by Julian May
So I set off.
It was a fine day in spite of the heat. A tricky descent along the southwestern flank of Goose Eye commanded my attention. Then I flushed a few languid spruce grouse down in a hollow, and was further distracted by a harsh call that sounded like a raven, a species formerly rare in New England but now making a comeback. My bird-watcher's instinct perked up and I tramped along more cheerfully. In time I reached Mount Carlo and made my way up its rough northern shoulder. The eminence was as somber as a chunk of Labrador tundra, but there was a good view back to Goose Eye and ahead to Mount Success. I tried to hail Denis telepathically but there was no answer. No doubt Don had returned home and the child had been obliged to take refuge in the mental sanctuary he customarily erected against his father's barbs and disparagements.
Damn Don! He couldn't hurt Denis physically, but he could certainly do enormous emotional damage. The boarding school had seemed the perfect solution, taking the boy out of Don's orbit for nearly nine months of the year and providing him with an environment where he could continue his self-education, while at the same time learning to get along with other bright youngsters and sympathetic adults. With that escape vetoed, there seemed to be only one other solution to Denis's dilemma.
I would have to reveal his metapsychic gifts.
Every instinct in me warned against it. The child would be exploited, pressured, treated as a freak if not as a menace. Once the truth came out, the psi laboratories at the various institutions would squabble over him. And I had read recently about a psi research facility at the U. S. Army's Aberdeen Center...
No. There had to be another way.
I hiked on, agonizing, entertaining one preposterous idea after another. I would steal Denis away. I would poison Don's liquor just enough to put him in bed, under my coercive thumb. I would confide Denis's secret to the nuns at school and enlist their help. (But the truth would leak out. The unsophisticated sisters could never deal with it. ) I would write to Dr. Rhine himself! To our bishop. To the Governor of New Hampshire. To President Nixon. To The New York Times!
Occupied with these thoughts, I crossed the steep notch of Carlo Col and slogged into New Hampshire again, beginning the long climb to Mount Success, that ironically named central point of the little Mahoosuc Range. Success wasn't very difficult to master. It wasn't high, only interminably broad. Up around the summit were treacherous patches of thinly crusted bog where a false step put you boot-top-deep in black muck. I finally snapped out of my distraction when I missed my footing and fell headlong into a pocket of the stuff. It was only by the skin of my teeth that I missed tumbling over a kind of rock-slab retaining wall into a lethally steep ravine.
I had managed to wrench my knee, I was half soaked, and clinging black glop slathered me from stem to gudgeon.
I crawled out swearing at my own stupidity — and at the whimsical topography of my native state, where bogs appeared at the tops of otherwise arid mountains. They were a consequent of the local weather pattern, formed when moist air driven by strong winds collided with the small peaks. In summer there might be thick mist or drizzle or even sleet at the higher elevations while the lower slopes remained warm and dry. The same terrain and weather factors made for extremely violent thunderstorms.
I recalled this as I sat on top of Mount Success changing my wet pants and socks in a rising wind while towering cumulus clouds billowed up behind the two Bald Caps in the west. Now I knew why I had met so few hikers during the last three hours — and those hiking in the opposite direction. Anybody with any brains was already holed up in a shelter; but I was caught halfway between the Carlo Col hut and Gentian Pond. It was almost five in the afternoon, my knee hurt like hell, I had no tent in my pack, and shelter was four hours away in either direction... for an able-bodied hiker.
I limped off in the direction of Gentian, moving as fast as the knee permitted. As the clouds humped higher and darker, I looked for a likely bivouac. I found nothing but windswept open ledges, knee-high tangles of scrub spruce and balsam (but no wood large enough to cut into a walking stick), and tumbled rocky slopes that had to be traversed with the utmost caution. Clouds hid the sun and wind whipped the miniature evergreens viciously in a prelude to the arrival of the storm front. Off in the southwest, the sky was purplish black.
