Lord of Light

"If you'll tell me how you found me out. . ."

"Fair enough. Tell me, why?"

"I decided that mankind could live better without gods. If I disposed of them all, people could start having can openers and cans to open again, and things like that, without fearing the wrath of Heaven. We've stepped on these poor fools enough. I wanted to give them a chance to be free, to build what they wanted."

"But they live, and they live and they live."

"Sometimes, and sometimes not. So do the gods."

"You were about the last Accelerationist left in the world, Sam. No one would have thought you were also the deadliest."

"How did you find me out?"

"It occurred to me that Sam would be the number one suspect, except for the fact that he was dead."

"I had assumed that to be sufficient defense against detection."

"So I asked myself if there was any means by which Sam could have escaped death. I could think of none, other than a change of bodies. Who, I then asked myself, took upon him a new body the day Sam died? There was only Lord Murugan. This did not seem logical, however, because he did it after Sam's death, not before it. I dismissed that part for a moment. You—Murugan—having been among the thirty-seven suspects, were probed and passed upon as innocent by Lord Yama. It seemed I had surely taken to a false trail then — until I thought of a very simple way to test the notion. Yama can beat the psych-probe himself, so why could not someone else be able to do it? I recalled at this point that Kalkin's Attribute had involved the control of lightnings and electromagnetic phenomena. He could have sabotaged the machine with his mind so that it saw there no evil. The way of testing it, therefore, was not to consider what the machine had read, but rather how it had read it. Like the prints of the palms and the fingers of the hands, no two minds register the same patterns; But from body to body one does retain a similar mind-matrix, despite the fact that a different brain's involved. Regardless of the thoughts passing through the mind, the thought patterns record themselves unique to the person. I compared yours with a record of Murugan's which I found in Yama's laboratory. They were not the same. I do not know how you accomplished the body-change, but I knew you for what you were."

"Very clever, Kubera. Who else is familiar with this strange reasoning?"

"No one, yet. Yama, soon though, I fear. He always solves problems."

"Why do you place your life in jeopardy by seeking me thus?"

"One does not generally achieve your age, my age, without being somewhat reasonable. I knew you would at least listen to me before striking. I know, too, that since what I have to say is good no harm will come to me."

"What do you propose?"

"I am sufficiently sympathetic with what you have done to assist you in escaping from Heaven."

"Thank you, no."

"You would like to win this contest, would you not?"

"Yes, and I'll do it in my own way."

"How?"

"I will return to the City now and destroy as many of them as I can before they stop me. If enough of the great ones fall, the others will not be able to hold this place together."

"And if you fall? What then of the world, and of the cause you have championed? Will you be able to rise again to defend it?"

"I do not know."

"How did you manage the comeback?"

"One time was I possessed of a demon. He rather took a liking to me, and he told me at a time when we were in peril that he had 'strengthened my flames,' so that I could exist independent of my body. I had forgotten this until I saw my mangled corpse lying beneath me upon the streets of Heaven. I knew of only one place where I might get me another body, that being the Pavilion of the Gods of Karma. Murugan was there demanding service. As you say, my power is electrodirection. I learned there that it works without a brain to back it, as the circuits were momentarily interrupted and I went into Murugan's new body and Murugan went to hell."

"The fact that you tell me all of this seems to indicate that you intend to send me after him."

"I am sorry, good Kubera, for I like you. If you will give me your word that you will forget what you have learned and that you will wait for some other to discover it, then I will permit you to live and depart."

"Risky."

"I know that you have never given your word and broken it, though you are as old as the hills of Heaven."

"Who is the first god you would slay?"

"Lord Yama, of course, for he must be closest upon my heels."

"Then must you kill me, Sam, for he is a brother Lokapala and my friend."

"I am sure we will both regret it if I have to kill you."

"Then has your acquaintanceship with the Rakasha perhaps given you some of their taste for a wager?"

"Of what sort?"

"You win, and you have my word not to speak of this. I win, and you flee with me upon the back of Garuda."

"And of the contest?"

"Irish stand-down."

"With you, fat Kubera? And me in my magnificent new body?"

"Yes."

"Then you may strike first."