The Unreasoning Mask (29 page)

 

 

"No language is anywhere adequate to describe my ecstasy," Ramstan said.
"There are no words which can communicate to you more than a very slight
fraction of the power and intensity of my feeling. The mystical experience
has always been indescribable. How can I describe how many-colored light
bathed every cell of my body and how every cell throbbed with ecstasy
and how I saw every cell and knew its name? Or how I felt, like a giant
glowing shadow behind me, behind my soul, a being that was only a reflection
of the glorious face of the Ineffable yet would have blinded me if I could
have turned when I felt Its hand on my shoulder and looked upon Its face?

 

 

"I did not wish to turn because I knew that even the shattering light would
not blind me to Its shattering beauty. And Its ugliness. At the same time,
I felt that I might turn and, horrifying thought, see nothing there."

 

 

Ramstan skipped through the journey on al-Buraq's back from Mecca to
Jerusalem, ancient Jerusalem, the holy city of the prophet's time.
He passed briefly over his entering the sacred mosque and meeting the
prophets of God who had come before him. He did mention that he was
greeted by Ibrahim, Musa, and Isa, that is, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.

 

 

Then he rode al-Buraq to the first heaven, a sphere the color of turquoise,
while Gabriel, carrying a standard, preceded him.

 

 

Heaven after heaven, rank upon rank of angels, greatest of the great men,
Adam in the first heaven, John and Jesus in the second, Joseph in the
next highest, Idris in the fourth, Aaron in the next, Moses in the one
above Aaron's, and Abraham in the last and highest of the heavens. Though
he had to be sketchy, he could not stop himself from giving some details
of the White Cock in the first heaven, the angel which looks like a bird
and whose comb touches the bottom of Allah's Throne and whose feet rest
on Earth. Nor could he keep himself from telling some of the terror and
awe he felt on seeing the angel, half snow, half fire, who held in his
left hand a rosary of snow and in his right hand a rosary of fire and
who recited the rosary, telling the one hundred beads, making a sound
like thunder as he moved the beads.

 

 

He also could not help revealing some of the terror he felt in the second
heaven when he encountered the Angel of Death, Azrael, the decider of
lots, who rests one foot on a chair of light and the other on al-Sirat,
the razor-thin bridge between Heaven and Hell.

 

 

"And then I heard the voice of the All-Abiding, and I worshiped Him,"
Ramstan said. "Truly, at that time, I felt that I was indeed Muhammad
and myself, two yet one, and that I was experiencing the glory,
the unutterable ecstasy, that comes from bearing the voice of God
Himself. At the same time, I felt a fear that was so intense that it
was also an ecstasy."

 

 

But beyond the seventh sphere was unending Space, and in it hung seventy
thousand veils of light of many colors. Beyond the veil was
al-Arsh
,
the Throne of God, a seat made of red hyacinth and so huge that the Earth
was a mote of dust beside it.

 

 

There were many things which Ramstan, caught up in a fervor that was still
only a pale shadow of what he had felt in those few minutes in the temple
of the glyfa, would have liked to tell. But he skimmed through them,
even the gardens of paradise, and came to Hell itself, guarded by the
awful Malik, the king of shadows. And when Ramstan tried to describe
the tortures of the damned, his voice broke, and he wept.

 

 

"And then I was back in the house in Mecca for just a second, and my
feeling that I was the prophet faded as the walls of the house did, and
I was standing in the giant anteroom of the temple of the glyfa and was
being told by the high priest to go into the chamber where the glyfa,
the Tolt god, would receive me.

 

 

Benagur's face was even redder, and his eyes were wilder. For a moment,
Ramstan thought of uncovering the commodore's mouth long enough for him
to vent what was troubling him. But he thought he knew what Benagur wished
to say. That was, that Benagur had also had a
Miraj
, a miraculous
ascension, but that his had been somewhat different.

