Vison of Tarot by Piers AnthonyPiers Anthony
Vision of Tarot
Book II: The Miracle Planet Explored

Dedicated to the Holy Order of Vision

Acknowledgments
'SALEM'S LOT, copyright © 1975 by Stephen King. Published by Doubleday &
Company, Inc. Used by permission of the author's agent Kirby McCauley.
THE DRAGONS OF EDEN, copyright © 1977 by Carl Sagan. Published by Random House,
Inc. Used by permission of the publisher.
THE HISTORY AND PRACTICE OF MAGIC, by Paul Christian, copyright © 1973 by
Citadel Press, a division of Lyle Stuart, Inc. Used by permission of the
publisher.
REFLECTIONS OF THE CAUSES OF HUMAN MISERY, copyright © 1969, 1972 by Barrington
Moore, Jr. Published by Beacon Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
RATIONALE OF THE DIRTY JOKE: AN ANALYSIS OF SEXUAL HUMOR, copyright © 1968 by G.
Legman. Published by Grove Press, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher.
HUMAN SEXUALITY, 3rd Edition, by James Leslie McCary, copyright © 1978 by Litton
Educational Publishing, Inc., a division of D. Van Nostrand Company. Used by
permission of the publisher.
THE DEVIL AND ALL HIS WORKS, copyright © 1971 by Dennis Wheatley. Published by
George Rainbird Limited for American Heritage Press. Used by permission of The
Rainbird Publishing Group.

Author's Note:
This is the second volume of the three-part, quarter-million word novel of
Tarot. Though this segment is unified around the religious and social theme, it
is not a complete story in itself, and it is hoped the reader will be interested
enough to read the first and third volumes. The first is God of Tarot,
concerning the nature of the challenge; the third is Faith of Tarot, concerning
the nature of Hell. Some reprise of the first volume may be helpful for those
who have not seen it:
Brother Paul is a novice in the Holy Order of Vision, a liberal religious sect
dedicated to the improvement of the state of man. His superior in the Order, the
Reverend Mother Mary, sends him on a mission to Planet Tarot to determine
whether the Deity manifesting there is or is not God. Brother Paul discovers
numerous schismatic sects on the planet, often at odds; yet the rigors of colony
life require all people to cooperate closely or perish. They must identify the
true God. Brother Paul becomes the guest of the Reverend Siltz of the Second
Church Communist, whose son has taken up with a Scientologist: a local scandal.
Brother Paul encounters Amaranth, an extraordinarily pretty and forward
worshiper of Abraxas, the snake-footed god. Brother Paul experiments with the
notorious Animation effect, controlling it by means of tarot cards, but gets
trapped in full-scale visions relating to his own base nature and past
experiences that led to his conversion to the religious life. He realizes that
his own soul may be likened to compost: the raw stuff of transition from death
to renewal.
The present volume commences with Brother Paul's emergence from that play-like
vision.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Discipline: Triumph 9
II. Nature: Triumph 10
III. Chance: Triumph 11
IV. Time: Triumph 12
V. Reflection: Triumph 13
VI. Will: Triumph 14
VII. Honor: Triumph 15
VIII. Sacrifice: Triumph 16
IX. Change: Triumph 17
X. Vision: Triumph 18
XI. Transfer: Triumph 19
Appendix: Animation Tarot

I
Discipline: 9
...he found himself reflecting -- not for the first time -- on the peculiarities of
adults. They took laxatives, liquor, or sleeping pills to drive away their
terrors so that sleep would come, and their terrors were so tame and domestic:
the job, the money, what the teacher will think if I can't get Jennie nicer
clothes, does my wife still love me, who are my friends. They were pallid
compared to the fears every child lies cheek and jowl with in his dark bed, with
no one to confess to in hope of perfect understanding but another child. There
is no group therapy or psychiatry or community social services for the child who
must cope with the thing under the bed or in the cellar every night, the thing
which leers and capers and threatens just beyond the point where vision will
reach. The same lonely battle must be fought night after night and the only cure
is the eventual ossification of the imaginary faculties, and this is called
adulthood.
 -- Stephen King: 'Salem's Lot, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1975.

The landscape of Planet Tarot formed about them. They stood in a kind of scrub
forest. A few large trunks rose from the underbrush, but these were dead and
charred. Some fire must have swept through the area a decade past, destroying
most of the large trees and all of the small ones, forcing the forest to start
over. This was not necessarily an evil thing; after many years of fighting
forest fires back on Earth, the authorities had realized that forest fires were
part of nature's cycle, literally clearing out the deadwood to make place for
fresh growth. The big stumps, here, might resemble buildings in the half light,
and the forest was like a city, here was the raw material of the Animation just
past.
Brother Paul looked behind him. They were actually in a hollow beside the
clifflike face of a rocky ridge. Here was even more direct raw material; a
moment ago it had seemed like a brick wall, and his companion -- "
Brother Paul turned to the man. "I am not certain I know you," he said. Not in
this world, anyway.
His companion was a colonist he had not encountered in the village, a tall,
thin, handsome young man, bronzed and healthy. "I am Lee, Church of Jesus Christ
Latter Day Saints," he said. "I am one of the Watchers."
"Ah -- Mormon," Brother Paul said. "At one time I mistook you for -- " He broke off,
not wanting to mention the Fed narc. "But that's irrelevant."
"Let's move out before the rent in the Animation fills in," Lee said. "We would
not want to be trapped again." He led the way, walking briskly. But in a moment
he added: "What we experienced appears to be a hitherto unknown aspect of
Animation. I was once called a member of your sect, though I really can not
claim to know anything about your religion. I gather this was a reinactment of
the experience that brought you into that Order."
"Yes," Brother Paul agreed, surprised. "I was partially blind for several days,
because, they said, I had stared into the sun too long. I think it was more
subtle than that; my namesake the Apostle Paul was similarly blind after his
conversion. Perhaps the drug and my general condition complicated it. The Holy
Order of Vision took care of me, and treated me with the memory drug and
kindness, phasing down the dosage of the one and phasing up the dosage of the
other until I was stable again. I never did recover all my memories. But by then
I knew my destiny. I have never regretted that decision."
Lee smiled, grasping the concept. "As the Apostle Paul joined the Christians he
had persecuted -- "
"So I joined the Order I had wronged," Brother Paul agreed. "In the process I
became a Christian in the truest sense. I regret exceedingly that Sister Beth
had to die in order to facilitate my conversion -- "
"I am sure you have filled her place admirably," Lee said. "We can not know the
meaning of God's every act. We only know that there is meaning. Why did God
allow the Apostle Paul to stone Stephen? Had I been there, I would surely have
deemed Stephen a better spokesman for Christianity than a lame epileptic
Pharisee Jew." He smiled. "Which shows how little I would have known. Only God
is omniscient."
"Amen," Brother Paul agreed, discovering new insight. "The Apostle Paul made
Christianity what it is, to a considerable extent. He opened it up to the
gentiles. That seemingly minor though controversial change made all the
difference."
"It did indeed," Lee agreed. "Perhaps you also will benefit your sect and the
world as the Apostle your namesake did."
"A ludicrous dream," Brother Paul said. "Only God knows what an imperfect vessel
I am. How much of my Animation did you share?" Brother Paul found that he liked
this man, and hoped the horrors of his personal Animations had not been shown to
him. Some secrets were best kept secret.
"Just fragments of it, I think. A game called Tarot Accordian -- I do not use cards
for entertainment, but I do not pass judgment." He paused. "Do all these
episodes represent past experiences in your life or are some allegorical?"
"Some are real; some are sheer fantasy," Brother Paul said, embarrassed. If Lee
had seen any of the nightmare visions, he was evidently too discreet to admit
it.
"I inquire," Lee said with a certain diffidence, "because something very strange
happened to me, and I wonder whether you might explain it. I felt -- it was as
though another personality impinged on me. An alien consciousness, not inimical,
not unpleasant, but rather an exceedingly well informed mind from a distant
sphere using my body and perceptions -- "
"Antares!" Brother Paul exclaimed.
Lee looked at him, startled. "How did you know?"
"I -- cannot explain. But I met a creature from Sphere Antares. He said he might
visit me here, or at least I wanted him to -- " Brother Paul spread his hands. "A
foolish expectation; I apologize."
"Foolish, perhaps. Yet it is an experience I seem to have shared. I don't
profess to understand it, but I do not regret it; the alien has a cosmopolitan
view I rather envy." He pointed ahead. "Look -- there are the Watchers."
And there they were: Pastor Runford, Mrs. Ellend, and the Swami. "But where are
the others?" Brother Paul asked. "The ones drawn into the Animations, as you
were? We can't leave them..."
"No, we can't," Lee agreed as they came up to the Watchers. "Watchers, did you
perceive the nature of the Animations we have experienced?"
Pastor Runford shook his head. "We did not."
Brother Paul was relieved. "We have -- seen things too complex to discuss at the
moment. Several people remain. We need to get them out before -- "
Pastor Runford shook his head again, more emphatically. "We can not enter the
Animation area. The young woman you call Amaranth went in to warn you about the
storm, and -- "
"I understand," Brother Paul said. "I'll go back and find them."
"I, too," the Swami said. "We had to retreat during the storm, but for the
moment the effect seems to have abated."
Lee was already on the way. The three spread out, searching the landscape that
had been a metropolis moments ago -- and might be again if the Animation effect
returned. Speed was essential.
They found Therion first. He was sitting beneath a tree, looking tired. "That
was some scene you folks cooked up," he called.
"I did not arrange it," Lee protested. "I merely played roles assigned to me by
the playwright. Some were diabolical -- therefore I assumed they originated with
you." He did not smile.
"I gather you two do not get along well," Brother Paul said.
"Few of us get along well with rival sects," Lee admitted. "That is the problem
of this colony. It is the same all over Planet Tarot; our village is typical.
Everywhere we co-exist with ill-concealed distemper. This man is a devotee of
the nefarious Horned God -- whom I would call Satan."
"A Devil-worshiper!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "That explains a lot!"
"The Horned God was great before any of your contemporary upstarts appeared,"
Therion maintained, walking with them. "You call him Satan -- but that is your
ignorant vanity. He is a God -- and perhaps the true God of Tarot."
"Sacrilege!" Lee cried. "The Prince of Evil!"
"Listen, Mormon -- your own sect is none too savory!" Therion snapped. "A whole
religion based on a plagiarized fairy tale -- "
Lee whirled on him -- but Brother Paul interposed himself. "Doesn't your Covenant
forbid open criticism of each other's faiths?"
"I never subscribed to that Covenant," Therion said. "Anyway, I don't find fault
with all this hypocrite's cult-tenets. Take this business of polygamy -- that's a
pretty lusty notion. A man takes thirty, forty wives, screws them all in
turn -- "that's religion!"
"I have no wives," Lee said stiffly. "Because there aren't enough girl -- Mormons
on this planet, and none free in this village."
"But if there were, you'd have them, wouldn't you?"
"The matter is academic," Lee replied.
"But if it were not -- if you had the chance to wed just as many young, pretty,
sexy, healthy women as was physically possible, how many would you take?"
"One," Lee said. "Plural marriage is an option, not a requirement. A single
woman, were she the right one, would be worth more than a hundred wrong ones. I
will marry the right one."
"You're a hypocrite, all right," Therion said. "I wish I could conjure a hundred
wrong women and show you up for -- "
Further discussion was cut off by their discovery of Amaranth. She was standing
by a streamlet, looking dazed. "Amaranth," Brother Paul said, struck by her
beauty, afresh, though of course he had now had opportunity to appreciate her
charms unhampered by any clothing. (Or had he...?) It had once been said that
clothes make the man, but it seemed more aptly said that clothes make the woman.
"Come on out before the Animation effect returns."
She looked at him with evident perplexity. "I don't know -- don't know my part. Am
I still the fortune teller?"
She was confused! "No," Brother Paul said. "We are back in the mundane world.
You have no role to play."
"She is always playing a role," Therion muttered.
"What's this about roles?" the Swami asked.
Lee answered him. "It was as though we were in a play, each with his script.
Each person could ad-lib, but had to stay within the part. We do not know who
the playwright was."
The Swami seemed intensely interested, despite his former cautions about
Animation. "To whom did the scenes relate?"
"Well, I seemed to be the central character," Brother Paul said. "Perhaps the
others had scenes to which they were central in my absence -- "
"No," Amaranth said. "I played my roles only for you. Between roles I -- seemed not
to exist. Maybe I was sleeping. I thought I had died when I jumped from that
copter -- "
Brother Paul was uneasy. "Perhaps we should not discuss it in the presence of
those who were not involved."
"You must discuss it," the Swami said, his gaze fixed. "You are searching for
the God of Tarot, for the colonists of this planet."
"It seems I got distracted," Brother Paul admitted.
"I agree with Brother Paul," Lee said. "We have experienced a remarkable joint
vision whose implications may never be fully understood, just as the meaning of
a person's dream may never be clear. We should maintain our separate
experiences, like the members of a jury, until we are ready to make a joint
report."
"Yes," Therion said.
The Swami looked from one to the other. "The Devil Worshiper and the Righteous
Saint agree?"
"And so do I," Amaranth said. "No one not in it can understand it."
"An extraordinary unanimity," the Swami commented. "But I may have an insight.
Is it not possible that the power of Kundalini -- "
"Remember the Covenant," Therion reminded him gently. Yes, it was evident that
these people had little patience with each other's philosophies! Therion had
said he did not subscribe to the Covenant and had called Lee a hypocrite. It was
becoming clear who the actual hypocrite was.
"I have not forgotten it!" the Swami said with understandable irritation. "But
this power, however it may be named -- call it the magic of Satan if you prefer -- may
be the controlling force of your visions. Brother Paul has the strongest psychic
presence of your group, so it seems the play orients on him."
"Aura," Lee said. "He has aura."
"This is uncertain," Brother Paul said. "The reality of all we have experienced
in Animation is speculative -- "
"No, I think he's right," Amaranth said. "There is something about you -- "
"We forget the child," Therion said.
"One of the Watchers is a child?" Brother Paul asked.
"There was a child in the Animation, but I assumed she was a creature of
imagination." Those Dozens insults...
"There were to be five Watchers," Lee explained. "Two outside, and three inside
the Animation, representing poles of belief. The child was the third inside."
"I will search for her!" the Swami said, alarmed.
"We all will search, of course," Lee said. "We have wasted time; the Animation
may close in at any moment."
They spread out, striding through the valley. Therion was farthest to the left.
Then Lee, then Brother Paul, then Amaranth, and the Swami on the right. There
was no sign of the child.
Therion and Lee drifted further left as the slope of the land changed; he could
hear them exchanging irate remarks about each other's religious practices,
faintly. The Swami disappeared behind a ridge. This region was more varied than
it had seemed to be before; the mists had tended to regularize the visible
features in the distance. Brother Paul and Amaranth were funneled together by a
narrowing gully. Here the trees were larger; the fire must have missed this
section.
It was dusk, and as the sun slowly lost its contest with the lay of the land the
shadows deepened into darkness. Flashing insects appeared. They were not Earthly
fireflies, but blue-glowing motes expanding suddenly into little white novas,
then fading. In that nova stage they illuminated a cubic meter of space and were
a real, if transient, aid to human navigation.
"What are those?" Brother Paul inquired.
"Nova-bugs. No one knows how they do it. Scientists shipped a few back to Earth,
when they first surveyed this planet, but the lab experts said it was a mistake:
the bugs possessed no means to glow. So -- they don't exist, officially. But we
like them."
"Isn't that just like an expert!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "He can't explain it,
so he denies it." Yet this was true of people generally, not only experts. "Do
you catch them and use them for lamps as the people used to do with fireflies?"
"We tried, but they won't glow when prisoned," she said. "They tend to stay away
from the village, too. This is an unusually fine display; some nights they don't
show at all."
"Smart bugs," Brother Paul said. Obviously if the novas performed when tamed,
there would soon be no wild ones left.
"You know," Amaranth said somewhat diffidently, "I was caught in the -- the play
accidentally. I was only coming to warn you of the approach of the storm when
you didn't answer the intercom. Then -- "
"I understand. You were not an assigned Watcher. I'm sorry you got trapped."
"That's what I wanted to say, now that I've got you alone. I'm not sorry it
happened. I got to show off my own Tarot deck in spite of the Covenant, and my
fortunetelling skills -- "
"I believe you have omitted some material between those two," Brother Paul said
dryly. "I must apologize for -- "
"No, don't apologize! I wasn't fooling when I said there's something about you,
aura or whatever. Was it during the Animation that I said that? Anyway, I meant
it. I have to study you to learn how you tamed the Breaker, but that's become
more of an excuse than -- well, you're quite a guy, in and out of Animation."
"I should hate to think that all those scenes were under my control," Brother
Paul said. "Some were all right -- "
"Like Sister Beth," she agreed. "I am not of your religion, but after that I
wonder whether -- "
"But others -- well, that one in the castle." He was forcing himself to clarify the
worst. "Did I rape you?" As though it were a casual matter!
"You never touched me," she assured him. "More's the pity. You can't rape a
willing woman."
Never touched her... That was worse yet. "Still, if it was my will that dictated
your participation -- "
"I improvised some. It was my role to tempt you, and I tried, I really tried,
but Therion kept getting in the way. I like to dress and undress. I like
men -- well, not men like that stuffed shirt Lee or the fake Swami, but men with
guts and drives and -- "
"Fake Swami?"
"He's not Indian. I mean not Indian Indian. He's American Indian. So all this
talk about Kundalini -- "
"His origin doesn't matter," Brother Paul said, conscious again of his own mixed
ancestry. "If he sincerely believes in his religion -- and I'm sure he does -- "
"He's still a fake," she said.
"He's not a fake! He showed me the force he has -- "
"How did we get on this subject?" she inquired, turning to him. "Let's kiss, and
see where we can go from there."
Brother Paul was taken aback. Freed from the limits of her Animation roles, she
was fully as forward. "Are you always this direct?"
"Well, yes. Haven't you noticed the way I dress? I've got the physical assets,
and I want it known before I get old and saggy and lose my chance in life. But I
don't turn on to many men like this. I'll admit there aren't many eligible men
in this village, maybe not on this planet. Most are like that old bore Siltz,
dull and married and guarding his son's virginity like an angry crocodile."
Suddenly it was clear to Brother Paul what her real irritation with Siltz was:
his withholding of an eligible young male from the matrimonial market. There
were evidently a number of such families here so that young men and women could
not find each other. "The religious factor complicates it so terribly -- but even
so, you're special. There's something about you -- maybe it is the aura the Swami
talks about. The way you handled the Breaker! I mean to seduce you, if it's not
against your religion, and maybe you'll like it well enough to want more. Once I
have you hooked I'll see about landing you permanently. Is trial sex against
your religion? I can be more subtle if it is absolutely necessary."
"Well, the Holy Order of Vision does not specifically prohibit -- it's regarded as
part of our private lives. But there is a certain expectation -- well, as Sister
Beth said -- "
Amaranth sighed. "She was a nice girl. Not like me. Was there really such a
woman in your past?"
"There really was," Brother Paul agreed. "She was not as pretty as you, but the
guilt of her death changed my life. I wish that change had been possible without
such a sacrifice -- but I always come back to the fact that I can not pretend to
comprehend the will of God."
"That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses say when someone chides them about the end
of the world not arriving on schedule. 'Don't second-guess Jehovah!' I think
it's a copout. My religion is I.A.O., and no priestess of Abraxas is afraid of
serpents, literal or figurative, or the opinion of a sexist God. So if you ever
change your mind, I do give samples."
There was something at once horrifying and refreshing about her candor. It
helped to know exactly where one stood. "Maybe Abraxas will turn out to be the
God of Tarot," Brother Paul said. This conversation made him nervous, because
Amaranth was simply too attractive, in Animation and in life. More trying was
that she had seen him in his elemental being, as a lust-laden male, as a
fringe-legal gambler, as a drug addict. She had smelled the shit. She had seen
the mask stripped from what he once had been, now hidden behind the facade of a
gentle religion -- and she did not condemn him. Was there another woman in the
human sphere who, perceiving his psychic nakedness, the filth of his essence,
would not recoil? He had no present intention of indulging her offer -- yet he
obviously had not felt that way in Animation! Which was his true mind?
There was a scream -- an extraordinary, unearthly, nape-prickling effort
reverberating around the landscape. Some wild animal -- or worse.
"Bigfoot!" Amaranth exclaimed. Then, in dawning horror: "The child!"
Both of them broke into a run toward the sound. The terrain was rougher here, as
if to balk them now that they were in more of a hurry. There was a thick
undergrowth on the slope -- tall weeds, small trees, dense bushes, and root-like
projections whose affinities he did not know. Nettles caught at his trousers and
made tiny gouges in his skin. He dodged to avoid a small glowing cloud at knee
height, then discovered it was only the flowering portion of a forest weed. One
foot dropped into a hollow, sending him stumbling headlong -- until he fetched up
against a horizontal branch he had not seen in the dark.
"No -- around this way," Amaranth gasped. "I know this area -- some. I've come here
with the Breaker, when the Animation retreated. I'm healthy -- but I can't run like
you."
Naturally not. Few men could run like him, and no women he knew of. This was a
problem. She knew the land, but could not keep up. He had power to spare, but
was wrecking himself in this unfamiliar dark. They both had to slow down.
There was another scream, worse than the first. "Great God Abraxas!" Amaranth
cried. "Save the child -- "
Brother Paul lurched ahead, electrified by alarm -- and caromed off a dead tree.
Bark tore away in his face, the sawdust momentarily blinding him, making his
eyes smart fiercely. He couldn't accelerate; he'd never get there.
"Go up that gully," Amaranth gasped, creditably close behind. She was a good
runner -- for a woman. "But watch for a rock at the ridge -- "
Brother Paul stepped close to her, reached his left arm about her waist, and
hauled her up on his hip. He plunged on up the slope, carrying her. "There's the
rock!" she said. He saw nothing, but climbed out of the gully. "Now the ridge -- it
drops a yard -- we'll have to jump -- "
He slowed, confused. "Oh -- a meter." He found the ridge, let her down, and they
both jumped into the black shadow. It could have been a bottomless crevasse,
like those on the volcano, as far as his sight was able to tell; without her
assurance he would not have dared risk it. But his feet struck firm ground.
"Short steep slope, then a level place," she said. "Then another hill."
At the foot of the ridge he put his arm about her again, for she was still
panting. "I can go some... but God, you've got power!" she cried. "It's not all
physical... Just take some weight off my legs -- here." She adjusted his arm to fit
higher about her torso, under the arms. When he took her weight, she drew close
to his side, close and very soft. But he had to keep moving.
They crested the next hill -- to confront a vision. On the plateau ahead the
nova-bugs scintillated in their myriads, their brief explosions like an
intermittent galaxy. To the left was a faerie city, with tall turrets and flying
buttresses and minarets glowing inherently: obviously an Animation conjured by
some one. That meant the Animation effect was returning, sweeping in from
whatever source it had, like malaria through the body. Soon it would engulf
them. To the right, the direction of safety from Animation, stood a monster.
The creature was about three meters tall, burly and hairy. It had the claws of a
bear and the gross snout of a boar. Its feet were human, but disproportionately
large.
"Where is the child?" Brother Paul asked.
"Somewhere else," Amaranth said, turning to look. That brought her left breast
under his hand. She was still breathing hard. "Those were Bigfoot's screams, not
hers; I was afraid it was -- "
Now a reaction that had been held in abeyance finally registered. "Bigfoot! You
mean there really is a Bigfoot, not just noise and footprints? A tangible,
visible -- ?" He dropped his arm.
"There," she said. "It hangs out near Animations."
Meanwhile the curtain of Animation was sweeping forward. The faerie city was
beautiful, but horrifying in its implication as it expanded toward them. They
could enter it merely by standing still -- but how would they exit from it?
"I think the child is either safe -- or beyond our help," Brother Paul said. "The
former, I hope. I don't see any blood on Bigfoot's paws. We'd better save
ourselves -- and hope the others are doing likewise. Can you run on the level well
enough?"
"I'd better!"
They started across the plateau. But Bigfoot spied them. With another horrendous
scream it charged to intercept them. In moments it had placed itself in their
path, menacingly. The nova-bugs were concentrated in its vicinity, illuminating
it almost steadily.
"I'll try to distract it," Brother Paul said. "You move on by."
"But it'll kill you! Bigfoot's terrible!"
"If you don't move, the Animation will catch you," Brother Paul snapped,
advancing on the monster. He was not at all sure he could handle it, but he had
to try. The thing was not going to let them pass unchallenged, and there was no
room to escape without getting caught by the Animation.
Amaranth looked after him with dismay. Then she put two fingers into her mouth
and emitted a piercing whistle.
Bigfoot reacted instantly. It charged her. Brother Paul launched himself between
them, catching the side of the monster with his shoulder. It was like ramming a
boulder. Bigfoot swung about, swiping at him with a paw, and Brother Paul was
hurled aside. This thing was agile as well as massive!
As he scrambled to his feet, shaken but unhurt, Brother Paul saw the Animation
curtain extending visibly toward them, seeming to accelerate. The faerie city
was sprouting suburbs, and a broad, tree-lined avenue was unrolling head-on.
Time was disappearing fast. Yet Bigfoot still cut Amaranth off. If only she
hadn't attracted its attention by that foolish whistle!
Now the nova-bugs clustered about a new subject. Apparently they were attracted
to anything that moved. Brother Paul saw with dismay that it was the creature he
had first encountered on this planet: the Breaker. Worse yet!
The Breaker bounded rapidly toward them, its tail propelling it like a fifth
leg. But it had not come to renew the fray with Brother Paul. It launched itself
straight at Bigfoot. But Bigfoot was wary of the Breaker, circling about, never
staying still for the attack. Evidently these two were natural enemies, but the
Breaker seemed to have the advantage.
Then, abruptly, Bigfoot whirled and charged directly into the Animation city, so
near. It ran right up the avenue, as though entering a picture. The Breaker did
not pursue. Every creature of this planet knew better than to enter Animation
voluntarily! Except Bigfoot.
The Breaker now oriented on Brother Paul. Unfinished business? He braced to meet
it. He was not about to follow Bigfoot into Animation! Now that he knew the
Breaker's mode of attack, he should be able to foil it.
But there was no need. Amaranth ran across and set her hand on the Breaker's
back, and the creature was passive. "This is my Breaker," she explained. "I
whistled for him to come help us. I wasn't sure he'd hear, or that he'd come, or
what he might do -- but I couldn't let you face the monster alone."
She had tamed the predator, all right! "Your strength is greater than mine,"
Brother Paul said. Then, seeing the city almost upon them: "Now let's run!"
They ran, the Breaker bounding beside Amaranth. The Animation curtain was moving
more slowly; soon they left it behind. Now, perversely, Brother Paul grew more
curious about what he might have found had he entered that city: an Arabian
Nights' fantasy? And he realized that Amaranth and the Breaker had,
coincidentally (or was there such a thing as coincidence, when Animation was
involved?), just enacted another Tarot card: the one variously termed Strength,
Fortitude, Discipline, or Lust, wherein a fair young lady pacified a powerful
lion. Was there more than casual meaning in these occurrences?
Lee and Therion had made it out. There was no sign of either the Swami or the
child. "Maybe they found another route?" Mrs. Ellend suggested hopefully.
"Pray that it be so," Pastor Runford agreed.
One thing was sure: Brother Paul would never again underrate the potentials of
Animation! This was no laboratory curiosity; it was a ravening force.
The party made its way to the village, and Brother Paul returned to Reverend
Siltz's home. "There will be a meeting tomorrow," Pastor Runford said as they
separated. "There you will make your report. Please do not discuss the matter
with others prior to that occasion."
Brother Paul would have been happy never to discuss it with anyone ever. In
fact, he would have felt considerably more at ease had he never entered
Animation.
Reverend Siltz was at home alone, eating a cold supper. "I hoped you would
return safely, and feared you would not," he said. "You must be hungry."
"Yes. I haven't eaten in two days."
Siltz glanced at him, surprised. "When the occasion is proper, I hope to learn
of your experience. I understand time can be strange, in Animation."
"The rest of the planet can be strange, too. We encountered Bigfoot -- and were
saved by the Breaker. I believe I can tell you about that much, since it
happened outside of Animation, if you are interested."
Siltz was interested. He was fairly affable. "We shall have to extend our
guarding radius. Normally the Breaker will not approach the Animation area, so
it is safe to travel there alone, provided one does not actually enter
Animation. We did not realize we were subjecting the Watchers to this threat."
"The Breaker did not come on his own. Amaranth whistled for him -- and he came to
help her. Your colony's decision to try to tame the Breaker instead of
eliminating him seems to be paying dividends already."
"So it would seem. She has made far more progress than we realized. Perhaps we
shall tame this planet yet!" Siltz turned up the wood-oil lamp and gave Brother
Paul a chunk of wooden bread. "I regret there is no better food since the
communal kitchen is closed at this hour. But this is nutritious."
"You know," Brother Paul observed, his gaze passing from the lamp to the unlit
wood stove, "with woodheat so critical in winter, I'm surprised you do not use
it more efficiently."
Siltz stiffened slightly. "We use it as efficiently as we know. The Tree of Life
is exactly that to us: life. Without it we die. What magnitude of improvement
did you have in mind?"
"About four hundred per cent," Brother Paul said.
Siltz scowled. "I am in a good mood tonight, but I do not appreciate this humor.
We utilize the most efficient stoves available from Earth, and we use the wood,
sparingly. Even so, we fear the winter. Each year some villagers miscalculate,
or are unfortunate, and we discover them frozen when the snow subsides. To
improve on our efficiency five-fold -- this is an impossible dream."
"I'm serious," Brother Paul said. It was good to get into this thoroughly
mundane subject after the horrors of Animation! "Maybe my recent experience
shook loose a memory. You should be able to quintuple your effective heating, or
at least extend your wood as much longer as you need. It is a matter of
philosophy."
"Philosophy! I am a religious man. Brother, but the burning of wood is very much
a material thing, however it may warm the spirit. Such an increase would
transform life on this entire planet. If you are not joking: what philosophy can
make wood produce more calories per liter?"
"Oh, the wood may burn less efficiently. I was speaking of its usefulness to
you, in extending your winter's survival. You are presently wasting most of your
heat."
"Wasting it! No one wastes the wood of the Tree of Life!"
"Let me explain. In the Orient, on Earth, there are regions of extreme climate.
Very hot in summer, savage in winter. The Asiatic people developed racial
characteristics favoring these conditions: fatty tissue buffering face and body,
a smaller nose, yellowed skin, and specially protected eyes. But still the
winter was harsh, especially when over-population denuded the resources of the
land. Wood and other fuel for heating became scarce, so they learned to use it
efficiently. They realized that it was pointless to heat space when it was only
the human body that required it. So -- "
"One must heat the space of the house in order to heat the body," Siltz said.
"We can not simply inject wood calories into our veins!"
"So they designed low, flat stoves, set into the floor, that consumed the fuel
slowly, emitting only a little heat at a time," Brother Paul continued. "The
family members would lie against the surface of that stove all night, absorbing
the heat directly, with very little waste. The room temperature might be below
freezing, but the people were warm. And so they avoided the inevitable heat loss
incurred, by warming a full house, and extended their fuel supply -- "
"I begin to comprehend!" Siltz exclaimed. "Heat the body, not the house! Like
those electric socks, when I was a lad on Earth. By day we exercise here; we do
not need the stove, even in winter. It is at night, when we are still, that we
freeze. But no one would freeze on an operating stove, getting slowly cooked by
it! It would require major reconstruction of our stoves, but it would extend our
most valuable asset and save lives. And in the summer, with less wood to haul,
we could grow more crops, make more things." He looked at Brother Paul, nodding.
"I did not approve your mission here, Brother; but you may have done a
remarkable service for our planet this night."
"Not the one I anticipated," Brother Paul said wryly. "But I'm glad if -- "
There was an abrupt pounding on the door. "Reverend Siltz, I will talk to you!"
a female voice cried.
Siltz's affability vanished. "I am not available!" he called.
"Oh yes you are!" she said, pushing open the door. "I demand to know -- "
She broke off, seeing Brother Paul. She was a slip of a girl with dark hair
flaring out like an old style afro though her skin was utterly fair, and she
fairly radiated indignation. She was not beautiful, but well-structured, and her
emotion made her attractively dynamic.
"My house guest, Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision," Reverend Siltz said
with ironic formality. "Jeanette, of the Church of Scientology."
"The investigator from Planet Earth?"
"Your son's -- ?" Brother Paul spoke at the same time as the girl.
"The same," Reverend Siltz agreed, answering both. "Now, since we may not
discuss religion, and I do not choose to discuss private affairs -- "
"Well, I choose to discuss both!" Jeanette flared. "What did you do with him?"
Siltz did not answer.
"I am not leaving this house until you tell me where you sent Ivan!" she
exclaimed. "I love him -- and he loves me!"
The man remained silent. "This does not seem to be an opportune moment to
discuss your concern," Brother Paul said to the girl. "You see, you place
Reverend Siltz in the position of violating either his hospitality or his
commitment to avoid discussing religion in my presence. I am not supposed to be
influenced by -- "
Jeanette turned on Brother Paul. "Well, maybe someone should speak Church to
you! How do you expect to do anything for this colony if you don't know anything
about it?"
Siltz looked surprised. "She has a point."
"She may, at that," Brother Paul agreed. "But as long as this Covenant of yours
is in force, it behooves us to honor it."
"I will bring up the matter at the meeting tomorrow," Siltz said. "One does not
have to agree with a given mission to prefer that it be done properly rather
than bungled."
"I'm bringing up my matter tonight," Jeanette exclaimed. Exclamation seemed to
be her natural mode of expression. "You sent Ivan somewhere so he wouldn't be
with me. You'll never get away with it! I have every right -- "
"You have no right!" Siltz roared. "He is my son, a dedicated Communist! He will
marry a good, chaste, Communist Church maid."
Jeanette's eyes blazed. Brother Paul was uncertain whether this was an optical
effect of lamplight refraction, or an illusion stemming from her expression, but
it was potent. "Do you claim I am not chaste?"
It was evident that Siltz realized he had gone too far but he carried on gamely.
"Your whole religion is unchaste!" he retorted. "Your O meters, your clouds -- "
"That's E meters and clears!" she cried. "Instruments and classifications to
facilitate the achievement of perfection in life."
"Instruments and means to separate fools from their money!"
"There is no money here on Planet Tarot, and your son is no more fool than you
are, being of your blood!"
This reminded Brother Paul uncomfortably of The Dozens. If he didn't break it
up, the language might degenerate to that stage. The lady was pressing Siltz
hard. "Surely -- "
They ignored him. "Scientology remains a foolish cult," Siltz said hotly. "What
good could come from the inventions of a science fiction writer turned
psychologist and finally Messiah? I believe in the separation of Church and
Fiction."
"You believe in the separation of Church from common sense!" she cried. "Do you
throw away good wood because it may have been harvested by a crew of another
religion?"
Siltz blanched, evidently recalling his recent conversation with Brother Paul.
"No, I would not go that far. I seek a superior Communist way to utilize it,
however."
"If you think Communism is so much better, why doesn't Ivan agree?"
"My son does agree! He's a good Communist!"
"Then why not let him marry me? He might make a convert!"
Siltz burst out laughing. "Never! A female canine like you would surely subvert
him. That is why he must remain with his own -- "
"Where?" she demanded. "Where is there a maid of your faith for him with half as
much to offer as I have?"
Brother Paul made a silent whistle of amazement. This young woman certainly did
not sell herself short!
Siltz contemplated her with distaste. "What has a maid like you to offer besides
transient sex appeal and an unstable personality?"
She blazed again. "Transient! Unstable!" But then she caught herself. "I will
not let you bait me; I will answer your question. My father was one of six
brothers and two sisters. My grandparents are still alive and well on Earth. My
great-grandfather lived to age 92, working until he died in an automobile
accident where he was not at fault. I carry a heredity of strong, long-lived
males and fruitful females. With me you would have grandsons to support you in
your age, to cut wood for your winters -- "
"Enough," Siltz said. "I must admit you have some recommendations. But in what
Church would those grandsons be raised?"
She stared at him, abruptly silent.
"What Church?" Siltz repeated.
With an effort, now, she spoke. "I shall not deceive you. The Church of
Scientology. They must be Clears."
"Perhaps some compromise -- " Brother Paul began.
"No!" she flared. "No compromise! Not in religion!"
"But as you pointed out," Brother Paul said, "common sense -- "
"To Hell with common sense! You don't know anything about it!" She spun about
and marched out.
"I'm sorry," Brother Paul said to Reverend Siltz. "I should have stayed out of
it. I don't understand Planet Tarot attitudes. She's a spitfire."
"No," Siltz said thoughtfully. "She is a good girl, better than I thought. She
has good heredity, and she refuses to compromise her faith. She neither lies nor
crawls, and she is intelligent. Did you observe the way she attacked me without
ever actually insulting me? Never in the heat of argument did she forget her
objective, which is to sell me, not alienate me. That was very clever
management." He paced about the small room, his fingers linked behind his back.
"My son is not strong; he can be swayed. He needs a steadfast woman. If there
were many good, religious Communists to choose among, I would not compromise.
But there are so few! Even the young women of other religions are a poor lot,
like that harlot who tames the Breaker. Religion need not make a man a total
fool. If I could strike a bargain, maybe for the first two grandsons -- "
"You mean the lady is taming the lion after all?" Brother Paul inquired.
Reverend Siltz sighed. "I do not know. She is so small, I thought she was weak.
Her Church is so crazy that, I thought she was crazy too. But strength is not
necessarily of the body, and discipline stems from the soul." He looked up. "I
will bring Ivan home. What follows -- will follow."

II
Nature: 1O
Thus the frontal lobes may be involved with peculiarly human functions in two
different ways. If they control anticipation of the future, they must also be
the sites of concern, the locales of worry... The price we pay for anticipation
of the future is anxiety about it. Foretelling disaster is probably not much
fun; Pollyanna was much happier than Cassandra. But the Cassandric components of
our nature are necessary for survival. The doctrines for regulating the future
that they produced are the origins of ethics, magic, science and legal codes.
The benefit of forseeing catastrophe is the ability to take steps to avoid it,
sacrificing short-term for long-term benefits. A society that is, as the result
of such foresight, materially secure generates the leisure time necessary for
social and technological innovation.
 -- Carl Sagan: The Dragons of Eden, New York: Random House, Inc., 1977.

The meeting was held in the morning at the village center, around and on the
pile of wood. It appeared to be a complete turnout. Of course, time was not
wasted, men and women were working quietly on basket weaving, sewing, carving,
and tool sharpening. One old woman was carefully binding metal blades to the
ends of poles, fashioning spears; frequently she hefted a spear in one hand,
testing its balance. The weapon-maker was certainly a vital member of this
community! Brother Paul wondered idly whether she made tridents on alternate
days.
Reverend Siltz guided Brother Paul to the top of the pile, which was firmer than
it had seemed. The wood had been carefully fitted, reminding him of the meshed
stones of the Egyptian pyramids. Fuel storage this might be, but it was no
casual matter.
"We have no formal organization, no leader," Reverend Siltz explained on the way
up. "We are unable to agree on such things. So we operate by lot and consensus.
You will take charge, and make your report, and render your decision. Then
perhaps we shall have unity."
"But I have no decision!" Brother Paul protested. "I got all mixed up in
Animation -- "
"No decision?" Siltz asked. "I assumed -- "
Lee and Therion and Amaranth were climbing behind them. "It is not Brother
Paul's fault," Lee said. "We Watchers became enmeshed in this Animation,
distorting it -- and another person was drawn in, one not even scheduled to Watch.
Perhaps others, too, that we do not know about. Brother Paul had no chance to
work unfettered."
Brother Paul paused in his ascent, thinking of something else. "The child -- did
she return to the village?"
"No," Therion said gravely.
So she remained in Animation -- or lost in the wilderness. If she still lived.
Bigfoot had entered Animation in the vicinity where she had been lost...
Suddenly it came home to Brother Paul, from a new direction: Animation was no
game.
Reverend Siltz reached the top. A hush fell on the throng. "I was chosen by lot
to host our visitor from Earth, Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision," he
announced. "My opinion of this mission is not relevant. Brother Paul is a good
man, a sincere man, and he has proffered advice on technical aspects of our
colonization that may prove extremely helpful. But certain complications have
occurred. I beg your indulgence while I explain."
The crowd remained quiet, but Brother Paul could tell from the manner several
people glanced up at Siltz that the explanation had to be convincing. If they
thought the Communist had tried to interfere, or tried to influence Brother
Paul's report, there would be trouble.
After a moment, the Reverend continued: "We had not intended to send Brother
Paul into full Animation at once. He was only experimenting in the fringe zone.
Two Watchers remained outside: Mrs. Ellend and Pastor Runford."
"The Christian Science Monitor and the Jehovah's Witness Watcher," Therion
remarked. No one laughed.
"Three more were placed within the Animation zone," Siltz continued. "A Mormon,
a disciple of the Horned God, and a seeker of the Nine Unknown Men. We deemed
this to be a sufficient representation for our purpose, this diversity of
faiths. All were instructed to remain passive and not to attempt any Animations
of their own; they were merely there to observe and to assist Brother Paul
should his inexperience lead him into danger. However, he went further into the
zone than we anticipated, and then a storm manifested. A volunteer, the
priestess of Abraxas, entered the zone to warn Brother Paul of the probable
expansion and intensification of the effect -- but the storm developed rapidly, and
she was herself trapped by the Animation. Thereafter, all the interior Watchers
became involved, and the situation was out of control. Fortunately, the storm
abated in due course and the effect receded -- but one person did not emerge. Since
Animation was returning, the search for her had to be aborted. In addition,
Bigfoot appeared to be driven off, ironically, by the Breaker. Thus the mission
was disastrous, and Brother Paul was unable to complete his quest for the true
God of Tarot."
There was a general sigh. Brother Paul saw the mixed chagrin and relief on these
faces, and was ashamed. These colonists had with evident effort united enough to
facilitate his mission, and he had let them down.
"Swami Kundalini was recovered from the fringe area during the night, but
remains in shock," Reverend Siltz continued. "The child he sought -- must be
presumed lost."
"We should never have assigned a child!" a voice cried.
Reverend Siltz ignored this. "Now I shall ask Brother Paul of Vision to make his
report, to the extent he chooses, buttressed by the reports of the two surviving
Watchers and the inadvertent participant. Then we must decide what to do."
Brother Paul noted how delicately this gruff man phrased himself on this
occasion. Siltz had established a broad option for Brother Paul to speak only on
what points and to what extent he wished, had skirted the question of the fate
of the child, and had shown none of his private opinion of Amaranth. The
Communist Reverend was a fairly skilled public speaker. And politician.
Now Siltz turned to Brother Paul. "We have only two rules for this meeting. We
do not discuss the comparative merits of religions, and the speaker holds the
floor until he yields it to another of his choice. Those who wish to take the
floor after you will indicate this by raising their hands, and you will choose
from among them. I now yield to you." And he made his way down the pile.
Some floor! "I can only tell you in a general way what happened inside the
Animation," Brother Paul said. "And why I think it failed. I would prefer not to
go into detail; it became uncomfortably personal." For a moment he thought he
smelled feces. There were scattered smiles. Many of these people knew what
Animation was like, though probably they had not had as solid a taste of it as
he had. "It seems that Animation, when several people participate, is a kind of
play, whose elements are drawn from the minds of the participants. When there is
one person, it may be a constant feedback of his own hopes and fears,
exaggerating them until he is destroyed. When there are several people, as in
this case, all contribute, and to a certain extent this mitigates the feedback
and prevents unhealthy intensification of a single theme. But the result is an
unpredictable presentation, as the wills of the players overlap. The events of
Animation have their own reality; when one person sees a thing, all others see
it exactly as he does, even though it may have no objective reality -- or the
reality it possesses is rather different from what it is perceived to be." He
paused. "I fear this is unclear. I mean that if one person perceives a burnt
tree trunk as a building, others will perceive it similarly, and they can touch
it or verify it with any other sense. It is a real building, for the duration of
the Animation."
Brother Paul looked about and saw that they did understand. They were not, after
all, newcomers to this concept. "When two people fight in Animation, the blows
are solid, though they may perceive each other as strangers or even as monsters.
And when a man and a woman make love -- " He shrugged. "I did things like these. I
am not proud of my performance. Some of my scenes were completely fantastic;
others were reviews of events in my past life that I had forgotten or
suppressed. I did not intend to -- to do or remember these things. I turned out to
be a weaker rede than I knew." Rede was not quite the word he wanted, but
perfect phrasing did not always come when summoned. "I can only offer in
explanation my theory of Animation precession: that the human mind is an
immensely complex thing of psychic mass and inertia, weighted and freighted by a
lifetime of experience. When pressure is put on it, it does not yield directly
to the force, but shifts in an unexpected direction. I sought to find God;
instead I found -- shame. I do not know, or care to know, what I would have found
if I had sought shame." He smiled, briefly. "Thus, I have no evidence whether
the God of Tarot exists or which God He might be. I am sure my experience does
not refute God, but neither does it confirm Him. I am sorry."
Brother Paul looked about, hoping to find someone seeking the floor. Lee caught
his eye. "I yield the floor to the Watcher, Lee, of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints."
"Thank you, Brother Paul," Lee said. He stepped to the peak of wood, a handsome
young man in the morning sunlight. "What Brother Paul has told you is true. But
I wish to amend it somewhat. There was a play, and we were actors within it. But
the rest of us neither controlled it nor contributed substantially to it. The
play was governed by the will of one person, and we assumed the roles that
person dictated. That person was Brother Paul. I believe that a phenomenon
called aura accounts for this control -- "
"Covenant!" someone called from the crowd.
"I am not speaking religion," Lee said, frowning down at the interrupter. "I am
speaking of a practical psychic force that -- "
"That is the heart of a dozen religions!" another person cried.
"Then I can not speak," Lee said with resignation. He looked about. "Who wants
the floor?"
"I do!" a female cried. It was fiery little Jeanette, the lady suitor to Siltz's
son.
"I yield to you, Scientologist," Lee said gracefully.
"I move we suspend the Covenant," Jeanette cried. "Brother Paul did not get
anywhere because he was not allowed to know anything of our real nature. All he
has seen is the polite play we put on for him, pretending everything is fine -- so
he found a play in Animation instead of God. Let him see us as we are now -- a
feuding rabble of religions!"
There was an outcry of protest, but Jeanette would not be daunted. "I move we
suspend the Covenant!" she repeated. "Do I have a second?"
Now there was silence. "She has the floor until her motion is seconded or
withdrawn," Lee murmured in Brother Paul's ear. "She can really tie up this
meeting, if she doesn't care about what people think of her -- and she doesn't.
She's out to have her way, regardless."
"What's wrong with her motion?" Brother Paul inquired. "I suspect she's right. I
do need to understand this colony better -- as it truly is."
"There would be chaos," Lee said, and behind him Therion and Amaranth murmured
agreement.
"Bless it, I deserve a vote on my motion!" Jeanette cried. "We can't remain
hog-tied for failure. Give me a second!"
"I so second," a man said at last. Heads turned. There was a general gasp of
amazement. The seconder was the Reverend Siltz.
Jeanette stared at him. "Communist, you jest."
"I have very little humor," Siltz responded stiffly.
"Never thought I'd see the day!" Therion remarked. "The old crocodile supporting
his worst rival for the hand of his son."
"I think that the rivalry has been overstated," Brother Paul said. "The Reverend
Siltz is at heart a Humanist; the welfare of man is more important to him than a
particular concept of God. Jeanette would make his son a good wife, and he is
becoming aware of that. She has only to prove herself."
"This is a scatterbrained way to do it," Therion muttered.
Jeanette hesitated; then her face firmed. "I yield to the Reverend Communist for
seconding."
"Now the Second conducts the debate and vote," Lee said. "Siltz is a good
organizer; he'll dispose of it quickly."
"I seconded the motion of the Scientologist because I believe it has merit,"
Siltz said "I have had the opportunity to talk with our visitor from Planet
Earth on non-Covenantal matters, and find him to be a sincere and sensible man.
I am sure he is the same in the realm of religion; we know the reputation of his
Order. Our visitor failed us because we failed him. It is too late to correct
that mistake -- but by similar token there is no longer any harm in letting him
know us honestly. Hearing no objection, I shall conduct the vote without
debate."
"By the Horns of Heaven!" Therion swore. "He's supporting her! But that's all
she'll ever get from him. The vote, not the son."
The villagers, similarly amazed, offered no objection. "Those in favor of the
motion will signify by so saving," Siltz continued.
There was a mild chorus of favor.
"Those opposed."
There was silence. "He is persuasive," Amaranth whispered.
"The motion carries," Siltz said. "We are now free to express ourselves without
restraint. But I caution speakers to be brief and to adhere somewhat to the
subject of Brother Paul's visit, or nothing will be accomplished." He looked
about. "I yield the floor to Pastor Runford."
"Thank you, Reverend," the Jehovah's Witness said. "As many of you know, I
opposed the experiment Brother Paul represents, and Watched it only to be
certain it was honestly attempted, knowing failure was inevitable. Because the
end of the universe is imminent, it is pointless to seek Jehovah by artificial
means. He will make Himself known in his own fashion, very soon. As is said in
the Bible: "He shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many
peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more." Therefore, we should not seek Him in the horrible
apparitions of Animation, but must prepare ourselves to meet Him in our hearts,
our souls. Man has devolved since Adam, each generation being successively more
evil than the last until even the patience of Jehovah Himself is exhausted. All
will be destroyed except those 144,000 who -- "
"So you're opposed!" someone yelled. "Let someone else talk!"
"The genie's really out of the bottle!" Therion said with enthusiasm.
"This is the problem," Lee murmured. "Suspension of the Covenant opened
Pandora's Box. Soon the real will crack open."
Brother Paul shook his head in silent wonder. There seemed to be no religious
tolerance here! To each sect, all other sects were erring cults, and their
adherents nuts.
"I retain the floor," Runford said firmly. "You the majority failed because you
attempted an abomination! You courted Animation, which is like a harlot bearing
gifts, and of her the Scripture has said: 'And I caught sight of a woman sitting
upon a scarlet-colored wild beast that was full of blasphemous names and that
had seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet,
and was adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls and had in her hand a
golden cup that was full of disgusting things and the unclean things of her
fornication. And upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: "Babylon the
Great, the mother of harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth." ' "
"Bravo, witless Witness!" Therion cried. "That is our demoniac Key of Tarot,
titled Lust, misread by others as Strength or Fortitude or even Discipline. You
alone have called it out correctly in all its splendor. Blessed be that harlot!"
"You're an absolute beast," Amaranth exclaimed under her breath,
half-admiringly.
"You are surely damned!" Runford cried at Therion, his whole body shaking with
anger. "You shall be trodden in the wine press outside the city, and blood will
flow as high as the bridles of the horses. Great will be your terror at
Armageddon. Your flesh will rot away while you stand upon your feet; your very
eyes will rot in their sockets, and your tongue in your mouth. Worms will swarm
over your body -- "
"Please, Pastor Runford," Mrs. Ellend said gently. "Truth is the still, small
voice of scientific thought. Heaven represents harmony, and divine Science
interprets the principle of heavenly harmony. In Revelation we are told: 'And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her foot, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.' We must always
seek to ward off Malicious Animal Magnetism, called MAM. The great miracle, to
human sense, is divine Love. The goal can never be reached while we hate our
neighbor of whatever faith -- "
"What's wrong with profane Love, ma'am?" Therion demanded. He was evidently a
born heckler, as perhaps was fitting for a child of Satan. Brother Paul, though
genuinely interested in the views of the others, wished he would shut up. He had
encountered Jehovah's Witnesses on Earth and found them to be honest and
dedicated people, strongly reminiscent of the earliest Christians. He had also
read some of the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian
Scientists, and been impressed with the sensible nature of her remarks. In any
event, Brother Paul did not believe in ridicule as an instrument of religious
opposition; in religious debates, as in other types, facts and informed opinions
were proper ammunition.
"Who has the floor?" a young man inquired amid the babble of reactions.
"You do, Quaker," Runford snapped.
"Then allow me to tell thee how I view the problem," the Quaker said. 'When
George Fox was a young man nineteen years of age in the year 1643, he was upon
business at a fair when he met his cousin who was a professor of religion -- what
we might call today a minister -- in the company of another minister. They asked
George to share a jug of beer with them, and since he was thirsty and liked the
company of those who sought after the Lord, he agreed. When they had drunk a
glass apiece, the two ministers began to drink healths, calling for more and
agreeing between themselves that he who would not drink should pay for the
drinks of all the others. George Fox was grieved that people who made a
profession of religion should act this way, rivaling each other in inebriation
at the expense of the more restrained, though this was perhaps typical of
societies of that time and since. Disturbed, he laid a groat on the table,
saying 'If it be so, I'll leave you.' He was sleepless that night, praying to
God for the answer, and God commanded him to forsake that life and be as a
stranger to all. So he went, steadfast though Satan tempted him, and in time he
founded the Society of Friends, also called Quakers because we were said to
quake before the Lord. But our guiding principle is not quaking, rather it is
the knowledge which in every person is the inner light that enables him to
communicate directly with God, so that he requires no minister or priest or
other intercessory to forward his private faith, and no ritual or other service.
God is with us all, always; we have but to turn our attention inward in
silence."
The young man paused, looking at Brother Paul. "Now I would not presume to
lecture to thee, friend, or to comment on thy private life. I only ask thee to
consider whether Truth is more likely to come out of Animation than out of a
bottle."
Brother Paul, impressed by the Quaker's soft-spoken eloquence, had no ready
answer. Maybe this Animation project had been ill-advised. The Quaker had not
too subtly likened Animation to alcohol, and perhaps to all mind-affecting
drugs; as such it was certainly suspect. If a divine spark of God were in every
person, why should anyone have to search in Animation?
"I would respond to that, Friend," a woman said.
"Speak, Universalist, and welcome," the Quaker said.
"Thank you, Friend. I have an anecdote of the man who was a cornerstone of our
faith, John Murray. Made desolate while a young man not yet thirty by the death
of his lovely wife, and uncertain of her personal faith because of his changing
perception of the nature of God, John sought only the solace of isolation. He
set sail in 1770 for America. The captain of the ship intended to land at New
York City, but contrary winds blew them aground at a little bay on the Jersey
coast. John was put in charge of a sloop onto which they loaded enough of the
cargo to enable the larger ship to float free of the sand bar at high tide, but
before the sloop could follow, the wind shifted, trapping it in the bay. John
Murray was unable to proceed, and there was no food aboard, so he went ashore to
purchase some. Walking through the coastal forest he came upon a good-sized
church, all by itself in dense woods. Amazed, he inquired at the next house and
learned that an illiterate farmer had built the church at his own expense in
thanks to God for his successes. The Baptists had petitioned to use that church,
but the man told them 'If you can prove to me that God Almighty is a Baptist,
you may have it.' He said the same to other denominations, for he wanted all
people to be equally welcome there. Now he only waited for a preacher of like
views to come -- and he said God had told him John Murray was that man. John,
chagrined, declined, protesting that he was no preacher, having neither
credentials nor inclination. He intended only to proceed north to New York to
turn the sloop over to the Captain as soon as the wind was favorable. 'The
wind,' the man informed him, 'will never change, sir, until you have delivered
to us in that meeting house a message from God.' John struggled against this
notion, unwilling to bow to such manifest coincidence, wishing only to buy the
necessary supplies for the sailors of the sloop. The man supplied him
generously, refusing payment, while persisting in his suit. And as the days of
the week passed and Sunday approached, the wind did not change. At last, on
Saturday afternoon, John yielded, but prepared no text for the morrow: if God
really wanted him to preach here, God would provide the words. On Sunday morning
people came from twenty miles away, filling the church, and John Murray stood
before them and preached the message of the Universal Redemption: that every
human being shall find Salvation, and no one will be condemned to eternal
suffering. And with that sermon, that bordered on heresy in that day but moved
his congregation profoundly, John Murray found his destiny. When he finished it,
the wind shifted, and he took the sloop to New York. But he returned
immediately, and that church became his own, his home in the New World, and he
preached that message for the rest of his life. Others persecuted him, seeking
to suppress his view, for they believed that only a select minority would
achieve Salvation -- but he was instrumental in fighting the case of religious
freedom through the courts and safeguarding it -- that very freedom that was to
make America great. The wind had guided him, despite himself, to his destiny -- and
that destiny was significant for mankind."
The Universalist looked at Brother Paul. "Now I would not presume any more than
my esteemed colleague to urge any particular course of action upon you," she
said. "But it would seem that the qualities of Animation are as yet unknown, and
therefore cannot be labeled good or evil. Likewise, the purpose of God may be at
times obscure in detail, so that no person can be assured in advance of the
correct course. Are you certain it is proper to depart this shore without
ascertaining the status of the effect, though you may have personal
reservations? Which way does the wind blow in your life?"
Brother Paul felt suddenly cold. "You mean -- go back into Animation?"
"No!" Pastor Runford cried. "Heed not the blandishments of Satan's council! One
man in shock, a child lost, the mission failed -- as it was Jehovah's will that it
fail! Animation is the curse of evil!"
The lost child. How would she ever find her way out of that jungle of images?
How would he ever live with himself if she did not?
"But we agreed!" someone exclaimed. After a moment's concentration Brother Paul
recognized him as Malcolm of the Nation of Islam, suddenly converted from a
reasonable man to a fiery partisan. "Allah decreed -- "
Anonymous voices clamored, with few distinguishable:
"It is finished!"
"The Bible says -- "
"The hell with the Bible!"
"According to the Koran -- "
"Shove your Koran -- "
The meeting dissolved into a fury of shouts. Brother Paul understood now what
the Covenant had done. These fanatic cultists of all religions were unable to
unify about a single principle unless strict procedural rules were followed, and
even then the peace was troubled. Everything would fall apart unless someone
took charge. Yet whoever did would face extraordinary rancor. It had to be
someone who had nothing to lose here, who was not dependent on the grace of
incompatible religious, who was prepared to plow ahead regardless of the
resentment of others, simply because the wind had brought him to this shore and
the message of the wind needed to be heeded.
Brother Paul got a grip on himself. Then he took a deep breath, braced himself,
and let out an ear-splitting martial-arts Kiaiyell: "SHADDAP!"
There was a startled silence. In that momentary calm, Brother Paul pre-empted
the floor. "There are few things I'd abhor more than returning to Animation," he
said. "But I did come here to do a job, and it is a job that still needs doing.
For your local socio-political situation, and perhaps for mankind. If there is a
single God of Tarot, a Deity of Animation, it is my duty to make every attempt
to locate and define Him."
He paused, mentally taking hold of the problem while noting the scowls of those
who were unalterably opposed to this quest. "I think what is needed is a survey
of religions, made within the context of Animation. Some might be closer to the
True God than others -- assuming there is a God to be found in Animation. So if I
go into Animation with that specific object, keeping my mind open to whatever
may develop without pre-judgment, and am wary of the diversions of precession -- "
He paused again, thinking of something else. "The Watchers -- if they are willing
to come in again, this time for the disciplined, formal quest -- "
Pastor Runford objected. He had recovered control of himself and seemed calm.
"Do you not realize that very few people ever emerge from a second deep
Animation? You are placing your sanity and your life in jeopardy."
"The sanity and life of that lost child are already in jeopardy," Brother Paul
pointed out. "So is the welfare of this entire colony. You need to be united to
survive the -- "
"Family quarrels are the worst kind," Mrs. Ellend said. "We must apply
scientific criteria to the problem."
"That is what I have in mind," Brother Paul said. "I trust I have learned from
my egregious mistakes and will now be able to proceed properly. Perhaps I will
fail again, and I confess the prospect of re-entering Animation fills me with
dread. I do not understand the nature of the effect, or of my own mind, or of
God -- in fact, the nature of Nature is a mystery to me. Yet I must at least try,
hoping that the guiding hand of whatever God there may be will manifest for me,
as it did for George Fox, and for John Murray, and for each and every one of the
people who have found Him in other circumstances."
"You have courage," Pastor Runford said. "I find myself forced to agree with the
Reverend Siltz: though I disapprove your mission, I must approve of your
dedication. I will therefore stand Watch at the fringe, as I did before."
"So will I," Mrs. Ellend said.
"I appreciate your support most deeply," Brother Paul said. He turned to the
people behind him. "And you, who risk so much, Lee and Therion. And you,
Amaranth -- you were accidental, but maybe that too was a product of the wind. If I
could have the support of the three of you in that nightmare -- "
Lee nodded. "I share your misgivings -- and your rationale. It will not be easy,
but it must be done. At least we must search for the child."
Therion and Amaranth nodded agreement. Brother Paul felt the camaraderie of
shared experience as he faced the three, appreciating their acquiescence. This
was, in a special sense, his family; they shared his experience. They alone knew
what the first Animation had been like. "We only have to decide what is right,
even though it may seem unnatural, and do it."
But they all knew that nature would have her way, whatever their definitions
might be. For nature was another name for the God of Tarot.

