Chapter 14 - DECISION

They returned to the mortal realm and to Luna's house. Two more years had passed, and now the crisis of the vote was upon the world.

Roque explained it, after Vita had had her passionate fling with him. "All over the world, wherever those who follow the Christian God hold sway, the vote has been taken: whether to declare the Office vacant, so that the remaining Incarnations can name a new Incarnation of Good. Those who follow other Gods have not participated, but are watching with interest, because it is the warlike Christian forces that are generating the pressures leading toward World War Three. That war would destroy the non-Christians, too, you see. So the fate of the world does hang on this decision. It is widely believed that only the establishment of a new Deity can enable the Incarnations to alleviate the pressing problems that have arisen in the past few centuries."

"Then why is there any fuss about it?" Vita asked, for of course she was in control of her body now. "Why not just put in a new God and save the world?"

Roque smiled indulgently. "This is reminiscent of the problem of the Constitutional Convention in America. On occasion an effort has been made to convene one, but it has failed because too many are afraid that the Convention would not necessarily limit itself to the issue for which it was convened. Once the genie is out of the bottle—"

"Nobody can put it back! Gotcha! But you know, if I had to choose between the genie and World War Three, I'd sure take my chances with the genie!"

He stroked her hair, a gesture so natural and loving that Jolie felt a wash of love for him herself. "Surely you would, my straight-speaking delight! But there are those who doubt the inevitability of war, and those who hope to make some significant profit from it, and, of course, the forces of Satan are active. An ad hoc coalition has formed in opposition to this move. Its elements are remarkable: many leaders of Christian denominations, and those who support Satan. They prefer the existing order and distrust any change—and I cannot say that their concern is unjustified."

"Hey, which side are you on?" she demanded.

"The side of sanity, my earthly angel. Consider the consequence if a nominee of Satan's were to achieve the Office of the Incarnation of Good. Satan is the Lord of Lies: he might arrange for a seemingly good person to be chosen—and thereafter Satan's will would govern."

"But Satan is fighting the change!"

"So he claims. But how can we know what is in his mind?"

Satan did say something about a deal with Nox, Jolie thought. Still, he seems to have more to gain by maintaining the status quo.

Vita relayed that thought, and Roque agreed. "Satan is almost certain to gain if the vote is against the declaration. He will naturally go for the certainty, rather than take a chance. But he surely has a strategy to implement in the event he loses this vote. I merely point out that a case can be made: stick with the known situation, make no change, and let Satan assume greater power. He has no more desire for World War Three than the others do."

"But you don't really believe that!" Vita said. "Do you?"

He smiled. "No. I prefer to take my chances with a new God, arduous though the change may be at first. I am sure the Incarnations will not allow Satan to deceive them about any nominee. Still, it is certain to be a very difficult decision."

"Because Satan won't let any good man in, and the others won't let any bad man in," Vita said. "But they've got to agree sometime!"

"Sometime," he agreed.

Luna returned in the evening, looking worn. "It is indeed going to be close," she said. "The other bodies have come to a tie; tomorrow the Senate takes its vote, according to the terms worked out by arduous compromise. It is very nearly even there too."

"As it was fated to be," Roque said.

"As it was fated to be," she agreed grimly. "All my research and action has succeeded only in preserving parity: my vote will be critical. We have known it would come to this for twenty years, but it is not easier now that it is at hand."

"At least it will be done."

"My part, perhaps. But I will not be able to rest until I know there is an activist Deity in Office."

"Your endeavor has been selfless, for twenty years," Roque said. "There could not have been a better person to see it through."

Luna shrugged that off. "You will stay for supper?"

"Why, I was about to leave—" But he saw how tired she was. "Of course, my old friend. My support is always yours."

"Thank you." Luna lifted a bright garnet from the mantel, set it on the table and tapped it. The stone expanded, becoming irregular. It spread across the table.

It became a banquet for three, the sundry dishes steaming. "Gee," Vita remarked.

"My father was a Magician," Luna explained with a smile. "He left me a number of unusual stones. I use them only for special occasions, as ones of this nature are good for only a single invocation." She glanced at Roque. "If you will serve the wine..."

"With pleasure," he said, lifting a bottle from its cold support.

"But I'm underage!" Vita protested. "I'd better put Orlene on!"

"I believe you are now nineteen," Roque said. "In this region, eighteen is sufficient. The legal age of consent brings the rights to drive car or carpet, to vote, to serve in the military or social services, to eschew further schooling, to live apart from family, participate in such liaisons of whatever nature one chooses, and to indulge in the popular vices. There is no need to attempt them all at once, however."

"Oh. Sure. I forgot. But you know, I've only lived fifteen years."

He turned to Luna. "Does the calendar lie. Senator?"

Luna smiled. "We would not wish to accuse it of that. There is already enough deception elsewhere to concern us."

Roque poured Vita a small glass. She took it gingerly. She had had experience with the worst of drugs, Spelled H, but treated this glass as if it were her first flirtation with adult privilege—as perhaps it was.

It was a fine meal. When Vita's manners faltered, Orlene prompted her, so that she behaved like a perfect little lady. She reveled in it. Her appetite was excellent, after the two days in Purgatory.

"And what will the three of you be doing, after the decision?" Luna asked Vita. She seemed satisfied to relax with minor concerns, after her efforts to stave off world disaster.

"Gee—I guess Orlene and Jolie won't want to stay, once it's done," Vita said. "They only came to get me off the H and out of trouble." She clouded up. "But I don't know if I can make it alone."

"You need not be alone," Roque said. "You are now of age to marry."

"Yeah, I guess. But—" She did a double-take. "Hey, did you mean—I mean—" She gazed at him with round eyes.

"I suspect I do. I have been busy, the past four years, but the hope of a union with you sustained me."

"Oh, Roque! Of course I—" Then she sobered. "But you don't know me alone! I mean, from when I first met you I've had Orlene with me, and Jolie, too, mostly. Without them I'd be just an underage snot. I couldn't stand to turn you off like that!"

"Such is the sin on my soul, the very qualities that you feel are turn-offs are in fact turn-ons, to use your language. I do not think there would be a problem."

"I do! I'd get the shakes, trying to be a lady! It sure doesn't come naturally! But with them—oh, Orlene, Jolie, will you stay?"

Luna took another stone. "This will enable spirits to manifest tangibly within its ambience. Perhaps they should speak for themselves." The stone glowed.

Jolie moved out of the host and manifested in her own form. "Thank you, Luna."

Orlene followed, becoming as she had been after her recovery from the ravages of her death.

"I came to help Orlene," Jolie said. "I think she is now well established in the Afterlife, and no longer needs my support. I will return to Gaea, who needs me in another way." But as she spoke, a sadness came on her. She had enjoyed the company of both ghost and mortal, and felt alive. She had always known it was temporary, but it would be painful to leave.

"And you, Orlene?" Luna asked.

Orlene considered for some time before answering. "I fought to remain a ghost, uncommitted to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, so that I could try to rescue my baby. Now I know I cannot recover Gaw-Two, and somehow that is not the disaster I expected, for I have seen that he is in competent and perhaps loving hands. The Incarnation of Night evidently wanted him for herself, and I think I must accede to that in my heart as well as in practice. So I am without reason to remain among the mortals. But after what I have seen of Heaven and Hell, I think I do not care for either region. I think I would prefer to remain with Vita—if she truly wishes my company."

"Oh, yes, Orlene, yes!" Vita cried, standing to embrace her. The girl's hands and arms passed through Orlene's image without contact, but the gesture was sincere. "You—I need you so much, your maturity, your perspective, and if I have a baby—"

"Oh," Orlene said, awed by the thought. "You would share your baby with me?"

"Sure! What do I know about babies? I'd drop it for sure, or something."

They all had to smile at that. No woman dropped a baby! "But what we propose is not only our business," Orlene said. "Roque—"

"I have a confession to make," Roque said. "I have always liked and respected you, Orlene. As a matter of propriety, such as it was in the circumstance, I never expressed this to you. But what Vita says is true: your relative maturity and experience contributed to her appeal from the outset, and though I would be prepared to deal with her alone, I am also prepared to deal with the two of you. I have no objection to your continued presence."

"But I was being supported by Jolie!" Orlene protested.

"The same is true of her. While I have been delighted by Vita's uncritical enthusiasm, I have been reassured by the presence of maturity. For brief liaisons the enthusiasm is sufficient, but for an extended relationship, the maturity is necessary. The combination represents the complete woman." He shrugged. "But Jolie has another commitment. If you do not—"

"It seems I do not," Orlene said.

"I am pleased that some good has come of this ordeal," Luna said. "I asked Jolie to help with Vita because I was in desperate need of the services of Vita's mother, my researcher Vera. There was also a need for a temporary mortal host for Orlene. I had no idea that that liaison of temporary convenience would prove to be so significant. When Judge Scott got involved, there was another surprise." She smiled. "I had not realized that you were lonely, Roque."

"Neither had I," he confessed. "My career had taken up all of my attention, until Vita's first outburst made me aware that a buried dream might achieve reality."

"So it seems that despite the mischief of the Incarnation of Night, things have turned out satisfactorily on the personal level."

Roque frowned. "I am not certain that Nox's involvement was mere mischief. I happened to be along on one of her enterprises, and it seemed more like a course of education. She made clear that there has been a long history of magical and scientific interaction, with truth in both the Creationist and Evolutionary perspectives, and of course in the mergence that includes the interaction of the several Incarnations of Immortality. Why she should go to such trouble to impress this on a small selection of mortals and ghosts is a mystery to me. I would like to know her reason."

"I think I was the one she was after," Orlene said. "She took my baby, and put me through extreme unpleasantness when I sought to recover him, but she did tell me the way to succeed. Perhaps she thought I was neglecting my pursuit."

