The Masks of Time

“That was early in the game. We know better now, we don’t let Vornan near dangerous equipment. And what he did to Bruton’s place is just a sample of what he can do to the whole world.”

I laughed harshly. “In that case, why take risks? Have him killed.”

“For God’s sake, Leo—”

“I mean it. There are ways of arranging it. A big, clever Government bastard like you doesn’t need instructions in Machiavellianism. Get rid of Vornan while you still can, before he sets himself up as Emperor Vornan with a bodyguard of ten thousand. You take care of it and let me go back to my laboratory, Sandy.”

“Be serious. How—”

“I am serious. If you don’t want to assassinate him, try persuading him to go back where he belongs.”

“We can’t do that either.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I told you,” said Kralick patiently. “Keep him on tour until he gets sick of it. Watch him all the time. Make sure he stays happy. Feed him all the women he can handle.”

“And men too,” I put in.

“Little boys, if we have to. We’re sitting on a megabomb, Leo, and we’re trying like hell to keep it from exploding. If you want to walk out on us at this point, go ahead. But when the explosion comes, you’re likely to feel it even in your ivory tower. What’s the answer now?”

“I’ll stick,” I said bitterly.

So I rejoined the traveling circus, and so it was that I was on hand for the final events of Vornan’s story. I had not expected Kralick to succeed in talking me into it. I had for at least a few hours believed I was quit of Vornan, whom I did not hate for what he had done to my friends, but whom I regarded as an ultimate peril. I had been quite serious in suggesting that Kralick have him destroyed. Now I found myself committed to accompany him once more; but now I chose to keep my distance from him even when I was with him, stifling the good fellowship that had begun to develop. Vornan knew why. I’m sure of that. He did not seem troubled by my new coolness toward him.

The crowds were immense. We had seen howling mobs before, but we had never seen mobs howling like these. At Caracas they estimated one hundred thousand turned out — all that could squeeze into the big downtown plaza — and we stared in amazement as they bellowed their delight in Spanish. Vornan appeared on a balcony to greet them; it was like a Pope delivering his blessing. They screamed for him to make a speech. We had no facilities for it, though, and Vornan merely smiled and waved. The sea of red-covered books churned madly. I did not know if they waved The New Revelation or The Newest Revelation, but it scarcely mattered.

He was interviewed that night on Venezuelan television. The network rigged a simultaneous-translation cha

The crowds were even greater in Bogotб. Shrill cries echoed through the thin air of the plateau. Vornan spoke again, and again it was a sermon of platitudes. Kralick was worried. “He’s warming up for something,” he said to me. “He’s never talked like this before. He’s making a real effort to reach them directly, instead of letting them come to him.”

“Call off the tour, then,” I suggested.

“We can’t. We’re committed.”

“Forbid him to make speeches.”

“How?” he asked, and there was no answer.

Vornan himself seemed fascinated by the size of the throngs that came out to see him. These were no mere knots of curiosity seekers; these were giant hordes who knew that a strange god walked the earth, and longed for a glimpse. Clearly he felt his power over them now, and was begi

“They’re crying for you to come down and walk among them,” I told him as we faced a roaring multitude in Lima. “Can’t you hear it, Vornan?”

“I wish I could do it,” he said.

“There’s nothing stopping you.”

“Yes. Yes. There are so many of them. There would be a stampede.”

“Put on a crowd shield,” Helen McIlwain suggested.

Vornan swung around. “What is that, please?”

“Politicians wear them. A crowd shield is an electronic sphere of force that surrounds the wearer. It’s designed specifically to protect public figures in mobs. If anyone gets too close, the shield delivers a mild shock. You’d be perfectly safe, Vornan.”

To Kralick he said, “Is this so? Can you get me such a shield?”

“I think it can be arranged,” Kralick said.

The next day, in Buenos Aires, the American Embassy delivered a shield to us. It had last been used by the President on his Latin American tour. An Embassy official demonstrated it, strapping on the electrodes, taping the power pack to his chest. “Try and come near me,” he said, beckoning. “Cluster around.”

We approached him. A gentle amber glow enveloped him. We pushed forward, and abruptly we began to strike an impenetrable barrier. There was nothing painful about the sensation, but in its subtle way it was thoroughly effective; we were thrown back, and it was impossible to come within three feet of the wearer. Vornan looked delighted. “Let me try it,” he said. The Embassy man put it on him and instructed him in its use. Vornan laughed and said, “All of you, crowd around me, now. Shove and push. Harder! Harder!” There was no touching him. Pleased, Vornan said, “Good. Now I can go among my people.”

Quietly, later, I said to Kralick, “Why did you let him have that thing?”

“He asked for it.”

“You could have told him they didn’t work well or something like that, Sandy. Isn’t there a possibility that the shield will conk out at a critical moment?”

“Not normally,” Kralick said. He picked up the shield, uncoiled it, and snapped back the panel to the rear of the power pack. “There’s only one weak spot in the circuitry, and that’s here, this integrated module. You can’t see it, really. It’s got a tendency to overload under certain circumstances and degenerate, causing a shield failure. But there’s a redundancy circuit that automatically cuts in, Leo, and takes over within a couple of microseconds. Actually there’s only one way a crowd shield can fail, and that’s if it’s deliberately sabotaged. Say, if someone jimmies the back-up circuit, and then the main module overloads. But I don’t know anyone who’d do a thing like that.”

“Except Vornan, perhaps.”

“Well, yes. Vornan’s capable of anything. But I hardly think he’ll want to play around with his own shield. For all intents he’ll be wholly safe wearing the shield.”

“Well, then,” I said, “aren’t you afraid of what will happen now that he can get out among the mobs and really lay the charisma on?”

“Yes,” said Kralick.

Buenos Aires was the scene of the greatest excitement over Vornan we had yet experienced. This was the city where a false Vornan had arisen, and the presence of the real one was electric to the Argentines. The broad, tree-lined Avenida 9 de Julio was packed from end to end, with only the obelisk in its center puncturing the mass of flesh. Through this chaotic, surging mob moved Vornan’s cavalcade. Vornan wore his crowd shield: the rest of us were not so protected, and huddled nervously within our armored vehicles. From time to time Vornan leaped out and strode into the crowd. The shield worked — no one could get close to him — but the mere fact that he was among them sent the crowd into ecstasies. They pushed up close, coming to the absolute limit of the electronic barrier and flattening themselves against it, while Vornan beamed and smiled and bowed. I said to Kralick, “We’re becoming accomplices to the madness. We should never have let this happen.”