The Empty Door

by E. R. Mason

An explosive wave of darkness engulfed them—a brief interlude of useless time, existence without environment. With his arm still raised in defense, Markman found himself standing in the desert, a late morning sun in the sky and a cool breeze drying the sweat on his face. Cassiopia had one hand on his heart and was holding his left arm with the other. Dazed, he touched his forehead but found no wound.

  “My God, Scott, are you all right?”

  Even in the aftermath of near-death, Markman’s flippant attitude prevailed. But though his skull appeared to be intact, the thought processes taking place within it were thoroughly fractured. He hurriedly organized the broken pieces into an acceptable sarcastic reply. “Well, yes and no,” he answered and continued to search for the horrendous wound that should have been, but was not.

  As his panic subsided, he cast an appraising stare at the new environment. Surrounding them now was a barren sandscape. In every direction, the horizon was distant and lightly dusted by sand. There were no structures of any kind visible, no sign of civilization. Cassiopia continued to hold his arm, her attention fixed exclusively on him.

  “Well, either I’m dead and this is Purgatory, or we have changed locations somehow, or this whole thing is an illusion. Gee, there’s so many possibilities!”

  Recovering from her own state of shock she let go of him and stepped back, embarrassed by her uncontrolled display of emotion. “This is the same place I was in before,” she said, shifting the weight of the bag on her shoulder and turning to look over the empty landscape.

  “That guy cheated. He just appeared out of nowhere. If he had come at me I would have sensed it. All of a sudden he was just there!” Markman turned to scan the immediate area. “I don’t see the doorway. This is probably the kind of thing that happened to your father.”

  “The direction finder is still working!” Breathlessly, Cassiopia held the small device out in front of her and moved to center the indicator. “It’s that way,” she said, pointing behind him at the desolate skyline. Without asking if he was ready, she trudged off through the loose sand in the direction indicated.

  Markman shook his head and trudged after her.

  Concern grew within Cassiopia as she walked. She realized that time had suddenly become an indefinable enemy. The empty panorama was threatening enough by itself, but no part of her plan had included being so violently cast away from the SCIP mirror. Two hours had been expended on an excursion that should have required one. Now there was nothing left to do but follow the dubious indications of a small needle driven by a few integrated circuits and a nine-volt battery, and even they were not from this world. She shook her head at the thought that this was not the most desirable way to bet one’s life, especially since Markman had lost his once already.

  They shuffled slowly onward through the dry, granular texture of the forbidding desert, Markman continually cursing at the sand that kept invading his shoes. Cassiopia struggled to conceal her fears and sought to distract herself with idle conversation. She dug into the sand with deep steps and spoke in a reserved and uneasy tone. “So, Mr. Markman, what is it about fighting that you find so alluring?”

  “It was ‘Scott’ a few minutes ago, wasn’t it? And where’d you get that?”

  “From what I’ve seen you are very good at fighting. You must study boxing, or karate, or something. Am I right?”

  “And just what would you know about karate, Ms. Cassell?”

  “I know that you people sit around quietly meditating and then suddenly jump up and punch and kick everything in sight!”

  Markman let out a sarcastic laugh. “You watch too many movies. Smashing somebody’s face is not my idea of a good time. On the other hand, sparring with friends is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done. Actually fighting with someone is a lose-lose situation. Even if you win, they’re liable to lay in wait for you with friends later on.”

  “But that’s what karate is, is it not? Controlled violence --force as a means to an end.”

  “No way. Karate? It’s a Japanese discipline. Tae kwon do is Korean. Kung Fu is Chinese.”

  “Oh? And which might you be, Mr. Markman?”

  “My study is the Tao Chane, the pen name of the master who developed it thousands of years ago. It is much more than a martial art. It is from China, the Danamn province. You can call it Chinese, but I wouldn’t do that in front of a real Tibetan citizen. We are quite adamant about our solidarity.”

  “We, Mr. Markman? You are from Tibet?”

  “You could say it’s my real home.”

  “I don’t understand. You are an American citizen.”

  “I was raised by my father, an Air Force officer stationed overseas. We shuttled back and forth between the U.S. and Asia, but more time was spent there than here. I pretty much grew up in Thasa. I got to play with the students from the local monastery. They began to teach me their ways. I learned enough that eventually a Master from the temple noticed me and took me under his wing. Eventually I was able to complete my training. Unfortunately when they have had enough of you, the monks throw you out, so to speak. You cannot be a true master of Tao Chane until you have been tempered by the harshness of the outside world. It was easier for me to return to America afterward. I was still an outsider over there. But I was just as out of place here. I have my father’s annuity to live on, so I don’t need to hold a steady job. I use my abilities to help people from time to time. It’s what I seem do best here.”

  “And so, will you return to China eventually?”

  “Tibet, Ms. Cassell. I could go back there as a teacher’s assistant when my tenure here is done. I would be welcomed. But I would be saying goodbye to the modern world.”

  “So then you do seek violence to satisfy a personal discipline that advocates violence?”

