I feel a desperate need to hear a friendly voice. Matt has given me what he swears is a secure cell phone. I pick it up and give Umara a call. She answers right away.
“How are you?” she asks.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” I say.
“That’s to be expected. Tell me everything that’s happened.”
I give Umara a quick but thorough overview. It doesn’t take long with her because she grasps situations quickly. Plus she was in a similar position thousands of years ago. When I finish, she asks if I want help.
“Not yet,” I reply. “No matter how much Brutran opens up to me, I don’t trust her. There’s no predicting how she’ll react when the Telar’s top people have been killed.”
“When she’s done using you, she’ll try to get rid of you.”
“Probably. But she’s more desperate than you would imagine. This will sound strange but it’s like she clings to me.”
“It’s probably an act. She’s a master manipulator,” Umara says.
“It could be genuine. And she still might be planning to kill me.”
“The devil’s at his most dangerous when he’s telling the truth.”
“Speaking of devils, how do I get rid of this feeling that the Familiar is still attached to me?”
“You can’t. It is attached to you. And it will grow stronger the more you feed it.”
“With pain and suffering?”
“I think for a creature as advanced as your Familiar, that’s probably dessert. I’m sure it’s listening to every word we’re saying, while drawing up long-term plans.”
“For what? Me? The world?”
“Both. Sita, I’m sorry but I did warn you.”
“When you spoke in the car on the drive down, I don’t know, it all felt like an old fable. I didn’t really think I’d be battling demons.”
“The battle has yet to start. Right now you’re allies.”
I groan. “Tell me some good news.”
“Shanti and Seymour are a hundred percent cured. That means we can start manufacturing Charlie’s vaccine. The question is, who should we turn to for help?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. As soon as we attack the Source, the Telar will release the virus. We’re almost out of time. I say send Charlie here and let him turn over his research to the IIC’s best scientists. With a sample of the vaccine already available, I bet they can start mass-producing it within two days.”
“The Telar can kill half the population in that time.”
“That’s why we should get it ready now,” I say.
“One point worries me. Without the need for daily injections, you’ll lose the strongest hold you have over Brutran and her people.”
“I still have your blood samples. That’s enough. They still need me.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to be cheering me up.”
I feel Umara smile. “Would you like to talk to Matt? He told me to tell him if you called.”
I hesitate. “What’s his state of mind?”
“The trip back to Missouri was rough. Teri’s funeral, seeing her parents, having to invent a story to explain her ‘accident.’”
“I wish I could have been there.”
“You look too much like her. You would have raised questions.”
“Put Matt on. I’ll talk to him.”
Umara pauses. “Sita?”
“Yes?”
“You had to sacrifice Lisa. It was your only way in.”
“I know. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Umara sets down the phone and while I wait I roll on my back and stare at the ceiling. It’s almost as if I see a shadow hovering over me.
“Hello, Sita. Mom says you’re going through hell.”
“I’m sure I deserve it.” I give him a quick rundown on what’s been happening, almost a repeat of my update to Umara. The only difference is Matt doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t even object when I talk about sending Charlie to join me. That’s a surprise. It’s like he no longer cares, about anything.
“You have always been against going to the IIC for help,” I say.
“You’re already there, it’s done. Besides, you’re right, you start to hurt the Telar and they’ll strike back. We need tons of vaccine on hand. Let the IIC make it and distribute it.” He pauses. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“I guess I just miss our old arguments,” I say.
“They were all about nothing.”
“You miss her. I miss her, too.”
“I know. At least I got to . . . say good-bye.”
“That was fortunate.”
I hear Matt sigh. “I just wish my mom had more of Krishna’s blood. Or John could have kept Teri in her body. She was right there, you know, in my arms. She just slipped away.”
“I don’t think we’ll understand why it happened the way it did. But you know, even though her life was short, it was rich. She won the big race. She won your love.”
“Yeah. The love of a man who couldn’t protect her.”
“Your love was wonderful. And who knows, perhaps we’ll all meet again one day. All these battles I’m fighting with these demons, it makes me believe there’s got to be a few angels out there, somewhere, looking over us. Krishna couldn’t have stacked the deck totally against us.”
Matt draws in a deep breath and slowly lets it go. He sounds like he’s relaxing. “Your words help.”
“Your voice helps, Matt. Just the fact you’re out there.”
“You get in a tight spot, give me a call. I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”
“That means a lot to me.” I pause. “I love you.”
He’s silent a long time. “You’re always in my heart, Sita.”
We talk a while longer but it’s just a bunch of words. He does tell me, however, that Lieutenant William Treach came to Teri’s funeral. He says the man appeared confused. Worse, it appears his wife is in a mental hospital. Matt gives me the name of the clinic. He got it from the detective knowing I would want it.
