Authors: James Burkard
53
Nano Trees and the Price of Godhead
Chueh was saying his goodbye to Marta and Mae, “Always a pleasure to see you ladies,” he said with an affectionate smile. “And you too, Doc,” he added mockingly.
“And you should get yourself a pair of shoes,” he said turning back to Harry, “and some decent clothes.”
Harry bowed. “Yes, Master Chueh.”
“Take care of yourself, Harry,” Chueh said and disappeared in a holographic blip.
After Chueh left, Doc sent Marta and Mae off to find clothes and shoes and whatever else he thought Harry would need. This included a backpack well stocked with essential camping gear and military ration concentrates to last him a week. He said that Diana took camping gear and made sure that Roger did the same, explaining that where they were going they might have to rough it for a while.
Before they left, Marta handed over a large carton filled with sandwiches, fruit, and bottled beer. “Where did they get all this stuff?” Harry laughed in surprise as he unwrapped a tuna salad sandwich.
“Just girl scouts doing their duty,” Doc grinned as he reached for a bottle of beer.
They ate and drank in silence. Harry sat on the concrete wall with his feet dangling in the warm water. He was ravenous and the simple sandwiches and beer tasted better than anything he had ever eaten. Before he realized it, the box was empty, and he leaned back with a discreet belch of contentment. He realized that he had eaten everything and left nothing for Jericho and started to apologize.
“Don’t worry about it,” the old man said with a dismissive
wave of his beer bottle, “wasn’t hungry anyway. Besides where you’re going, you’re probably going to need all the energy you can stock up on.”
“And where exactly is that?” Harry asked a little too casually as he watched the sunlight break into diamond sparkles on the water.
“Somewhere back in the High Sierras,” Jericho answered just as casually.
Just two old friends passing the time of day, Harry thought caustically. If it wasn’t for Marta…he shoved that drawer closed before the mad jack-in-the-box inside could get out. Maybe he wasn’t as good at this forgetting as he thought.
“Jake Lloyd spent a lot of time camping and hiking in those mountains, and he took the two girls with him,” Jericho continued. “It wasn’t just for the fun of it either. They were trying to track down an old Indian legend that talked about a doorway to the gods hidden somewhere in the High Sierras.
“It was supposed to be a sacred place of power known only to shamans and warrior initiates. It was where they went when they went on a vision quest, a place where the world tree grew into the realms of gods and demons. It was said that if a man was strong enough and pure enough and had enough personal power, he could climb that tree and walk out on one of its branches that disappeared into the sky where the wall between worlds was so thin that he might walk right through into the spirit realm.”
“Whoa, back up a minute!” Harry said. “Are you saying they could walk out into the quantum sea or onto the astral plane in their own bodies? They could actually walk between worlds?”
Jericho nodded. “That’s the story,” he said. “But with the coming of the white man and the destruction of tribal culture, a lot of this knowledge got distorted, lost, or purposely buried. The location of the world tree was one of them. It became nothing but an interesting anthropological myth, and only a small group of shaman initiates knew otherwise and passed that knowledge
down from generation to generation.
“There’s another darker side to this story,” Jericho said. “For centuries before the coming of the white man, the Indians were guarding the entrance to the valley where the world tree grew. They weren’t trying to stop anyone going in. They were there to stop something coming out.
“The tree is old, maybe twenty thousand years old, probably a lot older, and it’s dying. It’s been dying slowly for the last thousand years. When it was young and healthy, men walked out onto those branches and back and forth between worlds but nothing followed them back. The tree saw to that, but I don’t know enough about it to tell you how it worked.” Jericho shrugged. “Some kind of filter, a one-way door against things not human entering our world. Whatever it was, it began breaking down as the tree began dying, and after a while things began walking out, things that didn’t belong on this earth.
