Gods Without Men

1958

Joanie had to shield her eyes against the glare. She’d scrambled up the cliff to get a better view of the site and boy, was it hot work! Her sundress was clinging unpleasantly to her figure and she could feel little droplets of sweat running down under the band of her straw bonnet. She didn’t care. The place looked so magnificent! The gleam of cars and trucks and trailers, parked all higgledy-piggledy on the desert floor among the mesquite and creosote bushes, the people swarming past the tents and stalls — what a hive of activity! What a carnival!

It occurred to her that it was a couple of hours since she last saw Judy. Poor kid. It had been a long drive, and she’d been an angel the whole way. No whining, no are-we-there-yet, even when Mom got them both lost outside Pomona and had to ask directions from a farmer. A real little grown-up, her daughter. A fine young lady. So what time was it now? Quarter of five. Long shadows and late-afternoon light. There had to be several thousand folks down there. Hard to put an exact figure on it. Six or seven, surely. Ten? All the motels for miles around were full, or so she’d heard, but she’d never even considered sleeping indoors. Why would you when you could camp out under the desert stars? Such a treat! Last night Judy had been so sweetly excited as they were putting up the tent. Manny Vargas lit a fire, and a whole crowd of the Cohort people had toasted marshmallows and sung songs. Later, as they lay snuggled up in their sleeping bags, Judy had tried to point out constellations to her, and she realized she couldn’t name so many herself. Yet another thing to add to the personal-improvement list. The Guide always said humans needed to have a better relationship with the higher planes — a more intimate relationship. So star names it would have to be. And memorizing the rest of the Blessings and writing up her Experience and finishing her poem to the Ascended Masters and — oh, so many things!

After lunch Judy had run off with some of the other kids — a little tribe of them — to explore the various wonders of the convention. Joanie wasn’t worried. They were good people, the saucer crowd, and the kid knew where the tent was. It was hard to tell, but as she looked down, she thought she could detect a shift in the patterns of movement, a general flow toward the main stage. The Command had caused it to be built in front of the Pinnacle Rocks, specifying through the Guide that it should be decorated with white streamers and reflective disks. The disks were on strings, hanging from the pyramid frame, and they channeled energy to the various speakers, plus they spun round and caught the sun in a really neat way. There was still half an hour to go before the Guide was scheduled to give his address, but Joanie guessed it was time to go down and get herself gussied up. After all, she was of the Cohort and would stand behind him as he spoke, dressed in her green sash and tunic. She’d need to freshen up after her climb. She took the lens cap off her Kodak, clicked a couple of pictures (which she was sure wouldn’t come out) and started downhill.

What a day! There was almost too much to take in at once: people selling things, promoting their theories, telling one another about their encounters, all in such an atmosphere of trust and goodwill as — well, it was humbling, you could say that for openers. She wished she could record the scene to show the skeptics back home. This was what real brotherhood looked like, not the phony kind the authorities tried to foist on you. Golly, it made her mad to think of the dirty tricks they used. The public had a right to know what was really going on, and their government, their own government, was preventing them from learning some of the most important truths you could imagine. At least out here she could be herself. There was no one like that awful Bob Rasmussen from the office. Always hanging around the typing pool. Here no one was going to mock her or belittle her research. There were secrets that were going to blow everyone’s socks right off when they finally came out. People out here in the desert knew something big was going on.

She wandered down the double line of stalls, marveling at how many vendors were patiently sitting under sunshades, waiting for customers to come and browse their displays of books and pamphlets and magazines. More organized folks had folding tables. Others had just opened up the trunks of their cars or laid things out on the flatbeds of pickups. One woman was selling statues of an entity she’d encountered in her backyard in Wisconsin, a little pointy-headed guy with slanting black eyes. LIFE-SIZE, said the sign on the truck. Well, that would make him about a foot tall, which somehow didn’t seem very likely to Joanie. She was as open-minded as the next person, but in her experience there was nothing small-scale about our alien visitors. Contact was the grandest, most awe-inspiring event in human history. It wasn’t something to get all cutesy about. Still, it was a free country, and maybe this woman saw what she said she saw. Joanie would be the last person to deny someone’s right to explore her own personal truth.

An old couple in homemade clothes were offering free vegetarian food to passersby. The man had straw sandals. Joanie ate a little muffin-type thing, which was apparently made out of beans. As she chewed her snack, she stopped to look at a stall selling books on all manner of tantalizing subjects — number vibration, psychic healing, mineral therapy, astrophysics, mental calisthenics, yoga, the dimensions of Solomon’s Temple, telepathic communication.… Apparently there had been not one but sixteen crucified saviors since the dawn of time, and most of the Bible was copied from ancient Irish druids. The stall’s owner was rhapsodizing to a small crowd about the importance of the Pinnacle Convention. Such powerful energies! He felt as if he’d been transported to another dimension. There was an angel on his shoulder, a being of light and love.

