Galapagos Regained (58 page)

“Even if we allow that natural solicitation has occurred on our planet,” said Tappert, “what's to prevent a pious scientist from sayin' it's nothin' but the method God uses to make new species and fit 'em into convivial habitations? All your Mr. Caedmon did, it seems to me, was put some names to them ‘fixed laws' our Creator laid down at the beginnin' of time, which means there ain't no need to choose between believin' in God and trustin' in transmutation.”

So now it was upon her, that dreaded paragon of oxymorons: evangelical Deism. Hear me, O Epicurus. Help me, mighty Lucretius. Come forth like Lazarus and save my friends from the noose.

“Judge Eggwort, Mr. Tappert, good jurymen, I invite you to picture a world in which the gods are regarded as irrelevant to human affairs,” said Chloe. “Instead of inventing Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Hindooism, Buddhism, and the rest, people have elected to account for reality in largely materialist terms. Such a philosophy, in fact, once flourished. I refer to the ideas of the ancient sage Epicurus, as immortalized in the first century B.C. by the poet Lucretius in
De Rerum Natura
. Along with an earlier sage called Democritus, Epicurus taught that ultimately nothing exists save for atoms and void.” She removed her Panama hat and fanned herself with the brim. “Can we be confident that a world keyed to Greek atomism would adopt a non-supernatural theory of evolution? I think so. And would this world eventually come to include steam trains, clipper ships, spinning jennies, landscape paintings, love ballads, piano concertos, theatrical melodramas, vintage wines, and other such secular amenities? I don't doubt it.”

“It's a far better place than Mephistropolis,” noted Harry the panderer.

“Now imagine that, after our hypothetical atomist civilization has been thriving for several thousand years, a bearded patriarch comes traipsing out of the desert. ‘Harken!' he cries. ‘An invisible but very talkative and person-like entity has manifested Himself to me! Harken! This entity is the very Architect of the Cosmos, dwelling everywhere and causing everything! You must outgrow your childish affection for the given world and fall down in awe before the One True God!'”

Slipping free of the witness chair, Chloe marched towards the jury box, where she favored each inmate with the same beguiling smile she'd cultivated whilst playing Queen Cleopatra.

“Very well, I suppose it's
conceivable
that our atomists would leap for joy, turn to the patriarch, and say, ‘My goodness, sir, you certainly got
that
right—your One True God theory harmonizes
perfectly
with our materialist understanding of the world. Your revelation accords
completely
with our reason. Thank you for bringing us this marvelous gift.'”

“Miss Bathurst, sit down!” cried Eggwort. “You're attemptin' to mesmerize the jury!”

“Conceivable, good sirs, but implausible! So implausible in fact that I shall abstain from elaboration, lest I insult the shade of Epicurus by taking his foes seriously!”

As Chloe strode back to the witness chair, an exasperated Tappert flicked his wrists as if to shake water from his fingertips. “I'm no longer angry with you, Miss Bathurst. Your derangement evokes only my pity—everythin' else has dropped away. I got no further questions.”

Surveying the saddleback tortoise, who seemed to meet her gaze with sympathetic eyes, Chloe reassumed her place at the defense table.

“Epicurus served us even better than I'd hoped,” declared Mr. Chadwick.

“On returning to France, I shall read my Lucretius again,” said Léourier.

“On arriving in Hell, I shall tell both sages they almost saved my life,” said Solange.

“The jury will retire to their prison cells and begin deliberatin',” Eggwort announced.

“Your Honor,” said Ben the horse thief, rising from his egg crate, “I would ask a boon of the expert witness.” Doffing his burlap skullcap, he turned to Chloe. “Miss Bathurst, might I borrow that treatise of Mr. Caedmon's? His ideas are probably too dense for us, but we ought to give it a try.”

Although she had never imagined that Mephistropolis might be amongst the way stations where “An Essay Concerning Descent with Modification” stopped during its South American odyssey, she did not doubt the juror's sincerity. She handed the sandalwood box to Léourier, who in turn delivered it to the horse thief.

“Tomorrow at nine o'clock we'll convene to hear the verdict, after which I shall pass sentence on the defendants,” said Eggwort.

“Unless we're found innocent,” noted Ralph.

