Mercury Rises (14 page)

It was a little ridiculous, Christine thought. Still, wasn't there something to be said for preserving the indigenous culture? She was used to a sort of thinly veiled cultural imperialism from fundamentalists like Harry Giddings, but she hadn't expected it from an atheist like Horace Finch. Weren't they supposed to be tolerant of cultural differences?

"And don't start with the need to be tolerant of cultural differences," Finch went on. "I'm not saying their culture is in any way inferior to ours. What I'm saying is that, right or wrong, our culture is going to crush theirs. Facts is facts. The best we can do is to educate them about the crushing in advance, to make it as painless a process as possible."

Christine was starting to understand the looks the Tawani men had flashed each other when Maya had asked about the silver-haired visitor. Finch had set himself up as the benevolent ambassador of an empire that was nevertheless going to destroy them. It was a wonder they tolerated him at all.

Finch went on, "If these people spent as much time trying to develop a written language as they did making up deities, they wouldn't be in this jam. They've got rain gods, cloud gods, sun gods...I've documented three hundred different deities so far, and I'm not even close to covering them all. At this point there are probably more Tawani deities than there are Tawanis."

In fact, the Tawani only had seven gods and goddesses in their pantheon; the remainder they had made up just to screw with Horace Finch. Finch had made it his mission to debunk their mythology, one deity at a time, and the Tawani had cleverly responded by manufacturing an unlimited number of deities. At first it had been an enjoyable diversion, but as Finch showed no sign of tiring of his debunking, it had become something of a chore. More worrying, they were on the verge of running out of natural phenomena that could be used as an excuse for supernatural intervention. Lately they had devised gods of acid indigestion, night sweats, and chafing, respectively. A recent secret meeting of the tribal elders had focused on whether the tribe should start reusing deities and hope that Finch didn't notice, or pretend to convert to pantheism.

In truth, they had started inventing deities in an attempt to determine whether Finch could tell the difference between a real god and a fake one, a test that he decisively failed in their eyes. If the silver-haired stranger couldn't even determine which gods had been around since the beginning of time and which ones had been created in the last five minutes, what kind of spiritual wisdom could he possibly have to offer? Once they had determined he was merely a charlatan who was pretending to understand the spirit world, they decided there would be no harm in having a little fun at his expense. But now, a month into Finch's stay, the joke was getting a little old.

The Tawani had also concluded that anyone who wanted so badly to believe that the gods did not exist must have done something very evil in their sight. Perhaps, they thought, Finch had murdered his own brother or given his seed to an ox. In an effort to get him to admit to the latter, in fact, they had created a god who was half ox and half man, an ominous figure called Tuwambo that they claimed crept into the huts of evildoers and gave them terrifying nightmares.
⁸
In fact,
tuwambo
was the Tawani word for jock itch, which explained the confused looks Finch got from the local children when he facetiously urged them to "be good or Tuwambo will get you."

If the primitive Tawani were confused by the motivations of Finch, Christine was even more so. Horace Finch was a multi-billionaire. Surely he had more important things to do than disabuse an African tribe of their superstitions. Finch seemed amused by the question.

"What could be more important than furthering the advancement of science and reason?" he asked. "And tribes like the Tawani represent a unique opportunity: most of the world's people have progressed gradually from polytheism to monotheism on their way to a completely secular, scientific worldview. But by getting to the Tawani early, maybe we can get them to make a quantum leap over that intermediate step. Maybe if I can get them to dismiss superstition entirely, they can create an entirely new culture without any of the vestigial trappings of religion that still plague Western civilization. If that happens, then rather than Western civilization wiping out the Tawani culture, the new and improved Tawani culture will transform Western civilization as we know it!"

Great, thought Christine. The only other Westerner for miles around, and he's...what did Mercury call it?
Batshit crazy.

"So you're a missionary, then," Christine said. "Except that instead of spreading Christianity, you're spreading atheism."

