Authors: Karen Haber
Instead of relief I felt shame and horror. What was happening to me? I had been trained to use my telepathic powers for healing, not for aggression, never in direct attack. What I had done went against everything I believed in and had worked for all my life. I felt like a hypocrite and a monster. Although I tried to tell myself that Metzger had declared war on us and in warfare one uses any weapons at hand for protection, I didn’t really believe it, and I certainly didn’t feel vindicated.
As for the renegade telepath: he was apprehended and sent by the Mutant Council to Dream Haven in northern California where he was shot so full of mind-damping drugs he wouldn’t have known which end of a mindbolt to use if he could have remembered how to generate one. He had no memory of our little session with him and little recollection of his visit to New Mexico—my posthypnotic suggestion had seen to that.
Meanwhile, Better World thrived. The sharings went on, the towers of Better City rose higher and higher, and for quite a while my half-sister and I seemed to have overcome our differences.
I began to regard Better World as a healing center of the first order, devoted to taking on difficult cases and furthering the study and synthesis of healing techniques. Meditation, psychoanalysis, aromatherapy, altered consciousness, drug therapy, yoga, sensory deprivation, mutant chants: whatever worked was not questioned but rather welcomed as part of a multifaceted, multidisciplinary approach. I envisioned establishing a network of similar facilities in the years to come. We would spread Better World’s comfort around the globe and perhaps even off-planet.
I became fascinated by the enormous healing potential of the group sharings: the remarkable effects these sessions had upon both mutants and nonmutants. A plan began to take shape in my mind for a methodical, documented long-term study of the implications of these effects.
The months passed quickly and before I knew it we were facing the anniversary of Rick’sry the death. Alanna organized a ceremony that included a processional and recitation. It was a bit too much like a pageant for my taste but I knew she was still working through her grief and I thought this would be useful therapy.
So the day came and the mechdrums sounded a mournful beat. Slowly we marched into the Roman arena and up to the stage, and assumed our designated positions around the podium. The arena was packed and the audience was hushed, expectant.
Alanna spoke first.
“I remember,” she said. “I was standing beside him that night and I remember how he died. I don’t want to stop remembering, not for a moment. None of us who truly cared for him will ever be able to shed those memories. Our last glimpse of Rick.”
Betty was next. “He was too good,” she said. “Too fine to last. But we’ll honor his memory and continue our good work. Rick loved us. He saved us. None of us will ever forget him.”
I came third.
“My brother was unique,” I said. “A marvel. I loved him, loved him deeply, and I can’t tell you how I miss him. We all miss him. Please, join hands and share with me now as we remember Rick and cherish him.”
I had mastered the group sharing technique by now and slid easily into the calming, harmonious circuit. When we had finished we all had tears on our cheeks. We left the arena, accompanied by the hushed strains of “Rick’s Ode.” Each one of us, led by Alanna, paused to place a white rose or chamiso branch at Rick’s tomb. I have to admit that even I was moved—though a little uncomfortable at the intensity of the Rick worship.
Shortly after that Narlydda died, and Alanna was forced to leave Better World temporarily to see to her mother’s estate. Narlydda’s reclusive ways, which had only become more pronounced when Skerry died, had in no way diminished her fame as an artist and at her death she was part of the venerated pantheon. Every major museum in the world was vying for the work that Narlydda had left unconsigned. I didn’t envy Alanna her task, especially as I was well aware of her complicated feelings for her mother, half admiring, half resentful. Better World was a safe place for her energy, a path her mother would not follow.
And so, I was astounded when Alanna announced that her mother’s remaining work would be housed at Better World in a special museum to be built in Rick’s honor.
“Using whose funds?” I demanded.
“There’s plenty of money from Mother’s estate,” Alanna said carelessly. “This won’t even put a dent in it. Nor will the contest I’m going to announce.”
“Contest?”
Her eyes glowed as she told me her plan. “Yes, a tribute to my mother’s memory, and Rick. I want to hold a yearly competition for young artists. The subject, of course, will be Rick or Better World. And each prize-winning entry becomes our property, to be added to our collection.”
“And the prize?”
“Oh, a couple of hundred thousand eurodollars, I suppose.” She shrugged. “There’s more than enough.”
“Lovely,” I said. “Who’ll judge this?”
“I will, along with a group of curators and art critics.”
“It seems to be a long stretch from healing people to endowing museums and sculpture competitions in Rick’s n in art criame.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Alanna said. “Just different sides of the same coin. We honor Rick’s memory by healing, and by providing works of beauty to delight the senses. To me it all seems perfectly connected.”
Although I didn’t agree with her, I saw very little wrong with her arts competition. It might drain off some of her energy but it seemed a harmless enough way for her to combine her mourning for Rick with her grief for her mother.
By the second anniversary of Rick’s death, the museum had been finished, opened, and the first winner of the Narlydda Foundation’s competition had seen her artwork enshrined in the main gallery next to one of only two extant copies of Narlydda’s famous “Moonstation Merman.”
The winning sculpture was unveiled with a bold flourish of mechtrumpets and considerable media fanfare. Clever, clever Alanna! She knew that Narlydda and Rick were both fading a bit in terms of newsworthiness. By linking the two through her annual competition she had ensured an enduring appetite in the press for information from Better World.
The statue had been cast on a heroic scale and reached halfway to the vaulted ceiling of the gallery. It was an idealized portrait of Rick in postcubist/futurist style, coated with a layer of holopaint that provided an ever-changing aura of textures, color, and mood.
“What do you think?” Alanna asked.
“At least he’s not holding two stone tablets,” I said.
Privately I thought the work hideous. But art appreciation had never been my strongest suit.
