A Vision of Fire

by Gillian Anderson

  When they were done, Mikel went about seeking a potential cause. He’d noticed hours ago that his carved meteorite was sitting on the table and the Geiger counter was out. He approached the object cautiously and waved the wand over it for several minutes but nothing happened. Finally, he picked it up, wrapped it in cloth, and strode to the safe to stow it.

  “Not there,” Flora said. “We’re putting all the relics in the deep freezer.”

  “For what?”

  “As a precaution,” she replied.

  “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Mikel asked.

  “As my great-uncle Commander Hunt said during the Blitz, ‘One cannot overreact to this.’ Anyway, it’s my prerogative.”

  “But we don’t know that this or any of them had anything to do with Arni’s death.”

  “We don’t know they didn’t.”

  “That argument is ridiculous,” he said. “We have to try and reconstruct what he was doing—”

  “And we will, after we’ve had a pause and a good think. I’ve read your report about the trip. There isn’t a damned thing in this building that we know as little about.”

  His impatience evident, he held up his find. “Which is why we need this here, now. This has more writing than any of them. We can learn from it.”

  “We will,” she said. “Please, Mikel—consider all that’s happened already, the rats in Washington Square, the birds around your plane. Those phenomena all have artifact proximity and they began after this thing started its journey.” She shook her head ruefully. “Arni was a synesthete. These objects may be connecting with animal and possibly human consciousness on some level. Perhaps there was something emitted by this rock at an inaudible frequency, triggered by a certain kind of light or sound, perhaps, for example, the electrical output of an airplane or a Geiger counter.”

  “The rats weren’t anywhere near my artifact.”

  “They were not,” she agreed. “But they came running here, to the collection. Which is why I want all the objects stowed and stabilized until we’ve examined this more thoroughly.”

  Mikel shook his head. “That’s the reason we have to keep studying them now, Flora, while they are being influenced. And I mean, why freeze it? Why not superheat it?”

  Flora snatched it from his hand.

  “You’re being a little extreme here,” he said.

  “Arni is dead!” she said, showing the first real sign of emotion.

  “I’m sorry too but we have a bigger picture here,” Mikel insisted, “a force we don’t understand and that we haven’t understood for a long damn time. Being able to read some of the symbols is one thing. We’re getting pretty good at that. Understanding the mechanics of these objects is bigger.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “Of course you do. Look, this thing has obviously been through tremendous heat before and survived. Arni didn’t heat it—no burner. No cigarette lighter. I don’t think we’re going to know the full extent of its functionality until we start ruling things out.”

  Flora turned away. “It goes in the deep freezer with the rest, since we know that all of these artifacts have survived low temperatures for thousands of years without killing anyone, and that’s final.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She half-turned. “What?”

  “That they haven’t killed anyone before?”

  She hesitated for the briefest moment. “You’re right. I don’t know. All the more reason for caution.” Then, without another word, she went to the locker, loaded all the objects onto a tray, and navigated to a room down the hall. She packed each item in a plastic bag and put them away. When she returned, Mikel was leaning on the wall outside the lab, pouting. She flicked off the light, slammed the door shut, and followed him up the stairs.

  “Go home,” she said. “Get some rest.”

  “I’m rested. I want to work.”

  “Then go to the library and read. Finish watching the videos Erika collected.”

  “Why are you being like this?”

  “Like what?” she asked. “Thinking?”

  Mikel said nothing as they neared the landing. The old stairs creaked as they ascended in the near-darkness. Upstairs the phone was already ringing. Mikel fielded the first call from the police. Arni had been reported missing at seven a.m. by a friend he was supposed to meet the night before, and the floodgates opened. Flora was glad she had put the artifacts away: only now it occurred to her that they may have been seized as evidence.

  The rest of that day was filled with exhaustive questioning by an ill-tempered detective and with open and measurable concern for Arni while police inspected every corner of the laboratory space and locker room. Flora’s mind was on the deep freezer but they only checked it and did not violate its contents.

