FSF, August-September 2009
Page 28
"I beg your pardon?"
"Your feathery angel wings, or your leathery bat wings. They're gone."
Satan was taken aback, but he was young and quick to recover. “Our host has heard that I've sworn off air travel,” he said. “Because of the carbon emissions! I take public transportation."
"No cars for you?” said Occhietti.
"Denying cars is not, in fact, part of my Green gospel,” said Satan primly. “We have never schemed to deprive consumers of their beloved private cars; electric cars, hybrid-electric cars, cellulosic ethanol cars, shareable cars connected by cellphone, wind-powered nickel-hydride cars, plastic-composite hydrogen three-wheelers powered by backyard vats of anaerobic bacteria; we offer a vast, radiant, polymorphic, multi-headed, pagan panoply of cars! All of them radical improvements over today's backward cars, which have led to the ongoing collapse of our global civilization."
Occhietti cleared his throat. “It's a fine thing to find a young man with such an interest in my industry! Let's go inside and have a cigar."
Beaming with delight, the Devil tripped along willingly, but once inside he refused tobacco. “A menace to public health! With today's aging European population, we can't risk the demographic hit to our lifespans. Not to mention the medical costs to our fragile social-safety net."
Deliberately, Occhietti trimmed and fired a cigar. “All right, Lucifer—or whatever you call yourself nowadays—now that we're out of my dear wife's little garden, you can drop your pretenses. Go ahead, brandish your horns at me, your barbed tail—you're not scaring me! I have been to Hell, I've seen the worst you have to offer. So put your cards on the table! Say your piece! What is it you want?"
Satan brightened. “I'm glad to have this excellent chance for a frank exchange of issues with a veteran auto executive. Though I must correct you on one important point—I'm not Satan. You are Satan."
"I'm not Satan. I'm an engineer."
"I'm an engineer, too—though certainly not of your brutish, old-school variety. I have a doctorate in renewable energy. With a specialty in cradle-to-cradle recycling issues."
"From what school?"
"The Turin Polytechnic."
"That's my school!"
"Have you been there lately?"
Occhietti had no time to teach engineering school. The local faculty were always asking him, but.... “Look, then you can't be Satan! You're some crazy kid who's possessed by Satan. You are a wizard, right?"
"Of course I'm a wizard! This is Turin."
"Well, what kind of necromancer are you, black or white?"
"Those are yesterday's outdated divisions! I'm not a ‘necromancer,’ for I don't draw any power from the dead! I'm a ‘biomancer.’ I'm Green."
"You can't be Green. That is not metaphysically possible. You can only be Black or White."
"Well, despite your aging, Cold War-style metaphysics, I am a Green wizard. I am Green, and you, sir, are Brown. You don't have to take my word for that. Go to Brussels and ask around about the Kyoto Accords! Any modern Eurocrat can tell you: left, right, black, white—that's all deader than Nineveh! In a climate crisis, you're Global Green or you're crisp brown toast in a hellish wasteland!"
Occhietti blinked. “A ‘hellish wasteland.’”
"Yes,” said the Green wizard soberly, “all of Earth will become Hell, all of it; if we continue in our current lives of sin, that's just a matter of time."
Occhietti said nothing.
"So,” said the Green wizard cheerfully, “now that we have those scientific facts firmly established, let's get down to policy particulars! How much are you willing to give me?"
"What?"
"How many millions? How many hundreds of millions? I have to reinvent your transportation company. On tomorrow's Green principles! Every energy company must also be reinvented. In order to become Green, like futurity, like me, me, me—you have to cannibalize all your present profit centers. You must seek out radically disruptive, transformed, Green business practices. All the smart operators already know there's no choice in that matter—even the Chinese, Saudis, and Indians get that by now, so I can't believe a modish Italian company like yours would be backward and stodgy about it! So, Signore Occhietti, how much? Pony up!"
Occhietti scratched at his head. He discovered two numb patches on his scalp. Hard, numb patches.
He had grown horns.
Occhietti buffed the talons of his fingertips against the ugly lapel of his suit. “From me,” he said, “you will get nothing."
"How much?"
