The Second Randall Garrett Megapack Read online

  “And all the Gods have to work the machine at once?”

  “Something like that.” Diana came back from the window and sat down facing him again. “It operates through the nervous systems of the beings in circuit with it, each one of them in contact with one of the power nodes of the machine. And if one of the nodes is unoccupied, then the machine’s out of balance. It will run for a while, but eventually it will simply wreck itself. Every one of the fifteen nodes has to be occupied. Otherwise—chaos.”

  Forrester nodded. “So when Dionysus died—”

  “We had to find a replacement in a hurry. The machine’s been running out of balance for about as long as it can stand right now.”

  Forrester closed his eyes. “I’m not sure I get the picture.”

  “Well, look at it this way: suppose you have a wheel.”

  “All right,” Forrester said obligingly. “I have a wheel.”

  “And this wheel has fifteen weights on it. They’re spaced equally around the rim, and the wheel’s revolving at high speed.”

  Forrester kept his eyes closed. When he had the wheel nicely spinning, he said: “Okay. Now what?”

  “Well,” Diana said, “as long as the weights stay in place, the wheel spins evenly. But if you remove one of the weights, the wheel’s out of balance. It starts to wobble.”

  Forrester took one of the weights (Dionysus, a rather large, jolly weight) off the wheel in his mind. It wobbled. “Right,” he said.

  “It can take the wobble for a little while. But unless the balance is restored in time, the wheel will eventually break.”

  Hurriedly, Forrester put Dionysus back on the wheel. The wobble stopped. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

  “Our power machine works in that sort of way. That is, it requires all fifteen occupants. Dionysus has been dead for three years now, and that’s about the outside limit. Unless he’s replaced soon, the machine will be ruined.”

  Forrester opened his eyes. The wheel spun away and disappeared. “So you found me to replace Dionysus. I had to look like him, so the mortals wouldn’t see any difference. And the psychological similarity—”

  “That’s right,” Diana said. “It’s the same as the wheel again. If you remove a weight, you’ve got to put back a weight of the same magnitude. Otherwise, the wheel’s still out of balance.”

  “And since the power machine works through the nervous system—”

  “The governing factor is that similarity. You’ve got to be of the same magnitude as Dionysus. Of course, you don’t have to be an identical copy. The machine can be adjusted for slight differences.”

  “I see,” Forrester said. “And the fifteen power nodes—” Another idea occurred to him. “Wait a minute. If there are only fifteen power nodes, then how come there were so many different Gods and Goddesses among the Greeks? There were a lot more than fifteen back then.”

  “Of course there were,” Diana said, “but they weren’t real Gods. As a matter of fact, some of them didn’t really exist.”

  Forrester frowned. “How’s that again?”

  “They were just disguises for one of the regular fifteen. Aesculapius, for instance, the old God of medicine, was Hermes/Mercury in disguise—he took the name in honor of a physician of the time. He would have raised the man to demi-Godhood, but Aesculapius died unexpectedly, and we thought taking his ‘spirit’ into the Pantheon was good public relations.”

  “How about the others?” Forrester said. “They weren’t all disguises, were they?”

  “Of course not. Some of them were demi-Gods, just like yourself. Their power was derived, like yours, from the Pantheon instead of directly through the machine. And then there were the satyrs and centaurs, and suchlike beings. That was public relations, too—mainly Zeus’ idea, I understand. The original Zeus, of course.”

  “Of course,” Forrester said.

  “The satyrs and such were artificial life-forms, created, maintained and controlled by the machine itself. It’s equipped with what you might call a cybernetic brain—although that’s pretty inadequate as a description. Vulcan could do a better job of explaining.”

  “Perfectly all right. I don’t understand that kind of thing anyhow.”

  “Well, in that case, let me put it this way. The machine controlled these artificial forms, but they could be taken over by any one of the Gods or demi-Gods for special purposes. As I say, it was public relations—and a good way to keep the populace impressed—and under control.”

