The Intervention Part 4

ESP! For the first time I was able to put a name to the powers that made Don and me aliens in our own country. I got all worked up over the discovery and made Don read some of the stories, too; but his reaction was cynical. What did that stuff have to do with us? It was fiction. Somebody had made it up.

I ventured beyond the magazines, to the Berlin Public Library. When I looked up ESP and related topics in the encyclopedias, my heart sank. One and all, the reference books acknowledged that "certain persons" believed in the existence of mental faculties such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis. One and all, the books declared that there was no valid scientific evidence whatsoever for such belief.

I went through all the books in the juvenile department that dealt with the brain, then checked the adult shelves. None of the books even mentioned the mind-powers that Don and I had. The Berlin library was rather small and it had no serious volumes about parapsychology, only a few crank books listed under "Occult Phenomena" in the card catalog. Hesitantly, I went to the librarian and asked if she could help me find books about people who had extraordinary mind-powers. She thought very hard for a moment, then said, "I know the very book!"

She gave me one of the old Viking Portable Novel collections and pointed out Olaf Stapledon's Odd John to me. Concealing my disappointment at the fiction format, I dutifully took it home, read it, and had the living h.e.l.l scared out of me.

The book's hero was a mutant of singular appearance and extremely high mental power. He was h.o.m.o superior, a genius as well as an operant metapsychic, trapped in a world full of drab, commonplace normals, most of whom did their fumbling best to understand him but failed. Odd John wasn't persecuted by ordinary humans; there were even those who loved him. And yet he was tormented by loneliness and the knowledge of his uniqueness. In one chilling pa.s.sage, he described his att.i.tude toward other people:

I was living in a world of phantoms, or animated masks. No one seemed really alive. I had a queer notion that if I p.r.i.c.ked any of you, there would be no bleeding, but only a gush of wind. And I couldn't make out why you were like that, what it was that I missed in you. The trouble really was that I did not clearly know what it was in myself that made me different from you.

John's alienation led him to set up his own self-centered moral code. He financed his ambitions by becoming a ten-year-old burglar; and when he was caught at it by the friendly neighborhood policeman, he had no compunction about murdering the man to escape detection.

Later, when John was in his teens, he merely treated other people as pets or useful tools. He thought great thoughts, used his remarkable talents to make a lot of money, and traveled around the world in search of other mutant geniuses like himself. He found a fair number and proceeded to establish a secret colony on an island in the South Seas.

(The inconvenient original inhabitants of the place were coerced into ma.s.s suicide; but the superfolk held a nice feast for them first. ) Once John and his mutant friends were secure on their island, they set out to organize a combination Garden of Eden (they were all very young) and technocratic wonderland. They were able to utilize atomic energy by "abolishing" certain nuclear forces through mental activity. They had all kinds of sophisticated equipment at their command, yet chose to live in rustic simplicity, often linked telepathically to an Asian guru of like mind who had remained at home in his lamasery in Xizang.

The colony made plans for the reproduction of h.o.m.o superior. The young mutants "reviewed their position relative to the universe, " attained a transcendental quasi-Unity called astronomical consciousness, embraced the exotic mentalities inhabiting other star-systems - and discovered that they were doomed.

A British survey vessel stumbled onto John's island in spite of the metapsychic camouflaging efforts of the colonists. Once the secret was out, the military powers of the world sent warships to investigate. Some nations saw the colony as a menace; others coveted its a.s.sets and schemed to use the young geniuses as political p.a.w.ns. Attempts at negotiation between h.o.m.o sapiens and h.o.m.o superior broke down permanently when the j.a.panese delegate put his finger on the basic dilemma:

This lad [Odd John] and his companions have strange powers which Europe does not understand. But we understand. I have felt them. I have fought against them. I have not been tricked. I can see that these are not boys and girls; they are devils. If they are left, some day they will destroy us. The world will be for them, not for us.

The negotiating party withdrew and the world powers agreed that a.s.sa.s.sins should be landed on the island, to pick off the supranormals with guerrilla tactics.

