Kate Wilhelm - Let the Fire Fall

The parade was long, with each nation represented in national costumes, with national bands and marching corps. Overhead the sky was filled with U.N. ships of every description, taking the extraordinary precautions that had been deemed necessary for this event.

Lenny had been horrified when he learned that Johnny was to address the assembly in person. From the start they had agreed that he would remain in his hideaway to make the worldwide telecast, but arguments had arisen. He could be a ringer. Anyone could be put before the cameras and the world wouldn’t know the difference. He had to appear in person.

The parade was on Fifth Avenue when the clouds began to descend. Leading off had been the Amsterdam dancers, then the Angola band, followed by the Australian aborigines in native costume, and in the middle was the bubble that shielded Johnny from the crowds, but exposed him to view. He looked frightened, as he was by the claustrophobic effect of the buildings and the millions on millions of people. Such numbers had never been real before, but here they were, all touching, packed together in a mass that was a blur of flesh colors and gaudy plastics. He should have refused. He wouldn’t be able to say a word. He felt like crying then, or fainting. A heart attack. He could manage a heart attack and be taken back to the quiet of the estate. He could make his debut more slowly, not like this, not with millions all at once…. Lightning suddenly sparkled, crackling and snapping, between the towers and peaks of the buildings, and there was a roll of thunder that shook the bubble in which he rode. He shivered. He was very pale, but managed to lose more color.

Lightning streaked again, and in the U.S. Meteorology Building a weatherman frowned and pressed his communicator button: Thirty seconds later he was talking with his chief forecaster, who was reading information as it came from the computer.

The meteorologist then put through a priority call to the chief of security in charge of the parade and informed him that the storm that was then turning day into night was artificial.

The cloud that was sinking hovered over the bubble, casting it into deep shadows. More lightning, and then the cloud swooped and when it rose again, there was no bubble to be seen. The cloud began to rise fast. Hovercraft darted at it and fell to the ground, creating panic among the people. A voice was in the air then, Obie’s voice, everywhere.

“I am the Voice, the Power, the Strength of God. I am the Voice that God has chosen to use. You who believe in God’s power, fall to your knees so that God will not strike you down.” There was a moment of almost complete silence before the bedlam was raised again. People were trying to run away, but they couldn’t move. The parade had come to a halt with the lowering of the cloud and the attack of the hovercraft on it. Throughout the world people were watching the scene on 3D or conventional, outmoded televisions, and there was stunned disbelief everywhere. Fighters were scrambled, and they too fell back to the ground. Then the windows started to break. Everywhere in the area of the parade windows exploded with cracks of noise, or bangs, or soft popping tinkles. Half the people were on their knees protecting their heads. and those left standing were being knocked down, or pulled down by others. The UNEF were hemmed in so tightly that they couldn’t move, and they hacked their way through the bodies as if they were a dense jungle.

The cloud continued to ascend straight up into the sky, now carrying its cargo of the bubble ground effect car as well as its passenger. At fifteen thousand feet it turned west, and it was tracked on radar all the way to Mount Laurel where it was lost from sight as it landed gently.

Obie had had his miracle. Few on Earth now doubted that he had been in touch with the Star Child, as he had claimed, and few of the people who had seen the miraculous cloud sent by God to do Obie’s bidding doubted that he was in truth the Voice of God.

THE Star Child made no actual personal appearances, although they had been promised. The Star Child had gone around the bend.

Winifred was the only person he recognized, and only sporadically. When he did know her, he was a child again, back in New York, looking to her for protection. Obie swore for twenty-four hours at this development, blaming it all on Winifred and Robbie Mueller, but occasionally letting some of the abuse boil over to include Merton.

“You and that goddamned cloud!’” he said over and over, gradually tapering off so that he said it no more than five or six times a day after the initial shock.

Winifred said, after her first interview with Johnny, “He has had a hallucination at one time or another. It isn’t at all clear. In the vision a man descended from heaven and lifted him up and took him away with him. He thought that was happening when the cloud was lowered….”

And Johnny? Miserable, sniffling, spied up, put upon, mistreated, captive? He blossomed.

Johnny was happy finally. The tall silver man was as kind as he had known he would be. The world that he now lived in was heaven with music always in the air, and perfumed breezes, and food that was the nectar that the books had hinted at. Sometimes he talked for hours at a stretch with the silver man, who was his father, and it was how he had dreamed it would be. There was love and warmth and humor and respect for him. His father listened to him intently when he talked. Sometimes he could hear others clamoring at the doors, but his father refused to allow them to enter, so they didn’t intrude. Only Dr. Harvey was admitted once in a while. Not often. Even she was an intruder now.

“Can you cure him?” Obie demanded. “I thought you could fix any kind of a breakdown.”

Mueller nodded. “We can cure him,” he said. “But it takes time. We don’t know about our drugs with the alien chemistry….”

“He isn’t an alien, yon fool! He’s human. Like you, like me.”

Mueller looked confused, then disbelieving. “Mr. Cox,” he said, “I can appreciate your impatience, but it won’t do you or him any good to pretend that he is human. I believe that human forces have driven him to this schism, but that he is human…”

“Get out! Get out!” Obie tore at his beard in distraction and was calmed by Dee Dee’s hand on his arm. “What are we going to do, Dee Dee? He’s gone nuts and we can’t find Blake. My kid… crazy, the other bastard missing…. Why does this have to happen to me? All my plans…”

“Obie, cut the crap!” Dee Dee said. “stop your bawling. You have to put Winifred in charge of the kid. She can pull him out of it if anyone can….”

“That bitch!”

“You bet that bitch. She’s a good doctor, and she knows all about this. All about it, Obie. Maybe even more than you know.”

Obie calmed down and looked at Dee Dee with new interest. “Why do you say that?”

“Figure it out, Obie. She was with Matt Daniels from the start, probably knew about the switch from the beginning. She worked her way into the U.N. so she could watch the kid, maybe even protected him. She’s the one who might be able to draw Blake back to us, or Derek. I think we’ll find that the Daniels’ family and Dr. Harvey will end up being our biggest allies in the end.”

Merton came in then and said, “Obie, this isn’t the time for you to go soft, too. You have speeches lined up for the next six months that will be the most important of your life. Now, damn it, leave this to the doctors, and you take care of that end.”

“You think it’s safe to go ahead?” Billy asked. He had followed Merton into the room.

“Sure. There’s a lot of talk and there’s bound to be more, but they aren’t going to do anything. The kid’s here, he’s happy, patents are flowing out, miracles… Who’s going to start anything now? Remember that the people, those great glorious masses of people are on our side, on the side of the Star Child. They won’t let anyone start anything now.”