by James Blish
‘Very good,’ Bainessaid. He was, in fact, elated. Of the other three people in the office with Ware – for Ware had said there was no way to prevent Father Domenico from attending – none looked as pleased as Baines felt, but after all he was the only man who counted here, the only one to whose emotions Ware need pay any more than marginal attention. ‘And much faster than you had anticipated, too. I’m very well satisfied, and also I’m now quite ready to discuss my major commission with you, Dr Ware, if the planets and so on don’t make this a poor time to talk about it.’
‘The planetary influences exert almost no effect upon simple discussion,’ Ware said, ‘only on specific preparations – and of course on the experiment itself. And I’m quite rested and ready to listen. In fact, I’m in an acute state of curiosity. Please charge right in and tell me about it.’
‘I would like to let all the major demons out of Hell for one night, turn them loose in the world with no orders and no restrictions – except of course that they go back by dawn or some other sensible time – and see just what it is they would do if they were left on their own hooks like that.’
‘Insanity!’ Father Domenico cried out, crossing himself. ‘Now surely the man is possessed already!’
‘For once, I’m inclined to agree with you, Father,’ Ware said, ‘though with some reservations about the possession question. For all we can know now, it’s entirely in character. Tell me this, Dr Baines, what do you hope to accomplish through an experiment on so colossal a scale?’
‘Experiment!’ Father Domenico said, his face as white as the dead.
‘If you can do no more than echo, Father, I think we’d all prefer that you kept silent – at least until we find out what it is we’re talking about.’
‘I will say what I need to say, when I think it is needful,’ Father Domenico said angrily. This thing that you’re minimizing by calling it an ‘experiment’ might well end in the dawn of Armageddon!’
‘Then you should welcome it, not fear it, since you’re convinced your side must win,’ Ware said. ‘But actually there’s no such risk. The results may well be rather Apocalyptic, but Armageddon requires the prior appearance of the Antichrist, and I assure you I am not he … nor do I see anybody else in the world who might qualify. Now, again, Dr Baines, what do you hope to accomplish through this?’
‘Nothing through it,’ Baines, now totally caught up in the vision, said dreamily. ‘Only the thing itself – for its aesthetic interest alone. A work of art, if you like. A gigantic action painting, with the world for a canvas –’
‘And human blood for pigments,’ Father Domenico ground out.
Ware held up his hand, palm towards the monk. ‘I had thought,’ he said to Baines, ‘that this was the art you practised already, and in effect sold the resulting canvasses, too.’
The sales kept me able to continue practising it,’ Baines said, but he was beginning to find the metaphor awkward, his though it had originally been. ‘Look at it this way for a moment, Dr Ware. Very roughly, there are only two general kinds of men who go into the munitions business – those without consciences, who see the business as an avenue to a great fortune, eventually to be used for something else, like Jack here – and of course there’s a subclass of those, people who do have consciences but can’t resist the money anyhow, or the knowledge, rather like Dr Hess.’
Both men stirred, but apparently both decided not to dispute their portraits.
‘The second kind is made up of people like me – people who actually take pleasure in the controlled production of chaos and destruction. Not sadists primarily, except in the sense that every dedicated artist is something of a sadist, willing to countenance a little or a lot of suffering – not only his own, but other people’s – for the sake of the end product.’
‘A familiar type, to be sure,’ Ware said with a lopsided grin. ‘I think it was the saintly Robert Frost who said that a painting by Whistler was worth any number of old ladies.’
‘Engineers are like this too,’ Baines said, warming rapidly to his demonstration; he had been thinking about almost nothing else since the conjuration he had attended. ‘There’s a breed I know much better than I do artists, and I can tell you that most of them wouldn’t build a thing if it weren’t for the kick they get out of the preliminary demolitions involved. A common thief with a gun in his hand isn’t half as dangerous as an engineer with a stick of dynamite.
‘But in my case, just as in the case of the engineer, the key word is ‘controlled’ – and, in the munitions business, it’s rapidly becoming an obsolete word, thanks to nuclear weapons.’
