“Launch codes confirmed. Condition red!”
The control room dimmed, illuminated only by the crimson glow of the emergency lights. Every officer stood poised and alert.
“Establishing target coordinates. Captain, your key,” called Ransom.
In the angel’s hand glinted a titanium key. Corwin reached instinctively into his side pocket and his fingers closed on the cool, hard edge of its partner. Among the switches and dials on the panel in front of him was the slit of a lock.
“On the count of three!”
“Remind me why I’m doing this?”
“One, two . . .”
It doesn’t matter. None of this is real, thought Corwin, but no matter how much he tried to rationalize it, everything about the situation felt disturbingly wrong. An angel wouldn’t start a nuclear war, right?
“Three!”
The captain and his first mate twisted their keys in unison. Above a bright red button shielded by glass, the word “armed” blazed ominously. Ransom leaned over and flipped up the guard.
“It’s all yours, Captain.”
“Hold on a second!” Corwin finger trembled over the fateful button. “I don’t understand. At least tell me the circumstances!”
“What difference does it make? Just press the button!”
“It makes all the difference in the world!” insisted Corwin. “I don’t even know who we’re firing at! Are we the defender or the aggressor? How many people are going to die if I push that button?”
“Perhaps ten. Perhaps ten million. One number is as good as the next,” Ransom said dispassionately.
“This is insane! I must know the situation!”
“And if I told you, would you understand which course of action to take?”
“Surely an informed decision is better than a blind one!”
“But I thought that all true understanding is scientific understanding. Explain to me why firing a nuclear missile is just or unjust. Explain it with science!”
“I, but that is,” Corwin choked on his words. Could he quantify the value of human life? Taking a labored breath, he struggled to think clearly. “It’s in our genes, a feeling evolved from herd instinct.”
“You’re dancing around the subject, Captain!” growled Ransom. “I didn’t ask you to explain why you feel a sense of justice. I asked you to validate that feeling scientifically. Show me the equation that proves why the jumble of atoms you call a living human being is better than the jumble of atoms you call a corpse.”
“I can’t!” stammered Corwin. “There is no such equation!”
“Then the answer cannot be known scientifically. The question must be irrelevant!”
“I won’t do this! I won’t play your game!”
His voice shaking, Corwin snapped shut the guard and took a fearful step away from the button.
“Our orders come straight from the top. To disobey is treason!” In a flash, Ransom drew his sidearm, pressing its cold barrel to the side of Corwin’s head. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to relieve you of command, Captain.”
“Whoa!” Corwin threw up his hands. “I thought we were past the whole persuasion-by-physical-abuse stage in our relationship!”
“Let me make this easier for you. In a short time, this world’s sun will explode in a supernova, extinguishing all human life. Why not push the button?”
“Because . . . Because I . . .” Corwin’s mind groped for an answer, finding nothing.
“If I pull this trigger, science can tell me the velocity of the bullet, the heat in the chamber, the trajectory of the blood that splatters on the wall. But science can’t tell me if I should pull the trigger or not. Answering that question requires something more.”
“Whatever, just put the gun away!”
The astonished crew looked on, no one daring to utter a word. Beads of sweat rolled down Corwin’s face. With a slow and deliberate motion, Ransom holstered his weapon.
“As long as we understand each other.”
Corwin exhaled with relief.
“I think we’ve spent enough time here,” said the angel.
That was one sentiment that Corwin undoubtedly agreed with. As if the whole ordeal were long forgotten, the submarine’s officers summarily returned to their duties, paying little heed while the captain and first mate exited the control room.
“Is it true that these people are doomed?” asked Corwin when they were back inside the narrow passage.
“All mortals are doomed,” replied Ransom. “Eventually the last star will burn out and the last atom come undone. No universe can sustain organic life forever.”
“You’re a real ray of sunshine,” Corwin said sarcastically. “Were you honestly going to shoot me?”
“It’s not as though the bullet would have killed you.”
“But I bet it would’ve hurt like hell.”
Ransom didn’t deny it.
“So I’d have a horribly painful, gaping hole through my skull and yet still be alive.” Picturing the scenario, Corwin arched his lips in a thoughtful frown. “That makes me both terrified and strangely curious.”
Steam hissed from a pipe suspended along one of the adjoining passages as a diligent crewman worked the joint with a wrench.
“There’s more of mechanism than meaning to science,” said Ransom. “Science is the wrench in your hand. It is a means to an end.”
“And you can use a wrench to tighten a bolt or to crack someone over the head,” Corwin added. “I know that science is morally neutral, but there’s no getting around the fact that a lot of supposedly good religion is bad science.”
“As you said, man hopes for knowledge. Much knowledge that primitive religions laid claim to was rightly the domain of science. Much, but not all. I needed to show you that the scope of human understanding is not limited to the empirical. You already believed that, of course, but your intellect had yet to catch up with your heart.”
Corwin was about to argue that his heart knew little more than how to pump blood when a sudden dizziness came over him. Stumbling, he tipped forward, his arms braced against either side of the cramped passageway. A dark haze clouded his vision and his mind swam with vague sounds and silhouettes. Corwin’s consciousness started to slip away, and then he heard a voice. From across an infinite void, a woman was calling his name.
