"Great Gruad! What's that?" cried Werner.

"It's the Old Woman!" shouted Wolfgang, his lips falling away from his teeth in a snarl.

The sudden cry "Kallisti!" "Kallisti!" reverberated through the Bavarian hills louder than the music of the Ingolstadt festival had been. Trailing a cometlike cloud of sparks, the golden apple fell into the center of the advancing army. reverberated through the Bavarian hills louder than the music of the Ingolstadt festival had been. Trailing a cometlike cloud of sparks, the golden apple fell into the center of the advancing army.

The Supern.a.z.is might have been the living dead, but they were still human. What each man saw in the apple was his heart's desire. Private Heinrich Krause saw the family he had left behind thirty years ago-not knowing that his living grandchildren were at this moment on the pontoon bridge across Lake Totenkopf, fleeing his advance. Corporal Gottfried Kuntz saw his mistress (who in reality had been raped and then disemboweled by Russian soldiers when Berlin fell in 1945). Oberlieutenant Sigmund Voegel saw a ticket to the Wagner festival at Bayreuth. Colonel-SS Konrad Schein saw a hundred Jews lined up before a machine gun that awaited his hand on the trigger. Obergruppenfuehrer Ernst Bickler saw a blue china soup tureen standing in an empty fireplace at his grandmother's house in Ka.s.sel. It was brimful of steaming brown dogs.h.i.t into which was plunged a silver spoon. General Hanfgeist saw Adolf Hitler, his face blackened, his eyes and tongue bulging out, his neck broken, spinning at the end of a hangman's rope.

All of the men who saw the apple, in whatever form, began to fight and kill one another for possession. Tanks smashed into one another head-on. Artillerymen lowered the barrels of their guns and fired point-blank into the center of the melee.

"What is it, Wolfgang?" said Winifred imploringly, her arms thrown in panic around his waist.

"Look into the center of the battle," said Wolfgang grimly. "What do you see?"

"I see the throne of the world. One single chair twenty-three feet off the ground, studded with seventeen rubies, and brooding over it the serpent swallowing its tail, the Rosy Cross, and the Eye. I see that throne and know that I alone am to ascend it and occupy it forever. What do you see?"

"I see Hagbard Celine's teufelscheiss teufelscheiss head on a silver platter," Wolfgang snarled, thrusting her from him with trembling hands. "Eris has thrown the Apple of Discord, and our Supern.a.z.is will fight and kill each other until we destroy it." head on a silver platter," Wolfgang snarled, thrusting her from him with trembling hands. "Eris has thrown the Apple of Discord, and our Supern.a.z.is will fight and kill each other until we destroy it."

"Where did she go?" asked Werner.

"She's lurking about somewhere in some other form, no doubt," said Wolfgang. "As a toadstool or an owl or some such thing, cackling over the chaos she's caused."

Suddenly Wilhelm stood up, his fingers clawing at empty air. In a frightfully clumsy fashion, as if he were deaf, dumb, and blind, he clawed and clamored his way over the side of the Mercedes that had belonged to von Rundstedt. Once out of the car, he took a position about ten feet away from his brothers and sister, turned, and faced them. His eyes stared-every muscle in his body was rigid-the crotch of his trousers bulged.

The voice that came out of his mouth was deep, rich, oleaginous, and horrid: "There are long accounts to settle, children of Gruad."

Wolfgang forgot the sounds of battle that raged around him. "You! Here! How did you escape?"

The voice was like crude petroleum seeping through gravel, and, like petroleum, it was a fossil thing, the voice of a creature that had arisen on the planet when the South Pole was in the Sahara and the great cephalopods were the highest form of life.

"I took no notice. The geometries ceased to bind me. I came forth. I ate souls. Fresh souls, not the miserable plasma you have fed me all these years."

"Great Gruad! Is that your grat.i.tude?" Wolfgang stormed. In a lower voice he said to Werner, "Find the talisman. I think it's in the black case sealed with the Seal of Solomon and the Eye of Newt." To the being that occupied Wilhelm's body he said, "You come at an opportune time. There will be much killing here, and many souls to eat."