He went on quickly to sketch his dissatisfactions, very much as they had first come to a head in Rome while Governor Rogan was being sent for. ‘So now you can see what appeals to me about the commission I propose. It won’t be a series of mass obliterations under nobody’s control, but a whole set of individual actions, each in itself on a comparatively small scale – and each one, I’m sure, interesting in itself because of all the different varieties of ingenuity and surprise to be involved. And it won’t be total because it will also be self-limiting to some small period of time, presumably twelve hours or less.’
Father Domenico leaned forward earnestly. ‘Surely,’ he said to Ware, ‘even you can see that no human being, no matter how sinful and self-indulgent, could have elaborated anything so monstrous without the direct intervention of Hell!’
‘On the contrary,’ Ware said, ‘Dr Baines is quite right, most dedicated secularists think exactly as he does – only on a somewhat smallerscale. For your further comfort, Father, I am somewhat privy to the affairs of Hell, and I investigate all my major clients thoroughly. I can tell you that Dr Baines is not possessed. But all the same there are still a few mysteries here. Dr Baines, I still think you may be resorting to too big a brush for the intended canvas, and might get the effects you want entirely without my help. For example, why won’t the forthcoming Sino-Russian War be enough for you?’
Baines swallowed hard. ‘So that’s really going to happen?’
‘It’s written down to happen. It still might not, but I wouldn’t bet against it. Very likely it won’t be a major nuclear war – three fusion bombs, one Chinese, two Soviet, plus about twenty fission explosions, and then about a year of conventional land war. No other powers are at all likely to become involved. You know this, Dr Baines, and I should think it would please you. After all, it’s almost exactly the way your firm has been trying to pre-set it.’
‘You’re full of consolations today,’ Father Domenico muttered.
‘Well, in fact, I am damn pleased to hear it,’ Baines said. ‘It isn’t often that you plan something that big and have it come off almost as planned. But no, Dr Ware, it won’t be enough for me, because it’s still too general and difficult to follow – or will be. I’m having a little trouble with my tenses. For one thing, it won’t be sufficiently attributable to me – many people have been working to bring that war about. This experiment will be on my initiative alone.’
‘Not an insuperable objection,’ Ware said. ‘A good many Renaissance artists didn’t object to collaborators – even journeymen.’
‘Well, the spirit of the times has changed, if you want an abstract answer. The real answer is that I do object. Furthermore, Dr Ware, I want to choose my own medium. War doesn’t satisfy me any more. It’s too sloppy, too subject to accident. It excuses too much.’
‘?’ Ware said with an eyebrow.
‘I mean that in time of war, especially in Asia, people expect the worst and try to ride with the punches, no matter how terrible they are, In peacetime, on the other hand, even a small misfortune comes as a total surprise. People complain, “Why did this have to happen to me?” – as though they’d never heard of Job.’
‘Rewriting Job is the humanist’s favourite pastime,’ Ware agreed. ‘And his favourite political platform too. So in fact, Dr Baines, you do want to afflict people, just where they’re most sensitive to be
ing afflicted, and just when they least expect it, right or wrong. Do I understand you correctly?’
Baines had the sinking feeling that he had explained too much, but there was no help for that now; and, in any event, Ware was hardly himself a saint.
‘You do,’ he said shortly.
Thank you. That clears the air enormously. One more question. How do you propose to pay for all this?’
Father Domenico surged to his feet with a strangled gasp of horror, like the death throes of an asthmatic.
‘You – you mean to do this!’
‘Hush. I haven’t said so. Dr Baines, the question?’
‘I know I couldn’t pay for it in cash,’ Baines said. ‘But I’ve got other assets. This experiment – if it works – is going to satisfy something for me that Consolidated Warfare Service hasn’t satisfied in years, and probably never will again except marginally. I’m willing to make over most of my CWS stock to you. Not all of it, but – well – just short of being a controlling interest. You ought to be able to do a lot with that.’
‘It’s hardly enough, considering the risks involved,’ Ware said slowly. ‘On the other hand, I’ve no particular desire to bankrupt you –’
‘Dr Ware,’ Father Domenico said in an iron voice. ‘Am I to conclude that you are going to undertake this fearful insanity?’
‘I haven’t said so,’ Ware replied mildly. ‘If I do, I shall certainly need your help –’
‘Never. Never!’
