The Dark Design

  Frisco heard this with skepticism. “Yeah, they seem to be okay. But we can’t really tell unless we land and deflate the bag.”

  Frigate said, “As long as we have positive buoyancy, we’ll stay aloft. I don’t think we should land until we come up against the polar winds. That ought to be tomorrow if we’ve estimated our travel distance correctly. If we touch down, we might lose the balloon. For one thing, we don’t know how the locals will react to it. In the early days of Terrestrial ballooning, a number were destroyed by ignorant and superstitious peasants when the aeronauts landed in rural areas. The peasants believed the balloon to be the devil’s work or the vehicle of evil magicians. We might run into such people.”

  Frigate admitted that it made him very uneasy to be without ballast. However, if they must, they could always unbolt the chemical toilet and throw it out. Of course, the situation might be such that there wouldn’t be time to do this.

  The Jules Verne lifted above the Valley, and the wind sent it spanking along northeasterly. After an hour it lost much of its strength, but the craft was still moving in the right direction. It was also steadily ascending. Frigate took over the pilot’s post at 4877 meters or a little over 16,000 feet of altitude. To stop further ascension, he valved off hydrogen in driblets. When it began to sink, he turned the burner on. From then on, the pilot would be busy trying to maintain the vessel within a 2000-meter zone while losing as little gas as possible and running the burner at a minimum.

  Frigate’s neck and shoulder pained him very much. He would be glad when he was relieved and could get under the cloths and stretch out. One drink of booze wouldn’t hurt him and it might ease the agony.

  So far the voyage had been mostly hard and fast work, some stomach-squeezing danger, and much boredom. He’d be happy when the final landing was made. Then the events of the trip would start to take on the patina of amusing adventure. As time passed, it would gain a golden glow, and it would all seem wonderful. The crew would tell exaggerated stories, making their perils seem even more hairbreadth than they had actually been.

  Imagination was the great cozener of the past.

  Standing by the vernian, the only illumination the cold starlight and the instrument bulbs, all but himself asleep, Frigate felt lonely. Tempering the loneliness, however, was pride. The Jules Verne had broken the record for nonstop balloon flights. From liftoff to this point, it had floated approximately 4824 kilometers or 3000 miles. And it would cover much more distance—if all went well—before it was forced to land.

  And it had been done by five amateurs. Except for himself, none had ever been in a balloon on Earth. His forty hours in hot-air balloons and thirty in gas balloons did not make him a veteran aeronaut. He’d logged more time on this flight than all his hours on Earth.

  The crew had gone on a voyage which would have made history if it had been on the native planet. Their faces would have been on TV screens worldwide, they’d have been feted and banqueted, they could have written books which would become movies, the royalties would have rolled in.

  Here, only a few would ever know what they had done. Even a smaller number would refuse to believe them. Not even a few would know if the voyage ended in the deaths of the crew.

  He looked out a port. The world was bright starlight and dark shadows, the valleys like snakes crawling, serpents in march order. The stars were silent, the valleys were silent. As quiet as the mouths of the dead.

  That was a gloomy simile.

  As silent as the wings of a butterfly. It recalled the summers of Earth in his childhood and youth, the many-colored flowers of the backyard garden, especially the sunflowers, ah, the tall yellow sunflowers, the songs of birds, the savory odors of his mother’s cooking drifting to his nose, roast beef, cherry pies, his father playing the piano…

  He remembered one of his father’s favorite songs, one of his own favorites. He’d often sung it softly while on night watch on the schooner. When he did so, he saw in his mind a small glow far ahead of him, a glow like a star, a light that seemed to travel before him, guiding him toward some unnamed but nevertheless desirable goal.

  “Shine, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer,

  Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer.

  Lead us, lest too far we wander.

  Love’s sweet voice is calling yonder.

  “Shine, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer,

  Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer.

  Light the path below, above.

  And lead us on to love!”

  Suddenly, he was weeping. The tears were for the good things that had been or might have been, for the bad things that had been but should not have been.

  Drying his tears, he made a final check and roused the little Moor for his watch. He crawled under the cloths, but his neck and shoulders drove sleep away. After trying vainly to sink into blessed oblivion, he got out to talk to Nur. They continued a conversation that had gone on, day and night, for many years.

  In several respects,” Nur said, “the Church of the Second Chance and the Sufis agree. The Chancers, however, have somewhat different technical terms which might lead you to think that each refers to different things.

  “The final goal of the Chancers and the Sufis is the same. Ignoring the difference in terms, both claim that the individual self must be absorbed by the universal self. That is, by Allah, God, the Creator, the Rel, call Him what you will.”

  “And this means that the individual being is annihilated?”

  “No. Absorbed. Annihilation is destruction. In absorption the individual soul, ka, or Brahman, becomes part of the universal self.”

  “And that means that the individual loses his self-consciousness, his individuality? He is no longer aware of himself?”

  “Yes, but he is part of the Great Self. What is the loss of self-consciousness as an individual compared to the gain of self-consciousness as God?”

