Hygelac barked more orders as he hefted the cannon with his muscular arms. He was making them row faster and faster. But why?
And then Johnsmith saw what the Geatish chieftain was up to. They were rowing the Ship more swiftly than the disjunctive node was moving through this strange world. Soon they would be at the node's edge, and then they would fall off!
Johnsmith stopped rowing, but nobody objected. They all shipped their oars a moment later, and the ornately carved dragon's head prow drifted toward the edge.
This couldn't be happening! Johnsmith thought of Smitty's tender flesh being torn apart by those monsters below, and he charged toward the port end of the Ship.
"Hygelac!" he screamed. "What are you doing?"
But Hygelac waved him away and concentrated on watching the edge of the disjunctive node. It was a dark, cloudy curve in front of him as the Ship drifted ever closer.
Johnsmith stood on the deck, aware now that it was too late. He knew that if he continued to make a fuss, the gangers would hold him down and cut his lungs out, a common Norse punishment for cowardice. Besides, they would be toppling into the monsters' world any second now. He watched silently as the Ship sailed toward oblivion. But just a few meters from the end, Hygelac grunted something in his guttural tongue, and all of the gangers on the starboard side dipped their oars in the water.
The Ship banked, sending Johnsmith reeling. He fell to his knees painfully as the Ship's port side skirted the very edge of the disjunctive node.
Cackling like a madman, Hygelac pointed the particle beam cannon at the creatures who peered up at him. He cut them down like Thor tossing thunderbolts at his enemies. His gangers cheered him on as he killed monster after monster, alien bodily fluids rushing out as alien skin was burned away in neat slices. Hygelac was having a field day.
"Wow!" Smitty shouted. "He's great. He's the Geat with the heat!"
At that moment, the top of the node opened like an enormous iris.
"WHAT THE HELL is going on?" Johnsmith asked in a perfectly calm voice.
Nobody answered him. They were all too busy gawking up, as the opening at the top of the disjunctive node widened, to pay attention to questions for which they had no answers.
A gigantic shape loomed in the nothingness beyond the opening. It was bifurcated, like a wishbone—but it would have had to come from a turkey the size of an Interplan ship.
The two pointed ends of the intruding object seized the sides of the Ship. The oarsmen were heaved into one another as the entire vessel was lifted out of the water by the gargantuan tweezers.
"Dad!" Smitty screamed.
Johnsmith put his arms around Smitty to protect him, and they passed through the dome of the disjunctive node into yet another world.
The Ship was set on a vast, perfectly flat plain. It should have listed, but it didn't; the deck was level. They looked around in silence. Other than a few perpendicular shapes decorating the stark landscape, there was nothing much to see. The place was clean and still, its color metallic, its few features decorative rather than natural. The two-pronged device that had plucked them out of the monsters' world was nowhere to be seen.
"Where are we, Hi?" Johnsmith asked.
Hi shrugged. "I've never been here before."
"Maybe Hygelac can tell us," Smitty suggested.
Hi tried to find out what Hygelac knew, gesticulating and using the few Geatish words he had picked up since he had been aboard the Ship.
"He thinks he's gone to Valhalla," Hi said. "He's certain that we must all have died in battle, and now we're about to meet Odin."
"Dad!" Smitty pointed to a tiny dot on the horizon.
Everyone watched as the dot shimmered and grew larger. It took on the shape of a man. When Johnsmith realized just who it was, he jumped over the side and ran across the cushiony ground toward him.
"Dad!" Johnsmith shouted. "Dad! What are you doing here?"
It was indeed his father, dead twenty years and yet alive, who Johnsmith saw. The same thinning hair, the slight paunch, the business vacutites—there could be no doubt that it was Harald Biberkopf.
Johnsmith stopped running just before he reached his father. They did not embrace; that had never been their way. They did, however, smile at each other.
"Dad," Johnsmith said breathlessly, "it's sure good to see you."
