"You can transcend abject fear and rebellious hatred both. You can see that he is only part of the Great Wheel and, like all other parts, necessary to the whole. Then you can accept him."

"Next you'll be telling me to love him."

"That too."

"Yes, and I can learn to see the great and glorious Whole Picture. I can see all the men defecating and urinating in their trousers before they died at Chateau-Thierry, watching their own guts fall out into their laps and screaming out of a hole that isn't even a mouth any more, as manifestations of that sublime harmony and balance which is ineffable and holy and beyond all speech and reason. Sure. I can see that, if I knock half of my brain out of commission and hypnotize myself into thinking that the view from that weird perspective is deeper and wider and more truly true truly true than the view from an unclouded mind. Go to the quadruple-amputee ward and try to tell them that. You speak of death as a personified being. Very well: Then I must regard him as any other ent.i.ty that gets in my way. Love is a myth invented by poets and other people who couldn't face the world and crept off into corners to create fantasies to console themselves. The fact is that when you meet another ent.i.ty, either it makes way for you or you make way for it. Either it dominates and you submit, or you dominate and it submits. Take me into any club in Boston and I'll tell you which millionaire has the most millions, by the way the others treat him. Take me into any workingman's bar and I'll tell you who has the best punch in a fistfight, by the way the others treat him. Take me into any house and I'll tell you in a minute whether the husband or the wife is dominant. Love? Equality? Reconciliation? Acceptance? Those are the excuses of the losers, to persuade themselves that they choose their condition and weren't beaten down into it. Find a dutiful wife, who truly loves her husband. I'll have her in my bed in three days, maximum. Because I'm so d.a.m.ned attractive? No, because I understand men and women. I'll make her understand, without saying it aloud and shocking her, that the adultery will, one way or another, hurt her husband, whether he knows about it or not. Show me the most servile colored waiter in the best restaurant in town, and after he's through explaining Christianity and humility and all the rest of it, count how many times a day he steps into the kitchen to spit in his handerchief. The other employees will tell you he has a 'chest condition.' The condition he has is chronic rage. The mother and the child? An endless power struggle. Listen to the infant's cry change in pitch when Mother doesn't come at once. Is that fear you hear? It's rage-insane fury at not having total dominance. As for the mother herself, I'd wager that ninety percent of the married women in the psychiatrists' care are there because they can't admit to themselves, can't escape the lie of love long enough to admit to themselves, how often they want to strangle that monster in the nursery. Love of country? Another lie; the truth is fear of cops and prisons. Love of art? Another lie; the truth is fear of the naked truth without ornaments and false faces on it. Love of truth itself? The biggest lie of all: fear of the unknown. People learn acceptance of all this and achieve wisdom? They surrender to superior force and call their cowardice maturity. It still comes down to one question: Are you kneeling at the altar, or are you on the altar watching the others kneel to you?" than the view from an unclouded mind. Go to the quadruple-amputee ward and try to tell them that. You speak of death as a personified being. Very well: Then I must regard him as any other ent.i.ty that gets in my way. Love is a myth invented by poets and other people who couldn't face the world and crept off into corners to create fantasies to console themselves. The fact is that when you meet another ent.i.ty, either it makes way for you or you make way for it. Either it dominates and you submit, or you dominate and it submits. Take me into any club in Boston and I'll tell you which millionaire has the most millions, by the way the others treat him. Take me into any workingman's bar and I'll tell you who has the best punch in a fistfight, by the way the others treat him. Take me into any house and I'll tell you in a minute whether the husband or the wife is dominant. Love? Equality? Reconciliation? Acceptance? Those are the excuses of the losers, to persuade themselves that they choose their condition and weren't beaten down into it. Find a dutiful wife, who truly loves her husband. I'll have her in my bed in three days, maximum. Because I'm so d.a.m.ned attractive? No, because I understand men and women. I'll make her understand, without saying it aloud and shocking her, that the adultery will, one way or another, hurt her husband, whether he knows about it or not. Show me the most servile colored waiter in the best restaurant in town, and after he's through explaining Christianity and humility and all the rest of it, count how many times a day he steps into the kitchen to spit in his handerchief. The other employees will tell you he has a 'chest condition.' The condition he has is chronic rage. The mother and the child? An endless power struggle. Listen to the infant's cry change in pitch when Mother doesn't come at once. Is that fear you hear? It's rage-insane fury at not having total dominance. As for the mother herself, I'd wager that ninety percent of the married women in the psychiatrists' care are there because they can't admit to themselves, can't escape the lie of love long enough to admit to themselves, how often they want to strangle that monster in the nursery. Love of country? Another lie; the truth is fear of cops and prisons. Love of art? Another lie; the truth is fear of the naked truth without ornaments and false faces on it. Love of truth itself? The biggest lie of all: fear of the unknown. People learn acceptance of all this and achieve wisdom? They surrender to superior force and call their cowardice maturity. It still comes down to one question: Are you kneeling at the altar, or are you on the altar watching the others kneel to you?"

