His perception of my thought surprised me. "No, not at all. You know
how I came here."
"Your emanations are strong," he said, his voice booming at me
resonantly. "I feel the vibrations...."
In spite of myself I felt a tug of hope. "When I spoke of hearing
voices your--disciples became excited. Have you heard them?"
"Many hear. The astral body is visible to those who can tune in its
vibrations, who can see and hear with astral eyes and ears."
I broke in impatiently. "These aren't astral voices or whatever you
call them. These are aliens. They tried to kill me!"
The mystic showed neither surprise nor concern. "It is possible that
occult powers can be used for evil purposes. Yet it is not usual for
this to be so, nor is it usual for one to be consciously receptive to
the vibrations of higher frequency given by even a powerful adept,
learned in the control of the mind, unless the listener has been
trained in the development of astral vision. You have had no such
training."
"No--but I've heard voices!"
"Perhaps it would be better if you would explain what you have
experienced."
For a moment I studied the dark figure half-hidden behind the veil.
Inexplicably, my first doubts and suspicions had begun to slip away
from me. The man inspired confidence. I had forgotten the theatrical
trappings of the setting as the rich voice filled the room--gentle,
soothing, inviting belief and faith and trust. I found the hope growing
in me. He had not, after all, dismissed my claim to hear the voices in
my mind. He acted as if the fact was not at all unusual.
I told him the story. I saw little reason to conceal anything.
Beginning with my memory of the vision of my father's death, I went on
to recount the more recent vivid dream of drowning and the many times
I had heard the voices, particularly in recent weeks they had come to
me with increasing clarity and frequency. And finally, I spoke of the
two attempts on my life when an alien force had seemed to control my
mind. When I had finished, I waited anxiously, peering through the thin
fabric of the veil.
"I have known it," the swami said suddenly in his incredibly deep
baritone. "The evil vibrations have reached me, but I resisted the
truth which they would have led me to believe." He bowed his head.
"Thus have I failed to keep contact with the Universal Mind."
"The Universal Mind?" I repeated.
"The Cosmic Consciousness toward which we grope. The human mind is
frail and finite, but the Universal Mind is all."
"I don't understand."
I thought he sighed. "All human life is a groping upwards, an opening
of the individual mind to the One Universal Mind. Our consciousness is
limited. We catch only fragmentary glimpses of the truth, the great
body of super-consciousness which lies on another plane, through
which we must move closer to God, the One Universal Mind. But the
history of man is a story of this struggle upward toward the light,
the slow evolution of consciousness toward that state when at last the
subconscious and the super-conscious will be merged in the One, and the
One in all."
"What does that have to do with me?" I demanded.
"There have been men, advanced members of the human race, who have
attained to Cosmic Consciousness, the state of true wisdom. Even in
ancient times these have lived--the Yogi of India, the Magus of Persia,
the Atlantean Kushog--"
"So I've heard," I snapped irritably. "But I'm not interested in
ancient mystics--"
He held up his hand in a commanding gesture. His voice rose, vibrant
and dominating. "Listen! Do not close your mind to the truth of
the ancients! For they have lived, they live now, whom you do not
comprehend, who have discovered the wisdom of the East, who know that
there is no pain, no sickness, no evil beyond the power of the mind to
control. All men may approach this realm if they but wish it. It is
necessary to purify the self, to rise above the interfering vibrations
of material need and base emotions and ego-dominated thoughts, to
learn control of the body and the mind. Only then can we rise like the
phoenix from the ashes of a dead ego, into a new life in the higher
plane where the self does not exist."
The rich voice thundered through the room, swelling and resounding from
the walls, and suddenly sank to a bare whisper. I found myself leaning
forward, straining to hear.
"Telepathy is but a simple tool of the adept who has learned control
of the mind of man. Such a one can easily communicate directly with
the unconscious mind of another, can cause a weaker mind to do its
bidding--can even cause the strange delusions which you have described.
Such is the power of the Cosmic Consciousness! And such power, used
for evil, can only be defeated by a true inner faith, an attainment
of purity in which all base emotions are cleansed. Yours is a unique
gift, a reflection of the Cosmic Power you have known in a previous
incarnation. To use this power of the mind, you must learn that total
concentration in which there is no sensation, no awareness of self. You
must be an empty receptacle, ready to be filled with wine of truth and
love."
Incredulous, I stared at the shadowy figure under his white turban.
While he had spoken, the apparent majesty of his words and the magnetic
power of his voice had held me. For a moment, I had felt a thrill of
understanding and belief. Here was the answer to everything! Here was
the end of fear and wonder! But now, in the sudden silence, I heard the
echo of his vibrant phrases, glib and full of half-truths, promising
much and saying little. All he offered were vague speculations about
someone using occult powers against me, speculations mixed up with a
hodge-podge of Hindu and Oriental teachings blended into a palatable
opiate.
