“You must remember,” Reese cautioned him one day, on a beach, “that for you both worlds are real. If you have slipped through to Virtu you can die in a virtual avalanche. When you’re back in Verite you could break your neck falling down a flight of stairs.”
“What does Virtu mean, anyway?” Jay asked.
“It is an eighteenth-century term for an object of art. After all, it is the greatest object of art the human race has produced.”
“I guess you’re right. And Verite is our starting-place reality.”
“Right.”
“And physics and chemistry—all the laws of motion and thermodynamics—they don’t really work the same way in Virtu as they do in Verite, but they simulate it in Virtu—”
“Correct.”
“—because there have to be enough similarities to rely on in use— and enough differences to make the place useful.”
“That’s right. Especially since it’s used for recreation as much as for business and problem-solving.”
“What is the big problem you’ve been working on, this unified theory?”
“When Virtu created itself following Bansa’s accidental chain reaction crashing of part of the field, the place didn’t exactly spell out all its rules for us. They had to be learned—trial and error—as we tried to install some of our own. Virtu was stronger as to basics, though it will take programming and the creation of new spaces. What we’ve never really been able to determine is whether its physical laws are localized, distorted by occasion, special instances of more general laws—or whether, ultimately, there are really no general laws, whether it might all be expedience and emulation riding atop a sea of chaos.”
“Does it really matter,” the boy asked, “if the results are the same?”
Reese laughed.
“You talk a lot like your father in one of his more pragmatic moods. Sure it matters. Everything matters, ultimately—how, I can’t say, but I shall always believe that it does. A difference between a theoretician and an engineer, I suppose. We care about beginnings and endings, and when a boundary is really boundary. Someone else might say, Tour time would be better spent learning more ways to work with it. That’s where your theories are going to come from and find backbone.’ They’re right, too. But I incline toward the former approach and your dad toward the latter.”
“But you both think of the place as Virtu, an object of art?”
“Yep.”
“I’m glad things are not too simple, in life or in mind,” said Jay, picking up an exotic peach-colored seashell between his toes and casting it back into the water.
“It’s like the joy of solving a good crossword puzzle,” said Reese.
“What’s a crossword puzzle?”
“Oh, my! We’ve been neglecting your education again. I’ll bring some next time we visit. I think you’ll enjoy them.”
Arthur Eden’s Origin and Growth of a Popular Religion caused a tremendous sensation. Eden had the gift of prose granted to only a handful of happy essayists, yet his contentions were firmly rooted in the academic traditions of anthropological research and elegantly documented.
Eden’s treatment of his subject matter was ethical in the extreme. As he had privately promised himself at the beginning of the project, he revealed no rituals, gave away no secrets, broke no vows.
But he did show that despite its claims of being based upon ancient truths, the Church of Elish was a religion in active evolution. Revealing himself to have been member of the Church under the name of Emmanuel Davis, Eden reported how his research was used to design everything from vestments to prayer services. His discussion of the lavish interiors of private buildings and offices, the lifestyles of the most senior members of the hierarchy, implied—without ever bluntly stating so— that the donations gathered during the Collect were not always used for the aggrandizement of the deities.
Origin and Growth of a Popular Religion was abridged (mostly by omitting the footnotes) in an edition illustrated with pictures taken from a variety of sources—including the ancient media tradition of reenactment. It became a stage play entitled Undercover Cleric; a trideo with the same title (but here Eden/Davis was supplied with a sexy but tough assistant who spent much of her time interrogating members of the Church’s hierarchy during carnal congress), and an interactive virt adventure. This last had a surprising tendency to malfunction; five lives were lost and dozens of other participants were injured before it was shut down. This only added to the general belief that the Elishites had more to hide than Eden had implied.
Other works came out in imitation: Ishtar’s Slave, Entering the Elshies, Winged Lie, others with even more lurid titles. None sold as well as Eden’s books, for none had his unique mixture of anthropological expertise and personal insight. Arthur Eden, himself, could be assumed to have become a very, very wealthy man. His agent, when interviewed, refused to comment but looked quite smug. It was noted that he was building a new house in Paris.
But Arthur Eden, himself, could not be found for interviews. After a single massive gala launch for his book—a party that was well-attended despite (or perhaps because of) the immense amount of secrecy surrounding what it was meant to launch—he simply vanished from the public eye. For a few months after the release of the book he responded to hard copy interviews. Then, pleading a need to keep himself safe in the face of numerous death threats (none, he was careful to note, from the Church authorities, always from irate worshipers), he retired from sight.
His book remained on the best-seller list for over a year in hard copy, continued to do so in electronic form for another eighteen months. (Some said it might have lasted even longer except for the tendency for copies to have suffered vandalism in the form of unauthorized editing and argumentative footnotes.)
The Church of Elish never publicly commented on Eden’s Origin and Growth of a Popular Religion. It lost some membership immediately-after the release of the book, then it began to regain its former size. Virt crossover powers were occasionally displayed by acolytes, but largely the hierarchy seemed indifferent to public opinion, focused instead on its private mission.
High amid the branches of a jungle giant, Jay looked down in awe as Sayjak fought with Chumo for the leadership of the clan. It had just been a matter of time. The fight had been brewing for ages, Chumo hoping to catch Sayjak under the weather or injured, to give him the edge in any conflict—and vice versa. However, though he tried to hide it, Sayjak had turned his ankle in the afternoon’s raid on an eeksy encampment.
“Time you and me had it out, boss,” Chumo had said shortly after their return.
“You not good enough, Chumo.”
“I waited long time, watching you. Know all your tricks. Let’s find out.”
Sayjak tried to cold cock him with a powerful right-hand palm smash. Chumo dodged as he blocked it and struck Sayjak on the ribs with his left hand.
“You gettin’ old, flabby,” he said.
Sayjak growled, caught him in a sudden embrace and head-bashed him several times before the other could break away and spring back halfway across the compound.
Jay, who had been playing hide and go seek with Dubhe in the limbs at the middle to higher levels of the jungle giants, had lost his playmate and been drawn to the place of the fray by the roars and growls. Fascinated then, he had halted in the fork of a great tree and stared downward to where the combatants now rolled about trying to strangle each other.
“Weakling!”
“Fucker of slow goats!”