The War of Immensities (70 page)

“Who guards the
stones when he dies?”

“The stones
will fall when he dies.”

“Might I
suggest a bomb?”

“Perhaps
Professor Thyssen can arrange for Fujiyama to erupt and bring the
stones down on the old man.”

“I’m sure he
would, if he was here.”

Wagner walked
across the uneven platform and knelt once more beside the old
man.

“Die, you old
bastard,” he said grimly.

The old man
turned his kindly eyes upon him and spoke. There were tears in
those eyes. Smoke from the brazier was getting in Wagner’s eyes
too. The captain, standing over them, translated.

“He promises
that he will die before dawn on Monday, as you wish.”

“You mean he
understood what I said?” Wagner asked in slight shock.

“A dog would
have understood what you said.”

Wagner bowed
his head and raised himself to his feet. Reaching down, he touch
the old man’s bald head lightly. The old man raised a hand and
closed it over his. And then he spoke again.

“There has been
too much death,” the captain translated. “It hardens every heart.
Everyone he ever knew is dead. Every hour, he says to himself
exactly what you said to him, in exactly the same tone. Every hour,
he prays to die. He will make a special effort now, because it is
so important that he be dead.”

“Tell him thank
you. The lives of many depend on it.”

“He knows that.
He is sure he will be dead by Monday.”

Wagner withdrew
his hand. It was tacky with sweat from the old man’s diseased
scalp. Sickened by that thought, Wagner strode out of the
temple.

Twenty-four
hours had passed since Glen Palenski vanished with a shrug and a
smile through a doorway on the far side of the room, and throughout
that time, Thyssen was completely alone. A prisoner in fact, in
what amounted to a technological torture chamber. All around the
room, the virtual planet earth rotated on its screen saver axis,
except at those times when temptation had overwhelmed him and he
went to work on one of the terminals.

Everything he
ever dreamed of and ever needed was in this room as if it had been
designed especially for him, which, in an indirect way, it had. No
one disturbed him, but he knew in the end someone would. He
presumed that his every movement and action was being observed and
recorded, by the cameras that peered down from every corner, via
the computer system. He assumed he was unable to leave but, after a
time, when no one appeared, he checked it out thoroughly. First he
went around the room and explored every panel. He went to the
toilet and found it windowless. He examined the food dispenser—it
had enough in there to sustain him for months. He sat at a terminal
and searched out the plans of the building, the air conditioning
system, the ceiling space and cable ducts. There was no way
out.

Between times,
he kept the monitoring system running. A map of The Congo indicated
Andromeda’s current position and he went down through the levels
until he arrived at a satellite image that showed the fractionally
mobile blob of body heat that was her vast legions of pilgrims.
There was a list with every name. They had covered 833km since the
trek began, four months ago and 117 individuals had died for
various reasons since then—mostly aged souls, or children from
illness, and three taken by leopards. The map continually
calculated their rate of progress and made predictions of where
they would be when, at their present rate of progress. Thyssen was
carefully not to pay any heed to the final location. He
determinedly showed no satisfaction that they were right on
schedule.

While he was
there, the ship transporting the Italians arrived in Rio de Javier
and he could put up the complete passenger manifest, all in
alphabetical order except for Brian Carrick who was at the top of
the list. A touch of the screen brought up his personal details. It
recorded assault charges and classified him as `approach with
caution’. Brian would have loved to have know that. While he ran
down the manifest, Thyssen was doubly pleased to note the name of
Fabrini, Giacanni; in its rightful alphabetical place, which was
great because Thyssen happened to know Fabrini was not on the ship
but already in Brazil, having flown there directly after a not very
mysterious detour to Rome.

At times lights
flashed and he eventually realised it meant that new data had
arrived concerning his team. A news report of the siege of
Bakersfield, where the FBI had the pilgrims surrounded and
officials warned of a feared massacre or mass suicide. Of Lorna,
there was nothing to be seen whereas, you could bet, if they were
to permit her to appear on camera, she would certainly do so.
Apparently, the news report revolved around the fact that a meeting
seemed to be going on in the football stadium and everyone was
there. Helicopter shots showed the crowd pouring in. The FBI chiefs
thought that portentous. Nobody mentioned the most vital piece of
information—whereas last time the Californian pilgrims headed
north, this time they would be wanting to go south.