And all at once, I thought of the acoustics of this room and I
understood why my own voice, swallowed up by the sponge-like walls
surrounding my half of the room, had seemed so weak and helpless, while
his, obviously reinforced by a clever acoustical arrangement and
possibly even by microphones, boomed at me with stereophonic richness.
Angrily I jumped to my feet. "What are you suggesting? Do you want me
to join your little camp of followers? How about my life savings? I
won't need that, will I, if I'm going to purify myself of all earthly
desires?"
His voice was heavy and sad. "You have closed your mind. It was to be
expected. You are not ready to believe."
"I'm certainly not ready to swallow that stuff about someone using
cosmic powers against me. Who is it? Why should he try to kill me?
Maybe you could go into a trance and communicate with him for me. I'd
like a few more answers."
My anger was out of proportion, but I couldn't control it.
Disappointment was so keen that it severed any bonds of restraint. I
had placed too much hope on the help I might find here. To encounter a
dedicated fanatic--or what was worse, a clever charlatan--enraged me. I
stepped forward and tore at the veil which hung between us. The fabric
gave off a faint smell of dust disturbed and a weak spot ripped under
my hand.
The swami did not move.
"Answer me, dammit! Who's trying to kill me? Or am I as crazy as you
are?"
He remained absolutely still, head bent, legs folded under him, his
attitude one of total concentration--or prayer. Furious, I grabbed his
shoulders and jerked him up. His lack of weight astonished me. The
man was thin and bony, fragile and light under my hands. The large,
handsome head was an incongruity on the short, frail body. No wonder
he sat on a platform! No wonder he spoke out of darkness! I stared
into the black, liquid eyes. His lack of resistance finally penetrated
through the angry haze of frustration which had filmed my reason. I
released him.
I hadn't heard any sound behind me. I caught the blur of a white robe
swooping over me and heard too late the padding of many feet. Then
I was enveloped in a smothering white blanket that dropped over my
head. Hands caught and pinned my arms and dragged me down, hauling me
backwards--
"Wait!"
The swami's voice thundered its command and the room was stilled. I was
on the floor, held there by the weight of a heavy body and the pressure
of many grasping hands. There was an angry mutter of protest.
"Release him!"
Reluctantly, the hands drew away. Someone pulled the white cloth off
me. I blinked up at a huddle of white-robed figures looking down at me,
their eyes hostile. I recognized among the faces that of Henry, the man
who had saved my life.
"Evil has touched him," the swami said. The men standing over me drew
back as if in fear. "Let him go in peace."
Warily I pushed myself up. The others made no attempt to stop me now.
They were all watching the Exalted One. He was standing now, and even
on the raised platform he made a small, unimpressive figure when erect.
But there was nothing pale or thin about the cultivated voice.
"The days of the spirit are at hand," he intoned. "The hours of evil
are numbered. Go in peace. Cleanse your spirit! Prepare for the day
of Truth, of the All-in-One. You, who have stumbled blindly upon the
latent powers that lie within, know that when your mind is opened to
truth the powers of darkness can hold no influence over you. Know your
own strength, believe in it--fear not to die! For there is no death;
there is only the life of the spirit."
To my astonishment, those who had a moment before been violently
tearing at my body now sank slowly, one by one, to the floor, ignoring
my presence. Only the swami himself still watched me. The red glow of
the gem in his turban was like a fiery eye. Uneasily, I stumbled back
through the motionless heaps of white-shrouded figures kneeling or
sitting on the floor. The door was open. I turned and ran.
In the lobby I was abruptly confronted by the bird-faced woman. Her
features were pinched tight, her eyes bright with venom.
"We should have left you to die!" she screeched. "You put your hands on
the swami!"
"There is no death," I muttered.
I left her open-mouthed. A moment later, I burst out of the cool lobby
into the bright, hot sunlight. I was striding swiftly away from the
temple before I realized that I was still barefooted.
I turned to look back at the Temple of the Western Sun, an
architectural anachronism that, like the swami's faith, dated back to a
time lost in the reaches of history. The sunlight reflected glaringly
from the arched roof and from the intricate pattern of color in the big
stained glass window at the front.
I was intensely relieved to be out of the place into the open air. Here
I could breathe freely, free of the dusty heritage of an ancient wisdom
founded on love and the aspiration of man to be one with the source of
all things, the Creator of the universe, a wisdom now half-absorbed
and clouded by a ritual of words. And I felt ashamed of my relief.
The small satisfaction derived from my final taunt to the bird woman
crumbled before the knowledge that I had bolted from the temple in
foolish panic. I would have come to no harm at the swami's hands. In
the end he had acted far better than I. Perhaps he was not a charlatan.