“In the eighteen hundreds a large area of the High Sierras became the center of wild stories of hunters and trappers seeing monsters in the mountains, of mining communities wiped out by demons or mule trains disappearing in the high passes without a trace. One trapper even claimed that he found smoking footprints burned into the bedrock where a demon passed.
“Jake said he found these prints and also the bones of some huge animal, bigger than a sperm whale, beached thousands of feet above sea level, in a box canyon surrounded by vertical cliffs.
“In the twentieth century hikers reported seeing strange lights in those mountains and meetings with half human creatures that fled at their approach. At the time the lights were called UFO’s and the creatures aliens.
“Jake was convinced there was something up there, and that all the wild stories and sightings were somehow connected to those original Indian legends of a world tree and perhaps a doorway to the gods. He spent the last fifteen years of his life
looking for it, and he took his two girls with him as soon as they were old enough to ride a horse.”
“A horse? Why didn’t he take a grav-car, or at least banshees?”
Jericho smiled. “Jake was old-fashioned. Besides, he liked horses. Every year as soon as the snows cleared in the spring, he and his two daughters would saddle up and tramp those mountains searching for his obsession.”
“And they found it,” Harry said.
“Yeah, they found it.”
“And that’s where Diana was headed?” Harry said.
Jericho nodded.
Harry suddenly remembered something. “Isis talked about the wolves growing a Nano Tree to bring in their army. Is there a connection to this world tree?”
Jericho nodded. “They’re the same thing. Nano trees are what they call themselves.”
“What they call themselves?” Harry asked.
Jericho gave a non-committal shrug.
Harry let it go. He had bigger fish to fry. “So why didn’t the wolves just use the tree Jake Lloyd found and move in on us long ago?”
“They don’t know it exists,” Jericho said. “It’s an ancient, well-kept secret.”
“They could have stumbled on it like one of those things that burned their footprints into the mountains,” Harry suggested.
“The chance that a branch of the world tree might brush against a wolf world or one of their quantum, crystal ships is infinitesimal,” Jericho said. “Even if a branch did brush one of their worlds, the chance that anyone would notice, well…” He just shook his head.
“But they found us,” Harry pointed out.
“Rielly Laughing Wolf and the Danzig spin-generator,” Jericho said. “An unfortunate combination.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The recordings Isis made on the Vampire contained more information than Diana chose to play for you. The wolves have been looking for us for millennia. When Danzig turned on his first spin-generator and it interfaced with the quantum field and began pulling in zero-point energy, it set up the equivalent of ripples in that infinite quantum non-space. When we began using more and more Danzig generators to power everything from toasters to cars, that disturbance increased. In the larger scheme of things, those ripples were still infinitesimal, but the wolves were already looking for us.”
“Why?”
Jericho waved the question away. “They had an old score to settle, but that’s another story, and we don’t have time for other stories just now. Suffice to say they were looking for us, and when Rielly accidently opened that window for them, they were ready.”
“And now that they’ve got a world tree of their own planted on earth, their whole army and all their ships can just sail in on the branches, is that it?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Do you know where the original tree is?” Harry asked.
Jericho nodded reluctantly. “There’s something else you should know,” he said. “You gotta be real careful near that tree, or even near the secret valley where it stands. The Indians called it a vision place. Shamans and warriors went there to test themselves against the visions coming off that tree and the monsters that might be lurking there. Most times those monsters lurked in the visions, waiting only for a touch of consciousness to bring them to life. You can be killed for real by one of your own hallucinations if you’re not careful.”
“Is that what happened to Jake Lloyd?” Harry asked.
“In a way,” Jericho said hesitantly.
“I read he died in a camping accident in the mountains. Slipped and fell into a river swollen with spring runoff,” Harry
prodded. “They never did find his body.”
“You can’t believe everything you read,” Jericho said.
Harry waited for more, but for the moment Jericho wasn’t giving any more.
