The Magic Labyrinth (13 page)

However, being a Church-member indicated that she had potentiality for spiritual advancement.

He steered his mind back to something which it wanted to avoid.

He had searched for a Jewish woman and had taken the Indian woman in order to salve his conscience. To demonstrate to himself that he had progressed spiritually.

Had he advanced? Well, he had not loved her but he had been fond of her. Once the initial dislike of physical contact with her had been overcome, he had not experienced anything but passion during their lovemaking.

However, during their infrequent but stormy quarrels, he had wanted to hurl racial insults at her.

True advancement, true love, would come when he did not have to restrain himself from voicing such pejoratives. There would be no inhibitions about such because he would not think of them.

You have a long way to go, Hermann, he told himself.

And if he did, then why had the bishop accepted him as a missionary? Surely Ch’agii must have seen that he was far from ready.

By the time, many years later, that Göring was near the state of Parolando, none of the original crew of people he’d set out with were with him. They’d been killed or had stopped at various areas to carry out their missionary activities there. When Göring was several thousand miles from Parolando, he began hearing rumors of the great falling star, the meteorite, that had struck downRiver. It was said that its impact had killed hundreds of thousands directly or indirectly, and wrecked the valley for over sixty miles each way. As soon as the area had been safe to enter, however, many groups had moved in, eager to get the nickel-steel of the meteorite. After a savage struggle, two bands had been triumphant. These had then allied and now held the site.

Among other rumors was that the meteorite had been mined and was being used to build a giant boat and that two famous men were directing the operations. One was the American writer, Sam Clemens. The other was King John of England, the brother of Richard the Lionhearted.

Hermann did not know why, but the gossip made his heart jump. It seemed to him that the land which held the fallen star was his goal and had been all along, though he hadn’t known it until now.

At the end of a long voyage, he arrived at Parolando. The rumors were true. Sam Clemens and King John, nicknamed “Lackland,” were corulers of the land which sat above the treasure of the meteorite. By this time, large amounts of the metal had been mined, and the area looked like a mini-Ruhr. In it were many steel furnaces, rolling mills, and nitric-acid factories, and bauxite and cryolite were being processed to make aluminum. The ores from which aluminum was made, however, were to be found in another state. And there was trouble over that.

Soul City was a state twenty-six miles downRiver from Parolando. It sat on large deposits of cryolite, bauxite, and cinnabar, and small deposits of platinum. Clemens and John needed these, but the two rulers of Soul City, Elwood Hacking and Milton Firebrass, were driving hard bargains. Moreover, it was evident that they would like to get their hands on the nickel and steel of the meteorite.

Hermann paid little attention to the local politics. His primary mission was to convert people to the doctrines of the Church of the Second Chance. His secondary mission, he decided after a while, was to stop the building of the great metal paddle wheeler. Clemens and John had become obsessed with the vessel. To build it, they were willing to turn Parolando into an industrial desolation, to strip the land of all vegetation except the invulnerable irontrees. They were polluting the air with the smoke and stink from the factories.

Worse, they were polluting their
kas,
and that made their business Hermann Göring’s. The Church maintained that humanity had been resurrected so that it could have another opportunity to save its
kas.
It had also been given youth and freedom from disease and want so that it could concentrate on salvation.

About a week after his arrival at Parolando, Hermann and some other missionaries held a large meeting. This was in the evening just after dusk. Scores of great bonfires were arranged around a platform lit by torches. Hermann and the local bishop were on the platform with a dozen of the more distinguished members of their organization. There was a crowd of about three thousand, composed of a small minority of converts and a majority who came to be entertained. The latter brought their bottles of alcohol and a tendency to heckle.

After the band finished playing a hymn, said to have been composed by La Viro himself, the bishop gave a short prayer. He then introduced Hermann. Boos here and there followed the mention of his name. Evidently some in the crowd had lived during his time, though it was possible they just didn’t like Chancers.

Hermann held up his hands until silence had fallen, and then he spoke in Esperanto.

“Brothers and sisters! Hear me out with the same love with which I speak to you. The Hermann Göring before you is not the man of the same name who lived on Earth. He abhors that man, that evil being.

