Good Omens

give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me.”
    â€œAnd without unopposed Satanic influences—”
    â€œWell, at worst Hell will have to start all over again. And the Earth gets at least another eleven years. That’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it?”
    Now Aziraphale was looking thoughtful again.
    â€œYou’re saying the child isn’t evil of itself?” he said slowly.
    â€œPotentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality , waiting to be shaped,” said Crowley. He shrugged. “Anyway, why’re we talking about this good and evil ? They’re just names for sides. We know that.”
    â€œI suppose it’s got to be worth a try,” said the angel. Crowley nodded encouragingly.
    â€œAgreed?” said the demon, holding out his hand.
    The angel shook it, cautiously.
    â€œIt’ll certainly be more interesting than saints,” he said.
    â€œAnd it’ll be for the child’s own good, in the long run,” said Crowley. “We’ll be godfathers, sort of. Overseeing his religious upbringing, you might say.”
    Aziraphale beamed.
    â€œYou know, I’d never have thought of that,” he said. “Godfathers . Well, I’ll be damned.”
    â€œIt’s not too bad,” said Crowley, “when you get used to it.”
    SHE WAS KNOWN AS SCARLETT. At that time she was selling arms, although it was beginning to lose its savor. She never stuck at one job for very long. Three, four hundred years at the outside. You didn’t want to get in a rut.
    Her hair was true auburn, neither ginger nor brown, but a deep and burnished copper-color, and it fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had. Her eyes were a startling orange. She looked twenty-five, and always had.
    She had a dusty, brick-red truck full of assorted weaponry, and an almost unbelievable skill at getting it across any border in the world. She had been on her way to a small West African country, where a minor civil war was in progress, to make a delivery which would, with any luck, turn it into a major civil war. Unfortunately the truck had broken down, far beyond even her ability to repair it.
    And she was very good with machinery these days.
    She was in the middle of a city 12 at the time. The city in question was the capital of Kumbolaland, an African nation which had been at peace for the last three thousand years. For about thirty years it was Sir-Humphrey-Clarksonland, but since the country had absolutely no mineral wealth and the strategic importance of a banana, it was accelerated toward self-government with almost unseemly haste. Kumbolaland was poor, perhaps, and undoubtedly boring, but peaceful. Its various tribes, who got along with one another quite happily, had long since beaten their swords into ploughshares; a fight had broken out in the city square in 1952 between a drunken ox-drover and an equally drunken ox-thief. People were still talking about it.
    Scarlett yawned in the heat. She fanned her head with her broad-brimmed hat, left the useless truck in the dusty street, and wandered into a bar.
    She bought a can of beer, drained it, then grinned at the barman. “I got a truck needs repairing,” she said. “Anyone around I can talk to?”
    The barman grinned white and huge and expansively. He’d been impressed by the way she drank her beer. “Only Nathan, miss. But Nathan has gone back to Kaounda to see his father-in-law’s farm.”
    Scarlett bought another beer. “So, this Nathan. Any idea when he’ll be back?”
    â€œPerhaps next week. Perhaps two weeks’ time, dear lady. Ho, that Nathan, he is a scamp, no?”
    He leaned forward.
    â€œYou traveling alone, miss?” he said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œCould be dangerous. Some funny people on the roads these days. Bad men. Not local boys,” he added quickly.
    Scarlett raised a perfect eyebrow.
    Despite the heat, he shivered.
    â€œThanks for the warning,” Scarlett purred. Her voice sounded like something that lurks in the long grass, visible only by the twitching of its ears, until something young and tender wobbles by.
    She tipped her hat to him, and strolled outside.
    The hot African sun beat down on her; her truck sat in the street with a cargo of guns and ammunition and land mines. It wasn’t going anywhere.
    Scarlett stared at