Let the Fire Fall

by Kate Wilhelm

  “What do you want?” Obie said.

  Blake laughed. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m your prisoner. How could I have demands?”

  “Why did you come back?” Dee Dee was as lovely as ever, although skill and technique now replaced what had been natural. She studied Blake appraisingly, noting the broad shoulders, the long, smooth muscles, the way his gaze had gone over the room just once, but with an intensity that suggested that he had noted every object there.

  “To finish Obie’s jigsaw puzzle for him. It can’t be left with the last few pieces missing. That drives people mad, is driving them mad now. There was only so much that Obie could do, and he has done it, all of it. The rest depends on me.” He bowed slightly toward Obie as he said this. Obie continued to watch him with narrowed eyes. His hand was in his pocket tight about a stun gun.

  “What are you talking about?” Wanda asked. Her voice, like the rest of her, was big. It filled the room and reverberated.

  “There has to be the finale. Ask Obie, he understands these things. Not in words maybe, but he feels how it has to be. Those millions of people out there understand it, too. They don’t believe Obie can deliver, so the tension grows. I have to die, publicly, isn’t that right, Brother Cox? Then a waiting period while Obie prays to his god, and a miraculous resurrection, again public, and my physical ascension to heaven.” Wanda grew steadily paler as he spoke. He smiled gently at her. “You never did like to have it out where everyone could look at it at the same time, did you? But that’s how it has to be. The tide is coming in and there’s no way now to stop it. You can’t start things of this magnitude, then step to one side and say, I didn’t mean that. You have to ride it out, right to the end, or get smashed by it.”

  Wanda continued to stare at him as if hypnotized. “You’re planning a trick of some sort. You won’t let yourself be killed like that….”

  “Is this being taped?” At her sudden start he nodded. “I thought so. Okay, then you can have this for future study. I’ll outline it for you. By fall the curtain will go up on the last act. Mobs storming the citadel here, after my blood. The government will have to come to grips with the legislation that is being pushed through, things like teaching the Voice of God Church dogma in schools, like tax allowances for .members,…. You know all that. It will come to the fore by the start of the fall session. Many things will come to light all at once, bribery, perjury, forged documents, phony election returns…. The army will be sent for Brother Cox, and me, because by then I will have become the rallying point. It will all come to pass,” he said very quietly, as Billy started to wrestle himself from the oversized chair that had been built specially for him. “You have this on tape. You can check it point for point. So the Army will come, followed by many thousands of persons, short hairs mostly, but also long hairs who will want in on the excitement. There will be 3D cameras to catch it all. Obie will escape, using my flying trick, but I’ll be shot down. And later, after the crowds realize that they have killed me, a reaction will set in: they will come to mourn where they had come to mock and kill. Obie will return. There will be a resurrection. The body will rise from the coffin on display, and it will keep rising until it has vanished into the clouds.”

  Obie was as pale as death when Blake turned from Wanda to face him.

  “You’re making all of this up. All of it,” Obie said. “It’s a cheap trick….”

  Blake jiggled some coins in his pocket and said nothing.

  “We had you searched. You haven’t got anything with you to use to fly with. Whatever that trick was back in Miami, you can’t pull it again without equipment.”

  “I’m not going to pull it at all, Brother Cox. You are. When the time gets near, you will come to me and demand to know how I did it, and at that time, I’ll tell you.”

  “Get out!” Obie said. He looked very frightened. “Get out of here!”

  It came to pass almost exactly as Blake said it would. By the end of summer he was the chief attraction in the Voice of God Church. Obie was the prophet, but Blake was the mystical son of God with the powers of God in him. In Congress speeches were made denouncing the Voice of God Church as an anarchist plot to seize the government and the country. The fear of anarchy pushed harder than anything ever had in the past. By November the call went out to arrest Obie Cox and Blake Daniels Cox and try them as revolutionists and traitors, and more specifically to charge them with attempts to bribe law officers and government officials, and with exerting undue, even criminal, influence over elections, with tax frauds, etc., etc. Obie grew more and more frightened. To no avail did Billy Warren Smith point out that other people had made the same predictions that Blake had made. Hysteria over the coming new year and new century was being manifested in many ways. Obie listened and did not hear. He was afraid of Blake Daniels.

  In December he walked into Blake’s room, dismissing the guard posted at the door as he entered. “Where is it?” he demanded.

  Blake stood up. He was not smiling now. “You have it in your safe among the goodies you had taken from me when I arrived.”

  “Come on,” Obie said. He led the way toward the main house. The guard fell into place. It was a cold, clear night: December 27, 1999.

  Obie opened the safe and Blake took out the box that held the few belongings that he had brought with him. There was the opal-like stone, the coins that he liked, the black disc. He took them all. Obie watched him suspiciously. He kept one hand in his pocket. He waved Blake back and examined the objects carefully. “It’s just junk,” he said finally. Blake made a motion toward the stone with fire in the middle of it, and Obie’s hand closed over it. “Get back,” he said. “Way back.” He watched until Blake had crossed the room to sit in one of the contour chairs near the desk. Then he examined the stone again, this time turning it over and over and over and over and over…. Blake smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  THE deputy and his men have reached the last road-block now. You can see that it, like the others, is not manned. There are no planes of any sort on the airstrip, no hovercraft, no vto craft of any sort, although it is known that the Voice of God Church possesses every kind of modem aircraft made. Now the deputy and his men are making the last turn.

