THE GREEN GOD by David Dvorkin.


SPAN
1
As soon as the crowd started yelling, I knew I had found it: the con man's gold mine among the stars. Bad luck on Hester, my previous stop, had made it necessary for me to leave that planet swiftly, and I had bought a ticket on the first starship scheduled to leave. I had only a few minutes to board, and in my hurry I committed the inexcusable error of leaving the crown jewels behind me at the ticket counter. The ship's departure came none too soon: we lifted off just as the Hesterical Royal Police came yelling and screaming out onto the field, my name on their lips and murder in their hearts. I hope the ship's backwash got some of them.
The liner turned out to be headed for Goss Conf, a moderately backward planet about a month's voyage distant. One month was time enough for me to win some money from my fellow passengers, using a variety of rigged games of chance—almost enough money, in fact, to ease the pain I still felt at having been forced to leave most of my ill-gotten gains behind on Hester. Time enough, too, for the captain to hear the grumbling about my suspiciously persistent good luck and large winnings, so that the landing on
Traj Coord, the principal city and only spaceport of Goss Conf, came at a welcome moment.
Having no luggage and feeling rather distressed at the growing hostility of my shipmates, I was standing near the exit port during our descent, looking out a porthole and feeling anxious to leave the vessel. Therefore, as the liner settled down into its berth, I was able to see the immense crowd of natives pressing against the restraining fence a hundred or so feet from the touchdown area. There was about them an air of anxiety and expectation, and many of them were holding up large posters upon which was reproduced the face of a man. That face was disturbingly familiar, but I couldn't quite place it—probably because it had been painted with a simpering expression, eyes turned heavenward, and as though a light were shining down on it. No one I have ever known looked like that.
The familiarity of the face, my strange inability to recognize it, and the presence of the alien crowd all combined to make me uneasy, but countering this was the strong feeling that something good was about to happen to me—a feeling that came to me from my ever-dependable sixth sense, that form of intuition concerning things illegal that is the mark of the truly brilliant charlatan.
I noticed that the locals' skins had a distinctly greenish cast, so I reached quickly inside my shirt and brought forth a small can of Green Cream, a concoction I always carry with me "just in case." (I also carry cans of Red Cream, Purple Cream, and so on: it pays to be prepared.) I applied it quickly to my face, neck, and hands and then put it back. I couldn't tell if the shade was quite right, but it would have to do.
Suddenly I recognized the face on the posters: it was my own! They were waiting for me! I was immediately convinced that the Hesterical Royal Police had somehow sent a message ahead and the crowd was waiting to tear me limb from limb. The political,
jurisdictional, and astronomical difficulties precluding this eventuality did not occur to me in my panic, and I turned, intending to dash back to the passenger cabin area and hide there until the ship lifted off again; I could try my luck on the next world the ship visited. At this point, however, the air lock opened and a wave of exiting passengers carried me out onto the exit ramp. (I regret to add that I was given an extra shove out by a stewardess whom, during the long journey, I had deprived not of money, as I had my fellow passengers, but rather of that which she, a native of Puella II, considered more precious than wealth—her "honor.")
As soon as they saw me, the native crowd began yelling excitedly and waving their posters up and down. And right then I somehow knew, as I have already said that I had found the con man's pie in the sky. They were yelling happily; they were glad to see me! Of course it must have something to do with that poster, and even though I didn't understand what was going on, I knew it was good news for my prime dependent.
Some local policemen were struggling to hold the natives back, but there was one of those sudden, spontaneous movements that sometimes seize a crowd, and then the policemen were down, the fence was down, and the crowd spilled out upon the field and headed for my ship, yelling "Span! Span!"
My erstwhile traveling companions scattered, trying desperately to get out of the way. They needn't have bothered: they were completely ignored, and the crowd came surging up the ramp toward me. I stood at the top with my arms outstretched beneficently, my eyes looking upwards, and an imbecilic simper on my face, in an attempted imitation of the painting on then-posters. They loved it.
They hoisted me onto their shoulders and, to the obvious astonishment of my shipboard victims, carried me in triumph into the city.
I think it worth recording that some of the crowd were quite obviously professional colleagues of mine who were along only for the confusion: in all the noise and bustle, some of my worshippers took the opportunity to burn, pillage, and rape as we moved through the city, so that we left behind us a trail of fires, looted shops, and deflowered virgins.
Most of the crowd, though, were fully sincere religious fanatics. Their eyes burned, their nostrils flared, and they kept chanting "Span, Span!" as well as some other phrases which of course I was unable to understand. As we progressed, more and more of the genuine worshippers joined the now immense throng, while the seamier types began leaving the crowd in order to enjoy the fruits of their unholy labor, so that by the time we stopped I rode upon a veritable sea of pious fervor.
Stop we did, eventually, in a large, sunny plaza dominated by a great, ugly building shaped like an inverted bowl. Before the building stood a ten-foot-high statue of that fellow who looked so like me— but again, as on the posters, with a simpering face and eyes turned upwards. His arms were outstretched as though to bless the multitude, but in front of him stood a line of armed guards, grim-jawed and obviously determined to keep this particular multitude away from the statue and the building
The crowd murmured uncertainly, then began again to shout "Span! Span! Span!" and moved slowly forward. The grimness left the guards' jaws and fear filled their eyes as the vast number of tramping feet steadily approached them, and as one they obeyed that well-known soldiers' maxim, time-honored throughout the Galaxy, "Nobody ever gained a promotion by getting himself killed." They threw their weapons to the ground and cowered behind the statue. (I must say I heartily approved of their wise decision: as I was being carried right- at the front of the crowd at this time, I would have been quite exposed had there been
any fighting. And I detest pain.) Once the way was clear, the pious mob ignored the quivering guards, set, me down on my feet in front of the building, and waited with reverent expectation.
Perhaps I should pause at this point to enlighten you. Although I was unsure just what the situation was, I had settled by this tune upon two prime possibilities. The character on the posters—for whom I had of course been mistaken—was either some living leader (political, military, or religious) on Goss Conf, or else some dead (or perhaps even mythological) hero. In the first case, I had obvious problems: in particular, the real man would presumably show up sooner or later, with who could guess what evil result for me. In the second case, however, my fortune was made, my gold mine was found, my spaceship had docked, and my previous intuition was confirmed: after a few months spent posing as the hero returned from the dead, or come down from the heavens, or whatever the deal was, I would depart from this primitive planet with a large chunk of its wealth clutched between my holy fingers and never return.
Either way, I told myself, boldness was my best course. I beamed beneficently upon the masses, raised my eyes skyward, stretched forth my arms, and simpered. They went mad with delight, screaming, stamping their feet, trampling one another to death, and so on. I turned and repeated my performance for the guards, who before this had not been able to see me clearly. Now they too widened their eyes and flared their nostrils in fanatic delight and began to mutter "Span!" Smiling paternally, I entered the building, moving in what I hoped was a floating, ethereal manner. The rumble of the crowd's "Span!" followed me in.
(That constantly repeated "Span" bothered me, by the way, for I couldn't decide whether it was a nonsense word denoting religious ecstasy or supposed to b6 my name.)
Just inside, I halted to savor the cool dimness after
the hot, sun-bleached plaza and to allow my eyes to adjust. Slowly I became aware of a vast chamber which must have taken up almost a third of the building's interior volume; the entrance to the building was also the entrance to this great room. At the far end of the chamber there was a raised platform with a richly decorated throne upon it. I thought this a good beginning to my enterprise: the throne might be rather too large to smuggle aboard an interstellar liner in my underwear when the time came to depart, but the precious stones set into it definitely were not.
From behind the throne a figure suddenly emerged, dressed in a floor-length robe with a hood. It lifted one draped arm and peremptorily beckoned me to follow. I did so, having come this far anyway and not knowing what else to do. There is an old saying in my profession, which I coined myself, to wit: "Small risk, small reward." (To which I suppose the corollary must be: "Large reward, large risk." But that is a conclusion I find distasteful—even when large risks are unavoidable.)
The mysterious being led me behind the throne, where he pulled aside the wall hangings (also richly decorated, I noticed greedily) to reveal a corridor. He led me down this passageway, pushed me through a doorway near the end of it, and disappeared mysteriously. A beefy gentleman in colorful robes was seated at a table in the room, reading and signing papers, a perfect picture of a theological bureaucrat. When I made my sudden entry, he looked up and stared at me with scorn, sneered, and spoke in surprisingly good Emperor's English.
"Well, well! So this is how the great god Span appears at the time of his Coming Again! Off-worlder, what you have done today by playing up to that crowd will cause me a great deal of trouble in the near future—and that means that you are in serious trouble yourself."
Foolishly, he had given me precisely- the informa-
tion I needed: that Span was a name; that Span was a god and not a current citizen of Goss Conf; and finally, and perhaps most important of all, that I was indeed supposed by the masses outside the building to be this Span fellow in a second incarnation.
So I replied rather easily and confidently. "Perhaps an ordinary off-worlder would be in trouble. But you have forgotten one thing: I am Span, and I have Come Again. Three trumpet blasts, please."
He turned bright green and half rose from bis chair, sputtering. Goss Confians, as I already suspected from their skin color and would later have ample opportunity to confirm, turn darker shades of green where an Earthman (Caucasian variety) turns red. And that is because the blood of the Goss Confians is green ichor —so help me Span. As you will understand later, they are, in almost all other respects, all too human.
"I presume," I interrupted his vain attempt to stop spluttering and start talking, "that your chlorophyll color means that you're annoyed. Just think how annoyed that mob outside will be if you try to denounce me. You'd be torn apart by a throng of forest-green religious maniacs. They love me. They'd die for me. You quite probably will die for me, if you don't cooperate." Probably that was an exaggeration. However, if you have any hopes of ever making your living by the gentle art of persuading others that they ought to give you their hard-earned money, then I advise you to study this conversation carefully and take it to heart: it demonstrates how a certain pugnacious, daring forwardness, a readiness to take chances and rush in like a fool instead of hanging back like the proverbial angel, is an essential part of the con man's makeup. Generally speaking, anyway; sometimes it can land you in trouble. This time, however, it worked: the fat man saw that my argument had some validity, and he subsided to sit thinking, chewing his lower lip neurotically.
"By the way," I asked him politely, "who are you?"
He looked up in surprise, as though astonished that ; his fame had never spread beyond  this backwater planet. "I am Fiedo, guardian and protector of the world for Span and father, in his stead, to its people. Thus I humbly serve Span."
"Just what I need, Father. A humble servant." I ; could see that he contained his anger only with great I difficulty.
"What do you plan to do, while your impersonation ; of Span remains successful?" he asked me. "It will be a short period, I assure you."                                        !
I hesitated, wondering just what to say. My plans were vague as yet, but my general intention was to set myself up as a god who dispensed the good life and demanded utter obedience and goodies in return, the obedience from the populace and the goodies largely from the priesthood. The kind of offerings I had in mind were those I could sell easily on other planets for handsome sums. I was hoping it would take me no more than an Earth year to make my fortune, after which I could depart with my treasures for the more sophisticated parts of the Galaxy. In the meantime, I would probably need this Fiedo's help: he spoke the local language and English, he knew the planet, and he obviously held a position of some authority in the local religious hierarchy. All of these were areas in which I felt myself deficient—except, perhaps for the last, in the sense that, potentially, I was the immortal head of the hierarchy, its justifica-.tion. Fiedo's knowledge of English was what made him truly invaluable to me; because of it, I would need him until I could learn the planet's main language myself.
Rather than answer his question directly,' I roamed , around the room for a few minutes, pondering my answer and ignoring him while I inspected the furnishing and decorations. Surprisingly, everything was old, worn, and frequently repaired. The rich decorations I had noticed in the throne room would probably also
I
prove, upon closer examination, to be in poor condition. I realized that everything must date from palmier times, some fairly distant age when the priesthood had themselves been, collectively, successful con men. Perhaps, I thought, this will provide me with the needed lever.
I turned to him. "Your children, O Fiedo, do not treat their surrogate father with the appropriate filial respect! Where are the gorgeous ornaments and rich offerings Span's good servant should have a right to expect as payment for his troubles?"
He sighed, shook his head. "Truly, off-worlder, the worship of Span is not as fervent as it once was. Although that crowd today . . . Perhaps you would be willing to help us restore piety and fervor in the people? I must admit that you have a certain power over them, and our need is so great. . . ." He turned pleading eyes to me, no longer acting haughty, and I knew the fish was well hooked. "I might perhaps see my way to allowing you to continue your ... er ... amusing masquerade yet a while without exposing you," he went on, warming to the idea, "if you would deliver to the people certain appropriate speeches of my creation. Thus we could both gain: I, by a renewed faith on the part of the populace; and you would gain the refuge your nefarious past has no doubt caused you to require."
"You are indeed a man of my own kind," I told him, quickly agreeing to the bargain. "I will need intensive instruction in the language and manners of this world if I am to play my role properly."
"I'm not sure that will be necessary," he said cautiously. "You can memorize the speeches, and that should be sufficient. I don't see any need for you to understand what you're saying."
"Perhaps you're right," I agreed, determining to learn the language as quickly as possible and resolving also to keep a watchful eye on this old fox, who I suspected was indeed very much a man of my own
kind. No doubt he was making a similar inner resolution—and wisely, for I intended to replace him, as soon as I felt I no longer needed his help, with someone more susceptible to my control.
The first phase of my godhood passed smoothly. Fiedo composed speeches and I delivered them, understanding only a few words here and there. In the meanwhile, I labored long and hard hours at mastering Pabx, the planet's barbaric main tongue and the language in which I gave the speeches. Thus I came, in time, to understand first the gist of the speeches I was delivering from rote memory, and eventually all of them. Through me, Fiedo was urging the people to return to the religion and fervor of their fathers, so that the returned god Span would treat them kindly. Inevitably, the initial renascence of piety induced by my arrival abated as the people realized that their god was mouthing nothing more than the same stale formulas they had been hearing for centuries from the priesthood. After an initial rise, attendance at religious functions began to wane again, and there were occasions when I actually saw my worshippers yawning during my speeches.
Fiedo was making the same mistake the priesthood of Span had been making for so long: he was substituting intellectual and dogmatic religion for the emotion, mystery, and sensuality this religion must once
19
have had. Of course there was no danger of the whole religious hierarchy collapsing during my short stay on the planet; but as long as the citizens of Goss Conf displayed such apathy toward their religion and hence toward their god, that god could not expect them to shower him with riches or even to give enough offerings to the priests to allow the latter to repair and refurbish the once magnificent decorations of the main temple. And then what would the god have of value to take with him when he returned, via interstellar liner, to the heavenly regions beyond the sky?
As soon as my command of the written language, especially the ancient versions, was sufficient, I began to research the records of the priesthood, trying to get some idea of the historical background. This is basically what I found.
In the earlier days, the world had been savage, with empires which considered themselves civilized, barbarians who occasionally overran these empires, proving themselves at least better organized if not more civilized than their victims, and all the other standard trappings of a planet hi its cultural infancy. Religion had been what you might call standard-pagan: lots of terribly human gods who frequently hitch-hiked along the highways and arbitrarily disrupted the lives of the ordinary citizens trying to make an honest living, scads of temples to these various deities scattered all over the landscape, female gods incarnating themselves in the most interesting ways, and so on.
The historical Span had been a mild-mannered citizen of one of the ancient empires, going about his business and occasionally dropping into one of the local temples to commune with an incarnated goddess or two, like any decent, law-abiding pagan. Then he started having visions; probably indigestion, but'pagans take such things seriously. He dreamed, this modest son of a humble axe-handle manufacturer—or, as his followers would put it, it was revealed to him—that all the gods he and his countrymen worshipped were false gods, that there was really only one god, that
this one god was sulking dangerously at having been ignored for all those eons by His own creations, that he, Span, was divinely appointed as the messenger of this god, that it was his divine mission to bring the glad tidings of God's existence, wrath, and intended plagues and pestilences to the ears of his, Span's, uninterested comrades, that Span would be rewarded, should he fulfill his blessed duty well, by being raised to a seat at God's celestial right hand and would be surrounded by a halo of pearly light for all eternity. All the usual stuff.
Did I .say "uninterested comrades"? Alas, human nature is perverse; were that not so, my professional colleagues and I would be a great deal poorer than so many of us are. In particular, people tend (and this applies just as much to Goss Confians, who are scarcely people in the usual sense of the word) to avoid happiness and rationality; and when they have them, they tend to trade them in for any cockeyed system they hear of. How else can one explain the fact that Span's new dogmas swept first his own country and then the rest of his world?
He started preaching chastity, fidelity, uprightness, honor, the dignity of work, and all sorts of things that the pagans of Goss Conf had done well enough without for lo! these thousands of years. When he hit them with his yeas and verilys and all his other archaisms, they flocked to his banner. They foamed at the mouth when he preached. They worked like demons. They forgot their mistresses and goddessess and swived only their wives, thereby ensuring another generation of fervent followers for this nitwit.
He had at least the minor virtues of sincerity and a sort of likeable feeblemindedness. When he died, after his own nation had been converted but before the world had been, the leadership was taken up by a succession of certifiable psychotics who whipped the people into a frenzy and absorbed into the new religion those festive rituals of the earlier paganism that Span had had the most trouble suppressing: psychotic they
might have been, ~but they were shrewd enough to realize that if they wanted to convert to Spanity all those pagans whom Span himself had been unable to reach, they would have to offer to the pagans a version of Spanity that did not deprive the pagans of the sensual and mystical celebrations they loved. Thus the pattern was set: where Span had tried to eradicate the religion of his fathers and had failed in the attempt, his followers simply absorbed paganism along with the pagans. Eventually, by the time a few centuries had passed since his death, Span's one god had disappeared from the mythology, replaced by Span himself as the god, a god who still reigned in Heaven, who had come to Goss Conf in mortal form to establish his religion and then returned in an upward direction, who might sometime decide to incarnate himself again in a human body if his followers needed him. Hence your humble servant, Thomas Langston Hughes, late of Earth, Hester, and points between, con man extraordinaire, the most recent (and most ambitious) incarnation of the god Span.
All this history was contained, blemishes and all, in the records of the priesthood, for these cynical fellows were well aware of their origins and background, even though they deliberately misled the common folk about the nature of the historical Span. The more educated priests, at any rate, were so aware; I discovered that there were distinct social classes within the temple, with the lower levels being occupied by the less-well-educated and less intelligent men. In recent generations, the priesthood's hold over the people had been slackening, and they now felt driven to such extremes as hiring an alien—my illustrious self—who chanced to bear a resemblance to the traditional image of Span, to impersonate the god. But by virtue of his profession, this alien had an even better grasp of applied psychology than did the priests: I saw in the history what I had expected to see and what they, so concerned with knowing one story about the past and telling another, consistently missed.
I saw an ancient religion of mystery and awe, of ritual and wonder, of emotion, of grandeur, now reduced to empty intellectualisms mouthed by priests who believed not a word of it. This lack of belief showed, and the people wanted none of it. Although my arrival had excited them for a short time, a reincarnated Span was not enough; what was needed, to revitalize this faith, was a reincarnation of mystery.
The priests seemed to think that believing in the religion's intellectual trappings and in the history of Span as interpreted by the priesthood would be enough to keep the citizens of Goss Conf as dues-paying members of their local temples. They did not understand that the details of Span's supposed history and the dry intellectual dogma that had come to pervade the faith were not what brought the sheep of Span in to be fleeced. It was the mystery itself the sheep wanted, the sensual, pulse-pounding, spine-chilling arousal of the old faith. When the priests excised all of this, they began the murder of the very religion which paid for the jam on their morning toast. (Breakfasts in the temple's communal dining hall, by the way, were really quite delicious—certainly far superior to the curdled saar milk the majority of the populace started the day with.)
I could have explained all this to Fiedo and his cronies, and perhaps they would then have mixed up an appropriate theological brew, thereby saving their jobs for another few generations. But that would scarcely be in keeping with my personal needs and wants. If I could reform this religion myself and change it from rational back to emotional and magical, meanwhile keeping myself as Span still the focus of it, then I could work my will with .this world. If I could tap again those depths of pious passion and theological frenzy I had seen upon my arrival, then my earlier ambitions shrank to insignificance. Instead of fleeing from the world with its treasury clutched in my sweaty hands, I would be able to take frequent vacations from my duties as Span, going to various pleasure
planets and indulging in all those pastimes the rich and decadent enjoy but don't discuss, and then return to Goss Conf to recover my strength and refill my purse. I would be a god indeed.
No, I thought, / must leave Fiedo out of this enterprise. If I show him what's wrong with his approach, he'll rectify things, revitalize the worship of Span, and then find a way of getting rid of me. There must be other people on this planet who look enough like those paintings of Span to play the part. I must instead get him to give me the help I need, without letting him see the underlying plan—the divine plan, I corrected myself, momentarily assuming my Span aspect.
My goals were formulated. Now all I needed was the machinery, and I thought I could now create that too. It was time to put my hard-won knowledge of Pabx to work. Fiedo and the other priests were unaware of the extent to which I could now speak, read, and write Pabx. By this time, in fact, they had come to regard me as a mere pawn; they seemed to think that my earlier assertiveness had been mere bluff. They were sure, now, that they had nothing to fear from a mere dim-witted off-worlder. (Off-worlders are always believed to be dim-witted, no matter what planet you are on or from what planet the off-worlders come. This belief is yet another common human folly which I have, in the past, found to be most useful.)
One fact I wished to use was that Span had been married. That much was recorded in the histories and alluded to occasionally in the sermons I was memorizing. However, his wife played no part in his career after he began preaching his antihedonistic nonsense; after that point, the histories did not even mention her. That meant I could make of her what I wished, when sermonizing about her later life, without fear of contradiction by written sources. I felt, however, that I first needed to know more about her than I already did, more than I had been able to uncover so far. I decided to pick Fiedo's mind on the subject: obnoxious old hypocrite though he was, he had already
given evidence of having received a thorough and in-
terisive theological education.
One day, during the evening meal, I waited until Fiedo's mouth was stuffed with food (Goss Confians, as you might suspect, have frightful table manners), and then I said to him offhandedly, "Span had a wife."
I had waited until his mouth was full partly in order to enjoy seeing him choke when I said that, but I had underrated him. He paused in his chewing for a moment, looking at me sharply. Then he went on • masticating his immense mouthful, meanwhile thinking the situation over: instead of making him choke, I had given him time to think things through before answering. Finally he swallowed heroically and then said, "How did you" know that?"
"Oh," I said vaguely, "I heard one of the acolytes mention it. Tell me about her—Span's wife." I had made a mistake. Few of the acolytes spoke English, and they certainly did not use it when speaking to each other. If Fiedo had been paying more attention to me and less to his food (and Span had condemned gluttony!), he might have realized that I had as much as admitted to understanding Pabx. Fortunately, he did seem to have missed this, for he said nothing about it.
He shrugged his shoulders and grunted, "Giedo." Then he went back to stuffing food into his mouth.
Giedo was Fiedo's right-hand-priest, and he took up the conversational slack. "Span did not see fit to write about His wife following His revelations, and none of His disciples left us any information about her. The blessed woman is therefore lost to history. Her name was Mocr Dyn, and we may be sure that the lovely Mocr did much to inspire the Span while He chose to remain in his mortal trappings."
He beamed at me greasily. Then he realized he had said or implied something unseemly about his god, and he added hastily, "Later, of course, when Span revealed his divinity and shed his mortal body, he no longer needed such inspiration."
I never did care for Giedo, who perpetually looked as though he were about to make a secret, private deal with his god that would leave everyone else out in the cold.
I changed the subject, so as not to arouse any suspicions and in order not to give Fiedo time to think about my overhearing an acolyte and understanding what I had overheard. Mentally, I started preparing the additions I needed to make to my next speech.
A major feast day of Span had arrived, and Fiedo, as usual, had supplied me with a prepared sermon in Pabx, a speech filled with pontifical demands that the people return to the temples and start giving the priesthood the amounts of money their faithful ancestors had, increased to take account of inflation.
The speech was scheduled for Simdata, the planet's second city, rather than Traj Coord, as was usual. Apparently, Fiedo and his cronies had decided that I was by now docile enough for them to take the chance of letting me make my speech far from their immediate control. In Traj Coord, one of them was normally present when I spoke, just to make sure I stuck to the prepared text and didn't try to make any real contact with the crowd. But they had all decided to stay behind in the relative luxury of Traj Coord rather than venture into the primitive hinterlands; I was to carry the whole load by myself, without even a minor priestling along as watchdog.
Possibly one reason they had decided to trust me to this unprecedented extent was that they felt I had passed the peak of my effect and that whether or not I was obedient would make little difference now. The arrangement was perfect for my purposes.
I suppose I ought to digress and give you some idea, in case you know as little about Goss Conf as most people (and who can blame them?), about the situation of all these cities and the land masses involved. Goss Conf has only one continent, surrounded by islands large and small. The rest of the planet is covered by a very salty, very smelly ocean. In case you're interested, the Pabxian name for the continent translates as "The Continent," and the name for the sea as "The Sea." The continent is roughly triangular, with one side parallel to the planet's equator and not much to the north of it. The opposite vertex of the triangle is therefore in the southern hemisphere, pointing toward the South Pole. The continent is quite flat and, except for the southern tip, has no seasons to speak of All of this must have made borders almost impossible to establish or defend in the days when there were still separate countries on the planet—Span's time, for instance—and  I  suppose  that  accounts  for  the  bewildering succession of short-lived empires the Goss Confian history books are so full of. But once Span-nism (or "inSpanity," as I had taken to calling it when talking to myself, something I found myself doing with increasing frequency) had swept the continent and the islands, the geography had made it easy for the priesthood to unify the planet under their control.
Traj Coord, the capital city of the single nation on Goss Conf, is located very near the southern tip of the continent, not very far inland; the sea, in fact, is no more than a couple of hours away on horseback. ("Horse" is what I always called them, even though they are actually native Goss Confian animals; but they're used like horses, they look like horses, they smell like horses, and they're as stupid as horses, so I called them horses. As a matter of curious fact, the planet also has a small, rodent-like jumping animal with long ears, a tiny tail, and whiskers, which bears a remarkable resemblance to a rabbit; on Goss Conf, it was called a "smeerp.") Simdata was almost a day north of Traj Coord, far enough from the sea to have
even less variation in its weather than did the capital city.
Other than being smaller than Traj Coord, Simdata was similar to the larger city in general design. In particular, in the center of the city there was a temple of Span, in front of which was one of those horribly hot, open squares the planet seemed to specialize in. A platform had been constructed in the middle of the square for my speech. I went through the prepared text automatically, feeling ghastly in the blazing sunlight, while I tried to gauge from the crowd's reactions the right moment to add my little goodie. The crowd listened .listlessly: they were hot, too, and they had heard all this before from the local priests. But in spite of their disappointment at the kind of sermon I was giving them, they were slightly more interested in me than the crowds in Traj Coord had been lately; after all, these yokels may have heard the phrases before, but they had never heard them from the lips of a real god.
I switched into my addition to the speech, not written down but memorized beforehand instead. "My beloved children," I said paternally, "as I have already said, you have not pleased me of late. You ask, I know, how you can obtain my forgiveness and indul-. gence." They had asked me no such thing, and I am sure the thought of doing so had never even crossed their small Goss Confian minds. "I must tell you that giving more money to my priests is not enough—is not, indeed, even the most important thing you can do." Of course none of them had seriously considered giving more money to my priests, but that I should even partially dismiss that avenue to grace surprised them and caught their interest.
"During my first incarnation," I continued, "I was blessed with the partnership of the lovely, the incomparable Mocr Dyn. She humbly gave to me pleasures so appropriately celestial that I will not stir your poor mortal souls by detailing them. You, mere human beings, can never aspire to such sensual joys, so why
should I pain you by describing to you delights which will always be unattainable to you? No, it would only unsettle you, raise unfortunate hopes in your own poor minds, hopes that can never be fulfilled."
I could almost see their hairy ears tilting forward at this, for here was a topic more to their lecherous liking. "We didn't realize theology could be this interesting!" they seemed to be saying. "Never mind unsettling us. Give us more." So I gave them more, but only in the form of suggestions .of what my glorious and sensual past must have been like. I couldn't give them the inside story on a god's sex life because, of course, I didn't know the inside story myself. I carried them verbally in the direction I desired, and when I felt the moment was ripe, I dropped my bomb.
"My children," I said, "your god is lonely. He misses the pleasures of the mortal state. My unspeakably desirable wife has lain dust for all these ages, and I would bring her back to life."
They muttered and buzzed with prurient interest.
"And although I could, of course, easily do so—for my powers are infinite—I have decided not to. Instead, all my children will have the chance to earn my love and undying mercy by choosing from amongst them the most beautiful and desirable maiden on the planet, and this woman will I then endow and infuse with the immortal spirit of Mocr Dyn, whose soul is, as you might expect, in my heavenly keeping, so that Mocr Dyn may live again through the one you have chosen and so again be my wife."
They roared their approval and delight. Why hadn't the priests done things like this? they wondered. They were all enthusiasm and eagerness. I raised my hands to quiet them, and I smiled the traditional simpering smile of Span.
"Those maidens who enter this competition but are not chosen to become the reincarnation of the incomparable Mocr Dyn (for many are called, my children, but few are chosen) these losers will become priestesses in my temples, mortals still but more than mor-
tals, representatives of her whom I choose as Mocr Dyn. I will have more to say later concerning this matter of priestesses. Meanwhile, begin your search for the blessed Mocr Dyn here in this great city." With this, I signaled the end of my speech.
The news of the upcoming "heavenly beauty contest and my intended reinstitution of priestesses in the temples spread out from Simdata hi all directions with the unmatchable speed of gossip. Along the route my entourage took back to Traj Coord, the peasants lined the road cheering me and doing little dances of joy in honor of the upcoming fun. For I had in effect invited them to become my partners in an immortal copulation, and what could be more fun than that? The answer to the last question is, of course, becoming one of the actual partners rather than just a vicarious participant. But they knew that godhood and carnal relations with the blessed Mocr Dyn were equally inaccessible to them. The next best thing, then, was the ancient pagan custom of allowing mortal men to copulate hi the temples with priestesses who, for the moment, became vessels for the goddess. My vague mention of the future return of priestesses to the temples must have raised within them some thought that I might be planning to reintroduce the sexual function of the priestesses; at least, that was what I wanted them to start thinking.
Now that I was bringing a sort of goddess into the picture, it was only logical to allow her to be worshipped in the old manner. But not only was it logical, it was also eminently practical, for it would cement their loyalty to me, the god who had given them this present. They saw it coming, and already they were ecstatic. Religiously ordained abstention from sex had appealed to their pagan ancestors, but they were a healthy enough culture to have outgrown this form of masochism some time before my most recent descent from the heavens on a pillar of fire.
By the tune I reached Traj Coord, a garbled ac-
count of my speech in Simdata had already found its way to the priests. Fiedo was furious.
"What have you done?" he roared at me in his private office. I knew that other priests were listening eagerly in the hallway outside, delighting already in the dressing-down they fully expected Fiedo to give me. He was speaking English, still believing that I knew none of the languages of Goss Conf. I knew that most of the priests could understand enough English to be following the drift of his harangue as they listened in the hallway.
"Do you realize how long it will take me to repair the damage?" he carried on. He paced about the room, face a deep green, hands gesticulating wildly. "Months! Years! Mocr Dyn! For Span's sake! What could have possessed you to ..." Suddenly he broke off and stopped his mad dashing about. He stared at me, struck at last by the significant point. His eyes narrowed.
"Someone must have written that speech for you. Someone is using you—using you to attack me! Who is it? Misfic? Or is the Empire trying to get a foothold here? I'm sure they'd love to take us over. Speak up, man, I warn you! I could have you tortured until you tell and then have you executed for dogmatic treason. The government was forced to give us that right almost a hundred years ago, so I can do it. You'd better cooperate!"
"Oh, I say," I murmured aristocratically, switching over to my by now fluent and easy Pabx. "D'you really think the Empire would be interested in so insignificant and backwater a world as this? Hardly worth the expense to subvert, my dear fellow." Fiedo had not yet noticed that I was speaking Pabx. "However, I urge you to remember that the Empire does believe in spending whatever it has to in order to assure itself of the safety of its citizens. If you do anything unpleasant to me, the nearest legate will jump into Goss Conf with both feet and a couple of legions to prevent any further mistreatment of Imperial citi-
zens. One of which I am, you see." Until a report from Hester reaches the Imperial police, I added mentally. I had been uncharacteristically clumsy on Hester, and the police there had surely managed by now to identify me.
Fiedo sneered and quite unconsciously switched to Pabx too. He had not consciously noticed the language change, but a stir hi the hallway betrayed that someone out there had caught the significance of my fluent Pabx. "The Empire," Fiedo said confidently, "will not interfere in domestic religious affairs, not even if one of their precious citizens has been foolish enough to get himself involved."
I knew that he was probably right. But I had other cards to play. "Speaking of which," I smirked, "perhaps you too ought to consider not interfering in domestic—as it were—religious affairs. In other words, keep your pointy nose out of my upcoming marriage. Span has spoken."
Only then did the language in which Span had spoken register on Fiedo. The sudden understanding overwhelmed him, and he staggered back and collapsed into his chair. "You!" he said weakly. "You wrote that speech—you speak Pabx!"
"And very well, too, thank you. Things are out of your control now, Fiedo. I suspect they always were. Fiedo, old man, I'm taking you out of the loop, as they say on Missnopns. From now on, Span is in charge. Me, in other words, in case you'd forgotten." I strolled about the room, feeling very godlike.
Fiedo's will to resist had collapsed. Now that he saw the truth about me—that I was not the dupe he and his fellow priests had supposed, that his estimate of me on the day of my arrival had in fact been the more realistic one—he realized that I had been laying the groundwork for this takeover ever since my first day on the job. as Span. Given the people's belief that I was Span Come Again and their wild enthusiasm for my new Mocr Dyn/priestess project, he knew there was little he could do, for now, to oppose me.
"Cheer up, old man," I said expansively. "There'll still be a place for you. Somewhere. You won't be out in the cold. Of course, you will have to reduce your style of life to a rather less opulent level, but I'm sure you can bear that in the name of the immortal Span, your god, eh?"
I could see he thought my humor a trifle heavy handed and not overly funny. But I had other things to worry about, and I knew I had won my fight with Fiedo.
"Off-worlder," he began weakly, but I let him get no further.
"From now on, Fiedo, address me as Your Celestial Lordship." It almost strangled him, but he managed to get it out, and I would not allow him to say anything more. If I had let him blather on, the effect of the scene just past on the lesser priests listening in the hallway would have been diluted. I was certain that hearing Fiedo's humiliation had done them all a world of good: now they knew I was the boss, and I hoped they would not try any rebellious moves.
I ordered Fiedo out of his office and took over- his desk and chair. (And very comfortable the chair was, too! I knew I would enjoy working in this office, now that it was mine.) I put my feet up on the desk and bent my attention to the things I had to take care of. In particular, there were all the arrangements for the finals of the Mocr Dyn beauty contest, which I wished to hold in the temple itself, after elimination rounds in various provincial capitals. Mocr Dyn had top priority over all other concerns, and I looked forward to meeting my heavenly wife with a sort of confident, relaxed delight.
First I took the priesthood in hand. My new, open dominance over Fiedo had cowed them all, and I was able to order them about fairly much as I pleased. I streamlined their daily rituals somewhat, for I wanted them freer to tend to my mortal needs; then I decided that this had been a mistake since it would instead leave them freer to plan rebellion, so I reversed the trend and ordered them to observe far more complex and time-consuming rituals. All of this they did without any outward show of resistance. And finally, I ordered them to take regular baths.
Their appearance was really just too awful. I might not be known as the most fastidious of interstellar con men (I believe Sel Eck Support of Teamplay deserves the honor of that title), but I intended to do what I could to bring a new tone, a new aura, to this squalid world whose god I was. That would necessitate getting rid of the old aura—a most offensive one—by introducing the pleasant old custom of regular bathing.
However, the priests ignored my order and refused to so much as get their holy persons wet. This I considered an early and dangerous form of mutiny, and I could see I needed some way of adding emphasis to my commands.
You will recall the guards outside the temple, the very pragmatic men who so wisely gave up their attempt to keep Span from reentering his sanctuary. I called them all together in one of the smaller audience rooms, threw all the priests out of the room, locked all the doors, and addressed the guards as follows.
"Men, I want you all to forget for right now that I'm a god. Think of me as a mortal, just like yourselves, but a superior specimen of the species. While I am in this body," I struck myself resoundingly on the chest, overdoing it, and it hurt, "I wish to govern in a human manner. True, I have godly powers and could solve all the difficulties of this world as easily as I now snap my fingers." Which I then did, and fortunately this time they made a loud snap: I can't always do it when I want to. "However, I have chosen not to use my powers to resolve mortal dilemmas. Do not ask why. The thoughts of the gods are beyond the comprehension of mere humans—even unusually intelli-ent humans, as I'm sure you all consider yourselves to be."
They were staring at me dully, a roomful of men with pork loins for brains, and I could see I'd better step it up and get to the point of my speech.
"What, I am sure you're all asking but are too polite and pious to do so out loud, has all this to do with you? A good question, to which I have an even better answer: money. Money for you. Lots of it. Wealth." They were sitting up now and paying close attention. "Power," I added, gilding the lily and probing delicately for the offer which would enflame them. "And virgins." Their jaws dropped open, their eyes glazed, and a low moaning, crooning sound filled the room, like the sound made by a half-asleep infant dreaming of its mother's breast.
"Ah, yes, virgins," I repeated, seeing that I had found the key. "Now, what do you have to do to earn the money, the power, and, let me not forget to add, the virgins?" I looked at their lusting, bestial faces, and I knew that I could count on them to do virtually
anything I told them to, right and wrong no object, as long as they were convinced they'd get the virgins as a reward. Why virgins? Why not adept, experienced camp-followers? Span only knows; remember, the guards were not the cream of Goss Confian society and their social and sexual views were, to put it mildly, lower class.
"Remember that I told you I have chosen not to use my heavenly powers to repair the sorry state of this world. Instead, I choose to act through a mortal power to accomplish mortal ends. What is that power? My stalwart sons, you are! You are no longer simply the guards of the main temple of Span: you are now the members of the new, official Span God Guard!"
They smiled at each other with what seemed to be genuine pleasure at this announcement, and then they applauded me.
"I will order the priests to sew you some gaudy uniforms immediately, as befits your new status. I have heard that you are sometimes subject, when you walk the streets of this great city in your temple uniforms, to taunts and insults from the local toughs. Your new uniforms should put an end to that. If not, you may use temple money to buy some shiny, gaudy, sharp new swords with which you have my permission to slit the bastards' throats!"
They laughed loudly and applauded me again. How about that, they were thinking. This god guy is one of the boys!
"But your payment for doing my work," I went on, "will be, more than just new uniforms and swords, no matter how gorgeous and sharp those might be. No, you will also receive money, power, and quite a few virgins." They cheered lustily, stamping their feet, whistling, pounding each other on the back, and making similar adolescent displays.
I licked my lips and pondered my next words. This would be the great test. I knew the guards had been mistreated for years by the local priests: underpaid, pushed around, looked down upon. But would their
desire for vengeance be strong enough to overcome their fear of Span's priesthood? I hoped it would be, especially if the god Span himself were urging them on to act.
