Neon Lotus

by Marc Laidlaw

  Chenrezi filled the universe, fanning his thousand white hands; beams of compassion streamed from his thousand and twenty-three eyes. He walked between infinities, taking on a few of the forms that made sense to her self-limited mind. To have seen him more clearly would have required leaving her body behind forever.

  She could have plunged into that gulf—she was tempted—but the thought of Earth kept her centered and calm.

  She was needed on Earth. She herself was a manifestation of Chenrezi, one of his bright hands, a ray of energy possessing a certain form and a certain level of self-awareness that could be defined conveniently as Marianne Strauss.

  She was light given flesh. Flesh given to the world.

  I was . . .

  I was Tashi Drogon! I remember now. I remember. . . .

  I remember the knock on the door, the man in the turban. The white scarf of the Oracle fluttering down around my shoulders. I remember all those years of constructing the Bardo device and the studies that preceded it. I remember young Reting Norbu, my dearest friend. Ah, cheer up, Reting: I remember now! I remember my dear wife Laxmi and the plague that took her from me. So young. I was so young then. I remember my teachers, my parents, my pets.

  And I remember . . .

  Yes, I remember this place between lives, between bodies, the times I spent straying through the cosmos, always torn between oblivion and rebirth, nirvana and samsara. If I were a studious, disciplined monk, I might have slipped into nirvana long ago and emerged a different kind of bodhisattva . . . or perhaps never emerged again at all. But I have done good for the world in any case. I have given my best through life after life, and I will continue to return until every possibility has been exhausted. I will not accept liberation until all others have been freed.

  Freed, like the precious amrita from its vial.

  Freed, like the Tibetans from their overlords.

  Freed from suffering and privation, from the endless round of delusion and despair.

  Even if the path to freedom requires that I chain myself once more to the wheel, I will do it

  And gladly.

  “Marianne . . .”

  Her name came echoing back to her from a great distance, yet close at hand.

  She opened her eyes and saw Jetsun Dorje, her lover. She thought that he must have seen what she’d seen; and yet, how could she ever know for certain? How could she ever enter his mind and say exactly what doors the amrita had opened for him? He would remain ever a mystery to her, wouldn’t he?

  That was as it should be.

  She no longer felt any worry. It was pointless to concern herself with things that she could not affect. There were enough things close at hand in need of her protection; there were matters she must attend to. If she did what she could, the rest of creation would fall into place around her.

  This understanding was the gift of the nectar.

  “I’ve seen the jet,” he said. “It’s here above us, on the roof of the building. We must hurry.”

  “I love you, Jetsun Dorje.”

  He placed the lotus into her hands and kissed her fingertips as if they were petals.

  “I love you, Marianne.”

  14. Nectar Analysis

  The jet sat in plain view on the rooftop landing pad of Golmud Laboratories. The steps were down, the hatch unlocked, and once they were aboard Jetsun declared his pleasure at finding the plane fully fueled.

  The lotus had opened doors for them, jammed building alarms and communication channels, and—picking through the recorded mind of the three-eyed man—showed them the way to the jet itself. But until they reached the controls, they’d had no way of knowing if the plane were ready to fly.

  Fly it did. Jetsun brought them straight up, then tipped the jets and sent them shooting in a broad curve toward the violet eastern horizon. The sun had already set over the western rim of the Tsaidam basin. As they climbed above the roof of the world, the snowy valley beneath them filled with shadow.

  “It’s good to have my wings again,” Jetsun said.

  “They suit you. How many hours do you think it will take us to get to Kham?”

  “Not too many, but in the dark I wouldn’t count on finding that base. We’ll need a secluded place to land, then we’ll set out again before dawn. Eastern Tibet is fairly populous; I don’t know how safe we’ll be.”

  A strained voice said, “Those who offend the gods will never find peace, no matter how far they run.”

  Marianne looked down at the lotus and saw the three-eyed man gazing up at them with angry eyes.