III
Chance: 11
The Wheel of Fortune card of Tarot appears to be an iconographical
transformation of a more complex and subtle ancient symbol. That is, the
original meaning of the spoked wheel was forgotten, and a new meaning applied.
This sort of error is common in Tarot and has led to great diversity of
interpretations. The original in this case would seem to be some variant of the
Wheel of Becoming, also called the Wheel of Life and Death, as represented in
Buddhist mythology but probably predating Buddhism. The source religion of
Western Asia is unknown, but certain similar themes run through Buddhism,
Brahmanism and Hinduism of India, and Mithraism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism of
Asia Minor, suggesting that there was once a common body of information. The
Wheel of Becoming may also have manifested in Babylon as the horoscope of
astrology.
In the middle of this Wheel of Life are animals symbolizing the three roots of
evil: lust, hatred, and ignorance. Five spokes divide its main area into the
realms of hells, animals, spirits, gods, and men. Around its rim is the circle
of causation, shown by twelve little pictures representing concepts too subtle
to be described simply. Rendered approximately, they are: Ignorance, Formation
of Life, Individual Awareness, Personality, 'Thought' as the sixth sense,
Contact, Sensation, Desire, Sex, Marriage, Birth, and Death. A number of these
concepts and pictures can be equated to those of the Tarot, such as the brutish
man Ignorance to Tarot's Fool, the man for Thought to the Hierophant (teacher),
the lovers' embrace of Contact to Tarot's Lovers, and Death to Death. Most
contemporary Tarot decks have no equivalents to the Wheel's concepts of
Sensation, Desire, Sex, Marriage or Birth -- which suggests that these may have
been lost in the translation of forms. Perhaps in due course they will be
restored, possibly by the addition of new cards to the Tarot deck. Meanwhile,
Tarot's Wheel loosely represents the concept of Chance.

Near a river stood a huge handsome tree whose thick foliage extended irregularly
outward and cast a deep shade. It seemed to be a fig tree.
Brother Paul walked toward it. Could this be the Tree of Life? That would be as
sure a route as any to the God of Tarot. His companions had disappeared, but he
knew they would reappear when summoned for their roles.
Beneath the tree sat a man who might have been in his mid-thirties. It was hard
to tell, because he seemed small and old before his time. He was emaciated. His
hair and beard had been shaved, and he was garbed in rags. He did not avert his
eyes as Brother Paul approached.
"May I join you?" Brother Paul inquired.
The little man made a gesture of accommodation. "Be welcome, traveler. There are
figs here enough to sustain a multitude, and water is in the river."
Brother Paul sat down beside him and crossed his legs. He picked up a fig when
the man did so and chewed its somewhat tough flesh slowly. "You are an ascetic?
I do not mean to intrude on your privacy if you prefer to be alone."
"I tried asceticism until I very nearly wasted away," the man said. "I gained no
worthwhile insights. I decided it was useless to continue starving and torturing
myself. Then I discovered that when I ate and drank, and became stronger, my
thoughts became clearer. I realized that the teaching which says that a man must
starve himself in order to gain wisdom must be wrong. It is the healthy man who
is best able to perceive the world and contemplate religious truth." He glanced
at Brother Paul. "By this token, you must be a very perceptive man, for you are
the healthiest I have encountered. May I inquire your name?"
"I am Brother Paul of -- a distant culture. And you?"
"I am Siddhattha Gotama, once a prince, now a beggar-monk."
Siddhattha Gotama -- the man known to history as the Buhhda, the Awakened One, the
Enlightened. The founder of one of the greatest religions of all time, Buddhism.
He had indeed been a prince and had renounced his crown voluntarily to seek
revelation.
"I -- am honored to meet you," Brother Paul said humbly. Though he regarded himself
as Christian, he had deep respect for Buddhism. "I too am a seeker of truth. I
have not yet found it."
"I have looked for seven years for enlightenment," Siddhattha said. "Often I
have been sorely tempted to desist from begging and return to my wife and son.
Always I remind myself that I could never be happy again in the palace, so long
as I knew others existed in hardship and misery. Yet I seem to draw no closer to
any insight how to enable others to be happy."
This, then, was before the Buddha had attained his revelation. "Have you
inquired of teachers, of wise men?"
Siddhattha smiled ruefully. "I visited the great teacher Alara. 'Teach me the
wisdom of the world!' I begged him. He said to me 'Study the Vedas, the Holy
Scriptures. There is all wisdom.' But I had already studied the Vedas and found
no enlightenment. So I wandered on until I encountered another great teacher,
Udaka, and I asked him. He told me 'Study the Vedas!' Yet I knew that in them
was no explanation why the Brahman makes people suffer illness and age and
death. I am also doubtful that one can attain wisdom by hurting himself or
sitting on sharp nails."
"In my culture," Brother Paul agreed, we are told much the same. 'Read the
Bible.' Yet human warfare and misery continue, even among those who profess to
hold the Bible most dear. I suspect we shall not find the ultimate truths in any
book. Yet life is often a difficult tutor."
"That is true," Siddhattha agreed reminiscently. "When I was a prince, I went
out hunting. I saw a man, all skin and bones, writhing in pain on the ground.
'Why?' I asked. 'All people are liable to illness,' I was informed. But in my
sheltered life I had not been exposed to this, and it made me very sad. Next day
I met a man so old his back was curved like a drawn bow, and his head was
nodding, and his hands trembled like palm leaves in the wind so that even with
the aid of two canes he could hardly walk. 'Why?' I asked. 'He is old; all
people grow old,' I was told. Again I was saddened, for I had known only youth.
Next day I saw a funeral procession, with the widow and orphans following behind
the corpse. 'Why?' 'Death comes to all alike.' This horrified me, for I had
never contemplated the reality of death in man. I knew so little of life and of
people; I had spent my life in foolish pleasures. Why was I so well off, while
others suffered? I understood now that I was the exception and that the great
majority of people in the world were ill and poor. This did not seem right. Yet
even as I contemplated this, my lovely wife was giving a party with many pretty
girls singing and dancing, and that music only heightened my confusion. When my
family observed this, it was assumed that the entertainment was not sufficient,
and so the girls were made to perform with such vigor and endurance that they
dropped from exhaustion. How their loveliness had changed! Next day I went to
the market place, and there among the merchants I saw an old monk dressed in
coarse yellow robes, begging for food. Though he was old and sick and poor, he
seemed calm and happy. Then I decided to be like him."
"I think you found much enlightenment at that moment," Brother Paul said. "Maybe
the ultimate truth can be found only in one's own heart." That was the Quaker
belief, he recalled.
Siddhattha turned to him. "That is a most intriguing thought! I wonder what I
might find, if I simply sit here under this Bo Tree until I have plumbed in my
own soul this truth."
The Bo Tree! Now Brother Paul remembered: it was called the Tree of Wisdom, for
it was where the Buddha had spent his Sacred Night and attained his crucial
Enlightenment. "I had better leave you alone, then."
"Oh, no, friend! Stay here with me and search out your own truth," Siddhattha
encouraged him.
Well, why not? This might be the most direct route to his answer. The God that
Buddha found -- that had to be a major contender for the office of God of Tarot.
Dusk was rising. The sun descended. But they were not allowed to meditate in
peace. A group of people approached the Tree, and it was obvious that they
intended mischief. Three were young and quite pretty women; the rest were motley
ruffians of assorted appearance.
Brother Paul jumped to his feet, about to warn off the intruders, but Siddhattha
stopped him. "These are the cohorts of Mara, the Evil One, who seeks to dissuade
us from our pursuit. For seven years he has followed me. But he cannot harm us
physically so long as we remain under this Tree. Do not try to fight him; that
is what he wants. It is futile to oppose evil with evil."
Could this be true? Brother Paul backed off, yielding to the Buddha's judgment.
Mara the Evil One -- the Buddhist Devil. This was to be no ordinary encounter!
Sure enough, the crowd stopped just beyond the spread of the Tree. But now there
came an elephant, overwhelmingly tall, its measured tread shaking the earth, and
riding it was a large, somewhat paunchy man bearing a sneer of pure malice.
This, surely, was the Evil One.
"Come out, cowards!" Mara bawled.
Siddhattha remained seated. "The Evil One has eight armies," he explained to
Brother Paul. "They are called Discontent, Hunger, Desire, Sloth, Cowardice,
Doubt, and Hypocrisy. Few can conquer such minions; but whoever is victorious
obtains joy."
Brother Paul wrinkled his brow. "I believe that's only seven armies. Not that
those aren't sufficient!"
Siddhattha's brow wrinkled in turn. "I always forget one or two. Evils are not
my specialty." Surely the understatement of the millennium!
Now the three women came forward. They were seductively garbed and moved their
torsos in a manner calculated to enhance their sexual appeal. "Come meet my
daughters," Mara cried. "They are experts in the pleasing of men." And, acting
as one, the three beckoned enticingly.
Brother Paul felt the allure. Somehow the Animation had produced a triple image
of Amaranth, and she was good at this type of role.
"Now I remember Mara's other army!" Siddhattha exclaimed happily. "Lust!" But he
seemed to be pleased only by the intellectual aspect; these lush bodies did not
tempt him.
The women turned about and left with a final triple flirt of the hips. It was
obvious they had failed. Siddhattha would not be corrupted by sex. And why
should he be? He had a wife and son at home, along with a crown, and probably a
full harem, if he ever felt the need.
Now armed men came forward, dressed in animal skins, gesticulating wildly,
screaming. They resembled demons. The sun was now down, but the moonlight
illuminated them with preternatural clarity. Siddhattha was not alarmed. "Mara
personifies the triple thirst for existence, pleasure, and power. The
satisfaction of selfishness is Hell, and those who pursue selfishness are
demons." And the demon-men could not touch him.
"A most apt summary," Brother Paul agreed. He liked this man and found nothing
objectionable in his philosophy. But how was he to be certain whether the
Buddhist God was or was not the God of Tarot?
"You and I can sit here and reflect on the Ten Perfections," Siddhattha said.
The demon soldiers retreated. Mara was furious. "I tried to be gentle with you,
" he cried, "but you would not have it. Now taste the wrath of my magic."
No more Mr. Nice Guy, Brother Paul thought, almost smiling.
Mara raised one hand. Immediately a whirlwind blew, forming an ominous black
funnel that swept in to encompass the entire Bo Tree. But in the center was the
calm, and not a leaf stirred. Brother Paul looked out at the whirling wall of
dust in amazement and with not a little apprehension, but Siddhattha ignored it.
"It is only air," he murmured to Brother Paul.
The whirlwind vanished. "Well, try water, then!" Mara screamed. A terrible storm
formed, and rain pelted down, causing instant flooding all about the area. But
not a drop penetrated the foliage of the Bo Tree, and Siddhattha sat serene and
dry. Instead, Mara's elephant trumpeted and splashed its feet in the water like
a skittish woman, upset.
"Earth!" Mara cried. And the storm converted to a barrage of rocks, sand, and
mud. Yet again these things had no effect on the seated man, who had not changed
his position since Brother Paul appeared in the scene. The few stones that
penetrated the Bo Tree fell to the ground like harmless flowers. Those that
struck the elephant, in contrast, made havoc; the poor creature danced
cumbersomely about, trying to protect itself.
Mara was livid. "Fire!" he cried. And live coals came down, setting fire to the
grass and brush outside the Bo Tree and hissing into the river. Siddhattha was
not afraid, and so he was inviolate.
"You have conquered the attack of the four elements," Brother Paul said. "You
have beaten the Evil One."
"No, the battle has just begun. Now he will lay siege to my spirit."
Mara gestured, and the bright moonlight went out, making the world black. But a
glow arose from the Bo Tree, restoring visibility there. From the darkness
beyond, Mara bawled: "Siddhattha, arise from that seat! It is not yours, but
mine!"
The seated man only shook his head in mild negation.
"I am the Prince of the World!" Mara said. "I hold the Wheel of Life and Death!"
Light returned, revealing him standing just beyond the Tree, clutching a huge
wheel with five spokes so that only his head, feet and hands showed around its
rim. His body, oddly, did not show behind it at all; the center was filled with
moving images.
"The Wheel of Becoming," Siddhattha agreed. "The hand of death is on every one
who is born. Yet I shall not die, O Evil One, until my mission in life has been
accomplished."
"And what is that mission, O Ignorant One?" Mara demanded with a sneer.
"To spread the Truth," Siddhattha replied simply.
"What Truth?"
Siddhattha, who had been doing so well before, was unable to answer. Brother
Paul saw this as another variation of the Dozens, with the Buddha turning away
insults by soft replies. But now he was in trouble.
Mara advanced, bearing his Wheel forward. It was an impressive and sinister
thing, its various aspects turning in opposite directions, confusing the eye.
"If you cannot answer, O Shriveled Ascetic, the victory is mine!" The
role-player was Therion, of course, and he was enjoying this.
Siddhattha looked at Brother Paul beside him. "Friend, I fear I have lost the
battle, for the Truth has not yet come to me, and Mara must have his answer."
There were tears in the man's eyes.
"But the Evil One will bring only evil upon the world!" Brother Paul said, as
though that could help. "He controls the Wheel of Becoming, and he is the Prince
of the World. Only your good can stop him!" He put his hand on Siddhattha's
frail shoulder.
With that contact, something happened. "I feel -- the spirit of God," Siddhattha
said wonderingly. "Are you a messenger from -- ?"
"No, no!" Brother Paul said hastily. It had been the contact of auras the man
had felt. "I am only another Seeker."
Still the thing grew. What had been quiescent in Siddhattha all his life was now
awakening. He was becoming conscious of his aura -- and it was an extremely
powerful one. "The spirit of God -- is in me," he said, certainty coalescing. "And
now -- I have found the key to Wisdom, the First Law of Life! It was within me all
the time, awaiting this moment."
Siddhattha stood. He was not tall, but his new enhancement gave him stature.
"Listen, Mara, and damned: FROM GOOD MUST COME GOOD, AND FROM EVIL MUST COME
EVIL."
Brother Paul was troubled by this statement. From what he remembered of symbolic
logic, a false hypothesis that led to a true conclusion was regarded as valid.
That suggested that it was possible for Good to come from Evil. Obviously this
man did not subscribe to that notion.
Mara gave a cry of pure anguish. He staggered back, seeking his elephant -- but
when he touched it, the beast collapsed. All his minions scrambled away from the
Bo Tree in a rout.
Brother Paul stood watching, amazed. And realized that Siddhattha was now the
Buddha, the Awakened One. And that, symbolic logic or not, the God of this
man -- could indeed be the God of Tarot.
But to be sure, he would have to survey the other great religions of the world
and eliminate them from consideration. Maybe the Eightfold Path was the correct
one, but that could not be certain yet.
"My business here is done," he said to the Buddha. "I hope we shall meet again."
The Bo Tree faded out.

Brother Paul stood in a landscape whose sky contained three suns: a full-sized
one and two little ones. The vegetation, however, was Earthlike to a degree:
what looked like arctic fir was adjacent to tropic palm. The air was breathable
though slightly intoxicating. Gravity was less than he was used to, but the
terrain was so rough that he was sure the amount of energy he would have to
expend to travel anywhere would counterbalance this.
In fact, he stood on a slanting ledge above a bubbling lava flow. A waft of
fumes came up, and he hastily stepped back. His foot slipped in snow, and he
half-fell into the ice of a stalled avalanche. A meter back from the boiling
rock the freeze of winter was encroaching. No wonder the plants were narrowly
confined! The spread from hard frost to perpetual warmth was within one to two
meters.
But what had this to do with religion? He had intended to check one of the most
modern and vigorous of the world's great faiths: Voodoo. It had originated in
Black Africa and spread to the Americas with slavery. Christianity had been
imposed on the nonwhite population, so these people had compromised by merging
their native Gods with the Catholic Saints, creating a dual purpose pantheon
that permitted them to satisfy the missionaries while remaining true to their
real beliefs. The truth, were it ever admitted, was that there were more voodoo
worshipers in Latin America during the 20th Century than legitimate Christians,
and the depth of their religious conviction and practice was greater. Brother
Paul had flirted with the Caribbean Santeria, or regional Voodoo cult, while on
a quest for his black ancestry, and found it both appalling and appealing. The
chicken-disemboweling rituals, roach-eating, and mythology of incest revolted
his white middle-class taste, but the sincerity of the serious practitioners and
the religion's obvious power over the masses satisfied his youthful need to
belong. Later, as a Brother of the Holy Order of Vision, he had dealt on a
professional level with Santeros, or Witch-Doctors, and found them generally to
be as concerned and knowledgeable about the needs of believers as were Catholic
priests, medical doctors, or psychiatrists. Folk medicine thrived on in Voodoo.
The Holy Order of Vision did not hesitate to refer a troubled person to a
reputable witch-doctor when the occasion warranted it. These were true
faith-healers of modern times.
But this was an alien world! How had Animation produced this instead of the
Voodoo Temple he had sought? Was it Precession again? His idea had been to
bracket the religions of the world, to survey the extremes, and then work into
the center, eliminating as much as possible. Fairly, of course. But if
Precession had struck, there was no telling what he was into.
"Oh." It was a young woman, dressed in a strange half-uniform. One side was a
well-padded shieldlike affair, covering her body from head to heel. The other
side was -- nothing. She was, in fact, half-nude.
"I seem to have lost my way," Brother Paul said.
"But where is your sub-fission?" she asked.
"I -- fear I do not understand," he said, shifting about to ease the chill of his
left side, too close to the snow. Suddenly he understood the rationale of her
costume: her right side was insulated against the winter side of this ledge,
while her left was comfortable in the summer side. Presumably, when she traveled
in the other direction, she reversed sides. Apparently in this world the air was
resistive to the convections of radical temperature change, so that extremes of
climate could coexist without turbulence. Still, when storms did develop, they
were probably ferocious.
"Where is your sister, your wife?" she asked.
"I have neither sister nor wife."
"I mean your sibling mate, in the eye of Xe Ni Qolz," she explained. "How is it
you venture out in half?"
This was not becoming any more intelligible! "I have just arrived from -- from
another planet. I am an only child, unmarried."
Her pretty brow furrowed. "I hadn't realized another ship had arrived. You had
better hide before you get us all in trouble."
"I don't even know where I am or what is wrong!"
She considered him speculatively. "Look, this is somewhat sudden, but maybe a
break for us both. I just had a fight with my brothub, so I snuck out alone, but
I'm afraid a Nath will spot me. How about filling in with you?"
Brother Paul could not make sense of this. "Brothub? Nath? What do these terms
mean?"
She stepped forward and took his arm. "No time to explain," she said. "Look,
there's one now!"
He followed her gaze. There, sliding along the edge of the snowbank was
something like a shag rug -- but it was flowing uphill. "That -- can it be alive?" he
whispered, amazed.
"Just fake it," she whispered back. "Let me do the talking."
He seemed to have no alternative.
The rug slid up to them and paused two meters away. Brother Paul saw that it
moved by shooting out myriad tiny burrs on threads, then hauled itself forward
by winching them in. Truly alien locomotion! "Pull-hook, Sol," the thing said.
It spoke strangely in a kind of staccato. Brother Paul conjectured that it was
tapping the ground with hundreds of miniature hammers in such a manner as to
create a human-sounding pattern of sonics.
"The same to you, Nath," the girl replied.
"What entity-pair are you?" Nath inquired.
"I -- we -- " She faltered, not knowing Brother Paul's name.
"I am Brother Paul," he filled in. "Of the Holy -- "
"And I am Sister Ruby," she interjected. Then she turned to Brother Paul and
flung herself into his arms, pressing one winterized and one summerized breast
against his torso and planting a passionate kiss on his lips.
"It is good to perceive such sibling love," Nath said. "May the Wheel turn well
for your regeneration." Then the creature heaved itself smoothly up over the
snow and on around them.
"Xe Ba Va Ra enhance you, Nath," Ruby called after it.
"All right, now," Brother Paul said. He had identified her, of course: Amaranth
in a new part. As sexy as ever. But now he wondered who had played the part of
Buddha in the prior scene. The man had been too small to be either Lee or
Amaranth. "Will you explain what -- "
"Yes, yes, everything," she said. "Come with me to the Temple of Tarot, and I'll
explain on the way." She walked down the ledge-path, weaving smoothly around the
foliage, and he had to follow. He couldn't remain here; it was impossible to be
comfortable in this arctic tropic.
"First," he said as he caught up, momentarily distracted by the way his expelled
breath fogged on the frigid side and by her bare buttock flexing on the hot
side, "What world is this?"
"We're a human colony in the Hyades cluster," she said. "We were founded three
hundred years ago by mattermission, but then it turned out we were actually
inside Sphere Nath, so we were subject to their government. Since our supply
line had broken down and the Naths were well established, this really was
better. All we had to do was obey their laws and honor their customs, and they
treated us just as well as Sol would have. Better, maybe. That's part of the
Intersphere Covenant, you see. I don't think Sol ever established diplomatic
relations with Nath, but at the fringes of the Spheres it is Galactic custom to
work these things out -- "
"Wait, wait!" Brother Paul cried. "You mean to say human beings are being
governed by alien creatures that look like -- that rug?"
"Yes, of course. The Naths are really rather nice. We had some trouble at first,
but once the Wheel of Tarot was established everything was fine. Now we worship
our Saints, and they don't know the difference."
"The Wheel of Tarot," he repeated. "Would that be related to the Wheel of Life
and Death, or the Wheel of Becoming?"
"Yes, it is also called that. It -- "
"With five spokes? Each section representing -- "
"Yes, the Naths call these sections Energy, Gas, Liquid, Solid, and Plasma. You
know, the five states of matter, each one phasing into the other, completing the
circle. Each with its representative Deity, that we call -- "
"You worship alien Gods?" he asked, dismayed.
She paused momentarily in the path. "Look, Brother -- if we didn't honor their
religion, their missionaries would be push-hooked, and then their government
might decide not to expend good resources maintaining an alien squatter-colony.
We need Nath equipment and material and knowhow and communications, and if we
don't get them we'll -- well, can you imagine scrounging a living from this
terrain, alone?" She gestured up and down the slope, taking in the lava and ice.
"So we follow their religion. They don't demand that of us, but we really have
to."
As the Blacks and Reds of Latin America had to follow Christianity, overtly. Now
it was coming clear. "So you merged your Saints with their Spirits, so that they
would believe you were honoring their religion?"
"That's correct. It was easy, in four sections of the Wheel. Their God of Gas,
Xe Kwi Stofr, is our Saint Christopher, and -- "
"I don't quite see the connection. Gas would equate to the element of Air, which
is the Tarot suit of Swords, generally associated with intellect or science or
trouble, while St. Christopher -- "
The path debouched into a small valley sheltered under an overhanging cliff.
Here there was a building in the shape of a roofed wheel, complete with five
sections. Massive dikes diverted the lava flow, causing it to pass on either
side of the Wheel, burning back the ice. A fringe of trees of diverse species
surrounded the island Wheel. Evidently this was a permanent lava flow -- truly
alien to Earthly experience and enough to interrupt anyone's chain of thought. A
narrow bridge, fashioned of wedges of stone, passed over one of the lava streams
to the island. The whole thing would have been difficult for human beings to
assemble without the machines of an advanced technology -- and the colonists
obviously lacked those. So it had to be the beneficial handiwork of the alien
civilization: the Naths.
Actually, it made sense that there be more sapient aliens in space than just the
protoplasmic entities of Antares. He had no reason to be surprised. Man would
inevitably encounter these aliens, and it was best that mechanisms for peaceful
interaction exist.
"Let me tell you about St. Christopher," Ruby said. "He was a huge man who chose
to work for the most powerful king on Earth. When he saw that the strongest king
feared the Devil, Christopher went to work for the Devil. But then the Devil
flinched at the Cross, so Christopher sought the one who was associated -- "
"Yes, of course," Brother Paul said. "That was Jesus -- "
"Don't say that name!" she cried, cutting him off. "The Naths know our
origin-religion, and if they thought we were backsliding -- "
Brother Paul nodded. "So the Sword of Tarot becomes the Cross that St.
Christopher sought. And the Wand suit becomes -- "
"Saint Barbara, locked in the tower because she would not marry a rich pagan,"
she said. "The bolt of lightning that avenged her martyrdom becomes the symbol
of energy of the Nath Nature Spirit Xe Ba Va Ra. And the suit of Coins stands
for Nath's Solid, the Spirit of Trade, Xe Jun Olm Nar, whom we call Saint John
the Almoner, so generous in his alms. Their Spirit of Art, Xe Gul Yia Na, is our
Saint Juliana, who tied up the Devil. The only real problem is -- "
"You seem to have it worked out pretty well," he said. "I'm surprised that the
mere exchange of names persuades the Naths you are converts to their religion."
Yet that same device had been effective for the Voodoo adherents in Christian
countries. When a man kneeled before a statue of St. Barbara, spoke her name
reverently, and left an offering, who could say for sure whether it was the
Catholic Saint he prayed to in his heart or Xango, the Voodoo God of lightning?
Who could say which entity answered that prayer? Did it really matter?
"The Naths do not separate religion and morality," she said. "They believe that
if we profess belief in their spirits, we must necessarily follow their cultural
code. So they do not inquire too closely, so long as we do not violate it in any
obvious manner. Still -- "
"The Naths seem like good creatures," he said. Now they were crossing the
bridge. He flinched away from the hot fumes rising from it. "I hardly begrudge
you your original religion, for it is my own, though perhaps I indulge in an
earlier variant of Chris -- of that faith."
"Three hundred years earlier," she said.
"Oh? How would you know that?" He had expected some kind of objection from the
role-player, who was not a Christian. She must be seething!
"That's how long it takes a freezer-ship to reach here from Sol at half-light
speed or less. So you are a man of twenty or twenty first century Earth, thawed
out after a sleep that seemed to you just a moment."
Freezer-ship? Suspended animation for three centuries? Well, it was a natural
conclusion for a native girl. But how would Amaranth have known of such things,
assuming they were valid details of future history? There were nuances to these
Animations that seemed to defy rational explanation.
"At any rate," he continued as she showed him into a section marked with a
picture of jolly Santa Claus in his fat red suit and spreading white beard, "I
don't really see that such subterfuge is necessary here. Why not simply inform
the Naths that you worship similar Gods to theirs, though they go by different
names? I'm sure the aliens would understand."
"They would," she agreed. "They do. In four aspects of the Wheel. But in the
fifth -- "
"That would be the suit of -- " He broke off, startled. "Wait! We already have four
suits! A five-sectioned wheel can not be matched to -- "
"We are now in the Re-Fissioning aspect of the Wheel, the problematical one,"
she said, stripping away her one-sided snow suit. Now she was naked, and though
no more of her showed than would have appeared in a mirror reflection of her
nude half, she seemed much barer than before. "Governed by the state of Liquid,
or the Spirit of Faith, the key to this whole compromise. Xe Ni Qolz, whom we
call -- "
"Saint Nicholas!" he exclaimed, making the connection to the artwork of this
chamber. "Old Santa Claus!"
"Yes, the Saint for the Children. Father Christmas." She took his hand and led
him to a broad couch. It was amazing how an inconsequential act of disrobing
assumed quite consequential implications. Before, he had oriented on her clothed
half; now -- "The Naths do not spy on us, precisely, but the walls are translucent
to their perception. They don't use sound, exactly; it's more like infrasonics.
So the Nath governor is aware of everything that goes on here."
"Well, we have nothing to hide," he said uncomfortably. Certainly she was hiding
nothing, physically. She was very free with her body, as he remembered from a
prior Animation -- except that he could not be sure it was her body that he -- "
He stifled that thought. At any rate, he had every intention of leaving her
alone this time. All he wanted was information.
"We have one thing to hide," she said. "The one thing we could not do to
accommodate Nath, as colonists." She began to remove his clothing.
"Hey, stop!" he protested.
She leaned over and kissed him. "Don't make a commotion. Just relax and enjoy
it. Remember, we told the Nath we were siblings. They have very good
communications. They will be instantly aware if we do not act the part."
"I am a Brother of the Holy Order of Vision," he said, determined not to let his
survey of religions go the same way as his first Animation sequence. She might
be determined to give one of her samples; he was determined not to take it.
"That's a kind of title, indicating my status. It hardly means I am your
biologic brother -- and in any event, this is no sisterly approach you are making
to me."
"Shut up and listen," she said, continuing to work on his clothing despite his
resistance. "The Naths expect us to maintain proper sexual morality; that is how
they know we are true converts. To violate their standards -- " She spread her
hands appealingly. "We just couldn't survive as a colony without Nath support.
You've seen what this planet is like -- and this is just the habitable portion! I
think the close proximity of so many neighboring stars evokes crustal unrest,
causing continuous volcanic action -- not that I object to volcanoes, but -- "
"All right," he said. He knew she liked volcanoes in symbol and reality, just as
she liked serpents. "You need Nath support; I believe that. But I think it is
fine that the Naths insist on sexual morality. So do I! But you -- "
"The Naths do not reproduce quite the way we do," she said. "Each Nath is
bipart; it has a male section and a female section. The one we talked to was
actually a married couple."
"I see. When Naths tie the knot, they really do tie it! But surely they can
appreciate that human beings, uh, merge that closely only for procreative
purpose. They can't expect us to go about tied together physically -- "
"They understand. But they do expect married couples to stay reasonably close
together and to merge often. So we display much more continuous affection than
you may have been accustomed to back on Earth. We don't really mind. It does
seem to make for more successful unions."
"For married couples, that's fine. But you and I are, if we accept your
description to the Nath, brother and sister. So -- "
"Oh be quiet," she said. "I had to tell the Nath that because single people just
don't go about. Half an entity can't make it on its own, by the Nath rationale.
The whole colony would have been in trouble, not just you and me. You can't
believe how sensitive they are about this one thing. It is their religion, damn
it! I was a fool to go out there alone, and you should have stayed aboard your
ship until you got a proper briefing and escort."
"Sorry," he murmured apologetically. "If you'll just stop undressing me, I'll
listen better."
"Well, maybe we can fake it for a while," she agreed reluctantly. She pushed him
down on the couch and stretched out beside him in a most provocative manner.
"When the Naths want to reproduce, they fission. They split apart into their
male and female halves. That's one of the two times in their lives they aren't
locked together. Then each half regenerates -- do Earthworms still do that?"
"They do," Brother Paul assured her.
"Except that a male Nath -- half can't regenerate the opposite sex, or vice versa.
So male regenerates male tissue, and female regenerates female tissue -- am I
embarrassing you?"
"You are talking about alien reproduction," he reminded her. "Why should I be
embarrassed?" He was embarrassed, but by her body and actions, not her
discussion.
"That's right, you're fresh from Earth. The local pornography doesn't bother
you, yet. Anyway, a unisex composite is inherently unstable."
"I should think so," Brother Paul agreed. "It would be like homosexuality,
lesbianism -- "
"Except it is a necessary part of their reproduction," she said. "The unisex
sets quickly re-fission. Then there are four sub-Naths, and two females.
Actually, male-original and male-regenerate, and the same for the females. Then
they recombine, forming -- "
"I see," Brother Paul said. "But that's really like a human family. The
parent-couple produces two children, a boy and a girl. Nath mechanism differs in
detail, but -- "
"That detail is a hell of a difference," she said. "Some of the fragments have
to go out and merge with other family fragments, to keep the genetic pool
circulating -- "
"Yes, of course. That's why human beings are exogamous, marrying outside their
immediate family. Otherwise the species would quickly splinter into dissimilar
species. There has to be interbreeding among the members of -- "
"But it is not the children, the regenerates, that are exogamous," Ruby said.
"They are too new to handle it properly. So it is the old individuals who split
up, and re-merge elsewhere. They -- "
"They have to divorce after procreating?" Brother Paul asked, startled. "That's
not my idea of a stable marriage! Who takes care of the children?"
"The children take care of themselves with general help from the larger Nath
community. They merge into a Nath couple, and -- "
Brother Paul was shocked. "But that's incest!"
"Now you begin to understand the problem," she said. "By their standards and
their religion, it is immoral for siblings not to mate with each other and for
parents not to separate and remarry other divorcees. So if we want Nath support
for our human enclave -- "
"We have to commit incest and break up families," Brother Paul finished. "At
last I get your drift. As a colony, you are torn between your economic needs for
survival, and your human sexual morality, with a dual-aspect religion papering
over the dichotomy. Yet if you explained this basic difference to the Naths -- "
"Our ancestors tried," she said. "The Nath missionaries explained their position
to us. They said we had been living, as a species, in intolerable sin, and they
could not support it. It was their duty to lead us into the light despite
ourselves. Naths are very accommodating creatures, but on this point they are
inflexible."
"Just like missionaries," Brother Paul said with a sigh. "But how do you get
around it?"
"The Nath biologists probably know, but the missionaries don't know or profess
not to know, that human couples do not generally produce twins, and more seldom
are there male-female twins. So when we have babies we meet here in the
Children's aspect of the wheel and surreptitiously exchange them, making up
exogamous pairs that we then raise as siblings. All humans look more or less
alike to Naths, so they don't catch on. They can track a particular family if
they choose, as they may have done with us two, but when there is a crowd of us
they don't bother. Thus our children grow up and reproduce without damage to the
human genetic pool. Then, with Nath blessing, they divorce and seek partners of
their choice."
Brother Paul shook his head. "I appreciate the necessity, but I am appalled at
the means!"
"Now we'd better mate," she said. "They will get suspicious if we stall any
longer or if we leave without doing it. If they decide to make a general
investigation, they could discover the truth, and that would wipe us all out.
The colony cannot afford even the suggestion of suspicion!"
"But casual sex -- "
"Casual, hell! This is serious."
"Politically or economically motivated -- this is against my religion!" he
protested.
"You don't have the right to come here from Earth with your irrelevant standards
and place our survival as a colony in peril," she said.
Shocked, Brother Paul realized she was correct. This pseudo-religion of the
Hyades colony of the future was valid on its own terms, alien as they might be.
He could not accept it -- but he also could not condemn it.
Yet if he could not eliminate this type of religion from consideration, how
could he eliminate any religion? All were valid on their own terms. He could
continue his survey for the rest of his life and never be able to choose between
them. He was no closer to his answer than before.
Who was the God of Tarot? He needed some more direct means of finding out.
But first he had to dispose of the matter at hand. These Animations were to a
certain extent under his control, despite the constant pressure of precession.
Presumbly he could turn them off when he wished. But if he did that, quitting
the game as he tired of it -- of what validity would be any answer he might
eventually obtain through these Animations? He suspected he really had to play
the game through by its own rules to protect its relevance. Which meant that he
had to resolve the dilemma here before leaving. How could he protect both his
own integrity and the welfare of this Hyades colony?
Ah -- he had it. "Ruby, you should be making love to your brother -- husband, your
brothub, not me. You aren't really mad at him, are you?"
She frowned prettily, loath to answer directly. "He's not here, and the Naths -- "
"He is here. I am the one who is not here. There is no freezer-ship from Earth.
I am a ghost."
She laughed. "Oh, come on! That isn't in the script!"
"It is now."
"All right. I'll play along. I've always been curious about how a ghost made
love."
"In a moment I shall assume my true form: that of your beloved brothub, who
shall turn out to have been with you all the time. Are you ready?"
"This can't -- "
"Now." And Brother Paul made an effort of will, hoping Precession would not
abort it, and faded out of the picture.
As the scene disappeared, he wondered: who played the part of her brothub?

IV
Time: 12
The Sphinx, crouching a little distance away from the foot of the Great Pyramid,
is carved out of the granite plateau itself; there is no break between its base
and the original rock. Its height, about 75 feet, gives some idea of the
enormous labour it must have entailed to free it of unwanted stone and to level
the base. Its total length is 150 feet; its height from breast to chin is 50
feet and from the chin to the top of the head 25 feet; the circumference of the
head, taken round the temples, is 80 feet, the face being 14 feet wide and the
head 30 feet long. The layers of granite from which it has been carved divide
its face into horizontal bands in a curious way; its mouth is formed partly by
the space between two of the layers of stone. A hole several feet deep has been
drilled in the head: this was probably used for the placing of ornaments, such
as the priestly tiara or the royal crown.
This carved rock, reddish in colour, has a tremendous effect as it stands
overlooking the desert sands. It is a phantom that seems keenly attentive; one
would almost say that it listens and looks. Its great ear seems to hear all the
sounds of the past; its eyes, turned towards the east, seem to look towards the
misty future; its gaze has a depth and fixity that fascinates the spectator. In
this figure, half statue and half mountain, can be seen a peculiar majesty, a
great serenity and even a certain gentleness.
 -- Paul Christian: The History and Practice of Magic, New York: Citadel, 1969.

