The Sacred Era: A Novel (Parallel Futures)

by Aramaki Yoshio

  “Will you drink to my happiness? Cheers!”

  She reminds K of the woman at the bar where Hoffman took him once.

  “Sure,” K says. “So, what’s your name?”

  “Who cares about names? Just call me whatever you’d like.”

  “Fine. Your name is Serena.”

  After clinking their glasses together, the wild beauty slips her body into the narrow space next to K.

  “So, Serena. Everyone, even you, has been acting rather strangely. Would you mind telling me what exactly is going on?”

  “You’re an odd one, aren’t you? Aren’t you coming onboard too?”

  What is going on here? Will someone please just tell me?

  “Serena, what are you talking about? Could you please tell me? I’m not from around here. I really have no idea what’s going on right now.”

  “Oh my God. You’re really not joking, are you?”

  She does not even try to hide her surprise. Lowering her voice, she pulls K close to whisper something in his ear.

  “It’s the Emissary.”

  “The Emissary? You mean the ship headed for Planet Bosch, right? So what about it?”

  “It’s returned.”

  “Where?”

  “Just outside the harbor.”

  “Really? When did it arrive?”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  “What? How? I didn’t see anything at all.”

  “Unbelievable. Sacred Service officers these days really know nothing. Nobody has ever seen the true form of the Emissary.”

  “What? You can’t see it? So, how do you know it’s here if you can’t see it?”

  “Of course you can tell. You can feel its presence.”

  K tilts his head, taking another sip of his drink.

  “That’s why everybody’s in a funk. That’s why we’ve all gathered around here like this.”

  “Okay. I still don’t quite get why people are so depressed about it though.”

  “Of course people get depressed. When you know that the Emissary is out there beyond the harbor, there’s no point in going anywhere. All you can do is either sit at home quietly or in a place like this and wait to see if it’s your time.”

  Nothing makes sense to K anymore. Not even his drink.

  “What do you mean exactly?”

  “If your time has come, that means you’ve been summoned,” Serena says, looking close to tears.

  “Every time the Emissary arrives in Loulan, it sends out its summonses. No one knows who’ll receive them. It could be for fifty or sixty people. It could be two hundred people. It changes every time. Until you hear them, no one can tell how many summonses will go out.

  “How then do you receive the summonses?”

  “Only those who receive them will know. The order to board the ship comes directly into your mind.”

  “So what happens if you refuse the order?”

  “No, you can’t do that. It’s simply impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just not possible. A call from the Emissary is absolute.”

  The words make her tremble as she presses her soft body against K.

  7

  How much time has passed? Midnight approaches, and soon they will cross the boundary separating today and tomorrow. Little by little, the momentary cheer of the bar’s back room returns to its previous gloom.

  Noticing this, K once again addresses the crowd.

  “Shall I get another bottle for everyone?”

  However, not a single one of them says a word.

  Grave expressions smear everyone’s faces. All await the important decision to come down from high above. Now, even K himself begins to sense the cruel and melancholy force coming through the entrance, approaching him.

  The middle-aged man seated next to him before the woman he named Serena sidled up to him approaches K. He leans down to speak, telling K that those summoned by the call of the Emissary will never again come back home.

  “But hasn’t the space route to Planet Bosch been designated as a Sacred Route? Doesn’t that mean it’s closed to the general public? So why would all these people be traveling on it?”

  All this is quite odd indeed.

  “I hear that you’ll be traveling on that vessel as well?”

  The man tries to keep his voice low.

  “Yes, that’s the plan. That’s why I traveled all the way to Loulan from Earth. I’ve actually been waiting for this ship to return all this time.”

  “I see,” the man says with a nod. “So I take it that you’re already aware that the ship that services the Sacred Route is a Nirvana-class vessel.”

  “Oh? It’s not a Karnak-type ship?”

  “You didn’t know? Must be why you have so many questions. Now it all makes sense. Anyway, Karnak-type vessels have a maximum operating range of only around 160 light-years before needing to refuel. They can’t be used on the Sacred Route, with its distance of several hundred light-years.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that the ship will fly through the Sacred Route in a single jump without any stopovers?”

  “That’s right. You know that there’s the Space Desert in between here and there, right?”

  “Yes. I heard that it’s a gap in space where there isn’t a single fixed star.”

  “Right. That’s why only Nirvana-class ships can service the Sacred Route.”

  “Just what sort of ship is a Nirvana-class vessel?”

  The man turns pale.

  “It’s a cruel ship,” he says.

  Much of the true workings of Nirvana navigation employed on the Sacred Route are a mystery. But what K can gather from the grievous words the man speaks is that this type of ship uses the power of the human mind to hurtle through the deepest reaches of space.

  “So, let me see if I understand. You’re telling me that this so-called Nirvana drive uses the unconscious as its fuel? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s right. We used to actually call the jump of Nirvana-class ships a ‘dream jump.’”

