Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (2 page)

Ferrari is morally disturbing to me, boy, and it should be to you."
 

He glared at Orient.
 

"Throwing away your money is foolish, Owen, but throwing away title to your work is destructive. Your unique contribution to humanity. The fruit of all your labor and sweat and brains. And don’t tell me your name had anything to do with it," Andy squinted triumphantly, his voice rising to a heavy growl. "I drew up the original papers myself. Ferrari had agreed to your wish that Project Judy never be published until you gave the word. Why turn around and hand the whole thing over to him now? Including the rights to your discoveries? Why, Owen?"
 

Orient examined his fingers. The senator must have unnerved plenty of witnesses in his heyday. And right now he had another fish squirming.
 

"Why hand your work over to Ferrari?"
 

Orient waited, not sure that Andy expected an answer.
 

"Curing the daughter of the Vice President is a great step in what could be a magnificent career. Burn your bridges if you must, but don’t demean your profession." Andy turned his back and walked to the window. The prosecution was at rest.
 

Orient sighed. "Listen, Senator, all I want to do is remain anonymous on that project. The bulk of my experiments will be carried on in my name by the universities. And they’ll also have access to the neuropsychic techniques I developed for Judy. It’s the knowledge that’s important, not my name. I’m doing this precisely so that the resulting publicity from Ferrari’s papers won’t overdramatize the other fifty projects. That would demean my craft." Orient had come to his feet and was punctuating his words with short jabs of his finger.
 

"You’re letting Ferrari appropriate and exploit your work." Andy came back to the desk and stood directly in front of him.
 

Orient sat back on the desk and shook his head. He was becoming excited too easily these days. He’d have to begin getting back to his meditation routines. "Ferrari is getting only his rightful share of Project Judy’s success," he said slowly. "Don’t forget that his neurosurgical results were just as important in effecting a cure as my therapy."
 

"He’s getting the whole pie. Everything. Including publishing rights, research grants, recognition, and who knows what else." A crafty look came over Senator Jacobs’s face as he pulled still another card from his overstacked deck. "He might even take a Nobel Prize one of these days." He offered the prospect casually.
 

Orient frowned. "I didn’t discover a universal cure, Andy, I just helped heal one person. It’s not the same thing." He stood up and began pacing the floor. "This isn’t something I’ve done impulsively, Senator," he said quietly.
 

"All right, Owen." Andy moved his ponderous body to the other side of the desk. He slowly put each stack of paper into separate compartments of his briefcase and then, with great effort, pulled out a thick document from the bag. He tossed it onto the desk. "This one does it. Sign that and you’re worth absolutely nothing in terms of tangible property."
 

Orient looked at the senator and grinned. "You were holding out. You thought you could talk me out of it."

 
"Always a chance when you know you’re right, Owen," Andy intoned sorrowfully. Orient signed his name six more times, initialed two corrections, and it was done. "Hate to see an opportunist like Ferrari get you so worked over," Andy ventured as he zipped his briefcase.
 

Orient winced. "Let it be, Andy," he said softly.
 

Senator Jacobs took Orient’s arm as they walked to the door. "You’re a good man, Owen. Tough customer to talk down." He stopped at the door and plucked his hat from the rack. "Guess it’s foolish to ask if you want to borrow some money."
 

"There is one thing." Orient went back into the study and returned with a reel of videotape and a leather-bound notebook. He handed them over to the senator. "I’d consider it a favor if you held onto these for me."
 

"Of course," the senator rumbled as he unzipped his briefcase.
 

"Now, are you sure you don’t want me to keep these papers for a month or so?" His face remained impassive.
 

Orient shook his head.
 

Andy Jacobs nodded, jammed his hat down on his head and opened the door. "I think your father sired a damn fool," he said amiably. "Good luck."
 

"Andy." The senator wheeled, still hoping for a change of decision. Orient held out the gold pen he had used to sign the documents. "You may as well keep this," he said.
 

Senator Jacobs snatched the pen out of Orient’s hand and lumbered across the pavement to the waiting limousine.
 

Orient smiled as he waited for Andy’s car to pull away. It would be at least thirty days before those papers moved from the senator’s desk drawer. He closed the door and walked slowly back to the study.
 

He sat down at the desk and stretched his long legs out full length. So that was it. The stillness in the house was amplified by the muted whine of a siren somewhere outside. He half-turned in his chair, trying to unloosen the uncomfortable knot in his lower back. He’d been bending over signing papers for at least an hour. He must be out of shape. During these months with Project Judy he had been away from the meditation room. Just as well. He’d have to learn to achieve release without the aid of artificial environments. Orient snorted and sat back. Exactly the point. He was living inside an egg.
 

He had been fed, clothed, rubbed, and rested like some prize cat for most of his life. Even when he made the penniless journey on foot to the monastery high above Nepal, there had been advisers, dons, letters of introduction—all greasing the solitary path to Ku.
 

Now he would have only what he had learned. If he had learned anything.
 

He remembered something. He reached into his shirt pocket and drew out the ball of tissue Sordi had given him. He unwrapped it slowly.
 

There was a rectangular silver object inside the paper. A case of some sort. He looked at the design on its surface. It was an exact replica of the oval figure etched into his silver cigarette case.
 

Orient shook his head. The cigarette case was something he carried with him everywhere. Sordi must have had a terrible time getting hold of it for long enough to copy the design. Especially with the Secret Service men all over the house.
 

He opened the case. Neatly tucked inside a silver pocket was a pack of Bambu cigarette paper. His favorite brand. Orient smiled. Sordi.
 

He examined the design again. He remembered the untroubled sense of achievement, the confident acceptance when Ku had given him the inscribed cigarette case. No question then of his purpose or his worthiness. He snapped the thin cover of the holder shut.

