Only Human (37 page)

She smiled. Then she went to the counter and asked for a cup of tea. The duty angel nodded and filled the kettle from the tap. She said a brief prayer. At once, steam rose from the spout and the lid rattled. The angel poured a cupful and handed it over. Long ago, the management had realised that what worked for wine at the wedding at Cana works for tea as well, resulting in a substantial saving on the staff budget. So quick; so efficient; so cheap; so environmentally friendly. From where she was standing, Martha could see through into the kitchen, where someone had fridgemagneted up the usual witty and encouraging notices, such as:
and:
(that one always made her wince) and:
(one of these days He's going to see that, and then there'll be trouble) and:

Yes. For her to fix this dreadful muddle all by herself, without any help or proper facilities, would be an absolute by-Our-Lady miracle.

 

‘Well now,' said a voice in the darkness, ‘this
is
cosy.'

The diverse assortment of creatures confined in the cage somewhere within earshot of the voice all began talking at once. What they actually said scarcely merits recording; it was a confused medley of variations on the themes
Where am I?
and
Let me out!
The voice waited until they'd all railed themselves hoarse, and then continued.

‘I'll bet,' it said, ‘you're wondering why you're here.'

‘I'm not,' growled Artofel. ‘And you can stop trying to be so damn mysterious, as well. I know perfectly well that this is the staff toilet on Level Thirty-Six; I'd recognise that dripping cistern anywhere. And any minute now I'll recognise your voice too, and when I do there's going to be some changes made to the holiday roster that'll make you wish you'd never been damned.'

‘Oh,' said the voice. ‘Drat. In that case, I might as well switch the lights on.'

A faint click; and the meagre glow of an administration-issue sixty-watt bulb diluted the shadows. In particular, it illuminated four plump middle-aged males and one plump middle-aged female, all dressed in smart executive businesswear and wearing executive spectacles, sitting on lavatory seats in a row of cubicles.

‘You,' Artofel said contemptuously. ‘I might have known.'

‘Hello,' replied the female. ‘Yes, it's us. And before you get too cocky and start yelling for help, don't bother, because nobody'll come.'

‘I put a notice on the door saying
Out of Order
,' explained the male to her immediate left. ‘Amazing how effective that is.'

Artofel sniffed angrily. ‘So that's what it's all been about, is it?' he said. ‘All this aggravation, spectral warriors roaming up and down breaking all the rules, harassment of civilians, conspiracy against the Management—'

‘Who isn't here,' the female interrupted, smirking.

‘What?'

‘Not here. Gone. One of our Supreme Beings is missing—'

‘Two, actually,' a male demon pointed out. ‘The Boss and Junior. Which theoretically leaves Uncle Ghost, but so what? Compared to him in the usefulness stakes, the proverbial chocolate fireguard's a nuclear-powered Swiss Army knife.'

‘Say that again,' Artofel muttered. ‘The Old Man and Junior are—'

‘Gone. That's right. Been gone a while now. There are various theories,' the female went on. ‘Buffy here reckons that science has finally caught up with Them and proved once and for all They don't exist. Reckons there was a documentary about it on telly, and so it must be true. Chubby thinks They've got religion and joined some obscure sect in the Nevada desert. My hypothesis is that He's staged His own death, possibly by falling off his yacht and drowning or something equally jejune, and they've done a flit with the pension fund money. In any case, it doesn't matter; the fact is they're not here. Which means that, so long as we don't hang about, we've got a once-in-an-everlasting-lifetime chance to put through this perfectly wonderful scheme of ours and have it all tied up so tight that even if They do come back, there'll be nothing They can do about it. So . . .'

‘Excuse me.'

The female looked to see who'd spoken. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘Excuse me,' Maria repeated, ‘but where is this?'

The five demons looked at each other and tried not to giggle. It was left to Artofel to answer the question.

‘Hell?' Maria repeated.