Odd John and his companions had a weapon, a photon beam similar to an X-laser, that they might have used to fend off an invasion attempt; but they decided not to resist, since then "there would be no peace until we had conquered the world" and that would take a long time, as well as leaving them "distorted in spirit. " So the young mutants gathered together, focused their minds upon their atomic power station, and obliterated the entire island in a fireball...

"You've got to read this story, Don, " I pleaded, with my mind leaking the more sinister plot overtones that had frightened me - the hero's icy immorality that contradicted everything I had ever been taught, his awful loneliness, his totally pessimistic view of ordinary mankind faced with the challenge of superior minds.

Don refused. He said he didn't have time and that I shouldn't get worked up over a dumb, old-fashioned book. It had been written in 1935, and by an Englishman! I said it wasn't the story itself but what it said about people like us that was important. I bugged him about it and finally wore him down, and he waded through the novel over a period of two weeks, keeping his mind tight shut against me all that time. When he finished he said: "We're not like that. "

"What d'you mean, we're not? Okay - so we aren't geniuses and we'll never be able to make a million bucks on the stock market before we're seventeen like John did, or invent all that stuff or found a colony on an island. But there are things we do that other people would think were dangerous. Not just the PK, but the coercion. You're a lot better at it than me, so you ought to know what I'm talking about. "

"Big deal. So I fend off guys in hockey or nudge Onc' Louie to cough up a little money when he's half lit. " "And the girls, " I accused him.

He only snickered, dropped the book into my hands, and turned to walk away.

I said: DonnieDonnie when people findout they'll hate us just like they did Oddjohn!

He said: Make sure they don't find out.

Don and I were late bloomers physically, puny until we graduated from grammar school - after which we shot up like ragweed plants in July. He was much better looking and more muscular, with a flashing grin and dark eyes that went through you like snapshots from a .30-06. His use of the coercive metafunction that used to be called animal magnetism was instinctive and devastating. From the time he was fourteen girls were crazy for him. Don Remillard became the Casanova of Berlin High, as irresistible as he was heartless. I was his shadow, cast by a low-watt bulb. Don was husky and I was gangling. His hair was blue-black and curled over his forehead like that of some pop singer, while mine was lackl.u.s.ter and cowlicky. He had a clear olive skin, a dimpled chin, and a fine aquiline nose. I suffered acne and sinus trouble, and my nose, broken in a hockey game, healed rapidly but askew.

As our bodies changed into those of men, our minds drifted further apart. Don was increasingly impatient with my spiritual agonizing, my manifest insecurity, and my bookish tendencies. In high school my grades were excellent in the humanities, adequate in math and science.

Don's academic standing was low, but this did not affect his popularity since he excelled in football and hockey, augmenting genuine sports prowess with artful PK and coercion.

Don tried to educate me in that great Franco-American sport, girl-chasing; but our double-dating was not a success. I was by nature modest and inhibited while Don was the opposite, afire with fresh masculine fervor. The urges awakened in me by the new flood of male hormones disturbed me almost as much as my repressed metafunctions. In Catholic school, we had been lectured about the wickedness of "impure actions. " I was tormented by guilt when I could no longer resist the temptation to relieve my s.e.xual tensions manually and carried a burden of "mortal sin" until I had the courage to confess my transgression to Father Racine. This good man, far in advance of most Catholic clergy of that time, lifted the burden from my conscience in a straightforward and sensible way: "I know what the sisters have told you, that such actions bring d.a.m.nation. But it cannot be, for every boy entering manhood has experiences such as this because all male bodies are made the same. And who is harmed by such actions? No one. The only person who could be harmed is you, and the only way such harm could come is if the actions become an obsession - as occasionally happens when a boy is very unhappy and shut away from other sources of pleasure. Keep that in mind, for we owe G.o.d the proper care of our bodies. But these actions that seem necessary from time to time are not sinful, and especially not mortally sinful, because they are not a serious matter. You recall your catechism definition of mortal sin: the matter must be serious. What you do is not serious, unless you let it hurt you. So be at peace, my child. You should be far more concerned with the sins of cheating on school exams and acting uncharitably toward your aunt and uncle than with these involuntary urgings of the flesh. Now make a good act of contrition... "

When I was sixteen, in 1961, I emerged a bit from my broody sh.e.l.l and had occasional chaste dates with a quiet, pretty girl named Marie-Madeleine Fabre, whom I had met in the library. She shared my love of science fiction. We would walk along the banks of the beautiful Androscoggin River north of the pulp mills, ignoring the sulfurous stench and taking simple joy in the dark mirrored water, the flaming maples in autumn, and the low mountains that enclosed our New Hampshire valley. She taught me to bird-watch. I forgot my nightmares of Odd John and learned to react with forbearance when Don mocked my lack of s.e.xual daring.

