Messiah

magicians in a child's book. But I remained all too visible. I stopped halfway across the lobby and waited for them.

They came toward me. Butler murmuring greetings and introductions to Communicator Jessup (soon to be Resident of Luxor 'when we get underway'): 'And this, Jack, is the Mr Hudson I told you about.'

The Resident-to-be shook my hand firmly. He was not more than thirty, a lean, dark-eyed mulatto whose features and coloring appealed to me, used as I now am to the Arabs; beside him, Butler looked more red and gross than ever.

'Butler has told me how useful you've been to us,' said Jessup. His voice was a little high but he did not have the trick of over-articulation which used to be so common among educated Negroes in earlier times, a peculiarity they shared with Baptist clergymen and professional poets.

'I've done what I could, little as it is,' I said ceremoniously. Then, without protest, I allowed them to lead me out onto the terrace which overlooked the setting sun and the muddy river.

'We planned to see you when Jack, here, arrived,' said Butler expansively when we were seated, a tray of gin and ice and tonic water set before us by a waiter who was used now to American ways. 'But you had the sign on your door so I told Jack we'd better wait, till Mr Hudson is feeling better. You are okay now, aren't you?'

'Somewhat better,' I said, enjoying the British gin: I'd had none since I left Cairo. 'At my age one is either dead or all right. I seem not to be dead.'

'How I envy you!' said Jessup solemnly. His voice though high was strong.

'Envy me?' For a moment I did not quite understand.

'To be so near the blessed state! Not to see the sun again and feel the body quivering with corrupt life… oh, what I should give to be as old as you!'

'You could always commit suicide,' I said irritably, forgetting my role as an amiable soft-headed old cretin.

This stopped him for only the space of a single surprised breath. 'Cavesway is not possible for his servants,' he said at last, patiently. 'You have not perhaps followed his logic as carefully as you might had you been living in the civilized world.' He looked at me with his bright dark eyes inscrutably focused.

Why are you here? I wanted to ask furiously, finally, but I only nodded my head meekly and said, 'So much has changed since I came out here. I do recall, though, that Cavesway was considered desirable for all.'

'It is… but not for his servants who must, through living, sacrifice their comfort… it is our humiliation, our martyrdom in his behalf. Even the humblest man or woman can avail themselves of Cavesway unlike us, his servants, who must live, disgusting as the prospect is, made bearable only by the knowledge that we are doing his work, communicating his word.'

'What courage it must take to give up Cavesway!' I intoned with reverent awe.

'It is the least we can do for him.'

The bright sun resembled that red-gold disk which sits on the brow of Horus. A hot wind of Numidia stirred the dry foliage about us. I could smell the metallic odor of the Nile's water. A muezzin called, high and toneless in the evening.

'Before I slip off into the better state,' I said at last, emboldened by gin, 'I should like to know as much as possible about the new world the Cavites have made. I left the United States shortly after Cave took his way. I have never been back.'

'How soon after?' The question came too fast. I gripped the arms of my chair tightly.

'Two years after, I think,' I said. 'I came to Cairo for the digging out in El Abul.'

'How could you have missed those exciting years?' Jessup's voice became zealous. I remained on guard. 'I was not even born then… and I've always cursed my bad luck. I used to go about talking to complete strangers who had been alive in those great years. Of course most were laymen and knew little about the things I had studied but they could tell me how the sky looked the day he took his way. And, every now and then, it was possible to meet someone who had seen him.'

'Not many laymen ever saw him,' I said. 'I remember with what secrecy all his movements were enveloped. I was in New York much of the time when he was there.'

'In New York!' Jessup sighed voluptuously.

'You saw him too, didn't you, Mr Hudson?' Butler was obviously eager that I make a good impression.

'Oh yes, I saw him the day he was in Washington. One of his few public appearances! I was very devout in those days. I am now too, of course,' I added hastily. 'But in those days when it was all new one was, well, exalted by Cavesword. I made a special trip to Washington just to get a glimpse of him.' I played as resolutely as possible upon their passionate faith.

'Did you really see him?'

I shook my head sadly. 'Only a quick blur as he drove away. The crowd was too big and the police were all around him.'

'I have of course relived that moment in the library, watching the films, but actually to have been there that day…'

Jessup's voice trailed off as he contemplated the extent of my good fortune.

'Then afterwards, after his death, I left for Egypt and I've never been back.'

'You missed great days.'

'I'm sure of that. Yet I feel the best days were before, when I was in New York and each week there would be a new revelation of his wisdom.'

'You are quite right,' said Jessup, pouring himself more gin. 'Yours was the finer time even though those of us who feel drawn to the mother must declare that later days possessed some virtue too, on her account.'

'Mother?' I knew of course before he answered what had happened.

'As Cave was the father of our knowledge, so Iris is its mother,' said Jessup. He looked at Butler with a half- smile. 'Of course there are some, the majority in fact, of the Communicators who deprecate our allegiance to the mother, not realizing that it enhances rather than detracts from Cave. After all, the Word and the Way are entirely his.'

Butler chuckled. 'There's been a little family dispute,' he said. 'We keep it out of the press because it really isn't the concern of anybody but us, Cave's servants. Don't mind talking to you about it since you'll be dead soon anyway and up here we're all in the same boat, all Cavites. Anyway, some of the younger fellows, the bright ones like Jessup, have got attached to Iris… not that we don't all love her equally. It's just that they've got in the habit of talking about death being the womb again, all that kind of stuff without any real basis in Cave.'

'It runs all through his work, Bill. It's implicit in all that he said.' Jessup was amiable but I sensed a hardness in his tone. It had come to this, I thought.

'Well, we won't argue about it,' said Butler, turning to me with a smile. 'You should see what these Irisians can do with a Cavite text. By the time they finish you don't know whether you're coming or going.'

'Were you at all active in the Mission?' asked Jessup, abruptly changing the subject.

I shook my head. 'I was one of the early admirers of Cave but I'm afraid I had very little contact with any of his people. I tried once or twice to get in to see him… when they were in the yellow tower, but it was impossible. Only the Residents and people like that ever got to see him personally.'

'He was busy those days,' said Jessup, nodding. 'He must have dictated nearly two million words in the last three years of his life.'

'You think he wrote all those books and dialogues himself?'

'Of course he did.' Jessup sounded surprised. 'Haven't you read Iris's accounts of the way he worked? The way he would dictate for hours at a time, oblivious of everything but Cavesword.'

'I suppose I missed all that,' I mumbled. 'In those days it was always assumed that he had a staff who did the work for him.'

'The lutherists,' said Jessup, nodding. 'They were extremely subtle in their methods but of course they couldn't distort the truth for very long…'

'Oh,' said Butler. 'Mr Hudson asked me the other day if I knew what the word lutherist came from and I said I didn't know. I must have forgotten for I have a feeling it was taught us, back in the old days when we primitives were turned out, before you bright young fellows came along to show us how to do Caveswork.'

Jessup smiled. 'We're not that bumptious,' he said. 'As for lutherist, it's a word based on the name of one of