LoveStar (18 page)

“Thank you,” he said as formally as he could. “I'll let you know when we have a use for your energies.”

“Isn't it awesome?” asked Ragnar. “Isn't it fantastic?”

LoveStar knew that Ragnar was in a dangerous state. If he received Ragnar's ideas too enthusiastically, it would be like pouring oil on fire. If he received them too coolly, it would be the same. Ragnar could explode either way. It couldn't be helped. Even if he picked up a gun and put a bullet between Ragnar's eyes, the idea would evaporate through the hole. It would find itself another host, make him come crawling and saying: “Excuse me, LoveStar, I've got some ideas about LoveGod . . .”

“I'll be in touch, Ragnar,” said LoveStar. “You've got some interesting ideas.”

Ragnar walked out slowly, his expression unreadable; apparently he'd expected a stronger response. His eyes were glowing, the pupils filling his irises. LoveStar knew the symptoms. He had to ask him one final question.

“Excuse me, Ragnar. Can I ask you one final question?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” asked LoveStar.

“Why?”

“Yes, why should we do this? What for?” asked LoveStar. “What's the point?”

Ragnar looked at him baffled. The answer couldn't be clearer. “JUST BECAUSE!”

“But what do you think he's like? Who receives all this? What does he do with the prayers?”

“You pray for something: a harvest, long life, love, happiness, luck, success, good fortune. There's a demand for what money can't buy. If he listens to the prayers he can improve what's on offer: more sunshine, rain, better harvests, or fertility, making the customer happier and reaping more believers and more prayers.”

“Then why are there famines and failed harvests?”

“The prayers end up in one place. So God is probably only one entity. There's clearly a need for more gods. If there were two of them they would compete for prayers. If people could send them somewhere else, then the original would have to improve his service, enhance the quality of life on offer. Wouldn't he? He must have some goal, mustn't he?”

“I see,” said LoveStar, staring rigidly out of the window. Ragnar was much sicker than he had realized.

“So another God is needed?” asked LoveStar.

Ragnar the moodman gazed at him with glowing eyes.

“I believe YOU ARE God.”

FIREFLY

“I believe you are God,” Ragnar had said, and that was when LoveStar stopped sleeping. He sat in his office, waiting. There was nothing he could do but wait. He lay on his couch, staring up at the ceiling. He sat at his desk, drawing. He sat in a chair, doing mental arithmetic. It was too late to stop the search, and somewhere out there in the night an idea had gotten a man. He kept Ragnar under surveillance, trying to follow all his movements, all his texts and messages.

At times LoveStar was overtaken by such a fit of trembling that his legs refused to carry him and his hand wouldn't write. At those times he sat down on a comfy sofa and rested his eyes on a pool in the Indian jungle. Ferns covered the floor of the forest. White lilies bloomed in the water. A frog floated with its eyes above the surface. The canopy of leaves filtered the sunlight; it was ideal lighting for the eyes—he need neither squint nor peer into the shadows. He breathed, listened to the buzzing of the flies, and cooled his sight in the clear water.

“Where are you?” asked a distant female voice. It was Yamaguchi.

He sent her the coordinates.

“Beautiful,” she said.

“Where are you?” asked LoveStar.

“I'm the firefly.”

A firefly darted across the water.

“Where are you?” he asked again.

“I'm with you,” she said. He felt a body sit down beside him and a hand crept into his. It was a delicate hand that he knew well.

“I think we're losing control of the Mood Division,” said LoveStar. He watched a drop fall from a leaf and form rings on the surface of the water.

“I warned you about iSTAR,” said Yamaguchi.

“We wouldn't be as big without them,” said LoveStar. “Mood converts everything to gold.”

“They want to build a gadget out of every single thought we have in the Butterfly Department. They can see no beauty in the thought itself.”

The firefly settled on a lily.

“Why are they like that?” asked LoveStar. “Ragnar was a philosophy student. How could he change in such a short time?”

“There's a biological explanation,” said Yamaguchi.

“You explain everything by biology.”

“They live in a dead cycle. You drive their brains to produce surface and packaging, and if they don't take care their internal world ends up becoming the same as their external one. The surface becomes the depths. Do you understand what I mean? The packaging becomes the content. The emptiness becomes the filling. The brain lacks something but doesn't know what, so it begins to function like that of a starving man; the thoughts desire the same as the body and as a result the brain starts to burn up.”

A gray tortoise crawled onto a rotting tree stump. LoveStar was silent for a while and they continued to hold hands.

“You're shrewd,” said LoveStar. “You've never been able to stand iSTAR.”

There was a parrot perched in a tree. A noisy beetle buzzed in the treetops.

“Can we abandon LoveGod?” asked LoveStar. “Can we behave as if it had never occurred to us?”

“What do you think?” asked Yamaguchi.

“If we stop, someone else will continue the search.”

The frog dove. They heard a distant rumbling.

“We'd better get going,” said Yamaguchi. “The bulldozers are here.”

“What bulldozers?”

“Bauxite. Under the jungle and pool there's a sixty-five-foot layer of bauxite.”

“Can't we stop them?”

