The 97th Step

by Steve Perry

  It was said the man could call birds from the trees to perch upon his fingers, so innocent of threat was he.

  Thwack!

  Come on, Pen, he told himself. Concentrate!

  No use. He wasn't going to achieve satori today.

  Life was certainly more complex than Pen had once thought. Veils within veils, onionlike layers. Pierce through one layer, and another waited beneath. If one bought into the concept of Maya, then all the levels were merely illusory, nothing existed save the God-mind, and the manifestations of matter and energy were so much cosmic smoke, cleverly designed to fool the unwary.

  Pen knew the theory, and after his months with Vaughn, he was coming to know some of the practices. Meditation, breathing, chanting, lessons. Vaughn was not, thank all the gods, big on koans, but Pen had been given a few to chew on: the stone woman's dance, the sound of the single hand clap, the glass spaceship.

  The theory he knew—intellectual stall-out, allowing for the intuitive breakthrough—but theory and practice were once again two different things. In his experience, it had always seemed to be so.

  The theoretical celestial mathematician and the synlube-stained Bender mechanic were opposite poles of the workings of a stellar drive, and who was to say which, if either, was more necessary to the process? Thought and action were equally balanced, according to some. But thought was more than the monkey brain, playing with its logic, smug in its certainty that it knew all there was to know.

  There were other senses, other ways of "thinking," and those who refused to consider that it might be so merely crippled themselves. The hard-headed rationalists who sneered at the gods cut themselves off from large parts of themselves. So Vaughn said—as did at least twelve thousand others in the Holy City, with variations, Pen was sure. He was willing to be agnostic enough to listen, at least, although a tangible sign on the physical plane wouldn't hurt, either. So far, nothing along that line had happened. Nor had he come up with satisfactory answers to the koans—

  Thwack.

  Good and evil, here was another concept Vaughn had draped over Pen like a lead quilt. In Maya, the concept of good and evil were also illusions. At least in that the inability to see the illusion for what it was was the evil, and good lay simply in getting the point. Now, the yin and yang of the illusion was something else. For instance, even though all might be nothing more than a delusion, within the game of the delusion, certain rules applied.

  Vaughn told the story of the teacher, his disciple and the elephant:

  "The teacher and his student were walking in a rural area of old Earth, during a time when animals were still used as work beasts. Suddenly, an injured elephant burst forth from the nearby wood, trumpeting in anger and rage, and charged for the two men."

  " 'Look out!' the teacher yelled, and leaped aside."

  "The student on the other hand, smiled at the charging beast and stood his ground. The elephant snatched up the student with his trunk and hurled him aside, doing no small damage in the process."

  "After the elephant had stalked off, looking for other targets upon which to vent his rage, the teacher hurried to the student, who was badly shaken and nursing a broken arm. 'Why didn't you run?' the teacher asked."

  " 'Because the elephant is nothing but an illusion,' the student said. 'I was trying to pierce the veil of Maya, as you taught me!' "

  " 'Did not you hear me yell at you to flee?' "

  " 'Yes, but,' "

  " 'My son, the elephant is Maya, but so are we. The flesh we wear conforms to the rules of the illusion.

  Until you learn to manipulate matter through mind, you must recognize this fact: the elephant is not real, but we are also not real, and our unreality is of the same quality as the elephant's on this plane. Even a ghost can be touched by another ghost.' "

  Nothing was simple, Pen thought. All he wanted was to return to Manus Island, to Moon, but to do that, he had to be able to convince her he had become more than he was. He did not think he could fool her, so he actually had to do it. And it seemed more than obvious that one simply did not pick up a comset and give God—or whatever passed for that entity—a direct call. Hi, God. How's it going? Listen, can you alter my consciousness so I'm clear and centered? There's this woman, see, a priestess, one of the Siblings of the Shroud, and she and I, we, that is—

  Sure.

  Thwack.

