The apartment was bare. There was no furniture. There were no rugs on the floor, no curtains on the windows. Whoever had been living here had vanished.

The front door opened a crack. Before they could start shooting Waterhouse yelled, "It's all right. It's Waterhouse in here. There's n.o.body here." He wasn't crying anymore. It was done. He had killed his first white man.

The door swung all the way open. "n.o.body there?" there?" said the helmeted policeman. "Who the h.e.l.l shot Flanagan?" said the helmeted policeman. "Who the h.e.l.l shot Flanagan?"

"Flanagan?" said Waterhouse.

"Flanagan's dead. They got him."

"There isn't anybody here," said O'Banion, who had been looking through side rooms. "What the h.e.l.l went wrong? Flanagan set this up personally."

Now that the light was on, Waterhouse could see that someone had drawn a pentagram in chalk on the floor. In the center of the pentagram was a gray envelope. Otto picked it up. There was a circular green seal on the back with the word ERIS embossed on it. Otto opened it and read: Good going, Otto. Now proceed at once to Ingolstadt, Bavaria. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are trying to immanentize the Eschaton.S-M Folding the note and shoving it into his pocket as he holstered his pistol with his other hand, Otto Water-house strode across the living room. He barely glanced down at the body of Milo A. Flanagan, the bullet hole in the center of his forehead like a third eye. Hagbard had been right. Despite all the advance terror and sorrow, once he'd done it, he didn't feel a thing. I have met the enemy and he is mine, he thought.

Otto pushed past the men crowded around Flanagan's body. Everyone a.s.sumed he was going somewhere to make some sort of report. No one had figured out who shot Flanagan.

By the time O'Banion had puzzled it out, Otto was already in his car. Six hours later, when they had set up blockades at the airports and railway terminals, Otto was in Minneapolis International Airport buying a ticket to Montreal. He had to fly back to Chicago, but he sat out the brief stopover at O'Hare International Airport aboard the plane, while his brother officers searched the terminals for him. Twelve hours later, carrying a pa.s.sport supplied by Montreal Discordians, Otto Waterhouse was on his way to Ingolstadt.

"Ingolstadt," said f.u.c.kUP. Hagbard had programmed the machine to converse in reasonably good English this week. "The largest rock festival in the history of mankind, the largest temporary gathering of human beings ever a.s.sembled, will take place near Ingolstadt on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Totenkopf. Two million young people from all over the world are expected. The American Medical a.s.sociation will play."

"Did you know or suspect before this that the American Medical a.s.sociation, Wolfgang, Werner, Wilhelm and Winifred Saure, are four of the Illuminati Primi?" asked Hagbard.

"They were on a list, but fourteenth in order of probability," said f.u.c.kUP. "Perhaps some of the other groups I suspected are Illuminati Veri."

"Can you now state the nature of the crisis that we will face this week?"

There was a pause. "There were three crises for this month. Plus several subcrises designed to bring the three major crises to a peak. The first was Fernando Poo. The world nearly went to war over the Fernando Poo coup, but the Illuminati had a countercoup in reserve and that resolved the problem satisfactorily. Heads of state are human and this feint has helped to make them jumpier and more irrational. They are in no shape to react wisely to the next two jolts. Unless you wish me to continue discussing the character structures of the present heads of state-which are important elements in the crises through which the world is pa.s.sing-I will proceed to the next crisis. This is Las Vegas. I still do not know exactly what is going on there, but the sickness vibrations are still coming through strongly. There is, I have deduced from recently acquired information, a bacteriological warfare research center located in the desert somewhere near Las Vegas. One of my more mystical probes came up with the sentence, The ace in the hole is poisoned candy.' But that's one of those things that we probably won't understand until we find out what's going on in Las Vegas by more conventional means."

"I've already dispatched Muldoon and Goodman there," said Hagbard. "All right, f.u.c.kUP, obviously the third crisis is Ingolstadt. What's going to happen at that rock festival?"