  “That strikes me with horror. You might as well be dead. Once you’re no longer self-conscious, you are dead. No, I can’t understand why the Chancers or Buddhists or Hindus or Sufis think this state desirable.

  “Without self-consciousness, the individual is indeed dead.”

  “If you’d experienced that ecstasy which Sufis experience in one stage of development, the passing-away, you’d understand. Can a person blind from birth be filled with ecstasy while those with sight are looking at a glorious sunset?”

  “That’s just it,” Frigate said. “I have had mystical experiences. Three.

  “One was when I was twenty-six years old. I was working in a steel mill. In the soaking pits. There cranes strip large ingots from the molds into which molten steel was poured in the open hearths. After the stripping, the cooling ingots are lowered into gas-burning pits which reheat them. From there they’re taken to the rolling mill.

  “When I worked in the pits, I fancied that the ingots were souls. Lost souls in the flames of purgatory. They’d be soaked in the flames for a while, then carried off to the place where they’d be pressed down into shape for heaven. Just as the big rolls in the mill squeezed down on ingots, shaping them, pressing the impurities to the ends of the ingots, which were then chopped off, so the souls would be shaped and purified.

  “However, this has little to do with the subject of conversation. Or does it?

  “Anyway, one day I was standing at the huge open door of the soaking-pits building, resting a moment. I was looking out along the yards at the open hearth. I don’t remember what I was thinking then. Probably that I was tired of working in this extremely hot place at hard labor for such low pay. I was also probably wondering if I was ever going to become a successful writer.

  “All of my stories had been rejected, though I’d had a few encouraging notes from editors. Whit Burnett, for instance, the editor of a high-prestige if low-paying magazine, Story, twice came close to buying my stories, but both times his wife disagreed with him, and he bounced them.

  “Anyway, there I was, staring at the
mill’s ugliness, not at all conducive to pleasant thoughts and especially not to a mystical state.

  “I was in low spirits, very low. And the train tracks that filled the yard, the gray metal dust that covered the mud and every object on the yard, the huge, hideous sheet-iron building that housed the open hearths, the smoke that the wind brought down low to the ground, the acrid stink of the smoke, all made for a very depressing mood.

  “And then suddenly, unaccountably, it all seemed to change. In a flash. I don’t mean that the ugliness became beautiful. It was just as gray and unpleasant as before.

  “But, somehow, I suddenly felt that the universe was right. And all was and would be well. There was a subtle shift in my perspective. Let me put it this way. It was as if the universe was composed of an infinity of glass bricks. These bricks were almost, but not quite, invisible. I could see their edges, though these were ghostly.

  “The bricks had been piled so that their faces were not quite even. As if God were a drunken mason. But now, in this subtle shift, the bricks moved, and their faces were even. Order had been restored. Divine order and beauty. The cosmic building was no longer an ill-built structure, fit only to be condemned by the cosmic zoning inspectors.

  “I felt exalted. For a moment, I was looking into the basic structure of the world. Past the plaster that has been smeared on to make the walls look smooth and even.

  “I knew, I knew, that the universe was right. And that I was right. That is, my place in the world was right. I fitted. Though I was a living being, yet I was one of those bricks, and I’d been aligned in the proper place.

  “Rather, I’d suddenly become aware that I had been aligned all along. Until that moment I had thought that I was out of place, not quite on a level with the other pieces. But how could I be? All the pieces, the bricks, were misaligned.

  “That was my mistake. Everything was in its place. It was my eyesight, my comprehension, rather, that had been twisted. Aberrated, call it what you will.”

  Nur said, “And how long did that state last?”

  “A few seconds. But I felt very good, even happy, afterward. The next day, though, I remembered the… revelation… but its effect was gone. I went on living as before. The universe was again a structure built by an incompetent or drunken builder. Or perhaps by a malicious, cheating contractor.

  “Still, there were moments…”

  “The other experiences?”

  “The second should be thrown out. It came from marijuana, not from myself. You see, I’ve smoked perhaps half a dozen marijuana cigarettes in my life. This was during one year, 1955, some time before the younger generation took up drugs. At that time, marijuana and hash were mostly confined to bohemian groups in the big cities. And to the blacks and Mexicans of the ghetto.

  “This particular incident took place, of all places, in Peoria, Illinois. My wife and I had met a couple from New York, Greenwich Village types… I’ll explain what this means later… and they talked us into trying marijuana. It made me pretty uncomfortable, downright uneasy, to have the stuff around. I had visions of narcotics agents bursting in, arresting us, being in jail, the trial, the conviction, the penitentiary. The disgrace. And what would happen to our children?

  “But alcohol had dissolved my inhibitions, and I tried a joint, as it was called, among other things.

  “I had trouble getting the smoke into my lungs and holding it, since I had never even smoked tobacco though I was thirty-seven years old. But I did it, and nothing happened.

  “Later that evening, I picked up what was left of the joint and finished it. And this time I suddenly felt that the universe was composed of crystals dissolved in a solution.

  “But now I perceived a subtle shift. Suddenly, the crystals in the supersaturated solution were precipitated, and they were all in some kind of beautiful color, rank on rank, like angels drawn up in a parade.