"What do you mean by unpleasantness?" Luna asked.

Orlene grimaced. "She turned me into a man. I—I let myself be overcome by the masculine impulse, and—" She shuddered. "One thing that taught me was the nature of the engine that is within men. It has caused me to be considerably more tolerant. One of the things that impressed me about Roque was his control of that same impulse; I saw that when tamed, it could be a good thing, just as fire when tamed is a most useful tool. But even where it ran wild, at least I understood how it could happen, and that enabled me to have some compassion even for rapists."

"Yeah, she really helped Kane!" Vita said. "He was going to rape us and kill us, and he went to Hell, but she helped him, and I thought she was crazy, but I guess she knew better than I did."

"Why should Nox care about the compassion of a ghost?" Luna asked.

"Maybe so I would better understand my son, when I got him back," Orlene said. "To know why the procedure for saving him was so complicated. Now I do understand, and I see also that she is equipped to handle him as he is, so it makes it possible for me to let him go."

"Which still does not explain why she should review Evolution with you," Roque said. "Or clarify the nature of the Incarnations, as also occurred when I was present."

"Yes, until that time I had not properly appreciated that God was an Incarnation like the rest," Orlene said. "Now I have much less trouble accepting the notion of His replacement. Otherwise I think I would have had to join the forces of Satan, in their support of the status quo."

"She was the one who sent you on a tour that introduced you to all the major Incarnations including God!" Luna said. "This grows more interesting."

"Well, of course, Jolie was along," Orlene said.

Luna looked at Jolie. "Satan's bride—and Gaea's handmaid," she said. "And Nox has had an interest in Satan. Could it be that all this was a device to distract Jolie for an extended period?"

Jolie was startled. "But to what point? I have no power—I'm a ghost!"

"Suppose something had happened to you?" Luna asked. "Such as getting lost in chaos, where even Incarnations could not find you?"

"Both Satan and Gaea would have been distracted, of course, in much the manner Vita's mother was distracted by Vita's absence, but—"

"Between them, those two Incarnations hold the balance of immortal power," Roque said. "With God not functioning, that would leave the entire Incarnations framework in peril. Could it be that Nox essayed a devious ploy to wrest power from the Incarnations of Day?"

They gazed at each other, mutually horrified. Suddenly the great mystery of the actions of the Incarnation of Night was being resolved. Orlene had been used as a decoy to distract Jolie, and meanwhile Nox had been active, sometimes openly, sometimes covertly—who knew to what extent? Satan had mentioned a deal he had made with her, to do something Nox's way. To do what, what way?

"I don't think this is over," Jolie said.

"I think the Incarnations of Day had better get their act in order in a hurry," Roque said.

"I think you, Orlene, had better remain with me for the next few days," Luna said. "And Vita and Roque too. You, Jolie, should return immediately to Gaea, where you will be safe until the current issues are settled."

"Yes." Jolie turned to Orlene. "I must bid you adieu, for the time being. It has been wonderful being with you—and with you, Vita!"

"But come back when it's over!" Vita cried as Jolie faded out.

"When it's over!" Jolie agreed. Then she was racing through the ether, home to her drop of blood on Gaea's wrist.

She arrived safely. It had never before occurred to her that she could be in danger; ghosts were proof against molestation by mortals, and not of much interest to immortals. But Nox had all the powers of the night, and it was evident that she could touch ghosts when she chose.

That business of making Orlene into a man, for example: they had assumed that this was intended to discourage Orlene from her quest for her baby. But suppose she had intended to get Jolie raped? How would that have affected Satan, or Gaea? Had Nox believed that Jolie, shamed, would have vacated the drop of blood that tied her to the mortal realm and gone to Heaven as a spirit, so that Gaea could no longer arrange private liaisons with Satan? Or, later, in the debate between Creationism and Evolution had this been intended as a wedge between Jolie and Orlene, to break up their association?

It was impossible to know—but certainly a case could be made for it. Nox might have sought first to put Jolie and Orlene together, and then to foment stress between them, whether sexual or intellectual. All this could have been a mere bypath on the Incarnation of Night's larger play for mischief. Now that Nox had made a deal with Satan—using Orlene!—did it mean that she expected to win? What was that deal?

Jolie decided that she had better find out. Gaea.' she called.

Gaea, at the moment attending to an obscure element of weather, heard her, for Jolie was now with her. "Yes, Jolie: I had not realized that you were back. What is it?"

I fear a ploy by Nox.

Gaea paused in her work. "Of what nature?"

It involves Orlene. Nox involved herself with Orlene's activities three times, and the third time may be critical. She made a deal with Satan, to try something his way, then to try it her way. He Tempted Orlene by saying he could get her baby back for her, with Nox's acquiescence, but she declined. That means that Satan will now do it Nox's way. I fear that Orlene is just a tool for some more devious ploy that may involve me. Orlene is close to both of you, as am I; if one or both of us were put into serious trouble, what implications for the coming crisis would this have?

Gaea considered. "Nox is the only female I fear, as far as Satan is concerned. She can take any man she wishes, at any time. But she has no need to bargain; she can do it at her whim. I don't think her interest in him is of that nature."

I agree. He would tell you—and me—if she made him unfaithful to us. But Orlene is your daughter. A threat to her could make him react. Do you think Nox did that?

"We had better find out," Gaea said grimly. "Take the body."

Jolie moved into control and shaped the body to her living image. Then she turned a page and stood in Hell.

Ozymandias looked up. "Satan is busy on Earth at the moment," he said. "Shall I notify Him?"

"Yes."

Ozymandias picked up the telephone on his desk. "Priority call to the Master," he said. Then: "Your wife is here, and I think she is not in quest of love."

Satan appeared beside them in a puff of smoke. "Jolie! What brings you here out of turn?"

"A private concern."

He extended his hand. She took it. Ozymandias' office faded, and Satan's suite appeared.

"What is the nature of your deal with Nox?" Jolie asked.

"Oh, that. I am not free to tell you."

"You are keeping secrets from me—and her whose body I borrow?" Jolie asked angrily.

"I am the Lord of Lies, and Nox is the Mistress of Secrets. There is a deal between us, and it must not be shared with any other at this time."

Jolie felt Gaea's own anger rising, and knew that storms were forming all over the mortal globe. "I must insist on information. How can you have a loyalty to Nox you do not have to me?" She meant herself and Gaea, as he knew.

Satan frowned. "I have never reneged on a deal. I made one with Nox, and must honor it. Exposure could spoil it. I think you know I would not make a deal that would harm you."

"That depends on your definition of harm!"

He sighed. "The inquisitivity of women! Let me compromise only to this extent: I will answer three peripheral questions about it. With those you must be satisfied, until the deal is complete. That may not be long."

He is a man of honor, Gaea thought. We had better settle for what he offers.

"Agreed," Jolie said tightly. "Does your deal involve sex with her?"

"No."

"Does it threaten Orlene, or any other person close to us?"

"No."

Jolie checked with Gaea, then asked the third: "Does it affect the welfare of the mortal realm?"

"Yes."

That was it. Nox was interfering with the affairs of the Incarnations, and was now using Satan himself as her agent. Yet without using Nox's power of sex, or threatening anyone close to them, how could she do it?

"Thank you," she said shortly, and turned a page back to Gaea's Treehouse. There she returned the body to the Incarnation.

"I think we wasted a question," Gaea said. "We already knew that no ploy is needed for Nox to take him sexually. But it may have been futile anyway; no one can make Satan give information he doesn't choose to give. At least now we have confirmation of Nox's interest in the present crisis and know that no one close to us is to be hurt. That will have to suffice."

Damn the man! Jolie thought. I can't stand such a mystery!

"Well, we shall play it through one stage at a time. If we prevail on the Declaration of Vacancy, and manage to install an active God, his deal with Nox should not matter. We must watch our moves most carefully."

One hour before the scheduled vote, the news flashed across the holo nets: a senator had died abruptly from a stroke. There was no foul play; Gaea would have known about that. His thread had ended legitimately. Unfortunately, he happened to be a staunch supporter of the Declaration. The vote, indicated to be 51 to 49 in favor, was now 50 to 49. If even one senator changed his vote, the case would be lost.

Jolie and Gaea watched the key mortal vote through their window. It was oriented on the Senate, and there had evidently been some commotion, for armed guards were stationed at the periphery. There had been a great deal of controversy in the mortal press, and the partisans of either side ranged from committed to fanatic.

Jolie, in tangible ghost form, sat beside Gaea. "But where is Luna?" she asked, peering at the Senate floor.

"I don't know. She's supposed to be there for the vote."

She was not there. The vote proceeded, headed for a likely tie, 49 to 49, in Luna's absence. Gaea turned a page to check on Luna's house, but it was empty, without sign of disturbance. She oriented on Thanatos—and there he was, riding through the worst traffic jam of the year, cars in gridlock on the road and carpets jammed above. There was no free avenue for progress.

"Satan's ploy!" Gaea muttered with rueful respect. "The oldest trick in the business—and we never prepared for it! To make her arrive too late for the vote."

But Thanatos simply rode his horse. Mortis, over the cars and under the carpets until he came to the carpet with Luna, Vita and Judge Scott. He lifted Luna onto the horse, who then galloped through the carpets and buildings, ghostlike, to the Senate building. As the roll-call vote came to its conclusion, Luna appeared in her place. "Mr. Chairman!" she called.

Thanatos went back for Roque and Vita, but already the jam was unsnarling. It had indeed been magically induced: a nominally harmless, but potentially devastating device. By the time they reached the building, the vote had been concluded. By a margin of one, the mortal vote to declare the Office of the Incarnation of Good vacant had been confirmed.

