Looking about the colossal room, with its tier upon tier of racks and urns, Roditis said softly, “Do you know the eleventh book of the Odyssey? Odysseus goes to the Halls of Hades to seek advice of the soul of Teiresias.” His hand swept along the dully gleaming balcony. “Here we are. The Halls of Hades, the City of Perpetual Mist. We beach our boat and make our way along the banks of the River of Ocean. Odysseus draws his sword, digs a trench, pours libations to the dead. Honey and milk, wine, water. He sprinkles white barley. He cuts the throats of sheep. The dark blood pours into the trench, and now the souls of the dead come swarming up from below. He sees his unburied friend Elpenor. He is approached by his mother, but waves her away to speak with Teiresias. Then he meets others. The mother of Oedipus. The wife of Amphitryon. Ariadne. Poseidon. These are the Halls of Hades, Santoliquido. We can summon up departed souls.”
“You know your Homer well,” Santoliquido said. “I am a Greek,” said Roditis calmly. “Are you surprised?”
“You don’t usually seem so-literary, John.”
“But this is Hades, isn’t it? Not a place of punishment, not Dante’s Inferno, simply a storage vault. As Homer tells it. Standing here looking into that darkness, Frank, don’t you feel it?”
“I’ve felt it many times. Though not in Homer’s terms, exactly. We Romans have a poet of Hades too. Remember? ‘The descent into Hell is easy. Night and day lie open the gates of death’s dark kingdom. ’ ”
“Virgil?”
“Yes. Aeneas also sees the dead. He plucks a golden bough and inquires after his comrades. A deep, dark cave, with fumes coming up from its throat; he follows a path, he takes the ferry across the river, he encounters the shade of his steersman Palinurus. He finds Dido, weeping. And his father, Anchises. I’ve often thought of it, John.”
“Open Hades for me, then. Show me Paul Kaufmann.”
“Come inside the booth.” They entered. Roditis was in a dark mood now; he stared at the coppery casket containing the persona of Paul Kaufmann, and a terrible desire came over him to seize it from plump Santoliquido and run off. But that was foolishness. He waited while Santoliquido set up the equipment.
“What are you going to do?” Roditis asked finally. “Allow you to have a thirty-second peek at Paul Kaufmann. It’s a standard scanning. Once it begins, I’ll let it continue no matter how you react, and afterward we’ll know how eager you really are to have him with you forever.”
“You don’t frighten me.”
“I don’t mean to. But I want you to realize that there are risks.”
“Go ahead,” said Roditis. He accepted the electrodes. Through slitted eyes he observed the final preparations.
“Now,” Santoliquido said. Roditis jerked and quivered in the first impact of union with the persona of Paul Kaufmann. It was as if he had plunged into a boiling, sulfurous lake, dropping straight to the bottom, engulfed in it, fighting for breath. But he did not drown. Within moments he was rising, finding his level, learning the art of swimming in this medium.
Incredible! Such strength, such vitality, such intensity that old man had had! Roditis examined strands of memory; not tangled knotted ones, but firm hawsers of recollection, stretching across the void of years. He acknowledged a formidable mind when he met one. Had old Kaufmann ever forgotten anything? Had he ever blundered? Roditis stared in delight at serried rows of archives, at a comprehensive and flawlessly arranged memory bank. Kaufmann must not have been human, but some sort of computer. But no, he was human enough: here were lust, rage, avarice, triumph, all the passions, throbbing chords of emotion slashing in bright primary hues across the purpled backdrop of that powerful mind. To and fro Roditis moved, examining everything, passing freely down the frozen canyons of that awesome persona, admiring stalactites and stalagmites of desire, glittering crystals of achievement, the ropy fabric of maturity. Kaufmann at seventy had been a phenomenon, but not a sudden one; roving backward, Roditis saw the unity of the man, saw the same unbending purpose at forty, at twenty, even at ten. How could there be a man like this, all fire and ice at once? Having entered that realm of wonders, Roditis could not leave. He heard the sound of distant music, resonant, somber, a chromatic symphony of great power. He saw towering Gothic arches receding to infinity. In his nostrils was the scent of grandeur. Roditis planted his feet firmly on a broad plain beneath a black sky. He threw his head back and roared joyous laughter at the heavens.
The images dissolved. He sat in a small room, electrodes on his forehead, Santoliquido studying him with interest.
“Give him to me,” Roditis said at once.
“The risks—”
“There are no risks. I can handle him. He belongs to me! He must be mine!”
“You’re shaking all over,” Santoliquido pointed out. Roditis discovered that it was so. He stared at his trembling fingers, his quaking knees. The harder he tried to regain muscular control, the more violent the tremors became. He said, “It’s nothing but a reaction to tension. I don’t pretend it was like nothing, scanning that mind. But I am well. I am strong. I have the right to receive that persona.”
“How do your own personae feel about it?” Roditis realized that he had lost contact with Kozak and Walsh. He had to grope uncertainly in the recesses of his own mind a moment before he located them. Walsh seemed dazed; Kozak, sullen, withdrawn, wounded. As he probed them they stirred gradually; as if thawing after a freezing bath. They had not enjoyed their brief exposure to Paul Kaufmann, it appeared. Roditis tried to cheer them. They would get used to their new neighbor in his mind.
He said to Santoliquido, “Well, they’re a little shaken up, I suppose. He was a rough dose for them. But it’ll wear off.”
“I’m worried, John.”
“About them?”
“About you. If you took on Kaufmann, what the long-term effects might be. You’re an important man nowadays, with plenty of responsibility. If you should cave in under the weight of this new persona you want—”
“I won’t.”
“If,” said Santoliquido. “There could be serious economic consequences.”
“How many different ways do I have to put it? I’m capable of bearing up. Do you know, Frank, I feel such exultation now, having seen that man’s mind — such a sense of widening, after only half a minute. You’ve got to give him to me!”
Santoliquido’s tongue appeared and made a slow circuit of his lips.” After a moment’s silence he rose and beckoned to Roditis. “Let’s take a walk,” he suggested. “If you’ve recovered from those tremors by now.”
Roditis stood up with exaggerated agility. Santoliquido put the Kaufmann persona back in its casket and stuffed it in a hopper slot; it vanished from sight, to Roditis’ sharp regret. They left the sampling booth. Santoliquido led him out on the catwalk that rimmed the circumference of the storage vault.
“We’re going to take a tour of Hades,” he said. “I want to show you some possible alternate personae.”
“I don’t—”
“At least consider them,” said Santoliquido. He tapped out digits on a data terminal. One of the sealed storage banks opened and he pulled out an urn, examined it, frowned, replaced it, removed the adjoining one. He held it up. “Elliot Sakyamuni,” he said. “You know him? An outstanding guru, one of the architects of the new religion, a truly powerful man. He died in March. We’ve had him here, waiting for the right recipient. John, if you were to take him on, you’d have the added spiritual depth, the extra dimension of wisdom, that only a fully trained guru of the highest degree could offer. You’re the first person I’ve suggested giving him to. Consider it.”