"These around us have no souls. They have only pseudo-life. It sickens me to sense them."

Wolfgang laughed. "Even the lloigor can feel disgust, then."

"I have been sick for many hundreds of years, while you kept me sealed in one pentagon after another, feeding me not fresh souls but those wretched stored essences."

"We gave you much!" cried Werner. "Every year, just for you, thirty thousand-forty thousand-fifty thousand deaths in traffic accidents alone."

"But not fresh. Not fresh! Perhaps, though, you can settle your debt to me tonight. I sense many lives nearby- lives you have somehow lured here. They can be mine."

Werner handed Wolfgang a stick with a silver pentagon at the tip. Wolfgang pointed it at the possessed Wilhelm, who shrieked and fell to his knees. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the sound of Winifred's terrified sobbing and the crack of rifles and the chatter of machine guns in the background.

"You shall not have those lives, Yog Sothoth. They are for the transcendental illumination of our servants. Wait, though, and there shall be lives in plenty for all of us."

Werner said, "While we parley our army is destroying itself, and there will be no lives for anyone."

"Really?" said the thick voice. "How has your plan gone astray? Let me read you and learn." Wolfgang felt goose pimples break out all over his body. He shuddered as coa.r.s.e, boneless fingers dripping with slime turned the pages of his mind.

"Mmm-I see. She She is here, then. My ancient enemy. It would be good to meet her in battle once again." is here, then. My ancient enemy. It would be good to meet her in battle once again."

"Are your powers equal to hers?" said Wolfgang eagerly.

"I yield to none" came the proud reply.

"Ask him why he's always getting trapped in pentagons, then," said Werner in a low voice.

"Shut up!" Wolfgang whispered savagely. To the lloigor he said, "Destroy her golden apple and release my army to move ahead, and I will withhold the power of this pentagon and give you all the lives you seek."

"Done!" said the voice. Wilhelm suddenly threw his head back, mouth wide open. A choking sound came from his throat. He collapsed on his back, spread-eagled. A strange, greenish, glowing gas rose from his throat.

Werner jumped from the car and rushed over to Wilhelm. "He's alive."

"Of course he's alive," said Wolfgang. "The Eater of Souls simply took possession of his body to communicate with us."

Winifred screamed, "Look!"

The same phosph.o.r.escent gas, a huge cloud of it, now obscured the heart of the battle. It seemed to take a shape like a spider with an uncountable number of legs, arms, antennae, and tentacles. Gradually the shape changed, glowing brighter and brighter. A nearby tower on the festival grounds was as visible in the reflected light as if it were day. Then the glow faded, and the tower was silhouetted in moonlight. A great silence fell over the hills around Lake Totenkopf, broken only by the glad cries of the last contingent of festivalgoers as they made it safely to the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"There's no time to lose," Wolfgang said to Werner and Wilhelm. "Round up some officers. See if you can find Hanfgeist."

Hanfgeist had disappeared. The highest-ranking officer surviving was Obergruppenfuehrer Bickler, visions of dog t.u.r.ds sadly fading in a mind that possessed only a horrid semblance of life. A quick survey showed the four Illuminati Primi that the Apple of Discord had cost them half their army.

"Onward!" roared Wolfgang, and, tanks in the van, they smashed through the festival fence, raced over the hills, troops trotting double-time, and unhesitatingly charged out onto the bridge. Wolfgang stood in the back seat of the von Rundstedt Mercedes, his black-gloved hands gripping the back of the front seat, the wind blowing through his crew cut like a field of wheat. Suddenly, beside him, Wilhelm screamed.

"What is it now?" yelled Wolfgang over the roar of his advancing army.

"The lives we are about to take," the voice of the lloigor grated. "They are mine, yes? All mine?"