"The first hurdle is over!" Jolie exclaimed. "The one for which Luna prepared for twenty years! But I think the second will be worse."

"It will be," Gaea agreed.

There was furor all across the mortal realm as the decision was spread. Churches held special services wherein the vacancy was denounced. Mock Hell was closed in dishonor of the occasion. Messages of outrage were pouring in. There were riots in all the major western cities. Martial law was declared in several regions. But it was done. The next step was up to the Incarnations.

The mortals would not be privy to the deliberations of the six remaining Incarnations, but their decision would be publicized. The mortal identity of the one who became the next God would be announced, but there would be no interviews, for that person would be gone from the mortal scene.

The decision was to be announced one hour from the time of the Senate's declaration. During that hour the normal functions of the Incarnations were suspended. No one was to die, or be born, or marry, or suffer any significant change. All wars were put on hold. The weather assumed a state of perfect blandness. All exercises of great good and evil were suspended. The world waited; there was link else for it to do.

The Incarnations would meet at the Mansion of Time, where for this occasion time, too, was suspended. They could debate the matter for a hundred years, but at the end only a single hour would have passed. Chronos himself declined to participate, because for him it was a conflict of interest. If he acted in any way to affect the decision, it could change the outcome and thus his own past, generating a paradox from which even he was not immune. So he remained apart, and allowed his successor of two years down the line to return for this occasion. His successor was the Chronos they had all known for most of their tenures, who had been replaced, by mortal definition, two years before this event. He was able to come here/now by orienting on the grain of sand from the Hourglass which Orlene had given up. He would participate only this hour, then return to his own time. In this manner Nox's participation had had perhaps the opposite effect intended, because instead of interfering with the vote, it facilitated it. Had Orlene not gone to Chronos for that grain of sand, this substitution of the Incarnation of Time would not have been possible.

"But how will it actually be done?" Jolie asked. "I mean, it's such a big step, deciding on God!"

"The process is simple," Gaea said. "The Incarnations will take turns nominating mortals for the office. Any Incarnation can nominate, and any can speak for the nominee, and any can veto. Only a unanimous decision, all six votes, will be decisive. Now merge with me; you will get to see it directly."

They went. Deck chairs had been set in Chronos' garden, and the six settled into them. They looked like ordinary people, four men and two women, gathering for a social occasion. Gaea went to say hello to Chronos, whom she had not seen in two years. She had known him much longer, but he had known her only for two, because of the point in his tenure from which he had come here. The grain of sand aligned exactly with its point of separation from the Hourglass.

They settled down for business, knowing that it could be grueling. It might be hours before they got down to the necessary business of serious compromise.

"I have a nomination to make for the Office of the Incarnation of Good," Thanatos said. "This mortal is a good man, experienced in law and government. In fact, he is one of the senators who supported the Declaration of Vacancy." He named the man.

The others checked their notes. Satan looked up. "Veto," he said. "This man is too good to suit Me."

They had expected this. It was the main reason they had spent years researching for good men. They might have to nominate hundreds before one was accepted.

Chronos nominated a man he had known in life, a model of fairness and perspective. Satan checked his notes, and vetoed.

Fate nominated a man who not only was good, but who had made a study of the interactions of the threads of fate. Satan vetoed him.

Mars nominated a top martial artist who had in his senior years gone far to define a workable philosophy of peace through force. Satan vetoed.

Gaea nominated Judge Roque Scott.

They looked to Satan, expecting his veto.

"Now, this one is interesting," Satan said. "According to My notes, this man has had an illicit affair with an underage girl put in his charge. There is a fair amount of sin associated with that."

"Since you will not accept any nominee without sin, we are constrained to nominate one with sin we can accept," Gaea said evenly.

"Then let's take a look at him. Let the object of his sinning speak for him, if she cares to."

Fate, in her middle guise of Lachesis, pursed her lips. This was an interesting gambit. Surely Satan would not accept as good a man as Roque. What was he up to? "Rather than bring her here, let us go to her," she said. "Chronos can suspend outside time as readily from the field as from his residence."

"Indeed," Chronos agreed.

They stood, came together, and linked hands. Then Gaea turned a page to Luna's house. Abruptly the six of them were standing in Luna's living room.

The moon moth, Muir, gave a start. He was visible through the eyes of the Incarnations. But he did not protest: he blinked out of sight, summoning Luna.

Luna entered. "All six?" she asked, taken aback.

"We have business with Judge Scott," Gaea said. "He is here at the moment, and this is a suitably private place, so we shall settle the matter here. Please have him and Vita come in."

Luna turned away, and returned a moment later with Roque and Vita. Both were wearing little kitchen aprons; it seemed they had been helping with the chores the old fashioned way. Luna, with much magic available, had a rather sedate lifestyle.

"It's the Incarnations!" Vita exclaimed, round-eyed.

"Why, hello, all," Roque said. "What can we do for you?"

"I have nominated you to assume the Office of the Incarnation of Good," Gaea said formally. "We are asking Vita to speak on your behalf."

Roque, ordinarily composed, was caught completely off guard. "But that's impossible!" he protested.

"You may not speak for yourself," Gaea said. "Vita, if you will, please."

Vita had known that Roque was a potential nominee, but she seemed as aghast as he by the event. "Oh, I can't!" she protested. "I love him!"

"It has been suggested that his relationship with you is sinful," Gaea said. "This makes it possible for Satan to accept him, as Satan will not accept any candidate without sufficient sin. Compromise is necessary. Speak."

But Vita, realizing the significance of the matter, yet knowing also that she would lose Roque if he were confirmed, could not. Her awe and conflict were too great. "Maybe—Maybe Orlene can do it," she said, her eyes brimming over.

Satan made a negligent gesture. "Very well, so that we can get on with this. Let Orlene make the case."

The figure of Vita straightened. She brought out a handkerchief and wiped her face. Jolie was interested; she had not seen this change as it looked from outside, before. The entire bearing was different.

"I am Orlene," Orlene said. "I can speak from experience of this man's credentials to assume the Office for which he has been nominated. He is a good man, the best of men; indeed, he was recognized as such years ago, when Jolie was allowed to observe him as a prospect for Immortality. But there is no need to dwell on this. The question is whether Satan can accept him, knowing his goodness. I will address his evil."

There was a master stroke, Jolie realized. Satan was the problem; Satan's objection had to be met. Orlene had caught on to this immediately. The woman had grown steadily in competence and poise since her early setbacks, and now might do as great a service for mankind as Luna had. Orlene was, after all, of that fateful third generation, Niobe's grandchild.

She paused, collecting her thoughts. "I went to see God, and God would not respond to me. He was absorbed in His contemplation of His own greatness. He had no faults, no flaws, no sin. He could not relate to these things. But the mortal realm is rife with faults and flaws and sin. I think that only a person who knows something of evil can relate to the mortal human condition well enough to lead mortals to goodness.

"Judge Scott has sinned. He had an affair with a girl he knew to be underage. This was in violation of his principles as an administrator of the law, and a betrayal of his personal trust. He knew it was wrong. But he yielded to his masculine impulse and did it. The girl was willing, even eager, and not inexperienced, but the law and conscience were clear. Judge Scott did wrong. At one time he thought to resign his position, but he did not, and so he retained his status and power because of that guilty secret.

"I cannot see Judge Scott being deaf to the pleas of those who have sinned or are otherwise imperfect. He knows what it is to be tempted, to be weak, to succumb. He knows himself to be imperfect, so will not hasten to dismiss others of this way. I think he can serve the Office better because of his sin than he could have without it. God is the Incarnation of Good; that does not mean that He himself must be absolutely good, any more than the Incarnation of Evil must be absolutely evil, or the Incarnation of Death must be dead. It means only that he must strive to forward the cause of good to the best of his ability, always.

"Perhaps Satan does not want an effective Incarnation of Good. But the world faces a crisis that will bring down us all, mortal and immortal alike, unless an effective Deity is named. I can recommend Judge Scott as a choice who will do more good for all of us, even for Satan, than any other likely compromise. I believe he should be confirmed to this Office."

There was a silence. Jolie wanted to applaud; Orlene had done a superlative job! Even Satan must have felt the force of her argument. Was he to reject the logic of the one he had cared for so much that he had sent Jolie herself to watch her?

Then Satan spoke. "I think this woman is in love with this man."

"I think I am," Orlene replied, undismayed. "But I think what I have said of him is correct. My emotion has no relevance. I am a ghost, with no body of my own. The loss is to the mortal who loves him, and will lose him, and for her I suffer, but the need of the world is greater than the joy of any one person. I will return the body to her now, so she can speak for herself, if you feel this is relevant."

"No, wait," Roque said. "It is not relevant. I must with all due respect decline the honor of this nomination."

Gaea stared at him. "You decline?"

"I do. It is not that I feel unworthy, though I do. It is not that I am indifferent to the cares of the world, for I am not. It is that I am weak. I cannot bring myself to desert the woman I love. Such sin as I have had I can now ameliorate, and I wish only to complete my mortal tenure with an open realization of what was secret. I cannot leave Vita, and do not wish to leave that component of her present existence which is Orlene, who has defended me so ably. My place is here among the mortals."

Gaea nodded. "Then we must let you go, good man." She extended her hands, ready for the return to Purgatory.

"Let's hold a moment more," Satan said. "You hypocrites are missing the obvious. There is another right here who would do."

Thanatos' skull lifted. "Hypocrites?"

Fate angled her head at Satan. "What are you talking about? There is no other mortal man here."

"Indeed there is not," Satan agreed. "But there is a prospect. You have excluded from consideration half of the mortals! Every one of your nominees has been a man!"

