by Ryder Stacy
The desert wavered and flickered, as if it were bending, as if reality itself were bending. Then a thing—glowing like the glowers, only a sickly green—jutted out of the sand and tried to take a bite of the prow of the first gunship! The thing had three rows of teeth and must have been fifty feet wide. Only God knew how long. The thing was sort of like a worm, but with huge furled wings, with talons set all along their leading edges. Part seagull, part alligator, part earthworm!
As they all shrank back in horror, expecting the gunship to be devoured, the ship and its partner fired strange, rippling red rays at the thing’s many-eyed head. The thing’s teeth locked onto the hull, bending some of the forward plates of the ship’s prow. And then the thing screamed as the red rays hit an eye. It was a weird, other-dimensional scream that shuddered through the spine of each and every human who was watching. It chilled to the bone and deeper. It must have been a square hit, because the thing rose up out of the desert sea and sank beneath the sandy waves.
Zydeco and the others had scarcely caught their breaths when a sight met their eyes that made what they had just witnessed seem a kiddie’s tale told in the nursery. The three ships shuddered with the force of some terrible disturbances beneath the dunes. Then the things came bursting out of the sands—a veritable armada of horrid, glowing worm-bird-reptile creatures, with jaws the size of tanks. There must have been twenty or more of the neon nightmares leaping in and out of the dunes like flying fish. When they screamed, the green-gray platelets—scales around their worm necks—ruffled. Red flesh rattles slid out between their scales, making a horrible din. Strangest of all, the worm things seemed to pulse in and out of existence, as if a strobe light played on them.
They moved fast. One would be in one place and wink out. The next sighting, it would have moved to a completely different area. The two gunships flanked the hospital ship, sending out their own kind of wobbly, red death rays from very odd weapons. Zydeco, Archer, and the other humans could see devices resembling TV “rabbit ear” antennas rising from the decks of the gunships. Nyerping arcs of red and blue light were discharged into the air. The Glower leader, Turquoise Spectrum, tried to explain telepathically that the weapons were somehow linked into the creatures’ strobe-rhythms, the kill rays winking in and out of existence with the monsters. Or, to be more technical, following them into whatever dimension they tried to escape to. They were called strobe-pulsers. And they had better work!
The gun crews had all they could do to direct the weapons at the creatures and time them to the exact pulse of the creature’s dimension-jumping pulse, before they devoured the ships and their crews. If the shots were mistimed, the weapon and the creature would be out of sync. They weren’t mistimed!
The worm screams and thunderous worm rattles were deafening. That and the constant barrage of the weapons made the humans hold their ears.
The hospital ship was tossed from side to side by the writhing bodies of the dying thunder-worms. The gunships at all times sailed to protect the hospital ship. Rockson’s body, floating in its energy cocoon, swayed back and forth with the ship. He was totally unconcerned about the danger, about his earthly existence. Archer stayed right with him. The worst part about watching was the utter helplessness of Archer, Zydeco, and the Techno-survivors. No weapon they had could possibly touch these monsters from a sandy hell!
Each gunship was kept busy battling with these winking, blinking monsters, when suddenly a huge flying worm broke through the defenses and leaped over the deck of the hospital ship, just missing Rockson’s stasis cocoon. Random Vector, one of the bravest of the Techno-survivors, saw his chance for action. He ran straight to the end of the deck and jumped into the sandy sea. The worm’s jaws poised over Rockson, but that immense, horrible monster was diverted by the jumper. It chased after him, dove after him. Random Vector’s diversionary action not only saved Rockson, but the entire hospital ship, from certain destruction. As the worm thing ate the heroic man, they heard Random Vector’s mind waves: “I, RANDOM VECTOR, AM NO MORE. GOOD-BYE FRIENDS. MY BODY IS NO LONGER, BUT THE PART OF ME THAT IS THE WHOLE STAYS WITH YOU.”
The gunships continued the battle against the worms. Archer, Zydeco, and the other Techno-survivors watched in horror, their hair standing on end, this jagged nightmare of constant weapons’ sounds, pulsing screams, and rattles. The hospital ship tossed so much from side to side that they had all they could do to hold on. Archer could feel his stomach beginning to heave—seasickness on the desert!
Then, suddenly, it was over. The last of the attacking worms had been hit, and was screaming the awful scream of defeat. Then it winked out of existence. There were no other Glower or human casualties. All that was left was total silence and the distinct smell of ozone burning their nostrils, and the memory of Random Vector’s ultimate sacrifice for his fellow men.
“THE DANGER IS OVER,” said Turquoise, “FOR NOW.” They sailed on.
When they reached the area between the dozen geodesic domes, blue lit from inside, the sand ships slowed and many Glowers came running out with huge poles. The poles, Archer knew, would steady the ships, so they would not lean over on their sides, for once the sails went down, the ships were no longer capable of floating.
