The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [143]
The human race did not consider this a blessing. The Nine-Limbeds’ voice-over was not delivered in English only. It was repeated in just about every language and dialect used by any group of people large enough to command some broadcast time somewhere. That was a large number, large enough to tie up much of the world’s satellite links to the detriment of human affairs.
The other effect this had was to give young Natasha plenty of time to study her simulated self as it appeared on the screen—skimpy halter top and errant curl over her left ear and all. It never changed. It wasn’t a spectacle Natasha enjoyed watching, either. “Gives me the cold shivers,” she admitted to her parents. “There I am, saying things I know I never said, and it’s me!”
“But it isn’t, hon,” her mother said reasonably. “They just somehow copied you, I guess so that they could have someone to speak for them who didn’t look like a nightmare.”
“But where was I while they were doing that? I don’t remember a thing! I saw Ron Olsos trying to steal my solar wind, and then all of a sudden I was—Well, I don’t know where. Sort of nowhere at all. Only warm and comfortable—possibly the way I was when I was still inside you, Mother.”
Myra shook her head in puzzlement. “Robert told us you were happy.”
“I guess I was. And then the next thing I knew I was sitting at the controls, yelling for help, with Diana all collapsed around me.”
Myra patted her arm. “And you got help, love, because here you are. And speaking of the Olsos boy, there are four more texts that came in from him while you were sleeping. All saying how sorry he was and asking if he can see you to apologize.”
That made Natasha grin at last. “Sure he can,” she said. “Just not right away. And right now, is there any breakfast?”
For most of the human race those senseless repetitions of the alien roll call were a terrible waste of time and communications facilities. Not for all, though. The tiny church of satanists had seen the pre-storage images of the Machine-Stored and immediately decided that the spiky-furred humanoid was indeed the image of the devil—just as a few million other viewers had at once decided—but, they argued, that wasn’t a bad thing. His Satanic Majesty was to be worshipped, not loathed. Scripture proved it, if read with proper understanding, for Lucifer had been driven from heaven because of character assassination by rival angels. “He isn’t our enemy,” said one of their bishops rhapsodically. “He is our king!”
What the church’s scrawny handful of members, mostly in the American Southwest, chose to believe would not have greatly concerned most of the human race—except for two factors. First, there was that worrisome remark about “sterilizing” Earth. That implied that those alien horrors did have the capacity to wipe humanity out if they chose, and that was not a thing easy to forget. And, second, the satanists weren’t just a handful of nutcases anymore. Even a nutcase knew what the sound of opportunity knocking at the door was like. They grasped their chance. Every satanist who had any status in the organization higher than pew-polisher went immediately on every talk program that would have them. Their hope was that the world was full of other nutcases like themselves who just had never been recruited to Satan worship because they had not yet been convinced there actually was a Satan. The satanists hoped these nutcases would be swung into line by the sight of the demonic Machine-Stored.
They were right. By the third showing of the horrid creatures called Machine-Stored, nearly a hundred thousand instant converts were begging for Satan’s sacraments. By the time of the first rerun, the congregation of the church of satanists was already in the high millions, and two competing