Joanie gave him a big smile. Good for that man! She wasn’t so interested in all the biblical stuff, and at the end of the day some of those other things just boiled down to numbers, which she found hard to care about, not being mathematically minded herself. In some ways, the book guy seemed kind of muddled, but when it came to love, she was right there with him. The convention was a loving place, put together by people who wanted to heal the dreadful wounds in the world. She’d come a long way to be part of it, and so far she hadn’t been disappointed. It had taken three full days of driving to make it down from Olympia, Washington, staying mindful all the way so her rattly old Buick wouldn’t overheat or get a flat or start leaking oil. She was on a tight budget and greedy mechanics had a way of knowing when a person was desperate, not to mention her being a woman alone. Luckily the car held up, and she managed to find motels that were cheap but not too sleazy, though the one outside Fresno had some rowdy party going on at the end of the block and poor Judy hadn’t gotten much sleep that night.

A little group of Buddhist monks walked past, chanting and banging drums. Most of them were actual Orientals, but a couple were white men, taller than the rest, looking a little self-conscious, she thought, in their orange robes. She hadn’t known you could become a Buddhist monk unless you were brought up to it. Didn’t they choose them as children, just turning up to the parents’ house to take them away? So cruel. On the other hand, she supposed it was probably considered a great blessing by the natives. Halfway along the line of stalls she found Bill Burgess, surrounded as usual by customers browsing his wares and asking him sycophantic questions. Bill was a big cheese in contactee circles. The Guide had invited him to speak from the stage. He’d been on early that morning, which probably wasn’t the best slot, but it was still an honor and Joanie had found him very compelling. His Experience was taken seriously in the movement; there had even been a drawing of it on the cover of Saucerian magazine. Late one night he’d been driving along the New Jersey Turnpike when he’d spotted a fuzzy oval-shaped light. He followed it, and eventually it veered off into the distance, but not before it released two pods, which landed in a nearby field. When Bill got out of his car, he’d suddenly felt light-headed, and his skin became hot and tingly, as if he’d stepped into some kind of radiation field. Voices spoke to him from the landing craft and subsequent correspondence with the Guide confirmed that the visitors were indeed Space Brothers, representatives of the High Command, though from a different sector than the ones who’d visited the Guide when he first started channeling from the Pinnacles.

Bill waved to her and she shouldered her way through the throng of admirers to ask if he’d seen Judy. He said she was with the other kids, playing over by the Mux tower. Relieved, she thanked him and headed back to the tent to change, not without a little tinge of jealousy at all the attention he was getting. Her own Experience wasn’t as dramatic as his, of course. It was more a feeling than an embodied encounter, a beautiful feeling that had descended on her one time when she was out walking in the forest near her home. It was a winter evening and there’d been heavy snow and everything was perfectly still. Suddenly she’d been cloaked in it, enveloped, that was the only word, in the glorious sense that she wasn’t alone in the Universe, that benevolent beings were keeping watch over her and guiding her path. She’d stood still for what might only have been minutes but could easily have been hours. Then she’d made her way home and sat in front of the fire, so overcome she was completely unable to make head or tail of things, until Jake came back from whatever bar he’d been propping up, asking about dinner and wondering aloud how come she still had her boots on and was dripping all over the rug.

It was in a diner, of all places, that she found a clue. Someone had left a dog-eared magazine on the counter and she picked it up and read an article about the Guide and the Space Brothers and the Ashtar Galactic Command. Instinctively, she knew that was the type of consciousness she’d encountered. It seemed like a sign. She wrote off for a subscription to the Guide’s newsletter, and soon enough all the hours she wasn’t typing up invoices in that infernal lumberyard office she was using to find out about the hidden secrets of the Universe. Of course Jake wasn’t happy, but he didn’t have any claim on the moral high ground.

