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"I suppose he was. My mother was killed and of course he thought I was dead,
too. He must have given up after that. If he'd come back " Coriole was silent a
while.
Then he said heavily, "Well, maybe I'll finish the job he started. Maybe you and I
together can do it. What do you say, Burton?"
I blinked at him stupidly. "How do you mean?"
He made an impatient gesture. His pale eyes were cold and
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eager.
"You know the things we need to know. You're from Paradise too, but you're not a
puppet like Clia. You could teach us "
"I'm an actor, Coriole," I said firmly. "That's all just an actor. I don't know how
to whip up an atom-smasher out of an old washtub and a jury-rigged cigarette
lighter. There's nothing I could teach you."
"You can count, can't you?" he demanded in a sort of desperation. "You know the
Arabic numerals through zero, don't you?"
I nodded mutely, staring at him.
"I don't," he said. "I can't. We aren't allowed to use Arabic numerals. It's a
treasonable offense to learn them. All we have are Roman numerals and you can't
work out anything but the simplest types of problems with that clumsy system.
Do you have any idea what that means?"
I did, dimly. I nodded again, remembering what I'd read about the invention of
zero and all the mathematical intricacies it had led to. With the old numerals
multiplication and division themselves had been tremendous undertakings. With
Arabic numerals the man in the street could learn arithmetical tricks only Roman
scholars could perform and that laboriously.
"I see what you mean," I said. "I don't know much about modem technology, but I
do know how closely the development of physics, for instance, ties in with
mathematics. I can see your problem. Those Alchemists are pretty smart boys."
"I've got a good organization now," Coriole said, still with the strange cold
eagerness that rather repelled me. "Here's the setup. I won't go into details but I
got in touch with a lot of Jimmerton's old lieutenants and we learned by his
mistakes.
"We've got to strike at the heart of the Alchemists at the Hierarch himself. We
can't win by nagging at the outskirts, the way Jimmerton had to. I've got men in
key positions everywhere. Like Falvi, you know. He's one of the top men in
Alchemy."
I nodded dubiously. For my money Falvi was a broken reed so far as conspiracy
went. But it wasn't for me to say so.
"The people are with us," Coriole went on, his cold violence making every word
crackle. "Clia's coming was a setback. For
a while we hoped we could use her, but the priests got there first. They're terribly
cunning. They never miss a bet. And they'd learned their lesson when Jimmerton
came through." "What happened?" I asfced yet again. "With Lorna Clia?" "I'll
show you," Coriole said, reaching for another gilt dial below the screen.
Chapter IX
AGAIN the golden A began to glow slowly before us. The voice chanted again in the
same archaic Malescan I couldn't follow. After a moment or two fog began to roll
across the screen and music swelled majestically.
The music sank and an echoing hum and buzz of voices replaced it. We were
looking down a long room, enormous, crowded with men and women, at a high
dais at the far end. It was the voices of the people that hummed above the music.
"That's the Alchemic Temple," Coriole said.
It was a Vast room and, curiously, you could see very little of it. The upper walls
and all the ceiling were hidden by rolling fog, no doubt accepted by the
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congregation as a minor miracle though it was obvious that concealed pipes must
be puffing it out at intervals. You could even see the disturbances in the clouds
now and then where fresh fog came in.
It gave an air of tremendous mystery to the Temple. Through the shifting veils of
it you could once in a while catch a glimpse of the walls and you could then see
the great colored and gilded images on them. There were stylized animals, lions
in red, green and yellow. There were black eagles, red eagles, salamanders in
gold, all the planets labeled in luminous characters.
I had a vague memory of the alchemic symbolisms and knew that these figures
represented chemical terms. But to the people they obviously represented only
mysterious secrets of the priesthood. The people were watching the dais.
On the wall at its back there was a vast round window looking out over the city. I
saw the great globe of water with
the fiery fountains playing around it, the roofs and streets beyond. It was the
same view of Malesco I had first glimpsed through the shimmering air in my
apartment. I watched with great interest.
"This is part of the usual Equinoctial Ceremony," Coriole said, reaching for
another egg. "They give us a glimpse of Paradise and a lecture about how to get
mere. Only this time, something went wrong. Watch."
On the dais a great deal of ceremonial arm-waving was going on. Enormous
coiled horns were being blown with solemn hootings, priests in brilliant robes did
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