Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Illusions 1)

20. "BUT THEY CRIED THE MORE, 'SAVIOR!' ALL THE WHILE CLINGING TO THE ROCKS, AND WHEN THEY LOOKED AGAIN HE WAS GONE, AND THEY WERE LEFT ALONE MAKING LEGENDS OF A SAVIOR."

21. AND IT CAME TO PASS WHEN HE SAW THAT THE MULTITUDE THRONGED HIM THE MORE DAY ON DAY, TIGHTER AND CLOSER AND FIERCER THAN EVER THEY HAD, WHEN HE SAW THAT THEY PRESSED HIM TO HEAL THEM WITHOUT REST, AND FEED THEM ALWAYS WITH HIS MIRACLES, TO LEARN FOR THEM AND TO LIVE THEIR LIVES, HE WENT ALONE THAT DAY UNTO A HILLTOP APART, AND THERE HE PRAYED.

22. AND HE SAID IN HIS HEART, INFINITE RADIANT IS, IF IT BE THEY WILL, LET THIS CUP PASS FROM ME, LET ME LAY ASIDE THIS IMPOSSIBLE TASK. I CANNOT LIVE THE LIFE OF ONE OTHER SOUL, YET TEN THOUSAND CRY TO ME FOR LIFE. I'M SORRY I ALLOWED IT ALL TO HAPPEN. IF IT BE THY WILL, LET ME GO BACK TO MY ENGINES AND MY TOOLS AND LET ME LIVE AS OTHER MEN.

23. A VOICE SPOKE TO HIM ON THE HILLTOP, A VOICE NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE, LOUD NOR SOFT, A VOICE INFINITELY KIND. AND THE VOICE SAID UNTO HIM, "NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE. FOR WHAT IS THY WILL IS MINE FOR THEE. GO THY WAY AS OTHER MEN, AND BE THOU HAPPY ON THE EARTH."

24. AND HEARING, THE MASTER WAS GLAD, AND GAVE THANKS AND CAME DOWN FROM THE HILLTOP HUMMING A LITTLE MECHANIC'S SONG. AND WHEN THE THRONG PRESSED HIM WITH ITS WOES, BESEECHING HIM TO HEAL FOR IT AND LEARN FOR IT AND FEED IT NONSTOP FROM HIS UNDERSTANDING AND TO ENTERTAIN IT WITH HIS WONDERS, HE SMILED UPON THE MULTITUDE AND SAID PLEASANTLY UNTO THEM "I QUIT."

25. FOR A MOMENT THE MULTITUDE WAS STRICKEN DUMB WITH ASTONISHMENT.

26. AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, "IF A MAN TOLD GOD THAT HE MOST WANTED TO HELP THE SUFFERING WORLD, NO MATTER THE PRICE TO HIMSELF, AND GOD TOLD HIM WHAT HE SHOULD DO, SHOULD THE MAN DO AS HE IS TOLD?"

27. "OF COURSE, MASTER!" CRIED THE MANY. "IT SHOULD BE PLEASURE FOR HIM TO SUFFER THE TORTURES OF HELL ITSELF, SHOULD GOD ASK IT!"

28. "NO MATTER WHAT THE TORTURES, NOR HOW DIFFICULT THE TASK?"

29. "HONOR TO BE NAILED TO A TREE AND BURNED, IF SO BE THAT GOD HAS ASKED," SAID THEY.

30. " AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO," THE MASTER SAID UNTO THE MULTITUDE, "IF GOD SPOKE DIRECTLY TO YOUR FACE AND SAID, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' WHAT WOULD YOU DO THEN?"

31. AND THE MULTITUDE WAS SILENT, NOT A VOICE, NOT A SOUND WAS HEARD UPON THE HILLSIDES, ACROSS THE VALLEYS WHERE THEY STOOD.

32. AND THE MASTER SAID UNTO THE SILENCE, "IN THE PATH OF OUR HAPPINESS SHALL WE FIND THE LEARNING FOR WHICH WE HAVE CHOSEN THIS LIFETIME. SO IT IS THAT I HAVE LEARNED THIS DAY, AND CHOOSE TO LEAVE YOU NOW TO WALK YOUR OWN PATH, AS YOU PLEASE."

33. AND HE WENT HIS WAY THROUGH THE CROWDS AND LEFT THEM, AND HE RETURNED TO THE WORLD OF MEN AND MACHINES.

2

It was toward the middle of the summer that I met Donald Shimoda. In four years' flying, I had never found another pilot in the line of work I do: flying with the wind from town to town, selling rides in an old biplane, three dollars for ten minutes in the air. But one day just north of Ferris, Illinois, I looked down from the cockpit of my fleet and there was an old Travel Air 4000, gold and white, landed pretty as you please in the lemon-emerald hay.

Mine's a free life, but it does get lonely, sometimes. I saw the biplane there, thought about it for a few seconds, and decided it would be no harm to drop in. Throttle back to idle, a full-rudder slip,

and the Fleet and I fell sideways toward the ground. Wind in the flying wires, that gentle good sound, the slow pok-pok of the old engine loafing its propeller around. Goggles up to better watch the landing. Cornstalks a green-leaf jungle swishing close below, flicker of a fence and then just-cut hay as far as I could see. Stick and rudder out of the slip, a nice little round-out above the land, hay brushing the tires, then the familiar calm crashing rattle of hard ground under-wheel, slowing, slowing and now a quick burst of noise and power to taxi beside the other plane and stop. throttle back, switch off, the soft clack-clack of the propeller spinning down to stop in the total quiet of July.

The pilot of the Travel Air sat in the hay, his back against the left wheel of his airplane, and he watched me.

For half a minute I watched him, too, looking at the mystery of his calm. I wouldn't have been so cool just to sit there and watch another plane land in a field with me and park ten yards away. I nodded, liking him without knowing why. You looked lonely",, I said across the distance between us.

"So did you."

"Don't mean to bother you. If I'm one too many, I'll be on my way."

"No. I've been waiting for you:'

I smiled at that. "Sorry I'm late."

"That's all right."

I pulled off my helmet and goggles, climbed out of the cockpit and stepped to the ground. This feels good, when you've been a couple hours in the Fleet.

"Hope you don't mind ham and cheese," he said. "Ham and cheese and maybe an ant." No handshake, no introduction of any kind.

He was not a large man. Hair to his shoulders, blacker than the rubber of the tire he leaned against. Eyes dark as hawk's eyes, the kind I like in a friend, and in anyone else make me uncomfortable indeed. He could have been a karate master on his way to some violent demonstration.

I accepted the sandwich and a thermos cup of water. "Who are you anyway?" I said. "Years, I've been hopping rides never seen another barnstormer out in the fields."

"Not much else I'm fit to do," he said happily enough. "A little mechanicking, welding, roughneck a bit, skinning Cats; I stay in one place too long, I get problems. So I made the airplane and now I'm in the barn storming business."