To the other two, subject and spectator, he simply gently and briefly pressed his lips to the garishly decorated skin. But Jill caught a hint of the effort he had exerted and looked. “Patty! See!”

Mrs. Paiwonski looked down at herself. Marked on her skin, paired stigmata in blood red, were his lips. She started to faint—then showed the depth of her own staunch faith. “Yes. Yes! Michael—”

Most shortly thereafter the tattooed lady had disappeared, replaced by a rather mousy housewife in high neck, long sleeves and gloves. “I won’t cry,” she said soberly, “and it’s not good-by; there are no good-bys in eternity. But I will be waiting.” She kissed them both, briefly, left without looking back.



28

“Blasphemy!”

Foster looked up. “Something bite you, junior?” This temporary annex had been run up in a hurry and Things did get in—swarms of almost invisible imps usually . . . harmless, of course, but a bite from one left an itch on the ego.

“Uh . . . you’d have to see it to believe it—here, I’ll run the omniscio back a touch.”

“You’d be surprised at what I can believe, Junior.” Nevertheless Digby’s supervisor shifted a part of his attention. Three temporals—humans, he saw they were; a man and two women—speculating about the eternal. Nothing odd about that. “Yes?”

“You heard what she said! The ‘Archangel Michael’ indeed!”

“What about it?”

“‘What about it?’ Oh, for God’s sake!”

“Very possibly.”

Digby was so indignant that his halo quivered. “Foster, you must not have taken a good look. She meant that over-age juvenile delinquient that sent me to the showers. Scan it again.”

Foster let the gain increase, noted that the angel-in-training had spoken rightly—and noticed something else and smiled his angelic smile. “How do you know he isn’t, Junior?”

“Huh?”

“I haven’t seen Mike around the Club lately and I recall that his name has been scratched on the Millennial Solipsist Tournament—that’s a Sign that he’s likely away on detached duty, as Mike is one of the most eager Solipsism players in this sector.”

“But the notion’s obscene!”

“You’d be surprised how many of the Boss’s best ideas have been called ‘obscene’ in some quarters—or, rather, you should not be surprised, in view of your field work. But ‘obscene’ is a concept you don’t need; it has no theological meaning. ‘To be pure all things are pure.’”

“But—”

“I’m still Witnessing, Junior. You listen. In addition to the fact that our brother Michael seems to be away at this micro-instant—and I don’t keep track of him; we’re not on the same Watch list—that tattooed lady who made that oracular pronouncement is not likely to be mistaken; she’s a very holy temporal herself.”

“Who says?”

“I say. I know.” Foster smiled again with angelic sweetness. Dear little Patricia! Getting a little long in the tooth now but still Earthily desirable—and shining with an inner light that made her look like a stained glass window. He noted without temporal pride that George had finished his great dedication since he had last looked at Patricia—and that picture of his being called up to Heaven wasn’t bad, not bad at all, in the Higher sense. He must remember to look up George and compliment him on it, and tell him he had seen Patricia—hmm, where was George? A creative artist in the universe design section working right under the Architect, as he recalled—no matter, the master file would dig him out in a split millennium.

What a delicious little butterball Patricia had been and such holy frenzy! If she had had just a touch more assertiveness and a touch less humility he could have made her a priestess. But such was Patricia’s need to accept God according to her own nature that she could have qualified only among the Lingayats . . . where she wasn’t needed. Foster considered scanning back and seeing her as she had been, decided against it with angelic restraint; there was work to be done—

“Forget the omniscio, Junior. I want a Word with you.” Digby did so and waited. Foster twanged his halo, an annoying habit he had when he was meditating. “Junior, you aren’t shaping up too angelically.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorrow is not for eternity. But the Truth is you’ve been preoccupied with that young fellow who may or may not be our brother Michael. Now wait—In the first place it is not for you to Judge the instrument used to call you from the pasture. In the second place it is not he who vexes you—you hardly knew him—what’s bothering you is that little brunette secretary you had. She had earned my Kiss quite some temporal period before you were called. Hadn’t she?”