  “Just the opposite. The idea is to find peaceful selflessness within. Some consider it a way to prepare for death. If you exist within such a place, then death holds little consequence for you, because there will be no real inner change when it happens.”

  “Fighting helps you find a state of peace?”

  “You must control the space around you in order to find peace within. Could you stand by and do nothing while an innocent, helpless person was being harmed? We live in an ocean of emotion. Every bad action or thought is a pollutant to the atmosphere. Every good deed or thought purifies it. The Buddhists say that if we all could find inner peace, some call it the Tao, we would have created Heaven on Earth.”

  “So meditation is a technique intended to aid you in combat?”

  “Boy, you are stubborn, aren’t you. It’s like this: If someone throws something at you, your eye sees it and sends a message to the brain. Your brain decides what to do and sends a message to your hand to shield you. By then you’ve been conked on the head, right? The true Way is to empty your mind, become an empty vessel, a tool. Then, your eye sees the danger, and the message goes directly to your hand. Get it?”

  “What about all the deadly weapons that your types use? Why take the time to invent such things if all you really want is peace?”

  “They are not my types, Ms. Cassell. I come from a place different than any you’ve ever seen, a place you wouldn’t begin to understand. And the weapons? Farmer’s tools.”

  “What?”

  “Farmer’s tools! That’s all they are. The staff, the whirling staff, nunchakus, practically all of them, derived from ancient farmers’ tools. In ancient times there were no real police, you know, those guys in the uniforms you ‘city types’ take for granted until you’re in trouble. The farmers in the fields learned to defend themselves while they worked the land. All they had were the things they used to beat grain and harvest the crops. It became a skilled tradition. Have you ever gone into the fields to beat the grain from the harvest, Ms. Cassell?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Ah, well, if you had, you would have recognized some of the weapons you speak of being used in the work. In ancient times, the only police wer
e the Buddhist monks and priests from the temples that the villages had been built around. Who better to enforce justice then they? That’s why it became a part of their religion. Many of the martial art theologies are based largely on nature. Have you ever studied how the tiger stalks or how the cobra strikes?”

  “I had a house cat once....”

  “Animals are nature’s ultimate predators. There is no hesitation in them when they fight, and usually no anger either.”

  “So, Buddhism is a religion that advocates the use of violence then?”

  “Some of us say that Buddhism was never meant to be a religion. When Gautama Buddha set down his teachings, he never intended them to be a religion. He never declared himself a priest or monk. In fact, he gave up his position as a wealthy prince in protest of how the poor were treated. He said that life was pain, and the Way to escape that pain was to give up all want, and find selflessness. It was so successful that many religious groups grew out of those teachings. People who are extremely preoccupied with worldly possessions will never understand it. It’s ironic you know, because you actually end up giving away nothing, and gaining everything.”

  Cassiopia stopped for a moment to study her companion, brushing sand off herself as she did so. “Mr. Markman, you are a strange one. One minute you are flip and incorrigible, the next an unlikely philosopher. I fear I will never understand you.”

  Markman shuffled up beside her in the gentle wind and replied softly, “As the greatest master of all once said—my yoke is light.”

  Their eyes locked hypnotically. In escape, Markman glanced over her shoulder and pointed toward something in the distance. “Look, that might be it!”

  Far ahead, a small dark object interrupted the flat line of the desolate horizon. It was at least a half-mile away. As they hurried toward it, occasional glints of light reflected at them like someone signaling with a mirror.

  Wet with sweat, they reached the waiting monolith. Without speaking, they anxiously took their positions and jumped the inner void to the safety of the SCIP lab beyond. Cool air chilled their tired bodies.

  “Where’s the robot?” Markman asked. The SCIP lab seemed unchanged, but Tel was nowhere to be found.

  Cassiopia breathed a sigh of relief and moved down the blue ramp to the Drack. She went to the Drack main control console, stopped, and gasped. “What the...?” she exclaimed, staring at the blank monitors. She looked back at him with an unsettling glance. “This equipment is turned off!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Intently she appraised the power control panels on the wall next to the Drack. They too were in the off position. She stared silently at Markman for a moment. “This is isn’t really the lab,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a fake, an imitation. The SCIP door is functioning, but there’s no power here. It’s not possible!”

  “Now wait a minute. Just hold it. There’s the exit from this place right over there,” he insisted, and pointed to the corridor leading from the lab. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go have a look around!” He marched down from the ramp and took the short corridor to the ladder. He placed one hand on a rung, looked up, and froze. Where the trunk bottom should have been, there was a solid cement ceiling. It was a ladder to nowhere. Markman jerked his head back and moaned. Dejectedly he returned to Cassiopia.

  “Well, what did you find?”

  “Never mind. There’s no way out. What do we do now?”

  “We’ve got to go back through.”

  “Oh, just great.” He wanted badly to protest but the logic of it had become too obvious to refute. He looked reluctantly at the shimmering SCIP mirror. Cassiopia took his hand and led him up the ramp. Together, they jumped back across the chasm of emptiness, and again into the unknown.

  Chapter 16