More than once, Zeus' testily, sent back word. 'Know you that people barely manage the reality of life on Earth when it's directly in front of them. Remember my brother, I am Chief of the G.o.ds. The last word is mine! I decide how things are organised. You know full well that you cannot ask mortals to think beyond the Now. They cannot think round the corners of time and have to make up things to explain what they cannot see beyond the end of their noses. The problem of these last centuries is mine to manage. I don't need to be told by you that these ghastly mortals have lately unfavourably judged our Greek notions of Elysium and the Underworld, with their airy and ungrounded ideas of Yahweh's Heaven and h.e.l.l. They have conveniently forgotten that the wonder of Elysium is as much part of your dominion as is the doom-laden darkness of Tartarus where their uncivilised monsters are banished. We all know this was one of the details that Yhawhe fiddled with and which compromised my main reason for keeping your world quite separate from mine. They have made the serious mistake of separating Elysium and Tartarus into Heaven and h.e.l.l and they've got it badly wrong. They've enough to handle with their day-to-day reality without coping with the dimness of the past let alone getting to grips with the indefinable future.'

He had said this often, and at that time Yahweh was not even a glimmer in the eye of Judea. Hades had something of his own back by wresting Persephone from Olympus and had the added satisfaction of Zeus admitting the wisdom of it in the end. So the separation was not complete, cross-over between the realms had its uses in the present.

Hades, admonished, got on with supervising his world of time-past in its different realms until he saw that in the numbers game he was winning hands down. In addition the people in his realm were much more controllable, being known quant.i.ties. All he had to do was to put them to work to perfect what was already known and he would have the answer to all Gaia's problems. His dilemma now, was how to switch Zeus' failing creation with the successful one of his own. He hadn't given the subject a lot of thought until recently. From the time of his unasked-for position as head of the underworld, an occasional fit of pique had prodded him into helpless rage. On these occasions he thought how pleasant it might be to redress ancient injuries. Now he had the numbers, Gaia gave him the excuse and Zeus' last will and testament presented the opportunity. At such times Hades thought of Chronos. Now dwelling in a pleasant corner of Elysium, removed by him from the pitch darkness of his invisible dungeon where in a fit of post war revenge Zeus had banished him to keep enduring company with his base monsters. Hades thought it fitting that such a King should reside in comfort rather than continue wretchedly for ever in Tartarus. Zeus nevertheless continued to reminded him that Chronos was the defeated party.

'Hades', he said, 'Though you may now be the custodian of the past, never forget Chronos, created Time itself. None of us can forget that covetous of his creation he horrendously consumed us, his own children, to devour the future. We had to stop him, or he and his monsters would even now have their hold on the world. For the sake of civilisation he had to be vanquished, despite the incredible lengths he followed to ensure the impossibility of defeat by me, his youngest son. I, the one prophesied to bring about his doom, crushed and succeeded him. We brought intelligence and creative life to the world'.

In vengeance, even from the depths of Tartarus, Chronos worked on the conscience of Hades his eldest son. Zeus who used time creatively, was unable to stop Hades from softening towards his father, who would have time be still. Chronos enjoyed this latest paradox. Zeus, thief of his time, would be the unwitting agent who would set him free. Chronos at Hades' back worked on his dissatisfaction with his lot. Hades began to consider rebellion only when his exigent father from the comfort of Elysium prodded him, at first subtly, but latterly more overtly. The moment Gaia complained to Zeus of this last race of people, was the justification for which Chronos had been waiting for such an ache of time. He risked all on one final shove in Hades' direction. Without the vengeful Chronos, it would be interesting to speculate how far Hades would have gone on his own in defiance of the Law of Zeus. Without Chronos' implicit challenge would a New Trinity be possible? Would Zeus and Yahweh meet in one colossally sensational mind-meld? Would Alexander have been conceived? Would JNO have been invented and would...?

Such however is the joy of the timelines that jerks, twinges and tw.a.n.gles on one, resonate on all the others to make things change. Such speculation is useless and the only true story is the one to be read in the endless outward fan of the timelines; their origins locked tightly forever in Chronos' clenched fist. He would not ever let them go. No. Never. Certainly not into the hands Zeus, nor even those of Hades.

Gaia as has been said elsewhere, is the least fussy of the G.o.ds. She just wants everything to go well. She is built for comfort, for endless regeneration, she is expansive, fecund and inventive. If Europa's race and their way of life were to go, then for Her, Hades' people would do as well as Europa's. Better to usher in the end of their history and minimise the harm to Her than Her oblivion and early death. If people were to continue to inhabit Gaia, let it be a people for whom time was a used and known ent.i.ty. Its bankers rather than its speculators.

