by Steve Alten
The arbitrator was Oscar. One of the big fella’s tentacles was looped around Dharma’s slender neck, its fin coming to rest over her heart. Two more tentacles reached out to two more cephalopeds, who in turn reached out to four more creatures, each member continuing the process until every one of the intelligent beings was part of the bizarre group configuration.
ABE, what are they doing?
THE PROCESS TRANSLATES TO AN UNVEILING OF THE SOUL.
For what purpose?
IN THIS INSTANCE — TO DETERMINE WHETHER DHARMA YUAN SHALL LIVE OR DIE.
25
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.
— HIS HOLINESS TENZIN GYATSO, the fourteenth Dalai Lama
Eyes closed, Oscar began swaying, setting off a chain reaction among the other thirty or forty cephalopeds. Truth be told, I couldn’t accurately tell you how many of them now encircled Dharma; from my vantage all I saw was an interlocking quilt of hairy brown bodies.
Cross-referencing Oscar’s behavioral patterns with hundreds of research papers on cephalopod rituals and echolocation, ABE offered my subconscious theoretical commentary: OSCAR IS EVALUATING DHARMA YUAN’S CONSCIOUSNESS BASED ON HER THOUGHT-ENERGY PATTERNS. THIS EXPERIENCE IS BEING CHANNELED TO THE GROUP THROUGH PHYSICAL CONTACT.
The swaying and bobbing went on for several minutes until Oscar abruptly released his grip around Dharma’s neck and expelled a deep booming staccato sound from his breathing organ that reminded me of a shofar blast on Rosh Hashanah. The rest of the cephalopeds immediately joined in, creating a thunderous cacophony that reverberated through the cavern.
Perhaps the sounds were a “call to arms” because the grooved calcite walls suddenly became fluid with tentacles as hundreds of camouflaged squid scurried through the water and across the riverbank to join the gathering cephaloped Mecca.
And then there was silence — answered a moment later by Dharma’s wailing exhalation — an agonizing moan that echoed throughout the chamber and made my flesh crawl.
The cry died out, eliciting a chaos of pan-flutish bellows from the exuberant congregation, who converged upon Dharma and lifted her inert form high into the air, passing her atop the throng as if she were the lead singer at a rock concert.
The river of beings swept upstream like a brown tide, carrying my exonerated companion with them.
* * *
Twenty minutes and another mile’s hike produced a change in geology, the chamber narrowing, the elevation rising. The river twisted into white water, the rapids forcing the juveniles and mothers bearing young onto the bank. I remained at the back of the procession, Oscar by my side. Every so often a young cephaloped would dart in close, attempting physical contact, only to be intercepted with a stinging slap by one of Oscar’s powerful tentacles, chiding them away.
Up ahead, the ravine curved sharply. As we neared the river’s origin I could hear a roar of water, the thunderous sound devoid of echo, growing louder as the cave moved from night into day. As I rounded the bend, my skin was bathed in a cool mist, my senses once again overwhelmed.
We were standing behind a waterfall — a curtain of crystal liquid as tall as the Eiffel Tower, its bluster deafening. Backlit by the sun, the colors of the spectrum danced rainbows across the arching cavern walls. The flow cascaded into a shimmering azure-blue lake, its concealed northern end spread out before us, its spillway forging the river.
There was no longer a shoreline to follow, no path around the roaring obstacle of water. To continue on, one had to enter the lake and swim through the falls … which was exactly what the cephalopeds were doing — submerging beneath the pounding water and disappearing into the aquamarine ether.
I lost sight of Dharma, who must have already made the pass.
Oscar looked down at me. It was my turn.
We waded in together. The sun-drenched waters felt balmy — a wonderful relief after the icy cold waters in the cavern. Swimming along the surface, I approached the deafening roar as close as I dared, my heart racing in fear.