 

 

Shortly after leaving Tolt, Benagur and Ramstan had had a brief conversation.
Benagur had sketched his reactions in the temple. Ramstan had held back
on his. In fact, he had said no more than that he, too, had been flooded
with light and lost consciousness for a while. Benagur had been far
less reticent. He had told of his levitation to the throne of God while
accompanied by the prophet Elijah. His experiences had been confined to
that which a very devout Jew might imagine. (On learning which, Ramstan
had begun to question the validity of his own
Miraj
.) Benagur, like
Ramstan, had not actually seen the face of God, but he had come close.
He too had ventured into, or, rather, over Hell. And he had announced,
somewhat sorrowfully but with a trace of triumph, that he had seen
Ramstan among the damned and witnessed his torture in flames. Though
Benagur said that this sight filled him with sorrow, he could not quite
conceal his satisfaction.

 

 

Ramstan had grinned then. But he did not tell Benagur that he had seen
Benagur's pain-sewn face among the wretches in the seventh and lowest
sphere.

 

 

Ramstan had said that he was surprised. He thought that orthodox Jews
did not believe in a hell.

 

 

Benagur had replied that a literal hell was not in his faith. But, evidently,
he had been mistaken. After all, God did not reveal everything. And it was
only just that Christians and Moslems who believed in such a savage place
should end up there.

 

 

However, Benagur admitted, though he had seen what seemed to be a literal
hell, how did he know that it might not be a figurative one? That the
flames and spikes and hooks were only symbolic of the awful terror and
grief of Hell's inhabitants at being barred forever from the sight of the
face of God and of the warmth of His love? The human mind was incapable of
interpreting some events, especially the numinous and the antinuminous,
and his brain might have twisted terror and grief into flames and spikes
and hooks.

 

 

"I congratulate you on your rationalizing powers," Ramstan had said.
He had laughed and walked away from Benagur, but he had felt like
vomiting. For a while, he had actually believed in the reality of what
he had seen during his own ascension. But Benagur's revelations had
convinced him that both experiences were delusions.

 

 

He had then questioned Nuoli, who had been raised in a liberal Lutheran
sect and then had rejected all religions. She insisted that she remembered
only being overwhelmed by light and then being unconscious for a short while.

 

 

Ramstan now revealed what Benagur had told him.

 

 

"But this was after we had left Tolt. When I came out of my . . . fantasy
. . . I went into the gigantic chamber of the glyfa. We were halted a few
meters from it and told not to speak unless the god permitted us to do so.
The high priest spoke in Urzint for perhaps five minutes.

 

 

"Then my long-dead father's voice spoke. I was shocked, but I quickly saw
that his voice was audible only within my mind. It spoke Arabic. The glyfa
didn't know a word of Arabic then, as I found out later. It was transmitting
Urzint . . . no . . . not transmitting, since it doesn't use telepathy . . .
it was speaking Urzint and beaming it into my unconscious and my speech
centers. My unconscious was using some linguistic area to translate the
Urzint into Arabic, though the Arabic was not perfect at that time.

 

 

"I realized that the glyfa had been able to stimulate certain nerve paths
in my brain. The glyfa can do this through, I believe, electromagnetic
means, and it can read the mind of the speaker when he uses spoken or
subvocalized language which the glyfa knows. Beyond that, it has no
mind-reading powers or extrasensory powers of any kind. Or so it claims.
I still do not know if it is lying."

 

 

Ramstan said that the glyfa had been waiting for a very long time for him.
Not exactly for an Earthman named Ramstan but for someone like him. Ramstan
must return later that night, unobserved by anyone in al-Buraq, and take
the glyfa to ship. The glyfa would overpower the guards and priests by
momentarily making them unable to see Ramstan. Ramstan must be swift,
however, because the glyfa could do this only for a short time and even
that was a tremendous drain on its energy.

 

 

"It said that it could give me immortality in one of two forms. The first
would make me age very very slowly, though I would be subject to death by
accident, homicide, or suicide. The second would preserve me from these,
including suicide, though I could kill myself if I opted to do so.
The glyfa would arrange that.

