01-01-00 (50 page)

Consummating guilt struck her with the power of a thousand bad dreams not just from the mere acts themselves, but from
witnessing
the effects of such acts, of such words, of such thoughts on the people she had touched during her life. Susan's visions came in various levels, the highest dominated by the visual memory of her life, but right beneath it, snippets of the lives of others as a result of her actions shocked her mind. Some visions were pleasant, satisfying, for there were many times when she had acted out of love, without the dark veil of selfishness, of anger, of greed. But other apparitions raked her mind, like a white-hot claw, slowly turning, scourging her. She saw the effects of not returning phone calls from friends, of her offending driving style, of failing to come through on a promise, of lacking benevolence as a college professor, of ignoring her parents, of forgetting to call on holidays, of being judgmental. She saw with uncanny detail every single opportunity in her life where she could have done good to others and had not, from a homeless person on the side of the road, to the old widow lady next door who just wanted company, to the collection basket at church that she would sometimes just pass on. She watched with horror how a vagrant killed himself following Susan's stoplight speech about getting a job and not being a bum. The guilt ravaged her, eating her alive, like a predator. No, more like a cancer, for it came from within. Her heart cried out for the visions to stop when she saw that old woman next door returning to her apartment heartbroken every time Susan had pretended not to be home to avoid wasting time talking nonsense with her. And there were so many other unexpected visions that shocked her, visions from school, from her childhood, from her early married days, during her pregnancy, during the trial, when Hans Bloodaxe was carried away from the courtroom. She felt ashamed of the joy that she had felt at the time, finally achieving retribution for the murder of her family.

Susan Garnett found that there was no place to hide from such torturing apparitions, no place to run, no way to explain or justify, no room to apologize, just unconditional acceptance of past behavior, just guilt or joy, two commanding feelings that wove themselves in a repeating cycle as her life, as they so often say, flashed before her eyes. This period of self-evaluation, reserved as the starting point of the afterlife, flooded her senses with constant appraisement, followed by either joyful praise or utter reprimand, depending on the vision.

The swirling haze, of similar composition as the one in her dreamlike experience, spun faster and faster, like a whirling cyclone. The celestial tornado swept through Susan Garnett violently, not only exposing all of the wrong in her life, but also extracting it, like a filter, purging the bad while letting the good continue through as a part of her. Every pain-racked vision of wrongdoing, even at the smallest levels, was followed by a growing feeling of relief, of forgiveness, of renewed hope, of a promise to change.

Only then, after she had been distilled in mind and spirit, after she had mentally atoned every impure act, or word, or thought, after her whole self had been purified to the innocence of a child, was she ready for the next step, for the next vision, one of indescribable peace, comfort, exultation. She felt a powerful being around her, within her, providing total unity, total harmony, absolute molecular synchronization. She also felt the presence of Tom and Rebecca, but their memories no longer hurt, no longer crushed her senses. They spun around her like an ethereal fog, encouraging her to go on, to fulfill her life, to remember this moment, to preserve the immaculate state of her soul.

The mist began to recede, like the morning fog, thinning under the power of the sun, until all that remained were crystalline star-filled skies, and the peaceful serenade of the surrounding jungle as she sat on the steps of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, Cameron Slater next to her.

The scientists stared at each other, not certain what to say or how to say it.

“Did you…?” she began, not sure what to call the experience.

“Yes,” he replied, holding her hand. “Every
last
thought.”

They stood and gazed down at the large site, white tents pitched among the ancient ruins. People walked about in a daze, staring at the stars. She saw Troy Reid, as well as several members of her FBI team and most of the scientists from the presidential envoy, stepping out of tents, their faces looking about, gazing upward, toward the cosmos.

“Look at them, Cameron. Look at them all.”

“They experienced it too. All of them.”

She checked her watch, amazed that such a deep, life-enriching experience had lasted but a minute; one minute and one second to be exact, though she wasn't sure how she knew that. She just did, and she also knew that everyone else did as well. The sequence of numbers frozen in the millennium clocks around the world had been the final progression that had unlocked this magical experience, achieving galactic synchronization with a distant civilization. Or was it something beyond just a civilization?

“What about out there?” she asked, pointing beyond the jungle. “Do you think everyone experienced it?” she asked, suddenly realizing that this event, like the global daily freezes, had touched every corner of the world, but not with the same intensity as in the heart of the ancient Mayan world. “It faded as it spread. We felt the full effect, but those far away did not. In fact, those in distant places may have only sensed a brief feeling of warmth, of harmony, like that of an infant being kissed by its mother. But nothing that comes close to what we've just witnessed. But how do I know that?”

“Total harmonic synchronization,” said Slater, also staring in the distance. “The Maya knew this thousands of years ago, having received the entire message, like we just did, while also realizing that those from distant lands did not, and also sensing the urge to spread the word, to carry on that message across space and time. There's even a parallel here to Jesus Christ and his apostles. Only very few got the Holy message and were asked to spread the good news to the rest of the world.”

Susan filled her chest with the magnitude of the experience, and also with the possible explanations that it brought. “If only the Maya experienced it in its fullness, back at the beginning of the last Great Cycle, do you think that could explain the bizarre similarities between the Maya and other cultures?”

Cameron nodded, his eyes on the starry sky. “I … I think you might have something there. It certainly fits the observations. Many people experienced this at some point back then, at the beginning of the last Great Cycle, just as we know it now. But only some civilizations were able to preserve this celestial gift, this vision, this prophecy, like the Maya. For the rest, it was lost, probably after a few generations, if that long, either because they were too far away from the source, or just because they stopped caring, or maybe got conquered by another civilization, or because of one of a thousand other reasons.”

“Do you think mankind can keep it alive longer this time?”