  K does not even know how to respond.

  “So, are you, by any chance, a spacefarer?” is all he can say.

  “I used to be” comes the man’s answer.

  K learns from that man that the workings of the Nirvana navigation system have been classified top secret under the laws of the Papal Court.

  “The only reason I’m telling you any of this is because you’re a Sacred Service officer,” the man says in a faint whisper.

  K recalls that Karnak vessels used cargo loaded through a large pipe as their fuel.

  “Yes. That cargo is ground up into a protoplasm that functions as a catalytic agent.”

  Nirvana-class vessels also have their version of “cargo.” Finally, it dawns on K why the ship known here as the Emissary has to load up with so many of Loulan’s people before it can make the trip all the way to Planet Bosch. Still, the specific mechanism at work in their conversion to the energy powering the space drive to traverse a distance of several hundred light-years in a single jump eludes K. Not that there is any need for him to have any understanding of this.

  A total silence now hangs over the place as all wait for the appointed time.

  Suddenly, a young woman stands straight up. It’s the daughter of the merchant. It’s Ellen.

  Has she received the summons from that thing?

  “Ellen! Ellen!” says the merchant as he desperately tries to hang on to her body like a madman. “Please! Someone! Please help my daughter!”

  His face covered in tears, he turns to every single person in the room. His eyes then make contact with K’s.

  “You’re a Sacred Service officer. Can you not stop her? Please help! Please help my daughter!”

  But Ellen has already lost all capacity for reason. With incredible force, she easily brushes off her father’s grasp on her.

  “Ellen!”

  The merchant’s cries go unheard. Ellen exits the room as if possessed by s
ome evil spirit. Every single person in the room is as silent as a rock. For a long time, they remain still, not moving a single muscle.

  8

  K steps outside into the darkened city.

  He just barely hears the whistling of the wind from somewhere far away. As he follows the road toward the harbor, more and more people who have been summoned like Ellen appear around him.

  They form a line of sleepwalkers. More show up at each crossing, until the line becomes a full-blown crowd. All of them march toward the harbor’s boarding area, beyond the designated waiting rooms of the terminal building.

  K looks up. If not for the deep black rift that slices across the dark heavens, K would only see clear skies above him.

  It is a hectic night for the workers at the spaceport. They arrange the arriving people into rows, leading each one aboard awaiting barges. One after another, each barge then flies out upon filling up, only to then return to the harbor empty.

  The sight of the waves of flying saucers filled to capacity with passengers lifting off against the glittering emerald-green light transfixes K. Every one of them veers toward one particular spot in the night sky. K focuses his eyes on that spot. He sees it. Something jet black in color, its shape indistinct, floats there. Difficult though it is to tell with the darkness of the background, he nonetheless manages to make out the outlines of what looks like a primordial creature with appendages extending out in all directions.

  K stops a passing spaceport worker.

  “Is that the Nirvana ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “It sure looks disgusting.”

  “Indeed. I feel sick every time it returns here,” he says. “Wait, who are you again?”

  K retrieves the medal from a pocket of his clerical robes.

  “I’m supposed to get on that thing. Could you tell me what I need to do?”

  “Oh, I take it you haven’t checked in yet?”

  “No,” K says.

  “Please hurry up then. The office is straight down this way, inside the terminal building. The ship will be departing soon.”

  “Thank you,” K says.

  With hurried steps, he heads to the terminal building but finds nothing that looks like a room, only a dark hallway.

  Here we go again. What is going on this time?

  K mumbles to himself as he gropes his way down the dark hallway.

  At the end of the hallway, in the triangular space underneath a staircase, a single candle lights up a desk. A man’s silhouette sits behind the desk. He wears black clerical robes, hood pulled over his head as he continues to examine the documents in front of him.

  “Excuse me,” K says, approaching the desk. “Could you tell me where I can find the check-in counter for passengers headed to Planet Bosch?”

  The hooded man looks up.

  “Right here,” he says in a low voice.

  “I’d like to do so then.”

  “Do you have your notice of appointment?”

  The man is completely nonchalant.

  “My notice of appointment? Yes, I do.”

  K remembers a distant memory. It was right about the time of his departure from Earth that he first received his notice. Ages ago. The papers have been all crumpled up.

  The man unfurls the wad of paper with a nod.

  “Everything appears to be in order. Any luggage?”

  “No.”

  “You’re all set, then.”

  The man scribbles something at the bottom of K’s notice of appointment with a quill pen, affixing his signature at the end. He then takes a stamp next to him, pressing it hard onto the paper.

  “Please proceed.”

  All too simple.

  “That’s it?” K asked.

  “Yes. Please present your notice of appointment to a member of the spaceport staff. Good day.”

  With these words, the man closes his book of documents. With the book under his arm, he stands up to leave, picking up the candle.

  “It’s you!”

  For an instant, the candle lights up the man’s face. But just as quickly, he blows the flame out. There is no longer any way to verify K’s suspicions. Not that he needs it. He is already positive that the man is the Lord of Castle Loulan.

