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I am greatly obliged to Heather Datta for her great kindness and consummate efficiency in scanning the text of the first edition of this novel, thus enabling me to get it back into print.
In Euchronia, arrest was only a state of mind. There were no prisons. Limitation by confinement was quite unnecessary, because there was nowhere in the world that a man might hide. There was no way to keep secrets within the machine that was host to mankind. There was, of course, escape, but not within the world—only without. In Sanctuary, or in the Underworld, there was no arrest. But in Euchronia, once a man was labeled “arrested,” arrested he was. Joth Magner accepted his arrest, signifying that he wanted to cooperate to the full with those who had so designated him. He took up temporary residence in the headquarters of the Euchronian Movement, in order to make himself available for consultation and interrogation, face to face. There was no real need, because he would have been available anywhere in the world via the screens, but that was the way he wanted it. He wanted to force his physical presence upon the Councilors who wanted his information. He wanted to be free to use all the power of his personality in his arguments.
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“We know that the focus of the blast was Harkanter’s house. We know that the being in the cage disappeared, and we can only believe that its disappearance was the cause of the blast. We live in desperate fear of this incessant pollution of ourselves which is coming from the Underworld. Our reflex action is to destroy—to obliterate the minds which are invading our personal space. What Eliot and I fear is that the destruction of the Underworld is not a real solution to the problem. We fear that the clock cannot be turned back, and that our minds are permanently altered. What we fear is that in destroying the Underworld we may destroy our chance to find a real answer. There are only two people in the world who might help us find such an answer. You are one. You must tell me everything that you know or suspect about what happened in Harkanter’s cellar.”
“I thought that he’d destroyed himself,” said Joth, slowly. “I saw him—my eyes were actually upon him in the moment he disappeared. But Nita believes that he is alive. Elsewhere. She spoke about her soul—the festival I saw in the village was called the Communion of Souls. She said that during such a communion she had looked into other worlds, and that her father had gone into one. But the festival was just a ritual—it was a mime. Nothing happened that I was aware of. There must have been so much more—so much that I couldn’t begin to know.
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