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“But not the duration.”
The words came from his mouth unchecked, unthought, un-cautious. For a moment Waden’s smile looked deathly, and a very real fear came into his eyes.
“You serve my interests. Go on. Pursue your logic.
“You’ll carry my reputation with yours.” Herrin followed the argument like a beast to the kill, savoring the moment, hating the role in which perpetual caution had cast him with this man. “Mutual advantage.”
Waden smiled. That was always a good answer. It was effective, because he had then to wonder if Waden conceived of an answer. It was possible that Waden did; his wit was not easily overcome.
And Herrin smiled, because it was a good answer for him to return.
So henceforth alone, he thought firmly. Each to his own interests.He was linked to Waden in one way and severed from him irrevocably in another, because the war was in the open.
“You’ve seen,” Waden said, “all that could interest you. I won’t keep you from your important work.”
Herrin slowly completed a line, shaded one, sealing the image of the foreigner in all his dark force. Flipped the notebook shut and rose, left without even an acknowledgment that there was anyone else in the room but himself.
Creative ethics, Keye called it.
But in fact the visit did shake him; and when he walked out under the sky, leaving the Residency, he could not but think of a vast machine orbiting over their heads, observing what passed in Kierkegaard from an unassailable height ... that there was a force above them which had a certain power over their existence.
He did not look up, because of course there was nothing of it to be seen; and he shrugged off the feeling of it. Laughed softly, at the thought that Freedom ignored outside forces as they ignored the invisibles; that in effect he had just spent a time talking to an invisible.
The man had spat on the Pirela weavings, had spat to contemn Waden Jenks and all Freedom, and Waden had treated that affront as invisible too, but it did not remove the spittle from the priceless artwork.
That man, the thought kept insinuating itself into his peace of mind, that man despised the greatest political power on Freedom, and the work of one of Freedom’s great artists, and walked out, because there had been nothing to do.
Waden Jenks might have had him killed on the spot. Might have, potentially. But that ship was still up there with the power to level Freedom. Camden McWilliams had refused the rare chance for a closer sight of Kierkegaard, from fear? from distrust? ... or further contempt?
He refused to think more on such matters. The man was an invisible. Meditating on invisibles was unproductive. Invisibles had nothing to do with reality, having rejected their own.
The analogy was incomplete: the ship and Camden McWilliams possessed power.
Herrin shivered in the daylight and walked on the way that the outsider had rejected, into the town.
The work progressed. He reached the Square, where the eighth course of stone was being moved into place, and even while that work progressed, apprentices were at work on the lowermost courses, some mapping the places to cut, some actually cutting with rapid precision, so that already the three shells, the touch-points of the interior curtain-walls, and the foot of the central support, showed some indication of shaping, troughs, folds, incisions.
A further portion of the view which had existed on this site since the initial layout of Kierkegaard—was gone. He refused to look up toward Keye’s apartment. She might be there, might be at the University. She would spend her evenings at least contemplating what went on below. The noise would intrude on her sleep, impossible for her to ignore. He wondered how she reasoned with that.
He walked round the structure, actually inside it with a palpable feeling of enclosure. The art of it began. Other walkers, ordinary citizens, had ventured into it cautiously, because it sat in the main intersection of Kierkegaard. They gawked about them in spite of their personal dignity, avoiding the ominous machinery, touching the stone in furtive curiosity. This satisfiedhim. He found himself immensely excited when he watched a stray child, more outward than her elders, stand with mouth open and then run the patterns of the curving walls until a stern parent collected her.
And for the second time, he saw one of the Others.
The workers saw nothing, nor did the walkers, who continued without attention to it, perfectly in command of their realities at least as regarded invisibles.
But Herrin saw it, midnight-robed, walking through the structure, lingering to examine it as the child had, walking the patterns.
And that did not satisfy him. He turned from the sight, trying to pretend to others that he had noticed nothing, and perhaps their own concentration on their own reality was so intense that they could not notice his action in co
Suddenly he suffered a further vision. Having seen the one midnight robe, he saw others on the outskirts, standing there, outside one of the half-built gateways. Three figures. He was not aware whether he noticed them now because he had seen the one and the shock of the night encounter was still powerful, or perhaps it was in fact the Work which drew them, and they had never been there before.
He wiped them from his mind, turned to his own work, which was the central column. Leona Pace was not at hand, presumably being off about some important business. He interrupted an apprentice to look at diagrams, found everything in order, bestowed no compliments. They were not expected to exercise their own inspirations, but to execute his, and they were all doing so with absolute precision: had any failed, that one would have been discharged with prejudice. He pushed the apprentice aside, made a minor change, sketching with black on the stone itself, and the apprentice obediently altered the computer-generated sheet which was the master plan.
So doing, he put himself back to work and put the external from his mind. He worked until suppertime, and involuntarily thought of Keye, looked from the incomplete hemisphere of the dome, and saw the warmth of her window light in the dusk. He recalled sweet scents and a meticulous order, and the servant’s excellent taste, and suffered a spasm of regret for their continued separation. His mind flashed back to Law’s Valley, and to other such warm comforts, now lost. He prepared to make his solitary way back to University, and left the work in the capable charge of Leona Pace, who had returned from the shipping terminal and her own selection of the stone, a zeal he silently approved. Pace looked shadowed, hungry, exhausted; she kept at the work nonetheless, for her reasons, probably having to do with insecurity in her subordinates. He did not blame her: Pace was extraordinary, and anyone of lesser ability had to be a frustration and a worry to her.
He valued Pace, might have made closer acquaintance with her, with the thought of filling some of that solitude; there were looks he received from her which hinted a desire for his approval, which might lead to dependency on it, which might in turn lead to a relationship different and more controllable than he had known.
But no, experience of Keye and Waden argued caution was in order. Pace was zealous. Ambitious. He was at the moment too weary to deal with someone of ability and possible labyrinthine motive. Such entanglements with apprentices were all potential hazard.
Di
XII
Master Keye Ly