Chapter IX

Ortine sauntered in. He nodded pleasantly, said, "That was quicker than I'd dared hope. Thanks, Justin--and you too, Deborah Wilkins. You have reached your decision together?"

Deborah spoke quietly, firmly, said, "Charles is my master. What he decides, I shall obey."

"Remarkable--this strange emotional fusion," Ortine remarked to the banker. He sat down, added, "Of all human madness love is the most difficult to understand."

"You should be used to it by now," Justin told him.

Ortine sighed and said, "Some things one cannot get used to. But come, Justin, I trust you are going to be reasonable."

"I'm going to ask you a few questions before coming to a definite decision," said Justin.

"Sane enough," Ortine replied amiably.

Justin began, "On my first visit here I noticed a Roman legionary a few doors down the corridor."

Ortine nodded. "Right--Marcus Rutilius Catanio. A very well-balanced young man."

Justin said, "When you first discussed with me the madmen of history who have succeeded--you'll pardon an apparent digression--it occurred to me afterward that you failed to mention the Christ."

Ortine made a deprecatory gesture. "My dear fellow, I can never be certain how deep such spiritual beliefs go in any of you humans. I thought it more tactful...."

"This Marcus Rutilius What's-his-name," Justin went on. "From what Dr. Phillips just told me, it is his job to prevent the Christ from going to Jerusalem."

There was a gasp from Deborah but Ortine ignored the interruption. He said, "Of course, Justin. It is my intention to remove much of the world's sense of guilt by preventing your Christ from dying on the Cross."

"I thought as much," Justin nodded. "I have also considered what such a removal of guilt, as you call it, would do to our world. It would not only mean the end of Christianity--it would mean it never had a beginning. For a Christ without his martyrdom would no longer be a Christ."

"I had no idea you'd be shocked," said Ortine, puzzled.

"I'm not shocked," replied Justin. "What has me baffled, Ortine, is your true purpose. You say that the salvation of our world rests upon elimination of all but those you choose to call sane men--the dull plodding fellows who never upset applecarts. Are you sure that these human vegetables are the ones to make a world worth living in?"

"Possibly not," said Ortine, unabashed. "But they will at least make a world in which people can live. Consider, Justin, you are one of them--a prime example. Or you were until very recently."

"I'm well aware of that." Justin shot a quick tender glance at Deborah. He added, "As a matter of fact I'm just beginning to understand what a living death I've been enduring."

"A pity you've changed," Ortine told him. He sighed.

"Ortine," said Justin, "you say you cannot control humans. Yet I feel certain that I have recently seen you twice in human guise--once as Will Molineux in Sam Adams' house, the other as Corinne Forrester in my own office." He looked at Ortine's cigarette, recalled Corinne's Cuban cigarettes, added, "You're quite a smoker, aren't you?"

* * * * *

Ortine hesitated, then said, "It's a pity I couldn't put this experiment into work with a finish date about fifty years before your time, Justin. Dr. Phillips would have been ideal. Unfortunately I must use all of the lapsed time of human history or the whole procedure is worthless--it must be complete and simultaneous. Which is why you and"--with a polite nod--"Deborah were able to make such a botch of it.

"You're quite right about my appearances, of course," Ortine went on. "There are a few people, in whom my strain is especially strong, folk I can actually control to some degree. Naturally I have tried to put such persons in positions close to my probable subjects."

"How did you happen to take up the role of Satan?" Justin asked him quietly. Behind him Deborah gasped again and Justin reached out a hand for her to hold. A faint stirring of her fingers suggested she must be crossing herself.

Ortine looked distressed. He said, "Really, there was nothing deliberate about it. It's something that--well, it just happened." He dropped his cigarette onto the floor, pulled out his case, offered a smoke to Justin.

"Consider my mission. To perform it successfully it was vital that I should become intimately acquainted with humanity not merely on the surface but inside, where fears and motives dwell. How better could I conduct such a delicate test than by testing people? And how better test them than by trying the strength of their so-called decent impulses?"

"You might have something there," said Justin. "But you mention your strain being strong in some of us. Just how does that fit in with what you've told me of your mission?"

Ortine actually appeared embarrassed. He said, his eyes not meeting Justin's, "Of course, you must by this time have surmised that I am polymorphous...."

"Who's she?" Deborah asked.

It stopped both men. Ortine looked puzzled--Justin was unable to suppress a chuckle. Seeing hurt overlaying the worry in her eyes, he said, "It merely means he is a lot of people at once, honey. I didn't mean to laugh."

"Oh," she said, a trifle vaguely.

Ortine said, "I don't suppose it could happen on another planet in your entire galaxy--it's rather embarrassing. Having quickly surveyed the entire course of your history until now I decided to go all the way back to the beginning."

"You must have found yourself dealing with some rather rough customers," Justin suggested.

"To a visitor like myself there is little choice between you and the Neanderthal," replied Ortine.

"I'm not sure the analogy is a happy one," said Justin.

"Perhaps not--but it should give you some idea, Justin." Ortine did not appear to relish criticism any more than a human. "As a matter of fact I didn't go back quite that far. The Sumerians were quite early enough for my purposes.

"In various parts of the world I became a creature analogous to the woman your Judeo-Christian legend calls Lilith. Since only females actually spawn in your world it appeared logical to me that they were the more important. But something was missing. Merely playing goddess to these alien creatures told me little about them. So, in a dozen carefully screened and selected human settlements around your world, I stepped down from my pedestal and became--Eve."

"Good Lord!" said Justin. "You mean that you, an alien...."

"Yes." Ortine's expression was sour. "In at least a half-dozen bodies I conceived! Furthermore, once it had happened, there was no escaping or altering those particular bodies until the child was born."