  Pen opened his eyes to see the impassive face of Vaughn looking at him. "I think I'm wasting our time here today, Vaughn."

  "Never that," the other man said. "You may not be able to maintain your concentration properly, but it is no waste of time. You are learning."

  What? Pen wondered. But he did not say it aloud. Instead, he glanced at the old-style flat picture Vaughn had mounted on the wall across from the mats. It was an odd thing, the picture. The tones of it were sepia, ranging from a near-white to dark brown, lifeless when compared to the living color of a holoproj or hologram. And yet, despite its flat and monochromatic scheme, the picture was dynamic. The scene was some mountainous region, on Earth, Vaughn had told Pen. A tall spire of rock stood against the sky, with a tablelike boulder balanced upon it like a hand calculator on the tip of a light pen. A wonder that it could do so.

  Perhaps five meters away from the edge of the balanced boulder was a sharp precipice, a cliff slightly higher in elevation. The ground under these rocky abutments was not within the frame, but it was at least twenty or thirty meters below, judging from the height of the leaping man.

  And here was the crux of the picture. In midair, halfway between the cliff and table rock, flew a man. He wore clothing from a period several hundred years in the past—a wide-brimmed hat, billowy shin and dark trousers and heavy boots with thick heels. It was apparent from his posture that the man had jumped from the cliff toward the table rock. The camera, while ancient, had been of sufficient quality to stop the man's motion, so that he hung in the sky, slightly blurred, frozen forever in midleap.

  The first time Pen had seen the picture, he had stared at it, struck by half a dozen questions: who was the man? Why had he dared the deadly jump? Had he made it? If so, how would he get down? There was no room to build up speed on the rock for a return jump, which was upward, in any event, and he could not do it standing. Through the Ninety-seven Steps, Pen had learned a lot about human motion, and there was no way the man could jump back. Would the rock be unbalanced by the man's landing, toppling from the spire? Who had operated the camera?

  That such a simple flatgraph could call up such curiosity was, to Pen, as interesting as the picture itself.

  Here was a dynamic event, provoking questions about someone who had died before his great-grandfather had been born, performing an act for which Pen could think of no good rationale.

  He had asked Vaughn, who had shrugged. He knew none of the answers. The picture had been a gift from someone close; it had been given without a history. Yes, he had wondered about it. No doubt that had been the reason it had been tendered, to provoke such thoughts. But there were no answers to be had. Maybe that was the point. To have questions that could not be answered was a lesson sometimes needed.

  Intellectually, Pen could understand the reasoning. Emotionally, it frustrated him. He sometimes felt a kinship to the leaping man. He, too, was in midjump, unsure of his trajectory or landing, knowing he could not turn back. And if he survived the leap, what then? Where would he be? Where would he go from there?

  He focused on the picture almost like a mandala, drawn into it. If he knew why that man had taken it upon himself to jump from one rock to another, he was sure he could learn something of great importance. He was sure of it.

  Vaughn had moved off, was gone from the room. After a time, Pen arose stiffly from his heel-sitting pose.

  He needed to move. He would go outside into the crisp fall air and practice sumito. There was a security in the motions of his art, something he could do well. His meditations had always been best when he moved, and he was certain there was some d
eep lesson to be learned from that, too. But he would think on that another time.

  With a final glance at the leaping man, Pen left the zendo.

  Thirty-One

  DURING THE NIGHT, winter layered the city with powdery snow, now swept by chill winds into drifts a meter high in places. Pen looked out at it through the warmth of a heat exchanger window. The white blanket had turned the houses and streets into a pristine wonder, achingly clean and reflective under the now clear and icy blue skies. Although Pen seldom was cold within the folds of his shroud, he was not a winter person.

  The temperature outside was well below water's freezing point, and it bit the lungs to breathe air that cold. He tended to sleep late when it was like this, burrowing under the covers like some animal intent on hibernating until spring. A holdover from his days on the farm, when morning's first light meant trudging out into the cold fields to work the crops.