The others stared at him. He's right! Jolie thought. Fate took a man as an Aspect; why can't God be a woman?

Slowly Gaea turned to face Luna. "Then shall we nominate Luna Kaftan?"

Thanatos jumped.

"No!" Luna exclaimed. "I decline also! My business is here!"

"Then let Me take My turn," Satan said. "I nominate the bastard."

They looked at him, baffled.

"Oh, come now!" Satan said. "We all know that a bastard is born with a significant charge of sin, by current definition. We all know that this is unjustified, for the one person who is blameless in that matter is the bastard himself. Such a person, in the Office of Good, would be sure to update the definitions of such sins, and make My job easier. I am swamped with souls who really don't belong in Hell, because they are good folk who only by definition are evil. I say it is time for a bastard! Do you disagree, Gaea? Would you veto such a nominee?"

Gaea stood frozen, her mouth open. She had caught his meaning and was awed. She did not reply.

Jolie tried to read what Gaea had seen, but could not. All she could discover was that Satan had completely floored her. Whom was he nominating?

"And you, Thanatos!" Satan said, turning on the figure of Death. "You are just as big a hypocrite! You fought Me from the first, to prevent your paramour from being taken but did you nominate any from your domain? I nominate the dead!"

"The dead are not eligible," Thanatos replied, shaken. "Once they reach Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, they are gone. Only those who remain of the mortal realm—"

"Such as the ghosts," Satan said. "The rules do not say the dead are ineligible, only that the choice must be from among those who remain in the mortal realm. Can you deny the ghosts?"

Now it was the fleshless jaw of Thanatos that dropped. The eye sockets stared at Satan.

"And you, Chronos," Satan continued, turning on the Incarnation of Time. "You nominated one of your period of tenure. What of those who pass beyond your tenure? What of an adulteress?" The Incarnation of Time stared, amazed.

He turned to Fate. "And what of one whose thread you have cut?"

And to Mars. "What of one who never fought a war or competed for power?"

All of them stood amazed, understanding Satan's references. But Jolie didn't! About whom was he talking?

Satan's gaze swung back to cover Gaea. "Jolie!" he said.

What?!

"Speak for My nominee," he said. "You know her best."

Then, in a blaze of revelation, Jolie understood. She found herself in charge of Gaea's body, facing Orlene.

"Indeed I know her," Jolie said. "I came to her when she was a child, a love child, adopted into a worthy family. She always knew she was a bastard, denied by her own parents. She sought in consequence to right the wrong of her origin, and to become the finest mother a woman could be. She resolved never to abandon her own child in the way she herself had been abandoned. Her baby was conceived by a man other than her husband, bringing more evil on her soul, but she loved him perfectly and intended never to give him up. When he died, through no fault of hers, she was unable to survive this denial of her motherhood, and killed herself, thereby bringing yet more evil on her soul. But all of this evil was by definition; none of it related to her true nature, which was as good and kind and compassionate as it was possible for a mortal to be."

Now Orlene, in Vita's body, was staring.

"I came again to her after she died, and helped her pursue her baby," Jolie continued. "Even in death she remained true to her ideal. Despite the sin charged to her soul, she was so completely good in other respects that her balance was positive, and she was bound for Heaven. But she fought to remain among the mortals, as a ghost, so that she could take her baby with her. She put her own soul in peril for the sake of the one she loved. I know no greater love than this: to turn down Heaven itself for the sake of her baby. I know of no person more deserving of Heaven than that one."

Orlene found her voice. "No..."

"Yet when offered the chance to save her baby at the expense of others," Jolie continued, "she did not. When she learned that the girl she was helping, Vita, would suffer if the course of time were changed to spare the baby, she refused. She wanted her baby safe and well more than anything else—except at the price of harming another person. Yet even this was not the limit. In Hell she was offered the recovery of her baby without harm to any other, in return for a simple action which might well have had no effect. She felt that action was wrong, so again she gave up her baby. Yet even there in Hell she risked her soul to help one she knew to be evil, because of the unfairness of his punishment."

Orlene looked at the assembled Incarnations. "I could go on, but I think I don't need to. Satan has made a nomination none of you can oppose, for it is in keeping with the deal Satan made long ago with the Angel Gabriel. This woman, Orlene, is the third generation, the grandchild of Niobe, whom Satan had to corrupt within three generations. Satan could not corrupt her, and indeed I think did not wish to, for she is the daughter of the woman he loves, and his stepdaughter. Satan made a deal with the Incarnation of Night, who agreed to give up Orlene's baby if Satan could use him to corrupt Orlene. If he failed, Nox would keep the baby, and Satan would nominate her candidate—the one she had been grooming all along for this Office—to be God. Now he has done so, and it is good. She is a bastard, an adulteress, a rapist, and a suicide—surely a creature destined for Hell by current definitions. She is also marvelously competent, compassionate, and good—and the very items she labored so hard to obtain to save her baby can now be used to facilitate her admission as an Incarnation."

Jolie turned on Thanatos. "Can you veto a ghost, whom you know to be good despite the record on her soul, so closely related to the woman you love? Give her the blank soul you promised, that her slate may be clean." She turned to Chronos. "Can you veto the woman you loved in life, who died in the pursuit of your baby? Let your grain of sand facilitate her transfer to that clean soul." And to Fate, in the form of Lachesis: "Your granddaughter? Use your thread to realign her life after death." To Mars: "Your daughter? Give her your seed!"

The Incarnation of War smiled grimly. "I gave it at her conception."

"And I gave My curse, when I damned the hypocrites and nominated her," Satan said.

Then Jolie addressed Gaea, whose body she was using: "And your daughter, whom you could not keep? Give her your tear, to animate her in her new soul!" She discovered that the host was weeping, and not for grief; the tears were streaming down her face.

Jolie turned around, addressing them all. "Satan has nominated the bastard; which among you can deny him his choice?"

None of them spoke. Their astonishment was giving way to understanding—and acceptance. Indeed, they could not deny this one, for either ethical or personal reasons.

Jolie turned again to Orlene. Now, behind her, two glowing figures appeared, one male, one female. The Angel Gabriel and the Incarnation of Night, holding the baby. A glow was playing about Orlene, too, as the gifts of the Incarnations came to her. "And can you decline this most deserved of all nominations, Orlene?" Jolie demanded. "You, most of all, know what is needed in Heaven! You know what has to be done, and you have the training and education and compassion to do it. All that has been wrong in the cosmos, you may now address—with the cooperation of those who cannot deny you. Yea, not even Satan, who loved you from the start, as did I. All of us love you, and you love us, and you cannot deny us or the cosmos. You can do no other than accept. You must be the new Incarnation of Good —for now, and Eternity!"

"And Eternity," Roque echoed.

Orlene struggled to speak but could not. Tears stood on her face. The glow about her intensified. Now Jolie understood what had happened when Orlene helped the soul in Hell: her glow of suitability had been but the hint of her larger potential. As with the musical magic of Orb, which had become the ability to use the phenomenal power of the Llano and equip her to be the Incarnation of Nature, Orlene's ability to see the glow had become the ability to use the glow to make things right—and, ultimately, to make the world right, as God. When she had withstood Satan's Temptation, she had sealed her fate, unknowingly, for that had led directly to this nomination. She had not known, but Satan had known, and perhaps Gabriel—and certainly Nox. Her power had begun to manifest. Now she was assuming the aspect of the Office, becoming immortal.

Orlene bowed Her head, nodding in acquiescence. She had given up Her baby, but now She would be Mother to the cosmos itself. She walked slowly across to Satan, who stood watching Her. "All that you hoped for shall be, for the love of Evil, and for the love of Good, for now—and Eternity," She said. She put Her arms around him, drew his head down, and kissed him.

Chronos, who had loved Her as a woman, applauded. Then the others joined in, and Jolie too. When God Kisses Satan, and the Incarnations applaud, she remembered. Orlene herself had prompted that answer to the hijackers of the saucer: the Captain's declaration when he would capitulate. Now it had come to pass! It was indeed the beginning of a new era.

She turned to Jolie. "I think you must help Vita, for I have assumed other duties."

Go to her, Jolie, Gaea thought. You will always be welcome with me, too, but I think you are not yet done with the mortal realm.

Jolie embraced Orlene. She felt the awesome Presence, in that moment of their contact, not distant and aloof as it had been in the Tenth Heaven, but immediate and generous and loving. Then she transferred to the other host, and Orlene rose out of it. Vita would not be left to fend for herself.

Orlene, a ghost again, but imbued by the substance of the Incarnation of Good, turned to the Incarnation of Night. "I give My baby to you—and My blessing. My Office will always be open to you." Nox nodded, and faded out.

God turned to the Angel Gabriel. "Will you serve and advise the Office, as before?" she asked.

"Always, Lord Goddess."

"Then guide Me now to Heaven, for there is much to do. I shall depend on your advice." She took his hand. "I will be seeing all of you again, soon."

The glow became blinding. Then it was gone, and She with it, and the Angel Gabriel. But Her Presence lingered.

"We have business too," Gaea said. "Luna, make the announcement: we have chosen God, and She is Ghost and Goddess."

Luna nodded, and left the room. In just a moment, it seemed, there was a sound from all around: the sound of the mortals of the world, cheering.

The Incarnations linked hands and disappeared. Jolie was left with Roque. "I will remain with Vita as long as she needs me," she told him. "I hope you can settle for that."

"I can settle for that," he said.

"We thought Nox was plotting something sinister, but instead she plotted to save the cosmos. Why do you think she did that?"

"I suspect she feared the game would end if she did not, and she wanted the game to continue. Even Nox must get bored with just dreams. Also, it may be that she really does like the baby, with his ornery malady. She well understands the undisciplined passions of the male. So, in effect, she traded for Gaw-Two, giving good value in return."