"The wheel of the Tarot is the wheel of Dharma," Mama Sutra said softly when he had concluded. "It is also the wheel of the galaxy, which you see as a blind machine. It rolls on, as you say, no matter what we think or do. Knowing that, I accept Death as part of the wheel, and I accept your nonacceptance as another part. I can control neither. I can only repeat my warning, which is not a lie but a fact about the structure of the Wheel: By denying death, you guarantee that you will meet him finally in his most hideous form."

Drake finished his coffee and smiled whimsically. "You know," he said, "my contempt for lies has an element of the very sentimentality and foolish idealism that I have been rejecting. Perhaps I will be most effective if I never speak so honestly again. When you hear of me next, I might be known as a philanthropist and benefactor of mankind." He lit a cigar thoughtfully. "And that would even be true if your Tarot mysticism is correct after all. If Death is necessary to the Wheel, along with all the other parts, then I am necessary also. The Wheel would collapse, perhaps, if my spirit of rebellion were not there to balance your spirit of acceptance. Imagine that."

"It is true. That is why I have warned you but not judged you."

"So I am, as Goethe says, 'part of that force which aims at evil and only achieves good'?"

"That is a thought which you should try to remember when the Dark Night of Sammael descends upon you at the end."

"More cant," Drake said, with a return to his previous cynicism. "I aim at evil and I will achieve evil. The Wheel and all its harmonious balances and all-healing paradoxes is just another myth of the weak and defeated. One strong man can stop the Wheel or tear it to shreds if he dares enough."

"Perhaps. We who study the Wheel do not know all of its secrets. Some believe that your spirit reappears constantly in history, because it is fated, eventually, to triumph. Maybe this is the last century of terrestrial mortals, and the next century will be the time of the cosmic immortals. What will happen then, when the Wheel is stopped, none of us can predict. It may be 'good' or 'evil' or even-to quote your favorite philosopher-beyond good and evil. We cannot say. That is another reason I do not judge you."

"Listen," Drake said with sudden emotion. "We're both lying. It's not all this philosophical or cosmic. The simple fact is that I couldn't sleep nights, and nothing I tried in conventional 'cures' could help me, until I began to help myself by systematically rebelling against everything that seemed stronger than me."

"I know. I didn't know it was insomnia. It might have been nightmares or dizzy spells or s.e.xual impotence. But there was some way that the scenes you saw in Chateau-Thierry lived on and goaded you to wake out of the dream of the sleepwalkers on the streets. You are waking: You stand on the abyss." She pointed to the Fool and the dog who barks at his heels. "And I am the noisy little b.i.t.c.h barking to warn you that you can still choose the right-hand path. The decision is not final until you cross the abyss."

"But the cards show that I really have very little choice. Especially in the world that is going to emerge from this depression."

Mama Sutra smiled without forgiveness or final condemnation. "This is no age for saints," she agreed softly. "Two dollars please."

George, don't make no bull moves. The Dutchman saw it all clearly now. Capone and Luciano and Maldonado and Lepke and all the rest of them were afraid of Winifred and the Washington crowd. They were planning a deal, and his death was part of the bargain. The fools didn't know that you can never negotiate from fear. They thought of the Order only as a handy gimmick for international communications and illicit trade; they were too dumb to really study the Teachings. Especially, they had never understood the third Teaching: Fear is Failure Fear is Failure. Once you're afraid of the bulls, you're lost. But the bull was gone. "What have you done with him?" he shouted at the hospital wall.