"You have now before you," I said to them, "an opportunity to start fulfilling your new duties in an appropriate manner. Simultaneously, you will demonstrate your loyalty to your god. Earlier today, I ordered the priesthood of Span to begin forthwith the practice of daily bathing, for I feel that would be proper for my priests and because, quite frankly, most of them stink to high heaven. But they refused! They refused my direct order—a direct order from God! Of course, you realize that I could simply destroy them as easily as I now wink my right eye." I winked my right eye, astounding and terrifying them, for Goss Confians, as I had discovered only that morning, lack the requisite nerve structure to do other than blink with both eyes at the same time. "However, I will not do that. Instead, I authorize you, as your first official act as the Span God Guard, to enforce my bathing order upon the priests."
One of the men stood up and screamed out a long string of words, none of which I understood, ending with the word "priests." I concluded he had been describing the priests' personalities and probable ancestry in pithy style. His fellows all seemed to agree wholeheartedly with his analysis.
I held up my hands to silence them, and when they had calmed down again I said grandly, "You may go now and begin the discharging of your new duties. Dismissed!"
They rose as one man and ran shrieking from the room, berserkers all.
The Span God Guards swarmed all over the temple, gathering up the priests and herding them into the temple's huge underground kitchens. The cooking pots here—immense objects used to prepare the meals for all the residents of the temple—had been chosen by the guards as the perfect place to wash the priests.
Eventually all the priests who were unlucky enough to be in the temple had been herded into this kitchen, and Misfic, the guard commander, came to my apartments to invite me to come and see my orders being carried out. His eyes shone with anticipation.
During that week the weather had turned suddenly colder with the rapid approach of the southern hemisphere's winter, and except for the quarters of Fiedo, now my quarters, the temple was unheated. In the kitchen, I found a large mass of pitiful, shivering priests. The great fires under the pots did warm the kitchen up somewhat, but the priests were nude: the guards had ordered them to disrobe and, faced with the fierce glares and threatening weapons of those once subservient soldiers, the priests had obeyed. Into the cold air, huge clouds of steam rose from the scalding hot water in the great cooking pots. The steadily burning fires under the pots maintained the water temperature somewhere, I guessed, near boiling; I could sometimes see bubbles rising to the water's surface and bursting, grim omen of the priests' coming tortures.
I wrapped my thick, warm robes more snugly about myself and looked at the cooks and other kitchen personnel huddling goggle eyed and open mouthed against a far wall, watching hi wonder.
At a signal from Misfic, his men herded the naked priests over to the pots and chucked them in, despite all their pleas and howls and moans. The louder the priests shrieked with pain and begged for mercy, the broader were the God Guards' grins. All this rendered me rather uncomfortable: after all, these poor, boiled priests were brothers of mine under the peeling skin. The nonbelievers among them, anyway, were my brothers in the spirit. But on the other hand, I decided, they're far less capable than I: they lack that touch of genius, that ftair, that makes the truly great con man. Had they been more talented, I reflected, they would not now find themselves in this embarrassing predicament. That was a comforting thought. I
stared complacently at the huge, blackened beams running high above the great room. It wouldn't be safe, anyway, I knew, to try to interfere with the guards in their present excited state.
At last it was all over, and the most uncomfortable, unhappy, and bedraggled bunch of priests you could imagine were allowed to clamber out of the pots and dress themselves. They staggered out of the kitchen, accompanied by the raucous laughter of the guards.
A few of the priests, however, remained behind in the pots, floating face down. The guards had decided that some of their victims were not washing themselves with sufficient vigor or thoroughness, so they had decided to help. They had overdone it in a few cases.
Fiedo was not involved in any of this. A few days earlier, he had asked to be sent out on the road to coordinate the search for the new mortal incarnation of the incomparable Mocr Dyn. I had been puzzled by his request: until then, he had been sulking in his rooms—formerly Giedo's suite, for Fiedo had kicked him out of them right after I moved into Fiedo's own apartments. Still, I could see no reason to refuse him; and he was an undeniably capable administrator, if an unimaginative one and lacking in much understanding of human or Goss Confian psychology. But now I regretted having let him go, for I had deprived myself of the chance of seeing him humiliated along with all of his scruffy professional colleagues.
As the victorious guards filed out of the kitchen, I called Misfic over to me. "Tell your men to build a wall around the temple, enclosing the plaza in front," I told him. "Make it high enough and thick enough to resist attack and to allow men to walk along the top of it, sheltered from missiles thrown from in front of the wall. In fact, build enough guard posts on the top of the wall so that, let us say, a third of the Span God Guard can be stationed on the wall at any one time. Not only will it keep your men busy, building this wall —and I think both you and I would welcome that—
but it will also serve to protect the priesthood from having any unseemly, inappropriate, and distasteful mingling with the rabble forced upon them."
He grinned. "And also, Your Celestial Lordship, they'll be trapped in here where we can keep an eye on them!"
"Why, yes," I replied smugly, "I suppose they will."
Preparations for the Mocr Dyn competition moved ahead swiftly. Enthusiasm was running at fever pitch across the planet. Every city, every village, every hamlet was holding preliminary elimination events to select the most pulchritudinous, the most sensual of its female inhabitants to send to Traj Coord for the -fifials. I had been sent photographs and vital statistics of the better contestants hi each city by my delegated representatives, and as I looked the pictures over lech-erously, I decided that my inspiration for this contest had been—dare I say it?—Heaven-sent.
One unforeseen problem I encountered at this time was the guards. Part of their enthusiasm, you will remember, stemmed from my promise of virgins. The fun they had had with the priests had been enough to gam me their loyalty for a certain time, but that pleasure was relatively unrepeatable: once they had the priests terrorized and bowing and scraping to every guard they saw. the zest was gone from the infant sport of priest-dunking. Now they wanted more from me: the wealth and power I had promised them they could let go for now, but the virgins were another matter. Why it is that such lower-class specimens on most
42
planets prefer virgins, I never have understood; I have always found older, more experienced women much more exciting and satisfying. But there you have it— an illogical and puzzling fact of life, but a fact nonetheless. I strongly advise you to remember all this, should you ever find yourself mistaken for a god on some backwater planet. Quite probably, this will never happen to you; but if it does, remember not to promise the believers more than you caa deliver.
Misfic came to speak to me one day, on behalf of his men. "Your Celestial Lordship," he began, properly using the title I had decreed was obligatory, "the men want me to tell you that they're unhappy. You promised them a lot, and now they're saying they haven't seen any of it yet. They've finished your wall for you already, and now they want their reward for doing your work."
There was much in his tone I disliked. In spite of his use of my title, his voice told me that he viewed me as no better than himself. And there was an opportunistic gleam hi his eyes that disturbed me, and I bethought myself unhappily that many a dictator hi Earth's ancient history had been done away with by his own military commanders. This man, I decided, had far too much native intelligence (a rare commodity on Goss Conf, by the way) to be of prolonged service to me. He had seen through me; he might very well be getting some ideas about moving up in the world at my expense. It was high time he was replaced. But for now, I had to concentrate on more immediate problems, and I knew I needed his help to keep the guards under control. I surmised that.it was the promise concerning undeflowered females that the guards most wanted fulfilled.
"Aha!" I said. "They want power!"
He shook his head.
"Fortune?"
No, again.
"Virgins."
He grinned and nodded vigorously.
"Virgins are in short supply these days, Misfic, I must warn you. I think a large part of this year's supply was lost the day I landed. However," I added quickly, for his face had darkened, "your beloved god Span has not given up: your beloved god Span has a plan afoot. A Span plan, as it were."
He looked at me expectantly. What is this plan the beloved god Span has afoot? I asked myself. / don't know, I replied.
"Aah, yes," I temporized. "A plan. And it will begin to bear some very tasty and exciting fruit very shortly—within the week, I hope."
Misfic bowed. "Thank you, Your Celestial Lordship," he said, but he was practically sneering at me. "The men will be delighted to hear this, I assure you —that they need wait no more than another week for release." He no longer even bothered to hide his insolence as he bowed again, Celestial Lordshipped me again (staring at me impudently), and left.
He had as good as warned me that I had no longer than a week to pull something out of my hat. I had no doubt that he was planning something in the event— which he must have deemed most probable—that I failed. I simply had to get rid of him. But first, I decided, I had to deal with the problem of supplying the -guards with virgins: I didn't see how I could overthrow Misfic in one week; procuring virgins would be easier than that. I kicked myself mentally for having made such an idiotic promise. I decided it was time for another trip into the city to search for inspiration.
I had earlier taken up this practice. I would doff my gorgeous heavenly robes (actually, they were old and greasy and had been produced by Fiedo from Heaven-only-knew where in the temple), don ordinary peasant robes, with a cowl, and stroll unrecognized through the city. These walks not only cleared my mind and helped me plan my future actions; they atso enabled me to obtain a much more complete and accurate picture of what was going on in the city and what the people were saying than did any of my offi-
rial sources of information. The priests told me only what they wanted me to know or what they thought I wanted to hear, so that the news reaching me through the temple hierarchy was heavily filtered and edited; I preferred my data raw.
Outside, the din was incredible. Even the advent of cold weather had not yet diminished the noise. The citizens of Traj Coord still scurried about as busily as ever, each one bent on his own mysterious mission. Carts laden with vegetables or hay or handmade goods rumbled and creaked along the stone streets, pulled by large, stupid, fourfooted beasts called saars—not oxen, but brothers in the spirit. Dust hung eternally in the air. Garbage and animal droppings were everywhere, and dirty, noisy children were constantly underfoot. The houses—mostly wooden, a very few made of stone—leaned toward each other over the narrow streets and cast deep shadows except in the very middle of the roads at high noon. Beggars and animals and children and noise and carts ano*chariots and smells and dirt and insects and tradesmen and squalor—life. At first, it had disgusted me; but now I realized what a pleasant change the brawling vitality of the city streets was from the quiet sterility of the temple.
A group of men—perhaps five—wearing the distinctive uniforms of the temple guards came swaggering down the street toward me, shouldering the citizenry imperiously out of their way. That, I thought, was not good. This new-found cockiness and assertive-ness of theirs would inevitably engender resentment which could all too easily spill over into resentment of the god Span himself. I suspected that there might be elements in this civilization who had seen power slip from their grasp with my arrival and the excitement of the people over the Mocr Dyn contest; these elements, if they existed, would now be greener than usual, and I didn't want to give them any excuse to organize the people against me.
But I was most afraid right then that the guards
might recognize me, so I ducked into a nearby tavern, a place called The Magenta Placenta.
It was dim and smoky inside, and a steady buzz of conversation filled the place. These lower-class taverns were excellent places to pick up information, as well as excellent places to get knifed by some citizen who decided you were staring at him. I ordered an ale, sat down with it at a small table, pricked up my ears, and tried not to look as though I were staring at anyone.
Most of the talk around me was concerned with the forthcoming Mocr Dyn contest. A large proportion of the residents of Traj Coord were recent immigrants from the countryside, come to the big city to make their fortunes. (Very few had succeeded.) There was much betting going on, with each yokel hotly insisting that the girl representing his home seeb would win the competition and become the reincarnation of the indescribably sensual Mocr Dyn. I had needed reassurance that I had chosen a politically wise course, and listening to the men at the other tables praising Span for this wonderful idea and slobbering into their drinks at the mere thought of what the winner would look like gave me the reassurance I wanted.
"Great Span," one of my neighbors exclaimed, "never mind the winner. I'll take a loser!"
Ah, my good man, I thought. Just you wait, and perhaps you'll get that chance.
But was that wise, I wondered. Perhaps I should change my plans and deliver the losers to the guards instead, to solve my present problems with them? No, no, that would never do. My present plans, I knew, would cement the loyalty of the people, and that was also something I had to worry about, in addition to securing the good will of the guards. For that matter, the Mocr Dyn competition was still more than a week, away, and I needed something definite and immediate to mollify the guards; I couldn't wait for a week to satisfy their brutish needs, not since I had promised them relief in the near future.
The man who had served me my ale earlier appeared to be the owner of the tavern as well as the headwaiter —the only waiter, in fact. It was obvious to me, after only a short observation, that he was not a Goss Con-fian, although he seemed to be trying his best to appear to be one. When I first saw him, he had looked vaguely familiar to me, but I had been too busy worrying about my problems and trying to overhear the conversations around me to pay much attention to him. Now I had spent about as much time thinking over my problems as was profitable, and there were no nearby conversations worth listening to at the moment, so I raised my mug above my head, a signal that I wanted a refill, and as he ambled over to me carrying a big pitcher of ale with which to refill my mug, I looked at him more carefully. He was of less than middle height, completely bald, very powerfully built (the stocky variety), and he wore a grim and unfriendly look.
Upon closer examination, I discovered that he was wearing makeup to disguise his true features. Quite artfully applied, really, but I, a master of disguise, could see through it easily, and I suddenly recognized him: Artsie Seedyn, a professional associate (but sometimes rival) of mine from the good old days back on Earth many years before. So good old Artsie was hiding out on Goss Conf, eh? Had reason to disguise himself, hmm? How interesting and potentially useful.
As he stood before me pouring more ale into my mug, I said quietly but distinctly, "Artsie Seedyn." He did not react at all: even the stream of ale pouring from his jug didn't betray a single quiver of his hand. Could I have made a mistake? Impossible! But the Artsie Seedyn I had known in days gone by had surely not been capable of such self-control.
When my mug was full, he raised his head, gave me a piercing stare, and then made an almost imperceptible movement with his head signifying, "Follow me."
I watched him walk back to his bar and leave through a small door set into the wall next to it. I looked around casually to make sure no one was watching me (surely an unnecessary precaution on this uncivilized world, but the habit was an old one and had served me well in the past), and then I stood up and sauntered unhurriedly over to the door.
I opened the door, but I could see nothing but blackness beyond. But I didn't think I ought to stand there, possibly attracting -the attention of the other customers, so I stepped in as though I knew what I was doing and closed the door behind me. I was surrounded by pitch darkness. "Hello?" I asked uncertainly.
Suddenly a heavy, hairy arm was flung around my neck, choking me, and something cold and hard was placed against the side of my neck below my ear. A hoarse voice snarled, "In about five seconds I'm going to slit your throat."
I was, of course, terrified. "Artsie," I gasped, "it's me!"
"No doubt it is," he said. "Who's 'me'?"
"Hughes. Thomas Langston Hughes.",
He released me. There was a snap, and a bright light came on. I blinked, momentarily blinded. At last I could see properly again and my heart slowed down to something near enough to its normal rate for me to once again feel an interest in my surroundings. I looked around and saw that I was in a small storeroom; overhead swung a naked lightbulb—the first use of electricity I had noticed on the planet outside the spaceport. In front of me stood Artsie Seedyn, a wicked-looking knife hi one hand and a doubting look on his face.
I threw back my hood. "See?"
"Ahh!" he sighed, looking relieved. "Thomas Langston Hughes, as I live and breathe, long time no see, and all that. So the great god Span has decided to honor my humble tavern with a visit from his divine personage, hey?"
"You know?" I gasped.
"Oh, sure," he shrugged. "Of course. I've seen you
AO
a few times at public appearances, and I recognized you right away. Your makeup job might fool these yokels into thinking you're Goss Confian, but an old master of disguise like me could see through it right away."
"Do tell," I replied frostily, recalling that it was largely this abrasive personality of his, this unfortunate habit of speaking his mind at the wrong time, that had broken up our short-lived partnership so many years before on Earth. "Gone straight, eh?" I stabbed. "Turned tavern-keeper?"
"Oh," he said artlessly, looking at the ceiling, "you know how it is. I happened to find myself here one day, and I decided I felt like a vacation, so I started this business. Just a temporary sort of thing, you know—until I feel like some real action again."
"Uh, huh," I said, grinning at him: my stab had been a good one, and I could see that he was down on his luck, professionally embarrassed, and worried about his future. "In Goss Confian disguise," I said, "with lousy makeup."
He looked up at me angrily.
"Look at yourself, old past master of disguise," I told him, drawing a small metal mirror from my robe and handing it to him. "Your green is running down your cheek. I'm surprised you can make it through an evening in this sweatbox tavern of yours without showing your true colors, as it were. Here, have some of mine. Real keen green." I handed him the small tin of green skin dye I always carried with me. "Guaranteed not to run."
"Thanks!" he exclaimed, grabbing it. He smeared it liberally on his face and hands, then began to undress so he could cover himself with it all over.
"Hey! Just a minute there!" I said, snatching it back. "That stuff's hard to come by. If you want more, you'll have to earn it."
"Oh, Lord, Tom! All right, what do you want me to do?" He was the very picture of a man eager to please.
First names, yet, I thought. He must be in a bad situation. "There is a job I need done," I said aloud. "And I don't really feel I can trust any of the natives: it's a very delicate assignment."
But if I thought he would leap at the opportunity, I was mistaken. His face lost its pleading look and his eyes turned cold and mean again. He had always looked like a very dangerous antagonist when he wore that expression—and indeed he could be quite dangerous, physically, if not on a mental plane. "It's those women you promised the guards, isn't it? Now you can't deliver."
He laughed nastily at my open-mouthed look of astonishment. "Oh, yeah," he said, "I know about that, too. Some of your temple guards came in here last night, and they drank too much. They always do, the bastards: they spend a lot of money on drinks, all right, but then they start fights, and break up the furniture, and I end up losing money, and maybe a couple of my regular, paying customers as well. Some god you are—you can't even control your own guards!"
He snorted and grumbled for a while, then finally brought himself sufficiently under control to continue. "Last night, these drunk guards of yours started bragging about how you had promised each of them three virgins of his. very own to play with, and I said to myself, 'Lord! How's Hughes going to pull that off?' And now I can see that you're wondering the same thing. Right?"
"Three each?" I muttered. "Great Span! I certainly don't remember saying that!" I decided it was time to be aboveboard with Artsie Seedyn. He could be a pain in the neck, but he was honest and dependable. (Which quite possibly explains why he had never met with any great success in his vocation.) "Well, Artsie, my good man," I said, "I'll lay all my cards on the table."
"Hah!" he replied scornfully. "You've never done that in your life. Not playing cards or any other time."
I let it pass: at some future date, I promised myself, he would pay for that unkindness. "I do need help getting the women—the virgins—but I already have an idea how I might do it. What I need is someone to administer the whole thing for me. I think you might be the man to handle it."
"Okay. So I'll be honest, too," he sighed. "I'm in really bad shape. I'm stuck here trying to scrape a living out of this tavern because I don't dare set foot on any Empire planet—or even in any Imperial ship. I don't even have enough money to buy safety on some backwater colonial planet, so you can see how bad it is."
"Excellent!" I said. "Just like me. But there's enough profit in this Span thing for both of us to buy ourselves a backwater colonial planet or two, and that would solve all our problems. It should only take another year of hard work here—maybe much less." That had his interest, so I continued. "Now, Artsie, what I want to do about this virgin problem is establish a Mocr Dyn court."
"A what?" he said blankly.
"Right. A large collection of high-born maidens who will be the royal court of Mocr Dyn, the goddess queen, my sublime wife. And please don't say 'What?' again. You'll surely remember Mocr Dyn, the wife of the historical Span, for the great honor of being whose reincarnation a great competition is currently underway?"
"Oh, sure," he said vaguely.
"Of course. Now, the girls who can't make it hi that competition can compete to be in the court of Mocr Dyn. See?"
"Oh, sure, right," he said, brightening as he understood. "Sort of like the Miss Empire contest, where the losers are called the Princesses of Prettiness."
"Sort of, although the duties of these losers will involve quite a bit more than smiling for news photographers and gushing about how happy they are that the winner^ won instead of them and how much
she deserved to win, and so on. These girls are going to be my agents all over the planet, so that I can have more direct control over the temples in other cities."
"Aah! Sort of like glamorous nuns."
"Sort of. And like nuns, they'll go through a symbolic marriage to the god. In the case of some of them, however, I'll designate the temple guards as my corporeal embodiments on a temporary basis, and the princesses will consumate their marriages to Span by sleeping with the guards. End of that problem." I shuddered. "Poor girls. But I can't allow my fundamental decency to interfere with my doing what I know I have to do to save my skin. Anyway, I think the prestige of the job will attract a lot of them and make up for what they'll have to go through.
"And speaking of the prestige of the job," I went on. "If you're going to work for me, you'll have to make a few changes yourself. I won't ask you to give up your virginity, since I'm sure you did that long ago. But you will have to force yourself to take regular baths, wear clean clothes, and stop saying 'oh' and 'sort of so much. I can't have you sullying the public image of the god: you'll be his employee, and your behavior, speech, and appearance will reflect upon him, for good or ill. Understand?"
"Oh," he said sullenly, "sort of, I guess. But listen, Hughes, just what is my job going to be in all this?"
"Recruiter first, and then general overseer of the Mocr Dyn Court. Call yourself the High Woojum, or whatever you prefer. You look the part, you know, especially now that you're almost completely bald: I've always thought you looked a lot like a eunuch."
He glared at me. "Well, I'm not!" he snapped. "Far from it, let me tell you! Which makes me think," he added, licking his lips, "shouldn't the High Woojum, as your personal representative and the Court's father figure, get to sleep with all these girls, too?"
"You want to sleep with that many women?" I exclaimed. "You're crazy! You'd never make it—you'd kill yourself."
His face took on a dreamy look. "I don't think I'd mind dying that way. ..."
I gestured helplessly. "All right, you lascivious bastard. As long as you don't mess things up for me."
"Hey, maybe the High Woojum should even get the girls before the guards do?"
"Oh, no! Those men are tough and dangerous. I don't want any missing maidenheads upsetting them. Don't press your luck, Artsie; don't overdo it. Do you want the job?"
"Yes, yes, oh, yes!" he breathed, his eyes aflame.
We haggled for a while after that about his salary and perquisites, and I could see that Artsie had learned quite a few things in the years since I had known him last, quite a bit about getting the best possible deal for himself. Finally, we settled on terms acceptable to both of us, and I gave him a cash advance so that he could pay off his creditors (I certainly didn't want my High Woojum hounded through the streets of Traj Coord by bill collectors), told him a password that would get him to my chambers in the temple, and instructed him to be there, ready for work, the next day.
The following morning, he showed up bright and early and champing at the bit. I was still rubbing my eyes and trying to wake up.
"One disadvantage to being a god," I observed, "is that you are supposed to always be on the job, which means I'm not getting much sleep. At least they only think I'm an incarnation, not the ectoplasmic original: in that case, they'd expect me never to sleep or eat."
"Or belch," Artsie contributed,  perfectly serious.
"Must you always think in terms of the grosser bodily functions?" I asked testily.
"Yep," he grinned. "They're the important ones. Speaking of which, I'm ready to get started."
I had already arranged office space and clerical help for him. Now, I summoned a junior priest to take him to his office and let him get started. Before he
left, I said to him, "Artsie, I'm depending heavily on you. This is a vital job."
"Oh, yeah, I know how badly you need me, Your Celestial Lordship," he said mockingly as he followed the priest out the door. I wondered if he were still as four-square and true-blue as he had been. However, I had no time to devote to worrying about that just then: my most immediate task was to keep the guards pacified for another two or three days. If Artsie didn't come through for me by then—no, I refused to think about that possibility. I had an announcement posted in the guard quarters proclaiming that the god Span wished to address his loyal guard-children in the audience chamber that evening, before supper. "Why before supper?" you ask. Just a hunch, an intuition, that I might need their active support at the evening meal. As you shall see, my good old intuitive abilities had not played me false.
I was waiting as they all filed in. They took their seats, glaring at me sullenly. Misfic had been telling the truth: their devotion to me was fading rapidly. They sat silently, watching me in a grim sort of way. I felt, as I am sure you will understand, rather nervous.
I cleared my throat. There was a faint stirring among the men. I decided to dispense with the traditional before-dinner-speaker opening humor, the jokes at the beginning of the address. I could see it would not be well received.
"Men," I began, "some time ago, in this very room, I assured you that if you loyally supported your god, certain rewards would be forthcoming. Those were," I ticked them off on my fingers, "power, wealth, and some other benefits of office." They stirred even more. "Now, certain of these rewards—in particular, the power and the wealth—will almost certainly have to be delayed for just an eentsy teensy while yet." They were completely silent, staring at me in bewilderment, wondering what I was getting around to. "I expect, however, within perhaps two or three days, to have
here in the temple a particularly fine supply of virgins."
Yelling and applause—except for Misfic, who was applauding mechanically and looking at his men and at me with a calm, analytical eye. Another person, I thought, upon whom it would be wise to keep my own calm, analytical eye.
I sketched out the Royal Court idea for them, including an explanation of their role in it. They responded with enthusiasm.
"One thing, though," I warned them. "These will all be pious young ladies, sleeping with you because they believe it to be their religious duty and a necessary prelude to higher responsibilities. They will all be convinced—will know, I mean—that, while in bed with them, you will all be embodiments of Span. For all our sakes, that had better be the case. You must approach this task as you approach all others I impose on you: with a feeling of purity and godliness, with a sense of holy mission."
"And holy emission!" someone yelled from the back of the room, and they all roared. I let it pass: their spirits were high again, and they were all on my side, which was where I needed them, lower-class boors though they might be.
"Holy mission," I repeated firmly. "Thus you must each perform all the requisite daily devotions, so that you can fill yourself with Span for your task." I held up my hands. "No puns, please. And just in case one of you, due to neglect of prayer and moral goodness, finds himself in bed with one of these young female zealots, but feeling more like a normal mortal than a blessed vessel of Span . .. fake it."
They earnestly assured me that they would, and, the best of friends, we all trooped out together to have supper.
Trouble began toward the end of the meal. Fiedo was back in town, and I could tell, somehow, that he had been stirring up some of the priests against me.
Now, most of the priests had remained fairly docile ever since the enforced bath episode, but there were a few who had never ceased to be stubbornly morally independent, bowing to my orders and the reality of the armed guards ready to enforce those orders, but not bothering to hide, either, their resentment and inward rebelliousness. Men with backbones: how I've always detested them. At any rate, these men were Fiedo's natural allies. I suppose they were willing to accept his rule rather than mine because they felt he had more hierarchical legitimacy. In other words, they doubted that I was really Span, and they considered me, in more than a theological sense, a bastard. To be an intelligent priest in any religion is, after all, to be a skeptic and a bit of a charlatan.
Fiedo spent most of the meal muttering to these men. Then, just as dessert was being carried in (since taking over, I had improved the menus considerably), he arose and requested that he might address the god Span. I was sure he planned mischief, but I nodded as graciously as I could.
"Your Celestial Lordship," he began through gritted teeth (oh, how he hated having to call me that!), "we have been hearing disquieting rumors that you plan to supply the temple guards with prostitutes right here in the temple! Surely, O God, you can reassure us that this is not the case?"
I stood up with a grand flourish. I had had a raised platform erected at one end of the great dining hall, and I ate here, surrounded by those guards and priests I considered most trustworthy. Standing there, I looked down on all the upturned priestly faces. "I can happily reassure you, my son, that it is not the case," I said, "since they are not prostitutes. They will all be pure, pious, intelligent, admirable young ladies, who will form the court of the unapproachable-by-mortals-but-nevertheless-supremely-sensual Mocr Dyn. And after they have slept with the guards, they will assume their courtly duties, which will include, but not be limited to, handling, as the personal representatives of my
celestial wife, who will in her turn be my personal representative, every facet of the administration of every temple of Span on Goss Conf."
Most of the priests stared at me in slack-jawed astonishment. Fiedo and his cohorts, however, leaped to their feet and started yelling at me.
I signaled to Misfic. He shouted out a few words to his guards, and the group of noisy dissidents suddenly found themselves surrounded by guards with drawn' swords, the tips of which were aimed at their priestly chests. They quieted down quickly—all but Fiedo, who, if anything, yelled all the louder. I had to give the old bastard credit: he had more courage and determination than I would have suspected. But it meant that he was even more dangerous than I had thought: an adversary to take seriously, rather than a doddering old fool.
"How dare you," I bellowed at him, "yell at your god!"
That got to him; he had forgotten that most of the priests and probably all of the guards, with the almost certain exception of Misfic, thought I was indeed Span. He stopped yelling and looked about nervously, receiving hostile glares from everyone except his immediate circle. Some of the guards were testing the edges of their swords with their thumbs, in a manner that bode no good for the throat of a rebellious priest, and Fiedo got their point, as you might say. He saw that if he wanted to save his scrawny neck, he had best make a conciliatory gesture immediately.
"I beg your ..." he muttered.
"What?" I shouted. "Speak up, old man, so that everyone can hear you!"
"I beg your pardon, Your Celestial Lordship," he said reluctantly but loudly. "I forgot myself in my sudden and overwhelming concern for the future of the temples and your religion."
"You are forgiven," I said grandly. Nonchalantly, I added, "See me in my chambers after supper. High Woojum, I'll want you there, too."
Artsie Seedyn, who had been watching the whole confrontation with saucer eyes, nodded and then said, "Er, yes, er, Your Celestial Lordship."
The wisdom of winning the guards' full support earlier in the evening had now been proved. If not for them, I knew, I would have ended up a dead god. I could breathe more easily now. But I would never really breathe easily until I was off this horrible planet, with much of its wealth concealed in my robes, headed for some saner world.
The High Woojum showed up first. He was very upset.
"Hughes," he panted, having apparently run all the way, "what have you gotten me into? I may be able to help you pacify the guards, but you didn't tell me there were all these other people after your neck, too!"
"Calm down," I told him soothingly. "Everything's firmly under control. You saw how the guards stood up for me. Do your job properly, and they'll stick with me and keep things calm. The only real problems we have to worry about are Misfic, the guard commander, who I think suspects my true nature, and Fiedo, who knows who and what I really am. Fiedo's the old bastard who started that trouble in the dining room. He should be here soon. He'd better be here soon!"
Just as I finished speaking, the old bastard himself entered, shutting the door firmly behind him. He stood wordlessly for a few moments, looking the room over carefully.
"You've certainly made yourself at home here, Your Celestial Lordship," he remarked bitterly.
"Yes," I said. "I've redecorated. Do you like it?" I looked over the new carpeting, the rich wall hangings, the tasteful furniture, the new lighting system, the imported artworks. / liked it.
"I hate it!" he snapped. "It's grotesque—a parody of what a god should be! I mean, how a god should live."
"Tsk, tsk," I replied. I affected friendliness. "Come, come, Fiedo, old man," I said expansively. "I'm not a god, as you well know: I'm a mere mortal with a modest taste for some of the better things in life." I gestured at our surroundings. "This sybaritic luxury— do you suppose I really enjoy it?"
"I certainly do think so."
"You're right," I admitted. "I certainly do, too. However, let us get down to brass farthings, as the natives of Nova Britannia are all too fond of saying. How goes the Mocr Dyn competition?"
He struggled with his rising anger and lost. He opened his mouth to denounce me again, but I held up my hand to silence him, and I said quietly, "The time has certainly arrived at last, Fiedo, old boy, when you need me far, far more than I need you. Now, you may speak."
He choked on his own indignation, turning bright green with the effort to control himself. Finally he said rapidly, "The winners from all the outlying capitals will be here for the finals in the Mocr Dyn contest in eight days, you detestable alien."
I was about to remonstrate with him for that final phrase, but Artsie interrupted. "When you call him that," said the High Woojum fiercely, "you'd better smile, as a native of Sagebrush would be all too likely to say."
I stared at him in surprise. "Why, Artsie! I had no idea you were so well traveled."
"Oh, 7 can quote from other planets, too, you know," he said defensively but with a good deal of smug self-satisfaction.
"And just who is this?" asked Fiedo superciliously, aiming his nose at a point somewhere above the High Woojum's head.
"And just who in Hell are you?" Artsie flung back pugnaciously.
"Uh, no, Artsie," I interrupted quickly, before matters went any further. "This is Fiedo, whom you might remember my mentioning earlier. Heap big chief. Father to all of Span's children before my current incarnation."
"Oh, er, pleased to meet you, Dad," Artsie said in a subdued tone.
Fiedo, meanwhile, was muttering to himself. '"Artsie'? 'Artsie'?" He looked at me suspiciously. "Is that an alien name?"
"Fiedo," I said quickly, hoping to divert him from following, up on his lucky guess, "this is the High --Woojum. He's here to take care of the boojum."
"What?"
"Nothing," I said. "Just my little off-world joke. Now—"
"No, wait," Fiedo interrupted. "Ever since my return, I've been hearing about your appointing a very strange, hairless man to provide the guards with their prostitutes." Artsie stiffened in anger—I assume because of the "strange, hairless" part—.but Fiedo ignored him. "This must be the man: he's hairless, and he's strange. And he's an off-worlder, just like you. Isn't he?"
"That," I said firmly, "is irrelevant. He is the High Woojum, with all the rights and privileges pertaining to that office, chief among which is ultimate mortal authority in the matter of the Court of Mocr Dyn and the relations, as it were, between that court and the guards. I would advise you, Fiedo, old man, to watch your words from now on, or I might choose to assume my godly aspect and strike you dead—with the capable assistance of the guards, of course."
He gritted his teeth. "May I be excused now, Your Celestial Lordship?" he hissed.
"Certainly, my loyal worshipper," I said grandly. "Go."
After Fiedo had left, Artsie said, "Whew! He's dangerous. You know, all of this kind of reminds me of
the political intrigues I once got mixed up in on New Schism."
"Were you involved in that? You keep surprising me," I remarked. "However, back to brass farthings. What have you got planned for the guards?"
"Ah!" he grinned. "You just come out with me tomorrow afternoon, and you'll see."
At a prearranged time in the afternoon of the following day, we met at one of the temple exits I normally used for my anonymous expeditions into the city. We stored our official robes in a locker I had had constructed there and put on instead the dull, brown peasant cloak and hood I preferred for these exploratory trips. There was an extra set of this clothing for Artsie because I always kept an extra outfit there just hi case. "Just in case" had never happened, but the habit of providing for every contingency is one of the characteristics which distinguishes the true artist among that fraternity so inappropriately and loosely termed "confidence artists." The other term in wide use, "con man," at least does not imply that all of us are artists. For while we are all men with more than our share of confidence, only a handful of us possesses the ability needed to rise to the top. I, a true confidence artist, had already attained godhood.
We slipped out of the temple and walked down the street. The sunlight was still there, but weak and watery now, while a bitter, chill wind whistled down the street, flapping our cloaks around our ankles and whipping dust and paper past us as we walked. Peasants hurried by, heads down, the wind cutting through their thin clothes.
"Poor devils," Artsie muttered. "If the priesthood would share its wealth, a lot of this misery could be avoided. The planet's problems would disappear."
"As would our chances of getting rich," I reminded him. "You must curb this weakness of yours, my boy —these humanitarian impulses."
"You're right," he apologized. "I'll try."
"See that you do."
By now we had turned a few corners, walked through a few dark, mysterious, and dangerous-looking alleyways, skirted many beggars and sidestepped many a pile of garbage, and we had found what Artsie wanted to show me.
It was a poster nailed to a wall. (Most of the city was built of wood.) In this drab, colorless city—on this drab, colorless world—that poster fairly screamed with gaudy colors and pictures and an excess of the Pabxian equivalent of exclamation marks.
CALLING ALL MAIDENS!!! it announced. THE INCOMPARABLE MOCR DYN WILL SOON BE CHOSEN! BUT EVEN IF YOU DO NOT MAKE IT, YOU CAN STILL BE PART OF HER COURT! !
There followed a drawing of a queen reigning over a court of girls of incredible, though green, pulchritude. The queen's body was wonderful—"That artist has good taste!" I told Artsie—but in place of her face, there was a sort of starburst. "Represents incomparable beauty?" I asked, and Artsie nodded.
Beneath this drawing were the words, ANNOUNCING THE MOCR MAIDENS!!!! TRYOUTS AT THE TEMPLE OF SPAN, NOON TO SUNDOWN DAILY! (MUST BE CERTIFIABLE VIRGINS!!) ASK FOR THE HIGH WOOJUM.
"It's a bit garish," I said hesitantly.
Artsie insisted it was perfect. "What's wrong with it being garish?" he asked. "Goss Conf is hardly what you'd call a sophisticated world. Also, most women here can't read."
"So?"
"So only the high-born, well-educated types will understand this, and we'll soon be swamped with 'em. Hundreds. Thousands!"
"Steady on, old man," I said in a steadying sort of tone. "We shall see what we shall see. How many of these things did you produce?"
"Oh, I'm not sure. Enough so that by morning they'll be all over the city."
8
His confidence in his posters was justified. About midway through the following morning, the girls started showing up.
Some of them had been virgins for too long and were consequently not well balanced enough for the work I had in mind. At that point, however, certain other work they might do very well indeed sprang to mind, and I told Artsie to accept these aging maidens for the competition—without letting them actually compete.
Another group—the largest—were young, juicy, pretty, and dumb. "Excellent!" I said. "They'll look good up front, as they say in the big corporations on Earth." Artsie was too busy ogling this group to even suspect that by "up front" I might have more in mind than he realized.
And finally there were those who were distinctly not virgins: somewhat older than the preceding group, cool, self-controlled and collected, experienced, and at the temple simply to look for £tie mam chance in this new enterprise. Quite possibly, some of them at least might have their doubts about divinity. These were the women who, I expected, would end up being my dependable right hands.
Artsie, by the way, strongly opposed accepting anyone from this last group. As I have said, he liked women young and inexperienced, and this batch, with their cold, knowing eyes that saw right through him, made him very uneasy. But I insisted, and since a god always outranks a high woojum, I had my way.
"Listen, High Woojum," I told him, "you don't have to sleep with any of them. And you can keep them away from the guards, too, if you think that's wisest. But these are the women who will control this planet for me. And control, in this case, remember, means money."
He assented surlily.
Preparations were already getting underway at the temple for the finals in the Mocr Dyn competition itself, in the meantime. Of this, the guards were fully aware, and as it turned out that meant that we had got the Mocr Maidens selection off the ground none too soon. The day after the first batch of would-be Mocr Maidens showed up, Misfic paid me a visit.
He stalked into my office unannounced. Not only didn't I like his definitely nonsubservient attitude, I was also annoyed because he had rudely broken into my chain of thought: I was trying to decide whether it would be wise politics for me, as the incarnation of the divine Span and not just his delegated officer (as was the High Woojum), to initiate the choicest of the Mocr Maidens myself. Would I be buying my pleasure at the cost of Artsie's enmity? For the moment, I needed him on my side. And what of the priesthood? They outnumbered the guards, and they might overcome their cowardice and their fear of the guards and take over again if I went too far in profaning my godhood. I was in the midst of these critical considerations when the guard commander clumped noisily into the room and said brusquely, "Span!"
Switching my attention to a different aspect of temple politics, I perceived immediately that this would be an inopportune time to insist on his addressing me as "Your Celestial Lordship." I would have to settle such
matters with Misfic at a later time. Now, I smiled at him blandly and said, "Yes, my son? What favor do you wish from your god?"
He snorted in disgust. "Knock it off, you heathen alien! Save that 'my son" stuff for the peasants. I only called you 'Span' because I don't know your real name."
So he knew I was an alien! That was very disturbing—but also puzzling. How had he found out? I spoke as calmly as I could manage under the circumstances.
"All right, Misfic. Let's talk usonian, as they say on Attaturkia. You know a dangerous fact about me—• dangerous to me. That is the fact that I'm not the reincarnation of Span. I'm an alien who knows an opportunity when he sees one. But remember one thing." I waggled my finger at him. "To the peasants, I'm Span. Even to your guards—most of them—I'm the god himself. Perhaps you could get them to overthrow me and then you'd be boss. But perhaps if I told them to, they'd eliminate you, and I could appoint someone else in your place, someone more tractable."
I could tell I had touched a sensitive spot. He shifted from foot to foot and fiddled with one of his medals. I switched to a friendly tone.
"If we fight each other, one of us will be the loser. However, if we help each other, we can both benefit."
