Mission (7 page)

‘Both,' I replied.

He shook his head. ‘I can't. It's like trying to describe a rose to a man who's been blind from birth. Words are useless to describe its colour and form. The only way he can receive an impression of the rose is through his other senses. By touching its petals and inhaling its fragrance. You can only understand what we are like in the same way. Not by touch or smell, but by reaching a higher level of awareness. Or if you don't like that word, let's say by enhancing your degree of perception.'

‘That's cheating,' I said. ‘Are you trying to tell me that if I'd been there when you stepped out of the landing module I wouldn't have seen you? The shepherds who were watching their flocks saw something. Or so the story goes. Are you really sure you can't tell me what it was?'

He shook his head again. ‘You're the one that's trying to cheat, Leo. You want the answers but you're not prepared to make the effort to understand. Remember the story about the man who threw seed on to stony ground? The trick is to ask the right questions. When you do, you'll find that you already know the answers.'

‘You mean – “Knock and the door shall be opened”? '

He smiled. ‘I couldn't have put it better myself.'

‘Oh, come on,' I insisted. ‘Just give me a little hint. If I
did
have this higher level of awareness, what would the three of you have looked like? In your spacesuits, or whatever.'

He sighed. ‘You're a hard man, Leo.' He drank some wine and toyed with his glass for a moment. ‘The only way to describe us would be as – luminous beings. Our exact shape would depend on the condition of the observer. The received image is influenced by cultural and racial imprinting, as well as the degree of perception. In other words, you might see us as Persian angels – anatomical absurdities with seventy-two pairs of wings covered with eight thousand eyes – or something like the board of General Motors but with haloes and white suits.'

‘Okay, I get the message,' I said. ‘What kind of shape are you in on the other side of the Time Gate?'

The Man gave me a really odd look. As if I'd asked him something near the knuckle. ‘I am that I am,' he replied.

Some answer.

I sat back and finished off my coffee. ‘These two Envoys that you mentioned as having already been through the Time Gate. Had they visited us before?'

‘Several times,' he said. ‘They're enshrined in Earth mythology under many names. The Persians knew them as Beshtar and Sorush. Your people know them as Michael and Gabriel. Mi – '

‘Don't tell me,' I interjected. ‘Michael stayed in the command module while you and Gabriel went for the landing. It's in the Book,' I explained. ‘Gabriel's the one that broke the good news to your mother.'

‘I don't know whether she saw it like that at the time,' he said. ‘I
remember at one point, life became rather complicated.'

I waved him down. ‘One thing at a time. Let's get back to the spacecraft.'

‘Leo,' he said. ‘Let me give you some advice. Don't get hung up on the hardware. The longships, the star-sail boats, the transit shells that we're obliged to wear are not really what we're about. It's just a means of getting here. There was a time, in the First and Second Age, when we could move freely between our world and yours. We had no need to shelter behind the Time Gate. But in the Third Age, the Age of Darkness, all that changed. The physical universe is now a very dangerous place.' He paused, searching for the words. ‘Perhaps it will give you some idea of what I mean if I tell you that deep space is not the airless void you imagine it to be. To us, the cosmos is like a vast ocean, the galaxies island – continents separated by the deeps – inter-galactic space. The plane of rotation of each galaxy – inter-stellar space – are regarded as seas, encompassing the star-islands. Such as your sun with its necklace of nine planets. The space contained by each star-island and its circling archipelago is called ‘the Shallows'. And so on. Michael and Gabriel know much more about this than I do. The point is, before the Age of Darkness, the Deeps, the Seas and the Shallows were crystal clear but now, to an unprotected Celestial, it's like swimming through Iranian crude. And the atmosphere on this planet which, despite all the pollution, you find quite breathable is absolutely unbearable to us. To be trapped in it without the protection of our transit shells or a host body is like drowning in a mixture of boiling tar and sulphuric acid. Except, of course, we do not breathe, and cannot die. But it would be like choking to death – for ever.'