When the poles were in place and their great sail ship creaked down into their cradling arms, they all climbed down the ropes and then the Glowers lowered the cocoon that contained their desperately sick friend, Rockson.
The stretcher bearers took him from the stasis cocoon and carried him, as directed, into the largest of the domes.
As they were led inside the dome, the mountain man and his companions were again admonished not to touch their hosts. The bearers were ordered to lay Rockson on a sand painting of lightning bolts near the center of the twenty-foot-wide dome’s floor. Then they were told by Turquoise to sit on small rocks that were set in a circle near the walls of the structure. Turquoise and four other Glowers, as they came into the lodge, each picked up a circular shields about two feet wide. As they too sat, they placed the small, intricately decorated shields before them, so their bodies were mostly covered by them.
That made them look less weird to Archer. The shield hid all those pumping organs that made Archer feel so uncomfortable when he looked at them.
“BUT THAT IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF THE SHIELDS,” Turquoise Spectrum said in his mind. “EACH SHIELD PATTERN SHOWS THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OUR BEING, WHERE WE ARE ON THE PATH TO COMPLETION.” He sent Archer a burst of symbols. Archer grasped, someplace deep inside him, a pure understanding: an understanding that each person is a wheel, as the universe is a wheel; an understanding that we are born with only one part of the great wheel’s nature . . . male or female, active or passive, yang or yin, we are incomplete. In order to be whole, to pass on to a higher plane of existence, to progress toward its ultimate destiny—union and completion in the universe—a being must travel around that wheel, integrating all the energies of the mind and body.
Archer groaned, holding his head. Never had he had such a profound thought.
“WE HAVE BEEN ON THIS LAND A LONG TIME, AND HAVE COME TO FEEL RELATED TO THE INDIANS WHO ONCE LIVED IN THIS LAND,” Turquoise Spectrum said, in Archer’s mind. “THEIR SPIRITS—THEIR MOST POWERFUL MEDICINE MEN—STILL ROAM HERE. WE HAVE INTEGRATED THOSE SPIRITS INTO OURS, AND HAVE LEARNED MUCH.”
“That is all well and good,” Zydeco’s voice flared up, “but how can this discussion help our gravely ill friend, who, as we discuss these abstract things, breathes with great labor? Can you not do something?”
“WE HAVE ALREADY ANALYZED THE PROBLEM. THERE IS NO PHYSICAL MEDICINE THAT CAN CURE HIM, OR IT WOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN DONE. ROCKSON HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THIS REALITY. HIS DREAM WAS SO REAL TO HIM THAT . . .” Turquoise Spectrum looked up at the pale sun which could be seen right through the dome’s transparent material, obscured by fast-moving bands of red clouds. “ROCKSON IS NOT REALLY HERE. HIS CELLS THEMSELVES ARE TIED TO ANOTHER UNIVERSE THAT COLLAPSED WHEN THE DREAM MACHINE BROKE. AND H
E IS NO MORE.”
“Then there is no hope? Are we going to just sit and talk philosophy and watch him die?” Zydeco was much alarmed.
“NO. WE WILL DO THE MEDICINE WHEEL PRACTICE OF REINTEGRATION. WITH THE CYCLE OF THE GREAT MEDICINE WHEEL, THERE IS A CHANCE. YOU ALL MUST PARTICIPATE. IF IT WERE JUST ROCKSON AND WE GLOWERS, WE COULD NOT RELATE TO HIM ENOUGH. ARCHER, ESPECIALLY, IS TUNED TO THE WAY ROCKSON USED TO BE. AND YOU SEVEN SMALL MEN, YOU TECHNO-SURVIVORS, HAVE GREAT MIND POWER, THOUGH YOUR BODIES ARE FRAIL. IN ORDER TO REINTEGRATE ROCKSON, IF IT CAN BE DONE, ALL OF US COMBINED MUST DO THE MEDICINE WHEEL RITUAL. TRY TO BRING HIM BACK INTO FOCUS IN THIS UNIVERSE.
“I SENSE YOUR IMPATIENCE, HUMANS,” Turquoise Spectrum said. “YOU FEAR FOR THE LIFE OF YOUR DYING FRIEND, AND THAT IS GOOD. BUT WE MUST BECOME WHOLE SO THAT WE CAN GIVE ROCKSON THAT WHOLENESS. HE WILL BE THE RECIPIENT OF THAT WHOLENESS, AND THUS, PERHAPS, RESTORED.”
