They filled the temple; it was a good sign, Mother Sukra thought to herself as she looked out from behind the stage curtain. The Acolytes had done a wonderful job of carrying the Word. Most were first-timers, she saw. Hesitating, nervous, unsure, but curious. That, too, was to be expected. The Fellowship of the Holy Well was still new here, and attractive mostly to the young, the most impressionable always, and the poor, the starving, the losers. The Holy Priestess, too, would know this and be pleased by the newcomers and the demonstrated effectiveness of Mother Sukra's organization after only a few months.
The High Priestess was pleased—and excited, although she betrayed none of this in her classically stoic manner. She had been in this position before, although not with so much of responsibility.
The lights were going down; stirring music, subtle, soothing subsonics, set the mood and soft lights caressed both audience and stage. She looked at Mother Sukra, now checking herself one last time in the mirror, smoothing her long saffron robes and touching up her long brown hair. Her timing was impeccable, though; she stopped at precisely the right moment and turned to walk on stage to the center spot. There was no dais, no podium tonight, no pulpit from on high; that would spoil the effect they wanted from the Holy Priestess.
Mother Sukra looked terribly alone on the barren stage.
Along the sides the robed men and women, the Acolytes, heads shaved and wearing only loose-fitting cloth robes, rose and bowed to her. A number of the audience took the cue and stood, and within a short period most of the hall was standing. Normal crowd reaction; the ones remaining seated were not those to whom they would be speaking. Later, she thought. Later all would come willingly.
"Be at peace!" Mother Sukra proclaimed, and raised her arms to the heavens.
"Peace be unto the creatures of the Universe, no matter what form they be," the Acolytes—and some in the audience—responded.
"This night we are honored to be graced with the presence of Her Holiness the Priestess Yua of the Mother Church," Sukra told them needlessly. Curiosity over Yua's appearance explained the large crowd at a service normally attended only by the few hundred devout. The audience was entirely human, which was to be expected, too. Although the Com now contained no fewer than seven races, only three or four were commonly seen in large cities on the human worlds and none in Temples, which they considered racially xenophobic. While the Temple was open to all races, its doctrine was not one to appeal to nonhuman types.
Unless, of course, you were an Olympian.
Everybody knew about the Olympians, but nobody knew much about them at one and the same time. Few had ever seen one; they were secretive and clannish. Their world was such that no one could live on it without a spacesuit, yet the Olympians could live comfortably on any of the human worlds. They ran their own shipping company and flew their own ships; sales were handled by an Olympian-owned but human-run trading company—no salesmen need apply to Olympus.
Such conditions breed an insatiable curiosity in people, but there was more. The Olympians were said to be stunningly beautiful women; no one had ever seen a male. Beautiful women with tails, like horse's tails, who all, it was said, looked exactly alike.
There was a full house on this frontier world waiting to see an Olympian for the simple reason that the Fellowship of the Well had arisen on Olympus; the Mother Temple was there; and, while humans were the congregation and humans ran the Temples, the Olympians alone could be the High Priestesses.
Oh, they were there, all right—the local press, the politicos, the just plain curious. They sat and shuffled and suffered through Mother Sukra's mummery and chants as they waited to see just what an Olympian was really like.
Finally Mother Sukra finished, and her voice assumed an awed tone.
"Tonight, my children, we are honored to present Her Holiness the High Priestess of our Fellowship, Yua of Olympus."
The audience sat up now, expectant, watching as first Mother Sukra walked off then eyeing the curtains on either side of the stage to catch the first glimpse of the priestess.
Yua paused, leaving the stage vacant for thirty seconds or so to heighten the suspense, then she strode purposefully out to the center. The lights dimmed and a spotlight illuminated an area dead center stage and almost to the extreme front, its stream of light forming a bright aura that seemed to make her even more supernatural.
She heard the whispers of "There she is!" and "So that's an Olympian"—the last said in many different ways—with satisfaction. She wore a cloak of the finest silk, or some synthetic close to it, embroidered with gold leaf. It concealed her form to the floor, but even those far back in the hall were struck by the classic beauty of her face and the long, auburn hair that swept down past her waist.