A group of mermaids and their children emerged from the dense foliage overhanging the far side of the lagoon. Harry stood leaning against the iron railing watching them absently. One of the children caught sight of him and shouted and waved, but his mother quickly pulled his hand down. When Harry waved back, they all began giggling and talking animatedly among themselves as they cautiously swam closer but still kept their distance.
“There’s something else you should know about Jake’s girls,” Jericho said with an odd, awkward hesitancy. “I’m not sure how to say this…”
Just then, the boy who had waved at Harry broke free of his mother and began swimming towards him. His mother put a hand to her mouth and screamed at him in terror, and the other mermaids cried out to him. The boy ignored them and swam up to Harry. At the last moment, his courage faltered and he stopped and looked up at Harry in wide-eyed wonder.
Hesitantly, he reached out with his long webbed fingers and touched Harry’s bare foot.
His mother screamed in panic and swam frantically toward him. The boy ignored her and asked in a clear bell like voice, “Is…is it true…” he stammered. “Is it true that you are the One.”
Harry looked over at Jericho for help, but the old man gave him a palms-up “the ball’s in your court” shrug.
Harry turned back to the boy. “One what?” he asked.
“You know, the Messiah! Is it really true you’re a god?” he blurted out just as his mother swam up and grabbed him folding her arms around him protectively.
She looked up at Harry with large, frightened eyes. “I’m sorry, Lord,” she said. “Please forgive him for disturbing you. He
doesn’t know any better.”
Harry glanced over at Jericho who was watching him closely. The old man sat so still he could have been cast in the same concrete as the stadium.
Harry smiled reassuringly at the mother. “He didn’t disturb me,” he said as gently as he could. “I enjoyed talking to him. He’s a very beautiful and brave boy.”
The mother’s face underwent a transformation of joy. She smiled S-s-s-arge’s sharp toothed, jack-o-lantern smile, and her eyes were filled with adoration. “Lord,” she said, holding the boy up. “Would you…could you…” she hesitated as if shocked at her own audacity. “Would you give him your blessing?” she blurted out.
Harry was in way over his head and needed a lifeline. He looked over at Jericho who up to this point had been no help at all. The old man nodded. “Give him your blessing, Harry,” he said.
And how do you do that? Harry wondered. Then, he just reached down and laid his hand on the boy’s head and ruffled his fine silken hair.
“Thank you, Lord,” the mermaid said and rose out of the water and bowed before him. There were tears in her eyes as she turned and followed her son back to the others. They gathered around the boy and his mother; touching them, glancing over at Harry, and talking excitedly. One of the mermaids broke into song and soon the others followed in a beautiful choral of reverent thanksgiving.
“What’s going on? Harry asked.
“You’re a god, Harry,” Jericho joked. “Gods have to put up with stuff like this. By the way, you handled it well,” he said as he watched the mermaids bow their heads reverently in their direction and then disappear one by one into the depths of the lagoon.
Afterwards, Harry stared at the empty lagoon, ruffled only by
a gentle breeze. “Doc, this has gotten way out of hand,” he said.
“It’s part of the price you pay for godhead.” Jericho grinned. “Did you know the mermen are building altars to you all over the Sinks,” he said, and this time he wasn’t grinning.
54
A Divine Stamp of Approval
Shortly afterwards, Marta returned with thermo-weave, spider-spin underclothes, jeans, a forest green wool shirt, a military style field jacket, and a pair of solid hiking boots.
“What, no camouflage weave jumpsuits?” Harry asked in surprise.
“Diana told Roger to keep it simple and keep electronics to a minimum,” Jericho said. “She had a feeling that where they were going, they might not work so well.”
There were backpacks stowed in the trunk and, after Harry got dressed, he went through them to see if there was anything he might want to add or jettison. Meanwhile, Jericho got into the grav-car with Marta and they began calling up data on the car’s holo-screen.