Back at the tent there was no sign of Judy, though her things had been rummaged through, which meant she’d obviously been back. Joanie drank a glass of water and had a little sit-down. When she’d caught her breath, she wet a washcloth and gave herself a quick once-over, face and neck, underarms, between the legs. She changed her underwear and wriggled into her tunic. It was the first time she’d worn her Cohort outfit, and stepping out in it made her self-conscious. It was kind of short. Though she knew she had passable legs, she wasn’t twenty-one anymore, and even in her high-school days she’d never been the sort who liked showing herself off. She shouldn’t have worried; as she made her way to the stage, people smiled and nodded; one or two men even cast admiring looks in her direction. She patted her hair and straightened her spine. Well, when you came to think of it, she was someone special. She’d become a member of the Cohort when it was still known, slightly tongue in cheek, as the Welcoming Committee. You had to send money through the mail and you got back a certificate and a button and a little purple book of rules. Judy was small then, and Jake was still at home. The fights were getting worse, and Joanie was trying to hold the family together, so she missed the first few conventions, despite wanting to go more than anything she could remember since she was a little girl. Finally she’d made it down to San Francisco to hear the Guide speak to a crowded hall about the Mux and the latest messages from the Command. It was the first time she was ever with him in the flesh, and she’d never been near a man with such a strong presence. Afterward she’d chatted to Clark Davis, the First Follower, and he’d invited her to eat dinner with the inner circle, shamelessly squeezing her thigh while the Guide cracked lobster tails and described an electrical computer that Ashtar wanted to incorporate into the Mux. She could barely follow the discussion, but just the same felt so darn happy it lasted her all the way back up to Olympia, kept her going for weeks. Ever since then, she’d considered her life one long preparation for the day the Command considered humanity ready to take up the burdens of full galactic consciousness, the beginning of the post-contact era.

On her way to the stage she passed by the Mux tower and looked around for Judy. A bunch of the other kids were there, including Artie and Karen’s two girls and a little redheaded tyke who surely belonged to Wanda Gilman. They were playing in the capsule, which had been removed from the main structure and opened so people could get a look inside. The kids were lying in the cavity, their little arms and legs not filling out the shape, which of course was made for an adult man. She asked if they’d seen Judy, and they looked solemn.

“She went off with the glow boy,” said a little girl.

“What’s that, honey?”

“She was here and then she went off to play with that boy.”

“I don’t understand. What boy?”

“The glow boy. The little boy from space.”

There was no time to find out what the girl meant. At that moment Manny Vargas came up and hustled her away. The Guide was about to speak; it was time to join the formation. Vargas looked rather wonderful in his sash and tunic. Grecian. Everyone was ready at the foot of the stage, milling around and smoking, all looking thrillingly space-age and exotic.

The Guide appeared from the control-room chamber under the Pinnacle Rocks, making his way up the steps with his wife, Oriana, at his side. He was as impressive as ever, his gray hair swept back from his strong forehead, two muscular forearms emerging from the folds of his silver robe. He looked every inch the Dr. Schmidt of saucer legend, the ex — test pilot and research scientist with the Heidelberg and Oxford degrees. Oriana looked as pale as usual, which was amazing considering she lived out here under the desert sun. Her long hair was held back by a metal band with a jewel set into it, a tiara that made her look like an ancient priestess. She sure was mysterious! She’d conjoined with the Guide ten years previously; according to the stories, she’d just walked out of the desert and announced that she was fated to be his companion. She was supposed to be an expert in languages, and to know several of the desert Indian dialects, as well as Sanskrit and Mayan. Her face was oddly flat, and she had a spooky way of looking about, as if seeing something quite different from what was actually in front of her. She spoke smooth, almost robotic English, with just the hint of an accent. It was obvious that Oriana was extraterrestrial, or at least had some extraterrestrial blood, though Joanie had heard one or two people say cattily that she was just French Canadian.

The sun was low, a great orange smudge on the horizon. At the sides of the stage, members of the Cohort lit flaming torches and fixed them into brackets. Joanie took up her position in the front rank, her arms folded and her feet slightly apart. The power stance, the Guide called it. Rooted to the Earth, ready to make contact with the sky. As the crowd surged forward she tried to stop herself from grinning, to adopt the stern expression of someone who understood the epochal changes about to take place on Earth, who was prepared to play a part in the tumult that would inevitably follow the first moment of mass contact. It was so difficult! She was too excited. The desert floor had turned a soft peach color, with hints of cool watery blue, as if the sand were turning to sea before her eyes. She wondered whether the fluttery feeling in her chest heralded another visitation. Could it be that the Command would choose this moment to make themselves known to their terrestrial helpers? Oh, that would be too wonderful!

Just then the Guide and his consort took the stage. As they mounted the steps, they waved, receiving a rapturous cheer in return. Approaching the microphone, the Guide tapped a couple of times with his finger to check that it was working, then began to speak. At the sound of his voice everyone and (so it seemed to Joanie) everything became silent, as if a giant bell jar had descended, shutting their gathering off from the normal noise of the world.

