The Divine Invasion Part 7

He learned about pain and death from an ugly dying dog. It had been run over and lay by the side of the road, its chest crushed, b.l.o.o.d.y foam bubbling from its mouth. When he bent over it the dog gazed at him with gla.s.slike eyes, eyes that already saw into the next world. To understand what the dog was saying he put his hand on its stumpy tail. "Who mandated this death for you?" he asked the dog. "What have you done?"

"I did nothing," the dog replied.

But this is a harsh death."

"Nonetheless," the dog told him, "I am blameless."

"Have you ever killed?"

"Oh yes. My jaws are designed to kill. I was constructed to kill smaller things."

"Do you kill for food or pleasure?"

"I kill out of joy," the dog told him. "It is a game; it is the game I play."

Emmanuel said, "I did not know about such games. Why do dogs kill and why do dogs die? Why are there such games?"

"These subtleties mean nothing to me," the dog told him. "I kill to kill; I die because I must. It is necessity, the rule that is the final rule. Don't you live and kill and die by that rule? Surely you do. You are a creature, too."

"I do what I wish."

"You lie to yourself," the dog said. "Only G.o.d does as he wishes."

"Then I must be G.o.d."

"If you are G.o.d, heal me."

"But you are under the law."

"You are not G.o.d."

"G.o.d willed the law, dog."

"You have said it, then, yourself; you have answered your own question. Now let me die. When he told Elias about the dog who died, Elias said: Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell That here. obeying her behests, we fell.

"That was for the Spartans who died at Thermopylae," Elias said.

"Why do you tell me that?" Emmanuel said. Elias said: Go tell the Spartans, thou that pa.s.seth by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

"You mean the dog," Emmanuel said. "I mean the dog," Elias said.

"There is no difference between a dead dog in a ditch and the Spartans who died at Thermopylae." He understood. "None," he said. "I see."

"If you can understand why the Spartans died you can under- stand it all," Elias said.

You who pa.s.s by, a moment pause; We, here, obey the Spartan laws.

"Is there no couplet for the dog?" Emmanuel asked. Elias said: Pa.s.ser, this enter in your log: As Spartan was, so, too, the dog.

"Thank you," Emmanuel said. "What was the last thing the dog said?" Elias said. "The dog said, 'Now let me die.' Elias said: Lasciatemi morire! E chi volete voi che mi conforte In cosi dura sorte, In cosi gran martire?

"What is that?" Emmanuel said.

"The most beautiful piece of music written before Bach," Elias said. "Monteverdi's madrigal 'Lamento D'Arianna.' Thus: Let me die! And who do you think can comfort me in my harsh misfortune, in such grievous torment?

"Then the dog's death is high art," Emmanuel said. "The highest art of the world. Or at least celebrated, recorded, in and by high art. Am I to see n.o.bility in an old ugly dying dog with a crushed chest?"

"If you believe Monteverdi, yes," Elias said. "And those who revere Monteverdi."

"Is there more to the lament?"

"Yes, but it does not apply. Theseus has left Ariadne; it is unrequited love."

"Which is more awesome?" Emmanuel said. "A dying dog in a ditch or Ariadne spurned?"

Elias said, "Ariadne imagines her torment, but the dog's is real."

"Then the dog's torment is worse," Emmanuel said. "It is the greater tragedy." He understood. And, strangely, he felt con- tent. It was a good universe in which an ugly dying dog was of more worth than a cla.s.sic figure from ancient Greece. He felt the tilted balance right itself, the scales that weighed it all. He felt the honesty of the universe, and his confusion left him. But, more important, the dog understood its own death. After all, the dog would never hear Monteverdi's music or read the couplet on the stone column at Thermopylae. High art was for those who saw death rather than lived death. For the dying creature a cup of water was more important.

"Your mother detested certain art forms," Elias said. "In particular she loathed Linda Fox."

"Play me some Linda Fox," Emmanuel said. Elias put an audio ca.s.sette into the tape transport, and he and Emmanuel listened.

Flow not so fast, ye fountains, What "Enough," Emmanuel said. "Shut it off." He put his hands over his ears. "It's dreadful." He shuddered.

"What's wrong?" Elias put his arm around the boy and lifted him up to hold him. "I've never seen you so upset."

