“It’s a question of control, I suppose.” And even as I said it, up croaked another, inner voice, monitory and more rational, “Don’t be a schmuck. Don’t get engrenagé,”—as the French say, “caught in the gears.”

“Precisely,” intoned old Mop Head, eyes burning like banked-down coals. “A matter of intensity, frequency, pitch…”

“The size, shape, and composition of the instrument to produce…”

“The required effect. Yes,” he said, “yes. What shall it be? Copper rods, silver tuning forks, the golden trill of harmonics?”

“Separately?”

“Or combined? The way Joshua used voices and trumpets to tumble the walls of Jericho?”

“I wouldn’t go that far…”

“I tell you, son, he knew something we’ve forgotten, and we must find it again. God!” he whispered hoarsely. “Just think of it…! It’s like the second discovery of fire!” He slumped back in his chair, exhausted by the gymnastics of his mind, waiting for my reply.

“I don’t know,” I said feebly. “I just wish I knew, you know?”

“That’s the chance I’m giving you. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of our effort? Incubating a revolution to redesign human society? Save the earth while it’s still salvageable?”

“Yes, sure, but…”

“Well then…?”

“Frankly, it seems impossible.”

He stared at me. “Young man…” The embers in his eyes took fire, “We’re facing a global meltdown. People all over the world despise and envy us—an explosive combination—and we don’t seem to be the least bit aware that our arrogance and insensibility toward them might have something to do with it. Right now they’re all of ’em in hot pursuit of the bomb, and once they get it, the very chain of life will be…” He didn’t complete the thought. It wasn’t necessary.

“But it’s implausible, the idea of building a pyramid by tooting a flute.”

“Implausible, you say? More implausible than what’s being done right now? A preemptive strike against Iraq? Carving up space? The space cadets up there dividing the moon with the Russians? And what’ll they find?”

“I don’t know.”

“They’ll find a pretext to fight, if only to get the side with the best view. Boy,” he said, “I don’t claim inerrancy, but something must be done.”

Well, it would have to be done without me. It was all too goofy—contributing to the second coming of fire, indeed; reclaiming a lost stitch in the fabric of time, unraveling a riddle unsolved for five thousand years.