And Eternity

by Piers Anthony

  Fate nominated a man who not only was good, but who had made a study of the interactions of the threads of fate. Satan vetoed him.

  Mars nominated a top martial artist who had in his senior years gone far to define a workable philosophy of peace through force. Satan vetoed.

  Gaea nominated Judge Roque Scott.

  They looked to Satan, expecting his veto.

  "Now, this one is interesting," Satan said. "According to My notes, this man has had an illicit affair with an underage girl put in his charge. There is a fair amount of sin associated with that."

  "Since you will not accept any nominee without sin, we are constrained to nominate one with sin we can accept," Gaea said evenly.

  "Then let's take a look at him. Let the object of his sinning speak for him, if she cares to."

  Fate, in her middle guise of Lachesis, pursed her lips. This was an interesting gambit. Surely Satan would not accept as good a man as Roque. What was he up to? "Rather than bring her here, let us go to her," she said. "Chronos can suspend outside time as readily from the field as from his residence."

  "Indeed," Chronos agreed.

  They stood, came together, and linked hands. Then Gaea turned a page to Luna's house. Abruptly the six of them were standing in Luna's living room.

  The moon moth, Muir, gave a start. He was visible through the eyes of the Incarnations. But he did not protest: he blinked out of sight, summoning Luna.

  Luna entered. "All six?" she asked, taken aback.

  "We have business with Judge Scott," Gaea said. "He is here at the moment, and this is a suitably private place, so we shall settle the matter here. Please have him and Vita come in."

  Luna turned away, and returned a moment later with Roque and Vita. Both were wearing little kitchen aprons; it seemed they had been helping with the chores the old fashioned way. Luna, with much magic available, had a rather sedate lifestyle.

  "It's the Incarnations!" Vita exclaimed, round-eyed.

  "Why, hello, all," Roque said. "What can we do for you?"

  "I have nominated you to assume the Office of the Incarnation of Good," Gaea said formally. "We are asking Vita to speak on your behalf."

  Roque, ordinarily composed, was caught completely off guard. "But that's impossible!" he protested.

  "You may not speak for yourself," Gaea said. "Vita, if you will, please."

  Vita had known that Roque was a potential nominee, but she seemed as aghast as he by the event. "Oh, I can't!" she protested. "I love him!"

  "It has been suggested that his relationship with you is sinful," Gaea said. "This makes it possible for Satan to accept him, as Satan will not accept any candidate without sufficient sin. Compromise is necessary. Speak."

  But Vita, realizing the significance of the matter, yet knowing also that she would lose Roque if he were confirmed, could not. Her awe and conflict were too great. "Maybe—Maybe Orlene can do it," she said, her eyes brimming over.

  Satan made a negligent gesture. "Very well, so that we can get on with this. Let Orlene make the case."

  The figure of Vita straightened. She brought out a handkerchief and wiped her face. Jolie was interested; she had not seen this change as it looked from outside, before. The entire bearing was different.

  "I am Orlene," Orlene said. "I can speak from experience of this man's credentials to assume the Office for which he has been nominated. He is a good man, the best of men; indeed, he was recognized as such years ago, when Jolie was allowed to observe him as a prospect for Immortality. But there is no need to dwell on this. The question is whether Satan can accept him, knowing his goodness. I will address his evil."

  There was a master stroke, Jolie realized. Satan was the problem; Satan's objection had to be met. Orlene had caught on to this immediately. The woman had grown steadily in competence and poise since her early setbacks, and now might do as great a service for mankind as Luna had. Orlene was, after all, of that fateful third generation, Niobe's grandchild.

  She paused, collecting her thoughts. "I went to see God, and God would not respond to me. He was absorbed in His contemplation of His own greatness. He had no faults, no flaws, no sin. He could not relate to these things. But the mortal realm is rife with faults and flaws and sin. I think that only a person who knows something of evil can relate to the mortal human condition well enough to lead mortals to goodness.

