Chapter 2
“WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND OUT?” I asked brusquely as I stamped into Captain Cohn’s office. He was speaking on the phone and he raised his hand signing me to wait. “Yes. Thank you. I understand.” He hung up. “That was the hospital. It seems that Mrs. Vinicultura is suffering from post-traumatic amnesia-” “She’s forgotten everything that happened?” “Precisely. There are techniques that could get access to those memories but their application must wait until she has recovered from the shock.” “That’s not why you called me here?” “No.” He ran his finger around inside his collar and-if it were possible for an overmuscled police captain to look embarrassed-he looked embarrassed. “Here on Lussuoso we pride ourselves on our security and the thoroughness of our records. “Which means,” I interrupted, “your security has been penetrated and your records are doubtful?” He opened his mouth to rebut me. Then closed it and slumped in his chair. “You’re right. But it has never happened before.” “Once is once too often. Tell me about it.” “It is this Temple of Eternal Truth. It appears to have been duly registered as a qualified religion. They kept accurate records and reported regularly on their financial position, though of course like all religions they pay no taxes. Everything seemed quite aboveboard. The directors are on record and, most discreetly of course, we know about all of its members.” “All about? Would you like to explain that?” He looked uncomfortable. “Well, like any civilized planet we practice the galactic constant of complete freedom of religion. You have heard of the Interstellar Freedom of Religion Act?” “Vaguely, in school.” “The Act is not vague. The history of religion is a history of violence. Only too often religion kills, and we have had enough killing. Therefore no state or planet can have an official religion. Neither can a state or planet make any laws controlling religion. Freedom of worship and assembly is essential to civilization.” “What about nut cults?” “I was coming to that. Galactic law requires us not to interfere with any religion and to adhere to that rule sternly. But since the weak and the juvenile require protection so that, always legally and with the utmost caution, we do investigate all religions thoroughly. We make ongoing investigations to assure that religious rights are not violated, that each religion has the freedom to practice in its own way, that minors’ rights are not violated, that parishioners have complete freedom of choice-” “What you are trying to say is that you keep tabs on who goes to what church and how often and you know what they are getting up to.” “Precisely,” he growled defensively. “The records are secure and can only be accessed at the highest level in case of emergency.” “All right. We have an emergency and they have been accessed. Tell me.” “Rowena Vinicultura is one of the first members of the Temple. She attends regularly. She brought your wife to exactly four seances or sessions or whatever they call them.” “So?” He was beginning to look uncomfortable again. “So, as I have explained, our records are detailed and complete. Except, that the leader of the Temple of Eternal Truth, one Master Fanyimadu, is, well…” His voice ran down and he stared at his desktop. I finished the sentence for him. “Master Fanyimadu does not appear in any entry in any of your records.” He nodded without looking up. “We know his place of residence and have documented his attendance at the temple. However to preserve religious freedom we have done no more than that.” “No investigations? No cross-reference with Immigration or Criminal Affairs?” He shook his head in silence. I glowered. “Let me guess. You don’t know how he came to this planet, or if he is still here-or if he has left. Is that correct?” “There has been. . . a certain failure of communication, an oversight.” “Oversight!” I exploded, jumping to my feet and stamping the length of the room and back. “Oversight! Fire and blood and an explosion, a woman in the hospital and my wife vanished-and you call that oversight!” “There is no need to lose your temper-” “Yes there is!” “-we are proceeding with the investigation and have already made some progress.” He ignored my sneer. “The blood found in the temple has been subjected to analysis down to the molecular and subatomic levels. These results have been compared to those of everyone on this planet. We keep complete health and hospital records as you might imagine. Computers are accessing this immense data base at the present moment. When I called you earlier the search had been narrowed to less than twenty possibilities. As we talked I have been following the progress on this readout.” He tapped the screen on the desk. “The exacting comparison has now been reduced to five. No- four. Wait-there are only three now, And two of them are women! And that remaining man is…” As he tore the slip from his printout we turned as one and raced for the door. “Who?” I shouted as we ran. He read without breaking his stride. “Professor Justin Slakey.” “Where?” “Under sixty seconds’ flight from here.” At least he was right about that. The copter was airborne even as we fell through its door. The military must have had the news the instant that the police did because a cover of military jets roared by above us. Even before we began our descent we could see that copcopters were