The Hierarch smiled gently. "With the secrets of the Elders at my fingertips do you think the Diktor could keep us penned here in the Citadel?"
A faint hope burned in Angus' chest. "You mean, you wouldn't be cloistered any more? That you'd give your science to the people and help them up?"
"Pah!" snapped the Hierarch. "The people? Pigs! They wallow in their filths and love it." His burning black eyes glittered fanatically. "No. I mean I—and not the Diktor—will rule all Karr!"
He is mad, too, thought Angus. He and the Diktor—mad with the lust for power. If the Diktor dies and the Hierarch rules the people will change a bootheel for a mortar and pestle. Even the stars must revolt against that.
II
The street was dark, except for the moonlight shining faintly through the serrated rooftops, and reflected grey and dismal from the rounded edges of the cobblestones. Angus and a cowled man made a short dash, ran into the shadows, and trotted at a slow pace.
Above them a sign creaked on rusty chains. Angus looked behind at the huge stone bulk of the Citadel where it rose from solid rock, wall piled on wall, and turret on tower, and battlement upon bastion. Beyond the Citadel the thin, delicate spires of the palaces towered above the clean, fragrantly perfumed Upper City. Up above, there was no swill. There was no stench of rotting garbage. The patricians did not know what roast derstite looked like on a greasy platter, or how broiled colob smelled or what awful stuff the vintners sold in the big Mart.
Angus said, "I still don't see why the Hierarch bothers sending me after the Book. He has a lot of scientists who'd do a better job of finding it."
The lips of the man twisted in the darkness of the cowl. "How do you think the Diktor keeps us penned in the Citadel, red-man? He has spectragrams of each of us in his palace, attached to central controls. Every once in a while he has his captains check on our locations. When the vibratory beams touch us, they reflect our spectrums on the visi-screens. If one of us is out of place—beyond the limits of Karr City, that is—he sends a patrol to find and capture us. We lost several good men that way before we grew resigned. Once a scientist is captured by the Diktor he is destroyed. Instantly."