"Be at peace, my children," Yua opened, her voice low, incredibly soft, and sexy. "I am here to bless this Temple and its congregation, and to tell those of you here who came out of curiosity or interest of our beliefs and our way."
She could sense the mixture of awe at her presence—she knew well how stunning she appeared to the humans—and disappointment that they were seeing no more than this. She did not intend to disappoint the voyeurs, but not before the message was delivered, not until it would mean something.
"I come from a planet we call Olympus," she began, and that got their attention again. Not only was she erotically charismatic, but this promised to be informative. "Our Founding Mothers discovered the world, which had been passed over by the Com as it was not a place where one could survive without prohibitively expensive modification or sealed domes, like the dead worlds of the Markovians. But we could survive there, build there, grow and prosper there, and we have."
She had them now; a cough was conspicuous in the big hall. They had come expecting the kind of cultism and mummery Mother Sukra had done. They had not expected to be addressed so practically on matters of common curiosity and therefore interest in such plain terms. They listened.
"We resemble you, and we are from your seed, but we are not like you. We were insensitive to many extremes of heat and cold, able to filter out poisons in alien waters and hostile atmospheres, and we need no special suits or equipment to help us. Listen well and I will tell you the story of our people, yours and mine, and of our beliefs."
She paused. Perfect. Nobody stirred.
"Yours is a frontier world," she reminded them. "Still rough, still raw. Most, perhaps all of you, were born of other stars. You are all, then, widely traveled in space. You know of the ruins of the Markovians on dead worlds, a mysterious race that left dead computers deep inside their planets and shells of cities without artifacts. You know that once this race inhabited most of the galaxy, and that it vanished long before humanity was born."
Some heads nodded. The Markovian puzzle was well known to everybody by now. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of dead worlds, had been found as humanity had spread ever outward. They were old, incredibly old, impossibly old since they appeared to date back almost to the formation of the universe.
"They were the first civilization. They grew and spread and reached godhood itself, their computers giving them everything they could ever desire merely for the wishing. And yet this was not enough; they grew stale, bored, unable to take joy in life. And so they decided to abandon their godhood, begin anew as new races of the Universe. They created a great computer, the Well of Souls, and they placed it at the center of the Universe, and on this computer world they created new races, all of the races of the Universe out of their very selves. Their old worlds grew silent while their creations, tested on the world of the Well, became the new masters of creation—our own people among them. At last all were gone; they were transformed into our ancestors, and the Markovians were us and we were the Markovians."
A number of the better educated nodded at this account. It was an old theory, one of thousands advanced to explain the Markovian mystery.
"But even as this is truth, for we all know of it, a puzzle remains, the eternal, ultimate question. The Markovians rose near the beginning of time; they were the first race, the parents of all who came after. And if this be so, then who created the Markovians?"
An interesting question in metaphysics. There were a number in the crowd who reflected that it didn't really follow even if her premise on the Markovians was correct that anybody had to create the Markovians, but they kept silent.
"Throughout history, humankind—and the other races with whom we have joined in partnership—have had many religions. They have many gods, a few have one god, but all have a single concept of the first creation. All have at their center a chief God, a prime mover, the one who created all else. He exists, my children! He exists and He is still here, still watching our own progress, evaluating us. Our First Mothers knew Him, and He took them to the Well of Souls where they were twice reborn. Through the principles of the Well these First Mothers were made greater than they had been, and they were returned here as a living sign, they and their children and their children's children, that God exists, that the Well exists, that we may attain states much higher than that to which we were born if we but seek Him out. For if we recognize the truth and His great and omnipotent power that is absolute, if we find Him and but ask, a paradise shall be born here, for us. And it is possible to do so, my children. It is possible to find Him if we look, and that is what we all do, all must do, until He is found. For God is among us, children!" Her voice was rising now, the emotional pitch was so effective, so sincere that it bore into even the most cynical in the audience. "He has chosen for some reason, a form like yours. He could be here, tonight, sitting beside one of you, waiting to be asked, to be recognized. We know His name. We have but to ask. To the First Mothers He called Himself Nathan Brazil!"
They were moved by the message and half-convinced, but for some it was a letdown. All the rationality had somehow quickly turned on a questionable point of logic to a matter of faith.
