Children of the Source (28 page)

    “She tried to kill your children, not to mention you, Jamie.”

    I smiled, hoping I was the good actor.  “As you can see I was in control of her the whole time.”  I looked to Carson and Muldower.  “If you will permit, Kirfin will leave this world and never return.  No permanent damage was done.”

    “She had your frequency, Jamie,”
  Carson said.

    “No more.
  She is now no different than anyone else.”

     “This was the type of warfare you mentioned that took place in Adora and for a time on Earth?”
  Muldower face was grave.

    “Briefly on Earth, Mr. Muldower,” I said. “In our terms tens of thousands of years ago, before recorded history. There is a thin layer of melted glass in many places on the Earth with no geologic reason.
  That is from their Sound Language wars.  No recorded history if that is what you mean.  No.” 

    Muldower turned to Carson.
  “If Severin can give us his guarantee about Kirfin,  I can live with that. You?”

    “I agree,” Carson said.
  “How will you handle her, Severin?”

    The graying man said, “She’ll be sent to one of our ships that is being rotated back to our Federation.
  She’ll be in intensive therapy.  Not the type you are used to.  We understand the structure of the Entity and its personalities, and know how to access information about Entities.”

    “Will she be tried and punished?”
  Muldower asked.

    Severin gave a slight smile.
  “Our political and social systems are quite different.  Yours are based in concepts of disenfranchising various racial and ethnic groups and building prisons and judicial systems to service them.  You also do this with various species.  Frankly, we were very dubious about this project.  You enfranchise the very people that have no business having power and control over others.   They in turn ensure that they are untouchable.  Only now have you gotten away from money in your political system.”  He hesitated.  “We don’t use money, or have issues in measuring self-worth with acquisition - physical things, money, education, jobs.  Your system’s problems are self-perpetuating, and every so often when things get out of hand you tweak the problem to keep an even keel without really addressing the cause.”  He cleared his throat.  “Our system is based on learning and growing.  Money and want do not exist.  Ideas of acquisition do not exist.  We don’t have a culture based on hierarchies resulting in conflict and violence.  What we have done is something you haven’t tried.  We bypassed concepts of opposites - good and evil- and emphasized concepts of unity.”

    “But there is evil - good and evil in the world,” Muldower said.

    “We agree there is behavior that hurts and wrecks and can even destroy civilizations and worlds.  These behaviors are based in ignorance and free choice.  Different labels don’t make them hurt or wreck less.  Usually the problems are based in spiritual ignorance  - the seven deadly sins.  But you notice the books and entertainment programs that make you feel the best are those that are based in unity and bringing people together.  Building and growing - understanding - unity. 

    “That is the experiment you’re flirting with, but haven’t embraced.
  We have been using this unity concept without the problems of opposites.  This does take a certain level of maturity, and up until this time your world has been host to Entities at various levels of maturity.  Slowly your system will host more mature Entities, and others starting out will go elsewhere to learn.  There are cycles of growth and maturity and yours is moving toward a more mature phase.  This will take a while but it is in the works.”

    “So what will happen to her?”
  Randolph asked, adjusting his web belt holding his pistol.

    “She will be supervised, and never again have power over others,” Severin said.
  “She will have the means of reviewing the lives of her Entity to find the ideas that lead her to choices she made.  This review is usually available to personalities only after physical death.  Our technology makes this knowledge obtainable while she is living in the physical body.”

    “Will she change?” Carson asked.

    “Change is always a matter of choice.  No one can force a change.  However we have had pretty good success with this therapy.  Knowledge is power or provides opportunity.  That is what we emphasize.”  Severin called to a couple of aliens to escort Kirfin to their space craft.  The woman, now worn and aged, walked with vacant eyes and hesitant step.  When she reached the spacecraft, she turned and smiled at me.  Her eyes held a certain relief.  I bowed back.  We’d be in touch.  Blessed be.

    Muldower looked at me incredulously.
  “She tried to kill you and your children, Jamie.  Why aren’t you angry?  Don’t you think she should be punished?”

    I shook my head.
  “I had her under control.  You saw my other selves surrounding her.  I’m not saying it was easy, but I knew where her anger came from.  To produce the beginning of a healing I had to channel her energy into knocking her out.  To create an opportunity for change.   What would have happened if I had melted her physical body like I did those rifles?  If her personality died physically during violence, she would have to pick up there on the Other side.  All the awful emotions,  anger and devastation, and the desire for release through revenge.  Now she has a new way to go.  One thing that makes our world so valuable as a learning system is emotion which allows ideas to be translated in vivid reality - love, hate, anger, forgiveness.”  I nodded.  “Now I have a spider to rescue.”

    “Spider?”
  Carson looked at me funny.

    “Through time and space a spider was genetically engineered using the Sound Language to assassinate me.  Walk with me.”   I led them to  the picnic table and showed them the tangible energy bubble holding the spider.   They stared in wonder.  “The poison was more powerful
than ten black widows and could get through almost any energy field.  The spider knew if it bit me, it would be released from the terrible pain it was engineered to be in,   But it chose a different path and saved my life.”

    “You’re saying this spider consciously chose to save your life?”
  Muldower asked softly.  “A conscious choice?”

    “It may be difficult to understand.  It has a spirit or personality too, and contacted me asking for release.
  Now I need to change him back.”

    “You could just squash the critter and be done with it,” a burly soldier said.
  He hocked and spat. “Spiders.  Give me the goddamn willies.”

    “Every Being should have the right to prosper without being molested.
  So I’m going to return him to his natural state and he can be on his way.  Please excuse me.”  I sat down next to the spider still waiting in the energy shield.  There I examined the Being and delicately altered the different layers of molecular engineering neutralizing the lethal toxin.  Kirfin had laid a couple of bobby traps which I defused.  It took a couple of hours but I returned the spider to his original condition.  Then I placed him back where Kirfin had gotten him.

