16
It was morning when I woke. I felt stiff and sore, and for a minute I had the impression that I was encased from head to toe in thick white bandage. As I came more fully awake I realized that only my head and left arm were bandaged. I was dressed in a shapeless one-piece white gown that was tangled around my legs and torso.
I didn't know where I was. I lay in a hard, narrow bed between crisp, old-fashioned, white cotton sheets, the kind I had known as a child. The room was small and high-ceilinged. There was but one window, long and narrow and deeply inset with an elaborate metal grill. Though the window was curtainless, the wall was so thick that the rays of the sun were not direct but soft and filtered through the narrow aperture.
I pushed myself up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I had to brace myself as a dizzying wave of pain and nausea washed over me. I had the weak-limbed sensation of someone who has been in bed a long time. I wondered if I was in a hospital and how long I had been there.
There was a heavy carved wooden door at one end of the room with a small panel of opaque glass set into it at eye level. I had a fleeting impression that someone was watching me but I couldn't see through the glass.
Memory returned to me slowly in sharp-edged, broken fragments. I remembered being with Laurie, the fight with Jenkins outside her trailer, the headlong flight along the coast road, the lights staring at me from the rear view screen, the voice urging me to go faster and faster, and at last, the moment of terror when the car struck the parapet and tumbled through the air so fast that I was pinned against the seat.
And the couple who had loaded me into their car. They were taking me to see someone—
I heard a click. The door swung open and a small, sharp-featured woman trotted briskly into the room, clad in a loose white toga.
"You're awake!" she exclaimed.
The statement didn't seem to require an answer. I frowned at her.
"Don't you remember? We brought you here—Henry and I. The Swami was very pleased."
"Swami?"
"Yes! The Exalted One. He will see you this morning." She peered at me anxiously. "Are you feeling all right? The Swami said there was nothing broken. Your arm was badly cut and you had a concussion, that's all."
That was all. I felt as if I would never be able to move freely again. Yet I realized that I had once again been incredibly lucky. The alien had failed.
"Do you think you can eat?"
The thought of food brought back the acute sensation of nausea. I bent over, pressing one hand against my stomach, swallowing hard. I shook my head.
"You must have something," the woman said with a birdy peck of her head. "Don't try to walk yet."
She swept out, her toga trailing on the floor. The dust on the skirt marred the pristine white effect of the gown. I made no further attempt to move. The room swayed unsteadily around me whenever I stirred. I sat on the edge of the bed, unable to rouse myself to any real curiosity about where I was and why I had been brought here. Minutes ticked by and the woman did not return. The room was totally soundless. I could hear neither movement within it nor the sounds of a living world outside. Even the air conditioning was noiseless.
The place was like a crypt, I thought. The idea was peculiarly disturbing. I stared at the thick walls and the narrow slot of window and the heavy closed door, and they danced before my eyes as if they were edging forward, slowly closing in on me. A smothering claustrophobic fear clotted my throat and my breathing became labored and irregular.
Panic drove me off the bed. My clothes were laid neatly on a carved wooden chair against the wall. I staggered toward the chair. The floor of the room tilted and I had the sensation of falling, but somehow I reached the wall and leaned against it. After the room steadied, it took me several minutes to change from the white gown into my own coverall. I had to keep grabbing the chair for support. In spite of the cool temperature I was sweating.
Then I discovered that my shoes were missing. I looked very carefully around the room. There was no closet. The chair and the narrow bed were the only pieces of furniture. The floor itself was bare. My shoes weren't there.
I was still puzzling over this when the door opened and the bright-eyed bird woman tripped into the room carrying a tray. She stopped abruptly when she saw me.
"I told you not to get up," she said crossly.
I didn't answer her. She left the door open and I was staring at it. Air seemed to rush in through the opening. The smothering, closed-in feeling left me. How absurd, I thought. You're ill. You're imagining all kinds of dangers.
"You'd better sit on the bed," the woman said. "Can you make it? I guess you can, getting dressed and all."
I went obediently to the bed. It was easier this time. Even the dizziness was subsiding. I could smell the fragrance of hot tea. On the tray there were also some dry crackers and a bowl of some kind of dried meal that looked like rice but was hard and crunchy like a seed. To my own surprise the sight of the food made me hungry.
I ate. The meal was tasteless but not unpleasant. The crackers and the tea were excellent. I seemed to feel strength pouring into me as I ate. By the time I had finished I felt almost normal.
I glanced up at the woman, who sat perched on the edge of the chair with a bright-eyed air of interest. She even cocked her head and peered at me sideways like a bird. She wore a thin little smile.
"Where are my shoes?" I asked suddenly.
She was startled. "Oh, we never wear shoes here!"
