Pascale's Wager: Homelands of Heaven

by Anthony Bartlett

Stavros found out that Charlize had come to Heaven in the rendition which eventually brought with it Pascale and Palmiro. He was curious about her own reactions and asked her what she had witnessed. Charlize nodded and rubbed away her tears with her hand. She was glad to have a chance to tell her tale, to relieve the horror of events which had so completely destroyed her world. She called out her story above the tattoo of hoof-beats, bumping along behind Saoirse. She explained how she had recently begun a relationship with Dante, so she had been in residence at the Sports Monitoring Colony.

  “It was only two days ago but it seems an eternity. Everyone got sick, right after the evening meal. The whole thing was terrible, all in the space of ten minutes, twenty minutes at most. Almost everyone was there, all the people who keep a track on the Sectors: Milton, Gaius, Emmanuelle, Brutus, Shimin, Amala, Kanna, and Dante, of course. They began sneezing and coughing and falling down, it was horrible, unbelievable.”

  “For some reason it didn't happen to me. I felt nauseous but that was all. I tried to help, but I had no idea what to do. I stayed with Dante, and the others, too. Gaius at first kept calling out this could not be an accident, someone should get hold of Anthropology, but very soon no one could talk, or do anything, because of their coughing. People began to faint and then go unconscious. One of the last things that anybody said, it was Emmanuelle. I remember because she walked up to me like she was going to hug me. She said, ‘Charlize, all good things come to an end.’ Then all the color went from her and she dropped like a stone. I think I was screaming, but it didn't matter because there was no one to hear me.”

  “I stayed for a while but it was unbearable. Eventually I went to my room, just lay on my bed. I tried to think what to do. I thought about Colette in Philosophy and decided I would go see her. In the morning I took a car, drove to the villa. I was surprised there were so few people on the road, but at the colony I understood why. The sickness was everywhere. I found the philosophers all unconscious or raving, although Lara was able to tell me where Colette was. It seemed like they were doing philosophy even as they were dying. Cyrus was muttering something, over and over.”

  “What was it, what was he saying?”

  “He said it so often it imprinted on my mind, ‘Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals....’ ”

  “Of course,” Colette said, “His beloved Heraclitus. And the rest of the fragment is: ‘The one living the other's death and dying the other's life.’ ”

  “What does that even mean?” demanded Saoirse.

  “Not sure, but it seems Cyrus finally may have understood!”

  The others laughed despite themselves. They were now well along the Appian Way, not far from the turn-off across the rolling scrubland down to the canyons. They no longer felt threatened by infection and there was even perhaps the stirring of a hope they could still make a life for themselves in the aftermath of Heaven.

  8. CROSSROADS

  Jonas was camped under an overhang a little way along the cliff from the final turn on the trail. He had felt totally drained when Palmiro left him. He'd tethered his horse, rolled himself in his blanket and fallen asleep almost immediately. When he woke up it was getting dark. He decided it was too late for him to travel. Once again he had accepted Palmiro's suggestion for his next move, this time because he really could not think of anything else. Still he had no desire to rush ahead to find Stavros. He needed and relished this time on his own. He needed to come to terms with the contradictory emotions inside him: despair at Pascale's death and the strange, perverse hope Palmiro had awakened. He busied himself collecting a large pile of brush and branches, and started a fire. He gave his horse water and feed, took some bread and dried meat from his saddlebag and sat down beside the small blaze to eat. He was idly prodding the glowing wood when he heard the sound of horses coming directly toward him on the trail. He wondered why anyone should be going down to the canyons, especially this at this hour. It was too late for him to hide and so he simply sat there as the riders approached. They could just make out the hunched figure behind the flames and it made a striking impression, arousing ancient images of a medicine man or prophet at the roadside.

  Stavros shouted out, “Who's there? Show yourself!”

  Jonas stood up and faced the group of riders. They looked anxious and disoriented, like refugees from a war zone. “It's Jonas. Is that you Stavros?”