"Good to see you, too, Johnny." The voice was just as Johnsmith remembered it, refined but not stuffy. His father had been a man who read books. Real books. He had been considered a crackpot by his neighbors, but that had never bothered him.
"How did you get here?" Johnsmith asked. "I mean . . ."
"I know what you mean. I died when I was only forty-five. As you can see, though, death isn't the end."
"But you were cremated."
"True, but that was only a body, while my essence—soul, if you like—rattled around out in the cosmos until there was some use for me. It was easy for them to recreate my body."
"Them?"
"I'm talking about the ones who are really running things," Harald Biberkopf said. "Gods, maybe, or superintelligent aliens. I guess it all depends on how you look at it."
"I see." Then maybe Hygelac was right. Maybe this
was
Valhalla, in a very real sense. And maybe it was heaven for him and Smitty.
"I want you to meet your grandson," Johnsmith said. "He's right over there."
But when he turned around to point at the Ship, it had vanished.
"Where are they?" he asked, beginning to panic.
"Don't worry," his father said, withdrawing a cigar from his breast pocket. "They're safe."
"But Smitty . . ."
"You'll see him again. By the way, do you have a match?"
"No."
Harald looked bemused. He put the cigar away and said: "All this killing is very bad."
"You mean those monsters back there?" Johnsmith said. "But they were attacking."
"What nonsense. They were just curious."
"They surrounded the ship!"
"Well, they're stuck in that place, most of them for the rest of their lives. Any diversion will do. They didn't know how vicious those Vikings are." He looked at Johnsmith sternly. "But son, I'm a little disappointed in you. I never thought you'd turn out to be a killer."
"Dad . . ." But what could he say? He had enjoyed himself, blasting away at them with the particle beam cannon. He felt a deep shame now.
"Well, the Conglom has trained you for violence," his father said. "But it's over now."
"You mean I'll never have to go back to Mars, or that place where the monsters are?"
"That's right. By the way, son, do you know why those so-called monsters are in that place?"
So-called? Johnsmith remembered that the monsters made themselves scarce after the shooting started. "No. Why? What is that place?" he asked.
"It's an asylum. You were killing harmless mental patients."
"Oh, no!" He had been butchering troubled, intelligent beings. How would he ever live it down? But perhaps there was a historical precedent. Had Grendel been a patient who swam through the disjunctive node and ended up in Denmark during the Dark Ages, only to be killed by a savage Geat in a strange, new world?
"Anyhow," Harald went on, "the beings who run things were pretty upset with you and your friends going on a killing spree, especially in a place where the inmates need peace and quiet more than anything."
"Jesus." Johnsmith shook his head "I didn't know. It's a heavy responsibility to bear."
"Yes, it is. Which brings us to your wife. What do you want to do about her?"
"Then she's still alive?"
"In a manner of speaking."
Johnsmith refrained from asking what that comment meant.
"Well," Harald asked again, "have you decided what you want to do with Ronindella?"
"How come it's up to me?" Johnsmith said, temporizing.
"Because this is
your
universe," his Dad said.
"My universe? I don't get it."
"Ontologically speaking, this whole adventure could have started when you were under the influence of an onee. Maybe even your first onee experience."
"Do you mean to tell me that I've just imagined all of this? That it's all one long hallucination?"
"Possibly."
Johnsmith's mind reeled. If he was hallucinating, then all he had to do was disengage the onee from his nervous system by dropping it. He looked down at his hands, seeing that there was nothing in them. In fact, he was still wearing his pressure suit, with its heavy gloves. "But I'm not using an onee," he said.
"How do you know what?" Harald asked. "You could be hallucinating that you're not holding one, while you're actually under the influence."
"Yeah, I guess I could." Johnsmith felt despondent. Out of all the universes he could have created, why did he have to live in one that was so depressing?
"So what about Ronindella," his Dad asked.
"Oh, let her get married to Ryan."
"Ryan's working in a lunar pit. You had him sent there, because you were angry at him."