“Yet, that I stand here before you today, a new man, reborn, testifies that evil can be overcome. A person can change for the better. I have paid for what I did. Paid in the only coin worth anything. Paid with guilt and shame and self-hate. Paid with a vow to kill off the old self, bury it, and go forth as a new man.

“But I’m not here to impress you with what a wretch I was. I’m here to tell you about the Church of the Second Chance. How it came into being, what its credo is, what its tenets.

“Now, I know that those of you who were raised in Judeo-Christian and Moslem countries, and those Orientals who encountered Christian or Moslem visitors or occupiers of their country, are expecting an appeal to faith.

“No! By the Lord among us, I will not do that! The Church doesn’t ask you to believe on faith only. The Church brings—not faith—but
knowledge
! Not faith, I say.
Knowledge!

“The Church does not ask you to believe in things as they should be or perhaps will be some day. The Church asks you to consider facts and then to act as the facts require. It asks you to believe only in the believable.

“Consider this. Beyond any dispute, we were all born on Earth and we died there. Is there anyone among you who would contradict that?

“No? Then consider this. Man is born to sorrow and evil as the sparks fly upward. Can any of you, remembering your life on Earth and here deny that?

“Whatever the religion on Earth, it promised something that just was not true. The evidence of that is that we are not in Hell or Heaven. Nor are we going through reincarnations, except in a limited sense that we are given new bodies and new life if we die.

“The first resurrection was a tremendous, an almost shattering, shock. No one, religionist, agnostic, or atheist, was in the state he believed he’d be in after the end of Terrestrial existence.

“Yet, here we are, like it or not. Nor is escape from this world possible, as it was on Earth. If you are killed or kill yourself, you rise the next day. Can anyone deny this?”

“No, but I sure as hell don’t like it!” a man shouted. There was a general laugh, and Hermann looked at the man who had made the remark. He was Sam Clemens himself, standing in the middle of the crowd on a chair on a platform erected for this occasion.

“Please, brother Clemens, do me the courtesy of not interrupting,” Hermann said. “Very well. So far, facts only. Now, can anyone deny that this world is not a natural one? I do not mean by that that this planet itself, the sun, the stars, are artificial. This planet was created by God. But The River and The Valley are not natural. Nor is the resurrection a supernatural event.”

“How do you know that?” a woman yelled. “Now you’re getting away from facts. You’re slipping into surmise.”

“That isn’t all he’s slipping into!” a man shouted.

Hermann waited for the laughter to subside.

“Sister, I can prove to you that the resurrection is not something worked
directly
by God. It was and is performed by people like us. They may not be Terrestrials. They undoubtedly are superior in wisdom and science. But they look much like us. And some of us have talked face to face with them!”

Uproar. Not because the crowd had not heard this before, though not in just these terms. The unbelievers just wanted to have some fun, to relieve tension.

Hermann took a drink of water and by the time he’d put the cup down, he had comparative silence.

“This world and these resurrections, if not made with human hands, have been brought about by hands that are human in appearance. There are two men who can testify to this. For all I know, there may be many others. One of these is an Englishman named Richard Francis Burton. He was not unknown on Earth during his time, in fact, he was famous. He lived from 1821 to 1890, and he was an explorer, anthropologist, innovator, author, and linguist extraordinaire. Perhaps some of you have heard of him? If so, please raise your hands.

“Ah, I count at least forty, among them your consul, Samuel Clemens.”

Clemens did not seem to like what he was hearing. He was scowling and chewing frantically on the end of his cigar.

Göring proceeded to recount his experiences with Burton, stressing what Burton had told him. The crowd was caught; there was scarcely a sound. This was something new, something no Chancer missionary had ever spoken of.

“Burton called this mysterious being the Ethical. Now, according to Burton, the Ethical who talked to him did not agree with his fellows. Apparently, there is dissension even among beings whom we could account as gods. Dispute or discord in Olympus, if I may draw such a parallel. Though I do not think that the so-called Ethicals are gods, angels, or demons. They are human beings like us but advanced to a higher ethical plane. What their disagreement is, I frankly do not know. Perhaps it is about the means used to achieve a goal.

“But! The
goal
is the same! Have no doubt of that. And what is that goal? First, let me tell you of the other witness.

“Again, to be frank…”

“I thought you were Hermann!” a man shouted.

“Call me Meier,” Göring said, but he did not pause to explain the joke.

