"Nah."
"God's truth. Saw a film. Nests."
"That's birds," said Crowley.
"Nests," insisted Aziraphale.
Crowley decided not to argue the point.
"There you are then," he said. "All creatures great and smoke. I mean small. Great and small. Lot of them with brains. And then, bazamm."
"But you're part of it," said Aziraphale. "You tempt people. You're good at it."
Crowley thumped his glass on the table. "That's different. They don't have to say yes. That the ineffable bit, right? Your side made it up. You've got to keep testing people. But not to destruction."
"All right. All right. I don't like it any more than you, but I told you. I can't disod‑disoy‑not do what I'm told. 'M a'nangel."
"There's no theaters in Heaven," said Crowley. "And very few films."
"Don't you try to tempt me, " said Aziraphale wretchedly. "I know you, you old serpent."
"Just you think about it," said Crowley relentlessly. "You know what eternity is? You know what eternity is? I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird‑"
"What little bird?" said Aziraphale suspiciously.
"This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years‑"
"The same bird every thousand years?"
Crowley hesitated. "Yeah," he said.
"Bloody ancient bird, then."
"Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies‑"
"‑limps‑"
"flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak‑"
"Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of‑" The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy."
"But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.
"How?"
"It doesn't matter!"
"It could use a space ship," said the angel.
Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird‑"
"Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to‑" He hesitated. "What have they got to do?"
"Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back‑"
"‑in the space ship‑"
"And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.
There was a moment of drunken silence,
"Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak," mused Aziraphale.
"Listen," said Crowley urgently, "the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then‑"
Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly.
"‑then you still won't have finished watching The Sound of Music."
Aziraphale froze.
"And you'll enjoy it," Crowley said relentlessly. "You really will."
"My dear boy‑"
"You won't have a choice."
"Listen"
"Heaven has no taste."
"Now‑"
"And not one single sushi restaurant."
A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.
"I can't cope with this while 'm drunk," he said. "I'm going to sober up."
"Me too."
They both winced as the alcohol left their bloodstreams, and sat up a bit more neatly. Aziraphale straightened his tie.
"I can't interfere with divine plans," he croaked.
Crowley looked speculatively into his glass, and then filled it again. "What about diabolical ones?" he said.
"Pardon?"
"Well, it's got to be a diabolical plan, hasn't it? We're doing it. My side."
"Ah, but it's all part of the overall divine plan," said Aziraphale. "Your side can't do anything without it being part of the ineffable divine plan," he added, with a trace of smugness.
"You wish!"
"No, that's the‑" Aziraphale snapped his finger irritably. "The thing. What d'you call it in your colorful idiom? The line at the bottom."
"The bottom line."
"Yes. It's that."
"Well . . . if you're sure . . ." said Crowley.
"No doubt about it."
Crowley looked up slyly.
"Then you can't be certain, correct me if I'm wrong, you can't be certain that thwarting it isn't part of the divine plan too. I mean, you're supposed to thwart the wiles of the Evil One at every turn, aren't you?"
Aziraphale hesitated.
"There is that, yes."
"You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right?"
"Broadly, broadly. Actually I encourage humans to do the actual thwarting. Because of ineffability, you understand."
"Right. Right. So all you've got to do is thwart. Because if I know anything," said Crowley urgently, "it's that the birth is just the start. It's the upbringing that's important. It's the Influences. Otherwise the child will never learn to use its powers." He hesitated. "At least, not necessarily as intended."
"Certainly our side won't mind me thwarting you," said Aziraphale thoughtfully. "They won't mind that at all."
"Right. It'd be a real feather in your wing." Crowley gave the angel an encouraging smile.
"What will happen to the child if it doesn't get a Satanic upbringing, though?" said Aziraphale.
"Probably nothing. It'll never know."
"But genetics‑"
"Don't tell me from genetics. What've they got to do with it?" said Crowley. "Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you're going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad became one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me."
"And without unopposed Satanic influences‑"
"Well, at worst Hell will have to start all over again. And the Earth gets at least another eleven years. That's got to be worth something, hasn't it?"
Now Aziraphale was looking thoughtful again.
"You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?" he said slowly.
"Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped," said Crowley. He shrugged. "Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that."
"I suppose it's got to be worth a try," said the angel. Crowley nodded encouragingly.
"Agreed?" said the demon, holding out his hand.
The angel shook it, cautiously.
"It'll certainly be more interesting than saints," he said.
"And it'll be for the child's own good, in the long run," said Crowley. "We'll be godfathers, sort of. Overseeing his religious upbringing, you might say."
Aziraphale beamed.