"Listen to me, you energy vampire. We have other debts to discharge, and other projects to complete. There are twenty-three of our faithful servants waiting in the Donau-Hotel to be transcendentally illuminated. They come first You'll get yours. Wait your turn."

"Farewell," said the lloigor. "I shall see you at the hour of your death."

"I will never die!"

"Fool!" the voice shrieked with Wilhelm's mouth. Suddenly Wilhelm stood up, threw open the door of the car, and hurled himself out into the lake. He struck with a huge splash, then sank like a stone. A greenish glow spread in the black water where he had gone down.

And then there were four.

Hagbard stood atop a hill, watching the tanks roll across the bridge, followed by the black Mercedes, followed by troop carriers and artillery, followed by trotting foot soldiers. He knelt beside a detonator and shoved down the handle.

From end to end the bridge and those upon it disappeared in geysers of white water. The thunder of the explosions-demolition charges placed by the porpoise horde under the direction of Howard-re-echoed through the hills around the lake.

The tanks went under first. As the front end of the command car sank under water, Werner Saure screamed, "My foot's caught!" He went down with the car, while Wolfgang and Winifred, their tears mingling with the water of Lake Totenkopf, splashed about in the water with the few remaining Supern.a.z.is.

And then there were three.

Hagbard shouted, "I sank it! I sank the George Washington Bridge!"

"Is anything changed?" said George.

"Of course," said Hagbard. "We've got them on the run. We'll be able to finish them off in a few more minutes. Then there'll be no more evil in the world. Everything will be ginger-peachy" ginger-peachy" His tone seemed sarcastic rather than victorious, George noted apprehensively. His tone seemed sarcastic rather than victorious, George noted apprehensively.

"Now I'll admit," Fission Chips said reasonably, "that I'm under the influence of some b.l.o.o.d.y drug from the Kool-Aid. But this simply cannot all be hallucination. Very definitely, thirteen people took their clothes off and started dancing. I quite certainly heard them singing 'Blessed be, blessed be,' over and over. Then a simply gigantic woman rose up from somewhere and all the sirens and undines and mermaids went back into the water. If this was Armageddon, it was not precisely the way the Bible described it. Is that a fair summary of the situation?"

The tree he was talking to didn't answer.

"Blessed be, blessed be," Lady Velkor sang on, as she and her hastily a.s.sembled coven danced widdershins in their circle. The spell had worked: With her own eyes she had seen the Great Mother, Isis, rise up and smite the evil spirits of the dead Catholic Inquisitors whom the Illuminati had tried to revive. She knew Hagbard Celine would later be boasting in all the most chic occult circles that he had performed the miracle, and giving the credit to that destructive b.i.t.c.h Eris-but that didn't matter. She with her own eyes had seen Isis, and that was enough.

"Now I ask you," Fission Chips went on, addressing another tree, who seemed more communicative, "what the sulphurous h.e.l.l did you you see happening here tonight?" see happening here tonight?"

"I saw a master Magician," said the tree, "or a master con man-the two are the same-plant a few suggestions and get a bunch of acidheads running away from their own shadows." The tree, who was actually Joe Malik and only looked like a tree to poor befuddled 00005, added, "Or I saw the final battle between Good and Evil, with Horus on both sides."

"You must be drugged too," Chips said pettishly.

"You bet your sweet a.s.s I am," said the tree, walking away.

... I don't know how the courts will ever untangle this. With five of them shooting at once, and the Secret Service shooting back right away, the best crime lab in the world will never get the trajectories of all the bullets right Who, among the survivors, will be tried for murder and who for attempted murder? That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question and I don't know how the courts will ever untangle this. With five of them shooting at once, and the Secret Service shooting back right away, the best crime lab in the world will never get the trajectories of all the bullets right Who, among the survivors, will be tried for murder and who for attempted murder? That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question and...what?... oh oh...And now, ladies and gentlemen, on this sad occasion...uh ... ... in this tragic hour of our country's history, let us all pay especially close attention to the new President, who will now address us in this tragic hour of our country's history, let us all pay especially close attention to the new President, who will now address us.

