“So what are you going to do now? Continue your search?” asked the priest hopefully.
“Yes, but first I must talk with God. Do you mind if I use your church for a moment?”
On a previous occasion when Manuel had made such a request, Dad Ose had become involved in a futile argument. Now he had learned his lesson. “Certainly, Manuel,” he said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Thank you.” Manuel passed through into the dim interior and Dad Ose followed, smiling to himself. He knew what was going to happen next. Manuel — that naive young fool — walked confidently to the vestry door and addressed the Almighty as though he were a friendly neighbor.
“Are you there, God?”
And Dad Ose’s smile broadened as the reply came: “I am here, Manuel. How can I help you?” It was a quiet voice, little more than a whisper, but Dad Ose was close enough to hear it. On the previous occasion he had
not
been close enough, and had, to his shame, panicked when it appeared that Manuel was listening to a ghostly voice that he, the priest, in his own church, could not hear.
“I did
everything you said, God,” said Manuel, “but I didn’t find Belinda. Once I thought I had, but it turned out she was just a figment of my imagination. I went to a place called Dream Earth, where if you wish for something, it happens. And, well … I wished, without realizing it. And there she was, just as I remembered her. Then she was gone. Will I ever see her again?” His voice became urgent. “I have to know!”
“You will see Belinda again,” came the whisper.
“When?”
“In the Ifalong, when the Triad is reunited.”
“The Triad? That’s what you call me and Zozula and the Girl, isn’t it?”
“In the Ifalong, which is all the happentracks of what you call the future, the minstrels will sing of you, Manuel. The Triad will become famous throughout all the human peoples, right down to the Dying Years. They will sing of the Artist and the Oldster and the Girl-with-no-Name, who will be heroes in their spoken-and-sung history — the Song of Earth. You will defeat the Bale Wolves and remove the Hate Bombs, thus ending the Ten Thousand Years’ Incarceration of Starquin, the Almighty Five-in-One.”
“Well, fine. But when will I see Belinda?”
“Very soon, after the Triad is reunited.”
“Are you telling me I have to join up with those two again? The Girl … well, she’s fine. But Zozula is a pompous old ass.”
“On many happentracks the Triad will not be reunited. The Girl will remain a neotenite for the rest of her life, Zozula will die in the service of the Dome — and you, Manuel, will never see Belinda again.”
“Happentracks are all the possible ways things might happen?”
“That is true. They are infinite, diverging and multiplying from any given instant.”
“So you’re threatening me. If I don’t join up with those two, I won’t see Belinda.”
“I don’t threaten, Manuel. I foretell the Ifalong. It’s your choice which happentrack you follow. And since there are an infinite number of Manuels, you will follow an infinite number of happentracks. I have pointed out the most advantageous.”
“Advantageous
for who?”
“For the almighty Starquin. You are simply my tool, Manuel. You will find the situation has certain benefits.”
“Well, thanks,” said Manuel, annoyed, turning away abruptly and almost colliding with Dad Ose. Together they walked outside.
“Well?” asked the priest.
“I must do some more searching. It’s very complicated, Dad. You wouldn’t understand.”
The priest was nursing a secret smile. “I wouldn’t understand? Me, foolish old Dad Ose? Well, Manuel my son, let me tell you one thing I do understand.
You have not been listening to the word of God
. You have made an arrogant and stupid assumption. Tell me this: Do you really think God would bother with you, a young beachcomber from Pu’este? God has more pressing problems, I assure you.”
“Maybe he hasn’t. After all, you heard him, too. I know you were listening.”
“What I heard, Manuel,” said the priest, slowly and distinctly, “was an old woman standing outside my church and talking to you through the cracks in the wall. Not God. Not an almighty voice from above. Just an old woman who has nothing better to do. No.” He held up his hand as Manuel was about to contradict him. “I know this for a fact. The last time you spoke to God — as you call it — I saw her walking away. I was going to apprehend her, when I was interrupted.”
“By Wise Ana?”
“She is not wise, she is just a storekeeper. But yes, she happened along, and the old woman got away. How did you know?”
Manuel just nodded absently, his expression thoughtful.
“Listen, my son, if you don’t believe what I’m saying, I’ll bring you proof. You and I will talk to this old witch together!”