Over by the
wall was a couch that was exceedingly comfortable, and there, for a
good deal of the time, Thyssen slept. He found he slept more these
days, as if he had used up all of his last reserves of energy. He
slept, he ate, he eliminated and went back to play more with the
computer, and toy with his masters, sensing their frustration
growing. Did they really expect that he would be foolish enough to
give away his secrets? Did they truly hope temptation would
overwhelm him and he would utilise this system to work out his next
prediction, thus revealing to them his methods? Actually, if that
was their plan, it was a pretty good one. For to sit here, playing
with these wonderful toys, seemed to Thyssen to be just a bit
childish. Stubborn refusal to give in when his own vision of
paradise lay at hand. And what harm could it do anyway? He was
beginning to wonder who indeed was the drongo in the end.

His disgust was
immeasurable. 633 only marginally legal Italian immigrants had
passed through the officialdom and entered Brazil, the authorities
not raising an eyebrow. Twenty other dubious passengers and crewmen
from the ship were admitted with only the merest glance at their
documentation. Across the barrier, a hunted murderer—of a cardinal
no less—stood with a broad welcoming grin. Of them all, only one
individual was stopped—the only one of them all who possessed a
completely legal passport and visa.

“Would you be
good enough to step in here please, Mr. Carrick.”

Most days, for
most of the day, Andromeda marched at the head of her flock, loping
along with the same easy stride they did, dressed in a baggy
colourful robes that flowed back from the outline of her body, her
hair in a band typical of that which all of the women wore. More
often than not, she received visitors who could join her as long as
they were willing to walk beside her. Journalists came and did
interviews, the camera crews bravely marched backwards over unknown
ground for she would permit neither rehearsals nor retakes.

Government
officials of all kinds came to discuss documentation or plans.
Often Captain Maynard strode beside her in his rolling sailor’s
gait, making his bi-daily reports and expressing his concerns about
the conditions ahead. His job had been made much easier now by the
co-operation of the Government of the Republic of The Congo, who
saw the pilgrims as a much needed tourist attraction, as well as a
bargaining chip in international trade negotiations.

The President
of the Republic had taken a personal interest in the food supply
chain and had broadened the whole concept to a giant aid program
for his entire population, and talked about a democratic election
for the near future. The two C-130s carried the supplies into the
path of the pilgrims tirelessly but now two dozen similar machines
carried out the same operations throughout the vast state of The
Congo, although the President was careful to ensure the Earthshaker
Project operation was never interfered with. Ahead of and behind
the marchers, his troops cleared the road and offered detour routes
around the vast swarm of people moving onward, relentlessly onward.
The President knew a social miracle when he saw one and most of his
people clearly understood that he was fully responsible for it.

Then there were
the pilgrims themselves who dared to approach her from behind,
usually the most senior female of each family group, to tell her
all the gossip concerning the people she marched with, to speak of
her kin, and their illnesses and who had lost children in the war
and from disease in the bad days and how much better it was now and
finally, always finally, where were they going?

“I don’t know,”
Andromeda always answered. “It is you and others like you who will
know when we arrive.”

The women,
flattered beyond imagining, always offered her gifts which she took
gracefully, blessed and then handed back.

“This gift you
have given me, is now my gift to you with my blessing added,” she
told them. The women retired, thrilled by their newly acquired
treasures.

Then there were
the headmen, who invariably came with a long list of personal
complaints, always against the leaders of their neighbouring tribal
groups.

“There will be
no fighting,” she told them. “Those who fight will return to the
old land where there is fighting to be done.”

Captain
Maynard’s men marched back in the mob, pairs of them staying close
to the tribal leaders, their weapons always at the ready, and there
was never any fighting. Andromeda wondered how they had coped when
these men had been needed to cover the flanks.