  "Judge Scott has sinned. He had an affair with a girl he knew to be underage. This was in violation of his principles as an administrator of the law, and a betrayal of his personal trust. He knew it was wrong. But he yielded to his masculine impulse and did it. The girl was willing, even eager, and not inexperienced, but the law and conscience were clear. Judge Scott did wrong. At one time he thought to resign his position, but he did not, and so he retained his status and power because of that guilty secret.

  "I cannot see Judge Scott being deaf to the pleas of those who have sinned or are otherwise imperfect. He knows what it is to be tempted, to be weak, to succumb. He knows himself to be imperfect, so will not hasten to dismiss others of this way. I think he can serve the Office better because of his sin than he could have without it. God is the Incarnation of Good; that does not mean that He himself must be absolutely good, any more than the Incarnation of Evil must be absolutely evil, or the Incarnation of Death must be dead. It means only that he must strive to forward the cause of good to the best of his ability, always.

  "Perhaps Satan does not want an effective Incarnation of Good. But the world faces a crisis that will bring down us all, mortal and immortal alike, unless an effective Deity is named. I can recommend Judge Scott as a choice who will do more good for all of us, even for Satan, than any other likely compromise. I believe he should be confirmed to this Office."

  There was a silence. Jolie wanted to applaud; Orlene had done a superlative job! Even Satan must have felt the force of her argument. Was he to reject the logic of the one he had cared for so much that he had sent Jolie herself to watch her?

  Then Satan spoke. "I think this woman is in love with this man."

  "I think I am," Orlene replied, undismayed. "But I think what I have said of him is correct. My emotion has no relevance. I am a ghost, with no body of my own. The loss is to the mortal who loves him, and will lose him, and for her I suffer, but the need of the world is greater than the joy of any one person. I will return the body to her now, so she can speak for herself, if you feel this is relevant."

  "No, wait," Roque said. "It is not relevant. I must with all due respect decline the honor of this nomination."

  Gaea stared at him. "You decline?"

  "I do. It is not that I feel unworthy, though I do. It is not that I am indifferent to the cares of the world, for I am not. It is that I am weak. I cannot bring myself to desert the woman I love. Such sin as I have had I can now ameliorate, and I wish only to complete my mortal tenure with an open realization of what was secret. I cannot leave Vita, and do not wish to leave that component of her present existence which is Orlene, who has defended me so ably. My place is here among the mortals."

  Gaea nodded. "Then we must let you go, good man." She extended her hands, ready for the return to Purgatory.

  "Let's hold a moment more," Satan said. "You hypocrites are missing the obvious. There is another right here who would do."

  Thanatos' skull lifted. "Hypocrites?"

  Fate angled her head at Satan. "What are you talking about? There is no other mortal man here."

  "Indeed there is not," Satan agreed. "But there is a prospect. You have excluded from consideration half of the mortals! Every one of your nominees has been a man!"

  The others stared at him. He's right! Jolie thought. Fate took a man as an Aspect; why can't God be a woman?

  Slowly Gaea turned to face Luna. "Then shall we nominate Luna Kaftan?"

  Thanatos jumped.

  "No!" Luna exclaimed. "I decline also! My business is here!"

  "Then let Me take My turn," Satan said. "I nominate the bastard."r />
  They looked at him, baffled.

  "Oh, come now!" Satan said. "We all know that a bastard is born with a significant charge of sin, by current definition. We all know that this is unjustified, for the one person who is blameless in that matter is the bastard himself. Such a person, in the Office of Good, would be sure to update the definitions of such sins, and make My job easier. I am swamped with souls who really don't belong in Hell, because they are good folk who only by definition are evil. I say it is time for a bastard! Do you disagree, Gaea? Would you veto such a nominee?"

  Gaea stood frozen, her mouth open. She had caught his meaning and was awed. She did not reply.

  Jolie tried to read what Gaea had seen, but could not. All she could discover was that Satan had completely floored her. Whom was he nominating?

  "And you, Thanatos!" Satan said, turning on the figure of Death. "You are just as big a hypocrite! You fought Me from the first, to prevent your paramour from being taken but did you nominate any from your domain? I nominate the dead!"