He sighed, becoming suddenly more open. "You're right. Uh, Your Celestial Lordship. Look, one problem I do have is that my own position is not guaranteed. The priests wanted to keep the guards in line, and one of their techniques for doing that was to promote internal competition for the leadership. I don't have any kind of formal appointment as commandant. It only lasts from day to day, and Fiedo could have ordered me to give over the post to someone else as soon as I displeased him—or as soon as someone else pleased him more. If you want my support, I'll need more security!"
"Certainly," I said immediately, seeing an opporru-
nity. I wrote something down for him, signifying that I, Span, was confirming him indefinitely in his position as commandant of the temple guards, and I passed the paper over to hm. He read it, then folded it and put it away with all the earmarks of intense gratitude. I was surprised at such a display of stupidity from an otherwise apparently intelligent man. He would have been better off deriving his authority from the consent of his subordinates and trying to win their personal loyalty to him, for he surely knew the day would come when he would need his men's support. If he depended instead upon that piece of paper I had given him, then his authority depended entirely upon me—was derived from my own authority—and if I fell, he would fall too. He had unwittingly committed himself to maintaining my power in order to retain his own. I felt satisfied with the day's work.
"Now, then," I said expansively, leaning forward and putting my elbows on my desk, "what else is troubling you, my son? Why did you so rudely interrupt your deity? Is it the supply of virgins again, hmm?"
"Well, yes, frankly," he said. "The men are grumbling again. They're saying that you've been lying to them, pulling the saar skin over their ears, that perhaps they ought to—"
I held up my hand. "Tell them that the fun begins ... tonight!" Those poor girls, I added to myself.
Misfic was delighted to have something so definite to tell his men, and he hurried off to spread the good word.
We held the judgings in the great audience hall, so that all the guards and any interested priests could watch. This was in effect a test run for the Mocr Dyn contest, except that this judging process for the Mocr Maidens would continue for a few nights running and I would decide the outcome before the judging actually took place: the panel of judges I had appointed would actually be rubberstamping my previous decision,
which I had made after a careful, probing private interview with each of the would-be Mocr Maidens.
The hall was packed that evening. The guards were staring silent and glassy-eyed at the dais against one wall where the contestants were to appear. The smell of guardly sweat and desire filled the air. A few nervous priests hung around the exits, their curiosity having gotten the better of their better judgment (i.e., their fear); but even though curious, they were, wisely enough, I thought, ready to run should I lose control over the guards.
Once the competition got underway, I began to have my own doubts about my ability to control the guards. As soon as the contestants for that evening (about twenty of them, altogether) appeared on the dais, the guards began making an incredible racket: shrieks, groans, yells, obscenities—a disgusting display of raw passion, unbridled lust, and general rowdiness.
"What a disgusting display of raw passion, unbridled lust, and general rowdiness!" I whispered in annoyance to the High Woojum. But he grinned and whispered back that he sympathized with the poor, horny bastards—the reaction I should have expected from Artsie Seedyn. "My sympathies lie elsewhere," I told him, meaning, of course, that they lay entirely with the contestants.
The judges looked the girls over carefully (and longingly) and pretended to be thinking the matter over in a deep, judicial sort of way. The guards yelled encouragement: "All of 'em! All of 'em! Lemme up there!" and so forth. Finally, looking at the slips of paper I had given them beforehand, the judges called out the girls' names one by one and assigned each one of them to one of two groups, in accordance with two of the three types of contestants I described before: the Primary Mocr Maidens—the young, juicy, and dumb; and the Span Echelon—the sharp, knowledgeable, experienced, and very useful women, not at all virgins or virginal.
Everyone looked utterly bewildered by these titles—
the guards, the judges, the High Woojum, the contestants themselves. I was the only one who knew what it all meant, and that gave me a rather pleasant feeling of godlike wisdom and superiority. I was also the only one, so far, who knew about the third type of contestant, the aging, desperate, mentally unstable virgins. These, I had designated the Senior Associate Mocr Maidens, and I had secreted them in a room adjacent to the one where the judging was taking place.
I made a short, flowery speech to the judges, thanking them for granting us the pleasure of watching their wisdom at work, and then I dismissed them. Then I spoke to the guards, telling them to return to.their quarters to prepare themselves for their divine (by proxy) group wedding, which I said would begin in about an hour, thus allowing them ample time to clean up and pretty up. To their minuscule minds, this must have seemed frightfully funny, for they all guffawed loudly and applauded. (I really had hoped that my words might induce a few of them to take a bath for once in their lives, but I realized at once from their reactions how forlorn a hope that was.) I dismissed them with instructions to return in one hour, and they galloped out of the room, knocking over chairs, tripping over each other, and generally creating much noise and commotion of the little-boy variety. The few curious priests who had attended the competition scrambled desperately out of their way; some didn't quite make it and were run over.
. The newly classified Mocr Maidens were, I noticed, staring with almost uniform distaste at the rapidly departing audience. I was tempted to tell them that they had little right to feel that way, since they would have no more to do with the guards; now, the Senior Associate Mocr Maidens were another matter. I caught myself feeling pity for the aging virgins. No, no, Hughes, I lectured myself sternly. This won't do, this sentimen-talism. Never mind those unfortunate women; they'll probably be happy to both make their beds and lie in them. Think of your own neck. You must appease the
guards for at least a little while in order to survive, and you must either cement their loyalty to stay healthy, or, perhaps even better, the loyalty of those who will soon control the guards. But you must always remember that your own continued good health must be your prime objective. Thus fortified by a healthy dose of good old common sense and my version of enlightened self-interest, I returned happily to the task at hand.
The Mocr Maidens, I told to return to the quarters hi the temple which had earlier been assigned to them. "I will be in touch with you in the near future, girls," I told them. "Don't call me; I'll call you." I said much the same thing to the Span Echelon women. The two groups left, still looking puzzled—except for those I had assigned to the Span Echelon, who, I was pleased to note, looked suspicious: this spoke well of my judgment in choosing them.
Now I told Artsie where the Senior Associate Mocr Maidens were and that I wanted him to send them to me. "Also, go to my office and bring back the pile of veils you will see there, on the floor behind my desk. Be off, Woojum." He scowled at my imperious manner, but he took himself off on his assignment.
The Senior Associates arrived shortly. They were all a bit nervous, hesitant about the situation in which they now found themselves. No one had yet explained a thing to them, a situation I remedied immediately— at least to the extent I thought wise. "Ladies, ladies," I boomed out expansively. "Do come in and make yourselves comfortable. Your god has a very pleasant surprise for you. I'm afraid circumstances have conspired against you to some degree: none of you will be able to join the court of the blessed Mocr Dyn in quite the capacity you had probably anticipated." They uttered loud cries of neurotic disappointment, but I held up my hands to quiet them. "Now, now," I said in the most soothing tone I could muster, "you will still have a role to play, and in fact it is a far more important role than the young fluff-heads who got those other positions will play." This interested them and
also helped calm them down somewhat by appealing both to their vanity and to their innate feelings of superiority toward the younger and beautiful contestants. (I.e., "She may be young and beautiful in a glossy, superficial way, but I've got brains and character.")
"Your work," I continued, "will be a bit behind the scenes, and therefore it will have a real impact on the spiritual level of the whole world, for I'm sure you all remember those wise words I spoke during my original Coming Again: 'She whose beauty causes the stomachs of many men to churn with desire is no more than an erotic laxative, but she who rules the roost at home is a queen indeed.' They stared at each other in puzzlement, until at last they seemed to decide that if Span had said it, it must mean something. Actually, since I had made up that wise saying on the spot (and it's not too bad, at that, is it?) I had my doubts that the original Span had said anything even remotely resembling it; however, no one chose to question the accuracy of my historical scholarship.
"In other words," I said by way of explanation, "I would like you to serve me by getting married to some nice young men to whom I will soon introduce you." Ah, but they sat up eagerly at that! These were women who had long ago given up even the hope of ever catching a husband, unless it were some frightful old drunk dug up by their parents—some man who had lost hope, himself, of ever finding a wife—and here I was, appearing before them like the most divine luck possible, and offering to give them husbands! "Now, I'd better warn you, ladies, that these are healthy, lusty young men, and you might not find marriage to them to your liking. Think carefully before you make any hasty decisions." I had scarcely got the last word out of my mouth before they were applauding me wildly; I doubt whether they had even heard my final sentence. "Then I may assume no one wants to back out and go home? Perhaps your parents have found other men for you, hmm? Fine, fine! I knew I had chosen my Senior Associate Mocr Maidens well. Not
that a god is likely to make a mistake, eh? Heh, heh." They laughed appreciatively—my favorite kind of audience.
Perhaps a word of explanation is in order. Many people have something they would rather hide from the view of others. With some, it may be an uncle who behaves oddly. With others, it may be a rare genetic illness that causes them to howl at the full moon (particularly embarrassing for those who live on planets with many moons). In my case, it was my conscience. There, I've said it—written it, at any rate— and I'm relieved to have that over with. A confidence artist with a conscience? Unimaginable! Yet not only was I a confidence artist with a conscience, I was in fact the greatest con man of them all, and I was (and still am) afflicted with one of the most conscientious consciences in the Galaxy. Most of the time, I can control the blasted thing, but every now and again it rears its spiritual head and bites me, and this had been one of those times. My conscience had objected violently to my plans involving the guards and the Mocr Maidens, and it had suggested to me how I could instead do a good deed and still, hopefully, keep some control over the guards. The key to this was the fact that, as is often the case on primitive planets, the institution of marriage was held in extremely high regard on Goss Conf, even by lowlifes like the temple guards. Also, and this too is often the case on the more backwards worlds, even though women had virtually no status in public life, within the family they were extraordinarily powerful, and their husbands would never have dreamed of acting contrary to their commands. I imagine you nodding your head as understanding sinks in. I would have to perform what the guards would assume was a sham wedding ceremony, marrying them en masse to these women; however, the ceremony would not be a sham in my eyes or in the eyes of the women themselves or, more importantly, the eyes of their fathers, brothers, male cousins, etc.— most especially not after a whole night of wedded bliss.
The only catch I had anticipated was to disguise from these sheltered and inexperienced virgins the fact that they would have to subject themselves to the carnal lusts of a bunch of smelly, brutal guards; however, their salivating eagerness put my mind at ease on this point. Looking over that unlovely bunch, I suddenly realized that my sympathies were now wholly with the guards.
"I must explain to you ladies that you are still enacting a divine role in all this. You will, for at least the first night of your new marriages, be partial incarnations of Mocr Dyn, filled with her blessed and most sensual essence. This I promise you, and you all know who / am. Therefore, for certain mystical, heavenly reasons which, being mortals, you cannot hope to understand, so don't try, you must wear veils to cover your lovely faces until tomorrow morning." There was no argument from them; after all, they didn't want their prospective grooms having second thoughts before it was too late. By this time, Artsie had returned with the veils, and I handed them out to the Senior Associates. "I'm sure it's not necessary to remind you that this divine gift, and I don't mean the veils, should be repayed by an appropriate degree of loyalty and reverence toward Span." They assured me fervently that it was not at all necessary.
Artsie looked the women over nervously (they, strange to say, were looking him over in a very different way) and whispered to me, "What the Hell are you pulling here, Hughes?"
"Yes, indeed, High Woojum," I responded loudly, "I quite agree with you that it is time to begin. Please go to the quarters of the man who lights the torches in the guards' quarters and remind him to forget to do it tonight." The Senior Associate Mocr Maidens giggled one and all. Casting at them a glance that betrayed an emotion surprisingly like fear, Artsie slouched off on his latest errand.
It was time for the guards to start returning, so I checked the veils quickly to make sure all those fran-
tically eager faces were adequately hidden. Then I lined them up by the door through which the guards would enter and told them to match themselves up with the men, one by one, as they came through the door. "Don't worry about compatibility," I assured them. "With my divine insight, I have taken care of all that; just make sure you keep your place in line, or you will be sabotaging my godly work." That put an end to the surreptitious shuffling about and shoving that had been taking place, as they all tried to get to the front of the line: if the god Span had arranged everything so that the happiness of their marriages depended upon their getting the right groom in the right order, then they were not going to fool with the order in which I had lined them up. Of course, in reality, I had ordered them at random, and the guards would be entering the same way, but I had to do something sufficiently cynical to get back at my conscience for having pushed me into this situation. I left them jittering about and giggling and went off to intercept the guards in order to prepare them.
I encountered them marching happily down the hallway toward the room I had just left. Were they prettied up? I certainly couldn't tell the difference. Certainly, they were hopped up. "Halt!" I bellowed. They milled to a confused stop. Before they could get angry at me for stopping their march to delight, I said, "You do all remember the girls chosen this afternoon to be Mocr Maidens?" With hoots and whistles and stamps and shouts, they assured me they did. "Well, men, there is a whole room full of ('Senior Associate,' I muttered sotto voce) Mocr Maidens waiting eagerly just for you!" They laughed and shouted some more, punching each other on the shoulders and displaying their feelings in a variety of similar lower-class ways. Once again they were about to rush forward to fleshly apotheosis, and once again I restrained them. "A few words first, my lusty sons. Much as your god is pleased by your eagerness, and flattered by the evidence you display that His design in human plumbing was a good
one, nonetheless, He must caution you. Those are young, innocent, unworldly girls in there"—more loud noises from the guards—"and to them you are the incarnations of Span. You must conduct yourselves accordingly. Do not be surprised that your bed partners insist on wearing veils; this is part of their new temple function, and it is my command, so if any of you removes a veil, he will be instantly struck blind and," and here I paused for effect, switching to a most solemn voice, "his genitals will fall off." They stirred about uneasily. "However, I'm sure you're all too pious for there to be any such trouble. One more thing, men: to maintain the proper degree of celestial purity in this matter, I will be performing a group marriage ceremony, as you know. I want to be sure you will take it seriously enough, since your partners of tonight will take it very seriously indeed." They looked at each other in sudden alarm. "Of course," I added hastily, "since by definition I define what constitutes morality, I want you to know that I will personally void the ceremony for any one of you who comes to me during the next few days and earnestly requests me to do so." I felt confident in saying this, because I knew that after a night, these men would be hopelessly trapped by the attitudes instilled by their upbringing, by the authority the women would exercise over them (due to their upbringing), and because of the threat of the womens' male relatives visiting severe pain upon any guard who tried to skip out of his marriage.
Back in the audience chamber, with Artsie, who had returned by this time, looking on open mouthed, I quickly improvised a wedding ceremony in Pabx, finishing up with an impromptu chant in English:
"Hallelujah, hullabaloo. Kiss the girls, and marry them, too. If that's what it takes, Then that's what you do. Hallelujah, hullabaloo."
It seemed to satisfy them. "I now pronounce you incarnation and incarnation," I intoned. "Kiss and make up and get going." The various grooms and brides grabbed at each other—each, I think, a bit surprised by the eagerness displayed by the other—and then dashed out of the door on their way to the guards' quarters, soon, alas, to be the site of joyous young-man pranks no longer, but rather to be transformed into a place of responsibilities and disillusionments. But that wasn't my problem, I told myself cheerfully.
The High Woojum and I were the only ones left in the audience hall. "Now, then, Artsie," I said, speaking quietly in case any one were trying to overhear our conversation, "I suppose you're puzzled?"
"Damned right I am," he growled. "Puzzled about how you plan to save our necks when the guards realize what you've pulled. Those guards are like me: they're real men; they like 'em young. They won't stand for these Senior Associates, as you call 'em."
I shook my head sadly. "Say 'them,' Artsie."
"Them."
"Better. You're slipping into sloppy diction, Artsie, and that is inappropriate for my High Woojum. Remember that the torches will not be burning in the guards' quarters tonight, so their lighting will be as dim as their wit. Those tomcats won't notice anything odd at all—especially not as long as the veils stay in place. And when the night is over, it'll be too late, pragmatically speaking, for those real men of yours to do a single thing. They'll be trapped for ever and ever, until death do them part, amen. Span has spoken." I explained quickly what I meant.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Poor fish. Now, them Mocr Maidens, the real ones," he licked his lips, "one of those would almost be worth being trapped that way for." He gazed off into space and breathed hoarsely.
"Control yourself. You know, Artsie, in a way I can understand the guards' being the way they are. They're mere primitives. But you, a civilized Earthman, a subject of the most brilliant empire in human history, even
if not the most brilliant emperor by a long shot—I'm astonished that you still prefer juicy youth to hard experience." I sighed. "Ah, well. De gustibus, and so on, as they say on Classica. Before you retire for the night, or whatever it is you do after sunset, send the Span Echelon girls to my office. I need to get matters underway with them as soon as possible."
He looked at me suspiciously. "So that's it, hey, Hughes? I've been wondering all along how you'd get yours out of this. Now I see it. You've chosen that bunch of hard-bitten broads and made them your Span Echelon because you like experience, as you keep on saying, and now you're going to take them all into your office, the whole damned gang at once, and then—"
"Not all at once, Artsie. I may be a god now, but there's still only one of me." I had been about to correct his absurd misconception concerning the role of the Span Echelon, but I caught myself in time. I had, I remembered, told him just what I wanted these girls for, but he had either forgotten what I had said, or else he had chosen to believe that I had lied to him on that earlier occasion in order to conceal from him my true purposes—which he of course assumed were the same as his own purposes would have been had he been in my position. But perhaps his weird self-delusion was for the best, after all. So what if he did think I merely intended the Span Echelon as a tool for the fulfillment of my twisted desires? For right now, the fewer who knew my real intentions, the better.
"You're disgusting!" he exclaimed self-righteously.
"And you're no godling yourself. Get going, before I hit you with a lightning bolt or an earthquake, or something."
"Don't you wish you could," he sneered. Then he stalked away, every inch the morally outraged High Woojum.
Don't I, though, I mused.
Apparently, I had been right to worry about our being overheard. No sooner was Artsie Seedyn safely out
of the room than a mysterious figure, dressed in a floor-length robe with a hood, suddenly appeared from behind a wallhanging. It glided silently up to me and raised a hand as though in salutation and spoke, its words sending an electric thrill of fear through me.
"Mr. Hughes," the mysterious being said softly. "I must speak with you immediately."
I was, as I have implied, terrified.
"How dare you!" I blustered completely unconvinc-ingly. "You address me as Your Celestial Lordship!"
The robed figure stiffened in what I took to be out-rage. "Never!" he hissed. "That would be blasphemy! You are Thomas Langston Hughes, con man extraor-dinaire. May we talk in your office? Lead the way, and don't bother looking behind for me. You won't see me, but I'll be there. Somewhere."
My very blood was frozen with horror at his ap-pearance and manner and terror at his knowing my true identity. What did this mean? Who was he? What did he want? How could I most safely eliminate him?
I walked through the almost deserted hallways, now and then passing an acolyte or a novice. They all made me deep bows as I strode by trying to look godlike and calm. Now and then I turned around to look, but I never caught sight of my mysterious robed friend. However, as soon as I had entered my office and seated myself behind the desk, he glided in through the doorway.
"I know  who you  are!"  I  exclaimed  suddenly.
fin
"You're the fellow who met me when I first came to the temple, that first day."
"Correct," he murmured. "I was Fiedo's messenger, general handyman, and, occasionally, janitor—until you pushed the poor old fellow out and banished him to the provinces."
"But just who are you? And how do you know my name?"
"We of the Society have a great many sources of information, to answer your second question first. I know who you are: I know all about your disgusting career; I know what happened on Hester. How did you think the rumor got spread about that Span was arriving on the 8:05 from Hester? / started that rumor!" he said proudly, giving me no chance to admit that I had been puzzling about that very thing since my arrival.
"And as for who I am ..." He threw back his hood to reveal a pudgy, serious, yet almost cherubic face beneath a balding scalp. The most noticeable thing about his face, though, was that it was not green, but the same color as my own: he was an Earthman. "I am Fra Frank," he proclaimed, "of the Society of J.* Harvey Christ. But my individual identity doesn't matter one whit, for we of the Society," and here he turned his eyes heavenward and simpered, unintentionally doing a perfect imitation of my best-known Span pose, "are all engaged hi the same work of the Lord."
A religious fanatic! I relaxed and breathed more easily. This type of creature I could handle. Hadn't I been handling them successfully ever since my arrival on Goss Conf ?
"And just what is that work?" I asked him, feeling once again in control both of myself and of the situation.
He was distressed. "Why, I would have thought you'd know. My—our—work is to spread the word of J. Harvey Christ, Son of a Gun and Savior of Man." "In other words, you are here to evangelize?" "Why, of course. Aren't you? Aren't you, like me,
here to spread the Gospel and thus enrich the life of Man?"
"Only one man. My purposes here are much more worldly than yours, Frank."
"But, Mr. Hughes, I had assumed your intention in impersonating this pagan godling was to lead your followers to the worship of J.H.C.!"
"No such thing!" I snapped, surprised at my own anger at his terminology. "And, Frank, you'd better not use such expressions on this planet or some angry Spanner will insert a monkey wrench into your vital works. I'm here for personal gain and possibly, in my spare time, some carnal pleasure. And J. Harvey can go to Hell."
He reeled backwards in horror, shaking his head and covering his face with his hands. "Gracious Heavens! Such terrible words! Aren't you afraid for your immortal soul?"
"I lost it in a poker game fifteen years ago," I replied coldly. I struggled to master my anger and at last succeeded. "Your name is familiar, Frank. Didn't you write something?"
The expression of horror on his face gave way to one of pleasure. "Why, yes! You've read my A Comparative Study of the Religions of the Galaxy, As Seen in the Light of the Only True Faith, published by the Eureka Press on Bigtree? Twenty-six volumes?"
"Not all of it," I admitted.
The peculiar conceit of the successful author gleaming from his face, he babbled on eagerly, his earlier theological upset forgotten in his overweening and most un-Harveyish pride. "I'm here not only to evangelize," he confided, "even though that is why I told the Society I wanted them to send me and why they agreed to pay for this visit. Actually, I'm doing research for Volume Twenty-seven of my masterwork. As a matter of fact," he went on, warming to his story, "that's how I did the research for the other twenty-six volumes. The Society paid for all the trips, you see, all the travel."
"Ahh," I said, wagging my finger at him. "Deceit. Fraud."
"Oh, no!" he insisted, very upset. "Oh, nothing like that! Please don't think that of me! I've done the work I was sent to do. In fact, on my last twenty-six trips for the Society," he continued, proud again, "after finishing all my research and learning all about the native religions of the various worlds involved, I then did such a good job of evangelizing for J. Harvey Christ that on each of those twenty-six worlds the original pagan beliefs are dead and everyone on those planets is now a Harveyite!" He beamed.
I felt ill. "Hip, hip. And here?"
"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Here. Well, I've been thinking over that problem. I've finished my research, I believe. I had thought that your advent as Span would simplify the next part of my task, but as I gather now that it is in your personal interest—mortal interest, I should say, for it certainly isn't in the interest of your immortal soul, which I firmly believe you still have, no matter what you say to the contrary, for only God can make a tree—to keep this dreadful paganism alive—"
"Alive and healthy," I said firmly.
"Yes. Alive and healthy. So it seems to be necessary to get you out of the way first. I think I'll need allies for that. Possibly the old great families ..." His voice trailed off as he became lost in thought.
I felt a prickling down my back. It was a sensation I recognized: fear. "Who are the great families?" I asked him.
"Hmm? Oh, the great families. They're the thirty or so aristocratic clans who controlled Goss Conf until about a century ago, when the priesthood, especially the priesthood of Span, gained the upper hand. That was after generations of struggle for power. The old families are down, but they're not out; they're still wealthy and somewhat influential, they're still aristocratic in their manners and therefore looked up to by the common folk, and they still dream of taking over
again some day. They might be willing to help the Society against you. After all, you're revitalizing the religion of Span, and that isn't in their best interests at all, is it?"
He seemed willing enough to ramble on in this somewhat professorial manner, so I decided to try to pump some more information out of him. "Why have I never heard of these great families, Frank?"
Fra Frank laughed. I didn't like his laugh, which only added to my overall impression of the man— namely, that I didn't like him: "Because," he replied, "you have learned only the local priests' version of Goss Confian history, that's why. And that's scarcely surprising, is it? I've found, in my travels and researches, that priesthoods are always that way: they tell a version of history that makes a good impression on all their converts—and eventually they come to believe that version themselves. Priesthoods are amazing institutions." He shook his head, chuckling.
"Of course," I observed, "all this applies only to pagan priesthoods, I suppose?"
He was shocked at my implication. "That goes without saying." Suddenly he became businesslike again. "And speaking of pagan versus genuine religion, I have to get in touch with the great families immediately and arrange with them to eliminate you." He pulled his hood up over his head again. "Good night, Mr. Hughes," he said. And he glided mysteriously from the room.
I jumped up and shouted for a guard, but although they came in a matter of minutes, they could find no trace of my late visitor. I was very worried by this man, especially by his apparent ability to move about the temple undetected, and of course also by his threat against me. But then my mind was taken off these unpleasant thoughts by the appearance of Artsie Seedyn with the Span Echelon in tow.
"Here they are, Your Celestial Lordship," he announced as the girls arranged themselves in front of
my desk. After he had completed this task, Artsie remained in the room, relaxed and expectant.
"Yes, Artsie?" I said in as chilly a tone as I could manage. "Something else? If not, you may go."
"Oh, er, ah, well, I thought I'd just, ah ..." He stuttered and mumbled a bit more, then left the room abruptly, flushing with embarrassment at the sneers and sniggers his humiliation had elicited from the members of the Span Echelon. I guessed then that he had already tried to get these women to join in the games I had (perhaps unwisely) permitted him to play with the other Mocr Maidens and that their reply to his overtures had been other than flattering to his masculine conceit.
As soon as he was gone and I had their attention again, I said to the group of women, in my slimiest manner, "A good, good evening to you, my daughters —my lovely daughters. I have condescended to explain to you the part you are destined to play in the history of my glorious work on Goss Conf. We gods generally have much of importance to do of an evening, but I have decided to take time off from my heavenly duties and devote this evening entirely to you." I smirked.
Among this group of hard-bitten, experienced-looking women, I had already spotted one who appeared even tougher than the rest. Hard, capable, and quite good-looking into the bargain, this one was; in my view, in fact, extremely sexy. She spoke up now.
"Cut out all the saar manure, buster, and let's get down to business!"
A woman after my own heart! I fell in love with her on the spot—or as much in love as one who lacks a heart can fall. "You, my daughter," I told her, "are a woman after my own heart." She seemed shocked, presumably at hearing such human words coming from the mouth of a god. Odd, I reflected, that she could call her god "buster" and yet be distressed when the celestial buster responded to her in a manner that was
fairly obviously  carnal.   "What  is  your  name,  my child?" I asked her.
"Gisfc Comp," she stammered, her earlier pugnacious brusqueness seeming to have deserted her at least temporarily.
"All right, Gisfc, my girl. You shall be the chief and the spokesman for the Span Echelon."
"That's great," she sneered, quickly losing her momentary awe and returning to her previous insolence. "What's it mean?"
"It means, first of all, that you will have to polish up your manners quite a bit if you want to keep the job."
She stared at me sullenly for a moment, and then she muttered, "Yes, sir."
"That's a bit better. Also, I would prefer not to be called 'Buster.' My correct title, as you should have guessed from hearing the High Woojum use it, is 'Your Celestial Lordship,' and you'd better get used to saying that. Go on," I urged her, "try it."
She grumbled something inaudible the first time, but after a few tries she managed to get it out: "Your Celestial Lordship." Resentment was larded thickly on each syllable.
"Try it again," I ordered her. "Louder. Clearer."
"Your Celestial Lordship!"
"Not bad. Now, all of you. Together. Loud!"
"YOUR CELESTIAL LORDSHIP!" they chorused.
"Very good! I can see we're going to have a fine working relationship." I beamed at them.
Having been officially designated the spokesman for the group, however, Gisfc Comp did not intend to stop speaking until she had some things settled to her satisfaction. Doggedly, she said, "But you still haven't told us, Your Celestial Lordship, just what our work is going to be."
"Ah, yes. Basically, I'll want all of you to run the world for me while I engage in abstract heavenly thought." They were staring open mouthed at me. "Perhaps I should be more specific: I will assign one
or two of you to each major temple on the planet—I mean, in the world—and you will act as my personal representatives hi those temples, my oh-so-corporeal lieutenants. I control this, the central temple, fairly well with the help of the guards, whose loyalty should be quite well cemented after tonight. The other temples, however, are definitely too free of my direct control, do not have detachments of guards whom I can bribe, and I sense that they are all potential centers of rebellion against my rule. You will control those temples for me."
"What's in it for us?" Gisfc demanded. "Oh, . . . how about money? Power. Wealth—lots of it." I couldn't tell if that was having the right effect on them. Perhaps they were just too stunned to assimilate what I was telling them, but I suddenly felt as if I were back talking to the guards again, promising them these very things and trying to hit on the one offer that would bring them to their feet with cries of love for their god. Would the parallel continue; would I have to make the same promise this time as I had ended up making then? Promise to round up some Mocr Men for the Mocr Maidens? Or would I call them, perhaps, Span's Spaniels? Was this the beginning of a nightmarish, endless cycle of procurement? No, no, Hughes, I told myself sternly. Get hold of yourself!
Then it occurred to me that none of the girls had asked why a god had to engage in such exceedingly mortal political maneuvers to stay in power. Why did I need the help of the guards? Why.did I need the Span Echelon? Surely with a mere shrug of my shoulders I could cause all my enemies to vanish from the face of the globe! (A wonderful power for a confidence artist to have, now that I think about it.) Obviously, at least on some mental level, these women at least suspected that I was no god; obviously, too, they were willing to go along with me, whether I was a god or not, for the sake of their own benefit. In all likelihood, they would not expect miracles of me, the
way the guards had; no, they were quite a cut above the guards intellectually, and I realized that I could probably bargain with them on a comfortably material level. I had chosen the Span Echelon well, after all, and I could depend on them.
"What about those other Mocr Maidens?" one of the girls asked suspiciously. "The hags and the little girls?"
I winced. "I can see there'll have to be an intensive training program before I can safely send you out amongst the yokels." I broke off then, and I stared back at her with a suspicious look of my own. "How'd you know about the hags—I mean, the Senior Associate Mocr Maidens?"
"That Woojum guy told us, when he was trying to say anything that would get him into our pants."
This elicited from the group a succession of snorts, giggles, and ribald remarks detailing Artsie's presumed shortcomings that might have been beneficial to his bloated ego had he heard them.
"Don't laugh at the mentally handicapped," I said sternly. "Hmm. I suppose I'll have to just let the matter pass." 777 have to keep this little peccadillo of the High Woojum's in mind, I added to myself. "Don't worry about the Senior Associates. Their work and yours will be quite independent, and they should already be hard at their new careers. Now, as to the Primary Maidens, they will be figureheads, here and at the other temples. I think you'll find them very useful—and completely under your control."
"I dunno," Gisfc Comp said. "I think this Mocr Dyn woman you're going to choose will cause some problems."
"Not at all," I said firmly. "I'll take care of her. Oh, and one other thing. In addition to being figureheads, or perhaps I should say as part of it, the Mocr Maidens, as incarnations of the blessed Mocr Dyn, will be spending most of their time performing a variety of ancient temple rituals I intend to reintroduce
from days of yore, days of gore. Temple virgins, if you will."
To my surprise, they bristled at this. "So we're not good enough?" one of them said hotly. "We're too old, hey? Not virginal enough, I suppose. You have to have the little girls for the yokels to drool over during the services in the temple!" They all glared at me.
"No, no, not at all," I said hurriedly. "I just didn't want to burden you with yet another duty. Tell you what, though: if you happen to see any yokels that appeal to you, you have my permission to extract them from the drooling crowd and do whatever you want with them. How's that?" So it had come to Span's Spaniels after all!
They smiled and nodded their agreement. I felt that warm glow that comes from knowing you've chosen your shady accomplices well and the future is looking seedily rosy. "All of you may leave, except for Gisfc Comp," I told them. "Take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow, we'll get started."
They filed out, chatting animatedly with each other. Soon, Gisfc Comp was the only one left; she stared at me belligerently.
"Well?" she said.
"I just thought we ought to get better acquainted," I said mildly. "Considering that you are going to be my right-hand maiden. My personal quarters are just down the hallway from here, and the bed is quite roomy and the sheets are changed daily."
She shrugged, then sighed and said in a tone that wounded my vanity, "I never have slept with a god, anyhow."
10
Gisfc and I developed a very pleasant working relationship and became, in a short time, quite fond of each other. She was very valuable to me. She seemed to have a natural flair for politics and administrative work, a talent which she had never before had the chance to exercise. Now she was fulfilling her new role excellently; if she erred at all in the way she ran the Span Echelon, it was occasionally in the direction of hardheadedness. Since all the members of the group were strong willed and independently minded, this meant that I was sometimes called upon to smooth over the rifts that would develop due to Gisfc's habit of ignoring the feelings and opinions of her subordinates. But she was new to the job, of course, and with my help she was learning the essential skill of the manager—to pretend that your subordinates' opinions count even while you are ignoring them.
And she warmed my bed very well. She was a most experienced woman, much more to my taste than were the young fluffheads, the Primary Mocr Maidens, Artsie Seedyn preferred. I suppose that Gisfc and I would have quickly become bored with each other had we both come from the same planet, since we
90
were both more than a bit sexually jaded; however, the slight physical differences between our species, while too slight to be physically or emotionally repellent, were great enough to be a continuing source of curiosity, interest, and excitement. / knew the reason for these differences—the fact that I was an alien. Sometimes, though, I wondered to what she ascribed them; perhaps to my godhood, assuming she believed me to be a god. I thought it more likely that she had indeed seen through my act from the start—"buster," after all!—and therefore knew that my physical oddities were due to my alienness. If so, she kept her knowledge to herself: she liked her position and would not have wanted to risk losing it. I worried about the possibility that she was, instead, saving the fact of my alienness for use against me when the time came. Of course, I told myself, that means she is a consummate actress and a very dangerous woman. Then I told myself to stop seeing plotters behind every arras and to try to start trusting at least a few of the people around me. Still, deep within me the fading voice of paranoia cried out hopelessly, "But none of them are people! They're greenies!"
With Gisfc in command of the Span Echelon of the Mocr Maidens, and with her girls increasing in numbers and ability every day and being posted to all the major temples on the planet, I could feel my control over the priesthood (and thereby my control over the planet) increasing steadily. It was a very pleasant feeling.
Inevitably, there were a few pockets of resistance among the priests. In the major temples, most of the priests were cynical, irreligious, and they realized I probably wasn't Span. So, having no real theological objections to what I was doing, they were, for the most part, quite willing to go along with me and to accept my rule via the Span Echelon; why, after all, should such priests object as long as they kept their perquisites? Some of the lesser priests, however, and all of the yokel priests in the numerous villages scattered
across the face of Goss Conf, knew something must be wrong with the new regime, simply because my new methods and orders contradicted what they had learned from their musty old books. Women in control of the temples? Never! Span had made his opinion of women quite clear, and that opinion was far from flattering. My spies informed me that these priestly gentlemen were doing a great deal of muttering together and were indulging themselves hi much casting of furtive glances over their shoulders. The conclusion was inescapable that they were banding together to do me in.
The solution, I hoped, would be to bypass these priests and install myself solidly in the hearts and minds of the people, and that, I was pretty sure, could be done by naming the new Mocr Dyn and reintro-ducing ancient temple rituals performed by temple virgins without delay. Those were actions against which only a priest who was insane would dare speak out. Mocr Dyn and the temple virgins—the Mocr Maidens —would be my tickets to cementing my control over the temples and the entire planet, especially with the Span Echelon in place to do much of the actual dirty work for me. The only thing holding me back, then, was the necessity of choosing Mocr Dyn first, for until she was chosen I couldn't have supposed virgins in the temples claiming to be her incarnate representatives. I was most eager to get the Mocr Dyn competition over with.
The evening before the day of the competition, a messenger came to the temple asking for me. He was shown to my chambers, where I was engaged with Gisfc Comp in some very serious business matters. The guard told him to enter without knocking.
This messenger was a young man of singularly repellent aspect. He stood gawking in awe at me—awe either at being in the presence of a god or else at the humanness of the activity in which the god was engaged.
I disengaged myself hurriedly from the urgent em-
brace of my business associate and rearranged my heavenly clothing. "Yes, my son?" 1 panted, trying to assume a benevolent expression to hide the murder in my heart. Why didn't they teach better manners on this blasted planet? He didn't say anything, so I urged him on in a kindly manner: "Speak up, damn you!"
Damned by the very god Himself! That got him going. "Messenger, Yer Celest'l Lordsh," he muttered, thrusting forward a grimy hand which held an equally grimy, much folded piece of paper.
I took it gingerly and unfolded it. "How long have you been holding this?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "Ten minutes. Fifteen, maybe."
I shook my head in wonder. "My son, you must have the most overactive sweat glands this side of the evil planet Oda." The hastily scribbled words on the paper, although blurred by the boy's copious perspiration, were still legible. "T.L.H.," it read. "Come to the Magenta Placenta- immediately. Very urgent. A.S." It was written in English.
I immediately dismissed the messenger, told Gisfc Comp to hold down the fort for me, and rushed from the room, headed for the side exit from the temple where I kept the robes I always used for my incognito strolls. I had been kept from making these exploratory trips in recent days by the crush of work having to do with choosing the Span Echelon Mocr Maidens and inserting them into the existing hierarchical command structure; and I had been busy preparing for the Mocr Dyn selection itself. Also, there had been the presence —and active libido—of Gisfc Comp to distract me for the past few days. Added to all this was my new sense of security and power: what need had I for fact-finding trips into the city, when my handpicked girls were running all the important temples and the guard at the main temple was now fanatically loyal to me? But now I realized that my confidence had been premature. For Artsie to send such a message from such a place (for of course the message must have come
from the High Woojum), something must be very wrong indeed.
Dressed again in my nondescript cloak with its concealing hood, I hurried through the dark streets. The weather had turned bitterly cold, and an awful, moaning wind cut through my clothing and chased itself around my goose bumps. It was just beginning to snow, the dry, powdery snow the Traj Coordian winter. The flakes whirled around the corners of buildings and whipped into my face. The streets were silent except for the sound of the wind, and almost deserted An occasional saar-drawn cart creaked by, the driver muffled and shivering. Once, a pair of peasants, thek heads bowed against the wind, hurried by me. I over-heanf one of them calling upon Span to curse this awful weather and bring about a meteorological change. Had it been possible, I would have been happy to oblige him.
At last I reached the Magenta Placenta. I stumbled in, half-frozen, and found a table near the fire. The place was almost empty; otherwise, it would have been impossible to find such a warm seat on such a cold night. I looked around with some interest. The place looked much the same as it had on my only other visit, weeks before. That was a bit surprising, since the establishment had presumably passed into other hands when Artsie joined my staff. I assumed that Artsie had asked me to meet him here rather than in some other tavern for nostalgia's sake; this revealed to me a soft spot in his makeup that I would never have suspected was there.
I wanted to order a hot ale to help myself warm up, and I waited impatiently for someone to show up to take my order. But when the waiter finally put in his appearance, my desire for the hot drink disappeared, washed away by a flood of astonishment: the waiter was Artsie himself! So he had not, after all, sold his bar when he became High Woojum. I could not imagine why he had held on to the place.
He stood in front of me and said politely, "Good
evening, sir. Your order?" I suppose he would have recognized me had he looked carefully enough, but instead he was staring through me with that blank, inattentive, impersonal stare adopted by waiters and waitresses throughout the galaxy.
"Good evening to you, my good man," I replied quietly in English.