already hitting the ground and unloading troops to surround the house. Rotors roaring we dropped down onto the stone-flagged patio. Cohn had produced a large gun and was a fraction of a second ahead of me as we kicked open the doors. The house was empty, the bird flown. A suitcase was obviously missing, a gaping hole like a missing tooth from what had been a row of four in the bedroom closet. The garage door gaped open. A commofficer strode in, saluting as he pulled a printout from his chest pack. “Gone, sir,” he said. Collin snarled as he grabbed the sheet. “Professor J. Slakey, passenger on the stellar liner Star of Serendipity. Departed. . .” He looked up and his face was grim. “A little over an hour ago.” “So they are already in warpdrive and cannot be contacted until they emerge.” I considered the possibilities. “You will of course be in touch with the authorities at their scheduled destination. Which is an operation that might work normally-but this is not a normal situation. I have a strong suspicion that this suspect is ahead of us all of the way. Contacting the ship’s destination will probably do no good at all because the spacer will arrive instead at some unscheduled chartpoint. If you ask me you’ve lost him, Captain. But you can at least tell me who-or what-he is supposed to be.” “That is the worst part. He really is Professor Slakey. I started a search as soon as his name appeared. I have just received a report directly from the medical authorities. He is a physicist of interstellar repute who was requested to come here by the Medical Commission, no expense was too great to acquire his services. Something to do with retarded entropy as applied to our hospital work.” “Sounds reasonable. Slow down entropy and you slow down aging. Which is what this planet is all about. Was he for real?” “Undoubtedly. I had the privilege of meeting him at a function once. Everyone there, the scientists, physicists for the main part, were greatly in awe of his talents and the work that he did here. lam getting reports now,” he touched his earphone, “that they all refuse to believe he had anything to do with the Fanyimadu personality.” “Do you?” Before he could answer there was a shouted exchange outside, then the door was- thrown open and a policeman ran in. Holding an insulated container. “The search team found this when they were going through all the debris in the Temple of Eternal Truth, Captain-crushed under the machinery in the temple. We had no idea it was there until the wreckage was lifted. It’s a.. . human hand.” He put it on the table and, in silence, we looked through the transparent side at the crushed and mangled hand inside. I had a long moment of panic before I could see by the size, the shape, that it was certainly male. “Did anyone think to take the fingerprints of this?” I said. “Yes, sir. They were sent for comparison.. He was interrupted by the ring of the phone. Captain Collin put it to his ear, listened, replaced it slowly. “Positive identification. This is-Professor Slakey’s hand.” I pointed. “If you need proof, there it is. They were one and the same person. The blood tests, now this. Slakey was Fanyimadu. Keep me informed of everything. Understand?” I did not wait around for an answer. Turned on my heel-and left. Called back over my shoulder. “I assume that all details on Slakey will be in my commhopper when I get home.” So much for the police and the authorities. It was time to get to work. I radioed for a cab, told the driver to have my own car returned from the Central Police Station–one of the perks of the rich is letting the menials do as much as possible-and planned each step of the action that must be taken. “Let me off here,” I ordered while we were still a kilometer from my house. I was too jumpy to be driven around in luxury. I wanted to walk-and think. I had the strong feeling that the police were not going to come up with any answers for this one. They had been out-thought right down the line. But could I do any better? The homes were luxurious, surrounded by brilliant gardens, the air rich with bird sound. I heard little, saw nothing. Though I was aware when I walked up the path to my home that the front door was slightly open. I had left it closed. Thieves? No way-at least they took care of the ordinary kind of crime on lovely Lussuoso. I was smiling as I banged my way in. James jumped to his feet and we embraced warmly. Or was it Bolivar? “It’s James, Dad,” he said, knowing my weaknesses. “One day you better learn to tell us apart.” “I do. You usually wear blue shirts.” “This one is green-you have to do better than that.” He poured a drink for me, his already in hand, and I reported the progress or lack of it by the police. Then he spoke the words we had been both avoiding. “I’m sure Mom is all right. Disappeared, yes. In trouble, undoubtedly. But she is the toughest one in the family.” “She is, of course, comes up aces always.” I tried, to keep the gloom from my voice, could not. He grabbed my shoulder, very hard. “Something terrible has happened. But that Rowena women said gone–not dead. So we get to work to find her and that is that.” “Right.” I heard the roughness in my voice; a sentimental old gray rat. Enough. “We’ll do it. If the diGriz clan can’t do it-it can’t be done.” “Damn right! I have a message from Bolivar. He should be here very soon. He was in a spacer doing a lunar geological survey. Dropped