As I slid downhill into a brushy washout my knee buckled. I went over sideways, but managed to land on my pack. The pain was intense. I lay there with my eyes shut listening to the tinkle of a tiny rivulet a few meters away. Then came a faint grumble of thunder, raindrops splattered my face, and I said, "Oh, shit. "
Now what? I was going to have to get out of that ravine, for starters, since it would probably become a torrent once the storm began in earnest. Shedding my pack, I hobbled around gathering sticks to splint the knee. When the joint was immobilized I rested for a few minutes, trying to concentrate my metapsychic healing ability on the injury. But it was no good. I was too distracted and anxious to focus my mind properly. I put on my Gore-Tex jacket, the only rainwear I had, shouldered my backpack again, and began a long and awkward climb.
The rain came on fast and so did the fireworks. There was a real danger of being zapped by lightning if one remained in an exposed position during one of these big storms, and an outside chance of getting killed on the slippery granite rocks. I was still a good hour and a half away from Gentian Pond Shelter and I didn't have a hope of making it before nightfall. I'd have to hole up somewhere; but as I rummaged frantically in my memory trying to recall this section of the trail from my last-year's hike, it seemed that there was no real refuge to be had, not along the trail proper. And if I went sidetracking in the dusk I would certainly get lost.
I stood still in the driving downpour and tried to exert my farsight, seeking some cranny or marmot hole where I could gain at least minimal shelter. My ultrasense refused to function. Perhaps it was the lightning that blazed all around me; perhaps it was the pain of my sprained knee, or sheer funk. Whatever — I farsaw nothing. I remember crying out mentally to little Denis in my desperation, having some notion that his superior brain might be able to locate a hiding place where mine had failed. But Denis didn't respond. I suppose my telepathic howl was too feeble and too circumscribed by the dense granite rock that surrounded me. I was stuck.
Alors — j'y suis, j'y reste! Unless...
What happened next seems, in retrospect, to be almost a prefiguring — if not a parody — of the great event that would take place forty years later. Trapped on that damned mountain in a thundering deluge, I lifted my head to the sky and yelled:
"Ghost! Get me out of this!"
Between lightning blasts, the landscape was now nearly pitch black. I cried out to the fantôme Familier a second time. The wind roared and my knee gave me hell. I was drenched all over again in spite of the Gore-Tex, since the rain was somehow blowing uphill. I unfastened my pack and sat on the streaming rocks, my splinted leg jutting awkwardly.
"Ghost, you son of a bitch! Where are you when I need you?"
And it said: Here.
I gave a violent start. Hallucination? But the wind had fallen off abruptly and the rain spigot was turned off. I was aware of a hazy glow surrounding me. The lightning's glare was almost lost in it, only visible now as slightly brighter pulses of light in an overarching luminescence.
I whispered, "Ghost?"
A vos ordres.
"Is it really you?"
Poor Rogi! When you have legitimate need of me, you have only to call. Someone will hear and summon me. I thought you understood this.
I cursed the mysterious presence roundly in French and English, then demanded that it do something about my knee. Voilà! The injury healed instantly. Giddy with triumph, I told it, "Now dry me off — if you can. "
Nothing easier.
Pouf! Clouds of vapor poured out of the sleeves and from under the lower edge of my rain jacket. I pulled the thing off and watched my pants and sweater steam dry in a couple of minut
es. Even my socks dried.
"Hot damn!" I chortled. "Now let's have a nice cup of tea with plenty of brandy in it. "
The Ghost's mind-voice was slightly caustic: I believe you've used up the customary three wishes. You have your Bluet stove and the makings in your pack.
Laughing like a loon, I pulled out the things and got cooking. The Ghost had charitably dried off a few rocks in the immediate vicinity so I just sat where I was, waiting for the pot to boil and munching a Granola bar. The glow from what I now know was a psychocreative bubble cast a friendly light over the dripping skunk-currant bushes.
After I had managed to calm down a little I said, "It's a good thing you did show up. A man could die in this kind of a mess. Poor little Denis has had enough hard luck without losing his favorite uncle, too. "
The Ghost seemed surprised: Hard luck?
