The Light That Never Was by Jr. Lloyd Biggle Page A

Sorlin,” she said enviously. “He really is the best. I had no idea he was available. He has the largest lumeno console ever seen on Donov, and he says he’s never had a better place for an exhibition. He’s been a week setting the lights. I wonder how Ronony happened to get him. Are you staying?”
    “I’ll see how Mother is feeling.”
    He turned toward the conservatory, and along the way he was intercepted by Eritha Korak, “Medil Favic,” she said. “The attorney. He’s going around looking for World Quorum members, and when he corners one he gives Jorno a signal and Jorno comes and takes over the conversation. He’s talked with seven of them, Anyone trying to find out what they’re talking about is in danger of being trampled, because at least six of Ronony’s goons are doing the same. Will you have another try with Grandpapa? About the art?”
    “Then you’d be leaving Donov Metro,” Wargen said. “I couldn’t get along without you.”
    “Cad!” she muttered and flounced away.
    The countess was standing when Wargen reached her. “A new lumeno virtuoso,” he told her. “Ronony imported him just for tonight. He has the largest console ever seen on Donov, and Lilya is beside herself with envy. Shall we have a look?”
    They were walking toward the terrace, and the valley was alive with light as colors blended and exploded and expired in shimmering pulsations.
    “I feel rather tired,” the countess said. “I really don’t think I could sit through it.”
    Wargen nodded obediently and signaled the steward, who went to call their limousine.
    He knew his mother wasn’t tired. She had seen him in conversation twice with Eritha Korak, and she thought three times in one evening might be dangerous. Murmuring farewells they made their way through the shifting throng and out into the clear, double-mooned Donovian night.
    As they passed through the doorway, Wargen casually glanced backward at the shadowed balcony where Ronony Gynth lurked. The Mestillian agent’s position was so excellent, her organization so efficient, her technique—not even Wargen knew what she looked like—so flawless, her recording microphones so cunningly placed, that he sometimes felt pained that he could not make use of her himself.
    He wondered if she would find out what Jaward Jorno was up to before he did.

4
    Some called the vast World Management Building the Cirque because it was circular; others called it that because they thought the activities there very strongly resembled a circus. The corridors were endless and ornate, the offices mammoth and opulent. Few who enjoyed a formal audience with the World Manager in his plush reception room were aware that he did his work in a small, windowless cubbyhole in the almost inaccessible upper reaches of the building. It was furnished only with an elaborate chair custom-designed to ease the shrunken contours of his aging body, and there he spent most of his working hours—sometimes in solitary thought, but more often in conversation. He could not reach decisions without information, ideas, opinions, so he waited for visitors as a hungry insect waited for prey, ready to pounce on them and suck them dry. It was no coincidence that those who knew the room best referred to it as his lair.
    Because of his failing eyesight he could no longer cope with the voluminous paper work that in his younger years had held him captive at his desk. He banished the desk and delegated the work. By occupying the only chair in the room he forced his visitors to stand, which kept interviews gratifyingly to the point and shortened them by a measurable forty per cent, a priceless saving of his diminishing stores of energy.
    When his superiors, the members of the World Quorum, sought to reconcile the fact of his advancing age with the phenomenon of his miraculously increasing efficiency, he smiled modestly and did not reply. He submitted his resignation annually; annually it was refused. In a changing