They understood that the Boddhisattva's Vow, common among the neurosomatic-circuit Eastern primates, was no idle fantasy, either, even though it promised to redeem all sentient beings. With time-travel made possible through the General Field Theory, they could change any past probability wave, creating a new universe where each entity would take the best possible path instead of whatever sad paths it had taken to arouse their compassion and intervention. They understood the words, previously totally opaque, of the Jewish mystic, Jesus, who had said, "All that I do, ye shall do, also; and more." They understood that every political and mystical ideal of freedom, however aborted in its first appearances, was fated to be achieved in some form, in the infinite nonlocal cosmos opening before them.
They understood that the "oneness with earth" so many had discovered in the previous two decades had only been the overture to the discovery of nonlocality, as they shared more and more in oneness with all that is, and all that can be.
And they understood, of course the time-honored allegory of the Trick Top Hat, which was just a symbol of the brain. This ritual was passed on from generation to generation, since it represented the greatest treasure in the universe, which is shared by all and belongs to none: the faculty of creativity, partially unleashed in each sentient being, fully released at the proper Galactic-genetic time by the HEAD Revolution.
BOOK ONE
The Homing Pigeons
PART ONE
WHO'S ZELENKA?
All Cretans are liars.
–empedocles the cretan
The President of the United States is not a crook.
–the president of the united states
Death to all fanatics!
–malaclypse the younger
THE UNIVERSE WILL SURPRISE US
Jen fa Ti: Ti fa Tsien T'sien fa Too; Too fa tzu-jan
–LAO-TsE, Too Te Ching
Tall, skinny palm trees, twisted to bizarre angles by dozens of Florida hurricanes, stood black against a cinnamon-streaked sky as the sun rose majestically in the west.
"We stop here," Mavis said, as he had known she would; as was, perhaps, inevitable now.
This must be the Gulf of Mexico, Dashwood thought. They could now load him with chains and drop him in the drink, as criminals said, letting him sink slowly down amid the sharks and barracudas, down where, after the sharks were finished, the King Crabs would pick what was left on his bones, down, down, down, full fathom five.
And, as was inevitable now, Mavis motioned him out of the car, stepping out behind him (still holding that damned tommy gun, as if quietly toying with it) like the ghoats in hammelts.
"We wait here," she said. "The others go back."
"What are we waiting for?" Dashwood asked.
"Don't be a dummy, George. We rescued you, remember? Like the gauds in ambers."
Dashwood took a deep breath, counting to ten. "Why do you keep calling me George? You know my name is Frank, dammit."
Mavis opened her eyes wide, pretending astonishment. "You really don't remember," she said sadly.
A woodpecker landed wearily on the nearest palm, as if he had flown more missions than Yossarian and never intended to go up again.
"I'm Frank Dashwood," he said. "Dr. Francis R. Dashwood. I'm a member of the American Psychiatric Association. I'm in Who's Who. Goddamnit," he added, irrelevantly but heatedly.
"You're George Dorn," she said. "You work for Confrontation magazine. Your boss is named Justin Case."
"Oh, balls," Dashwood said.
The woodpecker turned his head, as perhaps was sure to happen now, and watched them suspiciously, like a paranoid old man.
And Dashwood noticed, as for the first time, an unfinished building on the beach, probably a new condo, with girders going off at strange cubist angles. Skeletons in hard hats stood frozen like statues, and a giant squid reached up from the ocean to wrap its tentacles around the pylons.
The sun was as hot as Gunga Din's loincloth.
A vine-colored plaque at the gate said:
FATALITY INC.
Muss S. Sine, President
S. Muss Sine, Vice President
"If I'm George Dorn," he said finally, "why do I have this deep-seated longtime delusion that I'm Frank Dash-wood?"
"We're in Maybe-time here," Mavis said. "You know: 'In addition to a Yes and a No, the universe contains a Maybe.' You've heard that, I'm sure. It's hard to keep track of social fictions out here, and personal identity is just a social fiction. So you've lost your ego for a few minutes and grabbed hold of another one. That's how you created this imaginary Frank Fernwood." "Dashwood," he corrected automatically. "Going home from here isn't easy," Mavis said, still toying with the tommy gun. "Some people never find their way back. That's why you must let go out of this Frank Fernwood delusion." "It's Dashwood, dammit, Dashwood!" "Fernwood, Dashwood," she said impatiently. "Deep down you know you're George Dorn."
"You are a fruitcake, Mavis. Why did you rescue me from that jail, anyway?"
"You're wanted," she said simply. "By whom?" "Hagbard Celine."
"And who is Hagbard Celine?" They had reached the cabana and were standing beside it, glaring at each other like two chess masters who each suspect that they have wandered into some idiotic permutation of the Ourang-Outan opening. The woodpecker turned his head, probably a bit puzzled himself, and sized them up with the other eye.
"You'll know when you meet him, George." ("Frank," he shouted. "George," she repeated firmly.) "For now it's enough that he wanted us to get you out of Bad Ass Jail." "And why the hell does Hagbard Chelling…" ("Celine," she corrected.) "… Celine, then, why the hell does Hagbard Celine want to see me?"
"Why anything?" Mavis asked rhetorically. "Why sky, why oceans, why people? Jen fa Ti: Ti fa T'sien: T'sien fa Tao: Tao fa tzu-jan."
"Oh, coitus," Dashwood said, avoiding crudity. "Don't give me obscurities in Cantonese at this hour."
"Men are created by earth, earth is created by the universe, the universe is created by Nature's Process, and Nature's Process just happened," Mavis translated.
Dashwood was not going to get involved in aleotoric cosmologies. "So Hagbard Celine just happened," he said. "And he just happened to want me out of Bad Ass Jail. And you just happen to like busting into jails with tommy guns and taking prisoners out. This is the silliest damned routine I ever heard."
"Well," Mavis said, grinning wickedly, "I also just happen to like you. In fact, I've had the Whites for you ever since I broke into the cell back in Bad Ass and caught you Lourding off."
"Don't talk dirty," he said. "It's not becoming to a young woman your age, and it's getting silly and old-fashioned. It makes you sound like a refugee from the 1960s."
"Nonsense," Mavis said. "It gets you excited. It always gets men excited to hear women talk like this. Do you know how I felt when I saw you there on the bunk with your Rehnquist in your hand? It made my Feinstein go all warm and mushy inside, George."
"Frank," he said one more time. "And I don't have the Whites for you. Women with tommy guns don't turn me on at all."
"Are you sure?" Mavis asked provocatively. "I'll bet I could make your Rehnquist stand up if I really tried." She opened her trenchcoat and he could see her magnificent Brownmillers bulging through her tight sweater. He had to admit they were a fine, firm pair of Brownmillers-"a pair you could hang your hat on," as an Irishman had once said-but he was not going to be tempted. This was all too weird.