“Brothers and sisters,” said the Guide. “Brothers, sisters, dearest friends — I bid you welcome. As you know, the human mind is the most powerful force in the Universe, and yet we use not a hundredth, not even one hundred thousandth, of that power. I come before you this evening to talk of many things, but firstly of a number that is key to unlocking the potentials of this wonderful force. This is the sacred number four hundred and eighty-six. The latitude of the Pinnacle Rocks, where we’re gathered, is precisely 2057.6215 minutes of arc north. The reciprocal of this value is 0.000486. The original height of the Great Pyramid was precisely four hundred and eighty-six feet. This means that the latitude of this powerful place is the precise harmonic reciprocal of the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, an ancient communications device of unsurpassed importance in connecting humankind with the directors of the spiritual program for our planet. The number four hundred and eighty-six also plays a central role in the harmonics of space and time, connected as it is with the universal interdimensional constant aum. Four hundred and eighty-six is a key that will unlock the gateway to dimensions. It indicates the cycle of challenge and transformation on which we are about to embark. Remember this number. Hold it in your minds as you listen to what I am about to say.”

Joanie knew the rocks were located in a special place. Many of the Cohort talked about the lines of power that intersected at this location, and not a few of them had dowsed along those force lines, but this was the first she’d heard of a relationship to the pyramids of Egypt. She tried to fix the figure in her head, muttering it a few times under her breath to help. The Guide asked the crowd to join with Oriana in chanting the hymn of welcome. She stepped up to the microphone, opened her arms wide and began to speak.

“O Great Ones! O Brothers of Light! We pour out our libations of love upon you!”

After each line she paused, and the crowd repeated her words. The effect was electric, and Joanie became increasingly sure that something extraordinary was about to happen.

“We pour out our libations, knowing that every drop—”

We pour out our libations, knowing that every drop—

“Brings a blessing on the one to whom it is sent, and to the sender!”

Brings a blessing on the one to whom it is sent, and to the sender!

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!”

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

By the time she’d finished, the desert had changed from peach to lilac and the sun was shivering over the horizon, about to vanish. The Guide took the microphone again, and started to tell the story of his Experience.

“I am here with you today,” he said, “because of something that happened to me in this very place. Eleven years ago, I was alone and friendless. I’d come out to the desert in search of an answer, a truth I knew I must find or perish in the attempt. One night, as I lay beneath the stars, contemplating my insignificance before the infinitude of space-time, I received a visitation. The craft was of a type that I know will be familiar to some of you, a silent carrier like a huge topaz flying through the starry night. It landed before me, its descent so perfect and soundless that as it touched the ground I could still hear nature — the insects, the wind, the distant howl of a coyote, a beast as lonely as I. My body felt charged with spiritual electricity, a feeling of excitement such as I had never known. Before my eyes, the hull, whose surface had appeared as a perfect flawless sphere, opened up to reveal a ramp. On that ramp stood two figures, human, or so they appeared to me, people of such noble aspect and bearing that I felt I was in the presence of demigods. They were of a pure Aryan type, pale-skinned and gray-eyed, dressed in simple white robes, like our fathers of old.

“ ‘What do you want of me?’ I asked. They told me not to be afraid, and bade me accompany them into their ship. They spoke not in the crude voices that you and I use to communicate but in a speech of the mind, a mental telepathy. Language took shape in my brain, clothed in what I understood as voices, beautiful, clear and mellow. When I stepped aboard, I entered a realm of wonder. The inside was curved and bathed in a soft warm glow, a comforting and womb-like space. I realized I was very thirsty. As if in response to my craving, a long-stemmed crystal cup appeared in my hand, filled to the brim with a clear liquid, into which was immersed what looked to be a green gemstone. In my surprise, I almost dropped it. ‘Do not fear,’ said my hosts. ‘Drink. You will be satisfied.’ I looked closely at them. More perfect beings I had never encountered. I felt they knew everything that was in my heart. I trusted them implicitly, though at the same time I had the uncomfortable feeling of being completely transparent to them, a sort of mental nakedness quite as embarrassing as the physical kind. When I drank from the cup I found it contained the most delicious nectar. All my fatigue disappeared, along with all the depressive thoughts and negative feelings I’d been experiencing before these wondrous men landed at my cave. My hosts asked me to make myself comfortable, which confused me, as there appeared to be nowhere to sit down. However, at a gesture from one of them, an aperture appeared in the floor and a sort of padded booth rose up through it. The three of us sat, and I noticed that the upholstery of my seat was subtly moving and shifting to adapt to the contours of my body.

