He winked, started the drip, and left.
I reclined my seat, pulled the blind down over my window, and closed my eyes, allowing the liquid elixir to float me away.
30
Susan’s soul came to me, only it was harbored in the physicality of another.
As was mine.
We were on a mountain bluff overlooking a tempest sea. The sky was violet, but not by dusk’s cool touch, for the sun was still high in the sky. She was picking purple flowers that grew from vines twisted around branches of a scarlet oak, and the wind kept catching her tunic, causing the sheer fabric to bloom above her hips, revealing her naked torso to me.
“You’re using the wind to tempt my loins.” I said aloud.
“And why would I do such a thing? This is my fertile time, and the Council has placed yet another moratorium on conception. Or perhaps you’ve spent so much time in your cave that you haven’t heard?”
“I am a scientist, Lehanna. The decree is in response to the latest Miketz update. The magma chamber’s internal pressure has risen higher than our geologists predicted.”
“How much longer do we have?”
“It’s best not to dwell on predictions.”
“Avi Socha, as your senior wife I need to prepare our home for every eventuality.”
“The Miketz is a probability, not a certainty. It could still subside.”
“How long?”
“Two solar orbits, with the pyroclastic blast most likely occurring before the spring harvest.”
The new doomsday timetable hit her hard. “And how many escape ships has the Council commissioned for Charon’s lower rungs?”
“So far, only sixteen — just about enough for a single tribe.”
I watched as the sadness in her eyes changed to anger. “And for the Council?”
“They are keeping the number secret, but I sincerely doubt any of the Appointed Ones will be left behind.”
“Sixteen ships… And the lottery determines which tribe will be saved, correct?”
“Or which seven hundred. To the Council the twelve tribes are simply a minority to be managed. Not that it matters. The transports only carry enough supplies to orbit Charon for one solar year. Most of us scientists in purgatory agree, the effects of the Miketz will render the planet uninhabitable. We need a new planet to call home, but none of the other worlds in this star system are capable of sustaining life. And the transports lack the technology to venture beyond the asteroid belt.”
“What about Berudim? The Council believes the third world possesses water.”
“Berudim’s atmosphere is toxic. And the planet is far too close to the sun to inhabit. The Council is offering the people false hope in an attempt to maintain order. Lehanna?”
She was calculating odds. “Our tribe has a one in twelve chance of being chosen. We can increase those odds with a better harvest and by obeying the Council’s new edicts. Avi, you’ve already been forbidden to practice the mystic wisdom. For the sake of our loved ones, I ask you now to end your midnight activities in the caves.”
“It’s not mysticism, Lehanna. Soul searching is a higher form of meditation which taps into the universal consciousness.”
“It is heresy and a violation of Council law. If you are caught, our tribe could be excluded from the lottery.”
“What good is it to be orbiting a dead world? If I succeed in communicating with my soul’s future incarnates, perhaps they can provide me with the knowledge to prevent the Miketz.”
“It’s utter nonsense.”
“Not true! In the past year, I have communicated with an ancient one whose physicality housed my soul long before me. He described Charon as it was a century before the Council divided our people into tribes. He taught me about the upper worlds, a wonderful existence our souls inhabit between incarnations. Time does not exist in these other realms, which makes it possible for me to communicate with a future me.”
“There is none after you, Avi Socha! This planet is doomed. Ours shall be the last generation to inhabit Charon. Now wake up.”
“Hey, pal, wake up.”
I opened my eyes. My face was covered in tears, my mind lost in a stupor. Everything was gone — the violet landscape, the ocean… the woman. Instead, four men in neoprene jumpsuits stood over me, chuckling, their presence anchoring me to my new surroundings, even as my growing wakefulness drained the memories from my bizarre out-of-body experience.
I was confused. I felt empty inside. Wherever I had been, I wanted to be back there. I belonged there.
I took a deep breath and smelled Susan. In the lucid dream, I had called her by another name. Lehanna. She had referred to me as Avi Socha. She had called the planet Charon. Was it a Nordic world? Had it survived the doomsday event we were talking about? Or was this a future event in a multiverse still to come?
No. Our conversation had been vocalized; there was nothing to indicate an evolved ability to communicate telepathically.
Try as I might, the memory of the dream dissipated too quickly to analyze. It was then I realized something was happening.
Dozens of crewmen were hovering by the windows on my side of the plane, many snapping photos with their iPhones. I raised the window shade and looked outside.
Sweet Jesus…
We were flying over water, the night illuminated by the patterns of light emanating from countless UFOs. Whether their intentions were to escort us to Antarctica or shoot us down, I didn’t know. But they were everywhere. Some flew in formations of up to a dozen, while others zipped close to our wing and hovered, only to accelerate out of view. Then there were those that preferred the cheap seats high above our altitude, their lights appearing like stars. One massive triangular craft the size of a small city dominated the heavens. Every so often it would execute an incredible end-over-end 360 as if just to show us it could do it.
It was a mind-boggling, humbling, and surreal spectacle, and I might have actually enjoyed it had I not feared they were only here because of me.
31
“There is a force/energy/consciousness/divine thread that connects us all
spiritually to something greater than ourselves.”
Fear shuts down the mind and paralyzes the body. It unleashes thoughts that smother reason and strangle hope, reducing consciousness to a dying ember.
Sitting on the transport, I realized that I no longer cared whether I lived or died. In truth, it was only the need to save William and Brandy that forced me to take another breath. Yet, even in my state of anxiety, I knew there was zero chance of Colonel Vacendak ever releasing any of us. The only thing keeping us alive was MJ-12’s belief that my presence was needed to access the object in Lake Vostok. When the mission was finished I, along with my loved ones, would be disposed of as collateral damage.