  "There'll be snow on the ground for a couple of months," came Vaughn's voice from behind him. "Mild, compared to the outlying mountains, but it's all relative."

  Pen turned away from the window. Vaughn was dressed in heavy orthoskins; he also held gloves and a multifab thermal hat.

  "You going out?"

  Vaughn smiled. "And I thought you were a slow student. Yes. Actually, I'll be gone for a few days."

  Pen nodded, but did not ask where. His teacher sometimes did that, took off for a couple of days, a week once. He never offered an explanation, and Pen had not asked before. He had his shroud and his past, let Vaughn have his secrets if he so desired.

  "Anything in particular you'd like me to work on while you're gone?"

  "Yes. Spend some time on the Good and Evil Paradox. There's a moral dilemma there I'd like you to address."

  Pen nodded. "All right. Have a good trip."

  "Thank you."

  Two days after Vaughn left. Pen sat in front of his holoproj, again reading the lesson Vaughn had left in the computer's memory for him. He'd been working steadily on it. The question was, as usual, simply expressed:

  "If all is illusion, then what is the point of striving either to do good or evil? Why bother to live at all?"

  Simply written, yes, but here was a question better philosophers than he had failed to resolved satisfactorily. There was a zen answer, of course, and it and its many variants had been duly recorded: Why bother to live at all? "Well, why not?" Or, "Because." Or "The Buddha is a toad." That, of course, was the problem with zen. Mountains were mountains, streams were streams, and forests were forests, except when they were not. And then were again. To someone who knew zen, on the proper intuitive level, it all made perfect sense. To someone who did not know zen, it made no sense at all.

  So, here was Vaughn's question: If evil is an illusion, then why bother to resist it?

  Pen knew he could try and fake a zen answer, but he had tried before and failed. "Because the post was tired" sounded properly esoteric to someone uninitiated in the ways of the slippery philosophy; to a Master, it was gibberish, though Pen was damned if he could figure out how anybody could tell.

  There were other ways. As Zendu had many branches, so did the mind, and while reasoning logically was not always the proper solution for all questions—when the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail—there were times when the monkey brain could be made to serve.

  Maybe this was one of them.

  The story of the elephant and the student figured into it. About all being part of the same illusion. Until one could rise above it—as certain masters in a number of religions were reputed to have done by learning control of Maya—then one had to deal with the other ghosts as being like one's self. Pen was sure of that point.

  Now, given that the stuff of Maya was consistent within a plane, as with the elephant and student, then the illusion of evil could be dealt with on that basis. Ghosts versus ghosts, as it were. And, since one had to play by the rules of a particular plane, then using smoke to fight smoke was certainly valid as a technique. As to whether one should or not, it all depended upon what one was trying to accomplish.

  Working off karma certainly was justification. Trying to serve others as a path would do it. Or just for the pure hell of it. The zen answer was there: Why? Well, why not? Sure, one got to it in a rather circuitous manner, but if the idea was to reach the mountain's top, then a flitter was as good as a pack beast, was it not? He could justify to himself, and that ought to be enough—

  A cold wind ruffled Pen's shroud, and the sound of someone entering the next room reached him.

  Vaughn? Yes, but there was something more than his instructor's ki—somebody was with Vaughn.

  Somebody with power. With a sense he could not precisely define, Pen felt the other person's energy, and it burned brightly, brighter than did Vaughn's. Who—?

  Pen stood and walked toward the doorway. Yes, there was another man-He only had a second to notice the second figure before he saw the blood on Vaughn's clothing. A large spot of it glistened on the man's right side, and Vaughn was hunched that way protectively.

  Pen moved fast. He reached his teacher just as Vaughn started to collapse. From his utility belt, Pen pulled his pocket knife. He flicked the short curved blade out and quickly cut away Vaughn's shin to reveal the wound. He wiped blood away and found the injury—a fingertip-sized hole, clean, angling in about ten centimeters above the hip, and emerging from the man's back a couple of centimeters short of the spine.