“ ‘We are Merku and Voltra,’ announced my new friends. ‘We have come from a place that you may choose to think of as far away, but in another sense is no farther than the distance between your thumb and forefinger. We are representatives of a group known throughout the worlds as the Ashtar Galactic Command. The Command has had your civilization under observation since the dawn of recorded history. Our seeing disks have absorbed much information. Our auditory rods have monitored the psychic vibrations of humanity with profound attention. For many thousands of years we have followed a policy of non-interference on Earth. Occasionally humans have experienced fleeting contact with us, but this has happened mostly by mistake. Now, however, we have decided to break our own rules. You are living in a time of grave danger. Your race has discovered certain crude ways of manipulating matter, the technology of atom splitting that you know as nuclear power. You have in your hands an energy source that is capable both of great good and of great evil. We are sorry to say that though your level of technological sophistication has increased, your moral capabilities have not. Humanity is still a primitive race, governed by savage emotions. You are ruled by anger and fear. Because of this, you have already succumbed to the temptation to use your new tools in war. Now, you have divided into two atomic-armed camps and risk the absolute destruction of your fledgling world. We of the Ashtar Galactic Command experience a deep sense of brotherhood when we contemplate you, O People of Earth! We undergo feelings of immense compassion and kinship, and we of the Command, who represent the highest flowering of the great civilizations of the galaxy, have made the decision to wade into the tide of human affairs, to try to halt the destruction before it happens.

“ ‘You must cease all nuclear testing immediately. Your meddling with the forces of nature can bring only horror, unless it is carried out with love and foreknowledge. We have contemplated long and hard the best method of steering you onto a peaceful path. At first we considered taking over human communication systems and broadcasting a message to the leaders of all world governments, commanding them to make overtures to one another, to start talks to bring about the cessation of war. However, our calculators have determined that the sudden appearance of higher beings, and the trauma associated with the realization of the relative backwardness of your evolution, would have negative consequences. In short, we fear that within your leadership structures are many individuals with unstable mentalities, who would fear usurpation, and provoke nuclear auto-destruction rather than relinquish their grip on power.

“ ‘Instead, we have determined that the message of change and redemption can come only from within humanity itself. We have chosen to make contact with certain gifted humans. We have identified a number of individuals whose mental vibrations are at a higher pitch than those of the majority of your race. This makes them more suitable for use as communication channels. You are one such individual.’

“As you can imagine, I was most concerned to hear this. The possibility that the world would imminently end was, I admit, something I’d often considered. But to have it confirmed, and from such a source! I doubted I was strong enough for the vital task these alien visitors had entrusted me with. They told me that though they’d embodied themselves for this first communication, henceforth there would be no need to engage in physical travel, as there would be a permanent psychic channel open between us. In effect I was to become a kind of living transmitter, a tool to bring their message to humanity.

“ ‘You are a special one,’ they told me, ‘for you have dared to raise up your eyes, to look beyond the material world into the etheric. The etheric plane is where we have our existence, and your senses are not adapted to detect our presence. We are beings of the seventh density, and humankind can apprehend only the first through third. However, through our advanced spiritual technology, we are able to step down our vibrations and the vibrations of our craft to the frequencies of the atoms on the physical plane.’ I realized with a shock that this perfectly explained the reports of extraterrestrial visitors walking through walls and other so-called solid objects, as well as the ability of their vehicles to perform in a manner that seemed to contradict basic laws of physics.

“After that, we talked further. They introduced concepts of extreme complexity, ideas that ought to have required many hours of conversation and hard study to explicate. Amazingly, these concepts flashed into my mind in seconds, placed there by some instantaneous process, a sort of mental imprinting like a stamp on a piece of wax. I asked them about this wondrous method of learning and they confirmed they could absorb and transmit huge bodies of information in the blink of an eye. All human history could be transferred from one entity to another in as little time as it takes to listen to an episode of a radio serial. And so began a new phase of my life, that part that has been dedicated to the mighty task entrusted to me by my friends Merku and Voltra. Since that fateful day eleven years ago, I have received hundreds more communications. This very evening, they informed me that they would be monitoring proceedings from a spaceship orbiting 2340 miles above the Earth. They wish you, my friends, to know that the crisis grows ever more acute, and they are actively looking for more humans to join with them in preventing it. Under the guidance of Merku, Voltra and the other members of the Command, including Aleph, Lord Maitreya, Sananda-Jesus, the Comte de Saint-Germain and on occasion Director Ashtar himself, I have worked tirelessly to spread the word, and to recruit and train a band of volunteers, men and women of higher mental abilities who will prepare the ground for the next stage of human history, the transcendence of war and the advent of the galactic age, when our race will take its rightful seat at the congress of the Federation of Light. Now I will introduce you to those volunteers. Please give a big round of applause for the Universal Cohort of the Green Ray!”

