Elorie reached for a remote, caught Dave’s eye, and hearing no complaints, turned on the cable news. Too nervous for conversation. Dave sympathized.
They held the now dozing twins in their arms as they watched, rapt, as the reporters went through the most recent news of the Divine Conclave. More had happened than Dave had realized, starting with, finally, a vote to ban worshippers and a set of legal procedures to deal with recalcitrant worshipped Gods. This came far too late for Worcester, who had refused to surrender to Patricia of Portland or to Odysseia the Great Satan. She had unwisely attacked Odysseia; Odysseia had used the procedure Daniel of Boise had developed before his untimely death and sent Worcester back to God Almighty. Which, of course gave teeth to the Conclave’s vote: if the rest of the worshipped Gods didn’t cooperate with their rulings, Odysseia would hunt them down and return them involuntarily to God.
Although he had caught several of the Conclave discussions on the subject, Dave couldn’t believe how quickly things had moved, once the moving started. They had even voted to retire the ‘God’ label; the Gods would all become Demigods (at least in the English speaking world). Their former City, Practicality and Ideology names would become mere titles.
Elorie clicked off the news. “Gods no more.”
“The Troubles are finally over.”
“Never,” Elorie said. Her haunted voice raised goose pimples on Dave’s arm. Whatever ate at her ate well; he knew her moods from all directions these days. She wasn’t ready for the ice water bath yet, but he feared from her tone of voice the cold water was close.
“You’re about ready to explode, El. Is this something you can tell me?”
“Let’s put the twins down for their nap first.” Stiff, stiff voice.
They walked the twins to their bedroom nook in the corner of the room where he and Elorie slept. Neither twin woke fully, just a peep to locate the other twin, necessary comfort. As they put the twins to bed he wiped tears from Elorie’s eyes. Twice. She didn’t bat his hand away, very encouraging. After, they went back to the couch in the TV room. Elorie curled up against him.
“Is this about us?” Dave said. He hoped not. He had thought everything settled.
“No, and yes.” His stomach clenched. “Not ‘us’ us, but about our extended family.” He didn’t relax.
“Is Diana making eyes at me again?”
“No, that’s settled.” Diana had finally admitted she was still in her pubescent sexual experimentation stage, and hadn’t finished her strange extended lifespan puberty. She was, in her words, the Godslayer’s apprentice slash heir, but unless something terrible happened to the Godslayer, Diana’s hidden potentials would remain hidden. “I mean, even Nessa’s being well behaved. No…” Elorie shivered. “I’m afraid to even think what I’m thinking.” He could hear it in her voice. “I’m afraid you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
Dave chuckled, cut short by Elorie tensing up against him as he sat on the couch. “By now I know crazy, and you’re not,” he said.
She poked him hard in the ribs with a fingernail.
“Thanks,” Elorie said. “I think.”
She didn’t continue; Dave listened to her breathing, ragged, holding in deep emotions.
“This is serious for you, I understand; I’m here for you if you want to share.” The depth of Elorie’s emotions had him on pins and needles; he hated any personal discussions too deep for his humor to pierce.
“Okay,” she said. “Dave, I think Ken was right to start with, when he visited Nessa in Eklutna that first time.”
Dave inhaled and fought off a wince. He knew the story; both Ken and Nessa had told it, each with a different spin, dozens of times. They had both agreed on the gist – Ken had blamed Nessa for the appearance of the 99 Gods. Nessa denied any such thing, and Ken had mostly dropped the subject. Dave had analyzed Ken’s accusation, in his own fashion, many times. He hadn’t liked what he figured out.
“Do you think everything’s all Nessa’s fault?” Dave said, carefully neutral. “All these wars, and battles, and Gods, and crap? Do you think she created everything out of whole cloth?”
He waited for his exaggerated suppositions to be corrected, but to his surprise she answered with a simple “Yes.”
Elorie’s pragmatism and reality-based logic were legendary. She didn’t do flights of fancy. She, and only she, had been able to pin the correct label of ‘God’ on the Watchers. Amid many other pinnings. “Why?” Dave found breathing difficult; he fought to keep his mind blank and his mental barriers shut up tight. He hadn’t shared the scary stuff he had figured out. Elorie had now gone further.
