His fellow pilgrims represented the full range of troubled individuals. Brother Adley sat on his bunk most of the trip, rocking and reading his bible. Brother Alan jumped every time someone made a fast movement and brother Dellin said nothing.
The shuttle landed them at the Harmony spaceport on Tranquility. Crowds of the faithful poured into the terminal. A large sign separated male from female. Through a door up ahead he saw men undressing and placing their clothes in lockers. They then walked naked through another door. All was done under the scrutiny of robed men standing and pleasantly smiling. He felt for the bulge in his jacket.
“Brother,” Jim asked the robed man standing next to the line. “We don’t wear our own clothes?”
“No brother, we leave the things of mankind behind while we’re here.”
Jim ducked out of his place in line and walked back to a bathroom he’d just passed. Inside, he investigated the vacant cubicles where he found one with an air vent. Tugging at the grill, it popped out easily. He deposited the Colt inside then replaced the grill.
The light gray robe he was given was familiar to him from movies he’d seen. It was a monastic type with equally authentic sandals. The thought crossed his mind that they’d been copied from one of his videos, but it was too old for that. The robe had a rope belt. There were no modern appliances to hold it together, just buttons, the first he had seen since arriving in this time. He stopped after doing one up then quickly undid it. Others in the room were fumbling with theirs. Robed attendants assisted them in using the unfamiliar appliance. Jim copied them.
The issue also included a toiletry bag with everything he needed.
Once dressed, they divided into groups and escorted by a smiling, pleasant talking guide, left the main building of the spaceport.
Chapter 19
“This is your bunk Brother Frank.”
Brother Tung was a short muscular man of Chinese ancestry. He was Jim’s group leader. “As you can see there are no modern conveniences. No autoserves, no 3Vs, such objects take away the satisfaction you’ll find in doing things for yourself. You have to make your own bed. Do you know how to make a bed?”
“I’ve done it a couple of times,” Jim said.
“Good. Most people coming here have to be taught.”
“I do believe I’m going to like it.” Jim smiled and placed his small bag of toiletries on the bunk. It was a plain mattress type with sheets and blanket. The whole atmosphere of the barracks style accommodation reminded him of camp Iron Lake where he spent one summer as a child. The big difference was that he hadn’t seen a twelve year old with a baseball bat since arriving.
“The only duties you have are to keep your area clean and occasional tasks in the kitchen. We cook our own food on wood burning stoves.”
“What meetings do I have to attend?” Jim asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“None, there are classes if you wish. Bible readings and discussions but nothing is compulsory. You have an entire continent at your disposal. When you’ve been here a while we do recommend the business classes. From your record I understand you have problems in that area. The church can help you get back on your feet again.”
‘Ah,’ Jim thought to himself. ‘So that’s how they got their fingers into everything.’
“Thank you brother, maybe later, first I have personal problems to work out,” Jim said.
“Very understandable. Attend a few individual help classes first. The words of the Bible and the prophet will show you the way.”
Brother Tung walked to the other end of the room then pointed to an old style notice board. “Here are the schedules. You’ll see that they’re written on old fashioned paper. Our ways haven’t changed in many years. We have found that they work and help people find themselves, so why change them. If you have any questions, just ask me.” He smiled a very pleasant smile then exited the front door.
On the way to the dormitories, Jim had heard the word ‘prophet’ mentioned a number of times. When the brother talked he separated the two, Bible and prophet. On a table near the door was a Bible. He sat and opened it to Elijah and started to read. He thought: ‘could this religion be basing its philosophies on one book of the Bible?’ He read until late afternoon.
* * *
“Brother you’ve just arrived?” a tall blond haired man asked as he entered the room. “I’m brother Sorgen.” He extended a hand which Jim shook.
“Yes, just stepped off the shuttle this morning.”
“What’re you doing, just sitting and reading? Get out and enjoy the scenery. It’s a beautiful place.”
“I’m just a little concerned,” Jim said, closing the book. “Is there something here I’m supposed to learn? Something I’m supposed to do?”
“No, I have been here a month and nobody’s asked me to do anything. I do what I feel like, when I feel like it. It’ll come to you. Just relax and let it happen.”
Jim was mildly perplexed. If they did use some sort of mind control then one would presume that some form of education would be used. He looked up at Sorgen. The young man had a sort of dream like air about him as if he was talking to Jim but thinking of something else more pleasant at the same time.
“I think I’ll go for a walk.”
Strolling around the hut, he examined the material from which it was made. It was wood, but it was wood that had some sort of permanent coating or treatment. Trying to scratch it with a fingernail brought little result. Considering the durability, its age could not be determined. The style of the dormitory hut was the closest he had come across to ones he was familiar with from Earth. He thought of the possibility that they were constructed in the early days of colonization.
He walked down a small path away from the lines of huts into a pine forest that stretched to the horizon. The pines were old, very old. They were different from trees he had seen on Batalavia. Another thing he noticed was that these were real pine trees, nothing like the genetically altered ones he had seen.
