Joe nodded. Cartwright didn't seem to have the facts straight-as Joe knew them. Perhaps the fat man had other pieces of the puzzle, perhaps fewer pieces than Joe had. Still, if they were different, they might be useful.

"Each of these organizations controls one of the major TV networks in the U.S.," said Cartwright. "The initials of each network have been intentionally chosen to refer back to the name of the group that runs it. They also control all the big magazines and newspapers. That's why I came to you. Judging by the stuff you've been getting away with printing lately, not only do the Illuminati not control your magazine, but you seem to have the benefit of some pretty powerful protection."

"So, there are three separate Illuminati groups, and among them they dominate all the communications media -is that correct?" said Joe.

"That's right," said Cartwright, his face as cheerful as if he were explaining how his wife made ice cream with a hand freezer. "They dominate the motion-picture industry too. They took a hand in the making of hundreds of movies, the best known of which are Gunga Din Gunga Din and and Citizen Kane Citizen Kane. Those two movies are especially full of Illuminati references, symbols, code messages, and subliminal propaganda. 'Rosebud,' for instance, is their code name for the oldest Illuminati symbol, the so-called Rosy Cross. You know what that means." He snickered lewdly.

Joe nodded. "So-you know about 'flowery combat.'"

Cartwright shrugged. "Who doesn't? Dr. Horace Naismith, a learned friend of mine, and head of the John Dillinger Died for You Society, has written an a.n.a.lysis of Gunga Din Gunga Din, pointing out the real meaning of the thuggee, the evil G.o.ddess Kali, the pit full of serpents, the elephant medicine, the blowing of the bugle from the top of the temple, and so forth. Gunga Din Gunga Din celebrates the imposition of law and order in an area terrorized by the criminal followers of a G.o.ddess who breeds evil and chaos. The thuggee are a caricature of the Discordians, and the English represent the Illuminati's view of themselves. The Illuminati love that movie." celebrates the imposition of law and order in an area terrorized by the criminal followers of a G.o.ddess who breeds evil and chaos. The thuggee are a caricature of the Discordians, and the English represent the Illuminati's view of themselves. The Illuminati love that movie."

"Sometimes I wonder if we're not all working for them, one way or another," said Joe, trying deliberately to be ambivalent to see which way Cartwright would move.

"Well, sure we are," said Cartwright. "Everything we do that contributes to a lack of harmony in the human race helps them. They are forever shaking up society with experiments involving suffering and death for large numbers of people. For instance, consider the General Sloc.u.m General Sloc.u.m disaster on June 15, 1904. Note that 19 plus 04 equals 23, by the way." disaster on June 15, 1904. Note that 19 plus 04 equals 23, by the way."

Him too? Joe groaned mentally. He's got to be either one of us or one of them, and if he's one of them, why is he telling me so much?

"You tell me," Cartwright said, "if all consciousness is not one one, just how did Joyce happen to pick the very next day for Ulysses Ulysses, so the General Sloc.u.m General Sloc.u.m disaster would be in the newspaper his characters read? You see, Joyce knew he was a genius, but he never did understand the nature of genius, which is to be in better touch with the universal consciousness than the average man is. Anyway, the Illuminati were trying, with the disaster would be in the newspaper his characters read? You see, Joyce knew he was a genius, but he never did understand the nature of genius, which is to be in better touch with the universal consciousness than the average man is. Anyway, the Illuminati were trying, with the General Sloc.u.m General Sloc.u.m disaster, a new, more economical technique for achieving transcendental illumination-one that would require only a few hundred sudden deaths instead of thousands. Not that they care about saving lives, you understand, though the desire might result from the return of the repressed original purpose of the Illuminati, which was benign." disaster, a new, more economical technique for achieving transcendental illumination-one that would require only a few hundred sudden deaths instead of thousands. Not that they care about saving lives, you understand, though the desire might result from the return of the repressed original purpose of the Illuminati, which was benign."

"Really?" said Joe. "What was the benign purpose?"

"The preservation of human knowledge after the natural catastrophe that destroyed the continent of Atlantis and the first human civilization, thirty thousand years ago," said Cartwright.

"Natural catastrophe?"

