The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  "Hill," Joan said, "my basic rejection of Christianity--as I understand it--is not only empirical but ethical. I could never accept any doctrine that demands that I sacrifice my life to others--I don't care how many others: even a worldful."

  Bromley nodded again. "Again, you seem to be a natural Objectivist. Not surprising, considering your lasegraphic training and background. But again, 'If you buy the premise, you buy the bit.' The ethics involved--the very question of what is and is not a sacrifice--depends on one's primary values and what reality is. Is it a sacrifice if you sell your own life to buy the life of someone you love?"

  Joan thought about it, then shook her head. "But I would first try to save both our lives."

  "If you have that opinion, fine--but what if you can't? Look at Christ's sacrifice. He said, 'The wages of sin is death.' This starts with the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis. They began as latent immortals, poached a bad apple from one of God's trees, and were punished by being reduced from zoe life--a life of spirit--to mere biological life, subject to entropy and eventual death."

  "They were just trying to learn the difference between good and evil," Joan said. "The legend seems to be an attack on human reason--our primary moral cognitive faculty."

  Bromley sighed. "I think that's where we have a language problem again," he said. "It was the tree which bore the fruit of the 'knowledge of good and evil.' We may take 'tree' and 'fruit' to be poetic renderings, but the word 'knowledge' has changed meaning since that was translated. It means 'congress with'--as used in the old phrase 'carnal knowledge.' God wasn't punishing Adam and Eve for gaining an intellectual appreciation of what evil was. We may assume He gave them at least a basic education in morality before setting them up on their own. What God was doing was withdrawing His sanction from two hell-raisers who'd had 'knowledge of evil'--congress with it, active participation--and were no longer to be trusted with the immense powers a Being of Spirit must have. Look at our history--and how close we came to destroying ourselves with nuclear weapons-- then ask yourself what if two J.D.'s with spiritual powers--each many times more powerful than a nuclear weapon--were allowed to run around free? God had already got into that problem with the revolt of His angels led by Lucifer. I suspect creating a being somewhere between zoe and bios--having aspects of both--was His attempt to circumvent that problem again--making it possible to test us in a closed-loop system before He let us enter into a World where He could no longer destroy us.

  "But you sidetracked me; I was trying to explain what Christ was up to. God--in His aspect of the Trinity as Father--had never quite got over His disappointments with human beings. So He split off a part of Himself into the entropic universe--sent that part of Himself into the closed loop, rather like the path an electron takes in a circuit--with orders to let people know there was a way to correct the error--get out of the entropic death trap--if they really wanted to. But it could be done only on a case-by-case basis--we are created to be individuals, first and foremost. Christ said that He loved all Mankind. If He did--and His death and resurrection were going to save the lives of those He loved--then what sacrifice was there? It seems a rather good bargain for both Him and the rest of us. I would venture to say that if Rand's metaphysics had been different, she would have portrayed her ideal man, John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, doing the same thing. As it is, Galt is portrayed to show every propensity for risking his life to save the women he loved--and Rand declared Joan Galt to be the foremost proponent of the selfish glorification of Man's life on Earth. Well, if that's all there is, Rand was right. But what if Saint Clive was right? It changes the data--doesn't it?"

  "What about those who talk about sacrificing themselves for the survival of their species?"

  "If biological life is all there is," Bromley said, "then either they are preaching sacrifice for its own sake--Kant's doctrine, which both Rand and Saint Clive reject--or they value sheer numbers. I see no reason, if the basis of all values is biological life, that an individual should care about anything beyond the circle of his own life and those he loves personally-- an anthropomorphization of the principle of the Selfish Gene. From a personal vantage point, why are the lives of one thousand or one million or twenty billion people one doesn't know-- whether they exist now or merely as a future potential--more valuable than one's own life and its enjoyment? Why give up a bird in the hand for two in a bush that will die in a few billion years anyway, more or less?"

  "Your heaven may not exist," Joan said.

  "That's a calculated risk, based on internal data that I cannot share with anyone else. Communication without a common referent is impossible."

  "But the referents keep on changing," Joan said. "You say God, the witches say Goddess--one deity, many deities. Nobody can agree."

  "The Tower of Babel again," Hill said. "The Trinity of God is three Personalities in One, and it is my personal belief--again, none of this is official doctrine--that at least one of those Personalities is female--hence the earliest concepts of God as female."

  "Witches say all three aspects are female--Maiden, Lady, and Crone," Joan said.

  "And the Hindus say a male and a female principle synthesize to create the world--matter as male, energy as female. If I were to take a guess--again, unofficially--I'd say from my personal feelings that the Holy Spirit of the Trinity is the female aspect--a form of plasma energy; Christ as the male aspect, incarnated in matter, and God the Father the spiritual synthesis of the two."

  "The Sword of Goddess," Joan said.

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Go on."