When Matt and I hang up I call the police detective. I feel responsible for upsetting the Treaches’ lives. I catch him at work, alone in his office. The man asks who I am and in an instant I know he’s not well. Damn, I should never have used my psychic powers when I was in Teri’s body. I definitely started a loop in his mind.
“I’m Teri Raine’s cousin,” I say. “She told me about meeting you in Denver. And I heard you were at her funeral in Missouri.”
“That’s true. Our first meeting was serious. It involved a murder case. But we formed a bond of sorts the next time we spoke.” He stops and the confusion in his voice is evident. “I felt close to Teri, it’s hard to explain. I was saddened to hear about her death.”
“It was a tragedy.”
“I was never clear how she died.”
“I believe the accident is still being investigated. But it’s not the reason I called. I’m concerned about you and your wife.”
“My wife? How do you know my wife?”
“I heard she was ill.”
“Who told you this?”
I allow a measure of my telepathic power to flow out. “It doesn’t matter. Lieutenant William Treach, Bill, please close your eyes and relax. Listen to the sound of my voice. You don’t have to block out other sounds, you simply have no interest in them. You’re not even concerned with your office. You hear my voice and that’s all that matters. Do you understand?”
He sounds dreamy. “Yes.”
“From the time you returned home to your wife after meeting Teri Raine, a series of suggestions were placed in your mind. They were placed there with the best of intentions. No one meant you any harm. But it’s time those suggestions were erased. You’ll feel better with them gone. Now go back in time to that evening. You walk in the house and you sense someone behind you. From that instant on, until six o’clock the next morning, I want you to purge all your memories
. Anything that happened during that time can no longer bother you. It no longer exists. From now on, you’ll feel and act like your old self. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Continue to sit with your eyes closed and take a five-minute nap. When you awaken, you will have forgotten that I called. But you’ll feel rested and refreshed, ready to tackle any task that comes your way. At the same time, deep in your heart, you know your wife, Sandra, is going to be okay. She’s going to make a full recovery. Is this totally clear?”
He hesitates. “I don’t feel . . . Yes.”
My mental powers are at full strength. I don’t know why he hesitates.
“What don’t you feel, Detective?” I ask.
He’s a long time answering. His breathing sounds strained.
“Something’s here,” he whispers. “Something . . . dreadful.”
I go to ask him to clarify but stop. He’s sensing the Familiar! Worse, the creature’s trying to disturb the healing I’m doing on him.
“Hang up the phone, Detective, and take your nap.”
I cut the line before anything else can be done to the man.
I feel as if I’ve been psychically abused. I dare not call Sandra and try to repair her mind. In her disturbed mental state, God only knows how vulnerable she would be to a Familiar. I’ll have to avoid acting as a healer until I’m rid of the creature.
The Familiar interference shakes me up. There’s one thing I can’t stand—it’s the feeling of losing control. Now, with this parasite attached to my skull, or my shoulders, or wherever, I feel exposed to all kinds of dark and invisible influences. But I’m not sure if that’s really the case or if it’s just fear that’s making the situation seem worse than it is.
Lying back on my bed, I try to recall any helpful clues Umara might have given me when she told me the story about the origin of the Telar.
“How did a primitive culture like the ancient Egyptians come up with something as sophisticated as Professor Sharp’s array?” I asked as Umara and I left the enchanting town of Carmel behind and began to enter the even more magical redwood forests of Big Sur. The coastal route from Santa Cruz to Malibu took longer than the inland route but I wanted to enjoy the beauty of the rugged coast before condemning myself to a miserable imprisonment in Brutran’s stronghold.
“Who are you calling primitive?” Umara said from the passenger seat. We had argued over who was to drive. Both of us were control freaks. In the end, we agreed to split the task.
“Sharp needed computers to be certain his array was working. The same with the IIC and their psychic army. How did the Telar manage to skip these steps?”
“You assume we stumbled across it the same way. That wasn’t the case. You have to understand we were a deeply religious people. We worshipped many deities but understood they were all manifestations of the one. We were especially grateful to what nature gave us and for that reason our names for God and Mother Nature were identical. My own name, Umara, means ‘the Mother.’”
“I hope your parents didn’t see you as a divine incarnation when you were born,” I teased her.
“Far from it. I wasn’t a priestess when our array first began to appear. I was a pot maker. My hands were stuck in clay all day. Except when I was firing and painting my creations. Those were simple days filled with a great deal of satisfaction. My childhood was joyful.”
“Something must have triggered the creation of your array,” I said, with a note of impatience. Umara has only one fault. She’s never in a hurry. I suppose it’s a reasonable quality for a twelve-thousand-year-old woman to possess. But I find myself often wishing she would get to the point quicker.
“It started rather innocently. On our equivalent of Sunday, our day of worship, we used to gather near the banks of the Nile at nighttime and pray. We had maybe a dozen songs we all knew, and we used to sing them with great love and devotion. Thanking nature for rain, the river, our crops, our good health. Like I said, we were a devoted people. But as a race, we began to enjoy the silence that would follow our prayers, and for that reason we made it a rule that we’d sit quietly for a few minutes after every hymn.”
