The Gods Look Down (14 page)

‘We're back to Jungian consciousness.'

‘We are indeed,' the Director agreed happily. He smoothed the chart as one might caress an object of great sentimental value, his eyes glancing over it as if trying to take in everything at once.

Queghan said, ‘How do you suppose genetic mutation comes into this?' It still wasn't clear to him how the various strands of meaning could be woven together to make up a cohesive mythological structure.

‘I'm not sure, there isn't enough information here to say. It could be …' Karve inclined his head as if judging the weight of his own words ‘… that the alchemist, Dagon ben Shem Tov, is himself a manifestation of a past existence. Maybe going back over two thousand years to long before the birth of Christ.'

‘Yet in one sense that conflicts directly with the evidence. Dagon ben Shem Tov insisted that a Saviour had never appeared on Old Earth. The reference in the tapes is explicit: he'd never heard of Christ.'

‘And he was supposedly transcribing the ancient traditions of Judaism,' Karve mused. ‘Now what would those traditions be concerned with if not the coming of the Saviour? The Jews didn't believe that Christ was the Son of God, but they can't have written a history of their people without at least mentioning him.'

‘It seems to intrigue you,' Queghan said.

‘It does intrigue me. I think we should follow this through and see if we can't investigate the mythic experience more fully. It's a pity that Dr Dagon isn't more co-operative.'

‘Co-operation isn't his strong point.'

‘Do you think he was really sceptical about the evidence in the tapes or was he afraid you were probing too deeply?'

‘You mean afraid that I was about to steal all the glory? Perhaps he was jealously guarding his academic reputation.'

‘It's possible. If he can produce a totally original interpretation of
The Book of Splendours
it would throw new light on the entire Judaeo-Christian tradition, rewriting history almost. All the old superstitions explained, the dogma and ritual made explicit for the first time. If he's been working on this for years you can understand his reluctance to share it with others.'

‘He approached Blake to help him,' Queghan pointed out.

‘He must have genuinely needed it.' The Director adjusted his bifocals and peered closely at the chart. ‘I think we should pursue this, don't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘You don't sound too sure.'

The light from the angled window gave Queghan's eyes a peculiar kind of blank luminosity, like those seen in colour photographs taken by flashlight. They were in marked contrast to the pale severity of his face, the thin high ridge of his nose and long narrow jaw. A small artery beat in his neck. ‘The impressions are confused,' he said after a moment. ‘And it's knowing where to start.'

‘That's always a problem.' Karve's tone was light, almost casual, though it concealed a deeper uncertainty that had yet to be resolved. They were conversing in a kind of code. ‘It's your decision, Chris. You're the one who takes the risks.' This was nearer the core of what they were actually talking about, on the edge of the truth.

Queghan said, ‘The trouble with being a Myth Technologist is that you get the nasty feeling you're stuck fast in other people's dreams and fantasies and there's no escape. It isn't pleasant.'

Karve nodded sympathetically though he wasn't really listening. He said, ‘Have you thought of processing the text cyberthetically? Why not start with the description of the machine, or whatever it is? You never know, Cyb might come up with a blinding revelation.'

‘A workshop manual with a piece-by-piece breakdown of assembly,' Queghan smiled. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You know something, Johann, that's not a bad idea.'

‘Do you have the text?'

‘I have the description.'

‘There's our starting point.' Karve smoothed the chart with his veined hands. ‘If we can discover what its purpose is then maybe we'll have some idea of what it was doing there – and who put it on Old Earth in the first place.'

‘You mean which of the two Saviours,' Queghan said sardonically.

Karve frowned at him. ‘I'm not happy with that interpretation.'

‘No more than I am.'

‘Dagon ben Shem Tov doesn't have one Saviour and we've got two.'

‘I suppose it's foolish to speculate that we might be talking about another planetary system? I mean, could it
not
be Old Earth?'