‘That's right,' the female said. ‘Don't worry unduly about that, though. Like in Monopoly, you're in Jail but Just Visiting.' She smiled reassuringly. ‘You're going to die, of course,' she added, ‘but what happens to you after that is between you, your personal codes of ethics and your own individual governing body. I don't know offhand who actually does decide where bad paintings go when they die, although I've heard the Birmingham City Art Gallery plausibly suggested.'

Inside the cage there was gloomy silence. Artofel scowled ineffectually. Maria sat thoughtful and rather depressed. The Prime Minister, having discovered by exhaustive research that there was nothing inside the cage to climb up and jump off, was sitting in a corner and huddling.

‘And in any case,' the female went on, ‘we can't snuff you out quite yet, because we haven't got the complete set. The last of you's due to be delivered any minute now, and then we can get started. While we're waiting, though, I thought it'd be only polite to say hello and frighten you into little quivering heaps.' She beamed like a vampire aunt. ‘It's been ages since I've done any frightening,' she explained. ‘I do miss it so.'

Maria turned her head as best she could in the confined space of the cage. ‘Excuse me,' she said to Artofel. ‘I don't know who you are, but you seem to know what's going on. Could you possibly explain? I have actually met some of these people before, but . . .'

‘Delighted,' Artofel replied grimly. ‘I am Artofel, Duke of Hell. These five degenerates are also Dukes of Hell; to be precise, they're the Arts, Leisure and Libraries SubCommittee, which in practice means they're too devious or useless to be trusted with a proper job but they can't be sacked because they've got seniority.'

‘I resent that,' said the male demon referred to as Buffy. ‘We fulfil a valuable role in the artistic and cultural life of everlasting damnation.'

Artofel snorted. ‘Ignore him,' he said. ‘All they actually do is, twice a year they take a library trolley round with all the latest Jeffrey Archers and Lynda La Plantes. Waste of time, though, because any punter who's been evil enough to deserve that sort of thing gets issued with a copy as soon as it comes out. Different department.'

‘I see,' Maria lied. ‘You're the ones who wanted us to sell you our souls or something.'

The male demon called Bunty sniggered; the female broadened her insufferable smile. ‘If only it were that simple,' she said. ‘No, my poor dears, it's a bit more involved than that. Shall I explain?'

‘No,' said Artofel.

‘Very well then. The point is, you three and a fourth one you'll be meeting any minute now are unique. For a while now you've been trotting around quite happily in human bodies, but you aren't human.We're designing an improved Mark Two human to sell to alternative realities - '

‘Damn fine commercial opportunity there,' Buffy muttered. ‘Dreadful waste not to exploit it.'

‘ - and so all we've got to do is synthesise the four of you, refine the result and start cloning. We have all the facilities here.'

‘Really? In a staff bog?'

The female nodded. ‘Apparently you're overestimating the technical difficulties, Artie dear. We've got the blender from the Level Eight canteen and the spare photocopier from Archives, and the rest's just a matter of imagination and insulating tape. Excuse me, but why is your silent colleague trying to hang upside down from the cage roof?'

‘He's a lemming,' Bunty explained. ‘I know it's like a fear of heights, only in reverse. He'll let go in a min—Ah, just as I thought. Happy landings!'

Artofel growled menacingly. ‘You do realise that you're never going to get away with this,' he said. ‘I mean, quite apart from the whole scheme being completely impractical and doomed to failure, do you honestly believe that when - I say when, not if - the Old Man finds out what you've been doing He's just going to put it down to fiendish high spirits and tell you not to do it again?' He shook his head, in the process biffing Maria on the nose and head-butting the Prime Minister. ‘You five won't even be history. You'll be dogma.'

The female laughed musically. ‘We shall see,' she said. ‘Or at least, you three won't, but we will. Chubby, do you think you could possibly find out what's keeping number four? Time's going on, you know. It's not like Squad Three to be late.'

‘Caught in traffic?' a demon speculated.

‘Excuse me,' Maria said.

