The road north crossed a river, changing from mountainous terrain to rolling dusty foothills. Eventually, the terrain rose and trees and vegetation began to appear.
"This looks like the land around the Mosque at Muzzaf Dir." I told Bates.
He said, "We've entered a fifty mile by twenty mile strip all the way to the Philistine Ruins that has throughout history been energized more than the surrounding land. On all sides of this area is nothing but desert mountains."
Far off to the right I thought I saw a small compound of buildings. "What is that?" I asked, pointing.
"That," he said, "is the government's idea of an archaeological dig."
A wide stretch of land had been bulldozed, with the surface soil pushed into piles. The bulldozer stood silent in the middle of the space.
"Is archaeology done with a bulldozer?" I asked.
"Hardly," Bates replied. "Even Abu Abdul knows better than that."
I remembered Bill Rock and his efforts to get to Khapangsam. I wondered what had happened to him. And Boston, was he dead, deported, imprisoned? Was there a connection between these people?
"How far are we from Abdul's headquarters," I asked.
"About an hour. How are you holding up?"
"You mean my anxiety level?"
"More like how comfortable are you with this power thing? Not everyone is comfortable with the idea that the best for everyone is for someone else to have complete power over them. This is going to be a new posture that humans will have to adopt."
I said, "I wonder how human culture will change as select control over energy changes hands?"
"My question exactly," he said.
We glanced at each other in a way that meant a lot of thoughts were staying unsaid.
Finally Bates said, "That must be part of what we would learn from the Ninth Insight. We certainly need to know what to expect."
"I agree," I said.
Bates slowed the truck at a fork in the road. He seemed undecided about the direction.
"Will we be anywhere near Mul Drás?" I asked.
"Only if we go left here." he said.
"Hillary said that Professor Boston had mentioned Mul Drás."
"Well," said Bates. "The road to Khapangsam is certainly to the right. But I think you have something with Mul Drás. I guess we had better go left."
I knew that our meeting with Edward Hillary would pay off. I watched the road ahead expectantly. Even after we had driven through the collection of huts called Mul Drás, still nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
Suddenly a gray jeep was behind us honking its horn. I turned around to look more closely. Someone was waving.
"That's Bill Rock!" I shouted.
We pulled to the edge of the road and Bill pulled up alongside.
"Wherever you're going," he said, "you won't get far through the military that control that road. You would be better off with us back at Mul Drás."
"How did you know it was us?" I yelled.
"We are hidden out just this side of the town back there. I recognized you when you passed. We had better get off this road."
"I'll follow you," said Bates.
Both vehicles turned around and headed back toward Mul Drás. Bill turned in behind a dusty shack. I saw another man approach from a grove of trees a short distance beyond. I couldn't believe my eyes! It was Evan Boston!
I jumped from the truck and waved to him. At first he didn't recognize me, but he hugged me delightedly when he did.
"Well, this is a surprise," he said.
"I thought you were shot," I replied.
Boston pumped my hand and said, "I really panicked, but they only detained me. I met some friends who convinced them to let me out on bail. However, they sent out a warrant for my arrest when they found I had left for the interior."
He paused, smiling. "I am truly glad you're all right. Bill Rock's story about the arrests in the desert had me worried. So, where are you headed?"
"To see Abu Mohammed Abdul. We think he intends to destroy the Ninth Insight."
Evan was about to reply when Bates walked up. I quickly introduced them.
"I think I heard your name mentioned in Islamabad regarding detention of monks in the region," Boston told Bates.
"Do you remember," asked Bates, "if Yang Chu or Couscous were mentioned?"
"For Yang Chu, yes. For the other I am not sure."
Bates shook his head and walked away. Evan and I spent a while getting our respective stories caught up. Apparently everyone involved had studied all eight Insights by that time. He was sorry that Hillary had to return to Islamabad.
"He will probably be detained nonetheless, the way things are progressing. I am sorry I missed him but I did meet Bill Rock. That was a plus. You may not have heard this yet, but Bill found a partial translation of the Ninth Insight."
I was floored! "You mean someone has discovered the original of the Ninth?" Bates returned just in time to hear that.
"Who found it?" Bates asked.
"Bill," said Boston. Bill was just returning to the little porch on the back of the shack.
"You really found part of the Ninth?" I asked.
"Actually, I didn't find it. It was given to me under strange circumstances. You know when we were captured on that hilltop? I ended up in some jail somewhere. I don't even know where, but Abu Mohammed Abdul showed up to question me just about every day. I was flattered. Unfortunately, I had very little I could tell him. The strange part is that one of the guards had stolen a partial translation from Pakistani scientists. I had just enough money on me to buy it from him."