"The boarding-school thing I arranged for him fell through. Don and most of the family are dead-set against it. I should think you'd know. "
I have been... elsewhere. Do you mean to tell me that Don objects to Denis being taught by the Jesuits?
"Jesuits! Hell, no. He objects to the kid going to that school for budding geniuses in Vermont — Northfield Hall."
The Ghost seemed to be ruminating: So! It seems that further direct intervention is called for, with the probability loci focused by this minor contretemps of yours. An interesting manifestation of synchronicity! Of course Denis never spoke of this failed arrangement, so how was one to know?
The thing's jabbering made no sense so I brewed tea and tossed in a hefty slug of Christian Brothers. Half joking, I held out the small plastic flask. "I don't suppose you'd care for a nip?"
It said: Merci beau.
The flask floated away, tipped briefly, and returned. I hastily swilled my tea and had a fit of coughing. If the Ghost was a delusion, as I was beginning to suspect, my unconscious mind had a rare imaginative flair. I said: "What's this about the Jebbies?"
It said: Two priests named Jared Ellsworth and Frank Dubois are opening an experimental school intended to serve gifted children from low-income families. It is called Brebeuf Academy and it is located just outside Concord, on the grounds of a small Jesuit college. You will find that the fathers will readily accept Denis, under full scholarship. You yourself will take care of the boy's incidental expenses. Don will give his consent.
A euphoric warmth, not from the brandy, began to suffuse me. "Didn't I read something about Ellsworth in Newsweek a while back?"
But it ignored me and continued: After Denis has attended Brebeuf
Academy for one year, you will tell Father Ellsworth the full truth about the boy's supranormal mental faculties. He will know what steps must be taken to protect Denis during his minority. You may then safely leave the boy's guidance in this priest's hands.
My brain spun. For over six years I'd devoted almost every moment of my spare time to the education and encouragement of my nephew. The rest of the time I'd merely worried myself sick over him. Was the Ghost telling me my job was done?
It said: Not done. Denis will always need your friendship. But you have fulfilled very well the first charge I placed on you, Rogi, and for a while you'll have time for yourself.
For a while!
Peace! Ne vous tracassez pas. There are years yet.
I shouted, "How can I believe you? What are you?" You may as well know. It won't hurt. I am a being from another world, from another star. I am your friend and Denis's friend — the special guardian of the entire Remillard family, for reasons that will eventually be made clear to you. Now I will see to your safety before I go. The storm will last far into the night.
All I could think of were the flying-saucer flaps going on all over the world for the past several years. And my Ghost was some kind of extraterrestrial?
I blurted out, "What did happen to Betty and Barney Hill on the old Franconia Highway?"
The Ghost uttered its dry little laugh: Perhaps we can discuss it another time! I must go now. Adieu, cher Rogi...
Glowing mist closed in about me. I was captive for a few moments inside a pearly sphere and then there was a dazzling lightning bolt and a clap of thunder. Rain sprayed me as though I'd stepped beneath a waterfall and the terrain was completely different. I was standing about three meters away from a log cabin with lighted windows that was perched on a rock shelf above a wind-whipped little body of water. People moved around inside. A sound of singing and concertina music drifted through the night.
I was still holding my teacup, which was now half full of rainwater. My backpack lay at my feet. I dumped the cup and retrieved the pack, then strode up to the Gentian Pond Shelter and pounded on the door.
18
OBSERVATION VESSEL
KRAK NA'AM [Kron 96-101010]
24 JUNE 1974
RA'EDROO SLITHERED INTO the surveillance chamber, saluted her Krondak superior on the intimate racial mode, and bid the other three entities on duty a courteous vocal "High thoughts, colleagues. " An unspoken query was prominent in her mind's vestibulum: Why have you summoned me, Umk'ai? The Russian Salyut space laboratory is not scheduled to be launched for at least another five hours. Thula'ekoo said aloud, "That is true, Ra'edroo. But another event is about to take place below, one that happens every year... in New Hampshire."
The Simb and the Gi who were working at the think tank laughed at some private joke.