  Pen was no doctor, but he had been instructed in fairly intensive first aid by the Siblings—not to mention having seen a fair collection of gunshot wounds in his days as a thief. The pellet had missed the spine, and it looked high enough to have missed the kidney. Even so, it needed a competent medic to make certain.

  He could stop the bleeding, bandage it, and go from there. He stood and went to the fresher, returning in a moment with the aid kit. He pumped lympocytic iodofoam into the wound, slapped stikseals over the holes, and sponged away the rest of the blood.

  "Do you want a medic?"

  Vaughn shook his head. "No medics. It's not bad, I think it cleared the kidney."

  "He will be well," came a soft voice from behind Pen.

  Pen turned. "If you're a medic, why weren't you here doing this?"

  "I am no medic, my son. But I know."

  It took a second for Pen to recognize the man. Babaji Ananda!

  He must have spoken it aloud, for the man said, "Yes." Then Babaji looked at the injured Vaughn. "You will recover. Even now, you improve." He waved one hand at Vaughn, as if blessing him.

  "Thank you, Babaji."

  Pen looked at the two men. Something passed between them, he could feel it, but he could not have said what it was. "Somebody want to tell me what's going on?"

  "I must go and meditate," Babaji said, smiling. He turned and walked away.

  Vaughn managed to prop himself into a sitting position. "I owe you an explanation. But first—did you work on the problem I left you?"

  Pen stared at Vaughn as if the man had suddenly grown horns and a tail. "Vaughn—!"

  "Indulge me, please."

  "Yes, I worked on the problem."

  "And your conclusions?"

  "Christo, Vaughn—!"

  "Pen…"

  "All right. It is morally justified to oppose evil. Satisfied?"

  "Why?"

  "Because I say so!"

  Vaughn smiled. "Most satisfactory. We always knew you had the potential."

  We? Since when did Vaughn begin using the royal 'we'? "Come on, Vaughn. That's a through-and-through gunshot wound in your side. You want to tell me about it? And how you came by Babaji Ananda, who has wandered into the bedroom and back off into lotus land?"

  "One more question. What would you consider the major evil in our galaxy today?"

  "I should have let you bleed to death." Pen paused, took a deep breath, and said, "Ignorance. Or the Confed, I suppose. Both together."

  "Good."

&nb
sp; "Dammit, Vaughn—!"

  "The Confed kidnapped Babaji. I went to fetch him. They were not happy with my actions, and sought to stop me. Hence, this." He pointed at the bandage on his side.

  Pen knew an incomplete explanation when he heard one. And he wasn't about to let it pass. "Why did you go after Babaji? And how did you know where he was? And how did you manage to get him away from what I suspect were heavily armed guards?"

  "Always questions."

  "But never enough answers. Come on, Vaughn."

  So Vaughn explained. "There is a faction of Confederation Intelligence that would like very much to establish itself on Koji. You may not know that a fair number of criminals find their way here, looking for sanctuary. Since the Confed must be careful nosing around after such people on the Holy World, many of these criminals remain free. Some repent, change their ways, and follow one Way or another. Some merely wait until they think it safe to flee back into the galaxy at large."

  "All right, the Confed wants to catch crooks. So?"

  "Many of these escapees have committed political crimes. Not moral wrongs, but actions deemed treasonable by the state. Some of these men and women have champions on Koji. That makes it difficult for them to be captured."

  "You aren't trying to tell me that sweet-faced saint in the other room harbors political criminals?"

  "Babaji? Hardly. He sees good in everyone, regardless, but he doesn't have the guile to hide anything.

  No, not Babaji, but some of his more militant followers dabble in politics. The Confed thought to slay several birds with a single stone by taking Babaji. A trade, for certain badly wanted fugitives, and a free hand to plant several sub rosa agents within the Zendu community, for the little father's safe return."