So the Underground assumed that they could carry on playing treason games, and maybe play them so well that one day the Godmind would suddenly, to its surprise, find itself defeated.
I wasn't so sure. Maybe the activities of the Underground simply amused the Godmind—to the extent that they were wide of the mark, and ineffectual.
After several weeks of preparation, the Doge's Tavern cell decided that the time had come. I was due to appear in the Basilica of San Marco, the grandest church in Venezia. It was there that I should denounce the Godmind.
Came the day, I felt damn glad to be wearing that ring of Tessa's. It was something to set against the glittering splendour of that "Church of Gold". Oh the sensual glory of that Basilica, crusted with scintil- lant mosaics inside and out—and its golden altarpiece studded with two and a half thousand jewels! Oh the glory of the Godmind, dwarfing the rebel cherub: me.
When I arrived, a machine was playing a symphony from the gallery by way of warm-up. Long golden chord progressions soared and soared. The Pastor took me into an antechamber and supplied me with a white soutane and a square white biretta hat to wear for the occasion. Thus attired, I was escorted down the nave by the Pastor, a doting old codger dressed in the usual belted red frock. The symphony faded when I arrived at the altar-rail. I turned and stood near the speaking-tube, which would make my voice resound around the Basilica.
"Earth-mortals of Venezia," the Pastor cried out through the tube. "On this blessed morning we mass together to hear from the cherub Yaleen, daughter of an alien sun, starchild of the Godmind. Let us praise her!"
The audience did so by clapping loudly and calling "Bravo!" The Basilica was packed, and for a moment I thought that none of my friends were in the congregation. Then I spotted Bernardino near the front. He winked. With fingers crossed I rubbed my ring, and kissed it for good measure.
The Pastor departed back up the nave; silence fell. To me, this silence descended like a ton of feathers, suffocatingly. What the hell was I going to say? I'd made my mind up to speak simply and clearly, as in previous churches, but this building was so ornate. How could I match it? I licked my lips. Then I recalled the old fragment, Julius Czar.
"Mortals, Venezians, Earthfolk, lend me your ears," I sang out. "And keep them open please! Don't stick your fingers in them. I come here to bury the Godmind, not to praise it. I come to bury it under a pile of accusations which are all too true! Why? Because it intends to bury us all, starfolk and Earthfolk alike. It means to light a bonfire with our minds, burning our brains out so that it can see to the end of the universe in one big flash—"
This was awful! Burials, bonfires, big flashes. I glanced at Bernardino; he grimaced. A rustling mutter of perplexity spread amongst my audience, like a scuttling rat. Or six rats.
"Look here," I said, and proceeded much more simply.
Things went better from then on, for the next five or ten minutes. The rats of murmur didn't quit their scampering but now they mostly scurried to my tune. Or so I thought.
I was helped by my claque in the audience. At one point Tessa rose, dressed in black weeds—I hardly recognized her at first till I noticed all her rings. Wringing her hands, she wailed, "It's true! The Godmind is a Devil. A Satan rules the Earth! The Demon of precog myth!" Quickly she subsided back into her seat.
Cesare and Patrizia and Bernardino also joined in briefly from seats far apart. What's more, members of other cells seemed to be scattered about in the congregation. Then Luigi spoiled the effect by appearing in the gallery and showering down leaflets. He hadn't said he was going to do this; Patrizia glared angrily. (Or was she angry? Her expression was weird.)
The Pastor, after flapping his hands at me for quite a while from the back, arrived at some decision and left.
I spoke on. Presently a drab little man leapt up. "You insult us!" he cried. "You insult our Basilica. You insult those robes you wear."
"You insult us!" parroted the woman next to him.
"You aren't a real starchild!" another woman shrieked. "You're an imposter!"
"No she isn't!" someone else shouted back. A member of the Underground? "No normal child could speak that way. So she must be a cherub."
"Nobody normal would talk that way!"
"Shut up! This may be true!"
And so on.
