“Even worse than before,” Mr. Ichino said mildly. He reached out to the dial. Nigel stopped him. “No,” he said.
—Chanting, spinning in a dizzy rhythm, the bodies glistened with sweat. Their ragged chorus swelled into new strength.
Running living leaping soaring
Brimming loving flying dying
Only once and all together
Joyful singing love forever
Annular circles orbited about the central fire. Spin. Whirl. Stamp. Sing.
“Overall,” Nigel drawled, “I think I would prefer opium as the religion of the masses.”
“But you err there, sir,” a voice said from the doorway. A roly-poly man stood there with Alexandria. His eyes glimmered out from folds of flesh and he laughed deeply.
“Bread and circuses we need. We cannot provide infinite bread. So—” He spread his hands expansively. “Infinite circuses.”
Introductions: he was Jacques Fresnel, French, completing two years of study in the United States. (“Or what’s left of it,” Nigel added. Fresnel nodded uncertainly.) His subject was the New Sons in all their branches and tributaries. So Alexandria had struck up a conversation with him and, sensing an interesting confrontation, led him to Nigel. (And Nigel, despite the fact that the New Sons were not a favorite topic, felt a surge of happiness at this sign of her new liveliness. She was mixing and enjoying things again, and socializing better than he was at this party.)
“They are, you see, sir, the social cement,” Fresnel said. He held his glass between two massive hands as though he would crush it, and gazed at Nigel intently. “They are necessary.”
“To glue together the foundations,” Nigel said blandly. “Correct, correct. They have only this week unified with numerous Protestant faiths.”
“Those weren’t faiths. They were administrative structures with no parishioners left to keep them afloat.”
“Socially, unification is paramount. A new binding. A restructuring of group relationships.”
“Nigel,” Alexandria said, “he thinks they are a hopeful sign.”
“Of what?”
“The death of our Late Sensate culture,” Fresnel said earnestly.
“Passing into—what?—fanaticism?”
“No no.” He waved the idea away. “Our declining Sensate art is already being swept aside. No more emptiness and excesses. We shall turn to Harmonious-Ascendant-Ascetic.”
“No more Nazis gutting blonds for a thrill on the Three-D?”
Alexandria frowned and glanced at Lubkin’s pearly 3D, now blank.
“Certainly not. We shall have mythic themes, intuitive art, work of sublime underlying intent. I do not need to stress that these are the feelings we all sorely lack, both in Europe and here and in Asia.”
Alexandria said, “Why does that come next, after Sensate?”
“Well, these are modified views, taken from the strictly schematic outline of Sorokin. We could pass into a Heroic-Promethean, of course”—he paused, beaming around at them—“but does any of us expect that? No one feels Promethean these days, even in your country.”
“We are building the second cylinder city,” Mr. Ichino said. “Surely construction of another world—”
“A fluctuation,” Fresnel said jovially. He touched a fingertip to his vest. “I am always in favor of such adventures. But how many can go to the—the cylcits?”
“If we build them fast enough with raw materials from the moon—” Alexandria began.
“Not enough, not enough,” Fresnel said. “There will always be such things, and they are good, but the main drift is clear. The last few decades, the horrors of it— what have we learned? There will always be dissenters, schismatics, deviants, holdovers, dropouts, undergrounds, heretics even, and of course the reluctant or nominal conformers.”
“They are the majority,” Mr. Ichino said.
“Yes! The majority! So, to do anything useful with them, to channel and funnel that stupendous energy, we, we must place—how is it said?—all these under one roof.” Fresnel made a steeple of his hands, his stone rings like gargoyles.
“The New Sons,” Nigel said.
“A true cultural innovation,” Fresnel said. “Very American. Like your Mormons, they add whatever elements are missing from traditional religions.”
“Stir, season to taste and serve,” Nigel said.
“You’re not truly giving it a chance, Nigel,” Alexandria said with sudden earnestness.
“Bloody right. Anyone for drinks?” He took Alexandria’s glass and made off toward the bar.
The carpet seemed made of spongy stuff that lifted him slightly into the air after each step. He navigated through knots of JPL people, flashing an occasional automatic smile and brushing away from contact with others. At the bar he scooped up a basket of pumpkin seeds, roasted and salty and crisp. The Chilean red was gone; he switched to an anonymous Bordeaux. Mr. Ichino materialized at his elbow. “You remain an active astronaut, Mr. Walmsley, I understand?”
“So far.” He downed the Bordeaux and held out his glass to the bartender for a refill.
“Should you be watching your weight?”
“A good eye you have. Quite good.” Nigel prodded a finger into his stomach. “Gaining a bit.”
