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taboos and prejudices you'd have would have been determined by the race and culture in which you
were raised."
Cull looked back at Phyllis. She was staring at him as if she'd gone into shock. Her skin was
bluish-white; her eyes, glazed. Beyond her, a small figure now, floated Fyodor.
Cull thought, if Fyodor had been conscious and had heard all this, he would have denied the
reason for this world. He would have said that the Immortals were atheists and blasphemers, that they
lacked faith in God. Therefore, they were trying to do His work by creating these souls. Besides being
atheists, they were being redundant, for the Creator had already fashioned souls. And to create a
multitude of saviors to make sure that at least one got to Earth was even more shocking.
Fyodor would have rejected everything the Im-mortals stood for and did. To him, they would
have been the true demons, the Old Enemy, the Fathers of Lies.
"If," Cull said, "we're really in some sort of pre-Terrestrial existence, how do the Immortals know
what memories to give us? How do they know what form life will take on Earth?"
"Oh, they keep several decades ahead of Earth's expanding population. They supply souls faster
than man can breed. And they know, of course, all about the cultures and languages and. . . everything.
Now, you and the woman, for in-stance, were probably scheduled to spend about fifty Earth years inside
this sphere. If you were killed here before the time was up, you'd have been resurrected as many times as
was needed. Then, conditioning presumably having taken ef-fect, you'd have been recorded and released
as quanta or whatever you want to call them.
"But, even the unforeseen can happen to the Immortals. Mankind on Earth came to a sudden
end, just as my people did.
"So, I was left here as surplus, as a sort of God's gadfly, and the pre-birth Earthlings found me
here and called me demon. Just as the new species to come here will rank you as demons.
"You see, the subconscious memory the soul-quantum takes to Earth brings with it more than an
ethical urging. It also brings with it memories of demons, giants, weird anthropomorphic beasts. Hence,
mythology and the various archetypes and devils of various religions."
Cull burst out, "If this is true, and I'm still not sure you're not tormenting me, why don't you kill
yourself? Release yourself from this hell?"
"Because my body is a physical body. Its cells want to survive. I can't bring myself to commit
suicide. Not yet, anyway, not until the pressures get too great. Maybe you'll be able to kill yourself. But I
doubt it. You've survived all this; you're too tough. You want to live.
"Even all I've told you and all you've seen won't quite convince you that there is another life. Just
as I'm almost, but not quite, convinced. I want to live in the world I know. So, brother, we go merrily
through hell together. Defeating the purpose of the Immortals by getting meaner and more vicious and
cynical and sadistic. By the time we're killed, we'll be so set in our ways, that a thousand cycles of births
and rebirths wouldn't straighten us out."
"Then," said Cull, "maybe the Immortals haven't told you the truth either. Maybe you're lying,
and. . ."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Go to hell, brother," said the thing, and it kicked violently against Cull's grip on its tail and broke
free.
Away it winged while Cull and Phyllis hung in the dimly lit void.
They clung together while the wreckage of a world drifted by. She wept softly for a while. Cull
held her tightly and patted her shoulder or stroked her head. But he was not thinking of her. He was
thinking that they would be blown by the winds. But which way, in what general direction?
Between the interior of this sphere and space was a thin wall. The cold of space was seeping
through, and the air layer next to the wall would be precipitating its moisture. Ice would form on the wall.
The air next to it would cool and con-dense, thus forming a high-pressure area. The hotter air near the
center of the sphere would make a low-pressure area. So, winds would be generated by the cold
high-pressure air moving toward the center into the warm low-pressure region.
This meant that he and Phyllis would not be blown against the ice-packed fog-surrounded walls.
On the contrary, they'd be blown inward, toward the sun. But what kind of turbulence would be created
inside this perfect sphere with winds moving inward with equal force from every square centimeter of
sphere surface? If what the Immortal said was true, then the sphere would be given a slight spin. Air
would have weight; so, also, the objects now floating. He and Phyllis would have a tendency to drift
toward the wall. However, the inward-blowing winds would be more than strong enough to drive them
away.
So, a great whirlpool of air would be formed near the center. Would not he and Phyllis be caught
in this and carried around and around and around?
He did not know. He could not remember enough of meteorology to predict accurately.
If they died from starvation or collision with debris, their souls, or quanta, would be released and
then detected by the Immortals' receivers. The Immortals would do whatever they did with recap-tured
souls and would later release them. They would go flying through the cosmos, ricocheting off the corners
of the universe, go wherever chance took them. He and Phyllis would be separated, forever. He would
be captured by a physical being whose form and neural structure at-tracted his soul. She, also, but
perhaps at another area of the world, millions of lightyears away.
He would be born again, this time in a nonhuman body, though it would have to have some
resemblances to a human shape to 'catch' his soul-quantum. And his original destiny would have been
thwarted. Never for him the planet of Earth. The memories he carried, even if he could recall them in his
future being, would be false. But, he would not remember. That was the beauty of it. He would not
remember. Even if, through some chance, he and Phyllis were reborn on the same planet, perhaps, even
in the same womb as twins, neither would know the other.
But would they dream strange dreams, glimpse terrifying yet half-familiar vistas thrust up by the
unconscious during their sleep? Would they, if they did meet, feel an unexplainable affinity? And would [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]