boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

246 Anthony Boucher
a murderer before; he was loath to relinquish this one. And if a man can’t convince
his own attorney of his of his innocence—
Through his lawyer he sent desperate but restrained appeals to Hesketh Uranov
and Sacheverell Breakstone. He had no answer at all from the writer, which confirmed
him in his growing belief that Uranov was a traitor rather than a weakling and had
deliberately lured him down to the lonely beach studio. S.B. spent a half-hour with
him, told him three new fictional sub-plots to the Devarupa epic—just groping
with words, you understand—wondered if he could recommend another historical
technician, regretted that he himself could not attend the trial because he’d be on
the Moon by then, and heard not a word of Garrett’s defense or his accusations
against Hartle.
Garrett knew that there was no hope in appealing to the secretary who had sent
him on this job or to the W.B.I. itself. The standing rule was “Get yourself out.” At
last a sort of stoic resignment settled on him. He spent the last twelve hours before
the trial preparing a minute precis of everything he had learned about lovestonite,
Valentinez, and Stag Hartle. His lawyer promised to see that it was forwarded to
the Secretary of Allocation.
His trial began at 14:15, on a fine sunny California afternoon. At 14:30 it was
over. At 15:45 he was looking at the one-man rocket through a hazy mist of the
beginning effects of dormitol. By 16:00 the lid was down, the pressure screws turned,
and Gan Garrett was ready to set out on the one-way trip.
Somewhere in Sollywood Stag Hartle was probably celebrating.
The one-way trip is a form of punishment—or penalty is perhaps the better word—
unique in the world’s history. But it evolved logically and inevitably from the fact
of a world at peace, even if the world itself had paradoxically evolved as a direct
consequence of the War of the Twentieth Century.
At any time in the world’s history before the year 2000, the voice of Devarupa
would have gone unheard—unheard, that is, even as the voice of Christ went unheard
by a nominally Christian world devoted to greed and murder. Only after the
total destruction wrought by that world-wide and century-long war could man have
listened seriously to the true message of peace.
The world had first heard of Devarupa when India was being overrun by both
sides during the last vicious years of the German-Japanese War. The official Domei
and DNB dispatches slurred over or perverted his acts; but the legend had seeped
through somehow and spread over the world, the legend of that one province which
had finally succeeded in practicing in its perfection the traditional doctrine of nonresistance,
so successfully that each horde of invaders in turn at last drew back with
almost supernatural awe.
But that was a minute island of success. Not until after the Revolt of the Americas,
when a united North and South America arose in glorious daring to cast off and
destroyed their masters—already weakened by their own Kilkenny-cattery—did the
teachings of Devarupa begin to spread.
Who or what he was, it is impossible now to say. He was the second coming of
III.