"I suppose so," Jolie agreed, awed now by the audacity of it. "Certainly she made our lives more interesting."

Jolie returned the body to Vita. "Orlene's a Holy Ghost!" the girl said, and giggled. Then she sobered. "Gee, Roque, you gave up being an Incarnation, to be with me!"

"It was selfish of me, I know," he agreed.

"You are still God to me."

"You are still a nymphet to me."

"Yeah? And what are you going to do about it?" But she gave him no time to decide. She leaped into his arms.

Jolie shook her head, in her thoughts. These were interesting times!

AUTHOR'S NOTE

During the course of my work on this novel, we moved. Did it affect my writing? Perhaps you can judge by the change in the text at what point the move occurred. I will tell you later in this Note, so you don't have to write me any letters. Leave the letters to those who are properly outraged by the novel's theme and conclusion.

This is the final novel of this series; I have no plan to write another. Readers have suggested that I follow up with the Lesser Incarnations, but I am disinclined; after God, all else is anticlimactic. Originally I planned on just five novels, because I thought that readers would not care for the inclusion of Satan and God, but I became satisfied as I read my voluminous fan mail that the readers did indeed want those Incarnations covered. So I extended the series, and thereby hangs a tale.

It happened that at about the point I made the decision to extend the series, I also decided to change publishers. I do not change wives or publishers lightly, but the latter is more likely than the former. I was having serious editorial problems, and felt that the integrity of my work could be guaranteed only by making the change. When push came to shove, that counted more than either money or convenience.

The change of publishers was complicated. Options had to be voided and new understandings worked out. My literary agent—the man who handled my American sales—labored heroically to work things out with the old and new publishers. By the time it was done, some 45 of my novels had been affected to some degree, and more than half a million dollars was allocated. My first 17 fantasy novels remained with Del Rey, while the new Adept trilogy went to Putnam/Ace and the final two novels of the Incarnations series to Morrow/Avon. A new Xanth trilogy also went to Avon. I had resolved, you see, to split my fantasy between publishers, so as not to have too many eggs in one basket.

This was an amicable change, complicated by the shock of the death of Judy-Lynn del Rey. Del Rey was the publisher who put me on the best-seller lists and made me one of the most successful writers of the genre. I did not want to leave, and they did not want me to leave; it was just one of those things. I still receive enormous royalties from my titles with them, and great piles of fan mail, and expect to do new business with them in the future. Certainly we wish each other no evil.

But in the complicated process of transition, there was a minor glitch. Del Rey did not get the word about my two new Incarnations novels, and on the cover of the hardcover edition of Being a Green Mother, printed, "A Brilliant Conclusion to an Extraordinary Series." I notified them of the error when I saw the cover proofs, but it was evidently too late; those words remained.

Several readers wrote in to inquire about that, when the hardcover edition was published, because I had told them that there were more Incarnations coming. I had to explain about the glitch, with some irritation. One reader hit the ceiling. He decided to make a public campaign against the publisher because of the lie. I demurred, explaining that though the matter annoyed me, I could not claim it was malice; it was a foul-up, of the kind that occurs not infrequently in Parnassus. Certainly I would not allow my name to be used in an attack on this publisher, who had treated me very well over the years. I hoped to get it straightened out privately. This reader then attacked me, claiming that I had to be lying, and demanding, in abusive language, a clarification of my lie.

Well, now. Few folk have the temerity to address the Ogre in such fashion, and those who do, generally regret it. I have too much mail as it is, and it is enough of a chore to keep up with the positive letters without having to take on such negative missives too. My response to him began: "Listen, Blivet-Brain, I have little patience with fools or knaves." Thereafter it became less polite. For those who are not up on the vernacular of a prior generation, I should explain that a blivet is a five-pound container with ten pounds of excrement. I understand it is a useful weapon when arguments get ugly.

So now you know why I changed publishers, and some of the consequences thereof. You may consider this an update on my autobiography, Bio of an Ogre, which was published in hardcover in Mayhem (naturally!) while I was writing this novel. I admit to running second to Harlan Ellison when it comes to perpetual trouble, but believe me, I am trying to close the gap. An ogre's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's Hell for?

But I was trying to tell you about my move. In 1977 we moved to the forest, preferring it to the city. We still prefer it, but three things have changed. First, our financial resources have improved, as my writing income progressed from five figures to six figures, thanks to the support of readers like you. About ten percent of each book of mine you buy comes eventually to me in royalties, and that adds up when sales are good. So we can now afford a six-figure house instead of a five-figure house. Second, our daughters grew up. Penny is now in college, and Cheryl, having made the highest SAT score in the history of her school, is about to go to college too. It is an irony that after I struggled to reach a level of income that would enable us to afford college for our daughters, Cheryl is getting Merit Scholarships that make it relatively cheap. My fault, as I should have seen it coming. I married the smartest woman I could catch, because I wanted smart children. I didn't want my children following my example and taking three years to get out of first grade. But do you know what college kids do? They came back home for surprise visits, with six of their classmates in tow. Three of each sex. They think it is like a convention, where they can pile up eight deep in one room, sharing two and a half sleeping bags and a submarine sandwich. I won't try to explain why this disturbs parents, who are, of course, hopelessly out of touch with current mores. I'll just say that we now need more room than we did a decade ago. Third, we were already so crowded that we had to thread mazes to get from one part of a room to another. I am a writer, you know; I have books, and they keep multiplying, and no, I can't part with a single solitary one without suffering a seizure of one or two valves of the heart. When folk visit, we have to move books out of chairs so they can sit down. Actually, piles of books can make decent temporary chairs, but visitors don't seem to understand very well about this, particularly when the piles fall over.

So we moved, as I said. It was my wife's project; she took about six months without much sleep drawing up the house plans, and our friendly neighborhood building contractor, a man named Lou Dolbow, undertook the construction.

According to the contract, the house was to be complete in Jamboree 1988, but I hoped that it would move along well so that we would be able to move before then: say OctOgre. The Ogre hates to travel, but when he does, that's the month. That would save me from having to saw and haul and split wood for the winter's heat. I like working with wood, and since we burn only trees that have died and fallen naturally, nothing suffers. It is good exercise, and our wood stove not only heats our house, it heats our water, too, so that our bills are small. I have not counted the hours I spend per winter chopping wood, but I think it would be somewhere over 20. Florida is warm, and our house is insulated, so our needs are relatively small, but still it takes a cord or so. The problem with this is that I now earn much more than it would cost me to pay for an automatic heating system; my time spent on free wood is no bargain. So the prospect of recovering those 20+ hours for my paying work appealed.

Well, the house wasn't finished early. We had to go and struggle with the cutting up of a huge fallen tree whose main trunk arched over the forest floor: a real challenge. Yes, I succeeded in binding the saw several times, but finally got the job done, and we loaded wood into our car and hauled it to the house. Why didn't I use the wheelbarrow? Because the tree was about 3/16 of a mile distant—naturally, it had fallen on our farthest piece of property—and downhill from our house. A couple of wheelbarrow loads convinced me that there had to be a better way. So we had wood for the winter, and the time was lost; my writing slowed accordingly.

The house was not complete in Jamboree. When would it be done? In FeBlueberry, Lou assured us. But it wasn't done then either. The completion date receded like the horizon, always about two weeks distant. Marsh, Apull, Mayhem, while I worked on this novel, expecting to break off momentarily for the move and never quite doing so. What was the problem? Well, a contractor does not do it all himself; he subcontracts the various parts of the job, and coordinates the whole. Again and again one crew or another would be scheduled for a job, and wouldn't show—and so other crews were delayed, because they could not do their jobs until the first was done. Or something would be done wrong, so that corrections entailed more delay. The choice seemed to be between quality and speed, and Lou opted for quality. There seems to be a failure in the work ethic; many people just do not seem to be much interested in working, or in doing their jobs promptly and correctly. I wonder to what extent this represents the effects of the so-called drug culture. The availability of increasingly potent drugs like cocaine (but not Spelled H, yet) has cost me more than one associate and made direct and indirect mischief of more than incidental nature. I stay clear of such things, avoiding even nicotine and caffeine; I resist taking aspirin or the equivalent unless I have a rare bad headache. I want no baffle between me and reality, so I am usually in possession of my natural faculties. I suspect that many others are not.

You know, I am not the greatest writer in the world, but I am one of the most successful. Perhaps this offers a hint why: I always do my job, promptly and well. I am amazed at the number of others who don't. I have pride in my work, which will cause me to leave a good publisher, at great inconvenience, rather than allow a novel to be unduly compromised. I will speak out in protest when I see wrong done. Not only does this attitude seem to be atypical, it has brought me the reputation of a troublemaker—in fact, of an Ogre. As I watched my new house being built, I couldn't help wishing that there were more ogres on the crews. I'll go into more positive detail about the house further along, but first let me change subjects.

There is another huge tax on my working time: the mail. It takes me about half an hour to answer the average letter, so the hours lost can be calculated by dividing the number of letters by two. I decided to get a secretary, so that I could still answer personally but not lose as much time. But we had no room for such a person. Our new house, twice the size of our old one, would have room; I could put her in a corner with my backup computer system and let her do the letters. (I say her, but a male secretary would do as well, or a very smart robot.) I figured on hiring maybe a retired teacher, so that I wouldn't have to teach her basic English, and educating her in the type of response I normally did, so that I wouldn't have to dictate each letter verbatim. I receive quite a number of "Dear Mr. Anthony, I am eleven years old and this is my first fan letter. Here are ten puns for Xanth. When is the next Xanth novel coming out, and what's it about?" missives, and a fairly standard answer would do for these, with whatever individual touches were appropriate. So, once we moved, I could look for such a secretary.