  “From our vantage point high over the mountain we can see most of the grounds. There, on the left of the picture is the main building, a huge colonial-type mansion, three stories high, snowy white and gleaming, and behind it are smaller guest houses. Through the trees, in the center of the picture, you can see the other buildings, hospital, and medical personnel quarters. There is a laboratory there also. Panning to the right now we see a man-made lake perched like a daub of blue paint against the ground lightly sprinkled with snow, surrounded by fir trees and low-growing pine trees. Then we see the campsites. The buildings are not visible….

  “The deputy has reached the last leg of his trip up the mountain. He is now at the beginning of a sweeping driveway that winds about beautifully landscaped grounds and ends at the front entrance of the mansion. Still no one has appeared to challenge the deputy. The crowds are pushing hard against the cordon of soldiers who are trying to hold them back. Slowly, foot by foot they have pushed their way up the mountain also, and they are not far behind the deputy and his posse. Ah…. Ladies and gentlemen, the crowds have broken through! They are swarming over the grounds now….”

  The picture dimmed momentarily and came back, but the voice was out. The people swarmed over everything in sight during the interlude. They were pressing into the great house, windows broken out, torches here and there flying through the air and the satisfying sudden flare of a building catching fire. The fires went out almost immediately. The mansion was fireproofed in the most thorough manner imaginable.

  The announcer’s voice again: “We can’t see the deputy any longer. He is lost in that surge of people below, trying to make his way to the entrance of the house. His ground effect car has been overturned and presumably he is on foot now, as are his men�
��. Ah, there is his group, still far back. It doesn’t look like they will be able to get through…. Look, over there! To the right….” The camera swung wildly and the 3D image was the vision of a man reeling in a drunken daze. It settled again on a balcony on the third floor of the building. Two figures were there, both in white robes, both blond, both silent. Obie and Blake. The crowds went mad.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, there must be fifty thousand people down there now, and more coming all the time. It’s a madhouse down there. I can’t see any of the armed forces, or the deputy, no one at all in authority. Obie Cox and his son are standing on the balcony, not moving. Why doesn’t he get out?” Pause. “They are throwing things at them…. There are some stun guns down there! And a rifle or two! Oh, my God! They are going to murder them!” The images of the milling people, stones flashing through the air, a fire in the distance—the hospital?—the engineers had adjusted the sound down so that the shrieks and screams and curses were muffled, and the pop now and then of a gun was too low to be ominous. The figures stood quietly. They began to rise slowly, and it was more as if everything else were sinking and they were still motionless. They were ten feet above the balcony before the crowds realized that they were ascending.

  There was a scream from thousands of throats simultaneously, then absolute silence. The announcer: “It has to be a trick, of course. But what a trick! Higher and higher! They are fifty feet above the house now….” Sounds of rifle fire shattered the silence. One of the figures doubled over, was caught by the other, and together, they vanished into the woods. Static.

  “I repeat, Blake Daniels Cox has been shot. We don’t know yet how badly he has been wounded. The people are silent now and the Army is getting through them, going into the woods to try to find a trace of Obie Cox and his son. We are circling the area but we can see nothing through the trees below us. They are down there somewhere. At the clearing there is a stunned silence now….”

  Hours later they found Blake. He was lying on the ground, on a bed of pine needles, his eyes closed, his face composed in death, his hands across his chest. The front of his robe was crimson and brown with drying blood. Two doctors pronounced him dead.

  The Church claimed him and took him to the temple, where he lay in state for three days, and on the third day Obie reappeared. He said nothing, but walked to the altar draped with black where he prayed before the casket.

  Orders had been given out: no matter what happened the 3D cameras were to stay on, the proceedings were to be followed to the end. Later it was disputed on whose orders, but no matter, they had been given and the entire sequence was shown, although distorted in the memories of those who witnessed. One of the versions is as follows.

  Obie prayed before the casket, his voice too low to catch the words, but his attitude that of sorrow and grief. Behind him the satin of the covering in the casket stirred and Blake sat up, then stood up and stepped out. There were screams and moans and fainting spells and even a heart attack down in the congregation and Obie whirled around to see why. He blanched and caught the dais to keep himself upright. Blake was laughing.

  He didn’t go near the microphone, but his voice was everywhere, He must have been wired with a hidden mike. “This is another of Obie’s miracles! The miracle of a pill! Dead? Do nook dead? If I fly, is that a miracle of God, or is it the miracle of a new mechanical device? And if one is miraculous, why not the other? I can fly. So can you. I can produce water from rocks. So can you. I can make you heal yourselves. So can you. These are not miracles. These are the products of hard work, done by men, on Earth, for the benefit of other men. Miracles? The only miracle is that you have been duped. You have believed when you should have laughed. Obie Cox, God’s Voice? That is the joke, and you didn’t laugh. That is the only miracle.” He rose from the stage and hovered six feet above the coffin. “This is the climax of this act, I am to ascend into heaven, but not yet. Not today.” He pulled open his robe and put his hand on the belt that was under it. “Do I want to go higher, this depression will take me up. Lower, this one. Sideways, like this… ” He demonstrated as he spoke and there was only profound silence now as the people watched him. He landed easily once more, beside the shaking Obie. He draped his arm about Obie’s shoulder. “And this man can fly also, if he has an anti-gravity unit and the proper controls. As you can.”