(Smiling Jim had seen the eagle only the day before. Its nest was definitely on one of these peaks. He would get it: He knew it in his bones, a hunch so strong it couldn't be doubted. Panting, sweating, every muscle aching, he climbed onward...The coffee leaped out of the paper cup and slurped onto the pages of Carnal Orgy Carnal Orgy. Igor Beaver, the graduate student, looked up in astonishment: The seismograph stood at grade 5. A mile away, Dillinger woke as the bedroom door slammed shut and his favorite statue, King Kong atop the Empire State Building, fell off the bureau.) NO REMISSION, NO REMISSION, NO REMISSION WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD. NO REMISSION WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD.

Mama Sutra looked down through the window at Boston Common. Robert Putney Drake had stopped, and was listening to one of the preachers again; even at this distance she could recognize the cool, closed smile on his face.

The Dealy Lama sat down across from her. "Well?" he asked.

"Definitely. The Order will have to intervene." Mama shook her head sadly. "He's a menace to the whole world."

"Slowness is beauty," the Dealy Lama said. "Let the Lower Order contact him first. If they decide he's worth the effort, then we'll act. I think I shall persuade Hagbard to attend Harvard, so he can be in his neighborhood and keep an eye on him, so to speak."

IT'S THE WORD OF THE BIBLE AND THE WORD OF G.o.d AND IT SAYS IT PLAIN AND CLEAR SO NO HIGHBROW PROFESSOR CAN SAY IT MEANS SOMETHING ELSE.

"How old are you actually?" Mama asked curiously.

The Dealy Lama looked at her levelly. "Would you believe thirty thousand years?"

She laughed. "I should have known better than to ask. You can always tell the higher members by their sense of humor."

AND THIS IS WHAT IT SAYS: NO REMISSION, NO REMISSION, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, NO REMISSION WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD, WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD. NO REMISSION. NO REMISSION WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD.

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

Behind him on a wall, Joe noticed dizzily, was a brand-new graffito, probably scrawled by somebody out of his skull on the acid: THE PIGEONS IN B. F. SKINNER'S CAGES ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS THE PIGEONS IN B. F. SKINNER'S CAGES ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS.

"We both pa.s.s," Hagbard went on happily. "We've been judged and found innocent by the great G.o.d Acid."

Joe took a deep breath. "And when do you start to explain in monosyllables or sign language or semaph.o.r.e or something a non-Illuminated moron like me can understand?"

"You read all the clues. It was right out in the open. It was plain as a barn door. It was as conspicuous as my nose and twice as homely-in every sense of that word."

"Hagbard, for Christ's sake and for my sake and for all our sakes, will you stop gloating and give me the answer?"

"I'm sorry." Hagbard pocketed the gun carelessly. "I'm a bit giddy. I've been waging a kind of war all night, high on acid. It was a strain, especially since I was at least ninety percent sure you'd kill me before it was over." He lit one of his abominable cigars. "Briefly, then, the Illuminati is benevolent, compa.s.sionate, kindly, generous, et cetera, et cetera. Add all the other complimentary adjectives you can think of. In short, we're the good guys."

"But-but-it can't be."

"It can be and it is." Hagbard motioned him toward the Bugatti. "Let's Sit Down, if I may permit myself one more acrostic before the codes and puzzles are all resolved." They climbed into the front seat, and Joe accepted the brandy decanter Hagbard offered. "Of course," Hagbard went on, "when I say 'good,' you've got to understand that all terms are relative. We're as good as is possible in this f.u.c.ked-up section of the galaxy. We're not perfect Certainly, I'm not, and I haven't observed anything approaching immaculate perfection in any of the other Masters of the Temple either. But we are, in human terms and by ordinary standards, decent chaps. There's a reason for that. It's the basic law of magic, and it's in every textbook. You must have read it somewhere. Do you know what I mean?"

Joe took a stiff snort of the brandy. It was peach-his favorite. "Yes, I think. 'As ye give, so shall ye get.'"

