"Keane kids?" Jack said.

Brady nodded with vigorous enthusiasm. "Yes. They're originals."

Jack had always found them kitschy, and those big sad eyes monoto-nously repet.i.tious. But he supposed some of the old originals might be valuable to someone.

"I know they're not considered real art, but something about them appeals to me. I think they remind me of all the sadness in the world, all caused by fractured xeltons. I look at them and they keep me going, reminding me of the Church's mission."

Jack sighed. "I know exactly/What you mean."

They finally settled down for the Reveille Session-sans mouse. Brady sat on a straight-backed, cushionless chair. Jack leaned forward on the comfy sofa. A coffee table of glossy blond wood sat between them.

"What in your life do you feel guiltiest about?"

Jack had an answer ready but he leaned back and pretended to think about it. After an appropriate pause...

"I suppose it would be having so much more than others."

"'So much more'?"

"Yes. You don't know this, but I'm rather wealthy."

Brady's expression remained bland, barely interested. "Yes, I believe you mentioned something yesterday about having money. But we have many wealthy members."

"Yes, but I'm quite quite wealthy." wealthy."

"You are?" Brady scratched his temple, as if this was all news to him, and uninteresting news at that.

"Filthy rich, you might say."

"You don't strike me as the 'filthy rich' type. And do I detect a note of dissatisfaction with having a lot of money?"

Jack shrugged. "Perhaps. Not that it's dirty money or anything like that. It's clean as can be, honestly earned. It's just that... well, I didn't earn it."

"Oh? And who did?"

"My father. And not that I don't get along with him, I do. It's just, well... 'from him to whom much is given, much will be expected'... if you know what I mean."

Brady smiled and nodded. "Ah, he quotes scripture. Luke 12:48, if I remember correctly."

If so, it was news to Jack. He'd remembered hearing the phrase, or something like it, now and again, and it seemed an apropos cliche. Had to admit, though, he was impressed that Brady could quote book, chapter, and verse.

Jack clasped his hands before him. "I know that a lot will be required of me when I take over the family business, and I want to be up to it. But I'm not interested in simply ama.s.sing more wealth. I mean, I'll never spend what I already have. So I'd like to find a way to put the wealth that will be flowing my way to better use than investing in stocks and bonds. I want to invest in people people."

He wondered if he might be laying it on too thick, but Brady seemed to be lapping it up.

"Well then, Jason, you've come to the right place. International Dormentalism is always reaching out to needy people in the poorest Third World countries. We go in, buy a parcel of land, then establish a temple and a school. The school teaches the Dormentalist way, but more importantly, it also teaches the locals self-sufficiency. 'Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you've fed him for a lifetime.' That's our philosophy."

Jack widened his eyes. "What a wonderful concept!"

One good cliche deserves another, he thought, and suppressed a smile as he remembered Abe's variation: Teach a man to fish and you can sell him rods and reels and hooks and sinkers Teach a man to fish and you can sell him rods and reels and hooks and sinkers.

"Yes. That is the Dormentalist way. You can rest a.s.sured that any contributions you wish to make to the Church will go directly toward helping the less fortunate."

"That sounds like a fine idea. You know, I don't think I'll wait till I take my father's place. I'd like to start right now. As soon as we're through here I'm going to contact my accountant."

Brady's smile was beatific. "How kind of you."

4.

Luther Brady tapped his fingertips on his desktop as Jensen stood at attention on the far side. He'd known the Grand Paladin's first name once, but had long forgotten it. He wondered if even Jensen remembered.

Not that it mattered. What did matter was Jason Amurri and how he seemed just a little too good to be true.

He wanted Jensen's opinion but decided to have a little fun while he was at it.

"What does your xelton tell you about Jason Amurri?"

Jensen frowned. His answer was delayed, and drawn out when it came.

"It's suspicious. It finds inconsistencies about him."

Watching Jensen's shifting gaze, Brady wanted to laugh at his obvious discomfort talking about the perceptions of his Fully Fused xelton. He should be uncomfortable: Jensen's xelton wasn't FF. In fact, he didn't even have have a xelton. No one did! a xelton. No one did!