everything and should be in faster than light drive by now.” “Lunar geology? That’s a change. I thought he had become a stockbroker?” “He was-found it too boring. When he had stacked away his millions, more profits than those of his clients I am sure, he burnt his business suits and bought a spacer. What do we do next.” “Top up this drink, if you please.” I dropped into a chair. “Fill it with one-hundred-proof Old Cogitation Juice. We have some work to do.” “Like what?” “Like first forgetting about collaboration with the authorities. They have got this investigation completely wrong so far and can only get it worse.” “And we can do better.” He said it as a fact-not a question. “That’s for sure. The bureaucrats are going to do an incredibly detailed and thorough search for this Slakey. We are not.” I saw his eyebrows rise and I had to smile. “If their search is successful, which I doubt, we will bear about it quickly enough. Meanwhile we want to find out everything we can about the Temple of Eternal Truth. We go to the horse’s mouth, so to speak. The church members will tell us what we want to know.” I waved the membership list I had extracted from the police with not too much difficulty. “There are three of these ladies whom we are very closely acquainted with. Shall we begin?” “As soon as I dipil my face and get a clean shirt. I’m a handsome devil and have a way with women.” I sighed happily. Some might have called this braggadocio, but I saw it as simply speaking the truth. In this family we do not condone false modesty. “You do that. Meanwhile I’ll fire up the family car.” An expression empty of meaning since this healthy planet had what was probably the most rigidly enforced clean air act in the galaxy. You would probably get clapped in jail for even thinking about an infernal combustion engine. Vehicles were powered by atomic or electric batteries. Or, like our luxurious Spreadeagle, they ran on the energy stored in a flywheel. It plugged into the electricity supply at night and the motor was run up to speed. During the day the motor became a generator and the spinning wheel generated electricity for the driving wheels. All six of them. A heavy flywheel made for a big car- I had stinted on nothing. The robot driver tooled the thing out of the garage when I whistled, nodding his plastic head and smiling inanely. The gold plated door to the passenger compartment lifted heavenward while soft, welcoming music played. I sat on the divan and the television came on. It was a news program with no news I wanted to hear. “Sports,” I said and a high speed balloon race replaced it. The bar served me a glass of champagne just as James appeared. “Wow!” he admired. “Real gold?” “Of course. As well as diamond headlamps and a prescription windshield. No expense spared.” “Where to?” he asked, sipping his drink. “Vivilia VonBrun is first on the list. On anyone’s list I imagine. Incredibly rich, desirably attractive. I phoned and she awaits our pleasure.” She swept out to greet us, smiling compassionately. She had permitted a tiny rim of red to remain around her gorgeous eyes, to express her unhappiness at recent events. Which of course had been described in gruesome detail by the news programs. She was wearing something diaphanous and gray, which revealed enticing glimpses of tanned skin when she moved. She looked too good to be true, twenty-five years old, going on twenty-six maybe, and she was. Too good to be true, that is. I didn’t dare think of her real age; the number was too large. She extended a delicate hand to me; I took it and kissed it lightly about the knuckles. “Poor, dear Jim,” she sighed. “Such a tragedy.” “It will all end well. May I present my son, James.” “What a dear man. How nice of you to come. My husband, Waldo, is away on one of those boring hunting things, blowing up wild animals. So if you need a place to stay…” Vivilia wasted no time. While Waldo was destroying robot predators she was doing a little predation herself. And she was probably old enough to be James’s great-great-grandmother. Which meant she certainly had some experience-I put the thought from me and got to work. “Vivilia, you can help us find Angelina. You are going to tell us everything you know about the Temple of Eternal Truth.” “You are so forceful, Jimmy. I’m sure that your son takes after…” “Facts first, lust later,” I snapped. “Coarse but to the point,” she smiled, uninsultable. “I’ll tell you everything that I know.” Enjoyable as that prospect was it would have taken far too long. I kept her memoirs to the point. A very interesting point as it turned out to be. With boredom at Olympic intensity on Lussuoso, sports, escapism and cult religions were going concerns. Master Fanyimadu had begun to appear at various soirees and parties, his fascinating beliefs excelled only by the intensity of his gaze. Ladies of leisure looked in on the Temple of Eternal Truth and most went back a second time. It was easy to see why. Vivilia explained. “It wasn’t so much the consolation of his religion as the positive promise of eternal bliss. Not that he doesn’t preach a good sermon, mind you, better than TV any day. It is what his sermons are all about. He tells you that if one attends often enough and prays with great intensity, as well as donating enthusiastically, one might get a little look-in on Heaven.” “Heaven?” I asked, trying to remember some rudimentary