Nirvana Effect (39 page)

“Hear my words, my people!  Today we end a chapter in our history books, and begin anew!  We are the tribe over all tribes, the greatest of nations, and we begin today a challenge that will end with our taking our seats at the right hand of the unseen god as rulers over his earth!  Today, we begin our march towards our eternity - immortality, prosperity, and peace!  In years to come, you will look back at this day as the day we staked our claim to inherit the Earth!  Follow me, my people, to the sea!”

Callista gets an Onge funeral.  They burn her to ashes.  Her messenger walks into the jungle
with her ashes in a sieve and doesn’t come back until the ashes have all
fallen to the earth
.  An hour later the messenger comes back with her head in the sieve.

Her head says, “I love you.”

Edward
lurched awake drenched in sweat
. 
“Oh, God,” he said
.  His head was wrapped under something.  He was having a hard time breathing.  He struggled up for air.  He realized it was just a blanket over his head.  He calmed down and slowly pulled it off.

He was surprised to see that it was dark outside.  It wasn’t just the blanket.
 
He must have been out for hours
.  His body had needed the rest.

Edward noticed that the after-pain had strengthened further
.  It was still nowhere near when he’d been forced to stand before the tribe and proclaim himself healed, but it was far worse than any hangover he’d ever experienced.
 

It’ll
be gone once I trance again.
  It was a weak though
t
, but it was true.  He would be trancing until he found Callista.  He was certain of that.  Even if he dropped dead from the after-pain, he did not care.  He would
do everything within his power to find her.

Consider it an experiment
, he told himself.

Where the hell is Seacrest?
 
Edward’s
faculties returned to him
fully
. 
Yes, h
e had needed to rest
, but he had needed every moment to find her. 

T
he dark sky sent him into a panic.  Calli
sta might be on a boat by now.

Manassa
w
ill
learn
who she
is
once he sees her
. 
He’ll use her to get to me.

I should have told her no.  I should have left her out of this.

Edward clambered out of the car
after Seacrest
.  He almost collided into the doctor.

“Boy,
were you
out
,” said Seacrest.

“Are they still in the inn?” asked Edward.

“Yeah, been in there since noon
.  It’s
eight
, now.  Figured they
’re
staking you out, hoping you
go
there.  We need them to lead us to their little hideaway, so I just took care of some business.”

“What did you do?” Edward rubbed his head.

“I went in there and p
aid the little Chinese man
a hundred bucks to go upstairs and tell those guys he saw the white man they were looking for. 
The white man
poked his head in, I
told him to say
, then spooked and left in a hurry before
China boy
could go tell them.  I think he’ll do it.”

“He already
took
the money?” asked Edward.

“Yeah, but I think he’ll do it.”

“Why?”

Seacrest kept his eyes on the inn. 
“He asked me if you were feeling better and wished you
good health.”  Edward smiled.  “There they are!
” shouted Seacrest.
 
“
They’re running! 
Hurry
!”  Seacrest
ran
to the driver’s seat.  He
glanced at Edward before taking his seat
. 

The
Edward
waved his hand
and hopped into the passenger seat
. 
By all means, take the wheel.
  Seacrest marked time, waiting for the black sedan to drive
past the alley
.  “Oh, God,” he said
after a good minute
.

“What?”

“They must be heading south…” said Seacrest.  Edward’s head slammed back into the headrest a
s
Seacrest floored the acce
lerator.  The car whipped around the corner
.  Edward almost collided with the doctor.  He had to brace himself with the dash and the seat.  A horn sounded.  A car swerved passed them as they picked up speed.  Seacrest used the handbrake to power slide around the corner across from the inn.  Far down the road, Edward saw the sedan turning right. 

“There!” he shouted, pointing.

Seacrest
flew
his Corvette
.  Edward w
ished he’d had Seacrest driving the whole time
. 
The doctor
wove the
car full speed through traffic and
the fickle curves of the
narrow
road
that was
designed for speeds six times less than what he
was pushing
. 

Seacrest yanked the handbrake again
to whip around the next bend
.  Closer, now, they saw the Onge’s vehicle turn left.  Seacrest
reduced his speed as
he
neared them
.
  The Onge were driving pretty slowly.  If he’d ripped around the
corner
he would have surely been spotted. 

The doctor found a slow moving truck to lurk behind
.  Edward kept his eyes on the red tail lights of the sedan.

They followed for fifteen minutes
to the
east
ern edge
of town. 
Finally
the sedan pulled up next to an empty warehouse.  It seemed to have been some sort of industrial facility at
one
time.  The Onge got out and ran under a gate that had opened for them.  The gate closed. 
They have
radio communication, now.  Moving up in the world.

