Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren't deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors-doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing.
If it came to that, some angels weren't paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary.
On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it. And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.
Okay, so Hell was down on him. So the world was ending. So the Cold War was over and the Great War was starting for real. So the odds against him were higher than a vanload of hippies on a blotterful of Owlsley's Old Original. There was still a chance. It was all a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
"It izz written!" bellowed Beelzebub.
"But it might be written differently somewhere else," said Crowley. "Where you can't read it."
"In bigger letters," said Aziraphale.
"Underlined," Crowley added.
"Twice," suggested Aziraphale.
"I like the seas as they are. It doesn't have to happen. You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right."
They'd come up with some stomach-churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully-functioning human brain could conceive, then shout "The Devil Made Me Do It" and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn't have to.
"Serve everyone right if all the nucular bombs went off and it all started again, only prop'ly organized," said Adam. "Sometimes I think that's what I'd like to happen. An' then we could sort everythin' out."
"I just don't see why everyone and everything has to be burned up and everything," Adam said.
In the jeep, Crowley was cursing.
Aziraphale laid a hand on his shoulder. "There are humans here," he said.
"Yes," said Crowley. "And me."
"I mean we shouldn't let this happen to them."
"Well, what-" Crowley began, and stopped.
"I mean, when you think about it, we've got them into enough trouble as it is. You and me. Over the years. What with one thing and another."
"We were only doing our jobs," muttered Crowley.
"Yes. So what? Lots of people in history have only done their jobs and look at the trouble they caused."
"You don't mean we should actually try to stop Him?"
"What have you got to lose?" Crowley started to argue, and realized that he hadn't anything. There was nothing he could lose that he hadn't lost already. They couldn't do anything worse to him than he had coming to him already. He felt free at last.
If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends.
And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot . . . no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human . . .
Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield . . .
. . . forever.
You will never make me think GO3 is compatible with the book.
