Candles, as yet unlighted, were distributed to the people, who were now hushed and expectant. Someone turned the lights and the music down to background level, so that the fire became the room’s focus and spoken words were clearly audible.
“Ian’s deepest wish was to be here,” Peter began, “but that has proved impossible. And so from this day forward we must carry on without him.” A murmur of sorrow spread through the listeners, then gave way to silence.
“We’re gathered tonight as witnesses to Jesse’s commitment to the Group,” Peter continued. “In the Ritual of his pledging we will renew our own commitment, remembering the time when we too faced the fire and for the first time felt its power to inspire our lives.”
Carla had told him the Lodge fire was symbolic, Jesse recalled. To him, it now meant their marriage, and she’d said others had similar memories. But people gathered around it every evening, laughing and joking, eating, singing bawdy songs as well as ballads. It was a symbol of fellowship, surely—of happiness and home—but he found it rather strange that the same symbol had been chosen for something as solemn as he’d understood the Ritual to be. It seemed more comforting than inspirational.
Peter spoke on, summarizing the precepts of the Group and its goal of proving that it was possible to live by them. To trust in the primacy of mind over body. To develop skills outsiders would call paranormal. To enjoy life without succumbing to worry or fear. To reject maintenance of brain-dead bodies in stasis as a travesty of life and to accept death in old age as natural, whether or not survival of the spirit might follow. . . .
Jesse had rarely heard this last idea mentioned in the Group. It was apparent, from the way Peter phrased his remarks, that members differed in their feelings on the issue, as was the case with all religious matters; and yet he sensed that majority felt existence continued in some way after death. Was that why it meant so much to them to keep the dead out of stasis? he wondered suddenly. Did they believe their spirits were entrapped as long as their bodies were maintained? Such a notion was oxymoronic, surely—spirit, if it existed, would by definition depart once life was gone. Still, glancing at Carla beside him, he shuddered at the thought of what her awareness of Ramón’s preserved body must be doing to her. It wasn’t a matter of logic. Her image of him could hardly be divided.
There was a short pause; then Peter concluded, “In silence, let’s commend ourselves to whatever Power we hold highest, each of us in our own way.” This did seem to be a time when you’d want to pray if you were so inclined, Jesse thought, suddenly apprehensive. For him, it was not quite prayer; he had never adhered to any formal religion. But he knew that he was about to be tested in some unimaginable way, a paranormal way, evidently, since no physical peril could arise in this setting. He’d been told he would be at risk, and that could mean only that they would do something to his mind—something so overwhelming that Peter feared he might come to harm. He appealed to whatever force might prevail in the universe to make him strong enough to withstand it.
After several minutes had passed, Hari—also wearing white—stepped forward on the opposite side of the fireplace, carrying a tall unlit torch. He plunged its head into the fire and then raised it, blazing. Turning, he extended it outward, and one by one the assembled people approached it to light their candles. Then he came around to the participants’ side and stood behind them, holding it aloft.
To Carla, Peter said, “Do you wish to sponsor Jesse in his commitment to the Group, sharing the peril of his pledging, and do you believe him qualified to undertake this commitment safely?”
In a clear voice Carla answered, “Yes, I do.”
Peter then addressed Jesse directly. “Do you accept Carla Francesco as your sponsor, knowing that her participation may increase your danger?”
“I’m happy to accept her.” But not happy to have her share the mysterious peril, he thought. Why would anything done to his mind affect her?
“So be it,” Peter continued. “Jesse Sanders, do you confirm the pledge you have made to keep everything you know, or may learn, of the Group and its activities secret from outsiders, now and forever, at whatever cost to yourself?”
“I do,” Jesse replied.
“Do you by your own free choice commit yourself to live by the precepts of the Group, as I have stated them?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Will you support fellow-members of the Group in all ways, even at the risk of your personal safety?’
“I will.” This meant more than he would have assumed before his introduction to telepathic sharing, he knew. He was pledging to support them not only by his actions, but, when occasion arose, through ESP.
“Do you believe that your mind has power over the well-being of your body, and that it can protect or heal you from sickness, injury and pain?”
“I do.”
“Jesse, are you willing to confirm your commitment by proving your trust in that power?”
“Yes, I am.” Had he not already proven it on several occasions? To ask for formal consent after the fact seemed rather anticlimactic. And yet he knew the climax of the Ritual was still to come.
There was another moment of silence in which Jesse sensed that Peter was probing him telepathically, far more deeply than in the past. It was not unpleasant. He was high; Carla was beside him and she was high too; and he felt at ease within this gathering of good friends. He was committed to them and to the promises he had made. The strong connection among them . . . the soft yet exalting music . . . the flicker of nearly two hundred candles beyond the fire . . . there was no past, no future, but only this moment, frozen in time forever. . . .
Hari lowered the torch he carried, thrusting its pole horizontally between Kira and Carla so that the flame, at waist level, was poised over the fire’s edge. Tension mounted among the watchers. Using words sanctified, Jesse guessed, by long tradition, Peter said:
“Unfaced fear is the destroyer. We will acknowledge fear and accept it, we will go past it and live free.