‘There are too many points of similarity,' Karve said firmly. He bethought himself. ‘Although it has been known for two completely separate cultures to have an identical religious mythology – sun-worshippers, for instance. They tend to have the same rituals, the same sacrifices, the same taboos; the only difference is in the terminology. But against that we know that the texts Dr Dagon has been deciphering originated on Old Earth.' He paused, sniffed, and cleared his throat. ‘I suppose we do know that. Don't we?'

The Director and the mythographer looked at one another.

‘We have to assume certain criteria even if the evidence isn't one hundred per cent conclusive,' Queghan said. ‘Otherwise on what do we base our hypotheses?'

Karve sighed and shook his head. ‘It's a vast time-scale, Chris. According to this it's over two thousand years back from the 13th century, which would put it around 1000
BC
. You've got from then till the birth of Christ – one thousand years – to cover in a mytho-logical survey. You could spend a lifetime and not come within fifty years of it.'

‘Several lifetimes. So we're going to have to be pretty sure of the precise period we're aiming for.'

Karve clasped his hands together. ‘We have to find a way,' he said slowly, ‘of pinpointing the exact spatio-temporal co-ordinate. And I don't know how we're going to do it.'

They were silent for a while. This was a major problem.

Queghan said jocosely, ‘I'll have to turn religious and start reading the Bible. Maybe there's a clue there somewhere.'

‘We have it in Archives, all nineteen versions.'

‘Which do you recommend?'

‘The King James. It's one of the oldest but at least the style doesn't insult your intelligence.'

‘Is it historically accurate?'

‘No,' said Karve, ‘but that doesn't matter. It's just about the finest mytho-logical treatise ever written. Seriously, Chris, you could start looking for an injection point in worse places. Spend some time in Archives and see what you can dig out—' he stopped and shook his head irritably and mumbled to himself.

‘Are you all right?'

‘My brain's starting to atrophy.' The Director spread his hands and said in a quiet urgent voice, ‘What was it I said about Angel?'

Queghan tried to recall. ‘That he was the central symbol representing Biblical history and the genetic process. Have you thought of something?'

‘I don't know. But it could be, yes it could.'

‘What could?' Queghan said with exasperation.

‘Angel could be more of a mytho-logical figure than we suspected, the abortive prototype of a new species. If he was the result of cytoplasmic mutation …'

The mythographer waited. Karve's voice gathered pace and urgency:

‘Supposing Angel was an attempt to genetically manufacture a Saviour.' He raised his head and the bifocals gleamed like rims of fire. ‘Only the experiment failed and produced a mutant instead.'

‘But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, the Ark of God shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.'

I Samuel 5: 6

The temple was built of lava-rock. The city surrounding it was like a maze of pink stone, flat-roofed and close to the desert floor as if no one building had the temerity to rise up off its knees and stand in the presence of the temple. Narrow dusty streets and rutted alleyways ran like crooked rivers and disjointed streams through the city, adjoining quiet arched courtyards, which were the backwaters, and linking fast-flowing main thoroughfares, feeding them like tributaries. The city swam with life: some seventy thousand people living and working here, bartering and marrying, tilling the land and raising children, worshipping in the temple and eventually going to meet their Maker.

For many years the city of Shiloh had enjoyed peace and prosperity. The spring which bubbled up from the lava-rock had been channelled and led to cool stone tanks below ground, saved and not squandered, and from there to the fields where it fed crops of maize and corn and small groves of olive trees. The city was self-sufficient in the basic necessities of life, and anything it lacked (timber was in short supply, as were spices, woven cloth and fresh camel meat) it could exchange for grain with the traders who came from the north: hard-eyed men with weatherbeaten faces who spoke in a guttural mixture of dialects, drove hard bargains, got drunk on local wine and then rode off into the wilderness.

