On one of the smaller boulders at the cliffs base Reese sat, arms around his legs, chin resting on his knees. He smiled as Donnerjack entered the clearing.
“Welcome to my secret place,” he said. “Won’t you have a seat?” He reached out and patted an adjacent boulder.
“Your design?” Donnerjack asked. “Time trick and all?”
Reese nodded. “With the help of the genius loci AI who manages it,” he added.
Donnerjack moved forward and seated himself.
“Would you care to meet her?” Reese asked.
“Perhaps later, though time is one of things I have to include in my field theory.”
“Dear old time, my lifelong nemesis and friend,” Reese said with a sigh. ” The image of eternity,’ David Park called it in a book of that title. He posited a Time I, which works out determinate, and a Time II, which doesn’t. Time I is the time of thermodynamics, Time II subjective human time. He wrote it right before Chaos Theory was developed. It would have been a different book if he’d done it a few years later. Still fascinating, however. The man was a philosopher as well as a physicist, for he’s as right as anybody has been, for as far as he goes.”
“You’re saying he doesn’t go far enough?”
“He didn’t have Virtu to play with, the way we do.”
“But the physics of Virtu seem to be circumstantial.”
“Because of its seeming artificial character Virtu lends itself to the creation of anomalies.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, considering Verkor’s work on perfect fluidity.”
Reese arched a brow. “Verkor is wrong. Had I the time and inclination I’d disprove him in print. There are universal principles in Virtu. I doubt I’ll have the time to point the way, however.”
“You have been working all these years?”
“Never stopped working. Just stopped publishing. You can have my notes if I don’t make it this time around. I’ll leave instructions.”
“Very good. But I’d rather you made it. I didn’t realize you’d stayed in such good shape, but since you have—”
“You can’t tell by looking.”
“I meant mentally. Any idea how you’ll come through?”
“I’m not going to make a bet with you and jinx myself,” Reese said. “That is the way of the statistician. What do you want to know for, anyhow?”
“I think I’d like to work with you again.”
Reese chuckled. “John, I don’t think this one is for me. These are probably my last hours. As I said, I’ll leave you the papers. Don’t expect anything more.”
“Then let me ask you this: How good is the Center for latropathic Disorders?”
“They’ve pulled me through before. Several times. I have to give them that.”
“I was just thinking that if it were necessary to place the resources of the Donnerjack Institute at your disposal I’d be happy to do it, whether you work with me or not.”
“You always were a generous guy, John, but I don’t know whether it would really be of much help.”
“You never know till you ask. Remember, my foundation did a lot of medical engineering work at one time. Let me find a way to interface my data with theirs and we’ll see what they have to say to each other. If they don’t, no harm done. If they do, who knows what might turn up?”
“All right. Let’s do it as soon as we can, then.”
“Done,” Donnerjack said, and he snapped his fingers.
A man in a tuxedo stepped from behind a boulder.
“You called, sir?”
“For someone with less formality.”
“Sorry, it’s been a long while.”
“It has and it was generally someone else seeking access, as I recall now.”
Suddenly, the man wore khakis and a long-sleeved sports shirt.
“Very good,” Donnerjack replied. “There is someone I would like you to meet on a medical matter.”
“It’s been a long while. Who is it?”
“The AI for the Center of latropathic Disorders.”
“Oh, Sid. I knew him when he was just getting running. He’s the one who started calling me Paracelsus.”
“You joke.”
“In my generation, joking by AIs was considered pretty much bad form—unless you were a professional in the area, of course.”
“You and A.I. Aisles must have been of a generation. What did you think of him?”
“What can I say about the first AI comedian? He was great. I knew him.”
“Why was he really canned?”
“The story was that he distracted the AIs from their work. They used to repeat his stuff over and over and over.”
“That can’t be right, considering how many things you can do at a time.”
“True—”
“Hello, gentlemen,” said a dapper, dark-suited individual with brown eyes and a short beard. “Dr. Jordan I know from the inside and Dr. Donnerjack by reputation. How’re you, Paracelsus?”
“Fine,” replied the other.
“It seems to me that you two worked together briefly in the past,” said Donnerjack. “Would you check and see how compatible you might be right now?”
“I don’t believe I’m authorized to execute such a procedure,” Sid said.
“Paracelsus, you have full permission to do so,” Donnerjack responded. “You get ready, and I’ll be in touch with Sid’s bosses in a few moments.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Reese said.
“Okay.”
Paracelsus and Sid sketched bows and vanished.
“Stay with me, John,” Reese added. “I feel it will be soon.”
“Of course.”
“You ever see the moire?”
“Yes.”
“Under what circumstances?’
“I saw it when the lady who was later to become my wife died.”
“‘Later to become your wife’?”
“Yes, we had a rather bizarre courtship—which led us to this place.”
“Time paradox?”
“Spatial.”
“How did you affect it?”
“I didn’t. I visited a place called Deep Fields, where I petitioned Death for her return.”
“You must be joking. There is no such—”
“There is. That’s how I got her back. But it entailed a weird route and a weirder outcome.”
