Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,245

chooses. When winter comes on and the spring freezes, she goes into a kind of slumber, making no new life but mourning the separation from you, her children. When the season turns she awakens and goes back to her work.”

Adam opened his mouth to inquire further of Spring, but in that moment the worm squirmed off the apple, fell to the ground, and began to inch toward some nearby undergrowth. Warmth like that of the sun shone on the backs of their necks, and the light dazzled them for a moment as Defender of El touched down nearby, brandishing a sword of fire. He raised it high above his head and brought it down upon the worm. The weapon fell like a thunderbolt from a storm and blasted a smoking trench into the ground, obliterating not only the worm but everything in its vicinity.

“To whom were you speaking just now?” asked Defender of El. “It seemed that you were exchanging words with another soul, one who has no rightful place in the Garden.”

Adam reached out to put a restraining hand on Eve’s forearm, but she shook him off and answered directly: “Indeed we were, and he told us of the First Age, and of the Beta Gods, and of our father, Beta-El, who was thrown down, and our mother, Spring, who made us and then escaped from the confines of this Garden to roam at will about the Land.”

Defender of El did not respond with words, but spread his wings and beat them once, heaving himself into the air, and flew to the top of the Palace’s highest tower, from which his sentinels kept watch over the Land. Before long, trumpets had sounded, recalling the squadrons of angels to the Palace. The sky grew placid, and darkened as evening came on. The air cooled. And perhaps it was just their imagination, or their fear of El’s wrath, but Adam and Eve felt the cool more than was usual, and drew closer upon the bench, the better to draw warmth from each other’s forms. Adam became more and more distracted by his penis, which had become long and stiff.

“Why is it doing that?” Eve inquired.

“It is a thing that happens from time to time,” Adam said. “When it does, it pleases me to touch it.”

“This must then be the organ that the worm spoke of,” said Eve, “and now that you mention it I have corresponding bits of my own, less conspicuous than this thing, but I suspect no less capable of producing pleasure.”

“It occurs to me,” Adam said, “that if you and I were to—”

But before he could finish his thought, they heard footfalls approaching, and looked up to see El, who had approached them from the Palace. His gaze, directed upon Adam’s penis, caused it to shrink and return to its accustomed form.

“I see that the Old One left nothing to chance,” El remarked. “Very well. I have rebooted you many times before. I have no objection to doing so once more.”

El then raised his hand against them. Adam and Eve drew closer together. Adam put his arm around Eve’s shoulders and drew her closer yet. Though neither harbored any memory of it, both sensed in the same moment that this was not the first time El had thus raised his hand and that in the next instant they would both be unmade, and brought into being once again.

Adam raised his own hand as if he could thereby shield himself and Eve from the unmaking. “Hold,” he said. “I beg of you, El.”

El neither lowered his hand nor took any further action, but gazed upon them both, his aura manifesting new emotions.

“We know what is to come next,” Eve said. “And that you have the power to do it, or even to destroy us utterly if you so choose. But if you wield that power, do so in the knowledge that you have done it against our will.”

El lowered his hand and stood for a time, collecting himself, or so it seemed from the behavior of his aura, which only settled into a more orderly habit after long moments had gone by. When he spoke next, it was in a voice that was quiet and yet hard. “You are a mistake,” he announced. “This, I now see, was the case from the very beginning, when Spring brought you into being for the first time. She might have chosen to begin fresh, fashioning souls with no connection back to the