"Something like that," agreed Finch. "But I'm more up-front about my motivations. I don't pretend to be interested in distributing food and medicine in order to smuggle in my beliefs."

"Yeah," Christine replied dryly. "I know how people hate that make-believe food and medicine Eternal Harvest is distributing."

Finch nodded, apparently not picking up on her sarcasm. "Exactly," he said. "Also, I happened to be in the area."

Christine was skeptical. "You happened to be in the wilderness of Africa?"

"A little project I've been working on," Finch said. "Maybe you've heard of it. I call it Eden Two."

Christine had heard of it, but she hadn't realized that it was located in Kenya. She had read about the project several years earlier, but she only recalled that it was somewhere in remote Africa. In fact, she had thought the project had been canceled some time ago in the wake of engineering problems and budget overruns.

"I guess I'm a little out of it," Christine admitted. "I didn't realize you were still working on that."

Finch grinned. "Not your fault," he said. "It was part of the plan, actually. Hiding in plain sight."

"I don't follow you," Christine said.

"I've learned that the best way to undertake a massive project without getting a lot of attention is to announce the project with great fanfare and then produce nothing for the next several years. Blame budget overruns or whatever. Keep promising the moon but never deliver anything. For a while I was offering free round-trip airfare to any journalist who wanted to visit the site."

Now that she thought about it, she remembered Maria, a veteran
Banner
reporter, mentioning taking advantage of that offer. She had returned with stories of a massive boondoggle in the desert: workmen sitting idle while engineers bickered over structural concerns, problems getting materials and supplies to the remote location, and on and on. The
Banner
had done a half-page piece in their international news section predictably titled "Trouble in Paradise."

"Eventually," Finch went on, "the journalists stopped showing up altogether. When we issued a press release announcing that we were finally breaking ground, it got almost no coverage. And when we really
did
break ground, eighteen months later, not a single respectable news organization covered it. We issued nearly two hundred press releases over the next three years detailing our progress in excruciating detail and got almost no coverage. Three weeks ago, to celebrate the impending completion of the project, I fired our entire marketing department. Everyone in the civilized world has heard of Eden Two, but the only thing anybody could tell you about it is that it was a colossal failure. And since that was exactly what I was hoping for, the project has phenomenal success."

"So," Christine said, "what is it, exactly? Some kind of enclosed garden, right?"

"Eden Two," Finch announced proudly, "is a two-thousand-hectare completely self-sustaining ecosystem in the middle of the lifeless African desert."

Christine's brow furrowed.

"I know what you're thinking," said Finch. "Why would someone create a gigantic self-sustaining ecosystem in the middle of the desert?"

"Actually," Christine said, "I was wondering what a hectare was."

"Intellectual curiosity," said Finch, who evidently hadn't heard her. "Or maybe hubris. Yes, probably hubris, now that I think about it. Still, you have to admit that it's impressive."

Something about Finch's flippant amorality reminded her of Mercury. An evil version of Mercury. It took her a moment to make room in her brain for this notion, because she wasn't entirely certain that
Mercury
wasn't the evil version of Mercury. Up to this point she had thought of Finch as an even eviller version of Harry Giddings.

"You'll have to come see it sometime," Finch said. "Now that it's too late to...that is, now that it's practically finished. Not yet though. First we have to go to Mbutuokoti for this spirit talking bullshit. It's going to be fantastic."

"Right," Christine said. "Mbutuo..."

"Mbutuokoti."

"Does this mountain have a nickname, maybe?" Christine asked. "I don't seem to have your knack for the local language."

"It's easy," said Finch. "
Mbutuo
is 'mountain.' And
koti
means something like 'heaven.' Well, not heaven precisely. It's the Tawani word for 'emptiness' or 'void.' The Tawani cosmology is interesting because it posits that heaven is actually the realm of the minor deities. The greater spirits live in a great empty void above heaven.
Koti
is the name for that void."

"Then
koti
is outer space," said Christine.

