"I guess if a woman wants a divorce she just takes a pill!" I commented. "But if talking to a Macro society member and taking birth control tablets are both against the law, how do people manage to get the tablets?"
"They know we are telepaths," Orion answered, "so all they have to do is pass us on the street thinking the request and we'll teleport the tablet of her choice to her when no one is watching. The problem is that one of Elgon's thousand assistants sometimes intercepts the signal. Then the person is immediately dragged away to the nearest public penalty square where... but then, I needn't tell you of their atrocities. You'll see them soon enough."
My attention went back to the crowd outside the barrier and I remembered that their president, Elgon, and their vice president, Sela, were waiting outside for us. I asked, "Do you think it would be dangerous for Carol and me to go out and meet their president?"
"Not immediately," he replied. "They plan to give you a royal reception, show you what they believe are the virtues of Micro Island existence, and then try to persuade you to allow them to help you complete your time translation." '
"Then," I said, "I suppose they feel I'll be so grateful that I'll want to stay here forever among them, right?"
Orion looked at me very carefully for a moment before he said, "They are very clever and will use every trick they can think of to get you to allow them to complete your time translation. You see, they believe that if this happens before you are level three it will mean that you will regress in awareness and be unable to live happily in the Macro society."
"Okay," I said, "then it only becomes dangerous for us when they see that I've successfully resisted their persuasion to let them complete my time translation. We'll plan to return here just before that happens."
I suddenly realized that Orion did not believe that would be possible and was vainly trying to hide his doubts concerning my success with the Micro Islanders. I found myself beginning to share some of his doubts, but I tried to put on a brave smile as I said, "Well, maybe it won't turn out as badly as you think, Orion. But in any event, I must take the risk and grow from the results, whatever they may be. So if you'll be kind enough to open your force field we'll go out and meet President Elgon and the crowd."
He slowly nodded his assent, then walked with us to the beginning of the force field, where he stopped and turned to us. "Be sure to use the number as their last name. It's very important to them as it represents the level of awareness they profess to have evolved to."
Looking deeply into Carol's eyes he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. I was somewhat surprised when he turned and gave me the same warmly affectionate farewell.
He then raised the force field and allowed us to step outside the protected area. Once we had done this, both Carol and I could clairvoyantly see the force field return and knew that we now stood unprotected, except by our own minds, before what looked like the entire population of Micro Island.
As we stood uncertainly examining the vast throng of humanity that stood before us, a great cheering began and out of the center of the crowd came two of the most dazzling individuals that I had ever seen outside of a rock concert. As they came closer I could see a powerfully built man at least six and a half feet in height and with a massively handsome face as hard as though it had been chipped out of granite. He was dressed in white robes embroidered with blue, yellow, and green stones and thousands of what looked like sequins that sparkled in the noonday sun. This, I thought, must be the president of Micro Island, Elgon "Ten," formerly level seven in the Macro society some 80 years ago.
He had regressed in awareness level, then added "Ten" to his name and declared himself level ten. He had stopped wearing the aura-reflecting tunic at the same time.
My attention turned to the woman at Elgon's side who I knew must be Sela "Nine," the regressed level six who had been Elgon's Alpha mate. Since I knew she had left the Macro society 70 years ago, I realized that she must now be well over a hundred years old, yet she didn't look a day over twenty-five. Her beauty was the lush sexually stimulating glitter of a film star.
She was so powerfully alluring that I felt my whole body tingling in response to the sight of her. Her costume was a stunning and lascivious creation that bared unnaturally large, firm breasts whose uptilted nipples were touched with a glistening red substance. While the upper part of her gown was little more than an open halter, covered with ermine-like fur sprinkled with green emeralds, the skirt was flowing red velvet slit to the waist on both sides to reveal the most voluptuously exciting legs I had ever seen.
Suddenly Carol's soft laughter echoed through my mind as I heard her thinking to me, "I hope you haven't forgotten about Lea and me already!"
With more effort than I thought it would take, I shifted my gaze from Sela to Carol and washed my mind in her fresh, clear loveliness. At last I managed a wry smile. "Thanks for pulling me out before I drowned."
"I was almost overwhelmed by lust for Elgon," Carol admitted. "Then I realized there must be hundreds of his telepathic assistants in this crowd trying to telehypnotize us into believing that we can't live without the sexual pleasure of those two."
"So that's why-" I began when Carol interrupted me with the warning, "Prepare your mind to be attacked and remember your last Macro contact."
I had just enough time to begin the process of Macro contact recall when I felt the delicious contact of Sela's body pressed against mine and the incredibly exciting sensation of her wet tongue touching my lips, then slipping inside my mouth.
Dimly I heard Carol's voice saying, "Please let me go, Elgon. Your overly sexual greetings are not part of our customs, as you well know."
From somewhere deep within my mind I summoned the strength to push Sela gently but firmly away from me. She smiled a mocking smile, and I noticed that there were dangerous lights dancing– hypnotically in her glorious eyes. They were darker than the darkest night of hell.
