Грег Иган - Distress

"And that’s reason enough to come here and intimidate innocent people with the mutilated corpse of Eugene O’Neill?"

"Be fair: if you’re conceding them the right to believe what they like, that has to include the right to feel threatened."

The play was coming to a close; one of the actors was delivering a monologue on the need to show only compassion to poor scientists who’d lost touch with the soul of Gaia.

I said, "So what do you call claiming to know the divine will of the Earth itself— if not an equally global land grab, couched in warmer and fuzzier terms?"

Lee gave me a puzzled frown. "But of course. MR are like everyone else; they want to define the world on their own terms. They want to set the parameters, they want to make all the rules. Naturally, they’ve evolved an elaborate strategy to try to mask that fact—such as describing themselves with words like generous, open and 'inclusive'—but I’m certainly not suggesting that they’re any more humble, virtuous or tolerant than the most fanatical rationalist. I’m just trying to explain their beliefs to you as an outsider, as best I can."

"With your own universal explanatory scheme?"

"Exactly. That’s my arduous duty: expert guide and interpreter to every subculture on Earth. The sociologist’s burden. But then, who else could shoulder it?" She smiled solemnly. "I am, after all, the only objective person on the planet."

We walked on through the warm night, passing right out of the carnival. After a minute or two, I turned and looked back. From a distance, it was an odd sight, compacted by perspective and framed by the surrounding buildings: a flamboyant sideshow embedded in the middle of a city—going about its ordinary life—which had built itself out of the ocean, molecule by molecule, and knew it . The adjacent streets certainly looked mundane and colorless in comparison—full of ordinary pedestrians: no one dressed as harlequins, no one juggling fire or swallowing swords—but the memory of the afternoon’s dive, and what it had revealed about the island, was enough to make all of the cult’s self-conscious exotica and desperately cheerful busyness fade into insignificance.

I suddenly recalled what Angelo had said, the night before I left Sydney. We sanctify what we’re stuck with. Maybe that was the heart of it, for Mystical Renaissance. Most of the universe had been inexplicable, for most of human history—and MR had inherited the strand of the culture which had doggedly made a virtue out of that necessity. They’d stripped away—or fed through a cultural blender, in a kind of mock-pluralism—the historical baggage of most of the specific religions and other belief systems which had done the same, in their day… and then inflated what remained into the essence of Big-H itself. To sanctify mystery is to be "fully human." Fail to do so, and you’re something less: "soulless," "left-brained," "reductionist"… and in need of being "healed."

James Rourke should have been here. The Battle for the H-words was in full swing.

As we started back toward the hotel, I realized I’d meant to ask Lee a question which had almost slipped my mind.

I said, "Who are the Anthrocosmologists?" The term sounded as if it should have meant something to me, but—vague etymological inferences aside—it didn’t.

Lee was hesitant. "I doubt you really want to know. If Mystical Renaissance raise your ire…"

"They’re an Ignorance Cult? I’ve never heard of them."

"They’re not an Ignorance Cult. And the word cult, of course, is terribly value-laden and pejorative; although I use it in the vernacular sense like everyone else, I really shouldn’t."

"Why don’t you just tell me what these people believe, and then I’ll make up my own mind exactly how intolerant and condescending to be toward them?"

She smiled, but she looked genuinely pained, as if I was asking her to betray a confidence. "The ACs are extremely sensitive about… the way they’re represented. It was hard enough persuading them to talk to me at all, and they still won’t let me publish anything about them."

The ACs! I feigned indignation, trying to mask my jubilation. "What do you mean, let ?"

Lee said, "I agreed in advance to certain conditions, and I have to keep my word if I want their cooperation to continue. They’ve promised there’ll be a time when I can put everything on the nets—but until then, I’m on indefinite probation. Disclosing information to a journalist would destroy the whole relationship in an instant."

"I don’t want to publicize anything about them. This is purely off the record, I swear. I’m just curious."

"Then it won’t do you any harm to wait a few years, will it?"

A few years? I said, "All right, I’m more than curious."

"Why?"

I thought it over: I could tell her about Kuwale—and ask her to swear to keep it to herself, to avoid embroiling Mosala in any more unwelcome speculation. Except that… how could I ask her to betray one confidence while begging her to respect another? It would be pure hypocrisy—and if she was willing to swap secrets with me, what would her promise be worth?

I said, "What have they got against journalists, anyway? Most cults are dying to recruit new members. What sort of ethos—?"

Lee eyed me suspiciously. "I’m not going to be tricked into any more indiscretions. It’s my fault entirely that the name slipped out, but the topic is now closed. The Anthrocosmologists are a non-subject."

I laughed. "Oh, come on! This is absurd! You’re one of them, aren’t you? No secret handshakes; your notepad is sending out coded infrared: I am Indrani Lee, High Priestess of the Revered and Sacred Order."

She took a swat at me with the back other hand; I pulled back just in time. She said, "They certainly don’t have priestesses."

"You mean they’re sexist? All male?"

She scowled. "Or priests. And I’m not saying anything more."

We walked on in silence. I took out my notepad and gave Sisyphusseveral meaningful glances. The full word had unlocked no Aladdin’s cave of data, though: every search on "Anthrocosmologists" came up blank.

I said, "I apologize. No more questions, no more provocation. What if I really do need to get in touch with them, though, but I just can’t tell you why?"

Lee was unmoved. "That sounds unlikely."

I hesitated. "Someone called Kuwale has been trying to contact me. Ve’s been sending me cryptic messages for days. But ve failed to turn up at an arranged meeting last night, so I just want to find out what’s going on." Almost none of this was true, but I wasn’t going to admit that I’d screwed up a perfect opportunity to discover for myself what AC was about. In any case, Lee remained impassive; if she’d heard the name before, she showed no sign of it.

I said, "Can’t you pass on the message that I want to speak to them? Give them the right to choose for themselves whether or not to turn me down?"

She stopped walking, A cultist on stilts reached down and thrust a stack of edible pamphlets in her face, MR’s own Einstein Conference Newsletter in the non-electronic edition. Lee waved the woman away irritably. "You’re asking a lot. If they take offense, and I lose five years' work…"

I thought: You wouldn’t lose five years' work; you’d finally be free to publish. But it didn’t seem diplomatic to put it that way.

I said, "I first heard the term Anthrocosmotogists from Kuwale, not you. So you don’t even have to tell them that you admitted knowing anything. Just say I asked you more or less at random—that I’ve been asking everyone at the conference, and I just happened to include you."