“LoveDeath's renewing the fleet. For that they need bauxite.”

LoveStar looked over the pool where he had so often rested his eyes.

“I'll cancel the bauxite order,” he said.

“There's no point,” said Yamaguchi. “Someone else will buy it. iSTAR had the area photographed; it'll be saved in the mother computer. The surface, at least.”

They transferred their vision back to the office. Yamaguchi was still holding his hand. LoveStar rested his head on her shoulder.

“What are you going to do about Ragnar?” asked Yamaguchi. “What ideas did he have?”

“It doesn't matter,” said LoveStar. “I'm going to try to explode him. I'm going to transfer him to LoveDeath.”

“He won't explode,” said Yamaguchi. “He'll quit.”

“He won't quit. I'll have to explode him.”

EXPLODING A MOODMAN

“Are you sending me to LoveSeath, my lord?” asked Ragnar when LoveStar gave him the news. He kept his face perfectly still, though his voice broke a little.

“I'm putting you temporarily in charge of mood at LoveDeath, and don't call me lord.”

“I'm grateful for the faith you're showing in me, but wouldn't my energies serve LoveStar better in overall mood at iSTAR or . . . LoveGod?”

“You'll take over mood at LoveDeath and carry on doing what you do best.”

“I'm sorry, Lord LoveStar, but I hope you appreciate that LoveDeath doesn't need a moodman like me. As head of iSTAR I've had an overview of mood at the corporation, and I promise you that at LoveDeath there's nothing for a serious moodman to do. The image is ingrained. There are no real challenges. Trust me, it wouldn't be worth the expense of trying to reach the tiny minority who for some reason don't choose LoveDeath.”

“You'll find something to keep you busy. Not a word more on the subject.”

Ivanov appeared behind Ragnar and escorted him down to LoveDeath, where he was shown into a dusty office. There he sat, trying to buck up. He was surrounded by furnishings that were so hopelessly out of fashion that he felt his self-image being eroded every minute he remained among such horrors. He was far from all the glitz surrounding inLOVE, far from cordless innovations; he'd lost sight of the beautiful people, sharp suits and sex, chicks and convertibles. The LoveDeath Mood Division was largely automatic and computer-driven; the few people who worked there were so completely burnt out that they held ideas meetings about the wording of regular death notices. Ragnar felt like a member of a special needs group as he sat around the table with these losers, discussing what toys Larry LoveDeath should give the children.

Mood thrives best in acceleration, innovation, a stimulating environment, and bursts of growth, but LoveDeath was solid and stable. LoveDeath was like a Gdansk shipyard, customs office, or power plant, and this was where Ragnar was forced to kick his heels. All around him blinked old screens on a permanent loop showing repeats of the long-vanished mood of the golden years. Endlessly showing the first launches of long-forgotten stars. This was death mood, as it was known at iSTAR.

In spite of it all, Ragnar managed to keep face and looked humble the next time he and LoveStar met. Ragnar had been humiliated but didn't let it show.

“I understand, my lord,” he said. “You're testing me. You're finding out what I'm made of before appointing me as your right hand. You're hemming in my ideas until they fuse into a nuclear core, which you can split and unleash when LoveGod comes into being.”

LoveStar absented himself and watched Ragnar from a distance. He was pleased when he saw the increasing tics and twitches, the manic mood swings: sometimes Ragnar would sit as if numb, then explode in a rage, only to be euphoric half an hour later. It was as if the idea was going to drill its way out of his head, taking his wits with it. But finally, when Ragnar seemed at breaking point, when his head seemed about to explode, he managed to get himself together and sit straight up in his chair, staring as if in a trance at rocket after rocket launching into the air, but of course LoveStar couldn't see what was going on in his cordless head. He couldn't see the plan Ragnar was forming.

One day Ivanov called LoveStar and asked him to come over to LoveDeath on the double. LoveStar hurried over, hoping fervently that Ragnar had finally exploded, but far from it. He looked better than ever. He was waiting for LoveStar in the meeting room. Hammers thudded all round as carpenters tore out the old furnishings.

“Right, Ragnar, tell him about the plan,” said Ivanov, gleefully, rubbing his hands together from pure excitement.

Ragnar stood and cleared his throat.

“It's hard to squeeze any more mood out of LoveDeath,” said Ragnar. “I can't show any successes on the marketing side, nor would it be possible in the normal run of things. LoveDeath is not growing. You can't increase the production of death without harming the image.”

“Ha, ha!” guffawed Ivanov, overexcited.

“Death produces at its own rate,” Ragnar continued. “The only real challenges are reduction of costs and increasing efficiency, which are the preserve of economists and engineers. Not moodmen. But as I was sitting last week watching rocket after rocket launching into space, I began to think about all the unclaimed orders that have been orbiting aimlessly, getting in everyone's way, and then I had an idea.”