Who's that jig standing over there? the new Chief Exec was asking somebody off camera when he appeared on the TV screens. the new Chief Exec was asking somebody off camera when he appeared on the TV screens.

The Chevrolet Stegosaurus drove into the empty concert grounds and came to a slow halt. The guitarist stuck his head out the window and yelled to Lady Velkor, "What the h.e.l.l happened here?"

"There was some bad acid in the Kool-Aid," she told him gravely. "Everybody freaked out and ran off toward town."

"h.e.l.l," he said, "and this was going to be our first big audience. We're a new group, just formed. What lousy luck."

He turned and drove off, and she read the sign on the back of the car: THE FERNANDO POO INCIDENT.

"How are you now, baby?" Simon asked.

"I know who I am," Mary Lou said slowly, "and you might not like the results of that any more than the Chicago police force will." Her eyes were distant and pensive.

Wolfgang and Winifred were very near sh.o.r.e when the dark, humped shapes rose out of the water around them. Winifred shrieked, "Wolfgang! For the love of Gruad, Wolfgang! They're pulling me down!" Her long blond hair floated for a moment after her head went under; then that too disappeared.

And then there were two.

The porpoises have her, Wolfgang thought to himself. He continued to swim madly toward sh.o.r.e. Something caught his trouser leg, but he kicked free. Then he was in the shallows, too close in for the sea beasts to follow. He stood up and waded ash.o.r.e. And came face to face with John Dillinger.

"Sorry, pal," said John, and squeezed the trigger of his Thompson submachine gun. Thirty silver bullets struck Wolfgang with the impact of clubs and threw him back into the water. All feeling was gone from his body, and he felt the foul tentacles closing around his mind and the murmuring, horrible laughter grew to a soundless roar, and the syrupy voice spoke to his mind: Welcome to the place prepared for you from everlasting to everlasting. Now truly you will never die Welcome to the place prepared for you from everlasting to everlasting. Now truly you will never die. And the mind of Wolfgang Saure, imprisoned like a living fly in amber, knowing that it must remain so for billions upon billions of years, screamed and screamed and screamed.

And then there was one.

And Joe Malik, feeling as if he were sitting in an audience watching himself perform, walked over to that One and held out his hand. "Congratulations," he said icily. "You really did it."

Hagbard looked at the hand and said, "You were more intimate the last time around."

"Very well," said Joe. "My Lord, my enemy." He leaned forward and kissed Hagbard full on the mouth. Then he took the gun out of his pocket and carefully fired directly into Hagbard's brain. And then there were none.

It was quite real; Joe shook himself, stood up, and grinned. Walking over to Hagbard, he took out the gun and handed it to him.

"Surprise ending," he said. "I read all the clues, just like you wanted me to. I know you're the fifth Illuminatus Primus, and I know your motive for wiping out the other four is nothing like you've led us to believe. But I can't play my role. I still trust you. You must must have a good reason." have a good reason."

Hagbard's mouth fell open in completely genuine surprise. "Well, sink sink me!" he said, beginning to laugh. me!" he said, beginning to laugh.

Dawn was breaking; the Nine Unknown Men, most mysterious of all rock groups, ceremonially donned their football helmets and faced the East to chant: There is only ONE G.o.d: He is the SUN G.o.d: Ra! Ra! Ra!

[image]

The bursts to the moon and to the planets are also not historic events. They are the major evolutionary breakthroughs...Today when we speak of immortality and of going to another world we no longer mean these in a theological or metaphysical sense. People are now striving for physical immortality. People are now traveling to other worlds. Transcendence is no longer a metaphysical concept. It has become reality.-F. M. ESFANDIARY, Upwingers Upwingers

THE TENTH TRIP.

(OR MALKUTH FAREWELL TO PLANET EARTH).