  Finally, at midnight she summoned Mikel from home and ordered him back to the Falklands.

  “For what?” he asked, not displeased but surprised.

  “I’ve thought,” she announced. “Do whatever you have to do to get access to the crew of the Captain Fallow. Find out where they located your artifact. Where there was one, there may be more.”

  “We’ve been down that road before with other artifacts,” he said.

  “That’s true,” she agreed. “But as far as we know, they never caused any brains to melt. I think your artifact is too small to generate power on its own. So a theoretical external power source, the cause of this phenomenon, would likely be on the other end, where the artifact is from. It may still be connected with that source, if there is one, still charged somehow.”

  He agreed with her decision. Favors were called in, arrangements made. Thankfully, Flora’s sleepless night and her genuine tears the following morning had convinced the detective on his second visit that she was worried sick about Arni.

  And now here she was, alone with a cup of tea . . . and, literally, for now, at a cold, dead end to their quest. She lifted her teacup and hurled it at the wall, her mind burning with frustration and rage.

  Goddamn it. Enough! she said to the mysterious race she had spent half her life pursuing. If you have anything to say to me, say it bloody faster.

  CHAPTER 31

  It was midnight. Outside Caitlin’s cab the cloudy sky reflected orange from the lights of the city—a sight that had always struck her as ominous. It seemed more so now: danger felt imminent. The rattling of the taxi’s undercarriage was like the world itself, barely holding itself together as it hurtled onward.

  Or this could just be jet lag, she told herself.

  She’d called her father while she waded through customs, but Jacob was asleep and she didn’t want to wake him. As she waited in line at the curb, chilly and impatient, she read two texts Ben had sent while she was in the air. The first was sent at 7:41 p.m.: Found possible Viking Mongolian connection.

  And then at 11:11 p.m.: Am with Maanik. Stopped them from medicating her.

  She called and he picked up on the first ring. Whatever tension there was between them when she left for Iran was gone, at least from his voice.

  “Tell me you’re back—”

  “I’m back,” she said. “What happened?”

  He hesitated.

  “Ben, if anyone’s listening—we’re beyond that.”

  “Right. She lost it,” Ben said. “She just went wild and tried to throw herself from the window. Mrs. Pawar said she started to burn. They put her in the shower. She slept for a while and then it was more talk and gesturing, your blackberries cue, sleep—and then the same all over again. The ambassador stepped out of negotiations again to be with her; I basically invented meetings to keep the delegates in the building. I just got here at ten. They’re keeping her out of her bedroom and that seems to be calming her.”

  “Have you been in there?”

  “I’m at the
apartment—”

  “No, the bedroom.”

  Another hesitation. “Yeah. Cai, it’s strange.”

  “What is?”

  “The room is dead,” he said. “When I’m in there I don’t hear the pipes in the ceiling, air traffic outside the window. The air is motionless, thin.”

  “Where’s the dog?”

  “In the hall outside the bedroom.” Ben said. “Facing the door.”

  “Is he quiet?”

  “Yes, but he’s definitely on alert,” Ben said. “What do you know?”

  “I think that room has connected, through Maanik, to another time and place. They’re sharing a space like twins sharing a womb, and the older one is feeding on the younger. The room is mirroring what’s happening to Maanik’s mind, almost like a portal.”

  “Caitlin, that’s—”

  “A leap, I know. But I’m going to work on that assumption until someone comes up with a better explanation.”

  “Do you know why these locations are . . . colliding?”

  “Not yet,” she admitted. “Don’t let the Pawars give Maanik anything except water, if she’ll take it.”

  “I’ll try but Mrs. Pawar is pretty desperate. Cai, there’s one more thing.” He hesitated again.

  “Just blurt it out.”

  “Okay. Maanik seems to be emitting . . . something.”

  “Something?”

  “It’s thermal, I guess, but it seems to have substance too. A constant, steady flow from her right hand. Cold, like mist. Please don’t tell me it’s her soul or something.”

