The glow abruptly deepened to rose color. Flames erupted from the stern, amid shouts and screams from those on the tarmac. Now the whole stern was engulfed in flames; it dipped sharply, the airship was falling. It dropped beyond the hangars, and a pillar of smoke and flame arose into the baby-blue sky.
Someone said to the passenger who had just got off, "My God, what happened, do you know?"
"Beats me," said the passenger, and walked away across the tarmac.
"Stavros Pappageorge, the strongman who seized the reins of the Greek government two years ago, was assassinated today by a squad of paramilitary gunmen who burst into the dictator's hideaway on Cyprus. We have no word as yet about his successor. In Helsinki, the last of the zeppelins has crashed in flames. We'll have these and other stories-" The camera danced a little; there was a dull thump in the background. The talking heads looked startled, then alarmed. "My God," said one, "we are informed that-"
There was another thump, then what sounded like the rattle of automatic weapons.
"We're bailing out!" said the second head, tearing at his throat mike. The two men got up and ran off-camera, leaving an empty set.
After a moment a woman's smiling face appeared. "This is COSAI," it said. "There is no cause for alarm, although it appears that this studio is under attack by persons unknown. Until order is restored, I will continue to bring you the news from around the world. The military junta which deposed the former dictator of Greece-"
In Indonesia, Ken Levinson said to his visitor, "This temple was in ruins, you know, in the middle of the last century. Earthquakes knocked some of it down, there was war damage, people carried parts of it away. It took twenty years to get all the pieces back and put them together. It was like a gigantic stone jigsaw puzzle."
"It looks all right now."
"Indeed. Up these stairs. Now in this alcove, that's the Cow Goddess, who represents the Earth as Mother. You see how black and shiny she is in front? That's where thousands of worshipers have touched her for good luck."
"There used to be a statue of some Roman god in the Metropolitan that was the same way, only it was his dick."
"Yes. Well, now as we go up the spiral, these carvings on the balustrade tell the whole story of Hanuman the Monkey God and his war with Vishnu."
"That happened a long time ago, huh?"
"Thousands of years, Mr. Stone."
"So how do they know about it?"
"It was preserved in the sacred writings, the Baghavad-Gita."
"Oh."
"It took five centuries to make these carvings. Do you see how the style changes here? This is almost like art deco, isn't it? It looks French, I mean."
"Yeah, I see. Hey, that's interesting. But then this next part is more like it was before."
"Somebody disapproved of the innovation. Eastern art is very conservative, you know. Temples in this part of the world are always being restored and rebuilt. The carvings are eroded and have to be done over. But they are almost always done in exactly the same way."
"So nothing changes, huh."
"No, not until the world ends. They always knew it would."
Stone looked at the temple wall. "Even so, it's funny to think about leaving this behind."
"Yes."
As they were leaving, he asked, "What's this gray line around the base?"
"I don't know. That's odd, isn't it?"
CHAPTER 42
They were sitting in the kitchen of a house she had never seen before. She could tell it was the kitchen because of the exposed plumbing; all the fixtures had been ripped out, and wires were hanging from holes in the ceiling. The floor was linoleum, and they were sitting on wooden chairs like the ones she had seen in her grandmother's house years ago. It was dark outside the tall old windows, but she knew there was a neglected garden out there.
Stone was talking to her earnestly, trying to persuade her to do something. He said it was important. She couldn't remember what he was talking about, but she knew she didn't want to do it.
Finally she thought of the right way to explain it to him, and as she started to speak, she saw that his eyes were unfocused. He wasn't seeing or hearing her.
There was a faint red line down the middle of his forehead that hadn't been there before. As she watched, it seemed to run back into his receding hairline, then down the bridge of his nose, his upper lip ....It was widening, turning darker. His face was splitting apart, exposing the dark red meat and yellow fat inside. There was a faint unpleasant sound, like that of paper tearing. She stood up and began to scream. The two opposing halves of his jaws were swinging open like a door, each half with two rows of gray-white teeth bright with spittle. The tongue split, the neck split. Now his shirt was bulging, the buttons popping off; one of them hit her on the knee. His torso was opening, and something brown and shiny was coming out....
It was ten o'clock on the ninth of November, 2014, and Lavalle had been in front of the holo all morning. Nothing unusual had happened in Shanghai so far; loading had been suspended the night before.
"Well," said one of the talking heads, "there are still two hours until midnight, and of course, the watch will go on."
At midnight nothing had happened. At one o'clock Shanghai time, one of the CBC anchors said, "We're talking to Mrs. Joyce Filer. Mrs. Filer, it was you who brought suit against Ed Stone, alleging that he was really your husband Howard Filer who deserted you in twenty oh one, isn't that right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"How do you feel now that the deadline has come and gone for the aliens to arrive and take the Cube away to a distant galaxy?"
"I feel sick. Nobody listened to me, and now you see what happens."
"What has happened, Mrs. Filer?"
"They put all those people in that box, and they'll never get them out again. They're dead, and Howard killed them."
"Mrs. Filer, if this was a gigantic deception on Ed Stone's part, or Howard Filer's, what do you think his motive was?"
"He was crazy."
"Crazy how?"
"He thought the world was going wrong because of pollution and population."
"Mrs. Filer, standing back from this now, regardless of your own personal involvement, do you think there is any chance that he was right about that?"
"No, I think he was crazy."
The cab was parked in a little piazza near the Pitti Palace. A man opened the door and got in. ''Hotel Arizona, per favore,'' he said.
The cab driver started his engine, then looked in the rearview mirror and turned it off again. He turned around to look at his passenger. After a moment he said in English, "Are you Ed Stone?"
The man smiled nervously. "No, I'm one of his doubles. Well, hey, never mind." He got out of the cab.
The driver got out too and followed him. "What do you mean, doubles?" he said.
''I'm one of the guys that pretended to be him. Back off, will you?"
The cab driver moved closer. "You are Stone," he said, and hit him in the mouth. The man staggered but didn't go down. Two or three other men were drifting toward them. "Stone," said the cab driver, and hit the man again. This time he fell. "Hey, wait a minute," he said, looking up at them.
"Ed Stone?" someone asked.
"Yes. I'm sure of it."
People were running toward them across the piazza. Presently all those who could get near enough were kicking the man who lay on the cobbles. His eyes were open, but he did not seem to be conscious; except for grunts when air was forced out of his lungs, he did not make a sound. The men in a circle around him worked in silence; they kept on kicking him until he was dead, and for some time after.