There were still five of us living at home: Don and I and our younger cousins Albert, Jeanne, and Marguerite. That year we played host to a grand Remillard family reunion. Relatives came from all over New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine - including the other six children of Onc' Louie and Tante Lorraine, who had married and moved away and had children of their own. The old house on Second Street was jammed. After Midnight Ma.s.s on Christmas Eve there was the traditional reveillon with wine, maple candy and barber-poles, croque-cignols and tourtieres, and meat pies made of fat pork. Tiny children rushed about shrieking and waving toys, then fell asleep on the floor amid a litter of gifts and colored wrappings. As fast as the big old-fashioned Christmas tree lights burnt out, a.s.siduous boy electricians replaced them. Girls pa.s.sed trays of food. Adolescents and adults drank toast after toast. Even frail, white-haired Tante Lorraine got happily enivree. Everyone agreed that nothing was so wonderful as having the whole family under one roof for the holidays.

Seventeen days later, when the Christmas decorations had long been taken down, there was a belated present from little Cousin Tom of Auburn, Maine. We came down with the mumps.

At first we considered it a joke, in spite of the discomfort. Don and I and Al and Jeanne and Margie looked like a woeful gang of chipmunks. It was an excuse to stay home from school during the worst part of the winter, when Berlin was wrapped in frigid fog from the pulp-mill stacks and the dirty snow was knee-deep. Marie-Madeleine brought my cla.s.s a.s.signments every day, slipping them through the mail slot in the front door while the younger cousins t.i.ttered. Don's covey of cheerleaders kept the phone tied up for hours. He did no homework. He was urged by the high school coach to rest and conserve his strength.

Everybody got better inside of a week except me. I was prostrate and in agony from what Dr. LaPlante said was a rare complication of mumps. The virus had moved to my t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and I had something called bilateral orchitis. The nuns had been right after all! I was being punished.

I was treated to a useless course of antibiotics and lay moaning with an ice bag on my groin while Tante Lorraine hushed the solicitous inquiries of little Jeanne and Margie. Don slept at a friend's house, making some excuse, because I couldn't help communicating my pain and irrational guilt telepathically. Marie-Madeleine lit candles to St. Joseph and prayed for me to get well. Father Racine's common sense pooh-poohed my guilt and Dr. LaPlante a.s.sured me that I was going to be as good as new.

In my heart, I knew better.

8.

VERKHNYAYA BZYB, ABKHAZIYA a.s.sR, EARTH.

28 SEPTEMBER 1963.

THE PHYSICIAN PYOTR Sergeyevich Sakhvadze and his five-year-old daughter Tamara drove south from Sochi on the Black Sea Highway into that unique part of the Soviet Union called Abkhaziya by the geographers. Local people have another name for it: Apsny, the Land of the Soul. Its mountain villages are famed for the advanced age attained by the inhabitants, some of whom are reliably estimated at being more than 120 years old. The unusual mental traits of the isolated Abkhazians are less publicized; and if questioned, the people themselves generally laugh and call the old stories outworn superst.i.tion.

Dr. Pyotr Sakhvadze's wife Vera had done so until less than a week ago, on the day she died.

Still numb with grief, Pyotr drove like an automaton, no longer even bothering to question the compulsion that had taken hold of him. It was very hot in the semitropical lowlands and Tamara slept for a time on the back seat of the brand-new Volga sedan. The highway led through tobacco fields and citrus groves and stands of palm and eucalyptus, trending farther inland south of Gagra, where the mountains receded from the coast in the delta of the great River Bzyb. The road map showed no Upper Bzyb village, but it had to lie somewhere in the valley. Pyotr turned off the highway onto the Lake Ritsa road and pulled in at a village store at the lower end of the gorge.