The pageant commemorating Rick’s death was twice as long and pompous this time and I couldn’t restrain my feelings.
“What is this, Alanna? A passion play? If you intend to have this thing expand geometrically each year, pretty soon nobody will be able to stay awake long enough to last through the entire ceremony.”
She made no response, merely handed me a white and gold garment that had a strange glow to it and made an odd ringing noise as it moved through the air. “Here,” she said. “Put this on.”
“What is it?”
“Your robe for the pageant.”
“Robe? My regular clothing was fine last year.”
“That was last year.”
The fabric chimed again in a series of sweet arpeggios. “What’s that?”
“Aural fibers. I had them woven in to provide more majesty to the processional. Each robe is keyed to a specific scale integrating into a harmonic series that should create a deeper sense of awe and ecstasy.”
“Won’t that be noisy?”
“It should be beautiful.”
She was right, it was. The robes added an eerie, otherworldly touch to the proceedings that somehow was exactly right.
I hoped that Alanna would now be content to fiddle with her pageant and art collection without inventing new diversions. I was falling behind on my casework and the public sharings were taking a toll on my energy. Perhaps now Alanna would devote herself to the business at hand.
But she had other ideas. And she published them.
The iy">e businesllusion of our truce melted away when the first edition of
Rick’s Way
appeared.
It was available on disc or bound printout from Better World Visual Communications, and also in a deluxe, handbound, slip-covered leather and vellum edition for true believers who also had a considerable amount of disposable income.
The hoopla that announced its arrival was completely funded by Alanna and worthy of the Gutenberg Bible.
Rick’s Way
sold and sold and sold. The literary critics had a feast on its leaden, cliché-ridden prose, but apparently nobody paid any attention to them. A leading movie studio purchased rights to it as the basis of an inspirational film and several well-known actors were said to be vying for the roles of Rick, Alanna, and yours truly. Foreign publishers clamored for translations.
Perhaps I should have been pleased. Instead, I was alarmed and furious. As the Better World faithful had grown accustomed to me, to greet me respectfully and even reverentially, I had begun to think of Better World as mine. I admit it, I was jealous. Somehow, Alanna’s actions felt like a complete betrayal. But even more troubling was her treatment of Rick in the book: he was no longer just some unique player upon the mortal stage. Now, apparently, he had become divine, and every utterance attributed to him took on the timbre of holy, unremitting gospel.
Of course, the churches began screaming.
“Blasphemous!”
“They’re running a totalitarian organization under the guise of a charismatic religion.”
“It’s a sham. Blatant exploitation of the needy.”
“It’s an attempt at mind control. Mutant hypnosis of the masses.”
All the outcry only made the book sell faster. It was translated into fifteen different languages and, very quickly, foreign tongues joined the debate. Who could blame all those enraged pastors and prelates, imams and rabbis, deacons and ministers for their fear? Now there was another deity, freshly deceased, competing for the limited attention of their already diminished flocks. Worse yet, he had an indefatigable front-woman of considerable wiles and resources. Alive, Rick had displayed formidable magnetism. Once dead, he became an absolute lodestar. The outrage of the competition was not only understandable but predictable and almost pathetic. In a peculiar way I even felt a bit sorry for them.
Among the faithful,
Rick’s Way
became divine scripture in short order. Soon dozens of people were claiming to have been with Rick when he made each historic utterance captured in the book. Alanna had been right. Obviously, no one remembered what Rick had really sounded like.
Alanna’s Version
, as I privately called
Rick’s Way
, was a top seller. It became a talisman, a piece of Rick to carry around.
My reaction was a bit harder to explain. In Rio I had giddily embraced the idea of Rick as a “pocket deity.” Why then was I so angry with Alanna now for elevating his status? Perhaps in Brazil it had seemed less frightening. More important, it had seemed more like a service organization and less a cult of personality. Perhaps I had taken it more seriously. And perhaps I had been so in love that my judgment at the time had been colored by my happiness.
But the times—and I—had changed. I was in New Mexico now, Star was dead, and Rick’s deification had toicaan>
“Working on volume number two already?” I said. “Baking some fresh god-muffins for the faithful to gobble up?”
She switched the printer off, all cool self-control. “What’s bothering you?”
“You might have told me about your plans for
Rick’s Way
.”
“I thought I had. Come on, Julian. Wasn’t it obvious? You knew I had almost finished the manuscript before Rick died. You even saw it.”
“But you never said a word to me about finishing it, much less publishing it. I thought that you’d locked it up in your desk drawer—that it was a dead issue. Why didn’t you bring it up at the last board meeting? Didn’t you want our help? Our input?”
“What was I supposed to do, Julian? Put it up for your vote? I didn’t need any help. Or input.”
“Obviously.”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset. Perhaps you would have preferred to mothball the entire project, but I didn’t think that was the best way to show respect for Rick. And I didn’t want anybody else mucking around with it. It’s mine. Mine and Rick’s.”
Her smugness was infuriating.
I said, “Where did the divine aspect come from? I didn’t notice it in your earlier notes. When did you put that in?”
“Why, after he died. It just seemed so appropriate, somehow.”
“Appropriate?” I stared at her. “It’s poppycock. You can’t be serious, Alanna. How can you publish this dreck? You of all people know that Rick wasn’t divine. Far from it!”
“Do I? Does any of us really know?”
“Stop it, Alanna. Or save it for somebody more gullible.”
“What do you think has been going on here?” she demanded. “You saw the agonies at Rick’s death, the flowers at his tomb, the prayers of the faithful. Rick is a real spiritual force to thousands of people, Julian. Why shouldn’t I deify him?”