Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy

by David Spencer

  “What about Von?”

  “The Initiate, the Supervising Master and the Reciter only. The Observer must abstain.”

  “Why?”

  “The designation tells it.”

  “Is he, like, a witness?” Buck glanced over at Von, but Von’s face was revealing nothing now. Buck’s eyes flicked back to the female Elder.

  “Like,” acknowledged Ru.

  General silence.

  “Now what?” Buck asked.

  She lifted a finger, stabbed the air for emphasis as she spoke. “You close your eyes. And you listen.” She said it as if it were the most fun-filled activity she knew.

  He closed his eyes.

  At first he heard only the rain. The thunder.

  Then he heard something else—Lewski’s voice.

  “To understand right from wrong, one must lose one’s vested interest in either,” he intoned, and Buck recognized the first basic tenet of Kewisto. “To understand good from evil, one must seek the context for each, even in the purest extreme, despite that the extreme may seem obvious.” The second basic tenet. Was this all there was to the Tighe Marcus-ta then? A simple recitation of general principles? “To understand the present, one must view it as history long past.” It all seemed anticlimactic and unrevealing. He had been under the impression that the Tighe Marcus-ta was a spiritual point of no return with the capacity to ignite great changes. So far it was rudimentary, telling Buck nothing he didn’t already know, and it gave no evidence of going beyond that.

  Until the fourth tenet.

  “To see life, one must step back from life.”

  Which he knew by rote, of course, but for the first time, he heard it differently. It had a different resonance. It no longer seemed philosophical arcana.

  (A man desires to know the meaning of life. Ru’s voice in unbidden memory.)

  Now the fourth tenet was a practical instruction.

  Now it was something he could do.

  Why? Why was it suddenly so easy to—

  (So he scrimps and saves for a spiritual journey that will take him to the Himalayas.)

  The brew.

  Something about the brew.

  The brew and the words. The one amplified your ability to home in on the other, to concentrate in an altogether new fashion. Lewski’s soothing delivery also figured into the equation, making it absolutely apparent why he was the Reciter. He had the voice for the job.

  Buck felt blood coursing through his head, creating a feeling of intense warmth and liberating lightness. He had the strange impression that his thoughts were rising above his body. That his thoughts were outside his body, that if they went far enough outside his body, they would be outside his experience as well. Which was, of course, the goal.

  So odd . . . to be drifting and yet to be so clear.

  Maybe this is how it begins, thought Buck. You separate from yourself first . . . and that allows you to separate from everything else. Could that be the secret?

  (Because he knows that in the Himalayas, there is the marvelous Guru of gurus, the wellspring of all spiritual knowledge, the one being on Earth who can tell him . . . tell him the meaning of life.)

  He became less aware of complete tenets as Lewski recited them, for his own dreamy musings overpowered the input to his ears; thus he faded in and out, sporadically aware of only key words, such as—

  “. . . family . . .”

  And he thought inevitably of Vessna, Emily, Mom, and Dad. Saw them not as his, but as an average family unit. Not particularly distinctive in the grand scheme. Just trying to get by in an alien culture. It seemed not so terrible anymore that they had adopted the ways of humans; human ways represented a freedom of choice never available on the slave ship. Thinking about it now, it seemed only natural that his family would eschew the old ways he himself sought so fervently to master. Old ways were, after all, unpleasant reminders (unless you went back before the slave ship, before birth, an enormous leap not only of faith but of rare imagination). And of course his father would react strongly against that actress—she represented the next logical step in assimilationism: She was a reminder on top of a reminder. Dad’s view was an unspecial reaction. An unspecial reaction from an unspecial man. (Unspecial? Dad? Unspecial? Had to be. The logic insisted, persisted, and would not be denied.)

  “. . . to understand love from hate . . .”

