"Mission" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tilley Patrick)

I sat down in my uncle's wooden chair which, like most of the other furniture, had come with the house. Miriam must have brought it from the garage for him but I guess chairs were not something he was used to. I blew on my coffee. 'You had me worried. When I saw the bed, I thought you'd left us.'
He shook his head and smiled. 'I read through the Bible that Miriam brought, then came down and watched some TV.'
'What, all night?'
'Yes,' he said. 'This body doesn't function in the way yours does. It has no need for sleep.' He looked down at this flower he had in his lap and twiddled it around in his fingers. I'm not sure what kind. Red. A geranium I think. Do they come out in April?
'How far did you get with the Book?' I asked~
'Oh, I read all of it.' He saw my look of' surprise. 'It's not difficult. You see, whereas you can only absorb written information line by line through your eyes, I am able to absorb the totality of a book just by holding it imn my hands.'
I eyed him and got up. 'This, I've got to see.' 1 went into the house and returned with the first hook that had caught my eye. A paperback copy of Webster's New World Thcnonarv o/the /1~nerican 1.anguage. I passed ii over to him and sat down. I he glanced at I he front and hack
cover then gripped it firmly in both hands.
'Are you ready?' I said.
'Just a minute. . . 'He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply then let his breath out slowly, as if preparing to meditate. It took about thirty seconds and he didn't frown once. He opened his eyes. 'Amazing language. Very 'Braxian. Okay, shoot.'
'Divine truth,' I said. 'What pages do those words appear on?'
He held the book flat between the palms of his hands and rested his chin against it. 'Pages 172 and 612.' He offered me the book. 'Do you want the column and line number as well?'
'No, that's good enough.' I took the book and checked his answers. He was absolutely right, of course. I leaned back and laid the book on the rail of the verandah. 'Fantastic,' I said. 'I suppose you realise that if you could teach people how to do that, you could make a fortune. But then, that's not what you came for.'
'No,' he said. He picked up the red flower and gazed at it.
And something odd happened. It may have been just a chain reaction of ideas but I had feeling someone else's finger was on the button. That The Man was beaming thought-waves into my brain. The point was I found myself, almost involuntarily, reflecting on how, despite the fundamental role it had played itt the development of modern society, money lay like a deadweight upon the world, distorting our true sense of values, suffocating our good intentions. If we had too little of it, we were utterly crushed by the burden of poverty. If we had too much of it, we went in fear of our lives. Living behind high wires fences and electronic alarms. Dogged by security guards. Driving with a gun in the dash. Wealth could make the weak a power in the land; poverty could make slaves of the strong and deprive them of their manhood. Even so, good fortune was a fickle mistress. A mountain of cash had buried many a man and woman alive.
The fate of nations too, hung on the mind-numbing manipulations of the money-markets. Arabian Nights fortunes in recycled petrodollars, deutschmarks, and cuckoo-clock currency were telexed across the globe to bankroll dictators or give the kiss of life to democracies with a bad case ofthe staggers. For a price, of course. Countries wit hnout saleable resources or strategic bases to ofl~r as collateral could find their credit lines cut short. While the breadhines got longer, It was sobering to) thuink ofthe huge fiuxi and grain reserves of North America and t lue commodity mountains of I'.uropc sitting
there in silos and deep-freeze dungeons while, all over the world, people were going hungry. Yet the food that could alleviate the plight of the undernourished was not shipped, as a matter of course, from the fat nations to the thin. It stayed put, or was pulped, burned or left to rot to keep up commodity prices and because it cost too much to move it. It was unfortunate that people had to die but at least the books balanced. The politicians, financiers and economists never seemed to consider the possibility that we might owe a collective debt to the whole human race.
But who was I to pass judgement? In the past year I had put on a good inch around my waist and left enough food on restaurant plates to feed a family in Kampuchea or the Karamojo for weeks.
Looking back, I realise that it was the first session in a short course of mental hygiene; the object of which was to clear highways and byways of the mind and, in the process, prick my social conscience. Making me more sharply aware of the Gadarene-swinishness of the Me-Generation.
'What did you make of the New 1'estament?' I said.
'A very clever mixture of fact and fiction. Some of the distortiotus are very subtle, others are blatant bits of promotional material inserted to support the Apostolic Succession and things like the story of Judas are a travesty of tlue truth. It wasn't like that at all.'
'I can't wait to get the inside track on all this,' I said. 'But first, I want to read through it carefully so as I know what I'm talking about. However, there is one question that occurs to me. Why didn't this 'Brax character, who you said was trying to stop The Truth ti'om getting out, just destroy all the records? That way, no one would luave known that you had ever been born in Bethlehem.'
