Off The Main Sequence

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “And I thought Loki was Lucifer."

  “You’re both right," agreed Phil. “I don’t remember any spoken names for any of them. It just seemed that I knew what their names were."

  “Me, too."

  “Say," interjected Ben, “we are talking as if these dreams were real — as if we had all been to the same movie."

  Phil turned on him. “Well, what do you think?"

  “Oh, the same as you do, I guess. I’m stumped. Does anybody mind if I eat breakfast — or drink some coffee, at least?"

  Bierce came in before they had a chance to talk it over after breakfast — by tacit consent they had held their tongues during a sketchy meal.

  “Good morning, ma’am. Good morning, gentlemen."

  “Good morning, Mr. Bierce."

  “I see," he said, searching their faces, “that none of you look very happy this morning. That is not surprising; no one does immediately after experiencing the records."

  Ben pushed back his chair and leaned across the table at Bierce. “Those dreams were deliberately arranged for us?"

  “Yes, indeed — but we were sure that you were ready to profit by them. But I have come to ask you to interview the Senior. If you can hold your questions for him, it will be simpler."

  “The Senior?"

  “You haven’t met him as yet. It is the way we refer to the one we judge best fitted to coordinate our activities."

  Ephraim Howe had the hills of New England in his face, lean gnarled cabinet-maker’s hands.

  He was not young. There was courtly grace in his lanky figure. Everything about him — the twinkle in his pale blue eyes, the clasp of his hand, his drawl — bespoke integrity.

  “Sit yourselves down," he said, “I’ll come straight to the point" — he called it 'pint.’ “You’ve been exposed to a lot of curious things and you’ve a right to know why. You’ve seen the Ancient Records now — part of 'em. I’ll tell you how this institution came about, what it’s for, and why you are going to be asked to join us."

  “Wait a minute, Waaaait a minute," he added, holding up a hand. “Don’t say anything just yet …"

  When Fra Junipero Serra first laid eyes on Mount Shasta in 1781, the Indians told him it was a holy place, only for medicine men. He assured them that he was a medicine man, serving a greater Master, and to keep face, dragged his sick, frail old body up to the snow line, where he slept before returning.

  The dream he had there — of the Garden of Eden, the Fall, and the Deluge — convinced him that it was indeed a holy place. He returned to San Francisco, planning to found a mission at Shasta. But there was too much for one old man to do — so many souls to save, so many mouths to feed. He surrendered his soul to rest two years later, but laid an injunction on a fellow monk to carry out his intention, It is recorded that this friar left the northernmost mission in 1785 and did not return.

  The Indians fed the holy man who lived on the mountain until 1843, by which time he had gathered about him a group of neophytes, three Indians, a Russian, a Yankee mountainman. The Russian carried on after the death of the friar until joined by a Chinese, fled from his indenture.

  The Chinese made more progress in a few weeks than the Russian had in half of a lifetime; the Russian gladly surrendered first place to him.

  The Chinese was still there over a hundred years later, though long since retired from administration. He tutored in esthetics and humor..“And this establishment has just one purpose," continued Ephraim Howe. “We aim to see to it that Mu and Atlantis don’t happen again. Everything that the Young Men stood for, we are against.

  “We see the history of the world as a series of crises in a conflict between two opposing philosophies. Ours is based on the notion that life, consciousness, intelligence, ego is the important thing in the world." For an instant only he touched them telepathically; they felt again the vibrantly alive thing that Ambrose Bierce had showed them and been unable to define in words. “That puts us in conflict with every force that tends to destroy, deaden, degrade the human spirit, or to make it act contrary to its nature. We see another crisis approaching; we need recruits. You’ve been selected.

  “This crisis has been growing on us since Napoleon. Europe has gone, and Asia — surrendered to authoritarianism, nonsense like the 'leader principle,’ totalitarianism, all the bonds placed on liberty which treat men as so many economic and political units with no importance as individuals. No dignity — do what you’re told, believe what you are told and shut your mouth! Workers, soldiers, breeding units …"

  “If that were the object of life, there would have been no point in including consciousness in the scheme at all!"