  “I don’t think it’s her soul,” Caitlin said. She did not add, But I don’t know what it might be. She looked out the window. “We’re on the expressway now, traffic’s not so bad. I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.” She hesitated. “Are you okay? What’s happening in Kashmir?”

  She noticed the cab driver’s face tweak, turn slightly toward her. She looked at the name on his license, Shri Kapoor. Their eyes met for a moment in the rearview mirror.

  “The UN sent a small force over there but not in the way we hoped,” Ben said. “We wanted a protectorate but this is playing out like martial law. The allied countries are starting to grandstand big-time, like the Allies after World War II. Everyone is jockeying for post-crisis influence even though we’re not past the crisis yet. Russia was first, on behalf of India. China guaranteed loans for Pakistan. That’s all I can say but it feels like we’re flinging farther away from any kind of sane, predictable political process.” He paused. “Like us,” he said tiredly. “I mean, flinging farther away from each other. Not the politics.”

  She smiled, then promised, “We’re going to fix that.”

  “There’s the old college Cai with the old college try,” he said.

  “Rah,” she said. “But first crisis first. Tell me about the Vikings.”

  “A story in runes,” he joked. There was a flash of the old Ben as he dove in, the enthusiastic kid scholar. It made her laugh, and she could imagine his answering grin. “In the ninth century, the trade route between the Baltic Sea and the Caspian Sea was essentially conquered and controlled for two hundred years by people called the Rus.”

  “Rus as in Russian?”

  “Exactly, but that came later, after they intermingled with the Slavs to the point of absorption.” He was racing, as if he was trying to get it all on the table before she reached him in the cab. “In the early days they were specifically the Varangian Rus—‘Varangian’ is from an Old Norse word—and they came down from Scandinavia. They mostly stuck to the trade-and-raid routes, shopping in Baghdad, periodically attacking Constantinople, as pretty much everyone did for thousands of years—”

  “Three Vikings walk into a bar in Constantinople . . . ,” she said slowly.

  Ben chuckled and sucked down a breath. He realized he was rushing.

  “Okay,” he continued, more slowly. “The Varangian Rus also traveled east beyond Constantinople, to the city of Bolghar on the Volga. The Silk Road was fully active—”

  “But that trade route connecting the West to the East was much more recent than an ice-free Antarctica. What’s this got to do with us?”

  “The fact that it happened,” he said. “This all occurred between the ninth and eleventh centuries. It was written about, mapped, charted. But it could have happened before, any number of times, and if no one wrote about it, or we haven’t found the writings—”

  “Or we haven’t deciphered the writings—”

  “Exactly. And how do we know that in your ‘other time’ things were even written? We’ve witnessed these words and gestures. Maybe there were people who just memorized things, like human computers.”

  And communicated those thoughts en masse, at death, to another brain? Caitlin wondered. Was that also part of the transpersonal plane? She was getting ahead of herself.

  “Ben, we’re coming to the Triborough Bridge and I need a minute to just absorb—”

  “Of course. I’ll see you in a few.”

  “Wait. Do you have your equipment?”

  “After all these years, do you really have to ask?”

  “Thank you, Ben, so much.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She ended the call, sat back, and took a deep breath.

  Under the portentous skies, her mind returned to the task at hand, to Maanik. She had to figure out how to approach her; this could well be her last chance. Without really thinking about it, she reached out with her left hand and touched the frame of the taxi just above her window. At first she felt only the rumble of the road through the steel, but after a second she felt something deeper. She could feel a path extending far beyond the shape of the cab, the traffic outside, even beyond the towers of the city and the angry sky.

  It reminded her of her first day in Central Park, decades ago, when she had walked toward scattered elm trees, then among them—and suddenly the trees aligned in long, straight rows. The feeling of alignment had been almost as audible as a click. Now, here in the cab, her perspective had shifted and extended again. The expansion was clear and energetic and familiar. She had felt this on the airplane in that moment of full physical acceptance of truth. Again she felt radiance in her sternum, and took a long inhale and exhale. She continued to breathe steadily and kept her eyes open, pinging from one visual cue to another: streetlamp to car to fire hydrant to pedestrian.

