White Light (Axoplasm Books)

by Rudy Rucker

  With a jerk I stood up and looked around. I was still just in my translucent green astral body. I spotted the beech tree where I’d left my flesh. I went over, determined to stick with it until it woke up or the police came and got it.

  The beech tree arched over me, its branches like drowned fingers. My body was gone.

  I scanned the area, straining my powerful senses to the limit. But the only unusual thing I noticed was a greenish glow moving towards me across the graveyard. At first I took it for just another bloog, but suddenly the glow rushed me. I shrank into a dense globe and it surrounded me. It was all I could do to keep from being absorbed. This thing, this ghost, was all round me, squeezing, pushing, prying with tendrils of ectoplasm.

  I was still whole, yet I was inside another astral being – bouncing gently like a fetus in the womb. I felt about for some signs of intelligence, and began to pick up psychic vibrations.

  Blind sorrow, uncomprehending loneliness, unreasoning fear. A man’s smiling face, close-up. White curtains. Rhythmic pains, harsh light on brushed steel, a gagging sweetness. A screaming yellow skull which came closer with each pain.

  I tried to recall who had died in Bernco in the last few weeks. Suddenly I remembered April telling me about a woman who had died in childbirth that month. Her name had been Kathy something. This must be her ghost.

  Whenever I tried to uncurl a little, the probing tendrils came at me again. I was being carried towards that fresh grave. I could feel the ghost’s yearning to nestle in the coffin with me. “Come on baby,” it crooned. “We go night-night.”

  I decided to make my move. I punched a pseudopod through the thinnest part of the creature around me and flowed out onto the ground. I planted feet and assumed a humanoid form…with red eyes and big black wings. I knew how scary an apparition that could be.

  The ghost was swarming towards me again. I curled my wings forward, held out my hands with the palms cupped, and loosed a terrible cry. The ghost gibbered and fled back to its grave.

  I felt a moment of peace then, with the night breeze blowing through me. It had stopped raining. The moon sailed through the tattered clouds like the Egyptian boat of the dead. What was that noise I had made? Sort of a scream breaking into high laughter sliding down into a coughing snarl. Highly effective. But I felt a little sorry for the ghost I’d driven off. I should have tried to talk to her, bring her back to sanity. She had been like a drowning swimmer grabbing me in deep water, and I’d treated it like a death threat.

  I heard a noise behind me. I scooted my face around to the back of my head in time to see the Devil gliding in for a smooth landing, his black wings outstretched, his red eyes fixed on mine. I tensed to flee.

  “Hold it right there, Rayman,” the Devil said in a gravelly voice. “You can’t outrun me.” He looked over slowly and spoke again with rising anger. “Impersonating the Devil. Leaving your body. Trying to black-market your soul. PK-ing those kids on the steps. Yelling at people. You think you’re too good for the rules, don’t you?”

  Feebly I tried to protest, but he just smiled terribly and sank his taloned hand into my shoulder. “You’re going to hell, Felix,” the Devil said, making his voice light and mocking. “You’re going to Hell right now.”

  “Wait,” I gasped. “You can’t. I’m not dead yet.”

  “If you’re not dead, where’s your body?” the Devil spat out. He snapped his fingers and a crack yawned open in the ground before us. Far below I could see the flames and the tortured souls, writhing like heaps of maggots. Screams and a faint stench came wafting up with the heated air.

  Only God could help me now. Desperately I prayed. “Dear Jesus Christ, please save my worthless ass.” I reached out with that central spot of my mind which could sometimes touch God. “Dear sweet Jesus, get me out of this.”

  The Devil released his hold on me and strode over to the crack. “In here, Felix,” he said gently. “Let’s go. Jesus isn’t going to answer you.”

  I kept on praying, more and more merged, less and less there. I put my whole attention on that central spot, the flaw, the source, the singularity, the lurking fear, the scream, the knot, the egg I never saw… I put my energy there and pushed. Everything got white and in the afterimage Jesus was talking to me.

  “I’m here, Felix,” Jesus said, “I’ll take care of you.”

