Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - The Sirens of Titan

"You know what the check list is on God's round, green space ship? Do I have to tell you? You want to hear God's countdown?"

The Love Crusaders shouted back that they did.

"Ten! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you covet thy neighbor's house, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Nine! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you bear false witness against thy neighbor?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders. "Eight! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you steal?" "No!" cried the Love Crusaders. "Seven! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you commit adultery?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Six! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you kill?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Five! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you honor thy father and thy mother?"

"Yes!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Four! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy?"

"Yes!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Three! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you take the name of the Lord thy God in vain?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Two! - " said Bobby Denton. "Do you make any graven images?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"One! - " cried Bobby Denton. "Do you put any gods before the one true Lord thy God?"

"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.

"Blast off!" shouted Bobby Denton joyfully. "Paradise, here we come! Blast off, children, and Amen!"

"Well - " murmured Malachi Constant, there in the chimneylike room under the staircase in Newport, "it looks like the messenger is finally going to be used."

"What was that?" said Rumfoord.

"My name - it means faithful messenger," said Constant. "What's the message?"

"Sorry," said Rumfoord, "I know nothing about any message." He cocked his head quizzically. "Somebody said something to you about a message?"

Constant turned his palms upward. "I mean - what am I going to go to all this trouble to get to Triton for?"

"Titan," Rumfoord corrected him.

"Titan, Triton," said Constant. "What the blast would I go there for?" Blast was a weak, prissy, Eagle-Scoutish word for Constant to use - and it took him a moment to realize why he had used it. Blast was what space cadets on television said when a meteorite carried away a control surface, or the navigator turned out to be a space pirate from the planet Zircon. He stood. "Why the hell should I go there?"

"You do - I promise you," said Rumfoord.

Constant went over to the window, some of his arrogant strength returning. "I tell you right now," he said, "I'm not going."

"Sorry to hear that," said Rumfoord.

"I'm supposed to do something for you when I get there?" said Constant.

"No," said Rumfoord.

"Then why are you sorry?" said Constant. "What's it to you?"

"Nothing," said Rumfoord. "I'm only sorry for you. You'll really be missing something."

"Like what?" said Constant.

"Well - the most pleasant climate imaginable, for one thing," said Rumfoord.

"Climate!" said Constant contemptuously. "With houses in Hollywood, the Vale of Kashmir, Acapulco, Manitoba, Tahiti, Paris, Bermuda, Rome, New York, and Capetown, I should leave Earth in search of happier climes?"

"There's more to Titan than just climate" said Rumfoord. "The women, for instance, are the most beautiful creatures between the Sun and Betelgeuse."

Constant guffawed bitterly. "Women!" he said. "You think I'm having trouble getting beautiful women? You think I'm love-starved, and the only way I'll ever get close to a beautiful woman is to climb on a rocket ship and head for one of Saturn's moons? Are you kidding? I've had women so beautiful, anybody between the Sun and Betelgeuse would sit down and cry if the women said as much as hello to 'em!"

He took out his billfold, and slipped from it a photograph of his most recent conquest. There was no question about it - the girl in the photograph was staggeringly beautiful. She was Miss Canal Zone, a runner-up in the Miss Universe Contest - and in fact far more beautiful than the winner of the contest. Her beauty had frightened the judges.

Constant handed Rumfoord the photograph. "They got anything like that on Titan?" he said.

Rumfoord studied the photograph respectfully, handed it back. "No - " he said, "nothing like that on Titan."

"O.K.," said Constant, feeling very much in control of his own destiny again, "climate, beautiful women - what else?"

"Nothing else," said Rumfoord mildly. He shrugged. "Oh - art objects, if you like art."

"I've got the biggest private art collection in the world," said Constant.

Constant had inherited this famous art collection. The collection had been made by his father - or, rather, by agents of his father. It was scattered through museums all over the world, each piece plainly marked as a part of the Constant Collection. The collection had been made and then deployed in this manner on the recommendation of the Director of Public Relations of Magnum Opus, Incorporated, the corporation whose sole purpose was to manage the Constant affairs.

The purpose of the collection had been to prove how generous and useful and sensitive billionaires could be. The collection had turned out to be a perfectly gorgeous investment, as well.

"That takes care of art," said Rumfoord.

Constant was about to return the photograph of Miss Canal Zone to his billfold, when he felt that he held not one photograph but two. There was a photograph behind that of Miss Canal Zone. He supposed that that was a photograph of Miss Canal Zone's predecessor, and he thought that he might as well show Rumfoord her, too - show Rumfoord what a celestial lulu he had given the gate to.

"There - there's another one," said Constant, holding out the second photograph to Rumfoord.

Rumfoord made no move to take the photograph. He didn't even bother to look at it. He looked instead into Constant's eyes and grinned roguishly.

Constant looked down at the photograph that had been ignored. He found that it was not a photograph of Miss Canal Zone's predecessor. It was a photograph that Rumfoord had slipped to him. It was no ordinary photograph, though its surface was glossy and its margins white.

Within the margins lay shimmering depths. The effect was much like that of a rectangular glass window in the surface of a clear, shallow, coral bay. At the bottom of that seeming coral bay were three women - one white, one gold, one brown. They looked up at Constant, begging him to come to them, to make them whole with love.

Their beauty was to the beauty of Miss Canal Zone as the glory of the Sun was to the glory of a lightning bug.

Constant sank into a wing chair again. He had to look away from all that beauty in order to keep from bursting into tears.

"You can keep that picture, if you like," said Rumfoord. "It's wallet size."

Constant could think of nothing to say.

"My wife will still be with you when you get to Titan," said Rumfoord, "but she won't interfere if you want to frolic with these three young ladies. Your son will be with you, too, but he'll be quite as broadminded as Beatrice."

"Son?" said Constant. He had no son.

"Yes - a fine boy named Chrono," said Rumfoord.

"Chrono?" said Constant.

"A Martian name," said Rumfoord. "He's born on Mars - by you, out of Beatrice."

"Beatrice?" said Constant.

"My wife," said Rumfoord. He had become quite transparent. His voice was becoming tinny, too, as though coming from a cheap radio. "Things fly this way and that, my boy," he said, "with or without messages. It's chaos, and no mistake, for the Universe is just being born. It's the great becoming that makes the light and the heat and the motion, and bangs you from hither to yon.

"Predictions, predictions, predictions," said Rumfoord musingly. "Is there anything else I should tell you? Ohhhhh - yes, yes, yes. This child of yours, this boy named Chrono - "Chrono will pick up a little strip of metal on Mars - " said Rumfoord, "and he will call it his 'goodluck piece.' Keep your eye on that good-luck piece, Mr. Constant. It's unbelievably important."