I nodded to show that I'd got the picture. ‘Nasty. So is that what you call yourselves – Celestials?'

‘No,' he replied. ‘But that's the nearest we can get using your language.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘So, this place you come from – on the other side of the Time Gate?'

‘Think of that as the Celestial Empire,' he said. ‘But don't be misled by the stereotyped images conjured up by
Star Wars.
The Empire is boundless and timeless. It encompasses all of creation and all of eternity. It interpenetrates the smallest particle of the physical universe but is itself impregnable. It is here, in this room, within your grasp. Yet it is as far beyond the reach of your mind as Earth is from
the most distant galaxy still to be discovered by your astronomers. Many of your most brilliant philosophers have dismissed it as an illusion but it is, in fact, the ultimate reality.'

‘It also sounds like the ultimate paradox,' I said. ‘Let me check that I've got this straight. There are two universes …'

He shook his head. ‘No. The Celestial Empire contains
nine
universes. Seven of them lie beyond the Time Gate through which I came. Collectively, they are known as The World Above. The other two space-time universes are known as The World Below. The Cosmos, the physical universe which you inhabit, and the Netherworld – '

I cut in to gain some breathing space. ‘The Netherworld …?'

The Man nodded. ‘Yes. A mirror-image of the Cosmos, but fashioned from anti-matter. We also refer to it as the First Universe. It can only be entered through what your Earth astronomers call the Black Holes.'

The concept of a mirror-universe composed of anti-matter was not unfamiliar. The idea had been kicked around by physicists for several decades. It was only the name that was new. Even so, I could not accept the fact of its existence with the same ease with which The Man had dispensed the information. Those of us who gave any thought to the matter were still trying to grapple with the logistical problems involved in the creation of our own apparently limitless universe. Yet here I was, confronted with eight more of the goddamn things. It was too much to handle.

The Man eyed me and smiled. ‘You look worried.'

‘Not really,' I replied. ‘I think what my system needs is another shot of caffein.' I went into the kitchen, turned on the percolator then spoke to him through the open doorway. ‘Let me recap that last bit to help me picture it in my mind. The space occupied by this planet, the solar system, the stars and the galaxies beyond is only the second of nine separate universes …?'

‘That's right,' he said. ‘But don't waste time trying to construct a four-dimensional model of it in your mind. This is something that the conceptual processes of the human brain is not equipped to handle.'

‘You mean, because the seven universes beyond the Time Gate are non-dimensional and non-temporal,' I replied. Trying to work out in my logic-bound mind how, if there were no dimensions, you could tell where one universe ended and the next began. The answer is, of course, we can't – but Celestials can. It was, as he had warned, a
conceptual problem that could not be resolved by the conscious part of my brain whose sole function was to deal with external reality. But this was something I did not fully understand until much later. At that moment, my brain hurt and it showed.

He eyed me sympathetically. ‘If you need to give this thing form, just think of it as a symbolic, multi-level pyramid with the First Universe at the bottom and the Ninth at the top.'

I nodded gratefully and returned to the percolator as the boiling water started to bubble through the ground coffee. ‘Which one do you come from?' I asked, as I returned to my seat facing him.

‘The Ninth,' he said, with disarming simplicity.

I'm sure there was a lot more he could have told me about the set-up in the World Above but you'll just have to accept, as I had to, that knowledge of the Empire's internal organisation is not necessary in order for you to be able to understand the rest of this story.

‘Let me ask you something else,' I said. ‘I'm coming round to the idea that it's impossible for me to visualise the World Above, but how do you see ours? Is your perception of external reality very different from the images my brain receives when I open my eyes in the morning?'

He nodded soberly. ‘Very different …'

‘And you're going to tell me that it's too complicated to explain,' I said.