Brother Paul stood in front of the Sphinx. The stone creature was impressive in
the light of the full moon, the more so because its nose was intact: this was
evidently before Napoleon's gunners had shot it off.
What an animal it was, crouching there like a living thing! Brother Paul felt a
prickle at the back of his neck. This was an Animation; could he be sure this
monster was not alive?
But it was absolutely still. No breathing, no heartbeat, no motion of eyes.
Inanimate, after all. Fortunately.
Still, he would test it, just to be sure. "The sexual urge of the camel is
stronger by far than one thinks," he said aloud, quoting the poem from a memory
that predated his entry into the Holy Order of Vision. "One day on a trek
through the desert, he rudely assaulted the Sphinx."
He paused, listening, watching, No reaction. Was the monster truly inanimate or
merely waiting? "Now the posterior orifice of the Sphinx is washed by the sands
of the Nile -- which accounts for the hump in the camel, and the Sphinx's
inscrutable smile."
Still nothing. No doubt about it: if the thing stood still for that verse, it
was dead.
He contemplated the parts' of it. A woman's head, suggesting human intelligence,
aspiration, and strategy. A bull's body, signifying the tireless strength
necessary to pursue human fortune. Lion's legs, indicating the courage and force
also needed, that is to say the human will. And eagle's wings, veiling that
intelligence, strength, and courage until there came the time to fly. Thus the
Sphinx as a whole was the symbol of the concealed intelligence, strength, and
will possessed by the Masters of Time.
Famous Greeks had come here to study at the feet of the Masters: Thales,
Pythagoras, Plato, and others. Thales had been the first to embrace water as the
primary substance in the universe, explaining change as well as stability.
Pythagoras, known for his doctrine of the transmigration of souls and the
Pythagorean Theorum. Plato, primarily known for his Dialogues, presenting his
mentor Socrates and the thesis that Knowledge is Good, Ignorance Evil. Giants of
philosophy, all of them. Now it was Brother Paul's turn to meet the Masters
those famous Greeks had met -- if he dared.
Time to proceed. Brother Paul walked to the front of the Sphinx. There between
its extended forelegs was the outline of a door into its chest. The door was
made of bronze, weathered to match the stone of the statue. He walked up to it,
took a breath, and put one hand forth to touch it.
Nothing happened. The metal was neutral, neither cool nor hot, and it was solid.
He felt around the edges to find a handle or niche, but there was none. He could
not open it.
He sighed silently. He lifted a knuckle and rapped, once. There was no response.
Did he really want to enter this structure? He rapped again, and then a third
time. Theoretically, the ancient Masters had possessed all knowledge and could
answer his question -- if they chose to. But first he would have to undergo their
rite of passage. That, according to whispered legends, could be hazardous to
health. Yet he continued knocking, half hoping no one would answer. Then, at the
fifth rap, the door silently opened.
Two hooded persons stood inside, their faces invisible. One, by his bulk and
manner, seemed male; the other was shorter and slighter, seeming female. "We are
Thesmothetes, guardians of the Rites," the male said. "Who are you that knocks
at the Door of the Occult Sanctuary?"
Brother Paul controlled his nervousness. "I am a humble seeker of truth. I wish
to know the identity of the True God of Tarot."
Within the shroud there seemed to be a frown. "Do you understand, Postulant,
that you must give yourself over entirely to our discretion?" the Thesmothete
asked. "That you must follow our advice as if it were an order, asking no
questions?"
Brother Paul swallowed. "I understand, Thesmothete."
The man stood aside. "Enter, Postulant."
Brother Paul stepped inside. The female touched the wall; a small spring
depressed, releasing a hidden mechanism. The door closed silently -- and the
interior was completely dark.
A small hand took his. This was surely the silent Thesmothete, the lady. She
guided him forward, into the bowels of the Sphinx. To the place of digestion?
The sexual urge of the camel... no, don't even think that! By a slight pressure
on his fingers the female made him pause. He felt her form lower a few
centimeters, and realized she had stepped down. He put forward a foot cautiously
and found the step.
It was a spiral staircase. Brother Paul was a compulsive counter; he had tried
to break himself of the habit in recent years, but during stress the desire
sometimes returned irresistibly. He had to know how many there were of whatever
he encountered, however inconsequential. He counted thirty steps before the
passage leveled out.
Here there was another door -- bronze, no doubt -- to be opened silently, passed
through, and closed. Obviously the Thesmothetes had this labyrinth memorized, so
they could find their way unerringly. The air was cooler in the new passage, but
not musty. This suggested that it was well vented, for he was in a time
millennia before the day of air conditioning.
His footfalls echoed, giving him the impression of a large, circular chamber. He
thought of a story he had read once, Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," and his
nervousness increased. But of course his guides were beside him and knew their
way; they would not let this party fall into any oubliette, with or without
pendulum.
Suddenly both Thesmothetes halted, the male's arm barring Brother Paul's forward
progress. "We stand at the brink of a precipice," the man said. "One more stop
will hurl you to the bottom."
Just so. Had Brother Paul made his way here alone, in this gloom he could have
fallen into it. He should have brought a light -- but then they would not have
admitted him. "I will wait," he said. He was about to ask the purpose of this
march to the brink, but remembered his promise to ask no questions.
However, his question was answered. "This abyss," the male said, "surrounds the
Temple of Mysteries and protects it against the temerity and curiosity of the
profane. We have arrived a little too soon; our brethren have not yet lowered
the drawbridge by which the initiates communicate with the sacred place. We
shall wait for their arrival. But if you value your life, do not move until we
tell you."
Did the Thesmothete protest too much? Maybe there was an abyss and maybe there
wasn't -- but Brother Paul could not afford to proceed on the assumption that there
was no threat. Not after the things he had experienced in other Animations. They
had so arranged it, this time, that his control over specific visions had been
nullified. He was at the mercy of these anonymous people and had been from the
moment he entered the Sphinx. Yet he had come here voluntarily; he was on the
threshhold of the unknown, and if the answer were here -- "
Suddenly there was light, blinding after the darkness. Two grotesque monsters
stood before him, each in white linen robes, one with a gold belt and a lion's
head, the other with a silver belt and bull's head. Even as his eyes adjusted
and took them in, a trap door opened between them. From this rose a grisly
specter brandishing a scythe. It was most reminiscent of the skeletal figure of
Death in the Tarot. With a horrendous roar it swept the scythe at Brother Paul's
head.
His first instinct was to tumble back, out of range of the weapon. His second
was to duck under the blade and grapple with the specter. But his third overrode
the first two: he stood frozen.
The scythe's blade swished so close over his head that it might have parted his
hair. Indeed, a small lock of it tumbled across his face. "Woe to him who
disturbs the peace of the dead!" the monster screamed, whirling entirely around
and sweeping the scythe at Brother Paul a second time. But again he judged the
path of the blade, and again he did not flinch. This was a scare tactic, not a
serious attack; a test of his courage that his judo training had prepared him
for.
Four more times the scythe came at him, and each time he stood firm. But on the
seventh stroke the creature shifted its balance; this time it was going for his
neck!
Brother Paul gambled: he stood firm. They surely had not arranged this elaborate
presentation merely to execute an unresisting man. And as the blade touched
him -- the monster vanished. It dropped down its hole, and the trap door closed.
This, too, had been a bluff; the threat had no substance.
Now the lion and the bull removed their masks. Brother Paul saw their faces for
the first time: Therion and Amaranth.
"Congratulations," Therion told him. "You felt the chill of murderous steel, and
you did not flinch; you looked at the horror of horrors and did not faint. Well,
done! In your own country you could be a hero." He frowned. "But amongst us,
there are virtues higher than courage. What do you take to be the meaning of our
costumes?"
Brother Paul had already worked that out. "You are the lion, one of the aspects
of the Sphinx, with the golden belt, representing the astrological Leo and the
Sun. She, masked as the bull, is another aspect of the Sphinx, Taurus, and the
Moon. The Sun and Moon together are supposed to exert the most direct influence
on the lives of earthly beings. Yet man does not live by Sun and Moon alone;
there is always the savage influence of Time, bringing the chance of untimely
death -- "
"You are most impressively apt," Therion said. "Yet we have a value superior
even to this intelligence. That is humility -- voluntary humility, triumphing over
the vanity of pride. Are you capable of such a victory over yourself?"
So the physical test was over. Good! Brother Paul was ready for the moral one.
"I am willing to find out."
"Very well," Therion said. "Are you ready to crawl flat on the ground, right to
the innermost sanctuary where our brethren wait to give you the knowledge and
power you seek in exchange for your humility?"
Why this follow-up challenge? He really, was not seeking power. Still, he seemed
to have no choice but to accept. "I am."
"Then take this lamp," Therion said. "It is the image of God's face that follows
us when we walk hidden from the sight of men. Go without fear; you have only
yourself to be afraid of henceforth."
Brother Paul, thinking of his experience of the Seven Cups, did not find this
reassuring. What other horrors lurked in himself? He accepted the lamp and
looked about. The chamber was formed of blocks of granite shaped into a dome;
there was no entrance or exit. But again he remembered his stricture and made no
inquiry.
After a moment, Amaranth touched another hidden spring in the wall. An iron
plate slid aside; it was coated with granite to resemble a full block when in
place. Behind it opened a corridor, an arcade, narrow and so low it was
impossible to crawl through it on hands and knees. "Let this path be for you the
image of the tomb in which all men must find their eventual rest," Therion
intoned. "Yet they awake, freed from the darkness of material things, in the
life of the spirit. You have vanquished the specter of Death; now you can
triumph over the horrors of the tomb in the Test of Solitude." And both
Thesmothetes extended their right hands toward the opening.
Now Brother Paul hesitated. Why were they sending him alone, now? What sort of
horrors did they consider so awesome? That constricted hole -- if it got any
smaller, once he was in, he would be unable either to squeeze through or to turn
about. He would have to retreat, feet first, as though in the throes of a breech
birth -- and surely the entrance-exit panel would be closed and locked.
The two Thesmothetes remained as they were, fingers pointing to the hole. They
neither reproached him for his weakness nor encouraged him to carry on with the
test. What would they do if he balked, now?
Actually, he knew. He had read of a test like this once; the memory was faint,
elusive, and only returned as it was refreshed by this present experience. The
postulant who lost his nerve was not excluded or even reproached. He was merely
led out of the sacred place. The law of Magism dictated that he would never
again be tested; his weakness had been judged. So -- if he wanted his answer, it
was now or never. The law of Animation was as inflexible in its fashion as the
law of the ancient Egyptian mystics. He had not yet encountered the same vision
twice; the vagaries of the dynamics of this situation were too great to permit
him to rerun any scene.
Brother Paul was not unduly claustrophobic, but he didn't like this at all. He
was not the most slender of men; a passage sufficient for a 150 centimeter tall
Egyptian or Greek might not suffice for him. If he got wedged in amidst these
thousands of tons of stone -- "
Still the two Thesmothetes waited, pointing, as still as statues. Brother Paul
offered up a silent prayer to whatever God governed this demesne -- Thoth,
perhaps? -- and got down to enter the dread aperture.
Amaranth got down beside him. "God be between you and harm in all the empty
places you must go," she murmured and gave him a quick sidewise swipe of a kiss
on the lips. Then Brother Paul pushed the lamp forward and crawled into the
hole.
The tube sloped gently downwards. Its circumference was of polished granite,
absolutely smooth as though drilled by a giant worm. There was room for him,
barely. By a combination of elbow-drawings and knee-hitchings, augmented by
toe-flexes, he moved himself forward until his full length was within the
tunnel.
A terrible clang deafened him momentarily as the bronze door fell back into
place. As from a distance, a reverberating voice came: "Here perish all fools
who covet knowledge and power!" It was followed immediately by an echo:
"power...power...power... power...power...power...power!" Seven distinct echoes,
hammering themselves into his brain. The effect was foolishly terrifying; sonics
could have a fundamental influence on a man's emotion, bypassing his reason.
Brother Paul knew that -- yet still felt the frightening impact.
Had the Magi condemned him to death after all? That still did not make sense;
they could have barred him from the Sphinx at the outset. If they intended to
bury him alive, why had they given him this good lamp?
Gradually the irrational fear subsided. There had to be an exit to this tube;
all he had to do was keep moving. Yet it went on and on! Brother Paul had a fair
sense of orientation, perhaps a function of his compulsive counting. It informed
him that he could no longer be within or beneath the Sphinx! This interminable
tunnel was proceeding under the surface of the plateau itself -- toward the Great
Pyramid! Furthermore, it was still descending, deeper and deeper into the rock.
What would he do if his guttering lamp went out?
Still it continued. His elbows and knees were sore, perhaps bleeding, but he
could not stop. Nervousness prevented him even from resting. He passed the lamp
from one hand to the other, finding different ways to crawl... and crawl.
At last the tunnel expanded. What a relief! He got up on his hands and knees for
a space, then proceeded at a stooping walk. But the floor still sloped down; the
added space was gained by the floor's retreat from the level ceiling. He was not
being allowed nearer the surface.
Abruptly the floor terminated. The wan light of the lamp showed a vast crater, a
cone plunging deep into the rock, its slides slick and hard. An iron ladder
picked up where the tunnel left off, leading down into that gloomy cavity. There
was no other route; only by getting on the ladder could he proceed forward, or
rather downward.
He now had ample room to turn about, but was sure a retreat up the tunnel would
not be wise.
He started down the ladder, nervously testing each rung before putting full
weight upon it. All were sturdy. And of course he counted: ten, twenty, thirty,
on.
There were exactly one hundred rungs. But the ladder did not lead to another
level or sloping passage. It terminated in a circular hole. Brother Paul had no
object to drop experimentally into it, but he was sure this was an oubliette: a
fatally deep dungeon with no exit. He could not trust himself to that!
Yet there was nowhere else to go! What now?
"God be between me and harm in all the empty places I must go," he repeated,
staring down into the dread void. And added mentally: And may there be avenues
of escape from those empty places!
Brother Paul studied his situation. There had to be an alternative; this setup
was too elaborate to be a mere death trap. He had to believe that! All he had to
do was figure out its rationale. The ladder went down and stopped; there was no
question of a hidden continuance because the final rung was in the dank air over
the pit. Still, he could look.
He climbed down, then poked both legs through the bottom rung, hooking his knees
over it. He bounced twice, with increasing vigor, testing its solidity; it would
hold his weight. He leaned back, slowly, holding the lamp carefully upright as
his angle changed, letting his torso swing around until he hung upside down by
his knees. His head projected through the hole, and his lamp illuminated the
chamber below.
It was a featureless well, plunging straight down beyond the reach of his lamp.
The walls looked slimy, and there was no second ladder below the one he was on.
This was a one-way avenue... probably filled with water at the nether terminus.
Maybe that fluid would break his fall -- but he did not care to risk it. Not yet.
He had been more or less given to understand that he had nothing to fear but
himself. Now it occurred to him that this was subject to alarming
interpretation. If he decided to drop into the oubliette, and that was an error,
would he have killed himself? All he had to do was make the correct
decision -- without adequate information.
Well, he had no need to remain on this ladder! He caught the rung with his left
hand, held the lamp steady with his right, and drew himself up until he could
extricate his feet. Then he started back up the hundred rungs.
About twenty rungs up -- twenty two, technically -- he spied a crevice in the cone. A
flaw, invisible from above because the upper wall overhung it slightly. Was this
natural or artificial?
He had grown wary of chance here. He leaned as far over as was convenient,
holding the lamp extended to the left. This gap was broad enough for a man to
squeeze through -- and there were steps inside! Here was his alternate route!
He balanced carefully and swung himself into the crevice. The steps were
slippery but solid. They advanced deeper into the wall; the crevice was becoming
a new tunnel, at places so narrow he had to proceed sidewise, but it was
definitely going somewhere. It coiled into a spiral. At the count of thirty, the
steps ended at a small platform, and the way forward was barred by a bronze
grating.
Was this a service access, intended for the use of the Thesmothetes, that he had
spied accidentally? If so, it would be a dead end for him since the grating was
locked and unattended. Yet it did not seem extraneous. Twenty two steps up on
the ladder from the bottom, matching the number of Major Arcana of the Tarot,
appearing only when the Postulant was returning from his fruitless quest to the
oubliette. Surely no coincidence! But what, then, was the significance of thirty
alternate steps, here? These passages seemed to have a motif of thirties and
hundreds, and that did not equate to any Tarot deck he knew of. So if there were
a numeric rationale here, he had not yet fathomed it.
Brother Paul peered through the grating. Ahead was a long gallery, lined on each
side by statuettes of sphinxes: fifteen on each side. Thirty in all. Between
statues, the walls were covered with mysterious frescoes. At this angle, he
could not quite make out their nature, but there was a haunting familiarity
about them. Fifteen lamps rested in tripods set in a row down the center of the
hall, and each lamp was in the shape of a sphinx.
A Magus walked slowly down the hall toward him. No -- it was the female
Thesmothete, Amaranth, garbed in the manner of a priestess. Her face was veiled
and her gown covered her body completely, but he recognized her provocative
walk, that pushed out hip and breast in subtle but quite feminine rhythm.
"Son of Earth," she said, smiling, "you have escaped the pit by discovering the
path of wisdom. Few aspirants to the Mysteries have passed this test; most have
perished." So that explained what happened to those who entrusted themselves to
the oubliette!
"The Goddess Isis is your protector," she continued. Brother Paul remembered the
Egyptian Isis, said to be the Goddess of Love. "She will lead you safely to the
sanctuary where virtue receives its crown." Virtue supervised by the Goddess of
Sex? The geese were being put in the charge of the fox! "I must warn you that
other perils are in store, but I shall aid you by explaining these sacred
symbols which will clothe your mind with invulnerable power." No question:
Amaranth was now Isis. This was her kind of role.
Isis opened the gate by releasing another secret spring. She took Brother Paul
by the hand and led him down the gallery. She moved slowly, almost languorously,
but even so this was far too rapid for him to properly assimilate the portraits
they passed. All the wisdom of the ancients spread out here -- and he had to zoom
past it like an ignorant tourist!
But perhaps that was the point. He was only looking, not buying. If he chose to
remain here indefinitely, if he qualified by passing all their tests, then he
could linger over each symbol for as long as he liked. Years, if necessary.
"First we review the aspects of Nature," Isis murmured. "Here is the Crocodile."
She gestured with her free hand toward the nearest picture, just before the
first sphinx. It depicted an Egyptian peasant walking by a river, two bags slung
over his shoulder, while a crocodile paced him in the water. "It symbolizes
Folly."
The Zero Key of the Tarot! So Tarot was at the root of this! Now he had an
excellent frame of reference, enhancing his understanding.
"The Magus," she said, indicating the representation across the hall.
"Representing Skill." It was an Egyptian magician, very like the European one
except for costume.
"Veiled Isis," she said, going right on to the next. "Memory -- among other
things." And the veiled figure portrayed was -- her. He did not need to guess at
the identity of those "other things" she was thinking of. He remembered Amaranth
in her landscape dress, her breasts living volcanoes. Amaranth as naked
Temptation in the Vision of the Seven Cups. As Sister Beth of the Holy Order of
Vision, whom he had tried to seduce. What was her true role this time?
What else but Temptation again! A temptation he was sure he had to resist here,
if the terrible weight of the Pyramid were not to crush him.
But she had already moved on to the next picture -- and it was blank. "The Ghost,"
she said. "The Unknown or Unidentified; the Infinite, the Nothingness."
What? This was no Tarot card! He stopped by it, about to inquire -- but caught
himself. No questions! His thoughts about her sexual temptation had almost
distracted him into a different trap. He would just have to accept the fact, for
now, that this was not Tarot. Not precisely. It was -- an unknown.
"Isis Unveiled," she said, abruptly throwing off her veil. Now she was Woman in
her full splendor, her face absolutely lovely in the lamplight. She played
variations on a single theme, but she certainly had the equipment for that!
"Action."
Action. She still held his hand, and now she was drawing him in close, raising
her lips. So eminently kissable.
He moved his hand, carrying hers along, guiding it and her toward the next
exhibit. His action -- was to pursue the lesson further.
She yielded gracefully. She had a thousand little ploys; the failure of one was
of little account. If this had been another test, he had passed it -- probably.
"Now we review the aspects of Faith," Isis continued. "Here is the Sovereign,
symbol of Power." She moved on. "And the Master of the Arcana, representing
Intuition. And here are the Two Paths, showing Choice."
Brother Paul moved along with her, nodding. These were very like the Tarot, but
not identical. That card of the Unknown...
But now she paused. She made a convoluted shrug and her robe fell away. Now Isis
stood in a short skirt and halter, as scenic as ever. "Also known as The
Ordeal," she said, moving in close again.
The ordeal of rejecting her? That seemed the only safe course, much as he might
have liked to try her constantly preferred sample and be done with it. Celibacy
and rejection of sex were all very well for the unhealthy recluse, but Brother
Paul was a thoroughly healthy and social man. However. He advanced to the next
picture.
Immediately she followed. "The Chariot of Osiris, signifying Precession," she
said.
Precession! He almost challenged that, but again caught himself. He had expected
her to give the interpretation as Victory. Each time the Tarot connections
became slightly firm, something broke them up again!
She moved on. "Desire -- Emotion," she said of the next. Well, that might equate to
the Thoth Tarot version of Strength, titled Lust.
But then she showed the next: "The Tamed Lion -- Discipline." That one had to be
Strength! But then what -- ? "Also called the Enchantress, Strength, Spiritual
Power, and Fortitude," she continued. And the picture was of the woman calming
the lion. Yet -- "
"Here is the Family of Man -- Nature," she said. He didn't recognize that one in
Tarot either. "And here is the Wheel, symbolizing Chance. And the Sphinx,
alternately known as the Veiled Lamp, which unveiled is Time." Now that was all
mixed up! The Hermit card was Time, while the Sphinx bestrode the Wheel of
Fortune. But she went on talking, preventing him from getting his thoughts
organized. "Chronos, who was once Chief of the Gods."
Brother Paul had another realization: he had been encountering aspects of these
images all along, since his arrival on Planet Tarot. Maybe since his first
assignment to this mission! Was this his own fate being summarized? If so, he
was about to glimpse his future!
Isis gave him no time to consider the ramifications of that. "Here are the
aspects of Trade. The first is Past, suggesting Reflection; the next is Future,
symbolizing Will."
Brother Paul peered at the pictures, but could not grasp them in the time he
had. Surely both of these were merely aspects of Time! Did they show his own
past and future? Reflection he could understand; he was much given to it
himself. But how did Will relate? He thought he saw an airplane, and a bottle of
wine, and a document, and trees, and a child, but somehow neither picture would
come together meaningfully. If only he had more time to study -- "
"Here is Themis, Goddess of Law, signifying Honor." Strange; Brother Paul
remembered Themis as a Roman Goddess, rather than Egyptian. But perhaps it only
showed that this sequence of images derived from multiple sources and was not
limited to any single mythology. Rome had existed in the period of Egypt's
greatness; archaeology had verified the presence of Rome a thousand years before
the legendary date of its founding by the wolf-suckled brothers, Romulus and
Remus.
"The Martyr -- Sacrifice," Isis continued. This seemed to be the card he knew as
the Hanged Man, suspended by one foot from a gibbet. Was that in his future? He
was driving himself crazy with these speculations!
"The Scythe -- Change," she said. He knew this one as Death or Transformation.
"Imagination -- Vision." That one he could not place at all, though there was
something irrelevantly familiar about the illustration. A field, with a tower to
one side, and a gully at the other -- "
"The Alchemist, signifying Transfer." Transfer! That was the term the alien
Antares had employed for the transposition of auras from one host to another -- "
"And the aspects of Magic, that some call Science," she continued inexorably.
What torture, to be treated to these tantalyzing glimpses of half-familiar
revelations! Surely it all did fit a larger pattern, if only he could -- "
"Here is Typhon, known as Fate, signifying Violence." It was the Devil. "The
House of God -- revelation." He knew it as the Lightning-Struck Tower, though that
was probably an iconographical transformation. A familiar card -- yet he felt a
premonitory dread. He was of course searching for the House of God -- but this
cruel edifice seemed more Satanic than Angelic. Some interpretations indicated
this card was actually the House of the Devil, signifying Ruin.
Meanwhile, Isis was blithely removing her remaining apparel.
Revelation -- naturally she would take it not only literally, but physically! He
wished this tour were over; he was maintaining a firm countenance, but she was
making it very difficult. What happened to a Postulate who yielded to the
obvious suggestion and put his lustful hands (lustful hands? Ah, the euphemism!)
on the priestess?
"The Star of the Magi," she continued, and now she looked very much like the
nude girl in that picture. "Hope and Fear."
Exactly.
"Twilight -- Deception." Yes, another familiar card that he knew as the Moon.
Deception was surely the key concept here! In revealing her entire body, she
deceived him about her intentions. As did all women...
"And the Blazing Light, suggesting Triumph." Well, he hoped so! But triumph for
whom?
"And the aspects of Art," she said. Nude art? He wondered how many people would
be interested in art if it were not thoroughly peopled with naked young women.
To his mind, a nude young man was as artistically beautiful as a woman; but it
was sex, not esthetics, that made the difference. Women did not dash out to buy
portraits of nude men as avidly as man bought nude women, so the definition of
Art became --
"Here is Thought, that we interpret as Reason." The picture was -- well, it looked
like a field of stars. "The Awakening of the Dead, meaning Decision." The
picture resembled the Judgment card he knew. His own moment of Judgment might be
upon him all too soon! "The Savant, meaning Wisdom."
Naked, she advanced to the last picture and spun about, showing herself to
advantage. "The Crown of the Magi -- Completion," she said. She stepped close,
caught his head in her hands, and drew it down for a quick kiss. Then she opened
the door at the end of the gallery and stood aside.
Beyond that door was a long, narrow vault. At its end were the leaping flames of
a blazing furnace.
"Son of Earth," Isis said, "Death itself only frightens the imperfect. If you
are afraid, you have no business here. Look at me: once I too passed through
these flames as if they were a garden of roses."
Brother Paul looked at her. Suddenly she was much more tempting. If he put his
hands on her, stroked one or two of those perfect fruits -- would she acquiesce? Or
would sudden disaster befall him? Would the touch of her flesh be worth the
penalty?
He looked again at the flames. The teaching he had just received, hurried and
elliptical as it was, would be useless to a man about to die. There had to be a
way through! He stood, as it were, at the fork in the road, the Two Paths, also
known as the Ordeal. The choice between Love and Fire. Had he learned enough to
make it through?
Actually, there was a way to overcome fire or at least hot coals. South Pacific
natives heated rock to red heat and walked barefooted over it, and there was no
fakery involved. The secret was a special effect that could be noted with
droplets of water dancing on a hot frying pan: the heat evaporated just enough
water to form a layer of steam, and the droplet floated on that steam, insulated
from the much higher heat of the pan. Thus the droplets could take many seconds
to dwindle, instead of puffing entirely into vapor almost instantly, as happened
on surfaces heated more moderately. Similarly, the natural moisture of the
native's feet became that layer of steam, enabling them to walk the coals
without being burned. So if he could find an area where the flames were low
enough to expose the hot coals, he might be able to cross. If he had the nerve.
Abruptly he faced forward and stepped into the new chamber. Again the door
clanged shut behind him, forever closing off what might have been. He was alone
again, unable to retreat. Did God stand between him and the flame?
But as he approached the furnace, he discovered that it was largely illusory.
Wood was arranged on iron grills, and lamps were so placed that their light
suggested open flame. A path wound between these mock-ups, on through a vaulted
passageway. He moved forward with renewed confidence. God was here!
The path ended abruptly at a stagnant pool. Who might guess what lurked beneath
that slimy surface? Brother Paul turned about, so as to retrace his route and
look for an alternate -- and a cascade of oil descended from sluices in the
ceiling. There was a spark, ignition, and the oil became a curtain of flame. The
pretend furnace had become a real one!
He had to plunge back through that flame -- or go forward through the water. Or
wait, hoping one threat or the other would abate. But that was not the way of
this series of challenges; he had to show his mettle by conquering the hurdles,
rather than by avoiding them. Somehow.
The water seemed the better bet. Brother Paul removed his robe, wadded it
tightly, and held it in his right hand along with his lamp. Then he stepped
cautiously into the pool.
There was a slippery slope beneath that urged him on faster than he cared to go.
Each step brought him deeper. Knees, thighs, waist; the water was chill, which
was encouraging because it meant reptiles were less likely to inhabit it. Chest,
shoulders, chin; now he held the lamp over his head. Any deeper and he would
have to swim -- but then he would risk dousing the light, for he could not safely
carry it high and level while swimming.
Now he could see that he had indeed reached the middle of the pool. With luck -- or
the foresight of those who had designed this test -- the deepest part. Had someone
measured his height, so they could fill the water to the appropriate level? Now
it should grow shallower -- "
It did. With relief he advanced up the slope. This had been basically a test of
his fortitude and not a complex one. A choice between fire and water. In fact
all these tests were rather basic and physical; a modern-day examination would
have been considerably more sophisticated. He had overestimated the subtlety of
the -- "
His foot plunged into a gap in the underwater flooring. He lunged forward,
slapping the water with his left hand and windmilling with his right to recover
his lost balance. He made it; his questing toes found the side of the gap. A
mere pothole! But his glowing lamp toppled off the bunched garment and plunged
into the water. He made a desperate grab for it with his left hand, but
missed -- and in any event, it had been extinguished. He might re-light it by
taking it back to the curtain of flame -- if its oil had not been hopelessly
diluted by the water, and if he could get it close enough to that fire without
burning himself, and if -- "
He looked back. The curtain of flame had died out. Only the sitting lamps
remained. So even if he had his lamp and it were operative, he could not light
it.
He stopped. Idiot! All he had to do was pick up one of the other lamps. But
there was a little light to see by, and maybe there were other traps awaiting
the man who tried to backtrack. Best to accept the consequence of his error and
go on without the light. His overconfidence had been responsible for his spill -- a
lesson in itself. Only himself to fear!
He climbed out of the water. At the far edge a flight of steps led to a platform
surrounded on three sides by a spacious arcade. On the far wall was a brass
door, set behind a narrow, twisted column sculpted in the shape of a lion's
jaws. The teeth held a metal ring. That was as much detail as he could make out
in the dim light.
He stopped before the door. The air was chill, and he was shivering. Once he got
dry, he could don his robe again and be more comfortable. But now, one by one,
the distant lamps went out; the reflection of the last one came across the
water, then faded. He was in complete darkness again.
If he had tried to go back, to pick up one of those sitting lamps -- would he have
gotten there in time? If they were all short of fuel, none of them would have
done him much good anyway, and he could have been trapped in the water in
darkness. It would have been easy to wander astray, into much deeper water,
where creatures might lurk...
A voice sounded in the gloom. "Son of Earth, to stop is to perish. Behind you is
death; before you, salvation."
Brother Paul was not yet dry; he decided to take the voice at its word and
proceed without dressing. He extended his hand, finding the carved door. That
ring in the lion's mouth -- was it a handle? Or a trap? If he pulled at it, would
the door open or would those teeth clamp on his hand?
Well, he could circumvent this one! He shook out his cloak, drew it lengthwise
into a kind of cord, and carefully threaded it through the loop. Then he held
one end in each hand and gave a sharp yank.
A trap door opened beneath his feet. He dropped -- and came up short, hanging on to
the robe-rope. Again he had underestimated the trap! He could not afford to
judge too many more such items!
Well, on with it. He pulled himself up on his makeshift rope. "Easier for a rope
to pass through the eye of a needle..." he muttered, thinking of the centuries
of confusion caused by a simple mistranslation in the Bible, wherein the term
"camel's hair rope" had been rendered as "camel." Then he swung his feet up and
walked himself onto the main platform. Had he not been in good condition, this
would have been a difficult or impossible maneuver. He gained his balance on the
main floor and removed the robe from the ring. Good thing that ring had been
well anchored!
Then he heard the trapdoor closing. Now the brass door opened, spilling light
into the hall. Therion the Thesmothete stood there, carrying a bright torch.
"Come, Postulant."
Brother Paul followed him through a series of galleries set off by locked doors.
At each door Therion murmured a password and gave a secret signal, and it
opened.
During one of these pauses, Brother Paul slipped back into his robe. Now he felt
more confident. At last the test was over!
They came finally to a crypt that Brother Paul's directional sense informed him
had been hollowed out of the Great Pyramid itself. This was a chamber never
discovered by the archaeologists! The walls were polished stone, covered by
symbolic paintings. At each corner stood a bronze statue: a man, a bull, a lion,
and an eagle. Hanging from the high ceiling was an elaborate lamp. Brother Paul
observed that the beams of light between the statues and from the lamp together
formed the outline of a pyramid: five corners counting the apex.
In the center was a huge round silver table, and on this table stood two cups,
two swords, two coins, scepters, and lamps. The four symbols of the Tarot suits,
plus the lamps necessary to see the rest in this sunless chamber.
Therion turned to him. "Son of Earth, I have only to give the sign and you will
be plunged alive into subterranean depths to eat the bread of remorse and drink
the waters of anguish until the end of your days. But we are not vindictive; all
we ask of you is your solemn oath that you will never reveal to anyone the least
detail of what you have seen or heard this night, and you shall go free. Will
you give this oath?"
Reasonable enough. A secret society would not remain secret long if it did not
institute such a precaution. But Brother Paul's mission required that he express
his knowledge outside. "I will not," he said.
Therion stared at him incredulously. "That was intended to be a rhetorical
question, Postulant. There is only one answer."
"Not for me." Had he gone through all this -- for nothing?
"Beware, Postulant! Defiance is punished by death!" And a menacing roaring
sounded as the overhead lamp was extinguished. The chamber was now lighted only
by tremulously flickering candles set behind the statues.
"My information cannot benefit anyone, if it is sworn to secrecy," Brother Paul
said, unmoved.
Therion pointed to the cups on the silver table. "Then you must undertake this
trial," he cried. "One goblet contains a violent poison; the other is harmless.
Choose one, without reflection, and drink it down."
Brother Paul stepped up to the table, picked up the right cup, and drank its
contents down.
Therion smiled. "I tried," he said. "Both drinks were -- safe."
As Brother Paul had figured. A test of pure chance would have been pointless;
courage, not life or luck, was the issue here.
"Worthy zealot," Therion said, "You have passed all tests. Now you are ready to
share the wisdom of the ancients. Magic is composed of two elements, knowledge
and strength. Without knowledge, no strength can be complete; without some sort
of strength, no one can attain knowledge. Learn how to suffer, that you may
become impassive; learn how to die, to become immortal; learn restraint, to
attain your desire: these are the first three secrets the Magus must learn to
become a priest of Truth. He must study with us for twelve years to master it,
as Moses of the Jews did, and Plato of the Greeks did, and -- "
"Twelve years?" Brother Paul demanded.
"To start. After that the real education begins."
"I can't wait twelve years!" Brother Paul protested. "I can't wait twelve weeks!
I need my answer now." Before it was time for him to be shuttled back to Earth;
the mattermission schedule would not be modified for the convenience of one man.
"This is impossible," Therion said firmly.
"Then I must depart."
Therion gestured, and a panel slid open in the floor before his feet. "There is
your exit."
From the pit came the noise of rattling chains and panting struggle and the roar
of some great beast. Then there came the scream of a human being in dreadful
agony -- abruptly cut off.
Brother Paul stepped forward to look into the pit. There was a lion-sized sphinx
tearing at a naked human body lying before it.
Brother Paul stepped around the pit, snatched one of the swords from the table,
flexed it twice to get its heft, then jumped into the hole. The last things he
perceived as he acted were Therion's gape of incredulity and Amaranth's scream
from somewhere in the distance. Then his feet struck the back of the vicious
sphinx. He swung his sword down -- and the Animation exploded into nothingness.

V
Reflection: 13
The contradiction between politics and morality, never far below the surface in
so-called normal times, reasserts itself with particular vehemence in times of
revolutionary change. Why is it that the revolutionaries sooner or later adopt,
and sometimes intensify, the cruelties of the regimes against which they fight?
Why is it that revolutionaries begin with camaraderie and end with fratricide?
Why do revolutions start by proclaiming the brotherhood of man, the end of lies,
deceit, and secrecy, and culminate in tyranny whose victims are overwhelmingly
the little people for whom the revolution was proclaimed as the advent of a
happier life? To raise these questions is not to deny that revolutions have been
among the most significant ways in which modern men -- and in many crucial
situations modern women -- have managed to sweep aside some of the institutional
causes of human suffering. But an impartial outlook and the plain facts of
revolutionary change compel the raising of these questions as well. In my
estimation the essence of the answer rests in this fundamental contradiction
between the effectiveness of immoral political methods and the necessity for
morality in any social order. Against his opponents, whether they be a competing
revolutionary faction or the leaders of the existing government, a revolutionary
cannot be scrupulous about the means that he uses, if he is serious about his
objectives and not merely an oratorical promoter of edifying illusions. If he
refrains from using unscrupulous means, the enemy may use them first and destroy
the revolution itself.
 -- Barrington Moore, Jr. Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery, Boston: Beacon
Press, 1972.

