The Lords of Karma performed an autopsy and conferred.
“Why did he not take poison if he wished to die?” Brahma had asked. “It would be easier to conceal a pill than that box.”
“It is barely possible,” said one of the Lords of Karma, “that somewhere in the world he had another body, and that he sought to transmigrate by means of a broadcast unit, which was set to destroy itself after use.”
“Could this thing be done?”
“No, of course not. Transfer equipment is bulky and complicated. But Yama boasted he could do anything. He once tried to convince me that such a device could be built. But the contact between the two bodies must be direct and by means of many leads and cables. And no unit that tiny could have generated sufficient power.”
“Who built you the psych-probe?” asked Brahma.
“Lord Yama.”
“And Shiva, the thunder chariot? And Agni, the fire wand? Rudra, his terrible bow? The Trident? The Bright Spear?”
“Yama.”
“I should like to advise you then, that at approximately the same time as that tiny box must have been operating, a great generator, as of its own accord, turned itself on within the Vasty Hall of Death. It functioned for less than five minutes, and then turned itself off again.”
“Broadcast power?”
Brahma shrugged.
“It is time to sentence Sam.”
This was done. And since he had died once before, without much effect, it was decided that a sentence of death was not in order.
Accordingly, he was transmigrated. Not into another body.
A radio tower was erected, Sam was placed under sedation, transfer leads were attached in the proper manner, but there was no other body. They were attached to the tower’s converter.
His atman was projected upward through the opened dome, into the great magnetic cloud that circled the entire planet and was called the Bridge of the Gods.
Then he was given the unique distinction of receiving a second funeral in Heaven. Lord Yama received his first; and Brahma, watching the smoke arise from the pyres, wondered where he really was.
“The Buddha has gone to nirvana,” said Brahma. “Preach it in the Temples! Sing it in the streets’. Glorious was his passing! He has reformed the old religion, and we are better now than ever before! Let all who would think otherwise remember Keenset!”
This thing was done also.
But they never found Lord Kubera.
The demons were free.
Nirriti was strong.
And elsewhere in the world there were those who remembered bifocal glasses and toilets that flushed, petroleum chemistry and internal combustion engines, and the day the sun had hidden its face from the justice of Heaven.
Vishnu was heard to say that the wilderness had come into the City at last.