“I graduated from University of Colorado with double degrees in physics and political science,” she said. “I’ve been reading about you ever since you won that battle at Silverthorne. I always thought you were a real hero, like out of some fairy tale. The day you became King of Colorado was one of the happiest days of my life, because I know we had someone wonderful here taking care of us. I think I’ve been in love with you ever since I saw the coronation on TV. If you let me be your Queen, I will try to be an inspiration to young Coloradoan women everywhere. I’ll serve you well and give you lots of babies.”
“You’re very beautiful,” said the Comet King, in the same way a judge at a dog show might pronounce a certain poodle to be very beautiful. “Thank you for your time. My staff will get back to you within three to five days.”
“That’s…it?” asked Jessica. She tossed her hair seductively. “But I thought we would be able to spend…you know…more time together.”
“I am very busy.”
“I wouldn’t have to wait until our wedding. Even if you’re not interested in getting married, we could still…you know.”
“I appreciate the offer and my staff will get back to you in three to five days.” He got up from the table, gave her a little bow, and walked out to the atrium of the palace. Nathanda and Caelius were fighting over a toy. He gave them a quick glance, and both of them tried to push the toy at the other, then stood to attention. He smiled and found Father Ellis, sitting alone beside one of the big targeting computers, looking annoyed.
“That was four minutes! You can’t say you gave her a fair hearing!”
“She wanted to have my babies,” said the Comet King. “She knew about the curse, she knew they would die screaming and cursing their father’s name, and she still wanted to have them.”
“She loves you,” said the priest.
“They all love me,” said the Comet King. “Can we give up now?”
“It is not good for man to be alone,” quoted Ellis.
“I am only half human. Whatever I am, it’s fine for it to be alone.”
“You told me you wanted my help being human, and I’m giving it to you! You need to get married. I don’t make you meet a new girl every day. Just dinner Saturday and Sunday. Two nights a week. Two dates. Is that too much to give your old friend, and a nation anxious to have a Queen?”
“Another one of these tomorrow night? No. Cancel. Tomorrow night I am holding annexation talks with east Oregon.”
“You can’t just cancel on her! She’s here already! She’s come all the way from Utah to see you.”
“The Oregonians have come all the way from Oregon. That is farther.”
“Look, Jala. These people are infatuated with you. When I announced that you had given your permission to meet two women a week, I got so many applicants it takes half my time now just to sort through them for the good ones. This is probably going to be the highlight of this poor woman’s life, and all she wants is ten minutes with you over a dinner table.”
“What about tonight? Can I just get both of them over tonight, and then have the rest of the week free?”
“I’ll see if she’s around. But you better give her a full ten minutes. You hear me, Jala? Ten! Now you go back in the dining room, and I’ll find her and send her in, and you give her ten minutes and not a second less.”
“Yes, Father. Whatever you say.”
Five minutes later, a young woman walked into the dining room beneath Cheyenne Mountain. Stick thin. Boyish body. Light brown hair. Simple tan dress. She introduced herself as Robin Allison Minstrell. Something something philosophy Ph. D something something whatever.
“Good evening,” the Comet King said from across the table, playing with an olive on his fork. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself and why I should marry you?”
“I’m not sure why someone like you would get married,” said Robin, “but I would assume you’re being pressured or feel some obligation to do so for the sake of the kingdom. A relationship would probably take up a lot of your time and distract you from your work, which of course is vital to the future of humanity. Whatever good I could do with my own life is probably less than the amount of good you could do with the time you save by not having a demanding wife, and I wasn’t sure you realized the option existed, so I decided the morally optimal thing to do would be to offer to marry you so you could have the public relations benefits of marriage without the time-related costs. Of course, I could help your mission in other ways too; as your Queen, I’d be a natural choice to take over a lot of the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and press photo ops you have to do. All of this time saved would be time you could devote to your primary mission of fighting back against Hell.”
“Who told you to say this?”
“What? Um. Nobody. I studied philosophy. Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher. He believed that only the course that most effectively eases suffering is morally permissible. I…I have a book I can give you.”
She reached into her purse and handed the Comet King a book. He looked at it for a second, then took it and placed it beside his plate.
“You knew this man?”
“No. He died before I could meet him. Killed. In Salt Lake City, February of ’74. But I read everything. I did my thesis on him. I wrote dozens of papers. And every time I submitted another paper to the journals, to get thrown in the wastebasket or read by a couple of academics, I thought, things have gotten too bad, I just can’t keep doing this. So I quit and joined the military. Administrative work, supply management, that kind of thing. But now there’s peace. Thanks to you. And I thought, given the extent of your genius, helping you would be a more effective use of my time then anything else I could do. I considered joining your government, but since I’m pretty and charismatic I thought it would be more effective to offer my hand in marriage instead.”
“I accept,” said the Comet King. “My uncle Vihaan is in the third floor library. He manages my schedule. Ask him when a good time for the wedding would be.”
Without a word, Robin got up from the table and headed towards the stairwell.
Jalaketu toyed with his olive for another moment, then popped it in his mouth and walked out the door into the atrium. Father Ellis saw him and rose to his feet in a rage.
