"It is not presumption! Five of you participated in the Animations; all contributed to the visions. In that group effort, some consensus must have developed or you would have destroyed each other. You emerged unified—it shows in each one of you, even the child. As a group you have agreed, even if you have not consciously understood the rationale of that agreement. If as diverse a group as you five can unify, so can our colony—about the same deity. As a group, you have identified God!"
Brother Paul looked at Lee, and at Therion, and Amaranth and Carolyn, all sitting on the wood behind him. Slowly, each nodded. Yet he resisted. "What we experienced," Brother Paul said, "this was a special situation probably not applicable to the outside world. You would not be able to accept—"
"Must we direct the question to the Watchers?" Siltz inquired.
Brother Paul did not reply.
"We require an answer," Siltz insisted. "Mormon—your credibility is unblemished. We know you will not mislead us, though your own faith be forfeit. Who is the God of Tarot?" But Lee shook his head in negation, refusing to answer.
Siltz turned on Amaranth. "Abraxas? You were not scheduled to be a Watcher, but by your survival of three Animations you have proven yourself. Who?" But Amaranth also declined.
The Reverend's gaze now fixed on Carolyn. "Child, the Nine Unknown Men will not be pleased if you do not reveal what you agreed to Watch. Who is God?"
The girl tried to resist, but under the group's uncompromising cynosure she wilted and broke. "S-sa'n," she whispered.
"I did not hear," Siltz said sternly. "Speak clearly!"
Carolyn tried again. "Sa—Satan is the God of Tarot."
Now Therion, who had held himself impassive, smiled. "Otherwise known as the Horned God," he said. "Returned after thousands of years to claim His own. From me you would not have believed it, but from these others you must believe it." He turned to address the other Watchers and Brother Paul. "Who here denies it?"
No one denied it. Brother Paul felt a special agony of faith. What had he done, when he yielded to his baser, nature in making his third wish? He had been relegated to Hell—and this was now Hell. Satan was the God of Hell.
"Humanity belongs to the Devil," Therion said triumphantly. "And the world of the living is but an aspect of Hell. We failed to find grace in Animation—yea, even the Mormon, even the child, even Brother Paul of Vision!—and so Satan returned us to His realm. We have the truth at last."
And the congregation was silent.
VIII
Wisdom: 27
Time is running out on the laisser-faire or 'mad dog' phase of human exploitation of the earth, owing to the mathematical increase of the human population on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing pollution of both the land and sea masses by human beings, through chemical and biological poisons used as insecticides, or created by energy producers ('nuclear reactors'), and weapons of war. Despite all the tendentious propaganda being spread about, the earth can very easily feed all its animal and human population, for many hundreds of years to come, especially if—as Victor Hugo demanded in Les Miserables a century ago, in 1862—human feces cease to be poured into the rivers and the seas, as at present, and are reprocessed and used as fertilizer, instead of the pollutive insecticides and chemical fertilizers now being used. For the paradox is: It is shit that is clean, and the 'pure white powders' that pollute! As it appears, however, that this rational course will not be followed, and that lasser-faire capitalistic exploitation of both the earth and all the other planets will remain in force and be enlarged, the terrestrial food-supply, as we know it, is doomed. The ocean being increasingly polluted already, it will probably be a mere bacteriological and radiological swamp, impossible to 'farm,' by the time the population/food balance becomes dramatically skewed. Sea-borne foods, such as algae, fish, and plankton—on which such delusory hopes are now being pinned—will long since all have disappeared owing to the pollution of their viable space.
—G. Legman: Rationale of the Dirty Joke: Second Series, New York, Breaking Point, Inc., 1975.
Therion was leading several villagers in solemn prayer:
Our Father, Who art in Hell, Damned be Thy Name
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Hell.
