Last Chants (9 page)

It was dark downstairs despite daylight windows. It was one huge room, apparently as big as the whole ground floor. It contained an eccentric arrangement of monastery couches and coffee tables, the latter strewn with computer parts. One wall was covered with masks, most of them Pacific Northwestern, most of them looking like pictures I'd seen of totem poles. An assortment of drums, African or perhaps Native American, were clustered beneath the masks. Dried herbs hung upside down from ceiling rafters. The room smelled of them and of cedar paneling.

Three large tables in the center of the room were crowded with computer peripherals, most of which I didn't recognize. Some looked like they belonged in biology or chemistry labs. Several steno chairs were clustered nearby.

Toni Nelson followed my gaze. “This is where it's really happening. TechnoShaman. This is where it's coming to life. It's like a child's being born, something completely new with a life of its own, its own reason for being.” She stepped closer, fixing me
with a wet-eyed stare. “It's not like a computer program, it's not a servant. It's going to be a master, a teacher, a portal. It's going to recognize our needs—smell them. It's going to understand our environment by scent in a way that even the finest dogs can't.” She sounded like she was reciting a speech.

No wonder Galen attempted to keep his computer business secret from her. Or was she sharing only common knowledge, the gist of their company brochures?

“Have you ever noticed a sand dune,” she continued, “how it takes its shape from the wind? That's how our perceptions work on us. But the computer won't be limited by that. It's going to look behind it all, go outside of it.”

“In what way?”

“Billy had a term for it. But his terminology was quaint. Maybe that was his strength. He didn't have to create new metaphors as he went along.”

I was surprised to see tears slide down her cheeks. She hurried away, crossing the room. She walked to the drums, tapping each in turn. “Drugs, drums, chanting. Now computers.”

“Is that what TechnoShaman is going to do? Put people into some kind of a trance?”

“No. It's going to go directly to that other place, that nonordinary state, for them.”

That didn't jibe with Arthur's theory that jeopardy was essential, that risk was the vehicle. But I'd certainly prefer to bypass danger and let my computer program obtain enlightenment (or whatever) for me.

“And it's going to use pheromones and scents?”

She nodded, in no way acknowledging the strangeness of it. “Watch,” she said. She crossed to the nearest of the tables, to a computer with a row of hard drives and other devices behind it. She turned it on. “It takes a while to load.”

“How long did you know Billy?”

“I don't believe time is linear.”

Her lunch dates must love that about her. “Did you meet Billy recently? Or your husband met him?”

“Galen makes it a point to be everywhere and meet everybody without noticing a thing about them or giving anything back for what he sucks away.” Beside her, the computer screen lit with
graphics that looked like shadows dancing on a cave wall. “He sucks nutrients out of people's heads and leaves them like Louis.”

“Louis, the man with the mustache?”

“Louis, the corn-husk doll Galen bats around when he runs out of mice.” She bent closer to what must have been a twenty-inch monitor. “Okay, you don't believe me? Watch. No hands.” She raised her hands overhead. “It's been syncopated to my scent. The interface is so small you can't even notice it; but I have to be within three feet of it.” She made sure I was looking. “It can only do two tricks right now. It can do this.” The images on the screen suddenly stopped moving. “It can pause when it recognizes me.”

My “Wow” was sincere. “Can you unpause it?”

She clicked a key. “I have to do it manually. But watch again. Second trick.” She scowled at the screen of shadows dancing on a cave wall. It suddenly went blank. “That's beta-wave technology; it's been around for a while. We've probably done as much experimenting with it as anyone—well, except maybe my first husband, but he went belly up. This is about the most anyone's been able to do without a headset.”

“You mean, you stopped it just by thinking?”