"Precisely." Hagbard took back the bottle and had a snort himself. "Mind you, Joe, that's a scientific law, not a moral commandment. There are no commandments, because there is no commander anywhere. All authority is a delusion, whether in theology or in sociology. Everything is radically, even sickeningly, free. The first law of magic is as neutral as Newton's first law of motion. It says that the equation balances, and that's all it says. You are still free to give evil and pain, if you decide you must. Once done, however, you never escape the consequences. It always comes back. No prayers, sacrifices, mortifications, or supplications will change it, any more than they'll change Newton's laws or Einstein's. So we're 'good,' as moralists would say, because we know enough to have a b.l.o.o.d.y strong reason to be good. In the last week things went too fast, and I became 'evil'-I deliberately ordered and paid for the deaths of various people, and set in motion processes that had to lead to still other deaths. I knew what I was doing, and I knew-and still know-that I'll pay for it. Such decisions are extremely rare in the history of the Order, and my superior, the Dealy Lama, tried to persuade me it was unnecessary this time too. I disagreed; I take the responsibility. No man or G.o.d or G.o.ddess can change it. I will pay, and I'm ready to pay, whenever and however the bill is presented."

"Hagbard, what are you?" what are you?"

"A mehum mehum, the Saure family would say," Hagbard grinned. "A mere human. No more. Not one jot more."

"How much blood?" Robert Putney Drake asked. He was astonished at his own words; in all his experiments at breaking through the walls, he had never lowered himself to heckling an ignorant street preacher.

ALL THE BLOOD IN THE WORLD ISN'T ENOUGH. EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD ISN'T ENOUGH. EVEN ALL THE ANIMALS IF YOU ADDED THEM IN LINE IN SOME PAGAN OR VOODOO SACRIFICE. IT WOULDN'T BE ENOUGH. IT WOULDN'T BE ENOUGH, BROTHERS. THE GOOD BOOK SAYS SO.

"There were five of us," John-John Dillinger was explaining to George as they trudged back toward Ingolstadt, having lost Hagbard and the Bugatti in the crowd. "My folks kept it a secret. German people, very superst.i.tious and secretive. They didn't want reporters all over the place and headlines about the first quintuplets to live. The Dionne family got all that, much later."

BECAUSE ALL THE BLOOD IN THE WORLD ISN'T EQUAL TO ONE DROP. NOT ONE DROP "John Herbert Dillinger is in Las Vegas, trying to track down the plague-unless he already finished up and went home to Los Angeles." John-John smiled. "He was always the brains of the bunch. Runs a rock-music company, real professional businessman. He was the oldest, by a couple of minutes, and we all sort of look up to him. He served the prison time, even though I'm the one who rightly should have, seeing that robbing that grocer was my dumb idea. But he said he could take it without cracking up, and he was right."

NOT ONE DROP, NOT ONE DROP, OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.

"I see," Drake said. "And was that A, B, AB, or O?"

"John Hoover Dillinger lives in Mad Dog, under the name D. J. Hoover-he's not above letting people suspect he's a distant relative of J. Edgar's. Mostly," John-John said, "he's retired. Except occasionally for little jobs like helping arrange convincing jail breaks, say, when Jim Cartwright wants to let a prisoner get out in a realistic fashion. He gave Naismith the idea for the John Dillinger Died for You Society."

"How about the other two?" George asked, thinking that it would be even harder to decide whether he loved Stella more than Mavis or Mavis more than Stella now that he knew they were the same person. He wondered how Joe felt, since he obviously dug Miss Mao Tsu-hsi and she was that person also. Three in one and one in three. Like Dillinger. Or was Dillinger five in three? George realized suddenly that he was still tripping a little. Dillinger was five in one, not five in three: the law of Fives again. Did that mean there were two more in the Mavis-Stella-Mao complex, two that he hadn't met yet? Why did two and three keep popping up in all this?

"The other two are dead," John-John said sadly. "John Edgar Dillinger was born first, and he went and died first. Fast and furious, he was. It was him that plugged that bank guard in East Chicago while the rest of us were vacationing and laying low in Miami. Always the hothead, he was. Had a heart attack back in '43 and went to an early grave. John Thomas Dillinger went in '69. He was in Chicago in '68 on a JAM a.s.signment, meeting with a crazy English spy named Chips. British Intelligence somehow got a report that the Democratic Convention was being run by the Bavarian Illuminati and would end with an a.s.sa.s.sination. They didn't believe in the Illuminati so they sent Chips; they always send him on wild cases, 'cause he's nutty enough to take them seriously and do a thorough job. Both of them got tear-ga.s.sed coming out of the Hilton Hotel, and poor Chips got thrown in a paddy-wagon with a bunch of young radicals. John Thomas had a chest problem already, a chronic asthma, and the tear gas made it a lot worse. He went from doctor to doctor, and finally pa.s.sed away early in '69. So there's a cop in Chicago who could boast that he really killed John Dillinger, only he doesn't know it. Isn't life peculiar?"