"He listened to that while my mother was dying!" Emmanuel stared into Elias's bearded face. I remember, Emmanuel said to himself. I am beginning to remember who I am. Elias said, 'What is it?" He held the boy tight. It is happening, Emmanuel realized. At last. That was the first of the signal that I-I myself-prepared. Knowing it would even- tually fire. The two of them gazed into each other's faces. Neither the boy nor the man spoke. Trembling, Emmanuel clung to the old bearded man; he did not let himself fall.

"Do not fear," Elias said.

"Elijah," Emmanuel said. "You are Elijah who comes first. Before the great and terrible day."

Elias, holding the boy and rocking him gently, said, "You have nothing to fear on that day."

"But he does," Emmanuel said. "The Adversary whom we hate. His time has come. I fear for him, knowing as I do, now, what is ahead." "Listen," Elias said quietly. How you have fallen from heaven, bright morning star, felled to the earth, sprawling helpless across the nations! You thought in your own mind, I will scale the heavens; I will set my throne high above the stars of G.o.d, I will sit on the mountain where the G.o.ds meet in the far recesses of the north. I will rise high above the cloud-banks and make myself like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the abyss. Those who see you will stare at you, they will look at you and ponder . .

"You see?" Elias said. "He is here. This is his place, this little world. He made it his fortress two thousand years ago, and set up a prison for the people as he did in Egypt. For two thousand years the people have been crying and there was no re- sponse, no aid. He has them all. And thinks he is safe."

Emmanuel, clutching the old man, began to cry.

"Still afraid?" Elias said. Emmanuel said, "I cry with them. I cry with my mother. I cry with the dying dog who did not cry. I cry for them. And for Belial who fell, the bright morning star. Fell from heaven and began it all."

And, he thought, I cry for myself. I am my mother; I am the dying dog and the suffering people, and I, he thought, am that bright morning star, too . . . even Belial; I am that and what it has become. The old man held him fast.

CHAPTER 7.

Cardinal Fulton Statler Harms, Chief Prelate of the vast organizational network that comprised the Christian-Islamic Church, could not for the life of him figure out why there wasn't a sufficient amount of money in his Special Discretionary Fund to cover his mistress's expenses. Perhaps, he pondered as his barber shaved him slowly and carefully, he had too dim a notion of the extent of Deirdre's needs. Originally she had approached him-no small task in itself, since it involved ascending the C.I.C. hierarchy rung by rung- ascending without falling entirely off before reaching the top. Deirdre, at that time, represented the W.C.L.F., the World Civil Liberties Forum, and she had a list of abuses-it was hazy to him then and it was still hazy to him, but anyhow the two of them had wound up in bed, and now, officially, Dierdre had become his executive secretary. For her work she blotted up two salaries: the visible one that came with her job and the invisible one doled out from the sub- stantial account that he was free to dispense as he saw fit. Where all this money went after it reached Deirdre he hadn't the foggiest idea. Bookkeeping had never been his strong suit. "You want the yellow removed from this gray on the side, don't you?" his barber said, shaking up the contents of a bottle.

"Please," Harms said; he nodded.

"You think the Lakers are going to snap their losing streak?" his barber said. "I mean, they acquired that What's-his-name; he's nine feet two inches. If they hadn't raised the-"

Tapping his ear, Harms said, "I'm listening to the news, Arnold."

"Well, yeah, I can see that, Father," Arnold the barber said as he splashed bleach onto the Chief Prelate's graying hair. "But there's something I wanted to ask you, about h.o.m.os.e.xual priests. Doesn't the Bible forbid h.o.m.os.e.xuality? So I don't see how a priest can be a practicing h.o.m.os.e.xual."

