"Daddy!" she cried and flung herself into his arms in much the way Jeanette had gone to the Reverend Siltz. Child yesterday—woman tomorrow.
"Yes!" he cried, hugging her close, joy bursting upon him like the light of a nova. "Yes, Carolyn, yes—marry him! There is not a finer man on the planet! You will never burn, you will never suffer fear again, you will never be alone! You will make your own family, needing no other!"
She kissed him gently and disengaged. Through the blur of his tears Brother Paul saw Lee standing beside them. He caught Lee's hand—and saw the spot, the mark of the puncture of the nail. The stigmata of Christ. Only a scar, yet—
He set Carolyn's hand in Lee's, aware of his own intense relief. Now he knew she would be well cared for! "With my blessing," he said, squeezing their hands together.
There was a smattering of applause. Brother Paul blinked—and saw Reverend Siltz and his wife, and beside them Jeanette and a young man who favored Siltz in a meek way, and Therion and Amaranth and the rest of the villagers.
"It is time to march to the mattermitter," Siltz said.
"Bless you all," Brother Paul said, his depression abating.
Alone in the mattermission capsule, Brother Paul laid down his mock-up Animation Tarot cards on the crate of Bubbles in a game of Accordion. Each card had only its Triumph or suit and number designation notes; there were no illustrations. This makeshift deck was not pretty, but it satisfied his present purpose. In his mind's eye he saw the symbols as they had been in the Waldens deck, and as they would be in the Cluster deck.
He was playing this game because otherwise the sudden loneliness would overwhelm him. What he had experienced here, in person and in Animation—forever finished.
The Ghost Triumph came up. From its blank surface a film spread out and up, solidifying in air. It swelled, extending a pseudopod to touch the floor. Soon a substantial mass of protoplasm rested there. "Salutation, human friend," it signaled.
"Hello, Antares," Brother Paul said. "Good to meet you again."
"It was an intriguing adventure, much relief of tedium," Antares said. "This is a marvelous deck of concepts you are living."
"The Animation Tarot? Did you really participate?"
"In Animation, yes. Your aura made this possible. And your imagination. Perhaps there was an affinity of effects because both aura enhancement and Animation derive ultimately from the science of the Ancients. But you were the one who reunified them. Do you realize that this experience relates most closely to your deck of concepts?"
"My experience?"
"Your world sets the stage with its folly of matter-mission. The other cards follow in sequence, right until this present aspect of your wisdom. You have become a savant, more experienced in this unique area than others of your kind. Now you go forward toward Completion."
"You mean I did not discover the Original Tarot?" Brother Paul asked, troubled. "I merely translated my own life into the cards?"
"Not at all. Your life reflects the original Tarot, as all lives do. But for you it has been more dramatic than usual and more artistic. Even the five suits have direct force as segments of your adventure. This Tarot of yours will spread across the Cluster, affecting many alien civilizations and finally saving the Cluaster itself from disaster."
Brother Paul smiled. "So the Animation suggested. But we have no way of knowing such a thing, alien friend. It was merely our imaginations functioning."
"I confess that much of the futuristic detail was my doing," Antares replied. "The culture of Sphere Nath, for example. But not all of it. There was an element that cannot be accounted for by rational means."
"Meaning this was all one big fantasy," Brother Paul said. "Yet I would never trade the experience for another. My life has been marked by what passed on Planet Tarot." Lee wore his stigmata on his body; Brother Paul wore his on his soul.
"I'm sure it has. But I do not believe it was fantasy. I prefer to call that unknown element the handiwork of God in whatever manner He may choose to manifest. In fact I am inclined to agree with the thesis of the Tarot Temple that all forms of God and all faiths are valid."
"The Tarot Temple..." Brother Paul repeated. Could he really be about to found anything like that? Surely not!
