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"I don't know. I was never her. From what people say, she sounded excitable
and not very smart."
The three scientists exchanged glances that all seemed to say the same thing.
A general trait of the ayatollahs was supposed to be their confusion and
insecurity; but Nixie came across as collected, coherent, and in full command
of herself. Either Hunt had truly found an exception to the trend, with powers
of resilience and fortitude greater than most, or she was too far gone to have
doubts. The problem was going to be telling which.
"Let's get back to what you mean when you say people like us,"
Danchekker suggested. "What, exactly, are people like 'us'?"
"People who are from here," Nixie replied.
"You mean Jevlen? But I'm not from Jevlen. Vic and I are from Earth.
Shilohin is from -- God, I don't know, Minerva, I suppose."
"No, that doesn't matter. I meant from this...world, universe, whatever you
want to call it."
Danchekker's expression became strained. "Are you saying that you came from
some other world, and took over the personality of somebody in this one?"
Nixie nodded vigorously. "Yes. Yes, that's it, exactly."
"Let's be realistic," Danchekker said. "These different worlds don't actually
exist as physical entities. Isn't your way of talking really a symbolic way of
referring to the attainment of what some people believe to be a higher state
of consciousness? You were always the same self. But the personality which
that self once possessed underwent a deep change, and you feel as if you've
been reborn into a new person. Similar terms and ways of describing one's
spiritual awakening are common among many of the religions and systems of
mental training that we're familiar with on Earth."
But Nixie was adamant. "No, it's another place."
"Where?" Shilohin asked her.
"I don't know."
There was the short, cautious silence of three people wondering how to phrase
a delicate point. "So, how did you get here?" Hunt inquired finally.
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"You must know how to ride the currents of life."
Danchekker looked away with a sigh, and Hunt could almost hear him groaning to
himself inwardly. Here we go, Hunt thought to himself. But there was no choice
but to press on. "What are the currents of life?" he asked.
"The undercurrents of existence, which flow from the higher plane through the
material world. They come from the stars and are drawn by the celestial
spirals, bringing voices and visions from the world beyond."
"You mean you reach it through the power of mind, is that what you're saying?"
Shilohin offered, taking over Danchekker's previous tack. "It exists inside
you?"
"No," Nixie insisted. "Outside. It's real." She waved a hand. "Look around.
Isn't this real, what we see around us?"
Hunt stared, still unable to make sense of it. "This is the world beyond?"
"And you are inhabitants of it. Our purpose is to learn to flow with the
streams of thought and emerge here. That is what I have done."
"Then, how do you emerge here?" Shilohin asked. "Do you mean that once
you were in this other...'inner' world, and suddenly you found you were Nixie,
in this one? You had no idea how you came to be here. Is that what you're
telling us?"
"Not quite," Nixie said. "It has to be through a coupler. You can only emerge
through a coupler."
Hunt shook his head. "A coupler into VISAR?" he queried.
"No." Nixie looked at him as if it should have been obvious. "Into
JEVEX!"
Hunt sat back, stunned. Danchekker's head jerked around abruptly to look at
her again, like a bird's. Impossible thoughts came into Hunt's head.
"Surely it can't have been JEVEX itself," he protested. "We're not talking
about something like what's just happened with VISAR?"
Shilohin thought for a moment, then pronounced firmly, "No. VISAR's internal
representation of reality is nothing like our own. It has evolved a different
world model, utterly incompatible. As you just heard, it doesn't even share
our perception of physical space. An entity like that could never reside in a
human nervous system. If this place does indeed exist, which Nixie says she
came from, then at least it will have basic geometric and spatial properties
in common with what we ourselves recognize. In other words, it exists in space
as we know it." She paused, as if hesitating to voice the implication. "But
how anybody could actually travel from somewhere else via a neural coupler, I
couldn't, just at this moment, even hazard a guess."
Before anyone could say more, Del Cullen appeared in the doorway of the room.
He was looking worried. "She's not there," he said, directing his words at
Hunt. Cullen had gone away to call Gina at the Geerbaine Best Western, since
they had expected to hear from her by now on the latest with Baumer.
"She didn't check in last night, and they haven't had any messages. Baumer
hasn't been seen since yesterday, either. There's been lots of trouble
outside. I don't like it."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Gina was sitting on a wall beside Baumer, eating a grinil sandwich and sipping [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]