  “With your help,” she said, “I think we will find much of what we need.”

  “I will never help you!”

  Laughter rang from the lotus. Tsering’s merry face floated up beneath that of the older man.

  “Oh, I think you will,” said the boy. “You’re in Chenrezi’s hands now. You’re nothing but a pattern to be played as he wills.”

  “And what are you?” the man snarled.

  “The same thing precisely. A pattern, energy, light; a whorl between the worlds; an instrument of compassion. But I’m content. My musician has a thousand hands; he could play entire symphonies unaided, if it were necessary to liberate souls.”

  “Liberation,” spat the three-eyed man. “You are slaves to your so-called spirits. You have never learned to put religion to work for you. Have you ever coaxed your gods to grind the grain or heat your homes? Did you ever think that the gods should defend your land not with prayers and vague threats, but with firepower and weaponry? No wonder Tibet fell to your Chinese neighbors. Yet we have accomplished these things! And you think we can be defeated so easily?”

  “He’s lying,” Tsering remarked.

  “Lying? How dare you—”

  “You’ve tried to accomplish these things, but you’ve had trouble bending nature to your will. Your problem, sir, is your attitude. You tortured the amrita! While you gained some knowledge of its chemical composition, the true essence remained a mystery to you.”

  “Must we respect mere objects? That’s idolatry. We are gods. The universe must respect and serve us—it must, and it will!”

  “Then why hasn’t it?”

  “Because matter is stubborn and mainly inert. With perseverance we will drive the noble gases into our service, whip them free of their elemental sloth.”

  “Why torment them? What do you hope to gain from perturbing nature?”

  “We hope for nothing. Our success is certain.”

  Gazing at the lotus, Marianne saw the three-eyed man’s delusions come to life; they seemed more sure than his grasp of reality.

  She saw the golden vajra, Chenrezi’s lost scepter, trapped between two poles crackling with the same energy that had killed Tara. Power poured from the vajra, into the circular channels of a vast mandala, and thence into batteries, powerlines, switching stations. She saw tall missiles being charged with the vajra force, their warheads glowing with its essence.

  But in these unbalanced fantasies, the visions kept slipping awry, branching into far more deadly possibilities.

  She saw the vajra blazing out of control, emanating twin bolts of destruction, touching off a chain reaction to disintegrate the huge domed chorten of the powerplant. The mountainsides burst into flame: glaciers sublimated into vast gouts of steam. Underground rivers exploded. Tibet cracked wide open, the continent shook, oceans evaporated, the moon caught fire. The fabric of spacetime warped in to fill the void left by the earth, but the vacuum would not be filled. She saw the sun and planets drawn swiftly in, the stars blurring as the galaxy twisted into that hole like bright water swirling down a drain.

  Abused, the vajra became a scepter of destruction. It was Chenrezi’s tool, or that of Chenrezi’s fierce aspect, Mahakala. With nature thus dishonored, the gods took advantage of their ultimate prerogative. Their mouths gaped at the interface of emptiness and appearance; they sucked up their creation in a single breath.

  Then only the vajra remained, ind
estructible, shining in the hand of the great black god, Mahakala. A necklace of blasted worlds hung from his neck like skulls. He trampled on the exhausted, deflated universe.

  The vision filled Marianne with terror, for she knew that Mahakala had done what must be done, as a mother will snatch her children from the edge of a precipice with an angry shout. Mahakala and Chenrezi were cosmic gods; they gave their protection to more than merely this one universe. If the local gods raged out of control, it was up to the cosmic deities to restore order, even if this meant destroying Earth. For the sickness could not be allowed to spread.

  “Don’t you see?” she asked the three-eyed man. “Don’t you see what might come of your project if you keep on?”

  He looked stricken. “I—these are delusions, things you’ve planted in my mind!”

  “No, this is the first time you’ve followed your own logic to its end. You must help us liberate the vajra. Willingly or not, you must help us.”

  He did not answer. He looked greatly subdued. She did not think that he would resist them much longer.