"I told you: nothing. Not ten Euro cents. Not one dollar, yen, ruble, rupee, or yuan.” Occhietti put the paper-wrapped bundle onto the kitchen table. “I still control my corporation's venture capital. As a loyal employee: I refuse you. I refuse to underwrite my company's destruction at your hands. I don't care if it's white, black, brown, green, or paisley: nothing for you. I have too much pride."
Using a small but very sharp fruit knife, Occhietti cut the strings and peeled the paper away.
The Green wizard stared. “Is that what I think it is?"
Occhietto plucked the barbed tail from the loosening seat of his pants. He sat at the kitchen table. He crossed his hooves. He nodded.
"But the Grail is just some cheap clay cup!"
"He was never a Pope, you know. He was a Jewish carpenter."
Occhietti's kitchen filled with the butcher's scent of fresh blood.
"I suppose that you expect me to drink from that primitive thing! It's made by hand! Look how blurry those black and white lines are."
"No, you won't drink from the Grail,” said Occhietti serenely. “Because you've never had the guts. I've heard fools like you trying to destroy my industry for the past fifty years! While the rest of us were changing this world—transforming it, for good or ill—you never achieved one single, useful, practical thing! I was at the side of the Lord of Turin, breaking laws and rules like breadsticks, while you were lost in some drug-addled haze, about peace, or love, or whales, or any other useless fad that struck your fancy."
Occhietti grinned. “But to ‘save the world'—you would have to rip across this miserable planet like Napoleon. A savior, a conqueror, a redeemer, and a champion might do that—but never the likes of you. Because you're feeble, you're squeamish, and you lack all conviction. You're a limp-wristed, multi-culti weak sister who does nothing but lobby nonexistent world governments."
"Actually, there's a great deal of truth in that indictment, sir! Our efforts to raise consciousness have often fallen sadly short!"
"And that's another thing: being neither black nor white, you're always pitifully eager to agree with your own worst enemies."
"That's because I'm a secular rationalist with an excellent record in human rights, sir. Grant me this much: I am innocent! I'm not eager to submerge our world in a tide of blood, building my New Order on a heap of corpses."
Occhietti smiled. “And you call yourself European?"
"That remark is truly diabolical! Why are you tempting me? I represent tomorrow—as you know!—and I'm as capable of evil as you. You know well that, once I taste the blood in that cup, there will be hell to pay! You should never have offered me that. Why do that? Why?"
What did he gain by offering the Grail? Necessity.
The Grail was a necessity: beyond good and evil. The Grail was an instrument. An instrument was not a moral actor, it did nothing of its own accord. Some engineer had to make instruments.
The Grail was the cup of the sacramental feast, and also the cup of judicial murder. Those two cups, the blackly good and whitely evil, were the very same checkered cup.
That cup had been carried hot-foot from the table of the Final Supper, and straight to Golgotha.
So who built the Holy Grail? Some fixer. Only one man, one necessary man, could have known the time and place of both events. That man was a trusted Apostle; the most esoteric Apostle. Judas; the two-faced Judas, the wizardly magus Judas, he of the bag of cash.
"You are only playing for time, and the time is up,” said Occhietti. “The calendar never stops, and treason is a matter of dates.” He shoved the ancient cup across the table. “Do you drink, or don't you?"
Department: FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE
BOOKS-MAGAZINES
S-F FANTASY MAGAZINES, pulps, books, fanzines. 96 page catalog. $5.00. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853
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20-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $4.00 or $40 for 12 issues, checks only. Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.
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Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues. Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.
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Latest from RAMBLE HOUSE: The Triune Man by Richard A. Lupoff and Automaton, a 1928 essay on robotics. www.ramblehouse.com 318-455-6847
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Comic Books for sale! Write to: Gary Duncan, 143 Hanover St., Apt. B, Aberdeen, MD 21001
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The Ring of Knowledge delivers! Visit: www.eloquentbooks.com/TheRingOf Knowledge.html
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SPANKING STORIES: For a 38 page catalog, send $3 to CF Publications, POB 706F, Setauket, NY 11733
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Sci-fi/Romance magazine. Matchmaker service. SASE for details. COSMIC CUPID, POB 383, Cookeville, TN 38503-0383.
