The Woman Who Died a Lot

“Maybe He doesn’t have a plan and there is no answer,” said Landen. “Perhaps that’s why He appeared to all those different religious leaders with subtly different messages—in order to divide mankind and keep us from adopting a united front to demand an answer to the question of existence.”

“Even if there is no answer to the riddle of existence and we are all random packets of replicating cell structure in a dying universe devoid of meaning,” added Miles, “we have a right to know that. Five thousand years of prayer, conflict, self-sacrifice and being tested daily must count for something.”

“I always thought His plan for mankind was ‘Let’s just muddle through and see what happens,’ ” said Friday. “And historically speaking, it’s a sound one—it’s worked on thousands of occasions.”

“There must be more to the ultimate meaning and purpose of existence than muddling through,” said Tuesday with disdain. “If that’s all it was, there’s no reason for the eternal quest for knowledge and every reason for celebrity biographies and daytime soaps.”

“So religion could trump science after all,” said Miles with a smile. “That’ll be one for the books.”

“Mind you,” added my father, “at least you forced His hand into revealing His existence.”

“Thatwas unexpected,” admitted Joff y. “A nd very welcome— the billion or so former atheists now on board really boosted the membership and bargaining powers.”

“Didn’t Dawkins shoot himself when he found out?”

“Yes,” replied Miles sadly, “a great shame. He would have been excellent GSD bishop material. Single-minded, a good orator and eyebrows that were pretty much perfect.”

“So why destroy Swindon just to annoy you?” I asked. “It doesn’t sound like a very responsible use of resources.”

“I think it’s probably more to do with setting the tone of our first meeting. We’ve been trying to get Him to the negotiating table to thrash out our grievances, and I think He just wants to show who’s boss and to set the ambience for the meeting—like when criminal overlords have their hideouts in hollowed-out volcanoes. Highly impractical and the heating bills astronomical, but good for the overall ambience.”

“And when might this meeting take place?” asked Tuesday.

“A fortnight, perhaps,” said Miles. “Winged messengers can be pretty vague.”

“Would you put in a good word for Polly?” asked my father. “Her sciatica is acting up again.”

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Joffy. “The agenda has one point two billion items on it, and it’ll be most likely lunch before we even get around to item one: ‘What, precisely, is the point of all this?’

We all thought about this for a moment.

“Tuesday,” added Joffy in a quiet voice, “just how close are we to success with the Anti-Smite Defense Shield?”

Everyone looked at Tuesday. This, we knew, was pretty much the reason Joffy and Miles were here—to see whether she could overcome the many technological hurdles in time to avert Swindon’s partial destruction.

Tuesday pulled a face. “We’re having a few . . . teething troubles,” she said, “but it’s mostly of a mathematical nature. I simply need to find the upper and lower limits of the constant U_c.”

“Is there an easier way for you to explain it?” asked Miles. “It’s kind of important. If we can’t get the defense shield up, we’re going to have to reluctantly agree to a backup plan.”

“Okay,” said Tuesday. Like many scientists, she had become obsessed with the science itself and not its intended purpose. She took a deep breath, got up and with a felt pen drew a schematic of an anti-smite tower on the wall.

“Field research has indicated that a Wrath-Inflicted Deity Groundburst is a five-or six-second burst of high-energy particles concentrated on a circular pattern with a blast radius of about half a mile. The high-energy particles arrive so fast and with such force that there is no material we know of that can withstand the bombardment. A defense shield made of tungsten, steel, concrete—useless. Which is why we must meet energy with mass.”

“We get that bit,” said Joffy, since all this had been repeated on Toad News Network Science Channel quite a lot over the past year, “but how does your system actually work?”

Tuesday smiled. “I got the idea from a ninja movie.”

I looked at Landen. “Have you been letting Tuesday watch ninja movies?”

“One or two,” he replied sheepishly. “After she did her homework.”

“Hmph,” I replied.

“In the movie,” continued Tuesday enthusiastically, “there was a ninja who could move so fast he could run though a rainstorm without getting wet. And I got to thinking that if a ninja could do that, thenconversely he could just as easily move though the same rainstorm and get absolutely sodden—and if there were several ninjas, they might be able to stop all the raindrops from actually reaching the ground.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, “I’m getting the analogy.”