Brother Paul walked through the forest, seeking the others. He was momentarily
intrigued by the scenery, noting its five levels: grass grew on the ground,
giving way at the edge of the path to small leafy plants or vines, which in turn
gave way to tall weeds like miniature meter-tall trees. Then head-high bushes,
and finally the much taller trees.
He still did not know what he would say to the colonists; he had seen much and
experienced much, but still lacked a proper basis on which to judge. God was in
all of these or none; how could he know? The matter was so highly subjective
that he doubted any objective verdict was possible. Yet he was obliged to make
his appearance -- after he rounded up the others, before the rift in Animation
closed up again.
The region seemed unfamiliar. Had he come this way before? He must have wandered
considerably during his visions; certainly he had walked much and crawled more.
Yet he still had to be within a few kilometers of his starting point and
somewhere within Northole, or he would have walked right out of the Animation.
As perhaps he had done.
Maybe his best course was to orient on the sun and march in a straight line. He
would surely intersect a local path that would lead him to the village or other
habitation. This was a standard mechanism of the type to be found in
intelligence tests; it was therefore suspect, but should do for the time being.
Abruptly the forest opened out onto a broad, flat clearing. He started across
it, then halted as he discovered concrete. This was a modern highway!
No -- it proceeded nowhere. The pavement ended abruptly about a hundred and fifty
meters to his left. A dead end, yet an oddly well-kept road. No weeds overgrew
it. What could be its purpose, here on Planet Tarot?
Curious, he followed it to his right. Wisps of mist obscured the way ahead, but
within a kilometer a building loomed.
He stared, amazed. That was an airport control tower. This was a runway! Yet
there were no airplanes on this primitive world. This made no sense.
How had the colonists mustered the resources to construct such a massively
modern facility? It might be within their technological capacity, since
theoretically all the knowledge of Earth was available to every colony planet,
but the sheer labor would be ruinous! These people hardly had fuel enough to
heat their homes or resources enough to do more than palisade their villages
against natural threats. And if they had resources that had been concealed from
him (and why should they deceive him?), to expend them on something as useless
as this, in a world where the automobile did not yet exist, let alone
aircraft -- something was crazy!
A mock-up! That would be it -- a grandiose imitation, a shell, a monument to what
might be in the planet's future. On what a scale, though!
Intrigued, Brother Paul marched up to the terminal. The thing was huge, girt by
ribbons of asphalt, parking lots, access ramps and satellite sub-terminals.
Everything was in place. The cars and planes looked completely authentic, so
much like Earth of a decade ago that the nostalgia was almost painful. The
shrubbery was well-kept, and there was an attractive fountain with the water
splaying in artistic patterns.
People were going in and out, just exactly as though on Earth, each
appropriately garbed for the occasion, each preoccupied with his own concern.
Brother Paul joined the throng at the main entrance, trusting that his presence
would not interfere with the show. His Holy Order of Vision habit was in style
anywhere. He was curious to see whether the interior was as well appointed as
the exterior.
It was. Phenomenally long escalators conveyed people to the operating floors.
Loudspeakers bellowed unintelligibly. Short lines formed at ticket desks.
Buzzers sounded as people moved toward marked departure gates carrying too much
metal. This restoration was absolutely perfect; no detail seemed to have been
omitted!
A hand tugged at his. "Come on, Daddy -- we'll miss our flight!"
Startled, Brother Paul looked down to discover a young girl hanging on to his
hand. She was eight or nine years old, blue-eyed, with two long fair braids.
"Daddy, hurry!" she cried urgently.
"Young lady, there seems to be a confusion of identities," he said, resisting
the pull.
She persisted. "You said it leaves at nine-fifty, and it's nine-forty now, and
we haven't even found the gate!"
"I'm not even married," Brother Paul protested, as much to himself as her. Where
was her family? He didn't want to lead this child astray.
"Oh, Daddy, come on!" And she fairly dragged him on.
He had either to yield somewhat or to risk an embarrassing scene with a strange
child. He suffered himself to be hauled along. "But I don't have a ticket," he
said irrelevantly, hoping this would distract her. A ticket for what?
"You let me carry the tickets, remember?" And she relinquished his hand long
enough to rummage in her little patchwork handbag. She brought out two envelopes
girt with baggage tags and validations, looking very official. "See?"
He was beginning to regret the nicety of detail in this exhibit! He took the
ticket folders and examined them. The first envelope was made out to Miss
Carolyn Cenji. That was a shock, for he hardly ever used his surname and had
thought most colonists were not aware of it. He shifted to the second
envelope -- and it said Father Paul Cenji. The immediate destination was Boston.
He set aside the riddle of the names for the moment. There was a Boston on
Planet Tarot? Yes, it was certainly possible; some hamlet named after the Earth
original, used on tickets for verisimilitude. Cute. Still, that did not justify
all this!
"Flight 24C for Boston boarding at Gate 15," the loudspeaker blared with sudden,
atypical clarity.
Brother Paul smiled. Old, old pun! 24C -- two four cee -- to foresee. This whole
elaborate display was an exercise in that foresight, the aspiration of a
backward planet looking firmly toward the future. Or perhaps looking into the
recent past, nostalgically, when technology and power were cheap; why else were
they employing the name of an Earth city? Strange how difficult it could be to
distinguish future from past in certain situations. Was there much difference
between them?
"That's it!" Carolyn cried with little-girl excitement. "Hurry!"
Still trying to figure out how his name had gotten on the ticket -- let alone that
of a nonexistent daughter! -- Brother Paul suffered himself once more to be drawn
along toward Gate 15. There had to be some mistake -- but which mistake was it? His
presence here on Planet Tarot was no secret, but it had hardly been the occasion
for widespread publicity. An important person might have been treated to such a
personalized tour of the exhibit, but he was not -- "
They joined the line at the security access. Should he inquire of one of the
other people? Or would that violate the spirit of this charade?
Maybe the child's real father would be at the Gate -- it was the obvious place -- and
this confusion of identities or whatever could be straightened out. He did have
other business and had already allowed himself to be diverted too long. Perhaps
he had been tempted by the mock airport because he didn't really want to face
another community meeting with another null report. But he would not permit that
to overwhelm him.
Now they were hustling through the metal detector -- no buzz! -- and up to the Gate.
The attendant checked the tickets with perfect officiousness. "Very good,
Father," he said. "Go right on in."
Father! But of course that was on the ticket; it hadn't quite registered before.
"I am Brother Paul, and I fear there has been a -- "
"Right. Nonsmokers to the front. Families with children board first." The man
was already looking to the next.
"Daddy, we're holding up the line!" Could her father have boarded already? It
seemed unlikely without the ticket. But since the plane was only another
mock-up, such details hardly mattered. The man could have boarded. A coincidence
of names, but a distinction in title and marital status. Though how the girl
could be confused about her own -- "
The boarding tube debouched into the airplane. Brother Paul sighted down the
narrow aisle, searching for heads in the triple seats to either side. There was
no one in cleric habit.
"This one," Carolyn said. "In front of the wing, so we can see out."
"I can't stay on the plane!" Brother Paul protested. "I only stopped by the
terminal to see what -- "
"Please fasten your seatbelts," the stewardess said.
"Wait! I have to get off -- " But the boarding tube had already separated, and the
plane door was closed. He was trapped.
Well, it wasn't as if the plane were actually going anywhere. He had wandered
into a most elaborate setting and ritual, but that was all. He sat down in the
seat beside her and fastened the seat belt. He did not want to appear to be a
complete spoilsport. The airplane began to taxi forward. Brother Paul lurched
up -- and got nowhere. The seat belt bound him securely. He grabbed the buckle
convulsively, got it loose, stood up, looked about -- and paused again.
If he jumped off now, as the mock-up trundled realistically around the concrete
runway, the little girl would be left to endure her "flight" alone. Half the fun
of it would be gone for her. He certainly would never desert a child on a real
flight; why should he do it now? His cruelty would be much the same,
figuratively.
He settled back into his seat and rebuckled. His other appointment would simply
have to wait a little longer. No doubt the Watchers, discovering him absent,
would check the edges of the Animation area and locate him here in due course.
Since the child's real parents were not present, Brother Paul would have to keep
an eye on her until they turned up. As Jesus Christ Himself had said about the
least of children -- "
The plane turned, orienting on the main runway, the one Brother Paul had
originally spied. The machine accelerated. The vegetation outside shot by. This
was no gentle push; the passengers were pressed back into their couches. It
seemed like two hundred kilometers per hour. Fascinated, Carolyn peered out of
the slanted window. Brother Paul squinted past her head, as interested as she,
though for a different reason. This was really quite an effect!
The nose lifted, then the tail. The plane angled up, still driving relentlessly
forward. This was becoming too realistic; how could it stop before the pavement
gave out?
The passing foliage dropped below. Take off!
Take off? Brother Paul stared past the child through the few waving strands of
her hair that had yanked themselves free of the braids. Already the landscape
was twenty meters below and dropping rapidly, forced behind by the monstrous
thrust of the jets.
Suddenly he caught on. Motion picture film projected on the window as the
structure of the plane was angled. To make it seem, by means of tilt and vision,
as though they were flying. Very clever illusion.
Soon the window image showed clouds, and the plane leveled out. Champagne was
served; Brother Paul declined his glass. There had been a time when -- but he would
never touch any mind-affecting drug again!
The stewardess walked down the aisle, plunking packaged breakfasts on the little
shelves that folded out from the seats in front. Scrambled eggs, sausage, toast,
and fruit juice.
Breakfasts? Was this morning? Well, it could be, after all his time crawling
through the labyrinth under the Sphinx. Subjective impressions of the passage of
time were suspect once a person had been in Animation.
"Can I have milk?" Carolyn asked.
"May you have milk," Brother Paul said absently.
The stewardess smiled and produced a glass of milk. She was a buxom lass, and a
chain of thought related the milk to -- but he cut that off. Invalid, anyway; many
people were not aware that cows did not freshen until bred.
Carolyn had a great time with this "picnic" meal, but Brother Paul was pensive.
Why such an elaborate set with real food just like that of a past day on Earth
(no wooden soup!), as though this really were a pre-mattermission airplane
flight? It was really getting beyond the simple entertainment stage. Why
squander the meager resources of Planet Tarot on such an exhibition of
nostalgia?
Yet when he thought about it, it began to make more sense. He suffered from some
nostalgia himself. It was nice to revisit the affluent, technological past, even
briefly, even in mock-up. It had been so many years since he had been on a real
airplane -- and then it had not been as large or elegant as this one. So why not
relax and enjoy the show?
They finished their meal -- Carolyn left much of hers, he noted distastefully; he
did not like waste -- and the stewardess cleared away the trays.
Now they were far above the clouds -- 37,000 feet, the pilot's announcement said,
causing Brother Paul to pause in his speculations a moment to translate that
into kilometers: about eleven and a quarter -- and he could have sworn his ears
popped. The flight was level and dull. Some of the other passengers were
reading, and others were sleeping, just as though they had made this trip many
times before. Even as nostalgia, this was beginning to pall; enough was enough!
"Who was Will Hamlin?" Carolyn asked suddenly.
Startled, Brother Paul glanced at her. "What do you know about Will Hamlin?"
"Nothing," she replied brightly. "That's why I asked, Daddy."
Brother Paul oriented on the question, for the moment setting aside the other
confusions of this odd journey. For there had indeed been a Will Hamlin...
Paul had first met Wilfrid G. Hamlin as a brand new freshman college student of
eighteen. Paul was going around interviewing instructors, as was the system at
this small, unusual institution. He was trying to make up his mind which courses
best suited his nascent intellectual needs.
The oddness of this college was really the reason Paul had come. It had no
irrelevant entrance requirements, no tests, no grades, and no set curriculum.
The students talked with the instructors, each of whom gave a little sales pitch
for his particular class, and then selected the courses that seemed most
promising. If an insufficient number of students picked a given class, that
class was discontinued before it started. Somehow, each semester, it all worked
out, though it always seemed impossibly chaotic. The classes themselves were of
the discussion variety with no lectures; the instructors merely tried to
organize the expressed opinions and bring out the fine points as the classes
proceeded. It was all very relaxed: education almost without pain.
Will Hamlin was a small man without distinguishing traits other than a slight
stutter. He had a little cubbyhole of an office off the unfinished hallway
leading to the Haybarn Theater.
Brother Paul shook his head, remembering. Three years later he had had an
adventure of sorts in that hall -- but that would hardly interest a child --
"Yes it would!" Carolyn insisted. "Tell me, Daddy!"
Um. Well -- One of Paul's classmates, call him Dick, and another friend, call him
Guy -- though perhaps two other people had actually been involved in this minor
escapade -- well, the three of them and their three girlfriends, who shall be
nameless (no, Carolyn, it is just a kind of convention: you don't say anything
untoward about girls if you can help it. They are supposed to be unsullied) -- the
grandmother (or was it the grandfather? Call it the former) of one of these six
had taken to making his own wine, and lo, a sample was on hand here at the
college. Dandelion wine from homegrown weeds -- it really was not very good. So in
true collegiate tradition these bright young people -- and they were pretty bright,
their actions and scholastics to the contrary notwithstanding -- had decided to
improve upon this wine by distilling it. They rigged up a little still in the
science lab at night (night was the chief period of action; day was reserved for
sleeping and, on occasion, a college class or two), and after various mishaps in
the dark succeeded in deriving the essence: perhaps a cup of 100 proof liqueur.
But the bad taste of the original had been intensified by the distillation; now
it was the very quintessence of awfulness. What to do with it? They carried it
through the Haybarn Theater, on the way to the Community Center -- but three drops
spilled like guilty blood on the floor of the hall outside Will's office.
(That's right -- the college was so informal that all instructors and
administrative personnel right up to the president were addressed by their first
names.) Brother Paul had lost all memory of the final disposition of Distilled
Old Grandma, but he clearly remembered passing through that hall the following
morning -- and catching a good whiff of Old Grandma. His stomach turned. That
region had been impregnated with the stench, and of course no one would confess
the cause. Poor Will, whose door opened directly onto it!
"No, I didn't think you'd understand," Brother Paul said. "In retrospect, it
really isn't funny. Just an irrelevant reminiscence -- " But Carolyn was stifling a
girlish chuckle. Well, perhaps that had been the level of that episode! A stink
in a hall...
Oh, the Haybarn Theater? Well, the whole college had been converted fourteen
years before Paul's arrival -- yes, he was actually older than the college! -- from a
New England farm, and the main building had been the big red gambrel-roofed
barn.
Now the rough-hewn rafters showed high above the theater section; the hay had
been removed, but a bird or two still nested in the upper regions. The office of
the college president was in a silo. Will had not rated a silo. Which brings us
back to that first encounter. Maybe being educated in a barn causes the mind to
become littered with stray thoughts, running around and getting in the way like
the stray dogs that roamed the campus. But now we have returned to what we were
talking about. There was hardly room in Will's niche to turn around, but at
least he had a window. On hot days that was a blessing.
"Dos Passos' U.S.A.", Will was saying. Brother Paul smiled with the force of
another reminiscence. He had thought it was a place. Like Winesburg, Ohio, or
God's Little Acre.
The problem was that each instructor described his course as though the student
already knew what it was all about. Paul had no idea whether he wished to visit
Dos Passos, U.S.A., or whether he preferred to contemplate the Individual and
Society under the tutelage of another prospective instructor, or perhaps drama
or art or music or any several of a number of other offerings. It was all very
confusing.
In the end, Will's course was one of those which Paul elected to attend. In due
course he learned that Dos Passos, U.S.A., was a monstrous place, three volumes
long and as big as twentieth century America, and well worth the experience of
struggling through its labyrinthine and fragmentary bypaths. It was, indeed,
somewhat like life itself.
Paul learned a good deal more, and grew more, than could be accounted for in
horizons of the classroom or dreampt of in the philosophies of the instructors.
The college campus itself was a kind of Winesburg or Dos Passos, with devious
interactions complimenting the open ones. The grapevine kept all interested
parties posted on the on-going student, faculty, and student-faculty liaisons;
some interactions were hilarious, some serious, and some pitiful. Some people
thrived in this melting pot of intellectual and sexual personality; others were
destroyed. A little freedom could be a devastating thing! Paul himself came
through it -- mainly by luck, he decided in retrospect -- more or less whole. But he
had learned a certain tolerance and became less inclined to judge a person by
some particular aspect of his or her personality such as physical impairment or
lesbianism or schizophrenia. During this overall educational experience, much of
what Paul was later to become was shaped, though there had been scant evidence
of it at the time.
In those years Will became Paul's faculty advisor. The advisor system at this
college was closer than what was normal elsewhere; the advisor had quite
specific involvement in the student's curriculum and concern with his overall
welfare. Paul had by then become a student activist -- this too was the normal
course -- and through him Will had another fairly shrewd insight into some of what
was percolating through the deeper recesses of the tangled campus scheme.
The college tried to prepare its community for life in the great outside world
by being a more or less faithful microcosm of that world. Students ran most of
the campus routine, washing the dishes, cleaning the floors, tending the
grounds, organizing the fire department, and serving on committees.
Periodically, the faculty members were routed out to participate in these chores
too, rather than being allowed to molder in their ivory towers (as it were:
silos), but it was a thankless attempt. Most routed-out faculty soon drifted
back to their normal ruts.
The whole was governed by the Community Meeting, consciously patterned after the
Town Meetings of rural New England. Periodically, students, faculty, and
administrators got together and thrashed through the agenda, utilizing formal
Parliamentary procedure. The assorted committees that ran things in the interims
reported to this meeting and were given new directives. Some of these committees
tended to develop wills of their own, honoring the adage that power tends to
corrupt, and this could lead to trouble. The most notorious was the Executive
Committee, called Exec for short, composed of the heads of the other committees
together with the president of the college, selected faculty members, and
representatives from each student dormitory. At times Exec concealed what it was
doing from the larger community in order to prevent its less popular decisions
from being reversed by the Community Meeting. "We should be the head of the
Community, not the tail," one Exec member put it. To which an irate community
member responded: "Exec's acting like the asshole of the Community!"
For example: there was one student in his mid-twenties, a former small
businessman called Deacon or "Deac" for short. He organized a Community
cooperative store that sold cigarettes, cosmetics, stationery, and sundry other
necessaries at reduced prices. The enterprise was doing well, and it served a
Community need; therefore, the organizer was cordially disliked by the
anti-free-enterprise elements of the Community. They tried to torpedo the co-op
in various ways not excluding the rifling of several hundred dollars worth of
supplies from the storeroom, but Deac was smarter than they, and the co-op
survived. He had a candy machine installed; there was a great outcry against it
as being counter to "Community spirit." But one evening the Community Communist,
who had protested most vehemently against "commodity fetishism," was observed to
sneak in and surreptitiously infiltrate a coin to obtain a box of raisins from
the orifice of the evil machine. That was perhaps the coop's ultimate success.
Deac had a little dog. Dogs were not permitted on campus by Community law. But
the college president's beautiful Irish Setter, called Pavlov because he tended
to drool, wandered freely around and in the buildings. Pavlov once watered down
a terrified student standing in the dining room. So the rule was not enforced.
Deac's little canine was fed and housed off campus, but tended to follow the
example set by other members of the community, going where the action was. (No
one ever saw a dog attending a class, which showed how well the canines
understood the situation.) Certain members of the Executive Committee saw their
chance. The owner was responsible for the pet; the dog had broken the law;
therefore, Deac was expelled from the Community. (No one suggested the college
president should be served in the same fashion; there were, it seemed, limits.)
There was an immediate outcry. Deac had his enemies in Exec, but he also had his
friends in the Community. The majority sentiment was clearly in Deac's favor, if
only as a concern for fair play. So Exec maneuvered cleverly to prevent the
issue from being placed on the agenda. With luck, Deac would be gone before the
Community could formally discuss the matter: a fait accompli.
As it happened, Paul was then the Community Secretary, and his friend Dick, of
Old Grandma repute, was Chairman of the Community Meeting. They conferred -- they
were after all roommates, as were their girlfriends, in a singularly cozy
arrangement -- and discovered that the prior agenda was advisory only; it could be
set aside and anything discussed by the simple decision of the majority. So the
notice of the Meeting was posted with the old agenda, so as not to alert the
opposition, and plans were made and circulated.
The Meeting was called to order. The formalities were undertaken so that the
first thing discussed was the Dog Law. A motion was made: abolish the law.
Discussion? Three people spoke in defense of the law; no one spoke against it.
With amazing suddenness the matter came to a vote -- and the law was terminated by
a massive, hitherto silent, majority. Deac was back on campus since he could not
be expelled for his dog's violation of a nonexistent law. Too late, the
anti-Deac forces that dominated Exec realized that they'd been had. They had
been outmaneuvered and destroyed by the same machine tactics they had initiated.
Paul wrote up the whole inside story for the Minutes of the Meeting, hardly
concealing his pride in his own participation.
Later in life, Brother Paul was to find that machine politics, far from being a
local Community aberration or perversion of the system, were in fact typical of
global politics. It gave him a very special comprehension of the forces at work
in the historical McCarthyism and HUAC or House UnAmerican Activities Committee,
itself one of the least American institutions. Power did tend to corrupt, in the
macrocosm as in the microcosm, and at times desperate measures were required to
right the determined wrongness of those supposedly representing the will of the
majority. It was a phenomenon Paul never quite understood, the Good Guys acting
just like the Bad Guys, but at least he learned to recognize it when he saw it.
The college had, indeed, educated him for real life.
However effective this education was, the enrollment of the college was
impecuniously small, and the administration decided to expand. They felt more
students would come if Community standards were stricter. Certain faculty
members felt that sexual morality was entirely too free among the students.
(Certain students felt the same way about the faculty, but that was another
matter.) So the faculty set curfews on the lounges: no males in female lounges
or females in male lounges after ten p.m. each night.
Now this stirred resentment; students regarded the lounges as a Community
resource and used them at any hour of the night. (A daytime curfew might not
have been so troublesome.) In addition, the lounges were under Community
authority; the faculty was a minority within the larger Community and could no
more preempt control of the lounges unilaterally than Exec could kick out a
dog-owning student on its own. So the new curfew was without legal foundation
and was duly ignored.
Until Paul, with five other students, was spied sitting and talking in a female
lounge at 10:40 p.m. by the night watchman. Now Paul had not endeared himself to
certain elements of the faculty, and this was not merely a matter of helping to
overturn the dog law. He had stood up for his student rights on other occasions
and generally carried the day. From a shy freshman he had become a self-assured
senior. Theoretically, this was the very kind of development the college
favored: individualism was character. In practice, this was frowned upon when it
manifested as opposition to new faculty curfews for lounges. Paul was summoned
before the faculty Social Standards Committee, popularly known as the Vice
Squad.
Now Paul had tangled with the Vice Squad before. The precepts of its formation
and operation were anathema to him. He happened to be one of two student members
of that Squad, part of the window dressing to make it seem like a Community
guidance operation. He had been extremely awkward dressing. He had brought to
the attention of the college president a private student-faculty liaison
involving one of the faculty members of the Squad itself. "How can this
Committee be expected to enforce social standards that it does not itself
honor?" The encounter was all very polite on the surface, and the president made
no specific commitments. But that member of the Squad had been expeditiously
removed for reasons never quite clarified. It had not been the first time Paul
had locked horns with the president. He had respect for the man and had learned
how to prevail without causing unnecessary embarrassment. The president was
tough but basically honorable: the ideal administrator. Still, the Squad no
longer felt comfortable with Paul.
Another time, the night watchman had caught a student couple in dishabille and
in a compromising juxtaposition -- but by morning had forgotten the name of the boy
involved. The girl was known, but she refused to name her companion, and it was
against faculty policy to punish girls for that might create a bad image in the
eyes of the parents of prospective future female students. Thus the new law was
applied selectively with discrimination practiced for the sake of image. The
hypocrisy of this was evident to the students, if not to the faculty. Some girls
were temperamentally innocent, but others were otherwise; to assume that the
male was necessarily the instigator was at best naive.
At any rate, the entire student body knew via the grapevine who this boy was,
and possibly certain faculty members knew it too -- but this information was not
available to the Squad. The lines of battle were hardening. In a community that
had once been united, ugly currents were manifesting. Like the historical war in
Asia, an originally simple and possibly justifiable idea had been transformed
into self-destructive force. Paul, when questioned by the Squad, repeated his
philosophical aversion to its purpose. "I know who the boy is -- but I shall not
tell you." And he smiled, rather enjoying the situation. Perhaps, he thought in
retrospect, that smile had been a mistake. The Committee was unable to act, and
had to drop the matter, but -- Next time the watchman caught a couple (coupling was
a popular form of education), he took down both their names. There would be no
slipping the noose this time! By sheer chance, the boy this time was Paul's
friend Dick, and the couple had been using, with Paul's permission, Paul's own
nocturnal hideaway: in the attic of the Community library, under the eaves. It
was set up over the rafters with a mattress, tapped-wire electricity, and a
bottle of 100-proof vodka (definitely not Old Grandma!), and was accessable by a
rope ladder and trap door. It was perhaps the finest and most private love niche
on campus. But Paul was not in it, that particular night, and so the turn of
fortune had led to the discovery of his friend instead. Dick had been hauled
before the Vice Squad and suspended from campus for one week.
There, but for the grace of God... (Oh, that's just a figure of speech, Carolyn.
It means -- well, if you had a piece of candy, and you gave it to a friend, and she
ate it and got sick, how would you feel?) Actually, he was simplifying the story
considerably, saying in a few words what was passing in voluminous review
through his head and editing the juicier details.
Paul, necessarily silent about his own stake in this matter, did not take this
lying down. There was a policy in the Community that the victims of theft be
reimbursed for their losses from the Community Treasury. Paul introduced a
motion in the Meeting that his suspended friend be similarly reimbursed for his
travel expenses, owing to the illicit action of the Vice Squad. It was a
prepostrous notion -- but such was the sentiment of the aroused Community at this
stage that the motion carried. The money was paid -- and the implications were
hardly lost upon either faction. The Vice Squad had suffered another black eye,
even in its technical victory. But Paul, too, had been privately wounded. He had
lost his hideaway and had a friend suffer in lieu of himself. The stakes were
rising, and his brushes with disaster were narrowing his options.
During this extended sequence, Paul was in the Community Center when the night
watchman entered on his rounds. The watchman was a large, amiable, husky young
man hardly older than the students involved. "Here is the man," Paul announced
loudly to the room in general, "who performs his job -- beyond the call of duty."
It was an extremely pointed remark whose import was lost on no one present; only
the most diligent search had enabled the watchman to locate the hidden couple,
starting from a single footprint in the snow. Yet the watchman had only done his
job, however excellently, and was doing his job now. He merely smiled in
response to Paul's remark, as it were turning the other cheek, punched the time
clock, and departed.
Now it was Paul himself on trial -- and the Vice Squad had quite a number of scores
to settle. It would be simplistic to suggest that their handling of the case was
merely a matter of revenge, yet this was a factor that could not be entirely
discounted, for Paul had caused the Committee more embarrassment than had any
other person. He symbolized to a certain extent, the opposition to the very
legitimacy of the Squad.
There was a preliminary hearing. As with the medieval Inquisition, these things
had to be done according to form. Three of the students in the lounge had been
females (fully clothed and in their right minds); since it was their lounge,
they were left out of it. They would have been left out regardless, as had two
prior girls. The first of the three boys said: "I don't agree with the lounge
curfew or recognize the authority of this Committee -- but since I can not afford
the kind of trouble this Committee will make for me if I stand on my rights, I
shall not do so. I apologize for breaking the rule, and I shall not break it
again. " This was exactly what the Committee wanted to hear; he had capitulated
and acknowledged its power. He was let off without punishment. He finished out
the semester and did not return to the college next year. It was a script Paul
was later to recognize in totalitarian regimes across the world -- but it was not
one he was prepared to follow, then or ever.
The second student turned to Paul. "Do we go that route, or do we fight?" Paul
knew the other wanted to fight -- indeed, he was the one who had remarked on the
anal propensities of Exec -- but did not want to stand alone. "We fight," Paul
declared. And together they let the Vice Squad have it, denouncing the Committee
with a thoroughness possible only to bright college males.
In due course they were summoned for the verdicts. The other student entered the
room first, emerging with the news that he had been suspended for one week.
Paul, more ornery and more careful, brought along a tape recorder. The reaction
of the Vice Squad would have been surprising to those who did not know the
people involved. The faculty members refused to utter their decision for the
recorder. Paul refused to hear it without that protection. So he departed
without verdict.
The Community held a massive protest rally over the student's suspension,
meeting after hours in the female lounge. Where else? When the night watchman
came, some fifty names -- well over half the student body -- were delivered to him to
report to his owners. It was a mark of honor to be on that list. But the Squad
termed this a "Demonstration" and ignored it. They didn't want half the
Community; they wanted Paul. Tactic and counter-tactic; this stage of the battle
was a draw.
The student body then had a formal meeting in a male lounge; the faculty, by
pointed invitation, attended. It was polite but hostile; some very fine rhetoric
was recorded, blasting the faculty position. To repeated questions of propriety,
legality, and ethics, the college president stated flatly: "If the suspension is
not honored, I will close the college." He was serious; he spoke in terms of
power, not morality. And in the end the students, being more reasonable and
vulnerable than he, backed down; they had lost the confrontation. The student
left on his week's suspension (more correctly, he hid out for several days,
awaiting the decision on Paul), and Paul finally worked out a compromise with
the tape-shy Squad: they gave him a written sentence. This turned out to be
significant, for when the other student missed an important drama rehearsal
owing to his suspension, arousing the ire of the drama coach, the Squad denied
that it had actually suspended him for a full week. Paul's written statement
gave the lie to that, and he called them on it in the next Community Meeting.
Yet the Squad had won this engagement. The action had alienated the entire
student body and made a mockery of Community government, but the will of the
faculty had prevailed.
In all this fracas the faculty had held firmly to the position maintained by the
college president: the lounge curfew was legitimate and so were the suspensions.
But privately there were faculty dissentions. A respectable minority had
sympathy for the student position. In addition, the college was then in a more
acute financial crisis than usual; not all the faculty members had been paid for
the past month. They knew the college could close! In the face of these ethical
and practical stresses during this upheaval, only one faculty member had the
courage to speak out. He did so at the student protest meeting in the presence
of the college president. In qualified language he supported certain aspects of
the student position and denied that the president spoke for all the faculty;
since the president had made this claim, Will came eloquently close to calling
him a liar. Will Hamlin -- Paul's counselor.
"And that," Paul concluded as the airplane descended, "was Will Hamlin -- the only
one with the guts to speak his mind honestly, though it may have imperiled his
tenure at the college. At the time, his act of courage was largely obscured by
the complexities of the situation; others may not have cared or even noticed.
Standing up for what's right is often a thankless task. But I never forgot.
Perhaps the later hardening of my own dedication to principle was sparked by
that example. In later years I received solicitations for financial support
signed by one of the members of that Vice Squad; they were routine printed
things, but that signature balked me, and I did not contribute. But this time I
heard from Will -- and I could not in conscience refuse him. Now he seems to be the
only one I knew then, who remains at the college today, twenty years later."
Twenty years later? Brother Paul heard himself say that and wondered -- for he had
graduated only ten years before. Now the other mystery returned: how had this
child happened to ask about a man in Brother Paul's past? It was an unlikely
coincidence -- yet somehow it did not seem coincidental. Almost, he could
remember -- "
"Daddy, my ears hurt!" Carolyn said.
The immediate pre-empted the reflective. "It must be the pressure," he told her.
"As the plane descends, the air -- " But her little face was screwing up in
unfeigned discomfort; it was no time for reasonable discussion. "Try to pop your
ears," he said quickly. "Hold your nose and blow. Hard. Harder!"
Finally it worked. Her face relaxed and she smudged away a tear. "I don't like
that," she announced.
He could not blame her. He had not felt any discomfort himself, but knew the
pressure on the eardrums could be painful, especially to a child who could not
understand it.
Now the plane was dropping through the clouds -- and there were the streets and
buildings of Boston.
Brother Paul knew he was no longer on Planet Tarot. Not in perception, at least;
this had to be another Animation. But it was a strange one, following its own
course regardless of his personal will. Will? Was that a pun? Was his true will
to remember Will Hamlin?
If this were merely another vision -- how could he ever, after this, be certain of
reality? He had been so sure he was out of the Animations! If he had no way of
knowing, as it were, whether he was asleep or awake...
And the child, Carolyn -- was she a mere hallucination? The strange thing was that
he was coming to remember her, a little -- though he was unmarried and had no
children. So how could he remember her? The manifestations of Animation might
transform the world of his senses, but had not hitherto touched the world of his
mind. His firm belief in the sanctity of his basic identity had sustained him
throughout this extraordinary adventure; if his private dignity, his concept of
self-worth deserted him or was otherwise compromised, he was lost. He did not
want anything diddling with his mind!
He concentrated, trying to break out of the Vision. Carolyn turned toward him,
her eyes big and blue. "Daddy -- are you all right?"
Brother Paul lost his will. If he vacated this Vision -- what would become of her?
He suspected she had no reality apart from his imagination, but somehow he
perceived her trapped in a scheme from which the protagonist was gone. Horrible
thought! He had to see her safely home -- or wherever. Then he could vacate.
Obeying the rules of the game.
The Boston airport was like any other -- of the pre-exodus days. Only the city
surrounding it seemed different, shrunken. Yet not like most present cities, for
it had electric power, and the skyscrapers showed lights on the upper floors,
signifying occupancy. Strange, strange!
The ground rushed up. The wheels bumped. The plane braked, and finally taxied up
to the terminal. "Well, we made it," Brother Paul murmured.
They de-planed and found themselves in the main terminal. According to the
tickets they had a couple hours to wait before boarding their next plane. "Can
we eat at the airport, Daddy?" Carolyn asked hopefully.
Brother Paul checked and discovered he had money in the form of sufficient cash;
they could eat. The prices were too high, the food nutritionally inadequate, but
the little girl was happy. She didn't care what she ate; she merely wanted to
have eaten at an airport. Afterwards they walked around nearby Boston, Carolyn
finding everything fascinating from glassy buildings to cellar grates. He liked
this child; it was easy to share the spirit of her little enthusiasms. She had
always been that way, hyperactive, inquisitive, excitable. Right from the time
of her birth, he remembered -- "
Remembered what? She was a construct of the present, having no reality apart
from this vision, with no past and no future. Wasn't she?
Brother Paul shook his head, watching her trip blithely ahead, busy as a puppy
on a fascinating trail. He felt guilty for breaking up the illusion. Why not
remember -- whatever he had been about to remember?
At last they reported to the Air Non Entity terminal for the hop into the
unexplored wilds of New England. After the huge jet liner, this little
twenty-passenger propeller plane seemed like a toy. But it revved up as though
driven by powerfully torqued rubber bands and zoomed up into the sky well
enough. Every time it went through a cute little cloud it dipped, alarming
Brother Paul and scaring Carolyn. It just didn't seem safe!
"Daddy, tell me the story about the little grades that weren't there," Carolyn
said brightly as her transient attention wandered from the dip-clouds. Anything
that continued longer than five minutes lost its appeal for a child this age, it
seemed.
But the little grades: how had she known about that? He must have told her
before, and now she was showing the other side of the coin of short attention:
she liked to have familiar things repeated, always with the same details.
Well, it was pointless to rivet their attention on the clouds zooming by so
perilously close outside or to concentrate on the incipient queasiness of motion
sickness. So he closed his eyes to the all-too-suggestive vomit bags tucked
conveniently in the pouch of the seat-back ahead, and told (again?) about the
nonexistent grades. Carolyn was already learning to detest grades, and she liked
to hear about his more sophisticated objections to the System. Gradually he fell
into the scene himself, reliving it, though the words he spoke to her were once
again simplified for her comprehension.
The college used no grades. That was one of its initial attractions: the freedom
from the oppressive pressure of examinations, of number or letter scores, and
from all their attendent evils. Paul had not liked competing scholastically in
high school against those who cheated; this had soured the whole system for him.
For though he did not cheat, his position in his class was affected by those who
were less scrupulous. Thus he had graduated below those whom he knew he had
outperformed. Furthermore, even with honest performance by participants, testing
was imperfect, and he suffered thereby. He learned slowly but well, and retained
his knowledge longer than the average, sometimes improving on it after the tests
were past. Others forgot the material as soon as the tests were done. Yet their
grades reflected not what they retained or used, but what their tests showed.
Here at the college there was no cheating, for there was nothing to cheat at no
all night cramming sessions, no circulated advance copies of final exams, no
punitive reductions of earned grades, and no pattern of cram-forget. A massive,
systemic evil had been exorcised.
Instead, at the end of each college term, reports were made by three
individuals: the instructor, the student, and the student's faculty counselor. A
non-letter, non-numeric evaluation was composed from these three opinions and
filed in the student's record. And that was it.
Or so it had been claimed in the college catalogue.
Paul had believed it throughout his residence at the college: four years. Freed
from that grade incubus, he had explored other aspects of education, such as
folk singing, table tennis, and the frustrations and joys of association with
the distaff sex. He had not, however, neglected the formal classes; in fact he
had learned a great deal at them that served him well in subsequent years. But
the classes had been merely part of his education, not the whole of it. He had
never regretted this approach and had always appreciated the college's readiness
to allow him to find himself in his own fashion. A student could not really grow
in the strait jacket of "normal" education, but here it was different. He
learned what it pleased him to learn, in and out of classes, and had continued
the habit since. Learning was still his major joy, now more than ever -- because he
had learned at this college not facts, but how to learn. All the other
tribulations faded in importance, but this ability grew.
Years later, in the course of his novice training for the Holy Order of Vision,
Father Benjamin had set before him a thin folder. "This is Temptation," Father
Benjamin had said.
Brother Paul looked at him. "I don't understand. I had expected to meditate this
hour." Meditation was serious business: another form of learning.
"Indeed you shall, Paul," the Father said with a certain obscure smile. "You
shall meditate whether to open that folder or to let it be."
Was the Father joking? This was hardly the standard definition of meditation!
Yet it seemed he was not. "How shall I know what is right? I don't know the
nature of this folder."
"It is your college transcript." And Father Benjamin departed.
Meditation? This was turmoil! Brother Paul knew this transcript was, for him,
classified material; he was not supposed to see it. In order to remove all
competitive pressure, the college concealed the records from the individual
students. Of course, Paul knew generally how he had done, for his own opinions
were part of the record.
Now, however, he wondered. If he knew what was in his transcript, why should it
be secret from him? What difference did it make?
He pondered, and the doubt grew. No one kept his age a secret from him, or his
weight, or any other aspect of his own being or performance. Generally Brother
Paul felt that any person had a right to information about himself; it was after
all his life. What purpose was there in a secret, ever?
But surely the college had reason to restrict this document. The pointless
frills had been eliminated there in favor of the genuine education. If some
aspect had to be concealed, it was necessary. Wasn't he honor bound to obey the
rule and leave the folder alone?
Then why had Father Benjamin presented him with this material? Was this a test
of his basic integrity, whose result would determine his progress in the Order?
Was Father Benjamin playing the Devil's Advocate, subjecting him to temptation?
Would he, like Jesus Christ, prevail and remain above reproach -- or would he, like
Eve in the Garden of Eden, succumb to the lure of the fruit of the forbidden
Tree of Knowledge?
That introduced another aspect. Brother Paul himself had never condemned Eve for
tasting that fruit, though it had cost her and Adam their residence in an
earthly paradise. Knowledge was the very essence of man, the thing that
distinguished him from the animals. A person who eschewed learning of any type
sacrificed his heritage. Eden had been no paradise; it had been a prison.
Ignorance was not bliss. Surely God had intended the ancestral couple to eat of
the fruit; it would have been wrong not to do it. The point of the legend was
that the price of knowledge was high -- but it had to be paid. The alternative
would have been to remain an animal.
This was not, perhaps, an orthodox interpretation. But the Holy Order of Vision,
like the college, encouraged widely ranging thought. If man's insatiable
curiosity were the Original Sin, how could he expiate it, except by finally
satisfying it?
Was it significant that Satan had tempted Christ with power, wealth, and pride,
but not with knowledge? "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be
made bread." Jesus had responded: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And to the offer of worldly
power if he would worship the Devil: "Get thee behind me, Satan..." Why not
knowledge?
He looked at the folder again. The thing seemed to glow with evil light despite
his reasoning. Could it be that knowledge was power and, therefore, had been
included in the temptations Christ withstood? What had Father Benjamin done to
him, putting this manifestation of the Devil within his grasp?
No, he had no Biblical reference here. The verdict on knowledge was
inconclusive. Each specific case had to be judged on its merits.
By what right did the college decree that everyone except the person most
concerned should know the details of his education? There was an inherent
unfairness in that which should be manifest to any objective person. By what
irony were the educators themselves blind to this wrong?
Yet he knew from his experience that educators were human too, with human assets
and failings. They did not see right and wrong with perfect clarity. And why
should they? Their purpose was to enable the students to grow; if they succeeded
in this, they had met the requirement of their office. Could God himself demand
more of them? Probably it had been the college administrators, not the
instructors, who had classified the documents.
But again: why! So the students could not complain? Why should any student
complain about the simple record of his progress that he himself had helped
write? Something was missing...
He remembered his encounters with Exec and with the Vice Squad. Secrecy had been
the hallmark of illicit dealings there. Secrecy was so often invoked to protect
the guilty.
Was it the simple record? Or was there some sinister secret buried in this
folder, known to all except him? Brother Paul recalled the frustrating joke
about the man who was given a message written in a foreign language. Each person
to whom he took it, who was able to read that language, refused either to tell
him its meaning or to associate with him further. Thus the man remained forever
in doubt. Was this college transcript like that? Surely he should find out!
He reached for it -- but his hand hesitated. Did the end justify the means? The end
was enlightenment, but the means was the violation of someone's trust. The
college was a mere institution, true -- but trust was trust. It did not matter what
dark secrets lurked within this folder; the unveiling of them would be a
personal sin, an affront against morality, lightness, and justice.
"Ah, but the flesh is weak," Paul murmured, opening the folder.
Soon he wished he had not. Yea, Pandora! he thought. Pandora was the girl who
had opened the box (was she merely another incarnation of Eve?) and thereby
loosed all things upon the world, retaining only one: hope. Paul had now let
hope itself escape. For the cherished ideals of his college days, that had
survived all the buffeting of campus politics, flawed faculty members, and a
questionable suspension, were now revealed as delusions.
First, this transcript had grades. Straight letter grades, A, B, C, of precisely
the type the college never used. Oh, there were paragraph evaluations too -- but
each was followed by its translation into the letter, the kind that computers
could manipulate for numeric grade point averages, just as at any other school.
But at other schools the grades were posted openly; each student knew exactly
where he stood. Here they had been posted secretly so that not only was the
student not advised of his rating, but he did not even know that he was being
graded. Thus he was at a competitive disadvantage in the remainder of his life.
As though he were playing poker and every other player could see his hand, but
he could not. Brother Paul understood poker all too well, and the analogy
tortured him. Here was his message in a foreign language, and of all the parties
who could have revealed its content to him, only one had done so: the Holy Order
of Vision. Thus he had broken the terrible geas more or less by luck. Yet its
prior damage could not be undone. "Alma Mater, how could you!" he cried with a
sensation like heartbreak.
At the beginning of the transcript was a note saying that the college preferred
not to use grades, but owing to outside requirements had had to do so. Another
note cautioned the reader against allowing the subject to see this record. No
wonder!
Paul had traveled more or less innocently through the curriculum for four years
without thought of grade or competitive standing; that had been the beauty of
it. He had learned eclectically, for the sake of learning -- and now via this
hyprocrisy it had come to nought.
No, no -- that was an unfair verdict. The gradeless environment had forced on him a
peculiar discipline. It was so easy to sink into stagnation, deprived of the
goad of tests and grades and the printed-letter esteem they brought. A number of
students had done just that and in due course washed out of the program. But
others considered it a challenge -- to learn, profit, and grow without a formally
structured stimulus. And a few, like Paul, who were well able to compete for
grades if that were required, had discovered instead the sheer joy of knowledge.
Knowledge of things was one route leading into knowledge of self. A grade in
itself was nothing; it was, at the root, the attitude that counted.
The process had hardly been complete when Paul left college. He had had serious
problems when he departed that protected environment, as his experience with the
drug mnem had shown! But the foundation had been laid, and in time he had built
upon it, and now he was learning more and growing more every year than he ever
had in college. This was no denigration of that educational system; it was the
fulfillment of it. Learning to learn -- "that was real, though the system turned
out to be false.
From good must come good, and from evil, evil, he thought, remembering Buddha.
Instead, he had encountered a set of statements, one saying the other was true,
the other saying the first was false. A paradox. Good, somehow, had come from
evil.
"If only you had believed in it yourself, O College Administration!" he
murmured, more in regret than ire. "You wrought so much better than you knew,
had you but had more faith!"
Yet they had made the letter grades under protest and hidden them under this
shield of secrecy. So it was a partial lack of faith on their part, rather than
a complete one. The flesh of colleges, too, was weak.
Paul looked at the individual grades for the courses -- and received another
shock. They were not the correct ones!
He delved more deeply, reading the evaluations. Slowly it came clear: these were
his grades -- but not as he had understood them. For they hardly reflected his own
one-third opinion or what he had known of his counselors' opinions. (He had had
three faculty counselors before Will Hamlin.) They were the opinions of the
course instructors -- just as at other schools. Thus the courses having greatest
impact on Paul's thinking and development were marked by B's and C's -- and the
course dearest to the heart of a particular instructor was marked A. That last
had been completely worthwhile -- but so had the others, receiving lesser marks.
The variation had lain not so much within Paul, but within the instructors. Thus
the evaluation system, too, was false.
On top of that, Paul had been given no credit for some of the courses he had
taken; they were not even listed. Drama and music, where he had learned stage
presence, voice projection, and artistry of sound -- all supremely important to his
later development -- gone. By error or design -- quite possibly the latter, as they
were considered "minor" courses, heedless of their impact on the student -- those
parts of his college growth had been excised. Neatly, like a circumcision. Had
he known, he would have protested. But the veil of secrecy had prevented him
from knowing.
Was there ever justification for secrecy? Or was the seeming need to hide
anything, whether physical or informational, an admission by the hider that the
thing being hidden was shameful? Surely it was the act of hiding that was
shameful! That would bear further meditation.
Yet the inadequacy of this sorry record could not take away the fact of his
learning. Paul had profited, and at this institution.
Wasn't that the real point of education? The college by distorting the
transcript had not really denigrated or deprived him; it had merely diminished
its own estimate of its impact upon him. If he failed in life, that had not been
warned by the transcript; if he succeeded, the transcript showed no prediction.
As with so many conventional transcripts, distorted by conventional factors,
this one was largely irrelevant. The college had cheated itself by publishing a
document of mediocrity instead of the document of accuracy it should have. The
good the college had done him would never be known though the transcript.
Paul completed the transcript and closed it, bemused. It was not after all a
work of the Devil, merely of fallible people. Perhaps its greatest failing was
its subtlest: in all the welter of statistics, test scores -- yes, there were some
there! -- and comments, the authorities had somehow succeeded in missing the
essential him. A stranger, reading this transcript, would have no idea of Paul's
actual nature or capability. In this print he was nondescript, possessing no
personality and not much potential.
He had known at the time that a number of instructors (including, to Paul's
regret, Will Hamlin) had not seen in him, Paul, any particular promise. Perhaps
even today they would not consider his present course as representative of
"success." He had suspected at the time that this was because they had not made
any real effort to know him -- and that had they made this effort, they would have
lacked the intelligence to complete the job. The Vice Squad matter had shown
their level of comprehension of human values. Paul was intelligent in
nonconventional ways and indifferent in conventional ways. He was not easy to
measure by a set standard. This transcript confirmed this: it represented them,
not him.
"Transference," he said.
"What?" Carolyn asked.
Suddenly he was back in the present, such as it was. He had thrown a complex
concept at the child. "Transference. That is when a person attributes his
feelings or actions to someone else. If he dislikes someone, he may say 'that
person hates me.' If he feels tired, he says 'They made these steps too steep.'
It is a way of dealing with certain things that he doesn't want to recognize in
himself. He simply shifts the burden to someone else."
"Like Voodoo?" she asked brightly.
"Uh, no. You're thinking of sticking pins in dolls, and the person the doll
stands for hurts?"
"Yes. Maybe the doll hurts too. Mine would."
Naturally she had sympathy for the doll! How hard it was to avoid falling into
the same trap he had rehearsed here, that of failing to know the learner, and so
misjudging his (her!) progress. "That's not really the same. Then again -- " Then
again -- wasn't that whole transcript basically a voodoo doll? The college
administration -- and institutions of similar nature all over the world -- thought
that by calling this document "Paul" and sticking the pins of their secret
opinions into it, they could define what he was. Well, perhaps it had satisfied
them at the time. Next year new students had come, and he had been forgotten,
buried in the office files. The irony was that his case was no doubt typical not
only of the students at his college, but of the students in all colleges and
universities. The great majority of them surely remained unknown. No status for
any of them -- or for their institutions. And people wondered why the educational
system was failing! Straight Voodoo would be better than this. "It's close
enough, sweetie," he told her.
Father Benjamin had never inquired into Paul's decision about the transcript. He
knew the experience sufficed. It was not what Brother Paul had done, but how he
felt about it that counted. He had to answer to no one, ultimately, except
himself -- and God.
But now he was returning to the college after twenty years with his daughter.
For despite the erstwhile opinion of the administration, who had seen fit to
suspend him and deceive him, he had succeeded in life. Now the college wanted
him back, as a kind of authority in his field, to participate as a consultant
for a weekend conference.
It was no laughing matter -- but wasn't the last laugh his?
The little airplane dropped, bringing his attention to lower levels too. Now
Brother Paul's ears hurt. Suddenly he appreciated precisely what his daughter
had gone through.
"Blow your nose, Daddy!" she recommended solicitously. She understood!
He blew, but only the right ear cleared. The left remained blocked. It felt as
though his eardrum would burst. He invisioned it bulging inward with the
intolerable pressure of the atmosphere. Still the craft descended, as it were
into Hell. Where could he find relief?
Finally, as the plane touched the small landing strip, he blew with such
desperation it seemed his brain was squeezing out through his inner ear -- and with
an internal hiss of frustration, the pressure equalized. Lucky he hadn't caught
a cold!
"I like Pandora," Carolyn remarked. "I would have opened that box too."

VI
Will: 14
Sex classically becomes involved for the child at a very early age, in Western
civilization, with the realization that parents are hypocritical and unfair;
that there is one law for the big and another for the little. That the only
thing worth being is big, and strong; and that later, when one is big and
strong, one will have one's innings and one's revenge not only by doing all the
forbidden things, but by forbidding them in turn to one's own children, who will
be littler than oneself and therefore proper to dominate and harass. Underneath
this not-so-innocent dream of 'growing up' runs along the hopeless admission
that one is still pretty little, and the anxious realization that one's sexual
life is a dangerous matter indeed. Like playing with food or feces, or refusing
to do what one is told, or speaking in a loud and demanding way (as do adults),
sex can cause one to be unfairly rejected or severely punished by those whose
love one very much needs. This is the real sexual enlightenment of the child,
and of just as serious a nature as that concerning the birds & bees, or even
human genitalia and what they do.
 -- G. Legman: Rationale of the Dirty Joke, First Series, New York: Grove Press,
1968.

