reflected it was good to see the old traditions being restored. Perhaps if they hadn’t fallen into abeyance, things would not have reached this pass. Then he shook his head, for some reason his thinking seemed a little fuzzy these days.
One of the angels had been working quickly. She had taken a small, round loaf of leavened bread and split it in half. Then, she had placed some green leaves on the bottom half, added a red sauce and put it to one side. A white sauce had been added to the top half before it too was put to one side. Then, she lifted a cake of cooking meat off the altar, placed it in the loaf and handed it to him with a respectful smile. “It is called a hamburger Most Noble One. Enjoy it in the spirit in which it is intended.”
Lemuel took a bite of the meal and found it was good. So much so that he had finished it almost before he was aware of the juice dribbling down his chin. One of the female angels wiped it for him and respectfully offered him another hamburger. This one took him a little longer to eat but the sensation in his stomach was that of warmth and satisfaction. He suddenly realized he was actually happy, for the first time in a long time.
“This is most kind of you Perpetiel-Lan. Your community here is an example to us all. I am sure He Who Must Not Be Named would be profound in his recognition of your services to him and to our community.”
Like Hell, Perpetiel thought. He’d massacre us all on the spot. “That thought is profoundly pleasing to us Most Noble One. Might I suggest you try these poor snacks? They are called fries.”
An hour later, a well-fed Lemuel left the Temple, already writing his report in his mind. There was no doubt, no doubt at all, that this Temple was the center of human influence and the portal by which human goods were arriving in Heaven. The situation saddened him, it was obvious that the people here were working from the best of motives but the whole Temple of Ceaseless Compliance set-up was an example of how sin and depravity wormed its way into the heart under guise of honest virtue. Lemuel sighed, he really didn’t want to go home this evening. Compared with the temple, it was a cold, unwelcoming place and after Onniel’s behavior earlier, he had no doubt that it would be even more so. Instead, he decided to go back to his office and write up the report that was forming in his mind. That decision made, as he stepped out of the door of the temple, he turned right for his office, not left for his home.
That change saved his life. The concentrated sound blast that hit the wall of the temple was above and behind him, not directly over his head. The outer wall collapsed under the blast, dropping a great pile of masonry where he would have been standing. Lemuel was caught on the outside of the avalanche, rocks hit him and threw him to one side. His skin was lacerated by the shattered sheets of sapphire that followed the masonry down. But, he lived and was merely stunned by the explosion. Dumbly, his mind still fuzzy and confused, he realized that an attempt had been made on his life. This was unhead of, nobody ever tried to harm another being in Heaven. Well, not another Angel anyway, humans didn’t count of course. Then a shocking thought struck him. The assassination wasn’t aimed at him as a casual worshipper at the Temple of Ceaseless Compliance, it was aimed at him as an investigator of the League of the Holy Court. Somebody knew exactly who he was and had tried to take him out.
Inside the temple, the meeting was breaking up as the ‘worshippers’ got ready to head back to the Montmartre Club for a few badly-needed drinks. The crash of the front wall’s collapse brought the hasty preparations to a grinding halt. Perpetiel led the race to see what had happened and stopped dead at the sight of Lemuel, sprawled out on the sidewalk with masonry on top of him.
“If I’d known we were going to kill him, I wouldn’t have used the top-grade hamburger.” Lailah-Lan sounded slightly grumpy. She was justifiably proud of her hamburgers.
“We weren’t going to kill him. This is somebody else.” Perpetiel looked at the figure on the ground. It was moving, trying to get up. “He’s alive, get him inside, make sure he stays that way. Whoever did this might try again.”
DIMO(N) Conference Suite, Pentagon.
“Books Luga?” Colonel Baylor was surprised. Somehow he hadn’t thought of Luga actually studying anything. Surreptitiously he put his foot near one of the floor vents. To his relief he could feel the air current, the system was running full blast.
“Law books. I have decided to study law. I think it is hard to live here unless I am a lawyer. There are so many laws covering so many things. So I must study law.”
“Didn’t you have laws in Hell?”
“Only one. If Satan gets mad, take cover. Other than that, the law is what the strongest person says it is. Here it is different.”
“Our Luga a lawyer. Now there’s a terrifying thought.” The voice came from the stenographer sitting in the corner. The interjection got her a stern glance from Colonel Baylor, stenographers by job definition were supposed to be neither heard nor seen.
“What about Heaven Luga? Do you know much about the laws there? Do they have any?”
“They do although I do not know much about them More or less the same as your ten commandants. That should not surprise you. They came from the same place after all. They have a sort of police in Heaven, it is called The League of the Holy Court. I think it is mostly concerned with keeping the humans in Heaven in order.”
“There are humans in Heaven then?”
“Of course, there are many of them. The Angels use them as menial servants.”
Baylor sighed. If Lugasharmanaska could be believed, and that was always open to question, everything in the Second Life was very different from the pictures that had been presented. “Right Luga, today, I’d like to talk about the wars here on Earth. Particularly about the other beings, ones we think of as gods.”
“Why do you want to know about that bunch of losers?” Luga was openly scornful.
“They existed then?”
“Certainly. They probably still do. We ran them off Earth, Yahweh and Satan together did. They had a good-cop, bad-cop act going for them.”
“I wonder who the Bad Cop was?” The stenographer got another angry glance from Baylor.
“Usually Satan. But we converted their followers and deprived them of power. By the time we’d finished they had so few followers it wasn’t worth them staying. Only one of the groups really put up a fight and we had to strike a deal. If they went, their followers wouldn’t be tormented in Hell.”
“So that’s what Gaius Julius Caesar meant when he said he and his friends were protected by powerful gods.” Baylor spoke thoughtfully. “There always were rumors that he and some other Romans were part of a mystical cult. Whatever it was, it must have saved their necks.”
“You’ll have to talk to him about that.’ Luga was dismissive. “There were quite a few others as well. I think they were the first ones out of the Hell-pit.”
“Hardly surprising. So there are other beings from other bubble-worlds in Universe-Two.”
Luga took a moment to work that one out. “Certainly. But they haven’t been seen on Earth for millennia. We saw the last of them off at least three thousand years ago.”
Luga spoke for a couple of hours, describing the battle for control of Earth. “So, you see, most of the religions are based on memories of those other groups. That’s all I know really.”
Baylor relaxed and the stenographer signed off on the transcript she’d created. Then, he leaned forward again. “Do you really want to become a lawyer Luga?”
“No, but I want to understand the law. These laws you have are a new concept to me. My television show makes me too much money for me to give it up.”
Baylor couldn’t resist asking. “How much do you make on that show Luga.”
She grinned exposing her long yellow fangs. “When we broadcast, one thousand dollars per day. Or, as my bank manager says, ‘how now, green thou’.”
Chapter Thirty Five
Home of George and Rose Matthews, C?saraugusta, Cisalpine Gaul, New Rome, Hell
He was sitting in a cold, dark street, the constant rain soaking him to the bone while the bitter wind chilled him until every joint in his body ached. Starvation gnawed at him, cramping his stomach and making his insides clench with pain. Soon, he would have to root through the garbage for something to eat, fighting the rats for the worm and maggot-riddled fragments of food in the filthy trash. Even when he found something, the relief it would bring would