    I looked up from where I’d placed the spider.
  Brian Muldower frowned down at me.  I stood.  “Yes, sir?”  I said, feeling the bursting curiosity in the man.

    “So, how do all these abilities work.
  There has to be a source.  The mechanics of it.”

    “Come.
  I’ll try to explain.”  We walked to the bench and pine trees across from the Dining Hall and sat down.  “The human brain has almost unlimited capabilities in what it can ... provide in terms of information and capabilities. The brain has built in safeguards - filters or energy blocks that can be opened and closed to provide certain experiences and information.  This is highly selective. 

    “In times of stress and need these blocks or filters can open or be opened to provide what you need.
  Like you and your daughter.”  I looked at the pine tree and stroked some needles, which I always find comforting.  “As for myself, some people have certain filters or blocks removed, born without them to provide certain abilities, or they are opened at strategic times in their lives to provide needed experiences.  That’s me, and others here who you are meeting who have some remarkable abilities.  Cultures and societies have to be open to these possibilities for them to work.  What we call the Sound Language is one of these.  So are certain psychic abilities.”  I sighed.  “You would not want someone or a group of people who have no ethics to have the Sound Language.”

    Brian grunted.
  “Nooo.  I saw what Kirfin was trying to do.  That would be ...  disastrous.”

    I looked at him.
  “It was.  No ethics or spiritual responsibility.  I was involved with that once.  It destroyed a world and a prosperous society.  We can’t allow that to happen here.”  I nodded.  “The filters or energy blocks are there for a reason and generally can’t be tampered with or opened without good cause.”

    “Who controls these filters or energy blocks?”

    “Generally, the Entity of which you are a part.  If the Entity is not mature enough, then there are other more developed Beings that take the responsibility.” I said.  We walked back to the others.

    It was mid
afternoon by the time I’d eaten and returned to the map room.  I composed myself, sending portions of myself to Burt Clark and his military patrol, the Castaway as they called him, my brother and his group, and finally my wife, son, and Greg.  I moved the pins on the map, seeing them slowly converge.  Judith and Laith sensed me around.  It wasn’t long before they decided to make camp about a quarter of a mile from a game trail and a pond.   Judith and Laith built a fire while Greg cooked up some food.  I felt uneasy without knowing why.  The selves I sent out returned without any unusual information.  Sometimes we can take the feeling and follow it to its source.

    I backpedaled.
  The face of a full grown Siberian Tiger, bloody and feeding on a freshly killed elk, entered my reality.  I widened the focus to include location and time.  Two miles north of their camp sight and within striking distance of all three parties.  Anyone dealing with wild animals knows they are notoriously hard to predict.  They’re primarily concerned with food, self-preservation, and procreating.  And one other thing, curiosity.  No telling where that will aim them.  I gently nudged Judith and Laith.  They looked at each other and Greg.  “Jamie is around,” Judith said.  Having their attention, I sent images of the Tiger and its location.   They immediately built up the fire and I told them that I and my friends from the Other side would stand guard. 
Stand guard
is an odd term.  Wild animals are notoriously hard to control by human agency.  The best you can do is be aware of them and their course in advance so you can take evasive action.  Siberian Tigers, the greatest predators of western Russia, probably escaped from some private or public wild animal park.  We’d heard of them, but never seen one in our area.  People are just another food source for them.  The army killed any nonnative predator on sight, considering them too deadly to have around.

    I checked the Castaway.
  His skinny taut body shivered in the evening cold beneath a ragged  denim shirt and patched jeans.  He pulled a holey blanket over his thin body.  The crushed big toe, black and swollen, and the torn bicep beginning to infect must have been excruciating, but the man’s enormous mental focus fought the pain to manageable levels.  He knew he was finished physically and only lived to complete one thing - the killing of my brother Jesse.  The high-powered rifle with the shattered stock contained three cartridges.  He was inspecting the weapon like a lover, insuring it could complete its mission.  Satisfied, he pulled leaves, bark and branches around him to conserve body heat.  He’d placed himself across from a dry lake bed he knew Jesse and his family must cross.  There was no way to go around.  I went to our army patrol.

    Burt Clark and his five man patrol sat beside a fire against a limestone outcropping.
  They were checking weapons.  Their mule stood tethered to a couple of small trees, muzzle in a feed bag.  Burt left nothing to chance.  He’d been running patrols for seven years since he was seventeen. He was considered the best of the best in noncommissioned officers.  Carson had given him a standing offer of an officer’s commission, but so far he’d refused.   Burt opened the case with the sniper’s rifle.

    “Gawd, Sarge, you dating the creature?
  Never seen you look so pleased.”

    “Beautiful, isn’t she,”
  Burt said, voice a prayer, eyes lighting in wonder at the weapon.

    “See, Marve, the Sarge’s been in the boonies too long.
  Doesn’t remember what a real woman looks like.”   Corporal Rich Mitchell shook his young head sadly.

    Marve, an older quiet man, grinned.
  “Yup, been in the boonies too long, Rich.  But to his credit he’s engaged to a lady from Cheshire.”

    “Tis in his favor,” Rich agreed.
  “Why’d you bring it, Sarge?  Haven’t done that before.”

    “Don’t really know,” Burt mused.
  “Just a strong feeling we’d need it.  Very real hunch.”

    “You’ve kept our asses out of trouble more than a time or two with your hunches,” Marve said, picking up a coffee cup snuggled in the ashes of the fire.
  He blew on the brew, tested it with a thick finger, and blew again.