by Neely Dobbs
CHAPTER 45: Cronul
Hoga tilted his head again to the left and closed his eyes. A look of chagrin crossed his face. "Oh, my! It is true. Our demonstration has unquestionably exceeded the limits of his mental resilience." He tilted his head once more, and his smile slowly returned. "No matter; it is not a fatal error. Nor is it a fatal flaw. We shall restore him in a manner which will allow him to absorb the value of the lesson, but with a radically reduced emotional after-shock.”
Hoga again blinked slowly.
Jazon's sanity returned.
Hoga tilted his head, observed for a moment, then said, “You can answer us now…" He smiled inquisitively. "Or would you like for us to repeat the question?”
Jazon rediscovered his voice, whispering weakly, “No…please…no.”
Hoga nodded. “No further demonstration is required to alter your image of us?”
Jazon, cowering, shouted, “NO!” He took several deep, shuddering breaths. He sat up straighter and waited long minutes before regaining a measure of poise. “While I hope... truly... that was the last demonstration of your power, Hoga, I don't believe it was your first.” He attempted a knowing smile, but it withered on his lips. “About last night…my ‘dreams'…you furnished them?”
“In a sense,” Hoga replied. “We did facilitate them. But know this difference: Everything you experienced, with only one or two minor exceptions, was entirely real. We did not simulate or recreate events. We simply…transported you…to the location and time where they could occur. You may have felt that going through the second door in the cottage was purely a result of your curiosity. It was... and it was not. We arranged the situation with the expectation of stimulating your inquisitiveness. Had your natural curiosity been insufficient to bring about your exploration, we would have created a disturbance— a sound, perhaps— to assure that you would be drawn through the door.
“It is imperative that you understand the significance of your journey here, Jazon. We have hoped that, as a result of your experiences, you might begin to realize and accept that it is possible for you to move through time, as well as through space. Your experience of visiting the past was real. Had you considered those events before you came to Cronul, you would have found that those memories did already exist.
"Time-travel is no less real a process than your space travel. Through your use of InterSpace, you move from you bypass the normal need to traverse all the space between one existing 'place' and a second distant 'place.' Time travel is very similar. It is a means of traveling from one existing 'when' to another equally real 'when'— and to do so without having to traverse the entire timeline between them. This makes it possible to have what seems like a new, current version of an experience that also occurs in your past. Even though your role in that experience you have perceived as a dream is ‘recent' to you— the adult Jazon— the event was also experienced by the child Jazon many years ago. So, of course, everyone involved in the event would share similar memories.
“Indeed, the children— one of whom was you— diligently searched without ever finding that elusive stranger— you, as an adult. In fact, the children followed you down that hallway. But when they reached the bedroom, it was merely the bedroom in your uncle's house in that other 'when'. The portal which we created solely for your passage between realities no longer existed when the children reached that bedroom door.”
A dawning amazement lit Jazon's face. “I do remember now... I mean... It did happen then!.” Jazon pondered the confusion of terms for several seconds. “In fact, when my cousins and I looked for that stranger, we searched inside and outside the house. Plowed fields surrounded it on three sides, and a morning rain had left the ground soft and slightly muddy. We saw the stranger in the early afternoon and searched until we were called in for supper. But— other than his footprints— we never found a trace of him. But how can that be, when the event has just taken place…I mean, only last night?”
Hoga's eyes brightened and his smile became quizzical. “Did you notice anything unusual about your shoes when you awoke this morning?”
“My shoes? Nothing special,” he replied, “other than that the soles and heels had some dried mud I had to scrape…” He froze. There was no mud on them when I cleaned them last night! Still struggling to hold on to his familiar sense of reality, he was stunned by this tangible physical evidence of the event's reality.
Hoga's merry laughter only increased his frustration. “Jazon, Jazon! You have the answers! However, you must be willing to set aside your provincial misconceptions and allow yourself to begin thinking in a new, more expansive way. If you let go of your old limiting beliefs, the answer becomes clear: You moved in time as well as space! You must accept and understand this.
"Your personal experience of time can flow in a sequence other than that which history records. Your personal aspect of experiences may meander in any sequence between your personal ‘present', ‘future' and ‘past.' Yet, any of your writers of history still will perceive and record those experiences as a single, continuous and sequential timeline.
"Surely you must accept this now. You now have proof that you have recently experienced a new aspect of— or additional role in— your participation in an event which, in another aspect, is a memorable part of your early history. This is a natural consequence of travel through time.”
Jazon's head was swimming. “Hoga, a part of me understands the concept— at least somewhat. Another part of me is screaming about how impossible the idea is. I can't have had the experience then if I am only having it now.”
He was stunned when the Hoga replied, “Yes, Jazon! Exactly! The words of your statement are precisely correct, if a bit awkward." Hoga paused, his head tilted, as if listening. 'However, I sense that you do not yet truly understand the concept.”
Jazon shook his head in frustration. “Hoga, I was trying to explain why I'm not getting it…yet you tell me that I explained it properly! Now I'm totally lost!”
Hoga laughed heartily. “Of course you are! That is because you have finally begun to really think. The concepts are so very simple, but accepting and integrating them is a challenging process. If you were to insist on maintaining your inaccurate concepts of time and reality— even in the face of your own direct evidence and experience— your progress would be severely hindered. However, we have great confidence in your potential.”
“Uh…thanks…I think. But I'm not so sure you're right.”