"Yes. A solar flare that erupted just when Atlantis was turned toward the sun. The original Illuminati were scientists who predicted the solar flare but were scoffed at by their fellows, so they fled by themselves. The benevolence of those early Illuminati was replaced by elitist att.i.tudes in their successors, but the benign purpose keeps coming back in the form of factions which arise among the Illuminati and split off. The factions preserve traditional Illuminati secrecy, but they aim to thwart the destructiveness of the parent body. The Justified Ancients of Mummu were expelled from the Illuminati back in 1888. But the oldest anti-Illuminati conspiracy is the Erisian Liberation Front, which splintered off before the beginnings of the current civilization. Then there's the Discordian Movement-another splinter faction, but they're almost as bad as the Illuminati. They're sort of like a cross between followers of Ayn Rand and Scientologists. They've got this guy named Hagbard Celine, their head honcho. You didn't read about it because the governments of the world were too scared s.h.i.tless to do anything about it, but five years ago this Celine character infiltrated the nuclear-submarine service of the U.S. Navy for the Illuminati-and stole a sub. He's a supersalesman, Celine is-he could talk old H. L. Hunt right out of half his oil wells. He was a Chief Petty Officer. First he converted about half the crew with the most incredible line of bulls.h.i.t you've heard since Tim Leary was in his prime. Then he put some kind of drug in the ship's air supply, and while they were under the influence he converted most of the others. The ones that were stubborn he just blew out through the torpedo tubes. Nice guy. Now, mind you, this sub was armed with Polaris missiles. So the next thing Celine does is get himself off to someplace in the ocean where they can't find him and blackmail the f.u.c.king governments of the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Red China to each give him ten million dollars in gold, and after he gets the thirty million he will scuttle his missiles. Otherwise he will dump 'em on a city of one of those three countries."

"Was Celine still working for the Illuminati at that point?"

"h.e.l.l, no!" Cartwright snorted. "That's not how they play the game. They like to operate stealthily, behind the throne-room curtains. They work with poison and daggers and things, not H-bombs. No, Celine told the Illuminati to go f.u.c.k themselves, and there was nothing they could do but grind their teeth. He's been operating like a pirate ever since. And I'll tell you something else. There's more than one world leader, including the Illuminati leaders, that hasn't been able to sleep at night because of what else Hagbard Celine has on that submarine."

"What's that, Mr. Cartwright?"

"Well, see, the U.S. Government did a very dumb thing. They weren't satisfied to have just nuclear weapons aboard their Polaris submarines for a while. They also thought the subs should be armed with the other kind of weapon- bugs."

Joe felt himself go cold, and the back of his neck p.r.i.c.kled. Let others worry about the nuclear devastation all they want. Disease-the extinction of the human race through the spread of some manmade plague for which man would have no remedy-was his particular nightmare. Maybe because at the age of seven he'd very nearly died of polio; though he'd been healthy ever since, the fear of fatal illness had been impossible to shake.

"This Hagbard Celine-these Discordians-have a bacteriological weapon aboard the submarine?"

"Yeah. Something called Anthrax Tau. All Celine has to do is release it in the water and within a week the whole human race would be dead. It spreads faster'n a two-dollar wh.o.r.e on Sat.u.r.day night. Any living thing can carry it. But one nice thing about it-it's fatal only to man. If Celine ever gets crazy enough to use it-and he's pretty crazy these days, and getting worse all the time-it'll give the planet a fresh start, so to speak. Some other life form could evolve into sentience. Now, if we have a nuclear war, or if we pollute the planet to death, there won't be any any life left worth talking about. Might be the best thing that ever happened if Hagbard Celine shot that Anthrax Tau down the tube. It would sure prevent worse things from happening." life left worth talking about. Might be the best thing that ever happened if Hagbard Celine shot that Anthrax Tau down the tube. It would sure prevent worse things from happening."

"If there were no one left alive," said Joe, "from whose point of view would it be the best thing that ever happened?"

"Life's," said Cartwright. "I told you, all life is one. Which gets me back to my ma.n.u.script. I'll just leave it with you. I realize it's much longer than what you usually publish, so feel free to excerpt from it as you please, and to pay me at your usual rates for whatever you publish."

