The SONG of SHIVA

by Michael Caulfield

  “Sure, but let’s not get separated,” Fremont insisted. “Staying together ― establishing a base of operations at some central location ― is much wiser than spreading ourselves all over town. At least for the next few days.”

  “If you want to tag along, fine, but let’s get moving,” Lyköan agreed grudgingly, already walking with Nora towards the escalator, a flurry of hollow footsteps thundering down the half-empty concourse. Twenty hours stuck inside that cramped plane had been an eternity. It was emancipating just to be ambulatory again. Fremont and the attaché had already fallen ten meters behind and were forced into a run to catch up.

  Looking from Lyköan to Nora across the limousine’s facing back seats once the black Cadillac had pulled away from the curb, Fremont went into more detail. “I’d suggest a suite at the Oriental or the Peninsula ― even the Ayutt Haya if you’d like. Don’t want to give you the wrong impression ― we’re not offering unlimited expense accounts here but, within reason, the administration’s agreed to cover all incidental expenses – for the duration.”

  Away from the airport, as the limousine melted into the city’s exotic bustle, it was impossible to tell anything was amiss. Before Lyköan realized it they were exiting busy Phaya Thai onto Rama I and passing into the heart of downtown where the surrounding cityscape became even more comforting. Approaching Ratchadamri, the vehicle passed a harnessed elephant plodding along in the middle of traffic. The sight was somehow reassuring, the long flight’s tension evaporating into the welcomed local ambiance. His head was clearing too.

  The government-controlled media would be manipulating the facts, massaging the truth, mitigating potential panic in an effort to soothe the rumors that fear of another epidemic would naturally raise in the threatened population. There was no sense looking to the government for honest answers. He had contacts and resources elsewhere. Maybe a call to Jimmy, who spent a lot of his time listening to the faint whispers that blew in upon the local political winds.

  * * *

  “Assuming, on average, a ten-day incubation,” Nora figured, “individuals in the outbreak clusters now being reported must have been infected while we were still in England.”

  After being rebuffed by Thai police at the WHO laboratories, she had come alone to Yin Yat Chen’s apartment in tony Thonglor, hoping to win an ally. The WHO’s now ranking epidemiologist had been put in charge when Tardieu had left for Atlanta. From there, Tardieu had gone directly to Vietnam. Nora hoped to persuade Chen that a serum analysis of the quarantine subjects was urgently needed. Egan and Felix had left on separate errands.

  “Doctor Tardieu was convinced, even before he left for the United States,” Chen agreed, “that this was the mutation we have anticipated for some time. Already we are on the defensive – as much as a week behind asymptomatic carriers. It is not a favorable position for any epidemiologist.”

  “And the government is making matters worse. What was their excuse for turning everyone out?”

  “No explanation. They said ‘medical emergency’. Security. But they have since contacted the UN directly and, by the data they are requesting, suspect the WHO may be responsible for the viral mutation.”

  “We both know that’s not true,” Nora assured Yin. “But if the government believes it, then it’s going to make our task much more difficult. I was hoping, with your help, to blag our way back into the labs—”

  Chan gave her a confused look.

  “Sorry. English slang for crafty persuasion. Convince the Thai authorities that giving us lab access would be acting in Thailand’s best interest. You and I are much better equipped to handle contagion dynamics and countermeasures—”

  “And of course, you are right!” Chen agreed enthusiastically. “I was just about to ask the Health Ministry to reconsider, allow the WHO scientists still in Bangkok to assist in whatever way the government will permit ― under direct supervision if necessary. Your recent recognition for development of the TAI-1 vaccine should add weight to that argument.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “We may need to offer further proof that our assistance will be of value, but yes, of course.”

  “With JG stuck in quarantine at the Ho Chi Minh City conference,” Nora suggested, “along with many of the world’s best epidemiologists ― until they can be replaced ― it’s entirely up to whoever’s left.”

  It seemed clear to her now that Tardieu’s arrival at the CDC, feared at the time to have been too neat and cozy ― almost in lock-step with Innovac’s designs ― was far more likely to have been completely coincidental and innocent. He had been exposed to Pandavas’s virus along with all the other conference participants. The Thai government’s panicked response was only compounding their difficulties. Who had suggested the WHO might be complicit in the TAI-2 outbreak?

