Neon Lotus (12 page)

Jetsun Dorje
used his own flashlight to pick out locations on the mandala map. “That places
the lotus near Pakistan, the vase in the Tsaidam basin, the vajra in Kham, the
gem near Lhasa, and the wheel . . . in the middle of the
Changthang. Nowhere.”

“And that’s
all we know?
^”
Marianne asked.

When Dhondub
smiled, his stern, heavyset face was transformed into that of a proud boy.
“That’s what we
knew.
Remember, we have been searching for some time now. The wheel,
which seemed most lost, most hopeless, we are now quite close to recovering. We
discovered ruins of a temple buried by an earthquake many centuries ago. A
secret excavation is underway, but there have been frequent interruptions. We
cannot assemble enough people in one place to do the job quickly. So nomads
come and go, staying long enough to contribute to the work, but never lingering
so long that they arouse suspicion.
^”

“And what of
the other ornaments?”

He regained
his former gravity, replacing it like a mask that duty required him to wear.
“The search goes on.”

Marianne
felt a moment of lightness. She heard Tara say, “The ornaments will not be
found until the proper time comes.
^”

“You know
that?
^”
Marianne asked.

Dhondub gave
her a puzzled look. “Of course I do.”

“I’m sorry,”
she said. “I was talking to—
^”

Tara’s
laughter interrupted her: “I hear your thoughts, you know. You don’t have to
make yourself sound like a fool.
^”

Thanks for telling me,
Marianne
thought
.
When will the ornaments be found?

“They must
reveal themselves.”

Marianne
repeated this message aloud for the benefit of her companions. They looked at
her with strange expressions until Dr. Norbu explained the yidam’s methods.

“Then all we
can do is what we’ve been doing,” said Dhondub, once he understood that
Marianne was not simply speaking her own mind.

“Having me
along will help,” Tara told them. Marianne was startled to find herself
speaking in a gentler, higher-pitched voice. No one else seemed to notice the
change. They must have thought Marianne had spoken only for herself.

“I’ve made
exact copies of the map,” Dhondub said. “But I thought you should see the
original at least this once.”

As they
walked back along the shore toward camp, Marianne caught ahold of Dr. Norbu’s
elbow.

“Reting, I
have a funny feeling.”

He nodded,
raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

“It’s
Tara—I’ve never known anything like this. It’s as if my mind has split into two
pieces. What if it makes me schizophrenic?”

“Do you feel
that disoriented?”

She
shrugged. “No. But if the change were subtle enough, I might not notice a
thing. Will you tell me if I begin to act strange?”

He squeezed
her hand. “Of course.”

“You’re the
only one here who knows me well enough to notice such a change.”

“I promise,
Marianne. But I assure you, this is not madness you’re experiencing. The mind
can take many natural forms. You’re like two petals of the same flower, you and
Tara.”

She nodded
and felt herself relax. “Yes, that is what it’s like. Thank you, Reting. I
won’t worry.”

***

They emerged
from the tunnel just after sunset. A red glow lay along the western mountains,
quickly darkening to violet; the sky to the east was black, already full of
stars. The wind met no obstructions as it crossed the valley floor. It was
bitterly cold, laden with sand and grit that stung like pinpricks. She could
almost taste snow in the air.

The hatch on
the tunnel was disguised as part of the rocky inner wall of a dry gully. They
took advantage of the shelter while Dhondub conversed briefly on the radio.
Marianne gazed over the top of the gulch but saw no signs of life. She stared
to the northeast, toward the heart of Tibet, and watched the darkness deepen.

Her skin had
been stained to a shade of brown, and her hair felt stiff and coarse from the
black dyes. Only her eyes remained untinted, green. She was dressed like a
nomad woman in brown robes, a round cap with a fur brim, and a striped apron.
While the cloth of her garments mimicked natural materials, it was all
artificial, tailored for changing conditions of weather and exertion. Her gownlike
chuba was meant to breathe and keep her cool if she were working strenuously,
and to insulate and warm her if she were standing still. Her tall felt boots,
embroidered with golden eyes, had the spongy, flexible soles of running shoes.

As she
leaned against the rocks, looking away from the wind, she couldn’t help but
feel a pang of disappointment.

This was
Tibet. Khawachen. Bod Chenpo. The land of her dreams.

And there
was nothing here, nothing to be seen. It was a land so vast that she might
travel for months without finding anything but vistas like this one, unless it
were harsher and more desolate landscapes. She felt like a hypocrite, after her
words to Chenrezi. What did she truly know of Tibet? How did she expect to care
for it?

Her first
good look at the country showed it to be cold and bleak as the stars that lit
it, and as indifferent to humanity. For the first time she feared that this was
the wrong place for her. Tibet was a large and empty land. She might never make
sense of it—or of her own needs.

Far out
across the plain, she saw a cloud rising against the lowest stars. She could
see nothing else, but she had the feeling that there was movement near the
horizon—something subtle and shadowy, only barely visible.

She called
down to Dhondub Ling: “Can I borrow your field glasses? They’re night scopes,
aren’t they?”

He nodded,
handing them up; then he climbed to her side.

