“Elszabet!”
“No, don’t look at me that way, Bill. I’m not crazy. I’ve spent hours talking with him. Have you? He’s a gentle holy man with the most fantastic power any human being has ever had. And if what he’s told me is true, his powers are ripening to the point where it will actually be possible for human beings to travel instantaneously to the worlds we’ve been seeing in our—visions. He says that we’re going—”
“For God’s sake, Elszabet!”
“Let me finish. He says a time is coming soon—the Time of the Crossing, he calls it—when our minds will begin jumping across space to those worlds. We’ll all abandon Earth. Earth is done for; Earth has had it. The universe is calling us. Does that sound crazy, Bill? Sure it does. But what if it’s true? We already have the evidence of the Starprobe photos. I don’t think Tom’s a madman, Bill. He’s a disturbed individual in some ways, yes, he’s been whipped around by the enormous thing within him, he’s pretty far off center, sure, but he’s not crazy. He might just be able to open the whole universe to us. I believe that, Bill.”
Waldstein looked stunned, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ, Elszabet. Jesus Christ!”
“So the answer to your question is no, I don’t think we need to restrain Tom in any way while the tumbondé people are passing through. And afterward I think it would be a good idea for us to drop everything else and devote our skills to finding out what Tom is really all about. Okay? And unless there are serious objections, I’d like to get back to the topic of how we can prepare ourselves for the possibility that hundreds of thousands of trespassers may soon—”
“May I say just one more thing, Elszabet?”
Elszabet sighed. “Go ahead, Bill.”
“Starprobe or no Starprobe, I’m still not convinced that this man is in any genuine contact with real-world extraterrestrial planets. But if he is, and if this Crossing you speak of is in any way possible, then I don’t think we should just lock him up. I think we should kill him right away—”
“Bill!”
“I mean it. Don’t you see the danger? Suppose he can really do it. Send the minds of everybody who’s ever had a space dream off to other planets. Leaving what behind, empty husks? Wipe out the whole human race, depopulate the Earth? Doesn’t that idea bother you in the slightest? ” Waldstein shook his head. He pressed his hands against his face. “Jesus, I can’t believe I’m sitting here seriously discussing this lunacy. One last try: Either Tom is crazy and dangerous to everybody’s mental health because of his ability to transmit hallucinations, or he’s sane and dangerous to everybody’s life because he’s getting ready to empty the world of people. Okay? Okay? Whichever way it is, he’s a menace.”
Naresh Patel said calmly, “I have a proposal. Let’s devote our energies now to the task of defending the Center against the trespassers. I gather that they are moving steadily toward some destination far to the north of us and will be a potential threat to us only for the next day or two. After that, let’s examine Tom closely and attempt to determine the nature and range of his abilities; and if protective action seems desirable to take then, we can consider it at that time.”
“Seconded,” said Dan Robinson.
“Bill?” Elszabet said.
Waldstein clapped his hands together in a gesture of resignation. “Whatever you want. I hope to hell he leaves for Mars in half an hour. And takes the entire bunch of you with him.”
3
Ferguson didn’t sleep at all that night. He lay awake the whole night long, and the whole night long his head swarmed with wonders. The space dreams came to him by twos and threes. He wasn’t sure they could really be called dreams because he wasn’t asleep: but he saw the other worlds, turning under their suns of many colors. He saw strange intricate creatures moving about, speaking in languages no human ear had ever heard. He saw gleaming wondrous cities of strange design. He saw—
He saw—
He saw—
A couple of times he cried out in the dark, the things that he was seeing were so beautiful.
“You okay?” Tomás Menendez asked from the far side of the room.
“The visions don’t stop,” Ferguson said.
“Do you see Chungirá-He-Will-Come? Do you see Maguali-ga?” Ferguson shrugged. “I see the whole shebang. It’s the most amazing thing ever happened to me.”
Out of the darkness Nick Double Rainbow muttered, “Son of a bitch, I’m trying to sleep!”
“I’m having visions,” Ferguson said.
“Well, fuck your visions.”
“It is the great time,” said Tomás Menendez. “The opening of the gate will soon occur. Now you must fill your heart with love, Nick, and let the gods spill through into you. As Ed is doing. Do you see how happy Ed is now?”
Nine suns blazed on the screen of Ferguson’s mind. A gigantic weird-looking thing with one brilliant eye on the top of its head turned toward him and held out many arms and called him by his name. Then the image went away, and he saw a different landscape, a white sun in the sky and a yellow one, and even weirder-looking beings that seemed to be riding around in automobiles made out of water were traveling to and fro. And then—and then—
It isn’t ever going to stop, Ferguson thought. On and on and on, one after another. You wanted space dreams, Ed baby? Okay, now you’ve got space dreams.
Joy overflowed in him and tears came to his eyes again.
He had never cried so much in his life, not since he was a baby. He couldn’t stop. He was like a fountain. But that was all right. The tears were washing his soul. It felt good to cry. Tom had touched something inside him, Tom had opened him up somehow, and now the tears were rushing through him like the spring thaw, washing away all kinds of ancient grime and garbage. They should see me now, he thought. Blubbering like this. Everyone who knew me in Los Angeles, they wouldn’t believe it. Poor Ed has flipped his lid. Crying all the time, and loving it. Poor Ed. Poor nutty Ed.
Look, that’s the blue star, the one that’s so hot it melts the ground. The shimmering floating city. The shining ghostlike people. Gorgeous! Gorgeous!
His pillow was soaked with tears.
God, it felt good. Cry all you want, Ferguson told himself. And then cry some more. Clean yourself out, fellow. Whatever thing is happening to you, it’s all right. Just let it happen. The way Tom had said:Just for once, let everything go, let it all open up. Let grace come flooding in.
He couldn’t just lie still. He got up, walked around the room, held onto the door, to the cabinet, to the sink, anything that would steady him. The world swayed around him. He was spinning, spinning—it would be so easy, he thought, just to let go, let himself go floating off into space—
Tomás Menendez stood beside him. “It is a wonderful time, no? The gods are breaking through. Chungirá-He-Will-Come arrives on Earth, or perhaps we will go to Chungirá, I do not know which. But everything will be changed.”
“Shut the fuck up. ” From Nick Double Rainbow.
Ferguson smiled. “Now I see the red sun and the blue one, and a bridge of light streaming between them. Christ, that red sun, it takes up half the sky!”
“It is the vision of Chungirá,” said Menendez. “Come, let us go outside. Stand under the stars, let Chungirá enter your soul.”
“A big white wall of stone,” Ferguson murmured. “It’s the thing Lacy saw. Alleluia. Now me. The golden thing with the curving horns.”
Menendez had him by the elbow, guiding him into the hallway out to the steps of the dormitory building. Ferguson didn’t care. He would go wherever Menendez wanted to take him. He saw only the giant red sun, throbbing and pulsing, and the blue one beside it, pounding his mind like a gong. And the wonderful being with the curving horns. Reaching toward him. Calling to him. An arch of blazing light stretching across the heavens.