Seacrest slowly pulled his vehicle up to the hideaway.  They both scanned their eyes over the building. 
Windows stretched across the
top of the third story.  A couple
lights
were on.  Edward thought he
saw movement.

“Do you see anybody?  Anything?” asked Seacrest.

While the doctor was looking away at the building, Edward popped a t-pill.  The trance came almost instantly.  “Callista,” he said, his eyes closed.

He saw her not in the present, but in memory. 
He broke down that flash of motion he’d seen as they pulled up, frame by frame for inspection. 
It was her dark brown hair, and the tip of her forehead, almost in silhouette.  The features, to him, however dark, were unmistakable. 
They’re moving her.
  There was something dark on her forehead. 
Maybe blood.

A moment ago, his mind had been a maelstrom of speculation and emotion. 

Now, there was no thought at all. 

“Stay in the car,” said
Edward.  It was not a request.

The tribe had
never moved like this.  A pack of twenty might go out for the first hunt in the spring, as ritual, but nothing like this
.  Not in living history.
  The ground
reverberated
with their footsteps.  They had heard of the militaries of old in their oral histories.  This, Tinti supposed, was what this was like. 

Tinti
held his mother’s hand as they walked.  They were moving faster than he could comfortably
pace
.  His mother kept pulling him along.

“Will we see Sala?” asked the boy.  He hadn’t seen his friend in several weeks.

“We will see everyone that we’re supposed to see,” said his mother.  “It is all in Manassa’s vision.  We are destined for greatness.”

“Where are we going?”

“To our new home.”  She tugged him again.  “Across the sea.”

“We have a home, there?”

“Our god has made everything ready for us.”

“Sala!” the boy cried. 
He saw her at the other end of the clearing.
  There were a couple priests ordering men to pick up potted plants by harnesses.  There were other men grabbing carts full of the plants.  He’d never seen anything like them before. 
A
couple hundred plants
were lined up to be moved
,
much
more than he
could count.  The priests were
organizing getting them carried.  The majority of the tribe just continued
marching
forward.

Sala was watching her mother load a cart.  She ran to
ward
Tinti.  He wrenched his hand from his mother’s and ran to her.  “Tinti!” she shrieked, overjoyed.  She was laughing and jumping up and down.  “That was forever!”

“Yes, it was!” he said back.  He hugged her.  “You’re okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, running her hand through her hair.  He saw her hands were roughened.  Her clothes were covered with dirt and mud. 
She looked worn out.

“Do you want to walk with us?” asked Tinti.

Sala looked over at her mother.  “I need to stay with my mother,” she said.  She looked disappointed.

“It’s okay.  I’ll see you at the water.  There is a big thing we’re supposed to get on…a boat?”

“What’s that?”
asked Tinti.

“I don’t know,” said Sala.  “But it has
benches
.  It is a cart on the ocean.  Maybe you’ll sit near me?” he asked.

“Yes, if my mother
approves
.”  She smiled at him.  He smiled back at her.

“Okay,
”
he said.
  He ran back to his mother, who hadn’t stopped her walki
ng but kept her eyes on the ten-year-
olds.

As
Tinti
ran he looked at the tribe.  He’d never seen such strange looks on their faces.  His mother had called it “hope” and “determination.” 

Some people looked downright scared.

The old looked very tired.

But the young did seem hopeful.  All of the priests were young.  Perhaps he would be a priest
someday
.  He was young.  He’d ask
his mother about it.

Nockwe had his
men
begin torching the place.  The village had been home for his entire living memory.  The tribe never moved.  An Onge
never settled other lands
.  Home was always a thousand
paces
in any direction from the
village center, marked by an ancient rock
.  The food moved, but that was why the
y had
hunting parties.  The tribe never moved.

Change.  Change.  Change. 
His mind chanted in time with his steps.  He
toured his
village.  He would have others burn it.  He would not light a single straw himself.  He could not bring himself to do so.  And he could not get Glis’s face out of his mind.

He walked to where the white man had been staying so many moons ago. 
Nockwe
remembered his threats to the missionary, to try to keep him from witnessing Mahanta’s coming of age.  He wondered if things would have been different if Edward had never left that tent.

He walked to the open area of the village, where Dook had almost slain him.  He remembered the white man’s courage. 
The duel would have been
the end of
Nockwe’s life
.
Nockwe
knew now the white man had fought with the lightness, but he had risked his life for Nockwe still the same.
  The magic didn’t diminish what he did.

Or perhaps he’d fought with more than the lightness…there are whispers that he moves and fights as our god. 
Maybe it’s the same for
him as
it is for
Mahant--
.  He corrected himself mentally. 
Manassa. 
Maybe
the lightness does something different to him.