 

 

"It then told me, still using my father's voice, that it was immortal."

 

 

Ramstan paused and scanned the faces on the screens. Some of them looked
as if their owners thought he was crazy.

 

 

The screen which had been showing the launching port was filled with
the face of a marine lieutenant.

 

 

"The shielding is installed, sir. The launch has been stocked, and
Lieutenant Davis is in the launch. All ready for launching, sir."

 

 

"Do it now."

 

 

He was glad that he did not have to see Branwen's face. It might have
shown the terror and the hopelessness she felt. To be isolated for what
might be a long time and to expect that, at any second, the biological
time bomb in her body would explode. To know that Ramstan might have
to order that she be left behind, and to know that she could then be
drifting in space until her food and water were gone. That would pulp
anyone's spine, jelly the mind, slush the soul. But she might have enough
fire left to show her hatred for him.

 

 

Ramstan cut off the screen with a code word, though he felt like a coward.
He spoke to the personnel again.

 

 

"If what you've heard so far is difficult to believe . . . well! The glyfa
then told me that it had survived the deaths of two universes! Of two
Pluriverses, rather!"

 

 

He stopped to swallow. How could he got them to accept the truth?

 

 

They had not seen and heard what he had, and he was not sure that he
himself credited his senses and his experiences

 

 

"The deaths of God!" he bellowed. "The two deaths of God! The two births
and the two deaths!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 25 ...

 

 

Benagur struggled violently, and his mouth came loose from the grip of
ship's flesh. He cried, "You are a blasphemer and a liar, Ramstan!
I ascended to the throne of God! You had your vision . . . !"

 

 

His words were cut off as al-Buraq clamped down again. Ramstan gave an order,
and the flesh receded.

 

 

Benagur shouted, "You had your vision, but it was induced by that thing,
the glyfa, the agent of Satan, if it is not Satan Himself! Your vision
was false! If not false, then you misinterpreted it, perverted it for
your own purposes! There Is the Living God, and He . . ."

 

 

Ramstan had ordered Benagur silenced again.

 

 

He said, "Yes, there is a living god, though not in the sense Benagur
meant. At least, I think it's a god or it's the closest thing to a god
that sentients will ever know. If indeed they can know Him . . . It."

 

 

The tec-op interrupted him.

 

 

"USO detected at 50,000 kilometers, sir."

 

 

A bulkhead screen dissolved the faces on it and showed him the area
in which the object was detected. It was black except for a single red
star near the center and the tip of a blazing white gas cloud. Shortly
thereafter, another screen showed him the magnified image reflected by
the rasers.

 

 

"The Popacapyu," Ramstan said. "We're going at top velocity now. They
can't catch us before we jump again. It's only 100,000 kilometers to
the edge of the bell."

 

 

The tec-op said, "Sir, they've sent a modulated radio signal, frequency
10 megahertz, 1,000 watts."

 

 

"So. We got her behind the shielding just in time."

 

 

His decision had been hard on Branwen, but it was correct. Ramstan again
addressed the personnel.

 

 

"I did not take the glyfa from the temple because I was tempted by its offer
of immortality. I was intrigued by that, yes. But I did not believe that
it could truly give me everlasting life, nor was I going to steal it
just to determine if its offer was valid.

 

 

"What led me to take it was another statement, a series of statements,
that it made. It said that if I took it, became its partner, I would help
save the world. It could not guarantee that we two could do just that,
but we must try."

 

 

He stopped and licked his dry lips. Even to himself, knowing what he did,
he sounded like a maniac, a deluded Messiah.

 

 

"I know what you're thinking!" he cried. "But don't forget the bolg!
That thing which destroyed Kalafala! The thing that has, if what the
glyfa tells me is true, destroyed the Urzint, many planets! Which has,
according to the Vwoordha, killed most of the life on Tolt! The Popacapyu
crew doesn't know it yet. And it will come to Earth eventually, by following
either us or our tracks, and slaughter all life there as it has slaughtered
it on many planets!"