God of Tarot (8 page)

“You faded away to nothing before you could return to Star Antares.” Brother Paul said. What singular courage this alien had had, to undertake such a mission! Traveling in spirit to an alien body, to convince people of a truth they knew was impossible— and giving his own life in the process. This creature must have had a good deal more than aura going for him; he had to have had intelligence, determination, and nerve. Brother Paul had thought his own mission special; now he saw that it was ordinary in comparison to that of Antares.

“I faded down to sapient norm,” Antares agreed. “There is no fading below that, except in illness or physical death. But my native identity was gone then, as the host-body dominated. Once the first mattermission unit was ready, the Solarians shipped my Solarian host to my home Sphere, together with a nuclear fusion expert, honoring the bargain I had made. But I was dead.”

“Except that you
aren’t
dead!”

“My aura was enhanced by the mattermission machine, and that returned my identity to me,” Antares agreed. “But my host was gone; I could not exist outside this unit. The machine is now my host, and I am now its constant, as in your calculator. I cannot manifest at all unless evoked by someone like you with the interest and aura to make it possible. When you arrive at your destination—”

Brother Paul looked at his watch again. Still ten minutes, forty-nine seconds. He was certain now; no time at all had passed since Antares had appeared. He was in the process of suffering a potent hallucination. Maybe. “But if I can see you and hear you, others can too; we can open the capsule before it mattermits—”

“We are in mattermission now. Did you not comprehend?”

“Now? But I thought the process was instantaneous!”

“That it is, Solarian Brother.”

Brother Paul mulled that over. An extended dialogue in zero time? Well, why not one more impossibility! “Who are these ‘Ancients’ you mentioned? Why don’t
they
get you out of this fix?”

“They are extinct, as far as we know. They perished three million Solarian years ago, leaving only their phenomenal ruins.”

“Ruins? But you said the mattermission equipment derived from—”

“Some few of their ruins have functioning components. Most of the advanced technology has been reconstituted from the far more advanced science of the Ancients by those contemporary species capable of recognizing the potential of what they discovered. There may be Ancient ruins in your own Sphere, but if your individuals did not recognize them for what they were, they may have been destroyed. Chief among these technological reconstitutions in other Spheres is Transfer—the means by which I came to Sphere Sol. That secret we will not share with you, for its value is measureless, and your species—please do not take umbrage—may not be mature enough to handle this knowledge safely.”

Brother Paul suddenly realized that he liked this alien ghost, even if Antares were merely a figment of his own imagination. “I take no umbrage; I regard my own species with similar misgivings, at times. I suppose you may be considered a figment of my mind, or as you put it, of my aura. Yet you have provided me comfort and interest during a nervous period.”

“Do not underestimate the capacities of aura, friend Solarian,” Antares replied equably. “In my brief tenure in Solarian form I came to know some of the nature of your kind, alien as it is to my prior experience. Many of your mysteries are explicable in terms of aura, as you will know when you achieve aural science. Your water-divining merely reflects the aural interaction with hidden water or metals. Your ‘faith healing’ constitutes a limited exchange of auras, the well one augmenting the failing one. What you call telepathy is another aural phenomenon: the momentary overlapping of aural currents such as we experience at this moment. When an entity dies, his aura may dissipate explosively, like a supernova, flooding the environment for an instant, forcing sudden awareness upon those who are naturally attuned. Close friends, or entities with very similar aural types. Thus a sleeping person may suffer a vision at the instant of his friend’s demise.”

Antares vanished. Brother Paul jumped up, alarmed. “Antares!” he cried. But there was nothing except the treadle sewing machine.

Then he realized that the matter transmission was over. He had arrived. The alien aura could manifest only while the Ancient reconstituted equipment was in operation. When the machine was turned off, the constant was lost—as in his calculator.

He looked at his watch. Eleven minutes, fifteen seconds. Time was moving again; the infinite expansion of instantaneity had ceased. He was back in the real world, such as it was. Whichever world it was.