The thought transference went on: “THE GREATEST SECRET OF THE INDIANS WAS THE MEDICINE WHEEL. BUT IT WAS AN OPEN SECRET. THERE WERE SIX MILLION MEDICINE WHEELS IN THE AMERICAS. SETTLERS FOUND THEM EVERYWHERE, FROM MAINE TO CALIFORNIA. REMNANTS EXIST TODAY, BUT MOSTLY IN THE DESERTS. FOR IN EVERY WESTERN FOREST, IN EVERY WESTERN PLAIN AND PRAIRIE LAND, THERE WERE SUCH CIRCLES. THEY ARE ALIGNED TO THE BRIGHT STARS, SO THE WHITES THOUGHT THE WHEELS HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH CALENDARS, OR CROP PLANTING, OR ASTRONOMY. THAT IS TRUE, BUT IT IS NOT THE HEART OF THE INDIAN WAY! THAT, THE WHITES DID NOT UNDERSTAND! IT IS THE WAY OF COMPLETION, THE ROUNDING OF THE CIRCLE. EVERY PERSON IS BORN WITH CERTAIN POWERS. THIS POWER IS THE BEGINNING OF THE WHEEL.
“NOW LET US BEGIN!”
Twenty-Eight
Aside from Rockson, there were twelve in all: Archer, seven Techno-survivors, and four Glowers. They sat in the wide circle, each on a whitewashed medicine rock. Turquoise used his deep oral voice, not his mind voice, to explain to them gently the nature of the medicine wheel. “The Indians that were here before the Europeans had millions of these circles in North America. They recognized that a healing, a reentering the circle of nature, of the universe, was vital to health and sanity. So they gathered at certain times of year to share—wholeness. The men of today, the technical, logical men and women of today, have forgotten this need to interconnect. They have surrendered wholeness to material power. But we have relearned the power way of the original Americans. We Glowers teach you now as the Indians once taught their children.
“There are four great directional powers in the world and thus in this medicine wheel: to the north, where I sit, is wisdom. Wisdom’s color is white, like snow. And the medicine animal of the north is the elk. But wisdom needs other things: compassion, otherness, to be complete.
“In the south of the great circle of life, where Archer sits, is the power of innocence and devotion to others: the heart nature. Its color is green. And its animal is the mouse.
“To the east is the eagle. He can see keenly and is cruelly aware—that is science today, and medicine of the technical nature. Its color is golden brown.
“The west is the wolf, which gathers all the information it needs for the brood to survive. The man of the west—such as Rockson—looks inward and outward, but is always the leader of the pack. Its color is red.
“These are the four basic symbols. The in-between directions are represented by the animals called bear, buffalo, hawk, pheasant, otter, beaver, squirrel, deer. They are the little brothers of the primary animals. The shields also have black arrows pointing toward the center or outward. Inward-pointing arrows denote introspection, outward-pointing arrows denote panoramic awareness. Thus, when we see a being’s shield, we know his starting point on the great wheel.”
Turquoise Spectrum made a sweeping gesture with his right hand and materialized a rawhide shield in front of each of the humans sitting with him. And all of them were amazed. “Look at your symbols now,” Turquoise Spectrum said, “and learn about yourselves.”
Archer quickly turned his shield. The huge mountain man expected an elk, or something big and strong. He was disappointed. Archer’s shield was rather humbling for a big man. It contained a small and very plain green mouse, which was surrounded by tiny arrows pointing inward. “So,” he fumed inwardly, “so I am a nearsighted mouse that sees everything nearby well, but doesn’t think of other things!” Archer grumbled and shifted uncomfortably, mumbling into his massive tangle of beard. He wanted to have the elk! He wanted to be large, not small. He would be intelligent, sharp. And instantly, he realized he could be those things, if he could do as Turquoise instructed. So Archer got very serious.
Surgeon Escadrille turned his shield and bent his head to see that his shield contained the golden brown hawk, brother animal to the eagle of the east. Hawks see both at a distance and closely. His black arrows pointed outward, thus symbolizing his strength of panoramic awareness, most suitable for a scientist or doctor. The hawk, he intuited, symbolized the power of intelligence a doctor needs. He looked around, catching glimpses of other shields, knowing the nature of the others, knowing what he lacked. And he wanted to be complete.
Zydeco studied his own shield, and the shields of all the other Techno-survivors. Except for the surgeon’s, they all were identical. Zydeco had in common with his friends the golden brown eagle of the east, the exact opposite of Archer. Eagle people had panoramic awareness but would never feel close to things, be touched by the heart. Zydeco’s shield had arrows pointing outward at the borders, indicating, perhaps, a potential for great achievement. He had to admit that the symbols were good summaries of pyschological-philosophical dispositions, at least in the strange Glower terminology. But how a symbol could help cure someone—well, he was much more than skeptical. Still, he kept an open mind. The Glowers were amazing beings!