  “The creatures aren’t around nowadays,” Forrester pointed out.

  “Nowadays we don’t need them,” Diana said. “There are other methods—better public relations, I suppose.”

  Forrester didn’t know he was going to ask his next question until he heard himself doing so. But it was the question he really wanted to ask; he knew that as soon as he knew he asked it.

  “Why?” he said.

  Diana looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Why go on being Gods? Why dominate humanity?”

  “I suppose I could answer your question with another question—why not? But I won’t. Instead, let me remind you of some things. Look what we’ve done during the last century. The great wars that wrecked Europe—you don’t see any possibility of more of those, do you? And the threat of atomic war is gone, too, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes,” Forrester said, “but—”

  “But we still have wars,” Diana said. “Sure we do. The male animal just wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t have a chance to go out and get himself blown to bits once in a while. Don’t ask me to explain that—I’m not a male.”

  Forrester agreed silently. Diana was not a male. It was the most understated statement he had ever heard.

  “But anyhow,” Diana said, “they want wars, so they have wars. Mars sees that the wars stay small and keep within the Martian Conventions, though, so any really widespread damage or destruction, or any wanton attacks on civilians, are a thing of the past. And it’s not only wars, kid. It’s everything.”

  “What do you mean, everything?”

  “Man needs a god, a personal god. When he doesn’t have one ready to hand, he makes one up—and look at the havoc that has caused. A god of vengeance, a god who cheers you on to kill your enemies.… You’ve studied history. Tell me about the gods of various nations. Tell me about Thor and Baal and the original bloodthirsty Yahweh. People need gods.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Forrester objected. “The Chinese—”

  “Oh, sure,” Diana said. “There are exceptions. But you can’t bank on the exceptions. If you want a reasonably safe, sane and happy humanity, then you’d better make sure your gods are not going to start screaming for war against the neighbors or against the infidels or against—well, against anybody and everybody. There’s only one way to make sure, kid. We’ve found that way. We are the Gods.”

  Forrester digested that one slowly. “It sounds great, but it’s pretty altruistic. And while I don’t want to impugn anybody’s motives, it does seem to me that—”

  “That we ought to be getting something out of it ourselves, above and beyond the pure joy of helping humanity. Sure. You’re perfectly right. And we do get something out of it.”

  “Like what?”

  Diana grinned. She looked more like a tomboy than ever before. “Fun,” she said. “And you know it. Don’t tell me you didn’t get a kick out of playing God at the Bacchanal.”

  “Well,” Forrester confessed, “yes.” He sighed. “And I guess that Bacchanal is going to be the one really high spot in a very shortened sort of life.”

  Diana sat upright. “What are you talking about?”

  “What else would I be talking about? The Bacchanal. You know what happened. You must know—everybody must by now. Mars is probably demanding my head from Hera right now. Unless he’s got more complicated ideas like taking me apart limb by limb. I remember he mentioned that.”

  Diana stood up and came over
to Forrester. “Why would Mars do something like that and especially now? And what makes you think Hera would go along with him if he did?”

  “Why not? Now that I’ve failed my tests—”

  “Failed?” Diana cried. “You haven’t failed!”

  Forrester stood up shakily. “Of course I have. After what happened at the Bacchanal, I—”

  “Don’t pay any attention to that,” Diana said. “Mars is a louse. Always has been, I hear. Nobody likes him. As a matter of fact, you’ve just passed your finals. The last test was to see if you could figure out who we were—and you’ve done that, haven’t you?”

  There was a long, taut silence.

  Then Diana laughed. “Your face looks the way mine must have, over three thousand years ago!”

  “What are you talking about?” Still dazed, he wasn’t quite sure he had heard her rightly.

  “When they told me the same thing. After the original Diana was killed in a ‘hunting accident’—frankly, she seems to have been too independent to suit Hera—and I passed my own finals, I—”

  She stopped.