“Consider that Nessa’s even given a speech, in public, before the Conclave of the Gods, about dolphin representation in the UN replacement the Gods are talking about proposing. Nessa? Public speaking? Far too surreal.”
Dave took a deep breath, steadying himself. He hadn’t expected Elorie to start with Nessa’s speech. “She didn’t do badly, but I don’t think anyone out there’s expecting a political career out of her. Even her big dream of being the Ha-qodeshim’s representative is going to take work. She’s not a natural public speaker.”
“This isn’t what I mean, Dave. I’m sorry; I’m not sure where to start. Saying this in words is more difficult than I imagined.” She paused long enough for Dave to squeeze her shoulder.
Elorie took a long shuddering breath. “This didn’t come to me until the aftermath of the Betrayer’s lair fight, when we were getting all of us patched up and Nessa had her too-many-deaths fit that temporarily turned off her Telepathy. I think the story Nessa and Ken told us, about why they had ignored everyone and attacked Blind Tom, triggered my insight. Their story included a description of their first fight with Blind Tom, years ago, how they called in John Lorenzi for help, how Blind Tom fled, and how Nessa had wowed Ken and Lorenzi by reaching out with her mind and got people to be on the lookout for Blind Tom. Dave, Nessa had everyone on the planet looking for that creep, including the two of us; and she had set things up so if anyone saw him they’d get agitated enough for Nessa to notice. And it worked. That’s insane! That’s when I realized Ken was right.”
“Nessa supposedly gets sick when she uses her full power.”
“So she says. Ken also supposedly gets sick when he uses his, even though a few hours ago he just sat down, did his ‘metry thing on the Earth itself, and located all the missing leftover gamme on a map without blinking an eye.”
Ken and Nessa were out being ferried around by Odysseia, finding and destroying the leftover Watcher gamme. Ken did the locating, grousing all the way. Nessa did the mental destruction of the gamme minds, reveling in bloodless conflict. Odysseia did the ‘porting and the physical destruction of the gamme. Dave was glad that he and Elorie weren’t along, as their cross-continental and trans-oceanic ‘porting would have given him an incredible case of jet lag. He didn’t even want to think about how the twins would have reacted.
El would have also needed to relax her immunities, which she refused to do any more save with Maria.
“This is disquieting.”
“You are so full of shit, David Estrada!” Elorie said, snorting at his careful neutrality, her voice a half octave higher. “Disquieting! My idea’s fucking unbelievably terrifying!” She shook her head and met his eyes. Her forceful beauty nearly destroyed his impassivity. “Dave, Ken’s a master at hunches. I can’t see how he could have been wrong about something of this importance.”
Neutral, neutral. Dave couldn’t even let himself think, let alone react. “I’m surprised that Ken and Nessa haven’t called you on your idea.”
He had expected a nod. She didn’t. “There you have the most disgusting part of this mess. Whenever I’m around them, I forget.”
Dave sat up straighter, suddenly chilled. “You sure?” he said. After the words got out, he regretted speaking. He hadn’t expected Elorie’s comment.
Elorie tensed under his arm. “I’m positive, dammit.” She paus
ed; Dave couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Other than an ‘oh, shit!’, which he repressed. “And even when they’re not around the idea keeps slipping through my mind unless I concentrate.”
He needed to keep Elorie from exploding, but how? Questions, of course. Her theory wasn’t air-tight. “What about Opartuth and the other Ha-qodeshim?” Dave said. “Ken and Nessa encountered them as teens, and the dolphin mind’s existence was verified by Lorenzi. What about the magicians and the other adult Telepaths?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt the other adult Telepaths exist, and I could be convinced about the dolphins,” Elorie said. “I’m not convinced that anything we know is correct, though.”
Dave could only nod.
“What I’m getting at is this: How much of all of this was a Nessa scheme to destroy Blind Tom? How old was Blind Tom, anyway? How old is Nessa? Not her body, but her mind. Was she another of these demi-immortals like Lorenzi, who had hopped from an old dying body into a child in some mother’s womb?”