He recoiled in horror, then suddenly recognized me. He collapsed into the chair opposite me, breathing heavily from his fright. "You scared the beharvey out of me," he grumbled. "I thought you were a policeman from . .. from never-mind-where."
"You wanted to see me," I prodded him. "Urgently."
"Yeah." He nodded in the direction of the back room next to the bar, the same room where he had once announced his intention of cutting my throat.
"In there?" I asked. "That room has negative associations for me."
He grinned nastily. "This time, if you don't go in, you'll be cutting your own throat! There's someone hi there you need to meet. I should say, someone you need, period."
" 'Need,' eh? Before I go, Artsie, tell me this: why have you kept this tavern?"
He lowered his eyes to the table, refusing to meet my gaze. "Oh," he said in a tone of immense innocence, "partly for fun and partly because it's a good source of information. And speaking of getting information," he added, clumsily changing the subject, "the guy who's waiting in there to talk to you," again a nod in the direction of the door, "is an important man on this planet: he's Sell Supp, and he's a Verple!"
"Really? I once knew someone who was an albino."
"Oh, come off it, Hughes," he said impatiently. "The Verples are one of the most powerful and important of all the old families—you know, the great families."
"In that case, I'll go in there and talk to him. But
speaking of talking to important people," I said firmly, proving that I could change the subject just as clumsily as he could, "are you sure you're not keeping this place just so that you'll have a good place to hatch plots with Verples and similar strange animals? Anti-Span plots, I mean."
His expression turned into a parody of Wounded Innocence. "How can you even suspect me of such a thing, Tommy? I'm your loyal right hand, your faithful High Woojum. I would never betray Your Celestial Lordship." He was anxiety and earnestness personified.
There is something rotten in the state of Denmark, as they would probably say on Bardsley, I told myself. I nodded to Artsie, stood up, and walked past the bar and through the fateful doorway.
The storeroom was as pitch black as I remembered it as having been the last time, but this time I knew where the light switch was. I closed the door firmly behind me and snapped the light on. The room had been changed somewhat since my previous visit: the shelves covered with the tavern's supplies of food and drink were gone, increasing the available floor space by quite a bit, and a small table with a few chairs around it had been placed in the center of the room. A meeting room, I thought. What has Artsie been up to?
A man sat in one of the chairs, slumped forward onto the table. A mug of the Magenta Placenta's best was on the table*" in front of him; it had been carelessly pushed away, presumably when he had put his head down, so that some of the ale had been spilled. Clearly, this man had overindulged.
I cleared my throat very loudly, and the drunk raised his head and looked vaguely at me in a blurred yet startled way.
"Sell Supp," he mumbled. "At your Verple." He tried again. "Serple." And again. "Service."
"How do you do, sir?" I said briskly, taking a chair
opposite him. "You're Sell Supp, you're a Verple, and you're at my service."
"Thass right," he agreed, looking relieved and impressed at my linguistic ability as well as grateful for my having taken this verbally difficult statement off his hands and tongue. He tried, with some small measure of success, to pull himself together. "Not just a Verple," he asserted somewhat pugnaciously, "but the Verple. Or one of the Verples, anyway."
"Really?" I said, studying him. He was average height for a Goss Confian, slender, with short-cropped hair, not young but not yet old, and fairly healthy (his cheeks had a high color, quite green), surprisingly healthy if he spent much of his time being this drunk, moderately handsome, and very richly robed. He made me think of a bust I had once seen in a museum on Earth, a bust of an ancient Roman soldier-aristocrat—a Claudius or Marius Something-or-other. This, I thought, was how that ancient Roman might have looked after an evening of dissipating pleasure in a back room at the baths. I looked closer and determined that the green of Sell Supp's cheeks was due to makeup: I had, you might say, divined the secret of his health.
"Really?" I repeated. "I am a god. In fact, I am the god!" I threw back my hood and thundered at him, "I am Span! Quail and tremble before me!" I felt I was getting better at that sort of thing all the time; practice makes perfect, as I'm sure they say somewhere or other.
For just a moment, his upper-class education and cynicism warred within him with the planet's rampant superstition and piety. Then his upper-class values won and he smiled at me scornfully and said, "Thomas Langston Hughes."
I deflated instantly. I fought back the inevitable surge of panic and managed to say, "Pleased to make your acquaintance, old man. You wanted to talk to me?"
"Right," he said. "Sure did." The light of sobriety,
which had flickered on his face for but the briefest of moments, faded once again, and his features, which had been momentarily sharpened by intelligence, blurred. His eyelids dropped halfway, his mouth fell open, and his head began to droop toward that table top whereupon it had rested ere I had entered.
"What about?" I said sharply, rapping the table.
"Unh?" The movement of his head slowed, then began again.
"What did you want to— Wait a moment." I fumbled in my robe for a while and at last found a box of sobpills. "Eat this." I extracted one of the capsules and forced it between his teeth. Sobpills are coated so that you can swallow them without tasting the drug itself, which, I have been assured, tastes indescribably foul. But this Sell Supp's behavior had so frightened and angered me that I wanted to get back at him in this small way. He lay half on the table, senseless, while his saliva dissolved the sobpilFs coating. Then he reached the chemicals inside, and he sat up suddenly, gurgling, his eyes like saucers and his skin a steadily darkening green.
"Swallow!" I barked at him, and he swallowed. In no more than a couple of minutes, the drug had done its work: racing through his bloodstream ("ichor-stream"?) and binding to the alcohol molecules and their byproducts and rendering them inert. He straightened further, a measure of intelligence returning to his face.
"Thought you could use my help," he drawled, quite the condescending nobleman again. "Chap came to see me yesterday. Called himself Fra Frank, or something of that sort. Told me a great deal about you. D'you know him?"
Slowly, I sat down across from him. "I do indeed. Why did he want to tell you about me? Rather, what did he want from you?"
"He wanted my help, old man. In fact, he wants the help of all the old families." He stopped talking, forcing me to ask the important question.
"Help doing what?"
"Getting rid of you." He smiled unpleasantly. "We could, of course, do it easily." He no longer looked handsome or aristocractic. "Thought you'd like to know."
"I'm sure you're telling me all this out of the goodness of your heart," I said bitterly. "Not to mention your deep love for friendless and beleaguered aliens."
"Absolutely. And I could use some money, which I understand you to have in abundance. Pater's been cutting my allowance again, the old devil."
I waved my hand. "Never mind that. You'll be taken care of. What do you think will happen between this Fra Frank and the old families?"
"My pater certainly liked what the fellow had to say. Mater said, 'Verrry interesting!' But she always says that. She's not too intelligent, you see. You surely must realize that the old families would all be happy to see the last of you." He seemed already to have lost interest in the subject. He picked up bis toppled ale mug to see if there were a few drops left in it.
"Why?" I said sharply.
"Ah, you see, you've reinvigorated the power of the temples. Before your arrival, don't you know, we were all quite certain that the decline of religion would continue and that someday we'd be able to reestablish ourselves as the rulers of the world. That's our rightful position, of course. Now, you've given us all quite a setback." He shook his head and sighed melodramatically. "I do believe the old families will try to get rid of you. Had Fra Frank not shown up, they might have chosen never to confront you—some of them, after all, are still superstitious enough to believe in Span. But now, you see, Fra Frank has convinced them that you're only mortal—no, less than mortal: an alien! So they're no longer afraid of your heavenly powers."
"I do, however, have some secular power," I reminded him.           :
He nodded. "Quite a bit, I understand. And that's precisely why they will not attack openly. It will be by
stealth and indirection, I should imagine. I'm fairly sure of that, really; unfortunately, I'm afraid I cannot tell you when their attack will come or what form it's likely to take. But forewarned is forearmed, as Pater always says."
"How clever of your pater."
"Yes, he is, rather. I must say, I have divided loyalties in this matter. If you were ousted—killed, let's say —and the great clans took over again, I could be a Verple in the traditional style once more. No longer dependent upon a meager allowance from an old—" He stopped himself with a great effort. "On the other hand," he continued, "if you could somehow cement my loyalty to you . . . Just how much is my forewarning worth to you, old man? Or should I say, old deity?"
"It's worth a steady job." I stood up abruptly, ignoring his cries of disappointment and upset. I went to the door leading into the tavern, while Sell Supp moaned, "Steady job? But I'm a Verple! Comptr said I'd get money!" I opened the door just wide enough to be able to see Artsie. He was placing drinks on a table not far away. I managed to catch his eye, and I beckoned to him.
"I have a new duty for you, High Woojum," I told him as soon as he was in the room and the door was shut. "Sellout, here, will be your assistant, if he wants the job, which I think he does."
"If that's the only way I can get any money out of you, you filthy alien," said the Verple sulkily, "then I suppose I do."
"It is the only way," I assured him. I turned back to Artsie, who was watching me suspiciously. "Don't worry," I told him, "you'll still be able to play your little games with the Mocr Maidens. This is simply an extra duty—to help make sure that Span and the office of his High Woojum continue to exist. This is a matter of information gathering, you see, old man." I cursed inwardly at my use of that phrase: I was allowing my-
self to be affected by the absurd mannerisms of an effete aristocrat.
"I say!" the effete aristocrat suddenly broke in, "You chaps are trifling with the honor of those girls, aren't you? You know, the old families have all been suspicious about this Mocr Maidens group all along, thinking that their daughters' virtue would be in danger if they joined. Now I see that they've been right to worry. Hughes, there's another reason why they'd all be pleased to see you murdered."
"Ah, Virtue," I philosophized, "how many murders have been committed in thy name! How we do court the awful noose, when first we practice to seduce! Be that as it may, I must admit I've wondered about the reactions of the girls' families once they discover what's going on.
"But that's precisely where you come in, Sell Supp: you're my man hi the old families. Find out what they're planning, when they'll make their move, how much support the plotters have among the great clans, and so on, and relay all that information to the High Woojum, here. In fact, you might as well use this tavern: it's less likely to make your peers among the peers suspicious than having you come to the temple probably would."
"What's hi it for me?"
"First of all, I'll allow you to continue to live, which I'm sure you'll agree is no small consideration. Secondly, you'll be getting a fat and regular paycheck, to help you keep up appearances among your aristocratic friends and to afford the High Woojum's booze. And thirdly ..." I gazed thoughtfully at Artsie.
"And thirdly?" Sell Supp prompted me.
"And thirdly, just possibly your new supervisor might let you do some dallying of your own among the Mocr Maidens, so that you'll know what you're fighting for. But that's up to him."
"Oh, J. Harvey!" Artsie exclaimed. "As it is, not that many of them are willing-----Oh, all right."
"Good, good!" I beamed. "We have a deal. High
Woojum, I'll expect a report from you on this in a day or so." I walked to the door, Artsie accompanying me. I was pondering Sell Supp's earlier use of the name "Comptr," when the Verple himself clarified the matter for me.
"I say, Comptr Contrl," he called after us, "bring me another ale to celebrate with, would you? There's a good fellow. You can charge it against my first paycheck."
" 'Comptr Contrl'?" I murmured to Artsie.
He wouldn't meet my eyes. "It's the name I use in the tavern. I needed something that sounded Goss Confian."
"I see. So all these aristocrats who know I'm an alien don't know you're an alien. Verrry interesting, as Sell Supp's mater always says." I stared at him; he still refused to meet my eyes. This whole situation filled me with unease. But after a few seconds of turning the matter over in my mind, I decided that I had more immediate problems to worry about at that moment, so I shrugged it off as best I could and walked back to the temple through the still, white streets and the steadily falling snow.
11
The following day, we held the Mocr Dyn finals. It looked almost as though the entire population (or at least the male part) of the city and the surrounding countryside were trying to cram themselves into the courtyard between the front entrance to the temple and the new wall the guards had put up around the building. A sense of breathless, sensual excitement pervaded the atmosphere. Just the sort of mood I wanted them in: I was, after all, trying to put sex by proxy back into their religion. No, more than by proxy; the sexual excitement experienced by the practitioners of most primitive religions is very real and personal. Now they were feeling only a remote and vicarious thrill— through me, they would be participating in the choice of the incarnation of the incomparable Mocr Dyn and in my forthcoming marriage to her—but soon the Primary Mocr Maidens would be performing all sorts of mysterious rituals in the local temples, and the crowd's present sexual arousal would then, I was sure, rise to fever pitch.
It was a beautiful day; cool air and a warm sun in a cloudless sky. The crowd in the courtyard were stirring and muttering, scarcely able to contain their eagerness, as I watched them surreptitiously from a second-floor
mi
window of the temple. I was feeling rather eager myself. Beyond the wall, the latecomers who had been so fortunate (in my opinion) as not to be able to find a place in the crash within the gates stood, sat, or walked about disconsolately, waiting for word of what was going on inside to filter out to them.
Gisfc Comp was watching the crowd with me. "Damn it all to Hell," she sighed piteously. "I wish they were all gathered for me. I wish I was going to be Mocr Dyn."
I patted her shoulder. "Come, come, Gisfc. Your job is much more important than hers, whoever she turns out to be. Besides, you know quite well that the girl we choose for Mocr Dyn must not only be fantastically beautiful—while you, my dear, are rather what I would call exceedingly handsome—but must also look . . . well, pure, inexperienced, and virginal. I'm afraid your face betrays too many of your abilities."
"Hmph," she said, quite unmollified, moving away from my comforting (or at least stroking) hand.
We adjourned to the great audience chamber, where yet another throng of panting, glazed-eyed Goss Confians covered every available square inch of floor space. Their fetid breath filled the air, making me reel. On the long stage that had been erected at the front of the hall, just below the dais with the throne, Artsie Seedyn, gloriously attired in the magnificent robes of the High Woojum^ paced back and forth. When I appeared, with the ever-decorous Gisfc Comp following silently and demurely three paces behind me, the High Woojum strode up to me energetically and growled in low tones, "Where the Hell were you? These natives are getting mighty goddamned restless!"
"Counting the house, my boy. Counting the house. Now, let the ceremony begin!"
He paused but a moment to regain his composure, then turned to the crowd and bellowed out a short speech in Pabx, rich in hyperbole and theological references. Where he got all the necessary information, I couldn't guess; I certainly hadn't given it to him, and I
could not imagine Artsie doing the research himself. At any rate, it left the audience quite cold. The voice from the back of the room, which can be found on every planet, shouted "Get on with it!" and the crowd yelled its approval of this sentiment. From the way Artsie's lips moved, I thought he was muttering a common obscenity in English; he cut his speech short and gestured to one of his flunkies to start the parade of contestants. Was the flunky none other than Sell Supp the Verple? I thought so, but the man was wearing a costume that partially obscured his face, and I could not be sure.
There were thirty-two contestants, one from each of the thirty-two seebs, or administrative entities, into which Goss Conf was formally divided. They were introduced one by one by a male Goss Confian of great conventional physical beauty (I mean of course by Goss Confian standards), who flashed his many shiny teeth at us, rolled his large eyes at each of the contestants (presumably in tribute to the beauty of the girls), and announced the name and home seeb of each contestant in loud and pear-shaped tones. I made a mental note to ask Artsie where he had dug this obnoxious fellow up and to instruct him to bury the chap there again at the earliest opportunity.
Each girl was scantily clad and wore a sash over her chest with the name of the seeb she represented lettered thereon. A band played cacophonously all the while. Where, I wondered, had Artsie learned such bad taste? But the crowd loved it; they were, as the old saying goes, going wild.
Soon all thirty-two of them were lined up on the stage, a constellation of pious pulchritude, smiling nervously at me and at the audience. I was dazzled. I became aware that I was intensely sexually aroused: after all, the beauty I chose to be Mocr Dyn would become my mortal wife, the fleshly vessel of Mocr Dyn, in the flesh and in the bed. I looked them over quietly, hungrily. The crowd did the hungrily part, too, but not at all quietly.
Gisfc Comp leaned toward me. "Bland," she whispered. "Bland."
"Absolutely," I murmured diplomatically. "But I must choose one of them. Which do you recommend?"
"Pick a number from one to thirty-two," she snapped. "They're all the same, anyway. Upper-class bitches," she hissed.
Her jealousy was a complication I had not anticipated. I tried to ignore it for the present. I suppressed my physical desires as best I could in order to examine the thirty-two girls analytically.
Three of them, I perceived, instead of smiling hesitantly at the audience, were staring rapturously at me. A good sign, I thought. And it narrows the field considerably. These three would be the real finalists. The one on the left looked a little too shrewd and hardened to be Mocr Dyn; her rapture was surely an act. She was out. But remember, I told myself, to see if she'd like to join the Span Echelon. The one on the right looked pure and virginal enough, but a bit too naive and gullible. Out. But the girl in the middle—the one who represented the seeb of Glommie—aah! She was virtually my physical ideal, except for being green. And she looked quite adequately unspoiled. I had found my goddess.
I stepped to the front of the stage. The crowd held its breath: the god was about to choose!
I drew a deep breath. "Miss Glommie!" I bellowed. "Step forward! You shall become Mocr Dyn!"
The crowd went wild. Miss Glommie covered her face with her hands and wept and protested that she couldn't believe it. The other girls surrounded her and flung their arms about her neck and squealed like stepped-on puppies. The fellow with the many teeth burst into song and the band, which had fallen silent when I spoke, burst once again into noise.
I strode angrily over to the singer, who was screaming something about presenting Mocr Dyn to the multitude—"she's the goddess everyone adores"—and I ordered him off the stage. He snapped his mouth shut,
stared at me for a moment in terror and astonishment, then scurried away. I leaned over the edge of the stage and shrieked at the band to shut up. At last they heard me, and they banged and tootled to a ragged, confused halt. At last I had silence.
I beckoned to Miss Glommie, who came hesitantly and fearfully over to me and stood before me in awestruck reverence.
"Do not fear me, my daughter and spouse," I said gently, earning (as I assumed) her undying gratitude and devotion. All at once. I realized that I'd better make up some sort of ceremony or ritual on the spot to celebrate and dramatize the passage of the spirit of Mocr Dyn into this frail mortal vessel before me.
To the crowd, I said, "Behold, thus saith unto you your Celestial Lordship: and it has come to pass in Traj Coord in the temple of Span that the spirit and being of the magnificent Mocr Dyn is entering into the body of this lovely, lithe, luscious, lively, lissome maiden, Miss Glommie." I paused, wondering what to do and say next. The crowd were holding their breaths and Miss Glommie was staring at me open mouthed, utterly dazzled by the godhead.
I placed my hands on her very well-formed head and announced, "Now will I chant the mighty words of 'the gods, never before spoken in human hearing, that will complete this wondrous transformation!" For want of any other readily available gibberish, I began to sing in English the second stanza of the Imperial anthem, The Foundation:
"Then to his men great Frederick said, 'Kill them greenies, and kill 'em dead! 'We'll raise the flag of good old Earth; 'Our mighty empire will have its birth!' "
And so on through the remaining twenty lines or so of that dreadful doggerel. I could see that the High Woojum was smirking, bless his patriotic heart; the rest of the people in the hall, however, seemed to be
mightily impressed. When I finished singing and embraced my new bride passionately, there was a loud whoosh as the entire audience sighed simultaneously. I felt the day had been a success.
After enduring the High Woojum's closing speech, the crowd filed out, mentally and physically exhausted but emitting a spiritual glow.
The only doubt that still troubled me concerned the divine Miss Glommie: did she feel that the spirit of the incomparable Mocr Dyn had entered her—did she feel divine in the theological sense? When the last member of the audience had left through the temple's great front doors, the guards closed up that entrance and departed through the smaller side doors that led into the recesses of the temple. Many of the guards cast long, lingering looks of lust behind them at the contestants as they exited. Greedy nitwits, I thought contemptuously. I called Artsie over.
"Artsie, I want you to speak to"—I squinted at the girls' sashes—"Miss Funfun about joining the Primary Mocr Maidens, and tell Gisfc Comp to interview Miss Wetnork, there, to see if she'll fit into the Span Echelon. As for the rest of them, bestow lavish gifts upon them and all that and then tell them to go home. Just gifts, Artsie, no personal attentions."
His face fell, but then he brightened. "Do you want me to, er, take care of your Mocr Dyn for you? I know you're so busy ..."
"Don't be an idiot, Artsie. I'll take care of her, as you so delicately and subtly put it. By the way, I'd like to see that report about Sell Supp's investigations tomorrow morning. You may depart. Take Gisfc Comp with you."
But I needn't have worried about Gisfc interfering in my business: she left readily enough with Artsie and the thirty-one losers, and as she passed by, she stared right through both me and the blessed, heavenly Mocr Dyn.
I led Miss-Glommie-that-was behind the hangings before which stood the great throne of Span, through
the doorway thus revealed, and down the passageway that led to my private quarters, where I discovered many things about this new goddess I had created. For one thing, her body matched her lovely face both in beauty and in greenness. For another thing, she was very religious, quite inexperienced and pure, and awfully stupid. A nice enough child, but with all the intellectual abilities of a gnat.
While her stupidity and naivete were tiresome, they were just the qualities the incarnation of Mocr Dyn needed; and her deep, fervent religious feelings kept her from seeing through me and assured that she really did feel herself a goddess. She really thought I was Span; and she really believed that the celestial spirit of Mocr Dyn now resided in her, so that her sexual passion was quite genuine and was inspired by her religious passion—she was a goddess having miraculously carnal pleasure with her god-husband. 7 enjoyed it, too. As long as she doesn't talk too much, I thought, this could be fun.
But afterwards she did talk. On and on. It wasn't enough that she must praise me so extravagantly for my mortal skills (I'd heard it all before), but she went on to impose her life story on me. I appeared to have become some sort of father- or older-brother- or uncle-figure to her. (Which wounded my vanity, since / consider myself quite a young man.) However, then she mentioned something that made me open my eyes and pay attention.
"We're Whathos, you see," she said in explanation of some minor point in the trivial childhood tale she was recounting, "so that's why Mama was so furious at the man's impertinence. Just because we're part of the country branch of the family, you know, instead of the city Whathos is no reason—"
"Just a moment," I interrupted her, leaning up on one elbow. "You're a Whatho?"
"Why yes," she said, surprised. "Didn't you know that? Before I was transformed into Mocr Dyn, my
name was Zeebie Whatho. I thought the god knew everything."
"Umph." I fell back again. "Just testing you, my dear. You'll have to get used to that. I'll probably do it quite often—pretend not to know something and ask you about it."
"How exciting," she said uncertainly. Then she began to rattle on once again. I did my best to ignore her. She had'given me much that was unpleasant to think about. The Whathos, I knew, were one of the most important of the great old families, and by choosing one of their own for Mocr Dyn I feared I had made them even more surely my enemies than I had by my revitalization of the religion of Span. Or was it just possible that the celestialization of Zeebie Whatho had mollified her clan and softened their feelings toward me? (Or was I engaging in wishful thinking?) I decided to question my incomparable, heavenly wife about this facet of her family's internal politics.
"Tell me, my beloved Mocr Dyn," I said in a smooth and silky tone, "what did your relatives think of your entering the competition?"
"Well, Uncle Zangle—he's my mother's brother and Father's fifteenth cousin—was furious. So was Mother. In fact, that whole side of the family wanted to forbid my doing it. Well, of course, everyone knew I'd win if I entered, so all the other family members were jealous for their scrawny daughters' sakes." She smirked.
"All your female cousins are scrawny?"
"Oh, no," she giggled. "Some of them are fat. Anyway, Mother was angry because she said I'd be degrading myself if I entered because all the other girls in the competition would be of a much lower class, and it'd be even worse if I won, because then I'd end up sleeping with you, and anyone who knows any history at all knows that Span was of a much lower class than us, anyway, so how could we associate socially with his reincarnation? Anyway—"
"Hold it! Do you mean that your mother believes
in Span—I mean, in me?" I had almost made it obvious to her that I was an imposter, but the information she had stored in her murky mind was vital to me and, although I had to be more careful with my phraseology, I simply had to know whether any of her family really thought I was Span. "Does your mother truly accept the doctrine of the Coming Again?"
"Of course! Doesn't everybody? Anyway, you're here, aren't you?"
"To the best of my knowledge," I replied running my hand over her smooth and shapely thighs and stomach and up to her breasts.
She sighed with pleasure, then moved so that she could continue talking without my interrupting her. "I'm not sure if Uncle Zangle believes fully," she went on thoughtfully. "I guess not everyone does, after all. I'm pretty sure Daddy doesn't, but he said it didn't matter, really, and I ought to do it anyway—enter, I mean—because whoever you are, you'd be a good man to know. He said you seemed to be top dog now, and a Whatho should never be too proud to get hi good with the top dog, even if the top dog is really a cur hi disguise. And he also said that he felt sure that after I'd won the competition, I'd soon be able to wrap you around my sweet little finger." She giggled again. "Daddy always says things like that about me." Suddenly she turned serious. "You're not mad at him for saying that, are you, sir?"
"Banish the thought from your sweet and fluffy little head, my daughter," I said grandly. But to myself I said morosely, Blazing stars and garters! How I miss the sensible conversation of Gisfc Comp! "I've always liked a man who sees the world through pragmatic-tinted glasses. Tell me, however, my child, what do you think? Who am I? And who are you now?"
"Why, I have no doubts at all," she replied with an intensity and innocence I was convinced could not be feigned. "You are the great god Span, and I am now the goddess Mocr Dyn. I feel that deep within me. I
feel it," she said earnestly, turning to me, flinging her arms around my neck, and pressing her ripe young body against mine, "I really feel it!" I responded like a veritable god.
12
The next day, Artsie finally showed up to deliver his report on his intelligence activities. He brought Sell Supp with him. When he entered, I ignored him for a while. I read some of the reports I had on my desk, sent in by members of the Span Echelon stationed at distant temples. Gisfc Comp had just brought in a pile of new reports, and I was trying to scan them quickly to determine if any needed close, immediate attention and also to get a general picture of the situation in other cities on the planet. But also, I wanted to make Artsie feel a bit uncomfortable: Ms increasingly independent attitude had been grating on my nerves lately, and I felt he needed to be reminded of his position and of his dependence on me. He and Sell Supp fidgeted a great deal, trying to catch my attention, but of course they realized that I knew they were there. I continued to ignore them.
At last I raised my eyes from the reports before me and glanced at them in a bemused fashion, as though they were of decidedly minor importance compared to what was on my desk. "Well, Wooj?" I said. "What's up?"
11-J
"You sure kept us waiting," Artsie said resentfully.
"You tell him, Comptr, old son," Sell Supp muttered in what he must have thought was a tone audible only to his companion. I could tell that this indolent scion of the Verple clan had once again been indulging in too much drink at the Magenta Placenta or some place like it.
"So, Sell Supp!" I snarled theatrically, fortunately not tangling my tongue, for that would most certainly have ruined the effect for which I was striving. "This is how you spend the money we give you, eh? Wining and wenching instead of sneaking and spying! I should have your worthless and sodden head removed!"
Fear rendered him momentarily sober. He trembled and turned pale. "N-no, Your Celestial Lordship! No! I've been sneaking spying, sir—truly!"
"Sneaking and spying truly, eh? Amazing. But never mind that for now. What d'you have to report?"
"Well, Your Celestial Lordship, sir," he said in a rush, eager to please, while Artsie watched him contemptuously, "I think you have little to worry about, sir, as long as I'm on this job!"
I slammed my hands down on the desk, thinking it would produce a loud and frightening bang. Unfortunately, on these primitive planets such furniture is made of very thick slabs of solid, hard wood, instead of the flimsy synthetics so widely used hi the more civilized parts of the Galaxy, so what I got for my trouble was a very soft noise and very sore hands. Artsie smirked at me: his revenge for my having made him wait and humiliating him in front of his aristocratic protege. I ignored him and the pain in my hands and yelled at Sell Supp, who seemed satisfactorily frightened. "I don't want your opinion, nitwit! I'm paying you for facts: where did you go, what did they say, and what did you do?"
He stammered, unable to speak, until Artsie poked him viciously in the small of the back and growled, "Oh, get on with it, you cut-rate cutthroat!"
That seemed to clear up Sell Supp's problem, and he spoke more or less normally. "Well, Your Celestial Lordship, sir, I spent a few days last week with some friends of mine, shiggling—you do know what that is, sir?"
"Of course I do, you idiot!" I yelled, although in fact I hadn't the faintest idea what shiggling was. "Get on with it, dammit!"
"I'm sorry, sir," he said humbly. "It's just that I thought that since the history books say that Span was lower—Uh, as I said, I was off shiggling with them, and my cousin Krowten, who was with the group, just barely missed bagging a perfect three-part gimbob." He smiled at the memory. "And he said, 'Span curse it!' Of course, I jumped on that.
" 'Calling on Span, old man?' I said. 'I'm quite surprised!'
" 'Certainly,' he replied, puzzled, not getting my drift. So—"
"I'm not getting your drift!" I interrupted in exasperation. "Summarize, man, summarize!"
"Uh, yes, of course, Your Celestial Lordship. What it all boils down to is that he believes utterly in Span, believes that he has Come Again in reality. We started talking religion, and I found that they all felt the same way. If the young men feel that way, you can bet the elders of the great clans do, as well."
I relaxed a bit. I didn't know to what extent I could rely on Sell Supp's judgment or how far I could trust him, but he had said what I secretly wanted to hear, and that naturally reassured me. "Well done, my good man!" I said expansively, leaning back in my chair, and he relaxed too and smiled.
"Now tell me," I went on, "just how much does all this mean? Let me explain that question: I want to be sure your judgment that I needn't worry is a valid one, so I would like to know, first of all, how representative your friends' opinions are of the feeling in the upper levels of society. How well connected are this bunch of young wastrels you hang around with?"
He was obviously offended. "Sir! They are very highly connected, very highly indeed." He drew himself up and stared aristocratically down his nose at me. "I would not be seen in their company otherwise."
"Dear me," I muttered, reflecting on the remarkable similarity in the behavior and attitudes of the nobility on all worlds. "This fellow Krowten, for instance. What's his clan?"
Sell Supp seemed even more offended. "He's a Whatho, if you must know—although it's not very gentlemanly of you to ask," he sniffed.
The feeling of comfort and well-being that had been slowly slipping over me suddenly departed and fear and panic—sensations overly familiar to me and seemingly always lurking around the corner waiting for their chance to overwhelm me—came screaming from thek lurking place and took over. "A Whatho!" I shrieked. "Then he must be related to Zeebie—I mean, to the blessed Mocr Dyn in her current incarnation."
"Yes, indeed," he replied offhandedly. "He's her older brother. Why," he asked, surprised at the expressions of astonishment and terror that were playing tag all over my face, "didn't you realize she had relatives?"
Artsie smirked. "Oh, it's simple enough, Sell Supp. You see, our friend here has had some unpleasant experiences with the older brothers of young girls, and he's permanently traumatized about it. Maybe his age has something to do with it," he added, completely irrelevantly. "This god of ours, Sell Supp, is not a young god, you know." Malice gleamed through every word.
"Sell Supp, leave us now," I said imperiously. After a few moments' hesitation, during which he looked uncertainly back and forth between Artsie and me, as if trying to decide which of us would end up on top in the long run, Sell Supp decided to play it safe, and he left the room.
"Seedyn," I said coldly, "I don't want to get side-
tracked from the important business at hand into a discussion of my youthfulness or lack of it, but let me assure you that time has not dimmed my vigor nor age my potency. Not that I consider myself old," I added, growing hot under the collar despite all my attempts at serene, celestial detachment. "In fact, if I remember correctly, I'm younger than you. Moreover, the young goddess, Mocr Dyn, has expressed her delight and satisfaction at my performance. Why, if time and circumstances permitted, I'd even be willing to engage in some sort of competition with you, and then we'd see which of the old dogs has more life left in him!"
"Say!" Artsie exclaimed, his eyes glazing at the imagined scene "That would be a lot of fun! We could use the Span Echelon, see, and I'd take a couple of them to bed at the same time—a sort of handicap, you see, to give you a better chance of keeping up—and you could have one of them in another bedroom nearby. We could go through the entire Span Echelon, and then, after I ran out of girls—you'd have given up long before then, of course—we could have them rate us. I know I'd win, of course, but I wouldn't even mind losing," he said generously.
"My God!" I exploded, finding my tongue at last. (I had been too astonished to speak while he unfolded this scenario.) "You really are a pervert! I've got important business here. Now, let's get to work and forget this nonsense about sexual competitions."
He looked hurt. Then he sneered. "I know why you call it nonsense, Hughes: you're just jealous because you can only manage one woman in bed at a time. Probably only one a week, I'll bet. In other words, you're inadequate, Your Celestial Lordship." Sarcasm oozed from the last three words.
"Artsie!—No, never mind," I said, bringing myself under control with a powerful effort of the will. "I absolutely refuse to be drawn any further into so absurd and preposterous a discussion. I have a job for you. I want you to replace Sell Supp with another spy."
"What? That's ridiculous!" he yelled angrily. "He's doing good work. Why should I get rid of him?"
"Because I say so and I'm the boss, that's why," I said coldly. "However," I added, relenting slightly, "I will give you a reason. His reports don't convince me. I think he's either a fool and a charlatan or a very clever and very dangerous man, playing some sort of double game. Either way, he's untrustworthy: either he doesn't really know what his aristocratic friends are thinking and planning—and remember, Artsie, he's currently our only source of information!—or else he knows but he isn't telling us. I want him replaced with someone who's both smart and trustworthy—if such a creature exists on this benighted world."
"Now, I don't know, Hughes," Artsie said in a wheedling tone. "I just don't agree with you. I don't see how I can find another down-and-out aristocrat who owes me money for his drinks and is willing to betray his own caste."
"Nonsense, Artsie," I said as reassuringly as I could. "On this lovely planet, everyone is willing to betray anyone else for the sake of financial gain. Isn't that true?"
"Oh, I suppose so," he agreed, refusing to meet my eye. "But if I fire Sell Supp, he won't be able to pay his bill at my tavern, and he's consumed one Hell of a lot of liquor at the Placenta—all on credit, too!"
"Forget those unpaid bills, my boy. A higher duty calls you: your duty to your god (me), your duty to your high office, and, most important of all, your duty to the large bundle of booty with which you and I shall very shortly depart Goss Conf." We were speaking English so that any eavesdroppers would be unlikely to be able to understand us, so I felt fairly safe in speaking so freely. I felt I ought to take the chance anyway, in case Artsie needed to be reminded of the size of his probable reward if he would just keep following my orders.
"Oh, that's true, of course," Artsie said. "But still..." And he went on to argue unconvincingly that
Sell Supp should be kept on the job nonetheless. He was unable to offer me any really good reasons, but it was clear that Artsie felt uneasy almost to the point of desperation at the thought of losing the services of his hired nobleman.
I got tired of arguing with him about it, and I suddenly thought of another possibility, another way of getting the information I wanted, that would be better than any spy that Artsie might hire. Also, I didn't feel like upsetting him any more (even though I was naturally curious as to the reasons underlying his insistence on retaining Sell Supp), so I gave in abruptly. "All right, Artsie," I sighed, "you may continue to employ that aristocratic lush, although Span only knows why you want to."
Immensely relieved, he promised to make Sell Supp shape up, and then he bowed and scraped his way out of the room. For Artsie, it was an unusual display of servility, but I dismissed it from my mind, for I had other and more important things to think about.
The first of these things was the idea that had occurred to me earlier, during my argument with Artsie over Sell Supp. Suddenly the thought had come to me that even if we could find someone both smart and reliable to replace Sell Supp, some other aristocrat who would sell out his peers for a high enough payment, even that would hardly be adequate. Such a spy would still be at the mercy of his sources, just as Sell Supp seemed to be. Unless he were devilishly clever —probably impossible for a Goss Confian—he would be unable to make his noble friends tell the truth about their attitudes toward Span unless they felt like discussing the subject. And those who would willingly talk about Span were, in all likelihood, those I need not worry about.
The ones about whom I needed the most information were those who plotted against me in secret and, as part of their cover, pretended not to give a damn about me in public. They would not blabber about their secret plots in front of my spy precisely because,
being one of thek class, he was not inconspicuous. Knowing he was not party to their plot, they would watch their tongues in his presence. So, I pondered, who would be inconspicuous? Who could be around those noblemen all the tune, even while they hatched their anti-Span plots, and yet escape their notice? Why, someone who was beneath thek notice, of course! In other words, one of thek personal servants.
All of this had come to me in a flash of insight—a divine inspiration, you might say. But even my celestial powers of thought couldn't resolve the next step in the problem: how could I get in touch with some of these personal servants, and then, having got in touch with them, how would I subvert them? The first part might be accomplished easily enough, I hoped, through the servants in the temple, with whom, as I shall explain later, I was on very good terms. But the personal servants of the aristocracy are usually chosen for thek high positions because they have demonstrated that they are discreet and trustworthy. I have always fkmly believed that every man has his price, and that it usually turns out, once the bidding starts, to be much lower than he himself would have suspected. But if I chose the wrong servant to approach—rather, if the approach was clumsy or the price wrong—he might report the approach to his master. Not only might that lead to public embarrassment for Span; it would also forewarn any noblemen who were plotting against me that I was trying to buy off thek servants, and they could then take steps to block me, or to make sure thek servants didn't hear any conspiratorial conversations.
I was staring blankly at my desk while immersed in a brown study, almost repenting that I had ever got myself into the god business. As if echoing my thoughts, a voice, low yet penetrating, spoke in the room: "Repent! It is not yet too late. Repent!"
I jerked my head up in shock. A small, robed figure, face hidden by a heavy hood, stood before my desk. I recognized that pestiferous Harveyite, Fra Frank.
"Repent!" he repeated. "Repent or perish, O heretic, for thy days are surely numbered and thy time short upon this earth! I mean, this Goss Conf. How's that for special effects?"
"Very impressive," I admitted. "I won't bother asking you how you got in here. What do you want?" With my right hand, I gently pushed a button concealed on the underside of the desk. .
"Come, come, Hughes. Don't be obtuse. You must realize what I want."
"Obtuse refers to angles, Frank, and I haven't any. I'm a very straightforward fellow. That's a characteristic I urge you to acquire. I repeat: what do you want?" I had to keep him there until the guards showed up.
"I want you to resign," he responded promptly, "with a public announcement that you are a fake god and the only true god is J. Harvey Christ." Through the long cuffs that covered his hands, he rubbed his palms together. "We'll take it from there," he added with immense complacency and self-satisfaction, not to mention supreme confidence. "Another world for J. Harvey. Lanidrac Ikslop will be very pleased."
"Nonsense, you idiot. I'm not going to resign. Or abdicate. Or whatever the appropriate word is for a god."
"You know what will happen if you don't, Hughes." His hood moved in a manner that indicated that, inside it, he was shaking his hfead disapprovingly. "You'll be deposed by the nobility—the great houses—and put to death by them, probably very painfully. Then we'll take over, using my influence with the nobility. It'll end up the same way, you see. I'm just trying to save your skin, Hughes."
"What about you joining me instead, Frank?" I proposed spontaneously. "There's a lot of money in this game—enough for both of us."
For just a moment, I thought I saw avarice gleaming from the dark recesses of his hood. But then he shook his head again.
"No, Hughes. Get thee behind me. You've got an-
gles, all right. You're wasting my time, however. I have to get back to Earth and set to work on Volume Twenty-seven. Also, I'm behind schedule with my music review for the next issue of our monthly journal, The Society News. That review was due in three days ago. Lanidrac Ikslop hates unpunctuality. He's appointed himself editor-in-chief of the News, you know."
"I didn't know. Nor do I care."
He sighed. "To die so soon with so unpurified a soul! How sad. And you could have done such great work for the Lord, using your position on this planet— your unique position, I should say. Ah, well, no matter. I have other fish to cleanse. That's a joke, Mr. Hughes. I must be off."