So the Tribe had found a place and made a home for itself; the centre and high point of their lives, as it was the centre and high point of the city, was the temple, and in the temple resided their most precious and holy relic: the Ark of God. It was rarely seen by the people of Shiloh, kept within the silent inner chamber and guarded day and night by priests who were appointed by the High Priest, Eli, who came of direct descent
through fourteen generations from Kish, First of the Prophets. At this time Eli was ninety-eight years old and he was almost blind, and while the people loved and respected him and sought his counsel in all matters his longevity was the cause of bitterness and dissent amongst those of his own family, principally his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas.

They were jealous men, impatient men, envious of their father's position and authority, and anxious for the day when he would die and one of them would become High Priest in his place. This was a further cause of unease and bad feeling because it was not yet decided which of his two sons Eli would choose to succeed him. By ancient tradition and the law of the Tribe it should have been the elder, Hophni, but the final decision rested with the High Priest and he had not yet pronounced which was to be chosen. Eli despaired of them, and since his wife had been dead twenty years or more he had no one close to him in whom he could confide.

Several young men – and even very young boys – attended to his ministry, did charitable work for the poor of the city and held in sacred trust their duty to protect the Ark of God from prying eyes. No one was permitted to approach it unless in the company of the High Priest, not even his sons, who chafed at this restriction and called him a fool behind his back. Of the young men who administered Eli's affairs, Uzza was the most favoured. He was attentive and considerate, having genuine affection for the ageing High Priest, who came more and more to rely on him. Now that his eyes were dim he had to be led everywhere and no longer was able to read the Scriptures of Kish to the people – although he knew by heart long passages which told the story of how the Ark had been sent from heaven to protect the people from plague and famine and to deliver them from their enemies. The tales of its awesome power were legendary.

Phinehas, the younger son, often pestered his father for a demonstration of this power, which he privately believed to be nothing more than a fable; he said that it was unreasonable to expect the Tribe to believe in the sacredness of the Ark when the only evidence of its power resided in a bundle of decaying scrolls that no one took the trouble to read any more.

Eli answered him in this way: ‘You mean that
you
do not
believe, Phinehas. It is you whose faith is lacking, not the people's. I know that the Ark was sent from on high and that its power has served us since the days of our forefathers. You will have to take my word not as your father but as the High Priest.'

‘But even you have to take it on trust,' Phinehas protested. He glanced at his brother and raised his eyes to the ceiling in a show of insolent frustration, knowing that Eli was unable to see his expression. He sighed and said, ‘We're told that the Ark has this so-called power, we're instructed from birth to believe in it, but we're never
shown
anything. It could be an old wives' tale for all anybody knows.'

‘That's true,' Hophni said stolidly, it's a fact.' He was six years older than his brother, a dour unprepossessing man lacking intellect and imagination. Phinehas made fun of him and his plodding ways, though out of his hearing.

‘You are both faithless,' Eli said, more in sadness than in anger. His eyes were curdled like sour milk, only able to perceive the difference betweeen light and dark and a few vague indiscriminate shapes, seen dimly like monsters in a fog.

‘Uzza has enough faith for both of us,' Phinehas snickered, pulling a face at the young man who stood by Eli's chair, waiting to serve him. ‘He even believes that the Ark fed us in the wilderness, making food from stones and' – he threw up his hands in a flippant gesture – ‘thin air.'

‘I do believe it,' Uzza said gravely. ‘The evidence is here all around us: the city, the people, the temple—'

‘And the sacred Ark,' Phinehas scoffed.

‘Do not make a mockery of it,' Eli said. He raised his milky eyes and looked in the direction of Phinehas's voice. ‘Unbelief will be your downfall, my son. “He that despises the works of the Lord shall perish”,' he quoted from the Scriptures.

Phinehas wrinkled up his nose and blew out his cheeks in an exaggerated parody of derision and then winked at his brother in silent conspiracy. He knew that Uzza would say nothing: he never did, no doubt out of a sense of personal integrity, which branded him a fool in Phinehas's eyes.