MORE TRUSTWORTHY.

THAN.

ALL THE BUDDHAS.

AND SAGES.

George laughed out loud. The Robot, of course. Me. George Dorn. All three billion years' worth of evolution in every gene and chromosome of me. And that, of course, was what the Illuminati (and all the petty would-be Illuminati who made up power structures everywhere) never wanted a man or woman to realize.

George turned to the second page and began reading: If you whistle while you're p.i.s.sing, you have two minds where one is quite sufficient. If you have two minds, you are at war with yourself. If you are at war with yourself, it is easy for an external force to defeat you. This is why Mong-tse wrote, "A man must destroy himself before others can destroy him."

That was all, except for an abstract drawing on page three that seemed to suggest an enemy figure moving out toward the viewer. About to turn to page four, George got a shock: from another angle, the drawing was two figures engaged in attacking each other. I and It. The Mind and the Robot. His memory leaped back twenty-two years and he saw his mother lean over the crib and remove his hand from his p.e.n.i.s. Christ, no wonder I grab it when I'm frightened: the Robot's Revenge, the Return of the Repressed.

George started to turn the page again, and saw another trick in Hagbard's abstraction: from a third angle, it might be a couple making love. In a flash, he saw his mother's face above his crib again, in better focus, and recognized the concern in her eyes. The cruel hand of repression was moved by love: she was trying to save him from Sin.

And Carlo, dead three years now, together with the rest of that Morituri group-what had inspired Carlo when he and the four others (all of them less than eighteen, George remembered) blasted their way into a G.o.d's Lightning rally and killed three cops and four Secret Service agents in their attempts to gun down the Secretary of State? Love, nothing but mad love ...

The door opened and George tore his eyes from the text. Mavis, back again in her sweater and slacks outfit, walked in. For a proclaimed right-wing anarchist, she sure dresses a lot like a New Leftist, George thought; but then Hagbard wrote like a cross between Reichian Leftist and an egomaniacal Zen Master-there was obviously more to the Discordian philosophy than he could grasp yet, even though he was now convinced it was the system he himself had been groping toward for many years.

"Mmm," she said, "I like that smell. Alamout Black?"

"Yeah," George said, having trouble meeting her eyes. "Hagbard's been illuminating me."

"I can tell. Is that why you suddenly feel uncomfortable with me?"

George met her eyes, then looked away again; there was tenderness there but it was, as he had expected, sisterly at best. He muttered, "It's just that I realize our s.e.x" (why couldn't he say f.u.c.king or, at least, balling?) "was less important to you than to me."

Mavis took Hagbard's chair and smiled at him affectionately. "You're lying, George. You mean it was more more important to me than to you." She began to refill the pipe; important to me than to you." She began to refill the pipe; Christ G.o.d Christ G.o.d, George thought, did Hagbard send her in to take me to the next stage, whatever it is? did Hagbard send her in to take me to the next stage, whatever it is?

"Well, I guess I mean both," he said cautiously. "You were more emotionally involved than I was then then, but now now I'm more emotionally involved. And I know that what I want, I can't have. Ever." I'm more emotionally involved. And I know that what I want, I can't have. Ever."

"Ever is a long time. Let's just say you can't have it now."

"'Humility is endless,'" George repeated.

"Don't start feeling sorry for yourself. You've discovered that love is more than a word in poetry, and you want it right away. You just had two other things that used to be just words to you-sunyata and and satori satori. Isn't that enough for one day?"

"I'm not complaining. I know that 'humility is endless' also means surprise is endless. Hagbard promised me a happy truth and that's it."

Mavis finally got the pipe lit and, after toking deeply, pa.s.sed it over. "You can have Hagbard," she said.

George, sipping very lightly since he was still fairly high, mumbled "Hm?"

"Hagbard will love you as well as ball you. Of course, it's not the same. He loves everybody. I'm not at that stage yet. I can only love my equals." She grinned wickedly. "Of course, I can still get h.o.r.n.y about you. But now that you know there's more than that, you want the whole package deal, right? So try Hagbard."

George laughed, feeling suddenly lighthearted. "Okay! I will."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Mavis said bluntly. "You're putting us both on. You've liberated some of the energies and right away, like everybody else at this stage, you want to prove that there are no blocks anywhere anymore. That laugh was not convincing, George. If you have a block, face it. Don't pretend it isn't there."

Humility is endless, George thought. "You're right," he said, unabashed.

"That's better. At least you didn't fall into feeling guilty about the block. That's an infinite regress. The next stage is to feel guilty about feeling guilty...and pretty soon you're back in the trap again, trying to be the governor of the nation of Dorn."

"The Robot," George said.

Mavis toked and said, "Mm?"

"I call it the Robot."