“Tell me the story.”
“I will, while we wait.”
“Good idea,” said Reese.
* * *
Catching the falling notepad had not been a fluke. Arthur Eden tested his new ability for a week or so, discovering its limitations, its strengths, testing beyond what he needed to prove to himself (or anyone else) that the virt power was real, extending the testing even further while he mulled over what he should do. The wisest choice, he suspected, was to keep his virt power a secret. Telling his Elishite superiors that he had developed TK might cause them to focus their attention more closely on him—on Emmanuel Davis, attention he was not certain that his cover identity could withstand.
But even as he mulled over this, accepted what the reasonable choice would be, Arthur Eden knew he would not do this thing—he would make the less safe choice, tell his superiors, find out what they would do. He tried to justify his choice to himself as academic zeal—the desire to do his research as well as possible—but he knew there was another, less pristine, reason for his decision.
Reaching out with his mind, he levitated his notepad and brought it to him. He activated his personal journal, recited the date, spoke:
After the next meeting, I will request a conference with my superiors, demonstrate my new ability. From my observations, I know this will result in an immediate promotion—a merit badge of sorts. There have been a few others of these “Elect” in my initiates class. They are all unbearably smug and usually are promoted onto another track quickly. I cannot miss such an opportunity. As a gesture to prudence, I will add the planned le
vels of complexity to the Davis persona.
He paused, replayed the section, considered how honest he wanted to be, even with himself, continued:
I would like to say that my choice is motivated merely by academic zeal, but there is another reason, one I whisper to myself as I stir the wind chimes with a telekinetic breeze, then float my teacup into my out-stretched hand. Power. A hint of the personal divinity that most religions promise, that no other has been documented as providing. In Virtu, many play at being gods, but only the Elishites have found the means to make us gods in Verite. I must learn more before I take my leave of them.
He turned off the notepad without touching it, set it on the table, sat sipping his tea. Around him, the room darkened with the onset of evening. He did not notice, his mind alight with possibility.
Eden/Davis’ demonstration had gone very well. His initiates instructor—a short, plump Asian woman who called herself Ishtar’s Star—had taken him into a small room in Verite, where he had shown that he could lift a variety of small objects and manipulate them with coordination roughly equivalent to that of someone wearing thick gloves. Then she had taken him into an Elishite chapel in Virtu and told him to pray for guidance before exiting the locus in the form of a portly white dove.
The chapel was different from those that Arthur Eden had seen thus far in his study of the Church of Elish. For one, it lacked facilities for a large congregation. The sanctuary rose in a series of tiers, the lowest of which held polished benches of rare porphyry, the next which was padded on its inner ring for kneeling. A carved ivory rail served equally well as a place for the kneelers to rest their hands and as a means to separate the sanctuary from the main chapel.
Inside the rail the floor rose in a series of shallow steps ending in a round dais on which stood a statue celebrating Marduk’s conquest of Tiamat. One of Tiamat’s severed heads lay on its side a small distance from the rest of the statue where it could serve rather nicely as a ceremonial altar.
Wishing he had one of his recording proges with him, Eden abased himself before the altar. Then he knelt and began reciting the prayers he had learned in his earlier training. Uncertain who might be watching him, he did not want to seem too complacent (though, honestly, he felt extraordinarily smug). Taking care with his phrasing, he went through the litany twice and was beginning it a third time when he began to feel afraid.
Were they checking his identity? Had they uncovered a flaw in the Davis persona? His body in the transfer facility was so very vulnerable. He recalled with unusual clarity the waiver of culpability forms he had signed upon joining the Church of Elish, the even stricter waivers he had signed on becoming an initiate into the priesthood. They could murder him, disguise it to look like a transfer effect (former athletes often had sudden heart attacks when they didn’t keep in shape, didn’t they?), and pay no penalty.
His voice faltered. He struggled to recall the words to the basic prayers he had learned as a neophyte, his mind clouded with fear. He surged up from his knees to his feet. He would hit the emergency recall sequence… He would explain…
“Revelation, Brother Davis?”
The voice broke into his panic like a bucket of water splashed in his face. It was male, strong, deep, with something of laughter in the undertones. Eden wavered, uncertain whether to fall back to his knees or to finish standing. He managed neither, his feet slipping on the slick marble floor. He would have landed rather solidly on his tailbone had not his interrogator caught him.
Eden found himself staring directly into the face of a large, red-haired man—perhaps in his midthirties, although since this was a virt form he could be any age. Freckles splashed the bridge of his pug nose; his pale blue eyes were surrounded with a network of lines that bespoke much time spent out of doors. He wore a simple black cotton robe, not unlike a Japanese hakama.
“I… uh… Thanks…” Eden managed.
“You’re welcome. I’m Randall Kelsey. Come, take a seat on one of these benches.”
Eden did so. Kelsey seated himself with easy familiarity on one of the steps leading to the sanctuary and leaned back against the altar rail.
“You looked as if one of the gods had spoken to you, Brother Davis,” Kelsey said after a moment.