At the rear of
the column was an ever-increasing convoy of trucks which carried
those unable to walk, and after them two armoured cars to ensure
that any bandits in the vicinity kept their distance.

At the front,
the tank creaked and groaned and whirred along, positioning itself
to guard the latest payload from the planes against local
scavengers. But the bandits and the scavengers too seemed to have
understood the same thing as the President—that this was a miracle
and they should not interfere.

Often, to the
consternation of Captain Maynard, desperadoes with rifles slung,
smelling awful and frighteningly skinny, the human jackals who were
the bandit chiefs, marched with Andromeda to assure her that they
were taking their band to the hills until the pilgrims had passed
for it was death to steal and pillage on the sacred ground upon
which they had trod.

But of all her
visitors, the most improbable was Joel Tierney. He had arrived in a
hired Cessna and she encountered him along the road, sitting on a
bale of flourbags, smoking a joint, sweating furiously in his white
cotton suit and straw hat. He fell into step beside her.

“We have to
talk.”

“Talk.”

“I can’t.
Walkin’ at this pace.”

The pace was
slow and easy but Joel had to jog to match her long strides. The
conditions were very hot and very humid but then they always were
in this part of the world.

“There’s
commitments, Andy.”

“Not
anymore.”

“Oh come on. I
got all sorts of hot deals lined up. Everyone wants in on you,
baby.”

“Not until this
is done, Joel. I’m sorry.”

“You can take
some time off.”

“No Joel. No
chance.”

“Okay. When? I
got CBS. I got Eurovision. I got fucking everybody in the
business.”

“Except me,
Joel. You haven’t got me.”

“Okay,
when?”

“When these
people get to where they are going.”

“Where’s
that?”

“We reach the
Congo in three weeks.”

“Then
what?”

“It will take
some time to cross. Maybe then. But really, I don’t know. First we
have to get to the Congo. That’s all.”

“But why?”

“Because that’s
where we are going.”

“Andy, why are
you doing this?”

Really, he
asked all the same questions everyone else did. It was just that
his motives were different.

“Because it’s
what I’m doing?”

“It’s costing
millions.”

“I know. But
the project has the money and the people must be fed.”

“I meant the
millions that you’re not earnin’.”

“I’ve already
made millions. This is what happened as a result. I sang the songs.
Now I must lead the people. That’s all there is.”

“It’s because
that friend of yours that died, ain’t it. Saint Christine. You’re
tryin’ to take her place.”

“No. I’m doing
the same thing she was doing, with other people, for the same
reason.”

“But what
for?”

“Because this
is what we are doing. That’s all there is, Joel.”

“Jesus, Andy. I
spent the best years of my life making you famous, and now you
don’t want to go on with it.”

“We’ve just
passed your plane, Joel. Get in and buzz off.”

“You’ll pay for
this. I’ll sue.”

“You’ve already
got four breach of contract suits out against me, Joel.”

“I dropped
‘em.”

“Raise them
again. At least it’ll give you something to do so you’ll stop
pestering me.”

“You’ll be
sorry. You’ll regret this.”

“No Joel. No
matter what happens, I’ll never regret this.”

On the fifth
day of his captivity in this technological paradise, he finally had
a visitor. By then he had taken to talking to himself and the
machines and the security cameras and Glen, who, he assumed, had
security personnel watching and listening, waiting for him to make
a slip. No human voice replied but most of the machines did. Of
course, he knew they would be monitoring everything, and limited
his internet access and email, to prevent him reaching the outside
world, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty to do. On every
screen, he had something going on. A chess match with the computer.
He took to playing computer games which he hadn’t done since the
days when Space Invaders was new. He set up some wonderful fractals
in abysmal motion and was getting close to reproducing the
Mandelbrot Set. He reckoned he’d solved Hood’s difficulty with
Fibonacci but then he lost the solution. He had a whole array of
Glen’s models running. And he constantly kept track of his
colleagues.