  “Jonas? I can't believe it. You've been sitting here waiting for us?”

  “Of course not. It's just coincidence.”

  It was more of a coincidence than Stavros could know, as Jonas' plan had been to go and find him and tell him about Palmiro. Faced now with the foursome of Immortals, he retreated mentally from the possibility. Palmiro was everyone's public enemy. How could he possibly expect them to embrace his story of a miraculous conversion.

  “Well, we were planning on making camp ourselves then we saw your fire. Can we join you?”

  “Yes. Come and sit. You can tie up the horses over there.” He pointed to where his own horse was tethered, a stunted oak gripping the edge of a small patch of level ground. Stavros and the women dismounted, saddle sore and uneasy, but glad to find a camp ready-made. Jonas recognized all three of the women as they came up; he said “hello” in a featureless voice.

  Colette did not wait for small talk. “Jonas, please forgive me, but I am overwhelmed at meeting you, of all people. Stavros told us everything, and I cannot express enough my condemnation of what happened. It was and is unforgivable.”

  Charlize joined in. “I can only imagine how you feel, Jonas...” And she trailed off.

  Jonas didn't reply but nodded indifferently, “Thanks.”

  There was an awkward moment's silence. Stavros changed the topic to something more immediate. “If you were not waiting for us here, what exactly are you doing, Jonas? Were you waiting for someone else?”

  “Oh, I guess I needed time on my own. I wasn't waiting for anyone"

  His words had a hollow ring, given the fact that he was camped at a crossroads. Stavros looked hard and a memory came to him. “We never really got to the bottom of you being at the Ranch so shortly after Palmiro was there. Everything got so confused in the canyons. I really did not carry out a proper investigation. If I had questioned you more closely some of this perhaps could have been avoided. Are you sure you were never in contact with him? Did he help you to get out there?”

  Jonas had not been asked this before directly and there was a clear hint in Stavros' words that if the investigation had focused on him, rather than Pascale, she might not have died. The thought had not crossed his mind and he was devastated.

  “You're not saying if I had information I would have saved her life?”

  “I'm saying she did not lead us to Palmiro. Perhaps, instead we should have concentrated on you.”

  Jonas was trembling. Saoirse said, “Are you OK? What's wrong?”

  Jonas shook his head. Saoirse turned to Stavros, “Your question seems to have touched a nerve, Mr. Security!”

  “So, Jonas, you did have information?”

  Jonas could not bear it. “I simply could not stop her. I wanted her to escape but she refused. She told me I had to escape instead. And, yes, the reason is I knew about Palmiro, I knew where he was but I protected him. I protected him for her sake and everything she meant.”

  “My God, Jonas, you were involved in all this, and your precious Pascale, she was too?”

  Jonas looked almost frantic, faced now by a reckoning from Immortals. He was trying to make them understand.

  “It's much more complicated than that, Colette. In the end no one knew what Palmiro was planning. Pascale argued against his first doomsday plot. Because of that Palmiro himself did not want it and he changed his plan. He thought only Sarobindo would die, and he told nobody what he was doing. Then, once the infection had started, it's almost as if Pascale decided to take the blame. She must have known from the philosophers' banquet how quickly things could go bad. It's almost
as if she walked straight into it.”

  “How do you know about Palmiro and Sarobindo? You met with Palmiro?”

  “Yes, I've just seen him. And he knows about Pascale.”

  Everyone was silent, trying to process these words, trying to imagine what they meant if they were true. The fact of Pascale's horrible death weighed heavily. What would it mean if Pascale had both tried to prevent the catastrophe and then accepted the blame for it?

  Stavros, however, was still following the trail. “You were a small player in all this, Jonas. The key agent remains Palmiro and you shielded him. Will you now tell us where he is?”

