Snake Oil - Waiting For The Galactic Bus - Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 38
Library

Snake Oil - Waiting for the Galactic Bus Part 38

YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT PROBLEMS? FORGET IT.

No help there.

Sorlij and Maj demanded to see Coyul as well. They assumed he was in the other messy pool of post-life energy.

"Coyul calls it Below Stairs. Very much like this place," Barion explained. "Just less organized."

Sorlij tried to imagine a place less organized than this. The concept was a challenge. "Well, we'll be taking you both back. And if you or Coyul have perpetrated what every indication leads us to believe, it's the Rock."

"Premature seeding with no authority." Maj shook her head in dire accusation. "You've always been spoiled, self-satisfied, self-indulgent and undisciplined, and now it's all caught up with you."

Augustine had lost any sense of direction or meaning in the discussion. "What means all this?"

"What it means, dismally, is a specimen like you," Sorlij snapped at him. "Please don't interrupt. What did you start with, Barion? Must have been far below standard CT."

"About nine hundred cc."

Maj blanched with utter shock. "Nine - "

"But that was part of the experiment," Barion amended quickly. "Combining augmented intelligence with the raw animal. You must consider success along with failure. I've produced some admirable specimens."

Augustine's brows shot up. "You have produced?"

"Yes. You may not be the most tolerant of men, but you did change the shape of European history and thought."

"Nine hundred what?" Augustine didn't understand any of this; there was a sensation in his stomach akin to indigestion that hinted he didn't really want to, but he must. "What is a CT?"

"There's another truth I want in your report," Barion went on, ignoring Augustine, who was suddenly seeing the fetch-and-carry bane of his existence in a new and horrible light. "Coyul wanted no part of this experiment. He was against it from the start."

"Anything that took him away from his silly music," Maj noted with honeyed malice. "We'll be questioning him, too."

"Well, Below Stairs is a bit chaotic, but my brother does what he can to keep things tidy."

"Your brother?" Augustine began to make even more unpleasant connections. "Your brother?"

"Coyul," Barion admitted with fraying patience. "Your Grace has given him less flattering titles. Please don't interrupt." He turned back to Sorlij and Maj, urgent. "Coyul is helping me now with a vital corrective measure. There's a girl Below Stairs. She's very important. You must let us complete it."

"This is enough to make a man mad," Augustine despaired. "No one knows where God is. All manner of undesirables wander in from anywhere" - a pointed glare at Sorlij. "One has to put up with heretics like Pelagius and that barbarian Luther - "

"Who is very much like you," Barion cut him off with even more fragile patience. "Utterly sure he's right and the rest of the world will realize it one day. Your Grace will recognize the tendency."

"Barion." Augustine drew himself up in last-ditch desperation. "What do you mean you produced - you and your brother - are you saying that you created the world?"

"Of course not. You were already here . . . sort of. I just improved you."

"THEN WHERE IS GOD?".

"A fine rhetorical. Where indeed?" Sorlij acknowledged. "But don't confuse the creature, Barion. He can't understand any of this."

- as the new message tinged with panic whispered into Barion's mind:

CHARITY READY BUT EMERGENCY REPEAT EMERGENCY AT CLUB BANAL.

What could happen at the Club Banal? Barion wondered. The place was a definition of fail-safe mediocrity. Nothing ever happened there.

All this in a nanosecond plus a fraction more to remember the tyrannies of Murphy's Law and that this was definitely not his day.

For a strong man Augustine seemed suddenly juiceless and brittle, though he was never a frail spirit. The implication was nakedly evident. "Barion - are you . . . ?"

"This primitive is not important." Sorlij rode over him with brusque purpose. "There's a great deal we have to know."

"If you are," Augustine struggled, a tragic figure, "then where is the City of God? Where the majesty of the spirit, where the mystery, the fall or the redemption?"

"Augustine, not today," Barion warned at the end of his tether. "Not today."

"Yes! Today! If you are - "

"All right! I am."

"Then - what remains but madness?" Augustine drew on his last resources of intellect, courage and dignity, all formidable.

"Madness or low comedy. Shall we not then run wanton in the street? Why not? What remains?"

"A great deal remains, you relentless man," Barion said. "That I did build into that splendid mind I gave you. Though it's very like building a magnificent car for someone who obstinately refuses to learn to drive."

"You have riven meaning from existence. If you and these misbegotten sprites are gods - "

"You said it; I didn't," Barion countered. "You and your agonized ilk made it into heaven and hell, I didn't. The question was never fall and redemption but simply where and how high you can reach. There was a time when thunder and lightning were gods to your kind. The Egyptians improved on that. Moses built on them. Someone will build on you. That is the process."

"Barion, will you get back to relevance and stop wasting time on this creature." Sorlij jabbed a finger at the stricken Augustine in utter disbelief. "You think he understands any of this? You're talking to an ape."

"Well, that's the heart of it. I think he can. As long as I'm going to jail, one of the best minds up here along with Yeshua and Tom More ought to know what's happening." Barion regarded Augustine with a deep respect for that strong man's convictions and his own. "You can understand; I built you for it. You see, a long time ago, not far from where you were born, there was this monkey ..." .

31 - Roy Stride and the First Amendment

At the bar, Charity had one for the road with Elvira to say goodbye. She was very pleased with herself. "See old Virgil finally walk out? Guess I did the Lord's work today."

"Topside's very nice when you're ready for it, dear. Hello, Mr. Pebbles. Mineral water as usual?"

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Grubb." Leon set a tight-wrapped package by his stool. Charity tapped it with her toe.

"What's that? More health food?"

"Absolutely," said Leon, even more febrile than usual. "Makes the system efficient." He scooped up his drink and package and headed for an empty table near the bandstand.

"Don't know what I'm ready for, Elvira," Charity reasoned, "but I sure know what I'm finished with, so I guess it's time to go."

"Good luck, dear. By the way, someone's been asking for you over on the bandstand."