The news that Harms was attempting to hear had to do with the health of the Procurator Maximus of the Scientific Legate, Nicholas Bulkowsky. A solemn prayer vigil had been formally called into being but nonetheless Bulkowsky continued to de- cline. Harms had, sub rosa, dispatched his personal physician to join the team of specialists attending to the Procurator's urgent condition. Bulkowsky, as not only Cardinal Harms but the entire curia knew, was a devout Christian. He had been converted by the evangelical, charismatic Dr. Cohn Pa.s.sim who, at his revival meetings, often flew through the air in dramatic demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit within him. Of course, Dr. Pa.s.sim had not been the same since he sailed through a vast stained-gla.s.s window of the cathedral at Metz, France. Formerly he had talked occasionally in tongues and now he talked only in tongues. This had inspired a popular TV comic to suggest that an English-Glossolalia dictionary be brought out, so that folks could understand Dr. Pa.s.sim. This in turn had given rise to such indignation in the pious that Cardinal Harms had it jotted down on his desk calendar somewhere that, when possible, he should p.r.o.nounce the comic anathema. But, as usual, he had not gotten around to such petty matters. Much of Cardinal Harms's time was spent in a secret activity: he had been feeding St. Anselm's Proslogion to the great Artificial Intelligence system Big Noodle with the idea of resurrecting the long-discredited Ontological Proof for the existence of G.o.d. He had gone right back to Anselm and the original statement of the argument, unsoiled by the accretions of time: Anything understood must be in the intelligence. Certainly, too, the being greater than which none can be conceived cannot exist in the intellect alone; for if it were only in the intellect it could be conceived as existing also in reality and this would be to conceive a still greater being. In such a case, if the being greater than which none can be conceived is merely in the intelligence (and not in reality), then this same being is something than which one could still conceive a greater (i.e., one which exists both in the intelligence and in reality). This is a contradiction. Consequently, there can be no doubt that the being greater than which none can be conceived must exist both in the intelligence and in reality.

However, Big Noodle knew all about Aquinas and Descartes and Kant and Russell and their criticisms, and the A.I. system also possessed common sense. It informed Harms that Anselm's argument did not hold water, and presented him with page after page of a.n.a.lysis as to why. Harms's response was to edit out Big Noodle's a.n.a.lysis and seize upon Hartshorne and Malcolm's defense of Anselm; viz: that G.o.d's existence is either logically necessary or logically impossible. Since it has not been demonstrated to be impossible-which is to say, the concept of such an ent.i.ty has not been shown to be self-contradictory-then it follows that we must of necessity conclude that G.o.d exists. Upon fastening onto this weary argument, Harms had dis- patched a copy via his direct line to the ailing Procurator Maxi- mus as a means of instilling new vigor in his co-ruler.

"Now take the Giants," Arnold the barber was saying as he valiantly tried to bleach the yellow from the cardinal's hair. "I say you can't count them out. Look at Eddy Tubb's ERA for last year. So he has a sore arm; pitchers always get sore arms. The day had begun for the Chief Prelate Cardinal Fulton Statler Harms; trying to hear the news, meditating simultaneously on his enterprise vis-a-vis St. Anseim, fending off Arnold's baseball statistics-this const.i.tuted his morning confrontation with reality, his routine. All that remained to make it the Platonic archetypal beginning of his activity phase was the mandatory- and futile-attempt to pin down Deirdre regarding her cost over- run. He was prepared for that; he had a new girl waiting in the wings. Dierdre, who did not know it, was about to go.

At his resort city on the Black Sea the Procurator Maximus walked in slow circles as he read Deirdre Connell' s most recent report on the chief prelate. No health problems a.s.sailed the pro- curator; he had allowed news of his "medical condition" to leak its way into the media so as to ensnare his co-ruler in a web of self-serving lies. This gave him time to study his intelligence staff's appraisal of Deirdre Connell's daily reports. So far it was the educated opinion of everyone who intimately served the pro- curator that Cardinal Harms had lost touch with reality and was lost in harebrained theological quests-journeys that led him fur- ther and further away from any control over the political and economic situation that was pro forma his purview. The fake reports also gave him time to fish and relax and sun himself and figure out how to depose the cardinal in order to get one of his own people into the position of chief prelate of the C.I.C.