  “This continent," Howe went on, “has been a refuge of freedom, a place where the soul could grow. But the forces that killed enlightenment in the rest of the world are spreading here. Little by little they have whittled away at human liberty and human dignity. A repressive law, a bullying school board, a blind dogma to be accepted under pain of persecution — doctrines that will shackle men and put blinders on their eyes so that they will never regain their lost heritage."

  “We need help to fight it."

  Huxley stood up. “You can count on us."

  Before Joan and Coburn could speak the Senior interposed. “Don’t answer yet. Go back to your chambers and think about it. Sleep on it. We’ll talk again."

  Chapter Eight

  “Precept Upon Precept …"

  Had the place on Mount Shasta been a university and possessed a catalog (which it did not), the courses offered therein might have included the following;

  TELEPATHY. Basic course required of all students not qualified by examination. Practical instruction up to and including rapport. Prerequisite in all departments. Laboratory.

  RATIOCINATION, I, II, III, IV. R.I. Memory. R.II. Perception; clairvoyance, clairaudience, discretion of mass, -time, -and-space, non-mathematical relation, order, and structure, harmonic form and interval. R.III. Dual and parallel thought processes. Detachment. R.IV. Meditation (seminar)

  AUTOKINETICS. Discrete kinesthesia. Endocrine control with esp. application to the affective senses and to suppression of fatigue, regeneration, transformation (clinical aspects of lycanthropy), sex determination, inversion, autoanaesthesia, rejuvenation.

  TELEKINETICS. Life-mass-space-time continua. Prerequisite; autokinetics. Teleportation and general action at a distance. Projection. Dynamics. Statics. Orientation.

  HISTORY. Courses by arrangement. Special discussions of psychometry with reference to telepathic records, and of metempsychosis. Evaluation is a prerequisite for all courses in this department.

  HUMAN ESTHETICS. Seminar. Autokinetics and technique of telepathic recording (psychometry) a prerequisite.

  HUMAN ETHICS. Seminar. Given concurrently with all other courses. Consult with instructor.

  Perhaps some of the value of the instruction would have been lost had it been broken up into disjointed courses as outlined above. In any case the adepts on Mount Shasta could and did instruct in all these subjects. Huxley, Coburn, and Joan Freeman learned from tutors who led them to teach themselves, and they took it as an eel seeks the sea, with a sense of returning home after a long absence.

  All three made rapid progress; being possessed of rudimentary perception and some knowledge of telepathy, their instructors could teach them directly. First they learned to control their bodies. They regained the control over each function, each muscle each tissue, each gland, that a man should possess but has largely forgotten — save a few obscure students in the far east.

  There was a deep, welling delight in willing the body to obey and having it comply. They became intimately aware of their bodies, but their bodies no longer tyrannized them. Fatigue, hunger, cold, pain — these things no longer drove them, but rather were simply useful signals that a good engine needed attention.

  Nor did the engine need as much attention as before; the body was driven by a mind that knew precisely both the capacity and
its limitations. Furthermore, through understanding their bodies, they were enabled to increase those capacities to their full potential. A week of sustained activity, without rest, or food, or water, was as easy as a morning’s work had been. As for mental labor, it did not cease at all, save when they willed it — despite sleep, digestive languor, ennui, external stimuli, or muscular activity.

  The greatest delight was levitation.

  To fly through the air, to hang suspended in the quiet heart of a cloud, to sleep, like Mohamet, floating between ceiling and floor — these were sensuous delights unexpected, and never before experienced, except in dreams, dimly. Joan in particular drank this new joy with lusty abandon.

  Once she remained away two days, never setting foot to ground, sharing the sky and wind and swallow, the icy air of the heights smoothing her bright body. She dove and soared, looped and spiralled, and dropped, a dead weight, knees drawn up to forehead, from stratosphere to treetop.