As the crowd clapped and cheered, Joanie felt as happy as she ever had in her life. She hoped Judy had a good view. She’d be so proud to see her mom standing there, to hear her spoken of as a person with higher mental abilities.

As they left the stage, Manny Vargas tapped her on the shoulder and whispered that there was to be a special additional conference in the control room. Only certain people were to be invited, and the Guide had specifically mentioned her name. She was flustered, and bombarded him with questions. By name? Really? Was he sure? Did she have time to go back to her tent? She wanted to check on her daughter. He told her to get Wanda or Michelle to do it. They were going to start in ten minutes. Joanie grabbed Wanda and asked her to be a dear. Wanda made a face but squeezed her arm and told her not to worry. Joanie could tell she was jealous. Apart from anything else, she had the most obvious crush on Manny. Real schoolgirl stuff. Joanie wished she could set Wanda’s mind at rest. Much as Joanie liked Manuel, there could never have been anything between them.

It was the first time she’d ever been down into the control room. It was a real cave, hollowed out right under the Pinnacle Rocks. Apparently, it was very ancient. The Guide had uncovered it after being told in a dream where to dig. Despite being underground, and the only air coming from a couple of little skylights up near the ceiling, it wasn’t dank or smelly at all. In fact, it was kind of cozy, lit up with oil lamps and furnished with throw pillows and low benches set around the walls, leaving a space in the center. Apparently the Guide used to do all his inventing here, but now he’d built a little house some distance away, where he and Oriana lived and worked. There was only one device left, a complicated-looking brass thingummy, with lots of rods and disks, and a little handle to turn it round, and a sort of cage into which was fixed a big clear crystal. Attached to the machine was a wooden box, and from the box ran a length of wire, attached to a set of headphones, the sort of thing a telephone operator might use to connect calls.

The invitees filed in, to be greeted by a hearty handshake from the Guide, and a sort of Oriental greeting from Oriana, who pressed her palms together and made a little half-bow. There were only about twenty people present. Outside were ten thousand others who’d give their eye-teeth to be in this room. Was she really worthy? Higher mental abilities or not, she didn’t always feel very special. Touching her face, her fingers came away wet with sweat, and she knew from experience a fit of nerves was coming on. For a minute, she thought she might actually throw up. That truly would be atrocious: to get invited to a special audience with the Guide and then make a mess on his control-room floor. Get a hold of yourself, Joanie Roberts. Breathe. She was about to make a dash for it when the Guide stopped conversing with his lieutenants and sat down on a high-backed wooden chair, positioned in the center of the room next to the strange device. He raised his hands and asked for silence.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I’ve asked you here because you’re all special to me. You are Star People, ones whose souls have undergone many transmigrations, both here on Earth and on other planets. You are drawn to the etheric, because, unlike most Earth folk, you retain some knowledge of your past states, a radiance that opens you to impressions and experiences others do not share. You’re all committed to the work we’re doing, and for that I thank you from the depths of my heart. You experienced the intense energy in the crowd outside. This is a good sign. We’re at a crucial juncture in our mission. The Soviet Sputnik is orbiting overhead and the world has never been closer to catastrophe. It’s time to move things to the next stage. You, my dear and devoted friends, deserve to know more about the current state of affairs with regard to research on the Mux. Most of you will already be aware of the scientific principles behind the machine, but for those who aren’t, or who have had trouble grasping it — I realize the technicalities may be daunting to anyone without a higher scientific degree — I’ll explain something about it before we proceed. As you know, it’s been my obsession for much of the last decade, and I consider it central to saving Earth from atomic destruction. My friends in the Ashtar Galactic Command agree. The principle of muxing, or multiplexing, is one familiar from the world of communications. It’s a way of combining multiple messages into a single signal, then sending it over a shared medium. That medium could be a length of wire or even the very air, in the case of wireless transmission of radio waves. Our Earth telephone systems use multiplexing, combining many calls and sending them through coaxial cables. The principle of the Mux is analogous, but the signal is of a much higher order. You can think of the Mux as an etheric transmitter-receiver system. It accepts input from many individuals and generates a signal on a different frequency for each. This results in a complex signal containing many individual messages. Why is this important? You know many of the senior members of the Command as individual personalities. Ascended masters like Merku, Voltra, Maitreya and Kuthumi manifest themselves in a way that is recognizable to us on Earth. However, their notion of individuality is very different from ours. Each Space Brother is in constant communication with all the other members of their various civilizations. This is far more than we understand by communication. It is really a kind of mind-melding, a total communion with one another and with the cosmos. Unfortunately we humans are insufficiently evolved to experience such perfect bliss. In order to have such a communion with our fellows, we need the assistance of the Mux.