"They intend to use the Illuminati science of strategic biomysticism. Lake Totenkopf is one of Europe's famed 'bottomless lakes/ which means it has an outlet into the underground Sea of Valusia. At the end of World War II Hitler had an entire S.S. division in reserve in Bavaria. He was planning to withdraw to Obersalzburg and, with this fanatically loyal division, make a glorious last stand in the Bavarian Alps. Instead the Illuminati convinced him that he still had a chance to win the war, if he followed their instructions. Hitler, Himmler and Bormann fed cyanide to all the troops, killing several thousand of them. Then their bodies, dressed in full field equipment, were placed by divers on a huge underground plateau near where the Sea of Valusia surfaces as Lake Totenkopf. Their boots were weighted at the bottom so that they would stand at attention. The airplanes, tanks and artillery a.s.signed to the division were also weighted and sunk along with the troops. Many of them, by the way, knew that there was cyanide in their last supper, but they ate it anyway. If the Fuehrer thought it best to kill them, that was good enough for them."

"I can't imagine there would be much left of them after over thirty years," said Hagbard.

"You are wrong as usual, Hagbard," said f.u.c.kUP. "The S.S. men were placed under a biomystical protective field. The entire division is as good as it was the day it was placed there. Of course, the Illuminati had tricked Hitler and Himmler. The real purpose of the ma.s.s sacrifice was to provide enough explosively released consciousness energy to make it possible to translate Bormann to the immortal energy plane. Bormann, one of the Illuminati Primi of his day, was to be rewarded for his part in organizing World War II. The fifty million violent deaths of that war helped many Illuminati to achieve transcendental illumination and were most pleasing to their elder brothers and allies, the lloigor."

"And what will happen at Ingolstadt during the festival?"

"The American Medical a.s.sociation's fifth number at Woodstock Europa will send out biomystical waves that will activate the n.a.z.i legions in the lake, and send them marching up the sh.o.r.e. They will be, in their resurrection, endowed with supernormal strength and energy, making them almost impossible to kill. And they will achieve even greater powers as a result of the burst of consciousness energy that will be released when they ma.s.sacre the millions of young people on the sh.o.r.e. Then, led by the Saures, they will turn against Eastern Europe. The Russians, already made extremely nervous by the Fernando Poo incident, will think an army is attacking them from the West. Their old fear that Germany will once again, with the help of the capitalist powers, rise up and attack Russia and slaughter Russians for the third time in this century will become a reality. They will find that conventional weapons will not stop the resurrected n.a.z.is. They will believe they are up against some new kind of American super-weapon, that the Americans have decided to launch a sneak attack. The Russians will then start bringing superweapons of their own into play. Then the Illuminati will play their ace in the hole in Las Vegas, whatever that is." The voice of the computer, coming from Hagbard's Polynesian teakwood desk, was suddenly silent.

"What happens after that?" said Hagbard, leaning forward tensely. George saw perspiration on his forehead.

"It doesn't matter what happens after that," said f.u.c.kUP. "If the situation develops as I project, the Eschaton will have been immanentized. For the Illuminati, that will mean the fulfillment of the project that has been their goal since the days of Gruad. A total victory. They will all simultaneously achieve transcendental illumination. For the human race, on the other hand, that will be extinction. The end."

[image]

Well, Hoover performed. He would have fought. That was the point. He would have defied a few people. He would have scared them to death. He has a file on everybody.-Richard Milhous Nixon

THE EIGHTH TRIP, OR HOD.

(TELEMACHUS SNEEZED).

There came unto the High Chapperal one who had studied in the schools of the Purple Sage and of the Hung Mung Tong and of the Illuminati and of the many other schools; and this one had found no peace yet.Yea: of the Discordians and the teachers of Mummu and of the Nazarene and of the Buddha he had studied; and he had found no peace yet.And he spake to the High Chapperal and said: Give me a sign, that I may believe.And the High Chapperal said unto him: Leave my presence, and seek ye the horizon and the sign shall come unto you, and ye shall seek no more.And the man turned and sought of the horizon; but the High Chapperal crept up behind him and raised his foot and did deliver a most puissant kick in the man's a.r.s.e, which smarted much and humiliated the seeker grievously.He who has eyes, let him read and understand.-"The Book of Grandmotherly Kindness,"

The Dishonest Book of Lies, by Mordecai Malignatus, K.N.S.

The Starry Wisdom Church was not 00005's idea of a proper ecclesiastical shop by any means. The architecture was a shade too Gothic, the designs on the stained-gla.s.s windows a bit unpleasantly suggestive for a holy atmosphere ("My G.o.d, they must be b.l.o.o.d.y wogs," he thought), and when he opened the door, the altar was lacking a proper crucifix. In fact, where the crucifix should have been he found instead a design that was more than suggestive. It was, in his opinion, downright tasteless.

