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grinned, feeling a surge of affection for Lucia and wishing he was with her.

      ‘Okay,’ she continued. ‘There was a bit of a scandal about the Epistola Clementis many years after Clement’s papacy. As the church was becoming the official church of Rome … in place of Jupiter and Thor and all that lot … some bright spark lawyer questioned the source of the pope’s authority.’

      ‘Isn’t it supposed to come from JC?’

      ‘Exactly. JC gave to Peter – the first pope – the powers of binding and loosing, symbolised by the crossed keys of the Vatican.’

      ‘Crossed keys?’

      Conan was remembering the frozen symbol on Wing Ho’s lap top – a pair of crossed keys.

      ‘Yes. Jesus apparently said to Peter: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven. This is the source of the pope’s authority.’

      ‘Okay … so what was the scandal?’

      ‘This is the interesting bit,’ said Lucia. ‘At the critical time – just as Christianity was becoming the pre-eminent religion and blended with the Roman emperor’s secular power – there was a big debate about the pope’s authority. Some people were saying: we accept that JC passed the powers of binding and loosing to Peter, but JC was the son of God and able to do shit like that. How do we know the same powers were truly passed on to other popes?’

      ‘Aaahh … good question,’ said Conan.

      ‘A really important question,’ said Lucia, ‘because, at the time, the secular authority was stronger than the spiritual authority. If everyone accepted the pope’s power came from God himself it was really going to change things.’

      ‘So how’d it turn out?’

      ‘At the peak of the debate,’ said Lucia, ‘someone turned up what was supposed to be an old letter from Clement … saying among other things: oh, by the way, Peter passed onto me and all future popes his powers of binding and loosing.’

      ‘Very convenient,’ laughed Conan.

      ‘It was … not least as Clement wasn’t the second pope after Peter. He was third, fourth or fifth … the early records aren’t that clear.’

      ‘Wow.’

      ‘Wow indeed. One of the shoddiest stitch-ups of all time. But it worked. Everyone agreed that the letter made the pope the boss and Christianity went on to become the dominant ideology and power source for well over a thousand years. It’s still pretty powerful.’

      ‘Wow,’ said Conan again, feeling a creepy sort of fear despite his devout atheism. ‘I can understand why Lammas doesn’t want to talk about it.’

      ‘Who’s Lammas?’

      ‘Oh … one of the blokes up here who interests me. What you’re saying is … without the sudden appearance of this dodgy letter … Christianity might have lost its momentum and even disappeared around three or four hundred AD.’

      ‘Exactly right,’ said Lucia. ‘And considering the enormous impact of that one dodgy letter, it’s incredible how little information there is on the web … the legitimate web that is.’

      Conan was deeply impressed.

      ‘How did you get all this?’

      ‘I had to play a game with a charming individual called Bishop Satanus,’ said Lucia. ‘You really don’t want to know any more. Let’s just say I didn’t respect myself in the morning.’

      ‘I owe you big time Lucia. And … when I get back … ’

      There was a heavy silence on the end of the phone.

      ‘Gotta go,’ said Lucia, and the phone went dead.

      Conan put the phone down and glanced around the bar, feeling weirdly paranoid. There must be some deeply innate superstition in all humans he reflected. Conan had grown up in a Catholic household but had never quite believed in God. He’d tried to believe it, as a kid. Really tried. But the whole thing was so patently absurd and it was pretty clear to Conan, even as a boy, that no one else truly believed. No one lived their life – absolutely – as though they genuinely believed all the ancient hogwash they drivelled on about.

      Around the age of fourteen, Conan suddenly understood that he was an atheist – to his mother’s dismay – and was constantly amused by the antics of believers. The best part of two thousand years, he laughed to himself. All that history: the crusades, the reformation, the inquisition – the long war with money and science for control of hearts and minds. And none of it might have happened but for some forgotten scribe bodgying up a fake letter to win an argument, back before Adam bowled offies for Eden.

      He walked back to his own hotel and sat in the bar, still feeling an odd tingle of paranoid fear. He ordered a beer and glanced about the room, speculating about the lives and motives of those around him. Most were easy to read, wearing their lives on their sleeves, but two men defied his analysis – strangely inscrutable with faces like cardboard.

      He pulled out his triPod and got onto the Qantas site, checking out flights home on Sunday. There were three in the afternoon so Conan booked the 12.30, which would have him back in Sydney about eight pm.

      If he was on it.

      Saturday: Seven Days Before the First Wave

      Chapter 9

      Head First all the Way

      It was Robbie’s turn to drive and he was enjoying the opportunity to concentrate on the road instead of the stupid conversation that broke out in the back seat from time to time.

      As Chris had guessed, the fat chick – Lemon – was HT and rarely shut up about its bullshit, despite the fact they’d threatened to turf her and Tim out of the car on several occasions. The only other subject that interested her was drop shots.

      ‘I’m fucking brilliant at drop shots,’ she said. ‘Even that one off the edge of the Grand Canyon that came out last year … my pulse only went from 80 to 84 and that was head first all the way.’

      No one responded, which suited Lemon perfectly.

      ‘It’s HT of course that makes me so good. When your mind is totally at peace then not even a dive off a clifftop can scare you. That’s what makes Habal Tong so good.’

      ‘I’d love to find you a cliff,’ said Chris, with a helpless wave at the flat plain ahead, ‘but … ’

      ‘I wish you would,’ she said. ‘When you reach a high enough level of HT you can defy gravity. Truly!’ she insisted as Chris and Robbie burst into laughter.

      ‘That’s why we’re going to Ord City,’ said Lemon in that really annoying voice that seemed to perfectly blend ignorance with arrogance, ‘to climb the HT levels and go to Illumination next Friday night. It’s gonna be huge.’

      ‘Probably get bombed,’ said Chris and Robbie laughed at the look of outrage on Lemon’s face in the rear view mirror.

      ‘It will not!’

      ‘Perfect target for Dedd Reffo,’ said Chris. ‘Thousands of hippies and fuckwits all clustered in one place … I’d light the fuse myself.’

      ‘Existence is nullity and nullity existence,’ insisted Lemon, as though that actually meant something. ‘I don’t care if we do get blown up … I’ve embraced Habal Tong so my life is already perfect. Dedd Reffo can’t hurt me … can it Tim?’

      ‘Erm … no,’ he agreed, and Robbie chuckled, wondering whether Tim was totally under the thumb or displaying a subtle form of sarcasm. Tim wasn’t a bad bloke.

      ‘Our lives have already reached the pinnacle of human perfection,’ boasted Lemon. ‘So youse can get fucked.’

      Without

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