I was trying frantically to think of something that would keep him there just a bit longer, but fortunately at that moment a pair of strong though stupid guards entered the room and stopped right behind Fra Frank. He did not notice them.
"You rang, Your Celestial Lordship?" one of them asked.
"Yes, indeed. Not so fast, Frank!" I snapped at the Harveyite, who had jerked within his robes when the guard spoke suddenly and unexpectedly behind him. I gestured to the guards. "Arrest that small, robed figure, please."
They grabbed his arms. He stood utterly still— frozen with surprise and fear, I thought gleefully. But then the guards' faces took on expressions of astonishment and terror. (Astonishment on guard on right, terror on guard on left.) Simultaneously, they released his arms.
"What's the matter?" I demanded.
One of them gasped, "There's—there's nothing in there, sir! I mean, Your Celestial Lordship." And indeed, the hooded figure suddenly collapsed to the ground, a mere pile of empty clothes. Obviously, Fra Frank was playing hard to get—and doing so with a noteworthy degree of success.
"Ah, yes, indeed," I said to the guards, trying not to let my own superstitious terror show. If Fra Frank had hoped to shake me up badly as well as to escape, he had certainly succeeded admirably hi both undertakings. "Just a little test I devised, my children, a test of your loyalty. Nothing for a god, you see. You may go now. You both passed, by the way."
They left, casting nervous, doubt-filled looks back over their shoulders at Fra Frank's empty costume as they shuffled out. They seemed not entirely to have believed me. A jew more tricks of this sort, I reflected, and Fra Frank will have undermined much of my support among the guards.
13
During the following weeks, I would occasionally catch sight of a small, mysterious, hooded figure gliding silently about the temple corridors: Fra Frank on his mission of sabotage and subversion. After a few more attempts at having the guards capture him had all failed as spectacularly as the one in my office, I gave up on it and let him glide unmolested. The guards were catching on that this was something beyond my control, and I detected a disturbing air of cynicism and skepticism about them when I addressed them. Clearly, I was doing myself more harm than good. I resolved to try to ignore the hooded Harveyite.
I was aided in sticking to this resolve by the continuing generally smooth course of events-on Goss Conf. My control over the planet seemed to be well consolidated. Using the river that ran through the temple grounds as a source of hydroelectric power, I was having the temple electrified. Nothing fancy—mainly lights, and a few large exhaust fans in places like the kitchens and the huge communal toilets in the servants' quarters—but to these primitives, it made the place seem like paradise. Not that I could safely capitalize on all this to help keep myself in power, pro-
claiming it as a sample of my divine abilities. For one thing, the workmen who built the generating plant and installed the lights, fans, and wiring could understand that the energy source was the river and not Span. Also, all the equipment had to be purchased from the rare merchant trading vessels that touched down at the spaceport. This in turn meant operating through the Terrans at the spaceport, which required much protracted bargaining and consequent delay. What sort of god could I be if I had to obtain the materials for my miracles from aliens? But I hoped that such gifts as my electrification project would at least pacify the natives for a while, helping to subdue any thoughts of rebellion against me.
With political matters under some temporary sort of control, shaky though it might be, I was able to turn my attention to more private matters.
Most men probably would think, should anyone chance to ask them their opinion on such a bizarre matter, that living on physically intimate terms with a green goddess of truly divine physical beauty would be, to speak as do the vulgar, loads of fun, Perhaps so, under the right circumstances, but consider the case where the Creator of said goddess, impressed by the stupendous job He had done on the body, subsequently forgot to add a brain. Say the word "boring" and it only takes a fraction of a second; live it, and it takes forever. The divine Zeebie was spectacular on the outside, but I was convinced that her brainpower was limited to the amount needed to keep her heart and other vital functions operating. You might have noticed that I referred to her Creator as if convinced that such an outre creature actually exists somewhere between Goss Conf and the limits of the Cosmos. In fact, I would rather blame so mindless a female on a quirky God than on the blind forces of chance and evolution, for which I have always had a certain amount of respect. Be that as it may, it didn't take me long to plumb the depths of her intellect and personality—less time than the curious depths of her body. (Have I
heretofore mentioned that peculiarity of Goss Confian anatomy? No, no, never mind: it's quite irrelevant.)
She taught me anew the meaning of certain words. "Prattle," for example; "silly," for another. I had work to do, important work, self-serving work, and her presence made it impossible to concentrate. Nor could I get rid of her. After the way I had publicly raised her to godhead beside me, anything even resembling a divorce would have been political (and consequently, perhaps, literal) suicide. Another problem, not unrelated, had also arisen to plague me. Gisfc Comp, still piqued by the whole Mocr Dyn matter and by my having neglected her during the days immediately following the beauty contest, was never available when I needed her, which was most of the time. For that matter, she wasn't around the rest of the time, either. It seemed to me that she was carrying her resentment a bit too far: after all, we were business partners above all else, and we were in this together, with much to lose (our lives) if the whole shaky structure of my power collapsed. The similarities between the behavior of Goss Confians and Terrans, in spite of the surface differences, are often astonishing. One difference— and I suppose it was partly this that had fooled me —was how difficult it is to tell when a Goss Confian is jealous. After all, they're all green all the time.
After a couple of weeks of this, I had to admit it to myself. I needed Gisfc Comp to talk to, I needed her to help me run the planet, I even preferred her in bed to my goddess, because she was so much more interesting than Zeebie during sex and so much more interesting to talk to afterwards. Now, all of that was hard enough for so amoral, selfish, and calloused a confidence artist as Thomas Langston Hughes to admit. It was even harder for me to admit that I simply wanted Gisfc's company: I liked having her around. Pride goeth before a fall, whatever that means. I sought her out, feeling very humble and very fallen. However, I couldn't find her, and, growing even more humble, I sought out Artsie to see if he could provide
any leads, for I had an uncomfortable feeling that he could.
He could, but it took a while to get it out of him.
"Oh, hello, Hughes, old boy. It's you." We were in his tavern, he was serving me his usual stale ale, and he was refusing to meet my eye.
"Why don't you just say, 'It's you, Hughes,'" I snarled. "Do you know where Gisfc is, you misbegotten Woojum?"
"Oh, ah," he temporized. Then his characteristic slimy smirk appreared. "Lost your girl, fellah? Like me to find you a substitute, one you can handle? Need some help, ha, ha, ha? Hey Hughes?"
"That's enough," I said somberly. "I'm in no mood for schoolboy perisflage. Where is she?"
"Hey," he said, turning serious and uncharacteristically solicitous, "this one's for real, hey? Well, I'll be damned. Huh, you never can tell, can you? Know a guy for years, and then something like this, well, well, how about that, golly."
This was worse than his sarcasm. "Artsie," I groaned. "Please!?)
"Oh, right. Well, I wasn't supposed to tell you, but since you're an old pal—and a god, too—well, what the Hell. She's at the temple hi Moorsrab."
"Keep an eye on things here," I said leaping up. "I'm on my way. Hold the fort." I dashed out, ignoring his wails about my not having paid for my ale.
Before sunset, I was in Moorsrab. This was a small city, with a correspondingly small temple. It was a small and sleepy place, quite a distance from the (relative) excitement of the capital. No doubt things would have been much stirred up by the arrival of the god, but the god arrived dressed in his convenient peasant drabs, riding an exhausted horse, something like the fifth or sixth of the animals he had worn out during that trip.
I made my way to the temple immediately. Only then did I realize that, disguised as a peasant, I would
not be accorded any special privileges at the place. In fact, how could I even get to see the commandant of the Span Echelon? In the absence of inspiration, I decided to try the direct approach. I strolled nonchalantly up to the door of the temple and would have entered, except that I was stopped by a nimble guard.
"Okay, buddy," he said, or its Pabxian equivalent, "and just where do you think you're going?"
"Urgent message from the boss for the chief Span Echelon officer in the temple," I snapped out.
"Yeah, that right?" he said suspiciously. "What's the password?"
"Fathead!" I barked. Actually, I was calling myself a fathead for having neglected to prepare for this eventuality by asking the Span Echelon girls in Traj Coord if they had some sort of password arrangement set up for messages carried between temples. However, by the sort of amazing coincidence that normally happens only hi fiction and never hi real life, that fine old English word was the passwordl "Fathead" was one of the few English words that had leaked into Traj Coord from the spaceport, passing into general usage among the lower classes; it was the sort of word that appealed to the sort of women who made up the Span Echelon.
"Yes, sir!" he responded, snapping to attention and changing his tone from bullying-official to respectful-inferior. The mouthpieces of God are not men to be trifled with!
Shortly after that, I found myself in an interior room hi the temple, with the guard bowing respectfully to an officious official. This was none other than Gisfc Comp; however, she did not recognize me because of my hood. The guard explained that I had brought a message from the top and that I had known the password.
Gisfc was at a desk, shuffling papers about, a gesture being repeated hi offices throughout the Galaxy, even hi those parts beyond the ken of Terran man.
Without raising her eyes from her task, she said, "Spit it out, then. I don't have all night."
Aah! What a pleasure to hear those surly, down-to-earth tones after the vapidity of Zeebie Whatho. I cleared my throat loudly, and when she looked up in annoyance, I nodded in the direction of the guard.
"I understand," she said. She dismissed the guard and then said to me, "All right; what's this confidential message?"
"Heyho, taraah," I exclaimed, throwing back my hood. She stared at me with vast amaze, as a poet might put it. " Tis I," I added superfluously. "What ho." This last bit of flippancy, which I said in English, was however the wrong thing to have uttered, since to her it was not a word, but the family name of her detested rival.
"What do you want here?" she asked, returning her gaze to the papers before her.
"That's odd: that guard said almost the same thing to me, only minutes ago. I don't suppose it would help if I called you a fathead, would it?"
"Hardly. Well, you've found me, although I don't know why you've suddenly gone to all this trouble. Did your bland little goddess throw you out? Say," she said, fortunately changing the subject, "how did you find me? Aah, the Woojum! I'll cut off his—"
"Now, listen, dear," I interrupted soothingly. "Forget the Woojum. He acted out of friendship for me, as he should have done. I haven't been able to think why you left so mysteriously. I've missed you, Gisfc. Mocr Dyn is politics; you know that. That's all she means." I rattled on hi this vein for some while, exercising that tongue whose smoothness and deftness are so justly famous throughout so much of the Empire.
Suddenly Gisfc burst out laughing. "Enough, enough! Span's sake, what an idiot you are! I'll do this for you. I'll return to Traj Coord, and you'll find me a building somewhere where your little goddess won't notice me and from where I can run the Span Eche-
Ion. And you can visit me as often as you like—and are able to. But first, you must tell me just what your feelings are toward me."
"Er, well, I ..." But here my throat froze. I tried again. "I—" Nothing: those words I had managed never to utter on any other planet wouldn't come out of me here, either. "I—" I sat down heavily in a chair next to her desk. "I can't say it. Hell."
She looked disappointed. "Ah, well," she sighed. "We'll keep working on it. Now go home. I'll be there in a couple of days."
On and off during the subsequent months, I would wonder if Mocr Dyn had any idea what was going on during my frequent days and nights away from the temple. I would reassure myself that she was far too stupid to be suspicious, and far too conceited to imagine that I would want another woman. A feeling of unease would recur; Zeebie's relatives were powerful and dangerous, and the consequences, should she discover that I was dallying with a mortal woman, were frightening to contemplate; but I suppressed that uneasiness whenever it showed up. Counterbalancing this feeling, and helping me ignore it, was my growing pleasure and happiness in Gisfc's company. Was Thomas Langston Hughes, con man extraordinaire and interstellar traveler, lover of women and hoaxer of men, collector of money and gems, amoral and ruthless destroyer of all that others held sacred—was this remarkable man getting soft? It certainly looked that way.
For once, things seemed to be almost under control. Despite this, however, my departure as a rich man still lay an indeterminate distance in the future. To my great distress, I had discovered that what I had, on the day of my arrival, taken to be precious gems scattered liberally all about the place were mostly imitations. After some questioning of the priests, I learned that as the faith of the populace and the temple's treasury had both fallen dangerously low, Fiedo and his predecessors had begun surreptitiously to
pawn the precious stock built up over the centuries of pious fervor. I was furious when I discovered this: it was, after all, my passport to the earthly paradise they had pawned! I soon got over this feeling, though, deciding that the increasing flow of contributions my reforms had engendered would eventually more than make up for the priests' financial foolishness in the past.
Contributions were indeed increasing. The religious revival which had begun with my arrival (or perhaps before my arrival, when Fra Frank had started spreading the word that Span was Coming again) had received a great burst of momentum when the incarnation of the blessed Mocr Dyn was finally chosen. Piety had spread unstoppably across the planet, like an awesome disease against which there is no protection and natural immunity is a rare phenomenon. The agnostics and atheists had disappeared from Goss Confian public life; most of them had converted to Spannism, and the rest had crawled into the social woodwork. Normally—on Earth, for example—I would have been in their philosophical camp. In my current professional incarnation, however, they were my enemies; it was a matter of money, not philosophy—and wealth and religion, as you may have noticed, go hand-in-hand far more often than do riches and skepticism.
Just in case matters did not continue to go smoothly, I set about turning the temple into a well-stocked fortress. The wall I had had the guards build was a major part of this, of course. Now I ordered large supplies of food and water laid up, and I allocated a large portion of the temple's swelling treasury to the guards to use for recruitment and the purchase of weapons. I did not hesitate to arm them so extensively, even though they might choose to use their new arms against me in a takeover bid; after all, I thought, it would only take the merest threat of physical harm to make me capitulate, so a few more weapons would make me no more vulnerable than I already was. I was depending upon cunning and sub-
terfuge to stay in power, not superior physical force on my own part.
By winter's end, the place was virtually impregnable—except, of course, against attacks from the air, which I knew I didn't have to worry about. That the new security of the temple and the enlarged and well-armed guard unit would later become a weapon to be used against me did not occur to me at that time.
I am almost ashamed to admit that I forgot about Gisfc during the latter part of this industrious time. (I say "almost" because T. L. Hughes is never ashamed of anything.) Things were humming along so well, and she was doing her job so thoroughly, that I never had to poke my nose into her business. I was scurrying about during the day, tending to various matters, and at night I would fall into bed exhausted, ignoring the vapid goddess beside me in favor of sleep, that tn*est of all blessings. Unfortunately, I was ignoring Gisfc in the same way. Once again, she took to disappearing. When she was available, she was curt; when she wasn't curt, she was nasty and sarcastic. However, I tried to ignore her behavior and concentrate on more urgent matters. I had the strong feeling that victory was at last within my grasp; Gisfc's testi-ness was small beer beside that. Oh, I missed her company again, but I was far too preoccupied to really notice the lack.
Spring arrived, and all over Goss Conf the saps were running. I felt more and more secure. So secure, hi fact, that I decided to let Misfic remain hi command of the temple guards. I had become convinced that he was intriguing against me, but I was sure he could not accomplish anything significant before I was ready to leave the planet. For the same reason, I had not yet done much about recruiting some servants of the nobility to my cause. I had let the matter slide all winter, and now I decided to simply drop the whole idea, since even if the aristocracy were plotting against me—and I would be surprised to discover that they were not—they would surely not be able to bring
their plots to fruition before I quit Goss Conf for good. And after I had reascended into the heavens, I told myself cheerfully, I would no longer care who did what to whom on Goss Conf. / would be safely out of it, and that was all that mattered to me. I was confident, secure, self-satisfied, and happy, which just goes to show that even a god may suffer from hubris.
14
I was awakened from a deep and pleasant sleep by something digging sharply into my side. The lights in the room were on—bright, electric lights, blinding my sleepy eyes. For the first time I regretted replacing the pleasant old oil lamps with these terrestrial creations.
"Mocr Dyn," I mumbled, "turn off the lights, would you, dear?"
"Alien pig," she replied unkindly, and the sharp pain in my side intensified. Right away, I realized something was dreadfully wrong.
I came fully awake. Ranged around my bed were a group of men whose faces I didn't recognize but whose clothes identified them immediately as members of Goss Conf's upper classes. I looked for Mocr Dyn. She was out of bed, standing next to one of the strangers, and she was poking at me viciously with some sort of long, pointed Goss Confian weapon. "Alien pig!" she repeated.
I tried to ignore her and her poking and, despite my pounding heart, to act nonchalant. "Audiences are arranged through my secretary and are never held at night," I said. "Come back during office hours."
This brought jeering laughter.
The sleep had cleared from my eyes at last and my brain had moved into high gear. I didn't know what was going on—although it seemed to involve some very mortal treason on the part of the divine Zeebie —but if I could only stall until the palace guard showed up, I'd be all right.
"So, my dear," I said to her, "the godhead has gone to your head, has it?" She stared at me blankly; blankness was her usual facial expression, because it reflected the usual state of her mind. This weak jab was the best I could manage under the circumstances. Unlike some of my thrusts of a few hours earlier, it elicited no response from her.
A tall, dark green, handsome young man stepped to her side and put his arm protectively around her shoulders. He looked aristocratically down at me and snarled, "Alien pig! Do not dare speak to my sister again!"
"Oink, oink," I said, but nobody laughed.
"He thought I wasn't good enough for him," Zeebie whined to her protector. "He acted as if I was stupid."
I said to the young man, "You wouldn't happen to be Krowten, would you?"
"I would," he answered, surprised. "How did you know?"
"I'm a god, young man. I know everything." And in truth I did know that matters were more complicated and involved than I had at first guessed.
The evidence for that conclusion grew when a voice from the midst of the crowd of hostile Goss Confians said, "I think we may assume that that conclusion resulted from a far more mortal process of cogitation. The question will be an academic one when we have finished with you, for you will no longer have a mind to cogitate with nor a mouth to tell of your conclusions. After all, you will not have a head." I knew that voice: it was Fiedo's. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and stood there gloating greenly at me. The chickens, if you'll pardon a mixed metaphor, were coming home to roost on a thickening plot. What
other unpleasant and probably fatal surprises were waiting for me? I soon found out.
"I should have realized you'd be involved, Fiedo," I said. "Back from the boondocks without my consent, eh? What further insults do you plan to offer your god?"
"Alien pig!" Mocr Dyn snarled.
"You've said that already!" I whined at her.
"First," Fiedo said dreamily, ignoring both of us, a happy smile of anticipation on his fat, green face, "first, we'll give you a bath in boiling water."
I was too horrified to say anything. Of course, Fiedo wanted revenge for what had been done to his priests. But while Goss Confians can survive such treatment, human beings cannot. The other Goss Confians in the room, despite their knowing that I was an alien, perhaps did not realize that boiling would kill me; Fiedo, I suspected, did know. What to do now? The guards had been on my side at the time of the boiling of the priests. Were they still and would they help me this time? I had better find out whether any of the guards were here in the room and involved in the plot.
"Who else is hiding in the crowd?" I asked. "Come out, come out, whoever you are."
Someone did step out from behind the others. It was Misfic; so much for a rescue by the palace guards —the God Guards had deserted their god. "Good morning, Your Celestial Lordship," he smirked.
"I knew 1 should have gotten rid of you long ago," I muttered. He made a mocking bow. In a louder voice, I said, "All right, friends, you seem to have the upper hand for the moment. But what about the future? You still need me, because the people still worship Span."
"I'm not so sure they do," Fiedo replied. "They simply adore the blessed Mocr Dyn, and she's very much on our side."
I looked at the blessed Zeebie and saw in her eyes a fanatical light I had never seen there before. What
a mistake I had made: I had chosen a pious goddess!
"And," Fiedo went on happily, "they also place great trust in the Mocr Maidens." He grimaced. "Horrid name. Absurd. Anyway, the Mocr Maidens all answer, not to you, but to the, er, High Woojum, and—"
"Don't tell me he's on your side too?" I wailed.
He smiled an evil smile at me; then he gestured toward the door. Two men entered: the first was the bulky figure of Artsie who, to give him his due credit, looked shamefaced; behind him glided my hooded and robed nemesis, Fra Frank of the Society of J. Harvey Christ.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here," I said weakly. I had the sinking feeling that not only had I lost the biggest gamble of my career, but also that it would be the last gamble of my career. It had been a long career, as careers in my profession go, and a more successful one than most; but I didn't feel it had been at all long enough, and it wouldn't be successful, in the long view, if it ended with my losing everything. Just as I was thinking these gloomy thoughts, surrounded by smirkingly triumphant enemies, the lights, as suddenly as they had gone on, went off.
The room was pitch black and filled with the silence of astonishment. Even I was too surprised to take advantage of the situation and try to escape. A hand grabbed my wrist. I fought against my assailant, striking out hi the darkness. I hit somebody, who grunted. A woman's voice said, "Pig!" This time it didn't sound like Zeebie Whatho. I was kicked sharply in the shin, which subdued me effectively. There were mutterings and stirrings hi the room, as my enemies began to stir into life again.
The hand, which had not loosened its grip on my wrist, yanked, and I toppled off the bed. (I was still sitting on it, remember.) I braced, waiting for the impact against the floor. But instead I kept on falling. Something soft and springy and weblike caught me. It was still pitch black. I tried to get to my feet, but I
couldn't do it on that vibrating, elastic surface. "Damn!" I said.
Again a hand grabbed my wrist and pulled at me. Now the thing I was on cooperated by catapulting me in the direction I had been pulled. I landed on the floor this time, and it was both cold and hard.
"J. Harvey Christ!" I yelped. "Why—"
"Shut up, alien pig!" my rescuer hissed at me."
At last I recognized the voice, and I was filled with gratitude and affection for my companion; but, in obedience to her injunction, I kept my alien pig mouth shut.
She pulled me along behind her as she walked rapidly—almost ran—through the dark. We seemed .to be in a narrow hallway with very rough walls, perhaps rock. I surmised that it was a hallway and that the walls were rock because I kept coming painfully into contact with the walls on either side of me, and when I did this they felt like rock. But I kept silent nonetheless and followed obediently where I was being yanked. At last we stopped, she let go of my hand, and I heard a door close behind me. A m'atch flared, then a lamp was lit. As the small room we were in was disclosed to me, I could at last see my rescuer.
"Gisfc Comp, my dear," I said effusively (for, as you ought to have guessed by now, it was she), "you have rarely looked so lovely."
"Pig," she grunted. "Anyone would look lovely to you now, if they were helping you."
"There is some truth in what you say," I admitted. "You, however, look particularly lovely. First, because of your undeniable physical beauty and your remarkable ability to dress to the greatest possible advantage. And second, because it is so heartening, when all around me, all whom I trusted, are betraying me— so heartening, I say, to find that you are still loyal. Loyal despite my admitted and inexcusable neglect of you over the last few days."
"Weeks," she said quickly.
"Uh, yes, all right: the last few weeks. But now I'd
like to try to make up for that and reestablish my good standing with you."
During the first part of my little speech, her face had been losing the tense, nervous, hard look it had worn when she first lit the lamp. She seemed to especially like that part about her ability to dress herself to advantage. (This, by the way, was simple truth, and not mere flattery.) Now, though, her face suddenly hardened again and she spat at me, "You're all sweetness when you really need a girl, aren't you? Now that I'm all you've got!" She sat down on the floor and started to cry.
Why,l asked myself, are all the men and women on this planet so astonishingly emotional? Does it have something to do with their color? Does the green pigment seep into their brains and unbalance them?
After an hour or two of determined diplomacy, I was able to smooth things over. After all, by rescuing me, she had indeed, as I had just told her, demonstrated much greater loyalty to me than anyone else in the temple; angry as she (understandably) was over my neglect of her in favor of Mocr Dyn, her feelings toward me must still, at base, be warm.
The room we were in had been cut out of the rock which seemed to lie only a foot or two beneath the surface of the ground in Traj Coord and the neighboring countryside. (I had wondered, on and off, how the planet's major city could have grown up on what must always have been unproductive land. Traj Coord was a port city, though, and that perhaps had been the basis on which the city had developed.) The room was small and its only furniture was a small table the lamp stood on, a chair, and a sort of mattress lying on the floor. I managed to talk Gisfc into bed ("onto mattress"?), and our reconciliation was complete.
Afterwards, as we snuggled cosily together (it was a one-man mattress), I asked her how she knew about this room and the tunnel system of which it was a part.
"My brother and I discovered it when we were kids," she said. "My family lived in Traj Coord for a while, trying to make it—my mother was a magician and my father was a drunk—and me and my brother used to play down here a lot. These tunnels go all over the place—under the temple, and under a lot of the rest of the city."
"I didn't know you had a brother," I interrupted.
"I don't any more, as far as I know. When he was twelve, he sneaked into the spaceport and stowed away on an Earth ship, and we never saw him again. I bet they found hiiti on the ship and killed him." She shrugged nonchalantly "Luck of the game."
"Ah, yes," I said, more distressed by this story about her brother than she seemed to be. "Luck of the game, indeed."
"Yeah, we used to play here a lot," she repeated, lost hi the memory. "Way down under the city, all alone, just us two kids in the miles and miles of corridors and little rooms. All dark, except right where we were with our candles and lamps. You know, all this must've been built a long time ago—centuries ago, maybe—and it's all forgotten now. In the whole world, only me and Bloobac—that's my brother, poor little piece of excrement—knew about it. 'That's why we were always alone down here," she explained.
She was thoughtful and silent for a few minutes, and I began to drift off to sleep, my head resting comfortably against her shoulder and my hand on her smooth, firm stomach. "Except for the Shellies," she said suddenly, startling me back to wakefulness. "I'd forgotten about them."
"The what?" I asked in confusion.
"Shellies. Kind of imagination. You know what kids are like. We made up a bunch of imaginary monsters, part insect and part reptile, and we called them Shellies. Sort of like big, reptilian beetles, but they walked on two legs. We used to pretend they were hiding in the dark in the passageways, slithering and hissing and scratching around just where our lights
couldn't reach, and watching us. We used to scare each other silly with it." She shivered suddenly. "Sometimes," she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, "we actually thought we saw some of the Shellies— for real, I mean. Isn't that something? What's the word for that?"
"Hallucination," I mumbled, beginning to slide over the edge into sleep again.
"Yeah," she said. "Hallucination." Suddenly she poked my shoulder hard. "You awake?"
"Strangely enough, yes," I replied resentfully.
"Good." She put her arms around my neck. "You still haven't thanked me enough for saving your almost useless hide. Make like a god."
I gave up the battle for sleep and did my duty as best I could. After what I had been through during the preceding few hours, my performance was far from Olympian, but Gisfc seemed satisfied.
 
II
ANTISPAN
1
Oddly enough, life in a system of tunnels beneath the surface of a strange, faraway planet populated ("alienated"?) by hordes of unpredictable green human-oids can become quite routine after a while. One makes one's bed, drinks one's coffee, reads the newspaper, trims the lamp wick, goes for a walk, discusses politics—much like any good suburbanite living among the green hills of Earth, as the blind poet is reputed to have phrased it. Actually, of course, it wasn't quite like that—except that I did go for walks in the tunnels to familiarize myself with them, and I occasionally took trips aboveground, properly disguised and wearing clothing obtained for me by Gisfc.
Secreted away underground though I was, I managed, by means, of my own trips to town and Gisfc's reports to keep track of what was happening above me. Here is a worm's-eye-view of it.
The new rulers had, as people on Earth like to say (for no reason I have ever been able to discern), come on like gangbusters. (In spite of its advanced civilization, Earth is still in some ways an uncouth planet.) As the morning of their first day in power dawned, they sent criers through the streets of Traj
Coord to arouse the drowsy citizens by bellowing, "The false god is gone! Long live the great families and the blessed Mocr Dyn!"
Then, while the Traj Coordites were still shaking their sleepy heads in an effort to wake up and were wondering just what the criers' announcement really meant, the aristocrats who had driven me from power started messengers off for all the other temples with orders to the Span Echelon members to return control to the local priesthood.
Spreading the word of the new order didn't take very long, either. You will remember my description of the unique geography of Goss Conf, with its single, triangular continent. Within a month or two, well-mounted messengers from Traj Coord can reach even the farthest part of the continent, and fishing boats will quickly carry an important message to the islands. Thus, even though limited to primitive means of communication, the new rulers were able to exert their control over all of Goss Conf—at least, in the beginning.
The great families had returned control over the daily functioning of the temples to Fiedo. I suppose that after all those generations of enforced idleness, the aristocrats found they were not really up to the arduous task of administering a far-flung network of temples, priests, novices, acolytes, worshippers, and so on. It was sufficient, they had probably decided,, if they controlled Fiedo and he, in turn, controlled the hierarchy. The centers of civil power on Goss Conf had been of little importance ever since the worship of Span first took over the hearts and minds of the people, and the great families knew well that they could afford to ignore the various princelings and dukelings and boards of city elders scattered across the continent and the islands. (For that matter, not a few of those dukelings and princelings were members of great families themselves, so they presented no problems.) The local temples were the real determiners of local events, and the head temple in Traj Coord was the real
power center, controlling all the other temples on the planet. Why they trusted Fiedo with so much power, I don't know. It was certainly not what I would have done in their place. Perhaps their mental abilities for plotting and conniving had also been dulled by their years out of power.
Almost immediately, Fiedo set about dismantling much of what I had built. He had hated my innovations from the beginning, accepting them only because he had had no choice. Now that he was in command of all procedural matters again—and his aristocratic bosses in effect completely ignored whatever he did in the area of daily temple life—he had no one to fear and no reason to hold back. First he ordered, the Span Echelon to disband and go home, and then he outlawed the ancient rituals the Primary Mocr Maidens had been performing.
In one respect, I noticed, the aristocrats did exercise some direct control over the temple. Remember that Fiedo was ruling through Mocr Dyn. Since she —Zeebie Whatho that was—was one of their own, the great families kept her in her place as Mocr Dyn, probably in the hope and belief that since she had been chosen for that office by the undeniably popular Span, the people would transfer to her the devotion they had previously shown me. Fiedo was not allowed to give his orders directly to the priests but was obliged to speak through Zeebie Whatho: any orders had to seem to have come exclusively from the ripe, full lips of the blessed Mocr Dyn. Similarly, and no doubt despite many objections on his part, he was forced to retain the Primary Mocr Maidens, only their jobs had been reduced almost to nothing; they were now merely to sit around the temples looking pretty and to pass on to the local priests the orders communicated to them by Mocr Dyn. In effect, they had taken over the duties of the departed Span Echelon, but with far less autonomy. They were mere puppets, repeating word for word the commands they received from Zeebie Whatho—who was a puppet in turn, for the
orders were fed to her by Fiedo. To what extent Fiedo really was a puppet in his turn, I was unable to determine. The aristocrats surely thought him fully under their collective thumb, but I was sure the old pirate didn't see matters hi the same light; or if he was their creature, I was sure he didn't intend to remain that way for long. The potential for—and the probability of—warfare within the new ruling clique, warfare between the priesthood and the aristocracy, was high. I wanted to keep my eye on that aspect of the situation, for it might offer me my way back to power.
In all probability, Zeebie Whatho didn't mind her seemingly reduced status: she had all the privileges of Mocr Dyn and an outward show of power, and she could tell herself that, in materially helping the plotters to depose me, she had done her aristocratic duty. And she would never have to worry about being asked to make a decision or give an order that had not been given to her by someone else. I'm sure the Primary Mocr Maidens didn't mind the changed circumstances either. They had never held real power under my rule; locally, the power had all been in the hands of the Span Echelon. And the Primary Mocr Maidens were, after all, none too bright, so it's quite possible they didn't even notice the upheaval in the pattern of authority.
As you can probably imagine, the Span Echelon were not the sort of women to take this treatment lying down. Strong-minded, capable, aggressive—all of these they had all been from the first. But before I gave them the opportunity to exercise their abilities, they had been suppressed and frustrated by their primitive, tradition-bound, male-dominated society. Goss Confian women in general were expected never to stir outside their houses. (The men in general, due to natural inclination, could not be expected to stir much, either.) The chance I gave these women to rule and engage in intrigue must have seemed quite literally a godsend. Now, after such a short time, such a brief taste of power, they were being ordered to give it all
up and go home again and be satisfied with their old lives. Impossible, of course, for such spirited types. They went home all right, but once there, they festered.
One by one, Gisfc got in touch with her former subordinates, and they jumped at the chance to work for me again with the object of restoring sanity and Spanity to this world of not-so-little green men and women. Through them, Gisfc and I were kept well supplied with food, clothing, and information. They were a determined and loyal cadre, and, strange to say, the aristocrats who now ruled the world seemed not to have the slightest suspicion of them.
"Don't worry, dear," Gisfc said to me one evening, after telling me about the loyalty of the former Span Echelon. "We'll take care of that Whatho bitch for you—and the rest of them." Her face wore an expression of fierceness and determination that was a wonder to behold.
"That's nice, Gisfc, darling," I said as soothingly as I could. I feared she might take care of me on the spot if I spoke the thought that had come to mind: Why not take care o.j the rest of them, but spare the Whatho bitch—leave her to my divine justice.
Gisfc and I became increasingly domestic, until we would have appeared to an onlooker to have been just like any other man and green wife. I soon told her all about me—who I really was and where I came from,' and so on—and she took to calling me Thomas. She seemed remarkably unsurprised by what I told her, but how much of it she had already known or guessed, she chose not to say.
One day when I returned from one of my above-ground information-gathering trips, Gisfc met me at the doorway to our underground room. Her face looked both grim and triumphant.
"Good evening, Thomas," she said. "Guess who's dropped by."
For a moment, I could imagine I was one of the unfortunate office workers back on good old Earth,
just back from work and being greeted at the door by his dutiful wife with news of an unexpected visit from an old friend. But then I stepped into the room and saw our visitor, and the illusion disappeared. It was Artsie Seedyn. He looked up at me glumly, wanly, defensively, and perhaps even a bit hesitantly.
"Well, well!" I exclaimed in what I hoped was a tone dripping with sarcasm. "As I live and breathe—-which is no thanks to you—if it isn't the High Woojum himself. Artsie Seedyn, older and balder, balding and olding. Hello, rat-fink. What do you want here? Or have you led the other rat-finks to us?"
I should explain that among con men the term "rat-fink" is a very strong one. To the outsider, it may seem that all con men are rat-finks by the very nature of their trade. But to those of us in the Business (as we call it among ourselves), it is a very serious vocation with its own strict internal code of honor governing our relations with our colleagues. On both Wisteria and Sagebrush, as I understand it, calling a fellow con a rat-fink is tantamount to challenging him to meet you on Main Street at high noon, with only one of you scheduled to leave Main Street in a vertical position.
But Artsie seemed to have lost all his fight: his backbone, which in the old days had been so justly famous among his colleagues, had turned to marsh-mallow. For but a moment, when I called him a rat-fink, something both ugly and dangerous flickered across his face. But it was only for a moment, and then the look of anger and violence was gone, replaced by a look of fearful entreaty.
"Please, Hughes," he whined, "I don't know what to say. I didn't bring anyone here. I wasn't even sure you were here. I've been stumbling around these passages for days. They're cold and damp. And I'm starving."
"The poor little lost boy's hungry," I said to Gisfc. "What do you think we ought to do?"
She glared at him, snarling—like a dog entertaining
thoughts of violence toward someone's throat. "String him up by the balls," she growled.
Artsie paled beneath his green dye. "Hey, now, wait a minute, guys! I'm on your side!"
"Remarkable, and, I suspect, quite untrue. Unless ..." I stared at him thoughtfully while I pondered the matter. "Stared blankly" is probably more accurate than "stared thoughtfully": I have always had the habit, when pursuing an interesting train of thought, of leaving my eyes aimed wherever they happened to be when the first thought in the train struck me. At such times, my vision is, as you might say, inner-directed, and I'm not at all aware of anything in my field of vision. But for anyone who happens to be the object of my blank stare, what looks like a cold, unblinking, hostile scrutiny can be disconcerting. Artsie squirmed.
The thought that had so absorbed me concerned Artsie's uncharacteristic manner, which lent credence to his claim of now being on my side. First, his subservience when I first entered the room; I could not bring myself to believe that he was a good enough actor to imitate the attitude so effectively. (Although, I reminded myself, he had simulated loyalty well enough at the temple to fool me for months.) And then he had reacted fearfully when Gisfc suggested suspending him by those organs in which he had always taken such inordinate pride; and yet he was probably stronger than Gisfc and I put together, and he surely knew it; above all, the old Artsie would have responded with vulgarly expressed enthusiasm to the idea of a tussle involving a female and his genitals. So he had to be genuinely frightened—even demoralized —before coming to us.
Upon further cogitation, I thought I knew why he was frightened. Artsie had been sweating throughout our interview, and his green skin dye was beginning to run. That could only mean that he had run out of the small amount of Green Cream ("Guaranteed not to run even if you have to!") I had given him. Unable to
find the cache of the stuff I had been obliged to leave behind in the temple upon my hasty exit, he had been forced to return to using the inferior.product he had had on him when I first met him at the Magenta Placenta. Fiedo had guessed from the start that Artsie was an alien; for that matter, even had Artsie really been a native, Fiedo would have hated him both because of the nature of his job and because he was my hireling. With Fiedo back in control and probably planning an unpleasant end of the High Woojum, and with said High Woojum's greenness showing a distressing tendency to wash off, exposing the all-too-Earthly pink beneath, Artsie would have been in big trouble. Terrified, desperate to save his non-green skin, Artsie had come to me. I decided his plea for help was genuine. What to do about it? I too had a strong urge to string him up by the balls. Before I accepted him into my little government-in-exile, I thought it wise to probe a bit and to test him.
"Why are you suddenly on our side, Artsie?" I asked, as if I had not already figured it out.
A crafty look appeared on his face. This illustrated another reason why Artsie's career as a con man had never attained any heights of brilliance: he couldn't keep his face impassive; his feelings showed clearly and quickly to any intelligent observer, and such an inability to control a face is to a con man what having one leg amputated would be to a long-distance runner or a purse-snatcher.
"Oh, well," he smirked, "how could I leave my best friend in the entire Galaxy in the lurch? And his lovely companion." The smirk became a leer. The old Artsie was resurfacing.
Gisfc growled like an angry dog again and once again Artsie turned pale and the old Artsie dived back into hiding. "I came to see if I could help both of you," he said quickly.
"Your altruism is touching," I remarked. "May I remind you that we needed no help at all before your treacherous ..." I searched for the right word
and finally finished lamely, "... betrayal. But I perceive," I rushed on, not allowing him to gain the psychological initiative due to my embarrassing and uncharacteristic pecksniffism, "that your green color is leaving you in company with your always copious perspiration, and I venture to presume that your erstwhile comrades in arms and evil perceived it too." I felt triumphant.
"You always were a pompous bastard," he mut-ered.
"And I presume, too," I continued, choosing to ignore him, "that the new regime at the temple does not look too kindly upon any sort of sexual misconduct."
"J. Harvey!" he groaned. "You can say that again!"
"I won't," I assured him. "I never repeat myself. Never."
"What?" Artsie said craftily.
"I said, I never—never mind, damn you!"
Artsie was grinning from ear to ear. I seemed to have lost control of this conversation after all, through trying too hard not to let that happen. However, I still had a big knife in him that I could twist, thus getting things back on the right track.
"The question before the board—that's me—however, is not my pomposity or your stupidity, but rather your survival. Just what shall we do with you?"
"String him up by the balls, Hughes, I'm telling you!" Gisfc cut in right on cue. "Don't trust the slimy alien pig—sorry, Thomas. Just string him up by the—"
"Yes, yes, dear," I interrupted her. "I remember how it goes." Artsie was sufficiently cowed again, and I felt it was time to get down to business. "Artsie!"
"Yessir!" He snapped to seated attention.
"How's the tavern business?"
That took him off guard. "Why, uh . . . What the Hell're you talking about, Hughes?"