That evening Joe stayed till nine at his office. He was, as usual, a day late getting copy to the typesetter on his editorial column and the letters column. These were two parts of the magazine that he felt only he could do right, and he refused, to delegate either job to Peter or anyone else on the staff. First he ran the letters through his typewriter, shortening and pointing them up, then adding brief editorial answers where called for. After that he put aside his notes and research for the editorial he'd planned for this August issue, and instead he wrote an impa.s.sioned plea that each reader make himself personally responsible for doing something about the menace of bacteriological warfare. Even if what Cartwright had told him was a crock, it reminded him of his long-held conviction that germ warfare was far more likely to put the quietus to the human race than nuclear weapons. It was just too easy to unleash. He envisioned Hagbard in his submarine spewing the microbes of all-destroying plague out into the seas, and he shuddered.

His briefcase weighed down by Cartwright's ma.n.u.script, which he'd decided to take home with him, he stood in the lobby of his office building, gazing gloomily at the tanks full of tropical fish in the window of the pet store. One tank had, as an ornament, a china model of a sunken pirate ship. It made Joe think again of Hagbard Celine. Did he trust Hagbard or didn't he? Was it possible to really believe in a Hagbard with the Captain Nemo psychosis, brooding over tubes and jars full of bacteria cultures, one hairy finger hovering tentatively over a b.u.t.ton that would send a torpedo full of Anthrax Tau germs out into the inky waters of the Atlantic? Within a week all humans would die, Cartwright had said. And it was hard to think that Cartwright was lying, since he knew so much about so many other things.

When Joe got home he put on his favorite Museum of National History record, The Language and Music of the Wolves The Language and Music of the Wolves, and lit up a joint. He liked listening to the wolves when he was high, and trying to understand their language. Then he took Cartwright's ma.n.u.script out of his briefcase and looked at the t.i.tle page. It didn't say a word about consciousness energy, indeed, it referred to a subject Joe found much more interesting: HOW THE ANCIENT BAVARIAN CONSPIRACY.

PLOTTED AND CARRIED OUT.

THE a.s.sa.s.sINATIONS OF MALCOLM X, JOHN F. KENNEDY,.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., GEORGE LINCOLN ROCKWELL,.

ROBERT KENNEDY, RICHARD M. NIXON, GEORGE WALLACE,.

JANE FONDA, GABRIEL CONRAD, AND HANK BRUMMER.

"Well," said Joe, "I'll be f.u.c.ked."

"It was quite a trip," said Hagbard Celine.

"You're quite a tripper," Miss Portinari replied. "You really did Harry Coin very well. Probably just the way he'll do it, when he gets up the nerve to come see me."

"It was simpler than doing my own trip," Hagbard said wearily. "My guilt is much deeper, because I know more. It was easier to take his guilt trip than to take my own."

"And it's over? Your fur no longer bristles?"

"I know who I am and why I'm here. Adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine."

"How did you ever forget?"

Hagbard grinned. "It's easy to forget. You know that." that."

She smiled back. "Blessed be, Captain."

"Blessed be," he said.

Returning to his stateroom, he was still subdued. The vision of the self-begotten and the serpent eating its own tail had broken the lines of word, image, and emotional energy that were steering him toward the Dark Night of the Soul again-but resolving his personal problem did not rescue the Demonstration or help him cope with the oncoming disaster. It merely freed him to begin anew. It merely reminded him that the end is the beginning and humility is endless. It merely, merrily, turned the Wheel another Tarot-towery connection ...

He realized he was still tripping a little. That was readily fixed: Harry Coin was tripping, and he wasn't Harry Coin right now.

Hagbard, remembering again who he was and why he was there, opened his stateroom door. Joe Malik sat in a chair, under an octopus mural, and regarded him with a level glance.

"Who killed John Kennedy?" Joe asked calmly. "I want a straight answer this time, H.C."

Hagbard relaxed into another chair, smiling gently. "That one finally registered, eh? I told John, all those years ago, to emphasize that you should never trust anyone with the initials H.C, and yet you've gone on trusting me and never noticing."

"I noticed. But it seemed too wild to take seriously."