“Corwin!” Mary’s voice was distant but unmistakable. “Corwin, wake up!”
7
An Absurd Hope
“Corwin!”
The touch of Ransom’s steady hand on his shoulder jolted the world back into focus. Like a boxer recovering from a knockout blow, Corwin slowly straightened up, shaking off the daze. The angel eyed him with a penetrating stare.
“Are you alright?”
“Just a little dizzy. I’m sure it’s nothing,” said Corwin, though neither he nor Ransom seemed entirely convinced of the latter.
“There’s a chance that your soul isn’t fully attuned to your new vessel yet. Maybe you should rest.”
“I’ll be fine,” Corwin promised.
The suspicion was still evident on Ransom’s face as he led on, but he made no attempt to press the subject further. Returning to the hatch door, he again turned the iron wheel, the portal groaning on its hinges.
“Watch your step,” he warned. “The ground here is uneven.”
Enveloped by darkness, Corwin could barely discern his own feet, much less the precarious terrain beneath them. The hatch had deposited the two travelers in the dank depths of a cave. It was cool and quiet, save for the soft murmur of a stream that cut its way along the middle of the path, always to their right.
“I don’t see how you could argue with my second hope,” remarked Corwin, his voice reverberating off the shadowy walls. “Everyone longs for a purpose, a deeper meaning behind this life. Religion is born from such hopes.”
“But you claim that religion is a false hope?”
“God is an invention of man, wishful thinking, nothing m
ore.”
“And why is it that man should be so obsessed with finding a purpose?”
“That’s just how we evolved,” Corwin explained. “An accident of higher brain functions.”
“You sound rather distrustful of your own nature,” observed Ransom. “Might not this most innate of human desires—the desire for meaning—be a clue to be grasped, rather than an illusion to be dispelled?”
“That’s all very poetic, but desiring a thing does not make it so. I desired a million dollars. All I got for my Christmas bonus was a gift certificate to Cracker Barrel.”
“But wealth does exist,” reasoned the angel. “If you had a fundamental desire for something that didn’t, then that would make you most unusual.”
“I always dreamed of being captain of the starship Enterprise.”
“Fundamental desire,” Ransom emphasized. “I speak not of elaborate fantasies.”
“And here I thought you were trying to defend religion!”
With a hopeless smirk, Ransom forged on, his sure gait carrying him easily over the rocks. Corwin’s vision had adjusted, but it was all he could do to keep an eye on the back of his carefree attorney. Warily he negotiated the trail, listening for where the stream burbled at the bottom of tiny waterfalls, giving clue of a descent.
Before long the path leveled out. Sunlight broke though the mouth of the cave ahead, sparkling on the water and glimmering off the staggered, sharp-edged facets of the crystalline floor. It rendered a view strikingly different from what Corwin had expected. The cave’s every surface was of rose-tinted quartz, as was the outside world.
They strode forth and were greeted by an alien sky. Beyond the scudding clouds, the rings of a gas giant sliced towards the horizon and a swollen sun burned balefully. The land fell away towards a jade sea, its endless waves broken only by leaning crystal spires in the far-off distance. Hexagonal pillars jutted here and there from the earth, sometimes in stepped bunches, and upon these reposed humanlike beings whose skin was translucent, their bodies pulsing with an inner light. The men and women alike were bald, naked and faceless, mannequins of living glass.
Unlike the hard edges of the crystal landscape, most of its inhabitants were smoothly sculpted. Only those perched atop the highest pillars bore skin that mimicked the sharp angles of the quartz. These sat motionless, the light within them having died. Corwin presumed them to be corpses, though the younger creatures scarcely moved either, their silent gaze transfixed upon the sea.
As Ransom approached, a female calmly turned her head to regard him. She sat upon the taller of a twin-pillar cluster.
“Otherworlder, you cast a deep shadow,” she spoke telepathically, the glow of her mind waxing with each word. “Does no light pass through you?”
“I am but a mirror,” replied Ransom. “I reflect a light that is not my own.”
His eyes blazed white-hot for an instant, the flash so intense that his figure darkened like a star in eclipse.
“A light so brilliant cannot harbor wickedness,” judged the woman. “What brings you to our island? Have you come on account of the trial?”
“That depends which trial you’re talking about. Is something amiss in your fading land?”
“It is as you say. This land fades. None still live who remember the days when our sun was young, and we that remain but await the coming of the New Sun. We do not fear the night, for our souls shine all the brighter, but though we want for nothing, the resplendent light of day is our greatest joy. So it was for all, until the fog bewitched the one who stands accused.”
“The fog?” questioned Ransom.
“I dare not speak of it. I can tell you only that the accused suffers from nightmares that plague him even by day. He looks to things that are not, and knows no peace.”
“And where is this trial being held?”
Lifting a slender arm, the woman pointed down the shoreline to her right.
“Follow the red moon. Where the earth spurns the ocean and rises to claim the sky, there you will find the Elder Council.”
