by John Walters
“Without unity we’ve lost half our strength.”
“What does Aahamarada say?”
“He is preoccupied. He does not answer.”
“The dark shadows are numerous, but they remain stationary. They are waiting for something; a signal, perhaps.”
“If their status changes we will be aware of it.”
“Even if we are, if they advance what can we do? We have no weapons here.”
“So. Do we proceed, or try to escape?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“I agree.”
“We will communicate with words in the beginning stages for the benefit of the newcomers. Let’s all join hands, eyes closed. Good. Now focus on a point in the center of the circle. Leave your body behind on the chair as you would your clothes on a hanger. Advance towards the center. Yes. As you do, you will notice impediments, things that pull at you or seem to stop or push against you. These are facets of your personality that rebel against the unity. You must slough them off and leave them behind on the chair with your body. You cannot get rid of them permanently because these are the qualities that give you individuality; you will only set them aside temporarily. Yes. That’s it. As you approach closer and closer the obstacles increase but the pleasurable sensation rises as well. Feel it? I won’t be able to speak much longer. Just keep going…”
* * *
As Paul re-entered his body the acid in his system tried to grab his sanity and rip it to pieces but he felt Aahamarada helping to stabilize him.
“Most of the drug has been rendered harmless,” Aahamarada said. “But there are vestiges. Open your eyes.”
The Furen sat opposite on a cushioned armchair, its eyes closed, fists clenched, head turning back and forth, mumbling unintelligibly.
“Because its mind is so flat, even the small dosage it took has caused it great unease,” Aahamarada said. “The next step, I regret, is quite unpleasant. We will have to enter its thoughts. Concentrate and stay close to me.”
It was like crawling into a dark fetid burrow. He felt like Alice entering the rabbit hole, except instead of a rabbit it was some sort of carnivore. A noxious presence with sharp teeth was devouring its children; he was the presence, driving away the female, selecting the strongest of the litter, eating the others.
“No,” Aahamarada said. “Avoid its thoughts and memories. Retain your identity.”
The security of the earth above and close passages; the fear of the surface, of endless skies and unseen predators. Binding and collecting civilizations as a packrat collects trinkets. Not even trusting its own kind but cooperating for mutual advantage.
The LSD had crumbled the Furen’s protective walls, had melted them into wisps and blown them away, had thrown it out into open spaces; in terror it clung to its sanity as to a leaf in the wind, trying to remember the purpose for which it had come, groping for some sort of solidity.
“There. Target that spot of awareness,” Aahamarada said. “In a way I pity the poor creature. I will feel no joy when we exterminate it, though I know it must be done. The decision has been made. It must die that many others might live, and that your world might be given more time to pull itself back together. All right then. You will be a channel. From me, through you, to it. Feel the power building, surging. It will be a formidable burst. You might be blinded in both your outer and inner eyes, but just for a moment. Ready? Now!”
It was like looking into the center of an atomic explosion. The light got brighter and brighter and brighter, as if any other color than the purest white was being purged away, vaporized, and even the white itself was imperfect and kept getting brighter and brighter and brighter until there was no higher degree of clarity, and he was in a core of pure light and pure honesty and pure power and pure love. In this place that was a crossroads to anywhere, Paul met tall, slim, blue-robed Aahamarada, and looked into his gray eyes. “It is done,” Aahamarada said. “We can return.”
* * *
It was a brilliant supernova momentarily; afterwards it was a spot of light on her inner eye, as if someone had exploded a flash in her face while taking a close-up portrait. But she knew where it had come from; the afterglow was pinpointed in her mind. And somehow it was tinged with traces of Paul’s personality.
In the dark chill early hours of the morning Sunny started heading towards the light like a bloodhound that had picked up fresh scent.
Somehow she found herself in a section of town full of crumbling high-rises and garbage-strewn streets, echoing concrete canyons where not a white person could be seen, where groups of black men stopped their quiet conversations and stared at her suspiciously as she passed.
She jumped into the back of an empty taxi. The driver, a portly middle-aged black, was sipping a can of Colt-45 beer. “Go,” she said.
He slowly turned and looked her over. The acid stained his every gesture and expression with significance. “Go where?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. I don’t know the name of the area.”
“You sure you know where you headed?” His tone suggested that he knew everything, that he could read her mind, that he was privy to the way that all separate strands of existence were bound together.
It’s an illusion, Sunny thought. It’s the damned acid. “Yes. Please go.”
With agonizing slowness the man started the car, put it in gear, and started driving. She guided him as best she could, based on the direction that the glow had come from.