"Are you here, Lord? Is any of you Nathan Brazil?" she called out. No one spoke or made a move. That was better than some places where occasional wags had, in fact, owned up to being God, causing a disruption in the service. Once in a while one would be a genuine loony who really believed it, and that was often worse. As much as High Priestess Yua truly wanted to find God, she was secretly glad when no response was made in situations like this.
The pause over, she continued. "Our First Mothers were human once, like you. Now, through the grace of Nathan Brazil and through the Well of Souls, they became something else: Olympians. We are immune to your diseases and have none of our own. We can stand comfortably unclothed at well below zero or near the boiling point of water. We see colors you see not, hear sounds you hear not, and our strength is that of ten ordinary women. If the atmosphere is mostly chlorine, we will breathe it. If it is mostly carbon monoxide, we will breathe it. If it is water, we will breathe it. Even in the vacuum of space we can survive, storing what we need for hours at temperatures that would freeze anyone else. Look upon the Olympian, true child of the Well, and join us in our holy crusade!"
With that the cloak swept back to reveal her full naked body and a collective gasp went up from the audience.
She was 160 centimeters high and looked about seventeen, the most perfect seventeen any had ever seen. Her body was absolute perfection, the combinations of every desirable physical attribute any adolescent male had ever thought of for his dream woman. It was almost impossible to gaze upon such perfection and remain sane, yet none, male or female, cult member or mere onlooker, could tear his or her eyes away. She was Eve still in Eden, and more, much more. She was impossible.
And even her movement was perfect, erotic, fluid, and catlike as only such an Eve could move. Looking straight on, it seemed as if her billowing auburn hair reached to the floor of the stage and beyond, yet now she turned, first to the left, then to the right, so all could see.
"Behold the sign of the truth of the message!" she proclaimed.
She did have a tail, equine, and yet, somehow, perfectly matched to her form and looking like it should be there. It was long and bushy and as silky soft as the hair which dropped down to it. She flexed the tail a couple of times, as if to eliminate any doubt as to its reality, although none who saw, doubted in the least.
"There is no other way to explain us, no other way to accept our existence, except through embracing the truth," she told them. "So come! Join us! Seek out God and find Him, and He will grant you Paradise! It is why we are here. We of Olympus are of human ancestry, but we are too few, too few. Nathan Brazil exists! Even our detractors and the Com admit this. He is by their records the oldest living man. You can verify this yourself. Join us! Join our way! Learn to recognize Him, to seek Him out, and a future of eternal bliss is yours!"
The cynics were recovering their wits now, even though they still could not take their eyes off such stunning beauty.
"I leave you now," she intoned. "Go in peace and join our holy cause." The Acolytes were fanning out, at the ready. Later the impressionable ones, the impulsive ones, with cool air in their faces and time to think it over, might hesitate. Grab those now. "See the Acolytes and join us now, this very night! You can only imagine the rewards!"
And she was gone, only her cloak remaining to mark where she had been. She didn't walk off, didn't move a muscle—she simply faded until she was no longer visible. Only her voice remained.
"Now, my children! Now! I bless you all this night!"
People started to move. A trickle at first, then a few more, and still more. The converts, the new blood, seeking the way to such perfection as they had witnessed. A number left, of course—but the bulk of the audience stayed seated, eyes still fixed where but a minute before perfection had stood, still seeing the sight in their mind's eye and afraid to turn away lest they lose it.
The spotlight dimmed, then was no more. The stage was dark for a moment, then soft lights came up as Mother Sukra returned to direct those who wished to join to the proper places. Of the High Priestess there was no sign.
Yua, offstage, peered out at the crowd, and a thrill went through her at the number approaching the Acolytes. She felt good inside, as if she had accomplished a great deal. There were times when it got discouraging, when few were swayed despite it all; but tonight the spirit was within her and the spirit moved them. It was good.
People, mostly Temple members, walked busily back and forth, their eyes glazed with renewed faith and zeal, ignoring her completely, which was understandable since they could not see her. Yet another attribute of the Olympians was in use, the ability to blend into just about any background. It was a good exit and a good way to avoid throngs of people, although, unlike invisibility, it betrayed you if you moved very rapidly. She waited until the coast was clear, then beat it for her downstairs apartment. She felt drained, as she always did after a rally.