"The Saure family only thought thought they were in the Illuminati," Hagbard went on. "Hitler and Stalin only they were in the Illuminati," Hagbard went on. "Hitler and Stalin only thought thought they were in the Illuminati. Old Weishaupt only they were in the Illuminati. Old Weishaupt only thought thought he was in the Illuminati. It's that simple. The moral of the whole story is: Beware of cheap Occidental imitations." He smiled grimly. he was in the Illuminati. It's that simple. The moral of the whole story is: Beware of cheap Occidental imitations." He smiled grimly.

"I think it's beginning to penetrate," Joe said slowly. "It was, of course, the very first hypothesis I formed: There have been many groups in history who called themselves the Illuminati, and they weren't all aiming at exactly the same thing."

"Precisely." Hagbard puffed again at his cigar. "That's the natural first suspicion of any non-paranoid mind. Then, as you explore the evidence, links between these groups begin to appear. Eventually the paranoid hypothesis begins to appear more plausible and you begin to believe there always has been one Illuminati, using the same basic slogans and symbols and aiming at the same basic goal. I sent Jim Cartwright to you with that yarn about three conspiracies -the ABC or Ancient Bavarian Conspiracy, the NBC or New Bavarian Conspiracy, and the CBS or Conservative Bavarian Seers-to set you thinking that the truth might be midway backward toward the simple first idea. From here on in, forget that I represent the original Illuminati. In fact, in recent centuries we don't use a name at all. We employ only the initials A.A., written like this." He sketched on a Donau-Hotel matchbook: [image]

"A lot of occult writers," he went on, "have made some amazing guesses as to what that means. Actually, it doesn't mean a d.a.m.ned thing. To prevent our name being stolen and misused again, we don't have a name. Anybody who thinks he's guessed the name and tries to pa.s.s himself off as an initiate by declaring that we're really the Atlantean Arcanum or the Argenteum Astrum or whatever immediately reveals that he's a fraud. It's a neat gimmick," Hagbard intoned gloomily. "I only wish we had thought of it centuries earlier."

The buzzer on the President's secretary's desk buzzed as Saul and Barney pa.s.sed through the outer door. The secretary flipped the switch, and the President said, "Find out the highest medal a civilian can get, and order two, on my signature, for those two detectives."

"Yes, sir," the secretary said, scribbling.

"And then ask the FBI to check out that older one. He looked like a kike to me," the President said shrewdly.

NO-because I'd be a fool to think miracles can occur in this world before somebody pays the rent and the taxes and shows that their papers are in order and the people who are running it can always tell you your papers are not in order No because there are no magicians and even Hagbard is mostly a fraud and a con man even if he means well No because I'm not Pope Joan if there ever was a Pope Joan No because like the song says I'm not a queen I'm a woman and the wrong color woman to boot No because there will be rivers of blood and the earth will be shaken before we can overturn Boss Charlie because it isn't a simple one-night symbolic Armageddon like Hagbard fooled them all into thinking No because Hagbard is some kind of magician and put us all on his own trip for a while, but the real world isn't a trip it's a b.u.mmer No because the lovers don't live happily ever after what happens is that they get married and get into debt and live in slavery ever after and I've got to find something better than that No because none of us are driving the car it's the car that's driving us No because it's like that old joke "b.a.l.l.s" said the queen "if I had them I'd be king" and "Nuts" said the prince "I've got them and I'm not king" and "c.r.a.p" said the king and thirty thousand royal subjects squatted and strained for in those days the king's word was law Hagbard would call it a.n.a.lity and s.e.xism and ageism but it just comes down to the women and children getting all the c.r.a.p right in the face and a few males owning everything the truth is all in the old jokes especially the bad jokes I'm still tripping but this is true they can always say your papers are not in order No because sometimes you've got to be a hermit and then come back later when you're together No because the wheel keeps spinning and doesn't give a f.u.c.k if there's going to be any change it's got to be that some human being somewhere does give a f.u.c.k No because I've never found a way to shut Simon's mouth and make him listen No because Jesus Christ was a black man and they've even lied about that he was another black man they killed and they won't admit it No because death is the currency in every empire Roman or American or any other all empires are the same Death is always the argument they use No because the whole world can go to the Devil and I'm taking care of Mary Lou No because look at that professor they killed at the UN building and none of them arrested yet No because there's a perpetual motion machine inside me and I'm learning to let it run No because I'll put a curse on all of them I'll burn them I'll condemn them I'll have the world No because look what happened to Daddy and Mommy "It's grade 5 and moving up toward 6," Igor Beaver shouted into the phone.

