Thirst No. 4 (11 page)

My heart skips. “Talk?”

Sharp suddenly looks as if he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I didn’t mean that literally.”

“How did you mean it?” I ask.

Sharp is distinctly uncomfortable. “Freddy came up with a list of experiments that allowed us to extract information from the kids.”

“What kind of information?”

“Your usual New Age drivel. I didn’t think it was important at the time.”

“But later?” I ask.

Sharp brushes the question away. “Don’t get hung up on that part of our research. There was nothing there we could prove.”

“Professor, I’m afraid you contradict yourself. On one hand you say Freddy was a big help. He had insights into the early arrays and got them to talk. Then you act like the information he came up with wasn’t important.”

“I don’t think it was important.”

“At least tell us how he got the arrays to talk.”

Sharp shrugs. “None of his techniques were scientific. It was more along the lines of spiritualism. The type of people drawn to those cults are always trying to get messages from beyond the grave. They gather people around a table and try to get the table’s legs to tap once for yes and twice for no. Or else they sit with Ouija boards and channel all kinds of bizarre information. Freddy was drawn to that sort of thing. It impressed me that he was able to adapt our arrays so the power of a large group could contribute to what was being channeled. But, once again, the quality of the information was usually poor.”

“Give us an example of the type of information you received.”

“It was no different from the junk you can find in a hundred channeled books at the store. A spirit would arrive with some high-sounding name and profess to have the secrets of the universe. He or she would dictate pages of information on reincarnation or higher dimensions, none of which could be tested. I’m telling you, it was a waste of time.”

“Professor Sharp, do you believe in God?” I ask.

My question catches him off guard. “Why do you ask?”

“With all your experiments, it sounds like you were trying to tap into a kind of collective unconsciousness—if you want to use Carl Jung’s label—or a universal consciousness. Would you say that’s fair?”

“We were trying to tap into a power that had no name. Some people might have called it God. I’m not sure I would have been one of them.”

“Why not?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “How can I answer that question? As a scientist, I could only work with what I could prove.”

I lean forward and take his shriveled hand in mine. “Are you afraid to answer because you think Cindy used the arrays for evil purposes? To give you a stroke?”

“No.”

“When we first arrived, you gave that impression.”

He shakes free of my hand. He acts trapped, restless. “You don’t understand,” he says.

“Then help us understand.”

“The arrays were designed to solicit information. To prove we had hidden senses beyond the five obvious ones. I didn’t create them to hurt people. The idea is preposterous.”

“That’s not true,” I say.

“It is true!” he shouts back.

“But you’ve admitted how dangerous the IIC is. You said it was more dangerous than we could imagine.”

Sharp struggles to answer and I fear I might have pressed him too hard. He’s old and frail. His voice cracks as he answers and I worry he’s going to have another stroke.

“That company is dangerous but not because of the big Array Cindy eventually created. That’s not what stung you and that’s not what put me in bed for a year and destroyed my health.”

“If it wasn’t the Array, then what was it?” I ask.

Sharp hesitates. “The Cradle.”

“What’s that?” I demand.

The man lowers his head and trembles as he speaks. “I can’t talk about it, it’s too dangerous. Find Freddy, talk to him. I’ll put you two in touch. He knows more about it than I do.”

I feel frustrated. I have finally managed to steer him to the secret of secrets and now he refuses to tell us what it is. I try pushing him harder but finally have to accept his fear is genuine. It’s not like he is refusing to talk about what happened next, it’s like he
can’t
.

However, when we’re about to leave, I ask, “At least tell us why it’s called the Cradle?”

He stares at me closely, as if seeing me for the first time, and his face darkens. “You know,” he says. “It touched you. It’s just begun to grow.”

It’s my turn to clam up. I don’t ask what
it
is. I already know it’s that horrible thing that attacked me in that crummy motel in London.

I
t’s not difficult for us to find Fredrick Wild. True to his word, Professor Sharp gives us his address and phone number. It appears the two are still on speaking terms. Freddy lives with his girlfriend, Mary, in Santa Cruz, an hour’s drive from San Mateo. We climb in our car and head for the coast. Seymour drives while I sit in the back with Shanti. She keeps giving me uneasy looks.