  Love. He had loved a human schoolteacher once, not long ago. Marilyn Houston. She had loved him too. And no sooner had their unwittingly indiscreet relationship begun than it was thwarted; without fanfare, she was suddenly and mysteriously offered a transfer by the powers that be to some school “in the Bay Area.” When Buck had subsequently tracked her down, collecting clues like a detective (like his father, she’d said), she told him their continued relationship just wouldn’t be a good idea. In fact, she’d be giving up teaching altogether for a while, opting instead to accept an offer from an old grad school professor to be a research assistant in Boston. She promised to write, though. But so far, she hadn’t. Buck had resented her bitterly for that, as well as the meddling school board, but now . . . now the resentment dissipated. He now understood that she had been afraid of her emotions—that simple—and had allowed bureaucracy to separate her from temptation. An unspecial reaction from an unspecial woman. (Unspecial? Marilyn? Literate, sensitive Marilyn? Again, Kewisto, demystifying so much that used to be so fascinating.)

  “. . . lust from passion . . . proficiency from artistry . . . worth from worthlessness . . . slavery from freedom . . .”

  Images and events from his life swirled before him, each reduced to a concept, a logical construct that made it powerless before his keen and explosive new powers of reasoning.

  (The obsession costs this man everything, his friends, his family, his job—because he pursues it to the exclusion of them all, and when he has to, at their expense.)

  A light of truth was beckoning him. The new revelations were a bit disturbing, rendering unspecial many things he had once thought terribly special indeed, but he knew that if he obeyed the light, followed where it led, nothing would disturb him any further.

  “Do you think I might get up and walk a bit?” he heard himself say, and there couldn’t have been any objection, because next thing he knew, he was ambulatory.

  (Two thirds of his life over, he journeys to the Far East, and braves brutally hot weather, shockingly unhygienic living conditions, and years of poverty as he researches the specific whereabouts of his guru. He finally learns of a small cave the man occupies, near the very top of the tallest mountain.)

  As the light beckoned, he wondered about himself. It would be the height of arrogance to think of Buck Francisco as any better than those unspecial people from whom he had separated, and yet he had this knowledge that they were not privy to, he understood things about them that they might never understand about themselves.

  And the light told him: “You must understand Buck. Understand Buck first. Do that and you shall find the balance you seek.”

  (So he endeavors to climb the mountain. It’s a long, arduous task.)

  The sound of Buck’s own breathing intensified in his ears, as well as the double lub-dubs of his hearts.

  Buck Francisco the individual had started out as the slave-child of adult slaves, part of a collective. At the age of ten, he’d been taken from his parents and trained to be a Watcher—the title being a euphemism for Informer. Like all the other Watchers, he’d known no other life but the Ship, and Overseer propaganda had nearly convinced him that there was nobility attached to being a Watcher. But something within him, something primal, had led him to resist the group mentality the Overseers tried to impose, the suppression of personal identity, resist it so much that he became a rebel almost reflexively. Ironic, then, how his biggest rebellion, the upholding of the old ways, had led him to the Elders of the Kewisto—and back to a group mentality. And to a Tighe Marcus-ta, a willing absorption into a group mentality—

  —wai
t, that can’t be right—

  (And there’s the great Guru of gurus: wizened, frail, wispy hairs trailing from his head, maybe even two centuries old—and if not, he sure looks it—chanting a mantra that may have been going on for hours or days. He looks up upon the entrance of the poor, disheveled supplicant, his concentration broken. And he says, “Yes, my son?”)

  —there was no dignity in the group mentality of slavery. Yet there was dignity to spare amongst the Kewistans. Even if they could not get involved in affecting change but held it as their mandate to remain subservient to worldly events, abdicating responsibility for them—

  —just like slaves—

  —wait, that can’t be right—

  (And the guy says, “Great Guru of gurus, you must tell me . . . what is the meaning of life?”)

  —he was Buck Francisco, he was nobody’s damn slave, that’s how this whole thing began—

  (And the Guru of gurus says, “Life, my son? Life . . . is a fountain.”)

  —don’t tell me I’ve come full circle on this. I am not a slave. I have identity. I am not some unspecial—

  —but if I’m not unspecial, how can I view others as unspecial?