The scopes
gave her a vibrant view of the plain, painting it in shades of violet and
crimson. Against the horizon was a shifting line of hot blue motion,
approaching.

She focused
the lenses on the blue shapes, picking out the nearest. What she saw resembled
a herd of fleet-footed luminous animals, perhaps antelopes. They ran close
together for protection, rather than grazing. She listened for the pounding of
hooves but heard nothing. They were graceful, light-footed runners.

“I thought
the herds were hunted to extinction long ago,” she said. “Like the American
bison.”

“Yes, they
were,” said Dhondub. “Long ago.
^”

“Then what’s
this?”

The herd
kept coming closer. Had it been daytime, she could have seen them with her bare
eyes by now. The fluorescent colors in the scope were disorienting. She saw
what looked like a stampede of neon beasts with glittering forked antlers and
shaggy, shadowy heads. They flowed over the contours of the land, darting in
and out of the gullies, dodging rocks and brush.

There was
something strange about the way they ran, in broken patterns, back and forth.

As they
spread out across the plain, she realized what was wrong.

They ran on
two feet.

They were
human.

“Look!” she
said, passing the glasses to Dhondub.

He laughed.
“I don’t have to. I was expecting them.”

Dr. Norbu
climbed onto the ledge beside them. “Ah, the niche-runners.”

“Who are they?”
Marianne asked.

“Ecologists,
you might say,” he answered in a humorous tone. “They were plains people once,
simple nomads and hunters. It was partially through their efforts—with the
introduction of better weapons—that the old herds were so quickly hunted to
extinction.

“A hundred
years ago, one of these hunters had a vision in which the spirit of the animals
came to show him the hole that was left in the world by the passing of the
herd. The story says that the hunter felt such remorse he asked a Bon shaman to
change him and his people into antelopes, so that they could do something to
repair the damage. That is the legend. Actually, they availed themselves of
pirated retrogenetics—even then, the nomads had the best of the contraband
technology—and they fit themselves into the empty niche. They are browsers
now, except when they’re running. They metabolize forms of cellulose which are
not much in demand by other humans. Of course, they didn’t give up their guns
or their intelligence. They have few predators, though I have heard the Chinese
soldiers sometimes hunt them for sport.”

“Infrequently,”
said Dhondub. “For the most part they run free, unwatched because their
presence is so common. We use them to carry illegal supplies and suchlike. Sometimes
we even run with them, in regions where the presence of vehicles would draw too
much attention.”

His eyes
seemed to glint in the dark. Marianne saw that he was grinning.

He looked
down into the gully and called up his company, then scrambled onto the level
ground. Marianne followed, then gave a hand to Dr. Norbu. Jetsun Dorje came
along with the others of Dhondub’s party.

“You may
have wondered how far we expected to get, traveling with no supplies,” Dhondub
said to Marianne.

“I thought
we were meeting a larger contingent,” she said.

“Indeed we
are. But they are many miles from here. Farther than we can walk before
sunrise.”

“Then how . . . ?”

“Farther
than we can
walk
.”

She looked
toward the herd, hearing their feet and the storm of their breathing. Fear overwhelmed
her. She could no longer see them, but she imagined the huge and mindless
stampede bearing down on her, human intellect obliterated by instinct, blind
hungers, animal passion. It was like a nightmare. She couldn’t understand why
the few of them were standing patiently on the edge of this gulch, waiting for
that wave to crash over them. She looked to Reting for confirmation of her own
fears, but he was standing poised and expectant, staring at the night with half
a smile on his face.

It was all she
could do to keep from throwing herself backward to shelter.

Dhondub drew
his flashlight, switched it on, and set it by his feet—shining toward the herd.

“Take this,”
he told her, holding out what appeared to be a wristwatch without a dial. “We
call these lung-goms.”

She held out
her hand. He strapped the band onto her forearm, setting the small lozenge
against the inside of her wrist. She felt a slight pricking of the flesh.
Raising her arm, she saw nothing but a small button on the face of the tiny
panel.

“Lung-gom,”
she repeated. “I thought that was a trance the lamas used when they wished to
cover great distances on foot.”

“This is an
artificial lung-gom,” Dhondub said. “This way, you don’t have to be a lama.”

She noticed
that Dr. Norbu and many of the others were already wearing lung-goms. Jetsun
Dorje, however, took a moment to inspect his before strapping it on. He smiled
when he saw her watching.

“I always
wanted to try one of these things,” he said.

“When I say
the word, press your button,” Dhondub told her. “Are you ready?”

She looked
out into the night. Dhondub’s flashlight faintly picked out the gleaming eyes
of the niche-runners.

“No,” she
whispered.

“Now,” he
said.

The herd
came straight toward them, converging on the light. At the last instant,
Dhondub snatched up the torch and slipped it into his belt, switching it
off—but not before Marianne had seen the wild faces of the runners. They were
dressed in ragged cloth, some decked in antlers, their faces streaked with dye,
their mouths wide and flecked with foam. They looked human only because they
ran on two feet, and because some of them carried weapons.

Dhondub
grabbed her wrist and squeezed, triggering the lung-gom.

She gasped,
stumbling back toward the ravine. The edge of the gully crumbled underfoot.