And then we kept not moving. Had we moved in OctOgre, and set up secretarily then—well, I answered 99 letters that month, which was about standard. If a secretary cut my average answering time in half, that would be about 25 hours saved. Right—one winter's worth of wood! In NoRemember the pace increased, to 132 letters. This was because I had several novels published in the fall season, and the mail follows the sales figures. Readers keep asking why I don't have my address published in my novels, so that more folk could write to me. I hope I don't need to answer that. In DisMember there were 166 letters, bringing the total for the year to 1393. Understand, that's just the ones I answered; I don't answer them all, though I do the best I can. But when I could move in Jamboree...

By this time Fate had discovered mat I had no ready way to handle letters, because I couldn't get a secretary because I couldn't move. I was tied down. So the Jamboree total was 221, a record. That meant that my approximate 180-hour working month (actually, I'm working all the time, but I don't count meals, chores, reading [unless it is direct research], exercise, family demands and such, so it nets 40 to 45 hours a week) lost about 110 hours to the mail. Between that and wood chopping, guess how fast my paying work was moving then! I had to do something. I had already resolved to avoid conventions and similar distractions for the year, to recover time, but it was draining away as fast as I could save it.

FeBlueberry is a short month. I answered only 163 letters. That meant that just over half my working time was available for my writing. But somehow I wasn't satisfied; I wanted more. I was working on Xanth #12, Man from Mundania, and it was moving well yet taking an extra month because I put so little time in on it. Xanth is relatively easy and fun to do. What would happen when I came to Incarnations #7, a more significant challenge? When the #$%&*!! would that house get finished?

Then in mid-Marsh we saw an article about a local lady who was setting up a business called "My Private Secretary." She would supply secretarial skills for small businesses of the area for $15 an hour. Since she had her own office and was self-employed, no special paperwork was needed. So I called her, and next day my wife and I went to see her. We decided to try it. I scribbled notes for my answers on the backs of the envelopes, and she typed them up into coherent letters. Then I reviewed the letters, signed them, and mailed them.

It worked. She handled most of my fan mail, while I continued to handle my business mail and those fan letters requiring special handling—suicidal teenagers, for example. I timed some batches, and concluded that it was now taking me just under fifteen minutes per secretarial letter, average. Half my letter time was being saved! As a result, this novel, started at the same time as the secretary, moved better than the last one had, despite being more difficult. I was devoting more time to it. It was a wonderful feeling, putting about three quarters of my working time into my novel instead of only half my time. And we hadn't even moved yet! The secretary was not conversant with my work and had to check with her husband, who knew the genre. He assured her that I was a legitimate writer. I gave her a box of my books, and paid her the going rate per hour for reading them, because she has a better idea how to answer a letter when she knows what the fan is talking about. Thus when I scribble "Not end; Evil out 11-88," she can type "No, Being a Green Mother is not the conclusion of the series, despite what it says on the cover. The next one, For Love of Evil, concerning Satan, will be published in hardcover in NoRemember 1988. I hope you like it as much as you did the prior novels in the series." Sometimes she adds: "My secretary likes this series best."

Still, a lot of my time still goes to the mail. About half of it is new letters, and the rest is repeat letters. Some fans just keep writing back. I try to answer all the first-timers, but don't feel obliged to keep up perpetually with the repeaters. But it isn't necessarily easy to cut off a correspondence. Let me make an example of an extreme case: this was a boy who had written to me a dozen times, and had a dozen responses, and asked how often it was all right to keep writing. I explained gently that it was difficult for me to keep up, so less was better. Hurt, he signed off with one last letter. Then he continued to write, about once a month. Finally, when the total was about 18 letters, which had used up more than a thousand dollars worth of my writing time, I got more pointed. I told him that I hoped he would understand when I didn't answer his next.

In due course he responded with his "last and final" letter. In it he informed me that he had arranged to go to Florida, where he had traced down my address and taken one drive past my house. He expressed extreme disappointment. "You had made yourself seem so important and so wonderful.... such a humanitarian, such a busy man, with no time to do everything you want to... but I saw the dead ugly trees in your yard, and the waist-high weeds, and the dismal house you call home.... I really don't mind if you write about this letter in your future author's notes. Maybe the others will know the real Piers Anthony. It is my hope that they do." He added that he took pictures to show to his friends, who couldn't believe it, and that I should remember that it was my fans who put food on my table and let me get my books even PUBLISHED. He thanked me for his rude but wonderful awakening; at last his eyes were open to the reality behind the facade. He signed his name with the subtitle "ex-Anthony fan."

As I said, this was an extreme case, but it illustrates the type. None of this revelation came to him until I cut him off after he refused to take a hint. Most others have taken the hint, but are nevertheless hurt, and I do get some hate mail. It is apparent that there is no way short of this to protect my time from those who are determined to take it. This letter arrived in FeBlueberry, but isn't one of the 163 because I didn't answer it. I have left a small trail of disillusioned ex-Anthony fans, and I don't like doing it, but the alternative is to allow my working time to become monopolized by just such folk. One of my reasons for getting a secretary was to make my answers less personal, so that those who craved a large collection of personal Anthony notes would be dissuaded without coming to emotional violence. In this sense, ironically, I can sympathize with God: how do I get on with my business when those who idolize me insist on my complete attention? How could God function, with billions of personal demands being made on Hun?

But, having taken this ex-fan up on his challenge to publish his expose, let me address the points he raises. I make no money from fans like him; I answer them at a financial loss, and would very soon be broke if every one of my readers were like this, It is my business to write novels; I answer correspondence only as a courtesy, sometimes receiving little in return. The ones who put food on my table are the great majority who buy, read, and enjoy my novels, and who do not seek to correspond with me. I also do not attempt to make myself out as "important and wonderful"; in fact these same Author's Notes strike reviewers as "boring and offensive." I simply display my thoughts and activities, positive and negative, for the period during which I write one of these novels. I would call them feisty rather than either wonderful or offensive, but each reader is free to interpret as he chooses. Most seem to consider the Notes to be personal letters to my readers, and that seems close enough.

This fan thought he could make a judgment on my competence as a writer and my character—by driving by my house. This illustrates the problem with critics in general, who make what amount to similar judgments. Nevertheless, there are indications. A person's residence can tell a lot about him, if the one who looks at it has the wit to understand. You see, this fan did give an accurate description of my house. The roof is dull metal, the siding weathered, the yard overgrown, and there are half-a-dozen dead trees standing in it. (Make that four; two blew down later.) There is little evidence that any of it has been touched in years. But this is not neglect. The roof is terne-coated stainless steel, which a builder will tell you is the finest it is possible to make; it will last without repair just a shade short of eternity. The siding is red cedar shakes which are supposed to weather to their own shade, never needing paint. They look old after a year in the sun, but they are great no-maintenance protection. The "weeds" are dog fennel, this region's natural ground cover. We don't mow them down because they are harmless—and because it is our philosophy to do as little damage to the natural forest and field as possible. Others move to the country and promptly extinguish the natural flora and fauna, rendering their lots into manicured suburbia. We left our forest as we found it, deliberately. No mower has touched our yard, other than horses; no tree has been cut unless it threatened the house. We sought not to drive out the creatures of the forest, but to share with them. We love to see the big burrowing box turtles locally called "gophers" and the occasional armadillo. There are mounds of dirt left by the tunneling pocket gopher—the "vole" of Xanth—and by the dung beetles, who sanitize the pasture by burying clods of dung. Wrens and squirrels nest in our eaves, to our delight; we have come to know families of them. Wild rabbits play hide and seek with our dogs. (Yes, on occasion a dog does catch a bunny. We hate that, and try to warn the bunnies before letting the dogs out.) Those "dead ugly trees" are what is called standing deadwood, and it, too, contributes to the way of the forest. Woodpeckers peck in it, and nest in it. We have a family of the rare, spectacular, crow-sized Pileated woodpeckers which call on our dead-wood; we can watch them right from the house. The national forest service once took out deadwood, but discovered that this despoiled the habitat for woodpeckers, and now lets it stand. Nature does know best. Only after it falls by itself do I saw it up for the stove.

So this disaffected fan did see my house—but how little he understood it or me! It does represent the real Piers Anthony, whose values are not for appearances, and I shall be glad if my readers know it. We did, as I said, move—but our philosophy is unchanged, and the new house is even deeper in the forest than the old. I don't give much of a curse about the opinion of strangers, so my house may look as dull as I do—but it is sound. The same goes for my philosophy. I do what I feel is right, and if a fan can idolize me yet have no idea of my values, then I think the fault is not where he supposes. I really do care about my work, and would much prefer to stay with it than to put effort into a conventional yard or into attendance at conventions.

But for all that, we have made some compromises with the new house. It does have a grassy yard, which we expect our horses to mow. But the property also has a fox, owl, rabbits, fireflies, dragonflies, and a big box turtle who insists on sharing the dog's yard. We tried to fence that turtle out, fearing what the dogs might do to it, but it plowed back in and the dogs couldn't hurt it. Great; I love having it. There are blue, black and huckle berries aplenty, and passion fruit with its lovely purple flowers. Also some big rat snakes and rattlers, which we leave alone. Our mailbox is half a mile away; we have a drive lined with pines, laurel oaks, hickory and magnolia trees, because we gave orders to curve it around them instead of 'dozing them out. We are deep in our private jungle, and fifty feet out from the house nature is undisturbed. Ye who would judge me by my residence, judge me by that.