Not High Church at all, Chips decided.

He advanced cautiously, although the building appeared deserted. The pews seemed designed for b.l.o.o.d.y reptiles, he observed-a church, of course, should be uncomfortable, that was good for the soul, but this was, well, gross. They probably advertise in the kink newspapers, he reflected with distaste. The first stained-gla.s.s window was worse from inside than outside; he didn't know who Saint Toad was, but if that mosaic with his name on it gave any idea of Saint Toad's appearance and predelictions, then, by G.o.d, no self-respecting Christian congregation would ever think of sanctifying him. The next feller, a shoggoth, was even less appetizing; at least they had the common decency not to canonize him him.

A rat scurried out from between two pews and ran across the center aisle, right before Chip's feet.

Fair got on one's nerves, this place did.

Chips approached the pulpit and glanced up at the Bible. That was, at least, one civilized touch. Curious as to what text might have been preached last in this den of wogs, he scrambled up into the pulpit and scanned the open pages. To his consternation, it wasn't the Bible at all. A lot of bragging and bombast about some Yog Sothoth, probably a wog G.o.d, who was both the Gate and the Guardian of the Gate. Absolute rubbish. Chips hefted the enormous volume and turned it so he could read the spine. Necronomicon Necronomicon, eh? If his University Latin could be trusted, that was something like "the book of the names of the dead." Morbid, like the whole building.

He approached the altar, refusing to look at the abominable design above it. Rust-now what could one say of brutes who let their altar get rusty? He sc.r.a.ped with his thumbnail. The altar was marble, and marble doesn't rust and marble doesn't rust. A decidedly unpleasant suspicion crossed his mind, and he tasted what his nail had lifted. Blood. Fairly fresh blood.

Not High Church at all.

Chips approached the vestry, and walked into a web. "d.a.m.n," he muttered, hacking at it with his flashlight-and something fell on his shoulder. He brushed it off quickly and turned the light to the floor. It started to run up his trouser leg and he brushed it off again, beginning to breathe heavily, and stepped on it hard. There was a satisfactory snapping sound and he stomped again to be sure. When he removed his shoe and turned the light down again, it was dead.

A d.a.m.ned huge ugly brute of a spider. Black G.o.ds, Saint Toads, rats, mysterious and heathenish capitalized Gates, that nasty-looking shoggoth character, and now spiders. A b.u.g.g.e.ring tarantula it looked like, in fact. Next, Count Dracula, he thought grimly, testing the vestry door. It slid open smoothly and he stepped back out of visible range, waiting a moment.

They were either not home or cool enough to allow him the next move.

He stepped through the door and flashed his light around.

"Oh, G.o.d, no," he said. "No. G.o.d, no." no."

"Good-bye, Mr. Chips," said Saint Toad.