“I…” Eden caught himself before he could start confessing the real reason for his weakness. “I suddenly realized the enormity of what has happened. Until Sister Ishtar’s Star left me alone to pray, I had been more concerned with passing the test, with the fear that the gift would desert me. Then it was all over and I realized…”
Deliberately, he let the words trail off.
“You realized that you have been touched by the divine and that divinity has shaped you into something that you were not.”
Randall Kelsey fell silent for so long that Eden wondered if he was expected to say something, but if so, the moment for those words had come and gone. He waited and a trio of tiny gossamer-winged serpents flew into the chapel and fluttered in front of Kelsey, who spoke to them words that Eden did not understand, his tones measured.
Each serpent was no larger than the earthworms Eden had dug up in his mother’s vegetable garden as a boy and used to bait his fishhooks. Had he ever caught anything? He tried to remember and all he recalled was the bloated pink worms, unnaturally clean from their immersion in the stream, twisted onto his hook.
“Do you believe in the gods, Emmanuel Davis?”
Eden jumped as the words brought him from his reverie. Had he dozed off for a moment? The serpents were now hovering in front of his face—their scales glittering like pulverized gemstones. For a strange moment, he thought that one of them had asked the question.
“Do you believe in the gods, Emmanuel Davis?” Kelsey repeated.
“More than ever before.”
“More than nothing can still be almost nothing.”
“True. Very well.” Eden decided an urbane honesty would suit him best here. He was already known by his teachers as a questioner. “If you are asking me do I believe specifically in Enlil, Enki, Ishtar, and all the rest I would have to say that I believe there are divinities who find those names and their attendant forms as convenient as any other, but if I was asked to say whether I believed that these were identical to the deities who were worshiped in the dawn of recorded history in the Fertile Crescent I would be forced to say ‘no.’ “
“I see. Heresy?”
“I would prefer to call it metaphysical conjecture. In any case, my belief is not out of line with the teachings of the Church. Even in the earliest lessons, we are taught that form and name are metaphors for something more primal.”
“True, but what about faith?”
“Faith is something that is given—it cannot be learned. At least so I have always felt. I offer instead my worship.”
“Your experience with the development of a virt power did not change your mind about the divinity of those worshiped by the Church of Elish?”
“I never said I doubted the divinity, sir, only that I doubted the equivalency of the divinities we worship here and those from ancient times.”
“Yes, I see.”
Kelsey scratched behind one ear. His slouch against the altar rail irresistibly reminded Eden of a farmhand relaxing at the edge of a field. All he needed was a corncob pipe and a straw hat. Yet his casual posture did not diminish the grandeur of the chapel or the unearthliness of the watching serpents. If anything, his very normalcy enhanced the rest.
Eden knew instinctively that despite the lack of gold tiered crowns or jeweled miters that he was in the presence of someone of great authority, someone who could order the plug pulled on his transfer couch, and he resolved to be very, very careful how he answered.
“Mr. Kelsey, what are the serpents?”
“I wondered if you would ask that.”
“I will withdraw the question if you so desire.”
“No, that’s all right. They’re recording proges—among other things.” Kelsey gestured and the s
erpents darted away from Eden and resumed their watchful fluttering a few feet overhead. “Tell me, Brother Davis, what is divinity?”
“A type of fudge?”
Kelsey grinned. “I’m glad that you had the balls to say that, Davis. You looked pretty washed-out when I came in here—figuratively speaking. Now, what is divinity?”
Eden paused, considering what not to answer. Emmanuel Davis was supposed to be a research librarian, so his answer should have some sophistication. On the other hand, it should not be so sophisticated as to indicate undue knowledge in the area of theology or anthropology.
“I have been considering that question since soon after I became a neophyte, sir. You must understand, I first came to the Church of Elish as a tourist.”
“Most do,” Kelsey said mildly.
“I came back, though, because it seemed to me that there was something in the temple when we were told that a deity was present, that I could feel the presence even before the announcement was made.”
“Interesting.”
“And after a time I became convinced that what I felt was the emanations of the divine aura—an aura that I had felt nowhere else in Virtu or Verite.”
“Were you a church shopper, Davis?”
“A little.” This answer had been carefully worked out in advance. “I was raised Baptist. Dropped out. Tried a few other religions—though I guess not all of them qualified for tax exemption; they were more like philosophical traditions. Eventually, I decided that there weren’t any ultimate answers and mucked along, making do.”
“What brought you to our church?”
“A girl from my office wanted to go, didn’t want to go alone.”
“Is she with us?”
“No. It didn’t really appeal to her. She said it didn’t have enough affirmation of the female.”
“Ishtar will be so hurt.”
“She didn’t like her much, to be honest. Said it was the classic bitch pattern all over again.”
“Well, it did have to come from somewhere, didn’t it?”
“I see your point, sir. And, to be honest, my friend was a bit of a bitch herself. I think she would have liked to identify with Ishtar—assertive feminism or something—but it just didn’t work for her.”
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