The trees were tall, straight and slightly more slender than the ones he knew. Jim raised himself standing on his toes then dropped back down again testing his weight. He noticed a slight difference. The slightly reduced gravity of a smaller planet made the trees grow that way.
Slowly walking toward him from the opposite direction was another robed figure.
“Good afternoon brother,” was the greeting from the man. “It’s a beautiful day.”
“Yes. Just arrived and am taking in a bit of the scenery.” He turned to look at the snow covered mountains. “Have they names?”
“Oh yes.” The man turned, indicating them in turn with a finger he named them. “Mt. Hood, Mt. Baker, Mt. St Helen’s and Mt. Shasta.”
“Thank you brother. Have you been here long?”
“Four months, I’ll be going back home in another month. I’m starting the business classes in preparation.”
Jim folded his arms and looked the man straight in the eyes. “Being here has helped you?”
“Yes, very much. Things are clear to me now. I know that I am loved and part of a great family under the lord and the prophet.”
“Which of the prophets are you referring to?”
“Why, Elijah of course.”
“Elijah from the Old Testament?”
“Yes.” The man looked away, appearing to undergo a mild mood swing. He seemed to wish an end to the conversation and avoided all eye contact. “I have to go now. There’s a meeting I wish to attend.” He continued down the path toward the huts.
Jim now had something to think about. He walked further. “Old forests,” he muttered to himself. “Original names from mountains and places in the United States, unchanged. This place must’ve been set up very shortly after the Exodus, possibly by the original settlers from Earth. So some cult from Earth settled here, but which one, and why do they want to kill me?”
He wandered until evening then returned to the huts and found the dining room. Dinner was main
ly brown rice. They referred to it as ‘simple food for meditation’. As Jim looked around the room, he noticed signs of early malnutrition on many, possibly ones that had been there the longest. The symbionauts that regulated nutrition had their limits.
When he returned to his hut brother Sorgen was sitting on the bunk next to his. The brother was reading from a pad.
“First one of those I’ve seen here,” Jim commented.
“Oh, yes. They prefer paper books, but business economics is not a subject one can fit in a paper book.”
“Is it yours?”
“No. It’s from the library. When you do business courses you have access to it.”
“So brother, you’re almost ready to return and spread the word, eh?”
“I plan to return, but spreading the word I’ll leave to others. I just plan to live a normal life.”
That information momentarily baffled Jim. He thought they’d be more evangelical. Then he remembered the others back on Batalavia. They were totally normal until called on to act, similar to the old K.G B. sleeper agent. He thought that this might have been the information that they were trying to suppress then dismissed the idea. More than one of the fictional books he had read dealt with the same subject. So what was he left with? The diabolic angle? He decided to question brother Sorgan further on the matter.
“Brother, do you believe, as some do, that the devil walks the galaxy in human form?”
“The Bible and the prophet say so. The closest I can think of that would fit the description are the De Poulet family. Death and pain seem to accompany them.”
“This prophet, is that Elijah from the Bible?”
Brother Sorgen continued to read and remained silent.
“Brother?”
“Ah... yes? Oh I’m sorry. This is a very interesting section. What were you saying?”
“Oh, nothing, I don’t want to disturb you.”
The brother continued to read. It appeared to Jim as if the ones that had been here for a while had a switch. When the conversation turned to the basis of this religion, they either changed the subject or ignored it. It didn’t seem a conscious reaction. He believed it due to mental programming, but how? No compulsory indoctrination. No slogans or dogma plastered on the walls. Jim decided to sleep on the question.
* * *
Four days at the retreat brought nothing new. Walking through the beautiful reserves and looking at the picturesque snow covered mountains would have had a pleasant affect on him had he not been on a mission.
The smiling faces and heads bowed in contemplation were driving him crazy. He felt like punching one of them to see what happened. The devotees also seemed to have been divided in their sleeping arrangements. Of the thirty dormitories, sixteen were male and fourteen female. The more intelligent appeared to have been placed in only four. He frequently engaged men and women in brief conversation. The men from his dorm and from another male and two female dormitories had more to say for themselves. Most were professional people with social or business problems. It was these people who gave him the majority of the information he was collecting. The remainder of the population only spoke in clichés of a religious nature and demonstrated little original thought.
He had not attended any of the meetings. He was waiting to be either invited or pressured, but that didn’t happen, just crowds of pleasant smiling faces doing what they wanted. His hopes of finding a training ground for crazed religious killers were slowly fading. The thought of returning to civilization and building himself a fortress came to mind as his only course.
The simple food continued. Jim was holding up better than most under the bland diet. His system was more used to irregular nourishment. The people here had lived their normal lives with a computer regulated nutritional intake. Jim had spent many years existing on donuts and coffee for breakfast.
* * *
It was about midnight. Jim lay on his bunk, drifting off to sleep while weighing his alternatives. Suddenly he sat bolt upright. “The prophet is the way,” he whispered to himself, then thought, ‘What am I saying?’
