Thirst No. 4

by Christopher Pike

  “It’s obvious. Otherwise you wouldn’t protest how we came into contact with the Source.”

  Her words stung. They hurt because they were true.

  “Tell me more about how you linked your minds,” I said.

  “Just as Brutran has the Array and the Cradle, we had a thousand of us who could sense the Source, a hundred who could channel information from it, and a dozen of us who could link our minds so they functioned as one. We called our inner circle the Link.”

  “I assume you were the head of it.”

  “My father was. But I was a member. I saw how it evolved over time.”

  “How much time?” I asked.

  “Now we come to the Telar’s deepest secret. How did we become immortal? It didn’t happen overnight. As a people, we were in contact with the Source for two decades before it gave us insights into how to extend our lives. These insights Brutran and her inner circle are already using. We were taught herbal formulas, yoga exercises, and breathing techniques that greatly slowed down the aging process. That’s why the scriptures talk about people who lived to be several hundred years old.”

  “Umara. I’m the last person on earth who needs a history lesson.”

  She ignored me. “But the secret of the Telar’s immortality came from the Link.”

  I waited but she didn’t continue.

  “So what was the secret?” I asked.

  “A great white light came and blessed us.”

  I groaned. “Now I know you’re a born-again Pentecostal.”

  “You’ll have trouble with this part of my tale. But I suspect after you leave Brutran’s castle—if you manage to survive—you’ll have no trouble believing every single word of it.”

  “Go on.”

  “The Link grew in power with the passing years. As a group we aged very slowly. We were together perhaps a hundred years when we had a great breakthrough. We were sitting in silence in our largest pyramid. We had been fasting on nothing but water for weeks and our physical bodies felt as if they were made of air. Yet our Link kept growing stronger and stronger and with it we were able to peer into realms you can’t imagine. Prophets speak of angels and archangels and elementals and gods. But we actually saw such beings. We were able to communicate with them, learn from them, and at each step we were led higher and higher. Eventually we reached a point where we believed we might one day see God.” Umara paused. “It was then it happened.”

  “A great white light came and blessed you.”

  “Don’t ridicule me, Sita. You’re alive in your original body. One reason is because Krishna gave me his blood. The other reason is because of the light I experienced that day. The glory and power of it has never left me. It’s possible it’s the same light the Bible refers to when it speaks of the Holy Spirit. I don’t know, it can’t be described. I only know that after it came, and left, all of us in the Link, and the majority of the others who were able to contact the Source, were immortal.”

  I took time to digest her words. I knew she was not lying. I would have detected the falsehood in an instant. But her tale was so fantastic, it created more questions than it answered.

  “What went wrong?” I asked finally.

  “Why do you assume something went wrong?”

  “It always does. Never mind the fact that you’re the only one left of this Link.”

  Umara’s expression was sad. “I think the light gave us so much joy it was hard to return to the physical world. Imagine, we felt as if we had been touched by God. But the next day, when we broke our fast, we still had to chew our food before swallowing it. We still had to urinate and move our bowels to get rid of our wastes. We still had to wash our skin to keep it from smelling. But it was difficult to go back to being simply human.”

  “Were those in the Link the leaders of your people?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure that created problems right there.”

  “True. We were supposed to be leading our people but all we could think about was returning to the light. Because our breakthrough had come as a result of much fasting and meditating, that was all we did for the next few years. But it had the effect of separating us from our people and in the end they began to resent us just as we resented them.”

  “Didn’t your better angels advise you to be more loving?”

  “We continued to experience higher dimensions. Realms of light and bliss. But none led us back to the great white light. As our frustration grew, I think we began to attract beings that promised us they knew a secret way to the light.”

  “Who were these beings?”

  “Familiars. They came as the best of friends, and they looked very bright themselves. It was easy to believe what they said. But, looking back, I realize they never would have come if we had been more attentive to our people. We had become selfish, self-absorbed, interested only in our own level of achievement. We didn’t pray and meditate for the sake of our people. We hardly spoke to them, especially after we met the Familiars. To us, they were the most wonderful beings. We began to see them as almost as valuable as the great light. You see, they gave us powers.”

  “What kind of powers?” I asked.

  “All kinds. We discovered we could move objects with our minds. It didn’t matter how large or heavy they were, not if we were linked together. We learned how to bring walls of fire. This power proved especially useful when we were attacked.”

  “Attacked? I thought you had no enemies.”

  “We were attacked by our own people.”

  “But you just helped make them immortal!”

  “Those connected to the Source were made immortal. The rest of our people realized this and wanted to be given the same gift. We might have given it to them if we had control over it, but we didn’t. They turned against us and since they now outnumbered us fifty to one, we had no choice but to call upon the Familiars to protect us.”

  “Did they save you?”