  “Here’s an idea,” Nora continued. “Under ideal conditions we can’t expect to synthesize an experimental vaccine for weeks, maybe months ― even if we successfully developed one from currently infected serum. Is anyone even drawing blood samples? But if we already had one, inoculating the uninfected WHO staff in Thailand would be possible ― a first step.”

  While she was suggesting this possibility, Nora was working on other ― hopefully better ― ideas. If Egan was right and nano-scriptors were now replicating and coursing through her own bloodstream, reconstructing and perfecting her own genome ― enhanced intuition might be one of their benefits. Whatever the reason, she was wondering whether Pandavas might have protected his precious Shiva vessel from both the H5N1 and H9N2 viruses. If that were true, Egan’s blood might already possess elevated titres from which vaccines could be developed. Nora envisioned a rapid breeding culture, derived from Egan’s antibodies. The idea was worth pursuing.

  Without spelling out her whole design, she suggested a worldwide medical Manhattan Project. If need be, the vaccine could be constructed from Pandavas’s own viral design. But the first step would require access to the WHO’s Bangkok lab, which housed the sophisticated tools available no where else on earth, except at Cairncrest and the Node, which were now unavailable half a world away.

  “There have also been reports of infections outside Vietnam and Thailand,” Chen added darkly. “No matter what course we take, very difficult moral decisions will soon be forced upon us. We can only protect a few. Who will we decide to save and who will we be forced to abandon?”

  * * *

  Jimmy hadn’t answered at any of the numbers Lyköan had tried. The bon vivant was probably out on an important shopping trip. Running down the fashion fugitive would have to wait.

  A quick search around the apartment building had not turned up Blossom either. Lyköan had been able to locate Mrs. Disatapon, who had eagerly accepted every hundred baht bill he had offered, all the while complaining that she had not received a single baht for her pet care duties since Whitehall had visited weeks before. After stuffing the cash into the waistband of her sampot chang kben skirt, the wrinkled crone had happily informed him that, since his departure, the dog’s daily routine rarely varied from ambling the soi shadows and avoiding the sun during the day, and then returning to the courtyard for dinner every evening. Lyköan decided not to go out looking for her.

  The WHO labs had turned out to be another no go, recently occupied by the Ministry of Health. Nora had called to let him know she was on her way to meet with the Korean microbiologist, Yin Yat Chen, hoping to find a way to do something about it.

  In what seemed to be the only positive development, Fremont had finally cut his tether, leaving for the American embassy. With the ambassador’s support, he was hoping to exert a little diplomatic pressure and maybe persuade the Thai ministerial offices that it would be in everyone's best interest if the WHO research offices were opened again.

  Hoping that another line of inquiry might still bear fruit, he laced up his running clothes and set out on foot for a visit. Forty-three minutes later, seated on the Wat Tee Pueng Sut Taai dirt floor, Lyköan was anxiously
relaying everything that had happened since he had left for England.

  “All the science in the world,” Sun Shi explained, “all the inherent power of man’s technology, actually has very little impact on the internal working of the universe. The so-called “progress” of science in the modern era, is not even the result of man’s efforts, but the operation of something much different, something placed in the human psyche by another, far more subtle power. But because Spirit, the seat of the psyche, is eternal and immutable, the temple of that spirit, the physical body, is rarely if ever capable of recognizing this hidden operation. Much like truth, the manipulation of any individual soul can only be dissected and revealed through indirect methods.”

  Same old Sun Shi, Lyköan thought. This too, in a strange way, felt comforting. Even so, Lyköan did remember reading something about a similar idea, contained in a mid-twentieth century discussion among four metaphysical masterminds: Lewis, Tolkien, Garfield and Dyson, who finally agreed that the truth can never be viewed directly; that it persistently escapes our gaze and, therefore, must always be approached obliquely.