But no one-not Jensen nor any members of the HC-would admit it. Because each of them thought of himself as the sole Null among the elite FFs. Each hid their Sham Fusion because admitting to Nullhood would mean they'd have to leave their posts in disgrace.

Oh, it was rich to listen to them talk about levitating or leaving their bodies to wander among the planets and stars, almost as if they were engaged in an unspoken contest. And since Luther had made it implicitly clear all along that to exercise one's FF abilities in front of others was bad manners-tantamount to trivializing the wonders of FF by cheap exhibitionism-no one had to back up his or her wondrous claims.

That way, no one could say the emperor had no clothes.

"My xelton feels the same way, but for some reason it cannot pierce through and contact Amurri's. And we know what that means, don't we."

Jensen nodded. "Amurri is probably a Null."

"And that," Brady sighed, "is always tragic. I pity Nulls, but I pity even more the poor Null who's deluded himself into Sham Fusion."

He watched Jensen blink and swallow. He could almost read his mind: Why Why 5 5 he saying that? Does he suspect? Does he know he saying that? Does he suspect? Does he know?

"So do I," Jensen rasped.

"I'm sure there are members with SF in the temple, but one must restrain one's xelton from piercing their veil. That would be too much of an invasion. And unnecessary because, as you know, sooner or later all Nulls betray themselves." He cleared his throat as if clearing his mind. "But back to our friend Jason..."

Yes, Jason Amurri... after the Reveille Session was over and Amurri gone, Luther realized that he didn't know a d.a.m.n thing that he hadn't known at the outset. Perhaps the man was just naturally reticent, but Luther had an uneasy feeling that he might be hiding something.

"Since our xeltons cannot yet contact his," he went on, "perhaps you had better pry a little more deeply into his background."

"I'm already on that."

Brady raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"My, um, PX doesn't think he acts like a rich boy. Doesn't move like one."

"And your xelton knows how the rich move?"

"I agree with my PX. I know people who move like Amurri and they're not rich. They're dangerous."

"But it's not like he showed up claiming to be Jason Amurri. He tried to hide hide that." that."

"Yeah, I know. That's the only thing that doesn't fit. But then again maybe he planned it that way all along-gave an obviously phony name and then-"

Luther laughed. "That's pretty convoluted, don't you think?"

Jensen shrugged. "My PX thinks there's more to him than meets the eye."

"I think you give him too much credit."

"Maybe. But if I can find just one picture of Jason Amurri, I'll feel a whole lot better."

"Knowing you, Jensen, if you found one, you'd wonder if it had been planted."

A rare flash of white teeth in Jensen's dark face-he almost never smiled. "That's my job, right?"

"Right. And one you do so well." Time to end this. He waved his hand at Jensen. "Keep checking on him. But if he shows up tomorrow with a six-figure donation, then stop. Because who he really is will no longer matter."

As Jensen walked out, Luther pressed the b.u.t.ton under the edge of his desktop. The panels rolled back, revealing the Opus Omega globe.

He'd felt like a stunned fish when he'd walked in earlier and found the panels open with Amurri standing before it. He'd been about to shout for Jensen when he noticed that Amurri made no attempt to hide what he was doing. His lack of furtiveness had allayed Luther's suspicions. And his open curiosity about the meaning of the lights on the globe had seemed genuine.

Obviously he had no idea of the apocalyptic significance of what he'd seen.

Luther's thoughts slipped back to that late winter day in college when he first saw the globe. It had existed only in his mind then. He'd been a frosh, away from his strict Scottish-American home for the first time in his eighteen years, and making the most of the s.e.x, drugs, and rock and roll of the early seventies. He was into his first tab of acid, with a couple of more experienced guys guiding him through the trip, when the globe had appeared, suspended and spinning in the center of the room. He remembered pointing it out to the others but he was the only one who could see it.