Turquoise spoke: “We beings are very disparate in strengths and weaknesses. We have different capacities, different needs. Throw aside skepticism and all vainglory; be of open heart and mind!” Now the Glower leader used his mind force. He thought-spoke to all of them: “THE GREAT WHEEL RITUAL WILL BEGIN. THOUGH YOU WILL FEEL AS IF YOU ARE LOSING YOURSELVES, DO NOT WORRY. YOU WILL REGAIN YOURSELVES, FEELING MUCH RICHER IN POWER. NOW, COME AND WE WILL EXPLORE THE POLLEN PATH AS WE LINK OUR MINDS. LET US BE QUICK. YOUR FRIEND, ROCKSON, HAS BEEN WANING. HE HAS LESS THAN A HALF HOUR. I CAN TELL YOU WITH ASSURANCE THAT HE WILL NOT REVIVE UNLESS WE CAN GIVE HIM THE POWER OF ALL THE SHIELDS! THE MEDICINE WHEEL MUST SPIN!”
Turquoise turned his thought-beam upon Archer, and the mountain man alone heard the admonition: “ARCHER, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, STEADY YOUR MIND! YOUR FRIEND NEEDS YOU ABOVE ALL. THIS IS NOT A MATTER OF PRIDE. THERE ARE NO BETTER AND LESSER SHIELDS! BESIDES, YOU ARE A GREAT WARRIOR. YOUR GREAT GIFT IS THAT YOU ARE IN TOUCH WITH THE PRESENT, THE HERE AND NOW. THIS GROUNDING IS VITAL TO ROCKSON. YOU WILL SEE AND UNDERSTAND MANY THINGS THAT WILL ADD TO YOUR SHIELD. YOU WILL BE THE MOST NECESSARY TO HELP A FRIEND. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
Archer nodded. He calmed down, swallowing his hurt pride. But he shot out the words, “Only to save Rock!”
“NOW WE SPIN THE WHEEL. THE GREAT MEDICINE WHEEL!”
They sat for a long time cross-legged, staring at the center, at Rockson. Finally Archer felt woozy. It wasn’t the heat, though the sunlight coming into the dome from above was getting very hot. No, it was a strange beam of light caused by the sun rays coming through an opening at the top of the dome, striking Turquoise’s mighty shield. The reflection from the shiny white elk shield shot into each of their minds. Archer, the others, felt—light. They were floating off the sand floor, as a matter of fact!
They seemed to rotate—and each of them felt a LOSS. A loss of more than weight. A loss of identity.
Zydeco gasped. He was Archer, and then he wasn’t. He didn’t know who he was in the circle of twelve. He decided he was a white elk being, the great Turquoise himself, and nearly screamed. The power of his mind! Oh my God, how could he stand it! Zydeco’s shield, across the way, instantly received a bolt from Turquoise’s all-powerful
mind and changed to add the elk symbol. Then Zydeco’s consciousness passed to the next body-soul matrix. And the next.
For Archer, the experience was different. First of all, to feel light, being four hundred and ten pounds heavy, was a very odd sensation indeed. And so the flux of his ego loss came by surprise. He was released instantly from his rather defensive mental makeup. Years of holding himself inward and tight were now just—gone! He didn’t have to do that now. Archer, as the beam of light hit him from Turquoise’s great shield, understood that he was no longer in need of hiding. He understood that he had been always trying to avoid being hurt, that he had a great fear of being made fun of. He groaned. That defensiveness was a prideful thing, a thing that must be laid aside. Then a beam of light shot from Turquoise’s great shield to Archer’s shield. The mouse now shared the shield with the elk! Arrows turned out. Archer felt a shift of his very essence then, and his vision cleared. He was staring at himself from the other side of the dome.
How could this be? His panic subsided when he realized he was now looking through the calm, clear eyes of the surgeon, and feeling and thinking like the surgeon. And then a beam of light shot from his shield, the surgeon’s shield, toward Archer. Archer’s shield now also contained a hawk!
And Archer’s consciousness again blurred and he became Zydeco; and then he was another being, and another, and another!
The surgeon looked down incredulously at his massive body, his tangled beard. “God, what was this? I am actually Archer. No, think for a second? Hallucination. Has to be.” He squeezed his eyes shut, big watery things, and opened them again; still he was Archer. Turquoise said to just let it go. Surgeon Escadrille remembered, and tried. And then there was relief. It was alright to be Archer—and it was over. Now he was himself again—the little body, so frail. He had never felt so frail until he had been Archer for a moment. The surgeon smiled and realized he still felt the strength of the great bearlike man he had been. So he looked at his shield and saw the change. Another pattern had been added to his hawk shield: Archer’s inward pointing arrows and green mouse. Escadrille understood a little more of his self nature. And he had more feeling. Yes, that was the word. He was becoming whole, sharing all the directional powers.