“And yet, in the final calibration experiment what happens? Unexpectedly, we discover a man capable of resisting complete domination. How is this possible?” Ortu crossed his long thin arms across his narrow chest. “Answer me!”
“I don’t know,” snapped Hocking. “Obviously, if I knew it would not have happened.”
“Well said. But do you not even now perceive your error? Did it never occur to you that where one man resists there may lie the secret of all men’s resistance? That is why I wanted him brought here—to learn the secret of his ability to withstand control. Instead, you seek to eliminate him, to destroy him. If you had succeeded we would never know.”
“You saved him, didn’t you?” Hocking fought down the twinge of fear that coursed through him as he remembered his unsuccessful attempts to kill Reston. “I fail to see how I have seriously harmed our plans, let alone damaged our overall contingencies.”
“Then allow me to illumine you, oh wise one,” mocked Ortu. Hocking colored under the scorn. “Reston has contacted a member of my race—”
“Impossible! It is beyond current physics …”
“It is not impossible. I have just said it has happened. It is a fact. He did not travel to distant galaxies, no. He has awakened one of the Guardians and has summoned him here.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“You will believe it. Long ago when we on Ovs migrated we left behind in each city one of our own to guard all that we left behind against the day when others would come, that the knowledge gained should be wisely used and our treasures respected.”
“Reston could not have discovered this—no one on Earth believes Martians exist, much less Martian cities.”
“You, who believe nothing—how do you know what men believe in their innermost hearts? And why do you keep telling me these things are not possible when indeed they have happened?
“Men believe that their salvation will come from the stars, from benevolent beings who will show them the way. That is what men believe today. Have I not spent hundreds of years nurturing that belief? Creating wonders in the sky, strange and unexplained events on the ground? All to prepare the way for this final stage, for the willingness of humankind to accept a savior from beyond their world.
“It has all been part of the social and mental conditioning. Men speak of UFOs and watch the sky by night for a sign that their space brothers are coming. And why? Because I have willed it so. I, Ortu, have programmed it to be so.”
“How can one man, even a very stubborn man like Reston, change that?”
Ortu sighed. “Because within him is the force to withstand, and to undo all I have done. And the Guardian who is with him now will not allow our work to continue—he will see it stopped.”
“Why?”
“Because he must. It is his life-sworn duty.”
“Then they must all be destroyed,” said Hocking, for the first time speaking with anything approaching hope. “I was right after all.”
Ortu’s head began weaving back and forth. “You still do not understand. Perhaps you are unable to comprehend what I have been telling you.”
“I understand that if our work is in danger we must take any steps necessary to eliminate that danger. We must stop them.”
“How do you propose to do that?” Ortu scowled.
Thinking fast, he said, “Your disciples could do it. Send them out to destroy our enemies.”
“You have left us no choice. I will summon them.” Ortu’s head sank. For once he seemed to wear the full weight of his years. His voice sank into a rasping whisper. “Go now.”
Hocking swept out of the swirling, cloud-choked chamber and found Fundi lurking in the hallway nearby. “Bring his disciples at once!” he ordered. The servant hurried off on pattering feet to retrieve the chest of gopherwood containing the six teak boxes.
GITA, WHOSE WIDE ROUND eyes never for a moment left the alien, kept hopping up and down in a kind of ecstatic dance, first on one foot and then on the other. He was beside himself, almost literally. And though he did not enter into the conversation with the others, he did not miss a word.
Spence and Adjani were endeavoring to explain their present situation to Kyr, who listened intently. It was a marvel to Gita that the Martian could speak so well; Spence had explained the being’s remarkable facility, but that did not diminish Gita’s sense of wonder that the first words he heard from the mouth of an extra-terrestrial were in plain English.
Spence explained, “We have very good reason to believe that one of your own—an Ovsian—came to Earth during the time of the Great Migration. He has lived for thousands of years somewhere in these mountains—a place called Kalitiri. The soldiers in the truck were supposed to be taking us to him but… they evidently changed their minds.”
Kyr pondered this information; his eyes narrowed and he looked away toward the mountains. “If one of my race is here, he will be found. He must be convinced to return to Ovs. It is forbidden to interfere with an alien culture.”
“Unfortunately that appears to be just what he has been doing here,” said Adjani. “We think he is somehow connected with Spence’s blackouts and the dreams; that is, he is responsible for them. On at least one occasion what Spence had dreamed has come true.”
“The tanti—dream maker,” said Kyr. “It is a device—a transmitter capable of influencing brain functions and inducing mental imagery. It was used on Ovs as a medical instrument for treating those suffering from acute mental disorders.”
“I’m afraid it has been put to a very different use here on Earth,” replied Adjani.
“Then the tanti must be destroyed; those who would use it must be stopped.”
“Our thoughts exactly.” Spence glanced around at the late afternoon sky. “But it will be getting dark soon. Perhaps we should find shelter before nightfall—at least, before the soldiers work up enough nerve to come back.”
“Come with me,” said Kyr. “We will use my vehicle.” A long arm swept up to indicate the still-glowing object sitting in the center of the dirt road.
“A flying saucer,” said Gita. “I’m going to ride in a flying saucer!”