"You know, I'd never have thought of that," he said. "Godfathers. Well, I'll be damned."
"It's not too bad," said Crowley, "when you get used to it."
– – -
She was known as Scarlett. At that time she was selling arms, although it was beginning to lose its savor. She never stuck at one job for very long. Three, four hundred years at the outside. You didn't want to get in a rut.
Her hair was true auburn, neither ginger nor brown, but deep and burnished copper‑color, and it fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had. Her eyes were a startling orange. She looked twenty‑five, and always had.
She had a dusty, brick‑red truck full of assorted weaponry, and an almost unbelievable skill at getting it acro
ss any border in the world. She had been on her way to a small West African country, where a minor civil war was in progress, to make a delivery which would, with any luck, turn it into a major civil war. Unfortunately the truck had broken down, far beyond even her ability to repair it.
And she was very good with machinery these days.
She was in the middle of a city[12] at the time. The city in question was the capital of Kumbolaland, an African nation which had been at peace for the last three thousand years. For about thirty years it was SirHumphrey‑Clarksonland, but since the country had absolutely no mineral wealth and the strategic importance of a banana, it was accelerated toward self‑government with almost unseemly haste. Kumbolaland was poor, perhaps, and undoubtedly boring, but peaceful. Its various tribes, who got along with one another quite happily, had long since beaten their swords into ploughshares; a fight had broken out in the city square in 1952 between a drunken ox‑drover and an equally drunken ox‑thief. People were still talking about it.
Scarlett yawned in the heat. She fanned her head with her broadbrimmed hat, left the useless truck in the dusty street, and wandered into a bar.
She bought a can of beer, drained it, then grinned at the barman. "I got a truck needs repairing," she said. "Anyone around I can talk to?"
The barman grinned white and huge and expansively. He'd been impressed by the way she drank her beer. "Only Nathan, miss. But Nathan has gone back to Kaounda to see his father‑in‑law's farm."
Scarlett bought another beer. "So, this Nathan. Any idea when he'll be back?"
"Perhaps next week. Perhaps two weeks' time, dear lady. Ho, that Nathan, he is a scamp, no?"
He leaned forward.
"You travelling alone, miss?" he said.
"Yes."
"Could be dangerous. Some funny people on the roads these days. Bad men. Not local boys," he added quickly.
Scarlett raised a perfect eyebrow.
Despite the heat, he shivered.
"Thanks for the warning," Scarlett purred. Her voice sounded like something that lurks in the long grass, visible only by the twitching of its ears, until something young and tender wobbles by.
She tipped her hat to him, and strolled outside.
The hot African sun beat down on her; her truck sat in the street with a cargo of guns and ammunition and land mines. It wasn't going anywhere.
Scarlett stared at the truck.
A vulture was sitting on its roof. It had traveled three hundred miles with Scarlett so far. It was belching quietly.
She looked around the street: a couple of women chatted on a street corner; a bored market vendor sat in front of a heap of colored gourds, fanning the flies; a few children played lazily in the dust.
"What the hell," she said quietly. "I could do with a holiday anyway."
That was Wednesday.
By Friday the city was a no‑go area.
By the following Tuesday the economy of Kumbolaland was shattered, twenty thousand people were dead (including the barman, shot by the rebels while storming the market barricades), almost a hundred thousand people were injured, all of Scarlett's assorted weapons had fulfilled the function for which they had been created, and the vulture had died of Greasy Degeneration.
Scarlett was already on the last train out of the country. It was time to move on, she felt. She'd been doing arms for too damn long. She wanted a change. Something with openings. She quite fancied herself as a newspaper journalist. A possibility. She fanned herself with her hat, and crossed her long legs in front of her.
Farther down the train a fight broke out. Scarlett grinned. People were always fighting, over her, and around her; it was rather sweet, really.
– – -
Sable had black hair, a trim black beard, and he had just decided to go corporate.
He did drinks with his accountant.
"How we doing, Frannie?" he asked her.
"Twelve million copies sold so far. Can you believe that?"
They were doing drinks in a restaurant called Top of the Sixes, on the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, New York. This was something that amused Sable ever so slightly. From the restaurant windows you could see the whole of New York; at night, the rest of New York could see the huge red 666s that adorned all four sides of the building. Of course, it was just another street number. If you started counting, you'd be bound to get to it eventually. But you had to smile.
Sable and his accountant had just come from a small, expensive, and particularly exclusive restaurant in Greenwich Village, where the cuisine was entirely nouvelle: a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate.
Sable had invented it the last time he'd been in Paris.