"Yes, hear me/' I called. I had the advantage of the speaking tube. "Hear me—for the sake of the future! Listen, for the sake of life on all the worlds!"
At this point the speaking tube went dead. And just then two pigeons flew into the Basilica. They flapped up together to perch on the gallery.
"Here comes the proof," I shouted, in my child's unaided voice. "The Eyes of the Godmind! No doubt the Fingers will follow. But am I oppressing anybody? No! So why should I be silenced?"
Sure enough, two tall strapping men hove in sight. Both wore identical sky-blue uniforms. They could have been twins. Neither of their broad bland faces bore any hint of personality.
I crossed my arms and awaited them there at the altar-rail. The congregation had hushed; and so had I. I had no intention of being dragged shrilling from my podium. There was, as Tessa had observed, such a thing as dignity.
The pair of Paxmen halted a few spans away from me. And then, from the machine-mouths which had made music up in the gallery, spoke a voice: a rich, sonorous, sombre voice.
A voice which could only be the Godmind's own. (And in the audience: muted gasps, wide eyes. Somebody keeled over in a faint.)
The pigeons cocked their heads, and the Paxmen stood blankly before me.
"In precog myth," said the voice, "a child went into the Temple to argue with the Wise; and ended up nailed to a tree. . . ."
"Really?" I croaked. I cleared my throat. "Is that so?" I said, more boldly. "There aren't too many trees in Venezia! So will you nail me up on the bell-tower? Nice view from up there."
"Do not mock me, cherub."
"Why don't you tell all these people the truth about what you're actually up to?"
"Why, cherub, the truth is that I am filling this galaxy of stars with human souls. Did you not know that?"
"Did you know that you sent black destroyers back through time to all sorts of worlds—so that you could stroll in later on and set up shop? But the scheme didn't pan out properly everywhere!"
Luigi raised a ragged solitary cheer. Which I suppose was quite brave, or stupid.
"Silence! You refer, cherub, to the precog myth of Satan-spirits expelled from God's bosom before the Earth was peopled? Why? That did not come to pass."
"Oh didn't it? Where else do you think you got the idea for the black destroyers—on World 37 and elsewhere? You've cocked-up, and you don't even know it. If you mess around with time, you change what happened—and that includes knowing that you did it! You made your own enemy on seven worlds at least."
"Interesting hypothesis," said the voice, after a while. "I shall think about this."
"Of course," I ploughed on, "it's also possible that part of you knows this—and is hiding it from the rest of you!"
"Now you're trying to be too clever, cherub. You've had one bright idea. Yes indeed, I shall know the answer. . . ."
"When? When you've filled the galaxy with human minds? And then set light to them, to see to the end of the universe through the biggest lens you can build?"
There was no reply to this. None. Soon the congregation began to whisper.
So I called out, "It's the dead who will know the answer, Godmind—not you!"
"Then should not everyone die?" came the soft reply.
Now there was shock and consternation on many faces.
"If a God is immortal—" began the voice.
I interrupted. "Oh, so that's it! You want to preserve your own existence for ever, even though you're only a created thing, made by people? Let me tell you, you'll get goddamn bored with no people around to occupy your idle aeons. Everyone will have vanished into furthest A'a-space."
"Be quiet, cheru
b. This is a holy moment. A moment of illumination. I see now that if an immortal God comes into existence at a particular point in space and time—it must become preexistent too. Otherwise how could it be immortal?"
"Eh?"
"The God must be able to reach back into the past; and in the process it will cause precog myths of itself to be bom. Yet the knowledge of how this can come to pass . . . may vanish in the very instant of its happening. . . ."
The voice suddenly grew harsh. "If Satan is the blindness of a God," spake the Godmind, "that blindness may yet be burnt out in a flash! You: I will put you somewhere safe while I think on these things."
The pigeons took wing. The Paxmen advanced a step farther.
It was at this point that a riot broke out in the Basilica of San Marco.
Part Three
The Rose Show On The Moon
Black smoke billowed above the Basilica. Fountains had begun to JLjblossom from the Piazza. Motor boats of the fire brigade clustered at the nearby quay like flies busy at a cowpat.