Did you ever take the underground from Charing Cross to one of the suburbs? You know, that long ride without stops when you're totally in the dark and everything seems to be rushing by outside in the opposite direction? Relativity, the laboratory-smock people call it. In fact, it was even more like going up a chimney than going forward in a tunnel, but it was like both at the same time, if you follow me. Relativity. A bitter-looking old man went by, dressed in turn-of-the-century Yankee clothing, muttering something about "Carcosa." An antique Pontiac car followed him, with four Italians in it looking confused-it was slow enough for me to spot the year, definitely 1936, and even to read the license plates, Rhode Island AW-1472. Then a black man, not a Negro or a wog, but a really truly black man, without a face and I'd hate to tell you what he had where the face should have been. All the while, there was this bleating or squealing that seemed to say "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" Another man, English-looking but in early 19th-century clothing; he looked my way, surprised, and said, "I only walked around the horses!" I could sympathize: I only opened a bleeding door. A giant beetle, who looked at me more intelligently than any bug I ever saw before-he seemed to be going in a different direction, if there was direction in this place. A white-haired old man with startling blue eyes, who shouted "Roderick Usher!" as he flew by. Then a whole parade of pentagons and other mathematical shapes that seemed to be talking to each other in some language of the past or the future or wherever they called home. And by now it wasn't so much like a tunnel or even a chimney but a kind of roller coaster with dips and loops but not the sort you find in a place like Brighton-I think I saw this kind of curve once, on a blackboard, when a cla.s.s in non-Euclidean geometry had used the room before my own cla.s.s in Eng Lit Pope to Swinb and Neo-Raph. Then I pa.s.sed a shoggoth or it pa.s.sed me, and let me say that their pictures simply do not do them justice: I am ready to go anywhere and confront any peril on H.M. Service but I pray to the Lord Harry I never have to get that close to one of those chaps again. Next came a jerk, or cusp is probably the word: I recognized something: Ingolstadt, the middle of the university. Then we were off again, but not for long, another cusp: Stone-henge. A bunch of hooded people, right out of a Yank movie about the KKK, were busy with some gruesome mummery right in the center of the stones, yelling ferociously about some ruddy goat with a thousand young, and the stars were all wrong overhead. Well, you pick up your education where you can-now I know, even if I can't tell any b.l.o.o.d.y academic how I know, that Stonehenge is much older than we think. Whizz, bang, we're off again, and now ships are floating by-everything from old Yankee clippers to modern luxury liners, all of them signaling the old S.O.S. semaph.o.r.e desperately-and a bunch of airplanes following in their wake. I realized that part must be the Bermuda Triangle, and about then it dawned that the turn-of-the-century Yank with the bitter face might be Ambrose Bierce. I still hadn't the foggiest who all those other chaps were. Then along came a girl, a dog, a lion, a tin man and a scarecrow. A real puzzler, that: was I visiting real places or just places in people's minds? Or was there a difference? When the mock turtle, the walrus, the carpenter and another little girl came along, my faith in the difference began to crumble. Or did some of those writer blokes know how to tap into this alternate world or fifth dimension or whatever it was? The shoggoth came by again (or was it his twin brother?) and shouted, or I should say, gibbered, "Yog Sothoth Neblod Zin," and I could tell that was something perfectly filthy by the tone of his voice, I mean, after all, I can take a queer proposition without biffing the offender on the nose-one must be cosmopolitan, you know-but I would vastly prefer to have such offers coming out of human mouths, or at the very least out of mouths rather than orifices that shouldn't properly be talking at all. But you would have to see a shoggoth yourself, G.o.d forbid, to appreciate what I mean. The next stop was quite a refrigerator, miles and miles of it, and that's where the creature who kept up that howling of "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" hung his hat. Or its hat. I shan't attempt to do him, or it, justice. That Necronomicon Necronomicon said about Yog Sothoth that "Kadath in the cold waste hath known him," and now I realized that "known" was used there in the Biblical sense. I just hope he, or it, stays in the cold waste. You wouldn't want to meet him, or it, on the Strand at midday, believe me. His habits were even worse than his ancestry, and why he couldn't sc.r.a.pe off some of the seaweed and barnacles is beyond me; he was rather like Saint Toad in his notions of sartorial splendor and table etiquette, if you take my meaning. But I was off again, the curvature was getting sharper and the cusps more frequent. There was no mistaking the Heads where I arrived next: Easter Island. I had a moment to reflect on how those Heads resembled Tlaloc and the lloigor of Fernando Poo and then this kink's version of a Cook's Tour moved on, and there I was at the last stop. said about Yog Sothoth that "Kadath in the cold waste hath known him," and now I realized that "known" was used there in the Biblical sense. I just hope he, or it, stays in the cold waste. You wouldn't want to meet him, or it, on the Strand at midday, believe me. His habits were even worse than his ancestry, and why he couldn't sc.r.a.pe off some of the seaweed and barnacles is beyond me; he was rather like Saint Toad in his notions of sartorial splendor and table etiquette, if you take my meaning. But I was off again, the curvature was getting sharper and the cusps more frequent. There was no mistaking the Heads where I arrived next: Easter Island. I had a moment to reflect on how those Heads resembled Tlaloc and the lloigor of Fernando Poo and then this kink's version of a Cook's Tour moved on, and there I was at the last stop.

"d.a.m.n, blast and thunder!" I said, looking at Manolete turning his veronica and Concepcion lying there with her poor throat cut. "Now that absolutely does tear it."

I decided not to toddle over to the Starry Wisdom Church this time around. There is is a limit, after all. a limit, after all.

Instead, I went out into Tequila y Mota Street and approached the church but kept my distance, trying to figure where b.u.g.g.e.r kept the Time Machine.