Bulkowsky had a number of S.L. functionaries in the curia, well-trained and eager. As long as Deirdre Connell held down the post of executive secretary and mistress to the cardinal, Bulkowsky had the edge. He felt reasonably certain that Harms owned no one in the Scientific Legate's top positions, owned no reciprocal access. Bulkowsky had no mistress; he was a family man with a plump, middle-aged wife, and three children all at- tending private schools in Switzerland. In addition, his conversion to Dr. Pa.s.sim's enthusiastic nonsense-the miracle of flying had of course been achieved by technological means-was a strategic fraud, designed to lull the cardinal deeper into his grand dreams. The procurator knew all about the attempt to induce Big Noo- dle to come up with verification of St. Anselm' s Ontological Proof for the existence of G.o.d; the topic was a joke in regions dominated by the Scientific Legate. Deirdre Connell had been in- structed to recommend to her aging lover that he spend more and more time in his lofty venture. Nonetheless, although wholly rooted in reality, Bulkowsky had not been able to solve certain problems of his own-matters which he concealed from his co-ruler. Decisions for the S.L. had fallen off among the youth cadres during recent months; more and more college students, even those in the hard sciences, were finding for the C.I.C., throwing aside the hammer-and-sickle pin and donning the cross. Specifically there had developed a paucity of ark engineers, with the result that three S.L. orbiting arks, with their inhabitants, had had to be abandoned. This news had not reached the media, since the inhabitants had perished. To shield the public from the grim news the designations of the remaining S.L. arks had been changed. On computer printouts the malfunctions did not appear; the situation gave the semblance of normality. At least we did eliminate Cohn Pa.s.sim, Bulkowsky reflected. A man who talks like an aud-tape of a duck played backward is no threat. The evangelist had, without suspecting it, succ.u.mbed to S.L. advanced weaponry. The balance of world power had thus been made to shift ever so slightly. Little things like that added up. Take, for instance, the presence of the S.L. agent duked in as the cardinal's mistress and secretary. Without that- Bulkowsky felt supremely confident. The dialectical force of historic necessity was on his side. He could retire to his floating bed, half an hour from now, with a knowledge that the world situation was in hand.

"Cognac," he said to a robot attendant. "Courvoisier Napoleon."

As he stood by his desk warming the snifter with the palms of his hands his wife, Galina, entered the room. "Make no appoint- ments for Thursday night," she said. "General Yakir has planneda recital for the Moscow corps. The American chanteuse Linda Fox will be singing. Yakir expects us."

"Certainly," Bulkowsky said. "Have roses prepared for the end of the recital." To a pair of robot servants he said, "Have my valet de chambre remind me."

"Don't nod off during the recital," Galina said. "Mrs. Yakir will be hurt. You remember the last time."

"The Penderecki abomination," Bulkowsky said, remember- ing well. He had snored through the "Quia Fecit" of the "Magnificat" and then read about his behavior in intelligence doc.u.ments a week later.

"Remember that as far as informed circles know, you are a born-again Christian," Galina said. "What did you do about those responsible for the loss of the three arks?"

"They are all dead," Bulkowsky said. He had had them shot.

"You could recruit replacement from the U.K."

"We will have our own soon. I don't trust what the U.K. sends us. Everyone is for sale. For instance, how much is that chanteuse now asking for her decision?"

"The situation is confused," Galina said. "I have read the intelligence reports; the cardinal is offering her a large sum to decide for the C.I.C. I don't think we should try to meet it."

"But if an entertainer that popular were to step forth and announce that she had seen the white light and accepted sweet Jesus into her life-"

"You did."

"But," Bulkowsky said, "you know why." As he had ac- cepted Jesus solemnly, with much pomp, he would presently de- clare that he had renounced Jesus and returned, wiser now, to the S.L. This would have a dire effect on the curia and, hopefully, even on the cardinal himself. The chief prelate's morale, according to S.L. psychologists, would be shattered. The man actually supposed that one day everyone a.s.sociated with the S.L. would march up to the various offices of the CIC. and convert.

"What are you doing about that doctor he sent?" Galina said. "Are there any difficulties?"

"No." He shook his head. "The forged medical reports keep him busy." Actually the medical information presented regularly to the physician whom the cardinal had sent were not forged. They simply pertained to someone other than Buikowsky, some minor S.L. person genuinely sick. Bulkowsky had sworn Harms's physician to secrecy, pleading medical ethics as the issue, but of course Dr. Duffey covertly dispatched detailed re- ports on the procurator's health to the cardinal's staff at every opportunity. S.L. intelligence routinely intercepted them, checked to make sure they painted a sufficiently grave picture, copied them and sent them on. By and large the medical reports traveled by microwave signal to an orbiting C.I.C. communications satellite and from there were beamed down to Washington, D.C. However, Dr. Duffey, in a periodic fit of cleverness, some- times simply mailed the information. This was harder to control. Imagining that he was dealing with an ailing man, and one who had decided for Jesus, the cardinal had relaxed his stance of vigil regarding the higher activities of the S. L. The cardinal now supposed the procurator to be hopelessly incompetent.

"If Linda Fox will not decide for the S.L.," Galina said, "why don't you draw her aside and tell her that one day on her way to a concert engagement her private rocket-that gaudy plush thing she flies herself-will go up in a flash of flaming fire?"

