Seven Point Eight (49 page)

“I’ve been waiting for you,” it said, although no lips moved. “I knew you would come.”

If I’d experienced this meeting in my physical body, I’d be shaking.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You’ll know everything that is required in good time.”

Not a good question. I tried another.

“You said you knew I would come. Does this mean you know me?”

The being seemed to peer at me and loomed closer, with those frightening eyes.

“I know everything about you, that’s why I brought you here. There’s a reason you were chosen.”

Now I became scared.

“Chose me for what?”

Did I really want to know?

“For everything,” the being responded.

“I don’t understand.”

“Your life comes with a price. The possession of extraordinary gifts creates an imbalance that has to be addressed. In return, there is something you need to do.”

I began to regret pushing forward so fast with the project.

“What will I have to do?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

“When is that time?”

“Not yet,” said the being, which didn’t reassure me. “I’ll draw you here when that time arrives, just like I did here, to formally meet you for the first time.”

“You set this meeting up?”

“Of course, it will take a long time to find this realm on your own.”

“Where am I?” I said, realising I’d found some significant place.

“A long way from home.”

At that point, I saw the scene dissolve and realised the field was powering down. What a relief. I became aware of my presence inside the machine again and before too long, I saw Paul’s face as soon as the hatch popped open. He looked concerned, especially when he realised how shaken I must have looked. I was trembling, indeed. Leaping from my seat, I hugged him tightly and Paul returned the embrace, I needed it.

He tried to enquire about what I’d experienced, but for the rest of the day, I thought of nothing but the task I’d be requested to do.

19

Personal Experiences

She didn’t want to share her experience, and Paul realised that the first major journey in the machine threatened to be the last. He needed to enter a record in the OOBE diary and put something on film for posterity, to demonstrate their progress, but he also remained aware of Tahra’s wellbeing, which doubled the frustration. In the end, he decided to push the situation.

“We can’t advance any further until you open up to me about what happened,” he began.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said, sincere in her apology. “I can’t explain why it’s affected me so.”

He switched on the cine camera set up on a tripod, and attempted to coax the information from her. They began with a description of the world she’d visited, then Paul proceeded to discuss the more personal aspects of the experience.

“Did you feel threatened in any way? You know I don’t want any harm to come to you,” he reassured her.

“Not really, but the experience touched me in a way I can’t describe.”

“It’s good that you felt moved,” Paul countered, “isn’t that what we’re striving for?”

After a moment of silence, she was more forthcoming.

“I encountered a strange being, made of energy but it could choose form if it wanted to. There were more of them hiding in the background too, I understood they were important beings, and they knew I was important too. The being I communicated with told me I’d been chosen, and that I’d be asked to carry something out.”

Paul sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. It all seemed so unexpected. Should he be taken aback because she’d interacted with a strange being, or because it’d asked a favour?

“What does it want you to do?” he pressed, opting for curiosity.

“I don’t know, but the being promised that the time will come. What if I return there and it asks something of me that’s evil, or beyond my strength and capabilities?”

Paul shrugged, almost helpless.

“Do you think this being is evil?” he asked her.

Tahra thought hard about it.

“It was difficult to tell. The being had the most penetrating eyes, I felt like its eyes were burning right through me, but I can’t be sure of its intentions.”

“Well,” Paul continued, fascinated, “what did it look like?”

“Sort of…like an…angel,” she said, aware of how incredulous it sounded. Paul raised his eyebrows. “But not how they look in your bible,” she stated, emphatically. “I know it wasn’t human, it was more like a sea of energy, glistening, dancing… I felt like I could never hide anything from it. The scary thing was that it knew who I was, well, so it said anyway.”

Paul realised the experience had been a profound one and she needed some time to come to terms with it. And why wouldn’t it?

“There are clearly far more powerful entities out there than us,” he concluded, “but do you really want to lose the opportunity to find out what comes next?”

“No,” Tahra conceded, “but I’m afraid.”

Paul had to be the decisive one.

“Well, we’ll be afraid together. We take the next trip as a team. It’s got to work for non-psychics one day, so it may as well be now.”

Tahra wasn’t sure what to think. “But who will operate the machine and watch over us?”

“I’ll programme it to run the sequence automatically for a set duration,” he explained. “I can’t expect you to do something I wouldn’t do myself.”

He said it with courage and conviction, although inside he felt as nervous as she did.

