God of Tarot by Piers Anthony Page B

but occurring among the colonists themselves, as though not one of them trusted the others completely. What was the problem here?
    At last the job was done. “Good, good!” Reverend Siltz said with satisfaction as he viewed the equipment piled somewhat haphazardly at the edge of the wheat-field. “Tomorrow the wagon comes.” They covered each item with one of the light plastic tarpaulins provided by the shipper, and organized the return march.
    As they passed the throne, Brother Paul wanted to inquire about the girl he had seen there, but hesitated; it could be that female colonists were not permitted direct contact with strange men. That would explain why she had fled, and make any question about her presence inappropriate. In a society as cult-ridden as this one seemed to be, the status of women was open to question.
    Behind the ridge was a village, not much more than two kilometers from the capsule receiver. Brother Paul could have run it in six minutes or so, had he known where to go, but he doubted that the girl could have had time to arrive here, alert the village, and send this party back before he finished with the Breaker. Reverend Siltz must have been on the way the moment the capsule had arrived. Planet Tarot evidently had no electronic communications or motorized transportation, so foot power and observation were important here, just as they were on the better part of Earth, now.
    A sturdy stockade of wooden posts surrounded the village, each post polished and handsome. Brother Paul had learned something about the various kinds of wood during his Order tenure, but had never seen wood like this. “The heart of heart-of-pine,” he murmured.
    The houses inside were of the same kind of wood, constructed of notched logs calked with mud. Their roofs were sod, in most cases, with thick grass growing on them, and even small flowers. Primitive but tight, he was sure. Here and there, in the shade, were more clusters of the colored bubbles he had noted by the compost pile. So they could not be purely a product of organic decomposition.
    “What are these?” Brother Paul asked, stooping to touch one. It did not pop, so he picked it up carefully—and then it popped. Evidently some of the bubbles were stronger than others.
    “Tarot Bubbles,” Reverend Siltz responded. “They grow everywhere, especially at night. They are of no value, like mildew or weeds. Clever children can make castles of them on cloudy days. We keep them out of our houses so they will not contaminate our food.”
    How quickly a pretty novelty became a nuisance! But Brother Paul could appreciate the colonists’ desire to keep proliferating growths away from their food; the residues might be harmless, but why gamble? Most germs on Earth were harmless too, but those that were not were often devastating.
    In the center of the village was a pile of wood. All around it people were working. Men were sawing planks, or rather scraping them, forming mounds of curly shavings. Children gathered these shavings by armfuls, depositing them in patterns near seated I women. The women seemed to be carding the shavings, stretching out the fibers of the wood so that they resembled cotton. This was some wood!
    Reverend Siltz halted, and the other members of the party stopped with him, bowing their heads in silent respect. “Tree of Life, God of Tarot, we thank thee,” Siltz said formally, and made a genuflection to the pile of wood.
    Tree of Life? God of Tarot . Brother Paul knew the Tree of Life as the diagram of meanings associated with the Cabala, the ancient Hebrew system of number-alchemy. And the God of Tarot was what he had come to seek, but he had not expected it to be a pile of wood. What did this mean?
    Reverend Siltz turned to him as the other men departed. “We are of many faiths, here at Colony Tarot. But on one thing we agree: the Tree is the source of our well-being. We do not feel that our own gods object to the respect we pay to the