A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

Bradley, relaxing a bit, held Dawn's hand and enjoyed the view. They were riding in a car on a roadway suspended between the towers of this amazing city that Dawn called Shoorn.

Dawn and her mother had stained Bradley's hair black and darkened his skin with makeup. Then, outfitted with a new set of Shoorn-style coveralls, he was ready for a sight-seeing trip through Kiri's oldest city.

The car in which they rode needed no steering, since it followed a track in the roadway. The only adjustments Dawn needed to make were the selections of turns at the various intersections.

The road often passed through tremendous concourses in the towers themselves; Bradley saw museums and galleries filled with aristocratic people come to admire the finest art on their planet. Artistically, Shoorn seemed to be at about the same stage as Earth. At Bradley's request, Dawn had stopped in one art gallery and had been able to view some examples at first hand. Texture art seemed to be in vogue; there was a painting of a country scene as seen through a window. It was in 3-D and boasted a real glass window in front. Bradley and Dawn laughingly agreed that the most gruesome texture painting was that of a human hand. The hand was two feet across, and was composed of genuine skin.

There were also plastic sculptings of native and mythical animals and people. All was done as realistically as possible, even to color. There was only one example of surrealistic art in the place; around it was gathered a large crowd of people making disparaging remarks. Bradley didn't blame them; in a four-foot frame was a fuzzy black ball on a green field. The ball was off center, not even visually pleasing; and around it flew plastic insects animated by some means Bradley couldn't determine. Feeling relaxed and at ease with Dawn, Bradley risked the comment, "I don't know much about your art, but I know what I like—and this sure isn't it!" To his amazement, she stared at him, then burst out laughing. Others had overheard the remark, and they joined in the merriment. Soon, as Bradley's chance comment was passed around the floor by onlookers repeating it between gasps for breath, everyone in the museum was laughing hysterically. Dawn grabbed at Bradley's arm and towed him to the car which she then guided out of the building.

By this time, Bradley was laughing too, but didn't know why and asked Dawn to explain it to him. "Why, what you said was very funny," she replied, tears still in her eyes.

"On my planet, it's an old cliche," Bradley said. "It may have been a little funny years ago, maybe, but not any more. At least, not on Earth."

"Well, it's funny here," Dawn insisted and began giggling again.

Dawn also showed Bradley the food processing plants. Kiri's golden sky was the result of layers of single-celled plants that lived in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Flying ships gathered these plants by the ton and took them to processing plants where they were dried and pressed into sheets. The sheets were then packaged and sold; in the home they were re-hydrated, flavored, colored, and molded to resemble any sort of food desired. Although real vegetables and fruits were also grown and sold, the paika, as it was called, was Kiri's major food source.

After they had been driving for several hours, since they had never once even approached the ground in all their travels, Bradley suggested that they ride to the city's surface. "Oh, we can't go there," the woman replied. "No one ever goes down there. There aren't even any roads." She never changed expression as she said this, and Bradley hesitated only a moment before continuing:

"But, Dawn," he said, "you were there. Last night—that's when you found me."

Dawn turned to look him in the eye. "Bradley—I really am tired of your jokes. You dropped by last night after flying in from Doorn. No one goes below. Now I want to show you Shoorn as it appears from the plain before it—the skyline is most impressive." She turned on the car radio loudly enough to discourage conversation, so Bradley sat back and waited. Soon the car was sliding down a long sloping road over the city wall and sailing toward the horizon.

This was Bradley's first chance to see the countryside of Kiri, and while the sight probably wasn't particularly outstanding, Bradley was nonetheless impressed. The plain before the city was very flat, and seemed to be covered by a short brownish grass. There were very few trees, and those seemed to be not quite tall enough to be trees; and all this extended clear out to the horizon...and above it all, that topaz sky.

Dawn turned down the music on the radio and said, "There's a turnaround up ahead. We'll stop there and get out, since there's no traffic. That was true—the road was bare, except for their own car, as far as the eye could see. Dawn caught the turnaround, a figure-eight in the roadway, then stopped the car and flipped up the lid. They got out and stepped onto the brown grass, which was soft and seemingly healthy. The breeze was in their faces and Bradley wondered if Dawn would hand him the ring to her outfit again. He thought it would be fun to lie in the brown grass with her, but she seemed to have something else in mind. After they had walked some distance from the vehicle, she stopped.

"Bradley," she said, "I'm sorry about that in the car. Sometimes the priests listen to conversations, and we can't take any chances. It is forbidden to go into the lower city, though some of us do it. When you found me last night, I was crying because of the poverty I found there. There is a movement to help those poor—sometimes I go below to remind myself how important that work is.

"You saw how dark it is down there. Those people almost never see sunshine, almost never see light. Garbage rots in the streets because there is no place to dispose of it. Now and then roving bands break into food processing plants because they cannot get food in any other way. Our religion teaches that our proper Path is the way of materialism, and those who do not succeed in that Path are obviously sinners, misfits. Ours is a religion for the rich, you see.

"And now the priests have decided to do away with their misery, so they have closed off the lower city. With no highways with which to transport food and remove garbage, it is only a matter of time before they give up the struggle and die. The only reason they are still alive at all is the few of us in the Upper City who drop food to them from time to time, via secret routes like that hidden elevator stop. Those people have done nothing wrong but to be born poor; yet every day more die than is their right and more turn to the Flower to forget their sorrows."