"John Kennedy was killed by a man named Harold Canvera who lived on Fullerton Avenue in Chicago, near the Seminary Restaurant, where you and Simon first discussed his theories of numerology. Dillinger had moved back to that neighborhood for a while in the late fifties, because he liked to go to the Biograph Theatre for old times' sake, and Canvera was his landlord. A very sane, ordinary, rather dull individual. Then, in Dallas in 1963, John saw him blow the President's head off before Oswald or Harry Coin or the Mafia gun could fire." Hagbard paused to light a cigar. "We investigated Canvera afterward, like scientists investigating the first extraterrestrial life form. You can imagine how thorough we were. He had no politics at all at the time, which puzzled the h.e.l.l out of us. It turned out that Canvera had put a lot of money into Blue Sky, Inc., a firm that made devices for landing on low-gravity planets. That was back in the very early fifties. Finally, Eisenhower's hostility to the s.p.a.ce program drove Blue Sky to the bottom of the board, and Canvera sold out at a terrible loss. Then Kennedy came in and announced that the U.S. was going to put a man on the moon. The stocks he'd sold were suddenly worth millions. Canvera's brain snapped-that was all. Killing Kennedy and getting away with it turned him schizzy finally. He went in for spiritualism for a while, and then later joined White Heroes Opposing Red Extremism, one of the really paranoid anti-Illuminati groups, and ran a telephone message service giving Wh.o.r.e propaganda."

"And n.o.body else ever suspected?" Joe asked. "Canvera is still there in Chicago, going about his business, just another face on the street?"

"Not quite. He was shot a few years ago. Due to you."

"Due to me?" me?"

"Yes. He was one of the subjects in the first AUM test. He subsequently made the mistake of knocking up the daughter of a local politician. It appears that the AUM made him susceptible to libertine ideas."

WE'RE GONNA ROCK ROCK ROCK TILL BROAD DAYLIGHT "You sound very convincing, and I almost believe you," Joe said slowly. "Why, all of a sudden? Why no more put-ons and runarounds?"

"We're getting to the chimes at midnight," Hagbard replied simply, with a Latin shrug. "The spell is ending. Soon the coach turns back to a pumpkin, Cinderella goes back to the kitchen, everybody takes their masks off, and the carnival is over. I mean it," he added, his face full of sincerity. "Ask me anything and you get the truth."

"Why are you keeping George and me apart? Why do I have to skulk around the sub like a wanted fugitive and eat with Calley and Eichmann? Why don't you want George and me to compare notes?"

Hagbard sighed. "The real explanation for that would take a day. You'd have to understand the whole Celine System first. In the baby talk of conventional psychology, I'm taking away George's father figures. You're one: his first and only boss, an older man he trusts and respects. I became another very quickly, and that's one of the thousand and one reasons I turned the guru-hood over to Miss Portinari. He had to confront Drake, the bad father, and lose you and me, the good fathers, before he could really learn to ball a woman. The next step, if you're curious, is to take the woman away from him. Temporarily," Hagbard added quickly. "Don't be so jumpy. You've been through a large part of the Celine System, and it hasn't killed you. You're stronger because of it, aren't you?"

Joe nodded, accepting this, but shot the next question immediately. "Do you know who bombed Confrontation?" Confrontation?"

"Yes, Joe. And I know why why you did it." you did it."

YOU'RE NOT A THING AT ALL "Okay, then, here's the payoff, and your answer better be good. Why are you helping the Illuminati to immanentize the Eschaton, Hagbard?"

"It steam-engines when it comes steam-engine time, as a very wise man once said."

"Jesus," Joe said wearily. "I thought I had crossed that ports asinorum ports asinorum. When I figured out how you get the goose out of the bottle in the Zen riddle-you do nothing and wait for the goose to peck its way out, just like a chick pecks its way out of an egg egg-I realized 'Do what thou wilt' becomes 'the whole of the law' by a mathematical process. The equation balances when you realize who the 'thou' is, as distinguished from the ordinary 'you.' The whole f.u.c.king works, the universe-all of it alive in the same way we're alive, and mechanical in the same way we're mechanical. The Robot. The one more trustworthy than all the Buddhas and sages. Oh, Christ, yes, I thought I understood it all. But this, this...this stone fatalism-what the h.e.l.l are we going to Ingolstadt for, if we can't do anything?"