They walked across the strip and entered the small terminal building. It was
empty. Already the airplane was putt-putting back into the clouds.
"Who was supposed to meet us?" Carolyn asked.
"A man named David White," Paul answered. Had there been a foul up?
Then a tall young man, bearded and informally dressed, hurried up. "Father
Paul?" he inquired, extending his hand.
"David White?" Paul inquired in return, taking the hand, recognizing Lee in
another role. He was relieved to have this confirmation that this was an
Animation; any alternative explanation would have been most disquieting in its
implications. "This is my daughter, Carolyn."
"Sorry I'm late. I saw the plane coming down -- "
They hustled to David's small car and piled in their handbags. Carolyn clambered
into the back seat with enthusiasm, clutching her little handbag and big octopus
doll. The car zoomed out of the airport.
On the way to the campus they chatted about inconsequentials, getting to know
each other. David was a senior student, on leave to serve in the Admissions
office. He was not satisfied and planned to complete his degree, then seek
employment elsewhere. His program at the college, appropriately, was just twenty
years later than Paul's. Here, in certain respects, was Paul -- twenty years ago.
Half his life ago! He was glad David was likeable for this purely private,
selfish reason.
The college, he learned, had grown from less than a hundred students to almost
two thousand, though the majority did not reside on campus. And that campus had
expanded; what had been forest to the north was now a collection of dormitories.
It was to one of these unfamiliar buildings they came. Paul knew the college had
changed, yet he felt disappointment to see it changed. Change was a vital aspect
of life and of the universe, yet an emotional countercurrent wished it were not
so.
They were issued meal tickets for the cafeteria -- and this was in the Community
Center where Paul had eaten for four years. This building had hardly changed; it
remained a converted barn. The cellar he had helped dig out was now a dining
room; he and Carolyn ate there, and he met the other program participants there.
It was strange, being in this place that he remembered as the depths of the
earth; it resembled a fantasy room, the kind that was not really there.
No faces were familiar; the turnover had been complete except for Will Hamlin,
who was not at supper. But these were educated, compatible people, centering
around his own age -- which had, as it were overnight, doubled. He had jumped from
twenty to forty, from student status to instructor status, though inside he felt
the same. He was as much of a rebel as he had been. At least he liked to think
so. The outward manifestations of it had merely changed.
Carolyn was eating with excellent appetite. She had two glasses of chocolate
milk and was in partial heaven. That made him realize, with a rush of feeling:
he had changed, for now he had his daughter. From the moment of her birth, his
life had been metamorphosed; her existence was the single most vital aspect of
his existence. He had diapered her as a baby, he had watched her put her foot in
her mouth the first time (so many people never outgrew that!), he had helped her
walk and talk and read; since she came into existence he had never slept without
consciousness of her whereabouts, the assurance that she was safe. Not
graduation, not marriage, not the God of Tarot Himself had transformed him as
significantly. When she was born, he was reborn. He could not conceive of the
scales on which she could be balanced, in terms of the meaning of his life, and
found wanting; as well to balance her against the cosmic lemniscate, the ribbon
symbol of infinity. This was why he had brought her here; she was part of him.
Eight years old, nine in three months (oh, my -- another birthday coming up!),
precious beyond conception.
This was not a thing others understood or ever needed to. They thought he was
the original Paul aged by two decades, though they had not known the original.
Yet did anyone know anyone! A philosophic question, unanswerable.
He talked with these others, planning out aspects of the program. Paul knew
Tarot; one of the others knew I Ching: common ground of a sort. "I threw the
yarrow sticks for tomorrow's program," the other said. "The answer was: 'The
Center is empty.' "
Paul laughed. "That could be literal!"
The man nodded soberly. Much student interest had been expressed in this
program, The Future of Revelation, but it was uncertain how much would manifest
when the hour came. In Paul's day some excellent programs had foundered because
the students simply couldn't be bothered to attend.
They finished the meal and went upstairs to the Haybarn Theater. They passed the
site of Will's old office, but the office was gone. Doubtless Will rated more
than a niche, today, if less than a silo. Paul sniffed -- and there was the odor
of distilled Old Grandma liqueur still permeating the hall. After twenty years?
Impossible...
The Haybarn was as he remembered it. Carolyn was thrilled, running about the
stage, trying to act like an Actress. Here Paul had painted scenery, here he had
wrestled with stage fright. Public speaking had not come readily to him;
hesitancy and a soft voice had been formidable obstacles. Finally during one
session the drama coach had gotten through: "Say it again, exactly as before,
but just two point three times as loud." Paul had done so -- and it had worked.
Never again had he been faint on stage. He still spoke softly in life -- but he
knew the technique of projection and used it consciously when it was required.
Armed with that mechanism, he had found that stage fright itself faded. Now he
could speak extemporaneously before an audience of any size and come across
well. In fact, at times he had a better stage presence than he had a personal
presence; private conversations could be awkward.
"We won't use the theater," David White said. "We'll go out on the lawn; more
pleasant there." Translation: not enough audience to fill the barn.
At dusk they sat on the gentle hillside behind the Haybarn. Carolyn ran off to
explore other portions of the campus. Paul assured himself she would be all
right; no one would molest her here, and she knew where to find him. Part of
raising a child properly was giving her rein; she had to discover her own
horizons in her own fashion.
Each person introduced himself, but the names sieved out of Paul's mind as
rapidly as they were uttered, for names and dates were not his forte. Not since
he got off mnem! They chatted amiably as more people filled in. When there were
about thirty, the main speaker arrived, lay on the bit of level ground at the
foot of the slope, dispensed with his notes, and delivered a rambling discourse
about his experiences in the political maelstrom of pre-exodus Earth. The entire
period of the exodus had fit within ten years, those years fitting within the
score of years between Paul's departure and return to the college, but already
it seemed like medieval history. People called it the "Fool" period, and indeed
it had been mad; the whole of Earth's culture had been shaken in a fashion that
was difficult to believe. But the exodus had not sprung from nothing; Earth had
been near the explosion point before matter transmission had provided the
apparent relief valve. The speaker made this plain, using salty vernacular to
spice his strong opinions. It was an interesting discourse, but not at all what
was listed on the program.
Paul had pondered what he would find, here at the college of his future. It had
been regressing when he left; his own suspension had been only a symptom of the
deeper malady. In the interests of growth and acceptability, it had been
clamping down on personal freedom, sacrificing the very qualities that had made
the college what it was. Now it had achieved that desired growth; did that mean
it had become obnoxiously conventional? It was too early to tell, but the
preliminary signs indicated that it had not. If this speaker were typical of the
new breed of professor, the present college was even more liberal than the
original one had been.
As darkness closed in, still more people manifested, dotting the hillside. So
did mosquitoes. A young couple sat down before Paul, seeming more concerned with
their whispered dialogue than the words of the speaker. The girl kept breaking
wind and giggling. There was a murmur of other conversations scattered around
the slope. Three dogs cruised about, playing tag around the seated figures,
doing the things canines did. Some people left. Evidently this was not
considered to be a program to attend from start to finish, but a temporary stop,
a kind of low-grade continuous entertainment to be absorbed in shifts. There
were some questions to the speaker, reflecting quite individualistic viewpoints.
Paul marveled, internally, as he worried about the dampening grass staining his
good habit. He should have worn blue jeans. No doubt about it: the swinging
pendulum of conservatism had long-since reversed course. This was the way
programs had been in his own day.
At last the program broke up. Paul moved on to the next location where he was
scheduled to read a paper. The subject was the God of Tarot, of course. His was
the second of two; the first took well over an hour. It was quite
interesting -- but this meant it was well past his normal retirement hour before
his turn came. By this time Paul was not at all sure his material suited the
audience. He had chosen it to be not too "far out," so as not to offend tastes
more conservative than his. Now that the extraordinary fact had manifested that
in many ways the current campus was less conventional than was Paul himself, he
was suffering a diminution of ease. He had not changed that much and certainly
had not become more conservative overall; the college had changed and in an
unexpected manner. There was certainly nothing wrong with this, but it left him
off balance, braced in the wrong direction. He would seem more dowdy than he
was.
Then Will Hamlin entered. He was older, grayer, but immediately recognizable. On
two levels: the role-player was Therion. Paul jumped up to shake his hand. That
was really all there was time for; it was the middle of the program.
Paul read his paper, explaining some of the astonishing ways in which the God of
Tarot had manifested, and at last the program ended. There was no particular
comment; the others were surely as tired as he was. He located Carolyn, and they
found their way to the dormitory room. It was of course much farther past the
little girl's bedtime than Paul's own, but she never went to sleep an instant
before she had to and was enjoying this.
Too bad there had not been more opportunity to talk with Will, even in the
surrogate mode of Animation. Twenty years -- the whole world had changed about them
both, yet circumstance had granted a mere handshake. It was not that Will had
been much in Paul's thoughts during the long interim, and surely Paul had never
figured fundamentally in Will's thoughts (fundamentals being prime concepts to
Will); this just happened to be the juxtaposition of frameworks that time had
caused to diverge widely. Twenty years ago, the chances of Paul's eventual
success in life and Will's continued tenure at the college might have seemed
equally improbable -- yet both had come to pass, and this present meeting was the
realization of this. The more appropriate unity of conscience hardly showed
overtly -- "
"Daddy, are we going to read?"
They normally read together at night, and though it was very late, Paul thought
it best to maintain the ritual. He tried to give his daughter a supplementary
education by this means, as well as enhancing that closeness that was so vital
to them both. She was a sensitive, hyperactive child; she needed a constant
supportive presence, not the grim imperatives of forbidding parental figures,
but loving help, and this was part of it. He had read her the entire Oz series
of books, a complete story-adaptation of the Bible, and was starting in on an
unexpurgated translation of the Arabian Nights with the works of Lewis Carroll
and Don Quixote to come. There were those who did not consider this to be proper
fare for a girl her age, but Carolyn was a very bright girl. He explained things
carefully, and they both enjoyed the readings. They were good books, all of
them, and more similar to each other than many people chose to believe.
"Of course, sweetie." In his suitcase was the book he had packed for this
purpose: an old fantasy about a griffin that came to life, having been a stone
statue, and took a little girl flying. For these readings he did not eschew
conventional novels; anything that seemed worthwhile and interesting was fair
game and had been so since she was two years old, ready to graduate from Mother
Goose. Paul had thought this griffin story would complement the experience of
the airplane flight, relieving possible anxiety. Actually it did not; Carolyn
had enjoyed the flight, and the book did not reach the flying part this night.
But the story was interesting.
After that, Carolyn lay on her bunk and read the book she had brought for
herself while Paul read the one he had brought for himself. They were very much
a reading family; he felt that a book was one of the most versatile educational
and entertainment instruments available to man.
Reading, however, tended to put Paul to sleep. It relaxed his mind which
otherwise was prone to continuous charges here and there that prevented sleep.
He had hardly started his reading before Carolyn trotted across in her nightie,
took the book from his hand, kissed him good night, and turned out the light as
he nodded off. He heard her little feet pattering across the floor in the dark,
quickly to avoid possible monsters on the floor, as he faded out. Was he taking
care of her, or she taking care of him? It hardly mattered.
Paul woke at dawn. It was too early for breakfast, and he didn't want to disturb
Carolyn, so he dressed and walked out around the surrounding campus. This was,
as it turned out, a co-ed cooking dorm with kitchen and laundry facilities. Such
dorms had not existed at the college in Paul's day, and there had been no
indication that the institution was moving in that direction. Surely the Vice
Squad would have moved Heaven, Earth, and participating students (yea, right off
the campus!) in its frantic efforts to balk any such development. What had
happened? Paul had known the members of the Squad reasonably well; one had been
described as "as shallow as an empty bathtub" and another as a "medieval
moralist." They must have been grossly out-maneuvered!
No, he had to be fair: he might not have known them well enough. Perhaps they
had come to accept what they had rejected in his day. It was always dangerous to
judge any person's character or attitude as fixed; new aspects often appeared.
There was a chill to the morning even in this summer, and Paul was inadequately
dressed. He had to keep moving to generate heat. That was fine; he liked running
anyway. The environs were lovely. There was a small lake behind the dorm where
four ducks dwelt; the moment they spied him they waddled over with loud quacks,
hoping for food. Alas, he had none. A canoe and a kayak were at the edge for the
use of students. Elsewhere was a volleyball court. Packed-dirt paths led in
various directions. Beyond these items, the forest closed in closely. There were
birds in it and no doubt deer and porcupines: Nature returning. It was all very
pleasant, this enclave of higher education on the brink of the wilderness. Would
that the whole world were the same!
He returned to Carolyn. She took after her mother in this respect; she slept as
late as she could and stayed up as late as she could. Paul was an early bird,
she a late bird. But they didn't want to miss breakfast. "Up," he murmured in
her cute little ear. "Chocolate milk." She stirred. "Ducks."
"Oh, ducks!" she cried joyfully. Waking up might be a fate hardly better than
death, but here were four new friends to make it all worthwhile! Before they
left the campus, Paul knew, she would be on close terms with every duck, dog,
cat, and child on the premises. This was the nature of little girls, bless them!
Together they walked the path to the main campus. The route took wooden steps up
a steep hill, meandered by a solar-designed building still under construction,
through the barbell-shaped Arts building, past the modern new library, and
through a pleasantly dense pine forest. Only the pines had existed in Paul's
day.
"In the pines, in the pines," they sang together, "Where the sun never shines,
And I shiver where the cold winds blow." And there was a chill little breeze,
and they shivered. He pointed out the huge bull spruces to her with their myriad
spokes radiating out, easy to climb, but the dirt and sap got on the hands and
never came off. "So don't climb," he finished warningly. "I don't want the
people to think I have a dirty daughter."
"I won't, Daddy," she promised, eyeing the spruces appraisingly. Those spokes
were just like ladders...
On through a fair field full of flowers, reminding him of the alliterative
opening to the epic poem The Vision of Piers Plowman, wherein there was a fair
field full of folk, representing mankind, going about their petty pursuits,
heedless of the promise of the Tower of Truth above or the threat of the Dungeon
of Wrong below. Carolyn of course wanted to pick the flowers, all of them; but
he begged her to let them be beautiful in life instead of killing them by
picking them.
Finally down to the main campus in time for breakfast. O joy! Carolyn found
several kinds of cereals, sweet pastries, and of course chocolate milk. Paul
found dishes of nuts, sunflower seeds and yogurt; he settled for the skimmed
white milk and two fried eggs as well. All paid for by their typed meal tickets!
Carolyn loved those tickets; they were like magic. Just show one, and the best
of food was yours.
When Paul had been a student here, there had been no particular consciousness of
health in diet. The meals had been good, but conventional; the dietitian had
been getting old, but insisted on doing things her own way. No yogurt or seeds.
She would let the griddle get too hot, so that her fried eggs burned on the
bottom while remaining runny on top. Because of this, Paul had switched from
"sunny side up" to "over" -- but had discovered that she had by then perfected the
art of burning fried eggs on both sides while the whites in the middle resembled
fresh mucous during the hayfever season. But today -- the eggs were good. He was
almost disappointed.
Paul glanced curiously at the students in the dining room. The males were almost
universally bearded, the females braless; most of both sexes were in blue jeans.
In Paul's day there had been fewer beards and more bras; otherwise the aspect of
the student body had hardly changed.
Before the meal was over, Carolyn had made friends with the ladies of the
kitchen. "Daddy, can I stay here this morning?" she asked brightly. Paul
checked; children and animals were not necessarily welcome in kitchens. It was
all right with the ladies. So he made sure his daughter knew where to find him
and let her be. Actually, David White had arranged for a student, Susan, to keep
an eye on Carolyn while Paul was tied up in the program. Susan had a head full
of ringlets and seemed like a nice girl; he was sure it was all right.
On to the morning program. The center is empty, he remembered. There were to be
three discussion groups, each cohosted by two people. Sure enough: only six
people showed up. The six co-hosts. No students. That aspect of college life had
not changed at all; theoretically students came to get an education, but in
practice any program that began first thing in the morning was doomed.
A quick consultation; then the three groups merged. They discussed which topics
to discuss. A few other people wandered in, as though accidentally diverted from
their routine pursuits, temporarily caught in this eddying current, until at
last there were some fifteen people.
Paul shook his head inwardly. This, too, was exactly the way it had been in his
day. The students wanted the degree -- the piece of paper that authenticated their
education -- without actually having to participate in the drudgery of classes.
This happened to be the first really nice day in some time, and everyone was out
with his girlfriend appreciating nature. Which was no bad thing. Paul well knew
that growth could not be forced. Had his own transcript reflected his real
educational experience, it would have listed the whole of his classroom
participation as perhaps one third of his grade. And that would have been a
higher classroom ratio than the average, for he had an intellectual bent.
Actually, it was a very good discussion, and he enjoyed it. He contributed
minimally -- not because he was shy or bored or uninformed, but because he was not.
He did not need to prove anything by dominating the program. The uninterested
and immature students were absent; only serious ones were present. Paul could
see that many participants knew much more about their areas of expertise than he
did; he could learn from them, and he liked listening to them. He liked
interacting with those who were intellectually aware. So though this session
might be a technical loss for the college -- in fact a disaster because it really
educated so few students -- it was a profitable experience for him personally.
Carolyn wandered in a couple of times, just checking on him. Reassured, she
buzzed off around the campus again. Just like a student. She liked it here, as
he had known she would. She did not care about the deep significance of the
college or about the fact that his presence in this very room at an earlier hour
than he had stayed last night had gotten him suspended. To Carolyn, the entire
college was a giant playground with interesting people doing interesting things
all around. It was barely possible that she would one day attend as a student
here; then the other meanings would begin to form.
The attendance of the program swelled, then petered out into assorted
sub-dialogues. Finally, by common consent, the remainder was canceled. The
college had made the program available to its students, but could not make them
attend -- and it was right that it do this. There were principles more important
than formal education, as Paul well knew. Institutions that lost sight of that
fact might post high ratings on paper that only partially masked their
fundamental failure. This college had been, and remained, devoted to the quest
for a better reality.
In the afternoon, Paul took Carolyn down to the moraine on the southern border
of the college. He had learned of this typical formation in a geology class
here, and it had stuck with him ever since. "You see," he told her as they
walked the path ascending the narrow ridge through pines with the sides falling
off steeply on either side, "once huge masses of ice covered much of this
continent. That ice was two kilometers thick. It was called a 'glacier.' At the
edge it pushed up a pile of stones, sand, and debris. When it melted, it left
this pile of rubble to show where it had been. The river ran right below it,
formed from its melt, and the river is still here. So here we stand, on the
glacial moraine." He knew she was more intrigued by the trees, slope and path,
and the blackberries growing along it, than by the theory. But he was often
surprised by her retention, and he hoped that some of the geologic background
would stick with her. How much the teacher he had become, profiting from his own
experience as student! (They should have put the moraine in that transcript...)
On the way back, Paul picked up an article printed about the college. "There are
two rules," it claimed; "no pets and everybody works." Ho, ho! Minor hypocrisy
had not abated either! Just so long as they did not try to expel any more
students by selective enforcement.
After supper, Carolyn went up to the dormitory while Paul remained on the main
campus to talk with people. The girl knew her way around now, so he didn't worry
about her going alone. After all, there were ducks to feed. She had carefully
saved her dinner scraps for them. He gave her the key. "And don't lock me out!"
Returning late, he found the door locked with a note on it. "FATHER PAUL -- Carolyn
could not locate you and was upset, so she is with me." A female name was signed
and an address in another dorm.
Um. He didn't want his little girl upset. She tended to overreact and hated to
be alone. He set out for the listed dorm.
"Oh, sure," a boy in the lounge said. "They were here a moment ago. Here, I'll
take you to her room." He led the way down the hall.
The room was empty. "I think they went to the other dorm," a girl said. "The
little girl was crying -- "
Crying... "Thank you," Paul said. No question about the co-ed status of these
dormitories; the boys and girls mixed freely throughout, and not merely the
married ones. Paul only regretted that it had not been so in his time, as his
suspension testified. The college had now admitted, in effect, that he had been
right all along. Yet perhaps it had been his effort that encouraged them to
change course; they must have been at least partially aware that they were
fighting the most intellectually and socially aware students, not the misfits or
crass ones. If the college admitted only those students who would obey
restrictive and/or illegal rules, what would have been its future?
Ah, but would Paul send his innocent daughter to such a college with its
carefree attitude toward the scholastic aspect and its completely open
dormitories? Indeed he would, if her will and his finances permitted. He had
fought for this very sort of freedom -- freedom to learn to learn, to master real
life -- and still believed in it. The Vice Squad had won the battle and lost the
war, and he was most gratified to see this.
He returned to his own dorm -- and there was Carolyn. "Daddy!" she cried tearfully.
"I thought you'd been killed in a car accident!"
Because she hadn't been able to find him. Her hyperactive imagination had
brought her low. "I was in the Community Center, where you left me."
"I tried to call there, but they said you were gone."
How nice! Had anyone ever looked! Yet the same sort of thing had happened in his
day. Paul himself had unwittingly caused much inconvenience to a visiting family
because a phone call had come for a girl and he had not been able to go to the
girl's dormitory (yea, and be suspended again?) even to call her from the
lounge. He had explained this to the caller. Too late, he had learned that the
girl, expecting the call, had been waiting -- in the Community Center. He had not
looked there, having no reason to believe that she would be there; one could not
comb the entire campus every time the phone rang in the hope of such a random
discovery.
The young lady who had taken charge of Carolyn accompanied them into the room.
Amaranth in co-ed guise, of course; she had portrayed Susan too. All young women
were the same, under the stage makeup, here in Animation. Paul was glad he had
made the beds and kept the room neat, even to placing Carolyn's octopus doll on
her bed. He had hardly expected female company at midnight! A friendly dog also
wandered in, an Irish Setter, reminding him of another long-ago episode and
recent hypocrisy. Carolyn was immediately cheered. Paul thanked the student for
her kindness; she said good-bye to Carolyn and departed. All was well again.
Next morning Carolyn found a girl her own age to play with. It was the
granddaughter of the cleaning lady. The two set off for the kitchen to scrounge
for food for the assorted animals of the campus, especially the voracious ducks.
Carolyn also wangled a ride in the canoe on the little lake, another marvelous
experience for her. To be eight years old again, carefree... yet there was more
even to childhood than this, as the prior evening had shown.
Paul's programs were over. Now he was following up on other matters of interest:
the college's new solar-power facilities, the resident water-dowser, the
specialized Savonius-rotor windmill under construction, and the experimental
crops grown on sludge. All these things had been exploited massively during the
Exodus years, of course, but now that pressure was off, there was time to work
out refinements and ascertain what was best for the long haul. They were raising
crayfish as a crop and using wood for supplementary heating. All these things
paralleled what the Holy Order of Vision was doing, and all were vital to the
modern world. This was another new direction for the college, and he strongly
approved. The years of wasteful, mechanized pollution were over, and it was good
to see the college being so realistic. Institutions could learn and grow in much
the same manner as individuals!
Then he set out to run down Will Hamlin. The man was as coincidentally elusive
as all things were, here, but finally Paul caught him in his office in the
library building. The door was marked "Dean" -- was that his position now?
"I have seen the college of my future, as it were," Paul said. "It has been
twenty years, but my life has been elsewhere, so to me it is very like
yesterday. I note many changes -- and many similarities." He wondered whether the
evaluation system was still faked and whether Will had any part in that, but
decided against bringing that up. He was, after all, not supposed to know. "But
you have been here throughout. I wondered how the college development has seemed
to you." This was only an Animation, and he probably could not get any genuine
information, but it still seemed worth the try.
Will was the only apparent survivor of that score of years, although a couple of
other instructors were in the vicinity and Will's secretary was the wife of the
other student member of the Vice Squad in Paul's day. That student had been an
intelligent, sensible sort who had known better than to get into the kind of
rough-and-tumble Paul had enjoyed. Paul had disagreed with him on a number of
matters, but always respected the individuality and perception of the man. To
disagree openly was no crime; it was hypocritical agreement that was wrong. At
any rate, there were some evidences of continuity in the college. But the
fundamental carry-through, by the benificent irony of circumstance, was Will.
Will, Paul thought privately. There were cards in the Tarot deck identifying the
concepts of Love, Victory, and Justice. The card for Fortitude or Discipline had
been redefined by the Thoth deck as Lust; maybe two cards were required there.
Yet were Fortitude and Discipline identical concepts? Perhaps they should be
separated again, and a new card set up to cover Purpose -- perhaps better titled
Will.
Love is the Law, Love under Will. It was not necessary that anyone comprehend
the pun; the concept was valid in itself. It had taken extreme fortitude to last
it out here, surely. It had taken Will.
Paul's question, at any rate, was right in Will's bailiwick. Suddenly Paul was
the student again, and Will the teacher, and the subject was the College:
retrospect and prospect.
"It is hard to know where to start," Will said. "When you were here, the college
was less than twenty years old -- "
"Yes," Paul agreed. "When I came, it was fourteen; when I left, eighteen. Some
of the students were the same age as the college." And the college had certainly
been going through its adolescence then! Paul himself was four years older than
the college; that was close enough for strong identification.
"I would say that at the outset the emphasis was on the college as community,
and as involved in the larger community -- about the first eight years," Will said.
"Then a decade of concern with the nature of the learning process, and
experiments with classroom methods derived from this concern -- "
That was Paul's period. He remembered: philosophy class outdoors on the lawn,
students falling asleep in the sun; geology, walking beside the river, learning
to see it with phenomenal new awareness, its effect on the landscape, moraine
and its own sedimented convolutions; art all over the campus, spending two hours
looking at a landscape before making his first mark on the canvas, and the
teacher had understood. Paul still had that painting today -- not expert art, but
another record of his learning experience. Drama, the plays and playlets
performed on stage or in any available space on tour, once even in a private
living room. Great exercise in versatility of expression! Dressing room
facilities had not always been adequate; Paul's eyes had nearly popped the first
time he had seen the very pretty leading lady blithely undress and change into
her costume in the crowded backroom, while he and the others wrestled with
make-up and cold cream and such. She had aspired to a career as an actress, but
had later broken her leg in a skiing accident. That had, it seemed, destroyed
her main qualification for the career. All classes had been discussion, not
lecture, with all viewpoints appreciated. Yes, that had been worthwhile! Will
called it "concern with the learning process;" Paul called it "learning to
learn." How poignantly it returned, now!
"Then an eight year period when much effort went into curriculum
experimentation," Will was saying. "There were strong influences from a number
of social scientists and psychologists."
Those were the years immediately after Paul's departure. They sounded
disorganized -- as Paul's own life had been. Ages nineteen to twenty-six for the
college: early maturity, but not necessarily the period of best judgment. A good
age to heed the advice of specialists, certainly. Had that advice abolished the
Vice Squad and started the trend toward dormitory deregulation? Had it returned
the government of the Community to the Community, aborting the faculty
oligarchy?
"Six years during which the college was trying to 'grow while staying small',"
Will continued. "This was done by dividing its growing population into two
relatively separate campus groups and by means of the organization of
student-faculty 'living-learning' units."
Ages twenty-seven through thirty-two, Paul thought. Time to get married and
settle down. But how could a college marry? Instead it reproduced by fission,
like a creature of Sphere Nath, forming a satellite campus, propagating its
species in its own fashion. Paul himself had gotten married in that period of
his life after returning from his experience on Planet Tarot a changed man. But
what man could visit Hell itself in his quest for God and not suffer change?
"And the past six years," Will concluded. "Involving growing program autonomy
for the five programs developed, under an overall view of education as a
rhythmic alteration of action and reflection, resident and nonresident
experience, the analytical and the creative." Educationese came naturally to an
educator!
Paul, too, had developed new programs. His daughter Carolyn was one of them. Now
he was forty-one, almost forty-two, still four years older than the college. To
the extent his life could be taken as a guide, the auspices for the college were
promising. Its progress would continue, changing to accommodate the larger
circumstance of a changing world. The microcosm always reflected the macrocosm;
free will was to that extent a delusion.
Will produced a paper from his files. "The philosophical ideals of the college
have been reflected in its catalogues," he said. "This first catalogue
encouraged the education of young men and women for real living through the
actual facing of real life problems as an essential part of their educational
program. It urged the participation of students in the formulation of policies
and management of the college..."
"I believed in that," Paul said. "But I was suspended for practicing it."
"You were suspended? I had forgotten."
Evidently the event had not loomed as large in Will's life as it had in Paul's!
And why should it have? This did not subtract from its significance. Will had
been true to the college catalogue he quoted when the rest of the faculty had
seemingly lost sight of its precepts. Will had done it because that was the way
he was. Perhaps he assumed that others who expressed similar ideals also
practiced them.
"I had more trouble with practice than theory," Paul said. "In theory we learned
about practical life by finding work during the nonresident work term. In
practice, it saved the college somewhat on the winter heating bill."
Will looked at him. "Didn't you find the work program beneficial?"
"It was an education -- but I think not the way intended." It had proved almost
impossible to get a job for just two midwinter months. Not if a person told the
truth. Some students lied; they said they were looking for permanent employment.
Then they'd quit when the work term ended. Those who told the truth could spend
more time looking for a job than they did actually working. The obvious lesson
was: to succeed in life, you had to lie.
Paul had not lied -- and had almost lost credit for one of his work terms. An
honest search and honest failure were not acceptable. One had to play the game
by its rules! But no point in belaboring Will about this; life was rough and
fraught with inherent unfairnesses, and he had learned this. The thoughtlessness
of the college could be interpreted as an aspect of its accommodation to
reality.
"Many things work out that way," Will agreed, not aware of Paul's thoughts. "The
history of the college has other examples."
"Oh?"
"One such was the Action Group. It was composed of selected faculty and students
who set up residence just off campus. Instead of academic sessions, texts, and
papers, they sought to find, through action and facing problems, the real need
for depth of study for each person's own competence and satisfaction."
"That hardly seems different from life itself," Paul observed.
"So it turned out. Some students proved less ready for the cooperation and
interaction the project demanded than they had judged themselves to be. Two
faculty members had problems. There was some romanticism about the group which
led, among other things, to its welcoming wanderers who had no connection with
the college. One was a young man with emotional and behavorial problems
requiring professional help; another was an old woman who was soon observed to
be both senile and physically ill. So it seemed the project was a failure after
one year -- yet later analysis showed that a significantly large number of Action
Group participants had stayed on at the college to become some of its most
serious, most hard-working students. Several important later projects originated
in the Action Group, and these projects are still operating today. From these
came the 'cooking dorms' in which students are responsible for planning and
preparing their own meals."
There it was -- the origin of the co-ed housing Paul had marveled at. The offshoot
of a failed experiment.
"From them, too," Will continued, "came a number of special interest
residences-houses for vegetarians, for the student-manned fire department, for
feminists, political radicals, for persons interested in certain schools of
philosophy or psychology, an organic-gardening group -- "
"We saw one of the gardens!" Paul said. "All this seems good. I had been afraid
I would find the college hopelessly conservative; that's the way it seemed to be
going when I left. I am relieved to see I was wrong."
"Oh, the students wouldn't let us go conservative," Will said with a tired
smile. "The politics of the world affected us too. When the college president
asked male students to either get haircuts or leave campus during an
accreditation survey, there was a protest. 'To thine own self be true!' Students
moved into policy-making positions. They demanded appeal boards for
administrative decisions."
"If we had had that in my day, three of us would never have been suspended!"
Paul said. The memory still rankled. The student body had been overwhelmingly
against the faculty position. Paul still had the tape recording of the complete
protest meeting. But perhaps the matter had done some good, causing the
administration to moderate its positions in subsequent years before things
reached the crisis stage. Paul remembered a private conversation he had had with
the college president after that. The man had inquired with genuine curiosity
why Paul worked so hard to make so much trouble for the college. Paul had
replied that he did not like trouble, but that his conscience compelled him to
stand up for what he felt was right. That was all; had the president been a
narrowly vindictive man, it would have been a comparatively simple matter to
interfere with Paul's graduation.
In a very real sense, Paul thought now, the college president had resembled the
Devil encountered on Planet Tarot. The Devil was, after all, a fallen angel, an
aspect of divinity; He had His honor too. In fact, in Hell the Devil was viewed
as God, while the dominating force of Heaven had seemed wrongheaded. It was all
a matter of perspective. Probably it was Paul's ability to appreciate the
viewpoint of his opposition that had enabled him to survive his phenomenal
quest -- and his experience at this college had in a very real manner prepared him
for the later trauma. Perhaps, after all, the situation leading to the
suspension had been beneficial...
"An administrative decision to put a small part of the college budget into
paving an area for use as a volleyball court," Will was saying, "in response to
a student request, actually resulted in a student picket line that stopped the
bulldozer. The funds were needed elsewhere they claimed, and it was a violation
of the natural environment." Will shook his head in mild wonder. "What appeared
to be operating for both students and faculty was the memory of the very small,
very personal college it had been in your day."
"That smallness was no bad thing," Paul agreed. "Everybody knew everybody, and
that encouraged a special community unity. Though it was hardly all sweetness
and light then." No; it had been like one big family, and contrary to the folk
ideal, some of the most savage antagonisms existed in families. Yet it was
better to be involved, positively and negatively, than to be isolated from life.
"There were some unfortunate manifestations. There was a series of attempted
rapes of students, frequent visits to the campus by persons peddling narcotics,
and uninvited guests moving into college buildings. Several campus patrolmen
were hired. Some students welcomed them; others were irate, calling them the
paid lackeys of the Provost or Company spies, and so on."
"There was some of that in my day," Paul agreed. He was ashamed of almost none
of his actions of the time, but he did regret the remark "beyond the call of
duty" he had made to the night watchman. For later he had learned that the
watchman had considerable sympathy for the position of the students. The man had
taken the job from pressing financial necessity, having been married abruptly
when his girl became pregnant. He had not liked turning in students, but it had
been a condition of his employment, and his honour required him to do his best.
At the end of the year he resigned; he couldn't take it any more. Paul had
blamed him and ridiculed him -- when in fact the watchman had been very much a
kindred soul. Now Paul turned his eyes momentarily inward: Lord, may I never do
that again!
"This was more extreme," Will said. "A student burned down the 'guard house' by
the campus gate, justifying his action with the claim that freedom of speech
must, at some point, lead to action if careful argument and repeated requests
brought no relief."
More extreme? Paul wondered. That student had destroyed property. Paul would
never know for certain whether he had helped to destroy a life. A seemingly
minor remark could have more impact than arson.
Will went on to describe the retirement of the college president, and the
problems attendant on the selection of a new one; the revival of Community
Meetings and their problems; the continued flux of new ideas; and the savagely
defended individuality of Community members. The filibuster remained an
instrument of legislation, in micro and macrocosm, and the college developed the
motto "The Exception is the Rule." There were chronic financial difficulties.
The disruption of world society brought about by the Exodus had had its effect
here too. Yet the college had survived as an entity and perhaps would continue
on to greater achievements. The details had changed, but it remained in essence
the college Paul had known. Possibly it was stabilizing as it approached its
middle age.
Paul thanked Will openly for his time and privately for just being Will. Then he
went to round up Carolyn for supper. It was a good feeling, being caught up on
the college; an aspect of his being that had been missing for twenty years was
now complete. He was, in this subtle fashion, whole again.
Carolyn was playing with several other children in a fancy student-made
playground. There was a kind of cellar with a ladder going down and a connecting
passage formed from about twenty suspended tire casings: sheer joy for a child.
Carolyn resisted coming with him until he reminded her about the chocolate milk.
He hoped she was not getting to like it here too much.
After supper they admired the graffiti above the stairs leading out the rear of
the building -- as it were, the structure's anus. "Can't fight shitty hall," one
proclaimed appropriately. But others were more clever, such as the question and
answer: "Name your favorite Rock Group. 1. Bauxite. 2. Shale, (etc.)" Paul had
to explain some of the concepts to her; this was always a certain exercise in
enlightenment, but it was his policy to answer any question she put honestly and
in terms she could understand. Certain four letter words were real challenges
though. He hoped that this policy would prevent her from experiencing certain
brutal realities before she comprehended the concepts. He was not sure this
would be successful, but it was worth trying. He did not want her to grow up in
ignorance and pointless shame.
They followed the graveled path through the forest toward the north campus.
Carolyn spied an offshoot path. "Daddy, let's follow it!" she cried. She had, it
seemed, inherited his desire to explore all avenues, physical and mental.
Blessed child! "Just a little way..." he said.
The path slid down the slope, petered out, then reformed. "Just like the path
you walked to school on," she said. She never tired of listening to the
anecdotes of his youth. Paul had walked two and a half miles to school through
the forest when he was Carolyn's present age. He had not told her this in any
effort to demean her own status or supposedly easy life, but because she simply
liked to compare his youth to hers. Now she had found a path like his; that
added luster to her quest.
Did other children identify similarly with their parents? Surely they tried
to -- but in most cases legitimate comparisons were stifled, perhaps by parental
indifference, until all that was left were the Freudian sublimations. If a
girl-child could not relate to her father as either a mundane parent or a
fantasy playmate, eventually she might relate sexually. That could have hellish
consequenses for her subsequent life. How much better to let her be a daughter!
The path crossed a rickety little wooden bridge over a gully and meandered on.
Carolyn charged along it, thrilled. How similarly he had ferreted out forest
paths when he was eight -- and indeed, he was enjoying this now! Still, dusk was
approaching, and they had to get up early next morning to catch the plane home.
This was no time to get lost! "I think we'd better turn back now," he said
reluctantly.
"Just a little farther!" she pleaded, and he could not deny her. The twilight
provided that special added luster to the scene, the visual purple of the eyes
being invoked. Everything was so exciting, so wonderful, though unchanged. How
like the quest for knowledge this was; every acquisition introduced a new riddle
to be pursued until one could be led far from one's point of entry. Or, more
somberly, how like the road to Hell, paved with good intentions He had traveled
that road more than once, yet temptation remained...
They continued more than a little farther, yielding to the present temptation.
The path led merrily across decrepit slat bridges, around a fallen tree, and to
a river. "Oh, pebbles!" Carolyn cried, squatting down precariously near the
water. She had started a rock collection and was constantly on the lookout for
new shapes and colors. "Oh, how pretty!"
Paul was fundamentally pleased by her interest in rocks. Prettiness was in the
eye of the beholder, and she had a pretty eye. But this was not the time!
"Either we must go back -- or forward," he said, eyeing the darkening forest.
Though he had spent four years at this college, he had never penetrated to this
particular region. That evoked another parallel: surely there had also been
available fields of knowledge at the college that he had similarly overlooked.
They decided to go forward, hoping to emerge before darkness trapped them, as
the path was leading in the right direction. Paul had to put Carolyn's rocks in
his pocket, for she had no pocket in her dress. They crossed a larger bridge
that was in such a tenuous state of decomposition that some of the planks
shifted out of place behind them; Paul had to hold Carolyn's little hand to
steady her. "That's what Daddies are for," she said. They would certainly not go
back now!
But now the path diverged. He took one branch, she the other. But when they
separated too much, he became nervous. Suppose he lost her in the forest? The
thought of her alone, frightened, crying -- he experienced a resurgence of guilt
for allowing her to lose track of him last night.
Then she crossed to join him. "There might be bears," she confided. Yes,
indeed -- and not merely physical one! Here there be beares... no, that was tygers.
Same thing.
The path climbed up a steep piney slope out of the valley of the river, then
curved left -- which was not the way they wanted to go. But they continued,
committed to it. It crested on an upper level, moved into a
field-turning-forest, and divided again. "Look!" Paul cried.
It was a monstrous Indian style tent, fifteen feet tall, partially complete.
Surely some ambitious student project; tools were present. A nice, serendipitous
discovery.
Then, of course, he had to explain the meaning of the word "serendipity" to his
bright daughter. So as they followed the path north through the fields, he told
her of the three princes of Serendip who always found what they weren't looking
for. How much better words became when their little individual mythologies were
told! The next time he used that word, in whatever connection, she would say:
"Oh, Daddy. The big tent!"
At last the path sneaked between high encroaching bushes -- shoulder high on him,
over Carolyn's head, so forward progress really was dependent on his adult
perspective -- and debouched into a more established trail they had used before.
They were unlost!
"That was fun, Daddy!" she exclaimed.
Yes -- it had been rare fun. He put his arm around her shoulders, and they walked
on. Their college experience was essentially, fittingly over.
Yet that night his dreams were troubled. There was a letter for Carolyn, one she
would like to have, lost on the way. A phone call for him, never relayed. The
Vice Squad returned in force; unable to catch Paul, it turned its fury on Will,
firing him from his position. All nonsense, of course, but disturbing.
They were up well before dawn. Paul worried about possible interferences to
their return home: David White might oversleep, or his car might break down, or
the plane would be late and they would miss their connection, or Paul or Carolyn
might come down with a cold that would make flying perilous, or thy might lose
their return tickets, or bad weather would -- "
David arrived on schedule to drive them to the local airport. One worry abated!
"Bye, Ducks!" Carolyn said. "Bye, Dogs. Bye-bye, College." She began to cloud
up. "Daddy, I wish we could stay here..."
Paul didn't answer. He was glad she had liked it, but now they had to go home.
He loved his daughter, but he loved her mother too, and that separation was
becoming burdensome.
The car did not break down. They did not come down with colds. The board listed
their flight as being on schedule. The weather was fine. Paul presented their
tickets to the clerk at the Air Non Entity office. None of his foolish fears had
materialized.
The man checked the listing. "Sorry -- you can't board," he announced.
Paul's brow wrinkled. "These are confirmed reservations," he pointed out.
"They're valid."
"Not for this flight."
Paul began to get heated. "We paid for those tickets three weeks ago! They are
confirmed. We arrived on your flight from Boston, reserved at the same time. We
are going to be on this flight, or there will be legal action."
"Don't threaten me," the man retorted. "I have to go by the list. You're not on
it. I have no authority to bump a legitimate passenger for you."
And that was it. The man refused to honor their tickets or even really to look
at them. In that way he protected himself from actually seeing the marks of
their validity. But he did telephone Allegory Airlines to verify that they had
two seats available on a flight to New York. However, their flight was from a
larger airport, forty miles distant.
"I'll drive you there!" David volunteered.
Paul, conscious of the connection he had to make in New York, and worried about
his wife's reaction if he should miss it, had to accept. He didn't like imposing
on David, who had work to do at the college, and he was galled about letting Air
Non Entity get away with what appeared to be illegal overbooking. "I thought
Ralph Nader settled this matter decades ago!" Paul muttered. Oh, yes -- there would
be a reckoning!
"Aren't we going home?" Carolyn asked worriedly. "Why can't we get on the Air No
Engine plane?"
"We're going home on a different airplane," Paul explained shortly. "Allegory
Airlines. We're driving there now."
"Alligator Airlines!" she said, pleased.
It was a pleasant enough drive. The road had been improved since Paul's day.
David spoke of graduating and finding another job. "Jobs can be hard to find,
these days," Paul said, remembering his own experience before he joined the Holy
Order of Vision. "Don't rule out a continuation of the college position." In
ways David was like Paul of twenty years ago, but in this respect unlike: Paul
had definitely not been on the college's list of prospective employees! Yet
David was as much of an individual, as much of a rebel, were it only known.
Certain remarks made by others, privately, suggested that the college still
seethed with as much half-hidden dissent as it had twenty years ago; in fact,
there were those who now looked back on the tenure of the College president Paul
had known as the golden age. Paul suspected that David's doubts about remaining
with the college were well founded. Yet the outside world, too, was not an ideal
situation.
They arrived safely at the Allegory terminal. There was no trouble at all; the
ticket agent made out new tickets at no additional charge. Paul and Carolyn bade
David farewell -- his timely help had saved them from being stranded by the one
problem Paul had not anticipated! -- and boarded the plane. It was a much more
pleasant craft than the Air Non Entity midget and provided a breakfast served by
stewardesses.
"I owe Susan six cents," Carolyn announced.
"What?"
"I borrowed six cents from her."
Now she told him! "We'll mail it back to her after we get home." Could that be
the lost letter he had dreamed about?
They landed in New York at the wrong time and in the wrong section of the
terminal. Paul did not know his way around. He asked directions, and the girl at
the counter pointed him down a busy hall. He followed it, Carolyn trotting along
beside him.
A battery of signs pointed the way to the airline he wanted. He followed the
direction indicated -- and the next group of signs omitted that particular airline.
He paused, perplexed.
"Daddy, where are we going?" Carolyn asked.
"I wish I knew!" He looked at his watch. Time was running out.
They backtracked, Carolyn dragging as she tired. The original sign still pointed
the way. Where was their airline?
"Daddy, you acted like you didn't remember me," Carolyn said.
"Not like. As. As though I didn't remember you," he corrected her. Then: "What
are you talking about?" He was distracted by the problem of the missing airline.
"When we were getting on. To start the trip. You said there was a confusion of
iden -- iden -- "
"Identities." How could an entire airline vanish?
"Yes. Does that mean I'm not your little girl?"
"Whatever -- " he started. Then he saw that she was close to tears. "Of course
you're my little girl! You must have misheard me." She came up with the most
awkward concepts at the least convenient times! "Right now we have an airline to
find."
Between the signs was a large central collection area with stairs leading down
and passages spinning off this way and that like a huge maze. "Maybe down
there," he said uncertainly. Time, time!
They went down, but there were only more passages and more signs -- wrong ones. "I
can't make head or tail of this," he complained. He'd rather be lost in a forest
anytime!
He went to a baggage checking window to ask directions while Carolyn weighed
herself on the baggage scales. He had to wait impatiently for another passenger
to check through his suitcase. At last Paul was able to explain his problem, and
the girl told him where to find the correct waiting room.
"All right, Carolyn," he said comfortingly. "Now we know where we're going."
His daughter didn't answer. He turned, annoyed -- and she was gone.
She must have grown tired of the scales, with her brief attention span, and
moved away. Now she was separated from him, somewhere in these rushing throngs,
lost. With a stabbing pang of worry, he searched for her. "Carolyn!"
He could not find her. The people burring on, each intent on his own special
interest. Most were adults; some were children. Paul saw a childlike form moving
away from him, down the hall toward the exit. He ran after her. "Carolyn!"
The girl turned. It was a stranger-child, staring curiously at him. Embarrassed,
Paul rushed on past her, as though he had called to someone beyond. But now he
was at the great exit door. Beyond was the busy city street, its cars, buses,
and vans zooming by, perilously close. Had she gone out there?
He pushed on out, his eyes casting desperately about. She was not here.
"Carolyn!" he cried despairingly.
Maybe she had gone into a lady's room. Yes -- she had never been able to pass a
water fountain or a bathroom without indulging herself of its facilities. She
had been that way ever since she first learned what they were for at about the
age of two. She must have dodged aside and entered the room while he rushed
heedlessly ahead. Then she might have been unable to open the heavy door from
inside.
He backtracked, locating a bathroom. He was concerned that someone inside
might -- sometimes perverts lurked for little girls -- no! But he couldn't go into the
Lady's Room to check by himself.
A young woman approached. "Miss," he said abruptly. "Would you -- " He faltered
under her stare. She turned abruptly and departed.
"Carolyn!" he cried loudly. "Are you in there?"
There was no answer. He had no certainty she was in this particular facility;
there must be dozens of them in this huge complex. How could he check them all?
An official-looking man approached purposefully. Paul knew the woman had
complained; now he would be arrested for indecent behavior. He moved away.
Footfalls followed him. Paul hurried; if he got arrested now, he would never
find his daughter! Already horrible specters were forming in his mind; if
anything happened to her -- "
She had been worried about him that night at the college. Now he knew exactly
what she had gone through.
He was at the exit again. Was that her out by the street looking for him?
"Carolyn?" he cried, pushing out.
The little girl stepped off the curb. A horn blared; tires screeched.
"CAROLYN!" Paul screamed, lurching forward.
There was a crash.

VII
Honor: 15
Much of the ancient interpretation of Mosaic laws -- indeed, the necessity for laws
in the first place -- was based on the need for larger and stronger tribes. The
rule that women were to be considered unclean and untouchable during the five
days of menstruation and for seven days afterwards (Leviticus 15) was
undoubtedly based on the fact that these twelve days were (and are) generally
considered to be unfavorable for conception; man should not, therefore, waste
his sperm lest he be punished by God for not adding to the strength of his
tribe. It also appears that the laws prohibiting bestiality and homosexuality,
and the judgment that such sexual acts among men were considered to be much more
reprehensible than if women were the participants, were based on the need not to
waste precious sperm and thereby perhaps impede tribal growth. Since there is no
loss of sperm in lesbianism, no such rigid prohibition against it developed as
they did concerning homosexuality...
Contrary to common belief, Jesus Christ himself taught very little on the
subject of sex. The vast majority of sexual proscriptions associated with and
attributed to Christianity are actually outgrowths of the thought and writings
of later Christian theologicians, and most of this moral theology was not
actually propounded until long after Christ's death. Paul was probably the first
Christian to speak out specifically on sexual morality. He emphasized the need
for marriage as a means to avoid fornication, although he apparently considered
sexual abstinence a more admirable goal in life (I Corinthians 6 and 7). The
writings of St. Augustine during the 4th century A.D. have probably had as much
impact upon prevailing 20th-century sexual attitudes as any other single force,
in that he severely condemned premarital and extramarital sexual outlets,
including beastiality, homosexuality, and especially masturbation. The Roman
Catholic Church in time came to idealize celibacy, with the highest level of
male achievement being total rejection of all life's pleasures, while women
could expect to reach their greatest glory only through permanent virginity.
 -- James L. McCary: Human Sexuality, New York: Van Nostrand, 1967.

Therion sat on top of a huge Bible. Even lying flat, the book was about a meter
thick and four meters long.
"So you are back," the acolyte of the Horned God remarked. "Vacation's over,
eh?"
What had happened to Carolyn? Brother Paul was unmarried and had no daughter; he
was sure of that now. So she could not have been lost. Yet he was also sure of
Carolyn's reality. In that time, ten years in his future...
Well, he would have to worry about his future when he got closer to it. "What is
your concern?" he asked the man. Therion of course was teasing him since Therion
had had a part in the recent sequence.
"You looked at other religions and other philosophies, including your idea of an
educational institution, and found them wanting," Therion said. "By elimination,
you are choosing the Christian God. But do you have the courage to view your
Jesus and his cult as skeptically as you view the others?"
A grim but valid challenge. "I must be fair," Brother Paul agreed.
"Even though your Son of God was an arrant sexist?"
"What?" Brother Paul demanded, irritated.
"He dealt with men. He went to his cousin John the Baptist for the start of his
ministry and gathered about him twelve men for disciples. Why no women? Didn't
he think they were children of God too? Or were they just the servant class, not
to be taken seriously?"
"Of course not!" Brother Paul snapped. But then he paused. Why hadn't there been
some female disciples? "You have to understand: in those times the whole culture
relegated women to a restricted status, especially in religious matters."
"In Christian realms," Therion said. "Not among the Pagans. The Horned God
welcomed women. The temples abounded with priestesses, and they were completely
uninhibited."
All too true. To Therion, the ultimate fulfillment of a woman was as a Temple
prostitute or madam, a seducer of men. No use arguing that case. "Jesus was a
Jew. He was not free to flout the established conventions of his people. He
would have been mobbed much earlier than he was if he had female disciples, and
his message would never have reached its audience." Those who preached a message
whose time had not yet come always suffered; Paul had felt that backlash himself
when he defended the free association of boys and girls at college. How well he
understood! "Circumstances forced him to -- "
"To preach salvation for men, not for women," the other finished snidely.
"Jesus did honor women!" Brother Paul said. "Some of them were missionaries for
him -- "
Therion sneered his best sneer. "Such as?"
"Such as the woman of the well!" Brother Paul said. "She told of Jesus among the
Samaritans and brought her relatives and friends to see him, and there were many
converts -- "
"The woman at the well," Therion repeated, as though that were a suggestively
curious example. "You really think that proves anything?"
"Yes! It's right there in the Bible!"
Therion jumped down from the Bible. "Then take a look inside your own Good
Book -- between the lines." He heaved the cover up like the lid of a coffin. The
pages flipped over by themselves, past the Old Testament, slowing in the New
Testament. Matthew... Mark... Luke... John. Chapters 1... 2... 3... 4.
" 'Now Jesus left Judea, and came again to Galilee,' " Therion read aloud with
exaggerated emphasis. Around the Bible the landscape of that time and place
formed. At first the scene was distant as if seen from an airplane -- No, not
that! -- then it steadied. It was as though the cameras were being dollied along by
a truck driving along a country road, the huge Bible being that truck. There was
a field and a well.
"He had to go through Samaria," Therion continued as the camera oriented on that
well. The giant open Bible faded out, becoming the built-up stone. " 'He
approached a city called Sychar, near to a field Jacob had given to his son
Joseph, and Jacob's well was there.' "
"Yes," Brother Paul said. He was confident that when it came to quoting excerpts
from the Christian Bible, he could match any challenge made by this man. "That's
the passage. The Samaritans were mixed people from many eastern lands, settled
in Israel by the Assyrians after the Israelites were carried away. They brought
in their own forms of worship, but when they suffered plagues they converted to
Judaism, intermarried with Jews, and claimed descent from Abraham and Moses.
This annoyed the regular Jews, and relations between the two cultures became
bad. So it was quite significant when Jesus met a Samaritan woman and converted
her though she was of ill repute, forgiving her her sins -- "
"Or so the expurgated text would have us believe,"
Therion said. "Those Samaritans were eager to gain acceptance by Jews any way
they could. Watch what really happened."
From the field a man came, dressed in a flowing off-white tunic bound by a dusty
blue sash. The amount of material was necessary to ward off the burning sun. He
was bearded and wore a flap of material over his head though his face shone with
sweat. He was familiar in a strange double sense. "Lee!" Brother Paul cried,
then covered his mouth.
"Do not be concerned," Therion said. "He is locked into his role; he can not
escape it, no matter how it annoys him, until we release him from the script.
You and I can not be perceived by any but ourselves; we are as ghosts."
That was only part of Brother Paul's concern. If the role could be forced on an
individual by others in the Animation, while the person thought it was his own
will -- then Animation was potentially a horror unmatched in the annals of man!
Then another facet struck him. "Lee -- as Jesus?" he asked, amazed.
"Why the hell not? It's only a part in a skit, and we need an actor. He knew it
when he signed on."
Knew that he might be subject to horrendous indignities, even the loss of his
life. Yes. Brother Paul had known the same. Nevertheless, Animation was opening
disquieting doors to him. For now, it seemed best to let Therion present his
case.
Jesus was grimy and tired; this showed in his slow gait and general demeanor. He
came up to the well and sat down on the low wall beside it. This was a pleasant
enough place, really an oasis, walled in to protect it from blowing debris and
polluted runoff from storms, but with green vines overgrowing the walls. The
city it served was visible in the distance; steps led up from the depression the
well was in, and a well-worn path meandered toward the city. Brother Paul
wondered why the well had not been situated nearer the city or vice versa; but
he knew there would be many complicating factors, such as the lay of the land,
the most fertile fields, the intersections of roads, and just plain ornery
tradition. No doubt the women got good exercise, carrying their heavy jugs of
water across that distance every day.
Jesus rested beside the well with evident relief. Soon, however, his tongue ran
over dry lips; he was thirsty. He stood, crossed to the stone edge of the well,
and leaned over to peer into it. The water was too far down to reach directly.
There was a rope, but no bucket. Unless he wanted to jump in -- which would be
foolish, since he would be unable to climb out again (thirst vs. survival) -- there
was no way for him to fetch up water. Resigned, he returned to the other wall
and sat again.
The sun bore down from almost directly overhead. Jesus sat alone, eyes downcast,
his tongue playing again over cracking lips. "His disciples have gone into the
city to buy food," Therion explained.
Now a woman came to the well, carrying her water jar: a large earthern crock
with twin curving handles, shaped with archaic artistry. She was young and
resembled her jug in the esthetics of her outline. She wore a faded blue skirt
and a brown shawl tied in front like a halter for her full bosom, and her
kerchief descended from her head to fall over one shoulder in front to her
waist. Her dainty feet were protected by half-sandals, hardly more than straps
about heel and sole, leaving her toes free. Woman of ill repute she might be,
but an extremely fetching one. Of course, it was much easier for a homely woman
to be of good repute; temptation did not constantly come courting.
"Amaranth," Brother Paul murmured. Every Animation scene was different, but the
basic cast of characters was constant. But Amaranth would not be able to indulge
her normal siren role here!
The woman trotted bouncily down the steps, glanced fleetingly at Jesus, and
promptly ignored him. She stopped at the well, picked up the loose rope, strung
it through an eyelet of her jar, and lowered the jar carefully its distance to
the water. The sound of gurgling became loud as the air bubbled out.
Jesus emerged from his reverie. "Please give me a drink of water," he said.
Surprised, the woman looked directly at him. "Aren't you a Jew? From Galilee?" A
person's accent and garb made him readily identifiable, geographically and
culturally.
Jesus nodded. "Jews also thirst, even those from Galilee."
"You, a Jew, ask a Samaritan woman for a drink? Your people and ours have no
dealings." Yet, vaguely flattered, she drew up the full jug and passed it to
him. The hospitality of water was fundamental to this arid region.
Jesus drank deeply. At last he returned the jug, wiping moisture off his beard
with his sleeve. "If you only knew the gift of God and who it is who asked you
for a drink, you would have asked him for living water."
"What a come-on!" Therion remarked appreciatively. "Just like that he's hooked
her curiosity. He'd make a good carnival barker."
Brother Paul repressed his reaction, knowing that Therion was baiting him.
The woman of the well smiled tolerantly as she lowered her jug to refill it.
"You have no jug and no deep well; where would you get 'living water'? Do you
think you're greater than Jacob who gave us this well?"
Jesus, refreshed by his rest and drink, smiled back. "Everyone who drinks of the
water of this well will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water I give him
will never thirst again."
She set down her brimming jug and untied the rope. "All right, I'll bite, Jew:
give me some of this living water."
Jesus lowered his hand to his own midsection, outlining through the cloth what
rose up there. "What about your husband?"
Her eyes widened momentarily as she comprehended the nature of his offer. "I
have no husband."
"Well spoken," Jesus agreed, taking her by the elbows and drawing her in to him.
"You've had many husbands in your time, each only for a night. Now you may have
one for a day."
She glanced about, making sure that no one was approaching the well from the
city. "I see you are a prophet." She raised her lips for a kiss.
"Woman, believe me, the time is coming -- "
"That's not all that's -- "
Brother Paul could stand it no longer. "Stop it!" he cried. "This -- this is
appalling!"
"But you haven't seen the best part," Therion protested with mock innocence.
"Wait till you see the Divine Erection. He really socks the Holy Ghost to her
till she overflows with -- "
"Jesus never fornicated with women! He -- "
Therion frowned. "So you can't face the expurgated pages of your Bible? Where is
your open mind?"
Flustered, Brother Paul had to take a moment to organize his thoughts. "There is
a distinction between open-mindedness and sacrilegious pornography. I just don't
believe Jesus would do such a thing! The 'Living Water' he referred to was the
Holy Spirit. For you to distort that into a lascivious connection -- "
"You don't concede the possibility that Jesus might have had a normal interest
in the opposite sex?" Therion inquired evenly. "That he might be tempted on
occasion to dally with a good-looking, lower-class woman who showed him some
kindness? Not a Jewish woman, of coarse; that would be crass. But the Samaritans
were not in the same class. Being a prophet is hard work; he had to take a break
sometime."
"No!" Brother Paul cried, closing his mind to the superficial reasonableness of
Therion's argument. He knew what this man's route led to! "There's no evidence
in all the Bible that Jesus ever had sexual relations with a woman!"
Therion smiled nastily. "A very interesting qualification. Verrry interesting!
You are implying he had sexual relations with a man!"
"No! I -- " But Brother Paul knew he had plunged into another trap foolishly. It
was not as though he had no hint of the proclivities of this worshiper of the
Devil.
Therion closed the jaws inexorably. "As you have established, Jesus never
touched women sexually. Had the Samaritan woman at the well proffered her
charms, he would have cast her aside and never bothered to make converts from
the Samaritans. Therefore, he must have vented his natural passions on those
with whom he felt greater kinship. And indeed your Bible establishes that -- "
"Impossible!" Brother Paul cried.
The huge pages flipped over again to the eleventh chapter of John, and the
picture formed. "Now there was a man who was sick, the Brother of Mary, who had
anointed Jesus' feet with oil and wiped them with her hair, and been forgiven of
her sins.' " Therion looked up. "You know, that's a most interesting use of
feminine hair; I shall have to try it sometime. Jesus certainly liked to forgive
pretty women their sins, especially when they kissed his stinking feet. In those
days women really knew their place. I dare say some of them were very grateful
to be allowed to tongue his toes, and had he desired them to extend their oral
attentions up his legs somewhat -- "
He paused, but this time Brother Paul refused to be baited. It was folly to
engage this man in casual debate.
"Well," Therion continued, "This brother of Mary's name was Lazor or Lazarus.
Jesus loved Lazarus, and if we take that literally -- "
The scene showed Jesus putting his hand on a man, drawing him in for a kiss in
much the same fashion as the woman at the well.
"No!" Brother Paul cried. "This was normal friendship! You have no grounds to
presume -- "
Therion faced him seriously. "You balk at all reasonable conjectures. That's
part of the problem with your whole weird religion. Now I submit to your
objective mind this hypothesis: if Jesus did not indulge himself with the fair
sex or with men, he must have beat his meat in private -- "
"No!"
"What, then, did he do? Fuck his sheep?"
And Brother Paul was unable to answer. This devil was overwhelming him with
horror. How could he choose between fornication, homosexuality, masturbation,
and bestiality?
Then, like a bright light, it struck him: "The Bible only covers a small portion
of Jesus' life! Only his birth, his bar mitzvah at age twelve, and his spiritual
mission commencing at the age of thirty. Eighteen years of his youth and early
maturity are missing. He could have led a perfectly normal life in every
respect, which the framers of the New Testament were too prudish to mention -- or
simply didn't know about!"
"Which is what I suggested at the outset," Therion agreed. "That woman at the
well was about as sexy as Samaritans come. Note how thereafter he told the
Parable of the Good Samaritan. Obviously he was thinking of the good lay he
had -- "
"No!" Brother Paul was back in the first trap, sloughing through the muck of a
degenerate's imagination. "No casual sex. He must have married -- "
Therion raised an eyebrow. He had superb facial control. "Is there any mention
of that in the Bible?"
Was there no way out? "No, no mention. But as I said, editing or oversight -- "
"Do you really believe they could have missed something like that? A whole wife
mislaid?" Therion smiled with satisfaction at his passing pun. "Not one Apostle,
not one associate of Christ saying one word about the little woman? No widow at
the crucifixion, no children orphaned?"
It was hopeless. "No, they could not have missed that," Brother Paul admitted
heavily. "Jesus was not married." How tempting to conjecture a loving wife who
died childless of some fever before Jesus commenced his mission -- but futile.
"So we are back to the question. What did Jesus do with his penis when he wasn't
urinating?"
"I don't know."
"Don't you think you owe it to your mission to find out?"
Diabolical imperative! "Yes," Brother Paul said grimly. The honor of Jesus
Christ had been challenged, and Brother Paul had to vindicate it -- if he could.
Failure would mean the elimination of the entire complex of religions deriving
from Christ and leave the field open to the Horned God.
"There's the record," Therion said, indicating the Bible.
"Father, forgive me," Brother Paul murmured prayerfully. "I must do it." He
stepped toward the huge Book, and the pages flipped over so rapidly that they
became a blur. He put one foot into that blur and then the other, sank into it
as into a bank of fog, and found himself in Galilee, standing in a mountain
pasture. He looked about.
It was a typical semi-tropic slope with a few sturdy trees and tall grass going
to seed. In due course, he was sure, a shepherd would guide his sheep here, and
in a few days they would crop the grass low. Then they would go on to a greener
pasture, allowing this one to recycle itself. There were no fences of course;
the land was open to any who cared to use it and who had the power to preempt
it. Shepherds could be rough characters, he knew; little David had become master
of the sling, protecting his flock from wolves, and had used that weapon to slay
Goliath.
A man emerged from the brush down the incline, walking in relaxed but purposeful
manner. This was Jesus; Brother Paul knew him at a glance, for he recognized
Lee's bearing. Naturally Jesus was coming this way: Brother Paul's Animation had
been crafted to put him in the man's path.
Jesus spied him and paused. Brother Paul raised a hand in greeting. This was a
scene from a play, of course, and not genuine history, yet he felt a thrill of
expectancy. Even in a mere skit, the notion of meeting Jesus Christ
personally...
"Hello," Brother Paul said as Jesus approached. He did not speak in Jesus'
native language, Aramaic, as neither he nor Lee knew it. In a real jaunt into
the past, there would be a virtually insurmountable linguistic barrier.
"Hello," Jesus responded. He was about Brother Paul's age with shoulder length
hair lightened by the fierce Levantine sun. His beard was short and rather
sparse. He held his long staff ready, a weapon in abeyance.
Now it was awkward. Brother Paul did not feel free to ask Jesus directly about
the state of his sex life, but he could not simply let the man go. "I -- crave
companionship. May I walk with you?"
Jesus looked surprised. "You wish to walk with a pariah of Nazareth? Don't you
know that I am Jesus, called son of Joseph the carpenter?"
"I am... Paul," Brother Paul said, not wishing to identify himself as a follower
of a religion not yet founded. "I... was raised by foster parents."
Jesus warmed immediately. "Foster parents! They are good people?"
"Very good," Brother Paul agreed. "But not quite -- " He spread his hands. "There
is always that shadow, however unjustified."
"Yes!" Jesus agreed. "Joseph is a good carpenter and a good man. Always good to
me, despite -- " He paused, took a breath, squared his shoulders, and resumed. "I
am not really his child. My mother was gravid before she married him. He knew
this, yet did not divorce her or demand the refund of the bridal price. He
accepted me so as to protect her reputation and never discriminated against me
in favor of his true children by her."
"Yet you suffer the stigma," Brother Paul said sympathetically.
"All my life! When I tend herd well, the villagers do not say 'There is an
excellent shepherd who guides his sheep to the best pastures and makes them
fat -- ' " Jesus paused, his eyes roving over the pasture around them
speculatively. "They say instead 'The bastard was lucky.' When I excel at
Scripture they do not hail me for my scholarship, but sneer privately at my
presumption. I am the intruder, though I never sought to be so. I shall not be
heir to Joseph's shop."
"The ignorant are cruel," Brother Paul said. He had not realized how sensitive
this issue would be. Bastardy...
"Sometimes I get so angry -- " Jesus clapped one fist into the other palm, making a
sharp report. "Once a companion sneered at me half-covertly, and I threw him to
the ground." He shook his head. "I should not have done that. But I have such a
temper at times! It is written 'More in number than the hairs of my head are
those who hate me without cause.' Yet when I respond to that derision, I become
as they are."
"Yes," Brother Paul agreed. "Um -- would you mind telling me the source of that
quotation? I fear I am not as apt a scholar as you." Actually he knew it, but
wanted to compliment Jesus again. Was he being a hypocrite, playing up to a man
in order to learn his secrets?
"It is from the 69th Psalm," Jesus said. "It continues: 'Oh, God, you know my
foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from you.' "
"Most apt," Brother Paul said. But privately he was disturbed. This was a
perfectly serious, decent, human man -- a far cry from any Son of God. There was no
aura of divinity about him, no special atmosphere. How could this earnest
country man found one of the major religions of all time?
"I was going to a special place," Jesus said somewhat diffidently. "An old
temple, pagan I fear, yet conducive to meditation. If you care to come along -- "
"I'd like to," Brother Paul said.
They proceeded to the place. This was an oddly uniform depression set in the
side of a mountain, its rim overgrown by huge old cedar trees that Brother Paul
was sure had been wiped out by his own time. It was well-concealed. This area
was sparsely populated; only by accident was this meditation place likely to be
discovered. In fact, without the trees it would hardly be worth discovering.
"You must have encountered this retreat while herding sheep," Brother Paul said.
"A shepherd has much time to explore," Jesus agreed. "And to think."
Brother Paul saw water at the base of the depression. "Is that a spring? It
looks cool."
"No spring," Jesus said. "It fills when there is rain, then dries again. At the
moment it is fresh, but soon it will be stagnant, not good for watering animals.
Otherwise many more flocks would come here, for water is precious."
"Yes, indeed," Brother Paul agreed. "I'd like to take a swim."
"Swim?" Jesus was perplexed.
"My people live near fresh water," Brother Paul explained. "We enjoy swimming.
Don't you?"
Jesus shrugged, embarrassed. "I cannot swim."
A mountain man, unused to deep water. Well, half the people of Brother Paul's
own day could not swim; the ratio was probably worse here. "I would be happy to
show you how."
Jesus considered. "As I mentioned, there are ruins here, perhaps of a pagan
temple. The water covers them now, but if your faith forbids your approach -- "
"I appreciate the warning," Brother Paul said. "But my faith is unlikely to be
contaminated by a pagan ruin. Maybe Ezekiel's four-faced visitors had a base
here. That would strengthen my faith because it would be a confirmation of the
Scriptural description."
Jesus laughed. "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles
himself will be exalted. I am not certain in which category you fit."
"There is no shame in swimming," Brother Paul said. "It is a good skill to have
in case one should ever be shipwrecked. No sense in drowning when just a little
preparation will save you." Of course the real Jesus had walked on the surface
of the water -- though that could have been an illusion. On hot days one could see
water-like mirages in hollows of roads, and nearby objects were even reflected
in that water. Had Jesus walked in such a place...
Jesus nodded. "It is written: Truly, no man can ransom himself, or give to God
the price of his life.' What will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world,
yet forfeits his life?"
No question: this role was Jesus, later to be known as the Christ! Yet where was
the magic that would compel men to drop their businesses to follow him, to give
their own lives to promote his cause?
"Are you a teacher of Scripture?" Brother Paul asked cautiously. He did not use
the word Bible because the formulation of the Bible had been accretive over many
centuries, and at the time of Jesus its precise format or content had not been
settled. In fact, the Bible was not originally a book at all, but a collection
of canonical writings, a religious library.
Jesus smiled with mild self-disparagement. "I am not yet of the age to be a
rabbi."
Not yet thirty, the age of intellectual maturity. "Still, you are nearly that
age. You must have discussed your scriptural knowledge with others informally."
Leading questions -- yet it was important to ascertain how much of the Christian
historians' view of Jesus was realistic and how much was hyperbole. Had Jesus
really been a great teacher, springing into being at age thirty?
"Oh, yes, friend Paul, many times. But my countrymen are farmers, shepherds, and
fishermen; they care little for the magic of the scriptures and regard me as -- as
a local boy, reciting verses tediously."
"But the ancient testament is not tedious!"
Jesus spread his hands. "Not to you, not to me. But how does it relate to
farmers whose concern is rain and soil and seeds? There is the problem!"
"Seeds," Brother Paul mused. "What is the smallest seed?"
"The mustard," Jesus replied promptly.
"Couldn't you translate the message of the Scriptures into just such common
terms? Take the little mustard seed and how it must be sowed in fertile soil,
just as a human soul must -- "
"And the tiniest of all seeds grows into the largest of all herbs, a tree for
birds to nest in," Jesus finished. "Yes, that they might comprehend!"
"The power of the parable," Brother Paul agreed. "A little folksy story made up
of familiar things to illustrate a Scriptural point. That way you could reach
the common people who otherwise be by-passed."
"I must think about that," Jesus said. "I do know Scripture, and I know the
common life. If the two could be unified, religion and reality -- "
"Many people might listen," Brother Paul finished. "And understand. And profit.
Because for the first time a teacher spoke their own language, instead of
seeming to try to conceal the word of God from them."
"Yet the high priests of the Temples would not permit -- "
"Why stay cooped up in the temples? In my country those who refuse to relate
their learning to the real world are called 'Ivory Tower Intellectuals.' It is
as though they are locked in towers fashioned of burnished bone of their own
making, perhaps very handsome residences -- but they are out of touch with the
practical aspects of life. Your message should be taken out to the field and
forest and lake, where the living people are."
Jesus nodded. "To bring the message to the people..."
Brother Paul stripped down and made his way to the pond. At the water's edge he
paused and turned, waiting for Jesus.
The two naked men stared at each other. "You are a Gentile!" Jesus exclaimed.
"And you -- " Brother Paul started, but could not continue. For Jesus' generative
organ was strangely mutilated. Immediately Brother Paul tried to cover up his
reaction. "Yes, I am a Gentile, not a Jew. I have never been circumcised. But I
honor many of the tenets you honor, among them the validity of the Scriptures."
"But you are outside the Faith!"
Brother Paul smiled. "Is it not possible for a man to be outside the Faith, even
to be a pagan, yet be worthwhile? Do not some, like the Samaritans, begin as
pagans but seek enlightenment?"
Jesus considered, then nodded. "Yes, surely. There are people who walk in
darkness, then see a great light. They are good people, needing only guidance.
Perhaps even the Samaritans." He grimaced. "If only there were suitable
guidance! The scholars have become hypocrites selling favors in the temple,
mouthing Scriptures they neither comprehend nor practice."
"That is unfortunate," Brother Paul said. Jesus had an accurate notion of the
problem, but seemed to have no present intention of doing anything about it
himself. Where was that Divine spark? "Someone should go there and advise them
of their error."
"Someone should go there and cast out the merchants and thieves and overturn the
tables of the moneychangers!" Jesus said vehemently. "The temple is supposed to
be a place of prayer, not business!" But in a moment he cooled, glancing down at
himself. "As for me -- I was born in a stable, and some say this is reflected in my
manner."
"And I was educated in a barn," Brother Paul put in.
Jesus smiled and continued. "That was in Bethlehem, in Judea, for my family had
to go there for the census, for the taxing. Then they were afraid for my life
because evil Herod had been told a new King was being born, and he feared he
would be replaced and so was having babies killed. It was just a rumor started
by some foreign astrologers who had observed an unusual conjunction of Jupiter,
Saturn, and Mars -- nothing ordinary people would notice, but as one who has
watched the stars many clear nights I can assure you that those three never come
together at the same time, so it would have been amazing if true -- but it
certainly set Herod off! The Romans took the matter lightly, and only a few
babies were actually killed, but my family was quite alarmed at the time and had
to travel to Egypt quickly because of it. They could not make proper
arrangements for my circumcision, yet it had to be on the eighth day. The knife
cut too deep, and there was an infection, and on the road they could not have it
attended to. So -- " He lifted his stricken penis momentarily, showing the gross
scar on it and the imperfectly developed testicles. He was not castrate, but it
seemed likely he was sterile, and more than likely impotent.
"This is a terrible thing," Brother Paul said sympathetically. "In my country
there are medications -- "But obviously it was almost thirty years too late. Jesus
had grown to manhood deprived, victim of unusual circumstances.
"I have long since become used to it," Jesus said. "At least I have never been
tempted to sin." He frowned. "Though when I see the delight others have in such
temptations, at times I am tempted to wish for a similar temptation."
Thus at one stroke (of an unsterile knife) all of Therion's conjectures had been
nullified. Jesus had never felt the need of direct sexual expression and was
quite certainly pure. But why, God, did it have to be done this way?
Jesus came down to the water and stepped in it. His feet plunged through to the
ground beneath; there was after all no foolishness about walking on water.
Well, on to business, such as it was. "Swimming is mainly a matter of
confidence," Brother Paul said. He squatted, immersing himself. The water was
chill. "The human body in most cases is lighter than water, so it floats. Trust
in that, and all else follows."
"One must have faith," Jesus said.
"That's it exactly! With faith, all things become possible. Now I'll demonstrate
what we call the dead man's float." Was he making a pun there? The dead member
Jesus had would never float.
Brother Paul stretched out his hands, ducked his head, and pushed off face down.
He propelled himself by flutter kicking his feet. After a moment he raised his
head and treaded water. "See how easy it is? If a dead man can do it, how much
better for a living one!"
But Jesus had the caution of a man who had never before trusted himself to deep
water. "I fear if I do that, I will soon be dead! How do you breathe?"
"Well, that's the next step. Let me show you the dog paddle."
"The dog piddle?" Jesus asked, frowning.
"Paddle." Brother Paul demonstrated.
Jesus watched and smiled with comprehension. "Yes, I have see a dog do that,
too. But I am not a dog."
"Maybe we'd better start with a basic man-type survival technique," Brother Paul
said. "With this you need never drown, no matter how long you stay in the water.
Just take a breath, hold it, and float just under the surface, completely
relaxed. Your feet will sink, but your head should be near the top. Then when
you need air, stroke your arms down, so your head comes up, uncoil your body,
take a breath -- and sink down again. You may get cold, but you'll never get
tired."
Soon, with Brother Paul's encouragement, Jesus took his first float-breaths,
then made his first travel-strokes. He was unashamedly pleased. "God has borne
me up! I have learned a skill I thought beyond me!"
"Yes," Brother Paul agreed. "But make sure you always have company when you
practice it. Water is dangerous if it is unfamiliar. Now we'd better get out
before we freeze."
Jesus glanced at him curiously. "I am not cold."
"I dare say you have spent many chill nights in the open tending your flocks."
Where were those sheep now? Probably in the care of a younger brother, now that
Jesus was approaching the age of citizenship. "I am not as hardy as you." An
unfeigned compliment this time.
"You look strong," Jesus said. "But it is true, anyone who tends flocks must
accustom himself to the heat of day and chill of night." He swam jerkily for the
shore a few feet away, and Brother Paul, across the pond, stroked more
efficiently to join him.
But as he swam, Brother Paul noticed something below. There was a disk of metal
at the bottom of the pool, shiny and clear. That was odd; why was it not covered
with sediment?
Jesus noted his reaction. "The bottom is like copper, always clear. I do not
know why. That is the site of the pagan temple; all is gone now except that
altar."
A copper bottom? Here in the first century? A pagan temple was possible, but
copper on such scale was hardly to be believed! Brother Paul forgot the
discomfort of the cold water. "I think I'll have a look at that!"
"Wait a few days," Jesus advised. "The water will go, and you can see it
directly."
"I fear I lack the patience," Brother Paul said. He dived, stroking powerfully
down to the bottom. The water was only about eight feet deep.
The metal seemed to shine more brilliantly as he approached. Copper? It looked
like gold! His fingers quested through the clear water, moving down to touch
that mysterious surface. What was such an anachronism doing here?
Contact! Something passed through him like an electric charge, but not painful.
Pale light beamed up from the disk, forming a column in the water, bathing him.
He felt strangely uplifted, though he did not move physically.
But his breath was running out. Brother Paul stroked for the surface, slanting
up to leave the column. His head broke water, and he took a breath. "Jesus!" he
exclaimed. "There is something here!"
"I see it, Paul! Did you light a lamp down there?"
Brother Paul snorted at the humor. "I only touched the metal, and it glowed! I
don't understand it!"
"Let me look," Jesus said. Carefully, awkwardly, he paddled across the pool. In
a moment he entered the glow that now extended beyond the surface of the water
and disappeared above.
Suddenly Jesus himself glowed. Transfigured, he radiated his own light. He
remained still, neither swimming nor breathing; then, slowly, he sank.
Brother Paul launched himself through the water. He caught the man below the
surface, hooked one arm about his neck, and drew him up and along. Jesus was
completely passive, unresisting. Soon they reached the shallow water of the rim.
Brother Paul put down his feet, stood up, and lifted Jesus in his arms. He
staggered out of the water. Jesus was not breathing.
No time to consider the historical or personal implications! Brother Paul laid
the unconscious man face down on the ground and applied artificial respiration.
What a fool he had been to encourage a novice swimmer to venture into deep water
the first time! Yet Jesus had seemed in control until that light -- "
There was a stir under his hands. Jesus was breathing again! Brother Paul eased
up, and in due course Jesus recovered consciousness. "You nearly drowned,"
Brother Paul told him. "I think you'd better not go swimming again!"
Jesus' eyes focused on him, great and luminous. "I nearly lived," he said.
Brother Paul started to demur, but broke off before speaking. He had suddenly
become aware of something else. Jesus had an aura -- like that of the alien
Antares, but much stronger.
Yet Jesus had not had that aura before. Brother Paul had touched him, guiding
his arms in the swimming strokes; there had been nothing. Now -- whatever Brother
Paul's own aura was, Jesus' aura was higher.
How had this happened? Jesus had entered the pool an ordinary man. He had swum
into the glowing column; it was like a baptism of light -- "
"Could it be?" Brother Paul murmured wonderingly. "Antares did say something
about -- "
"I have met my Father," Jesus said, amazed. His face glowed ethereally, and now
he resembled the many portraits of him in Christian churches, haloed by
radiation. Divine light!
" -- the Ancients, leaving sites across the galaxy, capable of strange things,"
Brother Paul continued. "Associated with aura. Could I have somehow triggered
it, activated such a site, my own aura keying it -- a column of aura -- imbuing
you -- enhancing your aura -- "
"I must be about my Father's business," Jesus said with quiet determination.
Brother Paul stared at him, the realization coming slowly but with terrible
force. Was there really any difference between the Aura of the Ancients -- and what
Christianity called the Holy Ghost?