“I’d rather not, Dad.”
“Well, by God, I’ll bring her to you!” Furious, the priest stalked off on skinny legs, his robe flapping in the wind. Ever since the last occasion, he’d been looking forward to confronting the old crone who had the gall to impersonate God. He could hardly blame Manuel — the boy was at an impressionable age — but this was just the kind of nonsense that gave religion a bad name and converted people to cloud worship. Rounding the corner rapidly, he gave a shout of triumph.
“I knew it! I knew
it!”
An elderly woman stood there. She was dressed in a long black cloak with a cowl that fell across her face, so that he could not see her eyes. She stood unnaturally still, and if Dad Ose had been a little more observant and a little less triumphant, he would have noticed that her cloak hung in motionless folds, unaffected by the wind that sang among the stones of the church.
And he might have been more careful.
“I’ve got you this time,” he exulted. “Now you can do some explaining, old woman. What do you mean by filling the minds of my people with your nonsense? What kind of sacrilege is this, impersonating God? Who are you, anyway?”
“My name is Shenshi.” The voice was dead and expressionless. “Remember that. The rest, you may be happy to forget.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Dad Ose was still panting from his sprint. “Now talk. Why do you pretend to speak the word of God?”
“Because I am God.”
“You? God?” Amazed by her temerity, the priest struggled for words.
“In a manner of speaking.”
She’s crazy
, thought Dad Ose.
A poor crazy old woman. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. One must have compassion
. He searched within himself for the appropriate emotion, and the Macrobes helped him.
“I feel sorry for you, Shenshi,” he said eventually.
“You really don’t have to.”
“Let me give you the advice of one who has lived for almost five hundred years and seen much.”
“I’ve lived for almost one hundred and fifty thousand years.”
“God is an old, old man riding a horse cloud. He is normally good and kind, but if anyone ever takes his name in vain, by God he smashes them. So I advise you to be careful whose name you take, Shenshi. God is everywhere, listening.” He tapped the stonework. “Walls have ears.”
“You profess to many religions, Dad Ose. Have you ever heard of the Blessed Shu-Sho?”
Dad Ose had. According to the Sacred Tapes, the Blessed Shu-Sho had come into prominence in the 80th millennium, performing miracles and sparking a religious revival. And now he came to think of it, giving Mankind the Rock symbol, one of which hung around his neck at this very moment. “I’ve heard of her,” he said, smiling.
“She was my mother.”
“What!” This was too much. Compassion can only be taken so far. The old woman deserved to be thrashed for such heresy. Dad Ose found himself stepping forward, his intentions not entirely clear, but certainly with a view to laying a rough hand on this disgraceful old hag.
And something obstructed him.
Almost blind with temper, he bumped into a solid object that deflected his hand, then brought him to a sudden stop. It seemed to be some kind of a column covered with thick, coarse hair.
A drop of moisture fell on Dad Ose’s head. He brushed it off, puzzled. It was warm and slightly viscid. Shenshi appeared to be standing in some kind of a large cage, surrounded by these dark columns — eight of them. Dad Ose shook his head, suddenly feeling dizzy. What was happening? Where had the columns come from?
He looked up.
The columns canted over and joined around the edges of a hairy canopy about seven meters off the ground and almost as high as the church roof. Fluid dripped from one side of it. And now Dad Ose realized that the fluid fell vertically through the wind and that Shenshi’s robe was still, whereas his own flapped erratically around his legs — and at last he felt a twinge of alarm.
Then the canopy moved, and he could see the joints and the segments. And his mind snapped into focus, and he realized that Shenshi stood directly beneath a monstrous spider. The fluid was dripping from the creature’s jaws as it began to stoop toward him.
Bawling with horror, he flung himself to the ground. He drew his knees up to his body and covered his head with his arms and felt another drop of moisture fall onto the back of his hand. It began to eat at his flesh, corrosively.
He heard Shenshi say, “I’m sorry you had to meet Arachne.”
“Make it go away!”
“She’s gone. She only comes when she’s needed. She’s not needed now, I think. I’ve sent her back to her home happen-track. Stand up, Dad Ose, and forget about it.”
Dad Ose stood and forgot.