Brother Paul felt a poignant loss. “If my aura is as potent as you say, brother alien, I will summon you again,” he promised aloud. “Antares, you have been a good companion, and we have much more to discuss. Maybe on my return hop…”

But whom was he fooling? He had suffered a hallucination in transit, as he understood some people did, in this manner soothing his extreme nervousness about the mattermission. Better to shut up about it.

“Farewell, alien friend,” he murmured.

3

Action

The

Statement

Below

is

TRUE

The

Statement

Above

is

FALSE

Brother Paul blinked in bright sunlight. He stood at the edge of a field of grain of an unfamiliar type. It could be a variety of wheat; Earth exported hybrid breeds of the basic cereals as fast as they could be developed, searching for the ideal match with alien conditions. There were so many variables of light and gravity and soil and climate that the only certain verification of a given type’s viability was the actual harvest. This field looked healthy; the stalks were tall and green, reflecting golden at the tops, rippling attractively with the vagaries of breeze: a likely success. Of course mere appearance could be deceptive; the grains might turn out woody or bitter or even poisonous, or local fauna might infiltrate the field and consume the harvest in advance. In any event, it would be quite a job threshing by hand what wheat there was.

Not far distant rose a fair-sized mound. He was intrigued by the bright colors on one side of it. He walked out to inspect this curiosity. It turned out to be a compost pile formed from the refuse of the field: stalks and leaves shaped into a cup-shaped pile to catch and hold the rain, since water was necessary to promote decomposition.

Brother Paul smiled. He saw this mound as a living process of nature, returning to the soil the organic material that was no longer needed elsewhere, one of the great rejuvenating phenomena of existence. What better symbol could there be of true civilization in harmony with nature than a functioning compost pile? In a fundamental respect the compost did for life what the Holy Order of Vision was trying to do for mankind: restore it to its ideal state, forming fertile new soil for future generations. There could be no higher task for a man or a society than this!

The bright colors turned out to be small balloons nestling in the limited shade the mound provided. There were red, green, yellow, and blue ones, and shades between. Had some child left them here as an offering to the soil? This seemed unlikely, since the technology for making plastic balloons would hardly have been exported to this colony world in lieu of more vital processes. Had a child brought balloons from Earth, that child would hardly have left them carelessly in a field. Brother Paul put forth his hand to pick one up. It popped at his touch. It was nothing but a tenuous membrane, hardly more substantial than a soap bubble. No wonder these were in shade; mere sunlight would wipe them out! Maybe they were an alien exudation from the compost, the gas inflating a colored film. Pretty, but of limited duration. One had to expect new things on new worlds, little things as well as important ones.

Time was passing. No welcoming party? He saw no one here. Didn’t they care about the shipment? Did they know about it? Apparently these transmissions were somewhat random, at the convenience of the crowded schedule of MT. With a thousand colony planets and perhaps five major settlements per world to keep track of—well, that was about five billion people, over half of Earth’s pre-exodus population. Planet Tarot was lucky to get any follow-up at all! So this shipment had probably caught the colonists by surprise. The impact of arrival would have alerted them, however, and they would hustle over to unload the capsule before it shuttled back to Earth.

Should he give them a head start by carrying out some of the equipment himself? The fact that he was here on a specialized mission did not prevent him from making himself useful, and he could use the exercise.

He turned—and spied something beyond the capsule receiver building. There was a stone, a block—no, a throne, there amid the wheat! A girl was seated upon it, a lovely, fair-haired creature, a veritable princess. What was she doing here?

He started toward her. But as he did, the lady rose and fled through the field, her queenly robe flowing behind her. “Wait!” he called. “I’m from Earth!” But she continued to run, and she was surprisingly fleet. Obviously a healthy girl.

Brother Paul gave up the chase. She was frightened, and he would gain nothing by pursuing her, though he could surely catch her if he tried. This whole situation seemed even more peculiar, following his experience with the alien ghost.

He stopped short. “Key Three!” he exclaimed. The lady on the throne in the field of wheat—the card numbered the third Major Arcanum in the Tarot deck, titled the Empress.