  The recall of Palmiro reminded Jonas of the dramatic claim he’d made, that everything had changed, and Stavros would too. He thought of how Palmiro always responded to things so positively; it helped him recover a little of his own composure. He replied, “I knew you would ask that, Stavros. Before I answer I have to ask what you yourself were planning. It seems plain you were all heading down to the Ranch as a safe place. I think that's because you have seen something of what Pascale made down there. I believe that puts you pretty directly in her debt.”

  “What's any of that got to do with it? You can't possibly be saying I should just ignore that Palmiro committed murder and single-handedly destroyed the Homeland of Heaven?”

  “I'm suggesting that everything has changed. Nothing, whatever you do, can restore the past, and meanwhile something new may have begun. What do you want? Revenge or a future?”

  Colette broke in. “It would seem a big dose of revenge has already been taken. More to the point is whether the inventor of the disease can provide an antidote, what did they use to call it, a vaccine? If he can, that would give us all a future.”

  “Very little chance, Colette,” Jonas replied. “From what Palmiro was saying the immortality enzyme is itself the basis for how the cells are destroyed. It's reprogrammed so it becomes its own destroyer. I don't think there's a cure, unless it was an entirely different code for creating immortality.”

  “That lad has settled our fate. I would certainly like to have fifteen minutes one-on-one with him. But I want to say something else here. From your description, Jonas, it seems Pascale was shielding him for reasons of her own. You said she wanted to take the blame. I feel it was deeper. I remember at the banquet how she said some things about patterns and the pattern she was seeing then, that this Heaven of ours was based on a lie. In which case she must at least have believed in the possibility of another pattern. And when the deaths started happening did she see a pattern in the deaths, including the possibility of her own? Once the wheels were rolling did she just let them roll?”

  “I don't follow at all. What do you mean?”

  “I mean Pascale was just not a shoulder-the-blame type, you know, a martyr. She was much more than that. She was a visionary, fulfilling a vision. She was Sarobindo, but more besides. Remember her question to him at the banquet: ‘What do you see when you are so near to death?’ ”

  The others were astonished. Even for Jonas, the possibility of thinking about Pascale's death as deep purpose had not entered his thoughts. Willingness to take the blame, that was one thing, but a deeper pattern, it was simply incredible to consider. Once Colette had said it, however, he knew it fitted with all the strange things Pascale had ever said and done. At the same time, it seemed to fit the amazing things Palmiro had been saying.

  For a minute there was silence. Saoirse got up and put some more wood on the fire. She went over to the horses, retrieved a water canteen and passed it around. Jonas spoke. “I have to tell you, Palmiro believes something like what Colette was saying. He also seems to have gone through a change himself.”

  “Whatever he's gone through, he's still a murderer, and you have not told me yet where I can find him.” Stavros was still on point.

  “I will tell you, Stavros. In fact I'll take you to him personally. Then you'll have to exercise frontier justice. You'll have to shoot him yourself, because who's going to try him? But first I want to ask you this. Is he really a murderer? Did he really kill anyone? Or did he simply allow nature to take its course, by removing an artificial barrier? In fact didn't he allow Sarobindo to complete the journey he always was starting?”

  “Ah, the question of nature and finality!” Colette put on her philosopher's hat. “A time to live and a time to die. We discussed that quite frequently in the Colony. We generally held that human beings are able to change nature if they wish, including whether to die or not. To be able to change themselves is in fact their nature!”

  Saoirse pushed the issue. “So, let me see if I've got this straight: Palmiro is a murderer, but only in terms of a human redefinition of human life?”

  Despite himself Stavros was drawn into argument. “That is way too abstract, Saoirse. The Heavenly Homeland was established by a historical decision of the human community. By what right did Palmiro set himself up to overturn that democratic decision?”

  “It wasn't democratic for Northerners!” Charlize interrupted with surprising feeling.

  Jonas was emboldened to keep going in Saoirse's direction. “Colette said Pascale was seeing some kind of different pattern, and I think Palmiro is part of that. If Pascale and he really have found a new pattern, even a new way of being human, then they're no different from the group that discovered Immortality. If the first group could say the whole picture was changed because of their discovery, then why not Pascale and Palmiro? Immortals are already a revolutionary group, so why not another revolution? And if the new nature Pascale and Palmliro discovered seems good to us, by what logic will you then condemn him?”