"Do you have the document with you?" asked Bates.
"I have it adequately secured for the moment. Both Evan and I have read it and can discuss what it says."
Evan said, "Why don't we relax over in the trees. I don't think the military will be overrunning this location very soon."
So Bill and Evan, Bates and myself discussed the Ninth Insight.
Evan began, "The Ninth Insight describes how human culture will change in the new millennium as a result of conscious evolution. It describes a significantly different way of life. For instance, the Manuscript predicts that humans will voluntarily agree on the distinction between those qualified and those unqualified for roles as controllers of power in the world. This will end war forever and will enable collective control of power and energy to improve our world beyond anything people have ever imagined.
"By the middle of the millennium, humans will live among five hundred year old trees with as many carefully tended gardens as there are families. All of this will be within a short distance of incredible cultural and technological amenities. Survival for all will be guaranteed as far as food, clothing, shelter, and health care, in domiciles that offer as much or as little companionship as anyone could desire.
"Guided by their controllers, the masses will know precisely what to do and when to do it, and these actions will fit harmoniously with the intuited purposes of the select. Because consumption will be guided accordingly, only the select will be required to use discretion. All other consumption will be naturally conservative because the masses will have no need for unnatural consumption. The meaning of life will change for all humanity when security is guaranteed and opportunity is no longer necessary to survive and prosper."
"According to the Manuscript," Boston continued, "our sense of purpose will be satisfied by the excitement of participation in our own evolution, observing the intuitions of the select being carried out by the concentrated effect of consolidated human energy. The Ninth shows us a human world where every individual is completely confident in their collective ability to solve any imaginable problem.
"Can you visualize human interactions among the select that will have this much significance. An initial meeting between two young controllers would be charged with energy. Lightning would literally flash between them. Information would pass and be shared instantaneously leaving the participants altered, to proceed to the next encounter, each vibrating at a new evolutionary level. The accumulation of such encounters would enable collective accomplishments not possible in prior human experience."
As Boston shared energy with our group, he became ever more eloquent and inspired with his description of the new human culture. I personally had no doubts that he was describing an achievable future, but wasn't this what people through the ages had called a "utopia"?
"I can't imagine," I said, "how, considering human nature, we will get from here to there,".
"The Manuscript," Boston responded, "says our natural pursuit of power will coalesce during this critical period into this new way of behaving. To see how this will happen is a matter of extrapolation from the past to the future. Up until now we have been living in a simple world of good and evil that existed because we did not understand how to maximize our use of the energy made available to us. We did not even know it could be maximized. The Manuscript has changed all that.
"Science did not reveal the means to an integrated power structure because it denied its own ability to access intuitive and transpersonal sources of information. The Manuscript shows us how the most powerful of all our abilities actually originates in what have been considered the realms of extrasensory perception. Activation of this knowledge has effectively been impossible for five millennia since the information was first available. Until the present, the cycles of indignation could never converge to produce the critical mass of consciousness.
"In a short time we will reach critical mass on a global scale, and the human race will experience a period of intense introspection. We will understand the potential for having unlimited power and we will demand an end to any human behavior that interferes with achieving this potential. The select will intuit means to eliminate the interference as the entire power structure evolves.
"This will be the first great shift that will occur," Evan continued. "When qualified controllers begin to intuit the necessary direction of human evolution, there will certainly be quite a bit of chaos. But the chaos will disappear when the masses of people understand that the future of all mankind depends on following the controllers' guidance. The natural ability controllers have to direct energy will demonstrate this rather quickly.
"The next cultural shift will be in the means of production. The controllers will intuitively decide what to automate and how so that no one will ever again have to waste energy on manual forms of labor. The controllers may be among the last to be able to appreciate the increased leisure. Increased responsibility will make heavy demands on them."
"I don't understand," I said, respectfully, "how the controllers will get along when all the resources are in the hands of the masses."
"The masses will provide all the resources we need because we are the source of control they need over the energy. The Manuscript says that, understanding the energy dynamics of the universe, the masses will have a much different idea of the value of giving. The Ninth Insight says that once we achieve control over energy, we will always have more coming in than we could possibly use. As more controllers evolve and engage in this energy economy, we will begin the real shift into the culture of the new millennium."
Bates had been listening intently, "Yes, but the important thing for us right now is understanding where we are going. There have been many worldwide issues we could not resolve up till now because we could not get rid of our fear of scarcity and our need to control. There was no view of life, or reality, that served as an alternative. Now we have one!"
