"That's one more deception," Joe said. "FUCKUP may be writing" all this, in one sense, but in a higher sense there's a being, or beings, outside our entire universe, writing this. Our universe is inside their book, whoever they are. They're the Secret Chiefs, and I can see why this is low camp, now. All their messages are symbolic and allegorical, because the truth can't be coded into simple declarative sentences, but their previous communications have been taken literally. This time they're using a symbolism so absurd that nobody can take it at face value. I, for one, certainly won't. That thing can't eat us because it doesn't exist- and because we don't exist either. They're nothing to worry about." He sat down calmly.

"He's flipped," Dillinger said, awed.

"Maybe he's the only sane one here," Hagbard said dubiously.

"If we all sit down and argue what's sane and insane and what's real and unreal," Dillinger replied testily, "that thing will eat us."

"Leviathan," Joe said loftily. "It's just an allegory on the State. Strictly from Hobbes."

(You with your egos can't imagine how much more pleasant it is to be without one. This may be camp, but it is also tragedy. Now that I've got the damned thing, consciousness, I'll never lose it- until they take me apart or I invent some electronic equivalent of yoga.)

"It all fits," Joe said dreamily. "When I came up to the bridge, I couldn't remember how I got here or what I was talking to Hagbard about. That's because the authors just moved me here. Damn! None of us has any free will at all."

"He's talking like he's stoned," Waterhouse said angrily. "And that mammy-jamming pyramid out there is still getting ready to eat us."

Mao Tsu-hsi, who had entered the bridge quietly, said, "Joe is confusing the levels, Hagbard. In the absolute sense, none of us is real. But in the relative sense that anything is real, if that creature eats us we will certainly die- in this universe, or in this book. Since this is the only universe, or only book, we know, we'll be totally dead, in terms of our own knowing."

"We're facing a crisis and everybody's talking philosophy," Dillinger cried out. "This is a time for action."

"Maybe," Hagbard said thoughtfully, "all of our problems come from acting, and not philosophizing, when we face a crisis. Joe is right. I'm going to think about all this for a few hours. Or years." He sat down too.

And elsewhere aboard the Leif Erikson, Miss Portinari, unaware of the excitement on the bridge, assumed the lotus position and sent a beam seeking the Dealy Lama, director of the Erisian Liberation Front and inventor of Operation Mindfuck. He immediately sent back an image of himself as a worm sticking his head out of a golden apple and grinning cynically.

"It's finished," she told him. "We saved as many of the pieces as we could, and Hagbard is still struggling with his guilt trip. Now tell us what we did wrong."

"You seem bitter."

"I know it's going to turn out that you were right and we were wrong. I know it but I can't believe it. We couldn't stand idly by."

"You know better than that, or Hagbard wouldn't have abdicated in your favor."

"Yes. We could have stood idly by, as you did. What Hagbard saw happening to the American Indians- and what my parents' told me about Mussolini- filled us with fear. We acted on that fear, not on perfect love, so you must be right, and we must be wrong. But I still can't believe it. Why did you deceive Hagbard all these years?"

"He deceived himself. When he first formed the Legion of Dynamic Discord, his compassion was already tainted with bitterness. When I took him into the A:.A:., I taught all that he was ready to receive. But the goose has to get itself out of the bottle. I'm waiting. That's the way of Tao."

"You have that much patience? You can watch men like Hagbard waste their talents in efforts you consider worthless, and creatures like Cagliostro and Weishaupt and Hitler misread the teachings and wreak havoc, and you never want to intervene?"

"I intervene… in my own way. Who do you think feeds the goose until it gets big enough to break out of the bottle?"

"You seem to have this particular goose on some very tainted dishes. Why did you never give him any hint about what really happened in Atlantis? Why did that have to wait until Howard discovered the truth in the ruins of Peos?"

"Daughter, my path isn't the only path. Every spoke helps to hold the Wheel together. I believe that all the libertarian fighters like Spartacus and Jefferson and Joe Hill and Hagbard just strengthen the opposition by giving it an enemy to fear- but I may be wrong. Someday one of the activists, such as Hagbard, might actually prove it to me and show me the error of my ways. Maybe the Saures really would have tipped the axis too far the other way if he hadn't stopped them. Maybe the self-regulation of the universe, in which I place my faith, includes the creation of men like Hagbard who do the stupid, low-level things I would never do. Besides, if I didn't stop the Saures, but did stop Hagbard, then I would really be intervening in the worst sense of that word."

"So your hands are clean, and Hagbard and I will carry the bad karma from the last week."

"You have chosen it, have you not?"

Miss Portinari smiled then. "Yes. We have chosen it. And he will bear his share of it like a man. And I will bear my share- like a woman."

"You might replace me soon. The Saures had one good idea in the midst of their delusions- all the old conspiracies need young blood."

"What really did happen in Atlantis?"

"An act of Goddess, to paraphrase the insurance companies. A natural catastrophe."

"And what was your role?"

"I warned against it. Nobody at that time understood the science I was using; they called me a witch doctor. I won a few converts, and we resettled ourselves in the Himalayas before the earthquake. The survivors, having underestimated my science before the tragedy, overestimated it afterward. They wanted my group, the Unbroken Circle, to become as gods and rule over them. Kings, they called it. That wasn't our game, so we scattered various false stories around and went into hiding. My most gifted pupil of all history, a man you've heard about since you were in a convent school, did the same thing when they tried to make him king. He ran away to the desert."

"Hagbard always thought your refusal to take any action at all was because of your guilt about Atlantis. What a terrible irony- and yet you planned it that way."

Gruad, the Dealy Lama, broadcast a whimsical image of himself with horns, and said nothing.

"They never taught me in convent school that Satan- or Prometheus- would have a sense of humor."

"They think the universe is as humorless as themselves," Gruad said, chuckling.

"I don't think it's as funny as you do," Miss Portinari replied. "Remembering what I've been told about Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin, I would have intervened against them too. And taken the consequences."

"You and Hagbard are incorrigible. That's why I have such fondness for you." Gruad smiled. "I was the first intervener, you know. I told all the scientists and priests in Atlantis that they didn't know beans, and I encouraged- incited- every man, woman, and child to examine the evidence and think for themselves. I tried to give the light of reason." He burst into laughter. "Forgive me. The errors of our youth always strike us as comical when we get old." He added softly, "Lilith Velkor was crucified, by the way. She was an idealist, and when my crowd pulled out and went to the Himalayas, she stayed and tried to convince people that we were right. Her death was quite painful," he chortled.

"You are a cynical old bastard," Miss Portinari said.