“We will trust the power of the mind over all restrictions, whether imposed from within or by the world outside.
“We will act always through volition, allowing neither internal nor external pressures to enslave us.
“We will support each other unfailingly in fulfilling this pledge.
“We believe that we are stewards of a flame that will illuminate future generations.
“And we now seal our commitment with the symbol of the mind’s power, which is fire.”
Across the semicircle, his face lit by the torchlight, Peter smiled encouragingly. His normal ebullience had returned. Jesse returned the smile, trusting him, unafraid now of whatever mental shock might be coming. He sensed that their telepathic link had become nearly as strong as his bond with Carla.
The torch blazed between them, so close Jesse could feel its heat. Then suddenly, incredibly, Peter stretched out his right hand and thrust it into the flame. He held it there, undamaged.
“Place your hand on mine, Jesse,” he said in a low, commanding voice.
For a second Jesse did not grasp what was meant. But Kira spoke quickly, also as a command. “Do it, Jesse. Now.”
Jesse knew that if he stopped to think, he could not do it, and that if he did not, that would mean leaving Carla, his friends, the Lodge—everything that now mattered to him. It would be a total repudiation of the Group he had come to believe in, the pledge he had just made. And even more, it would be a rejection of his own power, the thing in himself that during these last weeks had begun to fill the emptiness of too many years. Having tasted what it was to move beyond the merely human, he could not drop back. The free choice essential to that power had become no choice at all, for he knew that he would rather be physically burned than give up all that he truly valued.
This knowledge came to him instantly, without rational deliberation, as a whole. He was less aware of it consciously than of what he was receiving from the Group, from Carla, from Kira—and of cou
rse from Peter. They were giving him a sense of how to do it, so that though he was willing to be burned, and knew he must be willing, at the same time he knew that he need not suffer any more harm than Peter himself had. That knowledge, too, came instantly. No more than a few seconds had passed.
Without hesitation Jesse thrust his hand forward to touch Peter’s, letting it be bathed by the flames.
He had thought he’d been high before, thought he knew what it meant to be high—but all that was nothing, compared to this. He was hovering somewhere in space beyond the planet. There was no space, no time, nothing left of the physical or mundane. There was only fire, a flame of light that enveloped and warmed him, but did not burn. All the universe was light. He was one with it, and with the others, yet was also himself; he trusted himself as he never had while worldbound.
At the edge of his perception, he knew Carla’s hand, too, was in the flame, and so was Kira’s. In the opposite semicircle, beyond the fireplace, the others’ fingers touched the flames of their candles, thus magnifying the collective power of the minds merged with his. He felt no pain, nor were his hand and arm damaged. They were impervious to flame. It was surreal . . . except that it seemed that nothing in his life had ever been real until now.
Peter was drawing his hand back out of the flame; only with psychic prompting did Jesse notice. He withdrew his own, realizing that though he had been conscious only of eternity, mere moments had elapsed. There was no end to the power of the human mind, he thought, awestricken, staring incredulously at his unburned fingers. It could do anything! At the moment, this fact did not scare him, though he guessed that once the high wore off, he would be unnerved by it. It was too late to ask whether he really wanted the degree of power he had assumed.
“It’s what we live by,” said Carla. “This is who we are, and we can’t deny it. We can’t betray our foretaste of what humans may become.”
He turned to her and they embraced. The others came to him and one by one embraced him, Peter first, then Kira, then all the rest, first laying their candles on the fire as Hari had now laid the torch. Greg, Michelle, Bernie, Anne, Kwame, Ingrid, Nathan, Liz, Erik, Dorcas . . . the friends he’d come to know as family, others meeting him for the first time, all pledged to him now as he to them, for as long as he lived. . . .
“What was that part about you sharing—even increasing—my danger?” Jesse said to Carla when the others had moved away. “You weren’t a novice.”
“Peter’s less experienced than Ian in sustaining grouped minds. Immunity to flame can’t be attained by any person alone, Jesse, not even after long practice. It requires the support of everyone who participates. If either you or I had panicked or lost focus when we were in such close rapport, all four of us would have been burned.”
Jesse tightened his arm around her. None of them had handled fire before without Ian present, he realized with awe. If he himself had faltered, he’d have brought Peter down, too. No doubt burns could have been healed, but shaken faith in the leader would have been irreparable.
He and Carla stood staring into the fireplace for a few more minutes. Then, as the mood of solemnity faded and the volume of the music swelled, they went joyfully to the tables spread with the wedding feast.
~ 36 ~
When Carla went back to the city for her next workweek, Jesse went with her. Though he still didn’t know how he’d occupy his days while she was working, neither of them wanted to spend more nights apart. They planned to return to the Island almost every offshift, as she had even before his arrival. Once used to the company of telepaths, Group members spent as much free time together as possible, and friends tended to congregate; hers favored the Lodge over the other safe gathering places.
Carla had neither friends outside the Group nor any contact with relatives. “My parents didn’t take me out of the crèche often,” she told him, “and I left home for good right after I finished school.” Having left home himself in youth, Jesse considered this both natural and fortunate—keeping Group membership secret must be awkward and painful for people close to their families. How, he wondered, did anyone hide a transformation as overwhelming as that of the Ritual? He supposed the impact of that miracle would wear off, eventually. But each time he looked down at his unburned hand, he was struck anew by awe at what had happened to him.