“That's right. Eventually, computers will respond to a whole range of thoughts. You might have to have a technician fine-tune your interface with the machine, but you won't need a mouse or any of that crap once it's done. Right now, a few computers can interpret some brain waves with the right hardware connection to your head. But we've been able to get this computer to do it without any device on the user. It interprets beta waves as a ‘stop' command. It's a beginning.” She hit the keyboard again, bringing back the dancing cave shadows. “I did this piece of artwork. I do them the old-fashioned way—oil pastel, chalk, ink. Galen's people can animate in cyberspace, but they can't seem to come up with the original objects, the things they fly around behind your screen. I do those for them, and they use them as models or scan them in. So you see, I'll be the one who benefits from this.”

I shook my head to convey lack of comprehension.

“Well, they don't have the artwork in their heads, so they'll always
need me for that. But if they make it possible for what's in my head to appear on the computer, I won't need them, will I?”

“I guess not.” In however many decades that might take.

“If I didn't need Galen . . . ” Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. “I'd burn his house down and I'd kill his children. Close-mouthed, lying, selfish . . . playing keep-away, king of the mountain.”

I didn't know if she meant her husband or his children. Either way, she didn't have much regard for their privacy. Or mine, for that matter.

“I'd track them all down, all his children from all his alliances; and I'd kill them, every last one of them.”

Jesus, how many children could the man have? He didn't look a day over thirty-five.

The computer screen went black again. Toni Nelson frowned. “It does that sometimes,” she said. “It misinterprets.”

Misinterprets murderous rage for “stop”? I guessed that could be inconvenient for her.

“Here, you'll like this.” She stepped behind a semicircle of sofas. The wall was lined with cupboards.

She flung open two huge cabinet doors.

I was shocked to see a vast collection of moths, big ones with ferny antennae and little ones both drab and colorful. Most were pinned to white backgrounds, but some fluttered in small cubicles, trapped behind glass.

“For the pheromone research,” she said. “Did you know that one invisible pheromone particle a mile away is enough to draw a moth? That's how sensitive these computers will be.”

“I've heard something about that.” This aspect of Cyberdelics's research was no secret in nerd circles—or local breakfast spots.

“The government's forever trying to seduce us with grants to build computers to lure crop-eating moths.” She stepped closer to the floor-to-ceiling moth zoo. “I wonder what kind of information they're sending to other moths? When you think how little one particle a mile away is, it makes you laugh at fax machines and e-mail.”

“I suppose so.”

“Imagine if your e-mail could find you by scent. All you'd have to do is walk up to a computer, and it would recognize you.
Without you even tapping a key, it would summon your messages like a female moth attracting mates.”

Through the basement's daylight windows, I could see the afternoon begin to fade into evening.

“One more thing. Look at this.” She crossed to another cupboard, yanking it open.

I steeled myself, hoping not to see some cute little animal trapped inside.

What I saw looked like a brown wall with profuse tracings in no particular pattern.

“It's too dark, isn't it?” She reached behind her, throwing a switch that bathed the wall with light, seemingly from within.

“It's an ant farm!” I couldn't believe anyone would build a floor-to-ceiling ant farm ten or fifteen feet long.

“Ant society is completely organized around pheromones. Ants smell what to do and where to go and when to do what. Their life is one hundred percent governed by it. They're a living computer program.”

She pressed her cheek to the glass. “You can feel them in there. You shouldn't be able to, but you can. They're like a circulatory system. They make the wall feel alive.”

I nodded uncertainly. Her face against the ant farm made me itch.

“I'm not sorry I showed you this!” She sounded defensive, as if we'd been arguing about it.

I did my best to smile. I was ready to get the hell out of here.

“I'm just showing off Galen's children.”

I felt a chill of fear, recalling her desire to kill his offspring.

I fell prey to paranoid dread: Did she consider me a substitute? I glanced over my shoulder and up the stairs, wondering if I could outrun her.

“These are his babies.” She sighed. “But we still need daddy.”

A polite expression did not come easily. “Gosh, it's gotten so late.” I started backing up the stairs, saying, “Well, I'd better . . . ”

“Our walk—”

“Another time,” I called down the stairs. “Thanks.”

I dashed out of the house as resolutely as Gretel, all but running back into town.