That same look of dazed fanaticism was in the eyes of the young couple standing before the robed Acolyte. The Temple member, trained for this sort of thing, looked them over. No more than late teens themselves, he decided.
"You wish to join our holy cause?" he asked seriously. "It is not a step to be taken lightly, yet it is the first step to salvation."
"Oh, yes," they breathed. "We are ready."
"Have you family who is responsible for you?" he asked them. It was a required question and saved a lot of headaches later.
"We are married," the young woman assured him. "Just got a small farm outside Tabak."
"You wish to enter the Fellowship, freely and of your own will?" the Acolyte continued. Standard procedure. It was really a tough job, since the questions could easily break a mood if asked in the wrong tone.
The young couple looked at each other, then back to the Acolyte. "We do," they assured him as one.
The Acolyte was familiar with the type. Small farmers, probably given the land at marriage, both children of farmers who had looked forward to a certain but dull destiny. Now they saw a quick way out.
"Will we . . . travel?" the young man asked.
The Acolyte nodded. "You will see many places and experience many things."
"Will . . . will we see her again?" The woman almost sighed.
Again, the Acolyte nodded. "She, or her sisters, are with us as our teachers and our guides."
The couple was quickly accepted and passed on to the more formal processor, whose primary responsibility was to get their zeal on a piece of recorder paper along with their thumbprints in case of later legal challenge. Many times the Com Police and other religions had sent ringers to make sure that the laws were observed. They would be. Cops quickly tired and dropped out of the regimen; the ringers were often the best converts of all, since they were already involved in one faith.
The contract was not a simple one; almost nobody read it, including the ones who weren't for real—those who could read, that is—and none of the Acolytes could remember anyone taking advantage of the offer to have it completely read to them. Such procedures were recorded, of course, also for defense of later legal challenge.
And the contracts would be challenged, most of them, by family and friends outside the cult. In effect, they signed over everything they owned to the Mother Church, forever. Under Com law such a contract could be canceled even if not signed under fraud or duress within even days of signing; after that it was "sealed" and even if you later resigned, the Church kept all.
During the next seven days it was the job of expert indoctrinators to see that nobody canceled. It was a measure of effectiveness that few did.
There would be singing and dancing, hugging and kissing, praying and rejoicing in total communal fellowship, as individuality was worn down and the newcomers were kept in an emotionally high state. Recalcitrants during the mass period would see the Holy Priestess herself before they left. They usually didn't leave after that.
It was an easy cult to accept, too. Your bad habits, dietary and otherwise, were discouraged, and peer pressure usually got you into the mold, but they were not prohibited either. Nor, except for the indoctrination period, were they celibate.
They did good works, too. For every proselytizer stalking the streets and spaceports of the thousand human Com Worlds, there were five working in the poorest communities, feeding, clothing, sheltering those in need with no questions asked and displaying no prejudices of any sort. These good works were the more common, although slower, ways of gaining converts.
On the eighth day the young couple would undergo a sacred and solemn ceremony; their clothing and old possessions would be burned in a sacred fire said to have been carried from Olympus, and they would have their heads and bodies shaved and don the robes of the Acolyte. Then would come the full religious study, aided by hypnotics and all other means at the cult's command, until they were so immersed in the dogma and so dependent on the Mother Church for even the most basic things that they thought no other way. Then they would be ready to take to the streets, to ask every stranger if in fact he—or even she—was Nathan Brazil, and to carry out the good works of the Church.
It was spreading, yes, but discouragingly slowly from world to world, so slowly that none of the Olympians believed they would see it as a truly dominant force in their very long lifetimes. The nonhuman races paid no attention whatever; the concept that the one true God would choose to go around as a human was pretty insulting.
And through it all, government and press found nothing wrong in its behavior and didn't worry overmuch as it built because of its slow growth rate. Although they wondered about Olympus, about whether those strange superwomen whose world was off-limits to all were sincere in their religion or practicing a new and slow but effective form of conquest. If so, nobody would be alive to really see such a thing happen. It would be somebody else's problem unless something happened to cause a massive growth in church membership. Even the Olympians admitted that.
None of them had yet heard of the Dreel, let alone guessed their implications. Not yet, not yet.