It was not until then that I noticed her magnificent mane of glistening mahogany hair that fell to her waist in rich graceful waves.
"Welcome to Micro Island," Elgon said in a deep resonant voice that I immediately recognized as being powerfully hypnotic. "I am Elgon Ten, President of Micro Island."
"Thank you," I managed to respond in a relatively calm voice. "But if you don't want us to turn around immediately to seek sanctuary behind the force field, you'll have to end the hypnotic barrage."
Elgon locked his eyes with mine and I felt suddenly as if I were teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice. It took all of my deepest mind strength to overcome the lethal desire to fall into the abyss below. I wrenched my gaze away from his eyes and heard him laughing in a great booming voice. As I turned to Carol he said, "Have no fear, Jon Ten. You have just demonstrated tenth-level awareness by resisting not only the mind of Sela Nine and myself but also of the thousand telepathically, linked minds who were sending their hypnotic suggestions at you. You have succeeded beyond anything we imagined, and I promise you we will make no more futile attempts to control your mind. You are Jon Ten and truly as great as I."
"Master," Sela cried out, and knelt before me, "let us show you our island and truly answer all your questions so the misconceptions that C.I. has implanted in your mind will be balanced at last by the truth."
I turned back to Elgon and said, "All right, show us your island."
Sela was back on her feet and shaking her head, "The invitation to visit our island extends only to you, Jon Ten."
"I'm sorry, but I must insist on taking Carol with me wherever I go," I said, deliberately addressing this remark to Elgon and ignoring Sela.
Elgon shrugged his powerful shoulders and said, "Our admiration for you, Jon Ten, is so great that we will bow to your wishes."
Saying this, he made a signal to the crowd, which immediately parted, allowing us passage to where a large open-topped transair stood. Carol and I followed Elgon and Sela into the rear portion of this conveyance that appeared to have two d
rivers up front separated from the six-swivel-seated passenger compartment by a glasslike partition. We all took seats except Elgon, who remained standing to accept the cheers of the wildly shouting crowd as our vehicle moved slowly past.
When we had left the crowd behind, the transair rose to about 300 feet off the ground and proceeded at a very slow pace, possibly 50 miles an hour, toward the interior of the island. Elgon, after a last wave at the distant crowd, seated himself facing us and began telling us about Micro Island. I'll summarize its main features.
Micro Island had a population of a little over three million and was divided into five states, each of which had its own language, religion, and color. When Elgon assumed the presidency of the island, by virtue of his superior Macro powers, he established firm territorial boundaries for the five states.
The island was roughly circular in shape and Elgon had divided it into five pie-shaped triangles which allowed the states to have a common center, a circle which covered an area of approximately 75 square miles, belonging to Elgon as supreme leader. When I asked him why he permitted all the divisions into separate states, religions, races, and languages he responded by saying, "The history of the world has proven that man evolves fastest when he is divided so that conflict and competition can encourage growth."
For a moment I thought he was being facetious, but then I saw the fanatical gleam in his eye and realized that he was dead serious.
"Oh, I know," he continued, "that the Macro society has brainwashed you into accepting pious ideas of unity and love, but those are illusions at the micro level which we inhabit. If God had wished Macro unity to exist at the micro levels, he would have arranged it that way. On this planet we live on the micro level where conflict and competition are universal laws. Macro man who denies these laws has no place here and will eventually be forced into some other dimension."
"According to the Macro philosophers," I replied, "it is micro man who has been forced into other dimensions, as this planet has been upgraded from a micro one to a Macro one."
"Those are lies," he said, "perpetuated by decadent Macro beings trying to destroy the vitality and strength of micro man. But let me show you the exciting, interesting lives our people live and you can compare their existence with the decadent life of the Macro society."
Elgon must have sent a telepathic message to the driver, for we suddenly swooped close to the ground so that Elgon could point out the many people working in the fields and some nearby factories. Either in the factories, fields, or service jobs Elgon bragged that micro man worked eight hours a day six days a week, which kept him free from the lazy existence of the Macro society.
I questioned him about the people working in the fields and factories on a day which he himself had proclaimed a national holiday. He responded by saying that only in this area were people working so we could inspect their work if we wanted to. I declined.
As we came very close to the workers in the fields I was surprised to notice the intense yellow color of their skin as I remembered that the crowds outside the Macro society base had been white. When I asked Elgon about this, he explained that due to the sinful mixing of the races the original colors were no longer pure so they used artificial dyes to provide the five basic skin colors: black, brown, red, yellow, and white. Their five states were named for these colors.
Our transair landed near a small town that reminded me of a rural community back in the middle 1900s. Elgon opened the door for us and said, "We want you to go talk to the people of this village or any village you wish. We won't go with you, so you'll know that people aren't lying to you just to please us."
While I had my doubts about how free the people would be to talk with us, we quickly accepted this offer and were soon knocking on one of the first doors on the village outskirts. An elderly woman who looked to be about seventy opened the door. She said she had seen our approach on TV and was proud to be the first we visited. She invited us into a small, sparsely furnished living room and when we were seated on the hard metal chairs, invited me to ask any questions I wished.