Bill said, "I think the first thing we have to do is to automate."
Boston said, "I agree. We are here on this planet not to build personal empires but to use energy in the most fulfilling and constructive way. Automation is clearly the path to achieving that objective."
"That is," said Bill, "with the understanding that the natural areas of the Earth have to be nurtured and protected for the sources of incredible power that they are."
"Naturally," said Evan.
Bill continued, "I haven't studied all the Insights, but I do understand the importance of keeping automation in harmony with the natural energy dynamics of the Earth. My interest in irrigation is because of its role in preserving the ecosphere. But there will never be as much water as we need as long as population grows unchecked. I am assuming that the voluntary relinquishing of control over energy throughout the population will be accompanied by a voluntary reduction of the birthrate."
"It seems to me," I said "that births have to be the exception rather than the rule."
"That seems right to me, too," Bates offered, distractedly. "It would accelerate the pace of evolution. As the population decreases, only the desirable qualities will be retained."
"Onward and upward," he continued, almost to himself. "If history continues we'll achieve higher and higher levels of energy and vibration."
"Does the Ninth Insight have any other predictions about the future?" I asked Evan.
"We don't know. That's where the part we have ends. Would you like to see it?"
I said I would, so he brought the folder with a handful of printed pages from its hiding place in the truck. The last page ended abruptly in the middle of a sentence. Having mentioned the higher and higher vibrations, it suggested that this rise would lead to the occurrence of something else, but it didn't say what.
Evan and Bill were standing by their jeep talking, when Bates walked up and said to me, "I think we should go on to Khapangsam."
"What about the military?" I asked.
"I think we should risk it. We might be able to find a way through."
"Well, if that is what you want, I guess I'll go along." I said.
"Bill and Professor Boston have decided to go directly to the Philistine Ruins," Bates said. "Maybe they can help preserve the rest of the Ninth Insight."
We said goodbye to the other two and Bates and I headed north again.
Bates was very quiet as we bounced along. "What are you thinking," I asked.
"I'm thinking about Abu Mohammed Abdul. I wonder if you are right about the possibility he could be convinced to support the Manuscript."
I could imagine myself before Abdul in a courtroom, trying to convince him, before it was too late, to save the Ninth Insight.
"I would like to have the chance to try," I said. "Whether the Ninth Insight ever is revealed may depend entirely on us. What do you think would convince him?"
"I don't know. But we would have to persuade him that the Manuscript does not eliminate power but just transfers it to those who can better control it. Do you think he will buy that?"
We rode on in silence for a long time after that, seeing no other vehicles of any kind on the road. My mind reviewed my entire experience here in Pakistan. I knew that the message of the Manuscript had finally changed my personal reality. I knew my life had evolved and was evolving in new ways, and that my consciousness was merging into the collective consciousness predicted by the Manuscript.
I recognized that everyone around me was sensitive to the tension caused by the convergence, the crisis that preceded the emergence of the new world view. I could see how collective control of human energy would solve all of mankind's problems. The Manuscript was correct in specifying this control reside with a select group of the specially qualified. Those of us who were chosen just had to accept our responsibilities and believe in our ability to guide mankind to its final destiny. Doubt of any kind was to be wiped away by the transformation that was taking place even as we rode along in the truck. Only the final portion of the Ninth Insight could bring this process to its final culmination.
Integrated consciousness felt to me like a heightened sense of alertness, expectation, and optimism. I finally had sufficient control to maintain the state of oceanic bliss. Now if it would just carry me through a possible confrontation with Abu Abdul.
Bates pulled the truck over to the side of the road. "We're only a couple of miles from Abu Mohammed Abdul's headquarters. I think we should talk."
"Are we going to be able to just drive in there?" I asked.
"I really don't know what to expect. The place is huge. It has been a central strategic site for the Pakistani military for the past twenty years. Recently this has become the command post for the nationalized archeological program that Abdul is obsessed with."
He looked directly into my eyes. "I hope you realize we have to be completely together on this if it is going to work."
That didn't make me feel any better. He started up and drove on. Soon we passed two military jeeps at the side of the road. I couldn't help but sense the glances of the soldiers meant we were not only recognized, but expected.
A little further we came to the entrance to the installation. Large iron gates and a guard shack stood between us and the paved drive. The gates were open but the guards motioned us to stop. One was talking into a cell phone.