Gloomily, Bulkowsky said, "Because the cardinal got to her first. He has already pa.s.sed the word to her that if she doesn't accept sweet Jesus into her life bichlorides will find her whether she wants to accept them or not."

The tactic of poisoning Linda Fox with small doses of mercury was an artful one. Long before she died (if she did die) she would be as mad as a hatter-literally, since it had been mercury Poisoning, mercury used to process felt hats, that had driven the English hatters of the nineteenth century into famous organic psychosis. I wish I had thought of that, Bulkowsky said to himself. Intel- ligence reports stated that the chanteuse had become hysterical when informed by a C.I.C. agent of what the cardinal intended if she did not decide for Jesus-hysteria and then temporary hypothermia, followed by a refusal to sing "Rock of Ages" in her next concert, as had been scheduled. On the other hand, he reflected, cadmium would be better than mercury because it would be more difficult to detect. The S.L. secret police had used trace amounts of cadmium on unper- sons for some time, and to good effect.

"Then money won't influence her," Galina said.

"I wouldn't dismiss it. It's her ambition to own Greater Los Angeles."

Galina said, 'But if she's destroyed, the colonists will grumble. They're dependent on her."

"Linda Fox is not a person. She is a cla.s.s of persons, a type. She is a sound that electronic equipment, very sophisticated electronic equipment, makes. There are more of her. There will always be. She can be stamped out like tires."

"Well, then don't offer her very much money." Galina laughed.

"I feel sorry for her," Bulkowsky said. How must it feel, he asked himself, not to exist? That's a contradiction. To feel is to exist. Then, he thought, probably she does not feel. Because it is a fact that she does not exist, not really. We ought to know. We were the first to imagine her. Or rather-Big Noodle had first imagined the Fox. The Al. system had invented her, told her what to sing and how to sing it; Big Noodle set up her arrangements . . . even down to the mix- ing. And the package was a complete success. Big Noodle had correctly a.n.a.lyzed the emotional needs of the colonists and had come up with a formula to meet those needs. The Al. system maintained an ongoing survey, deriving feed- back; when the needs changed, Linda Fox changed. It const.i.tuted a closed loop. If, suddenly, all the colonists disappeared, Linda Fox would wink out of existence. Big Noodle would have canceled her, like paper run through a paper shredder.

"Procurator," a robot serving a.s.sembly said, coasting up to Bulkowsky.

"What is it?" he said irritably; he did not like to be interrupted when he was conversing with his wife. The robot serving a.s.sembly said, "Hawk."

To Galina he said, "Big Noodle wants me. It's urgent. You'll excuse me. He walked away from her rapidly and into his complex of private offices where he would find the carefully protected terminal of the A.I. system. The terminal indeed pulsed, waiting for him.

"Troop movements?" Bulkowsky said as he seated himself facing the screen of the terminal.

"No," the artificial voice of Big Noodle came, with its char- acteristic ambiance. "A conspiracy to smuggle a monster baby through Immigration. Three colonists are involved. I monitored the fetus of the woman. Details to follow." Big Noodle broke the circuit.

"Details when?" Bulkowsky said, but the Al. system did not hear him, having cut itself off. d.a.m.n, he thought. It shows me little courtesy. Too busy deconstructing the Ontological Proof of the Existence of G.o.d.

Cardinal Fulton Statler Harms received the news from Big Noodle with his customary aplomb. "Thank you very much," he said as the A.I. system signed off. Something alien, he said to himself. Some sport that G.o.d never intended should exist. This is the truly dreadful aspect of s.p.a.ce migration: we do not get back what we send out. We get in return the unnatural. Well, he thought, we shall have it killed; however I will be interested to see its brain-print. I wonder what this one is like. A snake within an egg, he thought. A fetus within a woman. The original story retold: a creature that is subtle.

The serpent was more crafty than any wild creature that the LORD G.o.d had made.

Genesis chapter three, verse one. What happened before is not going to happen again. We will destroy it this time, the evil one. In whatever form it now has taken.

He thought, I shall pray on it.

"Excuse me," he said to his small audience of visiting priests who waited outside in the vast lounge. "I must retire to my chapel for a little while. A serious matter has come up. Presently he knelt in silence and gloom, with burning candles off in the far corners, the chamber and himself hallowed.