This was Planet Tarot, where real cards had been animated. But he had not anticipated anything this soon, this literal!

Was this another ghostly manifestation? Had it all been in his mind? If so, his judgment on this mission was already suspect What would the recorder’s playback show? He wished he could peek, but of course he had no projector, and did not understand his bracelet’s operation anyway. Regardless, the lady had certainly seemed genuine, and most attractive despite (because of?) her timidity.

A planet where Tarot images became literal. Brother Paul paused, thinking about that, stimulated by this sudden evidence of the fact. He had sawed pine wood, as part of his chores for the Order, and during the sometimes tedious hand labor his mind, as was its wont, had conjured a parallel between pine and the Tarot. The wood was light and white outside, easy to saw and handle, easy to burn, but not of too much substance. The heart of pine, in contrast, was rock-hard and dense, saturated with orange-colored sap. It would last for decades without decoying, and the termites, whose favorite food was soft pine, would not touch the heartwood. It burned so fiercely that it soon destroyed metal grates and brick fireplaces. The queen of firewoods! The Tarot seemed like that: superficially interesting, the pictures lending themselves readily to interpretation by amateurs. But
if
one delved deeply enough, one encountered the heart-of-Tarot—and that was deep and dense and difficult, stretching the mind through the fourth and fifth dimensions of thought and time. Few people could handle it, but for those who persevered, the rewards were profound and lasting. Brother Paul regarded himself as on the verge between white wood and orange wood, a novice trembling at the portal of True Meaning, hardly knowing what he would discover ahead. Would he make progress, here on Planet Tarot?

Well, the throne of the Empress remained. He could check this out very quickly. He walked up to it, glancing around at the landscape as he did. This was a beautiful place, with what appeared to be a volcanic mountain rising just beyond the field, and near it a ridge of brightly colored rock. The air was warm and the gravity so close to that of Earth that he felt no discomfort at all. He would never have taken this for a haunted planet!

There was no doubt about it. This was a genuine Tarot Empress throne. Or something close to it. It was fashioned of dense, polished wood rather than stone; he was aware that there might not be suitable stone here. One side of it was carved with the design of a six-sided shield bearing a carving of a two-headed eagle. He could not safely assume such symbolism to be coincidence, but neither could he be sure it was not. So there was doubt after all. There always was.

Sturdy wooden pillars supported a pavilion roof shading the throne. A necessary precaution; even the fairest empress would suffer if she sat all day in the direct glare of the sun. Still…

A horrendous growl startled him. He jumped, orienting on the sound, and saw a huge, sinuous, catlike creature charging at him. The thing seemed to have five legs. Maybe its tail was prehensile.

From the lady to the tiger! Brother Paul dodged around the throne. The creature maneuvered to follow him. Catlike, but no feline; the articulation of its limbs was alien in some obscure but impressive manner. It was not that they bent backward at the joints; that did not appear to be the case. But the bending had a different aspect—

No time to cogitate on that now! This thing must mass 150 kilograms—twice Brother Paul’s own weight—and there was little doubt of its intent. It regarded him either as an enemy or as prey!

It would have helped if the authorities had advised him of such details of the planetary ecology. But probably they hadn’t known. He should have remained inside the capsule until a colonist-guide came for him; he had only himself to blame for this difficulty.

Brother Paul dodged around the throne again, but the tiger-thing had anticipated him. It bounded around the other way, reversing course with eerie ease, and abruptly confronted him, its forelegs outstretched.

Brother Paul suffered one of those flashes that are supposed to come to people facing sudden death. The creature’s extremities were not claws or hoofs; instead, they resembled leather gloves or mittens. They were forked, with the larger part hooking around in a semicircle like a half-closed hand, but without fingers; the smaller part was like an opposable thumb. The dexterity of this “hand” could in no way approach that of the human appendage, and the calloused pads on the outside edges showed that this was primarily a running foot rather than a manipulative hand. Yet a hoof or paw would have been much better for running! What was the purpose in this wrenchlike structure?