“Relax,” I say. “We’re not trying to play a practical joke on you. It really is me.”

“If I had any doubts, you got rid of them at the professor’s house,” Shanti replies.

“Was I too hard on him?” I ask.

Shanti is at pains not to offend me. “You did what you had to do.”

“I think you were too easy on him,” Seymour says.

“What makes you say that?” Paula asks.

Seymour rolls down the window, which means he’s about to light a cigarette. “I worry we didn’t learn anything that will help us defeat Brutran and the IIC.”

“We learned how the Array came to be,” Paula says. “I found his talk fascinating.”

“But it’s like he switched boats on us,” Seymour says. “He talks about the Array for an hour but when push comes to shove he says it’s the Cradle that’s the problem. If you ask me, he’s still trying to protect the idea of the Array. It’s his baby, he invented it. I think he’s still proud of it.”

“He did prove the existence of ESP,” Paula says. “He made a major contribution to science. I think he has a right to be proud.”

Seymour lights his cigarette and blows smoke out the window. He glances over at Paula in the passenger seat. “Then why did you jump on him for using his knowledge to predict stock prices? If it had been me, I would have done the same thing.”

Paula gazes out the window at the lovely scenery. The road between San Mateo and Santa Cruz leads us through a rich forest. Yet the beauty of the countryside doesn’t seem to comfort her.

“You’ve all heard the quote in the Bible, “Knock and the door shall be opened.’ As you know, I’ve had experience when it comes to praying to the universe for guidance. And I can tell you that you have to be extremely careful what doors you decide to knock on.”

“Is that why you brought up the issue of intention?” I ask.

“Yes. Like I told him, at first his research was noble. He was trying to demonstrate the hidden potential we all have. But later, when Brutran wanted to use the Array to make money, the intention became self-serving.”

“And that’s bad?” Seymour asks.

Paula hesitates. “It can be.”

Seymour isn’t convinced. “I write novels to make money. Each time I sit to write, I indirectly depend on the universe to inspire me. No offense, Paula, but I’ve never gotten possessed.”

“You create out of your own imagination,” Paula says. “Out of your own soul, if you like. Or, when you worked with Sita to write her story, you spontaneously sought out a writing partner, even if you didn’t know it at the time. But it’s my belief that the Array is designed to tap unnatural powers.”

“What do you mean by unnatural?” Seymour asks.

“There are many doors in this universe,” Paula says.

“You’re saying you have to be careful what higher power you turn to for help?” Shanti asks.

“Exactly,” Paula replies.

“Krishna says the same thing in the Gita,” Shanti says.

“But Krishna is flexible when it comes to who a person worships,” I say. “He said that whatever god a man or woman worships with love, it is the same as worshipping him. I think that line is one of the keys to the Gita. The worship is for the sake of the devotee, not for the sake of the god.”

“I can’t argue with you,” Shanti says. “I mean, you met Krishna, I’ve just read about him.”

She continues to look troubled, and I think I know why.

“You’re wondering why I gave you the evil eye every time you went to talk to Professor Sharp,” I say.

Shanti hesitates. “I assume you knew what you were doing.”

“You worked with Brutran’s Array as little as a month ago. I was afraid he might see you as one of her spies.”

“Is that the only reason?” she asks.

“Yes,” I lie. The truth is, my gut told me to keep her quiet, and I’m not sure why. Shanti continues to look disappointed and I try changing the subject. “Speaking of Krishna, did you happen to bring a copy of Yaksha’s book? I wanted to study it some more.”

Shanti nods. “I have the original in the trunk.”

“The original copy I gave you?”

Shanti hesitates. “I thought I had Yaksha’s copy.”

I smile and squeeze her hand. “I never gave you that one. The Telar have it. But let’s not worry about it now. I’ll look at it after we get to Santa Cruz.”

Seymour isn’t ready to let go of the meeting with Professor Sharp. He glances at me in the mirror. “Sita, you told us you met Brutran twice, and that she was about forty. But everything Sharp told us happened forty years ago. How can that be?”

“The Telar are immortal,” I reply. “How can that be?”