VIII
Sacrifice: 16
Unfortunately, the historical data for the life of Christ are extremely slender.
They are based almost entirely on the four Gospels, which, scholars tell us,
were not written in his lifetime, but mainly compiled from oral tradition many
years after his death.
About his having been a historical character there seems to be no doubt
whatever, but the question of his divinity is a very different matter. The
accounts of the virgin birth, the rending of the veil of the Temple at the hour
he died, and other wonders, are trimmings with which, in early times, it was
customary to glamorize the lives of holy men after their deaths. However, the
Gospels tell us that on many occasions he claimed to be divine. In that he
differed from all the other great teachers, but he gave no proof of divinity. In
fact his last words when in agony on the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?', indicate that he lacked the power of a god, as he was incapable
of ascending to heaven through his own volition.
Many of his reported utterances are so difficult to understand that, again, with
diffidence, I put forward the suggestion that he was frequently referring to the
spark of divine spirit which he had and all of us have in us. We know that he
was baptized by John the Baptist, and many years of his life are unaccounted
for, so it is possible that he spent a considerable time in John's company. If
so, he would have learnt from him the doctrine of the Essenes, who taught belief
in that divine spark.
There is another possibility. If he was indeed a human being, like others he
could have suffered from delusions and honestly believed that he was divine.
 -- Dennis Wheatley: The Devil and All His Works, London: Hutchinson, 1971.

Brother Paul emerged from the scene troubled. Therion sat atop the Bible again,
smirking. "Got your answer?"
"I got an answer," Brother Paul said. "But I'm not satisfied I can accept it."
"You were there; if you can't believe what happened -- "
"I was in an Animation subscene, not the historical reality. I suspect these
scenes are the product of the imaginations of all of us who are participants in
this quest. The effect of precession leads us into strange bypaths."
"I was watching. I never heard of an ancient copper plaque that radiates a
column of Holy-Ghostly light. You can't blame me for that one!"
"No, that was from my own mind," Brother Paul agreed. "I encountered a -- a person
who informed me about the powers of the so-called Kirlian Aura and of a long
expired civilization he termed the Ancients. He suggested there might be potent
Ancient sites or ruins on Planet Earth. Thus perhaps it was natural for me to
conjecture this as the explanation of Jesus' power."
Therion nodded. "Imbued by a machine many hundreds or thousands of years old."
"Millions of years old."
"Millions! Beautiful! To primitives, that power would seem God-like." Therion
squinted at him. "I think you mentioned the four-faced visitors of Ezekiel in
your Bible. That was a good notion. Those were surely men in self-propelled
space suits -- "
"I don't believe the Ancients were human," Brother Paul said. "In any event,
they were no longer around when man achieved prominence on Earth."
"Still, there could be other aliens, looking for those powerful old sites,
trying to tap their scientific riches before the local yokels did. Ezekiel's
visitors could have been looking for the Ancient site that Jesus actually found.
But -- do I have it clear? -- Only a creature with a very strong aura like yours can
key open such a site, so those aliens failed. When you touched it, you activated
it, and then Jesus got the brunt of its force."
"So it appeared in the Animation. But of course we were not really on Earth, so
even if there were such a site, I could not have -- "
"Don't be so quick to explain it away! That's a theory of Christianity I can
accept! A local boy shazamed into Superman by the sleeping robot -- and what a
swath that boy cut with that power! But he should have bathed in that alien beam
longer until he was invulnerable except for maybe his heel -- though of course it
wasn't really Achilles' heel that was vulnerable -- so they couldn't crucify him."
Brother Paul shook his head. "The very fact you can accept this notion -- means
that I must question it. If the Holy Ghost becomes no more than alien
technology, God has no part in it."
"Ah, but God works in devious ways! Maybe He operates through Ancient sites!"
"Maybe," Brother Paul agreed, again refusing to be baited. "But I would prefer
to think of Jesus as a mere mortal man with an immortal message."
"Oh come on, Brother! The Son of God -- a natural man?"
"Enhanced by the Spirit of God. Without the Holy Ghost, Jesus was quite mortal."
"Oho! So it is the Ghost that counts, not the man."
Brother Paul did not care to engage this alert, devious, diabolic skeptic in
theological argument. "Approximately."
"Then you have been looking in the wrong place. You were following Jesus when
you should have followed that super aura."
Brother Paul looked at him, startled. "Yes! It was the Spirit that made Christ
and Christianity what it was. What it is. If the Spirit is false, if it is
nothing but alien technology, then Christianity is false, and -- "
"And you must seek elsewhere for the God of Tarot," Therion finished. "Exactly
my case."
"If that phenomenon was only an Ancient aura," Brother Paul continued, working
it out, "it might have imbued an ordinary man for a time, perhaps during his
life -- but it would not have survived the loss of its host. It would have
dissipated on his death or reverted to its machine. Yet the Holy Ghost would
have survived the demise of the man and gone on to imbue his Disciples, as
prophesied by Joel and described in the Acts of the Apostles. 'And it shall come
to pass that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men
shall see visions.' This did happen at the first harvest festival, the
Pentecost, after Jesus was crucified. The Apostles went on to preach the Word
and heal the sick and form the nucleus of Christianity -- "
"Are you sure it happened?" Therion inquired sardonically. "Or did they merely
pay their visits to that same Ancient site, bathe in the 'Holy Light,' and pick
up more grace from the machine?"
"That's ridiculous! There wasn't any machine! That was just a product of my
imagination -- "
Therion merely smiled.
"All right, damn you!" Brother Paul snapped, conscious of the verbal irony. How
could a disciple of the Devil be further damned? "I'll go back and follow that
aura! Then will you be satisfied?"
"You are the one who needs to be satisfied," Therion pointed out. "You are the
judge of the God of Tarot."
The man was infuriatingly correct. "I will follow that aura until the end." He
stepped toward the Bible.
Therion hastily jumped off as the pages flipped over. Then Brother Paul found
himself in the forming scene of -- the Crucifixion.
"Oh, no!" he muttered. But of course he had to attend because this was where
Jesus' aura would survive -- or dissipate.
A crowd of people was walking along a road leading up a hill. In the center a
man struggled under the weight of a huge wooden cross. Brother Paul moved
forward, biting his lower lip. He hated this, but he had to get close to Jesus
in order to verify the man's aura.
Ironic, that this mob of perhaps a hundred was all that the city of Jerusalem,
with a population of 25,000, could spare either to ridicule or to mourn the
greatest man of the age! The plain fact was that ninety nine per cent of the
population was simply too busy with its routine pursuits to pay any attention
to -- "
He banged into a bystander. "Sorry," Brother Paul said. "I was trying to see -- "
But the man took no notice of him.
Brother Paul made his way to the front, finally getting a look at the cross
carrier's face. And stopped, surprised. It was not Jesus!
Then he laughed with sheer relief of confusion, though his underlying distress
had not been abated. Jesus had not carried his own cross; he had been too weak
after the beating they had given him so that another man had been impressed to
carry it for him.
Brother Paul's laughter had attracted momentary attention. People shied away
from him, and a Roman soldier scowled.
Now he saw Jesus walking a few paces behind, wearing the crown of thorns, eyes
downcast. He was pale, and there was a trickle of blood on his forehead where a
thorn had punctured the skin, but he walked unassisted.
"Oh, Jesus!" Brother Paul breathed. "Couldn't there have been some other way!"
Yet then there would have been no Christianity...
The group moved slowly on up the hill, limited by the pace of the man staggering
under the burden of the cross. Brother Paul, wary of interfering with history
even in Animation, walked with them, trying to get close enough to feel Jesus'
aura without attracting further attention to himself. But the Roman soldier
spied him and warned him away with a dark glance. Brother Paul fell back.
They come to the gate in the great city wall. Beyond this was the dread place
called Golgotha. The meaning of the name, Brother Paul remembered, was "The
Skull."
Now the crowd milled about as the soldiers prepared the ground for the
crucifixion. It was necessary to dig a hole to stand the cross in and place a
support to act as a fulcrum so that the cross could be erected. The immediate
vicinity was crowded because two more victims had arrived with their crosses;
the religious nut did not rate an entire ceremony to himself. Yet Jesus was the
center of attention.
Women closed in, and the harried soldiers permitted this encroachment because
the ladies were obviously harmless and were, after all, female. Brother Paul
tried to move in with them, but again the soldier spied him and warned him back
with a significant gesture. The Romans were businesslike and relatively
dispassionate; they evidently did not like this business, but they had done it
before, followed orders now, and did not intend to let the situation get out of
hand. Brother Paul retreated again still unable to verify Jesus' aura by
contact.
The ladies clustered about Jesus tearfully, some mourning most eloquently. In
Brother Paul's day the term "wailing" had derogatory connotations, but here the
wailing was genuine: a passionate voicing of utter bereavement that chilled the
flesh and whose sincerity could not be doubted. Occidentals were unable to show
emotion this candidly, and perhaps this was their loss.
Jesus stood up straight and spoke for the first time since Brother Paul had
joined the party. "O daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep over me. Weep over
yourselves and over your own children."
They became silent, surprised. Jesus continued talking to them, but Brother
Paul, straining to hear, was roughly interrupted by a hand on his shoulder.
Startled, he turned about. There was a Roman legionary, impressive in his ornate
helmet, armored skirt, and slung short sword.
"Governor Pilate will speak with you," the soldier said gruffly.
Oh, no! The last thing Brother Paul wanted was to become involved in history. Of
course he could not affect actual history, but if his presence distorted the
Animation, he would not be able to ascertain the truth he sought. Was the
validity of the Holy Ghost something that was inherently unknowable?
No! Better to believe that there had been a man like him at the Crucifixion, who
had spoken to Pontius Pilate. Brother Paul was merely occupying the body, the
host, as it were in Transfer, as the alien visitor Antares would have put it.
All he had to do was go along with it, acting natural. So long as he did not
deliberately step out of character for this situation, it should be all right.
Pilate was resplendent in his official Roman tunic and embroidered cape, astride
a magnificent stallion. Behind him the flag of Rome fluttered restlessly in the
rising wind, its huge eagle seeming almost to fly. Oh, the trappings of power
were impressive!
The Governor stared down at Brother Paul from his elevation. "You appear to be
unusually interested in the proceedings, and you are not from Jerusalem. Are you
one of this man's disciples?"
Brother Paul stood frozen. Was he, like Simon, to deny his faith? Yet he was not
a disciple in the fashion Pilate meant; not one of the Twelve. "I am not a
disciple," Brother Paul said carefully. "But I do believe in the divinity of
Jesus Christ." Yet was that itself a lie? He was here to verify the aura Jesus
hosted, to ascertain whether it was some artificial, machine-enhanced thing, or
the living Holy Spirit of God. How could he claim to believe when his
objectivity required that he hold his judgment in abeyance. "At least, I think
he may be the -- "
"The King of the Jews?" Pilate asked. Suddenly Brother Paul recognized him:
Therion! The Roman soldiers had been Therion too, but this was better casting.
"Perhaps," Brother Paul agreed tightly. The legionary beside him shifted his
balance. (Could a single role-player play two roles simultaneously in Animation?
Apparently so.)
"Are you literate?" Pilate asked.
Since the verbal portion of this Animation was in Brother Paul's own language,
it seemed safe to assume the writing was also. "Yes."
"Yes, sir!" the legionary snapped. "Show respect to the Governor!"
Brother Paul reminded himself of his need to play along with the Animation.
"Yes, sir," he repeated.
Pilate nodded benignly. "Excellent. I have a task for you. I am not altogether
satisfied of this man Jesus' guilt; in fact I find little to condemn him other
than intemperate words, most of which have been uttered by his accusers." He
glanced aside, making an eloquent gesture of spitting. "The high priests of the
Temple, who feel their authority threatened by one who preaches some modicum of
decency and salvation, even for the poor. Pharisees!" And now he did spit. "I
understand this man Jesus once rousted them right out of the Temple, kicking
over their tables and scattering their money. Good riddance!" Then his gaze
returned to Brother Paul. "But these Jews would have him die, and I do not wish
to incite further unrest while passions are already roused during this local
celebration, the Passaway. Passover, I mean. Relates to some sort of mythology
concerning Egypt, I hear, though I'd like to hear the Egyptians' side of it! At
any rate, the politics of the situation require me to accede to an act I do not
necessarily approve, washing my hands of responsibility for the decision. But
that others may at least know the claim for which this man is being crucified,
rightly or wrongly, I propose to inscribe a plaque and set it on his cross. You
will print the words on this plaque. Are you amenable to that?" Brother Paul had
not expected a statement of this nature from either Pilate or Therion, yet it
rang true. Besides which, the legionary was nudging him with a dagger-like
knuckle. "I -- am amenable," he murmured. Then, as the legionary reacted, he added
"Sir."
Pilate looked away, dismissing him. Brother Paul got to work on the plaque. He
seemed to remember it, historically, as having been made of stone, but what they
provided was a rough wooden board. Well, that would have to do. "What shall I
inscribe?" he asked the legionary.
The man shrugged. He seemed amiable enough when out from under the eye of the
Governor. "What is he accused of?"
"Of being the King of the Jews," Brother Paul said, half facetiously.
"Then write that." Case closed.
Brother Paul took the heavy chalk and printed out the seven words as boldly and
clearly as he could: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
One of the Temple priests came by as he was completing it. "That isn't right!"
the man protested. "He isn't really the King of the Jews. You should write that
he says he is -- "
"Go soak your head," Brother Paul muttered.
Angrily, the priest went a few paces to complain to the Governor. In a moment
Pilate's half-ironic response sounded above the clatter and hubub of the
proceedings: "What I have written, I have written."
Brother Paul smiled privately. By assuming authorship of the plaque, Pontius
Pilate had squelched all further complaints.
The legionary also smiled, briefly. "Serves the hypocrite right," he said,
glancing at the disgruntled priest. "I'd like to see the whole lot of them
crucified." He studied the plaque. "Does it really say -- ?"
He was illiterate, of course. That was why Pilate had needed a literate
volunteer. Otherwise Pilate would have had to write the words himself, and that
would have been beneath his station as well as to a certain extent again
involving him in the matter he had supposedly washed his hands of. "It really
does," Brother Paul assured him.
"King Herod should see that!" the legionary remarked appreciatively. Obviously
he resented the whole troublesome tribe of Jews and enjoyed a good insult to any
of them. "Now go take it to the cross. Hurry, before they erect it."
Suddenly Brother Paul had a legitimate way to get close to Jesus. Yet now that
the opportunity was upon him, he found himself hanging back. How could he
participate so immediately in this abomination?
"Move!" the legionary snapped, fingering his sword hilt. "They're about to mount
him."
Brother Paul moved. He brought the plaque to the cross where it lay on the
ground. "The Governor says to put this -- "
"Yeah?" another soldier said. "How'd you like to put it up your -- "
"It's all right," the first legionary said from behind Brother Paul. "Governor
Pilate did order it."
The soldier shrugged. "If you say so, Longinus. Here, you take over this spear;
I'm going to need my hands."
Longinus took the spear. "Hammer it in above his head," he told Brother Paul.
"They're stretching him out now."
And while Brother Paul held the plaque, they made Jesus lie down upon the cross,
placing his feet on the partial platform near the base and stretching his arms
out along the crosspiece. Jesus was nearly naked now; they had stripped all his
clothing except a loincloth: part of the humiliation of this form of execution.
It was not enough that a man die; he had to die with his pride effaced. Brother
Paul's heart seemed to freeze for several beats, seeing him there. Was there no
way to abate this horror? Yet of course there was not.
A soldier handed him a heavy, crude hammer -- really a mallet -- and a large iron
nail. "Right above his head," he said.
Brother Paul laid the plaque on the upper projection of the cross, set the nail,
and pounded it in. It was a hard chore because the nail was handmade and
somewhat crooked, but he made allowances and got it done.
"Okay," the legionary said approvingly. "Now do his hand."
Brother Paul stared at the Roman, appalled. "I couldn't -- "
The legionary blinked. He seemed to have some trouble with his eyes. This was a
mechanical thing, not related to the crucifixion; some infection that reddened
the eyeballs and evidently gave him chronic pain. Brother Paul was sure this
affliction did not improve the man's temper. "Come on, come on, we're wasting
time. You've got the hammer, here's a nail -- pound it through the wrist,
well-centered so it won't tear loose. The Governor wants to get this job
finished."
Brother Paul looked across at Pontius Pilate still astride his horse. The wind
had picked up considerably, and clouds were coalescing. There might be a storm.
Naturally the Governor wanted to wrap this up and get back to his palace! But
for Brother Paul to have to do this thing himself -- "
Yet if he balked, he might be changing history, and lose sight of the aura. He
had tried to exert his own will in prior Animations and suffered terrible
precession; he could not afford to do that now. He had to let the vision take
its own course, now that he was in it.
"Forgive me," he murmured brokenly. Then he took a new nail, set it on Jesus'
pale wrist, steadied it with an effort of will, controlling the shaking of his
hand -- and with that contact felt the aura. It was the same one he had known in
the other scene: incredibly strong, stronger than his own, electric and
encompassing and wonderful. The Holy Ghost.
Jesus reacted. His eyes stared straight up into the swirling clouds and his body
did not move, but he was obviously aware of Brother Paul's own aura. "Paul," he
murmured. "The mountain pool..."
Brother Paul dropped the hammer. "I can't do it!"
Still Jesus did not look at him. "Do it, Brother," he said. "My flesh will not
suffer when the hammer is wielded by the hand of a friend. Do not let the
scoffers nail me to the cross."
And Brother Paul, unable to deny that plea, picked up the hammer and pounded in
the nail. The flesh was no harder to penetrate than the board had been.
Then he turned his face to the side and vomited.
Rough hands hustled him off. By the time he regained his equilibrium, the
soldiers had finished nailing Jesus and had erected the cross. Now they were
packing in the dirt around the base, steadying the upright.
Jesus hung by the cruel nails, the demeaning plaque above his head. He had been
crucified. "Father, forgive them," he said, grimacing with pain, "for they know
not what they do."
Suddenly the storm struck. The noon sun, already obscured behind amazingly dense
clouds, disappeared entirely, and the whole scene darkened. There was a shudder
in the ground. The wind whipped so ferociously across the hill that it seemed
the crosses would be blown down.
"A tornado," Brother Paul murmured. But that wasn't it; there was no funnel
cloud. "An earthquake." But, though the earth rocked, that could not account for
the darkness. Yet this was no ordinary storm. There was a strange, burning
smell, as if Hell itself were extending its environs across this territory.
"A volcanic eruption!" he cried, finally placing it. Some deep venting of
pressures, spewing ash voluminously, blotting out the sunlight until it cleared.
A blast like that of Thera of 1400 B.C., occurring in the same region of the
globe, affecting the entire Mediterranean basin, coincidentally with Jesus'
execution -- "
Coincidentally?
Brother Paul looked up at Jesus, hanging on his torture stake. How could this
obscuration of light, this groaning of the very earth, be coincidental? Yet if
God so protested the sacrifice of His Son, why had He not acted before to
prevent it? Even now, it would be far more dramatic to have the cross shaken
down and apart, releasing its captive. Dramatic phenomena whose origin and
purpose the spectators did not comprehend -- such things were wasted effort. Most
of the people of Jerusalem would never connect this with the crucifixion.
He knew the answer: because this sacrifice was necessary to His purpose. Jesus
Christ had to die in this highly visible and final manner so that his
Resurrection would have meaning. God asked nothing of any person that He would
not require of his own Son -- and here was the proof in the form of the most
horrible, demeaning, seemingly useless death this society was capable of
inflicting. Here was the proof that any person, no matter how insignificant he
thought himself, could achieve salvation. Provided only that he follow the
example of Jesus and believe.
Yet Brother Paul dared not believe -- for he was here to verify and judge
objectively the presence or absence of the Holy Ghost. Without that Spirit there
could be no survival of consciousness after the demise of the body. No life
after death -- for Jesus or any other person. Jesus' resurrection would seem like
fakery and be meaningless if his death were not dramatic -- but his death would be
pointless without the Resurrection. So this was not the end of the story, it was
the central nexus, the significant turning point, the key event in the founding
of a major religion.
And what if the aura dissipated upon Jesus' death? If there were no
Resurrection, no Holy Ghost? Where was his own faith then?
Brother Paul got shakily to his feet and walked toward the cross. No one
interfered with him; the darkness and turbulence had scattered the crowd.
Governor Pilate had hastily departed, leaving only a few guards at the
crucifixion site. They had recovered enough from their initial surprise to
revert to their natural pursuit: shooting dice. The stakes were Jesus' clothing,
particularly his seamless robe: who would get what as booty.
The aura manifested as Brother Paul approached. He was now able to feel it at
some distance. The closer he came, the more intense it became, until he stood
immediately before the hanging man.
The hanging man: the card of the Tarot, one of the Major Arcana. Now he knew the
ultimate referent for that presentation. Jesus -- crucified. Upside down, on the
card, because this whole thing was inverted: the innocent suffering in lieu of
the guilty -- willingly. Sacrifice.
Jesus opened his eyes, feeling Brother Paul's approach. "Where have you been,
Gentile friend?" he inquired. "Four years I have looked for you since you
disappeared after saving my life at the pool, and I have tried to perfect your
suggestions -- "
"No!" Brother Paul demurred hastily. "I have no responsibility!"
"Because of you, I learned to harness the power of the parable," Jesus insisted.
"It has been my most effective teaching tool. Because of you I have ministered
to Gentiles as well as to Jews. Always I have sought your aura -- "
"No, no!" Brother Paul protested faintly. "You did it all yourself! I only
passed by -- "
"Except sometimes when my temper got the better of me. Once I cursed a fig tree
because it had no fruit for me, and the tree shriveled and died. That was
wrong."
"Siddhattha would not have cursed any fig tree," Brother Paul agreed. "Such a
tree was the setting for his Awakening."
"Who -- ?"
"He was another great teacher, called the Buddha. Yet each person must seek his
own enlightenment. You did what you were fated to do. I had no part -- "
The eyes focused their lambent gaze upon him. "Do you also deny my friendship,
Paul, now that the end comes?"
Brother Paul, stricken, reached up to touch Jesus' knee. "No, never that! I
merely meant I deserve no credit for your accomplishments. You are the Son of
God, the Savior; I am only -- "
"A friend," Jesus finished for him. "And what greater accolade can there be?"
A soldier looked up. "Get away from that cross -- he ain't dead yet!" he snapped at
Brother Paul. But Longinus, leaning on his spear, murmured something, and the
man relaxed.
"Farewell," Brother Paul said, his eyes stinging. He broke contact and stepped
back -- and something fell on the back of his hand. It was a drop of Jesus blood
from the nailing Brother Paul had done.
"This was my destiny," Jesus said.
"Anything I can do -- " Brother Paul said, looking at the blood. Yet what could he
do?
He walked numbly away and sat on the ground, awaiting the inevitable. Time
passed slowly. The air cleared, and the afternoon sun emerged. From time to time
people approached the cross to speak with Jesus, and sometimes Jesus cried out
in pain and despair as the weight of his body dragged at the nails, but he did
not struggle. Brother Paul tried to close his ears to the horror of it and felt
guilty for doing so. "Christ equals Guilt," he murmured. "If he can suffer, I
must at least pay attention."
Then, clearly, Jesus said: "I thirst."
A soldier dipped a sponge in vinegar, put it on a pole, and lofted it up to
Jesus lips. Jesus took some. Apparently this was not an additional torture, but
a mechanism to moisten parched lips. The tang of vinegar might distract the
attention of the dying man momentarily from his situation.
"It is fulfilled," Jesus said.
The body on the cross sagged -- and the back of Brother Paul's hand itched.
Distracted by his horror of the end, he rubbed that spot -- and felt the blood,
sticky on his fingers. The blood of Jesus.
Brother Paul stared at it, feeling as though the nail had penetrated his own
flesh at that spot. His whole hand became hot as if held in fire. The sensation
spread up his arm and into his shoulder, not unpleasant but strangely
exhiliarating. It was like heartbreak in reverse.
Abruptly Brother Paul felt the presence of a second aura, inhabiting his body
beside his own. "Hello, friend," Jesus said inside him.
"This -- this is Transfer!" Brother Paul exclaimed, amazed.
"There are things I have yet to do in this realm," Jesus said, "before I return
to my Father."
"But this isn't -- I'm not supposed to -- " Brother Paul was unable to organize his
protest. "Historically, I wasn't -- "
"I understood you were willing to help," Jesus replied with gentle reproach.
"I -- had hoped to ascertain -- you see, I'm not of your framework," Brother Paul
tried to explain.
"I understand that -- now," Jesus said. "I can perceive your thoughts, for I share
your body. Without you, I might have been unable to complete my mission on
Earth. I shall not intrude long; will you not indulge me so that the work of my
Father and yours be accomplished?"
Brother Paul could hardly turn down this plea, no matter how it complicated his
investigation. "I will help you."
The soldiers were breaking the legs of the two thieves on the crosses to either
side of Jesus' own so that the felons would die sooner and not extend the
torture into the next day, the Sabbath Saturday. The body of Jesus was spared
because it was already dead: a phenomenon the spectators found remarkable.
The legionary Longinus, skeptical about so sudden an expiration, took his spear
and stabbed it into the side of the corpse. Fluid poured out, running down the
shaft of the lifted spear. Longinus danced back, while the others laughed, but
still got splattered across the face with blood.
"Shame! Shame!" a Jew cried, rushing up to try to catch the blood in a cup. "The
sacred blood must not be spilled on the ground!"
"Who the hell are you?" Longinus demanded, wiping his face and blinking.
"I am Joseph, a -- an interested party. I have -- I have a tomb in a cave over there,
and -- if you will let me bury the body there -- "
Longinus considered. "Oh, all right. Here, I'll help you take it down." He
blinked again. "The day is certainly getting bright! I never saw things so
clearly before."
"Let us depart this vile place," Jesus said. Brother Paul was glad to oblige.
Under Jesus' guidance, Brother Paul went to the temporary residence of Mary
Magdalene. "I am a friend of Jesus," he told the grief-stricken woman. "I came
late and have no place to stay."
She hesitated, peering closely at him. She had been at the Crucifixion; he
recognized her now. But her eyes had been only for Jesus; Brother Paul had been
lost in the crowd. Then, without a word, she gestured him in, making space for
him in the crowded room. Mary's friend, also called Mary, and other Disciples
were there, but Jesus did not make himself known. "I suffer at their suffering,
but it is not yet time," he said to Brother Paul.
They rested all day Saturday, the Sabbath, as was required by the Jewish
religion. "You know," Brother Paul said in passing to Jesus, "in my day we rest
on Sunday, the first day of the week. I believe that custom stems from an
adjustment in the calendar somewhere along the line."
"What the day is called does not matter," Jesus said. "So long as one day in
seven is set aside to honor my Father."
They slept, for it had been a tiring occasion. Brother Paul had nightmares of
humiliation and agony, and woke to realize that these sufferings were from the
mind of Jesus, not his own. Strangely, it was the thirst that was worst, not the
nails or ridicule.
As evening came, Jesus roused Brother Paul. "Come, we must go to the tomb."
Quietly, they departed, leaving the room and then the city, walking toward the
Place of Skulls where Jesus body had been sealed in a tomb. Night was closing
in; the guards at the gate looked curiously at Brother Paul as he went out
because few people cared to leave the city at night.
Suddenly the ground shook. It was another quake! Brother Paul was flung to the
ground, alarmed -- but soon the earth quieted. He was only bruised and somewhat
dirty. They resumed their walk.
The quake had done other damage. The great stone sealing the entrance to the
tomb had been rolled aside. "Thank you, Father," Jesus said. Then, to Brother
Paul: "we must remove the body and bury it separately so that it will never be
found.
Brother Paul did not question this. Once he started asking questions, he would
never stop! He entered the silent tomb.
The body lay there, tossed askew by the tremor, un-pretty. Brother Paul nerved
himself, put his hands on it, stripped off the clothing, and dragged it out of
the tomb. He tried to close his nose against what he thought he smelled. He
hauled it well into the foliage of the garden, then found a fragment of stone
and scooped out as deep a grave as he could. The work was grueling in the dark,
and every time he heard a noise not of his own making he paused, holding his
breath, afraid the guards were returning. They had evidently been frightened
away by the quake, but that would not keep them away forever.
Finally he got it deep enough. He set the body in, scooped the dirt over, and
tamped it down. But the fresh grave would be too obvious by daylight. To conceal
it, he had to uproot an adjacent bush, plant it directly over the grave, then
scatter the surplus earth so that there was no giveaway mound. If anyone dug
below the hollow where the bush had been, they would find nothing of course.
Would this ruse be good enough to hide the body? Time would tell!
Again there was a noise. Someone was coming this time! It was not yet dawn; only
a wan glow showed in the east. Brother Paul hurried from the grave and went to
stand near the open tomb, trying to wipe the guilty dirt from his hands.
The person approached the tomb -- and saw that it was open. There was a little
scream. "Mary Magdalene!" Jesus exclaimed to Brother Paul. "She I would have
married, if -- " There was a mental image of a surgeon's scalpel, the blade that
had destroyed Jesus' prospects for a normal life long before he had been aware
of such things.
As the sun showed, Mary returned with two of the male Disciples. The men ran
toward the tomb, exclaiming. They found the burial clothing Brother Paul had
left, then hurried back to the city, excited. Only Mary remained, standing
wistfully outside the tomb. She buried her face in her hands.
"To Hell with history!" Brother Paul said. "She must be consoled." He walked up
to her. "Woman, why do you weep?" he asked.
She looked up, startled. She was a comely young woman, and he knew who played
the role. She did not recognize him, grimed and disheveled as he was, despite
his day at her house; he was now a stranger, but her grief excluded fear. Mary
had been numbed by the immediacy of it, the day before, two days before; now she
was trying to come to terms with it. "My lord, if you are the one who has taken
him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will -- "
Now Jesus spoke through Brother Paul's mouth.
"Mary!"
Mary's eyes widened. "My Teacher!" she cried, stepping toward him.
"Do not come near me," Jesus said, retreating. "For I have not yet ascended to
my Father. Go to my brethren and tell them I am going to my Father and your
Father, my God and your God."
Dumbly, she nodded, love and hope shining in her eyes. Then she turned and fled
toward the city.
"But is it historical?" Brother Paul demanded when they were alone again.
"Have faith," Jesus said. "Even as a mustard seed."
In the course of the next few days, Jesus appeared similarly to a number of
people, spreading the news of his Resurrection in the manner he thought fit, and
Brother Paul had to trust him. Then they traveled to Jesus' homeland of Galilee,
making more appearances. Finally Jesus returned to Jerusalem. "This is where we
must part at last," he told Brother Paul. "It is time for me to give my spirit
to the Disciples at the Pentecost so that they may continue my work on Earth."
But when that had been done, a small portion of that Holy Aura remained. "I do
not understand," Jesus said. "I had thought I would at last be free."
Suddenly it came to Brother Paul: "Saint Paul!"
"Are you to be a saint, friend?"
"Not I! Paul of Tarsus, the Pharisee. You may know him as Saul."
"I do not know any Saul of Tarsus, and I doubt that I would want to give my last
remaining Spirit to any Pharisee."
"Trust me," Brother Paul said. "We must journey to Damascus."
"Friend, I fear for your sanity," Jesus said. "But I see in your mind that this
thing must be. I will meet this Pharisee of Tarsus."

IX
Change: 17
Man is born to die. Perhaps alone of all the animals on Earth, he is conscious
of his own inevitable demise. This may indeed be taken as the curse of the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The moment man's intellect lifted him
above the level of the ignorant, complacent beast so that he could improve his
lot by planning ahead, he was able to perceive the fate Nature had prepared for
him.
Psychologists say that when a person is faced with untimely death, he typically
goes through five stages. The first is DENIAL: he simply refuses to believe that
this horrible thing is true. The second is ANGER: why should he be treated this
way when others are spared? It simply isn't fair, and he is furious. The third
is BARGAINING WITH GOD: he prays to God for relief from this sentence and
promises to improve himself if his life is only reprieved. Sometimes it is
reprieved, and sometimes he honors his bargain. But when this appeal fails, he
comes to the fourth: DEPRESSION. What is the point of carrying on when the
sentence is absolute and there is no escape? But at last he comes to the fifth:
ACCEPTANCE. At peace with his situation, he wraps up his worldly affairs and
comports himself for the termination.
It seems reasonable to assume that man's whole life is governed by similar
stages of awareness, even when his death is not expected to be untimely. As a
child, he denies death; it is beyond his comprehension. But as he matures, the
deaths of relatives, friends, and strangers force awareness upon him, and he
responds angrily by indulging in death-defying exploits of diverse kinds,
"proving" he is immune. With further maturity he becomes more subtle; he becomes
religious, accepting the thesis that physical death is not the end, but merely
another change in his situation, a transformation to an "afterlife." Perhaps all
religion derives from this urge to negate death; one cannot bargain with God
unless God exists. Yet the fear of death is not entirely abated by religion; the
services of assorted churches may be perceived as mere ritual, and his
confidence erodes. The inexorable approach of death in the form of advancing age
depresses man; he longs for his youth again. But in the end he resigns himself
to his situation, makes out his will, arranges for the disposition of his
remains, and departs with a certain grace. He has accepted the inevitable.