“SEVEN MINUTES, JALA. THAT WAS SEVEN MINUTES AND FOURTEEN SECONDS. YOU PROMISED ME TEN. I WANT YOU TO GO BACK IN THERE AND…”
“Father, I need your help.”
The anger evaporated from the priest’s face. “What’s wrong, Jala?”
“The girl. Robin. She told me that marriage and relationships were a waste of the time I should be spending planning my war against Hell. She offered to marry me, serve as my public face, and leave me alone completely in order to free me from the burden. I said yes. She and Vihaan will plan the wedding. You’ll need to officiate, of course.
“God damn it, Jala! I wanted to humanize you, and instead you found somebody just as defective as yourself. You’ll get nothing out of it, she’ll get nothing out of it, and you’re going to miss your chance at something natural and important just to get someone who will pose for photo ops once in a while.”
“No, Father, I need your help.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Father, I think I’m in love.”
Chapter 48: Bring Me My Chariot Of Fire
Rage in favor of the proposition that the machine is somehow important in a way that could be uncovered through dispassionate analysis.
— Steven Kaas
Morning, May 14, 2017
Caribbean Sea
I.
Unfurling four of its seven sails , the world’s fastest ship shot out of the Panama Canal. It rocketed through the Caribbean and wove in and out of the Cayman Islands. It somehow skipped Cuba – the space that Not A Metaphor sailed through with its many-colored sails open wasn’t quite the same as the normal ocean – and nearly crashed into the Bahamas before executing a sudden turn that knocked everyone a
gainst the port railing. Four hours after the ship left the Gatun Locks, Amoxiel spotted the Florida coast.
The launch was at noon. There would be no more launches for weeks – longer than John would hang on. They would make it to Cape Canaveral by noon, or their friend’s soul was toast.
James paced back and forth on the deck, his responsibilities lightened by the rediscovery of the ship’s autopilot – if that was what you wanted to call the intelligence that animated the entire vessel like a golem. He was on the foredeck, tan in the Caribbean sun, letting the ship itself handle the steering.
Ana and Simeon were in lounge chairs side by side to starboard.
“I should have known you’d be in favor of this,” Ana said.
“Of saving a friend from eternal suffering?” asked Simeon. “You bet.”
It was a vicious cycle. Simeon was old, he’d been hurt in the scuffle with the Drug Lord, and he’d been seizing pretty bad during the worst parts of the the Panama crossing. For a while they hadn’t been sure he would make it. Ana, wracked with guilt about verbally abusing him, had been by his side all through the Gulf Coast, bringing him food from the galley and keeping him company. But being Ana, it was impossible for her not to start talking politics, and soon she was abusing him more than ever – a situation that seemed to keep the old man relatively entertained.
“It’s the final insult,” Ana said, “in which divine justice is perverted the same way the human justice of the state already has been. Poor person steals some bread? Eternity in Hell. Rich person steals the wealth of an entire state? Not only do the courts do nothing, but he can buy a ticket on Celestial Virgin and his soul ends up squeaky clean in the World To Come.”
“Does anyone deserve eternal suffering?”
“No!”
“Then surely it’s more just for a few people to be able to avoid it, than for everyone alike to suffer punishment undeserved.”
“But just the rich?”
“Someone has to buy the rocket fuel.”
“Why doesn’t the government pay? Why isn’t it subsidized?”
“Ten million per citizen? Why, to save the entire population of America that’s only, ah, two quadrillion dollars, about a thousand times the gross national product.”
“Then at least save some!”
“Exactly my point. We can only save some. Instead of choosing those some from a lottery or something, we choose them by wealth. It beats the lottery method because it makes the program self-financing.”
“So just let things be, and make no attempt at eve…”
“Satan tempted Eve. Noah built an ark.”
“Aaargh!”
He smiled.
“I just think…you can’t be happy with this situation, can you?”
Simeon furrowed his brow. “Happy? No. But what can you do? And it’s not just a rhetorical question. I can do quite a lot. I can create a successful company that helps discover new Names. I can donate some money to causes that deserve it. I can be nice to the people I meet. Once I’m doing all that, there’s no point in dedicating a lobe of my brain to being outraged at the injustices of the world. I do what I can, and then stop caring. Even the Comet King only besieged Hell until the point when he realized it was a lost cause. Then he gave up. You care too much and it drives you crazy.”
“Then maybe being crazy is the right thing to do. So far all I see from your side is a lot of sanity and poor people left to burn.”
“Two hundred years ago, this was about people starving to death in the streets, or dying of smallpox. We solved those problems not by destroying the system, but by milking the system so single-mindedly that eventually we got rich enough to buy the problems off. If we defeat Hell, it’ll be because we developed better weapons. And if we develop better weapons, it’ll be because of places like Countenance. And in order to get places like Countenance, you need money, and incentives to get it, and then there you are at Celestial Virgin.”
“So just let sin and greed continue uninhibited, and eventually someone will have stolen enough to make things better? Just protect the system, no matter how many people it throws into the flames, because of the promise of a smallpox cure somewhere at the end?”