"Did I?" Come to think of it, he had dreamed about Ryan being sent to Luna. "Well, let them both go back to Earth and get married. They deserve each other."
Harald nodded sagely. "And Felicia?"
"Let her marry Alderdice," Johnsmith said, feeling malicious.
"That's a good idea," Harald said. "Better than you might realize. Of course, one of them will have to get a sex change. I think it would be best if it was Felicia. Her hormonal imbalance will improve."
"Can you get Hi a new Interplan ship?"
"No problem."
"What about the Geats?" Johnsmith asked.
His Dad grinned. "We'll send them to Valhalla."
"Good."
"Anybody else you care about?"
"That leaves only Smitty II and Frankie," Johnsmith said. "I'd like to have them with me."
"Fine. Where do you want to live?"
Johnsmith thought it over. "Not on Earth, because the planet is too far gone. Not on Mars, either . . .and Luna and the Belt are out of the question."
"You aren't restricted to the solar system. You can have any world you want."
"In the whole galaxy?" Johnsmith was incredulous.
"I told you they run the whole thing." Harald shrugged. "Or maybe you do. In either case, you can have any world in any galaxy. You can make up a new one, if you like."
"Fantastic!" But he couldn't seem to decide what kind of world he wanted.
Harald looked at his watch. It was a purely symbolic gesture, of course, since time no longer had any meaning.
"Okay, Dad," Johnsmith said. "I'll leave it up to you. Surprise me."
"You're sure you don't want to pick one out?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"All right, then." Harald Biberkopf turned and walked away, receding in size with unnatural rapidity.
"Dad, come back," Johnsmith called after him. Their visit was too short. Way too short.
"Can't, son. I've got to go see your brother." His voice was distant. "So long."
He was soon a shimmering point on the horizon. And then he vanished.
"Dad . . ." Johnsmith stared at the place where his father had winked out of existence. He felt tears come to his eyes at the thought of his brother existing somewhere in the continuum. He hadn't seen Eddie in twenty-one years. He wanted to see him now, wearing his spit and polish Conglom Marines uniform, but he supposed that he'd have to be patient. All things were possible, so maybe he'd bump into Eddie sooner or later.
But where would he go now? What would he do? He sat down on the soft ground and thought about all he'd been through, and all he had learned.
Unable to keep his eyes open, Johnsmith decided not to fight his exhaustion. As he dozed, the brave new world where he had talked to his dead father faded.
He was awakened by birdsong. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He saw a naked boy playing in the gentle surf of an ocean. Slowly, Johnsmith realized that he wasn't wearing any clothing, either. A mild sun warmed the sand cradling his body. It was not Sol, the sun of Earth, but it was similar. It seemed a little more orange, but its rays felt good, not harmful . . .nurturing.
Sitting up, he looked around. A slender, smiling woman was coming toward him, her hips swaying gently as she passed through the shade of a violet tree. She carried a straw basket full of fish, crustaceans, and berries. He had never seen her naked in the light before, though he knew her lovely body intimately. She came and sat next to him in the sand, and it seemed as though this pleasant life had been going on forever.
"He picked a good world," Johnsmith said.
"Who?" Frankie asked.
Of course, she didn't understand what he was talking about. This was
his
world, and Frankie wouldn't know about his meeting with his father. It was just as well. The memory was already drifting away. "I was just talking to myself, I guess."
Smitty II came running out of the surf. He was carrying a strange mollusk that was indigenous to this world, and he showed it off to Johnsmith and Frankie.
Frankie smiled and tousled the boy's damp hair.
"That's great, son," Johnsmith said. And he meant it, too.
They made a fire at sunset. While they were cooking their sea food, Johnsmith looked out over the sea, where blue and green curved onto a scarlet horizon. For the merest moment, he thought he saw a ship . . .a long ship with an ornately carved dragon prow.
"Is something wrong?" Frankie asked.
"No, I guess not," he said after a moment.
He turned away from the sea and put his arms around his loved ones, kissing them both before they all sat down in the sand to eat.