  “Now don’t look at me like that,” Diana said. “And pull yourself together, because we’ve got to get to the Final Investiture. But it’s all true. I’m a substitute too.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Great God Dionysus, Lord of the Vine, Ruler of the Revels, Master of the Planting and the Harvest, Bestower of the Golden Touch, Overseer of the Poor, Comforter of the Worker and Patron of the Drunkard, sat silently in a cheap bar on Lower Third Avenue, New York, slowly imbibing his seventh brandy-and-soda. It tasted anything but satisfactory as it went down; he preferred vodka or even gin, but after all, he asked himself, if a God couldn’t be loyal to his own products, then who could?

  He was dressed in an inexpensive brown suit, and his face did not look like that of Dionysus, or even of William Forrester. Though neatly turned out, he looked a little like an out-of-work bookkeeper. But it was obvious that he hadn’t been out of work for very long.

  Hell of a note, he thought, when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other God has it in for him.

  But that, unfortunately, was the way Mars was. It didn’t matter to him that none of what happened had been Forrester’s fault. In the first place, Forrester hadn’t known that the girl at the Bacchanal had been Venus until it was much too late for apologies. In the second place, he hadn’t even picked her; he’d kept his promise not to use his powers on the spinning figure of Mr. Bottle Symes. But Venus had made no such promise. Venus had rigged the game.

  But try explaining that to Mars.

  He didn’t seem to mind what went on at the Revels of Aphrodite—being Goddess of Love was her line of work, and even Mars appeared to recognize that much. But he didn’t like the idea of any extracurricular work, especially with other Gods. And if anything occurred, he, Mars, was sure damned well going to find out about it and see that something was done about it, yes, sir.

  Forrester finished his drink and stared at the empty glass. It had all begun on the day of his Final Investiture, and he had gone through every event in memory, over and over. Why, he didn’t know. But it was something to do while he hid.

  It hadn’t been anywhere near as simple as the Investiture he had gone through to become a demi-God. All fourteen of the other Gods had been there this time; a simple quorum wasn’t enough. Pluto, with his dead-black, light-absorbent skin casting a shade of gloom about him, had slouched into the Court of the Gods, looking at everybody and everything with lackluster eyes. Poseidon/Neptune had come in more briskly, smelling of fish, his skin pale green and glistening wet, his fingers and toes webbed and his eyes bulging and wide. Phoebus Apollo had strolled in, looking authentically like a Greek God, face and figure unbelievably perfect, and a pleased, stupid smile spread all over his countenance. Hermes/Mercury, slim and wily, with a foxy face and quick movements, had slipped in silently. And all the others had been there, too. Mars looked grim, but when Forrester was formally proposed for Godhood, Mars made no objection.

  The entire Pantheon had then gone single-file through a Veil of Heaven to a room Forrester just couldn’t remember fully. At the time, his eyes simply refused to make sense out of the place. Now, of course, he understood why: it didn’t really exist in the space-time framework he was used to. Instead, it was partially a four-dimensional pseudo-manifold superimposed on normal space. If not perfectly simple, at least the explanation made matters rational rather than supernatural. But, at the time, everything seemed to take place in a chaotic dream world where infinite distance and the space next to him seemed one and the same. He knew then why Diana had told him that the word “machine” could not describe the Gods’ power source.

  He had been seated there in the dream room. But it wasn’t exactly sitting; every spatial configuration took on strange properties in that pseudo-space, and he seemed to float in a place that had neither dimension nor direction. The other Gods had all seemed to be sitting in front of him, all together and all at once—yet, at the same time, each had been separate and distinct from the others.

  He wanted to close his eyes, but he had been warned against doing that. Grimly, he kept them open.

  And then the indescribable began to happen. It was as though every nerve in his body had been indissolubly linked to the great source of God-power. It was pure, hellish torture, and at the same time it was the most exquisite pleasure he had ever known. He could not imagine how long it went on—but, eventually, it ended.