"This is Hell," Brother Paul muttered. And thought with sudden hope: had his failure in the trial of the third wish really brought the entire planet to this, doomed by himself as imperfect Everyman? Or was this merely another Animation masquerading as reality, as the airport scene had been? It was difficult to be certain anymore. So maybe—
No. If this were not reality, then he could never in his life be sure of the distinction between reality and Animation. Assuming it was what it seemed to be, it was still Hellish. How would Satan answer the prayers of his new constituents? Surely only in such a fashion as to make them regret it!
"Oh, Swami," he murmured. "You were so right in your warning! I unlocked the secret of Animation—and loosed Satan upon us all!"
Yet Satan had honored His bargains with Brother Paul. Satan had answered when God stood aloof. Satan was honest and responsive. Perhaps Satan was indeed more worthy of worship.
"Sad, isn't it," a man said beside him. Brother Paul turned. It was Deacon Brown, the Lemurian.
"Not for me, really," Brother Paul said insincerely. "I'm leaving soon."
"For him," the Deacon said, indicating Therion. "He has been granted what he thought he wanted—and that's Hell."
"But he's happy, isn't he?"
"Not at all. Listen to him."
Brother Paul listened. Therion, it seemed, was now telling a dirty joke, "...so he went on down to Hell. 'I was bored up there,' he said to Satan. 'No liquor, no women, no parties.' Satan waved his hoof, and there was a roomful of drunken, naked, eager, beautiful women. So Prufrock dived in amongst them. But in a moment he cried, 'Hey, these gals have no holes!' 'That's right,' Satan replied. 'This is Hell.' "
The reaction of the congregation was less than enthusiastic. "You see, now he has responsibility," the Deacon said. "He has to guide them and entertain them, and their values don't coincide with his. He's trying to get through to them, to shrive himself by making them react with laughter or horror or anger, and they aren't reacting. That leaves him the obvious butt—and that's Hell for him. His own refuse is bouncing back in his face."
"Yes..." Brother Paul said, seeing it. "But surely he should have anticipated this sort of thing when he took the Horned God as his deity."
"He did not choose the Horned God; that was thrust upon him. Back on Earth he married the most beautiful and intellectual woman he found—then she turned out to be a lesbian, using him only as a cover."
"She had no hole!" Brother Paul exclaimed, catching on.
"None he could use. She two-timed him with a female lover. That sort of thing is Hell-on-Earth for a normal man—and perhaps worse for an abnormal one, strongly sexed but afraid of the opposite sex."
"The Gorgon," Brother Paul said. "The castration complex. He has it with a vengeance! In the Animations—" But he decided he didn't want to talk his own castration! he now saw that it was no more a product of his own desire than the soul-as-excrement concept had been. "She put horns on him—without another man, really complicating his complexes. So he adopted the Horned God!"
"That's why he distrusts all women now and seeks to defile them," the Deacon agreed. "He's afraid anyone he loves will betray him."
"Seeks to defile women..." Brother Paul repeated, again reminded of his disaster of the Seven Cups, and Satan's clarification of it. Excrement in the face of the female! The Black Mass too—the attempt to have a young female killed on the body of a mature one. Much was coming clear now. "Yet if he found one that wasn't lesbian—how would he know? By rejecting all women, he makes his own Hell."
"Precisely," the Deacon agreed. "And what woman would attempt to break through his defense and abate that Hell? A thankless task!"
Brother Paul shook his head. "He
is a man of many qualities. I believe his attitudes suffered fundamental changes in Animation, and he is ready to accept normal heterosexual relations. Perhaps one day some hardy woman will perceive those qualities and make the effort."
Meanwhile, Therion was still trying, almost pitiful in the new perspective. "Now let me tell you about the Sleeve Job. This man had tried every conceivable kind of sexual experience and wanted something really different. So..."
Brother Paul walked away, leaving Therion, leaving Deacon Brown. His mission here was over. Now he was only waiting for the return of his capsule to Earth. This had been pre-scheduled when this mission had first been instituted; the capsule would return at its appointed time with or without him. Certain Planet Tarot artifacts would be shipped back, including a sealed terrarium containing Tarot Bubble spores, as a supplement to his report. All Brother Paul had to do was wrap up his personal affairs. No easy task!