'What you have to understand,' he said, 'is that in the final analysis, 'Brax cannot destroy The Truth. He can only bury it under layers of impenetrable gobbledygook, and bar the way to it by tempting people off the True Path into the morass of the material world where they sink under the weight of tlueir desires and possessions. l)on't make tlue mistake of equating 'Brax with brute force. lie is devious arid diaholically clever. He gets a tremendous kick out of knowing thuat each one of you holds the key to) The Truth. 'I'he key that could free you l'rom your 'Braxian cell but which you are too blind to see. And that, even ilyou could see it, the niajori ty olyou would not bother to try tO) unlock t he door because he has convinced you that there is nothing beyond the prisomu walls and that anyone who believes there is should
be regarded with derision. That is why The Word still lives within the corrupted text of the New Testament. It doesn't worry 'Brax because he knows that most people don't really believe in the being you call God, and those that do have been fed a pack of lies and half-truths. So what has he got to lose?' The Man broke off and gazed into the centre of the red flower. As if to restore an inner harmony that had been disturbed by talking about 'Brax. He looked up at me with a smile. 'Incidentally, I see what you mean about the laughs.'
'There's also no mention of the starship - or longship, as you call

'No, I didn't tell them about it,' he said. 'What would have been the point? The Old Testament scribes had enough problems with Ezekiel's trip in the fiery chariot. They related my arrival to the Star of Bethlehem but I didn't go into what that really was. You can't cxplain space-timuue travel - especially our brand - in a language that can just barely cope with the wheel. These concepts have to be introduced at the right time. If at all.'
'Does that mean you're against progress?' I asked.
He smiled. 'Think of that city you live and work in. Has progress made that a better place? You've become prisoners of the technology you've created.'
'Oh, wait a minute,' I protested. 'Don't knock it. What about the ievelopments in science, medicine, transport and communications? Don't tell me they haven't made the world a better place to live in.'
'Leo,' he said, 'let me tell you something.' He lifted up the flower igain and inspected it, rotating the stalk between finger and thumb. There was a time, before that war we spoke about, when Man knew more about the cosmos than your astronomers have discovered hrough their telescopes. When he was fitmiliar with the innermost mysteries of matter which your physicists are still constructing theories to explain. When he understood the nature of this flower better than the most brilliant botanist. When the Power within proectcd him from thuose who wished him harm. When sickness had not vet entered the world and when it did, could he cured by the touch of t hand. When Man could transport luimseif to the four corners of the ~vorld. Or could touch the stones of power and see whatever lue ~vished and send his inner voice soaring like a sea-bird across oceans md mountains to bring word of his coming or summon far ones to his hearth.' lie smiled at me, 'You want no luear nuusic? here, take hold ol' iuiy luand.
I reached out. His fingers tightened round mine. Incredible. It's a word I've used before. I'm afraid it crops up quite a few times in this story. But like he said, there are no words to describe these things. This music seemed to flow Through me. I didn't so much hear it as sense it. It was what the ad-men call a 'total experience'. An exquisite, vibrant melody that I can't describe. It wasn't a symphony type. thing, or something put together on a moog synthesiser. All! know is that I didn't want it to end. My heart felt as if it was going to burst with - well, there is only one way to describe it - pure joy.
And then he let go of my hand. And the music stopped. Just like that. And there were these tears rolling dot my face. So I pretended I had something in my eye, like! do in the movies. You know, like when Dustin Hoffman dies on the bus at the end ofM~Inighz Cowboy, or when Bambi's mother gets shot.
'Not bad,' I said. Stopping to blow my nose. 'So much for progress.' I kept my eyes on my handkerchief as I rolled it up into a ball. 'Do your people think they're going to be able to get on top of this time-warp problem you have?' Coming after the previous passage, that may sound an odd question, but! wanted to get back to a relatively simple subject before I broke down and cried for real.
'I'm not sure,' he replied. 'They sent a signal back up the lihe. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.'
My heartbeat began to slow down to something like its normal rate. 'Those guys up there who are manning the longships in the rescue fleet. Are they all Celestials like you, Michael and Gabriel?'
'Yes,' he said.
'Does that mean we're unique? Or are there other places where Celestials have occupied intelligent life-forms?'
He paused before replying. 'There are - other Mannish worlds,' he admitted.
'In this galaxy?' I asked.
He shock his head. 'No. You're the only people wehave inthis one. Earth was the prime. The seed-bed from which life was to be carried to the stars. But the programme was interrupted by the Second War of Secession.'
It was a chilling thought to realise that we were alone. All those billions of stars in the Milky Way spiralling round the incandescent core with their attendant planets and moons. Each with a "To Let" sign in the window. 'Tell me about the Mannish,' I said. 'Are they like us?'
The question seemed to amuse him. 'There's a family resemblance.' He turned his attention back to the red flower.
'Is that all?' I queried. 'Where are they? What are they called? Do they have arms and legs and everything else in the right places? What do they do for a living?'
He raised his eyes to mine. 'You're not ready for the rest. The time when Man is to meet his brothers is still to come.'
'You mean in another Age?' I said, determined to get an answer to something.
'Yes.'
'Okay,'! said. 'How many ages are there? If the past and the future exist now you must, at least, be able to tell me that.'
'There are seven Ages,' he said evenly.
This is not exactly how it came out but I've written it down in the form of a list to make it easier to understand: