"No, Roberta," Sanger blathered on, "in this instance the literal is
contradicted; libraries are behind us, as are conference calls, satellite feeds, federal indictments — the detritus we are sloughing off as we move to a new life on your farm."
At that moment a car rushed out of the storm going in the opposite direction, trailing a wet cloud behind it. Water spattered the windshield and for a few seconds the world was smudged and gray.
"Like a comet," said Sanger. "That's exactly the image I was seeking. We hurtle away from the past, Chester and I, sluicing off layers of an old life."
Chester couldn't resist. "But that's wrong. A comet's tail is formed by pressure from something ahead of it; it's not a trail left by rapid forward motion. It's not the result of progress but of resistance to progress."
"Splendid!" said Sanger. "Of course I'm wrong! You've defined the difference between us and the sheep that surround us, with their boosted neurotransmitters and squashed spirits. We still have the freedom to err."
"Splendid," muttered Chester. "Though I do hope, Mr. Sanger, that fallibility isn't our only remaining distinction."
"Please, Chester, you must call me Brother Emil."
The van slowed as Welch pulled up before a low, flat-roofed brick building with wide eaves. The Corley Mitchell Cooperative Accommodation Farm. She parked at the entrance and shut off the motor.
"Mr. Drummond, Brother Emil — welcome to your new home," she said, turning back across the seat to smile at them. At that moment Chester felt an odd and disconcerting impulse to touch the curve of her neck. "I hope you'll be happy here." 2.
Their rooms were in a wing that culminated in a bright common area furnished with a telewall, two couches, datadesks and chairs, and a refrigerator filled with whole grain snacks which, when Chester sampled them later, tasted like they had been recycled from old encyclopedias. The private rooms themselves were spare, and restful.
Chester unpacked his clothes and hung them in the small closet, unpacked his three books and put them on the shelf above his bed. The Republic, The Wealth of Nations, The Devil's Dictionary. For one bookend he used the brake piston of the 1974 Honda that he had kept as an ashtray since he was nineteen. At the other end he carefully set the bronze bust of Plato, packed with enough superdense plastique to bring down a small skyscraper. The quote engraved on its base read: "No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death." His staff had given him the bust during the campaign of 2016; the explosives had come much later.
He'd given the major parties a run for their money in that election, taking five states and 96 electoral votes. Given the growth curve of the Valutarian Party, he knew he'd win in 2020. People had been hungry for his message. They'd suffered enough from the aftereffects of the pre-millennial irresponsibility, the dismal legacy of the late-20th century's complete abandonment of facts. Even as a young man Chester had seen the inevitable chaos that would come from the pernicious doctrine that there were no absolutes, that everything was "constructed" from language and that science was no more real than wishing. Chester believed in science.
The economic shocks of the first decade had shaken the foolishness out of the people, sent them flocking to the Valutarian Party. He had predicted his own success, seen the rising arc of his career clear as the flight of a fourth-of-July rocket: the crowds, the TV lights, the women, the successful books, his failing marriage, the electoral triumphs.
The only thing he had not for seem was the Carcopino-Koster boost. Chester was alone in his room for a whole quarter hour before Sanger appeared in his doorway. "You must be wondering what I was alluding to in the van," Sanger said slyly.
Chester was in no mood to be polite. "I've been wondering what you were alluding to for the length of your public career," he said. "I consider every word out of your mouth to be obtuse, mystical bullshit. Metaphors for things that don't exist. I can't imagine this comes as a surprise, Brother Emil."
Sanger only smiled. "I'm offering to lift the veil in this instance, Chester."
"Go ahead."
"There's a woman here named Elizabeth Wiley. I've been seeking her for nearly two years, and with the help of the All I've found her. She's masquerading as another holdout, just like the rest of us, but she's different. She's merely the most important woman in the world."
I guess that leaves room for one of us to be the most important man, Chester thought irritably.
"She underwent Carcopino-Koster ten years ago," continued Sanger, and suddenly Chester's attention was riveted. "A year and a half ago she was assigned to this farm, and not mistakenly. She's the Grail. A returner." "That's impossible. C-K is irreversible."
Sanger came in and sat down on Chester's bed. "Elizabeth Wiley worked most of her life at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Carcopino changed little in her life; she was a loving wife and mother, by all accounts contented, unremarkable. Two years ago she and her husband were on a foliage tour in New Hampshire; a tire blew and their bus skidded off the highway. Her husband was killed instantly. Elizabeth sustained massive head injuries, went into a coma. When she regained consciousness her personality had reverted to its pre-Carcopino formation."
"How do you know all of this?"
"My sources are my own. But Chester, the miracle of her reversion is not the most interesting part of Elizabeth's story. What compels me is this: when the doctors explained the situation to her, she refused another boost. She compared the two states, and declined Carcopino-Koster!"
Chester could already see five different slants for the propaganda campaign. Six, because the fact that there had been no press on this meant there had been cover-up of staggering dimensions. A laugh of pure excitement bubbled up out of him, the first in years.
"Yes!" Sanger laughed with him. "You see the true import of Sister Elizabeth; I can tell. Her potential to serve the All is limitless."
When did she become Sister Elizabeth? Chester wondered. And how could exposing government conspiracy benefit the All? Chester resented the speed with which Sanger appropriated people and ideas to his absurd cause. "Gentlemen," said Roberta Welch. "It's time for dinner."
They looked up, startled. How long had she been standing in the doorway? How much had she heard? 3.
The refectory was a brightly lit, lemon yellow room on the south side of the building. Most of the food, Roberta Welch told them, was grown on the farm and prepared by their fellow refuseniks. Everyone stood when Welch ushered Chester and Sanger into the room. Chester was pleased that most of the holdouts knew who he was, although he hadn't experienced his celebrity in so long that their recognition left a melancholy aftertaste. And it galled him that they seemed much more shocked to see Sanger reduced to seeking refuge on an accommodation farm.
Many of the refuseniks were old, though in most cases gerontological advances had kept them looking fit, closer to forty than seventy. Some were legitimately younger — you could tell by the hands. Chester, engaging a politician's reflexes, memorized names and faces.
They met Nicholas Koundis, a doddering old Christian Scientist who could no longer remember how old he was or exactly who he had been. "Come to die unmuddled with, eh?" he asked them. "Good for you. Welcome aboard."
They met Gail Wood, a cheerfully dim woman who wanted to talk to them about the Red Sox. "The '18 series doesn't count," she said. "Until they win it without the help of C-K, they haven't proven anything, the curse of the Bambino is intact. I'm holding on till that day comes."
They met Allan Fence, an embittered science fiction writer who said: "I
predicted this, all of it. Everything I predicted came true. But my books never sold."