Dave had to force his body to relax; he had gotten as tense as a board. He couldn’t comment on Elorie’s hypothesis, as her insights led to his own terrifying ideas. Nothing good could come of this.
Elorie didn’t relaxed into his silence. “Dave, my darling non-paranoid husband, consider that all we have for proof that the Ha-qodeshim exist at all is Nessa and her communication abilities. Nobody else living has ever communicated with them, save her, at least based on what I know. Or, turning things around, what proof do we have that they are truly Gods and not as Nessa and Ken once thought, just dolphin shared-mind Telepaths? What if everything that’s happened is Nessa and the dolphins having a fun old time of bluff?”
“Ouch. Excellent points,” Dave said. He hadn’t thought of those arguments. Her logic hinged on the fact that only Korua and Spang were willing to speak in public, through Nessa. “Don’t forget that Lorenzi never did magic, save for the removal of the ability of others to do magic, until the 99 Gods showed up.”
Dave chewed on this for several moments, wondering what was safe for him to say, glad they had long since given up on true Telepathy and its attendant truth-based foibles. “I can’t say if you’re right or wrong with your ideas, but I do have another way to look at this.” He took a deep breath. “Look at the big picture. Right now, we’re approximately back to where we started pre-99 Gods, save that there aren’t any more standing armies; the nukes are gone; people have been resurrected and have told of their experiences, putting some facts behind religious faith; and due to the work of the Gods there’s a lot of action going on regarding old unsolvable problems, such as what to do about robotization of the economy, depletion of ocean resources, global warming, developing nation poverty pockets, the issue of the rapidly improving AI capabilities, and all sorts of similar crap.”
“Your point is? This still could all be Nessa.”
“If this is all a Nessa scheme, then I want more Nessa schemes.”
Elorie sighed. “Dave,” she said, exasperated. She didn’t buy his logic. “People died to get us here. Horrendously large numbers of people. Including Nessa’s mother!” Dave nodded. He still couldn’t believe he survived the battle. Survivor’s guilt, Maria of Birmingham said. “This makes me uncomfortable, especially the psychology involved. What if this was all some sort of war in Nessa’s head between herself and her sock parts? If so, has the war been resolved? Or are we going to see the current Conclave of Gods divide into three factions, taking the fight to a different level, something else for Nessa to solve and grab more gratification after a whole lot more of us are dead. I mean, this whole mess has ended oh so neatly, with Nessa holding Odysseia’s chain, and Odysseia being the court of last resort for the Gods, and the Gods being the ceremonial leaders of the world, working through influence and good works. This reminds me of what Nessa said she wanted when she was a child, Nessa as world empress.”
“If this is Nessa’s idea of how one acts as a world empress…seeing the benefits, I’m still in,” Dave said. Elorie shook her head.
“Dammit, Dave, even if I’ve got some of this wrong, I’m sure some of this is right at some level.”
At some level, perhaps. ‘In one you are many; in many you are one,’ Diana had said. He took a long long time to figure out what Diana meant, and Dave didn’t want to go to that terrifying place right now. He refused. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Of course,” she said. “I could go on for hours, trying to dredge up all these confused bits of evidence. For one, consider the backwards marriage and how it’s propagating through Nessa’s ‘coincidence pools’. This isn’t happenstance. I’m sure Nessa’s consciously behind this.”
“If you asked Nessa she wouldn’t deny being behind this,” Dave said. Nessa hadn’t denied it to him when he asked. “This one’s an active Nessa scheme to set a pattern to allow the normally asocial adult Telepaths and other similarly powered types to bond and help them rejoin humanity. Apparently, Telepaths can’t court each other without knotting themselves up like Vanessa and Ken did back when they did the psychic detective shtick, and we know the same is true for many of the other powered types. I think her scheme’s working, too.” He pulled Elorie’s chin toward him. Her eyes were ice cold, which distressed him. “Do you regret us? Do you think the love we have is fake?”
His question melted Elorie’s eyes. “No, Dave. I don’t regret us at all. I love you very much.”
