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after you? Why did it kill your mother?"
"I don't know"! Carolyn cried. "It hates my father, and-"
Brother Paul squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. "It is a comprehensible, if not defensible syndrome.
The Swami knows martial art and has very strong psychic force. Bigfoot may resent him, but be unable to
overcome him directly, so it tries to hurt him through those close to him. His family."
Carolyn put her face against his chest and cried. "That's why I wanted to be with you," she sobbed. "I'm
not close to my father, really; we're of different religions. I thought somehow-you're so strong and
patient, you'd make such a good father-I thought we could just get on an airplane and go away
somewhere where they never heard of Animation, where Bigfoot couldn't ever find me-oh, I'm sorry!"
"So it was your Animation, rather than mine," Brother Paul said, amazed. "I thought I had emerged from
Animation-"
Carolyn tore herself away from him-but Jeanette caught her and held her instead. "Dear child! There's
nothing wrong in wanting a real family. That's worth fighting for! That's what I'm fighting for. The only
thing wrong is to give up your dream."
"But it didn't work!" Carolyn sobbed. "We had such a wonderful time for a while, visiting his old school,
but then I started being afraid he would-would-something terrible would happen to him. Because of me.
And then it all went wrong, and we got on the wrong plane and lost in the station, and it was all my fault-
"
"It wasn't your fault!" Brother Paul cried. "It wasn't your Animation, either! You may have started it, but
I-"
"So I sneaked away, so as not to be a burden to him anymore-"
"You nearly destroyed me!" Brother Paul cried. "I was afraid you would get abducted or run over-"
"No, I just got in another Animation, like the other one, when I played the Buddha-"
"You played Buddha?" Brother Paul demanded. Yet her size and appearance jibed. Change the hair-easily
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done in Animation!-and she could resemble a little man, sitting under the Bo Tree. He had found her
without knowing it!
"Yes. I know about Indian history because of my religion, so it was easy to-"
"What is your religion?"
"I worship the Nine Unknown Men. My mother taught me. My father didn't like it too much, but since it
relates some to his religion, he let it be."
"I don't know that religion," Brother Paul said. "Tell me about it."
Carolyn disengaged from Jeanette. "I'm okay now, I think. It-I'll have to start at the beginning, if it
doesn't bother you. After what I did to you-"
Brother Paul looked her in the eyes. "One thing we must get straight. You did nothing to me. Nothing
bad, I mean. You showed me something about myself I never suspected before. I want a family too! I
want a daughter like you."
She brightened. "You do?"
"I was confused at first in that Animation. I thought I was back in-in the mundane world, as I said. I knew
I didn't have a daughter, so it took me some time to acclimatize. But when I did-" He spread his hands. "I
took over that sequence and carried it forward the way I wanted it to go. Now I can't get used to the
notion of not having a daughter like you."
"Daughters are good too," Jeanette agreed. "Sons and daughters."
"But you are the child of another man," Brother Paul said to Carolyn. "I am here for a few days; then I
will be gone. I cannot take anyone with me; Earth spent more energy than it liked sending me here, and
that's the limit. The Swami is your real father. I would not contribute to the alienation of-" He had to stop.
Why couldn't she have been his child? He would so gladly have taken her away from all this, back to
Earth and-"
He came up abruptly against reality. And what? Even if Earth were to allow another person to mattermit,
there was no life he could provide for her back on Earth! In the Animation he had been married with a
home to take her back to. In real life his home was the Holy Order of Vision. A fine institution, but no
substitute for a personal family. "Explain your religion," he concluded.
"Well, it started with Asoka," she said. "The Emperor Asoka of India who was born in 273 B.C. He was
the grandson of Chandra-gupta who unified India. But there was still some land to add. So Asoka
conquered Kalinga. His army killed a hundred thousand men in battle. When he saw all that gore he was
horrified at such massacre. He renounced that kind of conquest and declared that the only true conquest
was to win men's hearts. By being kind and dutiful and pious, and letting all creatures be free to live as
they pleased. So he converted to Buddhism-"
"Beautiful!" Jeanette murmured.
"He was such a good Buddhist that a lot of other people joined too. Buddhism spread through India and
Ceylon and Indon-Indon-"
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"Indonesia," Brother Paul supplied.
"Yes. I can't remember all those otherworld names as well as my mother could. But Asoka respected all
religions; he didn't make anybody turn Buddhist, and he didn't prosecute-is that right?"
" 'Persecute'," Brother Paul said.
"You sure would make a good Daddy! He let each religion do its own thing, a little like the way it is here,
only without all the screaming. He was a vegetarian, and he wouldn't touch alcohol. I think he was the
best monarch ever!"
"History agrees," Brother Paul said. "Asoka was one of the finest."
"But he knew he wouldn't rule forever. He wanted to stop men from using their minds for evil. So he
founded the wonderful secret society to do this. That's the Nine Unknown Men."
"But that was thousands of years ago," Jeanette protested. "What happened after they died?"
"They trained new men, each generation. So there have always been nine, right up till today, and each
one is the wisest man there is. They have a secret language, and each one writes a book on his science.
One knows psychology. Another knows fizz-"
"Physiology," Brother Paul said.
"Yes. He knows so much about it that he can kill a man just by touching him. Some of his secrets leaked
once, and now they are used in judo."
"Judo!" Brother Paul exclaimed.
"That's a way of fighting," she said helpfully.
"Uh, yes, I understand. That strikes me as an excellent religion. But how do you know the identities of
these Nine Men?"
"I don't. Nobody does. Except themselves. But I worship what they do because they are working to save
us all. They are around somewhere, and-" She paused shyly. "Well, I think maybe-I don't know-my father
the Swami Kundalini might be one. He knows so much-"
Brother Paul looked past her-and there stood the Reverend Siltz in the doorway. Brother Paul jumped up.
"I didn't see you, Reverend!" he cried. "We were just-"
"I have been here for some time," Siltz said. "I did not wish to interrupt the child."
Jeanette turned. "Reverend, I came to-" She looked at Carolyn, not wanting to bring up such a subject in
the hearing of the child. "It doesn't matter now. I'll go."
Siltz pointed a finger at her. "The first grandson. Also the first granddaughter. Communist."
Jeanette's eyes widened. "You proffer compromise?"
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"Granddaughters are good too," Siltz said defensively. "Sometimes even better than grandsons."
"I will not bargain for religion!" Jeanette said. "Anything else, not that. All will be Scientologist."
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