It was a good place, this Center. He felt different here, more peaceful, more in command of himself, closer to the center of his being. That was interesting, the way he felt so different here.
In the dimness he could see the indistinct forms of buildings, some cabins like his own close by and then a big open lawn and some more small cabins and then bigger buildings farther away on the hill over there.
He looked up through the mists into the sky.
The stars seemed very close to the Earth here. He couldn’t see them, not with sunrise just a short time away. But he could feel them, the shining presence of them, like a series of invisible glittering spheres lined up one after another up there. This must be a very holy place, he thought, to have the stars so close. All the worlds he had visited so often in his visions seemed practically within his grasp: just reach out, just touch!
Tom tingled with awe. Those wondrous galaxies, those millions upon millions of worlds bustling with life! “Hello,” he called. “Hello, you Poro and you Zygerone. You Thikkumuuru people. And you fabulous Kusereen, hello, hello!” The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth His handiwork. What a privilege it had been to behold all this, the multitude of worlds, the fullness of the universe. For how many billions of years had those great races been masters of the stars, building their civilizations and their empires, linking world to world, soaring across those black incredible spaces, becoming almost as gods themselves? And he had seen it all, image upon image pouring into his astounded brain. At first it had seemed like mere craziness, sure. But then he began to recognize the patterns; yet even so there was too much to comprehend or even to begin to comprehend. It was as if he had picked up an envelope and taken out a letter and the letter contained every word in every book that had ever been published; and all those words had come roaring into his mind at once. That could have driven anyone crazy. But he had lived with these things so long that he had come to make a little sense out of them. He knew which races ruled the star-kingdoms now, and which had ruled in the eons gone by. He knew which were obedient subjects waiting their own time of greatness yet to come. It was all there, in the Book of Suns and the Book of Moons, which he had been allowed to read. He alone was the chosen one through whom the peoples of the universe were permitting themselves to be made known to Earth. Now the news was spreading, though; and soon everyone would know it; and then the moment for which Tom lived would come, when the peoples of Earth went forth into those shining worlds themselves, soaring across the gulfs of space to become citizens of the vast galactic realm.
The first light of dawn came into the sky and the mists started to burn away. Tom felt the phalanx of the galaxies recede and disappear. For a moment, standing there on the porch, he felt a terrible pang of separation and loss. Then the feeling eased and he grew calm again. He went back inside, washed, put on his new jeans, his new shirt. Knelt for a long time beside his bed in prayer, giving thanks for blessings received. And decided to go out, finally, and see if he could get himself some breakfast.
He wasn’t sure which building it was. Everything looked different by daylight. While he was wandering around he ran into the man with the bad leg, the one called Ed, who had tried to escape. Ed appeared to be wandering around too, walking without any real purpose. He didn’t look very good this morning. His face was puffy and his eyes were red and bleary and his mouth was clamped in a tight scowl, and he was moving in a wobbly, blithery way, as though he might be drunk. At this hour of the morning.
They stood facing each other on the path.
“Hey,” Tom said, “you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
Ed stared at him in silence for a long moment. He didn’t seem drunk close up. Sick, maybe, but not drunk. “Who the hell are you?” he asked finally.
“I’m Tom. I was in the helicopter with you yesterday when they brought us in from outside. Don’t you remember that?”
“I don’t know,” Ed said. “I don’t know any goddamn thing right now. I’m just coming up from pick. You know what that is, don’t you, fella?”
“Pick?”
“You new here?”
“I came in last night with you on the helicopter.”
“You got a lot to learn, then.” Ed shifted his weight, favoring his sore leg. He was leaning on a white plastic crutch. “Pick is when they put electrodes on your head,” he said, “and flash a flickering light in your eyes and send some kind of juice down into your brain. Wipes out your short-term memory. You forget most of what happened to you yesterday. You even forget what you dreamed last night. That’s what they do here.”
Tom blinked. “Why would they do that? It ought to be against the law, doing that to somebody’s brain.”
“They do it to heal you. To cure you when they think your mind is mixed up. That’s how they cure you, by mixing it up even more. You wait. They’ll pick you too, fella. Tom, whatever your name is. Soon as they measure your brain-waves they’ll go to work on you.”
“Me? No,” Tom said, a little nervously. This man was making him very uncomfortable. This man, this Ed, there was something wrong with him inside. Tom had seen that right away, when Ed had first come straggling out of the woods back there on that little highway. His soul was injured; his spirit was all closed in on itself, full of pain and hatred. Like Stidge, that was how he was, a mean and bitter man who thought that everybody was out to get him. Tom smiled and said, “Not me. They won’t do that to me.”
“You wait.”
“Not me,” Tom said again. He laughed. “Poor Tom, nobody wants to hurt Tom. Tom doesn’t do any harm.”
“You really are a nut, aren’t you?”
“Poor Tom. Tom’s a nut, yes. Poor Tom, silly Tom.”
“Christ, where’d they find you?” Ed’s scowl deepened. “You say you came in here with me last night, on the helicopter? From where? What was I doing outside the Center in the first place?”
“You tried to run away,” Tom said. “You and the woman named Allie. They caught you.”
“Ah,” Ed said, nodding. “So that’s what.”
“Brought you back in the helicopter. Just last night. You don’t remember?”
“Not a goddamn thing,” Ed said. “That’s what they do to you here. They take your memory away.”
“No,” Tom said. “I don’t believe that. This place is a good place. They wouldn’t hurt anybody’s mind here.”
“You wait, fella. You’ll find out.”
Tom shrugged. There was no sense arguing with him. He was sick in the head, everything all twisted up in him. You just had to look at him to know it. Tom felt sorry for people like that. Once we make the Crossing, he thought, everyone will be truly healed of pain. In the embrace of the star-folk all sufferers will be given ease at last.
“You know where I can find some breakfast?” Tom asked.
“Up there. Gray building on the hill, you go around to the right side.”
“Much obliged. You going that way?”
Ed made a sour face. “They filled me full of dope last night. The idea of food makes me sick to my stomach.”
“I’ll see you, then,” Tom said. He headed up the hill at a good clip. The morning air was fresh and bracing, though he suspected the day was going to get hot later on. As he neared the complex of buildings midway up the hill the woman, Elszabet, stepped out of one of them and waved to him.