Pascale's Wager: Homelands of Heaven

by Anthony Bartlett

  Pascale, on the other hand, had never wanted power. She had never been touched by it. She had gone to the canyons, a place where people were abandoned, and she had not resented her situation, but instead made something new happen from it. She had gone to the Font Eterno and she had triumphed there too and in a totally astonishing way. And this new thing now was the greatest of all. Because of the Font Eterno, even all these deaths around him were not the end. The future was not cut off even for these people.

  The last glow of sunset along the western skyline was propping up a band of ragged cloud tumbling in from the north. Over to his right, intermittent flashes along the hills and a distant rumble announced the coming storm. Soon there would be rain. Palmiro wanted to give up his power. Or, rather, he wanted what Pascale had done for him to be his power, the strange kind of power that came with loving. Yes, that is what he wanted more than anything, to become the new thing she had shown him. The horizon ahead was now a long purplish bruise and the rain started falling, in great sheets blowing down from the hills one after the other. Palmiro felt intensely alive and he urged his bewildered horse faster down the darkened highway. If he'd known any songs he would have sung them.

  Adorno's was still three hours away and the rain which had been warm at first was turning colder. There was, of course, no cape in his saddle pack, so he had to make do with his bed-roll as a cover. It was fairly thick but after half an hour it was soaked and clinging to his back and shoulders, absorbing all the warmth from his limbs. He threw it onto the ground, and continued cantering into the blowing rain, his teeth chattering and body shivering convulsively. It was too dangerous to stop, so once more he was obliged to push himself to the limits, willing himself to make it to the safety and warmth of Adorno's mansion.

  As he urged his horse forward he remembered the last time he was so cold, back in the Northern Homeland. The whole story of the Ice Camps came to his thoughts, for the first time for a very long time. It seemed he had been journeying against the elements all his life, against ice and water, against wind and time, and, most of all, against other humans who wished to destroy him. He held his head down against the storm and thought once again he could not do this except for Pascale. So much in the past was bitter to him and it was only her love that had kept and could keep him going, and make his journeys worthwhile. He wanted to believe her love could still bring him friendship, that he could still have sisters and brothers in this world. Despite the soaking cold he could feel the warmth of tears running down his face. Their touch shocked him. As the feelings inside him gave him pain they seemed to promise the very thing they wept for. He stopped shivering, finding strength from a circle of mercy. Once again he found the will to reach his goal. He reached down and patted his horse, “Not far now!”

  7. STAVROS

  Stavros had gone to the Capitol knowing that few people would seek it out. It was set apart on a low hill behind the Piazza of the Fountains, some distance from the Way of the Monuments. Climbing the hill and then the steps always seemed too laborious, so hardly anybody went up there. It was a good place to get away from the crowd, and he needed it desperately as a refuge from the mob urged on to its fatal term by Omar. He had been swept up in it all, helpless to stop the humiliation and destruction of the woman called Pascale.

  From the first time he had encountered her at that so-strange ceremony in the canyons, he had been struck by her quality as an Immortal. He himself had come to Heaven in the very first migration, part of the security set-up ensuring everything went smoothly, without information leaks or terrorist sabotage. He’d helped in the recruitment of the large labor force from the poorest nations, brought in for the construction of downtown and the colonies. Later on, he’d overseen the same workers’ return to their wretched countries of origin. With the help of mercenaries, hired on temporary contracts, then paid off and abandoned at airports across the globe, the men and women around him had succeeded brilliantly, without a hitch of any kind. And that applied also to the enormous project of the Weather Shield. The construction was carried out by engineers who were in the know, but the media disinformation needed to disguise it, and the selection and training of the Northern Homeland’s first citizens, this was all the responsibility of the intelligence community. In sum, the whole thing ranked as the most difficult and complex security undertaking of human history, but it had been carried off with absolute efficiency. The chaos of the storms had provided the best possible cover, disrupting communications, isolating groups and often simply wiping out traditional centers that could have provided opposition.

  It was a dream operation and any of its darker aspects were far outweighed by its stunning success. The abandonment of whole communities by withdrawal of support, all this was a rational decision. The pursuit and assassination of anyone who created a public risk for the project, that too was inevitable. He and his colleagues had been convinced by the urgency of what they had been doing. It was only later, in the endless summer afternoons of Heaven that stray, unwanted thoughts had come to him. Was it true that there was no other way? Would it not have been better for all humans to die together, rather than abandon the unlucky ones to oblivion while slaughtering those who protested?

  He did not know whether anyone else had these thoughts. He knew it was totally against the way of life in Heaven even to hint at them, and anyone who did naturally ended up at the Ranch: that was what it was there for. So, he swept them from his mind, filling it instead with the perfection of the thing he had helped create. The constant beauty of everything around him was justification, more than enough, for all he had done. He had in fact become a total devotee of beauty, and all that was beautiful gave him contentment. When he had gone to the Ranch searching for Palmiro, and encountered the supernatural beauty of this woman he'd concluded there must have been some mistake. Nothing this beautiful could or should be at the Ranch. Here was an Immortal the way an Immortal was meant to be. The fact she had been a companion of Palmiro did not change that. Moreover, it only seemed natural in that setting she should not betray him: all he'd expected was the opportunity to question her in the conditions of Heaven where she would surely see reason. He had never anticipated what in fact happened.