Thula'ekoo reproved the pair with the slightest mental tap on their itch-receptors. He addressed Ra'edroo and a young Poltroyan who had a puzzled smile on his grayish-purple, humanoid face. "I know that both you and Trosimo-Finabindin are keen amateur xenopsychologists. Since you two are new to the Earth tour, you'll be interested in this rather typical example of the current North American mind-set with respect to exotic encounters. "
"Perhaps not wholly typical, " sniffed the Simb, who was a statistician and inclined to be overpunctilious. "Our current sampling among Status Seven Earth indigenes shows that 49. 22 percent believe that UFOs do exist, and that they originated on other inhabited planets. Some 9.91 percent think they have personally seen one. "
A brief wave of amusement passed over the Gi, DriDri Vuvl. "We're getting to be positively old hat. I suppose it was inevitable. "
"I should think, " Ra'edroo said, "that those figures demonstrate that the thirty-year familiarization scheme has been a resounding success. "
"You've got a lot to learn about Earthlings, colleague, " said the Simb.
DriDri Vuvl added, "These Americans, for instance. Their capacity for ennui in the face of the marvelous is mind-boggling. Why, they've very nearly lost interest in their space program! Major funding was cut off in order to finance some idiotic war. And now all their leaders seem concerned about is a tacky political scandal and threats by Status Three nations to cut off the petroleum supply. Petroleum! I ask you. "
The Simb passed judgment. "Excretory orifices, the lot of them. How can they be expected to coadunate their world Mind?"
Thula'ekoo was busy at the monitor and chose to ignore the crude chaffing. When the image was well centered, fully dimensioned, and computer-enhanced for all eight Krondak senses (a pity young Trosi would miss out on the pla'akst, which enriched this type of observation so; but that was life), he transferred the scene to the large wall-screen.
Twenty-three humans, fourteen men and nine women, sat in a circle on the weathered rocks near the summit of Mount Adams in New Hampshire's Presidential Range. It was 5° Celsius with a cutting westerly wind, overcast skies, and visibility of about twenty kilometers. The people were dressed in nondescript outdoor gear obviously chosen for warmth. Most of them were talking quietly, with three or four engaged in solitary meditation. One woman offered plastic cups of hot cocoa from a thermos and had a few takers.
"Down from last year's gathering, " the Simb noted with wry satisfaction. "Way down."
The Gi rolled its saucer eyes. "The faithful are defecting to macrobiotics, pacifism, and
whale watching."
"Silence!" said Thula'ekoo. "They are about to begin."
Ra'edroo and the Poltroyan, Trosi, were completely absorbed in the scene. The human leader, a female of commanding aspect, had directed members of the circle to join hands. She said:
"Fellow Aetherians, the time has come. Empty your minds of all earthly thought. Prepare to divorce yourselves from your fleshy bodies and take on the astromental configuration. Banish all physical discomfort. Close your eyes. Shut out all sounds except that of my voice. Feel nothing but the Presence of the Universe. Join with me as I call to it. Let our thoughts arise with a single voice. Call out! The Universe sees us and loves us. It is alive with powerful and friendly spirits who are watching us even at this moment. If we only have faith and strength of will, these extraterrestrial beings will answer when we call. They will come and save our world from the death that threatens us. Call out! Bid the otherworld creatures come! Let them know they are welcome. Together, now, with me... "
Come.
"Why, she's a borderline suboperant!" Ra'edroo exclaimed. "The others are hopelessly latent, but what meager faculties they can project are actually in a loose mind-meld with the leader. How extremely interesting!"
Come.
Trosi was radiant. "The dear things — what a splendid effort. " His voice broke with compassion. "What a pity that the subsidiary humans are so inferior in mind to the leader. "
Thula'ekoo said, "All humans possess latent metafaculties to a greater or lesser degree. In this case, only the leader has the projective farspeech capacity to penetrate the ionosphere. At this distance, none but the Krondaku and the Poltroyans can detect the metapsychic emanations of the subordinates in the meld. "