"Orrie told me. I don't know what it means. He doesn't have the language yet to handle the concepts. But we'll get there." Jason led me down a slope to a little hollow. There was a burned-out building here and an old, abandoned swimming pool. As we approached the pool, I could see that one end of it appeared filled with refuse. "Our camouflage," Jason explained.
He led me to the edge of the pool and made a chirruping sound. Orrie came up beside us and peered down into the pool and said, "Chtrrrppp!"
The rubbish at the bottom of the pile shifted, then pushed aside, and two of the tiniest Chtorrans I'd ever seen-they were pink and fat and cute-came flowing out to greet us. They were like little teddy bears. They were each the size of a large dog, less than a meter in length. They were small enough to pick up and cuddle. They stretched up the sides of the pool, waving their arms and trying to reach us.
Jason made me take a step back. "Careful," he said. "They're hungry, and they may not recognize that you're not food."
"These are Orrie's babies?"
"Not biologically, no. But in a Tribal sense, yes. The new gods don't make families like we do: But they do build families. When these babies get bigger, they'll be Orrie's mates. We need one more to make a fourth corner for the family. That will be happening almost any day now. It'll be quite a cause for celebration."
Orrie flowed down into the pool and began to curl up with his babies. Jason took my arm and steered me away from the edge. "Let's go back now," he said.
We walked in silence back up the slope. Orrie did not follow us. I could hear a deep purring rumble from the pool.
Jason said, "Jim, it's time to talk about you. You've been given the opportunity to discover what we're up to here. We've shared everything with you-our food, our beds, our visions, our Revelations. You know about the goals we've chosen, our plan to find a safe place to live. A place where we can build our Tribe. You know what we're up to here; you've met the new gods and you know what the opportunity is. They bring us the opportunity to transcend ourselves.
"Now, it's time for us to talk about your participation. The bottom line is this, Jim. You're either a guest on the planet, or a host. Most of human history, the apes who were our ancestors have been acting like they were guests. Most of the human species still acts like they're only guests here.
"The opportunity for us is to be the host. Do you know what that means?"
I admitted I didn't. My survival mind offered a few disgusting possibilities, but I didn't voice the thoughts.
"To be a host is to be responsible for the guests: Guests eat. Hosts serve. To be a host is a higher state. What I'm building here is a Tribe of hosts. We will be responsible for our guests on the planet-our human guests and our Chtorran guests. The question that you need to answer is this? Do you want to be a host?"
A long moment passed between us before I answered. I said, "Jason, you have told me never to make a commitment unless I'm one hundred percent willing to complete it. I don't know all of the commitment yet. I have to look at this and see."
"That's fair," he said. "I didn't expect you to jump in immediately. And if you had, I'd be suspicious of your ability to keep the commitment. What you're demonstrating here is how important you hold the choice. That shows that you recognize the size:of it. That's good. But let me give you this question, Jim. This is the question you need to answer. When you have the answer to this, you will know what your commitment is: What is your life about? What do you want your life to be about?"
He took me in his arms and hugged me. I hugged him back. He kissed me, I kissed him, and then he dismissed me to do my daily chores in the vegetable garden.
16
The Gun
"Guns don't die. People do."
-SOLOMON SHORT
When he put it that way, there was no question what my life was about.
I mean, it was that old thing that everybody used to say when I was a kid. "I want a world that works for everybody, with no one and nothing left out."
The only question was what could I do to bring it about? I had to do some serious soul-searching here.
Maybe there had been lies told about the renegades.
It made sense. The old order is always threatened by the new. The people I had met here weren't renegades. They were committed and joyous. We weren't renegades, we were family.
I knew what my problem was. I still wanted to test Jason. That was my programming. I had to test everything. I was looking for that one little thing that would prove to me that this whole thing was some kind of con, some little piece of damaged integrity on the part of Jason that would allow me to justify my disloyalty.
But even as I looked at that, I knew that it was my responsibility to create my participation, not anybody else's. And even Jason had to be given the same space to make mistakes as anybody else.
But-I was still a guest here. Not a host. Not a member of the family. Not a member of the Tribe.
Jason said I'd have to ask, and he also said I'd know when it was the time to ask.
I wasn't the only guest. There were several of us; the nervous looking boy who'd stood next to me my first night in the circle, his name was Andy; a quiet woman called Deese; most of the children; and surprisingly, Ray and Valerie.
Ray explained it to me, "Being a member of the Tribe means you get to-have to-participate in the Revelation. I have a heart condition and," he shrugged apologetically, "I still have too much investment in survival. I'm afraid I'll die in the Revelation. Jason says that I can't be a member of the Tribe until I'm willing to put its survival over my own. I'm not afraid to die, but I think I can be of more value to the Tribe this way. Jason says one of these days I'm going to have to get off it." Valerie was Ray's daughter. She didn't want to join without him. And that was that.
In my own case, I still felt terribly uncertain. I wanted to talk to Lizard.
There once was a lady named Lizard,
who got lost in a pink candy blizzard,
with a fellow named Jim,
who wanted to swim . . .
I couldn't think of a rhyme. Wizard. Gizzard? I couldn't think of a last line.
Did it matter?
Yes, in a way, it did.
I didn't like leaving things unfinished. Incomplete.
But then, I'd never finished the limerick about Jason either.
I'd feed him to worms,
just to see how he squirms . .
But I didn't want to do that any more either.
I wanted to know what he knew. I wanted to learn everything I could from him.
Did I really need to finish those limericks?
Probably not; they didn't matter. They were leftovers from another time and another Jim McCarthy.
Sometimes though, at night, I'd ask myself why I was trying to learn so much so fast. Was it because I wanted to sneak away one night and report back to Oakland what I'd learned about the worms? Or was it because I wanted to stay here and be with Jason? I thought about Oakland.
Had they come looking for me? They probably thought I was dead.
Had Lizard mourned me?
I felt sad about that. I didn't want her to be unhappy. I wanted her to be here with me, so I could share this with her. I could feel the difference in myself. I wanted her to feel it too. She would be able to stop being so damned angry and hostile all the time and let some of her joyousness out.
That was a funny thought. If Lizard Tirelli ever let loose a real smile, she'd probably break her face. But it'd be worth it. If she let out even the tiniest piece of the joyousness inside her, she'd probably blind half of California with the glow.