  I opened my eyes. The Devil was standing by the crack he’d opened up, looking angry but uncomfortable. Jesus was next to me. Like the Devil, He had appeared in the form I had always imagined. He had long hair, a beard, sandals and brown robes. I couldn’t meet His eyes.

  There was a long silence. The moon was out from the clouds. I could have counted the veins in the leaves at my feet.

  “He’s not dead,” Jesus said to the Devil. “You know that.” I gave a sigh of relief. I had been wondering.

  “Where is my body?” I asked in a tight whisper. Jesus and the Devil exchanged a significant glance, but no one answered.

  “You’ll be seeing me again, Rayman,” the Devil snarled abruptly. “Your ass is mine.” He jumped into the crack in the ground. A tongue of flame shot up, and then the ground sealed back up.

  I turned to look at Jesus. I was trembling all over and beginning to sob. He put His hand on my shoulder and strength flowed into me like living water. “There’s no turning back now,” He said quietly.

  “You’re going to climb Mount On, and I want you to take Kathy, the girl who died in childbirth. You’re responsible for her now.”

  I nodded several times. “Of course, Jesus. Certainly. But what mountain do you mean? And what about my body?”

  Jesus smiled. I finally had the courage to look at His eyes, filled with terrible peace. “Your body is with…friends. Mount On is on Cimön. It’s infinite, Absolutely Infinite, but you’ll find a way to the end.” He took His hand off my shoulder and turned to go, then paused, looking towards the grave where I’d chased that ghost. “Kathy needs someone to help her leave Earth. Be sure you don’t let her come back with you. For your own good as well as hers.” He started walking off.

  I stumbled after Him. There were so many questions to ask. “And what should I do then?” I called. “What should I do with the rest of my life?”

  “Just don’t forget me,” came the answer. “I’m always here.” And then He was gone.

  My thoughts turned to the Absolute Infinity. That was bigger than alef-null, bigger than alef-one…bigger than any conceivable level. I was supposed to go to Cimön and climb a mountain Absolutely Infinite in height. I wished I still had that pamphlet from Sunfish. Who had put it there for me? Probably the Devil, to lure me out of my body again.

  Mount On! I figured God would be at the top. I could hardly wait to start. I might even solve the Continuum Problem on the way up.

  But first I had to make friends with that crazy ghost. Suddenly gloomy, I drifted over to her grave. I really didn’t feel like going down to that coffin. But, I told myself sternly, Jesus probably hadn’t been particularly eager to come to Bernco just now. And He’d done it calmly and lovingly.

  Slowly I imagined to work myself into a feeling of love for my fellow man. That poor woman…dead in childbirth and out of her mind with shock. I held my nose, shrank to the size of a doll, and sank down into the ground.

  As soon as I came into the coffin, the ghost pounced on me with a cry. Once again I formed myself into a sphere, and her clawing fingers slid off me. I looked around a little while the hysterical wraith worked me over. I could see fairly well in the fitful “light” of the cosmic rays.

  The coffin was lined with a tufted fabric which was smooth to the touch. Clearly a top-of-the-line model. The body was not as bad as I’d expected. It was well-embalmed and gave off only the faintest infra-red glow of decay. Of course the flesh had sort of puckered in everywhere and the lips had drawn way back and the eyes…well…

  I stopped looking around. There was a momentary lull in the ghost’s scrabbling at me. I formed a mouth and spok
e up. “Kathy, Kathy, Kathy. Relax. I’m here to help you.” The ghost stopped moving entirely, and I repeated my message. “I’m Felix,” I added. “Felix Rayman.”

  “Can I go home soon, doctor?” She asked in an odd, bright voice. She had fit herself back into her body.

  I plunged ahead. “I’m going to take you to where God lives,” I said. “On top of a big mountain.”

  “Why are you talking that way,” she moaned. “Just bring me my baby. Why haven’t I seen my baby?”

  “Your baby is at home,” I said. “Your baby is fine.”

  “Can I go home now?” she asked again.

  “You’re dead,” I said bluntly. “Your only home now is with Cod, and I have to take you to him.”

