Part 5

Otis! Justin was stunned. The resemblance to his well-known portrait was unmistakable. Here was James Otis, the brilliant and powerful young Boston lawyer who first, in that very month of February, in that very year of 1761, stood up for four hours in the Province House and defied the right of the Crown to issue the unlimited search warrants known as "Writs of Assistance" in order to check smuggling.

Here was the man who resigned his lucrative position as King's Advocate for Massachusetts, defied his wealthy Tory wife and all his wife's friends to make the first open plea for Colonial freedom.

Here was the man who gave heart to the Adamses, to Hancock and, in a vastly widening circle, to the Virginians Patrick Henry and, later, Thomas Jefferson. Here was the man who led Boston toward freedom until the tensions of his own career and domestic life drove him at length to madness.

Worse, as Justin quickly realised, here was the man to whom Deborah's friends and family were asking her to give herself. Justin understood their motives all too well. Apparently, unless he found some outlet away from his strife-torn home, Otis' friends already feared for his sanity. Employing an age-old therapy they had selected Deborah to supply that outlet.

Even in the misery of the moment, Justin found his mind ranging back to Ortine and his motives in having the girl go through with her assignment. In untampered-with history the girl must have turned Otis down. Perhaps in that turn-down Ortine read the outraged pride that had led Otis to stand up and make his revolutionary speech. By having the girl acquiesce Ortine figured, probably correctly, that the attorney would never be so inspired. The chain reaction that led to Independence Hall, to Saratoga, to Yorktown, would not have been touched off.

Justin saw, as if in slow-motion, Otis fling back his arm to clear it of the girl's desperate grip--saw her tossed against the wall. Her head struck with a sickening thud and she dropped to the floor in a pathetic unconscious heap.

Justin forgot about his near-worship for James Otis and sprang forward to do battle. He landed a hard right high on the lawyer's cheek, then felt the snow on a heel again betray him into slipping. Out of the corner of an eye he caught a quick glimpse of a large fist emerging from a ruffled cuff and arching directly toward his own jaw. He felt a jarring impact....

* * * * *

Justin found himself once more lying on a portable bed in one of the cubicles of Ortine's Belvoir dormitory. His jaw hurt and there was a tender spot over his right ribs that would, he knew, grow sorer with time.

He sat up, rubbing his chin, discovered he was still wearing the ill-fitting clothing with which Deborah had fitted him out. He glanced around--and his heart did a ground-loop. Alongside his own cot was another--and on it lay the girl.

Justin forgot his own sorenesses and went to her, put a hand on her face, felt his knees turn to oil as he discovered her face was warm, felt the rhythmic softness of her breath against his fingers.

She opened her eyes and smiled--and Justin felt his insides melt at the trustful happiness of her expression. He said, "It's all right, Debby dear--Ortine's brought us back to Belvoir."

"As long as we're still together," she whispered. Then, frowning, "My head hurts in back--a little."

A familiar sardonic voice spoke from the doorway. "I am glad," said Ortine, "that you find your return here so pleasant. I don't suppose you have the slightest inkling of what this unexpected insanity of yours has cost."

Justin considered for the first time the possible consequences of what he and Deborah had just managed to accomplish. He said, "We fouled up the works?"

Ortine stared at him for a long moment. Only by rigidity of manner did he give indication of the anger he must have felt. He said, "You show rather more discernment than I had expected, Justin--but I fear you still fail to realise the enormity of your sabotage.

"Time, as you conceive it, has no meaning for me, of course--yet I have had to spend vast amounts of it, searching, searching the entire course of human history, to select the exact men and women for my purpose, the exact moments in which they could be effective.

"The essence of my entire plan was simultaneous alteration of the historic line," Ortine went on. "Only thus could the salvation of humanity be effected without dislocation amounting to chaos. By your insane romantic aberration you two have disrupted the entire process."

Justin thought it improbable that Deborah could understand much of what their host was saying, yet the impact of his tone upon her was dynamic. She slipped from her bed, skirts whirling, marched up to Ortine and said, "I care not what ye think, Master Ortine. Neither Charles nor I asked to be brought here. Aye, and furthermore I'll not have ye using that tone to Charles."

Ortine said to Justin, "Perhaps we'd better talk this over in private."

"So ye can soft-talk Charles into doing ye'r bidding--and leave me to face Master Otis alone?" Deborah's defiance was magnificent and Justin put an arm around her.