Harry found that, as usual, Marta had thought of everything, right down to a modern replica of his old Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap and a replacement for the pistol he lost in the Sinks. She knew he favored slug throwers and had found a compact military side arm, a miniature R-gun about the size and shape of his lost Glock, except it had a revolver like cylindrical power pack located above the trigger. Its barrel was woven with super conducting nano coils capable of throwing a small slug at speeds that converted it into a massive shock wave of destruction. The magazine in the butt contained two hundred stainless steel rounds no bigger than B-B’s.
Harry eyed the power pack and thought about keeping electronics to a minimum. In a sense the power pack wasn’t really electronics. It was more like a clockwork generator. When you spun the cylinder, it wound up a simple spring mechanism inside. When you pulled the trigger, it released the spring and
generated the trickle of current necessary to fire up the nano coils and throw projectiles at subluminal speeds. Fully wound, it generated enough current to fire all two hundred rounds in the magazine, and Marta had included three extra magazines in case he wanted to start a major war. It was as rugged and self-contained as any weapon could be and Harry decided to chance it. Besides, he had a couple more traditional weapons buried in Marta’s trunk if he needed them and if they were still there.
He strapped on the R-gun’s shoulder holster and finished stowing the gear in the trunk, after first making sure his backup armory was still there. Then, he went to see what Doc and Marta were up to.
They sat in the front seat of the car, scrolling through a map display on the monitor while Mae lounged in the back. She had changed her jumpsuit into a yellow, polka dot bikini and conjured up a large straw hat and a pair of pink, heart-shaped, Lolita style sunglasses. She lay sprawled across the back seat, resting her head in the crook of one arm and with one long shapely leg dangling over the side of the convertible. “Surf City” was playing on the car’s sound system.
Harry leaned in against the side of the car and gave a low wolf-whistle of appreciation. “You can fold out my Playboy any time,” he said with an exaggerated leer and wondered if she would catch the obscure twentieth-century reference.
Mae regarded him from behind her hot pink sunglasses. Then, with studied languor, she reached up and pulled the glasses down her nose and looked at him over the top of the rims. “Be careful, honey,” she cooed. “I bang like a bunny.”
Jericho, watching this by-play, burst out in a loud guffaw. “Mae, you’re a constant source of lewdity, nudity, and profanity. I’m beginning to wonder if we can entrust this innocent, impressionable young lady,” he nodded at Marta who was giggling behind her palm, “to such a femme fatale Jezebel.”
Mae gave him a long, cool appraisal over the rim of her
glasses. Then she pushed them back up her nose and leaned back. “Whoever said that wisdom comes with age didn’t count on Alzheimer’s,” she cooed.
Harry grinned at Jericho. “You can’t win,” he said.
“Win? Who’s talking about winning?” Jericho said. “I’d just like to break even sometimes.”
Mae ignored them both and was now engrossed in a glossy woman’s magazine that had appeared in her hands. It looked like a brand-new, twentieth century edition of Vogue that she had downloaded.
“What I don’t understand is how so much stuff like that,” Jericho hooked a thumb at the magazine, “survived the Crash while useful stuff like, for example, a decent geological survey map of the Sierras disappeared completely.”
“Pop culture,” Mae said glancing up from her magazine. “There was just so much more of it to survive.”
“Yeah,” Jericho said. “It’s just that I don’t think that the latest nineteen sixty-four fashion edition of Vogue will help us here.”
“It can’t hurt,” Mae said. “Marta, honey, why don’t you crawl back here with me and we’ll let the boys talk.”
“Problems?” Harry asked, glancing down at the map display.
“What else is new?” Jericho said and leaned back in the driver’s seat. “Did you notice the river at the foot of that ridge where they found Roger’s car?”
Harry nodded.
“Diana was going to follow that river all the way back up into the High Sierras,” Jericho said. “It’s the quickest and easiest way to get where she was going. The problem is you can’t follow her that way without running into Seraphim gunboats and their trackers, so I’m trying to get you in the back way. The trouble is, I’ve never tried to go in the back way. I always followed that river up to where I wanted to be.