  The sky had become dark and heavy as they were talking. Drops of rain were falling, making the fire hiss and plunging through their cotton tunics onto their skin. The sudden sensation was so fresh and invigorating it felt like the earth was introducing itself, as if for the first time. It seemed to be saying, yes, it was possible for everything to be new. They looked up and saw the clouds rolling past at hardly more than tree-top level. It began to rain harder and they all had to stoop and retreat back under the overhang to avoid the downpour.

  As they huddled against the sandstone wall watching the water splash and course by their feet Colette said “Well, what do you say, Stavros? That seems a pretty reasonable wager. If we feel there really is something new and good going on, then Palmiro is in the clear! If not, he is your prisoner!”

  Stavros didn't reply at first. He had his hand out, catching drops in the cup he made with his palm. Then he said, “I would be happy if Pascale's death in the Sea of Chaos had some final beauty in it.”

  Jonas looked across at him with a big smile. “Palmiro told me to meet him at Adorno's. I'll take you to him tomorrow.”

  9. HEAVEN'S END

  Palmiro arrived at Adorno's mansion soaked through and shivering violently. He managed to stable and rub down the horse before finding his annex, strip his clothes and plunge into the shower, turning the water on hot and at full blast. On his way in he had seen no lights. The whole place seemed deserted and he had no desire to look around at night. Once he left the shower he threw himself in his bed and instantly was asleep. He slept for a long time, catching up on the rest he'd been deprived of for weeks. Basically he felt safe in this place. It was a long way from downtown and it still had the prestige of Adorno protecting it. Omar's gang would not have the nerve to come blasting in here looking for him, if in fact they were bothered to come this far at all.

  The sun was shining through the slats of the blinds when he finally awoke round midday. He remembered his experience of awakening the previous day. It was still vivid in his head, in a way sealed off from everything else but also giving life and energy to everything. He got some coffee started and looked in the fridge, finding stale cake and watermelon. He brought the food to the table and began to eat and reflect for the first time about his reason for being here, at the home of his former master. He'd always known that he had to return but the amazing cas
cade of events had prevented him from thinking clearly about the reason. Now he endeavored to put his thoughts in order.

  Adorno had called him his brother and best friend, and Palmiro wondered what that meant. He believed Adorno had known the virulence of the anti-enzyme and that he'd been set up by him, just like at every other point along the road. And yet again he questioned how much he himself had been willing to let this happen. Had he not at some level in fact agreed with his mentor? This was an especially bitter taste in his soul, that he had allowed himself to be Adorno's cat's-paw, his plaything, and to a horrifying degree. He very much needed to get all of it in the open, to reject his passive relationship with Adorno and so finally free himself.

  The image of the Hyperbrain came to his mind and with a dull start he remembered Adorno's plan to upload his own brain to its computers. He had been so focused on bringing down Sarobindo he'd actually given very little thought to the scientist's own endgame. Now he recalled with sudden intensity the fantastic theory Adorno had proposed and the technical means he had devised to carry it through. Except it would be an experiment with only one trial and an almost certain failure, killing the test pilot and producing unverifiable results. It might already be too late to talk with him.

  He got up from the table and went directly out the door into the bright sunlight. He walked along the gravel paths between the trailing bougainvillea which had been battered by the rain, their petals bruised and scattered across the ground. Circling around to the front of the building, he did not enter the east wing laboratory where he'd done his work and where he'd last seen Adorno, but walked up through the garden, turning left to the west wing and the scientist's study. He knocked briefly on the door then opened it, stepping into the room. Sitting on a chair to his left with a gun held in two hands and pointed straight at him was a woman he barely recognized.

  “The gun is loaded and I will use it. Walk over here slowly and sit.” She gestured with the gun to a chair in between herself and the door.