"The coin has two sides. It's the only coin that comes up at this time, but it still has two sides." Hagbard leaned forward intensely. "It's mechanical and and alive. Let me give you a s.e.xual metaphor, since you usually hang out with New York intellectuals. You look at a woman across a room and you know you're going to bed with her before the night is over. That's mechanical: Something has happened when your eyes met. But the o.r.g.a.s.m is organic; what it will be like, neither of you can predict. And I know, just as the Illuminati know, that immanentization is going to happen on May first because of a mechanical process Adam Weishaupt started on another May first two centuries ago, and because of other processes other people started before then and since then. But neither I nor the Illuminati know what form immanentization will take. It doesn't have to be h.e.l.l on earth. It can be heaven on earth. And that's why we're going to Ingolstadt." alive. Let me give you a s.e.xual metaphor, since you usually hang out with New York intellectuals. You look at a woman across a room and you know you're going to bed with her before the night is over. That's mechanical: Something has happened when your eyes met. But the o.r.g.a.s.m is organic; what it will be like, neither of you can predict. And I know, just as the Illuminati know, that immanentization is going to happen on May first because of a mechanical process Adam Weishaupt started on another May first two centuries ago, and because of other processes other people started before then and since then. But neither I nor the Illuminati know what form immanentization will take. It doesn't have to be h.e.l.l on earth. It can be heaven on earth. And that's why we're going to Ingolstadt."

THREE O'CLOCK TWO O'CLOCK ONE O'CLOCK ROCK.

I became a cop because of Billie Freshette. Well, I don't want to jive you-that wasn't the whole reason. But she sure as h.e.l.l was one bodacious big part of the reason, and that's the curious thing about what finally happened, and how Milo Flanagan a.s.signed me to infiltrate the Lincoln Park anarchist group, getting me in right up to my black a.s.s in all that international intrigue and yoga-style balling with Simon Moon. But maybe I should start over from the beginning again, from Billie Freshette. I was a little kid and she was an old woman-it was in the early 1950s, you see (Ha.s.san i Sabbah X was operating in the open then, going around the South Side preaching that the greatest of the White Magicians had just died recently in England and now the age of the Black Magicians was beginning; everybody thought he was one stone-crazy stud), and my father was a cook in a restaurant on Halsted. He pointed her out to me on the street once (it must have been just a while before she went back to the reservation in Wisconsin to die). "See that old woman, child? She was John Dillinger's girl friend."

Well, I looked, and I saw she was really heavy and together and that whatever the law had done to her never broke her, but I also saw that sorrow hung around her like a dark halo. Daddy went on and told me a lot more about her, and about Dillinger, but it was the sorrow that got printed all over every cell in my little baby brain. It took years for me to figure it out, but what it really meant, as an omen or conjure, was that she was basically just like the women of the black gang leaders on the South Side, even if she was an Indian. There's just one way for a black in Chicago, and that's to join a gang-Solidarity Forever, as Simon would say-but I dug that there was only one gang that was really safe, the biggest gang of all, Mister Charlie's boys, the motherf.u.c.king establishment I guess every black cop has that in the back of his head, before he finds out that we never really can join that gang, not as full members anyway. I found out quicker, being not just black but female. So I was in the gang, the baddest and heaviest gang, but I was always looking for something better, the impossible, the boss gimmick that would get me off the Man's black-and-white chessboard entirely into some place where I was myself and not just a p.a.w.n being moved around at Charlie's whim.

Otto Waterhouse never had that feeling, at least not until near the end of the game. I never did get inside his head enough to know what was going on there (he was a real cop and got into my head almost as soon as we met, and I could always feel him watching me, waiting for the time when I would round on Charlie and go over to the other side), so the best I can do in making him is to say that he was no Tom in the ordinary sense: He didn't screw blacks for the Man, he screwed blacks for himself; it was strictly his own trip.

Otto was my drop after I got a.s.signed to underground work. We met in a place that I could always have an excuse to visit, a rundown law firm called Washington, Weishaupt, Budweiser and Kief, on 23 North Clark. Later, for some reason I was never told, they changed the name to Ruly, Kempt, Sheveled and Couth, and then to Weery, Stale, Flatt and Profitable, and to keep up the front they actually did hire a couple of lawyers and did some real law work for a corporation called Blue Sky, Inc.