“How did you begin to ‘enjoy the silence’?”
“I mean exactly what I say. We were a sensitive race and we found it pleasant to sit still after each prayer. A large number of us sensed a presence in the silence. I think it’s the way we lived that made us so receptive. We had no enemies. When other tribes from the interior of the continent visited, we welcomed them with open arms. We never tried to take lands that didn’t belong to us. We were content with our own village beside the river.”
“So what triggered the array?” I asked.
“While sitting in silence after our prayers, a few of us began to make sounds.”
“Involuntary sounds?” I asked.
“Well, they weren’t planned.”
“You began to speak in tongues. Like the Pentecostal people.”
“That’s a fair example. But I must add that we were by no means a dogmatic race. We embraced all religions as long as they were based on love and gratefulness. We saw gratitude as the key to invoking the grace we felt from our prayers.”
“Did you personally speak in tongues?”
“It started that way for me. I didn’t do it because others were doing it. I was a shy teenage girl. I wasn’t trying to show off. But imagine ten thousand people all singing in harmony, and then falling silent, and in that silence a few sparks began to ignite.”
“Sparks?”
“It was like an energy burst through some of us and we had to let it out by speaking. Only we didn’t know what we were saying. We only knew that it sounded like a language. It seemed to have structure and syntax.”
“But you were just speaking gibberish.”
“No. It got to the point that one in ten of us started to talk like this. That was over a thousand. And when that number was achieved, the words we were spouting became clearer, and we began to sense their meaning.”
“Wait a second. Are you saying that nature itself began to teach you a language?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Try telling that to the millions of people worldwide who go to Pentecostal churches. When they pray with fervor and start to speak in tongues, it’s nothing they can control. It just happens.”
“I understand that. I’ve seen it. But they never make any sense. You’re saying you were spontaneously given an intelligent language.”
“It happened. In time, we wrote down the words and realized that an intelligence greater than our own was trying to teach us things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Like how to sterilize our milk and water by boiling it. How to build aqueducts to channel the water from the Nile so we could grow ten times as many crops. It even taught us how to build a thresher to separate our wheat kernels from the stalks.”
“Right. I suppose you ordered the parts from the steel mill it taught you how to build.”
“You don’t need steel to build a basic thresher. All you need is rope, lumber, a saw, primitive spokes and wheels, and some ingenuity. I add that last word deliberately because the knowledge we were channeling didn’t tell us everything. It was more a source of inspiration. It was for that reason we began to call the being who spoke through us the Source.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“You don’t look impressed with my story.”
“It lacks the scientific basis Sharp’s explanation does. His discovery was uncovered step by step. It produces results that can be mathematically measured. Your array sounds more like a revival meeting.”
“The creation of our spontaneous language is throwing you off.”
“Most languages are the result of a random searching for sounds to describe something. No, my problem with your tale is that you were taught so much so quickly.”
“Once again, it happened. Thanks to the Source, in
a few short years our culture evolved tremendously. We discovered higher math, algebra and geometry, and used it to help develop engineering principles that allowed us to build huge structures.”
“Don’t tell me you constructed the Great Pyramid?”
Umara hesitated. “That came later.”
“I would hope so.”
“But not as late as you think.”
“You forget, I was in Egypt five thousand years ago, not long after Krishna died. That’s where I met Suzama. I know the Egyptians had pyramids even then.”
“Good.”
“But you’re asking me to believe they had them seven thousand years before that.”
“We did.”
I considered. “You were there. I can tell you’re not lying. But it’s hard to accept this channeled information—and that’s what it was—was of such practical value.”
“Nothing I’m telling you is really different from what Sharp told you. Your prejudice against our discovery is the form it took. So we didn’t use decks of cards and record hits and misses on calculators. The principle of using a group mind to tap into a faint ESP signal was identical. It didn’t matter that our information came us to after praying. It still took thousands of us listening together to understand what we were being told.”
“Could your people hear this voice?” I asked.
“In time, yes. After many years the most sensitive of us discovered how to link our minds together so we could hear the language as clearly as you hear me speaking right now. Come on, Sita, you have to believe that we could become telepaths. You’re a telepath yourself. Just look at how your mind melds with Seymour. He practically wrote your life story before he met you.”
“Seymour and I do have a special connection. And I can hear other people’s thoughts, from time to time. But I’ve never had the universe speak to me.”
Umara sat back in her seat and nodded to herself. “Ah. Now I see the problem.”
“Really? Why don’t you wipe that smug expression off your face and tell me what it is.”
“Your problem stems from the fact that Krishna has never spoken to you in five thousand years.”
“How do you know he hasn’t?”
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