“As I mentioned in the public meeting, the Command is concerned that the message of universal peace should come through a human mouthpiece, in order to cushion our less open-minded brethren from the overwhelming shock of contact. Through our researches, both here and in the laboratories of the Galactic Fleet, we’ve determined that a single person will not suffice to do the job. After all, throughout history there have been prophets and seers, and almost without exception they’ve been ignored and even persecuted by the ruling powers. The answer is muxing. By using the Mux, a human transmitter can make himself the medium for the signals of large numbers of interplanetary entities of different densities, unifying many thousands of psychic transmissions into a single signal. It’s conceivable that using this technology, a single transmitter could become the mouthpiece for the combined will and power of entire populations, entire planets, the pinpoint confluence of all their knowledge and healing force. On Earth, it will allow a new caste of communicators to be in total union both with one another and with the Command. That is to say, as soon as the first generation of Muxes is in operation, human loneliness will come to an end, at least for those lucky enough to be part of the grid.

“So far, I have been your Guide. When we switch on the Mux, I will sacrifice my individuality and transcend to the next stage of my personal journey. I shall become the first Oracle. I’d like to say at this point that this is not an egotistical desire. Rather the opposite. When I am muxed, I will lose myself entirely in the cosmic signal. Besides, as I mentioned, it will take more than one Oracle to persuade the powerful skeptics of our benighted planet to abandon their path of destructiveness. It will take a network of Oracles, all of us bathing in each other’s minds. Imagine a global society, with members in China, Europe, darkest Africa, the jungles of Peru. Each Oracle will be plugged into a Mux, communicating etherically with the Command, and electromagnetically with all the people of Earth, using the upper atmosphere as a transmission medium, a technology outlined by the great scientist Nikola Tesla. The Mux, in short, is a stepping stone to the next level of human consciousness, a way of expediting our evolution toward total harmonic convergence with the higher will of the Creator.”

Here he paused, and took a drink of water. Joanie looked around. The expressions on the faces of his audience were all pretty much the same. Impressed didn’t begin to cover it. They were part of history, right there in the thick of it, like signing the Declaration of Independence or landing at Plymouth Rock. The Guide asked if anyone had questions. No one was more surprised than Joanie Roberts to hear words coming out of her mouth.

“Are there risks?” she asked.

The Guide nodded. “Of course. This has never been attempted before. It’s not impossible that the human mind, even my highly expanded mind, will find it too much of a strain to perform this kind of work. My colleagues at the Command think the danger is slight, at least in my case, but it’s still there. However, personal risk isn’t really a factor. The task is too important. If I fall, someone else will take up where I left off.”

Bill Burgess spoke up from the other side of the room. “Can you tell us more about the design of the Mux? We’ve all seen the capsule, but what about the rest of it?”

“Well, most of the actual circuitry has been designed according to blueprints transmitted to me from the labs of Araltar, the Magnetician for this quadrant. The mechanism is located in a sealed wooden box housed beside the capsule. A full explanation would be too technical, but suffice to say it’s based on the violet ray and the elemental ray, focused through a crystal whose tip penetrates the sheath of the chamber in which the Oracle is secured. The violet ray is the carrier of the multiplexed etheric communications. It is directed in such a way that the elemental ray intersects with it, decoding the signal into mental vibrations of a suitable level for processing by the human mind. Transmission between earthbound Oracles is achieved through a conventional microphone, placed in the chamber, and a type of high-powered radio transmitter-receiver, which bounces the signal through the ionosphere to the other Oracles in the chain.”

“Why is it so tall?”

“Ah, I’m glad you asked that. We determined that the Mux should be placed in a conical tower, so that the tip of the transmitting crystal is in a precise harmonic relationship with the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon.”

“It looks like a rocket.”

“I assure you, it’s not designed for physical travel.”

Everyone laughed. The Guide good-naturedly called for quiet.

“Tonight, I can reveal something very special. In precisely one hour we will be making the very first test of the Mux.”

There were gasps, and a burst of spontaneous applause.

“As this is just a prototype, and since there are no other Muxes to network with human Oracles elsewhere on Earth, we won’t test this aspect of the capabilities. For a short time, I will place myself in total communion with the Command and the wider cosmos. After the experiment, I anticipate having to rest for some hours or days. It’s going to be physically grueling, and I have no way of knowing how it will turn out. In order to prime the Mux, we need to charge the battery, so we can direct energy into the system. That’s the other reason I’ve brought you all here tonight.”