On April 29, still harboring a cargo of doubt about Hagbard, Joe Malik decided to try the simplest method of Tarot divination. Concentrating all his energy on the question, he cut the deck and picked out one card that would reveal Hagbard Celine's true nature, if the divination worked. With a sinking heart, he saw that he had come up with the Hierophant. Running the mnemonics Simon had taught him, Joe quickly identified this figure with the number five, the Hebrew letter Vau Vau (meaning "nail"), and the traditional interpretation of a false show: a hypocrisy or a trick. Five was the number of (meaning "nail"), and the traditional interpretation of a false show: a hypocrisy or a trick. Five was the number of Grummet Grummet, the destructive and chaotic end of a cycle. Vau Vau was the letter a.s.sociated with quarrels, and the meaning "nail" was often related to the implement of Christ's death. The card was telling him that Hagbard was a hypocritical trickster aiming at destruction, a murderer of the Dreamer-Redeemer aspect of humanity. Or, taking a more mystical reading, as was usually advisable with the Tarot, Hagbard only seemed to be these things, and was actually an agent of Resurrection and Rebirth-as Christ had to die before he could become the Father, as (in Vedanta) the false "self" must be obliterated to join the great Self. Joe swore. The card was only reflecting his own uncertainty. He rummaged in the bookshelf Hagbard had provided for his stateroom and found three books on the Tarot. The first, a popular manual, was absolutely useless: It identified the Hierophant with the letter of religion in contrast to the spirit, with conformity, and with all the plastic middle-cla.s.s values Hagbard conspicuously lacked. The second (by a true adept of the Tarot) just led him back to his own confused reading of the card, remarking that the Hierophant is "mysterious, even sinister. He seems to be enjoying a very secret joke at somebody's expense." The third work raised more doubts: It was was the letter a.s.sociated with quarrels, and the meaning "nail" was often related to the implement of Christ's death. The card was telling him that Hagbard was a hypocritical trickster aiming at destruction, a murderer of the Dreamer-Redeemer aspect of humanity. Or, taking a more mystical reading, as was usually advisable with the Tarot, Hagbard only seemed to be these things, and was actually an agent of Resurrection and Rebirth-as Christ had to die before he could become the Father, as (in Vedanta) the false "self" must be obliterated to join the great Self. Joe swore. The card was only reflecting his own uncertainty. He rummaged in the bookshelf Hagbard had provided for his stateroom and found three books on the Tarot. The first, a popular manual, was absolutely useless: It identified the Hierophant with the letter of religion in contrast to the spirit, with conformity, and with all the plastic middle-cla.s.s values Hagbard conspicuously lacked. The second (by a true adept of the Tarot) just led him back to his own confused reading of the card, remarking that the Hierophant is "mysterious, even sinister. He seems to be enjoying a very secret joke at somebody's expense." The third work raised more doubts: It was Liber 555 Liber 555, by somebody named Mordecai Malignatus, which vaguely reminded Joe that the old East Village Other East Village Other chart of the Illuminati conspiracy showed a "Mordecai the Foul" in charge of the Sphere of Chaos-and "Mordecai Malignatus" was a fair Latinization of "Mordecai the Foul." Mordecai, Joe remembered, was, according to that half-accurate and half-deceptive chart, in dual control (along with Richard Nixon, then living) of the Elders of Zion, the House of Rothschild, the Politburo, the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. Communist Party, and Students for a Democratic Society. Joe flipped the pages to see what the semimythical Mord had to say about the Hierophant. The chapter was brief; it was in "The Book of Republicans and Sinners," and said: chart of the Illuminati conspiracy showed a "Mordecai the Foul" in charge of the Sphere of Chaos-and "Mordecai Malignatus" was a fair Latinization of "Mordecai the Foul." Mordecai, Joe remembered, was, according to that half-accurate and half-deceptive chart, in dual control (along with Richard Nixon, then living) of the Elders of Zion, the House of Rothschild, the Politburo, the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. Communist Party, and Students for a Democratic Society. Joe flipped the pages to see what the semimythical Mord had to say about the Hierophant. The chapter was brief; it was in "The Book of Republicans and Sinners," and said:

5.

Vau Vau THE HIEROPHANT (nail) THE HIEROPHANT (nail) They nailed Love They nailed Love to a Cross Symbolic of their Might But Love was undefeated It simply didn't fight.

