The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"Dig, George," said Hagbard. "Thou art that. If there were no death, there would be no sex. If there were no sex, there would be no death. And without sex, there would be no evolution toward intelligence, no human race. Therefore death is necessary. Death is the price of orgasm. Only one being on all this planet is sexless, intelligent and immortal. While you were pumping your seeds into the symbol of life, I showed you orgasm and death in one image and brought it home to you. And you'll never forget it. It was a trip, George. Wasn't it a trip?"

George nodded reluctantly. "It was a trip."

"And you know- in your bones- a little more about life than you did before, right, George?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, thank you for joining the Legion of Dynamic Discord."

"You're welcome."

Hagbard beckoned George to the edge of the boat-shaped balcony. He pointed down. Far below in the blue-green medium through which they seemed to be flying George could see rolling lands, hills, winding riverbeds- and then, broken buildings. George gasped. Pyramids rose up below, as high as the hills.

"This is one of the great port cities," Hagbard said. "Galleys from the Americas plied their trade to and from this harbor for a thousand years."

"How long ago?"

'Ten thousand years," said Hagbard. "This was one of the last cities to go. Of course, their civilization had declined quite a bit by then. Meanwhile, we've got a problem. The Illuminati are here already."

A large, undulating, blue-gray shape appeared ahead of them, swam toward them, whirled and matched their speed so it seemed to drift alongside. George felt another momentary leap of fright. Was this another of Hagbard's tricks?

"What is that fish? How does it keep up with us?" George asked.

"It's a porpoise, not a fish, a mammal. And they can swim a lot faster than submarines can sail underwater. We can keep up with them, though. They form a film around their bodies that enables them to slide through the water without setting up any turbulence. I learned from them how to do it, and I applied it to this sub. We can cross the Atlantic under water in less than a day."

A voice spoke from the control panel. "Better go transparent. You'll be within range of their detectors when you've gone another ten miles."

"Right," said Hagbard. "We will maintain present course until further notice, so you'll know where we are."

"I'll know," said the voice.

Hagbard slashed his hand through the air disgustedly. "You're so fucking superior."

"Who are you talking to?" said George.

"Howard."

The voice said, "I've never seen machines like this before. They look something like crabs. They've just about got the temple all dug up."

"When the Illuminati do something on their own, they go first class," said Hagbard.

"Who the hell is Howard?" said George.

"It's me. Out here. Hello, Mr. Human," said the voice. "I'm Howard."

Unbelieving, yet knowing quite well what was happening, George slowly turned his head. The dolphin appeared to be looking at him.

"How does he talk to us?" said Hagbard.

"He's swimming alongside the prow of the submarine, which is where we pick up his voice. My computer translates from Delphine to English A mike here in the control room sends our voices to the computer which translates into Delphine and broadcasts the correct sounds through the water to him."

"Lady-oh, oh de-you-day, a new human being has come my way," Howard sang. "He has swum into my ken. I hope he's one of the friendly men."

"They sing a lot," said Hagbard. "Also recite poetry and make it up on the spot. A large part of their culture is poetry. Poetics and athletics- and, of course, the two are very closely related. What they do mostly is swim, hunt, and communicate with each other."

"But we do all with artful complexity and rare finesse," said Howard, looping the loop outside.

"Lead us to the enemy, Howard," said Hagbard.

Howard swam out in front of them, and as he did so, he sang:

Right on, right on, a-stream against the foe

The sallying schools of the Southern seas make their

course to go. Attack, attack, with noses sound as rock

No shark or squid can shake us loose or survive our dour shock.

"Epics," said Hagbard. "They're mad for epics. They have their whole story for the past forty thousand years in epic form. No books, no writing- how could they handle pens with their fins, you know? All memorization. Which is why they favor poetry. And their poems are marvelous, but you must spend years studying their language before you know that. Our computer turns their works into doggerel. It's the best it can do. When I have the time, I'll add some circuits that can really translate poetry from one language to another. When the Porpoise Corpus is translated into human languages, it will advance our culture by centuries or more. It will be as if we'd discovered the works of a whole race of Shakespeares that had been writing for forty millennia."

"On the other hand," said Howard, "your civilizations may be demoralized by culture shock."