  "The dead are not eligible," Thanatos replied, shaken. "Once they reach Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, they are gone. Only those who remain of the mortal realm—"

  "Such as the ghosts," Satan said. "The rules do not say the dead are ineligible, only that the choice must be from among those who remain in the mortal realm. Can you deny the ghosts?"

  Now it was the fleshless jaw of Thanatos that dropped. The eye sockets stared at Satan.

  "And you, Chronos," Satan continued, turning on the Incarnation of Time. "You nominated one of your period of tenure. What of those who pass beyond your tenure? What of an adulteress?" The Incarnation of Time stared, amazed.

  He turned to Fate. "And what of one whose thread you have cut?"

  And to Mars. "What of one who never fought a war or competed for power?"

  All of them stood amazed, understanding Satan's references. But Jolie didn't! About whom was he talking?

  Satan's gaze swung back to cover Gaea. "Jolie!" he said.

  What?!

  "Speak for My nominee," he said. "You know her best."

  Then, in a blaze of revelation, Jolie understood. She found herself in charge of Gaea's body, facing Orlene.

  "Indeed I know her," Jolie said. "I came to her when she was a child, a love child, adopted into a worthy family. She always knew she was a bastard, denied by her own parents. She sought in consequence to right the wrong of her origin, and to become the finest mother a woman could be. She resolved never to abandon her own child in the way she herself had been abandoned. Her baby was conceived by a man other than her husband, bringing more evil on her soul, but she loved him perfectly and intended never to give him up. When he died, through no fault of hers, she was unable to survive this denial of her motherhood, and killed herself, thereby bringing yet more evil on her soul. But all of this evil was by definition; none of it related to her true nature, which was as good and kind and compassionate as it was possible for a mortal to be."

  Now Orlene, in Vita's body, was staring.

  "I came again to her after she died, and helped her pursue her baby," Jolie continued. "Even in death she remained true to her ideal. Despite the sin charged to her soul, she was so completely good in other respects that her balance was positive, and she was bound for Heaven. But she fought to remain among the mortals, as a ghost, so that she could take her baby with her. She put her own soul in peril for the sake of the one she loved. I know no greater love than this: to turn down Heaven itself for the sake of her baby. I know of no person more deserving of Heaven than that one."

  Orlene found her voice. "No..."

  "Yet when offered the chance to save her baby at the expense of others," Jolie continued, "she did not. When she learned that the girl she was helping, Vita, would suffer if the course of time were changed to spare the baby, she refused. She wanted her baby safe and well more than anything else—except at the price of harming another person. Yet even this was not the limit. In Hell she was offered the recovery of her baby without harm to any other, in return for a simple action which might well have had no effect. She felt that action was wrong, so again she gave up her baby. Yet even there in Hell she risked her soul to help one she knew to be evil, because of the unfairness of his punishment."

  Orlene looked at the assembled Incarnations. "I could go on, but I think I don't need to. Satan has made a nomination none of you can oppose, for it is in keeping with the deal Satan made long ago with the Angel Gabriel. This woman, Orlene, is the third generation, the grandchild of Niobe, whom Satan had to corrupt within three generations. Satan could not corrupt her, and indeed I think did not wish to, for she is the daughter of the woman he loves, and his stepdaughter. Satan made a deal with the Incarnation of Night, who agreed to give up Orlene's baby if Satan could use him to corrupt Orlene. If he failed, Nox would keep the baby, and Satan would nominate her candidate—the one she had been grooming all along for this Office—to be God. Now he has done so, and it is good. She is a bastard, an adulteress, a rapist, and a suicide—surely a creature destined for Hell by current definitions. She is also marvelously competent, compassionate, and good—and the very items she labored so hard to obtain to save her baby can now be used to facilitate her admission as an Incarnation."

  Jolie turned on Thanatos. "Can you veto a ghost, whom you know to be good despite the record on her soul, so closely related to the woman you love? Give her the blank soul you promised, that her slate may be clean." She turned to Chronos. "Can you veto the woman you loved in life, who died in the pursuit of your baby? Let your grain of sand facilitate her transfer to that clean soul." And to Fate, in the form of Lachesis: "Your granddaughter? Use your thread to realign her life after death." To Mars: "Your daughter? Give her your seed!"