“Are you saying the IIC have tapped into the same secrets as the Telar?” Seymour asks.

“That’s my working theory,” I say. “That’s why I pressed Professor Sharp about what kind of information the group channeled.”

“Which is when he started to clam up,” Seymour mutters.

“That wasn’t a coincidence,” I say. “The two groups have a lot in common. They’re both obsessed with power and control.”

“But Matt made it clear that long ago the Telar lost the secret of their immortality,” Paula says.

“Then how can they still be immortal?” Shanti says.

“They’re immortal and their children are immortal,” Seymour says. “They’re born that way. But they can no longer make other immortals. They continue to benefit from their original secret, they just don’t know what it is.”

“It’s strange how they could have lost it,” Shanti says.

“Is it?” I ask. “Over time, people forget almost everything.”

“Let’s return to Cynthia Brutran’s age,” Seymour says. “She doesn’t look sixty-five like we’d expect, but she has aged. She’s no longer twenty, and I don’t know a woman who would willingly add twenty years to her face.”

“What does that tell you?” I ask.

“That the IIC have figured how to slow aging but not how to stop it.”

“Which tells you they’ve probably only begun to scratch the surface of the Array’s power,” I say.

“Or the Cradle’s,” Seymour adds. “I still wonder why they named it that. It was obvious he didn’t want to tell us.”

“Maybe they use babies somehow,” Shanti says.

I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s it. The way Sharp spoke about the Cradle, it was like it was connected to the Array, but also separate from it.”

“I got the same impression,” Paula says.

“I think we should take a closer look at what Krishna told Yaksha about the Telar,” Seymour says. “Krishna didn’t bring up the fable of the Hydra by chance. It’s got to be related to the Telar’s and the IIC’s arrays.”

“Assuming the Telar used to have one,” Paula says.

“I think that’s a safe assumption to make,” Seymour says. “I can’t be the only one who was reminded of the Hydra story when Sharp was talking. He kept saying that the more people he had to work with—the more heads, in other words—the more accurate his results were. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

Shanti laughs. “Hey, I used to be one of the kids they called up for answers. What are you going to do, chop off my head?”

“It was Krishna’s idea, not mine,” Seymour says cheerfully. Everyone in the car knows how protective he is of Shanti.

“You’re forgetting that in the Hydra fable,” I say, “Hercules couldn’t destroy the monster no matter how many heads he chopped off. It just kept growing new ones.”

Shanti gives Seymour a playful shove and then puts her hands around her neck. “I guess I’m safe for the time being,” she says.

Freddy’s girlfriend, Mary, isn’t surprised when we knock on her door. Apparently Professor Sharp called ahead of time and warned her and Freddy we were coming. Nor does Mary appear to mind our visit. She invites us in and immediately offers us dinner. It is near midnight, an odd time to eat, but that does not seem to bother anyone. With the exception of me, our gang is starving. I just downed two pints of blood, after heating it in a steel thermos with a Sears blowtorch. Like I planned, the ready supply is saving me a lot of grief. I keep the blood out of sight in the trunk, in a cooler packed with ice.

Mary has made a large pan of vegetarian lasagna, which suits Shanti, who’s from India and never eats meat. Mary explains that Freddy is out for a run, but she doesn’t bother waiting for him to return. She starts serving us as soon as we’re settled in the living room. Once again I find the greeting unusual. Mary is exceptionally friendly. But it seems her nature, I don’t feel like she’s trying to put us at ease for any devious reason.

“This is fantastic,” Seymour gushes as he digs into the food. “You should open a restaurant.”

“He means it,” I tell Mary. “Seymour’s from New York and knows all the finest restaurants. He’s hard to please.”

“I’ve already tried that,” Mary says. “A restaurant requires
constant care. It’s worse than a man. I loved the cooking and treating people to a fun night out, but I had no life.” Mary notices how little food I have on my plate. “Teri, is that all you’re eating?”

“I don’t like to stuff myself before I sleep.”

She appears to study me for a moment, and I do likewise. Even though I have yet to meet the man of the house, I know Freddy is a lucky guy. Mary is not only a gracious host, and kindhearted, she is an exotic beauty.