Nirvana Effect (23 page)

“Because we are faithful,” answered her mother.

“But why must we not see the v
illage for so long?  Why must we stay from the village?”

“These are sacred plants, Sala,
these that we care for and nurture.
We are part of Manassa’s vision.  We are part of s
omething greater than ourselves.”  The mother glanced down at her daughter.  Sala’s eyes had glossed over.  She hadn’t heard a word of it.
 
“
It is as your
father wishes,” said mother.

Sala
grabbed her mother’s hands.  “Even though I’m tired,” said Sala, “I am happy to be with you.”  She loved her mother’s hands.  Her father’s hands were often cruel.  She did not miss him or his beatings.  “It would be fine for us to always tend the secret garden,” she said.

“And so we may.  Your father will send word when it’s time to come back.  Now work, child.  You must set a good example for the other children.  We must get these plants into the pots.  And don’t touch the sap!”

Sala got back to work.  She didn’t feel tired anymore.

Edward took the opportunity to tend to the other errands he had in town - the I.V. apparatus, the electrodes.  All was finished in an hour.  If
his tablet idea worked,
he didn’t need any of it, but he held true to the first recorded maxim of the nirvana effect -
Never lie to a seer. 

To which he might add as a corollary -
Never tell all the truth to a seer.

If he said he was getting the materiel for these other ideas to reduce the after-pain, he had better make sure he did so.  Mahanta could all too quickly find him out. 

As
Edward
left a pawn shop in the center of town
, he
caught
a motion
out of place in his periphery.
 

He would
never have
noticed such a thing before, but not only did it catch his attention, but he had such presence of mind that he correctly refused to react to it. 

He didn’t turn his head, instead walking haphazardly in the opposite direction.  Someone had reacted strongly to his coming out of the shop
, ducking
from sight.

Edward gripped his backpack, casually readjusting it and checking for the reassuring weight of the first aid kit within it.  He was relieved to feel its hard metal edges sticking through the canvas. 

The noon sun left no shadows on the dirt streets, and Edward walked a couple blocks down the road.  He had no way to see who was following him without being obvious.  There were very few reflective surfaces in
Lisbaad
. 

Edward walked into a fabric store with a large window.  He liked it because the glass was dirty, and
with
the
noonday
glare he couldn’t see into the store.

The
shopkeeper stood from his stool.
He looked
surprised to have a customer.  “Just browsing,” said Edward hurriedly in Tamil, then stepped down into the small display area.  He went directly to the window; he could see out well enough through the grime.  A few islanders walked the streets
with totes on their shoulders with the day’s produce
. 

“Is there a particular fabric you are looking for, sir?” asked the shopkeeper, who had joined him in the display area.

“Red,” said Edward distractedly.  No men.  Nothing that fit what he’d seen out the corner of his eye. 

“We have many excellent red products here, sir,” said the shopkeeper.  Tamil obviously was not this man’s native dialect. 
Half the fabric here is red.
  “Is there any particular design you wanted?”

Edward craned his neck to try to identify his tracker. 
Maybe there isn’t one. 
Maybe I’m just getting paranoid – maybe a side effect of the drug.

“No, thank you, just looking out your window,” said Edward.  Far down the road, a little boy begged
at the curbside.  He had no luck; the woman passing him was
probably
just as destitute as he was. 
The boy
followed
the woman
for a little while
with hand extended
, then went back to his spot. 

My imagination.  I’m just
jittery after
the
clinic.

The shopkeeper walked back to his counter
and seated himself loudly
.  Edward felt the Indian’s eyes burning holes in the back of his head.

Edward turned around. 
“Thank you, sir,”
he said
, most respectfully.  “I will be sure to return here if I need something red.”

“You are welcome,” said the scowling shopkeeper.

“Your window is excellent.”

Edward walked out.  He gave the street another long glance in each direction.  An old woman walked toward him.  Edward craned his neck to see the beggar boy behind her, but the young man seemed to have gone elsewhere to try his luck.

The missionary carefully made his way back to Callista’s clinic.  He turned a fifteen minute walk into several hours as he wound his trail through long alleys and shadowy corners tr
ying to scare up a tail he wasn’
t
even
sure existed. 

It would kill him if Callista came to any harm because he wasn’t careful. 

“Hello, Diane.  I have returned,”
Edward
told
the receptionist.  She was watering a plant in the waiting area.

“My name is actually Duiyon,” she replied, setting
down
the watering pitcher.

“Well, hello Duiyon.”  He pronounced it correctly, much to her delight.  “Is the doctor in?”

Duiyon covered her mouth, troubled.  “Oh, she just left.”

“When?”

“Less than a minute ago.  I haven’t even had time to lock up.”

“Is there a back door she leaves out of?” he asked hurriedly.

“In the second exam room.” 
Of course.  That’s where Callista was pointing.
  “If you hurry you might catch her.”

Edward started to leave but Duiyon kept talking.  “She seemed to be wondering why it took you so long to come back.  She was troubled.”

We have a lot of catching up to do. 
“Thank you,” he said as he rushed past her to the back door.  She grabbed his wrist and jerked him back.

“Priest,” she said, shoving her face in front of his.  She was surprisingly strong.  “…
or whatever you are
…do not break her heart.  She’s already had her heart broken.  There is nothing left to break.”  Edward’s mouth opened but there was nothing to say.