Marina resolutely drove her strong body over the rough ground towards the city. Apart from the procession moving slowly in her rear, the only other movement she noted was three crows in impossibly close formation gliding high on invisible thermals in the airlessness and she felt a cold frisson in the small of her back. She knew she must be watched. Knew she was alien here. She chuckled softly to herself at the thought. The ultimate alien. Product of complex racial strains, daughter of abuse, abused in her turn; she knew alien. Ate alien. Breathed alien. Immersed alien into herself and re-worked the fear, the differences, the falsity and ultimately became herself. The aliens' alien. Acceptable to herself, unconquerable - in charge. If being alien in this Firm's territory was supposed to get her down, then the people in this city would get a surprise. Still, no need to take silly risks. Rule number one in a strange place, is to make yourself as anonymous and as inconspicuous as possible. She knew from her experience of Barboncito the people here were likely to be strange, not necessarily unpleasant but different in the important respect of being unable to see ahead. She was beginning to get some insight into this rival land where a new sudden expectancy was now superimposed on a timelessness that stilled the air, all was hushed and waiting. Her mind was full of Alexander and an increasingly urgent feeling of the need to get him out before he did something irrevocable to keep him here on the wrong side of the Sipapu. How she knew this was not clear to her. She supposed it was something Pannie had said. She would find a vantage spot in the city and watch for the procession's entrance.

The first sign of humanity she encountered was a circle of thatched huts below the low ridge by which she descended to one of the main roads. It could have been a village anywhere, Africa, South America, a ring of Mongolian yurts, a Neolithic farmstead. Were in not for the fact she was approaching a sizeable city, she would have said she was entering a simple, basic human settlement. Entering the main area between two huts, she smelled food cooking and saw naked children playing with small black piglets in a little copse on the far side of the enclosure. The village was on a small rise and she was able to see the city sprawling into the bluish distance. The life of the village seemed to go on in total oblivion to the closeness of the city proper. To her left, through the gap between two huts, she saw village after village stretching to the horizon. She was entirely unable to explain how this vastness of village life had been invisible from her earlier vantage point of the canyon head. Clearing the village she entered a small town, followed by an orderly suburb through which she found herself walking uphill, along a wide boulevard, flanked by grand buildings and which led to a vast circular area much larger than Tianamen Square she had seen in Beijing. Posed in the centre, in the bull's eye, as it were, was a huge golden-pulpit accessed by a spiral-stair. The huge square was quite empty and eerily quiet.

She kept to the outside of the circle, and felt pairs of eyes watching her every move. Three crows, strangely flying wing-tip to wing-tip, circled overhead and were noticeable as the only movement. The square was built on the flattened top of a sizeable hill and from this vantage-point she could see that each different part of the city was separated from one another and seemed to confirm that village, town, suburb and central area, lived as if the other did not exist. The city was built in concentric circles, each band unaware of the others. There were hundreds of bands, like the rings of Saturn divided by the four roads like a giant dart-board. Each segment was built to contain vast numbers of self-contained people. To her simple eye, it was as though the circles grew from the inside, as if the centre of the inner circle, where the pulpit stood, pushed outward to create more and more circles which grew more city, more suburb and more village ad-infinitum. The imposing, pulpit glittered in the hazy light, expectant like those extravagant lecterns in the cathedrals of the world with their dominating but dormant air, waiting for the mult.i.tudes to arrive. The stillness of the place seemed to quiver with latent antic.i.p.ation.

Within the huge central circle, nothing moved but herself and the three crows. But now suddenly, she was aware that people of all kinds busied about in the quadrants and sectors of the city, as if in different time zones, unable or unwilling to communicate across an invisible barrier or enter the innermost circle. She had crossed the zones of the city without meeting anyone directly. She accepted the illogicality of this in the same way she accepted the illogicality of her situation. Having no objective grip on where she was, she ceased to search for one. Present reality was enough. She would reflect later if she was to come successfully through this to her other reality. Her objective was clear.

Alexander and his motley horde of followers was approaching. The circle at the summit of a long, low cone of land on which the city stood; offered just enough elevation to see over the roof-tops and she easily made out the dust of his slow advance. He would be there in some little while. About fifteen minutes, she reckoned, although she had positively no sense of time pa.s.sing in this place. It was as if time had no value and so went unmeasured. Time unclocked, was not time at all, she thought. Things can repeat as if they continually happened for the first time. Her immediate problem, however, was more direct than these involuntary thoughts. Where to put herself to observe Alexander without herself being observed and to think out a plan?

'Psst!'

The voice seemed to be more in her inner ear than an external sound.

'Oi Lady! 'You hearin' me?' Pannie's voice registered in Marina's mind like chalk grating on a blackboard.

'I hear you!'she did not attempt to hide the antipathy in her voice at this disturbing intrusion. Pan for his part sn.i.g.g.e.red quietly at her irritation.

'Ha! - Another one on 'er 'igh 'orse. They all gets ter like me in the end yer knows, Lady. Look Baby, does yer want my 'elp or don't yer? It's all the same ter me sweetie- pie. But I knows my way around 'ere an' you don't. Pick the bones outa' that!'

He had a point. This odious and disagreeable little man was part of 'Them.' The big question was on which side was he a player. She also wondered if it mattered to her. She was clear about her task. If Ljeschi helped well and good, if he hindered she would have to deal with him as best she could. So far he seemed to be behaving as if he was on her side. Go with the flow, she thought, until there is discernible dissonance. At present it all hangs together, so stick with it my girl - but be prepared for it to all unglue in a hurry.