“Perfessor, you seem to ferget where your sinful flesh and sorry bones reside at present,” said Judge Eggwort. “In Duntopia, we navigate by the Tablets of the Law, not the lodestone of your predilections.” He hammered the bench with the enthusiasm of a latter-day Samson crushing the skulls of the Philistine army. “This court is adjourned!”

*   *   *

There was nothing like a blast of Peruvian snuff for scraping detritus from the walls of a person's skull, all that encrusted dread, those barnacles of remorse, and so Chloe imagined that the
epená
would shield her from the imminent verdict in
Duntopia versus Cabot and Quinn
. Sprawled across the gondola floor, she groped about in the murk of dawn, eventually finding the rubber syringe. She filled it with resin, slipped the nipple into her nostril, and squeezed the bulb. Her brain soon found itself in El Dorado, afloat in the city's most peaceful fountain, the limpid blue waters washing over her cerebral convolutions even as the rest of her remained in Galápagos.

Cradling the syringe and a phial of snuff, she followed Mr. Chadwick and Capitaine Léourier as they exited the airship, crossed the glittering beach, and hiked over the cinder cones towards Minor Zion. Starting along the frozen-lava path that led to the courthouse, Chloe and her companions encountered Rebecca Eggwort, who reported that the Huancabamba tortoise team had just embarked for Hood's Isle in an outrigger canoe.

“I figured we was done showin' the jury the domeshelled female, so I told the Indians they could leave,” said Rebecca. “But if worse comes to worst, the half-dozen of us not with child at the moment—well, Constance ain't so sure of her situation—we six could probably parade her up and down in front of the jury box.”

“Our domeshell illustration has played her part, likewise the other creatures in the bestiary,” said Chloe. “After we hear the verdict, you might as well set all our local exhibits free—the saddleback male, the red iguanas, the Charles Isle finches.”

“I shall never look at a finch's beak in quite the same way again,” said Rebecca.

“May I tell you something, Mrs. Eggwort?” said Chloe. “I spoke that very same sentence two years ago in Mr. Caedmon's zoo, right after I'd first heard him explain his species theory.”

“I'll bet you understood it right away, Miss Bathurst, you bein' such a bright lady,” said Rebecca.

“Truth to tell, Mrs. Eggwort, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.”

The defense team proceeded to the tabernacle, pausing before the illustrative specimens: birds fluttering in their cages, tethered aquatic lizards breaking their fast with algae, penned terrestrial lizards munching cactus-plant fruits, tortoises gawking at passing Latter-Day Saints—a tableau suggesting Noah's menagerie queuing up to board the ark. Owing to the
epená,
Chloe entered into conversation with the saddleback male.

“Were you satisfied with my performance?” asked the tortoise. “Did I demonstrate the evolutionary advantages of an unencumbered neck?”

“Should the jury find against my friends, you'll share not a particle of blame,” she replied.

“What are we doing here, Miss Bathurst? In the universe, I mean.”

The
epená
summoned a meandering smile to her lips. “You're asking the wrong woman. I'm merely a transmutationist. The universe is not my line of country.”

The tabernacle was already packed, spectators thronging the pews, jurors poised on their cheese casks, Judge Eggwort tenderizing his palm with the roofing mallet, Tappert and Hatch perusing the Book of Mormon. Speaking not a word, Chloe assumed her seat and passed the resin syringe to Solange, who availed herself of its magic.

“I know what I'm requesting for my last meal,” said Solange, handing the latex bulb to her co-defendant. “A bottle of
pisco
and a pound of Peruvian snuff.”

“Two bottles for me,” said Ralph, “and enough
epená
to fly me to the brothels of Baghdad.”

Judge Eggwort called the proceeding to order. Silence descended, a quietude so intense as to make the rude building seem like what it really was, a house of prayer.

“The jury foreman will deliver the verdict,” said the chief magistrate.

Joe the poacher stood fully erect. “‘May it please the Court,'” he read in a halting voice, eyes fixed on a scrap of paper fluttering in his hand. “‘As it 'appens, we all 'ad different reactions to the testimonies, the upshot being that each man will speak 'is mind in turn.'”

“Six votes for acquittal, and you walk free,” Mr. Chadwick reminded his clients.