  He lay on the couch on the upper floor of the ancient Roman palace drowning in shame and hopelessness. He had not moved from the spot since he arrived here over twelve hours ago. There was nowhere to go to that did not have the threat of infection and anyway he had no desire to see anyone or do anything. His own colony was infected but it was also repulsive to him. After his fellow agents had joined so easily in the death of Pascale he could not be around them. At the last moment when he realized it was really going to happen he could not watch. The other agents along with all the crowd had been baying for blood, chanting out rhythmically, “Sea of Chaos, light her up, light her up!”

  He had left at once and gone to the Capitol. Surrounded by busts of antique Romans, of Caesars and orators and writers, he had sunk into despair. Beauty had been destroyed and the world of beauty, all produced at such a cost, had come to an end. To underscore the point that same hour the perfect weather of Heaven turned, giving way shockingly to thunder and rain. He lay there as the day darkened and the great room was bombarded by deafening noise, by rain blown through the windowless casements and by flashes that made everything ghoulish and distorted. Demons danced around the walls in sickening malice, mocking every work of man. Indeed it was as if the whole cosmos agreed that beauty was destroyed and Heaven should come crashing down. Finally the storm passed but he may as well have been already dead for all the feeling left in him. Evening turned to night and the hours crept by and he kept no track of time. It must have been in the small hours of the morning when something broke in on his semi-conscious state. There was a light from a torch coming up the stairs and someone entering the room. He didn't move but simply watched from the corner of his eye. Whoever it was spoke and he heard a muffled, “Is there anyone here?”

  He felt he recogniz
ed the voice but he did not reply. The figure sighed and sat down on a couch at the far end. It was Jonas, the gentle historian and partner to Pascale in the ceremony back at the canyon. He could hardly believe it and the shock actually made him sit up. Jonas saw the movement and also sprang up, holding his flare above his head and edging slowly toward him across the room.

  “Who's there? Is that someone?”

  “Jonas, it's Stavros. I can't believe it, you came here...”

  Jonas relaxed and pulled down his mask. “I always reckoned this as a good place to sleep, you know, during Doblepoble. I'm glad it's you, Stavros. I'm looking for news. A man back on the highway said he'd seen you all heading downtown...”

  Something about the situation and Stavros' face in the guttering light made Jonas stop. “Wait, why are you here? Alone? You’re not infected, are you?”

  Stavros could not help himself. He saw Jonas standing there, the man who only a little time ago had sat next to Pascale in the strange and beautiful ceremony of the canyons, and it turned a key inside of him. The story came pouring out. He did not know he had it in him, so much emotion, so much remorse and grief.

  His words now plunged Jonas into horror, but he himself felt a bit better. For the Historian the group murder of Pascale was a shock beyond thought itself. Both the fact and manner of it broke his heart and crushed his soul. He withdrew to the couch at the other end of the room without saying a word, lowering himself down in a catatonic state. As Stavros observed him sink the security agent himself finally surrendered to exhaustion and fell asleep. Jonas endured the total emptiness and darkness alone, the hours leaking into each other like congealed blood. At first light he forced himself to his feet. He exited the building to retrieve his horse at the public stables. He had to go to inform Palmiro.

  Stavros awoke much later. He felt stronger, encouraged to remember there was someone who had shared his sorrow and disgust at what had happened. He got up and looked around for his friend but found no trace. He felt hungry and went outside to search for food and something to drink. It was not hard to find one of the specialty carts abandoned on the sidewalk. Rooting in its containers, he got dried fruit and nuts and some cake, and he drank from one of the fountains in the piazza. The rain on the ground was beginning to dry and there was a vaguely rotten smell in the air. He still had his mask and he held it closer to his face.

  He returned to the Capitol in order to think things through. Almost to his own surprise he wanted to live. Yet the way it stood now in the Heavenly Homeland you did not know whom to trust. People could be infected or they could form a deadly mob. Jonas was somebody he could trust. He would guess in all likelihood he had returned to the canyons to tell people there the awful news. The point was Jonas would have friends in the canyons, people he would be able to trust, and at this point it was definitely one of the places safest from infection. Again to his own surprise he decided firmly he would head back to the canyons. He even suddenly felt happy with his decision.

  He had to find a horse. He did not know what had happened to the horse he'd brought from Anthropology. Everyone had been so carried away they simply abandoned their mounts. He went to the public stable close to the Piazza of the Fountains but there were no horses there. He remembered there were stables attached to the racecourse, somewhere to its south end. He set out walking, recognizing the buildings in the distance across the grassland. The sun was warm and bright and the air was still. A slight mist hung above the ground. As he got closer to the barns and paddocks a man came staggering out toward him. He was coughing and sweating and shouting in a way Stavros could not understand. He pulled his mask up tight and yelled that the man should keep away.