“And what’s your position? Burn down everything that isn’t perfect? I have bad news for your about mortal institutions, dear. What if you go too far? You think eliminating people like me will build the perfect government? What if you overcompensate and build anarchy?”
“Noah built an arky. Satan tempted Eve. And me? I’m with the Unitarians: ‘The soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din / List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within / ‘They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.””
“There’s more than one way to compromise with sin,” said Simeon. “The first way is where you accept a little bit of evil for what you think is a greater good. But the second way is where you do anything less than what’s most effective. If I shut down Virgin because I was mad at it, well, then maybe I’d feel better about myself. And a few hundred people who would otherwise go to Heaven would end up in Hell and burn forever, thanks to me. How is that not compromising with sin? The compromises I’ve made, I’ve made on my own terms, and I’m happy with them.”
“If you were happy, you wouldn’t have paid a couple million dollars to go yell at God.”
Simeon tried to bring himself up to a sitting position, but ended up putting weight upon his injured leg. Groaning, he lay back down.
“I’m sorry,” Ana said. “I crossed a line. This is stupid. I keep saying mean things to you and then feeling bad and trying to make it up by talking to you more and then saying mean things. I should go.”
“It’s fine,” said Simeon. “I’m a hard man to offend.”
“No, really. I should go and jump off the side of the ship now.”
“Wait,” said Simeon. “You want to know a secret?”
“I’ve never said no to that question and I’m not starting now.”
Simeon smiled. “I don’t think this boat will catch God, and I don’t really care. I’m after bigger quarry.”
“Bigger than God?”
“Look, Ana. Fifteen years ago the Comet King has a mental breakdown after the death of his wife. Then a year later, he dies at Never Summer in a battle in a cloud, defeated by a relative nobody. You don’t find anything about this weird?”
“People love conspiracy theories,” Ana said. “But they found his body, and besides, the Comet King isn’t the sort to retire and go farm yams somewhere.”
“People do love conspiracy theories,” said Simeon, “and rich people get a chance to indulge in them. My hobby for the past few years has been tracking the Comet King. And no, I didn’t find any smoking guns, but – you know our man John? We only know two things about him. He’s a priest. And he’s an old friend of the Captain’s. Well, I collect old photographs from Royal Colorado, and the man’s a dead ringer for the Comet King’s right-hand man, Father John Ellis. So I started reading about this ship. This mysterious Captain Nemo shows up one day, shrouds himself in mystery, but has intimate knowledge of the Comet King’s yacht. And he’s a friend of John Ellis’s. And he’s got a certain…well, everyone obeys him without question. So what am I to think?”
A chill went down Ana’s spine. She had only been very young when the Comet King died, but even she could remember the gravity of the moment. He had been someone impossible, something out of legend, a different sort of person entirely. Then he was gone. If he were still alive… “The Captain looks nothing like the Comet King,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures. The Captain is big. The Comet King is rail-thin. And there was the body.”
“You think people like that can’t change bodies as easily as we change clothes?” said Simeon. “Heck, if I wanted to pull the same thing Jalaketu did, I’d bribe the Lady into making a golem that looked just like me, kill off the golem, bury the body, then hit the donuts until I wasn’t so thin anymore. Whatever I cou
ldn’t disguise, I’d hide. They say the Comet King had weird eyes, like the night sky. Why doesn’t Captain Nemo take off his sunglasses?”
“Holy euphemism,” said Ana.
“I didn’t buy a berth on this boat to hunt down God, I got on here to hunt down the Captain. The man’s a complete black box, and only the people lucky enough to end up on the Not A Metaphor get a chance of seeing him. I’ve been watching him, trying to figure out what his angle is. But I’ve got nothing. That’s why I’m telling you this. You’re one of the crew. You can talk to people. Figure out what they know. They’ve been hanging out with him for years. They must have picked up on something.”
“What do I do? Just ask James, say ‘Hey, did the Captain ever mention anything about being the Comet King?'”
“Maybe not. Maybe James is in on it. And if the Comet King is hiding, probably bad things happen to anyone who makes too much noise about trying to find him. Something subtle. Like ‘Oh, I’ve been working here so long, and I barely get a glimpse of the Captain. What’s with that guy?’ See what he knows.”
“Okay but…like you said, if he doesn’t want to be found, it might not be such a good idea to find him.”
“Well,” said Simeon, “yes. That is the issue. Maybe I’m a little bit crazy too, in the way I mentioned to you earlier. I don’t have a great plan. This is pretty much how I ran Gogmagog – start the first step, hit the ground running, and try to figure out the second step on the way. But I’ve already spend a year and a half looking through all the sources I could – once I get interested in something, I stay interested – and the thought of knowing where the Comet King was and just sort of sitting on the knowledge – well, that would have driven me off the wall. I don’t know what Erin and the rest hope to get from meeting God. They already know He’s not big on answering prayers except on His own terms. Well, I don’t know what I expect from meeting the Comet King. The best I can say is I’m no stupider than they are. Just differently stupid.”
II.
They sat on the ship, a mile or so offshore. There had been a burst of light, a roar. And a little spark buoyed upon a sea of smoke shot up at Heaven.
Unsong Page 53