While I was reflecting on that, I heard the first pistol shot.

Then a volley.

The next thing I knew the whole population of Fernando Poo-Cubans descended from the prisoners shipped there when it was a penal colony in the 19th century, Spaniards from colonial days, blacks, wogs, and whatnot-were on Tequila y Mota street using up all the munitions they owned. It was the countercoup, of course-the Captain Puta crowd who unseated Tequila y Mota and prevented the nuclear war-but I didn't know that at the time, so I dashed into the nearest doorway and tried to duck the flying bullets, which were coming, mind you, as thick as the darling buds in May. It was hairy. And one Spanish bloke- gay as a tree full of parrots from his trot and his carriage, goes by waving an old cutla.s.s out of a book and shouting, "Better to die on our feet than to live on our knees!"-headed straightway into a group of Regular Army who had finally turned out to try to stop this business. He waded right into them, cutting heads like a pirate, until they shot him as full of holes as Auntie's drawers. That's your Spaniards: even the queers have b.a.l.l.s.

Well, this wasn't my show, so I backed up, opened the door and stepped into the building. I just had a moment to recognize which which building I had picked, when Saint Toad gave me his bilious eye and said, "You again!" building I had picked, when Saint Toad gave me his bilious eye and said, "You again!"

The trip was less interesting this time (I had seen it before, after all) and I had time to think a bit and realize that old frog-face wasn't using a Time Machine or any mechanical device at all. Then I was in front of a pyramid-they missed that stop last time-and I waited to arrive back in the Hotel Durrutti. To my surprise, when there was a final jerk in the dimensions or whatever they were, I found myself someplace else.

00005, in fact, was in an enormous marbled room deliberately designed to impress the bejesus out of any and all visitors. Pillars reached up to cyclopean heights, supporting a ceiling too high and murky to be visible, and every wall, of which there seemed to be five, was the same impenetrable ivory-grained marble. The eyes instinctively sought the gigantic throne, in the shape of an apple with a seat carved out of it, and made of a flawless gold which gleamed the more brightly in the dim lighting; and the old man who sat on the throne, his white beard reaching almost to the lap of his much whiter robe, commanded attention when he spoke: "If I may be trite," he said in a resonant voice, "you are welcome, my son."

This still wasn't High Church, but it was a definite improvement over the digs where Saint Toad and his loathsome objets d'art festered. Still, 00005's British common sense was disturbed. "I say," he ventured, "you're not some sort of mystic, are you? I must tell you that I don't intend to convert to anything heathen."

"Conversion, as you understand it," the aged figure told him placidly, "consists of pounding one's own words into a man's ears until they start coming out of his mouth. Nothing is of less interest to me. You need have no fear on that ground."

"I see." 00005 pondered. "This wouldn't be Shangri-La or some such place, would it?"

"This is Dallas, Texas, my son." The old man's eyes bore a slight twinkle although his demeanor otherwise remained grave. "We are below the sewers of Dealy Plaza, and I am the Dealy Lama."

00005 shook his head. "I don't mind having my leg pulled," he began.

"I am the Dealy Lama," the old man repeated, "and this is the headquarters of the Erisian Liberation Front."

"A joke's a joke," Chips said, "but how did you manage that frog-faced creature back in the Starry Wisdom Church?"

"Tsathoggua? He is not managed by us. We saved you from him, in fact. Twice."

"Tsathoggua?" Chips repeated. "I thought the swine's name was Saint Toad."

"To be sure, that is one of his names. When he first appeared, in Hyperborea, he was known as Tsathoggua, and that is how he is recorded in the Pnakotic Ma.n.u.scripts, the Necronomicon Necronomicon and other cla.s.sics. The Atlantean high priests, Klarkash Ton and Lhuv Kerapht, wrote the best descriptions of him, but their works have not survived, except in our own archives." and other cla.s.sics. The Atlantean high priests, Klarkash Ton and Lhuv Kerapht, wrote the best descriptions of him, but their works have not survived, except in our own archives."