  After a time he spoke again: “We had not intended harm. Our work was incomplete but we had hopes of finding the key in time to put it to use. We sought the Equation of Emptiness.”

  Marianne gasped. “The Equation of Emptiness?”

  “It was the work of a Tibetan scientist named Tashi Drogon, but he left it incomplete at his death. For that we blame ourselves. Had we let him live even a day longer, he might have solved it. For a time we were confident we could finish the work ourselves, but it has proved insoluble.”

  “It eluded you because you meant to use it for destruction,” Marianne said, barely stifling the fury in her voice. Tashi’s memories were still quite close to her.

  “No—”

  “Yes!” she shouted. “You would have abused nature by turning its own laws against it. Who do you think you are, playing with the forces that created the universe? An extra eye doesn’t make you divine, no more than a valley full of worshippers . . . addicts, I mean. Where did you come from, anyway? Who are you?”

  “We created ourselves.”

  “You cannot lie to me. I hold your mind in my hand.”

  “I speak the truth. Once we were spirits, disembodied. We came into the minds of men and caused ourselves to be shaped. We guided their hands so that the work would be well done. So you see, we owe no fealty to humanity. We are its natural masters.”

  “Who bred you? Whose genes were woven together so that you could be born?”

  “Our laboratory was built by Tibetan hands. Under our guidance, Governor Rato culled the finest embryologists from Chinese schools and brought them to us. And from their varied repositories of genetic material, we selected the finest characteristics for our flesh.”

  “Did you create that story, or merely swallow it whole?” asked Marianne. “Has it never occurred to you that those you consider your slaves might well be your masters? Think of your experiments—what if they failed? Your kind would be the first to die. You’re programmed to kill yourselves when you’ve finished your errands. Your creators built limits into your minds, so that you would never question your existence. And who benefits from your lives? Surely not you.”

  “Lies!” cried the three-eyed man.

  “Marianne,” said Jetsun suddenly. He had been playing with the communications equipment while he piloted the jet. “I’ve reached our friends.”

  She set down the lotus, put on her earphones, and switched on the shallow holoscreen in front of her.

  A Tibetan woman stared into the jet with a look of astonishment.

  “Pema?” Marianne said.

  “Gyayum Chenmo! Jetsun Dorje! Where are you? Hold on—” She pulled away from the screen, gesturing wildly. “Dhondub! Dr. Norbu!”

  “Where are you?” Marianne asked. “Did you get our message?”

  “Message?” Pema said.

  “We sent a message south with a truck driver—”

  “We aren’t where you left us,” Pema said. “We’ve been relocated by the Chinese. Your Mr. Fang said we would come to harm if we stayed where we were, and he detailed several planes to carry us out. We tried to reach you once but there was someone on your channel—a demon with three eyes! We thought you had been taken. . . .”

  “We were,” she said. “But we got away. How’s Reting?”

  “I’m here, Marianne,” said Dr. Norbu. He leaned into the picture, smiling, looking relieved.

  “Are you well?” she asked.

  “Mad with impatience,” he said. “Time passes and we come no closer to our goals.”

  Jetsun Dorje laughed aloud. “Show them the lotus, Marianne!”

  “The lotus?” said a gruff voice. Dhondub Ling dominated the screen. “You found it, then?”

  She held it up to show him. “And the nectar as well. We have none of the actual stuff but surely your chemists can synthesize it from our information.”

  In the air above the lotus, there appeared a glowing matrix, a three-dimensional image of the nectar’s molecular structure. She figured it to be more complete than that which had been plucked from the mind of the three-eyed man, for the amrita itself had corrected his images. The composition moved like a living thing, an intelligence. Merely to contemplate it, to drift through its oddly angled passages, caused the mind to expand.

  Marianne glimpsed another reason for the creation of the three-eyed race. Their limited minds could only be opened so far. They stood little threat of being affected by the enlightening properties of Chenrezi’s ancient ornaments. No normal human being could have analyzed the amrita or the vajra without gaining insight into his own illusions; but the three-eyes were well shielded by their hypertrophic egos.