“I vote we send 'em to the scaffold,” said Nathan the pickpocket, rising. “Nobody has the right to destroy God's private property, and that's the long 'n' short of it!”

“Bloody hell,” said Ralph.

Much to Chloe's dismay, the
epená
was failing to do its job. She remained mired in Galápagos, a place where six not-guilty votes were a statistical impossibility and Her Majesty's governors never issued pardons.

“I agree with Clarence,” said Walter the forger, gaining his feet. “I appreciate Miss Bathurst's fervor, but this transmigration business is a cartload of flapdoodle. The defendants must 'ang!”

“
Merde,
” said Capitaine Léourier.

“It's not flapdoodle, but it's not a disproof of God either,” asserted Pete the highwayman. “That said, Miss Bathurst has set me to thinkin' that the folk who wrote the Bible didn't hold themselves to the highest standards of truthfulness, especially concernin' Noah and the Flood, which means I vote for acquittal!”

“That wight can rob me blind whenever he wants,” muttered Solange.

Chloe simultaneously squeezed Ralph's sinewy forearm and the sea-witch's slender knee. They had just won a victory. Was it too much to hope for five more?

“I say Pete's talkin' sense,” declared Amos the sodomite. “The Tree of Life is a feisty idea, but it ain't about to give God a bad night's sleep. It seems to me the big loser in this trial is the prophet Noah, who I'm startin' to suspect was no more 'istorical than Old King Cole. Yes, the defendants burned a boat that night, but it wasn't the Genesis ark. Seein' as 'ow you can't commit sacrilege against a thing what ain't sacred, I 'ereby vote for mercy!”

“Buy that man a beardless youth,” whispered Solange.

“I'll probably roast eternally for sayin' this, but Miss Bathurst has convinced me that God's not a deity to be taken seriously,” said Tim the anarchist. “Judge Eggwort, you must set the defendants free!”

“All hail our prince of disorder,” said Solange.

“I'll tell you what I think,” said Ben the horse thief, clutching the sandalwood box to his chest. “I think Mr. Caedmon has done nothin' more and nothin' less than to describe the methods our Creator employed for makin' all the world's plants and animals. Given that He's the spirit of transmutation, He's got no interest in becomin' the plaintiff in a blasphemy trial. Ship the defendants back to England, Your Honor. I wish I could go with 'em!”

“I owe that man a romp in the rye,” said Solange.

“Forgive my presumption, Ben, but your logic's leaky as a sieve,” declared George the train robber. “Yes, a transmutation or two might have occurred here in Galápagos and elsewhere, but that don't give a person license to burn Noah's ark. The arsonists must pay for their crime!”

“Faugh,” grunted Chloe.

“George said it better than I ever could,” averred Dick the swindler. “There may be some truth to Mr. Caedmon's notions, but God is the greatest truth of all. Judge Eggwort, it's your sacred duty to chastise the ark burners!”

“Four nods towards the noose, four towards Mother England,” whispered Mr. Chadwick.

“When I first came into this courtroom, I believed each and every word in the Bible,” said Jake the fornicator. “Well, Your Honor, that's still true—which means you must schedule a visit to the scaffold for both these criminals!”

“My opinion of fornication has just been lowered considerably,” said Ralph.

“Unlike some of my fellow freethinkers, I'm not afraid to shout the good news from the 'ousetops!” proclaimed Harry the panderer. “There is no God! There never was a God! There never will be a God! Let these people go!”

“Such a splendid flesh merchant,” said Solange.

“We need but one more friend in the jury box,” noted Mr. Chadwick.

“Now
I'm
gonna do some shoutin',” proclaimed Clarence the usurer. “God is alive! Jesus is Lord! Dispatch the blackguards to the Devil's scullery!”

“He's not the one,” observed Ralph.

All eyes fell on the remaining juror. Gaining his feet, Joe the poacher spat into his palms and rubbed his hands together. “Durin' the course of my chosen vocation as an appropriator of superfluous game, I became a votary of the natural world. When Miss Bathurst tells as 'ow all the plants and animals are knitted together in a kind of crazy quilt, I must say I'm impressed, and if God 'ad nothin' to do with it, then let's not give credit where credit ain't due. To wit, I cast my vote with the freethinkers!”