This was the longest Bradley had heard Dawn speak at one time since he had arrived; she was shaking slightly with emotion and gazing toward the skyline. "I've studied a number of societies," he said, "and if there is any common denominator it is that there will be poor people if there are rich people. The only other possibility is to dole out all society's products equally, and no one's ever found a way to do that. Yet. On Earth, I mean."

Dawn turned on him. "We could do much better," she snapped, "without the priests. They are our government, our path of information, our overseers, our civil servants. They control everything so tightly that there is no chance for revolution. Believe me, we have tried. But there are just too many ways for them to eavesdrop. Even by our absence from a possible microphone in my car, we are opening ourselves up to suspicion. Why do you think there is no traffic on the road? People who leave Shoorn have a tendency not to come back, and people who come to visit are often delayed in leaving.

"And do you think that you are safe? Mother has pretty much made sure that they see in my apartment only what she wants them to see, but we have been out—after all, you cannot spend the rest of your life in my apartment—and they are going to notice you, eventually, and wonder where you came from and how you got here. And when they scrape off that makeup..."

The thought had occurred to Bradley even as she was speaking. "Is there anything I can do?"

"There is one possibility...you expressed distaste for the idea at breakfast. But think: if you were to ride along with the inevitable, instead of hiding your coloring, if you were to go to the priests and announce that you were the Son of God...and then turned the situation to your advantage. Think! It would give you a place in this world (and, after all, you are stuck here), and a chance to right some of the wrongs here. I know they are not by rights your problems, but they are part of this world which is your world now. And—what other way can we possibly succeed in a revolution than from within?"

"You really think I could do all that?"

The dark-haired woman's back was to him as she gazed at the city. Its skyline rose from the horizon in majestic splendor, yet hid the misery extant in its bowels. "If you tried, and failed, the cost could be great," she said, "and yet maybe not so great. For if the lower city people are killed, I shall die with them. And what place on Kiri is there for you, if not as a god? Will you wear makeup and hide your hair all your life? I think the cost may be greater if you do not try."

How could she talk of cost? More and more Bradley realised he was falling in love with New Dawn. Not so much that he wouldn't give her up to return to Earth...but there was a fat chance of that, wasn't there? And never was an Earthwoman born who was as full a person as this lady from Shoorn was. Capable yet sensitive, passionate and knowing, Bradley knew instinctively that he would do anything for her with very little persuasion. Yet, he couldn't say this. So he said simply, "I want to—to help the poor as much as you do."

She faced him again. "I have said that I am not a religious person, Bradley. I have felt since childhood that there are too many injustices right here on Kiri to concern myself with the battles of the Heavens. But I have studied my religion as much as anyone. The people expect the Tshunai soon—they have waited at least five hundred years since the prophet Tho announced His coming. Once you have had a bit of training, and you are proven not to be an albino, you will not be questioned. You will be able to tell the priests what to do, since they claim that you have been instructing them all along. Bradley, please do it—!"

Dawn knew that she had been carried away by her emotions and regretted it. She could see the conflicting emotions play across the Earthman's face; she couldn't know that raging within him was the desire to please her versus the Earth-culture resistance to deifying oneself.

The desire to please her won...by a narrow margin.

"I'll do it, Dawn—provided you give me time to study more of your culture and religious prophecies. If this is going to be done, it had better be done right." It sounded like another person talking, but in a way it was. At long last he had committed himself to a cause; even if his reason for doing so wasn't strictly humanitarian. In fact, it was eminently practical...survival always is.

On the return to the car, Bradley spotted a most unusual feature on the horizon next to the city...or maybe it was part of the city. "What is on the other side of Shoorn?" he asked; Dawn was ahead of him and couldn't see him point.

"The ocean," she answered, wrapped up in her own thoughts of joy that soon all would be well.

"No," Bradley said, "I mean that...that tremendous gray pyramid." Apparently standing alongside the city's towering spires, the huge artifact occupied equal volume.

Dawn followed his glance. "Oh—that is the Pyramid of Isis."

Isis? Could it be mere coincidence that the pyramid shared a name with an ancient Egyptian goddess? Bradley pressed the woman for more information, but none was to be had; the Pyramid had stood as far back in time as anyone could remember; supposedly Shoorn had been built next to it...and, by tradition, Shoorn was Kiri's oldest city.

"Is it artificial?" he asked, finally.

"No one knows," came the reply. "But no one has ever been able to cut into it, although road crews have tried for centuries."

Bradley was excited enough about the promised coming events that he didn't even mind when he and Dawn reached the car without having first laid in the grass. Soon they were speeding back towards Shoorn. Dawn flipped on the radio; but instead of music a voice came forth announcing a message of importance from the High Priest. "How nice!" murmured Dawn in her most demure voice. "I do so love to hear him speak." But, at the ensuing message, Dawn's eyes grew wide with shock and Bradley felt his cheeks burn their hottest red.

"It gives me great pleasure to announce," the old and cracked voice stated, "that the Son of God has arrived and is now in the Church of the Highest Heavens, waiting to be worshipped!"