She stepped back from him, once more silhouetted against the midmorning sky. She was radiant. “So new,” she said. “So beautiful. Kiss me, Aton, so I can believe...”

He put his two hands on her shoulders, bringing her close slowly. As her face approached a cloud seemed to pass before it. A shimmering, a fading...

...And it was the face of the minionette. Hair the color of the living flame surrounded it, twining in serpentine splendor, in and out. Black-green eyes stared into his. The red lips parted. “Kiss me, Aton...”

“No!” he cried, his dream of freedom blasted. He put his hand against the specter, covering the liquid eyes. He shoved it away with a convulsion of horror.

And stood alone on the mountain, wrapped in the melody...

“But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement.”

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
“Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop”

INTERLOG

These are not our people.
The universe was clean in its conception:
Bright pure suns swept up the swirling dust,
Nebulae drifted eternally—until one fell from grace.
Our galaxy is ill:
It rots at the core, dissolves into decay, festers with putrid stench,
Diseased by the ultimate horror:
Life.
From this morass rises an unthinkable caricature of intellect,
dedicating itself to the greater decimation of order,
contaminating every particle.
Its guises are several, but our concern is with the nearest: Man.

These are not our people.
The enemy is man.
This evil must be expunged, our galaxy sterilized.
No vestige of slime may remain.
Yet—the malady is far advanced;

The infection has greater resource than we.
Prematurity is defeat.
We control our revulsion; we study and are subtle.
We recruit the envoys of man’s doom from his own ranks.
We select an individual and tame him to fit our purpose.
This creature is less than sane
(His culture says), he is ideal:
Aton.
Aton has a dream of union;
Aton longs to embrace beauty;
Aton seeks to murder evil...
Aton, Aton, child of illusion,
“Fair and foul are near of kin.”
Your strength rises from the evil.
Look to your excrement;
Smear your face in truth
Forget ambition;
Return.

For these are not your people—
And we are not their god.

IV. MINION

§401

Ten

It was bright, blindingly bright, even in the heavy shade. Aton had forgotten how much natural incandescence was wasted in the open. The smell of the outdoors was everywhere, rich and ecstatic. It was day and it was warm, not with the arid blast of the caverns, but with sweetness, with splendor.

Freedom! Nightmare was behind him now, his long trial over. The insane evil of the caverns could fade into the past, leaving only the Aton who had won free—the purged Aton, the clean Aton.