And for the first time I saw that her feet were bare. No wonder she moved so silently. I thought of hundreds of people padding throughout the building on silent, naked feet. The idea was more comical than frightening.
"And where is here?" I asked.
Her tone was lower, almost reverent. "You are in the Temple of the Western Sun," she said. "You have been granted an audience with the Exalted One. He has already seen you and laid his hand upon you."
I frowned. Phrases came back to me from the previous night, and from somewhere came an image of a very brown man with luminous black eyes staring at me, bending close. And I remembered why I had been brought here. I looked sharply at the woman. Her husband had saved my life. And they had said something about the alien voices.
"I owe you my life," I said. "Your husband pulled me out of the car."
She smiled. "We saw it happen. Henry swam out and got you. Then when you said you had heard a voice, that an evil voice had forced you to turn off the road—"
"There's someone else here who has heard the voices?" I asked eagerly. "You said—"
"The Exalted One hears," she said calmly. "It's strange that you should have heard them when so many of us have tried so hard and failed. But the waters of God's purpose are deep and hard to fathom."
The last words dropped incongruously from the woman's lips, spoken with a kind of mechanical precision that was very familiar to me: the recitation by rote of an approved answer by a student who does not understand. The curiosity growing in me was checked by some misgivings. I was eager to meet the man she called the Exalted One. I had heard of mystical religious cults, of course—their numbers had grown rapidly in recent years—and it was probable that I had stumbled upon one of these. But I grasped at the straw of fact that was offered to me: the man had heard bodiless voices. However he might have interpreted them, wasn't it possible that he might have heard the aliens?
"When can I see him? I'd like to talk to him now."
"He is in contemplation," the woman said. "But it won't be long now." She nodded toward the window, through which one could perceive only a sliver of blue sky. "When the sun is overhead he will call you."
Her expression became grave. "You will want to prepare yourself. I will come for you then."
Before I could stop her, she bustled out, her naked feet making almost inaudible slaps on the bare tile floor.
She came for me at noon. I had dozed and woke refreshed. My arm was painful when I moved it, but my head was clearer and my vision sharp. The woman led me along a wide arched corridor with a great number of doors similar to the one to my room. We came out onto a balcony. Stairs led down into a high-ceilinged lobby. To my surprise, the huge room was almost empty. One white-robed figure hurried out of sight. The place as silent as my room had been. Here, however, sunlight streamed through a huge triangle of stained glass, splashing a pool of many colors across the tile floor and the bare white walls.
We walked across the lobby and through another door. Here I stopped abruptly. The room was crowded, all of the people wearing white togas like the woman wore. They were all sitting cross-legged on the floor in various attitudes of concentration. Many did not even look up as I entered. Those who did showed neither surprise nor particular interest. They went back to their contemplations. No one spoke.
The woman had crossed the room. Now she beckoned me forward impatiently. I walked slowly toward her. She opened the door at the end of the room and stepped aside to let me pass. I heard the door shut gently behind me.
At first I thought I was alone. The room was heavily curtained and very dark. There was a strong smell of incense. The room seemed bare except for a single cushion in the center. Then I realized that a thin, filmy curtain hung like a veil across the room. Behind it a light began to glow, starting at the bottom corners of the room and brightening gradually like a sunrise. Behind the veil, thrown into relief by the soft glow of blue light behind him, was an almost naked man. He wore a thick white turban wrapped around his head. In the center of the crown was set a fiery red stone. The man's features were touched only with highlights—a straight line defining a strongly-bridged nose, other strokes suggesting high cheek-bones, sensuously full lips, a firm jawline—creating the overall impression of a face that was startlingly handsome without being weak or pretty. The skin of his body looked almost black. A slash of white cloth covered his loins.
"You are Paul Cameron," the man said, an impressively rich and resonant voice lending importance to the statement.
"That's right." It was disconcerting to hear my own voice, thin and colorless in contrast.
"The cushion has been provided for you," he said. "You are not accustomed to our more austere habits."
The tone was faintly deprecating, suggested a softness and civilized weakness in me for which I couldn't be blamed. I sat on the cushion with a feeling of defiance. When I was seated on the floor I found that I had to look up toward the man and I realized that he sat on a raised platform. It occurred to me that the relative positions were carefully calculated.
"I must thank you for treating me," I said, feeling vaguely disappointed. I don't know what I had expected but it was not this elaborately staged piece of theater. I was rapidly concluding that I was simply in the temple of one of those popular and phony cults that dupe the credulous.
The man bowed his head. "I am Swami Fallaninda. You are disappointed?"
His perception of my thought surprised me. "No, not at all. You know how I came here."
"Your emanations are strong," he said, his voice booming at me resonantly. "I feel the vibrations...."
