Pagan Passions Part 30

"That we ought to be getting something out of it ourselves, above and beyond the pure joy of helping humanity. Sure. You're perfectly right.

And we _do_ get something out of it."

"Like what?"

Diana grinned. She looked more like a tomboy than ever before. "Fun,"

she said. "And you know it. Don't tell me you didn't get a kick out of playing G.o.d at the Baccha.n.a.l."

"Well," Forrester confessed, "yes." He sighed. "And I guess that Baccha.n.a.l is going to be the one really high spot in a very shortened sort of life."

Diana sat upright. "What are you talking about?"

"What else would I be talking about? The Baccha.n.a.l. You know what happened. You must know--everybody must by now. Mars is probably demanding my head from Hera right now. Unless he's got more complicated ideas like taking me apart limb by limb. I remember he mentioned that."

Diana stood up and came over to Forrester. "Why would Mars do something like that and especially now? And what makes you think Hera would go along with him if he did?"

"Why not? Now that I've failed my tests--"

"_Failed?_" Diana cried. "You _haven't_ failed!"

Forrester stood up shakily. "Of course I have. After what happened at the Baccha.n.a.l, I--"

"Don't pay any attention to that," Diana said. "Mars is a louse. Always has been, I hear. n.o.body likes him. As a matter of fact, you've just pa.s.sed your finals. The last test was to see if you could figure out who we were--and you've done that, haven't you?"

There was a long, taut silence.

Then Diana laughed. "Your face looks the way mine must have, over three thousand years ago!"

"What are you talking about?" Still dazed, he wasn't quite sure he had heard her rightly.

"When they told me the same thing. After the original Diana was killed in a 'hunting accident'--frankly, she seems to have been too independent to suit Hera--and I pa.s.sed my own finals, I--"

She stopped.

"Now don't look at me like that," Diana said. "And pull yourself together, because we've got to get to the Final Invest.i.ture. But it's all true. I'm a subst.i.tute too."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Great G.o.d Dionysus, Lord of the Vine, Ruler of the Revels, Master of the Planting and the Harvest, Bestower of the Golden Touch, Overseer of the Poor, Comforter of the Worker and Patron of the Drunkard, sat silently in a cheap bar on Lower Third Avenue, New York, slowly imbibing his seventh brandy-and-soda. It tasted anything but satisfactory as it went down; he preferred vodka or even gin, but after all, he asked himself, if a G.o.d couldn't be loyal to his own products, then who could?

He was dressed in an inexpensive brown suit, and his face did not look like that of Dionysus, or even of William Forrester. Though neatly turned out, he looked a little like an out-of-work bookkeeper. But it was obvious that he hadn't been out of work for very long.

_h.e.l.l of a note_, he thought, _when a G.o.d has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other G.o.d has it in for him_.

But that, unfortunately, was the way Mars was. It didn't matter to him that none of what happened had been Forrester's fault. In the first place, Forrester hadn't known that the girl at the Baccha.n.a.l had been Venus until it was much too late for apologies. In the second place, he hadn't even picked her; he'd kept his promise not to use his powers on the spinning figure of Mr. Bottle Symes. But Venus had made no such promise. Venus had rigged the game.

But try explaining that to Mars.

He didn't seem to mind what went on at the Revels of Aphrodite--being G.o.ddess of Love was her line of work, and even Mars appeared to recognize that much. But he didn't like the idea of any extracurricular work, especially with other G.o.ds. And if anything occurred, he, Mars, was sure d.a.m.ned well going to find out about it and see that something was done about it, yes, sir.

Forrester finished his drink and stared at the empty gla.s.s. It had all begun on the day of his Final Invest.i.ture, and he had gone through every event in memory, over and over. Why, he didn't know. But it was something to do while he hid.

It hadn't been anywhere near as simple as the Invest.i.ture he had gone through to become a demi-G.o.d. All fourteen of the other G.o.ds had been there this time; a simple quorum wasn't enough. Pluto, with his dead-black, light-absorbent skin casting a shade of gloom about him, had slouched into the Court of the G.o.ds, looking at everybody and everything with lackl.u.s.ter eyes. Poseidon/Neptune had come in more briskly, smelling of fish, his skin pale green and glistening wet, his fingers and toes webbed and his eyes bulging and wide. Phoebus Apollo had strolled in, looking authentically like a Greek G.o.d, face and figure unbelievably perfect, and a pleased, stupid smile spread all over his countenance. Hermes/Mercury, slim and wily, with a foxy face and quick movements, had slipped in silently. And all the others had been there, too. Mars looked grim, but when Forrester was formally proposed for G.o.dhood, Mars made no objection.