  (Well, my dear, our hero is just incensed. “A fountain!” he exclaims. “Life is a fountain? I sacrifice my family, my job, and the better part of my life to come here at great personal risk, and all you have to say is, ‘Life is a fountain’???!!!”)

  “Understand Buck,” said the light. “Understand Buck first.”

  Show me where he is.

  “I will show you,” said the light.

  Buck walked right into its path.

  (And the Guru of gurus becomes frightfully nervous.)

  The next thing he knew, he was body-slamming into the ground, under something very large, and he was wet, getting wetter.

  His trance was broken on the instant. The light that had beckoned him zoomed past with the blast of angry air horns and a huge spray of water as a double row of semi truck wheels sliced through a large puddle. In a devastating flash of comprehension, Buck found himself sucked right back into reality and knew what had happened. He had wandered outside—where rain clouds had so darkened the sky, rainwater had so occluded the view, that cars had had to turn on their brights in the thick of the afternoon. And he had drifted into the middle of Ventura Boulevard—very nearly into the path of an oncoming truck. Mesmerized by its headlights.

  (And he puts a shaky hand to his pale face.)

  But at the last possible second, he had been pulled, or knocked, out of the semi’s path and onto a patch of wet grass by . . .

  Von.

  Von the Observer.

  Who looked upon him with something that was not quite disdain but very like, as the rain, still slashing down, drenched them both.

  (And he says, “You mean life isn’t a fountain?”)

  Von gave a curt nod, to himself more than to Buck, his mouth forming a tight, weary frown . . . as if this were all so inevitable. Boringly inevitable. Inevitable, too, that he should have to break his vow of silence.

  “Reconsider,” he said. Just the one word. And, once he was sure it had sunk in, helped Buck off the ground.

  C H A P T E R 1 8

  BY THE TIME the electric lock had been fixed, they were getting along like sisters. Bickering sisters to be sure, but sisters. As if Fran’s behavior had been no more than that of a child testing its limits with a guardian, for now that those limits had been defined, she was adjusting her behavior accordingly. Even when irrationality held her in its grip, she had an instinctive sense of lines that must not be crossed. There was no more need for intervention on the part of the hospital staff. There barely seemed need of the straitjacket.

  Steinbach pulled Cathy aside, of course, shook an angry fist, even played the “What if?” game—“What if you’d really been hurt?” and “What if you hadn’t gotten Fran under control?” and, her favorite, “What if Dr. Casey had been here? He’d have frigging killed me!”—but he was really just blowing off steam. Cathy calmly pointed out that none of those things had happened (the best way to win at the “What if?” game), and Steinbach regained his objectivity pretty quickly. In truth, the situation did seem under control, so he consented to let Cathy continue.

  He very much wanted Fran back in restraints, though, and was not at all happy when Cathy argued against it, demanding that the need of the moment should be the determining factor—wanting, now that Fran was under control, to bring some mutual trust into the situation. The Leethaag could still go either way; and the stronger the bond, the better the chances.

  Strictly speaking, it was not Cathy’s decision to make, but she reminded Steinbach that she was, after all, the one who had bonded with Fran—proving herself under stress in the bargain—which made her, ethically speaking, Team Captain.

  She actually put it that way. Team Captain. Thank you, Matt Sikes.

  “Should never have let you Newcomers near professional sports,” grumped the doctor. Then he left them alone.

  Fran started losing her mind about ninety minutes later.

  They talked about many things and, curiously, none of them was Matt Sikes. It was as if for each of them, the man they had in common had become a private issue. Not to be shared. Guarded, for reasons that neither of them could apply—or confess—to the other.

  So now they were talking about auditioning, Cathy marveling at the courage and confidence she imagined it took. “I’d be too nervous,” she said.