  “Who says you have to,” she asked in a more normal voice. “I want to stay right here.”

  “Look, Jesus Himself told me to get you. You could think of me as an angel of the Lord.”

  “You’re not an angel. You had black wings before. Angels have white wings.”

  “I’m sorry I did that,” I said. “I was scared of you. I’m just a person. But you must know where you are if you remember the black wings.”

  “What I think,” she said in a practical tone, “is that this is the worst dream I ever had. I keep lying here and waiting to wake up.”

  “This is no dream,” I said shortly. Squeezed into that coffin I was beginning to suffer from sensory deprivation. Odd and irrelevant images were dancing past. An alligator with a megaphone hollered at me while I caressed a carpet of naked breasts. I really didn’t want to slip back into a dream. I was still depressed about poor Donald Duck. “Come on Kathy,” I urged, “let’s go up and get some air.”

  I zipped up to the surface and took on my basic nude Felix Rayman shape. The moon was down and the sky was clear. I figured it was about four in the morning. Kathy came up hesitantly. As before, her shape was amorphous…a blob with a few tentacles.

  “Do you like my coffin?” she asked, using a crooked rip for a mouth. “It’s pink with red satin inside.”

  “It looks expensive,” I said finally.

  “It was. I watched them buy it. Frank wanted to just get a pine box. But my father insisted on buying the best coffin they make. The undertaker didn’t even have one on hand.” She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “They had to hold the funeral up for three days while they shipped the coffin here from the factory. Frank was really mad at my father.”

  I liked her voice. Hearing about her father and her husband made me embarrassed to be naked. Modestly I retracted my penis and testicles into my body mass.

  “How did you do that?” Kathy asked with interest. “And what happened to your wings?”

  “I can take any shape I want. You probably can too. Try!”

  Her mouth grew dripping fangs and she reached two giant lobster claws out towards me. I backed away.

  “Cut it out! Stop acting like a monster.”

  “Why shouldn’t I,” she said. “I’m a ghost.”

  “Didn’t you ever hear stories where the ghost is a beautiful lady in white?” I pointed at a nearby monument topped by a statue of a woman. She had a Roman nose and long hair flowing down to cover the nipples of her firm breasts. “How about something along those lines?”

  “If I’m dead, I’m through with being a sex-object. I’m going to pick my own shape this time.” She pulled her claws back in and hovered uncertainly.

  And then she began to change. First she shrank to a compact mass. Then four lobes bulged out. Two grew long and flat, one became short and pointed, and one was short and wedgy. Her ectoplasm flowed and molded fine details until finally I could see the form she had chosen.

  “A seagull,” she said, cocking her head and fixing me with a bright green eye. “Just like in that great book.”

  “I never read that book,” I said. I felt stuffy and a little foolish in my bowdlerized body. I reverted to the mushroom shape I’d used earlier. I made myself a foot high and formed a slit-like mouth on my top. “I guess I’ll use this shape,” I piped.

  “A penis?” Kathy exclaimed with amusement. “First you make it disappear, and now that’s all that’s left!” She flew off laughing. I gave up and went back to the original unexpurgated Felix Rayman.

  No. 7

  Let the Dead Help You

  After a few minutes Kathy flew back and perched on a branch in front of me. “That was fun,” she said. “That’s the farthest I’ve been from my coffin yet. I’m glad you came along to convince me I’m dead. As long as I thought I might be dreaming, I wanted to stay near my body to take care of it.”

  “But now you’re ready to move on?”

  “I guess. What was that you said about going to see God? I’m not so sure I want to. He’ll soak me right up and there’ll be nothing left.” She stretched out a wing and examined it. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t do a little travelling of my own. I’ve never even been to New York City.”

  “Oh come on,” I said. “We’re going to climb a mountain higher than all the infinite numbers. I’ve already figured out how to get started.”

  “That sounds like math. I hate math. Weren’t you a teacher at the college?”

  I nodded, then asked, “What about you?”

  “I studied American literature. I read everything Jack Kerouac ever wrote, and I’ve never been out of upstate New York.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “He does construction. Kitchens, bathrooms, remodelling. He hunts, but he’ll never take me on a vacation. How did you die?”