  "It makes sense mythologically and psychologically. Read the psychiatrist Carl Jung. He wrote that each of us has a latent personality of the opposite sex in us--women have their male 'animus' and men have their female 'anima.' The search for love is the attempt to find this latent personality fully developed in another person. I would also surmise that in andromen their anima is the dominant personality, and in lesbians the animus is in charge--ambisexuals seem to have both developed about equally. This microcosm of the opposite in each of us may be a microcosm of the basic structure of God and Heaven--we are supposed to have been made in God's image. If you ever have trouble understanding the opposite sex, don't look outward at them. Look within yourself. Inside is where the wisdom to process all externally derived knowledge resides."

  Joan looked at Hill Bromley, shook her head, then smiled. "I don't know whether to believe anything you've said, Hill, but you've succeeded in challenging every fundamental I've lived by. I think I will attend that class of yours next Saturday."

  Hill smiled back at her. "You're still welcome, but it's not really necessary. We have just covered my next year of seminars at one gulp."

  Chapter 30

  "DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE BY."

  There were thirty red-cloaked Touchables seated in a conference room in offices adjacent to the Hasty-Tasty hovercart barn, with a large, red-haired and red-cloaked man addressing them. Joan, also cloaked in red and sitting in the third row of chairs, thought that perhaps Hill had been overly modest in his assessment of his lecture series, and she had decided to attend this Saturday morning, January 2, anyway--at an hour so early her eyes weren't quite open.

  Joan still hadn't quite recovered from the New Year's party at Roland and Claire Church's house in Malibu. She remembered the party mainly for its incessant loud music, no place to sleep where there wasn't carousing in progress, a stoned androman named Henry who kept hitting on J.D. Harrison all night, and no way to escape, since her "date" for the evening was the bass fortissimist of the band that was providing the incessant loud music. She had finally fallen asleep around 7 A.M. New Year's in Hill's skymobile, and had awakened that afternoon in her bed in his living room. She surmised without being told that Hill had carried her in.

  She was not sorry she'd come this morning, though. Hill was as lively in the lecture hall as he was talking one to one, and his lecture tracing the Golden Rule from its earliest statements in almost eve
ry major culture on Earth--with applications ranging from the Law of Equal Liberty through business ethics-- was interesting throughout.

  More interesting to Joan, though, was the lively question-and- answer session following the talk. Joan saw that Hill's role among these Touchables was not only priest, confessor, employer, and teacher but also psychiatrist and judge. A clear example of this came up in a question posed by two Touchable men--Harry and Roger--having to do with hovercart territories. Harry claimed that he had a contract with Roger to switch territories with him, had already paid him the money promised, but that Roger now refused to honor the agreement. "Is that true?" Hill asked Roger.

  "Yes, Father," he said, "but I agreed and took his money because if I didn't switch with him, he would have beaten me up."

  "Is that true?" Bromley asked Harry.

  "Well," Harry said, "I let him think I would've beaten him up if he didn't switch with me, Father, but I wouldn't actually have done it. Even so, he promised to switch with me and took the five auragrams I offered him."

  "I tried to give it back to him," Roger said, "but he won't take it."

  "A deal's a deal," Harry said. "We have a contract."

  Hill shook his head. "One of the oldest principles of law is that any agreement made under duress isn't binding--legally, or morally. You don't have any agreement or contract, Harry. You'd better take your money back. I suggest if you want Roger's route, you offer him what he wants for it."

  "Fifty auragrams," Roger said.

  "That's how much extra I'd make in the next six months!" Harry said.

  "That's what you said when you threatened to bean me," said Roger.

  "Settle this between yourselves after class," Hill said. "Just remember, Harry, if you get a reputation for trespassing the rights of others, there will always be someone bigger and stronger around who can do the same to you. Next question."

  At the end of class, Hill led them in a hymn. They sang, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

  Joan asked him about it after the Touchables had filed out. "It wasn't exactly Handel's Messiah," she said.

  He smiled. "For the last six millennia, people have been singing the praises of God in the most grandiose terms possible. Most people don't believe any of it. With these people, I'll be happy if they believe God is jolly good."

  That night, J.D. Harrison played once more at The Teapot Dome between Roland's two sets. After the middle set, the representative of the World Confederation of Lasegraphers, Denny Ronaas of Local 47, came up to the owner's table, where Hill was sitting. Joan was in the greenroom with Church and the rest of the band. "Hill," Ronaas said, "we've got a problem with that new lasegrapher of yours. I don't have a listing in my roster."

  "Denny, I filed for a waiver--" Hill cut himself off. He was about to say that he had filed for a waiver with the local when Joan--whose membership was in the Astran union--had first played The Teapot Dome back in July, but realized in time that Ronaas was talking about "J.D. Harrison." He was in a double bind, this time--damned if he filed and damned if he didn't. "Denny, I'm sorry," Hill said. "I thought I filed but I just realized I raped up."

  "It's okay, Hill," Ronaas said: "you're still within the two- week grace period. But have it on my desk Monday morning, will you? I'd hate to see the Dome on the Unfair List."

  "This is his last night," Hill said. "Do you still want to go through all that filework?"

  Ronaas thought about it. "Don't bother, Hill. But give a comman some warning next time, will you?"

  "Thanks, Denny," Hill said.

  That night after closing up, Hill told Joan that the performing career of J.D. Harrison was over. "How can I file for a waiver regarding a lasegrapher from another union when J.D. Harrison isn't a member of any other union?"