"You do do put on a good front," 00005 said sincerely. "I suppose, fairly soon, you'll get around to telling me that I have been brought here due to some karma or other?" He was actually wishing there were some place to sit down. No doubt, it added to the Lama's dignity to sit while Chips had to stand, but it had been a hard night already and his feet hurt. put on a good front," 00005 said sincerely. "I suppose, fairly soon, you'll get around to telling me that I have been brought here due to some karma or other?" He was actually wishing there were some place to sit down. No doubt, it added to the Lama's dignity to sit while Chips had to stand, but it had been a hard night already and his feet hurt.

"Yes, I have many revelations for you," the old man said.

"I was afraid of that. Isn't there some place where I can bring my a.r.s.e to anchor, as my uncle Sid would say, before I listen to your wisdom? I'm sure it's going to be a long time in the telling."

The old man ignored this. "This is the turning point in history," he said. "All the forces of Evil, dispersed and often in conflict before, have been brought together under one sign, the eye in the pyramid. All the forces of Good have been gathered, also, under the sign of the apple."

"I see," 00005 nodded. "And you want to enlist me on the side of Good?"

"Not at all," the old man cried, bouncing up and down in his seat with laughter. "I want to invite you to stay here with us while the d.a.m.ned fools fight it out aboveground."

00005 frowned. "That isn't a sporting att.i.tude," he said disapprovingly; but then he grinned. "Oh, I almost fell for it, didn't I? You are are pulling my leg!" pulling my leg!"

"I am telling you the truth," the old man said vehemently. "How do you suppose I have lived to this advanced age? By running off to join in every idiotic barroom brawl, world war, or Armageddon that comes along? Let me remind you of the street where we picked you up; it is entirely typical of the proceedings during the Kali Yuga. Those imbeciles are using live ammunition, son. Do you want me to tell you the secret of longevity, lad-my secret? I have lived so outrageously long because," he spoke with deliberate emphasis, "I don't give a f.u.c.k for Good and Evil." secret? I have lived so outrageously long because," he spoke with deliberate emphasis, "I don't give a f.u.c.k for Good and Evil."

"I should be ashamed to say so, if I were you," Chips replied coolly. "If the whole world felt like you, we'd all be a sorry kettle of fish."

"Very well," the old man started to raise an arm. "I'll send you back to Saint Toad."

"Wait!" Chips stirred uneasily. "Couldn't you send me to confront Evil in one of its, ah, more human forms?"

"Aha," the old man sneered. "You want the lesser Evil, is it? Those false choices are pa.s.sing away, even as we speak. If you want to confront Evil, you will have to confront it on its own terms, not in the form that suits your own mediocre concepts of a Last Judgment. Stay here with me, lad. Evil is much more nasty than you imagine."

"Never," Chips said firmly. "'Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do or die!' Any Englishman would tell you the same."

"No doubt," the old man snickered. "Your countrymen are as fat-headed as these Texans above us. Glorifying that idiotic Light Brigade the way these b.u.mpkins brag about their defeat at the Alamo! As if stepping in front of a steamroller were the most admirable thing a man could do with his time. Let me tell you a story, son."

"You may if you wish," 00005 said stiffly. "But no cynical parable will change my sense of Right and Duty."

"Actually, you're glad of the interlude; you're not all that eager to face the powers of Tsathoggua again. Let that pa.s.s." The old man shifted to a more comfortable position and, still oblivious of Chips' tired shifting from leg to leg, began: This is the story of Our Lady of Discord, Eris, daughter of Chaos, mother of Fortuna. You have read some of it in Bullfinch, no doubt, but his is the exoteric version. I am about to give you the Inside Story.

Is the thought of a unicorn a real thought? In a sense, that is the basic question of philosophy- I thought you were going to tell me a story, not launch into some dreary German metaphysics. I had enough of that at the University.

Quite so. The thought of a unicorn is a real thought, then, to be brief. So is the thought of the Redeemer on the Cross, the Cow who Jumped Over the Moon, the lost continent of Mu, the Gross National Product, the Square Root of Minus One, and anything else capable of mobilizing emotional energy. And so, in a sense, Eris and the other Olympians were, and are, real. At the same time, in another sense, there is only one True G.o.d and your redeemer in His only begotten son; and the lloigor, like Tsathoggua, are real enough to reach out and draw you into their world, which is on the other side of Nightmare. But I promised to keep the philosophy to a minimum.