Not a Rand McNally globe, but a battered, pockmarked sphere with brown, polluted oceans and bilious chemical clouds shrouding the land. As he'd watched, red dots began to glow on all the continents and oceans, and then glowing red lines arced out from each to connect with the others, creating a globe-spanning network of scarlet threads. And then black circles appeared at some of the intersections of those threads. Soon after, the black circles began glowing white, one by one, and when all were lit, the globe glowed red, then white hot. Finally it exploded, but the scattered pieces returned and reformed into a new world of fertile green continents and pristine blue oceans.

The vision altered the course of Luther's life. Not immediately, not that night, but in the weeks and months afterward as it returned on a nightly basis, with or without chemical enhancement.

At first he was uneasy, thinking it was a recurring flashback and that he'd really screwed up his head. But after a while he got used to it. It became part of his quotidian existence.

But he was terrified when he first heard the voice. Never during his waking hours, only in his sleep, only during the vision. He began to think he might be schizophrenic.

At first it was an indistinct muttering-definitely a voice, but he couldn't understand a word. Gradually it grew louder, the mutterings progressing to distinguishable speech. But although he understood the individual words, they seemed disjointed and he could make no sense of them.

That too changed and by his senior year he came to understand that this world, the ground on which he stood, was destined to change and merge with a sister world in another s.p.a.ce-time continuum. Those here who helped speed the fusion would survive the transition from a polluted planet to paradise; the rest of humanity would not. The voice told him to find the places designated by the white lights, to buy the land there, and wait.

Buy up pieces of land? He was a college student, virtually penniless. The voice didn't say how, but it implied that his future well-being depended on it.

And then, shortly after graduation, the book arrived. He found it on his bed in the apartment he was renting. No mailer, no note saying who it was from... just this weird, thick book. It looked ancient, but its t.i.tle was in English: The Compendium of Srem The Compendium of Srem. The text was in English as well. He began reading.

The voice stopped with the arrival of the book. Reading it changed his life.

Toward the end of all the strange and wondrous legends the Compendium Compendium recounted, he found an animated drawing of his vision globe. The text following the ill.u.s.tration explained Opus Omega. recounted, he found an animated drawing of his vision globe. The text following the ill.u.s.tration explained Opus Omega.

And then he understood the dream and what he must do with his life.

So Luther went hunting for the locations. By then he had seen the globe so many times he could picture every detail in his mind. He found those places-some of them at least-and when he looked up the deed holders he discovered a startling trend: Many of the parcels were owned by a man named Cooper Blascoe.

A little more research revealed that Blascoe was the leader of a commune in northern California. Luther went out to check on him and what he found, what he learned there, changed his life forever.

For he realized then that the vision and the voice had come from the Hokano world. Cooper Blascoe had stumbled on a cosmic truth; he would provide the means for Luther to fulfill the prophecy of the voice.

Yes, the Hokano world was real, and maybe xeltons were too-who could say for sure?-but the Fusion concept and the ladder to achieve it were all products of Brady's imagination, all designed to aid him in completing Opus Omega.

And now, after decades of struggle, only a few more tasks remained before completion.

Luther stepped closer to the spinning globe and reached out to it. As the ridges of its mountains and flats of its plains and oceans brushed against his fingertips, he closed his eyes. Just a few more locations and his work would be done.

But the final steps were proving difficult. Some of the needed land was terribly expensive, some simply not for sale. But Luther was sure he could overcome all obstacles. All he needed was money.

It always seemed to come down to the same thing: never enough money.

But perhaps Jason Amurri could remedy that, at least in part.

And then the final white bulbs could be lit... and the Great Fusion-the only real fusion in the tapestry of lies he'd created-would begin, joining this world with Hokano.

And in that new, better world, Luther Brady would be rewarded above all others.

5.

Gia felt moisture between her legs. She hurried to the bathroom and groaned with dismay when she saw the bright red blood on the pad she'd been wearing.

Bleeding again.

She calmed herself. It wasn't much and Dr. Eagleton had warned her to expect some intermittent spotting for a few days afterward. But this was a little more than spotting.