It is not child’s play to swim beneath the impact zone of a waterfall, Niagara Falls, as it was before I was frozen, dropped seventeen stories — the wall of water before me fell many times that height. And yes, while the flow from above appeared to pack far less volume than the Niagara River, I was still swimming into an unknown torrent — albeit a beautiful one.
I grabbed a lungful of humidity and ducked underwater. My brain was immediately overwhelmed by the chaos of white noise. Descending as deep as I could, I swam toward the crystal wall of foam — realizing, too late, that I was entering the freshwater equivalent of the three hundred foot tidal wave that had nearly drowned me days ago.
Liquid thunder bludgeoned my back and spine, forcing the air from my chest with the power of a battering ram. My immediate reaction was to turn back, only the falls held me fast, churning me into frightening somersaults that pried open my lips even as my mind screamed, Vanilla sway!
I vomited water and inhaled the lake, the anxiety of drowning overshadowing my sudden acceleration through the falls … into unconsciousness.
* * *
SO MUCH ANGER, ROBERT EISENBRAUN.
Oscar?
YOUR ANGER RESTRICTS THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF UNITY. THE ONE CALLED DHARMA UNDERSTANDS. LEARN FROM HER. ONLY THEN CAN YOU TRULY AWAKEN …
* * *
“Huh?”
Opening my eyes, I gasped a breath of daylight, as surprised to find my lungs pumping air as I was to be alive. Drenched and exhausted from yet another near drowning, I found myself lying in powdery pink sand along the shoreline of a tropical lagoon. Overhead, a cloud bank parted, revealing blue sky. Before me, a magnificent waterfall toppled a thousand feet over a mountain of rock that appeared to circle the entire perimeter.
Sitting up, I took a quick inventory of my body and noticed fresh suction marks along my left arm.
Oscar …
The lagoon was surrounded by a dense jungle that rose up crater walls. A nanosecond later, ABE determined that we were still in the cave, that the open realm was actually a collapsed doline.
Apparently, the network of caves ran beneath the redwood forest, which received a significant amount of rainfall. As runoff seeped through the limestone geology it created cavities that weakened the roof of the cave system. At some point in history, a section of the ceiling had collapsed, opening the cavern to daylight. Time and photosynthesis had created a unique ecosystem half a mile below the surface — an isolated Garden of Eden that served as a habitat for the cephaloped population.
“It’s not their natural habitat, you know.”
I turned to find Dharma standing by the lagoon. She was wrapped in the blanket, her dark eyes shimmering with golden-yellow flecks of light. “Are you okay? What happened to you? Did they … Hey, did you just read my thoughts?”
She beamed a smile so wide her face could barely contain her happiness. “A gift from the cephalopeds, a fading residual effect from having shared their collective consciousness. There is so much I need to share with you, Robert. And no, this isn’t an Omega dream. Yes, I realize that whatever I say could also be part of your dream, only you’re not—”
“Could you stop answering my thoughts before I pose the question, it’s really annoying.”
“My apologies. I imagine you must get that a lot from ABE.”
“ABE, I can control. You’re uninhibited.”
“You didn’t seem to mind back in the river.” Kneeling in the sand, she leaned in and kissed me. “If I seem a little giddy, it’s because I’ve lost the cynicism that has festered in my being like a malignant tumor since the Great Die-Off. The cephalopeds … there is far more to them than their evolutionary transition from sea to land.”
“They’re certainly intelligent, but I’ve yet to see Oscar incorporate the use of any tools. Guess we can blame the absence of an opposable thumb for that shortcoming.”
“The sucker pads at the end of each arm serve
the same purpose, but the point is moot. By evaluating their species based solely on a hominid scale you fail to see the true nature of these beings. You bonded with Oscar — what did you experience?”
The memory of having been immersed in Oscar’s camouflage was fuzzy. “To be honest, it happened so fast, when I tried to think about it later I wondered if I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.”
“Use ABE to recall what you felt.”
