Pascale's Wager: Homelands of Heaven

by Anthony Bartlett

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “You know, how many people have you had sex with?”

  Charlize stuttered slightly, “I, I…”

  Danny came to her rescue. “This is our first Doblepoble. We’re new here.”

  Omar smiled. “Ah, we thought you might be the newcomers. Well, we have exactly the right experience to get you started.”

  They crossed to one of the mansions and climbed the spacious formal stairway to the entrance. Stucco of heraldic shields and statues of crouching lions framed the paneled front doors. Passing through the hall they entered a grand salon, deeply carpeted, furnished in richly upholstered chairs and sofas, and lit by a huge diamond candelabra. The group threaded its way past knots of men and women surrounding large tables. Some seemed to be dressed very formally in dark suits and beautiful full dresses. Others were in the familiar voile robes, and yet others were almost naked. The new group found a large brightly colored wheel set in a table and divided in hundreds of segments. It was surrounded by several luxurious chairs and sofas. They all sat down and little round chips were thrust into Danny and Charlize’s hands. They followed the example of the others and placed some of their chips on a large board next to the wheel and then the game began. Little by little the Northerners understood the point of the activity.

  By spinning the wheel and allowing a small ball to run across its surface and finally drop in one of the segments you either lost or gained chips. If you lost most of your chips you could offer to have sex with someone and get a large pile back. If you ran out completely you had to have sex with whoever was then acting as banker. Chen Jin offered to have sex with Kadaysha and she accepted, right there on her couch. At that point Danny and Charlize began to pay a lot more attention to where they put their chips and how the ball fell. All the same Danny quickly lost everything and Artemis went over to where he was sitting. She sat on his lap and began to kiss him with relish. At first Danny was intensely uncomfortable and squirmed beneath her attentions, but then he looked sideways at Charlize and saw she had a strange, flushed excitement on her face, and he began to relax. Little by little he responded to Artemis and then everything sped up rapidly and quickly it was over.

  The game continued and after a few more spins of the wheel Charlize offered to have sex with Omar and he readily accepted. Danny watched, paralyzed. All the others were looking at him, not the couple. Eboni had a little vanity bag and she reached into it, pulling out a small green vial. She pushed it over to Danny.

  “Here drink some of this. It takes the edge off. Newcomers almost always have a little bit of a reaction. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Danny accepted the offer without hesitation. It was a sweet syrup with a heady chemical aftertaste. Within moments he felt a huge peaceful glow and became a great deal more accepting.

  Omar and Charlize spent longer at it than Artemis and Danny, and after a while everyone turned back to watch them. When they had finished Omar kissed Charlize lightly on the cheek. He looked up at everyone. “I’d say perhaps the game is over here, what do you think? Shall we split up?”

  Everyone was easy about quitting the roulette game and heading in different directions. Most seemed to have other connections they wanted to make, but Eboni and Chen Jin said they wanted to stay with Danny and Charlize.

  As the others left, Eboni said, “Let’s go listen to some spacey music. It’s very relaxing. I think we should all relax a little?” She explained that if they continued on the road of the Mansions they would soon come to a pretty half-timbered house where people went to sing. The singing was really beautiful and it would fill their souls with tranquility.

  Charlize put her arm round Danny, “Do you want to go?”

  Danny looked at her, “I think I could use something for my soul right now.”

  She replied, “Cool, and hey, Danny, remember, ‘The night is young and the young stay young even when it has grown old!’” She triumphantly rattled in her hand the little pillbox Jethro, the apothecary, had given them. She took out a pill and broke it in two, popping a half in her mouth.

  “Want some?”

  Danny shook his head, “No, I’m good.”

  On their way out of the salon Charlize found a water-fountain and washed down the pill. They stepped outside onto the stone entrance and there was a faint glimmer at the edge of the sky.

  Eboni pointed, “Oh look, it’s almost the second day of Doblepoble. We have to hurry to catch the last hour of singing.”

  They took off down the road, half running, until they came to a smaller mansion with wooden beams, blue plaster and elaborate carved cornices under the gable and eaves.

  Eboni cried out, “There it is, just like I’d imagine a fairy house in the woods!”

  Inside her description was even more apt. The hearth fire cast shadows and a cloud of mist floated across the room and hung between the rafters. But it was the sound of a sweet and wistful singing which truly carried people into ethereal space. Over by the fire two women with elfin faces, framed by flaxen hair, sang in close harmony. It was truly an unearthly sound, washing over the audience spread around the floor on rugs and cushions. Danny at once found a space and sank down into a dream with the magical voices becoming shapes and colors floating behind his eyelids. Charlize, Eboni and Chen Jin remained standing by the wall. After a few moments a figure detached itself from the mass of bodies and came over.

  She whispered, “Charlize, it is wonderful to see you. Do you remember? It’s me, Colette. I’m sure they don’t mind if you come over and sit by me. Why don’t you?”

