Nirvana Effect (30 page)

She walked into his quarters with impunity.  He was working with a microscope at his corner desk.  He had turned before she even entered the room.

“My husband is dead, my lord,” said Lila.  “Glis is dead.”

She stood in the doorway.  She resisted the urge to walk closer still.  She wanted him to look at her.  She wanted the eyes of the living god upon her, much as she’d had his eyes for years before he’d risen to power.  She hoped she
still
had his eyes.

He looked at her and half stood up in his seat.  She smiled.  She had his eyes, though she knew she didn’t hold the same power as before.  He had the power in all things but a few.  He could have any woman he wanted.  For now, he desired her.  This fact didn’t repel her,
but rather drew her closer
.  She had to hang onto the doorway to keep from falling in.

“I am sorry for your loss,” said Manassa.

“It was as you had foreseen!” shouted Lila, ecstatic.  “It was exactly as you had foreseen!”

“You have kept our promise?  You have told no one?” he asked.

“Not a soul,” she sa
id.  “I won’t tell a soul.  It’
s our secret.”

“As a god, Lila, I hear all things.  I love you a great deal, more than any other, but I will cut out your tongue if you break our agreement.”  He spoke with sincerity.  There
was no menace in his voice.
He was making a
statement of fact.

She gulped.  She had known
their relationship was different now, but in that moment she realized how different.

“I have much better intentions for your tongue than that, though,” said Manassa.  He smiled.  For a moment he was Mahanta again.  She sighed and felt warmer.  “Well done, Lila.  You were very brave and loyal.  You may enter,” he said.

He watched her walk into the room.  She stopped in the center so that the candlelight could dance all over her dark body.  She saw she was overcoming his discipline.  He moved forward from the chair, but then sat back down.

“Lay down on the bed,” he told her.  “I’ve just got to finish this.”  He turned back to his microscope. 

She eased herself across the sheets. 
Yes, he has the power in all things but a few. 
Despite his godly discipline, she’d seen that look in his eyes.

Edward had amazed himself at his own motions.  As he flew down the road in the Onge’s
old purple
Lincoln, he played the scene over and over in his mind. 

Before, when he’d fought Dook, he had tried to tap into whatever martial arts he had seen in movies and boxing matches.  That data hadn’t served him well at all.  As a matter of fact, the only thing that kept him alive with Dook was the moment by moment evaluation of what Dook planned next, and Edward’s own response accordingly.

This time, Edward applied that to his attack.  Instead of using some predetermined fighting style, Edward simply evaluated and fought moment by moment in trance.  This made his assault unstoppable, even with his relatively weak muscles compared to the Onge.  He had simply evaluated every perception as it came through his mind, one quantum at a time. 

Every step occasioned a counter-step.  Every change in his momentum
was calculated so as to leave the Onge defenseless
.  Every motion of his opponent, every countermotion, all led him
to action with each
muscle in harmony.

Edward had no training in martial arts, but it was as though his mind had manufactured a special martial art for that exact scene.  The muddy terrain made him rely on rapid blows.  He couldn’t get a grip with his feet to land any heavy hits.  If he had fought in different terrain, he would have moved in a completely different yet appropriate manner. 

He needed more strength, he learned.  He didn’t need to learn how to fight. 

Now his mind left contemplation of the present and looked to the future.   It seemed to be more and more likely that Nockwe was right.  Maybe Edward just couldn’t tell a liar, even in the trance.  He hoped that wasn’t true.  It would render this confrontation he was manufacturing worthless.

Of one thing Edward was certain: he was glad to have 43 t-pills in his pocket.  Mahanta obviously had something very different than science in mind. 

He stopped thinking.  To think further was pointless.  He knew what he must do no matter if Mahanta spoke the truth or was deceiving him.  He had calculated all the possibilities while in trance.

Edward
reached the point in the jungle he needed to.  He
drove
another quarter mile, however
, before finally parking
behind some trees out of view from the road.  He
checked out the car, finding a
knife in the glove box.  It fit at his belt.  He turned off the car and locked it
.  Like that will do any good…

Edward
sprinted into the thick of the jungle
, plunging
in at a dead run.  He would have put Nockwe to shame.  He ran through the woods as another might run a track race, bending or turning the slightest amount necessary to avoid the foliage, his feet always finding the exact right spot, and all in the budding dawn, with only the slightest red of the
sky to guide him. 

The rain made it difficult to find footing, but only because he was sprinting faster than he’d ever run in his life.  It was five miles to the village.  After the first mile, Edward
kept running but
let up slightly, quite aware of the fact that his body might give out on him even if he could will himself through it.

As long as I keep trancing, I’ll be fine.  After the trance
– well, that’s a
different story.

He eased his speed even more.  Again, for all the dangers of the jungle, the dangers that lay before him held ten times the force.  He slowed to a jog.  He did not want to be winded when he got to the village.  Still, he had to make it before daybreak to keep his advantage over his trackers and Mahanta.

The whole trek, which would have consumed most of a day even for an Onge, took him less than an hour.  His navigation
was dead-on, taking him to the “
back” of the Onge village.