First he had to settle with Amaranth. She had expressed serious interest in him between Animations as well as during them, but despite temptation he had found his own emotion falling short. She had a marvelous body and a willing nature—but somehow he could not envision himself married to a perpetual temptress, a Lilith figure. There were other things in his life besides sex. So even if it had been possible for him to take her back to Earth with him, he would not have done so. The roles the two of them played in life were too different. Had she been more like Sister Beth and less like a minionette of Satan—
The problem was, how could he tell her that? She had, by her definitions, done everything right. She had undressed herself frequently and to advantage and had not bothered him with intellectual discussion. Her notion of the ideal woman. He knew from her prior discussion about nature and the Breaker that she had more depth than that; the shallowness was merely a role she played. She would make a good wife—for the right man. It just happened that he was not that man.
He found that he could not tell her that. Not directly. So he retired to Reverend Siltz's house and pondered his Tarot chart—and it came to him. Therion's demon Thoth Tarot was adaptable to this purpose!
In the end he found he had written a poem titled "Four Swords"—in the Thoth Tarot, the Four of Swords signified Truce. He would give her this Tarot poem message, explaining about the problem of roles, and perhaps she would understand. This was also his farewell to the Thoth Tarot, and to all other four-suit Tarot decks; henceforth, he would devote his energies to restoring and perfecting the five suit Tarot of the Waldenses. Satan had given him this, and he could not let it go. Perhaps he was, after all, a worshiper of—
There was a knock on the door. Brother Paul went to open it—and there stood Amaranth.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't go with you, Brother Paul. I thought you were the one for me, I really did, but those Animations showed me things—I really got to know myself better, playing those roles, and I saw how dumb some of them were. That's not what I really want to be."
"I understand," Brother Paul said. How well he did!
"I—have a greater affinity for another man," she continued. "One I wouldn't have looked at before Animation. I prayed to Satan to solve my dilemma, and He sent me—"
"Therion!" Brother Paul exclaimed.
"Yes. He—he's really more my type. He likes my body, and I like his mind. In the Animations—it worked out pretty well. Actually. When he was King Charles. He does with gusto what you resist, and I—I need to be gustoed."
"Yes," Brother Paul agreed.
"He's not really bisexual or whatever. He just never got close to a female woman before, despite all his talk. He has very broad horizons. Broader than mine. So he can show me new avenues, and I need those avenues because I can't stand dullness. It never would have worked out between you and me, Paul. I was never Sister Beth, or the Virgin Mary, or any of those lovely pure women that turn you on. I'm a creature of indulgence, uninhibited. I want a man foaming at the lips to get at my secrets, tearing the clothes off me—"
She broke off. "But I know it bothers you, my just telling you this. You never tore clothing off anybody. Even in the middle of the act, you just lay there without responding."
In the middle of the act? She was referring to his dream within a dream, being ravished by a succubus, unable to respond because he was paralyzed and castrate. That really had been her playing that part!
"So—farewell." She turned and walked away.
Brother Paul looked down at the paper in his hand. He had never even given her the poem. He had been unresponsive!
Should he destroy the poem? It had had only one purpose, and that was now passed. No—he did not believe in book burning or anything that smacked of it. He would file it away; maybe future scholars of the Temple of Tarot would find it in his papers and wonder what it meant. It was about as anonymous as a poem could be; he didn't even know the proper name of its addressee. With luck, he would never know.
Yet, now that it was over, he felt a letdown. It might have been fun Amaranth's way. Tearing the clothes off her. She was the creature for which man's lust had been designed, and he was after all a man. Too bad the fourteenth century Animation had cut off before they had gotten into the Palace affair; she might have discovered that he was not always paralyzed.
He shook his head. Therion's Satan, perhaps in His jealousy, had made sure Brother Paul could not climax anything with Amaranth in that sequence. And there were other matters.
