Every now and then, usually on high holy days, some worshipers well advanced along their spiritual paths were permitted to enter the temple itself to undergo a higher grade of initiation, involving experiences perhaps intoxicating, oceanic, sexual, illuminating. These tended to result in some small advantage in life, physical or mental, which functioned best in Virtu but which sometimes carried over to Verite. This phenomenon had also been a subject of anthropological consideration for over a decade, the only general conclusion to date being the catch-phrase “psychosomatic conversion.”
In fact, Arthur Eden—tall, very black, his beard shot with gray, heavily muscled in the manner of an athlete somewhat past his prime, which he was—was a professor of anthropology at Columbia’s Verite campus. He had joined the Elishites for purposes of preparing a full-length study of their creed and practices, comparative religion being his specialty. He was surprised at how much he was enjoying the preliminary work, for the church had obviously been set up by an expert or experts in this area.
As he walked back, singing, amid the pyramids, along the trail through field and wood, he wondered at the administrative entities behind this landscape. During a night service he had once been puzzled by the skies as he’d sought familiar constellations. On a later occasion, he’d recorded it by means of a simple proge disguised as a bracelet. Later, when he’d projected it onto a computer screen and begun playing games with it, he finally discovered that that sky was to be achieved by moving the present one backward through time for about six and a half millennia. Again, he was impressed by the church’s efforts at verisimilitude in their claims to antiquity and he wondered again at the priesthood or whoever the brains behind the structure of things might be.
The wall of flame rose before him after a time, and he joined the others in the prayer of passage. There was no sensation of heat as they negotiated the blazing way, only a small tingling and a whooshing sound of the sort a high fire might make in a strong wind—probably intended to intensify the memory. In the darkness that followed, he located the center aisle of the chamber and counted paces as he had been taught— forward, right, left—coming at length to his slab and reclining there. He was eager to begin dictating his notes, but instead reviewed his impressions as he lay there—yes, the Elishites’ worldview had an ethical code, a supernatural hierarchy, and an afterlife; they also had sacred texts, a collection of rituals, and an efficient organizational structure. The latter was difficult to obtain information concerning. All of his careful inquiries had so far met with responses indicating a consensus of the clergy as a basis of decision-making—always divinely inspired, of course. Still, he was yet a neophyte. He could understand a measure of reticence on matters of church politics. There should be opportunity to probe more deeply as his status evolved.
Lying in the darkness, he recalled the rituals he had witnessed thus far, wondering, again, whether they represented an actual reconstructive interest on the part of their composers—and if so, from which archaeological sources they might have been derived and projected—or whether they had been made up de novo and calculated to produce maximum effect upon a modern congregation. If it were the former, he required knowledge of the key works and the approach which had been taken in these developments from them. If the latter, he still needed the ideas which lay behind the thinking. It was not often that one got to witness the nascence of a new religion, and it was important that lie get into it as far as lie could and record everything.
Lying there, still tingling lightly, he reflected that whoever was behind it seemed possessed of a fair esthetics sense, along with all the rest.
Sayjak led his clan to a new section of the forest, partly because the area it had inhabited for the past month had been heavily browsed, and partly because of an eeksy sighting near that territory. No sense waiting for trouble, and the food situation saved face for him among the more impressionable. Sayjak had faced eeksies before and no longer even kept count of the number he had dispatched. He had his battle-marks for all to see. Any number of CF rounds had scored his hide over the years without finding the fatal points which had been their targets.
Now he sat beneath a tree, feeding on its fruits. His clan was, as many of other sorts, begun partly by damaged complex proges whose component problems had not been immediately apparent. On being detected by inconsistencies in their work they had fled rather than face extinction or repair. Their hairy manlike forms were a partly willed adaptation to the environment. And gender proges were easily created or come by, so that most of his band were descended from such in the dim mists of beginnings and knew no other existence than the freedom of the trees. As the random disruptions of life produced aging in Virtu as well as Verite, Sayjak had matured somewhat past his prime, though he was still a shrewd and powerful brute, well able to manage the People, as they called themselves.
And he had to be shrewd. There were always dangers about—from other clans, from rogue aions of different sorts, and from natural perils, as well as from the Ecology and Environment Corp in its periodic attempts to balance populations to conform with its models. And there were hunters—bounty and sport—as well as those who preyed upon the clans for private collections, public displays, private experimentation… There was ample danger from without, and Sayjak made full use of the three strongest of his subordinates: the great, hulking Staggert; tall, scarred, fast-moving Ocro, perhaps too smart for his own good, always plotting; and squat, heavy sadistic Chumo, viewing a narrow world through the perpetual squint of infected-looking eyes. They had become indispensable to him in the administration of the clan. All of them had designs upon his position, of course. All of them had fought him for it. and all of them had lost. He had no fear of any of them individually, yet, and they served him well while they waited for him to show signs of weakness. Together, they could oppose him, could probably split the clan, but—here he smiled around his fangs—they distrusted each other too much to attempt such a thing. And even if this were not the case, they would sooner or later have to have it out amongst themselves, leaving only one. And he knew that he could take any one of them. No. They knew that, and they knew that he knew it. So they served, biding, and aging themselves, of course.
Chumo looked up at him, just back from one of the regular patrols Sayjak insisted upon.
“How is the area?” he asked the bulky squinter.
“Signs to the northwest,” Chumo replied.
“What sort?”
“Tracks. Booted.”
“How many?”
“Three or four. Maybe more.”
Sayjak was on his feet.
“How far?”
“Several miles.”
“This is not good. Did you follow them?”
“Only a little way. I thought it more important to get word back quickly.”
“You thought right. Take me to the place. Ocro! You be in charge here. I’m going scouting.”