too that any and every facility Fletcher required would be provided if he could only be 
persuaded back to his studies. Jaffe had known from first reading about Fletcher's 
radical theories that here was the way to cheat the system that stood between him and the 
Art. He didn't doubt that the route to Quiddity was thronged with tests and trials, 
designed by high-minded gmws or lunatic shamans like Kissoon to keep what they judged 
lower-class minds from approaching the Holy of Holies. Nothing new about that. But with 
Fletcher's help he could trip the gurus; get to power over their backs. The Great Work 
would evolve him beyond the condition of any of the self-elected wise men, and the Art 
would sing in his fingers.
  At first, having set up the laboratory to Fletcher's specifications, and offered the 
man some thoughts on the problem he'd gleaned from the Dead Letters, Jaffe left the 
maestro alone, dispatching supplies (starfish, sea urchins; mescaline; an ape) as and 
when they were requested, but visiting only once a month. On each occasion he'd spent 
twenty-four hours with Fletcher, drinking and sharing gossip which Jaffe had plucked from 
the academic grapevine to feed Fletcher's curiosity. After eleven such visits, sensing 
that the researches at the Mission were beginning to move towards some conclusion, he 
began to make the journey more regularly. He was less welcome each time. On one occasion 
Fletcher had even attempted to keep Jaffe out of the Mission altogether, and there'd been 
a short, mismatched struggle. Fletcher was no fighter. His stooping, undernourished body 
was that of a man who'd been bent at his studies since adolescence. Beaten, he'd been 
obliged to allow access. Inside, Jaffe had found the ape, transformed by Fletcher's 
distillation, the Nuncio, into an ugly but undeniably human child. Even then, in the 
midst of this triumph, there'd been hints of the breakdown which Jaffe couldn't doubt 
Fletcher had finally succumbed to. The man had been uneasy about what they'd achieved. 
But Jaffe had been too damned pleased to take the warning signs seriously. He'd even 
suggested he try the Nuncio for himself, there and then. Fletcher had counselled against 
it; suggested several months of further study to be undertaken before Jaffe risk such a 
step. The Nuncio was still too volatile, he argued. He wanted to examine the way it 
worked on the boy's system before any further tests. Suppose it simply proved fatal to 
the child in a week? Or a day? That argument was enough to cool Jaffe's ardor for a 
while. He left Fletcher to undertake the proposed tests, returning on a weekly basis now, 
becoming more aware of Fletcher's disintegration with each visit, but assuming the man's 
pride in his own masterwork would prevent him trying to undo it.
  Now, as flocks of scorched notes flew across the ground towards him, he cursed his 
trust. He stepped from the jeep and began to make his way through the scattered fires 
towards the Mission. There had always been an apocalyptic air about this spot. The earth 
so dry and sandy it could sustain little more than a few stunted yucca; the Mission, 
perched so close to the cliff-edge that one winter the Pacific would inevitably claim it, 
the boobies and tropic birds making din overhead.
  Today there were only words on the wing. The Mission's walls were stained with smoke 
where fires had been built close to them. The earth was dusted with ash, even less 
fertile than sand.
  Nothing was as it had been.
  He called Fletcher's name as he stepped through the open door, the anxiety he'd felt 
coming up the hill now close to fear, not for himself but for the Great Work. He was glad 
he'd come armed. If Fletcher's grasp on sanity had finally slipped he might be obliged to 
coerce the formula for the Nuncio from him. It would not be the first time he'd gone 
seeking knowledge with a weapon in his pocket. It was sometimes necessary.
  The interior was all ruin; several hundred thousand dollars' worth of 
instrumentation-coaxed, bullied or seduced from academics who'd given him what he asked 
for just to get Jaffe's eyes off them-destroyed; table-tops cleared with the sweep of an 
arm. The windows had all been thrown open and the Pacific wind blew through the place, 
hot and salty. Jaffe navigated the wreckage and made his way through to Fletcher's 
favorite room, the cell he'd once (high on mescaline) called the plug in the hole in his 
heart.
  He was there, alive, sitting in his chair in front of the flung window, staring up at 
the sun: the very act that had blinded him in his right eye. He was dressed in the same 
shabby shirt and overlarge trousers he always wore; his face presented the same pinched, 
unshaven profile; the pony-tail of graying hair (his only concession to vanity), was in 
place. Even his posture-hands at his lap, the body sagging-was one Jaffe had seen 
innumerable times. And yet there was something subtly wrong with the scene, enough to 
hold Jaffe at the door, refusing to step into the cell. It was as if Fletcher was too 
much himself. This was too perfect an image of him: the contemplative, staring at the 
sun, his every pore and pucker demanding the attention of Jaffe's aching retina, as if 
his portrait had been painted by a thousand miniaturists, all of whom had been granted an 
inch of their subject and with brushes bearing a single hair rendered their portion in 
nauseating detail. The rest of the room-the walls, the window, even the chair on which 
Fletcher sat-swam out of focus, unable to compete with the too-thorough reality of this 
man.
  Jaffe closed his eyes against the portrait. It overloaded his senses. Made him 
nauseous. In the darkness, he heard Fletcher's voice, as unmusical as ever.
  "Bad news," he said, very quietly.
  "Why?" Jaffe said, not opening his eyes. Even with them closed he knew damn well the 
prodigy was speaking to him without use of tongue or lips.
  "Just leave," Fletcher said. "And yes. "
  "Yes what?"
  "You're right. I don't need my throat any longer."
  "I didn't say-"
  "You don't need to, Jaffe. I'm in your head. It's in there, Jaffe. Worse than I 
thought. You must leave..."
  The volume faded, though the words still came. Jaffe tried to catch them, but most 
slipped by. Something about do we become sky?, was it? Yes, that's what he said:
  "...do we become sky?"
  "What are you talking about?" Jaffe said.
  "Open your eyes," Fletcher replied.
  "It makes me sick to look at you."
  "The feeling's mutual. But still...you should open your eyes. See the miracle at work."
  "What miracle?"
  "Just look."
  He did as Fletcher urged. The scene was exactly as it had been when he'd closed them. 
The wide window; the man sitting before it. The same exactly.
  "The Nuncio's in me," Fletcher announced in Jaffe's head. His face didn't move at all. 
Not a twitch of the lips. Not a flicker of an eyelash. Just the same terrible 
finishedness.
  "You mean you tested it on yourself?" Jaffe said. "After all you told me?"
  "It changes everything, Jaffe. It's the whip to the back of the world."
  "You took it! It was supposed to be me!"
  "I didn't take it. It took me. It's got a life of its own, Jaffe. I wanted to destroy 
it, but it wouldn't let me."
  "Why destroy it in the first place? It's the Great Work."