"You idiot, don't you think I can tell that from here?" Dr. Troll shouted back. "My bed was bouncing around like it had Saint Virus' dance even before you called." His emotion was merely professional anger at the student's failure to obey orders; Grade 5 is nothing to get excited about if you're a Californian, and even Grade 6 causes anxiety only among tourists or believers in the famous Edgar Cayce prophecy...John Herbert Dillinger, one of those believers, was already in the garage, pajama tops tucked in to hastily donned trousers, bare foot on the starter...But Smiling Jim climbed blissfully upward, enjoying total communication with nature, the mystic rapture of the true hunter before he gets his chance to open fire and blast a chunk of nature to h.e.l.l ...

YOU MAY MOCK AND YOU MAY JEST BUT AT THE LAST JUDGMENT THE SMILE WILL BE WIPED OFF YOUR FACE.

"He's heckling the preacher," Mama said. "A small beginning, certainly, for the kind of destiny he seems to be choosing."

"He's heckling himself," the Dealy Lama p.r.o.nounced. "Christianity, rightly understood, is an encounter with Death. He's still struggling with that problem. He wants to believe in the symbolism of the Resurrection, but he can't. Too much intellect-King of Swords-keeping the reins on his intuitive-Prince of Wands-aspect."

"Well, maybe," Drake said calmly. "But suppose He was type A. Now, if He got a transfusion at the last minute ..."

The nest was in sight. The bird was invisible, but Smiling Jim recognized the characteristic eagle's nest on a peak only a few hundred yards above and to the west. "Come home, baby," he thought pa.s.sionately, unstrapping his rifle. "Come home. Daddy is waiting."

Hagbard took another belt of the brandy and repeated: "The Saures were not Illuminati. Neither were Weishaupt or Hitler. They were frauds, pure and simple. First they deluded themselves, then they deluded others. The real Illuminati, the[image] , have never been involved in politics or in any form of manipulating or coercing people. Our interests are entirely elsewhere. , have never been involved in politics or in any form of manipulating or coercing people. Our interests are entirely elsewhere. Do what thou wilt Do what thou wilt is our law. Only in the last few decades, as the fate of the earth seemed to be hanging in the balance, have we taken any direct action. Even so, we have been cautious. We know that power corrupts. We have acted chiefly by not-acting, by what the Taoists call is our law. Only in the last few decades, as the fate of the earth seemed to be hanging in the balance, have we taken any direct action. Even so, we have been cautious. We know that power corrupts. We have acted chiefly by not-acting, by what the Taoists call wu-wei wu-wei. But then things got out of hand. They moved too fast...We f.u.c.ked up somewhat. But only because total inaction seemed to mean total disaster."

"You mean you, as an official of some sort in the[image] , infiltrated the fake Illuminati and became one of their top Five, intending to undo them nonviolently? And it didn't work?" , infiltrated the fake Illuminati and became one of their top Five, intending to undo them nonviolently? And it didn't work?"

"It worked about as well as any activity on that level ever works," Hagbard said somberly. "Most of humanity has been spared, for a while. And the wild free animals have been spared. For a while." He sighed. "I guess I'll have to begin from the A-B-Cs. We have never sought power. We have sought to disperse power, to set men and women free. That really means: to help them to discover that they are free. Everybody's free. The slave is free. The ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No No and take the consequences. 'Fear is failure.' 'The fear of death is the beginning of slavery.' 'Thou hast no right but to do thy will.' The goose can break the bottle at any second. Socrates took the hemlock to prove it. Jesus went to the cross to prove it. It's in all history, all myth, all poetry. It's right out in the open all the time." and take the consequences. 'Fear is failure.' 'The fear of death is the beginning of slavery.' 'Thou hast no right but to do thy will.' The goose can break the bottle at any second. Socrates took the hemlock to prove it. Jesus went to the cross to prove it. It's in all history, all myth, all poetry. It's right out in the open all the time."