  “Nerves are okay, if you can use them,” Fran told her, “if you can incorporate them into what you’re doing. The biggest danger is denying your own feelings. That’s death because it sends ’em a mixed signal. If you go with your nerves, you may not give your ideal reading, but at least they think you’re making a conscious, focused choice. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get the job.”

  “I don’t know. ‘Using your nervousness’? Intellectually I can grasp it, but emotionally—”

  “—It’s a bit of a skill,” Fran acknowledged with a nod, making the few hairs that still clung to her pate bob limply in the air. “But do you want me to tell you the real trick of auditioning?”

  “You’ll understand if I’m a little wary of the word ‘trick’ right now, but . . . Yes, I’d like that. Please,”

  “Get yourself a secret metaphor. An image to draw strength from. I got mine from doing the PACT classes.” By now, Fran had discussed a little of her history with Cathy.

  “And what is it?”

  “I go in there like I’m going to teach them something. Like it’s my job to show them something they didn’t know. Like they’re my students. That way, I’m in control.”

  “Oh,” said Cathy, putting a hand to her chest, genuinely impressed. “Oh, that is good. Oh, that is very good. It just turns the tables, doesn’t it?”

  Fran nodded. “Anything you can do to empower yourself. I have to take care that I don’t bring attitude about it into the room. But if I keep the metaphor altruistic and pure, I can almost always get them to see that, my God, there are bugs in my head.”

  At first Cathy thought it was one of those colloquial American English idioms. Something Fran had picked up along the way, something Cathy needed to have interpreted.

  But then Fran asked, “How did they get in there?” and added “Get them out,” with such chilling, calm conviction that Cathy realized the actress was serious.

  Not three seconds after that, Cathy received an altogether new sympathetic sensation. It was akin to the tingle she had felt on her scalp when Fran was losing hair, but now it was on her brow . . . there first . . . then very strongly on both cheekbones and spreading behind the ears. As before, the sensation began as an itch, but it rapidly developed into something more naggingly intense, something in there deep, too deep for scratching or rubbing to offer any desirable relief.

  It felt like the pinpricky sensation on a leg that has “fallen asleep” to which circulation suddenly returns. And, sure, you could
liken the pinpricks to insects’ feet because they were

  pointed.

  Moving.

  In patches.

  Dancing.

  Scuttling.

  But Fran wasn’t likening the sensation to bugs, she was believing in the bugs. Cathy knew why, and she knew what it meant.

  This is the bad part, she thought.

  As if the rest had been pleasant.

  But, relative to the rest, she was right.

  Fran’s hands were rising to her face. Cathy gently reached forward and grabbed her wrists.

  “I have to get them out,” said Fran. “The bugs.”

  “I know,” replied Cathy. “That’s not the way.”

  “Well, what is the way?”

  “It’s my job to do, not yours. Trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stick your arms out.”

  Fran did, wincing spasmodically every other second.

  Her face was starting to revert, to reassert its Tenctonese structure. All the altered bones in Fran’s head were beginning to soften, to become malleable, almost fluid, to facilitate the change. The musculature was simultaneously adapting and pulling the softened bones back into shape. Things just as extreme would be happening to the affected areas of her skin. Fran’s hands could not be permitted to rub, scratch, or put pressure on her face and skull. Any such contact ran the risk of subverting the regeneration process, causing deformity, nerve damage, brain damage—or worse.

  Cathy lifted the straitjacket. Held it in front of Fran expectantly.

  Fran regarded the garment, fighting the impulse to touch her face.

  “How will that help?”

  “No time to explain. Come on.”

  Like a child, Fran allowed Cathy to guide her arms through the sleeves. And Cathy worked quickly, not even pausing to rub her own face, which, though perfectly immune from the process, still registered the insidious sensation. In order to protect Fran from herself, Cathy had to forgo her own comfort, work at breakneck pace.

  When the jacket was firmly on, Cathy got behind Fran, pulled the sleeves tight, and belted them in. Then she reached around and embraced the actress, holding her close. Hoping this would work. There were no guarantees. Withdrawal was still dangerous and Fran could still die.