We were fleeing—not very fast—in a commandeered vaporetto, Bernardino at the helm.
Maybe we'd have done better to escape into the alleys of the city. But Paxmen had begun popping up all over. By the time we did decamp, slumbering bodies already littered the Piazza San Marco. The Paxmen were gassing everyone with their mercycans.
There may not have been any riot in Venezia for centuries; or anywhere else for that matter. But the ability to riot obviously hadn't been lost . . .
I wasn't too clear about the exact sequence of events, though I guess that's in the nature of riots, especially when they're being deliberately fomented. But anyway, the sudden eruption of brawling throughout the Basilica caught the two Paxmen off balance. Interrupted in their attempt to arrest me, they tried first to quell the congregation. Tough as those two servants of peace were, they were quickly overwhelmed and beaten senseless. Oh it was chaos in there; not least from the point of view of a little girl. All those big adult bodies crashing about. Then Bernardino appeared, picked me up bodily and forged through to the exit. When we got out into the Piazza, that was in turmoil too. But the fires of violence had already been lit out there. What spilled out of the Basilica was only extra oil to add to the flames.
Just as Bernardino set me down, Prof and Luigi happened by. "They're ruffians!" Prof was shouting at Luigi. "You've hired ruffians!"
"Hired? They're volunteers of the Underground, that's who! Well, most of them. So maybe some people have had a few drinks. But use your eyes, man! It's the normals who are berserking. The sheep have got their dander up at last." Luigi danced aside to shove somebody into someone else. This someone-else swung round and punched his supposed attacker.
Prof grabbed Luigi by the arm to stop him from slipping away. "There'll be a dire come-back for this!"
"It's worth it." Even thus impeded, Luigi stuck out a foot to trip a careering youth, who cannoned into the two brawlers. "Paxmen can't arrest a thousand people. Won't! This thousand will remember. Think of the news value. Journals pick this up all over Europa. After we phone 'em." Shaking loose, Luigi kicked a stout matron in the butt. She plunged screaming and flailing, claws out. Bernardino sheltered me.
Luigi cried, "It's a huge spontaneous explosion of protest at Yaleen's revelations! Needn't have happened if those Paxmen hadn't tried to shut her up. That's what angered everyone."
"They'll find our leaflets in there, you idiot!"
"Will they? Will they? Don't count on it! Anyway, we've drawn the Godmind into the open. We've called its bluff!"
Just then Patrizia, fiery and radiant, came wading through the melee with Tessa in tow. A woman was lying on the ground, bleeding and moaning, and feet were trampling her heedlessly. A fat man was stamping around, grunting like an angry pig as he nursed a broken finger. Tessa was cackling with glee, and for a moment it seemed to me that these people were totally childish. They were the children, not me. They knew nothing. They'd never been in a real conflict, or seen Verrino trashed. They didn't even understand pain —till they got hurt. (But did that mean it was mature to go through a war?)
That was when three crackling bangs came from within the Basilica one after another. Heat gusted out.
"What in the name of—!"
"Firebombs, Prof," bragged Patrizia—as the congregation began flooding out, everyone fighting to be first. "Come on, Lui, action! But always from the rear."
"Don't I know it!"
"Down with the Godmind!" she shouted. The two of them melted away into the mob.
I grabbed at Bernardino. "You set me up! You really fooled me!"
"Not me. I'm as astonished as you are. Oh, we had a plan to save you from the Paxmen; to spirit you away safely. But not all this! Pat and Lui must have cooked it up between them."
"If you're so damn clever at reading people's faces, how come you never suspected?"
"I didn't read Pat's intentions—because I already knew her so well. I never thought to!"
Smoke began drifting out of the Basilica. Some hideous cries still came from inside.
Bernardino looked sick. "I didn't know her!" It was hard to say what anguished him more: the agony inside the burning building, or his own failure of insight.
Tessa directed a ringed finger towards the south end of the Piazza. "The Paxman cometh," she said whimsically. Me, I couldn't see a thing, down where I was.