  Lyköan could hear Sun Shi's measured voice, but could not make out his intent. “It is akin to reading the symbolism in an abstract expressionist’s painting,” the old monk continued, "hoping by inference to determine the underlying intention of the artist. Since no one can fully fathom how a human self ― a soul ― follows its internal motivation, how much more difficult then, to comprehend the intentions of the soul of the universe? And more difficult still, its purpose. But rest assured, the search for ultimate truth and for oneself is the same exhaustive journey ― and both journeys begin and end at exactly the same point. Unfortunately, unseen forces are also forever at their labor, manipulating everything that transpires upon the experiential, observable plane.”

  “...and our little lives are rounded with a sleep?” Lyköan suggested sarcastically, but also honestly.

  “Rounded repeatedly,” Sun Shi expanded. “Still, beneath those manipulations, there is a deeper, more significant statement being made. Life’s journey is one of exploration that anticipates an even greater presence. This is by no means any sort of proof, but it can, for the truly concerned seeker, satisfy every needful facet demanded of the search.”

  Lyköan wanted to believe. Simply understanding what Sun Shi was trying to tell him would have been a start. Unfortunately, Master Sun’s stream of Zen illogic felt more like metaphysical smoke, and was just as irritating as its physical counterpart.

  “Can you be any more confusing, old man?” he asked with genuine exasperation.

  “We exist in a domain currently ruled by what Dr. Pandavas chooses to call the Artifact,” Sun Shi replied. “This has forever been true, this or that artifact and a multitude of others of its ilk. But Pandavas is limited in his understanding. Beyond those limits lies an inexhaustible progression of possibilities, inhabited by beings both sublime and diabolical. Now that you have crossed the initiate's threshold and have experienced those other realms, you have begun to experience a spiritual transformation, is this not so?”

  “If you mean my inability to trust any of my senses anymore, maybe you're right,” Lyköan replied, referring to his recent shift into a surreal perceptual reality. "But what good is it doing me?"

  Sun Shi smiled knowingly. “Do not think this altered state serves no purpose. Though it may feel like an onslaught of shifting chimeras, providing nothing you can really hang your hat upon, those feelings arise from your own current limitations. Right now, you are only experiencing the shadows of these augmented powers, not those powers in their fullness.”

  “And that's possible?” Lyköan asked.

  Sun Shi grinned. “Of course, my boy. Why on earth do you think I am telling you all this?”

  “I thought maybe to scare me off. It is dangerous, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, there is. But keep in mind, as the Bhagavad-Gītā assures us: ‘You cannot now die, nor ever unto the end of time’. No mortals possesses such authority.” Grasping one of Lyköan’s tightly clenched fists, Sun Shi spoke with complete earnestness, “But the passage is simple, now that you know the way.” Prying the fingers open, he added, almost as an afterthought, “No more difficult than opening your hand…”

  The words drifted away in a swath of sunlight that was then pouring through the chamber’s window slats, illuminating the master’s form and dashing it into a quintillion distinct pixels. With hurricane force, sunlight and shadow were driven hard into Lyköan’s flesh, piercing his eyes with painful both brilliance and darkness. The outline of Sun Shi’s body flickered for an instant, before becoming one with the immutable continuum of all existence, no shade of difference between the human being who had an instant earlier been seated before him and the air surrounding his physical form, exposing in perfect clarity the underlying structure upon which all things are suspended.

  From somewhere within and behind the old man’s flickering visage, the palette of existence had opened its total depth and breadth, sounding out a resonant, regular pulse, the very heartbeat of the universe. With a start he once again fell into the boundless depths. Eyes squeezed tightly, he braced for impact, but none arrived, only the sensation of accelerating speed.

  “Open your eyes,” Sun Shi commanded. “We are passing into the universal field ― moving out, way out of this world. We are no longer limited by any temporal context ― every false sensory input. We expand, become broader, deeper and fuller, complete in both concept and attribute.”

  Lyköan was terrified, but through force of will he meant to drive through his terror.