"When I was Herald the Healer, sharing the role with your son-in-law, I learned the history record of your life. You were quite famous as an ancient figure, in the forty-fifth century of the birth of your Jesus of Christ. You popularized the Cluster Tarot and the notion that true belief, rather than its particular form, was the essence of faith and that no religion should question the mode or precepts of any other. The Temple of Tarot was formed in your name, perhaps after your death, and every novice had to experience the Animation record of your adventure on Planet Tarot. You were called the Patriarch of Tarot."
"Over my dead body," Brother Paul said tolerantly. "Does your imaginative memory of my future also tell you what happened to my little girl in the airline terminal?"
Antares considered. "No, that detail was lost to history. But I am certain no bad thing happened to her, for she grew up to illustrate the Animation cards most prettily. I conjecture that the normal prediction of that vision was interrupted by the role player's imposition of her own concerns so that the sequence became invalid at that point. Probably the real Carolyn remained with you throughout, and the two of you returned to your wife, her mother, without further event."
What wife? "That is a comfort to know," Brother Paul said. "Tell me, friend—since you manifest only in Animation or mattermission, will I ever meet you again? I don't expect to make any more such trips."
"This is unknown," Antares responded. "But since you are conveying a sample of the Animation Bubbles to Earth, you may experience the effect again, and if you think of me at that time I shall be with you."
"But how will I know it is you, and not just a wish fulfillment?"
There was no answer. Brother Paul found himself looking at his Ghost card—the symbol of the unknown. The trip was over.
Yet the significance remained, which the colonists had rejected but, it seemed, future civilization accepted: All faiths were valid. If that were so, why not his faith in his friend, the alien Antares?
IX
Completion: 28
I can hear the ministers, the priests, the rabbis, now screaming in their God-given robes that God can demand the life of any man, that we must all give our lives to God, offer ourselves up to His trust, do what He tells us to do in the "Good" books, which strangely enough are all written in the language of men... But if we smash God in the grinning face, slip out of the way of that religiously swinging knife, trip Him and slip away to live for a few more days, escape again and again, cunningly slide from His grasp and disappear from His view, slip around Him, over Him, under Him, hanging onto our lives at all costs, then when He finally does get us, and He will, for everything is so much mightier than one thing, then He will have the sacrifice of a worthy opponent, a man who never asked for pity, who succumbed at the end in spite of himself, and lingering on in the absence of a body will be the gigantic spirit of one man's effort to belong to no one but himself, whole and complete, memorable even in defeat, distinguished even in death, leaving the ghostly presence of his pride, his will to be, his hatred of death and all ends, and this Holy Ghost will give the future such a forceful start it will be off and running before God can kill it again.
—James Drought: The Secret, Norwalk, Conn. Skylight Press, 1963.
Brother Paul expected complications of debriefing, but these were few. Bored clerks took his recording equipment, and a physician checked his vital signs. "You have suffered some physical regression, Father, but it is not serious. Get a few good nights sleep, exercise a little, eat well and you'll be back to norm quickly enough."
He was dressed and on his way to the next office before it registered. Father! He must have misheard.
"We are through with you," the clerk said. "The computer is analyzing your holographic r
ecord now; we will be in touch if any clarification is required." Obviously neither clerk nor computer had any notion what was in that record; to them, this was mere routine. Brother Paul wanted to get out of here and into the hinterland before anyone was disabused! "Where will we be able to reach you?"
"I will report first to my superior, the Right Reverend Father Crowder of the Holy Order of Vision," Brother Paul said. "His address is in your records. Then I expect to return to my own Station and start catching up on backlogged chores. They must be just about out of wood by now." But the clerk did not smile; he was hardly paying attention. He was making his notes on a slip of paper. Brother Paul was reminded of the old definition of lecturing: a system whereby the material passed from the notes of the instructor to the notes of the student without going through the mind of either. "You will be able to reach me through the Right Reverend."
"Good enough," the clerk agreed, marking "RR" on his slip. He smiled. "Good luck, Father."