He shrugged. ‘All I can say is that I have “double-vision.” My temporal aspect is equipped with different levels of sense-perception that allows my meta-psyche, the Celestial “me”, to receive a visual impression of the universe that would make no sense to you whatever. At the same time, by dropping into a lower gear, I am also able to see the world that you think you “see”.' He paused, then added smilingly. ‘The only difference is that my perception of external reality may not be quite as rosy, or indeed as clouded, as yours.'

‘That's what makes life bearable,' I replied, feeling the need to score one for mankind in general. ‘Okay, let's get back to the mission. The three of you came looking for these – colonists. What kind of an operation were they running here?'

‘They were seeding the prime. Implanting the genetic matrices from which all life throughout the cosmos springs.'

‘So does that mean you made us, like it says in the Book of Genesis?' I asked.

‘Not exactly. Our people were involved in the development of an
earlier model which, for the sake of this discussion we can label “Proto-Man”. The next bit made him smile. ‘You're what the U.S. Army might describe as an unofficial field modification.'

‘Don't knock it,' I said stoutly. ‘I'm all I've got. How many people did you have working here?'

‘Twelve.'

I looked at him in utter astonishment. ‘Twelve …?'

‘You must remember that we're not talking about human beings,' he said. ‘These were Celestial powers. Aeons from the Seventh Universe.'

‘In other words, heavy cosmic dudes,' I said.

He smiled. ‘It's a reasonably apt description. They might not be too happy with it but then, Aeons do tend to take themselves rather seriously. It's important to remember that the world was a very different place during the Second Age.'

‘When was that?' I said.

‘Oh, a long, long time ago.'

‘How long?'

‘Way back. Thousands of millions of years,' he said, waving the question away. ‘The Aeons were already at work here before the dawn of geological time. More pointless information. Your mind cannot draw any meaning from such a vast span of time.'

‘It's still nice to know these things,' I riposted. ‘I didn't realise we went back that far.'

‘You don't,' he said. ‘But you can forget all that stuff Darwin is supposed to have proved. You did not evolve from walking apes. Your ancestors began life on another plane of existence. Another wavelength which, during the Age of Darkness, was absorbed into the waveband of external reality. They were like dream images which slowly acquired a solid, tangible shape from which, finally, they could not escape. In the Second Age, before this happened, the landscape was much more nebulous. There weren't the pressures there are now. This crushing force of gravity dragging everything down. If it were possible for you to see it through your twentieth-century eyes, or even through those of the people I've just left, you would think you were on another planet. Jupiter perhaps. In any case, it would be unrecognisable as the present Earth. And if you were to catch sight of Proto-Man as he was forged in the fire-clouds of the world's dawning, you would not recognise him either.'

‘In that case, I won't ask you for a description,' I said. ‘Let's get
back to the colonists. You said that you came here to make contact. How long had you been out of touch?'

‘We lost contact with this galaxy during the Second War of Secession.' He paused. ‘This is getting rather involved.'

‘Just give me the broad outline,' I said. ‘If there's time, I'll bone up on the fine print later.'

‘Okay,' he said. ‘But remember what I told you about George Lucas scenarios. I have to use your language but you must try to make your mind reach beyond the words.'

‘I'm trying,' I said. ‘But don't expect miracles. I'm new at this game. Uhh, by the way,' I added hurriedly, ‘no offence intended.'

‘That's all right' he said. ‘Listen, Leo, before we go any further. You don't have to treat me like the Dean of Yale, or the head of your Law School. You're looking at one of the founder-members of the school of plain-speaking. So just say whatever's on your mind. If I'd wanted the red carpet treatment, I'd have asked for the address of the nearest college of Jesuits.'

‘You got it,' I replied. ‘On with the pre-history lesson.'

He took a deep breath. Very simply, the Empire to which I belong was split by a rebellion which had its roots in the creation of the World Below. The forces supporting the Empire called themselves Loyalists, and the rebels were called the Secessionists. In Earth mythology, they are also known as the Black Legions, Forces of Darkness, the Satanic Hordes, the list is endless.'