“What would be the point of writing Hemingway’s books all over again, or painting Picasso’s paintings, or—”
“I don’t mean that. There’s no need for us to do their work again, obviously, but why haven’t we even done our own? I’ll tell you why. Life’s too easy nowadays. I mean that without strife, without challenge—”
“No,” Vulpius says. “Ten minutes ago Einstein here was arguing that the Taj Mahal and the Sistine Chapel had to be destroyed because they’re symbols of a bloody age of tyranny and war. That thesis made very little sense to me, but let it pass, because now you seem to be telling me that what we need most in the world is a revival of war—”
“Of challenge,” says Cleversmith. He leans forward. His entire body is taut. His eyes now have taken on some of the intensity of Picasso’s. In a low voice he says, “We are slaves to the past, do you know that? Out of that grisly brutal world that lies a thousand years behind us came the soft life that we all lead today, which is killing us with laziness and boredom. It’s antiquity’s final joke. We have to sweep it all away, Vulpius. We have to make the world risky again. Give him another drink, Pablo.”
“No. I’ve had enough.”
But Picasso pours. Vulpius drinks.
“Let me see if I understand what you are trying to say—”
Somewhere during the long boozy night the truth finds him like an arrow coursing through darkness: These men are fiercely resentful of being clones and want to destroy the world’s past so that their own lives can at last be decoupled from it. They may be striking at the Blue Mosque and the Sistine Chapel, but their real targets are Picasso, Hemingway, Cleversmith and Einstein. And, somewhere much later in that sleepless night, just as a jade-hued dawn streaked with broad swirling swaths of scarlet and topaz is breaking over the Alps, Vulpius’ own resistance to their misdeeds breaks down. He is more tipsy than he has ever been before, and weary almost to tears besides. And when Picasso suddenly says, “By the way, Vulpius, what are the great accomplishments of your life?” he collapses inwardly before the thrust.
“Mine?” he says dully, blinking in confusion.
“Yes. We’re mere clones, and nothing much is to be expected from us, but what have you managed to do with your time?”
“Well, I travel, I observe, I study phenomena—”
“And then what?”
He pauses a moment. “Why, nothing. I take the next trip.”
“Ah. I see.”
Picasso’s cold smile is diabolical, a wedge that goes through Vulpius with shattering force. In a single frightful moment he sees that all is over, that the many months of his quest have been pointless. He has no power to thwart this kind of passionate intensity. That much is clear to him now. They are making an art form out of destruction, it seems. Very well. Let them do as they please. Let them. Let them. If this is what they need to do, he thinks, what business is it of his? There’s no way his logic can be any match for their lunacy.
Cleversmith is saying, “Do you know what a train is, Vulpius?”
“A train. Yes.”
“We’re at the station. The train is coming, the Millennium Express. It’ll take us from the toxic past to the radiant future. We don’t want to miss the train, do we, Vulpius?”
“The train is coming,” says Vulpius. “Yes.” Picasso, irrepressible, waves yet another flask of brandy at him. Vulpius shakes him off. Outside, the first shafts of golden sunlight are cutting through the dense atmospheric vapors. Jagged Alpine peaks, mantled in jungle greenery reddened by the new day, glow in the distance, Mont Blanc to the west, the Jungfrau in the north, Monte Rosa to the east. The gray-green plains of Italy unroll southward.
“This is our last chance to save ourselves,” says Clever-smith urgently. “We have to act now, before the new era can get a grasp on us and throttle us into obedience.” He looms up before Vulpius, weaving in the dimness of the room like a serpent. “I ask you to help us.”
“Surely you can’t expect me to take part in—”
“Decide for us, at least. The Louvre has to go. That’s a given. Well, then: Implosion or explosion, which is it to be?”
“Implosion,” says Einstein, swaying from side to side in front of Vulpius. The soft eyes beg for his support. Behind him, Hemingway makes vociferous gestures of agreement.
“No,” Picasso says. “Blow it up!” He flings his arms outward. “Boom! Boom!”
“Boom, yes,” says Cleversmith very quietly. “I agree. So, Vulpius, you will cast the deciding vote.”
“No. I absolutely refuse to—”
“Which? Which? One or the other?”
They march around and around him, demanding that he decide the issue for them. They will keep him here, he sees, until he yields. Well, what difference does it make—explode, implode? Destruction is destruction.
“Suppose we toss a coin for it,” Cleversmith says finally, and the others nod eager agreement. Vulpius is not sure what that means, tossing a coin, but sighs in relief: Apparently he is off the hook. But then Cleversmith produces a sleek bright disk of silvery metal from his pocket and presses it into Vulpius’ palm. “Here,” he says. “You do it.”
Coinage is long obsolete. This is an artifact, hundreds of years old, probably stolen from some museum. It bears a surging three-tailed comet on one face and the solar system symbol on the other. “Heads, we explode; tails, we implode,” Einstein declares. “Go on, dear friend. Toss it and catch it and tell us which side is up.” They crowd in, close up against him. Vulpius tosses the coin aloft, catches it with a desperate lunge, claps it down against the back of his left hand. Holds it covered for a moment. Reveals it. The comet is showing. But is that side heads or tails? He has no idea.
Cleversmith says sternly, “Well? Heads or tails?”
Vulpius, at the last extremity of fatigue, smiles benignly up at him. Heads or tails, what does it matter? What concern of his is any of this?
“Heads,” he announces randomly. “Explosion.”
“Boom!” exclaims a jubilant Picasso. “Boom! Boom! Boom!”
“My friend, you have our deepest thanks.” Cleversmith says. “We are all agreed, then, that the decision is final? Ernest? Albert?”
“May I go back to my hotel now?” Vulpius asks.
They accompany him down the mountainside, see him home, wish him a fond farewell. But they are not quite done with him. He is still asleep, late that afternoon, when they come down into Zermatt to fetch him. They are leaving for Paris at once, Cleversmith informs him, and he is invited to accompany them. He must witness their deed once more; he must give it his benediction. Helplessly he watches as they pack his bag. A car is waiting outside.
“Paris,” Cleversmith tells it, and off they go.
Picasso sits beside him. “Brandy?” he asks.
“Thank you, no.”
“Don’t mind if I do?”
Vulpius shrugs. His head is pounding. Cleversmith and Hemingway, in the front seat, are singing raucously. Picasso, a moment later, joins in, and then Einstein. Each one of them seems to be singing in a different key. Vulpius takes the flask from Picasso and pours some brandy for himself with an unsteady hand.
In Paris, Vulpius rests at their hotel, a venerable gray heap just south of the Seine, while they go about their tasks. This is the moment to report them to the authorities, he knows. Briefly he struggles to find the will to do what is necessary. But it is not there. Somehow all desire to intervene has been burned out of him. Perhaps, he thinks, the all-too-placid world needs the goad of strife that these exasperating men so gleefully provide. In any case the train is nearing the station; it’s too late to halt it now.