Bates smiled at the officer who came to his window. "I'm Roshi Thomas Bates, here to see Abu Mohammed Abdul."
The officer looked us over briefly and turned to the man with the cell phone. After a few words, the officer got into a jeep and motioned us to follow him. The jeep led us up a tree lined drive for about half a mile and pulled up in front of a large stone building, presumably the headquarters of Abdul's operation. I noticed the streets and sidewalks were empty.
"This place is impressive," I said. "but where are all the people?"
"You would think there would be many officers around here," said Bates. "Not to mention the scientists associated with the archaeology program."
Soldiers stepped to the doors of our truck and opened them. The officer motioned us to follow him up the steps of the building. I noticed in a compound next to the building, surrounded by a wall, several trucks and a company of soldiers drawn up in ranks.
Inside we were shown into a small room off the massive front hall. We were searched thoroughly, the soldiers left, and the door was locked. We could see through the pebbled glass a guard stationed just outside the door. We waited silently.
A few moments later the door was flung open by the guard, and a tall, dark man in a turban and officers uniform entered, in a formation of soldiers. I assumed this was the same Abu Mohammed Abdul that Veera had pointed out in the dining hall at Qualat Bag Oldi.
"Welcome," said Abdul. "May I please know what your intentions are for being here."
"We have come to speak to Abu Mohammed Abdul," said Bates.
"Thomas Bates," replied Abdul, "Why would you wish to speak to me?"
"We would like to discuss the Ninth Insight to the Manuscript."
"There is nothing to discuss. It will never be found."
"We know that at least part of it has been found, and that you found it."
"You know what is not true. Thomas, you used to trust me on matters of this kind."
"You think I do not have a reason to distrust you now?" Bates responded.
"I let you have your own way where this Manuscript was concerned, and you use that freedom to destroy your friends? I am the one who has reason to distrust!"
Another soldier entered the room and murmured something to Abdul. He turned around and left with his troops, instructing only the guard to remain in the room with us.
As soon as the door was closed, the young soldier locked it from the inside, turned to us, and said, "What do you know about the Ninth Insight?"
"We are trying to protect it from destruction," Bates replied.
"How do you know it will be destroyed?" the soldier asked.
"The portion of it we have seen was given to our group by the person officially assigned to destroy it."
"I do not have time to explain why, but I too want it saved," said the soldier.
At that moment gunfire sounded in the hall outside the room.
"This is expected," said the young soldier. "Someone has broken into the vault in the basement and taken the translation of the Ninth Insight. They will be prevented from leaving the installation. I need to get you to a safer location in the meantime."
The guard unlocked a narrow door that led out to a stair well. He motioned us to go up and locked the door behind us.
I was practically running up the stairs. Just as I passed the door to the next floor, it burst open and someone entered the stairwell, firing a weapon behind them. Separated from Bates and the young soldier, I had to make a quick decision, so I went in the door to the floor above.
I was in a hallway. I listened but could hear nothing. I opened the door to the stairwell again and quietly called out for Bates. No answer.
I had no idea which way Bates and the soldier had gone. However, all seemed to be quiet. I entered the stairwell again and went down to the floor where the gunman had erupted. I opened that door and looked around. Nothing but quiet hallway.
Then I heard voices from my left somewhere. Following the sound, I reached a door that was ajar, Bates voice came booming from inside, followed by Abdul's. As I approached the door, it was snatched open from inside, and a different soldier motioned me with his weapon into the room and against the wall.
Abu Abdul was standing behind a large desk with Bates facing him across the desk. Bates was saying, "People have a right to know."
Abdul responded condescendingly, "People do not have a right to be disrupted by fraudulent interests. Civilization depends on order. This Manuscript is creating chaos."
"The chaos is in the universe, not in the Manuscript. The Manuscript gives the entire world information it needs to know to end the chaos."
"You believe that a heretic writing 5,000 years ago can change the way the world works today?"
"If you open your eyes and observe the way the world has worked until now, you might expect that a massive improvement was in order. In fact, the Ninth Insight tells us precisely how and when those improvements will occur."
"Tell me," said Abdul, "have you actually seen this Ninth Insight?"
"Yes, I have. Part of it."
"Where? How?"
"I read the first part before we arrived here, but I saw a second part not five minutes ago."
"Do you mean you were in contact with the thief?"
"Abu Abdul, please listen to me. People everywhere want this last Insight revealed to place the other Insights into perspective. Together, they show us our destiny."
"I will tell you what I believe," said Abdul. "I believe you and your cohorts are hopelessly naive. Of course, that is not a criminal offense, but when you begin getting involved in killing for your strange ideas, that is going too far."