Was he back in Animation? Brother Paul shook his head, accepted the travel voucher, caught the electric bus, and in four hours was met by the Right Reverend himself. "Welcome back to Earth, Father Paul. I trust you are well?"
"I seem to be having some difficulty readjusting to reality. By what title did you address me, Reverend?"
"I shall clarify the situation succinctly," Rt. Rev. Crowder said briskly. "The Holy Order of Vision is expanding rapidly. It seems that the accelerating deceleration of our culture resulting from the colonization program creates an insatiable need for our type of ministry. No doubt the tide of social history will turn in due course, and we shall have to contract again, but at the moment we are desperately in need of competent organizers for new Stations. We must provide service where service is needed; that has always been our mission. In certain cases we have been forced to waive normal requirements. You have excellent recommendations, and your performance on this extraterrestrial mission did not diminish your prospects. You have suffered promotion, Father Paul."
"My performance!" Father (what a strange ring to that word; he was not sure he liked it) Paul exclaimed. "How would you know of that?"
"Mere survival would have been sufficient; the promotion was in the works before you departed this planet. But since we are the parent institution for this project, we received an immediate computer statement, unedited," Rt. Rev. Crowder explained. "In only four hours I could not of course do more than skim it—but that sampling was enough to convince me that you are a remarkable man. You have, it appears, identified God."
"No!" Father Paul cried. "I cannot accept that!"
"Oh, the holographs are quite specific, and so are the supplementary data. You might be interested to know that the technicians ran a check on the mattermission circuitry and discovered an imbalance corresponding to the postulated 'aura' of the alien visitor who brought to Earth the secret of mattermission. And the Extraterrestrial Chemistry Laboratory has been locked into absolute security by your sample of 'Tarot Bubbles.' Thus to the extent we can verify it your experience has objective bases. I am convinced that you did encounter Satan."
Father Paul was afraid to ask how much of that holographic record would be made available to outsiders. He opposed censorship, but in this case he was tempted. "But I went in search of God, not Satan!"
"There is no question Satan answered the prayers of the colonists," the Rt. Rev. Crowder continued. "They wanted relief from the rigors of the planetary climate. They shall have it now. Planet Tarot is about to be declared proscribed; the Colonization Computer has declared Animation to be too dangerous for human use. All people there are to be resettled on other planets. The bureaucracy can move rapidly when it has to."
"They're destroying the colony?" Brother Paul asked, aghast. "All the people in all the villages of the planet?"
"Satan does not pussyfoot, as you well know."
"But this was not necessary to—"
"Do not be so shocked, Paul. There is no sacrilege here. Satan is but the nether face of God."
"The nether face of God!" Father Paul exclaimed.
"There is and can be only one God—but He has many aspects. For those people who are unready to face Him in His Heavenly phase, He makes available one for their level. There need be no mystery about this. In fact, Christianity draws its dualism from the Gnostics: the belief that all things are dual. Black versus white, good versus bad, God versus Satan. Just as two sexes facilitate the evolution of species, it seems that two facets of deity facilitate the evolution of conscience. Through this constant interaction we are tested and improved until we are more than we might have been. Just as women complement men, to their confusion and advantage, Satan complements God."
"But everything had a rational explanation! There was nothing to show that the intercession of any Higher Power was necessary or that there was really any distinction between good and evil. In the framework of the intergalactic civilization of the Ancients—"
The Rt. Reverend looked at him shrewdly. "You do not regard these factors as products of your imagination?"
"I—" Father Paul hesitated, trying to marshal his mixture of thought and emotion. "You said yourself there is objective evidence for the existence of Antares in the—"
"I did indeed. I believe in the authenticity of your vision, Paul. I merely am verifying whether you believe in it yourself."
Again Father Paul hesitated. "I do believe—though it led me to Satan or to the renunciation of any concept of deity. I realize that makes me unfit for the promotion you have proffered or for any place in the Holy Order of Vision, and I regret intensely failing you in this way. But I must act on what I believe."
