To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (27 page)

"You are a Christian, all these weird churches and cults or whatever they are say
they
are Christian. Yet you are hiding? Why is that?"

The little wiry Spaniard nodded. "Yes, I know. But why did the Church punish deviations? Why condemn any form of worship of God? It is a mystery, indeed. How easy it would be to say that God works in mysterious ways. I've always thought that idea was a deterrent to rational and logical thinking; you can say that, perhaps, when your meager efforts have failed. But you should
try
and not give up
too
soon, yes? Now, in answer to your question: I would say that I do not know. There were political reasons, ethnic reasons, geographic reasons, reasons that were said to be temporary and others that were said to be necessary, but I have never really understood why. We all worship God, whether we call him the Great Spirit, Supreme Being, Brahma, First Cause, the Infinite, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah – or you make up a name. The Holy Roman Church believes that its path is the true path, but perhaps all paths lead to Him." The old man smiled softly. "Perhaps His ways
are
mysterious."

He pursed his lips, then said, "I have lived a sheltered life until a few years ago. I am learning ... It is good not to be isolated from the people – no leader should be. So I am learning. I learned that greed is a powerful motivation, and that men saw power and wealth in religion and organized it with computer research and motivational analysis, finding out the fears of men and playing upon them. That is nothing new, but they brought it quickly to
a fine
art, playing on the reactions to ... to your licentious time."

"It was a free time, though," Blake argued.

"Perhaps too free."

Blake felt a sudden anger. "You can't be
too
free."

The aged pontiff nodded. "Perhaps ... you are right. Perhaps I should have said your age required more self-discipline. Would you agree?"

"That's different. With that I would agree."

"Come on," Rio said. "I don't care to argue theology now. We've got to move."

"Go with God!" said the Holy Father.

"And with haste," Rio added.

"Thank you," Blake said, and the little brown man made the Sign of the Cross in the air.

Rio and Blake walked out the front door and went quickly toward the drop elevators.

"He seemed so alone," Rio said.

"I never thought I'd meet a pope."

Blake slipped his stolen change-card into the slot on the pay pictophone in the echoing mall of the huge Palmdale Airport. He looked at the number on the paper and punched it out.

The screen cleared almost at once, revealing a pretty woman in a plain blue dress. Behind her was a veneer wall with a large commercial logo. "Proteinettes, good afternoon!"

Blake didn't know what to do. It seemed unlikely his contact was a switchboard operator or a receptionist. Perhaps he had mispunched. "Is this two thirteen, four sixty-five, sixty-six forty-four, fifty-six ninety?"

"Yes, it is, sir. How may we help you?"

"Well, I'm Mr. Metatron and–"

"Ah, yes, sir! Is your wife with you?"

"Yes, uh ... Batna is here."

"Very good, sir. Would you please take the monorail to St. Timothy's Gate,
Casmaran.
You will be met by a
representative of this office."

Blake repeated the destination and the connection was broken. He looked at Rio. They both shrugged and started walking.

"Do you feel like a pawn?" she asked.

"All too often," he said.

The monorails rose like silver spaghetti from the airport terminal, and branched out in every direction toward arcologs. Overhead, swift aircars moved on invisible wires in steady streams. Rio saw a moon shuttle coming down and pointed it out to Blake, but he was too busy looking over the other passengers and trying to decide if any of them were tails.

The monorail skimmed over the mountains, past small arcologs and then bigger and bigger ones, as they neared Los Angeles. None of them was familiar to Blake or to Rio, although they thought one of the smaller arks might be
Mojave
and another was perhaps the old
Sahara.
They stared out of the windows at the passengers at every stop and even at the advertisements on the wallscreens at each station.

About a third of the ads were for soya foods and algae products. Rugged, handsome men in rough-weather gear were manning improbable algae boats and urging that you buy Seawheat or Oceanein or Protein-A. Handsome, chaste-looking women suggested you use Sayan or Soyasea, and there were tridees of beautiful, healthy children smiling as they emptied bowls of Proteinums. Another third were religious-oriented, offering the addresses of main temples, advisory services, heresy teams, rehabilitation centers, seminaries, hospitals, and the like. The final third were advertisements for Circus bills, Arena trainers, personal medicines, new and used transportation sellers, arcolog rentals, and a few television shows.

Casmaran
was a large ark on the eastern edge of what Blake figured was the San Fernando Valley. As they stood waiting for the representative, they read a large sign that said
Casmaran
was the name for "summer" and that the different main levels were Tubiel, Gargatel, Gaviel, and Tariel. It was built and operated by the Potent Lord Construction and Realty Corporation, which also operated
Talvi, Ardarcel,
and
Farlas,
the other three "seasons."

Bored with waiting, Blake and Rio discussed their probable futures and Blake thought of asking Rio where Voss and the others were.

"I don't know," she said. "I heard a rumor that someone was trying to buy me out, but I never knew who it was. It could have been anyone who, you know, saw me in a parade and..."

Blake nodded. "He's somewhere. Do you think he made it to Switzerland?"