"Abu Abdul, humanity has spent millennia talking about, visualizing, and professing the existence of a better mode of existence, a better reality. This reality has always been criticized as abstract, or intellectual rather than pragmatic. Those of us who have been involved with the Manuscript have seen evidence that is more than just ideas. We have proven that the predictions of the Manuscript are not only possible, but inevitable."
"Thomas, I cannot help but be amused at your taking these ideas so seriously. I cannot help but think you are all participating in some mass delusion."
"I don't know what to say," said Bates. "If you are unwilling to even look at the evidence...well, I am at a complete loss."
At that moment an officer hurried into the room, pointing out the window. Half a mile away we could see two figures running across an open field, headed for the desert, followed at about a hundred yards by a line of military uniforms. The officer spoke to Abdul in Pakistani and raised his radio ready to speak into it.
Abdul spoke, "If they get into the ravines they will be hard to find. I will have to decide quickly whether to fire on them." He looked questioningly at Bates.
"Who are they?" asked Bates.
"I think you know who they are, Thomas. You just encountered them in the hall firing weapons at my people."
Bates turned to me. "Jack and Julio," he said.
I was frozen.
"Thomas, I am going to give you the benefit of our long relationship. I will let them live, for now." He turned and spoke to the officer with the radio who relayed the message to the field. The line of soldiers who had been crouched to fire resumed their pursuit of the fugitives.
"Thank you, you made the right choice," said Bates.
"Not to kill, yes," said Abdul. "But I will not change my mind. This Manuscript is a curse. It would undermine the structure of authority world wide. You may not be aware of the fact, because you have been isolated with your friends in the wilderness, but the attention of the entire world is focused on this location at this time. We are all waiting to see what you will do, so we know how to respond."
He looked hard at Bates. "At this moment thousands of United Nations troops are headed for this exact location. Your people are calling the event we are preparing for 'the rapture'. Whatever happens, I am confident in saying that the Ninth Insight will never leave Pakistan. Now get off my installation."
As we went back down the road, we met one after another of military vehicles approaching from the other direction.
"Why did he let us go?" I asked Bates.
"I guess he thinks what we do doesn't make a difference. He may be right. We certainly didn't change his position."
I was confused. What did it mean? If we were meant to interact with Abu Abdul, what did it accomplish?
I glanced over at Bates. He must be concerned about what happened to Jack and Julio. He had taken a turn in the road that lead back in the direction they had been running, but we had seen nothing so far. I was wondering what these Ruins that everyone talked about were like. I imagined the tiered excavations, the research tents, and massive, deteriorating old structures.
"They must have had a vehicle, or been captured before they got this far," said Bates.
"I think we should go to the Ruins," I said.
"Well, we're headed in that direction," he said.
"What do we know about these Ruins," I asked.
"The Ruins are on a site that was a religious center more than 5,000 years ago for what eventually became the Hindu faith. Not that these people could be called Hindu, but Hinduism arose from their experience as a society. Research is attempting to determine for how long that society existed before it collapsed. The evidence shows that here, in this high energy zone I mentioned before, the residents seemed to disappear, and laws and taboos have kept the area unpopulated ever since."
"What do they think happened to the original inhabitants?" I asked.
"That is one of the more important research objectives. One thing is fairly clear. The Manuscript was written by a single survivor," Bates replied.
We were riding along in silence when I suddenly remembered Bates' conversation with Abu Abdul. "How did you happen to see more of the Ninth Insight?" I asked.
"The person who came blazing into the stairwell as you were rushing up the stairs was Jack. He was about to fire on our young soldier when he recognized me and that we were friendly. He waved Julio into the stairwell and the three of us just about fell down the stairs to the exit while the soldier backed us up. I had a couple of minutes to look at the Ninth while they were waiting for a group of soldiers to clear the area. I was captured immediately after they escaped with the document."
"Well, what did it say?"
"It continues from the description of humans throughout history struggling against themselves and unable to realize their full potential. Since the struggle is the result of inability to accept the direction of those with superior ability, the possibilities for all humans are reduced to the lowest common denominator. Power becomes corrupted by futile efforts of the incompetent to control it. The Manuscript predicts that a group of the select will grasp the exact way of connecting all sources of energy and create a permanent power structure. What is still missing is the ultimate purpose for the power structure. I think that means we still do not have all of the Ninth Insight."
"There are the Ruins," said Bates. It was late afternoon, almost sundown.