"And can you inform me what science or technology makes possible a divinatory look into the future?" the Rt. Reverend inquired. "And when you met Satan and were physically picked up by Him and consumed—what planetary reality accounted for that?"
"I cannot explain these things," Father Paul admitted. "I can only affirm that I believe in them."
"And so does your holograph—and the Colonization Computer, and a growing army of technicians," the Rt. Reverend said. "I believe them too. How would you explain the fantastic coincidence of the single man with the most potent aura among this species—being the one assigned to the planet where aura controls Animation?"
"I—" Father Paul began, baffled.
"I submit to you that there is only one agency that can reasonably account for the totality of your experience. What name would you put on that Great Unknown?"
"Why, that could only be—" The concept dwarfed his ability to express it. "I—saw God?" Father Paul asked numbly. Suddenly things were falling into place. Could all that precession have guided him accurately after all? "But God would not destroy the entire colony!"
"I offer a rationale," the Rt. Rev. Crowder said. "Let us surmise that, for the benefit of the Universe or at least the Galactic Cluster, it is necessary to educate a series of sapient entities in a very special way. High-Kirlian-Aura creatures to be suitable tools, perhaps fashioned from imperfect clay, yet tailored to the need. Call them Herald the Healer, or Melody of Mintaka, or Flint of Outworld—or Paul of Tarot. Perhaps even Jesus of Christ. Assume that these entities, properly prepared, will set in motion currents that will in the course of several millennia preserve the entire Cluster from needless and ironic destruction. As by devising or reconstituting a deck of cards whose images evoke key understandings on critical occasions—"
"Ridiculous!" Father Paul snapped.
The Rt. Reverend smiled. "No doubt. I certainly will not repeat such fancies to others. But were such a thing conceivably the case—would not the viability of a single colony planet be a trifling price to pay? We question God's purposes at our peril."
Father Paul put his hand to the pocket where he carried his mocked-up Animation Tarot deck. Could such a thing be true? "In that case," he said, awed, "God does exist—and this is His will."
"Is it not better to believe that—than to renounce your prior faith
in Him?"
"Yes!" Father Paul exclaimed, as his balked belief was undammed. Undamned. Suddenly he felt whole again.
The Rt. Rev. Father smiled again. "Rest assured that neither this discussion nor the holographic record will be put into general circulation. The Colonization Computer, I am sure, is even now classifying the whole matter Absolute Satanic Secret, and I expect my copy of the holograph to be confiscated shortly. I only want you to know that I believe it was God's will that you be subjected to this experience, this tempering of your spirit in Hell, and that you surely acquitted yourself in a manner satisfactory to Him. It is easy to be noble and chaste when one is not subjected to stress and temptation and alteration of consciousness You were Everyman; you were flawed, yet survived. Thereby, you justify the species and perhaps the form that life has taken in this segment of the Universe. Life with aura."
"Thank you," Father Paul murmured, not feeling noble or chaste.
Rt. Rev. Crowder made a gesture of subject dismissal. "There is another matter. The Holy Order of Vision is, as I mentioned, expanding. This is not from any missionary zeal on our part, but because we appear to answer a need of the contemporary society in crisis. But I repeat myself, I fear. My point is that it is important for attrition of our competent officers to be minimized."
"Of course," Father Paul agreed, uncertain where this was leading.
"I trust you will agree that the Reverend Mother Mary is competent."
The relevance became uncomfortably clear. "Yes! She helped lead me out of the darkness of my prior ignorance. But she would never leave—"
Rt. Rev. Crowder shook his head. "She has given notice."
Father Paul was shocked. "Her faith in God is absolute, not subject to vacillation like mine! She—"
"She wishes to leave the Holy Order of Vision. She is carrying on only until we arrange a replacement for her Station. It occurred to me that you might have some insight into her problem."
"I? No, I—" Father Paul broke off, dismayed. "You didn't promote me to take her job!"
Anthony, Piers - Tarot 3 - Faith of Tarot Page 23
