To carry the purse.
"Insh'allah," I said, still laughing.
"What?" Annah asked.
"It shall be however God wills. Or if you prefer King Lear, 'As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.' "
"Now you're doing quotations too?"
"Why not?" I smiled… but the smile was bitter. "We've done what we were supposed to, Annah. We've fulfilled the quest and redeemed Lucifer. We've won."
"How?"
I gestured toward the accumulating heap of cellules. Just as big as the mound in Niagara. Lucifers had been sent here over the years and rendered mindless by the suppressing laser field-turned into blank slates ready to be assimilated when the good Lucifer arrived. That had been part of the League's plan too: assembling sufficient mass to be reclaimed. Now the angel had arrived; now the mindless cellules had become part of a new consciousness. A good consciousness… or at least one that pleased the League better than the roaringly defiant Satan.
Now we had a saintly mound as big as the demonic one back in Niagara. I didn't have the prophetic powers of the League of Peoples, but I could guess what would happen next.
A humanoid clump of black pulled away from the pile in front of us. It shivered as if it were cold; then the outer crust of gunpowder flaked away to reveal a smiling, radiant Rosalind.
"Hello again," the Lucifer-Rosalind said. Her voice was soft; her eyes shone. "Do you understand what's happened?"
Annah didn't answer. I said, "I understand in general. You might explain a few specifics."
"Such as?"
"How much of this the League made happen. How much they interfered in all our lives."
"I can't answer that," the Rosalind said.
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't." The girl lowered her eyes. "Your purse is roomy for a purse, but it couldn't hold enough to preserve my entire consciousness. I saved the most important parts of my personality-at least I think I did-but I had to sacrifice almost all of my memories. Whatever I knew about the League's plans… the knowledge is gone. I'm virtually tabula rasa."
"How convenient for the League."
"Very. I'm as curious as you are about the League's influence. How, for example, did I choose which memories I'd discard and which I'd keep? Did the League do that, or did I choose of my own free will? Does free will exist at all?" The Rosalind shrugged. "I have no answers. Considering that the amount I stuffed into your purse was roughly the size of a human brain, at this point I'm no wiser than you."
"At this point?"
The duplicate Rosalind smiled and gestured to the looming black heap behind her. "I've acquired new brain cells. With each passing moment, I can feel my mind expanding."
"Lucky you. The laser cage isn't trying to expunge your intelligence?"
"No. The suppression effect turned off as soon as you showed up with the purse. I believe the purse sends out a signal."
"Oh." I shook my head ruefully. "The League thinks of everything, doesn't it?"
"They do plan for contingencies."
"But you don't know what their plan is?"
"No." The Lucifer-Rosalind gave an apologetic look. "Short term, I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself."
I nodded. "We wake Sebastian… or rather, you wake Sebastian. In your current form, he'll listen to you more than Annah or me."
"That's likely," the Rosalind agreed.
"Then," I continued, "Sebastian uses one of the ‹BINK›-rods to return to Niagara. He undams the Falls, fixes the wires, and re-activates the laser cage… trapping inside any bits of Satan that are waiting to ambush the Spark Lords."
"Correct."
"Then you use the other ‹BINK›-rod to go back to Niagara. After a brief struggle, you assimilate the evil cellules that are still in the cage."
The pseudo-Rosalind smiled. "Let's say I restore them to sanity."
"So you increase your mass significantly and you get practice in bringing evil Lucifers back to the straight and narrow. One step closer to fulfilling the League's plans for you."
"I'm sure they have my best interests at heart."
I couldn't tell if the alien was being sarcastic. An upswell of bitterness made me say, "The League has everybody's best interests at heart. They're the good guys, aren't they? Supremely powerful, yet generous enough to let lesser beings take part in their schemes. Like Gretchen. And Myoko. And Oberon and Pelinor and all the others who died in this mess. If the League is so omniscient, they must have foreseen my friends' deaths. But the League let it happen anyway; in fact, they instigated everything, because we'd all be safe in Simka if the League hadn't nudged us into getting involved."
"You don't care that I'd have become evil?"
"The League could have prevented it without our help. A voice from the sky might have told Sebastian, 'That thing beside you isn't Rosalind.' Or the League could have gone to the Sparks. If the League had warned Mind-Lord Priest what was waiting for him at the winter anchorage, Jode could have been stopped right there. But instead, they left Priest in ignorance. So Priest died, Rosalind died, my friends died…"
I stopped. The Lucifer-Rosalind had her head cocked to one side as if she were listening to something. But the cage seemed very silent-the great black mound had stopped its rustling, leaving only the sounds of Annah's soft breathing and my own heartbeat. At last the Lucifer in Rosalind's form lifted her eyes to meet mine. "That was the League," she whispered.
"Speaking to you?"
She nodded. "They say… they don't interfere as much as you think. They can't. They think there's a chance some human will do something-they won't say what-but something that will solve a problem… answer a question… they think some member of your race may someday provide a bit of knowledge that even the League doesn't have. The creatures of the League are too locked into their own perceptions to see some… something… they suspect there's something they're not seeing, but they're blinded by their very omniscience. And Homo sapiens are at just the right intelligence leveclass="underline" a bit above animals, but not so smart that you genuinely comprehend… you haven't developed a truly logical view of the universe, so you're more open to stumbling on…"
I waited for her to finish her sentence. When she didn't, I said, "You mean if we were any smarter, we'd see the world in a consistent and rational way… which would prevent us from tripping over whatever the League is after."
"That's it," the Lucifer-Rosalind agreed. "And that's why the League hates tampering with your kind. They don't want to push you in any particular direction. They're afraid of imposing their own biases. So they changed Earth into a venue where your species would have ample freedom to do anything-anything. The only time the League gets involved is when something threatens Homo sapiens so severely that it endangers… whatever it is you have the potential to do."
"And one such threat is an evil Lucifer being loosed upon the world."
"Exactly. The League had to prevent that-but as unobtrusively as possible. Heavy-handed interference like voices from the sky or direct warnings might ruin everything they hope for."
"But not prophecies or hauntings?"
The Lucifer-Rosalind shrugged. "They don't want to tell humans what to do. They don't want to direct you. They occasionally have to catch your attention; but they never interfere with your choices." She laid a hand on my arm. "Everyone who died made a conscious choice. Gretchen chose to leave the prison of her house, pursuing a new life as a sorceress. Myoko chose to abandon her pretense of weakness and use her powers at full strength. Oberon chose to throw himself on Xavier. Pelinor chose to be the one who faced Jode. Need I go on?"