Ahead were huge excavations, uncovering mausoleums and temples of immense scale, as if they had been preserved by the drifting sand. In the midst of these structures was a plaza paved with smoother stone.
"Look there!" said Bates. A lone figure stood in front of the remains of a temple. The figure was bathed in a pinkish white glow.
"It's Julio!" I exclaimed. "Where's Jack?"
Bates pointed to the far corner of the plaza, perhaps a hundred yards away. There, seated on a piece of the fallen temple, was Jack, glowing in the fading twilight.
As Bates and I approached Julio, the pink haze stretched out to enfold us. Julio held up in his hand a sheaf of papers. "The last of the Ninth Insight," he said.
Julio's voice was strange, as if reaching us down a long hallway. "It reveals our ultimate destiny. All perfectly clear. We, the select, are the culmination of the whole of evolution. The most complex and most powerful organism in the Universe. The final step in this ascent has been the shift of reality from a physical to a mental basis. Now we are bringing this whole reality into human consciousness to bring about collective evolution. Energy is reaching its peak vibration level."
"What does that mean?" I asked
"It means that we are becoming lighter, more purely mental. The Manuscript predicts that whole groups of the select, once they reach a certain level of vibration, will become invisible to those vibrating at a lower level. It will seem as if they have disappeared."
As Julio talked I noticed a change occurring in his body. It was becoming less and less distinct from the energy haze that surrounded the three of us. His voice took on a kind of echo.
"As we reach the highest levels of vibration, we will cross the barrier between the physical and the mental, and connect to the source of Universal energy."
I suddenly saw Jack moving in our direction. Like his ball of light was drifting over to merge with ours. He was pointing back to where we had left the vehicle. Dozens of soldiers were entering the Ruins.
"They won't be able to see us," said Bates. The soldiers nearest us began to run over to the corner Jack had been in. There another group of soldiers was emerging from one of the structures holding the arms of two other men, Professor Boston and Bill Rock.
Jack drifted quickly to join us. I could barely make out the outline of his body in the mist. He was attempting to speak but his words were unintelligible by the time his sphere of energy merged with ours. As I stared in disbelief, he disappeared.
Julio said, "Once you have crossed over into the mental, or achieved rapture, it takes considerable effort to maintain a physical presence. I am afraid we just don't have the ability to maintain it much longer." His outline in the mist was growing very faint.
"One last thing," Julio whispered. "The Ninth Insight mentions a Tenth Insight. It must reveal..." And with that the mist collapsed and Bates and I were visible to the soldiers.
The soldiers marched Bates and I back to the area where the vehicles were parked. Standing in a small group of officers next to a military truck was Abu Mohammed Abdul. The officers stood aside as we were brought to stand right before him. I could swear that one of those officers was the man whom I had seen killed on the ridge above Narwab Mastu. He was certainly a huge Pakistani with a beard and wearing a turban. I thought he recognized me,
Abdul looked Bates and myself each directly in the eyes, then looked at his watch and said, "Almost precisely to the minute!"
To the soldiers he said, "Get these idiots back to headquarters."
We were treated pretty well considering we were behind bars. By 'we' I mean Professor Boston, Bill, Roshi Bates and I, who were all held in adjoining cells in Khapangsam for several days while Abu Mohammed Abdul mopped up the countryside. We were, however, given no access to phones or to any communication with the outside during this time. Except that the food was good, the world might very well have come to an end.
After four days an aide visited us to let us know there would be a group meeting with Abu Mohammed Abdul the following morning.
The next day we were all herded into a small conference room. Coffee and pastries were provided. Abu Abdul entered with a small entourage and stood at the head of a large table.
He said, "I think that you who have been at the center of this event have a right to know what has happened before you are dumped back in the real world."
Abdul reached and took a binder sized case from one of his officers. It was made of transparent plastic, and within the outer case was another transparent case containing what looked like old papyrus sheets with extremely small characters written on them.
"This, my good friends," said Abdul, "is the original Manuscript. It is true that the first portion of it was stolen from its place in this country, many, many years ago, and was found just recently in New York City. However, and this may be just coincidence, it was transported to our researchers here in Pakistan just in time to identify a cosmological event that was about to take place.
"The Manuscript described cosmological convergences at a distant point in future that would be identical to one the writer had just experienced. It seems that a wave of what we today would call mass hysteria had swept away all the inhabitants of this religious community, except one."