  “However, there was no accompanying sense, as on that other occasion, that the universe was right, that I had a place in it, and that the place was right. That it could be no other way.”

  “The third time?” Nur said.

  “I was fifty-seven then, the sole passenger in a hot-air balloon soaring over the cornfields of Eureka, Illinois. The pilot had just turned off the burner, and so there was no noise except from a flock of pheasants the roar of the burner had disturbed in a field.

  “The sun was setting. The bright summer light was turning gray. I was floating as if on a magic carpet in a light breeze which I couldn’t feel. You can light a candle in the open car in a strong wind, you know, and the flame will burn as steadily as if in an unventilated room.

  “And suddenly, without warning, I felt as if the sun had come back up over the horizon. Everything was bathed in a bright light in which I should have had to squint my eyes to see anything.

  “But I didn’t. The light was coming from within. I was the flame, and the universe was receiving my light and my warmth.

  “In a second, maybe longer, the light disappeared. It did not fade away. It just vanished. But for another second the feeling that the world was right, that no matter what happened, to me or to anybody or to the universe, it would be good, that feeling lasted for a second.

  “The pilot noticed nothing. Apparently, I wasn’t showing my feelings. And that was the last time I had any experience like that.”

  Nur said, “Apparently these mystical states had no influence on your behavior or your outlook?”

  “Did I become better because of them? No.”

  Nur said, “The states you describe are akin to what we call tajalli. But your tajalli is a counterfeit. If it had resulted in a permanent state, by self-development in the right path, then it would have been a true tajalli. There are several forms of false or wasteful tajalli. You experienced one of these.”

  “Does that mean,” Frigate said, “that I am incapable of experiencing the true form?”

  “No. At least you felt some form of it.”

  They fell silent for a while. Frisco, hidden under a pile of cloths, muttered something in his sleep.

  Suddenly, Frigate said, “Nur, for some time I’ve been wondering if you’d accept me as your disciple.”

  “And why didn’t you ask me?”

  “I was afraid of being rejected.”

  There was another silence. Nur checked the altimeter and turned on the vernian for a minute. Pogaas shook aside his blankets and stood up. He lit a cigarette, the glow of his lighter throwing strange lights and shadows on his face. It looked like the head of a sacred hawk cut from black diorite by ancient Egyptians.

  “Well?” Frigate said.

  “You’ve always thought of yourself as a seeker after truth, haven’t you?” Nur said.

  “Not a steady seeker. I’ve drifted too much, floated along like a balloon. Most of the time I’ve taken life as it was or seemed to be. Occasionally, I’ve made determined efforts to investigate and even practice this and that philosophy, discipline, or religion. But my enthusiasms would subside, and I’d forget about them. Well, not entirely. Sometimes an old enthusiasm would flare up, and I’d drive myself again toward the desired goal. Mostly, though, it’s just been floating with the winds of laziness and indifference.”

  “You become detached?”

  “I tried to be intellectually detached even when my emotions fired me up.”

  “To achieve true detachment, you must be free from both emotion and intellect. It’s evident that, though you pride yourself on a lack of preconceptions, you have them. If I did take you as a disciple, you’d have to put yourself absolutely under my control. No matter what I ask, you must do it at once. Wholeheartedly.”

  Nur paused. “If I asked you to jump out of this car, would you do so?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Nor would I do so. But what if I ask you to do something which is the intellectual or emotional equivalent of jumping out of the car? Something which you’d regard as intellectual or emotional suicide?”

  “I
won’t know until you ask me.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you until I thought you were ready. If indeed you ever will be.”

  Pogaas had been looking out of a port. He grunted and then said, “There’s a light out there! It’s moving!”

  Frigate and el-Musafir joined him. Tex and Frisco, aroused by their excited voices, got up and stared sleepily out another port.

  A long shape, at about the same altitude as the balloon, was silhouetted against a bright stellar cloud.

  Frigate said, “It’s a dirigible!”

  Of all the things they’d seen on The Riverworld, this was the strangest and most unexpected.

  “There’re lights near its prow,” Rider said.

  “It can’t be from New Bohemia,” Frigate said.

  “Then there is another place where metals have been found,” Nur said.

  “Unless it’s one They built!” Farrington said. “It may not be an airship, it’s just built like one.”

  One of the lights near the nose of the vessel began blinking. After looking at it for a minute, Frigate said, “It’s Morse code!”

  “What’s it saying?” Rider said.

  “I don’t know Morse code.”

  “Then how do you know it’s Morse?”

  “By the length of the pulses. Long and short.”

  Nur left the port to return to the vernian. He shut it off, and now the only sound was the heavy breathing of the crew. They watched the great, sinister-looking shape turn and move directly toward them. The light continued blinking. Nur ignited the torch for about twenty seconds. When he turned it off, he started toward the port again. But he stopped suddenly, and he said sharply, “Don’t anybody make a noise!”

  They turned to stare at him. He took a few steps and turned off the fan which sucked in carbon dioxide.

  Frisco said, “What’re you doing that for?”

  Nur went swiftly to the vernian, saying, “I thought I heard a hissing!”