As he spoke, Clark Davis and Manny Vargas carried a heavy-looking wooden box into the center of the chamber and fixed it to a tall tripod. It looked like an old-fashioned camera, the sort of machine a photographer would use to take a high-school graduation picture.

“You are among the most spiritually powerful of my collaborators,” the Guide continued. “The Mux works on a mixture of electrical and etheric energy to amplify the spiritual force of the user. This battery is an etheric storage unit, designed to hold prayer energy in a fixed form. Now, Oriana will lead you in a mantra, and each of you will direct your prayers into the battery through the copper terminal on the front of the casing.”

They lined up in front of the device. Oriana took up a karate-like stance, side on, one palm held out flat a few inches from the surface. Led by Clark Davis, they all began to chant aum mane padme hum, aum mane padme hum.… The pace was frenetic, urgent, and Joanie was inadvertently reminded of King Kong or one of those other movies where the heroine got captured by natives and was about to be sacrificed to the primitive gods. Oriana intoned a line of prayer. “Blessed are the wise ones, for they walk through the darkness and ignorance of the world, spreading Light.” As she said the last word, she twisted her body and jutted out her palm, projecting an invisible force into the machine. Clark Davis went next, saying the same prayer, making the same pushing gesture. Joanie realized that most of the people in the room must have done this before. If it hadn’t been obvious already, now it certainly was: There were inner circles within the inner circle — and she’d been found worthy of inclusion, of ascent to the next level! As she waited her turn, she took care to memorize the lines, so as not to garble them when it came time to make her prayer. Standing in front of the box, she made the correct motion and was sure she felt something, some personal energy, transferring from her to the battery. They performed the ritual three times, each person stepping up, saying the lines and pushing their prayer into the box. By the end, the chanting was going at a breakneck speed and she felt breathless, giddy.

During all this time the Guide simply sat and watched. At last he motioned for everyone to sit down. As Davis and Vargas removed the battery, he slumped down farther in his carved wooden chair. He seemed tired, and Joanie found herself wondering how old he actually was. Almost as soon as the impression of age came, it was dispelled: He reached for the headset attached to the brass machine beside him and slipped it on; immediately, his head was jerked violently backward and his body tensed as if suddenly flooded with electricity. With much pain and effort he appeared to master the flow, lowering his chin toward his chest as if encountering huge resistance. Then he began to speak. Joanie was shocked. His voice was completely different, low and raspy, coming from somewhere deep in his throat.

“Salutations! I am Esola, Master of Magnetics, 8,600th projection, 525th wave. I am standing by. Discontinue.”

Again he spasmed and jerked back his head. He spoke again, this time in a high-pitched, possibly feminine tone.

“I am Kendra, Recordkeeper of the 36th projection, 6th wave. I too am standing by. Discontinue.”

Then the Guide, in his own voice, asked the two presences for their assessment of the experiment. Esola answered first.

“According to my instrumentation, the battery is fully charged. Discontinue.”

“I have noted the transference of energy in the cosmic ledger,” added Kendra. “All is cleared for you to test the multiplex device. Discontinue.”

The Guide thanked them, exchanged cordial salutations and blessings, then removed the headset. It appeared the Command had given the go-ahead. He stood up, took Oriana’s hand and gestured for everyone to follow him up the stairs.

Outside the night was clear and crisp. The stars overhead were bright pinpricks of light in the blue-black sky. Joanie felt cold in her skimpy Cohort outfit and wished she’d brought a sweater. Out in the desert she could see campfires, people passing back and forth in front of them like wraiths. The distinction between earth and air was hazy. She felt as if she were already in space, floating free in the cold, clear ether between the planets. Cooking smells drifted across the camp, fragments of conversation, shouts and laughter. Somewhere someone was playing a guitar. They made their way over to the Mux tower, a conical shadow almost obscured by the three large shadow fingers of the Pinnacle Rocks. Some of the men started up a generator, which sputtered into life and began a regular chug-chug growl. A run of cable led from it into the body of the Mux. Someone else brought a large lamp, like a theater spotlight, and directed it at the tower. A crowd was beginning to gather round, asking questions and trying to see what was going on. Clark Davis directed the Cohort to form a circle round the base, as Manny and some others carried the prayer battery up the tower and installed it in the capsule. Joanie peered into the darkness, trying to see if Wanda was among the onlookers. She hoped she’d had the sense to put Judy to bed. The technicians came down again, briefly conferring with Davis and the Guide. As the onlookers whispered and pointed, the Guide hugged Oriana, then grabbed the rungs of the ladder and began to ascend.