You recall the story of the Golden Apple, in the exoteric and expurgated version at least? The true version is the same, up to a point. Zeus, a terrible old bore by the way, did throw a bash on Olympus, and he did slight Our Lady by not inviting Her. She did make an apple, but it was Acapulco Gold, not metallic gold. She wrote Korhhisti, on it, to the prettiest one to the prettiest one, and rolled it into the banquet hall. Everybody-not just the G.o.ddesses; that's a male chauvinist myth-started fighting over who had the right to smoke it. Paris was never called in to pa.s.s judgment; that's all some poet's fancy. The Trojan War was just another imperialistic rumble and had no connection with these events at ail.

What really happened was that everybody was squabbling over the apple and working up a sweat and pushing one another around and pretty soon their vibrations-G.o.ds have very high vibration, exactly at the speed of light, in fact-heated up the apple enough to unleash some heavy fumes. In a word, the Olympians all got stoned.

And they saw a Vision, or a series of Visions.

In the first Vision, they saw Yahweh, a neighboring G.o.d with a world of his own which overlapped theirs in some places. He was clearing the set to change its valence and start a new show. His method struck them as rather barbarous- He was, in fact, drowning everybody-except one family that he allowed to escape in an Ark.

"This is Chaos," said Hermes. "That Yahweh is a mean mean mother', even for a G.o.d." mother', even for a G.o.d."

And they looked at the Vision more closely, and because they could see into the future and were all (like every intelligent ent.i.ty) rabid Laurel and Hardy fans and because they were zonked on the weed, they saw that Yahweh bore the face of Oliver Hardy. All around him, below the mountain on which he lived (his world was flat), the waters rose and rose. They saw drowning men, drowning women, innocent babes sinking beneath the waves. They were ready to vomit. And then Another came and stood beside Yahweh, looking at the panorama of horrors below, and he was Yahweh's Adversary, and, stoned as they were, he looked like Stanley Laurel to them. And then Yahweh spoke, in the eternal words of Oliver Hardy: "Now look what you you made me do," he said. made me do," he said.

And that was the first Vision.

They looked again, and they saw Lee Harvey Os-wald perched in the window of the Texas School Book Depository; and he, again, wore the face of Stanley Laurel. And, because this world had been created by a great G.o.d named Earl Warren, Oswald fired the only shots that day, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy was, as the Salvation Army charmingly expresses it, "promoted to glory."

"This is Confusion," said Athena with her owl-eyes flashing, for she was more familiar with the world created by the G.o.d Mark Lane.

Then they saw a hallway, and Oswald-Laurel was led out between two policemen. Suddenly Jack Ruby, with the face of Oliver Hardy, stepped forward and fired a pistol right into that frail little body. And then Ruby spoke the eternal words, to the corpse at his feet: "Now look what you you made me do," he said. made me do," he said.

And that was the second Vision.

Next, they saw a city of 550,000 men, women and children, and in an instant the city vanished; shadows remained where the men were gone, a firestorm raged, burning pimps and infants and an old statue of a happy Buddha and mice and dogs and old men and lovers; and a mushroom cloud arose above it all. This was in a world created by the cruelest of all G.o.ds, Realpolitik Realpolitik.

"This is Discord," said Apollo, disturbed, laying down his lute.

Harry Truman, a servant of Realpolitik, wearing the face of Oliver Hardy, looked upon his work and saw that it was good. But beside him, Albert Einstein, a servant of that most elusive and gnomic of G.o.ds, Truth, burst into tears, the familiar tears of Stanley Laurel facing the consequences of his own karma. For a brief instant, Truman was troubled, but then he remembered the eternal words: "Now look what you you made me do," he said. made me do," he said.

And that was the third Vision.

Now they saw trains, many trains, all of them running on time, and the trains criss-crossed Europe and ran 24 hours a day, and they all came to a few destinations that were alike. There, the human cargo was stamped, catalogued, processed, executed with gas, tabulated, recorded, stamped again, cremated and disposed.

"This is Bureaucracy," said Dionysus, and he smashed his wine jug in anger; beside him, his lynx glared balefully.

And then they saw the man who had ordered this, Adolf Hitler, wearing still the mask of Oliver Hardy, and he turned to a certain rich man, Baron Rothschild, wearing the mask of Stanley Laurel, and they knew this was the world created by the G.o.d Hegel and the angel Thesis was meeting the demon Ant.i.thesis. Then Hitler spoke the eternal words: "Now look what you you made me do," he said. made me do," he said.