"Tell me about your life," I said.
She, smiled broadly, revealing ugly twisted teeth, as she said, "We live honest, decent, God-fearing lives. Our men and women get married and stay married and have lots of children and live in a home by themselves, not in some huge evil hotel like they do on the mainland."
"Why do you dye your skin yellow?" I asked.
"Because," she explained, "my ancestors had yellow skin until the Macro society polluted us with interracial marriage. Now we must dye our skins to remember our glorious racial heritage. You'll find our yellow state with its yellow religion and yellow language is the nicest state on our island."
"Wait a minute," I said. "You're speaking the universal language of the Macro society, not the yellow language."
"We learn the president's language in our schools and on television," she replied proudly, "but we speak only the yellow language in our homes and in our state activities."
"But why do you want two languages?" I asked.
"People," she replied," can't be proud and hold their heads up if they have abandoned the language of their ancestors. Our yellow language makes our yellow people in our yellow state with our yellow religion the most unique people in all the world"
"Tell me about your yellow religion," I requested.
She gave me another snaggle-toothed smile and said, "According to our yellow religion, when God created, man he used five colors to distinguish the five different kinds of people. The yellow people God created last and best; and ever since, the yellow race has been God's chosen race to show all the other races the God-like way to live."
Up to now Carol had been deliberately allowing me to ask the questions, but now she said, "I recognize that you honestly believe what you are saying, and I feel that you have an intense dislike for us."
"Only for you of the Macro society, not for this man," she said, looking scornfully at Carol. "He has come from the great age of micro man when the yellow race had a greater population than any other race. Elgon Ten, our president, says that he hopes you of the Macro society have not yet corrupted Jon beyond saving. It is our responsibility to show him the truth."
Leaving Carol with a look of disgust she turned to me and smiled maternally as she continued, "We remain true to the ancient virtues of religion, race, language, and the micro family with its decent and respectable moral standards."
Now she pointed at Carol with a gnarled finger and said, "There stands the whore of ancient Babylon living only for licentious pleasure-godless, childless, parentless, and doomed never to know the holy decency of marriage and the rearing of her own children. She and all her kind are an abomination to this earth. Soon God will destroy these wicked blasphemers."
"Thank you for-talking with us," I said, "but we'd better leave now. Your president is outside and we wouldn't want to keep him waiting."
She walked us to the door wishing happiness and truth for me and ignoring Carol. We returned to the transair and I asked to visit another state. We were soon in the air. A transparent top had been raised over the car so that we could travel at a very-high rate of speed. On our journey to the next state it was Sela's turn to regale us with the marvels of Micro Island.
She began by pointing out to me that every individual had the right to have children and that women were faithful to their husbands.
"Tell me, Sela Nine," I said, "are you faithful to Elgon Ten?"
She laughed and then said, "I am not married, because the Macro society destroyed my ability to have children."
"According to C.I., Sela Nine, you chose permanent sterilization, and you could still choose otherwise," Carol inserted. "C.I. also said that women who can't or won't bear children are treated as prostitutes here on Micro Island."
Sela gave Carol a look of revulsion and then turned back to me with a smile and said, "The Macro society developed the greatest store of lies in all history and then built a machine calle
d C.I. to disseminate them."
"Then you don't have prostitutes?" I asked.
"Of course we have prostitutes," she replied. "Micro man has always needed sexual variety. It's the oldest profession women have ever known. We are true to the ancient micro customs which permit man to have anything he's willing to pay for. Of course, like many other pleasures, it's illegal to patronize a prostitute."
"What do you mean, 'like other pleasures'?" I asked.
"We have laws against many pleasures so that our people will appreciate them and work hard to earn enough money to afford them," Sela answered.
"You mean you encourage crime bypassing laws that you know will be broken?" I asked incredulously.
"Of course," she replied. "Hasn't it always been so? It's one of our best sources of revenue. Besides, look at the history of the world. Crime is an essential ingredient in micro life. It makes life exciting and interesting. After all, you can't have conflict and competition if you don't have the right kind of laws."
"You seem to mean that you and Elgon Ten have organized crime so that it benefits you and your followers," I commented.
"That's right, Jon Ten. That's how it's always been," she answered with a shrug of her shoulders that set her lush bare breasts to jiggling in a way I struggled to ignore. "But it benefits everyone because our organized crime provides everyone who is willing to pay for it the most delicious pleasure of all-rebellion and revolt-which is what breaking a law is all about. Micro man has always thrived on it."
"It's hard for me to believe that the two of you could have grown up in the Macro society, attained high levels of Macro awareness, and then given it all up for this," I remarked.
"But, Jon Ten," Sela cried out, "we didn't give up our awareness. We developed it further. I am now level nine; Elgon is ten. You don't understand. What we left behind was only boredom. Here there is the delicious excitement of forbidden fruits being fought over and taken by the strong and courageous. I tell you, Jon Ten, without pride and conflict life is so deadly dull that it's not worth living."
2150 A.D. Page 25