LoveStar (16 page)

Indridi didn't answer.

“Indridi had a little accident,” said Grim.

“What happened?”

“It doesn't matter,” said Grim. “I just want you to keep him away from LoveDeath.”

“Of course,” said Simon.

Grim drew him aside and glared at him. “I'm serious! I'm the manager of this company. I see things that you stooges on the street don't know! Can I trust you to keep him away from LoveDeath?”

“What do you think I am?”

“You're a secret host and a spy.”

“I'm a friend, his man!”

Simon barged through the throng of hosts pulling Indridi behind him, out into the rain, and into his car. The security guard had his hands full shooing frantic hosts away.

“Don't take him!” called the rumpled old woman. “I've got a bad feeling about this boy!”

Indridi sat in the front seat and a plastic bag containing his wet clothes was chucked in the back.

“Watch out! He means to take you to LoveDeath! Come with us!” shouted the teenagers.

Simon slammed the door. “There's something wrong with the Mood Division,” he thought.

“It sounds as if the wolf's howling,” whispered Indridi dejectedly, straining his ears. The Big Bad Wolf howled desolately somewhere in the bowels of the factory.

Simon drove into town. There wasn't much that could be done. He was driving a nine-year-old Toyota. It was the best he had been able to wangle out of the agency.

“You'll have to sell it within a week,” the agent had said. “If not you'll have to pay rent for the use.”

“Don't you understand?” said Simon. “This is ME driving a Toyota. It's good for Toyota.”

The agent looked at him pityingly and shook his head.

“You're not at high school any more, young feller. It's not as if you've got celebrity ratings.”

Indridi sat in silence in the front. Simon drove down the high street and then back and forth around the harbor area. From the right foot of the Statue of Liberty to its left foot. Rolling down the window, he called out to a man in a woolly sweater.

“Great choice. No outgoings. No payments to speak of.”

They were hit by a cloudburst. Indridi stared dully out to sea until he came to his senses and looked at his watch. It was nearly five. A green helicopter the size of a bus hovered over the town. Two immense rotors held it in the air while below it hung the replica Viking Age Farm that used to stand in front of the National Museum. The helicopter flew over the town and vanished into a black cloudbank that was forming over Mt. Esja.

“Everything's going north,” said Simon.

“Everything except me,” sighed Indridi.

“Your time will come,” he said.

“Sigrid's meeting Per Møller at eight.” Indridi closed his eyes. If his soul was a ship, it was drifting rudderless toward this rock. He hid his face in his hands. “All hope is gone.”

Simon looked at the road ahead and a number of thoughts passed through his mind while the offers piled up on his lens. More dirty offers than he had ever seen before. Somewhere Maria was feeling rejuvenated after a refreshing game of squash with Sjonni and Binni. He received a message on his lens:

[congratulations! indridi h. is within reach. confirm trip with LoveDeath? seventy-five percent commission on offer. nb! eighty percent for additional magnesium and aluminium nitrate! last chance!]

[CONFIRM NOW!] flashed before his eyes. Simon looked at the clock and muttered. “Damn it, if I don't do it nobody will.”

He made a U-turn at the next junction and veered a sharp right at a crossroads onto the highlands freeway. Indridi sat in front, frail as a bird's wing, and asked: “Where are we going?”

Simon looked at the road ahead. “You know I've never really liked you much.”

Indridi didn't answer, only drooped his head.

“You know I've never called except to make money out of you.”

Sigrid had sometimes claimed to see through Simon, but Indridi had always tried to look on the bright side. He believed in the good in people.

“I can't stand the music I've inflicted on you. I've suffered on those trips to the movies. I hate the books I've recommended. I'm allergic to puffin sandwiches and I love Maria!”

“I understand,” said Indridi, sighing hopelessly. “So you're going to take me to LoveDeath, too.”

“No,” said Simon. “We're going north, to the rescue of love.”

Indridi looked at Simon and from what he could see he seemed perfectly sincere, so he nodded.

“I believe you. Thank you very much,” he said.

Simon felt as if a great stone had lifted from his chest and he experienced a frisson and lightness when he breathed. And so they raced along in a nine-year-old Toyota over the mountains, along the broad, straight road to Oxnadalur, where love is proven, death is light, and LoveStar twinkles behind a cloud.

