Dream Park

other.

The room was furnished with wrought iron chairs interwoven with wicker and padded with leather. The total effect was fabulous and slightly off-center, as if the designer was only partially famil­iar with the culture he was imitating.

They took chairs near the center of the room. 'I don't like this,' Acacia said. 'It's too polite. We're supposed to be lulled.' Griffin drummed his fingers on the chair's arm. He could pick out titles on the shelves, and they were the same bizarre hodge­

podge as the chairs and the paintings. There was a set of Encyclo­paedia Britannica next to five years of UFO Quarterly bound into leather volumes. One whole shelf was filled with books in an In­ternational Classics series of some sort. Directly below it were pa­perbacks in plastic envelopes. The effect was mildly disorienting. He should be trying to remember riddles. He couldn't. As a child he had never been tempted by riddles.

Footsteps in the doorway. Griffin found himself straightening self-consciously in his seat. He refused to go so far as twisting around to see who was there.

'Good afternoon.' The man's voice was cultured, studiedly so. The footsteps came closer, and the figure passed into his periph­eral vision and to the wall map. 'I trust that it is afternoon on Earth? Ah, good. And your trip was comfortable? Fine, fine.'

He was a middle-aged black man, larger and stronger than most New Guinea natives. He wore a tropical shirt and razor-creased white plantation pants. He clasped his hands behind his back and fairly pranced from side to side, personal energy radiating from him like waves of heat

'I am Yali, and I would like to welcome you to Heaven. I hope you will enjoy your stay.' He laughed heartily, as at a private joke. 'Yes, I most certainly hope you do. After all, some of you may stay forever. It is a nice place, actually, one of those infinitely rare situations where one is rewarded commensurately to one's efforts. Surely that is Heaven by any man's definition?' Again the vastly amused guffaw.

'Now that we are all friends, do have lunch with me, won't you?' Yali clapped his hands, and two beautiful dark women haloed in pale auras wheeled in twin carts laden with food.

Oliver ran his tongue lightly over his lips. 'I hope this isn't a trick. Suddenly I am famished.'

'Me three,' Gina echoed.

'No tricks,' Yali assured them. 'Please. Enjoy.'

The two carts locked together, and flaps folded out from the sides to form a buffet... of Spam, canned pineapple, crepes, rice, meat loaf, corned beef, and sliced white bread.

Acacia leaned close to Griffin. 'It looks as if this whole place was designed by pulling random pages out of 1950's women's magazines.'

'Frightening, isn't it?' Griffin chose a light meal, refused a charitably offered Coca-Cola, and returned to his seat.

YaM bounced up and down on his toes, grinning, and Griffin paused in mid-bite, a piece of a children's rhyme running through his mind... . And welcome little fishes in with gently smiling jaws...

Yali was unable to restrain his enthusiasm any longer. 'I do not wish to interrupt your meal, but just as your mouths must be fed, so must your minds.' He tapped his head with a forefinger. 'Do you all agree?' There were no dissenting opinions, and that was enough for Yali. 'I am sure you are wondering who I am, and how I earned such a position of honor in Heaven.'

'All right, YaM, consider us mystified.' Acacia ate while she listened.

'I was born in the Ngaing bush area of Sor, a member of the Walaliang patrician and the Tabinung matriclan. During World War Two, Europeans came and promised my people that if we fought the Japanese we would be given all of the things that the Europeans had-electric lights, automobiles, metal tools, tinned meat, and so forth. Naturally we were excited.

'Understand that my people had lived a satisfying, happy exist­ence before the Europeans came with their guns and missionaries. They told us that the reason we were denied sophisticated technol­ogy was that we were descended from Ham. Ham, as you may re­call, was Noah's son, and after the flood he laughed at his father's drunken nakedness. I'm not terribly familiar with Judeo-Christian myth patterns, but I believe that Ham... no, it was Ham's son Canaan, was cursed to be a ‘servant of servants' unto his brethren. Well, being evil and natural slaves and all that, we weren't fit to have the secret of Cargo, were we? So my people tried to conform themselves to the dictates of the Church, and we helped the Europeans build roads and plantations, and we du­tifully marched off to war.

'I was one of those who fought. I died in the jungle, and be­cause I was a brave and virtuous man, I went to Heaven. Here I learned that God-not my God, nor your God, but God none­theless-had always intended that we receive our share of Cargo, and that the Europeans had been diverting our goods for their own purposes.'

Leigh asked, 'And why didn't the Almighty put a stop to it?' Yali smiled benevolently. 'Because in his infinite wisdom, He perceived that this was merely a skirmish between people of different cultures, and that in time all inequities would be rectified.

And indeed this is happening now. My people have learned the Cargo secret and are using it for their own enrichment. I, due to my familiarity with both New Guinea and the European-'

Acacia interrupted. 'Where did you get your knowledge of Eu­ropeans?'

an excellent question. Basic training for my army unit was carried out in Australia. There I was appointed Area Manager and given substantial training, including a thorough course in gram­mar. God, as you may have heard, has little patience for slang, colloquialism, or Pidgin English. Naturally, as soon as the politi­cal situation in Melanesia is back to normal, the natives will be able to address me in their own tongues. For the sake of con­tinuity, however, it is now convenient to take messages in English. Paper work, you know. We're swamped with it.'

Griffin asked, 'Heaven doesn't have computers?'

'No.' Yali moved up to the wall map and fingered a switch. 'Have you been wondering just where we are? After all, theolo­gians have debated for centuries over the exact location of Heaven. Some have said that Heaven can be found beyond the stars. Some say it exists in the heart of Man, and others claim that it does not exist at all, that God is dead, or at least unemployed.'

Griffin stifled his laugh. 'But you know otherwise?'

'Absolutely.' The ffick of a switch turned the wall map trans­parent. 'And it is my pleasure to reveal to you the true location of the Hereafter.' Beyond the transparent wall was a vast white cloud deck. A hundred meters out, a hole punctured the fluffy white. The hole was about twenty meters in diameter, and ladders rose from beneath, resting against the edges. Light- and dark-skinned angels climbed up and down, carrying packages.

'Heaven is situated directly above Sydney, Australia. Naturally this opening is not visible to the inhabitants of the city. We some­times sub-contract with Australian manufacturers to create Cargo for us. Some of our angels are presently exchanging goods with a jewelry company which is building a golden throne.'

Acacia raised one lovely eyebrow. 'Is this for Him?'

'Oh, no. It's for me. I asked Him if He'd like one Himself, and He said that it was just about the ultimate in kitsch.' You flipped the switch and the picture-window became a map again.

'But I'm sure that we have more interesting things to speak of. Matters of life and death. Philosophical things. For instance, can

any of you tell me what a dozen rubber trees with thirty boughs on each might be?'

At first Griffin didn't understand; then he felt the sudden ten­sion in his companions. It had begun.

Oliver looked at the other four Garners as if checking to assure his right to answer. He cleared his throat. 'That would be the months of the year.'

'Quite right, young sir. And have you a question for me?'

Oliver considered. 'Yes, I think so. It's in the form of a rhyme:

As I went over London Bridge

I met my sister Jenny

I broke her neck and drank her blood