  His voice dropped dramatically then and he looked at Obie in wonder as he added, “You would let this man, this mortal man with thinning hair and feet that hurt and beard that is dyed regularly, this man with his exerciser and his girdle and his fondness for rich food, this man with his lusts and his fears pushing him, you would let this man define your god for you! That is the miracle!

  “If you seek a god, seek him alone. That is the only way you can find one.

  “If you seek miracles, look at the flowers that grow, at the rainbows that bridge the skies, at the ripening wheat in the field.

  “If you seek an anti-gravity, go to the Barber Shops! They are for you, free, with no tithe expected in return. Go to the Barber Shops!” He patted Obie’s livid cheek and said sardonically, “Sorry, old man. The game’s over.” Then he rose into the air and, waving to the congregation, ascended through the skylight and vanished into the night sky.

  All eyes turned again to Obie, who stood alone in the circle of the spotlight. He motioned to the engineer and the light went out. When it came back on, he was gone. He was never seen on Earth again.

  Some say that he shaved his beard and simply vanished into the crowds that surged about the temple all night. Others say that Dee Dee and Billy were waiting for him and there ensued a three-way battle that, like the tigers racing about the tree, left only grease on the floor.

  And that’s all, except for the cleanup, the loose ends, some of which will remain forever loose, because that’s how life is.

  With such pretty new toys to play with the people forgot about the Church rather quickly. There they were, free to anyone who asked for them. Anti-gravity belts and power sources; the water-producing gadget; the power supply for dwellings. They flew from the cities. They found how simple it was to live when there was water and power and freedom to come and go as they chose. They learned that they could build their houses high in the skies, and support them with anti-gravity units; they could float into them with ease. They could float their cities over the ground if they chose. The governments were not happy about it, especially in the beginning. But can you shoot down October leaves in the wind? It was anarchy, but it was the new tide that was flowing, and no government was large enough to stop the tide. Eventually they went with it.

  There were rumors. There were hearings concerning the mysterious disappearance of Obie Cox, and of his son. Everyone was questioned repeatedly, with no clear-cut answers arising from the testimony. Speculations grew: Obie had absconded with five billion dollars, said some. He had died and gone to heaven, said others.

  There was some speculation, Wanda talked about it much later, that Obie had been secreted away by Blake on the fateful night when he demanded help. That Blake had donned a beard, and appeared alongside his own double on the balcony, taking equal chances with him of stopping any of the fatal bullets, but when the metal deflectors appeared shortly after that, it was argued that Blake hadn’t actually taken such a dreadful chance after all, if indeed he had been the one to appear in place of Obie. Oh, they studied the films carefully, and the experts said it was Obie Cox and his son Blake, and other experts said that it could have been almost anyone with a beard…. Fraud, charlatan, Voice of God:… What difference does it make now? He was gone. The funds from the Church had been signed over to a new research company, The Black Foundation, that despite lawsuits and threats gave away everything it developed.

  Rumors had it that when a curly haired young woman and her stiff, straight dark-haired husband were brought out of cold sleep by Dr. Winifred Harvey, they were met by a young man who resembled the older man very strongly, and by a young couple with a small
child, the girl very like the woman, the man blond And good-looking. And they had a child.

  Alien and human? They can’t breed. Everyone knows that. So did that mean that Johnny was actually the alien that he claimed to be? What then of the recognition of him that caused Dee Dee to faint? Do our memories trick us like that? During the melee on Mount Laurel Johnny got out of the hospital wing where he had been kept, and he melted into the crowd so efficiently that he never left it again. Now and again his claims of alien superiority forced him to move, but he was tolerated; he didn’t cause anyone any trouble, and there was room for his kind too.

  This is the good ending.

  The other one goes something like this:

  When Obie prayed at the altar the cameras turned again to the coffin where Blake was lying. Slowly he rose and he was a towering figure. He spoke: “The Church, the people, the Earth is mine, so saith the Lord. I have come this night to take unto myself that which is mine.” And protected by the magic that gave them wings, and even stronger magic that turned away bullets, the believers that night slaughtered the non-believers and made the Earth safe for the godly. They cleansed the Earth of the forces of evil, and forever after lived under God, in peace, and prepared for the coming of the strangers. And Blake reigned nine hundred years and begat four thousand sons and daughters who reigned after him. Amen.

  Copyright

  A LANCER BOOK • 1969

  LET THE FIRE FALL

  Copyright © 1969 by Kate Wilhelm

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  This Lancer edition Is published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company. Inc. Its large sale in the high-priced hardcover edition make possible this inexpensive Lancer reprint.

  LANCER BOOKS, INC • 1560 BROADWAY

  NEW YORK, N.Y. 10036