  During the night she paced a transcontinental plane, flying unseen above it for a thousand miles. When she grew bored with this, she pressed her face for a moment against the one lighted port of the plane, and looked inside. The startled wholesale merchant who stared back into her eyes thought that he had been vouchsafed a glimpse of an angel. He went promptly from the airport of his destination to the office of his lawyer, who drew up for him a will establishing scholarships for divinity students.

  Huxley found it difficult to learn to levitate. His inquiring mind demanded a reason why the will should apparently be able to set at naught the inexorable “law" of gravitation, and his doubt dissipated his volition. His tutor reasoned with him patiently.

  “You know that intangible will can affect the course of mass in the continuum; you experience it whenever you move your hand. Are you powerless to move your hand because you can not give a full rational explanation of the mystery? Life has power to affect matter; you know that — you have experienced it directly. It is a fact. Now there is no 'why’ about any fact in the unlimited sense in which you ask the question. There it stands, serene, demonstrating itself.

  One may observe relations between facts, the relations being other facts, but to pursue those relations back to final meanings is not possible to a mind which is itself relative. First you tell me why you are … then I will tell you why levitation is possible.

  “Now come," he continued, “place yourself in rapport with me, and try to feel how I do, as I levitate."

  Phil tried again. “I don’t get it," he concluded miserably.

  “Look down."

  Phil did so, gasped, and fell three feet to the floor. That night he joined Ben and Joan in a flight over the High Sierras.

  Their tutor enjoyed with quiet amusement the zest with which they entered into the sport made possible by the newly acquired mastery of their bodies. He knew that their pleasure was natural and healthy, suited to their stage of development, and he knew that they would soon learn, of themselves, its relative worth, and then be ready to turn their minds to more serious work.

  “Oh, no. Brother Junipero wasn’t the only man to stumble on the records,"

  Charles assured them, talking as he painted. “You must have noticed how high places have significance in the religions of every race. Some of them must be repositories of the ancient records."

  “Don’t you know for certain?" asked Phil.

  “Indeed yes, in many cases — Alta Himalaya, for example. I was speaking of what an intelligent man might infer from matters of common knowledge. Consider how many mountains are of prime importance in as many different religions. Mount Olympus, Popocatepetl, Mauna Loa, Everest, Sinai, Tai Shan, Ararat, Fujiyama, several places in the Andes. And in every religion there are accounts of a teacher bringing back inspired messages from high places — Gautama, Jesus, Joseph Smith, Confucius, Moses. They all come down from high places and tell stories of creation, and downfall, and redemption.

  “Of all the old accounts the best is found in Genesis. Making allowance for the fact that it was first written in the language of uncivilized nomads, it is an exact, careful account."

  Huxley poked Coburn in the ribs. “How do you like that, my skeptical friend?"

  Then to Charles, “Ben has been a devout atheist since he first found out that Santa Claus wore false whiskers; it hurts him to have his fondest doubts overturned."

  Coburn grinned, unperturbed. “Take it easy, son, I can express my own doubts, unassisted. You’ve brought to mind another matter, Charles. Some of these mountains don’t seem old enough to have been used for the ancient records — Shasta, for example. It’s volcanic and seems a little new for the purpose. Charles went rapidly ahead with his painting as he replied. “You are right. It seems likely that Orab made copies of the original record which he found, and placed the copies with his supplement on several hiding places around the globe. And it is possible that others after Orab, but long before our time, read the records and moved them for safekeeping. The copy that Junipero Serra found may have been here a mere twenty thousand years, or so."

  Chapter Nine

  Fledglings Fly

  “We could hang around here for fifty years, learning new things, but in the mean time we wouldn’t be getting anywhere. I, for one, am ready to go back." Phil crushed out a cigaret and looked around at his two friends.