Before he left the Lodge, there were formalities. Jesse found that there were, in fact, passwords to learn—he had not met all the members, and in the city might need to identify them. Also, to his surprise, Peter asked for his consent to hypnosis.
“Since Ramón’s death I’ve given hypnotic protection to those at high risk,” Peter explained, “hospice caregivers, for example. It doesn’t interfere with the conscious mind, but does reduce the risk of Group secrets emerging spontaneously from a drugged mind. An expert investigator could extract them, but at least it would keep them from slipping out during casual talk with nurses or other patients.”
“And you think I should have this—protection.”
“Yes, as a precaution, before you live in the city with Carla. But we’re not going to put you at risk of getting caught with bodies, Jesse. Not except as a witness to burials here on the Island.”
“Why not? I’m as willing to take that risk as the rest of you.”
“I know you are, but there are reasons why it wouldn’t be wise.”
“I thought I was supposed to learn to care for the dying,” Jesse protested.
“Yes, eventually, but not in the city with anyone likely to die while you’re present. Originally I assumed that Ian would die at the Lodge, as he has always wished.”
The discussion closed there; Peter would say no more. The hypnosis was done in the lab, and Jesse remembered nothing of it afterward. He was glad of it, however. The idea that he might involuntarily endanger Carla haunted him.
She’d told him few details of her hacking activities. But as they waited on the city dock for a water taxi after mooring Peter’s plane, she said sadly, “If Ian is in a hospice, I suppose I should inactivate his file.”
“No,” Peter told her. “Ian said specifically that we are not to list him as in stasis before he dies. He has no family, after all, to inquire about him. I am his only legal heir.”
“But Peter, it’s dangerous to leave his file active. Someone in geriatrics may remember him, and what if he’s called for a mandatory health check?”
“He had one a few weeks before he got too weak to pass it. He asked for it, in fact, because he knew what would soon happen.”
“Ian asked for a health check? Voluntarily?”
“It surprised me,” Peter admitted. “He said he must do it to prevent being caught later, when they wouldn’t release him.” At Carla’s frown he added, “Yes, I know—it’s contrary to the policy he himself established. We reject so-called preventative care except the minimum required by law. But something made him believe it would be important for him to remain free without our having to hide the fact that he’s still alive. Did I ever tell you that he has precognitive dreams?”
“No,” said Carla. “Literally, you mean? Paranormal dreams?”
Peter nodded. “His abilities are far greater than ours, and precognition is, after all, a known psi talent, particularly among people experienced in remote viewing, as he is.”
Jesse, surprised, said, “Are you saying some people really foresee the future?”
“In dreams it’s fairly common, though I’ve never had such a dream myself. Ian rarely discusses his dreams, but he’s told me about some of them. The most recent made him feel he has something left to do in life, something that will require his action to be publicly acknowledged.”
“He’s kept out of the public eye for decades,” Carla protested. “What sort of action could be required of him?”
“He doesn’t know. He can’t even be sure that the dream was a true premonition; he never is, before events provide proof. But he asked me to tell you, Carla, so you’ll be sure not to inactiva
te his file.”
Ian also, Peter said, had expressed a strong desire to meet Jesse. They had been settled in the city only two days when Peter came by Carla’s apartment after work and accompanied them to the safe house where Ian was now living under Kira’s care. “I’ll feel honored to meet him,” Jesse said. “But why would he ask to see me, a stranger, when he’s dying?”
Peter was silent. Carla said, “He presided at the Ritual for all the rest of us. It’s hard for him, I suppose, to think of members coming in that he doesn’t know.”
Kira met them at the door. “He tires very quickly now,” she warned. “Don’t stay too long.”
Having been told that Ian was a hundred and thirty years old, Jesse had not known quite what to expect—but certainly not the vital, magnetic man he found. Ian, propped up on a couch in a room that looked nothing like a sickroom, did not even appear to be ill, let alone dying. He was thin; his hair was white and sparse; his skin was pale, almost translucent. But his eyes were alive with power as well as wisdom, and his voice was clear.
“So this is Jesse,” he said. “Sit beside me, Jesse, and let me get to know you.”
At a loss for what to say, Jesse approached the couch. Hastily Peter pulled a chair next to it for him to sit on and for that, Jesse was thankful; in another moment, he thought, he might have found himself kneeling.
There was silence. He longed to pour out his feelings to this man who was, he sensed, far more than he had guessed, despite all he’d heard of him these past weeks. And then he became aware that he didn’t need to. The telepathic link between them surpassed any he had experienced, even his link with Peter during the Ritual. If Ian wanted to know him, he had only to draw on that link. Words would be awkward and superfluous.
In the same moment, he knew why they all loved Ian, and knew that he, too, loved him and would weep at his death. But he would grieve for his own loss and the Group’s, not for Ian’s sake. Ian would die because it was time. He would not, Jesse felt, be extinguished. He knew this was an irrational feeling, against all his own past convictions, but he could not shake it.
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