened as he was brought before the cube.
Now Pao held up his hand, and the voices died away. A man broughta chair with three legs, a heavy wooden thing with a symbol carved into theback. The symbol was a delta with one end stuck into the open mouth of arampant fish.
"Please sit down," Pao said. Childe sat down in the chair and leaned against its back. Hecould feel the alto-relief of the carved symbol pressing into his back. At the sametime, thedull silver of the goblet inside the cube became bright and shimmery. The brightness increased until it glowed as if it were about to melt.
A murmur of what sounded to him like awe ran through the people.
Pao smiled and said, "We would appreciate it if you wouldconcentrate on the goblet, Herald Childe."
"Concentrate how?" Childe said.
"Just look at it. Examine it thoroughly. Let it fill your mind. You will know what I mean."
Childe shrugged. Why not? The procedure and the goblet hadaroused his curiosity, and their intentions did not seem sinister. Certainly, hewas beingtreated far better than when he had been a prisoner in Igescu's.
He sat in the chair and stared at the shining goblet. It had abroad base with small raised figures the outlines of which were fuzzy. After awhile, as hestudied them, they became clear. They were men and women, naked, andanimals engaged in a sexual orgy. Set here and there among them were gobletslike that at which he looked, except that these were complete. There was acurious scene in which a tiny woman was halfway into a large goblet while acreature that looked like the Werewolf of London, as played by Henry Hull, rammed along dickinto her asshole. At one side of the base, almost out of view, was a man emerging from a goblet. His legs were still within the cup, but hisstiff dongwas out and was being squeezed by the tentacle of a creature thatseemed to be a six-legged octopus with human hermaphroditic organs. While it wasjacking-offthe man in the goblet, it was also fucking itself.
Childe did not know what the scene represented, but it seemed tohim that it had something to do with fecundity. Not with fecundity in the senseof begettingchildren but of...
He almost grasped the sense of the figures and their play, but itdanced away.
The goblet stem was slender. A snake-like thing of silver coiledaround it, its head flattening out to become the underpart of the cup. Its twoeyes, distorted, were the only dark spots on the bright silver of thegoblet.
The outside of the cup, except for the serpent's head, was bare. But the inside bore some, raised geometrical figures that shifted as helooked at them. Sometimes he could pin them down for a half a second and the figuresbegan tomake sense, even if they were totally unfamiliar.
The goblet shone even more brilliantly. The room became quieter, and then, suddenly, he could hear the breathing of everyone in the room, exceptfor himself, and, far away, the impact of rain on the roof and the wallsof the house and, even more distantly, the roar of the waters down thestreet outside.
There was a hissing he could not at first identify. It was soweak, soremote. And then he knew. He did not have to turn his head to look, and it would have done no good if he had. The thing was hidden under Vivie
The light from the goblet became more intense. Surprisingly, hecould look at it without pain. Its whiteness seemed to drill into his eyes andflood his brain. The interior of his skull was white; his brain was a glowingjewel.
There was a collective intake of breath, and the light went out. The darkness that followed was painful. He felt as if something very muchbeloved had died. His life was empty; he had no reason to live.
He wept.
CHAPTER 36
When he was finished sobbing--and he still did not know why hehad felt so bereaved--he looked up. The people were not talking, but they weremaking somenoise as they shifted around. Also, several were passing through thecrowd and serving a liquid in small goblets. The people drank it with oneswallow and then put their goblets back onto the large silver trays.
Pao appeared from behind him with a tray on which stood a gobletfilled with a dark liquid and several sandwiches. The bread was coarse and black.
"Drink and then eat," Pao said. "And if I don't?" Pao looked stricken, but he shrugged his shoulders and said,
"This is one thing that we can't compel you to do. But I swear by my mother planetthat the food and drink will not harm you."
Childe looked at the goblet again. It was not quite as dull as ithad been a moment ago. It flickered when he looked at it. When he looked away, but could still see it out of the corner of his eye, it became dull once more.
"When will I find out what all this means?" Childe said. "Perhaps during the ceremony. It is better that you...remember." "Remember?" Pao did not offer to explain. Childe smelled the liquid. Its odor
was winey, but there was an unfamiliar under-odor (was there such a word?) toit. The under odor evoked a flashing image of infinite black space with stars hereand there and then another image of a night sky with sheets of white fire andgiant red, blue, yellow, garnet, emerald, and purple stars filling the sky. Andthere was a fleeting landscape of red rock with mushroom-shaped buildings ofwhite and red stone, trees that looked inverted, with their branches on the groundand their roots feeding on the air, and a thin band with scarlet, pale green, and white threads, something like a Saturn's ring, arcing across the sky nearthe horizon.
He drained the tiny goblet with one gulp and, feeling hungryimmediatelyafterward, ate the, sandwiches. The meat tasted like beef with bluecheese.
When the goblets had been passed around, and everybody wasstanding as ifwaiting for something to happen--which they were, Childe supposed-Pao raised his hands. He spoke in a loud voice: "The Childe must have power!"
That was a fu
The people echoed, "There is but one way in which The Childe maygain thispower!"
"And grow!" "And grow!" "And become a man!" "And become a man!" "And become our Captain!" "And become our Captain!" "And lead us to our long lost home!" "And lead us to our long lost home!" "And permit us to triumph over our enemies, the Tocs!" "And permit us to triumph over our enemies, the Tocs!" "Through the nothingness and the utter cold he will lead us!" There was more, none of which made any sense to Childe except for
the reference to their enemies, the Tocs. These must be the people ofwhom he had so far met only three. The three who had rescued him from, Vivie