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emerged from under its
wing.
                 “Can
you communicate with it?”
                 “That’s
really the clothed man’s bird. He has the hot line to Him.”
                 “Who’s
this clothed man?” interrupted Sean. “Is he human? Or is he another person in your holy trinity?”
                 “He’s
the Mystery Master. I think he knows what’s going on—or he’s a few stages ahead
of us in finding out. That’s his Great Work. So far as I know he was one of the
colonists— frozen in hyb, so we never met before. He gives his name out as Knossos now, so I guess he was a Greek. Perhaps he
was the original Cretan liar?”
                 Jeremy
approached the magpie. The bird bounced from foot to foot. It turned its head
from side to side, fixing its right eye upon him and then its left, triangulating. Perhaps its left eye saw things differently from its
right.
                 “Is Knossos nearby? He is, isn’t he?”
                 “Caw.”
                 “Should
these people try to find him?”
                 “Caw caw.”
                 “Will
he find them?”
                 “Caw. Caw."
                “What does God want them to do?”
                 Abruptly
the magpie launched itself at Sean. Sean only flinched momentarily, though he
did shut his eyes tight. The bird’s claws gripped his shoulder. Gently it
inserted its beak into his ear, as though in search of ticks. Its throat
rattled. The noise reverberated in his ear, vibrating his ear-drum, and he
heard blurred words where before he only had heard a bird call.
                 (“Find
God?” croaked the voice. “Want to? Have to learn how to, first! Stay here
instead? Pleasant. Yes? No?”)
                 The
magpie withdrew its beak and launched itself off his shoulder, unbalancing Sean
as it flapped up into the air. The bird rose and circled and came to rest high
up on top of the starship, where it was only a tiny black blot. Flapping its
tail, it shat another stain then took off and away.
                 Sean
reported what he’d heard, inside the cave of his head.
                 “Be
damned,” swore Austin .
                 “In
a sense,” agreed Jeremy affably. “Being damned is one way to God. Really, you’d
be better off here. God’s got other fish to fry.” The flatfish which was still
slowly flapping its way across the turf at a tangent to them raised its head
and wheezed reproachfully. A shudder ran along its whole body, somehow lifting
it off the ground so that for a moment it seemed to float before flopping back.
                 “If
God’s over in the west, in Eden , can we walk there? It shouldn’t take more than a few E-months!” Austin cracked his fingers grimly, as though
snapping weeks off a wooden calendar.
                 “There’s
a valley between the Gardens and Eden . Not your ordinary valley—it’s miles wide
and miles deep. There’s a scorching desert at the bottom, full of poison gas.
No way down, no way across.”
                 “Could
we travel by air?”
                 “Oh,
He can’t have you flying around in starships. That’s incompatible. I thought
you’d noticed you’d been switched off. There’s only one way of getting to Eden , my terrestrial friends. It’s called dying. By way of Hell. You don’t know the art of dying yet.”
                 “Perhaps
this . . . this Knossos man knows another way,” said Austin .
                 “You
don’t follow me. That is the way.
Anyhow, why should it be important to God to meet you?”
                 “Hell,”
swore Austin . Now it was hard to tell whether he was
swearing or referring to the Darkside of the world. “We’ve come all these light
years! If you’ve found a