  The man continued to get closer. He looked angry and desperate and Stavros began to panic He drew his gun, and aimed about ten feet above the man's head and shot in the air. The man threw his arms up and actually fell down as if he had been shot, lying there with his hands over his head. Stavros skirted around him and passed on toward the stables. He kept his gun drawn as he entered one of the biggest barns, but he saw no one else. There were about a dozen horses inside and they all looked well cared for. He wondered if horses could get the infection and felt pretty certain they could. Would they have been infected by the man? He held back, terrified lest any of them start sneezing and he be covered in the droplets. All was quiet, however, except for an occasional whinny. He plucked up courage and grabbing a saddle he returned to one of the first horses in the row which looked calm and even-tempered. He saddled it as quickly as he could, clambered aboard and trotted out smartly from the barn.

  As he rode back across the parkland he could no longer see the man, but then in the distance he saw three people heading toward the stables with determined steps. He stopped his horse and watched them. When they drew closer he could see they were three women and had evidently come with the same intention as himself, looking for horses. That meant they were probably trying to escape the city and were healthy.

  He decided to take the chance and ask them whether they wanted to join forces with him. He cantered up, stopping about a dozen paces away, shouting out he was not infected. They did not respond, observing him suspiciously. He moved closer and could see they were in good health. He recognized a woman from the Philosophers' Colony but the other two he didn't know. He pulled away his mask, stating he was from Anthropology and was about to leave the city. What were they planning?

  The philosopher replied, “My God, has it come to this? Troy is fallen and the guard is fleeing! But, yes, we too are looking for horses to escape.”

  “I recognize you, you’re Colette.”

  “Yes, and you’re Stavros, I remember. This is Saoirse and Charlize.”

  Stavros said that as far as he could see most people in the city were dead but his information was the infection could still spread through the air. They should certainly get horses, but they should also be careful to avoid any horse that seemed sick. The women were shocked to hear animals might have this thing too. He said he was not certain and had seen no signs of sickness himself. He offered to help them if they wanted. The women agreed and together they continued to the barn. Stavros went to collect saddles while the women chose out two horses, one for Colette and the other for Saoirse, with Charlize riding behind. They saddled the animals but before mounting they held a council of war.

  Colette asked, “So what plans does Anthropology have? We were thinking of searching for some uninfected colony.”

  “That’s not an option. The Anthropology Colony is gone, infected from day two, and probably most colonies with it. This thing is everywhere.”

  Charlize said, “I think that too. Both Sports Monitoring and the Philosophers were fully infected. Everybody was dying.”

  “Charlize is right. Look, I'm heading to the canyons. The Ranch is the only safe place. Do you want to come along?”

  Colette gasped, “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Not at all. I have thought this thing through. No one is infected down in the canyons. I have just come from there, and I should tell you, the place was—what should I say?—under new management.”

  Colette still looked horrified.

  The woman named Saoirse interjected, “Colette, do we really have an option? The longer we spend around the colonies the more likely we are to catch this plague. I can see Stavros' logic entirely. If the canyons are the only safe place, the canyons it really should be.”

  It turned out later that Saoirse was a singer at the Fairy House and had become Colette’s partner. They'd been blissfully unaware of the catastrophe on their doorstep until Charlize turned up just a day ago with the horrifying news. They didn’t want to believe her but, venturing out, they caught sight of the bodies. At first they were paralyzed but little by little they began to respond, seeking a way to escape. Now, at this point, Stavros' suggestion had the virtue of a radical solution in the midst of extreme crisis.

  The group decided to gather as many supplies as possible and Stav
ros explained they would sleep at the head of the trail before descending to the badlands. The women made masks from the hems of their robes and finally they all mounted, setting off toward Avenue of the Monuments. They picked up non-perishable items from the food carts and venturing into a couple of the less-frequented temples they found a store of unused blankets to use for bedrolls. They found dead bodies spread-eagled in the entrances of many of the main buildings and at the intersections. Apart from that they met no one and it became increasingly obvious that the disease had swept with devastating speed through the whole area and probably the whole territory of Heaven. Perhaps a few colonies or individuals were spared, but it seemed plain no one at this point was willing or able to contact others or bring them together.

  As they set out on their journey, Stavros recounted to them the whole series of events from the first news of Sarobindo's collapse, to the experiences at the Ranch, Pascale's execution and the night meeting with Jonas. He told the story as the women rode beside him, unable to keep it in. It was impossible not to hear in his words his own reactions to everything that had happened and the sense of a profound shift in his awareness and feeling. Everyone was deeply shocked at the story of Pascale. Charlize gave a gasping scream and Colette was stunned.

  “All this in the space of a few days! Is the veneer of divinity so thin, we turn to barbarism so soon? "

  They were now out on the Sacred Way, leaving behind the city and its monuments, the elegant memorials of collected human culture. Saoirse asked Stavros whether, after the things he had experienced, he still thought the Homeland of Heaven was a good idea. “I'm beginning to doubt it,” he said. “Really, I don't know, perhaps some good might yet come out of it, if we can survive and learn from it all.”

  Colette commented sourly, “If we do not learn from the experience of divinity, what can we possibly learn from disaster?”