  “I don’t think I’m really dead. Jesus told me my body is waiting somewhere.”

  Kathy laughed harshly. “That’s a good one. Here you are acting like you’re going to be my big brother or something, and you haven’t even accepted your own death.”

  I really didn’t feel like discussing it. I was afraid she might convince me. “Forget it. Right now we’ve got other problems. Whether you believe the reasons or not, I’ve got to stick with you and help you get to God. But you want to tour the Earth. All right. We’ll do some touring, see anything you like. Then we’ll head out for the Beyond. O.K.?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I wondered what she had looked like when she was alive. She must have been fairly pretty to get away with being so stubborn.

  “Let’s start with New York,” she said, flying up to a higher branch. “How do we get there?”

  “Let’s go up a few thousand feet and head East. When we hit the coast, we’ll follow it South.”

  The sun was just coming up, and the sky was beautiful. There were bloogs of every color moving purposefully along twisting space curves. It was exhilarating to fly through them towards the brilliant sun.

  To fly I simply pulled myself along with a certain part of my mind. It was as if I was sliding along an invisible fiber that passed through my body from head to toe. By tightening certain parts of my spine, I could accelerate indefinitely. When I released the tension I just kept zipping frictionlessly along at the same speed. Kathy kept up with me easily. Her wings served no real purpose, and she rarely bothered to flap them. At first we raced, but then we levelled off at a few hundred miles per hour. I stopped worrying about what came next and enjoyed myself.

  When we hit the coast we turned right.

  Before long we could see the smoke and glittering glass of a big city. I looked for the twin towers of the World Trade Center, but couldn’t spot them. Then we were over the city and everything looked wrong. Manhattan is an island, but this city had a river running through it.

  “Where’s Fifth Avenue and the Village,” Kathy wanted to know.

  “I don’t think this is right.”

  We were slowly drifting down towards a tall glass building with some of its windows missing. Suddenly I realized. “This is Boston.”

  “That’s O.K.” Kathy answered, “I’ve never been here either. Where are the nice stores?”

  “Don’t tell me you want to lo
ok at clothes. If you think I’m going to go to dozens…”

  “No one wants you to come,” she interrupted. “We can split up and meet on top of this building.”

  I spotted a clocktower nearby. It was around nine in the morning. “Let’s meet at noon,” I suggested. “The big stores are all around here, and there’s a lot of stuff in Cambridge you might like too.” I pointed out M.I.T. and Harvard to her and we split up.

  I went over to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with a view to visiting the Monets. At first they looked wrong…patchy. I was seeing too much ultraviolet. When I’d cut my vision down to normal human sensitivity, the pictures looked as beautiful as ever, but looking at them made me impatient. It seemed like a waste of time to be doing normal tourist things in my astral body.

  I was beginning to wonder why I hadn’t seen any other ghosts. There were just the bloogs everywhere. Maybe it was dangerous to be a ghost? I started in fear the next time a bloog nodded past me. I began speeding up and down the halls of the museum looking for another ghost.

  I found one with the Creek marbles. He held himself in the traditional flowing sheet shape, and at first I mistook him for a bloog. But the light green glow distinguished him.

  “Up or down?” he said as I approached. “Up or down?”

  “Hello,” I said. “My name is Felix.”

  “Your name don’t matter. Up or down?”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but tried to answer him. “Well, first I’m going back downtown and then I’m hoping to go up to Cimön…all the way.”

  “Nobody lasts it out. Up or down. Up or down.” He started to drift towards the entrance, and I tagged along.

  “Have you seen many others?” I asked. “Many other ghosts?”

  “Hundreds of ’em. Thousands. Up or down.”

  “Does something make them leave? How come you can stay?”

  We were on the steps of the museum now. A thin student walked right through me. The old ghost chuckled unpleasantly. “You all think you’re going all the way up, but…it ain’t so easy. You get scared and stick around. And then you get nabbed.” He held up a drooping arm with two finger-like projections. The sign of the Evil Eye.