Hagbard sighed again. "Our founder and leader, the man known in myth as Prometheus or the snake in the garden of Eden-"

"Oh, Christ," Joe said, slumping forward in his seat. "I have the feeling that you're starting to put me on again. You're about to tell me that the Prometheus and Genesis stories are really based on fact."

"Our leader, known as Lucifer or Satan," Hagbard went on, "Lucifer being the bringer of light bringer of light-"

"You know," Joe said, "I'm not going to believe a word of this."

"Our leader, known as Prometheus the fire-bringer or Lucifer the light-bringer or Quetzalcoatl the morning star or the snake in the garden of Osiris's bad brother, Set, or Shaitan the tempter-well, to be brief, he repented." Hagbard raised an eyebrow. "Does that intrigue you sufficiently to silence your skepticism long enough for me to finish a sentence?"

"He repented?" repented?" Joe sat upright again. Joe sat upright again.

"Sure. Why not?" Hagbard's old malicious grin, so rare in the last week, returned. "If Atlas can Shrug and Telemachus can Sneeze, why can't Satan Repent?"

"Go ahead," Joe said. "This is just another one of your put-ons, but I'm hooked. I'll listen. But I have my own answer, which is that there is no answer. You're just an allegory on the universe itself, and every explanation of you and your actions is incomplete. They'll always be a new, more up-to-date explanation coming along a while later. That's my my answer." answer."

Hagbard laughed easily. "Charming," he said. "I must remember that the next time I'm I'm trying to understand myself. Of course, it's true of any human being. We're all allegories on the universe, different faces it wears in trying to decide what it really is...But our founder and leader, as I was saying, repented. That's the secret that has never been revealed. There is no stasis anywhere in the cosmos, least of all in the minds of ent.i.ties that possess minds. The basic fallacy of all bad writers-and theologians are notoriously bad writers-is to create cardboard characters who never change. He gave us the light of reason and, seeing how we misused it, he repented. The story is more complicated, but that's the basic outline. At least, it's as much as I understood until a week ago. The important thing to get clear is that he never aimed at power or destruction. That's a myth-" trying to understand myself. Of course, it's true of any human being. We're all allegories on the universe, different faces it wears in trying to decide what it really is...But our founder and leader, as I was saying, repented. That's the secret that has never been revealed. There is no stasis anywhere in the cosmos, least of all in the minds of ent.i.ties that possess minds. The basic fallacy of all bad writers-and theologians are notoriously bad writers-is to create cardboard characters who never change. He gave us the light of reason and, seeing how we misused it, he repented. The story is more complicated, but that's the basic outline. At least, it's as much as I understood until a week ago. The important thing to get clear is that he never aimed at power or destruction. That's a myth-"

"Created by the opposition," Joe said. "Right? I read that in Mark Twain's defense of Satan."

"Twain was subtle," Hagbard said, taking a little more brandy, "but not subtle enough. No, the myth was not created by the opposition. It was created by our founder himself."

"Wilde should be alive," Joe said admiringly. "He was so proud of himself, setting paradox on top of paradox until he had a nice three- or four- or five-story house of contradictions built up. He should see the skysc.r.a.pers you create."

"You never disappoint me," Hagbard said. "If they ever hang you, you'll be arguing about whether the rope really exists until the last minute. That's why I picked you, all those years ago, and programmed you for the role you'd play tonight. Only a man whose father was an ex-Moslem, and who was himself an ex-Catholic and an ex-engineering student, would have the required complexity. Anyway, to return to the libretto, as an old friend of mine used to say, the error of Weishaupt and Hitler and Stalin and the Saures was to believe the propaganda our founder spread against himself-that, and believing they were in communication with him, when they were only in communication with a nasty part of their own unconscious minds. There was no evil spirit misleading them. They were misleading themselves. And we were trailing along behind, trying to keep them from causing too much harm. Finally, in the early 1960s-after a certain f.u.c.kup in Dallas convinced me that things were getting out of hand-I contacted the Five directly. Since I knew the real secrets of magic and they only had distortions, it was easy to convince them that I was an emissary from those beings whom they call the Secret Chiefs or the Great Old Ones or the Shining Ones. Being half crazy, they reacted in a way I had not expected. They all abdicated and appointed me and the four Saures as their successors. They decided that we're entering the age of Horus, the child-G.o.d, and that youth should be given a chance to run things-hence, the promotion of the Saures. They threw me in because I seemed to know what I was talking about. But then came the real problem: I couldn't convince the Saures of anything. Those pig-headed kids wouldn't believe a word I said. They told me I was over thirty and untrustworthy. I told you the truth was out in the open all the time; anybody with eyes in his head should have been able to interpret what's been happening since the early 1960s. The great and dreaded Illuminati of the past had fallen into the control of a bunch of ignorant and malicious kids. The age of the crowned and conquering child."