  The Incarnation of War smiled grimly. "I gave it at her conception."

  "And I gave My curse, when I damned the hypocrites and nominated her," Satan said.

  Then Jolie addressed Gaea, whose body she was using: "And your daughter, whom you could not keep? Give her your tear, to animate her in her new soul!" She discovered that the host was weeping, and not for grief; the tears were streaming down her face.

  Jolie turned around, addressing them all. "Satan has nominated the bastard; which among you can deny him his choice?"

  None of them spoke. Their astonishment was giving way to understanding—and acceptance. Indeed, they could not deny this one, for either ethical or personal reasons.

  Jolie turned again to Orlene. Now, behind her, two glowing figures appeared, one male, one female. The Angel Gabriel and the Incarnation of Night, holding the baby. A glow was playing about Orlene, too, as the gifts of the Incarnations came to her. "And can you decline this most deserved of all nominations, Orlene?" Jolie demanded. "You, most of all, know what is needed in Heaven! You know what has to be done, and you have the training and education and compassion to do it. All that has been wrong in the cosmos, you may now address—with the cooperation of those who cannot deny you. Yea, not even Satan, who loved you from the start, as did I. All of us love you, and you love us, and you cannot deny us or the cosmos. You can do no other than accept. You must be the new Incarnation of Good —for now, and Eternity!"

  "And Eternity," Roque echoed.

  Orlene struggled to speak but could not. Tears stood on her face. The glow about her intensified. Now Jolie understood what had happened when Orlene helped the soul in Hell: her glow of suitability had been but the hint of her larger potential. As with the musical magic of Orb, which had become the ability to use the phenomenal power of the Llano and equip her to be the Incarnation of Nature, Orlene's ability to see the glow had become the ability to use the glow to make things right—and, ultimately, to make the world right, as God. When she had withstood Satan's Temptation, she had sealed her fate, unknowingly, for that had led directly to this nomination. She had not known, but Satan had known, and perhaps Gabriel—and certainly Nox. Her power had begun to manifest. Now she was assuming the aspect of the O
ffice, becoming immortal.

  Orlene bowed Her head, nodding in acquiescence. She had given up Her baby, but now She would be Mother to the cosmos itself. She walked slowly across to Satan, who stood watching Her. "All that you hoped for shall be, for the love of Evil, and for the love of Good, for now—and Eternity," She said. She put Her arms around him, drew his head down, and kissed him.

  Chronos, who had loved Her as a woman, applauded. Then the others joined in, and Jolie too. When God Kisses Satan, and the Incarnations applaud, she remembered. Orlene herself had prompted that answer to the hijackers of the saucer: the Captain's declaration when he would capitulate. Now it had come to pass! It was indeed the beginning of a new era.

  She turned to Jolie. "I think you must help Vita, for I have assumed other duties."

  Go to her, Jolie, Gaea thought. You will always be welcome with me, too, but I think you are not yet done with the mortal realm.

  Jolie embraced Orlene. She felt the awesome Presence, in that moment of their contact, not distant and aloof as it had been in the Tenth Heaven, but immediate and generous and loving. Then she transferred to the other host, and Orlene rose out of it. Vita would not be left to fend for herself.

  Orlene, a ghost again, but imbued by the substance of the Incarnation of Good, turned to the Incarnation of Night. "I give My baby to you—and My blessing. My Office will always be open to you." Nox nodded, and faded out.

  God turned to the Angel Gabriel. "Will you serve and advise the Office, as before?" she asked.

  "Always, Lord Goddess."

  "Then guide Me now to Heaven, for there is much to do. I shall depend on your advice." She took his hand. "I will be seeing all of you again, soon."

  The glow became blinding. Then it was gone, and She with it, and the Angel Gabriel. But Her Presence lingered.

  "We have business too," Gaea said. "Luna, make the announcement: we have chosen God, and She is Ghost and Goddess."

  Luna nodded, and left the room. In just a moment, it seemed, there was a sound from all around: the sound of the mortals of the world, cheering.