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time would come again.
He turned away and glanced at Frederic Oranson's impassive face. Oranson
raised his eyebrows slowly. Nakamura nodded and
Oranson quietly moved away from the party, finally disappearing from the
balcony into the darkness of the room behind.
The Euro -- Nakamura thought for a moment and dredged up the name Weiler --
said, "Your assistant is very quiet Shag."
"He is very efficient," Nakamura replied. "Silence is a part of that
efficiency. If you take my meaning."
Weiler shrugged. "I suppose so." His long, horse-featured face brightened. "I
say, what's that?"
All the men leaned closer to the railing, straining to make out the colorful
knot of movement pushing its way through the crowd toward the docks
themselves. A single trawler, bedizened with flags and bunting until it
resembled a floating garden, was also moving away from the pack toward the
Wharf.
Shag held out his right hand. A young male servant appeared quietly and placed
a pair of binoculars in the older man's hand.
Shag didn't look up.
"It's the regional vice-president of the New Church," he said at last.
The Chinese squinted against the light. "As crazy as western religions go,
that seems an extraordinary title for a religious figure."
"It's an extraordinary religion," Shag replied. "Here, would you like a closer
look?" He handed the binoculars to the Chinese, who raised them to his eyes.
"Strange garments," the Chinese commented.
"I'm told those robes are a concession to popular ideas of how a cleric should
appear," Shag replied. "I heard the New Church did one of the most complete
studies of religious perceptions ever attempted before they presented their
outward image to the world."
The Chinese lowered the binoculars, and stared at Nakamura. His eyes were
cold. A trick of the clouds overhead made his gaze appear almost colorless, a
mirror of reflective flesh. "You seem quite knowledgeable about this new
cult," he said at last. "Surely you haven't rejected the beliefs of your
ancestors?"
Shag smiled slowly. "Knowledge is power. One assumes that you keep up on the
changes in your own sphere? Perhaps medical research in the reassimilated
province of Taiwan occupies some of your attention?"
The Chinese, whom Nakamura knew was one of the prime financiers behind the
largest illicit medical clinic in Taipei, grunted darkly and handed the
binoculars over. "As you say, knowledge is power."
Weiler rubbed his chin. Shag noted distastefully that already a dark stubble
had begun to appear there. "You say 'their outward image.' One presumes that
there is then an inner image, or more accurately an inner reality, the public
remains unaware of?"
Now Shag lifted the binoculars again, cutting off the conversation. "One
presumes," he said.
Frederic Oranson returned to the balcony, accompanied by two servants who
pushed a large viewscreen. "We patched into the local news portacams," he
said. He gestured toward the screen. "Would you like to watch out here or back
inside?"
"Here is fine, Fred."
Oranson nodded and stepped back. The men turned away from the view below and
stared at the screen. It split into several different views of the crowd.
"We're taking uncut footage direct from the various stations on the scene
equipment," Shag said. "If you'd rather, we can switch to broadcast
programming, but sometimes the unedited version is more interesting."
Nobody said anything. "Fine, then." Shag leaned back against the railing and
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sipped his scotch. The wind gusted sharply. He smelled a quick breath of pine,
then a wave of hydrocarbon-laden air from the streets below. Far to the west,
beyond the Golden Gate, a layer of low-lying fog shimmered like liquid pearl.
The scotch burned smoky in his gut. It was the only decent thing about this
day. Frederic Oranson caught his eye. Slowly, Shag winked. They both
understood. It was the old pigeon game.
They had two pigeons on their balcony.
He'd done it as a child. Only the stakes were higher now.
The crowd rolled back from its center like a billion-petaled flower unfolding.
Nakamura imagined fathers from Des Moines, their naked calves blue and pricked
with cold bumps, clutching the sticky fingers of their children, while mothers
grasped at hairdos gone awry in the Bayside breezes, and over all, a rising
mutter of astonishment at the gilded processional glory that was the advance
of an
Angel of the New Church.
The Angel was tall. His face was carefully sculptured to vaguely resemble one
of those ancient Italian paintings of Christ. Around his dark hair wound a
white turban, giving him a Mediterranean flair. His robes were of deepest red,
woven of a long-chained polymer that flowed like watered silk, like a river of
blood.
When the Angel raised his arms and extended his palms outward in both a
blessing and a request for silence, it seemed that his fingers were
unnaturally long.
Nakamura knew what image was projected in all this. Each detail had been
sculptured as a New Church response to subconscious longings. There was a
racial, atavistic understanding among all peoples about just what made up the
physical characteristics of divinity. Arius simply tapped into history with
the syringe of technology, and responded. The result was not called a
God, not by the Church. But the Word was whispered in other places, by other
people, and the Word was spreading.
Now the Angel and his entourage reached the edge of the Wharf and paused.
Security teams -- local police, a few Blades, here and there a Wolf in less
flamboyant garb than usual, even several local Supervisors of the Church --
pushed the crowd back until there was an empty space several meters in
diameter around the core group. Finally even these hangers-on fell away and
the Angel stood alone, arms raised, facing the boats on the Bay.
There was a shivering moment of silence while the sun beat down and the water
rolled sluggishly. Then the Angel dropped his hands and the crowd breathed.
_"They that go out on the waters!"_ proclaimed the Angel.
The crowd murmured.
The Angel paused as the sound of his voice rolled out across the great blue
silence. It was a deep voice, full of muted thunder, yet clear and piercing.
Nakamura had no doubt that every ear in the mob heard the words as if they
were directed at it and it alone.
_"That brave the dangers of the sea!"_
Now three of those who had accompanied the Angel to the edge of the Wharf
stepped forward and ranged themselves in a semicircle behind him. In their
hands they held long, shining, scepterlike objects. The air above them seemed
to waver, as if great heat were concentrated there.
_"As you seek to feed mankind ... "_
Now the Angel raised his hands, his long fingers outstretched, in blessing
again. Tiny licks of flame appeared at his fingertips, glowing red and yellow
and blue in the sunlight. An answering fire appeared around the scepters and
began to grow.
_"So does the Blessing of the New Church of the Spirit Corporate feed you!"_
The small group at quayside was surrounded by licking waves of light. In the
center the Angel blazed like a great jewel. On the water the lead boat, only a
hundred meters away, flared up in sudden answering conflagration. Someone
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screamed into the electric silence.
_"Receive the Blessing!"_
A great roll of thunder boomed out across the flaccid waters as the Angel
suddenly raised his arms straight up. Nakamura, even from the great distance
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