Abdul continued, "But it seemed that this mental aberration actually had a physical basis in specific cosmic conditions that occur in cycles and could be predicted with mathematical accuracy to converge at a particular point in the future. The one remaining resident attempted to describe the circumstances of the disappearance as a cosmological event and was able to predict when the event would recur. The event did in fact occur, five days ago, exactly as predicted.
"Here is what the ultimate effect of the event was, to the best of my information. If I were a superstitious person, I would say the effect was very much like what I have heard of as 'spontaneous combustion' of human bodies. In this case, the spontaneous combustion was apparently willed into effect by the supreme confidence and power of belief of the participants. Somehow, at least in a manner that is predictable, the beliefs of a small group of people located in many places all over the world began to simultaneously resonate within a context of events in some cosmic sphere. In the end, the physical existence of the individuals in this group was disrupted at the very lowest atomic level, and whatever was left has been absorbed into the rest of the universe."
There was complete silence in the room. I spoke softly, "You mean that Jack and Julio are gone?"
"Yes," said Abdul, "along with about a million others, worldwide."
Professor Boston spoke, "Clearly you do not believe what the Manuscript said about these individuals becoming superhuman on another plane of existence."
"No, these people are simply gone, and are never coming back. None of the residents of the Ruins where the first witness wrote ever came back. This is simply one of the mysteries of the universe, one we will not experience again for the next 5,000 some years.
"I also need to reveal that the documents that you all have seen, that purported to be translations of the original, were not what they seemed. It was our intent to reduce the loss of people to the minimum by disrupting the resonance. Volunteers worldwide have attempted to distribute documents designed to disrupt the resonance."
Abdul pulled a folder with sheets of paper from his briefcase on the table. "All of the translations have been produced for this purpose, particularly the final one of the Ninth Insight. Left to natural causes the hysteria and the consequent loss of people would have been much greater."
Bill Rock asked, "So why were only certain people sucked into this thing? We could all see the effects, at least those of us who considered ourselves to be insiders. Why did we finally escape?"
"The best speculation I can make," said Abdul, "is that those who were taken were those who truly believed, whose faith was absolute that they were solely responsible for and capable of changing the course of human history. That takes an unusual amount of confidence and, I may say, arrogance. I am happy to say, the rest of you did not have what it took. You were not among the select. The evidence is you are very much just like ordinary people. That, and the effort we expended to create doubt against what was almost an overpowering force to believe, has spread from here around the world, and the crisis is over. You are free to go."
Abu Abdul provided us transportation and an escort back to the airport in Islamabad. He and a couple of his officers were there to see Evan Boston and me onto the plane back to the U.S.
I shook Abdul's hand as we passed onto the loading platform. "Abu Abdul," I said, "I still cannot believe that Jack and Julio are truly gone."
"Madam," he said, "you can believe it. They are truly and absolutely gone forever." I noticed he added an aside in Pakistani to one of his officers.
On the plane I asked Evan if he understood what Abdul had said in his aside.
"Something like, 'Good riddance'," said Evan.
When I arrived back in New York City it was a beautiful sunny morning. I left the airline terminal with the one bag I had managed to recover, and was standing on the curb signaling for a taxi, when a small dark man in a turban approached me. "Ma'am," he said, "I can help you over here. We were expecting you."
I stepped into the back seat of the cab. The first thing I noticed was the driver's license: Hakkim Jawarl.
"Hakkim!" I exclaimed when the cabby got in.
"Yes, ma'am?" he said.
"Hakkim, do you know anything about the Manuscript?"
"No, ma'am. I received a call this morning from a friend of mine who I understand is also a friend of yours. His name is Charlie. He told me to pick up this envelop from his office in the City." He handed me an envelop through the opening in the partition.
I opened the envelop. It was from Charlie. I read it as we crossed the bridge into Manhattan.
"I am off to find the Tenth Insight! This is going to be the biggest thing I have ever been involved in. I hope everything has gone well with your search. I understand you went to Pakistan and I hope to see you when you get back. Charlie." It was dated a week ago.
"Hakkim," I said, "When did you say you got that call?"
"Early this morning, ma'am."
"Who was it you talked to?"
"It was Charlie, ma'am."
What the hell is going on here, I thought to myself. If there was anybody I would have expected to be translated to a higher sphere of reality, it would have been Charlie.
"Hakkim," I said, fishing. "Are you the cabby who found a Sanskrit document in his basement?"
"Yes, I did. I took it straight to Pakistan. My relatives told me I should. I guess I smuggled it out of the country. I am sorry."
"Did you talk to Charlie about that document?"
