The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"You're exaggerating."

"Only slightly. I must bid you farewell now. I think we've done a good week's work, and the menace to my people recedes even as does the danger to yours. Our porpoise horde is scattering and leaving by different exits into the North Atlantic. I'm getting out of the Sea of Valusia by way of Scotland. We think Leviathan will head south around Cape Horn into the Pacific. Everything that swims and is hungry is going that way. There's a lot of fresh meat in the water, I'm sorry to say. Good-bye, friends."

"So long, Howard," said Hagbard. "That was a good bridge you helped me build."

"Yes, it was," said Howard. 'Too bad you had to sink it."

"What were those tanks on Howard's back?" said Joe. "Scuba gear," said George. "There's no air available in the Sea of Valusia, so Howard has to have breathing equipment till he can get to the open ocean. Hagbard, what was that business about the true ruler of the Illuminati? I've heard again and again that there were five Illuminati Primi. Four of them were the Saure family. That leaves one. Is it Leviathan? Is the whole show being run by a sea monster? Is that the big secret?"

"No," said Hagbard. "You have yet to figure out who the fifth Illuminatus Primus is." He threw Joe a wink that George missed. "By true ruler Howard meant a godlike being whom the Illuminati worship."

"A sea monster?" said Joe. "There was a hint about a sea monster of enormous size and power in that movie those people showed me in that loft on the Lower East Side. But the original Illuminati- Gruad's bunch- were portrayed as sun worshippers. That big pyramid with the eye in it was supposed to be the sun god's eye. Who the hell were those people with the movie, anyway? I know who Miss Mao is now, but I still don't know who they were."

"Members of the Erisian Liberation Front- ELF," said Hagbard. "They have a somewhat different view of the prehistory and origins of the Illuminati than we do. One thing we both agree upon is that the Illuminati invented religion."

"The Original Sin, right?" said Joe sardonically.

"Joe, you ought to start a religion yourself," said Hagbard.

"Why?"

"Because you are so skeptical."

"We're going back to America, huh?" said George. "And the adventure is more or less over?"

"This phase of it, at least," said Hagbard.

"Good. I want to try to write about what I've seen and what has happened to me. I'll see you guys later."

"There's to be a magnificent dinner tonight in the main dining salon," said Hagbard.

Joe said, "Don't forget, Confrontation has a first option on anything you write."

"Fuck you," George's voice came back as the door of the bridge closed behind him.

"Wish I had something better to do than this. Gimme two," said Otto Waterhouse.

"You do, don't you?" said Harry Coin. "Ain't that Nigra gal, Stella, your gal? Why ain't you with her?"

"Because she doesn't exist," said Otto, picking up the two cards John-John Dillinger had slid across the polished teak-wood table to him. He studied his hand for a moment, then threw a five-ton flax note into the pot. "Any more than Mavis or Miss Mao exists. There's a woman somewhere under all of those identities, but everything I've experienced has been a hallucination."

"There isn't a woman in the world you couldn't say that about," said Dillinger. "How many cards you want, Harry?"

"Three," said Harry. "This is a lousy hand you dealt me, John-John. Come to think of it, you're hallucinatin' all the time when you have sex. That's what makes it good. And that's how come I can fuck anything."

"I'll just take one," said Dillinger. "Dealt myself a pretty good hand. What do you see when you're fucking trees and little boys and whatnot, Harry?"

"A white light," said Harry. "Just a big beautiful clear white light. I'll throw in ten tons of flax this time."

"Must be your hand isn't so lousy after all," said Waterhouse.

"Come in," said George. The stateroom door opened, and he put down his pen. It was Stella.

"We have a little problem, don't we, George?" she said, coming into the room and sitting beside him on the bed. "I think you're angry at me," she went on, putting her hand on his knee. "You feel like this identity of mine is a sham. So, in a sense, I was deceiving you."

"I've lost you and Mavis both," said George. "You're both the same person- which means you're really neither. You're immortal. You're not human; I don't know what you are." Suddenly he looked at her hopefully. "Unless that was all a hallucination last night. Could it have been the acid? Can you really change into different people?"

"Yes," said Mavis.

"Don't do that," said George. "It upsets me too much." He darted a little glance to his side. It was Stella.

"I don't really understand why it bothers me so much," said George. "I ought to be able to take everything in stride by now."

"Did it ever bother you that you were in love with Mavis, besides being in love with me?" said Stella.