The dying sun hung high in the heavens as Corwin and Ransom struck off along the coast, keeping the ruddy face of the planet’s smallest moon ever before them. They journeyed past stands of jagged trees, white-stemmed and amber-leafed, their branches laden with gemstone fruits. Corwin nearly jumped from shock when a nearby boulder stirred without warning, revealing crab-like legs tucked underneath.
“This world is stranger by far than the last,” he said, a spirit of adventure quelling his fears. “Would you have me believe that this is a real place or just a product of your imagination?”
“What makes you think that it can’t be both?” replied Ransom. “My imagination is quite a bit more powerful than yours.”
“So you can shape reality? Create worlds by imagining them?”
Ransom chuckled. “It doesn’t work precisely like that. We’re more like assistants, sketching a rough image. The Father alone knows the position of every whirling electron. What needs to be understood is that there are degrees to reality.”
“How can reality have degrees?” complained Corwin. “Things are either real or they’re not.”
“Even in your own world, that’s not the case. Some entities posses a higher order of reality than others, just as a mouse is more real than a stone, and you more real than a mouse.”
Corwin wrinkled his brow. “That might make sense to you, but I’m not seeing it.”
“What would you rather be,” posed Ransom, “a mouse or a stone?”
“A mouse, I guess. I’d prefer having a tiny brain to having none at all, and at least I could scurry about. Existence as a stone would feel rather like . . .”
“Like not existing at all,” concluded the angel. “The more something resembles the Father, the more real it is, for the closer it is to the source of all reality.”
“But if god isn’t real, then your whole metaphysical order falls apart.”
“An understatement, to be sure. Without God, reality is but another idea in the mind of man.” He looked to Corwin with a wry smile. “That is to say, not something I’d put much stock in.”
They crested a hill of jutting quartz steps and gazed up at what could only be their destination. Past the shallow dip of a valley, the elevation climbed steadily, soaring and tapering to a point that leaned out over the sea like the head of an overturned steam iron. A half-circle of crystal columns crowned the outer rim of its peak—the venerable seats of the Elder Council.
Seeking the most direct route, Ransom chose a ledge that snaked along the perilous face of the escarpment.
“Now would not be a good time to have another one of your dizzy spells,” he yelled over the gusty wind.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
Corwin glanced down to his left and immediately regretted it. Three hundred feet below, foaming waves crashed against the foot of the lofty cliff. He shrank back, his side glued to the rock face.
“You just had to take this shortcut,” grumbled Corwin.
“Everything worth doing in life is a little scary,” Ransom replied.
“But not everything that’s scary is worth doing!”
The ledge grew dreadfully narrow in places, now and again forcing them to clamber on their hands and knees up steep inclines. The edges of the rose-colored quartz dug into Corwin’s palms, but he wasn’t about to let go. At last he pulled himself over the lip of the cliff’s summit, his tension easing at the wonderful sight of level ground.
Nine elders stared down solemnly from atop the curved colonnade that bordered the area, weighing the crimes of the solitary figure who stood below.
“We have heard the evidence. Do you deny the charges against you?” asked the Speaker of the Council.
“I do not,” the accused blinked in answer.
“Then you know what has to be done. The fog must be dispelled. We cannot allow it to corrupt the minds of our young. Cast yourself into the sea and pass unto the great darknes
s with honor.”
Bowing his head, the accused accepted his sentence with a sullen step towards the precipice.
“Just a moment!” interrupted Ransom. “Before he leaps to his doom, might I ask that one a few questions?”
The Speaker’s gaze fell upon the two outsiders suspiciously.
“What is your business here, otherworlders?”
“Dealing with foggy minds is a talent of mine,” answered Ransom. “Perhaps I could offer a better solution.”
A flicker of voiceless words flashed between the elders as they debated the brash angel’s proposal.
“Very well,” decided the Speaker. “Ask what you will, but know that his fate rests with the Council.”
Ransom strode up to the condemned man and looked deep into his glassy, guilt-ridden visage, his body language telling all without the need of a face.
“You don’t look so dangerous, merely confused,” said Ransom. “I may be able to remedy that, but you must tell me of this fog. What phantoms haunt your dreams?”
The telepathic being shifted his weight uneasily.
“I know not the words for these visions that torture me so,” he lamented, lifting his listless head skyward. “I see dark flesh seared by flames. It cracks and spits, its juices dribbling. Beside it rest mounds of carved cloud, steaming and golden-crusted. There are gemfruits, but unlike any I’ve ever seen, for these are round and soft, ripe as the sun. Ruby nectars glisten like great dew drops in the shardleaves. And as I gaze upon these things, a hollowness groans within me, gnawing at my insides.”
Ransom tilted his head. “What a curious affliction.”
“He’s hungry!” Corwin declared.
“Ah, but why should he be? He is a star child, and like the stars themselves, his kind needs no sustenance. No living thing in this universe does, you see. They live until the fires within them grow cold, never knowing food or drink.”
Corwin balked at the notion. If the organisms of this plane had no biological use for food, then they would never have evolved a hunger for it. That there lived one among them who did was absurd.
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