Kate Wilhelm - Let the Fire Fall

When Obie ordered them to come forward and declare themselves on the side of The Voice of God and what it stood for, they came in droves. They pushed and fought to get to the stage where each convert was presented with a plastic glass which he filled with water by himself, and which then gave him wine. The miracle of the wine drew more converts. But the first batch started to act strangely. They stared at the wine, looked about as if awakening, and when the time came for them to withdraw backstage to sign up for instructions and for a place in the Listener’s Booths, they edged away, and gradually resumed their seats, or tried to leave the auditorium. They were quiet and well behaved for the most part; unless an eager MM tried to force them backstage, they simply acted bewildered by it all.

Obie hurriedly started his final prayer, calling on God to manifest Himself through Blake.

“And God said, ‘Rise ye who would seek delivery from pain and from hurts, and look on him, My Son.’” Obie motioned to the boy, who stared at him dully, half asleep, forgetful of his role for the moment. Obie motioned again and the boy remembered. He stood up and turned to his left and stared at the masses of faces turned toward him. Somewhere behind them a small scuffle broke out when a newly awakened wine sipper woke up and demanded back his credit of ten dollars, his donation to the Church. The boy stared and slowly people in that section of the audience started to gasp and some of them stood up weeping and crying out. The healing was taking place.

In the dressing room Merton was sipping Scotch and water, a satisfied smile on his face. Like clockwork. there was something with the wine routine that needed looking into, but they could fix that. The rest was as sweet as honey. He dropped his glass suddenly and leaned forward. A figure was floating over Obie’s head. Merton swore long and fluently and watched.

Blake Daniels sat on air cross-legged and nodded to people in the audience. He looked down at the double standing on the stage with his arms outstretched, and he laughed. Everyone heard him laugh. Obie heard. Obie’s head snapped back. and he stared, turned white, looked like he might faint, but stood there, unable to move, unable to speak. Blake waved to him casually, pointed again to the boy and laughed once more. He floated easily over the heads of the audience, looked down on them, and made several gestures. Some of those in the audience rose from their seats, with looks of astonishment and pleasure on their faces, and joined him in the air. One was a frail white-haired woman who left a wheelchair behind to float. Blake laughed joyously at her and she laughed also. There had been a total silence at first, but now people were starting to react. There were screams and cries: “Take me, too.” “Pick me up.” “Show me how to do it.” “Who are you?” and so on. Some fainted. Blake looked down again and made another motion; more joined him, a youngster of ten or eleven, another white-haired woman, a young man of twenty-five or so, two teen-aged girls. A Militant Millenniumist pulled his stun gun and aimed it. Blake turned toward him shaking his head. The man said later that he felt a flashing pain in his hand, heat, electricity, something that he couldn’t describe, and he dropped the gun. Other guns were dropped. Blake led his floaters from the auditorium then, and they all vanished upward into the sky.

The auditorium was in a shambles by then. People forgot Obie Cox and his son and tried to clamber out over and under other people for another glimpse of the floaters. The MM’s were pushed aside, as were ushers, and the plainclothesmen. The noise was intolerable. The choir was ordered to sing, but they couldn’t be heard. Backstage a band of youths dressed in black staged a robbery and the entire take was lifted and vanished while the attention of the guards was on the bedlam of the auditorium. The boys floated away with the loot afterward.

When Obie got back to his dressing room Merton was there. Obie said nothing. He was as white as the robe he wore; his eyes were quite mad. He hit Merton on the side of his face with his fist and his ring cut deeply into the flesh, baring the cheekbone. Merton was staggered and dazed, but he wasn’t out. He lashed back with a knife. Obie kicked him in the groin, and this time Merton fell screaming in pain.

Obie sat down then and drank Scotch from the bottle. He got very drunk very fast. When Merton could move, Obie kicked him again, and this time Merton lay unmoving for a long time. Obie left him on the floor and returned to Mount Laurel. Merton would have joined the opposition when he got in condition to join anything once more, but he never found them. He went back to the F.B.I. and became their chief informer concerning the Church.

LORNA said to herself, as she often did, “This is New Hampshire, United States of America. I am sane. I am not hallucinating, not having nightmares, not right now at any rate. There really is an announcer reading from a news card….”

“‘…manic phase. Electro-shock used to be the specific treatment for this condition, but, of course, one cannot administer to an entire population an electric charge sufficient to jar the brains and restore normalcy.’ That ends the quote from Dr. Teodor Dyerman. Tonight in the following cities riots and fighting go on: St. Augustine, Florida; Miami, Jacksonville, St. Petersburg. In Georgia the cities suffering from pitched battles are Atlanta, Waycross…”

Lorna stopped watching and listening. She searched the group before the 3D for Blake, but he had wandered outside. Derek and the others were engrossed in the newscast. This was the resistance, Lorna thought scornfully, a bunch of kids with close-cropped hair and sharp scissors. They were all members of the Barbers, all waiting for the latest word from Obie Cox. She knew everything Obie Cox might say. Another miracle for the people, courtesy of the Cox Foundation Laboratories and the Star Child. Only the Star Child was not the Star Child, and he was mad, and the miracles were those of Blake Daniels’ agile mind, and he was alien. She got up presently and wandered outside where Blake was sitting under a tree. It was late spring, 1998, and the weather was hot and dry. It was always dry.

“The world’s going to hell, isn’t it?” Lorna said joining him.

“Year 2000 might see few left to predict the new century,” he said. His eyes were distant, however, as if he had been deep in thought, and would return as soon as she left him. The Barbers and Blake told her little because they knew that she would talk again if the Church got her back. She hadn’t realized that during their long trek through the mountains up from North Carolina, but it had become obvious as soon as Blake had joined the Barbers and had become their tactical leader. No one called him that, least of all Blake, but there it was. He had brought them the anti-gravity belts and the disks that powered them and had instructed them in the use of the things. He had planned the fiasco that had retired Obie Cox from public. He was planning something now.

Once a millionaire, he had depleted his fortunes in the purchase of factories all over the country. He had bought machinery, designed some of it, had Derek and his friends design other components, and he was turning out water converters by the millions, power units, and now the anti-gravity belts and disks. Lorna didn’t know how he meant to use them, or why. If Derek knew he wasn’t talking about it. She suspected that Derek knew. He was haunted-looking, with deep violet circles under his eyes, and the restlessness of one who isn’t sleeping enough.