“Have you had a revelation brother Frank?” Brother Sorgen, in the next bunk rolled on his side and propped himself up on one elbow.
“A revelation?” Jim’s mind was in a state of confusion.
“Yes. Once you’ve been here a few days and cleared the problems of life from your mind, answers occur to you.”
“What? The lord speaks to you?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s the logic of your own mind coming to the front once trivial things are cleared away. After all, religion is nothing but logic.”
“I thought of a prophet. Which one did I think of?”
“Come to a meeting with me tomorrow at ten. You may find your answers there.”
“Ok... Ah.... I mean, I’ll do that.” Jim lay down and remained still for a few minutes. Slowly he extended a hand and ran it along the metal railing of his bunk, first the sides, then the back. At one spot, quite close to his head, he felt a mild vibration in the metal. The hair on the back of his hand stood up and he felt a tingling sensation in his fingers. ‘So that is it,’ he thought. ‘They don’t push you in the open, they tell you about it at night.’
Straining his ears, he heard nothing. If it was a voice, it must have been at an inaudible volume. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘It must be some exotic method of directly accessing the brain.’ Jim quietly chuckled to himself; he remembered science fiction films of his former time. More than one featured a brain controlling wave. He thought, ‘Has science fiction become science fact or is it still in the realm of science fiction.’ He had no one to ask, no ear plug with ten experts telling him what to do.
Whatever it was, the relaxation, elimination of stress, lack of stimulus and a resistance reducing diet, all prepared the mind for the nightly indoctrination. He was positive now that it was some bizarre technology that physically altered a person’s brainwaves but by knowing this, was he immune? What could he do if he wasn’t, sleep on the floor, in the woods, wrap his head in aluminum foil? Questions, questions, questions, but no answers.
* * *
Next morning, Jim accompanied brother Sorgen to the meeting. It was a disappointment, just a regular standard biblical instruction class. As he walked back to the dormitories one phrase that was spoken by the instructor stood out in his mind. “In the face of all adversities trust in the organ of the lord.” It was presented as a biblical quote, but didn’t sound biblical.
That evening he approached Brother Tung as the Brother walked by his dormitory. “I’m a little confused about the meeting I have attended.”
“What is it that concerns you brother?”
Tung’s smiling face and pleasant tone put Jim on edge. He felt like seizing him by the throat and demanding, “What the yack is going on here?” Instead, with difficulty, he kept his composure. “The quotations made. I couldn’t place the origins of a couple of them.”
“They’re all from the Bible and the prophet.”
“Yes, but some didn’t seem biblical.”
“Brother, there are more prophets than appear in the Bible.”
Jim decided to discontinue the questions. He had his answer. “Thank you brother, I’ll think on it.”
The brother smiled and walked Jim to the door of his hut. “The answers will come to you in time.”
Instead of entering the dormitory, Jim turned and walked toward the woods. There were now facts he could contemplate. Once clear of all others he sat on a fallen tree trunk to go over what he had learned. He did his best thinking out loud.
“There is another prophet,” he mumbled, “one that is the real basis of this religion. They slowly introduce the teachings, advancing followers from level to level until they got ‘em. The subliminal stuff in bed introduces then reinforces things.”
He continued to think for a few moments. Then one fact puzzled him. “Why kill me? Back to basics. What does a prophet do? He foretells things. Did this one describ
e my arrival, or just mention something that fits? That’s it.” Jim slapped his knee. “It’s a warning and instructions to kill me, or something that could be interpreted as such. I’m not that much of a threat to the cosmic well being. I have to find out.”
Jim looked up at the trees and raised his voice above a mumble. “I don’t think I can take it here much longer!”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
Jim swung around. A young female was standing only a few meters behind him.
“I’m sorry. I did not mean to interrupt your talk with yourself. I do that too.”
She was a good looking girl with long brown hair, a smiling face and just a hint of dimples. A light breeze ruffled her robes. The way in which they issued apparel here was not favorable to an exact fit. This young lady seemed to have been lucky; the outfit accentuated her slender figure. He was instantly attracted. For years he had had the look but don’t touch attitude of a married man, but a circumstantial change of perspective was taking effect.
“All I heard was that you did not like it here,” she said.
“That was not what I meant. I was referring to here,” Jim pointed at his head then marveled at his quick thinking, “too many thoughts are racing around.”
“I know how you feel. That’s the way I was when I first arrived.” She walked up and sat next to him on the log. “There’s more to this place than just sitting around thinking. We do have social functions. Of course they’re well away from the quiet areas. Music, dancing, even moderate amounts of alcohol are served. I can show you if you like.”
“Umm.” Jim’s mind was in conflict. He didn’t want to jeopardize his mission, or his life, by pursuing a female he had just met. He had an overwhelming desire to get to know this girl and he earnestly wanted to confide in her.
“Do you want me to show you the facilities? Centralia is walking distance from here, it takes about an hour. They hold a dance there every second night,” she said, taking his hand.
The Time Stone (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 1) Page 35