'You're a bright spark,' Ljeschi continued. 'Can't think why Alexander let you go for that NightChant bird, 'cept I knows why really. Listen Lady, all you're thinking is dead right. Foller me an' you'll be okay. An' if you meets a real regal lady who seems ter know yer, do as she says. Don't ask no questions or it'll be too late, explanations require too much time, see? Oh yea, and watch out for three black crows, there's a good chance they'll be on your side too. Don't take no notice of what they looks like, 'cos they're changeable-like. The important thing is not to be scared of anything in here. Nothing can seriously hurt you, you'll get bad collywobbles from time to time, that's only natural, it's a funny place this Hades, that is for the livin', but a lot of it's in yer own 'ead like. It's hard to explain, if yer gets my meanin' so if it gets real confusin' the best thing's ter stop and take-five like, an' probably you'll find it's not so bad after all.'

'Okay me ole' c.o.c.k-sparrer!' mimicked Marina. 'Are you calling the shots? Or do I have to work it all out for myself? I'm going to trust you for the time being since you seem to know what I'm thinking so I can't have any secrets from you. That doesn't mean I have to trust you, which I don't! If you turn out to be a good 'un fine and dandy, if not, you can sling yer hook, ole' mate! You geddit! Ole' son!'

'You're a caution you are, no wonder the 'ole man's had an eye on you. P'raps if he'd waited a bit fer you instead of that other English bint things would've bin different.'

'What do you mean?' Marina asked.

'Nothin', sweetheart. Nothin'. Look 'ere, now we've got some understandin' of each other, let's stop the chat and get down ter business.'

'Sure,'grinned Marina without humour. 'Let's.'

'Right, Darlin'. You see that buildin' on the other side of the Ring of Time, to the right of the podium thingy. Well, if yer gets yerself up onner roof, you'll get a good view of what's gonner' appen down 'ere soon as your mate arrives with NightChant and his 'ordes as he likes to call 'em. They'll be 'ere soon.'

Marina calculated that if there was any verisimilitude to time as she knew it in this place, then Ljeschi was right and she'd better get herself into a better position to follow events. She followed his advice and entered the imposing hallway of the building he indicated. She searched ed for a lift to the top floor but found only a stairway. She put her foot on the first step and without knowing how it happened, found herself on the parapet of the flat roof, some ten stories above the 'Ring of Time'. She had no opportunity to consider this phenomenon, though somewhere in her mind she recalled what Ljeschi had said about this place being in her mind despite how real it felt, for her attention was fully caught by three different occurrences at the same time.

The first was the arrival of Alexander on his piebald pony, his woman at his back, followed by the vast mult.i.tude. Seen pouring into the vast s.p.a.ce, the throng came in waves, like water from a breached dam, only in slow motion and in utter silence. There was no roar of moving feet. No high chatter of excited voices. The crowd moved, layer by layer into the mighty circle, as if, being without end, it would as silently, but inexorably burst the buildings at its boundary, or be soundlessly crushed by them.

The second occurrence had begun without her knowledge about half-a-mile up in the blue to unexpectedly interfere with her amazement at the developing spectacle a hundred feet below. It took the form of an abrupt descent of three crows. Larger then life, they landed in a flurry of black feathers, and big yellowish, feet. One became entangled in her hair, a second firmly gripped her left shoulder, while a third nearly shoved her off her own perch as it landed squarely on her forearm.

The third event was the appearance on the spiral stair of the pulpit of two beings. She had seen enough of 'Them' by now to recognise their kind at once. Both were equally imposing, as strongly impressive in their different ways as Lucina herself, or Thea and Alexander. The tall, dark, masculine figure who precedeed the rest, as if it were the most natural thing, was complemented by the fair, regal creature who walked like a moving statue, two steps behind.

Enc.u.mbered by the three struggling giant crows Marina was unable to take in much of the proceedings. No sooner had they landed than they started arguing among themselves as if she was simply some kind of natural perch and not there in the flesh.

'Whose b.l.o.o.d.y silly idea was it to gallivant about in these crow outfits!' Marina was sure she heard the one on her left shoulder speak.

'Mine - ' said the one on her forearm. 'Want to make something of it!'

'b.l.o.o.d.y right mate!'said the one on her head, its feet raking her scalp in a panful effort to keep in place. After a couple of goes it roosted uncomfortably for her, but adequately for it, squarely on the top of her head.

'Stop it now!' yelled the one on her arm. 'You'll upset the lady!' The dishevelled bird stared directly at Marina who was not the least amused, although highly surprised by the speaking bird.

'Allow us to be introduced,' it said. 'On second thoughts, there's no time! Things are about to happen fast! Listen girlie, whatever happens next, think of one thing only! You think of that l.u.s.ty young man on the horse. You got that? Your job is to get hold of him tightly by any bit of him you can manage, and run for all you're worth - but keep hold! Don't you ever let go! Follow the woman on the back of the horse and do whatever she says however daft it seems. See the broad behind the fine got-up gent? Well she's going to make s.p.a.ce for the three of you. Ljeschi is likely to help if he can get near. Whatever happens don't let go of the lad, as long as you're connected to him it'll be alright. Like don't take any notice of anything else but keeping hold of him and run like the wind whatever happens!'

