Kralick gave me a crooked grin and told me to relax. But I could not relax. That night Vornan again allowed himself to be interviewed, and what he said was bluntly utopian. The world was badly in need of reform; too much power had concentrated in too few hands; an era of universal affluence was imminent, but it would take the cooperation of the enlightened masses to bring it about. “We were born from trash,” he said, “but we have the capacity to become gods. I know it can be done. In my time there is no disease, there is no poverty, there is no suffering. Death itself has been abolished. But must mankind wait a thousand years to enjoy these benefits? You must act now. Now.”

It seemed like a call to revolution.

As yet Vornan had put forth no specific program. He was uttering only generalized calls for a transformation of our society. But even that was far beyond the sly, oblique, flippant remarks he had customarily made in the early months of his stay. It was as if his capacity for troublemaking had been greatly enlarged; he recognized now that he could stir up infinitely more mischief by addressing himself to the mobs in the street than by poking fun at selected individuals. Kralick seemed as aware of this as I was; I did not understand why he allowed the tour to continue, why he saw to it that Vornan had access to communications channels. He seemed helpless to halt the course of events, helpless to interrupt the revolution that he himself had served to manufacture.

Of Vornan’s motives we knew nothing. On the second day in Buenos Aires he again went into the throng. This time the mob was far greater than on the day before, and in a kind of obstinate insistence they surrounded Vornan, trying desperately to reach and touch him. We had to get him out of there, finally, with a scoop lowered from a copter. He was pale and shaken as he rid himself of the crowd shield. I had never seen Vornan look rattled before, but this crowd had done it. He eyed the shield skeptically and said, “Possibly there are dangers in this. How trustworthy is the shield?”

Kralick assured him that it was loaded with redundancy features that made it foolproof. Vornan looked doubtful. He turned away, trying to compose himself; it was actually refreshing to see a symptom of fear in him. I could hardly fault him for fearing that crowd, even with a shield.

We flew from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro in the early hours of November 19. I tried to sleep, but Kralick came to my compartment and woke me. Behind him stood Vornan. In Kralick’s hand was the coiled slimness of a crowd shield.

“Put this on,” he said.

“What for?”

“So you can learn how to use it. You’re going to wear it in Rio.”

My lingering sleepiness vanished. “Listen, Sandy, if you think I’m going to expose myself to those crowds—”

“Please,” said Vornan. “I want you beside me. Leo.”

Kralick said, “Vornan’s been feeling uneasy about the size of the mobs for the last few days, and he doesn’t want to go down there alone any more. He asked me if I could get you to accompany him. He wants only you.”

“It’s true, Leo,” Vornan said. “I can’t trust the others. With you beside me I’m not afraid.”

He was damnably persuasive. One glance, one plea, and I was ready to walk through millions of screaming cultists with him. I told him I’d do as he wished, and he touched his hand to mine and murmured his thanks softly but movingly. Then he went away. The moment he was gone, I saw the lunacy of it; and as Kralick pushed the crowd shield toward me, I shook my head. “I can’t,” I said. “Get Vornan. Tell him I changed my mind.”

“Come on, Leo. Nothing can happen to you.”

“If I don’t go out there, Vornan doesn’t go either?”

“That’s correct.”

“Then we’ve solved our problem,” I said. “I’ll refuse to put the shield on. Vornan won’t be able to mingle with the multitudes. We’ll cut him off from the source of his power. Isn’t that what we want?”

“No.”

“No?”

“We want Vornan to be able to reach the people. They love him. They need him. We don’t dare deny them their hero.”

“Give them their hero, then. But not with me next to him.”

“Don’t start that again. Leo. You’re the one he asked for. If Vornan doesn’t make an appearance in Rio, it’s going to screw up international relations and God knows what else. We can’t risk frustrating that mob by not producing him.”

“So I’m thrown to the wolves?”

“The shields are safe, Leo! Come on. Help us out one last time.”

The intensity of Kralick’s concern was compelling, and in the end I agreed to honor my promise to Vornan. As we rocketed eastward over the dwindling wilderness of the Amazon basin, twenty miles high, Kralick taught me how to use the crowd shield. By the time we began our arc of descent, I was an expert. Vornan was visibly pleased that I had agreed to accompany him. He spoke freely of the excitement he felt in the midst of a throng, and of the power he felt he exerted over those who clustered about him. I listened and said little. I studied him with care, recording in my mind the look of his face, the gleam of his smile, for I had the feeling that his visit to our medieval epoch might soon be drawing to its close.

The crowd at Rio exceeded anything we had seen before. Vornan was scheduled to make a public appearance on the beach; we rolled through the streets of the magnificent city, heading for the sea, and there was no beach in sight, only a sea of heads lining the shore, a jostling, shoving, incredibly dense mob that stretched from the white towers of the oceanfront buildings to the edge of the waves, and even out into the water. We were unable to penetrate that mass, and had to take to the air. By copter we traversed the length of the beach. Vornan glowed with pride. “For me,” he said softly. “They come here for me. Where is my speech machine?”

Kralick had furnished him with yet another gadget: a translator, rigged to turn Vornan’s words into fluent Portuguese. As we hovered over that forest of dark upraised arms, Vornan spoke, and his words boomed out into the bright summer air. I cannot vouch for the translation, but the words he used were eloquent and moving. He spoke of the world from which he came, telling of its serenity and harmony, describing its freedom from striving and strife. Each human being, he said, was unique and valued. He contrasted that with our own bleak, harried time. A mob such as he saw beneath him, he said, was inconceivable in his day, for only a shared hunger brings a mob together, and no hunger so clawing could exist there. Why, he asked, did we choose to live this way? Why not rid ourselves of our rigidities and our prides, cast away our dogmas and our idols, hurl down the barriers that fence each human heart? Let every man love his fellow man as a brother. Let false cravings be abolished. Let the desire for power perish. Let a new age of benevolence be ushered in.

These were not new sentiments. Other prophets had offered them. But he spoke with such monstrous sincerity and fervor that he seemed to be minting each sentimental clichй anew. Was this the Vornan who had laughed in the face of the world? Was this the Vornan who had used human beings as toys and tools? This pleading, cajoling, thrilling orator? This saint? I was close to tears myself as I listened to him. And the impact on those down on the beach — those following this on a global network — who could calculate that?

Vornan’s mastery was complete. His slim, deceptively boyish figure occupied the center of the world’s stage. We were his. With sincerity instead of mockery now his weapon, he had conquered all.

He finished speaking. To me he said, “Now let us go down among them, Leo.”

We put on our shields. I was at the edge of terror; and Vornan himself, peering over the lip of the copter’s hatch into that swirling madhouse below, seemed to falter a moment and draw back from the descent. But they were waiting. They cried out for him in love-thickened voices. For once the magnetism worked the other way; Vornan was drawn forward.