One couldn't blame him for using a few dramatic effects to heighten the
impact of his message. What religion had not? And his last words had
had a ring of sincerity. He believed. It was I who, driven by blind
anger, had almost been guilty of violence, because the man had failed
me. And yet--
Standing there, staring at the silent temple, I had the obscure feeling
that he had said something that was very important to me, something I
could not quite grasp, a truth buried under the avalanche of his words.
17
I arrived at my trailer in the middle of the afternoon. My feet were
tired and blistered, although I had managed to pick up a pair of
sandals along the way. The swami's temple had been a good mile from
the nearest elevated station. I wasn't used to that much walking,
particularly in my bare feet.
Just as I turned into the walk leading up to my trailer, the girl next
door appeared. She ran down the steps toward me and halted abruptly.
For a change her eyes were not cast down or averted but intent on
my face, wide with concern. I had a startlingly clear sense of her
anxiety, followed by an apprehension of acute relief.
"You're--you're all right?" she asked breathlessly.
She was staring at the bandage around my head. My coverall concealed
the larger bandage extending from my left shoulder to the elbow.
"Banged up a little," I said with forced cheerfulness. "Nothing
serious."
"I was afraid--" She caught herself. "When you didn't return home, I--"
I looked at her sharply and she blushed. Her head turned away quickly,
but not before I saw the creeping stain of red under her skin. For a
moment, I was too astonished to reply. The girl's next words made me
forget all about her odd behavior.
"The police were here," she said, her glance brushing mine for only an
instant. "They wished to see you."
I felt a quick stab of warning. My gaze narrowed, trying to read her
expression. The police had not been satisfied with my story, then. And
this girl had backed up my alibi.
"Were they questioning you again--about the other night?" I asked with
an attempt at casualness.
"Oh, no!" She shook her head in a terse, firm negative. "They were
very nice. They said they would stop back to see you later."
"You didn't--tell them anything else?"
A faint smile touched her lips and I seemed to see her face revealed
for the first time without the mask of shyness. It was a face that
mirrored warmth and a hidden humor, a sensitive, lovely face.
"There was no need," she said. "I do not think they are interested any
more."
"But they didn't say why they wanted to see me?"
All at once she appeared to become aware of my close scrutiny and she
took a step back. "Nothing," she said quickly. "They--they told me
nothing."
She started to turn away and I stepped quickly toward her, catching
her arm. "Wait!" I said urgently. I could feel a faint trembling under
my fingers, a current of--what? Excitement? Fear? "I want to thank
you--for being worried about me."
Her eyes met mine briefly and I was surprised to see that they
reflected none of the timidity or apprehension that seemed to vibrate
in her body.
"It is only natural that I would be concerned," she said, and even her
voice held a different tone, a note of surprising tenderness.
And while I stared, she pulled away from me and ran lightly up the
steps and into her trailer. The door closed firmly behind her.
I took a step after her. Her words came back to me, her news about the
police. They would be back. And there could be only one reason for
their wanting to talk to me again.
It took all the control I had to keep from turning and running.
I let myself into my trailer. It seemed stuffy inside, the clean,
cool, filtered air slightly stale after a day without human smells to
combat. An impulse of caution made me go through the trailer quietly.
In the compact, carefully planned rooms, it would have been impossible
for anyone to hide. I felt the absurdity of expecting to find police
lurking in the closet or under the bed, but I was not acting very
rationally. The desire to flee followed me through the empty rooms.
A woman had been killed and the police had reason to think that I
might be involved. And I had lied. Why else should I lie unless I
was guilty? From their point of view the conclusion was obvious. And
then it occurred to me that they might have even more reason than I
knew to find me a prime suspect. Evidence could have been planted to
incriminate me. Why not? It would be one way to muffle the listener's
ears. Modern forces of justice were quick and unsentimentally ruthless
in dealing with a murderer. They had to be in an overcrowded world.
Restraint snapped. I ran into the bedroom and fumbled hastily in the
closet for my one small suitcase. Tossing it onto the bed, I began
to pull a few clothes out of the closet and the chest. I snatched a
razor from the washstand and a windproof jacket from its hook. When I
had jammed everything into it and slammed it shut, I stood over the
suitcase, panting. It seemed to me that I could smell my own fear,
sharp and acrid, soiling the conditioned air. I felt an unexpected
revulsion.
I sat on the bed. For a long moment I didn't move. My mind seemed
frozen. The trailer was very silent and I listened to my own strained
breathing. And at last I held up my fear and examined it, and I knew
that I could not run.
I was not guilty. Flight, in any event, would be more incriminating
than anything I could possibly do, and if they were really after me I
would be picked up within hours.
Besides, I thought without humor, I could always plead insanity.
* * * * *
I had less than an hour to wait. I heard the helicopter whirring
overhead and was at the window when it dropped gently onto the landing
strip across the street. The two policemen came directly toward my
trailer, moving unhurriedly. I recognized the chunky sergeant who had
questioned me before. The same lean partner was with him. I opened the
door as they reached the steps.