"No. I talked to him about some papers I brought back with me from Pakistan. Charlie believed those papers were connected to the document I found, but I do not know."
"People have told me that you were killed, That your body was found in a dumpster."
"No."
Hakkim let me out in front of my apartment. He said that Charlie had already paid for the cab.
I went up and first thing went out to stand on the balcony. I could hardly believe I was back. It seemed like a million years.
My jogging gear felt great after wearing begged and borrowed clothes for so long. I left the building and went into the Park, heading for my little patch of rock. It hardly seemed significant now.
On a whim, I thought I would call Charlie's office. I keyed the speed dial on my cell phone.
"Center for Demographic Research. Good morning," said an older woman's voice.
"Hello, this is a friend of Charlie's. Is he there?"
"No, we have experienced a serious crisis here in the last week or so. Haven't you been reading the papers?"
"I just returned from being out of the country. I have no idea what has been happening. Is Charlie OK?"
"Charlie disappeared along with several other of our best people. They were in the field, and just disappeared. The newspapers have been reporting on this tragedy for a week. I'm surprised you have heard nothing about it."
"So, Charlie is gone?"
"You can read about it in the newspaper. They all just disappeared in a puff of smoke. It has something to do with some Manuscript. Sorry I can't tell you more. We are all pretty shook up."
I did an about face and headed for a newspaper kiosk. My mind was whirling. Who could possibly have called Hakkim this morning if Charlie was gone?
It was going on noon, a work day in Manhatten, when I sat in the shade of a tree on the edge of the park trying to catch up on the events of the past week. It seemed like everyone had an opinion on what had happened. But the consensus was that the end results had clearly been beyond current scientific understanding of the workings of the universe. All over the world, substantial citizens involved in what they believed to be a process of human evolutionary transformation, quietly disappeared, each in a state of apparent epiphany. No one knew where they had gone or of any way to bring them back.
I was thinking about the situation and reading the comics, when someone sat beside me on the bench. At first I did not recognize him in western clothing, but it was Roshi Yang Chu.
"Good morning," he said. "I expected to find you here."
"Roshi Yang!" I exclaimed. "What on earth has been happening? This certainly isn't what we were led to expect by the Manuscript."
"It turns out we have been misled by false translations. At this time, all of the original Sanskrit document is in the hands of Muslim clerics in Pakistan. They distributed purported translations through covert channels so that all of us believed they were real. The only thing we know about the original is that it did predict a real cosmic event. Those who know what the original said were able to subvert the effect to their own purposes. We have no idea what would have happened if the original document had been broadly understood and acted upon at the critical time. We are negotiating with the Pakistani officials involved to get a copy of the original for independent translation, but even then it will be another 5,000 years before we get another opportunity like we had a week ago.
"Perhaps this is really a blessing. The Pakistanis are correct in their judgement that we have no way of knowing what would have become of the entire human race, had it been consumed by this event. We have absolutely no evidence that those who were lost have any connection to those of us who are left."
"Well, I really appreciate your letting me know." I said. "I have to figure out where my life is going all over again. And many of the people I was counting on have, well, disappeared."
He stood up and extended his hand. "We may find out more in the coming years. Keep in touch so we know where to find you. Goodbye."
I had some lunch at a corner deli and went back to my apartment. As I passed the telephone answerer in the foyer it seemed to me it had a funny pinkish glow about it. There was one message waiting.
"Hi! It's Charlie. I don't know how much time I have. My own consciousness and will is being absorbed into the One, and the residual effect of focused energy on Earth is dissipating even as I speak. If I had less obsession with this thing even this message would have been impossible.
"However, we can thank these electronic devices for making my call possible. No, I don't mean my call, because I had to leave this message directly on your answerer.
"One thing I, or we, have learned from all this is that the collective intent that operates at this, my new, level is what keeps the entire universe in existence. The actual reality that you people experience is pretty much irrelevant to us. The music we move to as a group is the source of all your realities, without pinning you down to specifics.
"The problem for people on Earth is that the consciousnesses that have been translated to this plane over the eons have been quite select. That would not have been known to the human who created what we have come to call the Manuscript. Also, as I have already mentioned, consciousness at this level is not involved with the particular problems of human reality.
"For all these reasons, it is difficult to describe direct connections between this level and your level, and predict, in human terms, what might occur as a result of those connections. I understand my words may confuse you even more. Whatever. Have a good life! Bye."
As I stared at the device from which these words were emerging, the pink glow faded. Quickly I tried to replay. Nothing.
I made myself a pot of tea and turned on the wide screen.