In spite of myself I felt a tug of hope. "When I spoke of hearing voices your—disciples became excited. Have you heard them?"
"Many hear. The astral body is visible to those who can tune in its vibrations, who can see and hear with astral eyes and ears."
I broke in impatiently. "These aren't astral voices or whatever you call them. These are aliens. They tried to kill me!"
The mystic showed neither surprise nor concern. "It is possible that occult powers can be used for evil purposes. Yet it is not usual for this to be so, nor is it usual for one to be consciously receptive to the vibrations of higher frequency given by even a powerful adept, learned in the control of the mind, unless the listener has been trained in the development of astral vision. You have had no such training."
"No—but I've heard voices!"
"Perhaps it would be better if you would explain what you have experienced."
For a moment I studied the dark figure half-hidden behind the veil. Inexplicably, my first doubts and suspicions had begun to slip away from me. The man inspired confidence. I had forgotten the theatrical trappings of the setting as the rich voice filled the room—gentle, soothing, inviting belief and faith and trust. I found the hope growing in me. He had not, after all, dismissed my claim to hear the voices in my mind. He acted as if the fact was not at all unusual.
I told him the story. I saw little reason to conceal anything. Beginning with my memory of the vision of my father's death, I went on to recount the more recent vivid dream of drowning and the many times I had heard the voices, particularly in recent weeks they had come to me with increasing clarity and frequency. And finally, I spoke of the two attempts on my life when an alien force had seemed to control my mind. When I had finished, I waited anxiously, peering through the thin fabric of the veil.
"I have known it," the swami said suddenly in his incredibly deep baritone. "The evil vibrations have reached me, but I resisted the truth which they would have led me to believe." He bowed his head. "Thus have I failed to keep contact with the Universal Mind."
"The Universal Mind?" I repeated.
"The Cosmic Consciousness toward which we grope. The human mind is frail and finite, but the Universal Mind is all."
"I don't understand."
I thought he sighed. "All human life is a groping upwards, an opening of the individual mind to the One Universal Mind. Our consciousness is limited. We catch only fragmentary glimpses of the truth, the great body of super-consciousness which lies on another plane, through which we must move closer to God, the One Universal Mind. But the history of man is a story of this struggle upward toward the light, the slow evolution of consciousness toward that state when at last the subconscious and the super-conscious will be merged in the One, and the One in all."
"What does that have to do with me?" I demanded.
"There have been men, advanced members of the human race, who have attained to Cosmic Consciousness, the state of true wisdom. Even in ancient times these have lived—the Yogi of India, the Magus of Persia, the Atlantean Kushog—"
"So I've heard," I snapped irritably. "But I'm not interested in ancient mystics—"
He held up his hand in a commanding gesture. His voice rose, vibrant and dominating. "Listen! Do not close your mind to the truth of the ancients! For they have lived, they live now, whom you do not comprehend, who have discovered the wisdom of the East, who know that there is no pain, no sickness, no evil beyond the power of the mind to control. All men may approach this realm if they but wish it. It is necessary to purify the self, to rise above the interfering vibrations of material need and base emotions and ego-dominated thoughts, to learn control of the body and the mind. Only then can we rise like the phoenix from the ashes of a dead ego, into a new life in the higher plane where the self does not exist."
The rich voice thundered through the room, swelling and resounding from the walls, and suddenly sank to a bare whisper. I found myself leaning forward, straining to hear.
"Telepathy is but a simple tool of the adept who has learned control of the mind of man. Such a one can easily communicate directly with the unconscious mind of another, can cause a weaker mind to do its bidding—can even cause the strange delusions which you have described. Such is the power of the Cosmic Consciousness! And such power, used for evil, can only be defeated by a true inner faith, an attainment of purity in which all base emotions are cleansed. Yours is a unique gift, a reflection of the Cosmic Power you have known in a previous incarnation. To use this power of the mind, you must learn that total concentration in which there is no sensation, no awareness of self. You must be an empty receptacle, ready to be filled with wine of truth and love."
Incredulous, I stared at the shadowy figure under his white turban. While he had spoken, the apparent majesty of his words and the magnetic power of his voice had held me. For a moment, I had felt a thrill of understanding and belief. Here was the answer to everything! Here was the end of fear and wonder! But now, in the sudden silence, I heard the echo of his vibrant phrases, glib and full of half-truths, promising much and saying little. All he offered were vague speculations about someone using occult powers against me, speculations mixed up with a hodge-podge of Hindu and Oriental teachings blended into a palatable opiate.
And all at once, I thought of the acoustics of this room and I understood why my own voice, swallowed up by the sponge-like walls surrounding my half of the room, had seemed so weak and helpless, while his, obviously reinforced by a clever acoustical arrangement and possibly even by microphones, boomed at me with stereophonic richness.