They stood on the road to Damascus, staring in the direction Paul of Tarsus had
gone. The man, already lame and scarred by disease, had been blinded by his
experience and was sadly out of sorts, but Brother Paul knew he would recover.
Brother Paul found himself shaken by his contact with the man whose name and
principles he had adopted. The name remained -- but Brother Paul could no longer
consider himself a follower of those principles.
"Still I am with you," Jesus remarked. "Why have I not dissipated? I long to
rejoin my Father in Heaven."
"I don't know," Brother Paul admitted. "I'm not sure why I haven't returned to
my own framework. These Animations seem to continue long after their purpose has
been accomplished. Their immediate purpose. I thought return would be automatic
once you -- finished."
"But I haven't finished," Jesus said. "My life and death are only the beginning,
showing the way. Now the rest of the world must follow to achieve Salvation."
"I -- doubt that will happen immediately."
"But the Scriptures say -- "
"Sometimes things take more time than anticipated. We really don't know how God
measures time."
"Then I must remain to watch. I cannot let the people drift alone."
Brother Paul shook his head. "Jesus, I fear you would not like all of what you
might see."
But Jesus had decided. "Come, friend Paul; you and I will watch it all. Return
your body to its place, and we shall go together in Spirit."
Brother Paul tried to protest, but the will of Jesus prevailed. "All right -- we'll
watch it together. But I don't think we'll be able to participate directly
because you are physically dead and I have not yet been born."
"Come," Jesus said.
Brother Paul's body shivered and dissolved. It had returned to its frame -- but he
and Jesus remained, standing side by side.
"Come," Jesus repeated, taking Brother Paul's ethereal hand. "We follow the lame
Pharisee."
They flew through the air like the spirits they were, invisible to all others
except each other. When that became tedious, they simply jumped through space
and time, fading out in one location and fading in at another.
They followed Paul of Tarsus. Though physically unpretentious and a rather poor
public speaker, the Apostle Paul turned out to have a fine if narrowly channeled
mind. His logic was powerful and his written material eloquent. He also had a
remarkable determination, a perverse courage that absolutely prevented him from
deviating from his set course. In some cities he was ridiculed or even mobbed;
he carried on. Many of the other Christian leaders distrusted him and plotted
against him, but he made converts everywhere.
"But this is not my message!" Jesus protested. "I was not attempting to found a
new Church, but to show the way -- "
"I said you might not like it," Brother Paul reminded him. "Yet if it is
necessary to start a new religion in order to show people the way to Salvation -- "
Jesus sighed. "I suppose so," he said dubiously. "Since the world will soon end,
it may not matter."
Brother Paul did not comment. It was obvious that the Christian Church was not
the initiative or desire of either Jesus or the Disciples who had known him
personally. Thus, it seemed, it was necessary that a man who had never known
Jesus personally assume a leading role in the propagation of the new faith. As
with a failing business: a professional organizer had been brought in from
outside, and he was doing his job without catering unduly to the foibles of the
existing order.
But the Apostle Paul, it became apparent, was shaping that faith into his own
image -- and that was an unfortunately narrow one. Jesus, sexually voided, had not
made stipulations about sex. He had treated all people equally, gladly accepting
women as well as men, regardless of their station or the prior state of their
conscience. Rich men and prostitutes were welcome, provided each renounce
his/her liabilities. The Apostle Paul was far more restrictive, almost
anti-woman; he permitted them to join, but never to exercise responsibility.
Jesus shook his head sadly. "I had not supposed it would be like this," he
murmured, as he watched the Apostle Paul quarreling with the other Apostles.
Brother Paul had mixed emotions. How much better to see his namesake from the
perspective of history, rather than as this sometimes small-minded person! "He
has written some excellent Epistles," he said.
Then, looking ahead in history, they discovered that not all of the Epistles
written by Paul the Apostle had been collected in the Bible and that not all the
fourteen collected had been authored by Paul. Jesus watched the Epistle to the
Hebrews being clothed with the Apostle's name so as to make it acceptable for
publication, and suddenly he laughed. "Even as Paul credits me with attitudes I
never held, so now he himself is being credited with letters he never wrote!
Truly my Father is just!" But he soon sobered, for all of this only elaborated
the distortions of Jesus' own message.
"Let's view some other aspect," Brother Paul suggested. He had liked to think
that the fourteen cards of each Tarot suit reflected the fourteen Paulean
Epistles in the Bible, but if some of these were invalid -- "
"Perhaps they are doing better in America," Jesus said.
Brother Paul was startled. This was a gross anachronism; America would not be
discovered by Europeans for some centuries yet! Lee had fluffed his line. "Did
you say Rome?" Brother Paul inquired, giving him the cue.
"I said America. The opposite side of the globe -- but we can get there in a
moment."
Sometimes it happened: a mental short circuit that became established. What did
the actors in a play do in such a case to correct the situation without alerting
the watching audience? There was no audience here, but it seemed a fair analogy.
They could not trace true history if they inserted discontinuities.
Brother Paul tried again: "I'm not sure I know that city."
Jesus glanced at him. "More than a city, friend Paul. A continent. Come -- I will
show you."
"Ah -- yes," Brother Paul agreed weakly. At least he had tried.
They flew up high, a kilometer, three kilometers, and on up. "It seems you do
not know of the Jaredite and Nephite Nations," Jesus said.
"I am afraid I don't." Was there any hope of putting this scene back together,
or was precession simply too strong?
"I shall explain while we fly." They were now ten kilometers up, looking down at
the drifting clouds; Brother Paul thought poignantly of his un-daughter Carolyn
in the airplane, enjoying a similar view. "At the time of the confusion of
tongues after the Tower of Babel, a man named Jared and his brother, who was a
prophet, importuned the Lord my Father that they and their tribe be spared from
the impending disruption. The Lord granted their prayer and directed them to the
ocean, where they constructed eight great barges and set sail. Their only inside
light was from luminous stones. After almost a year they landed on the shores of
America about two thousand four hundred years before my birth."
"2400 B.C.," Brother Paul murmured, fascinated by this strange story from the
mouth of the Phantom Jesus. He had never heard a parable like this! Now they
were so high he could see the curve of the Earth below. They were flying east
over the great land mass of Asia near the edge of the Indian Ocean. What was
this Animation coming to?
"In America they multiplied and became a flourishing nation," Jesus continued.
"But they fractured into warring factions until after eighteen hundred years
they died out. But at just about this time, a second expedition set out from
Jerusalem six hundred years before my birth. This was led by a Jewish prophet of
the tribe of Manasseh named Lehi together with his family and some friends. They
marched to the Arabian Sea and built and provisioned a ship, then sailed east
across the South Pacific until they landed on the western coast of America. This
was their promised land -- but like the first colony, they split into two tribes,
the Nephite and the Lamanite. The Nephite advanced in the arts of civilization
and built prosperous cities while the Lamanites degenerated. They forgot the God
of their fathers, became wild nomads, and became benighted in spirit and dark of
skin like the accursed children of Cain."
"The children of Cain?" Brother Paul inquired. They were now over the middle of
the Pacific, still bearing east.
"The evil ones. The black races," Jesus clarified.
Brother Paul was taken aback. "Do you mean the black races of Africa?"
"The same. They rejected the power of the Holy Priesthood and the Law of God.
Thus they have been cursed with black skin to match their black hearts."
This was Jesus Christ talking? Far from it! It had to be Lee the Mormon. Brother
Paul had not realized the Mormons viewed the Negro in such a light. "Surely
there is some error. Since all people except Noah and his family perished in the
Flood, no descendents of Cain would have survived -- "
"It carried on through Noah's line, some of that foul blood," Lee insisted.
"Ham, the son of Noah, fearing that there would be additional heirs to share the
earth after the Flood, conspired with his two brothers Shem and Japhet to
castrate their father. But they refused, for they were good sons. So he did it
himself when Noah was drunk -- "
"The Bible says Ham only saw his father's nakedness!" Brother Paul protested.
"The Bible has been expurgated," Lee said darkly. "But even so, it provides the
punishment: the children of Ham became servants to the children of the good
sons, races Thus the black races achieved their just deserts -- "
"I am part black," Brother Paul said. "I had thought that was understood." But
he realized now that Lee had played no part in the Dozens Animation where he had
made an issue of his race, and the matter had not come up elsewhere. "Am I also
cursed?"
Jesus paused in his flight, and from his eyes Lee looked out, shocked. "You have
black blood?"
"About one-eighth, give or take a smidgen. Technically, I am a light-skinned
Negro."
Jesus shook his head. "No, that can't be true. You are a good man!"
"I hope I am a good man, or can become one. But I am also a black man. I don't
see the conflict -- "
"No!" Jesus cried. "Corruption is not to be tolerated in the sacred places! I am
to throw the moneylenders out of the Temple only to be affronted by such
insinuations? You must not joke this way, Paul!"
Brother Paul spread his hands. "I prefer to be neither a joker nor a liar. I'm
sorry if it bothers you, but I can not and will not deny my ancestry."
Jesus/Lee turned on him a strange look of disbelief phasing into wrath. "We
shall discuss it at another time!" Then he turned away, and Brother Paul sensed
a kind of cold withdrawal in him, a rescinding of proffered friendship. Brother
Paul had thought he was inured to this type of reaction, but he found it still
hurt. Lee was such an intelligent, upstanding, clean-cut person; how could he be
a conscious racist? How could he reconcile this with his portrayal of Jesus who
preached Salvation for all men, no matter what their birth or their prior sins?
Then he recognized the pattern of reaction: this was similar to a person's
response to the news that he must die. First disbelief, then anger. Lee's Mormon
religion cursed the black races; the notion that someone close to him could have
black ancestry, however small in proportion to the white ancestry -- that was
fundamentally intolerable.
It would take time for Lee's emotion to run its course, especially since it was
not one that the role of Jesus Christ facilitated. But Brother Paul was very
much afraid he had lost a friend.
Jesus angled down sharply, and Brother Paul corrected his flight to follow. Down
they went toward the western coastline of the double continent of America.
Faster and faster: ten thousand kilometers per hour, fifteen thousand, twenty
thousand, and still accelerating. Jesus was really working off a head of steam!
Twenty five thousand -- "Hey, I think we're approaching orbital velocity!" Brother
Paul warned. But still Jesus accelerated, passing thirty thousand KPH -- and now
they were slanting in toward the land only a hundred kilometers ahead. Ninety
kilometers ahead. Eighty -- each second knocked off more than ten kilos. Still
Jesus drove on.
They skimmed the ocean, leveled out, and approached the coastal mountains.
Suddenly the peaks loomed large -- and there was no time to decelerate. Though
these forms had little mass, Brother Paul had the crazy notion that their
extreme velocity was magnifying that mass because acceleration toward the speed
of light increases the mass of an object toward the infinite. Jesus shot
straight in to them, unslowing, and Brother Paul had to follow. But what would
happen when -- Collision!
"And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year... there arose a great
storm... behold, the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest
and the whirlwinds and the thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceeding
great quaking of the whole earth... And many great and notable cities were sunk,
and many were burned, and many were shaken till the buildings thereof had fallen
to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the places were left
desolate... And it came to pass that there was a thick darkness upon all the
face of the land... it did last for the space of three days..."
"What is this?" Brother Paul demanded in the darkness, unable to see anything at
all.
"This is the cataclysm that came upon the world at my death," Jesus said beside
him.
"That much I gathered," Brother Paul said. "Fire and water and air and earth -- the
four basic elements running wild in the form of volcanoes and floods and storms
and earthquakes. And now a fifth element, darkness. But why did these nations of
ancient America have to suffer; they had no knowledge of you or responsibility
for your death! And what were you quoting from just now?"
"Chapter 8 of the Third Book of Nephi," Jesus answered. "Of The Book of Mormon."
Suddenly it fell into place. "The Book of Mormon!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "Of
course!" For Lee, as a Mormon, would naturally believe in the version of history
and religion presented by his own Holy Book. Brother Paul had reviewed Mormonism
along with the of his studies with the Holy Order of Vision but had not actually
read The Book of Mormon. Now, belatedly, he recalled the summary. Christianity
had come to the New World, and the history of these converted tribes had been
recorded on gold plates by the last surviving member of those tribes, a man
called Moroni. The tribes had faded out about 400 A.D., and the plates had been
buried in the side of a hill in the state of New York, America, until revealed
to the founder of the modern Mormons, Joseph Smith, in 1823. Smith, and later
Brigham Young, led the Mormons to Utah where most of them remained until the
current extra-terrestrial colonization program provided new worlds to conquer.
Well, why not view the Mormon version of Christian history? The Mormons had been
able to justify many of their claims through discoveries in archaeology,
linguistics, and ethnology. The Book of Mormon did not conflict with the Bible;
rather it augmented it.
Light returned upon the blasted land. Jesus stood up tall and spoke, and his
voice reverberated through all the continent. "Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son
of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I
was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in
me, and in me hath the Father glorified his name."
"I came unto my own, and my own received me not. And the scriptures concerning
my coming are fulfilled."
"And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become the sons of
God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe in my name, for behold, by
me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled."
"I am the light and the life of the world. I am the Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end..."
Brother Paul listened, fascinated. Lee had played the part of Jesus-the-man
before; how he played the part of Jesus-the-Deity. He was far more effective
this way, in his familiar text of The Book of Mormon. Yet Brother Paul thought
he preferred the man.
"And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite
spirit."
And what of racism? Brother Paul wondered. Suppose a black man had a broken
heart and a contrite spirit?
Jesus went on to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, adapted directly from the Old
World Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Then he commissioned twelve Disciples
and founded his Church. It was an auspicious announcement.
At last Jesus and Brother Paul returned to the Old World. They looked at the
broader history, seeing the new Church of Christianity infuse the Jewish
Diaspora, the region where the Jews had been scattered by the deportations of
assorted conquerors. But as the missionary message of the Apostle Paul took
hold, there were an increasing number of non-Jewish Christians. The Jewish
Christians did not view these with favor -- but soon the Gentile Christians
outnumbered the Jewish Christians, and eventually that latter faded and
disappeared.
Jesus shook his head. "I hardly know what to think," he said. "I preached the
dedication of self to the ends for which we live, rather than to the means by
which we live. Ceremony misses the heart of religion. Thus I never set special
restrictions, but -- "
"We are far from Galilee," Brother Paul reminded him.
Indeed they were! Now the center of the stage was Rome, and Rome was in a
centuries-long struggle against the empire of Persia to the east. The battle
line swung back and forth, and for a time Rome governed sections of Asia Minor,
importing their slaves, prisoners, soldiers, and merchants into the Imperial
City. With these people came their religion: Mithraism, the faith of the Magi,
later called "magicians." They worshiped earth, fire, water, winds, sun and
moon; and men completely dominated this religion. Perhaps for this reason,
Mithraism spread like wildfire through the Roman Empire after its two-thousand
year quiescence and sometime persecution in Asia. Rome never conquered Persia,
but the Persian religion bid fair to conquer Rome. Except for the competition of
Christianity! The two religions soon became rivals for the spiritual domination
of the Empire.
Mithraism had a lot going for it with its essential monotheism and magic. But
its exclusion of women weakened it. Christianity did not treat women well, but
at least it allowed them to join. Thus the man of the family might worship
Mithra, while his wife had to be content with the religion that would accept
her, however grudgingly. Slowly and subtly, Christianity gained.
Jesus and Brother Paul came to stand in a Mithraic chapel in the city of Rome.
It was a subterranean vault, lighted only by a torch. Its chief feature was a
magnificent carving of a bull-slaying scene, brilliantly colored. There were
several altars, one of which was evidently used for the sacrifice of birds.
There were benches of stone with space allowed for kneeling during the service.
The chapel was small, but well made.
"This is pagan, yet I would not condemn it," Jesus decided. "Worship should be
an internal experience rather than a public display, and this private chapel is
a step in the right direction. I wish I could talk to these people, and tell
them of -- "
There was noise. "I think they're coming," Brother Paul said.
But it was not a body of worshipers who came. A mob of Roman soldiers charged
in. They overturned the altars and attacked the great bas-relief carving with
hammers. In moments they had destroyed the chapel.
"But this -- this is horrible!" Jesus cried, a tear on his cheek. "Religion is a
principle, not a law. Those who have not found the way should be converted, not
brutalized! Who has done this thing?"
They soon found out. The Christians had done it. They had made a deal with
Gracchus, the Urban Prefect of Rome. Persecution of the Mithraists followed
throughout the Empire, and the religion was essentially shut down in favor of
Christianity.
"But this is not my way!" Jesus protested. "Religion is inseparable from
morality. How can there be persecutions of others in my name?"
Yet it was so. Other religions shared the fate of Mithra, and Christianity was
supreme in Rome. As people of the northern European tribes were converted, they
brought their pagan values with them and their pagan holidays. Christian titles
were applied to these celebrations: Christmas, Easter -- but their essence remained
pagan and, therefore, were easily commercialized.
"By their fruits ye shall know them," Jesus said sadly. "They have made of my
ministry -- a business!" Yet he could only watch.
Now Jews were persecuted by Christians and so were heretics: other Christians
who differed from the official Church line. Yet the Church itself squabbled and
split, following the pattern of the Empire. Later, armies of pagan Christians
were sent back to the Holy Land itself to fight civilized non-Christians: the
Crusades.
"I cannot stand by and watch!" Jesus cried. "Where is there now the sympathetic
understanding I preached, treating others as one would wish to be treated
himself? My name has been attached to a monstrosity! I must correct -- "
History rushed on heedlessly. The Church fashioned in the name of Jesus no
sooner became established than it began to fragment in the nature of human
(rather than divine) organizations. Disagreements arose about the specific
nature of Christ. Schismatic churches fissioned from the main mass: the Arians,
the Nestorians, the Monophysites. Finally the Church itself split into an
Eastern and a Western branch. Jesus and Brother Paul chose to follow the
West -- and it fractured into Catholic and Protestant groups, and the latter into
multiple splits. The Lutherans, the Calvinists, Episcopals, Presbyterians,
Puritans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Methodists -- on and on until
there seemed to be no counting the individual sects. The nineteenth and
twentieth centuries saw no abatement of the proliferation until it reached the
situation on contemporary Planet Tarot.
"No, no!" Jesus protested. "I am not certain any of these fragments really
relate to my ministry. Go back; I want to talk to someone before -- "
They went back. "Here," Jesus said, more or less randomly. History paused in
place.
France and England, two Christian nations, were making war upon each other. The
lot of the majority of people in both nations was worsening. "If I can stop it
here, set them right -- "Jesus said with somewhat wild-eyed hope. "I can not stand
idly by; I must do something."
"You can't do anything physically," Brother Paul pointed out. He understood some
of Jesus' agony but doubted that it was wise to attempt to change history even
in Animation. Precession might make things worse than before. "Maybe you could
generate a vision -- "
Jesus stopped where he was. They happened to be in a small village of France. "I
will speak to the first person I see!"
Soon a country girl came into sight, going about her chores. She was dressed in
dirty peasant clothing and could not have been more than thirteen years old.
"Lots of luck," Brother Paul murmured sadly.
Jesus appeared to the girl. He manifested as an intangible but visible presence.
At first she was amazed, then frightened, but in due course she responded. She
began to take action in the world. She got an army and went to fight the
British. Her name was Joan of Arc.
Jesus and Brother Paul watched her fate with intensifying dismay. "She tried to
spread the Word of God that I had given her -- and they burned her for heresy!"
Jesus cried.
"That is the nature of politics and of the Inquisition," Brother Paul said
grimly.
Further along, in time and geography, they spied a Christian city adding a new
level to a protective wall that had sunk into the porous subsoil. "We shall
never make it stable until we offer a sacrifice," the superstitious people said,
and the Christian authorities agreed. So they made a vault within the wall,
placed a table and chair in it, and loaded the table with toys and candy. Then
they brought an innocent little girl to this play area.
"Uh-oh," Brother Paul murmured. He recognized the child: Carolyn, lost as he
departed his college Animation. "I don't like this -- "
"We cannot interfere," Jesus reminded him.
The child was thrilled with the things. They occupied her whole attention. And
while she played merrily, making exclamations of discovery and joy, a dozen
masons efficiently and silently covered the vault and finished the wall. The
priests blessed the proceedings and went their way -- and the wall was stable.
Jesus looked at Brother Paul. "In my name, this too?" he inquired, almost beyond
shock.
"Let's go get that girl out of there," Brother Paul said tersely. "We can do it,
now, without changing history." But Carolyn had already departed the role by the
time they got there; the chamber was empty.
"The center is empty..." Brother Paul murmured, beginning a chain of private
reflection.
Abruptly Jesus turned to him. "I have been praying to my Father for
enlightenment on this problem. I see that my sacrifice did not bring salvation
to the world, and this is why I was not released to Heaven when I died. The sins
of the world continue unabated, defiling my name and that of my Father. Yet
there is also good in the world, as there was in the city of Sodom. I cannot
deny you are a good man and an honest one; I must therefore believe you when you
inform me you are a child of Cain. How can there be one good son of an accursed
race? I have begged God for a resolution to this paradox -- and He has answered my
prayer."
Brother Paul remained silent, uncertain what was coming. Was this the
bargaining-with-God stage of an adjustment that seemed more difficult for this
man than death itself? Or was it acceptance?
"It is true you are damned," Jesus continued. "But only one-eighth of you is
guilty. Seven-eighths of you is innocent, and that is the portion I have come to
know as friend. It is as though a demon inhabits you. Since you were born with
that demon, it can not be excised -- yet I cannot allow the good in you to be
relegated to Hell for the sake of your evil portion. Yet I know it is not
possible to separate the good from the evil; both are part of you. I could cast
out an ordinary demon or heal an ordinary ailment or forgive an ordinary sin.
But I cannot grant a place in Heaven to a Son of Cain. It is beyond the power of
the Son to reverse a dictum of the Father."
Jesus' eyes seemed to glow. "But I can save you," he continued. "All that is
necessary is for me to assume the burden of your sin. I must go to Hell -- so that
you may go to Heaven. For the sake of the friendship we have and the good that
is in you, O lone man of Sodom, I do this willingly. It is my bargain with God."
Brother Paul understood the context -- that of a single good man in a corrupt
environment -- but he wished Jesus had not used "Sodom" as an analogy. The word
"sodomy" derived from that, and that prior scene with Therion...
"The decision is final," Jesus continued. "The only question remaining is the
manner of my entry to the Infernal region. I choose to make it in a way that
will help expiate the regenerated sins of the rest of the world. If I am
successful this time, the world will soon end, and my confinement in Hell will
not be long. But in any event, you shall be saved -- and for that I am prepared to
trade the world. Farewell, Friend." And Jesus/Lee put forth his hand.
Brother Paul, amazed, could only accept that hand and shake it solemnly. Here he
had been reacting to a coincidental term and missing the serious import. Jesus
was going to Hell -- for him! Brother Paul could not at the moment even speculate
on the larger meaning of this man's sacrifice.
Jesus turned away. Before him opened out a vista of contemporary America in an
area where high technology remained. In the distance was a hydrogen fusion
atomic power plant, and there were people manning a computer in the foreground.
Jesus walked toward that scene.
Brother Paul realized what Jesus intended. He was going to renew his ministry on
Earth, this time utilizing the physical host available to him: the body of Lee.
This was the Second Coming.
"Don't do it, Jesus!" Brother Paul cried. "They aren't ready for the Kingdom of
God! They will crucify you again!"
Jesus paused on the verge of the scene, turning to face Brother Paul
momentarily. Bright tears made his eyes lambent. "I know it," he said.
Then he turned again and walked on -- into the present. His body solidified about
him as he moved into the hall of the computer and around a corner, out of sight.
Brother Paul closed his eyes, remaining where he was. It seemed only a moment
before the terrible clamor began, and the hammering of nails.

X
Vision: 18
And behold, a Philadelphia lawyer stood up to test him, asking, Teacher, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'What is the law? How do
you interpret it?' The lawyer said, 'You must love God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your
neighbor as yourself.' Jesus said, 'Correct! Do this and you will live.' But the
lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked, 'And who is my neighbor?'
Jesus replied, 'Once there was a man who made a business trip from New York to
Washington. He stopped at a restaurant to eat, and when he returned to his car a
hijacker rose up from the back seat, put a gun to his head, and forced him to
drive to a deserted alley where he shot him in the stomach, took his wallet with
all his money and identification, and drove away in his car, leaving him dying
on the pavement.'
'A priest came through that alley by chance, and saw the man, and stepped over
him and went on, averting his gaze from the blood, muttering something about
being late for his service. Then a young woman passed, a secretary; she heard
him moan and was horrified, and skirted him and got away as fast as possible.
Then there came a garbageman, stinking of his trade, a son of the race of Cain,
black as a tarred feather. When the wounded man saw him, he said to himself,
"This nigger will surely finish me off!"
'But the black man had been mugged himself in the past, and had compassion on
the businessman, and stopped and cleaned up his wound and picked him up and put
him in his garbage truck and drove him to a doctor and said, "I don't know who
this guy is, but he needs help bad. If he can't pay you, I'll make it good next
payday; here's five bucks to start off." '
Jesus turned to the lawyer. 'Now which of these three people, do you think, was
the best neighbor to the suffering man?' The lawyer said, 'The nigger.' And
Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.'

Brother Paul stood amid the temporary chaos of shifting Animations. Jesus was
gone, surely to Hell -- but what of Lee? Had he stepped out of Animation -- or was he
stuck in a self-made inferno?
It did not seem wise to take a chance. It was possible to set up a given
Animation more or less by choice, but once inside it, control or departure
became problematical. As with boarding an airplane -- as he had done! -- it might be
the right or wrong vehicle, but there was no getting off until it landed.
Wherever that might be, safely or in flames. Lee might never escape Hell without
help.
Brother Paul concentrated on a virtually intangible object: Lee's likely concept
of Hell. It was probably a fairly artistic, literary notion, definitely
Christian but not necessarily Mormon, for that would be too obvious. What Hell
would a Mormon envision Jesus Christ attending? That was where Brother Paul
needed to go.
The scene firmed around him. It was a field, half-plowed, about a fifth of a
hectare in extent. Beyond it, to what he assumed was the east, the sun was
rising in the sky. In the distance stood a tower, seeming to lie directly under
the sun -- perhaps the same tower he had seen in his first Tarot visions. "The
Tower of Truth," he murmured.
He looked to the west and saw a deep valley with dangerous ditches and an ugly
building in the lowest reaches. His field lay between tower and dungeon, the
only arable land in sight. But he had no horse or ox to draw his plow; he would
have to go to a neighbor to borrow his team, and that meant leaving his field
unattended.
Now a motley crowd of people moved along the slope toward his field. Exactly his
problem: they were apt to trample it flat, ruining yesterday's plowing, if he
didn't stay here to ward them off.
Then he had a notion. Maybe some of them would help him plow!
But as they came closer, he lost confidence. The people seemed to be drifting
aimlessly. Some were fat, others sickly, and others morose; none of them looked
like reliable workers.
From the other direction came a more promising prospect: a pilgrim in pagan
clothing with a sturdy staff. As the Animation would have it, the pilgrim
arrived at Brother Paul's field just as the throng surged in from the other
side.
"Whence come ye?" someone cried. "From Sinai," the pilgrim replied. "And from
our Lord's sepulchre. I have been a time in Bethlehem and Babylon and Armenia
and Alexandria and many other places."
"Do you know anything of a Saint named Truth?" someone asked eagerly. "Can you
tell us where he lives?"
The pilgrim shook his head. "God help me, I have never heard anyone ask after
him before! I don't know -- "
"I'm looking for Truth," Brother Paul said. "I saw his tower a moment ago. I can
point out the way."
They looked at him dubiously. "You, a simple plowman? Who are you?"
"I am Paul Plowman," he said -- and was shocked to hear himself say it. Now he
recognized this scene: it was from the Vision of Piers Plowman, a fifteenth
century epic poem by William Langland. And he was stuck in the title role!
"Yes, Paul," the people said. "We'll pay you to take us there."
But that wasn't really where he wanted to go. Not right now. First he had to
locate Lee; then he could search out the Tower, now hidden behind clouds. Lee
was more likely down in the Dungeon of Wrong, this Animation's version of Hell.
But now that he was in this vision, Brother Paul found himself constrained to
follow the script. But maybe he could stall them while he figured out some way
to rescue Lee.
"No, I won't take any money, not a farthing," he told them. "I will tell you the
way -- it's over there to the east -- but I must stay here to plow my field."
They looked toward the east. The clouds were thickening into a storm. "We need a
leader. You'll have to come with us."
"I have a whole half acre to harrow by the highway!" Brother Paul protested in
the alliterative mode of the epic. "But if you help me to prepare and sow my
field, then I'll show you the road." That should turn these idlers off!
"That would be a long delay," a young lady protested. She was in a fancy dress
and wore the kind of hat called a wimple. Amaranth, naturally. And the pilgrim
was Therion. "What would we woman work at while waiting?"
Now there was a challenge! Obviously this lady had seldom soiled her hands with
common labor. "Some must sew the sack to stop the seed from spilling," he told
her. "You lovely ladies with your long fingers -- "
"Christ, it's a good idea," agreed a knight -- another version of Therion. "I'll
help too! But no one ever taught me how to drive a team."
Then they were all volunteering. It seemed the plowman's job would soon be done!
Which was not exactly what he wanted. Well, he was stuck with it now.
But it turned out that many people were not good workers. Brother Paul had to
keep after them, bawling them out, before the job was done.
He remembered that this epic meandered through a great deal of symbolic
dialogue, while people dubbed Conscience, Reason, Wisdom, and Holy Church
debated moral issues with others titled Liar, Falsehood, Flattery, and Mede the
Maid. It might be a great work of medieval literature, but it wasn't taking him
where he wanted to go. He had to break away from this story and seek another
that would serve his purpose better.
Probably a direct effort wouldn't work; the Animations tended to precess when
opposed as he knew to his chagrin. But maybe a slanting push, a shift into
something similar, that might cast him into a more suitable role...
What offered? Piers Plowman had tried to get men to earn their salvation by
reforming themselves. Was there another epic with similar thrust and symbolism?
Suddenly it came to him. "Pilgrim's Progress!" he exclaimed. Bunyan's allegory
even shared the alliterative P! In it, the character Christian sought the
celestial city, buttressed by such bit players as Help, Worldly Wiseman,
Legality and Evangelist. Would anyone know the difference if he phased into that
vision? The genuine, fictional, Piers Plowman could take over here. Why not give
it a quiet try! Not a hard shove, just a nudge...
It worked! Brother Paul found himself in the Valley of Humiliation of Pilgrim's
Progress. He was alone, but carried a good sword. He should be able to make his
way to -- "
His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a monster. Oh, no! Now he had
to face the hazards of this vision, and they were no more pleasant than those of
the others. This was the thing called Apollyon, and he knew he could not escape
it. He would have to fight it if he could not bluff it back. So he stood his
ground.
The monster was hideous; it had scales like those of a fish, wings like a
dragon's, bear's feet, a lion's mouth, and a bellyful of fire. Its face,
however, seemed familiar: could this be Therion again?
Apollyon gazed on him disdainfully, blowing out evil smoke. "Whence come you?
and whither are you bound?"
"I am from the City of Destruction," Brother Paul replied, "which is the place
of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion." He was locked into the action
and dialogue of the classic; only his thoughts were free. What a circuitous
route he was following to locate Lee's Hell!
Apollyon spread out his legs to straddle the full breadth of the way. "Prepare
thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou shall go no further;
here will I spill thy soul."
With that the monster threw a flaming dart at Brother Paul's breast. But Brother
Paul had a shield, round and coppery like a great coin (had it been there a
moment ago?) and intercepted the missile.
He drew his sword -- but Apollyon was already hurling more darts at him. Brother
Paul tried to block them off, but they come like hail, magically multiplied. One
flew directly at his face; he threw up his sword to fend it off, not daring to
raise the shield and expose his legs, and it wounded his hand. Brother Paul gave
a cry of pain and shook it loose; the wound was superficial, but it stung like
fire. But then another dart speared his left foot, making him dance about in
agony. What was on those barbs -- essence of red ant, hornet, and scorpion? His
shield dropped low -- and a third dart caught him in the head, just above the
hairline on the right.
Brother Paul fell back. He was being destroyed! He had somehow thought he was
invulnerable to attack by mythical monsters since he was only passing through.
False notion! The Animations could and did kill; he had known that from the
outset. Apollyon might be a creature of the imagination of John Bunyan, but this
was the realm of imagination, and the monster was being played by another real
person. If Pilgrim's Progress decreed the death of this character, Brother Paul
was in trouble. Unless he could shift stories again, get into a surviving role -- "
He tried to concentrate on that, but could not. The dreadful darts were still
coming at him, and his head, hand, and foot still hurt. A trickle of blood was
dribbling into his right eye. Apollyon was striding forward to match Brother
Paul's retreat; any attention diverted to other literature could be immediately
fatal here!
No help for it: he would have to fight right here and now. He obviously could
not win by playing the monster's game; he would have to convert it to his own
style. That style, of course, was judo; let him get his bare hands on Apollyon,
and -- "
But that hadn't worked too well against the dragon Temptation back in the Seven
Cups. Judo was geared primarily to handling men, not monsters. So maybe it was
best to save that for a last resort and use his sword meanwhile.
Brother Paul stood and fought, swinging his sword back and forth, forth and back
in flashing arcs. It was a good weapon, beautifully balanced, and its edge was
magically sharp, and this was a heroic fantasy Animation. Apollyon retreated,
fearing this new imperative. Brother Paul advanced, trying to cut the monster in
half.
But the sword was also heavy. His arm was tiring. If he didn't cut down the
enemy soon, he would wear himself out, and then be vulnerable. So he doubled his
effort, trying to finish it now.
Apollyon stepped in close. Brother Paul dropped his shield and swung a
two-handed blow at the monster's head to cleave him in two lengthwise. And
hesitated in mid-stroke: it was Apollyon he aimed at -- but would it be Therion he
killed?
In that moment Apollyon dodged to the side, turned about, caught Brother Paul's
arms in his own, emitted a stunning scream KIIAAIII! -- and executed a perfect
ippon seoi nage shoulder throw. Brother Paul, fool that he was, had walked right
into it! These throws had been designed to handle warriors in armor and to
disarm armed attackers. He had been beaten at his own game.
The fall was bruising. Brother Paul's sword flew out of his hand, and the wind
was knocked out of him. Half conscious, he felt the monster dropping down
expertly to put him in a holddown. It was Kami shiho gatame, the upper four
quarter hold, one of the most effective in the judo arsenal. The monster was
bearing down, putting the weight of his torso on Brother Paul's head, pinning
it, forcing him to turn his face to the side in order to prevent suffocation.
The fish scales of Apollyon's body stank in Brother Paul's nostrils and rasped
against his cheek. He tried to struggle to throw the monster off, but the hold
was cruelly tight. Apollyon really knew his business! No man could break this
hold!
This was no judo match, however. The monster was not about to let him up in
thirty seconds in polite victory. "I am sure of thee now," Apollyon said,
pressing down harder. The weight of his body increased magically, becoming more
than the mere position could possibly account for. Brother Paul thought his
skull was going to crack open. His eyeballs were being squeezed; they seemed
about to pop out of his head. He was in a vice, and the invisible handle was
being cranked tighter...
Then he saw the sword. It had not flown far; it was within a meter, lying flat
on the ground. Had he turned his head the other way, he would not have been able
to see it. Pure luck! Desperately he flung out his left hand -- and caught the
handle.
"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy," he gasped. "When I fall I shall arise."
Then he made a left-handed stab at the monster's side. It was not a really
effective stroke because Brother Paul had poor vision and poorer leverage, but
the good sword gouged out a patch of scales and laid open the dark inner flesh.
Apollyon gave a cry of agony. His hold loosened, and Brother Paul heaved him
off. Brother Paul rolled to his hands and knees, shaking his aching head, and
saw brown ichor leaking from the monster's side. Brother Paul raised himself to
his knees, gripped the sword again in both hands, and raised it high. "Nay," he
cried. "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved
us." And he brought the sword down in a conclusive smash.
But Apollyon, defeated, scuttled back, escaping the blow. "Spare me, great
Hero!" he cried. "I will make it worth your mercy!"
Brother Paul hesitated. Was this in the script? Could he trust the monster -- or
the man who played it? Well, he still had the good sword and could use it the
moment Apollyon made a false move. The monster seemed to be out of darts anyway.
"What do you offer, O fiend?"
"Information!" Apollyon cried eagerly. "I know these realms as you do not. I can
direct you to anything you seek. Riches, weapons, pretty nymphs -- "
Hm. "I am looking for someone in Hell."
The monster spread his wings, momentarily startled. "I could have sent you there
ere now, had you not thwarted me."
"I don't want to be sent to Hell -- I want to rescue someone who may be there.
Locate him for me, and you can go free."
Apollyon fluttered his wings again in a gesture very like a shrug. "I see you
know little of Hell, O mortal! If it took you such a tussle to overcome me (and
then only because I neglected to kick your blade aside), who am the least of
fiends, you would survive only seconds in the infernal region. You would need to
have a thorough comprehension of the history and psychology of Hell before you
could even guess where your friend might be, for it is larger than all the
world, and then you still durst not venture there yourself."
Brother Paul considered. The monster was making sense! "Very well -- tell me that
history and psychology."
A snort of fire issued from the leonine nostrils. "Mortal, that would require a
lifetime!"
"Abridge it," Brother Paul suggested, lifting his sword.
Apollyon sighed smokily. "I will try. I believe John Milton said it best -- "
"You are familiar with the works of Milton?" Brother Paul asked with surprise.
"Naturally. He and Bunyan were contemporaries, the two great figures of the
Puritan Interlude of seventeenth century British literature. The one wrote the
great allegory, the other the great epic. Some scholars (bastards!) choose to
ignore Bunyan in favor of Milton, but -- "
"Yes, all right, okay," Brother Paul said. "Tell me about Milton's Hell,"
"Well, if I may quote from Paradise Lost -- "
"Not the whole epic!" Brother Paul protested.
"I will edit the selection," Apollyon assured him, though he evidently had had
no intention of doing that before. Then the monster set himself up, spread his
bear feet like an actor on a stage, and declaimed:
The infernal serpent; he it was whose guile...
Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equaled the most high,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised imperious war in heaven and battle proud
With vain attempt. Him the almighty power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the omnipotent to arms.

"Fine," Brother Paul said. "I appreciate the grandeur of Milton -- but what about
Hell?"
"I'm getting to it," Apollyon said, annoyed. "Satan picks himself up in the
nether chaos and says:
...What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
...that were low indeed.
So spake the apostate angel, though in pain
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair...
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool...
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
...till on dry land he lights...
Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost archangel, this the seat
That we must change for heaven, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so...
...Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells: hail, horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou, profoundest hell
Receive thy new possessor: one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
...Here at least we shall be free;...
Here we may reign secure:...
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.