"Does anyone besides me and Sell Supp know who Comptr Contrl, jolly mine host of the Magenta Placenta, really is?"
"Only you," he said, with what he must have intended as a meaningful look.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I've already taken care of Sell Supp. Permanently."
<?Oh. ... I see." That had shocked me. To cover up, 1 affected heartiness. "Well, that takes care of that character very neatly. Now, then, down to—"
"Brass farthings, as they say on—"
"Precisely. I want you to go back upstairs, armed with some of my Green Cream, and become Comptr Contrl again. You'll be a useful conduit for information, and your tavern will be useful to me."
"What's in it for me?" He was being belligerent again.
"First, I'll not allow my green girlfriend here to string you up by the balls. That should be worth something to you. And secondly, when I come back to power—as I most certainly will—you'll not be forgotten."
After a lot of haggling, we arrived at a mutually acceptable agreement. I was to have full use of Artsie's back room and he would report whatever interesting news he learned, and in return—and this is where the haggling came in—he would, upon my resumption of power, have a position that carried not only more prestige than that of High Woojum, but also far more extensive privileges. Every man has his price, some high and some low. Artsie's price always had been sex.
A few days later, suitably disguised in peasant drabs, I ambled into the Magenta Placenta and ordered ale. Artsie himself—very nicely green—served me. My hood hid my face, of course, and he didn't recognize me.
He slammed the big metal mug down on my table so that droplets of the brew flew onto my clothes. "Ale," he grunted.
"Woojum," I replied.
He paled beneath the green. Then he recognized me. He still looked frightened, though. I waved him away carelessly and sipped my ale in a negligent fashion. I felt that a generous helping of insecurity would do the man good. I wanted him never to be sure where I was or when I might show up in disguise in his tavern. Hopefully, that would make him more dependable this time around.
I sat there for a while, drinking quietly and listening intently. I was particularly interested in the conversation of three men in laborer's clothes at the table next to mine. Judging by the smell, they were all by profession collectors of nightsoil.
"Eh, Grinch," said one. "Coin' to temple lately?"
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"Humph," Grinch responded eloquently. "Wha' for? No more priestesses."
"Yeah," said the third man. "No blessed priestesses no more in the cursed place. Damned Mocr Dyn— what she ever do for me? Now, them priestesses, they useta do things for me."
"Span bless 'em!" Grinch breathed. "They sure did. All kindsa things."
They drank in silence for a while, remembering the delights the temples had provided during my beneficent rule, and all three breathing heavily.
"I wish he'd come back," said the third man thoughtfully. "Span," he added by way of explanation. "I wish he'd Come Again again."
The first man quickly made the Spanner's sign against evil—hand clenched into a fist but with the middle finger extended rigidly upwards—and protested, "But he wasn't Span. He was the Antispan. Evil—they told us so!"
Grinch snorted. "Then Evil's better'n Good. More fun, anyway. Damned aristocrats got rid of the only good god we ever had."
They went on in this vein for a while, before their conversation rambled on to other topics. Two of them at least had been remarkably free with very dangerous talk. They must have felt as deeply about the whole matter of Span as it was possible for Goss Confians to feel about anything. I sat there for a long time drinking and thinking—and listening. I heard some other conversations in which feelings much like Grinch's in both content and intensity were loudly expressed.
Combining what I was overhearing with information Gisfc had been relaying to me—information fed to her by the Span Echelon—I began to arrive at a very encouraging picture. It seemed clear to me that the people had had enough. They wanted the goodies back, the goodies I had dispensed with so lavish a hand and that Fiedo, in general all too clearly under the collective thumb of the great families but in this case following the dictates of what there was of his
own conscience, had once again taken away from them. By "goodies" I mean the mystery and awe and excitement I had injected into the rituals and rites of the religion—the esthetic and emotional rewards of the renewed faith. Once again, the temples were dull places, with droning priests and repeated appeals for money. Attendance at the temples had fallen off dramatically since my departure, and complaining mutterings and rumblings could be heard from the once faithful across the land. The unwashed green masses were not content to return to their pre-Hughes irreligious state: I had given them a taste of something interesting and exciting, and they knew they had been robbed of it by Fiedo and the great families.
For their part, the great families had earlier apparently been laboring under the delusion that the people secretly loved them and longed to be ruled by them again. Now, belatedly, they were realizing that the people loved only those who catered to their appetites. Span—I—had done just that. The people had been willing to play along with their new rulers as long as those new rulers let the people play along with the priestesses. It was Spannism the people loved, not the aristocracy: the people hated the great families themselves as much as they always had, and now that the aristocrats had made the fatal mistake of destroying the essence of the new Spannism, they had lost even the nominal support the people had given them right after my deposition. It might be a good time for Hughes to make his reappearance.
I strolled back through the dark, quiet streets feeling more cheerful and hopeful than I had hi weeks. I sneaked into an old building—now a warehouse, once some sort of government office—which contained one of the few entrances to the tunnel system. The entrance was down a flight of stairs, around a corner, under a flagstone, etc.—the sort of complicated nonsense you'd expect for a secret entrance to a secret tunnel system.
Once I'd closed the entrance behind me, I fished a lamp from my clothes, lit it, and headed for "home,"
as I'd taken to calling the humble room Gisfc and I shared. By now, I knew my way between home and this particular entrance quite well, and if it had been necessary to do so, I could have found my way in the dark. However, I had a reason for wanting a light. When Gisfc had told me about the Shellies—the insect/reptile creatures she and her brother had fantasized as being in the tunnels—she had touched some sort of repressed childhood nightmare in my unconscious. Now I kept imagining I saw the damned things, too. I would imagine, as I walked about the tunnels, that I saw flashes of light, as ,if the glow from my lamp had gleamed off the chitinous surface of a creature rushing into hiding. I thought I could hear rustling, slithering, chittering noises, and mutterings in side tunnels as I passed by. Imagination, nitwit! I told myself sternly. But I never walked in the tunnels without a light.
As I was walking along, swinging my lamp and being a coward—as has always been my wont—I was pondering my course of action.
An idea that had occurred to me before but had been rejected suggested itself again: perhaps I could obtain help from Mardig Ras, the local Imperial Consul. After all, I was still a subject of the Empire, and Imperial officials such as Mardig Ras are supposed to help Imperial citizens in need. If all I wanted was to escape from the planet, I could simply walk into the consulate building (located in the spaceport) and demand passage off Goss Conf. If I talked fast enough, I should even be able to get Gisfc Comp included in the deal. And Artsie Seedyn? Let the High Woojum take care of himself.
But was escape what I really wanted—penniless, thief-in-the-night escape? No, of course not. What I wanted was a return to power, and then revenge. Eventually, returning to my original plan, I would indeed escape, but poundful rather than penniless. Would Mardig Ras help me regain power? It would mean interfering in the affairs of a supposedly independent
planet, but I could promise to repay him by publicly committing Goss Conf to loyalty to Emperor Bob and by inviting the Imperial Armed Forces to establish bases on the planet. If I remembered my schoolboy galactic geography (anachronistic term!) correctly, Goss Conf must not be too far from the boundary of the Emski Centripety; a world in that area with a ruler who openly sided with Earth would surely be welcome to the Emperor. That was it, then. I had convinced myself. Home for supper and bed and some green goodies, and the next day I would stroll over to the consulate to see Mardig Ras.
When I reached home, however, my green girl was having a nervous breakdown. Or was it an attack of hysteria? I've never been able to keep that archaic, arcane terminology straight. At any rate, Gisfc was sitting with her back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms around her legs. She was staring wildly at the door, shivering and moaning.
Not realizing the seriousness of her condition, I said kindly, "What's the matter, Gisfc? Bark your shin?"
She moaned louder, and I realized that matters were serious. Only then did she become aware of my presence. "The Shellies, Thomas!" she said. "Span help me. I saw the Shellies again!"
As you can probably imagine, this really shook me up. It seemed like an echo of my own recent imaginings. Mind you, I had never told her that I thought I had seen the creatures; and she had not mentioned them after telling me about her childhood games and fantasies with her brother, Bloobac. So suggestibility was not involved. Either she had really seen something, or I was involved in a remarkable and exceedingly creepy coincidence.
After a while, and with a great deal of effort, I was able to get her calmed down, in bed, and, at last, asleep. Before I went to sleep, though (it was fairly late in the evening), I double checked the lock on the door the Span Echelon had earlier smuggled down to us and installed in the entrance to our room. Despite
that, my sleep was uneasy and filled with dreams of being chased down dim, endless underground corridors by an assortment of monsters, not a few of whom bore the face of the stewardess I had wronged during the trip from Hester to Goss Conf. Gisfc's moaning and thrashing about, which awakened me a few times, indicated that she, too, was having nightmares. For a man who was used to sleeping the calm and wholesome sleep of the innocent, it was a bad night.
The next morning, by mutual agreement, we didn't talk about the Shellies. For my part, I tried to not even think about them. It was time to see Mardig Ras, the Imperial Consul. After breakfast (all meals were provided by the Span Echelon, all accompanying beverages by the Magenta Placenta, despite pitiful protests from the management of the latter), I donned my peasant garb and Gisfc and I set out. (By another unspoken mutual agreement, we had determined never to walk through the tunnels alone again. Not that I could do much to protect Gisfc, but she was a tough cookie and I felt safer having her with me.)
Once aboveground, we parted, Gisfc to attend to some Span Echelon business, and I to visit Mardig Ras. An unpleasant surprise awaited me.
The street which led to the spaceport represented one of the city fathers' few attempts at cosmopolitan splendor. For Traj Coord, it was a boulevard—i.e., wide enough that two saar-drawn carts traveling in opposite directions on it could pass each other without any danger of their wheels locking or their drivers having to brawl in the street for the right-of-way. On those rare days when a spaceship landed, a few desul-
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tory peddlers would wait along the side of the street near the spaceport in hopes that some alien with spending money would venture out and buy something. No spaceship today, so the street was empty.
But not entirely empty. As I strolled along the street, trying to look like an ordinary peasant with time on his hands who just happened to be headed for the spaceport gates, I noticed two of the temple guards lounging near the gates, sharpening their swords. Casually, my peasant's cloak fortunately hiding my pale face and shaking knees, I turned around and strolled back down the street. As soon as I reached an intersection, I turned to my right and, once out of sight ot the guards, stopped strolling and started running.
There could be only one reason for the guards' presence at the spaceport entrance, I was sure, and that was to catch me. The new rulers—or perhaps Fiedo—knowing I was an alien, had guessed that I might try to get into the spaceport (either to seek refuge at the Imperial consulate, or to board a ship and escape from the planet). Possibly my disguise would have gotten me past the guards; probably they had been ordered to search and closely examine the face of any Goss Confian seeking entrance. Possibly they would still be loyal to me; probably they had been bought by the other side as easily as they had earlier been bought by me. I could not take the chance.
I hurried across the city to the Magenta Placenta, dodging carts and pushing through noisy, smelly crowds, arriving there, after two hours of brisk walking in the warm spring sun, covered with sweat. I could not, of course, take off my cloak and hood. I would have to ask Gisfc's girls to obtain something light and summery in a disguise for me. After the long walk, I was no longer panic stricken, but I still felt that I needed some alcohol. Hot and tired as I was, even the awful ale Artsie served would be welcome.
Beyond that, I wanted to know if Artsie could help me find a teller from which I could call Mardig Ras.
I sat down, and I noticed the addition to the place right away. Artsie was still carrying the drinks to the tables, but he had installed behind the bar a vision of green voluptuousness, soft and rounded, dewy-eyed and innocent—Artsie's type. I leaped to the conclusion that her duties covered a range from bar-work to bed-work.
I motioned to Artsie, who had obviously not recognized me, and bellowed at him his native alias: "Comptr Contrl!"
Annoyance flickered across his face (which looked a much healthier, more natural green now that he had access to my supplies) but quickly vanished as he brought himself back under control and reassumed the usual commercial expression of pugnacious obsequiousness. He hurried over and said politely, "Yes, sir?"
"Ale, paleface," I said quietly.
He jerked back in alarm.
"Hi, High," I muttered.
A look of disgust crossed his face. "Hughes, you bastard. Whaddaya want?"
"Why, yon fair maiden, Artsie. If maiden she be." A dark and dangerous look appeared beneath the green, so I hastily dropped the banter and got down to business. "Back room available?"
He sighed, "Go ahead."
I sauntered across the tavern and into his storage-room-turned-conference-room. I discovered it had been reconverted into a storage room. That pleased me, since it implied that Artsie had stopped his amateurish attempts at plotting and conniving and had returned to running his tavern just as a tavern.
Artsie appeared a few minutes later, bringing me my ale, and looking nervous and tired in the bright electric light.
"Too much for you, is she, old friend?" I asked, feigning solicitude. "Keeping you awake?" He winced, and I shook my head and clicked my tongue. "It's age, old man. The difference in, plus the burden of years." He started to protest vigorously—"I'm not old," etc.
—but I had no time for that, so I broke in, "I tried to get into the spaceport today, but there were a couple of temple guards patrolling outside the gates." "I know," he nodded.
So he had already tried the same thing! However, I had planned to abandon him if / were able to escape from Goss Conf, so I should be neither surprised nor angry at his coming up with the same idea.
"This is the problem, Artsie. I have to get in touch with the Imperial Consul on Goss Conf—a man named Mardig Ras—but he both lives and works in the spaceport, like virtually all the Earthmen on the planet."
"What about your precious tunnel system? Won't that get you inside the spaceport?"
I shook my head. "It's not recent enough. The tunnel entrances are all in very old buildings. The temple, for example. And the tunnels only go under the old parts of the city. But there's nothing on the spaceport that's more than a hundred years old. What I need is a teller so that I can put in a call to him. Now, where—Bother than in the spaceport—can I find a teller?"
He shook his head. "You're crazy, Hughes." "You've said that before," I snapped. "Yeah," he nodded. "And now I know I was right. Look, there probably aren't any tellers anywhere on the planet except in the spaceport." He pointed up at the light with his thumb. "Just like that's probably the only electric light outside the spaceport. Oh, of course —and the temple. I forgot you electrified part of that. Anyway, my generator's wearing out and I can't get into the spaceport to buy replacement parts, so pretty soon 7 won't have electricity either." He looked sorrowfully up at the naked bulb.
"Hmm," I said thoughtfully, sipping my ale. "A generator. What do you use for fuel?"
He gestured toward my mug of ale. "You're drinking it."
"Hmm," I said again, not knowing what else to say.
Just then, the aforementioned barmaid stuck her pretty green face in the door and said, "Comptr, sweetie."
I raised my eyebrows at Artsie. He blushed beneath the green makeup—an interesting color combination —and tried to ignore me. "Yes, Tillie?"
I raised my eyebrows even further. " 'Tillie'? You're joking!"
"Oh, be quiet," he growled at me.
Tillie was listening to this verbal interplay with a blank expression of incomprehension. Dumb, too: she certainly was Artsie's type.
"What, Tillie?" A note of exasperation. Despite his deplorable preference for dumb femininity in the bedroom, Artsie was at least bright enough to be annoyed at this girl's mental slowness hi the other rooms.
Tillie pouted. I stepped in diplomatically. "My dear child! Is this nasty man mean to you, hmm?"
"He sure is!" she erupted. "Why, just last night he claimed he was too tired when I—"
"TILLIE!" Artsie shrieked. The color combination became truly fascinating, with purple veins and red eyes standing out startlingly against his green skin. I grinned at him in evil triumph. "Why are you interrupting us?" he asked Tillie, in a slightly quieter shriek.
"There's a woman here who wants ta see yer friend," she snarled at him. She pulled back and slammed the door.
"I say, old man," I said in a debonair, worldly sort of tone, "have you tried the temple? I understand the priests have been selling the most remarkable ointments. ..."
"Arrgh!" he replied, rushing from the room and slamming the unfortunate door behind him. I shook my head in sorrow. How are the mighty collapsed! 1 reflected.
A moment later, Artsie was back, looking subdued,
sheepish—even timorous. Behind him shuffled a heavily robed and hooded figure—obviously feminine, for that much the robes showed clearly enough. In spite of that, though, the apparition momentarily shook my self-control, reminding me uncannily, as it did, of Fra Frank, that pestiferous Harveyite, gliding around the temple and into and out of my life at crucial moments. The mysterious woman closed the door and then threw back her hood, and the reason for the change in Artsie's attitude became clear.
"Gisfc!" I exclaimed. "What a pleasant surprise! Here to string up our friend, I suppose?"
Artsie moaned in fear and put his hands protectively over his groin.
However, Gisfc was in no mood for games. "We've dug up some lighter clothes for you, Thomas. Much more important, though, one of the girls found something we want you to look at."
I felt much more like staying where I was and relaxing with another mug of high-octane ale than dashing off through the city again, but there was a sense of urgency about her that persuaded me. And also, one must be willing to make small sacrifices in order to keep peace in one's family—to keep one's happy home happy.
As Gisfc and I walked briskly back through the empty street—it was shortly after noon and the natives were indoors being piggish about the noonday meal—she explained that one of her girls had heard from a male acquaintance of a building which had once housed the offices of the spacemen's union but was now deserted. Hurrying there immediately in hopes of finding something useful left behind by the aliens, the resourceful young woman—Draydl by name—had first found only a few Terrestrial odds and ends, but nothing she recognized or thought might be either interesting or useful to me. But then, in a back room, Draydl had found something she knew must be important. Later, she described it to Gisfc, who was now passing the description along to me.
"A kind of small box," she said, "with a smooth glass front with buttons below it, sitting on a desk. The buttons have marks on them—could be alien writing."
"A teller!" I exclaimed happily. "What a coincidence! I was just telling Artsie that I need one. Why, it's like ... like ..."
"A gift of the gods," she said drily.
"Precisely. Now, let's hope it's not just something that looks like a teller."
But once we had entered the old building and made our way to the back room Draydl had described and where she was waiting for us, my doubts were dispelled. A teller it was, indeed, from the numbered buttons below the screen, for calling up any registered teller number on the planet, to the CTEL company symbol and quaint slogan ("CTEL teller—sees all, tells all") neatly printed on the top. All of this was visible because the room was dimly lit by the sunlight coming through a small window set in the ceiling above us—a skylight of sorts.
"Interesting," I murmured, looking around the room. The ceiling had glass squares set into it at regular intervals—electric lighting, obviously, though it was now dead. And the teller was plugged into an electrical outlet in the wall. Clearly, the union offices had had some source of electrical power. Why the union had chosen to move out, I had no idea, just as I could not understand why they had left a teller behind them. Or was taking care of the gadgets the responsibility of »CTEL Corporation? I couldn't remember for sure, but I thought that the company only rented its tellers to its customers and never sold them. Perhaps there had been some mixup, and CTEL had neglected to send its people to pick up this teller after the customer had moved out of the building.
"Draydl, thou good and faithful fifth columnist," I said to the young girl who stood proudly next to Gisfc.
"Yes, sir!" she said, snapping to attention and earning a contemptuous look from Gisfc.
"Why did the other—the aliens leave this building?" Gisfc interrupted smoothly. "Span knows the answer, of course, dear. He just wants to hear it in your own sweet voice."
"Sheathe your claws," I ordered her. "Go on, Draydl, darling."
"You see, sir, after you were kicked—er ..." She stopped, flustered, while Gisfc grinned nastily at me.
"After I moved my base of operations out of the temple, yes?"
"Yes, sir, after you moved your base of operations out of the temple," she went on gratefully, "the new people in the temple started making things very unpleasant for aliens in the city, and all of those who were working or living off the spaceport, like the ones who were in this building, quickly moved back to the spaceport for safety. I guess," she added brightly, "that's why they left this thing behind—they were in such a hurry, they forgot."
"Very good," I said loftily. "I'm very proud of you." She glowed. Gisfc glowered.
"Well, now," I said briskly, pacing back and forth and rubbing my hands together. "Time to get to work. I want the two of you to dash over to the Magenta Placenta and bring back Artsie, his generator, and lots of that awful ale."
" 'Generator'?" Gisfc asked.
"Right." I grinned. "He'll object, but you seem to have a way with him. Get some more of your girls to help you—it may be quite a bit to carry. On your way, please. I have some exploring to do here."
An instinct—old friend of the con man—had told me that a search of this place would pay off. After the two of them had left, I roamed around the rooms, opening closets and looking in the drawers of the few pieces of furniture the members of the Imperial Spacemen's Guild had left behind. Finally, inside a drawer, I found it: a bottle of Sudden Comfort, 80 proof, bottled on Earth itself. Not quite the sort of discovery that would upset the political balance of the Galaxy, per-
haps, but while the bottle lasted it would make my life a lot more pleasant. I hadn't had anything besides Artsie's so-called ale since landing on Goss Conf, and I hadn't drunk Sudden Comfort—"Best Booze on Any Planet!"—in years.
It was late afternoon by the time Gisfc and Draydl showed up, each holding one end of a large contraption I took to be Artsie's generator, followed by a whole platoon of Span Echelon women carrying cases of Magenta Placenta ale. The rear of the parade was brought up by Artsie himself, pale and moaning. "My generator! My generator!" he kept saying.
"Not to mention my ducats and my daughter," I said, feeling full of good cheer and high-proof spirits. I was sitting behind the desk that had the teller on it, my feet propped up, and the one-third empty bottle on the desk before me.
Artsie looked at the bottle and his eyes widened. "Hughes! Wheredja get that?"
"Oh, what the Hell," I said, brimming over with the good fellowship alcohol usually induces in me. "Go ahead and have some, pal. You've been restricted to that evil brew of yours for even longer than I have. Once I'm back in power, we'll import a whole shipload of the stuff, just for you 'n' me."
I handed Artsie the bottle. Instead of sipping it pa-tricianly, as I had been and as one should with such fine stuff, he tilted the bottle and began guzzling it most plebeianly. I grabbed it back just in time to save a small amount of the precious amber fluid (as they Jike to say in cheaper works of fantasy). "Easy, pal," I growled at him. "That stuff ain't Artsie's Awful Ale, y'know." Artsie glared at me, then stared longingly at the bottle.
With a herculean effort, I returned to my normal, elevated diction and syntax. "Now, then, ladies and germs—as they say on Marquee—to work. I see you have everything. No trouble getting it, I trust, Gisfc?"
Oddly, she avoided my eyes. "No trouble, Thomas," she muttered.
I glanced from her to Artsie. He was staring at the floor, shifting from foot to foot, and blushing. Draydl, I observed, was scrutinizing the ceiling, although what she found there of interest, I had no idea. Complications, I thought with disgust. However, other matters were more pressing.
"All right, Artsie," I snapped, bringing him back suddenly from an apparently pleasant dream, or perhaps reminiscence. "Hop to it. A couple of the girls can help you, if you think you'll need help."
"Don't need no help from no girls," he grumbled, lumbering off to one side of the room.
In a remarkably short time—to give the Seedyn his due—he had set the whole apparatus up. His generator, liberally sauced with ale, was chugging along happily, occasionally missing a beat (presumably as it found a particularly rough swallow of the ale), sometimes burping gently, and the teller screen was alight, spreading its flickering gray effulgence to the farthest corners of the room, pushing back the encroaching shadows of nightfall: the bright light of science and civilization fighting off the dark night of barbarism and tyranny. Very cosy.
"How will that thing let you talk to the consul, sir?" Draydl asked doubtfully.
"Very simple, my dear child," I said expansively, squeezing her shoulder avuncularly, while Gisfc glared and Artsie snickered. "As you know, the world is a sphere."
"Aw, c'mon!" Gisfc burst out incredulously.
"Circling continually around this sphere," I continued, ignoring Gisfc's rising green, "are a number of small devices, placed there by an Imperial ship. This teller broadcasts—I'm sorry, sends—my message straight up, in the form of a cone. One of the little devices is always in range at any time, and it sends the message to one of the other devices, and so on until the message reaches a point above the teller I'm trying to communicate with. Then my message is broadcast down again. Simple enough."
"I see," she said, still doubtfully.
"I'm sure you do, you sweet young thing." For a moment, I thought Gisfc would explode, a Goss Confian volcano spraying green ichor all over the place. Then she hit back by smirking at Artsie, who blushed again.
Before I could counter-counterattack, she demanded, "Hey, if the Imperials put all those gadgets around the world, Fiedo and the great families won't be too happy about it."
"They'll never know about it, because no one will ever tell them. We alien pigs stick together."
"Hey, Hughes," Artsie broke in, "betcha don't know the consul's number. How're ya gonna get him?"
"Control your tongue," I said coldly.
"Huh? I didn't swear."
"I mean," I explained loftily, "your speech is becoming unbecomingly slurred. Information."
"Huh?" Still in a fog, poor fellow.
"Watch." I pushed the familiar number, used on all planets by CTEL for its local information service.
The screen cleared, to show a bored-looking middle-aged woman. She looked up from the garishly illustrated magazine before her and slurred out a quick "Yeah? Whadja-want?"
"Direct line to Consul Mardig Ras. Triple-A-1 priority," I snapped, hoping my gibberish—made up on the spot—would be convincing to this lackey. "Pronto, as the Wisterians say."
"Number's double oh, three, oh, three," she mumbled, immediately burying her nose in her magazine again. The screen went blank once more.
Behind me, Artsie guffawed. "J. Harvey, Hughes! She's just an information operator, not the consul's private sec!"
I ignored him—with some difficulty. I had suddenly become aware of the group of Span Echelon members drinking in every word of the banter and bitterness: Artsie calling me Hughes rather than Your Celestial Lordship; both Artsie and Gisfc questioning my knowl-
edge and competence with the teller. I had best start watching this sort of thing more carefully. After all, I wanted as many Goss Confians as possible, the Span Echelon included, to continue thinking me a god.
On the teller buttons, I punched out the digits 00303. Again, the screen cleared. This time, however, it lit up with a message: ALL CONSULAR OFFICES ARE CLOSED FOR THE DAY. IF YOU WISH TO LEAVE A MESSAGE, YOU HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS TO DO SO. SPEAK CLEARLY. EMPEROR'S ENGLISH ONLY.
"Oh, great," from Artsie.
Leaning forward and speaking very clearly in Emperor's English with my best Imperial accent, I said, "There's a bomb in the spaceport, set for midnight. RSVP."
Almost immediately, the message disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by a nervous-looking Earth-man, youngish, darkish, well tanned, dressed in a business suit. "Bomb?" he said, speaking rapidly. "I'm Esesr Fit, the consul's private sec. Can I help you?"
"A real es-man, eh? I want Mardig Ras. Triple-A-1 priority."
That, however, was a mistake. He was obviously unimpressed. He grew less nervous, realizing that the bomb wasn't real. He glared at me. Control was slip-ing away from me again. "Okay, brother," he growled. "I don't have time for a bunch of greenies." (I had forgotten about my makeup.) "Now just what—"
He was interrupted by Gisfc. She had been staring at him in fascination from the moment he came on the screen. Now she leaned forward, pushing me aside, and said sharply, in Pabx, "Brother!"
He stared back, astonished. He paled. "Span!" he stammered. He went on in Pabx, "Gisfc? I thought the Shellies got you."
The rest of us were watching all of this in a state, as the phrase goes, of dawning comprehension. "That's your brother?" I asked.
"Yeah. That's Bloobac. My brother. Dirty smeerp.
He never even came to visit me. All those years . . ." she blubbered.
"I told you," he said in an agonized tone. "I thought the Shellies—"
"They're just something we made up!" she yelled at him. "You dirty little—"
"Hush!" he said urgently. "Speak English, please. No one here knows I'm a green—I mean, a Goss Con-fian."
My professional interest suddenly awakened. "What skin dye do you use? Callow Tallow? Yellow Fellow? Real Man Tan? Bronzed God?"
"None of them," he said proudly. "It's my own mixture. I start with—"
Gisfc had shoved me aside again. "Thomas, you're a fool. Bloobac, I'll speak to you later. Right now, get the consul for my godling, here. Pronto, as the whoever-they-are say."
"Yes, ma'am," he mumbled subserviently, and the screen went momentarily blank.
"He always was a spineless little brat," said the loving sister.
"You said he was dead."
"Once I get through with him," she said through gritted teeth, "he'll wish he were. Not even getting in touch with me to let me know he was all right! That smeerp! That—"
Here she was cut off by the sudden appearance on the screen of a middle-aged, slender, balding, gray-haired Earthman in evening dress. He looked quite distinguished and frightfully annoyed. This was Mardig Ras, consular representative of His Imperial Majesty Bob XIV to lovely Goss Conf ("Where the grass is yellow and the people are green" as a travel agent might put it—if any travel agent were idiot enough to sell trips to so insane a world). Apparently, we had interrupted the worthy gentleman in the midst of one of those formal dress diplomatic functions which take up so much of a consul's or ambassador's time and are such an important part of his duties. His name
had seemed familiar to me from the first, but I had been unable to dredge the association from my memory. Now, seeing his face for the first time, I suddenly remembered. Back on Earth, when I was a mere apprentice in my trade (studying under the able tutelage of the second-best confidence artist in recorded human history, Charles Legrande—"Charlemagne" to his friends), I had been a major figure in an enormous swindle. The victim had been a minor ministry of the Imperial government—the Ministry for Extraterrestrial Satisfaction and Acclimatization, or some such thing—and the minister in question had been the same Mardig Ras, until then a rising politician who was destined for greatness or the premiership, whichever came first. However, his gullibility and the public scandal had led to his resignation from the cabinet. Now, years later, here he was, consul on a backwater planet. No doubt this was now as far as he could hope to go in government service, the apex of his career. Considering that I was largely responsible for his situation, he was scarcely the best person for me to turn to. Of course, at the time of his terrestrial disgrace, I had been young and rosy, while now I was mature and green. Hopefully, he wouldn't recognize me.
"I'm quite busy," he said sternly. "You seem to have convinced my sec that your business is sufficiently urgent to warrant an interruption. Now, what do you want?"
"What do you call a see's spouse?" I asked him, knocking him properly off balance. "Secmate. Now that I have your attention," I said, leaning forward, "do you know who I am?" Uh-oh: wrong question. Hastily, I went on, "The returned god, Span. Word of me has, of course, reached even into your alien enclave?"
He nodded slowly. His face had gone completely expressionless, but I could see the political wheels whirling behind the bland exterior.
"As my flawless Emperor's English may already have suggested to you," I continued with just the
right touch of superciliousness, "I am in fact an Earth-man wearing a green skin dye. I am thus a subject— a loyal subject—of His Majesty, Emperor Bob, and I claim the aid and protection of the nearest available Imperial representative. That's you."
"J. Harvey Christ," he muttered. Then he laughed a long, loud, raucous, and undiplomatically nasty laugh. He stopped laughing and glared at me. "Hughes," he snarled. "Thomas Langston Hughes. Did you think I'd forget you? I'd know you if you colored yourself purple! Listen, you crook, we know all about what you did on Hester. The Emperor himself heard about that one. I don't have to help a criminal. I never could prove you were responsible for what happened to me on Earth; but, by Harvey, the Hesterical Royal Police got your fingerprints, and—"
Only now did he notice the flock of green females clustered around me and watching him with interest —although they surely didn't understand a word of his indignant speech, since none of them spoke English. His eyes flicked from side to side, and he scowled darkly. "Really gone native, haven't you, Hughes?" he said, in a voice dripping with contempt. "How dare you call me from a greenie brothel! How can you touch those animals? You're disgusting, man! Why, you're no better than the greenies are. Your skin dye must have penetrated into your brain!" He paused only to breathe heavily for a few moments. I was glad that none of the Span Echelon could understand _English, or they would probably be tearing the teller apart to get at the insulting little man inside it.
Mardig Ras had regained his breath. "Hughes, I wouldn't help you if you were ... if you were . . ." He thought for a while, growing redder by the moment. "If you were in a dungeon somewhere, hanging by your eyelids!" I shuddered at the picture. "Now go stew in your own juice, because your goose is cooked!" He made an angry movement with his arm, and the teller screen went blank.
" 'Goose is cooked'?" I muttered. "Why is my goose cooked? Span alive! That treacherous Terran! Artsie," I shouted, "grab the generator. We're getting out of here! Girls, get the teller and the juice—I mean the ale."
"To drink?" Artsie asked in confusion.
"No, to stew in. Come on, damn it!"
We managed to get all the equipment out of the building and across the street. Matters were so urgent that I felt obliged to perform a certain amount of physical labor myself, carrying a small case of ale. I hurried them all along the street and then into a nearby alleyway. Night had almost fallen: the long twilight of these high latitudes was nearly over. We huddled in the alley mouth, hopefully invisible in the near dark, and watched the fading buildings across the street. My sudden suspicion had been quite correct. We had been in hiding for only a few moments when contingents of palace guards came roaring down the street from both ends, converging quickly on the building we had just quit. Mardig Ras had indeed had someone tracing the origin of my call and notifying the temple during our conversation.
While some guards surrounded the building, others, swords drawn, burst in to search for us.
"J. Harvey," Artsie moaned. "Let's get out of here!" Quick agreement from the girls.                    •?
However, I wanted to watch for a while. Eventually, the men who had entered the building came out again, sheathing their swords and looking disappointed. And these were the very men to whom I, their god, in reversal of the natural order, had sacrificed virgins! What gratitude! A mood of bitterness, pessimism, and cynicism pervaded my thoughts. If you can't trust your own bully-boys, I reflected sadly, then whose bullies can you trust?
Two men were standing in front of the doorway of the building, apparently discussing the situation. Even in the fading light, I thought I recognized them as Misfic and Sell Supp. Sell Supp, my own spy! I pon-
dered the fact that even without a jar of skin dye, that character was a pretty good chameleon.
Misfic shouted an order, and the guards began to disperse along the street, evidently intending to search for us. Time to leave.
We straggled home in silence, following a circuitous route through various byways that my companions seemed to know remarkably well, each of us sunk in his own thoughts; mine were very gloomy ones. The narrowness of our escape had cowed Artsie: he didn't argue at all when I ordered him to bring his precious generator into the tunnels and leave it there. He left without it, going back to his tavern without a word of complaint. Draydl and the other members of the Span Echelon vanished back to their several points of origin. Gisfc and I went to bed. My thoughts were as black, and the future seemed as dark, as the tunnels outside our door.
It took all night before the inconsistency in what I had seen sank in. I had dream after dream in which I was running hopelessly, vainly trying, on stiff, uncooperative legs, to escape from a dead spy—my unconscious frantically signaling me. Sometime in the early morning, I sat bolt upright in bed and said, "Sell Supp! How the Devil? ..."
I jumped out of bed and shook Gisfc awake.
"Gmph?" she asked unenthusiastically.
"Come on, wake up! Artsie's pulling something. He told me he had taken care of Sell Supp permanently, tut we saw him last night. We're going to Artsie's tavern; and this time we will suspend him in the way you suggested. Get hold of a bunch of your girls."
"Oh, no, let's not do that," she murmured sleepily. "His balls have a. much better use—" She broke off in confusion, looked at me quickly and quickly looked away again, then jumped up, dressed herself, and left to get her underlings. Matters were getting far too complicated for my taste.
What was going on, and why were things so out of my control? The intellectual excitement I had felt only shortly before had changed to a jumpy, keyed-up feel-
178
ing. I decided that while I waited for Gisfc and her minions to show up, I might calm myself with a stroll in the tunnels. My superstitious, childish fear of those made-up beasts, the Shellies, was momentarily submerged beneath my other, very real worries, and I decided not to light my lantern: a walk in the dark would soothe me, I felt, and I had my lantern if I should need it.
I should explain, by the way, that the tunnels, once one's eyes grew accustomed to them, were not realjy pitch black. At random intervals, they were faintly illuminated—in some places, from a native luminous lichen; in others, from light leaking in through spy holes into the outside world and around the various secret entrances to the tunnel system.
At any rate, one's eyes, as I said, had first to become accustomed to this low level of illumination before one could take advantage of it, so I walked far enough down the tunnel which passed by our room to be well out of the light escaping into the tunnel around the door of the room. Then I felt my way into a side tunnel and, leaning against a wall while waiting for my eyes to adapt, fell into a reverie.
Quite a few minutes had passed, and my eyes had adapted fairly well, when I heard footsteps: the sound of someone walking rapidly, almost running, along the main passageway I had just left. Instinctively, I froze. Fortunately, now that my eyes were adapted I could see a faint light in the main passageway, which passed by my side tunnel about fifteen to twenty feet from where I stood.
The footsteps approached rapidly. A figure passed quickly by the side tunnel entrance and disappeared down the main tunnel, his footsteps receding into the silent darkness. I had seen him for less than a second, yet I was sure I recognized the profile: Sell Supp, beyond a doubt! I slipped out of hiding and walked rapidly and silently after him—far enough behind him, I hoped, to be invisible, but keeping up with the sound of his nervous footsteps.
Then the sounds stopped. I stopped, too, standing still in the dark, holding my breath, and wishing I could tone down my hammering heart. Nothing. I tiptoed forward. Nothing. I tiptoed some more. Still nothing. Oh, what the Hell, I told myself, and I walked forward at a normal pace for perhaps a hundred feet. This time, when I stopped, I could hear a faint murmur of voices, too faint for me to understand anything, and I could see a faint glow ahead of me. I crept along for a while, until I reached a right-angled turn in the corridor. The voices were quite loud now, and the light was quite bright; both seemed to come from just around the corner. The conversation was in a language I had never heard before.
Thoughtfully, I reached into my robes and brought out my handy, everpresent telescoping periscope—the one with the guaranteed nonreflective surfaces. A remarkably handy gadget, that; the crookedly perfect tool for the perfect crook.
I telescoped out the objective end, placed it against the wall around the corner, then pulled the eyepiece out until I had the speakers in good focus. Then my heart started its wild pounding again and I almost dropped my periscope. I could see two men by the light of the electric lantern set on the floor between them. One was Sell Supp; the other was the familiar small, sinister, robed and hooded figure of the horrible Harveyite, Fra Frank. What in the name of Heaven could this mean? Was Sell Supp some sort of zombie, raised from the dead by Fra Frank by arcane methods known only to the members of the Society of J. Harvey Christ and now controlled by Frank?
Even though I could not understand what they were saying I was sure I caught the word "Hughes" every now and then. They were talking about me, and surely that boded ill.
Suddenly, as if on cue, Fra Frank switched to English. "No, Zhlit, I will not expose the existence of these tunnels. We'll have to get them to trap Hughes aboveground." Zhlit? I asked myself. Then Fra Frank
reached up and, with an impatient gesture, threw back his hood. My heart, instead of pounding, froze. My hands suddenly lost their strength and, once again, I almost dropped my periscope. Instead of the human—though Harveyite—face I had grown to know and hate, I saw, emerging from Fra Frank's robes, the head of a giant insect-reptile: the shell and jaws of an insect, earless, with small antennae, and yet with the large, vertically slitted eyes of a crocodile, with gray skin around them instead of shell; the shell, too, had a grayish cast. A creature out of nightmare —a Shellie!
Very carefully, and very shakily, I withdrew my periscope, collapsed it, and returned it to my pocket. Then I backed away down the hallway, turned around, and ran as silently as possible back to my room.
When I got there, the door was open. Gisfc and Artsie were waiting for me, along with half a dozen of Gisfc's girls—the delicious Draydl not among them. I collapsed on the bed, still trembling.
_Artsie and Gisfc both jumped up, as if we were all on a see-saw, with me at one end and them at the other.
"Thomas, what's the matter?" Gisfc said anxiously. "You're so pale."
"Yeah, Hughes," Artsie said. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I have," I groaned. "Also a monster." The ghost was Sell Supp."
Both Artsie and Gisfc sank back down into their chairs. Now Artsie was pale. "Dammit, Hughes, that "can't be! I killed him. Dead."
