He sat up straighter and yawned. “What?”
“I have something for you.”
He grinned. The poor, trusting son of a bitch, she thought. And she could hardly keep her laughter down.
“Hold your hand out,” she said.
He held it out.
She moved swiftly, bringing the bottle around and holding it only inches from his fingertips. The spiders were trying to climb the glass walls with little success.
He looked at it a moment before he saw that the bottle itself was not being offered, that it was the contents that should interest him. And then he blanched and tried to shove himself backwards, through the wall of the truck.
“No!”
Do you want them?”
He drew his hand swiftly to his chest, clutched himself. “I’ll take them out and give them to you.”
“No!”
She made as if to unscrew the top of the shaker, though she had no such intention at all.
“Perrrtooosss . . .” he moaned, beating at himself, as if a hundred spiders crawled on him and he was trying to knock them loose.
“Do you want me to keep Pertos bottled up?” she asked. He could not take his eyes from the spiders.
“Sebastian !” she shouted.
He looked at her.
“You want me to keep them bottled?”
He nodded, his head moving quickly up and down. He didn’t stop nodding even when she spoke again.
“Then you’ll do something for me,” she said. “You’ll take the amoeba off the Furnace. You’ll resurrect the others and bring them to life in the nutrient trays.”
He said nothing.
She moved closer with the bottle. “Won’t you?” she insisted.
“Y-Y-Yes,” he agreed.
“Get up,” she said.
He obeyed.
“Get the Furnace ready.”
He did this too.
“Wissa first,” she said.
He fed the disc to the machine.
He worked the nobs, formed a whole and lovely villainness.
“She’ll . . . hurt . . . y-you,” he said mournfully.
“The prince,” Bitty Belina said. The spiders were still in evidence.
The prince was born.
Wissa had already begun to stir. She sat up, groggy, and brushed at her skin as if she were dusty.
As the body of the first unsuccessful suitor jelled inside the womb, Belina stood on the brink of the viewplate, head thrown back as she laughed. Her golden hair was very golden, her eyes very bright indeed.
Even as she turned and looked at him, brandishing the spiders and taunting him, he could not help but think how beautiful she was. Lovely, lovely child-woman. He was glad, now, that he could snake her happy by raising her companions from the dead.
January
Saint Eclesian, in the Vonopoen Book of Wisdom, warns us against a chauvanistic-jineoistic view of man’s final war with God. He tells us: “There does not necessarily always have to be a hero and a villain in a conflict. Indeed, most times, there is no hero at all. And when one considers the ways of God and the attitudes of men, there can be little doubt that both factions would share in the villainy. When the war comes, it will be every man’s duty, however, to make his own decision whether man or God is the least villainous. This may not be a noble manner in which to choose sides, but it is surely a fair one.”
Later, in one of his letters to the citizens of the city of Pocadion, the Rogue Saint expands this warning: “You have heard me say that neither man nor God will be the hero in such a conflict. Yet, if man should win, he must reject the memory of his villainy and proclaim his virtue. Otherwise, victory will be hollow. No one raises huzzahs when evil overcomes good. If man wins, there must be parties and singing, awards and medals and eulogies. This can best be insured if men make certain that God dies in a most unnoble way, debased and groveling. We all know that a true hero dies proudly, and our self-confidence will be bolstered by watching God expire without dignity and without hope.”
In the cargo hold of the truck, the walls and the floor had not been well soundproofed against the incessant clatter of the rotars suspended in the vehicle’s under-carriage, for the designer had never intended for anyone to ride back there. Even so, grown men would have found it only slightly annoying. The puppets, on the other hand, were forced to sit closely and to shout if they wished to be heard as the truck resumed its journey northwest. And, being volatile, hyperactive creatures, they could not be satisfied with sitting alone or reading.