Marina was about to question the overgrown bird as if it were a person. But the tone it used was unmistakably commanding, and even as she considered the stupidity of the situation things began to happen. The other two crows took off, throwing her to the edge of the parapet. She was sure she felt the third shove her forward with its huge wing. Her ten story fall this time was no dream-like floating on a convenient current of air. This was the real thing - sudden loss of balance without being able to work out what happened, followed by a rush of wind and the absolute knowledge of total loss of control. Her training told her there was always time to work out at least part of what was happening, so she used the interval before hitting the ground to try and grasp if she had any possibility of getting out alive. In the enhanced, seconds of her descent she decided to give up all thought of survival and left it to the chance of the place. If most of what happened was in her head, maybe she wasn't falling at all? There was nothing she could do and anyhow that Ljeschi man had said she could come to no harm here. Well; she was about to find out if he was right. Just feet from the heads of the silently milling crowd, she felt herself lifted aloft again by two vast birds. The two crows, bigger now, had caught her by the shoulders and were flying her fast and straight at Alexander as he wheeled his horse to speak to the crowd. All she could think of was the crow's voice ringing in her head.

'Grab him and hold on! Run for the life of all the world!'

The giant birds flung her at Alexander's horse knocking him and NightChant violently to the ground. A roar rose from the hitherto silent crowd. The sound was terrifying. All her being, told her to cower in abject fear. Were her head not filled with the cry of the bird, she would have curled into a ball and tried to hide from its awfulness.

The uproar was like no other she had ever heard or would ever want to hear again. It was the world tearing itself apart. It was the full voiced cry of a million mothers seeing their children ma.s.sacred. It was the mult.i.tudes of the dying who knew for certain all hope of present or after-life having first been promised was now refused. Later she realised they knew. It was the ultimate betrayal. Alexander's promise was in pieces. He would not lead them to join with Barboncito, not pilot them up into the living world and re-populate it with the best of the past. Nor was Hades longer to be their Lord.

She put the awful sound as far from her as she could, but all the while it sapped at her strength. She never knew how she survived those few, swift, moments as she concentrated all her force on grasping Alexander's wrist. As soon as she had firm hold, indescribable things began to happen.

In the mad career that followed she was never quite able to piece all the events together. The sensations she felt remained with her always, a reminder of the untutored facets of her soul - aspects of which she suddenly knew with an absolute clarity she would have to know better. That all people would have to know better if the whole of her species was to be remade not destroyed.

What followed affected Hades the most, and Persephone and Hecate as NightChant more immediately, and since they knew exactly what was afoot, it would have been better had Marina been capable of considering events from a Hadean perspective. Nevertheless, Alexander, to his undying confusion and embarra.s.sment, never followed the chain of events half as well as Marina. Not that it affected his future standing in the world. Being part of it, it seems to have been enough.

Chapter 7.

Ric and Hep were the last to leave Markham for Ios. They did not go until GAIANET was hopelessly compromised. Their intuition, all their electronics, Hep's magical touch on the chips and digits; all useless in the end. Ric now easily recognised Barboncito's Fourthworld system as its virus, now grown into a full-blown disease, sucked GAIANET dry. Hep put it succinctly.

'This Barboncito, he steal our information from under our eye as we look Then he change what he do and that change our information before we can act. Like this we go always backwards.'

The group on Ios did its best with what it had, and the brilliance of its members was often enough to make initiatives take root or bring existing schemes forward despite Fourthworld. But overall, gradually, Penny and JNO lost ground. UNPEX once at least fifty two percent JNO controlled, was now only forty one by GAIANET's measure and slipping inexorably. At this rate by 2012 the balance of global influence would be pa.s.sed to Fourthworld leaving JNO at practically zero.

The need for a change of strategy was urgent. Lucina for her part kept the news from her husband. He had other stratagems up his sleeve if she failed, and for the first time she felt vulnerable to Hades' strength. She hoped Themis, would succeed where she had failed, hopefully without the need for Ares and Athena's warlike alternative. All out war again made her shudder especially now that Yahweh was in the frame. It was better to follow Zeus' wish and cut their losses if it came to war and start again elsewhere with a clean slate somewhere in the universe. But the thought of such vast a waste of aeons of effort, made her redouble her efforts with Penny and JNO. At Lucina's insistence Penny agreed to wrap up GAIANET at Markham and call Ric and Hep to Ios. Fourthworld might as well have GAIANET.

Certain modifications were made to HIGO to slow Barboncito and his boffins down as much as possible. Ric was able to tell Penny that so far at least, Fourthworld had not yet been able to use HIGO effectively to interpret GAIANET. He imagined as a matter of course they knew about it, and used it. Unlike Hep and himself, its inventors, Fourthworld had to work out properly how the software worked. His modifications would eventually destroy the value of its interpretive accuracy, and give him and Hep enough time, for them to subst.i.tute their new communications gizmo which, if it worked, would, at a stroke, change human life on the planet for ever.

For Hep and Ric to get to Ios in these days was no simple matter. The chaotic Eastern Mediterranean was out of bounds to all but specially selected UNPEX personnel. The serious inundation of the Nile-Delta had effected the whole area in ways that were not merely geographic. A vast migration from the poor south to the relatively richer north was in constant flow. UNPEX resources were stretched to their utmost and it was hard to see how they could stop the flow without ma.s.sive bloodshed. Violence was a daily occurrence. The papers were full of UNPEX troops firing at the increasing number of armed migrants who were determined to shoot their way into the productive high ground in Europe. Conditions prevented Ric hidden in Markham, to effectively use his connections with people who organised travel permits, not even the normally resourceful Doris Botham could arrange matters fast enough. Given the compromised nature of GAIANET, use of the computer for communication with Ios was out of the question. Fourthworld must never know of Ios nor of their new invention, or JNO might as well throw in the towel now. The ordinary satellite phone system was also too insecure. Fourthworld interlopers had more or less effectively shut down Markham as the switchboard for exclusive information, fortunately, thanks to Hep's screening system, without yet having discovered its physical location.