Angrily I jumped to my feet. "What are you suggesting? Do you want me to join your little camp of followers? How about my life savings? I won't need that, will I, if I'm going to purify myself of all earthly desires?"
His voice was heavy and sad. "You have closed your mind. It was to be expected. You are not ready to believe."
"I'm certainly not ready to swallow that stuff about someone using cosmic powers against me. Who is it? Why should he try to kill me? Maybe you could go into a trance and communicate with him for me. I'd like a few more answers."
My anger was out of proportion, but I couldn't control it. Disappointment was so keen that it severed any bonds of restraint. I had placed too much hope on the help I might find here. To encounter a dedicated fanatic—or what was worse, a clever charlatan—enraged me. I stepped forward and tore at the veil which hung between us. The fabric gave off a faint smell of dust disturbed and a weak spot ripped under my hand.
The swami did not move.
"Answer me, dammit! Who's trying to kill me? Or am I as crazy as you are?"
He remained absolutely still, head bent, legs folded under him, his attitude one of total concentration—or prayer. Furious, I grabbed his shoulders and jerked him up. His lack of weight astonished me. The man was thin and bony, fragile and light under my hands. The large, handsome head was an incongruity on the short, frail body. No wonder he sat on a platform! No wonder he spoke out of darkness! I stared into the black, liquid eyes. His lack of resistance finally penetrated through the angry haze of frustration which had filmed my reason. I released him.
I hadn't heard any sound behind me. I caught the blur of a white robe swooping over me and heard too late the padding of many feet. Then I was enveloped in a smothering white blanket that dropped over my head. Hands caught and pinned my arms and dragged me down, hauling me backwards—
"Wait!"
The swami's voice thundered its command and the room was stilled. I was on the floor, held there by the weight of a heavy body and the pressure of many grasping hands. There was an angry mutter of protest.
"Release him!"
Reluctantly, the hands drew away. Someone pulled the white cloth off me. I blinked up at a huddle of white-robed figures looking down at me, their eyes hostile. I recognized among the faces that of Henry, the man who had saved my life.
"Evil has touched him," the swami said. The men standing over me drew back as if in fear. "Let him go in peace."
Warily I pushed myself up. The others made no attempt to stop me now. They were all watching the Exalted One. He was standing now, and even on the raised platform he made a small, unimpressive figure when erect. But there was nothing pale or thin about the cultivated voice.
"The days of the spirit are at hand," he intoned. "The hours of evil are numbered. Go in peace. Cleanse your spirit! Prepare for the day of Truth, of the All-in-One. You, who have stumbled blindly upon the latent powers that lie within, know that when your mind is opened to truth the powers of darkness can hold no influence over you. Know your own strength, believe in it—fear not to die! For there is no death; there is only the life of the spirit."
To my astonishment, those who had a moment before been violently tearing at my body now sank slowly, one by one, to the floor, ignoring my presence. Only the swami himself still watched me. The red glow of the gem in his turban was like a fiery eye. Uneasily, I stumbled back through the motionless heaps of white-shrouded figures kneeling or sitting on the floor. The door was open. I turned and ran.
In the lobby I was abruptly confronted by the bird-faced woman. Her features were pinched tight, her eyes bright with venom.
"We should have left you to die!" she screeched. "You put your hands on the swami!"
"There is no death," I muttered.
I left her open-mouthed. A moment later, I burst out of the cool lobby into the bright, hot sunlight. I was striding swiftly away from the temple before I realized that I was still barefooted.
I turned to look back at the Temple of the Western Sun, an architectural anachronism that, like the swami's faith, dated back to a time lost in the reaches of history. The sunlight reflected glaringly from the arched roof and from the intricate pattern of color in the big stained glass window at the front.
I was intensely relieved to be out of the place into the open air. Here I could breathe freely, free of the dusty heritage of an ancient wisdom founded on love and the aspiration of man to be one with the source of all things, the Creator of the universe, a wisdom now half-absorbed and clouded by a ritual of words. And I felt ashamed of my relief. The small satisfaction derived from my final taunt to the bird woman crumbled before the knowledge that I had bolted from the temple in foolish panic. I would have come to no harm at the swami's hands. In the end he had acted far better than I. Perhaps he was not a charlatan. One couldn't blame him for using a few dramatic effects to heighten the impact of his message. What religion had not? And his last words had had a ring of sincerity. He believed. It was I who, driven by blind anger, had almost been guilty of violence, because the man had failed me. And yet—
Standing there, staring at the silent temple, I had the obscure feeling that he had said something that was very important to me, something I could not quite grasp, a truth buried under the avalanche of his words.