“Hurry!” she said.  She
pushed him onward
.

Nockwe stormed into Manassa’s temple.  The two guards posted at the door tensed at their weapons.  They would never raise a finger against their chieftain, and yet in that instant he’d seemed more an enemy
than an ally
. 
Nockwe’s
eyes
gaped
wide, his every muscle taut.  He was stifling a roar that caught in his throa
t and manifested as a persisting
grumble.

“Manassa!” he shouted.  Manassa was not in the main temple area.  Nockwe ran to his quarters behind the throne.  “Manassa!”

Where is he?
  “Here, Nockwe.”  Nockwe found him, sitting at the edge of his bed in his quarters.  He actually had a real mattress, elevated from the floor.

“You had him killed!” shouted Nockwe.  He was furious. 

Quietly, Manassa said, “Remember the protocol, Nockwe.”

“To hell with the protocol!”  The guards were sure to hear him.

Manassa stood up and walked past him to the entrance of his quarters.  He waved someone off - presumably a guard who was coming to check on the commotion.

Manassa pulled aside a rug to reveal the trap door he’d installed.  It was an underground tunnel into the woods.  He opened the trap and beckoned Nockwe to follow him. 

They hunched to make it through the
short
tunnel. 
It took them to the jungle
.  Manassa walked briskly in silence, but Nockwe had no trouble keeping up. 

“You have started a bloodbath, Manassa.  Have you no respect for the tribe?”

Manassa was quiet.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your priests, yo
ur inner circle, they’re killing
dissenters.”

“They’re your inner circle, Nockwe,” said Manassa.

“They do not act on my orders,” said Nockwe.

“Nor mine.”  Though Nockwe spoke modern Onge, Manassa kept to the more ancient dialect.  It made the whole conversation
feel
surreal to the chieftain.  The adrenaline was already starting to flush out of his body, to be replaced by an empty dread. 

Anger had caused him to play the fool.  His reaction could have far-reaching repercussions.  Moreover, he knew now he might never learn the truth
.

“It cannot be coincidence that your three greatest critics are now dead by challenge.”

The flow of the walking
was draining
Nockwe’s outrage.  Manassa did not stop.  He climbed down into a ravine and changed directions.  Nockwe followed.  “Coincidence?” said Manassa.  “I don’t believe in coincidence.  It was obviously planned.”

“Inge was wise and cautious.  Wisdom and caution make him no enemy of ours.  He did nothing to malign you or Glis, and yet Glis killed him.”

“Glis?” asked Manassa dispassionately.

“You didn’t know?”

“I did foresee Inge’s death, but not this way.  All your sentiments aside, Inge
was
a
stumbling block to our vision.  But I didn’t think he’d be killed by Onge.”

Nockwe decided not to take up that point.  It was moot.  “He was challenged for sleeping with Glis’s wife,” said Nockwe.

“Did he?” asked Manassa.

“Glis and two others caught him in the act,” said Nockwe.

Manassa finally stopped and turned.  His voice was hollow, empty.  “Then why do you come to me in this manner, my chieftain?”

“Glis’s wife seduced him,” said Nockwe.

“How do you know?”

“It is a fact.  Inge has three times the years of Glis’s woman.  She is only sixteen.  It is fact.”

Manassa nodded.  “You see conspiracy.  I see it, too.”

“The blood of the tribe must be preserved, as must its wisdom be.  Glis committed murder, Manassa.” 
At your request.

“Kill Glis.”  Again, Manassa was emotionless.  He spoke in the traditional tongue.  “I trust your judgment, my chieftain.  His zealotry may be commendable, but his methods cannot be permitted.  We are the greatest nation on Earth, Nockwe, but we are the smallest of nations.  Our blood must be preserved.  No murder shall be permitted.”

“No more murder is necessary.  The inner circle has slain your opposition,” said Nockwe.  He searched Manassa’s eyes
for
insight.  They gave no clue, no betrayal.  The foot of space between
the chieftain and the god
felt like a great void.

Manassa spoke quieter still.  “If you do not control the inner circle, then soon the inner circle shall be our enemy.  Look not to me to displace the fault, Nockwe, for the murder of Glis and the deaths of the others.  Look into the truth-water back to your own reflection.  The inner circle is your dog, whether
or not you desire it so
.  We agreed it was so.  I trust you, Nockwe, but I fear that if you in turn trust too much, you will lose your faith in me and even in yourself
.  Don’t trustthe inner circle.  Don’
t trust my priests.  Get them into line, else
they
will be the dog that will eat us all up.”

Nockwe was silent.  He didn’t know what to do.  His mind was telling him to drop it, but his hunter’s instinct still told him something was wrong.

“Nockwe,” s
ighed
Manassa.  “I understand your frustration.  I have foreseen it, in fact, for if I were you I would have done the same thing.  But the fact of the matter is that even if I had ordered these peoples’ deaths, you could have stopped it.  You must own and control our priests.  And we must trust one another.  Do you see that with you over my priests, I leave myself defenseless to you?”

The sun was setting behind Manassa.  The early calls of the beasts of the night disrupted the silence between the two men.
 
This inner circle, these priests,
they
are the
jungle beasts
. 
Nockwe foresaw that one day he might become their target.  He did not fear it.  He would do what he must for the tribe.