"It can't be all that bad," Joe said, but, as he spoke, he felt fear rustle through him and lodge inside his heart, fear generated in part by the vacuity of his own remark.
The robot looked at him enigmatically, a complex look that gradually became that of scorn.
"Considering you're a robot," Joe said, "I don't see what you have emotionally involved in this; you have no life."
The robot said, "No structure, even an artificial one, enjoys the process of entropy. It is the ultimate fate of everything, and everything resists it."
Joe said, "And Glimmung expects to halt this process? If it's the ultimate fate of everything, then Glimmung can't halt it; he's doomed. He'll fail and the process will go on."
"Down below the water," Willis said, "the decay process is the only force at work. But up here—the cathedral raised—there will be other forces which do not move in a retrograde manner. Forces of sanction and repair. Of building and making and form-creating—and, in your case, healing. That is why you are so needed. It is you and the others like you who will forestall the decay process by your abilities and work. Do you see?"
"I want to go down there," Joe said.
"Suit yourself. I mean that literally; put on diving gear and descend into Mare Nostrum, alone, in the night. Descend into the subworld of decay and see it for yourself. I'll take you to one of the staging centers floating on Mare Nostrum; you can descend from there—without me."
"Thanks," Joe said. He uttered the word with what he intended to be irony; however, it emerged in a weak wheeze, and the robot did not seem to catch his tone.
The staging center consisted of a platform within hermetically sealed domes, three of them, each large enough for life-forms to gather, with their equipment. Joe gazed about him in expert appreciation at the size of the construct. Built with robot labor, he decided. And recently; the domes seemed new, and probably were so. This installation had been created for him and the others, and would not be used until he and they began to operate out of them. Space, he reflected, is not at a premium, here, as it is on Earth. These domes can be as large as they want... and Glimmung, of course, had wanted them large indeed.
"And you still won't descend with me," he said to the robot Willis.
"Never."
"Show me the diving gear," Joe said. "And show me how to use it. Show me everything I need to know."
"I will show you the minimal—" the robot began, and then broke off. On the roof field of the greatest dome a small airship was landing. Willis scrutinized it intently. "Too small for Glimmung," he murmured. "It must be a more meager and hence lesser life-form."
The airship came to a stop; it remained immobile and then its hatch slid back. Taxi, it proclaimed from its stem to its stern. And out of the taxi stepped Mali Yojez.
She descended via the elevator and came directly toward Joe and the robot Willis. "Glimmung spoke to me," she said. "He told me what you're doing here. He wanted me to go along with you. There was some doubt in his mind as to whether you could make it alone—I mean physically survive the experience of the Sub-World down there."
"And he thinks you can," Joe said.
"He thinks that two of us going together and having each other to rely on—he thinks that that would probably work. And I'm more experienced than you. Vastly more."
"Mrs. Lady," Willis said to her, "did Glimmung want me to go undersea, too?"
"He didn't mention yOu," Mali said tartly.
"It's just as well." The robot scowled in heavy gloom. "I dislike it down there."
"But soon," Mali said, "it will all be changed. There will be no ‘down there.' Only up here, in this world, where other laws operate."
"The best-laid plans of mice and men," the robot said, with frigid skepticism.
"Help us into our gear," Joe said.
The robot said, "Down there in the Aquatic Sub-World, you will be in a place that Amalita has forgotten."
"Who is ‘Amalita'?" Joe asked.
Mali said, "The god for whom the cathedral was built. The god who was worshiped in Heldscalla. When the cathedral is restored, then Glimmung can call upon Amalita, as in earlier times, before the Catastrophe in which the cathedral sank. The defeat of Amalita by Borel—a temporary defeat, but a major one. I am reminded of a Terran poem by Bert Brecht called, ‘The Drowned Girl.' Let's see; if memory serves... ‘And gradually God forgot her, first her arms, then her legs and body until she was—‘"
Joe said, "What sort of deities are these?" There had been no mention of this before, but of course it was obvious and logical; a cathedral was a place in which to worship, and someone or something had to be the object of the worship. To Mali, he said, "Do you know anything more about this angle?"
"I can fully inform you," the robot said, annoyed.
To it, Mali said, "Had it ever occurred to you that it might be Amalita, working through Glimmung, who is raising the cathedral? So that worship of him here on this planet can resume?"
"Hmm," the robot said, in a nettled fashion; Joe could almost hear it whir and click as it cogitated. "Well," it said all at once, "anyhow you asked about the two deities, Mr. Sir. However, you once again neglected to say—"
"Willis," Joe said, "tell me about Amalita and Borel. How long have they been worshiped, and on how many planets? And where did the cult begin?"
"I have a brochure," the robot said, "which will exhaustively cover these matters." It slid its hand into its thorax pocket; from the pocket it lifted out a mimeographed pamphlet. "I wrote this in my spare time," the robot said. "With your permission I will refer to it. That way I don't have to overtax so much in my memory spools. To begin with, Amalita existed alone. That was roughly fifty thousand Terran years in the past. Then, in a spasm of apotheosis, Amalita felt sexual desire. But there was nothing to feel sexual desire toward. He felt love, and there was nothing to love. He felt hate, and there was nothing to hate."
"He felt apathy. And there was nothing to feel apathetic about." Mali spoke without emotion; it did not involve her.
"Let's tackle sexual desire first," the robot said. "As is well known, the most enjoyable form of sexual love is that which pertains to incest, inasmuch as incest is the fundamental taboo throughout the universe. The greater the taboo, the more sheer excitement. Hence, Amalita created his sister, Borel. The next most exciting aspect of sexual love is love for someone evil, someone who, if you didn't love them, you would abominate them. So Amalita caused his sister to be evil; she began at once to tear down everything which he had, over the centuries, built."
Mali murmured, "Such as Heldscalla."
"Yes, Mrs. Lady," the robot agreed. "Now, the next most powerful stimulant to sexual love is to be in love with someone stronger than you. So Amalita caused his sister to be capable of destroying his edifices one by one; he tried to intervene, but she was by now too strong. As he had intended. Finally, the last element: the love object forces one to descend to its level, where its laws, unethical and violent, obtain. This is what we have here in the Raising of Heldscalla. Every one of you will have to descend into the Aquatic SubWorld in which Amalita's laws do not operate. Even Glimmung himself will inevitably sink into the Sub-World where Borel's travesty of reality cloaks everything and is everywhere."
"I thought of Glimmung as a deity," Joe said. "Because of his immense power."
The robot said, "Deities do not fall ten floors to the basement."
"That seems reasonable," Joe admitted.
"The criteria involved," the robot said, "start with immortality. Amalita and Borel have that; Glimmung has not. The second criterion deals with—"