  “All of us in the Link survived. But many in the Source died, despite their gift of immortality and the fact the Familiars were able to create waves of fire that flowed through the streets. It was a horrible time. Even though I hid deep in our greatest pyramid, I could still hear the screams of my people as they burned to death. It seemed to me, even then, that the Familiars liked to kill our foes slowly. Of course, I didn’t understand at the time that they actually fed off the agony they caused.”

  “How long did this battle last?” I asked.

  “Three days. When it was over, my father made himself king of all the land and set down stern laws everyone had to follow. We had never had a king before. We had never had a caste system. Now those who were in contact with the Source were the upper caste, while those in the Link were supposed to be treated like gods.”

  “You must have enjoyed that.”

  “I hated it, I knew it was wrong. I went to my father and begged him to let us return to our simple life, when everyone was treated as an equal. But he said that was impossible, the people would always be jealous of our immortality and would try to take it from us by force. Then I begged him to at least stop invoking the Familiars. I couldn’t stand the feel of them in our chambers, never mind what they had done to our people during the war. But again my father said we couldn’t go back. He believed we needed the Familiars for protection, and to continue our search for the great light.”

  “It was a search for the divine that led to your damnation.”

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Our goal was great. Our path was dark.”

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “Horror upon horror. Now that the Familiars were our protectors, they began to make demands. They insisted on human sacrifices. At this my father finally said no. He would never do that. In his heart, he wasn’t a bad man, although he had clearly lost his way. But he wasn’t given a chance to redeem himself. A member of the Link named Hatram poisoned him and declared himself king. It wasn’t long after that we were slowly burning to death a dozen pe
ople in honor of every full moon. The victims were chosen at random. They could be mothers, children, it didn’t matter. The Familiars had to be fed. After all, they were going to show us the great white light.”

  “Surely even Hatram didn’t believe that,” I said.

  Umara looked out the window. When she spoke next, there was pain in her voice. “I was never to know what Hatram believed. Even when he raped me and ordered me slain.”

  “The rest of the Link allowed this?” I asked, shocked.

  “This was a thousand years after my father had been killed. Half the Link banded together to kill Hatram. There was no other way to stop him. But he became aware of our plan and plotted a horrible vengeance. The Familiars supported him and soon there were not many of us left. It was right after this I was raped.”

  “How did you escape the death sentence?”

  “Friends came to my aid and hid me. After Hatram completed his vengeance he discovered he could no longer link with anyone. He had sunk too low, he could no longer invoke even the Familiars. Eventually, I was able to catch him alone and I killed him with a knife.”

  “But you had his child.”

  Umara whirled. “How did you know?”

  “I hear it in your voice. That child was Haru. He was never your brother or half brother. He’s your son, like Matt.”

  Umara lowered her head. “Haru is nothing like Matt.”

  I nodded to the road in front of us. We had exited the redwood forest and were staring down at the cliff’s rocky shore and the crashing waves.

  “If everything goes according to plan,” I said, “I’m going to kill Haru in the next week or two. Are you sure you’re all right with that?”

  Umara stared straight ahead and nodded. “It’s like when I slit his father’s throat. It’s necessary.”

  There’s a knock at my door.

  “Come in!” I call out.

  Brutran opens the door. She has a FedEx box in her hands.

  “This just came for you,” she says.

  I nod to my desk. “Put it there.”

  Brutran sets the package down. “I hope it’s not more of the virus.”

  “Your problems with the virus are almost over. I have sent word for the permanent vaccine to be sent here, along with the man who invented it. He’s Telar but I want your people to show him every courtesy.”

  “Of course. What do you want in exchange?”

  “For your people to manufacture as much of the vaccine as possible, as quickly as possible. We’ll begin to strike the Telar this evening. Chances are they’ll strike back.”

  “Our intelligence indicates the Telar are producing vast quantities of the virus in Rio and Tokyo. But they have yet to distribute it to other cities, at least not on a large scale. They may have operatives working on a small scale that are unknown to us.”

  “We must assume Haru already has the virus out there. Does the IIC have connections to the Red Cross?”

  “The president of the organization works for us. We are their largest donor. If an outbreak occurs, we can move fast.”

  “Excellent. Anything else?” I ask.

  “I wanted to know how your initiation into the Cradle went.”

  “Is this room secure?”

  “You asked me that yesterday.”

  “Yesterday was yesterday.”

  “You can talk freely. No one is listening except me.”

  “It was amazing. Like a descent into hell. The whole experience left me with a splitting headache. Your Cradle is a piece of work. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Brutran looks too tired to defend herself. But she tries anyway.

  “I told you, I have almost nothing to do with it nowadays.”

  “I heard you the first time. What are the kids doing right now?”

  “What they usually do in their spare time. They’re feeding lines of code into a computer file they keep secret from the rest of us.”

  I sit up with a start. “Do these lines of code have any relationship to the computer game one of your subsidiaries puts out? A game called CII or Cosmic Intuitive Illusion?”

  Brutran hesitates. “How do you know about that game?”

  “Let’s just say I have a friend who’s obsessed with it.”