Five stoned men were in a courtyard when an elephant entered. Five stoned men were in a courtyard when an elephant entered.The first man was stoned on sleep, and he saw not the elephant but dreamed instead of things unreal to those awake.The second man was stoned on nicotine, caffeine, DDT, carbohydrate excess, protein deficiency, and the other chemicals in the diet which the Illuminati have enforced upon the half-awake to keep them from fully waking. "Hey," he said, "there's a big, smelly beast in our courtyard."The third stoned man was on gra.s.s, and he said, "No, dads, that's the Ghostly Old Party in its true nature, the Dark Nix on the Soul," and he giggled in a silly way.The fourth stoned man was tripping on peyote, and he said, "You see not the mystery, for the elephant is a poem written in tons instead of words," and his eyes danced.The fifth stoned man was on acid, and he said nothing, merely worshipping the elephant in silence as the Father of Buddha.And then the Hierophant entered and drove a nail of mystery into all their hearts, saying, "You are all elephants!"n.o.body understood him.

(At eight o'clock in Ingolstadt an unscheduled group called the Cargo Cult managed to get the mike and began blasting out their own outer-s.p.a.ce arrangement of an old children's song: SHE'LL BE COMING 'ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES SHE'LL BE COMING 'ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES And, in Washington, where it was still only two in the afternoon, the White House was in flames, while the National Guard machine-gunned an armed mob crossing the Mall in front of the Washington Monument, a single finger pointing upward in an eloquent and vulgar gesture which only the Illuminati knew meant "f.u.c.k you!" ... In Los Angeles, where it was eleven in the morning, the bombs started to go off in police stations...And in Lehman Cavern, Markoff Chaney disgustedly pointed out a graffito to Saul and Barney: HELP STAMP OUT SIZEISM: TAKE A MIDGET TO LUNCH.

"You see?" he demanded. "That's supposed to be funny. It's not funny at all. Not one d.a.m.ned bit") SHE'LL BE DRIVING SIX WHITE HORSES SHE'LL BE DRIVING SIX WHITE HORSES SHE'LL BE DRIVING SIX WHITE HORSES WHEN SHE COMES On April 29 Hagbard invited George to join him on the bridge of the Leif Erikson Leif Erikson. They had been sailing through a smooth-walled tubular pa.s.sage that was completely filled with water and was both underground and below sea level. It had been built by the Atlanteans and not only had survived the catastrophe but had been maintained in good condition for the next thirty thousand years by the Illuminati. There was even a salt lock, located, roughly, under Lyon, France, which served to keep the salt water of the Atlantic out of the further reaches of the pa.s.sage and the underground freshwater Sea of Valusia. The underground waterways were connected with many lakes in Switzerland, Bavaria, and eastern Europe, Hagbard explained, and if salt water were found in all of those lakes the existence of the weird subsurface world of the Illuminati would be suspected. As the submarine approached a huge circular hatchway barring the pa.s.sage, Hagbard turned off the devices that rendered the craft indetectable. Immediately the enormous round metal door swung toward them.

"Won't the Illuminati know we've activated this machinery?" said George.

"No. This works automatically," said Hagbard. "It's never occurred to them that anyone else might use this pa.s.sageway."

"But they know you you could. And you guessed wrong about their spider-ships being able to detect you." could. And you guessed wrong about their spider-ships being able to detect you."

Hagbard whirled on George, a hairy arm lifted to punch him in the chest. "Shut up about the f.u.c.king spider-ships! I don't want to hear any more about the spider-ships! Portinari's running the show now. And she says it's safe. Okay?"

"Commander, you're out of your f.u.c.king mind," George said firmly.

Hagbard laughed, his shoulders slumping slightly in relaxation. "All right. You can get off the sub any time you want to. We'll just open the hatch and let you swim out."

"You're out of your f.u.c.king mind, but I'm stuck with you," said George, clapping Hagbard on the shoulder.

"You're either on the sub or off the sub," said Hagbard. "Watch this."

The Leif Erikson Leif Erikson had sailed through the round metal gateway, which closed behind it Here the ceiling of the underwater pa.s.sage was about fifty feet higher than it had been in the section they just left, and the tunnel was only partially filling with water. The air seemed to be coming from vents in the ceiling. There was another metal hatchway in the distance down the tunnel. had sailed through the round metal gateway, which closed behind it Here the ceiling of the underwater pa.s.sage was about fifty feet higher than it had been in the section they just left, and the tunnel was only partially filling with water. The air seemed to be coming from vents in the ceiling. There was another metal hatchway in the distance down the tunnel.

"This lock is pretty big," George said. "The Illuminati must have sailed some enormous submarines through here."

"And animals," said Hagbard.