Hep and Rick worked in one of the comfortable lounges in the now otherwise uninhabited building. The staff had transferred to other JNO operations in an attempt to weaken GAIANET's power before it was inevitably and finally conquered by Fourthworld Corporation.

Ric had his new equipment boxed and ready for transportation, though he had no idea how this was to be achieved. Every time he mentioned the problem to Hep, he waved his huge paw in dismissal, and Ric had worried a little less and got on with the business of packing the highly compact, but fragile equipment. When it was all done Ric and Hep relaxed for short while.

'Okay, Hep, that's the lot, I'm already to go.' Ric slumped in an armchair and sipped a fine old malt, relishing the first hit of the liquid on the back of his throat. He was very tired.

'Sorry could not help too much with new gear. But work on means of transport to Ios.' Hep never drank spirits, 'You remember Refraction, something I play with for long time. This how we get to Ios.' He folded his k.n.o.bbly, muscular arms across the brick wall of his chest, his broad smile the entrance to a cavern. 'We put all in 'Merc' and then I show you refraction, new-style, invented by me. First you communicate with Penny.'

'What! But I've packed everything on the basis that it's too dangerous to pin-point Markham as a place we ever occupied, and without using the new gear there's no way I can contact Penny safely.'

'Of course,' boomed Hep cheerfully. 'But I must test new gear in work conditions.'

Ric had no doubts the system worked but it was still highly experimental. It needed scaling down to wearable proportions. He observed the four small packets, the size of one pound chocolate-boxes. They worked linked together but needed too much external power and were as yet too bulky to be comfortably wearable. It was a long way from their goal of a miniature wrist set.

'How long for you to make hook -up? asked Hep.

'But I've just packed it very carefully, You should have asked me to use it earlier!' Ric said exasperatedly.

'If I said use it before for serious work what would you say to me?' Hep bored his eyed into Ric's.

'I would have said it's too experimental and there's no way of knowing if it would work without all the laboratory precautions and I wouldn't have let you do it.'

'Exactly. You make my point. But do we not have to tell Penny we leave Markham and leave GAIANET to Barboncito's peoples? Do we not have to demonstrate it to her as we promise? She need to know we come with promise of better things. You can't seriously expect Ios to continue to think GAIANET work for us when it not in our hand at all. In next hour we abandon computer for new communication system and must use it and work on it at same time. You sit in car and work system. You talk to Ios and I use refraction to do fast transportings to Ios. No one notice us I promise.'

There was still much Ric did not understand about Hep. It was clear he was one of 'Them', but if ever Ric tried to draw him out, Hep was able to shift the discussion so Ric was not sure he had heard him. Nothing Hep did surprised Ric any more. He seemed to have total control over all the detailed matter of the earth and the building blocks of the universe itself. He seemed to have the secrets of all the physical sciences and could trans.m.u.te anything into anything else. It was all just a simple matter of re-arranging atoms and molecules. Ric was sure the work they did together at Markham was deliberately scaled down in difficulty and sophistication for his benefit - purposely made human sized. In the car Ric rigged the boxes to fit somewhat awkwardly round his waist in a spaghetti of wires and leads and plugged a wire into the cigar lighter electricity supply 'Hep, if we're to use this system for real, we've really got to miniaturise these components. It'll work like this - just - but I can't be lugging all this gear about.'

'Don't worry, on Ios we make new components, now I want to know system works in real world. Is power on?'

'Yes,' said Ric.

'Good. Put to head,' said Hep.

Ric attached to his temple the flat electrode which trailed from the last box. He rapidly punched with two fingers at a small palm held computer, linked to another box. No sound came from any of the boxes and had there been a casual observer, nothing seemed to occur. Ric, on the other hand entered into a strange new world. Had he been able to discuss this with Alexander he would have been amazed to find he already knew the feeling. Ric's mind seemed able to probe outside his own body, and feel outwards into the ether. Time and distance fell away from him and he searched for a particular set of co-ordinates using the hand-held computer to direct him. He shook his head, this was taking too long, the link needed to be instantaneous. This box of tricks, while working, was still far too slow to be of any use. He had already punched in the key code which corresponded to Penny's pre-recorded, mind-wave pattern. Tuning in to her so far away pushed the technology to its far outer limit. He fine-tuned and fine-tuned for what seemed like ages until he felt a thought-wave cross his own. The sensation was remarkable. He had only so far used the machine with Hep, who linked easily with it when they were both plugged in and seeking each other. This time it was one-way traffic, and while the process was the same, the margin of difficulty was several magnitudes higher. He was certainly in touch with someone, but he was not sure with whom. The finger of his mind probed delicately, guided by the last number of the twelve digit code. He would be able to initiate communication with Penny but, without a similar box of tricks, she would not be able to call him up independently. He was just at the point of giving up and telling Hep they were still too far away from getting the thing right when his hand-set bleeped and the screen showed he had connected. The investigating finger of his mind was connected with Penny.

