"Okay," he said.
Ann Fisher hailed a passing cab and in a moment they were en route to her conapt.
It struck him as beautifully decorated; he roamed about the living room, inspecting a vase here, a wall-hanging there, books, a small jade statue of Li Po. "Nice," he said. However, he found himself alone; Miss Fisher had slipped off into the other room to, ahem, disgorge.
Presently she returned, her beaming, warm smile manifesting itself cheerfully in his direction. "I have some very fine, aged, imported Siddon's sogurn," she said, holding up the flask. "Care for some?"
"Guess not." He picked up an l-p record of Beethoven cello and piano sonatas. Just think, he thought. Someday, a couple of centuries from now, these will be eraded; the Library in Vienna will receive back the original botchy, tormented note-pages which Beethoven with murderous labor and pain copied from the last printed edition of the score. But, he reflected, Beethoven will also live again; one day he would call up anxiously from within his coffin. But for what? To erad some of the finest music ever written. What a dreadful destiny.
"Want me to put those on the phonograph?" Ann Fisher asked.
"Fine," he said.
"These are so lovely." She put the earliest one on, Opus Five Number One; they both listened but after a moment she became restive; obviously attentive listening was not her style. "Do you think," she asked him, strolling about the living room, "that the Hobart Phase will peter out eventually? And normal time will restore itself?"
"I hope so," he said.
"But you gain. You were dead once. Weren't you?"
"Can you tell?" he said, nettled.
"I don't mean to offend you. But you are about fifty, aren't you? So you have a longer life, this way; in fact you have two complete lives. Are you enjoying this one more than the first?"
"My problem," he said candidly, "is with my wife."
"She's much younger than you?"
He was silent; he inspected a Venusian snoffie-fur-bound copy of English poetry of the seventeenth century. "Do you like Henry Vaughn?" he asked her.
"Didn't he write the poem about seeing eternity? 'I saw eternity the other night'?"
Opening the volume, Sebastian said, "Andrew Marvell. _To His Coy Mistress_. 'But at my back I always hear time's winged chariot hurrying near, and yonder all before us lie deserts of vast eternity.'" He shut the volume, convulsively. "I saw it, that eternity; outside of time and space, wandering among things so big--" He ceased; he still found it pointless to discuss his afterlife experience.
"I think you're just trying to hurry me into bed," Ann Fisher said. "The title of the poem--I get the message."
He quoted, "'The worms shall try that long-preserved virginity.'" Smiling, he turned toward her; perhaps she was right. But the poem kept him from anticipation; he knew it too well--knew it and the experience it envisioned. "'The grave's a fine and private place,'" he half-snarled, feeling it all return, the smell of the grave, the chill, the cramped, evil darkness. "'But none, I think, do there embrace.'"
"Then let's hop into bed," Miss Fisher said practically. And led the way to her bedroom.
Afterward they lay naked, with only the sheet over them; Ann Fisher smoked in silence, the red glow identifying her presence. He found it peaceful, now; his grim tension had departed.
"But it wasn't eternity for you," Ann Fisher said distantly, as if deep down in her own meditations. "You were dead only a finite time. What, fifteen years?"
"It feels the same," he said brusquely. "I try to make this point, and no one who hasn't gone through it understands. When you're outside of the categories of perception, time and space, then it's endless; _no time passes_, no matter how long you wait. And it can be infinite bliss or infinite torment, according to your relationship with it."
"With what? God?"
"The Anarch Peak called it God," he said pondering, "when he came back." And then, paralyzed, he realized--absolutely and utterly--what he had said.
After a time Ann Fisher said, "I remember him. Years ago. He founded Udi, this big group-mind cult. I didn't know he was alive again."
What could he say? Words, he thought in terror, that could not be explained. They meant only one thing; they told it all, that Peak had been reborn, that he, Sebastion Hermes had been present. So the Anarch was at the Flask of Hermes Vitarium. In which case, having said this, he might as well discuss it openly.
"We revived him today," he said, and wondered what this would mean to her; he did not know her, not really at all, and it could mean nothing, just an idle topic, or something of theological interest, or on the other hand--he would have to take the chance. Mathematically, it was unlikely that Ann Fisher had any connections with anyone materially interested in the Anarch; he would be playing the odds with her, from now on. "He's back at the vitarium; that's why I can't stay here with you--I told him I'd be talking to him again tonight."
"Could I come along?" Ann Fisher asked. "I've never seen an old-born in his first hours back... I understand they have a certain, special expression on their faces. From what they've seen. They're still watching something else, something vast. And they sometimes say epigrammatic, enigmatic things, like, I am you. Or, it isn't. Sort of Zen-satori cryptic utterances that mean everything to them, but to us--" In the dim nocturnal light she gestured vigorously, obviously intrigued by the subject. "To us it conveys nothing... yes, I agree; you have to go through it yourself." She hopped from the bed, padded barefoot to the closet, got out a bra and underpants, began rapidly to dress.
Gradually. feeling old and weary, he, too, began to dress.
I've made a mistake, he realized. I'll never get rid of her, now; something about her is lethal in its persistence. If I could reverse just that one segment of time, my saying those few words... he watched her put on an angora sweater and tight, tapered pants, then again resumed his own dressing. She's smart; she's attractive; and she knows she's on to something, he reflected. Below the verbal level I've managed to convey to her that this is _different_.
God knows, he thought, how far she'll go before her interest is satisfied.
11
Nothing can be predicated of God literally or affirmatively. Literally God is _not_, because He transcends being.
--Erigena
By cab they flew across Burbank, to the Flask of Hermes Vitarium.
From the outside the store looked empty and closed and dark, and totally deserted for the night. Seeing it, he had trouble believing that the Anarch Peak lay on a makeshift bed inside, presumably with at least Dr. Sign in attendance.
"This is exciting," Ann Fisher said, pressing her lean body close against him and shivering. "It's cold; let's hurry and get inside. I'm dying to see him; you have no idea how much I really appreciate this."
"We can't stay long," Sebastian said, as he unlocked the door. The door swung open. And there, pointing a pistol at him, stood Bob Lindy, blinking like an owl and at least as watchful.
"It's me," Sebastian said; he was startled, but it gratified him that his staff was so prepared. "And a friend." He shut and locked the door after them.
"That gun scares me," Aim Fisher said nervously.
Sebastian said, "Put it away, Lindy. That wouldn't stop anybody anyhow."
"It might," Lindy said. He led the way back to the work area; the inner door opened and all at once light shone out. "He's much stronger; he's been dictating to Cheryl." He surveyed Ann Fisher critically, and with cynical caution. "Who's she?"
"A customer," Sebastian said. "Negotiating for Mrs. Tilly M. Benton." He walked over to the bed; Ann Fisher followed, breathlessly. "Your Mightiness," he said formally. "You're coming along okay, I hear."