The hatchway ahead of them opened, and fresh water came pouring in. The water level in the lock rose until it reached the ceiling, and the Leif Erikson's Leif Erikson's engines turned over and began to propel it forward once more. Now George is writing in his diary again: engines turned over and began to propel it forward once more. Now George is writing in his diary again: April 29And what the h.e.l.l does it mean to say that life shouldn't change too rapidly? How fast is evolution? Do you measure it in terms of lifetime? A year is more than a lifetime to many kinds of animals, while seventy years is an hour in the lifetime of a sequoia. And the universe is only ten billion years old. How fast do ten billion years go? To a G.o.d they might go very fast indeed. They might all happen at once. Suppose the lifetime of your typical basic G.o.d was a hundred quintillion years. The whole lifetime of this universe would be to him no more than the amount of time it takes us to watch a movie.So, from the point of view of a G.o.d or of the universe, things evolve very quickly. It's like one of those Walt Disney films where you watch a plant growing before your eyes and the whole cycle from bud to fruit takes about two minutes. To a G.o.d, life is a single organism proliferating in all directions all over the earth, and now on the moon and Mars, and the whole process from the first of the protobionts to George Dorn and fellow humans takes no longer than Hagbard's voice over the intercom jolted him out of his reverie. "Come on back up, George. There's more to see."

This time Mavis was on the bridge with Hagbard. As George entered, Hagbard withdrew his hand from her left breast in an unhurried movement. George wanted to kill Hagbard, but he was thankful that he hadn't seen Mavis touching Hagbard in any s.e.xual way. That would have been past bearing. He might have tested his new-found courage by taking a poke at Hagbard, and G.o.ddess only knows what karate or yoga or magic would be the response. Besides, Mavis and Hagbard must be balling all the time. Who else but Hagbard would a woman like Mavis take for her regular lover? Who else but Hagbard could satisfy her?

Mavis greeted George with a comradely hug that made the entire front of his body ache. Hagbard pointed to an inscription carved into the wall of the cave. There was a row of symbols that George didn't recognize, but above them was something quite familiar: a circle with a downward-pointing trident carved inside it.

"The peace symbol," said George. "I didn't know it was that old."

"In the days when it was put up there," said Hagbard, "it was called the Cross of Lilith Velkor, and its meaning is simply that anyone who attempts to thwart the Illuminati will suffer from the most horrible torture the Illuminati can devise. Lilith Velkor was one of the first of their victims. They crucified her on a revolving cross that looked very much like that."

"You told me it wasn't really a peace symbol," said George, looking wistfully back at the carving, "but I didn't know what you meant."

"There was a Dirigens-grade Illuminatus in Bertrand Russell's circle who put it in somebody's mind that the circle and trident would be a good symbol for the Aldermaston marchers to carry. It was very cleverly and subtly done. If the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament had thought about it, what did they need any kind of a symbol for? But Russell and his people fell for it. What they didn't know was that the circle-and-trident had been a traditional symbol of evil among left-hand-path Satanists for thousands of years. So many right-wingers are secret left-hand-path magicians and Satanists that of course they spotted the symbol for what it was right away. That made them think the Illuminati were behind the peace movement, which threw them off the track, and they accused the peaceniks of using a Satanist symbol, which to a small extent discredited the peace movement. A cute gambit."

"Why is it there on the wall?" said George.

"The inscription warns the pa.s.ser-by to purify his heart because he is about to enter the Sea of Valusia, which belongs exclusively to the Illuminati. Traveling across the Sea of Valusia, you come eventually to the underground port of Agharti, which was the first Illuminati refuge after the Atlantean catastrophe. We are emerging into the Sea of Valusia right now. Watch."

Hagbard gestured, and George watched, open-mouthed, as the walls of the cave that closed around them fell away. They were sailing out of the tunnel, but what they seemed to be entering was an infinite fog. The television cameras and their laser wave-guides penetrated just as far into this lightless ocean that they were about to navigate as they had into the Atlantic, but this ocean was neither blue nor green, but gray. It was a gray that seemed to extend infinitely in all directions, like an overcast sky. It was impossible to gauge distance. The farthest depth of the gray around them might be hundreds of miles away, or it might be right outside the submarine.

"Where's the bottom?" he asked.

"Too far below us to see," said Mavis. "The top of this ocean is just a little above the level of the bottom of the Atlantic."