She was in the topmost white house on the hill high above the sea on Ios. She and Lucina were concentrating hard on ensuring effective relief operations in the deltas of the Nile and Ganges. Particularly large migrations were currently being opposed violently by UNPEX forces representing Western countries who had all on coping with the problems they already had. Initially, in this situation, JNO's dispersed workers had managed to direct operations. UNPEX, under their influence, had been forging new linkages between nation-states and regional groups, and by the slow, but steady application of co-operative ventures, the world began to cope with the changes wrought by Gaia. While the balance was finely drawn, JNO was in the lead. By now however, the chaotic forces represented by those searching for more immediate and simple solutions, pointed to every act of terrorism, every riot and crime-wave as if in proof of the failure of JNO methods. The UN became no more than a talk-shop, while chaos crept like ink from a spilled pot over the map of JNO's influence obliterating it slowly. Penny was forced to concentrate the central organising force of JNO in Ios. The little island was crammed with its people, working in the background of the world. Ios was a busy and invisible ship, not moving but nevertheless covering the world. Jam-packed with technological gadgetry used by some of the world's best brains, with Penny at the helm, a.s.sisted by Lucina.

Franklin T Colwyn, fully recovered, worked with Lynne Farrell to ensure the world's media was swamped with JNO propaganda. So far, they had used GAIANET and HIGO linked into satellite TV and radio systems and battled with Fourthworld for viewer loyalty. People could be forgiven for being confused by the conflicting ideologies emanating from these sources. With the developing chaos outside most people's control, Fourthworld's appeal was to make people blame the authorities who were not offering immediate solutions. JNO was marginalised and the majority of the world's population were lemming like, rushing towards the cliff edge. A new initiative was needed and that, fast. At the precise moment Ric made mind-contact with Penny she was preoccupied using GAIANET to countermand orders from UNPEX to send aircraft-carriers to the Eastern-Mediterranean to launch an all out attack on the North-African hordes sweeping across Egypt and up the Israeli coast, and to repel the armada of small boats making for the Greek and Italian ports.

The impact of Ric's mind on hers in the middle of hard concentrated work had the force of a sledge-hammer. She had to stop what she was doing and give all her concentration to this new phenomenon. While she had been expecting it, she had no way of knowing when it might come, any more than Ric could have precisely forewarned her. She hoped, after the first impact, that it was possible to get used to this ma.s.sive invasion of her privacy.

'Penny, it's Ric.' He spoke a number as one does to confirm connection to a telephone caller. He communicated hastily wanting to rea.s.sure her she was not going mad. They had arranged the number code so that when he used the new system she would not be alarmed. It did not however prevent her being extremely surprised.

'Ric!' It was less her voice he heard than a connection of thoughts. The communication that followed was not a conversation but a thought-mix. Understanding was mutual and immediate. There was no he-said-she-said followed by processes of interpretation. Communication was immediate and complete. As conversation it would have been a little like: 'Ric, so you've got it to work!' said Penny.

'Just about,' said Ric. 'So far it's one-way only, me to you, and I'm the only person in the world able to do this. But before we talk about it, I've got to tell you we've packed up here and are on our way to you. Hep's got a way of getting us to Ios without needing the normal formalities.'

'What's the news of Fourthworld?' asked Penny.

'That's what I'm calling about, this is the only long distance person to person form of contact that I know is quite secret so I'm sure no one is listening in. We're leaving Fourthworld to GAIANET. They've hacked in so completely that they have the same information as we do. They don't have access to HIGO but they must be working on their own interpretational software or if they've got the sense I think they have they'll use GAIANET to find HIGO for them. I've built in some errors to put them off the scent, but after a while GAIANET itself will iron them out. I just hope it gives us enough time to get this new gadget up and running. In the meantime, I think GAIANET's got a few weeks life in it yet, so we've left the Mainframe running at Markham.'

'How will we know when we're fully compromised?' asked Penny. 'Mind you we'll be able to go on using the same information in parallel with Fourthworld for as long as we like, won't we?'

'Sure. Until they find Markham and switch us off,' said Ric. 'But we'll lose the advantage we've had so far.'

'That's been the case for a while already,' said Penny. 'I don't know how it happens that Fourthworld undermines us as thoroughly as they do. It's as if they have more people on their side. For every recruit for JNO we get, they seem to get two or three for Fourthworld. But it's great this thing works, get it here and we'll work on it. We'll have to refine it a lot, I found it a great shock and I've been expecting it. G.o.d knows what it'll be like for other folk who've no idea such a thing exists. Thanks for the information about GAIANET and we expect you when you get here. Christ, what a way to communicate! This will really give us the advantage we've been searching for.'

During the mind-mix Penny and Ric found themselves merging further and further into each other's thought processes and knew without doubt how they felt about each other. They were subliminally aware of a danger of entwining so deeply as to blur the edges of individuality. They were both surprised at the effect and used their basic instincts to break off before they 'got lost.' They were both hugely relieved at the relatively little effort of will it needed to break apart. This was a new tool that would take some getting used to.

'Look Ric,' said Penny. 'Fascinating as this is, I'll have to ask you to break off, one because it's so deliciously amazing I don't want to do anything else and two I'm in the middle of something important. Just get here and we'll deal with the development of this great gadget.'