“Vimana,” said Kyr. “It is called a vimana.”
“Sky car! He is right!” exclaimed Gita. “The word is exactly the same in our language.”
“Why not?” chuckled Spence. “No doubt that’s where it came from in the first place.”
“Then it is really true! And the myths of my people …” Gita began and stopped, stricken with the implications of this revelation.
“Are myths just the same,” finished Adjani. “Though with a grain of truth behind them.”
“A mountain of truth, sahib,” said Gita, shaking his head. “When I said before that I believed your story, I never dreamed … To think they have been worshiping Martians all these years! It staggers the mind!”
Spence listened to this exchange and smiled. As they started toward the vimana he said, “Kyr, how did you know to come here?”
“Your bneri summoned me.”
“No, it was taken from me before I could use it. One of the soldiers grabbed it just as I was about to send you the signal.”
“I received the signal and I answered it.”
“But how? How could you have come so quickly? Only a few minutes passed before you arrived. Does your spacecraft travel so fast?”
“I do not know what you mean, Earthfriend. I was aware of your presence on this road. I watched the truck from before your entry into the village when you were stopped on the road.”
Now Spence was completely confused. “That can’t be—I had not tried to signal yet. You would have had to receive my summons before I sent it!” He shook his head and looked to Adjani for help.
“Just when did you receive the signal?” asked Adjani.
“Your question has no meaning. I cannot answer.” The Martian shrugged his narrow shoulders in a human display of ignorance.
“No meaning? Are you saying that time is irrelevant
to the working of the bneri?”
“It works outside of time, as thought is outside of time. Therefore you cannot ask ‘when’ of it.”
“I don’t get it at all,” muttered Spence. “Do you?”
“I think so,” said Adjani. “Prayer often works the same way. We sometimes see that the seeds of the answer to our prayer have been sown before we even knew to pray. This is possible because God is not confined to time as we are. Past, present, future—he moves through each as he will.”
Kyr made a low whistling sound, and translated it for them.
“This God you speak of. He is the All-Being—the Source.”
“Yes,” replied Adjani. “You know him? You worship him?”
“Worship?”
“It means to revere, to hold worthy, to adore, to praise and love.”
Kyr shrugged again. “This, I believe, is implied in living before him. We know him and feel his presence with us at all times.”
“It isn’t that way on Earth,” said Adjani. “Men must choose to know him and worship him of their free will.”
“It is the same with us. But who would choose not to know him?” Kyr gave Spence a quick, ironic look.
“You’d be surprised,” said Spence.
“I told you once that I would find a way to explain the ways of the All-Being to you. But I see now that there is a barrier between us which I cannot cross. It was placed there by Dal Elna, who made you different from us. My explanations would not satisfy you.”
“I believe you, Kyr. For an Earthman, nothing will do unless he finds the All-Being by himself, in his own way.”
Just then Gita, who had been silent during this exchange broke in with, “Look! The townspeople from Rangpo are coming. They have seen your vimana. We must hurry away now or we may be here all night.”
“We will talk of these things at greater length when time is not important. Now we have work to do,” said Kyr. He turned and headed toward his craft. At his approach a red line appeared at the top of the object and slid down along the side, slicing it in two. A brilliant light flooded over them as the two halves parted to receive them. Spence, Adjani, and Gita stepped hesitantly into the light and followed Kyr into the craft.
The people of Rangpo saw four figures disappear inside a red beam of light and then a loud whirring sound filled the air as the unidentified flying object grew suddenly bright orange and then flashed over their heads in an instant, moving over the town toward the mountains to vanish in the clouds.
22
THE GENTLE EVENING CLOSED around them like a soft and loving hand. The cool air brightened the fire as it crackled under Gita’s deft fingers. The deep blue shadows darkened in the forest of green bamboo and the rustlings of monkeys and birds in the trees quieted. Kyr’s spacecraft rested a few meters away in a clearing; it gave off a dim bluish glimmer now, its systems shut down for the present.
Gita hovered near the tall alien’s shoulder—shyly, nervously, like a schoolboy in the presence of a high dignitary, a schoolboy who did not dream of contributing to the conversation of the adults, yet desired above anything to remain within the charmed circle of their words.
Adjani had not stopped asking questions since they entered the vimana. Ideas between the two were exchanged at such a rapid rate it made the head buzz to think of it. Spence lay back and smiled with a kind of dreamy indulgence as if to say: He is my friend, after all, but I gladly share him with you. It was enough for him to sit basking in the warm friendship of the group, a thing he had not grown overly used to in the course of his stoic life.
He reclined and let the high words and ideas roll over him like the warm breakers on a sunlit beach, rising to a swell and then lapping over him, filling him with happiness and good cheer. It seemed he had been waiting for many years for this special time.
There in the clearing on the mountainside, before the rustic campfire, Spence felt the approach of something he had longed for all his adult life. It was a thing that went by various names, depending upon his frame of mind at the time he felt the longing. Most often he called it certainty, and what he meant by that was the assurance of something absolute and unchangeable in a universe of change.
