Linda started across the platform and through the double doors. They found themselves in the large room that must serve as the main lobby for the auditorium, as it had many entrance corridors leading into it. The carpeting here was a rich red and the walls were hung with dark indigo curtains, giving it all the feel of an old theater. To the left was a sign and arrow. They turned and started down the corridor.
The auditorium was vast and cavernous, with rows of comfortable looking chairs and two tiers of balcony seating. The seats, the lights, the decor, and the floor coverings all looked rich and expensive, with reds and golds and yellows predominating. It was not large enough to hold the tens or hundreds of thousands of people they assumed had congregated here before the colony woks departed, but it could hold a sizable percentage.
In the front was a small stage, with a wide array of giant viewscreens looming behind it. The stage, with glossy hardwood flooring and black curtains in the back, was scaled for individual speakers or panel discussions. The viewscreens were no doubt tasked with taking whatever was happening on that small stage and presenting it in a way that it would fit the size of the auditorium and its huge audience. They saw no obvious loudspeakers, but assumed that the sound-system here was top quality. It was quite a setup.
Linda walked down the aisle toward the center of the auditorium. Cole and the others followed close behind. When they reached the point where their side aisle intersected with the wide center aisle that ran from front to back, a single spotlight came on, lighting the podium on the stage. The travelers turned to watch as a well-dressed man stepped through the curtain and made his way to the microphone. They were so far back that it was difficult to see the man clearly.
Then the screens flickered to life. Linda gasped. It was William.
"Greetings, Madam," said the Fisherman.
19.16
It was William. But it was not William. Every now and then the image would flicker or fade. He was a holographic projection, which was being simulcast on the viewscreens. The fabled HereNow technology used by The Families. The flicker surprised Linda at first, as from what she'd heard about HereNow it was indistinguishable, at a distance of a few feet or more, from the physical face-to-face. But then she realized that William must be transmitting this from far off planet. Linda drifted into a seat on the aisle while keeping her eyes on the Fisherman. William waited for a few moments, as if he could see her as well, and in real time. Maybe he could. Who knew what was possible with this alien tech?
After a moment William flashed his eyebrows and smiled in greeting, then continued. "I'm glad to see you made it, Madam. You and your companions. I knew that you would. Or, at the very least, I had hoped." He reached up to scratch his nose. "You've had quite a time of it since I last saw you. I pray you can forgive me for whatever part I've played in your many trials. I am especially aggrieved at the loss of your child, and have done what I could from my end to aid in his search and rescue. I know about the loss of a son. And I understand that part of what has compelled you to find me has been the wish to avenge the crime of his loss." William shifted his weight from one foot to the other. It almost looked as though he had tears in his eyes. "I am now unavailable to offer my condolences in person. I wish it were otherwise. I will simply say that the possibility that you will see your son again strikes me as high. Far stranger things have happened in this great Universe than that, as you are already well aware."
Linda reached up and wiped a tear from her own eye. Cole stood watching with his arms crossed. The rest of their crew had taken seats.
"But more than vengeance," the Fisherman continued, "it is hope which has brought you here. The question of the Quietus, what you call Greensleeves, has yet to be answered, and you still carry some hope that I shall be able and willing to help you with that. I told you at the beginning that I am not a human being, and offered that as the reason why I could not help you with this choice, as if I was far too alien in my empathies to be of any service in the matter. That was a lie. While I feel little kinship with Earth's human population, I am as fully feeling as any of you. The lie was designed to goad you along in the process and nothing more. It was meant to help banish such hopes from your mind. And still you have them." William stopped at that point and smiled gently. It felt to Linda as though he was looking right at her.
"But you already know that, Madam. You know it in your heart, no matter how angry you might be with me. What you are having more trouble accepting is that I cannot help you with this choice because the choice has never been mine to make. Nor is it for anyone in The Families to make. You'll understand when I say that this is a matter of the Prime Directive. It is a human choice, and we have left the human experiment, to embark on our own. We no longer feel ourselves to be a part of your species. We have become something else. So this is a choice for humans to make, and for you to make as the representative of your species. You were selected for this role long ago, and you accepted that role freely. It is now time for your big moment on the stage of life."
William's voice grew softer and more intimate. "What I can tell you, Madam... Linda... is that I do not know how you should choose. I know that I argued long and hard for the active reduction of the Earth's human population in our conversation on Rumi's Field, but that was because it was the only way I could see to make the choice available to you, just as allowing the triggering of the Quietus before we left puts the choice to you in a way you cannot avoid. Whether you choose to stop the Quietus or allow it to continue its work, I will understand either way, and will have no judgment of you. You truly get to freely choose, Madam. Linda. That is why you are here."