My bio-chip tweaked a memory synapse, the moment and its accompanying emotions flooding my consciousness. “I got it. I’m just not sure I understand it. This is going to sound really weird, but being connected with Oscar, for a moment I felt this overwhelming sensation of unconditional love. It made me feel secure, like when I was younger and my family was still alive.”
“Before the anger tainted your present existence.”
“Yes. It was reassuring. It made me feel like I’m never truly alone.”
“All true. And everything I am about to reveal is also true, but you must be open-minded in order to absorb it. Robert, as a scientist indoctrinated in Western philosophy, you’ve been taught that the brain controls the body — it’s your entire justification for creating that bio-chip. In the East, we have known it is the heart that controls everything … the way we feel, our health, everything. Think about it. More than ninety percent of the nerves send impulses from the body to the brain — impulses controlled by the flow of blood from the heart — the only organ in the body that generates a measurable electromagnetic field.
“New studies — Western studies — have correlated the interstitial pause between each heartbeat with a person’s emotional well-being. The heart is regulated by the vagus nerve, a bundle of nerves that originates in the top of the spinal cord. Besides controlling the heart, lungs, liver, and digestive organs, the vagus nerve triggers our emotions of good. For example, when we witness a soldier reunited with his wife and children, or when we watch a movie with a happy ending, the vagus nerve stimulates a physical response, causing our chest to expand and tears to flow as our psyche is dominated by feelings of warmth. These same feelings happen when we hear a beautiful melody, or view a work of art … or experience love.”
“I get it, Dharma. What’s your point?”
She smiled at my ignorance. “Think about it from a higher level, Robert. The Creator hot-wired our species to do good things, encouraging us on a physiological and emotional level to commit acts of kindness and generosity. These acts of compassion all flow from the heart.”
“And the cephalopeds have three hearts. So what? Squids have always had three hearts.”
“Yes, only these squids have developed three vagus nerves — the evolutionary keystone that changed their species from solitary intelligent creatures to communal, compassionate loving beings. Because of this incredible development, the cephalopeds now seek cooperation over dominance and the needs of the pack over their own individual pleasures. Robert, the cephaloped species represents the next significant step up the evolutionary ladder, and unlike humans, there is not a selfish bone in their bodies.”
“Or bones of any kind.”
She smiled again, squeezing my hand. “There was something else you experienced when you and Oscar connected. What was it? Tell me.”
I hesitated, but there was no point — she could read my thoughts. “It sounds ridiculous, but for a fleeting moment I was actually convinced that I understood the meaning of life.”
Dharma smiled. “And what is the meaning of life? What is this crazy world of ours all about?”
“That’s just it, none of this is real, it’s all an illusion. It’s like each of us is in our own Omega dream … a dream purposely filled with chaos and challenges, each challenge an opportunity to earn back that unconditional love — that perfect immortality that awaits each of us when we die … when we awaken from the dream. I know none of this makes any sense—”
“It makes perfect sense. And it’s exactly what I experienced. As for that feeling of unconditional love — it was the essence of the Creator, a spark of perfection that makes up each one of our souls. By tapping into Oscar’s soul, the two of us felt the unveiled energy of God. Pretty powerful stuff.”
I nodded, my thoughts absorbed in the memory. For some reason, in my fleeting moment of clarity, I had been convinced the physical world had been designed as a battleground so that good could be challenged by evil — evil in this case being the human ego.
Dharma must have been eavesdropping on my thoughts. “You’re right, Robert … Sorry, I just realized you prefer to be called Ike. You’re right about life being a test governed by free will; what you are missing is that each soul is linked, bringing new meaning to the commandment ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ The cephalopeds understand what man never could — that the physical world is a barometer of human nature. I am convinced these beings are the next rung up the ladder from modern man.”
“What happened to that old Bible adage, ‘Man was created in God’s image.’ Are you telling me God looks like an octopus?”