T
he walk back to Edward's cabin, though fraught with worry that I'd lost my way, was nevertheless spectacular. It had been a wet winter, and every patch of unshaded ground was covered with emerald grass and yellow wildflowers. Fruit trees in rural yards had begun to flower. If indeed Galen Nelson failed to appreciate these visual riches, it was a shame.

It was growing dark by the time I reached the woods, but I could still make out twiggy plants with hot pink blossoms, madrone shoots hung with bell-shaped buds, and profuse ground covers dotted with flowers.

I stepped into Edward's cabin with the last of the twilight glowing behind a tall horizon of ragged treetops.

There were no lights burning in the cabin.

“Arthur?” My voice squeaked with worry. “Are you here?”

I clicked on the bare bulb, casting the shack into stark light. There was no sign of anything having been moved since I'd left. A dishcloth hung over the faucet, cups were upside down on a
towel beside the sink, a broom was propped in the corner, the sleeping bags were rolled up, the table was wiped down. I'd felt a little like Snow White doing chores I often ignored at home. But apparently my prince had yet to come.

I hoped Arthur hadn't lain chanting in that rock all day. He'd be stiff with cold, well on his way to wearing down his resistance to illness. Worse, his assistant had been murdered there. Maybe the motive had nothing to do with Arthur. But if it did, he might be next on the list. He might be a sitting duck.

I sat and worried for a while. Every sound outside seemed huge, too loud for mere night life, certainly Arthur returning. But the wind had come up, rustling leaves and making branches creak. I stood on the porch with the door open, hoping enough light would pour out for me to see into the woods. But it barely illuminated the porch. I went back inside.

I waited another hour or so. I argued with myself. I wasn't Arthur's parent; it was silly to pace and fret as if I were. I had parents of my own to worry about, I didn't need to expand the scope.

Except that Arthur was old and skinny, and who knew what had happened to Billy Seawuit out there in the woods.

Edward had shown me where he kept the lanterns, cheerfully telling me his power failed frequently. I got one out and wasted ten minutes examining it, making sure it had plenty of kerosene, that its wick was in place, that the handle was clean enough for my dainty fingers. Mostly, I hoped Arthur would return and spare me the necessity of going out looking for him.

It was nerve-wracking at first, walking the narrow trail with hardly enough light to see fifteen feet around me. But my eyes got used to the dark. There was a half-moon hanging directly above.

Oddly, I noticed more about the path tonight than I had this morning. The moonlight caught dew on ferns, the tall heads of occasional irises, the gloss of wet leaves. It also disguised steep drop-offs into tangled gullies, forcing me to slow down. Just before reaching the clearing around Bowl Rock, I stopped. I heard piping, thin breathy notes as of some reed instrument.

I got scared, recalling the bedroll I'd seen in the brambles, recalling Arthur's statement that homeless people camped here. I
turned off the lantern. I stood motionless, my heart pounding, contradictory fears taking hold of me: men with guns, with knives, mountain lions, bears, even witchcraft.

The wind stirred tree limbs, making cracking, rustling sounds. I stood stiffly, listening with everything I had, trying to reassure myself the sounds were random and natural, not footsteps.

But there was no explaining away the piping. Someone was playing a sad tune on some kind of bamboo whistle, that's what it sounded like. And barring a trick of the wind, the person was close by.

I moved cautiously toward the clearing. I broke twigs, I nearly stumbled, I almost cried out when I turned my ankle. But the music continued without error or pause. If the piper heard me, he didn't stop to listen more carefully.

When I reached the outer rim of trees, I could see him. He sat atop Bowl Rock, his back to me, his legs apparently dangling into the bowl. The moonlight traced the tangled curls of his hair, glinted on what looked to be hair on his naked back. In fact, from where I stood, I could make out no hint of clothing. Shivering in the evening chill, I watched a naked man play some kind of flute-pipe in the moonlight.

He had wide shoulders, a big head with a mass of untamed hair. He was no one I'd met here, no one I'd seen; that was apparent to me even from the back.