‘And everybody else’s. It isn’t really the money that attracts me, primarily. But without the money I should never be able to undertake an experiment like this in the first place, and I’m certain the opportunity will never come up again. If the whole thing doesn’t blow up in my face, there’d be an enormous amount to learn from a trial like this.’
‘I think that’s right,’ Hess’s voice said. Baines looked towards him in surprise, but Hess seemed quite serious. ‘I’d be greatly interested in it myself.’
‘You’ll learn nothing,’ Father Domenico said, ‘but the shortest of all shortcuts to. Hell, probably in the body!’
‘A negative Assumption?’ Ware said, raising both eyebrows this time. ‘But now you’re tempting my pride, Father. There’ve been only two previous ones in Western history – Johannes Faustus and Don Juan Tenorio. And neither one was properly safeguarded or otherwise prepared. Well, now certainly I must undertake so great a work – provided that Dr Baines is satisfied that he’ll get what he’ll be paying for.’
‘Of course I’m satisfied,’ Baines said, quivering with joy.
‘Not so fast. You’ve asked me to let all the major demons out of Hell. I can’t even begin to do that. I can call up only those with whom I have pacts, and their subordinates. No matter what you have read in Romantic novels and plays, the three superior spirits cannot be invoked at all, and never sign pacts, those being SATHANAS, BEELZEBUTH and SATANACHA. Under each of these are two ministers, with one of the six of which it is possible to make pacts – one per magician, that is. I control LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, and he me. Under him in turn, I have pacts with some eighty-nine other spirits, not all of which would be of any use to us here – VAS SAGO, for instance, who has a mild nature and no powers except in crystallomancy, or PHOENIX, a poet and teacher. With the utmost in careful preparations, we might involve as many as fifty of the rest, certainly no more. Frankly, I think that will prove to be more than enough.’
‘I’ll cheerfully take your word for it,’ Baines said promptly. ‘You’re the expert. Will you take it on?’
‘Yes.’
Father Domenico, who was still standing, swung away towards the door, but Ware’s hand shot out towards him above the desk as if to grasp the monk by the nape of the neck. ‘Hold!’ the magician said. ‘Your commission is not discharged, Father Domenico, as you know very well in your heart. You must observe this sending. Even more important, you have already said yourself that it is going to be difficult to keep under control. To that end I demand your unstinting advice in the preparation, your presence in the conjurations, and, should they be needed, your utmost offices in helping me and my other Tanists to abort it. This you cannot refuse – it is all in your mission by stipulation, and in the Covenant by implication. I do not force you to it. I do but remind you of your positive duty to your Lord.’
That … is … true …’ Father Domenico said in a sick whisper. His face as grey as an untinted new blotter, he groped for the chair and sat down again.
‘Nobly faced. I’ll have to instruct everyone here, but I’ll start with you, in deference to your obvious distress –’
‘One question,’ Father Domenico said. ‘Once you’ve instructed us all, you’ll be out of touch with us for perhaps as much as a month to come. I demand the time to visit my colleagues, and perhaps call together a convocation of all white magicians –’
‘To prevent me?’ Ware said between his teeth. ‘You can demand no such thing. The Convenant forbids the slightest interference.’
‘I’m all too horribly aware of that. No, not to interfere, but to stand by, in case of disaster. It would be too late to call for them once you knew you were losing control.’
‘Hmm . . probably a wise precaution, and one I couldn’t justly prevent. Very well. Just be sure you’re back when the time comes. About the day, what would you suggest? May Eve is an obvious choice, and we may well need that much time in preparation.’
‘It’s too good a time for any sort of control,’ Father Domenico said grimly. ‘I definitely do not recommend piling a real Walpurgis Night on top of the formal one. It would be wiser to choose an unfavourable night, the more unfavourable the better.’
‘Excellent good sense,’ Ware said. ‘Very well, then. Inform your friends. The experiment is hereby scheduled for Easter.’
With a scream, Father Domenico bolted from the room. Had Baines not been taught all his life long that such a thing was impossible in a man of God, Baines would have identified it without a second thought as a scream of hatred.