The entire Pantheon had then gone single-file through a Veil of Heaven to a room Forrester just couldn't remember fully. At the time, his eyes simply refused to make sense out of the place. Now, of course, he understood why: it didn't really exist in the s.p.a.ce-time framework he was used to. Instead, it was partially a four-dimensional pseudo-manifold superimposed on normal s.p.a.ce. If not perfectly simple, at least the explanation made matters rational rather than supernatural.

But, at the time, everything seemed to take place in a chaotic dream world where infinite distance and the s.p.a.ce next to him seemed one and the same. He knew then why Diana had told him that the word "machine"

could not describe the G.o.ds' power source.

He had been seated there in the dream room. But it wasn't exactly sitting; every spatial configuration took on strange properties in that pseudo-s.p.a.ce, and he seemed to float in a place that had neither dimension nor direction. The other G.o.ds had all seemed to be sitting in front of him, all together and all at once--yet, at the same time, each had been separate and distinct from the others.

He wanted to close his eyes, but he had been warned against doing that.

Grimly, he kept them open.

And then the indescribable began to happen. It was as though every nerve in his body had been indissolubly linked to the great source of G.o.d-power. It was pure, h.e.l.lish torture, and at the same time it was the most exquisite pleasure he had ever known. He could not imagine how long it went on--but, eventually, it ended.

He was Dionysus/Bacchus.

And then it had been over, and a banquet had been held in his honor, a celebration for the new G.o.d. Everyone seemed to enjoy the occasion, and Forrester himself had been feeling pretty good until Mars, smiling a smile that only touched his lips and left his eyes as cold and hard as anything Forrester had ever seen, had come up to him and said softly:

"All right, Dionysus. You're a G.o.d now. I didn't touch you before because we needed you. And I don't intend to kill you now; replacements are too hard to find. I'm only going to beat you--to within an inch of your d.a.m.ned immortal life. Just remember that, buster."

And then, the smile still set on his face, he had turned and swaggered away.

Forrester had thought of Vulcan.

Mars wasn't a killer, in spite of his bully-boy tactics. He had too good a military mind to discipline a valuable man to death. But he was more than willing to go as near to that point as possible, if he thought it justified. And what he allowed as justification resided in a code all his own.

"Right" was what was good for Mars. "Wrong" was what disturbed him. That was the code, as simple, as black and white, as you could ask for.

Vulcan was one of the results.

Vulcan had been Venus' lawful husband, as far as the laws of the G.o.ds went. That didn't matter to Mars--when he wanted Venus. He had thrashed Vulcan, and the beating had left permanent damage.

The damage was translated into Vulcan's limp. Any G.o.d's ability to heal himself through the machine's power was dependent on the G.o.d's own mentality and outlook. And Vulcan had never been able to cure his limp; the psychic punishment had been too great.

Forrester ordered another drink and tried to think about something else.

The prospect of a fight with Mars was sometimes a little too much for him to handle.

The drink arrived and he sipped at it vacantly, thinking back to Diana and her story of the G.o.ds.

There was one hole in it--a hole big enough to toss Mount Olympus through, he realized. Where had the G.o.ds gone for three thousand years?

And how had they gotten to Earth in the first place?

Those two unanswered questions were enough to convince Forrester that, in spite of all he knew, and in spite of the way his new viewpoint had turned his universe upside down in a matter of hours, he still didn't have the whole story. He had to find it--even more so, now, as he began to realize that the human race deserved more than just the "security"

and "happiness" that the G.o.ds could give them. It deserved independence, and the chance to make or mar its own future. Protection was all very well for the infancy of a race, but man was growing up now. Man needed to make his own world.

The G.o.ds had no place in that world, Forrester saw. He had to find the answers to all of his questions--and now he thought he knew a way to do it.