Putting the silver case back into his shirt pocket, he stood up. He wouldn’t wait until morning, he decided, he’d take a shower and leave the house tonight. As he walked up the stairs to the bedroom, he tried to free his mind of all his regrets. He wasn’t getting anything he didn’t want.
 

He finished his long hot shower with a hard spray of cold water from all nine nozzles, enjoying the fresh tingle of stimulated blood racing under his skin.
 

Afterward, as he brushed his long wet hair back away from his face, he had an urge to visit the meditation room once more before the new owner converted it into a bedroom. Still naked, he padded up the dark stairs to the third floor and went to the door at the end of the hall. He slid the door aside and switched on the lights.
 

Different areas of the room lit up; sections of the high ceiling, portions of the textured walls, parts of the translucent flooring around the now empty pool. Some areas glowed a soft white, others a deep amber. In one corner an indirect blue spot and a yellow patch of light combined to create a hazy green focus. All of the lighting had been carefully arranged by Orient to entice a tension between light and shadow. The only object in the room was a massive rock standing on the floor at an angle to the pool. At one time the pool had been the home of a swarm of brightly hued fish which swam through constantly running water.
 

Orient had a faint feeling of pride as he looked around the room he had designed. His purpose had been to provide an environment which would serve to lull its occupants into a receptive state of awareness. The rock, the pool, the light, the shadow, had all been juxtaposed carefully to create an atmosphere of dynamic serenity. And even without the fish it still worked.
 

He sat down on the carpet, between the stone and the pool, and began the physical movements that were the first stage of his meditation.
 

At first the stretching and loosening of his stiff muscles was awkward. He stopped, rested; then began again.
 

He concentrated on limbering his spine, focusing his energy on the delicate network of nerve endings woven through the socketed flex of bone and fleshy fiber. As his body started to respond, he began the breathing. The very first patterns. The nose inhale. Opening the solar plexus and igniting the first connections. Focusing tighter with each cycle of breath, fusing his mind to the rhythms.
 

He swam back through his being, toward the light, the chemical spark of his presence. The luminous combinations of his reality were an infinite swirl of shifting shapes around him. They began to separate, revealing geometric clusters of memory. The flash of birth. A childhood toy. His parents. The Dream.
 

His energy fluttered, twisting to avoid the pain. He deepened his breathing patterns, trying to recapture the glittering calm.
 

The Dream. His parents. The plane crash making the dream real.
 

Suddenly the swirls were blurred with thoughts.
 

Ferrari. He remembered the man as a thrust of appetites; ever-expanding lusts for learning, pleasure, fame, and emotion. Enormous capacities for love, hate, and competition. A driving, brilliant child who demanded to taste everything available. Orient had worked with, learned from, and fought with Ferrari, but he had never been able to match that consuming hunger.
 

The thoughts shattered his concentration. He began again, trying to fuse his breath to his will.
 

He floated back and the swirls loomed, unfolded, and became the incandescent imprint of the mountain. He went back to the first hour of the first day. The first momentary glimpse of the cave. The tiny tent where he had lived during his apprenticeship to Ku of the Fourth Level. Entering into the second, by second, existence of that splendid isolation—the Serene Knowledge... The focus slipped again and whirled him back to the turmoil-the confusion—Ferrari...
 

Once again he went back to the primary pattern—controlling his breath—his energy yearning for the pure soaring awareness of the mountain...
 

He continued the pattern over and over, like some solitary swimmer diving for a lost tool, until he fell into a dreamless sleep there on the soft carpet.
 

CHAPTER 2

The sound of heavy thumping and men shouting downstairs woke Orient. He looked around.
 

Excellent.
 

He had fallen asleep in the meditation room. His great decision to leave the house had faded. He rubbed his eyes. When a man has nowhere to go, he told himself, it makes no difference what time he begins. He stood up and stretched carefully. Another shout jogged him fully awake. The movers were delivering the new owner’s household.
 

Suddenly aware that he was naked, he left the room and went quietly down to the bedroom. He washed, brushed his teeth and hair, and began to get dressed. He was buttoning his shirt when a squat, muscular man with a dirty white handkerchief tied around his head opened the door. He took a well-chewed cigar butt out of his mouth and pointed it at Orient.
 

"Who the hell arc you?" he grunted.
 

"I’m the old owner. I’ve been packing some last things."
 

"Old owner been out of here two days already." The man moved closer. "He’s a doctor. You don’t look old enough to be no doctor."
 

Orient reached into the pocket of his suitcase and handed the man his identification.
 

The man put the cigar butt into the corner of his mouth and wiped his hand on his shirt as he studied the passport and driver’s license.
 

Satisfied finally, he passed them back.
 

The man lingered while Orient packed some towels into the bag Sordi had prepared for him. He looked around for his pigskin windbreaker. He tried to take his time but the man’s presence made him uncomfortable. He suddenly wanted to get as far away as possible from the house. He picked up the suitcase and started out.
 

The man went ahead and opened the door. As Orient passed him, the man broke the long silence. "You look like a kid, you know that?" he confided.
 

"It’s the vitamins," Orient said, moving quickly to the stairs.
 

The sun was shining and even though the air coming across the river was cold, Orient could feel spring only a few weeks away. He stood on the sidewalk and took a long breath. He looked at the river for a moment, then began walking downtown.
 

He maintained a steady pace for twenty or thirty blocks until he became extremely thirsty. He tried three luncheonettes before finding a sidewalk stand that sold fresh-squeezed orange juice. Over his second glass he began to approach full consciousness. He was standing just off 86th Street on Third Avenue. He wondered where it was that he’d turned east. He ordered another glass and tried to get his thoughts functioning. He’d have to find a place to stay. Then he would decide what to do after that. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t there.