"I'll buy us some bottles of fruit soda here, " Pyotr said, "and ask the way. We don't want to get lost in the mountains. "

"We wouldn't, " Tamara a.s.sured him gravely.

Pyotr's laugh was uneasy. "Just the same, I'll ask. "

But the woman in the store shook her head at his inquiry. "Upper Bzyb village? Oh, there's nothing for tourists there, and the road is nothing but a goat-track, suitable only for farm trucks. Better to go to the lovely resort at Lake Ritsa. "

When Pyotr persisted she gave vague directions, all the while maintaining that the place was very hard to find and not worth the trip, and the people odd and unfriendly to boot. Pyotr thanked her and returned to the car wearing a grim expression. He handed his daughter her soda. "I have been told that the road to Upper Bzyb is impossible. We simply can't risk it, Tamara. "

"Papa, don't worry. They won't let anything happen to us. They're expecting us. "

"Expecting -! But I never wrote or telephoned -"

"Mamenka told them we'd come. And they told me. "

"That's nonsense, " he said, his voice trembling. What was he thinking of, coming here? It was madness! Perhaps he was unhinged by sorrow! Aloud, he said, "We'll turn around at once and go home. "

He started up the car, slammed it into reverse gear, and stamped on the accelerator so abruptly that the engine died. He cursed under his breath and tried again and again to start it. d.a.m.n the thing! What was wrong with it? With him? Was he losing his mind?

"You've only forgotten your promise, " the little girl said.

Aghast, Pyotr turned around. "Promise? What promise?"

Tamara stared at him without speaking. His gaze slid away from hers and after a moment he covered his face with his handkerchief. Vera! If only you had confided in me. I would have tried to understand. I'm a man of science, but not narrow-minded. It's just that one doesn't dream that members of one's own family can be - "Papa, we must go, " Tamara said. "It's a long way, and we'll have to drive slowly. "

"The car won't start, " he said dully.

"Yes it will. Try. "

He did, and the Volga purred into instant life. "Yes, I see! This was also their doing? The old ones waiting for us in Verkhnyaya Bzyb?"

"No, you did it, Papa. But it's all right now. " The little girl settled back in her seat, drinking the soda, and Pyotr Sakhvadze guided the car back onto the gorge road that led deep into the front ranges of the Caucasus.

The promise.

In the motor wreck a week earlier, as Vera lay dying in her husband's arms, she had said: "It's happened, Petya, just as little Tamara said. She told us not to go on this trip! Poor baby... now what will become of her? I was such a fool! Why didn't I listen to them?... Why didn't I listen to her? Now I'll die, and she'll be alone and frightened... Ah! Of course, that's the answer!"

"Hush, " the distraught Pyotr told her. "You will not die. The ambulance is on its way -"

"I cannot see as far as Tamara, " his wife interrupted him, "but I do now that this is the end for me. Petya, listen. You must promise me something. "

"Anything! You know I'd do anything for you. "

"A solemn promise. Come close, Petya. If you love me, you must do as I ask. "

He cradled her head. The bystanders at the accident scene drew back in respect and she spoke so low that only he could hear. "You must take Tamara to my people - to the old ones in my ancestral town of Upper Bzyb - and allow them to rear her for at least four years, until she is nine years old. Then her mind will be turned toward peace, her soul secure. You may visit Tamara there as often as you wish, but you must not take her away during that time. "

"Send our little girl away?" The physician was astounded. "Away from Sochi, where she has a beautiful home and every advantage?... And what relatives are you talking about? You told me that all of your people perished in the Great Patriotic War!"

"I lied to you, Petya, as I lied to myself. " Vera's extraordinary dark eyes were growing dim; but as always they held Pyotr captive, bewitching him. He knew his wife's last request was outrageous. Send their delicate child prodigy to live with strangers, ignorant mountain peas-ants? Impossible!