Rio shrugged. "I don't know. Oh, Blake, this world is so different from what I expected, from what Jean-Michel expected! Why did we come here?"

"In pursuit of immortality," he said wryly. "Maybe in two or three hundred years it will change and we'll still have two hundred or so to live in peace."

She looked at him sadly. "I'm sorry you came, Blake. I've condemned you to – to this."

"No, I'm a volunteer. Besides, if I hadn't come, I would have been dead decades ago! I'm alive and well and living in the future."

"Some future!"

"Mr. Metatron?" The voice was at their elbow and soft.

Blake stood in the window with his arm around Rio and looked out at the megalopolis of Los Angeles. It was even larger than when Blake lived on the other side of the Hollywood Hills. It seemed to be just one enormous building now, and even the spaces between the arcologs were filled thirty or forty stories deep at their shallowest. The arks were bigger than any of those of his time, and Blake counted several times the number that he remembered.

They had stopped at a transfer terrace on the escalator trip up the outer facet of
Casmaran,
and Rio had marveled at the horizon-to-horizon supercity. "It's bigger than San Francisco," she said.

"It always was," Maya Higgins said, unimpressed. "It's a monument to stupidity. Forty-one million miserable souls, and climbing daily."

"Forty-one million?"
Blake asked.

"In Los Angeles?" Maya nodded, directing them to the next escalator.

"It's the second-largest city in the world now. Tokyo has forty-six point two, London has thirty-nine something, Shanghai has about forty. So do Moscow and Sao Paulo. Bombay, New Delhi, and Calcutta dropped, of course, since the famines. I
think
they were quite large in your time. Cairo, Rio, and Peking are catching up, though. But Los Angeles had such good a climate and all that desert to grow into!"

Blake thought about the hordes that now, he was told, bulged every ancient city site across the world, plus all the new cities, the floating arks, the underwater cities, and even the populous Arctic metropolises.
Sixteen billion...

He held Rio closer and they watched-night overtake the huge city. Lights burned deep in the canyons and clefts long before the sun had left the faceted towers of the tall buildings. Unceasing streams of aircars wove intricate multilevel patterns in the air, hopping from the landing pads of one structure to another, dropping, rising, weaving, and never hitting each other.

Maya now escorted them into a beautifully decorated apartment. Rio and Blake turned to her. "New clothes, new ident, a new life," the short, voluptuous woman said. She gestured at the clothes she had put on a wide bed-lounge. "Your new wardrobe."

Blake started unzipping his tunic. Maya got an odd, uncomfortable look on her face and turned her back to him. Blake ignored her.

"We're being handed from one secret hideout to another," he said to her, "but where are we going? The New Day people? Venus?"

"Oh, we're Venus. Didn't they tell you? Everyone wants you, you know. Just everyone! You are real prizes, people we can all identify with. A genuine pair of time travelers from the era of true freedom – and
famous
in the Arena. You might be the catalysts that bring all the different groups together at last."

"How many are there?" Rio asked as she, too, changed clothes. "Besides Venus and New Day?"

"Oh, let's see. There are the Angels of Liberation, the American Patriots, the Iconoclasts, a few really odd religious groups that don't mesh with the Christians. The anarchists, naturally, but they are quite spread out and disorganized. The Thomas Paine Society, the Termites, and what's left of the Congress, the Catholics, and the Orthodox Jews."

"The Congress? Of the United States? That's an underground group?" Blake stared blankly at Maya. The status of the pope had surprised him, but an outlaw congress seemed truly fantastic.

"Oh, didn't you know? No, I guess you couldn't have. Once the different churches became powerful they started lobbying, of course, and electing their own men and women. Eventually, it caused quite a few fights, and it came to a head with the election of Joan Hillary to the House. They refused to seat her, then others who they said were 'unfit.' By that they meant un-Christian. The whole episode grew into quite a fight. Just paralyzed Washington for months. The church people had the numbers and the rules. Then someone tried to assassinate President Canfield, and all hell broke loose. Congress declared about forty congressmen and senators wanted criminals and ... well, they finally disbanded Congress by acclamation, returning power to the states. The elected members went around for years as a government-in-exile, but most of them were eventually captured, killed, or betrayed ... Oh, Rio, that looks marvelous on you!"

Rio now wore a dress that covered her completely to the neck but still managed to show off her figure. Blake had on tights and a severely cut jacket. Maya handed them both dark cloaks.

"You can wear these to the party," she said.

"Party?" Blake asked. He felt constantly foolish, always asking inane questions about what was obviously commonly accepted practices, but he had little alternative if they were going to learn anything.

"Yes, Venus is giving a party in your honor."

"Is that
safe?"

"Oh, yes, quite safe. We've never had a raid of that sort in this ark – not one. That's why we brought you here. Everyone is dying to meet you!"

Blake looked at Rio.

"It might be good relaxation," she said.

"It seems so dangerous for two fugitives to ... Oh, well, let's do it."

Maya smiled brightly and took their hands. "Good! Follow me!"