Dharma smiled. “God is neither man nor beast; the Creator is something we can never comprehend. Man, like these cephalopeds, was created not from God’s image but His essence, the essence to share. The cephalopeds are the embodiment of that essence — selfless loving beings existing harmoniously with nature. Like humans, they are physical vessels that harbor the soul. Unlike humans, they lack ego and all its ugly baggage — anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, corruption. These life-forms have achieved a state of Nirvana that keeps them attuned to the higher dimensions of the spiritual realm. Unfortunately once again, humans are threatening the natural order of life on this planet.”
“What humans? It’s just you and me.”
She shook her head, disappointed. “Remember, for the moment I can still read your thoughts. As such, I know you have crossed paths with Andria — at least one of her clone replicas. From having shared the cephaloped collective consciousness, I know that GOLEM used Andria’s DNA and the DNA of the other female members of the Omega crew to birth a nation of these soulless vessels. These lab creations that sprang from the sociopathic mind of your invention have spread across the continent like a pestilence; in the process they have forced the cephalopeds to abandon their natural habitat in the trees, hunting them down and using them in horrifying genetic experiments.”
“The cephalopeds are powerful intelligent creatures, Dharma. They are certainly capable of organizing a rebellion. Why don’t they fight back?”
“They did. For thousands of years their ancestors engaged in bloody battles with the children of GOLEM. Think of the Arab-Israeli conflict, only far worse. For even when the cephalopeds sought to end the fighting, peace could never be brokered with the Creator.”
“Creator? You mean GOLEM?”
“GOLEM no longer exists, your creation has evolved beyond its programming. It is an entity beyond artificial intelligence — an entity worshipped by its people as the Creator.”
It took me a moment to absorb this mind-boggling information.
Somewhere in the thought process my own ego reared its ugly head. You created a new life force, Eisenbraun. An intelligence capable of populating its own world.
Dharma slapped me hard across the face. “What you created was a monster, a machine possessing the desires of a sociopath. Free will exists only among the cephalopods, who are treated not as a species but as a genetic commodity necessary to seed your monster’s own creations.”
ABE regulated my blood pressure even as it channeled my rebuttal. “You said GOLEM — or whatever it’s become — possesses the desires of a sociopath. Being a Buddhist, I’m guessing you never read the Bible, though I suspect GOLEM did. According to the Old Testament, God inflicted quite a lot of punishment on His chosen ones, not to mention all those who died in the flood, and the Holocaust, and, oh yeah, the GDO. And just for the sake of argument, wouldn’t cows and sheep and other farm animals be considered genetic commodities created to serve ma
n?”
“You are equating the cephalopods with livestock?”
“I’m just saying that whatever GOLEM has become over the last twelve million years, it may have been influenced by a Judeo-Christian-Islamic interpretation of a supreme being.”
“I cannot speak for the biblical references, but the Holocaust and the Die-Off were cause-and-effect events that were brought about by man’s unbridled ego — the same ego that now motivates you to defend the acts of evil perpetrated by your machine.”
She was right, of course.
“Dharma, I’m sorry. I like Oscar. I respect his kind. Finish telling me what happened. After thousands of years of fighting, how did the cephalopeds become pacifists?”
She took a moment to register my sincerity, then began again. “If peace could not be acquired with their enemy, then it would be acquired without them. A grassroots movement took shape, based on the belief that acts of violence and aggression, even against their oppressors, affected the cephalopeds’ connection with the spiritual realm. This belief, acted upon before a spiritual connection even existed, not only elevated their species over time, but gave them access to what they refer to as the ‘Light of the Creator’—a source of energy and fulfillment that transformed their entire existence.”
“Is this their idea of fulfillment? To hide in caves and accept their place on the food chain?”
“Ike, these creatures see a far bigger picture. As to their slaughter, they are convinced an event is coming — a spiritual awakening that translates into something called the ‘Rebirth Moon.’ The event was foretold long ago, precipitated by your appearance.”
“My appearance? Am I supposed to be some sort of cephaloped messiah?”
“That remains to be seen. But remember what I said to you back on Oceanus. That your presence on the Omega mission would change the course of history.”