Vera's whisper was labored. She held his hand tightly. "I know what you think. But Tamara must go so that she will not be alone during the critical years of mental formation. I... I helped her as best I could. But I was consumed with guilt because I had turned my back on the heritage. You know... that both Tamara and I are strange. Fey. You have read Vasiliev's books and laughed... but he writes the truth, Petya. And there are those who will pervert the powers! Our great dream of a socialist paradise has been swallowed by ambitious and greedy men. I thought... you and I together, when Tamara was older ... I was a fool. The old ones were right when they counseled watchful patience... Take Tamara to them, to the village of Verkhnyaya Bzyb, deep in the Abkhazian mountains. They say they will care for her... "

"Vera! Darling Vera, you must not excite yourself-"

"Promise me! Promise you will take Tamara to them!" Her voice broke, and her breath came in harsh gasps. "Promise!"

What could he do? "Of course. Yes, I promise. "

She smiled with pallid lips and her eyes closed. Around them the gawkers murmured and the traffic roared, detouring around the accident on the busy Chernomorskoye Chaussee just south of Matsesta. In the distance the ambulance from Sochi was hooting, too late to be of any use. Vera's hands relaxed and her breathing stopped, but Pyotr seemed to hear her say: The few years we have had together were good, Petya. And our daughter is a marvel. Some day she will be a hero of the people! Take care of her well when she returns from the village. Help her fulfill her great destiny.

Pyotr bent and kissed Vera's lips. He was calm as he looked up at the medical attendants with their equipment, introduced himself, and gave instructions for the body to be taken to the medical center for the last formalities. With his wife's death, the enchantment was broken. Dr. Sakhvadze put aside the morbid fancy that had taken hold of poor Vera and himself and resumed rational thinking. The promise? Mere comfort for a dying woman. Little Tamara would stay home where she belonged with her father, the distinguished head of the Sochi Inst.i.tute of Mental Health. Later, after the child had received appropriate therapy to a.s.suage grief, they would scatter Vera's ashes together over the calm sea. But for the present, it would be best if Tamara was spared...

When Pyotr came at last to his home that evening, the old housekeeper greeted him with eyes that were red from weeping and a frightened, apologetic manner. "She forced me to do it, Comrade Doctor! It wasn't my fault. I couldn't help it!"

"What are you babbling about?" he barked. "You haven't broken the news to the child, have you? Not after I instructed you to leave it to me?"

"I didn't! I swear I said nothing, but somehow... the little one knew! No sooner had I put the telephone down after your call, than she came into the room weeping. She said, 'I know what has happened, Mamushka. My mother is dead. I told her not to go on the trip. Now I will have to go away. '"

"Idiot!" shouted the doctor. "She must have overheard something!"

"I swear! I swear not! Her knowledge was uncanny. Terrible! After an hour or so she became very calm and remained so for the rest of the day. But before going to bed tonight she - she forced me to do it! You must believe me!" Burying her face in her ap.r.o.n, the housekeeper rushed away.

Pyotr Sakhvadze went to his daughter's room, where he found her sleeping peacefully. At the foot of Tamara's bed were two large valises, packed and ready to go. Her plush bear, Misha, sat on top of them.

The Lake Ritsa Road followed the Bzyb River gorge into the low range called the Bzybskiy Khrebet, a humid wilderness thick with hanging vines and ferns and misted by waterfalls. At one place, Tamara pointed off into the forest and said, "In there is a cave. People lived there and dreamed when the ice came. " Again, as they pa.s.sed some ruins: "Here a prince of the old ones had his fortress. He guarded the way against soul-enemies more than a thousand years ago, but the small minds overcame him and the old ones were scattered far and wide. " And when they arrived at a small lake, glowing azure even under a suddenly cloudy sky: "The lake is that color because its bottom is made of a precious blue stone. Long ago the old ones dug up the stone from the hills around the lake and made jewelry from it. But now all that's left is underwater, where people can't get at it. "

"How does she know this?" muttered Pyotr. "She is only five and she has never been in this region. G.o.d help me - it's enough to make one take Vasiliev's mentalist nonsense seriously!"

