“What about here?” he said to Tom.
“Fine. This is just fine. Sit down here on this rock. Next to me, that’s right. Now the thing you have to know,” Tom said, “is that the universe is full of benevolent beings. Okay? There are more suns than anybody can count, and all of those suns have planets, and those planets have people on them, not people like us, but people all the same. They’re all alive and out there right this minute, going about their lives. Okay? And they know that we’re here. They’re beckoning to us. They love us, every one of us, and they want to gather us to their bosom. You with me, Ed? You got to believe this. Through the vehicle of dreams they have contacted me, and I am the emissary, I am the forerunner who will lead everyone into the stars.” He was leaning close to Ferguson now, his dark strange eyes drilling in hard. “Does this sound like a lot of crazy stuff to you, Ed? You must try to believe. Just for the time being, put aside all your anger, put aside all your hatred, all the deadly stuff that sits inside you like a lump of ice. Tell yourself this guy Tom is crazy, sure, but you’ll pretend, just for a minute, that he knows what he’s talking about. Okay? Okay? You’ll pretend. Nobody’s going to know that Ed Ferguson allowed himself to believe something weird for sixty seconds. Tom won’t tell anybody. Believe me, Tom won’t tell. Tom loves you. Tom wants to help you, Ed, to guide you. Give me your hands, now. Put your hands in mine.”
“What the fuck,” Ferguson said. “Holding hands, now?”
“Believe in me. Believe in them. You want to go on feeling the way you’ve felt all your life? Just for once, let everything go. Let it all open up. Let grace come flooding in. Give me your hands. What do you think, that I’m some sort of queer? Uh-uh. Just trying to help you. The hands, Ed.”
Tentatively, uneasily, Ferguson put out his hands.
“Now relax. Let yourself go. You know how to smile? I don’t think I ever see you smile. Do it now. Fake it, if that’s what you have to do. Just a silly grin, corners of the mouth turn up, don’t worry how silly it is. There. There. That’s it. I want you to keep on smiling. I want you to tell yourself that within you is an immortal spirit created by God, who has loved you every instant of your life. Smile, Ed! Smile! Think of love. Think of the worlds out there waiting for you. Think of the new life that will be yours when you drop the body and make the Crossing. You can be anyone you want up there, you know. You don’t have to be you. You can be tender and loving and kind andnobody will laugh at you for being that way. It’s a new life. Keep smiling, Ed. Smiling. Smiling. That’s it. You don’t look silly at all, you know? You look wonderful. You look transformed. Now give me your hands. Give—me—your—hands—”
Ferguson felt helpless. He wanted to resist, he wanted to put up a wall against whatever it was that was trying to batter its way into his mind, and for a moment he had the wall actually built; but then it collapsed and he was unable to resist in any way. His hands drifted upward like a couple of balloons, and Tom reached for them, grasped them firmly in his, and in the moment of contact something like an electrical force went jolting through Ferguson’s brain. He wanted to pull away but he couldn’t. He had no strength at all. He sat there feeling the power of the galaxies come flooding through him and there was no way he could resist it.
And he saw.
He saw the Green World, with long slender shining people moving delicately around in a glittering glass pavilion. He saw the blue sun, pouring out pulsing streams of fire. He saw the planet of the nine suns.
He saw—he saw—he saw—
A torrent of images. Dizzying him, dazzling him. His mind whirled with the multitude of them. The whole thing, all the dreams at once, world upon world upon world. Landscapes, cities, strange beings, the empires of the stars. He trembled and shook. Nothing would hold still. A strange joy overwhelmed him, a hurricane of bliss. He cried out and toppled, slipping forward, falling practically at Tom’s feet, and lay there sprawled on his belly with his forehead pressed against the damp soil, while the first tears that he could remember shedding came welling up and spilling out in hot streams down his cheeks.
4
THEmoon was a bright gleaming sickle out there over the Pacific and Venus was gleaming right alongside, a cold clean point of white light. It was a clear, mild night, the air free of fog but nevertheless a little soft around the edges, maybe a hint of the oncoming rainy season that was still hanging back, lurking somewhere north of Vancouver. Jaspin said, “What was the name of that little town we passed yesterday?”
“Santa Rosa,” Lacy said. “It used to be a pretty good-sized city.”
“Used to be,” Jaspin murmured. “This is the Land of Used-to-Be.”
They were sitting on the side of a low snubby hill, rounded and curved almost like a breast, that rose out of a broad sloping pasture, a sea of grass. This unspoiled Northern California landscape up here above San Francisco was very different from what he was accustomed to growing up in Los Angeles, where the scars inflicted in the prewar days of vast population and intensive development were everywhere, ineradicable.
Though the moon was only a crescent it cast stark shadows: the gnarled solitary oak trees, upjutting rocks, the rough surface of withered brown grass—everything stood out sharply. The ocean was a couple of kilometers in front of them. Behind them lay the enormous chaos of the tumbondé caravan, practically an ocean itself, an innumerable multitude of vehicles stretching a bewildering distance back toward the inland freeway and beyond. In San Francisco and Oakland the Senhor had gained so many new adherents that the size of the procession was just about doubled now. The Pied Piper of Space, Jaspin thought, scooping up eager followers with both hands as he marched merrily along toward the Seventh Place.
Jaspin let his hand rest lightly on Lacy’s shoulders. This was the first time he had managed to find her in three days, since they had broken camp outside Oakland. He had begun to wonder whether she had turned around and gone back to San Francisco for some reason, even after telling him how much tumbondé meant to her. But she hadn’t, of course. She was simply off somewhere, swept up in the maelstrom of worshippers. The procession was so big now that it was easy to get lost in it. Jaspin had finally spotted her tonight, trying to get through the frantic mob in front of the platform where Senhor Papamacer was supposed to appear. “Forget it,” he had told her. “The Senhor’s changed his mind. He’s having a private communion with Maguali-ga tonight. Let’s go for a walk.” That was two hours ago. Now they were on the coastal side of the hills and the sounds of the caravan were faint in the distance.
“I never realized California was this huge,” Jaspin said. “I mean, what the hell, I’ve seen it on maps. But you don’t understand the size of it until you set out to march up the length of it from the bottom to the top.”
“It’s bigger than a lot of countries,” Lacy said. “Bigger than Germany, England, maybe Spain. Bigger than a lot of important places. That’s what Ed Ferguson told me once. My former partner. Have you ever been to another country, Barry?”
“Me? Mexico, a few times. Doing field research.”