  He was Dionysus/Bacchus.

  And then it had been over, and a banquet had been held in his honor, a celebration for the new God. Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion, and Forrester himself had been feeling pretty good until Mars, smiling a smile that only touched his lips and left his eyes as cold and hard as anything Forrester had ever seen, had come up to him and said softly:

  “All right, Dionysus. You’re a God now. I didn’t touch you before because we needed you. And I don’t intend to kill you now; replacements are too hard to find. I’m only going to beat you—to within an inch of your damned immortal life. Just remember that, buster.”

  And then, the smile still set on his face, he had turned and swaggered away.

  Forrester had thought of Vulcan.

  Mars wasn’t a killer, in spite of his bully-boy tactics. He had too good a military mind to discipline a valuable man to death. But he was more than willing to go as near to that point as possible, if he thought it justified. And what he allowed as justification resided in a code all his own.

  “Right” was what was good for Mars. “Wrong” was what disturbed him. That was the code, as simple, as black and white, as you could ask for. Vulcan was one of the results.

  Vulcan had been Venus’ lawful husband, as far as the laws of the Gods went. That didn’t matter to Mars—when he wanted Venus. He had thrashed Vulcan, and the beating had left permanent damage.

  The damage was translated into Vulcan’s limp. Any God’s ability to heal himself through the machine’s power was dependent on the God’s own mentality and outlook. And Vulcan had never been able to cure his limp; the psychic punishment had been too great.

  Forrester ordered another drink and tried to think about something else. The prospect of a fight with Mars was sometimes a little too much for him to handle.

  The drink arrived and he sipped at it vacantly, thinking back to Diana and her story of the Gods.

  There was one hole in it—a hole big enough to toss Mount Olympus through, he realized. Where had the Gods gone for three thousand years? And how had they gotten to Earth in the first place?

  Those two unanswered questions were enough to convince Forrester that, in spite of all he knew, and in spite of the way his new viewpoint had turned his universe upside down in a matter of hours, he still didn’t have the whole story. He had to find it—even more so, now, as he began to realize that the human race deserved more than just the “security” and “happiness” that the Gods could giv
e them. It deserved independence, and the chance to make or mar its own future. Protection was all very well for the infancy of a race, but man was growing up now. Man needed to make his own world.

  The Gods had no place in that world, Forrester saw. He had to find the answers to all of his questions—and now he thought he knew a way to do it.

  “Want another, buddy?”

  The bartender’s voice roused Forrester from his reverie. He had absent-mindedly finished brandy-and-soda number eight.

  “Okay,” Forrester said. “Sure.” He handed the bartender a ten-dollar bill and got a kind of wry pleasure out of seeing the picture of Dionysus on its face. “Let’s have another, but more brandy and less soda this time.”

  The drink was brought and he sipped at it, looking like any ordinary citizen taking on a small load, but tuned to every fluctuation in the energy levels around him, waiting.

  Only a God, he knew, could hurt another God, and even then it took plenty of power to do it. Actually to kill a God required the combined efforts of more than one, under normal circumstances—though one, properly equipped and with some luck, could manage it. As far as his own situation was concerned, Forrester was prepared for a deadly assault from Mars. Maybe Mars didn’t intend to kill him, but being maimed for centuries, like Vulcan, was nothing to look forward to, and it was just as well to be on the safe side. Just in case the God of War had managed to get one or two other Gods on his side, Forrester had talked to Diana and Venus, and had their agreement to step in on his side if things got rough, or if Mars tried to pull anything underhanded.

  And any minute now.…

  Suddenly Forrester felt a disturbance in the energy flow around him. Somewhere behind him, invisible to the mortals who occupied the bar, a Veil of Heaven was beginning to form.

  With a fraction of a second, Forrester was forming his own. But this time he took a little longer than he had before.