The Lost Goddess

47

She repeated, “There is something we can do. But there are dangers. Colin told me, a few days ago. That is why I asked Soriya to spare him.”

Fishwick knelt beside Jake and spoke. He was hesitant, repressing a stammer or deep emotions.

“The operation we did on you was cryosurgical. Stand… please…. Let me explain.”

Jake allowed them to guide him to the terrace. He sat down and gazed out at the village. It was apparently deserted. No doubt the locals were hiding, frightened by the gunshots. The hideous scene enacted on the cliffside. And yet, now everyone had gone, the guards, the lab workers, Sen and Tyrone and Soriya all gone — it was eerily peaceful. A deceptive serenity enveloped Balagezong. The mist drifted in and out of the heaven villages.

How could he have let them do that to Tyrone?

Fishwick explained:

“It took us many years. To… perfect the surgery. Eventually we realized that the solution was conceptual: the God module should be treated as a difficult and inaccessible brain tumor. You can imagine Sen was pleased with the metaphor. The analogy. Religion and guilt as a malignant cancer, in an otherwise healthy organism.”

Fishwick shrugged and continued: “But I haven’t got time to explain it all, the Chinese authorities will surely be here soon, with the army — and if my operation is to succeed I have to work immediately.”

Jake was bewildered. Julia and Chemda were sitting together in silence. Like sisters. He said, “Operation?”

Fishwick explained:

“The God module isn’t just a little blob of tissue in one part of the human brain…. Using ultrasound, PET scans, MRIs of Tibetan monks, and many other analyses, we finally established that the God module was an extremely complex system centered in the frontal cortex, but linked to the hippocampus, the amygdala, the thalamic nuclei, and elsewhere, like a vicious, octopoidal tumor. The… the best way of treating these invasive and complex tumors is cryosurgery: the use of extreme cold produced by liquid nitrogen, or argon gas, to destroy abnormal tissue.”

“You froze my fucking soul?”

“If you like. The nitrogen is circulated through a hollow instrument called a cryoprobe. A ball of ice crystals forms around the probe, freezing the unwanted cells. So yes….We freeze the soul to death.”

The snow on the Holy Mountain glittered in the afternoon sun, crystalline and prismatic. Fishwick continued, his mild face aged with remorse:

“But there is a problem. Although we have, theoretically, perfected the surgery, that is to say, we have created stable and functioning minds, anatomically incapable of spiritual belief, or religious delusion… I have noticed that the outcomes are still… suboptimal. There is often something missing, which cannot be adequately defined. A flatness of the emotions, or a lack of psychic music. A kind of deafness. I have concluded that many humans are probably meant to believe. They have evolved to believe. Consequently, taking away this possibility, in some patients, is a grave error….” He sighed.

“Perhaps you, too, Jake, were meant to believe. You have merely repressed this belief for many years, because of the traumas of your youth. You are angry at God, but you still believe in Him, deep down. At least you did believe, until we did what we did. The surgery.”

Jake blustered. Helpless.

“But what’s the relevance. Now. How does this help me?”

Chemda said, “Reversal. It can be done.”

“What? You’re gonna reverse the surgery? You thaw my brain?”

Fishwick assented. “Somewhat crudely put, but essentially… yes. Over the years, as my doubts have developed, even as we got the procedure right, I have been theorizing and experimenting on… the possibility of reversal. I have never tried it on live human subjects, just animal tissue. But I believe it is quite practicable. Your neurones are frozen; in a few hours they will die. But if I thaw them with the same probe, right here and right now, it is possible I can undo the procedure. But there is also a chance you could end up… cognitively deficient, very badly damaged. You might even… not survive. I am sorry. I simply don’t know. I think it will work, but I cannot be sure.” He sighed. “It is a leap of faith.”

Silence returned.

No one spoke.

Jake stared at the mountain, wisping snow from the summit. The mountain he had no desire to re create, to mediate, to photograph. He remembered the blood on the grass. The blood and the shattered bone.

Then he gazed at the black-throated gorge, down which they had hurled Tyrone. His friend. His flawed, greedy, ambitious, cynical, and selfish friend. Who had saved him in Anlong, who had arguably tried to save him here. The friend Jake had casually chucked to his death.

And now he turned to Julia. She had been silent all through this, but she responded to his gaze. Lifting her phone, she said, “I can get us out of here. I’ve been in touch with Rouvier. When we reached Bala, there was finally a signal. I spoke to him several times. He has been working for us; he’s spoken to his superiors, who have spoken to European governments. He thinks the Chinese government probably wants this over, hushed up. They might do a deal. Just expel us.” She shook her head. “But the army is coming. So if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen soon. You really don’t have much time. You need to decide.”

Jake’s gaze rested, finally, on Chemda. The face he could no longer love.