"The only way to do it. He was with the guards who almost caught us last night. Didn't you notice? No, never mind," I said, waving my hand. "You have a tendency of not being aware of anything that lies outside your very limited sphere of interest. Say, now." I sat up. "What're you doing here, anyway? I was going to go to you and do some violence because of this very Sell Supp matter. Well?"
"Oh, ah," he said intelligently, then paused. After a moment, he went on, "I was just passing by, and I thought I'd drop in. . . ."
"Ha!" I stood up and transfixed him with a glare meant to have the same effect as pins have on butterflies. "You expect to fool me that easily? I—"
He interrupted quickly. "What monster did you see?"
I suddenly remembered the awful head that had been exposed when Fra Frank had thrown back his hood, and my legs turned to cooked spaghetti noodles. I sat down heavily on the bed. "It's Fra Frank," I whispered. "He's a Shellie."
Gisfc screamed and fainted. Everyone else in the room stared at me blankly. Finally, one of the girls asked, "What's a Shellie?"
"Wake your boss, and we'll go find out." My terror had left me quite suddenly, and a few facts and memories had started emerging and merging in my mind with encouraging results. "Yes, indeed," I said thoughtfully, standing up again, while a couple of the Span Echelon girls prodded and shook Gisfc back to consciousness. "Let's go get us a Shellie!"
Minutes later, we were all standing back at the corner in the corridor, squeezed against the wall, taking turns to look through my periscope. The others —committing lese dieu without a thought—had shouldered me aside to get a look first. I stood by impatiently, tapping my foot (quietly) while I waited my turn. Gisfc was the last one to look, before me. The others had looked distressed: their first sight of a Shellie, after all. Gisfc, even in the dim light, looked more disturbed than the others. I attributed this to her childhood fantasies—rather, to the shock of seeing those fantasies come true. However, she was also growling quietly under her breath; for this, I had no explanation. However, I didn't spend any time worrying about it, for my turn had come at last.
I expected to see the same sight I had seen earlier: Sell Supp talking to Fra Frank, the latter with a
repellently reptilian/insectile head in place of his usual one—the pudgy, cherubic, very Terran face I had seen (it seemed so long ago) in my office in the temple. That much, I did indeed see. In addition, however, another figure had joined that pair and was now listening intently to the fake fra. The new man was Bloobac, Gisfc's prodigal brother, still wearing his pink, imitation Terran, skin color.
Artsie, I thought looked even greener around the gills than elsewhere. Maliciously, I whispered to him, "Wooj, earn your keep. Sneak in there and attack that monster. Or the dead spy, if you prefer." He looked at me, his face displaying a kind of dazed horror. "Now!" I ordered.
Suddenly, he uttered a piercing scream; and then, still screaming, but alternating that with a bellowed stream of garbled obscenities—English and Pabx mixed—and waving both arms like windmills gone mad, he rushed down the corridor toward the mysterious trio we had been spying on. Fortunately, the enemy were as astonished at this remarkable behavior on the part of the erstwhile Woojum as we were. He rushed in among them, stopping suddenly as he came face to monstrous face with Fra Frank. Then Artsie moaned and fainted, while the Shellie and his companions continued to stare at him in amazement.
While they were still thus stupefied, I ordered a quick sally, and within minutes we had them all subdued, tied up, and back in my underground headquarters, seated on the floor and looking dazed. We N had forgotten Artsie, but I assumed he would wake up and show up in time. During our attack, Fra Frank, surprised as he was, had nonetheless managed to flip his hood up over his Shellie head. Now, I leaned forward and grabbed the top of his hood. Gisfc and the others leaned forward as well, displaying a mixture of expectation and trepidation at the monster I was about to expose. "For Span's sake, Gisfc," I told her, "don't faint again. You and Artsie are a pair." She glared at me. I returned to the task at hand
and pulled back the Harveyite's hood, and there was the plump and cheerful face of old, beaming at me benevolently.
"Yes, my child?" he said sweetly. "Have you need of Divine solace?"
Forxa moment, a prickling of superstitious awe ran up and down my spine, and I could hear my underlings muttering and shifting about uneasily. Had the monster head been an illusion? This was surely no mask! However, it was: after much tugging and pulling of Fra Frank's cheeks, nose, and ears by me and Gisfc, which occasioned much unpriestly comment from the victim, he at last gave in and, after we had untied one of his hands, voluntarily removed the mask. It was made of a remarkably thin substance—only one molecule thick, the monster head commented, weirdly speaking with Fra Frank's all-too-familiar voice. I tried the mask on and found it felt like my own skin: it retained its shape, the shape of Fra Frank's face, and yet somehow it transmitted sensations to my own skin; and it was so thin and light that after a moment or two it no longer felt as if I were wearing a mask. I found that there was a special trick to getting it off; pulling at cheeks, nose, etc., had no effect.
"A fine example of Blawnt technology," the Frank-Shellie said proudly.
(While this was going on, Artsie had stumbled into the room, groaning, and shaking his head to clear it. When he caught sight of the Shellie, and of me wearing Fra Frank's face, he—of course—fainted once again. Everyone ignored him.)
I took the mask off with a slight shudder and turned to Sell Supp. "And you? Dead man come to life, or Shellie with mask?"
He stared back at me with defiance glaring from his eyes. This was surely not the reaj Sell Supp: by now, that dissipated Verple would have been groveling before me, begging for forgiveness.
"Tell me frankly. Fra," I said to the clerical Shellie. "What's 'Blawnts' and what's up?"
"I'll tell you nothing, fellow," he answered stiffly.
" 'Fellow,' is it? Won't cooperate, eh? I wonder what I ought to do with you."
Gisfc growled, "Hang him up by the—"
"Give up!" I interrupted. "These creatures probably don't even have any." I looked at "Sell Supp." "Now, a can opener would be another matter. . . ."
Consternation flickered quickly across his mask. "Can opener?" he asked nervously, his voice sounding somewhat different from the one I remembered as Sell Supp's—although that might have been my imagination.
I reached out and, knowing the trick to it now, yanked his mask off, revealing yet another monstrous Shellie head. "Yes, a can opener," I said, repressing my fear of the two creatures. "Applied to your shells, it might induce you and your father-confessor friend here to ... er ... open up a bit."
"You're not joking, I suppose?" he asked in a shaky voice. (I could not read any emotions in that alien face, but the voice was another matter.)
I shook my head.
"What would you like to know?" he asked promptly. A coward—truly a monster after my own heart!
"What's 'Blawnt'? What are you? What's going on? You know—the big picture."
Before the Sell Supp Shellie could answer, Fra Frank cut in. Obviously, he was the leader of this horrible group. "We are the Blawnt. And," he added, with an air of immense confidence, "we will soon be your masters."                                     /
"Master monsters, eh?" I riposted weakly, but it fell flat. Even tied up and exposed as an alien, he was gaining control of the situation. He had undermined my self-confidence all too well, I reflected gloomily. My unhappy pondering was interrupted by a squeal of pain. I turned hastily and discovered that Gisfc was trying with great determination to remove the Bloobac mask from the Shellie who wore it. Only it
wasn't a Shellie and it wasn't a mask; hence the squeal.
Gisfc finally realized this too and stepped back. "Well, I'll be damned," she muttered. "It's really my rodent brother, after all. So, you little smeerp, you can come down here to meet with monsters, but not to see your own only sister, eh?" And she set to work on his face again, in revenge.
"So that's why he thought the Shellies had got you," I said thoughtfully. "He knew they weren't made up. And Sell Supp and the guards almost catching us—it wasn't the consul who ratted on us; it was this rodent, as you so accurately termed him. It all fits. Leave him alone, would you. Those shrieks are getting on my nerves."
She stopped yanking her brother's ears around, although her resentful expression and the way she gave his nose one last, hard parting squeeze indicated strongly that she would have much preferred to continue the torture. "Just what were you doing down here with those . . ." She shuddered, then forced herself to say the word. "... Shellies?"
"Blawnt," Fra Frank contributed sotto voce.
"They told me they'd make me king—King of the Greenies, I'd be—after they took over," Bloobac snuffled. "They would have, too. You're ruining everything, just like you always used to."
Gisfc turned a brilliant green. Fratricide was in the air. I stepped quickly between her and her brother, saying soothing things. "There's something much bigger and more important going on," I concluded, "than sibling mayhem. You can torture him later. But right now ..." I turned to Frank. "Blurt it out, Blawnt."
"Gladly," he said crisply, dropping immediately into a lecture-hall tone. Didacticism knows no biological bounds! "We, as I have already said, are the Blawnt. We come from what you call the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Our own empire—we call it a representative plutocracy—long ago spread to encompass our entire cluster, most of the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and
some other, smaller, nearby satellite galaxies, as your astronomers like to call them."
"But the Clouds are a long way from us," I protested. "What are you doing here?"
"Very simple, Mr. Hughes. No one race has yet established dominance over the Galaxy. We plan to do that. Our technique is to insinuate our agents into important positions in the scores of petty, feudal hegemonies which divide the galaxy between them."
Artsie had been awake for a few minutes and was listening intently. Of the audience in the room, and excepting Bloobac, probably only Artsie and I had the background to understand what the Shellie— Blawnt, rather—was talking about. But this last datum was too much even for us. "Scores?" Artsie asked, sounding dazed. I was dazed by this, too.
The Blawnt nodded—a grotesque sight—and said condescendingly, "Scores. Of course, you are aware of only a very few of them. Hester, little more than a client state of your empire. The Emski Centripety, which you consider your major rival in the conquest of the galaxy. How laughable! Two minor pawns! Oh, and there are a few other small despotisms and federations whose ships have blundered into your small volume of space, and so you know something of them. Throughout the entire galaxy, however, there are indeed scores of such petty power-centers, all of which we are rapidly infiltrating and subverting." He drew himself up in a display of what I can only call monstrous pride. "It won't be long before we can declare ourselves openly and consolidate our control of the Galaxy without subterfuge or pretence. Our empire is already huge, our power immense, our technology—exemplified by that wonderful mask you are holding—is superb. There is no power in the Galaxy that can oppose us."
"Then why," I asked skeptically, "haven't you attacked the galactic powers directly? Why all this childish masquerading?"
He shrugged. "This way is more cost-effective. Our economists have proved it."
"How far along are you, in the case of the Empire?"
He hesitated for a moment, then said, "I suppose there's no harm in telling you: it's too late for you to do any harm to our project, no matter what you know. For that matter, you're a capable man, even if an amoral one and not a Blawnt, and we might be able to use you, perhaps set you up here as Span again, or give you some position on Earth. We'll need some native administrators, after we incorporate this galaxy into our empire.
"To begin with, in the case of your own empire, we have largely eschewed infiltrating government offices, with the exception of certain minor officials and strategically placed sees, such as your friend here, Esesr Fit, «whom we have easily corrupted by offering them ridiculous rewards—promises we have no intention of keeping, as our victims would quickly realize if their cupidity did not overwhelm their common sense."
Bloobac stared at him in horror.
I muttered to Artsie, "And you think I'm a pompous bastard!"
"Instead," the Blawnt continued, "we have concentrated on such powerful private organizations as the Society of J. Harvey Christ. The Harveyites—or Jits, as the members of the Society prefer to call themselves—can go virtually anywhere in the Empire and do almost anything with little interference from local Imperial authorities, who are always reluctant to become involved in a squabble with the church.
"Indeed, the Society has proved to be so effective and unsuspected an instrument that we have been preparing to use it in a more open fashion. For example, we prepared this world for your coming, as I believe I once told you, so that you could assume power as Span and then, being a good Harveyite, as we mistakenly thought, you could publicly announce the divinity of J. Harvey, the validity of Harveyism, and the falsity of Spannism. Thus, you see, we could
have ruled this world openly, as the Society of J. Harvey Christ, in the name of the new religion. Possibly, we could even have saved you from being torn limb from limb by your former worshippers and given you some minor position in our new hierarchy; and if we could not save you—well, that's no gloss off our mandibles, as we say back home. Successful as our underground subversion and indirect control have been, they do present certain inconveniences, which would be bypassed if we could supplant the temples with the Society. The great families were never more than second best," he concluded in a tone of regret. "Perhaps we could still arrange something, Mr. Hughes? ..."
I ignored that and asked him, "Just how far does your influence in the Society extend?"
"Our control," he replied with emphasis, "extends to the very top. Lanidrac Ikslop himself is one of us."
"What—what about the emperor?" I asked nervously, expecting to hear the worst. If Bob were one of them, then the fight was truly over!
"Would we be going to all this trouble if the emperor were a Blawnt? No, Bob is just what he seems to be: an unusually stupid Earthman. Certain of his chief ministers, however, are Blawnt in disguise."
"The intelligent ones," I guessed.
"Precisely. That is why it is too late for this information to do you any good. By and large, as I said, we have limited ourselves to minor officials and certain private organizations, preferring to subvert from the bottom up. But we have had our successes at the . higher levels."
"From what you've said," I said casually but in a tone I hoped he would interpret as one of deferential admiration, "I assume that the local Imperial consul, Mardig Ras, is also one of you, or perhaps has been subverted, hmm?"
. "No," he said thoughtfully, "not yet. Although perhaps we should—" He stopped suddenly as he realized
he had been tricked into giving some information I possibly could use.
"Thanks." I grinned at him. Then I sat in deep thought for some moments, while everyone stared at me expectantly. I looked at Bloobac. "Hey, you, King of the Greenies. You're going to make a teller call to your boss for me and tell him all about this Blawnt business."
He was terrified at the very idea. "Oh, no, sir, I couldn't do that, sir! He'd fire me, or have me tried for treason, or something."
"Would you rather I committed you to the tender mercies of your merciless sister?"
He looked at her glowering face, then looked back at me. "No, sir," he said quickly.
"Come along, then." I untied him and led him over to the teller, which had been set up in a corner of the room along with the generator and the supply of fuel ale. "Artsie, start up the generator; then bring those monsters over here. Tied up, of course."
Time for a big gamble. But how much did I have to lose?
Bloobac got through to his boss with no trouble, as I expected. Mardig Ras came onto the screen looking harried. As soon as he recognized his caller, he said, "Esesr, where are you? The work is piling up, I can't find a substitute sec anywhere in the building so I'm having to handle all this paperwork myself, and—" He stopped suddenly as he caught sight of me. His face and voice turned cold. "Mr. Hughes. What is going on? Why is Mr. Fit with you?"
Bloobac moved his lips but produced only a groan. I hissed at him, "Speak, sec, or I'll sic your sis on you."
"Blawnts," he blurted at the teller.
"WHAT?" Mardig Ras shrieked.      '
"These." I yanked at our two monsters' shoulders, forcing them to bend forward so that the consul could see them.
"Oh, my God!" he whispered. Then his face sud-
denly changed as if a mask had dropped from it. The petty diplomat was replaced by a hard-eyed, coldblooded mover and shaker. No doubt about it: Thomas Langston Hughes had struck gold.
"May I assume you might wish to discuss this with me?" I asked silkily.
"Stay where you are and leave your teller on," he snapped. "I'll have a squad of Imperial Marines there hi fifteen minutes to escort you and your prisoners here."
"Bless you, my son," I murmured, raising my hand in benediction. To Artsie, I whispered, "Just think, old chap. This time, when the cavalry arrives, they'll be on our side!"
The cavalry, as it happened, arrived on foot. It seems that there was a regulation, dating back to shortly after Earthmen first appeared on Goss Conf, forbidding the use of powered vehicles off the grounds of the spaceport. The first Terran visitors had not been so restricted, and the result, when powered vehicles appeared in the streets of Traj Coord, Simdata, and other major cities of the planet, had been terrified horses, upset carts and even more upset citizens; that had led to the regulation. Since few Earthmen ever had learned to control—or even to trust—the native horses, this meant that the denizens of the spaceport, on their too infrequent trips into the city, were restricted to walking.
Even considering the tension and uncertainty involved in the present situation (or perhaps because of this), Mardig Ras had chosen not to break this particular law. It therefore took considerably longer than fifteen minutes for the squad of Imperial Marines (or I-Men, as they were popularly known) to reach us, for they were obliged to cross the city on foot. This extra delay was fortunate, for I had time to realize that the I-Men, trotting (at double speed, no doubt) to the point indicated by a traceback of the teller sig-
192
nal through the communications satellites, would arrive in the middle of the street, directly above our heads. Considering the notorious stupidity of the glorious galactic goons of the Imperial Marines, I was afraid that either they would trot back to the spaceport and report to Mardig Ras that we were nonexistent, or they would realize we were somewhere under their enormous feet and, adopting their usual straightforward, bruteforce approach, they would break out their shovels and picks and start excavating; either course of action would be undesirable. To forestall both forms of stupidity, I sent Artsie and a couple of Gisfc's girls out to await the I-Men and guide them through the tunnels. The girls would do the guiding; Artsie would do whatever talking was necessary, since the girls spoke only Pabx. Since it was broad daylight outside, there might well be someone in the sidestreet above, and in that case the secret of my hiding place was about to be spread far and wide. But I had the strong feeling that it no longer mattered; that once this episode was finished, I would never again have to hide from anyone.
When the marines finally thundered in, they were disheveled and sweating from their trip, disconcerted by the tunnels, and both uneasy and lust filled because of the presence of the Span Echelon; to top it off, they all seemed to go into some sort of nervous defensive mode at the first sight of the Blawnt. All of this combined to ruin the effect of their entrance. I am sure they were accustomed to seeing fear and awe on the faces of primitives when they terrorized a new planet. In this case, they met with expressions ranging from amusement to scorn.
There were fifteen of them, which meant the room was getting rather crowded. But their leader, who was thirty-nine feet tall and dripping with muscles, barked an order, and they quickly formed themselves into three rows of five men each, and that eased the crush slightly. Then he saluted me and said, "Lieutenant J. J. Grim, SAH! Commanding detachment, Imperial
Marines, SAH! You are the alien god, SAH?" All this without batting an eyelid!
I modestly admitted my divinity, and we all left, headed for the spaceport. The Blawnt we disguised by putting their masks back on, but we kept their hands tied and we tied the creatures to each other—creating, not a daisy-chain, but a Shellie-chain. The I-Men conveyed us through the streets, marching along (single-time, this time, at my insistence) in what I supposed would be called a hollow rectangle, with all of us greenies and gods and beastly Blawnt inside the rectangle.
At some point during this bizarre journey, I let slip some sarcastic remark in English about Emperor Bob. Instantly an order was barked and the troops screeched to a sudden halt. The contents of the rectangle—us—kept moving in confusion until we hit the immovable wall of marines in front, then rebounded onto the other three walls, just like water sloshing about in a glass, until finally we had milled and swirled about into a confused stasis. When all was still at last, Lieutenant J. J. Grim confronted me and said through clenched jaws, meanwhile poking me in the chest frequently with his three-foot-long, 150 pound, prestressed concrete right index finger in an exclamation mark sort of way, "If you ever say anything like that again about His Holiness the Emperor, I will forget my orders and squash you into a green jelly. SAH!"
The rest of the trip was accomplished in silence, broken only by the rhythmic tramp of military boots, the irregular patter of everyone else's shoes, and occasionally the merest hint of the suggestion of a snicker from Artsie. I, however, suddenly had much to think about. "His Holiness"? This was a new wrinkle, indeed! What strange, tangled politics had evolved while I was cut off from civilization?
Matters became somewhat clearer after we reached the consular offices in the spaceport.
Getting into the spaceport, by the way, presented no difficulties. The two temple guards were still stationed at the spaceport gates, but as soon as they saw the fifteen I-Men marching steadily toward them, led by their grim lieutenant, the temple soldiers strolled casually off to one side and stood chatting, carelessly examining the sky, the ground, the wall, etc., and ignoring us. They resumed their posts and their attitude of vigilance once we were inside and the gates were closed behind us.
To give him due credit, Mardig Ras provided a plush enough room for us to wait in. And wait we did, while he, we were informed, changed his clothes and otherwise prepared himself to receive us. But I could not begrudge him this little psychological victory in making us wait, salving his ego: he knew, and I knew, that I had him firmly by those organs, stringing up by which seemed to Gisfc to be so fascinating a punishment; and I knew, and he knew, that when my turn came I intended to squeeze.
At last, the consul showed up. To my surprise, he was not wearing any sort of consular evening dress, as I had more than half expected; instead, he appeared—"resplendent" is, I suppose, the proper word—in the uniform of an admiral. How did I know an admiral's uniform from that of the Grand Something-or-other of some silly fraternal organization? Because Artsie, who, it seemed, had once served a term (or "hitch," as they say) in the Imperial Navy, leaned over to me and whispered to me, "Hughes! JThat's a god-damned admiral's uniform!" Perhaps, I thought, the ruined diplomat isn't. Curiouser yet, as they say on Big Lewie.
Perhaps the uniform was meant to impress us; I determined to be openly unimpressed. Before the consul could say anything, I jumped up and boomed out jovially, "Well, well, Mardig Ras! You've kept us waiting! Just back from a fancy dress ball, or on your way to a lodge meeting, hmm? No, no, don't bother answering that. Let's talk usonian. Now, then—-"
"Mr. Hughes, shut up!" he snapped, and damned if I didn't. His tone of command left no doubt that the uniform was for real. I decided to let him talk while I tried to assess the situation.
He made himself comfortable in an armchair and snapped his fingers twice. Navally uniformed lackeys appeared bearing glasses of brandy for all of us. After an appreciative sip or two, Mardig Ras began.
"I assume you have already learned from these Blawnt that we and they are engaged in a struggle for control of the Empire. If they win, we will all fall under the tyranny of bestial, slimy, alien insects, whereas if the Imperial forces win, we will continue under the beneficent rule of our beloved monarch, His Holiness Emperor Bob."
I had been thinking of deflating him by asking why alien insects were worse than any other kind, but that phrase "His Holiness" brought me up short. There it was again; most disturbing.
"At first," he went on, "the war went much their way. This was when we still didn't even know of their existence, so they were able to infiltrate a variety of institutions and planetary governments without any opposition from us. Once we found out what was happening, we tightened our grip on the Empire, and since then the war has been stalemated."
"Ha!" said Fra Frank, who obviously did not consider it stalemated at all.
Ignoring the blunt Blawnt, the consul/admiral jumped up and paced energetically about the room. "We have stymied their advance, but we cannot move against them. First, because they have gained control over certain influential segments of society, and second, because we are afraid we might panic the public.
"At first, one of our most serious difficulties lay in the Blawnt's control over the Society of J. Harvey Christ and other elements of the Empire's religious hierarchy. They were attempting to widen the existing divisions between Church and State, no doubt with a view toward eventually condemning the Imperial gov-
ernment from the pulpit and finally dispensing with the Emperor, thus creating a theocracy under their own control."
I wondered whether anyone would even have noticed Bob's absence, had the above scenario come to be. But mindful of Lieutenant J. J. Grim, who was stationed outside the room's only door, but probably still within earshot, I kept my witty observation to myself.
Mardig Ras continued. "We cleverly circumvented them by decreeing that J. Harvey Christ Himself had visited the Emperor and had told him that from that point on he was to be J. Harvey's mouthpiece among mortal men. And aliens. That is why we now call him 'His Holiness Emperor Bob.' "
"Why," I asked suspiciously, "do you keep on saying 'we' instead of 'he'? As in 'we decreed,' etc."
"Ah hah!" he smirked. "His Holiness is none too bright, and a small group of military and industrial leaders, including me, is the real power behind the throne."
"God help us all," I muttered.
"What?" demanded one of the powers behind the Imperial throne.
"Uh, I said, 'kod selp bussawl,'" I extemporized. "It's an old Gaelic blessing I picked up on New Gal-way. Why are you posing as a mere consul on a backwater planet like this?"
"Ahh, yes, Goss Conf. We had evidence some years ago of a Blawnt invasion here, so I decided to come myself and keep an eye on things. I was preparing to "rectify the situation when you contacted me. I have decided that your greenie subordinates here, with their many contacts, can play some small part in my plans, and you will all be suitably rewarded."
My turn at last! "You have a plan," I said thoughtfully, "that will work here, but obviously it won't work anywhere else, or you would have the Blawnt on the run. Very hard to believe."
"You tell 'im, Hughes," Fra Frank crowed.
"Shut up, alien pig," I pondered my own words for a moment, since "pig" was obviously the wrong word to use. But I decided it wasn't worth trying to improve on it, and I went on with the more important conversation. "Furthermore, we might play only a minor role in your plan, but you eagerly dispatch fifteen I-Men to trundle us through the streets double-speed. Let's have the truth, Mardig Ras."
He vacillated for a few seconds, but then my bluff worked and he capitulated. He sat heavily in the armchair he had jumped up from minutes before and gulped plebeianly the brandy he had earlier sipped patricianly. "Our forces are spread too thin because of the Blawnt," he said glumly. "We could concentrate enough of them here to take over by force and then hold on if we wanted to, but then the rest of the Empire would fall apart.
"You see, Mr. Hughes," he continued, and although his use of "Mr." might have been unconscious rather than deliberate, I certainly caught it, "a good part of the Empire consists of what might be called client states. Goss Conf is an example of such a world. Now, our control over these worlds depends largely upon their continuing belief that their relationship with the .Empire is to their advantage: that we protect them from attack as well as offering certain trade preferences, but that we will not overthrow their governments and try to rule them directly as Imperial provinces. If we were to take over here in order to throw out the Blawnt, word of our action would leak out all too soon, and our client states would see that we cannot be relied on to protect their governments from alien infiltration in the first place, and that we are not above converting them into Imperial provinces when our own interests are threatened in the second. This realization would inevitably lead to uprisings on some client worlds, revolts against even the limited and indirect control we do exercise in such places, and with our inadequate forces concentrated here, we would find it impossible to put such revolts down."
While he was saying this, I was thinking that he surely didn't realize what pussycats the temple guards —the closest thing to an army on the planet—really were beneath the bluster. The reaction of the pair at the spaceport entrance was, I thought, probably typical: faced with a squad of determined Imperial Marines, the rest of them would wilt, too. But in case Mardig Ras was leading somewhere, and in case that somewhere would prove beneficial to me, I had no intention of leading him elsewhere by enlightening him on the subject of just how few Marines he would probably need to conquer Goss Conf.
He looked at me most penetratingly, almost as if he could read my thoughts, but I wore an expression of angelic innocence, and at last he relaxed his scrutiny and continued.
"I had thought it might be feasible to do something with limited force if I could find an ally among the natives and work through him. Supporting a faction in a local civil war would be far more palatable to the rest of the Empire than the naked, open use of Imperial military might."
I liked the way he said that—"Imperial military might." It was obviously a phrase he used often, for it rolled trippingly off his tongue with a practiced sort of grandeur. But of course he was a power behind the throne, so the might in question was partly, at least, under his control. He seemed to have more to say, so I listened attentively.
"It had seemed possible, during your tenure as jSpan, that I might profitably contact that old man, Fiedo, and offer to help him back to power. But before I could do that, you were out and he was in once again. And then you contacted me and proved you already knew about the Blawnt." He coughed and shifted about in his chair, evidently embarrassed at having to ask my help, and his next words came with obvious difficulty. "I'm sure you'd like to return to power. Perhaps we could arrange something to our mutual benefit? ..."
Behind me, one of Gisfc's girls said to her boss suddenly in Pabx, "Now I know who that pinko is! He was the little man in that funny box."
I ignored her and, grinning from ear to ear, said "Power and benefit, indeed! Here's what I want you to do____"
He balked at some of the details, but of course he had to give in hi the end.
! N
r;
Ill
SYNTHESPAN
(The Soul of a Con)
1
Autumn is usually the best time of year in Traj Coord. All is relative, of course, as they probably say somewhere or other. No doubt there are many Earthmen who would consider no time of year good, if they had to spend it on Goss Conf, and especially if they were stuck in Traj Coord, where, due to the proximity of the sea, summer is hot and damp, winter is cool and damp, and spring is nonexistent. But granted all that, autumn—which does exist, in most years—is relatively mild and dry. Throughout autumn, at irregular intervals, huge masses of dry, cool air move over the city from inland and push out to sea. After battling the wet, oceanic air masses for a few hours in a back--and-forth, seesaw struggle that drenches the city in immense, continuous downpours, the continental air establishes its position and holds it for a few days, until the sea air counterattacks. Those few days are as close to Heaven as the citizens of noxious Traj Coord can hope to come.
Not every autumn is even that pleasant, but the autumn that was getting underway when I had the conversation with Mardig Ras I have just described was one of the best. Day after day, the city was bathed
in bright sunlight, mild, dry air, and cool breezes; the sky, usually hazy, was a deep, clear, gentle blue; details stood out with a remarkable sharp clarity in the clear air. I considered the superb weather a good omen for my coming hazardous undertaking—a sign from the gods, perhaps.
The priesthood and Fiedo, along with his bosses, the great families, quite possibly felt otherwise, for the natives were restless. Dangerous drums beat softly from the heart of the jungle in the dead of night and deadly dhows skimmed swiftly along the placid surfaces of liana-draped streams—figuratively speaking. In fact, there were gatherings of muttering greenies on street corners and in such unsavory places as The Magenta Placenta. In the case of the latter pub, you can guess who was there to eavesdrop on the mutterings. The gist of it all was that the masses' dissatisfaction with their current rulers had reached the boiling point, and have you heard that the Antispan (or whoever he really is) might be planning some sort of comeback?
I suppose that, because of the ineptitude of the aristocracy and the puritanism of their priestly lackeys, dissatisfaction with the political state of things was bound to come to a head sometime. And under those circumstances it was perhaps inevitable that the citizenry would turn back to Span, the dispenser of the good life that was. But such a natural progression of events would have taken a long time, perhaps too long. It might all have been aborted by the right move at the right time on the part of the temple hierarchy. Tragically, Goss Conf might never have seen a substantial, desirable outcome—such as a revolution culminating in my recall to power by the victorious, cheering, bloody masses—without some outside help. I had arranged for that help to be forthcoming.
Gisfc's girls were on the job. For weeks, they had been circulating cautiously through the cities and towns of Goss Conf—yea, verily, unto the very smallest fishing village thereof—spreading dissension and rumor. The dissension part was easy, given the existing dis-
satisfaction in the cities. (The nature and makeup of the central government had much less effect on life in the smallest towns and villages, so after the first few fruitless attempts in such places, I ordered my agents provocateur to pull back somewhat and concentrate on the urban centers.) The rumors they spread had to do with the return of Span—the Second Coming Again, as they were calling it. Here too the ground was fertile, but the subject did present a certain theological difficulty.
The populace was eager enough to have Span Come Again again, but they weren't so sure about the Anti-span. After all, he was the embodiment of evil, adept at imitating Span in order to mislead innocent Spanners into following him and losing their innocence— a terrible mistake on their part, for it would result in their ending up on the wrong side of the tracks in the afterlife. If you have ever read Volume Twenty-seven of Fra Frank's great work, completed while he was in that Imperial prisoner-of-war camp for Blawnt where he remains to this day (I sincerely hope), you will know just how unpleasant that side of the tracks is.
I managed to circumvent this stumbling block by spreading, via Gisfc and her gang, theological concepts quite novel to what passed for Goss Confian minds. Reaching back to some dimly remembered course of the pop philosophy type I had taken in school on Earth, I extracted the yin-yang symbol. You know the idea, I'm sure: the eternal opposites, such as light and dark, day and night, good and evil, black and jvhite, etc., and so forth, combining in a complementary fashion to harmoniously form the whole. I modified this yin-yang symbol, labeling one of the curved teardrops "Span" and the other "Antispan," and I adopted the result as my own personal device. One of Gisfc's subordinates had recently married a young leather-worker—quaint professions one finds on these primitive worlds!—and he readily enough stamped out a few thousand small leather discs for us. Yet another member of the Span Echelon took all these discs away
one day and brought them back, all painted with my new Span-Antispan symbol, the next. I never did get around to asking her how she had managed that feat; I leave the answer to your imagination.
So that I could explain the idea and purpose of these discs to the Span Echelon, Gisfc Comp assembled them all in a meeting room in the consulate. (No more tunnels for me: my command post was now in comfortable, well-lighted quarters on the spaceport.)
"In the midst of life, there is death," I intoned, and they all nodded sagely and somberly. "And vice-versa." They looked puzzled. "Earthworms," I said, by way of explanation. Ah! They saw my point. I went on in this yin-yang vein for a while, concluding, "I am both Span and the Antispan. The priesthood, for evil reasons of its own, made up all that bosh about those being separate characters and that there is enmity between them. Span and Antispan were always the same being. You can't have good without evil, and vice-versa, of course." Puzzlement again. "You don't have to understand it! It didn't make any sense when it was first dreamed up thousands of years ago, and it still doesn't make any sense, but if you repeat it often enough in a pompous enough tone, people will think it's very deep and very true, and they'll be impressed, and that's all you want. And remember to pass out these leather discs all over the place to try to make all this philosophy concrete. Goss Confians prefer ideas with real solidity, something they can put their finger on. We'll try to get more of the things made up for when you run out. Now go ye and sin some more." For some odd reason, I had found myself falling with increasing frequency into such semi-biblical utterances.
I was worried about the supply of leather discs. I thought they were a wonderfully ingenious advertising gimmick, but a few thousand of them wouldn't go very far when spread out over the whole continent. Considering that he was married to one of Gisfc's proteges, the young leatherworker could be expected to be
an old leatherworker in no time, and who knew when he would finally fade away from exhaustion.
When I had first thought up the discs, and before we had gotten the leather ones, I had gone to Mardig Ras to ask him to order a few million turned out for me. The Imperial Marines, for instance, could have done that in a matter of minutes on one of their superbly equipped battle ships; and the results would not have been painted leather, either, but indestructible synthetics with the design impregnated ineradicably into the surface. However, the consul had responded negatively—even nastily.
"Mr. Hughes," he snapped, for he had staunchly refused to be intimidated, as part of the price for my helping the Empire to hold on to Goss Conf, into calling me "Your Celestial Lordship," "Mr. Hughes, you are aware of our difficulties with many client states and how necessary it therefore is that any swing in public sentiment on this planet not appear to be Influenced by Imperial forces. We will have to help you more directly when you try to retake the main temple; that is unavoidable, much as I have wracked my brains trying to devise an alternate scheme to the one we agreed upon. In addition, since the Empire currently and unfortunately finds itself somewhat dependent upon your well-being, I have consented to keeping you on the spaceport and lending you some facilities here for your administrative use. However, in all other matters, there must be no evidence of our role. These Span-Antispan"—he grimaced—"discs of yours are best made out of native materials and decorated by native . . . craftsmen. That is my only—and therefore last—word upon the subject."
As it turned out, I needn't have worried about the supply of discs. The gimmick caught on beyond my expectations, and the masses began turning them out on their own: as a symbol, my invention seemed to be well established. Fiedo declared the things heretical and blasphemous, or something along those lines. He ordered the peasants to stop making them and he also
ordered the temple guards in every city to round up the existing discs and burn them.
Alas, poor Fiedo, I knew him well, indeed: I had anticipated that he would probably underestimate the power of superstition, and he did so. The discs were more than a symbol of opposition to Fiedo's regime and of loyalty to Span;, they became a talisman. For generations, remember, the priesthood had -been making the religion of Span ever more cerebral and therefore ever more distant from the masses of worshippers. Remember, too, that it had been my restoring the physical and magical aspect to the religion that had won back so many followers and generated such intense loyalty in the first place. Now here were the physical and magical aspects of Span back with a vengeance, and wrapped up in a symbol you could carry with you and touch, even fondle, whenever you wanted (as long as there were no temple guards watching). It rather reminded me of those bead gadgets certain Harveyites use. Now, a symbol is one thing, but a talisman is quite another. A government might succeed in taking away from a populace the former, since another symbol can always be invented to substitute for it; but no government should try to take away the latter, for by trying to do so it is attacking the power and magic itself, not just a symbol of it —and depriving the peasantry of a personal comforter, to boot.
Those poor guards who foolishly tried to carry out their orders and were nonetheless lucky enough to escape with their lives spread the word to their fellows quickly. The mood in the cities was ugly (to match the cities). The air was filled with growls and rumbles, with talk of revolt against the revolting rule of Fiedo, with the smell of imminent uprising and murder, and there was much gathering at street corners. I was delighted. It seemed" a good time to initiate the next phase of my plans—the most crucial, dangerous, and melodramatic phase of all.
Once again the continental air masses had moved over Traj Coord and out to sea, clearing the sultry air and bringing blue skies and brisk temperatures to the capital city.
Outside the wall surrounding the main temple of Span in Traj Coord, a large, silent, expectant green crowd had gathered. Word had been spread that the Second Coming Again of Span was scheduled for high noon. (The citizens of Sagebrush and Wisteria would have loved that!) As you will probably have guessed, the Span Echelon had started the word spreading, but it had quickly gained a momentum of its own and had continued spreading without any further effort on the girls' part. The word had spread beyond the city, and peasants had be.en flocking in all morning and half the night before from the countryside, bringing picnic baskets and bottles of genuine home-brewed, down-on-the-f arm hooch.
The rumor had reached Fiedo, of course. He knew something was afoot, realized that the masses could not have chosen a specific date and time for the Second Coming Again all by themselves and that I must therefore be somehow involved. He had ordered the
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gates closed, and extra guards were patrolling the walls: whatever was coming, Fiedo intended to be prepared. The guards eyed the crowd uneasily and nervously touched their swords and spears to make sure they were still there. The crowd ignored the guards and eyed the sky, for the rumor had included something suitably vague about a fiery descent by Span-Antispan from that quarter. They. were almost silent, except for faint murmurs and rustlings which ran through the mass of people, and occasional slight, mass movements, like eddies in a vast green sea—a sea readying itself to inundate the temple and the guards.
A careful observer might have noticed that a good many of the guards were eyeing, not the crowd or the sky, but the other guards. Said observer might also have noticed that the swords worn by these anomalous individuals differed in some very minor but utterly vital aspects of external detail from those worn by the other guards. Differences in internal detail, of course, even the most careful observer could not have detected; but were he careful enough in his inspection, he might have deduced a great deal about them—and I have no doubt he would have been vastly surprised. More about this fascinating matter anon.
Inside the temple, Fiedo sat at the desk where once I had sat, in the office that had once been mine. It was as sumptuous as it had been at the height of my power; Fiedo's puritanism, perhaps, had abated in certain respects during his exile. On the other side of the desk stood Giedo, who was, as you may remember, Fiedo's right-hand-priest. The two men of God were holding urgent and dramatic conversation. How do I know all this? you wonder. Simple enough: behind Fiedo was a wall, and in that wall was a very small hole, and beyond the wall was one of those wonderful tunnels, and inside that tunnel, watching and listening through that hole, stood one of Gisfc's faithful agents, holding her breath lest she make a sound, and noting every word that was spoken in the room.
Giedo licked his lips and shifted from one foot to the other. "But the crowd is enormous, Father. We can't just ignore them! And what if something does happen at noon? What if—"
"Curse you!" Fiedo spat out. "Nothing can happen! Do you also believe in that alien, that false god?"
"N-no, Father. . . . But what if he tries something?"
"The guards will handle him," Fiedo answered coldly. "Now leave me." Giedo bowed his way out of the room, leaving Fiedo to his celestially inspired thoughts. "Damn Hughes!" he muttered.
I should explain that Fiedo had copied me in at least one other way besides his new-found appreciation of elegant office decor. He seemed to like the fancy title I had decreed for myself—"Your Celestial Lordship"—and he had adopted as his title "Holy Father," or "Father" for short.