“TO THE RESCUE OF LOVE!”

Unscientific, foolish love was at stake, and the Big Bad Wolf's maternal love was so strong that she sensed Indridi moving further away. She felt as if a rubber band was stretching from her heart and if the band broke, it would snap back with an indescribable pang. She writhed and panted as the band stretched until, unable to bear it any longer, she howled, raged, clawed, and snapped at the wall, while the foxes went crazy and grrryapped and the Mickeys went mad and mickeyed as if their lives were at stake. “Mickeymick! Mickeymick!” The head of security crept trembling along the steel bridge and shot a tranquilizer dart into the wolf. Peace was restored, a Swedish bioengineer showed up, and together they began to tie the wolf down, unaware that the shot had gone wide. The wolf lay on her back with her tongue hanging out, but when the right opportunity arose she bit the arm off the screaming security guard, then bounded onto the steel bridge, through the old puffin hall, and out on to the street. Led by her maternal instinct, she took the shortest route north.

Grim stood on the steel bridge between the main office and the Puffin Factory, following the wolf with his eyes.

“There goes the wolf,” he muttered and lit his pipe. “Who would have thought it: the Mickeys turned out bad and the wolf good.” He laid his brow against the windowpane. “All on their way north to that black hole,” he sighed sadly.

The sky over Mt. Esja was unusually dark.

PLUMBING SACRED DEPTHS

While LoveStar flitted from one idea to another and was caught up in the mood and glamor around iSTAR, the Bird and Butterfly Division stubbornly plowed its own furrow. While iSTAR created a new image for itself at three-monthly intervals, the Bird and Butterfly Division never got around to inventing a snappy name or striking brand for itself. Every week the bird specialists made amazing discoveries, and iSTAR took the results and marketed faster, smaller, and more sensitive gadgets for the cordless human race. The Bird and Butterfly Division avoided packaging and design and anything that did not serve a purely scientific purpose. Meanwhile at iSTAR packaging was the be-all and end-all. The two departments were irreconcilably opposed, but neither could survive without the other. iSTAR thrived on bathing itself in the limelight of the newest discoveries by the Bird and Butterfly Division, while the latter's research was founded not least on the profit made for the company by the moodmen's powers of persuasion.

The bird specialists discovered that the waves were not merely waves but were themselves composed of smaller waves, and if these were examined more closely it could be observed that their innermost units were substances, colors, and forms. In this way the bird specialists plumbed the depths of love to explore its smallest constituents, from there delving even deeper until they plumbed its sacred depths, with the result that LoveStar was now sitting on a plane like a withered plant with a seed in his hand.

It was midnight in midwinter and Arctic winds were blowing around the cold rock walls of the theme park when Yamaguchi summoned LoveStar to the research wings. He took the elevator down. The research wings were an extensive labyrinth where the preference was for everything to be visible and transparent. Cables were on show, pipework was external, research appliances tended to be black or see-through boxes, if people could be bothered to cover their inner mechanisms.

LoveStar walked past research cubicles, tanks of liquid, birdcages, greenhouses, and cafeterias full of old, unmatched furniture and staff members who lived in their own world and seemed not to know whether it was day or night outside. Few had the presence of mind to worry about their appearances. Body hair was either shaved off or allowed to grow unmolested, and most were pale from their indoor existence, though among them could be seen the weather-beaten faces of Arctic biologists and sundried crocodile experts. LoveStar walked past a vast tank, an old basking shark following him much of the way. A blue radiance emanating from the tank fell in rays across a spacious hall, and in the center of the hall was a tiny computer, which was busy calculating the world. iSTAR promoted its calculations under the brand name inLOVE.

There were two men watching over the computer: one had long gray hair, the other was bald. They didn't look up when LoveStar walked past. They sat lost in thought, each at his own chessboard, engaged in remote combat with distant opponents.

Yamaguchi greeted LoveStar and showed him into a soundproofed room. A young man was sitting on a chair with something resembling a woolly hat on his head. The material of the hat was spun from fibrous wires. Behind him was a wall on which was projected a white line on a blue background; not a still of a straight line but a moving image of a living line, like the surface of a calm sea. Perfectly horizontal.

“What were you thinking now?” asked Yamaguchi, looking at the wall.