"He's not the only Paxman," Prof cried. "Look, look."
Rioting may not have been in fashion for ages, but the Godmind's response time was speedy enough; its officers were armed with mercy-cans, as used by medics. They mowed the rioters down with smoke.
Looking back on it, Bernardino didn't quite have his wits about him. Or else he was determined to prove his own good faith to me, in recklessly chivalrous style.
For him, Prof, and Tessa the obvious way out would have been to let themselves get gassed in amongst the milling crowd and take their chances. I, of course, would have been arrested. I was far more identifiable: a child in a white soutane.
Instead of letting the confusion be his cloak, Bernardino acted on one of those impulses which seem like a good idea at the time. He hustled us down to the waterfront ahead of the advancing Paxmen. Bellowing something about evacuating victims—as though that was his job—he boarded a waiting vaporetto. The pilot didn't argue too much at the change of command; not after Bernardino pitched him into the water. Then Bernardino ordered panicked refugees on to the boat—enough refugees to confuse things—and we promptly took off, while more people were still trying to board. A couple of men joined the pilot in the water. We headed out and away, on the regular route towards the Lido. Like any ordinary bus-boat.
Naturally, this way of escape isolated us conspicuously on a huge expanse of water where any mech-gull could spot us.
Even so, we almost got away.
From somewhere along the Lido, an absurd contraption arose. It tilted, and headed in our direction.
It was a balloon the size of a sloop, striped in red and white, with a basket dangling below. This basket was being hauled through the air by a flight of four great white birds in harness. The birds had necks as long as snakes. Their wide wings beat lazily but firmly, towing the wicker carriage, and the air-bag that held it aloft, towards us apace. Two Paxmen in sky-blue clutched the ropes of the basket, staring our way.
I couldn't help wondering if this crazy form of transport was meant to say something to me. Was this some precog myth, specially staged for my benefit?
"Oh, the swans! The swans!" exclaimed Tessa. She sounded more enchanted than scared.
"They're mech-swans," Prof told me. "They—and that balloon— were at the festival of the marriage of Venezia with the sea."
"Yes, when a ring is thrown overboard to wed the city to the ocean!" Tessa promptly stripped off a ring (the one with her family seal embossed) and tossed the ring far out. "A signet for a swan, sirs!" she cried. Obviously she had gone bananas. She laughed gaily. Then s
he leapt overboard.
I shouted, "Bernardino, stop the boat!" But we had already left Tessa behind. "No, don'/ stop! Circle round!"
Tessa was bobbing in our wake, supported by her outspread skirts. She appeared to be wearing several white petticoats under the black weeds. She was making no effort to stay afloat, yet the air trapped in the layers of her garments prevented her from submerging. Angrily she began punching at her costume to beat it down; to no avail.
Prof clapped his hands. "She would rather drown than be exiled from Venezia! How romantic."
"Don't be stupid. We can't let her drown!"
Our boat's engine was roaring at full thrust, though oddly we didn't seem to be moving so fast. "Bernardino, I told you to circle!"
"I just reversed the engine!" Bernardino shouted back at me. "We'll be going backwards in a moment." (And meanwhile our passengers milled and pointed and protested.)
"Oh ... So who's going to jump in?"
"Alas," confessed Prof, "I cannot swim. But why should anyone jump in? This is the Contessa's own free choice—to preserve her honour and dignity."
I jerked my thumb towards the wallowing, flapping woman. "You call that dignified?"
It was all an academic question. The swans were already upon us. The swish-swish of their wings beat overhead. Both Paxmen leaned out, to drop green glass globes resembling fishing floats. Several of these burst on our deck, disgorging clouds of green smoke. . . .
For a brief moment after I awoke I thought that I'd died and was back in /fa-space without a body; I simply had no weight at all. Then I opened my eyes and discovered that I was strapped to a seat inside a travel-capsule of some sort. Slouching figures lolled in other seats. Arms floated in mid-air. Hair stood up like waterweed.
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