"This is no ordinary man," Father Faine said. "The Anarch was a great religious force and person." He added, "And will be again."
And valuable, Sebastian said to himself. For just that reason. Let's keep first things first; the theology and the poetry come in second. Compared to what's really at stake.
At home in his conapt, following the end of his work day, Douglas Appleford made a person-to-person vidphone call to Rome, Italy.
"I want to talk to a Signor Anthony Giacometti," he told the operator.
Presently he had Giacometti on the line.
"What luck did you have?" Appleford asked. "With the vitarium."
Giacometti, in his dressing gown, his hair lavish and long, his powerful eyes intense, said, "Listen, are you sure they have him? Really sure? They fritted and fratted around; I think if they actually have him like they say they'd have finalized on a price. After all, they're in business; they want a sale."
"They have him," Appleford said, with absolute assurance; he had assessed the Hermes woman with what he knew to be complete certitude. "They're afraid of the Udi people," he explained. "They're afraid you represent Ray Roberts; that's why they won't say. But just keep your bid in; hang in there and you'll get title to him."
"Okay, Mr. Appleford," Giacometti said sullenly. "I'll take your word for it; you've helped us in the past, we rely on you."
"And you can," he declared. "If I get any more information I'll pass it on to you... for the usual fee. She didn't say they'd dug him up, that he was alive; she just said they know where he's buried. That might explain their reluctance--they can't legally sell him until he's been reborn." He added, "I'll give her a call and try to get more from her. She doesn't seem able to conceal anything; she's one of those."
Giacometti, sourly, broke the connection.
As he started away from the vidphone, Appleford heard it ring; he bent, picked up the receiver, expecting to see Giacometti once again, with an afterthought. Instead he found himself facing the reduced but real image of his superior, Mavis McGuire.
"I'm once again involved," Mavis said, her mouth twisting in aversion, "with questions regarding Ray Roberts and the Uditi. A young woman, a Mrs. Lotta Hermes, is here at the Library wanting to know what we have on Roberts; I'm holding her in my office while I get an Erad in. It should be fairly soon, now."
Appleford said, "Did you check with the Council of Erads regarding the burial site of the Anarch Peak?"
"I did. We don't have that information." Mavis regarded him with the glazed, light-splintered eyes of suspicion. "This Mrs. Hermes says she talked to you previously today. About the Anarch."
"Yes," Appleford said. "She came in with an L.A. police officer just after I talked to you. They--the vitarium her husband owns--know where the Anarch is buried, so if you want that information you can with a little effort get it from her."
"I had a feeling she knew," Mavis said. "I've been conversing with her; she skirts the topic of the Anarch each time. Afraid of saying too much, I suppose. Tell me the work status of that apologia pro sua vita of Peak's, that _God In a Box_; is there still a typescript manuscript of it, or did you already turn it over to the Erad Council? I know that it never passed through my hands; I'd remember such fulsome platitudes as he used to cast before the swine."
"I have four printed copies left," Appleford said, calculating and remembering. "So it hasn't reached the typescript stage, yet. And I've been told by one of my staff that several more book-forms of it are somewhere in circulation, probably in private libraries."
"So to some extent it still circulates. It's still theoretically possible for someone to come across it."
"If they were lucky, yes. But four copies is not much, considering that at one time more than fifty thousand hardbound and three hundred thousand softbound copies were in circulation."
Mavis said, "Have you read it?"
"I--glanced through it, briefly. It's powerful, I think. And original. I don't agree with you about 'fulsome platitudes.'"
"When the Anarch is reborn," Mavis said, "he will probably attempt to resume his religious career. If he can avoid assassination. And I have a feeling that he's shrewd; there was a worldly, practical underpinning to his _God in a Box_--he didn't have his head in the clouds. And he will have the benefit of his experience beyond the grave. I think he'll remember it, compared with most old-borns; or anyhow he'll _claim_ he remembers it." Her tone was scathingly cynical. "The Council is not too pleased at the idea of the Anarch resuming his career of religion-mongering; they're quite skeptical. Just as we manage to erad the last copies of _God in a Box_ he shows up again to write some more... and we have a feeling that his future work will be worse, more radical, more destructive."
"Yes, I see," Appleford said thoughtfully. "Having been dead he'll be in a position to claim authentic visions of the hereafter; that he talked with God, saw the Day of Judgment--the usual material the old-born bring back... but his will have authority; people will listen." He contemplated Ray Roberts, then, in that connection. "I know that you and the Council dislike Roberts," he said. "But if you're worried about the doctrines the Anarch will bring back--"
"Your logic is clear," Mavis McGuire said. She pondered. "All right, then; we'll keep after the Hermes woman until we have the name of the cemetery, and if we can get it we'll turn it over to Roberts. At least--" She hesitated. "I'll recommend that to the Council; the decision will be theirs, of course. And if his body has been taken from the cemetery we'll concentrate on her husband's vitarium."
"It could be done legally," Appleford said; he always took a stand in favor of moderation. "The Anarch can be bought, aboveboard, from the vitarium, by a bid." He did not, of course, mention his connection with Anthony Giacometti; that was not the Library's affair. Tony is going to have to work fast, he said to himself; once the Council of Erads moves in, things will progress rapidly. He wondered if the principal whom Giacometti represented could--or would--outbid the Library. An interesting thought: a showdown between the Erads and the most powerful religious syndicate in Europe.
Mavis McGuire rang off, and Appleford seated himself with the evening 'pape... to read, he discovered, about Ray Roberts' pilg; that seemed to be all there was. Elaborate police precautions, all the rest; he felt bored, and he went into the kitchen to imbibe a trifle of sogum.
While he busied himself the vidphone rang again. He gave up on the sogum, plodded back to answer the ring.
It proved to be Mavis McGuire again. "An Erad is now with Mrs. Hermes," Mavis said. "They'll question her; it's taken care of. It's their theory that the vitarium probably took a calculated risk and dug up the Anarch, to avoid any chance of losing him; he's too valuable commercially to lose. So it's their assumption that we don't have to locate the cemetery; all we need to do is approach the vitariurm. The Council is sending someone to the vitarium now; they want to move in before it closes up shop for tonight." She added, "It's my daughter they're sending."
"Ann?" Appleford said, surprised. "Why not an Erad?"
Mavis said, "Annie works well with men, and this will be with a Mr. Sebastian Hermes, an old-born, now in his mid-forties. We feel that that kind of approach will be more successful than an out-and-out raid; it's conceivable that they brought the Anarch's body from the cemetery to the vitarium, revived it, and then moved it to another location, a private nursing home that we'd never track down."
"I see," Appleford said, impressed. Ann McGuire impressed him, too; he had seen her at work before. Especially with men, as her mother said; she was generally effective whenever the matter of sex became involved.