“Mr. Selim,” Arranque said, “this is Hob Draconian, whom I told you about.”
“Very good, Ernesto,” Selim said. “Handcuff him to that chair, and then leave us.”
Arranque did as he was told, locking Hob’s left wrist to the arm of a chrome-and-leather chair. He took out another set of handcuffs to cuff the other arm, but Selim waved him off. “One will be enough. And leave the key. Thank you, Ernesto.”
7
“Our product, soma,” Selim said, “has two different aspects. As a recreational drug, the world will soon know about it. Taken by mouth it is nonaddicting—though quite habituating. It confers a sense of well-being that continues for a very long time, with a mild tail-off and no sudden drop, no ‘crash’ as you would say. It has none of the side effects of the better-known drugs—opium and its derivatives; cocaine and its chemical look-alike cousin, crack; methamphetamine. You do not go off into listlessness and dreamland, as on opium products, nor do you experience the irritability and tendency to paranoia that are peculiar to cocaine and its imitators.”
“Sounds great,” Hob said. “Maybe I’ll try some sometime—when I’m in my own house, that is.”
Selim smiled. “You’ll try some right now, Mr. Draconian.”
“No,” Hob said. “Not interested.”
“I haven’t finished explaining the other aspect of soma. On the one hand, as I said, it is a drug with a tremendous money-making potential. A drug that the existing crime cartels—the various mafias, the Yakuza, the Triads—don’t have a finger in. Mr. Arranque and his colleagues deal with that side of the matter. On the other hand, for some of us, those of the inner circle, soma is a religious rite of paramount importance and considerable antiquity.”
“Is that a fact?” Hob said, because Selim had paused and seemed to be waiting for him to say something.
“Yes, it is. I do not expect the drug dealers we have assembled to take any cognizance of that aspect of it. But we of the inner council—we of the cult of Kali—consider it the most important aspect of all.”
“That’s very interesting,” Hob said. “But what I really want to know is, what are you going to do with me?”
“I’m coming to that,” Selim said. “Obviously no one wants you around for the opening of the hotel—and concurrently, the soma trade. At our request, Señor Arranque turned you over to us. We wish you to assist us in our ceremony of worship to the god Soma.”
“Oh, sure,” Hob said. “If you’d like me to hold a candle, or even join in the singing—I’ve a pretty good voice, you know—I’d be pleased to.”
“We had in mind a more important position for you. Are you familiar with the Greek term pharmakos?”
“I don’t believe I’ve come across that one,” Hob said. “Does it mean ‘guest of honor’?”
“In a way, it does. It’s a Greek word, but the custom comes from India. Literally, it means, ‘the sacred sacrifice.’ ”
Hob smiled to show he could take a joke as well as the next man. But Selim wasn’t smiling. His face was grave, and the look in his eyes was compassionate.
“Believe me,” Hob said, “you don’t want me for your sacrificial goat. My screams will take away from the seriousness of the occasion.”
“There’s no thought of forcing you against your will,” Selim said. “The victim has to be willing.”
“Guess that rules me out,” Hob said.
Selim pressed a button under his desk. The door opened and two large men entered. They went directly to Hob and held him down, one on each arm. Selim opened a table drawer and took out a gleaming hypodermic loaded with a greenish fluid.
“The usual dose is oral,” Selim said. “But that’s when soma is used as a recreational drug. It has a far more powerful effect when it’s injected.”
“No!” Hob screamed. It was a trite exclamation, but he was rushed for time and not in an inventive mood. Selim pushed the needle into his upper arm and slowly emptied the syringe into him. Then he stepped back, and the two men released Hob’s arms.
“And now,” Selim said, “I think you may want a little nap. There’s still time before the ceremony begins. You might even want a bit of refreshment.”
“I’m not doing this willingly!” Hob shouted.
“If you really decide against it when the time comes,” Selim said, “we’ll try to work out something else.”
Hob couldn’t think of an answer to that. He felt the room beginning to spin around him. Lights flashed in his eyes, and he heard the chords of an impossibly deep-throated organ. Then he passed out.
8
When Hob returned to consciousness, he discovered that a wonderful thing had happened. He had changed into a god. It was the nicest thing he could have hoped for. Someone had taken his handcuffs off. That saved him the trouble of floating out of them. He stood up—or rather levitated to his feet. Though his body looked about the same as he remembered it, he knew it had become unbelievably powerful and supple. In the center of his being, that area the ancient Greeks had called the thumos, his guts had been replaced by a compact power conversion system. It was capable not only of creating unlimited energy but also of converting food into the most amazing substances.
What had that silly man, Selim, call him? The pharmakos! And of course that was what he was, for his thumos, the churning engine of his interior, was capable of synthesizing an endless range of drugs and pharmaceuticals, mood enhancers of every style and description, brain enhancers of unbelievable potency.
His attention shifted to his mind, employing the Apollonian art of self-reflection. He realized at once that while he had been sleeping, the pharmaceutical factory in his body had been busy supplying his brain-mind with everything it needed for supreme function. He was, for example, capable of instant, lightning calculation. How much was 4442.112 multiplied by 122234.12? Why, 4,005,686,002311! It was as simple as that! What was the square root of 34456664? Well, 456.22! The answers came to him immediately. He didn’t even have to check them out. They were right because he was incapable of being wrong.
