“We been here before?” asked Digger.
A group of birds scattered out of a tree, regrouped, and fluttered off to the west.
“Well,” said Kellie, “I guess we know why they went screaming into the night when you showed up.”
THE LAND BEYOND the temple rose through broken country toward the Skatbrones, the Goompah name, not for a single range, but for the vast mountainous north. A few homes dotted the lower slopes, and there were a couple of orchards. The lander had been left on a remote crag.
Kellie summoned it, and they boarded it from the temple grounds, taking a chance. But she kept the starboard side toward the sea so that no one could see the airlock open.
They climbed in and closed the hatch. Kellie took them up and headed back to the crag. Digger shut his systems down, and when they landed he happily grabbed a hot shower, changed clothes, and collapsed into his chair. After Kellie had her turn in the washroom, Bill served dinner. To her delight, Digger produced candles and a bottle of red wine from the Jenkins’s store. “Whatever made me think,” she said, “that you weren’t very romantic?”
“I majored in romance,” he said. “It’s why women have chased me so persistently all these years.”
“I understand completely. Pour the wine.”
He’d have preferred champagne, but their small store was long since gone. And he’d have liked something a bit more elegant for the occasion than meat loaf, but the lander had its limits. He filled their glasses, lit the candles, proposed a toast to his lovely fiancée. They closed the viewports so that no light would leak out, and enjoyed an evening that Digger knew he would remember forever.
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, they flew over the city.
Digger loved riding in an invisible aircraft. They kept the lights doused inside, and when he looked out, there were no stubby wings and no hull. It reminded him of his early boyhood, when he’d ridden the glide trains from Philadelphia to Wildwood, New Jersey. They’d crossed the Delaware River en route, on a bridge whose span and girders and trusses weren’t visible from inside the train. Sitting in his seat with his parents across from him, Digger (who had been Digby then, and no nonsense about it) had loved to look out at the sky and the river, and pretend the car wasn’t there, pretend he was an eagle. It had been a long time, and he hadn’t thought about those rides, those flights, for thirty years.
The city lights were dim by human standards. Oil lamps here and there. Candles. A couple of open fires. Yet they were warm and inviting, illuminating a place of magic. A place he’d want to come back to one day, when the crisis was over.
Romeo and Juliet was playing that night, would play for the next three evenings. The actual title was Baranka, and it was indeed a tale of lovers from feuding families. Baranka was the girl’s father, portrayed as an essentially decent but strong-willed character who cannot get past his own anger at his perceived enemies.
Reading it in a language he hadn’t begun to master, Digger couldn’t make a judgment as to its quality, but he was struck by the degree to which it dealt with familiar issues. When he’d mentioned it to Kellie, she’d commented that they’d been talking about a sense of humor as a universal among intelligent creatures, and she suggested the most characteristic universal could turn out to be programmed stupidity.
He wondered whether a translation might not play one day in New York and Berlin.
“How do you feel?” she asked, breaking a long silence.
“Good.” He thought she was referring to their new status.
“Really?” She seemed surprised.
“What are we talking about, Kel?”
She grinned. “How’s it feel to be the enemy of the gods?”
“Oh.” He produced an image of the frieze. The resemblance to humans was uncanny. “Not so good, actually.” He raised his voice a notch. “If you’re listening out there, whatever I did, I didn’t mean it.”
Kellie’s eyes glowed. “You think there are human-style critters around here somewhere?” she asked.
He thought about it. “Don’t know.”
“It occurs to me,” she said, “that if there are, the cloud could be a godsend for them.”
“In what way?”
“If it were to wipe out the Goompahs, it might clear the boards for the second wave.”
“The monkeys.”
“Yes. Maybe.”
“From the look of things,” he said, “I don’t think it would be an improvement.”
They landed and strolled among the crowds, and even went into a Goompah café, turned off the e-suits, and sang with the customers. It was great fun, and Digger yearned to shut down the lightbender as well and tell them he and Kellie were there and they liked a good time as much as anybody. Despite the isolation, they made it a special evening. At the end, with the omega back in the sky, and the lights going out, they returned to the lander and flew back to the crag. It overlooked the temple, a jagged piece of rock with sheer walls dropping away on all sides. And it was glorious in the light of the big moon. Farther north, the hills and ridges gave way to dark forest. The city was quiet, little more than a few smoldering lights in the night.