"I don't quite see how it could happen," said Justin.

"Neither did I at first," said Ortine unhappily. "Mind you, I am in my own universe what could be very roughly compared to a roving social analyst in yours. And here I was, alone, in this situation.

"It took me some time to find the answer. Ultimately, of course, I discovered the reason for my disaster. Despite the vast distortion differences that must occur in any creature or thing that makes a voyage from sub-space to your space, I discovered that I was--in polymorphic form, of course--a highly developed member of a highly developed species corresponding in my universe to yours.

"If I brought a Piltdown woman to Belvoir and induced you to mate with her--don't shudder, I have no intention of doing so--she would ultimately conceive. I could not accept this resemblance at first, any more than you could accept similarity to a Piltdown female. But there I was, mortally chained to beings on your planet through a most elementary process."

Deborah said, her voice shaking, "Charles, he's joking, isn't he?"

Justin shook his head, said to Ortine, "So your strain became inextricably intermixed with ours. But how does that account for your playing Satan?"

"My dear Justin!" Ortine spread his hands wide. "Consider my position. What had originally been a most impersonal mission had become a matter of the deepest personal concern. Confidentially, I have never since--or at least within the past few hundred generations--been able to materialize on Earth itself."

"Why not?" Justin asked him.

"Because of the risk," replied Ortine. "Suppose, as a man, I were killed accidentally or murdered. Suppose, as a woman, I conceived again--I can assure you my desires in such matters are perhaps even stronger than those of your species.

"Each such accident--and in the early days I had my share--is weakening. I have only so much life force and no means of replenishing that which is spent--not in this universe. Hence I have had to indulge in what you might term economy of forces."

"Playing the devil...." Justin reminded him.

"Dammit, don't interrupt. I am quite capable of image projections--hallucinations to you. These I have indulged in frequently when I thought such appearances needful or considered them diverting. In some of them, for various reasons, I have assumed some remarkable shapes."

"How about these folk you can influence directly?"

Ortine regarded Justin irritably, said, "Surely you know enough of Mendel's Law to be aware that dominant strains will pop up again and again, even in a recessive capacity. When mine recurs, as it does in every generation, I am able to exercise over them more control than I can over others."

"How much control can you exercise over someone else--say over me?" Justin asked Ortine quietly.

"I think you can answer that for yourself," said Ortine.

Justine thought it out quickly. If Ortine could actually control him, save when he was unconscious or on the rim of sleep, there would have been no need to bring him to Belvoir at all.

Ortine met his gaze frankly--and Justin, from his long experience of judging living beings, some of whom were perhaps as devious as Ortine himself, decided the other was lying--or at any rate revealing but an expedient fraction of the truth.

Why, he wondered, didn't Ortine simply kill Deborah or himself. The answer to that was obvious. If he could have done so he certainly would have--especially after Justin and Deborah had balluxed up his whole scheme.

Which meant that he couldn't, for all the miracle of his ship and his polymorphism and his ability to span time at will. Justin wondered why his host was so helpless, decided he might as well accept the fact.

"All right," he said, "so it's a stalemate--correct?"

"I wouldn't be too sure," said Ortine. His eyes turned toward Deborah but he spoke to Justin. "The matter of inbred belief is or can be a vital factor. I believe you have heard, in your own enlightened era"--there was a trace of irony in the phrase--"of primitive Haitians and Africans who have succumbed to voodoo for no other reason than that they believed in it and thought someone had put a death-curse on them."

"I have heard of them," said Justin. "But I've been thinking of another factor in our first discussion. We discussed your so-called madmen--but what of sane men?"

"What of them?" Ortine looked troubled.

"Let's look at some of the most successful," Justin offered. "For instance, Ghengis Khan. Now there was a sane man--he fought only for self preservation. And each time he won a victory he was forced to preserve it and himself by winning more. So he destroyed a continent and caused the deaths of, say, fifty million innocent people. He left marks on the world that are still with us--the deserts of Central Asia, the fear-psychology of Russia under Czar or Commissar. Do you call him insane?"

Ortine made an impatient gesture, said, "Of course he was sane. It was his time and environment, not himself, that were at fault."

"You're rationalizing," said Justin. "I could name some other sane men of prominence--Timur the Great, Attila, Metternich, Stalin. Find me any saner men."

"Who are these strangers of whom ye speak?" asked Deborah.

The men ignored her. Ortine said, "In the case of each there were extenuating circumstances...."

"And," said Justin, "I can name you some sane men who, for one reason or another, failed--which can only be called a blessing to mankind. Rokh-ud-Din, the last emir of the Assassins, for instance--or Lucullus or Louis Fourteenth or Bismarck or Robespierre. Now certainly no saner, less imaginative, more honorable man than Robespierre ever lived. Yet he virtually destroyed a great revolution by his very sanity."

For the first time Ortine looked seriously annoyed. He said, "On what range of experience do you base your judgment of what is beneficial for humanity or not, my dear Justin? This is ridiculous--why should I argue with you?"

"Because you've got to persuade me to do your will or your entire scheme will collapse," Justin told him calmly.

"You're risking the person you love most," said Ortine.

"Not yet," replied Justin. "And here's something else that has me stopped--if you're so anxious to save our planet from its so-called ruin, why are you taking the very steps that will lead to its speedy destruction?"

"Consider," said Ortine, regaining his self control, "if my plan is followed your planet will suffer a certain retrogression, of course. Now think what such a retrogression will mean--it will mean no A-bomb, no airplanes, none of the modern destructive machinery. In that way your planet will be aeons from self-destruction."

"You'll force us back to the caves!" cried Justin.

"Not quite." Ortine smiled. "Not quite, my dear Justin. Why not enjoy a good dinner before we resume our little chat?"