  She embraced her warmly. Charlize, responding, held out her hand and Colette led her across to the cushions where she was sitting. Eboni and Chen Jin smiled and then looked to see where Danny was. They threaded their way through and squeezed in next to him. As everyone settled back, letting the enchanted singing carry them wherever their hearts wished, the first rays of the sun spread across the Homeland of Heaven. A few moments later a sonic boom rattled the windows of the fairy house, but no one paid it any mind, so swept up were they by a dawn chorus in Heaven.

  ***

  Not everyone at the Doblepoble, however, was unconcerned about the sonic boom. Jonas had been seated at an open table most of the night, nursing a tall glass of wine spiced with a white powder which made him feel alert and connected. But he had no great interest in acting on his feelings. When he had first arrived in Heaven he, like everyone else, had plunged into the intense excitement of Doblepoble. Yet now he preferred just to watch, drinking in the strange wonder of everything before him. He had seen Danny and Charlize running hand in hand and had congratulated himself on a job well done. For himself, however, deep down, he felt he was waiting for something or someone, he was not sure what. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but it was a strange one for an Immortal, and he kept it to himself, even as it held him back.

  As the night wore to an end and the shapes of the booths and temples showed ghostly in the first light he got up to stretch his legs. He loved this time of day. He set out on a stroll along the great central boulevard. Most of the musicians had stopped playing and the fires hardly raised a spark. Here and there he could see a few individuals and couples still wandering back and forth from temple and booth, but most people were lost to sight in the interiors, folded in chosen pleasures. He loved the quiet and mystery of the moment. It seemed to him that just for a few minutes he could see the small grain of the shadows of the city, almost like the basic particles of the universe, just before they were swallowed up into colors. If you didn’t pay close attention you might miss the wonder of that moment.

  He also wanted to get to a certain place ahead of the crowd. Soon, when the sun was up and had begun to warm the stones of the city, people would start to emerge and make their way to the huge plaza of the fountains that lay to the north of the Sacred Way. There the carnival atmosphere would begin all over again with splashing and bathing in the flower-scented pools, refreshments and
massage, and at midday there would be a great dance which was always hugely popular. He wanted to get to the fountains first in order to watch the play of the light upon the water and then he would sit back and enjoy the people as they arrived. He made his way to the plaza listening for the sound of the waters, and by the time he entered the magnificent space with its hundreds of fountains, sunken pools, waterfalls, baths and grottos the first rays of the sun were striking. They slanted across the space bathing the upper half of the fountains in warm light while the lower sections were still plunged in darkness. He sat by a sheet of falling water, watching the sunlight slice through its surface, and it was then that he heard it: the unmistakable boom and whistle of the shuttle returning from the Northern Homeland.

  It took him a moment to figure out why the noise bothered him. It was a pleasant sound, always meaning new and interesting people to meet, but right there was the problem: he had heard nothing about any new inductees. He was not always engaged to accompany Cyrus during orientation, but it was always Cyrus who did it and he had seen him just a few hours ago at the Doblepoble. He had said nothing. More to the point, Heaven’s master historian was someone who dived into the chemical side of the festivities with the zeal of a seeker, and he would not be available socially for at least a couple of days. If Cyrus had known he was due to orient newcomers in less than forty eight hours he would never have come downtown. The whole thing seemed very odd.

  Jonas puzzled to himself as the sunlight turned the scallops of water golden in the basin of the pool. Who should he inform? There was the colony which monitored the sports activities of the Sectors and which chose the lucky ones to be rendered from the TEPs to Heaven. The colony arranged for emissaries and transport, and then made contact with Cyrus telling him to get ready for his party piece. He could try to reach the people there, but it was probable they were all at Doblepoble. In fact last night he'd seen Emmanuelle and Gaius, who were part of the colony, and the only newcomers they seemed to be interested in were Danny and Charlize.

  Perhaps he should try checking the colony via the telephone system which could be accessed from the great buildings of the Forum. But that way of communicating was hardly ever used, its only active purpose being to summon the fire brigade. Consequently he hardly knew where he’d get a list of numbers.

  The unpleasant thought crossed his mind that maybe the person to contact would be the shadowy figure of Magus, Heaven’s rarely mentioned and even less encountered chief of security. It was not something much talked about, certainly to inductees, but the Homeland of Heaven was not entirely without problems. Very occasional individuals were known to have become incurably anti-social or had been unable to de-tox and normalize after excessive use of chemicals. It was generally understood these people were handed over to the care of Magus. How he got the job and what he did to perform it nobody seemed to know, or want to know, but everyone seemed happy he was there to do it. The rumor was that if you phoned the fire brigade and asked for Magus they would connect you.

  Something about that made Jonas uneasy. He had no real information and if someone had slipped up he didn’t want to make things worse. The first groups were now arriving in the plaza, shouting happily, stripping off their robes and jumping and splashing in the fountains and pools. Unwillingly and not really knowing why Jonas got up and made his way back to the Sacred Way. He’d catch a tram back to the parking lot where he’d left the car which he shared with others in the History colony. He’d drive out to the Shuttle Port to find out for himself.