They got out of the lander. There was a stiff wind out of the west, and Bill was predicting rain sometime during the early-morning hours. But when you’re tucked safely inside a Flickinger field it doesn’t matter much. They were still out there when the storm came. It was an exhilarating feeling, to be caught up in the wind and the rain, with the temple below and Kellie holding tight. But when the first lightning flickered across the sky they decided the situation called for prudence. They lingered momentarily in each other’s arms, and Digger turned off her field. Before she could react she was drenched.
She pushed him away and ran for the lander.
He followed happily, using his remote to switch on the navigation lights. Her clothes had become transparent.
IT WAS STILL dark when he came fully awake. He listened and heard a distant sound. Felt it in the lander.
Voices.
Chanting.
Kellie was asleep beside him. He lifted himself carefully out of the blankets, but couldn’t see anything from inside. He pulled on his e-suit and went out into the night. It was coming from the temple grounds.
He walked to the edge of the crag and looked down. There were torches and movement. And the chant.
But it was impossible to see what was happening.
His experience with the Goompahs told him that they weren’t big early-morning risers.
He went back inside and woke Kellie.
THERE WAS A pair of Goompahs wearing black hoods and robes and carrying torches, led by another in white. It immediately felt like déjà vu, here they come again, where’s the javelin? And sure enough, there it was, hauled along by a bearer.
The crowd had grown. Someone was playing a set of pipes, and the marchers were chanting, although Digger could catch only an occasional word. “Darkness.” “Righteousness.” “Your glory.” “Help.”
Help.
Help us put a new roof on the temple?
Help us in our hour of need?
They were crowded together. Digger and Kellie kept a cautious distance.
The three robed figures moved along one of the walkways, staying in step, not military precision, but practiced nevertheless. The crowd fell in behind. He estimated it at several hundred, and they were joining in the chant and becoming more enthusiastic.
The rain had cleared off, and the stars were bright and hard.
The procession moved through a patch of woods and issued finally onto a beach. When Digger got there, well in the rear, the three leaders had thrown off their sandals and advanced a few paces into the surf. They spread out into a semicircle. The one in white looked older than the others, and he wore a wide-brimmed white hat.
“Creature of—”
The onlookers had gone quiet. They all stayed back out of the water.
“—the night—”
Digger suddenly realized he hadn’t brought a pickup. He had no way of recording this.
“—Depart—”
They got as close as they could, moving down into the wet sand, leaving footprints. But it was too dark for anyone to notice.
The marchers were looking out over the sea—
No, in fact they were looking up. At the black patch, which was sinking toward the northwestern horizon.
“—Hour of need—”
A large wave rolled in, and the one in the white robe floated over the top.
He raised his arms and the night fell silent. He stood several moments, and it seemed to Digger he was hesitating. Then he went a step or two farther out. The bearer appeared alongside him and offered the javelin. He took it and held it aloft. His lips moved. Trembled.
More Goompahs were arriving at every moment, some coming from the temple area, others arriving from the far end of the beach. But they were all silent.
He aimed the javelin in the direction of the omega, jabbed at it a few times, and handed the weapon off to one of the others. And as Digger watched in growing horror, he strode out into the waves, his robes floating, until at last he was floating. Then he was swimming, struggling to move forward against the tide. The sea tried to push him back, but he kept going and at last he got beyond the breaking waves.
He continued swimming for several minutes.
And he disappeared.
The one who had received the javelin stripped off his outer garment to reveal a white hood and robe. He raised the weapon over his head, and called out to Taris, the defender of the world.
“We beg you accept our (something). And protect us from T’Klot.” The hole. The omega. “Malio takes our plea to your divine presence. Hear him, we beg you, and extend your hand in this our time of need.”
LIBRARY ENTRY
Religion is like having children, or taking medicine, or eating, or any of a thousand other perfectly rational human activities: Taken in small doses, it has much to recommend it. One need only avoid going overboard.
— Gregory MacAllister
“Slippery Slope”
Editor-at-Large, 2227