“Be reasonable,” said Weinberger. “That’s a universe where little Deaths fly around rescuing the human race from a fate worse than death, on behalf of dead aliens. How on earth could that be a real universe?”
“There’ll be much weirder universes than this one, Nathan. You can bet on it. But they’ll be too different from ours for us even to conceive of them, let alone get in rapport with them — because they’re based on choices that branched off aeons ago. This one’s actually very close to ours — give or take the Death creatures, the crystal fog and so on.”
“And little things such as the society of death, and the Sino- Soviet War,” Weinberger reminded her.
“If it’s a matter of choice,” suggested Marta in hushed tones, “then a madman would choose a mad universe.”
Alice smiled. “Maybe there are infinitely many mad universes. As well as infinitely many sane ones. Who’s to say which infinity outnumbers the other?”
“I’ll stick with the Montegro version of reality,” said Marta stolidly. “Just so long as we don’t let ourselves get confused by what happens in this, this —” •
“This life game,” prompted Resnick.
“So long as, then we’re all quite happy, thank you very much. Except for Father Todhunter.” She sniffed. “Father to nobody, corrupter of many. It’s odd that he didn’t project his actual sexual misdemeanours into the . . . the universe he chose to echo.”
“Oh but he did,” said Weinberger. “He dumped them on my head, then he dismissed them as a slander. Actually, I’d be inclined to describe his sexual behaviour in this fantasy as fairly promising — in so far as sexual behaviour of any sort is considered promising in a priest! But that’s their affair. No, he’s attempting adult relationships. You’ll note that he had to abolish the Church, to do so?”
“How can he possibly be engaged in behaviour that’s promising, or unpromising, if he’s simply echoing some alternative universe?” asked Marta, puzzled.
“This universe in the holo branches and rebranches all the time too,” said Alice. “Todhunter made the big choice of which general reality best suited him, when he first entered it. Now that he’s in there, he’s faced with all the minor choices that he cares to make, every moment.”
Norman Harper waved his hand.
“Watch the holo, will you? I’m due to speak. Noel’s nearly finished, now.”
“Shall we have audio?” asked Marta.
“Not likely! I can do without another performance of ‘my’ poetical works.” Harper shook his head in mock exasperation. “The queer thing is, I actually did write poetry when I was a teenager, many moons ago. Oh, it was the usual adolescent stuff. Morbid stuff, mostly about death. Then I grew up.”
“So you could indeed have lived like Goethe!” Resnick chuckled. “In another world! Wasn’t Goethe a bit of a scientist, as well as a poet?”
“ That was one of the most damned warped . . .! Do you know how the original of that Hdlderlin poem goes? I looked it up.
‘Lebt ich, wie Gotter . . .’It means ‘I have lived like the Gods.’ Lived like Goethe, indeed!”
“But there aren’t any Gods in Todhunter’s universe,” said Weinberger. “Just stick-insect angels and crystallized devils. Maybe. . . maybe a God only applies to some universes, and not to others?”
“There we are!” Harper pointed. “Up on my hind legs again, mouthing morbid banalities to the enthralled mob. Wait for it,
Nathan: your moment of glory soon.”
Weinberger locked his hands together in his lap.
In silence they watched the homunculus of Norman Harper mouthing with his eyes shut.
The Weinberger homunculus scrambled to his feet and rushed towards the dais. He pointed a gun . . .
Norman Harper rocked in his seat, as though it was he who had been hit. He clasped his chest, agony and terror on his face.
“Oh God,” he gasped.
He slid off the chair on to the floor.
Weinberger was kneeling by him in a moment, checking his pulse. Rolling Harper over, he began to thump his chest.
“It’s a heart attack! Get the resuscitation unit here, Noel.”
Resnick scrambled to the wall phone and dialled. He spoke briefly, then swiftly he opened the glass door and the outer door, pinning both back.
“He must have known about his heart!” cried Weinberger. “He must have had warnings! Why didn’t he say?” He pressed his head to Harper’s chest, devotedly. “Why did he stay to watch his own murder?”
“He had to stay,” said Alice tightly, “to prove that he didn’t believe in the evil eye — from some other reality!”
“I should have seen the signs,” moaned Weinberger. “It’s as though I killed him myself.”
“You had nothing to do with this!” snapped Resnick. “Nothing, do you hear? Did you say ‘killed’? Are you sure he’s — ?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“He isn’t lost to us yet. Where’s that unit!”
“For God’s sake, what’s that?” Marta pointed.
A red blur flickered up by the ceiling, high above the air-cushion bed where Todhunter lay entranced.
“What? There isn’t anything . . . Oh my God,” Resnick retreated.
Weinberger jumped aside as something almost-red and barely visible dived towards the body sprawled upon the floor. At the last moment it veered away, as though it had arrived too late.
There came a rush of footsteps and a bounce of rubber wheels in the corridor. As the two orderlies rushed in, propelling the resuscitation cart before them, the almost-red something fled out over their heads. Into the corridor, into the House, into Montegro and the world. The orderlies were too urgently occupied with hurrying the electric pads to Norman Harper’s body to notice the creature — if indeed any outsider would have noticed it. They would have needed to know what to see.
While the orderlies were shocking Harper repeatedly to try to jolt his heart back to life, those who had seen Death stared at each other.
“It’s got loose,” said Resnick quietly, succumbing with a sinking feeling to the logic of Todhunter’s world. “It has nowhere else to go in this dimension, does it, Alice? We’ll have to build a cage to catch it.”
“A cage for Death? But where do we get the pheromone? There’s no such thing!”
“Maybe there is, if we look for it. Maybe there is now.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Resnick,” said one of the orderlies, standing up. “He’s dead.”
“Welcome to Egremont,” said Marta raggedly. “Quite . . . quite an auspicious moment.”
The orderly, Sorensen, stared at her as though she was mad.
In the holos, tiny marionette figures scrambled and panicked in the aftermath of the poet’s murder.
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