The Unreasoning Mask Read Online Free PDF Page B

slight,

and you detected it and amplified it until I couldn't resist it? The

impulse which should have died became an obsession because you brought

it from a dying flicker to a roaring blaze?
     
     
"But, if you could do that, why can't you overpower me to the point where I

agree to do what you want me to do in return for immortality? Is it because

you did not detect that, unlike most people, I have no desire to live

forever? That I want something else?
     
     
"Or don't you care whether or not I want immortality? You can and you

have manipulated me enough to use me as your agent, and that's all you're

concerned about. You've succeeded so far, glyfa, but you've gone as far as

you can with me. My back is up. I won't do anything more for you unless

I know what your goal is and maybe not then. What do you want me for?

What do you want?"
     
     
"What do you want?" his mother's voice said.
     
     
Minutes of silence passed. He would not reply because he had no answer

to that question, and the glyfa was done with this conversation. But not

with him.
     
     
     
     
     
     
... 4 ...
     
     
Masked, carrying some clothes and the glyfa in a small suitcase, Ramstan

left al-Buraq. He had hesitated a long time before he had decided to take

the glyfa with him to the hotel. Perhaps it was not too late to return it

to its worshipers. He was sure that the Tenolt would see him leave ship,

and they would quickly find out that he had checked into the hotel. They

would approach him, carefully, of course. They would have to do that

since there were many Earthpeople staying in the hotel during shore

leave. Or would they? They were fanatics, and they wanted their god

back. But they did not know that he had the glyfa with him. They could,

however, seize him or try to do so, and hold him as hostage until the

glyfa was returned to them.
     
     
He did not know what they would do. All he did know was that, at this moment,

he felt as if he would gladly be rid of the glyfa. And if he could somehow

negotiate its return and also keep his people from knowing what he had done,

he would never again, never, forget his duty.
     
     
Did he really believe that? He did not know.
     
     
When near the hotel, he passed Warrant Officer Deva Kolkoshki. She saluted

him despite his order not to do so outside ship during leave. She was

defying him subtly or perhaps not so subtly. In some way which she

probably could not define, she was showing her hatred for him.
     
     
He passed her, and his back rippled with cold. Daggers of ice seemed

to pierce his heart and genitals. Deva was very passionate, and Ramstan

felt sure that only her basic stability and morality and years of naval

discipline kept her from thrusting a knife into him. Perhaps he was

wrong. Just because she was Siberian and her culture was as violent as

the Americans' had been was no reason to assume that she had to suppress a

desire to stab him. He might be projecting his feelings of guilt upon her.
     
     
No. He felt no guilt. Why should he? He had had an affair with her,

as he had with twenty or so of the women of al-Buraq. Then she, like so

many others, had accused him of not loving her, of not even thinking of

her when they were making love. His mind, she had said, was on something

else. What was it? What was he thinking about when he should have been

entirely enfolded with her, become one with her? Whatever it was, it

offended her and made her feel more like a thing than a human being.
     
     
Ramstan had not been able to explain. But all his affairs ended in this

manner, though not all the women seemed to hate him as intensely as Deva did.
     
     
That was the trouble with the sensitivity techniques and raising of

consciousness disciplines that were part of the education of all Earthpeople.

He sometimes wished that his century had the same casual attitude towards

affairs that twentieth-century people were supposed to have had. The trouble

with his own