  Coburn pursed his lips and slowly nodded his head. “I feel the same way, Phil.

  There is no limit to what we could learn here, of course, but there comes a time when you just have to use some of the things you learn, or it just boils up inside. I think we had better tell the Senior, and get about doing it."

  Joan nodded vigorously. “Uh huh. I think so, too. There’s work to be done, and the place to do it is Western U. — not up here in Never-Never land. Boy, I can hardly wait to see old Brinckley’s face when we get through with him!"

  Huxley sought out the mind of Ephraim Howe. The other two waited for him to confer, courteously refraining from attempting to enter the telepathic conversation. “He says he had been expecting to hear from us, and that he intends to make it a full conference. He’ll meet us here."

  “Full conference? Everybody on the mountain?"

  “Everybody — on the mountain, or not. I gather it’s customary when new members decide what their work will be."

  “Whew!" exclaimed Joan, “that gives me stage fright just to think about it.

  Who’s going to speak for us? It won’t be little Joan."

  “How about you, Ben?"

  “Well … if you wish."

  “Take over."

  They meshed into rapport. As long as they remained so, Ben’s voice would express the combined thought of the trio. Ephraim Howe entered alone but they were aware that he was in rapport with, and spokesman for, not only the adepts on the mountainside, but also the two-hundred-odd full-geniuses scattered about the country.

  The conference commenced with direct mind-to-mind exchange: — “We feel that it is time we were at work. We have not learned all that there is to learn, it is true; nevertheless, we need to use our present knowledge."

  — “That is well and entirely as it should be, Benjamin. You have learned all that we can teach you at this time. Now you must take what you have learned out into the world, and use it, in order that knowledge may mature into wisdom."

  — “Not only for that reason do we wish to leave, but for another more urgent. As you yourself have taught us, the crisis approaches. We want to fight it"

  — “How do you propose to fight the forces bringing on the crisis?"

  — “Well …" Ben did not use the word, but the delay in his thought produced the impression.“As we see it, in order to make men free, free so that they may develop as men and not as animals; it is necessary that we undo what the Young Men did. The Young Men refused to permit any but their own select few to share in the racial heritage of ancient knowledge. For men again to become free and strong and independent it is necessary to return to each man his ancien
t knowledge and his ancient powers."

  — “That is true; what do you intend to do about it?"

  — “We will go out and tell about it. We all three are in the educational system; we can make ourselves heard — I, in the medical school at Western; Phil and Joan in the department of psychology. With the training you have given us we can overturn the traditional ideas in short order. We can start a renaissance in education that will prepare the way for everyone to receive the wisdom that you, our elders, can offer them."

  — “Do you think that it will be as simple as that?"

  — “Why not? Oh, we don’t expect it to be simple. We know that we will run head on into some of the most cherished misconceptions of everyone, but we can use that very fact to help. It will be spectacular; we can get publicity through it that will call attention to our work. You have taught us enough that we can prove that we are right. For example — suppose we put on a public demonstration of levitation, and proved before thousands of people that human mind could do the things we know it can? Suppose we said that anyone could learn such things who first learned the techniques of telepathy? Why, in a year, or two, the whole nation could be taught telepathy, and be ready for the reading of the records, and all that that implies!"

  Howe’s mind was silent for several long minutes — no message reached them. The three stirred uneasily under his thoughtful, sober gaze. Finally, — “If it were as simple as that, would we not have done it before?"

  It was the turn of the three to be silent. Howe continued kindly, — “Speak up, my children. Do not be afraid. Tell us your thoughts freely. You will not offend us.

  The thought that Coburn sent in answer was hesitant — “If is difficult … Many of you are very old, and we know that all of you are wise. Nevertheless, it seems to us, in our youth, that you have waited overly long in acting. We feel — we feel that you have allowed the pursuit of understanding to son your will to action. From our standpoint, you have waited from year to year, perfecting an organization that will never be perfected, while the storm that overturns the world is gathering its force."