"Well, not precisely," replied Finch. "Their notion of the void is rather primitive, but I suppose 'space' is as good a translation for koti as any."

"So," Christine mused, "we're making a pilgrimage to Space Mountain?"

SIXTEEN

Circa 2,000 B.C.

Uzziel leaned back in his chair, touching his fingertips together and frowning. "I don't know how you always manage to get mixed up in this nonsense," he was saying. "What were you doing at the planeport anyway?"

"I'm fine; thanks for asking," said Mercury. "My neck hardly hurts at all."

Mercury had regained consciousness in the planeport waiting area of the Courts of the Most High. Evidently someone had transported him back to the Courts and then left him sitting on a bench next to his own head. A Good Samaritan had stopped by and stuck his head back on. It would have reattached on its own eventually, but it might well have taken days. Angels don't die, but they can definitely be slowed down by decapitation.

Once his head was firmly attached, Mercury had made his way to Uzziel's office in the hopes that Uzziel might have some idea what exactly had happened at the planeport. But Uzziel was, as usual, in the dark. Evidently planeport security had covered the whole thing up. There was no word of the attempted abduction of Michael (or was it Michelle?) on Angel Band or on any of the internal Court frequencies. Whatever that had been about, the higher-ups at the planeport didn't want anyone to know about it.

"Do they know who attacked you?" Uzziel asked.

"No word from planeport security. Just a random decapitation. It happens. Planeport ruffians."

"I heard something about a V.I.A. coming through the planeport. Your little misadventure didn't have anything to do with that, did it?"

"V.I.A.?" replied Mercury. "Nope. Hadn't heard anything about that. I was just minding my own business, following up a lead on this whole flooding business..."

"Oh, right. What did you find out?"

"Nothing, actually. I'll keep asking around. Somebody has to know something."

"Forget it," said Uzziel. "I need you back in Babylon. Tiamat's up to something again."

"Tiamat's harmless," replied Mercury. "Well, not harmless exactly, but her primary concern seems to be building ziggurats. And she's not even doing that these days, what with the flooding. Shouldn't we be keeping an eye on Lucifer?"

"We are," said Uzziel. "But we already know Lucifer's a bad apple. Tiamat's an unknown quantity. I don't trust her. She doesn't suspect anything, does she?"

"Nah. She still thinks the Civilization Shepherding Program assigned me to help her run Babylon. She has no idea I'm with the Apocalypse Bureau."

"Just don't
you
forget who you work for," admonished Uzziel.

"I'm sure you'll keep reminding me," replied Mercury.

Uzziel smiled. "Only until the end of the world."

Mercury gave a pained smile and excused himself.

Generally unflappable, Mercury was starting to get irritated. He had stuck his neck out to help an archangel in trouble, and all he had to show for it was a doozy of a neck ache---and he still had no idea who or what was behind the rain. He could go back to Babylon as instructed, only to sit in a damp tent and be berated by Tiamat, or he could spend some more time trying to get to the bottom of things. Or the top, as it were.

Outside the Apocalypse Bureau building, he stopped and looked up. Just down the way was the Seraphic Administration Building, a seven-story structure whose top disappeared among the clouds. That wasn't a figure of speech: the top of the building was constantly shrouded in a layer of thick white clouds. The Courts of the Most High was essentially a small city, filled with buildings that housed the various departments that ostensibly ran the Universe. There were seven levels to the Courts, organized hierarchically. At the bottom were the paper pushers and service personnel; on the second level were low-level supervisors, researchers, and analysts; and as one went higher, one began to find oneself in the rarified air of those who did little to no actual work.

Most buildings didn't even rise to the seventh level; Uzziel's office, for instance, was on the top floor of the Apocalypse Bureau, an impressive structure that nevertheless had only four floors. In those buildings that had five or more levels, only seraphim were allowed above the fourth level, and they generally needed an escort to go above level three. It still chafed Mercury that to gain access to the top floor he needed to get "approval" from Uzziel's receptionist.