The party was in the big, rambling condo of Walter Robinson, the majority stockholder of Proteinettes. The robot butler let them in after identifying them visually, but the foyer seemed like a tomb. Rio and Blake looked at each other, their expressions saying, "A party?"

Then the robot keyed an electric door with his radio, and it slid open. The room beyond was quite dark, and Blake saw some movement. But there was no sound whatever.

Maya stepped forward, gesturing them to follow. As they passed through the door, noise flooded over them in a sudden, shocking wave. First, the hard pulsebeat of music, which almost drowned out everything else; then, filtering through, a few grunts and cries.

"Ohh!" said Maya, her eyes bright as she turned back toward Blake and Rio, who stood just inside the acoustical curtain. "Isn't it deliciously exciting?"

Blake and Rio peered into the darkness beyond the wedge of dim light cast through the electric foyer door.

They caught glimpses of movement, flicks of light on metal or jewelry, the gleam of eyes, the faint sheen of sweaty flesh. But nothing definite. Then the door closed silently behind them and the room was almost pitch black.

Maya took their hands and whispered, "This way."

They followed her on a weaving course through the big room, sometimes stumbling over an unseen soft object. Soon they approached a faintly glowing ball, which illuminated a few steps, and carefully ascended them, emerging into a short hall.

Maya led them through a curtain of fabric and another acoustical curtain, into a room more brightly lit. Here the music was quieter, less strident, and more erotic. A man and woman detached themselves from a group of softly laughing people and ambled toward them.

In the dim light Blake was not sure if he would recognize these people on the street. He was introduced to Walter Robinson, a man in his fifties, with an air of power and authority about him, and to Ramona Nelson, a slender dark woman. They shook hands, and Blake was immediately annoyed at the possessive manner Robinson adopted toward Rio. He was also aware that Ramona's eyes had never left his face or body.

"Greeting, wayfarers," Robinson said with a dramatic voice. "Welcome to my humble abode." He gestured around him, into the semi-darkness where others were heard laughing or talking. "Everything you see is yours."

Ramona closed in on Blake with half-lidded eyes. "You must come with me, Blake. We are all eagerly awaiting your reactions to our little group here."

The woman tugged at Blake's arm but he did not want to be parted from Rio. He held Rio's hand tightly and she signaled back with her grip. Robinson and Ramona were persistent, but unsuccessful.

"Aren't you all afraid of being arrested?" Rio asked. "I thought this sort of thing would be–"

Robinson laughed. "Oh, no! The level monitor is one of us, and the floor monitor is sympathetic. The sounds never penetrate outside, and my people are careful."

"This is Venus?" Blake queried.

A sudden burst of laughter rang out in a dark corner and Robinson looked that way with a tolerant smile. "Part of it," he said. "There are thousands like us, just waiting for the time when we can overthrow the shackles of oppression," he said proudly.

Blake glanced again at Rio. The man seemed sincere, but to Blake this underground attempt at an orgy was ludicrous.
Liberty is never won by hiding away and pretending one's lusts are revolutionary. Liberty is only won by deeds. Robinson's guests and their pitiful attempts at striking back at their society's sex taboos are sad. There has to be more to Venus than this,
Blake thought; and he could see by Rio's face that she was hopeful, too.

Robinson was still pressing Rio to go into another dark room with him, just as Ramona was tugging at Blake.

We're prizes, not people,
Blake told himself. He turned quickly to Maya. "Look, we're tired. This party is very nice, very much like the very best sort of parties in our time, but we'd like some sleep. It's been a long time, and–"

"Don't go," Ramona said, coming close.

"You're going?" Robinson said incredulously.

Maya was also surprised, and she protested.

Blake was adamant, however. "Some other time," he said soothingly. He gestured around him and told Robinson, "Very nice, very nice. Wish we could stay, but really, we're bushed."

"'Bushed'?" Ramona asked curiously.

"Tired. Worn out."

Blake let Robinson and Ramona follow them back to the front door, acknowledging a few introductions to dim figures on cushions and couches, then told his hosts good night. He gently but firmly refused the offer of their company, then followed Maya back to their hideout.

Maya became more and more excited as they neared the apartment. Obviously the now bubbling, eager Maya was expecting a triple – something she could brag about for the rest of her life – and Blake hated to disappoint her. But he and Rio both made it obvious they were looking forward to rest. Finally she took the hint.

"This is your room," she said to Rio, then pointed at another door. "That's yours."

Blake and Rio looked at each other in surprise. Somehow they had expected to finally share a bed. But Maya looked firm. "That's right. One may ... may
do
things together, but unmarried people just don't sleep together."

"All right, my little revolutionary," Blake said. He smiled at Rio. "I’m tired. Things have been happening so fast. I’m tired of running."

"I'm so weary," Rio agreed. Her eyes lingered on Blake, then she went into her room.

Blake said good night to Maya and fell into bed. He lay awake for a few moments, thinking over the long day, wondering what lay ahead for them. Tomorrow, Maya had said, they would be sent to the New Day people.

Pawns. Prizes. Targets.

But you must keep moving,
Blake thought sleepily. The idea of giving up never occurred to him.