Hoga smiled tolerantly. “We have substantial resources and experience in these areas. But what of you? Did you enjoy your experience?”
“I find that recalling it now is… satisfying… both my childhood recollection of mysteriously encountering the stranger, and my recent experience of being the stranger." He coughed out a weak laugh. "I can't honestly say that I enjoyed all of it while it was happening, especially as an adult. But— seeing it from both sides now— it's no longer frightening. In fact, it brings a kind of closure to the entire event.”
"Oh, yes! Very good!” beamed Hoga. "You are beginning to see the value of your experience. And losing your fear is the first step required for true understanding and advancement. Yet it is important that you challenge your limiting perceptions and beliefs. Remember Jazon, it is your old fears and preconceptions which blind you to greater truths. If you refuse to accept reality, you will be controlled by your own illusions. And if you refuse to release your illusions, you will never deserve reality.”
Jazon frowned, unable to find much consolation in the experience, and reluctant to follow Hoga's suggestion that he modify his existing beliefs. He began to mentally frame a verbal challenge to those concepts, then abandoned that approach. He chose instead to try to gain improved comprehension.
“There must be some truth in what you say, Hoga, but I'm still so horribly confused. I tried to tell you th
at I don't understand the experience, but you insist that what I finally said was actually right!”
For the first time, Jazon saw the ancient figure's brow wrinkle in something other than a laugh. However, the patient smile remained on Hoga's face as he spoke. “In essence, your intent was to say that— according to your beliefs— it was impossible for you to have met yourself as a child. Correct?”
Jazon reviewed the words carefully, then replied cautiously, “I suppose that's the heart of it. It seems impossible.”
“Yet these were your words: ‘I can't have had the experience then if I am only having it now'.” Hoga had repeated Jazon's words in an imitation so precise that even the most sensitive voice-recognition system would have been fooled.
Clearly amused at Jazon's open-mouthed surprise, Hoga asked, “That is what you said, is it not?”
“Uh, yeah…Exactly.”
“And your words state that the two events could not be separated, but were of necessity simultaneous. Would you agree?”
Jazon pondered the issue. If the event happened at all, it must have happened to me as a child at the same time…simultaneously…that it happened to me as an adult. He scratched his cheek and replied, “Yes, if both of those events happened, they had to be simultaneous events.”
Hoga's smile became even more dazzling. “So you see Jazon, your statement was true. It would have been impossible for the experience to have happened to you when you were a child if you experienced it only as an adult.”
Hmm... Like two sides of the same coin? Jazon rubbed the bridge of his nose a few times. “Part of my mind feels that it does somehow make sense. But another part still can't accept it.”
“That is understandable,” responded Hoga, “if you continue to see time as an immutable straight-line sequence. However, imagine that the timeline can be bent back upon itself. If you could travel along that line, you could reach a point— a crossing of the lines— where ‘Jazon the adult' can meet ‘Jazon the child'. When you find yourself at the point of those two lines crossing, you experience ‘time-travel.' During time-travel, ‘then' and ‘now' can intersect and overlap. Do you see?”
Again, Jazon thought long and hard before answering. Finally he said, “It's not quite so confusing, but it's so hard to accept.”
“It is wise to withhold belief until you have truly integrated and internalized an idea.” Hoga's words had been spoken softly, yet somehow carried more authority than any he had spoken. “You are beginning to prove that our confidence in your potential was well founded.”
Jazon's wry smile matched his words. “I'm not so sure about that…but I'm not ready to give up.”
Hoga clapped his hands happily. “Wonderful! Oh, yes! And you may rest assured that we will continue to provide opportunities for you to fully grasp these concepts.”
Despite Hoga's obvious sincerity, Jazon winced. I'm not so sure that's a promise that should make me rest at all!
Rising, Hoga motioned Jazon to follow. They precisely reversed the course Jazon had taken on his arrival. The massive doors of the gate slowly opened as they approached, just as mysteriously as before. They walked through the gate and Jazon started to ask about the gate-opening mechanism, but Hoga spoke again.
“We know you have many unanswered questions which seem important. Have no concern, for you may trust that your education will continue. We will see to that, for during your visit here you have taken a significant step, Jazon. Oh, yes! More significant than you know. You have satisfactorily…shall we say…passed our test.”
Jazon's eyes narrowed apprehensively as Hoga reached up and gently touched his shoulder. Then an involuntary shiver shook him deeply from head to toe, tracking a tangible energy flow from that touch into his mind and body.
Hoga flashed the most radiant smile Jazon had ever seen. “Regardless of how far we become separated in space-time, Jazon, a connection— a strong bond— now exists between you and us. You carry our shared experiences within you.”
Jazon's brow furrowed. Another cryptic comment from Hoga! I can't deny that I felt something. But how many more inscrutable riddles will he raise? It's time to insist on some clear and specific answers to my questions.
Before he could speak, Hoga added, “Two additional points before you go. We have told you time stands still in this place? This is true. However, when we referred to ‘this place,' we were referring to the whole planet on which this enclosure rests. Also, you will recall that we have mentioned duration. As you return to Farthing, remember that and be very observant.”
The sounds of an approaching coach caught Jazon's ear. He turned toward the source and decided to wait for the coach's clatter to stop. He followed Hoga through the gates, then turned to watch the coach come to a halt. Turning back to demand more answers, he saw that the gate had quietly closed.
Hoga was gone. He had orchestrated his departure so neatly that it had given Jazon no opportunity to ask any of the questions still burning within him.