theology. “Heaven, of course, you must have heard of it? Or perhaps your religion…” “Dad’s an atheist,” James said. “We all are.” Vivilia sniffed meaningfully. “Well, I suppose most people are in this age of realism and social equality. But there is a down side to that, to worshiping the nitty-gritty of society. It is boring to be so practical. Therefore you can understand why some of us with more sensitivity search for a higher meaning.” It was I who sniffed meaningfully this time but she graciously ignored me. “If you had studied more diligently in school and not ignored your Applied Theology class you would know all this already. Heaven is the place where we go after we die and if we have been good, there you will reside in happiness forever. Hell is where you go if you have been bad, to suffer intensely for eternity. I know it sounds very simplistic and illogical. I, as well as lot of the other girls, felt that way when we first heard of Heaven and Hell. But as I said, to add weight and gravitas to Heaven it is possible to visit the place, at least temporarily. So you see, having been there I have lost, shall we say, a certain amount of credulity.” “Hypnotic suggestion,” I suggested. “Jimmy, you sounded just like Angelina when you said that. She flared her nostrils and snorted lightly in exactly the same way. I told her that I bad felt exactly the same way when other of my friends had told me about their Heavenly excursions. But I know hypnotism when I see it-and this was no trance. I can’t begin to describe the process of going to Heaven. But I was there, with Master Fanyimadu holding one of my hands and that incredibly stupid Rosebudd holding the other. I don’t think she has enough mind to hypnotize. Yet we saw each other in Heaven, experienced the same things. It was simply wonderful and too beautiful to explain in mere words. It was very. . . inspirational.” She had the grace to blush when she spoke the word; inspiration not being her usual line of work. “Had Angelina been to Heaven?” I asked. “She never mentioned anything about it to me.” “I know nothing about that. I would never think of snooping into another person’s personal secrets.” She ignored my lifted eyebrow at this preposterous statement. Nor would she go into any more detail. Saying that if we had the faith we would see Heaven for ourselves. She was very determined and sure of that; a rock of belief. It was only after she had changed the subject and taken James by the arm to show him the house I knew that I at least had worn out my welcome. She was reluctant to let him leave, but a provident call from Bolivar from the spaceport supplied an inescapable reason to escape. As we drove towards the spaceport I found myself scowling as I grew more and more angry “Rrrrr …” I finally said. “That was a pretty fair growl, Dad. You wouldn’t care to expand upon it?” “I would-and I shall! I’m angry, James-and growing angrier by the minute. There are a lot mysteries here-but one thing is not mysterious at all. This con man and his fake church are raising the wrath in me.” “I thought you had a soft spot for cons and scams?” “I do-~but only when it comes to bilking the filthy rich. I don’t con widows or orphans or those who can’t afford it. And I work for money. Good old green, the folding and golden stuff…” “I get you now,” James said, his angry scowl matching mine. “You’re for a good clean con, taking money from the rich and giving it to the slightly less rich. Namely you. But no one gets hurt in the process.” “Exactly! There is money involved in this con, sure, but there is also belief. This fake guru is trampling about where he doesn’t belong. In people’s beliefs, their most intimate feelings. In the matter of religion it is live and let live, I say. I tell no one what to believe. I even listen carefully to sincere beliefs, no matter how nutsy they sound. But Slakey-Fanyimadu is playing with fire. Preaching fakery, using machines to con the unsuspecting into believing in an afterlife that in this case can’t possibly be true. If Heaven is the place you go after you die,-well there is only one way of getting there. Guided tours for a quick inspection are just not in order. What is going on here is very dirty and could be very hurtful as well. If he were showing his unsuspecting marks a real Heaven they would go to, well fine. He would only be depriving them of their money, which is a wonderful and noble thing to do. But he is depriving them of their individuality and their trust. He is lying to them, preying upon their fear of death. When they discover what has been done to them they will be hurt, shattered, emotionally destroyed. Whatever else happens-he must be stopped.” We growled in unison as we pulled up at the arrivals terminal. Bolivar waved and opened the door. Tanned by UV and still wearing his spacer’s gear, we brought him up to date during the drive home. Once in the house I felt a twinge of appetite. I glanced through the autocook menu with little enthusiasm, unadventurously punched up three of my usual aardvark steak and fries. Silently wishing that I had been ordering for four- a banquet of exotica had that been the case. “Very well done, Dad, you’re quite a cook,” Bolivar said pushing away his plate and untouched glass of wine. “It has been dehydrated-rehydrated space rations for far too long. I have been thinking of eating their wrappings, which would probably taste better