Ragnar took a deep breath, flung out his arms, and thundered like a prophet:

“THE MILLION STAR FESTIVAL! WE'LL SHOOT UP A HUNDRED MILLION BODIES! A HUNDRED MILLION BODIES WILL FORM A SATURN RING AROUND THE EARTH! WE'LL CLEAN UP THE WORLD'S CEMETERIES! WE'LL ACQUIRE THE MOST VALUABLE REAL ESTATE IN MAJOR CITIES! WE'LL BUILD ON THE PLOTS AND MAKE A HUNDRED MILLION STARS RAIN DOWN ON EARTH!”

LoveStar heard no more. He absented his ears and eyes in a desperate search for a resting place, but his eyes couldn't find the forest pool anywhere. At the coordinates there was nothing but a reddish brown sea of mud, wheel ruts, and rotting vegetation as far as the eye could see. His ears encountered nothing but the din of traffic, human throngs, and screaming crowds at sports stadiums. He wandered further but either it was too dark or the sunlight was too harsh or the noise too great. He switched back to his own head from time to time, and when he saw that Ragnar had finally fallen silent he said to Ivanov:

“Do you agree to this?”

“I think it's stupendous!” said Ivanov.

A bald woman in a style-free lab coat and green glasses knocked on the meeting room door.

“Excuse me,” said Ivanov, “it's the interior designer. It's agreed, isn't it?”

LoveStar nodded and Ivanov went off to fawn over the designer, leaving them alone in the meeting room. Ragnar the moodman had managed the impossible: to turn the situation to his advantage. The whole LoveDeath apparatus had begun to revolve around Ragnar and iSTAR.

“Keep up the good work,” said LoveStar. “Confer with Ivanov. I won't be involved any further.” He stood up and headed for the door but Ragnar whispered after him:

“The dead shall rise again!”

LoveStar spun round.

Ragnar smiled strangely, gazed radiantly into LoveStar's eyes and whispered:

“When you find the place, when you find God, when you become God, we'll let the bodies fall and burn up in the Million Star Festival. Then there will be no more death on earth. It will be clean from corruption and decay. As was prophesied at the coming of the Savior: ‘There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.'”

LoveStar walked menacingly toward him, hissing between clenched teeth: “LEAVE ME IN PEACE! GO!!!”

“I get it,” said Ragnar, “you need time to adjust . . .”

A new, unexpected spirit was created around LoveDeath. Ragnar was the brains behind the Million Star Festival as well as its spokesman. The magician Ragnar was everywhere, the moodman who had changed tack and become an example to leaders and governors all over the world. “Worth the risk—lower your dignity and show what you're made of.”

LoveStar opened
Newsweek
. The headline was: “Feast of Stars Ahead!”

The LoveDeath Million Star Festival will be the most spectacular display of all time!

Ragnar
Ö
. Karlsson (37), head of the LoveDeath Mood Division, got the idea for the festival several months ago and had himself transferred from his exalted position as head of iSTAR to LoveDeath, in pursuit of his idea. A hundred million bodies will form a Saturn ring around the earth and a hundred million stars will shoot simultaneously to earth. It is expected to be the most spectacular display mankind has ever witnessed.

“Will the festival follow the course of the sun?”

“There'll be no need. The lights will be so brilliant that it will be as bright as day all over earth, especially since the dead will be dressed in thicker costumes than usual.”

LoveStar threw aside the paper and turned on CNN [demographic: women/BA+/45+]. A brunette newsreader was on screen, asking penetratingly:

“You mentioned thicker costumes in
Newsweek
. Won't they make people look too fat?”

“Far from it. We can let you try one on afterward. (laughter) The design is stunning, and we're taking particular care to ensure that people won't look ridiculous during their final moments. We use special ceramic fibers, so instead of burning up in twenty seconds the million star bodies will take around four minutes.”

He switched to BBC World [demographic: men/MBA/PhD+/35+].

“You were head of iSTAR and considered, in spite of your youth, one of the most influential moodmen of the century, with the exception of LoveStar himself, of course. Why were you demoted to LoveDeath?”

“Some people interpreted it as a demotion, but in fact LoveDeath was in need of mood. I sought after this job. It's part of a bigger project,” he said, looking straight at the camera. “It's part of a much bigger project.”

“When can we expect the Million Star Festival?”

LoveStar switched off, turning over to a panel discussion on Swedish State Radio for a target group of arts and culture enthusiasts. “I've always had an artistic streak and I regard art and mood as an inseparable whole. The towers in the world's major cities could almost be called sculptures; the architecture is perfectly organic, as indeed the inspiration for them comes from nature. Many art critics have already come to regard the Million Star Festival as concept art. The mere act of creating the Saturn ring is the largest work of environmental art in the history of mankind. And of course we're bringing death closer to people.”

“But you don't have a fixed date?”

“Understandably, we can't set a fixed date for the fall. There are a number of factors to take into consideration. The weather conditions must be favorable—no hurricanes, monsoons, or that sort of thing. But you can rest assured that no one will miss the Million Star Festival.”

“How can you be sure?”

“For this once we will activate the speech centers of all cordless people. I know it's controversial, but our contracts allow it in exceptional circumstances and we're confident that no one on earth will want to miss this. Everyone will shout out in unison when the festival begins. In fact, the world won't need much warning. The sky is never far away.”