The five demons looked at her. This didn't disconcert her too badly - you get used to that sort of thing if you've been a painting for any appreciable length of time. She cleared her throat.

‘Excuse me, but I've just realised why none of this is going to work.'

Another trill of silvery laughter from the female demon. ‘Oh dear,' she said, ‘this isn't going to help, you know. Playing for time might be an effective tactic where you come from, but down here time really doesn't have an awful lot of meaning.'

‘No but seriously,‘ Maria said. ‘And I'll tell you for why. Your whole scam's based on one basic error. Sorry,' she added, ‘but there it is.'

‘Oh yes? And perhaps you'd be terribly sweet and let us in on the big secret?'

Maria looked thoughtful. ‘It's not really a secret,' she said. ‘More sort of staring you in the face. Just ask yourselves: why do supreme beings have mortals in the first place?'

The demons beamed tolerantly. ‘Atmosphere,' Buffy said.

“Like potted palms in dentists' waiting rooms,' Chubby added. ‘You don't need them, but it makes the place look a bit less sparse.'

‘You're sure about that?' Maria said. ‘I'm not. Be reasonable. Mortals aren't particularly decorative; if all you wanted was to make the place look nice, you'd have lots of tasteful ornaments instead, like me. And as pets, they're a dead loss; they aren't exactly environmentally friendly either, Lord knows. If you wanted something to be the equivalent of a cuddly kitten or even pondweed in a fishtank, you wouldn't bother with human beings, you'd just stick with nice sensible harmless animals.'

‘Like lemmings,' Artofel muttered under his breath.

‘Exactly,' Maria agreed. ‘And mortals aren't there to add interest and excitement to the business of running a cosmos; after all, that's what His Majesty's loyal opposition's there for - you lot and this gentleman here whose name escapes me for the moment.The forces of evil and so forth. And the last possible reason for having mortals is to get anything
useful
done, because they don't, by and large. If it's that sort of thing you're after, you'd have a race of robots or something similar. But instead,' she went on, ‘there are mortals. Have you ever stopped to wonder why?'

The female was still beaming; but the one called Bunty was wearing a puzzled frown. It suited him about as well as a full set of baroque armour would suit Kate Moss, but the important thing was that it was there. ‘What are you driving at?' he asked.

‘Think,' Maria replied. ‘The only possible motive for infesting your cosmos with silly, awkward, destructive mortals is so that you, the supreme being, can feel superior. I may not be all that hot on the perfection front, you say, as you face yourself in the shaving mirror every morning, but at least I'm better than that lot down there. It gives you a nice warm glow deep down in your ineffability. It makes you feel good. After all, you're an omnipotent creator; if that's not the reason, why did you make
Homo sapiens
such an utter
mess
? So,' she continued sweetly, ‘don't you think that an
improved
version of humanity, a version that's
not
a seething mass of design faults and built-in shortcomings, is likely to be something of a drug on the market?'

There was a long, rather unpleasant silence, disturbed only by Artofel sniggering and the rasp of teeth on steel as the Prime Minister tried to gnaw through the bars of the cage.

‘Bother,' said the fifth demon.

‘Don't listen to her,' the female said. ‘That's human logic talking. Gods don't think like that. Do they?' she added.

‘Want to bet?' Maria replied aggressively. ‘I seem to remember something about being created in somebody else's image. I'd invite you to look at it more as a case of Him having a very ugly picture of himself in his attic Or, if you prefer, ask yourself who's taking away whose sins? All the things He didn't want to be, shoved off on a bunch of expendables? And you're asking His equivalents in the dimension next door to lay out good money for a new line in the raw materials of religion -'

‘Canon fodder,' Artofel mumbled.

‘- who're going to be fully justified in turning round when He forgives them and forgiving Him right back.With brass knobs on. Not an inspired investment, if you ask me.'

‘Paintings,' said the female demon icily, ‘should be seen and not heard. If I'd wanted a
talking
picture, I'd have kidnapped Mickey Mouse. Let's get these three minced up and add the fourth one later, shall we?'