"And you think the old and wise should rule?" Joe asked. "That doesn't fit your character. This has has to be another put-on." to be another put-on."

"I don't think anybody anybody should rule," Hagbard said. "All I'm doing-all the Higher Order of the should rule," Hagbard said. "All I'm doing-all the Higher Order of the[image] , has ever tried to do-is communicate with people, in spite of their biases and fears. Not to rule them. And what we're trying to communicate-the ultimate secret, the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life-is just the power of the word , has ever tried to do-is communicate with people, in spite of their biases and fears. Not to rule them. And what we're trying to communicate-the ultimate secret, the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life-is just the power of the word No No. We are people who have said Non serviam Non serviam, and we're trying to teach others to say it. Drake was one of us spiritually but never understood it. If we can't find immortality, we can make a d.a.m.ned good try. If we can't save this planet, we can get off it and go to the stars."

"And what happens now?" Joe asked.

"More surprises," Hagbard answered promptly. "I can't tell you the whole story at this hour, with both of us f.a.gged out at the end of an acid trip. We go back to the hotel and sleep, and after breakfast there are more revelations. For George as well as for you."

And later in the Bugatti, which, driven by Harry Coin, was grandly wafting Hagbard, George, and Joe around the south side of Lake Totenkopf, George asked, "Is. .h.i.tler really going to be buried anonymously in a Jewish cemetery?"

"It looks that way." Hagbard grinned. "His Israeli doc.u.ments are excellent forgeries. He'll be lifted off that toilet by Hauptmann's men and gently deposited in the Ingolstadt Hebrew Burial Grounds, there to rest for all eternity."

"That will make me throw up once a day for the rest of my life," Joe said bitterly. "It's the worst case of cemetery desecration in history."

"Oh, it has a positive aspect," said Hagbard. "Look at it from the point of view of the n.a.z.i leaders. Think how they'll hate being buried in a Jewish cemetery with a rabbi praying over them."

"Doesn't make up for it," said George. "Joe's right. It's in terribly bad taste."

"I thought both you guys were thoroughgoing atheists," said Hagbard. "If you are, you think the dead are dead and it hardly matters where they're buried. What's happening -you both getting religion?"

"I can think of nothing more likely to drive a man to religion than your company," said Joe.

"Burying them n.a.z.is with a bunch of Jews is the funniest thing I ever heard," Harry Coin offered from the driver's seat.

"Go b.u.g.g.e.r a dead goat, Coin," George called.

"Sure thing," said Coin. "Lead me to it."

"You're incorrigible, Hagbard," said Joe. "You really are incorrigible. And you surround yourself with people who incorrige you."

"I don't need help," said Hagbard. "I have a great deal of initiative. More than any other human being I know. With the possible exception of Mavis."

George said, "Hagbard, did I really see what I thought I saw last night? Is Mavis really a G.o.ddess? Are Stella and Miss Mao and Mavis all the same person, or was I just hallucinating?"

"Here come the paradoxes," Joe groaned. "h.e.l.l talk for an hour, and we'll be more confused when he's finished."

Hagbard, who was sitting in a large swivel jump seat, swung round so he was looking over Harry Coin's shoulder at the road ahead. "I'd be glad to tell you later, George. I would have told you now, except that I don't like Malik's tone. He may not be intending to shoot me any more, but he still has it in for me."

"You bet," said Joe.

"Well, are you still going to marry Mavis?"

"What?" Hagbard swung round and stared at George with an expression that was almost a perfect replica of genuine surprise.