“Unfortunately, all the old US Geological Survey maps got lost or destroyed in the Crash. Probably wouldn’t have helped
anyway. Things got kind of changed around in the Crash, and New Hollywood hasn’t had the resources or inclination to re-map the High Sierras. Quarantine patrols have mapped some of the high passes,” he pointed to the map display on the monitor, “but the rest is terra-incognita. Hell, I doubt if anyone, except Jake and his girls, have been up there in the last four hundred years.”
“People down here have had other concerns, like survival and getting civilization started again,” Harry pointed out.
“Yeah, don’t I know it,” Jericho said wearily. “Anyway, after Jake found the nano tree,” he continued, “he built a cabin a few miles outside of the secret valley where it grew. I haven’t been up there for years, but I tried to give Marta a description of the area and altitude, especially the surrounding mountain peaks.
“I did some exploring while I was up there, took a banshee and followed the river about twenty miles up to its source. There’s a big lake up there surrounded by mountains and fed by natural springs and melt runoff. The river drops out of that lake for about five hundred feet through some spectacular, stepped waterfalls. It’s especially impressive in the springtime when it’s swollen with melt water. Once you find that, it shouldn’t be too hard to follow the river back down. There are some side branches that might be tricky, though.”
“The problem will be finding the lake in the first place,” Harry said.
“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Jericho said. “I took some pictures up there. I had my eidolon download them into Marta’s data bank. There’s one peak up there, a landmark. I called it Mount Fuck You. You’ll recognize it when you see it.
“One more thing,” Jericho said. “Jake’s cabin and the entrance to the secret valley are both hidden back in the woods. You can’t see them from the river, but you’ll know you’re there when you come to a flat rock shelf that sticks halfway out into the river. You can’t miss it. It’s as white as alabaster and covered with ripple patterns of fused glass. That’s where your search begins. Diana
and Roger will be somewhere downriver of that point.”
“It shouldn’t be too difficult if they stick to the river,” Harry said.
“Which they won’t,” Jericho said. “It’s rough country, cliffs, waterfalls, avalanches. Diana knows those mountains like the back of her hand. She’ll cut across country, take the fastest route whenever she can. It’ll make following her difficult for the Seraphim.”
“Make finding her difficult for me too,” Harry said.
“That’s why you got Mae and Marta with you. They really are the best scouts we’ve got. If anyone can find them, they can.”
Harry grunted noncommittally and kept the drawer tightly closed.
“You got trouble with that?” Jericho asked.
Harry glanced at Mae and Marta sitting in the back of the convertible with their heads together whispering and giggling over the latest nineteen sixty-four issue of Vogue just like two normal young woman…practicing being human, he thought and shook his head. “No, I’ve got no problem with that,” he lied.
“Good,” Jericho said, eying him skeptically. “Now, let’s get back to business. It’s close to seventy miles from where Roger’s car crashed to Jake’s cabin.”
“Seventy miles?” Harry said. “They’ve had almost four days. They could be there by now.”
Jericho shook his head doubtfully. “That’s seventy miles straight line distance. Up there, there are no straight lines. It’s all up and down and around cliffs, waterfalls, rock slides, and tributaries swollen by the monsoon rains. That seventy miles as the crow flies could easily turn into twice that or more. And remember one of them is probably wounded. We don’t know how seriously, but it’s bound to slow them down.”
“And now they’ve got a couple of Seraphim battlewagons on their trail,” Harry said. “I think it’s about time we saddled up and lent a hand.”
He turned to Marta. “What do you say, Captain? Do you think we can handle that?”
“A piece of cake, sir,” Marta grinned, and snapped off a jaunty salute.
“And Harry, if you don’t find them or they don’t make it,” Jericho said. “Find the Nano Tree and use it yourself.”
“For what?”
“To do as much damage to the wolves as possible. Maybe to bring back Isis and Susan. Maybe do a little miracle or two.”