“I love you too.” On so many levels, he realized.
“Still, backward marriage’s still freaky and inhuman.”
“Yes. Painful, too, until the people involved adjust, but necessary. You met some of the other Telepaths and how inhuman they were.” Dave shivered. As a pair, Nessa and Ken were the least inhuman of the Telepaths. To him, the old saw about ‘if Telepaths exist, why aren’t they running the world’ got answered when the Telepaths turned out to be the Natural Supported analogs of the delphinian Ha-qodeshim. They hadn’t been running the world because they had been too alien and too uncommon. Only, this might be changing soon. The Indigo had dozens of socialization training techniques covering everything from how to turn the autistic into relatively normal people all the way to how to teach an alien Archangel how to masquerade as a human. They already possessed methodologies for nurturing young occultists so they didn’t turn into magicians. Telepath nurturing wasn’t too far off, or at least so they said. Their confidence was worth a shiver or two.
“Okay, okay. Gotcha,” Elorie said. She didn’t relax, not what he expected.
“Something else is eating at you, too, isn’t there,” Dave said.
Elorie nodded. She didn’t start talking, but chewed on her lip, wiggled, and made faces at the world. “Remember after the Betrayer’s Lair battle, when Maria healed my wounds?” Elorie said. Dave nodded. “She said that since she was now a Territorial God she could fix up a few things inside me she hadn’t been able to fix back when she was Persona. Well, her fixes worked. My milk’s drying up. I’m pregnant, Dave.”
His eyes jerked open. “Neat! Congratulations!” He smiled, filled with joy. Elorie didn’t smile back.
“You’re not going to have a child God,” Dave said. Diana had finally managed to teach him one of her tricks, the voice thing. The voice trick focused the mind and allowed the hunch to speak without interpretation.
“This isn’t what I’m worried about. I already talked to Maria about that possibility,” Elorie said.
Then he saw a way out of all of this. “El, don’t forget that despite our minor tricks and what Maria’s done to us, when you get right down to it we’re still normal ol’ mortal humans with normal ol’ mortal human emotions and hormones. I still curse a blue streak when I stub my toe.”
“Oh,” Elorie said. “You think I’m worried sick because I’m scared about what kind of world I’m bringing a new life into?” She sighed. “It’s such a cliché, but do you actually think all of my worries about Nessa are the result of pregnancy hormones?”
/> She aimed her loaded question right at his heart. “You tell me.”
“I want your opinion, Dave, not your waffle. Do you think I’m having the dreaded pregnancy vapors?”
He braced himself. He muttered a short prayer and took the plunge into the warm lake of white lies. “Yes. I do.” He hated doing this, he really hated doing this.
“Good,” she said, and, finally, relaxed. “I just wish you’d found a hole in my logic first. I don’t want my crazy ideas to be true. I want the world to be a better place for real. I want all these wonderful things you quoted to be real, and true, with no Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.”
“We’re back to faith, I guess. No matter what we learn about anything, there’s always going to be faith behind our postulates,” Dave said. He kept his mental shields fully closed, just in case.
Elorie sighed. “What I’m most afraid of is that I’ve caught Nessa’s insanity. Promise me something. Promise me you’ll never ever ever hint to anyone about my babbling and my irrational fears.”
“I promise,” Dave said. An easy promise. He motioned at the clicker and Elorie turned the news back on. Ho of Beijing sat and spoke; to his left Pei, Master of Confucianism, glowered. The negotiations hadn’t ended yet, but from the gist of Beijing’s translated comments, Dave decided the negotiations were over, save for the last minor details.
He expected a knock at the door and his kids’ appearance, but the knock was the ‘poom’ of an incoming ‘port. Elorie turned off the television and they ran to the entryway, where a bedraggled mud-stained Ken and Nessa nearly dropped from Odysseia’s arms.
“We’re done,” Odysseia said, with a pert sniff of her jet-black nose. Her obsidian skin didn’t shine. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to find a nice long bed and sleep for the next day or two. Don’t worry; I’m going to vanish from your lives for as long as I’m able.”
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 70