  Shortly after, a jet-black, single-seat flying saucer lifts straight up to the sky with K aboard it. For some reason, the shape reminds him of a flattened funerary urn used for burials. Once he is high enough, a view of the entire spaceport opens up below him, with a bird’s-eye view of all of the city of Loulan tinged with the color of emerald in the background. He cannot see above though. The enormous blackened body of the ship blocks his view.

  One section of the black ship’s body opens up, radiating the glow of a white ray of light. K’s flying saucer follows the light’s path, until it approaches close enough to be swallowed up by the body of the Nirvana ship. Once inside, the Nirvana-class galactic transport screams a silent roar as its body trembles, before vanishing in a flash of light.

  A single hyperspace jump that traverses 450 light-years!

  An ocean of dreams stretches out between here and there.

  Sacred Route

  1

  No alarms of any kind warn K before the Nirvana ship enters its dream jump. Only the sensation of his whole body dissolving before his very eyes informs him of what is happening, until he can no longer recognize his own physical being, until all of his body dissolves to the point that he can become pure consciousness in itself.

  Outside the ship, the Space Desert expands in every direction around them. Total darkness fills this vast expanse of space. In this empty sea where no light exists, no longer is it possible to fathom existence itself, as the total absence of light robs all matter of any tangible quality. All that remains now is the absolute solitude of K’s consciousness. Mind unmoored from body, spirit freed from flesh, his consciousness expands out to the universe, wandering back to some place and time back home, as if guided by the great will of space itself.

  Time loses all meaning, no longer flowing from one moment to the next. Is this eternity? Or is time simply standing still, utterly unmoving? Consciousness itself becomes one with this limitless expanse of time. Does the very idea of “thought” even make sense in such an instance? That is an open question.

  No words can ever be adequate to describe this sensation. After all, without the sequential flow of time from past to future, words cannot be arranged next to each other to produce any meanings. All that is certain now is a vague, almost indiscernible sensation of enlightenment. But it is more than just a simple sensation like a pain or an itch. No, it is a ripple forming in one’s consciousness, like ripples that reveal the water on the surface of a lake so smooth and mirrorlike it reflects back the lakeshore scenery when a gust of wind blows over it.

  Finally, K understands everything.

  Human consciousness is akin to the surface of a mirror. The surface does not in itself exist. All the mirror can do, all that defines a mirror, is its capacity to reflect back the object before it. Just as the mirror cannot reflect back its own surface, human consciousness—whose sole function is to perceive the world as phenomena, to turn objects into observable occurrences—cannot perceive itself. The purer the consciousness, the less of its own surface can it see. Human beings are aware of themselves not because the consciousness recognizes itself, but because it perceives something other to itself. Only indirectly do we know our own being.

  This is what it means to sense a ripple in the consciousness. Only through the distortions of these ripples over the mirrorlike lake surface is the existence of a consciousness revealed to the consciousness. Entombing one small part of the grand cosmic consciousness—the consciousness in a state of purity—in the corporeal existence of the flesh adulterates it with impurities, which has the perverse effect of giving the consciousness an awareness of itself.

  Is this what we call God? Is God this cosmic consciousness, this totality, this pure consciousness of all the cosmo
s? If God is the surface of a cosmic mirror, then insofar as God is pure, there can be no awareness of himself as God.

  K’s consciousness soars across the 450 light-years of the Sacred Route.

  Soon, K’s consciousness, K’s soul, begins its return to the prison of material existence. As his ship approaches the end of its route, bit by bit, it rematerializes, restoring itself to flesh. It is a sickening experience, nothing less than hell itself, as K witnesses a vivid display of the truth of Nirvana navigation.

  K trembles in fear at the sight before him. The interior of the Nirvana-class vessel has become as chaotic and colorful as the circular world of a mandala, with the souls of all the people who were loaded aboard at the port of Loulan floating within the cabin. An insatiable hunger consumes him, making him chase after these other souls, engorging himself on them one by one as he tries to satisfy his unbearable hunger. But there can be no satisfying his cravings, this primordial hunger.

  Is this the fate of all souls? Is this the hunger that utterly burdens all souls? Could it be that this primordial hunger is the will that governs all of the great cosmos?

  K’s soul grows bigger every time it devours another, even as he cannot forget who these souls he consumes used to be.

  2

  K finds himself in a grassy meadow, as some kind of beast with a mane fluttering in the gusts of wind.

  A nearby herd of deer trembles at his presence.

  His raw hunger urges his hind legs forward.

  Pounce! His prey is the space merchant’s daughter, Ellen. She puts up a violent resistance to his strike from behind. But before long, the smell of warm blood drifts in the air. K’s fangs dig deep into the bone.

  K’s long dream finally ends.

  But waking brings K no comfort. All he finds is the horror of the interior of the Emissary devoid of anyone else but him.