He switched off the connection and came to himself with a jolt. For a few seconds he felt more lonely than he had ever thought possible. The personal isolation of the human mind behind the relatively crude symbolism of spoken language loomed like a wall between himself and everyone else. It was as if he had never really communicated with anyone ever before. The breaking of the mind-mix with Penny left him, facing a mountain of personal adjustment so huge he could not contemplate ever scaling its enormity. Nevertheless, the only solution he could think of to the problems facing his species, lay in the development of this box of tricks. There was not much time before the 2012 deadline to do it. Communication had to be global and instantaneous. People had to do more than know things. They had to communicate real feeling and act decisively, individually and instinctively in ways that they knew were correct for their species in a proper relationship with the Earth. To ground their intelligence once again in the clay of their creation and incorporate their intellectual capacities without forgetting their origins. To be themselves, as clever monkeys, this time knowingly, and not as the owners of all they saw to behave in any way their spirit dictated. Ric was not sure where this notion of 'correct' species behaviour had come to him from. A boffin through and through, his whole life before, before what? Before Lucina! It came to him in a moment of revelation that the conversation he had with Lucina had been about exactly that. She had taken the scientist, concerned with pure development of physical things, and human ideas and related his work and that of all his colleagues, not to the enhancement of human progress, but to the development of the best possible relationship of people to Gaia. From that moment he was in partnership with the entire planet, and through her to the universe, as her son, Her child, owing his life, his future and the future of his kind for evermore, to the only Mother/Provider. Based on Her structures, using Her materials he was only himself in consequence of Her. He began to understand what he admired so much about Hep was more than just his phenomenal control of physical matter. He used the substance of the earth with pride and with care. He wasted nothing. He threw nothing away. What he did caused no detritus, no pollution, no left-overs deemed as useless. Everything was usable and to be respected for its proper place in the complexity of the perfect, balanced and life-forming, material of the world, with or without people.

He realised his view of the world before Lucina spoke, was partial, one sided, humanised. She taught him that a world which had managed to produce the astonishing fact of his species, was worthy of his ultimate intellectual respect and his unconditional devotion. And, he thought, what had he and his ilk given her up to now? We don't own the world and cannot make it our private playground. Our lack of respect is killing Her and with it ourselves. Everyone who thinks seriously for more than two minutes about it knows this is the truth. He hoped fervently that the machine he and Hep had invented could release into the public realm this buried knowledge which was as yet held privately. It would be touch and go. There were too many painted-on, hardened layers of culture in the way, like a carapace over the minds of Europa's children. They are the dominant percentage of the world's population and the most destructive. Information alone was not knowledge, wisdom was not just the ability to order information. But there was no time to find different ways to get a better understanding of the nature of this race and change the mind-set to save it. This new communicating machine was the last throw of this particular dice. Utter understanding had to come immediately and universally and prove quick and effective action. Hep's gadget was their last chance and they had to make it universal, cheap to make and simple to use - very soon.

Chapter 8.

Zeus sat alone on his golden throne on the top floor of the JNO building in New York, the lower floors of which, had had for a while now been rented to UNPEX.

Lost within himself, he built thought on thought into a towering pillar of pure mental energy. Locked inside himself he grew big with thought. He was pure sapient energy. The s.p.a.ce he occupied filled with him as if he would burst the world and shatter it. Through his ma.s.sive head ran the whole destiny of humankind. At the centre of his being the Chief of the G.o.ds forced together, as through the waist of an hourgla.s.s, all the timelines from the past out and far into the future. He gathered up the past, and let it flow through him, and saw it spread like an aurora-borealis into the far-distances of the Universe. He loved the creative accident contained in the colourful swirl of timelines, loosed through him from the strict order of the past and now brimful with possibility. He was the prism of the world, shooting lines of the past far into the future. Soon he would deal with Hades. Chronos he knew for certain, better than the rest of his tribe, had no stomach for another t.i.tanic battle. He knew Chronos better than them all. He had waged war with him before. How come he was the undisputed Chief and not any other of them? Defeated generals if they are lucky to survive wars, are never stupid enough to challenge their Nemesis again. Though Chronos boasted to Hades that he thirsted for revenge, Zeus knew better. The visit of Ares and Athena with Themis was no more than a distraction. The Underworld would see them as the strategic priority and spend more time on them as known ent.i.ties than the obscure Alexander. Even now his son was bringing Hades to him. Chronos was pre-empted, his big talk so much hot air.

The real task was to face the He who with His Own Son had separated this race of mortals from Gaia to divorce the human spirit from Zeus' Earth. He would strike a bargain with Yahweh. Now was the time to correct the connections between people and the Earth. To make things proportionate.

But how to make contact with the Great I AM, the Jealous G.o.d? Throughout the long campaign he had set running with the conception of Alexander, he had been brooding on this moment. It accounted for his preoccupied air noticed by Hera. For his walking about Ios, for his peremptory summonsing of Persephone, for his irritation with Alexander's slowness, and in part for those elements of change in the weather which was not Gaia's doing entirely. His rawness of feeling about the arrant stupidity mortals, meant he was less inclined to control the skies than was his wont in the past, when he had liked them better.

