Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick & Roger Zelazny

The boys, having pushed him and the Holstein past the logs, the remnants of former trees, trotted off.

“Wait,” Tibor said. “Come back. I will ask and you will answer. You know the basic catechisms?” He peered sharply around.

The children returned, eyes on the ground, and as­sembled in a silent circle around him. One hand went up, then another.

“First,” Tibor said. “Who are you? You are a minute fragment in the cosmic plan. Second — what are you? A mere speck in a system so vast as to be beyond compre­hension. Third! What is the way of life? To fulfill what is required by the cosmic forces. Fourth! What –”

“Fifth,” one of the boys muttered. “Where have you been?” He answered his own question. “Through end­less steps; each turn of the wheel advances or depresses you.”

“Sixth!” Tibor cried. “What determines your direc­tion at the next turn? Your conduct in this manifesta­tion.

“Seventh! What is right conduct? Submitting yourself to the eternal forces of the Deus Irae, that which makes up the divine plan.

“Eighth! What is the significance of suffering? To purify the soul.

“Ninth! What is the significance of death? To re­lease the person from this manifestation, so he may rise to a new rung of the ladder.

“Tenth –” But at that moment Tibor broke off. An adult human shape approached his cart; instinctively, his Holstein lowered her head and pretended — or tried — to crop the bitter weeds growing around her.

“We got to go,” the black children piped. “Good­bye.” They scampered off; one paused, looked back at Tibor, and shouted, “Don’t talk to her! My momma say never to talk to her or you get sucked in. Watch out, y’hear?”

“I hear,” Tibor said, and shivered. The air had be­come dark and cool, as if awaiting the thrashing fury of a storm. He knew what this was; he recognized her.

He would go down the ruined streets, toward the sprawling mass of stone and columns that was its house. It had been described to him many times. Each stone was carefully listed on the big map back at Charlottesville. He knew by heart the street that led there, to the entrance. He knew how the great doors lay on their faces, broken and split. He knew how the dark, empty corridors would look inside. He would pass into the vast chamber, the dark room of bats and spiders and echo­ing sounds. And there it would be. The Great C. Wait­ing silently, waiting to hear the questions. The queries on which it thrived.

“Who is there?” the shape asked him, the female shape of the Great C’s peripatetic extension. The voice sounded again, a metallic voice, hard and penetrating, without warmth in it. An enormous voice that could not be stopped; it would never become still.

He was afraid, more afraid than ever before in his life. His body had begun to shake terribly. Awkwardly he thrashed about in his seat, squinting in the gloom to make out her features. He could not. She had a dished-in face, with almost vestigial features, almost without the courtesy of features at all. That chilled him, too.

“I’ve –” He swallowed noisily, revealing his fear. “I have come to pay my respects, Great C,” he breathed.

“You have prepared questions for me?”

“Yes,” he said, lying. He had hoped to sneak past the Great C, not disturbing it, not being disturbed by it ei­ther.

“You will ask me within the structure,” she said, put­ting her hand on the railing of his car. “Not out here.”

Tibor said, “I do not have to go into the structure. You can answer the questions here.” Huskily he cleared his throat, swallowed, pondered the first question; he had carried them with him, in written form, just in case. Thank god he had; thank god that Father Handy had prepared him. She would eventually drag him inside, but he intended to hold off as long as possible. “How did you come into existence?” he asked.

“Is that the first question?”

“No,” he said quickly; it certainly was not.

“I don’t recognize you,” the mobile extension of the giant computer said, her voice tinny and shrill. “Are you from another area?”

“Charlottesville,” Tibor said.

“And you came this way to question me?”

“Yes,” he lied. He reached into his coat pocket; one of his manual extensors checked that the derringer .22 pistol, single shot, which Father Handy had given him, was still there. “I have a gun,” he said.

“Do you?” Her tone was scathing, in an abstract sort of way.

“I’ve never fired a pistol before,” Tibor said. “We have bullets, but I don’t know if they still work.”

“What is your name?”

“Tibor McMasters. I’m an incomplete; I have no arms or legs.”

“A phocomelus,” the Great C said.

“Pardon?” he said, half stammering.

“You are a young man,” she said. “I can see you fairly well. Part of my equipment was destroyed in the Smash, but I can still see a little. Originally, I scanned mathematical questions visually. It saved time. I see you have military clothing. Where did you get it? Your tribe does not make such things, does it?”

“No, this is military garb. United Nations, by the color, I would say.” Tremblingly, he rasped, “Is it true that you come originally from the hand of the God of Wrath? That he manufactured you in order to put the world to fire? Made suddenly terrible — by atoms. And that you invented the atoms and delivered them to the world, corrupting God’s original plan? We know you did it,” he finished. “But we don’t know how.”

“That is your first question? I will never tell you. It is too terrible for you ever to know. Lufteufel was insane; he made me do insane things.”

“Men other than the Deus Irae came to visit you,” Tibor said, “They came and listened.”

“You know,” the Great C said, “I have existed a long time. I remember life before the Smash. I could tell you many things about it. Life was much different then. You wear a beard and hunt animals in the woods. Be­fore the Smash there were no woods. Only cities and farms. And men were clean-shaven. Many of them wore white clothing, then. They were scientists. They were very fine. I was constructed by engineers; they were a form of scientist.” She paused. “Do you recog­nize the name Einstein? Albert Einstein?”

“No.”

“He was the greatest scientist of them all, but he never consulted me because he was already dead when I was made. There were even questions I could answer which even he failed to ask. There were other comput­ers, but none so grand as I. Everyone alive now has heard of me, have they not?”

“Yes,” Tibor said, and wondered how and when he was going to get away; it, she, had him trapped here. Wasting his tune with its obligatory mumbling.

“What is your first question?” the Great C asked.

Fear surged up within him. “Let me see,” he said. “I have to word it exactly right.”

“You’re goddamn right you have to,” the Great C said, in its emotionless voice.

Huskily, with a dry throat, Tibor said, “I’ll give you the easiest one first.” With his right manual extensor he grappled the slip within his coat pocket, brought it forth, and held it in front of his eyes. Takhig a deep, unsteady breath, he said, “Where does the rain come from?”

There was silence.

“Do you know?” he asked, waiting tensely.

“Rain comes originally from the earth, mostly from the oceans. It rises into the air by a process called ‘evaporation.’ The agent of the process is the heat of the sun. The moisture of the oceans ascends in the form of minute particles. These particles, when they are high enough, enter a colder band of air. At this point, condensation occurs. The moisture collects into what are called great clouds. When a sufficient amount is col­lected, the water descends again in drops. You call the drops rain.”

Tibor plucked at his chin with his left manual exten­sor and said, “Hmmm. I see. You’re sure?” It did sound familiar; possibly, in a better age, he had learned it some time ago.

“Next question,” the Great C said.

“This is more difficult,” Tibor said huskily. The Great C had answered about rain, but surely it could not know the answer to this question. “Tell me,” he said slowly, “if you can: What keeps the sun moving through the sky? Why doesn’t it fall to the ground?”

The mobile extension of the computer gave an odd whirr, almost a laugh. “You will be astonished by the answer. The sun does not move. At least, what you see as motion is not motion at all. What you see is the mo­tion of the Earth as it revolves around the sun. Since you are standing still, it seems as if the sun is moving, but that is not so; all the nine planets, including the Earth, revolve about the sun in regular elliptical orbits. They have been doing so for several billion years. Does that answer your question?”