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For a taste of Harvey Jacobs’ new novel, Side Effects, check out www.celadonpress.com.
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The Visitors. $14.95 Check/MO
OhlmBooks Publications
Box 125
Walsenburg CO 81089
www.ohlmbooks.com www.ohlmbooks.blogspot.com
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Do you have Fourth Planet from the Sun yet? Signed hardcover copies are still available. Only $17.95 ppd from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
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SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The first 58 F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman and illustrated with cartoons. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
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MISCELLANEOUS
If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. www.undoingstress.com
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Support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Visit www.carlbrandon.org for more information on how to contribute.
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The Jamie Bishop Scholarship in Graphic Arts was established to honor the memory of this artist. Help support it. Send donations to: Advancement Services, LaGrange College, 601 Broad Street, LaGrange, GA 30240
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American Gals—follow the adventures of Bobbi Grant, Maggie Jones, and Jane West as they find love and laughter in the wacky world of telemarketing.
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Space Studies Masters degree. Accredited University program. Campus and distance classes. For details visit www.space.edu.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction. Sponsored by Rosebud Magazine. $1000 for first prize and $100 award for 4 runners-up. Guidelines at www.rsbd.net
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Dragon, Fairy & Medieval decor and collectibles. Huge selection of statues, swords, wall plaques and more. www.paperstreetgift co.com
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F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
Department: CURIOSITIES: THE COMING RACE, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1870)
In 1870, Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote The Coming Race, a science fiction novel based on the “hollow earth” theory, which was then the topic of serious debate in many countries. Bulwer-Lytton created a world beneath the surface peopled by a superior race known as the Vril-ya. Their civilization was powered by a multi-purpose energy source called Vril, derived from the Black Sun, which radiated at the center of the Earth. After an unknown hero from the surface accidentally discovered their world, he soon became enthralled by the Vril-ya and their technologically advanced culture. In the end, he wondered what would happen to humanity if the Vril-ya ever decided to explore the surface of the world.
Bulwer-Lytton is best known today as the author of that infamous phrase, “It was a dark and stormy night....” Despite his florid writing style, his novel remained popular into the twentieth century. In fact, some saw it as more than just a story. In Berlin, Germany, its followers included the Vril Society, the Vril Lodge, and the Society for Truth, which was formed specifically for the purpose of finding Vril. When the Nazis sprang into power, they reportedly tried to prepare for an eventual meeting with the Vril-ya by training German youth to become “Supermen.” Today, a belief lingers that the Nazis discovered a passageway to the underground world, gaining access to superior technology that was used during the war. In 2001, Kevin and Matthew Taylor wrote The Land of No Horizon, about the possible existence of life beneath the surface, while a website, www.thehollowearthinsider.com, weighs modern scientific concepts against early theories about the Earth.
—Patricia A. Martinelli
Poetry: OBSOLETE THEORIES by Sophie M. White
If Welteislehre is correct,
Our all-ice moon inches closer
Until it kisses our atmosphere,
Flooding us with water volumes
Unseen since Noah's day.
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If the Expanding Earth theory is right,
Our world gets more and more obese
As new crust erupts from mid-ocean ridges
And no material returns to the magma.
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If these are true,
Which would happen first?
Will we feel the moon's chilly kiss,
Or will our bloating home
Bump into the ice?
Department: COMING ATTRACTIONS
Next month marks our sixtieth anniversary, our diamond jubilee, the big six-oh. How will we celebrate it? Why, how good of you to ask!
We'll have new stories by Carol Emshwiller, Ron Goulart, Joe Haldeman, and Kate Wilhelm. New novelets by Elizabeth Hand, Charles Oberndorf, M. Rickert, and Robert Silverberg. We'll have a new novella by Lucius Shepard. We'll have columns and cartoons and a David Hardy cover and a few surprises....
In short, we plan to bring you a whopping big issue packed with everything that makes F&SF the magazine it is (and has been since 1949). Subscribe now and you'll get this big anniversary issue—and we've got lots of great stories lined up for the subsequent issues, too!
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Visit www.fsfmag.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.