The archaeologist shrugged. “Who knows? By tomorrow I'm sure there will be some people who will offer a logical explanation for the event and try to shove it aside.” He leaned closer to her while whispering, “I wouldn't be surprised if one of those scientists down there twists the entire thing to fit some kind of scientific model just to get himself on the cover of
Newsweek.
” He straightened and added, “Anyway, probably some groups will go along with that and some will not, choosing instead to hang on to the true message. I'm sure many religious groups will put their own spin on what happened here as well, trying to fit the facts with their own beliefs, though I suspect that there might be a fair degree of truth in their thinking. A part of me feels that what we experienced here today was of a supernatural nature.”

Susan nodded. “I feel it too. Only something omnipotent could have triggered such a self-evaluating journey … I even knew how other people felt because of my actions.”

“I know,” he said. “And some of them weren't pleasant. But maybe … maybe it
wasn't
supernatural. Perhaps it was extraterrestrial. Maybe on that tenth planet lives such an advanced civilization that we cannot even begin to imagine it, opting instead for the supernatural explanation.”

“Perhaps,” said a female voice from behind.

The scientists turned around and watched Ishiguro and Jackie descending the steps, hand in hand. Susan had forgotten all about them. The Japanese-Americans, who had set up their equipment at the top of the temple, the highest structure for miles around, sat next to them, their faces awash with the same trancelike glow that radiated from Cameron Slater and which no doubt she also wore.

“From a scientific perspective,” said Ishiguro Nakamura, “the technology to attempt to communicate with other civilizations is less than fifty years old. Given the age of the universe, the odds are that if another civilization could receive our messages, that civilization is quite likely to be much ahead of ours, probably
thousands
of years ahead. If you take what we have accomplished in the past one hundred years and extrapolate it out to a thousand, you can easily see why our world would seem like the stone age to theirs.”

Jackie nodded. “And even a thousand years is insignificant in the larger scheme. Some civilization could have existed for much longer than that, mastering disciplines that may seem even beyond science fiction, like some of the myths that you have told us about the Maya.”

“Mind control, transportation to other galaxies without the assistance of today's imperfect mechanical surrogates,” said Cameron. “That's what the Classic Maya had mastered. Galactic agents like Pacal Votan were able to comprehend this incredible gift and use it to build an entire civilization.”

“Until the Europeans came,” said Susan, frowning. “Their arrogance prevented them from understanding this incredible blessing, choosing instead to burn, to enslave, to eradicate.”

“But Pacal's son foresaw this and used his ruling years to build a secret temple to preserve the gift from the likes of Diego de Landa, who burned so many records, so much history.” Cameron looked up the steps, toward the temple atop the pyramid.

“What's going to happen to the hidden site in the Petén?” asked Jackie.

“It never existed,” replied Susan. “It's back in the hands of its rightful owners. One of the priests survived, but more than that, everyone in that village experienced what we just did. They have been injected with the gift to preserve it for another 5,129 years.”

Ishiguro frowned. “But shouldn't we offer them some protection, to make sure that the tradition is not lost?”

Cameron grinned, shaking his head. “Just the opposite, my friend. That temple is probably the best chance that our world has of preserving the gift for future generations, because it will remain pure, without the distortions of reality likely to be injected by our world as it gets passed down from generation to generation. I guarantee you that for most of the world, what took place here today will be quite forgotten in a hundred years, and a vague memory at best in five hundred years. But with the Maya, the gift has endured over five
thousand
years, and it's likely that, if left alone, it may endure five thousand more. But if we try to help them out, we would be doing to them just what the Spaniards did five hundred years ago, staining their pure culture with our imperfect ways. Trust me, they're much better left alone.”

Ishiguro did not look convinced. “What's preventing another terrorist group from looting the place?”

“The Maya warriors were able to neutralize that terrorist group in minutes, just as they probably did through the centuries, as other threats neared it. They have been able to protect it since it was first erected in
A.D.
690. That's over 1,300 years. You tell me what other civilization has lasted that long. Our own United States has only been around for a couple hundred years. How can we provide them with long-term protection when we haven't been around that long in the first place?”

The Japanese scientist nodded. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Most people don't,” Cameron said. “We're trained from birth to think in terms of the next ten, maybe twenty years. The Maya are trained to think in terms of thousands of years. Take the temple back in the jungle, for example. It was built thirteen hundred years ago, and yet, those slabs slid back and forth on mechanisms that performed as smoothly as when they were first constructed. That kind of longevity is quite alien to our way of thinking. Most automobiles and appliances won't go much beyond ten to fifteen years, and that's with a lot of maintenance. Our technology doesn't age well. It's a reflection of our McDonald's society. Everything is like fast foods, want it now, get it now, but it won't last long. However, that doesn't matter because you can always get a new one down the road, and another one later on. I tell you with the utmost certainty that we have little to offer to the Maya in terms of protection or assistance in preserving the gift we received today. We must leave them alone, that's the best present we can give them in return for allowing us to experience this soul-cleansing event.”

“And that's exactly what will happen,” said Susan. “All records of those coordinates are being deleted. I learned the other day that the reinforcements that we got a couple of weeks ago at that site had been blindfolded to prevent any of them from knowing the exact location of the site. The pilots were told that this was just a SEAL training exercise in conjunction with the FBI high-tech crime unit. As for the medics at the village, none of them ever saw the site, just a harmless village in the jungle. Right now the secret is preserved, for as long as we choose to keep it preserved.”

“At least the world has the celestial observations,” said Ishiguro, recalling the image of the tenth planet, now called Maia, displayed on the covers of many magazines and newspapers around the world, including
Newsweek, Time,
and
U.S. News & World Report.
“Now the SETI community has something concrete to focus their efforts on.”