The Dark Symphony

and entered the pillar. He was inside for only moments, and came out looking chipper enough. The psychiatrist attached the sensitive bands of his scanner to the wrists of the boy, slipped the mesh cap over his head. In seconds, the scan had been completed, and the psychiatrist announced that this one had passed the test, had not built up an undue amount of pattern instability in his thought waves.
    A second one followed the first, entered the pillar hesitantly. When three minutes had passed and the boy did not emerge, the psychiatrist went forward and stepped partially into the pillar, found him and brought him out. His lips were loose, slimed with drool, and his eyes were vacant The boy had slipped into a schizophrenic state so deep that there would be no getting him out, ever. Another body for the disposal furnaces.
    Then, after several more tests, it was Tisha's turn. She stepped forward without a moment's pause, slid into the humming brown wall of sound. Guil wanted to reach out for her, to stop her, but he could not. This was her fight A minute later, she came out, smiling, and approached the psychiatrist It was obvious that the experience had not deranged her, that her mind was capable of accepting the atmosphere beyond the pillar without losing control of itself. She was able to die for a short moment and come back with us living and not lose her sanity.
    But the psychiatrist proclaimed her disturbed.
    She protested, turned to the judges and demanded to be cross-checked by another psychiatrist with another scanning machine.
    The judges only nodded.
    The psychiatrist stated that it would not be necessary for her to be relegated to the disposal furnaces, for the instability was not that serious.
    "Why, then, is it serious enough to keep me from gaining a Class?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips and facing him with all the determination she could muster.
    "I have made my statement," the doctor said. He turned away from her.
    "Dismissed," the judge said.
    "You can't do this to me," she said.
    "Yes," the judge said. "Dismissed."
    Guil watched her walk off the floor, back into the rooms beyond the arena where she would change and leave. Rosie had been influential enough—in the heat of the moment, at least—to get her a chance to try for a Class, but his influence had not lasted. He was a Composer, but it would take more than a future saint and god to change the order Vladislovitch had established. The judges had seen their mistake, had realized this could open the door to more women seeking Class, and had found a way to slam that door in her face.
    He was next.
    For a moment, he considered the wisdom of refusing on the grounds that the girl had been cheated. Then he decided that would be decidedly unwise, stupid even. Who was he, after all, to dispute with the judges? And who was he to say that the ways established by Vladislovitch should now be overturned? Ahead of him lay a peaceful life within this pleasant society. There was no reason to strike out and demolish his future. He could not singlehandedly change the masculinist policy, and he would succeed only in bringing his own ruin. He stepped forward.
    The pillar hummed, pulsated from dark brown to light brown and back to dark again.
    He had faced it as a child. He must remember that.
    He stepped into the pillar, through the gate into another world, the world of Death from which the researchers .had never returned…
    There was before him a raven sky, black from horizon to horizon, stung with faint brown stars. To his right was a row of chocolate-hued mountains cut by a gem-glistening river that was very dark green and terribly wide. Abruptly, he thought of his dream:
    Above the bleak banks of the green river there is a barren wall of stone jutting to a shelf of polished black onyx a hundred feet overhead. It is an indeterminable hour of the night. The sky is clear, but it is not blue. As he watches, it threads from black to lighter shadows, an odd brown and a rotten tan that approximate the color of dried blood where they overlap. At a bend in the river, the onyx shelf juts completely across the water, forming a roof, and on this roof is a purple building of massive columns rimmed with black stone faces at their tops. Drifting on a leaf, he approaches the building…
    Then he elaborated on the dream, took it one step further:
    Within, he sees for the first time, what seem to be cavorting, dancing figures which…
    Then he realized he was standing too