She was watching again. The little figures-were they little figures? -little tiny women with burning hair that turned and bent too quickly for the mind to focus? -seized one another in star-shaped groups that turned - and the music was faint laughter - girls' laughter that began inside the ear.
The stars drew together, sparked towards one another, grew slowly into structure - and from below, a palace shot upward in rapid evolution. Each brick a tiny color, each color a tiny spark, each spark a stabbing light that shifted patterns and led the eye skyward to twenty jeweled minarets.
A glittering carpet shot out and about, whirling, spinning an insubstantial web that engulfed all space, and from it luminous shoots stabbed upward and branched into trees that sang with a music all their own.
Bayta sat inclosed in it. The music welled about her in rapid, lyrical flights. She reached out to touch a fragile tree and blossoming spicules floated downwards and faded, each with its clear, tiny tinkle.
The music crashed in twenty cymbals, and before her an area flamed up in a spout and cascaded down invisible steps into Bayta's lap, where it spilled over and flowed in rapid current, raising the fiery sparkle to her waist, while across her lap was a rainbow bridge and upon it the little figures-
A palace, and a garden, and tiny men and women on a bridge, stretching out as far as she could see, swimming through the stately swells of stringed music converging in upon her-
And then - there seemed a frightened pause, a hesitant, indrawn motion, a swift collapse. The colors fled, spun into a globe that shrank, and rose, and disappeared.
And it was merely dark again.
A heavy foot scratched for the pedal, reached it, and the light flooded in; the flat light of a prosy sun. Bayta blinked until the tears came, as though for the longing of what was gone. Ebling Mis was a podgy inertness with his eyes still round and his mouth still open.
Only Magnifico himself was alive, and he fondled his Visi-Sonor in a crooning ecstasy.
"My lady," he gasped, "it is indeed of an effect the most magical. It is of balance and response almost beyond hope in its delicacy and stability. On this, it would seem I could work wonders. How liked you my composition, my lady?"
"Was it yours?" breathed Bayta. "Your own?"
At her awe, his thin face turned a glowing red to the tip of his mighty nose. "My very own, my lady. The Mule liked it not, but often and often I have played it for my own amusement. It was once, in my youth, that I saw the palace - a gigantic place of jeweled riches that I saw from a distance at a time of high carnival. There were people of a splendor undreamed of - and magnificence more than ever I saw afterwards, even in the Mule's service. It is but a poor makeshift I have created, but my mind's poverty precludes more. I call it, 'The Memory of Heaven.'"
Now through the midst of the chatter, Mis shook himself to active life. "Here," he said, "here, Magnifico, would you like to do that same thing for others?"
For a moment, the clown drew back. "For others?" he quavered.
"For thousands," cried Mis, "in the great Halls of the Foundation. Would you like to be your own master, and honored by all, wealthy, and... and-" his imagination failed him. "And all that? Eh? What do you say?"
"But how may I be all that, mighty sir, for indeed I am but a poor clown ungiven to the great things of the world?"
The psychologist puffed out his lips, and passed the back of his hand across his brow. He said, "But your playing, man. The world is yours if you would play so for the mayor and his Trading Trusts. Wouldn't you like that?"
The clown glanced briefly at Bayta, "Would she stay with me?"
Bayta laughed, "Of course, silly. Would it be likely that I'd leave you now that you're on the point of becoming rich and famous?"
"It would all be yours," he replied earnestly, "and surely the wealth of Galaxy itself would be yours before I could repay my debt to your kindness."
"But," said Mis, casually, "if you would first help me-"
"What is that?"
The psychologist paused, and smiled, "A little surface probe that doesn't hurt. It wouldn't touch but the peel of your brain."
There was a flare of deadly fear in Magnifico's eyes. "Not a probe. I have seen it used. It drains the mind and leaves an empty skull. The Mule did use it upon traitors and let them wander mindless through the streets, until out of mercy, they were killed." He held up his hand to push Mis away.
"That was a psychic probe," explained Mis, patiently, "and even that would only harm a person when misused. This probe I have is a surface probe that wouldn't hurt a baby. "
"That's right, Magnifico," urged Bayta. "It's only to help beat the Mule and keep him far away. Once that's done, you and I will be rich and famous all our lives."
Magnifico held out a trembling hand, "Will you hold my hand, then?"
Bayta took it in both her own, and the clown watched the approach of the burnished terminal plates with large eyes.
Ebling Mis rested carelessly on the too-lavish chair in Mayor Indbur's private quarters, unregenerately unthankful for the condescension shown him and watched the small mayor's fidgeting unsympathetically. He tossed away a cigar stub and spat out a shred of tobacco.
"And, incidentally, if you want something for your next concert at Mallow Hall, Indbur," he said, "you can dump out those electronic gadgeteers into the sewers they came from and have this little freak play the Visi-Sonor for you. Indbur - it's out of this world."
Indbur said peevishly, "I did not call you here to listen to your lectures on music. What of the Mule? Tell me that. What of the Mule?"