***

On June the 3
^rd
1966, I prepared to follow in Tahra’s footsteps and follow up my promise of that joint machine trip. Over breakfast, I reflected with amusement upon the progress made so far by the Americans and Soviets in the Space Race. It was a good outlet for Cold War rivalries, as it didn’t involve firing anything at each other, only up into orbit. Mariner 4 had completed a fly by of Mars the previous year, and I’d managed to find an article which included a selection of the pictures sent back, the images of which correlated well with what Tahra had seen.

Currently, the
US
was attempting orbital docking and just yesterday, Surveyor 1 had touched down in the Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon. However, astronauts were nowhere near it. The first space walks were still a novel experience. I found it amusing, the rigours astronauts were subjected to during training. Tahra never had to endure freefall in a plane known as the ‘Vomit Comet’, or been spun around to simulate g-forces. The stress on the human body in our journeys proved to be significantly less than that in the space programme. I considered it a shame that our experiments would still be regarded as subjective, and the findings wouldn’t be accepted scientifically until stringently proven.

I entered the machine with Tahra, after having programmed the system to run on automatic for twenty minutes. The EEGs and ECGs would still monitor us as normal, and I’d check the paper display later. I’d set the field for sixty-five percent, our standard by now, and after testing the automatic system, I felt satisfied it would power down when required.

Everything seemed to be in order, although there was always an element of risk involved. I’d installed an additional fail safe, triggered by maximal heart rate sustained for more than two minutes, indicating physiological and psychological distress. Therefore, I felt confident in my equipment, although a little less sure of my nerve in this experiment.

I placed electrodes on our temples and our chest, then we made ourselves comfortable and held hands, it was unclear who was reassuring who. Once the hatch had been closed, I became aware of the silence in the machine.

“Well, here we go,” I said, “we’ll soon see if non-psychics can make the journey too.”

Tahra smiled graciously, my act of support greatly appreciated. Most men would have remained an outsider I know, but my actions would ensure we could share the experience. It was the least I could do for her, although it didn’t make her any less nervous and she squeezed my hand tightly.

I became aware of the hum within the machine as the frequencies, or series of signals overlaid upon each other, ran through their sequence. My body responded by becoming more relaxed and I felt somewhat lucid, albeit slightly detached from my body. As the frequencies became inaudible, I sensed much stronger sensations coursing through my body, quite powerful vibrations. They buzzed up and down my body, creating a progressive muscular paralysis. I couldn’t move, it was like incredibly intense pins and needles. I can’t say it was a pleasant experience, but I stayed with it and soon became aware I could move again. As an act of relief, I put my hand to my forehead but discovered I couldn’t feel my head when I touched it. It occurred to me that maybe I’d just moved the electromagnetic field version of my hand, for want of a better explanation.

At that point, the machine shell began to vibrate heavily and I realised the magnetic field was powering up and rotating around our heads, pulsing at the key frequency of 7.8 hertz. In a matter of seconds, something ripped me from my body and I felt my mind hurled into nothingness, sucked through a point of light. I didn’t see the grid Tahra had spoken of, but it all happened so quickly, I probably didn’t notice.

 
I found myself adrift inside the machine, unable to do anything but float above my body. It was the strangest thing looking down upon oneself, still and placid like a limpid pool of water, motionless as a rabbit caught in the glare of a car’s headlights. I felt a sensation of being scooped up, as if my consciousness were being cradled like a baby. Something guided me out of the machine, and our world disappeared in a blur, to be replaced by another which came into focus like someone fine tuning a camera lens.

Colours entered the spotlight, very vivid colours which were unlike anything on Earth, it’s hard to describe their brilliance. It almost looked like a painting coming into view, with luminous watercolours depicting a forest of evergreen splendour. Pearl-like streams wove through it and in the distance, serpentine tendrils and vines extended far up into the atmosphere.
 
Instead of terminating at a point high in the sky, they curved inward and embraced, creating a warped perspective like a fish eye lens on a camera.

Looking closely at the foliage, I soon realised that the trees merely gave the impression of a forest and, in fact, the trunks were actually shafts of energy. Tendrils, consisting of bead-like cells, glistened and slithered up and down the central shafts. Not all trees were the same. Some consisted of a single tendril or vine, whereas others were double stranded, some had triple strands and some even had seven tendrils.

The ground beneath my feet didn’t appear still. It seemed to be some kind of miniature labyrinth, full of mazes and spirals, through which tiny serpents slithered. I couldn’t stare at this dizzy spectacle for too long.

The scene actually reminded me of my experiences with LSD several years ago, in respect of the vibrant colours that faced me. However, this wasn’t a mere hallucination, the images weren’t planted into my brain or field of vision,
I’d been transplanted into the vision
.