Along with his great intellectual and physical abilities, he had also inherited the great, never-to-be-ruffled happiness of the gods. Merely to stand here in this little room contemplating himself was joy past anything he had ever known—past what any mortal had ever known. And this joy was his—not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but always. How well the old song expressed it!
He was aware that his former friend Nigel had been captured and his former acquaintance Etienne also. They were in a situation that worldly men might call dangerous. But that didn’t matter. He moved around the room, taking care not to go floating off into space. A god was known by his self-restraint. And Hob was not going to jeopardize his godhead by doing anything silly.
No, he had work to do. These good people of the soma, the Kali Cult people, of whom he was the supreme example and representative, wanted him to be their pharmakos, their sacrifice. And how happy he was to do that, because it was, after all, a celebration of himself, and that was the nicest celebration of all.
They had paid him the supreme compliment. They wanted to sacrifice him. It was so good of them that it renewed his faith in mortals. They could call it killing, but of course a god could not die.
It was pleasant to think of these matters, but he had no time to dwell on them because already his mind was contemplating the things he would create as soon as he had the time to tend to them. Because of course he saw now that he was supremely creative. The great tapestried chords of entire symphonies crashed through his head; more than symphonies, symphony-cycles of a reach and depth that not even poor old Beethoven had been able to conceive. He saw that his talents extended to painting, as well, and that what Rembrandt had begun, he could finish; what Michaelangelo had attempted, he could accomplish; what Blake had hinted at, he could portray in full.
It was nice, it was so nice, to think of these matters, to live, in Shelley’s words, “like a poet hidden in t
he light of thought, singing songs unbidden til the world is wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.” Poor, silly old Shelley! He’d make that dream come true for him, in poetry that Shakespeare would have envied. …
He didn’t hear the door of his little room open, but when the man stood in front of him, he was not surprised to see him there because he had in fact willed that the man be there, and be there now, because there was no other time.
“Lord,” the man said, “how are you feeling?”
“It is good,” Hob said in deep, thrilling tones. “It is very good, Selim, my servant.”
“I am so happy, master.”
“I know that you are happy, Selim. And I am happy, too, because happiness for a god consists in the happiness he can bring to the lesser beings around him.”
“Put that down!” Selim said sharply, and a man standing beside him pushed a gun into his pocket and fumbled for a pen. “I told you there’d be no need for weapons. Is there, Lord?”
“What need of coercion for the willing?” Hob said, smiling at his own subtlety.
“And take down that, too,” Selim said. “Where is the cassette recorder? We must not lose one word of the god’s utterances. Oh, my king, I am so happy to see you this way.”
“There is no other way to be,” Hob said gently, his smile all enveloping. “But tell me, is it not time for the ceremony?”
“Out of your own mouth you have said it, Lord! Yes, the time is close, the worshippers are making their final preparations, the altar is prepared, and the sacrifice soon may begin.”
“Then leave me and finish your preparations,” Hob said, thinking what an amusing memory it would be, to look back and remember how he had been killed. He couldn’t remember having done that before. It was probably the last thing he needed to become a full-fledged god.
9
Alone again, Hob was feeling very good, indeed. He was calm and centered, waiting for the ceremony to begin. But he was also ready for anything. A god was always ready for whatever happened. So he was not at all surprised when the door opened and in came his friend Peter Two, the dope dealer. With many a glance back over his shoulder, Peter entered and closed the door.
“Oh, Hob,” Peter said. “I can’t tell you how unhappy I am about this.”
“What are you talking about?” Hob asked.
“The sacrifice thing. I had no idea until a few minutes ago that they were going to sacrifice you. I thought maybe they were going to do a chicken or a goat. But these people are serious. Oh, Hob, I feel so bad about this.”
“What’s the matter?” Hob asked. “Are they going to sacrifice you, too?”
“Oh, no,” Peter said.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m part of the ceremony, of course,” Peter said. “In a manner of speaking, the sacrifice is to me. Not really me, but me as the stand-in for the god Soma.”
“That’s pretty flattering,” Hob said. “How did they come to pick you for a job like that?”
“Well, you know, it’s like, you know, I started this whole thing.”
Hob waited.
“I invented soma, Hob. That’s why I’m here now. In a manner of speaking, I’m the founding father of the present-day cult. But believe me, I had no idea it was going to come to this.”
“That’s interesting,” Hob said. “I thought you dealt only in hashish.”
“Well, I have tended to specialize in it,” Peter said. “And I’ve prided myself on being the best hashish dealer on the island, maybe in Europe—hell, maybe in the world. No one has gone to the pains I have to ensure quality.”
“I know that,” Hob said. “You’ve always had a very high reputation. But how did you get into this soma thing?”
“It’s a long story,” Peter said.
“I have time,” Hob said.
“I don’t know how much time we have left before they want to begin. But at least I’ll take a shot at it.”
He settled back in one of the chairs. His low, flat, somewhat hoarse voice began to take up the tale of his association with soma.