Theron Ware had been dreaming a journey to the Antarctic continent in the midst of its Jurassic splendour, fifty million years ago, but the dream had been becoming a little muddled with personal fantasies – mostly involving a minor enemy whom he had in reality sent for, with flourishes, a good decade ago – and he was not sorry when it vanished unfinished at dawn.
He awoke sweating, though the dream had not been especially stressful. The reason was not far to seek: Ahktoi was sleeping, a puddle of lard and fur, on the pillow, and had nearly crowded Ware’s head off it. Ware sat up, mopping his pate with the top sheet, and stared at the cat with nearly neutral annoyance. Even for an Abyssinian, a big-boned breed, the familiar was grossly overweight; clearly an exclusive diet of human flesh was not a healthy regimen for a cat. Furthermore, Ware was not even sure it was necessary. It was prescribed only in Éliphas Lévi, who often made up such details as he went along. Certainly PHOENIX, whose creature Ahktoi was, had made no such stipulation. On the other hand, it was always best to play safe in such matters; and, besides, financially the diet was not much more than a nuisance. The worst that could be said for it was that it spoiled the cat’s lines.
Ware arose, naked, and crossed the cold room to the lectern, which bore up his Great Book – not the book of pacts, which was of course still safely in the workroom, but his book of new knowledge. It was open to the section headed
QUASARS
but except for the brief paragraph summarizing the reliable scientific information on the subject – a very brief paragraph indeed – the pages were still blank.
Well, that, like so much else, could wait until Baines’s project was executed. Truly colossal advances might be made in the Great Book, once all that CWS money was in the bank.
Ware’s retirement had left the members of Baines’s party again at loose ends, and all of them, even Baines, were probably a little shaken at the magnitude of what they had contracted for. In Baines and Dr Hess, perhaps, there still r
emained some faint traces of doubt about its possibility, or at least some inability to imagine what it woud be like, despite the previous apparition of MARCHOSIAS. No such impediment could protect Jack Ginsberg, however – not now, when he awakened each morning with the very taste of Hell in his mouth. Ginsberg was committed, but he was not wearing well; he would have to be watched. The waiting period would be especially hard on him. Well, that couldn’t be helped;’ it was prescribed.
The cat uncurled, yawned, stretched, lurched daintily to its feet and paused at the edge of the bed, peering down the sideboard as though contemplating the inward slope of Fujiyama. At last it hit the floor with a double splat! like the impacts of two loaded sponges. There it arched its spine again, stretched out its back legs individually in an ecstasy of quivering, and walked slowly towards Ware, its furry abdomen swinging from side to side. Hein? it said in a breathy feminine voice.
‘In a minute,’ Ware said, preoccupied. ‘You’ll get fed when I do.’ He had forgotten for the moment that he had just begun a nine days’ fast, which when completed he would enforce also upon Baines and his henchmen. ‘Father Eternal, O thou who art seated upon cherubim and seraphim, who beholdest the earth and the sea, unto thee do I lift up my hands, and beseech thine aid alone, thou who art the fulfilment of works, who givest booty unto those who toil, who exaltest the proud, who art destroyer of all life, the fulfilment of works, who givest booty unto those who call upon thee. Do thou guard and defend me in this undertaking, thou who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen! Shut up, Ahktoi.’
Anyhow it had been years since he had believed for an instant that Ahktoi was really hungry. Maybe lean meat was what the cat needed, instead of all that baby fat – though still-births were certainly the easiest kind of rations to get for him.
Ringing for Gretchen, Ware went into the bathroom, where he ran a bath, into which he dashed an ounce of exorcised water left over from the dressing of a parchment. Ahktoi, who like most Abyssinians loved running water, leapt up on the rim of the tub and tried to fish for bubbles. Pushing the cat off, Ware sat down in the warm pool and spoke the Thirteenth Psalm, Dominus illuminatio mea, of death and resurrection, his voice resounding hollowly from the tiles; adding, Lord who has formed man out of nothing to thine own image and likeness, and me also, unworthy sinner as I am, deign, I pray thee, to bless and sanctify this water that all delusion may depart from me unto thee, almighty and ineffable, who didst lead forth thy people from the land of Egypt, and didst cause them to pass dryshod under the Red Sea, anoint me an thou wilt, father of sins, Amen.’