As a scientist he had long ago given up ever trying to find that immutable absolute; the only law of the universe he knew that could be counted on was change. Hot things lost their heat; cold things grew colder; solid objects became vapor and vice versa; speeding particles slowed; orbits decayed, matter decayed, flesh decayed. Entropy reigned. Nothing remained changeless and unchangeable.
That the immutable absolute he sought might be the Divine Being had never occurred to him. But it came to him now; what is more, he felt a distinct presence drawing inexorably closer. For some reason—perhaps because he was in India—he imagined it in the shape of a great tiger. He felt as if he was being stalked by the fiery ferocious creature; the hair at the base of his skull prickled. A chill wavered along his spine.
Then Kyr stood in the firelight, towering over the group huddled in the yellow circle of light. The conversation had stopped. All Spence heard was the snap of the fire and the evening sounds of the forest.
Kyr looked at each of them in turn, gazing with his great piercing eyes. What he was thinking could not be guessed—the look seemed filled with an emotion beyond Spence’s stock catalog of responses.
Kyr began speaking slowly, quietly. “In my world of long ago it was our custom when meeting one another after a long absence, or when leaving for a time, to share a special meal, the Essila. On the evening of our first meeting, before we face what may soon overtake us, I would like to share it with you, my new friends.”
With that Kyr went to his spacecraft and entered it, returning a moment later carrying a globe in each hand. These he sat down near the edge of the circle of light and settled his large frame beside them. The Earthmen crept closer.
Kyr took one of the globes and raised it. “In our leaving and arriving we are one. When apart and when together we are one. In the many there is One.”
Spence recognized that last phrase as one Kyr had once used in referring to the All-Being.
The globe in Kyr’s hands opened from a center seam and the top hemisphere parted to reveal the contents of the interior: a kind of whitish, fluffy, diaphanous substance that looked very much like clouds.
“A body is made of many cells, yet it is one body. A life is made of many days, and yet it is one life. Each man’s body and each man’s life is a reflection of the One who gave it. In the many there is One.”
Kyr held his long hands before the fire and his eyes closed. His voice became almost a chant. Spence knew that if Kyr had been speaking his own tongue the litany would be a song. What Kyr must have been doing to translate it bordered on the miraculous.
“If we mount to the stars, Dal Elna is there. If we descend to the dust of death, Dal Elna is there. Dal Elna is in all things: the stars, the dust, the stones, the fire. Yet these things do not contain Dal Elna. In the many there is One.
“Stars are born and stars die, and Dal Elna knows their passing. In the deeps of space Dal Elna’s ways are known. On created worlds and worlds yet to be created Dal Elna’s name is sung. Dal Elna calls forth light out of darkness and sets the planets in their orbits. Nothing exists that does not exist in Dal Elna. In the many there is One.
“Before time began, Dal Elna was. When time is gone, Dal Elna will remain. Soon time will cease and the curtains of our minds will be parted and we will see Dal Elna. All living souls will know Dal Elna. In the many there is One.”
Kyr lowered his hands and raised the bowl and offered it to each of the men sitting near him. Spence reached his hand in and took some of the wispy stuff; it tore away in a long shred, pink in the firelight.
Then Kyr took some and set the bowl aside, saying, “To eat of the Essila is to mingle souls, to know another as you are known. Therefore, let no one eat of it who does not love the other.”
Spence looked at each of the othe
rs. He had not put it into words before but yes, he did love Adjani and Gita. They had risked their lives to follow him, to help him, and he loved them for it. He could think of no other friends he trusted more.
Kyr seemed to be waiting while each made up his own mind and then, seeing that all were of one accord, he said, “Taste the sweetness of your love for each other. In the many there is One.”
Kyr raised his fingers to his lips and the others followed his example, their eyes shining in the dancing light.
Spence felt the Essila melt as it touched his tongue and suddenly his mouth was full of the sweetest tasting substance he could have imagined—a sweetness beyond simple description. But it did not cloy or sicken in its sweetness, though it overwhelmed all other senses.
He swallowed and felt a spreading warmth surge through his midsection, tingling even to his extremities. He suddenly felt a closeness, a warmth he had never felt among others before. He looked across at Adjani and the slim Indian seemed to shine, his face glowing with a kind of subtle radiance.
He glanced at Gita and saw a wide grin of undiluted happiness gleaming on his round face. Two big teardrops slid slowly down his cheeks as he looked from one to the other of those around him.
Spence felt his own heart swell inside him until he thought it must burst. He felt himself higher, nobler, and more true than he had ever known himself to be in his life. He, too, felt radiant, absolutely glowing with kindness and compassion.
Part of this he knew to be emanating from the others as much as from himself. It was true; their very hearts and souls were mingling like rare and precious oils, each one increasing the worth of the other, yet losing nothing of its own value.
Spence felt himself lifted out of himself and he knew each of his friends as he knew himself. In that moment he knew their weaknesses and failings, yet loved them in spite of any shortcomings, forgiving them, as he forgave them in himself.
There was another presence he could not describe; it was utterly foreign to his frame of human reference, though it shared many of the same basic essences. This presence inside him he knew to be Kyr, and he loved the Martian for his utter, alien uniqueness and his freely flowing compassion.
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