than their contents. So, time to get down to work.. At this precise moment as the clock struck the hour, the central computer terminal buzzed, while its screen lit up with Angelina’s image. “I’ve left this recording for you, Jim,” she said, and- my heart, which had leaped up into my throat, settled slowly back to its usual position. “I’m off to church soon, for what promises to be an interesting experience. I don’t believe any of the guff this meandering idiot Fanyimadu has been feeding us-but I do know that something most interesting is happening. Physical travel of some kind and, I suspect, it may be offplanet. I can’t tell you more right now since lam going mostly on guesswork and, don’t laugh, intuition. It will be dangerous, but I’m going prepared. So if you lose track of me for a bit-don’t lose hope. Bye.” She blew a kiss in my direction and the recording clicked off. “Did she say offplanet?” Bolivar asked. I nodded. “Let’s play it again.” We did. And when it ended a second time my mind was made up. “She said offplanet-and she meant it. Any ideas?” “Plenty,” Bolivar said. “Let us forget Slakey, as you suggested, Dad. The police can search the police files without our help. But this recording tells us things they don’t know. Offplanet covers a lot of space-and so will, we. We must start searching the galactic records. We have to find this Temple of Eternal Truth when it surfaces again-under any other name or guise. We list the characteristics it must have and get our search agencies to digging into the records.” “Exactly so,” I agreed. “We will be looking for the modus operandi,” “I’m not so great on the old dead languages, Dad,” Bolivar said. “But if you mean we will track down this joker and that nutsy religion I am for it!” “That’s the idea. It may very well have a different name, and different ways of bringing in the suckers-but the operating basis will be the same.” “What is that?” “I haven’t the slightest idea. You’ll have to work it out as you go along.” “And we search in the past as well as the future,” James said. “There is no reason that this church should be confined to just this one planet, and every reason to believe that it isn’t.” “Too right,” Bolivar agreed. “That goes into the searchplan.” I was proud of my boys. They were taking over, plowing ahead without a moment lost. As for me, I wasn’t that rusty an old rat-not yet. But it was nice to see a couple of shiny young ones sharpening their teeth. They started at once, putting the search operation into effect. Dividing up the planets between them and working out in an ever-expanding sphere of communication and interrogation. I left them to it. Found a cold beer, took it to my study and whistled at my computer terminal to turn it on. I sipped the beer while I surfed through various data bases, zeroing in on Religion. I needed to know more about this Heaven and Hell business. I found what I needed under Eschatology. It was all about future life after death and was all very confusing. Down through the ages there have been a bewildering variety of beliefs held by an even more bewildering variety of social groups. Sometimes future life was seen as a continuation of present life, under more or less favorable conditions. Though at other times retribution for sins or evil deeds made this future life the very opposite of the one we know. I boned up on Heaven and Paradise, then went on to Hell, Hades, and Sheol. All very complex and very much at loggerheads, one religion with the other. Though not all of them. A lot of them were very derivative and borrowed bits and pieces from each other. My head was beginning to ache. But out of all the confusing theorizing and philosophizing one thing was very clear. This was very heavy stuff. A matter of life-and then death. The earliest religions were obviously pre-science. They had to be because they made no attempts to consider reality, but were based purely on emotions. A desire to find some solutions to the problems of existence. When science finally appeared on the scene these religions should have been replaced by observation and reason. That they were not was sure proof of mankind’s ability to believe two mutually exclusive things at the same time. It had been a very long day and I found my eyes first glazing then closing as the multicolored aspects of future life passed before me. Enough! I yawned and headed for bed. A well-rested rat would be of far more use than an exhausted one with wilting whiskers. I crashed and ten seconds-or ten hours-later I blinked up blearily at the figure shaking my shoulder. “James. . .?” “It’s Bolivar, Dad. We’ve found another Temple of Eternal Truth.” I was wide awake and standing next to the bed, almost in eyeball contact. “Not under the same name?” “Nowhere close. This one is The Seekers of the Way. No names, books, or characters are the same as in the Temple of Eternal Truth. But they are identical if you do a semiotic comparison.” “Where?” “Not that far. Planet named Vulkanu. Mining and heavy industry for the most part. But it does have an attractive tropical archipelago that is devoted only to holiday making and retirement homes. Apparently so fascinating that it draws customers from all the nearby star systems.” “We leave-” “As soon as you’re packed. Tickets waiting at the-shuttle flight. One hour to liftoff.” I checked my wallet and credit cards. “I’m packed. Let’s grab some passports and go.”