*
He rejoined Manuel at the church entrance. The young man was gazing north, where the giant shape of the Dome rose from the plain, dominating the valley, tall as the distant mountains and crowned with clouds. Man-made and ancient, it was an unquestioned feature of the landscape. Manuel was the only inhabitant of Pu’este who had ever been inside it, and now it looked as though he might have to enter it again, because Zozula and the Girl lived in there, and God’s word was law …
“Well?” asked Manuel.
“There was nobody there,” admitted the priest.
“I knew there wouldn’t be. What have you done to your hand?”
Dad Ose glanced at the angry burn. “I spilled some hot wine on it yesterday.”
“I’ll leave you now, Dad. Thanks for letting me use your church.”
“I hope you find Belinda, Manuel. It’s time you had a steady girl. Maybe she’ll cure this wanderlust of yours.”
At that moment the clouds around the Dome swirled suddenly, and a peculiar phenomenon occurred. Neither Manuel nor Dad Ose could actually say they
saw
a flash of bright light from near the apex of the Dome, but they could both truthfully say that they
remembered
such a flash. It was a fairly common occurrence, believed to be caused by the sneeze of the fire god, Agni.
“Bless
you, Agni,”
responded
Dad Ose.
“No,” said Manuel, who knew better. “That was the Celestial Steam Locomotive.”
“The what?”
“Never mind,” said Manuel, knowing it would take too long to explain and that Dad Ose wouldn’t believe him anyway.
T
he Domes were designed to last as
long as Earth itself; they are still out there now — huge and silent, but not quite empty. Their populations have fluctuated over the ages — and changed, too. They were built around the middle of the 56th millennium, in response to a growing demand for passive entertainment, and some people, even back then, spent their life from the cradle to the grave in the Domes, being entertained.
If that seems a trivial purpose for such gigantic structures, remember this: During the Great Retreat caused by the Nine Thousand Years’ Ice Age, the Domes provided safe havens for the remnants of the human race. And as the Earth grew older, the Domes gave shelter from another disaster: the dwindling of the atmosphere’s oxygen, due to the extinction of most species of oceanic photosynthesizers.
So the purpose of the Domes had changed as Mankind itself had changed. Now only a handful of people — known as Wild Humans — were adapted to the thin air outside the Domes. The majority of humans lived inside them, sustained by solar power and the life-support systems built millennia ago.
But they — the Dome’s inhabitants — had changed too.
*
A raccoon-nurse brought Zozula the news.
“Another of the
neotenites has died. I’m so sorry, Zozula.” She was crying. Like all Specialists in the Dome, she was devoted to the sleeping humans in her charge and took the occasional death as a reflection on her competence.
“It wasn’t your fault. Were there any symptoms?”
“No. He just … died. It was completely unexpected.”
“It’s the fourteenth death in three days.”
“I know. I know.” The nurse made little washing movements with her hands.
“I’ll call a special meeting of the Cuidadors,” said Zozula. “And I’ll check the normal mortality rate with the Rainbow. This may be nothing unusual; perhaps mortality goes in cycles.”
“Our own lives are short,” said the nurse, gratefully. “We don’t know these things.”
“I’m sure we’ll find the answer,” said Zozula with a confidence he did not feel.
The meeting of Cuidadors took place one day later in the Rainbow Room. The Cuidadors were True Humans, custodians of the Dome, sometimes called Keepers.
Sharp-tongued Juni was there, and Postune the engineer. Pallatha the agriculturalist sat next to Ebus the psychologist. Shrewd Helmet, the electrician, murmured to Selena the zobiologist and geneticist, who had come from the People Planet specially for the meeting.
Zozula called the meeting to order. “Fellow Cuidadors,” he began formally, “I hardly need to remind you of our sworn duty, but recent events make it appropriate. We are here in this Dome — as were our ancestors — for the sole purpose of looking after ten thousand sleeping human beings, who cannot be awakened because their bodies have evolved into a form unsuitable for normal life Outside.”
They didn’t know what had gone wrong with the breeding program, so long ago. They inherited the pathetic creatures they called neotenites, and from time to time Selena replaced them when they got sick and it seemed they might die. But meanwhile their minds were immortal, living on in that part of the Rainbow called Dream Earth. Their duty was to work toward the day when they were able to set the breeding program right, produce True Human bodies for all those minds, and repeople the Earth.