From the edge of the jungle, Edward
could see the spark of a few of the cooking fires lit up in the village.  The relatively colossal temple of Manassa dominated the landscape over the little h
ut
s.

Edward spotted Nockwe’s hut in the foreground.  His black family flag still flew over the roof.
 
Nockwe rules another day.
The chieftain
must have recovered some of his
health.  Though the tribe knew he was
weak, no
o
ne
else
must have challenged him. 

Edward felt an odd sort of relief.  He had hoped that Nockwe would still be living when he returned.  There was a
definite
kinship between them
that Edward
could not explain.

Edward f
elt the trance starting to slip
. 
He wasted no time in popping
another t-pill.
  He was in the belly of the beast, now.
 

Almost i
nstantly he felt a resurgence of his consciousness. 
This could become a very painful parallel to chain smoking.

Only a few
Onge women
maundered around their fires in the early morning
.  Dawn’s pale tones
were leaking
into the sky.  In another half hour, the night would evaporate. 

Edward evaluat
ed the scene.  He knew the
village like the back of his hand.  He skirted around the edge of it until he could get a good view of the temple.  Two warriors guarded the front entrance, weapons at the read
y.  He hadn’t expected that.  That
was quite a change since a few days ago, and another clue that Mahanta
had hidden plans
. 

Edward needed a diversion.

A cooking shack was situated only a few meters from the temple.
I
t had been converted from a house to
prepare
Manassa
’s
“holy food”. 
Edward
saw smoke already billowing out of its side. 

He
scampered into the village, careful to avoid the eyes of Onge women making their morning rounds.  He wriggled through a hole in one of the walls in the shack.

Edward took only an instant to survey the primitive kitchen.  A hog roasted on a spit, and a pot of cooking grease lay nearby.  Edward grabbed the pot and
pitched
the grease all over the walls.  He
used a
pair of tongs to hold a
burning
log
up against the corner of the wall and straw roof.  The grease and the roof lit quickly. 

Edward turned from his handiwork to find himself face to f
ace with a large Onge woman holding
a bowl of water in her arms.  Edward knocked the bowl out of her hands and waved the blazing
log
inches from her face.  “TAUN!” he shouted, the ancient curse of the witch doctor that Edward had heard during Mahanta’s coming-of-age.
  He had no clue what he said.

The woman’s
eyes jolted wide
.
S
he fled screaming, “White devil!  White devil!  White devil!  The fire!” 
That
worked too
well
. 
Edward wriggled out of the shack as the
guards ran to investigate.

Edward edged out of their line of sight, their
vision
burned out by the
building fire.  He made it to the temple entrance undetected
.  He
knew he
didn’t have much time, maybe a few minutes before the guards checked the temple after putting out the fire.

Edward saw Manassa poised serenely on his throne, his eyes closed in meditation.  Long purple banners hung from the ceiling on either side of the god’s throne. 
That’s new.  New guards, new ornaments. 
As soon as Edward set foot into the hut, Manassa said, “Hello, Edward.”  He still hadn’t opened his eyes.  His voice boomed out across the open space.

Callista Knowles left the house shortly
before dawn, unable to sleep
.  She’d been living alone in the house for
three
years.  For the first time in all those days and nights, the place felt
empty.
  It gave her a creepy worry and led her mind to dark thoughts that she did not wish to contemplate. 

Dr. Knowles did not scare easily, but Cali did not want to see Edward go.  It had been too long.

I have him back.
  She contemplated
that
.  Her doubts ate at the thought, but she refused to release it.  She sat on her couch and smiled at the ceiling. 
I have him back.

She had actually gotten interested in her work, here.  She had almost forgotten Edward.  She really had.  She enjoyed her work.  She was actually making an impact.   She had developed a couple vaccines that had put quite a dint in local illnesses.  She was really happy with that part.  And it was nothing like England.  Her parents could send her a letter once every couple months and that was abou
t the extent of their influence:
t
he postal service did their bidding if they affixed the correct number of stamps.  No one else cared in the least who her parents were or what they did.

Her work, her accomplishments, the entire life she had built in Lisbaad all disappeared into the backdrop the moment she saw Edward in her exam room.
Looking back on it, she saw that was why she had reacted so strongly when she first saw him again.  She had nothing to meet him with.  She had felt naked.  She was just a little girl with a crush on a boy for those moments.  It was a giddy sorrow that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Focus. 
She had to focus.
She needed to follow Edward’s instructions. 
And
Edward needed to come back in one piece. 

She wished those pills would just disappear.

That look in his eyes had told her though that she wouldn’t be able to argue him out of it.

She hoped he wasn’t addicted to them.
  That would be unlike Edward.

The dark sky just beginning to catch the sun’s reflection.  It wasn’t yet morning but it was close enough. 
Callista
grabbed her purse and walked across the street to Doctor James Seacrest’s front door.  She gave it three sharp raps.  She hadn’t seen the Corvette, but perhaps he’d
parked on
the street behind.  She hoped he was home.  She didn’t want to have to wait
for Edward
any more
without company.