Up beyond the power station the paved route continued directly to Lake Ritsa via the Gega River gorge; but the storekeeper had told Pyotr to be on the lookout for an obscure side road just beyond the big bridge, one that angled off eastward, following the main channel of the Bzyb. He slowed the car to a snail's pace and vainly scanned the dense woods. Finally he pulled off onto the exiguous verge and said to Tamara: "You see? There's nothing here at all. No road to your fairy-tale village. I was told that the turning was here, but there's no trace of it. We'll have to go back. "

She sat holding Misha the plush bear, and she was smiling for the first time since Vera's death. "I love it here, Papa! They're telling us, 'Welcome!' They say to go on just a bit more. Please. "

He didn't want to, but he did. And the featureless wall of green parted to reveal a double-rut track all clogged and overhung with ferns and sedges and ground-ivy. There was no signpost, no milestone, no indication that the way was anything more than a disused logging road.

"That can't be it, " Pyotr exclaimed. "If we go in there, we'll rip the bottom right out of the car!"

Tamara laughed. "No we won't. Not if we go slow. " She clambered into the front seat. "I want to be here with you where I can see everything-and so does Misha. Let's go!"

"Fasten your seat belt, " the doctor sighed.

Shifting into the lowest gear, Pyotr turned off. The wilderness engulfed them, and for the next two hours they bounced and crawled through a cloud-forest of dripping beeches and tall conifers, testing the suspension of the Volga sedan to the utmost. The track traversed mountain bogs on a narrow surface of rotting puncheons and spanned brawling streams on log bridges that rumbled ominously as the car inched across. Then they came to a section of the road that was hewn from living rock and snaked up the gorge at horrific gradients. Pyotr drove with sweat pouring down the back of his neck while Tamara, delighted with the spectacular view, peered out of her window at the foaming rapids of the Bzyb below. After they had gone more than thirty-five kilometers the canyon narrowed so greatly that Pyotr despaired. There could not possibly be human habitation in such a desolate place! Perhaps they had missed a turning somewhere back in the mist-blanketed woods.

"Just five minutes more, " he warned his daughter. "If we don't find signs of life in another kilometer or so, we're giving up. "

But suddenly they began to ascend a series of switchbacks leading out of the gorge. At the top the landscape opened miraculously to a verdant plateau girt with forested uplands that soared in the east to snowy Mount Pshysh, thirty-eight hundred meters high, source of the turbulent Bzyb. The track improved, winding through alpine meadows down into a deep valley guarded by stands of black Caucasian pine. Stone walls now marked the boundaries of small cultivated fields, and in the pastures were flocks of goats and sheep. The track dead-ended in a cl.u.s.ter of white-painted buildings sheltered by enormous old oak trees. Twenty or thirty adults stood waiting in a tight group as Pyotr drove the last half kilometer into Verkhnyaya Bzyb and braked to a stop in a cloud of dust.

In this place the sun shone and the air had an invigorating sparkle. Weak with fatigue and tension, Pyotr sat unable to move. A tall stately figure detached itself from the gathering of villagers and approached the sedan. It was a very old man with a princely bearing, dressed in the festive regalia of the Abkhazian hills: black karakul hat, black Cossack-style coat, breeches, polished boots, a white neck-scarf, and a silver-trimmed belt with a long knife carried in an ornamented silver scabbard with blue stones. His smiling face was creased with countless wrinkles. He had a white mustache and black brows above deep-set, piercing eyes. Eyes like Vera's.

"Welcome, " the elder said. "I am Seliac Eshba, the great-greatgrandfather of your late wife. She left us under sad circ.u.mstances. But her marriage to you was happy and fruitful, and I perceive that you, Pyotr Sergeyevich Sakhvadze, also share the blood and soul of the old ones - even though you are unaware of it. This gives us a double cause to rejoice in your coming. "

Pyotr, craning out the car window at the old man, managed to mumble some response to the greeting. He unsnapped his seat belt and Tamara's and opened the car door. Seliac Eshba held it with courtesy, then started around to Tamara's side; but the little girl had already opened her door and bounded out, still keeping a tight grip on Misha the bear. At that same moment more than a dozen young children carrying bouquets of late-summer flowers dashed out from behind the crowd of adults calling Tamara's name.