Ye have locked yerselves up in cages of fear; and, behold, do ye now complain that ye lack freedom.-LORD O OMAR K KHAYYAM R RAVENHURST, K.S.C., "Epistle to the Paranoids,"

The Honest Book of Truth As the earth turned on its axis and dawn reached city after city, hamlet after hamlet, farm after farm, mountain and valley after mountain and valley, it became obvious that May 1 would be bright and sunny almost everywhere. In Athens a cla.s.sical scholar waking in the small cell where certain Platonic opinions had landed him felt a burst of unexpected hope and greeted Helios with rolling syllables from Sappho, crying through the bars, "Brodadaktylos Eos!" "Brodadaktylos Eos!" Birds, startled by the shout, took off from the jailyard below, filling the air with the flapping of their wings; the guards came and told him to shut up. He answered them gaily with Birds, startled by the shout, took off from the jailyard below, filling the air with the flapping of their wings; the guards came and told him to shut up. He answered them gaily with "Polyphloisbois thala.s.sas! "Polyphloisbois thala.s.sas! You've taken everything else away from me, but you can't take old Homer away!" You've taken everything else away from me, but you can't take old Homer away!"

In Paris the Communists under the Red banner and the anarchists under the Black were preparing for the annual International Labor Solidarity Day, at which the usual factionalism and sectarianism would once again demonstrate the absolute lack of international labor solidarity. And in London, Berlin, a thousand cities, the Red and the Black would wave and the tongues of their partisans would wag, and the age-old longing for a cla.s.sless society would once again manifest itself; while, in the same cities, an older name and an older purpose for that day would be commemorated in convent after convent and school after school where verses (far older than the name of Christianity) were sung to the Mother of G.o.d: Queen of the Angels Queen of the May In the United States, alas, the usual celebrations of National Law Day had to be cancelled, since the rioting was not quite ended yet.

But everywhere, in Asia and Africa as in Europe and the Americas, the members of the Oldest Religion were returning from their festivals, murmuring "Blessed be" as they parted, secure in their knowledge that the Mother of G.o.d was indeed still alive and had visited them at midnight, whether they knew her as Dian, Dan, Tan, Tana, Shakti, or even Erzulie.

Queen of the Angels Queen of the May In Nairobi, Nkrumah Fubar picked up his mail from a friend employed at the post office. To his delight, American Express had relented and corrected their error, crediting him with his February 2 payment at last. This was, to his thinking, big magic, since the notification had been mailed from New York even before he began his geodesic spiels against the President of American Express on April 25. Obviously, such retroactive witchcraft was worthy of further investigation, and the key was the synergetic geometry of the Fuller tetrahedron in which he had kept his manikin during the spell-casting. Over breakfast, before leaving for the university, he opened Fuller's No More Second-Hand G.o.d No More Second-Hand G.o.d and again grappled with the arcane mathematics and metaphysics of omnidirectional halo. Finishing breakfast, he closed the book, shut his eyes, and tried to visualize the Fuller universe. The image formed, and, to his amazement and amus.e.m.e.nt, it was identical with certain symbols an old Kikuyu witch doctor had once drawn when explaining the doctrine of "fan-shaped destiny" to him. and again grappled with the arcane mathematics and metaphysics of omnidirectional halo. Finishing breakfast, he closed the book, shut his eyes, and tried to visualize the Fuller universe. The image formed, and, to his amazement and amus.e.m.e.nt, it was identical with certain symbols an old Kikuyu witch doctor had once drawn when explaining the doctrine of "fan-shaped destiny" to him.