  Sun Shi grew silent. The sensation of movement and expansion accelerated. Lyköan’s thoughts multiplied, radiating out into the abyss, only to return with an unfamiliar, distorted resonance. Angelic forms hovering on the periphery of his perceptual horizon, responded with mocking laughter to the Tanner that now seemed absolutely exposed, directing his passage ever onward. Accompanying the motion, a vast multitude of beings, each the size of a heavenly constellation, composed entirely of pure brilliance, flitted through the visible spectrum, emitting in joyously sublime voices a rhythmic chorus that reached Lyköan’s five senses simultaneously. In deft harmonies, divine music accompanied these great beings, announcing by their song the great measured expansion of the infinite.

  In the great gaps between the multitude of angelic forms, enormous dark-winged, terrifying Escheresque creatures intricately filled the varied emptiness between the light beings, edge to edge, sweeping darkly to their own separate but sympathetic, rhythmic pulse. Emanating from this dark but equally-resonant multitude, an inverse baleful moan arose, perfectly harmonizing with the sweet voices of the angelic choir.

  “All of existence is eternally perched mere seconds from ultimate extinction,” a metamorphosed Sun Shi Being bellowed as the sonorous dual melodies tolled across the cosmos.

  “Individual identity is not fixed,” the interloper boomed to a backdrop of extinguishing galaxies. The angels and the dark beasts had flown. “It is constantly being manipulated by experience and perception, by external stimuli, by every vagary brought upon us by irresistible desire, random loss and hard won achievement.

  “All of physical creation is but metaphor. A fleeting wisp. A mere bastard of reality. Delicate and discarnate; a feeble, paltry and discorporate thing. Separated from the spiritual ― and far more malleable ― this reality we find so solid in our impermanence is no more than a soulless cloth thrown haphazardly over a priceless sculpture. In the hidden depths, however, it is We who control every aspect of its motion. It is Ours. It cleaves to us, You and I, obeying Our every whim. Our longstanding agreement with the Other permits this, allowing Us unlimited freedom to do with it as We wish, but only when and if We wish.”

  When had Sun Shi been replaced by this dark and bloated Entity bubbling menacingly at the center of existence? It was as if a bit had been forced cold and hard into Lyköan’s consciousness, a hook anchored fast into his though
ts, inexorably reeling him in, removing every reference but this single aspect of creation that, like an enormous black hole, the shiny dark abdomen of a gigantic spider, was spinning from itself the infinite courses of existence, pumping out the panoply of disparate realities.

  Was he right? Was this thing actually offering him personal divinity? If that were true, why did he feel so threatened? He felt himself being irresistibly drawn towards this dark entity, like a spiritual magnet or gravitational force, found its wondrous power beautiful, awesome and irresistible, but at the same time, utterly terrifying.

  Desperately, he took a totally intuitive tack. Circling the alien core of this über-reality, Lyköan began moving faster and farther in what he hoped was a tangential direction. Slowly, by sheer determination, he was able to withdraw from the darkly erupting central figure.

  Then, by folding one potential of the infinite potentials lying before him into another, with shudder and shake, he began truncating the great expanse of the ever-expanding fullness, short-circuiting space at its terminal generational point, the precise instant where and when the ever-flowering multiple present blossoms into being. The very instant that creates the multitude of futures from which all of the individual, discrete physical universes spring and ever onward eventually direct themselves. It was there at that portal, he realized, that the creature dwelt.

  Drawing farther and farther from the taint of what he now understood was a dangerous lure, he stretched desperately for the nether reaches, progressively extricating himself, one membrane of non-physical depth at a time, until he was no longer being drawn by the wiles of Its hypnotic snare. Having recognized the danger ― he had managed to survive.

  “Ah-hah, I see you have finally found the courage to open your eyes,” Sun Shi said approvingly as the familiar world crystallized again around Lyköan’s single-reality consciousness. “It was only toying with you. Putting you through your paces. Sizing you up. And, I suspect, deriving some twisted pleasure from the exercise. Hard to know. But a common experience for first-time initiates, confronting you with one of its infinite personae. Sampling the exposed soul’s reaction and if possible, usually by subterfuge, absorbing the its spiritual essence. If successful, the poor unfortunate never returns. A dangerous business. But you performed exceptionally well, and without my help. I was ever at the ready if you had stumbled. But you performed wonderfully, didn't weaken, even for an instant. The mark of a true intuitive. Welcome to the club.”