I read an article in Boardroom Reports, a periodical devoted to business management. It was titled, "Beware the Mind Blowers," and described the way some others react to highly successful people. Envy verging on malevolence, it suggests, is common, and there is a desire to diminish the successful one. "Many professional critics, for instance, are in this category," it says. That seems to explain a lot, and not just about reviewers. The article warns that flatterers, too, are dangerous. I agree. Some who have greeted me with fulsome praise have not understood why it turned me off. I don't want flattery or condemnation, I want the truth, whatever it may be. Readers who call errors in my novels to my attention receive my thanks, and sometimes mentions in Author's Notes.

Meanwhile, as I wrote this novel, events continued. Robert A. Heinlein, perhaps the leading figure in our genre, died. A reader, pained by this news as I was, suggested that I mention this here, and I agreed. Heinlein was a giant, and with him passes an age. Clifford Simak, less well-known but the author of City, one of my favorite genre novels, also died. And, in the adjacent Western genre, Louis L'Amour. It hurts to see such figures pass, yet time is inexorable.

Then I received a query from another reader, who noted that some of my recent novels didn't have Author's Notes: had I died? she inquired worriedly. I tried to reassure her; I remain reasonably healthy for my age.

Ah, yes: health. A study was published which showed that vitamin C does halt a cold. For decades the medical profession has disparaged this notion, claiming that there is no way to stop a cold, when actually this is one of several. I am glad to see that the experts are finally trying it, instead of condemning it untried. Another way to stop a cold is heat. I wonder whether this attitude of condemning things untried is like prayer: you have to have faith. The doctors had faith in what wouldn't work, so never had to try it. But those of us with open minds suffer fewer colds.

Meanwhile, how is my career doing? Two lady editors came to see me at this time about a seven-figure offer—which I did not feel free to accept, because it threatened to commit me too far ahead. It's like signing a contract with Satan: once you take the money, you had better be prepared to deliver. I wasn't quite sure I was ready. I want to get some less commercial projects done before returning to the solidly paying ones. But never fear; I do not sneer at commercial writing. I just don't want to be totally governed by it.

At this time my Xanth Pin-Up Calendar was also progressing: luscious half-ladies of many kinds, painted by a number of top genre artists. But we discovered that the publishers had already locked in their calendars for 1989; we had to postpone ours until the calendar year 1990. Sigh.

I received two letters that put me into a dilemma: both were requests that I agree to complete the novels of hopeful writers who had died. One had been killed at the age of sixteen in an auto accident; the other had been murdered at age twenty-two. Now, I hate untimely death, and hate to have the hopes of aspiring writers cut off. But death is no guarantee that the manuscripts are good ones. So I demurred, but did look at one—and it will be the next novel I do, as a collaboration with a dead teenager: Through the Ice.

Let's see: I promised to get into our new house. Those who hate such detail should now tune out; it's a long story. We got books of designs and pored over them, getting notions for this feature and that. One that appealed was based on George Washington's house, with curving wings for a garage on one side and a guest house on the other. Well, now—there was my separate study, in that two-story wing, with a covered walkway to the main house. We liked the symmetry of it, but my wife had other notions for the main house. So we merged notions, and pulled in the wings, and finally perfected a two-story house with garage and storage room on one side and my study complex on the other, and everything she wanted in the center. At last count it was somewhere over 4000 square feet.

Actually, after she designed it we saw an article in Popular Science about dome houses made of special insulated cement blocks. The notion intrigued us, and we worked out a dome-house complex that did all the same things: a main dome for the house, an attached study dome, a garage dome, a daughters-bedroom dome, a pool dome, I forget what. But when we talked to the contractor, he said, "What about resale value?" We did a double-take and pulled out the old plans. A house is not just a place to live, it's an investment. Ours, to be built on a tree farm, would represent a nice estate that should hold its value for our grandchildren, when.

I think the contractor, Lou Dolbow, enjoyed the project. We took him in our four-wheel drive Toyota deep into the wilderness and said, "Build it here." We put colored bands around trees to mark where the access road should be. He had to arrange to build a half-mile road to that spot, and then build the house, deep in the jungle adjacent to the young slash pines. "Don't hurt the rattlesnakes," I warned. The power company wanted to cut a 25-foot-wide swath through the center of the tree farm; Lou hassled until they agreed to bury the line beside the new road. The bulldozer man got lost, and I showed him the route. Right in front of him was a little magnolia. "Curve the road around that tree," I said. Even so, some of its roots got chopped; we're nursing that tree along, and I think it will survive. We have a beautiful lane, to be called Ogre Drive, because we care about what nature offers. No, don't write to me begging for the address; this property is intended to be private. There will be a thorough description of it in my mainstream novel Firefly, but it won't be where the novel says it is.

Alcoa Aluminum is expanding. It now makes roofing and siding. We used both, and it is our understanding that we used more Alcoa than they sold for any other project in Florida up to this time. They sent a party to photograph it for their records. The roof is aluminum made to resemble weathered wood shakes, and the siding is vinyl made to resemble aluminum. Inside we have teak parquet flooring that we bought over a decade ago for our present house, and couldn't install because of the crowding when our contractor never finished the house. We sued him and put him out of business, and used the bare concrete slab for the floor. Lou did improvements on that house, before building the new one from scratch. And so on—I won't bore you further with details. Take my word that it is a nice house, in a nice setting, though at this writing books and boxes are piled on the floor, as we continue to ferry our things across.

Yes, of course the dogs and horses went with us. We had a little bam built, just like the one on the old property, so the horses would feel at home. Penny's mare Blue is thirty years old, gray-headed but still spry, and her companion Snowflake is twenty. We had to have somewhere over a mile of fencing done for their pasture.

I mentioned computers. This novel was done using my Dec Rainbow computer system, with MS-DOS and her garden directories, and FinalWord. No, I don't promise to stay with either indefinitely; computer technology is moving too rapidly. I'm looking toward a so-called 386 machine. You will no doubt learn all about it in some future Note in some future series. Having been satisfied for thirty years with penciled drafts and manual typewriters, I went reluctantly to the computer, but now I am hopelessly spoiled by it and constantly want more.

One evening a car stopped by our mailbox, at the old address. Oh, no, surely more fans! I went out, and my fear was confirmed: they were college students who had made it a game to locate me. I really don't appreciate such games; I was trying to eat supper at the time, and there was a dull drizzle outside. But then they gave me a plaque commemorating the Incarnations series. It was beautiful. There's a skull for Death, an hourglass for Time, a web and spider for Fate, a red sword for War, and a circling rose vine for Nature, all made of a claylike plastic that didn't exist in my day. It was made by Elisa Velasquez, and will hang on the wall of my new study. Another reader, J. P. Morris, made and sent a string-art portrait of Neysa Unicorn, another beautiful item. I really don't seek gifts from my readers, and don't wish to encourage this sort of thing, but have to admit I like these ones very well.

At this time I was reading Samuel (Chip) Delany's autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water. His autobio and mine were published two months apart, so the two invite comparison. I knew Chip briefly, and liked some of his work. He is an award-winning science fiction writer. On the surface the two of us are quite different. He is a black, dyslexic, homosexual literary writer, while I am a white, heterosexual commercial writer. But these differences may be superficial. Underneath there are parallels. Both of us differ from others to more than average degree. I may have been dyslexic myself; in my day there were no learning-disabled children, only stupid or perverse ones, so I had no excuse for struggling to get through first grade. But I made sure that my dyslexic daughter Penny did not have to endure what I did. It may be said that when I finally got fed up with taking it, I started dishing it out, and the evidences of that militancy are all around me and in this Note. Chip seems to have been nicer, and so he may have suffered more and had a less dramatic career. I wonder whether he read my book with as much interest as I read his?

I finished that book, and started on the next: Chaos, by James Gleick. We had bought a copy through the Book-of-the-Month Club, but I had not yet looked at it. Then a fan, the artist Kurt Cagle, sent me a copy, and I looked at it and saw the illustrations of the Mandelbrot Set. I had seen such pictures before, but this time they registered, because I had a need of a simple way to structure a complex new universe for a new series of novels. The Set offered such a way. Thus the footing of my future work occurred in the late stages of my present work. The Mandelbrot Set is too complicated a matter to get into here, but those who are interested in art and mathematics should find it fascinating. It held me for hours at a time, when I had a novel to finish.

In Incarnations #4 I discussed "Ligeia," the suicidal teenage girl I tried to help. Mail continues to come in about that, and there have been several other Ligeias. I am pondering whether to write a book on them, titled Ligeia: The Early Part of Dying. I am no expert on suicide, but I find myself drawn into their lives, and I must either respond or refuse to respond. They aren't just girls, and not limited to teenage, and suicide is not the only symptom of depression. Once a runaway came to my house; I wanted to be fair with him, but as a parent myself I insisted that he let his mother know where he was. The relief in her voice was almost tangible when I called her, and he did decide to return home. Another phoned me from the hospital where she had landed after they found her in time, before the pills had full effect; I was able to give her news that improved her outlook. But it isn't always positive, and it's generally chancy. When I hear from one, and then, without explanation, I don't hear, I get nervous. Once a reader told me how a relative had recommended On a Pale Horse to him as the finest novel—and then killed himself.

I think in most cases the depression is physiological in origin. That is, something in the body causes it. For example, there is SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder. People suffer from it in the darker winter months, and recover in the brighter summer months. It can sometimes be treated by bright lights. There may also be hormonal imbalance. I feel that a competent physical exam should be the first step in checking out a Ligeia. A person should not be left to suffer in darkness, when relief might be as simple as a bright light. I can't forget how I myself was considered mentally ill because of my depression and fatigue—until a blood test showed that I am diabetic. It isn't necessarily all in the mind. In fact, I suspect that it seldom is. But again this reminder: I am no expert, only a fantasy writer who got involved more or less coincidentally, when the first Ligeia wrote me.