Brother Paul nodded his head, impressed. "Yes, I can appreciate Satan's
determination. He didn't give up at all; he had a fighting heart. So he
fashioned Hell into a place of his liking -- "
"Precisely," Apollyon said. "Now how can you expect to descend into this Hell,
to the infernal city of Pandemonium, and gain any power over the fallen
Archangel? He defied God Himself; only if your power rivals that of God can you
hope to extract any soul from Hell. Frankly, you don't measure up."
"Well, I'll just have to find a way," Brother Paul said.
Now Apollyon spread his dragon's wings and lofted himself into the air. He sped
away, and in a moment he was lost in the distance.
What now? It would be foolish to venture directly into Hell; Apollyon had shown
him that. Yet he could not in conscience give up his mission. Was there any
alternative?
He snapped his fingers. "Dante!" he exclaimed. "He went to Hell -- on a guided
tour. He had a guide, the Roman poet Virgil. If I had a similar guide -- "
But Dante had not sought the extract anyone from Hell -- least of all a prisoner of
the status of Jesus. Virgil would probably not have assisted him in such an
attempt, and it would have voided his visitor's visa.
Brother Paul would be better off taking his chances alone. If he could sneak
in -- "
No! That would be dishonest. The end did not justify the means. Jesus himself
would not accept rescue by questionable means. If he could not do it
legitimately, he could not do it at all. So -- "
So he would go to the top -- to Satan Himself if need be -- and ask permission. This
was, after all, a special situation.
You're crazy! a voice inside him cried. Was it his conscience -- or his diabolic
self? Satan will grab you and put YOU in Hell!
Um, yes. So he would have to be extremely careful. But still he had to make the
attempt. He concentrated. "Lord of Hell! Prince of Darkness! I crave
audience..."
And the Sphere of Fire manifested about him. There was light like a blazing
river, coursing through its winding channel, throwing out bright sparks that
glowed like rubies. If this were the River Styx -- or, rather, the River
Acheron -- then Hell was a much prettier place than he had imagined.
Well, maybe his imagination had been fantasy! He had heeded the propaganda of
the Angelic side and pictured Hell as ugly; no doubt the souls in Hell were told
Heaven was ugly too. Black is white, white is black, doublespeak, mindthink,
whatever. Which was beside the point. Now all he had to do was locate the
Demonic headquarters -- "
As he watched, the radiant river changed course and formed into a spiral, a
vortex, whose center shone like the sun so brilliantly that he was unable to
look directly at it. The outer loops became patterned, each swirl resembling a
fresh flower -- yet these flowers were winged creatures. Satan's host of demons?
Strange; even though he knew them for what they were, they still looked
beautiful!
One detached itself and flew to him. It was a female spirit, lovely beyond
anything he had supposed possible for Hell, seeming absolutely chaste. "Paul,"
she called, as she came to rest beside him. He stood, he realized, on the top of
a mountain, facing the glowing white rose of figures as though before a
whirlpool in the sky, and she had come from that celestial image.
She was familiar. Amaranth, of course, the chronic temptress. Naturally she
would turn up in Hell! Yet her face shone with its own pure radiance, and she
was beautiful in a special way, more like an angel than -- "
"Where is this?" he demanded abruptly. "Who are you?"
She smiled graciously. "This is the Emphyrean, the Tenth Heaven -- and I am Mary."
"Tenth what?" he asked stupidly. "Mary who?"
"The Tenth Heaven of Paradiso," she replied with another gentle smile. "Mary,
mother of Jesus."
Something had gone wrong. "I -- thought I was in Hell."
She looked at him with tolerant wonder. "You gaze upon the Court of God -- and
confuse it with Hell?"
"Precession," he muttered. Then, trying to reorient: "I meant to seek out Satan
to -- to make a plea. I -- have no business in Heaven. I -- must have stumbled through
the wrong door."
"Cannot the Lord of Heaven serve as well?" Mary inquired. She looked familiar in
a hauntingly evocative way, not at all like the person who portrayed her. Maybe
she had been patterned after a painting.
Brother Paul considered. "I, uh, had not intended to bother God, uh, at this
time." He was here in Animation to judge whether the God of Tarot was genuine;
why did he hesitate now that he had a chance for a direct interview? Was it
because he was unprepared (and who was ever really prepared for that
encounter?) -- or because he feared that beyond that unearthly radiance in the
center of the rose of light was an answer like that he had found within his
glowing Grail? All he was sure of was that he did not want to interview God
right now!
"Perhaps if you informed me of the nature of your quest...," Mary suggested
compassionately.
He clutched at that with grateful speed. "Uh, yes. It -- he -- I -- that is, your son
Jesus -- he meant to -- " He could not continue. This was ludicrous!
"Jesus is absent at present," Mary said. "He has a mission with the living, and
we have not had recent news of him. I am concerned, as a mother must be."
"He's in Hell," Brother Paul blurted. "He -- I was slated to go there, but because
of our friendship he went in my stead, and now I want to get him out."
She contemplated him with angelic solemnity. "You wish to exchange places with
him?"
"No! I don't want either one of us in Hell! I feel his gesture was mistaken
because I am not destined for Hell. Not for the reason he thought anyway. So I
want to persuade him of that and take him out -- if I can find him."
She considered. "This would be most irregular. Hell cannot hold him without his
consent. Yet, as his mother, I am grieved to have him suffer. I know he is
willful; I remember when he ran away as a child of twelve and picked an argument
with Temple priests -- he never was too keen on some of the activities of the
Temple, the moneychangers, you know..." She trailed off, her eyes unfocused
reminiscently.
"If I could just talk to him," Brother Paul said.
Mary made a sudden decision. "I think God would not object if you made a little
survey of the spirit regions. There is such a constant influx of personnel, we
tend to lose track. Are you apt at counting?"
"I don't care how many spirits there are in -- " He stopped, seeing her silent
reproach. He brought out his calculator. "Yes, I can count," he said.
"But you would have to be circumspect," she cautioned. "God does not like to
have disturbances. If anyone became suspicious -- "
"That's the point! I don't want to sneak in, I just want to go and speak to -- "
"You will go openly," she said. "If you wait for a pass from Satan you may wait
forever. Bureaucratic delay is one of the specialties of Hell. But as a
surveyor, you can begin immediately. God understands."
In short, this was a method of cutting red tape. He would have to do it. "Uh -- is
there a map? I wouldn't want to get lost -- "
"You will need no map," she assured him. "There are ten Heavens in Paradise,
each indicated by a planet or star, for the Angels, Saints, Righteous Rulers,
Warrior Spirits, Theologians, Lovers, and such. You have merely to descend past
them in order, making your notations. You will then be atop the mountain that is
Purgatorio with its seven levels for the Lustful, Gluttonous, Avaricious,
Slothful, Angry, Envious, and Proud. Then, inside the Earth, you must pass
around Satan and enter the deepest ring of Hell: the icy realm of the traitors.
After that you have merely to ascend to each of the other rings. There are nine
in all, and in one of them you will find him." She looked at him with disturbing
intensity. "Take care, Paul."
"I will," he agreed. What was there about her? Not that she was the mother of
Christ; he had seen her weeping at the base of the Cross, there at the Place of
Skulls, and there had been no magic. Something more personal -- He cut off the
speculation. He had a job to do. He looked about -- and Mary was gone. She had
rejoined the Heavenly Throng.
Very well: he would take a census of Dante's Paradise. Except -- how could he count
these sparkling myriads, let alone record them? All the souls of all the people
who had ever existed! But as he looked at his calculator, he saw numbers
appearing, changing. It was totaling them itself, filing them in its little
memory. All he had to do was look.
He started down the slope. He seemed to be made of spirit stuff himself so that
he more or less floated with no danger of falling. The great circles of the
Heavenly Host receded, looking like the stars of the Milky Way, and now he
became aware of their music: "Gloria in Excelsis..."
Rapidly he traversed the regions of the Fixed Stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the
Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon and arrived at the boundary of Purgatorio. He
really would have liked to interview some of the souls in these Heavens, but
feared that any delay would imperil his other mission. He did not want Jesus to
burn in Hell any longer than necessary.
Purgatorio, however, was much more solid and somber. The atmosphere was gray,
the shadows deep; gnarly trees reached high in nocturnal silhouette. He felt the
weight of physical mass settle about his own being. No angelic choirs here!
This was the Seventh Level, the top of the grim mountain, the habitat of Lust.
He had no need to tarry here any longer than needed to record the spirits. He
already knew the mischief blind lust could lead to.
Then he saw a wagon or chariot, set by a tree. From the sky a great eagle
swooped, diving to attack, once, twice, but it sheered off at the last moment,
and feathers floated over the vehicle. A crack opened in the ground, and a
dragon strove to climb out of its depths. The monster's tail swung up and
smashed the chariot, stirring up the feathers and leaving the bottom knocked
out.
But lo! the chariot regenerated. Each broken part of it sprouted animal flesh:
grotesque monsters, winged, horned, serpentine bodied, ferocious. And upon this
half-living platform appeared a woman, busty, brassy, bold-eyed, looking about
acquisitively. Her eye caught Brother Paul's, and she gave him a wanton
come-hither signal, patting the chariot beside her. A prostitute, surely, played
by the one who played all such roles: for this was the Circle of Lust.
Brother Paul was not tempted this time. But even as she gestured to him, a huge
man appeared by her side, a veritable giant. He began to kiss the harlot, and
she met him eagerly -- yet simultaneously kept an eye on Brother Paul. The giant
followed her gaze, saw Brother Paul, and scowled, now resembling the monster
Apollyon. He seemed about to jump down from the chariot and attack his supposed
rival, but Brother Paul quickly retreated. He was wasting time here anyway. Then
the giant took a whip to the monster portion of the chariot and drove it some
distance away. As soon as the animals were under way, he turned his whip on his
paramour, scourging her savagely. Brother Paul moved on. Once he was done with
this mission, he would have to read the Comedy and discover who these people
were and what their little act meant.
He crossed the river Lethe, wading through the shallowest section he could find,
careful not to drink even one drop. The last thing he needed now was to forget
his mission! He passed on down through the gloomy wilderness, making sure his
calculator was recording all the souls there. This was certainly a contrast to
Paradise! There were not too many overt tortures, apart from a group of naked
people walking through a fire, but there was a great deal of misery. The
Gluttonous of the Sixth Circle were being starved; the Avaricious were without
creature comforts; the Slothful stood perpetually idle -- and bored. The Proud,
down in the first Circle, were bearing heavy stones up a hill.
If this were only Purgatorio, what was Inferno like? He was about to find out!
Brother Paul came to the place where Satan's huge legs projected from the
ground. But it was only a statue; the living Devil was evidently off duty at the
moment. Or on business elsewhere; the Evil One was never off duty! Between those
legs and the ground was a narrow space; this was the entry to Inferno: Hell as
Dante conceived it.
Brother Paul made his climb. At first it was down, but soon his weight shifted,
and he had to turn about and proceed headfirst. He was passing through the
center of the world right at Satan's colossal genital! Now he was climbing
up -- into Hell.
It grew cold. When he emerged into an open chamber, he was about chest high on
the Devil-statue and in a frozen lake. Dante's Inferno, ironically, was locked
in ice.
Shivering from more than the cold, Brother Paul moved out across the lake. The
ice was so frigid it was not slippery; it might as well have been rock. He
paused to look back -- and for the first time he saw Satan in perspective. Hugely
spreading bat's wings -- and three faces, one white, one crimson, one black. The
black face was looking right at Brother Paul. One eye winked, deliberately.
This was no statue. This was Satan Himself!
All Brother Paul could think of at this moment was: suppose Satan had had
flatulence at the time Brother Paul was traversing the nadir? He would have been
blown to Kingdom come!
Brother Paul turned about and ran. There was no pursuit. And why should there
be? The only escape from Hell was back the way he had come -- and Satan would be
there, corking the bottle.
Toward the edge of the lake, he discovered bodies. They were frozen in the ice,
face up, staring -- yet not quite unconscious. These were the Traitors to their
Benefactors.
Brother Paul hurried on, letting the calculator make its own tally. It hardly
seemed that Satan had been fooled, but so long as Brother Paul remained free, he
would act. Maybe this would turn out to be his own Hell: the tabulations for
each section would be fouled up so that he would have to do them over, and over,
and over, touring Hell perpetually.
The edge of the pit that contained the lake was ringed by giants -- not as huge as
three-faced (not two-faced?) Satan, but six times the height of a normal man.
Each had a beard some two meters long, covering his hairy chest, so that it was
hard to tell where the beard left off and chest began.
Brother Paul approached the nearest. "I'm doing a survey," he called, showing
his calculator. He was not sure the giant could either see it or hear him. "If
you will assist me to the Eighth Circle..."
To his surprise, the giant bent and extended one hand. Brother Paul climbed
aboard and was quickly lifted to the top of the cliff. "Thank you," he said -- but
the giant turned his back, ignoring him.
He moved on, passing people who had their arms, legs or even heads cut off -- yet
they remained conscious and in pain. Falsifiers of some sort. Would Lee be among
these because he had acted the role of Jesus? What was the definition of
falsification? Surely not this!
Where would Lee be? Apollyon had been right: there were so many categories of
evil in Hell and so many souls in each that he might search of the rest of his
natural (or even his immortal) life and not find his man. Maybe that was what
Satan had in mind. Brother Paul had to get smart and narrow it down,
drastically. Carnal Sin? No, not Lee! Miser? No, probably not. Wrath? Well,
maybe...
Brother Paul paused, struck by the obvious that had not been obvious until this
moment. It was not Lee and not Jesus he should be orienting on, but the
combination. What part of Hell would this pair be in? Surely not among the
Heretics, though after what he had seen of the Church Jesus' name had spawned -- "
Suddenly he had it. "The Schismatics!" he exclaimed. "Those who separated from
the Mother Church." That would fit both Lee and Jesus -- for Lee was a Mormon,
certainly a schismatic sect, and Jesus himself could no longer accept without
reservation the church that had tortured and even killed in his name.
The Schismatics were right here in the Eighth Circle along with the Seducers,
Sorcerors, Thieves, Hypocrites, Liars, Evil Counselors, and other Frauds.
Brother Paul did not agree with Dante's classifications, but had to work within
the framework that obtained here. After all, the Romans had crucified Jesus
between two thieves. When in Rome, when in Hell...
He closed in on the Schismatic region, searching for Jesus/Lee's face. It seemed
to be morning here -- time varied magically in Hell -- and a number of souls were
rising from their uncomfortable slumbers on the rocks and ground. They seemed to
be queuing up to pass around a certain big rock. Breakfast, maybe?
Why should anyone need to sleep or eat in Hell? They were all spirits! Well,
neither literature nor religion had ever felt the need to make sense!
Brother Paul walked parallel to the line, his calculator tabulating merrily. The
men were naked, so he could not tell from observation what schism they were
associated with. He wondered where the women were; didn't any females belong to
the sects Dante frowned on? Dante had been fairly open-minded for his times, but
circa 1300 was not a liberal period in Europe, as they had seen.
He circled the rock in the other direction from that taken by the line of souls.
He came upon activity at the far side -- "
God, no! he cried internally. But it was so: a demon was wielding a great sword,
striking at the people coming through. Not randomly, but with malicious
precision. On one subject he lopped off the ears and nose; on another he laid
open the chest; the next he disemboweled with a terrible vertical slash from
neck to crotch.
The souls suffered these injuries without resistance, evasion, or even
complaint. Gasping with agony, they clutched themselves and staggered on,
bleeding. One had his entrails looping out through the wound in his stomach,
dangling almost to the ground -- yet he continued moving.
Brother Paul stepped out to intercept him, for the man looked familiar. "Sir,
let me help you!" Yet he was not sure what he could do in the face of this
horror.
"There is no help," the man responded. "This punishment is eternal for me. Help
he who follows me; he is new here, not yet injured."
"Who are you?" Brother Paul asked, recognizing the actor now: Therion.
"I am Mahomet, founder of the Moslem Schism."
"Mohammed! But you're not even a Christian! You have no business in a Christian
Hell!"
The man made a wry smile, forgetting his agony for an instant. "You may know
that, I may know it. But Allah seems to have another opinion." He paused to suck
in some of his gut. "Of course, Dante is in Muslim Hell, as befits an Infidel.
So perhaps -- "
"Paul!"
Brother Paul whirled around at the sound of his name. "Jesus!"
Jesus was a horrible sight. The demon had slashed him in the pattern of a cross,
exposing his pulsating lungs, heart, liver, spleen, and part of a kidney. Yet he
lived and moved. "What are you doing here, Paul? I thought I had exonerated
you."
Brother Paul's shock at the sight of these gruesome wounds translated into
baseless anger. "Nobody can exonerate me but me! I don't consider myself a
sinner in the way you suppose -- and if I did, I'd damn well suffer the punishment
myself! No one else can be my surrogate!"
Jesus was silent. "Perhaps I can mediate," Mahomet suggested. "I have no direct
interest in your quarrel."
"Who are you?" Jesus inquired.
"I am Mahomet, Prophet of Allah."
"I don't believe I know of you."
Mahomet smiled -- a somewhat grisly effort since he was still holding in his guts.
"Naturally not, Prophet. I came six hundred years after your time."
" 'Prophet'? I don't understand -- "
"I call you that because that is how I regard you. There have been many prophets
in the history of men, and you were -- are -- a great one. But the final prophecy to
date is mine."
"Uh, perhaps a change of subject -- " Brother Paul interjected.
"No, this man interests me," Jesus said. "There is nothing like a good
philosophical discussion to take a man's mind from his physical problems. Please
tell me about yourself, Prophet Mahomet."
Brother Paul shut up. What these men needed most at the moment was relief from
their physical agony -- and maybe while they talked he would be able to think of a
more persuasive argument to get Jesus out of here.
"Gladly, Prophet Jesus! I was born in the city of Mecca -- you may know of it as
Mekkeh or some other variant -- 570 years after your own birth. That's approximate
because of changes and errors in the calendar. My father died before my birth,
and my mother passed on six years later, so I was raised by relatives."
"You had no father?" Jesus inquired.
"In a manner of speaking," Mahomet agreed. "Allah may be the ultimate sire of us
all, but a man requires human paternity too -- a man to protect him and show him
right from wrong."
"Yes!" Jesus agreed. "That he may not be mocked."
"That he may pass from the space of time in the womb when his life is a blank,
and be shown how to seek refuge in the God of men, from the mischief of the
slinking prompter who whispers in the hearts of men."
"The mischief of Satan," Jesus agreed. "You speak well, Prophet."
Mahomet started to shrug, winced as his guts shifted, and aborted the motion. "I
speak only to guide men to the straight path, the path Allah favors."
"Did you -- marry? How did you die?"
"I married as a young man of 25," Mahomet said. "She was a rich widow fifteen
years my senior, but a good woman, and she put her commercial affairs in my
hands. I was grieved when she died when I was 49."
"But how could a Prophet share his love of God with a mere woman?" Jesus asked.
"How could he fail to do so? Was not your blessed mother a woman, beloved of
God?"
Jesus was not wholly satisfied. "What do you know of my mother?" And Brother
Paul, who had met the lady in Paradise, wondered also.
"She left her people and went out east alone," Mahomet said. "God sent his
spirit to her in the guise of a handsome man. When she saw him she was alarmed,
fearing mischief. 'May the Merciful protect me! If you fear God, leave me
alone!' she cried. But he replied 'I am the messenger of your God, and have come
to give you a holy son.' And she, still alarmed, asked 'How shall I bear a child
when I am a virgin, untouched by man?' But he said -- "
"Uh, I'm not sure -- " Brother Paul broke in, remembering the manner Therion had
Animated questions of sex before.
"But he said, 'Such is the will of your God', " Mahomet continued firmly. "
'Your son shall be a sign to mankind, a blessing from Me. This is My decree.'
Thereupon she conceived you, and the rest followed. Mary was blessed above all
women -- and blessed was the man Joseph who married her and gave the child of God a
home. I would have had no shame to dwell in the house of Joseph the Carpenter,
rather than in the house of an uncle."
"Yes," Jesus agreed, and it was evident what an impact these kind words from
this unexpected source were having on him. "How did you come to serve directly,
Prophet?"
"I was troubled by the iniquities I perceived about me," Mahomet said. "God had
revealed His Will to the Jews and the Christians through chosen apostles. But
the Jews corrupted the Scriptures, and the Christians perpetrated atrocities in
the name of Jesus -- "
"Yes!" Jesus echoed fervently.
"One day when I was forty, in a vision the Angel Gabriel came to me. 'Recite!'
he charged me, and when I did not understand he repeated it three times, and
said 'Recite in the name of God, who created man from clots of blood.' Then I
understood that I must recite God's words, and so I spoke them and wrote them
down and called that book The Recital or the Koran. Actually it was put together
from my writings after my time, by idiots who simply arranged the pieces in
order from the longest to the shortest, but still it serves."
"The Bible's organization is little better," Jesus murmured. "Accounts of my
life and sayings were written a century after my time and ascribed to my
Disciples and called Gospel. The major portion of my life and ministry was
omitted. But I know now that matters little, for the people who call themselves
Christians do not pay attention even to the fragments that were recorded. They
do not love their neighbors." He grimaced. "And so you became a worker of
miracles, a Son of God? Were you crucified also?"
"I never had the power to work miracles, and I was not the Son of God -- and indeed
I condemn the Christians for worshiping you as the Son of God."
"But -- "
"I did not say you were not the Son of God. You were and are -- "
"We all are," Brother Paul put in.
"But God commanded the people to worship Him, and none but Him. When they
started worshiping you and all the Saints, they were perverting His directive.
Because they had gone astray, the Angel Gabriel came to me and directed me to
bring them back to the true religion as preached by Abraham, to absolute
submission to His Will."
"Yes," Jesus agreed a trifle doubtfully. "And yet -- "
"Yet the Christians have confined me in their Hell," Mahomet finished with a
grim smile. "Because the true heretics are not those who schismed from the main
mass of Christianity in order to worship God more properly. The true heretics
are in charge of the Christian Church -- and the Jewish Church. And -- "
"And the Moslem Church?" Jesus inquired gently.
"And the Moslem Church," Mahomet agreed. "Do they think I do not see their hate,
their alcoholic drinking, their sins? And those heretics of all churches condemn
to Hell all who seek to expose their iniquity. God is merciful; the rulers of
these Churches are not."
"And so you were killed?"
"No, I died naturally when I was no longer needed on Earth."
Jesus made a decision. "Prophet, I like your attitude. Your beliefs are not mine
in all ways, but I believe you are qualified to settle the differences between
Brother Paul and me."
"I will be happy to try," Mahomet said. "So long as it does not require much
physical exertion. Our wounds will not heal until the night -- and then each
morning we must walk past the demon again. At the moment I cannot do more than
talk."
They turned to Brother Paul. Well, why not? If this were a possible route to the
release of his friend from this place... "It is this," Brother Paul said. "I am
of mixed descent. I have some, uh, Nubian blood. He feels this damns me, so for
the sake of friendship, he endures my punishment. But I feel there is no crime
in heredity, except perhaps in Original Sin, which taints all men equally. Is
black blood a sin?"
"There is no crime in heredity," Mahomet said. "Any person who practices right
belief and action is welcome to the house of Allah, the Compassionate, the
Merciful. I regret that many who profess to follow my own prophecy do not seem
to believe this, but it is so." He turned to Jesus, gesturing toward Brother
Paul. "Is this such a man? One who honors God in his heart as well as with his
lips?"
"Yes," Jesus said. "But -- "
"I seek God," Brother Paul said. "I do not claim to have found Him or to be
worthy of -- "
"But if he were in some way flawed," Mahomet continued, "I would neither send
him to Hell nor go in his place. I would forgive him."
"Forgive him..." Jesus said, as though this were a phenomenal revelation. "As
God forgave man..."
"Therefore," Brother Paul said quickly, "having done that, there is no need for
you to suffer the tortures of Hell. Let's get out of here."
Jesus almost agreed. But then he balked. "You are forgiven -- but who is to forgive
me!"
"You? You are blameless!"
"Jesus is blameless, except perhaps for a matter of a fig tree. But the one who
plays the role -- and plays it imperfectly -- that is another matter."
Brother Paul felt a premonition of disaster. He fought it off. "Let's get out of
here. Then we can discuss it at leisure."
"No," Lee said with growing conviction. "I see now that I deceived myself and
you. It was for my own crimes I came here. I am a Mormon, and -- "
"What has that to do with it?" Brother Paul demanded desperately. "You have
honored your creed."
"That has not been proven," Lee insisted. "I -- "
"Then let's put it on trial," Mahomet said. "We shall have the proof soon
enough."
A female demon appeared. In lieu of clothes she wore bright paint: rainbow rings
around her breasts and a clown's mouth at her nether bifurcation. Another prime
role for Amaranth! "Jesus Christ may leave Hell," she said. "His host may not,
for his heritage is tainted."
"Ah, but is it?" Mahomet demanded. "What do you hold against him or his
religion?"
"I passed through Utah once," the demoness said. "I saw a handsome man. 'Who is
that?' I inquired. 'That is Brigham Young, leader of the Mormons,' my companion
informed me. 'He has twenty seven wives.' 'Why, he ought to be hung!' I cried.
My companion smiled. 'Lady, he is!' he replied." The demoness pointed to Lee.
"His Church is polygamous!"
"But that is no sin," Mahomet protested. "Every man should have four wives, or
more, depending on circumstances."
"Score one for the defense," Brother Paul murmured, hiding a smile. No, the
Mohammedans would not condemn polygamy!
"Well, try this on for size!" the demoness said angrily. She whirled, made an
obscene gesture with her bare posterier -- and from it a cloud of smoke issued. The
cloud developed color and character, and became a picture of a wagon train of
the nineteenth century, wending its way through western America. "It is short of
supplies," the demoness said from behind the picture. "The local inhabitants,
intimidated by the Mormons, refused to see to it. They believed the train
carried a shipment of gold, and they wanted that wealth." In the moving picture,
Indians attacked. It seemed they would overwhelm the wagon train, but the men,
women and children fought back desperately, and finally drove the Indians off.
The scene shifted. Now the leaders of the wagon train were talking with the
Mormons. "The Mormons were on good terms with the Indians," the demoness
explained. "They promised to guide the train safely through the hostile
territory if the travelers surrendered their weapons so as not to seem to
threaten the Indians." The picture showed the turnover of weapons and the
resumption of travel.
"No!" Lee cried in the throes of an agony that seemed worse than that of his
wounds.
"Yes!" the lady demon insisted gleefully. "It was a trap. The guide led the
train into an exposed place. Indians attacked it again, and the guide joined the
Indians, and this time massacred the defenseless travelers. The attack was led
by Mormons, whose leader was John Doyle Lee."
"My namesake!" Lee said brokenly. "Betrayer and murderer! That name was passed
along to me with such pride -- "
Brother Paul winced. No wonder Lee was hurting! "But the fact that your namesake
Lee may have been guilty of such a crime does not make the whole Mormon Church
guilty," he protested. "Did the Mormons defend Lee's action?"
"No," Lee admitted. "He was tried and condemned. But -- "
"And you can not be blamed for something that happened long before your birth,"
Brother Paul continued. "Can he, Mahomet?"
"I would not accept this version of original sin," Mahomet agreed.
"I'm not finished!" the lady demon said, reappearing. "This man is a member of a
plagiarized faith."
"Plagiarized faith!" Lee exclaimed. "That's a hellish lie!"
"Say you so? Watch this," she cried, doing her bit with the smoke again. This
time the scene was of a man writing a manuscript. "This is Solomon Spaulding, a
Congregationalist minister and would-be author, writing a novel in 1810," she
announced. "He wrote several novels, but never had them published. His interest
was in the origin of the American Indians -- the Amerinds, and he liked to
conjecture about their possible connections with the people across the Atlantic
Ocean. He died in 1816."
"That has nothing to do with me or my religion!" Lee protested.
The scene shifted. Now it was a blanket stretched across a cabin. "This is
Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church," the demoness said. "He hides
himself so that his amanuensis can not perceive him plagiarizing from
Spaulding's novel, and the King James Bible, and other sources to fashion The
Book of Mormon."
"No!" Lee cried. "The Book of Mormon is a divine revelation!"
"And when it became too cumbersome dictating these divine revelations to the
scribe, Smith simply used sheets from Spaulding's original manuscript. 'First
Nephi' is an example."
"No!" But the cry sounded like that of a man with his neck in the guillotine.
"Then you explain the origin of The Book of Mormon," she challenged.
"It was written by members of the Nephite Nation, the last of whom was Moroni,
who concealed the records at the place later called Cumorah, New York State.
There these engraved plates of gold remained from A. D. 400 until A. D. 1827,
when the resurrected Moroni gave them to Joseph Smith for translation and
publication. This translation is The Book of Mormon."
"The prosecution rests," the demoness said. "Do you still believe that moronic
legend?" And Lee was silent.
"That is a problem," Mahomet said. "If your entire religion is based on a lie -- "
"No!" Brother Paul cried. "Maybe the origins of the Mormons are suspect, or
maybe it is all a great libel. It doesn't matter! What matters is what the
religion is today. Many worthy religions have foundered when their adherents
forgot their original principles -- but here is a religion that became greater than
its origin! The Mormons today constitute one of the most powerful forces for
good on Earth. Their uprightness stands in stark contrast to the hypocrisy of so
many of the more conventional religions. Therefore, there is no crime in this
man who has faithfully honored the fine principles of his faith. Let us crucify
no more people for being than we are!"
Lee seemed stunned. The demoness, a look of sheer fury on her pretty face, faded
away. Mahomet shook his head thoughtfully. "Yes, Brother, I believe you are
correct. We must judge what is, not what was. On that basis -- "
"To hell with what was!" Brother Paul cried. "This man is as much like Jesus
Christ as a contemporary man can be. He belongs among the living."
"What is," Lee repeated. "I have been haunted by what was." Then his face
glowed -- literally. "We have no further business in Hell," Jesus said. "Hell
itself has no business existing. Prophets like Mahomet and good men like Brother
Paul -- what the Hell are they doing in Hell! I never preached hellfire; I preached
forgiveness -- for men and for institutions." He stood straight, and his horrible
wounds closed and healed in seconds. He gestured to Mahomet -- and the Prophet's
guts folded back into his body cavity, and the skin sealed smoothly around them.
"Come, friends -- we must abolish this atrocity." And he strode back toward the
rock where the demon was still hacking helpless souls apart. All along the way
he gestured at the wounded: "Rise, take up your bodies, and follow me!" And they
were restored.
The demon glanced up as Jesus approached. "What, healed already?" it exclaimed.
"I'll split you in two!" And it struck hard.
The sword bounced off Jesus's flesh and broke into two fragments. The demon
stared, then backed away. Then, as Jesus continued advancing, the demon screamed
in terror and fled.
The healed souls gathered around. "We are saved!" they cried joyfully. They
closed ranks and marched behind like a swelling army. They sang hymns of
victory. Before them all the legions of demons were seized with terror and
scrambled out of the way. Hell was in revolt.
Down they marched into the frozen Ninth Circle -- and the ice cracked and shattered
as the souls buried within it came to life to join the throng. Even the giants
ringing this circle merged with the marchers, and the sheer cliff crumbled to
form a gently sloping ramp.
They came in sight of monstrous Satan Himself. Jesus paused. "O Thou Prince of
Destruction," he cried indignantly, "the scorn of God's angels, loathed by all
righteous persons! Why didst thou venture without either reason or justice to
bring to this region a person innocent and righteous? Suffer now the penalty
of -- "
"No, wait!" Brother Paul cried, putting a restraining hand on Jesus' rising arm.
"Even Satan has only been doing His job. You must forgive Him also!"
"Forgive Satan?" Jesus was amazed, and so were Mahomet and all the multitude of
regenerate souls.
"Besides," Brother Paul continued, remembering. "I haven't finished my survey of
souls." And he showed his calculator still zipping through the numbers. "It
would be false pretenses to start a survey and then incite a riot."
Jesus paused, glancing at Mahomet. Then, as one, they burst out laughing.
Suddenly all Hell was laughing, even the demons. A mad tangle of bodies formed
as laughing souls collapsed upon each other. And, overriding it deafeningly,
came the laughter of Satan Himself: "HO HO HO HO HO!"
Hell dissolved into chaos. Like smoke it lifted, leaving them standing in a
valley, laughing uncontrollably.

XI
Transfer: 19
There is a story about a man who wished to reward three of his faithful
employees. To each he offered the choice between a lump of gold worth a small
fortune -- and a Bible. The first employee considered both, but he was not a
religious man, and so he took the gold. The second employee wrestled with his
conscience for some time, but finally, apologetically, explained that he had a
family with sick children and many debts and had to take the gold. The third,
though obviously tempted by the gold, finally settled on the Bible. When he
opened it, bills of high denomination fell out from between the pages. In their
aggregate, they amounted to much more than the value of the gold had been.
The obvious moral of this story is that by seeking faith instead of worldly
riches, a person may acquire more riches than he would otherwise have done. The
problem is that this justifies the Bible not for itself, but for the profit that
may be in it. That is a perversion of the Bible's meaning. When people use the
Bible as a means to promote the acquisition of wealth, the moneychangers have
surely taken over the Temple, and Christianity has become merely another
business.

In the distance the two outside watchers stood. "This time let's make sure we
have the child," Brother Paul said as his laughter subsided.
But it was all right, for Amaranth and a smaller figure were walking toward
them. This time all of them were emerging! "The child!" Mrs. Ellend exclaimed as
the parties joined. "You found her!"
"You all have emerged," Pastor Runford said darkly. "But are you all sane? You
were laughing crazily when the mist lifted."
"We are all sane," Brother Paul said. "But it wasn't easy."
"Not easy at all!" Lee agreed shakily, running one hand cautiously over his
chest.
"You must rest," Mrs. Ellend said. "Tomorrow we shall hear your report."
"I'm not sure we're ready to make a full report," Brother Paul said, glancing at
Lee.
"You make me very curious what occurs within those Animations," Mrs. Ellend
said. "We perceive only the fringe effects. When you went in this time, there
seemed to be a landscape with a river and a tree, but then a storm obscured the
tree. When it cleared we saw the Sphinx."
"And the Great Pyramid," Pastor Runford put in gruffly. "The Bible in Stone.
Analysis of its measurements reveals the coming of Armageddon. Jehovah inspired
Pharaoh to build it according to a secret key -- "
"But the Pyramid is Matter," Mrs. Ellend protested. "The realm of the real is
Spiritual, not Material. Matter is an error of statement. All disease is
illusion; Jesus established this fundamental fact when he cast out devils and
made people well."
"Jesus was a good man," Lee murmured, his eyes closed. "We would do well to pay
better heed to his values today."
"At any rate, after a time the Sphinx faded, replaced by what seemed to be an
Earthly airline terminal," Mrs. Ellend continued. "Then it became opaque until
just now when there seemed to be giants moving in flames. Could that have been
someone's concept of the Infernal Region?"
"There is no Infernal Region!" the Pastor exclaimed. "The concept is a
mistranslation of the Hebrew word Sheol, meaning the grave."
"There is Hell," Mrs. Ellend said. "It exists in life. It is error, hatred,
lust, sickness, and sin."
"Yes!" Lee agreed. "Nothing in the Afterlife can match the tortures we inflict
upon ourselves in this life."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Therion began. "Satan has resources -- "
"Please, can we go home?" the child asked plaintively. "I'm very tired."
"Of course, child," Mrs. Ellend said, softening. "Your father will be happy to
see you -- " She broke off.
"Condition unchanged?" Lee inquired guardedly.
Mrs. Ellend nodded gravely. "I shall try to talk to him; perhaps I can make him
understand that his malady is illusory. But perhaps -- " She turned to Amaranth.
"Perhaps this child could stay with you tonight. You have shared much
experience -- "
"What's the matter with my father?" Carolyn demanded. She was a brown-haired
girl of about twelve, somewhat dark complexioned in contrast to the rather fair
girl of the Animation. Her dress was rumpled and soiled by her long stay in the
wilderness, and her locks were tangled.
"The Swami is unconscious," Pastor Runford said. "He sought you during the last
rift in Animation and suffered himself."
Brother Paul was chagrined. "The Swami -- her natural father?"
"He was opposed to this experiment," Pastor Runford said. "As many of us were. I
differ with him on many things, but on this he was reasonable. But since we were
overruled by the majority, he felt a representative of our view should be within
the Animation area. His daughter agreed to be a Watcher. When all emerged safely
except her, he must have been distracted. He has already suffered grievously
from the things of this planet."
"Bigfoot killed my mother," the girl said. Brother Paul still thought of her as
Carolyn.
"This is horrible!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "I never suspected -- "
"Perhaps we should have informed you of these things," Mrs. Ellend said soberly.
"But under the Covenant -- "
"Come home with me," Amaranth told Carolyn.
"No! I want to go with Brother Paul," she cried.
Surprised and flattered, Brother Paul put out his hand to her. "I am staying
with the Reverend Siltz. I'm not sure he would approve."
"Go with him," Lee said. "We can make other arrangements as necessary."
Carolyn flashed Lee a grateful smile. "Thank you, sir."
"The group of you appear to have developed an unusual rapport," Mrs. Ellend
observed. "My female curiosity wars with my scientific detachment. I wonder
whether the entire colony would benefit from immersion in Animation?"
"Appalling!" Pastor Runford exclaimed.
"We have undergone phenomenal mutual experience," Therion said. "But I doubt the
full colony would survive it, let alone profit by it."
Now they reached the village and separated. Brother Paul took Carolyn to Siltz's
house. The Reverend was not there -- but Jeanette was. The diminutive suitor of the
Communist's son sat with her back against the door, weaving a basket from
flexible strips of wood. "I am lurking for the Reverend," she announced. "I want
to know what he thinks of trial marriage."
Reverend Siltz would explode! But this was not properly Brother Paul's business.
"I think it would be all right to wait inside," he said. "I am his house guest,
and if you could help -- " He indicated the bedraggled Carolyn.
"What is the Swami's child doing with you?" Jeanette demanded.
"She is tired from a long ordeal in Animation, and her father is ill," Brother
Paul explained. That was an oversimplification, but it would have to do.
"Of course I'll help," Jeanette said, deciding in a flash. "Come on in, child;
we'll get you cleaned in a jiffy." She took the girl by the arm, guiding her.
The woman was barely taller than the child, but there was no confusing the two:
Carolyn was thin and somewhat awkward, while Jeanette was full-bodied and
decisive. In moments they were busy in the wash area, and Brother Paul sank into
a wooden chair, relieved.
Soon they joined him. Carolyn was now clean, and her hair was neatly brushed.
"You're awful nice," she told Jeanette. "Since my mother died, I never -- "
"No need to dwell on that," Jeanette said.
"I have to," Carolyn said. "When I get tired I get scared, and I'm awful tired,
and I have to tell someone or I can't sleep."
Jeanette's brow furrowed. "What are you afraid of?"
"Bigfoot. He prowls around, and he killed my mother, and now he's prowling for
me. I hear him coming, and I scream -- "
"I would have thought that was a foolish fear," Brother Paul said. "But I met
Bigfoot when we were searching for you. He went after Amaranth -- "
"Who?" Jeanette asked.
"The woman of I.A.O.," Brother Paul explained. "I don't know her real name, but
she watches the amaranth field, so -- "
"She does look a little like my mother," Carolyn said. "Bigfoot probably got
confused."
"I tried to stop Bigfoot," Brother Paul continued. "But it was stronger. If the
Breaker hadn't come -- "
"I know," Carolyn said. "I was coming out, but then I saw Bigfoot, and I had to
run back into my fantasy city."
"Bigfoot ran into the Animation too," Brother Paul said. "I'm glad he didn't
catch you." Understatement of the day!
"I made a big river, and he couldn't get across," she said, smiling. "When I was
alone, I could control the effect some. Bigfoot stormed and ranted, but it
couldn't get me. But oh, it scared me!" Her shoulders shook.
Brother Paul got up and put his arm around her shoulders, holding her close.
"You father the Swami can surely protect you."
"Bigfoot only comes when he's away!" she cried. "That's how Bigfoot got my
mother! It waited until my father was away, and -- "
Jeanette frowned. "Bigfoot does prowl around a lot. I thought it was just a
nuisance from when the storms bring the Animation fringe. But with your father
out of circulation -- " She glanced up. "Why is Bigfoot after you? Why did it kill
your mother?"
"I don't know"! Carolyn cried. "It hates my father, and -- "
Brother Paul squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. "It is a comprehensible, if
not defensible syndrome. The Swami knows martial art and has very strong psychic
force. Bigfoot may resent him, but be unable to overcome him directly, so it
tries to hurt him through those close to him. His family."
Carolyn put her face against his chest and cried. "That's why I wanted to be
with you," she sobbed. "I'm not close to my father, really; we're of different
religions. I thought somehow -- you're so strong and patient, you'd make such a
good father -- I thought we could just get on an airplane and go away somewhere
where they never heard of Animation, where Bigfoot couldn't ever find me -- oh, I'm
sorry!"
"So it was your Animation, rather than mine," Brother Paul said, amazed. "I
thought I had emerged from Animation -- "
Carolyn tore herself away from him -- but Jeanette caught her and held her instead.
"Dear child! There's nothing wrong in wanting a real family. That's worth
fighting for! That's what I'm fighting for. The only thing wrong is to give up
your dream."
"But it didn't work!" Carolyn sobbed. "We had such a wonderful time for a while,
visiting his old school, but then I started being afraid he
would -- would -- something terrible would happen to him. Because of me. And then it
all went wrong, and we got on the wrong plane and lost in the station, and it
was all my fault -- "
"It wasn't your fault!" Brother Paul cried. "It wasn't your Animation, either!
You may have started it, but I -- "
"So I sneaked away, so as not to be a burden to him anymore -- "
"You nearly destroyed me!" Brother Paul cried. "I was afraid you would get
abducted or run over -- "
"No, I just got in another Animation, like the other one, when I played the
Buddha -- "
"You played Buddha?" Brother Paul demanded. Yet her size and appearance jibed.
Change the hair -- easily done in Animation! -- and she could resemble a little man,
sitting under the Bo Tree. He had found her without knowing it!
"Yes. I know about Indian history because of my religion, so it was easy to -- "
"What is your religion?"
"I worship the Nine Unknown Men. My mother taught me. My father didn't like it
too much, but since it relates some to his religion, he let it be."
"I don't know that religion," Brother Paul said. "Tell me about it."
Carolyn disengaged from Jeanette. "I'm okay now, I think. It -- I'll have to start
at the beginning, if it doesn't bother you. After what I did to you -- "
Brother Paul looked her in the eyes. "One thing we must get straight. You did
nothing to me. Nothing bad, I mean. You showed me something about myself I never
suspected before. I want a family too! I want a daughter like you."
She brightened. "You do?"
"I was confused at first in that Animation. I thought I was back in -- in the
mundane world, as I said. I knew I didn't have a daughter, so it took me some
time to acclimatize. But when I did -- " He spread his hands. "I took over that
sequence and carried it forward the way I wanted it to go. Now I can't get used
to the notion of not having a daughter like you."
"Daughters are good too," Jeanette agreed. "Sons and daughters."
"But you are the child of another man," Brother Paul said to Carolyn. "I am here
for a few days; then I will be gone. I cannot take anyone with me; Earth spent
more energy than it liked sending me here, and that's the limit. The Swami is
your real father. I would not contribute to the alienation of -- " He had to stop.
Why couldn't she have been his child? He would so gladly have taken her away
from all this, back to Earth and -- "
He came up abruptly against reality. And what? Even if Earth were to allow
another person to mattermit, there was no life he could provide for her back on
Earth! In the Animation he had been married with a home to take her back to. In
real life his home was the Holy Order of Vision. A fine institution, but no
substitute for a personal family. "Explain your religion," he concluded.
"Well, it started with Asoka," she said. "The Emperor Asoka of India who was
born in 273 B.C. He was the grandson of Chandra-gupta who unified India. But
there was still some land to add. So Asoka conquered Kalinga. His army killed a
hundred thousand men in battle. When he saw all that gore he was horrified at
such massacre. He renounced that kind of conquest and declared that the only
true conquest was to win men's hearts. By being kind and dutiful and pious, and
letting all creatures be free to live as they pleased. So he converted to
Buddhism -- "
"Beautiful!" Jeanette murmured.
"He was such a good Buddhist that a lot of other people joined too. Buddhism
spread through India and Ceylon and Indon -- Indon -- "
"Indonesia," Brother Paul supplied.
"Yes. I can't remember all those otherworld names as well as my mother could.
But Asoka respected all religions; he didn't make anybody turn Buddhist, and he
didn't prosecute -- is that right?"
" 'Persecute'," Brother Paul said.
"You sure would make a good Daddy! He let each religion do its own thing, a
little like the way it is here, only without all the screaming. He was a
vegetarian, and he wouldn't touch alcohol. I think he was the best monarch
ever!"
"History agrees," Brother Paul said. "Asoka was one of the finest."
"But he knew he wouldn't rule forever. He wanted to stop men from using their
minds for evil. So he founded the wonderful secret society to do this. That's
the Nine Unknown Men."
"But that was thousands of years ago," Jeanette protested. "What happened after
they died?"
"They trained new men, each generation. So there have always been nine, right up
till today, and each one is the wisest man there is. They have a secret
language, and each one writes a book on his science. One knows psychology.
Another knows fizz -- "
"Physiology," Brother Paul said.
"Yes. He knows so much about it that he can kill a man just by touching him.
Some of his secrets leaked once, and now they are used in judo."
"Judo!" Brother Paul exclaimed.
"That's a way of fighting," she said helpfully.
"Uh, yes, I understand. That strikes me as an excellent religion. But how do you
know the identities of these Nine Men?"
"I don't. Nobody does. Except themselves. But I worship what they do because
they are working to save us all. They are around somewhere, and -- " She paused
shyly. "Well, I think maybe -- I don't know -- my father the Swami Kundalini might be
one. He knows so much -- "
Brother Paul looked past her -- and there stood the Reverend Siltz in the doorway.
Brother Paul jumped up. "I didn't see you, Reverend!" he cried. "We were just -- "
"I have been here for some time," Siltz said. "I did not wish to interrupt the
child."
Jeanette turned. "Reverend, I came to -- " She looked at Carolyn, not wanting to
bring up such a subject in the hearing of the child. "It doesn't matter now.
I'll go."
Siltz pointed a finger at her. "The first grandson. Also the first
granddaughter. Communist."
Jeanette's eyes widened. "You proffer compromise?"
"Granddaughters are good too," Siltz said defensively. "Sometimes even better
than grandsons."
"I will not bargain for religion!" Jeanette said. "Anything else, not that. All
will be Scientologist."
"Now who's the pighead?" Siltz demanded. "My son is outside."
"That's dirty fighting!" she cried.
"All's fair in love and war," Siltz said. "I am not certain which one this is or
whether it is both. The first two children -- even if both are female. My final
offer!"
"I will not speak to you!" Jeanette flounced out. It was an impressive exit.
Siltz looked after her. He smiled grimly. "Two granddaughters like her. Church
of Communism. They would convert the whole planet!"
"I did not realize your son was back," Brother Paul said. "I -- "
"You want a daughter. So do I," Siltz said. "Do not be concerned. There is room.
My son will not sleep here tonight."
"Oh, I would not think of -- "
"I do not know where Ivan will sleep or what he will do," Siltz continued
sternly. "But tomorrow -- we shall see who is ready to compromise."
Brother Paul thought of Jeanette, vibrant in her ire, encountering the young man
outside. The man she loved and wanted to marry. "She's right. You are fighting
dirty."
Siltz nodded with deep satisfaction.
"It's like the Dozens," Carolyn said, smiling. "You have to turn the other
person's thrust on himself."
"A dozen what?" Siltz asked.
"Never mind that!" Brother Paul snapped more to her than to him. From whose mind
had come those sickening insults of the Dozens in that scene? He squeezed out
that conjecture and oriented on Siltz. "I have a problem. As you may have
overheard, we had considerable adventures in Animation -- but I cannot say we found
God. I am not sure it is possible to find God this way. Yet I hate to disappoint
the colony."
Siltz considered. "I have only imperfect knowledge of your experience in
Animation. But from what I overheard, you found the greatest meaning in the
personal visions, not those of religion. Could it be you are looking in the
wrong place?"
"But my mission is to find God, not to amuse myself!"
"You seemed closer to God when you put your arm about this child and comforted
her, than when you talked religion." Siltz glanced at Carolyn who was in a
chair. "She sleeps."
Just like that! One moment she was ready to discuss the Dozens; the next she had
clicked out. Adults tended to lose that ability, which made them safer drivers
but also less endearing. "She had a long, hard haul," Brother Paul agreed. "How
can I find God by catering to my wish for a child?"
"You made the obvious plain to me, a better way to heat my house -- by not heating
it. Perhaps you could find God better -- by finding yourself. You must believe you
are worthy to judge God."
"I'll never believe that! I'm not worthy to judge God! I have seen depths of
depravity in me that make me unfit to judge anyone! I -- " Brother Paul stopped.
"That's why I can't complete this mission. I know I'm not -- "
"Then what are you worthy to find?"
"Satan," Brother Paul said morosely. "We had a small vision of Hell just before
we emerged from Animation. I seek God -- but I fear my affinities are closer to the
Devil."
"Is not Satan also a God?"
Brother Paul stared at him. "You mean -- I should search for Satan?"
"I cannot answer that. I only know that when I looked well at the little devil
who pursued my son, I found a certain affinity for her. I saw how gentle she was
with the child. So in examining the devil, I discovered instead an angel. I do
not believe in your Satan -- but is it possible he too would have merits? Perhaps
he only seems evil because we do not understand him well enough."
Brother Paul paced about the small room. "Somehow I am reminded of the
Temperance card of Tarot. A woman pouring water from one jug into another, as if
oxygenating it, renewing its life. Pouring a soul from one vessel to another,
transferring the essence of a person from one life to another. Maybe from Earth
to Hell. And you -- you are transferring my thrust from one direction to another.
Maybe, with precession, it would work."
"We must all look where we must look," Siltz agreed, "and do what we must do.
Some orient on gold, others on the Bible -- but who is to say who is right and who
wrong -- or whether there are such things as right and wrong? It is obvious that
Heaven has more merit than Hell -- yet what is obvious is not necessarily true."
Brother Paul nodded thoughtfully. He was thinking of the way huge Satan in
Dante's Inferno had winked at him. Surely that was a shallow concept of Satan,
one that could be laughed off -- and indeed they had done just that. But what would
happen if he now went to interview the real Satan? He had been more or less a
spectator in a framework designed for Lee's torture. This time the torture would
be attuned to Paul himself.
Yet as he pondered, it seemed increasingly necessary. He had tried to examine
the Gods of others from an objective standpoint and failed because he did not
know enough about them. He had tried to examine his own Christian religion and
failed again. The answer, ultimately, had to lie within himself -- and to know
himself, he would have to put himself to the test. Only then would be able to
prove his own fitness to judge God. As Lee had put himself to the test in his
Hell -- and found, after suffering and doubt, vindication.
The surest test of Brother Paul himself would be found in his own, personal
Hell.

Appendix: ANIMATION TAROT
The Animation Tarot deck of concepts as recreated by Brother Paul of the Holy
Order of Vision consists of thirty Triumphs roughly equivalent to the twenty-two
Trumps of contemporary conventional Tarot decks, together with five variously
tilted suits roughly equivalent to the four conventional suits plus Aura. Each
suit is numbered from one through ten, with the addition of four "Court" cards.
The thirty Triumphs are represented by the table of contents of this novel, and
keys to their complex meanings and derivations are to be found within the
applicable chapters. For convenience the Triumphs are presented below, followed
by a tabular representation of the suits, with their meanings or sets of
meanings (for upright and reversed fall of the cards); the symbols are described
by the italicized words. Since the suits are more than mere collections of
concepts, five essays relating to their fundamental nature follow the chart.
No Animation Tarot deck exists in published form at present. Brother Paul used a
pack of three-by-five-inch file cards to represent the one hundred concepts,
simply writing the meanings on each card and sketching the symbols himself,
together with any other notes he found pertinent. These were not as pretty or
convenient as published cards, but were satisfactory for divination, study,
entertainment, business and meditation as required. A full discussion of each
card and the special conventions relating to the Animation deck would be too
complicated to cover here, but those who wish to make up their own decks and use
them should discover revelations of their own. According to Brother Paul's
vision of the future, this deck will eventually be published, perhaps in both
archaic (Waldens) and future (Cluster) forms, utilizing in the first case
medieval images and in the second case images drawn from the myriad cultures of
the Galactic Cluster, circa 4500 A.D. It hardly seems worthwhile for interested
persons to wait for that.

SUIT CARDS

 NATURESCIENCEFAITHTRADEART
 1DoThinkFeelHaveBe

 ScepterSwordCupCoinLemniscate
 2AmbitionHealthQuestInclusionSoul

 DriveSicknessDreamExclusionSelf

 TorchScalpelGrailRingAura
 3GrowIntelligenceBountyGainPerspective

 ShrinkCuriosityWindfallLossExperience

 TreeHazeCornucopiaWheelHolograph
 4LeverageDecisionJoyInvestmentInformation

 TravelCommitmentSorrowInheritanceLiteracy

 LevertenPandora's BoxGearsBook
 5InnovationEquilibriumSecurityPermanenceBalance

 SuspicionStasisConfinementEvanescenceJudgment

 Band of GloryKiteLockPentacleScales
 6AdvanceFreedomTemptationGiftChange

 RetreatRestraintGuiltTheftStagnation

 BridgeBalloonBottlePackageMobius Strip
 7EffortPeacePromiseDefenseBeauty

 ErrorWarThreatVulnerabilityUgliness

 LadderPlowShipShieldFace
 8PowerVictorySatisfactionSuccessConscience

 ImpotenceDefeatDisappointmentFailureRuthlessness

 RocketFlagMirrorCrownYin-Yang
 9AccomplishmentTruthLoveWealthLight

 ConservationErrorHatePovertyDark

 TrophyKeyKlein BottleMoneyLamp
 10HungerSurvivalReproductionDignityImage

 PhallusSeedWombEggCompost

 ENERGYGASLIQUIDSOLIDPLASMA

COURT CARDS
 NATURESCIENCEFAITHTRADEART
 PAGEChild of FireChild of AirChild of WaterChild of EarthChild of Aura
 KNIGHTYouth of WorkYouth of TroubleYouth of LoveYouth of MoneyYouth of
 Spirit
 QUEENLady of ActivityLady of ConflictLady of EmotionLady of StatusLady of
 Expression
 KINGMan of NatureMan of ScienceMan of FaithMan of TradeMan of Art
 ENERGYGASLIQUIDSOLIDPLASMA

TRIUMPHS
0 -- Folly (Fool)
1 -- Skill (Magician)
2 -- Memory (High Priestess)
&#8734; -- Unknown (Ghost)
3 -- Action (Empress)
4 -- Power (Emperor)
5 -- Intuition (Hierophant)
6 -- Choice (Lovers)
7 -- Precession (Chariot)
8 -- Emotion (Desire)
9 -- Discipline (Strength)
10 -- Nature (Family)
11 -- Chance (Wheel of Fortune)
12 -- Time (Sphinx)
13 -- Reflection (Past)
14 -- Will (Future)
15 -- Honor (Justice)
16 -- Sacrifice (Hanged Man)
17 -- Change (Death)
18 -- Vision (Imagination)
19 -- Transfer (Temperance)
20 -- Violence (Devil)
21 -- Revelation (Lightning-Struck Tower)
22 -- Hope/Fear (Star)
23 -- Deception (Moon)
24 -- Triumph (Sun)
25 -- Reason (Thought)
26 -- Decision (Judgment)
27 -- Wisdom (Savant)
28 -- Completion (Universe)

NATURE
The Goddess of Fertility was popular in spring. Primitive peoples believed in
sympathetic magic: that the examples of men affect the processes of nature -- that
human sexuality makes the plants more fruitful. To make sure nature got the
message, they set up the Tree of Life, which was a giant phallus, twice the
height of a man, pointing stiffly into the sky. Nubile young women capered about
it, singing and wrapping it with bright ribbons. This celebration settled on the
first day of May, and so was called May Day, and the phallus was called the
Maypole. The modern promotion of May Day by Communist countries has led to its
decline in the Western world, but its underlying principle remains strong. The
Maypole is the same Tree of Life found in the Garden of Eden, and is represented
in the Tarot deck of cards as the symbol for the Suit of Nature: an upright rod
formed of living, often sprouting wood. This suit is variously titled Wands,
Staffs, Scepters, Batons, or, in conventional cards, Clubs. Life permeates it;
it is the male principle, always ready to grow and plant its seed. It also
relates to the classic "element" of Fire, and associates with all manner of
firearms, rockets, and explosives. In religion, this rod becomes the scepter or
crozier, and it can also be considered the measuring rod of faith, the "canon."

FAITH
The true source of the multiple legends of the Grail is unknown. Perhaps this
famous chalice was originally a female symbol used in pagan fertility rites, a
counterpart to the phallic Maypole. But it is best known in Christian mythology
as the goblet formed from a single large emerald, from which Jesus Christ drank
at the Last Supper. It was stolen by a servant of Pontius Pilate, who washed his
hands from it when the case of the presumptuous King of the Jews came before
him. When Christ was crucified, a rich Jew, who had been afraid before to
confess his belief, used this cup to catch some of the blood that flowed from
Jesus's wounds. This man Joseph deposited Jesus's body in his own tomb, from
which Jesus was resurrected a few days later. But Joseph himself was punished;
he was imprisoned for years without proper care. He received food, drink and
spiritual sustenance from the Grail, which he retained, so that he survived.
When he was released, he took the Grail to England, where he settled in 63 A.D.
He began the conversion of that region to Christianity. The Grail was handed to
his successors from generation to generation until it came at last to Sir
Galahad of King Arthur's Round Table. Only the chaste were able even to perceive
it. The Grail may also relate to the Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty, the ancient
symbol of the bounty of growing things. It is the cup of love and faith and
fruitfulness, the container of the classic "element" of water, and the symbol of
the essential female nature (i.e., the womb) represented in the Suit of Cups of
the Tarot.

TRADE
It is intriguing to conjecture which of the human instincts is strongest. Many
people assume it is sex, the reproductive urge -- but an interesting experiment
seems to refute that. A group of volunteers including several married couples
was systematically starved. As hunger intensified, the pin-up pictures of girls
were replaced by pictures of food. The sex impulse decreased, and some couples
broke up. Food dominated the conversation. This suggests that hunger is stronger
than sex. Similarly, survival -- the instinct of self preservation -- seems stronger
than hunger, for a starving person will not eat food he knows is poisoned, or
drink salt water when dehydrating on a raft in the ocean. This hierarchy of
instincts seems reasonable, for any species must secure its survival before it
can successfully reproduce its kind. Yet there may be an even more fundamental
instinct than these. When the Jews were confined brutally in Nazi concentration
death-camps, they cooperated with each other as well as they could, sharing
their belongings and scraps of food in a civilized manner. There, the last thing
to go was personal dignity. The Nazis did their utmost to destroy the dignity of
the captives, for people who retained their pride had not been truly conquered.
Thus dignity, or status, or the perception of self-worth, may be the strongest
human instinct. It is represented in the Tarot as the Suit of Disks, or
Pentacles, or Coins, and associates with the "element" Earth, and with money
(the ignorant person's status), and business or trade. Probably the original
symbol was the blank disk of the Sun (gold) or Moon (silver).

MAGIC
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were tempted by the Serpent to eat of the
fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit is unidentified;
popularly it is said to be the apple (i.e., breast), but was more probably the
banana (i.e., phallus). Obviously the forbidden knowledge was sexual. There was
a second special Tree in the Garden: the Tree of Life, which seems to have been
related. Since the human couple's acquisition of sexual knowledge and shame
caused them to be expelled from Eden and subject to the mortality of Earthly
existence, they had to be provided an alternate means to preserve their kind.
This was procreation -- linked punitively to their sexual transgression. Thus the
fruit of "knowledge" led to the fruit of "life," forever tainted by the Original
Sin.
Naturally the couple would have escaped this fate if they could, by sneaking
back into Eden. To prevent re-entry to the Garden, God set a flaming sword in
the way. This was perhaps the origin of the symbol of the Suit of Swords of the
Tarot, representing the "element" of air. The Sword associates with violence
(war), and with science (scalpel) and intellect (intangible): God's manifest
masculinity. Yet this vengeful if versatile weapon was transformed in Christian
tradition into the symbol of Salvation: the Crucifix, in turn transformed by the
bending of its extremities into the Nazi Swastika. And so as man proceeds from
the ancient faith of Magic to the modern speculation of Science, the Sword
proceeds inevitably from the Garden of Eden... to Hell.

ART
Man is frightened and fascinated by the unknown. He seeks in diverse ways to
fathom what he does not comprehend, and when it is beyond his power to do this,
he invents some rationale to serve in lieu of the truth. Perhaps the religious
urge can be accounted for in this way, and also man's progress into
civilization: man's insatiable curiosity driving him to the ultimate reaches of
experience. Yet there remain secrets: the origin of the universe, the smallest
unit of matter, the nature of God, and a number of odd phenomena. Do psychics
really commune with the dead? How does water dowsing work? Is telepathy
possible? What about faith healing? Casting out demons? Love at first contact?
Divination? Ghosts?
Many of these inexplicable phenomena become explicable through the concept of
aura. If the spirit or soul of man is a patterned force permeating the body and
extending out from it with diminishing intensity, the proximity of two or more
people would cause their surrounding auras to interpenetrate. They could thus
become aware of each other on more than a physical basis. They might pick up
each other's thoughts or feelings, much as an electronic receiver picks up
broadcasts or the coil of a magnetic transformer picks up power. A dowser might
feel his aura interacting with water deep in the ground, and so know the water's
location. A person with a strong aura might touch one who was ill, and the
strong aura could recharge the weak one and help the ill person recover the will
to live. A man and a woman might find they had highly compatible auras, and be
strongly attracted to each other. An evil aura might impinge on a person, and
have to be exorcised. And after the physical death of the body, or host, an aura
might float free, a spirit or ghost, able to communicate only with specially
receptive individuals, or mediums.
In short, the concept of aura or spirit can make much of the supernatural become
natural. It is represented in the Animation Tarot deck as the Suit of Aura,
symbolized in medieval times by a lamp and in modern times by a lemniscate
(infinity symbol: &#8734; ), and embracing a fifth major human instinct or drive: art,
or expression. Only man, of all the living creatures on Earth, cares about the
esthetic nature of things. Only man appreciates painting, and sculpture, and
music, and dancing, and literature, and mathematical harmonies, and ethical
proprieties, and all the other forms and variants of artistic expression. Where
man exists, these things exist -- and when man passes on, these thing remain as
evidence of his unique nature. Man's soul, symbolized as art, distinguishes him
from the animals.

Copyright © 1980 by Piers Anthony.
Cover illustration by Rowena Morill.
ISBN: 0-425-08097-8