“I don’t do that anymore.”
“You may have to,” Jericho said and climbed out of the car. “Why don’t we take a little walk,” he said and took Harry’s arm.
“I’ve got to get going,” Harry said and shook his arm free. “I’ve wasted enough time already,”
Jericho pushed aside a heavy banana frond and started up the steep overgrown slope of stadium stairs. “It’s important Harry,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s something you want to know.”
Harry watched him go and after a moment gave up and followed. The stubborn old goat could be infuriating sometimes.
The air was heavy with the smell of orange blossom as they climbed towards the broken bleachers. About half way up, Jericho found a little clearing and sat down on a fallen tree trunk. “Not as young as I used to be,” he said with a heavy sigh.
Harry remained standing, his patience wearing thin. “What’s so important that you had to drag me up here to tell me?”
“Private stuff, just between you, me, and Jake Lloyd,” Jericho said. He paused, staring absently out over the overgrown stadium and across the lagoon. “Those twins of his are more special than you can imagine,” he said at last. “We can’t let the wolves get both of them.”
“Then, why didn’t you stop Diana before she left?”
Jericho snorted derisively. “I’ve already told you why,” he said. “I tried to talk her out of it or at least to wait a day or two but,” Jericho gave a resigned shrug. “Jake raised a couple of
tough, stubborn, self-reliant women.” He paused. “Remember Diana told you how she and Isis got their names?” he asked.
The sudden change of subject took Harry by surprise. “What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked.
“Do you remember?” Jericho said.
“Yeah, I remember,” Harry said. “It was something about the Goddess naming them in a dream.”
“Diana is a careful lady,” Jericho said. “Plays her cards real close.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked and sat down beside him.
“I was there when the twins were born,” Jericho said. “I know all about that dream. Dreams are funny things. Science has been trying to explain them for centuries. Most prehistoric people believed, in one form or another, that dreams were messengers of the gods. Jake Lloyd believed it too. He’d seen enough strange shit in his life to give him a healthy respect for the gods, or let’s just say, the Goddess.
“Shamans and mystics of all sorts always made a distinction between little dreams and big dreams. The little dreams are your common garden variety, everyday dreams that dredge up the day’s events and slap them together with wish-fulfillment, memories, fears, neuroses, and maybe a dose or two of mythology thrown in.
“Your big dreams, on the other hand, are the ones where the gods talk straight at you, loud and clear. You know when you’ve had a big dream. There’s no doubt about it.
“Jake’s dream was one of the big ones, a real whopper. What Diana told you is true, as far as it goes. It just didn’t go anywhere near far enough.” Jericho paused to gather his thoughts. Despite his impatience, Harry let the silence draw out. He knew better than to interrupt the old man’s train of thought.
“Jake didn’t have that dream the night the girls were born. He had it before he even met their mother,” Jericho said.
“Why didn’t Diana just say that instead of lying?”
“She wasn’t lying,” Jericho said. “She doesn’t know. Jake never told her.”
“Why not?”
“Jake’s reasons.”
“Like what?”
Jericho shook his head. Harry wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t know or wouldn’t say.
“So why are you telling me this now?” Harry asked.
Jericho scratched his head thoughtfully. “Damned if I know,” he said. “Jake’s dream is important. I guess I figured you should know as much about it as possible since you were in it.”
“What!” Harry spluttered in surprise.
“The Goddess is a two-faced bitch,” Jericho continued at last. “She can be Gaea, the loving earth mother or Kali, the eater of the dead, the destroyer of worlds. When she comes to you in a dream or vision, she always takes on the appropriate guise.
“When she came to Jake, she came first as the great earth mother, the White Goddess of antiquity, holding Jake’s girls one in each hand, Isis in the right, Diana in the left, the right hand of sunlit rationality and science, the left hand of moon-lit intuition and occult knowledge. She held them as if her hands were scales and weighed them, up and down, until the scales balanced.