The Fisherman's eyes flicked up and to the right, as though he were looking at a clock. Then they came back to the camera. "One last illustration, if I may," he said with a slight smile. "You've just reached the top of the mountain. You have disembarked from the gondola and have put your skis back on. You're ready to go, and see that there are two slopes back down to the lodge. In the first scenario, one slope is covered with luscious new powder and looks beautiful and inviting as it glitters in the morning sun, while the other slope is covered with ditches of flaming oil, filled with horrible monsters, and strung back and forth with nearly invisible, razor-sharp wires that will cut you into pieces if you try to pass through them. In the second scenario, both slopes are beautiful and inviting and covered with luscious new powder, though one veers to the left and the other veers to the right. Now, to my thinking, in the first scenario what most people are confronted with is an obvious decision, which I would define as a choice made based on the rational analysis of data. You don't wish to be cut to pieces or eaten by monsters, so you decide to take the slope with the fresh, powdered snow. It's not a free choice. Nobody wants to be eaten by monsters, right? In the second scenario, and again, to my thinking, what you are confronted with is an obvious free choice. Both of your options look wonderful. There's no real data that would help you make a rational decision, as you'd be happy to take either slope. And so you are given the luxury of freely choosing."
"But here's the thing, Madam. Human beings in the physical realm tend to hate free choices. Partly because most of them have been raised in a culture that elevates data and rational reasoning above all other cognitive states (so that it's possible to make a 'wrong' choice), partly out of the experience of scarcity and the fear that choosing will limit one's options (it's the only choice you're ever going to have), and partly because they don't believe that free choices actually exist (because there's no free anything, and there will always be consequences.) This is quite reasonable, you understand; their thinking about choice has been conditioned by their physical experience, here in this realm of circumstances. So even when free choices present themselves, they feel more difficult to make to most people than you might expect they should."
"Now look at a third scenario, in which both slopes are covered with burning oil, monsters, and razor wire. You can't stay up there on the mountain. You'll freeze and die
. And besides, it's part of my illustration that you must get back down to the lodge. So here, even though both slopes look horribly dangerous, you are still confronted with a free choice. You see no real data that will help you make a rational decision. It does not matter which slope you take. Your choice is free." William smiled. "But here's the thing about those horrible slopes, Madam. That's only how they appear, because you've been raised in the physical realm of circumstances and consequences, where bad is bad and wrong is wrong and death is death. And yet I say to you, Madam... Linda... it is possible to stand on the mountain and gaze down those horrible, dangerous slopes and see the same beautiful invitation to adventure you see when you look upon freshly fallen powder. It is possible, even in that scenario, to find and feel the free choice available to you. All it takes is that one realize that the physical realm is only one aspect of the whole of reality, and that consciousness is fundamental to everything, and stretches far beyond the shores of this material playground. Inside of that gnosis, not only can you find and feel the free choice available to you when all choices look horrible, you can find and feel the free choice available to you even when one slope is powder and the other is horrible danger, even when the rational decision is obvious. You can stand on that mountain top and choose either powder or horror with equal freedom, in anticipation of a glorious experience made possible for you by virtue of your being in this land of flesh and stone."
The Fisherman stopped for a minute and peered into the camera. It felt like he was seeing directly into Linda's heart. His face had an open, gentle quality to it, like a friend who had just heard of a death in her family. "And this is the place to which I invite you, Madam. Both slopes look horrible to you. I know that. There's no way to make a rational decision. So find and feel the freedom to choose. Find the beautiful invitation to adventure available to you in your time and place and circumstances. And then choose."
William stopped long enough to breathe a long sigh, then continued on. "I must go now, Madam," he said.
"Wait!" shouted Linda, standing.
But William did not wait, or even act as though he'd heard her. "But one thing remains," he continued. Linda stood and watched. "You may not have realized it yet, Madam, but you've been here before. I wonder... do you remember where to go next?"
The HereNow hologram of William the Fisherman vanished from the stage.
19.17
Linda didn't want to talk to anybody. Not even Cole. She wanted to think. She wanted to remember. She wanted to feel. So they traveled in silence, taking another Tran to the next station, where they would find the elevator that went all the way to the bottom of Urbem Orsus. That's where they were going next.
It hit Linda, when William asked his last question, though Cole had pointed to the answer earlier. She knew what the shape of the city reminded her of. The huge, potato-shaped city they saw on the side-view cutaway maps closely resembled the Martian moon Phobos. In which case the "auditorium" of Urbem Orsus corresponded in placement and size with the cavernous space William had called the "grand hall" or "conclave" on Phobos, just as Cole had said. In which case, by talking about "where to go next," William was directing her down to the bottom of the city, just as on Phobos they had next gone to that strange, spiral room in which the Fortunate buried, or jettisoned, or said goodbye, to their dead. That's where they were going. Linda had declared it. They were going where William pointed them.
That must have been a recording. Must have. William hadn't responded at all when she'd called out. And Linda knew he would have had it been a live transmission. It was a recording. Something left behind. Because William really was long gone. And she really was on her own with this one. That's how it felt.
And his last words? His parting advice? What the hell did she do with that? Learn to think of the destruction of the planet and the die-off of the human species as beautiful ski slopes on a mountainside? Freely choose? Jesus! How in Jesus' name would she accomplish that? Linda had no idea. Had William gone truly crazy at the end?