  Joan smiled wryly. "I guess it's not worth the risk of putting the Invisible Man on this one."

  "Indeed not," Hill said. "Still, I'm going to miss you. You're much better at roga than that Darris princess who tramped in here a few months--"

  She didn't really hurt him when she jabbed him in the stomach.

  Joan and Hill left the Teapot Dome at just past 3 A.M. Sunday. Hill said he had just about enough time for a quick nap before leaving for Mass; on weekends--between his religious duties and his work at the Dome--he got most of his sleep in the afternoon.

  It was a fifteen-minute taxi in Hill's skymobile from the club to his apartment. But while they were driving on Monica Boulevard, three blocks before Van Ness, a figure in a flying belt stooped on the vehicle's roof, rapped "Shave and a Haircut," then flew half a block ahead and waited for them to pull over.

  It was the Invisible Man. Hill and Joan got out to talk to him.

  "You look exhausted," Hill said.

  "I just flew in from Newer York," he answered, "and boy, are my arms tired! But I had to get back to you in time, and couldn't risk any other type of travel for this one."

  "Are you that hot?" Hill asked.

  "No, you two are. And the simple fact that I know you is enough to get me a microwave job if I'm not careful." The Invisible Man took a deep breath. "The Monitors have your apartment staked out, Hill. And they've got a warrant naming both you and Joan Darris."

  "Why didn't they pick me up at the Dome? Or right here?"

  "Because the Monitor who got himself picked for the job of arresting you is one of the friars. He arranged this time to let me warn you. You know who he is, Hill."

  "Yes."

  "I was in Newer York, on business, when he called me. He said he'd hold things up until I got back."

  "But how did they know I was here?" Joan said.

  "There's been a top-level search for you--and that means a linkup with every data bank the Federation has access to. They started by asking everyone who'd answer anyone else who you've spent any time with since your return to Earth. Your D.I. at Buffum--McDonough, I think her name is, mentioned you'd taken her to a mocha house where she watched you play roga. But she couldn't remember which of the twenty houses on Sunset it was. So they checked with the union. A waiver for the Dome was on file since last July."

  "You say we're hot," Hill said. "Can you cool us off?"

  "This is too much even for me, Hill. Brainprints and exit permits are easy. Chopping twelve centimeters off height, changing you from a mesomorph to a ectomorph--so you wouldn't fit the computer profile they've got on you--I can't manage. They've got a type on Joan--from her Corps records--that's even tighter. It doesn't matter how you change hair color, skin color, clothing. You go anywhere near a skyport with an A.P.B. like this out on you, and you've had it."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "If you can keep hidden a couple of weeks until the Joan Baez departs on the sixteenth, Roland might be able to get you off Earth as baggage. But you can't go near anywhere--the Dome, Hasty-Tasty, the home of anyone you know--that you could be linked with. I've got two flying belts and the address of my emergency retreat--a cabin up north in Sinsemilla. Stay over the ocean below scanning range--say, under thirty meters altitude--and you might make it there a little after dawn. Stay there until Roland or I get back to you. And don't stick your heads outside. The place is stocked with everything you'll need."

  "Anything else?"

  "Pray, Hill."

  Hill smiled. "It's what I do for a living, Brian."

  Brian loaded his flying belt into Hill's skymobile; then they taxied back toward the Dome, where the Invisible Man had parked a skymobile with the flying belts for Hill and Joan. While they were putting them on, he gave them detailed directions to his cabin.

  Hill said a blessing for his friends; there was an exchange of handshakes, back pats, and kisses of Christian brotherhood; then -- with a rev of engines and another "Godspeed!"--Hill and Joan leaped into the night sky.

  There was something wildly romantic, by its very nature, in an escape by night air, Joan thought, and the very danger of it seemed to heighten her artistic sensibility. The clear, open star canopy overhead, the Pacific belo
w, the flashing blue-and- red of Hill's anticollision lights off to her right, their headlong rush into the cold wind of the unknown exhilarated her with the same intensity she'd previously found only while composing, or that one time with Dr. Blaine at Camp Buffum.

  When they'd jumped out of Los Angeles, Joan had felt exhausted from being up almost twenty-two hours, with only a short nap Saturday afternoon, but the necessity of piloting the belt at 300 klicks per hour without either splashing into the Pacific or, like Icarus, flying too high for their own good and--in her case--being caught by Federation scanners left no room for exhaustion. Joan felt that maintaining communications silence, signaling only by hand, added to the eerie feel of the experience.

  They made only one short landing, just north of Cruzville, so that Joan could adjust the gain on her windfield; then they resumed their escape north, with radiant units on their belts at full power for the remainder of their three-and-a-half-hour flight.

  Dawn was just breaking when they reached the Invisible Man's cabin in northernmost Pacifica, which was helpful in recognizing the roof configurations he had mentioned. They landed just past 7 A.M. Hill spoke the voice code that let them into the cabin; then he switched on the cabin's heat reflector to prevent infrared detection that anyone was using the cabin before turning on heat and lights.