“About a year after Resurrection Day, he, the witness, was sitting in a hut on a ledge on a very high foothill in a land far to the north of here. He has a natal name, Jacques Gillot, but we of the Church usually refer to him as La Viro. The Man, in English. We also call him La Fondinto, the Founder. He had been a very religious man on Earth during all his long life. But now his faith was smashed, totally discredited. He was bewildered, very troubled.

“This man had always tried to lead a virtuous life according to the teachings of his church, which spoke for God. He did not think that he was a
good
man. After all, Jesus Himself had said that
no
man was good, including Himself.

“But, relatively speaking, Jacques Gillot was good. He was not perfect; he had lied but only so he would not hurt another’s feelings, never to escape the consequences of his own deeds. He had never said anything behind a person’s back he wouldn’t say to his face. He had never been unfaithful to his wife. He had given his wife and children an intense interest and love without spoiling them. He had never turned a person away from his table because of social position, political preference, race, or religion. He had been unjust a number of times, but that was from hastiness and ignorance, and he had always apologized and determined to repair these faults. He had been robbed and betrayed but had left vengeance up to God. However, he wouldn’t let anyone walk over him without a fight.

“And he had died with his sins forgiven and the rites administered.

“So what was he doing here, rubbing elbows with politicians, backstabbers, child-beaters, dishonest businessmen, unethical lawyers, rapacious doctors, adulterers, rapists, thieves, murderers, torturers, terrorists, hypocrites, cheaters, word-breakers, parasites, the mean, the grasping, the vicious, the unfeeling?

“As he sat in that hut just below the mountain, as the rain beat and the wind howled and the lightning exploded and the thunder boomed like the footsteps of an angry god, he pondered on the seeming injustice. And he reluctantly came to this conclusion. In the eyes of Someone, capital S, he was not much better than those others.

“It didn’t make him feel any better to reflect that everybody else was in his state. When a man’s sinking in a boat, knowing that everybody else aboard is going to drown doesn’t bring much joy.

“But what could he do about it? He didn’t even know what he was supposed to do.

“At this moment, as he stared into the small fire, he heard a knock on the door. He stood up and seized his spear. Then, as now, evil men roamed, looking for easy prey. He had nothing worth stealing, but there were men who liked to kill for the twisted pleasure it gave them.

“He called out in his native tongue, ‘Who is it?’

“‘No one you know,’ a man said. He spoke in Quebecan French but with a foreign accent. ‘No one who means you harm either. You won’t need that spear.’

“This astonished La Viro. The door and windows were closed. No one could see within.

“He unbarred the door. A lightning flash glowed behind the stranger, revealing a cloaked and hooded man of medium stature. La Viro stepped back; the stranger entered; La Viro closed the door. The man threw back his hood. Now the fire showed a white man with red hair, blue eyes, and handsome features. Under the cloak he wore a tight-fitting seamless suit of silvery material. From a silver cord around his neck hung a gold helix.

“The clothes were enough to tell La Viro that this was no River dweller. The man looked like an angel and might be one. After all, the Bible said that angels looked just like men. At least, that was what the priests had told him. The angels who had visited the daughters of men in the days of the patriarchs, the angels who rescued Lot, and the angel who wrestled with Jacob, passed for men.

“But the Bible and the priests who had read it to him had been wrong about many things.

“Looking at the stranger, La Viro was in awe. At the same time, he felt delighted. Why would an angel honor him, of all people, with a visit?

“Then he realized that Satan was also an angel, that the demons were all fallen angels.

“Which was he?

“Or was he neither? After all, La Viro, despite his lack of formal education and his humble station, was not unintelligent. It seemed to him that a third alternative existed. At that, he felt easier though still far from comfortable.

“After asking permission, the stranger sat down. La Viro hesitated, then he, too, sat down on a chair. They looked at each other for a moment. The stranger church-steepled his fingers and frowned as if trying to think how best to start. This was strange, since he knew what he wanted and should have had time to prepare for this visit.

“La Viro offered him a drink of alcohol. The stranger said he would take tea instead. La Viro busied himself with pouring the powder into the water and stirring it. The stranger was silent until he thanked La Viro for the tea. After taking a sip, he said, ‘Jacques Gillot, who I am and where I come from and why I am here would take all night and all day if I told all in detail.