"You picked that up from Leary back in the mid-'60s. I keep forgetting you were a child prodigy. I can just see you, with your eyegla.s.ses and your shoulders all hunched, poring over one of Tim's books when you were eight or nine. You must have been quite a child. They've sure mauled you over since then, haven't they?"

"It happens to most prodigies. And nonprodigies, too, for that matter."

"Yeah. Eight years' grade school, four high school, four college, then postgraduate studies. Nothing left but the Robot at the end. The ever-rebellious nation of Me with poor old I sitting on the throne trying to govern it."

"There's no governor anywhere," George quoted.

"You are are coming along nicely." coming along nicely."

"That's Chuang Chou, the Taoist philosopher. But I never understood him before."

"So that's where Hagbard stole it! He has little cards that say, 'There is no enemy anywhere.' And ones that say, 'There is no friend anywhere.' He said once he could tell in two minutes which card was right for a particular person. To jolt them awake."

"But words alone can't do it. I've known most of the words for years ..."

"Words can help. In the right situation. If they're the wrong words. I mean, the right words. No, I do do mean the wrong words." mean the wrong words."

They laughed, and George said, "Are we just goofing, or are you taking up the liberation of the nation of Dorn where Hagbard left off?"

"Just goofing. Hagbard did tell me that you had pa.s.sed one of the gateless gates and that I might drop in, after after you had a while alone." you had a while alone."

"A gateless gate. That's another one I've known for years, without understanding it. The gateless gate and the governorless nation. The chief cause of socialism is capitalism. What the h.e.l.l does that b.l.o.o.d.y apple have to do with all this?"

"The apple is the world. Who did G.o.ddess say owns it?"

"'The prettiest one.'"

"Who is the prettiest one?"

"You are."

"Don't make a pa.s.s right now. Think."

George giggled. "I've been through too much already. I think I'm getting sleepy. I have two answers, one communist and one fascist. Both are wrong, of course. The correct answer has to fit in with your anar-chocapitalism."

"Not necessarily. Anarcho-capitalism is just our our trip. We don't mean to impose it on everybody. We have an alliance with an anarcho-communist group called the JAMs. John Dillinger's their leader." trip. We don't mean to impose it on everybody. We have an alliance with an anarcho-communist group called the JAMs. John Dillinger's their leader."

"Come off it. Dillinger died in 1935 or something."

"John Dillinger is alive and well today, in California, Fernando Poo and Texas," Mavis smiled. "As a matter of fact, he shot John F. Kennedy."

"Give me another toke. If I have to listen to this, I might as well be in a state where I won't try to understand it."

Mavis pa.s.sed the pipe. "The prettiest one has quite a few levels to it, like all good jokes. I'll give you the Freudian one, as beginners. You know the prettiest one, George. You gave it to the apple just yesterday.

"Every man's p.e.n.i.s is the prettiest thing in the world to him. From the day he's born until the day he dies. It never loses its endless fascination. And, I kid you not, baby, the same is true of every woman and her p.u.s.s.y. It's the closest thing to a real, blind, helpless love and religious adoration that most people ever achieve. But they'd rather die than admit it. h.o.m.os.e.xuality, the urge to kill, petty spites and treacheries, fantasies of sadism, masochism, transvestism, any weird thing you can name, they'll confess all that in a group therapy session. But that deep submerged constant narcissism, that perpetual mental masturbation, is the earliest and most powerful block. They'll never admit it."

"From what I've read of psychiatric literature, I thought most people had rather squeamish and negative feelings about their genitals."

"That, to quote Freud himself, is a reaction formation. The primordial emotional tone, from the day the infant discovers the incredible pleasure centers there, is perpetual astonishment, awe and delight. No matter how much society tries to crush it and repress it. For instance, everybody has some pet name for their genitals. What's yours?"

"Polyphemus," he confessed.

"What?"

"Because it has one eye, you know? Also, Polyphemus rhymes with p.e.n.i.s, I guess. I mean, I can't remember exactly what my mental process was when I invented that in my early teens."

"Polyphemus was a giant, too. Almost a G.o.d. You see what I mean about the primary emotional tone? It's the origin of all religion. Adoration of your own genitals and of your lover's genitals. There's There's Pan Pangenitor and the Great Mother." Pan Pangenitor and the Great Mother."

"So," George said owlishly, still not sure whether this was profundity or nonsense, "the earth belongs to our genitalia?"

"To their offspring, and their offspring's offspring, and so on, forever. The world is a verb, not a noun."

"The prettiest one is three billion years old."

"You've got it, baby. We're all tenants here, including the ones who think they're owners. Property is impossible."

"Okay, okay, I think I've got most of it. Property is theft because the Illuminati land t.i.tles are arbitrary and unjust. And so are their banking charters and railroad franchises and all the other monopoly games of capitalism-"

"Of state capitalism. Not of true laissez-faire."