But she knew the answer to that. William was right. Her heart knew him. Knew him to be whole and sane and good, even if he saw the world in very different ways than she. He didn't feel crazy to her. If it was all about feeling, if feeling was such a wonderful tool for finding the truth, then that was hers. Whatever he was, the Fisherman felt neither evil nor crazy.
The Tran came a stop at the next station and Linda and her crew stepped out into the corridor. A short walk to the left and a quick turn to the right brought them to the elevator they sought. They opened the door and confirmed that they were correct. This elevator had a button number thirty-four. Linda pushed it and the cab began to drop.
A few moments later, they stepped out of the elevator and into another hallway, this one more narrow. The floor was smooth here, but the walls were rough-hewn. Gray stone, blasted or cut rather than vaporized to glossiness by an alien tool. It looked much as Phobos had. The corridor went only to the right. They followed it. Soon it began to veer to the left while also sloping downward. "A spiral," said Cole, his voice full of wariness and wonder.
"Yes," said Linda. It was just as she'd expected.
They continued on. The slope gradually increased to the point where Annabelle had to grab onto Doobie's arm to avoid falling. The spiral got tighter. The walls squeezed inward. Eventually they reached the end of the corridor. A dead end, it would seem, but Linda knew otherwise. She put her hand up to the end wall and stepped forward. Her arm disappeared into the stone. She turned and smiled at her companions, then gestured onward with her head. "C'mon," she said. "It won't hurt you." She turned and disappeared through what appeared to be solid rock, but which turned out to be as insubstantial as light. Eventually the rest of them followed her through the strange doorway.
They passed through a tiny anteroom and entered a large circular chamber. It had a short ceiling, low enough that Cole had to stoop to avoid hitting his head. Marionette gasped. Linda sighed heavily, almost a moan. The floor of the room spiraled down to the center like a funnel, the successive turns forming steps one could take to the bottom. Laid out on those steps, forming a second spiral, were what looked to be a couple of dozen human bodies.
"Jesus," muttered Linda.
Cole started forward but Linda reached out and stopped him. "Don't," she said, putting a hand to her husband's confused face. "Please. This is for me."
Cole frowned but stayed where he was. Linda stepped across the outer ledge and onto the first ring of the spiral, placing her foot in the space between one body's feet and another body's head. She stopped and looked down to examine the corpses. Most were middle-aged or older white men, but there were women here as well, and a few younger souls, and more than one person whose color or ethnicity was decidedly not Caucasian. They were generally well dressed, and they looked like they'd been healthy in life. She saw no apparent cause of death. Were it not for the unmistakable stillness of the deceased, they might have been sleeping.
Linda took another step down. And another. She glanced up at Cole with a face he recognized as the one she wore when terrified. She turned and took another step further down the spiral.
She could see the bottom now. See the blackness at the center. A circle of deep darkness perhaps a yard across. But it was glossy, this circle. Not an opening into deep space, but something solid, like that black cube that had taken Rice and Obie away. It reminded her of one of the huge black eyes of the Gray aliens called the Life. Linda laughed at the joke, that she should see Spud's eye at the bottom of this huge potato. But her laughter quickly fell to silence. There was William.
"Oh," she moaned again, her breath quickening. "No. No." She stepped around the spiral and knelt down between two bodies and lifted the hand of the Fisherman, who lay on the bottom turn of the spiral, near the black hole. There were tears streaming from her eyes now. Her chest heaved and shook and at last a loud sob fell out of her mouth and filled the room. "No," she said again, shaking her head, wiping at her nose. "N
o."
But it was William, whether she wanted it to be or not. He was dressed in a sport coat and nice slacks, but underneath was a colorful Hawaiian shirt, this one sporting palm trees and hula girls. His white, feathery hair was neatly combed and his face was peaceful. But the skin of his hand was cold to the touch and his joints felt stiff. He'd been dead for a while. He'd been lying here while they'd watched his recording in the auditorium.
"Oh, William," said Linda, her voice shaky and moist. She barely noticed Cole's hand on her shoulder, or the others who'd come to stand nearby. She could only look at this man and cry and know, in that moment, that he'd been right after all: Linda did love him, just as he'd hoped. Somehow, sitting there in Rumi's Field, they'd managed to meet each other, soul to soul. Only now he would never know it. "Oh..." Her voice was a moan and a cry and a fist, shaking at the heavens. Cole and the others stood quietly and let her grieve.
After a few minutes, she decided she'd cried enough. She let go of William's hand and pushed herself up to a standing position. It was then that she noticed the others. Cole put his arms around her from behind. Linda melted into his embrace and sobbed some more.
"I suppose you think this is funny," she said at last, staring down at William's body.
"You expected a grand gesture," offered Cole in a gentle voice.
Linda turned to look at him. She gasped softly and shook her head. "I know," she said.
Doobie pointed at the body. "There's a paper in his shirt pocket," he said, obviously hesitant to say anything at all right then.
Linda turned and looked. He was right. A piece of white paper protruded from the pocket like an umbrella shade for the hula girl directly underneath. She bent down, plucked the paper out, and unfolded it. She read it. More tears began to flow. When she was finished, she handed it to Cole, who read it out loud.
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 74
