Nirvana Effect (10 page)

Callista kept counting breaths.  She forced herself to stop looking at her watch. 

At six in the morning, the boy’s chest stopped. 

Callista
was shocked.  She
launched out of her swivel chair to the boy.  His blood sugar had bounced to a livable range.  As the night gave way to morning, Callista had been sure of recovery. 

The mother panicked at Callista’s sudden motion.  She gasped and rushed to her son’s side. 

Before Callista could reach him,
The boy took a deep, grasping breath.  His eyes popped open.  He tried to rol
l to his side. 

The woman grabbed her son and hugged
him fiercely.  She kept squeezing
him, crying and yelling aloud.  The boy didn’t say anything, but tried to squeeze her back. 

He looked around the room
.
  He saw
Callista
and pulled back.  The woman glanced from her son to see what he was reacting to, then
muttered to him soothingly
. 

He looked at her dazedly, then back up to Callista.  He smiled a weak, toothy grin.  He hugged his mother again.

Callista couldn’t help but smile.  She was so tired her bones ached, but she still felt the rush. 
That boy is alive.
  The little family was smiling now.  The mother
still hadn’t stopped crying
.  She held her forehead to her son’s forehead. 
This is why I do medicine.
 

After a while, the native woman nodded at Callista. 
They did not share a language, but no words were necessary
.  Callista got a pillow and propped it under the boy’s head, motioning that he should go back to sleep. 

The little boy started snoring quietly.  The woman hugged Callista.  Callista hugged her back.  The woman started crying
once more
.  She cried hysterically.  Callista didn’t let her go from their embrace until she had cried it all out.

Though Callista ha
d never had a child,
she
knew exactly how the mother felt.

Once Edward finally slept, it was difficult for him to pull out of it.  He would return to consciousness for only moments at a time. 
Tomy putting a cup to his mou
th.  A woman feeding him stew.

The Onge “god” was waiting
at his side when Edward finally came to
.

Edward tried to pull himself up.  Mahanta held a steady hand to his chest and didn’t let him.  “Relax,” said Mahanta.  “There’s no need to rush.”

Edward took the advice. 
He felt like he had a bad hangover.
“I feel a lot better,” he said.

“That’s good,” said Mahanta.

“We need to talk,” said Edward.

Mahanta smiled.  “You’ve been out cold for three days
,
and you want to talk.”

Edward
looked
startled.  “Your English…”

Mahanta smiled more widely.  “I’ve been practicing.”

The drug…of course…

Mahanta explained unnecessarily, “I’ve read your books a few times and practiced while you were out.  I thought I’d learn something
from your medical texts that I could use to help you recover.
”

“Yeah?  Did it help?”

Mahanta shrugged.  “It helped my English, at least…”  Now it was Edward’s turn to smile.  “Is the pain gone?” asked Mahanta.

“Pretty much.  I’ve go
t a headache, but I’ve had worse
hangovers.”  Mahanta cocked an eyebrow.  “I wasn’t always a priest, you know.”

Mahanta nodded.  “And I wasn’t always a god…”  The humor was lost on Edward - the incident a few days ago was too fresh and too abhorrent.

“Am I safe now?” asked Edward.

“As safe as I am,” answered Mahanta.  “Our ruse worked wonders on the attitude of the tribe towards the white man.”

“So what is this substance that you gave me?” asked Edward.

“Well, in terms like your medical books, it tears down some sort of subconscious barrier.  It lets you use
your entire
mind, your brain, your nervous system, all of it.”

“And in your terms?” asked Edward.

“In my terms, it allows for the attainment of
infinite mind
,
oneness of mind, body, and soul.”

“What does it come from?  How did you find it?”

“My tribe has been using a particular hallucinogenic plant sap for centuries.  I
learned a bit of chemistry from your white predecessor here.  I distilled the sap.  Blind luck.”

“It’s the discovery of the millenium,” said Edward.  Mahanta was silent.  “What?  What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.  You have many questions and I don’t wish to over-excite you.  But yes, it could change our world.  That’s why I need your help.”

That’s why you let me live,
thought Edward. 
But why?

Edward sat up.  He was surprised how relatively easy it was to do so.  “My help?  Why my help?” he asked.

“You are a Jesuit, aren’t you?” asked Mahanta.

“Yes.  Why, do you think the Catholic
Church
can help you?”

“No, but you can.  You are a Jesuit, so you are well-educated.  And you are well-read besides.  I need a fellow scientist.  I cannot research alone.”

Edward could not help but laugh in disbelief.  “Alone?  We need a team of scientists.  We need to bring this discovery to the scientific community.  This needs to get researched…it will change the face of science…”

“No, Edward,” said Mahanta.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
Edward asked, looking up at Mahanta’s stern face.

Mahanta
shouted an order to man near the entrance of the temple.  He left
.  Edward and Mahanta were alone in the hut.

“Edward Styles, I did not want to discuss this with you yet until you were fully awake with a meal in your stomach, but I
guess now is as good a time as any
.”

Edward just watched him.  He didn’t know what was going to happen.  He glanced at the doorway.  It was a long way off to make a dash for it.

