Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [83]
“So what are you?” Damon demanded, determined to take matters one at a time and to follow his own agenda.
“I like to think of this as Mount Olympus,” the mercury man told him, ignoring the question. “Up there, the palace of Zeus—impossible, of course, for mere human eyes to figure—where Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares, and Athena have their separate apartments. Down there, the earth, unquiet even by night with the artificially-lit labor and the radiant dreams of billions of men.”
“The illusion’s magnificent,” Damon conceded. “Far better than anything I ever thought I could make—but you’ll spoil it all if you insist on talking nonsense. You went to a great deal of trouble to bring me here. Why not tell me what it is that you want?”
“Fair enough,” said the mirror man agreeably. “I’d like you to get a message to your father. We can’t find him, you see—and while we can’t find him, it’s rather difficult to negotiate with him. We’ve tried talking to his underlings, but they simply aren’t licensed to be flexible. We rather hoped he might be hiding out on that artificial island, but he isn’t; all we found was you.”
“Conrad Helier’s dead,” Damon said wearily.
“We’re almost ready to believe that,” the apparition conceded, “but not quite. It is conceivable that it’s only his spirit that lives on and that Eveline Hywood is pulling the strings herself, but you’ll understand our scepticism. We live in a world of deceptive appearances, Damon. You only have to look at me to realize why we aren’t prepared to take anything on trust.”
Damon didn’t have any ready answer to that.
“It’s the same with the people at Ahasuerus,” the mercury man continued. “They’re obsessed with the continuation of Adam Zimmerman’s plan, and they refuse to see that all plans have to adapt to changes in the world’s circumstances. That’s why we sent you to them—we figured that we might as well trap both wayward birds with a single net, if we can. There’s always the possibility, of course, that the foundation has your father salted away in the same cold place as Adam Zimmerman, but we don’t think it’s likely. Your father isn’t the kind of man to settle for an easy ride to Ultima Thule via suspended animation.”
By this time, Damon had found his answer. “If Conrad Helier isn’t dead,” he said, “he’s certainly not disposed to let me know it. Karol doesn’t trust me, and neither does Eveline. Even Silas never gave me the slightest reason to think that Conrad Helier is alive. Anyhow, if you think he’s still guiding Eveline and Karol, you only have to leave your message on their answerphones.”
“It’s not as easy as that, as you know very well. When I say that we want you to get a message to him, I mean that we want you to get through to him. We want him to listen. We think that you might be the person to do that for us. Karol and Eveline are only his hirelings, and they’ll be dead within thirty or forty years. You’re his son, and he must at least hope, if he doesn’t actually believe, that you might live for a thousand years. I know that he poses as a lover of all mankind, making no discrimination between rich and poor, worthy and unworthy, but he took the trouble to have a son and to deliver that son into the patient care of his most trusted confidants. Doesn’t that suggest to you that the plans he makes for the future of mankind are really plans for your future—or at least that he imagines you as a central figure, somehow symbolic of the race as a whole?”
“If he did, and if he were alive, I’d be a great disappointment to him,” Damon said shortly. “I’ve my own life to lead. I’m not interested in delivering messages for you.”
“It’s a little late to make that decision,” the mirror man observed.
Damon could see what he meant. What his captors wanted, apparently, was to get through to whoever was running Conrad Helier’s operation—and Damon had obligingly hopped on