His deliberations of the best way to ensure a viable working contact with Yahweh had led him to eschew many different approaches, from the direct to the highly serpentine. Some were downright laughable and others extremely dangerous for the psychic and even the physical survival of mortals. Large powers, big energy, fundamental thoughts, monumental shifts were elements in this game of games. In the end he went for straight-forward options. He began by thinking about loosing a direct attack on His Heaven, not unlike that he had launched on poor Chronos. This bizarre Heaven of His couldn't after all be that well defended from frontal attack. Any G.o.d that believed he was not only omnipotent but the only G.o.d there was, couldn't possibly fear attack from any quarter. It was a conceptual fault easily exploited. He had thought about this for a long time. In his mind he arrayed his battle formations and counted his battalions, considered his strategy. He concluded, not without some amus.e.m.e.nt, that even if he could find this Heaven of Yahweh's, since it wasn't anywhere he knew of, and he knew the skies better than any G.o.d, and supposing his hordes triumphed easily, what would it avail? He didn't want to conquer Yahweh, that way nothing would change for the future - he needed him as an ally. The New Trinity included the Yahweh/Christ unity as it included himself and the Hades/Chronos alliance. He cursed that he had not been aware of the incredible apotheosis of this new G.o.d at the time when all this would certainly have been easier. Then, proper pride in his own victories had superseded all other considerations. While he spotted some strange goings on in that obscure little country on the other side of the Mediterranean, he thought at the time it was no possible threat to him. By then those murderous Romans had already reworked his own Pantheon to fit their less sophisticated, blunted brains than those of his beloved, subtle, Greeks, and that was good enough in the circ.u.mstances. He had ignored new and different stirrings in the same place. Now he knew he ought to have taken more account and even put a stop to that last extravagance which had such profound consequences for everything afterwards.

He had his Pantheon, his own Mount Olympus. He had to admit it was pretty good. A d.a.m.n-sight better than that raggle-taggle, monster-ridden mess Chronos had allowed to sp.a.w.n all over the place. He had brought some sense to the world-order of the time. He gave this fifth-race of mortals something tangibly recognisable in the tangled complexity of a hard to understand universe. A little patriarchy did no harm as long as mortal nature was allowed to maintain its earthy connections and he supplied enough of those to keep things nicely in balance. Of course he'd had to knock their worst fears and propensities on the head and lock them securely in the underworld, out of harm's way where death could have its place sensibly out of the world of the living. Sure, he thought, a little patriarchy in a belief system was okay to set a general direction out of chaos. But this obscure G.o.d from a nonent.i.ty of a people, in an outlandish desert, had gone too far. He had to own everything, had to follow patriarchy to its logical conclusion. At least I am big enough to recognise the error in me and share things out a bit. The pity of it is He can't. So He won't have anything to do with me. He's so far beyond me that I don't even exist as an enemy let alone an ally, The joke is He thinks He's fully absorbed me into Him. It's no surprise those chosen people of His are called stiff-necked.

Zeus's frustration at this last thought was almost enough to make him give up the whole struggle. How, he thought, can you communicate on equal terms with an ent.i.ty who thinks you are already part of Him? - When you know you are not! Even if I could manage it, how do I get over that cleverest trick of all, the transcendence of nature - His very trademark! How do I reframe the ideological shift He used to such an effect by changing for mortals my own mythic-archetype? From a Gaia shared by all types of being, to a Gaia given to mortals, provided they followed their new Patriarch in total faith, having no other G.o.ds before Him, into a life beyond nature. What Zeus feared most was that Yahweh did not give a fig for Gaia. There were other Gaia's for experimentation if this one failed. Zeus would not let The Mother be played with for the gratification of One who believed the Great Earth Mother was contained within Him, absorbed by Him, become 'inner' and thus secondary. While Zeus had occasionally thought of going so far, his instincts had thought better of it. If only he had noticed this rival in the desert sands, with his strange new idea of a covenant.

Of course it was too late for recriminations. At the time no other deity of note had believed in the absurdity of this covenant. G.o.ds just didn't make such thorough-going bargains with mortals. It was simply too dangerous. It led to too much unpredictability. It had so far split Earth from Heaven and allowed those mortals who signed up to think they were beyond the Earth, each one of them. That they had G.o.d with them in their development of this primal split. The last trick with the Son of Yahweh went beyond a joke. Not only could each person sign up and get their reward, but they could do it directly through the Son without the need for other intermediaries. They could do it person to person, in private, at any time they liked, in Zeus' own Now. No public offerings to tell where a person stood, no oracles for the world to judge, just private conversations. The route to Heaven was thus made available to anyone who wanted to travel there, as never before.

So Zeus brooded on, They made me the Anti-Christ for sticking by the Earth Mother, I, my Pantheon, my work and my love of mortals and my care of the Earth was made anathema. Well I've got news for this intellectual G.o.d of the 'Word' made Flesh. What about the Flesh made Earth, and the Earth made dead? How about that! Where will all those who've signed-up to his covenant be then? Will He (Blast this capital 'H'!) let Hades suck up all the quick into Him so the dead inherit the Earth? - With what then will He people His heaven? From where will His spirit come? When will He finally accept I am anti His Christ, and good thing too! When will He join us and so allow us all to move beyond the personal lives of this race of people and out into the cosmic universe available to all life. I, the champion of the Now - combining with Him, Chronos and Hades, to enter each individual and leave our wisdom within them and disappear; so mortals can heal Gaia themselves, through their changed natures. To make a new Trinity, an innovative paradigm, a new-fashioned mythology, where mortals live as guardians of the Earth their maker. Let their spirit be bonded with the Earth, not aiming loftily at a nowhere Heaven.