  “Paula Ramirez’s child?”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Yes. Our best hackers have determined that the Cradle is building up a massive online program that’s capable of moving in and out of almost any computer system. Each day, this program makes brief contact with the online game CII and adds lines of code to it, making it even more difficult to beat.”

  “Have any of your hackers defeated the game?”

  “No. They’re not even sure what the game represents. But we have noticed that hackers who spend a long time playing it begin to suffer from paranoia and delusions. Rumors about it have spread among my staff and I’m having trouble finding men or women who are willing to study it. The game is considered poison.”

  “How can a computer game cause mental illness?”

  “I have no idea,” Brutran says.

  “How come you didn’t tell me about this earlier?”

  “I knew you were joining the Cradle. I figured you had enough on your plate.”

  “Don’t tell me you were trying to protect me.”

  “I was,” she replies, and she’s telling the truth.

  “Have you asked Lark or your daughter what’s the purpose of the program?”

  “I tried broaching the subject and was warned to back off.”

  “Can’t your hackers figure out a way to delete the program?”

  “They’ve tried. It’s heavily protected and very sophisticated. I have heard several of my best people describe it as extraterrestrial.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “I’m surprised someone who just got a close look at the Cradle would have trouble believing in that possibility.”

  “Contrary to what you may have been told, I didn’t see any aliens in that room.”

  “Yet you refuse to describe what you did see.”

  I wave my hand. “I don’t want to talk about it, not now. Tell the children I want to reassemble in six hours.”

  “I’ll politely suggest that’s a good time for you.” Brutran retreats to the door.

  “Cindy?” I call.

  She stops. “Yes, Alisa?”

  “I do understand how you lost control of all this.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you should never have opened the door in the first place.”

  She leaves and I quickly unwrap my package. Yaksha’s book. I called Shanti yesterday to send it down. I did not worry they would lose it, nor was I afraid Brutran would open the package behind my back.

  While staying with Umara and Freddy in Santa Cruz, I sprayed a lot of its pages with my blood and uncovered several hidden messages from Yaksha. But the most important ones, I assume, the ones that deal with the Telar, I was unable to find.

  Then it occurred to me that the book starts and finishes with blank pages. Picking up a bottle the staff uses to refresh plants, I bite the tip of my finger and allow a few drops of my blood to fall in the water, before I replace the cap.

  I spray a faint mist over the first blank page. Nothing.

  I spray it over the back of the last blank page.

  A quote of Krishna describing the Hydra appears.

  “The Hydra was the offspring of Echidna and Typhon. His mother, Echidna, had the head of a beautiful maiden and the body of a serpent. Typhon, his father, had a hundred horrible heads that could touch the stars and change their courses in the heavens.

  “The Hydra lived in the swamps near the ancient city of Lerna, in Argolis. Like his mother, he had the body of a serpent, and like his father, he had many heads, nine, one of which could never be harmed by any weapon. If any of his other heads were severed, another would grow in its place. The stench from the Hydra’s breath was strong enough to kill any man or bea
st.

  “The Hydra terrorized large sections of the earth for many years until man appealed to the gods for help. It was Hercules, the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, who volunteered to slay it. Hercules journeyed to Lerna in a chariot, and took with him his nephew and charioteer, Iolaus.

  “When they finally reached the Hydra’s hiding place, Hercules told Iolaus to stay with the horses while he drew the monster from its hole with repeated shots of his flaming arrows. This stirred the monster’s wrath and Hercules boldly attacked. But he quickly realized that as soon as one of the Hydra’s heads was severed, another immediately grew in its place.

  “Unsure what to do, Hercules called for Iolaus’s help, and Iolaus brought forth a flaming torch. This time, as Hercules cut off the Hydra’s heads, Iolaus quickly cauterized the open wounds with his fire. This stopped them from growing back.

  “As Hercules fought the monster, he was almost killed by its deadly breath, but eventually he severed all but one of the Hydra’s heads. The last one could not be destroyed by any man-made tool, so, picking up his club, Hercules crushed it and tore it off with his bare hands. With Iolaus’s help, he wisely buried it deep in the ground and placed a huge boulder over it lest it be disturbed by the future races of man.”

  “Fascinating,” I whisper as I finish reading. Since discovering that Krishna told Yaksha a parable about the Hydra, I had searched Yaksha’s biography, as well as the Internet, for any clues that might help me wipe out the Telar’s Source and the IIC’s Array. The many-headed theme obviously connected the Greek myth to my enemies.

  Yet there were so many versions of the Hydra myth online, and Krishna’s brief comments on the story that originally appeared in Yaksha’s book didn’t say much. I find this longer version much more satisfying.

  For one thing, here Hercules and Iolaus are dead ringers for Arjuna and Krishna. There are numerous parallels. Iolaus was Hercules’ nephew. Arjuna was Krishna’s cousin.

  At the start of the battle with the monster, Hercules came dashing in with his fiery arrows. Arjuna, of course, was known as the greatest archer of his time.