“I was just wishing that the experiment was over,” said the man wearily.

“It's almost done,” said Yamaguchi gently and pulled his hat down over his eyebrows. “Think one more time. Just an ordinary thought.” The man closed his eyes and thought, without the surface of the sea behind him showing a ripple.

“Try wishing for what you did just now.”

The man made a wish, but nothing happened. LoveStar watched attentively.

“Look,” said Yamaguchi, pointing at the wall. “He's wishing, but it's having no effect on the line.”

“How interesting,” said LoveStar sarcastically.

“Just wait,” said Yamaguchi, giving him a light nudge with her elbow, “It's not finished.”

“Wish again.”

The man wished again and still nothing happened.

Yamaguchi had various results projected on the wall. Nothing happened when the man felt hungry and wanted food, nothing happened when he was horny and wanted sex, nothing happened in the silence when he longed for music, nothing happened when he was afraid, when he got angry or was disgusted. LoveStar looked over the list and the effect that the stimuli had on the line, or rather the effect they did not have on the line.

“This is interesting,” said LoveStar again.

Yamaguchi looked at him. “No, that's not interesting,” she said. “The interesting bit comes now.”

She went over to the man.

“Can I ask you one more thing?” she asked. “Try doing as your grandmother taught you. Try praying.”

“For what?”

“Anything. Pray for us. Pray for your grandmother.”

The man closed his eyes and prayed.

LoveStar watched the line on the wall and saw it ripple in waves. He went over to the blue wall and moved his finger carefully along the upper margin of the wave.

“Does the wave only appear when he prays?”

“Yes,” said Yamaguchi.

“So?”

“We thought perhaps it was the remains of some brain center that people needed billions of years ago. When man was a fish or an amoeba, remains of something that was lost with evolution.”

“That sounds plausible, doesn't it?”

“No,” said Yamaguchi.

“Really?”

“Animals can't pray.”

“What?”

“At first we assumed it was a primitive system, but then we did more research into prayer. Animals can't pray. Only man can send forth prayers.”

“I see,” said LoveStar.

“And part of mankind still uses these waves. All over the world old women are teaching their grandchildren to send out waves like these. Surely there must be some reason for this?”

“What do you think it could be?” asked LoveStar, watching the prayer ripple on the wall.

“I've got a theory, but it's a bit crazy,” said Yamaguchi, “so I want to hear what you come up with first.”

LoveStar looked at the wave and memorized it before returning to his office. He stayed awake all night and all the next day, drawing. He drew a mountain like Keilir in the distance and birds and spiders hanging from the sun and clouds. He walked around the room, lay down on the floor, looked out over the cold, windswept valley, and thought. His thoughts wandered to and fro until they began to form rings around one focal point and he was filled with a pleasant sensation, like intoxication, like half a teaspoon of golden honey passing through his body. An idea was grabbing hold of LoveStar and suddenly he leapt to his feet and sent Yamaguchi a message.

“Come here at once!”

Yamaguchi came without delay.

“Where does the prayer go?” asked LoveStar, stumbling over his words. “Where does the prayer go when a man prays? Does it go in any particular direction? Is there any recipient?”

“Go on,” said Yamaguchi. She was clearly pleased by his words.

“If we could trace people's prayers to their destination,” said LoveStar. “Like a phone call.”

“Like a phone call,” repeated Yamaguchi.

“Then we ought to find . . . GOD?”

LoveStar shivered. He walked over to the window. Hail lashed the rocks; a huge LoveDeath airship floated past his eyes. Three rockets thundered into the air in a bright blaze and vanished into the blizzard.

“Have I gone crazy?”

“It's all part of the same thing,” said Yamaguchi. “It's all the same field, the same branch of science, the same bird science.”

“The birds led us to love and from there it had to be a short step to God. Love, God, flowers, birds, butterflies, and bees. Everything has substance. The supernatural does not exist. We have always found everything we went looking for. In every corner of the world people have for some reason sent forth prayers. The prayers must have a destination. This is no crazier than love, is it?”

“It's just as crazy as love,” said Yamaguchi.

“What now? Should we trace the prayers? Should we look for the place?” LoveStar got gooseflesh at the thought.

Their eyes met. He didn't really need to ask. Nothing stops an idea.

“If we don't do it, someone else will,” said LoveStar.