He said to Ortine, "Since time is of no account to you, perhaps you'll give us a little of it together."

"As you wish." Ortine shrugged and turned to leave. "I shall await your summons."

"What did he mean?" Deborah asked Justin, when he had gone.

Justin studied her briefly, kissed her, then said, "Debby, just how did our friend explain himself to _you_?"

"Oh...." The girl looked vague for a moment. "He told me that if I failed to heed Master Otis' plea the redcoats would come to Boston and burn my home and kill my father and mother and brothers--aye, and ruin me."

Suddenly Deborah's arms were around him tightly, her worried face peering searchingly into his. She said, "Through my willfulness will all these dreadful things come to pass, Charles darling?"

"Debby," he told her gently, "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

"Ye'll not desert me?" she pleaded.

He smiled down at her. "Debby, I don't think I could desert you if it meant the end of the world--and it may yet."

"Ye'r jesting," she said. "Kiss me."

He did--and again they were interrupted by a throat-clearing in the cubicle doorway. Dr. Phillips said in his old-fashioned London accents, "I don't quite ken why our friend has brought us back--but I see things are the same betwixt the two of _you_."

"Why, Dr. Phillips!" exclaimed the girl. "Ye'r clad in ye'r breeks now."

"I thought it might be a wise precaution before returning to my nap," said the professor mildly.

Justin said, "Come in, Doctor." He set Deborah on her cot, swung onto his own, while Dr. Phillips accepted the one chair in the cubicle. He seemed not at all surprised to find two beds where one had stood before.

"Dr. Phillips," said Justin, "I've been hoping you'd turn up here again. On our first visit I saw a Roman soldier down the hall toward the dining saloon. He was with a Mohammedan-looking female. Do you have any idea of who he is--or what his assignment is?"

Dr. Phillips nodded. "Aye," he said. "I forget his name--it is of no moment in history. He is--or was--a mere field officer in the suite of a Judaean sub-Praetor during the reign of Augustus."

"And his assignment?" Justin asked quietly.

"I believe to the best of my memory--" Dr. Phillips frowned as he delved into his own mind--"that this chap was supposed to arrest a fellow named John Something-or-other outside of Jerusalem and hold him on a trumped-up charge."

"I take it," said Justin, "that Roman Judaea has not been one of your fields of study."

"Gracious no!" replied the don. "My only knowledge of Latin is derived from an effort to study its imprint, if any, on the pre-Christian tongues of Northern Europe--including Scandinavia."

"Thank you, Dr. Phillips," said Justin, slipping off his couch again. "By the way, how do you summon Ortine when you want him?"

"Just press this button," said Dr. Phillips, indicating a circular buzzer almost invisible against the wall near the corridor door. "Well, in that case I'll be going."

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?"

X

There were a number of small changes in the clothing of the diners in Ortine's incredible restaurant. The eighteenth-century lady had removed her towering headdress to reveal a closely shaved round pate, the white-haired woman from medieval England had managed to don a shift--and of course Dr. Phillips had his trousers. But most of the diners appeared the same.

There was a general air of festivity about the repast. Apparently the bulk of the visitors had expected no return to the paradise of Belvoir and were resolved to enjoy its luxuries to the hilt. But Justin and Deborah said little, barely toyed with their food.

"Darling Charles," said the girl softly, "what d'ye think is going to happen now?"

"I don't know," said Justin honestly. He captured her near hand, added, "Dear Debby, will you go with me no matter what?"

She answered him with her eyes.

When they returned to their cubicle, after a brief walk in the garden, Ortine was awaiting them. He said, "Well?"

Justin studied him. Finally he said, "Ortine, we've made up our minds. We're going back--together. But this time we're going back into _my_ era."

Deborah gave vent to a little cry of joy. Ortine flicked ashes on the floor. "You still don't seem to understand, my dear Justin," he said. "I _can't_ allow that. I might, of course, be willing to make some concessions. I could arrange things for Deborah so that she will succeed without having actually to give herself to James Otis.

"I might even be able to rig some sort of happiness for you, Justin--say a liaison with Corinne Forrester." Reading Justin's expression correctly he added quickly, "No, of course, that would not do now. But I could influence some very likely facsimile of your young lady here and perhaps get you clear of your present unhappy domestic arrangements."