As the book closed in Kenya, the drums of Orabi stopped abruptly. It was one in the morning there, and the visiting anthropologist, Indole Ringh, immediately asked how the dancers knew the ceremony was finished. "The danger is past," an old Hopi told him patiently, "can't you feel feel the difference in the air?" (Saul, Barney, and Markoff Chaney were racing toward Las Vegas in the rented Brontosaurus, while Dillinger was leisurely driving back toward Los Angeles.) In Honolulu, as the clocks struck nine the previous evening, Buckminster Fuller, trotting between airplanes, suddenly caught a glimpse of a new geodesic structure fully incorporating omnidirectional halo...And, after a four-hour flight eastward, landing in Tokyo at the "same time" he left Honolulu, he had a detailed sketch finished (it looked somewhat fan-shaped) as the NO SMOKING FASTEN SEAT BELT sign flashed. (It was four A.M. in Los Angeles, and Dillinger, safely home-he thought-heard the gunfire dying out in the distance. The President must already be withdrawing the National Guard, at least in part, he thought.) The phone by Rebecca's bed rang just then, eight o'clock New York time, and she answered it to hear Molly Muldoon shout excitedly, "Saul and Barney are on TV. Turn it on-they've saved the country!" the difference in the air?" (Saul, Barney, and Markoff Chaney were racing toward Las Vegas in the rented Brontosaurus, while Dillinger was leisurely driving back toward Los Angeles.) In Honolulu, as the clocks struck nine the previous evening, Buckminster Fuller, trotting between airplanes, suddenly caught a glimpse of a new geodesic structure fully incorporating omnidirectional halo...And, after a four-hour flight eastward, landing in Tokyo at the "same time" he left Honolulu, he had a detailed sketch finished (it looked somewhat fan-shaped) as the NO SMOKING FASTEN SEAT BELT sign flashed. (It was four A.M. in Los Angeles, and Dillinger, safely home-he thought-heard the gunfire dying out in the distance. The President must already be withdrawing the National Guard, at least in part, he thought.) The phone by Rebecca's bed rang just then, eight o'clock New York time, and she answered it to hear Molly Muldoon shout excitedly, "Saul and Barney are on TV. Turn it on-they've saved the country!"

In Las Vegas, Barney blinked under the TV lights and stared woodenly into the camera, while Saul kept his eyes on the interviewer and spoke in his kindly-family-doctor persona.

"Would you tell our viewers, Inspector Goodman, how you happened to be looking in Lehman Caves for the missing man?" The interviewer had the professional tone of all TV newscasters; his intonation wouldn't have changed if he'd been asking "And why did you find our sponsor's product more satisfactory?" or "How did you feel when you learned you had brain cancer?"

"Psychology," Saul p.r.o.nounced gravely. "The suspect was a procurer. That's a definite psychological type, just as a safecracker, a bank robber, a child molester, and a policeman are definite types. I tried to think and feel like a procurer. What would such a man do with the whole government looking for him? Attempt an escape to Mexico or somewhere else? Never-that's a bank-robber reaction. Procurers are not people who take risks or make bold moves against the odds. What would a procurer do? He would look for a hole to hide in."

"The FBI crime lab definitely confirms that the man Inspector Goodman found is the missing plague-carrier, Carmel," the interviewer threw in. (He had orders to repeat this every two minutes.) "Tell me, Inspector, why wouldn't such a man hide in, say, an empty house, or a secluded cabin in the mountains?"

"He wouldn't travel far," Saul explained. "He'd be too paranoid-seeing police officers everywhere he went. And his imagination would vastly exaggerate the actual power of the government. There is only one law enforcement agent to each four hundred citizens in this country, but he would imagine the proportion reversed. The most secluded cabin would be too nerve-wracking for him. He'd imagine hordes of National Guardsmen and law officers of all sorts searching every square foot of woods in America. He really would. Procurers are very ordinary men, compared to hardened criminals. They think like ordinary people in most ways. The ordinary man and woman never commits a crime because they have the same exaggerated idea of our omnipotence." Saul's tone was neutral, descriptive, but in New York Rebecca's heart skipped a beat: This was the new Saul talking, the one who was no longer on the side of law and order.

"So you just asked yourself, where's a good-sized hole near Las Vegas?"

"That was all there was to it, yes."

"The American people will certainly be grateful to you. And how did it happen that you got involved in this case? You're with the New York Police Department, aren't you?"