After about twenty minutes the man parked the cab. “We done reached the city limits.” It was as if they were poised on the edge of eternity. “Where you going, woman?”
“It’s farther. Keep driving.”
He stuck his hand out. “I ain’t going an inch farther until I see some cash in advance.” He was the soulless guardian of Hades, exacting his toll into the nether regions. She gave him a ten-dollar bill. The hand didn’t budge. She gave him another one. “All right,” he said. “Now you understand something right now: I get double fare out here. I gotta get my ass back to town.”
Bargaining with Charon, she thought. “All right, all right. Just drive.”
Leaving behind the suburbs and used car lots and hamburger stands and finally the streetlights of the city, they drove up into the hills on a road that was as ink-black as the River Styx, the driver stopping frequently to ask for more money. Finally he pulled over and refused to go farther.
“Please. We’re almost there,” Sunny said. Don’t leave me in the abyss, she thought.
“No way. I think you don’t know where the hell you going. We’re in the Santa Cruz Mountains and we’re gonna be in San Jose soon. You are a crazy woman and you get the hell out of my cab right now.”
So she found herself alone, in a darkness so complete she couldn’t see the difference between the asphalt road and the hills. Her forward motion and singleness of purpose had helped her forget the psychedelic drug that was still active in her system, but now that the wind had left her sails and she was becalmed, the landscape swayed and roiled and formed indistinct shapes, and colors began to pop out from everywhere and dance and form spirals and other geometric patterns.
“Paul!” She screamed with her inner voice. “Paul! Where are you?”
She sighed. Maybe she wasn’t in range yet. Which way? Neither direction the road took was exactly right. She began to walk, one step after the other, more by instinct than by sight.
* * *
When Paul opened his eyes back in the dimly-lit subterranean room, the Furen opposite him sat with its head lolled back, mouth slightly open, tongue protruding, a tiny rivulet of drool staining its shirt. It did not seem to be breathing.
“My remote is too small to unstrap you,” Aahamarada said.
“Then how do I get out of here? Everyone else is in Goa, right?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Shit.”
“Do you need to defecate?”
&nb
sp; “That’s not what I meant. It’s an expletive, an expression of frustration.”
“Of course. I have studied this linguistic phenomenon. It is most interesting, if primitive. Now I must concentrate my attention elsewhere. My remote, in the meantime, will recalibrate the Furen’s instrumentation. The Furen planted its own remotes within the nervous systems of its human - how shall I call them? - allies, employees, subjects, pawns, dupes, servants, slaves. We must neutralize these devices to confuse their communications. This will seriously impede their infiltration of your species; it took them a great deal of time to set up this network. Unfortunately these implanted humans will feel considerable initial pain, and afterwards long-term disorientation, but it cannot be helped.” Aahamarada paused, then said, “Remember that the power that caused the burnout is now dormant in you, Paul. Watch your temper.”
The silence in the underground chamber was so intense it was like a scream.
“Aahamarada? Aahamarada?”
No answer.
Lights flickered on the panels. An outline of a world map drew itself on a large flickering screen, then on every continent hundreds of tiny orange lights blinked on. Beside this screen another came on, full of parallel columns of numbers.
Paul struggled to free himself, but almost blacked out from the effort. His heart pounded; his head ached; his skin was hot and sensitive, as if sunburned. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but his system was still in turmoil from the drugs he had ingested, and he felt himself in freefall, turning and spinning, upside-down then rightside-up, without walls or floors or ceilings, endless as space and deep as the bottomless pit. Is this what dying is? He thought. Do you just keep falling and falling until nothing of you is left and you merge with the void? He had no energy, no power to stop his descent; he abandoned himself to the plunge, like a skydiver without a parachute.
Then far away, in another world, another universe, another dimension, so far away and so faint that it was almost not there, and yet it was definitely and specifically there, he heard Sunny’s voice: “Paul! Paul!”
* * *
The sun set on the Indian Ocean with grand splashes of color, broad brushstrokes of orange and pink and amber, illuminating for a few brief minutes a fairy-tale world where the sky and the sea were gold-tinged and rainbow-framed. At Calangute and Anjuna and other popular beaches, hippies and other travelers would be sitting on the sand basking in the magic, but here the beach was empty.
On the summit of the hill overlooking the villas, oblivious to the beauty, Finwinkle put down the binoculars and checked his watch. “Just a few more minutes,” he said. “Weapons ready.”
When the sky was blue-black and sprayed with stars, he sent the signal to the other teams: three beeps. Then he waved his arms and called to the men around him, “Let’s go.”