I might also mention that I had at one point entertained the idea of using those ubiquitous tunnels for an Imperial-Marine-supported invasion of the temple from within. Cannily, I had pointed out to the Imperial consul that should we adopt such a course, the Marines would never be seen by anyone outside the temple and their role in my return to power would thus be invisible. But that miserable misanthrope had vetoed even that excellent idea, quoting his usual excuse.
"Use your wits, Mr. Hughes," Mardig Ras had said superciliously. "The Empire's client states may be militarily weak, but they are not weak minded. Our part would indeed be obvious to them, were we to execute your puerile plot. At least the appearance of a popular uprising in your favor is essential." He had then droned on in this officious and annoying fashion for some time, but«once it had become clear that he wouldn't accept my proposal, I had ignored him. While he lectured at me, I walked around his office, admiring the paintings hung on the walls and trying to estimate what sort of price I might get for them as a single lot on Earth. All too obviously I could not fob
the dangerous work off on someone else: Mardig Ras was forcing me to expose my own delicate self to all the peril!
As the sun climbed toward noon, the last murmurs and rustles of the crowd died down. The ominous green sea turned into a sea of expectant, hopeful green faces, all turned skyward. The guards on the wall—my wall, in a sense, since I had ordered it built—looked uneasily from the crowd to the sky and back and sweated inside their armor. The careful observer I mentioned before, had he been watching the guards rather than the sky, like the rest of the crowd, might have noticed that the same guards who were watching the other guards were also not sweating. He might even have perceived a difference in the armor of the unsweaty guards—that it was lighter than that of the others, as if it were made of some synthetic material other than metal, and that this lightness possibly accounted for the dearth of perspiration on those guards' brows.
The crowd gasped in unison: the sun was growing larger! The guards forgot the crowd and stared open-mouthed at this phenomenon. (Goss Confians. you see, have a remarkable membrane over their eyes that enables them to look directly at the sun for long periods of time without damaging their vision; what the evolutionary purpose of this odd adaptation might be, I have absolutely no idea.) At last everyone realized that the expanding light wasn't really the sun after all, but rather a fiery, golden chariot coming from the sun. By this time, all of the priests, including Fiedo, had come outside to watch, drawn by the report of a guard who had rushed inside to tell them about the growing sun.
This genuine chariot of the gods was an elaborate affair, well designed to impress primitives. Basically, it was a simple, circular platform with a powerful rocket engine (more impressive than the sort of propulsion units the Imperial forces used on their own ships) on the bottom, controlled from a panel mounted
on a stand in the center of the platform. However, all sorts of arcane symbols—the sort of stuff the primitive mind just adores—had been slapped on the underside of the platform, around the rocket nozzle; the watchers below saw this first, once the chariot came lower and the rocket flame was reduced in size and intensity. Then they noticed the shining, golden railings around the perimeter of the platform, thickly hung with great golden discs upon which was displayed the now famous symbol of Span-Antispan.
And who was standing atop this flaming chariot, trying to control its descent, garbed in flowing white robes, and sweating profusely from an excess of terror? Why, it was none other than Thomas Langston Hughes, quivering Earthman pretending to be a god descending from Heaven, deafened by the rocket thundering beneath his feet, cursing himself for an idiot and praying to all those Earthly gods he had never believed in to get him down safely, and yet trying desperately all the while to wear that awful, idiotic smile that had so won the crowds' hearts on the day of his first landing on Goss Conf. My training in using the gadget—a training limited to simulators—had been thorough, but now it seemed thoroughly inadequate. (I had of course been launched at a high altitude from an Imperial Naval vessel which had dropped down from orbit and then accelerated back up after dropping me off.)                              -
I surprised myself by bringing the gadget to ground in one piece. (It was a lot like the simulator!) I landed it in the space between the crowd and the temple gates, turned off the engine, and removed the key, which I stowed in a pocket in my robes. Then, still beatifically beaming to beat the band, I stepped through a narrow opening in the railings and thence to the ground. "Deus ex machinal" I yelled, and the crowd moaned in ecstasy. That success emboldened me. "Veni, vidi, vici," I shouted. "Virdicatus!" I concluded, wondering what the ending should have been. No one contradicted me. The strange words that came
direct from Heaven had prostrated them one and all with awe and delight. Even the guards upon the wall were staring down at me in' undisguised fascination. They had sold me out, and here I was again, coming down from the skies like a genuine god; what consternation must have roiled in their little piggy minds! Before the religious trance had a chance to disspate, I needed to make a move.
Wordlessly, majestically, I pointed at the gates. Behold! They opened! The careful observer I have had occasion to mention twice before, had he still been observing after all this excitement, might have noticed fingers curving over the edges of the opening gates, strong evidence of hands being responsible for the opening. Still, the majority of the crowd didn't notice this evidence of hfcnan agency, so they were suitably dumbfounded.
The explanation is quite simple. Those few guards with the slightly odd swords and armor who watched their fellows were really all Imperial Marines covered with Keen Green Cream—a good enough product for short-term disguise. They had been sneaked in through the- tunnels when Fiedo sent out a call for reinforcements. The real reinforcements had been disposed of on their way to their new duty station; Lieutenant J. J. Grim had offered to tell me all the details of this operation, but I had requested that he not do so. Some of them had been careful to be near the gates when I touched down, and they had been watching through chinks in the gates for my magnificent gesture, whereupon they pulled the gates open. Nothing supernatural about that.
The gates swung wide, and the crowd, their dazed awe wearing off somewhat, began to move toward the opening. Fiedo, who had been watching everything happen with a look of stunned disbelief, shook himself and shouted an order to close the gates. The I-Men who were disguised as guards, however, whipped out their swords, pointed them at the real guards, who were only now slowly starting to move, and pushed
buttons cleverly concealed in the swords' hilts. The fake swords contained modified Marine stunners, and the genuine guards collapsed in their serried ranks with a glorious, satisfying, and very military clanking and clattering of armor. Were you so inclined, you could even say that they fell rattling in their armor to the ground. To the eager masses without, this sudden and mysterious collapse of the anti-god forces was just another demonstration of my divine powers.
Fiedo gulped as his guards imitated the Assyrians of the poem, and then he turned around and scurried back into the temple, closely followed by Giedo, some other priests, and a few guards who, standing near Fiedo, had been spared the beams from the I-Men's stunners. (They looked a bit stunned in spite of that.)
Shades of my first arrival! The crowd lifted me up on their shoulders and marched cheering and slavering into the temple grounds. They set me down and waited expectantly.
This time it was a lot easier and safer than my first entry into this temple. The I-Men had preceded me into the building, and everything should be secure. I strolled in feeling very happy. Artsie and Gisfc were waiting for me in the throne room; both of them were beaming. I-Men, still dressed as temple guards and wearing green cream, were dashing about hither and yon, taking the place apart, looking for leftover enemies. Fortunately, they didn't find any—a real blessing.
"The good times are back," I announced to my* associates. "Free drinks for everyone. Artsie, get back to your tavern and see to it." His face fell and he opened his mouth to protest, but I held up my hand to stop him. "The temple will reimburse you. If you don't have enough booze on hand, recruit some of your professional fellows. It's all on the house. I mean, the temple. Begone, sirrah." He left, still looking uncertain about the deal. "Gisfc," I said, "to the office."
•Ah, what a delight to relax again in the office I had
designed and furnished to suit my tastes and physique! The chair had been adjusted by Fiedo to his peculiar size and shape, but once I had readjusted it, everything was just ducky, and I leaned back and put my feet up on the desk, Gisfc beamed approvingly. Just then, a robed and hooded figure glided mysteriously into the room and moaned, "Sinner, repent!" and I fainted.
I was awakened in a few minutes by Gisfc, who was alternately shaking my shoulder and slapping me. The mysterious figure had removed its hood. It was Artsie, looking a bit shamefaced, but also more than a bit triumphant. "For once, Hughes, I really got you!"
"You oafish nitwit!" I snarled. "What are you up to?"
"Oh, just didn't want you to get overconfident, this time around," he mumbled, looking at the floor. "Guess I'll get to work. 'Bye." He shuffled out.
I stared thoughtfully at the doorway after he had • left. Indeed, it would not do to be overconfident. There would have to be some major reorganizing, and good old Artsie, I decided then and there, would have to be one of the persons who got reorganized.
3
It took until some time the next day before the Marines found the various nooks and crannies where Fiedo, Giedo, and the others who had escaped were hiding. I had one of the acolytes' dormitories set aside as a place where the prisoners could be kept. These dormitories were long, gloomy rooms, with a row of beds down both sides, a door only at one end and a wash room at the other end, and small slits in the walls just below the ceiling as the only windows. A couple of armed Marines at the only door made the place escape-proof.
I visited Mardig Ras and pointed out to him that he now had a major investment to protect. The temple guards were obviously not to be trusted, but I would need goons to do my bidding and protect me against further anti-Imperial intrigues. Ergo, he was obligated to detail some I-Men to me permanently to act the part of temple guards.
Mardig Ras agreed most reluctantly. "I suppose I have little choice, Hughes. But lest you think you can bully me into giving you what you want in the future just to protect my investment, the Marines will not be under your direct command. You will have to give your
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orders through Lieutenant Grim, who will be the commander of the detachment, and he will judge the propriety and advisability of any orders before he passes them on. He will keep an eye on you for me."
I swallowed my pride and reacted to his words in an outwardly cheerful, ^breezy manner. Inwardly, I was more than a little unhappy. For the immediate future, I had few concerns. Grim would not be my choice for a dinner guest, but as a commander of the temple guards, I was sure he would be more than adequate. At some point, however, I would want to snatch the temple jewels and treasury and head for the starry vacuum. But the Empire needed me on Goss Conf, fulfilling my part of the bargain I had made with Mardig Ras, and Grim, I felt, would not be easy to elude or delude. Nor did I delude myself, for that matter: Grim, beyond a doubt, would be charged by Mardig Ras not only with keeping an eye on me, but also with keeping me in line—whatever actions that might require on his part.
It struck me as a good idea to start quietly recruiting my own, brand-new temple guards to replace the Marines who had replaced the original guards. But that would have to be quite far in the future.
While I wondered just what I would do about all this, I had to take care of more immediate organizational matters. There had not been enough booze available to completely satisfy my "Free drinks for all" order, but there had been enough to keep the crowds happy, and having the liquor offered at various taverns around the city caused the mob outside the temple to disperse before any harm was done. Those individuals who were by nature rowdy and therefore the most likely to cause trouble, also tended to be the more aggressive and therefore ended up getting the lion's share of what free booze there was; consequently, they passed out at some point during the night and were prevented from causing trouble the next day by hangovers.
As soon as the fugitives inside the temple were all
rounded up and imprisoned, I sent out squads of I-Men to round up the chief plotters among the great families. Most of them had discreetly removed themselves to their country estates during the night, but we managed to get most of the individuals I wanted, the ringleaders. The small fry, I decided to ignore— as long as they stayed in the country and didn't cause me any trouble. Among the netted fish was the divine Mocr Dyn, now just plain (figuratively speaking) Zeebie Whatho again, who had been absent from the temple during my Second Coming Again; the I-Men found her at the Whatho town home, being mean to the servants.
I had them all assembled in the large meeting room where once, so long before, I had addressed the guards. They all looked unhappy, these aristocrats caught with their pants down. (Perhaps an inappropriate figure of speech, that, since the Goss Confian aristocracy went in for Roman-style tunics and togas.) I decided to make them unhappier. I stood in front of and above them, glaring down for a few moments; then, pulling a sheet of paper from my pocket, I announced, "I have written a poem for this occasion. It begins, 'Once upon a time/On a planet far, far away,/ . . . ' " They were looking around wildly, seeking any avenue of escape, but I-Men guarded all the exits. Suddenly, I decided to take pity on them, at least to some small extent. I put the sheet of paper away again and said, • "However, one of the ancients observed that a man who reads his own poetry in public probably has other vices, so I shall desist—even though all of you know that I have other vices. To business.
"For a while, I must say, I strongly considered exacting some sort of violent revenge—the sort of thing that would have lived in the memories of men for thousands of years because of the extremity of its horror." They all looked suitably frightened. "But then I decided that I hadn't the time to really do that idea
justice. So I have chosen another course—one with a certain sinister flair of its own.
"As you should remember from your school days, there is a medium-sized island about fifty mile southeast of here, 'way out in the ocean. The name of the place is Franji, and currently its only human inhabitants are a fine flock of feckless fisherfolk. Note my use of the word 'currently.' I'm sure you will all love Franji and that the folk in its one and only fishing village will love you in return. If they don't love you, I have no doubt they will let you know it and that they will make quite clear their strong desire that you either change your ways or leave; they are not, unfortunately, exceedingly tolerant of strangers or strange ways, are the Franjeepers. There is one little catch: you will not have the option of leaving; you won't be aware of being under surveillance, but I assure you that you will be watched constantly.
"It's a very simple life on Franji, very beneficial for your nervous systems and your digestion. You'll be spending most of your time catching fish, cleaning fish, curing fish—and, of course, eating fish. But don't think of it as fish. Think of it as crow. It should all be frightfully good for your souls, which can use some help. Did I forget to tell you that Franji is very cold and misty all year long? With snow and rain and poisonous animals in the rural areas? Perhaps I did mention that—along with the large, dangerous carnivores in the sea."
The more I told them, the more depressed they all looked. "Them as has, gets," as the old proverb has it, and now these wealthy snobs were getting it and not liking it. They began shifting about in their seats re-belliously. Zeebie Whatho's father, a middle-aged, distinguished patrician, took it upon himself to speak for the group. "Now look here, fellow," he said brusquely, adopting the sort of condescendingly angry tone he was probably accustomed to taking when he spoke to his servants, "you can't exile us to such a godforsaken place, away from our possessions and
estates and accustomed pursuits." Murmurs of "Hear, hear!" or its Pabxian equivalent.
"You could elect to stay here," I said mildly. They all relaxed and smiled knowingly at each other. The cur, they were thinking, has of course backed down when confronted with the noble and righteous wrath of a peer. They looked at me with open contempt. In fact—to give them credit for a remarkably upper-class ability—even though I was standing on a dais, quite a bit above them, they managed to look down at me even while looking up to me! "Dead," I added. That ended the rebellion. On the spur of the moment, I decided to inflict Fiedo and his followers on them, and vice-versa, by sending the imprisoned clerics into exile on Franji, too.
After the whole group had been hustled out and, along with Fiedo, Giedo, and the other priests, sent on their way to fabulous, fun-filled Franji, I put on my old peasant drabs and strolled across the city—my city—to the Magenta Placenta. Artsie had requested that he be allowed to spend a few days there, if I thought I could spare him, so that he could get the place restocked and repaired after the day and night of free booze. I certainly could spare him— more than he realized.
By this time, he had learned to recognize me in that disguise, and he hurried over and stood by my table obsequiously. "Well, Wooj," I said. "What's up?"
"Prices," he said bitterly and unobsequiously. "Are you going to do something about them now that you're back in control? It's costing me a fortune to restock."
I waved a hand. "Cavil, cavil. You soon won't have to worry about rising prices. A mere drop in the bucket of your future fortune."
"Yeah, whenever that's going to show up," he snorted. "Oh, say, Hughes, I heard about you sending Fiedo and the noblemen off to that island."
"Remarkable, Artsie. The news has traveled here
from the temple faster than I have. Ah," I added happily, "I can just see the lot of them, freezing on far-off Franji."
"Also fretting," he cracked, displaying a whole wit for a change, "But how're you going to make sure they stay there?"
"How's Flora? Dora? Cora?" He looked bewildered. "Your barmaid."
His puzzled brow cleared. He hadn't even noticed my abrupt change of subject. "Oh, you mean Tillie. She's still with me." Then he turned suspicious. "Why d'ya wanna know?"
Why do people adopt that look of suspicion so often when talking to me? Could it possibly be that they have come to feel that I am not trustworthy, that my word is not my bond, that I might have an ulterior motive when I speak in my usual frank and charming manner? It's probably all of those, but it wounds me deeply, deeply. However, I usually manage not to think about it. "Think she could run this place for you if you had to go off on a long business trip?"
He looked still more suspicious. "How long?"
"On the other hand, perhaps you'd prefer to have her go with you for the company. And warmth."
"Hughes!" he almost shrieked. "Where? How long?"
"Who can say?" I shrugged. "Months. Years. However long it takes. Didn't you once say you loved the sea?"
"I hate the sea!"
* "Whatever. You'll be captain of your own fairly large ship. Sailing in large circles around Franji, making sure that no one but fishermen leave the place."
"You're nuts!"
"Unless you'd rather give up your share of the fortune I'll be taking with me when I skip this planet and head for some pleasure world or other to buy myself some fun and women and women and fun. . . ."
He acquiesced, staring glassy-eyed into space. The immediate future must have looked bleak, poor chap. I do believe that, at that moment, even without green
skin cream he would have looked just like a native. Of course the real surveillance would have to be done for me from space by the Marines, during their regular orbital passes over the island. But my arrangements for Artsie would put him on ice—almost literally—until I could decide what further steps to take concerning him. I returned to the temple with the cheerful feeling that matters were coming under control at last and that my own horizon held no more clouds—which only proves what fools even the gods can be.
That night, just as I was drifting over the edge into sleep, at that pleasant stage where physical sensations disappear and the mind begins to dream, Gisfc poked me and said sharply, "Thomas! Listen."
Now, it's a curious physiological fact that when it is nighttime and one is at the stage I have just described, being spoken to sharply and poked is probably more unpleasant than when one is in any other physical state or at any other time of day. I started to expound upon this fact to my bedmate, but my tongue wouldn't cooperate. All I managed was "Mph!"
"I found out something fascinating from my brother, the smeerp, today," she said, blithely ignoring my poorly expressed indignation. "I thought that only Goss Confians practiced marriage and that all those aliens in the spaceport just lived together, the way animals do. Nothing formal, I mean. But he explained to me that you Earthmen make an even bigger thing out of it than we do. So, what about it?"
I was awake. "Er, what about what? Big day tomorrow, dear. Mph, mph." I had only the faintest of hopes that she would think I ha'd fallen asleep and would fall asleep herself. But in this case, faint heart did indeed win fair lady.
"Marriage, Thomas. You and me."
I laughed airily. It sounded like an idiot giggle. "But what about my worshippers?"
"That's  what  makes  it   so  perfect!   The  Whatho
I
witch is in Franji, so you're going to have to explain away the disappearance of Mocr Dyn. But this way, don't you see, you can just say that the divine spirit of Mocr Dyn departed from its previous host, because it was tired of rattling around inside that empty head, and moved over to a more suitable, interesting, intelligent receptacle. Me. A Mocr Dyn you can trust, Thomas."
Her suggestion would solve the Mocr Dyn difficulty, which had been troubling me. "Not a bad idea," I admitted. "I'll announce it in the morning."
"No, Thomas, that's not all of it." Her voice was what unimaginative writers of adventure stories call "steely." "More than an announcement. A real, legal, official wedding. Well?"
It was pitch-black in the bedroom, so of course I could see nothing; but I felt myself to be in great physical danger. "Whatever you say, dear," I said meekly. I heard her put something heavy down, give a satisfied sigh, and lie back. Her breathing soon indicated she was asleep. For some reason, I couldn't follow suit until almost dawn.
The very next morning, I ceased to be a freewheeling bachelor confidence artist and became imbued with green respectability. I had tried to get Gisfc to settle for something quick in the way of a ceremony, performed by some minor temple functionary, but she would have none of that. She expressed the odd idea that I would not feel bound by Goss Confian law or religious custom. No, she would settle for nothing less than that I should contact Mardig Ras and have him, as Emperor Bob's personal representative, perform the marriage. She obviously felt that I would respect such a ceremony, whereas I would not respect one that was alien to me. Oddly enough, she was right; certainly it was true that when Mardig' Ras pronounced the ancient words, "By the power vested in me by the Emperor, I now pronounce you man and . . . wife," I felt a strange thrill run up and down my spine
—although I could not say whether it was a thrill of awe or one of fear.
Mardig Ras was only too happy to assist in tying the knot. Perhaps he felt it was a tie that would bind me all the more strongly to Goss Conf and my bargain with him. It seemed to be only moments after I had spoken to his private sec via teller (one had been installed in the temple as soon as I regained power), explaining what I wanted of Mardig Ras, than the Imperial consul himself showed up, dragging said sec along. The consul was, beaming in that horrible triumphant, superior way that bachelors often adopt toward men who are about to enter into the state of holy matrimony. His sec—you'll remember Bloobac, Gisfc's brother and about to become, Span help me, my brother-in-law—looked surprised, more than anything else.
Artsie was best man; Tillie was bridesmaid; the bride was given away by her rodent brother; the bride was lovely in maroon, the Goss Confian color of virginity; the groom was the one with the long face. Mardig Ras grinned a lot, as did Artsie Seedyn, and Tillie caught the bouquet. I couldn't do anything about Mardig Ras' grins, but I wiped Artsie's off his face by reminding him of his upcoming extended ocean voyage and asking him if he wouldn't like to make it a double-ring ceremony, so that Tillie could accompany him to sea without fear of wagging tongues.
Once it was all over, I found that I was surprisingly satisfied about the whole matter. Married! I had never expected to be that! But now that I was, I felt quite happy about it. Perhaps there was something to be said for domesticity, I thought, although it was also possible that I'd feel different about it in a day or so.
It was about a year later when a plaintive message from Artsie, sent more than six months earlier and delayed along the way by who knows what nautical misadventures, finally caught up with me in Simdata, where I was seeing to some local civic problems. He began with complaints about his assignment, complaints about the boredom, about the weather, about Tillie, and about the crew, and he continued in that vein for five pages—probably more words than he had ever before in his life written at one time. He ended with the pleading question that was of course at the heart of his complaints: "When do we leave this planet?"
That was when it struck me that I had been deliberately putting off making plans to leave. I looked around me. I was in an office in the local temple; as was now the case in every other city on Goss Conf, this was the center of city government in Simdata, and here I was working away all day trying to solve a local problem, a problem whose resolution or lack thereof would have absolutely no effect upon my leaving the planet as a rich con man. Why was I doing the extra work? Because I wanted to, I ad-
mitted to myself. Heaven help me, I cared about this smelly, ugly, ridiculous, primitive planet; I wanted to do what I could to make it cease being all of the above. And as far as the local populace, whom I was accustomed to viewing most contemptuously, were concerned, would I really find other worlds to be any better?
I dashed off a quick reply to Artsie, trying to calm him and instill patience in him. I concluded, "Not much longer, old comrade-in-arms. In the meantime, make the short wait seem shorter by dallying with the delicious Tillie and gazing upon the azure sea, while thinking of exquisite pleasures purchased on pleasure planets, of power, of wealth, of women. Think a lot about women, Artsie."
For communication purposes, when on these business trips, I usually had a few healthy young messengers around—fleet of foot and empty of head. I called one of them in and gave him the note to Artsie, along with instructions concerning starting it on its long way to the High Woojum's ship. I tried to keep my messenger corps impressed with my divinity, since they naturally traveled a lot and could therefore spread the word about Span again and again, thus hopefully revitalizing any religious interest that might be lagging. "Tell me, young man," I said to this one, "what do you call a footman who arrives naked in a box?"
"Huh? Uh, Your Celestial Lordship?" he said foggily-
"Deliveried. Now be off." And so he did, bewildered, but also dazzled by the strange, pregnant words from Heaven.
Messenger corps! How primitive! I had suggested to Mardig Ras, that crayfish-faced consul, that he supply me with tellers for all the temples, so that I could modernize communications, but he wouldn't hear of it.
I had reminded Artsie of pleasure planets and women. For him, those would be reward enough, and he would be in Paradise on earth until his money ran
out. But what about me? What reward was I really pursuing? Pleasure planets are tawdry places; one doesn't have to spend long on such a world before the glamour of manmade lights and surface gloss fades and one sees the tired artificial passion that underlies everything. The pleasure had never appealed to me in the past, beyond providing a few days' diversion.
Women? Ah, Hughes, you detect a spark of interest in yourself at last! But how long could that go on, how long before my interest in women and theirs in me both faded? And for that matter, right here on Goss Conf I had loyal Gisc Comp—or Gisfc Hughes, as I should call her—with all the equipment and genuine passion any man could want. Keeping her satisfied in bed was no mean undertaking; why go searching for even more herculean tasks?
What about power? Ridiculous! As long as I stayed on Goss Conf, I was the head of a church-state combination whose power was unchallenged anywhere on the planet. My authority within that combination was likewise unchallenged: more than a mortal dictator, I was, after all, a god. On no other planet could I hope to attain such a zenith of power.
And as to money, I had run through more than one fortune in my long and checkered career, without ever having felt satisfied either by the possessing of the wealth or by the spending of it.
Now, the getting of the wealth, the pursuit of the power, the imminence of sexual triumph, the prospect of another upcoming victory over the forces of good, law, and order—that was quite another matter. Was that all there was to it, after all—an adolescent love of the chase? With just a tinge of reluctance, I faced the fact that I was getting a bit old for running. Not that there shouldn't be a good few miles left in me yet— and good miles they'd be, I was determined—but perhaps I ought to take them at a walk, savoring the scenery, rather than rushing along pell-mell, tally-hoing and view-hallooing and not really enjoying myself along the way.
I had made my decision without even thinking about it consciously: I would stay on Goss Conf in my role of Span-Antispan, surrounded by my adoring worshippers and comforted by my faithful and capable green wife, working night and day to bring my benighted subjects into the modern Galaxy, to improve their world and their lives. Bathed in this philanthropic glow, I wound up my affairs in Simdata quickly and headed back to Traj Coord, ready to save the Goss Confian portion of humanity.
The distressing thing about glows, as you may already have noticed, is that, given time and reality, they tend to fade. Oh, it was true enough that things went well during subsequent months. Living conditions unproved, thanks to my government. The planet moved from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age (as a rough, layman's estimate). The Empire consolidated its position in that area of the Galaxy and even seemed at last to be making some modest overall headway against the Blawnt. I had even, through Mardig Ras, received some incoherent but presumably congratulatory messages from Emperor Bob.
But it was all so slow! The streets of the city, just like the people who inhabited them, were still smelly and dirty: Goss Conf seemed as far as ever from reaching the level of civilization that characterizes the settled planets of the solar system. The days seemed much like one another—not unlike the days on a pleasure planet after the thrill has gone. Administrative details, absurd religious rituals for a bunch of savages, paperwork—these were what filled my days. With distress, I realized that, what with Marines crawling ah1 over the place, I was really no more in charge than Fiedo had been after my overthrow. Oh, I could control the minor details—rituals, mystery, city government—but I could not initiate any real, major policy changes or decisions without Mardig Ras' stamp of approval. I was under the thumb of the miserable Mardig Ras just as Fiedo had been under the thumb of the aristocratic great families. I chafed, I glowered,
I chewed at the bit. Much of the time, I didn't even have Gisfc for comfort. She was gone very often, overseeing the activities of her subordinates in various cities; I was often traveling for similar reasons; and in general, our joint administrative duties kept us separated a good part of the time. I was bored and frustrated.
The only relief was comic and occasional. At irregular intervals, letters would arrive from Artsie, filled with complaints, begging for rescue, and asking when we could both leave Goss Conf—thereby, it occurred to me, making it quite literally a godforsaken planet. My replies always boiled down to "Just a little bit longer. Just a few more details to clear up." Since he wasn't really captain of the ship, which in fact was entirely subject to my orders, he was stuck out there until I ordered the crew to head back for shore. Just what the aristocrats were doing and how they were adjusting to their fish-filled new lives, I had no idea; but they were keeping quiet, at least, and I didn't expect any immediate trouble from that quarter.
Slowly but surely, I had managed to introduce into the temple and other strong points in the city, in the guise of menials and servants, a group of tough, intelligent young greenies who were personally loyal to me and Gisfc. The Marines, along with Lieutenant J. J. Grim, were still stationed in the temple and its grounds, dressed and colored to look like natives. But if it came to a crisis, a confrontation, I had hopes that my boys might be able to knock out the I-Men —we would certainly have the advantage of surprise —and put me back in full control of the place. Why was I preparing for such a happening? I could not have said; it was just that old con man's intuition at work. In the meantime, the world turned and matters went on the way worlds and matters usually do.
Illumination and inspiration appeared together in the form of a message from one of those client states Mardig Ras never ceased to prate abo.ut and which he always used as an excuse for not giving me what I
wanted. But this message made me wonder just how truthful Mardig Ras, that devious diplomat, had been concerning the details of the political atmosphere between the Empire and those worlds. In essence, the message asked for details about Span, Spannity, and Goss Conf's and my relations with the Empire; there were hints of an interest in the unusual degree of autonomy I was maintaining for my world. My sinister brain leaped into high gear, to use an archaic figure of speech whose origins are utterly obscure and lost in the mists and mysteries of history. Quick as a wink, I sent out an order recalling Artsie and the ship. Almost as quickly, while waiting for him to show up (it took almost a month), I dashed off a very biblical-sounding book.
The High Woojum arrived in my office looking old, worn, and tired. "Now, Hughes, now? Are we leaving this planet now?"
With difficulty, I refrained from making sarcastic observations about his appearance and what it implied about his failing powers. "Don't unpack your bags, chum; you're leaving."
"Wow! Wow! Wow!" said the servant of the god exultantly,
"Not, however, for a pleasure planet or with jewels dripping from your trouser pockets. You're headed for Farandhazy."
He screamed and shouted and threw a mammoth temper tantrum, as I had expected him to. But then I gave him a copy of my book, explained my newest plot and what it could very well lead to for both of us, and he calmed down quickly. "And now, my good and faithful servant," I said, "be off and apostlize, if that's the right word, to beat the band. Thomas Langston Hughes is about to embark on the greatest con in history!"
With visions of lollipops and riches beyond his earlier imagining dancing in his head, he left for Farandhazy, the client world that had sent me that
germinal message. Tillie, to my surprise and perhaps to Artsie's chagrin, went with him.
You see, Spannity is, by its nature, a proselytizing and messianic religion: witness its history on Goss Conf. With suitable modifications, it should do very well on any number of planets. After all, one of the earliest Harveyites had done something like that in ancient times and had set in motion forces which eventually overthrew another empire. A series of fantasy stories, almost as ancient as that old empire, stories I vaguely remembered reading during childhood, told the tale of another Paul who had done something very similar in heroic fashion in a made-up interstellar empire. Now, this wasn't quite what I had in mind for myself; my own intentions were far more oriented toward money than empire.
Certainly, Emperor Bob was a mindless twit who deserved to be replaced, and not by one of his own mindless descendants. However, I couldn't see myself in the role of a destroyer of empires. For that matter, any weakening in the Empire would just bring in the Blawnt that much sooner, and what scope would there be for a man of my talents and inclinations in a galaxy ruled by those beasts? However, religion could do far more than destroy empires. In the history of Earth, religion has always proved itself to be the greatest scam of all, and many a preacher has grown rich beyond dreams from the piety of his followers. Given many worlds, a god should grow even richer than a preacher.
My plan was to repeat on other worlds what I had done on Goss Conf. Forewarned is forearmed, though: I would have to be more careful about such things as temple treasures—no more cut glass for me. My vaguely worded book gave a fuzzy version of the story of Span, in a form easily adapted to local prejudices and customs and mythologies. With sufficient preparation by Apostle Artsie, a few planets, Farand-hazy among them, should be fine places for Span to descend upon. Local priesthoods and established re-
ligions would be a problem; I'd have to cross that bridge when I came to it. Worlds to conquer? Why, there were more of them, I reflected, than Alexander the Greek could ever have dreamed of.
I was a bit worried about Gisfc's response to this plan. Would she be willing to leave her native planet, now that she had got me into a domestic situation? If not, what would she think of my going offworld by myself? As it turned out, she was enthusiastic.
"Darling," I said to my loyal and not really very divine wife, "how would you like your celestial husband to become the god of many worlds, and not just one?"
" 'God of many worlds,'" she repeated with a brilliant smile. "Aah, Thomas, now that has a ring to it!"
What a wife for a confidence artist! My profession had existed only in the most primitive form on Goss Conf before my arrival, but this wonderful woman was a natural at it. My position in the history of the confidence game was already assured, but with Gisfc by my side, I knew I would surpass my earlier achievements; we would be the greatest team in confidence history. So great, in fact, that Goss Conf would always be an inadequate theater for our performances: nothing less than a goodly chunk of the galaxy would suffice.
"Beware, worlds!" I cried, clasping her to my bosom. "Beware Bob! Caveat Emperor! Here come the Hugheses."
"That's all very nice, Thomas," she said, disengaging herself, "but what about Mardig Ras? Do you think he'll let you leave?"
"Don't gods ever get vacations?" I grumbled. "Say," I said, brightening, "are you planning to see your almost worthless brother in the reasonably near future?"
"Not almost worthless," she commented. "Just worthless."
"No, no. He too has a small part to play in this new cosmic drama. I want you to get in touch with
him tomorrow. Convince him that I'm getting bored and restless—that much is true, at least—and also that I feel I'm losing my grip on this planet and would like to take a vacation."
"But you're not losing your grip," she protested. "My girls have everything well in hand, and with those young toughs you recruited to back them up, not even the I-Men are likely to change matters."
"Well, of course, my dear. But if you tell my version to your brother, he'll tell it to his boss right away, and Mardig Ras will immediately start thinking about getting rid of me for good. He's not happy with things as they are, in case you haven't noticed. It's only my apparent popularity that has held him in check. But if we can convince him that my position is a bit shaky, he'll probably jump at the chance to ship me out so that he can take over the temples and run things as he wants without having to worry about me. We'll only be gone for a month or so at a time, so he should never manage to do it, what with your girls and my toughs, as you said. And once we have another client world or two under our thumbs, we won't have to worry about Mardig Ras again."
I strolled over to see the consul the following afternoon, after I was sure his private sec had had time to talk to him. I found Mardig Ras surprisingly solicitous about my health. As I entered his office, he plastered onto his face the most artificial of smiles imaginable and said in a greasy tone, "Why, Mr. Hughes, how kind of you to stop by! I'm delighted to see you. You look tired, careworn. I know how seriously you take your responsibilities to the poor, benighted citizens of this tawdry world. Dare I suggest that you engage in a respite, a vacation, from your burdensome duties?"
"You dare, indeed," I responded happily. This fish exemplified the old saying about hook, line, and sinker. "But I do worry," I went on, quickly affecting what I hoped would sound like a worried tone, "about the stability of the temples and the progress of my
programs while I'm away. I believe I would like to take regular vacations from now on, with my wife, of course. Would it perhaps be possible, or would I be asking too much, imposing too far on your good nature —could you possibly help me to leave on these vacations in a manner resembling my Second Coming Again, a manner befitting a god, and could you then keep an eye on things for me while I'm away? I know you're busy," I said hurriedly, "and I'm asking an awful lot, but I'd be eternally grateful—as only a god can—if you'd try to keep things on an even keel during my absences."
"Mr. Hughes!" he cried, genuinely touched. "You have changed during your tenure as Span. Godhead has at least taught you a sense of responsibility."
"Being a god does change a man," I admitted.
The next liner for Farandhazy stopped by three weeks later. We did not board it until after it had _left Goss Conf, a statement which might surprise and confuse you at first reading. It was obvious to me that it would not do for a god to walk up the ramp and take off using alien rockets just like a mortal; something more in the way of ascension was required. My idea was simply to use the golden chariot riding on a chemical rocket that I had used for my Second Coming Again. The liner had orders from the spaceport tower to take up a parking orbit around Goss Conf and wait for a pair of important passengers who would be brought aboard from a marine cruiser.
Thus it was that one afternoon, shortly after the liner had taken off and disappeared into the sky above Traj Coord, an eager and curious crowd, drawn to the temple by a rumor that had circulated that morning concerning yet another miracle due to take place, gathered in the space in front of the temple wall. One miracle after another, they were probably thinking; we haven't had this much magic for centuries! Just in front of the temple gates, in a cleared space guarded from the crowd by an unusually hard-bitten
bunch of guards, sat the awesome and brilliant golden platform, bedizened with many a wondrous shield and symbol, on which Span, riding on a column of fire, had descended to earth in his Second Coming Again. The crowd muttered superstitiously and swallowed lots of beer.
Soon there came a blast of trumpets from within the temple and the god Himself emerged through the gates (opened for the occasion); He was glorious to behoM and terrible to see, and by his right hand walked the current incarnation of Mocr Dyn (Gisfc Comp, of course). Nimbly, exhibiting a grace that must be called celestial, He leaped upon the platform, followed by the radiant Mocr Dyn. The crowd moaned in religious ecstasy, and then Span raised his arms out to the sides, looked over the heads of His children, and simpered. The silence of awe descended upon the assemblage.
"My children," I bellowed, my voice amplified to godlike proportions by the ingenious miniaturized electronics of the Imperial military forces, "even a god has business He must attend to in Heaven. I must leave you now to set my zodiacal houses in order." The crowd responded with a cry of terror and shouted requests that I not abandon them. I pressed on. "This will become necessary frequently in the future, my children, for I have been neglecting my heavenly abode in order to tend to your needs. I must also take the marvelous Mocr Dyn with me." Another cry of terror, this one even more heartfelt than the last. "However, I am not abandoning you: I will be returning." Ragged cheers. "In our absence, the temples will continue to be run by the Mocr Maidens you have all come to know and love." A very loud cheer this time. I wondered how long it would take this bunch of pea-brains to forget me entirely. "And now, my wonderfully loyal worshippers, farewell!" I pressed the appropiate button and the gadget roared into life and leaped up into the air with Gisfc and me, both greener than ever, clutching desperately at the railings.
Our height had increased to the point where breathing was growing difficult, Traj Coord was a mere dot below us, and the needle on the fuel gauge was approaching alarmingly close to the red line, and still there was no sign of the marine cruiser I had been promised. I had never been told just what the red line meant, but I thought that it stood to reason that it had a purpose, and I presumed that should the needle cross the red line it would mean something unpleasant, such as only one second to engine cutoff. Had Mardig Ras changed his mind about our alliance, I wondered, and had he decided to let that damnable red line take care of disposing of me? Messy for me, but his hands would be clean. I smiled confidently at Gisfc and said something bouyant and optimistic, I forget just what. At that moment, I saw, over her shoulder the cruiser approaching lickety-split.
We settled into one of their entrance bays just as' the engine cut itself off without a move on my part. Gisfc and I hurried off to take care of our greenness —I to remove mine with the proper solvents, she to cover hers up with a jar of dye confiscated after much ineffective protest from her brother Bloobac's private stock of homemade stuff. By the time we boarded the liner for Farandhazy in orbit, less than an hour later, we looked like any prosperous Terran tourist and his hard-bitten but goggle-eyed young wife.
Certainly no one on the planet below would have recognized us. By a frightful coincidence, however, our stewardess was the very same one who had assisted my debarkation onto Goss Conf so many, many months earlier, thereby kicking off my celestial career. She stared hard at me when I boarded, but, presumably out of consideration for Gisfc's feelings, she said nothing; service, however, was lousy throughout the trip.
We watched Goss Conf dwindle away to nothing in a giant viewscreen. "Now that," I remarked, for the joke I had told myself some months earlier demanded a wider audience, "is literally a godforsaken planet."
"But we'll be back," Gisfc reminded me.
"Again and again," I agreed. "Look at all those stars," I remarked, pointing them out to her, even though the action was surely superfluous. "Just waiting for Span. Did you hear something?"
"What? Only conversation."
"Strange. I thought I heard a trumpet blowing somewhere." I had also, for a moment, heard a crowd cheering and felt a weighty object being placed on my head and had thought I held a thick rod laden with precious jewels. Nonsense, I told myself sternly. You're going to have your hands full just being a god.