"Wait. Property is impossible because the world is a verb, a burning house as Buddha said. All things are fire. My old pal Heracleitus. So property is theft and property is impossible. How do we get to property is liberty?"

"Without private property there can be no private decisions."

"So we're back where we started from?"

"No, we're one flight higher up on the spiral staircase. Look at it that way. Dialectically, as your Marxist friends say."

"But we are are back at private property. After proving it's an impossible fiction." back at private property. After proving it's an impossible fiction."

"The Statist form of private property is an impossible fiction. Just like the Statist form of communal property is an impossible fiction. Think outside the State framework, George. Think of property in freedom."

George shook his head. "It beats the h.e.l.l out of my a.s.s. All I can see is people ripping each other off. The war of all against all, as what's-his-name said."

"Hobbes."

"Hobbes, sn.o.bs, jobs. Whoever. Or whatever. Isn't he right?"

"Stop the motor on this submarine."

"What?"

"Force me to love you."

"Wait, I don't ..."

"Turn the sky green or red, instead of blue."

"I still don't get it."

Mavis took a pen off the desk and held it between two fingers. "What happens when I let go of this?"

"It falls."

"Where do you sit if there are no chairs?"

"On the floor?" If I wasn't so stoned, I would have had it by then. Sometimes drugs are more a hindrance than a help If I wasn't so stoned, I would have had it by then. Sometimes drugs are more a hindrance than a help. "On the ground?" I added.

"On your a.s.s, that's for sure." Mavis said. "The point is, if the chairs all go away, you still sit. Or you build new chairs." She was stoned, too; otherwise she'd be explaining it better, I realized. "But you can't stop the motor without learning something about marine engineering first. You don't know what switch to puil. Or switches. And you can't change the sky. And the pen will fall without a gravity-governing demon rushing into the room to make it fall."

"s.h.i.t and pink petunias," I said disgustedly. "L. this some form of Thomism? Are you trying to sell me the Natural Law argument? I can't buy that at all."

"Okay, George. Here's the next jolt. Keep your a.s.shole tight." She spoke to the wall, to a hidden microphone, I guessed. "Send him him in now." in now."

The Robot is easily upset; my sphincter was already tightening as soon as she warned me there was a jolt coming and she didn't really need to add that bit about my a.s.shole. Carlo and his gun. Hagbard and his gun. Drake's mansion. I took a deep breath and waited to see what the Robot would do.

A panel in the wall opened and Harry Coin was pushed into the room. I had time to think that I should have guessed, in this game where both sides were playing with illusion constantly, Coin's death could have been faked, artificial intestines dangling and all, and of course Mavis and her raiders could have taken him out of Mad Dog jail even before they took me out of course, and I remembered the pain when he slapped my face and when his c.o.c.k entered me, and the Robot was already moving, and I hardly had time to aim of course, and then his head was banging against the wall, blood spurting from his nose, and I had time to clip him again on the jaw as he went down of course, and then I came all the way back and stopped myself as I was about to kick him in the face as he lay there unconscious. Zen in the art of face-punching. I had knocked a man out with two blows; I who hated Hemingway and Machismo so much that I'd never taken a boxing lesson in my life. I was breathing hard, but it was good and clean, the feeling of after-an-o.r.g.a.s.m; the adrenalin was flowing, but a fight reflex instead of a flight reflex had been triggered, and now it over, and I was calm. A glint in the air: Hagbard's pistol was in Mavis's hand, then flying toward me. As I caught it, she said, "Finish the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

But the rage had ended when I held back the kick on seeing him already unconscious.

"No," I said. "It is is finished." finished."

"Not until you kill him. You're no good to us until you're ready to kill, George."

I ignored her and rapped on the wall. "Haul the b.a.s.t.a.r.d out," I said clearly. The panel opened, and two Slavic-looking seamen, grinning, grabbed Coin's arms and dragged him out. The panel closed again, quietly.

"I don't kill on command," I said, turning back to Mavis. "I'm not a German shepherd or a draftee. My My case with him is settled, and if you want him dead, do the dirty work yourself." case with him is settled, and if you want him dead, do the dirty work yourself."

But Mavis was smiling placidly. "Is that a Natural Law?" she asked.

And twenty-three hours later Tobias Knight listened to the voice in his earphones: "That's the problem. I can't remember. But if you leave me alone for a while maybe it'll come back to me." Smoothing his mustache nervously, Knight set the b.u.t.ton for automatic record, removed the earphones and buzzed Esperando Despond's office. "That's the problem. I can't remember. But if you leave me alone for a while maybe it'll come back to me." Smoothing his mustache nervously, Knight set the b.u.t.ton for automatic record, removed the earphones and buzzed Esperando Despond's office.

"Despond," the intercom said.

"The CIA has one. A man who was with the girl after Mocenigo. Send somebody down for the tape-it's got a pretty good description of the girl."