“I am sure you have mulled over the scientific ramifications of this drug.  Probably you realize them far more than I do, since you’ve been in a university and I only have books.  But have you given any attention to the social and political ef
fects this will have on society?
”

“Sure,” said Edward.  “It will revolutionize everything.”

“Edward, think.” 
Mahanta started at him intently
, as though he were again fighting a panther.

“I thought.  What do you mean?”

Mahanta sighed.  “Perhaps you might have a better mind for science, but I apparently have a better knack for survival patterns.  All we do here, every day, is survive.  Survival of the fittest.”

That got Edward thinking.  “You think…” he started.

“Once someone knows about this drug, that knowledge will get to someone else.  That will leak to someone else.  Eventually someone who recognizes its value will expend the necessary effort to
obtain
it.  And that will mean everybody who knew about it is dead.  It’s a simple equation, Edward, one that I’m surprised you haven’t already arrived at.”

Edward was tongue-tied.  He wanted to deny the truth of what Mahanta said.  Deep down, however, he knew. 
This discovery was like a billion dollars in a suitcase.  Who could you trust with it?

Only this is worth trillions.

“Well, what do you propose, then?” asked Edward.

“It is not a matter of my proposal, right now.  I wish to have you on my team, to help me research this drug.  I will trust you with it, within reason.  And you must trust me
, within reason
.  But first, before all of this, you must come to decide that this is what you want.  You have some hard decisions to make, Edward.  You must make them tonight.”

“Like what?”

“You’ve sworn an oath of allegiance to your Jesuit General.  Not even your pope can supersede that. But this project must.  You’ve sworn yourself to a regimen of prayer and meditation.  For that we have no time.  You’ve sworn to abide by a Bible and commandments that may have no place in my jungle world and in our scientific method.  If you agree to start this project with me, not even God himself will be able to get you out of it until it’s done.”

“
Until w
hat is done?” asked Edward.

“
That’s the question you should ask yourself.  You must sort out what you want done
, and whether it’s worth it. 
It’s your choice. 
Good night, Edward.”  Mahanta walked out of the hut.

Edward
lay
back down on his pallet
to think
.

Where is that idiot going?
thought Dook as he watched Tien creep from hut to hut. 

No moon lit the village that night. 
Were Dook not a hunter, he wouldn’t
have
be
en
able to spot Tien at all.

Dook didn’t trust him.  He spied on Tien from the outlying brush.  Surely
Tien was up to no good.  Dook hadn’
t directed him to do anything since the last debacle. 

Idiots are not to be trusted
.

Tien approached the chief’s hut.  Its larger size and little flag demarked it from the rest.

Dook debated with himself. 
Either Tien
is ambitious
and wants to assassinat
e Nockwe as amends for his errors, or else he has turned
and wishes to join my enemy.
 
I’ll break his neck
either way
. 
Maybe
tonight.  Let’s see what he does.

Tien slumped to the bamboo door of the hut, and knocked gently.  Only the chieftain had a door.

If it’s a murder he’s after, Tien makes the worst and most polite murderer I’ve ever seen
, thought Dook.

Tien
glanced furtively behind him
.  Dook resisted the urge to duck.  There was no way he could be seen in the brush, but the movement might
have
give
n
him away. 

Getting no answer, Tien knocked again
, fidgeted
more.  Dook could tell he was getting spooked. 

Tien knocked one more time.  He started to lurk away.  The door opened slowly, and Tien jumped up nearly a
foot as he turned back in surprise
. 

“Tien?” It was the voice of Nockwe.

Maybe
I should kill them both now and frame Tien…But Nockwe is awake, and in his own home…I only have my dagger tonight.  Who knows what traps Nockwe has in wait…

There was the matter of Nockwe’s wife, too, nearly as fearsome an adversary as Nockwe, himself.

Tien nodded in answer to Nockwe. 

“Come in, Tien,” beckoned the chieftain.  Tien entered the hut. 

Dook was shocked.  Tien was low class. 
Dook would
have never let Tien into his own hut.

The door closed behind Tien.  The long lance of light from the hut’s candles folded back into the dwelling.  Dook ran to a perch beneath the window opening of the hut where he could hear their conversation.  Tien spoke in hushed tones, but Nockwe answered him loudly.

“Nockwe, I am he
r
e
to warn you.  Dook…”

“You put your life in danger by your presence here, Tien,” said Nockwe.  He coughed.  Though obviously sick, he still sounded commanding. 

Maybe I was right to wait.

“Still, I am loyal,
”
insisted Tien.  “Dook wishes to kill you.  You and the white man.  By challenge if you grow sicker.  By other means if he must.  But he wants your flag.”

Nockwe wheezed and coughed louder.  He said nothing.

“I will challenge him to protect you,” said Tien.

“He will kill you,” replied Nockwe without hesitation.  “Thank you for your loyalty, but do not waste your life.”

“I can match him,” sai
d Tien.  “He must be matched.  I see now that he doesn’t care about anything but himself
…” 

Justifying your incompetence…
 

“At first we were friends…” 

Until you showed you were just like the rest of them.

“He will not let anyone match him,” interrupted Nockwe.   “That’s the problem.  You will never have an even fight.”