This had never happened to me before. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was the medallion.
“It must have done the same thing for the old guardian in Tibet,” I said. “He must have been able to hear what was in people’s hearts. That’s why he agreed to lead us to the cave in the mountain. He knew.” Knowing what was in someone’s heart and what their true motivations were gave the old guardian a huge tactical advantage over other people. Now that advantage was being activated within me. It was an ability that I knew came with serious responsibility. In the wrong hands it could lead to terrible consequences for unsuspecting people. Just knowing I had this new ability could lead otherwise normal people to ask for, or demand, that I use it for their personal gain. I could feel that Tia felt the same way about my new ability.
“Don’t tell anybody except John about this, okay?” she said.
I could sense her motivation and the logic in her thinking. “Yeah,” I replied. “I bet the old guardian didn’t tell anybody, either.”
“No one,” she said, pointing her finger at me.
“No one but John,” I replied. “Him I sense we can trust.”
After eight weeks in the cave, with the end of the meteor storm almost at hand, Tia and I, like the other people in the cave, became curious about what the outside world looked like. We opened the rock door and used our flashlights to examine our immediate surroundings. Smoke still filled the air, but visibility had expanded to around a hundred feet. Some trees were resting on the ground, mostly consumed by the fire. Others were still standing, though well charred. Black ash was everywhere. A light rain was falling, putting out the remaining smoldering pieces of trees. It was still difficult to breathe with the low oxygen content of the air. Rivulets of black water were starting to run down the side of the mountain. By the following afternoon the rain had increased in intensity and the rivulets had become full blown streams of black water cascading down the rocks and the slopes of the mountain.
After two more days the black streams were taking on a brownish color and the rain was turning to snow. It was November and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Winter was arriving in the mountains and the realization that we would be in the cave for another five to six months dampened all of our spirits. Within forty-eight hours, the snow buried the rock door and we couldn’t get it open more than a small crack. By the next day the door wouldn’t move at all.
I sat with Tia in our personal enclosure and I talked openly and honestly about my feelings. “Ever since prison I have felt worthless,” I explained. “I am ashamed, and that shame is all I can find within me. It’s a black abyss that can never be filled.”
Tia reached out and lifted the medallion from under my shirt and held it in her hand. “Tell me about the old guardian in Tibet,” she said. “What’s he like?”
“He’s really old, but we couldn’t keep up with him going up the side of the mountain.”
“But what’s he like as a person?” I looked into her eyes wondering where she was going with this.
“He’s kind and understanding, but has an inner strength that lets you know you can’t mess around with him,” I said.
“So he’s strong on the inside but gentle on the outside?”
“Yes, that would be a good way of describing him.” She looked down at the medallion and then back up to me.
“Is he a worthwhile person?” she asked. “Is he worthy?”
I glanced down at the floor, paused, and then looked back at her. “Yes,” I replied, “he is worthy.”
“How do you know?” That deep penetrating look of hers was drilling its way into me. She could be really intense at times.
“It just radiates from him,” I said. “You can see it; you can feel it when you are with him.”
“Do you think he is a good judge of character?”
Now I began to see what she was doing with this line of questions. “Yes, I do.”
“He must have thought you were worthy for him to pass the medallion on to you. How many other people do you think he found worthy to pass this position on to?” she asked.
I lowered my head and kept looking at the floor. My mind raced for an answer other than what I had known ever since the cave in Tibet, but there was only one answer. “Trent told me there were none.”
“And what about Ed, is he a worthy person?”
I was feeling very uncomfortable with where this was going but I knew she was right. “Yes, he is.”
“Do you think he finds you worthy?” she asked.
I searched my mind for an answer, but nothing was there. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t tell us everything when you told us about what happened in the cave in Tibet,” she said. “Ed told me the part you left out. He was going to defend you against the robot when you stepped in front of him and talked him out of the knife he had. You then offered yourself as being responsible, willing to die in Ed’s place as well as everyone else’s. Worthless people don’t do that. They run and hide. They are cowards. Only one who is worthy does what you did. That’s how the old guardian recognized you as worthy of being the next guardian. That’s also why the robot recognized you as also being worthy.”
“Yes, but…”
“Shhh…” she said gently placing her finger on my lips. “You can’t allow a bunch of thugs in prison to decide your self-worth. They didn’t know anything about you. They didn’t care. Their opinion isn’t worth anything. The old guardian, his opinion is valuable. Ed’s opinion is valuable, so is John’s and mine.”
“John assigned Ed to protect me; he was just doing his job.”
Tia shook her head. “That’s not how Ed sees it,” she said. “Yes, Ed was ready to give his life to try to save yours, because that was his job. But you saved his life. You talked him out of his weapon and offered your life in place of his. That wasn’t your job. That was above and beyond what your responsibility was. Ed respects you, like he would a brother SEAL and that’s rare.”
She grabbed me by the hand and led me out of our enclosure and down the tunnel to the communications room. After she closed the door she spoke.
“Robot, have you found Carl to be worthy?”
Yes, Tia appeared on the screen.
“And if you had not found him worthy?” she asked.
Then he would never have left the cave in Tibet alive appeared on the screen.
“And how would you know if he was worthy or not?” Tia asked.
We have worked with humans for more than seventy thousand years came the reply on the screen. The worthy ones are rare and easy to identify.
Tia looked at me. I stood there not knowing what to do or say. Finally I managed to speak.
“Thank you,” I said.
You are welcome, guardian appeared on the screen.
It was a lot to absorb. Intellectually, I knew Tia was right, but the struggle was on the emotional level, not within my mind. Over the next two months I gradually reformatted my thinking and my feelings. It was extremely difficult, but eventually the black abyss faded into the nothingness I imagined waited for only me.
Something else was happening. I was becoming much more aware of people’s thoughts and feelings. At first it was like these were my own thoughts and emotions, but they didn’t seem like thoughts or feelings I would have. Gradually I developed a sense of what were my own thoughts and what belonged to others. Same thing with the feelings I was experiencing.
Finally I understood Tia’s love for me and Ed’s respect. I was experiencing what was in their minds and in their hearts, just not as intensely. I laughed out loud as I realized what the medallion was doing for me. The old guardian must have had a grand old time when we were there, sensing what we were thinking and feeling. If I was getting this much from wearing the medallion for six months, what was he experiencing from wearing it for decades? I was looking forward to finding out.