Peter’s part in this story began in Karachi, Pakistan, almost two years before Irito Mutimani’s death in New York’s Chinatown. Peter had left Ibiza for a business trip and gone first to India, then to Pakistan. Although his usual source of hashish was Morocco, he had grown dissatisfied with the local product. Peter was a fanatic. He sold only the best stuff, and he did the final processing himself, at his own farm near Djerba in Morocco. But he had grown unhappy with the quality of dope available that year in Morocco and throughout the Maghreb. Peter had decided, what the hell, he’d go to Pakistan where the best stuff came from.
He had gone to see Hassan, a hashish middleman of his acquaintance, at his comfortable home in the suburbs of Karachi. There were gun-toting guards outside the mud walls, giving that sense of security so important in dope transactions. Peter and Hassan sat in Hassan’s walled garden, smoking the incredible double-zero hashish that only dealers get, in a water pipe the way it was meant to be. Beautiful, obsequious women brought around trays of sweetmeats, iced sherbert, and chai.
They discussed the increased difficulties of the dope trade. How good it used to be a few years ago. What a gentlemanly occupation. A family trade, handed down from generation to generation.
“But what will my son do?” Hassan asked. “I can’t honestly recommend the trade to him. It’s getting too dangerous. The way others, outsiders, are muscling in, taking over.”
Peter nodded, lost in the familiar stupor of an oft-repeated conversation. He said, “You and I have a nice operation here, my friend, but it’s going to hell. Getting dangerous. They’re squeezing all of us out. The Triads and mafias are taking over. If only we had a nice self-contained operation. Our own thing.”
Hassan sighed. “Ah, my friend, if only we had soma.”
“What’s that?” Peter asked.
“Soma is the ancient master drug of the Indo-European peoples. It’s mentioned in the Upanishads. There was even a god of soma.”
“What ever happened to the stuff?”
“It disappeared thousands of years ago. But while it was here, it was king.”
Peter asked, “Has anyone tried to reproduce this soma?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Hassan said
“I don’t see why it couldn’t be done. We know the effects we’re looking for. No reason soma or something like it couldn’t be redeveloped.”
“Could you do it?”
Peter shrugged. “Maybe. But it would take a lot of money. I’d need to rent a lab and get a good biochemist to work with me. But given our present-day knowledge of these matters, I see no reason why it couldn’t be done.”
A few days later, Hassan brought Selim to meet Peter. Selim was Indian; a slim, dark-eyed man from Bombay, with a mustache that curled up at the ends. From the obsequious way that Hassan acted around him, Peter got the idea that Selim was someone of great importance.
After the usual pleasantries, Selim got to the point. “My friend Hassan tells me you think you could make soma.”
“I said maybe,” Peter said. “You never know about these things until you get into them. And it would cost a lot. A lab, my salary, a salary for a biochemist, other expenses.”
“Suppose we could meet those expenses,” Selim said. “Would you be willing to try?”
“Sure, I’d be interested. But you gotta understand, there’s a big chance of failure.”
“I will not worry about that,” Selim said, “as long as you do your best. I can advance you the money you will need. If the enterprise turns out to be a mere chimera, an illusion, I can write it off. And there will be no hard feelings, as you Americans say.”
“Would you want a contract?” Peter asked.
“No paper contract would suffice because what we are agreeing to is unenforceable. Our agreement must be verbal, and based on our understanding of what each other wants. That, in turn, must be based on knowing
what you yourself want. Do you really want to make this attempt”
“I’d love to,” Peter said.
“I will have to send someone to accompany you. A purely precautionary measure, you understand.”
“Sure,” Peter said. “Who is he?”
“It is a she,” Selim said. “My daughter, Devi.”
The moment Peter laid eyes on her, two months later in Ibiza, he was hopelessly hooked.
That’s how the matter began. O. A. Kline’s part in all this began about six months later, when Peter returned to the New York area for a brief visit.
One of the first things he did was to look up his old college chum, Otto Albert Kline, or O.A. as he prefered to be called.
They met at O.A.’s split-level home in Teaneck, New Jersey. O.A. was fattish and bespectacled. His wife, Marilyn, was a scrawny lit. major, unwillingly staying home to take care of the two children, six and seven, and teaching an English Lit. night class at the Teaneck Community College. O.A. was a bright young man. But there were many like him. He had no managerial skills. The best he’d been able to find was a dull job in an industrial lab in Tenafly, testing synthetic fiber products, a fairly simple repetitive job that an ape could perform if only it were motivated.
When Marilyn left for her consciousness-raising session, Peter got right to the point
“You ever do any more work on drugs?” he asked. There had been a time when O.A. had been a considerable underground chemist.
“No,” O.A. said. “But I’d like to.”
Peter described the qualities of soma as described in the literature: a godlike high with no loss of control, no physical or mental aftereffects, no habituation, energy always present in abundance, no comedown, and, best of all, no bust because the stuff would employ none of the ingredients proscribed by a killjoy society.
“Sounds great,” O.A. said. “Is there any such drug?”
“Not yet. I propose that we create one.”
Soma Blues Page 17