* * *
They were reveling in the spirit of love, deep in the essence of orgasm, totally unified as if they were not many but only one, all feeling and thinking the same thing, when suddenly they were wrenched away and they were all separate persons again, panting, hearts pounding, skin flushed.
“What happened?”
A pause, then, “There is danger; extreme danger. The shadows are advancing with malevolent intent.”
“Yes. Feel their animosity all around us.”
A newcomer anxiously exclaimed, “What can we do?”
“Calm down. Don’t be afraid. There is no power in fear.”
“Perhaps we should consider evacuation. We only have a few minutes.”
“Yes.”
“But we’re surrounded. How can we evacuate?”
“This may be a situation where violence cannot be avoided.”
“I think you’re right.”
The newcomers noticed a change in spirit, a hardness, a resolve, a readiness. “Did you think we were pacifists? We are not so naïve. We believe that it is wise to avoid violence whenever possible, but sometimes it is not possible. We will not allow you to be harmed.”
“Wait.” It was Aahamarada. “Sit still.”
There was another pause.
Suddenly Chuck Townsen screamed, clutched his head, stiffened, fell to the floor, and began to writhe and thrash about.
* * *
On the hillside and on the beach, Finwinkle and his men dropped their weapons and fell to the ground screaming and writhing.
* * *
Four of the men grabbed Chuck’s arms and legs and held him as he continued to scream and jerk and twitch.
“We must share his pain,” someone said. They all concentrated on Chuck and opened their minds. It was like ground glass or molten lava in the brain, like a thousand migraines all at once; but when they shared it, the effect was diluted between them all. Still, some had to clutch their chairs to avoid falling.
“He was implanted by the Furen,” Aahamarada said. “The pain will not last long.”
* * *
Outside, Finwinkle and the others slowly got to their feet, gazed around as if unsure where they were, and stumbled off into the jungle.
* * *
When it passed, Chuck looked around with a glassy-eyed vacant stare.
“He has experienced massive memory loss,” Aahamarada said. “He will require re-training. All of the newcomers need further training, but in a more tranquil environment. It may well be that this world can benefit from your help, but you must study the situation in more detail: you must have a plan. You came here on what seemed to be an innocent excursion, as outsiders. Now you have come to understand that you can no longer consider yourselves outsiders coming for a visit from another world. Nor can you consider the inhabitants of this world outsiders, for this is your world and they are your people. They are lost and isolated as if in prison, but your people nevertheless.”
“It is true. I have felt it.”
“So have I.”
“Yes.”
“But it seems far beyond any possibility that the people of this world could join us in union.”
“Some have.”
“Very few.”
“But some have. And if some have, then others can. It is possible. It is.”
“Yes.”
“What do we do now? What do you recommend?”
“For the time being, evacuation,” said Aahamarada.
Chapter 18
Aftermath
The teardrop-shaped spacecraft hovered beside the villa, half-hidden by the palms.
“I will miss you,” Valiant said. “I wish it could be otherwise, and that you could come with us.”
Margaret took his hands in hers. “I must be honest with my husband,” she said. “Are any others staying, as I am?”
“Some. Not many.”
She sighed. “I’ll feel lonely and left out. I’ll feel as if I’m missing something wonderful.”
“Who can say? Perhaps sometime in the future you will get your chance, and your children as well. You said that one of them had the inner voice: train him in it. As for the others, the two strengths of unity and honesty are not only for those gifted with the inner voice; they are for all.”
* * *
“No, goddammit, no!” Sunny said. “I won’t do it.” She turned away and looked through the open balcony window at the turquoise expanse of the Indian Ocean.
From behind Paul put his hands on her shoulders. “How can you pass up a chance like this? You have to go.”
“I know I should. But I don’t want to leave you. Not again. And much farther this time. And I don’t know if I’ll ever come back. And after all we’ve been through together, to cut it off like this…”
“We have to see the bigger picture.”
Sunny turned, cheeks tear-streaked, and looked into his eyes. “Don’t sermonize,” she said. “I know what I have to do and I’m going to do it, whether it’s easy or not. Allow me the indulgence of dumping out my emotions; it helps me feel better, okay?”
“Okay.”
* * *
They had fo
und a bend in a river sheltered from the sun by steep slopes and tall trees, and had come down close to the water to rest. Prem’s head was in the lap of Nazrul’s robe, and Nazrul lay on the grass, his head on his bundle of belongings. Asha smiled as she watched them sleep. Smiling came easier these days. It had not been a sudden revelation, that she was more relaxed and content than she used to be; contentment had come gradually, as they lived life together day by day, traveling, eating, sleeping, and introducing Nazrul to the wonder of vision.