  “Where are you now?” Dhondub asked.

  Jetsun gave him the coordinates. “We’re heading toward the Lancangjiang; we’ve located the vajra.”

  Dhondub looked displeased despite this news. “You’re risking two treasures in hopes of finding a third?”

  “They may lead us to the third,” Marianne said. “Once we’ve got the vajra, we’ll bring all three to you. But where are you?”

  “Don’t bring them here,” said Dhondub. “We’re paralyzed in Lhasa at the moment. Take them to my brother Changchup at the site where the Dharma wheel is being excavated. He will be able to get everything back to Chenrezi swiftly enough.”

  “You’re in Lhasa?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He wrinkled his nose. “I hate it here; I feel so trapped! It’s crowded and much too warm. But that man Fang had good reason for bringing us here, from what I’ve heard of the troubles in the west.”

  “You can trust him,” Marianne said.

  “Give me Changchup’s location,” Jetsun said.

  Pema came onto the screen to do so. Then she said, “Good luck, you two. We are fortunate to have your help.”

  “Goodbye, Pema,” Marianne said. “Goodbye, Dhondub. And Reting?”

  The doctor reappeared; even through his relief at finding them alive, his anxiety was apparent. “Yes, Marianne?”

  “Cheer up,” she said. “I . . . I’ve made my peace with Tashi. The amrita led me to his memories. He and I, we’re really engaged in the same work, you know?”

  Dr. Norbu’s face lit up with delight. “I’ve known that all along, Marianne. Good luck!”

  “Good luck yourself,” she replied.

  Jetsun turned off the screen.

  “We can’t circle around in the air all night,” he said. "And I wouldn’t want to blunder over that powerplant in the dark. I have a feeling it’s well protected. Besides, they might be expecting us after what happened in Golmud.”

  “What do you propose?” she asked.

  “Well, there’s a nice flat valley below—dark, too. We’re perhaps an hour from our destination. Let’s stop here and sleep for a few hours.”

  She agreed. He set the plane into a slow, circling descent. She watched his hands moving over the controls and remembered
the first night she’d flown with him, the night they’d crossed into the Tibetan Autonomous Region from Mustang. He had been a stranger to her then, yet she had been impressed immediately by his skill, his dedication. She had never seen anything in Jetsun to negate her first impression.

  He must have felt her eyes. Glancing at her sideways for a moment, he grinned.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “I was wondering how many hours we had for sleep.”

  His smile broadened. “Winter’s coming. The nights are long.

  * * *

  She awoke to the sound of whispering, a muted conversation. Reaching out in the dark she found Jetsun’s place empty, the blankets cold. It was the growing chill that had brought her slowly from a peaceful sleep. She got to her knees, peered over the seats, and saw that the curtain had been pulled across the cabin. It was Jetsun she heard—and someone else. A man.

  She slipped quietly down the aisle. The wind howled around the body of the plane, louder than the voices. She touched the curtain lightly, then pulled it aside.

  Jetsun looked up at her, nodded, and put a finger to his lips.

  The lotus sat on the control panel before him, in full bloom, dancing with light. The second voice she’d heard was that of the three-eyed man. She had entered in the middle of what sounded like a complex dissertation complete with moving holograms. She settled down in the second pilot’s seat and tried to pick up the thread of the exposition.

  Jetsun must have asked for a thorough description of the vajra project, including every particle of information that resided in the dead man’s mind. She saw a number of two-eyed people dressed in claret and yellow robes, traditional monastic garb. They carried tool kits and sat at consoles, monitoring the operation of the vajra project. Their overseers were three-eyes, and the monks seemed totally in awe of the “masters”; they constantly bowed and scraped and prayed for guidance as they scurried about trying to coax mystical power from the indestructible scepter of enlightenment.

  Despite the information known to the three-eyed man, Jetsun was dissatisfied.