His accountant had polished her meat and two veg off in under fifty seconds, and had spent the rest of the meal staring at the plate, the cutlery, and from time to time at her fellow diners, in a manner that suggested that she was wondering what they'd taste like, which was in fact the case. It had amused Sable enormously.
He toyed with his Perrier.
"Twelve million, huh? That's pretty good."
"That's great. "
"So we're going corporate. It's time to blow the big one, am I right? California, I think. I want factories, restaurants, the whole schmear. We'll keep the publishing arm, but it's time to diversify. Yeah?"
Frannie nodded. "Sounds good, Sable. We'll need‑"
She was interrupted by a skeleton. A skeleton in a Dior dress, with tanned skin stretched almost to snapping point over the delicate bones of the skull. The skeleton had long blond hair and perfectly made‑up lips: she looked like the person mothers around the world would point to, muttering, "That's what'll happen to you if you don't eat your greens"; she looked like a famine‑relief poster with style.
She was New York's top fashion model, and she was holding a book. She said, "Uh, excuse me, Mr. Sable, I hope you don't mind me intruding, but, your book, it changed my life, I was wondering, would you mind signing it for me?" She stared imploringly at him with eyes deepsunk in gloriously eyeshadowed sockets.
Sable nodded graciously, and took the book from her.
It was not surprising that she had recognized him, for his dark gray eyes stared out from his photo on the foil‑embossed cover. Foodless Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful, the book was called; The Diet Book of the Century!
"How do you spell your name?" he asked.
"Sherryl. Two Rs, one Y, one L."
"You remind me of an old, old friend," he told her, as he wrote swiftly and carefully on the title page. "There you go. Glad you liked it. Always good to meet a fan."
What he'd written was this:
Sherryl, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine Rev. 6:6.
Dr. Raven Sable.
"It's from the Bible," he told her.
She closed the book reverently and backed away from the table, thanking Sable, he didn't know how much this meant to her, he had changed her life, truly he had . . . .
He had never actually earned the medical degree he claimed, since there hadn't been any universities in those days, but Sable could see she was starving to death. He gave her a couple of months at the outside. Handle your weight problem, terminally.
Frannie was stabbing at her laptop computer hungrily, planning the next phase in Sable's transformation of the eating habits of the Western World. Sable had bought her the machine as a personal present. It was very, very expensive, very powerful, and ultra‑slim. He liked slim things.
"There's a European outfit we can buy into for the initial toehold–Holdings (Holdings) Incorporated. That'll give us the Liechtenstein tax base. Now, if we channel funds out through the Caymans, into Luxembourg, and from there to Switzerland, we could pay for the factories in . . ."
But Sable was no longer listening. He was remembering the exclusive little restaurant. It had occurred to him that he
had never seen so many rich people so hungry.
Sable grinned, the honest, open grin that goes with job satisfaction, perfect and pure. He was just killing time until the main event, but he was killing it in such exquisite ways. Time, and sometimes people.
– – -
Sometimes he was called White, or Blanc, or Albus, or Chalky, or Weiss, or Snowy, or any one of a hundred other names. His skin was pale, his hair a faded blond, his eyes light gray. He was somewhere in his twenties at a casual glance, and a casual glance was all anyone ever gave him.
He was almost entirely unmemorable.
Unlike his two colleagues, he could never settle down in any one job for very long.
He had had all manner of interesting jobs in lots of interesting places.
(He had worked at the Chernobyl Power Station, and at Windscale, and at Three Mile Island, always in minor jobs that weren't very important.)
He had been a minor but valued member of a number of scientific research establishments.
(He had helped to design the petrol engine, and plastics, and the ring‑pull can.)
He could turn his hand to anything.
Nobody really noticed him. He was unobtrusive; his presence was cumulative. If you thought about it carefully, you could figure out he had to have been doing something, had to have been somewhere. Maybe he even spoke to you. But he was easy to forget, was Mr. White.
At this time he was working as deckhand on an oil tanker, heading toward Tokyo.
The captain was drunk in his cabin. The first mate was in the head. The second mate was in the galley. That was pretty much it for the crew: the ship was almost completely automated. There wasn't much a person could do.
However, if a person just happened to press the EMERGENCY CARGO RELEASE switch on the bridge, the automatic systems would take care of releasing huge quantities of black sludge into the sea, millions of tons of crude oil, with devastating effect on the birds, fish, vegetation, animals, and humans of the region. Of course, there were dozens of failsafe interlocks and foolproof safety backups but, what the hell, there always were.
Afterwards, there was a huge amount of argument as to exactly whose fault it was. In the end it was left unresolved: the blame was apportioned equally. Neither the captain, the first mate, nor the second mate ever worked again.
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