Let me talk to the other Ligeias out there directly: if you are suffering, and no one seems to care, and you don't know where to turn or whom to trust, and you really would rather be dead but you're afraid to kill yourself, and you cannot talk to your parents—well, I tried to find out what number you could call for help. If your local phone book is like mine, there won't be anything under SUICIDE. But check the index at the beginning and see if it lists "Human Services Guide." Turn to that part, and look for "Counseling." Under that section look for "Suicide Prevention." Call that number. They should help you. If you are worried about getting in trouble, don't give your name, just your problem.

If you are abused, or need some advice about your situation—it can be hard to tell what constitutes abuse, sometimes—a similar approach should get you a number: look under "Abuse" in the Counseling section. If you are a runaway, call the National Runaway Switchboard: 1-800-621-4000 (but it was always busy when I tried) or the Covenant House hotline, 1-800-999-9999, which can also handle abuse or suicide. They will keep your confidence and try to put you in touch with someone local who can help you.

The thing to remember is that, whatever your problem, you aren't the only one with it, by a long shot. There is help and comfort for you, if you can reach it. It seems worth a try. This series is ending, but the organizations remain, and it may be that you won't have to depend on God alone for help.

I pondered for months whether to end these Notes with the conclusion of this series, and finally asked an editor, who I think also sweated the matter somewhat. We concluded that there will be Notes in a different series, though perhaps not as autobiographical as the present ones. So this may be the last of the intensely personal, militant essays, at least for a while. If you are a Notes freak, though, keep your eyes open, and sometime, somewhere, when you least expect it, there'll be another.

Which brings me to the matter of the effect of my move on my writing. Well, the delays continued so long that I completed the novel and this Note in first draft before moving. Only the editing—that is, going over it to correct spelling and syntax, add in omitted bits, and set the format for printing out the copy for the publisher—took place after the move. My spot research for Ligeia helplines was the last thing I did; that was at the new house. Now you know.

We have had a total of three hard-disk crashes since computerizing, and each has been a colossal headache, costing me everything I had saved for the prior year or so. Of course, I had my novels backed up on floppy disks, but still it was a pain. The last one wiped out three months of daily records I hadn't gotten around to printing out. I agonized, and decided to drop the records. I had kept them for 21 years, recording each day's production and events, and that should be enough for posterity to examine. Now I just type my ongoing thoughts in a separate file as I go along, and print and erase that file each day. So the computer has changed my life in a way, whether for good or ill I can't say. I worked out a little song about it. Do you remember the popular song "Winchester Cathedral"? Well, the hard disk is called a Winchester. So my variant goes: "Winchester Computer/you're breaking down,/ You stood and you watched as/ My data left town." That's from the heart.

In each of these Incarnations novels, I have noted the manner that the subject seems to affect my life. Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil—did it continue for Good? It seemed it hadn't, for though many interesting things happened, including our move to the new house, none of it seemed supernatural. It is true that our move represents achievement of a residence that is larger and nicer and more private than what we have known before, and probably this is our final mortal home, so there is a certain symmetry in its occurrence at the time I wrap up this series, but that's about the extent of it. So it seemed that this time the magic did not operate, except perhaps in little ways. For example, two Jehovah's Witnesses appeared at our door in this period, seeking to alert me to the approaching termination of the world we know. I try to address all such visitors politely, though the chances of my being converted to such belief are minimal. They left their book, Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? and promised to return in two weeks to discuss the matter further. I looked at the book, but though it makes superficial sense, I feel that its points have been effectively answered by Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. In short, for me, Evolution has carried the day. I looked forward to discussing this, but the Jehovah's Witnesses did not return, and then we moved. So I put the discussion in Chapter 9, using Nox's vision to clarify the base of the Incarnations series. Actually, I think the Bible speaks more realistically than many of its apologists think, and makes more real-world sense than they credit. But it speaks in language the common man of two millennia ago understood: "day" rather than "eon." Whereupon modern man misunderstood it.

I completed the first draft of Novel and Note on my daughter Cheryl's eighteenth birthday in late Mayhem. (My daughter Penny's birthday is in OctOgre, of course. I believe I mentioned that the Ogre does things in such months, with maybe a bit of help from my wife, who is another Mayhem.) All that remained was the editing, which I did after we moved—on my wife's birthday. My birthday gift to Cheryl was enough of my time to get her through her driving license. Penny was pushing to drive at fifteen, but Cheryl wasn't as eager, so still wasn't licensed. She also had a problem with coordination of the clutch and gearshift. We pondered, and decided that it would be best to teach her with automatic shift. We also wanted four-wheel drive, because our tree farm has some back roads and sugar sand that can be treacherous. We had each feature, but not in the right cars. We wound up trading in both car and van, to get auto-shift in the first and 4W drive in the second. Two trade-ins and about $25,000 took care of it. Ouch! But at this writing, Cheryl is learning. Oh yes, my time is precious—but so is my daughter.

It happened that the school year was wrapping up, and the Citrus High School Senior Awards Ceremony was held on Cheryl's birthday. Now Cheryl, despite her record SAT score, was not the top student in her class, or the second; in fact she wasn't in the top five. Grades can be a chancy thing, depending on a student's luck in the draw of classes and teachers, absence owing to illness, conformity to the system's expectations, and the vagaries of the grading curve. The most intelligent or motivated or honest students are not necessarily those with the highest grades. But what Cheryl lacked in height she made up in breadth. I counted the number of times she was called to the stage, and it became apparent to all present that this was indeed her day. She had a total of 18 awards, scholarships and recognitions, from the National Merit Scholarship on down, nicely matching her birthday age, far outstripping those of any other student. Among other things, she had assumed the editorship of the moribund school newspaper, the Whirlwind (a minor echo of the name of the school's football team, the Hurricanes) and brought it up to second in its class in the state. Not only had I not been doing any of this for her, or even helping her, I had hardly been aware of her school activities. It is not that I am a neglectful parent; I will help if asked. Rather, I am busy with my own work, and Cheryl is an independent cuss. I wonder where she inherits that from?

About this time I began to get a glimmer of something. Just as the revelation of the identity of the new Incarnation of Good came only at the very end, and by surprise, so did the revelation of the good that was associated with this novel come to me. The final impetus was not for me, but for my daughter. Perhaps I should have seen it coming, as it seems obvious in retrospect, but I was somehow blind to it beforehand. Parents typically seek to vindicate themselves through their children. I wasn't even in the top half of my graduating high school class, 36 years ago; I was a complete nonentity. My wife did better, but married me instead of completing college. We had five babies, the first three of which died at birth, and the fourth was learning-disabled. Cheryl was the last. So the scholastic proof of our family lay in her success—and what a success it turned out to be! Often when I attend public functions, I am the center of attention; this time I was glad to be known as Cheryl's father.

When we moved to the forest in 1977, not only did we try to preserve the trees there, we planted five hundred more. These were red cedars, which we bought from the state forestry department as seedlings and planted around our border. About three quarters of them died in the first year, but we still have a generous hundred surviving, some of them now fifteen feet tall, some still under a foot tall. I discovered one that was growing well, but it was being crowded out by a laurel oak sapling that intercepted most of its light. Now the laurel oak is a nice tree, and we like it, but this one was in the wrong place. If I left it, my cedar would in due course die. So I got my axe and chopped down the laurel oak.

I felt horribly guilty doing that. Here was a nice tree, minding its own business, cut down in the prime of its youth. I had taken a life, for a reason that neither that tree nor the one I had saved would understand. I had played God, deciding which one was to be saved and which one was to perish. It was true that there were thousands of laurel oaks and only a few cedars. Still, was it right for me to condemn to death one in favor of the other?

This bothered me for several days—indeed, it bothers me now, a year and a half after the event. I take life seriously wherever I encounter it. Yet such decisions are necessary all the time. Every time I eat, something is perishing. I don't eat meat, because I prefer not to take a life unnecessarily—but what of the plants I eat? This has been a lifelong concern of mine, and the guilt never quite fades. In order to live, I must kill other living things. I don't like it, and I suspect I shall never truly come to terms with it. Now take the concept of God. Mine differs from that of most of my readers, but for the sake of this discussion, let's assume that there is a God, and His (Her) nature is somewhere in the ballpark of that described in this novel. Every day, every hour, every minute, He must make decisions, choosing between lives, because of an overall picture that we mortals can hardly understand. How much pain must there be in every one of those decisions! He must not have it all His own way, any more than I as a novelist have my fiction all my own way. I joy and suffer as I deal with fictional characters, trying to put together a significant whole. How much worse it would be if they truly lived and the fates I decreed for them were real! Yet God must handle real lives.

I think I can understand how He, after centuries of such effort, reaping the praise of those whose only interest is to get ahead of their neighbors, and the condemnation of those whose selfish interest He declines to endorse—while the world slowly deteriorates because of their ignorance and rapacity—might finally just tune out. What is the average prayer, other than an appeal for some unwarranted advantage? The engines quit on an airplane, and the passengers pray for deliverance, not because they are benefiting the cosmos, but simply because they don't want to die. They seldom express much genuine interest in doing His will, just their own. They continually put their own words in His mouth: God wants you to contribute to this church, God considers you a sinner if you don't do what I say. He might not want to destroy the world He had labored so imperfectly to perfect, but neither would He want to continue with a futile effort. I can see how He could get disgusted and conclude that it was best to simply let the world wend its way to Hell in its own fashion. I really couldn't blame Him. Could you?

But I see no salvation in tuning out the world. So, in the end, I do feel that reform is necessary, and this novel represents a suggestion of the kind of action required. I believe it bears consideration.

JeJune 17, 1988

Copyright © 1990 by Piers Anthony Jacob

ISBN: 0-380-75286-7