  Arriving at the Pawars’ apartment, passing through their door, the atmosphere was so heavy it threatened to unbalance her. All was quiet and dead around her, yet there was also turmoil.

  Gales of madness, she thought, flashing back to the experiences with Atash and Gaelle. Is that what Jack London feels?

  “Dr. O’Hara,” the ambassador said with a formal nod.

  “Ambassador Pawar,” she replied. She did not want to get into a conversation with him. Maanik was stretched out on a sofa, covered in a quilt, her mother by her head, stroking her hair. Caitlin took one look at the girl’s drained face and turned to Ben, standing well to the side.

  “Please set up the camera in Maanik’s bedroom.”

  Ben reached for his bag but hesitated, waiting for the Pawars’ approval.

  “No, not there!” Hansa blurted. “She is much worse in her room!”

  “That’s why we have to be there.”

  “But she nearly jumped from the—”

  “I know. We will not let her anywhere near the window. Please, both of you, I know your daughter is still fighting this and I also know that medicine isn’t the answer and that institutionalizing her will do no good. This is our last chance. We can’t possibly succeed with a diluted version of the experience. It has to be vivid and I have to be in there with her.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in there’?” the ambassador asked.

  “I am going to hypnotize us togethe
r. I’m not going to listen and analyze like before, I’m going to experience everything that she is experiencing.” She looked at Hansa. “Mrs. Pawar, please put Jack London somewhere else. On the other side of the apartment.”

  “I’ll get him,” Ambassador Pawar said. “He has not been inclined to leave that spot.”

  Caitlin knelt beside Maanik. Left hand, heart hand, spiritual intake, she thought. Right hand, spiritual provider.

  Placing her left hand on her own chest, settling herself, Caitlin placed her right hand in Maanik’s left. Something softened behind the girl’s closed eyes and Caitlin felt a small squeeze of her hand.

  “It’s time now, Maanik,” she said quietly. “Can you come with me?”

  The girl struggled a moment, then nodded. Hansa made way as her daughter rose with an almost ethereal delicacy, as if she were weightless. Caitlin waited while Mr. Pawar slipped by with Jack London. The dog struggled but the ambassador held him tightly against his chest.

  Caitlin led the girl down the hall. As they walked, she felt Maanik begin to stiffen.

  “The room is safe,” Caitlin said.

  “No—”

  “We are not going back to the moment of crisis. We are going to a time an hour or two earlier.”

  “Sho,” she said.

  Caitlin glanced at Ben, who was filming from the other side of the doorway. She didn’t know what the word meant but Ben must have encountered it before because he held up a finger, meaning “one.” One hour before the crisis. Maanik was already on her way back, if indeed she had ever left.

  Maanik took a step into the bedroom and Caitlin felt her try to withdraw. She put the girl’s left hand to her own chest. She could feel her heart throbbing through the fabric of her coat, through Maanik’s hand. She took a deep breath. Maanik took one as well. They stepped into the room together and moved slowly until they reached the center. Then Caitlin took up the girl’s right hand.

  The polarity of Caitlin and Maanik vanished in a swirl. A different place appeared before Caitlin’s eyes, the bedroom a dim backdrop fading with every beat of her heart. She was staring at a low building made of the same dark blocks with curved edges that she had seen in the courtyard. There were trees by a wooden door and Maanik—no, it was no longer Maanik—was moving to sit on a doorstep of stone. Caitlin remembered Maanik had described these trees before as part of her home. The girl held her chin in one hand and petted a white and gray seal by her feet with the other as the animal rubbed its whiskers back and forth along her calf. The girl seemed to be staring at Caitlin while engaging in conversation with an older woman who sat on the step beside her. Both were dressed in thick coats made of a kind of fur. The older woman was addressing the girl, shaking her head.