  13. WELCOME

  Cal and Poll had sat in the rocket in a daze, trying to adjust to the incredible things that had happened to them, things which they themselves had instigated. It was a great deal warmer than they were used to, so they quickly unzipped the fronts and cuffs of their therm-suits to try to stay cool. Cal got out of her seat and made her way over to the open hatch, and knelt next to Poll. They could see the line of trees and the shape of the low buildings beyond them.

  “You don’t see anybody?”

  “Weird, isn’t it? You’d think someone would have noticed a rocket arriving. It’s like the whole place is deserted.”

  “But it doesn’t look uninhabited—too neat, too clean.”

  “Yeah, really. So where’s everyone gone? Perhaps it’s like a Tenth Day for us, when nobody works.”

  “Still you’d think somebody would come. Maybe they're all resting and thinking someone else will get to it.”

  Together they began yelling and waving their hands out the hatchway. “Helloooo! Is there anybody there? Helloooo!”

  They kept this up, off and on for ten minutes, basically because there was nothing else to do. Finally it produced results.

  “Look there! There’s somebody, between the trees. There!”

  Sure enough a figure had emerged just to the side of what looked like an entrance. They waved and beckoned madly until hesitantly it began to make its way across to them. As it approached they could see it was a woman, of indeterminate age, with whitish or light blond hair, and walking in an erratic manner, like a rabbit, moving forward, then stopping, then starting again.

  “Someone who got left behind, pretty obviously.”

  They continued beckoning until the woman was in earshot and they could see her clearly. She was wearing long blue robes, folded round her, and the skin of her face was smooth but her eyes were set deep and creased in a way that made them look very old. She shouted at them.

  “Nobody comes here today, not on Doblepoble. Who are you?”

  Her statement made little sense, but her question was straightforward. Cal launched into a shouted explanation, saying they had just flown in from the frozen Homeland to the north and they wanted to meet the people who lived here.

  “You have to be initiated. Pandit’s not here. Nobody’s here. You came on the wrong day.”

  “Yes, we think so. But perhaps you can help us get off the rocket. What is your name?”

  “I have no name. What is yours?”

  “I am Cal and this is Poll. Why don’t you have a name?

  “If I explained why I have no name then I would have a name.”

  Poll interjected, “OK, OK, but can you help us? I mean, to get off this rocket.”

  The woman considered for a bit. “If I got you off the rocket I would have to initiate you, and I can’t do that.”

  Poll threw his hands up in exasperation. Cal said, “Well where are the people who could initiate us?”

  “There’s nobody here. I told you.”

  “So why are you here?”

  There was another pause, then the woman threw her arms wide: “I am the one who cannot be counted.” And with that she turned and walked away, in the same rabbit fashion as before.

  “Damn,” said Poll. “If they’re all as crazy as she is then we should turn this ship around and go back to where we came from!”

  “You know, I’m not sure if she was all that crazy. She gave us important information: there’s something going on today which is why people are not here, and if they were they’d be putting us through some kind of initiation. Maybe it’s a good thing we arrived when we did. It gives us time to adjust and see things for ourselves.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, but there’s not much we’re going to see stuck here on this spaceship.”

  They sat there in the hatch in silence, eventually dangling their legs over the edge, gazing out at the stands of cypress trees, the stone portico and the boundless warm sunshine. The smell of the earth came up to them, something they’d never experienced before, sweet, tangy, alive. The scent and the heat made them drowsy. Poll went back inside to lie down but Cal stayed in the hatch propped up against its frame. She closed her eyes, drinking in the delicious sensations. Her mind flitted back to the Sector, to the rescue of Poll and the trip across the surface of the storm world. It all hardly seemed real now with the warmth soaking on her face and the scent of the land in her nostrils. She wondered vaguely about the woman without a n
ame. Why was she here when no one else was? But then, how nice it would it be just to hang out here in the sunshine and the peace? She could imagine doing that.

  She opened her eyes and right there before her was a car coming from somewhere between the trees, trundling across the runway toward them.

  “Hey, Poll, wake up, someone’s coming.”

  Poll got up and came to the hatch. “Finally, someone official coming to check.”

  It was Jonas. He had come south off the Sacred Way onto the road to the Shuttle Port, finally catching sight of the shuttle parked in place in front of the Agora. He had been fighting his anxieties all through the trip, on the tram and in the car, even telling himself he had perhaps imagined the whole thing. But now the evidence was right there in broad daylight and it was strange in the extreme. What could it possibly mean? As he drove across the concrete he could see two people framed in the hatchway. He swung the car to a halt opposite and got out. He walked a few feet toward the shuttle and looked up at the young man and young woman looking down at him. One of them spoke at once.