Now he had to settle with Carolyn. His love for her was stronger than anything he had felt for Amaranth, if of a different nature. He would have to explain to her that even if he could take another person home with him (which he could not), he could not take a child away from her natural father. What had been in Animation—could not be in life.
This was Hell all right.
He walked slowly to the Swami's house. Reverend Siltz had mentioned that the Swami had finally recovered consciousness, perhaps in response to Mrs. Ellend's ministrations, so Carolyn was moving back in with him. Most of the villagers were out about their work in field and forest; the rigorous climate of this planet did not permit much time off from chores. There was the sound of hammering, momentarily sending a chill through him until he realized it was from the shop of the stove-smith. The man was laboring to convert the first units to body heating rather than space heating. Several fisherpeople were trawling a net through Eastlake, harvesting waterlife for drying and salting for winter. What would happen if Lee passed by in his Christ-visage and said "Rise, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men"? Probably nothing, for Satan ruled here. One man was working on his roof, thatching an annex with freshly cured broadleaves. The main section remained turf, but evidently in summer other roofing could make do. Everywhere were reminders that this was but the summer interstice; the rest of the year was—Hell.
Therion was concluding his service: "Satan is my Shepherd; I shall not be satisfied..." Brother Paul hurried on. He had brought this answer to this colony, but he could not accept it. Satan might have commendable qualities, but surely...
The Swami's house was empty. Then where was Carolyn? She was not yet required to work, and the village school was not in session this day because the community had not yet agreed on the necessary revisions of texts to reflect the revealed reality of the God of Tarot. She must be taking a walk in the countryside, sorting out her own feelings. She knew she had to make a life of her own here, even if she could not accept it. He would find her.
She was not in the village. That meant she was out in the country. That bothered him; the wilderness was unsafe at best for any lone person and worse for a troubled child. Why had she risked herself so foolishly?
Why, indeed! Her whole life was in crisis; what did one extra hazard matter? Somehow he had to convince her that life was worthwhile... even life in Hell. Sure.
He found her in the afternoon on the steep eastern slope of Southmount, as the wind was stirring. He saw her small body on a ledge, the feet dangling over and swinging idly in little girl
fashion. Suicide? No, she was not the type; she was merely comfortable there. But clouds were boiling up in the north, presaging another storm. These tempests seemed to be an almost daily occurrence, and they moved and spread rapidly—and brought unwanted Animation. Carolyn had to get off that mountain in the next few minutes!
Brother Paul ran to the foot of the nearer cone, getting pleasantly winded. He had neglected his exercises here on Planet Tarot!
The storm, racing him, loomed horrendously. Brother Paul could see the thunderhead of it shoving high into the sky, challengingly, a great black knob like the head of Satan, rotating its eyeless visage to bear upon this newly liberated settlement. Below, the shifting vapors showed the turbulence folding in on itself in living layers. This was a bad one!
"Get down from there!" he cried, doubting she could hear him from this distance over the swish of the fringe wind. But Carolyn looked down, her eyes bearing on him as the air tugged at her dress. Now she was aware of the threat. She scrambled onto the flat of the ledge, then started down, running fleetly along its broken slopes, hurdling the crevices with an agility that seemed foolhardy.
The wind stiffened. The first splats of rain struck the slope. This storm was straight from Northole; it would be carrying a full charge of Animation. Carolyn had to make it down before the effect distorted her perceptions. She could take a fatal fall!
Abruptly she stopped on a ledge about ten meters above Brother Paul's level. She screamed.
"Don't be frightened!" Brother Paul called. "Come down carefully, and we'll talk. Watch out for slippery rock where it's wet. I can control the visions—"
But she was pointing over his head. Alarmed, Brother Paul turned.
There was Bigfoot as huge and hairy as before.
"Stay up there!" Brother Paul cried to Carolyn. "I'll stop it from climbing." For there was no question of the monster's objective; it was heading not for Brother Paul, but for the nearest ramp ledge leading from the base toward Carolyn's perch. It was after her!