15
Faces swam through the water, distorted and shimmering. There was a distant roaring in my ears like the clamor of the sea trapped in a seashell. The din faded away gradually and in the immensity of silence I waited shivering for the unseen force that would grip my mind.
"It's a miracle!" someone said clearly.
My eyelids pushed open like dusty blinds. I saw the faces again, blurred like a picture slightly out of focus but much sharper than before. I remembered an earlier awakening when five pairs of eyes had stared down at me in open curiosity and I had flinched in fear. Or had it all been a dream from which I was only now awakening?
"Don't move," a man said.
I had no intention of moving. My head ached and there was a deep throbbing in my arm, extending from a point near the shoulder down past the elbow, a throbbing not really painful but curiously electric and tingling.
I closed my eyes and re-opened them. There were two pairs of eyes, set in two faces which were quite clear. A man and a woman, middle-aged or older. Strangers. The man's hair was steel grey and very wet against his skull. The woman looked like a bird. She bent toward me and I had the momentary impression that she was going to peck at me with her long, sharply-pointed nose.
"Can you hear us?" she asked in a thin, piping voice. "Do you know what we're saying?"
"Yes."
I thought I spoke aloud but she continued to watch me expectantly. Behind her the sky was black and the fact surprised me. I had somehow expected hot sunlight and a hard blue sky.
"Henry pulled you out of the car," the woman said. "We saw it happen."
I heard a breaker topple over and the swish-swish of two cars passing on the highway. Then I remembered.
"The voice!" I cried. "Turn the wheel!"
The man crouched over me threateningly. "What's that you said?"
I tried to twist away. Pain sliced through my head in a clean stroke that seemed to take the top of my skull off.
"Please!" I groaned. "The voice—"
"What about the voice?"
"It told me—turn—turn the wheel."
"Henry! Did you hear what he said?"
"He's delirious, mother. It don't mean anything."
"But he heard voices. He must be one of them."
"He doesn't know what he's saying."
My eyes had shut against the pain in my head. Opening them I saw the two people in sharply dimensional focus. The man was soaking wet. He appeared worried. The woman's bird-like features were curiously pinched, her eyes bright with excitement.
"Did you hear a voice?" she asked quickly. "Is that what you're trying to say? Did a voice speak to you?"
"Told me to turn," I said weakly. "The alien voice—"
"In your mind?" she demanded. "Can you hear voices—even when there aren't any people talking?"
I nodded faintly. "Tried to make me—kill myself."
"He needs a doctor," the man said suddenly.
"No!" The woman whirled on him. "The Exalted One would wish that he be brought to him."
"We aren't sure—"
"But he must be one who can hear the voices. You heard what he said—and you said yourself he should have been killed in that accident. If he hadn't been a Chosen One—"
"He might be hurt worse than we can see."
"The Swami will know. We must take him there."
Bewildered, I listened to them argue, not understanding what they could mean. They spoke in casual tones as if others had heard the voices. But if that were true then I was not alone, it wasn't something I had imagined—
"You've heard the voices?" I asked eagerly. "You've heard them?"
The brightness faded from her eyes, clouded over with sadness. She shook her head. "We try, Henry and me, but we can't hear them. We are weak. We have not learned the fullness of believing. But the Swami says we are approaching the purity of full knowledge." Her voice rose earnestly. "Our day will come—if not in this life, then in the next."
The man grunted, interrupting her. "Can you move your legs?" he asked of me.
I hesitated, then tried. I could wriggle my toes and flex my knees. I felt as if this were a great accomplishment.
The man shook his head. "You should have been killed," he said as if it were a grudging admission. "I guess maybe mother is right." He stood, turning toward the woman. "I'll bring the car down here. Don't let him move." He glanced down at me. "We can't do anything about your car right now. We'll report it and maybe they'll be able to fish it out. But the water's pretty deep there."
The loss of the car meant nothing to me. At the moment it did not even occur to me that the car was not mine and I would be responsible for any damage to it. The man had trudged up the beach toward the road and I stared at the bird woman.
"This person you're taking me to—has he heard them?"
"Oh, yes!" she said, evidently surprised. "He is exalted!"
I didn't understand. Fatigue pressed down on me and I was conscious of the pain in my head, of the deep throbbing in my arm. I tried to concentrate on what the couple had said, feeling an impatient excitement, but I couldn't seem to think clearly. I clung to the one fact that emerged clearly. There was someone else who had heard the voices, someone who could help me. I wouldn't be alone any more.
A car chugged through the soft sand and stopped nearby. A door opened. I felt hands sliding under my arms, lifting me. There was a cry of pain. A dizzying spiral of brightness whirled me around and around, released me, and I went sailing off into dark, empty space once more.